Republicans weak on planning.

I'm only going to write letters to the paper about the Fairness Doctrine (which I will talk about more later), so here's one I tried to get in a week or two ago that didn't fly with the editor.

REPUBLICANS WEAK ON PLANNING

To quote former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you [want]." This is a true statement, but I think Rumsfeld and the rest of the war hawks missed its implications. You only go to war if the army you have can achieve preset victory conditions.

If clear victory conditions had been set when we went to war in 2003, I have no doubt that our troops would have achieved them. But the point of this war has been as deceptive and unclear as its justification. Conservative apologists try to rationalize around every fact, but they can't obscure the poor planning behind this war any longer.

Planning is what wins wars, not rhetoric. And I hear a lot of rhetoric on the right about "victory" and "winning," but, by their actions, conservatives and their Republican representatives have shown the American people that they never had the competence to take this nation to war. That is why the preferred Republican course of action now is to do nothing. What is more ineffectual and weak than refusing to change to meet the circumstances?

Our sons and daughters are being sacrificed for no good reason, and the message from President Bush and his supporters is clear: If you don't like it, shut up and sit by while we let even more soldiers die. Well, I think that's unreasonable and, frankly, disgraceful.

Politicizing Government Service (by Raum Emanuel)

(Guys, I'm working on something lengthier at the moment, but here's an excellent article by Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. These remarks were prepared for delivery Wednesday at a forum hosted by The Brookings Institution.)

Politicizing Government Service
by Ralph Emanuel

I don't think politics is a dirty word. (And, those of you who know me know that I am very knowledgeable when it comes to dirty words.) Politics is a vital and essential element of our political system—the vehicle by which we advance our governing principles and policies.

Believe me, I'm not naïve. President Clinton made me a top aide in the White House not because of my good looks or charm—and not because I was a top policy expert. No, I got to the White House the same way he did: through politics. I am not one who believes you can ever fully divorce politics from policy in a democracy. It would be like trying to do physics without math. Yet I've also always recognized that there is a balance; that we should never allow the basic functions and solemn responsibilities of government to be subjugated to or take a backseat to politics or party interests.

President Bush came to the White House with an entirely different understanding.

MORE HERE

Randall Tobias, Murderer, Resigns.

(Randall Tobias wins the "Norm Weatherby Memorial Douchebag Award" for the month of April.)



This man is named Randall L. Tobias. He was the first U.S. Director of Foreign Assistance, and served concurrently as the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He is also a murderer.

In his capacity as Director of Foreign Assistance, Tobias encouraged sexual abstinence, and discounted the use of condoms in preventing HIV/AIDS. "Statistics show that condoms really have not been very effective," Tobias told a news conference in Berlin on April 21, 2004. (1) This is a blatant lie, and flies in the face of all credible scientific study of HIV/AIDS.

On April 27, 2007, Tobias immediately resigned after being asked about an upscale escort service involved in prostitution by ABC News. Within minutes of his resignation, Tobias's biography was removed from the USAID website. State Department officials declined to comment on the reasons for Tobias's resignation. (2)

So far, 32 million Africans have died from HIV/AIDS. 47 million Africans are infected with HIV/AIDS. In the time it took you to read this article, 5 Africans have died from HIV/AIDS, and 11 Africans have contracted HIV/AIDS. (3)

Condoms drastically reduce the chances of contracting AIDS. In Cambodia and Thailand, the slowing increase of AIDS contraction and decreasing STD incidence is credited to increased condom usage. In 2005, the UN's special envoy on fighting AIDS in Africa accused the U.S. of endangering the gains Uganda has made in containing the disease, directly due to pressure from the U.S. and from Bush appointee Tobias.

(How is this any different than the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, except for the fact that even more people are dying?)

As one of those directly responsible for pressuring countries and organizations in Africa to decrease condom education and usage, Randall Tobias is responsible for the infection of thousands and thousands of Africans with HIV/AIDS. Most, if not all, of them will die.

