The Re Collection

Attytood: A plea to America’s news directors and editors: Cancel Bush’s “Fear Factor”

So why does the media fall for bogus or misleading terror stories, Charlie-Brown-football-like, time after time? One answer is clearly: It works. The aftermath of 9/11 was the high water mark for cable news in terms of ratings, and it’s hard to let go of that. A newspaper like the New York Daily News, which broke the vague “financial district plot” last week, was surely glad to “scoop” the New York Times on the terror beat. What’s more, there is the acceptance of the notion that combating terrorism is indeed “a war,” which merits amped up “war coverage.”

But news outlets have another. more important role: To be responsible. Terror fears have warped the American political debate, from clearing the way for an unjust war in Iraq to papering over White House scandals. That type of influence is something that goes well beyond ratings. CNN would also get lots more viewers if Carol Costello or Anderson Cooper read the news in the buff, but that wouldn’t be very appropriate. Scaring the American public needlessly, we’d argue, is a much greater sin.

The Top 10 Power Brokers of the Religious Right

The United States is home to dozens of Religious Right groups. Many have small budgets and focus on state and local issues; the most powerful organizations conduct nationwide operations, command multi-million-dollar bank accounts and attract millions of followers. They have disproportionate clout in the halls of Congress, the White House and the courts, and they wield enormous influence within the political system.

What follows is a list of the nation’s Top Ten Religious Right groups, as determined by publicly available financial data and political prominence. Additional information describes the organizations’ leaders, funding and activities.

“When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.” - Huey Long

In 2003, the Free Inquiry magazine published an article by Lawrence Britt, called “Fascism, Anyone?” in which he detailed 14 characteristics of fascist states.

The article has been much copied, as you will see by doing a Google search. With good reason, with concern as we lose one liberty after another, and money controls every institution in the culture.

You’re not supposed to call Bush and company fascists, though. It’s mean. Or so the bought-off politicians and pundits say. So I just say, go through this list and see how many you can check off with the situation in the US today.

Let’s just say I’m inquiring…that’s still free, right

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

[details with each characteristic available in full article]

The anniversary of one’s birth is a good time to whip out the old photo album and take stock of one’s relationships and accomplishments. So, let’s review the last few years of your sorry life, shall we?

Daily Kos: We Declare, 2006
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for we the people to reject our representative leaders, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we declare the causes that impel us to our discontent.

I don’t usually post about Democratic Party machinations, but this is a giddy day in Netrootsland.

Booman’s take: Lieberman Jumps Ship

Joe Lieberman jumped ship today. He pledged to run for reelection to his Connecticut Senate seat even if he loses the August 8th [Democratic Party] primary. Lieberman is engaged in some kind of verbal jujitsu, wherein he denies that an independent, unaffiliated run for the Senate against a Democrat and a Republican would prevent him from running as a Democrat. He claims he will merely be a ‘petitioning Democrat’.

Not so. The party must and will support Ned Lamont. […]

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that Lieberman has just guaranteed that he will lose the primary. […]

The question then becomes, who will win in November? Lamont, Lieberman, or Republican Alan Schlesinger?[…] Too close to call. I doubt anyone will top 40%.

One thing I am sure of. The Netroots just flexed their muscles and Lieberman blinked. This is our first, real, tangible victory. Joe Lieberman has been forced out of the party. He will lose the primary. If we have to grudgingly accept him back into the fold in November, so be it. I hope the good people of Connecticut will not make the wrong decision.

I think it’s fair to say that today I rejoice with all my Netroots community, those who still have hope in the Dems, and those who work in other ways for progressive goals. Buh-bye, Joe; don’t let the gurney hit you on the way out.

Media Matters - “Media Matters”; by Paul Waldman

This week, the conservatives declared war.

Not on The New York Times. Not even on the media in general. No, this week the entire conservative movement — from the White House to Republicans in Congress to Fox News to right-wing talk radio to conservative magazines — declared war on the very idea of an independent press.

They declared war on the idea that journalists have not just the right but the obligation to hold those in power accountable for their actions. They declared war on the idea that journalists, not the government and not a political party, get to decide what appears in the press. They declared war on the idea that the public has a right to know what the government is doing in our name.

This is a profound threat to our democracy, and we underestimate it at our peril.

