Tuesday, February 22, 2005

WHEN THE GOING GETS WEIRD, THE WEIRD GET GOING After 32 long years, we now know for sure that the third book of the great trilogy of our Modern Times will not be written. After too few flashes of brilliance in a writing career that, for all practical purposes ended over 20 years ago, Hunter Thompson looked at the prospects of his future in Bush America Inc. and took matters into his own hands. He blew his brains out at age 67. Though he was often imitated, no one even got close to Hunter. He brought his real and imagined hallucinations to bear on a generation and times that could not be explained in straight narrative. At his best, he was Apocalypse Now to the straight media’s Green Berets. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was not journalism – it was a hilarious indictment of a hypocritical, thoughtless nation. His theatrical, exaggerated hedonism was nothing compared to the Ugly Americans at serious play in old Las Vegas on Super Bowl weekend. He and his Samoan "attorney" were ugly and mad, but they could see the scene clearly from their perspective in the 4th dimension. In 1972, some poor (now long unemployed) press hacks on several campaigns gave Hunter access to the press bus, the aides and the candidates of a campaign featuring two doomed politicians. Whole workshops are now run at various training facilities for the Permanent Campaigners to keep unstable and – more importantly – unreliable people like Hunter off of future campaign planes, and they have succeeded to a disgusting degree. Not only can there never be another Hunter; there can never be another off-guard, unplanned, off-script moment. Even if something actually happened, there would be no one there capable of reporting it. But the real genius of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" was the vision and the joy Hunter had bringing us into the bowels of Nixon’s America. It was a dark, hopeless time, but Hunter reveled in the ugliness, exposing the smug satisfaction of the two-bit advertising men who brought us the New Nixon and the sloppy idealism of the McGovernites. Not that anyone would be allowed, but no one has even tried to recreate Hunter’s dissection of the decrepit state of what passes for U.S. politics since 1972. I can think of no other writer that I would want to go after the Black Knights of Bush and explore the New Darkness we live in. Instead, we have the pathetic likes of Jeff Greenfield exploring the importance of security in the homeland and how Bush resonates and blah, blah, blah. Theodore White, call your office. As the years went by – Reagan, Clinton and now Junior – the world was much worse off for the lack of Hunter’s voice or anything like it. There had to be something to say to make sense of it all as only he could, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t. No doubt his drug of choice (alcohol), his recreational pursuits (guns) and his Splendid Isolation in the mountains overcame his gift and his insight. Like Michael Jackson, his early promise and stunning accomplishments brought him the wealth and status to withdraw from the world and create one of his own design – and thereby destroyed his art. He became – literally – a cartoon of himself; the Icon of Excess. At the end, this allowed CNN’s Aaron Brown – who should know better – to pay tribute to him Monday night by portraying him as a hopeless lunatic of a thankfully-past time. The best and the worst Brown could say about Hunter is that he was "not Sandra Dee", the former actor known for being a teenager who died the same weekend. So, when his physical struggle with the heavy, dreaded Mojo wire (always decided with a shotgun blast, the ultimate man-over-machine power statement) gave way to the ease of the point-and-click internet, Hunter found himself overwhelmed by the ease of delivery and distribution and inside the nightmare of nothing left to say. In his last years, his only occasionally amusing ramblings would run on, of all things, the ESPN2 site. But he was done a long time ago with the long, weighty tomes and magic moments. Now I guess we’ll have to figure out all this bullshit on our own. 6:50:59 AM    comment []

Sunday, November 14, 2004

REWIND – ELECTION DAY 2004 PART TWO Monday, November 1 The first recollection I have of anything personally presidential was during the general election campaign in 1960. I was five years old at the time (pause for you to do the math...continue) and Dad took me to the Milwaukee Airport to see, of all people, Richard Nixon. All I took away from the event is a burned-into-memory image of a sole figure on a spare platform about 50 yards away in black hair and a dark suit speaking to a bunch of men in trenchcoats out on the tarmac somewhere. I don’t recall any signs, no media presence, no advance people – just the young Nixon, standing on what could have been a soapbox, talking with the local businessmen like it was just another Rotary meeting. As I sat from my perspective – on Dad’s shoulders, best seat in the house – I knew this all meant something, but I wasn’t sure what. My Nixon advocacy extended to the front steps of our home in the west side of Wauwatosa, holding forth on the merits of the my candidate in an intense debate with my best friend and neighbor at the time, who had the nerve to be a Kennedy support. I don’t remember the details, but I’m sure the debate was based on facts and reason. Seems to me we got into a little back-and-forth on the order of "He is not!""Is so!", but I believe the rating was weighted for age, intelligence and scored on a curve anyway. Actually, I don’t think we could get anyone else in the local kid-dom to listen to us. I first got a sense of the seeming importance of the presidency in 3rd grade on a sudden Friday afternoon, when Mrs. Wismer got a knock on the door from several of the nuns (other teachers and the principal). After much milling around, they finally told us that Kennedy had been killed in Dallas. The