One Foot in the Grave

Yesterday, I wrote about a campaign of BS by the right that may rival the propaganda campaign that led us into Iraq. The goal of that campaign is offshore drilling. Almost nothing that's being said by the right has been true -- offshore drilling isn't environmentally safe, China's not already drilling off Cuba, and it won't bring down gas prices.

When I write a post, I often collect more information than I actually need, which means that some examples aren't used in the posts. Usually, these unused stories turn out to be too insane to be representative. It may be tempting to compare some antigay dumbass to Fred Phelps, for example, but it may not be apt. It's kind of like comparing any old right wing zombie to Hitler -- I guess I believe that Godwin's law should be expanded. Similarities are not equations; bad may be bad, but there are degrees of bad, just as there are degrees of BS.

I bring this up to introduce you to a particular group of phonies known as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Right Wing Watch:

A gathering led by Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality, Bishop Harry Jackson of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, and the new group Americans for American Energy held a press conference yesterday demanding increased “American Energy” production. Their contentions were twofold: that high energy costs disproportionately harm low-income families, and that increased domestic oil drilling would solve the problem. Standing in the way: the “elitist Volvo-driving” environmentalists. Watch:

Although CORE was once a prominent civil rights group, after Niger Innis’s father, Roy, took control in 1968, he led it to the far right, honoring Karl Rove at its Martin Luther King dinner, backing extreme Bush judges, and defending oil companies. According to a Mother Jones article, “Innis has been accused by founder James Farmer and other black leaders of renting out CORE’s historic reputation to corporations like Monsanto and ExxonMobil. (CORE even mounted a counterprotest to environmentalists picketing an ExxonMobil shareholders’ meeting.)”

There's a war on the poor -- by environmentalists. Really? Seems to me that enmity of the poor is a cornerstone of modern Republicanism. After all, it's been the right wing's love of deregulation and hatred of corporate accountability that's screwed the economy. No one's losing their home because some environmentalist is foreclosing on them.

-Continued after the jump-


It was Al Gore's speech on energy yesterday, along with a string of news stories I've been following, that got me thinking about the firebreathing BS vendors above. It turns out that the right wing either doesn't understand the way capitalism works or pretends they don't. We're told that addressing climate change and energy will ruin the economy. It will. In fact, it'll completely destroy it. But capitalism is as destructive as it is progressive. In moving forward, capitalism destroys old industries and markets, replacing them with new ones. It'll destroy the old economic structure while it builds a new one. The structure of the economy in the next ten years won't look anything like it does today. But, of course, that's always been true. The question isn't whether the old structure should be kept alive, but whether the new structure will be as sound. There's no reason to believe it won't be. In fact, since the current energy market relies on crap we have to go find, a new market based on renewables would likely be much more stable in the long run.

Niger Innis and Bishop Jackson aren't representing the poor, they're representing a dying market. They're lobbyists for the buggywhip industry. They're arguing against the steam engine so that sawmills with water wheels won't have to close. They're trying to sell horseshoes in a world that increasingly travels on tires.

They make the mistake that conservatism is almost doomed to make -- they believe that change is bad, unless that change is a reversal. Modern conservatives don't stand for change, unless that change is backward, to the way things used to be.

But, as I said, capitalism is destructive. It destroys old industries and markets, replacing them with new markets and new industries. It sucks for the buggywhip industry, but it's good for everyone else and inevitable regardless. In fact, not only is the world moving away from oil, it's moving away from coal. The fossil fuel industry is, somewhat appropriately, becoming a dinosaur. In fact, it's the fossil fuel industry that's waging a war on workers.

Environmental News Network:

A transition to renewable energy sources promises significant global job gains at a time when the coal industry has been hemorrhaging jobs for years, according to the latest Vital Signs Update released by the Worldwatch Institute.

The coal, oil, and natural gas industries require steadily fewer jobs as high-cost production equipment takes the place of human capital. Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa during the last two decades, sometimes in the face of expanding production. In the United States alone, coal industry employment has fallen by half in the last 20 years, despite a one-third increase in production.

"Renewables are poised to tackle our energy crisis and create millions of new jobs worldwide," according to Worldwatch Senior Researcher Michael Renner. "Meanwhile, fossil fuel jobs are increasingly becoming fossils themselves, as coal mining communities and others worry about their livelihoods."

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) agrees. In a recent study, UNEP reported that more than 148 billion dollars had been invested in renewable energy markets worldwide. The report referred to this as a "green energy gold rush."

"Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern-day prospectors in all parts of the globe," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said.

"What is unfolding is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the world's energy infrastructure."

And it couldn't come at a better time because -- speaking of a "war on the poor" -- climate change is about to screw us royally. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a study that totally undermines the right wing's insistence that change means disaster. To the contrary, not changing means disaster.

"Climate change poses real risk to human health and the human systems that support our way of life in the United States," according to the EPA's Joel Scheraga. The report warns of "a likely increase in food and water-borne germs as the world warms and habitat ranges expand for some disease-causing organisms." This will increase the hardships of which group?

