Don't Vote on Ignorance
Posted on
Monday, November 03, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Tomorrow is the big day, the vote to end all votes, the election of our life times. We stand on the precipice of a gigantic metaphorical cliff. No matter what your political affiliation, I think we can all agree that this election is likely the most important we will ever see. America can turn its back on the racism of over 200 years of existence and elect the first black president, or we can follow a leader who seems deadset on repeating the still-fresh mistakes of the previous administration. We can reward hard work and intellectual honesty, or we can champion the cause of ignorance, intolerance and small-town arrogance. Believe what you want to believe and vote your conscience, but by all that is holy, please don't vote on ignorance. Don't vote because someone said something about someone's voting record, vote because you actually took the effort to understand that candidate's positions. I always recommend Project Vote Smart, a web site that contains as much information in one place about politicians as any other. You'll be able to find voting records, public statements and policy positions on most any candidate, from the Presidential to Congressional races. Vote for what you believe, but make sure what you believe is actually supported by the asshole who gets your vote. There is no reason to vote ignorant.
Labels: McCain, Obama, Palin, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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Wait... What? Sarah Palin Tells Obama to Answer Reporter's Questions
Posted on
Friday, October 10, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Readers of my blog will no doubt be completely unsurprised that I would highlight Republican hypocrisy. As a matter of fact, highlighting right-wing pretzel logic is somewhat of a hobby of mine. Gov. Sarah Palin's explosion onto the national scene has been quick and bloody, and her own hypocrisy has been adequately highlighted even by the zombiefied remains of our mainstream media. It's certainly indicative of hypocrisy that the so-called "maverick reformer" from Alaska is currently embroiled in at least one ethics scandal of her own, complete with family members abusing her government position for personal vendettas. I don't think she could really be called a Republican without her own Keating 5 albatross. But the video, shown after the jump, is really just an incredibly devil-may-care-balls-in-your-face act of hypocrisy that puts her right up there in the annals of shitdickery alongside the likes of Bush and Cheney.
Pay little attention to the old coot in the crowd haranguing the old coot on the stage. That's just the typical "Coot-Off" that only Republican politics and a disastrous economic outlook will produce. No, watch the video for Sarah Palin's bit at the end, whereby she expresses her frustration with those doggone mainstream media people. After all, those darn media guys just won't ask Obama the tough questions and they won't demand the answers from him. I'm assuming she was whinging about the ridiculous Bill Ayers smears the McCain campaign has been trying to paint on Obama lately. You know, not outright calling Obama a terrorist, but trying to claim a closer relationship with a "known terrorist," a relationship everyone involved with denies including Republican politicians who served on the same board as both Obama and Ayers. Oh, and that terrorist? Turns out even Republican politicians in the Chicago area consider him respectable these days.
But that darn mainstream media just won't make Obama answer those tough questions. Never mind that McCain had every opportunity to ask Obama about Ayers to his face during the nationally-televised debate and chose not to do so. That was just McCain being a pussy. But what's really so incredibly funny about Sarah Fucking Palin criticizing Obama and the media for not providing answers is the fact that this is Sarah Fucking Palin. Sarah Fucking Palin - the vice-presidential candidate who has done a total of three interviews in the weeks since she was announced. The same Sarah Palin who has refused interview requests from NBC because their sister cable channel has been critical of her. This is the same Sarah Palin who could not intelligently discuss the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy despite being a supposed expert on foreign policy what with Russia being her next door neighbor, don't you know? The same Sarah Palin who will not (or is not being allowed to) hold a press conference on anything at all because the media has not shown her enough "deference." Really, Sarah? Seriously? You are going to criticize Obama for not answering questions when you can't even be arsed to let that same mainstream media ask you any questions?
I realize it's an easy target to attack the mainstream media. Hell, not even Republicans like those lazy bastards. I don't even like them, as I feel they've done a piss poor job during the entire Bush presidency as well as on the campaign trail. But are you seriously going to criticize both Obama and the media for answers when you won't even allow questions for your own set of issues? You couldn't even handle a softball Katie Couric interview. I think it best you just go back to the closet they've been keeping you in and let the fucking grown-ups talk.
Pay little attention to the old coot in the crowd haranguing the old coot on the stage. That's just the typical "Coot-Off" that only Republican politics and a disastrous economic outlook will produce. No, watch the video for Sarah Palin's bit at the end, whereby she expresses her frustration with those doggone mainstream media people. After all, those darn media guys just won't ask Obama the tough questions and they won't demand the answers from him. I'm assuming she was whinging about the ridiculous Bill Ayers smears the McCain campaign has been trying to paint on Obama lately. You know, not outright calling Obama a terrorist, but trying to claim a closer relationship with a "known terrorist," a relationship everyone involved with denies including Republican politicians who served on the same board as both Obama and Ayers. Oh, and that terrorist? Turns out even Republican politicians in the Chicago area consider him respectable these days.
But that darn mainstream media just won't make Obama answer those tough questions. Never mind that McCain had every opportunity to ask Obama about Ayers to his face during the nationally-televised debate and chose not to do so. That was just McCain being a pussy. But what's really so incredibly funny about Sarah Fucking Palin criticizing Obama and the media for not providing answers is the fact that this is Sarah Fucking Palin. Sarah Fucking Palin - the vice-presidential candidate who has done a total of three interviews in the weeks since she was announced. The same Sarah Palin who has refused interview requests from NBC because their sister cable channel has been critical of her. This is the same Sarah Palin who could not intelligently discuss the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy despite being a supposed expert on foreign policy what with Russia being her next door neighbor, don't you know? The same Sarah Palin who will not (or is not being allowed to) hold a press conference on anything at all because the media has not shown her enough "deference." Really, Sarah? Seriously? You are going to criticize Obama for not answering questions when you can't even be arsed to let that same mainstream media ask you any questions?
I realize it's an easy target to attack the mainstream media. Hell, not even Republicans like those lazy bastards. I don't even like them, as I feel they've done a piss poor job during the entire Bush presidency as well as on the campaign trail. But are you seriously going to criticize both Obama and the media for answers when you won't even allow questions for your own set of issues? You couldn't even handle a softball Katie Couric interview. I think it best you just go back to the closet they've been keeping you in and let the fucking grown-ups talk.
Labels: Mainstream Media, McCain, Obama, Palin, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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Sponsorship Bothers
Posted on
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Is anyone else as queasy, bothered and uneasy about the fact that CNN's woeful Democratic National Convention coverage is sponsored by the coal industry and AT&T? Now, I don't expect CNN to be able to parse the delicious irony of this sort of thing, at least not unless there is a strategist from either side of the election available to digest and regurgitate some talking points for them. But shouldn't the DNC have at least, I don't know, pointed this out?
AT&T has been of the forerunners of the megacorporate drive to remove Net Neutrality rules from Internet access laws. They have lobbied Congress and lobbied them hard to remove the free speech and commerce protections that the Internet currently enjoys. So to let such sponsorship of the coverage be from an agency so opposed to the egalitarian nature of the Internet, something the Democrats should be damn thankful for, is a bit disappointing. It isn't as if the Internet hasn't been used to great effect by both the Obama and Clinton campaigns during the primaries and afterwards. Imagine the YouTube presence of both candidates being stifled by slow bandwidth during the primaries. The voters might have had to resort to watching the television for their news...
Oh.
But the choice of the coal industry for sponsorship is worse. The coal industry is a vast polluter, a killer of working class men and towns, and a generally dirty, horrible way to both power things and make a living. I'm not sure there exists a more environment-befouling energy source on the planet. The only upside to the coal industry is that America has an abundance of the material in our own backyard. But for a party who has made much political headway using a message of environmental responsibility to combat global warming/climate change, it is a slap in the face to have coverage of their national convention bookended by ads touting the wonders of coal-derived energy.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think the DNC could necessarily stop these sponsorships. CNN is free to take ad money from anyone it wants to. As the corporate media whores they are, I expect them to take it from every source imaginable. The least the DNC could do is exert a little pressure on CNN. After all, they are providing the network with the access and permission to broadcast the whole thing. Be principled, tell CNN that such sponsorships are irresponsible and damaging to the reputation of the party. I no longer expect any news organization to act responsibly, which means the only way to enforce such responsibility is to threaten the network where they live: in their overstuffed wallets.
