The President's much-discussed interview with Rolling Stoneends thus:
[Signaled by his aides, the president brings the interview to a close and leaves the Oval Office. A moment later, however, he returns to the office and says that he has one more thing to add. He speaks with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger.]
One closing remark that I want to make: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we've got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.
The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible.
Everybody out there has to be thinking about what's at stake in this election and if they want to move forward over the next two years or six years or 10 years on key issues like climate change, key issues like how we restore a sense of equity and optimism to middle-class families who have seen their incomes decline by five percent over the last decade. If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we'd better fight in this election. And right now, we are getting outspent eight to one by these 527s that the Roberts court says can spend with impunity without disclosing where their money's coming from. In every single one of these congressional districts, you are seeing these independent organizations outspend political parties and the candidates by, as I said, factors of four to one, five to one, eight to one, 10 to one.
We have to get folks off the sidelines. People need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up. Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign. It has been hard, and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place.
If you're serious, now's exactly the time that people have to step up.
As I said in comments yesterday, I regard the vote-for-any-Democrat-to-keep-a-Republican-out-of-office position as a legitimate and perfectly understandable position. I've frequently voted on that basis myself, especially when the only other alternative was not voting, because there were no candidates further left of the Dems on my voting ticket.
But I also regard as a legitimate and perfectly understandable position the reluctance to vote affirmatively for candidates and/or policies that one cannot endorse in good conscience. And the president of a democracy should recognize that, too.
It's Glenn Greenwald's principled opposition to the Obama administration's national security and civil liberties policies that gets the attention and respect, but, of course, that is not the only principled reason a progressive voter might feel unable to make the "perfectly logical calculation" to cast a vote for the Democratic party when that vote implicitly endorses an agenda inconsistent with one's own dignity and autonomy.
That feminists/womanists and queer activists are not regarded (or even discussed) as having a legitimate reason to feel alienated, demoralized, and conflicted about casting an affirmative vote for a party that has failed utterly to protect and/or extend their basic civil rights, underlines the very marginalization that creates disaffection in the first place.
Every election, that snake eats its own tail again. And 'round and 'round we go.
But this time, we've also got the president himself jumping into the fray to make noise about "what's at stake." As if we don't know.
Our "lack of enthusiasm" is "irresponsible," he admonishes us: "Everybody out there has to be thinking about what's at stake in this election."
Well, Mr. President, what if thinking about what's at stake in this election is exactly the cause of one's lack of enthusiasm? What do you recommend to the people whose very bodies and lives are still treated as bargaining chips by your administration and your party? How much do you think "the other guys are even worse" really matters when your "better" alternative is failing to defend and champion equality (and fail even to react to encroachments on our rights) instead of actively opposing it?
That's the sort of distinction that makes a difference to people whose own lives aren't affected by the Democrats' disinterest. Someone who isn't personally invested in the legalization of same-sex marriage might appreciate the philosophical difference between a party who endorses codifying discrimination into the Constitution and a party who merely declines to pursue equality because it's not politically expedient right now. But to someone who's not allowed at their dying partner's bedside because they're not "family," that's a distinction without a meaningful difference.
Either way, they're standing out in the hall like a second-class fucking citizen.
And the people who tell us to vote for the Democrats because the other guys are worse are frequently people who have never had to stand in a voting booth and cast a vote for someone who they know is likely to treat their bodies and/or lives as a point of compromise.
Even when you know the other guys are worse, that shit ain't easy to do.
And progressives/Democrats really need to stop pretending like it is.
The president frames our disillusionment as "standing on the sidelines" and "sitting on their hands complaining" and "taking their ball and go home," which he says "tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." Which is as clueless as it is insulting (and it is extremely insulting). It's also a fine bit of projection.
It isn't feminists/womanists and queer activists who are standing on the sidelines and sitting on their hands complaining: It's the Democrats—who have opportunities to stop Roe from being rendered an impotent statute, and opportunities to be allies to the LGBTQI community, but choose not to take them. (Even when 75% of the population supports equality.) And then complaining about people who aren't axiomatically inclined to support them, forgiving for the second, fifth, tenth, twentieth election in their lives the alleged necessity to have "played politics" with their identities and rights.
There is indeed someone who wasn't serious in the first place, but it ain't us.
Whenever you're on a long trip, it's nice to stop every once in a while and stretch your legs. Maybe get a Slim Jim and a Fanta. It helps break things up a bit.
And after ten chapters, including one long-ass speech about the evils of taxation, I thought we'd pull over for a piss. Proverbially speaking, of course.