That's right, the poor.

"Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured," Scheraga warns. Environmentalism isn't waging a war on the poor, it's waging a war on the poor's behalf. Meanwhile, capitalism is doing what it always does -- moving forward and leaving destroyed, obsolete industries and markets in its wake.

What the oil and coal industries -- along with their shills in that video -- want isn't capitalism at all. What they want is protection from capitalism. What they want is to use the power of government to extend the life of their markets artificially. There's no logical reason why they should get it.

"I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources within 10 years," Gore said yesterday.

At the opposite end of the political spectrum, major Bush-backer T. Boone Pickens agrees -- the old generation ways are going the way of the hoop skirt and mustache wax. "For a number of years I’ve watched the wind turbines develop -- and I feel like it’s time for it," Pickens told NPR last month. "I think that oil has peaked at 85 million barrels in the world. We’ve got to develop other forms of energy -- wind, I think solar will be next, and I hope I’m still around to be in the solar deal."

If you're a little lost on the connection between oil and energy production, you could be excused. After all, we don't really burn oil to create electricity. But the future will likely belong to the battery, not the gas tank, and that energy has to come from someplace. Replacing oil with batteries without addressing coal is just switching from oil to coal to get around. Environmentally speaking, this is almost no change.

There is no war on the poor waged by environmentalists. That claim is ridiculous on its face. Chaining people to this creaky and dying market is much more harmful. But, of course, truth isn't the object here. The object is to create an artifical market for a dying industry. These transparent apologist for Exxon represent the last gasp of the buggy whip vendors.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; energy; wind; solar; renewables; Al Gore; T. Boone Pickens; corporations; economy; Capitalism killed the buggywhip industry and it'll kill the oil and coal industries as well

One Last Desperate Campaign of Lies

By all accounts, the Republican party is headed toward electoral doom in November. The GOP is almost certain to lose big in the House and there are some who are predicting a filibuster-proof dem majority in the Senate. McCain's campaign is struggling to get traction, throwing the White House in doubt as well. Two terms of George W. Bush have left the party a smoking ruin.

As good as that news may seem for Democrats and liberals, there is a downside to all of this -- lame ducks have nothing to lose. Given the prospects of two Democrat-controlled branches in '09, there is no consequence at the ballot box for serving your home constituency poorly. When you're going to lose no matter what, you're free to serve your national constituency -- and, for the GOP, that's corporations.

As a result of this lemonade-from-electoral-lemons calculus, we find ourselves in the middle of a propaganda push that may be rivaled only by the BS campaign that drove us into Iraq. And, like that Iraq hard sell, the underlying subject is oil or, more specifically, serving oil companies. Faced with record high gas prices (mostly as a result of their idiotic policies), Republicans see an opportunity. They've put forth an energy plan that can be summed up in one word, "drill." And, to get those drills spinning, they've begun a campaign of the purest, most refined BS.

Think Progress:

To support the Big Oil agenda of increased offshore drilling, conservatives have been telling the American public that there weren’t any major spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for an entire month. The following video shows Sen. McCain (R-AZ), Wall Street Journal writer Stephen Moore, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, McCain spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer, former Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), and Sen. McCain (again).

[...]

All of these people are polluter-funded, from McCain on down. As Idaho governor, Kempthorne served the interests of the energy industries that funded him. Nancy Pfotenhauer was the top D.C. lobbyist for the right-wing energy company Koch Industries, and Lott is now a lobbyist for Chevron, Shell, and the Edison Chouest Offshore drilling rig company. Stephen Moore, like Pfotenhauer, received his economics degree from George Mason University, before working at the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, then founding the Club for Growth and the Free Enterprise Fund. George Mason, Heritage, and the Cato Institute are all funded by Koch money.

-Continued after the jump-


Of course, there have been oil spills. A lot of them. In fact, New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici was told -- on FOX News of all places -- the exact number. When foxbot Elizabeth MacDonald told him that "a lot of oil spills occurred on those oil platforms" following hurricanes Rita and Katrina, Domenici told her, "Not so! Not so! Don’t [let] 'em give you that baloney. There were none!"

MacDonald answered, "No, there were 124."

Undaunted, Domenici later peddled the Republican propaganda line that China's drilling off Cuba. Again, MacDonald corrected him again. But, in the end, this is FOX. After an interview filled with lies, MacDonald closed the segment with "We’re about telling the truth on this network, and that’s why we want you to come back."

If you're hearing bitter laughter, that's me.

McClatchy Newspapers tells us, "Senate Republicans have dropped the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from their energy policy discussions, focusing instead on persuading Democrats to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling." The length of the fight over ANWR took a toll on the Republican position. In the long debate, they lost ground to reality and a stiff opposition from citizen and environmental groups. They seem to be determined not to allow that to happen in the offshore drilling debate -- like the pre-invasion non-debate about Iraq, they're trying to shove the issue forward with lies and a phony sense of urgency. "Now, now, now!!" is the basic message.