AT&T has been of the forerunners of the megacorporate drive to remove Net Neutrality rules from Internet access laws. They have lobbied Congress and lobbied them hard to remove the free speech and commerce protections that the Internet currently enjoys. So to let such sponsorship of the coverage be from an agency so opposed to the egalitarian nature of the Internet, something the Democrats should be damn thankful for, is a bit disappointing. It isn't as if the Internet hasn't been used to great effect by both the Obama and Clinton campaigns during the primaries and afterwards. Imagine the YouTube presence of both candidates being stifled by slow bandwidth during the primaries. The voters might have had to resort to watching the television for their news...
Oh.
But the choice of the coal industry for sponsorship is worse. The coal industry is a vast polluter, a killer of working class men and towns, and a generally dirty, horrible way to both power things and make a living. I'm not sure there exists a more environment-befouling energy source on the planet. The only upside to the coal industry is that America has an abundance of the material in our own backyard. But for a party who has made much political headway using a message of environmental responsibility to combat global warming/climate change, it is a slap in the face to have coverage of their national convention bookended by ads touting the wonders of coal-derived energy.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think the DNC could necessarily stop these sponsorships. CNN is free to take ad money from anyone it wants to. As the corporate media whores they are, I expect them to take it from every source imaginable. The least the DNC could do is exert a little pressure on CNN. After all, they are providing the network with the access and permission to broadcast the whole thing. Be principled, tell CNN that such sponsorships are irresponsible and damaging to the reputation of the party. I no longer expect any news organization to act responsibly, which means the only way to enforce such responsibility is to threaten the network where they live: in their overstuffed wallets.
Labels: Corporate Corruption, Mainstream Media, Media Corruption, Presidential Campaign 2008
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The Game Radio
Posted on
Sunday, August 24, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Watching the coverage of Obama's vice-presidential selection this weekend has left me with an even lower opinion of the mainstream media establishment. As the peanut gallery of Washington pundits, strategists and talking heads like Wolf "the Beard" Blitzer pored over and over the choice of Joe Biden, I was constantly reminded of sports talk radio. While I enjoy sports talk radio almost as much as I enjoy sports, a corollary between election coverage and discussion of hot stove trade talk is hardly a flattering comparison. In fact, the comparison leaves the mainstream media only one step above propaganda broadcasts on the depravity scale.
All of the discussion of the vice-presidential pick was focused on the strategy of the pick. Would the pick win Obama a certain state? Such a pick would play well with the elderly demographics. Poor white voters in Pennsylvania would respond well to Biden. Biden could be used as an attack dog, keeping Obama above the fray. Biden would mouth off, saying something stupid that would damage Obama's campaign. Biden's previous comments about Obama's lack of experience disqualifying him for the Presidency would hurt Obama. It was all everything about the tactics of the GAME of politics, and nothing about the actual policy inherent in the politics.
Is this what we've become? Is this the coverage we deserve? It isn't just the Biden coverage that has fallen into this trap, it's been the whole goddamn primary coverage and everything in between. The Pennsylvania primary was a wretched example, a continual spin cycle of Rev. Wright soundbites and Hillary Clinton doing shots at a bar she'd never darken if she hadn't been courting blue-collar votes. There was and has been and is no discussion of the candidate's actual platforms, of their proposed policies, of the proposed solutions to this country's problems, just dogwhistle politics casting aspersions on each candidate's bona fides. Experience, religion, whether the candidate eats arugula or who would drill for oil in their backyard, all of these consume hours and days of coverage, while the actual policies proposed are left to the candidate's respective web sites with absolutely no actual television analysis and discussion.
Perhaps the media establishments have been beaten so soundly about the head and neck by Rovian shit-peddling that it has reached the status of cynical battered housewife. The editors must believe that their viewers accept all campaign promises as bald-faced lies, and with cynical laziness discard all discussion of policy proposals as useless. After all, if the proposals are nothing more than lies the politician has no intention of following through on, why cover them at all? Instead, they focus on the sensationalistic, the he-said-she-said reality-tv backbiting. Obama suggests proper inflation of our tires to save gas mileage and instead of covering his entire energy policy, the media chooses to cover the McCain campaign's mocking of said proposal, even though all experts and the McCain camp itself agrees that proper tire inflation would alleviate the need for the amount of extra oil we could drill for domestically. But rather than examine and contrast the details of both side's energy plans, the focus is on who can get the best dig in.
Even the coverage of the McCain "how many houses" gaffe has gotten entirely too much coverage. Yes, it shows McCain to be more out of touch with normal Americans financial difficulties than Obama, but it's a trivial bit of playground snaps. How about examining what McCain's policies about mortgage company bailouts as opposed to individual homeowner assistance? The media spends thousands of words repeating outright lies like "Obama is the most liberal Senator in Congress" without ever critically examining where that "statistic comes from - even though the exact same thing was said by the exact same people about John Kerry in '04. How can Obama be the "most liberal Senator" when John Kerry is still serving in the Senate, and both were serving in the Senate in '04?
It is the responsibility of a moderator like Wolf Blitzer to challenge such ridiculous assertions by his guests when they are demonstrably false, but most of these programs allow their guests to spew such horseshit ad nauseum. It seems they feel that as long as they have someone from the opposite side to spew equally ridiculous fabrications, it's ok because both sides are represented. I'd like to say we can blame the Fair and Balanced propaganda-rich FoxNews for that, but really at least they are consistently blatant about where their allegiances lie. I have news for you media organizations about there. Objectivity does not mean allowing both sides to lie through their teeth, and it doesn't impose on you the restriction of being blank-faced ciphers to the most ludicrous shitheel liars on the planet.
The election isn't a game, though the media seems to want to treat it as such. Sports and games are great fun, but when we are on the cusp of the most important election since Nixon was impeached, America needs a media establishment that is willing to fight for truth. We don't need bobbleheaded sports broadcasters discussing the strategy of getting elected, we need honesty and integrity and the ability to critically challenge policies. Give it a try, guys. Spend 1 fucking hour a day just picking apart each candidate's platforms. Start with each candidate's energy policy and move on from there. Don't just toss out "he's pro-life" platitudes without really looking to see the leash you're being dragged along with.
Turn off the Game Radio and turn on the Truth Machine.
All of the discussion of the vice-presidential pick was focused on the strategy of the pick. Would the pick win Obama a certain state? Such a pick would play well with the elderly demographics. Poor white voters in Pennsylvania would respond well to Biden. Biden could be used as an attack dog, keeping Obama above the fray. Biden would mouth off, saying something stupid that would damage Obama's campaign. Biden's previous comments about Obama's lack of experience disqualifying him for the Presidency would hurt Obama. It was all everything about the tactics of the GAME of politics, and nothing about the actual policy inherent in the politics.
Is this what we've become? Is this the coverage we deserve? It isn't just the Biden coverage that has fallen into this trap, it's been the whole goddamn primary coverage and everything in between. The Pennsylvania primary was a wretched example, a continual spin cycle of Rev. Wright soundbites and Hillary Clinton doing shots at a bar she'd never darken if she hadn't been courting blue-collar votes. There was and has been and is no discussion of the candidate's actual platforms, of their proposed policies, of the proposed solutions to this country's problems, just dogwhistle politics casting aspersions on each candidate's bona fides. Experience, religion, whether the candidate eats arugula or who would drill for oil in their backyard, all of these consume hours and days of coverage, while the actual policies proposed are left to the candidate's respective web sites with absolutely no actual television analysis and discussion.
