Send me

Spent all evening watching streaming video of the Dem Convention.

Yes. The speech was good. Not perfect, good. Solid, strong, clear, and nailed every point that had to be made. Go read Bellatrys's journal for some excellent analysis of the particulars.

For the first time ever, I have a sense of the Democrats as *a party* rather than as a bunch of people who more or less use the same fundraising channels and like to argue politics. It has become the party of America - of what we always already should be.

Let America be America again.

We won. It is very odd to think about that, but it is true. We *have* changed our country and for the better. The culture wars *are* over and the liberals have won. The reins of power, ah, those shall always be a location for battle, but the face of America - our perpetual and approachable America, to misquote Emerson - that was shown tonight at the convention. The veterans, the civil rights protestors, the hippies, the lawyers, the earnest, the celebrities, the devout.

Ah, yes, the devout.

What binds this party is faith. Not blind faith, or dogma, or doctrine, or ideology, or a creed to knock our heads on the floor to this god instead of that. Lived faith.

"Send me."

What is this but the word of someone with true faith, a conviction in the strength of his mission, and the desire to live it fully?

"Send me."

What binds the religious and the philosophical, those devoted to good works and those devoted to public works? A faith in the power to do what is right, and a desire to see it done.

"Send me."

In the face of those who hate our governance of, by and for the common, there stands the conviction that we live in the Kingdom of Heaven - for what part of what is is not that? There is but one creation and it *is* - and our task is to answer the call to make it real. Not perfection, but something better - sacrifice, submission, and the holiest of acts, creation. Those who despise America, even as they suck its life's blood and leave behind their poison, are shown to have failed in a test of faith.

"You go."

They refuse the claim of natality - unto us a child is born - and the obligation (and thus, the promise) that exists in that irreplaceable miracle. The terrifying moment of throwing onself into the act of creation - bring forth a new nation, declare that we are free, found the substance of equality out of a hint that it could be - that is the act of faith we witnessed, and that is finally, firmly, the core of this party, as it has always been the improbable and irascible soul of the nation. Those who refuse this call, they have not faith.

"You go."

We are called to have faith in this ancient, ever-new act - to bring into being what could never have been imagined before. The awesome, terrible power of action, bounded by the humility of those who know they are, in the end, mortal. Who know that what they love shall perish, and love it all the more. Who eschew the nihilistic fury of those who would destroy with certainty rather than live in hope of what could be.

"You go."

That is what the faithless say. You go in my place. You go do the dirty work. You go die for my fears. You go to hell. You go fuck yourself. You go away and quit reminding me of my finitude and my failure.

We have been called. Who will answer?


Here am I. Send me.


Ang
America 2004

The Man in Black

Farewell, Johnny Cash. We're a poorer people for your passing.


Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

Maureen Dowd's Latest Column

This woman hates everyone, and is usually a relatively insipid columnist. But lately, she's been ripping Duhbya a new one, and for all the right reasons:

"I've actually gotten to the point where I hope Dick Cheney is embroiled in a Clancyesque conspiracy to benefit Halliburton. Because if it's not a conspiracy, it's naïveté and ideology. And that means our leaders have used goofball logic and lousy assumptions to trap the country in a cockeyed replay of the Crusades that could drain our treasury and strain our military for generations, without making us any safer from terrorists and maybe putting us more at risk.

On 9/11's second anniversary, seven in 10 Americans still believe Saddam had a role in the attacks, even though there is no evidence of it, according to a Washington Post poll. That is because the president has done his level best to conflate 9/11 and Saddam and did so again in his speech on Sunday night.

Iraq never threatened U.S. security. Bush officials cynically attacked a villainous country because they knew it was easier than finding the real 9/11 villain, who had no country. And now they're hoist on their own canard.

By pretending Iraq was crawling with Al Qaeda, they've created an Iraq crawling with Al Qaeda.

As Donald Rumsfeld finished up an upbeat talk at the National Press Club here yesterday, brushing off hecklers and calling the global war on terror "well begun," cable began airing fresh Flintstones video of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri encouraging the Iraqi and Islamic fighters to "bury" American troops and send them to their mothers in coffins.