[snip]

Given the constant drumbeat of criticism directed at the media from conservatives, it might be easy to dismiss this latest expulsion of bile as just more of the same. But it’s worth stepping back to take a look at exactly what has occurred over the past week. Members of Congress have suggested revoking the Capitol Hill credentials of journalists, so that only news organizations that do not displease the ruling party may be permitted to report from Congress. Other members have accused members of the media of “treason” and advocated their prosecution. A conservative television and radio personality suggested that the government establish an Office of Censorship to screen the news. Another said, “I would have no problem with [New York Times editor Bill Keller] being sent to the gas chamber.” The House of Representatives passed a resolution saying it “expects the cooperation of all news media organizations.”

In short, the right assembled a posse this week — vigilantes stalking television studios, radio airwaves, print, and the Internet, their apparent goal to revoke the First Amendment.

[snip]

And journalists could barely summon the energy to defend not just their colleagues, but their profession — let alone the citizens they are supposed to serve. At the same time that they were being subjected to this assault, they continued to view the political world through a lens created by the very people battering them mercilessly.

From Stranger at Blah3:
Blah3 - Dear Media: You’ve been played like a ‘59 GoldTop. Now what?

Listen up, Rubes. You think that for the past six years you’ve been part of their crowd, but you haven’t. You got suckered, flim-flammed, taken in, jacked, jobbed and jerked around. They took your lunch money. They came in your mouth after promising they wouldn’t.

They used you, and now they want to jail you.

Barbra O’Brien of Mahablog guest blogs at Unclaimed Territory and introduces her series on saving democracy through media activism. I can’t wait to read the rest of it.

She says what I’ve been saying (though much better, of course) for a long time: That fixing the media in this country is THE most important thing for progressives to do.

Cultured

The ascension of the radical Right occurred over many years, and their takeover of government — a slow-motion coup d’état — happened gradually enough that most of us didn’t comprehend what was happening. America has been challenged by radicalism before, and always it has come back to the center soon enough. (And by “center” I mean the real center, where liberalism and conservatism balance, not the false “center” of today that would have been considered extreme conservatism in saner times.) I do not believe the coup is a fait accompli; the Right is not yet so secure it its power that it has dropped all pretense of honoring democratic political process. They’re still going through the motions, in other words. But this time I do not believe America will come back to the center unless a whole lot of us grab hold and pull at it. Hard.

How do we do that? First, we have to get our bearings and remember what “normal” is, which is going to be hard for the young folks whose memories don’t back back further than the Reagan Administration. Just take it from an old lady — what we got now ain’t normal.

Second, I argue that media reform is essential to all other necessary political reform. Until people outside the radical Right and the elite media-political establishment are able to take part in the nation’s political discourse, not much can be accomplished.

For example, many progressives have concluded it is pointless to support Democrats, because as soon as a Democrat gets inside the Beltway his spinal column is ripped right out of him. Time and time again, we’ve seen Democratic politicians make grand speeches to their liberal constituents, but once we get them elected they do little more than offer ineffectual objections to the ruling right-wing power juggernaut. At best. At worst, they vote with the Right out of some screwy notions about political expediency. And we’re all sick of this.

But I say that progressivism’s salvation will not come from any political leader or party, Democrat or otherwise. Progressivism will only be saved when we can effect change in our political culture so that progressive ideas can get a fair public hearing. And this brings us to the necessity of media reform. [emphasis added]

When A Net Neutrality Tie Is A Win | TPMCafe
The news stories following the Senate Commerce Committee vote on Net Neutrality pictured it as a defeat for the forces of good. Don’t believe it. Even though the Net Neutrality amendment failed on a tie vote, we got ourselves into a good position for the rest of the game.

Or, you know, more legalistically:

SCOTUSblog: Hamdan Summary — And HUGE News
[…] the Court held that Congress had, by statute, required that the commissions comply with the laws of war — and held further that these commissions do not (for various reasons).

I’ve been in such a funk, depressed by the news at every turn. This makes me feel a little better.

Update from the There May Be a God After All department:
Think Progress » Supreme Court Decision on Gitmo Undermines Bush’s Legal Case For Warrantless Wiretapping

The impact of today’s Supreme Court decision on military commissions goes well beyond Guantanamo. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force – issued by Congress in the days after 9/11 – is not a blank check for the administration.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald explains the decicion in more accessible language, but his post is a downer, because he basically articulates my first reaction: What’s to make the Cheney administration actually follow this ruling when they don’t follow laws they don’t like, and don’t care who objects.

