One suspects that President Obama's handling of the Health Care issue is not indicative of his lovemaking ability. If it were, he would be facing a divorce hectored by Rush Limbaugh on top of the daunting issues already sitting on his desk.
President Obama built his brand with an outreach to the political center. He has done a poor job of that lately. We have detailed the President's passed ball on green energy. That one went all the way to the backstop in a different stadium. Mr. Obama's agenda is getting savaged by a milquetoast presentation and what appears to be a fundamental lack of desire to reconnect with the people most responsible for his election.
For all of this criticism, one recognizes that the administration has done an admirable job of expressing itself responsibly and treating the debate (a bit too) thoughtfully. Regrettably, the Republican opposition has been very successful demagoguing the Rove-Atwater ankle-biting, testicle-punching, sand-throwing propaganda tactics. The President is not going to realize a reversal of current trends until he becomes angry, yanks his opposition up by the hair, and slams them into a turnbuckle at full force.
As stated in the discussion about Cap and Trade, empowering the liberal wing of the Democratic party with the details of presentation has proved to be a poor use of Obama's political capital. Obama's jury is in the center, and the entire presentation has been committed to people who drive Swedish cars and listen to NPR on their way to Whole Foods. That can be defined as converting the converted. Less fortunate for the administration are the Camrys and Accords catching right-wing screeds on the way to Kroger.
The President's first objective must be to narrow the term "socialist." For nearly anyone with a dictionary in the house, it would not be hard. The Clear Channel-Fox News axis is particularly fond of the term. In an instant, Roger Ailes' propaganda machine is able to hitch an idea coming from the Obama White House to unattractive little cars tooling between grimy concrete apartment blocks.
The pitfall for the right is that of any panacea which becomes abused. The effectiveness dwindles to nothing. A speech that puts some pavement between Health Care Reform which includes PRIVATE providers and Socialism is necessary. Should Mr. Obama defang the opposition's number-one favorite go-to word, there exists no equivalent, effective backup. Conservatives are only left with asinine portmanteaux.
President Obama is more than capable of delivering an optimistic message which takes the mischaracterization of socialism off the table for good. What can be achieved simultaneously is the contextualization of the current federal participation in health care. At the moment the United States and Canada spend the same amount per capita on the governmental level for health care. The Canadians have a functional, relatively transparent system of universal medicine, which approximately 90% of Canadians describe as good or excellent. (See enclosed link from CTV News in Toronto.)
We in the United States, on the other hand, are paying a sirloin price for stale chicken hot dogs.
The public-private duality of the Obama plan must be clarified on the President's terms. A private option, and the ability to move between public and private plans serves as a check on the growth of government. It also serves as a release for pressures to undo a public system by political means. A key motivator of many who preferred President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton in the primaries was his endorsement of a Universal solution which included Private insurers.
A single-payer public health care system in a diverse population of 300 million is unworkable due to its political vulnerabilities. The quasi-private system that exists is unworkable because it fails to cover one in six people, and thusly leaves the nation in a system of de facto rationing. This disproportionately affects less affluent and minority Americans by denying access to medicine, particularly those with chronic conditions which are factors of poverty.
The administration's preferred health care system requires a comparison of total cost to society as compared to the status quo. The best idea would be to have the estimates drawn by several partisan think tanks so as to provide a range of values which would not be impeachable by partisanship. Every group would be instructed to use the same criteria and methodology.
Similarly, the status quo offers the opportunity for some well-justified populism. While incessant populism quickly becomes tiresome, a short burst against a worthy opponent gives Obama's credibility a shot of painfully absent vitality. He could have given the What? Now they can't compete? discussion a bit more time, and saved himself the drama he finds himself in now. A seasoning of mild populism leverages appeals to small businesses and working class families.
Once equipped with independent, empirical data, the case in the president's favor hews closely to his usual style of cool reason. When armed with the tools of logic, President Obama is nonpareil in his ability to offer a clear, informed engagement as to how the average person will benefit from Health Care Reform. Taking the mantle from congressional master debaters and vitiriolic radio polemecists plays to Obama's greatest strength, analytical rhetoric that focuses upon the justification for a plan without the caprice of gratuitous emotion.
