contributed by Charles Lemos

Being of Spanish heritage, bread is never far from my mind nor my palate. I am frightened to think how much money I spend on bread annually. It clearly runs into the hundreds of dollars. As of late, two factors have been impacting my wallet and not in a good way. Poor thing seems rather anemic these days, crying out for fresh greenbacks that do not longer go as far as they once did. A major part of my dismay is of course due to the collapse of the US dollar. The cost of my favorite European cheeses are up 50% in the past year. Thank god for Jim Sinegal and Costco. And thank god for the Albrecht brothers and Trader Joe’s.

With the US dollar hitting fresh lows against major world currencies, I can only scream my contempt at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who seems more concerned about the performance of the DJIA than he does about inflation and the collapse of the dollar. Moreover, he seems to be adhering to a strategy does not seem to be working. Granted this crisis is not of his making, but he seems to be out of magic bullets. Cutting interest rates further will not tackle the credit problem we face today. Cutting government spending will and painfully rationalizing asset prices. The former means ending the war in Iraq which is bleeding us dry not to mention a retreat from a foreign policy that we can not afford, that is over 730 bases in 130 countries. Rationalizing asset prices is Wall Street speak that means a bubble needs correction. Here the blame lies squarely with the Bush Administration and with Congress. The Bush Administration’s tax policies are nothing short of catastrophic and Congress has failed in its oversight capacity to ensure that regulations have been followed.

I have been following the price of hard red spring wheat. Since September 2007, it has doubled. Thus the cost of my poor loaf of Grace Brothers Artisan Pugliese Italian Loaf is nothing to loaf about . It now runs $3.99 a loaf or $4.29 at Safeway. It used to run me $2.59 what only seems a fortnight ago. I am not amused.

There are a number of factors driving this rise in yeast-laden baked flour goods. First of all, it is what I call the Let Them Eat Ethanol phenomenon. We are simply taking acreage once devoted to durum wheat production and converting it to growing corn. That’s due to the Farm Bill, the most underreported and yet one of the most important bills of any Congressional session. It were called the Food Bill you might pay more attention. Paying more attention is an admonishment that I will make most often here on One Good Move.

Corn subsidies for the period from 1995 to 2005 totaled $51.3 billion dollars. In the 2007 Farm Bill, the one you don’t pay attention to, corn subsidies will run an unprecedented $7 billion dollars or a 20% increase from previous annual levels. Clearly the place of corn in the US economy seems secure. My diet less so. What still amazes me is that with all this corn product, our livestock prices continue to rise ad astra. Meanwhile we are left per aspera.

Congress passed an enormous energy bill mandating the production of 36 million gallons of ethanol per year by 2022. This enthusiasm for ethanol is not just misplaced – it’s flat-out destructive. Billions of dollars currently directed to corn subsidies could be better spent elsewhere. There are four principle uses for US corn: domestic foodstuffs, exports, feed, and ethanol. About 55% of corn production goes to animal feed. 19% is exported, while 15% is used for ethanol fuel, and about 7% is used for the production of high-fructose corn syrup and corn starch. Basic economic principles dictate that given even a rising supply of corn (more corn is being planted than ever before, thanks to the subsidies that reward maximum production) increasing demand for one use will decrease the available supply for the others. Despite record corn planting in the past few years, prices have skyrocketed as corn farmers rush to cash in on the ethanol craze.

But then something this morning really left me reaching, searching and sifting through crumbs. I really could not piece together the steep rise in red spring wheat. Weather is certainly a factor. Australia is still in a drought. The winter in China and North America has been harsh and that will affect future prices. But something was missing. That answer came today when I read this: HYPERLINK

Posted by Norm at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (41)

• Naomi Wolf: Why Barack Obama Got My Vote - Politics on The Huffington Post(tip to Jim who believes this issue is more important than healthcare or the enviornment. I disagree, but it is an interesting read from a person whose opinion I value.


• Language Log: National (omigod) Grammar Day
• The uses of polemic

  Some further thoughts on 'offensive' writing and cartoons and such. One issue is whether or not we know in advance that people will be outraged. I claimed, sweepingly, in comments, that we can't know, and Jerry S prodded me into acknowledging that sometimes we can. Fair point. It's easy (he demonstrated!) to come up with something we can be quite confident will outrage some people. True; and I also agreed that I don't like or value mere abuse, and feel no need to make a principled defense of it. But I do value polemic, including polemic that can be considered harsh or mocking and that thus can be considered very likely to outrage at least some people. The further thoughts are about why I value it and think it can be worth the risk of offending some people.



• Human evolution | Moral thinking | Economist.com

  WHENCE morality? That is a question which has troubled philosophers since their subject was invented. Two and a half millennia of debate have, however, failed to produce a satisfactory answer. So now it is time for someone else to have a go. And at a panel discussion at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, a group of biologists did just that.

  Mark Hauser, of Harvard University, opened the batting by asking whether morality is more than just the refined application of the emotions. He thinks that it is. Human brains, he believes, have a separate morality module. Brain-scanning experiments show that when a volunteer is faced with a moral dilemma (such as a runaway railway trolley approaching a set of points, with dire consequences whichever way he throws those points) his emotional centres are not involved in the decision. Such “trolleyology”, as it has waggishly been dubbed, also suggests that reason is not part of the process. Different ways of killing the same number of people with a runaway trolley produce systematically different answers.

Posted by Norm at 1:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Ralph Nader's running mate, Matt Gonzalez at the 2004 Green Party convention raises an important question. Are you as a Democrat willing to work for a fair voting system, one that doesn't treat those who choose to vote for someone other than a major party candidate as un-American. And if not how can you in good conscience complain when a third party candidate plays the role of a spoiler. (tip to Aaron)

Posted by Norm at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)

Don’t Worry About Nader | The Progressive Magazine since 1909

I don’t know why there’s such a hullabaloo about Ralph Nader’s announcement that he’s running for President again. I know a lot of people hold grudges against Nader for Gore’s defeat in 2000, and I’m not going to deny he played some role. But so, too, did Gore himself. So, too, did Katherine Harris. So, too, did the Supreme Court. . .

And what’s happening this year is that it’s really unlikely that Nader is going to make any impact on the outcome of the race whatsoever. . .

And it doesn’t mean he can’t possibly do some good by running.

One function he could play is to point out how undemocratic our two party system is, how rigged it is against third party or independent challengers. He’s doing that already.

Another, even more important function, is to raise issues that no other candidate is raising, and he’s started to do that already, too.

Nader’s presence is a reminder that Obama doesn’t represent the left pole in American politics, and it is salutary to call Obama on his support for a bloated Pentagon budget, or his reluctance to lead on the issue of Israel and Palestine, or single-payer health care.

Posted by Norm at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Our Canadian friends to the north are little concerned about truthiness on NAFTA in the Obama campaign. Apparently, it is just rhetoric. This report is from Canadian Television News. The problem is not NAFTA, NAFTA hasn't caused this bleeding of jobs. The business cycle has and the lack of enforcement of regulations on the books since Bush 43 took office. People blame NAFTA, they should be blaming the WTO and Bush for allowing companies to violate the law and for extending tax incentives and loopholes that encourage companies to actually off-shore their functions. So Obama should be attacking the WTO and Bush and not NAFTA. He attacks NAFTA because it is an easy target.—CL

Posted by Norm at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (37)

Posted by Norm at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

• Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early | The Onion - America's Finest News Source(tip to Justin)


• The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day » To Shore Up Jewish Vote, Obama Denounces (and Rejects) Ham Sandwiches


• Atheism: Raw and Uncut(tip to Jeremiah)


• A Joke - John Baker’s Blog


• Conspiracy Factory: A Leap Year Skeptics' Circle

Posted by Norm at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I know there is a lot of excitement about Barack Obama and the Democrats chances in the fall election, and I share that excitement. But if you think an Obama presidency will usher in a golden age think again. Matt Gonzalez, former San Francisco Board of Supervisor President, and Ralph Nader's running mate , explains why he didn't join the Obama bandwagon. Many of issues he raises have been raised here before, but it is Barack's record on the mining law of 1872 that was the impetus for this post. Idealism is a fine thing, and with a little luck it will be the factor that assures a victory for the Democrats this fall. But a dose of realism will help innoculate you to the inevitable dissapointment that will follow. Okay I admit it. I'm a curmudgeon, but holy shit Barack why are you protecting the 1872 Mining Law. You say you're for change, well it's time you changed your tune on this issue.

The Obama Craze Count Me Out

In November 2007, Obama came out against a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. The current statute, signed into law by Ulysses Grant, allows mining companies to pay a nominal fee, as little as $2.50 an acre, to mine for hardrock minerals like gold, silver, and copper without paying royalties. Yearly profits for mining hardrock on public lands is estimated to be in excess of $1 billion a year according to Earthworks, a group that monitors the industry. Not surprisingly, the industry spends freely when it comes to lobbying: an estimated $60 million between 1998-2004 according to The Center on Public Integrity. And it appears to be paying off, yet again.

The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007 would have finally overhauled the law and allowed American taxpayers to reap part of the royalties (4 percent of gross revenue on existing mining operations and 8 percent on new ones). The bill provided a revenue source to cleanup abandoned hardrock mines, which is likely to cost taxpayers over $50 million, and addressed health and safety concerns in the 11 affected western states.

Later it came to light that one of Obama’s key advisors in Nevada is a Nevada-based lobbyist in the employ of various mining companies (CBS News “Obama’s Position On Mining Law Questioned. Democrat Shares Position with Mining Executives Who Employ Lobbyist Advising Him,” November 14, 2007).

Posted by Norm at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (46)

Top Ten Moments in the Race for "Pastor-in-Chief"

10. Mitt Romney is asked if he believes "every word" of the Bible (CNN/You Tube debate (11-28-07).

9. CNN's Soledad O'Brien asks John Edwards to "name his greatest sin" (CNN/Sojourners town hall 6-26-07).

8. James Dobson tells a reporter he does not think that Fred Thompson is a Christian (3-27-07).

7. Barack Obama distributes a campaign flier describing himself as a "Committed Christian" (1-21-08).

6. Hillary Clinton said we need to "inject faith into policy" (CNN/Sojourners town hall 6-26-07).

5. Mike Huckabee explains his rise in the polls by invoking the Biblical story of two fish and five loaves feeding a crowd of 5,000 people (11-28-07).

4. Tim Russert asks all the Democratic candidates to "name their favorite Bible verse" (MSNBC 9-26-07).

3. John McCain says the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation and that he would prefer a Christian president (9-27-07).

2. Barack Obama asked a congregation to help him "become an instrument of God" and join him in creating "a Kingdom right here on Earth" (10-17-07).

1. Mike Huckabee tells a crowd: "What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards" (1-14-08).

Thanks Charles

Posted by Norm at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

John McCain is today's worst person. Personally, I thought Jonah Goldberg was more worthy, that's not to say John is not deserving, he is.

Posted by Norm at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• American Street » Blog Archive » Does John McCain own the Washington Post or just their gonads?

  I think it’s the responsibility of the media to point out where candidates have changed positions, but today’s effort to do so looks like it was authored by the disgraced Karl Rove. First, it was titled to suggest Obama was a hypocrite, but the article also lists Clinton’s inconsistencies. Apparently John McCain has been a model of integrity and truthtelling because he’s not even mentioned in this too obviously partisan slash and burn attack. The WaPo writer - whose byline is deliberately excluded to protect the reputation of the propaganda pusher - represents ‘balance’ as it exists in a soul that’s obviously owned by the GOP.

• denialism blog : Mormons Troubled By Spotlight
• CJR: Elephant in the Studio
• Ripping into the Bible by Maggie Ardiente

  This book has halted the intellectual advancement of humankind for centuries. But now I am free from its grasp, so I am free to do this. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became kindling. (At this point, Campbell starts to tear the pages.) This book is not holy. It was written by a bunch of old, smelly Mesopotamians with sand in their [expletive]. Now, will anyone come up here with me to testify, and kick Jesus out of your heart? (No response from the students.) Well, I guess I’m surrounded by a bunch of superstitious, simple-minded ignoramuses.

• Leslie Griffith | US Quietly Breaks UN Treaty

  On Friday, at a United Nations meeting in Geneva, the United States broke a series of legal promises. Keeping those promises would have proved extremely embarrassing to the United States government by pointing out that human rights abuses are being committed here at home and at US military installations abroad.

• Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists | Society | The Guardian

  Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today. The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill. When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.

• One Nation, Indivisible - New York TimesTHE international system that has brought unprecedented prosperity to the world since 1945 is based on rules that apply without exception. This system is supposed to protect the basic, legitimate national interests of every country, whether rich or poor, strong or weak. Its binding principles include the sovereign equality of states, the respect for the territorial integrity and the inviolability of internationally recognized borders.

Posted by Norm at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

First it was the AP and CNN raising the totally bullshit question of Barack Obama's patriotism and in doing so legitimizing it as a topic worth discussing. Now Tim Russert and MSNBC have joined in the sleazy business of character assasination, raising a similarly absurd question this time anti-semitism, and in doing so giving it legitimacy as a topic to be explored. What the fuck, now even the networks have stooped to Swift Boat style tactics. Hey Barack how would you answer the question, "have you stopped beating your wife?" Tim Russert you're despicable, what's that Sunday Show you host, Meet the Asshole. Our nation's enquiring minds need to know.

Posted by Norm at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)

With Ralph Naders entry into the race the topic of third parties and the role they play has been raised. Does it require a change in the voting system to make their role significant or are there reasons for valuing such parties simply as a way to broaden the discussion? Is the two-party system broken? Here is a little history and commentary from Charles for those interested in the topic. You can use this post as a starting point for a discussion. What follows was contributed by Charles Lemos

The Origin of Political Parties

The world’s oldest political parties are the British parties, one of which is no longer in existence. Though these parties have their origins arising from the events surrounding the Glorious Revolution of 1688, these did not become political parties in the modern sense until the late mid-seventeenth century. The Conservative and Unionist (commonly called the Conservative Party or Tory) Party dates from the 1780s from a faction that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger. The Whig Party in turn coalesced around Charles Fox. By the 1830s these two parties began waging electoral campaigns especially after the Reform Act of 1832 that brought about universal male suffrage.

The British Liberal Party would form when a faction of free trade Tories joined with the Whigs. The Tories and the Liberals would dominate British politics until the 1920s. In the second half of the 19th century, socialist parties of various stripes formed. In the UK the British Trade Union movement and the smaller Socialist Party would join to form the British Labour Party in 1899-1900. These three parties continue to dominate British political debate however Britain’s electoral system is a first past the post system that has regulated the British Liberal-Democrats (the Liberal Party merged in 1988 with the Social Democratic Party) to a third-tiered status. Each district of the 646 districts elects its representative on a plurality. He with the most votes wins. That is identical to the US. If Britain were proportional then their governments would likely be coalition governments because the Liberal-Democrats generally poll in the upper teens and lower twentieth percentile. Naturally, electoral reform is key component of the Liberal-Democrats agenda.

The Rise of Political Parties in the United States

Political parties in the United States date from the 1820s though national elections in the period from 1792 through 1820 did have loose coalitions evolve over the approach to a centralized government. Alexander Hamilton founded the Federalist Party in 1790 though it was not a true political party in the modern sense. In 1788, George Washington was elected President without any formal or informal party backing. By 1792 that had changed. Hamilton’s Federalists generally held for a strong federal government and for an economic free trade platform that included a national bank, Hamilton’s Bank of the United States. Opposed to this agenda was Thomas Jefferson. The coalition that morphed around him came to be known as the Democratic-Republican Party, again not a true party in the modern sense but nonetheless the forerunner of the Democratic Party today. The Jeffersonian vision was limited government, state’s rights and a more agrarian model than a free trade commerce one though Jefferson certainly read and admired both Adam Smith and Ricardo.

The elections of 1824 and 1828 are perhaps the most bitter elections ever waged in the United States. The 1824 election saw no candidate win a majority in the Electoral College thus throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Andrew Jackson won 43% of the popular vote and 99 Electoral College votes to John Quincy Adams’ 31% of the popular vote with 81 Electoral College votes. Two other candidates, William Crawford of Georgia and Henry Clay of Kentucky, received the balance. Each candidate was technically a Democratic-Republican. When an election is thrown into the House, voting is done by states’ Congressional delegations. Each Representative casts his vote and whoever wins that state block wins one vote. In 1824, the only time so far that an election was thrown to the House, Adams carried 13 states to Jackson’s 7 states and Crawford’s 4 states. On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as the sixth President of the United States.

Andrew Jackson have received a plurality of both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, quite naturally, felt robbed. Indeed, Adams and Clay conspired against Jackson. He then spent the next four years organizing his forces. The 1828 election was even more bitter. The slurs against Jackson are perhaps the most heinous in US political history though James Buchanan (presumed to be a homosexual), Samuel J. Tilden (a confirmed bachelor, he died a virgin and was called Slippery Sam), Thomas Jefferson (called an atheist), and Grover Cleveland (labeled a philander who fathered a child out of wedlock) all suffered atrocious comments. The charges against Jackson centered on his marriage and they ended up killing Rachel Jackson just before Christmas 1828 (Rachel Jackson had been married before but left her abusive husband to marry Jackson in 1790, Jackson killed at least one man in a duel over her honor and maimed several others, he was accused of killing seven men in duels not to mention of performing extra-judicial military executions). Out of Andrew Jackson’s organizing was born the Democratic Party of the United States.

Out of Henry Clay’s contempt for Jackson was born the Whig Party of the United States in 1832 though that party only survived through the mid-1850s. The 1820s and the 1830s in the United States were a very vibrant period in American political life. These are the years of Alexander de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the expansion to the far shore of the Mississippi, and the second Great Awakening, the religious revival that gave us everything from the Shakers to Mormonism.

Third Parties during this period came and went and largely revolved around single issues. The Abolitionist Movement created several parties the Liberty Party in 1844, the Free Soil Party in 1848 through 1856, and the Constitutional Union Party in 1860. In 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party won 5% of the popular vote and carried the six Electoral College votes from Vermont. In 1848, Martin Van Buren running on the Free Soil ticket won 10% of the popular vote but failed to carry a single state. The anti-Catholic and anti-Irish immigration Know-Nothing Party was the largest third party of this era. In 1856, former President Millard Fillmore was the standard bearer winning 22% of the popular vote but only winning one state, ironically Maryland, a colony that had been founded by English Catholics in search of religious freedom. The ironies of American history simply astound at times.

The Modern Era Since 1856 As the Whig Party broke into factions over slavery during the 1850s, the northern faction of the Whig Party formed the modern Republican Party. In 1856, the Republican Party nominated John C. Fremont born in Georgia but running from California. The Republicans placed second in 1856 to the Democratic James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, arguably the most ineffectual President ever to serve a full-term.

Then comes 1860. The Democratic Party splits into two and a small faction of the Whigs now called the Constitutional Union Party plus the Republicans all run candidates. The results are as follows:

Lincoln carried everything north of the Mason-Dixon Line plus California and Oregon; Breckinridge swept the deep South plus Maryland and Delaware (all slave states). Bell carried the border states of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Douglas won just Missouri and three unfaithful electors from New Jersey despite polling almost as many votes as Breckinridge and Bell combined. 1860 is the apex of multiple parties in the United States and the zenith of regionalism in American politics.

