April 11th, 2010
It’s said that history is written by the victors, thus they draw the outlines of how events are remembered and retold. Well, I think that’s not quite right or, at the very least, something has gone wrong when it comes to The War of Northern Aggression — otherwise known as The American Civil War.
I may be stereotyping, but it seems that many of the people that support American militarism and unapologetically celebrate what some critique as American imperialism, prefer to stand with the losing and treasonous side of the American Civil War, rather than with the Union.
I’m offended every time I see the so-called rebel flag plastered on bumpers, t-shirts, caps or unfurled in the median of a New England highway (or in the middle of any highway, for that matter). Do the people proudly displaying this treasonous symbol not realize that it’s akin to flying the Nazi flag? Do they not realize that, in spite of the misguided and romanticized version of the Confederate South that still lingers, that that flag represents an odious enemy of America — the country that many of them would claim to love?
Not only is the Confederate flag the symbol of a declared American enemy, it is also the anti-thesis of a founding American value: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The apologist for America’s enemy will likely respond, Well, the Civil War was not about slavery. It was about economics.
To them I say, Bullshit. The American soldier — the Union solider — does not fight and die for the nation’s GDP, or for the promotion of an industrial versus an agrarian economy. No, the American soldier fights and bleeds for their fellow citizens and for the common values that bind us.
The Confederacy, its army and its supporters everywhere — all declared enemies of America — not only committed acts of treason against the American government; but, by turning their back to the call to form a more perfect union, rejected America, its values and their fellow countrymen.
Amazing that to this day, America’s enemy is still celebrated, even by elected government officials:
RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia’s governor has brought Confederate History Month back to the state for the first time since 2001.
Gov. Bob McDonnell designated April to commemorate the secessionist, slaveholding South. His two Democratic predecessors had refused issue the proclamation sought each year by Confederate descendants.
Richmond was the Confederate seat of government.
McDonnell’s 368-word declaration does not mention slavery. The Republican governor said Tuesday that his intent was to honor the sacrifice on Virginia soil and promote tourism.
Since then the Republican governor of Virginia has gone on to include mention of slavery in his commemoration of the Confederacy. However, again, celebrating the Confederacy is akin to celebrating Nazy Germany. Thus, I ask, would mere acknowledgment of the concentration camps be sufficient to permit the commemoration of Nazism? Of course not. Therefore, how is mention of slavery sufficient excuse to carry forward with the celebration of the Confederacy?
June 2nd, 2009
Love how the snark oozes just a hair below the surface:
(CNN) — It appears President Obama has to step up his reading pace if he wants to beat his predecessor in one particular measure: how many books a president can polish off a year.
In an interview with the BBC Tuesday, Obama said he is currently reading Joseph O’Neill’s 270-page novel “Netherland,” a book Obama first said he began back in April.
If Obama is close to finishing the novel, that puts him on less than a 10 book-a-year pace, far less than the close to 100 books President Bush was reportedly able to finish in the same amount of time.
[...]
In 2006, Bush read 95 books to Roves 110: a Herculean pace of nearly two books a week — in an election year to boot — for the ex-president. But, according to Rove, Bush’s reading slowed a bit in the final years of his presidency, finishing a not-too-shabby 51 books in 2007 and at least 40 in 2008.
And if that’s not impressive enough, Rove also said Bush found time to read the Bible “from cover to cover” every year.
What can one say, except, Yeah, right!? One hundred books per year my [blip]!
I wish he had read the August 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief: Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.
April 13th, 2009
On Point with Tom Ashbrook did a segment on conservative hate speech being spewed by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, right-wing talk radio and their counterparts on Fox News. Here’s how the program is teased:
[T]he language lately on air has grown particularly fierce and apocalyptic: President Obama called a dictator and sympathizer with terrorists. His policies called socialist, Marxist, Bolshevik, dangerous. Americans called to rise up in revolt. All this while the economy tanks and gun sales surge.
That last line is the operative and, frankly, scary one: while the economy tanks and gun sales surge. Let’s not forget that conservative right-wing blowhards animated, if not inspired, two recent terrorist incidents: 1. A gunman that opened fire at a church for its liberal views, 2. A second man in Pennsylvania ambushed police officers because, he thought, they and Obama were coming to take his guns away.
I wish Tom Ashbrook, the host of On Point, had been unabashedly critical of the vile rhetoric being spewed by conservatives on Fox News and talk radio; but, like a good “journalist,” Tom maintained his objectivity and largely agreed that liberals were guilty of similar offenses during the Bush years. To which I simply respond: bullshit! When was the last time any liberal went on TV or radio to call for armed revolution against the US government? Tom Ashbrook’s default fallback of journalistic objectivity is simply weak, and irresponsible in this instance.
