suck on this

We've been over this before of course, but what the fuck, let's remind people:



And I should also have mentioned earlier that Al Gore's running mate was Joe fucking Lieberman, who never saw a war he didn't like. But we're supposed to believe that Gore was fucking Gandhi.

Why I won't vote: "Tennis on the Titanic"

During the Gore/Bush/Nader presidential election, while the entire nation was hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in the distance, while the passengers and crew concentrated on a tennis game taking place on deck.

In our election-obsessed culture, everything else going on in the world - war, hunger, official brutality, sickness, the violence of everyday life for huge numbers of people - is swept out of the way while the media covers every volley of the candidates. Thus, the superficial crowds out the meaningful, and this is very useful for those who do not want citizens to look beyond the surface of the system. Hidden by the contest of the candidates are the real issues of race, class, war, and peace, which the public is not supposed to think about.

That's the opening of a Howard Zinn essay included in his book A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. Here's the closing.

The ferocity of the contest for the presidency in recent elections conceals the agreement between both parties on fundamentals. The evidence for this statement lies in eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration, whose major legislative accomplishments - destroying welfare, imposing more punitive sentences on criminals, increasing Pentagon spending - were part of the Republican agenda.

The Demacrats and the Republicans do not dispute the continued corporate control of the economy. Neither party endorses free national healthcare, proposes extensive low-cost housing, demands a minimum income for all Americans, or supports a truly progressive income tax to diminish the huge gap between rich and poor. Both support the death penalty and growth of prisons. Both believe in a large military establishment, in land mines and nuclear weapons and the cruel use of sanctions against the people of Cuba.

Perhaps when, after the next election, the furor dies down over who really won the tennis match and we get over our anger at the referee's calls and the final, disputed score, we will finally break the hypnotic spell of the game and look around. We may then think about whether the ship is slowly going down and whether there are enough lifeboats and what we should do about all that.

This analogy is pretty fucking good. So fuck Gore and Bush and fuck the 2000 election. Fuck BO and McCain and this stupid election too. All the candidates are the same. Stop wasting your efforts on this bullshit.

Why I won't vote: Al Gore Iraq myth debunked

An idea that I've encountered (most recently in an email conversation with Trakker, but other times as well) in response to my stance against voting is that if only Al Gore had won in 2000, we never would have invaded Iraq. And somehow this proves that voting, and voting for Democrats specifically, is a very important obligation. I don't get the logic, but I don't think logic is really the point with this argument. Nevertheless I'll respond to it.

First of all, Al Gore did win the election in 2000 and the votes didn't matter because the Supreme Court said the son of the guy who gave them their job was the winner. And, as I've mentioned before, Al Gore in his role as Senate President blocked the attempts of a few Democrats from the House of Representatives to contest the election. So the votes didn't matter, and even the guy who won the election agreed that the votes didn't matter.

But more to the heart of it, was there any reason in fall of 2000 to think Gore would advance a less destructive foreign policy than Bush? Specifically in regards to Iraq, Gore had just been part of 8 years of the Clinton regime that imposed brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people. When it was pointed out to Secretary of State Madeline Albright that these sanctions caused the death of over half a million Iraqi children, her response was "we think the price is worth it." I think it is reasonable to assume that "we" includes Gore, and as far as I know Gore never spoke against those sanctions as a candidate.

So Al Gore was part of an administration willing to kill over 500,000 children on the theory that starving the Iraqi population would cause them to overthrow Saddam and enhance US access to Middle East oil. But at the time of the 2000 election, even if everyone could have magically known that a group of fanatical religious fundamentalists with no connection to Iraq would fly planes into U.S. buildings, we were supposed to be quite certain that Gore would be less inclined than Bush to respond by killing more Iraqis in an effort to overthrown Saddam. Decisions must be judged by the expected outcomes at the time of the decision, and I don't see any way that it would have been possible to forecast the Iraq outcome.

And so now here were are, worrying about the 2008 election and how McCain will be more of a disaster than Obama for some reason or another. And who is the headliner of Obama's national security advisory group? Madeline "worth it" Albright. As far as I can tell, the decision available to voters is between Republicans, who drop bombs on brown folks, and Democrats, who prefer to starve them to death.

Gore compares Obama to Genocidal Maniacs

Ha:

[Gore] said Republicans criticized President Kennedy for being too young and inexperienced to be president as well, but Kennedy noted that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Christopher Columbus all accomplished great things before they reached their mid-40s.

That's about right.

votes, terrorists, criminals

Today I'd like to offer you three links of essential reading. All three issues are straightforward examinations and interpretations of incontestable reality, and yet all would likely be immediately dismissed as extremist hysterics by most everyone I know. People who genuinely prioritize truth and morality are rare.

1.) At Harper's, Scott Horton has Six Questions for Mark Crispin Miller. The discussion is about how election fraud, and the media's failure to report on it except derisively is an ongoing scandal that undermines our (already thin claim to) democracy. I'd note that while Republicans are overwhelmingly the perpetrators and direct beneficiaries of these dirty tricks, Democrats have done very little to oppose them. For me the most shocking example of Donkle capitulation is Al Gore's blocking the attempts of few Democrats from the House of Representatives to contest the 2000 Presidential election, and every single Senate Democrat siding with Gore.

