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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 2/29/2004 $97 The Left Coaster: Bush Tax Package Has Led To Average Refund Increases Of Less Than $100. --- Posted at 2/29/2004 05:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
Republicans and October Surprises In response to comments following this post, In October? No Surprise. Fears that Republicans will attempt to manipulate elections using some kind of "October Surprise" go back further than the 1980 election when Iran released the hostages just after Reagan's inauguration, after President Carter had worked so hard to get them released with no success -- and no rational reason for the Iranians to hold out so long. (Doing that only makes sense if the Iranians wanted something in writing signed by a representative of the new President, not by a candidate, and coincidentally two weeks later the Reagan administration started shipping arms to Iran -- a fact that became public from the Iran/Contra investigation.). In fact, this story about the 1968 election, Nixon 'Wrecked Early Peace In Vietnam', describes events that helped people who knew about them realize what was going on in 1980: (Other sources here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) At the heart of the new account was Nixon's fear that Vietnam peace efforts by President Johnson in the run-up to the November 1968 US presidential election could wreck Nixon's bid to oust Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate, and capture the White House.The charge that the Reagan campaign interfered with attempts to get the hostages released in order to manipulate the elections came from people who knew that Republicans had interfered to block peace negotiations of a previous Democratic administration in order to make Democrats look weak on national security. They understood what Republicans are capable of. And now we have more history. We have Nixon in 68, Reagan in 80 and Bush forcing the Iraq vote to manipulate the 2002 election. So the question is not what are they capable of doing for the 2004 elections, it's what ARE they going to do? (Gotta go -- My wife's looking at me with that 'there I go again' look...) --- Posted at 2/29/2004 04:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Race To The Bottom Over at The Zeitgeist: Lay off the Kool-aid Tom...: "I've been a software developer since the late 1970s when I was running my own business in high-school. I was a VP in technology on Wall St. for many years, and even helped jump-start this whole Internet thing by putting JPMorgan & Co. on the Internet back in early 1991 -- JPMorgan was the very first bank in the world on the Internet -- and helping to fund the development of a little program called Mosaic (which later became Netscape). I've run my own consulting business. I am the founder of a start-up. God help me.I don't think the job loss situation is about "trade" at all. I think the use of the terms "trade" and "free trade" are clever ways to distract from the real problem. "Trade" sounds great, OF COURSE we should "trade" with others. Duh! But the arguments I have heard promoting sending jobs offshore are pretty much the same argument as those for getting rid of the minimum wage, for not having unions, for workers keeping quiet, doing what they're told and being grateful that they have food and shelter at all. As I wrote the other day in Trade, Jobs and the Ongoing Struggle, "Show me where the current trade arguments are different from the minimum wage arguments? They argue that raising (or even having) a minimum wage keeps the poor from getting jobs. And they argue that asking trade partners to protect workers rights and safety and pay higher wages keeps THEIR poor from getting jobs."I think this is about the moneyed interests -- corporations in this case -- being able to make use of global unemployment to drive down not just wages and benefits (costs) but also the power of workers. This is about the struggle between labor and capital that has been going on and will go on. Since they started shipping jobs to Mexico they have been able to substantially weaken the unions and by weakening the unions they have weakened the power of the Democratic coalition (with some help from Ralph). It seems that the question, Who is our economy FOR, anyway? gets more and more relevant every day. --- Posted at 2/29/2004 01:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who Are "Vietnam Vets Against John Kerry"? Kerry's positions on defense issues and his opposition to the Vietnam War are both legitimate political issues and well worthy of discussion. However, the motivation of this anti-Kerry demonstration is quite dubious. The leader of "Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry", Ted Sampley, is a con man who has been making an excellent living off his POW-MIA non-profit organization. Sampley was one of those who helped George W. Bush smear John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary. In McCain's words: "I am well familiar with Mr. Sampley, and I know him to be one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I consider him a fraud who preys on the hopes of family members of missing servicemen for his own profit." Ironically, one of the operatives attacking McCain for Bush, Thomas Burch, attacked the first President Bush in 1988 for naming the National Guardsman Dan Quayle as his Vice Presidential candidate! Apparently it's not just Democrats who have questions about the Vietnam-era National Guard. Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry McCain on Sampley Sampley's non-profit; Burch More on Burch and Sampley 2000 McCain smear; Burch attacking Bush the First Conason on McCain and Kerry Smears --- Posted at 2/29/2004 01:01:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/28/2004 In October? No Surprise. Over at Calpundit Kevin says: "The idea that the Bush administration is somehow keeping Osama under wraps in order to spring an 'October Surprise' that will guarantee their reelection is a common topic of gossip, but not something that anyone (yet) has been willing to broach in serious news pages -- and for pretty obvious reasons."What are the obvious reasons? Thinking this through, (sorry, Tom), I can come up with a number of reasons but there aren't any obvious ones - at least to me. Is Kevin saying that it is obvious the press isn't picking this up because it's a wild, fringe idea that the Bush people might do something like this? How wild is it when you consider that this is the crowd that took the country to war against a country that had not attacked or even threatened us instead of finishing the task of capturing or killing the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11? AND that this is the crowd that used the timing of that war to manipulate the 2002 elections? Wild compared to that? Or is he saying that it is obvious the press isn't writing about this because the press is either controlled by or intimidated by the Bush corporatists? Is he saying it is obvious because it is obvious that they are holding Osama for use in an October surprise? Uh oh, my wife is looking at me tapping faster and faster on the keys, and she's getting that "there you go again getting all worked up" expression that tells me I had better calm down. --- Posted at 2/28/2004 09:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Email to Dave I sent an email to Dave with this thought I had over a salad this evening. He seems to like it: I have the campaign slogan for the Demos. They don't deserve it -- it should go to Ralph, but then nobody will hear it. AMERICANS FIRST! Kerry/Edwards 2004 Also, another related one: Kerry/Edwards for Americans! If any right-winger is stupid enough to play some word game and compare it to America First, YOU JUST RIP THEM A NEW ONE: "What! It's really no surprise to anyone who's been watching you guys, but I'm really shocked you'd make it so clear, so openly, that YOU DO NOT PUT AMERICANS FIRST!" Scream. Scream a lot. This could even win back the Congress. There's lots of ways you could take this. Edwards might do particularly well with it. (Dean would have done great with it, alas.) --- Posted at 2/28/2004 09:25:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I'm embarrassed... for this guy actually. My goodness! This guy is darn near illiterate. He writes at about the fourth grade level. As someone who worked with hundreds of IU students as a teaching assistant a few years ago, I'm happy to report that this guy is not typical. Atrios is right though, this guy's ignorance, illiteracy, and bigotry certainly seems to give us an indication where the conservative movement is heading these days, doesn't it? If you were curious as to exactly what kind of person W was appealing to with the "Defense of Marriage" constitutional amendment, now you know. --- Posted at 2/28/2004 08:38:00 PM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/27/2004 Extra Unemployment Benefits Lose in Senate Yahoo! News - Extra Unemployment Benefits Lose in Senate: "A Senate measure to extend federal unemployment benefits failed by two votes Thursday despite the election year support of 12 Republicans from states hit hard by layoffs.A "procedural objection" -- meaning the Republicans filibustered it, right? "[Republican Senator] Nickles said jobless workers have more incentive to find a job when the extra unemployment benefits stop. "The more you pay people not to work, the less inclined they are to work," he said.Right. All those people are just sitting around on their butts, turning down all the jobs they are being offered. --- Posted at 2/27/2004 02:46:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Did US and UK Know? Juan Cole asks a VERY good question about US and British bugging of UN officials: "The Blix wiretaps raise an interesting question. Did the US and UK know even more about the lack of evidence for weapons of mass destruction than we thought, from what Blix was saying privately in spring of 2003 before the war?" --- Posted at 2/27/2004 12:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Trade, Jobs and The Ongoing Struggle Following is a comment I left following this post at Brad DeLong's blog. (Of course, what I'm posting here is edited, selected, massaged, even tortured to make me look better.) Responding to a claim that '...Americans are told that trade destroys jobs...'