February 16th, 2009
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job the Republican leaders in Congress are doing?”
51% disapprove
Pew Research Center Poll. Feb. 4-8, 2009.
N=1,303 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3
Josh Marshall, over at TalkingPointsMemo.com, captures something that I’ve given a couple of thoughts this past week. Understandably, if you watched the coverage over the stimulus bill you probably thought that president Obama was out of sync with Americans and that republicans, somehow, were now representative of public opinion. Of course, you would’ve been utterly and 110% wrong; however, according to the mainstream establishment media, especially cable news, republicans were gaining traction with their message of opposition against the stimulus bill and, thereby, against president Obama.
More importantly, however, than where the media thinks the momentum lies in the back-and-forth of a debate, the arguments or frames that the media decide to present to the public regarding policy do, in fact, influence public opinion. And, by this standard, the establishment media, given the last 25 years of conservative dominance of Washington, D.C., is simply predisposed hardwired to be more accommodating to the republican propaganda arm message machine. Washington, D.C., is a town that remains dominated by a conservative infrastructure composed of think thanks, media consultants, corporate lobbyists that are fundamentally attuned to the conservative ideology, and, therefore, composed of media producers with rolodexes filled with the numbers and contact information of conservative spokespersons ready to provide a quote, or to appear on-camera.
ThinkProgress.org ran the numbers and, as suspected, these illustrate that establishment media is dominated 2-to-1 by republican spokespersons, which is why consumers of establishment media may have thought that republicans were up and that president Obama was down in the court of public opinion:
As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.”
It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.
[...]
In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 26 times. Surprisingly, Fox News came the closest to offering balance, hosting 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. CNN had only two Democrats compared to 7 Republicans.
As Josh Marshall points out, there seems to be a big disconnect between the establishment media in Washington, D.C., and the rest of America:
“It’s eerie — I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me.”
That’s from Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who’s an expert on public opinion throughout the midwest, as quoted by Ben Smith.
It really is the big story of the first weeks of the Obama administration. In Washington, it was a battle royale between the new president and an emboldened Republican minority. At times they seemed to have him on the ropes. And yet in the country at large, Obama remains super popular. And the GOP is wildly unpopular.
[...]
The city remains wired for the GOP. Not that it’s done them a great deal of good of late. But it remains a key part of understanding every part of what is happening today.
If the dynamic described above is true, and I believe that it is, it may take a while before the mainstream establishment media starts reflecting the shift in the balance of power that has come about in the country, given how unlikely it is that news producers and editors will empty out their trusty rolodexes.
February 8th, 2009
Fresh off his victory as the new chairman of the republican party, Michael Steele proves adept at continuing with his party’s practice of hypocrisy and mendacity. While on ABC News, Steele made the nonsensical argument that government created jobs are not jobs, they are work; and that only private sector jobs count as jobs, since only they are sustainable over the long term.
In the near-term, with national unemployment creeping over 7%, the goal is to put Americans back to work and to thereby boost the economy, period. So, while the government contracts included in the stimulus package may come to an end at some point, the immediate goal of putting Americans back to work will have been fulfilled; and, equally important, the long term benefits of these “government jobs” will accrue as regards to the nation’s infrastructure.
Incredulously, Steele dares to suggest that the goal of the stimulus bill ought to be to create sustainable jobs for the long term; thereby completely undermining the entire rationale of the republican opposition to bill. Remember, this is the very bill that republicans claim contains “wasteful” spending on education, healthcare, teachers, firefighters, police, and public infrastructure. The very things that create the dynamic for sustainable growth over, yes, the long term.
Here’s Steele with George Stephanopoulos this morning:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But outside of Washington, some strong Republican voices have said the stimulus package is needed now. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, he supports the package.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, R-FLA.: This program will help us with education, with health care, Medicaid specifically, infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that produce jobs. It could mean $13 billion to the sunshine state. It comes at a time when we need it. People need jobs. It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: He suggests that you and Republican Party leaders here in Washington are on the wrong side of the biggest issue, jobs.
STEELE: Well, no — you know, with all due respect to the governor, I understand where he’s coming from. Having been a state official, I know what it means to get those dollars when you’re in tight times.
But you’ve got to look at the entire package. You’ve got to look at what’s going to create sustainable jobs.
What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s a job.
STEELE: No, it’s not a job. A job is something that — that a business owner creates. It’s going to be long term. What he’s creating…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn’t count if it’s a government job?
STEELE: Hold on. No, let me — let me — let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we’re talking about have an end point.
As a small-business owner, I’m looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It’s a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I’m — either way, the bottom line is…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don’t really understand that distinction.
STEELE: Well, the difference — the distinction is this. If a government — if you’ve got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That’s — there’s no guarantee that that — that there’s going to be more work when you’re done in that job.
