|

Posted 3:19 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Word of The Day

"McNabbery: The guilty pride someone left wing has in the SAS."

So true.

Read More Armando Ianucci SAS Andy McNab

|

Posted 3:07 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Domenech For Dummies 2: Lame and Lamer

Could it get any more recursive?

It seems that proven liar, plagiariser and thief Bendontworkherenomore Domenech actually copied part of his immense fake ouput directly from the Doughy Pantload himself, Jonah Goldberg, now an LA Times columnist and himself the bloated, cowardly offspring of wingnuts. Goldberg got his position due to ahem, family connections. Anyone whose seen a picture of his mom, Lewinsky panty-sniffer Lucianne Goldberg, can imagine her cowering media targets rushing to give darling Jonah the job rather than have to have to undergo any sort of ahem, relations with her. That may be old gossip, but it's certainly pertinent when a beneficiary of nepotism and influence gets ripped off by... a beneficiary of nepotism and influence.

This time it's young Ben's former student newspaper that outed him. Seems Ben might not've made very many actual friends at college. Why am I not surprised?

Flat Hat Online:

Domenech appears to have copied from National Review column By Andy Zahn,Flat Hat News Editor

A Flat Hat opinion column written by former Washingtonpost.com weblogger Ben Domenech was found today that is similar to two columns written by Jonah Goldberg for National Review Online.

Domenech's column, entitled "Not on my campaign trail," appeared in the Oct. 27, 2000 edition of The Flat Hat. It did not appear on The Flat Hat's online archives. Webloggers noted similarities between some of Domenech's pieces on the Flat Hat's online archives and pieces on Salon.com, by writer P.J. O'Rourke and other sources.

Whole story

Note to budding wingnut bloggers and Rove protegees: if you must plagiarise, at least do it from someone who can actually string two thoughts together consecutively and you know, write.

Yesterday Martin berated me mildly for focusing on what he described as 'trivia' like this, while leaving more substantive issues unremarked. My answer to that is, a] it's fun, yes, and trivial in a sense, but b] there's a real political purpose behind focusing on small fry.

I blog on the principle of 'death by a thousand cuts'. There's plenty of blogs out there covering massively substantive issues, policy-wonking away, but sometimes when you focus on the huge forest of opposition you miss the individual trees, not to mention the shrubbery. Ben Domenech, Jonah Goldberg and their ilk are low-growers, like ground elder they get in the way, tangle round our ankles and bog us down - and they need to be cleared out.

To extend the metaphor, bloggers clear the undergrowth by cutting down the saplings and exposing the roots so the big trees can be chopped down cleanly, and that's not trivial at all.

Read more: Blogging NRO Domenech Plagiarism

|

Posted 1:17 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

A Sunday Morning Breakfast Treat

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson speaks ...... and it's a doozy of a speech telling a lot of people on the right in no uncertain terms just what he thinks of them. Well worth reading just for the sheer pleasure of his words for Ann Coulter, but there's much, much more to enjoy. A good bit of Yankee plainspeaking is a very refreshing change from all the usual hemmed in and qualified waffle we get from the US commentariat. Here's a small taste:

So since they couldn't discredit me as being a womanizer, a druggie, or partisan (since I had handwritten notes from George's dad thanking me for my brave service in saving American lives in Baghdad), they decided to go after the last thing they had, my wife Valerie. Ann Coulter and others came up with the crap that Joe coudlnt' get a job on his own, he needed his wife to find one for him because "he's a wussy man". Well, when I thought about it, I wasn't really all that surprised hearing it from Ann. Afterall, she is a rather manly woman.

I hear Ann going around exalting Joseph McCarthy. I recently read a book by Owen Lattimore called Ordeal by Slander in which he details the way in which McCarthy smeared him and attempted to destroy his life and the battle for his freedom that ensued. I wish Ann would read that book and see who she is using as a hero. Joseph McCarthy was a Nazi sympathizer who tried to destroy the lives of innocent people through a political witchhunt. That is who these people like Ann Coulter support. Remember that. Ann Coulter and her ilk are not only someone you would not want at your dining room table, they're people I wouldn't even allow in my home.