Perhaps the media establishments have been beaten so soundly about the head and neck by Rovian shit-peddling that it has reached the status of cynical battered housewife. The editors must believe that their viewers accept all campaign promises as bald-faced lies, and with cynical laziness discard all discussion of policy proposals as useless. After all, if the proposals are nothing more than lies the politician has no intention of following through on, why cover them at all? Instead, they focus on the sensationalistic, the he-said-she-said reality-tv backbiting. Obama suggests proper inflation of our tires to save gas mileage and instead of covering his entire energy policy, the media chooses to cover the McCain campaign's mocking of said proposal, even though all experts and the McCain camp itself agrees that proper tire inflation would alleviate the need for the amount of extra oil we could drill for domestically. But rather than examine and contrast the details of both side's energy plans, the focus is on who can get the best dig in.
Even the coverage of the McCain "how many houses" gaffe has gotten entirely too much coverage. Yes, it shows McCain to be more out of touch with normal Americans financial difficulties than Obama, but it's a trivial bit of playground snaps. How about examining what McCain's policies about mortgage company bailouts as opposed to individual homeowner assistance? The media spends thousands of words repeating outright lies like "Obama is the most liberal Senator in Congress" without ever critically examining where that "statistic comes from - even though the exact same thing was said by the exact same people about John Kerry in '04. How can Obama be the "most liberal Senator" when John Kerry is still serving in the Senate, and both were serving in the Senate in '04?
It is the responsibility of a moderator like Wolf Blitzer to challenge such ridiculous assertions by his guests when they are demonstrably false, but most of these programs allow their guests to spew such horseshit ad nauseum. It seems they feel that as long as they have someone from the opposite side to spew equally ridiculous fabrications, it's ok because both sides are represented. I'd like to say we can blame the Fair and Balanced propaganda-rich FoxNews for that, but really at least they are consistently blatant about where their allegiances lie. I have news for you media organizations about there. Objectivity does not mean allowing both sides to lie through their teeth, and it doesn't impose on you the restriction of being blank-faced ciphers to the most ludicrous shitheel liars on the planet.
The election isn't a game, though the media seems to want to treat it as such. Sports and games are great fun, but when we are on the cusp of the most important election since Nixon was impeached, America needs a media establishment that is willing to fight for truth. We don't need bobbleheaded sports broadcasters discussing the strategy of getting elected, we need honesty and integrity and the ability to critically challenge policies. Give it a try, guys. Spend 1 fucking hour a day just picking apart each candidate's platforms. Start with each candidate's energy policy and move on from there. Don't just toss out "he's pro-life" platitudes without really looking to see the leash you're being dragged along with.
Turn off the Game Radio and turn on the Truth Machine.
Labels: Biden, Mainstream Media, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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Things I'd Like to Fire Into the Sun: So-Called Experts
Posted on
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I've never been a fan of Hillary Clinton's, despite the respect I have for the presidency of her husband. She is a thoroughly unlikeable woman, whose good ideas are balanced by an equal weight of bad ideas. Since her carpetbagging move from Arkansas to New York in order to run for a Senate seat, I have felt the same unfortunate vibe from her that I do from her husband, i.e. that both are rabid politicians, who will say or do anything to get elected. While Bill Clinton's geniality and ability to properly fake human sympathy make him likeable, Hillary Clinton's entire personality is not only acerbic, but rings of a striking phoniness down at the gut level. Even so, were she to win the Democratic nomination, I would vote for her over John McCain, if only because McCain's chorus of "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" and his flip-flopping on the propriety of torture have convinced me he is as much of a rabid politician as any other. But some of Sen. Clinton's comments in today's Chicago Tribune story make me want to fire her into the sun.
According to the article:
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but being the wife of the President is not an elected position. It is not typically a position that comes with any civil authority whatsoever other than perhaps the running of the household at the White House. Any authority or power of the position is at most granted out of deference to the wife of the President.
So how fucking arrogant do you have to be to claim eight years as first wife as any kind of governing or foreign policy experience? Whispered pillow talk does not make for foreign policy experience. Listening to your husband vent about the Republican noise machine does not make for crisis management. And while Mrs. Clinton was certainly the target of many personal and nasty attacks during her time as First Lady, that no more prepares her for service as Commander in Chief than running the drive-thru at a fucking McDonalds.
As for your time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, let's see where that time got this nation. Oh right, it got you to vote to give this cluster fuck of a President authorization to use force in Iraq. Five years later, this country is still paying for that mistake in blood and treasure. If that is the kind of whip smart decision-making your experience will give us, then I will kindly tell that experience to fuck right off. If you'd like to run on your record of experience, your record tells me you are an easily-led tool who has enabled our President to skullfuck this country into the ground. Do you really want to run on your experience?
Senator Obama may be young and fresh-faced. He may not have been the snuggle bunny of a sitting, popular President. That doesn't mean he can't approach foreign policy as well if not better than you or any of the other clowns who've had a hand in our foreign policy for over a decade. And unlike you, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama did not vote to invade Iraq, which tells me he has more foreign policy foresight than you showed.
First Lady is not a position of authority, and it is not the kind of experience you can put on a resume. Please shut up about your time as Wife-in-Chief or get the fuck on the Sol Rocket Express.
According to the article:
Speaking at George Washington University, Clinton chided Obama for what she said was a lack of experience that could rival a Bush administration that had a strategy based on "false choices and then is indifferent about the consequences -- force versus diplomacy, unilateralism versus multilateralism, hard power versus soft."
"We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security," she said. "We can't let that happen again."
Clinton cited her experience in the White House with her husband during times of crises as well as her service as a two-term New York senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but being the wife of the President is not an elected position. It is not typically a position that comes with any civil authority whatsoever other than perhaps the running of the household at the White House. Any authority or power of the position is at most granted out of deference to the wife of the President.
So how fucking arrogant do you have to be to claim eight years as first wife as any kind of governing or foreign policy experience? Whispered pillow talk does not make for foreign policy experience. Listening to your husband vent about the Republican noise machine does not make for crisis management. And while Mrs. Clinton was certainly the target of many personal and nasty attacks during her time as First Lady, that no more prepares her for service as Commander in Chief than running the drive-thru at a fucking McDonalds.
As for your time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, let's see where that time got this nation. Oh right, it got you to vote to give this cluster fuck of a President authorization to use force in Iraq. Five years later, this country is still paying for that mistake in blood and treasure. If that is the kind of whip smart decision-making your experience will give us, then I will kindly tell that experience to fuck right off. If you'd like to run on your record of experience, your record tells me you are an easily-led tool who has enabled our President to skullfuck this country into the ground. Do you really want to run on your experience?
Senator Obama may be young and fresh-faced. He may not have been the snuggle bunny of a sitting, popular President. That doesn't mean he can't approach foreign policy as well if not better than you or any of the other clowns who've had a hand in our foreign policy for over a decade. And unlike you, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama did not vote to invade Iraq, which tells me he has more foreign policy foresight than you showed.
First Lady is not a position of authority, and it is not the kind of experience you can put on a resume. Please shut up about your time as Wife-in-Chief or get the fuck on the Sol Rocket Express.
Labels: Bush Administration, Government Corruption, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008, Things I'd Like to Fire Into the Sun
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The Surge of Success! Or Yet Another Carefully Crafted Iraq Lie
Posted on
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
We've been told for over a year now that the surge of troops would be a rousing success. That in a year's time, the extra bodes thrown at the problem of Iraq would cut down on the violence, giving the Iraqi government time to make political headway on the most pressing issues the country faces. Those issues include things like regular electricity, potable running water and really, any of the things you expect a government to be able to provide. Thankfully, the violence in Iraq HAS gone down. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government's various ethnic and sectarian factions have done absolutely nothing in the way of providing anything close to a working government. Yet, despite that lack of important political progress, advocates for the surge have all been gleeful because the violence is down. The surge has worked! Success. The only problem with that success is that it's a carefully constructed lie.