2.) Chris Floyd discusses the bloody doings of "the most dangerous terrorist organization at work in the world since the Second World War," the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Your tax dollars pay for an unaccountable Presidential army that has "overthrown governments, sponsored wars, carried out assassinations and terrorist attacks, organized and financed death squads, kidnapped and tortured, trafficked in drugs, bribed and blackmailed, even worked with the Mafia." If America was even the least bit serious about fighting world terrorism, it would take Chalmers Johnson's advice and abolish the CIA.

3.) Winter Patriot makes the point that needs to be made every single day. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Ari Fleischer, and Scott McClellan "by any civilized standard... are obviously guilty of mass murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity." I don't share his hope that they all be tortured to death in front of a worldwide audience of billions (life in prison in the strictest sentence my conscience can allow to even the most vile criminal, a category to which all of them clearly belong), but I do share the outrage behind the sentiment. And I also share his frustration that nothing will ever happen about it.

Inconvenient Gore?

Interesting if not surprising: Al Gore's record on global warming as part of the Clinton administration seems to be pretty damn weak. The work he's doing now is good and all, but it would have been nice if he had actually done something about it when he had some power.

recent political reading

US v Bush lays out a very specific case against the Bush Administration for defrauding the American people on the way to war with Iraq. The case is very straightforward and provides ample grounds for impeachment only on this very narrow issue.

Impeach the President is a collection of essays building multiple cases for impeachment. Most of the usual reasons are well covered - Iraq fraud, rampant lawlessness, human rights violations, stolen elections, etc - as well as some interesting abuses that were new to me, like US interference in Haiti.

Al Gore's book was generally very good. His rampage against Bush was heated and devastating. In establishing his broader thesis about the Assault on Reason in America, he makes some very good points about the degenerative effect that television has had on public political discourse, and sees hope in the rise of blogging and similar Internet innovations. I have some complaints about how he sometimes yearns for reason in one paragraph and then praises faith in the next, but overall this was a stimulating read.

Failed States was my first book-length delve into Noam Chomsky, and I'll definitely be going back for more. The loose thesis indicated by the title is that the United States shares a disturbing number of characteristics with the "failed states" in whose affairs it often intervenes, purportedly for the noblest of reasons. These characteristics include a government that acts as if international laws and treaties don't apply to them, that fails to act in the interests of their own people in favor of the interests of an elite few, and whose reckless use of violence endangers its own people. Chomsky is a powerhouse. I found his scathing critique of corporate marketing particularly powerful.

escape?

BOB HERBERT: The Passion of Al Gore

Al Gore is earnestly talking about the long-term implications of the energy and climate crises, and how the Arctic ice cap is receding much faster than computer models had predicted, and how difficult and delicate a task it will be to try and set things straight in Iraq.

You look at him and you can’t help thinking how bizarre it is that this particular political figure, perhaps the most qualified person in the country to be president, is sitting in a wing chair in a hotel room in Manhattan rather than in the White House.

He’s pushing his book “The Assault on Reason.” I find myself speculating on what might have been if the man who got the most votes in 2000 had actually become president. It’s like imagining an alternate universe.

The war in Iraq would never have occurred. Support and respect for the U.S. around the globe would not have plummeted to levels that are both embarrassing and dangerous. The surpluses of the Clinton years would not have been squandered like casino chips in the hands of a compulsive gambler on a monumental losing streak.

Mr. Gore takes a blowtorch to the Bush administration in his book. He argues that the free and open democratic processes that have made the United States such a special place have been undermined by the administration’s cynicism and excessive secrecy, and by its shameless and relentless exploitation of the public’s fear of terror.

The Bush crowd, he said, has jettisoned logic, reason and reflective thought in favor of wishful thinking in the service of an extreme political ideology. It has turned its back on reality, with tragic results.

So where does that leave Mr. Gore? If the republic is in such deep trouble and the former vice president knows what to do about it, why doesn’t he have an obligation to run for president? I asked him if he didn’t owe that to his fellow citizens.

If the country needs you, how can you not answer the call?

He seemed taken aback. “Well, I respect the logic behind that question,” he said. “I also am under no illusion that there is any position that even approaches that of president in terms of an inherent ability to affect the course of events.”

But while leaving the door to a possible run carefully ajar, he candidly mentioned a couple of personal reasons why he is disinclined to seek the presidency again.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t really think I’m that good at politics, to tell you the truth.” He smiled. “Some people find out important things about themselves early in life. Others take a long time.”

He burst into a loud laugh as he added, “I think I’m breaking through my denial.”

I noted that he had at least been good enough to attract more votes than George W. Bush.

“Well, there was that,” he said, laughing again. “But what politics has become requires a level of tolerance for triviality and artifice and nonsense that I find I have in short supply.”