rest of that weekend’s memories were all iconic black-and-white TV images of the flag-draped casket, the horse-drawn carriage and the drums. Those muffled drums stayed in my head for months. We came home from church on Sunday, with my sister Barb jumping up and down about the patsy, Oswald, getting shot on live TV. Just my luck. And why wasn’t she in church again? Anyway, suddenly, even for us kids, the president was important. Later, I would graduate from a short-lived experimental high school named for Kennedy that chose as its motto a phase from JFK’s inaugural address: "To Lead the Land We Love". I was (and am) naive and corny enough to believe it. I remember joining in several "hot water, cold water, we hate Goldwater" chants on the playground in 4th grade in ‘64. Again, I don’t remember, but Dad must have felt estranged from his moderate Republican party that year, as the first wave of pioneering, ahead-of-their-time wingnuts hijacked the nomination process and brought us Barry "Nuke ‘Em" Goldwater. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice’" he said, especially since he and his decedents took (take) it upon themselves to define what "liberty" was (is). Anyway, there was no such analysis by me then. It could have been that nothing clever rhymed with Johnson. My last election as a child (if you consider 13 a child, and what 13 year-old does?) was the horrible, exhilarating, revolutionary year of 1968. Martin and Bobby were killed (JFK, Malcolm, MLK, RFK...boy, those lone-nut gunman sure seem to have gotten the right guys, didn’t they?). The "new" Nixon, the first candidate sold like toothpaste by advertising executives Haldeman and Erlichman, was the "peace" candidate. The RFK assassination robbed the remaning hopeful of hope and the nation sunk into darkness. Dad died on November 16, 1971 (34 years ago this week). One of my many regrets is that I didn’t get a chance to talk him into voting for McGovern in ‘72. He dutifully held up the Nixon peace-with-honor line at the dinner table, but, deep inside, he may have known that his thinking children who cared about peace in the world and other now-maligned ideals were right and the soon-to-be exposed criminal in the White House was wrong. At our house now, a meeting of the minds between parents and children is not at all hard to find on all matters Bush. During the campaign, the house was festooned with two Kerry yard signs and one giant sign on an upper balcony, and the boys (10 & 11) decorated their lockers and backpacks with stickers and buttons. While our dinner table conversations usually revolve around issues of shared experiences, joyful events of the day just past, personal responsibility and situational ethics ("Now, when [insert name here] suggested that snowballs were the best way to get the girls’ attention, what should you have done?"), we discussed the merits of Bush and Kerry in a, um, fair way. Sometimes, the poison of Bush campaign lies and spin invaded the discussion. For instance: "Dad, is it true that Kerry voted against funding the troops?" After I explained that there were two versions of the bill and the issue was really about $20 billion in uncontrolled "reconstruction" money for gangsters like Haliburton, of course, I thought the issue was resolved. "But Dad," says my boy, "Why did he vote against funding the troops?" Oh well. The boys saw the big picture and, according to them, Junior Bush was pretty much of a laughing stock in their schools; it was agreed almost universally, as only boys that age can put it (not in the house, please) that Bush Sucks. Although they had no patience at all for my hogging the TV for prime-time cable squawkfests ("But, SportsCenter is on!" Jeez, isn’t SportsCenter always on?), the whole family was of one mind on the election and its importance. It was in this vein that a friend and I took the boys and her son out of school the day before the election to attend a Kerry rally in downtown Milwaukee. As she got the boys in line at the rally, I finished up some stuff in the office and walked from there to the rally about seven blocks away. On the way, I purposely walked past the Arena, where Bush was also having a rally about an hour before Kerry’s was to start. The well-heeled mixed with, well, the well-heeled in the line snaking around the corner, while a Bush functionary barked orders through a bullhorn. A lawyer I knew from the courthouse looked up quickly, then away, rightfully embarrassed to be supporting Junior. As I walked past the line, I held up one finger and did a little solo "One More Day" chant (oh, the cleverity). There was no response, no doubt because the unspontaneous and unimaginative Busheteers were waiting for their top-down organization to issue action-plan orders. From the Darkness and Fear of 4th and Kilbourn, I walked east towards the sunshine of Hope and Democratic Reconstruction on the other side of the Milwaukee River. While the Bush crowd hid behind security barriers, loyalty oaths and under a roof, the highly-motivated Kerry faithful gathered outside on Water Street. In the often-driving rain. And a stiff wind. A brighter future never felt so cold and wet. But we got our way up to the railing around the stage, exactly behind Kerry as he (eventually) spoke. But in the meantime, we had to endure the worst outside weather this side of a Packer game in December. Underdressed, wet and cold, we hung in there for several hours, waiting to see the candidate and offer our support. As a young guitar player and, later, Jon Bon Jovi slid their fingers over wet fretboards and stomped in the puddles on the stage, the boys bravely held their spots on the rail and shivered under their plastic parkas. Eventually, Kerry arrived with his two daughters for a brief hit-and-run "let’s go get ‘em" speech to the wet 10,000 or so in attendance. After climbing off the platform, Kerry did a circle around the rail, eventually coming to our spot. He spent a few moments with our youngest ("I was