Before Reading: please note, some of my radical friends might worry that in the following I'll give away the anarchists' tactics and surprises. However, I am certain that there is NOTHING in the following text that is not already on tons of blogs or for Christ's sake reported in this week's Village Voice (and thus would have been easily learnable by any "intelligence" cop or Homeland Security worker who might have be assigned today to sit in the office and surf IndyMedia for updates on demonstrators' plans, or signed on to the protestors' completely un-secure web-enrolled lists of cell-phone-text message "newsgroups," which I treat only as a reporter would, in the following. I am CERTAIN about this. I've checked and proofread carefully to make sure these are all compeletely journalistic anecdotes that some kid sent by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch could have written.
1. Text messaging has in some ways changed the face of activism - or, at least, of multi-event urban protest activism. I signed up for software called TextMob, at www.txtmob.com, which permitted the automated distribution of messages from a single desktop computer to the cell phones of dozens of demonstrators, who may be widely dispered physically at the time that each of them is alerted, by cell phone, to some consideration that might affect the plans of the other group. I signed on to a couple of these lists so I'd get updates about things like where there were huge numbers of cops, where there were cops with riot gear and what direction they were moving, arrested, etc. I got a couple ones that were funny in their incoherence ("cops look panicky" at such-and-such an intersection). Maybe this is how Homeland Security workers feel when they cock their ears and strain to hear the "chatter" of the terrorists and somehow decide what color of alert to tell the country we are on?
2. For instance, apparently (I wasn't there), early this afternoon, a group of "gay" "anarchists" (to use FOX NEWS ANCHORspeak) convened suddenly at the cafe where the Log Cabin Republicans were holding their major pre-convention special event. Fliers advertising this event had been distributed at several smaller rallies and actions the previous day, and were available for pickup at bars and coffee shops on the lower east side. (At the Phoenix, I picked up a bumper sticker saying ATTENTION REPUBLICANS: GO FUCK YOURSELVES, sponsored by an indie rock band whose website was advertised in small print at the top and bottom of the bumper sticker. but a reminder just a few minutes beforehand made sure everyone would arrive at the restaurant on time - much as their Republican counterparts. They staged zany mock "weddings," like between animals and people and so forth.
3. This last phenomenon reflects the tactic that especially serious demonstrators said ahead of time in interviews that they would adopt for the convention week: learning about where Republicans would be dining, celebrating, or relaxing in the city, and then assembling at, outside, and between those functions and trying to make the delegates' stay in New York as unpleasant as possible. Early Sunday evening, I was in Times Square just before the day's big wave of arrests began. I was with a group of queers who had gathered for a "kiss-in," and who were spread across several of the square's intersections and islands just at the time when delegates began to arrive with their state contingents to attend Broadway shows. (Counterconvention.org posted a list on their website a few days ago of which states' delegates would be going to which shows, at which times).
4. I introduced myself to a Republican delegate from Oregon. He was a middle-aged white guy in a nice dress shirt and trousers. I asked him what he thought about the Federal Marriage Amendment and he said he had "mixed emotions" about it because he did have a gay nephew, and he was after all a part of the family. I told him I was gay too (in case he couldn't tell), and that I was really disturbed that his party had been taken over by extremists who put in their platform that they want to amend the Constitution to discriminate against me. He said, well, a lot of US think the Democratic party has been taken over by extremists. A woman next to us piped up, "Boy, if only that were the case!"
5. According to a story I read in the gay press, the Republicans appear to have hand-selected a group of eight Broadway shows for delegates to attend during specially scheduled performances this afternoon. What did this group of eight shows have in common?..hmm, it turns out that each show had not a single gay or lesbian character. Perhaps not coincidentally, they also tended to be the blandest, dullest shows that locals eschew (such as PHANTOM OF THE OPERA).
6. According to a text message I received, the police strung orange "arrest webbing" around a large group of perhaps one hundred fifty protestors, immobilizing them in a single place and then herding those caught in its sweep into paddy wagons to spend a hideously unpleasant eight to twelve hours or longer (how much longer we don't yet know) in the city's downtown jail.
7. On Thursday, a group of two men and two women from California and New York rapelled off the side of the Plaza Hotel, unfurling a huge banner that covered up many of the windows on the hotel's historic and architecturally important facade. The banner had two arrows, one labeled TRUTH and pointing to the right, and the other reading BUSH and pointing to the left. It was quite some time before police managed to get the banner removed. Many RNC delegates are staying at the Plaza Hotel. The photos of this action are really cool and you should check them out at http://www.indymedia.org. The four activists were arrested and charged with numerous offenses, but despite Manhattan prosecutors' efforts a judge released them on their own recognizance.
8. FOX NEWS is using photos of an immense, burning dragon-puppet that filled the stretch of Seventh Avenue in front of Madison Square Garden this afternoon, as its lead visual image displayed in tonight's website coverage of today's massive "umbrella" march (organized by United for Peace and Justice, whose appeal for permission to rally in Central Park was denied at the last minute by the state Supreme Court). However, as someone who participated in the march and even, in fact, saw the burning of the dragon from the next block, I would have chosen a different image to capture best the extraordinary intensity of the march. The image I would have chosen is of the section of Seventh Avenue directly in front of a hotel where many delegates were staying. As demonstrators literally filled the streets - moving very slowly because streets were so much more clogged than march organizers had expected - those within an easy sightline of the hotel chanted and screamed directly at the few RNC-related staff members who decided to appear, under heavy guard, on the hotel's balcony. Their chants included GO HOME BUSH, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE, HEY HEY HO HO GEORGE BUSH HAS GOT TO GO, YOU'RE NOT WELCOME - and, simply and angrily and with fingers pointed, the single word SHAME! The corporate media has set up an opposition between "good" protestors (peaceful, Quaker, middle-aged, Democratic Party, hardworking Americans) and "bad" protestors (young, disaffected, violent, dangerous), yet the overwhelming tone of the march, in my perception, was one of intergenerational cooperation, enthusiasm, and mutual education. At times, many young highly energized protestors took the lead in enacting, with their arms and bodies, the group's profound anger; other protestors with decades of social movement experience looked on smilingly, as if they appreciated that SOMEONE had finally taken up their mantle and was pissed off enough about their government's actions to flood midtown Manhattan with demonstrators. Some doubtless recalled their own youthful activism in the Vietnam era, and a number of handmade signs bore slogans referring to President Bush's avoidance of the Vietnam-era draft. (The NYT is reporting that today's protestors were part of the largest crowd ever assembled in conjunction with a political party's event, i.e., more people than Chicago '68.) One man was selling t-shirts with "Bush in '72" written in lines of cocaine (the shirts have printed on them "bushin72.com," though the guy said the website wasn't quite ready for primetime). One very elderly woman sitting at the edge of 7th Avenue in a lawn chair, watching the crowds, wore a sign saying TEXAN AGAINST BUSH, and was interviewed by a steady stream of reporters.
9. It's New York. Union Square has been mobbed for days by vendors and random folks of all stripes hawking t-shirts with all kinds of anti-Bush slogans. There were also lots of opportunities to buy these along the march route.
10. I marched with the queer "contingent," which was large enough to constitute a march in itself. By the time we left our starting point, I had received a text message saying that the front of the march had reached its endpoint but the end of it (that would be us) had not yet begun to move. Believe me, we were hot and cranky and sweaty after standing around in the middle of the street and ducking into Duane Reade or Dunkin Donuts hoping that sometime soon we might get to actually march. As my friend Sarah observed, protesting is often, it turns out, really really boring. Designated to gather in Sheridan Square at 10am, we homos and perverts and trannies and dykes formed a large "feeder march" that gathered in Sherdian Square (i.e., near the site of the Stonewall riots).
11. My favorite subgroup within the queer contingent was the GLAM BRIGADE. This consisted of extremely glamorously dressed activists - each dressed in a different elaborate outfit of totally garish makeup and prom dress, tuxedo, or undergarment, and each carrying an enormous sign whose glitter and matching plastic feather boas made it hard to miss. Each sign had a harsh, cutting message for Republicans such as
5 DEFERMENTS? TACKY, TACKY, TACKY.
G.O.P., YOU'RE NOT ON THE LIST [as in, you're denied entry at an exclusive club]
FASHION MEMO: FLIP-FLOPS ARE IN
PEACE IS BOOTYLICIOUS
ELECTION-STEALING IS SOOOOOOO 2000
and a bunch more along those lines.
