Yes, those were the days Archie and Edith Bunker sang about and the man who led us from market crash and credit crunch into full blown depression by blaming the workers instead of the actual causes. Somehow we've forgotten that Archie the lovable, small minded bigot and ignoramus was supposed to be a joke.
I admit it, I went and hid my head in Caribbean sand for a week so I wouldn't have to watch the madness, the hysteria and the lies, or endure the Fox News fits and fables -- or most of all, witness the continuing spectacle of my country eating itself alive out of a desperation to keep doing what always produces everything we're trying to fix. Sooner or later however, and Hurricane Tomas argued for sooner, one has to come back and face the discord.
It isn't easy. It isn't easy to accept that Americans will support politicians that truly are nowhere near as smart as a fifth grader and that Americans will elect politicians who don't think the government has any business interfering with our "right" to abuse and exploit and segregate other Americans or to accept that Americans will just childishly stay home and let some 20% of the voters put a plutocrat affiliated with a billion dollar medicare scam in the Florida Governor's mansion out of contempt for "elitism" and because Obaaaaaaama and the 'Librils' haven't restored the Bush bubble, the Bush soaring debt, the Bush job loss, the Bush expansion of Federal size and power, the Bush redistribution of wealth, the Bush disenfranchisement of voters and infringements upon civil rights soon enough to please them. Yes, that's a hell of a long sentence, but how we sank this low is an even longer story and when it comes to telling it, it's not me whose head is buried in the sand.
No, after 8 years of job stagnation, job loss and declining earnings, all we'll be hearing about is about that 9.6% unemployment Obama created without any help from Bush's tax cuts and wars -- and we won't be remembering the 9.5% unemployment in Reagan's first term. ( nor his tax increases nor the effect they produced) We'll hear the gloating and bragging about the president's low popularity although Reagan's was lower at the same point in his career. We'll hear about profligate spending, but not a word about the payback with interest that tells a different story. We'll keep hearing about the debt, but not the policies that produced it and how it can only be solved by a policy that has produced the largest government sponsored redistribution of wealth in our history without creating a single new private sector job -- a policy that must be maintained for fear of Communism. Like Archie, we'll keep longing for that romanticized version of a Hobbesian hell with every white man for himself, minorities in the minority, stragglers will be shot and no prisoners taken. We'll keep ignoring reality and we'll keep repeating the slogans as we count our beads, fabricating facts and citing false history when we pay attention to history at all.
Meanwhile the sand is warm and the hurricane is moving out to sea. . .
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Hey Gov. Jindal: Now Would Be A Good Time To Ask Forgiveness
Remember those sand berms our "experts" like Sarah Palin said just had to be built to protect the Louisiana coastline from the BP oil disaster, while the real experts said they'd cause more harm than good? Remember Jindal leading the Conservative Chorus in portraying the president as a dithering wonk who did nothing to protect Louisiana’s coastline because some fancy-pants geeks with a bunch of alphabet soup behind their names said sand berms would be a waste of money?
Remember this:
Remember this:
Gov.Jindal:to avoid ravished coast, build the berms.Ask forgiveness later;Feds are slow to act,local leadership&action can do more for coast
Good times! Well, turns out the real experts were right, and Jindal wasted over $200 million:
Louisiana Rethinks Its Sand Berms
In a story in late October, I reported on the continuing effort by Louisiana to build sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico to block and capture oil from the BP spill. Back in June, BP ponied up $360 million for the berms, of which roughly $140 million was left.
Federal officials and scientists I interviewed called the construction of additional berms pointless because little surface oil remained in the gulf and urged that the remaining money be spent on coastal restoration, a move that BP said it would support.
At the time, however, Louisiana officials insisted they were committed to spending the remaining money on more oil-blocking berms.
Several weeks later, Louisiana has changed its tune considerably. On Monday, Bobby Jindal, the state’s governor, announced that $100 million of the remaining berm money would be redirected toward coastal restoration, a move endorsed by BP.
This is what happens when the mainstream media presents the politically-motivated opinions of partisans as "the other viewpoint" in a scientific, fact-based debate. This is what happens when the Conservative Chorus outshouts the reasonable people with alphabet soup behind their names. Thanks, guys.
