Mo Betta META - A Kewl Sleeper Cell of Serial Blog Wreckers

A new Ductape Fatwa tribute at Tumblr

2012-01-23T00:43:00.002-07:00

Since someone beat me to the punch on Twitter, I thought I'd create a tribute blog for our fallen friend on Tumblr: Enemy Of The State (A Ductape Fatwa Memorial). I don't quite know what I'll do with it yet.

Who knows, maybe a few of you who are on Tumblr will be kind enough to follow it, or even better, offer to contribute. He was, after all, not only thought-provoking, but arguably a major force in bringing us together (and in whose absence we flew apart).

Obamabot vs. Thinking Person: Indefinite Detention

2012-01-20T23:59:00.001-07:00

Video h/t Corrente

Also, via Corrente, see 2012 Obama fans shaping up to be worse than 2008's. That certainly squares with my observations on the gated community blogs and on Twitter. Their slogan really should be, "Fear and Loathing You Can Believe In."

So, you want to talk about catnip? Talk. Do it here. Now.

2011-03-06T18:23:00.006-07:00

Who's the latest target of the New But definitely Not Improved Troll Patrol over at dkos?

Me.

Take a look in the comments here.

The genesis of this shitstorm?

I had the audacity to state (back on Feb 24th) that I'd rather see an educated non-voter than an uneducated voter. [I made the same comment back in the 90s to a local, liberal radio talk show host and he used it in his promos for a week after that - not because it contained any shock value but because I was a regular caller he had interviewed in person once about human rights abuses. He respected my opinions and later became (and still is) an elected official*. Are votes important to him? Sure. But he understood exactly what I meant because we live in Conservative Hell.]

* Note to Deoliver47 whose new hobby is doing "research" about me using Google: the story I just shared will not be found online so that one's a dead end.

Anyway, here's how all of this then spiraled out of control. (You will note that I didn't say anything about anybody's race, creed, colour, religion, sexual identity or popcorn-flavour preference in the above comment).

I'd rather see neither. (6+ / 0-)

but at least the voter is standing up and contributing to the process.

this isn't professional sports. most people don't HAVE to be mere spectators.

by mallyroyal on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:27:58 AM MST
____

you're implying... (2+ / 0-)

...that non-voters are merely spectators and that they don't contribute anything to democracy. That is not necessarily true.

by catnip on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:33:52 AM MST
____

I don't know how else to put how I feel (5+ / 0-)

about the American nonvoter withought degenerating into insults. truly.

by mallyroyal on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:35:46 AM MST

___

"feel" is the key word there (2+ / 0-)

Try thinking about why some people don't vote and how they still contribute to democracy.

by catnip on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:43:07 AM MST

___

See anything about race there? Nope? That's because it wasn't the issue - until some people made it THE issue. If you follow the thread, you'll see that it diverged into 2 topics which both had the same result: accusing me of being a racist.

The first divergence was made by those who insisted that people who died in wars died for the right to vote. I disagreed. I said people died for freedom - including the right not to vote.

Let me insert the bleedingly obvious here: did the protesters in Egypt and elsewhere recently die "for the right to vote"? Seems to me those Egyptians already had that right even when Mu was still the dictator. No. They died for freedom. That's a pretty simple point, don't you think? But no, when I said to dkos yanks that people died for freedom, that became an affront to African-American soldiers somehow. I'm "culturally insenstive", apparently. (Just another phrase for "racist").

The second divergence from that conversation? I made the mistake of telling mallyroyal (an AA kossack) to "think" instead of "feel". I was immediately jumped on with this:

well you know.... (6+ / 0-)

I only voted for Obama because he's black.

I didn't think about his policy position just like most AA didn't. That's why he has such a high approval ratings from us unthinking AA.

I must try some of that THINKING catnip suggests, but then again being an unthinking AA is so much easier.

;-)

by sephius1 on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 03:21:38 PM

Had I said anything about anybody's race? No.

Ironically, mallyroyal (the person I was accused of being racist against - along with all other AAs) posted this yesterday:

finally some common sense in these comments. (3+ / 0-)

any rational person would read this from a POTUS to a former governor whose brother and father were previously POTUS.

too many kossacks allow their emotionalism to reign supreme while calling it rationale.

by mallyroyal on Sat Mar 05, 2011 at 10:50:31 AM MST

Did the same people accuse him of saying that AAs don't think? Of course not.

Let's fast forward through this clusterfuck:

1. Today I was accused 3 times of outing several people over at mcat's and elsewhere. Of course, the accusers didn't provide any links and one of the people I was accused of outing - slinkerwink - actually outed herself on dkos.

2. Consider this for a moment:

When you stated Sephius called you a racist (5+ / 0-)

which you continued to assert, you were calling him a racist.

Please - stop with the game playing.

by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 10:06:10 AM MST

Here is my response:

let's change the wording... (3+ / 0-)

...to take a look at your preposterous leap of logic:

When you stated Sephius called you a cat (0+ / 0-)

which you continued to assert, you were calling him a cat.

Sorry but your Ps & Qs don't add up.

by catnip on Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 10:47:48 AM MST

Get what's going on there now? Yes. It is that obvious.

I'm not the first person they've done this too. Will I be the last? Stay tuned.

SO, if any of your Troll Patrol keyboard warriors want to take me on: do it here. Now. Be warned: anything goes here and nobody's going to cry for you if your feelings get hurt. The only rule here is: there are no rules.

A memorial for an old friend on Twitter

2011-02-26T22:18:00.005-07:00

Ductape Fatwa, whose presence once graced numerous blogs until the fall of 2006, was one of the most thought-provoking writers I’ve had the privilege to know. He was arguably a force who brought many of us together, and who would no doubt have nurtured this blog had his life not been cut short just weeks after its inception. His ability to bring together people of diverse and sometimes divergent viewpoints and personalities is one I have often admired, and is one talent I wish I had. I digress however.

As a few of you may have sussed out, I do spend a little time on Twitter. I’ve had my account for ages, but really didn’t much use it. Anyway, I’ve been on a bit more as of late, and just for kicks decided to see if anyone had made mention of our old friend. Much to my surprise, I found Ductape Fatwa’s Twitter profile. Of course it’s not his per se. It is a memorial set up by someone else. Whoever set it up doesn’t seem to update it very often – seems he or she comes by about once a year since setting up the profile a couple years ago. I would love to thank whoever set it up. In the meantime, check it out, add yourself as a follower, and perhaps we can incite the person responsible to update it a little more often.

Quick update: if you don't have a Twitter account, you can access Ductape Fatwa's profile here.

Boo hoo hoo....a BBB closes

2011-02-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've already seen the latest bombshell: Open Left, one of the Big Box Blogs, has shut its virtual doors. The reasoning behind the closure seemed a bit suspect, and Donklephant has pointed out just what stinks to high heaven:

The liberal blog Open Left suddenly announced today that they’ll stop posting content because…
we have gradually run out of money to maintain operations. It is a difficult decision, but we kept going for as long as we could.
But…
The site will not disappear, and all published content will remain online {…}
Wait…what?

Open Left is run on Soap Blox, which is a blogging platform and hosting service. The blog platform appears to be free and the most expensive hosting costs $40 a month. Sure, there are add ons, but Open Left doesn’t get a ton of traffic. They say they’re going to keep the website up, so it’ll cost $480 at the most every year. If you add in extra storage and overages every month, maybe it costs $1,000 a year…maybe.

So the idea that it was too costly to maintain the site is hard to swallow. Why didn’t they just throw a fundraiser? Think they could get 100 people to pitch in $10…or more? This is, after all, some of the same readers who rocketed Howard Dean from obscurity to the national stage because he was able to raise a ton of money online.

Bottom line…if they really cared about their readers they’d simply tell them that they can’t pay their writers anymore so content contributions will go down. And that’s assuming they paid their writers in the first place. Many political blogs simply invite people to blog and pay them zip. The platform, readership and communication is enough compensation. Also, I’ve been frank with all of you about content dropping in the down years between elections…and our hosting costs more than what they were paying. Do you see us going away?

Just saying…Chris Bowers and crew could easily keep that site up and post to it when they want to. But they’re not making any money. That’s the reason they’re quitting. Not very “open” if you ask me.

Amen! Strikes me that there would be plenty of regulars there who would gladly pony up some cabbage, if operating costs were an issue. But like other good corporatists, albeit of the "leftist" flavor, it's all about making the almighty profit - readers be damned.

Poetry Time

2010-11-14T18:45:00.002-07:00

A Version of Pasternak's "Hamlet"

The hour is at hand: it calls the actor.
The crowd grows still as I step through the arch.
There's the cue: an echo from the future.
I must come forth and give the fated speech.

A thousand eyes, in darkness, throng about me;
Like Roman swords, they'll pierce me till I bleed.
O if it be Thy will, Abba, Father,
Then take the proffered cup away from me.

For I adore your rigorous conception,
And am content to play my given role.
But these new lines will scorch the throat that speaks them;
This once, I pray, remove me from the bill.

No: I see the acts have all been plotted;
The journey's end already has been willed.
I'm alone, while the world drowns in falsehood.
Cross this stage, and you cross a killing field.

Translated by Chris Floyd

Courtesy of Empire Burlesque.

'Let's get ready to rumble'

2010-04-12T18:55:00.002-06:00

Okay.

Well...brrreaking news...there's a meta shitstorm going on at Teh Daily Kos (when isn't there?) and I've decided to let the various players involved use this place to fight it out because that's what we do here - meta.

Now, I don't know exactly what this is all about. There's talk of "ponies" and "pragmatics" and "hero worshippers" and "dirty fucking hippies" and "racism" and "rainbows" and "secret cabals" and the wreck list and various conspiracy theories. And this all involves "factions" (although I'm pretty sure we're not talking about the Crips and the Bloods here).

In other words: same shit, different day.

So, if you want to have it out, here are the rules:

1. There are no rules.
2. See rule number one.

If you're new here, this was our first post back in 2006 when a bunch of us migrated here from Booman Tribune and Daily Kos.

There are no referees here. You're on your own. (Unless somebody's posting spam trying to sell faux Rolex™ watches - then we might step in.) So, no complaining to the management if somebody hurts your feelings. We don't care.

Any questions?

Oh yeah - NO "pootie" pics. And they're called "cats", for fuck's sake: CATS.

Somebody Better Break Out The Fainting Couches!

2009-12-04T12:44:00.004-07:00

Green Party "Draft Nader For Senate Buzzes The Internet..."

...Green Party efforts to draft Ralph Nader into a Senate run against Chris Dodd has created quite a buzz across the internet in just a few days ,as hundreds have signed an online petition to work for him and over a thousand have joined a social networking site on “Facebook” asking Nader to run... -- via On the Wilderside

I'd say that the paroxyms of rage this would induce in Kosland and its ilk do not have any comedic potential whatsoever, but I'd be lying.

Turkey Time

2009-11-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

And I'm not talking about the Thanksgiving festivities that my American friends were engaged in this past week.

No.

The fact that a reportedly uninvited socialite couple crashed the WH state dinner has caused numerous heads to explode at the normally sedate (ha!) dkos. Even Mr Blades has joined in on the "what if? ZOMG!!" action positing about how these nefarious crashers could have poisoned The Chosen One with ricin. I kid you not:

Mock all you like. Ricin is an easy poison ... (26+ / 0-)

...to make, requiring only basic chemistry. And it's easy to apply. A syringe is best, but a scratch from, say, a specially prepared bracelet will do the trick. Of course, the Salahis didn't have any bracelets close at hand. So no problem, right?

Don't tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do and I will tell you what you believe.

by Meteor Blades on Sat Nov 28, 2009 at 01:13:38 AM MST

Quick! Someone get the man some worry beads. And pass a law pronto banning all bracelets in the WH.

The conspiracy theories about how this all came about are fast and furiously being posted over there - much to the delight of those who are so tightly wrapped up in Hollywoodesque impending disaster porn that they can barely stop their hands from quivering long enough to post "100% correct!" "Boycott Bravo!" "She looks anorexic!". (Oh, the misogyny is out in full force. Trust me.) This, on a site where conspiracy theories are supposed to be a bannable offense because it's a reality-based community. (I know. I know.)

I mean, c'mon. The two of them almost started a nuclear war! when they weren't busy posing with the nation's poseurs.

Well. At least they don't have to waste time talking about and justifying that shitty, so-called health insurance ~~reform~~ sell-out bill today. On with the show!

Mcat Update

2009-11-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

My cat, Shipley

New e-mail from Marisa.

She's ordered a new PC but it won't be delivered until December 8.

She's hanging in there - contemplating novenas for the withdrawal symptoms though.

I'm sure she won't mind me posting this bit:

I am on my neighbor's mac laptop... and had originally thought In could throw up a quick thread at Mcat... but using this is a nightmare.

Enjoy the scenery...

2009-11-16T17:19:00.002-07:00

Marisa's on a forced internets vacation since her PC died last week. And while she's in the process of ordering a new one, some of her regulars are out in the cold since comments on her blog are now closed.

Might as well enjoy the scenery in the meantime...

Blogging the debauchery...wherever we can...

Dana Houle: Banned

2009-09-06T13:38:00.003-06:00

Announced with no fanfare whatsoever to avoid offending Houle's rather delicate sensibilities.

wait...so MB saw that... (3+ / 0-)

but missed DH in MI's many meltdowns? That would make MB like a pro 'rasslin' ref who was accidentally looking the other way.

-6.88,-6.77

by Shahryar on Sat Sep 05, 2009 at 11:09:50 PM MDT

*
Perhaps you should click... (1+ / 0-)

...here.

Some people would be better off not reading diaries they comment on, since they already have all the answers.

by Meteor Blades on Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 11:28:02 AM MDT

LOL...You banned DH? (0+ / 0-)

Roar Louder!!! @ Docudharma

by buhdydharma on Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 12:20:57 PM MDT

Your Moment of Zen™: What is the sound of one (severely narcissistic) head exploding?

Please sign the condolence book below.

If you don't support Obama, you'll kill him

2009-08-11T11:28:00.002-06:00

So this is goodbye from me. At least for a while. I wish you all the best and i'll pray for Obama's safety every day, because i've seen first hand how tragic can be the end of a visionary and forward-looking leader, when right wing lunatics decide to eliminate him and the left leaves him all alone.

- Daily Kos diarist, blackwaterdog

[insert heavy sigh here]

It was bad enough when, during the campaign, people who criticized Obamalama were labeled "racists". Now, you are basically the one holding the gun to his head if you voice your opposition to his policies which, contrary to the laundry list of hyped-up crap in that diary, have been anything near "progressive".

But the Leave Obama Alone! crowd can't deal with reality hitting them in the face. Too much "doom and gloom", they say - as if it's all about how their poor feelings are getting hurt. Maybe they should sit down for a face to face with the families of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with those who've been tortured who won't see any justice done by this administration and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with people who are dying from a lack of proper health care and talk "feelings".

But, no. If the "left" (whatever is left of the left in the US surely isn't in this Democratic party) abandons the Spelunker-in-Chief (I coined that term) who never met a cave he didn't like - he's as good as dead.

We joke about the insanity of the wingnuts who are showing up, completely misinformed while embarrassing themselves to no end, to the health care town halls. Pelosi and Hoyer have called their rabble-rousing "un-American". (Them's fighting words.) Meanwhile, the so-called "left" on blogs like Daily Kos - who loudly cheered the protests in Iran while posts about US protests for universal health care on the site faded quietly into oblivion - can't even bring themselves to get their asses off their chairs to get out there to fight for their rights in their country. No. Obama told them to write their congresspeople (because that's so effective, isn't it?).

Conservatives typically despise unruliness. Oh how they hated the 60s. And this centrist bunch of self-identified "pragmatic" Dems - who also chided every attempt by groups like Code Pink to bring attention to the horrific wrongs perpetrated by Bushco (and now continued by Obama's administration) - are stuck standing by while the right-wingers ironically claim the radical mantle of very public dissent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Rahm Emanuel says that "Dems attacking other Dems are 'fucking stupid'". This, in the middle of a seriously muddled attempt to roll out a bill that the Dems have absolutely failed to explain.

Obama kicks the issue back to congress. But, because he believes he is the face of absolutely everything (and haven't you felt like selling your teevee too by now?), he owns this mess. And he owns the fact that the wingnuts are having an absolute field day (death panels, anyone?).

He owns every single bad policy decision his government has enacted since he's been in office. He wants to own it all. How many times have you seen one of his cabinet secretaries in the media explaining his policies? Does anybody even know who they are?

And, as has been noted ad nauseum by people who are actually in touch with reality on the real left and who won't be guilted into backing off from criticizing him because of ridiculous claims like the one made by the above-quoted Daily Kos diarist, Obama has committed a slough of very non-progressive missteps. He's only been in office 7 months!, they proclaim. As if he's going to change his very character and wake up one morning soon to unleash his hidden inner liberal. Or maybe, they hope, Michelle will make him do it. (No, really. Some have actually said that.)

Read my lips: that's not going to happen.

The Hopeyness train has left the station and it took the Changeyness policies with it.

You just can't call the wingnuts crazy while making equally crazy statements yourself.

If you can't stand the much-deserved criticism, refresh, refresh, refresh and leave the rest of us alone.

Crossposted from my place.

Everything Went Black

2008-09-19T20:47:00.000-06:00

I wanted to take a few moments to pay tribute to a few of our compañeros in blogtopia who've gone silent. I chose today for a reason: it marks the last date that an old blogging friend, Ductape Fatwa, posted so much as a comment. After that point, his blogging stopped and he stopped answering his emails, leaving many of us who had grown to consider him a dear friend to wonder about his whereabouts and well-being. Anyone who knew him will recognize him as a rather unique presence – at once a radical gadfly tweaking the noses of Democrat and Republican bloggers and a folksy elder gentleman telling anecdotes of his grandchildren; a devout Muslim with a keen intellectual curiosity and fascination with pop culture; a storyteller weaving dystopian narratives and yet unwaveringly optimistic; a stirrer of controversy who yet built something of a community among a diverse and divergent cast of internet characters. Words outlive their authors, and although he may have been just another obscure blogger among obscure bloggers, his words – scattered as they are throughout blogtopia – continue to live on and inspire.

This goes out to Ductape Fatwa and other bloggers whose voices have gone silent.

New Free-speechiness-like Blog

2008-09-02T10:37:00.004-06:00

Former Pffer, Jack's Smirking Revenge, has launched his own little experiment in free-speechiness: The Free Speech Zone

From his maiden post: (not that I'm calling him a maiden although he's now taken on the job of being the collective Pff rejects' - including the various pinches, of course - handmaiden...)

Give me your banned, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for free speech in the blogosphere!

In the blogosphere there are sites that wish to discuss political matters in a civil manner.

Here, I want that discussion, as well as other kinds in which the community will take care of the trolls and people deemed "assholes" rather than have them banned for their opinion.

Say what you want, post what you want*.

*Note: No Child Porn unless you want the real world to come to your door.

I'm not quite sure what "take care of" means in that context. We shall see, I suppose.

In the meantime: meet the new blawg, same as the old blawg. Same as it ever was. Lipstick on a pig. [insert next cliché here]

Have fun, little hamsters.

Pff...pfft

2008-08-30T19:50:00.004-06:00

Political Fleshfeast is dead.

What had been launched last year as a dubious yet perhaps promising free speechiness alternative to American, so-called "progressive", big box blogs (BBB) by disgruntled blog commenter peeder, has suddenly closed its' doors this Labour Day weekend. According to its owner, it had become too labour intensive...or he needed more time to cook...or some such thing.

The Pff regulars who actually tried to save the swamp have a different story to tell and they're welcome to do so here: the home for Mo Betta META (minus the frat boy pRon and misogyny that Pff had become infamous for).

Where will the newly homeless go now? Has peeder destined them to wander the bloggy desert for 40 days and 40 nites until they find their new promised land? Or will a new incarnation of the unabashedly screeching hall of online hell be created by the next new dissident/saviour/prophet/guru/frat boy?

Stay tuned.

______________________________

If this is your first visit to Mo Betta, you can read about our blog's purpose here - as written by our "founding father", the sorely-missed Ductape Fatwa.

The years before the current phase of the Iraq War

2008-03-20T23:28:00.001-06:00

I always figure that a reminder that the US had been at war against the Iraqis for longer than the five years that we've been marking this week. To take a trip down memory lane, here's a list of some noteworthy US bombings of Iraq during the Bill Clinton years:

June 27, 1993: The U.S. launches a cruise missile attack on the headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service. Although the action, which is not authorized by the Security Council, is allegedly undertaken in retaliation for an attempt to assassinate former Pres. Bush during a visit to Kuwait, no evidence is ever produced to confirm that Iraq was involved (or even if the supposed assassination attempt actually occurred. Among the many "collateral" victims of the missile strike is the prominent Iraqi painter, Leila Attar.

September 3-4, 1996: The U.S. launches a series of cruise missile attacks against targets in northern Iraq. Although the action, which is not authorized by the Security Council, is supposedly undertaken to protect the Kurdish population around Irbil from Iraqi depredations, the U.S. policy of supporting assaults against these same Kurds belies any such noble motive. On Sept. 14, Pres. Clinton admits that he actually "ordered these attacks in order to extend the no-fly zone." The U.S. missile strikes thus violate Chapter VII of the UN Charter, As Well as UNGA resolution 337A (V) and a host of other elements of international law. Given the extent of "collateral" civilian casualties involved -- not the least among the very Kurds Clinton claimed to be trying to "save" -- violations of the 1923 Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare and the 1949 Geneva Convention IV are also at issue.

December 16, 1998: UNSCOM chief Richard Butler, having withdrawn the last of his personnel from Iraq, submits a report to the Security Council stating that the Iraqis had refused admission of inspectors to a number of "sensitive" installations (this is a conscious misrepresentation; Iraq had refused admission mainly to presidential palaces and other facilities deemed essential to "the dignity and sovereignty of the country."). On this pretext, and without Security Council authorization, Pres. Clinton orders the commencement of "Operation Desert Fox" the same evening. Over the next 4 days, more than 100 sites -- several of them in Baghdad -- are subjected to heavy bombing. As U.S. inspector Scott Ritter later observes, by that point, Iraq's existing stockpiles and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction had already been completely destroyed. The U.S. airstrikes are thus plainly geared far more to impress upon the Iraqi government that it must do whatever it is told, than to "eliminate Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capabilities."

From about three years ago, I noted:

It is also the case that the US and UK had been cooperating since the end of the 1991 Gulf War to continue periodic bombing raids within Iraq's borders. None of this is a secret. The US (abetted by UK) campaign of genocide in Iraq was already on-going by the time Bu$hCo usurped the throne - the economic embargo imposed by the US had led to the death by starvation and disease of some 500,000 children in Iraq, for example - something that Clinton's ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright considered an acceptable price to pay.

In that light, from around the same time period, I said:

I've discussed previously the fact that following the presumed "end" to the Gulf War the regular bombings of Iraq targets continued unabated throughout the 1990s and early 2000s - at which point begins the official "beginning" of the war that our government is currently perpetrating. These airstrikes, conducted under the pretext of preventing the Evil Saddam from engaging in further hostilities with his neighbors, actually served the purposes of preventing efforts to rebuild the infrastructure (and worked in tandem with economic sanctions serving the same end). These strikes included, among other targets, the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq on Sept. 3 & 4, 1996 (ostensibly to "protect" the Kurds) ordered by none other than Bill Clinton (see, e.g., Ward Churchill's On the Justice of Roosting Chickens for a more thorough treatment of the US posture towards Iraq during this period). Of course, there were periodic spikes in bombing activity including - as it turns out - a noticeable escalation in airstrikes during the latter half of 2002:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that "the US had already begun `spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did. Link
Keep in mind what both Bush and Blair were saying both to their respective constituencies and to the rest of the world: they lied when they contended that they were still pursuing diplomatic avenues.

