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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Sunday, 7 November 2004

Topic: Photos

Redirection: Some things that didn't make it to this web log....

The new issue of Just Above Sunset, the parent site to this web log, is now on line - and that would be Volume 2, Number 44 for Sunday, November 7, 2004

So just where does Le Figaro say is the best place in Paris to get an authentic, greasy American-style hamburger? You could check out PARIS BURGER this week. But the bulk of the issue is devoted to the presidential election. And this time, rather than pointing to pundits and making comments, readers from all over provide the commentary and analysis, from the expatriate Hollywood fellow in Paris and also there, the Australian woman, to two voices from deep in the South, in Georgia, to three writers from New York. This is commentary exclusive to Just Above Sunset. You will have to guess which one teaches in the MBA program at a major university, which manages a Borders bookstore, which is the mason and jazz musician, and which is the one who was in on CNN when it started - and which one is a PhD insurance executive. And there is that fellow from Cincinnati. And there is of course the famous travel writer in Paris. The four AFTER TUESDAY dialogs below are lively.

Did you know there is no war on terror? Find out here. And is the Enlightenment officially over? And what about sex, God and the Republican right? It's all here.

Bob Patterson of course gives his unique take on this all as "The World's Laziest Journalist" - and the quotes for this week are appropriately cynical. The photographs are moody, as befits the week's events.

Have fun - and here are the direct links to the ELECTION ISSUE.


Before Tuesday ________

Reality Check: Listen up! There IS no War on Terror! I repeat: There IS no War on Terror! None! We have all been conned!

Warming Up: Bush as Robespierre?


After Tuesday ________

The Day After the Election: "You need to disengage your need to be right." (extended from this web log)

The Day After the Day After: Martyrs and God and Money and Gays and the Press (extended from this web log)

At the End of the Week: Summing Up (extended from this web log)

Next Steps: No Concessions? (new - not from this web log)

Paris Burgers: Maybe relations with France can be saved... (new - not from this web log, mostly in French)


Bob Patterson ________

WLJ Weekly: The World's Laziest Journalist - Be careful what you dream... (new - not from this web log)


Features ________

Photography: Gloom in Liberal Hollywood (new - not from this web log)

Quotes: Useful Pithy Observations... Bertolt Brecht, Ambrose Bierce, Joseph Conrad - and a Brazilian fellow...

___

And this in the shadow of this CNN bureau in Los Angeles...



Posted by Alan at 19:59 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Saturday, 6 November 2004

Topic: Election Notes

At the End of the Week

Joseph, our American in Paris, looks back on the dialogs - starting with the idea from several friends that it is now time for the Democrats to win over the religious "values" folks of the heartland.
Wow. Apres moi, la deluge. (Louis XIV)

Really, I will address all of this seriously next week. I'll just say that I'm neither suggesting that we become them nor fake it. We didn't get out our base. Bush did that for us. They didn't get out their base; we did. Republicans have been able to keep their fringe quiet, and he quietly rewards them. Our fringe elements mistakenly thought that it was time to go for all the marbles. They were wrong. Their base is bigger than ours. Accept it, and deal with it. Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't have it all. That isn't noble.

It's stupid!

It has been obvious for some time that the senate and house were going down the pipe. With this reality, was Kerry going to be able to extricate us from Iraq? Answer: at this point, no one can.

Was he going to be able to roll back the tax cuts, which even the executive-controlled Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says is mostly to blame for the spiraling deficit? Same answer.

After four years of problems deepening, we have W (or someone like him) again. Do you think whoever comes next for the Republicans isn't going to hire Karl Roverher? Guess again. Where is our Karl Rove, anyway? Where is our Forest Gump? Isn't it enough to be right, and have some access to power? Is it better to feel right and have NONE?

By the way, comparing Bush to Hitler or Nero is shrill and silly. Things are bad, but not that bad. "Forrest Gump", now that's fair. Seriously though, this does us no good. True, I have compared Rove to Goebels, but that was with grudging admiration more than contempt. [Note: see this in these pages where a fellow says. "To a person used to living in France, the country that invested joie de vivre, America seems like a grim and terrified place, and its leader like Forrest Gump with rockets."]

More to come.

Regarding the limeys saying we're dumb: well, maybe. [See The Day After the Day After - bottom of the column.] But who is the bigger fool, the fool who leads or the fool who follows? Ouch.

I really will make a case cogently next week.

But for now, QUOTE DAY!

"I would rather be right than be president." Henry Clay, who lost THREE TIMES! (Get my drift?)

And on my contention that the Democrats supporting gays came at a great cost, I'll riff on Gary Schandling: "I've never burned a flag. Then again, I've never put one out either."
Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, has a direct response to all this -
I think there is something to be said about them getting out our base, but the reverse is not true. It's been fairly well documented by now that Karl Rove, the "architect," had engineered the evangelical vote for the last four years, and was able to keep it pretty quiet up until the last moment.

And I don't know what you've been hearing over there in Froglandia, but I think there's really been not much noise heard from "our [so-called] fringe elements" over here - by which I assume you mean gays, especially those pushing for gay marriage and such, as I gather from your other message. In fact, I do believe all that state constitutional amendment stuff, too, was engineered by Rove, leaving the rest of us with nothing to do but sit back and quietly watch it all happen.

But also, I think to suggest that gays were somehow overreaching, especially in an election when the vast majority of the real talk was about Iraq, is like saying that the Jews may have had a legitimate gripe against the Nazis but that that was no reason for them to become whiners about it.

Their base is bigger than ours?

I don't see real evidence of that, only that they showed up to vote in larger numbers this year. It wasn't necessarily that big in 2000, and what goes up this election must eventually come down, which it may do in 2008.

Accept it, and deal with it?

How would you want it to be dealt with? What are you suggesting we all do? If this is one of those "learn to deal with your grief" or "get over it" things, I've never bought into that sort of thing. It may make one feel better for the moment, but I think misses the point in the long run.

You say, "Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't
have it all. That isn't noble. It's stupid."

Although (and I'm not being coy here) I honestly don't know how martyrdom enters into this -who are the martyrs in this, and what are they doing to make themselves martyrs? - but I do disagree with your characterization of martyrdom. In reality, martyrdom is a sacrifice one makes of oneself, for the benefit of others. It's sort of like what I.F. Stone says in his recent quote being floated, that you have to fight and fight, even knowing you will lose and lose, because years from now, someone will end up winning that fight. [See The Day After the Day After - top of the column - for the Stone quote.]

But yes, Stone says you must not feel like a martyr in doing it, but do it because you like it. Maybe so. Whatever. Noble? Maybe, maybe not. But stupid? Not.

After all, had Henry Clay decided to be president instead of being right, there's a very good chance he would have ended up being neither, and then we would never heard of him! Now that would have been a stupid waste of a life on his part!

Maybe next week we'll continue this, but I'm guessing we won't be in the mood. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm getting tired of it already.)
And Dick in Rochester New York adds -
Tagging along behind Rick...

I believe that what lost this election and a whole bunch previously is Democrats letting Republicans define them - very successfully. I do not remember "liberal" being a real four letter word until Reagan pasted it all over Mondale and Ferraro. Reagan mentioned it against Carter, but did it in skywriting in '84. Bush I did same thing with Dukakis in `88. The Democrats have never reacted to change liberal to a positive. (Many of us still believe this. Civil rights, cross-culturalization, Affirmative Action, Social Security, Medicare and so on. Consanguinely, dems/libs have let rep/neo-cons successfully create wedge issues that capitalize on "good conservative values" and "squishy, godless liberal lack of values.")

Simply - the Republicans can do one syllable attack crap and Democrats respond with three paragraph rhetoric and the audience is already gone. Deomocrats have never made much effort to challenge why "tax and spend liberals" is not nearly as bad as "borrow and spend neo-conservatives."

It probably does not matter that much now as the doomsday clock is in overdrive.
And Joseph wraps up his points -
Damn if I'm not getting a little tired of this myself.

Think I'll just make a few points and drop the matter.

