Patriotically Incorrect

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:05:09 GMT

No Win I am almost completely at a loss as to what we should be doing now re: Iraq. On one hand, I bitterly opposed our conquest of the nation from the outset. But one of the main reasons I so strenuously opposed it is that I believe in the so-called "Pottery Barn principle:" that is, you break it, you buy it. We have broken Iraq, and it is now our responsibility. But just because the responsibility is ours does not mean it is in our power to discharge that responsibility.

I have a cousin who served in Iraq for about a year-and-a-half. Although he's never been a fan of the Bush administration, he believed in the Iraq war. Not after his mission was over. He seems somewhat conflicted now, still believing that the war was the right thing to do (on that we disagree) but that the Bush admin has so screwed it up that it's perhaps impossible to "succeed" there now (on this we agree).

I don't know what to do now. Leaving our young men and women there for an ill-concieved, poorly executed and indefinite war is clearly untenable, but so is overthrowing a government and destabilizing the region, then just walking away.

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 11:36:12 GMT

Ignorance or Malice? (Or Both?)

George W. Bush, trying to sell his floundering Social Security privatization scheme, recently pulled a PR stunt with a filing cabinet where he declared "There is no trust fund -- just IOUs that I saw firsthand. Imagine, the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet"

The thing is, those "IOUs" are T-Bills, AKA US Treasury Bonds, backed by "the full faith and credit of the federal government." In trying to scare Americans about the supposed insolvency of Social Security and convince them to let him privatize it, he has just asserted that US Treasury Bonds are a riskier investment than the stock, bond and money markets, where the money would go if Social Security were privatized.

This is an incredibly foolish thing to say, as our entire government is financed with T-Bills. Imagine if every citizen and foreign government that held T-Bills decided these are too risky and moved to cash out.

I do not believe the President when he says that T-Bills are riskier than the stock, bond and money markets, but to whatever extent T-Bills are riskier today than they have been in the past, that is entirely his own fault.

Remember that "lockbox" that Gore droned on and on about? What he meant was that he would keep the government from borrowing its money from the Social Security Trust Fund; that the Trust Fund would be kept separate from the government's operating budget. But Bush treats that money as all part of the same budget. That's what Republicans mean when they say "there is no trust fund." They spend any excess Social Security revenues the moment they come in the door.

Bush has spent that money on tax cuts for his friends. And yes, we all got tax cuts, but while you and I were cashing our $350 or $700 checks, Ken Lay and Paris Hilton will cash in with tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars between upper-bracket, Capital Gains and Estate Tax cuts; much of it coming out of the trust fund. Your check and mine were nothing more than an illusionist's sleight of hand to keep you from looking where the real action was.

So to sum up, Bush attempts to scare us about the solvency of our safest investment, thereby risking the solvency of the federal government, in order to get us to divert money to Wall Street. Ironically, to whatever extent his dire claims might be true, it's his own fault.

Lovely.

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:31:12 GMT

Elevator Speech

You've heard of the "elevator speech?" Basically it's supposed to be a statement that can convey your point in the time of an elevator ride. It's one thing that the Democrats lack these days. Here's my submission:

Democrats stand for economic security, personal liberty and a wise national defense

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:06:34 GMT

Responsibility Over Values So I saw something this morning that kinda pissed me off. I got an email from the Democratic party asking me to sign a petition regarding Social Security. While I was at the Democrats.org site I decided to take a look around and saw a link called "Get Dem Gear."

Mostly kinda bland stuff; the "True Blue Democrat" items looked OK, but I'd feel like a stooge wearing them. I'd rather they offer something that offered a declaration of values that the Democratic party stands for. I would say that the new line of posters they offer featuring a Joe Camel-like donkey with lame ripoffs of popular marketing slogans was a nice try, but I'd be lying.

Then I saw a bumper sticker they were selling as part of a "Democratic Survival Kit." The bumper sticker says "Democrats Have Moral Values Too." Does this enrage you like it does me? This is the reason, on one bumper sticker, why we keep losing despite running against a party which is staggeringly corrupt and incompetent in governance (they are certainly not incompetent in running campaigns -- that, shamefully, is our claim to fame). Well, alright, the problems actually run deeper than just a bumper sticker, but this is certainly the most emblematic symptom of the deeper problem that I have seen in a while.