I can only reiterate that the history of US hostilities against the Iraqi people stretches back to 1990, and has included not only two major military phases (The 1991 Gulf War and the current occupation that started in 2003), but also largely successful effort via sanctions to starve out the Iraqi people. Of course, as the above serves to remind us, the bombings never really stopped and indeed escalated in the months running up to the "Shock and Awe" that occurred on March 19th/20th. This genocidal effort was and is largely a bipartisan affair inside the Beltway, and aided and abetted by the UK's governments (e.g., John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown).

It's easy to try to rewrite history. It's up to us who know otherwise to continue to call bullshit at those revisionist efforts.

What other bloggers have been saying on the Iraq War anniversary

2008-03-20T23:26:00.000-06:00

Image caption: Falluja/Guernica, 2004 by Rob Landeros (found at Gernika)

Although there are some 375 blogs participating in the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm, there are plenty of other similarly-minded bloggers who are not formally part of the blogswarm but who deserve to be read. Please check these folks out. You'll be glad you did.

Marisacat - The Thousand and One Nights
A Tiny Revolution - Five Years Later and Spencer Ackerman on Jeffrey Goldberg and Stephen Hayes
The Heathlander - Polling Your Face Off (part of the post includes results from a recent Iraqi opinion poll)
Left I on the News - Obama on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq
Lenin's Tomb - The re-division of Iraq and Extraordinary testimony from Iraq vet
Mickey Z: Cool Observer - The Iraq War did not "begin" on March 19 (useful reminder that the war and occupation in its present incarnation is merely a continuation of what Papa Doc Bush and Bubba Clinton perpetrated)
Arthur Silber - Tragic Reprise: A Nation of Stupid Children Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies and Over One Million Murdered -- and Nothing Has Been Learned
The Try-Works - Happy Fifth Anniversary US Soldiers! and Happy Fifth Anniversary Iraqi Civilians! (both posts contain very graphic images - enter at your own risk)
Who is IOZ - Psalms
Green Left Infoasis - Global Warming and the Iraq War and National Day Of Protest Against Iraq War Includes Labor
Invictus - Five Years of U.S. War on Iraq (Graphic)
World War 4 Report - More than 100 arrested in San Francisco anti-war actions
jmbzine - Still stunned by everything at Winter Soldier
Peace Arena - 5 Years Too Many events in OKC and Voices from the war
Okie Funk - Iraq Occupation Killed Truth
Free Iraq - There rarely was a suicide in Iraq before 2003 and Corporate Genocide - Result of 5 years of occupation
Earthside - Five Years of Failure
Empire Notes - Nothing Ever Happens in Macondo
The Fanonite - There Must be a Reckoning and Was It Worth It?
Informed Comment - The Arab Conscience and the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War and 5 Years, Five Lies: Cole in Salon
EuroYank - Blog Debates - Your Life Hangs on a Thread (includes a mention of the Iraq War)
American Samizdat - Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history
Fitness for the Occasion - Iraq: Seeing the Violence
Empire Burlesque - Five Years and Counting: A Milestone on America's Long March Into Hell

Suffice it to say, this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Some other columnists' fifth anniversary writings

2008-03-20T01:16:00.002-06:00

Image caption: 'Photo-Op' by Martha Rosler, from the article "House Beautiful Iraq"

From CounterPunch:

Jeff Taylor - Five Years of War in Iraq: When Failure is Rewarded
Patrick Cockburn - A War of Lies: The Terrible Reality of Iraq
Robert Fisk - The Little Men and the Inferno: The Hell-Disaster of Iraq
Ron Jacobs - Five Years and Counting: Who'll Stop the Rain?
Yifat Susskind - Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation: Will Progressives Stand With Them?
Andrew Wimmer - War Demands Its Due: Getting the Story Right

From Antiwar.com:

Justin Raimondo - Iraq: Five Years After the Conquest
Jim Lobe - Why Did the US Invade Iraq?
Ivan Eland - For the Iraq War's Birthday, Slice of Cake

From elsewhere:

Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky - A surge in Iraq gasbags
Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg - What is the real death toll in Iraq?
Greg Mitchell - 5 Years Ago, As War Neared, Hillary Clinton Was Silent, 'NYT Archives Show
Salon.com - Robbing the cradle of civilization, five years later
Linda Heard - How to Destroy a Country and Get Off Scot-Free
Curt Guyette - The Left Was Right
Scott Horton - Six Questions for Aram Roston, Author of ‘The Man Who Pushed America to War’
Walter C. Uhler - My Protest to The Times: Effete Warmonger Kristol/Sanitizing Five Years in Iraq
Dahr Jamail - Rule, Not Reconciliation
Jon Soltz - Iraq: Five Years and Fading
Michael Goldfarb - Happy Anniversary
Rebecca Solnit - Five Years Later
Madeleine Mysko - Winter Soldiers: Nation must heed the horrifying words of those who have returned from the front lines
Nofa Khadduri - Occupation is Corporate Genocide
Rob Winder - US Voices Against the War
Firas Al-Atraqchi - The Iraq Invasion: Five Years On
Robert Parry et al. - How Could So Many People Buy into Bush's "Patriotism Sweepstakes" War?
Michael Zweig - The War and the Working Class
Maya Schenwar - Five Years Into War, Soldiers Speak
Susan Donaldson James - Penn's War: Media Lap Dogs Backed Iraq Mess
Bill Moyers - Casualty of War

Also, The Huffington Post has a whole series called Iraq Five Years of War.

Note that I'll be continuing my series of posts on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War through today, as - depending on the perspective of Americans/British or Iraqis (different time zones) - the war either commenced on the 19th or 20th of March.

While You're At It

2008-03-20T01:15:00.001-06:00

Make sure you check out what some other bloggers are saying as part of the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm. Many of us have posted links to our offerings in the comments.

A couple more blasts from the past

2008-03-20T01:13:00.000-06:00

Here are my Iraq War anniversary posts from the old Left End of the Dial days.

March 19, 2003 - A Day That Will Live in Infamy (2006 - a slightly updated version of the 2005 post)

March 19, 2003 - A Day That Will Live in Infamy (2005)

One Year Later: We Are All Victims of Bu$hCo's Groupthink (2004)

It's interesting to look at how one's thoughts about the Iraq War have evolved over time. If anything, the Iraq War and its aftermath have led me to a more radical perspective than I would have held previously. I'm probably not alone in that regard.

So it goes. We'll keep lighting candles in the darkness for as long as necessary.

What the war propagandists were saying

2008-03-20T01:12:00.000-06:00

As I've said before, I have a long memory:

Here are some blasts from the not so distant past courtesy of Norman Solomon:
"the Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time – when the weapons [in the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate. [...] it can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a regime and not a people or a nation."
-- Christopher Hitchens, March 18, 2003
"what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact opposite message"
-- Michael Gordon, NYT reporter, March 25, 2003
"The American public knows how important this war is, and is not as casualty sensitive as the weenies in the American press are."
-- Fred Barnes, Fox News, March, 2003
"They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military history. They stress they're fighting a regime and not the people, using smart bombs, not dumb, older munitions. But there have been and will be accidents. … And there's a new weapon in this war: Arab media, especially al-Jazeera. It's on all the time, and unlike American media, it hardly reflects the Pentagon line. Its critics say it accentuates civilian casualties and provokes outrage on the Arab street."
-- Brian Williams, NBC News, April 2, 2003
"Thank you for coming on the show. And I want to add, I think the Special Forces rock!"
-- Katie Couric, NBC Today Show, April 3, 2003, to a US military official appearing on the show
"We're all neocons now."
-- Chris Matthews, MSNBC Hardball, April 10, 2003
"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys."
-- Lou Dobbs, CNN, May 1, 2003
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple."
-- Chris Matthews, May 1, 2003

Never forget. Never forgive.

Since we'll likely have a "six years too many" blogswarm next March

2008-03-20T01:11:00.000-06:00

Here are a few words commemorating the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War by Arthur Silber, under the title, Tragic Reprise: A Nation of Stupid Children, Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies:

As the United States is about to begin the sixth year of its eternally unforgivable, genocidal war crime in Iraq, I direct your attention to a piece I wrote just over a year ago, on March 1, 2007. I could have selected any number of essays, but this one will do for my purposes.

"A Nation of Stupid Children, Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies" arose out of yet another of the utterly meaningless controversies of the moment. Such daily contortions over trivialities -- which contortions consume our major media and far too many bloggers of all political persuasions -- prevent us from understanding anything of significance about the actual meaning of our nation's actions. This is why so many of us love them so much: we never have to think and, of even greater importance, we never have to do a damned thing that might actually matter to stop the ongoing crimes. In this case, the circus was set in motion by John McCain's comment that the United States had "wasted a lot of ... American lives" in Iraq.

And the heavens shook. Almost no one would speak the truth, which was far, far worse than anything McCain or any other national figure had said. As I wrote:
The truth is infinitely worse than that these lives have been "wasted": these deaths have served to strengthen our enemies and weaken our own country in countless ways that our actual enemies could never have achieved on their own. That these lives have been "wasted" is the best one can say, not the worst. They are the greatest boon our enemies could dream of. These lives have not been "wasted": they are the precious tribute laid at the feet of our enemies, by our own leaders in the pursuit of indefensible and criminal aims.

Of course, the recognition of this truth requires that we act like adults, and that we are capable of coherent thought, shorn of lies. We must be willing to give up the myth of the "noble soldier" who "selflessly sacrifices" his life for the glory of the Perfect and Good United States -- and see that these individuals died in a criminal war of aggression launched to consolidate and expand America's hegemonic role, a goal embraced by almost every leading politician, Republican and Democratic, over many decades of entirely avoidable conflict, chaos and death.

I find it easier to deal with the widespread ignorance that afflicts so many Americans -- for example, the almost total lack of knowledge concerning the U.S. occupation of the Philippines that I detailed last week. Since they are rarely provided with this information, it is possible that at least some Americans might prove capable of absorbing it, and begin to question the myths that sustain their identities as "Americans."

But it is almost impossible to deal with the fact that so many Americans, almost all our political leaders, and our media virtually without exception are so relentlessly stupid, and so resolutely determined to remain so. As this latest episode in national idiocy proves yet again, and for the millionth time, this laughably pathetic state of affairs certainly would appear to be the unalterable truth of where we are.

And so we debate whether these lives were "wasted." With the blind ferocity of religious maniacs, we enforce our new Puritan code, which demands that certain prohibited thoughts may never be uttered. Violation of this code means banishment from public life and from further "serious" consideration. Every matter of importance is reduced to the intellectual level of a remarkably backward house pet.

Meanwhile, no one will stop this criminal war and occupation. And no one will do a goddamned thing to stop the next war, which could alter all our lives forever.

How in the world do most Americans face themselves each morning? Someone needs to explain that to me. I truly would like to know.
It is now a year later, and I still would like to know.

It is now a year later, and more than one million people have been murdered.

It is now a year later, and still no one will stop this damnable war and occupation.

A year from now, perhaps some American troops will have been withdrawn. But regardless of who the new president is, at least 80,000 or 90,000 American troops will remain, and probably more. The Theater of Death will go on.

A year from now, the war may very well have widened. If there is a major attack on U.S. troops in Iraq (or any of a number of similar possible incidents), if the blame is laid at the feet of Iran -- regardless of whether such a claim is true or not, and we may not know for many more years, if ever -- and if the fevered and unreasoning demand for retribution rises, fed by a media that, like our political class, has learned nothing from the catastrophes of Iraq, no U.S. president will be able to resist the tide. He or she will probably not even want to. John McCain will not stop it, Hillary Clinton will not stop it, Barack Obama will not stop it.

So, we will once more have cause to note this date in March after another year has passed. Many more people will be dead, and the chaos may have spread far beyond Iraq. And we will fiercely debate the latest instance of idiocy, while the crimes of the United States continue unimpeded and uninterrupted.

Happy Anniversary.

Word.

Iraq: Five Years Too Many (Perp Edition)

2008-03-20T01:10:00.000-06:00

As part of the series of posts in solidarity with March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm, here's a roundup of what the perps - the ones who wanted and got their war - are saying and doing.

Dick Cheney, when asked about the mounting opposition to the war, had this to say - "So?":

CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

Never mind, of course, that opinion polls have been pretty consistently against the Iraq War for quite a while now, and were part of the impetus for putting (albeit misguidedly) the Dems back in control of Congress. Then again, as at least a few of us around blogtopia have contended, the ruling class simply does not care what we "mere citizens" might think. By the way Cheney also was once more trying to link Iraq and 9/11 (gotta keep that urban myth alive, eh, Dickie?), and is claiming (despite plenty of reason to believe the opposite) that the more the US stays in Iraq, the better the Iraqis feel about the US.

Junior Caligula - taking one right out of the old Madeleine Albright playbook - claims that the high costs in lives and treasure were "necessary".

Think Progress looks at the Rogues' Gallery of Iraq War architects, and where they are now. They've largely made out like bandits. (h/t the antiwar.com blog)

Arthur Silber highlighted the words of some of those architects, advocates, and "Good Germans" appearing in a recent edition of New Pravda few days ago, including those of Richard Perle, Kenneth Pollack, and Paul Bremer.

Perle, as one of the war's architects is now flip-flopping a bit regarding how "easy" the war would be to "win." These days he's saying it "won't be overnight."

Pollack, one of the most vocal Iraq supporters back even before it began, and also one of those advocating and propagandizing for last year's "surge", also seems to be using the Madeleine Albright playbook. In he most recent dribblings over at WaPo, he contends that in 30 years, we'll view the Iraq War as "worth it."

Paul Bremer seems only to regret the alleged lack of a "plan." As the head honcho of the "Coalition Provisional Authority" during that first year after Junior Caligula crowed about the so-called "end" of major combat operations in Iraq, Bremer squashed Iraqi attempts to hold local town and city elections (so much for "democracy"), and somehow managed to "lose" $9 billion that was supposedly going to "reconstruction." His response? Don't worry, it was only Iraqi money.

Don't forget to check the updated Iraq War Timeline, to get a quick picture of the propaganda that Americans are fed, and those pesky inconvenient facts.

Five years of war journalism from outside the corporate media

2008-03-19T01:10:00.000-06:00

The one silver lining thinly plated around the dark cloud which is the Iraq War (and more broadly the "Global War on Terra") is the high quality journalism that has occurred - usually underneath the radar. New Pravda, WaPo, CNN, FauxNews, and so on were of course little more than stenographers for the government's propaganda, and obviously I wouldn't be giving them any props. Instead, it's a lot of these cats who dared to travel outside of The Green Zone. From TomDispatch:

And that's where Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, comes in.
He himself is a shining example of someone who exhibited foresight about the invasion and then regularly dealt with issues that the mainstream media was slow to pick up. Just take, for example, this initial sentence he wrote on March 7, 2003, less than two weeks before Bush's invasion began, for a piece included in his new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, The Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq: "Considering that we seem to be on the verge of a major war, with little firm evidence of the Iraqi WMD driving it, the questions for Bush at his final press conference before the war seems likely to start were relatively tame." Mitchell then asked 11 questions of his own, all more piercing than any posed on Sunday's Times op-ed page five years later.

As his book makes brilliantly evident, you didn't have to be wrong all the time to be an "expert" on Iraq. His article below begins the necessary acknowledgement of those who were right, or did right, in these years and it should encourage all of us to make our own lists and create our own walls of honor to go with the wall of shame the Times displayed Sunday.

My list would be long indeed, but it would certainly include: the Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) reporters Warren Stroebel and Jonathan Landy in Washington, as well as Tom Lasseter, Hannah Allam, and others in Iraq who never had a flagship paper to show off their work, but generally did far better reporting than the flagship papers; Seymour Hersh, who simply picked up where he left off in the Vietnam era (though this time for the New Yorker); Riverbend, the young Baghdad blogger who gave us a more vivid view of the occupation than any you could ordinarily find in the mainstream media (and who has not been heard from since she arrived in Syria as a refugee in October 2007); Jim Lobe who covered the neocons like a blanket for Inter Press Service; independents Nir Rosen and Dahr Jamail, as well as Patrick Cockburn of the British Independent, who has been perhaps the most courageous (or foolhardy) Western reporter in Iraq, invariably bringing back news that others didn't have; the New York Review of Books, which stepped into some of the empty print space where the mainstream media should have been (with writers like Mark Danner and Michael Massing) and was the first to put into print in this country the Downing Street Memo, in itself a striking measure of mainstream failure; and Juan Cole, whose Informed Comment website was so on the mark on Iraq that reporters locked inside the Green Zone in Baghdad read it just to keep informed.

Maybe I'd throw in as well all the millions of non-experts who marched globally before the war began because commonsense and a reasonable assessment of the Bush administration told them a disaster -- moral, political, economic, and military -- of the first order was in the offing. And, of course, that's just a start. Tom

Read the rest.

Fifth anniversary: Fragments of writing from March 2003 (with commentary)

2008-03-19T01:08:00.000-06:00

As we're coming up on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War - largely an escalation of what had already begun under Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton - I'm taking a trip down memory lane. In March 2003 I did not as of yet have a blog, but did post to message boards and usenet groups of one sort or another. I didn't really go out of my way to archive much of what I might have written at the time, as it was largely in the form of off-the-cuff remarks. That said, here are a few fragments that capture where I was at in late March of that year. I'll try to provide some context for these fragmentary comments wherever possible.

March 18, 2003

Note - In response to a conversation regarding the alleged accuracy of the so-called smart bombs to be used in the opening bombing raids:

Well, one way to interpret the "shock and awe" strategy is that the massive bombings will end up creating massive collateral damage. The "smart bombs" aren't that smart.

Note - I expected that the Iraq War would escalate conflict, especially in the Middle East and Central Asia:

If I were the leader of one of the so-called "axis of evil" nations, I'd be pushing to get armed to the teeth with whatever weaponry possible, including biological, chemical, and even nuclear weapons, if for no other reason than because of the realization that the U.S. won't stop with Iraq & that if one's country is on the list of nations to be invaded, at least those invasions would be more costly to the U.S.

March 20, 2003

Note - Regarding a conversation on the continuing world-wide protests as the war started:

Many of us did not ask for this waste of a war. We have a voice too. Bring on the noise. Word.

March 21, 2003

Note - The last part of the following sentence captures my thoughts about the actual motivation for the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq:

Makes me wonder if Bush et al ever bothered to listen to Iraqi citizens, or if (as I suspect is way more likely) they simply made the decision to impose their vision of manifest destiny in which Iraqis are viewed strictly as sharecroppers on those Oil plantations.

Note - A bit of sarcasm aimed at some of the happy talk that permeated the opening days of the war:

The U$ has made the world safe for SUV owners everywhere. The companies will be pleased.

March 23, 2003

Note - In response to the well-worn canard that the US was "fighting terrorists in Iraq to make Americans safer at home" I wanted to point out our own home-grown right-wing Christian fundamentalist terrorists:

I'd be willing to wager all 5 cents of my life savings that the vast majority of the people being "shocked and awed" are underpaid working stiffs like me, who simply could not afford to leave.

Sometimes I find it a good idea to look close to home. How many terrorists are our major cities harboring? (i.e., people who bomb family planning clinics & target staff of these clinics for assassination; people who burn crosses in front of the homes of African-Americans, who set fire to mosques & churches, and so forth).

March 26, 2003

Note - Another response illustrating my skepticism about the US government's motives for embarking on the war:

I suppose the best way to put this is that I don't buy the premise that the war has anything to do with the human rights situation in Iraq. The Reagan/Bush crowd in the 1980s didn't give a damn back then, and the current Bush crowd doesn't give a damn now. If it suited the purposes of our government, they'd gladly place another brutal dictator in power there and politely ignore the plight of Iraqi civilians (provided of course that the dictator in question cooperates with our government).

I thought that the war was an awful idea from the get-go, having at various points prior expressed skepticism about the initial rationale for the war (i.e., the alleged WMDs that turned out to be non-existent) as well as all the b.s. about democratizing Iraq, ad nauseum. I was convinced that the people who would be hurt the most were going to be low-income Iraq civilian families, and that 21st century equivalents of Guernica and Dresden were likely to transpire before all was said and done. Indeed, if anything, the events that have transpired in the five years since the war started have been in a number of respects worse than I could have imagined. An Iraqi death toll estimated at around one million only captures part of the story. There's also the distress caused to the friends and relatives of those murdered by the "Coalition" (don't forget the mercenaries) the massive number of injured, human displacement, disease, torture, and social death experienced by those who had the misfortune of merely being in the way of the US war machine to be considered. We'll still need to come to terms with the likelihood that Iraq was yet another "laboratory" for predatory capitalist ventures, and that the chaos caused by the war is even desirable in the eyes of our ruling class.

There is no comfort to be found in being correct; only a really bad feeling at the pit of one's stomach that the various efforts to raise awareness of the lies leading up to the war as well as the likely consequences of going to war simply failed to prevent the massive loss of lives since it all began on March 19, 2003. That day will indeed live in infamy.

It's also clear in this dark year 2008 that the US is not even remotely facing up to what's going on. The "great" experts whose opinions were gathered by New Pravda a few days ago to wax philosophically about the war don't even begin to touch on the purely criminal nature of the Iraq War. Our elections are so effectively gamed so that the only "choices" left to voters are warmongers: John "One Hundred Years War" McCain; and either Hillary "was for the Iraq War from the beginning" Clinton or Barack "the kinda-sorta-but-not-really war opponent" Obama. For war opponents, like myself, neither of these candidates is particularly inspiring, and at least two of them are quite loathsome. Let's just say that I have no reason to be optimistic about any "change" from the White House coming about in the near future, save perhaps a change for the worse. Don't expect any "change" from Congress either.

Unless or until a critical mass of folks get it through their skulls that the mentality that the US owns the fucking planet is not only incorrect but dangerous, the blood of innocents will continue to be spilled. As one might gather from the fragments, I might have been somewhat more optimistic back then. I certainly would have given the ruling class too much credit in even suggesting that any of them would bother to listen to Iraqis and their concerns - inside The Beltway (along with usual cronies on Wall Street), the Iraqis were never more than fauna. Turning to members of the ruling class to get it together and stop the warmongering is not where it's at - almost without exception, they've been drinking that fire water for far too long. The summary of the last five years can be boiled down to a title to an essay by fellow blogger Arthur Silber: over one million murdered, and nothing has been learned. As far as the US elites are concerned, there is nothing to learn - other than how to commit genocide more efficiently. No, the critical mass I'm thinking about is to come from us - just ordinary folks. We're the ones who will have to say "enough is enough" in words and deeds.

Announcing: March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm

2008-02-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

This March 19th marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. That's five years too many! To mark the occasion, fellow blogger Godless Liberal Homo has set up March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm. To give you some idea of what it's all about, here's the mission statement:

This blogswarm will promote blog postings opposing the war in Iraq and calling for a full withdrawal of foreign occupying forces in Iraq. Five years of an illegal and catastrophic war is five years too many. On the March 19 anniversary of the conquest of Iraq by the Bush Administration, there needs to be a loud volume of voices countering the pro-war propaganda from far too many politicians and corporate media outlets.

If you wish to participate, there are plenty of topics to tackle. If you're going to an anti-war demonstration, you could offer a first-hand report. You could interview an Iraq War veteran or a military family. The war has certainly laid bare any of a number of human rights abuses at the hands of the US, such as torture (does Abu Ghraib ring a bell?) and genocide (whether it's the estimated million deaths caused by the war or the mass displacement of millions of civilians - including the wholesale elimination of whole cultures). You could examine issues that otherwise are overlooked by the corporate media (how about the environmental contamination caused by the use of depleted uranium bombs, or the effects of Friedmanesque neoliberal economic policies that have been imposed on the Iraqis), or look at the positions that various political candidates and parties have taken regarding withdrawing the US military from Iraq - this is, in the US, an election year. If you know of an action alert that would be relevant to your readers, by all means make sure to spread the word. In other words, the possibilities to mark the atrocious Iraq War are many.

What else do you need to do? It's as easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Go to March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm, and leave a comment with your blog's name and URL. Those who've signed up by February 15 (the fifth anniversary of the mass actions held around the globe against the then-impending war) will be listed as Charter Blogs. Of course, there will be updated listings of any blog that joins the blogswarm even after that deadline.