1. Alan cited an article saying the loss was not on the gay issue, but on terrorism. Baloney. Yes, that was also a factor, one of several. Another (my first thought after Iowa) is that Kerry is from Massachusetts . Don't the Democrats get it yet? Republicans can nominate a northerner, but Democrats cannot. Those who are thinking of Hillary for 2008 must really enjoy losing.

2. Yes, Rove worked the Christian angle, but the Democrats played into their hands in many ways. Witness the shrillness of Michael Moore, or the Guardian UK's adventure in Clark County, OH. Preaching to the converted, and driving MANY who were ambivalent into the arms of the President. Again, making comparisons to Hitler is not helping us. We need to tone it all down. Comparing gay marriage to the Holocaust, as someone just did, may play here or in Berkley or in the back bay, but in most of the country it does not.

3. The ground has shifted beneath our feet. It is time to recognize that Republicans are right - Democrats ARE out of step with the mainstream, or the mainstream is out of step with US, if that makes you feel better. The mainstream has lunged right leaving the Democratic Party almost irrelevant. While it is tempting to think of history as a gradual rise toward enlightenment, but even a cursory view proves this false. The trajectory of history more closely resembles the DJIA: seemingly ever upward in the long view, but a bumpy ride with many bear markets along the way. On must adapt or die. We ARE out of step. An anti-gay marriage amendment passed in Oregon. OREGON!!! And Oregon makes California look like Kansas. This should tell us something about the pulse of the nation.

One must tailor one's expectations accordingly. How did the civil rights movement fare in the '40s? Not very well. I imagine that Rosa Parks would have been thrown off the bus, or thrown in jail and that would have been the end of it. That's not to say that one should stop fighting, but one has to let the context determine how one fights. Sorry to say, but many of the things that lefties hold dear are ideals that will never be achieved. Some will be achieved, but very slowly, in fits and starts. This is simply not a time in history when one should expect great lurches forward towards enlightenment principles. Fight, but don't expect nor demand everything tomorrow. Okay, I may have been winding you all up a bit, but on this I am perfectly serious: Are gays not substantially worse off in much of the country than they were before? Worse off than they might have been had certain elements been less militant? Isn't there a fair chance that the issue opened an opportunity for putting these state amendments on the ballot for no other reason than to get a few million extra conservatives out to the polls? A chance that this made the difference? I think so.

And when Dan says that it made a big difference in Ohio, I for one believe him. Point: if we want to win the hearts and minds of the enemy, we need to listen to them and adjust our message rather than self-righteously talking AT them. Note to Michael Moore: just go away.

4. That doesn't mean abandoning principles. "What goes up must come down" is cute, but when? History suggests that we could be in for a long ride. What to do? Several answers: Don't sell policy, sell virtue. We have enough of it. The funny thing (and Dan, perhaps you will scoff) but I actually believe that the Democrats embody not only Christian new-testament principles better than the Republican party of today, but the conservative values of old: responsibility, caution, community. Funny, but in many ways WE are the party of Reagan! This would not be the first time the parties have completely reversed polarity. Sell THAT.

The Reps don't get hung up on policy details. And pragmatism impresses the wonks, but not in Peoria. Give me a candidate from the South who really is a Christian, not a faker. Someone who can connect and inspire. I don't care if he's dumb as a post. Give me Forrest Gump. We can always package him with smarter men. Works for them, and lefties will still vote for him. Republicans, ironically ARE more pragmatic in this regard: They know what kind of guy they need, and what he needs to say to get the office and trust that he'll do lots of stuff once he gets their that it was "better not to talk about while he was running." Again, we need to disengage our need to prove we're right, and just be right. Swallow the indignation and be effective.

5. Being "right" is a fine thing I suppose, but what good is wisdom if it's of no profit to the wise? David Mammet refers to this as the "great liberal fallacy": that it is sufficient to merely recognize an injustice and empathize. If we can temper the need to prove we're right, go quietly about doing what we do, keeping an eye on the big picture rather than parochial interests, be patient and keep divisive issues in the background, then we may achieve a position from which all this high-mindedness is actually put to some use. It works for them, and it can work for us. Mark Twain wrote "Thunder is fine; it is impressive. But it's the lightening that does the work". Being right is not enough, and if we let it get in the way of getting to do the work that is the real betrayal of principles.

6. The thing that is really troubling about the gay issue is that blacks and Hispanics, statistics show, are somewhat more homophobic than whites. I would like to see statistics on minority votes in the states with marriage amendments on the ballot. Democrats should have the Hispanic vote hands down, but we do not. This is one reason. There are others. Had Kerry chosen Bill Richardson he might not have won the election, but he would have won Hispanics for a generation.

7. Finally, someone recently wrote that this was not the massive loss the press is making it out to be, that it all came down to Ohio. Bullshit. Think about how dishonest that is. We lost by FOUR MILLION VOTES. Think of it. In four short years, we have gone from being outraged that one can lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College, to believing that the Electoral College is the only thing that counts. I assure you that had we won by four million votes, we would declare a mandate too. The public has spoken, and by a significant margin, it has said that we suck.
Oh.


Sex and God, Part Two

In the previous dialogs, Joseph had maintained that the Democrats' careful but tenuous alliance with the gay rights issues cost them the election, and Vince argued that that seemed to be the case in Ohio, and Emma was uneasy with gay couples raining children. That dialog continues with Dick in Rochester -
I believe that everyone is traveling obliquely around what I think is a core issue: why is everyone making "marriage" and legalization of a union synonymous? If you want all the legal shit, have a civil union. If you want a "marriage" that should be a church thing and if your church cannot accommodate you, get another church. As a church/state thing I could never understood what in hell gave the church the "power invested in me by the state." Certainly the Catholic Church has a hard time showing empirical expertise in both sides of marriage. No states require any special "marriage counseling" to become a minister. How is your priest (or rabbi or whatever) any more competent to legally bring two (or three or eight) people together than your plumber or service station attendant?

This never should have been an issue in the way it was presented.
Vince adds this -
Yes, but Dick, the argument isn't really ABOUT legal claims - despite your good logic.
The issue that swung Ohio and Georgia and the rest was FEAR - of people who are different than I AM!

American version of Jihad -- without the blood!

Instead it's paid with "political capital"! Aren't WE civil!!

Dick - on second thought - to trump my own comment - rather than fear of others, how about the whole gay thing being FEAR of OURSELVES - our own sexuality!

Now THERE'S a real John Wayne moment! A TRUE motivator!

But that may be giving too much credit to Karl Rove... then again, maybe not...
Well, Vince may be right.

But does it matter?

Posted by Alan at 14:15 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 6 November 2004 14:23 PST home

Thursday, 4 November 2004

Topic: Election Notes

The Day After the Day After

Clare, an old college friend, sends a quote along -

"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."

- I. F. Stone

First from Paris - Joseph, the expatriate American ex-film producer from these parts -
Last night at the Philo Caf? [that Paris institution explained here] we enjoyed a heated discussion regarding the future of democracy. I argued that as marketing and politics become more scientific, politics becomes more as theatre. Political parties have greater tools with which to manufacture the consent of the governed, and we enjoy the spectacle, ever more deluded that we are participating in it.

Allow me to draw your attention to the following. This is just getting started.

Scientists scan brains for political clues
Associated Press story covered by CNN
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 Posted: 1625 GMT (0025 HKT)

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- Applying some of the same brain-scan technology used to understand Alzheimer's and autism, scientists are trying to learn what makes a Republican's mind different from a Democrat's.

Brain scanning is moving rapidly beyond diseases to measuring how we react to religious experiences, racial prejudice, even Coke versus Pepsi. This election season, some scientists are trying to find out whether the technology can help political consultants get inside voters' heads more effectively than focus groups or polls.

Already, the scientists are predicting that brain scanning -- known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI -- will be a campaign staple four years from now, despite ethical concerns about "neuromarketing."

Brain scans measure blood flow. When brain cells start firing in a part of the brain that governs a particular emotion or activity, they need more oxygen, which is carried by the blood. During an fMRI, active regions of the brain can be seen lighting up on a computer monitor.

