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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, June 16, 2006

A Movie We've Seen Before 

...courtesy of Newsweek online, Eleanor Clift brings us a newsflash that is neither particularly newsworthy or bearing much in the way of urgency: Karl Rove Is Laying An Iraq Trap For The Democrats!

NO!! Why, that dirty bastard! Quick, get Nancy Pelosi on the line! Page Harry Reid! E-mail Howard Dean!

OK, so on second thought, never mind. They either already know this is going down or they deserve whatever ass-whupping the party will likely suffer if it's leading lights and mover/shaker types don't get their act together on ginning up some sort of coherent "message" on Iraq sooner rather than later. This isn't even one of those issues where a grass-roots activist needs to lead the partisans to the battlements shouting "Call your Congressman! Call your Senators!"

They already know. They've just spent the last two days productively expending your tax dollars debating House and Senate measures that were little more than another episode of that classic Rovian infomercial "Turn Your Weakness Into A Strength For Fun and Electoral Profit". What the heck, who needs federal budgets, anyway, when there is political coup to score. Astute lefties will naturally point out that all, and I mean ALL, of the polls indicate that a majority of Americans are pretty well fed up with Gee Dub's Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure and would just as soon be done with the whole thing. Americans are funny that way; they are pretty much able to see for themselves that a large portion of the 2500 troops that have died and the thousands who have been wounded have made a sacrifice for no particularly good reason. This isn't World War II, and it isn't even the ultimately wasted effort of Viet Nam. That previously mentioned large portion of troops didn't die storming beaches or capturing land or taking objectives; they were just simply blown up by a whole evil array of improvised explosive devices while they walked or drove down some road. This in no way takes away from the valor and honor of their sacrifice, but it does take everything away from any argument that this hopeless excuse for an administration could make for actually having a post-war plan that would provide security for either the Iraqi people or our family and friends serving in that country. The American people can figure that out, and a majority of them have. This isn't comfort for Democratic leadership, however. Other polls consistently show that majorities of Americans - sometimes big majorities - fall more on the Democratic side of issues than on the neocon Republican side. But Democrats have consistently lost, and they've lost because the Republicans have twisted their own shortcomings into some bizarre failing on the part of the Democrats. Clift cites Max Cleland's Senate loss to noted cowardly draft dodger Saxby Chambliss; it is instructive to remember that Cleland's patriotism was challenged in large part because of his vote against the Homeland Security legislation, which 1) was originally Democratic legislation forced on the Bushies, and 2) he voted against solely because of Bushco's efforts to dramatically weaken the employment rights of federal employees and not because of any terrorist-loving objection to the meat of the legislation. The on-going disaster in Iraq is still being constantly conflated by Republicans as part of the War on Terra, and anything that suggests it's just about time to start trying to disengage from this tar baby is going to be played by the Republicans as "Cut and Run in the War on Terra". There's no fix to this, and no allies to turn to in hopes of getting an even-handed message out. Traditionaly media, in all its various forms, will only report what is said, not what is the truth, and it - being even more timorous in the face of right-wing accusations and attacks than is the hidebound shrivelled core of Democratic leadership - is going to drink it's own bathwater before it steps up to the plate to actually expose the flaccid cold lies that wingers tell about lefties. Edward R. Murrow has left the building...

The Democratic party, in assessing it's hopes to capture majorities in either chamber of Congress, has a serious problem, one of it's own making that dates back four years to votes that so many made for political expediency and has been reinforced by a stark failure to come up with any sort of serious oppositional message since then. I haven't been sharing, either in public or in my mind, the sort of wild optimistic hope that November 8, 2006, would dawn to the specter of a new Congressional Democratic majority. The last two days haven't given me much of a reason to be more hopeful. There are brave individuals who stand out, with John Murtha being the star of the show as he beats down any winger within reach with that large righteous club of a combat veteran's anger over the wasted sacrifice of brave American troops for no reason other than to satisfy Don Rumsfeld's ego. But there is still no coherent message to counter that bogus "War on Terra" drumbeat, and only fools, dope fiends, and hopeless losers who shouldn't be left alone with sharp objects can possibly believe that the voting masses will see through the charade of the last couple of days all by themselves, especially given the total abdication of today's main stream media of it's role as 'the fourth estate'...

