Grow a Pair and Fight
31/10/05 07:27
I
almost gave up on the Democractic Party during the
Kerry Campaign. I have worked in marketing at
Fortune 500 levels and it was obvious that there
was no hand on the rudder during that fiasco.
Someone needed to program some talking points into
that zombie and force him to stick to them. But it
seems that his arrogance--his belief that his good
intentions and "statesmanship" would carry the
day--overwhelmed political realities. That's the
problem with the Democrats. They believe their good
intentions are enough. They pride themselves on
thinking about "the good of the country."
A great many Republicans don't seem terribly concerned about "the good of the country." After all, they still make excuses for sending tens of thousands to their deaths on a war based on bogus evidence at best, and overt lies at the worst; a war that has had an incalculable cost internationally. They care about the preservation and expansion of their power and the power of those like them. One can imagine that the prospect of 7 white men (one dark skinned client of white men who owes his career to their protection and largesse) deciding that racial discrimination is just fine, that women's lives, health and wellbeing are secondary to those of zygotes, would essentially mean that the earth had settled back into its rightful orbit.
The Democrats must fight the Alito nomination to the last. Losing is just fine. Fighting is what's important now. The Republicans have learned that Democrats don't have the stomach for a fight, and this only encourages them to ever more egregious behavior. Americans do not respect weakness and impotence. Polls show that a most Americans agree with Democratic positions on the issues, so why don't they vote Democratic? Because you don't vote for the powerless. The public seems to know what the Democrats in Congress don't: If you're not willing to fight for your principles, you must have none.
In short:
1. Don't threaten -- Don't threaten to filibuster. When the question arises, play vague. "We're keeping all of our options open."
2. Filibuster -- The Republcans will accuse you of unstatesmanlike behavior. Get your talking points in order. "Protecting the civil rights of Americans; Won't roll back the progress we've made toward women's rights and minority rights; Hammer the civil rights cases. Attack conservative judicial philosophy as giving the state --not the individual--the right to make your personal decisions. Democrats stand for the rights of individuals to achieve their potential without impediment of race hate or gender discrimination--and believe that individuals are the best arbiters of what to do with thier own lives and persons. Republicans believe the State knows best.
3. Post-Nuclear - If the Republicans go nuclear, clog business for the rest of the Bush term. When attacked for doing so, say that you are simply "attempting to get a full and fair hearing on this piece of business." Play coy, just like they do. Put the statesman spin on any action you take. It works.
Please people, your good intentions are not enough. You are POLITICIANS. You are sleazy by nature. The very process by which you are elected is grotesquely corrupt. You dissemble and lie for a living. You are bought and paid for by those who provide the big money on which you thrive. It is hypocritical for Democrats to play virtuous when it comes to putting out. Those of us who have been voting for your are looking for a reason to continue doing so. The American people are looking for a reason to support those they agree with. They want a Party that will FIGHT for their interests. Thus far, you have proven that you are not that party. Thus, they turn to any Republican with an easy smile and a comforting lie. 'At least the lie might be true,' they think. At least the Republicans believe desperately enough in something to fight for it.
What do you believe in? A better America? Equal rights for all? The right to privacy? The right for individuals to lead their own personal lives without government intrusion?
If so, prove it. Now. Fight.
Digby suggests putting Alito on the back burner and focusing on Plamegate. But I fear this just more Progressive moral superiority trumping political reality. Plamegate is in the prosecutor's hands. The Dems can do absolutely nothing to push, expand, expedite or further his investigation. They cannot demand Congressional hearings--the Republicans are in control. All Democrats can do on Plamegate is continue to trumpet the underlying lies in the push to war. That's great. They should continue to make that case.
However, the Alito nomination allows Dems to show the American people what we stand for, and what we're willing to fight for, and how hard we're willing to fight for it. Plamegate is a negative that should continue to be exploited. Alito is a potential positive that must be seized. We can show what we're for on the Alito nomination--civil rights, individual rights, equal rights--not what we're against. Just saying we're against Bush and his cabal of liars is not enough.