President Obama is well aware of Stephen Colbert's lesson: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
30 July 2009
16 June 2009
The Liberal Media Myth
As the news spread of the heinous and brutal attack on the Holocaust museum in Washington, onehopes that the Gentle Reader was deeply and sincerely offended. Simply stated, free speech mutated from the rantings of far-right cretins to a cancerous blight on libertarian discourse.
Deep condolences to the family of Stephen T. Johns are inadequate. The nation owes his family a proactive measure as means of beginning a memorial to a man who gave his life protecting a repository of evidence of what happens when extremism replaces sanity. Rounding up extremists and prosecuting them is compellingly attractive, but we are in the position of having to be the Good Guys.
Whatever we do, referring to the collective as those of good will and love for our system of constitutional jurisprudence, it must be informed by an unabiding adherence to the rule of law and the rights of the accused. No matter how distasteful we may find extremism, rounding 'em up and locking 'em down is just terribly George W. Bush-league. A better solution exists.
Repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Get rid of it and salt the land from whence it came so that nothing ever grows there again. This law is an odious act of corporate welfare which has served to stifle dissenting opinion and deprive valid viewpoints of a platform for expression. The 1996 Telecommunications Act has provided fertile ground for breeding far right extremism of the kind which killed Officer Johns and devastated his family.
One station per band per market was the rule until a preliminary deregulatory law allowed companies to begin acquiring multiple stations in the same city. Free-to-air broadcast licenses being a finite commodity, limits were placed upon any entity consolidating large numbers of licenses. Prior to 1996, stations such as WIRY in Plattsburgh, New York, who focused upon the community they served were the rule.
WIRY is now the exception, as many broadcasters move to a business model of satellite-delivered programming. Author Stephen King refers to the most prolific type of music broadcaster as "Robo-oldies." While one is not inclined to focus upon the disgraceful state of oldies radio in America, the same model applies for news and opinion broadcasting: Robo-Republican.
The Robo-Republican nodel works thusly: acquire a potent signal in a medium to large market. Dismiss the news-gathering and local on-air talent. Replace the local talent with Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Savage and Noory. Preemptively purchase any signal where a competitor may be established with the profits. Develop friendly professional relationships with entrenched local personalities like Neal Boortz and Mark Davis. Continue until able to throw loss-leader advertising rates against any program which appears to challenge satellite-delivered content. Eventually establish a monopoly upon audience.
Now is where things would most appropriately move in an anti-trust direction. The most egregious of all Robo-Republican megabroadcasters is Clear Channel. Clear Channel also owns Premiere Networks, which owns or distributes most of the content mentioned. While one does not suggest that Clear Channel directly specifies content, 900 signals, a lack of high-profile progressive voices, and the occasional leveraging of a Clear Channel board member (J.C. Watts) as a guest on Premiere Networks programming do indicate a definite agenda and conflict of interest.
The conflict is most easily ascertained when combined with the ability to direct dissent over to inferior signals or reformat entirely. It also helps to be able to elect an inferior rival, such as Air America, which sounded like it was produced on a dorm-room laptop.
The most compelling case for reregulation and anti-trust investigation of megabroadcasters does not lie in conservative rhetoric. As long as megabroadcasters are in a position to obstruct opposing viewpoints, a violent fringe of radical conservatives takes comfort in increasingly angry rubric. This rubric is couched in the idiom of inevitable subservience to a monolithic authority which would violently suppress all dissent. Listeners are encouraged to become active with the tacit subtext that conservative voices will only survive through the implicit threat of sustained violent rebellion.
Therefore, many sincere, decent conservatives been absorbed into the hateful thing that they themselves most fear. Right-wing broadcasters have tiptoed up to the line of inciting the overthrow of the United States Government. That one is pretty much a no-no in the Constitution. They put it right up there in the front. Aggression against a body which has committed no crime or has made no threat and justifying said aggression with fear is not the American way. It is the Nazi way. We are obligated by our constitution to be better than that.
It is time to take the microphone away from those whose acrimony and paranoia would deprive an innocent Stephen T. Johns of his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Deep condolences to the family of Stephen T. Johns are inadequate. The nation owes his family a proactive measure as means of beginning a memorial to a man who gave his life protecting a repository of evidence of what happens when extremism replaces sanity. Rounding up extremists and prosecuting them is compellingly attractive, but we are in the position of having to be the Good Guys.