12. About 250 bicyclists were arrested Friday evening at a Critical Mass event in which 5,000 people on bikes brought traffic across midtown Manhattan to a virtual standstill for several hours. (The circumstances of the arrests were described very differently in, say, the text messages I received about them and on FOX NEWS.) Few or no arrests Saturday. Then in the late afternoon today several hundred protestors were arrested (word is 150-200) in and around Times Square, which was basically shut down for a couple of hours as both delegates and protestors flooded the area. Some of these direct-action protests seemed to very effectively disrupt some delegates' arrival in the city, that is, they forced them to brave very angry, intense crowds of demonstrators who blocked their path through the streets and sidewalks.
13. I left the scene of the Times Square thing before huge numbers of people were arrested. But I was there for the beginning of the confrontation before the cops brought in horses and I walked far, far away. It started with this huge queer-kiss-in that according to fliers was supposed to fill the square just as delegates were on their way to attend eight specially scheduled performances of Broadway shows. The whole square (yes, the whole square) was pretty physically tense as protestors screamed carefully at passing delegates from behind police barricades. When the crowd in the square got really big, cops on horses suddenly came out of nowhere and galloping through the street, frightening a lot of people. Then riot squads came in, carefully arranged, and forced everyone up onto the sidewalk. The whole thing was videotaped by NLG legal observers in green hats (there were supposed to be 500+ lawyers and law students out volunteering today, the ACLU said ahead of time), and cops apparently designated by the NYPD for the purpose of videotaping us individually darted around and zoomed in at everyone carrying a sign and made sure each of us saw that our face was being captured on camera.
14. According to protestor-operated websites like IndyMedia, at least a dozen protestors were beaten by cops and and bleeding profusely in the street from their wounds.
15. I didn't see any riot gear. And, although many protestors had feared/discouraged or expected/hoped (depending on their level of willingness or unwillingness of members of a given contingent to risk arrest) that there would be physical confrontations with the police over whether the entire march could "break off" in the direction of the notoriously un-"permitted" Central Park Great Lawn, this did not happen.
16. Next to Madison Square Garden is a huge billboard for FOX NEWS. Whole sections of the march shouted FOX NEWS SUCKS as they walked past. I also took some time screaming BUSH MUST GO or YOU'RE NOT WELCOME at a couple of delegates appeared in the entranceway of Madison Square Garden. The delegates themselves were easily distinguishable from the Port Authority Police (since the NJ/NY P.A. operates Madison Sq Garden), and from the nattily-dressed-in-chinos, uniformed, walkie-talking-wearing Republican white-collar security-related personnel by their highly gender-color-coded outfits of three-piece suits and ties or tasteful, brightly colored skirts and tops.
17. I've been hanging out with my friend Kat who came from Chicago with me on an ATA frequent-flyer "companion ticket" + my Swarthmore friends and former housemates. Kat likes them and they like Kat :) We're all staying in Sarah Allegra and Judy's 3-bedroom apartment near Columbia, even though their really isn't enough bed space for all of us.
18. Protestors are having their own party all over the city. In my social set, the really cool kids had tickets to Margaret Cho, who was performing at the Apollo Theater on 125th Street (Harlem). In case you don't know, Margaret Cho is a Korean American comedian [thanks those of you who corrected me on that] who grew up in SF's gay Polk Street area, is a big fag hag, and icon for gay men who care about politics (think Judy Garland circa 2004). These shows at the Apollo were part of her STATE OF EMERGENCY tour. (Cho was, as you may know, nixed from a scheduled performance at a DNC-related function in Boston when the Democrats discovered she had intended to speak up about her opposition to their party platform's lack of support for gay marriage.) I tried to get a ticket on Saturday morning for one of her last two shows that evening, but they were completely sold out.
19. A final story - from yesterday, when I marched with 20,000 people across the Brooklyn Bridge in a pro-choice march. (In this case too we had to wait for hours before marching because only the pedestrian lane over the bridge was permitted....urrrgggh). Let me tell you, cheap-Chinese-restaurant operators were not equipped for the influx of folks they had after we made it across the Brooklyn Bridge. We were tired and our feet hurt and we had to wait like an hour for really really terrible food. During the wait I struck up some conversations with cops munching at nearby tables. One of them, a Bronx cop, told me they needed the Bronx and Brooklyn cops when something really bad was gonna happen, cause the Manhattan cops wouldn't be able to handle that (we shared an anxious, very very conscientious on both sides laugh over this joke). Another cop shushed him for saying this out loud 'cause he thought it would offend Manhattan cops within earshot (I am not making this up), but a third cop glanced at the nearby tables and assured the others that there definitely weren't any Manhattan cops who could have heard the insult.
20. Photos coming soon!
“one homosexual can pollute a government office” —U.S. Senate subcommittee report, 1950
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Friday, August 27, 2004
a city under siege
Letter sent to the New York Times:
Instructions received from United for Peace & Justice:
To the editor:
I was living in New York when Mayor Bloomberg was elected in the fall of 2001, and returning to the city protest at the Republican National Convention, I only wish I could vote against him again. �I have been welcomed by the mayor's belligerent disdain for peacefully assembled protestors and his warning that the city expects to arrest 1,000 protestors every day. �I am deeply disturbed by the city's aggressive media campaign to depict demonstrators as a threat and to promote their overwhelming, militarized preparation.
It's easy to see why President Bush wants to come to New York - this is the city, after all, that was willing two months after one of its greatest crises to elect a mayor almost solely on the say-so of Rudy Giuliani, whose cool and competence stood in such constrast to President Bush's silence. �Since 2001 many New Yorkers, like many Americans, have learned a great deal about the preciousness of our civil liberties and even our longstanding international alliances. �I only hope that Americans increasingly recognize the exploitation of tragedy as an empty and profoundly corrosive form of politics.
Instructions received from United for Peace & Justice:
We all know that large numbers of people are planning to go to Central Park�s Great Lawn on Sunday, despite � or because of � the court�s ruling that we may not hold a rally there.
United for Peace and Justice emphatically supports the right of people to peacefully assemble in Central Park.
We are committed to having a safe, legal protest march, that anyone and everyone can attend � kids, seniors, immigrants, people with disabilities. We therefore are NOT leading our march to Central Park, and we ask everyone who plans to participate in our march to respect our desire for a safe and legal event, and not to organize breakaway marches from it to the Park.
To those who wish both to march with us and to assert their right to assemble in Central Park on Sunday, we ask that you follow our march to the end, disperse peacefully at Union Square, and then make your own way to the Great Lawn.
Monday, August 23, 2004
"I left the doors unlocked"
On reports that the FBI has launched 24-hour surveillance of 56 protestors in anticipation of the RNC (from a visitor's comment):
Dear Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Can I just say that I am deeply disappointed that I have not yet received my personal visit from the FBI. I have put a great deal of time into my radical activities over the last couple months and frankly, it's time I received proper recognition for my work.
I left the doors unlocked. I have stayed up long nights waiting for you to enter my window. So where are you?
Do you seriously think I organized all those traffic blocks and banner hangs just to be ignored like some lowly petition gatherer? Do you think I locked myself to a crusty punk by the neck with bicycle U-locks just for fun? Do you think it's easy to create a costume-pirate-hook-out-of-papier-mache-that-is-intended-to-be-mistaken-by-the-Boston-police-as-a-molotov-cocktail-hoax-device? Those kinds of nuances take work. And those giant puppets of sunflowers, moon spirits, and earth goddesses, well guess what -- they weigh a fucking ton! . . .
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Nice work. Keep it up.
The Kerry campaign has finally found an effective response to the Swift Boat bullshit. I love this ad. I could watch it all day long.
But why is it only being shown on the Internet? If the footage can't be broadcasted for copyright reasons, surely a transcript of it can be displayed and read by a narrator...?