Let's be clear on how and why this bumper sticker is wrong, wrong, wrong. It accepts Republican framing of the issue. This slogan does nothing to define "moral" or "values." And by adding the "too," it makes crystal clear that it's trying to lay claim to the term as defined by the enemy. It sounds whiny and false. I don't want the Democratic party to be for "moral values" as defined by the Republican party. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I don't want. We need to reframe "moral values" to reflect, well, actual moral values as opposed to intolerance papered over with a veneer of public piety. Do not use the term unless you are doing this!

If this can't be done on a bumper sticker, then don't do it. But I think it can. Take, for example, this slightly tightened quote from (who else) Howard Dean: "Democrats are the party of fiscal, economic, social, civic, personal, and moral responsibility." A bit wordy, perhaps, but a good start. It takes the hollow and passively judgemental "moral values" and resculpts it across a broader range of issues, ending in "moral responsibility," which is by contrast active and, well, responsible. We don't just hold "values," we take "responsibility."

Of course, you could create a whole series of bumper stickers with each of those areas of responsibility highlighted: "Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility." "Democrats are the party of personal responsibility." And so on. You could even just boil it down to: "Democrats are the party of responsibility." These statements are simple, clear, affirmative, and they highlight in stark contrast the lack of responsibility that is flapping in the wind on the other side of the aisle.

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 13:45:25 GMT

To crusaders against the "Liberal Media": I finally understand! Over the years, I've tried to understand the mindset that led Movement Cons to regard the corporate news in this country as liberal. After being exposed to Faux News, I could see on an intellectual level that if they perceived this as "fair and balanced," no wonder the mainstream media looked like liberal apologia to them. But it's only been in the last few months that I really understand, on a gut, emotional level, what they have felt for all these years. I have been something of a news junkie ever since I got my first desk job in 1996. I would listen to NPR religiously every morning and every evening on my commute. I would read both the mainstream and the activist media online. I consider it my civic duty to be an informed citizen so I can be fully engaged, and I have genuinely enjoyed listening to and reading about the political and economic events which shape our lives in this nation, and the world. But I can't do it any more. Since the 2004 election, I can't listen to the mainstream media any more. It's simply too depressing. After 9/11, I had a PTSD-related need to avoid the news, but I'd gotten better. This is entirely different. It's not a panicked fear that I feel, it's outrage. And not just at the criminals and fools who are running our country, but also at the tools and fools in the media who won't or can't call a spade a spade. We have reached a terrible point in our history where simply reporting the pronouncements of our government officials without illustrating their deceit is tantamount to complicity in their deciet; where "balance" and "truth" bear little resemblance to each other; where the only honest journalism is muckraking journalism. Whenever I hear a dispassionate report about the latest public statements from this administration, I have to restrain myself from yelling at the radio "How can you just repeat their lies without pointing out the facts?! When one side is lying, and the other side isn't, you are covering for the liar when you don't report the facts! Balance is not fact, when the facts are not balanced! You asshole!" So now I have found that I get all my news and analysis from DailyKos.com and the Daily Show and Air America's internet stream and EmphasisAdded.com and Salon.com. And that's when I realize that I have reached a strange kinship with the wingnuts. We both understand that simply reporting the "he said, she said" of the political discourse, without pointing out why one is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong, is -- paradoxically -- biased. So ditto-heads, I feel your pain. Ich bin ein wingnut. I and my kind have been radicalized. And now that are, we're becoming motivated and organized the same way you were. It's not just a political bent, it's a life. So I hope you've enjoyed your moment in the sun, because we're gonna make sure it's over real soon.

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:36:42 GMT

Not-So-Fun House America is not as conservative as the character of our government would seem to suggest. Our government has been skewed to the right on many fronts that tend to reinforce each other, making our government an ugly, funhouse version of the American people. The front I'm examining today has to do with the conservative demographic distortion created by our harsh sentencing laws and booming rural prison industry.

Manditory sentencing guidelines (now under review, thankfully -- we'll see where that leads...), "three strikes" rules and disproportionally harsh penalties for non-violent drug offences have caused an explosion of our prison population, nearly doubling it in the '90s. Cecil Adams over at The Straight Dope confims that "The only countries [China and North Korea] that might put away more of their own people than we do are both notorious authoritarian states."