More..

I find that coffee, croissants and apricot jam go particularly well with juicy invective like this, though toast and marmite or a bacon sandwich would be equally delicious, or for you weirdo health freaks, muesli. Whatever. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it's finally spring - enjoy.

Read More: US Politics Joe Wilson Niger Plame Spying CIA

|

Posted 12:42 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Going To A Go-Go

Lenin's Tomb reported it last week, but now it's official, ie it's in Google news - Unison, Europe's biggest public sector union, is dumping Labour and Tony Blair. Unison represents civil servants in national and local government, hospital workers and the voluntary sector, ranging from librarians to medical assistants to garbage truck drivers to policy officers to legal executives. It's a big union, and when the members vote for national strike action, the country is hit hard. It's not something they do lightly.

Union won't campaign for Labour 25 March 2006

The country's biggest trade union has suspended campaigning for Labour in the forthcoming local elections because of the bitter row over pensions which will lead to a strike by 1.4 million workers, it was revealed.

Unison is the main union involved in the dispute over planned changes to the local government pension scheme, which will see workers across the UK walking out next Tuesday, crippling council services.

Unison confirmed it had suspended its election campaigning for Labour while the dispute remained unresolved.

The move is a blow to Labour, which faces tough battles in many councils across England in the May elections.

Traditionally the Labour Party was a workers' party, funded directly by the workers' contribution of a proportion of their union dues. This funding continues, overseen by a group within the union called Unison Labour Link, whose members are all both Unison and Labour and whose aim is to raise funds for the party.

Readers of my old blog will know that I was a member and officer of Unison and active in Unison United Left, campaigning for an all-membership to vote to stop Unison Labour Link and form a poltically unaffiliated fund isntead. As our slogan said, "Why feed the hand that bites you?"

It was uphill work all the way, given that the leadership at both national and local level are right up the arse of the Labour party in more ways than one. For example, a regional paid officer (whom I once found in the local office late at night polling the fax machine when I was pretty sure she had no key, but that's by the by) is married to a Labour MP. No conflict there.

One of our most senior local union officers is married to a man who is the son, brother and brother in law of 4 Labour councillors. Unison even has a vote in Labour constituency party matters - but of course, it's reserved for a party member. These potential conflicts of interest are mirrored in union branches and regions throughout the nation. The fate of Unison and the Labour party are incestuously entwined, and by a cunning constitutional ruse, when United Left were able to get enough support to get a motion to conference, the Chair held that only members of Labour Link could vote on anything to do with Labour Link. How very democratic.

Labour, by the narrowest of margin and only by the grace of public sector workers' hard-earned funds, got back nto government despite little support from its own activists. Tony Blair then promptly treated this close shave as a mandate to follow through on the liberalisation of public services, according to the trade agreements he had signed in the teeth of opposition from all of the unions.

In the name of liberalisation Blair and Brown have presided over the destruction of the NHS and the takeover by spivs and carpetbaggers of what once were democratically accountable schools, hospitals and public services. The sell-off of the family silver by Tony Blair is the biggest rip-off of the public since the Enclosure acts. Blair has turned on the very workers who enabled his victory.

Unison Labour Link have in the past screamed dire warnings that if the funding were to be stopped the union would lose influence. They needed the ear of government, and so on and so on. The leadership continues to support New Labour but in a negative way, by saying nothing. 3.000 hopsital staff have been laid off this week, most of them Uison members and I'm still waiting to see a statement by leader Dave Prentiss. He doesn't want to rock the boat, and that's what this current move by Labour link is about. they don't want to put the knife in, but neither do they want alienate the members. Hence the planned silence during the election.