Meanwhile, the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush have released a whole new ad, attacking Kerry's antiwar activism (in which they misspell "Genghis Khan").
But why is it only being shown on the Internet? If the footage can't be broadcasted for copyright reasons, surely a transcript of it can be displayed and read by a narrator...?
Meanwhile, the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush have released a whole new ad, attacking Kerry's antiwar activism (in which they misspell "Genghis Khan").
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Where is the inherent criminality in appointing your fuckbuddy to your gubernatorial staff?
From an exchange with a friend concerning New Jersey Governor James McGreevey:
I do not accept the notion that Cipel was clearly, unambiguously "unqualified" to serve in a new staff position in the New Jersey governor's office in charge of "disseminating and coordinating public safety programs with other state departments and branches of government." Cipel essentially was supposed to act as a liaison between the governor's office and state and federal security agencies. While four years as the chief information officer of the Israeli consulate in New York City perhaps do not make one the best person for the job, they also probably provide some amount of relevant experience for what I continue to insist is not a very important position, and we do tend to allow elected officials to hire for their staff persons they already know and feel comfortable with, even when there may be other persons whose qualifications on paper are more notable. That New Jersey paid Cipel's immigration fees seems in keeping with the practice of many US employers who provide administrative and legal support in obtaining proper immigration credentials for persons they want to hire (as my own former employer in New York did for my former boss).
Sure, McGreevey didn't tell the public that the two of them were boinking, but does the presumption that it is the public's business not warrant a second thought? If he didn't tell other family members, why is it important to tell the People of New Jersey who he's boinking? And on a more profound level, what is sex, and what does it "do" to the relationship - whether professional or of some other kind - between two persons? If the appointee in question will be a subordinate who reports directly to the governor (and I haven't heard one way or the other whether Cipel was), it's probably not optimal to be boinking, but what if we scrutinize the presumption that sexual involvement make someone into one's "lover," "intimate," or "family member," and thus cast the appointment of the person one boinks as a case of "nepotism" or conferring undue advantage on that person? Could that presumption be viewed as an effect of universalizing a particular scheme concerning the epistemological and relational status of sex, i.e., as a heterosexist presumption?
I am saying this partly to be outrageous, yes. But I haven't gotten a clear idea of why this appointment was so much more egregious than a president appointing a family member to lead one's task force on reforming the nation's health care system. To be sure, the public is aware of the sexual or intimate relationship in that instance, but, again, it's necessary to weigh whether or not the need for secrecy of a politician living in the closet might help not only explain but even justify the secrecy surrounding the boinking. Again, I say this partly based on the idea that we shouldn't jump to conclusions regarding the precise relational, emotional, and political context of the boinking, and partly because I think that we ought to give closeted queers a certain kind of break.
> That part might be parallel to Kentucky's Patton, but not trying to
> appoint your lover to a state office that's taken seriously and salaried
> highly (no matter how un-yummy the "homeland security" concept may be,
> which I'll grant)... and not one of your other examples even involves
> leveraging elective office to financially benefit your hoochie.
Again, let's say a president were to appoint his wife head of the task force in charge of planning his major domestic policy initiative. Would that be equally egregious? Or would it be just as bad to secretly and continuously boink one's Senate colleague, and then the nation's vice-president, before assuming the presidency oneself, as President Buchanan likely did in the 1840s and '50s?
To what extent is the moral primacy and indispensability of particular forms of disclosure surrounding sex and employment constituted by a set of moral norms that are deeply bound up with heteronormativity? Should it not concern us that it was a closely related set of expectations concerning sex and employment - more closely related than we might like to admit or even understand - that forced recent politicians ranging from Ronald Reagan to Lyndon Johnson to Martin Luther King to fire subordinates when the mere fact of their homosexuality became known?
Shouldn't we give this closeted fag a break?
> Look, of course being gay is upping the magnitude on this thing, but
> there's no way that that alone would have been enough to cause a
> resignation. That's all I'm saying. Don't you agree???
Of course, if McGreevey had announced that he is gay, though he had never "acted on it" or not since his marriage, he would not receive meaningful pressure to resign. That, I do not dispute.
I do not accept the notion that Cipel was clearly, unambiguously "unqualified" to serve in a new staff position in the New Jersey governor's office in charge of "disseminating and coordinating public safety programs with other state departments and branches of government." Cipel essentially was supposed to act as a liaison between the governor's office and state and federal security agencies. While four years as the chief information officer of the Israeli consulate in New York City perhaps do not make one the best person for the job, they also probably provide some amount of relevant experience for what I continue to insist is not a very important position, and we do tend to allow elected officials to hire for their staff persons they already know and feel comfortable with, even when there may be other persons whose qualifications on paper are more notable. That New Jersey paid Cipel's immigration fees seems in keeping with the practice of many US employers who provide administrative and legal support in obtaining proper immigration credentials for persons they want to hire (as my own former employer in New York did for my former boss).
Sure, McGreevey didn't tell the public that the two of them were boinking, but does the presumption that it is the public's business not warrant a second thought? If he didn't tell other family members, why is it important to tell the People of New Jersey who he's boinking? And on a more profound level, what is sex, and what does it "do" to the relationship - whether professional or of some other kind - between two persons? If the appointee in question will be a subordinate who reports directly to the governor (and I haven't heard one way or the other whether Cipel was), it's probably not optimal to be boinking, but what if we scrutinize the presumption that sexual involvement make someone into one's "lover," "intimate," or "family member," and thus cast the appointment of the person one boinks as a case of "nepotism" or conferring undue advantage on that person? Could that presumption be viewed as an effect of universalizing a particular scheme concerning the epistemological and relational status of sex, i.e., as a heterosexist presumption?
I am saying this partly to be outrageous, yes. But I haven't gotten a clear idea of why this appointment was so much more egregious than a president appointing a family member to lead one's task force on reforming the nation's health care system. To be sure, the public is aware of the sexual or intimate relationship in that instance, but, again, it's necessary to weigh whether or not the need for secrecy of a politician living in the closet might help not only explain but even justify the secrecy surrounding the boinking. Again, I say this partly based on the idea that we shouldn't jump to conclusions regarding the precise relational, emotional, and political context of the boinking, and partly because I think that we ought to give closeted queers a certain kind of break.
> That part might be parallel to Kentucky's Patton, but not trying to
> appoint your lover to a state office that's taken seriously and salaried
> highly (no matter how un-yummy the "homeland security" concept may be,
> which I'll grant)... and not one of your other examples even involves
> leveraging elective office to financially benefit your hoochie.
Again, let's say a president were to appoint his wife head of the task force in charge of planning his major domestic policy initiative. Would that be equally egregious? Or would it be just as bad to secretly and continuously boink one's Senate colleague, and then the nation's vice-president, before assuming the presidency oneself, as President Buchanan likely did in the 1840s and '50s?
To what extent is the moral primacy and indispensability of particular forms of disclosure surrounding sex and employment constituted by a set of moral norms that are deeply bound up with heteronormativity? Should it not concern us that it was a closely related set of expectations concerning sex and employment - more closely related than we might like to admit or even understand - that forced recent politicians ranging from Ronald Reagan to Lyndon Johnson to Martin Luther King to fire subordinates when the mere fact of their homosexuality became known?
Shouldn't we give this closeted fag a break?
> Look, of course being gay is upping the magnitude on this thing, but
> there's no way that that alone would have been enough to cause a
> resignation. That's all I'm saying. Don't you agree???
Of course, if McGreevey had announced that he is gay, though he had never "acted on it" or not since his marriage, he would not receive meaningful pressure to resign. That, I do not dispute.
URGENT: Get the lying Republican smear ad OFF THE AIR!
Loyal readers, please view the "Swift Boat" ad at swiftvets.com, the Moveon response ad at the website below, and then GIVE MONEY. If you are broke, CHARGE IT to a credit card like I just did. We CANNOT let them get away with this, and we must show John Kerry that he MUST strike back.
There's no point nominating a Vietnam vet if we don't make sure we win on the military service "issue."