But, if the problem of high gas prices is an urgent one, offshore drilling isn't anything close to a solution. "If we were to drill today, realistically speaking, we should not expect a barrel of oil coming out of this new resource for three years, maybe even five years, so let's not kid ourselves," Fadel Gheit, oil and gas analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. Equity Capital Markets Division, told CNN Monday. Need lower gas prices? Offshore drilling isn't the answer.

But if the GOP has put ANWR lower on the list of priorities, they haven't given up on it entirely. And, since they're the BS propaganda-driven modern Republican party, the main tool in that fight is untruth as well. House Republicans plan a trip to ANWR and House Majority Leader John Boehner used the occasion to tell a ridiculous lie. "We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife," Boehner told reporters. "But I understand there’s none there."

That's right, Boehner would have us believe that there's no wildlife at a national wildlife refuge. I'm torn on whether this is hilarious or infuriating. I guess it's both; hilarious in its absurdity and infuriatingly insulting to my intelligence. It's like telling someone there aren't any animals at the zoo. If you ever need an example of just how stupid Republicans think voters are, just point people Boehner's way -- he thinks you're a freakin' moron.

Think Progress tells us, "Boehner would likely be less skeptical if he just visited the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s website for the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which notes that it is 'renowned for its wildlife' and is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, 36 species of fish and 180 species of birds. View photos of some of the wildlife here."

How ridiculous is it that TP has to prove there are wildlife at a wildlife refuge? But if the ANWR lies are amazingly shameless and jawdroppingly crazy, the lies about offshore drilling are no better. You'd think they were unaware of the idea that facts can be verified and lies can be disproved. And no Republican seems to be above telling these lies, even the "straight talker," John McCain. In a speech to Houston oilmen, McCain told the audience, "As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston."

You could say he wasn't actually lying to his audience -- after all, they were oil industry bigwigs, they knew it wasn't true and McCain didn't expect them to believe it. No, McCain was lying on behalf of his audience -- to the TV cameras and newspaper reporters covering the event and, in turn, to you at home. Straight talkin' John McCain lied to you that day. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.

And that's because even McCain has nothing to lose. He may not win the presidency, but he's not going to lose his senate seat. In fact, there's a good chance that this is the last election campaign he'll ever run. After November, expect a few announcements of retirements, as GOP Senators and Representatives are unwilling to spend the last few years of their careers fighting hopeless and losing battles to overwhelming Democratic majorities. It's too much work, too little pay. They'll do what they always do -- move into the industries they actually represent and become high-powered lobbyists -- or retire for good and all.

As I said, this may be the biggest BS campaign since the pre-Iraq propaganda push. Like that campaign, it's a complete fabrication designed to push an agenda that serves only the wealthy and the corporations. It won't do a damned thing for you.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; environment; gas; gas prices; propaganda; Pete Domenici; John Boehner; ANWR; offshore drilling; John McCain and the Republican party don't serve you, they serve oil

"I Know How to Win Wars"

I've written before that a good way to spot a bad argument is to look for declarations. When someone throws out a claim without any proof, then there's a good chance that they're pulling stuff out of their butt. FOX News offers an excellent example with their reliance on the term "some people say." It allows them to cite a source for their assertions that's so vague that it might as well not exist -- in some cases, it doesn't. "Some people say Barack Obama's not patriotic," a foxbot will tell us and we're up in the air over how reliable these "some people" are. Are these "some people" the guys around the FOX watercooler? Show me an argument that hinges on a declaration and I'll show you a poorly crafted chunk of BS.

Keeping that in mind, we can look at a speech John McCain gave yesterday to a crowd in New Mexico and conclude that he was shoveling it deep. "I know how to win wars. I know how to win wars," Baghdad Johnny told an audience in Albuquerque. "And if I'm elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory, I know how to do that."

There's a slight problem with this declaration of competency on McCain's part -- we haven't actually won the war in Iraq. McCain's big idea was the surge. Now he apparently has nuthin'. That's it. If this is how you win a war, where's the big win? When it comes to Iraq, McCain hammers the argument that "the surge worked." Fine, for the sake of argument, let's let him have that one. The surge worked.

Now what?

-Continued after the jump-


Ask that question -- which, of course, no one has bothered to ask -- and you'd probably hear crickets. McCain's argument for his continued occupation is rooted entirely in the past. It should bother people that he doesn't talk about what we will do, but what we have done. In the times he talks about the future, he uses declarations. "We will win" is not a plan. And John McCain, based on what I've read on his Iraq policy page, doesn't actually have a plan -- he has his declarations. If McCain "knows how to win wars," why isn't he sharing that info with us, is it a secret plan? We're treading water here, what would Baghdad Johnny do differently?

Even his plans for the broader "War on Terror" aren't so much plans as they are hopes.

Reuters:

McCain received a standing ovation from the crowd when he vowed to get elusive al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden if elected. "When I am commander-in-chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide," he said.