So, once again the reasonable people were proved right and the people who have been wrong about everything since forever are still wrong. I know, y'all are shocked. After wasting a few months (and $200 million) doing shit that didn’t work but made for some good headlines, we learn this:
Like other scientists, though, he considers the berms a failure in their original role as oil-blocking structures and a colossal waste of money. According to state estimates, the berms have captured just 1,000 barrels of oil so far, at a cost of $220 million. By way of comparison, Mr. Bahr pointed out, the recently opened Hoover Dam Bypass, a four-lane highway bridge that soars 840 feet above the Colorado River, cost $240 million.
“That’s an awesome structure that’s going to be around beyond the end of petroleum, and here we’ve spent $220 million and got virtually nothing to show for it,” he said. “It just seems appalling to me.”
Yup, it’s appalling alright.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
What hath the midterms wrought?
So, what do we know about the election results?
Well, New Mexico just installed a teabagger in the governor's mansion, so where does that leave us? Well, I can be glad that I decided against a second career in the police, or as a teacher, when I got out of the military.
Then again, I'm working in a hospital, and Medicaid cuts are pretty much a certainty, so little comfort there.
GOP lapdog Steve Pearce got his old job back as Congresscritter, so at least our newly-crowned Governor Martinez won't be lonely.
On the national front, the candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin didn't fare as well as some people expected: if you discount the ones who were already shoo-ins before the Palinator bestowed her blessing on them, her batting average was about 0.5 or so. (It hardly matters - even if she'd had a 100% failure rate, her followers have long since proven themselves to be invulnerable to little things like "logic" or "reason.")
Jerry Brown has been reelected as governor of California, with just a little gap of twenty-seven years between his second and third terms.
(I know Ahnold hasn't been working out as much as he used to, but who would have thought he could be beaten by a 72-year-old former Jesuit seminarian and law clerk?)
Harry Reid held onto his seat, despite a particularly mendacious campaign by teabagger favorite Sharron Angle. In fact, the Tea Party candidates didn't do well overall - not a single teabagger picked up a contested seat in the Senate, with national jokes like Angle, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell going down in flames. (Admittedly, Kentucky elected Rand Paul, but that's more a symptom of inbreeding than anything else.)
To counteract the GOP depression brought on by Reid's continued presence in the Senate, Alan Grayson lost his House reelection bid, which probably gives John Boehner as much of an erection as he can get since that horrible melanin overdose.
Regarding the "traditional wisdom" of Grayson losing because he was an "outspoken liberal," Southern Beale pointed me to an analysis by Digby, who said:
And in barely related news, McDonald's has brought back the McRib sandwich, which is an interesting coincidence: with Republicans on the rise again, pork is back in fashion. Imagine that.
___________
Update (11/4/10): It has been suggested that Ahnold wasn't running against Jerry Brown; Meg Whitman was. Noted. However, I refuse to give up on a perfectly good joke based strictly on something as minor as "reality."
Well, New Mexico just installed a teabagger in the governor's mansion, so where does that leave us? Well, I can be glad that I decided against a second career in the police, or as a teacher, when I got out of the military.
Then again, I'm working in a hospital, and Medicaid cuts are pretty much a certainty, so little comfort there.
GOP lapdog Steve Pearce got his old job back as Congresscritter, so at least our newly-crowned Governor Martinez won't be lonely.
On the national front, the candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin didn't fare as well as some people expected: if you discount the ones who were already shoo-ins before the Palinator bestowed her blessing on them, her batting average was about 0.5 or so. (It hardly matters - even if she'd had a 100% failure rate, her followers have long since proven themselves to be invulnerable to little things like "logic" or "reason.")
Jerry Brown has been reelected as governor of California, with just a little gap of twenty-seven years between his second and third terms.
(I know Ahnold hasn't been working out as much as he used to, but who would have thought he could be beaten by a 72-year-old former Jesuit seminarian and law clerk?)
Harry Reid held onto his seat, despite a particularly mendacious campaign by teabagger favorite Sharron Angle. In fact, the Tea Party candidates didn't do well overall - not a single teabagger picked up a contested seat in the Senate, with national jokes like Angle, Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell going down in flames. (Admittedly, Kentucky elected Rand Paul, but that's more a symptom of inbreeding than anything else.)