2. Add one of the kewl badges to your blog (if you wish), or if you're more artistic than I am, create your own badge.

3. Spread the word. Ultimately, blogswarms succeed with a bit of good old fashioned elbow grease. In this case, that means not only mentioning this blogswarm on your own blog, but also in comments on other relevant blogs. Say it; say it out loud; say it often.

Finally, of course, around March 19, make sure to let March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm know about what you've written in the comments.

Obviously, blogging is not a substitute for actual activism, but rather as a supplement. If you're planning to go to one of the many demonstrations that will likely be held in the US or elsewhere, by all means go. Through words and deeds, hopefully we can prevent the need for a sixth, tenth, or hundredth anniversary blogswarm in opposition to the Iraq War.

For more info, go to March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm or RickB at Ten Percent.

Daily Kos, Chevron, Bill Clinton, and Kazahkstan

2008-02-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Follow the bouncing ball:

So, I popped into dkos late Thursday nite and discovered a front page post by (Mr Environment/Tree Hugger Extraordinaire) Meteor Blades about massive oil company profits.

Noticeably absent: any mention of Chevron.

Now, those of you who are familiar with the history of the controversy of Chevron ads appearing at dkos may also remember kos'"it's all about the money I make" response to the fact that Chevron has abused the human rights of thousands around the world.

Running an ad doesn't imply endorsement. But, if I start rejecting ads, THEN every ad that DOES run has an implied endorsement.

And you guys aren't idiots. The advertising purity trolls seem to think that site readers are moron automatons easily manipulated by advertising. I have a higher opinion of you guys. I actually think you're quite intelligent and capable of independent evaluation of the advertising you consume here and elsewhere.

Finally, I'm not afraid of money, and I'm putting it to good use -- the abandonment of Scoop and a massive ground-up redevelopment of Daily Kos to be the ultimate blogging platform in the world, and the establishment of a corps of "fellows" to do great activism.

More details on those projects will emerge in December, but [sic] bottom line is that I won't cry if Chevron or anyone else wants to help fund the rise of a professional netroots activist class.

(I'll wait while you laugh about that "professional netroots activist class" bit.)

So, is it any wonder MB didn't mention that Chevron'a profits are up 29% more than they were a year ago. You just can't bring that up at dkos without being told one of at least 3 things by the Mighty Defenders of kos brigade:

1. This is kos' site and he has the right to make money (and who cares if he makes it by accepting major cash from big oil?)

2. We're actually fooling Chevron by taking their money (while at the same time, we're not boycotting their products or doing anything like "activism" to bring them down).

3. If you don't want to see the ads, buy a subscription to block them (ie. pay kos so you won't have to be reminded what a sell-out he is to his so-called "progressive" principles.

And what does this have to do with Bill Clinton and Kazakhstan, you ask?

Keep reading...

When "Borat-Gate" broke on dkos earlier this week, alleging that Clinton may have had a role in Canadian Frank Giustra's uranium mining deal with Kazakhstan, kossacks were outraged - outraged that Bill was dealing with a dictator from a country that had such a poor human rights record.

And that's where Chevron and kossack hypocrisy comes in yet again because this week this story also came out: Chevron venture boosts Kazakhstan oil production.

A Chevron Corp. joint venture has boosted production of oil at a field in Kazakhstan using new technology.

San Ramon-based Chevron (NYSE: CVX) has a 50 percent stake in Tengizchevroil LLP, the company doing the work in the Tengiz oil field, located on the northeast shore of the Caspian Sea in Central Asia. Chevron's partners in the venture are ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., which holds a 25 percent stake; a Russian oil company, LukArco, which holds 5 percent; and the government of Kazakhstan, which owns 20 percent through its state oil company, KazMunaiGas.

Don't expect to see any outrage about that over at dkos though. That would be tantamount to blasphemy as I noted above and, as we know, kos doesn't care anyway. Just like the big oil companies, kos' concerns about human rights come second (or third or fourth) to blatant capitalist exploitation so just STFU.

To top it all off, I accidentally discovered that the city of Berkeley (where kos lives) passed a resolution last week to boycott Chevron products citing the company's "ecological destruction and involvement in human rights abuses in Angola, Burma, Ecuador and Nigeria, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area".

Oh, the irony.

You can't buy a subscription to make those facts go away, kossacks.

(crossposted at Political Fleshfeast)

Question du Jour

2008-01-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

So, riddle me this: with all of the Obama-love™ going on over at Daily Kos, why is is that no one over there (from what I've seen) is bothered that this so-called "progressive" candidate who promises them the liberal nirvana they claim to seek (and will not come anywhere close to providing anyway) has completely snubbed that site since 2005 (when he was roundly trounced for trying to start a round of Kumbaya in the Democratic party after the John Roberts nomination)?

Now I can see why Obama wouldn't bother with that bunch considering the insanity and inanity that goes on there, but they just don't seem to care that he's not rushing over to pull them all into his grand new plan. Or, maybe they do care but they don't want to mention it because that might make him look bad.

I think it's the latter.

John Aravosis: Elitist Wanker of the Day (2nd Day in a Row)

2008-01-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

Originally I nominated the dude strictly for the following post:

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Dems just gave away your stimulus check
by John Aravosis (DC) · 1/24/2008 10:23:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (20) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

According to AP, congressional leaders have reached a deal on those economic stimulus checks. And rather than being geared towards helping the economy, they're apparently geared towards redistributing wealth (that would be our wealth) to the poor. What a surprise. Folks in the middle (i.e, those who are not rich or poor) are screwed by the Democrats (and Republicans) yet again. Let me give you the details that just leaked, and again this may not be the final deal, but it sure sounds like it:
Families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole package. Rebates would go to people earning below a certain income cap, likely individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less.
That means that if you make $75,000 or more a year, no check for you. Forget that fact that you live in NYC or DC or San Francisco, where prices from property to food are outrageous. No, forget that. Some guy living in a mansion in Topeka making $74,999 a year will get his little gift from the US Treasury and you, living in NYC making $75,001 out of a 300 sq ft studio apartment will get nothing. How about my friend who bought an entire house in Baltimore for $275,000 when that would get you a very small studio in DC. I know someone who got an entire house in Ohio for $2000 a month when that would get you a one-bedroom apartment in DC. I have a friend who moved to North Carolina and got offered a bit over $75k a year. He said it was a king's ransom in NC. In DC, well, again, keep checking out those studios. And another friend has a 900 sq ft condo, and paid more for it than another friend's parents paid for their 6000 sq ft house.

That's because far too often the Democrats don't give a damn about anybody who isn't a minority or starving to death (both valid causes to be sure, but are they the ONLY causes out there?). If you're in the middle, you're on your own.

And don't think this is only about a stupid $300. It's about health care. It's about education. It's about every single issue you care about. The powers that be simply aren't in this to help people in the middle. The Republicans want to help the big pharmaceuticals and the big business hospitals, while the Democrats want to help uninsured poor people and kids. And while all of that's nice, what are the rest of us supposed to do when our premiums hit $2000 a month and, God forbid, something catastrophic hits us?

The Republicans ONLY want to help the rich, and the Democrats ONLY want to help the poor. Screw everybody else. I am so sick of these people.

Unfortunately, I guess Aravosis became both unhappy with the negative feedback that he received in mass quantities, so he killed off the original post (thus decoupling it from the 500+ comments it had received), reposted, got yet another set of negative feedback (which he subsequently censored heavily), and then deleted the post altogether. Like Sir Robin, he "bravely ran away." So, for a second day in a row, Aravosis has earns the top honors for wankery - this time for cowardice.

Never Comin' Home, b/w Stolen Moments

2008-01-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

Loyalty oaths are a crock of shit. Almost as bad as the kind you have to consciously sign are the ones you find you'd unconsciously signed. You think you've found a friendly lodging where at least a few people will share your quirks and then just like that, you realize that you can't live there any more.

I've bailed on debunkingwhite. I was there for about a year. It's a great little livejournal "grand central" for anyone interested in anti-racist work. I've learned a lot from the space and made what I think are some valuable connections. Maybe the folks I've connected with will now be done with me, too. So be it. Frankly I can't abide all the pro-Obama hype over there and the subliminal fine print that seems to say that nobody can be a committed anti-racist unless they want to genuflect before the glory of Obama. I don't genuflect before Democrats. I think the party is a loathsome pile of shit that more or less gave Bush a blank check to do whatever the fuck he wanted. Which includes continuing to wage both a global and domestic race war that's plenty vicious even if it doesn't quite measure up in clarity to the baroque fantasies of villain-du-jour, Ron Paul. I don't sign loyalty oaths to any Democrat, in the name of any cause, anywhere. For that reason and many, many others.

Strange though it seems, I would still recommend the space to lurkers interested in the hard work activists do and (especially) the White privilege we Whites need to dismantle before we can do anything for anybody outside the personal arena. I wish I was more like these folks, but I came up short when stamina was handed out. :o It infuriates and grieves me to see good people falling for Obama, a charlatan in a party full of charlatans. I just don't, in my heart of hearts, believe that he gives a damn about the things they give a damn about. I think he's a user running with other users. More anger and more grief is something I don't need to seek out deliberately, as it finds me on its own most of the time. I've been through this before. I've been the "bad feminist," the "bad Unionist," the "bad Jew," etc. because I left the DP and refuse to come back. Life goes on.

...If people ask me why I have to roam
I say that 90% of all accidents occur in the home...
-- Peter Case

I leave you with some "Stolen Moments" from the Anti-Divine Madman:

...Just put the damned ballot boxes on an altar while we’re at it. It’s a mystery what’s happening in them already, might as well go the rest of the way with it. Let’s just hold elections on sanctified ground. Anoint voters’ foreheads with holy water or ashes or the blood of a virgin or something as they are welcomed into the sacred offering of their futures to another pious fraud...

From Prey: Our Souls, 1/09/08 Liberal Street Fighter

...[I have] no patience for the cozy lies and the careful obfuscations anymore. I would like to believe that this was really a country of diversity, that we really were willing and able to confront and reconcile our centuries of enslavement and debasement and theft and genocide. Part of me smiles to see a black man building such momentum in a country as benighted as this one. I’m a sap. I want to believe all of the hallmarkian drivel of the “promise” of America. I want to believe that WE really believed in cooperation and openness and we’re not really a nation of greedy, warmongering racists eager to expand our hegemony over the globe.

The Invisible Man may very well be the Democratic (sic) party’s nominee for President. He is willing to practice the right sorts of misdirection to keep our eyes away from the real problems we face, willing to parade his beautiful assistant/wife to captivate and enthrall. He is willing to disappear behind a fog of beautiful words and high-flown promises, encased in the cozy nostrums of faith and family and a “new generation” of “change”.

I wish I could believe, but I just can’t fill in that blank anymore. I can’t allow another corporate lawyer to coax me into seeing in him what I wish he was. The exploited lower classes in this country will not find a champion in the Invisible Man anymore than they did in Bubba Clinton...

From Fill In The Blank, 1/6/08, Liberal Street Fighter.

[Cross-posted with minor alterations to Ms. Xeno's Remainder Bin.]

How Soon They Forget

2008-01-03T00:04:00.000-07:00

Markos on January 2, 2008:

Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would’ve been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies.

Markos on January 20, 2003:

But it's not even just ANSWER. It's every yahoo with a pet cause. I turned on C-SPAN's coverage for 30 seconds before listening to a speaker make a pitch for slavery reparations. Nevermind that reparations is about the dumbest cause in the country today, what the heck did it have to do with opposing war against Iraq? Jeez.

Problem #2: I don't care for many of the participants. You know, those eager to relive their 60's activism using the exact same tactics as they did in the 60s, or the younger generations trying to capture a bit of that old time religion. Call me cynical, call me an asshole, but the world is a bit more complex than "make love, not war". There is a time and place for war, and blanket outrage at the concept of war is simply naive. By contrast, WTO protesters seem to be far more educated about their cause and have far more of an edge (for lack of a better word) -- which, to me, makes them more effective. Anger is good (short of smashing storefronts, that is), and far better than this "smile and sing folk songs" crap. Or the "support my pet cause and, oh yeah, oppose war while you're at it" crap.

Markos on June 5, 2005:

And I certainly won't let the sanctimonious women's studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I'm somehow abandoning "progressive principles" by running the ad. It's a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.
Me, I'll focus on the important shit.

Or here's Markos on October 17, 2005:

I'm increasingly convinced that the biggest intra-movement divide nowadays isn't ideological -- we mostly all agree on the same things -- but generational. Old school activists view politics and the activist realm differently than new school activists (very generally speaking). Those differences manifest themselves in arguments over single issue groups, effective activism, partisanship, tone, style, pragmatism, the types of candidates we should run, etc.

New school progressives are also less tolerant of ideological orthodoxy. We don't fall in line with the "acceptable" liberal position, frankly, because we're not trained to fall in line. We are more likely to be educated in an economy that values "proactiveness" and "self-initiative" and "problem solving" over blindly following the orders of our boss. We have the tools to research any and every issue in a way inconcievable even 10 years ago. We no longer need to rely on our "leaders" or the media to tell us what the "right" position on any one issue might be. And our own individual life experiences will color our perceptions of any issue. If you are an inner city parent with shitty public schools for your kids, school vouchers probably look pretty darn good even if the theory offends progressive sensibilities.

[snip]

The political landscape is different, no doubt -- the politics of old where "leaders" told us how to think and act is dead. The media landscape has changed -- the era when a few editors and producers determined our "leaders" and excluded other voices is dead.

Markos on May, 2006:

“If I was antiwar, I did it very poorly,” he says. “I supported going into Kosovo and Afghanistan. I’ve earned a lot of enmity by dismissing the antiwar protestors and the hippie mentality of the far left, this whole ‘all-war-is-bad’ bullshit. I grew up in war in El Salvador. I served in the military. I understand the concept of a good and just and fair and necessary war.”

Dude, given how you characterize Obama, and given your own past behavior of dissing core constituencies within the party you claim to be promoting, he should be your ideal candidate. There's an old saying about casting stones while living in glass houses. Might be a good time for old Markos to brush up on that one.

Bonus: of course Kos isn't the only one to indulge in the Big Orange fetish for hippie-bashing. There are others (e.g., Lestatdelc).

Happy 2008!

2008-01-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

I stole these fireworks from Sydney, Australia. Enjoy.

Oh yeah...I almost forgot the...

cheesecake!

Happy New Year!

(2008 has to be better than last year...right??)

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

Good riddance to 2007.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November

2007-11-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot."

This day marks the 402nd anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot, whose most famous of the conspirators Guy Fawkes serves as inspiration for the film (and earlier graphic novel) V for Vendetta. Great film by the way - quite a tonic for these increasingly dystopian times.

A couple V-related videos for your consideration, starting with the pirate televised speech V gives early on in the film:

Then, check this short video, "Remember":

What do you want the world to remember? How will you celebrate? Someone over at Political Fleshfeast has some words that I endorse:

Today, like every Guy Fawkes day, I celebrate the plot. The bravery of the plot, the tragedy of the martyr, and the beauty of people willing to do anything to stand by their beliefs. Without a doubt, qualities that are sorely missing in America today.

Remember.

Amiri Baraka sez

2007-10-29T01:19:00.000-06:00

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression and terror
violence, and hunger and poverty.
Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful

Who you know ever
Seen God?
But everybody seen
The Devil

Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog
Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO (+) who who ^
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!

nerdified link

Download Somebody Blew Up America here.

This marks the 100th post at Mo Betta META. Given that so many of our contributors over the last year or so dig on poetry, Baraka's words seemed fitting. Peace and love, y'all.

There's a new kid in town...

2007-09-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

Political Fleshfeast

Flashback to Flesh Feast, the movie:

Flesh Feast (released in 1970, though shot in 1967) is an American horror film that features Veronica Lake in her final screen performance. Lake plays Dr. Elaine Frederick, a mad scientist working on developing maggots that prefer human flesh, while her services are used to make a clone of Adolf Hitler.

She cooperates with the plan to resurrect Hitler as a way of exacting revenge for the death of her parents, political prisoners executed in a concentration camp. While convincing everyone the flesh-eating maggots are for regeneration research, she simply wants to throw them in the resurrected Hitler's face, which she does.

That seems somewhat relevant.

Israel-Palestine Open Thread

2007-08-16T20:10:00.000-06:00

The title should say it all, but just in case... Bring your highlights, lowlights, mementos, scars and anything else regarding the situation there and post away.

I have no idea what to expect of such a thread, but I have heard too many stories of the repressive atmosphere around this debate on DK. It's time for an alternative to that. So let's give it a go.

thereisnospoon - your problem is obvious

2007-08-10T23:49:00.001-06:00

This guy is what passes for "progressive" these days. If he's going to be at the vanguard of the next "progressive revolution" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to be), that's one revolution I'll be avoiding like Ebola.

The cycle of netroots life

2007-08-05T21:32:00.000-06:00

This cycle repeats every two years, and is even more reliable than Old Faithful.

This public service announcement brought to you by Democracy in Action and IOZ.

Dickie Spoons, Great White Liberal Hope

2007-08-01T15:22:00.000-06:00

Newly placed in the glass case today, may I present for your viewing pleasure phallus waggus megamouth (subspecies: prog), colloquially known as Rape Apologist, Liberal Male Version

Honestly, when will I learn not to click on Daily Kos when I'm eating, or digesting, for that matter ? Or hell, on an empty stomach but hoping to eat something today ?

@#$%!!*

The oh-so-charming poster thereisnospoon loftily explains to women that he understands so much more about what "real" rape is than we women do ourselves, silly overwrought booze-addled creatures that we are.

Sometimes cliche is the only reasonable response to purveyors of same: Dear Dickie Spoon, with "liberal/progressive allies" like you, who needs adversaries ?

By coincidence, I found the latest Carnival Against Sexual Violence newly available today. It happened en route to sharing Dickie Spoons' all-too-common-in-blogland (and IRL) bullshit with a feminist blogger who posts regularly about sexual violence and why fighting it in this culture is such an uphill battle.

You lose some, you win some.

The Markos Story Continues to Circulate

2007-07-19T22:28:00.000-06:00

The Angryindian sez:

The Outing of a Republican Mole

Establishment liberal blog DailyKos has been outed by a member of the AfroSpear as an operative of the republican party.

Is it true? If the information provided is accurate, it totally destroys the republican mythology of the liberal-dominated media. In other words, perhaps this is why Pelosi and the democrat crew the American public sent to the hill were able to be trusted by the progressive and anti-war public, the DailyKos reported them as the sole alternative to the Bush administration. The very same people who refuse to use their constitutional powers to stop the madness. The DailyKos also refuses to accept commentary concerning 911 that refutes the Bush administration's assertions. Go figure. - The Angryindian

The rest of the post is from one of Francis Holland's Kos posts.

Quotable: Meta-Edition

2007-07-18T23:14:00.000-06:00

Madman in the Marketplace over at Marisacat's blog:

Like Robert Neville, we are LEGEND, and while we stalk the virtual land no Donklephant, or their thralls, fanboys and blogmaids, are safe.

Orange Letter #163

2007-07-12T22:19:00.001-06:00

An "Open Letter" To Daily Kos

Swiped more or less intact from this thread at Marisacat's blog. lucid wrote it. I repost it with A) minor snips and B) his permission.

"I’ve given pause to what I would say to this “community”, if I ever saw fit to comment again. What meta would I nitpick? Which posters would I call out and link to, showing them to be the asshole DP whips that they are? Which cult of personality is the worst? Which ideological cult is the most offensive?

"But why even do that? Most of you believe and defend with savage juvenility the idea that getting any Democrat elected will somehow cure all the ills of society. Most of you are young or naive enough in your ‘politically aware’ lives to forget about the fact that Clinton accomplished more for right wing politics than any Republican could ever have done before him. The gutting of welfare, hey, couldn’t be done under Reagan. Reinstatement of the federal death penalty… a no go there too, so long as a Republican was in office. The gutting of FCC ownership laws with respect to monopoly in specific localities? Hey, no Republican could achieve that either. First Amendment zones? Clinton. Pre-emptive war… Kosovo anyone?

"You bask in a fantastic memory that a Democrat in the White House somehow made the world a better place. It might have been better in this county for the upper middle class and marginally better for the poor, but it sucked just as equally for the rest of the world. We still fought cold and hot wars. We passed the most regressive trade legislation the world has ever seen that expropriated, exploited and killed more people than any of the shitty covert proxy wars we’d fought before.

The system is broken. There isn’t a democracy here.

The machine politicians to whom you contribute will do nothing to speak for the people.

"They only speak for those who show up at their $5,000/plate fundraising dinners. And they don’t give a shit about the “netroots” save the lip service of a staffer diary here and there & the buying of advertisements. That means they really care.

"I had jumped the ship. Then I gave it an ear again, for a time. But when I encountered more of the same, ‘shaming’, party whipping, rejection of anti-capitalist ideas, the complete disavowal of history, I jumped the ship again.

"You live in a fantasy. You haven’t the foresight to recognize the disintegration of everything you hold dear, though it drips away with every passing second."

(Find more from him at, Lucid Culture --what else ?!-- ;), regarding politics, local bands and other things.)

Showdown by the Bay: Sheehan vs. Pelosi

2007-07-10T01:37:00.000-06:00

You may have read that Cindy Sheehan is considering running against current House Speaker Nancy "Impeachment Is Off The Table" Pelosi in next year's election. First, a quick snip of the AssPress article - courtesy of Marisacat:

Sheehan Considers Challenge to Pelosi

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — Cindy Sheehan, the soldier’s mother who galvanized the anti-war movement, said Sunday that she plans to seek House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.

Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That’s when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group’s war protest site near Bush’s Crawford ranch.

Not too surprisingly, since Ms. Sheehan has been known to frequent Daily Kos, she announced her intentions over there, with the predictable result: a lot of partisan Democrat whining, including the usual dross about her writing a "troll diary," and of course the usual effort by current and former DK front-pagers to show her the door.

What has happened is that the Dems couldn't "contain" Ms. Sheehan. Let's go back to two years ago, when Stan Goff said (circa August 2005):

The Democrats are already grooming a few 2008 candidates, including the execrable Hillary Rodham Clinton who has stated her desire to beef up the war against Southwest Asia. Let's not forget that her husband presided over an Iraqi holocaust that George W. Bush is still trying to match. The Republicans are secure for now with their white nationalist popular base. An active and increasingly militant left is a more immediate threat to the Democrats who have prospered from Republican reaction for decades now by capturing social bases that feel they have nowhere else to go. That dilemma is real, but it is also predicated on the notion that to "go there" we need to contain ourselves in electoralism and pluralist policy fights that are engineered by corporations and NGOs.
That's why Sheehan and others who propose the radical option of simply leaving Iraq are now being surrounded by the friendly faces of "progressives" who will try and redirect this newfound mobilization along the acceptable policy-debate paths.

Something I said from around the same time:

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And that, as I see it is the real problem with the Dems. The "base" that the party takes for granted has no clue as to what the Dem party actually stands for. Folks periodically ask me what the Dems believe, and I have to say in all honesty that God only knows, and I'm sure even He is a bit puzzled. What we do know is that the Dem party leadership falls hook, line, and sinker for whatever b.s. the White House demands for fear of being labeled "obstructionist," "unpatriotic," and possibly "losing next year's election." That isn't exactly an inspiring approach to representative governing.
Cindy Sheehan has done something that the Dems have largely failed to do with regard to Iraq: she asked the question "why are we there?" If the Dems want to capitalize on the increasing dissatisfaction with the war, they would be well advised to ride the wave of dissent rather than try to contain it. Adding more troops (impractical) and looking for ways to exit with "dignity" (a term that in this context smells of American machismo) aren't going to cut it. Besides, to take an a line or two from an old David Bowie tune, "dignity is valuable, but our lives are valuable too." Tell it straight up: it was the wrong war, at the wrong time, fought for the wrong reasons; and it's high time to get the hell out and stop making even more of a mess of things in the region. There are no good reasons for Americans or Iraqis to keep dying. The party might generate some cross words from the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world as a result, but that would have happened any way. In the process, the Dems might even gain a bit of the respect and trust that they've lost over the last couple decades. Otherwise, folks like me (just one of the "base") will keep on eying the third party scene for a better deal.