Where have we heard that before? If declarations aren't an argument, then neither are baseless promises. Like pretty much everything McCain's talked about in his campaign, he's heavy on the promises and light on the specifics. Bush has been playing this game for years and we've got jack to show for it. We kind of need a little more than vague forecasting, a peek into the Team McCain crystal ball. We need something that approximates some kind of a plan. McCain's strategy is identical to Bush's -- wishing makes it so. There is no plan, just declarations that we'll "win" -- whatever the hell that means...

Another speech on the issue of Iraq and Afghanistan was made yesterday by Barack Obama. No matter what you think of Obama's plan for those conflicts, you have to admit he won the argument -- mostly by being the only one of the two to actually have one.

Calling Iraq a distraction, Obama proposed pulling forces out of that useless occupation and putting them in Afghanistan. Citing the Marshall Plan, Obama told the audience:

Such a strategy would join overwhelming military strength with sound judgment. It would shape events not just through military force, but through the force of our ideas; through economic power, intelligence and diplomacy. It would support strong allies that freely shared our ideals of liberty and democracy; open markets and the rule of law. It would foster new international institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the World Bank, and focus on every corner of the globe. It was a strategy that saw clearly the world's dangers, while seizing its promise.

As a general, Marshall had spent years helping FDR wage war. But the Marshall Plan -- which was just one part of this strategy -- helped rebuild not just allies, but also the nation that Marshall had plotted to defeat. In the speech announcing his plan, he concluded not with tough talk or definitive declarations -- but rather with questions and a call for perspective. "The whole world of the future," Marshall said, "hangs on a proper judgment." To make that judgment, he asked the American people to examine distant events that directly affected their security and prosperity. He closed by asking: "What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?"

As I said, Obama wins this argument simply by being the only one to show up for it. Not only does he spell out an honest to goodness strategy, but he cites an example of how it has worked in the past. "As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy -- one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin," he said. "I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century."

Who agrees with Obama? The government of Iraq, for one. They want us gone. McCain's plan for Iraq -- such as it is -- runs contrary to Iraq's plan for Iraq.

But another group who agree with Obama are the military.

Barack Obama is taking heat for hinting that he might refine his 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report will recommend an even steeper drawdown in less time, NEWSWEEK has learned. If adopted, the 300-page report by a defense analysis group at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., could transform the debate about Iraq in the presidential election.

Expected to be completed in about a month, it will recommend that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000 now. The strategy is based on a major handoff to the increasingly successful Iraqi Army, with platoon-size U.S. detachments backing the Iraqis from small outposts, with air support. The large U.S. forward operating bases that house the bulk of U.S. troops would be mostly abandoned, and the role of Special Forces would increase.

The new focus would be Afghanistan. McCain says he knows how to win wars, but the guys who actually win the wars are with Obama's plan.

So McCain can declare all he wants, but until he comes up with some sort of concrete proposal, he's really coming up empty. He's making a lot of martial noise, but there isn't any substance there -- it's all frosting and no cake.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; war; Iraq; Afghanistan; military; Pentagon; elections; 2008; Republican; Democrat; Barack Obama has a plan, John McCain has promises and declarations

The Stupid Will Stay Stupid and the Crazy Will Stay Crazy

Maybe I've got outrage fatigue or something, because I don't get it. In fact, I wasn't even going to mention The New Yorker cover in question, but here we are on day three and this thing still has people freaking out.

In the unlikely chance that you aren't familiar with the cover by now, it's a caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama in the oval office. Michelle is dressed like a stereotypical black radical-type, with a big Angela Davis 'fro and an AK-47 on her back. Barack is dressed like Osama bin Laden. An American flag burns in the fireplace, a portrait of bin Laden hangs on the wall. To clinch it, Barack and Michelle are sharing a "terrorist fist jab."

That's right, every stupid-assed smear this side of Rev. Wright is laid out in all its ridiculous glory for all the world to see. Clearly, this is satire -- and not of the Obamas, but of the crazy and stupid people who believe all this stuff. You can't see Obama's chest, but you've got to assume he's not wearing a flag pin.

-Continued after the jump-


I can understand the Obama campaign's reaction. I doubt the outrage there is genuine. After all, here is almost every one of the smears thrown at him, right there in one place. And, where the whisper campaign comes from a shadowy, email spam source, The New Yorker has a street address. What's happening is that the magazine has become a stand-in for the mass-mailers; a tangible, brightly lit target. Team Obama can answer these anonymous smears by attacking a magazine that's put nearly every one of them on its cover.

Whether this was supposed to become the tempest in a teapot it has become is an open question, but I'm guessing no. As I said, this is "New Yorker-gate, Day III: America Freaks Out!" In fact, the outrage is in danger of overshadowing substantial news stories. You may not know this, but Barack Obama is scheduled to give a speech on Iraq and national security today. And you may not know it because we're all supposed to be freaked out over a cartoon. Wired's Threat Level blog helpfully collects a couple of representative blogosphere reactions.