.: "I don't know what is gained by misrepresenting the positions of people opposed to the current trade situation! Who is telling Americans that? NO ONE IS.Go join the discussion. --- Posted at 2/27/2004 11:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Stonewalling Continues Why are Republicans still stonewalling the 9/11 Commission? Again, for the hundredth time, what are they hiding? I have a suspicion that I'll go ahead and share. I suspect that somewhere in the President's Daily Briefing (probably on different days in August) an analyst mentioned a concern about hijacking and domestic terrorism by al-Qaeda -- maybe even going so far as to suggest that targets like the World Trade Center would be vulnerable. I doubt that the analyst who prepared the briefing connected the concern over hijackings and a heightened threat of domestic terrorism but they probably suggested both of these as potential concerns. I also now suspect that someone suggested to the president that he increase the security at airports but W couldn't be bothered because he some brush to clear or a golf game to go to or some other pressing engagement during his month-long vacation in August of 2001. Furthermore, don't you find the insistance that the president actually wants the commission's work to continue for the two months but can't seem to get Hastert to go along, a bit too convenient? I mean, heck folks, who really believes that little cover story? And also, why just an hour with the commission, Mr. Bush? Here's a question from today's gaggle that really shows that some in the press recognize the president's hypocrisy on this issue: In every speech he gives, President Bush invokes the atrocities of 9/11 and he talks about how that event has impressed on him a determination to always honor the victims of those atrocities in his daily conduct of his office. And I wonder if you could explain with some serious Texan straight talk here, Scott, how it is honoring the victims of 9/11 to restrict the questioning of the President on this subject to one hour?How about it, Mr. President? Answer that question for us all please. --- Posted at 2/27/2004 10:34:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/26/2004 Stern Digby finds a strange coincidence in the firing of Howard Stern. Go read at Hullabaloo: "So, suddenly John Hogan, Bush Ranger and CEO of Clear Channel discovers that Howards Stern talks about pornography on his show and is offended.And, the same piece has something I agree with: "Furthermore, it's just a little bit galling that a violent, pornographic snuff film that features 15 minutes of big juicy close-ups of hunks of flesh flying off the human body as it is flogged with barbed whips is deemed appropriate for children by supposedly good Christians while they have a complete hissy fit over a 5 second long shot of Janet Jackson's nipple on television."It seems so easy to sell stuff to the the fundies, if you use the right approach. This time it's movie marketing hype. Other times it's estate or capital gains tax cuts. GOD says go pay $9 and see the most violent film ever made. GOD says we should cut capital gains taxes. GOD says send me $100 so I can build a theme park or buy a diamond mine and get even richer. AND they all go out and DO it (or vote for it)! I wonder if I can think up a way to make some money off the right-wing Christians. The money would go to a great cause. --- Posted at 2/26/2004 05:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Accountability On the Right For those who think that the investigation into the Plame affair (Bush aides revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent, working on preventing weapons of mass destruction from getting into terrorist hands) is likely to lead somewhere, or the 9/11 commission (looking into whether Bush f*cked up and let us get attacked), or the investigations into pre-Iraq WMD intelligence (looking into whether Bush f*cked up and got us into a war), I suggest looking at what happened to a couple of cases that involved right-wingnuts and actual dead bodies. I don't have a high level of optimism that there is going to be ANY oversight or accountability or justice as long as the Right controls all the branches of government. Update As with any Google search, if the page is no longer there you can still read it by clicking "Cached." This one, for example -- and it is really worth reading past the "about me" and into the "letter" part. --- Posted at 2/26/2004 02:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
MoDo: "Stations of the Crass" Our soldiers are being killed in Iraq; Osama's still on the loose; jobs are being exported all over the world; the deficit has reached biblical proportions.Indeed. --- Posted at 2/26/2004 06:39:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/25/2004 Kerry and Cleland Smears I've started to collect anti-Kerry smears as they show up. So far I've put up the "Special Interest Money" smear, the "Didn't Really Earn His Medals" smear, the "Jane Fonda Photo" smear, and the "Kerry: Self-Hating Jew" smear. I've also thrown in the two Max Cleland smears: "Cleland-Saddam-Osama" and "Cleland Blew off his Arm and Legs Himself Out of Sheer Stupidity" (the last one courtesy of Ann Coulter.) This should end up being quite a lengthy file (!) so I've parked it at the other site. I will also continue to update my Bush-Bin Laden site ("Who is Bandar Bush?"). Bush is vulnerable on the War on Terrorism if the Democrats have the guts to attack him. He's actually doing a crappy job and has some enormous skeletons in his closet. I expect as dirty a campaign as I've witnessed in my lifetime, and I see it as my role to encourage the Democrats to respond with adequate ferocity. Smear Page Who is Bandar Bush? --- Posted at 2/25/2004 09:36:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Same-Sex Marriages Thanks to Oliver Willis for pointing to these pictures of society coming apart, the end of civilization, the destruction of America, the ruin of all we stand for, etc. --- Posted at 2/25/2004 07:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I'm assuming... that Greenspan's luck just ran out, right? I mean, heck folks, W and the boys have to respond to this forcefully -- or there goes Florida. And Dave's right. Greenspan is suggesting that the administration default on the nation's promises to senior citizens in order to save the taxcuts for the rich. What are the odds Greenspan has got a job this time next week? This is really getting fun to watch, isn't it? --- Posted at 2/25/2004 12:12:00 PM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
So Here It Is Not even bothering to disguise the relationship. First, the massive tax cuts for the rich, then the cuts in OUR retirement to help pay for a bit of those tax cuts. Greenspan Urges Cuts to Social Security to Reign In Deficit: "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress on Wednesday to deal with the country's escalating budget deficit by cutting benefits for future Social Security retirees rather than raising taxes."He is saying that the SAME money is better for the economy when given to rich people than when use to meet the needs of regular citizens. And how else does he suggest solving the problem of the massive deficits resulting from the tax cuts for the rich? "Tax rate increases of sufficient dimension to deal with our looming fiscal problems arguably pose significant risks to economic growth and the revenue base,'' Greenspan said. "The exact magnitude of such risks is very difficult to estimate, but they are of enough concern, in my judgment, to warrant aiming to close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, from the outlay side.''He says that we must cut spending on the needs of the public rather that tax the rich. He says that raising taxes on the rich threatens economic growth but that cutting the incomes of elderly, or making the sick pay for their treatment, or cutting the paychecks of teachers or construction workers, etc. does not. In other words, he is saying that THE SAME money given to rich people is better for the economy than money spent on the needs of regular people. Also posted at Daily News Online. --- Posted at 2/25/2004 09:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/24/2004 What? I just don’t get it. I’ve been trying to decide why W thinks a fight over prohibiting gay civil unions, an issue very few people in this world care about, is going to help his campaign. It just doesn’t make any sense. I think, of course, that tolerance is always a good thing. If states want to do this, what’s the big deal? I just can’t understand why W and the boys feel threatened by states offering civil unions for gay folks. (I remind you that the state can’t legally preside over religious sacraments -- but you knew that, right?) And, also, how does this really “threaten” your marriage or my marriage? Furthermore, if this passes, can you imagine what historians will say about this generation if the only amendment added to the constitution is this “Defense of Marriage” amendment? My goodness, what would this say about us? Furthermore, while this issue might crank up the real knuckle-dragging bigots out there (like these guys), most people give it a big yawn. Most folks think, hey, why should prohibiting gay marriage be a priority for our government when there’s so many other important issues out there? And wait a minute, aren’t these the guys who are always talking about local control and state rights? How in the world is this proposed amendment consistent with those beliefs? Or, more interestingly, is this yet another in a long line of issues designed merely to distract us? Have W and the boys just tossed this issue out there so that people will stop noticing that the economy is heading South (consumer confidence ominously dropped last month) and the Iraq situation is rapidly deteriorating – and that this administration