Feature of the Week
As promised, here’s the latest addition to our Sword and Sorcery theme: The Pied Piper of Hamactor.
03.18.05 @ 10:48 PM EDT [link]

Muses of Mirth
Taking a swing through Hollywood on vacation last week, I had a chance to catch the famous “sore winner” billboard, the one showing pictures of various Hollywood celebrities (Michael Moore’s picture being the largest), thanking them for Four More Years. In that same spirit, I’d like to thank this country’s extreme right wing for making it so easy to formulate humorous mockery day after day. I mean, how could anyone have made up the antics they consistently hand to me and my ilk! Just consider the top of news during 1Q05. Wolfowitz in the World Bank! Drilling for oil in wildlife refuges! Fake reporters! Hot military studs with White House Press Passes! The House Ethics Committee requiring agreement from a member of the party being investigated before an embarrassing investigation goes forward! And then DeLay machine-gunning his foot! Calling Democrats “obstructionists” when they’re not able to vote on bills already passed among the Republicans and, even better, not even being invited to the meetings of their committees! The Senator with greatest authority over the broadcast industry wanting to ban R content on cable or satellite! Bush lecturing the country on moral responsibility for the fiscal health of future generations when he’s already dumped extra trillions of dollars on their heads! No wonder Bill Maher gave Bush that endorsement before the last election! Admittedly, when he called for Four More Years he was going for a laugh, but that’s why he gets the paycheck. Now that we’re in the new quadrennial, it’s only right to note how, for political humorists, the good times they are a rollin’!
03.17.05 @ 09:49 PM EDT [link]

Declaration of Interdependence
The language of the Declaration of Independence has been much in the news lately due to its religious references. Lost in the hubbub are the real objectives of the document. As pointed out in earlier entries in this journal, the reason for the religious language was not to score points with the Big Guy but to stick a thumb in the royal eye (or should I say the Royal We?) of King George III and His supposed divine right to rule. I’m more compelled by the next phrase: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…” In other words, government has a key role in ensuring “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The extreme right wing ideologues currently holding the reins of power in the US are much less enthusiastic about the governmental institutions of Men that secure these rights than they are with the Creator who (somewhat passively, to my ear) merely endows these rights. You don’t hear the right wing quoting the phrase I’ve called out, despite its clear language. There are two reasons. First, its obvious implication was that the Founding Fathers wanted to temper the references to God in the previous sentence, lest posterity get the mistaken idea that they wanted the US to be a theocracy. Eleven years later (and wiser), they went even farther; in the Constitution, “We the People” are the source of political power, with nary a single reference to God or even to religion other than to prevent Congress from promoting or interfering with it. The right wing is also mum on the “secure these rights” phrase because right wing ideology does not tolerate a role for government in individual pursuit of happiness. Government’s having an active role in pursuit of happiness is in contravention to right wing advocacy of sharply limited government. In reality, though, happiness in large part dependent on factors partly and often completely out of the control of individuals – health, job security and macro-economic conditions, and personal security from criminal action being a few of these factors. Government has always had an important role in these areas. Could their lack of empathy stem from the shield against the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that family wealth provides?
03.16.05 @ 08:10 PM EDT [link]

Rush’s Modest Proposal
One of Rush’s favorite rants concerns how Liberals are negative, whining, and obstructive on Bush Administration policy (in that they are not wildly cheering Bush’s every pronouncement in the fashion so familiar to anyone who has ever watched a Bush political rally). It doesn’t seem to occur to Rush that the basis for opposition could be any kind of principle. It can only be knee-jerk reaction based on personal hatred. To have some fun with this, let’s imagine a Bush proposal just a tad more outrageous than any already on the table (for example, more outrageous than optional war or intergenerational theft). Let’s model it after “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift’s classic satire on solving England’s orphan problem by “baking them in pies.” I only had to snip out the text specific to the original Bush policy and tweak a word or two to give it a new policy target – the rest is pure Rush. Here it is: “I, as a citizen -- not as a conservative, not as a highly acclaimed political commentator: I as a citizen am growing weary of, ‘We can't do it.’ I'm growing weary of, "No, we shouldn't do it." I'm growing weary of, ‘Oh, it won't work.’ It's not the American experience. I hate this immediate reaction. I don't like it, and then I really don't like it when it is coupled with it will hurt some group. ‘We can't do this because it's going to hit poor children the hardest.’ We don't have the money for orphanages. That's why some of this money needs to be given back. It's these people's money in the first place. It's their money that's being taken from them. The government's use of money is as inefficient as it can be. It's these people's money, whether they make 10 bucks an hour or whether they make 20. I'm sorry, I'm losing patience with this. I'm losing patience with everything that we want to do is going to hurt somebody so we can't do it for anybody. Screw that! That is abjectly un-provable, inaccurate liberal thinking. It's nothing more than obstructionist thinking. It's nothing more than we can't do it. It's nothing more than we can't-itis. It's nothing more than the collective pessimism and doom and gloomism of a bunch of people who ought not be in charge of running anything because if they are, nothing would ever get done. We are Americans. If there is one thing that ought to stand out above all other things in this country, it is this: We can do whatever we set our minds to, individually, collectively, as cities, towns, neighborhoods or as a country. We've done it time and time again. Frankly, I'm fed up with it and I'm not going to put up with that. I'm not even going to entertain it anymore. People that say we can't do it, don't get on this program. Well, you'll get on the program because everyone, in the final analysis, likes pie. But it's just really frustrating.”
03.15.05 @ 08:12 PM EDT [link]