A great many Republicans don't seem terribly concerned about "the good of the country." After all, they still make excuses for sending tens of thousands to their deaths on a war based on bogus evidence at best, and overt lies at the worst; a war that has had an incalculable cost internationally. They care about the preservation and expansion of their power and the power of those like them. One can imagine that the prospect of 7 white men (one dark skinned client of white men who owes his career to their protection and largesse) deciding that racial discrimination is just fine, that women's lives, health and wellbeing are secondary to those of zygotes, would essentially mean that the earth had settled back into its rightful orbit.
The Democrats must fight the Alito nomination to the last. Losing is just fine. Fighting is what's important now. The Republicans have learned that Democrats don't have the stomach for a fight, and this only encourages them to ever more egregious behavior. Americans do not respect weakness and impotence. Polls show that a most Americans agree with Democratic positions on the issues, so why don't they vote Democratic? Because you don't vote for the powerless. The public seems to know what the Democrats in Congress don't: If you're not willing to fight for your principles, you must have none.
In short:
1. Don't threaten -- Don't threaten to filibuster. When the question arises, play vague. "We're keeping all of our options open."
2. Filibuster -- The Republcans will accuse you of unstatesmanlike behavior. Get your talking points in order. "Protecting the civil rights of Americans; Won't roll back the progress we've made toward women's rights and minority rights; Hammer the civil rights cases. Attack conservative judicial philosophy as giving the state --not the individual--the right to make your personal decisions. Democrats stand for the rights of individuals to achieve their potential without impediment of race hate or gender discrimination--and believe that individuals are the best arbiters of what to do with thier own lives and persons. Republicans believe the State knows best.
3. Post-Nuclear - If the Republicans go nuclear, clog business for the rest of the Bush term. When attacked for doing so, say that you are simply "attempting to get a full and fair hearing on this piece of business." Play coy, just like they do. Put the statesman spin on any action you take. It works.
Please people, your good intentions are not enough. You are POLITICIANS. You are sleazy by nature. The very process by which you are elected is grotesquely corrupt. You dissemble and lie for a living. You are bought and paid for by those who provide the big money on which you thrive. It is hypocritical for Democrats to play virtuous when it comes to putting out. Those of us who have been voting for your are looking for a reason to continue doing so. The American people are looking for a reason to support those they agree with. They want a Party that will FIGHT for their interests. Thus far, you have proven that you are not that party. Thus, they turn to any Republican with an easy smile and a comforting lie. 'At least the lie might be true,' they think. At least the Republicans believe desperately enough in something to fight for it.
What do you believe in? A better America? Equal rights for all? The right to privacy? The right for individuals to lead their own personal lives without government intrusion?
If so, prove it. Now. Fight.
Digby suggests putting Alito on the back burner and focusing on Plamegate. But I fear this just more Progressive moral superiority trumping political reality. Plamegate is in the prosecutor's hands. The Dems can do absolutely nothing to push, expand, expedite or further his investigation. They cannot demand Congressional hearings--the Republicans are in control. All Democrats can do on Plamegate is continue to trumpet the underlying lies in the push to war. That's great. They should continue to make that case.
However, the Alito nomination allows Dems to show the American people what we stand for, and what we're willing to fight for, and how hard we're willing to fight for it. Plamegate is a negative that should continue to be exploited. Alito is a potential positive that must be seized. We can show what we're for on the Alito nomination--civil rights, individual rights, equal rights--not what we're against. Just saying we're against Bush and his cabal of liars is not enough.
Nicholas Kristof Wants to be a Virgin
24/10/05 21:07
In
his New York Times
column, Nicholas
Kristof writes:
"So I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today."
About one million years ago I saw Bette Davis on a talk show. I can't recall which one. The conversation turned to lascivious producers and Davis was asked to counsel young actresses asked to lay on the notorious casting couch. "Go for it," Davis said. "You need to decide if you want to be a virgin, or an actress."
Too many democrats want to be virgins. They sing loudly of their own moral purity as they stand above the fray. Out of office, but above the fray. Politically impotent, but morally pure. It seems they expect their reward in heaven, instead of at the ballot box.