Republican policies have consequences. We ignore many of those consequences because it isn't happening here, and it's easy to play "nobody really knows how to make HIV/AIDS stop spreading" when you're just looking at "opinions." But it isn't a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact.

This is what Republicans do, and to my eyes, it's no better than genocide.

Please e-mail USAID about their employment and policy choices.

Why It Isn’t About Hip-Hop.

I continue to maintain that there is a distinct difference between Don Imus and the hip-hop community.

Imus is a member of what we vaguely call "the opinion media." Both he and the discussion about his use of racist language could have opened a valuable doorway into a discussion about that very same opinion media and its many other members (i.e. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc). We progressives, instead of leaping at this chance to hold conservative broadcasters accountable for comparable language, have gotten sidetracked into discussing an important, but unrelated, issue.

When I've pointed this out, or tried to articulate the difference between Imus and the hip-hop community, conservatives have attacked me for being a "reverse racist" and progressives have questioned me for having a "double standard" and possibly also for apologizing for offensive and reprehensible lyrics.

Progressives, listen to me: You're missing the point for the principle.

There isn't one, single standard by which we judge all things, simply using more or less intensity in our focus. We have different standards for different things, and this is right and proper. Let's look at a different example. We all know the difference between murdering a person for profit and accidentally killing a person. Our judgment of the matter would reflect that difference. "Fairness" is not some catch-all criterion, where we judge even similar matters irrespective of context or intent.

And the difference between Don Imus and the hip-hop community isn't even a subtle one. It's an obvious and apparent difference. Changing the topic from Imus to hip-hop isn't even a coherent subject change. They are tenuously linked by the topic of racism, but that is, as you know, a very wide topic involving many different things.

The issues raised by Imus and hip-hop, respectively, are also quite different. Imus, as a representative of that opinion media, opens up avenues into a discussion revolving around the accountability of opinion jockeys and what they say on air. Regardless of Imus's political affiliations or (waning) popularity, he falls into the same class of broadcasters as do others such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage. These people have a tremendous amount of influence on the political discourse, and a discussion about them and the hate-speech they use would be both important and beneficial to progressive ends. Hip-hop raises issues about our standards for entertainment, for lyrical content. It does raise some issues for the African-American community (as well as, I might add, the suburban white teenaged community, which may consume up to 71% of mainstream "gangster" rap), as well as a variety of more general cultural issues.

What I hope to establish by pointing out the differences, in a variety of contexts, between Imus and the hip-hop community is simply to establish that they are, in fact, different, and, regarding the issues they lead to, not even related, save by the most tenuous of reasoning. By accepting and promulgating the false idea that they are the same, we as progressives have missed out on a valuable opportunity.

You might be wondering why, if Imus and hip-hop aren't even related issues, we even ending up talking about hip-hop at all, and a very simple answer to that question.

Conservatives don't want to talk about media accountability.

So rather than taking the Imus dialogue in its natural direction, they jumped the train onto a completely different set of tracks. Hip-hop (and gangster rap in particular) provides the perfect foil for conservatives to direct attention to, while deferring responsibility from themselves, whenever issues regarding language usage arise. (and choosing hip-hop to derail…) Derailing the discussion by throwing hip-hop into the mix was very effective, simply because nobody is going to defend gangster rap. Also, while pointing out the disconnect between Imus and hip-hop has nothing to do with apologizing for gangster rap, it's easy to paint it as if it were.

Hip-hop is a subject that we need to discuss, but there’s a time and place for everything. It simply isn't relevant to the “Don Imus discussion,” and it isn't relevant to the political discourse that Imus and the other opinion media figures influence and contribute to. The doorway to discussing media accountability is not the appropriate doorway to discussing hip-hop, and following (and even defending) that rhetorical direction is not beneficial to progressive ends. When we switched topics, we fell for conservative bait-and-switch tactics yet again.

Conservatives always pull this same trick, and we progressives always fall for it. We know that hip-hop is a topic we should discuss, and they use that against us. We need to wake up and start pushing conversations in the right direction, rather than being led around by the nose.