Last month, Drs. Joshua Freedman and Marco Iacoboni of the University of California at Los Angeles finished scanning the brains of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Each viewed images of President Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader.

When viewing their favorite candidate, all showed increased activity in the region implicated in empathy. And when viewing the opposition, all had increased blood flow in the region where humans consciously assert control over emotions -- suggesting the volunteers were actively attempting to dislike the opposition.

Nonetheless, some differences appeared between the brain activity of Democrats and Republicans. Take empathy: One Democrat's brain lit up at an image of Kerry "with a profound sense of connection, like a beautiful sunset," Freedman said. Brain activity in a Republican shown an image of Bush was "more interpersonal, such as if you smiled at someone and they smiled back."

And when voters were shown a Bush ad that included images of the September 11 attacks, the amygdala region of the brain -- which lights up for most of us when we see snakes -- illuminated more for Democrats than Republicans. The researchers' conclusion: At a subconscious level, Republicans were apparently not as bothered by what Democrats found alarming.

"People make tons of decisions and often they don't know why," Iacoboni said. "A lot of decision-making is unconscious, and brain imaging will be used in the near future to perceive and decide about politicians." ...

... "This is a story of the corruption of medical research," warned Gary Ruskin, who runs a Portland, Oregon, nonprofit organization called Commercial Alert. "It's a technology that should be used to ease human suffering, not make political propaganda more effective."
Emma, our Australian friend in Paris comments - "Orwell must be laughing in his grave!"

To piggyback on a famous British poet of the seventeenth century - The grave is a fine and private place, but none I think do there... giggle? (See this.)

Dick in Rochester, New York adds - "Gee whiz, Joe! The good news just keeps a comin'."

Bob Patterson, who weekly writes for Just Above Sunset as "The World's Laziest Journalist" tries out a football metaphor - "Maybe it's time to heed the wisdom of the old football coach? Drop back ten and punt?"

Vince in upstate New York demurs - "Can't punt if you don't have the ball..."

Ah, but how bad are things?

The previous day Dick in Rochester, New York had mentioned that the national debt is going right off the chart, as the big bucks people will probably get another tax cut.

Joseph adds this -
Dick: This is part of an explanation I will eventually get to, but probably not until I return from London next week.

By this time next week, the Euro will be at 1.30 USD. Look at how the bond market is reacting. We are in a hole we may not get out of for a long, long time. The party that is sitting at the table when this check comes will be ruined for a generation. You can quote me.

Why Democrats should be thankful?

At least they don't have to clean up the Bush fiscal catastrophe.
And Joseph sends along Daniel Gross in SLATE.COM - - "...the Treasury Department announced an impending crisis. If the lame-duck Congress doesn't raise the statutory $7.384 trillion debt limit, which was intentionally breached in October, by Nov. 18, the world's greatest power will run out of cash."

Emma? "Ah but for just how long will the Chinese and Japanese continue to buy the debt when they have increasing problems of their own?"

That is a consideration.

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, adds this -
Look at how the bond market is reacting? We are in a hole we may not get out of for a long, long time? The party that is sitting at the table when this check comes will be ruined for a generation?

No time right now for a detailed response from me on that, but yep, you're right!

Republicans and Bush are good for business?!? As I understand it, many of the folks who buy our bonds are them foreigners that Bush has so studiously thumbed his nose at - something they may not take personally so much as they look at his policies of running up huge deficits and think he might not be able to pay it back - which means he'll have to tempt them with higher bond rates, making it even harder to pay back. (And if nobody has yet coined the term "Treasury Junk Bond," please remember that you heard it here first.)

And there are reports that Europeans, who in the past pretty much admired "American confidence and that 'can-do' attitude," now see that as "arrogance," and are starting to boycott the same American products they once thought cool. U.S. firms deny noticing any effect, but Coca-Cola says its 16% drop in sales recently is just due to the weak economy over there. So once again, Republicans and Bush are good for business?

Not really! One could guess that his being-bad-for-business thing going on is one of the prices he paid when he sold whatever passed for his soul to the so-called "moral values" crowd. But I'm pretty sure that at some point, America will catch on and turn on George W. Bush in the same way they did turned on Newt Gingrich.

I haven't read all of the posts, and if you've already explained your pre-hangover thoughts about it being a good thing Bush won - my gut reaction being, "Yeah, you and al Qaedda both!" - and also that disengaging thing, I hope to find the time to get to read them this weekend, but on the face of it, I must say I really disagree.

Yeah, who wants to have to clean up Bush's mess! And especially when at least half the country cares less about how much he screwed us all up in the world than whether God wants us to kill embryos here and there in the name of keeping actual living people alive!

But the fact is, in the reputed words of John Wayne, "It's a job to be done; somebody's got to do it." Kerry would have done it, with both trepidation and pride. And I wish he could have. But since he didn't get the chance, we may have to follow up and do it.

And if I take correctly that business about not trying so hard to be right, I do like the way Phillip made that sound like the credo of the other side, which doesn't seem to care as much about really being right as it does about winning.

I do hope, in the coming inevitable bloodletting of the Democrats, the argument that "we all have to have to have the courage to change our philosophy and become more like the Republicans" gets the mercifully short shrift it so richly deserves.

If we want to win, we have to learn to pretend to "love God" in the same way Bush supporters do? We have to reaffirm our belief that "God hates Fags" and that gays shouldn't get married or raise children? Are we supposed to learn to love guns and hate the idea of legal abortions?
Denounce Hollywood for corrupting our morals? Learn to love the idea that evolution is merely a theory equal to creationism? Run shithead campaigns where we talk trash, and where we lie, exaggerate, distort, and blatantly ignore the facts without fear of contradiction? I think you get my drift.

The point is, if you want to pretend to be an asshole just to get the votes, not only will those other guys always be better at it, they will also gain votes by mocking you for trying to be like them, just to get votes. (Think Kerry-shoots-goose.)

The Democrats do stand for things that the other side doesn't (we can talk about that later), and that's why I almost always find myself voting Democratic. I do hope we don't give into the temptation to fiddle with the formula, just for the sake of winning. Someone has to believe in the things that George W. Bush doesn't, and if need be, let me the first to join that group.

But if you really want to imitate something the Republicans did to win this time, let's try to energize the base. Try going out there and getting people who agree with you to not only go to the polls, but also do the thankless job of going door-to-door and taking shit from the folks who don't agree with you, all in an attempt to get them to join our side. We may not cut too many strays from the herd, but every one you get is one you didn't have. Keep in mind that most those Red State folks have never heard the other side of the argument.

The first step is the midterms. Democrats have to use these storm trooper tactics (pardon the expression) to try to change the makeup of the next Congress. That should set us up for 2008. We can do this, and if we want to do any good whatsoever before we die, we should try. We need not be ashamed of what we believe -- hey, we're probably MORE than half the country! And we need to have the guts to both stick by our beliefs and to spread the word!

(Of course, the first thing I myself have to do is find the time to read Slate article. I've been so busy writing this diatribe that I haven't had time. I'm just so pissed off, and plan to stay that way for some time to come.)

But for other good reading matter on this issue, I refer you to the Op-Ed page of the Thursday's New York Times, specifically Maureen Dowd's "The Red Zone", Thomas L. Friedman's "Two Nations Under God", and Garry Wills' "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out". [See below.]

Sex and God

That was also an issue in the election.

Joseph replies to our Cincinnati friend who explained the Christian view of the election results -
"You need to disengage your need to be right."

That particular piece of advice was leveled at me by Joel Silver himself. He was right. [Joel Silver's Frank Lloyd Wright house in Just Above Sunset here.] Only Phillip and you, I believe, have truly understood the spirit of it. It is a waste of time trying to convince others that you are right, when you could more easily convince them of what they need to believe in order to believe you. In other words, if your ego can forego the satisfaction of being proved right, you are more likely to get what you want. The Republican leadership knows this. Sun Tzu would approve.

Activist judges: judges at the appellate level or higher are activist. That some are not is talk-radio hype. It's just that there are some kinds of activists I don't like, and some kinds don't like. You will be tempted to label them "liberal"; I would urge you to call them "permissive" instead. It's not the same thing.