Unfortunately, the rest of us are playing for keeps--in this world. Democrats started loosing elections when they forgot how to throw a sucker punch. The Kennedy's knew how to rumble. So did LBJ. Politics in this country has never been a gentlemen's sport. The Baby Boom Merlot set who think they're too pretty to get bruised, that their Shakras will get marred, that they're too pure to get a little blood on their hands, need to get out of politics and go back to volunteering at soup kitchens. The "gentlemen democrats" who pounce on John Dean for being "mean," need to get on him because his barbs aren't sharp enough. He too often misses the heart (for instance his weak performance in relaying the gravity of the allegations facing various white house aides--exploited by the odious John Tierney in his NY Times column), and simply wounds.
Mr. Kristof. Everyone who's ever seen a horror film knows you don't wound the ghoul and walk away. When it's down, you kick it, stomp it, slit its throat. You do whatever you have to do to see that it doesn't get up again. That's the way the Republicans play. That's why they win.
"Well, I don't want to win that way," you may have the luxury to say. However, due to a disgusting bankruptcy bill there are people out there who will spend more of their lives in worry and want. Because of a war borne of lies, there are two thousand dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of innocent dead Iraqis, and countless widows and orphans and sonless mothers. American paychecks are shrinking and Black folks' incomes are falling even faster.
If you think reversing some of this is not worth getting a little dirty, then at least have the decency to shut up and get out of the way. The rest of us are due on stage. We have parts to play.
"So I find myself repulsed by the glee that some Democrats show at the possibility of Karl Rove and Mr. Libby being dragged off in handcuffs. It was wrong for prosecutors to cook up borderline and technical indictments during the Clinton administration, and it would be just as wrong today."
About one million years ago I saw Bette Davis on a talk show. I can't recall which one. The conversation turned to lascivious producers and Davis was asked to counsel young actresses asked to lay on the notorious casting couch. "Go for it," Davis said. "You need to decide if you want to be a virgin, or an actress."
Too many democrats want to be virgins. They sing loudly of their own moral purity as they stand above the fray. Out of office, but above the fray. Politically impotent, but morally pure. It seems they expect their reward in heaven, instead of at the ballot box.
Unfortunately, the rest of us are playing for keeps--in this world. Democrats started loosing elections when they forgot how to throw a sucker punch. The Kennedy's knew how to rumble. So did LBJ. Politics in this country has never been a gentlemen's sport. The Baby Boom Merlot set who think they're too pretty to get bruised, that their Shakras will get marred, that they're too pure to get a little blood on their hands, need to get out of politics and go back to volunteering at soup kitchens. The "gentlemen democrats" who pounce on John Dean for being "mean," need to get on him because his barbs aren't sharp enough. He too often misses the heart (for instance his weak performance in relaying the gravity of the allegations facing various white house aides--exploited by the odious John Tierney in his NY Times column), and simply wounds.
Mr. Kristof. Everyone who's ever seen a horror film knows you don't wound the ghoul and walk away. When it's down, you kick it, stomp it, slit its throat. You do whatever you have to do to see that it doesn't get up again. That's the way the Republicans play. That's why they win.
"Well, I don't want to win that way," you may have the luxury to say. However, due to a disgusting bankruptcy bill there are people out there who will spend more of their lives in worry and want. Because of a war borne of lies, there are two thousand dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of innocent dead Iraqis, and countless widows and orphans and sonless mothers. American paychecks are shrinking and Black folks' incomes are falling even faster.
If you think reversing some of this is not worth getting a little dirty, then at least have the decency to shut up and get out of the way. The rest of us are due on stage. We have parts to play.
Andrew Sullivan's Moral Sewer
19/10/05 09:11
Stephen Metcalf in Slate
vivisects the Bell Curve to reveal (yet
again) the statistical chicanery, and eugenicist
theory that supports it. Metcalf also featured a
quote from Andrew Sullivan congratulating
himself on introducing "the Bell Curve" back
when he was editor of the New Republic. The
Sullivan quote ends with, " And I'm proud of
those with the courage to speak truth to power,
as Murray and Herrnstein so painstakingly
did."