John Aravosis, AMERICAblog:

A liberal publication like the New Yorker thinks it's funny to make Mrs. Obama some radical black panther, Barack Obama basically a terrorist (you'll note that he looks just like Osama bin Laden on the wall), and they're even burning the American flag in the Oval Office (that's supposed to be the White House, get it?).

They put Osama bin Laden on the wall of the Oval Office. And this is funny?

Is the New Yorker so out of touch that they don't realize that much of America, or at least too much of America, harbors these very concerns about Obama and his wife?


Jane Hamsher, FireDogLake:

... there is a striking lack of awareness of the context into which they launched it.

Fifteen percent of people in this country believe that Obama is a Muslim. You have to be really stupid to believe something like this, but as Roger Simon notes, it probably doesn't encourage people to vote for him in America today.

Most people who see this cover are just going to see the image of Obama in a turban. It reinforces a critical piece of misinformation that right wing propagandists have advanced in order to poison the political climate in this country and make it that much more difficult for a person of color to be elected president.

These people are really stupid in order to believe something like this, but they're not going to get any smarter by viewing this image.

Note what these two bloggers -- who I otherwise respect -- have to say. They aren't basing their criticism of what they think, they're basing it on what they're afraid someone else might think.

I think what might be happening is that polling is taking over some people's brains. A recent Pew poll showed that 12% of respondents still thought Barack Obama was Muslim. Worse, this number was up from 10%.

Here's the thing -- I don't even need to go look at the margin of error to know that 2% is easily within it. This isn't a rise, it's no change. In any poll, there will be a certain percentage who are just plain crazy or stupid. On this issue, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%. In fact, in that same poll, 1% took a wild guess and said Obama was Jewish. Of course, if we add up all the wrong answers in the poll, it adds up to 40%. But some of those answers were "Don’t know - Heard different things" and "Don’t know - Haven’t heard enough." Combined, these two made up 25% of respondents -- better than half of all the wrong answers. In an America where some Christians believe other Christians aren't "real" Christians or aren't "Christian enough," a little mild confusion is understandable. They don't want to answer ""Not a Christian," but can't honestly answer "Christian," either. We've all seen the letters to the editor claiming this liberal or that isn't a "real Christian" because they support abortion rights, believe in evolution, or oppose mandatory school prayer. That these people would answer, "Well, he says he's a Christian, but not any kind of Christian my church accepts. Real Christians interpret the Bible the same way I do," shouldn't surprise anyone.

And there's an unfounded assumption in looking at this poll and freaking out over The New Yorker cover because of it. If we look at other polls, we see that Obama doesn't have a 40% unfavorable rating in any of them. All the favorables are above 50%, with some reaching into the 60% range. This means, contrary to the assumption, that some of that 40% who got Obama's religion wrong don't view Obama unfavorably -- in other words, they may not believe he's a Christian or a "real" Christian, but neither do they care.

It's my opinion that the overreaction to the NYer cover is based primarily on worry. They've seen polling that shows the race close nationally (polling that's already become dated), they see comments in their comment threads about how some won't vote Obama because of FISA or because they're Clinton extremists, but they're not seeing the forest for the trees.

If you break down the polling by electoral college votes, Obama has a healthy lead in all polls. Getting bogged down in trivia like this cartoon is a little panicky, in my opinion. We don't have to freak out. The way things stand right now, Barack Obama is still a safe bet.

That 10%-12% who think Obama's a Muslim are stupid and/or crazy. That cover illustration isn't going to drive anyone crazy. It's not going to drive anyone stupid, either. I believe that this percentage of the stupid and crazy is as low as it's ever going to be. I also believe that it's probably not going to get any bigger. I think these people are trapped in the amber of their own stubborn ignorance -- unchanged and unchangeable forever.

Luckily, there aren't enough of them to care about.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Islam; bigotry; religion; religious right; morons; crazy people; media; blogs ;poll; The New Yorker's not a problem for Barack Obama -- trust me on this one

Next Year, Pal -- Maybe

We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice. If they were to say leave, we would leave.
-George W. Bush, May 24, 2007

Yeah, it turns out that was a lie. Big shocker there, huh? Negotiations for a long term security deal between the US and Iraq broke down yesterday, with the Bush administration punting. There will be no security agreement, not this year, and Bush's responsibility for Iraq has been sloughed off on the next president.

Washington Post:

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

See that? It's all Iraq's fault. Never mind that the US terms were insane -- blanket legal immunity for US forces and contractors (including the almost universally despised Blackwater), unchecked access to anything within the borders of Iraq, the power to police and arrest -- independent of Iraqi law -- and an open-ended commitment (i.e., John McCain's "100 years").