has no earthly idea how to deal with either problem? Unfortunately, this issue might also distract the folks in this administration from more important problems. Honestly folks, think about it, if there’s a terrorist attack anytime in the next couple of months, W and the boys may have missed the opportunity to thwart it because they were just too busy focusing on this oh-so-important “Defense of Marriage” amendment. I mean, heck folks, this issue is so out there that apparently even Tom DeLay thinks it’s an extremist and divisive issue – and Tom’s not exactly known for his, er, thoughtfulness. I also think this has a real chance to backfire. It makes W and the boys look like insensitive bigots just at the point in the campaign when they need to appeal to someone outside of their base. A little over a year ago I can remember joking that W’s true base is made up of that 33% of the people in this country who would vote for W even if he sprouted pointy ears and a tail and began speaking in indecent iambic couplets. (Actually, didn’t W begin to do that just last week?) But how does this issue appeal to anyone beyond these already rock solid Bush supporters? If you recall, I also predicted that if W went down it would be an incredible show. Pass the popcorn folks. I really do think that the show is just starting. If these guys really think this is the issue to fight the 2004 elections over, can you imagine the bushel basket of hilarious missteps yet to come? --- Posted at 2/24/2004 08:53:00 PM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Special Little Law Senate to Vote on Shielding Gun Makers. A special little law saying you can't sue gun manufacturers, "has the support of the White House and 55 sponsors in the Senate, including the Democratic and Republican leaders."The spine injection lasted only so long. Coming soon, Sainthood for Joseph McCarthy. Later, honors for Jefferson Davis. --- Posted at 2/24/2004 08:45:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/23/2004 Tell The DNC To Launch The $100 Revolution Go read NDN Blog: The DNC and the $100 revolution and then go to the DNC or the DNC Blog and tell them to launch the $100 revolution this summer! And, donate $100 today. It's your duty. Seriously. How else are we going to win? --- Posted at 2/23/2004 09:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
“Free” Trade, Offshoring, Jobs and the Concept of "Ownership" in General I have a longer piece titled, “Free” Trade, Offshoring, Jobs and the Concept of "Ownership" in General over at the american street. --- Posted at 2/23/2004 05:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Education Secretary Calls Teacher Union a "Terrorist Organization" More from the Cabinet of Mister "I'm going to change the tone in Washington" and "I'm a uniter not a divider." Paige calls NEA 'terrorist organization': "Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a 'terrorist organization' Monday as he argued that the country's largest teachers union often acts at odds with the wishes of rank-and-file teachers regarding school standards and accountability. "What can I say? I suppose Bush's Labor Secretary considers the AFL-CIO to be the same thing. And the head of the EPA the Sierra Club. Etc. And check out what he calls an "apology:" "It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA's Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind's historic education reforms.This is the guy who's job is to WORK WITH the teacher unions! --- Posted at 2/23/2004 04:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who Wins, Who Loses? Let's suppose that the Democrat (presumably Kerry) wins this fall. When that happens, who will the other winners and losers be? One loser will be Karl Rove and Bush's core constituency of anti-tax fanatics, Armageddon Christians, homophobes, and militarists. Rove has tied Bush's fate so closely to these groups (at the expense of more rational moderates and conservatives) that it seems that they might bring Bush down. When that happens, the Republicans are going to be less likely to cater to them in the future. A second loser will be the media -- pretty much all of them, from the talk shows and Fox on up to the Times and the Post. Multiple signs of dissatisfaction about Bush are trickling in, and his poll numbers are about as bad as a sitting President has ever gotten, but the media are still reporting him as "a popular President". By and large, nothing Bush says or does is ever critically reported, no matter how ludicrous and outrageous it is. From a professional point of view, of course, the media's imbecile coverage of Gore / Bush and the Bush administration has been a disaster. But from the more cynical point of view, the media's attempt to get Bush elected will have failed if Kerry wins, and if that does happen Jack Welch, the Rev. Moon, Rupert Murdoch, and Roger Ailes will whip their little loser media butts for them. The third loser will be the Democratic pros. Below I linked to Kos calling the Democratic pros "the whiniest, most afraid people in the country". Before Howard Dean came along, the Democrats -- following the best professional advice -- were getting ready to slump through a loser campaign which would not even mention the Iraq War except to support it. Dean (along with a lot of grass-roots Dems) woke them up, and now it looks like we might actually have a fight on our hands. So if we win, it seems that maybe we should be getting some new pros. Coda: What I just said is probably far too optimistic. Kerry -- who I'll be happy to vote for -- is now the candidate of the Democratic Establishment, and it's quite possible that in the end the media lords will pick up on Bush's weakness and get behind Kerry. So I guess my title should have read "Who should lose". The media are probably beyond hope, but hopefully there will be someone in the Kerry campaign to put a bug in his ear about this. He might be educable. --- Posted at 2/23/2004 09:51:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Game Time Below I agree with Matt Yglesias for once. He's responding to Josh Chafetz, who described Kerry's response to Saxby Chambliss (!!) as "slimy". ********** Can't we get used to the idea that it's game time? Between games, and maybe before and after games, you can have a certain amount of idle chat between players of opposing teams, and maybe players from one of the teams team might admit that they got an unfair break in a previous game, or that one of their own players tends to travel a bit, etc., etc. But once the whistle is blown you don't call fouls on your own side. And you also don't have people on the court who are still deciding which side they're on, or who believe that competition is a bad thing and that we should all just get along. So there's no reason to listen to Ricky [Yglesias pet conservative]. He's on the other team. (Though it might be mentioned that his claim that "the Democrats started it" makes one guess that his long-term memory was seriously impaired during his heavy-metal-tweaker days.) I don't see Chafetz as a Republican. Not quite -- presumably he's angling for the David Broder above-the-battle Ace Pontificater gasbag slot. Let him have that slot, I say -- but someone get him and Broder off the basketball court! (Come to think of it, though, wasn't Chafetz channeling the Krauthammer of a couple days ago? So maybe he really is a Republican.) I think that after the Chambliss-Cleland race, the Bush-McCain race, and Gingrich's 1994 Sharon Smith smear (at my URL), whatever objective observers still remain will agree that the Republicans play as dirty as anyone ever has played. However, objective observers who blame the Republicans will be immediately smeared as Democratic sympathizers, so why should they even bother to try? Tit for tat, and do unto others before they do unto you. If you don't like what you see, get your ass out of the way. P.S. Chafetz seems have missed the subtext here. The man sent by the Republicans to attack Kerry, Saxby Chambliss, was the chickenhawk who defeated triple-amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland. Chambliss' secret weapon was a TV ad which morphed Cleland's face into Saddam Hussein's. Kerry's statement (with Cleland right beside him) was partly getback for something which happened in the past, and partly a preemptive strike against the smears that are sure to be sent Kerry's way. --- Posted at 2/23/2004 09:19:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Howard Zinn says: The quick Thanksgiving visit of Bush to Iraq, much ballyhooed in the press, was seen differently by an army nurse in Landstuhl, Germany, where casualties from the war are treated. She sent out an e-mail: "My 'Bush Thanksgiving' was a little different. I spent it at the hospital taking care of a young West Point lieutenant wounded in Iraq. . . . When he pressed his fists into his eyes and rocked his head back and forth he looked like a little boy. They all do, all nineteen on the ward that day, some missing limbs, eyes, or worse. . . . It's too bad Bush didn't add us to his holiday agenda. The men said the same, but you'll never read that in the paper."Indeed. Sometimes people forget that it was us anti-war folks who had enough foresight to worry about these problems before the war took place. I really think W should spend a day per week visiting injured soldiers. It might make him a bit less likely to take us into an immoral and unnecessary war again. Maybe. --- Posted at 2/23/2004 08:42:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/22/2004 Stealing From Dave Barry I am going to have to steal the line, "I am not making this up" for this post. But I am giving credit. Manufacturing jobs involve assembling things. Place item Bg on item Bn (bottom), then place Item L on the BgBn combination. To complete, place a Bn (top) unit on this, and wrap the completed assembly. OK, so to make their job-creation record look better before the election the Bush administration is talking about reclassifying a certain job category as a manufacturing job. Item Bn is bun. Bg is burger and L is lettuce. I am not making this up. --- Posted at 2/22/2004 01:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/21/2004 Bin Laden If the, Sunday Telegraph - Bin Laden 'surrounded', is true, they have Bin Laden cornered and are awaiting orders to go get him: "'The timing of that order will ultimately depend on President Bush,' the paper says. 