I'm sure at some point at one of the various gated community blogs I predicted that Cindy Sheehan's days at Daily Kos would be numbered; once it became readily apparent that Ms. Sheehan was not going to toe a Democrat Party line, she'd become expendable. The rumblings that she'd worn out her welcome at Big Orange were there for a while - now it's out in the open. In truth, the anti-war movement was useful to Dems only to the extent that anti-war voters might help the party get Congressional majorities and perhaps successfully recapture the White House. Once we stop being ATM machines for the Dems and various affiliated groups (e.g., MoveOn), then that bunch of goons simply doesn't want to know us.

Certainly I don't delude myself to think that Sheehan has a snowball's chance in Death Valley of unseating Pelosi. One: it's not entirely clear what her campaign will be about (beyond the Iraq War). Two: even if Sheehan gets it together as far as a coherent candidacy goes, there are more than enough Vichy "progressives" willing to give Pelosi sufficient cover to win in 2008. If nothing else, a Sheehan candidacy against Pelosi would serve to highlight Pelosi's many embarrassing failures as a so-called leader - in and of itself that would be valuable.

Originally posted at The Left End of the Dial v2.0.

The Markos Family Jewels: Curiouser and Curiouser

2007-07-08T14:10:00.001-06:00

A few days ago I highlighted Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga's fondness for the CIA (the dude - at bare minimum - interviewed for a position there, and is on record as holding a favorable attitude toward the organization notorious for its human rights record). Well, now we find that Markos' own family history is not quite as he would portray it. Francis Holland has a few points to ponder and some questions of his own. If nothing else, we get a more complete picture of one of the most prominent partisan Democrat bloggers and would-be power players, including perhaps some insight into why DailyKos operates in such an authoritarian manner and the positions that the blog appears to favor regarding the political direction of the US.

A Poor Blogger's Foundation?

2007-07-05T23:54:00.000-06:00

So, remember the other day when I wrote about [employable] bloggers complaining about their own poverty and what I thought about that? (Of course you do. You all read everything I write all the time and commit it to memory. I know. There will be a quiz later). Well, anyway, it appears Susie at Suburban Guerilla has been thinking about that issue too and has actually taken some steps to do something about it:

Jim’s death has made me realize that, despite the yes, millions of dollars and untold hours of volunteer support the left blogosphere has thrown the way of the Democratic party, they will never, ever, ever give us anything more than a pat on the back. “Isn’t that cute? They think they’re special.”

I don’t know what it is about liberal groups whose leaders assume you should live on air while you give your life to the cause. Has it even occurred to them how much harder it is to get a “regular” job when you’re publicly and politically active? I guess not. After all, they’re already employed.

I'm sorry. There were some Democratic bloggers who were actually expecting money from the party or "liberal groups"? Ummm, what?

They don’t really understand that the blogosphere is effective because it works like a swarm of bees. Yes, we have some queen bees, but you need the entire hive stinging from every direction in order to make it work. And to do that, you need to take care of the hive.

And they - the powers that be - Susie, have discovered that the worker bees are more than willing to do their stinging for free. So what else is there for them to understand?

Jim wasn’t unusual. I can name at least a dozen well-known bloggers off the top of my head that are in dire straits financially. I know several with health conditions that could become critical at any moment, and like me, they’re living without health insurance, the Sword of Damocles dangling over their heads.

And you know what? I'm all for donating to bloggers who are unable to work because they are sick. Note what I said in my previous post to the "I want sympathy because I blog and I'm a poor but employable" person, however. Although you noted above that your political activism may make it difficult for you in the real job world, that certainly depends on the type of job you're hoping to land, doesn't it? Not all employers care about your politics and, afaik, they're not even supposed to ask about your leanings. (That's how it works here in Canada anyway.)

So Susie has a plan:

And so I am talking to lawyers about putting together a non-profit to help progressive bloggers. Not, as some groups offer, to help them organize for the Democratic party - to help them personally. I plan to recruit every blogger I can for the effort. One local blogger is working right now to put together a concert benefit with a big name.

Ask the obvious question. I'll wait.

Exactly: whom will that concert benefit? Who will that non-profit group benefit? Which "progressive bloggers"? And why? What's the criteria to receive donations?

If you can't answer those questions now, you have a huge problem already.

In closing, let me leave you with a comment from that blog in response to Susie's post that makes another obvious point:

# frank costa Says:
July 5th, 2007 at 8:23 pm

Your assumption [is] that sitting at a keyboard and sharing your insights, opinions, and surfing discoveries is akin to some sort of hero status.

I was a politicial and social acttivist on the trail of the NWO decades before keyboard kommandos came into being. I’ve got a mouthful of bad teeth, I live in an RV and I am dissed by just about every yuppie “activist” I run into.

While I am in support of your passion you have to take a reality pilll…the easiest thing in the world regarding “activism” is to sit a keyboard and rant about stuff. The hardest is to get off one’s butt and take it to the source.

Only 100,000 of us nationwide marched against the war a while back, which is about one tenth of the bloggers on the web. We all know what’s wrong and what has to be done and daily doses of incremental info isn’t necessary and obviously not very effective.

Get a million activists to show up in DC demanding impeachment and not respect the “free speech” zones or get permits, or even say please…that’s activism, not web chat.

That’s my nickle.

What he said.

Sidebar: Wasn't Bowers talking about a similar foundation or PAC to help poor bloggers as well? What happened to that? Why is it that the PA bloggers seem to be the ones bringing this issue up all of the time? No jobs there? High cost of living? Something in the water?

Hey! Here's an idea: maybe the PA bloggers could just all rent one big house and share living expenses. On the other hand, maybe that's too much of a "hippie commune" type of idea for that bunch. They do seem fairly conservative. I can't really picture BooMan braiding Atrios' hair (thankfully).

Update: There's also a discussion about this at Crooks and Liars.

Armando vs Meteor Blades

2007-07-04T19:56:00.000-06:00

And here, we come across that odd snarly beast known as Armando in his natural state: fur ruffled, claws out, teeth bared. Armando aka BTD - who often stalks his prey in the dark of nite (or broad daylight for that matter...) with the fury of a rabid lefty netroots crusader hot on the trail of the latest blasphemer.

An abdication of responsibility (3.00 / 1)

This comment from Meteor Baldes is outrageous:

It's up to us to create a groundswell ... (0 / 0)

...of support. And up to us who believe impeachment is the right move to persuade people who can actually vote to begin impeachment proceedings. When the proceedings started against Richard Nixon in October 1973, only 39% of Americans supported impeachment or resignation, even though only 27% approved of the job he was doing.

You may be right that impeachment proceedings will not happen. Without proceedings, no impeachment. They certainly won't happen without the Democratic votes on the Judiciary Committee. Discussing impeachment will continue whether you like it or not. Personally, I don't think we need to have any more philosophical discussion about whether it's a good idea or not, or whether it's possible. We're split on that and we've all pretty much had our say. No need for further flamewars.

So now, it's up to those of us who believe impeachment is possible, and the right thing, to see if we can make it happen. If we can't, then you can tell us all to shut up.

Can we hold out this long?

by Meteor Blades on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 07:13:19 AM PDT

Meteor Blades has used the Front Page of Daily Kos to forward as harmful a proposal as one could imagine at this time and he does not want to discuss the outrageousness of his actions.

His irresponsibility will forward and harmful discussion instead of moving forward on ending the Iraq Debacle. And he thinks we should not discuss his harmful actions.

Excuse me Meteor Blades. What you are doing is extremely wrong and extremely irresponsible. You have abused your trust as a FPer at daily kso by not considering these issues and instead have assuaged your vainglorious wishes.

Leaders do not behave in this way. Leaders weigh the consequences of their actions. You should be ashamed.

by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 10:26:24 AM EST

You have to give him points for using "vainglorious", at least. That's a mighty fancy-schmancy kind of word. (Not to mention the minimal number of typos - quite remarkable, that.)

Oh, but wait, Armando wasn't done yet and had to follow up his own comment with 2 more:

Here's what I am saying (3.00 / 1)

MEteor Blades should write DIARIES saying this if he believes it is meaningful.

But he shoulod not post it on the FP of daily kos.

He owes the Netroots to consider what the perception and result of his actions will be when he does so.

by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 10:45:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

DRUDGE REPORT EXCLUSIVE...BREAKING...METEOR BLADES KILLS NETROOTS...developing...

As a former FPer (3.00 / 1)

I can tell you that it was well understood what types of issues should merit careful consideration before writng a FP post taking a posiiton on them.

Of course there are a myriad of important issues where FPers would disagree. Those were open for debate and the outside world consequences were largely minimal.

Impeachment is not one of those issues. It is too hot and too potentially harmful for a FPer to just throw out outlandish ill thought out posts as Meteor Blades did.

He should express his opinion on THAt topic in the diaries, not on the FP.

by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 11:04:27 AM EST

Yes, know your place MB, damnit. Know.your.place. Armando will have justice or thy punishment shall be swift! Off with your FP privileges, traitor! Send him to the tower.

MB fights back (and is offered some battle tactics to escape the tower by yours truly since BooMan has given up his dreams of conquest and strategerizing because he's an adult now.)

As you are quite well aware ... (none / 0)

...having been a former Front Pager, FPers have a free hand - except when it comes to raising money or violating the FAQs - to write what we want. We represent ourselves only when we write unless we sign onto a piece as a group, which has happened only once IIRC.

by Meteor Blades on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 11:49:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

There, MB tried the cautious, reasoned approach which we all know drives the beast Armando mad (especially the use of the word "former" - oooo, ouch - like a sword through an enlarged liver).

Re: As you are quite well aware ... (3.00 / 1)

there are and were certain issues where FPers RIGHTLY chose to express their views IN DIARIES understnaidng that the perception of a FP post is quite different from that of a diary.

by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Jul 03, 2007 at 11:51:35 AM EST

Yes MB, what will the neighbours think?? My god man - think of the children! Think of the intertubes! Think of the donors! Think of the beer money! We may never be able to Drink Liberally™ again!!

Does MB end up back in the tower? Will Armando get his blood?
*******

Want more?

This exciting sneak preview clip of Armando Gone Wild (Again) brought to you by Not Exactly Crashing the Gates While Banging Our Heads Against the Wall and Each Other.

Grab your popcorn! You won't want to miss a moment of this action-packed thriller.

That Super-Duper Secret Townhouse List

2007-07-02T20:03:00.000-06:00

Via Daniel Schuman at Mother Jones:

Given that the first rule of Townhouse is that there is no Townhouse, it was quite a challenge to get even one person to talk about the list on record (though I spoke to several people about the list who did not want to be quoted, even anonymously). It's my understanding that any list member who speaks about it publicly, or even acknowledges that it exists, risks immediate expulsion from the list. Incidentally, that's precisely what happened to Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing, who was unceremoniously dumped from Townhouse after my article came out. O’Connor had this to say about Townhouse: “It's fucking Skull and Bones, man. The very secretive, behind-closed-doors nature of it is anathema to everything that blogging is supposed to be about: accountability. We are supposed to be showing the way, not skulking around behind closed doors, coming up with strategies. Those are the people who we're trying to fight. I know about 'the real world' and all that shit. But we're the idealists, aren't we?"

Yeah, well that's all fine and dandy MSOC, but the fact is that you still chose to stay on the "fucking Skull and Bones, man" list anyway. If this was about blogger ethics, you should have quit long ago. And exactly which ideals were you holding up while you were on that list if you were so damn opposed to it?

Now, onto this tidbit (which I found courtesy of OP&G):

(Fun fact: According to an email I obtained, sent out to Townhouse members by Stoller in March, the list is now a commercial enterprise. Subscriptions * run $60 per year for individual subscribers and up to $1000 for organizations, the proceeds of which will go to pay Stoller’s rent and health care costs, according to his message.)

About these boyz who cry poverty - I recall Bowers doing just that at dkos a while ago (poor him) - like we're supposed to care. If you can't make a living blogging, get another job or support yourself by flipping burgers while you blog in your spare time. It's as simple as that.

I recently had a private conversation with someone who felt I should have "sympathy" for the fact that they were a poor blogger. Yeah. I don't think so. You, poor blogger, are able to actually work out there in the real world (unlike me and others - who don't complain about not enhancing our bank accounts dramatically from blogging, btw). You choose poverty and expect "sympathy" as if you're Dog's gift to the blogging world? Get stuffed.

There's a glass ceiling in the American so-called left-wing blogosphere which you helped create. So if you keep banging your head on it, buy your own bandaids - or at least be extremely grateful to those who do pass on some cash to you to lower those costs instead of expecting "sympathy".

Anyway, if it's true that Stoller is begging for cash for "rent" and "health care costs" then how did he pay for his recent one week vacation in Hawaii? If that's poverty, sign me up.

And, once again, what is so secret about blogging and issues that an exclusive list like Townhouse needs to exist? Whatever talking points they're throwing out through that list make for a very monolithic and boring read throughout the BBBs because they all cover the same damn things. When was the last time you read a FP piece on any of these blogs that was so utterly compelling and unique that it left you in awe wanting more? Or when did you last see a true piece of investigative journalism on any of the big blogs that broke the BBB mold? If Townhouse acts as some sort of Democratic party newswire which its members then rely on for content, it is doing a huge disservice to blog readers who might as well just read the Democratic Party's web site instead.

Then again, for all I know, maybe they just exchange chess game tips and ring tones. Since no one wants to speak up about it - as if they'll be summarily hanged for treason - I guess we just don't know, do we?

As for this:

One of the questions O'Connor raised when we spoke, an interesting one I thought, is what will become of the once independent bloggers, the idealists, now that they’ve worked their way into the inner sanctum of the Democratic machine. Will they change it for the better from the inside, or simply become a new generation of win-at-any-cost political operatives. It’s a question worth asking, but I don’t think anyone has any answer just yet.

Wanna bet, Schulman?

Related: Schulman's prior piece about the blogosphere, Meet the New Bosses. (Note to Schulman: Daily Kos is not a "liberal" blog.)

Kos on the CIA:

2007-06-30T15:32:00.000-06:00

I don’t think it’s a very partisan thing to want a stable world. And even if you’re protecting American interests, I mean that can get ugly at times, but generally speaking I think their hearts in the right place. As an organization their heart is in the right place. I’ve never had any problem with the CIA. I’d have no problem working for them . .

Found at Francis Holland's blog, with my emphasis added. Note that the title is a tad misleading - Kos spent six months interviewing for a CIA job (a bit of a difference between that and actually working for CIA). Yeah, their hearts are in the right place, all right! And this dude is the presumed mouthpiece of today's "progressive" Democrats.

Cross-posted at The Left End of the Dial v2.0.

A Gentle Folly

2007-06-28T11:05:00.000-06:00

This is a critical moment for all of us. (4+ / 0-)

And the work is gentle. Many people whom we will need as our allies have been heavily invested in resisting impeachment to this point.

I have found much more success on the front page with laying out the case and leaving the conclusion obvious but unstated -- or at least very gently stated.

There has been no shortage of blunter statements, and no shortage of people making them. But if you follow the tracks back, you will find that some of those voices making those statements were brought along both by circumstances on the ground, and by my having laid the case out in ways they ultimately could not overcome.

It hasn't worked for everyone. But it has been more successful among resisters than has blunt force, to date.

Waste more of your day at The Next Hurrah.

by Kagro X on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:21:47 AM PDT

He is, of course, talking about making the case for impeachment in his diary about the latest subpoenas announced by the Dems.

And, speaking of subpoenas and their "power":

WASHINGTON - President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.

The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.
[...]
Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

All fine and good but how long will that take? Bush and Cheney could be history by the time a federal court case is decided - if one is even brought forward by the Dems.

But, go gently with the talk of impeachment.

As one commenter said over at dkos, he has "all the time in the world."

The thing is, America doesn't.

June 26th was Torture Awareness Day: Where were the Big Box Blogs?

2007-06-26T22:35:00.000-06:00

One wonders. Finding front-page content (even diaries for that matter) of relevance regarding one of the major human rights crises of our times would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Let's see. MyDD? Silence. Just polls, polls, and more polls.

My Left Wing? One can hear the sound of crickets chirping.

Daily Kos? Barely a peep. The closest we get to anything from the front-pagers is a brief mention of one of Valtin's diaries (hell, might as well go to his blog which should be a must-read to begin with).

Booman Tribune? Be thankful for Steven D., who does at least cover some anti-torture news; and a slightly belated post from Larry Johnson.

I might quote something from a blogger called Death and the Maiden - a new (as of this month) anti-torture blog - that pretty well sums things up:

What? You didn't know? You haven't heard?
Yeah. How 'bout that, huh?
Today's the tenth "International Day in Support of Victims of Torture." It was designated by the UN General Assembly as an annual commemoration of the ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture (20 years ago today). But apparently not too many, including the United Nations, give a rat's ass. You won't hear about it from the mainstream media, and the UN didn't even bother to put it on this year's calendar.
Disappeared. The International Day in Support of Desaparecidos is now itself a desaparecido.
Almost disappeared, that is. The good folks at Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition have events scheduled in Washington DC. Take a look at their web page and sign on to their petition to repeal the 2006 Military Commissions Act.
And after you do that, start making every day Torture Awareness Day in your local community. Check the links in the sidebar of this blog. They have lots of good ideas to help you get started. Don't let torture awareness slide down the chupadero.

Just sayin'.

CALL FOR A DECISION ABOUT MO BETTA

2007-06-26T07:43:00.000-06:00

As one who's name in on the list of contributers to this blog, who remembers well what it once was, and who considered it's founder, Ductape, a personal friend, I am not ok with letting this blog die a long, lingering, messy death.

This was never intended to be some online back alley where individuals drag each other to beat each other up. It once had the purpose of bringing all of us who didn't "fit well " on the mainstream blogs together, so we could discuss and learn from meta issues and how things are out there for all of us who are not easily accepted elsewhere..(us "others") I followed friends here who had been kicked out of other places, because I valued them so much, (whether I always agreed with them or not) and did not want to lose them, ever.

Thats not what this blog is anymore and it hasn't been that for a long time now. To see it deteriorate as it has feels very disrespectful (in my eyes) to it's absent founder, and to it's original worthy purpose. For me, it's just plain painful to watch this.

James and others have tried to keep it going, but it seems to me Mo Betta has completed the purpose for which it was conceived and it's time to let it go now with some dignity, and maybe even the honor of sharing of some of the good memories of what it's meant to those of us who were here in it's good days, when Ductape was still with us.

I hope those still on the masthead will respond to this, and others who once cared about this blog will share their feelings also, so we can make some kind of shared decision together. To perfectly frank, I have very little hope that we, as a group are likely to be able to work closely enough together to make this blog a viable useful place of discourse at this point.

More Donkle Cluelessness

2007-06-19T22:42:00.000-06:00

Starting with this news blurb:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new Democratic-led Congress is drawing the ire of voters upset with its failure to quickly deliver on a promise to end the Iraq war.

This is reflected in polls that show Congress -- plagued by partisan bickering mostly about the war -- at one of its lowest approval ratings in a decade. Surveys find only about one in four Americans approves of it.

"I understand their disappointment," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We raised the bar too high."

[snip]

"If Democrats fail to reverse course, the dynamics in the 2008 elections may shift significantly, allowing Republicans to run as the party of change ... only two years after Democrats successfully campaigned on that same theme," Senate Republican leaders told their ranks in a letter last week.

My emphasis added. Now of course, there are some Donkle partisans who indeed seem shocked (shocked, I tell ya) that the Dems could be swept into majorities in the House and Senate (the former with a solid majority, the latter with a much more tenuous grip on power) and then sit on their arses rather than do something substantive to end the Iraq debacle, etc. A lot of it amounts to many of the Dems being on the same page as the Rethugs when it comes to the maintenance of empire, but I digress. Get past the shock and outrage that a number of disappointed voters are expressing via the internet tubes and we can find a number of die-hard partisans to tell us that everything will be just peachy-keen.

Example 1:

67. I say this is BS

The approval rating of Congress is down because the Republic [sic] senators are standing in the way of ending the war and real progress. Republic [sic] legislators act as if they are not involved in this support of the Iraq occupation, as if they hadn't been involved in rubber stamping all things bush for years. Rove managed to rig just enough senate seats to split the senate and keep the "Do Nothing Congress" as a shield.

If we got all these republic [sic] politicians out of the way, we could make some progress. Republic politicians are standing in the way of progress and are trying to blame Democratic leaders for their rubber stamp of all things bush.

Yeah, it's all the Rethugs' fault for the Dimocrat cave-in on the supplemental war funding bill, the failure to get a no-confidence vote on AG Gonzo, the failure to impeach the Lush/Zany regime, etc.

Example 2:

54. I thought I'd heard everything in the twilight zone of disillusionment...

"If Democrats fail to reverse course, the dynamics in the 2008 elections may shift significantly, allowing Republicans to run as the party of change ... only two years after Democrats successfully campaigned on that same theme," Senate Republican leaders told their ranks in a letter last week.

Give those "Senate Republican leaders" a big dose of reality.

I'm disgusted as anyone that the boy king of corruption has been given a free ride, but the wrath should be also be directed at these "Senate Republican leaders" and their rubber-stamping yes-men for the boy king. Get real.

(Please, Al Gore & Wes Clark: step up to the plate; I've got lots of enthusiasm bottled up with nowhere to go.)

This commenter is slightly more sane, but still all blame on the GOP, and then some wishful thinking that Al Gore and war criminal Wes Clark will "step up to the plate"?

Example 3:

8. bullshit

the rubber stamp republicans are blocking everything.

Keep telling yourself that, kiddo.

Example 4:

2. I'm withholding judgment until September

when Stupid has to come begging for his WAH again. If the Democrats don't point to the unmet benchmarks from May as proof that the war is an unwinnable fiasco and insist on a timetable for withdrawal, they will be finished. They will lose in 2008.

It doesn't matter how many times Stupid vetoes those timetables.

They have to be sent and the Democrats have to insist upon them.

If they don't, people will stay home in 2008 and the fundies will control another election.

At least this one gets that disillusioned voters will sit out 2008. Whether enough sit out to actually cost a Donkle victory at the polls is another matter, as I suspect a substantial number of the currently "disappointed" will go on believing that if only their party has larger majorities that suddenly we'll get a more "progressive" domestic and foreign policy.

Part of the problem

2007-06-14T15:34:00.000-06:00

This diary led to this exchange (among many others). Among the Manichean Donkle mindguards is Elise, who sez:

There are rules at this site. If you can't support Democrats getting elected- find a site that will agree with your silliness and go there.

The thing of it is, as several commentors noted, there is a strong undercurrent of frustration with the Donkle status quo. Sweeping that frustration under the rug, preventing an honest discussion of that frustration, will not make it go away. Rather it will lead to some very surprised Big Orange denizens come November 2008 when election results don't quite break their way.

Just sayin'.

Hat tip to outofwater at Marisacat's blog.

Inane commentary of the week award

2007-06-05T17:50:00.000-06:00

John Arivosis of Americablog deserves the honor:

Dennis Kucinich and Gravel are just annoying.

Sez you. Any thoughts about what either one of them had to say? Didn't think so.

Yeah, I get it, some of you like Kucinich. And that's nice. Joe likes his dog Boomer too.

Patronize much? Again, any thoughts on the content of Kucinich's remarks at the debate?

It doesn't mean he should be on stage with the real candidates. Kucinich has zero chance of winning, as does Gravel - they shouldn't be on the stage taking time from the serious candidates.

On the contrary - Kucinich and Gravel are arguably the only serious candidates there (in terms of saying something). Oh wait - John means "serious" in terms of raising gobs of corporate cash and playing "emperor" should any of those goons actually get "elected." My bad.

