Econo-blather

You know why republicans claim that the economy is gang-busters these days? Because if you make $250,000+ a year, it is. When a company posts it's fiscal profits for a year or quarter the indication that employee wage costs have gone down causes their stocks to go up. Swear to dog. And now, ask yourself why the minimum wage hasn't been raised in almost a decade. Feed the rich, who feed politicians, who feed the rich. The middle- and lower-classes bear the burden.

The estate tax (also called the "death tax" and "Paris Hilton tax") that the republicans did away with? It affected less than one-tenth of one percent of all Americans, and only taxed inheritance AFTER the amount of $8 million. How many people would that really have pissed off? Less than one-thenth of one percent.

So make no mistake about whose interests these braying dickfaces have in mind. Remember the phrase "public campaign financing." It may be a panacea.

Today's Phillip non sequitur: when you get a phone call and an automated voice tells you, "please hold for a very important message," the message is never important, nor should you hold. I need to pursue a career writing sooths for cookies. Then I'd get all the chicks.

Currently Listening to:
The Kooks

Inside In/Inside Out (2006)

Beginning of the end of America

Beginning of the end of America
by Keith Olbermann


We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

Olbermann Commentary

From now on I'm going to start posting Keith Olbermann's special commentaries. He's the Edward R. Murrow of our generation, and ostensibly the only rational voice that exists in the mainstream media.

This story from the Washington Post pertains to his most recent rant concerning the President's assertion that Democrats, not terrorists, are the real threat to the country.

I tried to embed the video clip here but had difficulties. You can see it here, as well on MSNBC's site and YouTube.

Olbermann's Special Comments

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 6, 2006; 11:56 AM

The traditional media has been slow to come to grips with the American public's distrust and dislike of President Bush -- sentiments clearly reflected in opinion polls dating back well over a year.

Almost alone among the network newscasters, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is channeling that sensibility. Channeling it -- and amplifying it.

In fact, the increasingly shrill Olbermann is fast becoming the Howard Beale of the anti-Bush era: He's mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.

His newscast-ending "special comment" yesterday was a doozy. Here's the text ; here's the video , from the Crooks and Liars blog.

At issue: The sorts of rhetorical excesses in Bush's campaign speeches recently handled (with kid gloves) by such mainstream journalists as McClatchy's Ron Hutcheson and The Washington Post's Peter Baker -- and on which I've been harping for ages, most recently in my Bush's Imaginary Foes column.

What apparently set off Olbermann in particular was when Bush recently described a vote against his warrantless wiretapping plan as being the same as saying "we don't think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists" -- and when Bush said of the Democratic leadership: "It sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is -- wait until we're attacked again."

Here's Olbermann yesterday: "The president doesn't just hear what he wants. He hears things that only he can hear.

"It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow. Yet they do.

"It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation. Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies, of treason. . . .

"No Democrat, sir, has ever said anything approaching the suggestion that the best means of self-defense is to 'wait until we're attacked again.'

"No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday . . . nor whatever is next. . . .

"But tonight the stark question we must face is -- why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

"Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?"

Defending the Comma

AFP reports: "The White House defended U.S. President George W. Bush's description of the 10 months of bloody violence in Iraq since December 2005 elections as 'just a comma.'

"'He is not talking about the war as a comma,' spokesman Tony Snow told reporters after critics pounced on Bush's repeated use of the expression as a sign of callous disregard for the war's death toll.

"'What the president's making the point is, when you look at a history book, the 10-month period is a comma,' he said. 'What he means is that, in the grand sweep of history, 10 months is not an epic.'

"Snow fired back at unnamed critics he accused of trying to 'wrench a statement out of context' to use it as ammunition against Bush 'who is deeply aware of the human costs of war.'

"'Some people have tried to say, 'How dare the president refer to this as a comma? He's being glib about the deaths of Americans.' That's outrageous. And the people who say that know it,' said the spokesman."

Here's the transcript of the briefing.

"Q: The president's statement was open to misinterpretation, let's say. Why did he use it a couple more times after he first did and people reacted --

"MR. SNOW: Because he didn't think he had --

"Q: Why wouldn't he want to avoid any misunderstanding on something so obviously --

"MR. SNOW: Maybe he didn't think that people were going to be -- were going to spend so much time trying to twist it out of context. But I'm pleased to have been able to place it in context."

Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press: "A week into a sex scandal involving teenage House pages, President Bush called House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday to thank the embattled Republican leader for how he has handled the situation.