Scared Democrats are to blame for this just as much as "Law and Order" Republicans. They fear being labled "soft on crime" or "soft on drugs" so at election time they often try to out-tough the Republican on law and order issues. The resulting prison boom of the '90s has begun to wreak its long-term havok on the spineless Democrats who collaborated with bullet-head Republicans on the fatally flawed War on Drugs.

Here's how this travesty works:

Harsh, inflexible sentencing guidelines and pitiless sentences for minor drug offences swell the prison population with mostly urban, mostly minority inmates.
New prisons are built, usually in rural, mostly white counties.
These counties' populations suddenly spike, and their average income plummets, due to the warm bodies they've just imported who make little to no money as prisoners.
The poor rural counties now have more (relatively) high-paying jobs, more federal assistence (since it's pegged to population size and average income), more political representation per capita, all without dealing with the problems actually associated with increased population growth and poverty, and without diversifying their voting demographics.
At the same time, these people, while incarcerated, are not counted in the population for their economically struggling neighborhoods, decreasing the amount of federal assistence and political representation available to their families.
As a final kick in the nads, in many states people convicted of felonies are never again allowed to vote. (In many other states, there is a process to regain the franchise after parole is completed, but from what I understand they do not make it easy.) Thus the segment of the population that would be most vicerally aware of the need for reform in our prison system is cut out of the decision-making process entirely.

We are encouraging the counterproductive criminalization of victimless (if dumb) acts with financial and political rewards. What this leaves us with is a system that rewards the wildly disproportional immiseration of (mostly) minority urban dwellers who have committed victimless crimes. We are setting two poor weak segments of the population against each other, creating a system where the white, rural poor are encouraged to enhance their meager share of society's pie at the expense of the urban, black and hispanic poor. Divide and conquer.

The sum of these circumstances is a State which has marginalized and disenfranchised large portions of the population who would naturally exert a moderating influence on our iron fisted justice system, while financially and politically rewarding other segments of the society for encouraging their immiseration, all the while skewing our electorate farther right of our population as a whole.

More information on this subject can be found here:

www.PrisonersOfTheCensus.org
Prisoners of the Census by Tracy Huling at Mother Jones magazine
Google Search

PS: This is only one of the aspects in which the face of our government is twisted into a rightist parody of the American character. There are other aspects which all reinforce each other, some of which I hope to have the time to address at some point, including

The disqualification of pacifism from mainstream political acceptability without a corresponding disqualification of "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" types
Disqualification of jurors who are not "death qualified" from any criminal trial which might involve the death penalty, thus removing a moderating influence from the guilt phase of trials as well as the penalty phase

But those are topics (maybe) for another day.

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 13:17:50 GMT

The Good ~~Samaritan~~ Homosexual In this time when anti-homosexual prejudice among so-called Christians is becoming more and more prevalent, I thought it appropriate to re-introduce the story of "The Good Samaritan," updated for today. Before beginning, it's important to note that a Samaritan was a despised person in Biblical times, considered a heretic by society although the Samaritan considered himself to worship the same God. Referring to a "Good Samaritan" was seemingly a contradiction in terms to a mainstream religious person in Jesus's day, and that was the whole point of the story; that a man who is heretical and compassionate is a better example to us than a man who is pious and careless of others. With that in mind, let's take another look at the story, adapted for today's America:

Wanting to justify himself, the man asked, "Which neighbors must I love?" And Jesus replied with an illustration: "A man was mugged. The muggers stripped him of his clothes and money, and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road. By chance a minister came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A man who was a deacon in his church walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on. But a gay man came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him the gay man administered first aid. Then he put the man in his car and took him to the hospital, where he stayed with the man through the night. He gave the hospital his credit card number, and told them to bill him for the man's treatment. "Now which of these three," Jesus asked, "would you say was a neighbor to the bandit's victim?" The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."

Thus I reiterate that people who legitimately wanted our nation to be a "Christian Nation" would not misdirect their effort in condemning homosexuals but instead struggle to institute national healthcare, strengthen the social safety net, and increase foreign aid. This would make "we the people" a neighbor to those in need, regardless of religion, and that would follow the teaching of the man that Bush Jr. called his most influential political philosopher.