----
Dear MoveOn member,
President Bush still won't condemn his allies'
outrageous "Swift Boat" ad, despite calls from
Republican leaders, Vietnam vets, and over
175,000 of us who signed yesterday's petition --
including 6,000 current military service members
and their families. Together, we can make sure he
pays a political price for green-lighting this attack
ad that spreads outright lies about John Kerry's
leadership and service in Vietnam.
We've put together our own ad that sets the facts
straight on John Kerry's time in the military. It also
points out Bush's hypocrisy in condoning an
attack on a combat veteran, after he himself failed
to show up for service in the National Guard. We
need to raise $200,000 to start airing this ad
TODAY. Together, we can put it on TV in precisely
the markets where the "Swift Boat" ad ran,
making sure that no swing voters are misled by
this smear campaign.
View the ad and donate to get it on the air at:
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/swiftresponse.
html
George Bush can't have it both ways. If he wants,
as he claims, to let the past be the past, he should
call off his associates' smear campaign, which is
re-opening this national wound. If he won't, he
should at the very least be willing to make a full
accounting of his own military service. If George
Bush wants to make Vietnam a campaign issue,
that raises a simple question: Where was he?
According to the Boston Globe, which researched
the available facts extensively, there's no
evidence Bush reported for duty during the
summer and fall of 1972, a time when he was
supposed to be serving in the National Guard. But
despite a promise on "Meet the Press" to open
up his "entire record," Bush has yet to offer any
documents that show he was there.[1] In fact, the
Associated Press has been forced to go to court
to force the release of clearly germane documents
that Bush wishes to keep secret.[2]
It's as simple as this: If you evade military service,
you have no right to allow attacks on the service of
others. Yet that is precisely what George Bush
appears to be doing. And together, we can call
attention to that grave hypocrisy with our new ad,
which we'll run to "shadow" the "Swift Boat" ad.
Can you help us get it on the air? Take a look at
the ad and give what you can at:
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/swiftresponse.
html
Yesterday's petition signers included many
military veterans and their families. Mavis from
Fremont, CA told Bush, "To make such claims
against Senator Kerry's record also smears the
record of the other soldiers who served honorably
in Vietnam and are serving today." And Stuart
wrote from Manassas, VA that he is "among the
veterans who deplore the type of misleading ads
[that] ran against John Kerry. Anyone who shed
blood, or [who] knows anyone who shed blood in
defense of what our country stands for, knows that
these ads are not only inaccurate, but immoral as
well."
Incredibly, the "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush"
operatives have responded to our campaign by
issuing a statement that claims, "We were there.
We served with John Kerry." But even that is a lie.
While the ad presents its subjects as former
crewmates of Kerry's, the reality is that the only
thing most of the men share with him is that they
were in Vietnam at the same time. And the men
who did serve with Kerry are unanimous in their
support of him.[3]
It's time to call Bush to account for these dirty
tricks. Together, we can do that on TVs across the
country.
Sincerely,
--Eli Pariser
MoveOn PAC
August 17th, 2004
There's no point nominating a Vietnam vet if we don't make sure we win on the military service "issue."
----
Dear MoveOn member,
President Bush still won't condemn his allies'
outrageous "Swift Boat" ad, despite calls from
Republican leaders, Vietnam vets, and over
175,000 of us who signed yesterday's petition --
including 6,000 current military service members
and their families. Together, we can make sure he
pays a political price for green-lighting this attack
ad that spreads outright lies about John Kerry's
leadership and service in Vietnam.
We've put together our own ad that sets the facts
straight on John Kerry's time in the military. It also
points out Bush's hypocrisy in condoning an
attack on a combat veteran, after he himself failed
to show up for service in the National Guard. We
need to raise $200,000 to start airing this ad
TODAY. Together, we can put it on TV in precisely
the markets where the "Swift Boat" ad ran,
making sure that no swing voters are misled by
this smear campaign.
View the ad and donate to get it on the air at:
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/swiftresponse.
html
George Bush can't have it both ways. If he wants,
as he claims, to let the past be the past, he should
call off his associates' smear campaign, which is
re-opening this national wound. If he won't, he
should at the very least be willing to make a full
accounting of his own military service. If George
Bush wants to make Vietnam a campaign issue,
that raises a simple question: Where was he?
According to the Boston Globe, which researched
the available facts extensively, there's no
evidence Bush reported for duty during the
summer and fall of 1972, a time when he was
supposed to be serving in the National Guard. But
despite a promise on "Meet the Press" to open
up his "entire record," Bush has yet to offer any
documents that show he was there.[1] In fact, the
Associated Press has been forced to go to court
to force the release of clearly germane documents
that Bush wishes to keep secret.[2]
It's as simple as this: If you evade military service,
you have no right to allow attacks on the service of
others. Yet that is precisely what George Bush
appears to be doing. And together, we can call
attention to that grave hypocrisy with our new ad,
which we'll run to "shadow" the "Swift Boat" ad.
Can you help us get it on the air? Take a look at
the ad and give what you can at:
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/swiftresponse.
html
Yesterday's petition signers included many
military veterans and their families. Mavis from
Fremont, CA told Bush, "To make such claims
against Senator Kerry's record also smears the
record of the other soldiers who served honorably
in Vietnam and are serving today." And Stuart
wrote from Manassas, VA that he is "among the
veterans who deplore the type of misleading ads
[that] ran against John Kerry. Anyone who shed
blood, or [who] knows anyone who shed blood in
defense of what our country stands for, knows that
these ads are not only inaccurate, but immoral as
well."
Incredibly, the "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush"
operatives have responded to our campaign by
issuing a statement that claims, "We were there.
We served with John Kerry." But even that is a lie.
While the ad presents its subjects as former
crewmates of Kerry's, the reality is that the only
thing most of the men share with him is that they
were in Vietnam at the same time. And the men
who did serve with Kerry are unanimous in their
support of him.[3]
It's time to call Bush to account for these dirty
tricks. Together, we can do that on TVs across the
country.
Sincerely,
--Eli Pariser
MoveOn PAC
August 17th, 2004
Monday, August 16, 2004
Career in the toilet; great sex life awaits
Before we get started, I need to point out this adorable headline (and it's not even from The Onion): God invalidates the California Supreme Court.
The following was received from a New York City club promoter (original spelling has been preserved):
In all seriousness, here's what we have to contend with: The revelation that Jim McGreevey improperly appointed his gay lover as homeland security chief for New Jersey, a post for which he was not qualified, has cast a pall over an announcement that had not previously been associated with public wrongdoing. Right-wing assholes are saying McGreevey should resign resign now rather than on November 15, which would allow a new election to take place on November 2 - an outcome that could mean a new governor. McGreevey, in other words, is protecting his party. And rightly so, I say.
Here at securityrisk.blogspot.com, we stand by our initial perception that Jim McGreevey is suffering more than a straight person would in his position. As our review of politicians' hetero affairs indicates (see previous post), they typically result in scandal and finger-wagging. Occasionally, these scandals end in resignation, after a long buildup during which some extraordinary level of wrongdoing is revealed. Even when official misconduct has taken place, it is not typical for resignation to accompany the initial disclosure of the affair - even when the politician has been an outspoken critic of the extramarital affairs of others or faces multiple sexual harrassment allegations. Jim McGreevey resigned because he is gay. He is a sacrifice on the altar of Democratic Party unity.
More broadly, it's useful to remember that closeted fags do have the potential to get involved in seedy shit, in a way that open fags do not - there's no way around it. Read David Carter's new book Stonewall; that place was practically overrun with mobster-blackmailers. This is why we need people to come out of the closet. Jim McGreevey refused to pay hush money and preferred to ruin his career. Pretty admirable, in my book.
Just as a reminder, let's recall that Barney Frank, though he was not actually in the closet, used his office to try to get the felony probation of his lover shortened, and to waive many, many parking tickets obtained when this lover was driving the car. This lover was also publicly accused of running a prostitution ring out of Frank's home.
This leaves only one bad thing that McGreevey did: appoint his totally unqualified lover as homeland security chief for New Jersey. I personally would applaud this, as a totally yummy though probably unintended way of slighting the whole Homeland Security Concept. I mean, for real. (John Ashcroft, if you're listening, fuck you.)