Yes, it is true that the violence has gone down in Iraq. That's something I should be ecstatic about, but I can't help but feel sickened by the flim-flam with which such a positive result was achieved. In order to more effectively fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that did not exist prior to our invasion, by the way, the military began supplying Sunni insurgents with weapons and cash. That's right, those same Sunni insurgents who used to blow up American convoys with IED's are now aiding the American occupation in rooting out Al-Qaeda. This tactic is incredibly brilliant, in that the best way to actually defeat a guerrilla insurgency is to involve them in the positive future of their country. Defeating a bunch of foreign fighters intent on sowing sectarian discord in Iraq is most certainly something that all Iraqis, Sunni or Shia should be cheering.
But from the American perspective, it should be seen with the proper context. First, the Sunni insurgents are terrorists, at least in the eyes of the administration. So that administration, by allowing payments to the Sunni insurgents have now "negotiated with terrorists," which is something they claimed they would not do. This shows how hypocritical the administration is, but at least they finally acknowledged that just being bull-headed "kill 'em all" psychopaths was not a tenable long-term solution. This deal with the Sunnis also has nothing whatsoever to do with the tactic of putting more troops in country. Whether you had 100,000 or 100 troops in Iraq, this tactic would have likely born fruit. The Sunni insurgency's main beef has always been that America is an occupying force. If they don't want Americans occupying their country, they won't want Saudi or Jordanian or Lebanese terrorists doing the same thing, especially when those terrorists start bombing centuries-old mosques. Their other aim has been to ensure that the newly-empowered Shia majority, with the aid of the U.S. military, is attempting to oppress them in the same way their minority oppressed the Shia under Saddam Hussein's reign. Attempts at communication, even funding the Sunni militias, make them feel a part of the process instead of an oppressed minority.
But the real kicker to the entire "surge is succeeding" lie is that it's an accurate lie. The violence has gone down, but it isn't just because we tossed 20,000 more troops into the mix. The Sunni insurgency's main weapon has been the IED, the improvised explosive device, otherwise known in not-doublespeak as the roadside bomb. Now that the Sunni insurgency isn't targeting Americans and Shia anymore, focusing instead on Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those IED's aren't being seen as much. Isn't that a coincidence? No, but you won't hear anything about that particular connection from the proponents of the surge. All you will hear is "THE SURGE HAS WORKED!!!!" Never mind that it was a political solution and not a military one that caused much of the drop in violence. It's all about the military.
Don't believe it. The military has done an impossible job as best they can, but Iraq is the kind of problem that can never be solved with purely military solutions. Insurgencies do not get defeated by anything less than sustained genocidal insanity, something I hope our government doesn't consider a viable final solution. The violence has dropped, because we bought off some of the insurgents. Saying it as anything else is a flim-flam job meant to win elections.
Yes, it is true that the violence has gone down in Iraq. That's something I should be ecstatic about, but I can't help but feel sickened by the flim-flam with which such a positive result was achieved. In order to more effectively fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that did not exist prior to our invasion, by the way, the military began supplying Sunni insurgents with weapons and cash. That's right, those same Sunni insurgents who used to blow up American convoys with IED's are now aiding the American occupation in rooting out Al-Qaeda. This tactic is incredibly brilliant, in that the best way to actually defeat a guerrilla insurgency is to involve them in the positive future of their country. Defeating a bunch of foreign fighters intent on sowing sectarian discord in Iraq is most certainly something that all Iraqis, Sunni or Shia should be cheering.
But from the American perspective, it should be seen with the proper context. First, the Sunni insurgents are terrorists, at least in the eyes of the administration. So that administration, by allowing payments to the Sunni insurgents have now "negotiated with terrorists," which is something they claimed they would not do. This shows how hypocritical the administration is, but at least they finally acknowledged that just being bull-headed "kill 'em all" psychopaths was not a tenable long-term solution. This deal with the Sunnis also has nothing whatsoever to do with the tactic of putting more troops in country. Whether you had 100,000 or 100 troops in Iraq, this tactic would have likely born fruit. The Sunni insurgency's main beef has always been that America is an occupying force. If they don't want Americans occupying their country, they won't want Saudi or Jordanian or Lebanese terrorists doing the same thing, especially when those terrorists start bombing centuries-old mosques. Their other aim has been to ensure that the newly-empowered Shia majority, with the aid of the U.S. military, is attempting to oppress them in the same way their minority oppressed the Shia under Saddam Hussein's reign. Attempts at communication, even funding the Sunni militias, make them feel a part of the process instead of an oppressed minority.
But the real kicker to the entire "surge is succeeding" lie is that it's an accurate lie. The violence has gone down, but it isn't just because we tossed 20,000 more troops into the mix. The Sunni insurgency's main weapon has been the IED, the improvised explosive device, otherwise known in not-doublespeak as the roadside bomb. Now that the Sunni insurgency isn't targeting Americans and Shia anymore, focusing instead on Al-Qaeda in Iraq, those IED's aren't being seen as much. Isn't that a coincidence? No, but you won't hear anything about that particular connection from the proponents of the surge. All you will hear is "THE SURGE HAS WORKED!!!!" Never mind that it was a political solution and not a military one that caused much of the drop in violence. It's all about the military.
Don't believe it. The military has done an impossible job as best they can, but Iraq is the kind of problem that can never be solved with purely military solutions. Insurgencies do not get defeated by anything less than sustained genocidal insanity, something I hope our government doesn't consider a viable final solution. The violence has dropped, because we bought off some of the insurgents. Saying it as anything else is a flim-flam job meant to win elections.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Iraq, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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Saving Lives, Damning Souls
Posted on
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
The CIA has always operated as a shadowy organization, sometimes following questionable policies with enough moral ambiguity to provide a fertile ground for equally questionable tactics. Mining the harbors of Nicarauga, smuggling drugs and selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras, secret drug research programs, brainwashing techniques, propping up the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, overthrowing the government of Iran and installing the Shah in 1953, all of these things have been attributed to the CIA since its inception. It comes as no real surprise then that the CIA has been the frontrunner organization in America's recent embrace of torture to fight the war on Terror. Just last week, we learned that videotapes of torture sessions involving waterboarding by CIA operatives were destroyed to "protect the identities of the operatives involved." Of course, the protection such operatives required was not from revealation to our enemies but from criminal prosecution once our government de-assified its collective head and chose to follow the law again. But now we have a former CIA operative who participated in torture speaking out, and his words are a slap in the face.
This man admits he used waterboarding. He admits that now he considers waterboarding torture, and that he regrets using the technique. How nice of him. The most galling part of his statement is that the use of the technique he now regrets "saved lives." He traded away America's good name, America's soul, to "save lives."
Bully for you.
I do understand that there are people working their asses off to make me safe. I understand there are a metric fuckton of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are now more likely to be tortured and decapitated when they are captured because someone thought waterboarding was A-OK.
I also understand that as a citizen of this country, I never authorized agents to torture in my name, to break the laws of this land to make me safe. The cost is entirely too high. Every person, guilty or not, who was tortured in the war on terror, was ostensibly tortured IN MY NAME, and in the name of every other American citizen. Those acts of barbarism were done without my knowledge, without my consent, without even the backing of the laws of this land, and they were wrong. They tarnish the very soul of this entire country and everyone in it. Not only were the wishes of the American people that we NOT torture anyone made explicit in the law, those wishes were ignored for what? The sake of expediency? To justify more abuses of the law such as warrantless wiretapping and indefinite imprisonment without the right to object to such confinement?
Kiriakou says that he regrets the torture because "Americans are better than that."