The Bush team's logic before the war was infuriatingly Helleresque, and it still is.

Mr. Rumsfeld, who was so alarmed about Saddam's W.M.D. before the war, is now so nonchalant that he said he did not even bother to ask David Kay, who runs the C.I.A.'s search for W.M.D. in Iraq, what progress he'd made when meeting with him in Iraq last week."

We're Not Happy Campers - whole article.

Of course, waaaaay back in my early LJ posts before we actually invaded, I said about the same thing. Told you so, you pea-brained "press"! Geez friggin' Louise, you'd think this was all a surprise to the pundits.

Better is Molly Ivins's column:

"Great, anybody who opposed this war in the first place was accused of lack of patriotism, and now anybody who points out that it's not going well is guilty of defeatism. If you raise your hand and ask where the weapons of mass destruction we were told were the reason for this war are, you're instructed to just Get Over It.

Well, I ain't gonna take it anymore. I am not shutting up for Bill O'Reilly or anyone else. I opposed our unprovoked, unnecessary invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it would be a short, easy war followed by the peace from hell. I predicted every terrorist in the Middle East would be drawn to Iraq like a magnet. I was right, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

I also realize the future in Iraq is a lot more important than any petty "I was right" vindication. I don't know if the glass in Iraq is half-empty or half-full, but what is clear is that the situation is deteriorating. That's why the Bush administration has changed course 180 degrees and is now asking for help from the United Nations.

But naturally, we're not supposed to mention that the administration has reversed itself -- no, no. As Paul Wolfowitz, who now has all the credibility of Ken Lay, explained, the new U.N. resolution "didn't sort of emerge out of nowhere a few days ago. It's been on our agenda ever since the fall of Baghdad."

He said the bombing of U.N. headquarters was "a breakthrough -- a sad one. The bombing, I think, changed the atmosphere in New York, and it looks like we can move forward in that area."

Right. The United Nations changed its position, we didn't change ours. How dumb do they think we are? I am tired of being asked to swallow lies by this administration. For $87 billion bucks, the least we deserve is some candor. I want to know who was responsible for the whole weapons of mass destruction fiasco, and I want to see some accountability for it -- resignations and firings. In May of this year, President Bush said, "We found the weapons of mass destruction." No, we didn't. We have yet to find any evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq. "

How dumb do they think we are? - full column.

Yes, folks, the US administration is full of shit and making the world a more dangerous and polluted place to live. Get a clue.

Democracy works best when the citizenry engages their brains and understands their own self-interest - like breathing, not getting killed, and making a living wage.

Ang

Race to the Bottom

US politics gets uglier by the day, even by the hour, as the fascist wing realizes it is losing out in public opinion. In Texas, the statehouse is threatening a forced redistricting of the entire state, effectively removing 5 or 6 elected representatives from office, just as soon as they can arrest 11 AWOL senators, drag them back to Austin and physically lock them in their offices so they can claim a quorum for their anti-democratic voting.

California appears to be coming out of its drug haze and realizing that, gee, maybe the recall wasn't such a good idea. Bustmante leads Ah-nold the Idiot, and Gray Davis's numbers keep rising. The AFL-CIO just came out strongly against the recall. You mean saying old lines from second rate movies won't solve the budget problem? Whoda thunk it....

There are now more soldiers dead since end of hostilities was declared than were killed during the invasion, and there is no end in sight. Duhbya seems to think that the UN owes him to come pull his ass out of the fire by sending in *their* men and women to get their asses shot off - but all under US command and direction. Oh, right.

That's a tough one, actually. I don't think anything less than a strong UN presence can restore something resembling normalcy to Iraq and alleviate the ghastly conditions Iraqis are being forced to live under. OTOH, I really don't want to see the Unelected Fraud and his band of goons foist the real work off onto the UN, particularly after having shit all over the rest of the world to create this debacle in the first place. They are playing chicken with people's lives - c'mon and help, now. You don't want to see this little girl die of starvation due to our brutality, do you?

Fucking fascist bastards...