Though, oddly, and disturbingly, a number of us at our debate party last night found ourselves agreeing with Gravel repeatedly. It was creepy.

Like, oh my gawd! Like, the next thing you know, we might be agreeing with the person who called orange the new pink (and whoever said that was like totally deranged). Ewww.

kos: You broke it, you own it

2007-05-24T11:11:00.000-06:00

Wednesday: The "mayor" was upset.

I've got to say, of all the things that get me down about this job, there's nothing worse than the people who want to quit the game and take their ball home every time we face a setback. It's as if every word I've ever written about this being a long-term battle means zero. As if it's instant gratification or nothing.
[...]
The conservative movement spent three decades building up their machine and completing the takeover of their party. And some of you want to quit after one setback?

That's embarrassing.

Buck up. We still haven't completely lost this Iraq supplemental battle. And if we do, instead of crying and taking your ball home, resolve to fight even harder. We owe it to our troops in Iraq, to our families, to our neighbors, to ourselves.

Shorter kos: My party, right or wrong.

Shaming is such a handy tool. Who cares about the Dems caving, backing down, capitulating, surrendering, abandoning what they were elected to do? How dare anyone stand on principle and refuse to support them. "Buck up." kos has feelings and you're embarassing him.

Thursday: After realizing that his party really is full of a bunch of sellouts and spineless Bush appeasers - many of which his glorified ATM machine helped elect.

So who's fault is it we have this turkey on our hands?

The most obvious culprit are the Republicans, who'd rather keep seeing our troops die in the Iraqi desert than admit their Dear Leader has made a blunder of epic proportion. But that's too easy. We won control of Congress last year. Congressional Republicans should be irrelevant.

So it's on to the Democrats, who appear to have learned nothing from the last few elections, and continue to cling to outdated CW like, "Voters think Democrats are weak because we don't want to bomb the shit out of other countries."

Voters think Democrats are weak -- and I'm in this camp -- because if Democrats don't fight for what they believe in, then what will they fight for? How can we trust them to do what's right when they'll jump at shadows?

I guess that's what happens when you get out of that pity party you were having in your head the day before when you decided to take it out on everybody else except the elected Democrats and finally smell the fucking coffee.

Oh, but wait...

So yeah, it's the Democrats fault. But do we blame the whole caucus, or do we blame the Blue Dog/DLC/Third Way Dems who held this supplemental hostage? From simple deduction (looking at the votes on the Warner and Feingold-Red [sic] amendments), the culprits are:

Pryor
Lincoln
Landrieu
Nelson
Nelson
Salazar

Conspicuously absent: Webb, Tester, Sherrod Brown... kos-approved (tm) Blue Dogs.

There are many individual Democrats who are heroically fighting against this war, and will vote against this blank check Capitulation Bill. But they've been let down by their leadership. I don't pretend to understand the legislative process, but last time I checked, the leadership has broad powers to control what legislation reaches the floor for a vote.

Gee. You'd think that after having a political blog for a few years, he'd actually take some time to learn about the legislative process? And those heroic Dems are those you continue to marginalize, kos. Does the name Kucinich ring a bell? The most you could bring yourself to say about him was "ugh".

kos: finally jumping on the obvious bandwagon, a day late and a dollar short after realizing that people aren't buying his "it's just about winning" game anymore.

So 80% of blogs contain "offensive" content

2007-04-26T12:20:00.000-06:00

As an editorial response, Mo Betta META points our readers to the following audio presentation: The Fucking Moon, by The Evolution Control Committee.

Or, if you prefer, here's a video via YouTube:

New features at Mo Betta META

2007-04-21T12:33:00.000-06:00

We're now using Haloscan for comments. It has some features that make it better than the old Blogger comment feature. We've also effectively frozen the ability to comment via Blogger, although anything that's already been posted will remain displayed for posterity (and there was much rejoicing!). For shits and giggles, we've also got a trackback link for each post just in case you feel like you can't live without us knowing what you're saying on your blogs.

Otherwise, it's your dime. Spill it.

kos v Feminism

2007-04-15T21:46:00.000-06:00

kos's original post about Kathy Sierra

"progressive" blogosphere outrage ensues

kos's non-apology

"progressive" blogosphere response ensues

one bloggers sums the scenario up quite succinctly

kos apologists fall in line and defend their man

Discuss.

(Mysogynists not welcome. We've heard your crap 1000 times over. It's old, stale, pointless and comes from a place of fear. Go hang out with this guy instead or just do us all a favour and seek intensive therapy.)

Alternative to What, Exactly ?

2007-04-11T14:19:00.000-06:00

[This here's a post from an online feminist pal of long-standing: Nelsolidarida. She hails from England, is an Anarchist, a vegan, and also keeps an avenging army of magical ducks. So don't cross her. She also likes to knit garments and household goods featuring skulls and Deadly Nightshade. I am re-posting this with a few tiny edits and with her express permission, because I love it. A lot of it relates well to online discussion though her main focus in the piece is on IRL events and interactions. Her home page can be found at Solidarida, of course. Enjoy !-- ms_xeno ]

Ok, so i'm out of the 'no blogging while supposed to be working' phase and into a 'maybe this will give me some writing practice and wake my brain up' phase. Don't know how long it will last...

Anyway, 'alternative'. What does it mean? (feel free to contribute here) I don't know what my 'alternative' credentials are, or if i have any. I certainly don't look alternative most of the time. But i'm not convinced i fit the evil, capitalist, tory, tankist, stalinist pig-dog mould that seems to be, if you like, the alternative to alternative.

Know what? I don't hate activists. If you're reading this and i speak to you, bother to engage with you at any level, ever agree with you on anything, etc, then chances are i don't hate you. I don't hate most individual activists, or most of the movements/campaigns i have any common ground with. I don't even hate animal rights activists. I just happen to be around them more and have more scope to be annoyed. Plus, my feelings about particular people or groups don't have a lot of bearing on how I see the issues they represent. I don't stop being a feminist because I'm pissed off with the endless blog wars and general vindictive behaviour, neither are my views on porn changed because certain anti-porn bloggers have behaved obnoxiously at any point. (again, if you're bothering to read this, I probably don't mean you.)

Genuine political convictions, especially ones i agree with, I have no problem with. Unless we're talking BNP-type stuff, natch. [British National Party aka Far Right-Wingers -- ms_xeno] What I do have a huge problem with is the 'scene' that emerges around these, and the policing that goes with that. Yeah, not everyone can go on every demo. Live with it. Stick your guilt trip where the sun doesn't shine. (Seriously, it doesn't shine from there.) Sorry if that sounds bitter. Unless you're one of the people who does this, all. the. time. In which case I'm not remotely sorry.

Also, policing of this sort is unnecessary unless someone's job is totally contradictory to the campaign with which they're getting involved. Or unless it is at odds with having any kind of social conscience. For example, if someone makes electroshock batons, they deserve to be ostracized by everyone except the out-and-out Neo-Nazis who get turned on by such things. Otherwise, maybe excluding somebody from "the movement" because of the job that provides their food and shelter isn't a good thing.

Conversely, geting all single-issue, this is all that matters, everyone else is shit including other activists, is also not a way to get people around to your point of view. No, being a vegan and going to demos doesn't excuse the fact that your mate likes to beat the crap out of his girlfriend. And the person who misses demos because the guy who abused her is there? Maybe not the one you need to crap on.

But the really annoying thing is the people who get all suspicious because you don't 'look' alternative. Newsflash, folks - police informers generally try to blend in. Fake nose studs and all. They have been known to provide a nice little comedy turn at demos when they are really obvious. So maybe, if this is your real reason for looking askance at the person who comes in straight from work in clothes that they wear for a relatively straight job, you could be looking the wrong way. But maybe that isn't why? Guess what. I did look alternative for a long time. I did a long, long, stint of being bullied for it, as well as for having the ideas that went with it. I've had meat waved in my face and attempts made to cut my dreads off from behind. And guess what else? My basic principles haven't changed. The only caving-in was in my own perception of myself - from worth something to worth pretty much nothing. Happy? I hope so, because i've experienced nearly as much grief over being the odd one out in an activist community where i agree with most people on most points as i did in the same position in a group of rather shallow teenagers.

I'm not going to turn into one of those boring people who tells activists that they'll never get their message across if they don't smarten up. Long as i don't see you wearing fur, which is a whole other thing, i seriously don't have a problem. But, please, don't turn being alternative into yet another form of conformity. Closed communities don't change the world. -- Nelsolidarida, April 9th, 2007.

Weekend Open Thread-- Now With Song Break !!

2007-04-07T19:25:00.000-06:00

Just a bit of self-imposed nostalgia. I penned this ages ago in net-time. Every once in awhile I feel an uncontrollable urge to post it again. (To the tune of "I Love Trash," as sung by Oscar the Grouch.) Enjoy !

Oh, I love trolls
Anyone sexist, rude and patronizing
Anyone spamming porn or advertising
Yes, I love trolls !!

I have here a troll with a rank song and dance
Its brains are located way down in its pants
I’ve read better prose in a Cartland romance
I love it ’cause it’s a troll !!

Oh, I love trolls
Anyone fighting the war from his armchair
Anyone clueless on choice or on childcare
Yes, I love trolls !

Now trolls are diverse
They have rich, varied lives
Be they gun-nuts or Rand freaks or “surrendered wives”
Any feminist thought makes ‘em drop dead from hives
I love ‘em because they’re trolls !

Oh, I love trolls
Any triathlete of hate, greed and misquotes
Any ass blaming the world’s ills on my votes
Yes, I love trolls !!

So it’s evil to feed ‘em and pointless to vent
Sure, it drags down our discourse 100%
Still, if you can’t shell out for both cable AND rent
You’ll love ‘em because they’re trolls !!

(last chorus same as the first)

Communication

2007-04-02T19:31:00.000-06:00

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
- Hubert Humphrey

The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
-George Bernard Shaw

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.
- Edward R Murrow

Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.
- Dr Laurence J Peter

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
- Epictetus

Communication works for those who work at it.
- John Powell

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
-Arabian Proverb

"Nag Nag Nag"

2007-04-01T01:25:00.000-06:00

A Cabaret Voltaire video from their 1979 single. Just to whet the appetite, here's a bit from Methodology: 74/78 Attic Tapes -

I remember the 70s as a time of austerity, a crackdown after the so-called liberal times of the 60s. Racism, repressive policing, hijackings, Baader Meinhof, The Angry Brigade, Operation Julie, cheap sulphate, boredom, industrial unrest, but a feeling that something was on the boil within an alienated and disaffected "youth culture."

[snip]

I suppose we took our cue (and also our name) from the Dada movement and maybe in retrospect from the situationist movement. The bottom line is, it was never just about music, but about confrontation, challenging peoples conceptions on everything from sound and image to reality itself. Trying to be a thorn in the side of authority. From run of the mill war obsessed jobsworths, constables, in fact anybody who wore a badge, to politicians. All considered fair game for baiting and satirization. In some ways though it was just an innocent reflection of the times, not different from the Beach Boys singing about surfing and the good times in California. But there was no surf to ride in Sheffield, just postwar desolation, unemployment and ugly urban landscapes.

My emphasis added.

Message to the Messengers

2007-03-30T23:39:00.000-06:00

First an allegory in DK lyrics:

STEALING PEOPLE'S MAIL

We ain’t goin’ to the party / We ain’t goin’ to the game / We ain’t goin’ to the disco / Ain’t gonna cruise down Main / We’re stealing people’s mail / Stealing people’s mail / Stealing people’s mail / On a Friday night / Drivin’ in the mountains / Winding ‘round and ‘round / Rummage through your mailboxes / Take your mail back to town / We got license plates, wedding gifts, tax return / Checks to politicians from real estate firms / Money, bills and canceled checks / Pretty funny pictures of your kids / We’re stealing people’s mail / On a Friday night / We’re stealing people’s mail / By the pale moonlight / We got grocery sackful after grocery sackful / After grocery sackful after grocery sackful / After grocery sackful after grocery sackful / Of the private lives of you / Ha Ha / People say that we’re crazy / Sick and all alone / But when we read your letters / We’re rolling on the floor / We got more license plates, wedding gifts, tax returns / Checks to politicians from real estate firms / Money, bills and canceled checks / We cut relationships with your friends / We’re gonna steal your mail / On a Friday night / We’re gonna steal your mail / By the pale moonlight / We better not get caught / We’ll be dumped in institutions / Where we’ll be drugged and shocked / ‘Til we come out born-again Christians…

CHICKENSHIT CONFORMIST

Punk’s not dead / It just deserves to die / When it becomes another stale cartoon / A closed-minded, self centered social club / Ideas don’t matter, it’s who you know / If the music’s gotten boring / It’s because of the people / Who want everyone to sound the same / Who drive bright people out / Of our so-called scene / ‘Til all that’s left / Is just a meaningless fad / Hardcore formulas are dogshit / Change and caring are what’s real / Is this a state of mind / Or just another label? / The joy and hope of an alternative / Has become its own cliché / A hairstyle’s not a lifestyle / Imagine Sid Vicious at 35 / Who needs a scene / Scared to love and to feel / Judging everything / By loud fast rules appeal / Who played last night? / “I don’t know, I forgot. / But diving off the stage / Was a lot of fun” / Chorus: So eager to please / Peer pressure decrees / So eager to please / Peer pressure decrees / Make the same old mistakes / Again and again / Chickenshit conformist / Like your parents / What’s ripped us apart even more than drugs / Are the thieves and the goddamn liars / Ripping people off when they share their stuff / When someone falls are there any friends? / Harder core than thou for a year or two / Then it’s time to get a real job / Others stay home, it’s no fun to go out / When the gigs are wrecked by gangs and thugs / When the thugs form bands, look who gets record deals / From New York metal labels looking to scam / Who sign the most racist queerbashing bands they can / To make a buck revving kids up for war / Walk tall, act small / Only as tough as gang approval / Unity is bullshit / When it’s under someone’s fat boot / Where’s the common cause / Too many factions / Safely sulk in their shells / Agree with us on everything / Or we won’t help with anything / That kind of attitude / Just makes a split grow wider / Guess who’s laughing while the world explodes / When we’re all crybabies / Who fight best among ourselves / (Chorus) / That farty old rock and roll attitude’s back / “It’s competition, man, we wanna break big.” / Who needs friends when the money’s good? / That’s right, the ‘70’s are back. / Cock-rock metal’s like a bad laxative / It just don’t move me, ya know? / The music’s OK when there’s more ideas that solos / De we really need the attitude too? / Shedding thin skin too quickly / As a fan it disappoints me. / Same old stupid sexist lyrics / Or is Satan all you can think of? / Crossover is just another word / For lack of ideas / Maybe what we need / Are more trolls under the bridge / Will the metalheads finally learn something- / Or will the punks throw away their education? / No one’s ever the best / Once they believe their own press / “Maturing” don’t mean rehashing / Mistakes of the past / (Chorus) / The more thing change / The more they stay the same / We can’t grow / When we won’t criticize ourselves / The ‘60’s weren’t all failure / It’s the ‘70’s that stunk / As the clock ticks we dig the same hole / Music scenes ain’t real life / They won’t get rid of the bomb / Won’t eliminate rape / Or bring down the banks / Any kind of real change / Takes more time and work / Than changing channels on a TV set / (Chorus)

DO THE SLAG

Have you heard about the latest craze / That’s sweepin’ across the nation? / All the punks from coast to coast / Have discovered an old invention: / “Your hair’s too long / Man, you’re a queer / You’re too new wave / Put down that beer” / And / Do the Slag - Look at ‘em run / Do the Slag - Hey you scum / Do the Slag - Ain’t it fun / Do the Slag - Let’s all be dumb / Badmouth people we don’t know / Make sure it’s behind their backs / Don’t let new people in our scene / It’s more fun than having a friend / We’ll slag everyone each and every night / So we can pretend that we’re all right / Make those pricks feel just so small / We’ll show the world that we’re three feet tall / Slander their integrity / Doubt their humanity / Talk about their haircuts / Are their politics correct? / Do the Slag! / Don’t let those sissies on the floor / They’re unhip, man, they bought the wrong clothes / Let’s all do the latest craze / ‘Cause having allies never pays / We’ll slag everyone each and every night / So we can pretend that we’re all right / Make those pricks feel just so small / We’ll show the world that we’re three feet tall

Now, it's story time. Just sit right back, while your uncle James tells y'all about a party long ago in a place far, far away:

Back in the day, I was digging on the punk scene. If you don't know what that was, just ask your Uncle Wikipedia. Well, one Friday night, I was invited to a party at a friend's apartment. Just a gathering of punks - hangin' out, having a few beers, checking out some tunes. Now I came along with a close friend of mine at the time (we'll call him J), and knowing the cats who were hosting the evening's festivities, we were expecting a good time. But, as the evening wore on, we just never got that vibe. The crowd was a bit younger - that's cool and all, but somehow I got the feeling that how we weren't quite digging the same scene, see. The epiphany for both me and J came when an old DK tune (Stealing People's Mail) started blaring through the stereo speakers. J and I had an idea of what that song was getting at (hint: don't take the lyrics literally), so we were shocked by what this girl said as the song ended - "oh yeah! that's cool. I love stealing mail!" - as if that's what the song was about. Her young friends were nodding and grinning with agreement. J and I left not long afterwards, bored out of our skulls. We talked a bit as I drove him back to his pad about the state of the punk scene, and pretty much came to the conclusion that punk was indeed dead (or at least comatose), and that for that girl and her friends, punk had been reduced to stealing people's mail for kicks. No questioning of the culture. No questioning of the economic and political situation. Just fucking with people for the sake of fucking with people. We didn't quiz these kids about their understanding of anarchy (they had made sure to wear the requisite circle-A black buttons and t-shirts that night), but I'm guessing that it was different from the sort of anarchy that J and I had grooved on. Of course the signs that the scene was decaying had been around for a while - but that night there was no question and no turning back.

Now kiddos, I know you're wondering what the moral of the story is. I'll leave that for you to figure out. Sleep on it. Just remember, some day down the road, you'll have to decide where to draw the line. Sweet dreams.

For those unclear on the concept

2007-03-30T12:29:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd repost Ductape Fatwa's inaugural post at MoBetta META as a friendly reminder regarding this blog's purpose:

Welcome to Mo Betta META!

Has that annoyingly transparent DLC/CIA/Mosaad operative just chewed your last nerve?

Are you absolutely positive that your head will explode if HappyDem08 over on Progressives for Advertising Revenue replies to one more news post about atrocities in Lebanon telling you that if you will only send Russ Feingold money that at least maybe some of them will be exterminated in a more humane manner, and that's a pretty good and progressive start, and he's a DEM?

Would you be rich if you had a dime for every time you have wanted to type HELL NO I DO NOT SUPORT THE DAMN TROOPS, when in the wake of this or that new atrocity that has somehow made it into US corporate media, you are treated to responses about a few bad apples and most of them are really helping grateful Iraqis?

Have you despaired and stopped posting at one or more places because whether you post your actual opinion or a page from the Jakarta phone book, the replies will be the same?

Do you have something you really need to say about blog behavior but you are sick and tired of threads about people dying and the fate of nations turning into METAPaLoozas?

Well, this is your place! Have at it!

Name names, post links, but remember, they can read it too.. .

It's about as close to a mission statement as I can find here. Hell, that's pretty much what I signed on for. Just sayin'.

Addiction?

2007-03-30T05:57:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I discovered the liberal/progressive blogs. I spent many wonderful hours reading and conversing with intelligent adults. I ate up so much wonderfully astute political commentary that taught me so much. I reveled in the in depth discussions on so many topics I was hungry to discuss with civil, reasonable folks.

How I admired those who had the tech skills and fortitude to set up and take on running the "Community" blogs, and yes, grateful for them too, as one who is mobility limited and can no longer move so easily around the outside world. The internet is a literally blessing to people like me: it widens horizans endlessly. I had this long list of blogs I visited daily. You get familiar with folks who write on regularly visited blogs: many you come to respect over time.

You can get very attached to online "communities", to the point where they seem almost more real that the life one lives in the face to face world. As a recovering alcoholic, I can clearly identify the periods in my own blogging history, where "addiction" was the only accurate term to describe my own behaviors.

In fact some of those memories now make me cringe a bit. (Ok, ok, a lot! ) Like actually having physical withdrawal symptoms like sweaty hands and increased anxiety, when my dial up connection went down or my computer fell ill. Or the days and days I didn't eat right, exercise enough, or get anything else done, because I couldn't tear myself away from the latest flame war or blog drama. Even if I wasn't participating in them, I HAD to read those threads all the way through to the bitter end, ever one of them, AND follow all the links to whatever "evidence" people were presenting of someone else's bad behaviors!

Far far into the night I'd sit, glued to the screen until some bodily pain or function would penetrate my brain enough to get my attention! (Uh oh! I seem to be frozen in place here..how AM I going to get off this chair?! ) Then fall into bed, only to awaken with the obsessive need to get back ONLINE to see what I'd missed while I slept, which, more often than I care to admit, meant most of another day hunched over this keyboard, especially when I WAS involved in whatever current conflict was happening. Oh, the "high" of besting someone with a really snarky insult! Or coming up with an winning point that clearly scored points!

During those internet binges of mine, the cat was lucky to even get dinner and I ate , when I remembered to eat, whatever I could hold in one hand while working the mouse with the other! Wasn't all that different than the old days, when drinking was more important to me than paying attention to my kids.

There were many uncomfortable, bleary eyed moments, when realizing another five hours, six hours, seven hours at a time had"disappeared" somehow, another whole day was gone..and I'd not done one thing BUT sit in front of this screen, I knew this was out of control. I'd vow to not DO this anymore! How stupid is it to spend ones life living out soap opera type dramas over and over and over?! Yet, invariably, in my worst of times, guess what? Yep. Just one more mouse click, check just once more to see if X or Y or Z has responded to my last clever jab, and.... oops..there goes some more life hours down the crapper.

And oh, the internal emotional misery all of this caused me at times! Over and over, (I see now, but couldn't see then!), old emotional triggers within would get tripped, and my reactions to whoever was online became all tangled up in unresolved reactions to real people or trauma, in my past..and I suffered the same old hurts over and over. Now I can see it wasn't much different than some forms of self abuse...to continue to subject myself to those who seemed to be mirror images of real people I had long ago detatched myself from, in order to get healthier!
Like picking open healed wounds, over and over again. Old patterns like this can get reactivated, I find, if I don't pay good enough attention to my own behaviors. And they did, big time, through the internet "bingeing" I was doing then.

Now that I have some distance from those days, I honestly can't see a whole lot of difference between the effects of my addictive internet behavior, and the effects of the genuine relapses back to active alcoholism I suffered for so many years before finally staying sober. The people in my face to face word got nothing of me. I didn't take decent care of my body or my mind. Nothing got done. Everything went south, except my driving need to read read read, type type type some more.

I'm better now, thank goodness. But just as with my a1coho1 addiction, I wi11 have to remain vigi1ent about not getting hooked back in. Because I am sort of 1ike this keyboard, on which the 1etter that comes before "m", has just quit working, having succumbed, apparent1y to one too many coffee spewings, forcing me to use the sma11 number "1" instead in order to finish this. I too, am not perfect, nor am I power1ess. I am vunerab1e to a11 sorts of human frai1ties 1ike everyone e1se is and I just need to remember this, and assume responsibi1ity for my own choices.

Now I sha11 view the 1oss of one of my 1etters as a "sign" it is now time for me to get up and go c1ean the 1itter box, so I can fee1 good about getting that done before I go out for 1unch with a friend, who actua11y has a face I can see!! :)

Open thread

2007-03-28T22:14:00.000-06:00

"...and shut up Zorak, because you're not gonna rain on my charade."

Note: Quote from Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Episode 37 ("Anniversary")

Bonus with video:

Paranoia will destroy ya!

the Masturbatorium - a primer

2007-03-26T14:53:00.000-06:00

The cast:

- the nararrator, a 12 year old boy named Augusten
- Augusten's mother, Deirdre
- Deirdre's shrink, Dr. Finch (sometimes shortened to Dr. F)
- Dr. Finch's receptionist & daughter, Hope

from Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (St. Martin's, 2002, pp. 33-36)

(Note: this is a work of fiction & any resemblance to real meat is sheer serendipity.)