too excited. I forgot what he said!") and all got to shake hands and exchange high-five with who we thought would be the next president of the United States. A couple of rows back, I used my height and reach to shake with the candidate, who, at 6'4", is exactly my height. In what seemed like an extended period of eye contact, I saw hope and confidence. "Thanks, Senator. Let’s do it!" I shouted. And off he went. We all hurried off to the first place we could find for a late lunch and a warm-up and dry-off before heading home. The boys didn’t seem too excited by the speech, but were genuinely impressed with getting to shake his hand. Arriving home, I got an e-mail from the Kerry campaign. "I understand you offered to go anywhere for the Voter Protection program tomorrow. How would you like to go up north to a Native American reservation?" Later, I packed my bag, kissed the boy and my wife, and headed up to Crandon, Wisconsin, to protect the vote, making sure every voter was allowed to vote and that every vote was counted.   8:25:56 PM    comment []

Friday, November 12, 2004

REWIND – ELECTION DAY 2004 PART ONE Saturday, October 31 On the Saturday before the election – Halloween, as it turns out – I spent the early evening with about 400 other lawyers, law students and legal professionals in the Milwaukee teacher’s union meeting room on Vliet Street. We were there to learn about Wisconsin’s appropriately liberal election law and to get our directions for heading out to various polling places around the city and the state on Tuesday to protect voters – to make sure, as John Kerry himself put it, that every eligible voter be allowed to vote and that every vote is counted. The Voter Protection program was created in response to two main forces created by the GOP: 1) the theft of the election by the Bushies from the Supreme Court on down in 2000 and 2) the enormous volume of the squawking coming from wingnut radio, cable and the Bush campaign about "voter fraud", a bright red herring that they had created in their effort to suppress the vote. The Bushies in Milwaukee (as in Ohio and in other battleground states) had promised to be out in force on Election Day, especially in poor and minority areas, to "challenge" voters who they claimed were improperly registered, bussed-in for the day from Illinois to take advantage of Wisconsin’s same-day registration law and even rounding up illegal aliens (from where was not explained) to somehow defraud the election process and "steal" Wisconsin for Kerry. As usual, the actual facts don’t matter to the radio wingnuts as they try to stir up irrational reactions in their, er, vulnerable audience. One of the more "successful" radio clowns in Milwaukee, the repellant Mark Belling, found himself getting so worked up over this non-issue that he warned that Milwaukee’s largely Latino near south side polling places would be invaded by illegal "wetbacks" for Kerry. After the Latino community reacted in justifiable outrage, Belling "apologized" in his nasal, snide "I-don’t really-mean-this" voice and spent the rest of that particular show making fun of the issue with his supportive (and apparently similarly racist) callers, eventually calling his audience "all wet". This was a bit too over-the-top even for pro-Bush mega-media conglomerate Clear Channel, especially after Latino organizers got several advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the program. For now, Belling has been sent somewhere for re-education; a refresher course in Rush Limbaugh’s "How to Send Racist Messages Without Being Called Racist" doctrine. The Rove-inspired "claim voter fraud" scheme worked several angles for the Bushies, or so they thought. First, if the minorities think that big, burly Republicans would be sitting at the polls, checking voter lists (and who knows what else – arrest warrants? parking tickets?) they are less likely to show up. Also in this vein of intimidation, the county sheriff, former right-wing darling David Clarke (lost recent mayor’s race – badly), whose department has nothing to do with poll law enforcement, also let it be floated that his deputies just might be walking in with badges, guns, etc. Again, folks in Milwaukee’s minority underclass spend most of their lives trying to stay away from these people. They are less likely to face such a confrontation just for one lousy vote. Second, the way the Republican’s talked, they were going to do on-site challenges to as many as 35,000 registrations in Milwaukee. "We have a list!" they shouted, like amateur Joe McCarthys. After the State Elections Board heard their case regarding the first several hundred on the list in the days before the election and found all of them just fine, they threw the Bushies out on their ear. But that didn’t prevent the storm-troopers from threatening to throw challenges around on election day itself. If they actually did that, they might have prevented some legitimate voters from voting, might have blocked some legitimate on-site registrations and certainly would have caused much confusion and long lines, resulting in some people giving up. Again, the goal is only to suppress the vote – although they beat their chests about how civic-minded they were, they were only concerned about too much democracy in Milwaukee. Finally, the Bushies wanted something to complain about after the election if they lost. If they created this facade of massive voter fraud – even without naming one voter who voted, but shouldn’t have – they could say that Bush did not lose on the issues, the election was stolen, blah blah blah. The local newspaper and empty-headed TV blobs pathetically assisted the vote suppression effort by legitimizing the GOP’s manipulative false squawking campaign, pretending that "voter fraud" was a "serious issue" that must be "dealt with". As Election Day approached, there was a serious possibility of chaos at the polls as the righteous right took their thuggery from the air waves and cable wires to