new year's heroes

... if just for one night

Light posting this week, what with the holidays an' all. And now it's New Year's Eve... first footin' time! The tradition of "first footing" got me thinking about heroes, which got me thinking about our fascination with martyrs, which got me thinking about a new model of distributed- processing heroism for the Internet age. With a side trip through Psalms, the MC5, and a salute to that hero of the blues, the Iceman. Gotta watch where a train of thought can take you. I even made - and broke - a New Year's resolution before it was through. Note to self: cut down on the caffeine in '05.

"First footing" came from the British Isles, and was popular in parts of the Midwest. (But then, so is calling convenience stores "party stores" and soda "pop".) Supposedly the first person who sets foot in your house after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve creates the fortunes of the home for the year, good or bad. For "first footing" you find the person who will set the right tone, luck-wise, and ask them to step across your threshold. So I started thinking, who would I ask? Well, I'd want to go for the best and ask someone I thought of as a hero, and there just aren't that many living people I can put in that category. I wish Paul Wellstone was around, or Myles Horton. But I couldn't think of anyone that's alive. And first footing takes on macabre overtones if you don't choose from among the living ...

Could it be that the martyrdom tradition is so strong in our culture that it's hard to make heroes out of living people? After all, worship of the idealized dead runs from the crucifixion, through medieval hagiographies, the Romantic poets, up through all those books of bad Jim Morrison poetry, on past all those lamentations on the lost genius of Kurt Cobain (accurate, as far as I'm concerned), the Latina singer Selena, John Ritter, on and on ... Interestingly, liberals and Democrats seem more bound to this "doomed hero" tradition than right-wingers. I saw action figures of George W. in his flight suit for sale (and not as a joke) in the toy stores this Christmas season. Can you picture Democrats buying Kerry action figures? Probably not, even though he actually saw action. No, Democrats stick to their martyrs - the Kennedys, King, etc. Must be all those lit. majors reliving their love affairs with those beautiful and doomed young English poets.

Another old New Year's tradition was to open the Bible and pick a passage at random, which would set the tone for the year. Here are some passages from Psalms that could do nicely:
________________________________

141:2 Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

141:3 Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

141:4 Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity; and let me not eat of their dainties.

141:6 When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words: for they are sweet.
_________________________________

Some good resolutions for myself for the New Year (plus some wish-fulfillment about "their judges" and that part about "their dainties" -- Ho-Ho's, perhaps? Pop-Tarts?) Speaking of food, here's a small but good suggestion from my friend Wayne Cotter: Every time you eat Thai or Indian food go online and contribute to a disaster relief fund for the Asian tsunami. Easy to do, and badly needed.

Sometimes heroism comes in micro-units. Rather than ghetto-izing it behind portraits and biographies, maybe we can titrate our own heroic impulse and keep it flowing in manageable units. A million small good deeds beats one martyr hands down. Called it "distributed processing" heroism, or "thin client" sainthood. We have some of the technology now - Internet, credit cards, etc. - and should create more soon. The SETI@Home project distributes the computational work needed to search for life in other galaxies onto hundreds of thousands of PCs in private homes.

Maybe we can do the same for noble behavior, moving away from the centralized full-time heroes of the past toward a new model - the hero as network, who performs countless small acts of valor in many lives rather than a few great acts in one. "Future now," said the MC5. "Freedom's yours right now, if you rule your own destiny."

Wanna be a hero, if just for one day? American Express, Visa, Discover, all accepted here. "Mastercharge! Oh, let's charge it!" sang the great Albert Collins. Do it in the name of the late great Telecaster Master of the Blues, the Iceman himself. Play his "Angel of Mercy" while you do. There's no way you can lose.

Listen to me lecturing! What happened to "set a watch on my mouth"? Well, that's a resolution for ya. Draw your brakes, as DJ Scotty sang down in Kingston. Stop that train of thought, I want to get off. I still don't know who to pick for first footing, and I've only got a few hours left. Were U2 correct when they sang that "nothing changes on New Year's Day"? Hope not. Happy New Year.

the most trusted name in news is ...

tucker carlson
(don't be too rough on yourself if you didn't guess it the first time)

I turned on CNN's NewsNight last night, like the serial masochist that I am, and who do I see in the anchor's chair but Tucker Carlson. The anchor's chair: a seat of power once considered a position of both authority and trust. Walter Cronkite's chair. And there's Tucker Carlson, who once dismissively called the horror story of a tiny girl's insides sucked out in a community pool "a Jacuzzi case." Why would he do that? To score a cheap political point against John Edwards. Good old CNN, "the most trusted name in news," strikes again. Unbelievably and comically, Carlson referred to Malibu twice and the Hamptons once while covering the tragedy in Asia. When do the boycotts begin?

Carlson's "Jacuzzi" gambit wasn't just wrong, it was evil. This is Valerie Lakey and her parents.

Valerie was five years old when her accident occurred. As Tim Grieve reported in Salon, and as later reported by Hunter in Daily Kos, her father held her in his arms as the ambulance came, repeating "Daddy loves you" over and over as blood and tissue filled the community pool. Look at Valerie's picture, then look again at Tucker's. The next time you see him on TV, try -- just try -- to be seduced by the bow tie and the Animatronic boyish grin. Betcha it doesn't work for you. But it works for CNN.