After the Civil War, the American political system would be characterized by one dominant party, the GOP, and one more of an interloper to keep things interesting but largely non-competitive with a vibrant third parties. Though only in 1872 and in 1912 did a third party come close to challenging the established political order, they were always generating new ideas and policy proposals. However, the salient characterization is a deep regional and social cleavage and one that still persists to this day.

Third parties in the post Civil War period were plentiful however short-lived because often their ideas were absorbed by one of the two more dominant parties. This too has been a salient characteristic of the American political system and remains one of the compelling reasons for third parties. To float trial balloons on the margin that might find more currency in the mainstream.

In 1872, four years of corruption under “Useless Grant” had embittered the GOP and a wing called the Liberal Republicans arose to challenge the hero of Appomattox. This wing nominated Horace Greeley as their candidate. The Democrats were so lost that they too settled for Greeley, even though he wasn’t a Democrat and in his newspaper, the New York Tribune, was their harshest critic. Grant’s reign of corruption was however swept back into office with 55% of the popular vote. One side note, this was the first election were the suffrage of women was an issue.

The 1870s saw the rise of mass social movements that led to the formation of political parties. In short order they include the Greenback Party (1874-1884) an agrarian party that opposed paper money; the Prohibition Party founded in 1869 and perhaps you are not aware but it still exists today with a platform based on temperance and fiscal/social conservatism; the even more amazing candidacy of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for the Presidency in 1872 even though she was a woman not allowed to vote and only 32 at the time, under the banner of the Equal Rights Party; the Independent Reform Party that opposed the big trusts and monopolies; the Anti-Monopoly Party from Iowa and the People’s Independent Party in California. The Granger movement played a role in all of the aforementioned parties save the Equal Rights Party and the Prohibition Party. Other small parties of this era include the American National Party, another anti-Masonic party, the Workingman’s Party, the first Marxist party in the United States, and the Socialist Labor Party, a trade unionist party. Notice how third parties in the United States have mostly had a leftist bent.

The above were all relatively narrow few issues parties with limited electoral appeal though a few of them did win local and state elections as well as Congressional seats. However there were three other political parties with a more lasting impact and that received broader popular support. The first of these is the People’s Party, better known as the Populist Party, that was founded after the Panic of 1873. The Populists campaigned against the gold standard and had major successes in the Plains states. In the election of 1892, James Weaver garnered 1,041,028 votes or 8.5% of the popular vote. He carried 4 states (KS, CO, NV, ID) and won 22 electoral votes including one each from unfaithful electors in North Dakota and Oregon. There is one lasting legacy from the Populist Party: the direct election of United States Senators with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Previously Senators were appointed by state legislatures. They were also instrumental in extending women’s suffrage especially in the Mountain West. The Populist Party faded from the scene with the passage of these issues and the rise of the next two parties.

The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was founded in 1901 and remains in existence to this day. The SPA currently holds one Senate seat, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Its greatest electoral success was in 1912 when Eugene Debs won 6.0% of the Popular Vote. It should also be noted that in 1920 Debs ran for the Presidency while imprisoned. He received over 900,000 votes or 3.4% of the popular. The Socialist Party have advocated for labor reform, improved working conditions, greater social welfare safety net and opposed American militarism. Their legacy includes the 40 hour work week, the Department of Labor, and a fierce advocacy of civil liberties born from the unyielding hatred of things “socialist” in the United States. The other party with long-lasting effects on the American political psyche is the Progressive Party, technically three separate parties created for three separate elections: 1912, 1924, and 1948. Today there are a few state parties that call themselves “Progressive” but there is no national Progressive Party. Theodore Roosevelt’s insurgent campaign nicknamed Bull Moose in 1912 against his hand-picked successor, the corpulent William Howard Taft, fared the best. Roosevelt finished far behind the Democratic Woodrow Wilson but ahead of Taft. This is the only second place finish ever for a third party in the United States. Roosevelt won 27.4% of the popular vote carrying six states (PA, MI, MN, CA, WA, SD in descending electoral importance) with 88 electoral votes.

In 1924 Robert La Follette too abandoned the GOP to form a third party run under the Progressive banner. Though he only carried his native Wisconsin, La Follette received 4.8 million votes winning 16.6% of the popular vote. Both the Roosevelt and La Follette campaigns have left an important legacy: industrial regulation and labor standards, banking reforms and most importantly the right of collective bargaining agreements.

The 1948 election is of course memorable for Truman’s upset win over Dewey. Forgotten in that saga is there were two third parties running. Strom Thurmond and his Dixiecrat Party of disaffected Democrats and Henry Wallace under the Progressive banner again composed of disaffected Democrats of a far different leaning. Both ironically each won 2.4% of the popular vote, however Thurmond did win four states with 39 electoral votes. While defections from the Democratic Party made the race close, Truman still captured 49.6% of the popular vote and 303 electoral votes. Such was the dominance of the Democratic Party then.

In 1968 another disaffected Democrat, George Wallace, would have a far different impact. Wallace garnered 9.9 million votes or 13.5% of the popular vote winning five states with 45 electoral votes plus another from an unfaithful elector in North Carolina. However, his votes in states like Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina swung those states to Nixon. Had Humphrey carried those states, the election would have been thrown to the House of Representatives for neither candidate thus had the required votes to win. It is fair to say that Wallace’s run and the GOP “Southern” strategy changed the American political landscape.

Flaws of the American Two Party System The two party system as it exists today in the United States has several flaws. Campaigns are prohibitively expensive even for Congressional races. The cost of campaigns has led to an insidious and pernicious relationship with those who have deep pockets: corporations, industry associations, labor groups and a random few billionaires. The interests of those generally come first. The parties are also “big tent” parties that assemble electoral coalitions of varied disparate groups. Interests of several groups can get sacrificed for the greater good. Gay rights is the prime example. The Democrats keep on pushing us to the back of the bus if not off the bus. That’s at least better than the GOP who push us under the bus. The other problem is very uniquely American. The two parties stand for vastly different programs because they represent not just a deep regional divide but more importantly a social divide based on class, religion and urban versus rural. The urban versus rural divide is something to behold. Here is the US electoral map by county in 2000: HYPERLINK

Remember Gore got more votes and notice how little blue there really is. It is a sea of rural red, the purplish suburbs and city blues. That is one of your problems. The Democratic core are islands, an blue archipelago scattered across a red sea.

The other problem is that since Roe v Wade in 1973, social conservatives have become more active at the grass-roots levels and at the state level. The state legislatures, of course, determine Congressional districts after each US Census every decade. In 1974, the Democrats controlled 37 state legislatures, the GOP held 11 and 4 were split. By 1994 the landscape was much different. The Democrats held 18, the GOP controlled 19 and 12 were split. That shift led to increasingly conservative districts being gerrymandered across many states especially in the South as the South gained population and hence more electoral clout. The creation of safe conservative districts led to the career of Tom Delay, the testy pesty pest killer of Sugarland, Texas. Luckily, today the pendulum has swung back to the Democratic Party who control 23 state legislatures versus just 15 for the GOP and 12 split.

Other problems with two party systems are the reversalist syndrome and the playing to the center syndrome. The reversalist problem is that parties simply undo what the other has done once they retake power. For example, the GOP since 1968 has waged an unrelenting war on the New Deal and the Great Society. Multi-party systems since they tend to be more consensus-based do not have reversalist problems as much. That is why in Norway when a Conservative coalition replaces a Social Democratic one, the welfare state is not disassembled. The playing to the center problem is that far-reaching solutions to vexing problems receive band-aid fixes because that is what the political myth of bipartisanship and compromise allows. That is why on serious matters of national discourse I prefer partisanship. Some fights are worth having. I would like to have that fight for universal health care. I would like to win that fight because not only can we win that fight right now but also because it is a moral imperative. Either we are one nation or we are not. Mrs. Clinton understands that and she is willing to fight for it. That is why I support Mrs. Clinton and failing that why I will support Ralph Nader come the Fall. And also because the Green Party does hail from a fine American tradition of third parties providing new ideas.

Perhaps another discussion worth having are the merits and deficiencies of various electoral schemes such as STV, first the past post, list systems etc. You may also want to discuss the logic of the Electoral College.

Posted by Norm at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)

• Name the Fallacy
• Clinton Tests Out Populist Approach
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• My friend(the cartoons of Mr. Fish)
• Nader snaps back at Obama, Clinton Tell em Ralph we're mad as hell and we . . .
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• Letter From the Future | Corrente
• MORE HARRY AND LOUISE MAILERS FROM OBAMA.
• Informed Comment: Sartorial Politics Much ado about nothing.
• Bobby and You - Dick Cavett - Opinion - New York Times Blog
• In Major Poll, U.S. Religious Identity Appears Very Slippery (tip to Ben)

Posted by Norm at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

It's tough to satirize the media love of Obama, how do you exaggerate the fawning treatment he's been getting. To be fair it's as much an anti-Hillary bias as anything. A reader pointed out the other day how, I believe it was John King had referred to Mitt Romney as still a young man, and then made the astute observation that it was unlikely a similar reference to Clinton's age would be made though Romney was six months older.

Posted by Norm at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)

A short clip of Jon hosting the Academy Awards

Posted by Norm at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

And this week's winner is?

Posted by Norm at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

For those Democrats upset by another Nadar run for the presidency let me remind you that it might have been avoided if you'd had the wisdom to vote for John Edwards. I haven't donated money to either Hillary or Barack though I did contribute both to the Kucinich and Edwards campaigns. I'll be sending some money to Ralph, not because he has any chance to win, but that I want his voice heard during the campaign, and please don't deluge me with counter-factuals they aren't very persausive.

The transcript

Posted by Norm at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (128)

MyDD :: GOP Meddling Bodes Ill for Democrats

“Republicans have won five out of the last seven presidential elections. Not too shabby. And who is the only Democrat who's managed to beat them in the last 28 years? A lying, corrupt, backroom deal-making, racist Clinton - at least, that seems to be the way a lot of people view him. Read the posts of some (not all) Obama supporters. You'll see more venom directed toward Bill and Hillary Clinton than toward George Bush. I think that's a problem.”

related

Posted by Norm at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Tina and Amy make the case for Hillary and Bill.

Posted by Norm at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

• AlterNet: Health and Wellness: Forcing Medical Patients To Be Consumers Wreaks Havoc on Our Health System

  The price tag of health care for the uninsured is over $40 billion. Maintaining a market-driven system will only drive that bill higher.



• Ricky Gervais... Obviously.

  How I went from Jesus-loving Christian to fun-loving infidel . . .in one afternoon

• Conservatives Just Aren't Into Academe, Study Finds - Chronicle.com


• Imagine John McCain as a dog, and……. « Dog Bless Us One And All


• denialism blog : Kids' Book: Religion is Evilism


• CJR: The McCain Article, the Day After


• 'Prayers' just won't do - Los Angeles Times

  “At the moment, we are a nation held hostage by the pandemic of gun violence. We need leaders brave enough to admit that, and to offer our children something more than a collective shrug and the chance to join the arms race that has made our school campuses a killing ground.”

Posted by Norm at 4:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Norm at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Oh what fun, fireworks on the campaign trail.

White House hopeful Hillary Clinton launched a scathing attack on Democratic rival Barack Obama Saturday in a bid to restore her front-runner status ahead of key nominating contests next month.

Posted by Norm at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (42)

"I like John McCain. He looks like an old guy in a coffee shop who's still complaining about the designated hitter.'" --David Letterman

• Science Can't?
• One from the archives Stephen Colbert - The Word
• No, the surge is not a success. - By Michael Kinsley - Slate Magazine

  It is now widely considered beyond dispute that Bush has won his gamble. The surge is a terrific success. Choose your metric: attacks on American soldiers, car bombs, civilian deaths, potholes. They're all down, down, down. Lattes sold by street vendors are up. Performances of Shakespeare by local repertory companies have tripled. Skepticism seems like sour grapes. If you opposed the surge, you have two choices. One is to admit that you were wrong, wrong, wrong. The other is to sound as if you resent all the good news and remain eager for disaster. Too many opponents of the war have chosen option No. 2.



• Run Ralph Run(tip to Craig)

Posted by Norm at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (47)

I believe this clip should be one of the center pieces of the Democrats campaign directed to the middle class. Doesn't it make you want scream you arrogant SOB and smack him up side the head. A note for the secret service: I'm speaking figuratively here.

Posted by Norm at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

Mostly bad, though the final bit was fair.

Posted by Norm at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

• "John McCain seems reinvigorated. He has a new campaign slogan, 'He'll lead you into the 21st century.' I like it better than the old slogan, which was 'He'll lead you into assisted living.'" --David Letterman

  
  

• High-Interest Lenders Tap Elderly, Disabled - WSJ.com

  More on the Payday Loan Scumbags, they ought to lock these bastards up.



• YouTube - Iraqi TV Debate: Is the Earth Flat?(tip to Alex)


• Sciencedebate 2008


• 'Best of the Booker' pits Rushdie against 40 pretenders | News | guardian.co.uk Books
• Fallacy Files Weblog Archive: February, 2008


• The Incredible Shrinking Paycheck


• Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America - Allen C. Guelzo - Book Review - New York Times


• CJR: McCausation


• CJR: Popular? Must Be "Populist"


• Language Log: A grammatical Cupertino?

  Are you still using a grammar checker, be careful.



• Letters: Telling hard truths about Israel | Politics | The Guardian


• Megan McArdle (February 21, 2008) - Brookings: Income mobility is not what it used to be

Posted by Norm at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Finally, one of the most important topics is raised. Let's hope that the Democratic candidate continues this focus on science.

Posted by Norm at 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

The nuts and bolts of the candidates differences on healthcare. Only comments on the topic of healthcare and the differences in their positions will be accepted. If no one is interested in that discussion that's also fine. Just move along there's nothing to see. There is excellent background information here.

Posted by Norm at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

Posted by Norm at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

Unfettered capitalism at work

KUER Interview

Here is the study Usury Law and the Christian Right: Faith Based Political Power and the Geography of the American Payday Loan Regulation

NPR affiliate KUER has a great interview with Utah law professor Christopher Peterson coauthor of the study. (tip to ME) This is a mandatory listen. Listen or be banned from OGM :) A note for the right-wing apologists: Personal responsibility is a two way street. It applys both to the lenders and borrowers. The playing field is however not equal, and it is the role of government to level that field.

“The Bible contains numerous passages condemning usury, an abusive lending practice older than money itself.

    Yet, the "payday" lending industry, which charges interest rates often double those of organized crime loan-sharking syndicates, is more prevalent in Utah and other states where conservative Christians hold political sway, according to a study co-authored by a University of Utah law professor.

    "A generation ago, populist Christian leaders were among the most aggressive opponents of usurious lending. But today, many Christian leaders take large campaign contributions from the credit industry and no longer support the biblical injunction against usury in public life," says Chris Peterson, whose research will be published in Catholic University Law Review.

    The industry has boomed since anti-usury laws were relaxed around the nation in the early 1980s. Today there are more than 24,000 payday outlets, a fivefold increase since 1995.

    In a typical payday lending transaction today, borrowers write a check for $60 above the amount of a $300 loan, postdating it two weeks out. If borrowers fail to get money into their accounts to cover the checks, they can be hit with fees and interest that drive up the cost of the loan to as mush as $800, industry critics say. Expressed as an annual rate, interest is typically 450 percent, which industry representatives justify because these loans are risky.”

Posted by Norm at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (48)

The Dumbing Of America

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

This is the last subject that any candidate would dare raise on the long and winding road to the White House. It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an "elitist," one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just "folks," a patronizing term that you will search for in vain in important presidential speeches before 1980. (Just imagine: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth.") Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era.

The classic work on this subject by Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," was published in early 1963, between the anti-communist crusades of the McCarthy era and the social convulsions of the late 1960s. Hofstadter saw American anti-intellectualism as a basically cyclical phenomenon that often manifested itself as the dark side of the country's democratic impulses in religion and education. But today's brand of anti-intellectualism is less a cycle than a flood. If Hofstadter (who died of leukemia in 1970 at age 54) had lived long enough to write a modern-day sequel, he would have found that our era of 24/7 infotainment has outstripped his most apocalyptic predictions about the future of American culture.

Susan Jacoby is the author of The Age of American UnReason

Posted by Norm at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

This is an excellent, and I beleive balanced examination of the pluses and minuses of the various plans the candidates have presented. Highly recommended.

“ If there's one thing the presidential primary candidates agree upon, it's that the American health-care system could use some treatment — if not a complete overhaul. Political scientist Jonathan Oberlander diagnoses the problems with the current system and examines the remedies offered by each candidate.”

Posted by Norm at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

• The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day » Lobbyist ‘Bares’ All on Mr. Straight Talk Express


• American Street » Blog Archive » McCain attacks Obama for being willing to take out terror leaders


• BBC NEWS | Middle East | Pleas for condemned Saudi 'witch'(tip to Stephen)

  Human Rights Watch has appealed to Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of a woman convicted of witchcraft.
  In a letter to King Abdullah, the rights group described the trial and conviction of Fawza Falih as a miscarriage of justice.

  The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read



• BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli MP blames quakes on gays
  

  An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently.
  Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".

  Israel decriminalised homosexuality in 1988 and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights.

  Two earthquakes shook the region last week and a further four struck in November and December.



• AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Evolution to Be Taught as Scientific 'Theory' in Florida Because of Right-Wing Campaign

  Today, Florida's Board of Education voted 4-3 to change standards for teaching science in Florida's public schools. The Miami Herald reports:

  For the first time ever, evolution is to be taught clearly and explicitly in Florida classrooms now that the Florida Board of Education Tuesday approved a batch of new science standards that says the "E" word.

  But there's a catch: Evolution will be taught as "the Scientific Theory of Evolution."

• Their Deepest, Darkest Discovery - washingtonpost.com (tip to Adam)

  Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black

  .
• Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location

  “Please put it in a trash can,” riders are reminded. After which Neil Neches, an erudite writer in the transit agency’s marketing and service information department, inserted a semicolon. The rest of the sentence reads, “that’s good news for everyone.”

• Ben Macintyre on the art of a good book title - Times Online

Posted by Norm at 4:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Posted by Norm at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Jon's take on the candidates.

Posted by Norm at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I love seeing the placards the partisans at campaign events sport. The ones supporters make are the most interesting. Here are a couple I liked. They are so much better than the ones the campaigns hand out to all the supporters.

The race is probably over; it seems the chances of a Clinton victory are extremely slim, but I'm not ready to crown a winner. I'll be waiting to see what happens in Texas and Ohio. If that offends you, that's your problem. Considering the tone of the comments directed at me recently I must say I'm surprised at the level of nastiness they display. Some of you have grown amazingly intolerant of views that don't mirror your own.

Posted by Norm at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (109)

• Hillary Clinton for Supreme Court
• When the Magic Fades - New York Times

  At first it seemed like a few random cases of lassitude among Mary Chapin Carpenter devotees in Berkeley, Cambridge and Chapel Hill. But then psychotherapists began to realize patients across the country were complaining of the same distress. They were experiencing the first hints of what’s bound to be a national phenomenon: Obama Comedown Syndrome.