No, it was not necessary at the time. We haven't moved beyond that because not only are we still doing it, the Bush administration has been attempting to make sure those techniques are legal now and are retroactively legal. His cronies in the CIA are destroying evidence just in case he can't bless those acts with the legal stamp. We haven't moved beyond it because assholes like you haven't accepted that such acts are wrong now and more importantly were wrong then. The lives that were supposedly saved, a quantity that cannot be measured because we'll never know what would have been, those lives were not worth damning our souls with the stink of barbarism.
America is SUPPOSED to be better than that, but we've let ourselves believe the lie. We've let ourselves believe the lie that we can do no wrong, that we are better than everyone else. The ugly truth is we have allowed ourselves to fall to a mentality that is no better than the vicious bastards we claim to oppose.
This man admits he used waterboarding. He admits that now he considers waterboarding torture, and that he regrets using the technique. How nice of him. The most galling part of his statement is that the use of the technique he now regrets "saved lives." He traded away America's good name, America's soul, to "save lives."
Bully for you.
"It's easy to point to intelligence failures and perceived intelligence
failures, but the public has to understand how hard people are working to make
them safe," [Kiriakou] said.
I do understand that there are people working their asses off to make me safe. I understand there are a metric fuckton of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are now more likely to be tortured and decapitated when they are captured because someone thought waterboarding was A-OK.
I also understand that as a citizen of this country, I never authorized agents to torture in my name, to break the laws of this land to make me safe. The cost is entirely too high. Every person, guilty or not, who was tortured in the war on terror, was ostensibly tortured IN MY NAME, and in the name of every other American citizen. Those acts of barbarism were done without my knowledge, without my consent, without even the backing of the laws of this land, and they were wrong. They tarnish the very soul of this entire country and everyone in it. Not only were the wishes of the American people that we NOT torture anyone made explicit in the law, those wishes were ignored for what? The sake of expediency? To justify more abuses of the law such as warrantless wiretapping and indefinite imprisonment without the right to object to such confinement?
Kiriakou says that he regrets the torture because "Americans are better than that."
"Maybe that's inconsistent, but that's how I feel," he said. "It was an
ugly little episode that was perhaps necessary at that time. But we've moved
beyond that."
No, it was not necessary at the time. We haven't moved beyond that because not only are we still doing it, the Bush administration has been attempting to make sure those techniques are legal now and are retroactively legal. His cronies in the CIA are destroying evidence just in case he can't bless those acts with the legal stamp. We haven't moved beyond it because assholes like you haven't accepted that such acts are wrong now and more importantly were wrong then. The lives that were supposedly saved, a quantity that cannot be measured because we'll never know what would have been, those lives were not worth damning our souls with the stink of barbarism.
America is SUPPOSED to be better than that, but we've let ourselves believe the lie. We've let ourselves believe the lie that we can do no wrong, that we are better than everyone else. The ugly truth is we have allowed ourselves to fall to a mentality that is no better than the vicious bastards we claim to oppose.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Habeus Corpus, Iraq, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008, Torture
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Congressional Democrats Need a New Agenda
Posted on
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
This story from the LA Times gave me a brief moment of hope, which was quickly dashed by political pussyfooting. Presidential candidate and noted leprechaun Dennis Kucinich filed three articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives against Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday, proving that this diminutive Ohio Democrat has more balls per square inch than the entire Senate put together. The articles were, of course, doomed to failure, much like the tiny Congressmidget's presidential campaign, unfortunately. But it was a statement by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer that got my tits in a twist.
According to the article:
That's great, Steny. What exactly is the agenda, then? Is it upgrading S-CHIP? That's already been vetoed and you couldn't muster the votes to override the veto. Is it the war in Iraq? You've already rolled over like whipped dogs and let Bush scratch your belly, giving him every cent he asked for without holding him to any of his own benchmarks. Is it the U.S. Attorney firing scandal? Nope, you've pissed that one away by refusing to actually hold administration officials in contempt for not answering your subpoenas, and let Alberto Gonzales get away with lying directly to you under oath. Is it exposing fraud in Iraq war contracting, or Bush's private militia Blackwater's actions, raising the minimum wage or the fuckups of FEMA during Katrina? That's right, you've done fuckall with those issues as well.
So what is the agenda? From where I sit, you've been stymied at every opportunity by procedural shenanigans, or by Republicans in Democrats' clothing like Joe Lieberman. You've been made to look like complete pussies by the Republican noise machine's framing of all the important issues as failings of your party. Is there some other agenda, maybe like not rocking the boat too much and avoiding nuclear showdowns so you can sneak a Democratic president into the White House next year and get a rubber stamp Democratic Congress?
Look, I understand the political reality of the impeachment situation. I realize that you believe impeaching an obviously criminal, lame-duck president during a war would make you appear to be partisan hacks, just like the Republicans in 1998. I realize you believe the backlash would lose you seats in the Congress. Only, that isn't what happened to the Republicans. By 2002, they'd won a majority in Congress despite the supposed backlash over the trivialities of the Clinton impeachment. I realize you feel it would deadlock the Congress with a process that most likely would not result in the removal of Cheney or Bush from their positions of power.
But at some point, the Democratic leadership in Congress has got to wake the fuck up and realize this President has no intention of compromising on anything. He is the ultimate child king, an immature demagogue holding his breath until he gets his way. His way means the lives of troops in Iraq will be wasted, health insurance for poor kids goes unfunded and the pillaging of this country's treasury by corporate raiders with no sense of responsibility to the country that has made them rich beyond measure. He is not willing to work with you no matter what you offer. He is not willing to end the war in Iraq, he's not willing to stop torturing detainees whether innocent or guilty, and he's not willing to do anything that might make him anything less than an absolute ruler.
It's almost certain that impeachment would fail. It would be a terrible, ugly scene with sniping back and forth, partisan politics juiced to their most ugly spectacle. But it would be the right thing to do. And it would finally expose some of the nastiest political tricksters this country has ever seen as the devious shitheels they really are. It would serve as a warning to future Presidents that such evil will not be tolerated, an example that apparently Watergate did not provide to someone like Dick Cheney.
The Congressional Democrats need a new agenda, and fast. The one they've got is based on faulty logic and the misguided hope that a Democratic President will fix all the nation's problems. Without the precedent of an impeachment against the Executive, it will only serve to embolden future power-hungry assholes, and this country has shown a startling desire to elect such power-hungry assholes, and then re-elect them.
According to the article:
"Impeachment is not on our agenda," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer(D-Md.). "We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those."
That's great, Steny. What exactly is the agenda, then? Is it upgrading S-CHIP? That's already been vetoed and you couldn't muster the votes to override the veto. Is it the war in Iraq? You've already rolled over like whipped dogs and let Bush scratch your belly, giving him every cent he asked for without holding him to any of his own benchmarks. Is it the U.S. Attorney firing scandal? Nope, you've pissed that one away by refusing to actually hold administration officials in contempt for not answering your subpoenas, and let Alberto Gonzales get away with lying directly to you under oath. Is it exposing fraud in Iraq war contracting, or Bush's private militia Blackwater's actions, raising the minimum wage or the fuckups of FEMA during Katrina? That's right, you've done fuckall with those issues as well.
So what is the agenda? From where I sit, you've been stymied at every opportunity by procedural shenanigans, or by Republicans in Democrats' clothing like Joe Lieberman. You've been made to look like complete pussies by the Republican noise machine's framing of all the important issues as failings of your party. Is there some other agenda, maybe like not rocking the boat too much and avoiding nuclear showdowns so you can sneak a Democratic president into the White House next year and get a rubber stamp Democratic Congress?
Look, I understand the political reality of the impeachment situation. I realize that you believe impeaching an obviously criminal, lame-duck president during a war would make you appear to be partisan hacks, just like the Republicans in 1998. I realize you believe the backlash would lose you seats in the Congress. Only, that isn't what happened to the Republicans. By 2002, they'd won a majority in Congress despite the supposed backlash over the trivialities of the Clinton impeachment. I realize you feel it would deadlock the Congress with a process that most likely would not result in the removal of Cheney or Bush from their positions of power.