Moral objections aside, Tucker's not very good at the job. He tried to report on the Asian tsunami disaster, but he just couldn't get it. He listened as a correspondent explained that many people were fascinated by the water being drawn "out into the ocean where the beach suddenly appeared to be bigger, deeper, longer.. " Some apparently ran into the extended beach area and were killed. "When the beach disappears, bad sign," replied Carlson. No, actually, if there's more beach than ever, that's a bad sign.

Later, a bemused-looking Denver geologist named Stuart Sipkin tried to take him through the science. Carlson misunderstood his answer to the question, "when was the last time the continental U.S. was hit by a tsunami that took human life." After that was cleared up, the scientist referred in passing to the fact that some people went to the beach to see the tsunami and lost their lives. Carlson's wrap-up was, "All right, Stuart Sipkin and a cautious warning against tsunami watching." Which was hardly the point of Sipkin's ... ah, forget it. I can't untangle the mess he made of the anchor's job, which is to find the key points in a report and summarize them in the tag.

There were real laughs as well as groaners in Carlson's reporting, however, despite the gravity of the story. (Be warned: what follows in NOT parody, but verbatim language from CNN transcripts. Emphases mine.)

CARLSON (introducing story): Now, could it happen here? It seems like that's the first question you hear whenever something terrible happens to other people in other places. Is it groundless hysteria manufactured by a ratings hungry news media? In part of course it is. Yet, tomorrow morning people will still be buying beachfront property in Malibu and they probably should.

CARLSON (interviewing Sipkin): So, I mean does this mean it's time to, you know, dump the beachfront property in Malibu? I mean, what does it mean?

CARLSON (interviewing Sipkin): Now what about, we've been hearing all day about this volcano in the Canary Islands that may collapse at some point and send a tsunami toward the East Coast of the United States drowning the Hamptons.

Leave it to Tucker Carlson and CNN to make one of the greatest tragedies in human history, a Third World disaster, into a story about Malibu and the Hamptons. And apparently he'll be back again in the anchor's chair tonight.

Let me hazard a guess here: I would venture to say that a significant portion of CNN's viewership are not right-wing fanatics. I would further venture that if CNN had chosen, say, Al Sharpton to chair NewsNight there would be an enormous uproar, if not organized boycotts. And don't even get me started on the Dan Rather controversy. So here's my proposal. Liberals will never stop watching cable news. It's a benign addiction. So let's start some "rolling boycotts." Let's say to CNN, every time you perform such a blatantly biased stunt, we will stop watching you for one week. Just one week - surely you can handle that, can't you, liberals? We'll set up one website as a location, and whenever we give the signal then CNN (or MSNBC, or ABC, or whomever) will be hit with a one-week drop in viewership.

What do you say?

'twas the night before a blogger's christmas 2004

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Web
not a blogger was blogging, posts were all at an ebb
The stockings were hung by the modem with care
In non-sectarian hope .. er, someone soon would be there.

The Lefties were nestled all snug in their p.j.s,
prepared to save Pagans, and poor folks, and gays
And my Partner in jammies, and I baseball capp'd,
had just settled down for a long winter's nap

When out from the keyboard there arose such a typing
it sounded as loud as a wingnutter griping
Out to the office I flew on a winged foot
to see who was keystroking all of that input.

The moon through the window that fell on my keys
gave the lustre of mid-day to my ancient PC
Where, what to my wondering eyes should appear
but an icon that looked like a sleigh with reindeer.

There was tiny St. Nick, and then I could see
the reindeer were people at keyboards, like me
As speedy as wireless they all typed with one aim,
"For the cause!" said St. Nick, as he called them by name:

"Now TalkLeft! now, BopNews! Now Pandagon! Markos!
On, Wolcott! on Wonkette! on Skippy! On Atrios!
Go get the info and write those next posts
and influence thinking, at least on the coasts!"

As ballots of paper that before the winds fly,
and when meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
so up up those site meter readings just flew,
with blogrolls and linking to me and to you.

And then in a twinkling, I heard from my speakers
a clatter of feet as if clad in old sneakers
as I drew in my hand, and was touching the keys
when out of the screen St. Nick came in a breeze.

He was dressed all in fur, (but synthetic of course),
with a lead he'd received from an undisclosed source
a bundle of goodies he'd flung on his back
and he looked like a lobbyist opening his pack.

His eyes - how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were all red, like those states on the prairie!
The beard of his chin was as white as the snow,
he looked fat like Falwell, but nicer to know.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his mittens,
"Can't smoke inside," he said, "that law pisses off Hitchens",
he had a broad face and a little round belly,
"Why pick Kerik?" he said, "there was always Ray Kelly."

He was chubby and plump, a right elf just like Ferrell,
(who's anti-Bush and more laughs than that other guy, Darrell),
Then he spoke and said he had brought gifts for the nation,
from his cold, undisclosed (just like Cheney's) location,

And then filling the stockings with toys, treats, and tricks,
said "now let's get ready for 2006"
he said "we'll prevail, if we all share the load,"
then nodding, back to the PC he flowed;

On the screen he jump backed on the sleigh and then whistled,
and flew like a Star Wars (well it IS a dream!) missile.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of sight
"HAPPY INCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS ALL, AND GOOD NIGHT!"