But his summary is upbeat:

Nonetheless, opponents of monarchical power should celebrate this decision. It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President’s claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded. [Emphasis mine]

For me, it all comes back to the media (and the tide of public opinion it can influence), and whether they will stand up on this one, finally. Or whether Spector will find some balls. Don’t hold your breath on either.

Update 3: Happpy meter swings down with Digby. Back to my original news gloom.

Update 4: Glenn responds to Digby (and others) with sunshine and light, and I’m calling it for GG, who’s been studying and writing exclusively on Presidential powers for a while now. And he is one lawyer I trust.

Final Update: Christy at Firedoglake gleans the web for reactions, celebrations, warnings so I don’t have to.

Van Taylor wants you to know
Van is mad at Murtha for something he didn’t actually say. The Miami Sun-Sentinel misquoted him and no one checked the quote (sounds like bloggers have taken over, doesn’t it?) before running with it.

Van Taylor, the Republican candidate for the District 17 House seet, and the only R candidate who is an Iraq vet, is joining the swiftboating of John Murtha for his poistion on the war.

Of course the whole campaign is politically motivated and fueled by lies and distortion — else it wouldn’t be “swiftboating” but of course we can’t count on the media to clarify things for voters.

Fortunately, there’s a local blogger who takes on this task for the district. Nate Nance publishes the blog Common Sense, and tirelessly covers this race. If you live in this area, you should bookmark Common Sense and check it regularly. If you have local news that Nate might be interested in writing about, he’s got his email posted. And of course, use his comments to get a local dialog started — a civil, respectfull one, of course, regardless of your political persuasion..

An interesting storyline has developed, with Hillary hiring a prominent blogger. What does it mean? What triumphs or disasters does it bode? I expect the arc to last at least through the 2008 elections, but we could get a pretty good idea of the plot with the upcoming mid-terms.

And I use the word “interesting” advisedly, in the way it was used in the old Chinese curse: May your children live in interesting times.

Cenk Uygur has a take on it at HuffPost, and he knows Hillary’s new consultant personally, so has an emotional spin on the problem he, the consultant faces.

Steve Guillard has worked for a political campaign in the past, and, well, has a rather strong opinion about the experience: “I’d rather set myself on fire and run through a gas station first.”

At this point in the political state of this republic, the blogger involved getting burned is the least of our worries

From the Daily Gotham:

It’s official : Hillary Clinton is running for president
To make this a real democratic movement, we will need to walk away from the wannabe king-makers and really invest our time and energies into advocacy organizations and citizen networks. We need to get people and advocates together in the same online communities, email lists, forums and chat rooms as well as the meetups, rallies and door-to-door friendraisings.

We need to bring everyday citizens who don’t have time to work as activists or write as pundits but want to do more, contribute more personally (not just financially), to the causes they care the most. We need to make it easy for regular folks to be engaged in the political process.

With the death of the liberal blogosphere hopefully we will see a true progressive movement arise online and off.

To be continued….

Atrios:
Stand up now.

Update: Glenn Greenwald explains why.

I’m a big fan of Kathy Griffin. Love her Bravo specials and her reality show, My Life on the D List is just a hoot. She pokes good natured fun at celebs, and gives a boost to gays, political dissidents, and is generally brash and irreverent, which gets me at hello, as they say. Plus, she’s brave as hell, going to Iraq to entertain and visit with the troops, despite her opposition to the war.

I don’t watch her show religiously, but I’ve caught a couple of recent episodes and, while she was funny as ever, I was startled by Kathy’s appearance, especially her eyes.

Well, turns out that Kathy had lasik procedure that went bad, or was botched by a famous LA surgeon. She went through a lot of pain and has lost most of the vision in one eye.

A really sad story. As Kathy warns on her site: lasik=bad.

Larry Beinhart says we should just “Give George Bush His War”

George Bush wants the war. He wants it to be his issue. Yes. Yes, please, let him have it. Let it be all his. But it has to be all his. I heard Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on the radio and he said that it was time to get out of Iraq because it had gone on too long, with too many deaths, at too great an expense. Frankly, it sounded weak and wishy-washy. It sounded like the problem was that he - and the Democrats - just didn’t have the stomach for a long, tough fight. Which is how the Republicans want it to sound. That’s not the position to take. Nor is it the issue. The position to take is that it’s not America’s war at all. The issue is that it’s George Bush’s war. His own, personal, private obsession.