As Metcalf mentions, Sullivan is probably not a statistician. He would thus be unable to expertly judge the book's statistical methodology or validity. One also suspects that Sullivan has not spent his entire life in intimate proximity to a great cross section of black people. He probably hasn't a wealth of personal experience on which to rely in supporting his embrace of The Bell Curve's conclusions that black people are stupid. I take exception to the Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom's work because I do have a lifelong history of intimate relations with white people in cities and towns all across the country; and my three-plus decades of adult, intimate personal experience puts the lie to their conclusions.
With neither personal experience, nor statistical expertise to guide him, one has to wonder why Sullivan and his rightist ilk are so eager to laud The Bell Curve's proposition that blacks, as a group, are irredeemable intellectual inferiors. That conclusion invariably leads to the idea that any attempts to rectify or address discrimination will be pointless. Why are they so eager to label those who embrace this proposition as "race realists." "Race Reality" is a term akin to the Christian right's "Biblical Truth." It allows for no counter. "Truth" and "Reality" are inherently beyond the realm of logic, and thus will not support questioning. In essence the bow-tied right's embrace of The Bell Curve asks us to indulge in "faith-based revulsion."
The right cooed and rubbed The Bell Curve against its crotch because supposed "proof" of our inferiority justifies their contempt for us. It might erase the tinge they feel when, on seeing that the driver who cut them of is black, "nigger" instantly pops to mind. It might soothe the back-of-the-mind discomfort they get when the challenge from a black man seems far more dangerous or unacceptable than it would from a white one. Perhaps it would let them continue in the illusion of their own God-like perfection--immune from the animal distrust and fear that plagues the rest of us mere humans when confronted with someone of a different tribe. That way, their America remains perfect as well. Slavery? A fine use for them at the time. They were, after all, inferior. Jim Crow? That was a favor. They are, after all, inferior. Lesser heath care? No biggy, they are, after all, inferior. With proof of our "sub-ness," America shines just as bright--no moral taint on the old girl. All white men remain equal, as the Founders intended.
It's ironic that Sullivan is a great advocate of gay marriage. One can easily play The Bell Curve's game to suggest that gays are inherently and irredeemably promiscuous--or immoral, if you prefer. (Suggesting that promiscuity is equal to morality stretches things no farther than suggesting that IQ equals intelligence.) And gays being genetically promiscuous, marriage will do nothing to change our immoral behavior--so it would be pointless to offer it to them. Gays have no choice but to make a mockery of it.
After all, science is leading toward the conclusion that there are genetic markers for homosexuality--just as there are for race. Statistics show that gay men are, as a group, more promiscuous than straight men. So the "proof" is there. Gay men, as a group, are morally inferior to straight ones, just as blacks, as a group, are less intelligent than whites.
When Mr. Sullivan is prepared to defend himself from charges of inbred immorality--when he is ready to be embrace his status as a walking moral sewer due to his homosexuality, the rest of us will be willing to accept the The Bell Curve's equally dubious representations about blacks.
As Metcalf mentions, Sullivan is probably not a statistician. He would thus be unable to expertly judge the book's statistical methodology or validity. One also suspects that Sullivan has not spent his entire life in intimate proximity to a great cross section of black people. He probably hasn't a wealth of personal experience on which to rely in supporting his embrace of The Bell Curve's conclusions that black people are stupid. I take exception to the Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom's work because I do have a lifelong history of intimate relations with white people in cities and towns all across the country; and my three-plus decades of adult, intimate personal experience puts the lie to their conclusions.
With neither personal experience, nor statistical expertise to guide him, one has to wonder why Sullivan and his rightist ilk are so eager to laud The Bell Curve's proposition that blacks, as a group, are irredeemable intellectual inferiors. That conclusion invariably leads to the idea that any attempts to rectify or address discrimination will be pointless. Why are they so eager to label those who embrace this proposition as "race realists." "Race Reality" is a term akin to the Christian right's "Biblical Truth." It allows for no counter. "Truth" and "Reality" are inherently beyond the realm of logic, and thus will not support questioning. In essence the bow-tied right's embrace of The Bell Curve asks us to indulge in "faith-based revulsion."