A final point: coming out has helped McGreevey's approval rating, a concept that was politically unthinkable just a few years ago. Moreover, 41 percent of New Jersey residents say they were not surprised to learn that he's gay. The American people's gaydar seems to be improving by leaps and bounds.
One happy outcome, as a friend of mine pointed out, is one the papers seem afraid to print: Jim McGreevey is going to have a great sex life. The man is gorgeous.
The following was received from a New York City club promoter (original spelling has been preserved):
for immediate release! August 12, 2004
Ex Govenor McGrevey has just contacted our offices here at DN Industries to announce that he would like to take up go-go dancing given his newly appointed freedom!
So tonight he will be shaking his 47 year old groove thang tonight for dollars at Manhattan's only underwear party Tigerbeat! Come experience "geezer fever" as the hottest govenor since Arnold Schwarzenegger swings his meat for the masses. He expressed interest in exploring his sexuality the old fashioned way, as a booty-clapper for guys who hold dollars.
McGrevey claims "I figure that I'd follow in the footsteps of other major politcal figures such as Rudi Guiliani, Gavon Newsom and Condoleeza Rice who are all veteran pole-dancers from way back when."
For more information on this, or for an interview with Ex-Gov McGrevey, call (212) 330 6926
In all seriousness, here's what we have to contend with: The revelation that Jim McGreevey improperly appointed his gay lover as homeland security chief for New Jersey, a post for which he was not qualified, has cast a pall over an announcement that had not previously been associated with public wrongdoing. Right-wing assholes are saying McGreevey should resign resign now rather than on November 15, which would allow a new election to take place on November 2 - an outcome that could mean a new governor. McGreevey, in other words, is protecting his party. And rightly so, I say.
Here at securityrisk.blogspot.com, we stand by our initial perception that Jim McGreevey is suffering more than a straight person would in his position. As our review of politicians' hetero affairs indicates (see previous post), they typically result in scandal and finger-wagging. Occasionally, these scandals end in resignation, after a long buildup during which some extraordinary level of wrongdoing is revealed. Even when official misconduct has taken place, it is not typical for resignation to accompany the initial disclosure of the affair - even when the politician has been an outspoken critic of the extramarital affairs of others or faces multiple sexual harrassment allegations. Jim McGreevey resigned because he is gay. He is a sacrifice on the altar of Democratic Party unity.
More broadly, it's useful to remember that closeted fags do have the potential to get involved in seedy shit, in a way that open fags do not - there's no way around it. Read David Carter's new book Stonewall; that place was practically overrun with mobster-blackmailers. This is why we need people to come out of the closet. Jim McGreevey refused to pay hush money and preferred to ruin his career. Pretty admirable, in my book.
Just as a reminder, let's recall that Barney Frank, though he was not actually in the closet, used his office to try to get the felony probation of his lover shortened, and to waive many, many parking tickets obtained when this lover was driving the car. This lover was also publicly accused of running a prostitution ring out of Frank's home.
This leaves only one bad thing that McGreevey did: appoint his totally unqualified lover as homeland security chief for New Jersey. I personally would applaud this, as a totally yummy though probably unintended way of slighting the whole Homeland Security Concept. I mean, for real. (John Ashcroft, if you're listening, fuck you.)
A final point: coming out has helped McGreevey's approval rating, a concept that was politically unthinkable just a few years ago. Moreover, 41 percent of New Jersey residents say they were not surprised to learn that he's gay. The American people's gaydar seems to be improving by leaps and bounds.
One happy outcome, as a friend of mine pointed out, is one the papers seem afraid to print: Jim McGreevey is going to have a great sex life. The man is gorgeous.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
On resignations and extramarital affairs
Chapter One
Chapter Two
From Governor James McGreevey's announcement yesterday:
October 5, 2002 Embattled [Kentucky] Gov. Paul Patton reiterated Friday he has no plans to resign and said leaving office before his term is over would be detrimental to Kentucky....Patton is under investigation by state and federal government agencies for allegations he misused his office to help, and later hurt, the business of a western Kentucky woman with whom he had an affair....when she refused to continue the relationship, Conner said, Patton sicced regulators on her facility, Birchtree Healthcare.
January 18, 1999: Congressman and House Judiciary Committee member, Bob Barr['s] affair became known this past week. Barr, and his second wife, Jeri were in an affair while he was still married to his first wife, Gail. His former wife has stated that Barr paid for her abortion in '83 and never tried to stop her. In his '86 divorce testimony, Barr stated that he never objected.
April 26, 2001: Arnold Schwarzenegger backed out of his plan to run for governor of California after he learned the National Enquirer was planning to print details of an extramarital affair, says The New York Post....Premiere Magazine recently reported incidents of Schwarzenegger allegedly groping women and being caught having sex with another woman on the set of "Eraser," and carrying on an open affair with his "Total Recall" co-star Rachel Ticotin.
May 07, 2004: Former [Oregon] Gov. Neil Goldschmidt admitted Thursday that he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl when he was 35 and mayor of Portland, and said he is resigning all his public and private positions to "rebuild my life."
May 15, 2001: Beleaguered by media inquiries about a rumored extramarital affair with a top state official, Gov. Jeb Bush — who is weighing whether to seek re-election in 2002 — took an extraordinary step Monday by publicly denying the rumors and calling them an “outright lie.”
Sept. 30, 2002: Former Conservative minister Edwina Currie's revelation this weekend that she and former Prime Minister John Major had a four-year extramarital affair in the early '80s provided plenty of fodder for the British press. Several papers expressed a grudging new admiration for Major, who was seen for so many years as an extraordinarily bland politician.
September 19, 1998: An offer by Illinois Republican Henry Hyde to resign as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee because of an extramarital affair 30 years ago was rejected by Speaker Newt Gingrich, CNN confirmed Saturday.
July 19, 2001: Senator Trent Lott intoned that every member of the House who has had an extramarital affair ought to resign; Senator Ted Kennedy gamely responded that the House would then be empty, implying that adultery should never justify resignation.
October 17, 2000: A top official and radio announcer for Focus on the Family said he has resigned from the conservative Christian group because he had an extramarital affair.
October 1998:Results of opinion polls taken since the report was delivered to Congress on 9 September remain identical to before: roughly two thirds of those polled think that Clinton should not resign from office over an extramarital affair while roughly one third think he should resign or be impeached.
Chapter Two
From Governor James McGreevey's announcement yesterday:
Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I am. As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself, in fact, confused....
[F]rom my early days in school, until the present day, I acknowledged some feelings, a certain sense that separated me from others. But because of my resolve, and also thinking that I was doing the right thing, I forced what I thought was an acceptable reality onto myself, a reality which is layered and layered with all the, quote, good things, and all the, quote, right things of typical adolescent and adult behavior.
Yet, at my most reflective, maybe even spiritual level, there were points in my life when I began to question what an acceptable reality really meant for me. Were there realities from which I was running?
Which master was I trying to serve?...
And so my truth is that I am a gay American....I realize the fact of this affair and my own sexuality if kept secret leaves me, and most importantly the governor's office, vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure.
So I am removing these threats by telling you directly about my sexuality....It makes little difference that as governor I am gay. In fact, having the ability to truthfully set forth my identity might have enabled me to be more forthright in fulfilling and discharging my constitutional obligations.
Given the circumstances surrounding the affair and its likely impact upon my family and my ability to govern, I have decided the right course of action is to resign.
This blog's first-ever prize contest!
What would you do if, hypothetically, your landlord put up a Bush/Cheney sign in the front yard? (Yes, he does live on the premises.) A free marriage equality bumper sticker will be awarded to the person who, in my sole discretion, posts the most creative, successful, or original response.
Prince apparently missed that memo
Some extremely timely media criticism from the Village Voice:
The down-low has all the makings of a sensation: Here is a tale of sex, lies, and death. Better still, here is a tale as old as America: the threat of Black Dick. In the olden days, the warlocks of lede, hed, and deck mostly saw the black phallus as a menace to white daisies. But in the era of equal opportunity, Black Dick has turned on its own....
