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

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Drowning the News With Big Imus Tears 

...it's a little spooky. Harry Shearer was very likely typing this very post at the same time yesterday that I was ranting at some helpless, trapped acquaintance about the Imusization of our entire national discourse. What set me off and victimized a fellow human being who had no other recourse except to fling himself from a fast-moving car to escape my diatribe was my discovery that a sports talk host on ESPN radio was talking about Don IMUS. I'd say which host, but its not important and who needs a listener-driven Denial of Service attack anyway....right, Colin? Anyway, my point was that this obsession with the antics and firing of a drug-addled old goofball was sucking all the air out of the room at a moment when some real serious action was going down...

This isn't exactly a perfect example of great minds thinking alike, alas. My tirade didn't feature - even mention, for that matter - Wolfowitz's featherbedding his "domestic partner's" job prospects. I was beating my chops about the missing RNC emails and the unfolding layers of the US Attorney firing scandal and the decidedly Watergate-like feel that a potentially looming Constitutional battle between Congress and George W. Bush was assuming and how this ADHD nation kept playing "Look, A Chicken!" over the Imus story and the gone-on-way-too-long saga of Anna Nichol Smith's baby and - Christ wept - is Sanjaya gonna win. Wolfy's World Bank problems would never have crossed my twisted little mind as another example because I don't even care that much about it, except as an entertaining little story about sex, money, and the excesses of the powerful...

Shearer's larger point is important, though, even if the examples are different. This 24-hour Imus watch is perhaps the ultimate expression of our sense of distraction over minor celebrities at the expense of those things out there that really might get us. It's a story that really only mattered initially to the insiders and high-rollers who rubbed shoulders and basked in the reflected coolness of radio punditry's bad boy. Their concerted interest led, however, to the apparent need of every pundit, talking head, call-in show host, and sports columnist in the world to blather on endlessly about this deal, assigning blame and casting aspersions and flinging crap until all the smoke rendered whether or not there were any flames that we should care about to be a moot point. About all this episode has really shown us is how much trouble we may be in when it comes to finding out about matters that should actually matter to us...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:39 AM 0 comments

Friday, April 13, 2007

The Ultimate Bizarre Czar 

...one thing you have to concede to the failed administration of George W. Bush: it certainly isn't afraid to casually employ the lexicon of cultures and political systems that this country has opposed for the previous three generations. There are more Czars than you can shake a stick at and the aggressively embraced term 'homeland' has to send a chill down the spine of any anti-fascist libertarian worthy of that name. Now we are at it again, though, complete with that familiar sense of confusion and driftiness that has come to be the hallmark of this bunch of hapless clowns...

The Bush Administration has begun to talk about the need for a "War Czar" that would manage the activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the Official Line is that this is just something that is in the early stages of conversation, National Security advisor Steven Hadley is carrying on like a cat mauled by a feral dog pack, screeching that yesterday would have been a good day to get that position on board and the day before would have been better. The response by a handful of retired generals who were approached by the White House about being this new Czar was - predictability - primarily the rapidly receding sound of fast-moving feet. They are only the most notable of the the critics of the idea of a War Czar; MSNBC military analyst Jack Jacobs almost warps the average laptop screen with his sneering:
This astounding report has since been confirmed, and the sheer stupidity of it is staggering.

The basic point is powerfully germaine: what's wrong with the current system? We have a president - not the one we might have chosen to go to war with but the one we had at the time when he chose to take us to war - who is invested by the Constitution with the role of Commander In Chief. Working under him, we have the Secretary of Defense, invested with the role of day-to-day management of the military employees who are prosecuting the combat activities of our wars. Working for the Secretary of Defense (at the pleasure of the President, as Justice Dept. employees are so fond of saying these days) we have the commanding officers of the various services serving as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Below that we have area commanders, theater commanders, unit commanders, sub-unit commanders, small-unit commanders, and - most important of all - sargents and petty officers and warrant officers that actually make the various services work on the ground. Where does a "War Czar" fit into this chain of command and what would that person's responsibility be?

On the surface the idea of a "War Czar" is simply stupid, both by nomenclature and by perceived intent. Even the most hopeless, hapless, intellectually overmatched and poorly chosen nitwit who finds himself picking the color and weave of his carpets in the Oval Office has to understand that Truman's little desk sign about "the Buck" is just about as clear a statement about just who the hell the "War Czar" is that you are likely to find in even the deepest mining of data regarding the president's responsibilities. This country has fought the British Empire (twice), Germany (twice), Japan, portions of its own indigenous population, Spain, Italy, African pirate states, its own secessionists, Mexico, Panama, the powerful totalitarian nation-state of Grenada, Pancho Villa, and the worldwide communist movement in Korea and Indochina without employing the position of "War Czar". The existing positions of President, cabinet-level minister in charge of the military, and actual military commanders has served as the appropriate mechanism for all of these conflicts, and the fact that the Vietnam War is viewed as a failure is not so much an indictment of the form as it is of Lyndon Johnson's execution of that form. In fact, if anything, it argues against the idea of a White House level authority within arms' reach of the day-to-day management of a military conflict...