The right cooed and rubbed The Bell Curve against its crotch because supposed "proof" of our inferiority justifies their contempt for us. It might erase the tinge they feel when, on seeing that the driver who cut them of is black, "nigger" instantly pops to mind. It might soothe the back-of-the-mind discomfort they get when the challenge from a black man seems far more dangerous or unacceptable than it would from a white one. Perhaps it would let them continue in the illusion of their own God-like perfection--immune from the animal distrust and fear that plagues the rest of us mere humans when confronted with someone of a different tribe. That way, their America remains perfect as well. Slavery? A fine use for them at the time. They were, after all, inferior. Jim Crow? That was a favor. They are, after all, inferior. Lesser heath care? No biggy, they are, after all, inferior. With proof of our "sub-ness," America shines just as bright--no moral taint on the old girl. All white men remain equal, as the Founders intended.
It's ironic that Sullivan is a great advocate of gay marriage. One can easily play The Bell Curve's game to suggest that gays are inherently and irredeemably promiscuous--or immoral, if you prefer. (Suggesting that promiscuity is equal to morality stretches things no farther than suggesting that IQ equals intelligence.) And gays being genetically promiscuous, marriage will do nothing to change our immoral behavior--so it would be pointless to offer it to them. Gays have no choice but to make a mockery of it.
After all, science is leading toward the conclusion that there are genetic markers for homosexuality--just as there are for race. Statistics show that gay men are, as a group, more promiscuous than straight men. So the "proof" is there. Gay men, as a group, are morally inferior to straight ones, just as blacks, as a group, are less intelligent than whites.
When Mr. Sullivan is prepared to defend himself from charges of inbred immorality--when he is ready to be embrace his status as a walking moral sewer due to his homosexuality, the rest of us will be willing to accept the The Bell Curve's equally dubious representations about blacks.
The Conservative Past Perfect
15/10/05 10:30
It's
hatred. There's no polite way to put it. When I
read old excerpts from the National Review in which
William F. Buckley proclaims the inferiority of
blacks, and white men's right to deny
them...anything--when I read this I feel hatred
toward this man, toward those who think like him,
and sometimes toward a country that has bred such
men. But then I remember that these are humans.
Millimeters away from chimps on the evolutionary
scale. Cerebral cortexes chock of full of lizard
parts still influencing their actions and reactions
in ways that they are loathe to admit.
And then I ask 'why their insistence on denying their flawed humanity, their human propensity toward prejudice, their ability to see those who look different from them as a foreign, suspicious "other."'
On the willingness among blacks to believe that their skin color impeded aid during Katrina, Buckley wrote:
Do you believe that a helicopter looking for men and women in desperation would give preferred treatment to someone whose hands flailed for help because those hands were white, not black? No doubt that consanguinity plays a role in human affinities (that’s why Ebony magazine features black models), but it is blasphemous to suppose that organized official aid discriminated in New Orleans against blacks.
This belief in the impossibility of race-based contempt from a man who once wrote:
The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is byno means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes', and intends to assert its own.
He once espoused a rabid, Klan-ish racism based on nothing but his contempt for those not of his tribe. (He admits that he cannot make a case for white cultural superiority. He simply believes it). Yet he finds it impossible to believe that black hands reaching for help would be treated differently from white ones. A paper by Vence Bonham in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics stated, "Research studies have identified inequalities in the treatment of black Americans for early stage lung cancer,[3] ischemic heart disease,[4] and access to invasive cardiac proceduress as well as cadaveric renal transplantations.[6] Studies have shown that a patient's race has a substantial effect on the treatment provided and the mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries[7] and veterans."
The same paper also cites a 1993 study that "found that Hispanics with isolated long bone fractures were twice as likely as similar non-Hispanic whites to receive no pain medication in the emergency department."
So doctors, trained to heal, can be less sensitive to a patient's pain due to ethnicity, yet FEMA apparatchniks cannot be less sensitive to people's pain due to their ethnicity.
I'm sorry. The logic doesn't follow.
So then I'm left to wonder why a man with a supposedly logical mind, would make so illogical a statement? And that led me to an understanding of what it means to be a modern conservative in America.