For their part, Iraq didn't want any of this. Mostly because it was all insane -- it was the US governing Iraq while the Iraqi government pretended to. In fact, the Iraqi government wanted the Bush administration to commit to a timetable for withdrawal. Bush had thrown up so many firewalls against that idea at home that there was no way he could accept it from Iraqis without significant domestic political damage; not only for himself, but for the party that repeated his every word as if it were divinely inspired. By the lunatic reasoning the Republicans and neocons had constructed, the Iraqis were asking them to "cut and run."

-Continued after the jump-


Given the choice between keeping his word or accepting a timetable, Bush fled the table screaming. If anyone out there still needs proof that Bush's word isn't worth jack, there ya go. Iraq has asked us to leave and, rather than respect the wishes of this so-called "sovereign nation," Bush shut down negotiations and refuses to return to the table -- ever.

Of course, I called this last week, with a post I called "Not This Year, Buddy." Bush isn't going to leave Iraq. We could lose every man but one and Bush would insist he had to stay. "Losing" Iraq is what some other president will do. Bush hopes that the historical blame will fall on some other executive's shoulders, rather than where it belongs -- with the current executive. If the disaster of Iraq and our inevitable departure from that nation is seen as Bush's fault, the neocon ideology of gunboat diplomacy, global policing, and American supremacy (and I mean that in the same way that "white supremacy" is meant) is dead for good, having been proven wrong on pretty much every single point, dash, and ampersand. The reign of the neoconservatives will resemble that of the McCarthyites -- short, stupid, and thoroughly discredited.

So the negotiations have been put off until the next chump -- I mean, president -- takes office. If it's McCain, he'll be able to blame everything on what will most likely be an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. If it's Obama, he'll be the president who "lost" Iraq. Either way, it's going to be the Democrats' fault.

A new problem for this strategy of blame-shifting is popping up -- the Pentagon will publish a report recommending a "16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq." The withdrawal would leave a token force of 50,000, "with platoon-size U.S. detachments backing the Iraqis from small outposts, with air support." Forward operating bases would be mostly abandoned. The military is about to recommend "cutting and running."

Reality, it appears once again, has a liberal bias. Iraq wants us to leave Iraq, the American people want us to leave Iraq, and now even the military wants us to leave Iraq. The excuses for staying are becoming a pretty rare species. Luckily for Bush, he's closed that door on withdrawal, by putting off renewed negotiations until next year. If that means going back on his word, so what?

It's much more important that someone else take the blame for the debacle in Iraq. If a whole bunch of people have to die in order to keep this thing rolling for a few months more, so what? There's a lunatic ideology to defend, a vision of an American world in a New American Century. We won the cold war, we get the world -- that's the way the reasoning works.

Nothing is more important than that vision -- not Bush's word, not Iraqi sovereignty, not the lives of Iraqis and their occupiers, not even the opinion of the military. The only thing that's important is that the neocons are proven right. If that turns out to be impossible to do, then they must not be proven wrong.

So, when Iraq asked him to leave, he didn't. Bush turned his back on everything he'd previously said about Iraqi sovereignty. He walked away from the negotiating table and unilaterally decided the war would go on as scheduled -- until he's safely out of office.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; war; Military; Pentagon; neocon; propaganda; peace; Barack Obama; John McCain; Bush lied to Iraq

Choose Your Adversaries Wisely

Earlier this week, the Senate passed a really lousy law. I mean a real dog. The sort of law that you usually only see in a police state. It's not as bad as the Alien and Sedition Acts, but pretty damned close. The FISA compromise bill is the sort of law that free people used to freak out about. Some free people still are.

Good on them.

American Civil Liberties Union, "ACLU Sues Over Unconstitutional Dragnet Wiretapping Law":

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wiretapping law that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work - which relies on confidential communications - will be greatly compromised by the new law.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by Congress on Wednesday and signed by President Bush today, not only legalizes the secret warrantless surveillance program the president approved in late 2001, it gives the government new spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications.

The ACLU had their suit all drawn up and ready to file the moment Bush signed the bill into law. While the issue of immunity (I'd call it amnesty, but more about that in a bit) for telecommunications companies who committed felonies has grabbed the attention of many, it's larger problem is that it's a near-elimination of any oversight to the National Security Agency's wiretapping program.

Glenn Greenwald cites Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman, who managed to sum it all up in one paragraph:

The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda -- indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.

I'd add that since the NSA doesn't have to prove a damned thing before they start a wiretap, even that tiny restriction about the "foreign location" is entirely theoretical. Bush and Congress have put what is essentially a police agency on the honor system. If they break the law, no one will ever know.

-Continued after the jump-


Disappointing many -- myself included -- Barack Obama, a constitutional lawyer, voted for this awful police state law. Some of the reactions to that vote are a bit overblown -- the bill would've passed regardless and people are acting as if Obama cast the deciding vote.