Dr F offers mother & son a tour of his backroom, to which, he explains he often retires . . .

"Between patients. After patients. Sometimes if a patient is particularly tedious, I will excuse myself to the Masturbatorium."

Our allegorical curtain now rises:

But opening the door to the Masturbatorium revealed a surprise. Hope had left her post as receptionist and was napping on the seedy couch.

"What is this?" Finch bellowed. "Hope!" he boomed.

Hope startled awake. "Jesus, Dad. You scared the shit out of me." She blinked against the light. "Oh my God, what's the matter with you?"

Finch was furious. "Hope, you have no business being in here. This is my masturbatorium and you're using my blanket." He pointed at the colorful crocheted throw Hope had wrapped around herself.

The tassels along the edge were stuck together.

"Dad, I was just taking a nap."

"This is not the place for naps," he bellowed.

My mother turned around to leave. "I think I'll get a fresh cup of Sanka."

"Wait a minute, Deirdre," Finch said.

My mother froze. "Yes?"

"Do you see how Hope's behavior is wrong?" he asked.

My mother brought her cigarette to her mouth. "Well, I really don't know."

Hope sat up on the couch.

"Deirdre, answer me," Finch demanded. "Do you see how Hope's sneaking in here and invading my private space is wrong?"

After a moment of thinking about it, my mother said, "Well, I can understand not liking one's space invaded. I can understand how it would be upsetting to have somebody messing with your things without asking."

"Then confront her!" Finch directed.

I stood back, not wanting to get sucked in.

"Well, I . . ."

"Deirdre, speak up! Tell Hope what you feel."

My mother looked at Hope as if to say, What can I do? Then she said, "Hope, I don't think it's right for you to disturb your father's space without asking."

"This is none of your business, Deirdre," Hope said. Her eyes were squinty with anger.

My mother took another long drag from her cigarette and tried to leave again. "I really think I'll just get another cup of Sanka."

Finch grabbed her arm. "Just a minute there, Deirdre. Are you going to let Hope walk all over you like that? Jesus Christ, Deirdre. Are you going to be Hope's doormat?"

My mother turned sharply to Finch. "I'm not Hope's goddamned doormat, Finch. This just isn't any of my business; she's right. It's between you and your daughter."

"Bullshit!" Finch shouted. "That's just pure evasive bullshit."

"It most certainly is not," my mother said. She tossed her cigarette on the floor and mashed it out with the toe of her sandal. "I am not getting in the middle of this." She brushed imaginary lint off the front of her black turtleneck.

Hope said, "Dad, you're overreacting. Leave Deirdre out of this. It is between you and me."

"You," he said, pointing at her, "Stay the hell out of this."

Hope shrunk against the back of the sofa.

"What do you think, young man?" he said, looking to me.

"I think you're all crazy," I said.

. . . The office was stuffy, hot. There was a fan in the window that was blowing out. I wanted to turn it so it blew into the room, but Hope insisted that it was better to blow the hot air out of the room, as opposed to sucking the warm air in. "I hate my life," I said.

George Oppen, in section 20 (the half-way point) of the highly pertinent poem from the late 60's, "Of Being Numerous":

—They await

War, and the news
Is war

As always
That the juices may flow in them
Tho the juices lie.

Great things have happpened
On the earth and given it history, armies
And the ragged hordes moving and the passions
Of that death. But who escapes
Death

Among these riders
Of the subway.

They know
By now as I know

Failure and the guilt
Of failure.
As in Hardy's poem of Christmas

We might half-hope to find the animals
In the sheds of a nation
Kneeling at midnight,

Farm animals,
Draft animals, beasts for slaughter
Because it would mean they have forgiven us,

Or which is the same thing,
That we do not altogether matter.

The Blogosphere Experiment

2007-03-26T07:55:00.000-06:00

These thoughts come solely from personal observations of, and experience with groups of all kinds, in many different venues, over many years, rather than on any academic basis, so as such, are totally subjective. However, studying human behaviors has been a lifetime fascination for me, and one I have delved deeply into, online especially, over this past ten years.

When people "group themselves up" in any setting, they all bring baggage with them. Every single one of us have bags full of unresolved issues of one sort or another, some we know about, some we don't. So, there we are, in the midst of a group, and as we interact on more and more intense levels, some of those suitcases will pop open, and stuff will spill out..it is inevitable. Conflicts arise. Misunderstandings, mis-perceptions, over reactions, projection super defensiveness, attack/counter attack..you name it, it is GOING to happen, in any group, sooner or later, no matter how "cohesive" it seemed to be at the start.

This has gotten labeled as "dysfunctional" in this label loving, disease oriented culture. I don't think it is, although I used to. Now I see this as a "process" through which we learn HOW to get along: what works and what doesn't, to learn more about who we are..and how we are..through the feedback and reactions of others. To learn more about others. Messy and sometimes painful as hell? Certainly. So is childbirth. So are all developmental growing pains, to some degree.

Anyway, the likelihood of this kind of process getting kicked off in any grouping, go up astronomically in a limited medium like this, where all we have of each other to work with, is written communication and NO non verbal cues at all!

Non verbal communication is by far and away more impactful than spoken or written words, and here are trying to make do with only about 30 to 40 percent of the info we need to fully communicate with each other. It's a wonder we get as much decent communication accomplished as we do!

Ok. Back to what is considered "dysfunctionality" in groups, (that I see more as a learning process.) No two of us are ever at the same place in terms of being "ready to learn" things. Or to take in new info. Some are ready to hear honest mirroring and feedback from others, and many are certainly are NOT at that stage of their lives yet, and will perceive it as an "attack" instead.

And many have no CLUE as to how to offer objective feedback in non threatening or non-judgemental manner. Thus they are almost guaranteed to trip trigger points right and left and engender immediate "defensive counter-attack."

And to make it almost inevitable that things will deteriorate if all of this goes on too long is this simple fact: most of us cannot make the simple differentiation between a persons "behaviors" and a persons 'intrinsic worth" as a human being. So we end up attacking each others basic character and/or integrity as a human being, based on written words said on a screen.

That's it. That's all we are reacting to. Words on a screen. A persons visible behavior of the moment, that may or may not reflect who that person truly is at all, if we were to come to actually know them. It took me a long time to "get" that simple reality.

My behaviors are one thing: my worth as a human being is another thing. They do not always match. There were many times in my life when my behaviors were rotten and hurtful to others, because I had no insight into myself at all at the time and my baggage was in charge of me, not my essential core self. I know now my core self was never really "rotten," Just misguided. Ignorant of truths I had yet to learn. Affected by an addiction I was not ready to own and traumatic issues still stuck where I couldn't see them yet. That made me a fallible human, not a "rotten" one. A" fixable" human being, once I was ready to do it.

Ok. So one way or another, we find ourselves in these groups that feel and seem to be falling apart at the freaking seams. all around our ears. Some of us panic, not wanting to lose whatever measure of belonging we had found..and attack the hell out of any visible outsiders that might be "causing" this fracturing. Or we may turn on each other. Or we may decide to walk away altogether. All of these are understandable human behaviors given wherever we each are at in our own lives.

But sometimes, this dynamic seems to escalate and takes on a life of it's own. It begins to spread, like a virus, from place to place. Once it gets inside of us, we can end up carry it like any contagious viri, wherever else we go outside our own "group"..and infect others along the way. Until it can reach an epidemic stage.

I believe this is what we're seeing now, in the liberal blogosphere. Not only did we all bring our own personal "baggage" to these blogs, which in itself is a hell of a growth challenge, we also were all facing head on, the visible proof of the internal demolition of our entire country unfolding before our wide open eyes.

Now THAT ...is one hell of a load to place on humans who are only connected via 30 -40 percent of our ability to communicate with each other, folks. Maybe an impossible load to expect fallible human beings to handle. I will posit that it is an impossible load at this time in our evolution.

Blog owners, whether big or small, are first and foremost, imperfect human beings at various stages of maturing. Yet somehow, the expectation seems to exist that they ought to be some kind of highly advanced species, suddenly able to do what has never been done successfully in any group of humans: please everyone and never make a single mistake! Good luck with that.

Community members who loyally align themselves with these "community" type blogs, also seem to expect something that has never yet been perfected in human history: a peaceful, collaborative, community with little to no serious conflict or disruption! Good luck with that too..especially when communication with just written words that are often interpreted differently by nearly everyone reading them! And with public doorways wide open to whoever wishes to wander in!

So my conclusions are that "community political blogs" have been a necessary, valuable and fascinating " step ahead" using new technology, in the overall human search for better ways to come together and relate effectively.

I think this "step" has served pretty much served it's purpose quite well, and is now in process of ending itself naturally so people can pick up whatever they have earned from it, and use it for the next step ahead, whatever that will turns out to be.

I am pretty darned sure what it will take online, is a separation between "political blogs" and "community blogs". I do not see the two goals as compatible at all. You add politics, or religion for that matter, as a focus point in any "communal gathering" and stand back..fireworks are inevitable.

Politics is only one of many ties that can bind us together in some sense of "community".
"Debate" is not the only satisfying from of human interaction. But those who love these things most, would still have them everywhere, on political discussion boards.

Those who, for whatever reasons, desire the sense of having online "community" with others they wish to maintain connection with, can also choose to build those kinds of sites on line, in whatever format works for them.

But as far as I can see, mixing politics and "community" is an experiment that has proven impossible to maintain, due to the levels of toxicity and pollution that they have produced, and it's time to pack up and move on to the next experiment. :)

It is what you make of it...

2007-03-26T00:14:00.000-06:00

The Blogroll Purge Fallout Continues

2007-03-22T13:08:00.000-06:00

When I signed up for one of those aggregators that I wanted to be a part of a while ago (you know, the directories that you show you belong to by adding their little button to the sidebar of your site), I also subscribed to a blog marketing newsletter (which I hardly read anyway - but I do come across some interesting stuff in it now and then).

The other day, the newsletter included a link to an article about how Google rankings work which included info about the effect of being included on the blogrolls of popular sites. I decided to send that link to skippy because he's been very involved in blogging about the blogroll purge. He posted the info on his site and throughout blogtopia (y!sctp!) including over at BooMan Tribune where BooMan partly rebutted skippy's post with this. (You'll recall that BooMan was very forgiving of kos after his site was purged from the Almighty dkos blogroll).

markos gave every diarist their own blogroll, thereby immensely increasing the number of bloglinks emanating from his site. i don't know how powerful those links are compared to the homepage, but it would seem he has greatly increased the potential for helping google rankings and taking himself out of the decision making process.

skippy, being the investigative kangaroo that he is, then contacted the author of that Google rankings article and has posted his response and it's not good news, nor does it support BooMan's suppositions - a fact BooMan is not very happy about. Nor should he be. (You'll notice that a kos defender™ has predictably shown up in that thread to stand up for King kos' now-tarnished honour. Those minions work so hard. I wonder what they get out of it - besides absolutely nothing from kos and egg on their faces).

In a nutshell, for those who are less technologically inclined, the shorter version of the author's answers is that there certainly is a big difference between being linked to from a blogroll on the main page of Daily Kos as opposed to being included in an individual's blogroll. In fact, the way kos and his technical team have things set up behind the scenes, the "bots" that search his site have actually been disabled in a way that totally obliterates the recognition of the blogrolls of individual Daily Kos members.

the diary owner's blogrolls are being disallowed to googlebot by the robots.txt files. the url structure of the diary owners' blogrolls is like this:

http://www.dailykos.com/user/username/blogroll

because of this line in the robots.txt file - "disallow: /user" - google isn't allowed to visit those diary users' blogroll pages, and index them, and follow the links upon them. in terms of ranking value for these user blogrolls, there is none, because google isn't allowed to visit those pages.

So, there you have it.

The individual blogroll compromise that was offered by kos after Blogroll Amnesty Day is worthless in terms of how your site might be picked up via a Google search. Overall, that does affect your site's rankings and your ability to use those rankings to do things like justifying a higher ad price if you're into the money-making end of the blogosphere.

And yes, skippy and others certainly do have the right to say "I told you so". Good work, roo. That's why you're skippy and others...are not.

The Politics of Powerlessness

2007-03-20T22:16:00.000-06:00

There are many times when the personal and the political cross paths in life, leading us to seek answers to deal with individual and/or collective grievances. Less seldom though comes the opportunity to quickly understand the roots and solutions in a way that's immediately helpful and enlightening - allowing you to think outside of the box by realizing a paradigm shift that's actually practical and useful.

I was lucky enough to have one of those moments today.

The idea of writing about the politics of powerlessness struck me after posting what should have been a rather benign personal admission on my blog yesterday in reaction to Budget 2007.

I wrote:

I hesitate to add this because some might think it's selfish or that I'm unable to see the impact on society of some of the larger measures announced but, as a mid-40s woman on permanent disability living well below the poverty line, there's nothing I can see in these announcements that will have a directly positive impact on my daily life or standard of living. It's been that way every year for a long time now. I think too many of us are too often forgotten...

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that, as a poor person, I could write something like that without being attacked for it. You see, the only people who have the right to comment on government budgets are those in the business community, the middle class, CEOs, financial consultants, politicians and anyone who pays taxes. They are the acceptable spokespeople who have that right in this society. If you are poor and sick, somehow you forfeit that right and any comment coming from you constitutes whining and ingratitude, especially if you live on a social assistance program provided by the government (regardless of how pathetic the amount may be.)

That attack came in the form of insults from someone who knows me personally - someone who hasn't said anything they included in their now deleted comment to me in real life. Someone who is in a position of power over me. That is being dealt with privately.

I was already feeling crushed by powerlessness last nite after writing about the 4th anniversary of the Iraq war - a war that those with governmental power seem in no mood to end anytime soon. I'm a strong person. I'm also antiwar. I had thought that when the Democrats regained power, they would move as quickly as possible to use the power that they had in every way they could to end that illegal and immoral war. They haven't. So, when insult was literally added to a pre-existing injury on Monday nite - that feeling of despair was compounded. It was agonizing. Yes, I do have weak moments. We all do.

That brought the intersection of politics and powerlessness that I've grappled with the last 24 hours.

In the Budget 2007 thread, one of my regular, invaluable and very knowledgable commenters named Scotian expressed exactly what I was feeling:

I can relate, oh how can I relate. While my medical condition is different than yours the overall similarities you and I both experience in the referenced quote above is basically identical. To look at me one would not know aside from the fact I walk with a cane that I had much wrong with me since all the damage is to the soft tissues and the nerves and circulatory system. I just love when people start trying to tell me they know how I feel because they had a surgery, or some minor long term disorder, why is it some people feel the need for pissing contests as to who has suffered the most pain or is the most impaired/disabled/etc? I mean really, what is up with that? I am sure you know of exactly what I am referring to in your own life.

A week without pain, eh? These days if I work up without feeling any pain I'd be terrified I was dead, it has been my constant companion for so long. Seriously though, I know what you mean. Watching the way these budgets leave people like you and me to fend for ourselves is not exactly a comforting feeling, is it. Like yourself I never asked to be incapable of working/providing for myself, and I hate having to accept "charity" from the taxpayers, but it is either that or literally death for me, so what else I am supposed to do? Yet that is enough for many to brand me as some sort of parasite and a waste of tax dollars, which is one of the reasons I rarely mention my own health issues. It is not worth the grief.

I am so tired of having people tell me I should be so grateful I get to live without working, that I am so lucky. Well, they should try living what I term a standard of existence (not living, that is much better than mere existence) or being a single person living on 7,000 a year or a married person on 12,500 a year and then they can tell me how privileged I am and how lucky I am. Blogging and being able to keep my mind active via the use of the internet is really all I have going for me, and my health is one of the main reasons why I can be so sporadic at Saundrie and indeed overall online. There are days that while I can handle the reading I know better than to write because the pain I am in will infect my work/writing and that to my mind does me no service/favours.

He knows my challenges because they are his challenges too. Reading those words was like reading an echo of my life. We share the same frustrations about those who somehow seem to think they know by osmosis what it's like to live in our bodies on a daily basis. They have no idea. And, you see, we're not supposed to talk about it because a) people think you're just complaining; b) don't want to hear about it; and then c) think they then know regardless about what's going on in our lives based on what they're able to see.

It seems that unless you have a large, visible wound or a tumour you can flash on an x-ray, they simply cannot accept that you might actually suffer from pain and other equally annoying symptoms every day. And, even if we did have those things to show them, they seem to always come up with a story - either theirs (which is not similar) or someone else's (like Lance Armstrong's amazing feats, for examples) as proof that you should just get over it, rise up and live a normal life. You're either a loser or a hero. There is no middle ground. Oh, and the fact that you can write a few words on a blog is apparently proof of your power to have a career in journalism or professional writing. (Little do people know about the agony that intermingles those blog posts).

They're wrong.

The effect that sort of attitude has is the infliction of oppression. That's the broader topic here - that there will always be those with more power who use it to demean and attempt to control others.

As I struggled with this today, I came across a free online book called PowerUnder: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change by Steven Wineman which I've begun to read because it deals with both of the issues that brought me down: the personal and the political effects of powerlessness.

This is a psychological and political place from which we are incisively aware of the ways in which we have been acted upon, victimized and harmed, but from which it can be difficult or impossible to gauge the impact of our enraged behavior upon others, or even to maintain our awareness of the core humanity of those defined
as Other.

As someone who has closely watched the Amercian big blog scene, I have had several online conversations with people who have been shunned for various reasons as being "other" than. People who are seen as too liberal, too radical, too ideological for thinking that non-violence and an end to war are actually possible. People who don't fall into the privileged, middle-class white man class. Women who have been marginalized and written off as being hysterical. Latinos and African-Americans who have been ignored or horribly slighted and offended. Foreigners, like myself, whose opinions on Amercian politics are unwelcome. Poor people - well, just look at what happened to the people who suffered in NOLA after Hurricane Katrina to figure out how they are seen. You'll notice that they're conveniently invisible again. People of faith, especially Muslims, who have been lumped together in monolithic groups for paranoid, hateful people to loathe and mock as belonging to a death cult.

Others.

And when those others dare to have an opinion, those who need so desperately to maintain the status quo because they believe their very survival depends on it (see the outcry against same sex marriage, for example), the knee-jerk reaction is that they must be suppressed and oppressed to keep the balance of power - a power that destroys cultures.

So, where does all of this come from and what's to be done about it? That's what was on my mind today.

Wineman's short book reminds us that we are all victims of trauma in our lives to varying degrees - yes, even those middle (and upper) class white guys who hold most of the power. We know that there comes a point in life when those who have been oppressed by someone else will either continue to be a victim, will become a perpetrator or will choose to do everything possible to heal. What's harder to distinguish, however, is who will choose (subconconsciously or consciously) which path to take.

He uses the example of the effects of what happened on 9/11 as a partial example of how trauma affects people differently. We all saw the outpouring of sympathy from the world bestowed upon America after that horrible day. But we were also witness to how those in power reacted when they decided how to deal with it. (Who knows what previous traumas people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld might have been playing out once they found themselves with the ultimate power to exact revenge in a situation many felt could have been dealt with as a police action). They launched their wars. They assumed they'd be victorious. They became oppressors. They perpetuated more trauma and powerlessness and refused to allow a terrified Amercian society to heal by continually reinforcing that everyone ought to live in paralyzing fear of the other who might show up to blow up their shopping malls or their childrens' schoolbuses. There was no opportunity to heal - not while America's sons and daughters kept dying for a lost cause in far off countries. So, there was trauma compounded by trauma. And it served a very useful purpose by those who held the power because they were then able to use that oppression to strip away civil and legal rights as they slowly tore up the constitution. The traumatized, the fearful were kept in a convenient state of shock and terror to enable that process. That wasn't an accident.

Those of us who refuse to take that path of revenge, who actually believe in things like the courts (the open courts), justice, human and civil rights, diplomacy, the power of dialogue, the understanding of root causes, the need for peace, the use of reason over might, quickly became the radicals, the traitors, those who gave comfort to the enemy. We became the enemy. The Other.

What Wineman tries to point out in his book is that we all need to recognize our life traumas and how they impact the choices we make every day.

There has been a lot of discord in the American left recently due to tensions surrounding the seeming inability or unwillingness to address the crimes of the Bush administration.

Wineman writes:

Understanding trauma can help us to overcome divisions that chronically plague progressive social change movements. The left has been repeatedly weakened by internal divisions and fragmentation,[16] both in the form of in-fighting within social change organizations and through the inability of different oppressed constituencies to form robust and sustainable coalitions. There are many reasons for these divisions that have nothing to do with trauma. These range from principled ideological differences to unprincipled power struggles; from the complex ways in which multiple oppressions create divisions in our society to the divide-and-conquer strategies utilized by forces aligned with the status quo in the face of unrest and social change activism.

I believe we could benefit from adding trauma to this list, not as a competing explanation but as one that is typically ignored to the detriment of social change movements. If we can recognize that social change movements and constituencies are made up largely of traumatized people, many of the difficulties we encounter dealing effectively with difference and conflict become much more understandable. Internal conflicts blow up and become unresolvable in part because we lack a common language and framework for recognizing the effects of trauma, and lack practical tools for managing the traumatic rage that we all too readily direct at each other.

When trauma is unnamed and unrecognized, its presence – at once palpable and invisible – can cause an enormous amount of damage. We need to develop shared understandings of the politics of trauma that bring awareness of trauma into the room in the same way that feminism has brought awareness of power relations involving domination into the room. By this I mean an awareness that people may carry the effects of trauma – victimization, subjective powerlessness, traumatic rage, and so on – into any situation: any meeting, any organizing effort, any coalition-building project, any conflict.

It is only through the emergence of consciousness and a common language to describe the politics of powerlessness that we can create possibilities to interrupt and counteract the damaging effects of trauma within our social change organizations and movements.

I agree and I think that Wineman's perspective is vital to the success not only of progressive movements but to the advancement of individual healing as well.

The idea of the "politics of trauma" is new to me. Ironic, since I've been dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for over 10 years now. The focus of that healing, however, has been personal and there was a connection missing with relation to how that affected my political dealings and beliefs in a broader sense - except that I always knew that my compassion for powerless people came from a strong, personal identification of that status in my own life due to my personal experiences which I've had to explore and come to terms with.

I'd recommend that others read Mr Wineman's book and ponder how it might apply to the many conflicts we are all trying to deal with in such a hyper-charged political atmosphere. As I've written, he notes that all of us - even those who have power - eventually express various aspects of our lives according to those unresolved or unrecognized traumas that continue to haunt our current decisions and actions. It's not easy to have compassion for people who so obviously abuse their power but if we're going to move ahead with any sort of clarity, we need to at least be able to understand them. That's one of the hardest challenges, next to acknowledging how we express power and powerlessness in our own lives.

I believe that everything happens for a reason - in everything there is a lesson. I'm grateful to Mr Wineman for making his book available free online so I could find it when I sorely need it. It's helped me to find at least a measure of peace. I don't know anything about him besides what I read on his site today. I suspect there are political ideas we disagree about. Regardless, his ideas about trauma and powerlessness have helped me to move outside of myself and my anger and that's been invaluable.

I've also been reading another, older book recently: Skid Row: An Introduction to Disaffiliation by Howard Bahr. As someone who used to work with homeless addicts/alcoholics, I found Bahr's examination of various "skid rows" across America very insightful. Even though much of his data came from decades preceding the 1970s, he writes about disaffiliation and "internal colonialism" in a way that still, unfortunately, applies today. It seems social change in some circles moves at an absolute snail's pace - especially for the invisible people. I doubt anyone would disagree with the idea that a society is judged by how it treats it weakest members. Making the leap to actually rectify the wrongs however is an ongoing struggle of massive proportions. The powerless cannot be continually ignored without consequence. That is the lesson that still needs to be learned.

As I'm fond of saying: compassion is not a vice.

Related: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence by Alice Miller. Excellent book.