"In a phone call lasting several minutes, Bush expressed support for Hastert, under fire from conservatives unhappy with what he did and didn't do about former Rep. Mark Foley's sexually suggestive messages to teens.

"'The president thanked him for going out and making a clear public statement that said the House leadership takes responsibility and is accountable,' White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

"'He said he appreciated that when they got the information, they swiftly took action making clear that Rep. Foley should step down and promptly requested a Department of Justice investigation. And he expressed his support for the speaker,' Perino said."

Tim Russert said on NBC's "Today Show" this morning that White House officials "are very much involved in trying to construct damage control. . . . They are deeply concerned, because if Congress flips to the Democrats, they expect full-throttle hearings on Iraq and other issues."
Jim VandeHei and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "The White House and top House Republicans remain deeply nervous that the scandal will hurt them politically, and that additional information will come out contradicting statements by Hastert and others that they were unaware of Foley's sexual messages to underage boys, the lawmakers and officials said.

"For now, they said, it would be politically disastrous for Republicans to oust Hastert because it would be viewed as akin to a public admission of guilt in the scandal, as well as a pre-election victory that would buoy Democrats and help their turnout efforts."

VandeHei and Abramowitz note that Bush's call of support yesterday "comes as a sharp contrast to the administration's handling of the controversy in 2002 over Sen. Trent Lott's comments about then-Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) -- which cost Lott (Miss.) his post as Senate GOP leader. In Lott's case, Bush was quick to nudge him out of power. The president, however, feels deeply indebted to Hastert, who has pushed through his agenda and has quietly provided advice on how to deal with a restive Republican Congress."

Tom Raum writes for the Associated Press: "The final two years of President Bush's term could be bleak for Republicans if the congressional-page scandal roiling Washington ends up costing them control of the House or Senate or even both."
Here's the ever-helpful Tony Snow on the issue at the briefing yesterday, before Bush's call:

"Q: Tony, has the president talked to Speaker Hastert since this whole thing started?

"MR. SNOW: No.

"Q: Has he asked to talk with him?

"MR. SNOW: No. No.

"Q: Why not?

"MR. SNOW: Just hasn't."

And then later:

"Q: Is this a separation of powers issue, Tony, or is this a determined effort to insulate the White House from this whole thing?

MR. SNOW: No, I don't think -- look, this is an issue that everybody cares about, but it's also an issue that -- the House has to figure out what happened; the House is the proper place for investigating the behavior of its members, although the Justice Department does now have an investigation ongoing. But let me also clarify, in case anybody wondered, this is not a White House that orders up investigations, and so we have nothing to do formally or informally with that investigation."

Not a White House that orders up investigations? One reporter came back to that later on:

"Q: You said earlier that this is not a White House that calls for investigations. Can I just ask you to reconsider that in light of the president's comments after the terrorist surveillance program was disclosed, and then after the prison program was disclosed. Didn't the president make it clear that he believes that it's necessary to get to the bottom of these leaks?

"MR. SNOW: Did we make a formal call for an investigation?

"Q: Did the president say from the podium --

"MR. SNOW: Yes, okay. Yes. What I'm saying -- what I'm saying is, that when you deal with an ongoing criminal matter like -- okay, got me. You're right. I revise and extend my remarks. (Laughter.)"

In the latest major polls, Bush's job-approval rating is solidly under 40 percent: At 36, 37 and 38, to be exact.

Pew Research Center : "President Bush's job approval rating stands at 37%, which is unchanged since early September and August. . . .

"Iraq has become the central issue of the midterm elections. There is more dismay about how the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going than at any point since the war began more than three years ago. . . .

"Nearly half of the American public (46%) now believes the war in Iraq has hurt the war on terrorism, which approaches the highest percentage since Pew began asking this question in 2002 (47% in July 2005). By comparison, just 39% say it has helped the war on terrorism."

AP-Ipsos finds Bush's approval rating at 38 percent, with 59 percent disapproving; 42 percent disapproving strongly.

Tony Karon writes for Time: "President Bush's overall approval rating, according to Time's poll, now stands at just 36%, down from 38% in August. . . .

"Only 38% of respondents in the Time poll now support President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. . . . Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war, while 54% believe he 'deliberately misled' Americans in making his case for war -- a figure that has increased by 6 points over the past year."

Signing Statement Watch

The Associated Press joins the Boston Globe in covering this important issue, exploring the signing statement Bush issued Wednesday night after most reporters had already filed their stories on the Homeland Security appropriations bill in question.
Leslie Miller writes for the AP: "President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

"In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
"But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section 'in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.'"

