off my chest

I haven’t been writing for a while, but I think I will be daily for the next few so I can get my thoughts in order about this weeks events.

Somebody just sent me a couple of food-for-thought links (thanks Kevin)… so I thought I’d share them:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/

and

Free States and Slave States, before the Civil War
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/

Hmm.

I am definitely liberal, but I don’t feel the Democratic party, especially as typified by John Kerry, represents my views.

Here’s the basics of politics in the year 2004 (and for that matter, for the last 60 or so years, though its been getting progressively worse):

1) you need money to run ads, buy PR help, etc. and these things add up to votes. So you need money to get votes.

2) the major parties won’t run you if you can’t win

3) most of the money comes from large corporate interests and the very rich
(and that which doesn’t is “seeded” by that money, which then creates all those letters, emails and other appeals for the common man’s money to beef it up to the totals).

4) So the only candidates we get are the ones that appeal to the large corporate interests and the very rich

5) and thus the other 90% of us aren’t really represented by the parties.
(we are however manipulated by them to their gain, into thinking we favor what they favor, thus the “Clean Air Act” and other things that “sound” like what we want until we look deeper).

The recent alignment of the monied interests with the unification of big corporations and big media has made all that a lot worse. In addition, the dollars spent in these campaigns has multiplied fast… Bush outspent his opposition 5 to 1 to become governor in Texas, and that hasn’t changed.

This stuff is all documented very well by Palast, Conason, St. Clair, Chomsky, Zinn, Krugman, Friedenberg, Corn, Alterman, Hightower, Brock, Stauber and Rampton, Snow, Nace, Huffington and others.

Be aware — we ARE being manipulated.

The true populist candidate, Howard Dean, was attacked by his own party because he was not beholden to the monied interests, and they couldn’t allow that to happen. The others who see what’s going on and oppose it are either Libertarians or independents, with the exception of Kucinich, who never had a chance, and Nader, who is viewed as a spoiler. I think its truly a sad thing that Kerry is the candidate solely because “he can win”.

Currently I’m pro Kerry — but only because the Bush and his cronies are so cynically anti-everything-America-really-stands-for I can’t stand it…. e.g. fair play, free thought, free speech, personal empowerment, bring-up-the-low, support the environment, protect the masses against the powers that be.

From a friend:

Is a tax-payer public owned company like the TREASURY DEPARTMENT allowed to put out statements like this:

“America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President’s policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation.”

Sounds pretty partisan, does it not? Not only is it clipped at the bottom of the following US TREASURY DEPARTMENT link…

http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1313.htm

…it is found VERBATIM on the GOP headquarters (RNC) website right here (scroll down to bottom, next to the last paragraph)…

http://www.rnc.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=4069

Next?

My favorite pic in a while (from www.ruckus.org):

Last night Bush gave his third — that’s right, one per year — press conference. Obviously, he doesn’t do too well when asked impromptu questions (at least, not without Dick Cheney giving him the answers, as in his 9-11 commission testimony). Its hard to believe that he actually insisted that he can’t think of any mistakes his administration has made in the last 3 years. The Washington Dispatch has published an article called “Eternal Dimness of George Bush’s Spotted Mind.” In the article the author, Shane Cory, notes that he posesses “an arrogance that does not permit even a rogue sense of failure to cross its path.”

In the words of someone — maybe me? — the most dangerous man is the one with total confidence that nothing he can do is wrong. Or maybe that’s the definition of a sociopath. I can’t remember.

So I put the rest of the slides up at http://kensblog.fricklas.com/slides.

I’ve was listening to Karen Hughes, who just announced she’s rejoining the Bush campaign, on Fresh Air last night. First time I’ve ever had to turn the show off because it was making me so angry. She told us all the usual lies… we had the U.N.’s approval to attack Iraq, look what great things the Iraq war has done for us all (especially the change in Quaddafi; try reading last month’s Harper’s if you want the real story), Bush is a “humble man”. Terry Gross seemed to be at a loss for words for the first time I can remember when confronted by this assault on common sense and reality.

