Tag: The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Democrats of 2002 and 2007 haven’t gone anywhere

by Glenn Greenwald

Wednesday Nov. 12, 2008 15:28 EST

We know there are going to be major wars — not with Republicans, but among Democrats, and especially the party’s leaders — over things like closing Guantanamo, imposing an absolute ban on torture, restoring habeas corpus, withdrawing from Iraq, reducing executive secrecy and increasing transparency, imposing mild limits and oversight on the surveillance state, returning the Congress to its proper role, and especially investigating prior crimes of high government officials.  More generally, there’s going to be immense pressure for Obama to prove that he’s “centrist” by making only minor modifications, not major changes, to prevailing Bush policies — a view that is a principal motivating belief of the Democratic Party.

Yesterday’s vague and poorly-sourced Wall St. Journal article reporting that “Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies” is not, in my view, evidence of what Obama will do, but it is definitely compelling evidence that people close to him — those whom he has chosen to be influential — are pushing him in that direction.  Notably, the article actually describes minor modifications to (as opposed to wholesale overhaul of) Bush’s torture policies as the “centrist” and “pragmatic” approach.

It’s just a fact that there are all sorts of people close to Obama who have enabled those Bush policies and who are mobilizing now and attempting to ensure that nothing meaningful occurs in these areas.  It simply is noteworthy of comment and cause for concern — though far from conclusive about what Obama will do — that Obama’s transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity.  It would be foolish in the extreme to ignore that and to just adopt the attitude that we should all wait quietly with our hands politely folded for the new President to unveil his decisions before deciding that we should speak up or do anything.  

Politicians respond to constituencies and pressure.  Constituencies which announce their intention to maintain respectful silence all but ensure that their political principles will be ignored.

Re-Flex Praying to the Beat

Orin Kerr and the responsibility of elites for the last eight years

by Glenn Greenwald

Sunday Nov. 9, 2008 08:40 EST

Prime responsibility for those actions may lie with the administration which implemented them and with the Congress that thereafter acquiesced to and even endorsed much of it, but it also lies with much of our opinion-making elite and expert class.  Even when they politely disagreed, they treated most of this — and still do — as though it were reasonable and customary, eschewing strong language and emphatic condemnation and moral outrage, while perversely and self-servingly construing their constraint as some sort of a virtue — a hallmark of dignified Seriousness.  That created the impression that these were just garden-variety political conflicts to be batted about in pretty conference rooms by mutually regarding elites on both sides of these “debates.”  Meanwhile, those who objected too strongly and in disrespectful tones, who described the extremism and lawlessness taking place, were dismissed by these same elites as overheated, fringe hysterics.

Some political issues, including ones that provoke intense passion, have many sides, but not all do.  Not all positions are worthy of respect.  Some actions and policies require outrage and condemnation, to the point where it becomes irresponsible to comment on them without expressing that.  Some ideas are so corrupted and dangerous and indefensible that they do reflect negatively on the character and credibility of their advocates, on the propriety of treating those advocates as though they’re respectable and honorable.  Most of all, elites who seek out an opinion platform have a responsibility to accept that their ideas and arguments have consequences and they should be held accountable for what their actions spawn (see Atrios’ related point yesterday about Tom Friedman’s responsibility arising from his advocacy for the Iraq War).

Over the last eight years (at least), we have not only crossed the line of what ought to be within the realm of reasonable, respectful debate, but we have crossed it repeatedly, severely, and with great harm to our political system and huge numbers of people.  And one of the prime reasons that happened is because those with the most vocal platforms and with the greatest claims to expertise failed in their responsibility to oppose it passionately and to describe its extremism, and, instead, eagerly served as apologists for it.   Those who seek now to depict their tepidness in the face of all of that as some elevated form of enlightened reason are merely illustrating one of the key mechanisms that enabled all of it to happen.

Well I’m sure you’re all excited about last night, but I must admit to being somewhat disappointed.