The story's linchpin has been the accepted truth that the black community is acutely more homophobic than the rest of America. The down-low is stirring up emotions in "the often-homophobic black community," reported The Advocate. "Black men aren't allowed to have even the slightest feminine characteristics of the average metrosexual." Andre 3000, Prince, and Fonzworth Bentley apparently missed that memo. As did most of black America, whose rampant homophobia nonetheless puts it behind such bastions of tolerance as Bensonhurst, Hasidic Williamsburg, and the whole of Mississippi.
A study published last year in Public Opinion Quarterly concluded that "evidence that blacks are more homophobic than whites is quite limited." While blacks were significantly more likely to object to homosexuality, it found, they also were significantly more likely than whites to support laws against anti-gay discrimination.
What the down-low mythology demonstrates, more than anything, is an an adherence to the cult of black pathology. Black people are more homophobic, more misogynist, more anti-Semitic, more anti-intellectual, more violent, and generally a problem. The viewpoint persists despite facts on the ground.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Bush Relief
>How to start each day with a positive outlook :
>
> 1. Open a new file in your PC.
>
> 2. Name it "George W. Bush"
>
> 3. Send it to the trash.
>
> 4. Empty the trash.
>
> 5. Your PC will ask you, "do you really want to get rid of
> George W. Bush?"
>
> 6. Answer calmly, "yes" and press the mouse button firmly.
>
> 7. Feel better and vote in November.....
>
> 1. Open a new file in your PC.
>
> 2. Name it "George W. Bush"
>
> 3. Send it to the trash.
>
> 4. Empty the trash.
>
> 5. Your PC will ask you, "do you really want to get rid of
> George W. Bush?"
>
> 6. Answer calmly, "yes" and press the mouse button firmly.
>
> 7. Feel better and vote in November.....
More than just reductionist sloganeering - the case for today's "left"
The following is a response to a post by Thomasgeist on restless geist (under the heading "Reductionist sloganeering"):
Thomasgeist, I disagreed with you on this when we discussed it at Chip's last week, and I still disagree. I challenge you in the following respects:
1) Today's "left" doesn't just address personifications of problems rather than problems themselves. For instance, MoveOn doesn't have a critique of capitalism, but they do have a critique of crony capitalism, and I personally think they're right to draw a distinction between DLC free-trade capitalists running the country and Halliburton running the country, and I also personally think the former is preferable to the latter. I actually think there is growing popular awareness of the concept of crony capitalism, and at some point it will reach some critical moment - it may not be Enron, it may not be the airline pension bailout, it may not be Iraq reconstruction contracts, but I do think there is a growing articulation of corporate control as problematic, and not only among this mythical coastal liberal college-educated professional Jewish homosexual elite.
2) The "left"'s slogans about Bush are not all empty nor do they all concern the fact that he got C's at Yale. Have you seen MoveOn's 17 new ads, directed by Errol Morris, profiling current and former Republicans who have decided to vote for Kerry? They articulate not one unitary message that Bush is a poor manager, but a wide variety of messages emphasizing his failed domestic and foreign policies. I would go so far as to say that they articulate a moral economy and position Bush as violating it. I think that constitutes effective politics. The one with the Louisiana woman, who concludes her message by saying, "I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican."
(Michael Moore, I grant, IS as bad as you think. Still, clearly articulating to such a large number of people that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 ALONE makes the movie worthwhile.)
3) It's not fair to say that this supposedly bankrupt monolithic left wants smart Yalies instead of dumb Yalies running the country. We can argue whether or not it is bona-fide "leftism" to point out that GWB is unqualified and surrounds himself with similarly unqualified people, but even if it's not, it's still true, and it's still worth pointing out. Having good manners and good grades are not the only things that differentiate JFK1 or JFK2 from GWB. Endorsing capitalism, liberalism, or imperialism do not put all these leaders in a single category.
4) You say that "the left's reduction to bland and increasingly unoriginal sloganeering simply reifies the problems associated with this administration's...policies and the above mentioned global systems and ideologies." Okay. Let's consider some of these horrible slogans the left has come up with lately. In my view, they are all quite a bit more substantive and original than you give them credit for.
* "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in America" - this has isolationist overtones and it oversimplifies the problem, but it nonetheless articulates a belief in the importance of government's provision of basic public welfare. to be sure, this could be said to "reify" the new-deal capitalist welfare state, but i (and this may be the core difference between you and me) proudly claim that new deal welfare state as an improvement on many of its predecessors and alternatives, in spite of its deep entanglement with ruling-class values and persons and while acknowledging its gross inadequacies and limitations. you might say that in the first half of the 20th century america's ruling elite came to regard itself as having a different type obligation of public service, and you can see that as culminating in vietnam and that's not wrong, but these days i truly think it's not silly or pointless to feel and articulate a certain nostalgia for some of its accomplishments - among which i would actually put not only social security and medicare (which i think are properly the objects of nostalgia in these times, not just more-radical-than-thou contempt), but also the rise of meritocracy as a central tenet of american political culture, and (relatedly) a limited but still very real improvement in the race/caste system (as my friend payton put it, fifty years after the brown decision america can justly pat itself on the back that "lynching is down"). honestly, if you're going to hold their massachusetts elitism against JFK1 and JFK2, you gotta also give them credit where credit is due, and recognize that they formed alliances with, advocated for, and got enthusiastic political backing from able, intelligent people not from their own background (starting with john edwards and lyndon johnson), which I think testifies to the fact that they cannot be viewed as the political embodiment of the desires of some this fantastical coastal elite but rather were positioned by their elite status to obtain political power while also themselves being idealistic individuals committed to nationalist and liberal ideas that are in important respects worthy of being disaggregated from bush-cheney cronyism. and frankly that bush attracts religious-right folks is all the more despicable because the religious right isn't just disenfranchised and poor, but is also incredibly pernicious - and to say that the liberal elite rejects religion because they articulate this perniciousness is, i think, to deny the incredible variety of actually existing religious belief and of ways of conceptualizing the relationship between faith, churches, and politics - of which john kerry's vision is in my personal opinion quite an admirable one.
* "support stem cell research to help find cures for alzheimers, parkinson's, etc" - this oversimplifies the nature of scientific research, but it manages not only a critique of bush's "antimodern religiosity" as you put it and not just his overriding belief in the Bible - it also manages to articulate the significance of the lengthening lifespan and the aging baby boomers who face new health problems that require not only insurance but also basic research. you can complain that it's elitist of kerry to go around saying he "supports science," but in fact I think the alzheimers issue resonates for a LOT of people of all races and backgrounds who are facing the issue of aging, dependent parents who are living longer, and many of whom are honestly likely to be weighing these matters against moral and religious qualms about embryos. this does a nice job of deflecting the charge of immorality that bush continually lobs at the democrats and especially socially progressive ones, and i think we are seeing that the deflection is working (witness laura bush coming out this week to defend her hubby's hard-line stance).
* "we need to make more friends and fewer terrorists" - i have heard that this concept polls exceedingly well with a wide variety of groups, and that it is the best angle the democrats have yet come up with to argue that they are better on counterterrorism than the republicans are. because after all there is a difference between unilaterialist imperialism and multilateralist imperialism, and the difference helps explain why america, but not germany france britain russia japan, is now the object of such intense hatred around the world. and the fact that america is so hated really SHOULD be an election issue; insofar as it relates to this question, the terrorism issue is a real one, not a silly one, even if americans unreasonably expect more security than do people in many other industrialized societies. this slogan helps articulate why bush is a failure at protecting americans from terrorism, and that's very, very critical and it's the one issue that kerry still consistently polls behind bush on. i think the democrats are right to think that while people want jobs, ultimately when they pull the lever this time around there are going to be a lot of people thinking about 9/11 and all the worrying they did that day and in the aftermath.
None of these slogans has anything to do with Bush's dumbness. All of them correspond to genuine social problems and criticize carefully delineated, varied aspects of Bush POLICY. Sure, the Internet forwards and animations and whatnot that some of us circulate about Bush's dumbness aren't politically important, and in some cases show the prejudices of the liberal elite (the hoax about the IQs of red- and blue-state populations being the most obvious example). And there are too many books being published, PERIOD - not just ones about how Bush is dumb, but also substantive ones about how he is evil and a crony capitalist and a bad manager. Even these books, though, are not the end-all and be-all of the contemporary left. The paper-ballot and voter registration projects, for instance, are innovative, new, intelligent, and there are a lot of people working hard for them.