Why is this a big deal?

As Miller writes: "Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

"'The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed,' said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"He said the Homeland Security Department has the most significant impact on citizens' privacy of any agency in the federal government."

(Case in point, 60 Minutes is reporting this weekend on a secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists, which "includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.")

Won't someone PLEASE think of the children?

I've decided to get on the wagon for a while (on the wagon or off? Whichever one means not drinking). I'm starting to develop a beer gut on top of the fried stuff/cheese/po-boys gut I already had. Plus the initial layer of baby fat.

If you were in Helena, Montana, and you bought a handbasket you would have a Helena handbasket. I hate myself.

A republican congressman, Mark Foley, has been having cybersex and sending lewd e-mails to male pages under the age of 16. Yes, sweet sweet pedophilia!

No child left behind? No child's behind left...

The worse part is that the republican congressional leadership knew about it and did nothing for fear of political rammifications. Politics over pedophilia. Dog bless the USA.

I bet he knows what the sound of one hand typing is.

Currently Listening to:
Greg Laswell

Through Toledo (2006)

Lowering the bar

The United States debating torture. A self-proclaimed God-fearing man, assumed leader of the nation, rallying for inhumane treatment of people who may or may not be guilty of a crime. I wonder how his god would feel about that.

He says this is a war for civilization, a war against evil and evil-doers. What sort of generalized anodyne is this? How can the American people be placated by such obviously ambiguous rhetoric? When have we not been against "evil"? Or terrorism? How do you conduct a war on the abstract? By bringing Baghdad taxi drivers to the brink of drowning to death?

This is the most disturbing conversation our country has ever had. How is it possible to claim the moral high ground while efforting to lower our own standards to those of the "evil-doers"?

The terrorists are bad, they behead white people, so we should be bad too to protect our goodness?

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?

Mood: irritated

Have you ever noticed the day after you smoke pot you get agitated easily? That's how I felt today, only I didn't get high yesterday. Not on the sabbath, no sir.

All I could dwell upon was how uninspiring and useless my job is. How many people are passionate about their jobs? Surely not janitors, or Hollywood types. Most people? It's a comfoting thought -- that everyone's miserable and I'm not alone.

I watched a bull-riding competition yesterday while bored (obviously). Those guys have to love what they do. Why else put yourself in a position for such potential bodily injury?

It's fun to watch cowboys get stomped by bulls. Fox should start a show about ti: "When hamburger fights back". Now I just need some CGI special effect scene depicting the colonel getting henpecked (not figuratively) to death. My ears want painful screams with a southern drawl, the lily white suit blotched red!

Why is the big purple McDonald's character named Grimace? Because he's not entirely fond of watching ground meat rendered from cows enmasse, that's why.

Dr. Phil-good's presecription: new Yo La Tengo, xanax, and internet clips of people hurting themselves while skateboarding

Currently Listening to:
Yo La Tengo

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006)

Very stellar, btw.

Bad Dane Cook!

Jessica Simpson and Dane Cook in the same movie. Phillip brain bleed. Not just from all the substance abuse and usual life woes either.

Tomorrow starts the 2006 ACL fest, yet another year I'm unable to go. I foresee a weekend of encapsulated, insulated reality escapism. Someone find me a republican so I can ask them the best way to go about this.

Ann Richards, the only good thing ever to come out of Texas, died. She lost being re-elected governor because she legislated her principles instead of politics. And W. probably rigged that one too, because she was hugely popular. Also he's unelectable and a complete braying jackass phony liar crap nugget.

Could Norah Jones be more painfully beautiful? Leading scientists say no.

Currently Listening to:
I'm From Barcelona

Let Me Introduce You to My Friends (2006)

This borders on Polyphonic Spreeness, which I abhor, but stups short and does right by me.

The sad and primal forces of nature

Yesterday I would have written a seven-eleven post but was working out of the office all day (7 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and frankly forgot that it even was seven-eleven. I should state outright that I don't give a fuck -- it's just another day on the calendar, made special by our own calendar year. Why is the 1,825th day after the event so much more significant than the 1,826th? Or the 1,000th? Or 2,000th? We have a strange habit of paying special attention to tragedies on their anniversaries and affording them none the rest of the year (unless you're a republican running for re-election and need people to be terrified so they'll vote for you, which ironically is the exact definition of terrorism). Also see: Hurricane Katrina.

We're no safer, more people hate and want to kill us, our country is broke, our military significantly weakened, the rich are richer and the poor poorer, evangelicals rule the roost, and I need coffee.