Don't believe me? How about your cherished right to privacy? Not in the constitution. Lots of other things you and I both cherish (like the right to drink beer, for example!) are not in the constitution and are only rights because "activist judges" "created" them. I think you would be appalled by all that we would have to give up if we had a judiciary full of Antony Scallias. You wouldn't like it. So let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Having said that, I agree. When gay activists first began throwing a fit, now nearly a year ago, I smelled big trouble. For quite a while, we have been in danger of scuttling the party on their behalf, and I for one, do not approve. Their welcome at the table was tentative at best, and this is how they pay us back?

I don't give a shit how badly they want it, their "plight" has absolutely ZERO parallel to the civil rights movement. To make the comparison is absurd. I agree with you 100% that the state amendment story is the elephant in the room. As far as I'm concerned, they should be shown the door until they can prove that they can behave themselves. If that makes me a bigot, tough. Should I let my house burn down to save theirs? 90% of gays aren't going to vote Republican no matter what we do. Those "log cabin" Republicans (who picked THAT name, anyway?) are gonna do what they're gonna do.

True, I don't support gay marriage either, but my reasons have little to do with morality. (Have you noticed that "morality" these days is limited to matters of sex?) If you give them marriage, it's no threat to me or society at large. But there would then be no legal basis for denying adoption rights, etc. This is where I personally draw the line. It's tough enough being a kid these days without having two daddies that shower together.

The whole gay thing is just a big yawn for me. Except that their collective impatient, impetuous sniveling has played a major role in this particular train wreck. Every sensible Democrat should feel betrayed by those who insisted upon their own little interests when it was important (and smarter) to keep it together, shut up and wait.
Wow.

Emma responds -
Look I think you guys are making a real song and dance about this gay marriage thing. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong in gay couples wanting to get hitched and settle down - it might reduce their so-called loud and rampant promiscuity.

Furthermore, in a world where so many couples get hitched for all the wrong reasons I have the impression that gay couples looking to marriage might actually be doing it for far more admirable moralistic reasons than most of us heterosexuals would give them the merit for.

My one concern however with gay married couples is when it comes to having children. That would seem to be the more appropriate discussion to seriously debate.
And Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, takes that up -
Emma,

I agree about the marriage thing. Although I never cared that much about it before, I was forced to make a decision about this stupid issue since the Republicans made it a wedge-issue: I really can't see anything wrong with it, especially since it seems spousal benefits can't be handled any other way. (Would it "destroy the concept of marriage" as we know it? I can only imagine the day it becomes legal that, all over this country, husbands will smack their foreheads in a "V-8" moment, shouting, "Damn it! If I'd only waited! I coulda married a MAN!!")

But as for their raising kids thing, I very much disagree with both you and Joseph.

Phillip and I live in a town (Decatur, Georgia) that is apparently famous far and wide for being where lesbians come to live. (If you've ever heard of the Indigo Girls, the singing group, they grew up here, and I think still live here.) But I've noticed at my daughter's elementary school countless lesbian couples dropping off their kids, kids who seem as normal as can be. And studies have shown that adults that were brought up by gay couples are normal in every way, and also end up having about the same sexual preferences as those raised by heterosexuals.

Should kids be raised by a mother and father? It's probably best, but I personally believe children of divorce probably fare much, much worse than children with two mommies or two daddies.

One more note about this Republican wedge-issue, as manifested in state amendment ballot proposals: I know that in my state of Georgia, a lawsuit to throw an anti-same-sex marriage amendment off the ballot failed, despite the fact that it secretly also banned not only civil unions, but heterosexual civil unions. (Some claim the challenge will win on appeal, on constitutional grounds.) This whole damn issue was phony from the get-go, designed to get the evangelicals -- people who didn't care about the real issues we face -- out to the polls. And if worked, and we're going to pay the price.

Rick
We are paying the price.

Phillip Raines chimes in here -
Scuttling the party on the behalf of the gay thing, huh? Hmm. I recall a headline in the Atlanta Journal "Zell Miller: ' I tried to tell you.'" I didn't have the stomach to read his opinion, but I'm sure it danced around that very issue. I could be worse. A candidate like me might say "Not all church is good and not all dope is bad." Boy that would really scuttle the bonnie ship, eh matey.

I found solace in coming to the conclusion that their writing is better, more hypnotic, and better on things that are bullshit. That's it! THEY DO THE BULLSHIT BETTER. That's what we need. To be better at a bunch of bullshit - then we can pull in the vast pool of the gullible, who after all are real numbers. I feel like we actually got out all the reasonable Democrats there are. That's our whole team, and you're not going to get the artist and anarchist to vote, they're too distracted anyway. Now the next step is to get Robert Redford to run, ahh.. How the electorate would swoon, if there are better writers out there to slip him all cue cards. I see a real dork factor to the image makers in this party, it's not like we have our best talent on the job. And Kerry bore the burden for us, but was not himself overburdened with charisma.

But on the prohibition on gay adoption. Well, it already happens one way or another. A couple of gay guys up the street have a couple of kids achieved by artificially inseminating one or the other in a lesbian couple. All four parents make good money and they aren't pedophiles. In my small town such things don't even raise an eyebrow for most of the citizens. There's a big lesbian population here in downtown Decatur (code named Dick-hater). There are responsibilities like school conferences, who picks up who at after-school, who is sent grades, hospital privacy concerns and medications, and then a myriad of insurance issues, pretty much like families everywhere have to wade through. All the contractual obligations could fall under the umbrella of marriage, but that sounds too much like holy matrimony and then you get some moron wrapped in an idiot who ponders who would Jesus booger or some such shit and their wiring burns through the insulation and there is a melt down of outrage spread chicken little-like through the land. The critical error is really based on the connection of marriage and matrimony, which is well... grammatical bullshit, which like I said, we don't do as well. Always distracted by turning it into some sort of smart-ass joke - and hey, who can blame us. In a way it's funny like a fart, but you gotta keep a straight face and enlightenment is, we must admit, the higher path.

But the point is that there is some sort of family contractual agreement that for all us straight people is covered in marriage, but for gays it is more convoluted, if not impossible. And insurance companies just hate the idea because it means more pay outs, and without national health insurance people are looking for an angle in the same way I tell young musicians to marry a teacher. You can't beat the benefits. With gay couples it all gets distracted by the buggery issue, and the farmers in the red states aren't going to go for that. And apparently even the Amish will vote to stop things from going in the direction of such nastiness. And now it's a democratic issue, somebody's sex life. Yeah, well maybe we should draw the line on constituency, but replace them with whom? Or as Joseph implies, should we say you can come to the party, but try not to speak and don't make a spectacle of yourself. If they're even sitting at our table we have to defend the question of why do you have a queer at the table. Then where is that bullshit reply? Don't ask me. I would say their table collapsed from the weight of all those dildos, and where is that going to get you?
Rick, The News Guy, adds this -
Decatur (code named Dick-Hater)?

Yeah, I thought of mentioning that, but passed on it because I was trying very hard to come off as serious. (Oddly, I first heard that joke from a guy who lived in Orange County, California, after my having lived in Decatur for maybe ten years.)

Phillips says, "That's it. THEY DO THE BULLSHIT BETTER. That's what we need. If [gays
are] even sitting at our table we have to defend the question of why do you have a queer at the table. Then where is that bullshit reply?"

It's odd, but I think their bullshit, on one level, actually isn't.

In fact, the Bush constituency has this indelible image in its collective head of a strong leader, and their guy fits that picture perfectly. So when Bush and his crowd shovel what the rest of us may think of as bullshit, his followers just see it as the kind of thing the "right man for the job" has to say in order to keep it.

This is why all this stuff about Kerry - for example, making sure we see him goose hunting, to show he's not going to take guns away from conservatives ("There he goes, the Massachusetts liberal, pretending to be a gun guy!"); or emphasizing his war record, as opposed to Bush's ("There goes that liberal Kerry, pretending to be as tough as W!"); or admitting to all the world that he's against same-sex marriage ("There goes the liberal from Massachusetts again, trying to pretend he's not a liberal!") - is seen by them as making Kerry look like a big phony who will do and say anything to get votes.