5) Since when does Norman Mailer know fuck-all about anything?
Thomasgeist, I disagreed with you on this when we discussed it at Chip's last week, and I still disagree. I challenge you in the following respects:
1) Today's "left" doesn't just address personifications of problems rather than problems themselves. For instance, MoveOn doesn't have a critique of capitalism, but they do have a critique of crony capitalism, and I personally think they're right to draw a distinction between DLC free-trade capitalists running the country and Halliburton running the country, and I also personally think the former is preferable to the latter. I actually think there is growing popular awareness of the concept of crony capitalism, and at some point it will reach some critical moment - it may not be Enron, it may not be the airline pension bailout, it may not be Iraq reconstruction contracts, but I do think there is a growing articulation of corporate control as problematic, and not only among this mythical coastal liberal college-educated professional Jewish homosexual elite.
2) The "left"'s slogans about Bush are not all empty nor do they all concern the fact that he got C's at Yale. Have you seen MoveOn's 17 new ads, directed by Errol Morris, profiling current and former Republicans who have decided to vote for Kerry? They articulate not one unitary message that Bush is a poor manager, but a wide variety of messages emphasizing his failed domestic and foreign policies. I would go so far as to say that they articulate a moral economy and position Bush as violating it. I think that constitutes effective politics. The one with the Louisiana woman, who concludes her message by saying, "I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican."
(Michael Moore, I grant, IS as bad as you think. Still, clearly articulating to such a large number of people that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 ALONE makes the movie worthwhile.)
3) It's not fair to say that this supposedly bankrupt monolithic left wants smart Yalies instead of dumb Yalies running the country. We can argue whether or not it is bona-fide "leftism" to point out that GWB is unqualified and surrounds himself with similarly unqualified people, but even if it's not, it's still true, and it's still worth pointing out. Having good manners and good grades are not the only things that differentiate JFK1 or JFK2 from GWB. Endorsing capitalism, liberalism, or imperialism do not put all these leaders in a single category.
4) You say that "the left's reduction to bland and increasingly unoriginal sloganeering simply reifies the problems associated with this administration's...policies and the above mentioned global systems and ideologies." Okay. Let's consider some of these horrible slogans the left has come up with lately. In my view, they are all quite a bit more substantive and original than you give them credit for.
* "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in America" - this has isolationist overtones and it oversimplifies the problem, but it nonetheless articulates a belief in the importance of government's provision of basic public welfare. to be sure, this could be said to "reify" the new-deal capitalist welfare state, but i (and this may be the core difference between you and me) proudly claim that new deal welfare state as an improvement on many of its predecessors and alternatives, in spite of its deep entanglement with ruling-class values and persons and while acknowledging its gross inadequacies and limitations. you might say that in the first half of the 20th century america's ruling elite came to regard itself as having a different type obligation of public service, and you can see that as culminating in vietnam and that's not wrong, but these days i truly think it's not silly or pointless to feel and articulate a certain nostalgia for some of its accomplishments - among which i would actually put not only social security and medicare (which i think are properly the objects of nostalgia in these times, not just more-radical-than-thou contempt), but also the rise of meritocracy as a central tenet of american political culture, and (relatedly) a limited but still very real improvement in the race/caste system (as my friend payton put it, fifty years after the brown decision america can justly pat itself on the back that "lynching is down"). honestly, if you're going to hold their massachusetts elitism against JFK1 and JFK2, you gotta also give them credit where credit is due, and recognize that they formed alliances with, advocated for, and got enthusiastic political backing from able, intelligent people not from their own background (starting with john edwards and lyndon johnson), which I think testifies to the fact that they cannot be viewed as the political embodiment of the desires of some this fantastical coastal elite but rather were positioned by their elite status to obtain political power while also themselves being idealistic individuals committed to nationalist and liberal ideas that are in important respects worthy of being disaggregated from bush-cheney cronyism. and frankly that bush attracts religious-right folks is all the more despicable because the religious right isn't just disenfranchised and poor, but is also incredibly pernicious - and to say that the liberal elite rejects religion because they articulate this perniciousness is, i think, to deny the incredible variety of actually existing religious belief and of ways of conceptualizing the relationship between faith, churches, and politics - of which john kerry's vision is in my personal opinion quite an admirable one.
* "support stem cell research to help find cures for alzheimers, parkinson's, etc" - this oversimplifies the nature of scientific research, but it manages not only a critique of bush's "antimodern religiosity" as you put it and not just his overriding belief in the Bible - it also manages to articulate the significance of the lengthening lifespan and the aging baby boomers who face new health problems that require not only insurance but also basic research. you can complain that it's elitist of kerry to go around saying he "supports science," but in fact I think the alzheimers issue resonates for a LOT of people of all races and backgrounds who are facing the issue of aging, dependent parents who are living longer, and many of whom are honestly likely to be weighing these matters against moral and religious qualms about embryos. this does a nice job of deflecting the charge of immorality that bush continually lobs at the democrats and especially socially progressive ones, and i think we are seeing that the deflection is working (witness laura bush coming out this week to defend her hubby's hard-line stance).
* "we need to make more friends and fewer terrorists" - i have heard that this concept polls exceedingly well with a wide variety of groups, and that it is the best angle the democrats have yet come up with to argue that they are better on counterterrorism than the republicans are. because after all there is a difference between unilaterialist imperialism and multilateralist imperialism, and the difference helps explain why america, but not germany france britain russia japan, is now the object of such intense hatred around the world. and the fact that america is so hated really SHOULD be an election issue; insofar as it relates to this question, the terrorism issue is a real one, not a silly one, even if americans unreasonably expect more security than do people in many other industrialized societies. this slogan helps articulate why bush is a failure at protecting americans from terrorism, and that's very, very critical and it's the one issue that kerry still consistently polls behind bush on. i think the democrats are right to think that while people want jobs, ultimately when they pull the lever this time around there are going to be a lot of people thinking about 9/11 and all the worrying they did that day and in the aftermath.
None of these slogans has anything to do with Bush's dumbness. All of them correspond to genuine social problems and criticize carefully delineated, varied aspects of Bush POLICY. Sure, the Internet forwards and animations and whatnot that some of us circulate about Bush's dumbness aren't politically important, and in some cases show the prejudices of the liberal elite (the hoax about the IQs of red- and blue-state populations being the most obvious example). And there are too many books being published, PERIOD - not just ones about how Bush is dumb, but also substantive ones about how he is evil and a crony capitalist and a bad manager. Even these books, though, are not the end-all and be-all of the contemporary left. The paper-ballot and voter registration projects, for instance, are innovative, new, intelligent, and there are a lot of people working hard for them.
5) Since when does Norman Mailer know fuck-all about anything?
Monday, August 09, 2004
Defection and disaffection: vote for your favorite story
These MoveOn ads are terrific. The ones who say they're still Republicans are very critical (most of them are men, too). But my absolute favorite is the Louisiana woman who concludes her testimony by saying, "I'm still a Baptist, but I'm no longer a Republican."
Friday, August 06, 2004
This blog now comes with a BUMPER STICKER!
That's right. Here at Security Risk we've developed a bumper sticker and lots of other yummy products with our clever and persuasive message. Stock up today!
"There is not one among them that any of us should not be proud...to sit with at small desks on back-to-school night"
Below are my key excerpts from King County Superior Court Judge William L. Downing's opinion in Andersen v. Sims (thanks Jeremy for pointing me to the text). I feel as though some of these passages should be put in newspaper ads and on billboards around the country:
There was no deeply rooted tradition of interracial marriage at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of anti-miscegenation statutes in Loving v. Virginia, supra; yet, the Court analyzed the issue of their constitutionality in terms of the broad right to marry and found that right to have been infringed. There was no deeply rooted tradition of marriage while delinquent in child support payments at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of statutes prohibiting this in Zablocki v. Redhail...(1978); yet, the Court analyzed the issue of their constitutionality in terms of the broad right to marry and found that right to have been infringed. There was no deeply rooted tradition of inmate marriage at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of statutes restricting this in Turner v. Safley...(1987); yet, the Court analyzed the issue of their constitutionality in terms of the broad right to marry and found that right to have been infringed....