People: kill your television (Ned's Atomic Dustbin). You will find no truth in TV. Watch Network.

Currently Listening to:
TV on the Radio

Return to Cookie Mountain (2006)

Keith Olbermann, je t'aime

You can watch Keith read this commentary at the Countdown page, which is actually more stirring than just reading it. But I had to post his words.

Feeling morally, intellectually confused?

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

Comments? Email KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Lindsay Lohan: Fire down below? Fire in (around) the hole? I can't pick a title!

My bookie is going to knee-cap me. Lindsay Lohan does NOT, in fact, have a freckled firecrotch, with carpet matching curtains. DAMNATION! For me that was her one last possible redeeming quality. You can see the pictures on that link. Plain as tall Sarah.

Currently Listening to:
The Thermals

The Body, The Blood, The Machine (2006)

Shoot the sherriff?

A British documentary (mockumentary, docudrama, whatever) depicts the fictional assassination of President Bush while on a trip to Chicago in 2007 by a supposed Syrian sniper. As much as I loathe Bush and his administration I still gotta frown upon the premise since I don't believe in murder in any circumstance.

Occasionally I entertain the thought of murder in utilitarian terms, and consider that maybe many lives would be saved were it not for the continued life of one person or a small group of people. But here, killing Bush would accomplish nothing in the way of change, and probably arouse the same fuck-all-brown-people sentiment that propagated after 7-11 and lead to more carpetbombing and xenophobia.

Mostly though I don't want my utter malice for the guy to elicit a knee-jerk, hells-yeah-plug-that-nut-garbler response. I'm not an un-biased juror here so my opinion is just suspect, I think. Maybe I'll just go with "respect the office of the president" and say fie.

Currently Listening to:
CSS

Cansei de Ser Sexy (2006)

West Wing dialogue

This is an excerpt from The West Wing episode where Jimmy Smits, the Democratic presidential nominee, debates Alan Alda, the Republican nominee. It's spectacular.

"Some of our older airlines are having trouble meeting their huge pension obligations at the very same time when they're facing intense competition from low-cost airlines that are so new they don't yet have pensions to pay. Now, an unthinking liberal will describe the airline bankruptcies as the evil capitalists screwing the workers."

"I didn't say that Senator and I don't think you should put words in my mouth."

"No. Of course you didn't say it. You're not an unthinking liberal. Are you?"

"I know you like to use that word 'liberal' as if it were a crime."

"No. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have used that word. I know Democrats think liberal is a bad word. So bad you had to change it. What do you call yourselves now, progressives? Is that it?"

"It's true. Republicans have tried to turn liberal into a bad word. Well, liberals ended slavery in this country."

"A Republican President ended slavery."

"Yes, a liberal Republican, Senator. What happened to them? They got run out of your party. What did liberals do that was so offensive to the liberal party? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."

Das verken suckens der balls

Buzzing about in Cameron Parish -- a 2-hour trip to and fro.

Wednesday was a 12-hour day, including a 4-foot fall off a loading dock while holding a 17-inch CRT (not flat-panel, i.e. heavy) computer monitor. I decided I'm not particularly fond of falling from loading docks. My pants ripped, I'm having a hard time writing -- half of my left hand is blue and swollen (masturbation... difficult. I'm a southpaw), and my diet has gone to shit because the only thing to eat in the utopian land of Cameron is fast food. Lots of McFried things.

Also I've had to imbibe copius amounts of beer after work (yes, just HAD to) every day to stay grounded and not go mental/postal and quit. So I'm a big fatass now.

Thursday was only a 10-hour day. I should change my Myspace moniker to Inch and the Angry Phillip.

We're off for Labor Day. I should thank Dog for small miracles.

Currently Listening to:
What Made Milwaukee Famous

Trying to Never Catch Up (2006)

Handjobs

Sporadically I am a big dumb animal of simian status, with little control of addictions, subsequent actions, and restraint of thought thuswhile. I could be glad that these situations are only chemically-induced phenomena (not at all phenomenal), and not ballast of my everyday sober existence. But we rarely focus on the positive do we? Still, I reverently wash xanax down with beer for fear of not being known at all. Even the blunderous "me".

It's as though some magnanimous knowledge exists innately in those around me that I'm not privy to and it either makes me an outsider looking in or the sole possessor of a different secret who just laments it. It doesn't elicit a sense of superiority or self-pity in me, in either scenario, just the usual perplexion that gnaws at the back of my brain. A hefty Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I feel like a casual observer of life and lives but rarely a participant.