So instead of me reviewing chapter eleven, Danny Bailey's big speech, instead of you having to slog through reading the big speech, I thought I'd let you hear it. [Transcript in comments.]
Below is my recreation of Danny Bailey's speech at the rally, with authentic sound effects. It's just like being there, without Hollis looming over your shoulder all night.
Let me set the scene for you:
Tonight's headliner, the illustrious Danny Bailey, now took to the stage in a swell of heavy-metal music and an ovation that rattled every shelf of glassware behind the bar.
I couldn't find a sound effect of rattling barware, so you'll just have to imagine that bit. The rest, however, remains true to the description in the book. More or less.
Give it a whirl. Download it. Put it on your iPod. Play it in your car. Hold your own teabagger rally. Or just turn out the lights, close your eyes, and pretend you're at the Stars 'n Stripes.
I'm relocating. Selling my house and getting out of town. Except I have no idea where I am going. Perhaps someplace I can find a cute boyfriend or two.
Greg Sargent lays out for the White House "the various arguments that people on the left are actually making."
I would personally argue that there are, in fact, only two groups—Sargent's second and third categories. His first category falls into the same trap Biden et. al. have, which is assuming that rank and file Democratic voters are insufficiently enthusiastic for vague reasons, instead of the same reasons that "high-profile commentators" and "progressive operatives" are.
"Replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth or enhance the competitiveness of American worldwide companies."
I'm glad that the rocket scientists at the Chamber have figured out that putting more unemployed Americans to work who would receive a paycheck and subsequently buy goods (i.e. consumers) would not stimulate economic growth.
Such award winning economic logic cannot go unnoticed.
Last night's episode will be discussed in what I imagine is going to be slightly less than the infinitesimal detail in which Lost was discussed, but, nonetheless, if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
There is a lot I love about this song, but the thing I love most about it is that it feels like a fat sexy woman to me. That ba-dump, ba-dump just conjures a big, voluptuous woman spilling out of a tight dress on a hot day, walking with her chin up, swinging her hips and her boobs as she walks with purpose, looking lustfully at her man or woman with narrowed eyes. Ba-dump, ba-dump. It makes me feel like that fat sexy woman every time I listen to it.
The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl: Mick Foley explains how Tori Amos changed his life and turned him into an advocate for survivors of sexual violence.
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Actual Subtitle: Can men and women really be "just friends?"
My brain now has actual whiplash. It's like if the tagline for the twentieth century's most important documentary, When Harry Met Sally... had the tagline, "When Harry Met Sally?"
Someone in the headline division of Psychology Today's Gender Essentialism, Evo-Psych, and Farts department is getting lazy.
And WTF is this? "Remember: Think well, act well feel well be well!" Whoops your commas fell down a well.
After telling disillusioned progressives to "stop whining," Vice President Joe Biden doubled-down on the scold-your-base strategy last night:
"And so those who — didn't get everything they wanted, it's time to just buck up here, understand that we can make things better, continue to move forward," Biden said during an appearance on MSNBC, "but not yield the playing field to those folks who are against everything that we stand for in terms of the initiatives we put forward."
Biden was asked by MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell, in the debut of the host's new program, "The Last Word," whether he'd like to retract his admonition to liberals to stop complaining.
"There are some on the Democratic base, not the core of it, that are angry because we didn't get every single thing they want," the vice president said.
"They should stop that," Biden explained. "These guys, if they win, the other team, they're going to repeal healthcare [reform] and I want them to tell me why what we did wasn't an incredibly significant move that's progressive and helping people."
The Obama voter who's "angry because we didn't get every single thing they want" is a damnable strawperson. Joe Biden is mistaking ideological purity for what, in reality, is consistent principles—and the expectation that the administration have them, too.
And, as Maud pointed out in comments, the hyperbole is ridiculous:
This reminds me of the tired line, recently used by Biden in his interview with Rachel Maddow, but trotted out frequently by the usual suspects, "As much as I wish we had a magic wand..." Yes, that's right. People expect magic. The only two possibilities are selling-out completely, and the magic wand. Expecting anything but the first is the equivalent of demanding the second.
Which reminded me of this comment Obama made at a fundraiser last week:
Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particular derivatives rule; I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- I thought that was going to happen quicker.
Yes, that's right. Because expecting a healthcare reform bill in the richest nation on the planet to guarantee healthcare to all its citizens is the same as expecting world peace. Jesus.
This is so infuriating. Forget legislative failures or policy disagreements for a moment: I just want my Democratic president to be better at politics than this.