• Telekinesis and Quantum Field Theory | Cosmic Variance

  In the aftermath of the dispiriting comments following last week’s post on the Parapsychological Association, it seems worth spelling out in detail the claim that parapsychological phenomena are inconsistent with the known laws of physics. The main point here is that, while there are certainly many things that modern science does not understand, there are also many things that it does understand, and those things simply do not allow for telekinesis, telepathy, etc. Which is not to say that we can prove those things aren’t real. We can’t, but that is a completely worthless statement, as science never proves anything; that’s simply not how science works. Rather, it accumulates empirical evidence for or against various hypotheses. If we can show that psychic phenomena are incompatible with the laws of physics we currently understand, then our task is to balance the relative plausibility of “some folks have fallen prey to sloppy research, unreliable testimony, confirmation bias, and wishful thinking” against “the laws of physics that have been tested by an enormous number of rigorous and high-precision experiments over the course of many years are plain wrong in some tangible macroscopic way, and nobody ever noticed.”

• Why do we believe in God? £2m study prays for answer -Times Online

  They will not attempt to solve the question of whether God exists but they will examine evidence to try to prove whether belief in God conferred an evolutionary advantage to mankind. They will also consider the possibility that faith developed as a byproduct of other human characteristics, such as sociability.



• Coen Brothers Take On Chabon

  Directors Joel and Ethan Coen will bring Michael Chabon’s best-selling novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union to the silver screen, according to Variety magazine. Columbia Pictures acquired the rights for the film.



• MathTrek: The Grammy in Mathematics


• Pure Pedantry : Preventive Medicine is Not Always Cost-Effective


• Good Math, Bad Math : Idiot Math Professors, Fractions, and the Fun of Math

Posted by Norm at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Posted by Norm at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (49)

What you haven't watched Richard Dawkins Break the Science Barrier? What are you waiting for? You can watch it online or better yet get your own copy. Hell, it's only $15.00. Here's a short clip.

Posted by Norm at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

NPR: Fresh Air Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

In his latest book, religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman wrestles with that question -- and with the implications of the often-contradictory answers he finds. In God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer, Ehrman meditates upon how the Bible explains human suffering, why he finds the explanations unconvincing, and why he gave up on being a Christian.

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer

(tip to Brad)

Posted by Norm at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

• Hype and glory - Paul Krugman

  One thing I worry about a lot if Obama is the Dem nominee — and he’s surely the frontrunner now — is that there will be a backlash against Obamamania. Actually, it’s already starting — probably too late to have much effect on the nomination fight, but in plenty of time to affect the general election.

  I hope I’m just a cynical baby boomer who has never really trusted any politician since 1968. But I just have a very bad feeling about the way things are going.



• Dumb As Posts McCain, "Is he planning to dismantle the public school system?"


• Update From ‘60 Minutes’: Even Danish Cartoonists Are Less Stressed Than Americans


• A Rip-Off by Health Insurers? - New York Times

  Of course they are after all greedy fucks. Another fine example of unfettered capitalism at work.

  Have health insurers been systematically cheating patients and doctors of fair reimbursement for medical services? That is the disturbing possibility raised by an investigation of the industry’s arcane procedures for calculating “reasonable and customary” rates.



• Poverty Is Poison - New York Times

  Krugman nails it again.

  “Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.



• The Millions: Short Story Week at The Millions: A Brief Introduction


• Democrat Taylor Marsh Broadcasts Live Talk Radio and Blogs Politics

  John McCain, just words. Hillary Clinton, just words, Barack Obama, just words. Words sans plans and action are always, just words.



• Apartment Therapy New York | AT Europe: London Close-up - The Amazing Staircase


• Sony's Blu-Ray wins HD DVD battle Revenge of the Beta-Max

Posted by Norm at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Steven Pinker on swearing. Steven is the author of The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Posted by Norm at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

• Bill Moyers Journal . Susan Jacoby | PBS

  The notion that Americans aren't often at the top of the ladder of erudition isn't new. Every year the media points out how poorly U.S. kids perform in math and geography feats compared to many other nations' school children. Susan Jacoby follows a notable scholarly tradition with her new book, THE AGE OF UNREASON.

  (tip to Nathan)
  
  


• Dick Jones' Patteran Pages:

  Not for nothing is the English education system identified as the finest in the world. Maybe it’s our flexibility of approach, our constant adaptation to the shifts & variations in the socio-cultural tides, that provide our approach to curriculum management with its breadth & depth.

  The two 16+ Mathematics examination papers featured here (smuggled to me under plain cover by an insider at QCA) indicate clearly those qualities.

  1. Simon has 0.5 kilos of cocaine. If he sells an 8 ball to Matt for 300 quid and 90 grams to Ollie for 90 quid a gram, what is the street value of the rest of his hold?



• Review: How Fiction Works by James Wood | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books

  James Wood's How Fiction Works makes a passionate case for the novel, arguing that it puts other forms of creative writing firmly in the shade, says Peter Conrad



• Understanding the rules - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

  But we also have to be aware of McCain Rules, under which anything John McCain says, no matter how craven or dishonest, becomes proof of his straight-talking maverickness (mavericity?).

• Chelsea Clinton Talks Policy in Obama Territory

  . . .there is no mistaking the political climate at many of the universities and colleges where Ms. Clinton appears. After Steven Lawrence, a student on the Madison campus, left Ms. Clinton’s event wearing a campaign sticker, another student yelled, “I’m ashamed of you!” Mr. Lawrence said he had been leaning toward Mr. Obama, but might shift his loyalties to Mrs. Clinton after hearing her daughter.

  “She came off as more of a regular person answering questions, but with an incredible amount of knowledge,” he said.

  Elsewhere, Ms. Clinton has been confronted with signs bearing messages like “America deserves better than aristocracy” and “Got Pimp?” a reference to a recent remark by a now-suspended MSNBC host who claimed that Mrs. Clinton was exploiting her daughter.

Posted by Norm at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Money, not that important. Why the Danes are considered the happiest people on earth. Full video available here

Posted by Norm at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

And this week's winner is?

Posted by Norm at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

• SPIEGEL Interview with Author Philip Roth: 'Bush Is Too Horrendous to Be Forgotten' -

  SPIEGEL talks to American author Philip Roth about growing old, why George W. Bush is the worst American president ever and why he never gives out his cell phone number.



• Retail therapy saves America / It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel ... like buying a new iPod and a boat

  I have perhaps greatly misunderestimated the Bush administration.

  It's true. I have, lo these past 7.3 miserable and karmically bitch-slapped years, perhaps not clearly appreciated their ruthless and demeaning but perhaps rather insanely effective (well, sort of) economic plan for America. Or rather, 'Murka

  .


• Ben Goldacre: Nonsense dressed up as neuroscience | Science | The Guardian(tip to pedantsareus)


• New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels


• ABC Blog: Is Obama Using Sexist Language? - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime


• Liberal Fascism


• YouTube - Hillary4U&Me

Posted by Norm at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

• Iraq, Afghanistan, U.S. Air Force bombing operations | Salon News

  The scenes look misleadingly pedestrian. The miniature people on the screens do not know they are being watched. "We are looking for individual people," Lt. Col. Walt Manwill says, as he stares up at the massive screens. "Especially when you are killing people, you want to make sure you do it right."



• FactCheck.org: They've Got You Covered?

  I listened to Keith Olbermann last night. Keith has become something of a 'true believer' when it comes to Obama, and who seems to believe that Clinton is the only one playing loose with the facts. I remember seeing the ad with the Reich claim and wondering what he'd been smoking. It turns out it wasn't Reich but the Obama campaign. So Keith if you want to feel groovy you need to slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the contest last, or so say S and G.



• Jeanette Winterson imagines a reading list for capitalists - Times Online

  A FRIEND OF MINE HAD A TERRIBLE dream in which she was marooned on an island and menaced by penguins, pelicans and too-big ladybirds. Fortunately, she had a good Jungian analyst, who pointed out that these oppressive creatures were all books.

  Right now, I would like to put every City trader and master-of-the universe banker into an offshore penal colony where they would have to make their own clothes out of copies of The Wall Street Journal, cook a ration of rice in a dung-oven, and read at least one important book a day. I think they can all begin with Das Kapital, not because Marxism is a viable economic model, but because the rich West urgently needs to remember that making money is neither an end in itself, nor an activity that commands respect.



• CJR: Obama's Lobbyist Line

  The word “lobbyist” seems to have a particular meaning in Obama’s campaign vocabulary. His stump speeches imply that he is not taking money from people who want things from the government and push for them. The reality is that he has

  .


• A Crisis of Faith - New York Times We're fucked.


• Arianna Huffington: John McCain Sells His Soul to the Right: Backs Off on Torture Ban - Politics on The Huffington Post


• Humor: The New Yorker

  A quiz that I didn't as well as I though I would. If I took it again there are some answers I would change.



• House ‘Walkout’ Spurs GOP to Highest Ratings Ever

Posted by Norm at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)

Great new rules, I particularly liked the two zingers directed at Bush.

Posted by Norm at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The principle of charity is something we all need to do a lot better job of following, and I include myself in the all.

If a participant's argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.

Attacking Faulty Reasoning T. Edward Damer p.5

Posted by Norm at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

These guys offer a great podcast you really ought to subscribe. 60-Second Science

Posted by Norm at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

• Skeptics’ Circle: Valentine edition! « Bug Girl’s Blog
• AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Jim Hightower on "Cowboy George, Horse Thief" [VIDEO]
• YouTube - John McCain's Double Talk Express: A Day At The Beach
• The Obama Messiah Watch. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine
• EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect- Imagine

  I think Matt is right to say that Obama's great advantage is that "he's the kind of person whose support for an idea makes the idea seem more compelling than it otherwise would have. You can imagine him getting people interested in things that didn't previously interest them, or convincing people that steps they used to think were too risky are, in fact, necessary." But this is what's been so disappointing about the Obama campaign: It has refused to press that advantage.

  I can imagine him doing those things, but, as of now, I literally have to imagine it. He hasn't done any of them. Whatever your opinion on mandates, Obama went in a timid direction on health care, avoiding mandates, single payer, automatic enrollment, and every other step that could be considered risky. On that issue, he's ended up using his extraordinary eloquence to defend timidity and caution, not sell hard steps. On other issues, he's been better, but not by all that much. Take taxes, where Obama's plan is just a broad-based middle class cut, and Iraq, where he's gestured towards progressive opinions but not actually picked many fights (the negotiations fight, remember, was started by Hillary). This is not to say his plans are bad, or totally bereft of innovative elements (carbon auctions are important, as is government transparency, and he's got a great technology plan), but for all his talk of telling people the hard truths, he's largely protected them from both hard truths and unfamiliar policies.



• Turning Obama Into The Black Candidate - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime


• AlterNet: Reproductive Justice and Gender: Private RU-486 Confounds Anti-Abortionists: Who Can We Harass Now?


• The Political Blogging Scholarship


• Classical Bookworm: Telling Stories with Words


• Bush Calls McCain "True Conservative", Other Names


• Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? - New York Times

  A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

  Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Posted by Norm at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A "Special Comment" by Keith Olbermann now why can't Hillary or Barack make a speech saying the same thing. That would be special!!

Posted by Norm at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)

Oh how sweet the Democrats and Republicans are exchanging valentines.

Posted by Norm at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

link

As he weighs a possible endorsement in the Democratic race, former Sen. John Edwards is as split as the party he once hoped to lead -- and is seriously considering supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite the sharp criticism he leveled at her on the campaign trail, according to former aides and advisers.

In deciding between his one-time rivals, Edwards appears deeply divided. Several former advisers likened his thought process to a heart-versus-head split -- with his heart favoring Sen. Barack Obama's strong message of change, and his head attracted to Clinton's tested nature and commitment to tough fights.

Posted by Norm at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Dick Cavett - Was It Only A Game

“Among this year’s worst news, for me, was the death of Bobby Fischer.

Telling a friend this, I got, “Are you out of your bloody mind? He was a Nazi-praising raving lunatic and anti-Semite. Death is too good for him.”

He did, indeed, become all that. But none of it describes the man I knew.

Towering genius, riches, international fame and a far from normal childhood might be too heady a mix for anyone to handle. For him they proved fatal.

I’m still sad about his death. In our three encounters on my late-night show, I became quite fond of him.”

Posted by Norm at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

• Joseph C. Wilson: Battle-Tested - Politics on The Huffington Post

  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife -- outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson -- and me to remind us that as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. To do so would validate the radical right's thesis that the way to win debates is to demonize opponents, taking full advantage of the natural desire to avoid confrontation, even if it means yielding on substantive issues. Hillary knew this from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter. But will Mr. Obama fight? His brief time on the national scene gives little comfort. Consider a February 2006 exchange of letters with Mr. McCain on the subject of ethics reform. The wrathful Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being "disingenuous," to which Mr. Obama meekly replied, "The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you." Then one of McCain's aides said of Obama, "Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong." Mr. McCain was insultingly dismissive but successful in intimidating his inexperienced colleague. Thus, in his one face-to-face encounter with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama failed to stand his ground.

• Administration Seeks Trial of 9/11 Suspects Before Judge Judy
• BBSNews - "Imagine No Religion" Billboards Sparking a National Controversy

  Dan Barker, Foundation co-president and author of 'Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist' said "Many of our members, including generous sponsors in Ohio, want to balance all that religion on the roadside with some reason on the roadside."

• Dear Science - Dear Science - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper

  Why does my dog's tail wag? When I was a kid, I was told dogs wag their tails when they're happy, but she really wags it a lot and all the time. No one can be that happy, not even a dog. Can they?

  (tip to Kai)
• BBC NEWS | Health | Global warming 'may cut deaths'

  The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says.

Posted by Norm at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (66)

The mortgage crisis, a crisis caused in large part by the greedy corporate fucks in the mortgage banking industry is at the root of our current economic woes.

The Fed in an attempt to stave off a worse crisis lowered interest rates. So you'd think you could get a better rate on a mortgage today, but you'd be wrong.

Reeling from their self-inflicted losses the bankers are using the lower rates they get their money at as a tool to screw the consumers a second time. Lower rates no, higher profits yes.

A good example of unfettered capitalism at its best.

Links: Fed Interest-Rate Cuts Fail to Lower Borrowing Costs

Posted by Norm at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (46)

contributed by Charles Lemos

The videos are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELa5CHsUepo http://architecture.myninjaplease.com/?p=2660 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRGoketbIZE

“If a fish needs to swim, a man needs to walk.” —Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

The agony of Colombia is well known. For over forty years, Colombia has suffered an interminable guerrilla war whereas the rest of Latin America has seemingly put guerrilla activity behind them. Some of the reasons for our continued nightmare are due to factors outside Colombian control, namely the drug trade that continues to allow the FARC an invaluable source of income. And yet Colombia is turning the corner by becoming a bold experimenter and innovator in urban planning and sustainable development.

As the Colombian national anthem notes, en sucros de dolores el bien germina ya, in furrows of pain good now germinates. We are an exceptional country and an exceptional people. What other country would elect a poet, yes that was his profession, as President as we did in 1982 when we elected Belisario Betancur Cuartas. A Conservative and yet a Progressive. His speech given in 1983 to the United Nations General Assembly is considered by many to be the most august, lyrical and dramatic speech ever delivered at that podium. And yet the 1980s were a painful decade as Colombia battled not only guerrillas and the then nascent paramilitary death squads but also Pablo Escobar and his ilk, and thus unable to combat what it most needed to combat, poverty.

Then in 1990 came the neo-liberal government of Cesar Gaviria Trujillo who opened up the economy and that did have some beneficial effects but it failed to alleviate the misery of half of Colombia. We have now discarded much of the Washington Consensus model and opted like most of the rest of Latin America for more of a European-style social democracy and a mixed economy. But Gaviria, who was only 43 when he became President, did have one profound and lasting effect on Colombia, he changed the Constitution to allow direct elections of mayors and governors. And that change changed the country. In Bogotá, we elected progressive mayors such as Antanas Mockus, the son of Lithuanian immigrants, and Enrique Peñalosa Londoño. Their urban experiments have led to deep and profound changes that have altered Colombian life in unexpected ways.

The greatest experiments of these is the ciclovias. Every Sunday and on holidays, large swaths of every mayor Colombian city is closed to vehicular traffic. Recreational activities take over Colombian cities. Biking, skating, rollerblading, and walking are the order of the day. In addition, bikes are provided for those without bikes. Free aerobic, exercise and dance classes are given on the public square. It literally brought the country together. For at least just one day a week, we are simply people out with their families enjoying the day. In Bogotá, now a city of nearly 8 million people, at least two million participate every week.

Please watch these three films and see how one country is changing itself. But if you only have time for one, watch the Ciclovia film from Street Films. While Ciclovias have now been to exported to other countries the world over, in the United States only El Paso, Texas has adopted them and then only during the month of May. Change is possible in so many ways and they do not need to cost prohibitively.

In 1900 Bogotá was a city of 100,000 inhabitants but by the year 2000, Bogotá had over 7 million people. Rapid growth led to endemic poverty which begot endemic crime. By the 1980s, Bogotá had one of the worst quality of life indices in the world. Everything was a mess. And yet through of the efforts of three mayors, one fiscal conservative followed by two progressives, the city has been transformed. Jaime Castro, the first popularly elected mayor of Bogotá, organized the city’s finances and rationalized the tax structure. The next two Mockus and Peñalosa changed perceptions and values through their unorthodox experiments. Peñalosa, in particular, effected change by placing the public good ahead of the private good. For him it was people before cars. He literally has waged a war on cars. In the process, he made Bogotá one of the most sustainable cities in the world. It is twelfth worldwide according to this rank: http://www.alternet.org/environment/57973/?page=entire

The other videos cover Bogotá’s approach to its problems and the mass transit system, considered by urban planners and sustainability experts to now be among the world’s best if not the best. Bikes are an essential component of that strategy as well. If Colombia can change as profoundly as it has in the last 15 years, then I can only hope that the United States can realize its own potential.

I won’t spoil the ending, but listen to Colombians and what they are saying. How such a simple thing as reinventing the public space and biking with one’s neighbors changes attitudes. Perhaps to start the process of change in America, all you need is your Schwinn. Cars are mobile isolation booths and highways become impenetrable rivers of cars that divide people from people. Reclaiming the private space of cities and encouraging cities to offer more pedestrian activities is changing Colombia in so many unexpected ways. Our democracy has become more participatory with voting at an all-time high.

This might be just one good clue.

For more on ciclovias please visit these links: http://www.streetfilms.org/ http://www.bogota-dc.com/trans/ciclo.html http://local.theoildrum.com/node/3333

For a story on Belisario Betancur’s speech to the UN please visit this link: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40D13FD3C5F0C758CDDA90994DB484D81

Posted by Norm at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh, how I'd loved to have heard that exchange in person.

Posted by Norm at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Much has been made of the two Democratic candidates positions on the war in Iraq. It is argued that Barack's view is the principled one based on the speech he gave before the war.

Hillary supporters say that his votes after the war started are no different than hers.