But just as disappointing, in my mind at least, is that Obama decided he could cast a vote that wouldn't make any difference in order to bolster his security bona fides. Politically, this is stupid, since the people he's hoping to mollify will expect this authoritarian crap all the time. It seems to me that voting against the FISA provisions would've been a zero risk proposition -- just talk about the telcom immunity to explain the vote. The only people who think that telecommunications companies absolutely must get immunity from lawsuits are right wing partisans who'd probably never vote for Obama in a million years. That was the way to address this issue -- it's an issue of crime. If someone were to criticize the vote, Obama could come back with the accusation that they were being tolerant of lawbreaking -- i.e., "soft on crime." After Enron, people don't like corporate criminals any more than they like street criminals.

But the deed is done. The question isn't whether or not it was a good idea, the question is "What happens now?" For me, I re-up to the ACLU and back the lawsuit. For others, the answer is -- somewhat counter-intuitively -- to back Obama.

"Barack Obama believes in the Constitution. He's a constitutional scholar. I believe that he will have a better chance to look at these powers that have been given to the executive branch, [even though] he'll be running the executive branch," says Senator Russ Feingold, a very vocal opponent of the bill. "I think he will understand and help take the lead in fixing some of the worst provisions."

I've found myself repeating more than once electoral lessons I've learned. One more time won't hurt any, there are only two that apply here. First, if you want a candidate who's going to do everything you want them to, you're going to have to run yourself -- that's the only way that's ever going to happen.

Second, given the previous fact, you're going to wind up voting for the adversary you'd most want to have. Ask yourself this; would you rather fight Barack Obama on a few things or John McCain on everything? It's a numbers game -- more fights means more losses. How often are you willing to lose?

Feingold's not the only one who believes that Obama's plan may be to revisit FISA as president. Former counsel to Nixon John Dean, a man I believe has found his path to redemption in being very critical of Bush in a "right on the money" way, spoke to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown:

DEAN: Well, I spent a lot of time reading that bill today, and it‘s a very poorly-drafted bill. One of the things that is not clear is whether it‘s not possible later to go after the telecoms for criminal liability. And that is something that Obama has said during this campaign he would do, unlike prior presidents who come in and really give their predecessor a pass, he said, “I won‘t do that.” And that might be why he‘s just sitting back saying, “Well, I‘m going to let this go through. But that doesn‘t mean I‘m going to give the telecoms a pass.” I would love it if he gets up on the Senate floor and says, “I‘m keeping that option open.”

OLBERMANN: In other words, let the private suits drop and get somebody in there who‘ll actually use the laws that still exist to prosecute and make the actual statement and maybe throw a few people in jail.

DEAN: Exactly...

That's why I said earlier that it's not amnesty. And, as I also pointed out earlier, limiting your battles means limiting your losses. It may be that Obama voted for this because this window of opportunity was in danger of closing, that voting for immunity was a way to prevent amnesty.

Not that that makes me any happier about it. It was going to pass regardless and making a stand on principle would've held no political risk -- at least, the way I see it. Obama could've voted against this bill and still wound up in exactly the situation we're all in now. We're going to spend the rest of Bush's term with this law in place and giving Bush the benefit of the doubt, putting the NSA on the honor system, is foolish beyond all words. History has shown that the Bush administration is a little light on morally and ethically aligned people. If something can be abused, it will be abused. Right and wrong, legal and illegal, are foreign concepts to people who work in the White House.

Meanwhile, McCain's getting away with being a big backer of the bill, hypocritically being critical of Obama for voting for it, and just as hypocritically not showing up for the vote himself -- how important could McCain possibly think this bill is? The opportunism is as transparent as crystal.

Where do we go from here? The only direction we can -- forward. And the fight doesn't end in November. In fact, with democracy, the fight never ends. The idea that we can elect the perfect candidate and history will stop is pure fantasy. Fight now, fight after November, and fight long into the future. It's an absolute dead certainty that you'll be having that fight with either Barack Obama or John McCain -- a third party president is pie-in-the-sky delusion.

In fact, I'd argue that voting third party is pretty much counterproductive. I didn't used to think that, but giving it more thought, I do now. You need to think like a national campaigner -- if Barack Obama loses to McCain, Democrats aren't going to be "taught a lesson." No, if you're a national campaigner and you see a little handful of protest votes and a big block that voted for McCain, who are you going to aim for next time? If McCain wins, the "centrist Democrats" win the argument one more time and the party gets yanked even further to the right -- history shows that the more Democrats lose, the more they resemble Republicans. Vote third party and you're guaranteed to be discounted. Worse, you move the nation closer to a one-party system.

So here's your choice; McSame or Obama. Who would you rather have your fights with?

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; Constitution; Fourth Amendment; law; privacy; FISA; crime; elections; 2008; Who would you rather lose a fight to, Barack Obama or John McCain? What's worth Bush III?

McCain's Favorite Pork Product

Iran, late in joining us in celebrating the Fourth of July, shot off a few rockets yesterday. They plan to make up for their tardiness by firing off more today. According to the media and the right, the proper response to this news is, "Oh my freakin' God, oh sweet Jesus, we're all gonna die!"

Although some think the big news is that Iran apparently Photoshopped an extra missile in a photo released to the press, the actually story is that Iran shot off some rockets -- that's the big deal here.