Read More: UK Politics Unions Unison New Labour

|

Posted 6:30 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Whatever Happened To ... Harry Whittington?

|

Posted 12:11 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

"L'Etat? Ce'st Moi"

The idea that America is becoming essentially a dictatorship is one that has gained much traction even in respectable circles recently, if you consider Supreme Court justices, former generals, and prominent academics among them to be respectable, and most of us do.

But after Bush's latest outrage - though outrage is a much devalued word now - it's not a question of the US becoming a dictatorship any more. It is one already.

What Bush has done is something he's done before - when signing bills into law, he has also used the provision for a president to make a comment on the legislation by way of a signing statement. He has twisted the convention to claim executive privilege to specifically exempt himself and his administration from laws he doesn't like. Yup, that means what you think it does, that Bush and his cronies really believe that their power is absolute and the law does not apply to them if they don't want it to. Bad enough, you might think.

But this time he's done it with the Patriot Act, and Americans are furious, not least Firedoglake :

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers….

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ‘’a piece of legislation that’s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ‘’signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ‘’impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ‘’The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

I can’t begin to tell you how angry this makes me — that the separation of powers mean so little, let alone the need for meaningful oversight by a third party to reduce the potential for misuse of power. And I didn’t want us to head into the weekend without everyone have a chance to really read this article.

The President of the United States does not get to just pick and choose which laws apply to him. The same laws apply to everyone. Period. And if Congress does not stand up and say so and hold him accountable for this, then they might as well stop taking my tax money as a paycheck.

But quietly, while we British political bloggers, obsessed with US politics and its potential to send the rest of the world into destruction by its sheer self-centeredness, are hyperventilating over Bush, Tony Blair and New labour are exercising a silent but deadly coup against Parliament and the electorate.

How? And why has no-one noticed? By the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, that innocuous sounding little piece of paper that's slowly wending its way through Parliament right now - a little piece of paper that has the power to turn our political system upside down, and allow ministers to overturn, rewrite, or pass any law they like, with no parliamentary oversight. The bill's nothing less than a wholesale demolition of the British democratic system of law and government as we've known it, in favour of the rule by fiat of the governing party. Which will, obviously, be Labour.

it's worth taking a look at the text of the bill, though couched in parlaimentese it's very plain what the intention is.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
[...]
A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following 5 purposes—
(a) reforming legislation;
(b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions, with or without changes.
(2) An order under this section must be made in accordance with this Part.
10(3) In this Part “legislation” means a provision of—
(a) any public general Act or local Act, or
(b) any Order in Council, order, rules, regulations, scheme, warrant, byelaw or other subordinate instrument made under a public general Act or local Act,
15 but does not include any instrument which is, or is made under, Northern Ireland legislation.
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
Part 1 — Power to reform legislation etc
An order under section 1 may for either purpose specified in subsection (1) of that section make provision amending, repealing or replacing any legislation.
(2) Provision under subsection (1) may amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act might, and in particular may amend, repeal or replace legislation so as to—
10(a) confer functions on any person (including functions of legislating or functions relating to the charging of fees);
(b) modify the functions conferred on any person by legislation;
(c) transfer, or provide for the transfer or delegation of, the functions conferred on any person by legislation.
15 This is subject to sections 4 to 7.
(3) An order under section 1 may for the purpose specified in subsection (1)(b) of that section also make—
(a) provision amending or abolishing any rule of law;
(b) provision codifying rules of law.
20(4) An order under section 1 may make such consequential, supplementary, incidental or transitional provision (including provision amending, repealing or replacing any legislation or other provision) as the Minister making it considers appropriate.
(5) An order under section 1 may bind the Crown.

On the face of it there's much to cheer about now spring is finally here: Blair and the Labour Party are on their last legs, and Bush is about as toxic as it's possible to be in US politics right now. But that doesn't really matter, because the legilslation they passed will still be in place and so will their successors. International business is engaged in dismantling democratic, representative government worldwide by attrition, and it's going to be a decades-long battle. Bush and Blair and signing statements and reulatory reformn bills, they have to be fought and won, but they're all just skirmishes in a long war.