Both are wrong, A principled opposition to the war doesn't include campaigning for the, I love war candidate, Lieberman as Barack did, and voting for the Kyl-Lieberman bill as Hillary did puts to rest the charge that her supporters make that after the war started the candidates votes are no different.

Posted by Norm at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (35)

Many have made the point that Barack's healthcare plan, since it asks for less, has a better chance of passage than the plan offered by Hillary.

They also say that neither plan will make it through intact, that there will be compromise. Have they forgotten about the last yard-sale they had. They didn't mark their prices based on what they thought they could get they marked them up—knowing of the coming compromise.

Barack is selling out, we'll get less. It will not be universal coverage it will not even be close. For a candidate who campaigns on change, on this issue he comes up short.

Posted by Norm at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (46)

• The thing about fear is that people get used to it, so the threat always needs to be escalated | Corrente


• "The Illustrated President" by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)
  (tip to Joel who writes:

  I thought you'd like this item from Harper's -- about a painting beloved by Bush because he identifies with the primary subject whom he describes as a Methodist missionary spreading god's word, but who actually is a horse thief fleeing a lynch mob. The obvious irony leaves little reason for further comment...

  indeed.


• Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare, Part II: Debunking the Free Marketeers | OurFuture.org

  Government-run health care is inherently less efficient -- because governments themselves are inherently less efficient.

  If anything could finally put the lie to this old conservative canard, the disaster that is our health care system is Exhibit A.

  America spends about 15% of its GDP on health care. Most other industrialized countries (all of whom have some form of universal care, either single-payer or entirely government-run) spend about 11-12%. Canada spends about 8-9% -- and most of the problems within their system come out of the fact that it's chronically underfunded compared to those other nations. If they spent what the UK or Germany do, those problems would mostly vanish.

  Any system that has people spending more and getting less is, by definition, not efficient. And these efficiency leaks are, almost entirely, due to private greed. There is no logical way that a private system can pay eight-figure CEO compensation packages, turn a handsome a profit for shareholders, and still be "efficient." In fact, in order to deliver those profits and salaries, the American system has built up a vast, Kafkaesque administrative machinery of approval, denial, and fraud management, which inflates the US system's administrative costs to well over double that seen in other countries -- or even in our own public systems, including Medicare and the VA system.

  Not incidentally: one of the benefits of single-payer health care is that it largely eliminates the entire issue of "fraud." You can only "cheat" a system that already views its primary business as rationing and withholding care. In Canada, where the system is set up to deliver health care instead of profits, and medical access is considered a right, this whole oversight machinery is far cheaper and more compact. In general, the system trusts doctors and patients to make the right choices the first time. As a result, people generally don't have to lie, cheat, and grovel to get the system to deliver the care they need. They just go and get it -- and walk out without a moment's dread about the bills.



• Caricature: Barack Obama - washingtonpost.com (Damn I've lost my note as to who suggested this link, but I found it fascinating.


• CJR: Fighting Words (tip to Charles consider yourself warned)


• Only in Utah


• Telecom Immunity » Listics (Frank sums it up nicely)

Posted by Norm at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)

please note This post is mostly a response to the many direct questions addressed to Charles that didn't get covered in the comments. It will also be the last by him on this particular topic.

contributed by Charles Lemos

Benjamin Disraeli, the long serving British Tory Prime Minister from the Victorian Era, was asked that question, what the difference is between a disaster and a calamity. His response, using as a foil the leader of the Liberal opposition William Gladstone, is one of the greatest quips in political history. Disraeli, in a typical dry British wit, responded wryly that a disaster would be if Gladstone were to fall into the Thames and a calamity would be if someone were to pull him out. That is how I have to come to view the Democratic Primary. For the progressive left, it is now a question of a disaster versus a calamity.

My main complaint is that many of you are reading things that I did not say. Briefly though, I never compared Obama to Shi’ites. I suggested that you read Canetti for his description of the Shi’ites as it illuminates their behaviour. Nor am I accusing him of being a totalitarian ruler in waiting, rather that he has the potential for authoritarianism. I think both Nixon and Reagan were authoritarian for example. And I think Obama wants to be a Democratic Reagan. I am uncomfortable with tyranny from the left or the right. Blair made Britain a society under surveillance and that worries me because like Britain the United States is becoming a surveillance society. According to the London-based NGO Privacy International, the United States is already an “endemic” surveillance society. For more on Privacy International, please visit their website: http://www.privacyinternational.org/

Many of you also accused me a painting Obama as a Fascist. My comparisons actually ran across the political spectrum. They were from the right, the left and the political center. I do not want another Tony Blair who incidentally also shares with Obama, a late in life religious conversion. Nor is it fair to state that by arguing against Obama, I am arguing for Clinton. It is not a zero-sum game for me. I understand that for you it is a zero-sum game. I believe that there are other options.

I also recognize that Canetti is a difficult subject to cover in the limited time and space I have. There is also a socio-biological component to his argument that I did not cover. The baiting crowd arises from humanity’s long history of hunting in packs. To some extent it is in our genes (today is Charles Darwin’s birthday, so Happy Birthday Charles!). We are nothing more than a third species of chimpanzee. Along with our cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos, we have long hunted in groups or packs. Genocide is a human trait. We do it and chimpanzees do it. Bonobos do not but they have sex all the live long day so who has time for a killing, metaphorically or otherwise your own kind if you are a bonobo. Some of your reactions were emotions typical of a baiting crowd.

On to the responses:

To Jo Ann who asked: Have you contributed any money or campaigned for either one of them?

I gave to Edwards or PACs that support Edwards. I have also given modest amounts ($50 or less) to Dodd, Biden, Gravel and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. I did volunteer for the Edwards campaign and he remains my choice for President. I will support Clinton with reservations and on Obama, probably not. But I do try to be objective on him. I see both good and bad though I primarily write about the bad because people refuse to even admit the possibility that he has any flaws. I wrote on his faith. I thought that would be a major issue for me but as I examined his faith, I found no serious objection to his faith. The only concern I still have is why as an adult he became a Christian since adult conversions are rare. George W. Bush had one though his was a response to his abuse of alcohol. And yes, I realize that Bush’s faith and Obama’s faith are far different. Still I cannot help but wonder if Obama’s faith was an act of political calculation. To have a political career in the United States as an atheist is perhaps impossible and Obama clearly has had long-standing political ambitions. His motives I question, his faith not so much though I find anyone with such a public faith to be clearly and utterly delusional. Private faiths, such as the Methodist faith of Mrs. Clinton, not so much. Read John Wellesley and you can understand that it is as much about good works as anything else.

And you also failed to read my posts accurately. I never compared Obama to Shi’ites. Nor did I suggest Obama supporters are global warming deniers. What I said that other examples of a lynching include what the right has done to Al Gore. The other example I gave is the lynching of John McCain by conservatives over their free speech arguments (McCain-Feingold). I also brought up the lynching of John Edwards over a haircut and the Lawrence O’Donnell and Guy Saperstein attacks on the Huffington Post. Please read with greater diligence.

I am basing my observations of cult-like behaviour of Obama supporters with empirical evidence. Throwing one’s panties at Obama is a sign of a cult follower. So was the comment that all Hispanics are evil. It’s the either your are with us or against us argument that is so prevalent in cults. To respond that Obama haters are a cult simply because we bring up flaws is a schoolyard taunt.

I have had numerous conversations with Obama supporters and not one has been able to give me a concrete substantive reason why they like Obama. Their reasons of support run like this: “He’s going to change the country by ending the partisan divide,” or “He stands for change.” They never cite policy positions. Not one Obama supporter has suggested to me why his health care policy is better than Hillary’s. On this blog, the positions are more erudite but out there the positions are more emotive than reasoned.

You were rather prolific in your responses. You also brought up immigration reform. I do not deny that Obama will work for comprehensive immigration reform. I noted that he has the order wrong. For Hispanics, and I am a Hispanic, the preferred order is green card first then licenses.

To Little Mickey who wrote: And this is Obama's fault how, exactly? Because he doesn't dial his power to inspire down to imperceptable levels?

Because he manages to rouse and stir the unwashed masses into actually wanting to take part in the democratic process?

Your posts don't read like someone who is a rational, free-thinking, skeptic. Your posts sound like they are written by someone who is afraid of something. And I wish you'd just come out and say what it is already.

Obama is using language that others have used before and those who use that language have in the past posed anti-democratic threats. You may think that the argument is supercilious but I do not. Words matter. Obama strikes me potentially as another Richard Nixon and I am not alone in that assessment. Paul Krugman seems to agree.

And I have noted what I am afraid of. Mob rule is a bit of a stretch but I have asked twice that the readership look at Hamilton Nine and Madison Ten from the Federalist Papers and not one response seems to indicate that that part of my argument was been heeded. This is your country, not mine. I have three passports. I can live anywhere. You most likely cannot and your Founding Fathers are both brilliant observers and insightful prognosticators. You should heed their warnings. Tyranny has many cloaks.

thaddeusphoenix got it right when he noted: So... all that to say he's a rabble rouser. He's appealing to emotion more than intellect. And people who appeal to emotion to rouse the rabble (using the 'baiting' method), turn out to be bad people who do bad things. BTW I will always vote on issues, issue priority, electable, ability to perform in office, and my gut.

I appreciate your post because you make me question my gut, which is really the only thing that is separating the two candidates for me right now.

Thanks! If I have a complaint about Americans and the way they make political choices is that they have for too long made important decisions on style rather than substance. My litany of losers, that is candidates that I have supported in the past, include Paul Simon, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley and now John Edwards. The Democratic Party went for the more charismatic Michael Dukakis (okay this one I really don’t get), Bill Clinton, Al Gore (I was torn admittedly) and now Barack Obama. Charisma is how we got Reagan though it was also how we got Kennedy. Still I am not that big a fan of JFK (I don’t dislike him either) because his Presidency was cut short by an assassin’s bullet so his accomplishments were relatively few and his failures more than one. It is fair to say that had Kennedy lived longer, his Presidency might have had more long-lasting impact. But it was LBJ who brought forth both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 knowing full-well that by doing so, he was surrendering the South to the GOP for quite some time to come. Would have Kennedy struck the same bargain? We will never know. LBJ also enacted the Great Society and yet he was undone by following a policy that JFK had already embarked upon: Vietnam. JFK’s role in Vietnam is overlooked by many, including the Kennedys.

Isabella Clark thinks that Frankly, this kind of argument is impossible to respond to. It is as if Lemos is trying out some form of rhetorical mental gymnastics to see where it ends up. I think he is playing a lethal game where his pleasure is to create fear and identify "bad" things. The reward is in solidifying a sense of himself that is insightful and heroic.

Why are we even trying to have a dialogue with this foolishness? It is sloppy reasoning, topped with a big schmear of self importance. It is as if Lemos walked into the middle of a fervent discussion of some subject of which he was unfamiliar. Instead of joining the discussion he remains, like many pundits, outside the circle, criticizing the people in fervent activity, rather than admitting that he feels left out.

Impossible for you perhaps, but not for others. Here is what someone else thought on another blog where my posts were cited. *and “latent”? are you sure you understand Lemos’ post? 0r are you just a shill for the faux-one? please understand, its very sad when you can’t ever get a straight response from these robots — it would behoove y’all to come up with just 1 (one) positive actual thing barry o has actually accomplished (voting “present” doesn’t count) in his career or at all (getting into and graduating law school doesn’t count — we’ve all done that — and actually practiced law to boot!). maybe if you did, those of us who distrust the faux one and his followers might not distrust y’all so much.

the Lemos post was pretty brilliant. but still, lambert, your post “Obama Stump Speech Strategy Of Conciliation Considered Harmful” in late dec is still the gold standard explaining what’s wrong with the picture*

Or this one from Susan on our own thread:

Thanks to Norm for posting this, and Charles for writing it. You've addressed many of the aspects of this Obama-adoration that have bothered me, in an interesting way. I'll peruse your links as well. I supported Edwards and haven't been real excited about either of the other two since he dropped out-- but Obama's Super Tuesday speech bugged me in a way I wasn't able to quite identify, and this has helped a lot. Thanks!

So some beg to differ. And as for being left out. I don’t join cults. I am willing to die for my principles. I will be making my third trip to the Sudan and Tchad within the month, so I do take risks. And certainly I am willing to risk damage to my reputation in the near-term because I know that I am right in how I am assessing Elias Canetti. Read Canetti if you got a month or two. Or again, read something more accessible like the Federalist Papers. I offer food for thought but I will not spoon feed you either. You need to do your own work. It that sounds like an admonishment, it is.

Reed77’s response to me “the Dear Bigot letter” is now circulating elsewhere on how I hit a nerve. If am hitting nerves, then I am doing something right. And when others like Paul Krugman, Martin Lewis, and James Jarvis are picking up on the same trends, then I think Isabella you got a problem, a metaphorical one. I am not a lone dissenter but rather just one of many disparate voices arguing the same thing.

As for the Alice Palmer case. You asked me why the petitions that were struck were the signatures were those of the homeless and the poor. It is self-evident because that is who lives in that district on the South Side of Chicago. I have made the case that the homeless are disenfranchised in the United States because they cannot abide the laws since they lack a permanent address. It is a problem. The solution is a national voter identity card but in the United States it is the left, ironically, that is largely opposed to the idea. I am not. I have one in Colombia. I already knew the answer to my query when I posed it yet no one responded with that idea.

* Adam raised this point: I have no earthy clue why you want to hold against someone that he inspires people. I frankly find it sick that when there is finally someone who inspires people with something other than cynicism, it strikes our political culture "vague" and "flowery".*

It is not that he inspires people, it is how he is inspiring people and how much. It is style over substance. And the language he is using mirrors that of many from the past. Ronald Reagan in 1980 stated that the United States had “a rendez-vous with destiny.” In 2008, Obama offers us “a date with destiny.” Thanks, I am already married or domestic partnered because that is what the system will allow me. Funny, how gay marriage in my native Colombia is now working its way through the Colombian Congress. That Colombia will have gay marriage before the United States will speaks volumes. Hell, Spain and Uruguay already have gay marriage. Accomplishments inspire me, flowery rhetoric not so much. Policy dictates my choices, not emotion. But I am weird in that respect, I care to read to policy pronouncements.

Murdock brought up some interesting points that perhaps need further clarification: Point One: But I respectfully disagree with their conclusions. Some of the readership also think that by questioning Obama’s credentials, I am arguing for Clinton." - Charles you have enough degrees to understand this: There are 2 candidates. If you argue against one and favor the other, your are..

I covered this already but I will elaborate some more. It is not a zero-sum game for me. Both candidates can lose in my mind. I can vote for John McCain if I vote my own narrow economic self-interest, something that I have never done nor am I likely to do. I can also go Green Party and support Cynthia McKinney or I can write-in John Edwards (probably what I will do). For you this election is a zero-sum game. For me, it ain’t. There are more choices than Clinton or Obama. You chose to buy into the two party system and fail to consider other options. As long as you continue to do that, you will, in effect, have no choice at all. I might argue that both parties are now effectively polarized and that is probably in the short-term not good but in the long-term not bad. We need more voices expressed than these two not so grand coalitions. There is a game theory component as to why this is but it is beyond the scope of this post.

Point Two: Charles estimation of the size of the baiting crowd is also highly suggestive (in a negative way). Why doesn't he want to size the group

I noted that Obama has elements of both a reversal crowd and a baiting crowd. I would think and hope that most Obama supporters are reversalists but some are clearly baiters. I am afraid I have no idea how large the baiting crowd is other than it is large. Your guess is as good as mine. Yours may even be better because I now largely avoid Obama supporters. Reasoning with them is beyond the possible. Another trait of a baiting crowd.

Red Seven writes: Questions that Charles and those that see Obama's followers as "Cult-Like". Do you see there being such a thing as a valid and rational "movement"? Isn't some emotional group dynamic of all movements? Are they by definition Cults?

True, all group dynamics involve some element of emotion. I noted it is that it is not that Obama makes emotive appeals because all politicians do as much as that he does so much of it. It is the level and the intensity that makes the distinction. Again there is a reversal element in Obama but there is also a very pronounced baiting element that is largely absent from other campaigns. The reversal emotion is throw the bums out; the baiting one is it is now or never and it is only us. That makes Obama more of a mass movement than a political campaign. And his movement has some millenarian overtones. That worries me. Again read the Federalist Papers.

* Tim brought up a lot of points in his comments but it is too long to reprint in full so I will cut and paste the main charge: You worry about Obama's heavy-on-inspirational tenor and you hear Peron, Franco, and Trujillo! But without identifying other characteristics that go into the kind of leader who constructs a cult of personality, your comparisons say more about you than Obama. Has Obama distorted facts (any more than usual in a political campaign) to vilify his opponents? No - amazingly, to my knowledge neither Clinton nor Obama has aired a single negative advertisement directed towards their opponents (or so claimed Paul Begala, a Clintonite, on Super Tuesday.) Is there any sense that Obama's election would signal some kind of extra-legal activities that accompany the establishment of a cult of personality? Only in your mind, I'm afraid.*

Obama had Carville and Begala removed from CNN in January. Silencing critics is in my mind though perhaps not yours a red flag. If now before he is entrusted with the Presidency, he takes to silencing critics how then how might he respond when he is President? That is what Krugman was referring to with his comments on Nixonland. Obama is behaving a lot like Richard Nixon. I have made that point already. Indeed, I raise that point in the Crossing the Mara:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/02/crossing_the_ma.html#more

Here are some links that cover the CNN dispute:

http://cadillactight.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/carville-and-begala-banned-from-cnn-due-to-obama-campaign-complaints/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14355.html

Krugman also noted that the attacks, while emanating from both camps, have primarily come from the Obama camp. Especially the more vicious ones. I don’t disagree. I think Paul Krugman is right. And of course, Paul Krugman is being lynched today here and elsewhere. Canetti is right when he notes that blind men are at the blindest when they think they can suddenly see. You see what you want to see. Bring up flaws of Mrs. Clinton and you will get responses arguing points. Bring up flaws of Obama and you are called a bigot.

I would dearly love to respond to more comments but the above pretty much cover the main criticisms of my argument as to why Canetti is right about the nature of crowds. Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday, the 199th anniversary of his birth, and I would have loved to have written a post about one of the most influential thinkers in the history of mankind, but alas I do not have the time because these posts do take time and while I think the ideas that I am expressing do matter because I clearly see a danger, I am forlorn in not being able to address other topics of relevant discussion because my time has been spent on discussing the social phenomenon that is Obama. I cannot devote this much time to Obama any longer. I have made my warnings clear. I have asked you to read Canetti if possible or at least to read the Federalist Papers. Another suggestion is to look at the work of Thomas Paine, perhaps the greatest American (though British born) thinker of his time. I urge this because you will find that both the right and the left and everyone in between claim Paine as one of theirs. Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting Paine. How Paine is quoted in this campaign is something to which you should pay attention.

My boyfriend is wont of telling me that I know the United States well but I do not know Americans at all. I think he is right. I have constantly misjudged the American propensity to vote for style over substance. You are doing it again.