And quite frankly, although "bullshit" is way too strong a word for it, it's hard to deny that so much of it came off as pretty disingenuous and baldly pandering. But no, I don't think it's necessarily Kerry's fault.

The truth is, just as Kerry gambled he might be able to win without carrying one Southern state, Bush took a chance and spent his whole campaign playing to his core fans, not even allowing anyone into his rallies who wouldn't sign a form that promised to vote for Bush. And his gamble paid off. Not once did he try any such stunts to appeal to liberals.

In other words, on that particular level, not once did Bush, the candidate, bullshit anyone!
Amazing, when you think about it!

(By the way, oddly enough, George Bush apparently isn't even a hunter. Then again, nor does he need to pretend to be one in order to impress his crowd.)

So, is there a lesson for our side in all of this? Here's one: Don't try to make yourself look like the other guy, since voters already have one of those, and he will inevitably be better at it than you.

A corollary lesson: Those Bush bastards are begging for an opposition, someone who proudly stands for something else, and it might as freaking well be you.

It can be argued, of course, that Bush was able to get away with playing almost solely to his base only because he knew his base was larger than Kerry's. Maybe so, although I'm still not convinced. I still think there are plenty of untapped smart people out there who have a different definition of "moral values," and who could be recruited to get off their asses if only they were shown some glimpse of hope, and who would be willing to go vote for, and maybe even work to elect, the good guys.

I think prominent among the reasons that Bush beat Kerry, as has been discussed here, is that conservatives are very much into image, while liberals are more into truth. But it's also true that liberals, who try to be open-minded and are always willing to entertain both sides of an argument, are that much more likely than the other side to wonder why their guy can't jimmy up a good image as well as the other guy. (And it's equally true that conservatives are entertained by the liberals' tendency to doubt themselves out of existence.)

But this is not to say the liberals should be tempted to abandon their beliefs, in the vain hope of becoming winners.

Try to remember the dark days of "Strange Fruit" - black bodies hanging from trees, alluded to in the Billie Holiday song of the same name. Because brave people fought, and sometimes died, to make unacceptable behavior no longer acceptable, those days have become a curious relic of the past. The lesson is, happily, that sometimes sticking to good principles ends up being not nearly as futile as all those cynics and pessimists claim.

Which is to say that, among other things, we should stop worrying about coming up with a "bullshit reply" to those who question why we have gays sitting at our table.

I suppose we could tell them to go ask Dick Cheney, but they would then only accuse us of "bad taste" in "outing" Cheney's daughter, or some such crap. Maybe the better approach might be to say that there's nothing wrong with gay people - very smart and creative folks who contribute plenty to society, thank you very much; and maybe that God obviously agrees, since he created so many of them; and, by the way, who the hell are you to go around, second-guessing God?

But if that doesn't work, maybe you should invoke Dick Cheney's wisdom once more, advising them to go do to themselves what Dick Cheney advised Patrick Leahy to do!



Notes on the Press

Joseph again -
On CNN I just saw the announcers TWICE deliver the line that "MOST Americans are happy with the results of the election" while showing a graphic that indicated that 44% were either "disappointed" or "afraid". As a journalistic convention, we don't usually invoke "most" for a shade above half. I guess that's the liberal media for you, the same lot who never said a discouraging word about this president until six months ago.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with some people, one of whom was the kind of guy who refers to CNN as the "Clinton News Network". It was hard going. Here's the funny bit. Do you remember the old saw that says that journalists are liberal because they "want to save the world" which is why they became journalists to begin with? You will be happy to know that it has graduated to the status of urban legend. This guy claims that a "friend" has "a friend" who is a journalist who said this about himself. I could barely keep from laughing in his face.

You know that something is completely indefensible when presented this way. If this were his argument one might present a counter-argument and shoot the whole thing. But by presenting it as the confession of a friend of a friend, one is being asked to accept, like so many other things these days, the core assumptions as an article of faith.

I have known many journalists, and few of them managed to muster more than a detached amusement regarding most of news stories they covered. I think that like much twaddle of this type that one hears these days, it stems from the distance most people have from the practical realities of the subject, an understandable ignorance of how stuff actually "works".

For William Safire, I have no explanation. I have admired is "language" column for years, but I suspect he's coming unhinged.
Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, who was in on CNN at the start, responds -
Except to say, yes, over 50% does indeed qualify as being "most", this is not to be confused with the sentiments of right-wingers I've heard in the last few days that Tuesday's results prove that we are overwhelmingly a conservative -- as if to say, anti-God-liberal -- nation. After all, 50% is a long way from 100%, isn't it?

And yes, I myself have met liberals who have become journalists because they wanted to "do good." But I've always contended that liberals think of education and journalism as "noble professions that help society," while conservatives tend to pass over "noble professions that help society" in favor of "going where the money is."

But I should also note here the little-known fact that, at the height of CNN being referred to as the "Clinton New Network," not only did Clinton reportedly have a distinct dislike for CNN, but that all the very top news managers of the network at that time were conservatives!

And I must say, thank goodness all of those managers (two of the three are dead now, but I still shouldn't betray their secrets by naming them) were so dedicated to principle that they never let their political beliefs interfere with their professional standards.
Well, don't tell the conservatives that. They don't believe it.

___

References, and other comment -

Rick in Atlanta mentions items in the New York Times and here are two of them.

The Enlightenment was overrated?

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
Garry Wills - Published: November 4, 2004
... This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage.

... Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.

... Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.
Note: The Times tells us Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion"

And MAUREEN DOWD on the same page -
... The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.

W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on "moral issues."

The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"?

... Just as Zell Miller was so over the top at the G.O.P. convention that he made Mr. Cheney seem reasonable, so several new members of Congress will make W. seem moderate.

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.

Seeing the exit polls, the Democrats immediately started talking about values and religion. Their sudden passion for wooing Southern white Christian soldiers may put a crimp in Hillary's 2008 campaign (nothing but a wooden stake would stop it). Meanwhile, the blue puddle is comforting itself with the expectation that this loony bunch will fatally overreach, just as Newt Gingrich did in the 90's.

But with this crowd, it's hard to imagine what would constitute overreaching.

Invading France?
It's a thought.

The world press reaction is here in summary form....

Brits to America: You're Idiots!
Well, 51 percent of you, anyway.
By June Thomas - Posted Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004, at 5:07 PM PT SLATE.COM
... check out the cover of Thursday's Daily Mirror: Over a picture of President George W. Bush, the paper asked, "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Inside, the left-leaning British tabloid headlined its editorial, "WAR MORE YEARS." In a clear demonstration of the trans-Atlantic culture gap, the paper's description of the president's beliefs--clearly intended to strike Mirror readers as a radical agenda--is simply an accurate, if crude, pr?cis of his platform: "Mr Bush opposes abortion and gay marriage, doesn't give a stuff about the environment, is against gun control and believes troops should stay in Iraq for as long as it takes."

The Mirror wasn't the only British paper with a striking cover. The Guardian's "G2" section was fronted by a page of solid black containing just two small words: "Oh, God." Meanwhile, the Independent ran the headline "Four More Years" along with iconic images from the first Bush term: kneeling prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, soldiers fighting in Iraq, oil-drilling machinery, sign-wielding religious extremists, and a smirking Dubya. In France, Lib?ration ran a picture of the president under the headline, "L'Empire empire"--"The empire declines."