Read More Bush Patriot Act BlairLegislative and Regulatory Reform Bill UK-Constitution UK Law UK-Politics

|

Posted 10:29 AM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Sacrilege!!

Pretty much every single day of my life, except when I've been poorly or abroad, at some point I've eaten a couple of rounds of toast and Marmite. Mmmm, crisp golden toast, slathered with creamy butter, topped with a thin scraping of the most deliciously savoury edible glue ever made. Bliss. Marmite is essence of savoury and an instant trip back in time, to to nursery teas with boiled eggs and toast soldiers.

It also gives me a little warm glow of Britishness every time I go to the Dirk Van Den Broek supermarket and see Marmite on the shelf, a small, black glass bottle of home with the familiar red and yellow label, assuring that England is still there and still attached to its Victoriana.

One annoying thing about Marmite, though, is that, no matter how hard you try, crumbs always get in the jar. This doesn't detract from the Marmite experience , it adds to it. Crumbs in the Marmite jar are traditional.

But a bunch of wusses with no sense of history have complained. The result ? A squeezy Marmite bottle. What? Sacrilege! How dare they! 140 years of crumby history, thrown away on the whim of some crazed marketing droid at Unilever? And what will primary school children do for paste jars now? First it was potted meat jars, now this. However will the nation's children hone their elite collage-glueing skills, with no paste jars?

I don't know how Unilever can look themselves in the face, the philistines. Some people have no respect for tradition Now I'm going to have start hoarding the glass jars of Marmite before we're compelled to buy the squeezy bottles.

Typical dealers, get you hooked and then up the ante. Feeding off our addiction, that's what they're doing. Bastards.

Read more... Marmite British Food Marketing

|

Posted 8:53 AM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Domenech For Dummies Update

The whiny-ass-titty-baby responds.

|

Posted 10:18 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Domenech For Dummies

"Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism."

Woohoo, the blogosphere wins - but who the hell is Domenech, and why is he important?

First, a brief rundown of the whole brouhaha that has driven the US progressive blogosphere to ever new heights of outraged derision. And there' s much to deride.

Domenech is 24 years old, a home schooled Christian who was assiduously groomed for entrance into the inner circles of Republican Washiungton. In return for being morally upright virginal poster boy for homeschooled rectitude - Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's Republican Boy! - his mentors in DC made sure he'd make all the right connections. Take a look at his biography - it reads like that of a Georgetown graduate aged 40 or thereabouts. Bright-eyed and beardless Ben's rise has been positively meteoric, and has been given additional upward impetus by his access to bully pulpits at the National Review Online and at his own website, Red State, where he posts as 'Augustine' :

As Augustine, Domenech has engaged in numerous personal attacks, some of which were compiled by the blog Dragonfire. Domenech has called cartoonist Ted Rall a "steaming bag of pus"; said Teresa Heinz Kerry looks like an "oddly shaped egotistical ketchup-colored muppet"; called Pat Robertson a "senile, crazy old fool"; and described Post.com's "White House Briefing" columnist Dan Froomkin as "an embarrassment."

'Augustine' made a number of quite blatantly racist posts at Red State, which pretty much matches the genral tenor of the place, which bills itself as a sensible conservative discussion forum but which more often than not descends into insane abuse. Augustine's own comments're online for anyone to see, including anyone who might want to hire him to write for them. His opinions were pretty out-there, but so far, so dull, for the average wingnut.

Then he got given a blogging gig at the Washington Post.

Domenech'd managed to leapfrog right over the heads of WaPo staff , career journalists and longtime political pundits and writers, both on and offline, right into a plum position, co-equal with real journalists who blog at WaPo like Dan Froomkin. Not only that, but Ben was one of the most rabid, the most pro-Administration of all the wingnut bloggers. How had he done it? and more to the point, why had the Washington Post and its editor Jum Brady hired what amounted to a government mouthpiece? Brady was already on shaky ground after failing to correct untruths written by his paper's ombudsman, ( who was herself under attack for bias).