And speaking of perplexion, why are there internet porn sites solely featuring handjobs? From a male standpoint isn't porn supposed to illustrate that which is not easliy attainable on a regular basis (for us non-socio's and broke-asses)? So.... handjobs? All I have to do for a handjob is buy myself dinner and get myself drunk. And occasionally light some candles. Not that difficult.

Currently Listening To:
My Brightest Diamond

Bring Me the Workhorse (2006)

Now Watch this Drive

Keats and Yeats are on your side

I also wanted to write a blog about how Dane Cook sucks, but my time is better spent doing... anything but pondering Dane Cook.

Last night I bore witness to nothing but happy couples. Doing couple-y things. Historically this would send me into a spiral of self-pity and bitter loathing, but this morning I strangely find myself unbothered. I credit Mel Gibson and blame 9/11.

Also last night I found out that old friends of mine:

a. Got married without inviting me
b. Moved away without telling me
c. Moved back to Lafayette without contacting me

Three seperate people, mind you.

Not that I desire to be the center of anyone's universe, but FUCK it's a lot of personal disregard to absorb in one night.

Again, I am atypically unbothered. All the zen and meditating and medicating must be paying off. Suck it Tom Cruise!

I noticed in the local Lafayette party line pinko rag that someone was shot and killed at the mall. Strangely I don't care.

Happy birthday Stuart Murdoch!

Currently Listening To:
The Smiths

The Queen Is Dead (1990)

Top Ten Chapter Titles In George W. Bush's Memoirs

From David Letterman:

10. "101 Ways I've Misspelled 'Condoleezza'"
9. "Why Mom And Dad Voted For Kerry"
8. "The Best Memos I've Never Read"
7. "The War In Iraq, A 6-Foot Sandwich, And Other Things I Started But Couldn't Finish"
6. "How To Lose An Election And Still Become President"
5. "Good News, America - Just 923 More Days"
4. "1962-1964: The Cheerleader Years"
3. "Huh?"
2. "Bubba Was Right - - Monica Is Up For Anything"
1. "Chapter 20...Or is That My Approval Rating?"

Anniversary

The past few days I've been incessantly regailed with tails of suffering and remaining questions from people victimized by the hurricanes, and the inadequate responses that were begrudgingly offered. It's disheartening.

On one side you have the self-empowered righteous well-to-do's who blame the misfortunes of the relocated on their unwillingness to work and over-breeding, or that they decided to live in a giant bowl, or their darkness, or any other conjured excuse to evade responsibility.

On the other are those who sympathize with their plights and wring hands about what to do to help. Anymore I don't trust charities supposedly set up to give aid to the misplaced. At present I think the best contribution one can make is their time (ALWAYS worth more than money); time helping rebuild, clearing debris, and simply putting in face time to show that the devastated families aren't forgotten, and that there are those out there who still care.

My problem is that I'm just not privy to any means of providing that kind of aid.

I've personally been through Cameron Parish several times (because of work) and seen the progress being made, not by assistance from FEMA or anything government-related, but by the citizens' willingness to come to the aid of one another. We (my company) have been working frantically to get the schools ready for opening -- this past Monday -- and enabling the educational process to procede. But we do this at a profit, which, to me essentially means nothing. There is very little, if any, altruistic motive involved in what we do.

I'd like to do something to help that proffers no thanks whatsoever. Assistance from anonymouse sources to anonymous people whose thanks will never be heard is almost as close to pure altruism as is possible. Otherwise it's latent tit-for-tat.

Any crap, if anyone knows of good charities or means of doing real good with regard to the myriad of victimized and forgotten souls, please pass it along.

Currently Listening To:
The Decemberists

The Crane Wife (2006)

That's right, I have an advance copy. Beg me.

Meat is murder

This weekend I had a serious yen for a hamburger, and pepperoni on my pizza. I remained stalwart, begrudgingly. Last night I had a dream that I was on my uncle's ranch and bore witness to the process by which cattle go from aloof pasture-grazers to saran-wrapped ground beef (and also strangely horses, even though I have never knowingly eaten or desired horse meat, aside from having metaphorically wanted to eat a whole one).

My zeal against veal has been thusly renewed. Just watch the Kentucky-Fried Cruelty video I have under the "videos" section of my profile. Finger-lickin' malice.

Currently Listening To:
Persephone's Bees

Notes from the Underworld (2006)

One of my favorites from 2006

Stream of consciousness blather

What else is self-esteem besides an objective attempt at comparison? One says "I like myself" because they live up to their own parameters of worth, but how are said parameters developed? Inevitably doesn't a person hone standards of what they deem meritous by taking examples from other people? So if we don't base our self-esteem on what others think, or of who others are, what is it then based on?