Happy Holidays from Night Light.

where are your manners, o'reilly?

he just wants ta testify

This "Christmas" controversy is getting way too complicated on both sides, and we're all getting sick of it, so let's keep it simple. Saying "Happy Holidays" isn't a betrayal of Bill O'Reilly or the baby Jesus, it's just good manners. You're saying to someone, whether they're a customer, a friend, or a colleague: "You're welcome here - in my place of business, in my home, in this country - even if you don't believe as I do." Hey, O'Reilly, it's called courtesy, hospitality, and kindness. That doesn't sound like a betrayal to me - it sounds like proper etiquette. Make your guest comfortable in your home, I was always taught.

So which side are you on, Mr. O'Reilly and all you paragons of the Right? Do you believe in good manners and mutual respect or don't you? Do you welcome strangers into your household, or do you think that somehow you're "betraying" your own family by doing that? To those of you who disagree with Bill and his pals, don't bother with sophisticated arguments. Just say, hey: Do you want to be polite or rude? And by the way, isn't it great that so many corporations like Fox, and so many politicians like President Bush, are considerate enough of others to say "happy holidays"? Doesn't that tell you that we're becoming the civilized, well-behaved nation you're telling us you want?

Hey, O'Reilly, Happy Holidays to you too.

hippies and the hitchens brand

all you need is guns

Christopher Hitchens™ applies his patented brand of booze 'n' BS to "hippies" in the December 19 New York Times Book Review. Let's see: "Hippies" thought they could transform a nation that didn't share their world view - without planning, organization, or clarity of purpose. And they thought they'd be welcomed with flowers. Then they ... hey, wait a minute! Is this a gag? Substitute "neocons" for "hippies" and we could be talking about the Iraq war. Replace grass with alcohol and we're describing "Hitch" himself. It's all part of the Hitchens™ branding scheme - phony 'contrarianism,' the 'two-fisted drinker' persona, and a wannabe theater of the outrageous directed against liberal orthodoxy.

"The marketing of the 60's has come to necessitate the blending of quite discrepant images," Hitchens writes in his typically bloviated style. He should know. He's been able to market a colorful but unreliable prose style and a combative personality into a very successful career. The contradictions and tortured logic of his opinions only seem incoherent when viewed through the lens of political thought. Don't bother. The point is not to be right, or fair, or even consistent. It's all about branding: the book jacket poses surrounded by empty glasses and full ashtrays, the unruly look, the pugnacious attitude. It's about being different, unique, memorable - and "the blending of quite discrepant images." Pay attention, pundits manqué.

Hitchens appeared on the Daily Show recently (as one of several recent guests who threaten Jon Stewart's status as the new lefty icon.) The Daily Show doesn't provide transcripts, but when Stewart asked him about his takedowns of Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi, his response was something to the effect of "People don't pay attention when you attack people they already hate, like Tom DeLay. Attack their heroes, and people sit up." At that moment I sat up. When a marketing master deigns to share his secrets, I listen. Holding his paper cup carefully so that it would be in the camera shot, Hitch was telling us how it's done.

On one level, you can't blame the guy. His anti-Clinton rants were so successful, and brought him so much attention as a Left apostate, that it must have fueled an already addictive personality. He has a certain talent for the slashing put-down and vicious innuendo. That's a skill not unlike playing the musical saw: It's impressive that someone's bothered to master it, but all it produces is grating music. Yet there's an audience for it, especially when the saw maestro presents himself as the rebel that's going to save you from all those violin-playing phonies in that boring community orchestra.

The only problem is we're not talking about bad music, but bad ethics. When Hitchens lies to support a wrongheaded policy, he contributes in his small way to people getting hurt. When he lies about decent people, whether to defend his positions or to increase his market visibility, he damages real reputations. Clinton's just the most egregious example, and he can take it. How about conservative J. P. Zmirak, who Hitchens labeled a "ruthless anti-Semite." Why? Zmirak listed the names of several prominent neoconservatives, with whom he disagrees about Iraq, in an article. The basis for Hitchens' potentially career-ending charge? The names were (according to Hitchens) ethnically Jewish, hence Zmirak is anti-Semitic.

Hitchens' writing history is filled with this kind of intellectual dishonesty - and isn't "intellectual dishonesty" just a longer way to say dishonesty? His willingness to spread misinformation about people and policies is wrong when viewed through a moral lens, but again - don't bother. It's all about the branding. Outrageous! Shocking! Critics agree: you'll never forget Hitch! It's Ann Coulter with a veneer of intellectuality and a tattered shred of ex-leftist credibility. Smearing a minor figure like Zmirak is not the behavior of a pathological liar. It's the act of a sociopathic liar, who has no feeling for the reputations he might damage or destroy in the process of self-advancement.

Hitchens ostentatiously places himself at Abbie Hoffman's funeral, lined up with fellow speakers like Bobby Seale and Allen Ginsberg - speakers "whose names," in Hitchens' words, "collectively spelled 'sixties.'" (Note to Hitch: If you want to be seen as an iconoclast, don't write in clichés.) Abbie was a marketing genius - Antonin Artaud meets Saul Alinksy - and Hitchens has tried to adopt some of his shock'n'awe style. But Abbie Hoffman had both a moral code and a higher purpose, whether you agreed with them or not. (I did.) Hitchens appears to have none, other than to propagate his brand at any cost.