So the left bloggers did what they do best, and looked into the matter. They did it properly, checking back on all this 'professional' writer's available writings for some clue as to why he'd succeeded so wildly when so many, equally or even more worthy, hadn't. No doubt some were motivated by at least a modicum of envy - what blogger isn't a journalist manque? Who can't wistfully imagine their byline and headshot up on a major national newspaper, and the money, recognition and influence that comes with it? But most were motivated by genuine outrage and what they discovered was that young Ben hadn't actually written much of his stuff at all - he'd just copied it, lock stock and barrel, from a mixture of PJ O'Rourke, Salon reviews and other blogs.

Then the shit really hit the fan.

What had been a gale of derision became a hurricane. Despite a desperate and hilariously badly written rearguard action by his friends at Red State, who deny the evidence of their own eyes rather than accept that Rove's Chosen One has feet of clay, now even his biggest supporters are abandoning him.

WaPo's response ? To try and tough it out, despite all the evidence. (Hmm, I'm sensing a pattern here.) What would it take to get canned, give a hummer to Jeff Goldstein's dog in public?

Perhaps the WaPo had no protocols for dealing with a plagiarising blogger, blogging being new media and all - if that's so, then well, here's a little tutorial for Mr Brady on how a real newspaper, The Boston Globe, deals with a plagiarist - they fire his ass, not tough it out till he resigns .

Explore New England Blogger Fired for Plagairism ...er, Plagiarism

This morning I discovered that Burlington resident Matt Mahoney of the ExploreNewEngland Vermont Blog was stealing content from Seven Days and posting it as his own. I just got off the phone with Ron Agrella, Features Content Manager for Boston.com, who apologized for Mahoney's behavior. "As of a few minutes ago, he no longer works for us," said Agrella.

Mahoney was one of six bloggers who contribute to state-specific sites affiliated with ExploreNewEngland.com, an online media venture owned by the Boston Globe and the New York Times. "We use non-journalists for our bloggers," explained Agrella.

Agrella said that all of ExploreNewEngland's bloggers are independent contractors, who are expected to understand that plagairism plagiarism is unacceptable. He said that the bloggers are supposed to scan the web and the news for interesting events, then blog about them, citing sources when appropriate.

Which brings us to the other half of the question, why is this important? Why should we care about some pissant little wannabe and his inside-the-beltway petty corruption? he's resined hasn't he?

Well, if you blog, you should care.

The best way for the Washington Post and Brady to extricate themselves from this embarassing mess with any shred of credibility remaining is to blame all bloggers for Domenech's sins. We'll all be infected with Domenech's contagion if Brady has his way. Any blogger who's hoping to be taken seriously as a writer, and there are many of them, will find themselves damned along with Domenech as the WaPo uses this to to attack the upstarts in new media whose existence and success threaten the hegemony of the big papers. Come to think of it, this whole thing could turn out to have been a bonus for old media.

Which would be very convenient. Maybe too convenient? I don't know.

One positive outcome I suppose is that the purulent growths on the face of politics that are Red State and its denizens have been exposed. It's time the general public saw what vipers the Beltway criowd are nurturing in their bosoms.

Read More... Blogging Washington Post Jim Brady Ben Domenech

|

Posted 7:15 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Hey Girls, You Want More Fries?

Thanks to commenter Gracchus at Steve Gilliard for this cartoon from Minimum Security :

Hmmm, I can't decide whether to have a ham sandwich or a cup-a-soup for lunch. Where's my mobile?

Read more: Abortion S Dakota

|

Posted 2:42 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

An Author Writes...

Blistering words for the deserting rats, from Jane Smiley in the Huffington Post:

JANE SMILEY

Notes for Converts (155 comments )

Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.