In fact, the Photoshop story's not even secondary -- or tertiary or quaternary. It's trivia. "Authoritarian state releases propaganda" is not exactly earth-shattering news. No, the other story was the US presidential candidates' reactions to the Iran's action. Where Obama called for a diplomatic response, John McCain called on the US to shovel more money down a useless rathole.

Continued after the jump

Associated Press:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that Iran's missile tests highlight the need for direct diplomacy as well as tougher threats of economic sanctions and strong incentives to persuade Tehran to change its behavior.

John McCain, the Republican seeking the presidency, said the tests demonstrate a need for effective missile defense, including missile defense in Europe and the defense system the U.S. plans with the Czech Republic and Poland.

There are a couple of problems with McCain's whole missile defense idea. The most obvious is that no one thinks Iran is going to launch missiles at Europe. And the missiles launched yesterday have an extended range of 1,250 miles. If you're in the US, go change your pants, you've got nothing to worry about. McCain's offering a solution to a problem no one believes exists.

But the larger problem is that this missile defense system doesn't actually work. Ronald Reagan jotted the idea down on the back of a matchbook once, so Republicans believe it's divinely inspired. Ron came up with his big idea in 1983 (then called the Strategic Defnese Initiative or SDI) and, since then, it really hasn't gotten much farther. Even SDI true believers say that missile defense is "like hitting a bullet with a bullet." Not surprisingly, that turns out to be every bit as impossible as it sounds. The only "successful" tests of missile defense systems have been ridiculously skewed in favor of success -- missiles had GPS systems the interceptors could home in on, people on the ground had the precise trajectory of their targets, and they knew far, far in advance that the missiles were coming. Even then, in these insanely unrealistic scenarios, the success rate of tests have been mixed. Even when the tested are rigged, success is not guaranteed. The thing is just extremely expensive junk. Even these joke "tests" are expensive, costing taxpayers $100 million each.

And it's the "expensive" part that justifies its existence. We've spent $120 billion on missile defense since Reagan had his notion. By 2013, the annual cost will be nearly $19 billion. That marks 25 years of really expensive failure, with no end in sight. Missile defense is very lucrative busywork for defense contractors. The whole thing's been a scam on the American taxpayer.

And John McCain's been in on it. In fact, McCain's been trying to get one of these defense systems deployed in Poland. Poland -- knowing full well the "missile shield" doesn't do squat -- is holding out for military aid. After all, accepting the system alone would mean annoying Russia and getting nothing in return. That's not much of an incentive to help corrupt American politicians funnel money to corporations. They want something other than a pile of crap for their trouble. Poland wants some of that scratch too.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur:

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the daily Dziennik his recent trip to the US was important to clarify the Polish stance amid a deadlock in negotiations on a proposed American anti-missile shield in Poland.

Sikorski held talks with US presidential hopeful John McCain, and called them 'so cordial and precise that it surprised us.' Sikorski added that presidential candidate Barack Obama's skepticism about the shield is 'widely known.'

But McCain's opinion strengthens the Polish stance in negotiations, Sikorski said, and serves as an important point in talks.

'It shows the possible future president and one of the main strategists of that country thinks Polish demands are sensible,' he said.

Not only would McCain continue to blow money on this BS "shield," he'd actually spend more money -- in the form of military aid -- to deploy it. There is no part of that that makes any sense at all.

That is, unless you consider the obvious. "If you think of missile defense not as a military project, but as a... corporate picnic, it begins to make perfect sense," wrote Steve Lopez for the LA Times in 2001. "They spent $75 billion on Star Wars and got nowhere. Fifty Nobel laureates felt compelled to sign a statement declaring the whole thing insane."

That's exactly what it is -- a big pork picnic for corporations and the politicians who love them. In fact, John McCain's such a big booster he puts his love for this money vacuum right on his website. "Effective missile defenses are critical to protect America from rogue regimes like North Korea that possess the capability to target America with intercontinental ballistic missiles, from outlaw states like Iran that threaten American forces and American allies with ballistic missiles, and to hedge against potential threats from possible strategic competitors like Russia and China," we're told. "Effective missile defenses are also necessary to allow American military forces to operate overseas without being deterred by the threat of missile attack from a regional adversary."

Too bad there's no such thing as "effective missile defenses" -- just this ineffective piece of crap people like John McCain have been screwing us with for the past quarter century.

When the guy who tells you he's going to balance the budget in just four years tells you he's going to keep shoveling billions down a hole, you've got to wonder just how "straight" all of this straight talk can actually be. After all, he plans to do this all while keeping Bush's tax cuts and blowing money on occupying Iraq. If he's not going to cut BS pork like missile defense, what will he cut to keep it? What could possibly be less important than this corporate pork feast?

Someone should ask McCain that. Somehow, I doubt anyone in the press ever will.

-Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; Iran; Poland; military; corruption; corporations; science; technology; John McCain loves missile defense -- mostly because it tastes like pork