Control of the civil discourse is the key to political power.

Political Deformation.

"Their foot shall slide in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste." - Deuteronomy 32:35

I don't have much respect for voting electorates around the world. Almost without exception, they are fickle and easily mislead by charismatic, pandering sociopaths. Foremost in my mind over the past few weeks has been French fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen. The French electorate used to vote predominantly on the left, and the communist and socialist parties held the loyalty of the working class. It is that very same base we see now swinging over in support of Nicolas Sarkozy, this election year's president candidate from the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

You might wonder why it is Le Pen who is on my mind, rather than Sarkozy. It is irrelevant that Le Pen hasn't ever won a French election worth mentioning. The fact that he has at times been considered a viable candidate shows that France has been moving steadily to the right for some years. And Le Pen has been bullying the country in that direction since he founded his National Front movement in 1972.

France is now considered the most conservative country in continental Europe, but I don't think France is shifting right because of the changing principles of its citizenry. As usual, the electorate is easily led by the nose by anyone "new" and controversial. That's why the leftist parties of the 1960s were so popular, and it was the progressivism of the left that allowed those parties to maintain political control in France for so long. After the left became the status quo, slick vultures like Sarkozy and Le Pen were there to offer "salvation." Considering France's track record on issues like racism, I'm surprised it's taken so long for the right to develop into something worth taking seriously.

Le Pen provides the French political discourse with a strong directive force. By voicing the most racist and exclusionary rhetoric allowable (up to and including tacit Holocaust denial), Le Pen has given the basest of opinions a "face," and thereby made each of those opinions a little more acceptable for the everyday citizen to express.

He points out the flaws in the political system as it stands (such as the corruption of Chirac) and promises change for France. In the end, while he has little chance of succeeding in his presidential gambit (as has been shown again and again, every time he has run), he shifts French politics to right, and makes it a little more acceptable for other politicians to voice right-wing rhetoric. And here, in 2007, we see Nicolas Sarkozy appear as a viable threat to the Socialist Party.

Le Pen and Sarkozy present themselves as if they are "new" alternatives, but they are nothing of the sort. Their kind is as old as mankind. We've always had wannabe dictators and resentful authoritarians looking to weasel their way to the top, looking to get revenge for past failures. Look at Adolf Hitler (failed artist), or Richard Nixon (failed lawyer), or George W. Bush (failed businessman). They will always repackage themselves, redrafting their image right on the cutting edge of contemporary anxieties, like terrorism and immigration reform.

Appealing to people's basest instincts and to their fears always gets votes, especially when that appeal is wrapped in the national flag. It's what's been happening in the United States for the past six years, after all. Why should anyone be surprised that it's happening in France now? Even if Mz. Royale achieves victory in the runoff election on May 6, I'm not sure that I have confidence in her ability to handle the increasingly Americanized press tactics of the French tabloids. Her performance, if elected, will be key to the direction of French political discourse in the near future.

Political reform is always effected by highlighting problems in the current political system and promising to change it for the better. People's utopian hopes, regardless of how unfocused, provide ample field for politicians of any stripe to till. The thrust for change is always effective when offered after a time of stagnation. Unfortunately, it seems that, given enough time, left-wing governments will begin to stagnate, but we must always remember that, given any time whatsoever, a right-wing government will damage the well-being of its nation. So, while the right may be making a "comeback" in France, history informs us it will be a temporary one. I only hope the damage to France isn't as devastating as it has been here in the United States.

Media standards should be higher than those for pop music.

I find it mind-boggling that the firing of Don Imus has led to the discussion of hip-hop music and the deleterious effects it has on the always ambiguous "children." The Don Imus controversy should be opening up a national dialogue about the content, quality, and tone of the civil discourse, as well as the broadcasting standards (or lack thereof) in place since the 1987 repealment of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine (and its corollaries, such as the "personal attack rule" and the "equal-time rule").