Of course Karl Rove is setting a trap for Democrats. It's an elegant ploy and is even more attractive given that most Americans don't even know that the majority of those aggressive swaggering Republican leaders did whatever the hell they had to do to avoid military service (excluding Chuck Hagel and John McCain, of course, but McCain has used up all his chits) while most military veterans in Congress are actually Democrats. It's also what Rove does; his is not a strategy of getting out in front on issues so much as it is of painting a specific picture of the opposition. Rove's "Democratic trap" isn't news and it shouldn't be unexpected. Unka Karl would still be leading this effort even if he was spending the balance of his daily life desperately pressing his flabby virgin butt up against the shower wall in some federal prison facility. It has been a winning strategy at various levels because of the unwillingness of Democrats to crawl all the way down nose-deep into the pig wallow with him and fight on his putrid level. Now that he is apparently going to beat the rap on that Plame thing, there's not much reason to assume that he wouldn't be reverting to form. It would be nice to hope that the Democrats are finally ready to face him up at his own game...

...crossposted at Ruminate This...
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:42 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 12, 2006

Measure 37 vs. A Vision of Public Space 

...Dry Canyon is a prehistoric gash that pretty much slices Redmond, Oregon, right down the middle. It's an interesting place, set below the general elevation of the city, and has been something of a long, meandering open space planted in the middle of suburbia that offered an opportunity to make a connection with a natural place in the middle of civilization. The City of Redmond has long had an interest in turning Dry Canyon into something like the crown jewel of it's park system, to the point of strictly controlling development within the canyon itself. Courtesy of our old friend Measure 37, the pressing hunger for buildable land in Central Oregon communities, and - just maybe - a finely honed taste for retribution on the part of some long-time landowners, all those plans for a special wild space in the middle of town are threatening to split apart at the seams...

It's not an unheard-of conflict, but this particular Measure 37 dustup is somewhat unusual in Central Oregon. Most of the claims filed under the measure have been the results of zoning disputes over residential construction on agricultural land. This application of the measure, however shows more starkly than most other claims the powerful tension between efforts to maintain those quality of life elements of land use planning and the desires of land owners to have control over their land. It's an unfortunate outcome, really, because the money behind the Measure 37 effort never really had small landowners like those in Dry Canyon in mind. But this is just another part of the reality that we are stuck with in a Measure 37 world, where the personal desires of a select group of land owners can trump the values of men like Tom McCall who understood what made Oregon the special sort of place that it is on a fast track to no longer being. Barring some major reversal in Measure 37 or a miraculous "outside the box" salvation based on the unlikely cooperation of the Dry Canyon landowners, the City of Redmond is pretty much hard up against the rocks on this one, and they can probably kiss their hopes of a centerpiece Dry Canyon park goodbye...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:41 PM 0 comments

Rumors Of My Demise...etc...etc... 

...one of the good things about free stuff is the price is usually right. On the other hand, you do get what you pay for, and what I have been getting from my good friends at blogger for the last week is pretty much in line with what I've shelled out for the service. In fact at this moment I'm staring at a warning message that there will be an outage coming up momentarily. So we haven't discussed much this week the odd juxtaposition of our desires to build hundreds of miles of fence across the Southwest, from which no know terrorist threat has come, while across our unprotected northern border the Canadian Government is rounding up Islamic jihadists by the school-bus-load. Nor have we remarked on the sudden main stream media discovery of liberal blogtopia (y!sctp!) courtesy of the YearlyKos convention that all the big dogs journeyed to Las Vegas to participate in (even Meet the Press, for heaven's sake, where I waited impatiently for Markos to stand up, spin around, and moon Timmy). Maybe all these technical problems will get fixed someday; heck, I'd be willing to double my payment....
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:10 AM 0 comments

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