On a more positive front, check out http://www.airamericaradio.com — its Air America radio, debuting in 6 cities and on the web… the liberal answer to right wing attack radio. Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Chuck D, and others are on the air right now putting some perspective back on the air… here’s hoping they’ll do well. Somebody want to bring this to Boulder?

more pictures now available…

March 10 Collection and more from
March 16th.

We went to the Moving Image museum today and looked at video-computer-art as well as the Australia museum. Its interesting to see what the Aussies think of us at home. Apparently, they view our gov’t just like we think they do… as imperialist, sneaky, and downright evil. It’s definitely the mouse who’s tail was caught by the cat down here. John Howard, the PM, is getting a lot of flack for bowing to pressure from the US on Iraq, and the bombings in Spain haven’t helped a bit.

So I’m down under for a few weeks on vacation… its interesting to read the news. Let’s see… techies are worried about outsourcing, IT rates are down 20% in two years. The right wing has taken over the government, and the lefties are freaking out about all that’s going on.

On the other hand, Medicare over here just added dental coverage…

Anyway, I’ll be uploading some early pictures from my first couple of days.

So according to the Republican pols on our local NPR station, there is nothing wrong with redistricting, and the Dems are only complaining because they didn’t think of it first.

Try reading this memo about Texas redistricting if you want to see what’s wrong with it.

My wife, who is a nurse, reminds me that the main reason the RNC is in bed with the fundamentalist right over no gay marriage is one of special interests, but probably not the one you’d expect. Its about money, as always seems to be the case these days.

The guys who really don’t want gay marriage are the insurance companies, who don’t want to insure the legal spouses of married gays because they would have to cover more AIDS patients, aging and elderly gays insurance expenses, etc.

Of course, when these people aren’t insured, guess who pays for it? We all do, with increased medical expenses due to hospitals and Medicare having to take on the brunt of the cost of the uninsured.

Health care, like prisons, schools and all those programs that are for increasing the common good, should be not for profit ventures. Cost cutting and trying to balance quality against cost — what competition is really good at — have no place in those parts of our lives.

Ralph Nader entered the race this week. We’re in a situation where frankly, Nader is right about both parties being in the pockets of large corporations, but the Republican “leadership” is leading the country down a path that hurts everybody — except their large donors and the very rich. Nader’s candidacy is just going to hurt the democrats, who are going to have a tough enough race against the Bush 100-foot-deep bucket of campaign funds to begin with.

Expect to see the Bush cronies pushing their agenda by ignoring what they are really doing (after all, what they have proved to be best at is pushing their “message” and hiding what they’re really doing) and painting Kerry with the “L” word… like Liberal is somehow a bad word. They’ll try to paint him as unpatriotic, tax raising, anti-populist, and — oh, gee, he’s from the North and must be an elitist (like the platinum spooned Bush isn’t?) (see here for example).

At the same time, they’ll hypocritically try to paint him as in the pocket of the special interests. They’ve already sent out over 6 million video messages via email to RNC supporters saying that Kerry raised more money from special interests than any other Democratic senator — which worries me, frankly — but ignore completely the fact that Bush has raised 20 times as much from his special interest funders at the same time (ref: Ivans). If anybody’s in the pockets of the special interests, its Bush over Kerry.

Expect to see Osama Bin Laden caught sometime in the next two weeks. Reports from India indicate the military has been boxing Osama and some supporters into a small area in northern Pakistan. Somehow I expect the mission to be complete just in time to overshadow something else… like super Tuesday. And somehow catching Osama is going to be equated to “winning the war on terrorism”, though if Bush had just listened to the Clinton antiterrorism plan he would have been in our hands prior to 9/11 (ref: Franken).