While we made a great deal of progress and had some successes, I’m not convinced the euphoria in some quarters (and fear in others) is entirely justified.

If only Obama were a hard core socialist, riding to the Village to pillage and burn the foundations of free market capitalism to the ground.  If only the communist Democratic Representatives were prepared to nationalize the means of production and place management in the hands of the workers, or at least not greedy conmen and thieves of proven incompetence.

Instead I listen to the Village drums pounding out the message of center right bi-partisanship peace.

No justice, no peace.

Here’s an acronym I’m going to be watching, a bell whether or not we’re going to get squat in terms of powder dry performance from the most craven and cowardly group of legislators ever to disgrace the halls of Congress (and frankly, that’s saying a lot)- EFCA.

Supposedly this is a first hundred days priority.

Now sometimes people misunderstand that I am all about electoral victory.  I am a politician and a community organizer.  I am an anarcho-syndicalist not a Stalinist.

Union building is community organizing and has in the past and could again be the institutional infrastructure of the Democratic Party, a permanent counterweight to the organizational abilities of the dominionist fundies AND the financial resources of the corporatists.

You know, not to mention that it would be good for the economy, build the middle class, break down some of the wealth disparity, act as a break on outsourcing.  Little things.

So it just makes sense on multiple levels, but these are Democrats and unlike Wall Street buccaneers they’re more frequently fearful than greedy.

I had intended this as my Obama endorsement piece, because have no doubt I’m going to drag myself across 16 miles of broken glass and barb wire to vote for him today.

In Stars Hollow it’s not actually so bad.  I’ve only ever had to stand in a 3 person line once or twice, mostly you chat up the poll workers to keep them awake.  Now that we have optical we have 27 booths and one reader.  The Poll Watchers, both of them, say that if the ballot goes through you’re good to go.  I hope so.  I’m mostly afraid the Flair™ in the booth will be dry and I’l have to flag someone down.

There is a part of me that says bring a spare.

I’m not entirely optimistic as you may suspect.  There are people tugging the other way and it’s a big iceberg.  They’re not going to quit and neither should we.

A little victory, and part of the tugging, will take place tomorrow.

I hope at least for devastating Republican defeat- Red States hemorrhaging blue all over the map.  One party government, dead as the Whigs.  And I’ll dance on the ashes in 2010 before we toss them in the dustbin of history.  This is a mere pre-requisite.

As always we will need to hold Our Representatives accountable for their actions and the clock don’t start ticking tomorrow because I wasn’t born yesterday.  I’m not distracted by shiny objects.  Primary challenges need to begin Wednesday!  Are you better than Club for Growth or not?  You outnumber them 95 to 5!

We have to reform our Corporate Media.  This is at once the hardest and the easiest thing to fix.  It’s the hardest because of the Hypnotoad-

You watch, I know you do.  And you buy stuff too.  Lots of people ride the bus in Montgomery.  Your attention counts more than anything, by merely shifting it you can have an impact.  While I recommend more, uhhh, active actions like changing your habits and expressing your opinions most people are shy and I understand that, but it’s right there beside you.  C’mon.

What makes it the easiest thing to fix is that these preening popinjays are extraordinarily sensitive to public opinion.  These nattering narcissists are so vacuous that without the beaming sunrays of audience approval they shrivel into dust and blow away like a reverse vampire.  Complaint letters are like garlic and a boycott a stake in the heart.  Interestingly enough Bram Stoker’s Dracula was killed by the stroke of a Bowie knife.  Sorry to spoil that for you.

My brewing buddy used to throw Halloween parties for my club.  He’d time them so that they happened the longest night of the year so everyone could stay an extra hour (and hopefully until morning because he’d brew up about 15 gallons).

It was quite a shindig, the peak was about 150 one year when we were politicking.  He was an audiophile and invested thousands of dollars in a CD based dj sytem, mixer, amps, speakers- so good I can still hear the difference between the first and second plays on vinyl.