Ang

From the introduction of "Big Lies"

"The most basic liberal values are political equality and economic opportunity. Liberals uphold democracy as the only form of government that derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and they regard the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights as essential to the expression of popular consent. Their commitment to an expanding democracy is what drives liberal advocacy on behalf of women, minorities, gays, immigrants, and other traditionally disenfranchised groups.

Liberals value the dynamism and creativity of democratic capitalism, but they also believe in strong, active government to protect the interests of society. They understand that markets function best when properly regulated, and they also know that unchecked concentrations of private power encourage environmental pollution, financial fraud, and labor exploitation. Liberals see a broad social interest in ensuring real opportunities and decent standards of living for everyone, while requiring basic responsibility from everyone.

Those who regard such ideals as naive today should remember that America in the 20th century was built on liberal policy, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the GI Bill, and the Great Society. The modern economy -- a private enterprise system that relies on government safeguards against depression and extreme poverty -- is the legacy of liberal leadership, from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. (And more recently Bill Clinton, who erased Republican deficits that were sending the economy into a spiral of recession and began to pay down the national debt.) Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people.

If Americans have a common fault, however, it's our tendency to suffer from historical amnesia. Too many of us have forgotten, or never learned, what kind of country America was under the conservative rule that preceded the century of liberal reform. And too many of us have no idea whose ideas and energy brought about the reforms we now take for granted.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

Whether they now describe themselves as liberal or not, most Americans remain strongly progressive in their views about taxation, healthcare, education spending, Social Security, environmental protection, and corporate regulation. In fact, despite conservative political advances in recent decades, survey evidence gathered by pollsters of all persuasions suggests that Americans are still more liberal than conservative."

Fom Joe Conason's new book Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth. Buy it on Amazon

Ang,
who is a liberal through and through, and damn proud of it

From the introduction of "Big Lies"

"The most basic liberal values are political equality and economic opportunity. Liberals uphold democracy as the only form of government that derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and they regard the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights as essential to the expression of popular consent. Their commitment to an expanding democracy is what drives liberal advocacy on behalf of women, minorities, gays, immigrants, and other traditionally disenfranchised groups.

Liberals value the dynamism and creativity of democratic capitalism, but they also believe in strong, active government to protect the interests of society. They understand that markets function best when properly regulated, and they also know that unchecked concentrations of private power encourage environmental pollution, financial fraud, and labor exploitation. Liberals see a broad social interest in ensuring real opportunities and decent standards of living for everyone, while requiring basic responsibility from everyone.

Those who regard such ideals as naive today should remember that America in the 20th century was built on liberal policy, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the GI Bill, and the Great Society. The modern economy -- a private enterprise system that relies on government safeguards against depression and extreme poverty -- is the legacy of liberal leadership, from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. (And more recently Bill Clinton, who erased Republican deficits that were sending the economy into a spiral of recession and began to pay down the national debt.) Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people.

If Americans have a common fault, however, it's our tendency to suffer from historical amnesia. Too many of us have forgotten, or never learned, what kind of country America was under the conservative rule that preceded the century of liberal reform. And too many of us have no idea whose ideas and energy brought about the reforms we now take for granted.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

Whether they now describe themselves as liberal or not, most Americans remain strongly progressive in their views about taxation, healthcare, education spending, Social Security, environmental protection, and corporate regulation. In fact, despite conservative political advances in recent decades, survey evidence gathered by pollsters of all persuasions suggests that Americans are still more liberal than conservative."

Fom Joe Conason's new book Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth. Buy it on Amazon

Ang,
who is a liberal through and through, and damn proud of it

From the introduction of "Big Lies"

"The most basic liberal values are political equality and economic opportunity. Liberals uphold democracy as the only form of government that derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and they regard the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights as essential to the expression of popular consent. Their commitment to an expanding democracy is what drives liberal advocacy on behalf of women, minorities, gays, immigrants, and other traditionally disenfranchised groups.

Liberals value the dynamism and creativity of democratic capitalism, but they also believe in strong, active government to protect the interests of society. They understand that markets function best when properly regulated, and they also know that unchecked concentrations of private power encourage environmental pollution, financial fraud, and labor exploitation. Liberals see a broad social interest in ensuring real opportunities and decent standards of living for everyone, while requiring basic responsibility from everyone.