the streets. It was in this context that all of us found ourselves in a cramped union hall that Saturday. Lawyers of all ages and dispositions were there, serious about the importance of the election and dedicated to protecting the voters. A couple of Kerry staff lawyers and several local volunteer coordinators gave us the rundown on what was expected from the Republicans (who, while they squawked loud and long on the radio, were extremely secretive about what they were actually going to do on election day). Most important was the discussion and materials provided on election Wisconsin law. We all left recognizing the seriousness of our situation and the value that our (now) expert assistance. We left with confidence in the pro-voter strength of Wisconsin law and the integrity of long-time poll workers. In the room, there was a definite feeling of Fear of the unknown GOP tactics. We – alright, I – also realized that desperate, power-mad and shameless Republicans, ruling on the basis of Lies and Fear, will do anything, including shutting down the democratic process. Having got away with it in Florida in 2000, they would push the envelope further, as far as the timid and cowed mainstream media would let them. And that was very far indeed. 3:58:24 PM    comment []

Sunday, November 07, 2004

THE "THEM DECADE" In the wake of his razor-thin electoral college "victory" this past week, our Fearless Leader has called for reconciliation and reached out to Kerry voters. In his "victory" speech, he implied that he wanted to end the divisiveness that his campaign thrived on in the election and that his regime used to its own devices for the past four years. In words as ironic as they were laughingly insincere, the Great Divider claimed that he would "do all I can do to deserve your trust." I am a great believer in fighting the battle and then settling with the result. As ugly as it was four years ago when the Bushies on the Supreme Court stole a legitimate and badly needed recount from the people of Florida - and therefore the election from all the American people – Al Gore was gracious and went beyond the call of duty to help settle the issue and get everyone to move on. It was something that Bush and his radical band in Congress would not have done in a million years, were the shoe on the other foot. So, in the spirit of moving forward and setting the right mood for the country and the world in these Interesting and Dangerous Times, I am proud to answer the president’s call in no uncertain terms: Shove it. I choose these words carefully, considering but rejecting several other two-word responses that simply would not suit this forum, which is, after all, a family-oriented Blog (right, Mom?). But since Teresa Heinz Kerry impulsively brought that particular phrase into the political nomenclature, I believe it gets the job done: Mildly vulgar for its desired effect and expression of disgust and direct enough to make it clear where I stand and where I think all of us who fought our hearts out against Bush and his minions should stand. There is no reason to even pretend to have anything to do with this empty-suited fraud, whose surrogates and staff spent the last year slowly stealing the election process from the American people – a significant majority of whom wanted him out – by a daily bombardment of lies, diversions and tricks designed to do anything but engage in a true discussion of the issues and an examination of his own pitiful record. And, I tell you, these people never quit. Immediately after Kerry’s moving concession to the inevitable after his lawyers examined the situation in Ohio, the Bush Surrogates began spinning our reaction to the disappointing results of the election. We are elitists, they say on the radio, cable and wingnut newspaper and internet columns. It is said that we look down our noses at the unwashed rubes who fall for the Bush line of bullshit. Certainly, there is a feeling of disbelief that Bush, such an obvious boob and failure as president and as a person, could get votes from anybody for anything. But I am not the kind of person who believes that people get the government they deserve. Some people are just more susceptible to the manipulations of shameless politicians than others. This doesn’t mean they are stupid. It means that they are not paying the same sort of attention to certain things as we are, or, rather, they are paying attention to different things when it comes to their government. Ergo, my Rock Music Analogy: I used to wonder how the hell millions of people could buy records and go to concerts by the likes of REO Speedwagon, Journey, Styx, Kansas, etc. This was in the mid-70s, when I worked in a record store and actually got free tickets to see these wretched bands play and listened to all their dreck, shoved into my ears by consultants and bad radio programmers. Growing up as I did with the sweet soul music of Aretha, Smokey, James, the Temps and the Supremes (brought home by my older sisters in college); discovering the magic of the Beatles, the Stone and the Animals by myself; and getting downright emotional and intellectual with Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and the like, I knew music pretty good and intellectually challenging music was very important to me in my 20s. I turned it up loud, thought about it, wrote about it, and tried to emulate it in my own humble musical creations. In those days (and those days only), the meaning of life through music was reflected by the great rock-and-roll writers at Rolling Stone, Creem and the Village Voice. A clever turn of phrase by Steely Dan, a searing guitar riff by Young or Springsteen and the revolutionary fervor of the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones were not only musical events. They spoke to something not only in the rock culture; the music was also a positive force for change, understanding and joy in the wider society. It took a while to figure out those people spending all that