The idea of a "War Czar" is less a measure of the current need than it is a measure of the desire to find a handy future scapegoat for this failed administration's ongoing failed effort at nation-building. If this Grand Iraqi Nation-Building Adventure goes all the way south and the meager half-hearted support of Afghanistan allows a resurgence by the Taliban, somebody needs to take the blame. George W. Bush's personal history makes it as good a bet as the likelihood of the sun rising in the east that various fixers and mechanics whose lifeboats are lashed to his deck are going to make sure that Gee Dub isn't going to be the guy standing over the body with blood on his hands when the lights come back on. There just simply isn't any other rationale for the creation of a "War Czar" position. The sad part of this strange little saga is that it's only the people inside the White House who think we aren't smart enough to understand just exactly what game it is that they are trying to play...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:16 PM 0 comments

Monday, April 09, 2007

More Good News For Republicans 

...the stunning, brutal news from the newest AP-Ipsos poll has grim news for Democrats and more good news for Republicans. The Democratic-controlled Congress is only viewed favorably by 40% of Americans, and - more to the point - they haven't been able to any great degree to capture the hearts and minds of registered independents who make up a large and growing percentage of the voting public...

Of course, on the other hand, this Congressional approval rating is the highest it's been in a year, and the number of people who fiercely disapprove of George W. Bush and the very ground on which he stands is pretty much the same. We will no doubt be grabbed by the handles and spun by the talking heads who want to make us understand that it is a BAD thing for congressional Democrats that a mere 40% of voters think that they are doing a good job, but the fact that virtually an equal number strongly disagree with the proposition that Gee Dub is doing a good job probably won't get equal billing in this little morality play that we are all so blessed to be living through. The fact that Congress is leading the Current White House Squatter by several car-lengths (a cheap and easy reference for the NASCAR crowd) won't likely be coming up either...

...by the way, did I mention that I am, to the despair of most of my nuclear and extended family, a hopeless NASCAR addict of at least three decades standing? Thought not...never mind...

...we can talk about the relative merits of various brands of 9 mm handguns later...

Anyway, the ugly fact is that the Democratic Congress is more popular than the Current White House Resident, and is just slightly considered to be doing a good job than he is stgrongly considered to be doing a bad job. The real bad news for Congressional Democrats is that independents don't seem to feel that they have gone far enough. The Nixon-era comment about Vietnam that resonates in this circumstance comes easily to mind: 'If we've lost Cronkite, we've lost the Nation' (not necessarily a direct quote, but it captures the essence). This administration hasn't lost Cronkite, he being in retirement and all (not to mention the fact that they may never had had Cronkite), but it has lost the vast muddy middle. Unfortunately, the Democrats haven't captured it, and if they capitulate to Bush over further Iraq war funding (which is a delicate proposition, given that sizable numbers of Americans say to pollsters that they don't want the troops getting hung out to dry by lack of funding - the sort of thing one could imagine the Rovian minions doing for purely political purposes), they will further displease both independents looking for a way - any way - out, not to mention avowed Democratic lefties who want to pull the plug now...

For the MSM, this poll will undoubtedly look like good news for Republicans. The MSM doesn't cast the deciding vote in elections, however, and the last election demonstrated that the constant drumbeat about 'Defeatocrats' and 'no message' and 'supporting the troops' and 'defeating them there so they don't swim the Atlantic to attack us here' didn't have a lot of currency with the people who actually, like, you know, make marks on ballots. Voters work off of a different sort of math than whatever the hell Karl Rove applies, and that greater knowledge of Reverse Polish Notation probably means that we are hell-bent toward another election cycle where conventional wisdom is going to be at constant war with polling that suggests that voters aren't on board with the C.W. any more than they were last time. But for now you can trust that "only" 40% of us think that Congress is doing a good job, and that's not a very impressive number, and that just simply has to be good news for Republicans...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:31 PM 0 comments

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Nappy-Brained Radio Ho's 

...well, Monday could be a lively day for listeners of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show. That's when Don Imus, long-time radio drive-time icon and shock-jock wannabe, pays a visit to explain just exactly why he decided to lay the sort of rap on a bunch of young women who played basketball well enough for Rutgers University to get to the NCAA finals that normally would get a fella's ass kicked...in public...preferably in front of his family and friends. That little fantasy will have to wait for another day, probably, but tomorrow might stand in good stead as an example of some semblance of accountability being applied - at long last - to the rich coddled flapping lips that have done so much to cheapen discourse in this country...