'Capturing bin Laden will certainly be a huge help for him as he gets ready for the election.'"But they're waiting for the right time, and everyone seems to agree that election politics are the determining factor. So here's this guy who has had his forces attack us, is engaged in planning further activities to attack and kill Americans and others, and we're not getting him until the time is right to help Bush's election prospects. Just one more example of Party over Country. --- Posted at 2/21/2004 12:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush / Bin Laden 2.0 Bush / Bin Laden 2.0 We can expect a dirty Presidential campaign, and I agree with Kerry that we should go tit for tat and not lie down the way Dukakis did. George W. Bush's unhealthy friendship with the Saudis and the fraudulence of his War on Terror are valid political issues. They are also red meat quite suitable for political hardball. What's not to like? I've revised my long file documenting Bush ties with the Saudis (including the Bin Ladens), Bush favoritism to the Saudis, Saudi involvement in terrorism, Bush indifference to counter-terrorism before 9/11, the irrelevance of the Second Iraq War to terrorism, blowback, Pakistan, etc. All the material is available elsewhere; what I've done is sift and sort the material and organize it into an anti-Bush storyline. It isn't fun reading and doesn't really break new ground. I mean it to be a resource for the campaign. Anyone who wants to can pirate it, excerpt it, reformat it, etc. I would be very happy to have it mirrored. I also welcome for updates, corrections, and suggestions. UPDATE: I am planning to keep this page updated and am promoting it under the brand name "Who is Bandar Bush?". I hope as many sites as possible give it a permanent link: http://www.johnjemerson.com/zizka.binladen.htm . I suspect that Kerry and the official Democrats will want to keep their hands off this, which is all the more reason for us freelancers to keep the question alive. --- Posted at 2/21/2004 10:32:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/20/2004 They're In Baghdad Now Chalabi, asked whether his Iraqi National Congress manipulated the Bushies into invading a country that did not attack us and did not threaten us, has this to say: "'Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.' "Yep. Just like their friends the Republicans, you gotta learn to watch what they're DOING not what they SAYING if you want to know what they're up to. As I wrote before, "They're in Baghdad now." All the Iraqi and American dead and wounded don't figure into this at all. And, of course, the casting away of international law, the hundreds of billions spent, the militarization of our culture, the possible coming Iraqi civil war, the credibility and reputation of the United States... None of that figured into the calculations at all. After all, they're in Baghdad now. They got what they want, fuck you very much. Update - Thinking about this, I think this is huge. Just huge. This story needs to get OUT THERE. Chalabi as well as admits that the INC pursued a scheme to manipulate American intelligence. Fine, but the Bush people wanted war and fell for it. The cost is tremendous. The potential for disaster is vast. --- Posted at 2/20/2004 10:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Patriot Games I think Billmon has some election ideas worth projecting to a wide audience. In Patriot Games he writes (along with so much else, all of it important): "To really crack the GOP coalition, though, economic populism has to be wrapped in something larger -- like the flag. I'm coming around to the view that the winning theme for the Democrats in this election -- the one that could really tear the bark off Bush (to borrow somebody else's phrase) is 'economic patriotism.' The Dems need a rhetorical and substantive program that ties the job/trade issue into a broader set of arguments about the privileges and obligations of citizenship, the relationship between fiscal stewardship and national strength, and the enduring worth of basic American principles like opportunity, community and fairness. And they have to contrast those priorities with the increasingly warped values of the corporate crony capitalists and their Republican water boys in Washington."Economic patriotism." I REALLY like that idea, and especially his wording. Some have called for "economic democracy" but I like this wording much better. There is a lot that can be done with this idea. After all, who IS our economy for, anyway? --- Posted at 2/20/2004 06:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
the american street Everything over at the american street for the last several days is good. Go read. --- Posted at 2/20/2004 09:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/19/2004 Duh! The NY Times actually notices that Iraq is about politics, not security. The Transfer: U.S. Presidential Politics and Self-Rule for Iraqis: "'This is entirely a schedule dictated by Karl Rove,' said an Arab diplomat who maintains close contacts with the administration, referring to the White House's political director. 'Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.'" --- Posted at 2/19/2004 11:35:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on Free Trade and the Democrats Matt's earlier piece was a response to Daniel Drezner. Drezner, in turn, responded to Matt. He made this interesting point: "NAFTA has become unpopular among Republicans, while Democrats like it fine. It gets -5 from white evangelicals, -6 from rural whites, -4 in exurban counties, -5 among white male seniors, and a whopping -17 among white non-college married men." These are Republican voters to whom a free-trade Democratic Party has nothing much to say, but whom a free-trade-skeptic Democratic Party might be able to recruit. Right now the Republicans are working on making inroads on the Democratic core: labor, Jews, Hispanics, and blacks. They don't need to win those constituencies -- if they get 20% of the black vote or 30% of the Jewish vote they really hurt the Democrats. The Democrats have been playing a defensive game for at least the last 16 years. Are there any Republican core constituencies that the Democrats might be attacking? It seems to me that Drezner just named some prospects. Democratic unanimity on free trade is driven by the donors, tby he media (who all have their own axes to grind), and by the party pros. Not by the voters. Considering how well the pros have been doing recently, I think that we should ask whether we need some replacement pros. --- Posted at 2/19/2004 09:41:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Free Trade and the Democrats Two comments from a thread on Matt Yglesias (edited to stand alone, more or less). Matt is a standard knee-jerk free-trade Democrat. My points below are, first, that while free trade is not the only bad thing or even the worst thing to happen to labor in the last 23 years, it's part of a larger anti-labor pattern; and second, that many of those hurt by free trade are part of the Democratic core, and that to remain viable as a party the Democrats have to take care of their constituents. If they were going to support free trade because it's a good thing "on the average", they should have extracted concessions to soften the blow. They knew this, they wanted to do this, and they failed. We're living with the consequences, and the party is weakened. An example of a concession: make education more accessible. Retrain Americans for well-paying jobs. But education is becoming less accessible, not more. The degree of contempt that middle-class white Democrats feel for the Democratic core constituencies ("can't pander to them!") is really appalling. ************ Yes, it was very wise of the Democrats to hurt one of their major constituencies. It really strengthened the party for its future battles. Certainly it would be wrong if Democrats actually represented ("pandered to") its constituents. And labor knows, deep down in its heart, that the Dems would have liked to have done some things to make the transition easier, retrain displaced workers, make education more accessible for their children, etc., and that it's not the Dems fault that that part of the bargain wasn't kept. None of the statistics whizzes on Brad DeLong's site ever gave a specific number on the "few" Americans who have been hurt by free trade, leading me to suspect that nobody cared much how many they were, and that nobody wanted to ask that question for fear of finding that the "few" were indeed far too many. I think that part of the indifference here comes from a disdain for the kind of corny, tacky,people labor is thought to consist of. The Democrats seem to have become the smart yuppie party. The unanimity about free trade is among media people, Democratic political pros, donors to the Democratic party, and rich Republicans. Not among voters, especially not Democratic voters. (Given the overwhelming free-trade buzz coming from the media, stated opinions about free trade are not necessarily well-informed, but support for free trade is only about 50% even so.) So the Democratic party leadership has got itself into a position where a significant proportion of its own constituents are enemies not to be trusted. That's not a recipe for political strength, I don't think. Certainly the Democrats' self-sacrifice was a noble one, though, as we move on our way toward the one-party state. Economically, averaging across the whole population, free trade may be as good as you said, but politically it was suicidal. Talking to Democratic pros I've always met intense resistance to the idea of finding new support among those who seldom vote. Non-voters are most common among people near the poverty line -- the people who used to be represented by Democrats, but who are now essentially unrepresented. But to recruit them you'd have to