money and spending all that time head-banging to those other lousy bands, though. But, watching a group of teenage girls and another group of guys on the floor of an REO concert – it dawned on me. These people didn’t care about lyrics meaning anything and had no interest in or appreciation for the Big Statement. They wanted their guitars loud, but predictable and safe. The music wasn’t their life – it was the soundtrack of their life. The point of going to the concert was not to experience the Event, like a Who concert. The point of going to the show was to hang with their friends, maybe find new ones, maybe get close to someone. Their music was different because they wanted different things from it. It’s the same, I think, with Bush and the targeted "heartland" voters. For the Democrats and other Kerry supporters who put forth such a great effort this year, the election was about Big Issues: war and peace, the deficit, the economy, health care, good government and – yes, mostly – about the horrendous reality of Bush as president. It was about what was best for their lives, the lives of their neighbors and for the less fortunate, who have fallen through the wide cracks of Bush’s crumbling social sidewalk. For those who eventually voted for Bush, even if they didn’t like him, it wasn’t that they didn’t necessarily understand the issues we were concerned with, they just didn’t care in the same way. The issues we pushed weren’t completely ignored – they just weren’t on the radar screens of the part of the electorate targeted by Rove/Bush. It was the absurdly-sainted Ronald Reagan who first gave Americans explicit permission to care about only themselves and to ignore all those people who were looking for a handout and using their food stamps to buy steaks and vodka. It was all about your Morning in America, and all the rest who couldn’t see the beautiful dawn could go hang. The attacks of 9/11 proved the perfect solution for the problem of Bush’s first eight lame months in office. Master manipulator Karl Rove immediately recognized the political implications of the attacks; getting Bush to call it a "war" (a wartime president!), immediately squashing voices of dissent ("be careful what you say"), throwing thousands of brown-skinned immigrants in prison without charges or legal access and severely limiting well-settled constitutional liberties. And, as the bumbling Bush stumbled through record job losses and deficits and darted off to a ridiculous Stupid War in Iraq, Rove and the other Bushies maintained the Fear that would keep the self-centered part of the electorate with them throughout, even in the face of irrefutable proof that Bush and his reckless shenanigans had actually left them less safe. Thus, the success of Rove’s campaign, resulting in Bush’s first real election as President, just three years after the beginning of the Fear. If the ‘70s were coined the "Me Decade" by Tom Wolfe due to unprecedented self-involvement and navel contemplation, the ‘00s (pronounced "the aughts") are the "Them Decade". "They" (terrorists) will strike again if we do not remain "resolute". "They" (gays) are trying to marry each other and move in next door. "They" (pro-choice supporters) want to kill viable partially-born babies. "They" (researchers) want to take thousands of precious fertilized eggs and kill them for their stem cells to help Christopher Reeve. "They" (Brady Bill advocates) are coming to saw your guns in half. "They" (ACLU, etc.) want to keep Christ out of courthouses and schools and are coming for your bibles next. Etc. With all this hyped-up Fear out there, it didn’t take much to portray Kerry as a cause or an inadequate fighter against all those things of which we were told to be afraid. He says he would keep us safer by a smarter war on terror and better international relations? Haw. What is he, French? He says he’s against gay marriage but wants to give the states the right to choose? Why can’t he make up his mind? Didn’t you see him goose-hunting in Ohio? God, that was pathetic; anyone can see he really wants to ban the gun he was carrying. And so on. With the Fear and Anti-Kerry messages blasting 24/7 out of the radios and cable boxes throughout the country, it’s a wonder how Kerry got so tantalizingly close to being elected. And as long as the right-wing has such an enormous hold on the messages that are broadcast through their giant megaphones and until we get some vehicle that makes just as much noise, the fix will always be in for the wrong team. The political discourse of the country is so incredibly poisoned by the tireless and cynical efforts of the Wingnut Jihad, that it will take years, if not decades, just to have a rational conversation about the course of our country. In the meantime, Junior Bush rules for four more years. A sadder result could not be imagined. We are becoming a Third World country, ruled by oligarches as the rich get richer and the poor poorer, sliding into the despair of a growing underclass with their own rules, law enforcement, barter system, etc. Those of us who care are left to search ourselves for the energy to keep up the fight, to limit the damage, to storm the castle, someday. Those who have bought the Fear look at the darkening sky and pray for the grace to survive the rains and pray to Bush to facilitate the lie of Rapture. 11:29:39 PM    comment []

Sunday, October 31, 2004