The DNC at the same time will try to paint Bush with the other “L” word — Liar. Which he is. They’ll push on his irrelevent service record, the lies that got us into the war with Iraq, and so on. The real problem with the PRIC (Present Regime in Charge) is the cult of secrecy, pandering to the fundamentalists, and habit of sticking to simplistic, doctrinal messages in spite of circumstances changing (ref: just about everything).

Now, as for Nader.
If he really wants to make a difference, he should take a cue from the coalition governments. Where he can really make a difference is by changing the Democratic Party and turning it back into what it should be. Howard Dean and Nader have one thing in common – they know the US government has become a plutocracy, with the rules vastly in favor of those with most access, meaning the monied few individuals and companies who can buy it. (Remember the Supreme Court decision equating Money to Speech?)

How does that happen? By shaping the party platform.

Its funny how much the best ideas of Nader, Dean, and for that matter James Carville, all look a lot the same.

By driving a set of significant policy changes and making it part of the platform, a lot can happen. We can create a lasting alliance between the Greens and the Democrats, who have a lot more in common than common wisdom seems to give them credit for. We can take back the party for the people over the special interests. And we can get the PRIC out of the White House.

Here’s a note I sent to George Will. His article, “Grandstanding makes for poor economic policy“, includes the statement:

Recently, Indiana Gov. Joseph Kernan canceled a $15 million contract with a firm in India for processing state unemployment claims. The next highest bidder was a U.S. firm that would have charged $23 million. Because of this potential 50 percent price increase, there would have been $8 million fewer state dollars for schools, hospitals, law enforcement, etc. And the benefit to Indiana would have been … what?

OK, what about that benefit to Indiana: (note I also sent this to the Daily Camera Opinion editor… hopefully they will print it)

Common Dreams has an excellent take on the coverup, intelligence failures, and the Bush Administration (slogan: “An Evil Empire Begins at Home”) written by Ray McGovern, who spent 27 years at the CIA including several writing intelligence estimates. The most telling line is:

There was no NIE [National Intelligence Estimate; review by the CIA of validity of intelligence] because Tenet realized that an honest one would show how little the intelligence community knew about the threat from Iraq and would hardly support a case for war. And so, consummate bureaucrat that he is, he kept his head down for as long as he could.

Read it.

So Moveon.org doesn’t get to play their ad during the super bowl. CNN’s going to show it. Check it out.

Gomez concert at e-town tonight… looking forward to it.

Lots of changes this week… Dean’s not looking so hot in the campaigns, Kerry emerges as front runner. I’m not sure an insider like Kerry is going to be able to make enough difference in the White House to fix all the issues that Bush and the neo-cons have created.

It seems the Republican’s — in my lifetime, starting with Reagan — use a tactic of using emotion-laden phrases in such a way as to make them equivalent to name calling. Since when is “liberal” or “progressive” a bad word? Since when is the estate tax, that only affects the richest of the rich, a “death tax.” Calling a Democratic controlled govenment "a total disaster [that] might very well bring an end to the American way of life, as we know it.", a "world socialist government", is just playing politics — its hatemongering.

Everybody liked Reagan — and I was disgusted with him — when he started doing the “there you go again” thing on the Carter debates. Ridiculing your opponents rather than engaging in rational discourse is a way of making the uninformed feel superior. By making intellectualism a bad thing — if you think about the problem, you must be hiding the truth — makes it look like our national issues are simple when in fact they are more complex than ever. That might be a way to get votes, but is actually makes it far too easy to abuse both the system and the political process, by those who really have a lot to gain by presenting a “modified” version of the truth.

Supporting a government that lies to the people for political gain, and one that supports a culture of secrecy that is in the name of national security but really enables the lies to go on, is highly dangerous. No matter who is in power, we need to eliminate the propensity to obscure the truth in the name of security. (It’s a little hard to believe that not releasing the names of the participants in the country’s Energy Counsel meetings has anything to do with national security, and lots to do with political expediency.)

We need to correct the lies and distortions we’re being fed by the right on a daily basis. Read Carville’s book — learn how to fight back — but don’t just stand by while this kind of bullshit goes on daily.