If you can't view the image, it's an email from a gentleman named Tony, with the subject line "VOTE OUT ALL LIBERALS, ALL DEMOCRATS, ALL RINO'S, ALL MUSLIMS, ALL NON-BELIEVERS AND ANYONE ELSE TRYING TO BRING AMERICA DOWN!" followed by a picture of an American Eagle in front of a US flag, labeled "GOD BLESS AMERICA" in gold text.
You've convinced me, Tony. I renounce feminism, atheism, progressivism, and my beliefs in social justice and a robust social safety net.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently conducted a survey* of US-ians about their knowledge of religion. CNN finds the results "surprising."
US-ians didn't do too well on the quiz, especially, uh, religious folks. On average, atheists and agnostic people answered the most questions correctly.
CNN theoblogger Stephen Prothero argues that because "all careful observers" know religion is a major force in politics, the US should institute mandatory school courses in "the Bible and the world's religions."
Here's the thing....
When I was a student at a public high school, we learned about the world's religions (and the Bible) in a mandatory course on world history. In my paying gig, I spend a lot of time examining students' college transcripts. A lot of students take 100-level courses in civilization that include material on religion (even the Bible), and general education requirements typically encourage this behavior.
In other words, I'd appreciate it if Prothero didn't imply that the government is enforcing ignorance about religion, an argument so hackneyed it makes Jenny Lind look like ABBA. The sad truth is that people, including religious people, aren't actually paying attention to the historic and scriptural bases of religion, and all the Jars of Clay concerts in the world aren't going to change that. That's a "surprising" narrative, I suppose, if one is used to constantly hearing about how secular America is.
Here's yet another thing...
If a religion we don't know anything about is a major driving force behind policy, we could rectify things by learning more about Christianity in the public school classes we're already attending or the Sunday sermons many US-ians are attending. Alternatively, we could make a concerted effort to make the US secular. You know, stop basing policies on misconceptions of one of the world's five major religions, especially since, you know, some of us live in the US, too.
Sure, you could argue that the U.S. is the only place on Earth where folks' knowledge of religion is deficient, but I doubt you'd succeed. Besides, religion isn't about knowing things, it's about believing things. If we're interested in global politics, I'd argue that the right answers are the answers people are giving us; cultural studies, and not history holds the key to understanding what's going on.
Ultimately, I suspect that Prothero is simply terrified at the prospect that Christopher Hitchens knows something about religion. At the very least, I agree with him on this point. It is indeed scary to admit that Hitchens knows anything about anything.
-- *The survey is here, but the Pew's servers are presently unable to handle my mad theological skillz.
The image is a screecap from a new site called "She's Hot, But" (to which I won't link, but you can find it easily if you're so inclined). The purpose of the site is to provide straight/bi men (and ostensibly women attracted to women, although suffice it to say I wouldn't expect to find many lesbians and bisexual women participating in such a wantonly woman-hating site) with an anonymous outlet for broadcasting the flaws of women they find hot.
The three examples in the screencap are: "She's hot, but her ass is flat as a pancake," "She's hot, but her breath smells like pure ass," and "She's hot, but she's a HAG (hairy arm girl)."
Many of the submissions are much more objectionable. Some of them include jokes about sexual violence. Some of them are transphobic; some are racist; some are homophobic; some are disablist; some are fat-hating. It's basically a clusterfucktastrophe of misogyny, in all its intersectional forms.
And CBS will almost certainly option it for a sitcom in no time.
Yesterday, I mentioned that President Obama was launching a campaign to get the youth vote reenergized for the midterm elections. Well, he started with a conference call yesterday with college media, the audio and transcript of which is here.
Reading/listening to it, the first thing one notes is how earnest and engaged the young journalists on the call are. Which is what makes this admonishment from Obama, as part of his answer as to why he chose Wisconsin as a stop for his GOTV tour, even more contemptible:
Now, I've been in office for two years; we've been in the midst of this big financial crisis. I've been having all these fights with the Republicans to make progress on a whole bunch of these issues. And during that time, naturally, some of the excitement and enthusiasm started to drain away because people felt like, gosh, all we're reading about are constant arguments in Washington and things haven't changed as much as we would like as quickly as we'd like — even though the health care bill got passed, and financial regulatory bill got passed, and we've brought an end to our combat mission in Iraq. But still it seems as if a lot of the old politics is still operating in Washington.