But at some point, the Democratic leadership in Congress has got to wake the fuck up and realize this President has no intention of compromising on anything. He is the ultimate child king, an immature demagogue holding his breath until he gets his way. His way means the lives of troops in Iraq will be wasted, health insurance for poor kids goes unfunded and the pillaging of this country's treasury by corporate raiders with no sense of responsibility to the country that has made them rich beyond measure. He is not willing to work with you no matter what you offer. He is not willing to end the war in Iraq, he's not willing to stop torturing detainees whether innocent or guilty, and he's not willing to do anything that might make him anything less than an absolute ruler.
It's almost certain that impeachment would fail. It would be a terrible, ugly scene with sniping back and forth, partisan politics juiced to their most ugly spectacle. But it would be the right thing to do. And it would finally expose some of the nastiest political tricksters this country has ever seen as the devious shitheels they really are. It would serve as a warning to future Presidents that such evil will not be tolerated, an example that apparently Watergate did not provide to someone like Dick Cheney.
The Congressional Democrats need a new agenda, and fast. The one they've got is based on faulty logic and the misguided hope that a Democratic President will fix all the nation's problems. Without the precedent of an impeachment against the Executive, it will only serve to embolden future power-hungry assholes, and this country has shown a startling desire to elect such power-hungry assholes, and then re-elect them.
Labels: Bush Administration, Corporate Corruption, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Habeus Corpus, Health Care, Iraq, Presidential Campaign 2008
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:26 AM
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Things I'd Like to Fire Into the Sun: Campaign Strategists
Posted on
Monday, November 05, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Political campaigns bring out my stabby side. From the carefully constructed, focus-grouped to death, faux personality masks worn by all the candidates the closer to victory they come, or the sheer deluge of lies spewed forth by proxy from the Mr. Ed-like mouths of mouthpiece candidates, election season is a time that breeds pure, violent cynicism so concentrated, it could be cooked on a spoon and shot into the veins of junkies everywhere. Such distilled essence of jaded hatred would induce murderous rages in everyone exposed to the narcotic byproduct of our nation's grand democracy illusion. With that in mind, I find myself wanting to place a number of people into a giant pit, filling the pit with cement and then firing the said missile of maladjusted, loosely-defined humanity into the heart of the sun. The people deserving of my ire this day are the various campaign strategists on all sides of the American political spectrum.
The most famous of these type of wonktastic twats in recent memory is Karl Rove, everyone's favorite Turd Blossom. While Rove's evil heart has been well-revealed to those with enough independent thought left to pierce the narrative of bullshit spun about himself and his candidates, he is only the most visible symptom of the great cancer eating the heart of American democracy. Every campaign has a Karl Rove, a shitheel of varying degrees of evil and disingenuousness, someone to take all the polls and opinions and craft them into a message that fools the target demographic into believing his or her candidate. This person is a master of PR, the abbreviated avatar of public relations, the masterful liar wrapping layers of bullshit around a kernel of truth. And while most PR people are empty, soulless shells of humanity with less respect for their fellow man's intelligence than for a dung beetle's skill with the cello, campaign strategists are the lowest form of a very low rung of the demon army. They are lies made flesh.
Over the last few weeks, the media has done one bang-up job of crafting a specific narrative about the Democratic primary race. Instead of a three or two person race between Clinton, Obama and Edwards, the media has now presumptively anointed Hillary Clinton the "frontrunner," delegating every other candidate to a hind-teat-sucking also-ran. Much as Howard Dean was trumpeted as the saviour of the party in 2004 before getting dickstomped by the moribund Kerry when America was given the choice, Hillary Clinton has been practically handed the nomination, at least by the mainstream media with a vested interest in seeing the status quo of American politics continue. As a result, the campaign strategists of most of the other Democratic candidates have shifted focus.
Rather than talk about their own campaign's positives, now all Obama and Edwards want to talk about is how they are different or better than Hillary. The last Democratic debate was an almost overwhelming pile-on by both Tim Russert and the other candidates, all trying to one-up the other's Hillary-bashing cred. Obama's visit to the Saturday Night Live set treated us to a skit where Obama made fun of Hillary, if not in a nasty way, in a certainly unseemly manner. Yes, hunting season has begun, and everyone's trying to kill the golden goose.
I'm not naive enough to believe that attack ads and negative campaigns don't work. All evidence is that they do work and work well. But in a political climate where the stakes are so goddamn high, the one thing the Democratic Party and its candidates need to do is focus on why their party would be better for America than anything the Republican party has to offer, not just in its current form but in its future candidates. No matter what Hillary's flaws are, and trust me, they are legion, she's still a better candidate than anything on the GOP ticket. Sniping at the media's frontrunner just makes the whole process seem as seedy as the red light district in Amsterdam. The campaign strategists for all the Democratic candidates, and the Republicans as well, should be dropped into a pit, sealed in with concrete and shot into the heart of the sun, never to trouble us again. Only the white-hot nuclear fusion of the lifegiver can possibly eradicate the darkness these wastrels drag around them like the shrouds of death.
But the true problem with these people isn't even their own shameless evil. No, they only highlight the problem with privately-financed elections. The campaign money the media makes during election season is as much a poison to the system of democracy as the fundraising necessity is for a candidate's impartiality. If we are eventually to achieve some form of egalitarian democratic system, we need public election finance, with money distributed evenly to each candidate and airtime donated to the political process.
We'll have the rocket capable of firing campaign strategists into the heart of the sun before we'd ever see that system in place. Still, one can dream.
The most famous of these type of wonktastic twats in recent memory is Karl Rove, everyone's favorite Turd Blossom. While Rove's evil heart has been well-revealed to those with enough independent thought left to pierce the narrative of bullshit spun about himself and his candidates, he is only the most visible symptom of the great cancer eating the heart of American democracy. Every campaign has a Karl Rove, a shitheel of varying degrees of evil and disingenuousness, someone to take all the polls and opinions and craft them into a message that fools the target demographic into believing his or her candidate. This person is a master of PR, the abbreviated avatar of public relations, the masterful liar wrapping layers of bullshit around a kernel of truth. And while most PR people are empty, soulless shells of humanity with less respect for their fellow man's intelligence than for a dung beetle's skill with the cello, campaign strategists are the lowest form of a very low rung of the demon army. They are lies made flesh.
Over the last few weeks, the media has done one bang-up job of crafting a specific narrative about the Democratic primary race. Instead of a three or two person race between Clinton, Obama and Edwards, the media has now presumptively anointed Hillary Clinton the "frontrunner," delegating every other candidate to a hind-teat-sucking also-ran. Much as Howard Dean was trumpeted as the saviour of the party in 2004 before getting dickstomped by the moribund Kerry when America was given the choice, Hillary Clinton has been practically handed the nomination, at least by the mainstream media with a vested interest in seeing the status quo of American politics continue. As a result, the campaign strategists of most of the other Democratic candidates have shifted focus.
Rather than talk about their own campaign's positives, now all Obama and Edwards want to talk about is how they are different or better than Hillary. The last Democratic debate was an almost overwhelming pile-on by both Tim Russert and the other candidates, all trying to one-up the other's Hillary-bashing cred. Obama's visit to the Saturday Night Live set treated us to a skit where Obama made fun of Hillary, if not in a nasty way, in a certainly unseemly manner. Yes, hunting season has begun, and everyone's trying to kill the golden goose.