Bush’s Demicracy (Yep, That’s How I’m Spelling It)
Bush and his right wing cronies talk a lot about democracy, but what they actually practice is “demi-cracy.” The “demi” doesn’t refer to the former Mrs. Willis but to the prefix meaning “partial,” for example in the terms demigod or demitasse. In other words, he’s not practicing real democracy but something closer to apartheid, where a ruling group has all political power and opponents have no power. Then consider the excellent analysis done by the inimitable Hendrik Hertzberg in the 3/14 New Yorker: “if each of every state’s two senators is taken to represent half that state’s population, then the Senate’s fifty-five Republicans represent 131 million people, while its forty-four Democrats represent 161 million.” Talk about tyranny of the minority! Bush doesn’t deserve credit as an advocate for real democracy because the GOP approach to governance under his leadership is to totally disregard, ignore, and even mock almost half of the elected representatives of the country, and by extension millions and millions of voters making up half of the electorate. Here’s an illustrative quote from Karl Rove: “Next time one of your smarty-pants liberal friends says to you, `Well, he didn't have a mandate,' you tell him this delicious fact: This president got a higher percentage of the vote than any Democrat candidate for president since 1964.'' As you will recall, Bush got 51 percent of the vote in November to Kerry's 48 percent. In other words, Bush had a plurality of 1% over citizens wanting to be the first to kick a wartime president out of office. What is Rove talking about with “higher percentage of the vote than a Democrat?” Only that there was no third party distracter like Nader or Perot. Why not? Because dislike of Bush was so intense that those opposing him were unwilling for the first time in decades to dilute their vote. I’d hardly call that a “delicious” testament to voter confidence in Bush! More outrageous is what Rove and Bush are doing with that 1% “mandate.” They’re acting exactly as if every single opposition candidate had been defeated, such that they were handed total ownership of policy by a unanimous popular vote. This is not an exaggeration. In the House, Hastert is unabashed about his bringing to the floor only those bills that have “a majority of the majority.” In the Senate, Frist is unabashed about eliminating the last bastion of respect for minority rights, the filibuster. Republicans are scheduling committee meetings without bothering to invite the committee’s Democrat members. Speaking of respect, when was the last time you heard the term “smarty pants” used by an adult?
03.14.05 @ 08:58 PM EDT [link]

Overreach Alert!
News Flash! Reuters, 3/1/2005: “Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push for applying broadcast decency standards to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio. ‘Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area,’ the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television and radio affiliates. ‘I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air broadcasters…’” If there has been one quote this year that has summed up the aspirations and implications of the Right Wing’s current ascendancy on political power, this is it! First, consider that Stevens is not some whacko political wannabe speaking out of school – he is the Chairman of the Senate Committee with responsibility for the entire broadcast industry. In other words, this guy’s got the clout to follow through! Then consider that the pay TV penetration rate in the US is about 65%. Presumably that 2/3 of the population is perfectly OK with the choices they are currently getting from their service, considering that they keep paying the cable or satellite bill. How many of the majority of voters with pay TV access are anxious to have this service made consistent with the sensibilities of, say, Kansas? I’m guessing it’s maybe 30 or 40. Not percent, I mean 20 or 30 subscribers, the number who are bothered by the boob they see as they zip by HBO (which Hubby insists on having in the cable package) on their way to the Christian Shopping Channel to look at trashy jewelry. Now imagine this same situation replicated across every aspect of modern living, where right wing Senate committee chairmen have the clout to similarly Kansas-ize any government policy you can imagine. There’s good news and bad news in all of this. The bad news is that they have the power in the first place. The good news is that as they use this power they’ll get the couch potatoes who normally sit out elections off their butts and into the voting booths. So let’s play the official anthem of right wing fiscal policy (Money for Nothing by Dire Straits) and, to the reprise “I want my MTV,” raise our glasses to right ring overreach!
03.13.05 @ 08:52 PM EDT [link]