To counteract the GOP depression brought on by Reid's continued presence in the Senate, Alan Grayson lost his House reelection bid, which probably gives John Boehner as much of an erection as he can get since that horrible melanin overdose.
Regarding the "traditional wisdom" of Grayson losing because he was an "outspoken liberal," Southern Beale pointed me to an analysis by Digby, who said:
Regarding Grayson, well, we have a little controlled experiment. His neighboring first term Democratic congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, in a very similar district, took the opposite approach to Grayson. She ran as hard to the right as she could get away with, never had a controversial thought much less uttered one, was rewarded with big money and support from the DCCC --- and she lost too. This race was bigger than both of them. Florida is turning hard right.But more than that, having landed on Digby's Hullabaloo, I was led to this statistical recap of the election by Ed Kilgore.
Finally, something must be said about the electorate that produced these results. According to national exit polls, 2010 voters broke almost evenly in terms of their 2008 presidential votes; indeed, given the normal tendency of voters to "misremember" past ballots as being in favor of the winner, this may have been an electorate that would have made John McCain president by a significant margin. Voters under 30 dropped from 18% of the electorate to 11%; African-Americans from 13% to 10%, and Hispanics from 9% to 8%. Meanwhile, voters over 65, the one age category carried by John McCain, increased from 16% of the electorate to 23%.Or to put it another way, the party in power always loses in the midterms. It is as it always has been. Nothing new going on here.
These are all normal midterm numbers. But because of the unusual alignment of voters by age and race in 2008, they produced a very different outcome, independently of any changes in public opinion. Indeed, sorting out the "structural" from the "discretionary" factors in 2008-2010 trends will be one of the most important tasks of post-election analysis, since the 2012 electorate will be much closer to that of 2008. That's also true of the factor we will hear most about in post-election talk: the "swing" of independents from favoring Obama decisively in 2008 to favoring Republicans decisively this year. Are these the same people (short answer: not as much as you'd think), or a significantly different group of voters who happened to self-identify as independents and turned out to vote?
And in barely related news, McDonald's has brought back the McRib sandwich, which is an interesting coincidence: with Republicans on the rise again, pork is back in fashion. Imagine that.
___________
Update (11/4/10): It has been suggested that Ahnold wasn't running against Jerry Brown; Meg Whitman was. Noted. However, I refuse to give up on a perfectly good joke based strictly on something as minor as "reality."
Random Musings on the Midterms
Due to the time difference, I didn’t find out the results of the midterm elections until this morning. I knew the Democrats would get their asses handed to them on a silver platter. I just didn’t know how badly the Republicans would spank them.
So when I woke up this morning my first thought was “It’s my daddy’s birthday!” My second thought was “Did he get a split Legislature for his birthday gift or are the Republicans in the driver’s seat for the House and the Senate?” After checking my iGoogle, which is just a sh*t ton of news sites (yes, I’m that big of a nerd), I found some interesting results. My people rejected Christine "The First Amendment establishes the Separation of Church and State? Really?" O’Donnell (yes!) and elected Rand “Issues with the Civil Rights Act” Paul (WTF Tennessee!?). And the Republicans, as predicted, took the House and obtained a sizable gain in the Senate.
Now I’m turning towards the next two years, the next round of midterms and of course the next presidential election. The Republicans got what they wanted: more political power. But now it’s balls to the wall time (Republican) ladies and gents. Imma need y’all to bring it.
No more bitching about how the Democrats are destroying our country. Now you’ve got at least as much power as the Democrats, if not more, since the Republicans can keep things nicely tied up for as long as they like...and then blame Obama for being ineffective. This is where the “Obama is f*cked” part comes in. If they wanted to, the Republicans can bring business to a halt and stop any worthwhile legislation from getting through.
The optimist in me hopes they won’t. The optimist in me hopes neither side will let partisan politics get in the way of governing my country. The optimist in me hopes the Right actually puts up viable alternatives instead of standing around with their thumbs up their ass calling Obama a fascist Nazi commie socialist. Basically, the optimist in me hopes it won’t be a repeat of the last two years. But given the poisonous political environment since Obama’s election, the cynic in me just smacked the optimist in me while laughing hysterically.