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:02:47 GMT

Market Fundamentalism Is The Flip Side Of Communism In Communism, the needs and dignity of every individual are subverted to the needs of the community. The problem is that the community is made up of all the individuals. That's why it sucks to live under Communism. Market Fundamentalism, the religion of our current administration, is exactly the opposite. In Market Fundamentalism, the individual is supreme, and the needs of the community are subverted. The problem is that all the individuals are members of the community. That's why it sucks to live under Market Fundamentalism. You get screwed under both systems. The only difference is whether you get screwed individually or collectively. We need balance between the needs of the community and the needs of the individual. That's the way the world works. More of a good thing is not necessarily better, especially when it ends up crowding out other good things.

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:17:49 GMT

Some Concise Guiding Messages

What Liberals Stand For	What Bush &co. Stand For
Personal freedom	Government and corporate power
Community	Law of the Jungle
Valuing and rewarding work	Taxing work and consumption over wealth
Science and religion are not mutually exclusive	You've got to choose between science and the Bible
Religion is between you and God	Government should be mixed with religion
Personal privacy	Government and corporate intrusion
Treating causes -- better for society	Treating symptoms -- better for profits
Responsibility	Blaming others
Hope	Fear, uncertainty, and doubt
Inclusion	Exclusion
Education is power	Ignorance is strength
America as an example to the world	America as a feared bully to the world
America must continually be made better	If you think America has room for improvement, then you hate America
The Constitution is about defending rights	The Constitution is about giving Commandments
Spending only the money we have	Fiscal recklessness
Medical decisions made by individuals and their doctors	Medical decisions made by corporations and by sanctioned religious authorities
Women have dominion over their own bodies	Women's bodies are vessels
Finding the best solution to a problem	The Market will solve everything
A mixed market economy with internalized costs	Corporate welfare with externalized costs
Quality education and healthcare are rights, not commodities	Everything's a commodity
The free market of ideas	Moral and political orthodoxy

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 10:57:08 GMT

Trick Question One of the main questions people in the liberal blogosphere are asking is: Should the Dems have run further to the left to better activate the base like Dear Leader just did, or should they have run even further through the mushy middle to pick up more voters in the center? This is a trick question, folks. Here's what the Movement Cons have done: they have completely re-graded the playing field over the past forty years in such a way that they can run as far the right as they like, and not look like lunatics to the average (eg non-political junkie) American. Meanwhile, this playing field makes us look like lunatics no matter what we do, despite the well-documented fact that our positions are the more popular positions, as well as the fact that we have the truth on our side. I'm talking about language; about the terms of the political debate. There's a whole lotta shit we gotta do to level this playing field (or better yet, tilt it in our favor), and we've taken the first steps over these last two years or so. But the political language is the trump card. We've got to take that back, or we will always be the minority party. We have to clarify and distill our mission. We have to simplify and sharpen our message. Our mission and message were built and honed over three quarters of a century, beginning in the 1890s with the Populists and Progressives, continuing through FDR and the New Deal, and culminating in the civil rights and anti-war struggles of the 1960s. Throughout these decades, our mission was a living, evolving thing, and our message continually retooled for each new struggle. But since the 60s, our mission and our message have sat unchanged, as the world has continued to evolve. Now why did this happen? My theory is that it's because the inspirational and rhetorical leaders of movement were shot to death: JFK, RFK, MLK; and the baton was dropped before another generation of leaders was ready to take it up. But we have to play the hand we're dealt. And unfortunatly we live in this America; the America that has fumbled its moral legacy. That means that we have a lot of hard work to do to reframe the language of political debate in this country. But we've already taken the first steps. We need to build up an actual Liberal Media to counter the pressure that the Murdoch/Scaiffe/Limbaugh/Drudge horsemen apply to the mainstream media. We've begun that work through Air America Radio, the liberal blogosphere, Salon.com, etc., but we have a long way to go. As long as the Cons dominate the media, they get their message out and we don't. We need to rebuild and sharpen our message for today's battles. This takes institutions as well as grass roots, and we're just beginning to fight this front. We've got the liberal blogosphere and the Center for American Progress as a small start, but we need more think tanks. And while Howard Dean has begun to move the rusted gears of the Democratic party, this old machine needs a whole lot of work to get back in the message game. We need to rebuild our ground game. We've been riding out the unions and the institutions of the Civil Rights movement for the last forty years. We need a fresh new movement to take the load. We've gotten a really good start on this front between MoveOn.org, ACT, True Majority, etc. We need to keep it up. Remember: the problem is not that we've abandoned the left, or abandoned the center. The problem is that we've abandoned the message, and in so doing, let the Cons reshape the ground right under our feet. This is where the work is.