It is true that marriage has long been defined as the union of one man and one woman. It is equally true that the shape of marriage has drastically changed over the years. It took a very long time for the courts (with legislative bodies sometimes understandably following just a little behind) to break down the traditional stereotypes that relegated women to second class status in society and in the marital relationship....Serving tradition, for the sake of tradition alone, is not a compelling state interest....
Some declaim that the institutions of marriage and family are weak these days and, in fact, stand threatened. Any trial court judge who regularly hears divorce, child abuse and domestic violence cases deeply shares this concern. It is not difficult, however, to identify both the causes of the present situation and the primary future threat. They come from inside the institution, not outside of it. Not to be too harsh, but they are a shortage of commitment and an excess of selfishness. Before the Court stand eight couples who credibly represent that they are ready and willing to make the right kind of commitment to partner and family for the right kinds of reasons. All they ask is for the state to make them able....
Of course the laws never have placed a requirement on marriage that the parties procreate nor do they prohibit from marriage those who are unable or disinclined to procreate....
The legal question is not whether heterosexual marriage is good for the replenishment of the species through procreation. It is. The precise question is whether barring committed same-sex couples from the benefits of the civil marriage laws somehow serves the interest of encouraging procreation. There is no logical way in which it does so....It rationally serves no state interest to harm certain...children by devaluing the immediate families that they have joined....
It is good for children to be raised in stable families with a father and a mother. There is not the slightest question about this. It is a situation to be encouraged by the state. But, can it be said that fewer children will have this stability because couples consisting of two men or two women are allowed to have a relationship that is state-sanctioned? There is no reasonable explanation for why this would be so. There is no reasonable expectation that, should such a legal result come to pass, married fathers and mothers will abdicate their parental responsibilities or young would-be parents will defect from the ranks of heterosexuals....
On the other hand, when one peers into the future, one circumstance is far more certain to occur. Many, many children are going to be raised in the homes of gay and lesbian partners....One, then, must try to envision two categories of future children. The first category consists of those whose heterosexual parents will either neglect them or never conceive them because same-sex marriage has been legalized. The second category is those children who will be raised in a home with same-sex adult partners and who would enjoy enhanced fmaily stability and social adjustment if these adults were granted the benefits of civil marriage. The only reasonable conclusion is that the very real second category greatly outnumbers the first theoretical one. Therefore, the goal of nurturing and providing for the emotional wellbeing of children would be rationally served by allowing same-sex couples to marry; that same goal is impaired by prohibiting such marriages....
Unlike the documented impact of children's exposure to domestic violence and substance abuse in the homes of lawfully married heterosexual couples, as to children raised by intact same-sex couples there is no science, only questionable assumptions based on stereotypes. The Court concludes that the exclusion of same-sex partners from civil marriage and the privileges attendant thereto is not rationally related to any legitimate or compelling state interest and is certainly not narrowly tailored toward such an interest.
If there is indeed any outside threat to the institution of marriage, it could well lie in legislative tinkering with the creation of alternative species of quasi-marriage....Better, perhaps (in terms of simplicity, fairness and social policy) to allow all who are up to taking on the heavy responsibilities of marriage, with its exclusivity and its "till death do us part" commitment, to do so - not lightly, but advisedly....
The privilege of civil marriage and the various privileges legally conferred by that status are not being made equally available to all citizens....[In addition, the] denial to the plaintiffs of the right to marry constitutes a denial of substantive due process.
[T]hese plaintiffs...include exemplary parents, adoptive parents, foster parents and grandparents. They well know what it means to make a commitment and to honor it. There is not one among them that any of us should not be proud to call a friend or neighbor or to sit with at small desks on back-to-school night. There is no worthwhile institution that they would dishonor, much less destroy....The characteristics embodied by these plaintiffs are ones that our society and the institution of marriage need more of, not less.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
News flash: "Cost-related medication restriction" is bad for you
Shocking news from the knowledge factory:
"After adjusting for differences in sociodemographic characteristics, health status, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), and comorbid chronic conditions, we determined the risk of a significant decline in overall health among respondents in good to excellent health at baseline and of developing new disease-related adverse outcomes among respondents with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, and depression....Respondents with cardiovascular disease who restricted medications reported higher rates of angina...and experienced higher rates of nonfatal heart attacks or strokes....Cost-related medication restriction among middle-aged and elderly Americans is associated with an increased risk of a subsequent decline in their self-reported health status, and among those with preexisting cardiovascular disease with higher rates of angina and nonfatal heart attacks or strokes. Such cost-related medication restriction could be a mechanism for worse health outcomes among low-income and other vulnerable populations who lack adequate insurance coverage." Source: Heisler M, Langa KM, Eby EL, Fendrick AM, Kabeto MU, and Piette JD, "The health effects of restricting prescription medication use because of cost," MEDICAL CARE 42 (7): 626-634 JUL 2004
Meanwhile, a news flash from the annals of America's growing war on club drugs. You may have seen pictures showing PET scans of people taking MDMA or "ecstasy" on big-city billboards and postcards, suggesting that it fries your brain. Now, it turns out those changes disappear once you stop taking ecstasy. Funny how we didn't bother to find this out until after the government started cracking down. (Previous studies were "limited by small sample size, lack of tracer selectivity, unreliable assessment of MDMA doses, insufficiently matched comparison groups, or region-of-interest analysis.") Source: Buchert R, Thomasius R, Wilke F, Petersen K, Nebeling B, Obrocki J, Schulze O, Schmidt U, and Clausen M, "A voxel-based PET investigation of the long-term effects of "Ecstasy" consumption on brain serotonin transporters," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY 161 (7): 1181-1189 JUL 2004
"After adjusting for differences in sociodemographic characteristics, health status, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), and comorbid chronic conditions, we determined the risk of a significant decline in overall health among respondents in good to excellent health at baseline and of developing new disease-related adverse outcomes among respondents with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, and depression....Respondents with cardiovascular disease who restricted medications reported higher rates of angina...and experienced higher rates of nonfatal heart attacks or strokes....Cost-related medication restriction among middle-aged and elderly Americans is associated with an increased risk of a subsequent decline in their self-reported health status, and among those with preexisting cardiovascular disease with higher rates of angina and nonfatal heart attacks or strokes. Such cost-related medication restriction could be a mechanism for worse health outcomes among low-income and other vulnerable populations who lack adequate insurance coverage." Source: Heisler M, Langa KM, Eby EL, Fendrick AM, Kabeto MU, and Piette JD, "The health effects of restricting prescription medication use because of cost," MEDICAL CARE 42 (7): 626-634 JUL 2004
Meanwhile, a news flash from the annals of America's growing war on club drugs. You may have seen pictures showing PET scans of people taking MDMA or "ecstasy" on big-city billboards and postcards, suggesting that it fries your brain. Now, it turns out those changes disappear once you stop taking ecstasy. Funny how we didn't bother to find this out until after the government started cracking down. (Previous studies were "limited by small sample size, lack of tracer selectivity, unreliable assessment of MDMA doses, insufficiently matched comparison groups, or region-of-interest analysis.") Source: Buchert R, Thomasius R, Wilke F, Petersen K, Nebeling B, Obrocki J, Schulze O, Schmidt U, and Clausen M, "A voxel-based PET investigation of the long-term effects of "Ecstasy" consumption on brain serotonin transporters," AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY 161 (7): 1181-1189 JUL 2004
"I would have told those kids the president has something that he needs to attend to"
John Kerry is learning that he's going to face a disgusting, dishonest right-wing smear campaign. And it also seems he's concluding - rightly, I think - that the best way to meet this challenge, in a political world in which negative ads are proven to be highly effective, is with aggressive, harsh, but honest and delicately worded criticism:
At a morning appearance before minority journalists in Washington, Kerry faulted Bush for spending seven minutes reading to Florida schoolchildren after learning the World Trade Center had been attacked. "Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to," Kerry said.
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