make an effort, spend money, and make a solid offer of some kind of concrete benefit. And within the neo-conservative / neoliberal consensus, you can't do that. ********** Politics (as opposed to economics) is like an activity in which general-good lump benefits averaged out over the whole population are less significant than the particular outcomes impacting specific individuals and groups, since it's individuals who vote and they're often recruited as group members. Economists and lumpen-utilitarians all condemn politics and essentially dream of a politics-free world, but politics can give a voice to minorities who would otherwise be steamrollered. In our present situation, small minorities who have large amounts of money are well represented indeed, whereas much, much larger minorities such as industrial labor have been abandoned. (Matt himself is completely deaf to the losers, if the utilitarian calculation comes out positive on the average). Right now Matt and Brad DeLong are explaining that the bad things happening right now are not the result of free trade, but are for other reasons. Fine, but when the Dems joined the Republicans in a bipartisan free-trade policy, they should have gotten a quid pro quo on the "other reasons". They failed to do so, and now we're screwed. Free trade is only part of the long-term (since 1980) national anti-labor policy which the Democrats have been unable to resist. And the other aspects of this anti-labor policy affect everyone working for a paycheck, not just industrial labor. When the party leadership has the degree of hostility to its core constituency (can't pander to them!) that the Democrats do, it's no surprise if the party is weak. --- Posted at 2/19/2004 08:29:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Are You Having Problems? I received an e-mail from a reader who has started having technical problems viewing Seeing the Forest recently. If you are having any problems please leave a comment or send me an e-mail. Thanks. Update - That's TECHNICAL problems only, please. I'll say what I want and Bush does too suck. --- Posted at 2/19/2004 07:58:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/18/2004 Surprise, Surprise Look where more than $75 of Education funds have gone! People For the American Way | Funding a Movement: "An initial People For the American Way analysis of federal education grants has uncovered a pattern of major — and at times unsolicited — grants made to a small cadre of pro-voucher private advocacy groups. The funds diverted to these groups total more than $75 million over the last three years, and were doled out by the U.S. Department of Education despite chronic underfunding of the Bush administration’s own landmark ‘No Child Left Behind’ education legislation. "If the Education Department is funneling this kind of of money to far-right voucher proponents, how much do you think other departments of our government have channeled into the Right's network of organizations? For example, the founder and funder of the far-right Libertarian Cato Institute received the government contract to supply oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, there's a HUGE chunk of cash funneled to the far right! Is anyone investigating this? (Hint, hint.) We know that more than $10 million went into running Medicare ads that are actually Bush campaign ads. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 03:58:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dean Everyone is talking about what did Dean in. The Confederate flag comment. The scream. The Gore endorsement... I actually think this was the turning point, before the Iowa primary. It was played on the news there, and had an impact: "Perhaps the most resonant was a recent campaign appearance where Dean told a Republican heckler to sit down -- 'You've had your say, now I'm going to have mine.'"I've seen a tape of it, and it was not pretty. Dean WAS mean. Better would have been to ask the heckler up on the stage and have a friendly discussion with him about hte merits of Democrat vs Republican values. Let the Republican be nasty if he wanted to, show that you're willing to pleasantly engage. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 03:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bloggers - Trackbacks at Seeing the Forest Fellow bloggers - Seeing the Forest is on Blogspot, which means we do not have automatic trackbacks. If you refer to a Seeing the Forest piece you can let readers here know by setting up a Trackback manually. Here's how: Click on the Trackback link following the piece you want to link to. A window pops up, and gives you a "Trackback URL". In the "Must Read" piece below, you'll see this Trackback URL: http://www.trackback.org/tb.php?uid=78&tb;_id=107714393430380616. Copy that entire URL because you will be pasting it somewhere in a minute. To set up your Trackback you can go here: http://kalsey.com/tools/trackback/ The first field is where you will paste that Trackback URL you copied. It wants the special Trackback URL, not the URL of the piece you are referencing! Put the name of your weblog where it asks, then the name of the weblog entry that you are linking to a Seeing the Forest piece from... In Entry URL field you paste the permalink to the posting in your weblog where you link to the Seeing the Forest piece. Then click the Ping button. Your Trackback will appear at the Seeing the Forest post, and you will start to enjoy the benefits of thousands - no, millions - of new readers. Blogger-using bloggers who want to add trackbacks, go to http://www.trackback.org to set up this capability. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 03:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Absolute Must-Read America as a One-Party State, in American Prospect, is an absolute must-read. "The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself." "There have been moments in American history when we kept our republic only by the slenderest of margins. This year is one of those times. "Read it with everything from this piece in mind. This is not like previous "elections." There is not a pendulum that naturally swings back and adjusts politics -- the things that happen do so because people make them happen. This right-wing crowd is not fucking around and they are not concerned with your -- or the country's -- best interests. This is a true turning point in American history. The choices you make and they way you spend your time between now and election day will determine whether there is right-wing theocratic ideological domination of the country -- and therefore the planet -- for the foreseeable future. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 02:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Is George W. Bush Capable of Fighting the War on Terror? Note: The below is the short form of a much longer piece which can be found here. The long form documents everything I say at length, with over a hundred links. They say that the 2004 election will be about defense and security. On these issues, Bush's ties with the Saudis are his weak spot. If we attack this weak spot, we win. I hope to get wider circulation for this piece, but for the moment I'm soliciting advice, corrections, criticism, suggestions, and additions. I don't promise to take anyone's advice, but I'd like to hear it: zizka@johnjemerson.com . IS GEORGE W. BUSH CAPABLE OF FIGHTING THE WAR ON TERROR? Some question the Democrats' credibility on defense and the War on Terror, but in reality, George W. Bush is the one we should be questioning. Both before and after 9/11 his performance was unsatisfactory -- in large part because of his close ties to the Saudis. The 9/11 attacks were led, manned, and funded by Saudis, and Bush's war in Iraq was a diversion which had nothing to do with fighting terror. Bush was uninterested in terrorism during his campaign and during the first months of his term, and Republicans ridiculed and sabotaged President Clinton's efforts in that area. We can expect the 9/11 Commission's report to be a coverup, but there is already ample evidence that the Bush administration was grossly negligent in its handling of the terrorist threat during the months leading up to 9/11. And rather than 9/11 being "the day that changed everything", for the Bush administration it was the day that changed nothing. They just went ahead with their pre-existing plans to invade Iraq. Saudi Arabia is the key to terrorism -- but the Saudis haven't even been touched yet, and in fact have repeatedly been favored by the Bush administration. 9/11 was only the most recent and most lethal of several attacks by Saudis on Americans, and the Saudis have never cooperated with the United States in the investigation of any of these crimes. Contrary to what we've been led to believe, Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda still have supporters in Saudi Arabia -- some them influential in government. For decades the Saudis have been financing fundamentalists and terrorism in foreign lands (including Osama himself until not too long before 9/11.) George W. Bush is incapable of fighting the War onTerror. He and his family (as will be seen below) have too many Saudi friends and business partners to be willing or able to confront them effectively. The United States needs a new President who is able to get the job done. Democrats should make this their issue, amd they should also prepare themselves for some kind of big surprise between now and November -- a new war, a new terrorist attack, or the capture of Osama. We should have our responses ready: This is not the time to fight a new war. If there's a new terrorist attack, then Bush has failed. And capturing Osama (who?) has already taken far too long. It's not the Democrats who lack credibility. It's George W. Bush. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 02:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