Those who regard such ideals as naive today should remember that America in the 20th century was built on liberal policy, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the GI Bill, and the Great Society. The modern economy -- a private enterprise system that relies on government safeguards against depression and extreme poverty -- is the legacy of liberal leadership, from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. (And more recently Bill Clinton, who erased Republican deficits that were sending the economy into a spiral of recession and began to pay down the national debt.) Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people.

If Americans have a common fault, however, it's our tendency to suffer from historical amnesia. Too many of us have forgotten, or never learned, what kind of country America was under the conservative rule that preceded the century of liberal reform. And too many of us have no idea whose ideas and energy brought about the reforms we now take for granted.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

Whether they now describe themselves as liberal or not, most Americans remain strongly progressive in their views about taxation, healthcare, education spending, Social Security, environmental protection, and corporate regulation. In fact, despite conservative political advances in recent decades, survey evidence gathered by pollsters of all persuasions suggests that Americans are still more liberal than conservative."

Fom Joe Conason's new book Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth. Buy it on Amazon

Ang,
who is a liberal through and through, and damn proud of it

The CA Recall

The LA Times published a big spread comparing the leading candidates answers to a single issue - the increase in vehicle licensing. Under the current plan, approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Davis, fees on vehicle licensing will triple. By doing so, $4 billion in revenues will be raised. This is a small but significant portion of the $35 billion deficit in the CA state budget.

Most candidates are running with this as their main issue - if elected, I will repeal the tripling of the fee. So the Times asked each campaign: Would you really repeal this law and, if "Yes", where are you going to raise the $4 billion in funds that this measure provides?

In other words - talk is cheap. How are *you* going to manage California's fiscal crisis?

Arnold the Actor did not even bother to reply. Yup, the big Rethuglican front-runner doesn't think he has to bother giving people real answers. Loser.

The Rethuglican morons who lost the last election still hold to the same line - cut services for poor people, let the infrastructure of the state go to hell, don't tax the rich. Simon will cut all state services across the board, and the others all claim they will find the money by cleaning up government fraud and abuse. OK, good enough. How are you going to fund the enforcement and investigative agencies needed to root out the "fraud"? How do you know there is $35 billion in fraud going on such that you can balance the budget just by getting rid of it? Aren't you really saying you intend to lay more state employees off, cut services to ordinary Californians, and then finger-point at Mexican migrant labor as the source of the state's woes? Like you Rethuglicans always do? Or will you admit your dirty secret - you will pass the SAME budget measures Gray Davis is trying to get passed, with the same taxes, except now your Rethuglican buddies in the legislature will vote yes instead of stonewalling? Liars.

Huffington and Camejo propose taxing wealthy Californians and/or corporations at a higher rate. Sounds good until you realize that you can't do either without getting a super-majority in the legislature - which is what is preventing Davis from getting moderate measure passed in the first palce. So, an 8.5 for social activism, a 0 for political reality. Also, taxing companies is a sticky wicket. Some have excess profits (Enron, anyone?) but often are not CA corporations, while small businesses are just getting by in the stagnant economy, and can't cough up more until the business environment gets better.

The only candidate who had an answer with any substance was Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante. He would exempt the first $20K value of a vehicle, so as not to unduly penalize low and moderate income citizens, which would cut the revenue by $2 billion. He would then increase the alcohol and cigarette tax to make up the amount lost by exempting the first $20K value of a car. These are measures that try to address conflicting class interests in the state (c'mon folks, this is a class war between the rich and the non-rich, complicated by the usual racist, homophobic, and religious hysteria that grips Central Valley Californians. Get a clue), and has a chance of being approved by the legislature.

The real problem is the super majority (2/3) required to pass the budget. It needs to be made a strong majority (55%, the same as school bond measures) which allows budgets to be passed but not rubber-stamped. Right now, a minority of legislators can hold the entire state hostage to their ideological posturing, circumventing reasonable majority rule.