1. Bush doesn't know you disagree with him. Nothing about you makes you of interest to George W. Bush once you no longer agree with and support him. No degree of relationship (father, mother, etc.), no longstanding friendly intercourse (Jack Abramoff), no degree of expertise (Brent Scowcroft), no essential importance (Tony Blair, American voters) makes any difference. There is nothing you have to offer that makes Bush want to know you once you have come to disagree with him. Your opinions and feelings now exist in a world entirely external to the mind of George W. Bush. You are now just one of those "polls" that he pays no attention to. When you were on his side, you thought that showed "integrity" on his part. It doesn't. It shows an absolute inability to learn from experience.

2. Bush doesn't care whether you disagree with him. As a man who has dispensed with the reality-based world, and is entirely protected by his handlers from feeling the effects of that world, he is indifferent to what you now think is real. Is the Iraq war a failure and a quagmire? Bush doesn't care. Is global warming beginning to affect us right now? So what. Have all of his policies with regard to Iran been misguided and counter-productive? He never thinks about it. You know that Katrina tape in which Bush never asked a question? It doesn't matter how much you know or how passionately you feel or, most importantly, what degree of disintegration you see around you, he's not going to ask you a question. You and your ideas are dead to him. You cannot change his mind. Nine percent of polled Americans would agree with attacking Iran right now. To George Bush, that will be a mandate, if and when he feels like doing it, because...

3. Bush does what he feels like doing and he deeply resents being told, even politely, that he ought to do anything else. This is called a "sense of entitlement". Bush is a man who has never been anywhere and never done anything, and yet he has been flattered and cajoled into being president of the United States through his connections, all of whom thought they could use him for their own purposes. He has a surface charm that appeals to a certain type of American man, and he has used that charm to claim all sorts of perks, and then to fail at everything he has ever done. He did not complete his flight training, he failed at oil investing, he was a front man and a glad-hander as a baseball owner. As the Governor of Texas, he originated one educational program that turned out to be a debacle; as the President of the US, his policies have constituted one screw-up after another. You have stuck with him through all of this, made excuses for him, bailed him out. From his point of view, he is perfectly entitled by his own experience to a sense of entitlement. Why would he ever feel the need to reciprocate? He's never had to before this.

4. President Bush is your creation. When the US Supreme Court humiliated itself in 2000 by handing the presidency to Bush even though two of the justices (Scalia and Thomas) had open conflicts of interest, you did not object. When the Bush administration adopted an "Anything but Clinton" policy that resulted in ignoring and dismissing all warnings of possible terrorist attacks on US soil, you went along with and made excuses for Bush. When the Bush administration allowed the corrupt Enron corporation to swindle California ratepayers and taxpayers in a last ditch effort to balance their books in 2001, you laughed at the Californians and ignored the links between Enron and the administration. When it was evident that the evidence for the war in Iraq was cooked and that State Department experts on the Middle East were not behind the war and so it was going to be run as an exercise in incompetence, you continued to attack those who were against the war in vicious terms and to defend policies that simply could not work. On intelligent design, global warming, doctoring of scientific results to reflect ideology, corporate tax giveaways, the K Street project, the illegal redistricting of Texas, torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the Terry Schiavo fiasco, and the cronyism that led to the destruction of New Orleans you have failed to speak out with integrity or honesty, preferring power to truth at every turn. Bush does what he wants because you have let him.

5. Tyranny is your creation. What we have today is the natural and inevitable outcome of ideas and policies you have promoted for the last generation. I once knew a guy who was still a Marxist in 1980. Whenever I asked him why Communism had failed in Russia and China, he said "Mistakes were made". He could not believe that Marxism itself was at fault, just as you cannot believe that the ideology of the unregulated free market has created the world we live in today. You are tempted to say: "Mistakes have been made", but in fact, psychologically and sociologically, no mistakes have been made. The unregulated free market has operated to produce a government in its own image. In an unregulated free market, for example, cheating is merely another sort of advantage that, supposedly, market forces might eventually "shake out" of the system. Of course, anyone with common sense understands that cheaters do damage that sometimes cannot be repaired before they are "shaken out", but according to the principles of the unregulated free market, the victims of that sort of damage are just out of luck and the damage that happens to them is just a sort of "culling". It is no accident that our government is full of cheaters--they learned how to profit from cheating when they were working in corporations that were using bribes, perks, and secret connections to cheat their customers of good products, their neighbors of healthy environmental conditions, their workers of workplace safety and decent paychecks. It was only when the corporations began cheating their shareholders that any of you squealed, but you should know from your own experience that the unregulated free market as a "level playing field" was the biggest laugh of the 20th century. No successful company in the history of capitalism has ever favored open competition. When you folks pretended, in the eighties, that you weren't using the ideology of the free market to cover your own manipulations of the playing field to your own advantage, you may have suckered yourselves, and even lots of American workers, but observers of capitalism since Adam Smith could have told you it wasn't going to work.