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 10:59:59 GMT

Get Back In The Game Remind yourself: we got more people out to vote against the cancer people call the Bush administration than have ever voted for any previous president.

I've been turning to historical precedent for comfort these last few days. Look at the Republicans in 1964. After their humiliating defeat, they got to work building the tools they would need to steadily and relentlessly push their movement out onto the American landscape. It was an unsteady progress, but it has now claimed a terrible victory, mobilizing an army of true believers and dupes alike, ruthlessly wielding the tools that they built during their years in the desert.

We have begun to lay the foundations for the infrastructure we will need to reclaim our once and future great nation: grass roots activist groups to pick up the baton from the aging unions and civil rights organizations, an actual liberal media to counter the pressure of the right wing shrill machine of Murdoch/Scaiffe/Limbaugh/Drudge, liberal think tanks to sharpen our message and generate new proposals. And remember that the corrupt Right had, in Nixon, their first victory just four years after their humiliating 1964 defeat.

We could wallow in our self-pity, asking why we have to live in this America that we neither recognize or understand. But we can't take long. We have to get to work. It may take a while, but we must win. Failure is simply not an option. Win, or America dies. It's that simple.

For inspiration, read this essay by Bill Moyers. It will remind you that we can't just sit back and pity ourselves. We have work to do. It's work that has to be done, and the odds we face aren't nearly as bleak as those of past generations.

Read it. Then get back to work.

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 11:44:17 GMT

Anything Happen While I Was Gone? Well I'm back, and as you might imagine, I'm pissed. I've actually been back for over a month, but between personal stuff and helping get out the vote for Kerry, I've been too busy to venture into the blogosphere beyond a bit of lurking. But now I've got some shit to say, and I'm gonna be saying it. I've got three posts written already that I'll be uploading over the next week. Keep the faith.

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 11:31:22 GMT

One Soldier's Story: Part 14

Note: Well, Rayne has shamed me into getting in a couple more entries while I still can. I'll be with you until the end of the week. Then I'll continue in the Fall. I've begun a new project here at Patriotically Incorrect. My cousin (we'll call him John) is an Army Reservist and I would like to support him by serializing his story, mostly in his own words. If you missed the beginning of this story, you can link to it here. Thanks for reading.

==================================================

From:
From: PI's Mom
Date: Jun 2004
To: Family
Cc: John
Subject: Fwd: [...] Here is John's latest communique from Iraq. I've also pasted in a previous email giving his new assignment and new address. There is an OpEd piece in today's New York Times called "For Some Soldiers The War Never Ends." Its description of the "gross breach of contract" between the Army and its soldiers addresses the regular Army, but applies even more to Reservists like John.

Hey all, Hello from [my new post]! Here's my new address as promised. I'm in the middle of the desert in southern Iraq at the safest base in Iraq miles and miles from civilization -- and loving it. We guard a 4-hour supply run between [here] and [somewhere else] on just about the bumpiest, dustiest and safest road on earth. Nothing but camels and sand. Life is good... I couldn't have gotten through this thing without my friends and family. THanks again for the love and support! John THROW THE CHICKENHAWKS OUT! Donate!
Volunteer!
VOTE KERRY 2004!!!
www.johnkerry.com

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 13:40:04 GMT

Pardon the Interruption I've got more of John's story to tell, but I have been crazy busy for the last month or so, and will be for a while more. There's a good chance that I won't be able to get back on the horse until October. Thanks for your patience. Please check back with me in the fall. Take care.

Patriotically Incorrect

What Liberals Stand For

What Bush &co. Stand For