Look at the moralist Christian right and at the intellectual academic right. What binds them at the nexis of power seems to be a belief in--a desperate need to believe in--some perfection. God, the Constitution, America, Western Culture, White Men--they elevate one or all of these things to absolutes--grails that have been achieved and cannot be let loose. Any attempts to alter or refine the understanding of any of those things is blasphemous, as Buckley put it. One cannot suggest that God is fallible, or that the Constitution might be a living document, or that America or Western culture have flaws without being called a traitor, a blasphemer.
Some will suggest it is a sign of their humility and their morality--their belief in standards. I suggest it is a sign of their arrogance and solipsism. These objects of their own creation that they wield like whips to lash everyone who disagrees with them are simply reflections of their largely white, male selves. All of these absolutes of theirs -- they all reflect a time when there was no challenge to their absolute supremacy.
Conservatism is a belief in the past perfect. It is a desperate fear of the unknown future--a future outside their own creation. Thus they insist that we build the past out of nothing more than the past's recycled bricks. Conservatism is an absolute faith in the perfection of the world over which they've held sway and seek to preserve, the God who put them in charge of it, and those in whom God placed his charge--themselves.
And then I ask 'why their insistence on denying their flawed humanity, their human propensity toward prejudice, their ability to see those who look different from them as a foreign, suspicious "other."'
On the willingness among blacks to believe that their skin color impeded aid during Katrina, Buckley wrote:
Do you believe that a helicopter looking for men and women in desperation would give preferred treatment to someone whose hands flailed for help because those hands were white, not black? No doubt that consanguinity plays a role in human affinities (that’s why Ebony magazine features black models), but it is blasphemous to suppose that organized official aid discriminated in New Orleans against blacks.
This belief in the impossibility of race-based contempt from a man who once wrote:
The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is byno means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes', and intends to assert its own.
He once espoused a rabid, Klan-ish racism based on nothing but his contempt for those not of his tribe. (He admits that he cannot make a case for white cultural superiority. He simply believes it). Yet he finds it impossible to believe that black hands reaching for help would be treated differently from white ones. A paper by Vence Bonham in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics stated, "Research studies have identified inequalities in the treatment of black Americans for early stage lung cancer,[3] ischemic heart disease,[4] and access to invasive cardiac proceduress as well as cadaveric renal transplantations.[6] Studies have shown that a patient's race has a substantial effect on the treatment provided and the mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries[7] and veterans."
The same paper also cites a 1993 study that "found that Hispanics with isolated long bone fractures were twice as likely as similar non-Hispanic whites to receive no pain medication in the emergency department."
So doctors, trained to heal, can be less sensitive to a patient's pain due to ethnicity, yet FEMA apparatchniks cannot be less sensitive to people's pain due to their ethnicity.
I'm sorry. The logic doesn't follow.
So then I'm left to wonder why a man with a supposedly logical mind, would make so illogical a statement? And that led me to an understanding of what it means to be a modern conservative in America.
Look at the moralist Christian right and at the intellectual academic right. What binds them at the nexis of power seems to be a belief in--a desperate need to believe in--some perfection. God, the Constitution, America, Western Culture, White Men--they elevate one or all of these things to absolutes--grails that have been achieved and cannot be let loose. Any attempts to alter or refine the understanding of any of those things is blasphemous, as Buckley put it. One cannot suggest that God is fallible, or that the Constitution might be a living document, or that America or Western culture have flaws without being called a traitor, a blasphemer.
Some will suggest it is a sign of their humility and their morality--their belief in standards. I suggest it is a sign of their arrogance and solipsism. These objects of their own creation that they wield like whips to lash everyone who disagrees with them are simply reflections of their largely white, male selves. All of these absolutes of theirs -- they all reflect a time when there was no challenge to their absolute supremacy.
Conservatism is a belief in the past perfect. It is a desperate fear of the unknown future--a future outside their own creation. Thus they insist that we build the past out of nothing more than the past's recycled bricks. Conservatism is an absolute faith in the perfection of the world over which they've held sway and seek to preserve, the God who put them in charge of it, and those in whom God placed his charge--themselves.