And then there was the way you used racism and religious intolerance to gain and hold onto power. Nixon was cynical about it--taking the party of Lincoln and reaching out to disaffected southern racists, drumming up a backlash against the Civil Rights movement for the sake of votes, but none of you has been any less vicious. Racism might have died an unlamented death in this country, but you kept it alive with phrases like "welfare queen" and your resistance to affirmative action and taxation for programs to help people in our country with nothing, or very little. You opted not to take the moral high ground and recognize that the whole nation would be better off without racism, but rather to increase class divisions and racial divisions for the sake of your own comfort, pleasure, and profit. You have used religion in exactly the same way. Instead of strongly defending the constitutional separation of church and state, you have encouraged radical fundamentalist sects to believe that they can take power in the US and mold our secular government to their own image, and get rich doing it. The US could have become a moderating force in what seems now to be an inevitable battle among the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions, but you have made that impossible by flattering and empowering our own violent and intolerant Christian right.

You have created an imperium, heedless of the most basic wisdom of the Founding Fathers--that at the very least, no man is competent enough or far-seeing enough to rule imperially. Checks and balances were instituted by Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest of them not because of some abstract distrust of power, but because they had witnessed the screw-ups and idiocies of unchecked power. You yourselves have demonstrated the failures of unchecked power--in an effort to achieve it, you have repeatedly contravened the expressed wishes of most Americans, who favor a moderate foreign policy, reasonable domestic programs, a goverrnment that works, environmental preservation, women's rights to contraception, abortion, and a level playing field. Somehow you thought you could mold the imperium to reflect your wishes, but guess what--that's what an imperium is--one man rule. If you fear the madness of King George, you have no recourse if you've given up the checks and balances that you inherited and that were meant to protect you.

Your ideas and your policies have promoted selfishness, greed, short-term solutions, bullying, and pain for others. You have looked in the faces of children and denied the existence of a "common good". You have disdained and denied the idea of "altruism". At one time, our bureaucracy was full of people who had gone into government service or scientific research for altruistic reasons--I knew, because I knew some of them. You have driven them out and replaced them with vindictive ignoramuses. You have lied over and over about your motives, for example, making laws that hurt people and calling it "originalist interpretations of the Constitution" (conveniently ignoring the Ninth Amendment). You have increased the powers of corporations at the expense of every other sector in the nation and actively defied any sort of regulation that would require these corporations to treat our world with care and respect. You have made economic growth your deity, and in doing so, you have accelerated the power of the corporations to destroy the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice caps, the rainforests, and the climate. You have produced CEOs in charge of lots of resources and lots of people who have no more sense of reciprocity or connection or responsibility than George W. Bush.

Now you are fleeing him, but it's only because he's got the earmarks of a loser. Your problem is that you don't know why he's losing. You think he's made mistakes. But no. He's losing because the ideas that you taught him and demonstrated for him are bad ideas, self-destructive ideas, and even suicidal ideas. And they are immoral ideas. You should be ashamed of yourselves because not only have your ideas not worked to make the world a better place, they were inhumane and cruel to begin with, and they have served to cultivate and excuse the inhumane and cruel character traits of those who profess them.

6. As Bad as Bush is, Cheney is Worse.

|

Posted 10:23 PM by Republic of Palau

| | | | | | | | |

Ode To The West Wind