And what I want to do is just to go speak to young people directly and remind them of what I said during the campaign, which was change is always hard in this country. It doesn't happen overnight. You take two steps forward, you take one step back. This is a big, complicated democracy. It's contentious. It's not always fun and games. A lot of times, to bring about big changes like, for example, in our energy policy, you're taking on a lot of special interests — the oil companies and utilities. And some of them may not want to see the kinds of changes that would lead to a strong green economy.
And the point is, though, you can't sit it out. You can't suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we've got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.
…And so even though this may not be as exciting as a presidential election, it's going to make a huge difference in terms of whether we're going to be able to move our agenda forward over the next couple of years.
And I just want to remind young people, they've got to get reengaged in this process. And they're going to have to vote in these midterms elections. You've got to take the time to find out where does your congressional candidate stand on various issues, where does your Senate candidate stand on various issues and make an educated decision and participate in this process — because democracy is never a one-and-done proposition. It's something that requires sustained engagement and sustained involvement. And I just want to remind everybody of that.
That is some condescending shit, right there.
Young people are not disengaging from politics because it's "not exciting" or "not fun," or because they don't understand the gravity of elections, or because they're suffering from the misapprehension that politics is easy.
They're disengaging from politics for the same reasons that older people are: Because they're disillusioned. Because they've been betrayed.
Young people aren't stupid. Telling them their "enthusiasm drained away" because of all the fighting with Republicans doesn't make it so. (Try: Because of all the capitulation to conservative policies.) Telling them "Politics is not always fun and games," as if they're fucking dipshits who don't understand that our democracy is "big and complicated" doesn't change the fact that people are pissed because they know what you're doing and don't like it, not because they're clueless rubes with sponges in their brainpans designed to soak up patronizing rhetoric.
The Obama administration continues to act mystified by the proposition that progressives could have anything less than undiluted enthusiasm for their agenda and accomplishments, despitethefactthattheyarecontinuingmanyoftheBushadministrationpoliciesprogressivesexplicitlyrejected. (No less after campaigning on a message of "hope and change.") And their official response continues to be berating disgruntled progressives for being too goddamn stupid to understand the sophisticated game of twelve-dimensional chess being played, and too goddamn ungrateful to appreciate everything being done for us.
Obama campaigned on the promise to bring back accountability to Washington, but he refuses to even entertain the possibility that his administration is accountable for the endemic disappointment among the voters who helped elect him.
The astounding collapse of Democrats and the rightwing resurgence of 2009 and 2010 is a direct result of the squandered moral authority of Barack Obama and Democratic leaders. I say "squandered" because it is something Obama possessed during the campaign and something Democrats prioritized as the antidote to Bush and Cheney's radicalism.
Pundits put forth myriad reasons to explain the GOP wave (jobs and the economy topping the list), but they invariably overlook the biggest one: that Obama and Democrats have undermined their own moral authority by continuing some of Bush's most egregious policies.
...Everything flows from the public’s belief that you stand for something.
He adds: "From gay rights to executive power to war to the environment, the left increasingly believes the Obama White House lacks the moral courage to undo Bush's radicalism. If anything, the Aulaqi case is an indication Obama will go further than Bush to 'prove' his strength."
Dude, it's not us; it's you.
And berating us as stupid ingrates, or casting us as naïve simpletons, or accusing of us losing interest in anything that isn't "fun," or whatever other defensive approach that deflects back onto us the sole responsibility for this yawning chasm of enthusiasm, isn't helping. Put down the shovel.
You're not entitled to our support. You have to earn it.
And if you don't understand how failing to vociferously champion the repeal of DADT, and asserting "that presidential assassination orders of American citizens should be treated as a state secret, and thus not reviewable by any court anywhere," and erasing choice from the party platform, and utterly failing to defend Roe for years, as but a few examples, aren't the sorts of policies that earn progressives' votes, then you've really got some nerve implying we're the daft ones who don't understand how politics works.
Eight of the nine pages in chapter ten are Molly's mother's speech at the teabag party. Oh Maude, what a speech it is. Pure neocon bullshit. I read the whole speech, and I hated every word of it. Empty, self-aggrandizing, pseudo-patriotic claptrap.
Beverly Emerson, Director emeritus, Founders' Keepers, according to Molly's flyer, takes the stage and lets go with a James Madison quote, as if to prove her patriot cred. She then sets about railing against corruption and power and Carrol Quigley's Tragedy and Hope. She continues, lambasting big government and the nanny state, lying the blame for that at Herbert Croly's feet.
His writings lived on, and they influenced every fundamental change brought on by what became known as 'the progressive movement' in the first half of the twentieth century, from the Federal Reserve Act and the income tax to the spiral into crushing debt and dependence that began with the New Deal.