But who knows? Perhaps the Democrats and the Republicans will actually learn to compromise. Perhaps both sides will put aside their difference and work together to do what’s best for America. And perhaps unicorns are real. I suppose anything is possible.
Cross-posted from http://
Election 2010: Not Exactly a Knockout
The bad news is that the Democrats took some solid punches in the midterm elections; the good news is that the injuries aren't life threatening.
There was significant voter turnout, especially for midterm elections, but the numbers weren't as good in some states as in 2006. I've been reading blog posts, mostly from the young folks--the 35 and under crowd--which called for showing the Democrats their displeasure by not voting. A lot of these calls for desertion of the Democrats came from young African-Americans and Latinos who have decided that President Obama has betrayed them. They have all the impatience of youth and and want everything yesterday.
One young blogger refers to Obama as the Changeling, the mythical creature from the fairy tale who replaces the human child and has evil intent on the unsuspecting family. It's an interesting but inaccurate metaphor.
In order to make a statement to Obama about his imagined betrayal and to teach the Democrats not to take them for granted, there were a number of folks who advocated not voting at all. I'll try and remember to ask them in about two years how that "I'll show those Democrats" thing has worked out for them.
In the meantime, the Democrats have a few moments of glory from Tuesday night. It appears that reason prevailed and Chris Coons defeated "I am not a witch" Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. Harry Reid pulled the rabbit out of the hat and managed to wrestle a win away from mad hatter Sharron Angle. Blumenthal out wrestled Linda McMahon in Connecticut. Jerry Brown is back as governor of California and Barbara Boxer managed to hold on to her senate seat. (Click for NY Times' Election Results)
There are a lot of serious bruises. Republicans have gained 60 seats giving them control of the House with a possibility of gaining four more when all the counting is done. In comparison, the Republicans gained 54 House seats in 1994 (Clinton administration). In 1946, the Republicans gained 56 House seats and in 1938 a record 80 House seats.
However, although the Republicans gained Senate seats, the Democrats continue to control the Senate and Harry Reid still holds his position of power in the Senate.
Two states were still too close to call as of 6:30 a.m. --Colorado and the state of Washington. In Alaska, it appears that the write in candidate has the most votes. The only candidate running as a write in candidate was Murkowski, but Alaska has some law that prohibits identifying the write in candidate until the ballots are counted. Of course, Murkowski has been all over the news thanking her supporters. Go figure!
I read a comment on Facebook by a 35-year-old who declared that all was lost and that we (progressives) were done and may as well accept that there is no hope. I'm far from Pollyanna but I think that's pretty extreme. Unless you're planning on dying today, how can anyone be done? It's an election and there will be other elections. The political scene changes like the wind; you never know which way it's going to blow.
The Republicans cannot do most of the things that they touted in their campaigns; even if they get legislation through the House, they still have to get the necessary Senate votes. If they succeed in getting it through the Senate to the president's desk, he can veto it. They can override his veto if they can get enough votes (a 2/3 vote in each chamber) to do so in both the House and the Senate. If they adjourn before the president decides to sign or not to sign, then the president has effectively killed the legislation with a pocket veto. Isn't politics fun?
What does their win mean? Probably a lot of deadlock where nothing much gets done and what is accomplished is done very slowly. In other words, business as usual.
P.S. Don't worry about the Republican threat to repeal the Health Care bill. I doubt that they want to tell the American public that they've decided to allow the insurance companies to end coverage for all those newly insured folks with preexisting conditions and are taking away grandma and grandpa's Medicare donut hole benefits.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Why I did not vote Republican (and why you should not): I REMEMBER!
Don't mean to step on anyone's toes, but I thought this was worth posting on this important day.)
November 2, 2010: Votez-Vous, Already!
Hope Nameless Cynic won't mind my posting this extra call in addition to his impassioned and well-written plea -- but the more, the merrier on such an occasion, right? So here goes:
Well, today's the day. I know all y'all on this site will be casting a ballot, and I'm equally certain everyone I know is going to do the same. But if there's any "damn liberal" out there desultorily reading this blog and planning to practice the fine art of not bothering -- you, that's right, you! Winston Smith in Apartment 22B! Buck up, comrade! Just think of what our boys are going through every day on the Malabar Front! -- if you even dream of not voting, you had better wake up and apologize. From what I've been able to gather, AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS, DEMOCRATS LEAD; AMONG LIKELY VOTERS, THEY DON'T.