... As the Guardian put it: "We may not like it. In fact ... we don't like it one bit. But if it isn't a mandate, then the word has no meaning. Mr. Bush has won fair ... and square. He and his country--and the rest of the world--now have to deal with it." In a fit of double-negativity, the Independent's editorial added: "This does not mean, however, that we do not contemplate the second Bush term with considerable trepidation. Another four years of a president in thrall to the religious right and the neo-conservatives is another four years in which the United States risks sliding back into an earlier age of bigotry and social injustice." Writing in the Times of London, Simon Jenkins' condescending sigh of disappointment typified the genre:

... Elsewhere in Europe, France's leftist Lib?ration got with the program: "A new reactionary majority ... has cemented its hold on American democracy. The rest of the world may deplore it, but it will have to adapt to this reality." Turkey's Hurriyet also echoed the familiar grin-and-bear-it theme: "American voters have once more brought someone they deserved to the presidency. In this case, what is left for us is to bear it and to protect our own interests with maximum sensitivity." But Sovietskaya Rossiya defaulted to quaintly archaic Cold War rhetoric: "Bearing in mind that Bush's policies are prompting increasingly powerful rejection in the entire world, mankind will inevitably unite against the common evil--American imperialism."
Oh my!

Other comment?

This - "'Ach,' says Oliver James, the clinical psychologist. 'I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?''"

"I think a large part of the public likes the conservatives' theme music. Now they will be tested on whether they like the lyrics." - Barney Frank - Brookline TAB, Nov. 4th, 2004

This -

Rove's re-election strategy was elegantly simple: Scare the bejesus out of Jesusland. Faggots are headed your way! Satanic Muslims are hiding everywhere! That's all it took to get Jesusland to do the job. Intellectual conservatives like the National Review staff are flattering themselves if they honestly believe Jesusland cares about conservative thought. The "reality-based" folks are learning that Jesusland doesn't even care about jobs or the economy. In Jesusland, it's all the will of Jesus. No job? No money? Daughter got her clit pierced? Jesus is just fucking with you again, testing your faith. Got the cancer? Oh well. Soon you'll be with Jesus. Reality is no match for a mystical world in which an all-powerful god is constantly toying with every detail of your mundane life, just to see what you'll do about it. Keep praying and always keep your eye out for homosexuals and terrorists, and you will eventually be rewarded ... all you have to do is die, and then it's SuperJesusLand, where you will be a ghost floating in a magic cloud with all the other ghosts from Jesusland, with Jesus Himself presiding over an Eternal Church Service.

And A reader to the Guardian (UK) - "... I suggest Operation Rock the Voter - well-meaning Guardian readers volunteer to visit America, and are assigned a single Bush voter, who they then shake violently and slap around a bit, and point at any given five second video clip of Bush and scream, "Look! He's a fucking moron! Can't you see that? Everyone else on the bloody planet can, what the hell is wrong with you?" Followed by some more violent shaking."

Oh well.

The London Daily Mirror front page - Thursday, November 04, 2004 -



Posted by Alan at 22:32 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 6 November 2004 14:18 PST home

Wednesday, 3 November 2004

Topic: Election Notes

The day after the election... "You need to disengage your need to be right."

From someone to whom I was once married -
It's just after 7:00 am here and I'm about to leave for work. Just thought I'd check in to commiserate. I guess the people have spoken. Unfortunately most of "the people" are faith-based morons. Still, I'd feel really odd being part of an American majority. It is much more comfortable to be outraged from the fringes.
I'm settling down to being comfortable with the new state of things. I guess. My domain names - the Above Sunset things - are registered and paid for. And I suppose someone else owns the domains www.grousingfromthefringe.com and www.whatwereyouthinking.com and such variants. Minorityreport.com is taken. Being one of the few and isolated contrarians will do for now.

From another friend in upstate New York -
Excuse me... looking up from my Vonnegut book long enough to ask this disenfranchised question....

Republicans send THOUSANDS of lawyers to specific voting precincts in critical states to hover over the process and contest irregularities... And not a single shot is fired - anywhere?

And yet - ALL the exit polls throughout the day that indicated Kerry was actually winning this thing.... to the extent that the markets tumbled (Dow down several 100 points) in the final 90 minutes of trading... ALL those polls happen to be TOTALLY wrong by the end of the day when numbers are actually tallied?

Now I only grew up in the 60's when we had clear evidence that certain conspiracies - from time to time - deserved to be considered more than just theory -

But is ANYBODY out there with a national voice going to ask what ALL those lawyers were doing yesterday? Really?

Signed,
Anonymous (to protect my children's' children!)
Yeah, well, fraud or not, it's a done deal. And Phillip Raines adds -
Just the threat was enough. Did they cheat? Yeah, prove it. Say "wait a minute, this ain't right..." and get hit with the sore looser tag. Out thought in the devious arena, again.
From our friend in France.

Heather Stimmler-Hall - member number one of Ric Erickson's MetropoleParis Club - sends this along. (You can see her picture over at Ric's site of course - she's the one in the middle.) Joseph was at Harry's New York Bar near the opera. Heather was at the Paris Plant Hollywood, which I think is up on the Champs somewhere or other. The expatriates (ex-patriots?) in Paris... not happy?

Heather and I have traded emails in the past on many topics.
Hey Alan -

Spent last night (midnight six in the morning) at Planet Hollywood's election party. I expected a few cameras, but the reality when I arrived was much more over the top. There seemed to be more journalists with cameras and notebooks and bright lights than actual Americans. There were only a handful of people really dressed up for the occasion, and they were constantly hounded. The rest of us didn't even have buttons. I put on a donkey sticker from my CNN election worksheet I tore out of the New Yorker. The bar is huge, lots of small rooms. Stood around awhile, met up with a friend, got drinks, got food, got Champagne. Got tired and commandeered some chairs. There was a band, and the sound on the TV was turned up to drown them out. The volume was unbearable by 5:00 am, especially during the commercials. There were mostly Democrats, I gather from the cheering whenever a state result was announced in his favor. The few Republicans were being very quiet. I think there were even some Nader fans. A woman next to me commented on how old Larry King looked. The guy on my left was growing frustrated with CNNs "We haven't got any news yet, but we're going to keep talking anyway" schtick. I left with Ohio and Florida still unannounced, as well as my own state, Minnesota. By the time I made it into my house and turned the TV back on, Ohio was already being declared favorable to Bush. A long night. I went to sleep at 830am. This afternoon, still no word, but of course the Republicans would like to just go ahead and accept the win before everything's counted. Another proud moment in American Democracy. And this is what we want to export?

Still keeping my fingers crossed...

- Heather
Oh well. It was not to be.

By the way, check out Heather's new book:
Paris & Ile de France by Heather Stimmler-Hall
Hunter Publishing, Inc March 1, 2004
ISBN - 158843396X
And her Secrets of Paris website is really fine.

Joseph, out expatriate friend threw this is in -
I will be at Harry's Bar from about 4:00 pm EST, glued to the Reuters screen, drinking, canvassing the crowd and probably hounded again by the Agence France Presse folks trying to get point of view from a "real American". I shall have to once again tell them that I don't know any.

For anyone wishing a report from the ground on this side, general commiseration or condolences, as the case may be, I will happily accept your call on [number kept private].

Cheers, and may someone win!
Someone did.

Ric Erickson adds this - grounding us back to real life -
Bravo Heather!

Last night, Tuesday, 2 November, was at a dinner in a place with no TV. We were told Oleg from Kiev had left a black and white TV in a closet, but nobody made a move to get it. Alan Ginzberg's 'America' was read aloud.

This morning radio France Info was no longer focusing its reports on the United States. Weather, sports, the Paris Bourse, and finally a 90-second bulletin. Grand elector scores and hung up in Ohio. Then on to the 'life of plants.'

Had to go out to the deepest countryside today to pick something up from the server-lady. She has satellite and cable, maybe 30 channels. Which she had watched until early morning; and was not in a good mood at noon.

What should we do? Immediately buy all the apartments we can, so we can sell them to refugees?

Will they sing, 'Don't cry for me, America?'

Today's papers too soon for Paris comment.
But the comments came.

Joseph, after his vigil at Harry's -
Yes, it does seem like a pretty dark day. But I can't really complain too much as none of it affects me very directly.

Before the whining begins in earnest, let me share with you two thoughts that have pre-occupied me in the last week, and I'll explain them later when I'm no longer hung-over and exhausted.

1) This outcome proves superior to a Kerry win. Though I voted for Kerry, I have been somewhat hoping for a Bush win.

2) Dems need to understand why it is that they are so personally offended
by Bush. It has little to do with his policies.