But you can play CDs a hundred million times exactly the same so- I’ve DJed many Lincoln/Reagan dinners and eaten well (well eaten at least) for free at them, but I’ve never been able to get Republicans to dance after the event.

They can’t wait to get the fuck out of there.

Before dinner you’d play  something that was low and sounded vaguely hip.  We had hours of Steely Dan.  During dinner instrumental new age and after?  For the first few years I’d try, but after that I knew there wasn’t an instant hit that could keep them from their cars.

At the Halloween party we had people in costumes dancing and hooking up, what can I say.  We had to have a woman who was psychotically fixated on me carted off by the police one year.  This led to my brief torrid affair with the nurse who raised Siamese cats and dachshunds and daughters.  She (the nurse, pay attention) thought I was too serious about her and dumped me before Christmas but it all worked out in the end.  She married a biker and is very happy she tells me when she and I and her husband (who I knew before I knew her) meet on ceremonial occasions.

But that was simply one year among many.  We were relentlessly dance oriented at the party, to the point of limiting seating so people were forced to get up and circulate.  Tons of food.  No party games.

At the very first, or one of the very first ones we made the mistake of setting up video game stations and playing videos.  People grabbed the nearest couch.  I’m not sure I was at the last one, but I can understand why my brewing buddy stopped hosting them.  Attendance was down and we’d long since ceased having an agenda.

Logistically big parties are a bitch- 3 or 4 days of work.  I’ve been part of a lot of them come to think of it, one interesting one not a lot of people who know me know about is Gerald’s Party in Binghampton.

Gerald was my next door neighbor in Syracuse and he was kind of a weird dude who kept exotic pets (python, tarantula, monitor lizard).  He didn’t have a car and I did and he wanted to go to this party in Binghamton.  Big.  Live band was arriving Friday, he knew them and we could all crash the night before.

Well, I had a Friday night party, but I told Gerald I’d drop him off and pick him up and he was like- dude.

The Saturday part was quite splashy enough for my tastes.  The band was good and everbody loved them.  I recognized some friends of Gerald’s I’d met the day before so I didn’t feel left out.

I dunno, my inner Emily tells me there is just something classy about a party with a live band.

No.

“Is that a real question?” Biden continues.

“That’s a question.” West said.

With a chuckle, Biden firmly tells West, “He is not spreading the wealth around. He’s talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.”

“We think middle class tax payers should get a break, that’s what we think,” Biden added. “That’s a ridiculous comparison with all due respect.”

The dKos diary is based on Blue Tidal Wave and you know how these things are.  I have no experience with them as a source, but I only deal in the most reprehensible rumors anyway.

The boycott controversy has been on all day on Faux.  I’m surprised to find so little on the web except the Recommended diary from dKos because in my humble opinion it’s a big deal.  I saw somewhere that Drudge agrees, but dang if it turns up on teh Googles.

Hmm… more diligent research suggests this is a source-

Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden

posted by halboedeker, Orlando Sentinel

Oct 24, 2008 11:12:15 AM

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

Still, I’d be very interested in meatier sources because Faux is frothing at the mouth ACORN style.

We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

The directors of the firm hired to continue the credits after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.

The credits have been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.

We had some good essays that kind of got lost during the debate and I thought I’d mention them so that if they escaped your attention you might pay a visit.

• Happy Birthday, Friedrich Nietzsche by: CrustyPolemicist

and

• 39 Years Ago Today by: dennis

are pretty October 15th specific, celebrating anniversaries like they do.

• Lets Re-Visit the Flyers Puck Drop {Video not seen? and Pics} by: jimstaro

• The Organic Silver BB? by: A Siegel

and

• Hate Speech: Sowing The Dragons Teeth (Updated)
  
  by: Something The Dog Said

might get a promotion, but they also might slide down.

If you want to see each and every artist’s original conception I encourage you to bookmark the DocuDharma Essays Button.