Ay, there's the rub -- so move your mind and spirit in the direction of the damn-well-gonna voters. If you don't, may some mean English teacher from your grade-school days return in your dreams and compel you to write, "Speaker Boehner," "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" and "B. Hussein Obama is a Kenyan Moozlum Socialist" on the nearest blackboard five hundred times or until you say Uncle, whichever comes first.
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
Now write! I mean it, dammit!
I thought Rachel Maddow's show Monday offered an excellent and mature analysis of the mid-term prospects. Rather than blaming the Dems for not doing enough, she chose to highlight the things they HAD done – plenty of it and pretty good stuff, at that. The list is one that any soon-to-be-outgoing congresspeople can be proud to have moved along. Yes, some of it has been only partial, or frustratingly incremental in its implementation. But that's the way these things often go -- people extend you almost unlimited credit for jabbering and posturing. When you actually do something, half -- or more than half -- of them get madder than a wet hornet and call you a commie pinko. RM reminded us that LBJ took quite a hit in Congressional Dem numbers enacting the Great Society (he gave himself six months to get it on the books, before everyone started to turn against him) and that that's just the nature of political capital -- you've got to use it sometime, and when you do, you're going to get into trouble. It would have been cowardice to hide under the Oval Office desk and do nothing, to plead the necessity of delay, etc.
Hey, if we don't do well today as a party, so be it – if you look at it from the Maddovian and properly historicized perspective, a partial loss may best be construed as something like "noblesse oblige." No good deed goes unpunished, but woe unto you if you hide your talents and your heads in the sand.
Again, please vote and encourage like-minded friends and colleagues to do the same -- don't make the "enthusiasm gap" an unfortunate reality for progressive causes in 2010. Do your part, and whatever happens, you will be able to say you did what you could.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stroll down to my local church and vote, just as I've done for years. Somehow, they never seem to question the fact that a large extinct reptile is standing in line waiting to cast his ballot, so I'm hoping my luck will hold again this time around. Or maybe a horde of infuriated teabaggers will stomp on my tail, throw rocks at me and drive me from the polling station in fear for my socialist khaki hide…. We shall see.
Well, today's the day. I know all y'all on this site will be casting a ballot, and I'm equally certain everyone I know is going to do the same. But if there's any "damn liberal" out there desultorily reading this blog and planning to practice the fine art of not bothering -- you, that's right, you! Winston Smith in Apartment 22B! Buck up, comrade! Just think of what our boys are going through every day on the Malabar Front! -- if you even dream of not voting, you had better wake up and apologize. From what I've been able to gather, AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS, DEMOCRATS LEAD; AMONG LIKELY VOTERS, THEY DON'T.
Ay, there's the rub -- so move your mind and spirit in the direction of the damn-well-gonna voters. If you don't, may some mean English teacher from your grade-school days return in your dreams and compel you to write, "Speaker Boehner," "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" and "B. Hussein Obama is a Kenyan Moozlum Socialist" on the nearest blackboard five hundred times or until you say Uncle, whichever comes first.
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
Now write! I mean it, dammit!
I thought Rachel Maddow's show Monday offered an excellent and mature analysis of the mid-term prospects. Rather than blaming the Dems for not doing enough, she chose to highlight the things they HAD done – plenty of it and pretty good stuff, at that. The list is one that any soon-to-be-outgoing congresspeople can be proud to have moved along. Yes, some of it has been only partial, or frustratingly incremental in its implementation. But that's the way these things often go -- people extend you almost unlimited credit for jabbering and posturing. When you actually do something, half -- or more than half -- of them get madder than a wet hornet and call you a commie pinko. RM reminded us that LBJ took quite a hit in Congressional Dem numbers enacting the Great Society (he gave himself six months to get it on the books, before everyone started to turn against him) and that that's just the nature of political capital -- you've got to use it sometime, and when you do, you're going to get into trouble. It would have been cowardice to hide under the Oval Office desk and do nothing, to plead the necessity of delay, etc.
