Monday, 13 October 2008
It's election season, which means the people of California once again have the chance to inflict grievous harm upon their beloved state via the initiative process. As I explained in the
first edition of Mad Props, as a native Californian and lifelong student of politics, I've come to view statewide ballot measures as something of a menace. In several elections, I've voted NO on every single proposition; any given measure has a very steep uphill climb to convince me it's worth a YES.
more...
Monday, 04 February 2008
There is a 'politics' category on this blog for a simple reason: I am a lifelong student of the subject. This is partly due to circumstance. My father is a professor of political science — meaning, for instance, that back in the 80s, when I was wee, come a Friday night, the household's singular television would spend half an hour tuned to PBS's
Washington Week in Review before we could move on to the "good stuff" (like
Night Flight). But over time, dammit, political and current-events programming became the "good stuff" as far as I was concerned, and so it was, when I got to college, that studying literature wasn't enough; I had to study literature
and political science — thus leading to the unforgettable moment on the phone when dear old dad laughed and noted that I had chosen "not one, but
two completely useless majors." Ahem.
more...
Thursday, 20 September 2007
So the conservative jackass mayor of the conservative jackass town where I grew up turns out not to be quite such a conservative jackass after all. Two years ago, when running for mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders was firmly supportive of civil unions and firmly against gay marriage, which played well with the conservative jackasses who populate the city. Yesterday, in a moving, tearful speech, he explained he has had a "change of heart," and revealed for the first time that this issue hits home for him:
"I have close family members and friends who are a member of the gay and lesbian community. Those folks include my daughter Lisa, as well as members of my personal staff.
"I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones — for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life's experiences.
more...
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
"And I encourage you all to go shopping more." — President George W. Bush in his year-end press conference this morning
"Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And, be happy." — OHM, the mechanized prophet of the totalitarian state in THX-1138
Friday, 10 November 2006
Longtime readers of this blog know that I think the Chron's Jon Carroll is the finest newspaper columnist in the land. So I was bummed this morning to read
Carroll's latest, in which he returns from vacation only to pour cold water all over those of us who feel uplifted by the results of this week's election. "Nothing has changed," he writes: "Same president, same policies, same corruption, same continuing embarrassments."
Well, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sorry. "First, a lot of those losing Republican incumbents will immediately move down K Street and become lobbyists," Carroll says. "They will make substantially more money, and they will get to do essentially the same job: they will write the laws that govern our nation." I tell you, they may try, but they're going to be fighting a
hard uphill battle. Nancy Pelosi has the destruction of the Republicans' K Street Machine very much in mind. Carroll also suggests global warming will still be treated as "alarmist nonsense."
I don't think so, not since Barbara Boxer now gets to define Congress's agenda in this matter.
more...
Wednesday, 08 November 2006
"I thought we were going to do fine yesterday. Shows what I know."
— President George W. Bush, speaking of yesterday's midterm elections in a press conference earlier today
Thursday, 02 November 2006
1. The new Sequoia e-voting machines set to debut in my home county of Alameda next week apparently have a rather awful flaw: "Just push the yellow button and you can
vote as many times as you want." No kidding. And of course, the brain-dead (or are they willfully devious?) public officials who have adopted this horrid technology are still missing the point. They say they're going to ensure that poll workers watch the machines all day — to make sure there's no funny business from the voters. Apparently nobody remembers Florida in 2000, which taught us that it's not the voters you have to worry about, but
the election officials themselves, who now have another tool in their arsenal should they decide to rig an election and leave no evidence behind. This is frightening as all hell. The
Help America Vote Act of 2002 has proven to be exactly what you would expect from the current Republican regime — a boondoggle for greedy/evil corporations that want government money (heaps of it) for producing shitty products or providing shitty services. We're seeing it all over the map. Halliburton in Iraq. Various companies providing expensive, ineffective machines for the "security theater" ridiculousness at our airports. And then companies like Diebold and Sequoia, who really take the cake because they're not just providing shitty solutions — they're undermining our very democracy. Three cheers for the American Way.
2. Heard this joke last night, am loving it.
How many Bush administration officials does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, as there is nothing wrong with the lightbulb — as a matter of fact, the situation with the lightbulb is improving every day. And it's hard work. But any talk of a lack of illumination is liberal, Democrat spin. Besides, you think the Democrats have a plan to replace the lightbulb? They want us to just live in the dark! That's what you're voting for if you vote for a Democrat — you're voting for darkness. Why do you hate our freedom?