Meanwhile, the 5th largest economy in the world (if California were a nation, not a state) is unable to provide social services or get the economic engine back up to speed. Think of it this way - had California not been so badly fucked over by George W. Bush's buddy Kenny Lay and the other "energy bidness" robber barons, the *world* economy would be much stronger, the national economy would probably be growing at a good clip, employment would be higher (though not back to Clinton-era levels), and individual families would not be struggling so hard to make ends meet. California would not have lost BILLIONS down that open rat hole.

It is the economy, stupid.

Ang

FAIR AND BALANCED!

Argh! I missed the celebration of the offical "Fair and Balanced" day of blogging yesterday!

Form Joe Conason's blog on Salon: "In case you don't already know, Aug. 15 has been declared Fair and Balanced Day by freedom-loving bloggers everywhere, in response to the morally unfair and mentally unbalanced nuisance lawsuit brought by Fox News against Al Franken and his publisher."

I declare this LJ to be fair and blanced, particularly when compared to the crap that the right-wing fascist media in this country distributes. I am not in the pay of any political party, nor under the influence of religious superstition.

Ang

I Wonder

The snarfy Washington Post "journalist" who mocked Europeans for not being able "to take the heat" was so proud of his/her/their air conditioning and sealed buildings.

I wonder how many people in those kinds of buildings when the power went out across a huge chunk of the US yesterday were wishing they could open windows and turn on ceiling fans to keep cool. When my husband's building lost power last week, they had to leave because the temperatures rose to higher than the outside - no windows to open, no natural air currents.

And no power means no ice for your water, no way to run electric fans, and a whole host of other conveniences people take for granted.

The technologies that make living in hot, humid climates comfortable are heavily dependent upon large amounts of "cheap" energy.

Ang

Just Too Disgusting

The Washigton Post has an editorial making fun of the people in France who are dying becuse of the heat.

The bastard who wrote it is mocking Europeans for not having sealed buildings with air conditioning and saying that Americans can take high temperatures, what's wrong with those wussy Europeans?

Well, if the US had been suffering through a month of record temperatures with no rain, gee, we'd be in pretty bad shape ourselves, AC or no AC, don't you think?

Also, as usual, there is no mention of the fact that the oil, gas & coal burned in America to make our ACs run so nicely is demonstrably adding to the greenhouse effect - which is what is triggering weather abnormalities around the globe.

Yes, politics matter. It matters that we get politicians in office who do not believe it is their God-given, Xtian right to rape the earth and rob their neighbors and kill the heathens they can't convert.

Oh, and another soldier dead in Iraq, more civilians killed there, and still no end to the floundering malaise of joblessness in America.

Ang

Just a Thought

If the real backers of al-Quaeda are members of the Saudi royal family, and if the reason we can't *say* this officially and then open a can of Whup-Ass on them is because they control oil, doesn't it seem logical that the research and scientific might of America, not to mention the proper patriotic attitude, should be to go hammer and tongs at replacing oil as the primary energy source?

Oil Independence = National Security

Forget the Greens. This is a national security issue. Dependence on imported oil makes the US, Europe and Japan vulnerable because we can't afford to cut the Saudis off, declare them a pariah state, and let them rot in splendid isolation.

Oil Independence = National Security

Ang

What a Joke

So the Austrian weight-lifter is running for California governor.

What are the odds that he'll get it? Pretty good. The state is in hideous condition because of the Rethuglican fuck-over during the Enron price-gouging on energy, and what will happen? They will be rewarded with the governorship of the largest state because Ahn-nold will bring out stoopid people who just think it's cute to vote for the Terminator.

Just when I think the population is beginning to clue in to just how badly the Rethuglicans are screwing them, the public rejoices in the presence of another ass-hole fascist to vote for.

Ethical people will not use the bogus recall action to be rid of their political enemies, and the scum from the bottom of the sewage tank won't hesitate a second to use it at any opportunity. We have a "recall" process, people - it's called regular elections.

Diane Feinstein got it right when she said:

Additionally, it is now becoming apparent that there may well be dozens of candidates on the recall ballot, most of whom have no background or knowledge of the state’s enormous portfolio of issues -- whether it be the $99 billion budget, the numerous pieces of legislation awaiting signature or veto by the governor, or the thousands of pending appointments to critical judgeships and important state posts.

Indeed, few of these candidates know much about the law enforcement needs of the state or the security risks we face in the war against terror.