Celebrate Darwin by looking at his work:

http://darwin-online.org.uk/ http://www.public.coe.edu/departments/Biology/darwin_bio.html

For more on human traits as they compared to our close cousins, I suggest Jared Diamond’s work, The Third Chimpanzee. It can be read in an afternoon. But here are some links that cover the work: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=7-9780060984038-7 http://www.booktalk.org/the-third-chimpanzee.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Chimpanzee

I also want to lament the passing of a dear friend, Tom Lantos. Tom and I worked together over the years on many human rights and global poverty issues. On both Rwanda and Darfur, Tom Lantos was a powerful voice for those who do not have a voice. My work continues because it is the also the work of Tom Lantos. I hope you make his work yours as well.

Let me also inform the readership that I contribute to this blog exclusively at the discretion of Norm. I email him the pieces and he reads them. He has made suggestions and based on that I have made one major edit. I will not suggest that Norm agrees with me entirely but at a minimum I think he finds them thought-provoking and I hope well-reasoned. He posts them, not I. We also speak frequently by phone to go over possible contributions that I can make. I would like to cover other topics but unfortunately right now the Obama issue is the only issue I have tackled for lack of time. Global poverty is my main issue. And unlike Obama, I do not silence my critics, so the turn is now yours.

Posted by Norm at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Barack Obama is a superb public speaker. He is often compared to John F. Kennedy and he has received Ted Kennedy's endorsement. He has inspired many and brought new people into the political process. I voted for Obama in the primary because I believe his ability to speak well among other things makes him more electable than Hillary Clinton.

But, lets take the comparison to JFK seriously. I think JFK was a great president, but I also think he is quite overrated. He is often considered to be in the same league as Lincoln, Washington, and FDR. What is it that he accomplished as president? What major legislative achievements did he have? It's easy to find some mistakes he made. The Bay of Pigs was a disaster. JFK agreed to the use of free-fire zones, napalm, and defoliants in Vietnam. He also escalated U.S. involvement in that mistake. In 1963, the Kennedy administration backed a coup against the government of Iraq. The CIA helped the Baath Party government by providing them with a list of suspected leftists and Communists. The Iraqi government used that list to murder untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite. Saddam Hussein is thought to have participated in those killings. These are all some pretty big policy mistakes that any good progressive would oppose. Kennedy was a great speaker and very inspirational. That was a good thing. I also think it explains why JFK is over-rated. I just listened to Kennedy's Inaugural Address again, and again I was stirred when he said, "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country..", but we should not confuse that feeling with real accomplishments that make a real difference. That feeling should not make us think that JFK was on a par with FDR or Lincoln.

Stop. Think. Are you feeling angry now? Do you want to wrap your fingers around my neck and squeeze? Are you ready to snap off a snide comment? This is the reaction that I want you to be aware of. Your anger at me clouds your judgment. Do you think I just said JFK was a bad president? If you think that is true go back a read the paragraph above again. That's not what I said.

Obama's speeches are inspiring as well, but what evidence do we have that he can actually achieve something meaningful like universal health care. He is starting from a weaker position than Hillary by not supporting mandates. We can look at his voting record in the Senate. It's not that impressive. Lets not confuse the good feelings we have listening to Obama speak with evidence that he is actually going to make a difference. Just having a feeling about him isn't evidence. Obama's supporters sometimes act as though he can do no wrong. The level of hostility toward Charles Lemos and others who have criticized Obama is telling. We should not allow our emotional reactions to Obama's speeches cloud our ability to think critically about his candidacy. And so I say, ask not does Obama feel right for our country; ask if Obama is right for our country.

Please note: this post is not by Norm I didn't vote for Obama in the primary. I wasted my vote on Edwards, as a protest. This post is from my errant son Chris who is supporting Obama.

Posted by Chris Jenson at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (58)

• Why multiculturalism must be abandoned(tip to Chris)

  There is a better way for the state to understand and regulate human differences. . . It is called liberalism. A liberal society allows an individual to do whatever he or she wants, provided it doesn't harm other people. You can choose to wear PVC hotpants or a veil. You can choose to spend all day praying, or all day mocking people who pray. Where a multiculturalist prizes the rights of religious groups, a liberal favours the rights of the individual. So if you want to preach that the Archangel Gabriel revealed the word of God to an illiterate nomad two millennia ago, you can do it as much as you like. You can write books and hold rallies and make your case. What you cannot do is argue that since this angel supposedly said women are worth half of a man when it comes to inheritance, and that gay people should be killed, you can ditch the rules of liberalism and act on it. The job of a liberal state is not to stamp The True National Essence on its citizens, nor to promote "difference" for its own sake. It is to uphold the equal rights of every individual – whether they are white men or Muslim women. It has one liberal culture, with freedoms used differently by different people.

• Hate Springs Eternal - New York Times

  The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

• A Calumny a Day To Keep Hillary Away - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog

  The responses to my column on Hillary Clinton-hating have been both voluminous (the largest number in the brief history of “Think Again”) and fascinating. The majority of posters agreed with the characterization of the attacks on Senator Clinton as vicious and irrational, but in not a few posts the repudiation of Hillary-hatred is followed by more of the same. Lisa (No. 17) nicely exemplifies the pattern. She begins by saying “I agree that there is a rabid nature in the manner in which numerous conservative groups attack Hillary Clinton,”, but in the very next sentence she declares that “most of Hillary’s reputation is well earned” and then she spends nine paragraphs being rabid. A significant minority of posters skipped the ritual disavowal of hatred and went straight to the task of adding to it.

• Shakesville

  Health care. Initially, both Clinton and Obama disappointed. Without Edwards in the race, we'd still be in some insurance-pandering Stone Age on that. However, he pulled them out of it. Clinton had the sense to just co-opt his plan wholesale. Obama tried to talk the talk while walking a more industry-friendly walk. Shades of the liquefied coal mess. Krugman in op-eds and his blog and Ezra Klein have analyzed this thing to the last comma. Bottom line: "Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700" and "One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs [nearly twice] as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured." Turns out that this echoes what Obama actually did in Illinois. '"We radically changed [the health care bill] in response to concerns that were raised by the insurance industry,” Obama said.' One of those radical changes was that universal healthcare became merely a policy goal instead of state policy.

Posted by Norm at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (36)

• Williams is dangerous. He must be resisted | Matthew Parris - Times Online


• Postman on Politics | Huckabee challenges "dubious" caucus count, sends lawyers here | Seattle Times Newspaper Blog


• Follow the venom | Corrente


• YouTube - Michelle Obama might not back Hillary


• Crooks and Liars » Obama slams Bush after Bush misstates his foreign policy positions


• Barack Obama and Pot Laws

Posted by Norm at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I've seen quite a few comments about superdelegates in the the comment sections of other posts. Here is a link to an interesting discussion on the topic.

Hullabaloo

There is a lot of sturm and drang about this idea of superdelegates deciding the election, with people like Donna Brazile threatening to quit the party if they do.

Posted by Norm at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

contributed by Charles Lemos

As an atheist, discussion of religion in politics generally makes me uneasy. I have come over the years to be more accepting of religion as having some positive influences though I still think that religion in general and monotheistic ones that proselytize in particular are among the most regressive and pernicious forces on the planet. In my travels to the remote corners of the globe, I have seen devastation wrought primarily by two classes of people: those who work for natural resources companies and missionaries.

In the first few debates there was an inordinate amount of time asking the candidates about their religious views but since then at least on the Democratic side, the religious question has generally quieted down. The sole exception is, of course, Barack Obama who has made rather dramatic statements about his religious beliefs, especially in South Carolina where he declared Jesus Christ to be his personal lord and saviour and late last year when he declared that faith “plays every role” in his life. Declarations like that I find inappropriate in a political campaign. It is a criticism that I have long had of the Republicans and I hate to see religion injected into Democratic Party politics. Here is a link on Obama’s beliefs and his view on the role of faith in politics: And another: And one from last year on his comments to a South Carolina Church: And here is a great and largely positive article from the Christian Science Monitor on Obama and his faith:

What puzzles me about Barack’s faith is how it came to be in the first place. Conversions to religion as an adult are rare. If you grow up with religion, then there is a tendency to maintain it throughout your lifetime. However if you grow up in a non-religious environment and then attend a very secular college and then become a Christian, well, that is a rare occurrence.

Both of Obama’s parents are atheists. His mother is pretty much fits the generation that came of age in the 1960s. And his Kenyan Luo father who did grow up a Muslim (Kenyan Muslims like most Muslims from the periphery of Islam are a blend of native traditions with an overlay of Islamic traditions, they are generally not rabid) was an atheist by the time he got to Hawaii. His stepfather, Soetoro, was a non-practicing Muslim from Indonesia. So how and why does a child of atheists who received an elite quality education at Punahou (Punahou is a school based on Christian principles but the few people I know who attended are all atheists) in Honolulu and at Columbia University in New York become a Christian as an adult?

I honestly do not know the answer to that question. Some of the articles to which I am providing links throughout this post attempt to reach an answer. The most persuasive one that I read was that in Obama’s community-organizing work in the South Side of Chicago, he kept on getting asked which Church he belonged to. That apparently led to his very public conversion.

One thing that did impress me about Barack Obama’s faith when I read more than twenty articles and interviews about the Trinity Church and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is how Obama does realize something that is generally lost on the Evangelical crowd. The crux of Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount. What most Christians do not realize, however, is that the Sermon on the Mount is actually a Buddhist text written approximately in 400BC. The original copy is in Ladakh in a Buddhist monastery near the city of Leh right at the intersection of Pakistan, India and Tibet in what is currently the Indian part of Kashmir.

While Barack Obama’s faith is a puzzle in some ways to me though in doing the research for this post, I have come away with an appreciation for his Trinity Church and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor. The more I read about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright the more I liked him. To begin with the Trinity Church is a Congregationalist Church, part of the United Church of Christ. Congregationalism is the religious tradition that evolved in New England though the UCC is only about a half century old and it is among the most liberal Christian philosophies. The Reverend Wright has taken though and somewhat controversial stands at times and I applaud him for it. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa and he very publicly and eloquently spoken for gay rights. As a gay man, I appreciate that. And while I do not entirely understand the Black Empowerment argument, I do respect it. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright seems a positive force for his community. Here are some interviews from both the national and international press. One from the Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly: An interview in the Baltimore Sun: And an interview on PBS: And this link provides an excellent overview and biography of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright: And this is a great article on the Reverend Wright’s views on the AIDS pandemic and on homosexuality:

Still I think we should realize that the GOP will make Obama’s religious belief an issue and in particular that they will attack the Trinity Church. Freedom Watch, the group headed by Ari Fletcher, is armed and ready with over $200 million sitting in its coffers. It won’t be a swiftboat, but it might be a swiftchurch that we add to the political lexicon in 2008. The right wing will attack the Reverend Wright and the Trinity Church and by extension Barack Obama. The reason is that on two occasions the Reverend Wright has associated himself with the Reverend Louis Farrahkan, the controversial head of the Nation of Islam. There was a trip to Libya to visit Omar Qaddafi in the 1980s and the Reverend Wright awarded Louis Farrakhan a humanitarian prize. I also had heard charges that he equated Zionism with racism but I found no proof of that. Here is a link that summarizes some of the criticism: And this link provides the background on the ties to Farrahkan and on the Qaddafi visit.

For me these are largely a non-issue or perhaps trivial at best, but for Freedom Watch and the GOP it won’t be. The attacks will center on these events and will come from the various 527 groups. Be prepared for it. So on that level, let me advise you what to expect. This is a great overview from Media Matters that debunks the right-wing smears.

I have weird hobbies such as I like to monitor elections around the world for fun and at my own expense working for NGOs. I have monitored a half dozen so far from Haiti to Sri Lanka to Argentina to Cambodia to Columbus, Ohio. Incidentally, the only one were I have encountered serious lapses of the electoral process and wide-spread fraud was in Columbus in 2004. The level of electoral fraud and voter disenfranchisement in the United States is indeed something to behold.

I also enjoy reading sermons for their political content. I especially enjoy sermons from the American Founding Era. I wrote about the Reverend John Leland and the Rights of Conscious Inalienable previously which the readership seemed to overlook. Here is one of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. This link is a downloadable sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It is a great read.

It has been suggested that in my dislike for Obama that I am campaigning for Clinton. That is not accurate. This is not a zero-sum game for me unlike for most of you for which it is an either a Clinton or an Obama choice. In my decision, both can actually lose. I realize that I have a difficult decision to make, one that troubles my conscience greatly. I would like to think that I can support the nominee of my Party but I have had thoughts of bolting the Party altogether no matter who the nominee is.

If I were to vote my own narrow economic self-interest I could support John McCain because he will do away with the AMT, the alternative minimum tax, that afflicts me greatly (not so much the amount which is steep but the inability to plan for it properly). Yet I have never voted my own narrow economic self-interests. I could also go for former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party whose views on Iraq, healthcare and energy match my own. But I have only supported an independent run for the White House once, John Anderson in 1980, a support that I regret to this day because of what it enabled thereafter. My mind remains unsettled.

Part of my aim is really to vet Barack Obama. To criticize and then to listen to the replies. So far, I remain unconvinced. I have read the replies to both of my recent pieces as of late Sunday afternoon and will attempt to answer as many as I can as soon as possible. I will say this once the debate moved off from me being the issue, the debate was very lively and productive.

My question to the readership now is two-fold: are any of you worried about Obama’s view on faith in his everyday life and the effects that may have on his decision-making and if not why not and does the conversion as an adult trouble you at all?

Posted by Norm at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (77)

Bill Maher reasserts his right to think religion is harmful and say so.

Posted by Norm at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Obama stump speech strategy of conciliation considered harmful | Corrente

The point I've been trying to make about Obama, inarticulately it seems, is made here in a much more cogent way. It is worth your time to read the entire post. I suspect many will just dismiss it with a tried and true it's just more Obama bashing and that will be unfortunate, but the true believers are just that true believers.

“We come to Obama.

Here are the two money paragraphs from the almost always eloquent Obama’s latest (and truly brilliant) stump speech. Time’s Mark Halperin had it first:

[OBAMA] You know that we can’t afford four more years of the same divisive food fight in Washington that’s about scoring political points instead of solving problems; that’s about tearing your opponents down instead of lifting this country up. …

It’s change that won’t just come from more anger at Washington or turning up the heat on Republicans. There’s no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there. We don’t need more heat. We need more light. I’ve learned in my life that you can stand firm in your principles while still reaching out to those who might not always agree with you. And although the Republican operatives in Washington might not be interested in hearing what we have to say, I think Republican and independent voters outside of Washington are. That’s the once-in-a-generation opportunity we have in this election.

I believe!

But. Not. I hope I’ve been able to persuade you, through a quick look at the political economy of the last 30 years, that what’s going on in politics today is a little bit more complicated — and much more important — than a “divisive food fight.” Indeed, the very phrase itself trivializes both the scale of the problem, and the efforts of those progressives who are fighting for solutions.

All progressives—and most Democrats—agree on the “once-in-a-generation” opportunity and the stakes. That’s not the issue. The issue is: What kind of politics can turn the opportunity into permanent, progressive change? What kind of politics can drive economics? Because that’s what it will take to achieve even universal health care. We’re supposed to be from the reality-based community, and we’re supposed to rely on the hard-won Enlightenment tools of evidence and reasoning, and here I think Obama’s stump speech strategy comes up short. (I’ll give my objections, and summarize, tendentiously but I hope not unfairly, the responses I’ve gotten from Obama’s supporters to points I’ve made during a recent sojourn on Big Orange.)”

Posted by Norm at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (27)

From the always thoughtfulThe Daily Brew mailing list.

I've always been a fan of Hillary, but I've never been a fan of her
campaign. From the comments section of her website that doesn't
allow anything but fawning praise to the planted questions at public
events, Hillary's Presidential run has all the spontaneity of the
changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It comes as no surprise to
me that the only real bump occurred when she went off script and cried
before New Hampshire. It was the only time she looked human. Too bad for Hillary fans that Mark Penn didn't notice.

Super Tuesday was supposed to end this race, but it turned out to be
just the first half, and it was fought to a tie. Yesterday Obama took
the opening kickoff of the second half and ran it back for a touchdown.
Obama is poised to repeat wins in Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana
with fresh victories in Virginia, Maryland and DC on February 12th, and
again in Hawaii and Wisconsin on February 19. It is easy to picture a
scenario where Hillary loses every primary for the whole month of
February, excepting the Super Tuesday contests. Once that kind of
momentum is established, it becomes awfully hard to break. Her last
chance will be on March 4 in Ohio and Texas.

The question then becomes is Hillary is willing to destroy the
Democratic village to save it? If Hillary Clinton was George Bush, and
Mark Penn was Karl Rove, there is no question that the dirtiest, below
the radar slime operation in history would be cranking up right now in
Dallas, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Columbus, Houston, and Cleveland.
Obama fans shouldn't kid themselves. If Mark Penn goes to work
targeting Hispanics in Texas and racist white Democrats in Ohio with
Rovian messaging, Hillary could stage a comeback. But Hillary fans
shouldn't kid themselves either. The only way Hillary is going to
make that kind of comeback is to rip the Democratic party in half.

I, for one, am increasingly having trouble working up the gumption to
care. As near as I can tell, neither Hillary nor Obama have pledged to
dismantle the Bush administration's growing police state. According
to Alternet, Cheney is building a shadow CIA in the private sector
called InfraGardâ that looks a whole lot like the East German
Stasi. It will form a nice compliment to the private mercenary army
they've built with Blackwater. Thanks to the Bush administration,
the private sector has government contracts to spy on Americans and
fight unnecessary wars of choice, all with complete immunity from the
judicial and/or democratic process. The only candidate I ever wanted
to vote for was the one that pledged to end all that, and to deliver
the members of the Bush administration to an international tribunal to
try them for the War Crimes, including torture. Sadly, that candidate
doesn't seem to exist.

Posted by Norm at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Okay here's an opportunity for Obama supporters to explain why your candidate voted against limiting interest rates, or to defend the reason he gave. Let me add that if Obama is the democratic candidate I'll support him in spite of what I consider his obvious lack of good jugdment on this issue. Here is the transcript of the debate if anyone wants to read it all this exchanges begins on page 8.

Posted by Norm at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (83)

• Edwards meeting with Clinton, Obama on endorsement
• Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose: Ron Paul Basically Gives Up
  Bad news for the Ron Paul supporters. (tip to Frenetic)

The next three links are read meat for the Obama supporters.

• Comment is free: Perhaps I should join the cult
• He's got Obamaphilia - Los Angeles Times
• You know, I'm getting tired of being called "cynical" | Corrente



• McClatchy Washington Bureau | 02/08/2008 | America's Sunni allies go on strike in Iraq's Diyala province
  More proof the surge is making a difference

Posted by Norm at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

And this week's winner is?

Posted by Norm at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Posted by Norm at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (27)

contributed by Charles Lemos

It was interesting to read the comments to my post on how Obama fits the paradigm of Elias Canetti from last week, Crossing the Mara. I took some time in fashioning a coherent reply so I apologize for the lapse of time. I should say first that there were some very good comments. Tim’s, I think, was the best but there were others as well. I also want to thank JPaul for his kind words throughout this debate. The aim was, of course, to foster to discussion among the readership. I am not sure that I accomplished my objective as fully as I would have liked but I do think a more than a few people engaged in fruitful and frank exchanges.