I’m going to Australia in March and so bought a new digital camera this week, and it showed up in the mail today. I took a couple of pictures of an awesome Colorado sunset today, and you can check it out here. The camera is a Minolta A1, its 5 megapixels which is low compared to the competition, but its got some great features like an image stabilizer for taking night shots and fully zoomed in pictures while holding the camera in your hands, which sounds great for travel. I didn’t play with this shot at all… that’s directly out of the camera.

Excerpt from this Sundays New York Times Book Review

I have saved a discussion of Emmanuel Todd’s ”After the Empire” for last, not because I deem it least but because it is the view of an outsider, and a highly troubling view at that. I have been living in France for the past six months, and I often wonder whether Americans are aware of the depth of the dread and revulsion in which Bush’s United States is held by many foreigners. In Todd’s study, translated by C. Jon Delogu, a relentless condemnation of everything American arises from an acute sense of betrayal.

A French historian and anthropologist trained at Cambridge University in England and descended from Jews who were refugees in America, Todd says he used to see the United States as a model, as his ‘’subconscious safety net.” Now, he declares, it is solely a ”predator,” living way beyond its means, racking up video-game victories over defenseless nations and undermining human rights. Nobody escapes Todd’s jilted fury — not the American woman, ”a castrating, threatening figure,” and not American Jews, who have ”fallen into the disturbing, not to say neurotic, cult of the Holocaust.” Todd’s solace is also his main thesis, that American power is fast waning because of the country’s profligate spending: ”Let the present America expend what remains of its energy, if that is what it wants to do, on ‘war on terrorism’ — a substitute battle for the perpetuation of a hegemony that it has already lost.” This is easy to dismiss as the rant of Old Europe (surprise: Todd’s book was a best seller in France). But that would miss the point: his sense of betrayal is widely shared around the world, even in places the White House likes to portray as friends. Alas, I have heard too many people of good will express profound disappointment with the United States to reject Todd as an extreme or isolated voice.

Though I have lived abroad for many years and regard myself as hardened to anti-Americanism, I confess I was taken aback to have my country depicted, page after page, book after book, as a dangerous empire in its last throes, as a failure of democracy, as militaristic, violent, hegemonic, evil, callous, arrogant, imperial and cruel. Daalder and Lindsay may be constrained by an American sense of respect for the White House, but they too proclaim Bush’s foreign policy fundamentally wrong. It is not only Bush’s ”imperious style,” they write; ”The deeper problem was that the fundamental premise of the Bush revolution — that America’s security rested on an America unbound — was mistaken.” The more moving judgment comes from Soros, a Jew from Hungary who lived through both German and Soviet occupation: ”This is not the America I chose as my home.”

Serge Schmemann is the editorial page editor of The International Herald Tribune.

Today’s music:
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists / Hearts of Oak
Gomez / In Our Gun
Paul K and the Weathermen / Garden of Forking Paths (outta print)
Jet / Get Born
Lo Fidelity Allstars / Don’t Be Afraid Of Love
Bob Dylan / Masked & Anonymous Soundtrack

Just a quote from MoveOn.org….

[from a description of the ad moveon is running...]
As the ad opens, we see a series of photos from previous State of the Union addresses, cut quickly together to resemble a movie. We hear the voice of someone who sounds like George Bush. “My fellow Americans,” he says, “My Medicare bill has real drug benefits…but not for you. For my contributors at the big drug companies. My bill actually forbids Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices…so you’ll probably have to pay more for your prescriptions than you do now; and you won’t be able to get cheaper prescriptions from Canada.”

The story, in the end, is pretty simple: drug companies and insurance companies gave millions of dollars to push through legislation. The bill will greatly increase their profits while pulling the rug out from under our seniors. President Bush is trying to spin that huge sell-out as a benefit to the American people. And we won’t let him.

Our government is becoming our primary source of disinformation.