The Ground Up
| From The Frontlines | September 17, 2004 |
However, I do want to maintain this blog throughout the next six weeks, or as long as it's feasible, so keep checking back for updates. I think I'll shift towards a Liberal Oasis style blog where I put up one post every morning.
One note: All that hype about Dean "bringing new people into the system" turns out to be shockingly true. To wit: I just spoke with a volunteer who drove in from Iowa to come and knock on doors in the outskirts of Madison. How'd she first get involved in politics? Howard Dean.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (1) |
| Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something! | September 14, 2004 |
Now, I've noticed the last few days when I tell people who share my politics what I'll be doing the next six weeks they have two reactions: first, they get really excited, and then they say, with a tinge of desperation, hope and gloomy pessimism, do you really think he'll win?
The fact is that us lefties are too susceptible to fatalistic belief that the powerful always beat the powerless and the bad guys always finish first. In the last few weeks I've seen a lot of this: Bush makes some modest gains in the polls and within hours, it seems, lefties everywhere are talking about the campaign in the past tense.
I have this tendency, too, I'll admit. I, too, sit and wonder sometimes how it is that Bush isn't down by 20 points. I, too, in moments of weakness think, "How can people be so stupid?" I, too, indulge myself horrific daymares of a second Bush term.
But this line of thinking, aside from being counter-productive, is actually pretty repellent when you get down to it. At its heart, it is a based on a belief that people are stupid, easily led, easily manipulated nad ultimately unfit to self-govern. When I hear people say, as I often do, that they will "leave the country" if Bush is elected it makes me angry. The very nature of our democracy, in fact, the most beautiful thing about it, is that we are, like it or not, bound up in this crazy enterprise with every other citizen of the country. If we don't agree with some of them, well then, we better get ourselves organized and present an alternative view. If we don't like the way things are headed, if we feel unrepresented, if we feel outrages and sorrow and grief, then we better do something about those feelings.
We can't write anybody off.
All of this by way of saying that if you're upset about the direction of this country and the macabre spectacle of this campaign, then commit yourself to action and DO something in these last six weeks to make a difference.
Here are some options:
America Coming Together
Driving Votes
MoveOn.org
Kerry/Edwards Campaign
I'll be blogging throughout the next six weeks, so stay tuned...
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (1) |
| So Funny It Hurts. Literally. | September 10, 2004 |
This piece from this week is just as on point. And just as depressing:
Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War
WASHINGTON, DC—Military and political strategists agreed Monday that President Bush's re-election campaign has been executed with greater precision than the war in Iraq. "Judging from the initial misrepresentation of intelligence data and the ongoing crisis in Najaf, I assumed the president didn't know his ass from his elbow," said Col. Dale Henderson, a military advisor during the Reagan Administration. "But on the campaign trail, he's proven himself a master of long-term planning and unflinching determination. How else can you explain his strength in the polls given this economy?" Henderson said he regrets having characterized Bush's handling of the war as "incompetent," now that he knows the president's mind was simply otherwise occupied.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Buried Story of the Day | September 10, 2004 |
But here's what Karl Rove gets and almost no one else does. They can do anything they want to right now because the campaign pushes everything off the front page. Two cases in point. One, the very popular assualt weapons ban, which Bush supported in 2000 is set to expire and no one is lifting a finger to stop it from happening. Two, yesterday the House voted against the White House's proposed overtime rule changes. Think about this. These days the House of Representatives embodies a political worldview just slightly to the left of Gen. Franco, and yet here they are defying their leader, the commander in chief, on overtime rules because the proposals are so politically toxic. This should be front page news.
But it's not. Instead it's Bush's national guard service and what kinds of typewriters IBM was manufacturing in 1972. I have absolutely not one single shred of doubt that Karl Rove WANTS the national guard story to get as much play as possible. Because as marginally damaging to Bush as it might be, it's nowhere near as damaging as the actual state of the country . And the less people are talking about the actual state of the country, about Bush's record in office, the more likely it is that Bush will win.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Where’s My Recovery | September 9, 2004 |
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Moral Cowardice | September 8, 2004 |
“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Oh No He Didn’t | September 7, 2004 |
It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.
Well. Guess it's all out on the table.
OK, so here's what the Dem message should be. It's just about as gross and blunt and slimy as what Rove has been ginning up, but hey, this, unfortunately, is where find ourselves:
Osama Bin Laden Wants Bush To Win
Is that a toxic debating point to introduce into the political discourse? Sure, but the waters have already been so poisoned that there's nothing left to preserve. That, and I think the evidence definitely points to this being the case.
The Bush presidency has undoubtedlty been a boon for Al Qaeda recruiting, as even Donald Rumsfield acknowledged in a Pentagon memo:
Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.
The Iraq war was just about the greatest propoganda device imaginable for Al Qaeda, and the lack of support for the nascent Afghan republic has paved the way for the Taliban's return.