3) Dems did not lose the election because all the votes were not counted, or because Republican operatives pulled dirty tricks. These are the political realities we must face. This stuff will always be with us. Therefore, the solution doesn't lie in re-counts or lawsuits. Kerry, like Gore before him, lost to a stuffed-shirt all on his own, fair and square. If you can't beat someone with this record, there is something seriously wrong with your message. Deal with it.

4) The Republican leadership knows something that the Democratic leadership does not: The majority of Americans do not support their policies. This realization affords them a tremendous advantage. The sooner the Democrats learn this lesson, the sooner they can shape public opinion to their benefit.

Let me share with you the best piece of advice anyone has ever given to me: "You need to disengage your need to be right."
Phillips Raines down Atlanta way, adds this -
Watch the talking heads last night I felt like I had eaten some bad shellfish. My oldest son, Will (18) voted for the first time yesterday and stayed up to watch me cuss at the TV "See what it's like being a leftist in the south, pointless except for being a goaded punching bag for some god and guns devotee." But I'm not moving to France because I'm so disgusted with the majority right wing slant here. It crosses my mind like it does every other friend who has called me this morning to cry in the democrat beer. The percentages look the same in most states as they have the whole election. 51 Bush, 48 Kerry. The skins capture the flag. But I will still sell my hotdogs on this street, even though a goomba will expect 30 dollars a day protection money, even if it rained. Can't fight it. I hope Bush won't fuck things up as bad as he did the first term, but I'm sure the deficit will get higher and that the United States of Europe will surpass us as the supreme economic power, especially since so much of our debt is owed to them. There is no reason for EU to have any mercy.

EU "You must pay the rent."
US "But we can't pay the rent."
EU "Should have thought of that before you took Iraq on as your main welfare project."

As Alan says..."Oh well."
Do I say that?

And Vince in upstate New York also comments to Joseph in Paris -
Joe your thoughts here are grist for deep diving, in fact profound, but as I take my own loop through your implied logic - and I'm looking forward to your expanded thoughts on just that exercise, I'm struck not only with the impact of your closing thought (never stated more eloquently), but struck especially by the triple-entendre of pure irony that plays here...

1) ... for what proportion of red state votes were grounded in just the opposite expression of self righteousness?, and
2) ... if W. had adhered to your wisdom would his face have ever graced our national stage?, and
3) ... if not for your counsel's polar opposite would the incumbent party even have had a platform on which to stand yesterday!

"Shoot me off my own ho'ss?" cried the Marlboro cowboy.

"Not while I'm still breathin' (and smokin' these things!) Dang varmits!"
Dick, nearby in upstate New York adds -
"....need to be right......?" This all sounds like a Red Sox fan in 1919 (or whatever) saying "wait `til next year." None of them lived long enough for "next year."

It is not so much a need to be right as it is a realization that we have just reelected the worst president of my lifetime. (I'm 58.) Even when he did not win the popular vote in 2000 he made absolutely no minimal gesture toward "healing" or even considering the Democrats as anything but a pain in the ass to be snubbed and ignored. He has said, "Fuck the world" and shows no indication moderating that. He has indicated that Scalia (short form of Machiavelli) is his standard for appointing probably two - maybe four - Supreme Court justices. The environment is up for sale with energy companies having first bid and environmentalists not making the list at all. The national debt is going right off the chart as the big bucks people will probably get another tax cut.

Need to be right? I don't think so. I just am not happy having Nero back in office.
And Vince responds -
Funny you should conclude that way - the name Nero crossed my lips just this morning... as I thought - Jeez maybe New Zealand would be a nice place to move the family... or retire!

Which is my own way I guess of "disengaging my need to be right..." Same category as my Vonnegut novel - only safer!

One worst-case Nero scenario that may emerge here... is that we become ever more the target... in the infinite loop of militant bloodletting, merely because of the way Cheney and friends provoke with every breath!

You want to know why Palestinians & Israelis refuse any path but violence? Because the Bushes in particular have been the latest ideal role models for best practices in middle east conflict resolution! Why wouldn't I emulate the "winners!"
But Phillip in Atlanta adds this -
"You need to disengage your need to be right."

Good advice whether you got it from a respected professor or a sailor with chronic B.O. Even my smartest friends fall into the trap of conceit centered on their opinion. It blasts a great sucking sound to me too. It is fueled by the phantom of bewildered dismay at how an opposing view could erupt from deluded insight based on emotion or lack of facts. An easy example is that not accepting Jesus as your personal savior will lead to an eternity in hell for your immortal soul. That just can't be right, the Baptist just can't be right. I recall so many emails from Alan where he had dinner conversations with republicans who thought we should defeat Iraq and afterwards march into Syria then Iran. It would be followed up with articles and analysis of astonished disbelief, almost hurt feelings that friends were detached from the trouble such actions would cause. No desire to gloat if these bad ides were carried through and then made things much, much worse. Only a hope that cooler heads prevail.

In Yana Yoga, an ancient study that plays with the stretch of thought, there is a distinction made between knowledge and belief. If you know something you don't get torqued out of shape if someone disagrees with you, but if you just believe something and encounter disagreement, a flood of emotions kick in, dragging behind it vanity and an inability to disengage a need to be right. Such are the perils thought. Disengaging from this need does in fact sooth.

After voting yesterday morning I had a vision of the republican party grabbing their heart like Obi Wan Kanobe feeling a great disturbance in the force as Kerry won by a slight margin state after state raising the metaphorical moan like the citizens of Algernon. The anticipated collective anguish sent a warm glow through out me and I felt the seductive opiate of prescient vanity. Damn it felt good. But I was wrong. Oh well, what's next? Maybe I'll return to the axiom of my twenties of not really caring about politics, being more interested in my sax, centering my pitch, fattening my tone. If he doesn't draft my boys then it's not really my problem.

Joseph, please spread the word that half of Americans think this administration sucks, and give us the benefit of the doubt if we visit overseas. That's a useful activism I'd appreciate.

































Emma, the Australian in Paris, to that image - "Thanks it brought a smile to my face. I'm suffering depression and I'm not even American!"

Dan in Cincinnati, to Joseph, his old friend in Paris, weighs in from the other side -
"You need to disengage your need to be right."

I have always admired your ability to come up with good quote. Ever since we met way back in high school, I have always quoted you. Actually, plagiarized is a better word. Anyway, I know we shared some thoughts off-list so no one will fully understand what I am talking about but I share it with everyone anyway.

Some points:

The margins by which Bush won was what I was referring to when I said my gut tells me Bush wins by a "large" enough margin to keep the lawyers at bay.

I am not sure the Democrats will learn anything from this loss any time soon. Fear of Christians, hatred of Bush, among other things has clouded their thinking.

As far as Ohio goes... The press late last night was pointing out all the provisional ballots that had yet to be counted. They speculated (hoped, really) that if numbers were close enough the provisional ballots would put Kerry over the top. What they either missed or didn't say is that one of the biggest groups that signed up new voters was those "dumb" Christians. You see, we here in Ohio were voting on a same-sex marriage amendment (which was soundly defeated, bi-partisan-like) so the churches started signing up voters. Had some activist judges and others on the left not stirred that pot earlier in the year, we may not have had that issue on the ballot. Could be that the Christians who registered to vote solely for that issue wouldn't have been a factor and Kerry wins Ohio. The one big lesson the Democrats could learn from this is that the country in not as liberal as they think.

Keep in my mind I have had no sleep in the last 36 hours so I hope I am making sense. Finally, I am not a gloater but I have some quotes to comfort those of who need it. Please take these in the spirit intended.

"In times like these it helps to recall that there has always been times like these" - Paul Harvey, I think.

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy" - Anne Frank
Okay.

And in the web sphere?

This -
Reading the various commentary and chatting with a few people I've come to a couple of realizations which I think we all need to come to terms with. First, as Eric Alterman puts it, there are more of "them" than "us" right now. The people who voted George Bush and the Republicans into office this year didn't do so because they were conned by a right wing asshole posing as a compassionate centrist. They did so precisely because he is a right wing asshole. Yes, the modern Republican party consists of nasty bigots and liars and the media rarely bothers to point out just how nasty they are (all the talking heads talking about the role of "moral values" in the election know that what that really means is "fag hating," but they won't say it). But, don't be fooled - people know what they voted for.