National Voice I urge readers to check out National Voice. --- Posted at 2/18/2004 11:55:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/17/2004 How Clear Do You Want It? Greenspan says Congress should cut Social Security to keep tax cuts: "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that Congress should make President Bush's tax cuts permanent and cover the $1 trillion price by trimming future benefits in Social Security and other entitlement programs. "Pass our retirement money up to the top. Work till you're 70. No unemployment insurance extensions. Privatize Medicare. Cut welfare. No more overtime pay. Fuck you. Shut up. Who IS our economy for, anyway? --- Posted at 2/17/2004 09:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Perfect Sense It all makes perfect sense. --- Posted at 2/17/2004 09:06:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Whiniest People in the Country Kos: "Except that I don't really fit in DC. I'm a fish out of water. I steadfastly maintain my "outsider" status even as I work with the biggest insiders of them all. As such, I have a front-row seat to the show that few share. And I can quite honestly say -- DC Democrats are some of the whiniest, most afraid people in the country." That's my experience, in spades. Every time I talk to a Democratic Party pro, the message is negative. Can't be too liberal, can't attack a popular president (Bush!), don't get your hopes up. "That's already be tried" is the answer to every proposal. Bush's negatives as high as any President's have ever been, and those guys are still afraid of him. You can't argue with them either. If you try, they'll read back the Indiana county-by-county results since 1980, or something like that, and make you look ignorant. Something tells me that when the Republicans won Congress in 1994, no one on the Democratic side lost his job. Bonus: South Knox Bubba's President's Day Message UPDATE: I'd like to respond to two comments below, one by Scott and one by "^=^". Combining the two (though they aren't identical) , what's being said is approximately this: "Both sides always complain about the media and about the weakness of their leadership " and "The media aren't biassed, just incompetent". I hear these things said often, as if they were self-evidently true. I think that they are not only not self-evident, but not true at all. They are convenient beliefs, since they justify cynicism and a noncommital attitude, but this seemingly-sophisticated stance is actually a sucker's game. The Republicans have figured out to work people who think that way -- they always complain, no matter what. "If both sides complain about me, I must be doing something right!" Cute, but wrong. And the media have also figured out how to mask their bias by pretending that they're just being shallow, cute, hip, in-groupy, and "ironic". That doesn't actually sound so wonderful at all, but it's much less painful than admitting that they're actually working for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. It was Bob Somerby's coverage of Gore-Bush 2002 which convinced me that the media are, in fact, effectively right-wing. Gore was hamstrung with one false accusation after another, while Bush was never confronted with enormous problems with his record and with his program. That wasn't Gen-X shallowness or irony. That was bias pure and simple. As for complaints about the party leadership -- Bush's recent orgy of political opportunism has roused a bit of grumbling from his supporters, but by and large both Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress have pushed a strong Republican line, and by and large Republican party discipline in Congress has been excellent. Some of the hard right in the Republican core constituency probably believe that Bush has sold them out, but they need to realize that they're a minority even within their party. By contrast, even very moderate Democrats frequently complain about the feebleness of the Democratic Party leadership. "They all say that, and both parties are about the same". You can't just comfortably assume that. Maybe it's true, maybe not. I say that it's not. (Edited to change "lost" to "won" in the last line of the opening piece. Thanks to Scott for the correction.) --- Posted at 2/17/2004 07:53:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pictures Over Words and Facts Remember what I said about pictures have more impact on people's perceptions than words and facts? Bush to Meet With National Guard Members. --- Posted at 2/17/2004 07:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/16/2004 Those Ads -- Go Visit I suggest visiting the campaign sites advertised over on the right there. Knowles for Senate in Alaska, Chandler for Congress in Kentucky, and Haines for Congress in Georgia. These candidates are smart enough to be reaching out to the weblog community, and you should go visit their sites and, especially, donate something to help them win. If you're SERIOUS about wanting to do something about taking the country back, you've got to be ready to sacrifice a bit. Even if you can only donate $5, why not do that? It only takes a minute. It helps them a lot (because there are a lot of you) and it helps YOU. And it boosts your karma. Click on the ads and go visit the sites. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 05:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Record Budget Surplus President Clinton announces another record budget surplus - September 27, 2000 "President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion."OOPS - wrong president. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 05:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Cost Of War Counter Get one for your web page --- Posted at 2/16/2004 05:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sums It Up This USA Today story, Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery, sums it all up without getting into nit-picking about dates or records. The fact is that Bush suddenly stopped flying and gave no reason. Members of the Guard aren't allowed to do that. Why, after the government spent over $1 million to train him as a pilot, did Bush stop flying, and why wasn't he punished? --- Posted at 2/16/2004 04:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Making Americans Poorer Here's Grover Norquist, writing about Bush's accomplishments, from the Right's viewpoint: "Four more years of united GOP government will lead to the expansion of NAFTA to the entire hemisphere and another Doha round of trade liberalization, leading to the unions' further decline. Teamsters will have to compete with Mexican truck drivers. Why pay union dues if you aren't being shielded from competition like this?Each of these Republicans "accomplishments" lowers wages and makes Americans poorer! And their purpose is to weaken those who oppose the Right, further consolidating the Right's power. And another perspective on Norquist's column, discussing the increasingly violent tone of the Right's language, can be found here. And more on the increasingly violent tone here: "...I hate all you f*ing Democrats. You f*ng deserve to be die. Hopefully we can kill the f*ing bunch of you soon..." --- Posted at 2/16/2004 02:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Making My Point Here's a news story about a Bush visit to a factory that demonstrates my point in my previous post: "As he entered, a half-dozen workers were steadily polishing windows, as if Bush had walked into an ordinary shift on President's Day. News cameras snapped away as Bush picked up a caulking gun and hugged workers.Here's something the Reagan people knew: only the pictures matter. Once Michael Deaver, one of Reagan's marketing wizards, was asked about a news story that showed pictures of Reagan at photo-ops, while the voice-over talked about how Reagan was misleading people by using these photo-ops to give impressions that were actually the opposite of Reagan's policies. Deaver thanked them for showing the pictures (just spell my name right) and said the voice-over and the facts don't matter -- what mattered were the pictures people saw because that is what formed their impression of events. Here we have Bush touring a supposedly busy factory. Five minutes after he left the factory was deserted. You and I, the informed news junkies will scoff at how this proves what we have been saying. (Like the time Bush appeared in front of boxes that had "Made in China" covered up. Remember? Regular people don't.) But the Bush people understand that most of the public will see Bush visiting a busy factory and hugging employees and this means that Bush is a caring guy who has revived the economy. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 02:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Arrogance of the Informed Also posted at the american street. I wrote at american street a while back about “tiers” of voters, and how there are informed voters – namely us online, the readers and writers of news sites and weblogs – and then there are concerned but less informed voters, and how I think it was those voters who heard only the short, last-minute characterizations of messages – “Dean angry” and “Edwards nice” and Kerry Vietnam vet.” Many months ago I had a long phone conversation with Mathew Gross, until very recently the blogger for the Dean campaign. In that conversation he asked if I thought the power of the Internet and weblogs would be enough to go around the media and get Dean’s message out to people directly. I quickly said I didn’t think so. I said it almost before thinking, sort of instinctively. Of course, up until a few weeks ago, with Dean 30 points ahead of Kerry everywhere, I felt like that would be one of those stupid statements – me of little faith – that I would regret for years. But now I think that perhaps my age and experience was leading me to understand something that is going on here with our views of blogging and politics and the electorate. [I'm not saying here that Mathew thought they would or wouldn't be able to bypass the media - we were bouncing around ideas, and this was long before it started to look like the Dean campaign actually would be able to use the Internet to reach a wider audience.] Let me tell you how I learned my most important lesson about marketing. Many years ago I was an engineer who had wound up running a software company. I