Hey, if we don't do well today as a party, so be it – if you look at it from the Maddovian and properly historicized perspective, a partial loss may best be construed as something like "noblesse oblige." No good deed goes unpunished, but woe unto you if you hide your talents and your heads in the sand.
Again, please vote and encourage like-minded friends and colleagues to do the same -- don't make the "enthusiasm gap" an unfortunate reality for progressive causes in 2010. Do your part, and whatever happens, you will be able to say you did what you could.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stroll down to my local church and vote, just as I've done for years. Somehow, they never seem to question the fact that a large extinct reptile is standing in line waiting to cast his ballot, so I'm hoping my luck will hold again this time around. Or maybe a horde of infuriated teabaggers will stomp on my tail, throw rocks at me and drive me from the polling station in fear for my socialist khaki hide…. We shall see.
Vote, or get teabagged - your choice
Haven't voted yet? What the hell is wrong with you?
I believe I've mentioned the media narrative that certain parties (* ahem * GOP) are trying to promote. And if you believe that nonsense, you'll believe anything.
Other people are trying to push the "common wisdom" of voter apathy (and, sadly, there's some evidence to back that up).
And they'll try anything, up to and including trying to push the false narrative that you shouldn't vote to "send a message to Washington."
Let me tell you what happens if the Republicans gain a solid majority. First, they continue to do nothing - that's your tax dollars getting wasted by Republicans who want to prove that government doesn't work.
Well, we can get this oligarchical Citizens United ruling changed. Can DADT get canned? A little more difficult - but Obama can just do it unilaterally in his second term. Comprehensive immigration reform? Not going to happen under a Republican.
Now, go to this website (apparently set up by Tony Soprano), find your polling place, and do it! Don't let the idiots win.
I believe I've mentioned the media narrative that certain parties (* ahem * GOP) are trying to promote. And if you believe that nonsense, you'll believe anything.
Other people are trying to push the "common wisdom" of voter apathy (and, sadly, there's some evidence to back that up).
And they'll try anything, up to and including trying to push the false narrative that you shouldn't vote to "send a message to Washington."
Let me tell you what happens if the Republicans gain a solid majority. First, they continue to do nothing - that's your tax dollars getting wasted by Republicans who want to prove that government doesn't work.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the eve of midterms elections that could make him House Speaker, John Boehner announced, "This is not a time for compromise." His lieutenant Mike Pence (R-IN) echoed that line, declaring that with a new Republican majority "there will be no compromise" with President Obama and the Democrats. Of course, with their record-setting use of the filibuster, unprecedented obstruction of presidential nominees, and unified no votes on almost every major piece of legislation, the past performance of Congressional Republicans is a guarantee of future results.On the other hand, what can happen if they don't get a stranglehold on the government?
Well, we can get this oligarchical Citizens United ruling changed. Can DADT get canned? A little more difficult - but Obama can just do it unilaterally in his second term. Comprehensive immigration reform? Not going to happen under a Republican.
Now, go to this website (apparently set up by Tony Soprano), find your polling place, and do it! Don't let the idiots win.
Monday, November 1, 2010
"Obama Hasn't Accomplished A Damn Thing": Oh Yeah?
Proudly lifted from NEWS JUNKIE POST:
There are a few excellent resources where the victories of Change and Reform have been assembled on the internet, including the Democratic Change Update (reposted on News Junkie Post), the 244 Accomplishments of Obama, and the Things Obama Has Done page on Facebook.Following are the "chapter headings" with categories further defined under each heading - by the bucket fulls.
While the mainstream media narrative has been dominated by right wing and Tea Party talking points, many of the fundamental changes in direction of this country have not received the attention they deserve. Now in one day, the very politicians who venomously opposed these reforms, the very people who want to take America back to the days of Bush are poised to retake the US House of Representatives. They are banking on the short attention span of voters, so share this list liberally!
And being good liberals, there are links to back up each and everyone of them.