One thing I failed to mention in the piece, which I regret, is that Obama, Clinton and Edwards all started out as reversal crowds. This is the crowd that stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789. The reversal crowd is one that is looking to reverse a situation. In this case, the aim is to win the Presidency for the Democratic Party, not to storm a prison but the psychology of the crowd is the same according to Canetti. What I think some of you missed by me not stating this explicitly is that only a portion of the Obama crowd is morphing into a baiting crowd. How large I am not sure. But it is large and growing. And Obama, whether consciously or unconsciously, uses the language that one hears in a baiting crowd. That may be unpleasant to state but it is a fact if Canetti is right which I think he is. (You should read what he has to say about Shi’ites remembering he wrote in 1962, not 2002).

Go on Free Republic and read their opinions of Al Gore and global warming or John McCain for that matter. That is a baiting crowd in action. What Lawrence O’Donnell wrote about John Edwards and what Guy Saperstein wrote were two other example of a baiting crowd psychology. And the only way to respond to these attacks is to call them on it. And I did (the links are in the Crossing the Mara piece). Those were attacks carried out by Obama surrogates. That does taint Obama to some degree I am sorry to say. Obama’s emotive rhetoric is pushing ordinary people to do things that they would not otherwise do or say, some of it good and some of it not so good. And I feel obliged to respond to the not so good.

I thought the opening to Senator Obama’s speech was brilliant. He sounded Presidential, however I soured quickly. The “I love you” from a member of the crowd fits my paradigm. He is a larger than life figure who can do no wrong and who they will follow to the ends of the Earth. I admire John Edwards but I do not agree with him on everything either and I am certainly not going to throw my panties at him. Then came the exhortations from Obama that give me so much trouble and confirm my skepticism. You hear Barack Obama; I hear Juan Domingo Peron, Francisco Franco, Rafael Trujillo, or Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (whom I actually heard live as a boy of ten because my grandfather wanted me to hear what should frighten me) among others.

Anyone who thinks that the time is now and only now and that it is us and only us alone represents a danger to the health and liberty of any Republic. The language is strikingly similar to a long line of either would-be dictators or oddly enough Spanish and Russian anarchists from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (I find anarchism quite intriguing, the Spanish variant in particular, because it is so surreal and its language as flowering and euphoric as any). Lenin seized a moment for example. It is not that Obama is likely to be another Vladimir ex parte or in toto or become an anarchist but rather that his language and his followers mirror a fair number of less than savory political figures and their followers. That should give us pause. There is a difference between passion and irrationality.

Indeed, elsewhere on onegoodmove more than one reader has posted warnings similar to mine. I am thankful not to mention relived that others have picked up on it and concur with my assessment. Here is a link to what others are saying on another blog:

It is rare that I am proved right so quickly. Generally my predictions can take years to fully work themselves out. In 1998, it was Hugo Chavez that incurred my wrath and no matter his agenda, he was a tyrant in the making. In 2000, I warned everyone who would listen that Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was code for “unadorned Friedmanism” that aimed to privatize government services such as welfare, education and social security. In 2002, I noted about Iraq that “the United States will “win the war and lose the peace.” And now I am warning you to look carefully at Obama because the language and the appeals he is using is that typical of leaders of mass social movements who paid lip service to democracy but once in office behaved very differently.

His language is remarkably different from any one else in the race and at the very least you should take note of that fact and consider its implications. Take a step back before you step off a cliff. Some of you will come to different conclusions that I and others have and that’s fine but at the very least you as free thinkers who have examined your conscience.

And so I wrote:

“Elias Canetti wrote on the types of crowds (baiting, flight, prohibition, reversal, and feast) and I think Obama crowds fit well into what Canetti called the baiting crowd phenomenon. It is not so much that he has wide-spread support, it is the kind of wide-spread that he enjoys. It is not very reflective nor deep, it is based on a hunch and a willingness to go along for a ride. It is rarely born of pensive assessment but more properly of opportunism. The ability to seize a moment.”

And so it was. About five minutes into the Super Tuesday speech (Norm posted the speech, look for it in the archives or read the link below) came the exhortations not just to those standing already with him but those of us, like myself, on the sidelines. According to Obama, “this time we have to seize the moment.” His words. Listen to or read the speech. Seize the moment. Anyone who has to seize a moment frightens me. That is an emotive appeal, not a rational one.

Obama asked those of us on the sidelines to come join his growing social mass movement. He pleaded "our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America." Then he adds an appeal to undecided voters who, he says, are "afraid" to join his movement. "I'm here to say tonight to all of those of you who still harbor those doubts: We need you. We need you to stand with us. We need you to work with us. We need you to help us prove that ordinary people can still do . . . extraordinary things in the United States of America," he said. If his success depends on us skeptics coming on board to throw the last stone, he can forget about it. I am not joining. Baiting mobs are ordinary people who do extraordinarily awful things. Reason falls by the wayside, because their decision has ceased to be rational. As for afraid, yes I am. And concerned.

Here is the full speech:

Mass social movements are not uncommon in American history, I touched on two in the other post, Nixon’s Silent Majority and the Reagan Coalition, but there are others. The Free Grange Movements in the 1870s, James Weaver and the Populist Movement in the 1890s, and Huey P. Long in the 1930s represent some from a leftist perspective. Some of these are honest and sincere attempts to redress the wrongs of society, others are not. Perhaps Obama’s movement lies more in the former camp but it is scary nonetheless to outsiders. Safety can only be found inside the mob. Stand outside it and you are called a “bigot” as I was or a “cunt” as Digby has been called (she has suspended commenting on her blog). That is what baiters do, bait.

Here is one example of what one reader has endured:

I’ve been commenting on various blogs for quite a while now, but it wasn’t before I dared to say negative about St. Barack that people responded with nasty, vicious personal attacks. Criticize Hillary and people will disagree but criticize Obama and they will call you names and insult you.

I have been called a cocksucker which is true, a moron which is debatable since I do have three advanced professional degrees and a bigot which is just false and patently offensive. But this is the object of a baiting crowd to goad you into submission or frighten you into compliant silence. In terms of political theory, the Obama crowd is not a democratic crowd but a usurpive one. A seize the moment kind of crowd. It is frankly a Machiavellian approach. By the way, I will note that someone responded to my Alice Palmer post that he did not mind Obama’s excesses because what is required is a “decent ambitious Machiavellian.” Are you kidding me? There is no such beast. The ends do not justify the means. Ever.

I found it amusing that someone labeled me “one of the few commentators in the United States” who is critical of Obama. Perhaps, though Paul Krugman, Taylor Marsh, Jane Hamsher and Martin Lewis are others if you are interested. Krugman is covering the universal health care debate admirably. Martin, who is British-born, approaches the criticism from the same vein as I do, that is, that his language and his supporters are frightening because they match up with the language and actions of some rather unsavory characters from history. It is an observation shared by many overseas. I appreciate being allowed to voice my dissenting opinion and to try to demonstrate it with facts, historical analogies and the writings of men and women who are far more learned than I such as Elias Canetti.

But let me try another approach. We all agree that Obama believes that Reagan was a transformational figure in American politics, right? And that Obama would like to be that sort of transformational figure for the Democrats. Well there is such a thing as a “cult of Reagan.” Being an atheist and a free thinker, I am simply wary of cults or mass movements no matter their intentions or their politics. That comes with the job description of being a free thinker, I am afraid.

Here’s what one former Obama supporter said:

I went visit to Iowa at caucus time. I went to Iowa a confirmed Obama supporter. Then I went to an Obama rally. His speech said nothing of substance, and I was surrounded by people weeping. I asked what they were crying about and would get responses like "He makes me believe!" When asked what they believed, they either couldn't answer or would just quote campaign slogans--hope, change, unity. I left that rally looking for a new candidate.

The next day I went to an Edwards rally. He gave a speech outlining policies and programs, and I had lucid conversations with Edwards supporters about why they supported him--trade policies, concern for the poor, labor issues, health care, etc.

I went to Iowa an Obama supporter. I left Iowa an Edwards supporter. I don't join cults.

I hope you see and heed the warning signs and examine more closely who this individual called Obama is in his totality. Yes, there are some positives about him but please don’t overlook the flaws either. In my mind, the flaws outweigh the positives but others will arrive at a different conclusion. And I will leave this subject with this. Please read the Federalist Papers especially Hamilton Nine and Madison Ten and see what the Founding Fathers had to say about factions and mass movements and why those frightened them. It is the safeguards against domestic factions portions of the Federalist Papers. James Madison is a gift to the world of political liberalism and he is an American of the first magnitude. Celebrate your political heritage by listening to his warnings. Recognize the dangers. They remain apt today.

I do not want to paint all Obama supporters as baiters but some clearly are. I appreciate the fact that many people believe in his bipartisan approach. I do not. I think it is naïve. Here is a good article on why it is delusional to think that bipartisanship works:

I also noted how Obama reminds me of Tony Blair and how that didn’t turn out so well. Well here is a view from Scotland:

Lastly, here are a few posts from various blogs that strike me as fitting as given our discussion.

”What you and the other Democrats have to understand is the avid supporters that Obama has are not die-hard Democrats. Any attempt to derail Obama will cause them to leave and never return. The Obama supporters are progressives, they are not black people who will return to the Democratic party. I will also guarantee that even though blacks will return to the Democratic party, many of them will sit out this election.”

Any attempt to derail Obama? Is that a crime? Will it be a crime under an Obama administration to voice dissent? So I suppose you think that the rest of us should just fold our tent and let him do as he pleases. That is the corollary to the baiting crowd, they so trust and blindly follow their leader and that will let him do as he pleases because he can do no wrong in their eyes. And is he not running for the nomination of the Democratic Party so should not die-hard Democrats have their own say on whom the nominee of their party is? The logic is astoundingly flaccid. 70% of voters in the Democratic primaries and caucuses will support either candidate according to Tuesday’s exit polls. I still think we can beat the GOP with that number which is sure only to grow unless we mortally wound Mrs. Clinton in the primary. Progressives also don’t seize moments, we assume a mantle of trust when it is freely given for as long as it freely given.

Or this:

You will NEVER meet a better person than Barack Obama. What are you thinking???

Frankly, I hope the Alice Palmer case dispels that notion entirely. He’s quite human and rather ambitious, don’t you think?

Or this:

Obama-haters are the real cult.

When you are reduced to schoolyard taunts, you are not exactly proving your case but rather mine.

Or this:

Back on the California primary result, it looks like the so-called "Hispanic" (which mostly consists of the illegals from Mexico with fake documents) have been able to accomplish their goal: to destroy the US from within. I knew along these Hispanic people were up to something evil but wasn't sure until now.

Yup, that’s right. We have been plotting this for years, decades even. Massing at the border, slowing crossing over because we knew that one day we might flex our muscle by bringing down the United States by preventing one African-American from reaching the Presidency. Honestly, that is an Obama supporter who is clearly one delusional sick puppy. Who makes up this mob? Again I return to Canetti and his views on the baiting crowd that looks at situations in very stark terms of good and evil. Hispanics are evil because they are not on board with Obama. The baiting crowd personified.

And people think I am hysterical.

But I will note this aside on Hispanic support for Clinton which ran 2:1 nationwide and 3:1 in California. Obama has it wrong on driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. He was against them in Iowa but changed his mind when he got to California. We know pandering when we hear it. Hispanics are poor but not stupid. But Clinton’s approach is far different and to Hispanics it makes sense because it is what they want. They want comprehensive immigration reform. It is a process that goes in this order: green cards first and licenses later. Obama got the order wrong because he did not look into the issue, he pandered. He tells people what they want to hear, ethanol in Des Moines, Jesus in Charleston, guns in Boise, Reagan in Reno, licenses in Los Angeles. At least, recognize the pattern.

I do respect the heartfelt support that others on this blog have submitted. And I think the Caroline Schlossberg-Kennedy endorsement, among others, is note-worthy. But I respectfully disagree with their conclusions. Some of the readership also think that by questioning Obama’s credentials, I am arguing for Clinton. I suppose by default I am and I am surprised to some extent that I have come to lean towards Clinton but that is because Obama is unacceptable to me on moral grounds and on political ones.

I will close with some predictions. Obama will unravel even if he reaches the Presidency because people who approach politics that way he does, always do. To unravel the legacy of Nixon and Reagan, we are just beginning that Herculean task though they themselves unraveled long ago. As to when Obamaism will unravel, I am not certain. With luck, sooner rather than later. The longer it takes for Obama to unravel, the greater damage to the system. This will not end that well, we are past the tipping point. People will be embittered and more, no matter the outcome. And I will note this observation, the long-term interests of the Democratic Party still lie with the John Edwards progressive wing of the Democratic Party that has supported him. Because it is not dependent on John Edwards, rather it is dependent on those of us who share the same moral imperatives. Health care that leaves out 15 million people is not universal nor is it fighting for the welfare of the whole body politic. It casts aside many of the less fortunate and that is hardly moral. The Alice Palmer case already leaves doubt at least in my mind that Obama is willing to cast aside the less fortunate for political expediency. And it leaves a problem sure to grow to a succeeding generation. And that is neither right nor moral.

Yes, I am the ultimate cynic in the Greek sense. But that is the core of Western free-thinking. Being skeptical and informed.

For more on Spanish Anarchism, try these links:
1
2
3

My favorite Spanish Anarchist quote is: “Ours is a beautiful dream that has been more than dreamt, it is a reality that we must capture and caress for who fails to seize his dreams lives his nightmares.” I love the sentiment and the prose but if I hear this quote in an Obama speech, it will probably kill me right then and there.

Posted by Norm at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (82)

Posted by Norm at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Bill on the candidates.

Posted by Norm at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

“The union representing Hollywood's striking writers said it reached a "tentative deal" with studios and will meet members later on Saturday to discuss ending a three-month walkout that has crippled television production and overshadowed the awards season.”

Posted by Norm at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

contributed by Charles Lemos

I am going to challenge Obama supporters and others by asking some tough and pertinent questions that continue to linger in my mind that I believe disqualify Senator Obama from holding the Presidency.

While I have never been overly impressed by Senator Obama during his quest for the Presidency, the more I learned about him the more I believe him simply unqualified. So now I am going to turn back as to why the story of Barack Obama and Alice Palmer offends me so in explicit detail.

Alice Palmer was Barack Obama’s political mentor in the South Side of Chicago when he was doing community organization and running voter registration drives. In 1996, Alice Palmer decided to run for Congress vacating her seat in the Illinois State Legislature. She lost in the primary and decided to run again for her seat in the legislature. At this point, it gets murky. Obama says one thing, Palmer another. That discussion is largely irrelevant because of what Obama did. He challenged the signature petitions and had her stricken from the ballot. Whatever the merits of their personal argument, the fact also is that Obama struck the petitions of three others. He eliminated his opposition with a legal tactical maneuver and ran unopposed in the primary. He then faced token opposition in the general election. Some call it “bare-knuckles Chicago politics.” I prefer to call it disenfranchising of the homeless and the poor who were a large portion of those who signed those petitions.

I work with the homeless here in San Francisco. There are degrees of homelessness. Many of the homeless, actually have homes or better put a roof over their heads. They are called residential hotels. The laws vary from city to city but they all have one thing in common. The permissible length of stay is determined by law. Here in San Francisco, it is thirty-two days. So every 32 days, these individuals have to find other digs. They are constantly moving from one hotel to another. To be allowed to stay in one place, they need something they generally do not have, credit or a deposit. Obama should know this well since he worked with the homeless.

At my home here in San Francisco, I receive the mail of four individuals who are homeless and who live in residential hotels allowing them a permanent mailing address that serves as a legal abode so they can then receive services and technically vote. In the United States, a permanent address is required to vote. That’s the problem. If you are homeless, you are disenfranchised. It is a moral issue for me.

Here are the requirements in Illinois:

What forms of identification are needed when I register to vote?

• Two forms of identification with one showing your current residence address.  If you register by mail, you must vote in person the first time you vote.

Do I ever have to re-register?

No, not unless you:

• Move to a different address
• Change your name

I hope you see the problem.

My problem with Obama on this issue is that he would have likely won that election and if he had a difference of opinion with Alice Palmer over who said what and who could do what if this or that happened or failed to happen, he did not have that difference of opinion with the other three candidates. Why take them off the ballot? Why not run a campaign that you are likely to win anyway?

To be fair to Obama, he did ponder how it might look if struck everyone off the ballot. If he doesn’t know by now, the answer is that it doesn’t look good and it goes against the image he so assiduously cultivated. To me this smacks of win at all costs and at the expense of the homeless. What else is it? I am happy to countenance countervailing thoughts. If your argument is that it is politics, I beg to differ since he is also being presented as someone who is “above politics” and “the real deal.”

Still I doubt that the Alice Palmer story is fully understood by Obama’s supporters because no one goes into it with the detail nor has the background required to demonstrate that is one instance of rather disturbing behaviour. To be homeless in America is to be forgotten. To advance his own political career, he struck by disenfranchising the homeless and the poor, the very people he purportedly claims to serve. While Senator Obama did nothing illegal in challenging those petitions, I believe that he acted unethically.

You can find the original news story here.

I welcome your responses. I especially welcome thoughts that might help in securing voting rights for the homeless. They are citizens, they deserve the right to vote and not be disenfranchised for lack of a permanent address.

A Post Script

Alice Palmer is now a delegate for Clinton from Illinois.

Posted by Norm at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)

• Corporations Given ‘Human Rights,’ Humans Are Denied Them - CommonDreams.org

  In evaluating allegations that U.S. military forces deprived four British men of human rights during two years they were held captive in Guantanamo Bay prison, a U.S. appeals court found an innovative way to let the Bush administration off the hook. Two of three judges ruled the men — because they are not U.S. citizens and, technically, were not imprisoned in the U.S. — were not legally “persons” and, therefore, had no rights to violate.

  While those judges were defying common sense and decency by denying legal personhood to living human beings, an appeals court in Boston has been reviewing an April 2007 decision by Federal Judge Paul Barbadoro that engaged in a different form of judicial activism — granting human rights to corporations.

  Barbadoro struck down a New Hampshire law that prevented pharmaceutical corporations from learning exactly what drugs doctors prescribe and how much they prescribe. The law aims to protect doctors and, indirectly, their patients, from drug companies pressuring doctors to choose their products.

  The judge’s grounds? He claims corporations, as legal persons, have “free speech rights” that would be infringed by such a measure.



• A Sneak Peak at the Real CPAC Agenda

  9:00 AM - Kippers with the Gippers: Breakfast and Welcoming Remarks by Ronald Reagan Impersonators

  10:00 AM - Workshop: How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest of the Undocumented Workers Who’ve Just Finished Serving You Breakfast



• StumbleVideo - Truth in advertising II(tip to Jill)


• How to Respond to a Supercilious Christian | Rational Responders

  Not all Christians are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that science (despite its lack of supernatural entities) does some good. But Christianity as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the new wave of evangelicals and their leaders such as Rick Warren, Lee Strobel, and William Lane Craig with their aggressive stance against scientific materialism and their bestselling books attempting to refute science. So, assuming you're an atheist, what do you say to the theist who asks, "You don't (chuckle) believe in a god (snicker)?"