Yeah, fuck the New Deal! The whole Depression was designed to weed out the weak, amirite? But seriously? Who pisses about the New Deal, for fuck's sake? Oh, yeah: Libertarians, neocons, and social Darwinists.
Beverly again sets her sights on corrupt politicians.
Danger comes when good intentions are hijacked and perverted by the culture of corruption—when those elected to represent us begin to act not for your own good, but for their own gain.
It’s the same today. People who, for their own gain, would replace equal justice with social justice, trade individual freedom for an all-powerful, all-knowing central government, forsake the glorious creative potential of the American individual, the beating heart of this nation, for a two-class society in which the elites rule and all below them are all the same: homogenized, subordinate, indebted, and powerless.
Oh, those elites and their tricksy homogenization. They wish to stomp on the heartbeat of America, what with their regulations and their rules that impede "the glorious creative potential of the American individual."
Out of kindness here, I am going to try not to quote too much. (Feel free to thank me by buying me something off of my Amazon wish list.) Noah looks around the room now and notices there are a few more interlopers, all with video cameras, recording Beverly's speech. There is more about lobbyists and elites and republics. But then it really gets good.
Beverly compares the size of the U.S. Constitution to the Federal Tax Code. Oh my! The tax code is 67,000 pages long! The Constitution just a few. So, I think what Beverly is getting at here is that the tax code is unwieldy, compared to the lithe little Constitution. Umm, okay. Fair enough. I'm not sure what that proves. But it is certainly something.
I do think I am beginning to understand what the teabaggers want: Lower taxes. Does that make Steve Forbes the Godfather of Teabaggers. There's more here about imbalances in power, different classes, fairness.
Our message of equal justice is impossible for any honest person to refute. How do I know that? Because it was the message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Umm... what?
Let that settle for a moment.
Yeah, that's right. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now, remember a while back when Beck was saying his rally of angry white folk just happening to be on the anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech was nothing more than a coincidence. Well, at first he said it was unintentional, then he said it was "divine providence."
And maybe that could be believable. Maybe. (The part about it being unintentional, not the bit about providence.) Except that Beverly goes on for a whole page about Dr. King, finishing up with this:
All we must do is find the strength and the wisdom to awaken our friends and neighbors, take back our power under the law, and restore what’s been forgotten. Restore. Not adapt, not transform ... restore.
Beck's Restoring Honor rally echoes too closely Beverly's speech in his book to be mere coincidence. It's branding. It's a tie-in. It's a marketing and PR coup. That last bit reminds me of something, now that I think about it.
Americans are still a fair and just people. They know the difference between racism and race-baiting, between violence and accusations of violence, between hatred and patriotism. Let them weigh the evidence for as long as they need, because when the verdict comes down, we will once again be on the right side.
Ah, yes. Americans know "the difference between racism and race-baiting." We're so post-racial. America is a multicultural paradise! Wait, no. White people aren't racist! That's what she meant.
This, perhaps (though I am open to suggestions otherwise) is the most ridiculous moment of the chapter:
Just like Dr. King, we aim to eliminate evil, not those who perpetrate it. To speak of violence in any form is to play right into the hands of those who oppose us. They’ve already invested countless hours into portraying us as violent, hateful racists, and they are just waiting for the chance to further that story line. Don’t give it to them. Instead of Bill Ayers, give them Benjamin Franklin. Instead of Malcolm X, give them Rosa Parks. Instead of bin Laden, give them Gandhi.
As an exercise, go ahead and parse the comparisons made by Beverly: Bill Ayers and Benjamin Franklin. Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. bin Laden and Ghandi. If you're not laughing you've more mettle than I. And if you're incensed, well, that's perfectly natural too.
Noah notes how Beverly has the crowd "in the palm of her hand." It's one of those expository moments that shouldn't need to be said, wouldn't need to be said if all the pages leading up to it were at all compelling. If the author needs to tell us the speech was electrifying, then it probably wasn't.
Beverly asks god to bless America (duh!) and exits the stage "as a Toby Keith song began to play over the sound system." Really.
Maude help me, that was brutal. And I feel as though I should apologize for quoting as much as I did. Eight pages and nothing was said, really. Not so much. Nothing anyone with even a passing understanding of Beck's worldview wouldn't already be aware of. This is one thrilling thriller.
All that is left now is for Noah and Molly to discuss the presentation.
Needless to say, PR weasel that he is, Noah is noncommittal. He doesn't like to discuss politics. Molly, for her part, has had her fill of Noah for the evening, and storms off.
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