I doubt we will ever see Bush pay appropriately for his crimes, but I do think now that we will see him have to stew in widespread contempt from his fellow Americans once he is out of office and the full force of his distastrous presidency is felt. It is bound to be a dark time of much suffering, but any shame or embarrassment felt by George, assuming he is even capable of it, will be a little light in that darkness.

Awesome rant from a professional restaurant server, giving the commandments of eating out:

best of craigslist : RANT: The Dining Public. Rules of the Road.

Hattip to First Draft.

Brent Budowsky predicts the outcome of the elections this year. He thinks America will win.

The Washington insiders don’t get it, but its really simple, this election is not about ten point plans, or public relations, or competing sets of consultants dishing baloney and calling it leadership. This election, which I believe will be an epic moment that will be written about by historians for generations to come, is about restoring our faith in each other, restoring that spirit that we all share a common purpose and a common patriotism. When we get that spirit right, we will get our institutions right, with a renewed respect for our Bill of Rights, reviving our checks and balances, remembering that truth is reached when an informed citizenry engages all three branches of government as the Founders intended.

[…]

The bell has begun to toll for the dark and partisan vision of one party government in America; I predict the experts and pundits will be stunned and shocked when the voice of the American people, which is not heard or heeded at the dinner parties and gala dinners and insider lunches in official Washington, is fired like a cannon announcing the revival of the American idea.

In many campaigns across this country this year, you hear of candidates running as fast as they can from the disaster in Iraq and the president who got us into it. But not in Bush Country.

Van Taylor, a Iraq War vet who wants to unseat Democrat Chet Edwards, must not have got the memo, or doesn’t think the folks around here are feeling the way Americans elsewhere are. He’s running hard on his vet status, and says he will be a War Senator, so sorely needed to help Bush, the War President. This rather curious stategy is probably his only recourse, though, since he has no other discernable qualifications for office and isn’t even from around here — apparently something pretty important to the locals (I’m new myself and that’s what I hear — I think it has something to do with college football).

Today’s Waco Trib included the following guest editorial by Waco resident Hal Ritter on Taylor’s battle plan for getting elected in George W. Bush’s congressional district. Ritter doesn’t seem to think Taylor’s paying attention either.

Interestingly, though the Trib found the piece worthy of publishing on their editorial page, they did not think it quite worthwhile enough to make available on their web site. Since their guest column is basically a long letter to the editor that got promoted, and all the lte’s are printed — even the absolutely idiotic ones that blame CBS for the death of their Iraq crew — this makes no sense whatsoever. But then this is Waco; they do things there own damn way down here, in case you haven’t heard. At any rate, I paste in full, with no link, and no apology to the Trib.

So now warriors are needed?

Why is Van Taylor’s military past more important than others? (more…)

Another beautiful essay entitled “Pass the Bread” from Bill Moyers, in which he continues to try to explain America to himself, and to us.

I love this quote from it:

All of us have to choose sides on this journey. But the question is not so much who we are going to fight against as it is which side of our own nature will we nurture: The side that can grow weary and even cynical and believe that everything is futile, or the side that for all the vulgarity, brutality, and cruelty, yearns to affirm, connect and signify.

But what’s the bit with bread? Well, he tells a story about how a truly good man gets to heaven and asks God and the angels for a ruttered roll each morning, as his reward.

Moyers adds:

Bread is the great re-enforcer of the reality principle. Bread is life. But if you’re like me you have a thousand and more times repeated the ordinary experience of eating bread without a thought for the process that brings it to your table. The reality is physical: I need this bread to live. But the reality is also social: I need others to provide the bread. I depend for bread on hundreds of people I don’t know and will never meet. If they fail me, I go hungry. If I offer them nothing of value in exchange for their loaf, I betray them.

and:

Civilization sustains and supports us. The core of its value is bread. But bread is its great metaphor. All my life I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer, and I’ve never prayed, “Give me this day my daily bread.” It is always, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Bread and life are shared realities. They do not happen in isolation. Civilization is an unnatural act. We have to make it happen, you and I, together with all the other strangers. And because we and strangers have to agree on the difference between a horse thief and a horse trader, the distinction is ethical. Without it, a society becomes a war against all, and a market for the wolves becomes a slaughter for the lambs.