• Questions for Dr. Retail - New York Times (David Brooks)

  Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer. As Ron Brownstein of The National Journal pointed out on Wednesday, she won the non-college-educated voters by 22 points in California, 32 points in Massachusetts and 54 points in Arkansas. She offers voters no frills, just commodities: tax credits, federal subsidies and scholarships. She’s got good programs at good prices.

  Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated consumer. In the last Pew Research national survey, he led among people with college degrees by 22 points. Educated people get all emotional when they shop and vote. They want an uplifting experience so they can persuade themselves that they’re not engaging in a grubby self-interested transaction. They fall for all that zero-carbon footprint, locally grown, community-enhancing Third Place hype. They want cultural signifiers that enrich their lives with meaning.

Posted by Norm at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Posted by Norm at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

• Huckabee Claims He’s Ready to be President From ‘Day Six,’ LITERALLY!
• Romney To Spend More Time With His Money

  Mitt Romney explained today that he was dropping out of the U.S. Presidential race in order to spend more time with his money. Romney said that the time on the campaign trail had really harmed his ability to spend "quality time with my bills."

• Racism and Sexism on Super Tuesday

  Barack Obama squeaked out a narrow win on Super Tuesday to expand his small lead in the pledged delegates. While many of the exit polls were off as predictions, these polls do provide us with one of the best national tests of to what extent voters will admit to racist or sexist motivations. And they also tell us an important fact: Obama was hurt by race-based voting, while Clinton was greatly helped by gender-based voting. More Democratic voters admitted to racist motivations in opposing Obama (an average of 2.88% of the voters) than admitted to sexist motivations in opposing Clinton (an average of 1.83%). Overall, the racist vote outweighed the pro-black vote for Obama by an average of 0.5%. By contrast, the pro-woman vote for Clinton outweighed the sexist vote by an average of 5.0%. That’s a 5.5% swing in each state. The continuing significance of racism (beyond the expressed levels of sexism) was a key factor in why Obama didn’t win a decisive victory over Clinton on Tuesday.

• CAPITOL WATCH: Lieberman No Longer a Super Delegate
• When It’s Head Versus Heart, The Heart Wins

  Science shows that when we are deciding which candidate to support, anxiety, enthusiasm and whom we identify with count more than reason or logic.

• The Joy of Writing by Wislawa Szymborska - John Baker’s Blog

  Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
  For a drink of written water from a spring
  whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
  Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
  Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
  she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
  Silence - this word also rustles across the page
  and parts the boughs
  that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Posted by Norm at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Batshit crazy, and fucking nuts. You're going to love the 'official view ' on global warming. Here is an article from Salon making the case that McCain would not be the right candidate to address the issue.

Posted by Norm at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Goodbye! Now we find out if Huckabee is John McCain's 'little buddy' or if he was telling the truth when he said he is going on, that it is a two man race. More on the story here.

Posted by Norm at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Jack Johnson has a new album this is a song called Sleep Through the Static an anti-war song.

Posted by Norm at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

contributed by: Jim Lloyd

Guest contributer Brad Kelley asked Why Obama?, and stipulated he wanted good reasons for supporting Obama, without resorting to criticisms of Clinton. My answer ended up a bit long. Norm has kindly agreed to allow me to make this guest contribution.

We are a country divided. There is a divide along the progressive-conservative political spectrum. Conservatives have succeeded in exploiting this divide to weaken the progressive movement, but the result has weakened the entire country. Obama asserts that "We are not as divided as our politics suggest." I believe he is correct. I live in San Francisco, and my politics are very progressive, yet I know several Republicans that I get along with very well. I've had discussions on various issues with them, and our commonalities are greater than our differences. The striking differences between us are not in our positions on issues, but in our opinions of various leaders on both sides. I have a visceral dislike of several Republican leaders that my conservative friends accept or even like. Likewise they have a visceral dislike of several Democratic leaders that I accept or like. Interestingly, my conservative friends seem to like Obama -- well enough that they will vote for him.

But it is not the progressive-conservative divide that I think is our greatest divide. It is the divide between the people and the government. Our form of government only works well when it is "of the people, by the people, for the people". We the people have been divided from our government for too long. Many of us complain about our government, but we don't take the necessary action to organize into large enough groups to have influence.

In the last 30 years, one group that has organized enough to have significant influence is evangelical christians. I believe that group has had a disproportionate and severely negative impact on this country. I want a leader that can neutralize that group. I believe Obama, and man of both faith and reason, can be that leader, and give one reason below.

Groups of citizens rarely if ever organize without an inspirational leader. I believe that our system of government only reaches an optimal form when the President is a strong inspirational leader who inspires us to unite for common good, to preserve our constitution and especially all of the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. It is especially important to have an inspirational President at difficult times when we must each be willing to make sacrifices to solve a difficult problem. If the President inspires the people and thereby gains a strong popular mandate then the people and the President can force the legislative branch to make constructive legislation.

Obama is clearly a great inspirational leader. He has repeatedly said that real change only comes from the bottom up. He is absolutely right. This may seem like a contradiction, since he is "at the top". But he has built his movement from the bottom up. And he is reminding us that if the legislative branch is not doing their job, we can't expect it to be fixed from the top (the President), it must be fixed from the bottom (the people).

Obama unites us in the middle. For many of us on the progressive left, we might wish for a return to power in the progressive left, and a total defeat of the conservative right. I strongly believe that wish is not only unrealistic under the circumstances, it is dangerous and damages our ability to restore respect for our progressive ideals. The pendulum has started to swing our way again. We need a leader who can keep it swinging our way and give it more momentum. I believe Obama is that leader.

Let me give a very concrete example by returning to the topic of the role of religious faith in politics. I am, like Norm and many onegoodmove readers, a freethinker and an atheist. I would prefer that the U.S. was 90% freethinkers, instead of the current reality that the U.S. is only 10% freethinkers. I support the efforts of all of the New Atheists in their call for the end of faith. But it would be folly at this moment in history to expect the President to take that position. So as a freethinker, what is the best we can hope for from the President? We want a President that does not alienate the 90% of religious people, but is clear in his/her defense of the 1st amendment separation of church and state. Even more importantly, he/she must assert that Faith can never trump Reason. Look at Obama's position statement and especially his speech on Faith. I think he nails it. And more importantly, the Christian Republicans that I know and get along with also respect his position.

It has been suggested here by others that Obama's ability to inspire should not be trusted, citing other charismatic leaders who have inspired their people to do great harm. I am not arguing that we should support Obama for his charisma and inspirational ability alone. Take a close look at the specifics of what he says. Does he ever attempt to manipulate through fear? Does he ever attempt to circumvent any of the principles from our Constitution? I want a leader who appeals to our better nature. People criticize Obama for appealing to hope. I would much rather take a leader who appeals to unity and hope than one who appeals to distrust and fear. When I look beyond the inspirational veneer, I find a wise person of reason & integrity.

Before I end, I must comment on two issues that I know are prominent, or at least should be prominent, in the minds of people reading this. The first is Health Care. Norm has championed Health Care and stated that is the most important issue to him. Obama has been criticized for not providing enough details, or for not speaking strongly enough for Universal Health Care. But if you look at what he says, his goal is to make sure that everyone who wants quality health care afford it. From my point of view, as long as he remains committed to that goal, and can build a mandate and the political will to achieve it, then he has done his job. The rest of the job is up to the legislative branch, and to us, to force the legislative branch to do its job.

The other issue is War, or more appropriately, Peace. I want a leader who can guide the world back towards peace. Such a leader cannot be against all wars, since some wars are absolutely necessary. But a leader must recognize when war is the wrong answer. Read Obama's 2002 speech against going to war in Iraq. In my view, he nailed it. I also encourage everyone to watch the excellent presentation by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig titled 20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack, in particular the segment starting around 18:45 discussing why Obama is uniquely positioned to put us on the path back to peace.

I'd like to ask all readers here to think carefully about the relative importance of these two issues. Which is more important: Health Care in the U.S., or World Peace? If a leader got one right and the other partially wrong, and another leader did the reverse, which leader would you prefer to have?

Let me end by reiterating that We The People must take an active role in our government. If Obama is elected because he inspires a new popular movement of people willing to be active, then we must remain active after he is elected to hold him accountable. It is possible, perhaps likely that he will make some mistakes. I do not think we should reject him because we expect he might make mistakes. What we should reject is our belief that we would be powerless to hold him accountable to acknowledge and rectify his mistakes.

Posted by Norm at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (70)

Hillary on Super Tuesday

Posted by Norm at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Barack on Super Tuesday

Posted by Norm at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

• Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I | OurFuture.org

  To that end, here's the first of a two-part series aimed at busting the common myths Americans routinely tell each other about Canadian health care. When the right-wing hysterics drag out these hoary old bogeymen, this time, we need to be armed and ready to blast them into straw. Because, mostly, straw is all they're made of.

  1. Canada's health care system is "socialized medicine."
  False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.

  The proper term for this is "single-payer insurance." In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is "Medicare for all."



• U.S. acknowledges use of waterboarding - Yahoo! News (shame on us.)


• There's been no contest like it | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

  Presidential politics can be exciting



• WMC Commentary: Goodbye To All That (#2) by Robin Morgan - February 2, 2008

  This is your must read of the day, and thanks to Katharine for the tip

  During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .” But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities—joint conscience-keepers of this country—been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.

  
  


• CRITICAL MASS: The NBCC's Good Reads Long List for Fiction

Posted by Norm at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (81)

contributed by: Brad Kelley

I’ve been impressed with recent posts here at onegoodmove, about why to support John Edwards and what to do after he dropped out. Most of all, I have been impressed with the high level of the debate that occurred in response to these posts. So many of you are politically savvy here, and most of you, I figure, are leaning toward a Democratic candidate for November. So here’s the question: Why should I be excited about Barack Obama?

First let me distinguish this from several questions I am not asking. I am not asking for reasons to support Obama over Clinton. I’m already there. Although I will vote for whoever is the nominee and will work to make sure that the Republican candidate doesn’t win, I want to know why I should be particularly supportive of Barack Obama. So this rules out arguments that criticize Hillary to promote Obama. The comparative question is simply not the question I’m interested in here.

I’m certainly not asking why it is important to keep a Republican out of the White House in 2008. Like I say, I will support the Democratic candidate almost no matter what, but I find myself not being able to get fully behind Obama. Why should I? I want reasons.

Here’s a reason that I concede, insofar as it is a good reason. He’s inspiring. Yep. Ok, he is. I love the rhetoric, and he has learned it well. That’s not a bad thing, at all. I heard someone say (I can’t remember where) that if you’re 21 and not inspired by Obama, there’s something wrong with you. I can see that. He pulls new, young voters into the party and into the process, and that’s great. Here’s the question: is there anything beyond the rhetoric? Is there any reason to think it isn’t simply rhetoric? Is there any reason to think we should be excited about him, whether we be 21 or 51?

This is also not directly a point about his ‘thin’ resume, or any alleged lack of experience. I’ll accept evidence from when he was in law school, or working in inner city Chicago, or carrying out his duties as a State Senator in Illinois. What has he done that merits thinking that he is really the candidate we need?

I could answer this for Edwards—so many of those reasons were articulated so well here at onegoodmove, and I supported him with élan until he dropped out. But I can’t give those reasons for Obama, and that bothers me.

There is reason to believe, though I can’t site sources at the moment, that he’s really not very up on environmental issues, and that his plans, insofar as he has laid them out, are woefully inadequate. I keep hoping Al (Gore) will get with him and straighten him out, but is there any reason to support that hope? Is he showing evidence of learning about the issue and adopting progressive, forward-thinking proposals on global warming or the environment?

Recently there was an article in the NY Times that was quite distressing, about how Obama had originally taken the side of some constituents in Illinois concerning the existence of unreported nuclear leaks by the Exelon Corporation. Obama, according the article, introduced what seemed to be a good bill, then it got watered down and all that resulted was a promise by Exelon and the nuclear industry to (in effect) try harder next time. It was totally voluntary!

What’s more, Obama has been using this case in his stump speeches as if meaningful legislation was passed. This makes it doubly distressing. To make it triply distressing, Exelon is a huge donor to Obama’s campaigns! If this doesn’t reek of “politics as usual,” I can’t imagine what does!

So is that what we’re going to get by bringing the fat cats to the table, a verbal slap on the wrist and a promise to do better next time? That’s just not meaningful change.

I heard Obama tonight after the results of Super Tuesday were sinking in, and once again, it was inspiring. There was a rainbow of people behind him on the stage, and they were so excited. He was talking about taking back the power from corporate lobbyists, and putting it back in the hands of the people. He sounded like he had been talking to Edwards, and I’m thinking, “This is good, this is really good.” Then I come across he article from MY DD (Direct Democracy), “PUNDIT ALERT: Obama and predatory credit card lending rates,” from January 16, which details yet more cases of Obama siding with corporate interests who happen to be big donors (these credit card companies “constitute Obama’s second biggest single bloc of donors,” according to Harper’s), and then trying to make it look like he sided with consumers! The facts presented in the piece at MyDD, if they be facts, match almost identically the structure of those presented in the NY Times article I site above. According to Harper’s, "it is also startling to see how quickly Obama's senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. ..."

Well, there’s always Obama’s clear anti-war stance, isn’t there. It does appear to be an uncontested fact that Obama was against the war from the beginning, and Hillary, as we know, wasn’t (no matter what Bill said about Obama’s views). That’s a relevant point. But since Obama entered the Senate, their votes to support war spending have been identical—with one well-known exception. Hillary voted to support the measure calling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and Obama wasn’t there to vote. Obama voted with Hillary during these war funding votes, as opposed to, say, Ted Kennedy, who voted his anti-war convictions more consistently.

This might look like I am doing what I said I wouldn’t, looking comparatively at Hillary vs. Barack. But that’s really not it. I am presuming that Hillary’s votes were wrong on these issues (as many of us, though not all, presume); the question is, did Obama get the votes right, independently of how Clinton voted? Again, presumably, no, and in the one case he could have voted with Dodd, Biden, and Kennedy, and against Clinton and Joe Lieberman, he wasn’t there. Hard to construct a meaningful progressivist argument around these facts.

Paul Krugman wrote a series of editorials a few months back about how Obama was adopting criticisms of the health care plans right out of the Republican play book, as if there was some merit to these criticisms, and as if they needed to be met (“The Mandate Muddle,” Dec. 7, 2007, and “Mandates and Mudslinging,” Nov. 30, 2007). These articles are distressing as well. I won’t belabor the issues here, but you should read these for yourselves before deciding to be moved by Obama’s populist rhetoric.

I’m certainly not claiming that a few articles and editorials such as these constitute sufficient reason to decide against fully jumping on the Obama bandwagon, and the NY Times, Harper’s, and MyDD.com (I presume) have been found to be wrong in the past, but is there a comparable set of articles that make a case for Obama on his actions and behavior on the issues of importance to progressives? Any negotiations that came out better, more to our liking? Anything that shows his ability to get things done for consumers as against the corporate interests who all too often turn out to be his big donors? Is there any reason, other than the meager ones I’ve mentioned here, to be excited about him?

Enlighten me, please.

Posted by Norm at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (78)

• Culture Is Essential by Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd

  excerpted from Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution

  The American South has long been more violent than the North. Colorful descriptions of duels, feuds, bushwhackings, and lynchings feature prominently in visitors’ accounts, newspaper articles, and autobiographies from the eighteenth century onward. Statistics bear out these impressions. For example, over the period 1865–1915, the homicide rate in the South was ten times the current rate for the whole United States, and twice the rate in our most violent cities. Modern homicide statistics tell the same story. . .

  Nisbett and Cohen support their hypothesis with an impressive range of evidence. Let’s start with statistical patterns of violence. In the rural and small-town South, murder rates are elevated for arguments among friends and acquaintances, but not for killings committed in the course of other felonies. In other words, in the South men are more likely than Northerners to kill an acquaintance when an argument breaks out in a bar, but they are no more likely to kill the guy behind the counter when they knock off a liquor store. Thus, Southerners seem to be more violent than other Americans only in situations that involve personal honor. Competing hypotheses don’t do so well: neither white per-capita income nor hot climate nor history of slavery explain this variation in homicide.

  Interestingly, this difference in behavior is not just talk; it can also be observed under the controlled conditions of the psychology laboratory. Working at the University of Michigan, Nisbett and Cohen recruited participants from northern and southern backgrounds, ostensibly to participate in an experiment on perception. As part of the procedure, an experimenter’s confederate bumped some participants and muttered “Asshole!” at them. This insult had very different effects on southern and northern participants, as revealed by the next part of the experiment. . .



• Blasphemy

  The West screwed up badly when the denunciation of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie was not closer to unanimous. (I will never forget or forgive the shameful silence of some writers who shunned the invitation to join in a firm but not hostile rebuke.) The West screwed up badly again when the Danish cartoons were not reprinted world-wide. What many didn’t understand was that the staged riots were a political strike against moderate Muslims, not non-Muslims. The “tolerance” urged by many voices outside the Muslim world played into the hands of the radical Islamists. Now we get a third chance to come to the aide of moderate Muslims all over the world, but so far, I haven’t heard much outcry.



• Cectic - A New Sign


• 'Admitting that you have no religion is not politically correct' by PZ Myers, Pharyngula - RichardDawkins.net

  A budding new freethought group at Wilfrid Laurier University made a dreadful mistake in their application: they actually admitted that their goal was "to promote science, freedom of inquiry, skepticism, and a good life without the need for superstition or religious belief." I don't know about you, but I think that final clause is rather an essential one for a freethought group, and is an important premise to lay out clearly. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw one of the ubiquitous campus religious groups state that they want to promote science, reason, skepticism, and open inquiry? They generally seem to be dedicated to the opposite.

  But anyway, student administrators dithered and fussed and fretted over it, and finally issued a denial with this bit of petty handwringing:

  While the Campus Clubs department understands the goals and visions of your organization, they are not compatible with the guidelines of what may be approved and incorporated into our department. While the promotion of reason, science and freedom of inquiry are perfectly legitimate goals, what is most in question in regards to your club's vision is the promotion of "a fulfilling life without religion and superstition". While this university is indeed technically a secular institution, secular does not denote taking an active stance in opposition to the principles and status of religious beliefs and practices. To be clear, this is not meant to say that the promotion of science and reason are illegitimate goals. But due to the need to respect and tolerate the views of others, the Campus Clubs department is unable to approve a club of this nature at this time. If you wish to adjust and rethink your club's application and vision, you may resubmit a revised proposal at any time.

Posted by Norm at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Norm at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

There are good reasons to vote for Hillary, and there are good reasons to vote for Barack. I haven't decided who I'll vote for tomorrow and given my mixed feelings on the candidates I choose not to endorse either at this time. The campaign is still in its early stages and I don't think tomorrow will be decisive for either candidate. I may at a later date choose one or the other to officially endorse but not now. So flip your own damn coin tomorrow and make the choice you believe is the correct one. The real choice comes in November and that will be an easy one.

Posted by Norm at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)

• Clinton, Obama, Insurance - New York Times


• Daily Kos: Why Paul Krugman is Wrong

Posted by Norm at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Frank Luntz with Bill Maher. An interesting discussion in light of what Charles wrote on the crowd dynamics in the current race.