Certain admirable characteristics in others strike chords in us that say "this is good, this is something I would like to employ in myself" and we thusly try. Ed Bagley Jr. is an unltra-environmentalist, which I find admirable, so I try to be as well because eco-altruism appeals to me. It strikes my biologically hard-wired chord. And when I satisfy my yen to nourish that desire I feel as if I have done something proper, and I think better of myself.

But I've also observed people hunting, and despite it being en vogue among several people around me I still find it vulgar, simian, and indicative of intellectual reversion to baser instincts. It doesn't nourish any desire in me whatsoever (not even when it's headed right for us!).

I've no idea where self-esteem comes from, or what it says that it's something you can supposedly "work on." I would say it's just a victim of circumstance and you have less control over it than some would suggest. But mine sucks and maybe it's just more convenient for me to think so.

As such and contrarily, I'm going to try to become the master of my own self-esteem, instead of the reverse. Really the power of thought is vastly underestimated. We approach life as time to make money to live, live well and die comfortably, but the standard of "living well" is a fabrication made up by our environment and peers. Most people quickly lose the ability to close their eyes and go on a vacation, or be able to look straight up into the sky or see a blade of grass and marvel at its beauty wherever you happen to be. There is a disconnect between rationality and sensory perception. We accept what we see, smell, hear, taste and touch as real, or "tangible." How does anyone know what is or isn't real though?

It's all objectivity, which delineates that real truth does not exist. As sson as the brain processes some stimulus it applies experience, thought, and the subject is skewed somehow. Think about how a person's mood affects their outlook on themselves and the world. I say this based on personal experience (and from endless cliches about optimism), but when I'm in a good mood I think more highly of myself, work becomes easier, not much can get me down. And a person's outlook is basically a choice they make based on external stimuli, to be gumpy or happy or generous or vengeful, etc. So essentially I choose what my reality is, based on interpretations of external factors that affect me.

A person's natural instinct can in a sense be counterintuitive; we ALLOW certain conditions in our lives we perceive as negative to become internalized, and thus affect our mood. And who really WANTS to be in a bad mood (masochists aside)? Why can't we redefine how we react to those stimuli? It's probably not easy but with practice why can't it be done? It's just a choice.
You can apply this to today's neo-conservatives. Their opinions are based not on what we would call "reality" but rather a conjured reality they've created for themselves in order to rationalize their true ends. They decide what outcome they desire then formulate the environment around it to provide the means.

And people as a whole are too preoccupied with ends. The roller coaster analogy -- you look forward to the steep drop and loops, but without the nerve-wracking, jolting, rattling trip up the giant hill the whole experience would be ruined, or at least mitigated. Anticipation in life is what gratifies. It's the same way you enjoy taking a piss much more after you've been holding it in forever than under normal circumstances.

So is this whole experience we call life just clattering up the roller-coaster incline waiting for the big thrill? What big thrill are we hoping we'll arrive at? Religions say the afterlife, but I say that getting there is more than half the fun. It may be the only fun there is. You have to appreciate the here and now because noone knows for certain where this "journey" will lead to, if anywhere. As Trinity said in The Matrix, "..it's the question that drives us..."

People who vanquish their enemies are left with no purpose. The thrill of the chase needs to be more appreciated by all of us. My cat loves playing with straws, and when I'm swinging it all around and playing tug-of-war he's ecstatic. But when I let go, when I let him win, he just kind of sits there with this disappointed look on his chevy chase.

Getting there is half the fun? Understatement.

Lots of hawkish Americans aver that the torture of detainees, arbitrarily labelled as "hostile combatants" to whom the Geneva Conventions allegedly don't apply, deserve to be tortured, because they do it to innocent Americans. Two people standing next to each other, both supportive of this mentality, should sport "I'm with stupid" shirts. You don't become great by lowering your own standards to those of your enemies, who you claim to be evil. I.e., they're bad so we should be bad too? Doesn't that only prove that a fair Democracy based on laws does not work? It's imperative that, no matter how heinous the actions of our enemies may be, that we adhere to a higher moral standard than they, otherwise we have no right to complain about their tactics.

And the idea of beating "terrorists who hate our freedom" by sacrificing those freedoms ourselves is mind-numbing on so many levels. It's tantamount to committing suicide so no one can kill you.

But sadly we do not live in an age of reason.