Monday, 23 January 2006
Molly Ivins's
latest piece — a barnstormer about why she won't support Hillary in '08 — actually has me feeling better about our country than anything I've read in a good long while:
. . . The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax.
Wednesday, 09 November 2005
On the ballot I filled out yesterday for our Special Election, there were only eight items: the eight statewide propositions. (There were no local issues in Oakland.) I gleefully went to my polling place and electronically checked "NO" eight times. It was the most fun I've ever had at the ballot box. It felt shockingly good. And I wasn't doing this just because I think the initiative system is terribly out of control — none of the props were worth supporting. Every single last damn one of them had fatal flaws, even the ones that good folks managed to sneak onto Arnold's Ballot of Evil.
I awoke this morning to hear on the radio that all eight measures went down in flames. So for the first time in my life, the complete results of an election matched my own votes exactly. How much you wanna bet that never happens again?
Thursday, 13 October 2005
In 1997, in a handwritten note to Harriet Miers,
George W. Bush wrote:
P.S. No more public scatology
[spotted at Boing Boing]
Friday, 22 July 2005
Troubletown's E-Z Guide to Today's Economy seems accurate, and is a perfect encapsulation of the economic reasons why fleeing this country might be a good idea. (I'm still looking for a nice encapsulation of the cultural reasons getting the hell out sounds like a better idea all the time...)
[spotted at Robot Wisdom. Wanna learn more? Read this from Molly Ivins.]
Monday, 16 May 2005
Have you made up your mind on John Bolton, W's nominee to represent us at the United Nations? Even if you have, you won't believe this
90-second QuickTime video of Bolton first stating his view that "there is no United Nations" and then proceeding to go absolutely
apeshit when someone (in this case, a very mild-mannered individual) has the audacity to politely disagree with him in a public forum.
This guy is both a moron and an ass. It will be a very sad thing if the Senate confirms him. There is no place in diplomacy for people who lose their cool and begin shouting when confronted with opposing ideas. Diplomacy is all about working
with people when ideas clash. That's why we call it DIPLOMACY, dammit!
[spotted, oddly enough, at The Huffington Post]
Friday, 11 March 2005
Ya still think our compassionate-conservative Republican majority has the interests of average Americans in mind? Have you
heard about the bankruptcy bill that just passed the Senate and will now certainly pass the House? No?
Pay attention.
[link updated to one that doesn't require login; sorry about that!]
Monday, 07 February 2005
Bob Woodward has long maintained that when
Deep Throat dies, we'll all finally find out who he was. According to
John Dean, it all may
happen soon:
Bob Woodward, a reporter on the team that covered the Watergate story, has advised his executive editor at the Washington Post that Throat is ill. And Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Post and one of the few people to whom Woodward confided his source's identity, has publicly acknowledged that he has written Throat's obituary.
Thursday, 20 January 2005
"America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause." —
George W. Bush
Tuesday, 18 January 2005
There is a fantastic and lengthy documentary series about the Civil Rights Movement called
Eyes on the Prize. I am lucky enough to have seen most of it during my public-school education. It's an amazing piece of work that drives home to "the kids today" just how different America was prior to the social upheaval of the 1960s, and how hard that entire fight was.
Alas, due to the way that our unbalanced system of copyright and "intellectual property" laws function, you pretty much can't see this amazing educational material anymore. And this isn't the only bit of our history that big corporations are walling off. There's more in a
great article at the Globe and Mail. The Washington Post has more, but they'll make you register to
read it.
[of course, BugMeNot can help you with the WaPo; this material spotted at Copyfight]
Thursday, 06 January 2005
Ethically-challenged House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay has shown the world his true colors once again. On Tuesday, at the traditional Congressional Prayer Service that helps kick off a new Congressional session, DeLay
read a passage from the Gospel of Matthew. It has to do with the homes of non-believers being swept away by the mighty flood of Tom DeLay's God:
And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:
The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.
DeLay is, at best, an insensitive prick. At worst, he's the sort of fundamentalist who honestly believes that people who don't believe in His God deserve to die. In either case, he's an embarrassment. But this is where we're at as 2005 begins: Hateful people are running our country.