Posted by Norm at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

contributed by Charles Lemos

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? –Elias Canetti

Canetti might have written that of wildebeests as they gleefully jump into the Mara-Mara on the their annual migration across the plains of Africa and often into the waiting jaws of a Nile crocodile. Why do they do it? Why do we do it?

Perhaps Americans being born here and not generally getting out much are not terribly well-suited to recognizing that something is indeed amiss even though it has happened before in American politics. Both Ronald Reagan, he of the Reagan coalition, and Richard Nixon, he of the silent majority, were masters of crowd psychology. Obama is no different. His politics may be different no doubt but his approach is the same.

The definitive work on crowds was written by Elias Canetti (1905-1994), a Sephardic Jew born in Bulgaria who wrote in German but largely lived in England and Switzerland. He won the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature. While he primarily wrote novels, his opus major was a volume of non-fiction entitled “Crowds and Power” written in German in 1962. It is not an easy volume to read much less encapsulate in a sentence or two (the book runs over 600 pages and it is dense), but if you were to read it you will never perceive any event that involves more than a few people ever again in the same way. It is simply a powerful book, a sociological and philosophical treatise of the first magnitude, useful for understanding the need for religion to the need for sport or simply a company picnic and Canetti most acutely observed the nature and psyche of the behavior of crowds. It attempts to answer the what, how and why of crowds.

Elias Canetti wrote on the types of crowds (baiting, flight, prohibition, reversal, and feast) and I think Obama crowds fit well into what Canetti called the baiting crowd phenomenon. It is not so much that he has wide-spread support, it is the kind of wide-spread that he enjoys. It is not very reflective nor deep, it is based on a hunch and a willingness to go along for a ride. It is rarely born of pensive assessment but more properly of opportunism. The ability to seize a moment.

Canetti classifies crowds by their prevailing emotion. The baiting crowd forms “in reference to quickly attainable goal.” It is characterized by a quickly growing crowd. As Canetti notes “the speed, elation and conviction of a baiting crowd is something uncanny.” Whether they are truly right is immaterial, they themselves and they alone are convinced that they right. It is generally pointless to argue over the merits of an argument, because the speed of their decision-making impairs generally reflective judgment. It is more emotive than rational. Under these circumstances, evidence is either discarded, rejected out of hand, or more apt wholly ignored. Canetti concludes, “it is the excitement of blind men who are blindest when they suddenly think that they can see.” It is akin to the bandwagon effect.

The baiting crowd also might describe Tony Blair back in 1997 with his New Labour rhetoric. Shorter on specifics (to be fair, the Westminster System is a better system than the US system for policy debates) and longer on emotional appeals. I can still hear the echo in my ear, “Time for a New Britain and a New Labour.” Look how well that turned out. And mind you Tony Blair was actually a progressive, or so we thought.

The baiting crowd also fits the psychology of a lynch mob. And if you think no one has been lynched during the course of this campaign ask Bill Clinton what happened to him the week before South Carolina. You might also ask John Edwards his thoughts about haircuts. I realize that latter lynching was largely done by the national media and not by the Obama campaign or his supporters but it is the same principle at work. And I don’t dispute that Obama too has been treated unfairly at times but it pales in comparison to what he or his surrogates have subjected both Mrs. Clinton and John Edwards.

Since I neither support Clinton or Obama (though I will support either in a general election), I can honestly see remarkable differences in the nature of their supporters and of the psychology behind the plebian mob if you will.

While neither group is composed of saints, the Obama crowd has a larger percentage of devils. Nothing stops them from accomplishing their task and they don’t allow anyone to get in their way. Witness the attacks on the Huffington Post alone on John Edwards by Lawrence O'Donnell who called him "a loser" for not stepping aside and now another one by another hack who argues John Edwards is forfeiting his right to lead because he hasn't endorsed Obama as yet. The obsession over the goal and coupled with the density of numbers is the classic trait of a baiting crowd. It doesn't matter that they trash John Edwards' reputation, what matters was to secure his departure and now his endorsement. It’s an odd way to go about it, if you ask me.

Here’s the link to the Lawrence O’Donnell blog:

And the Guy Saperstein (the other hack, I have no idea who this is) link

As a someone who was born overseas, it bemuses me to see the movement that is Obama and compare it to the founder of the Falange in Spain, Jose Primo de Rivera. The similarities are striking. Young, articulate, ambitious, good-looking, vague promises yet a clearly defined goal (power) and unfortunately the willingness to do or say anything in the name of political expediency such as tell the Reno Gazette-Journal that Ronald Reagan was a demi-God and the GOP "the party of ideas" (the former is an exaggeration; the latter a fact a direct quote) and there are other examples (Alice Palmer; driver licenses for illegal aliens now that he is in California but was not exactly for them when he was in Iowa; in his own private Idaho over the weekend Obama brought up an issue dear to progressives by stating that ”we've got a lot of hunters in Southern Illinois and I've got no intention of taking away people's guns” fair enough but you might have told them that we need to get guns off the streets of urban America and why; or telling South Carolinians about his religious conversion as an adult). Granted, I don't think Obama is willing to seize power by force as Primo de Rivera urged nor are their political programs the same but at the same time Obama has tried to silence his critics either directly or through surrogates. His supporters have attacked Univision for being pro-Clinton even though Hispanics are largely pro-Clinton but more troubling was his complaint to CNN over coverage there which led to the ouster of Carville and Begala (Clinton got Carville reinstated). I know I will be attacked for some of what I am stating but to quote the robot from Lost in Space: “Danger Will Robinson.” I would be remiss if I didn’t voice my concerns. The goal of any political campaign is power but how you get there does matter and should matter to progressives.

There are also elements of what is called suspension of disbelief. You refuse to believe something because you so buy into the goods that just a hint of flaw is simply implausible. You choose not to see things because you do not want to see them not because they are not there.
For social scientists, the warning signs are self-evident. This is not a political movement based on conviction of ideas (though admittedly there are people who prefer his health care plan to others or honestly believe that the bipartisan approach is the right approach) but one based largely on personality and emotive pleas such as "unity" "hope" and "change". It taps into a deep yearning even though the specifics are largely missing or fly in the face of the substantive proposals being discussed.

In my first post, my letter to Norm, I wrote that Obama was the Barnum Effect Candidate. It bears repeating.

He is the Barnum Effect candidate. If you're not familiar with the Barnum Effect, it is the principle behind astrology and horoscopes. Couch things in general enough terms and they can apply to anyone. You see meaning because you want to see meaning not because there is any actual meaning there. Senator Obama talks of "hope" "unity" and "change". Well who doesn't want that? We all do and hence his appeal to independents and to a younger generation that has not been tempered by the experience of everything the progressive left has endured since 1968.

But Obama also bears being tagged with the Forer Effect. The Forer Effect reflects several human behaviors primarily hope, wishful thinking and vanity. For example Obama often talks about the Americans are better than divisive politics. Here’s a quote from a stump speech given in Des Moines, Iowa on December 27, 2007:

Most of all, I believed in the power of the American people to be the real agents of change in this country – because we are not as divided as our politics suggests; because we are a decent, generous people willing to work hard and sacrifice for future generations; and I was certain that if we could just mobilize our voices to challenge the special interests that dominate Washington and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there was no problem we couldn’t solve – no destiny we couldn’t fulfill.

In that one excerpt above, Obama has hope “no destiny we couldn’t fulfill”, wishful thinking “if we could just mobilize our voices to be the real agents of change” as if Americans are going to remain involved in the political process come and beyond January 2009, and of course the vanity “the power of the American people . . . we are a decent, generous people.” I don’t dispute that some of us are decent people but not all of us are really decent. Ann Coulter comes to mind. Nor generous, Grover Norquist comes to mind on that count.

But flattery will get you everywhere. It isn’t that other politicians don’t do that as well, it is that Obama does so much of it. And this is main point, it is the extent of it that gives me pause. Here’s the full speech

Then there are qualities of collective effervescence. Collective effervescence (CE) is a perceived energy formed by a gathering of people as might be experienced at a religious event, a sporting event, a riot, a concert (especially a Grateful Dead concert, a rave or gay circuit party), and festivals in general. The principal was first coined by a Frenchman, Emile Durkheim, studying Australian aborigines at the start of the twentieth century. It marks the stark contrast between the mundane in life, generally solitary tasks, and the sacred, generally a collective human experience. To Durkheim all religious experiences is simply a social phenomenon, god and society are one, there is no distinction. If you ever have been to a Pentecostal revival or even if you haven’t, you get the idea. The crowd as one. When an individual chooses to participate in an event of this nature there is always the clearly good and the clearly evil.

In religion it is believers versus non-believers, in sports, I will use the Giants and the Patriots and in a Grateful Dead concert it is the us in the counter-culture versus the them in the mainstream. To get the feeling as a crowd as one there has to be an us versus them dichotomy and painted in very stark terms.

Obama certainly cannot be faulted for the qualities of collective effervescence that his supporters exhibit, they are largely beyond his control now though he did set the stage for it with his rhetoric. But I would hope that the more observant among us recognize that this is clearly a danger to civil society. But don’t take my word for it, read the Federalist Papers in particular Madison Ten. Furthermore beyond the still theoretical danger of a tyranny of mob rule there is a practical compliant that I have. By painting Mrs. Clinton as the clearly evil, Obama’s supporters risk maiming her in the general election should she win the nomination.

Here is one example of an all-too often occurrence, an unwarranted attack by a surrogate. And the pattern keeps on repeating itself. An attack by a surrogate followed by the Obama camp distancing itself meanwhile the damage is being done. It is Nixonian politics. At least with the Clintons, the attacks came from them directly.

link

It is this new attack and the pattern that it represents that led to writing this column. That and that I spent Saturday re-reading Elias Canetti.
Another social phenomenon at work among Obama supporters is mass hysteria. To begin with there has always been a subset of the American electorate that will not under any conditions vote for Mrs. Clinton and Obama has come to capture much of a subset of that subset, namely Democrats and Independents who loathe the Clintons for one reason or another. But Obama has also stoked those fires. Here is what he said on Friday, the day after the love fest in Los Angeles:
"In terms of electability, I believe that I am attracting new voters and independent voters into the process in a way that Senator Clinton cannot do," Obama told reporters in a hotel ballroom here before flying off to stump in Arizona and New Mexico.

Noting he had captured more independent and less "traditional" votes than Clinton in last month's Nevada caucuses, he said, "I'm confident I'll get her votes if I win the nomination. It's not clear that she would get the votes I'd get if she wins it. And that's a fundamental difference."

link

That he is attracting new voters and independents voters is patently obvious. It is the “it’s not clear that she would get the votes I’d get if she wins it” that irks me. He is implying that the Clintons are hated and for someone who claims to be above it all, it is disingenuous, another characteristic of those who use the Forer Effect. To me this behavior unbecoming of a Democrat especially one who is making “unity” a centerpiece of his campaign. It is also sowing the seeds of mass hysteria.

His supporters then take to the street corners and the blogs to destroy Mrs. Clinton by painting her as unelectable. Here is their argument

I have to ask have you seen the competition? It’s Senator John McCain who is preaching staying in Iraq for a hundred years and admits to knowing little about economics. Rumor has it that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will be the Vice Presidential candidate. I have my doubts on the prospect of such after seeing him on Friday. But even if it is say someone as respected as former New Jersey Governor Tom Keane or current Florida Governor Charlie Crist (the next superstar of the GOP, I might add), I tend to believe that even Dennis Kucinich might stand a chance. Hell even Mike Gravel could poll even. Okay, maybe not but Senator Clinton? Mrs. Clinton does not deserve to be so treated. And without question, John McCain can make a credible argument for his causes and present a formidable challenge in the Fall.

My adherence to civil liberties is not a mere exercise of convenience or lip service. It is born of the experience of my life and of my parents. My father grew up under Fascism so I know what the failure to protect civil liberties means. Civil liberties are wasted on those who take them for granted and who fail to protect them. That is why undoing Bush really matters and making the choice of whom to entrust with the powers of an Executive Branch that suddenly has a lot more power than it once did and I see a candidate who knocked people off the ballot by challenging their signature petitions that raises questions that need to be asked. And when I see a repeated pattern of attacks by surrogates that are then disclaimed by the campaign, that does not engender confidence. Or when media networks are told to change pundits or accused of bias, I am sorry but that is a big red flag. I am not looking for a democratic Nixon but a Democrat.

And then at least in California in the 1980s, we had the Bradley Effect where voters told pollsters they would vote for Tom Bradley for Governor and then we ended up with George Deukmejian twice. So an argument can be made that Obama too poses some risks. While I think the country has come far, I also do not know how far it has actually come when we just had nooses in Jena, Louisiana last year. Clearly, there is a subset that will vote against Senator Obama. Nonetheless, I do think both Obama and Clinton can win given the competition and the issues. It is only if we eviscerate one another now than we risk losing the general election.

That Senator Clinton is a formidable opponent in a general election is clearly evidenced by the opinions of most seasoned independent political observers and even the New York Times. Yes there are those who would prefer Obama for valid reasons but there are also many who have no idea who they are buying.

This post is intended to provoke thought and frank discussion. I believe it prudent to ask of Obama and his supporters pertinent questions so as to avoid a disaster down the line. Again I have reservations about Obama and moreover I have serious complaints about his surrogates and his supporters. I also have reservations about Mrs. Clinton. Her supporters however largely seem sane.

For more about Elias Canetti here are a few links:
link
link
I also recommend reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles MacKay. The book dates from 1841 but remains a classic for its description of economic bubbles such as the Tulip Craze in Holland in 1637 and the South Seas Bubble in England from 1711-1720. The Internet Bubble is, of course, a recent event and demonstrates where a herd mentality can lead. We are not wildebeests about to cross the Mara-Mara or are we?

Posted by Norm at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (42)

And this week's winner is?

Posted by Norm at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

• Healthcare numbers - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

  One conclusion is that trying to cover the uninsured with tax credits, Bush-style, is — surprise, surprise — a very inefficient strategy: lots of revenue loss, while most of the people who get the benefits would have been insured anyway.

  But the big conclusion, relevant to current debates, is on the role of mandates. Gruber compares a program of mandate-less subsidies to help people pay for insurance — broadly similar to the Obama plan — with a program that combines subsidies with mandates — broadly similar to the Edwards and Clinton plans.

  The table below summarizes the key results. The mandate-less plan covers only about half the uninsured. The plan with mandates gets almost everyone, at an additional cost of $22 billion — about $1,000 per additional person covered.



• Robert Reich's Blog: Democrats Should Stop Squabbling Over Healthcare Mandates

  Democrats should be celebrating. Their three major candidates have put health insurance front and center on the domestic agenda, and with plans that are remarkably similar. They've done so at a time when the public seems readier than ever before to embrace universal health insurance, and readier to trust a Democratic president to put it into effect.

  But instead of celebrating, the candidates and left-leaning pundits are squabbling over whether the plans should include so-called mandates that require everyone to purchase health insurance. Talk about self-inflicted wounds. Mandates are a sideshow, and fighting over them risks turning away voters from the main event.

Posted by Norm at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bill really does need his writers, but this week was much better than last week.

Posted by Norm at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Matt Taibbi author of Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire covers the Democratic Debate.

Posted by Norm at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Bill O'Reilly of course but he really really deserves it this time. Rush Limbaugh was a very close second and Woolworths a distant third for the bronze.

Posted by Norm at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

• The George W. Bush Legacy in Black & White

  Republicans used to claim Jimmy Carter was the worst president when viewed by socio-economic indicators. However, let's not forget Carter's term followed the dismal years under Nixon and Ford when the American economy did a nosedive after the 1973 oil crisis. All that inflation and unemployment during the Carter years was caused by the previous administration's horrific policies, plus our continued reliance on Middle East oil exports as our primary source of energy for automobiles. In the years after Carter, Reagan and his Milton Friedmanesque economic fantasies took hold ("Let's drown government in the toilet and CUT TAXES, YIPEE! We'll all be millionaires then! After all, fat black women on Welfare are driving Cadillac's and buying Beluga caviar with Food Stamps! Fuck the poor!") and millions of working class Americans bought into that Republican fantasy world, only to see their economic situation decline horribly in the last 25 years.

  The illusion of wealth in the middle class is much greater than the reality they truly face. Their real wages are down, their health care costs are astronomical, and their personal debt load would make previous generations shocked beyond belief. Now we are seeing the value of their homes, the single greatest source of wealth for the middle class, dropping in many areas of the country. Things are not good. Prosperity has been replaced by economic uncertainty and panic in some sectors. Foreclosures are higher than they have been in a generation. Banks are losing their ass right now. The Fed just dropped the prime lending rate 1.25% to stave off a recession, inflation be damned. The government is pumping $150 billion (as tax cuts) into the economy right when we owe the fucking Chinese our ass in government bonds to pay off our already astronomical national debt. The dollar isn't worth shit. This is all fucking scary, folks. It's 1929 all over again. Or maybe worse.



• Depressed Candidate Runs Attack Ad About Self | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

  WASHINGTON—In the midst of a fiercely competitive presidential race with no clear Republican front-runner in sight, an increasingly depressed Mitt Romney shocked political insiders Monday when he released a new national attack ad targeting himself.

  The ad, which is scheduled to air across the country this week, features an unshaven and visibly crestfallen Romney taking himself to task on a number of key campaign issues, including health-care reform, illegal immigration, and "what's the use of even trying anymore?"



• The Satirical Political Report - Super Bowl To Feature Ad for ‘Prez Lite’


• Story about Woody Allen's favorite typeface - Boing Boing


• The Swings (Ftrain.com)


• MySpace deletes hacked Web site for atheists and agnostics - cleveland.com

Posted by Norm at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

For the record: here are the differences between Barack's and Hillary's plans.

Posted by Norm at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (27)

The question has been raised here a number of times , watch the clip for Hillary's answer.

I personally think the Dynasty question is a red herring. I don't hear those who argue against a second Clinton in the White House make the same argument about the many sons and daughters who have fathers who have served as Senators or Congressman, or Governors, and who then serve in the same seats or persue parallel political careers. Would you argue that if your father is a doctor you shouldn't become a doctor. Hillary's relationship to Bill is not even one of blood but of marriage. If Hillary becomes president It won't be because her name is Clinton, it will be because millions of Americans vote for her. I think it's much ado about nothing, and I intend to make my decison on the issues not a trumped up argument that has little substance.

Posted by Norm at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

The Edwards Effect - New York Times

I was distressed when John Edwards dropped out, but I was starting to get my head around the new realty and then I read this wonderful piece by Paul Krugman and got all choked up again. If you were an Edwards supporter I guarantee it will do the same to you.

So John Edwards has dropped out of the race for the presidency. By normal political standards, his campaign fell short.

But Mr. Edwards, far more than is usual in modern politics, ran a campaign based on ideas. And even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built.

To understand the extent of the Edwards effect, you have to think about what might have been. . .

Posted by Norm at 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

A CEO president? Mitt Romney points to his business experience as an important qualification for president, how do you counter the charge that his experience prepares him to run the country. Great answers from both Hillary and Barack.

Posted by Norm at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)