Hitchens refers to "the herbivorous - in both senses - Woodstock." Hmm ... "herbivorous" rings a bell. Oh, yes. In his hatchet job on Michael Moore, Hitchens referred to the left's "image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring." Please get this man a new thesaurus (and an invitation to some better parties.)

There is a vague and tortured line of reasoning through the "Hippie" piece, that somehow leads through the Port Huron Statement to the anti-globalization movement, about which Hitchens writes: " the ... movement has started to reject modernity altogether, to set its sights on laboratories and on the idea of the division of labor, and to adopt symbols from Fallujah as the emblems of its resistance." Really? No citations, no quotes, no footnotes. And who leads the "movement," anyway? If you support the anti-globalization movement, you're probably out beheading someone as we speak. This is demagogic writing at its - in both senses - worst. Any reader who lets a Hitchens allegation like this one pass unquestioned hasn't been paying attention. We want documentation, Mr. Hitchens. Your credibility is no longer enough.

Hitchens writes of the inherent conservatism of the Port Huron Statement, and its "yearning for a lost agrarian simplicity." Uh-oh, "herbivores" again. The possibility that the writers were using metaphors and models appears alien to him. "Human relationships should involve fraternity and honesty," say the Statement's authors, perhaps unaware that concepts like "fraternity" and "honesty" would seem like relics of the distant agrarian past to a sophisticated urbanite like Hitchens.

And so the brand plays on, dispensing its toxic but memorable product while conspicuously displaying the logo: the carefully disheveled hair, the paper cup, and the aroma of stale cigarettes. Like so many branding campaigns, in the end it's all sizzle and no steak.

the ghost of christmas future

'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the
least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'
Matthew 25:31-40

more camera shy than richard mellon scaife

Friday catblogging as conducted by paparazzi

two out of three doctors agree

threat level: orange

"Two-thirds of the scientists questioned by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general said they lacked full confidence in the FDA's ability to monitor side effects of prescription drugs after they hit the market," according to Reuters. "Nearly 20 percent of U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists surveyed in late 2002 said they were pressured to approve or recommend approval of a medicine despite their reservations about the drug's risks or effectiveness, according to documents made public on Thursday." But who cares? CNN is ignoring the story in favor of Bin Laden, Bush's "Social Security as WMD" sales pitch, and other critical stories like "spilled bees on highway a honey of a mess", a surfer killed by sharks, Elvis, and the rising price of Hershey bars.

Americans are taking prescription drugs at record rates, and Vioxx alone is suspected of causing 55,000 deaths. This story should be front-page news everywhere, but your news media don't give a damn. We are right to consider capturing bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda top priorities (and conspicuous Bush Administration failures), but this illustrates perfectly how effectively the War on Terror is being used to distract Americans from other threats to their lives and well-being - threats that have already taken many American lives. The foxes are in charge of the henhouse at the DEA, but big deal! At CNN this story's not even in the Top Ten. Take a look at what they're presenting instead:

CNN News Headlines

• Bush: Time to overhaul Social Security
• Saddam meets with attorney for first time
• GOP senator joins Rumsfeld critics
• Birth control study flawed, new analysis finds
• Mom charged in death of 4-year-old at motel
• CNN/Money: Hershey chocoholic beware: Prices going up
• Spilled bees on highway a honey of a mess
• Horror as surfer killed by great white sharks
• Promoter buys Elvis estate for $100 million

Fox News ignores the story, too, as does ABC. NBC buries it under "Health News". Only those Rather-loving Communists at CBS are leading with the story. But who listens to them anymore?

the marketplace of ideas is now officially closed

he's being followed by a moonshadow

The State Department withdrew the visa it had issued for Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan last August by citing the Patriot Act, just days before he was to arrive in the U.S. for a teaching position at Notre Dame. Ramadan is widely known throughout Europe and the Third World. While highly regarded by many, Ramadan has his critics, who accuse him of taking moderate positions when speaking in English and more extreme ones when using Arabic. I cannot speak to these criticisms, since I don't speak Arabic. It should be noted, however, that even this accusation centers on his ideas and statements, and does not suggest any kind of terror-related activity. The scholastic community at Catholic Notre Dame, which knows a lot more about him than I do, continues to support Mr. Ramadan and has expressed its outrage at this action.

After waiting several months for a final decision on his visa, Ramadan was finally forced today to withdraw from the position, as reported by Reuters. Thus we see another striking victory for an Administration that can't seem to catch real terrorists but protected us earlier this year from that other Islamic threat to our ideas, Cat Stevens. Sure, when he's in the Western eye he's the good Cat Stevens, the one who wrote "Peace Train" and "Wild World" and other great songs. But when you're not looking he's the bad Cat Stevens, the one who wrote those really annoying songs like "Moonshadow", "Longer Boats", and "I Want to Live in a Wigwam." You just can't trust these guys. When you let your guard down they might try to insert some poison ideas or irritating music into what Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove called "our precious bodily fluids."

I thought the Patriot Act was supposed to protect us from terrorism, not thoughts. If Mr. Ramadan expresses his ideas duplicitously, as some critics suggest, we should have brought him into this country and let him fight it out with his opponents. It's called the marketplace of ideas. Remember? We used to say we believed in it, back when it was the USSR that liked to suppress free speech. And we used to say we'd win a fair fight over ideas, too. Don't we believe that Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity could get the best of some Islamic professor who lives in Europe somewhere?