I'm not naive enough to believe that attack ads and negative campaigns don't work. All evidence is that they do work and work well. But in a political climate where the stakes are so goddamn high, the one thing the Democratic Party and its candidates need to do is focus on why their party would be better for America than anything the Republican party has to offer, not just in its current form but in its future candidates. No matter what Hillary's flaws are, and trust me, they are legion, she's still a better candidate than anything on the GOP ticket. Sniping at the media's frontrunner just makes the whole process seem as seedy as the red light district in Amsterdam. The campaign strategists for all the Democratic candidates, and the Republicans as well, should be dropped into a pit, sealed in with concrete and shot into the heart of the sun, never to trouble us again. Only the white-hot nuclear fusion of the lifegiver can possibly eradicate the darkness these wastrels drag around them like the shrouds of death.
But the true problem with these people isn't even their own shameless evil. No, they only highlight the problem with privately-financed elections. The campaign money the media makes during election season is as much a poison to the system of democracy as the fundraising necessity is for a candidate's impartiality. If we are eventually to achieve some form of egalitarian democratic system, we need public election finance, with money distributed evenly to each candidate and airtime donated to the political process.
We'll have the rocket capable of firing campaign strategists into the heart of the sun before we'd ever see that system in place. Still, one can dream.
Labels: Elections, Government Corruption, Humor, Presidential Campaign 2008, Television, Things I'd Like to Fire Into the Sun
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:35 AM
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Mukasey and the Water
Posted on
Friday, November 02, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
One of the stories coming out of Washington this week has been the contentious debate over the confirmation process of Judge Mukasey as Attorney General. For weeks, it seemed as if Mukasey would be a shoe-in to replace Raging Douchebag Alberto Gonzales as AG. Democrats spoke of Mukasey as a consensus candidate, one without any huge ideological hangups. But then a strange thing happened. Someone in the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Mukasey a simple question, and Mukasey's answer was neither simple, nor did it especially answer the question. The question was a masterful political move, and one I hope signals a sea change in the manner in which the Senate handles the White House from this moment forward.
The question was, "Do you consider water-boarding torture?"
Sane, rational people without any sort of authoritarian agenda should be able to answer that question quite easily without resorting to semantic discussions or abstract wankery. The phrase "a shock to the conscience" does not need to be invoked. To my mind, one shouldn't even need to reference the Geneva Conventions to determine the answer to this question. One only need examine the history of the "interrogation technique" known as waterboarding to determine the answer. One only need look at the names our country will be associated with, and the answer becomes clear.
The caring priest of the Spanish Inquisition used waterboarding. A prisoner in the tender embraces of Stalinist Russia could look forward to a terror dunking. One shouldn't forget that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge used the technique. In the halls of history, the United States of America, the "we don't torture" Americans, the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" Uncle Sams, the "no cruel or unusual punishment" champions of the U S of A, we use waterboarding. We will be placed in history among the luminaries of oppression, brutality and needless slaughter such as Josef Stalin.
If waterboarding isn't torture, then we should apologize to Cambodia for illegally bombing the country during the Vietnam War (something we should do anyway). If waterboarding isn't torture, we should apologize to the Soviet Union for the Cold War. And if waterboarding isn't torture, the Spanish Inquisition should be given its reputation back. After all, these people used waterboarding against a great enemy that threatened them and such harsh techniques were justified until that enemy was defeated.
It is torture, Judge Mukasey. Claiming you can't answer one way or the other because it's a classified technique is legal waffling, considering just how much knowledge the public has of the technique. Refusing to comment affirmatively because to do so would require you as Attorney General to actually prosecute those who ordered and carried out the use of the technique is a gutless, weasel move that speaks of cowardice and systemic corruption. If you as Attorney General would not confirm this technique as illegal and against the tenets of the Constitution, then you are no more effective a replacement for the spineless, mewling twat that was Alberto Gonzales than a cardboard cutout.
The Justice Department has been eaten away from the inside by an institutional cancer, a disease of the heart and mind that has replaced integrity with obedience, politics with justice. The department needs a firm hand to weed out the inbred political incompetence and base corruption and restore one of America's vital government institution. It requires someone who would actually enforce the legal subpoenas issued by the Congress on people like Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, no matter what the White House had to say about it.
But most importantly, the job requires that you take a stand against the vile attacks on America's soul that criminals like George W. Bush, Jr. and Dick Cheney have launched. It requires that you admit that waterboarding is a torture that stains all Americans' hands with blood
Update: I found this fantastic article on waterboarding, written by Malcolm Nance, a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California. This man knows all about torture techniques, as he's trained our soldiers how to resist such techniques for years.
The question was, "Do you consider water-boarding torture?"
Sane, rational people without any sort of authoritarian agenda should be able to answer that question quite easily without resorting to semantic discussions or abstract wankery. The phrase "a shock to the conscience" does not need to be invoked. To my mind, one shouldn't even need to reference the Geneva Conventions to determine the answer to this question. One only need examine the history of the "interrogation technique" known as waterboarding to determine the answer. One only need look at the names our country will be associated with, and the answer becomes clear.
The caring priest of the Spanish Inquisition used waterboarding. A prisoner in the tender embraces of Stalinist Russia could look forward to a terror dunking. One shouldn't forget that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge used the technique. In the halls of history, the United States of America, the "we don't torture" Americans, the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" Uncle Sams, the "no cruel or unusual punishment" champions of the U S of A, we use waterboarding. We will be placed in history among the luminaries of oppression, brutality and needless slaughter such as Josef Stalin.
If waterboarding isn't torture, then we should apologize to Cambodia for illegally bombing the country during the Vietnam War (something we should do anyway). If waterboarding isn't torture, we should apologize to the Soviet Union for the Cold War. And if waterboarding isn't torture, the Spanish Inquisition should be given its reputation back. After all, these people used waterboarding against a great enemy that threatened them and such harsh techniques were justified until that enemy was defeated.
It is torture, Judge Mukasey. Claiming you can't answer one way or the other because it's a classified technique is legal waffling, considering just how much knowledge the public has of the technique. Refusing to comment affirmatively because to do so would require you as Attorney General to actually prosecute those who ordered and carried out the use of the technique is a gutless, weasel move that speaks of cowardice and systemic corruption. If you as Attorney General would not confirm this technique as illegal and against the tenets of the Constitution, then you are no more effective a replacement for the spineless, mewling twat that was Alberto Gonzales than a cardboard cutout.
The Justice Department has been eaten away from the inside by an institutional cancer, a disease of the heart and mind that has replaced integrity with obedience, politics with justice. The department needs a firm hand to weed out the inbred political incompetence and base corruption and restore one of America's vital government institution. It requires someone who would actually enforce the legal subpoenas issued by the Congress on people like Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, no matter what the White House had to say about it.
But most importantly, the job requires that you take a stand against the vile attacks on America's soul that criminals like George W. Bush, Jr. and Dick Cheney have launched. It requires that you admit that waterboarding is a torture that stains all Americans' hands with blood
Update: I found this fantastic article on waterboarding, written by Malcolm Nance, a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California. This man knows all about torture techniques, as he's trained our soldiers how to resist such techniques for years.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Presidential Campaign 2008, Raging Douchebag Week, The Stalin Monologues, Torture
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:29 AM
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The 60-Vote Fallacy
Posted on
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
In today's information-soaked media environment, a meme can gain such a ironclad hold on the imagination of the public with startlingly ease. The mainstream media is the Ebola monkey of viral memes, spreading such fantastic misconceptions as Iraqi WMD with the speed of a Level 4 outbreak. The latest meme to really gain hold in the American political media is what I've termed the 60-Vote Fallacy. It refers to Senate votes and the Democratic majority's attempts to pass a bill forcing the President to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home, and it's such a simple mangling of the truth.