The fact of the matter is that gangster rap does not have the same impact on the civil discourse as the news and opinion media (of which Don Imus was a part, addressing news and political issues), and arguments that equate the two are indefensible and unsupportable. You can argue that Don Imus was just an entertainer, but that's simply not true. Imus in the Morning was a political and news show, despite his former reputation as nothing more than a "shock jock," and the public influence of his show grew as a result. Less than a decade ago, TIME magazine placed Don Imus on their list of the "25 most influential people in America."

Of course I'll admit that certain lyrics found in certain kinds of hip-hop are reprehensible. But the fact of the matter remains that hip-hop doesn't have the same kind of influence that the news and opinion media does, and it can't be judged by the same standards. Apparently conservatives would have us judge everyone by the same standards, and that should tell us in what regard they hold the press. We should hold the news media to higher standards than mere pop music.

And a comment to those who suddenly care about young African-Americans: if you want to have a positive effect on the African-American community (and it cannot be judged by the content, merits, or standards of the the so-called "hip-hop community"), stop talking about gangster rap (of whom the listening demographic is 71% white) and start strongly advocating and supporting affirmative action, affordable housing, anti-poverty initiatives, equal opportunity employment. Start donating your time as a counselor or tutor. Donate money to the United Negro College Fund. But condemning gangster rap is a transparent ploy when only used after a conservative gets burned for using hate-speech.

To those pour souls who think Don Imus got "lynched": You don't know what a lynching is.

Unpublished letter to the editor.

On April 16, Eric Galdone wrote this letter to the Athens Banner-Herald: Imus firing just the start of stopping hate speech.

On April 19, Johney [sic] Friar wrote this response to Galdone's letter: No shortage of hate anywhere in politics.

When I read Mr. Friar's letter, I decided to write my own response. By this point, I am pretty sure that the Athens Banner-Herald isn't going to publish it, so I have included the text of the letter below.

"I want to invite any conservative to explain to me and the audience of the Athens Banner-Herald exactly how Eric Galdone (author of "Imus firing just the start of stopping hate speech") took the words of conservative pundits Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilly out of context in his April 17 letter.

Let's take a look at the specific context of the quote by Fox News host O'Reilly about San Francisco, for example. Here is what O'Reilly said: "And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you [San Francisco] up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead!" (Gives a whole new meaning to his self-granted title, "Culture Warrior", doesn't it?)

Now O'Reilly made this statement while criticizing a ballot measure passed by 60% of San Francisco voters urging the prohibition of on-campus military recruiting in their colleges and high schools. Whether you agree with the San Francisco voters or not is entirely beside the point. My question is this: Does the mere fact that you disagree with other American citizens give you the right to advocate their murder by our enemies abroad? Does O'Reilly have the right to invite terrorists into our country to kill our fellow men and women, just because he disagrees with the content of a ballot measure passed?

I think not. You can try to spin what O'Reilly said, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. This is what passes for conservative rhetoric, and I challenge anyone to defend it."

Let me add a few comments I didn't include in the letter above. A few nights ago, I watched part of an interview O'Reilly was conducting where he stated again and again that media figures should be given the benefit of the doubt. Of course, if you've ever seen The O'Reilly Factor, you'll know he's more than willing to extend this mythical benefit of the doubt only to right-wingers like himself.

But how can we extend the benefit of the doubt to people like O'Reilly when statements like his invitation to terrorists are made so clearly? There's not much room for nuance there, Bill-o.

Conservatives have a choice ahead of them. Either they start saying what they mean and meaning what they say, or they need to quit their jobs as serious social commentators and start doing comedy tours. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. We on left aren't going to accept "Just kidding!" as an excuse every time a conservative "slips up" and says what he really thinks. Personally, I hope conservatives get a lot more honest with their opinions, because when they start saying what they really think, they're only going to humiliate themselves and further divorce their crackpot ideology from mainstream opinion. Remember when O'Reilly made all those obscene phone calls to his female producer, asking questions about her masturbatory habits and the state of her virginity? I have to say, that was pretty damn honest of him. At least we (unfortunately) know what he's thinking about now.