This points, in the sweetest and subtlest way by Moyers, to the greatest uncivilized and unethical acts of our times, and how we, collectively are responsible. What is most uncivilized and unethical about these acts, or the policy these aggregate acts comprise, is that they are done while droning on and on about faith, community, and most aggregious of all, hope.

An evil cast of characters star in both scandals, and Greg Grandin capsulizes the whole ugly mess.

Highly recommended.

Texas is raising the speed limit to 80 mph on some roads because that’s what 85% of drivers are going anyway.

Many Texans are all over this immigration debate, outraged that folks from countries south of us are coming into the US without papers, or “illegally.”

So, I suggest that instead of creating yet more fuel inefficiency (among other disadvantages of faster driving), that these “illegal drivers” be returned home, forced to stay there, have their vehicle taken away, and be stiffly fined.

TomDispatch presents a fascinating, troubling and infuriating overview of the Intelligence Community (IC) in the US.

[… T]he real story of American intelligence is simply growth and bureaucratic infighting. The Bush administration, supposedly made up of “conservatives” who loath (and once endlessly railed against) “big government,” have ensured that, like the Pentagon, the IC, already an entangled monstrosity when they arrived, would experience its greatest growth spurt in memory, becoming an ever more bloated example of hopeless big government.

[snip]

Even if all its competing parts really did add up to a “community” — rather than a group of warring, bureaucratic mini-states on a collective proliferation mission — what kind of “intelligence” could possibly come out of such a conglomerate entity?

[snip]

An update from Firedoglake, fast becoming my favorite blog.

Ever since Pach launched his broadside against the War on Terror and the cover it has provided for a whole host of executive sins, the comments section on that post has looked like Chickamauga: The Morning After.

Wingnuttia came unglued. …

Jane quotes Kung Fu Monkey on ths subject:

The problem is, these yahoos have managed an ugly trick. They have turned criticism of the policies of Bastards in Suits into criticism of The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. […] . If the history of modern warfare has taught us anything, it’s that the Bastards in Suits spend an awful lot of time working the kinks out of plans involving The People in Uniform dying unpleasantly. They often screw that up. When they do screw up, it is incumbent upon Bastards in Suits to suffer criticism and fix the situation, as by comparison The People in Uniform are suffering shattered skulls, missing limbs and death. Which is, on my scale, exponentially more traumatic than criticism.

And Digby summarizes for us:

[I]t is long past time for people to start the public counter argument, which has the benefit of appealing to common sense. Many Americans are emerging from the relentless hail of propaganda that overtook the nation after the traumatic events of 9/11. Iraq confused people for a while, but that confusion is leaving in its wake a rather startling clarity: the “war” as the government defines it is bullshit. It will take a while for this common sense to become conventional wisdom, but it certainly won’t happen if nobody is willing to say it out loud.

This WOT insanity must end. We are losing everything to it, everything civil and decent about our culture and society. It is almost too late. Wake the fuck up, people! Open your eyes and step into the light.

Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Memorial Day Truth: There Is No “War on Terror”

Terror is an emotion. Emotions are part of human nature and cannot be eradicated. A “War on Terror” is therefore a war on humanity. The Bush administration has exploited the fear and shock of a nation in the wake of a surprising and dramatic act of violence to whip national fear and paranoia into a constant boil. Why?

The evidence suggests the whole point has been to seize power and steal money. We are witnessing a creeping coup in the United States, the overthrow of the idea, promulgated by our founders and by writers like Tom Paine, that the “Law is King:”

[…]

Bushco has enslaved Americans into a psychological reign of “War on Terror” that amounts to a criminal protection racket. We are told we must be afraid. That is, we are told we must live in terror. This is to protect us from. . . terror. Then, because we feel terrified, we must give up our freedom - freedom to write what we believe without fear of reprisal, freedom of due process and habeas corpus protection, freedom from secret intrusion into our private lives by government.

Today is Memorial Day. Today we remember countless patriots who died and fought for those freedoms our president tells us we must abandon. . . in the name of “freedom.”

A worthwhile read. I agree with Pachacutec. A commenter also provides an illustrative quote from history:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

— Herman Goering, at the Nuremberg trials

Myself, I am not afraid of terrorists. The numbers game alone, is in my favor; and anyway, they can only kill me — and still they will not achieve their goal. But Bushco and the neocons can make my life unhappy — and we do have a right to pursue happiness, remember — by restricing my freedoms and lessening my safety. Here’s another pertinent quote that should be applied: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Update: John Avarosis weighs in.