So Notre Dame, home of the Gipper and Knute Rockne, will have to do without Tariq Ramadan. Here's a quote from Coach Rockne: "One man practicing sportsmanship is better than fifty preaching it." And here's another: "Win or lose, do it fairly." Oh, but I guess the Coach's philosophy is like the "marketplace of ideas" concept: out of style.

metapropaganda and the goebbels model

did he write the book?

An article in today's New York Times reviews what it calls "bitter, internal high-level debate over how far (the military) can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad." These missions "could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations." Of course, it would be impossible to deceive allies and still tell the truth to U.S. citizens, so truth at home would become more "collateral damage." The debate is just one more chapter in the saga of an administration that has (whether consciously or not) employed Goebbels' principles of propaganda to an unprecedented extent. The parallels, as enumerated below, are striking. The Times article may itself be "metapropaganda" designed to conceal the fact that the military's disinformation campaign is in fact well under way.

Anytime you associate U.S. public figures with Nazis in any way you're playing with dynamite. The comparison being made here is not one of ideology, but of technique. Just as Leni Riefenstahl's film making techniques in Triumph of the Will created the vocabulary for future political films, Goebbels created the vocabulary and skill set for generations of propagandists - those who would intentionally manipulate public opinion using all available techniques. Social psychologist Leonard W. Doobs collated and summarized Goebbels' operating philosophy into 19 principles for the 1948 book Public Opinion and Propaganda. They include the following:

Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority. (principle #2)

According to the Times, Donald Rumsfeld is studying the proper relationship between "secret psychological operations" and the military's public affairs function, which is used to provide the public with accurate and timely information. A secret Joint Chiefs study recommends the creation of a single "director of central information" to manage both functions. This is in accordance with Goebbels principle #2(c), which states that the propaganda authority "must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences." The proposed Director of Central Information would have both budget and operational control over all related functions.

The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action. (principle #3)

There are very few independent commentators who doubt that the timing of the Iraqi elections has been determined by propaganda considerations more than strategic ones. The scheduling of the attack on Falluja until after the U.S. elections is also widely believed to have been determined by political considerations.

To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium. (#6)

Fox News Network. Flight suits, flying in a fighter jet, "Mission Accomplished" banner. Photo ops. Plucky Private Lynch. The staged pull-down of Saddam's statue. Plastic turkeys. Add your own - it's easy.

Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige. (#12)

Ever wonder why they kept Colin Powell on for so long? That's why.

The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda. (13a)

Karl Rove knew the issue of armor for soldiers' fighting vehicles was bound to erupt sooner or later. That's why the Republicans kept saying that Kerry "voted against armor for the troops." They knew they were vulnerable on this issue, and needed an inoculation.

A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness. (13b)

Freedom is on the march. Freedom is on the march. Freedom is on the march.

Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans. (14)

Flip-flopper. Those who hate our freedoms. Liberals.

They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses. (#14a)

Latte-sipping, elitist, NASCAR-hating liberals. Rich flip-flopper. Arabs.

They must be capable of being easily learned. (#14b)

Kerry exaggerated his own war wounds. Liberals hate America. All Arabs except Chalabi and Allawi and their friends hate our freedoms.

They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations. (#14c)

Anyone doubt that we're hearing the same message again and again? Democrats may consider it simple-minded, but Goebbels was right: Repetition works.

Let me say that again: Repetition works.

Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events. (#15)

"It's going to be tough." "Let me warn you, the road ahead will not be easy." "It's hard, hard work. It's very hard. Hard work."

Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level. (#16)

That would be your Orange Alert ... but ...

Propaganda must diminish anxiety which is too high. (#16b)

Remember to keep shopping, and flying, and going on about your daily lives.

Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred. (#18)

The terrorists. The liberals. Dan Rather. Michael Moore. Those who hate our freedoms.


It's difficult to know whether the Times article is a result of leaks from disaffected Pentagon staffers, or is itself a piece of metapropaganda - that is, propaganda about the propaganda effort. That there has been some metapropaganda appears probable, however, when we read that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers issued a memorandum warning field commanders against mingling military public affairs with covert information operations. Per the Times, the memo is not being followed in the field because commanders there "believe they are safely separating the two operations " Field officers would not ordinarily disregard a memo from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs - unless the memo was written for public rather than internal consumption.

When you start playing the propaganda game, anything you say is open to question. That game is being played aggressively. Are Goebbels' principles being consciously used? You decide. If not, the Administration has crafted a similar set of rules on its own. In any case, Democrats and other Administration opponents need to understand the techniques being employed against them if they are to hold their own in future battles for public opinion.

UPDATE: Ian Welsh at BOPNews has a related post on The 14 Features of Fascism that may be of interest. Not because I'm using that empty left-wing rhetoric that says the other guys are "fascist" or anything - I'm just sayin'. There could be a "crying wolf" problem eventually, though. After 40 years of calling Officer Wiggums and every hapless cop on the beat a "fascist pig," what would you say if the real thing came along?

Social Security - Crisis? What Crisis?

do you feel lucky, Grandma? well, do you?

Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum both attack the phony story being spread by the Bush team and dutifully echoed by the press that Social Security is in "crisis." Somerby focuses on the disingenuous David Brooks, who repeats the spin point that in 1935 there were 42 workers for every retiree, and soon there will be only two to one. This is, as Bob points out, irrelevant (see talking points, below). Kevin quotes Rep. Robert Matsui as saying the administration's false alarmism is ideologically driven. There is another explanation besides just ideology, however. Investing massive amounts of income that has been set aside for retirement purposes will make a lot of Republican investors very, very wealthy. The Democrats need a coherent counter-argument, and fast.

Kevin hopes that the LA Times' coverage of the Matsui statement will begin the process of circulating a counter-meme to all the "Social Security in danger" stories being flogged by the press. Obviously the Democrats should not cross their fingers and wait for good luck, however. They need to push back on this topic hard before it's too late. Some points to emphasize:

1. "42-to-1" vs. "2-to-1" is a shell-game argument. Every one of those 42 workers has already paid for his or her benefits. It's in the bank. As long as the government doesn't raid that money to pay for their tax giveaways to the wealthy and make their campaign contributors richer, there's no problem. The "2" workers in 1935 were the recipients of government largesse, but for the 42? It's their money - your money.

2. The Administration is risking future benefits in order to prop up the stock market and further enrich their fat cat supporters. "Ownership society" is a coded way of saying their high-class cronies will own a lot more -- cars, boats, houses -- while everybody else pays the tab as usual.

3. They want to spend trillions of dollars on this get-rich-quick scheme for their Wall Street pals, adding to the huge Republican deficit that was created as part of their massive transfer of wealth back to the wealthy. The end result will place your chance to live securely in your old age in greater peril, by leaving you dependent on the ups and downs of the stock market. If it takes a tumble, you might not be able pay for food and housing. (And you might remind them that huge federal deficits are usually a drag on the stock market.)

4. They won't promise to keep their hands of the money already contributed into the system -- and remember, that's your money - while they're busy making boatloads of money of this privatization scam.

These are just my suggestions. Surely there are people out there who can come up with more and better talking points. Just as long as they are clear, direct, honest, and easy to understand. The battle to save Social Security is now official underway.

UPDATE: Jesse at Pandagon is on it, too.

Nixon Resigns, Citing "Nanny Problems"

somebody tell Mom, the babysitter's illegal

There may still be people out there credulous enough to believe that Bernard Kerik really withdrew his name because he had "nanny problems". (Well, not people, exactly - the media.) So many skeletons are emerging from Kerik's closet that it looks like a Day of the Dead parade. Nevertheless, when he first made the announcement it was taken at face value by the media. Wow - that was easy. What if more people had used this handy, easy-to-sell, hardly-guilty-seeming excuse?

President resigns: In a tearful farewell address to the nation, Richard M. Nixon insisted he was "not a crook" but suggested that impending questions about the immigration status of the family nanny would make governing as President impossible. The nanny was hired, not for the Nixon children, but as a playmate and babysitter for the family dog Checkers. Coincidentally, the President's resignation follows that of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who cited similar hiring problems.

King Abdicates: King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, citing the immigration status of the Royal Family nanny who served as a chaperone on his dates with "that racy American woman." Denying that his love for twice-divorced Wallis Simpson was a factor in his decision, the King insisted that he had not followed proper legal procedure by seizing the nanny's native country as part of the British Empire before hiring her. Conveniently, he is now free to marry Ms. Simpson. King Edward's later friendship for the Nazi Ambassador Ribbentrop, and his favorable remarks about the British Union of Fascists, were also eventually blamed on "immigration problems."

Morihiro Hosokawa cites Immigration Problems: The Prime Minister of Japan resigned today, citing his use of American campaign advisors without proper immigration papers as the reason for stepping down. He denied that his misuse of political funds was a factor in his decision. "Corruption the voters can forgive," said Hosokawa. "That useless gaijin Bob Shrum, never."

Attorney General Quits: Attorney General Elliott Richardson submitted his resignation hours after being ordered by President Nixon to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. "Firing Cox is no big deal to me," said Richardson, "but I just found out I didn't file the right papers before we hired our au-pair." Richardson insisted there was no matter of principle involved. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus immediately discovered the same nanny problem and resigned the same day. Solicitor General Robert Bork then became Attorney General and carried out the order. "Thank God I'm gay," said Bork, "because if I'd had kids I'd have needed a nanny."

OK, Bork's not gay, so I shouldn't have said it. Don't blame me, blame my nanny. In the meantime, will somebody please check up on Rumsfeld? I'm hoping he has a nanny too.

anticrime or antiabortion? pick one

unintended consequence

The "Geniuses" issue of Esquire includes a profile of economics professor Steven Levitt, whose research suggests that if anti-choice advocates succeed in banning abortion they will be responsible for increasing the crime rate. Prof. Levitt investigated why organized crime fell in the 1990’s, instead of escalating and creating a new breed of “superpredators” as William Bennett and others were predicting. (If Mr. Bennett wagered on this prospect, he lost.) Levitt’s theory: one factor in the falling crime rate was the legalization of abortion in the 1970’s, which prevented the birth of a generation of criminals that would have come of age in the 90’s.

It’s a difficult case to prove, but the statistics are compelling. A few states had already legalized abortion around 1970, before Roe v. Wade made it legal for the entire country in 1973. The crime rate fell earlier for these states than for the nation as a whole, and by the same overall rate (30%) that the country followed later, according to Levitt’s research. Why would this be so? Unwanted children are more likely to be unloved, and social science research suggests that unloved children have more adjustment problems and are more likely to commit crimes. This raises some interesting questions:

1) How does the Religious Right plan to protect society from the crime wave coming 20 years from now if they succeeding in overturning Roe v. Wade?