was approached by a direct mail consultant with an idea to sell something to my customers using direct mail. I agreed that the idea was a good one and we got started, but very soon I became uncomfortable with the sales pitch that the consultant was writing for use in the letters. I felt the language was insulting and obvious, even slick and sleazy, and that the customers wouldn’t fall for that kind of trash. So we decided to put it to a test (that’s the beauty of direct mail, you test everything) where I would write a letter and we would mail each of our letters to several thousand people and see what happened. I wrote by far the best sales letter I had ever written or even imagined. It was a letter I would read if it came to me, and that would cause me to purchase. It was extremely respectful of the customers, used the best grammar, gave details and described features… anyway it was just superb. He, on the other wrote a sleazy, trashy, salesy typical direct mail letter that had nothing technical in it at all, nothing about the features – that said this remarkable new breakthrough product was being offered exclusively to them and only them and only for a very limited time so they must act now or lose out and by the way if they bought NOW they would also get a free gift that was so valuable... – a letter that I would have thrown out immediately assuming I even opened the envelope. We mailed the letters and a week or so later the orders started to come in. After two weeks the results were becoming obvious, and after three weeks and his letter outselling mine almost four to one I wrote out by hand and FAXed to him a long letter that said only, “I will never question Jim Johnson again. I will never question Jim Johnson again. I will…” which went on for three pages so that it would come out of his FAX machine as one long scroll. I understand he still has that FAX hanging up in his office. So I learned a very, very important lesson: There is a REASON that direct mail is all so similar and reads the way it does. BECAUSE IT WORKS! Because they have been doing it for decades and have studied it and refined it and refined it and tested it and refined it again, and it makes money – more money than other things they have tried because more people respond to it. And by extension, I came to understand that there is a reason that there are all those stupid ads on TV that we all hate, and ads in magazines, and billboards, and posters in subways, and huge ads on the sides of buses. And I came to understand why big companies spend BILLIONS on advertising when they are otherwise so cheap they ration pencils to their employees. BECAUSE ADVERTISING/MARKETING WORKS! And I came to understand why they use such stupid appeals that are insulting to me. Because it works on most people, even if it does not work on me. And this is because I am informed BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT. Years later I worked for a while as a consultant, mostly helping other engineers who found themselves in the position of having companies learn from my mistakes, and helping turn the companies into real businesses – setting up Boards of Directors, and other businessy things. The very hardest part of that job was convincing engineers that they really didn’t understand marketing, and that they needed marketing professionals to handle their marketing. The engineers invariably were much like I was before that direct mail challenge. They assumed that other people were like them, knew what they knew, and understood what they understood. They were dismissive of stupid and obvious marketing appeals and felt they had read and knew a lot about marketing and could do a better job themselves. They felt they could certainly word things more intelligently, that they understood their products better, and that people would flock to buy the products because they are better. I only occasionally succeeded in convincing them to bring in professional marketing people AND allowing those professionals to do their jobs with minimal interference – and the companies that did not almost universally failed eventually. So where is this leading? How many of you think you are too smart to fall for ads and blatant sales pitches? You probably are, and that is the problem that I am trying to write about today. The very fact that you are reading this means that you get your information online, and that you seek out alternative sources of deeper information than you get from your newspapers and TV. I am trying to say that you and I are informed and that blinds us to some realities. The very fact of OUR awareness can mislead us about most voters because most voters are NOT particularly informed at all. And they are busy or have other reasons that they are not likely to ever become highly informed about what is going on. Our state of informedness causes us to lose sight of what it is like to only hear what I call the “surface” messages that circulate – messages like “Dean angry” and “Edwards nice.” I think THIS is the reason that 50% of Americas STILL believe that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attack – because what news they DO hear has the President using 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentence repeatedly. Things like that. It isn't going to change. We need to learn to hear what THEY are hearing, and understand how those things are going to affect them. As I like to say, the people behind the Republicans are the people who sold tobacco – people so skilled they convinced others to kill themselves and to hand over their money in the process. They are people who DO understand regular Americans. We should learn from them. That bulge in Bush's flight suit and the Marlboro man are are both designed to convey simple, basic, short messages on an emotional level to specific target audiences. That's marketing. Simple, basic, short messages that reach the target audience on an emotional level, repeated and repeated. I fear that we online consumers of news suffer the arrogance of the informed. I think we all, bloggers and readers alike, might benefit from taking a step back, seeing a bigger picture – one that encompasses millions of less informed voters – and trying to understand what THEY think and how THEY react to things they hear. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 02:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
President George W. "Otter" Bush Otter (to Dean Wormer): "You fucked up -- you trusted us!" (Animal House). A lot of people are asking grave questions about Sen. Kerry's vote for the Second Iraq War. Is he flip-flopping? How much confidence can we have in a guy like that? And so on. Well, I'm asking questions too, but it seems to me that there's one person who shouldn't be asking this question, and that's our frat-boy President: George W. "Otter" Bush. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 08:06:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Was W's Guard File "Scrubbed?" Kevin's got the scoop. After interviewing the principals himself, Kevin believes some sort of scrubbing did take place. That certainly would explain the rather small file, wouldn't it? Good job on this, Kevin. --- Posted at 2/16/2004 07:48:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/15/2004 A Free-Trade-Skeptic Economist I'm a free trade skeptic, as is Dave. At a minimum, free trade has been oversold, without serious consideration of the transition costs and -- above all -- without concern for the particular people who are hurt (mostly labor). On the whole and in the long run, free trade may very well be a good thing, but right now for a lot of people it's a bad thing. As a non-economist, I'm always at something of a loss arguing this point over at Brad DeLong's site. So here's Max Sawicky, an economist who isn't a born-again free-trader. Read it all, but here's a sample: "Some people defend outsourcing on the grounds that its ill effects could be alleviated by a non-existent safety net. This cold comfort for obvious reasons. We might add that the trend in the Federal budget makes any such safety net ever more unlikely. Nor is the liberal urge to balance the budget helpful in this dimension." --- Posted at 2/15/2004 08:00:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
GOP == KKK Tell me how this is different from the KKK, in language and intent, except I don't think the KKK is big in Rhode Island: College Republicans offer whites-only award: "A student group at Roger Williams University is offering a new scholarship for which only white students are eligible, a move they say is designed to protest affirmative action.I'm sure they're complaining about the --- Posted at 2/15/2004 01:36:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why Care about Bush's Military Service? I haven't jumped into the Bush AWOL fray so far, though I'm glad that Kevin Drum and others have done so. This is something that I researched briefly a year or two ago, so I've known for that there's a problem there for awhile. Of course, it's also true that many from that generation (mine) have skeletons in their closets, and I have never thought that military service should be a prerequisite for political leadership. So this is a tricky one. I also somewhat agree with those who think we shouldn't pin too many of our hopes on this issue. Even if GWB's Guard service turns out to have been adequate, he will remain one of the worst Presidents in American history. And if it turns out that Bush's service was unproblematic, then all the usual suspects will be able to feign horror at Democratic slime tactics, and we'll be seeing the same old "Democrats are no better than Republicans" meme again. (Isn't it interesting, though, that "The Democrats are just as bad" always counts as a defense of the Republicans? No one ever argues that the Republicans aren't creeps.) And while the hypocrisy issue still can be raised, there's so much hypocrisy in politics that for many voters indignation fatigue has set in.