(crossposted from my place)

US Social Forum - Atlanta, GA, June 27 - July 1, 2007

2007-03-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

Does the thought of YearlyDross dawg you 'til you're blue? Looking to connect with progressives working for real change in this country?

Hope for our future, I'm convinced, lies in this sort of local, grassroots internationalist organizing:

The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.

The USSF sends a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing US Policies at home and abroad.

We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world

Another World is Possible!

Ted Glick, of Truthout:

. . . there is an important initiative underway that has the potential to advance a different kind of unity- and alliance-building process across lines of race, culture, issue and geographic region - a process that we desperately need: the United States Social Forum, happening in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27th to July 1st.

Organizing toward this event was initiated by Grassroots Global Justice, an alliance of over 50 grassroots organizations representing people of color and low-income communities in the US. Over the last couple of years, it has been putting the pieces in place to make this major event possible.
. . .

This first national social forum in the US is coming at a particularly auspicious time. Bush, Cheney and the Republicans are on the defensive, struggling to maintain support for their agenda of wars and occupations for oil and empire abroad and, at home, the destruction of basic constitutional rights and cutbacks to education, health care, Social Security and other human needs. Yet there is also widespread, popular dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and with corporate, big-money domination of both major political parties.

Jerome Scott and Walda Katz-Fishman, leaders of Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, a key group within the leadership of the US Social Forum process, recently summarized its importance in this way:

"The social forum process was initiated by social movements of oppressed and exploited peoples in the Global South; and no one group in the US 'owns it.'

Second, the social forum is being brought home to the US by grassroots organizations - with people of color and low-income-led organizations in the leadership.

Third, the social forum is a convergence process of all our fronts of struggle; it is multi-issue and multi-sector, and inclusive of all who are struggling for justice, equality and peace

Fourth, the social forum is a space where a broad range of political analysis is welcomed - from progressive to revolutionary.

"This is why the US Social Forum is the place to be this summer if you are a movement builder, if you have a vision of another world, if you want to make it happen!"

Let's make it happen. See you in Atlanta!

I'm sure Murray Bookchin would have approved.

(excerpted from Constellations)

The Future of Blogging

2007-03-13T14:47:00.000-06:00

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its annual report on The State of the News Media. I haven't read it all, but this caught my eye:

Blogging is on the brink of a new phase that will probably include scandal, profitability for some, and a splintering into elites and non-elites over standards and ethics. The use of blogs by political campaigns in the mid-term elections of 2006 is already intensifying in the approach to the presidential election of 2008. Corporate public-relations efforts are beginning to use blogs as well, often covertly. What gives blogging its authenticity and momentum — its open access — also makes it vulnerable to being used and manipulated. At the same time, some of the most popular bloggers are already becoming businesses or being assimilated by establishment media. All this is likely to cause blogging to lose some of its patina as citizen media. To protect themselves, some of the best-known bloggers are already forming associations, with ethics codes, standards of conduct and more. The paradox of professionalizing the medium to preserve its integrity as an independent citizen platform is the start of a complicated new era in the evolution of the blogosphere.

Just thought I'd put this up for discussion. For those of us following the evolution (or devolution) of the blogosphere, this simply confirms and reflects what we've been talking about.

We're Not Buyin' It

2007-03-12T08:27:00.000-06:00

In order to stimulate discussion, I'm giving this campaign its own post:

We're Not Buyin' It: National Boycott To Impeach For Peace and Justice.

This is a week-long campaign starting April 15th and running through April 22nd, 2007.

...Conservative estimates of the amount of money that could be drawn away from corporate accounts for the week of the protest range from tens to hundreds of billions or more, representing what could potentially be a serious threat to the economic well-being of the nations wealthiest class. Given that over 87% of Americans in the last MSNBC poll (out of 422,614 response) favored impeachment that could translate into more than 60,000,000 registered voters taking part in a boycott with the potential to shut down the economy...

Personally, I'm very intrigued by this idea. While I appreciate the "charge" (no pun intended) people experience at marches and protests, I admit to having soured on them since watching the anti-war movement do its Cave For Kerry routine three years ago. Marches start to seem like merely cosmetic solutions that the masters were happy enough to let us have-- so long as they are permitted, well-behaved, and dominated by those content to stay within the Democrats' veal pen.

Of course, a lot of folks will probably make the exact same arguments about a national boycott. Here a commenter wonders why there can't be a call for a permanent boycott of major corporations in the U.S. Heh. I'm guessing that a week without going to Starbucks, using one's debit card, or pulling into BP for gas would be enough of a challenge for a great many folks. It's also noteworthy that the call for the boycott has gone out during the season that more than one religion calls for the faithful to "do without" a particular food in the name of remembering the struggles of their oppressed ancestors;In order to stimulate thinking about struggle and reform in the present.

...Lew Brown stated that, "This is not a top down organization, "We Are Not Buying It" is an idea that people take to their homes and workplaces and work to implement within their own community. As coordinator, all I can do is answer questions and provide resources; the actual campaign is decentralized and democratic in the best traditions of American political activism. People aren't just signing a petition here, they are committing to do whatever needs to be done to change the course of history". With over 600 organizers working around the country and more than a month to go before Tax Day "We Are Not Buying It" might have an impact far beyond that of a march, a vote or a petition-at the very least it provides another way to put pressure on decision makers to move forward with impeachment...

(All quotes courtesy of Portland Indymedia)

I'll be looking into local organizing for this action soon, and if you all want to get involved or just share your own thoughts on the idea, please do it. Of course, U.S. corporations operate all around the world, so no need for the Canadians and Aussies to sit this one out if you find the notion appealing, too.

Some additional thoughts here as well.

Open Thread

2007-03-11T07:41:00.000-06:00

Meta away.

I really did want to title this - "On Open Thread" in homage to Martin, but realized it was just too ridiculous even for snark.

Open Thread

2007-03-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

You know what to do.

BBBs and the Disaffiliated

2007-03-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

Daily Kos has an image to maintain. Any perceived threat to that image is therefore considered a threat to the entire community and some members there have absolutely no qualms about defining what they deem to be unacceptable.

Exhibit A:

Exactly what I did (0 / 0)

when I walked away from MLW and BT. And why I fervently hope the purveyors of impeachment porn at this site will get tired of it and go somewhere else, or else force Markos to boot them and ban that kind of mindless shouting at the rain.

When the signal-to-noise ratio drops to 1 or less, it’s time to move along. That hasn’t happened here yet, but it’s well past that at MLW and BMT–or was when I left both places.

So explain to me why I would particularly want to have them on “my” side? Especially since it just makes it easier for the MSM to mischaracterize blogs and bloggers as a temporary annoyance instead of a true threat to their traditional dominance of the field of news and opinion.

Michael
Musing’s musings

by musing85 on Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 11:15:49 AM MST

Exhibit B:

People that stand in the way of electing (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by:musing85

Democrats because of their addictions to drama and constant conflict have found their homes at MLW, Booman Trib, and other sites filled with malcontents that would like to collectively destroy dkos effectiveness and mission. The malcontents need to be shown the door so that they can not contaminate dkos.

Politics is the business of dkos, personality and discontent is the business of the sites Musing mentioned.

PaintyKat

WWYTR? “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” MLK

by PaintyKat on Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 04:22:43 PM PST

During the 80s, one of my favourite bands The Clash (yes, I really did like them) had a song out which some of you might remember - Red Angel Dragnet - which was inspired by the De Niro movie Taxi Driver. The lyrics included this:

All the animals come out at night.
Queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick venal.
Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.

Thank god for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk.

For those who don't know, The Clash was a counter-culture band...well...I won't write a thesis on the subject, but if you want an idea of what they were about, read this wiki piece about their song Straight to Hell. That should help you understand their message.

Anyway, when I see comments like those above, the words of The Clash come to mind because they were meant to fight on behalf of the disenfranchised, the disaffiliated, the contaminated, the purveyors of [impeachment] porn which mainstream society chooses to shun at every turn in order to keep its neighbourhoods clean and scandal-free (they hope, while hiding their own dirt under the rug).

Read those comments again and let the parallels sink in.

There are some who prefer to ghettoize the dissidents - to put them in convenient virtual cardboard boxes where they simply don't need to be dealt with, heard or looked at - where they can no longer contaminate the conversations of those who believe their opinions are so vastly fucking superior.

That is why we talk about the big box blogs as being like gated communities here - and it's more than just dkos that has that attitude. Their desire to insulate protected, valued members from the "scum" is no different than the bigotted policies of the most backwards institutions in society like those exclusive little country clubs where your money speaks more about your worth than your character does.

"Malcontents" who "want to destroy" dkos.

Yet, some of the most vicious and vindictive words and actions that surely will destroy that overblown, cherished image are spewed by the revered elders day after day. That's acceptable though. They are the members of privilege - much like the rich, drunk kid who kills someone in a car accident and gets a slap on the wrist while a poor African-American kid in the same circumstance is jailed for 20 years.

Anyone who's ever been marginalized or discriminated against should be able to see these situations on the BBBs for what they are. Yet, even some of those people choose to participate in the derision in some warped attempt to heal their wounds.

Membership has its priviliges - for a select few.

And they wonder why people like me are disgusted...or, frankly, they just don't care. Why should they? They've obviously got what they want - everybody else be damned - and so they are.

Even BBBs can practice internal colonialism. They can be more than a reflection of the society that they're a part of, but they actually have to start acting like it first and that responsibility is left to every single member to take on - yes, even at the risk of being thrown out into the street until that rain comes.

People think we're the blight.

Wrong.

We're actually the light.

They need to stop acting like De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, as if he's some kind of hero and find some fucking humility before they do even more damage if they're so damned concerned about their image and mission.

"Listen, you fuckers, you screw-heads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up. Here is."

Except that he wasn't, really.

Meta Update: Big Tent Democrat (you all know who he is - wouldn't want to "out" him, after all!) has written yet another GBCW diary at dkos citing "irreconcilable differences with the Management." I wonder how long this self-imposed time out will last. Start the stopwatch.

Mo Meta Update: post by kos

BTD (7+ / 0-)

wasn't asked to leave.

He was asked to be civil in the comments.

He has reacted how he thought was best. It's too bad, because there are few people here I value as much as him.

by kos on Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 12:19:35 AM MST

Click on the link to follow the rest of the soap opera.

Now serving fresh popcorn!

About that "must-do" list...

2007-03-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday's New York Times editorial board has produced a must-do list, encouraging the Democrats to fight back against the assaults on human rights and civil liberties perpetrated by the Bush administration.

Here's what that list consists of:

1. Restore habeus corpus
2. Stop illegal spying
3. Ban Torture, really
4. Close the C.I.A. prisons
5. Account for "Ghost Prisoners"
6. Ban extraordinary rendition
7. Tighten the definition of combatant
8. Screen prisoners fairly and effectively
9. Ban tainted evidence
10. Ban secret evidence
11. Better define "classified" evidence
12. Respect the right to counsel

As the editors point out, many of these policies were written into law last fall via the passage of the Military Commissions Act which was developed after the Bush administration was rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Even if the Democrats could use their majority status to overturn that act however, long ingrained American traditions would remain.

There's no doubt that Bush has used his unitary executive power to override and sidestep congress every step of the way since he kicked off his so-called war on terrorism, but it's also important to examine how America reached the point where that type of unchecked power could actually come to exist.

Take the actions of the CIA, for example. Since its formation, it has acted virtually unimpeded through its use of covert operations worldwide in order to do everything from causing coups d'etats to carrying out assassinations. The investigations done by the Church Committee in the 70s were supposed to ensure more oversight - a fact that some people claim actually hamstrung the agency and led to the 9/11 intelligence failures.

While the old CIA may have been noted for the “cowboy” swagger of its personnel, the new CIA is, in the words of one critic, composed of “cautious bureaucrats who avoid the risks that come with taking action, who fill out every form in triplicate” and put “the emphasis on audit rather than action.” Congressional meddling is primarily responsible for this new CIA ethos, transforming it from an agency willing to take risks, and act at times in a Machiavellian manner, into just another sclerotic Washington bureaucracy.

The agency obviously didn't stop taking those risks, as we all know now.

That 2001 article by Stephen F. Knott led to this conclusion, the effects of which we are all now witnessing:

The response to the disaster of September 11th starkly reveals that members of Congress are quite adept at invoking “plausible deniability.” They are often the first to criticize, and the last to accept responsibility, for failed U. S. policies and practices. Oddly enough, a restoration of executive control of intelligence could increase the potential that the president, or his immediate deputies, would be held responsible for the successes and failures of the intelligence community. But this is a secondary consideration, for only by restoring the executive branch’s power to move with “secrecy and dispatch,” and to control the “business of intelligence,” as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay put it in The Federalist, will the nation be able to deter and defeat its enemies.

I wonder how professor Knott feels about endorsing that position today.

Regardless of all of the revelations over the decades of the "work" the CIA is doing in America's name, the mythology of the sexy spy with the nifty gagdets whose death-defeating tactics are pushed by Hollywood and applauded by millions won't end any time soon. Who would dare accuse CIA agents of being treasonous (besides people like Cheney and his henchmen who choose to out them when it's politically convenient rather than protecting them, as they're bound to do)?

While it's the job of the Democrats to try to wrestle power back from the Bush adminitration for those items detailed in the NYT's "must-do" list, the public also needs to remember that their party has used covert methods and actions when they thought it would be expedient as well.

As Scott Ritter notes*:

I personally witnessed the Director of the CIA under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, fabricate a case for the continued existence of Iraqi ballistic missiles in November 1993 after I had provided a detailed briefing which articulated the UN inspector's findings that Iraq's missile program had been fundamentally disarmed. I led the UN inspector's investigation into the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, in August 1995, and saw how the Clinton administration twisted his words to make a case for the continued existence of a nuclear program the weapons inspectors knew to be nothing more than scrap and old paper. I was in Baghdad at the head of an inspection team in the summer of 1996 as the Clinton administration used the inspection process as a vehicle for a covert action program run by the CIA intending to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

I twice traveled to the White House to brief the National Security Council in the confines of the White House Situation Room on the plans of the inspectors to pursue the possibility of concealed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, only to have the Clinton national security team betray the inspectors by failing to deliver the promised support, and when the inspections failed to deliver any evidence of Iraqi wrong-doing, attempt to blame the inspectors while denying any wrong doing on their part.

Obviously, this culture of covert corruption has a very long history that runs through the administrations of both of the big two parties, yet we're now expecting the current crop of Democrats (including many longstanding members who have been complicit in these affairs) to turn around and bring everything to light in order to end these types of activities? Isn't that rather like the fox guarding the hen house, as the old cliche says?

This Democratic congress may hold hearings, may investigate the Bush administration's horrendous abuses, may even impeach the president (although Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that impeachment is "off the table"), but do they have the power or the willingness to end the disastrous policies of the CIA? Will they stand up to an administration full of ex-CIA officials who now run the White House? And where does the American public stand on these issues?

It's clear the majority are outraged over the Bush administration's abuses, and so they should be. Are they willing, however, to give up the power exercised on their behalf as members of the so-called "greatest country in the world" by CIA agents and those in the numerous other intelligence agencies that are a part of the US government in order to keep them "safe"? My guess would be that only a small minority would actually demand full accountability and transparency and, even if they did, they wouldn't get it from the Republicans or the Democrats who are so entrenched in the use of those powers that they'd be loathe to surrender many of them in the end.

That's the dilemma the American people face, as do those worldwide who've been affected by these covert actions. It's doubtful they'll find much justice any time soon and time is already running out for the Democrats to deal with all of what Bush has wrought prior to the end of his term. Perhaps they should be spending less time speechifying and fundraising on the '08 campaign trail and more time actually working on the business of the country. As for the CIA, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

* h/t Madman in the Marketplace whose work you can find at Liberal Street Fighter.

crossposted from liberal catnip

ONward!

2007-02-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

(note: glo is "scribe) Since the shakeup over at Boo, (and my royal hissy fit here!) I decided it was time to look for the light at the end on my OWN tunnel for a change, and I think I have found it. (in terms of where it works out best for me to spend my online time and energy, I mean). Since it does speak to larger "meta issues" going on now, I thought I'd share the outcome with you.

You''ll notice my name back on the contributer list here and you will also find me very involved over at ECFS . What you will NOT see me doing, ever again, is considering myself to be a "member" of ANY political blog "community", that is operated on a "top down management model". (Or any other online "community" operated and run by a single "owner".)

I will visit these blogs as I care to, comment as I care to, maybe even contribute something now and then, but I will not be joining any of these "communities." or considering any of them any kind of online "home base" . I really should have known better to ever fall into that trap again.

I take the concept of "community" (or "teamwork" , or "democracy" for that matter) seriously. I don't consent to join anything that I am not willing to invest in. This means freely contributing whatever I have to offer, and getting to really know and care about the other members, because this is my concept of what a "community" is. In return I get a sense of comfort and familiarity and "belonging" as a part of a group of other human beings..that I call a sense of "community". (Sort of like "Cheers": a place where everybody knows your name)

I think I have finally completed a long long lesson. For me, there never will be no more joining any top down, pyramid shaped organization. For several reasons:

1) I AWAYS end up breaking too many of the unwritten, unspoken rules and norms of "acceptable behavior or thought" (that all groups with a top down structure form )
2) I cannot tolerate having subtle yet real limits placed on what I can or cannot say or believe, without getting attacked or "shunned".
3) I cannot witness good people I care about tearing out each others throats out and nobody in charge doing anything about it, not in silence anyway.
4) I will NOT be pressured into taking sides between "insiders and outsiders" and being expected to support those in charge,when I do not agree with them, as the dues I must pay for continued acceptance by the "core community"who is loyal to the owner.
5) And when I am fully "invested" in a top down group, and it falls apart, I tend to get sucked in emotionally, which wreaks havoc with me ,stresswise and raises hell with my objectivity and clarity.

These are all dynamics I have experienced for a lifetime, on the job, in social groups, literally everwhere people organize themselves into groups based on a top down power based model, and I am DONE, hear me?! I am DONE with this! FUCK IT!

I LIKE being an "Other"! I was born with this non conformist nature, and I embrace it fully . At the same time, I am not a an "island", and I do enjoy and need the company of others and that elusive sense of "community", when I can find some of it.

Mo betta is NOT a top down power structured blog. There are several here with admin prvildges and from what I can see, whatever "power" that grants, is flowing in a circular fashion. The same at ECFS. Everyone posting there is in an admin, and so far, it is forming itself into a totally collaborative, circular shape, and flow.

So these are the places where I intend to hang out now, and contribute, for as long as they remain viable in a circular organizational structure. I have long been absolutely fascinated by wondering just what we could do together, if not forced to deal with the inevitable dysfunctions that will always arise in groups operating within a top down, power-over model.

(And I do not find it a surprise at all to find all my most favorite online "Others"right here, and also at ECFS! )

Oh. And for any drop in visitors here, who have been told that we are all bunch of sickos who have no lives at all and spend all our time "blog wrecking" just for the hell of it, you might want to stick around long enough to read all of what's here, not just the carefully selected chum you may have been hand fed.

(And to ductape, wherever you are: I know, I know, it took me awhile to really "get it", fully, but better late than never, huh? Thank you, my dear friend.)

New ecfs site...

2007-02-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

We are finally on our new server and URL for "Everybody Comes From Somewhere". Update your bookmarks appropriately! ;)

Threaded comments, forum, lots of goodness and whatever you want it to be... so if you didn't get an email with your new account info, email me... spiderleafATgmailDOTcom... and if you did, stop on by and poke around!

~ spider

Handling the Problem of Dissident Bloggers in Gated Community Blogs

2007-02-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

One of the noticeable features of American suburbia over the last couple decades is the increased tendency for the upper middle class to barricade themselves in gated communities. There are of course numerous reasons why one might choose to live in such a set-up, including of course the perception of safety as well as the perception of communing among like-minded neighbors free from the undesirable riff-raff that pollute the inner cities and whatnot. I've never of course actually lived in one of these neighborhoods, nor are there any prospects of me ever doing so (not that I lose any sleep over it, mind you). I have however visited a few of them, and they are indeed strange places. The houses are uniformly large (I've heard the term McMansions used to describe them) and similar in appearance. Yards of course are neatly trimmed. The air of similarity pervades the environment. Naturally, of course, there is a gate blocking one's entrance to these places and one must seek permission in order to be buzzed in. It's a bit easier to get out than to get in, perhaps not too surprisingly. Given that at the time that I was invited in to such communities by punks and goth wannabes who just happened to have well-off parental units, I am sure that my arrival would coincide with a depreciation in property values. The car I drove that had peace sign and Crucifucks stickers on it was probably a clue that I was one of the riff-raff that the neighbors had tried to escape.

With that long-winded introduction you might now ask me what any of this has to do with dissident bloggers. Have patience. We will make our way to this weighty topic momentarily. The gated communities are ultimately about having the right appearance, the right car, the right job, the right values. Deviations are simply not to be tolerated - as I am sure any upstanding member of the various neighborhood associations governing these communities will tell you. The pressure to conform has to be enormous. But again, keep in mind that we are dealing with upper-middle class America, here, which really hasn't evolved much since the days of Father Knows Best. The main differences are the spiffy high-tech gadgets, the bling, the Hummer in every driveway, etc. (in other words, mere window dressing).

To a degree, the phenomenon of "community blogging" is itself a middle-to-upper-middle-class endeavor (I told you I was going somewhere with this). Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with this state of affairs per se, but it does lead to some characteristics of these blogging communities which one must take care to notice lest one be subject to public scorn and ridicule. One must understand for instance that taking up space in a gated community blog is viewed as a privilege rather than a right, and that the moderators (who act as the internet equivalent of a neighborhood association) ultimately get to decide on who is privileged and who is not. There are some for whom the gate is not supposed to open. So it goes. Nothing is ever one hundred percent fool-proof of course, and just as one cannot always choose one's neighbors (or the guests of said neighbors), one cannot always choose one's blog members. Needless to say, when saddled with embarrassing neighbors, the association must take action - especially if the other neighbors have failed to do so. That pressure to conform is enormous, suffice it to say, and any good gated community has ample tools at its disposal.

In the gated community blogs, this pressure to conform usually takes on at least a couple forms: one is the in the form of using guilt and shame as a tactic to stifle nonconformist discourse. Those using this particular tactic can proceed in at least two ways. They could try to reminisce about "the good old days" when we "were all on the same side" and lament the current state of dialogue. Another weapon is to take on the role of the victim who has been "attacked" by the hordes of "savage" leftists. The tactic is most effective if delivered with a sufficiently stern motherly or fatherly voice. Sometimes the unruly member might fall for it, and clam up. Others, smelling the stench of manipulation, the embarrassing guests will continue as before, with maybe a flamewar or two added for good effect.

Another tactic I call "you're in danger of not being cool." Let's say the dissident blogger quotes a source considered taboo by the "Liberal Blogging Neighborhood Association." One can play the tactic thusly: "if you're quoting Justin Raimondo (a libertarian), you're just a step away from completing the transition to being a David Horowitz clone." Naturally, no self-respecting leftist blogger would wish to associate with neocon slime such as Horowitz, which is why the tactic can be effective in achieving sufficient conformity in order for the community to keep up appearances of respectability. Actually it's no different than the old junior high school trick of saying "if you keep doing x, you'll end up just like the weird dude who eats his boogers during pep rallies." Again, this tactic is only effective to the extent that the targets don't perceive that they're being manipulated (in which case, all bets are off, except for the endless flame wars that will continue for days on end).

If none of that works, there's always raw coercion. Some respectable member of the community (perhaps even a member of the neighborhood association) might simply go off threatening to clock the offending dissident blogger or even go so far as to threaten the dissident with the use of firearms. That particular tactic smells of desperation, and other than making one question the mental state of those issuing such threats, it's usually fairly safe to assume that the person making the threat will never carry it out. Ultimately, the threatener ends up looking stupid, losing respectability in the process, and the dissident bloggers go merrily about their business (don't forget the flame war!).