BUSH PRESIDENCY – R.I.P. A PRE-MORTEM Why can’t the commentariat just come out and say that the consensus is that John Kerry is going to win – maybe big and maybe early – on Tuesday? They all know it, they all act like it, they are all speculating about Biden at State, Sam Nunn (eesh) at Defense, Holbroke at NSC, etc. If the Bushies were doing a slow, incremental-but-certain climb up the national and battleground polls the way Kerry has since the first debate, you know damn well there would be at least one smug wingnut (from the Wall Street Journal; the National Review; the Weekly Standard and from, well, Planet George Will) on each of the Sunday morning talk-fests, waving their hands and talking about the second Bush administration, who’s in, who’s out, whatever. As it was this morning, though, nothing. "Boy, it sure will be close" is the best anyone could come up with. We are left to read between the lines of the faces representing the campaigns for the past week: Exuberant Dems and dour Bushies-in-denial. The sense of Bushie angst is most palpable over at Fox News, where the staff is probably wondering what they’ll do now that their primary function as the Bush house organ and Amen-chorus is about to go the way of all out-of-power propagandists, except that they will probably be spared the firing squad of some, uh, less polite nations. Although they deserve to be moved back in the hallway – Helen Thomas, come on down – they can probably expect at least to be moved a few rows back in the White House press room. Carl Cameron will have lots of time on his hands to attend Bush staff reunions. In the meantime, it’s hard to say what the shiny-faced studio Fox-heads (where do they get those people?) are going to talk about without the wonderful imaginary land of Bushworld to bring to their breathless viewers. Perhaps they will discover another world with real problems, real disasters and real news. Might be too icky for them. I predict a major staff turnover; the station goes to all black-and-white; and the nation is portrayed as dark and desolate. Maybe Big Bother wasn’t really the Government; maybe he was the voice of the Angry Opposition. Even the bottom-of-the-barrel Drudge Report seems to have given up the Ghost. After blaring "breaking news" all last week, trying to cover for the Bushies’ incredible failure to guard Iraq’s primary weapons depot, the main story tonight (if you can believe it, and why would you?) is light attendance at a Chelsea Clinton event for Kerry. As Junior was scrambling to escape responsibility for something he was responsible for again, both Drudge and the soon-to-be looking-for-sponsors Rush Limbaugh got sucked in to trumpeting the press conference of a soldier who claims to have taken tons of something (but not the dangerous weapons of concern) out of the depot in late April 1993. Drudge gave it the full, silly "developing..." play and Limbaugh was actually dumb enough to go live to the conference (ducking out for a "commercial after it was clear he had been had). If either of them had any integrity, shame or dignity, they would have ripped whoever in the Bush hierarchy gave them the bad tip. As it was, the story simply fell off of Drudge’s page and Limbaugh (along with Hannity and the other talk-radio clowns) simply lied about what the guy said. Limbaugh never did let the facts get in the way of a good pro-Bush story. The mainstream media, meanwhile, will have to figure out: a) why did we go along with the charade of the Bush regime in the first place?, b) how did the majority of the voters figure out that the Bushies were a radical bunch of nuts when we avoided the issue like the plague; c) how do we back off of our patronizing acceptance of radical right-wing ideology as somehow normal?; and 4) what the hell were we thinking when we let the invasion of Iraq happen without critical thinking – in fact, why were we out-in-the-open cheerleaders for a disaster? But the Masters of Media are even less likely than Bush holding a smoking gun over a dead body to admit a mistake. They will ascribe Bush’s defeat as a failure of strategy (should Cheney have flown all the way out to Hawaii on the Sunday before the election? Should Bush have spent any time at all in New Jersey?) rather than a sound rejection of his radical regime, his Stupid War, his lame puppethood and his disastrous record on all levels. Kerry will be damned with faint praise, portrayed as the lucky beneficiary of (they will say) irrational hate of a dim-witted son of privilege who may have been inept and couldn’t talk too good, but, gosh, he was a great guy if you got to know him. "If only everyone could get to know him in a small-group..." "Sure, he was stupid and wrong. But he called me Skippy ‘cuz I liked peanut butter..." In the end, Bush couldn’t even live up to his own low expectations. If he hadn’t taken such radically wrong actions that ended up in thousands of Unnecessary Dead; hadn’t taken the good will of the world after 9/11 and turned it into world-wide eye-rolling ("What’s with this guy?", in 250 languages); hadn’t allowed his wealthy contributors to move a cot into the Oval Office and write the laws that made them rich(er) – if he hadn’t done all that and more, he likely would have been re-elected by a mostly-sleepy populace that didn’t give a rip, as long as he didn’t get in the way. As it is, Kerry will have to spend at least his first two years in office just trying to repair the damage caused by these dangerous bozos at home and around the world. The Bushies and their wealthy supporters should be happy with the incredible gifts they have given themselves over the past four years. But they won’t because they are and always have been nothing but self-serving greedy bastards. And greedy bastards always want more. 10:11:55 PM    comment []

Thursday, October 28, 2004