Physchologists could go mining deep and long looking for the mother lode vein that would explain how a major, main-stream syndicated radio voice could feel comfortable engaging in the sort of on-air talk that "normal" society decided a couple of decades ago was inappropriate. Imus isn't some overweight conservative hate-blatherer with a taste for prescription pain killers and young Carribean boys (OK, so he has had a history of his own with various powerful inhalants); he possesses a body of work over time - and some personal good work - that suggests that he could be a productive member of society on some good day where he doesn't feel the need to veer off into the personal attack - which, as we all know, is the province of overpaid, overfed talking heads, AM radio hate-jocks, and us bloggers. His episode last Wednesday, however, is one of those over-the-edge comments that generally snatches the "good citizen" card out of the hands of pretty much anyone who wants to be allowed onto the main court, even when the MSM is so captivated by stories about the Justice Department and the war in Iraq. Limbaugh wasted very little time chewing up and swallowing his own card on his one brief foray into the respectable world when he displayed both his bone-deep racism and his fundamental lack of understanding of pro football on a pro football program. One would have expected something less damaging from a mind that didn't always otherwise seem to have been turned spongy by a diet leaning too strong to blow at the expense of leafy green vegetables...

WFAN can do what ever they want to in their studios. They can invite racists and xenophobes of whatever stripe and color for all I care; I live three thousand miles outside of their broadcast radius and none of their syndicants are within my hearing in any case. MSNBC, on the other hand, is on my television, and I object to their trying to bring into my home any sort of tolerance of racism, whether or not it is couched in some perverse take on 'humor'. The best of Dr. Pangloss's all possible worlds would be best addressed if Imus performs his broadcasting swan song on Sharpton's program on Monday. That won't happen, so for the sake of those of us who would rather fling our last remaining radio into the street rather than listen to casual obtuse racism, it's time for syndicators and MSNBC to take a stand and retire the eminently retire-able Don Imus to his ranch...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:21 PM 0 comments

Taking the Vote Away From Non-Voters 

...despite California's reputation for being a leader in inovative and experimental laws, Oregon has its own well-established tradition of being on the leading edge of establishing cutting edge laws, primarily because of the wide-open nature of the ballot measure process. Unfortunately, far too often the Oregon experience has been that these efforts have been either poorly thought out or simply bone-headed citizen initiatives. One particular initiative successfully implemented by the legions of anti-tax disciples that seem to breed like rats around these parts was Measure 47, passed in 1996, which required a majority of registered voters cast ballots on any tax measure being considered outside of a general election. The result statewide has been pretty predictable: local property tax initiatives to fund schools, libraries, fire protection services, and local law enforcement - among other things - have routinely gone down to defeat even though a majority of the voters actually casting ballots approved of them, occasionally by as much as a 70 - 30 margin. Just recently, the fire district that protects my home in rural Oregon lost an important ballot measure (again) that would provide money to expand in response to the explosive growth in this rural but rather high-density residential area, and it lost solely because at least 50% of the registered voters were too lazy to mark a spot on a ballot that was mailed to them and lick a stamp and an envelope and put it in the mailbox...

And that is the key. When Measure 47 passed, Oregonians went to the local precinct just like everybody else to cast their votes. Since then, Oregon has implemented vote-by-mail for every election, thereby cutting the heart out of the argument that jurisdictions might try to sneak tax increases past voters by burying them in low-turnout off-season elections. Now, virtually every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot for every election; ain't no 'sneakin' by' to be done any more. The Oregon House has decided to take the first step in addressing this change in the voting mechanism by passing a resolution referring the death of the double majority to voters...

...and it's about damned time, too. The double majority tax measure requirement, since the advent of vote-by-mail (but even before that, truth be told) has been probably the most anti-democratic requirement that this state's voters could have placed on themselves. Voting should be both a right and an obligation of those eligible to do so, and to squander that right/obligaton should place the burden on the individual eligible voter rather than the entity trying to pass some ballot item. It is an insult to the democratic process that there have been those who have in various elections advocated that - in order to defeat a tax measure with which they disagreed - opponents simply refuse to cast a ballot in order to keep the vote total below the 50% margin. It would be pretty hard to find anyone who would insist that Americans have fought and died over the last two and a half centuries so people could sit on their ass to defeat a measure that would otherwise pass if they had engaged in the voting process...

The Democratic-controlled State Senate will likely also pass this resolution and the subsequent electoral battle will be interesting to watch. The anti-tax forces will no doubt fill our airwaves with weepy old grandmothers who have to fight with Bootsie over first dibs on the cat food because of the brutal fascist tax burden that removal of the double majority will lay on their feeble old grey heads, because that has proven in the past to be an effective ploy. It's time, however, to move Oregon back into the company of the United States, where actually casting a ballot is the means by which electoral decisions are actually made...
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:47 PM 0 comments

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