2) How would racially-biased evangelical voters react if they knew that one consequence of their push to outlaw abortion would be a dramatic increase in the number of violent minorities on the streets of their cities and towns?

3) This one’s a cliché, but it’s true – why is it that some people’s “moral values” lead them to impose unwanted children on those least able to care for them, but don’t require them to support any social policies that would give assistance to those children once they’re born?

It seems the drive to prevent abortions does not always translate into compassion for the helpless – leading to the widely held suspicion that many abortion opponents are motivated by feelings about sex, rather than by a moral perception of the unborn as fully human. Wes Clark addressed this issue eloquently, as reported in Blogging of the President.

Esquire also profiles law professor Noah Feldman, who among other things writes on democracy and Islam. Feldman points out that by some estimates there are now as many Muslim Americans as Jewish Americans, with increasing numbers of Hindus and other religionists. He raises the perfectly valid question: how can America continue to call itself a "Judeo-Christian" nation as its religious composition changes? Are we now to be described as a “monotheistic” nation? If so, there will be those Hindus to contend with. And there are other questions Feldman doesn’t raise, but which are certainly implicit: Why should we identify ourselves as a nation with any form of belief at all? Isn’t that incompatible with our principle of freedom of religion? And is it possible to persuade voters in all 50 states that religious freedom is more important than putting the Ten Commandments on a stone in from the local courthouse? Our country was founded on the idea that whenever a state defines itself in religious terms, it eventually starts exerting control over the religious beliefs of its citizens. That's what brought the Puritans to New England.

Anda last question: it possible to persuade voters in all 50 states that religious freedom is more important than putting the Ten Commandments on a stone in from the local courthouse? Even I, the perennial optimist, have my doubts about that one.

Reaching the Christian Wedge

Henry Fonda: Democratic Party symbol


Sorry that my Nightblogging has been, well, “light.” I’ve been traveling. I have been reading, however. Ellen Dana Nagler has an important post on The Constitution vs. God up at Blogging of the President. This is a piece that deserves serious consideration. In it, she suggests framing the Democrats as the Party of the Constitution. I think this form of ‘branding’ deserves far more serious consideration than the logos and slogans being circulated by Oliver Willis and others. As pleasing as some of these may be, they strike me as items meant to please those of us in the "echo chamber", not as tools that can truly change hearts & minds or win elections.

The Constitution, however, has a powerful folk appeal in this country. Our foundational documents, and the stories of our early national heroes, can still mist the eye of at least some Americans in every demographic bracket (this one included.) Branding the party as Ellen suggests would pit one set of icons against another – Ben Franklin vs. Moses, Honest Abe vs. Joseph and Mary, etc. It’s not that I personally see a conflict between the real values represent by each iconography. I see them in harmony, but the “Christianists” place one symbology over the other for political purposes. That’s why I see the brilliance in fighting back this way.

I wouldn’t identify the counter-movement as “secular liberal” as Ellen does, if I had my way. Here's why: part of the great appeal of the Religious Right, in my opinion, is the fact that it speaks to the heart while liberalism speaks to the head. That’s what excites me about this idea: It presents the seed of a liberalism, or progressivism, that speaks to the heart too. Recall John Ford’s “Young Mr. Lincoln,” where the director of classic Western movies recounts the early days of the martyred President. In the final scene, Henry Fonda as young Abe steps away from his wife’s grave, and walks over a hill into the gale winds and flashes of a thunderstorm the audiences can’t see but can foretell all too well. Don’t you want that yearning, idealism, and tragic heroism calling people to your side?

I think Democrats often make the mistake of thinking of evangelical Christian voters as a monolithic bloc. Many of them may be sentimental, ill informed, or simplistic, but that’s true of all groups. They may vote against their own economic interests for what they consider to be higher values – but what’s nobler than that? Many of them are idealistic and patriotic, but I consider myself to be those things too. I believe that some of those voters will return to the Democratic Party if they can feel good about themselves for doing so. I call them “Christian Wedge" voters, because I think Democrats can use them to drive a wedge between the Republican party and its Red state base.

There should be a major initiative to bring Christian Wedge voters back to the Democratic Party, using the heart as well as the head to attract them. It wouldn’t take too many conversions to let the Democrats win some of those close elections for President, and especially for the Senate. (See my post on close Red-state Senate races and debunking that self-defeating realignment myth.) I think the ‘Party of the Constitution’ approach could work, especially if it’s presented as being in harmony with, rather than in opposition to, basic Christian values of love, tolerance, respect for strangers, and concern for the poor.

Plus, liberal or not, I’m a sucker for John Ford movies.

political informatics

data ring of fire


What our political universe is missing these days is a good data architect, someone who can develop an information schematic that reflects our polarized reality. The private sector knows how to link data sets, to mine all available information on consumers, markets, and transactions. For example, we all worry about those Diebold machines manipulating election outcomes. A real IT type would tell you that’s only one of their capabilities. They’re also terrific consumer data collection nodes. Everybody wants user demographics, and in politics, it’s Diebold that’s got ‘em.