THE BAD, SKIPPING RECORD Back in the day, we used to listen to music on something called a turntable. A primitive device invented (I think) by Thomas Edison in the early 1900s, the turntable produced sounds by spinning a vinyl disc with tiny grooves imprinted on it at various speeds on a round platform; then placing a thin needle in the grooves, causing it to vibrate in ways that somehow recreated sounds from a recording. The repeated scraping of the needle over the plastic grooves, mishandling of the vinyl itself, age and normal wear-and-tear would often result in a deterioration of sound – a scraping noise, pops, (unplanned) distortion. In the worst of conditions, the "record" would "skip", meaning that the needle would actually jump out of the grooves and repeat that which had gone before. The result was always annoying and rarely comical. If more weight on the needle – say, a nickle taped to the arm – didn’t solve the problem, the disc was worthless – a "broken record", as it were – often (in "red" states) thrown into the air and pelted with BBs from a juvenile air gun. I have been amazed how much the Bush message throughout his campaign has sounded like a broken record. He has literally had nothing new to say since his nominating convention, and even that was a rehashed refinement of the illogical, twisted-fact Kerry-bashing that has gone on since Kerry took control of the Democratic nomination in February. The hobgoblin of intractable consistency, even (especially) when wrong, has been characteristic of his disastrous regime and is supposedly a source of strength for his supporters. But the trait/tactic has not worked all that well for a campaign that has been surprisingly unable to adjust to the shifting sands of an increasingly restless and skeptical electorate that is trying to overcome Bush’s unfair, 24/7 smearing of Kerry to walk into the voter’s booth on Tuesday and throw Junior and his band of elitist radicals out of office. For weeks now, Kerry has proved the better campaigner and the better campaign, reacting to every smear and daily low blow within hours and keeping the appointed president on the defensive by merely reciting Bush’s many failures in office. This week, some very powerful weapons came up missing in Iraq, at what everyone knew (or should have known) was a key weapons depot. Apparently, nobody told the Army unit that used the facility for a pit stop on its way to Baghdad – I mean, it’s not like it was an oil field or something important to the Bushies like that. Since then, some roving bands of Iraqis or, worse, foreigners with bad intentions have made off with the tons of explosives to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what. Hearing stories like this, I can’t help but think of Iraq as not unlike the post-nuclear Australia of the Mad Max movies, with the U.S. as Mel Gibson (of course), mocked and humiliated by the bigger, stronger warriors who know the land better than he does, who laugh at his go-gooder intentions as they brush him aside and play king-of-the-hill turf wars among each other. As candidate/robotron Bush stayed on message, the Bush Surrogates played their usual game when faced with bad news, starting with, always, attacking the messenger. In this game, the New York Times is accused of an "October Surprise", knowingly and manipulatively springing a story in the last week of the campaign to affect its outcome. Thus does the issue get diffused from "is it true and how could such a thing happen on your watch?" to "why now?" and "consider the source". In this game, the Times story is lumped with other "mistakes" of the mainstream press – such as the wildly-exaggerated memo faux pas at CBS – to show an overall bias. Next, anything Kerry says about it – and he rightly jumped right on it as an example of Bush’s incompetence – is "doing and saying anything to win" and is calling the troops "incompetent". Of course, there is a difference between calling Bush incompetent and calling the troops incompetent – a difference lost on the Bushies, who are always looking for anyone but themselves to blame. In fact, it was their own guy today, Rudy Giuliani – by all accounts, a decent guy who needs to get away from the losers he is currently running with ASAP – who directly blamed the troops today. And all Kerry is "doing and saying" to win is telling the truth. Finally, get your Surrogates in the Pretend Media at Fox News, the Moonie Washington Times and the Drudge Report to tell lies about the missing weapons and try to divert attention from this, well, uncomfortable issue. The embarrassing MW Times floated a fabrication this morning from a "deputy undersecretary of defense for international security technology" (!) who claimed the Russians helped the Iraqis steal away with the stuff before the war. Right. Before (during and after) the invasion, every inch of Iraq was under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day. Not only would our snoopers have noticed (and ordered air strikes) against any such movements before the invasion, they also would have noticed such a giant excavation any time after.  Or, at least, you'd hope they would.  It makes much more sense to assume that the weapons were picked away by looters, as were so many important sites in Iraq that were pick-pocketed by profit-seekers and worse after the invasion. After getting hit over the head for three days, Rove, Inc. finally gave Junior himself a script to read about how dangerous it was for Kerry to be "jumping to conclusions" and how "we don’t know what happened". Never has ignorance been so celebrated than with this bunch. Sheesh. And the sewer-dwelling Drudge can always be counted on to throw curve balls at the all-too-compliant major media simpletons. He’s had his ridiculous spinning-light icon up at least three times in the past couple of days (including right now), trumpeting a "terror tape" given to ABC News, who gave it to the FBI ("BUT NOT ALL OF IT!", claims the non-journalist). Drudge can always be counted on for a hyped info-dump useful to the GOP. It gives the Bushies a chance to remind us all how fearful we should be about terror and changing horses in midstream and the weak will of the senator from mass-a-choo-setts who will seek approval from the Global Test as we wait for the attack that is sure to come because he won’t take proactive action, etc. But the Bushies have lost the "dangerous world" issue, anyway. They convinced everyone a long time ago that this is a dangerous world that needs serious leadership. And they have proved throughout their regime that they are entirely un-serious radical zealots who will risk our children’s lives and fortunes and the basic structure of world peace for their own nutty purposes. That’s why they are losing. 5:01:15 PM    comment []