Few understand the myriad of challenges facing California’s public schools.

And, I would hazard a guess that if you asked these candidates what the Healthy Families program is, how it is funded, and how it benefits the state, the vast majority would have no idea what you are talking about. And that’s not to mention the enormously complicated Medicaid issues that face the state.

It matters who runs a bureaucracy. There are a lot of nuts and bolts to be managed. I'll take bland over incompetant, or fascistic, any day.

Ang

Mailer, again

Damn, this guy just gets better. In the most recent New York Review of Books online, there is an excellent exchange between Robert Tiersky and Norman Mailer on Mailer's previous article for NYRB, "White Man Unburdened."

The original article: The White Man Unburdened

The exchange about the article: Bush & Terror: An Exchange with Norman Mailer

Here are the last three paragrpah's of Mailer's reply, which may be some of the finest political writing about what is at stake to appear in print. The emphasis is mine:

"Maybe we will do well to learn to live with terrorism as a chronic condition, an ongoing upheaval to all sorts of good hopes, plans, and projects. All the same, until it reaches the numbers of our annual automobile accidents (more than 40,000 mortalities), can we recognize that there may be worse things in store for our Republic than projected weapons of mass destruction (which are, after all, never easy to deliver), and one of them is the shameless exploitation of American perception? A blinded democracy is soon on its knees begging for a leader to show the road.

At present, the specter of fascism settling upon us remains just that, an exaggeration, a specter, but will we escape it if we are struck by economic miseries? That is the time when we will need to be at our best rather than gulled in thought and dulled in language by our reigning Doctors of Advertising Sciences. Tiersky concludes his letter by suggesting that the real bottom line on the Bush administration, whatever its admitted low maneuvers, may be that it is still trying to do the job of searching genuinely to provide us with security.

The answer may be that there are more important things to safeguard. What does it profit us if we gain extreme security and lose our democracy? Not everyone in Iraq, after all, was getting their hands and/or their ears cut off by Saddam Hussein. In the middle of that society were hordes of Iraqis who had all the security they needed even if there was no freedom other than the full-fledged liberty offered by dictators to be free to speak with hyperbolic hosannas for the leader. So, yes, there are more important things to safeguard than security and one of them is to protect the much-beleaguered integrity of our democracy. The final question in these matters suggests itself. Can leaders who lie as a way of life protect any way of life?"


Precisely. At what cost "security"? What are we doing to ourselves as a people?

Ang

Rethuglican Politics in CA

OK, George Bush's buddy Kenny DeLay conspired to game the energy market in California, throwing the state in fiscal crisis because of skyrocketing energy costs. There is reasonable evidence to show that this one company, Enron, messed up California's tech economy, which relies on electricity, so badly that the length, depth and tenacity of the national recession can be credited to it.

So, the Rethuglican energy whores fuck over the state (punishing it for so decisively rejecting Duhbya Shrub in the last election. You DO remember that the majority of voters nation-wide voted against him, don't you?) and ruin its economy for the next ten years. Now, they have the gall to fund outside pollsters & profiteers to scrounge a fraction of signatures to force a recall election on a legitimately elected leader (unlike their own bully-boy president).

Here's the fun part - because of the way California recall election laws stand, Issa, the guy who bank-rolled the recall effort, can be elected governor with FEWER VOTES than it took to force the recall! All he has to do is out-poll the rest of the four or five Rethuglicans who decide that for a few thousand signatures and $3,500 dollars (shit *I* could do that!) they wanna be Gov. A few hundred thousand voters out of millions can appoint this guy governor.

Yes, a simple majority of votes will throw Davis out, and a simple plurality of votes will bring Issa in. Democrats cannot risk running candidates for fear of legitimizing the recall. The number of signatures needed for recall is less than the core of Republican-only voters. This isn't a recall - it is the Republican party rallying its loyalists and taking advantage of convoluted election laws to force themselves on the state.

Welcome the Bush Dynasty's kinder, gentler America, where oppositional thinking is labeled traitorous, where money means more than the law, and where *your* sons and daughters will be marched off to far corners of the earth to be killed. Not their kids, of course.

Ang