Banking and Financial Reform
Civil Rights
Commerce, Trade and technology
Conservation
Economy
Education: College
Education: Health of Children
Employment: Jobs
Energy: Green
Energy: Old
Energy: Oil
Foreign Affairs and International Relations
Government Efficiency
Health and Wellness
Health Care Reform (See also Taxes)
Housing
Humanitarianism
Immigration
Infrastructure
Labor
Law and Justice
Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security
Military and National Security
Military Veterans and Families
National Disasters and Emergencies
National Service
Scientific and Medical Research
Space Exploration and Space Station
Taxes
Transparency and Accountability
Recovery, Progress and Change
Miscellaneous
IMPORTANT NOTICE: DEMOCRATS WHO DON'T VOTE ARE NO BETTER THAN YELLOW BLUE DOGS. IF THE CRAZIES WIN, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY LOSES. DINOS ARE TO DEMOCRATS WHAT THE TEA PARTY IS TO LOVE AND HONOR.*
VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT NEAR YOU
IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY
This is just my opinion and may not reflect the views of The Swash Zone. TnLib
On Moderation: KO, Jon Stewart and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
I'm usually supportive of Jon Stewart and I like Colbert too, but I want to offer a few thoughts on their rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And then there are those feisty tweets about the rally by none other than Keith Olbermann, to which I'll refer very briefly below.
The runup to the Restore Sanity event was predicated, I think, on the notion that if we could only get the extremists on both sides to pipe down, we could have a civil conversation about matters that are important to individuals and to the country as a whole. That's unavoidable as a justification of Stewart's brand of comedy -- he can't appear to support one political party or movement exclusively. He talks to people as if they were rational adults with the capacity to appreciate the silliness of political posturing and cheap rhetoric. While I don't for one minute credit the notion that an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens are rational adults -- too many of them seem poised to vote for manifest imbeciles, ignoramuses, bigots, homophobes, and wild-eyed promoters of secession or worse to make that supposition believable -- if one doesn't posit something similar at least as an ideal or goal, we might as well admit that we can't hope to govern ourselves, that the grand experiment of the Founders was pointless. I don't suppose many of us would be pleased to make such an admission. Churchill's witticism about democracy being "the worst form of government except for all the others" still resonates with us.
One brief segment of Stewart's The Daily Show during the runup was instructive -- a series of vignettes in which six people chosen to go on a bus tour to the rally fail to transform themselves for the cameras into the sort of hacks and ogres whose ranting makes for good political fare. (Nice people may go to the theater just as Ian McKellen says, but they don't make for very good theater themselves.) Staged as it was, the series made Stewart's point: whatever the percentages, many people, at least, aren't ultrapolitical goons or raving fanatics; they're willing to treat their fellow citizens like equals and would prefer not to savage or dehumanize them. They have decent manners, want others to like them, and don't care for confrontation or violence. That characterization applies to the people in my own circle, and honestly, I haven't run into any full-on crazies lately (outside my television screen).
Still, if you don't mind a bit of contradictory meandering, another segment of the same show seems equally instructive: the one in which Stewart's editors put together an audio-video montage of all those supposed extreme-talkers on the left and right, neatly equalizing them. The trouble is, they are not anything like equal. That is where I must agree with the audacious KO, Keith Olbermann and his persnickety tweets about the logic underlying Stewart's rally: Olbermann and Company are not the equivalent of the motor-mouths coming at us from the extreme right. Outspoken liberals sometimes exaggerate and make much of little, but the right-wingers fabricate without conscience or remorse; liberals are in general eminently sane and humane, while the rightists are little more than squirming bags of appetite, irrationality, and, at times, even bloodlust. They betray no signs of consistent lucidity.
In this sense, the Great Middle Hypothesis is flawed because it posits that you can calculate a genuinely moderate position between two extant extremes raving at you through your TV box or laptop screen. If you follow this notion, you'll end up doing rhetorical battle with both hands tied behind your back. If you denounce or mock the patent absurdities of the other side, you'll be labeled an extremist, and of course (as KO reminds us) that other side will by no means "tone it down." It will just scream louder and play the bully with ever greater ferocity. Whenever the far right sounds reasonable, it's merely a tactic, sort of like a boxer's feint just before he clobbers you. Fundamentally, these people's worldview is cruel, paranoid, and illogical; for them, reason never is, nor can it be, anything more than a ruse. We forget that at our peril.