I don't deign to understand Al Qaeda's strategy, if there is, indeed a unified one, but I do understand that Al Qaeda wants to create bloodshed, war, violence, repression, chaos, anger, death in a swirling black spiral that sucks the entire world into a cataclysmic holy war. If that's your goal, you want the most obnoxious, most intemperate, adversary you can find. You want an enemy who can be easily goaded into thrashing about in a fit of rage, someone who will expose his own weakenesses and over extend himself, while managing to alienate as many people as possible. In other words, you want the Bush administration.
I remember my dad recounting to me the ideology of certain very radical black nationalists in the 60s and 70s who believed that by killing cops you would inspire intense retaliation and repression and that this retaliation and repression would awaken the consciousness of the masses to come around to the side of the revolution.
It seems like there's a similar logic here, and in Bush, Bin Laden couldn't ask for a better bad cop.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Just Read The Headlines | September 7, 2004 |
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Some Good Advice | September 7, 2004 |
Reconnect Iraq to the war on terror. Bush repeatedly claimed (past tense) that Iraq was central to the war on terror - until, of course, the warrants for and management of that war went afoul. Now he wants to disconnect Iraq because his Iraq approval ratings are consistently lower than (and, thus, have steadily weakened) his approval ratings for the generic war on terror. Don't let him get away with that. Keep repeating that the president told America that Iraq is central to the war on terror, and by that standard, he's doing a terrible job on the war on terror. It's really that simple. To make the reconnection hurt, start repeating two very simple facts: (a) according to Defense Department counts, the rate of military fatalities is higher since Saddam Hussein was captured than before his capture; and (b) according to the State Department, the number of global terrorist incidents and deaths is increasing, not decreasing. Have surrogates repeat these two facts endlessly, followed by the question: "If American fatality rates are higher this year than last year, and terrorist incidents are increasing worldwide, what kind of progress in the war in Iraq and the war on terror is the president talking about?" Even the stupid-ass media will be able to follow this argument. And, from this point forward you and your surrogates should cease referring only to "the war on terror" but instead and always jointly as "the war in Iraq and the war on terror." This is political jujitsu, pure and simple; you must turn Bush's best weapon back on him by re-linking Iraq to the war on terror.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Around the Net | September 7, 2004 |
Iraq Veterans Against the War -- This is a group of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who are supporting a withdrawal of US troops. I'm not quite sure if that's the best policy, but I haven't watched people getting shot at and killed. A random thought: how devastating would it be to make TV ads with Iraq war veterans lambasting Bush for the deception about WMD and absolute lack of planning for the occupation?
Operation Truth -- An officially non-partisan organization started by Iraq war veteran Paul Rieckhoff committed to giving voice to soldiers' grievances.
Labor Blog -- Since it's essentially impossible to get the mainstream media to cover labor issues in anything remotely resembling a sustained manner, this new blog should be indispensable. There are a TON of labor issues at stake in this election, not the least among them overtime.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
| Zell Hath Mo’ Fury, Part III | September 2, 2004 |
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.
This is the clearest articulation of fascist principles I've ever heard in an American political speech, but it's really only a difference in degree from the rhetoric we've heard from the GOP (and, let's admit it, to a lesser degree from the Dems) in the campaign. When Miller started ticking off the different weapons systems that Kerry had allegedly opposed (some of which he, like Dick Cheney, did oppose, some of which he did not) and gleefully documented the damage they had wrought, the targets they had hit to the roaring crowd, I felt, in the most acute way I've ever felt, that I was no longer in America. Where did my country go?
If you had to pick one theme in history, or at least the history of the West, a theme that might best sum everything up is:
War Is Glorious -- Oh Shit Wait -- War Is Actually Hell.
Bush likes to talk a lot about his "solemn duty" to protect the American people and Laura Bush talked about Bush's "agonizing" decision to go to war with Iraq, but there has been nothing "solemn" or "agonized" about the way the GOP speakers and delegates have talked about war.
If you parachuted in from another country, and all you had to go by was the convention and the rabid cheers and lusty boos that accompany any mention of war and violence, you would conclude, I think, that this party is a party of war-mongers. They love war. They think it is noble. They think it is beautiful, that it is righteous.
This is lunacy.
I'm not a pacificst, I believe there are just wars (Darfur seems to be creeping towards that point, perhaps?), but war is just about the most horrible thing that humans do. This insight, that war is hell, is completely absent from the GOP convention, and it's truly shocking.
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (3) |
| Referndum on Democracy | September 2, 2004 |
But the important thing isn't the falsity of the charges, which Republicans continue to repeat despite press reports debunking them. The important thing is that the GOP is trying to quash criticism of the president simply because it's criticism of the president. The election is becoming a referendum on democracy.
In a democracy, the commander in chief works for you. You hire him when you elect him. You watch him do the job. If he makes good decisions and serves your interests, you rehire him. If he doesn't, you fire him by voting for his opponent in the next election.
Not every country works this way. In some countries, the commander in chief builds a propaganda apparatus that equates him with the military and the nation. If you object that he's making bad decisions and disserving the national interest, you're accused of weakening the nation, undermining its security, sabotaging the commander in chief, and serving a foreign power—the very charges Miller leveled tonight against Bush's critics.
Are you prepared to become one of those countries?
| Posted by Christopher Hayes | Comments (0) |