[spotted at MetaFilter]
Friday, 05 November 2004
People keep asking me what I think about the election. They usually ask because they recall that I studied Political Science and know that I'm a political junkie. They very rarely like what I have to say, and want to argue with me, which is exactly why I don't discuss politics with friends very much, because I despise political arguments. Especially because, well over fifty percent of the time, it's clear that the person trying to argue with me isn't even familiar with the fucking Constitution. Folks, if you want to speak intelligently about the political system that governs your life, you need to go back and fill in the knowledge gaps you earned by sleeping through your civics class back in high school. Don't come around telling me what Congress should and should not (or could and could not) do until you can tell me who the majority and minority leaders are, what the hell a Whip is, and how committee membership is determined and why it is important. (In Congress, everything real happens in committee, and if you're not hip to that, you don't understand what's going on.)
more...
Monday, 25 October 2004
Change comes slowly at
The New Yorker. From its inception in 1925 until sometime in the 1960s — I once nailed down the date by combing through old issues in the library at Cal — it didn't even sport a table of contents. When Tina Brown became editor in the 1990s, photographs and letters to the editor appeared for the first time. (When
Spy magazine was still around, it used to print "Letters to the Editor of The New Yorker," since
The New Yorker didn't.)
The current (masterful) editor, David Remnick, has made a few evolutionary changes to the pub himself, but none as striking as the magazine's
first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate, which has grabbed a lot of buzz today. It's no surprise who they're behind — the mag has been relentless in its coverage of the Bush administration's lies and missteps — but the rather lengthy argument presented (which apparently unfolds over five full pages in print!) is perhaps the best cohesive piece I've read thus far about why Bush has got to go. And if, in two weeks' time, the people of this country return Bush to power, this piece will stand as a fine explanation for why so many will hold their face in their hands and weep for our country, so hopelessly ignorant and misguided, stumbling behind an intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt leader, into the once-promising light of the 21st century.
Monday, 18 October 2004
Bush's supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US — truths now firmly established by the Bush administration's own reports — as treasonous America-bashing. . . . Conservatives don't assess opponents' arguments, they demonize opponents. Truth and falsity are out of the picture; the criteria are: who's good, who's evil, who's patriotic, who's unpatriotic. . . . These are the traits of brownshirts. Brownshirts know they are right. They know their opponents are wrong and regard them as enemies who must be silenced if not exterminated.
Paul Craig Roberts (a
conservative)
explores how the Right lost its taste for the truth.
[spotted at Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
Friday, 08 October 2004
"Hello. My name is George Bush and I'm running for President. Please consider my qualifications as set forth in the
following resume."
[spotted at The Morning News . . . anyone know of a similar document for Kerry?]
Wednesday, 29 September 2004
"I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged." — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
He also said, at the same speech at Harvard, that the 17th Amendment — which provides for the direct election of U.S. Senators by the people — was "a bad idea." Here's
the full report.
[spotted at Fark]
Tuesday, 28 September 2004
The onetime musician formerly known as
Cat Stevens has a few things to say about
where we're at today. It seems that in Bush's America, there's no room for a man of peace named Yusuf Islam.
Wednesday, 22 September 2004
Tuesday night, two members of my reading group told me — with absolute seriousness — that if George W. is re-elected, they're leaving the country. While I understand the emotions that drive such a plan, I think it's terribly shortsighted to think that all is lost and the only way to live in peace and sanity is to pack up and get outta Dodge. I'm as upset about the current regime as anybody, and even more upset about John Kerry's rudderless campaign. But I'm already growing weary of the whining I'm hearing on the left. It seems
Jon Carroll is sick of it, too.
Thursday, 26 August 2004
U.C. Berkeley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff has been arguing for years that conservatives are better at using language to frame debates in such a way as to give them a distinct advantage. He's got a new book coming out on the subject, and
this interview is fascinating.
Why do conservatives like to use the phrase "liberal elite" as an epithet?
Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the "liberal elite," the "latte liberals," the "limousine liberals." The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you're poor it's because you deserve it, you're not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, "No, that's not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work." These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren't getting them out there enough.
[spotted on Boing Boing]