Mr. Gore is passionate about the issues he is focused on — global warming, the decline of rational discourse in American public life, the damage done to the nation over the past several years. And he has contempt for the notion that such important and complex matters can be seriously addressed in sound-bite sentences or 30-second television ads, which is how presidential campaigns are conducted.

He pressed this point when he talked about Iraq.

“One of the hallmarks of a strategic catastrophe,” he said, “is that it creates a cul-de-sac from which there are no good avenues of easy departure. Taking charge of the war policy and extricating our troops as quickly as possible without making a horrible situation even worse is a little like grabbing a steering wheel in the middle of a skid.”

There is no quick and easy formula, he said. A new leader implementing a new policy on Iraq would have to get a feel for the overall situation. The objective, however, should be clear: “To get our troops out of there as soon as possible while simultaneously observing the moral duty that all of us share — including those of us who opposed this war in the first instance — to remove our troops in a way that doesn’t do further avoidable damage to the people who live there.”

I asked if he meant that all U.S. troops should ultimately be removed from Iraq.

“Yes,” he said.

Then he was off to talk more about his book.

[my emphasis]

update: Daily Howler blasts Herbert for wondering how things could be so bizarre

Al Gore

Al Gore is one of the few political figures that I find the least bit interesting, probably because lately he's been saying things that politicians just don't say. He's also dealt with crushing injustice in a very dignified way. Sometimes I find myself hoping he'll run in 2008, but I think there's a good case that he might be able to do more good from outside the system.

I just ordered his new book. I'll report back when I finish it.



While I'm talking about books and politics, I've been meaning to write up something about a pair of books I finished recently on the subject of impeachment. Although I lent one of them to a coworker, so I might have to wait until I get it back.

Blogs I read, in case it isn't obvious yet

A significant proportion of my blog posting the last several months has consisted of me referencing someone else's political news or commentary, with maybe a little bit of my own interpretation to dress it up. I figure we might be at the point now where anyone who is still reading this blog would probably just be better off going directly to my sources rather than getting them through the Sparks filter. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting them; I usually post something when I'm so pissed off about it that I don't know what else to do. But I feel like I'm starting to do less posting and more reading, so here's what I read and what I recommend:

Glenn Greenwald - Glenn's brilliant blogging has gotten even better since his move to Salon. He puts up a new post almost every day. He is a fierce critic of the political media and the Bush Administration and its supporters. I can't say enough good things about his writing.

Think Progress - A daily news blog that seeks to advance progressive ideas. They're very quick.

Hullabaloo - Digby and friends crank out several insightful posts every day. They tend towards more of a partisan Democrat approach, but this isn't a bad thing as they are very fair-minded. The writing takes on a kind of casual feel, but is very serious.

The Daily Howler - Absolutely an awesome site with a new article around noon every weekday. Their focus is mainly media criticism, with a primary ongoing theme that the media mindlessly passes along flawed conservative talking points while liberals watch and do nothing. The writing explodes with a burning sense of righteous indignation, especially about the way the mainstream media savages prominent liberal politicians, Al Gore most of all.

Pharyngula - The ScienceBlog of biology professor and Man Beard PZ Myers, this self-described "godless liberal" churns out several posts a day on a variety of topics, mainly focusing on biology, religion/atheism, and politics. He's an especially vocal opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism.

Dispatches for the Culture Wars - My other regular ScienceBlog reading is Ed Brayton's blog. He also tends to churn out several posts every morning. He does a lot of social commentary and legal analysis, usually from an ACLU-type perspective, and he's an active opponent of Intelligent Design Creationism. He also mixes in some sports and music commentary on a fairly regular basis.

TomDispatch - "A regular antidote to the mainstream media" is a perfect way to describe this site. A few times a week Tom posts a feature story that takes an angle you'll rarely encounter in the major media. He is very critical of the war and the Bush Administration, and often tackles tough social issues.

Once Upon a Time - I think this is the most unique blog on this list. Arthur Silber posts a few times per week, but I'd have a tough time describing his posts. They are intensely personal to him, and he often seems unable to contain his passion. His topic is usually America's imperialistic foreign policy, so you might think this is another political blog, but his writing is more about morality. My crude summary of his central thesis would be that the world is an incomprehensibly cruel and unfair place, so much so that we use false narratives to shield ourselves from it, and that America's behavior, when properly viewed, is astonishingly hypocritical and immoral. I don't know if that description does justice to his work. You really have to go read it for yourself, and plan to spend a lot of time going back through his archives to see the support that he often self-references.

Media Matters - They relentlessly and astutely document the mainstream media's promotion of conservative misinformation.

Nit Pick - This guy posts irregularly about political matters. I just dig his style. He's into the whole brevity thing.

Crooks and Liars - Media critique and liberal politics. Lots of posts every day, usually built around video clips.


UPDATE: If you have an blog recommendations, please comment!

You go, Gore!

Gore said:

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, well I read a science fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem. If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action. The planet has a fever.”

Awesome.