So while I like Jon Stewart and appreciate his wit, his persistent calls for middle-America-style "sanity" and moderation seem to me too easily transformed, tamed, or translated into our fabled liberal wishy-washiness in the face of an ill-intentioned opponent. Nice people are petrified of being labeled radicals, while rightists embrace such definitions. They have that over low-talking, reasonable libs. All of this is why I'm careful not to put too much intellectual stock in the rhetoric of civility and moderation, even though I don't want to dismiss it.
But I'm just a predatory dinosaur with huge, jagged teeth. What do I know about civility? What do you think?
The runup to the Restore Sanity event was predicated, I think, on the notion that if we could only get the extremists on both sides to pipe down, we could have a civil conversation about matters that are important to individuals and to the country as a whole. That's unavoidable as a justification of Stewart's brand of comedy -- he can't appear to support one political party or movement exclusively. He talks to people as if they were rational adults with the capacity to appreciate the silliness of political posturing and cheap rhetoric. While I don't for one minute credit the notion that an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens are rational adults -- too many of them seem poised to vote for manifest imbeciles, ignoramuses, bigots, homophobes, and wild-eyed promoters of secession or worse to make that supposition believable -- if one doesn't posit something similar at least as an ideal or goal, we might as well admit that we can't hope to govern ourselves, that the grand experiment of the Founders was pointless. I don't suppose many of us would be pleased to make such an admission. Churchill's witticism about democracy being "the worst form of government except for all the others" still resonates with us.
One brief segment of Stewart's The Daily Show during the runup was instructive -- a series of vignettes in which six people chosen to go on a bus tour to the rally fail to transform themselves for the cameras into the sort of hacks and ogres whose ranting makes for good political fare. (Nice people may go to the theater just as Ian McKellen says, but they don't make for very good theater themselves.) Staged as it was, the series made Stewart's point: whatever the percentages, many people, at least, aren't ultrapolitical goons or raving fanatics; they're willing to treat their fellow citizens like equals and would prefer not to savage or dehumanize them. They have decent manners, want others to like them, and don't care for confrontation or violence. That characterization applies to the people in my own circle, and honestly, I haven't run into any full-on crazies lately (outside my television screen).
Still, if you don't mind a bit of contradictory meandering, another segment of the same show seems equally instructive: the one in which Stewart's editors put together an audio-video montage of all those supposed extreme-talkers on the left and right, neatly equalizing them. The trouble is, they are not anything like equal. That is where I must agree with the audacious KO, Keith Olbermann and his persnickety tweets about the logic underlying Stewart's rally: Olbermann and Company are not the equivalent of the motor-mouths coming at us from the extreme right. Outspoken liberals sometimes exaggerate and make much of little, but the right-wingers fabricate without conscience or remorse; liberals are in general eminently sane and humane, while the rightists are little more than squirming bags of appetite, irrationality, and, at times, even bloodlust. They betray no signs of consistent lucidity.
In this sense, the Great Middle Hypothesis is flawed because it posits that you can calculate a genuinely moderate position between two extant extremes raving at you through your TV box or laptop screen. If you follow this notion, you'll end up doing rhetorical battle with both hands tied behind your back. If you denounce or mock the patent absurdities of the other side, you'll be labeled an extremist, and of course (as KO reminds us) that other side will by no means "tone it down." It will just scream louder and play the bully with ever greater ferocity. Whenever the far right sounds reasonable, it's merely a tactic, sort of like a boxer's feint just before he clobbers you. Fundamentally, these people's worldview is cruel, paranoid, and illogical; for them, reason never is, nor can it be, anything more than a ruse. We forget that at our peril.
So while I like Jon Stewart and appreciate his wit, his persistent calls for middle-America-style "sanity" and moderation seem to me too easily transformed, tamed, or translated into our fabled liberal wishy-washiness in the face of an ill-intentioned opponent. Nice people are petrified of being labeled radicals, while rightists embrace such definitions. They have that over low-talking, reasonable libs. All of this is why I'm careful not to put too much intellectual stock in the rhetoric of civility and moderation, even though I don't want to dismiss it.
But I'm just a predatory dinosaur with huge, jagged teeth. What do I know about civility? What do you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)