... Democrats and liberals have spent too many years running away from the Right's caricature of what it means to be a liberal that they've managed to obliterate from the public consciousness any coherent concrete narrative. It isn't as many seem to think about precisely where on the Left/Right spectrum a candidate or the Party chooses to position itself. I'm not arguing that Democrats need to be "more liberal" or "less liberal" or anything like that it all. But, they have to be something other than "not Republicans."
And this -
I hate to say this, but I hope liberals quit whining about George Bush's "mandate." It may be a narrow one, but of course he won a mandate. We've all been saying for months now that this election was a referendum on the incumbent, and the incumbent won the electoral college, won the popular vote by nearly 4 million votes, picked up four Senate seats, tossed out the Democratic leader in the Senate, and picked up a few more House seats for good measure. If the results had gone the other way, we'd be talking about them as a clear repudiation of Bush and everything he stood for.

Needless to say, this doesn't mean we should just mope around and let the Republican Party run the country unopposed. At the same time, though, it doesn't help to be in denial: the fact is that Bush did win a convincing victory, and he did it because more Americans agreed with his vision for the country than agreed with ours. Our job now is to try to change that, not to pretend that it never happened.
And this -
A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR

That's Bill Bennett's conclusion. He won't be the only one. What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today's world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.
And on it goes.

There will be more.

Posted by Alan at 23:32 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 6 November 2004 14:01 PST home

Monday, 1 November 2004

Topic: Corrections Noted

Listen up! There IS no War on Terror! I repeat: There IS no War on Terror! None! We have all been conned!

A little bit more on that Osama videotape from Friday, discussed in Just Above Sunset on the weekend here.

A bit on the codependency thing here -
The two men turn out to be well-matched. Bin Laden pisses people off and drives them into the arms of Bush. Bush pisses people off and drives them into the arms of Bin Laden. Bush keeps Bin Laden in business; Bin Laden keeps Bush in office... Bin Laden has shown up on the eve of our election, full of the same impenetrable self-assurance Pat Robertson noticed in Bush.
The makes sense to me.

And here in the Los Angeles Times we find Osama Bin Laden really longs to be Arafat, of course -
In fact, what has caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community is the strangely conciliatory nature of bin Laden's new message, according to some government officials and outside experts... These experts say bin Laden appears to be intensifying his campaign to "re-brand" himself in the minds of Muslims worldwide, and become known more as a political voice than a global terrorist... The U.S. official said "a political spinoff (of al-Qaida) is one of the greatest fears" of U.S. counter-terrorism authorities, in which bin Laden and the terror network follow the path of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah and members of the Irish Republican Army. Over the years, those groups evolved from having an emphasis on committing terrorism into broader organizations with influential, widely accepted political wings.
Ah, he becomes legitimate!

Then this on that videotape -
"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."... A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."... He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.
A gift?

I suspect the tape has no net effect on the election. Things I've come across but didn't capture? Walter Cronkite saying something like we captured Osama long ago and this tape was produced by Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee. No, he couldn't have said that. And there is lots of net chatter that we have had Osama for months and we'll kill him tomorrow - Monday - as the final election surprise that puts Bush over the top. And a variant, we've had him for months and we forced him to make this tape or we'd kill him. And on and on....

Well, Monday is over and Osama Bin Laden is still out there... somewhere.

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, sat there really is no War on Terror -
Okay, I'm confused and need some help. Is it just me, or has anyone else in this country noticed that there is no "War on Terror"?

Polls show Americans trust Bush more than Kerry on the issue of protecting the country from terrorism. Really! (They obviously ignore the fact that Kerry has actually killed someone face-to-face, while the closest Bush got to doing that was when he giggled it up as some born-again Christian woman was on the war to one of his Texas execution chambers.)

But other than that, when you think about it, what has Bush done in this so-called "War on Terror"?

He attacked Afghanistan? Big deal! Hell, if 9/11 had happened on Calvin Coolidge's watch, he'd have invaded Afghanistan during a break in one of his famous afternoon naps!

Bush invaded Iraq? Okay, if you insist on considering Iraq part of the "War on Terror," then you must admit to it being one hugely-botched battle at best, with terrorists now operating out of that country and doing things Saddam Hussein would never have allowed them to do. But in fact, Iraq, as has now been demonstrated, originally had nothing to do with the war on terror anyway, although probably now it does. Which leaves us with Afghanistan, where the Taliban still lives, and as Osama bin Laden possibly does, too.

(Okay, looking on the bright side, isn't it nice that Saddam was removed from power? Yes, but considering the subsequent blowback, celebrating Saddam's being gone is like calling the glass ten-percent full instead of ninety-percent empty. One can understand some Iraqis being happy about this, but it has certainly /not/ made the world safer.)

Is this war just a metaphor, like the "War on Poverty"? Apparently Bush doesn't think so, charging that anyone (i.e., Kerry) who thinks this war is just a metaphor is not fit to be president. (Lots of Bush's fellow Republicans have called it a metaphor, but that's okay, they're not candidates for the job.)

Can this war be won? Apparently Bush doesn't think it can be, not in the classic sense (although he had to later clarify that argument by inserting some flip-floppy ambiguity into it.)

Is it a law-enforcement matter? Bush says no, that's just "September 10th thinking," the sort of thing his opponent is guilty of. (You know, it seems this business of hunting down this war is like Twenty Questions, with no end in sight.)

But in truth, if it's not a metaphor; and it can't really be won in the usual sense; and it's not a law-enforcement thing; and if even Tommy Franks has told people Afghanistan is really more of a man-hunt than a war -- and as has been pointed out before, shortly after our invading Afghanistan, there were more American soldiers in Salt Lake City, protecting the Winter Olympics, than there were fighting our so-called war in Afghanistan -- then where is this war everyone's talking about?

Even Bush and his people admit that this "war" has produced absolutely no actual "war prisoners" as such that fall under Geneva Convention protections. Shouldn't that alone tell us something?

Look, I have ideas of war in my head. Take WWII; now that was a proper war! So was WWI and the Civil War and the War of 1812 and the War for Independence! Real wars you can see and smell, and run to join up with, or maybe run away from. Korea and Vietnam were called "police actions," but whatever you called them, they walked and talked like wars to me.

So if anyone tries to tell you that this is a war unlike others and it isn't between nations and that it doesn't take place in any one chunk of geography, but is in fact taking place in the slums of Hamburg and the jungles of Indonesia, and hundreds of other secret places where these vermin try to hide, and that it won't end with someone signing a peace treaty, and may not /ever/ end in the conventional sense, and is not fought only by soldiers with guns but also by prosecutors with subpoenas ... you see where this is going?

Tell them what they're describing is only "metaphorically" a war, but is really mostly just a law-enforcement issue that, like crime itself, will probably never end -- and certainly not the sort of thing to allow a president to lay claim to being a "wartime president". I'm sure future historians will someday compare the mass hysteria rampant in early 21st century America, as it fought its imaginary war, to the Salem witch burnings and communist-hunts during the McCarthy era.

It seems like such a classic case of emperor-wearing-no-clothes, and it seems that nobody wants to bring this up, so let me do it now:

I need everyone's undivided attention! Listen up! There IS no War on Terror!

I repeat: There IS no War on Terror! None! We have all been conned!

Anyone? Please feel free to convince me otherwise.
Readers?

Vince in upstate New York comments -
What? That we have not been conned?

Pete Townsend just has to eat his own words... can't escape even in the UK!

"Won't get fooled again?"

Ah to be young again & writing anthems...

P.S. No one ever called us on budgeting federal dollars in the name of our domestic labels of "War on..." - so why should they question this mirage of tax dollar diversions.? All we need is for Chaney to come up with a new acronym for W-I-N. Any takers there?
Nope. Just go vote.

Posted by Alan at 20:31 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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