Senate bills require a simple majority to pass. However, bills can be filibustered, a procedural shenanigan the minority party uses to kill a bill that might pass by simple majority vote. Filibustering consists of talking, and talking and talking, talking so much that the asses of Senators literally fall off and wither up like the dissected segments of an earthworm. A successful filibuster is the nuclear option for minorities, an option scorned by the Republicans when they were in the ascendancy but one which they are all too willing to threaten now that they are in the minority. And in order to defeat a filibuster, the Senate calls a cloture vote, which means that the bill or amendment under debate goes up for an immediate "yay" or "nay" vote. Cloture requires 60 votes to pass, which means 60 votes is required to defeat a filibuster. This is different from the 67 votes needed to overturn a Presidential veto.
The media, in its rush to soundbite the most important news so that it may continue to focus on the inane trivialities of celebrity baby daddy's, has cut to the chase with their Senate coverage lately. They've simplified things for us complete idiots out there. Rather than try to explain what a cloture vote is and how it's used, instead they say that legislation such as that calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been defeated because the Senate couldn't get the required 60 votes. The media fails to mention, perhaps purposefully, that the bill wasn't actually voted on at all, or that the Republicans who claimed for years that Democratic partisanship was destroying America with filibusters chose to use their filibuster power without actually going through with the filibuster. No, the coverage is dominated by the implication that the Senate Democrats are impotent because they don't have a 60-vote majority.
The media gets it wrong all the time, of course. They are factually incorrect, in so much as the facts they spread do not tell the entire picture and the devil is in the details. But what I find most disturbing is an even more subtle implication that may or may not be an actual Democratic strategy. By repeating this meme over and over on bill after bill, it almost seems as if the Democrats are attempting to gain the same sort of one-party majority in the 2008 elections that the Republicans battered the country with since 2002. It's almost a certainty that the White House will be Democratic in 2008, or at least it should be given the abuses the Republicans have inflicted with that power. By not correcting the mainstream media's mistaken framing of the 60-vote rule, are the Democrats insinuating to the voters that without a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they can't get anything accomplished?
I am wary of any political party which has the kind of rubber stamp majority exercised by the Republican Party since 2002. It is an absolute power that is absolutely corrupting in every sense of the word. While many of my political beliefs fall under the Democratic tent, especially since the hijacking of the GOP by the evangelical moonbats, the very problems inflicted upon the country by the Bush administration have been because of the lack of a check from an empowered minority. I find nothing in any political party that makes me believe the Democrats are above the temptation to rob this country blind should the most important checks and balances be removed. I no sooner want to see America as a one-party Democratic state than I did a Republican one.
Democrats do not need 60-votes to end the Iraq War. They need a backbone. Defunding the war does not require a successful vote at all. It just requires being frank with the American people, and it requires standing up to the Bush junta with purse strings pulled tight. It's high time the Democrats said no to tyrants.
Senate bills require a simple majority to pass. However, bills can be filibustered, a procedural shenanigan the minority party uses to kill a bill that might pass by simple majority vote. Filibustering consists of talking, and talking and talking, talking so much that the asses of Senators literally fall off and wither up like the dissected segments of an earthworm. A successful filibuster is the nuclear option for minorities, an option scorned by the Republicans when they were in the ascendancy but one which they are all too willing to threaten now that they are in the minority. And in order to defeat a filibuster, the Senate calls a cloture vote, which means that the bill or amendment under debate goes up for an immediate "yay" or "nay" vote. Cloture requires 60 votes to pass, which means 60 votes is required to defeat a filibuster. This is different from the 67 votes needed to overturn a Presidential veto.
The media, in its rush to soundbite the most important news so that it may continue to focus on the inane trivialities of celebrity baby daddy's, has cut to the chase with their Senate coverage lately. They've simplified things for us complete idiots out there. Rather than try to explain what a cloture vote is and how it's used, instead they say that legislation such as that calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been defeated because the Senate couldn't get the required 60 votes. The media fails to mention, perhaps purposefully, that the bill wasn't actually voted on at all, or that the Republicans who claimed for years that Democratic partisanship was destroying America with filibusters chose to use their filibuster power without actually going through with the filibuster. No, the coverage is dominated by the implication that the Senate Democrats are impotent because they don't have a 60-vote majority.
The media gets it wrong all the time, of course. They are factually incorrect, in so much as the facts they spread do not tell the entire picture and the devil is in the details. But what I find most disturbing is an even more subtle implication that may or may not be an actual Democratic strategy. By repeating this meme over and over on bill after bill, it almost seems as if the Democrats are attempting to gain the same sort of one-party majority in the 2008 elections that the Republicans battered the country with since 2002. It's almost a certainty that the White House will be Democratic in 2008, or at least it should be given the abuses the Republicans have inflicted with that power. By not correcting the mainstream media's mistaken framing of the 60-vote rule, are the Democrats insinuating to the voters that without a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they can't get anything accomplished?
I am wary of any political party which has the kind of rubber stamp majority exercised by the Republican Party since 2002. It is an absolute power that is absolutely corrupting in every sense of the word. While many of my political beliefs fall under the Democratic tent, especially since the hijacking of the GOP by the evangelical moonbats, the very problems inflicted upon the country by the Bush administration have been because of the lack of a check from an empowered minority. I find nothing in any political party that makes me believe the Democrats are above the temptation to rob this country blind should the most important checks and balances be removed. I no sooner want to see America as a one-party Democratic state than I did a Republican one.
Democrats do not need 60-votes to end the Iraq War. They need a backbone. Defunding the war does not require a successful vote at all. It just requires being frank with the American people, and it requires standing up to the Bush junta with purse strings pulled tight. It's high time the Democrats said no to tyrants.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:12 PM
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Finally! A Republican President with a Brain
Posted on
Friday, May 04, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Thanks to Crooks and Liars for this story. I've not followed the early Presidential primary debates, seeing as how it's entirely too early to start stumping the 2008 race in my opinion. But I have caught a little bit of the pertinent bits. I've discovered that three of the Republican candidates are apparently anti-science zombies, since Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee all think evolution is a lie. And I had some hope for Huckabee, dashed by one bit of obstinence. McCain has played his usual crazy-man-appealing-to-the-wingnut-base role, Guiliani just keeps reminding me of the worst bits of authoritarianism and hypocrisy, and Romney is a flip-flopping Mormon fundie whose religion didn't even recognize blacks as humans until the '70's. But this clip of Ron Paul (R-TX) made my day.
Here is a Republican who talks about the real Conservative values that made the Republican party viable in the 20th century. He speaks about restraint in foreign policy, about the reasoned use of military force. He speaks about actually declaring a war before entering a war, instead of the pussy-footing type of police actions like Korea and Vietnam and Iraq. Declaring war has become political poison, so the Congress doesn't do it, they just delegate the authority to make the decision that gets soldiers killed onto the President. In short, the guy talked like someone I would vote for, which is a pretty bold statement coming from me. Unfortunately, the crazy bloodthirsty jackals in charge of the shambles of the Republithug party will make sure he never gets through the first primary, and no one would give him enough money to matter as an independant.
But it's sure refreshing to hear common sense from a Republican. I've gotten so hardened to their frothing, hate-soaked talking points that I almost couldn't recognize a real conservative without a scorecard.
Here is a Republican who talks about the real Conservative values that made the Republican party viable in the 20th century. He speaks about restraint in foreign policy, about the reasoned use of military force. He speaks about actually declaring a war before entering a war, instead of the pussy-footing type of police actions like Korea and Vietnam and Iraq. Declaring war has become political poison, so the Congress doesn't do it, they just delegate the authority to make the decision that gets soldiers killed onto the President. In short, the guy talked like someone I would vote for, which is a pretty bold statement coming from me. Unfortunately, the crazy bloodthirsty jackals in charge of the shambles of the Republithug party will make sure he never gets through the first primary, and no one would give him enough money to matter as an independant.
But it's sure refreshing to hear common sense from a Republican. I've gotten so hardened to their frothing, hate-soaked talking points that I almost couldn't recognize a real conservative without a scorecard.
Labels: Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 4:16 PM
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