How do we use this capability? My first suggestion is that we simply record every Kerry voter’s demographic profile and immediately download it to Homeland Security’s no-fly list. No more racial profiling, with its gross segmentation into ethnic cohorts (how very 20th Century). No more random selection (even more retro), or pulling everyone with a one-way ticket out of the line and into the shoe- and belt-holding contingent. If your video rentals tell us that you’re likely to buy a Volvo, surely your voting patterns will tell us if you’re likely to hijack a Boeing or not.

Blue-staters can plug into the new architecture, too. Michael Bérubé suggests a new social safety net, funded by Democrats,

... a fallback system for helping out everyone who gets devastated by Bush’s social and economic policies, every family without health care, every elderly citizen fleeced by Medicare “reform,” every gay man and lesb***n hounded by the Fell Legions of the Right-- as long as they voted for Kerry.

So there’s data link #2: Diebold --> BérubéNet. Next, how about cross-referencing a list of Republican voters with a list of subscribers to gay magazines, and using the output file to create on online discussion group on, say, cognitive dissonance? Or evangelical church members with Democratic voters, and sending each one a copy of “Profiles in Courage”?

Try some of your own. I was a data architect for years. It’s fun. Once you get the swing of it, you’ll start to find patterns and relationships you never knew existed. Some researchers say pattern recognition and relationship structuring are the foundation of intelligence. William Blake said that wise man find outlines, and therefore they are wise. (Later he said madmen find outlines, and therefore they are mad - but let's not change the subject.)

C'mon, political types - evolve from common sense to artificial intelligence. Give it a shot. Become a citizen in the new United States of Schematica: one nation, informational, with connectivity and access for all. Under God, of course.

The Kerik Kontroversy

what color is his parachute?

It took Tom Ridge a few months to ruin his credibility with the public, but Bernard Kerik’s comes pre-shredded. His management of both the NYPD and the Iraqi police training program was poor, by the available evidence. But by issuing alarmist, unsupported allegations that America would be hit by a terror attack if Kerry were elected, Kerik showed he has the “right stuff” to be Bush’s Director of Homeland Security. The country desperately needs a good leader and a trustworthy spokesman in that job. Unfortunately, Kerik has demonstrated that he is neither.

The Kapsule Kerik: He was in charge of the NYPD during September 11, for which he and his team were cited for poor command and control operations by the 9/11 Commission. Two months after the tragedy, Kerik cut and ran on a traumatized community and a hard-hit police force to cash in on some lucrative private contracting assignments. The police training program he directed in Iraq was a debacle, as most of the trainees either joined the insurgents or ran away at the first sign of conflict. During the campaign, he said that “"if you put Sen. (John) Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see (a terror attack) happen." These unsupported and wildly irresponsible allegations would never have been spoken by a responsible leader. Lastly, for good measure, an executive who worked closely with him was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “Management just simply isn’t his strong suit.”

That’s the short-version bio of Kerik: Management just isn’t his strong suit. Where do you go with a resume like that? Somewhere where management skills are not the top criterion for getting hired. Where you gotta be willing to get your hands dirty to if you want the job, as Kerik did with his reckless charges during the campaign. When he showed that he was willing to say whatever was necessary to elect the President, regardless of proof or the dictates of responsibility, he showed his willingness to take a fall on the integrity issue. He was on the team, willing to do what it takes to be a made man. Now comes his reward, which is also seen as a payoff to Rudy “Blame the Troops” Giuliani.

What a career path. What management skills. What ethics. What a choice for Homeland Security.

Good luck to all of us. And expect a lof ot "orange alerts," or whatever they're called by then, around the time the '06 elections come around.

cyberhurtin'

these old eyes have seen it all

Three stories today at the intersection of futurology and pathology: A robot tries to find a cyber-CEO and fails, cyber-Nazism is on the march, and a cyberlectorate can websurf but can't read. First, the CEO of a Michigan-based technology company, CyberNET, killed himself after a shootout with police. CyberNET, according to its website, specialized in local outsourcing of IT departments for U.S. corporations. They were undoubtedly under a great deal of competition from firms using lower-cost offshore programmers. Barton Watson and several others were under investigation for fraud. As reported by local broadcaster WOOD-TV,

Michigan State Police officials sent a camera-equipped robot to search inside the home. The robot found nothing on the home's first level and was unable to make it to the second level. So deputies decided to go in the home at 8:30 a.m. "We did enter the home, did a search room to room, and unfortunately, the person we were looking for was found deceased in one of the bedrooms in the upper level,” said Sergeant Roger Parent of the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.

Watson was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The story has more resonance than I care to contemplate - the technology boom-and-bust, outsourcing, the robot's failed attempt to locate his body. High-tech or not, some things are just sad.

Meanwhile, Blue Lemur reports (via Raw Story) that hackers invaded Howard Dean's website and inserted Nazi slogans:



The "ESX" and "boxocide" references are too obscure for me, and I don't know how to hack a website. But we've all seen the emotion before, as has Dean (who, it should be remembered, has a Jewish wife.)As Ellen Dana Nagler reports on Blogging of the President, "blog" was the word most looked up by users of Merriam-Webster Online. Other words in the Top Ten included "incumbent," "electoral," and "partisan," suggesting that many people are far more adept at surfing the Web than they are at operating the basic tools of democracy. We may well wind up having more information and less knowledge than any electorate in human history. Trite, but I don't seem to be accessing any e-irony right now.