Somehow the message broadcast by these pundits --- often without overt protest from us progressives --- is that conservatives can say whatever they want to, regardless of the veracity of the statement, but the moment progressives like Galdone start being aggressive, suddenly it's progressives who are just hateful and nasty and who degrade the civil discourse.

In response I'd like to ask a question. What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh saying Barack Obama was taught by Muslims for four years and me calling Rush a lying racist and a pill-popping hypocrite? Here's the answer. I can provide extensive documentation backing up each and every word present in that last, colorful phrase, while Rush's claims have been fully debunked here, here, and here. Clarifying the details of Obama's educational history doesn't quite have the punch "Barack went to Muslim school" does, but at least I'm telling the truth.

These people want us to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they have never once given us good reason to do so. When we rightfully call them liars, they say we're trying to "smear" them, and if we call the taste or veracity of what they've said into question, they respond by accusing us of taking their words out of context. But it isn't out of context. We're taking what was said in the greater context of the long, dirty history conservatism has in this country. They mean exactly what they say, unless conservatism is not, in fact, as hateful as first meets the eye, but instead only ambiguously content-free (it's not). Unlike the epithets and blatantly false stories dreamed up by Republican spin doctors, progressive attacks carry weight and have substance. That is why conservatives react so violently to criticism, and apologies are rare and patently fake when provided.

My point is: Never give a conservative the benefit of the doubt. As progressives, we've learned a lot in the past few decades. We're not just going to call conservatives names. We're not just going to chatter on the radio. Instead, we're going to tape and transcribe everything conservatives say. We're going to complain to their sponsors until they become an economic liability. And in the free market, when they become economic liabilities, they will be dropped from major networks.

Mr. Galdone made in his letter to the editor what I consider to be a very important point. We, the people, pay the sponsors responsible for allowing pundits like Limbaugh and O'Reilly to be broadcast. Consumer opinion and the ratings we provide these networks dictate the salaries of these people. And it is up to us to make sure that they never work again.

Support Alan Johnston.

Political "bipartisanship" is impossible.

I'm a little bit frustrated with people who think political "bipartisanship" is something we should strive for and that politics should be kept separate from other concerns. First, I don't think any such thing as neutrality exists, so I think aiming for it is futile; second, I think politics is what gives life meaning and purpose, rather than being a mere accessory to other concerns. And I don't mean politics in the narrow sense of electoral politics in the United States, but rather politics in the wider sense implied in the statement "Everything is politics." Politics then appears to mean a lot of different things, but I think its intention can be pared down to one simple phrase and that phrase is "getting what you want."

Now you're probably thinking I'm one of those horrible persons who profess a morality of ends rather than means. And, to be frank, that is what I'm saying, but let me add the caveat that no coherent political philosophy can function otherwise. Even "means"-philosophies are really about "ends"; means actually are ends and the very moment we started pretending there was a difference, politics became a game of smoke-and-mirrors. But I'm getting sidetracked.

Many people respond to the statement "Everything is politics and politics is about getting what you want" as if it's deeply cynical and probably extremely selfish, too. But I think our automatically negative reactions to phrases like the above is to no small part a conditioned response. We act as if people ever function differently, and we often forget the wide variety of things people can desire.

For example, I have a progressive vision for the future of this country. I want a diverse and responsible culture in which evolution occurs freely; a political environment in which ideas that foment the aforementioned flourish, while reactionary, conservative ideas die out; and a drastic and immediate reduction in carbon emissions (to name a few). These are the driving forces behind my political perspective (in the civic sense, that is).

If you examine your own political opinions, I suspect that you'll find desires as well as all of the messy principle/substance motivations that support what can appear to be glossy and impartial procedural positions. There's nothing wrong with this and it certainly doesn't devalue the opinions themselves. In fact, these foundations humanize politics (for my argument is such that purely procedural politics do not, in fact, exist) and the immediately apparent relativism of my claims should be easily made irrelevant (pun intended) by the (obvious) realization that opposing opinions do not "cancel out" your own by the mere fact of their existence. Politics is never so simple, and it is always personal.