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

"DON’T FORGET TO NOT VOTE!" With desperation in their eyes and flop-sweat on their brows, the official Bush surrogates headed to the TV studios this past weekend to spread their message of victory and cheer. Denying the cautious report of "apprehension" in the Bush camp in the Washington Post that morning, the ever-on-message robotron Ken Melman and head geek John Gillespie both denied panic in the ranks. But, the Bushies will do anything to maintain their tenuous grip on power. They don’t have to "stoop" to low tactics; they’ve been there for years. Rove is nobody’s fool, however, and he realizes that the usual tactics of voter suppression – ugly campaign smears; deliberately slanted phone "polls"; dark rumors about the sexual persuasion or drinking habits of one or another of the candidate’s family or entourage (Drudge floated a one-day trial balloon featuring Teresa with one beer in each hand) – that kind of stuff just isn’t going to work this year. The anti-Bush sentiment is too strong and too smart. So, with their dismissive attitude toward a silly notion like "democracy", the Bush forces are going to let the dogs out at what they think is the last and most important moment. The army of thousands of Kerry supporters that have been out in the field every weekend for the past month all over Wisconsin have been shocked to see little grass roots activity on the other side. It’s obvious the Bush forces are saving their energy for Election Day, where their storm-troopers will come out in force. Not to vote, but to intimidate you from voting and/or making sure your vote does not count. Here in Wisconsin, local GOP operatives are handing out fliers offering good money to act as a "poll-watcher" for the Bush campaign. In Ohio and Florida, the story has leaked out of the extremely secretive Bush operation that thousands of their drones will show up at the polling places, supposedly to "prevent vote fraud", a solution in search of a problem. They will really be there to intimidate, to challenge and to make the process of voting so difficult and inconvenient that people waiting in line give up and go home. It’s the same beyond-the-pale behavior we saw in Florida in 2000 and will now have the benefit of seeing all across the country. Of course, nothing the Bushies do would be complete without a faulty premise to attempt to justify it. The wingnuts’ primary radio clown in Milwaukee, Mark Belling, was literally screeching yesterday about "voter fraud" and the sins of the non-plussed (and, not coincidentally, African-American) city election commissioner. All this in a state where, if your registration process fails or is challenged, you can register at the polls. Why were felons allowed to register voters? Why didn’t MoveOn.org screen their workers for felony records? Who cares? I know radio squawk-hounds have been sent out by Rove & Co. to propagate this fraudulent "fraud" canard to support the Bushies’ planned heavy-handed mischief on election day, but, in Wisconsin, the claim rings more than hollow and false. The lesson for everyone voting is: Expect long waits at the polls. Bring a book. Hang in there and VOTE. The Kerry forces should be telling everyone to vote early if they can and plan to hang in there if they vote on election day. The Bush surrogates have also been floating another way to suppress the vote. Guess what. You are not smart enough to vote. I heard a fifth-rate local weekend radio wingnut (how low can you go?) on a formerly dignified station here in Milwaukee (WTMJ) cite columns by the repulsive Mona Charen and the ridiculous Jeff Jacoby for the proposition that people who have not educated themselves sufficiently on "facts and policy" should not vote. Talk about elitist. It’s a direct plea to the undecided to think, if they haven’t made their minds up by now, they are too stupid to vote. It’s a classic case of the wingnuts becoming what they most criticize. Bush’s entire campaign has been run on irrational fear of the presumed failings of a Kerry presidency, with little or nothing in the way of facts an policy to back it up. And, isn’t it the wingnuts that are constantly painting the false caricature of the "elite liberal", looking down their nose from their Chardonnay to the rest of us poor slobs who don’t know what’s good for us? The rank hypocracy of the say-anything-do-anything Bushies is exceeded only by the failure of the mainstream media to point out these blatant manipulations of facts and logic. This is all the last gasp of a dying campaign, one that knows its record of radicalism and failure is just too much for most Americans to validate with their vote. The Bushies know it’s all slipping away and will be cleaning out the closets in this last week, trying to convince voters to either stay away or hold their nose and vote for Bush. But Junior is starting to lose one of his most valuable assets in the campaign: the perception that he is definitely going to win. As even cable squawkers start hedging their bets – speculating on who Kerry would put on his cabinet, the Supreme Court, etc. – Bush is finally losing the last of the natural, but unearned, advantages of his illegitimate incumbency – the sense that he is going to win. Given the glacial climb of Kerry in the polls since he trashed the hapless president in the debates – especially in the battlegrounds – it is becoming increasingly more likely that we are going to throw the Bushies over the side next week. All the October surprises – mostly having to do with the grim situation in Iraq – have favored the need for change. By the time November 2nd rolls around, Bush will already have one foot out the door and with wingnuts will be cranking up for the Clinton model – eight years of complaining about the success of another Democratic president. 7:46:48 AM    comment []

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