Somewhat more effective might be the threat of banishing the dissident bloggers from the neighborhood. To the extent that we humans are social animals who thrive on interaction and who become stressed out by excessive isolation, that threat can carry some substance up to a point. The weakness of that threat is that the internets allow for the formation of multiple communities that can subsequently become homes for wayward dissident bloggers, and some of those communities even exist sans the usual gates and guards and such. The gatekeepers using this tactic should also take care to avoid playing favorites, as leftist bloggers (both dissident and the more "respectable" alike) tend to be especially sensitive to injustices and what should have been a quiet gathering at the country club can quickly turn into a crowd at a pro wrestling match.

Such are the trials and tribulations of the blogging community gatekeepers, who find themselves having to deal with the community they have rather than the one that they wished for. There is another tactic that would be well worthy of consideration, and is one that I humbly offer as preferable: try listening to the dissident bloggers rather than view them as those weird aunts or uncles who must be kept hidden in order to keep up those appearances of perfect normality in blogtopia's Wysteria Lane. Doing so, means giving up the pretense of gated community perfection, and risks the potential for touchy and "embarrassing" topics to be raised (and dare I say it, even front-paged). The benefits though include added potential to learn and to perhaps even change a few opinions here and there (on all sides). Besides, a neighborhood in which all the houses look the same gets boring - wouldn't you much rather have a community with some color to it?

Credit where credit is due: blogtopia was coined by skippy; the term "gated community blogs" was coined by Ductape Fatwa.

The Divisions of the Left

2007-02-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

In the previous thread, Nanette posted a comment in response to this post by Maryscott O'Connor at My Left Wing.

I think Nanette's comment serves as a good jumping off point for the broader conversation about the divisions in the left-wing blogosphere and it expands on the point that many people want to aim for more than just winning elections for Democrats, which I had tried to address in this post.

Here's her reply to Maryscott:

Maryscott, while we all may be headed in the same general direction, I think people have, over time, come to the conclusion that no, we are not all on the same side. And we don't all have the same destination in mind.

(Some) women realized that at kos a couple of years ago and on into the present. Non mainstream white people learned that about kos, booman, mydd and even your site (all of which poll (or would, if they were taken at bootrib and mlw) at 98% or more white, and the rest various "other". Why do you think that is?

Leftists, those who don't believe in the political system as is... and don't believe in supporting it staying the way it is (which is basically what the BBB's are doing), also have found sometimes that their "home community" just really... isn't.

There is a huge gulf between those that want a tweak... and those that feel that what is really needed is a change. Most of the kos and kos satellite blogs - bootrib, fdl, mydd, mlw to a lesser extent, etc - and participants are tweakers. They've convinced themselves (especially the mydd'ers... good god) that, yes, they really can be THE progressive movement, even if their ranks are made up of primarily comfortably well off white males. Tweakers. A mile wide and an inch deep... because, as I mentioned to Stoller, when whatever burr is in their hide (war in iraq, Bush in white house, etc) is removed, the slightly discomforted will be comfortable again and go on with their lives.

I saw in your mlw post of this that you have a photo of a little kid and 'no war with Iran' or something... close to the text of "something that really matters" or something like that. I am anti-war. Not only anti this war, but anti all wars. HOWEVER... I will not coalesce with people and groups around being "anti-war" - well, not primarily.

I coalition with people who are pro social justice, pro environmental justice, pro human rights, pro human dignity, pro anti-racism, pro anti-imperialism and exceptionalism, and things such as this... with the knowledge that being pro these things necessitates also being anti war, and working to find and build solutions and alternatives. Changers.

The reverse isn't true, however... you can be as anti *this* or the next war as you like, and still not give a hoot about any of that other stuff. That's one place where many divisions arise, in my opinion.

Anyway, I think the divisions are perfectly fine. I believe the party operative blogs will be one vehicle (or group of vehicles) heading in one direction, following the routes they wish to go, making inroads in the party and so on and that those who have other views or goals will move in directions that they feel they need to go. And that's okay.

The rancor will fade, it always does - none should consider themselves immune to criticism however, as some seem to.

Some of us have had long discussions about the role of "The Others" in relation to the big box blogs and the wider political scene in general while trying to address the huge topic of American exceptionalism as well - a topic that affects domestic and foreign policy attitudes. Sometimes, they're not easy conversations to have but, imho, they are certainly necessary if we are going to try to work with each other. You have to recognize the divisions before you can deal with them and then it's a matter of figuring out what to do about them in a way that embraces the diversity of opinions, needs and goals. An age old challenge, to be sure, but one that the left-wing blogosphere needs to keep talking about in order to move forward.

Sick

2007-02-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Don't ever underestimate these fuckers. They are fucking vicious. If one of them shows up where I am in the United States I will fucking shoot them. And I'm a pacifist. I'll be in Europe in about 30 days and good luck finding me there, fuckers.
I don't have a problem with someone disagreeing with me and you sure don't have to like me (or Boo or anyone else). But when you take it to the "next level" and start endangering totally innocent people, that's when it goes too far. These "paparazzi" are freaking psychos.
The difference between Boo and Britney Spears is she has the BUCKS to hire bodyguards etc. Freaking loons. It's just a fucking blog you freaks!

Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian
by soj on Sat Feb 17th, 2007 at 10:20:31 PM EST

The level of hostile paranoia in that particular response to one of Booman's front-page screeds is indeed something to behold. I have just enough paraprofessional experience in the helping professions to recognize soj's ravings for what they are: the work of someone who at this moment in time is profoundly disturbed (I'll refrain from armchair diagnoses for what I think are obvious reasons). I would say that any threat of physical violence, which is essentially what this alleged "pacifist" has done, should not be excused. Whether or not it will over at the frogpond remains to be seen.

Stuck

2007-02-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

When Atrios kicked off Blogroll Amnesty Day earlier this month, I doubt he had any idea about the blowback that would result when kos at Daily Kos decided to join him. The reaction to the culling of kos' blogroll was fast and at times furious throughout the blogosphere. skippy described the repercussions on site rankings. Renee in Ohio started a protest blog. Maryscott O'Connor tore a strip off of kos' hide. And that was just the beginning.

Since that time there has been a lot of analysis throughout the blogosphere about the much broader issue of the role of "big box blogs" (BBB) like Daily Kos as they relate to being privately-owned businesses whose main goal is simply "winning" elections.

I won't rehash all of those debates. I just thought I'd toss in my opinion about what's going on and how it relates to the position the Democrats and their supporters find themselves in now.

Anyone who's followed the American political scene on the BBBs the past few years knows the sheer agony, desperation and anger expressed about how Bushco has coopted democracy, justice and civil and human rights. All of those emotions were aimed at one thing: regaining Democratic control of congress last year. When that did happen (and it was quite a delicate win until it was finally announced that Jim Webb's win just barely gave them the senate majority), the BBB members could finally breath a sigh of relief. And that's what it was. It wasn't a massive celebration. It was more of a serious "what will the Democratic congress do now" reaction.

So they waited and patiently watched as the Dems put their first 100 hours plan into action. The thread underlying the 2006 elections for those bloggers and commenters though that had coursed through the electorate at large was the opposition to the Iraq war and the possibility of impeachment. After Bush announced his so-called surge, the Dems knew they had to proceed cautiously, all the while being criticized every step of the way by the right for supposedly having no plan and being divided. Those divisions were also obvious on the left-wing blogs where members were (and still are) fighting amongst themselves over whether to bring the troops home ASAP or to go with a gradual withdrawal; whether to cut off funding or not. No one on those blogs, from what I could see, thought Bush's plan was anything but a badly misguided policy.

So, what does all of that have to do with the blogroll amnesty blowout and the general unruliness on some of those blogs lately? Well, I think it became very obvious to some that, contrary to what kos had been preaching, simply focusing on "winning" was not enough. The Dems won. Now what?

kos has begun retooling his blogroll by linking to state blogs that are focused on electoral politics - omitting those that are more ideological in nature. As he stated clearly in 2004:

This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions. And as I've said a million times, the status quo is untenable

As Renee in Ohio noted this week:

So, to recap. We have this guy who runs a blog and co-wrote a book, who in the process has aquired some celebrity. He uses phrases like "people powered" and "crashing the gate" as his *branding*. In the meantime, whether he has indeed "crashed a gate", or merely procured, for himself, a seat at the table, he's made it clear that he is not so interested in helping anyone else get in.

But even beyond that, he's in our f***ing way! He's become yet *another* moneyed arbiter of what news is "fit to print", as it were, and which voices will have a harder time being heard. And I *don't* make a living by blogging, but somehow squeeze it in around work and family, in what I ironically refer to as my "spare time"--because it's *that important* to me to make a positive difference.

And given the time and energy I, along with countless others, have invested in the project of taking our country back, I simply can't stand idly by while the tools of the revolution are co-opted by would-be kings.

And there's the rub. This so-called movement, this "revolution" simply comes down to "crashing the gate" to get into the halls of power. It's about becoming a part of the status quo in the hopes of somehow coopting it. It's about shovelling even more money into the hands of politicians from people who would much nore effectively support their pet causes like human rights, justice or the environment by donating to NGOs. I think some people need to take a long, hard look at the fact that even if the blogosphere never existed, the Democrats still would have won in 2006 because the American people were absolutely fed up with the war. The big box blogs attribute far more power to their efforts than they deserve and their members are starting to notice that, for all of the sweat and toil they contribute by writing free content for those sites, the people who run them are gaining notoriety and incomes on their backs.

There's a taste for a real revolution on the BBBs. That is painfully obvious when a diary like this extolling the leaders of the 60s counterculture movements has over 1200 comments from Daily Kos site members - the vast majority of whom applaud the diarist, One Pissed Off Liberal aka OPOL. To those who have followed the genesis of OPOL's participation at dkos, the irony of this oustanding show of support for his latest piece shouldn't be missed. Until even last week, some of the more conservative members on the site were bound and determined to silence his voice there.

The reason for the turning of that tide, I believe, is that many more kossacks now acknowledge that the kos "progressive" revolution has mainly been a figment of their imaginations. Think about it: the 1939 Frank Capra movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington showed "people power" in action. Thousands of telegrams were sent to DC to oppose Senator Smith (James Stewart) who was trying to expose graft in congress while hundreds of boys in his home state took it upon themselves to print and deliver flyers to inform the public of what was really going on in DC in order to support him.

Today's supposedly new-fangled technopolitical revolution led by kos (although he doesn't like to consider himself a leader), which is accomplishing exactly the same thing as that movie yet is somehow now being rebranded as being "progressive", amounts to one of the quietest revolutions in history - the only noise one often hears is the clicking of keyboard keys as one sends yet another e-mail to their congressperson or a letter to the editor to express how they feel about an issue. More clicking is involved to ship off yet another $10 donation or to write yet another diary. At the same time, many of those quiet revolutionaries heap disdain on those who choose to participate in actual street protests because they're just too "inconvenient" or "unruly". The idea of civil disobedience is definitely out. That's not to take away from people who are politically engaged locally. However, they most likely would have arrived at that position even with the BBBs.

So, what we're seeing is a perfect storm of still strong emotions that wants Bushco brought under control by a congress whose leaders have said that impeachment is off the table as they try to find some constitutional way to end the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, many liberals (not the centrists or the so-called left leaning centrists) on these BBBs are starting to realize that being beholden to the private company of Daily Kos, whose owner seems to care more about his interests than those of the strong ideologically-based voices on his blog (and those he used to include on his blogroll), is just not getting them anywhere. And they're crying out for more than mere "winning" because it too often coopts their values and social agendas. They've finally realized that their needs are not being and will not be met by sticking with the status quo that those blogs have become and the banishment from the blogrolls might have been just the wake up call they needed to rise up and reclaim their true paths.

Simply, they refuse to be stuck. More than that, they refuse to be caught up in the spiral of silence that grows each time those blogs become more authoritarian and restrictive through the use of bannings and ratings that make their uncomfortable comments disappear. They refuse to be subjected to bullying and harassment. And they have zero tolerance for site owners who let their disruptive and offensive friends get away with behaviour that would get other people kicked off those sites in no time flat.

There's a sense that there has to be more out there and there definitely is. Herding those liberal cats into a place where they can be more free is, as always, easier said than done. But to stay and fight where you're clearly not wanted is to, as they said back in those old hippie days, sell out. And there's already been more than enough of that.

And that's my 2 cents on the issue.

tale of two worlds - which Left are you on?

2007-02-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to highlight this socio-linguistic diamond:

Sometime in early 1992 I was driving alone from Los Angeles to see some friends and celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I remember a particular stretch of Interstate 10 as I passed down from the mountains of Las Cruces into the river valley of El Paso. Off to my right, on the far side of the Rio Grande, stood Ciudad Juarez. It made for a sorry cityscape, with acres and acres of dilapidated housing. By contrast, El Paso was positively sparkling. I wondered to myself how two cities…two cities so far from anywhere, could be so different from each other. And it occurred to me that the answers lay in Mexico City and Washington DC…in the Constitution and rule of law on the one hand and incompetence and corruption on the other.

In our system of government nothing is more important than the separation of powers represented by the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judiciary.

If we lose those checks and balances it will only be a matter of time before we lose everything. There will be nothing to distinguish El Paso from Cuidad Juarez. Our country will lose its unique characteristics that have made it so successful.

& where does this vile pile of steaming racist jingosim come from? Lou Dobbs? Tom Lancredo? David Duke?

naaanh . . . that pungent leftie analysis comes from Martin, proprietor, Booman Tribune

(& note that it's total ad hominem in the piece)

how utterly clueless can one get?

Frustration with the quality and limits of discourse around racial topics, along with rampant uncritical jingoism (err, Exceptionalist Theory) of the so-called self-proclaimed 'liberal progressives', was one of the reasons I found myself responding to DtF's invite to participate here last August.

Marcotte on 'Why I had to quit the John Edwards campaign'

2007-02-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

The gist of Amanda Marcotte's new article in Salon, 'Why I had to quit the John Edwards campaign' relies heavily on her belief that she and Melissa McEwan of Shakepeare's Sister were harassed without end by the right-wing nutjobs because they were "young feminists" who had dared to express their opinions about religion, reproductive and gay rights.

That's not the way I saw it.

I think that the gender of the bloggers Edwards or any other Dem candidate chooses to hire for their campaigns is mainly irrelevant to the right-wing smear machine. They simply dug through the archives of Pandagon and found posts they could attack them for. I believe the same thing would have happened whether they were female or not. Hillary's campaign hired Peter Daou of the Daou Report as her blogger outreach person but the right-wing has nothing to go after in his archives that would match the quotes pulled from Pandagon. Ergo, Marcotte was an easy target and Daou has been left unscathed - not because he's a man, but because there was no ammo to use against him.

It makes me uncomfortable that this affair has been turned into a new feminist cause celebre. I'm certainly not ignorant to the fact that the right has repressive attitudes towards women in general but I don't think this case ought to be held up on that mantle as an attack on "young feminists" or feminists in general - not when it can be interpreted as a simple smear job based on the political opinions and writings of the bloggers involved, regardless of their gender.

In other meta news: skippy has a new post up about the scourge of "napoleon syndrome by proxy" that's raging through the blogosphere.

Mo meta? Add it in the comments. Thanks.

New Old Meta

2007-02-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

kos indulged himself and wrote a long meta post on Sunday nite to cheers from adoring fans. Others at My Left Wing were not among them, noticably liberalamerican and peeder, both of whom became the subjects of ~~Armando's~~ Big Tent Democrat's bloggy napalm campaign over at dkos. pyrrho came to their defence at MLW on Monday to try to stop the bleeding. (Good luck with that).

People like BTD, whom I quote above, do have a reason to be loyal, they HAVE gotten something. But see, kos doesn't favor my type of politics. Kos wants to defund the Sierra Club. I'm not totally against his politics, but they don't align well enough with mine for me to get anything out of an organization which has no formal promise to let me vote, and also, no informal promise.

That doesn't mean I'm an enemy, and as we have the same positions on some issues, we are still, according to me, allies. But calls for loyalty to the BUSINESS of dailykos are asinine. They are illiberal.

Private businesses are authoritarian in nature... and my politics is NOT authoritarian. What is so fucking confusing to people about that?

PS: dkos is making enemies among progressives, if dkos doesn't want to face that, it will anyway.

*****************
Amanda Marcotte has resigned from her blogging job on the Edwards campaign stating, "it [the Donohue wingnut scrutiny] was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign." I figure she should have realized that when she signed up for the job.

*****************

Meta communication.

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Any other meta tidbits I've missed?

Update! pyrrho has been banned from Daily Kos. Wow is all I can say...

Update: Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister has also resigned from her position on the Edwards campaign.

No Meta

2007-02-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

Whew. Let's just leave all that be and go help change the world and get to know each other at Everybody Comes From Somewhere.

See you there!

Meta Meta Mo Meta

2007-02-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Is it cabin fever? Winter wankery? Post election win partum depression? Meta madness?

No one's really sure.

What we do know, however, is that the blogosphere natives are extremely restless.

There was the recent meltdown at BooMan Tribune over the lack of enforcement of "the rule" (ie. "Don't be a prick".)

The huge blogapalooza blowout over kos's blogroll banishments. (skippy, MSOC, BooMan)

The all out attack against Adam the Soldier who was deemed by the powers that be at dkos to be a hoaxster without any proof but oops! it was all a mistake! Carry on and don't mind the fact that the big boyz just smeared the poor guy and banned him.

Whatever has caused all of this drama lately, one thing is certain: the trains have collided and all that's left to do now is to tend to the victims and clean up the wreckage.

Edwards and the Netroots

2007-02-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

The news of the day is that John Edwards has refused to cave to right-wing nutbar pressure to fire bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen. Those unfamiliar with the dustup can read about it here.

Here's Edwards' statement on the matter:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

Fine and dandy.

Edwards is being hailed by his fans in the left-wing blogosphere as a man with a spine today but there are definitely a few "howevers" attached to that praise. Some are disappointed that he didn't launch a full-fledged attack on the wingnuts who created this storm. Others want him to go after the MSM's shoddy reporting. Release the hounds!, they declare.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of all of this was statements from bloggers like Chris Bowers at MyDD, Martin at Booman Tribune and the crowd at Daily Kos that Edwards had better deal with this situation the way they thought he should or else he'd lose the support of the "netroots" - once again elevating the status of the "netroots" to near mythic proportions.

Did the netroots help get candidates elected? Yes. Although that sure didn't work in John Kerry's case, did it? Oh, but that wasn't the netroots fault. Kerry just didn't have that spine Edwards is supposedly displaying. Does the netroots raise money for candidates? Sure. But let's not forget about who really funds so-called democracy in the United States. Joe Netroot's $10 donation to his local candidiate is a nice gesture and makes him feel like he has power, but it's nothing compared to Corporate America's millions that are funneled into Washington every election cycle. So, while the netroots have some amount of people power, it is also very limited.

Democratic candidates won the last time around because Amercians were sick and tired of losing the Iraq war. I suspect the results would have been the same regardless of whether the netroots existed or not. Some factors are simply out of the netroots control. Remember the "macaca" moment that sunk George Allen and gave the win to Jim Webb? No netroots influence there - just serendipity.

Do the netroots have some influence? Sure. People who read blogs are often inspired to become active in their local races. They write about the issues to inform others. They raise a bit of money. Some netroots leaders end up being interviewed by the MSM. What is lacking, however, is the huge political machine that the right has been nurturing and employing for decades.

So the left's netroots movement may have actual power at some point in the future. As it stands now, however, it's still in its infancy and that power is very limited. That's why I thought those proclamations by bloggers like Chris Bowers were a bit laughable. John Edwards' campaign won't fail if he loses netroots support and for some bloggers to declare they'd abandon him over this issue seems to be a rather pompous display of overestimating their own power.

Frankly, what ought to be a major concern for so-called left-wing bloggers are the statements Edwards made at the Herzliya conference:

Cheryl Fishbein from NY: When you do learning of Jewish texts, you give credit to ideas of scholars who have helped you ask questions, I would like to give credit to my friends and colleagues who have had this same overriding question of shared a existential threat: Would you be prepared, if diplomacy failed, to take further action against Iran? I think there is cynicism about the ability of diplomacy to work in this situation. Secondly, you as grassroots person, who has an understanding of the American people, is there understanding of this threat across US?

A: My analysis of Iran is if you start with the President of Iran coming to the UN in New York denouncing America and his extraordinary and nasty statements about the Holocaust and goal of wiping Israel off map*, married with his attempts to obtain nuclear weapons over a long period of time, they are buying time. They are the foremost state sponsors of terrorism. If they have nuclear weapons, other states in the area will want them, and this is unacceptable.

As to what to do, we should not take anything off the table. More serious sanctions need to be undertaken, which cannot happen unless Russia and China are seriously on board, which has not happened up until now. I would not want to say in advance what we would do, and what I would do as president, but there are other steps that need to be taken. Fore [sic] example, we need to support direct engagement with Iranians, we need to be tough. But I think it is a mistake strategically to avoid engagement with Iran.

As to the American people, this is a difficult question. The vast majority of people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. This will make the American people reticent toward going for Iran. But I think the American people are smart if they are told the truth, and if they trust their president. So Americans can be educated to come along with what needs to be done with Iran.

That's my bottom line: do you want John Edwards dragging your country into a war with Iran or not?

All of this netroots/blogger crisis stuff has just been a ridiculous diversion. You may want to grant Edwards a "spine" but you may regret that when it comes to how he might handle foreign affairs if he actually does become the president.

Update: The Catholic League has released its reponse to Edwards' decision. How pompous:

“Edwards said today that ‘We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked.’ I have news for him—the Catholic League—not Edwards—will decide what the debate will be about, and it won’t be about the nation. It will be about the glaring double standard that colors the entire conversation about bigotry.

“We will launch a nationwide public relations blitz that will be conducted on the pages of the New York Times, as well as in Catholic newspapers and periodicals. It will be on-going, breaking like a wave, starting next week and continuing through 2007. It will be an education campaign, informing the public of what he did today.

Reminder: Bill Donohue is The Catholic League's president and he can try to hide from his bigoted track record but it's well-documented.

What a hypocritical blowhard.

Compassion

2007-02-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I would like to explain the meaning of compassion, which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop genuine concern for his or her problem. This is genuine compassion. Usually when we are concerned about a close friend, we call this compassion. This is not compassion; it is attachment. Even in marriage, those marriages that last only a short time do so because of attachment – although it is generally present – but because there is also compassion. Marriages that last only a short time do so because of a lack of compassion; there is only emotional attachment based on projection and expectation. When the only bond between close friends is attachment, then even a minor issue may cause one’s projections to change. As soon as our projections change, the attachment disappears – because that attachment was based solely on projection and expectation. It is possible to have compassion without attachment – and similarly, to have anger without hatred. Therefore we need to clarify the distinctions between compassion and attachment, and between anger and hatred. Such clarity is useful in our daily life and in our efforts towards world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happiness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a nonbeliever.

- HH The Dalai Lama

I think that speaks for itself...

Catharsis

2007-02-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

ca·thar·sis

1. Medicine Purgation, especially for the digestive system.
2. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience.
3. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.
4. Psychology
1. A technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness.
2. The therapeutic result of this process; abreaction.

That's what this place is all about (except for the medical purgation thing which sounds gross). It's a safe envirnoment to rant, vent, scream, swear, cry, laugh, hug - to just let it all out without any restrictions and I believe it is serving us all well in that regard because, even though we have no rules, we honour each other.

/end o' philosophical part

The comments section in spiderleaf's thread has become very long so consider this post Part Deux.

Through that process of catharsis a new blog has been born: Everybody Comes From Somewhere. (I still expect spidey to post a proper birth announcement here with a little pic of some kind so we can all fawn over how cute the new addition is. Apparently, she's been busy watching some game involving a pigskin. Ewww.)

So, we'll keep doing what we do best here: Mo Betta Meta

And the new blog will be a place for...well...that's being defined by the new community. I'll just call it "progress".

Now back to the ~~catharsisizing~~ ~~catharsisization~~ chatting...