* However, the problems with Bush's military service do make a pretty good wedge issue. A lot of Bush's support comes from people who vote more on character than on issues. For them physical courage, personal integrity, and a strict sense of honor are primary requirements for leadership. Those who think this way aren't terribly analyitic or curious, but they do care about details -- for them, certain acts are just inexcusable. Many of them have been flimflammed by Bush so far, but they will turn against him if they find out that his record is seriously blemished. This group might be small, but it's part of Bush's core constituency, so it's important. And on the other hand, perhaps this issue (ignored in the 2000 campaign) might just be the last straw for a lot of people. Problems with the Iraq War and its justifications, Bush's loopy economic plans, his waffling on tariffs, the weird marriage-promotion boondoggle, the weird Mars mission trial balloon, etc., etc., might have pushed a lot of centrists and moderate conservatives to the point that they're willing to look at the evidence (which has always been there) about Bush's military service. Once someone loses the benefit of the doubt, people start looking at the little things. I think that's what has happened, and it's about time. There's still a problem here: the kingmaker role of the corrupt monopoly media. If they've actually turned against Bush, that's a good thing, but it's a very limited good. As long as the media select our Presidents for us, we're in trouble. * This makes it seem that I myself don't care much about personal character. I have to admit that after more than forty years on the scene, the idea that someone in politics might be full of integrity strikes me as a dream from a bygone day, like King Arthur or Good King Wenceslas. --- Posted at 2/15/2004 10:02:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/14/2004 Dean Supporters to be Purged? Via Atrios there's a New Republic story about plans by Democratic Party regulars to take revenge on people who supported Dean. Key quote: "As one former high-ranking Clinton administration official puts it, 'Will they work again in this town again? I hope not.'" If something like this came from Fox News I'd assume it was a deliberate provocation meant to split the party, but the people at TNR are officially Democrats. Of course, I've always wondered whether Peretz would try to destroy the party if he thought that his side was going to lose control, and maybe I know now. I'm 100% ABB and didn't even take sides in the primaries, but this makes steam come out of my ears. I like a lot of things about Kerry and a pray to God (should there be one) that he wasn't involved in this. Dean did the Democrats an enormous amount of good by getting out ahead and showing that it was actually possible to attack Bush, and he and his supporters don't deserve this kind of treatment. Dean did fling a bit of shit in the direction of the party pros, but they richly deserved it. Kerry won't do himself any favors by playing their creepy little game. --- Posted at 2/14/2004 10:12:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Media Demand Your Love and Admiration Now! Remember the way Bush joshed with the media and gave them nicknames, and how that was supposed to show that he was a regular guy (unlike the stiff, arrogant, Al Gore)? My take on that is different. Bush's real message was something like this: "Welcome to the club! Sure, I'm a bigshot, but in your own way you're all bigshots too now. You're The Press. So let's all be buddies!" In the old days, when there were lots of them, reporters were just reporters and columnists were just columnists. But as reporters grew fewer (with media consolidation and the rise of the monopoly media), individual reporters became more important. Rather than just being some guy with a B.A. who got himself a pretty good job, the new hire became A CNN Political Reporter or something like that, and he expected to be treated with respect. Ironically, this happened while professional standards were plummetting. The lords of the new monopoly media -- Roger Ailes, Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch, the Rev. Moon, and the others -- are kingmakers, almost a branch of government, and the authority that reporters now have comes entirely from the men who hired them. As a result, the reporter's job has become a balancing act between the old professional standards (which have not been entirely forgotten) and the need to please the boss. Since it is still forbidden to directly order the suppression of facts and the slanting of news, skilled reporters have become mind-readers and, like well-trained horses or dogs, do the right thing without being told. In this new post-professional world, success is everything: truth-tellers and whistle-blowers who get fired aren't heroes or martyrs any more, but just suckers and losers. In this context I find it very odd to be told that internet sources, especially the anonymous ones, "lack authority". The contrast apparently is with the authority of the New York Times, Fox News, etc., etc. But as we have seen, this authority is rapidly diminishing -- partly because of the media's incompetence and corruption, but also because of the challenge from internet media. Much as the pamphleteers of a few centuries ago challenged the claims of the nobility and the Church to a monopoly of truth, today's internet writers are challenging the mainstream media. They really can't claim to be able to replace the mainstream media and they really aren't trying to, but they're doing a pretty good job of keeping our open political system alive. The media whores, of course, don't think this is fair. After years of hard work honing their craft, learning to express tomorrow's conventional wisdom today, and brownnosing, they finally got the big-time jobs they'd been looking for, and they thought that they'd arrived. They were going to "have authority." They were going to be the ones to say "And that's the way it is!" But then the internet came along. A BUNCH OF LINKS: Some Salon no-name writes about anonymity Tena of Atrios on "The Internet" "Bloggers are not Gentlemen" Kerry and the media (pre-intern) Brad DeLong on the incompetent and arrogant press The Indispensable Daily Howler (Originally I had a long thing about the corrupt and incompetent media, the fluff story about Kerry and the intern, the flap about anonymity on the Internet, the Bush National Guard story, etc., etc. Rather than bore you with all that, I decided to go straight to my most interesting point. But just to remind you: the fight for freedom in America and Europe was fought and won by anonymous lowlife journalists relying on a new medium called "the printing press". Not by people with authority.) --- Posted at 2/14/2004 12:10:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on Calhoun's tall tale... right here: So Calhoun noticed the issue. And he didn't call his local paper and give them the scoop of their lifetime. He didn't call or write the Washington Post. Instead, he called the Bush people, who are never very concerned with image(they're more substance focused), and said, "If you need me to come forward, I will."Read the rest of it. Suffice it to say there are a few logical and evidentiary holes in Calhoun's story. --- Posted at 2/14/2004 10:46:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/13/2004 Now isn't that conveeenient? Honestly, does anyone really believe this Calhoun guy? He apparently was put in contact with the media by some of W's sycophantic Republican supporters and, heck folks, his story even contradicts the written records they've presented already. Calhoun is now claiming W attended quite a few more drills in Alabama than W's own military records say he did. This seems even more suspicious considering that Calhoun is in Daytona for the 500 and W is going to be there on Sunday. I can't help but wonder if W will slip Calhoun the $100,000 briefcase in person on Sunday or if Karl Rove will do it for him. Update 2/14/04 11:59 a.m. CST: Billmon is all over Calhoun's unlikely story in this post. Just as I thought, Calhoun is apparently just another loyal Republican trying to help Karl and the boys out. --- Posted at 2/13/2004 08:28:00 PM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
No Connection My cable internet service is out for a few days. I'll be posting from dial-up only if it is absolutely necessary. Sorry, need the speed. Maybe John and 2 Thomases and Richard can post something? --- Posted at 2/13/2004 02:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Real Man There is, as far as I can tell, no positive evidence that Mr. Bush is a man of exceptional uprightness. When has he even accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he is willing to cut corners when it's to his personal advantage. His business career was full of questionable deals, and whatever the full truth about his National Guard service, it was certainly not glorious.Indeed. --- Posted at 2/13/2004 06:44:00 AM by Tom Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
2/12/2004 Intimidation - or When Your Company IS "The Party" This story in today's Washington Post, GOP Activists Chafe at H&R; Block Hire, says a lot more than you think it does: "Republican activists were chattering and e-mailing one another yesterday about H&R; Block -- and it wasn't about getting their taxes done.Here we have Republicans publicly complaining that H&R; Block has hired a Democrat as a VP, clearly trying to intimidate the company into firing this person and hiring a Republican instead, and threatening legislative consequences. What is between the lines in the story is what this says about all the other companies. If the Republicans feel free to openly complain because one company hired a Democrat as an executive, it means that they are used to companies being "on board" with the "game plan," "on the same page" and "reading from the same playbook" (attempt at speaking corporatese...) -- in other words, they expect companies to only hire Republicans as executives. It seems that more and more there is a very thin line between a company and The Party (part 1, part 2) --- Posted at 2/12/2004 10:24:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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