Whatever we do, referring to the collective as those of good will and love for our system of constitutional jurisprudence, it must be informed by an unabiding adherence to the rule of law and the rights of the accused. No matter how distasteful we may find extremism, rounding 'em up and locking 'em down is just terribly George W. Bush-league. A better solution exists.
Repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Get rid of it and salt the land from whence it came so that nothing ever grows there again. This law is an odious act of corporate welfare which has served to stifle dissenting opinion and deprive valid viewpoints of a platform for expression. The 1996 Telecommunications Act has provided fertile ground for breeding far right extremism of the kind which killed Officer Johns and devastated his family.
One station per band per market was the rule until a preliminary deregulatory law allowed companies to begin acquiring multiple stations in the same city. Free-to-air broadcast licenses being a finite commodity, limits were placed upon any entity consolidating large numbers of licenses. Prior to 1996, stations such as WIRY in Plattsburgh, New York, who focused upon the community they served were the rule.
WIRY is now the exception, as many broadcasters move to a business model of satellite-delivered programming. Author Stephen King refers to the most prolific type of music broadcaster as "Robo-oldies." While one is not inclined to focus upon the disgraceful state of oldies radio in America, the same model applies for news and opinion broadcasting: Robo-Republican.
The Robo-Republican nodel works thusly: acquire a potent signal in a medium to large market. Dismiss the news-gathering and local on-air talent. Replace the local talent with Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Savage and Noory. Preemptively purchase any signal where a competitor may be established with the profits. Develop friendly professional relationships with entrenched local personalities like Neal Boortz and Mark Davis. Continue until able to throw loss-leader advertising rates against any program which appears to challenge satellite-delivered content. Eventually establish a monopoly upon audience.
Now is where things would most appropriately move in an anti-trust direction. The most egregious of all Robo-Republican megabroadcasters is Clear Channel. Clear Channel also owns Premiere Networks, which owns or distributes most of the content mentioned. While one does not suggest that Clear Channel directly specifies content, 900 signals, a lack of high-profile progressive voices, and the occasional leveraging of a Clear Channel board member (J.C. Watts) as a guest on Premiere Networks programming do indicate a definite agenda and conflict of interest.
The conflict is most easily ascertained when combined with the ability to direct dissent over to inferior signals or reformat entirely. It also helps to be able to elect an inferior rival, such as Air America, which sounded like it was produced on a dorm-room laptop.
The most compelling case for reregulation and anti-trust investigation of megabroadcasters does not lie in conservative rhetoric. As long as megabroadcasters are in a position to obstruct opposing viewpoints, a violent fringe of radical conservatives takes comfort in increasingly angry rubric. This rubric is couched in the idiom of inevitable subservience to a monolithic authority which would violently suppress all dissent. Listeners are encouraged to become active with the tacit subtext that conservative voices will only survive through the implicit threat of sustained violent rebellion.
Therefore, many sincere, decent conservatives been absorbed into the hateful thing that they themselves most fear. Right-wing broadcasters have tiptoed up to the line of inciting the overthrow of the United States Government. That one is pretty much a no-no in the Constitution. They put it right up there in the front. Aggression against a body which has committed no crime or has made no threat and justifying said aggression with fear is not the American way. It is the Nazi way. We are obligated by our constitution to be better than that.
It is time to take the microphone away from those whose acrimony and paranoia would deprive an innocent Stephen T. Johns of his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
29 May 2009
Judge Sotomayor
There is something satisfying about watching Republicans in a state of absolute public impotence. Please understand, this is not to refute the general impotence that compels a disproportionate number of Viagra ads on Rush Limbaugh-or Mr. Limbaugh's questionably obtained mass quantity of the drug. No, one refers to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the minority woman who has become untouchable.
President Obama has the prerogative to select the candidate he feels is best suited to being the next high court justice. Kudos to Senator McCain for stepping back quickly with the words, "...elections have consequences." Indeed, one could suggest that Mr. McCain is the prototypical centrist, once identified as Republican and now suffering the hangover of two Bush terms. After all, McCain was patient zero in the Bush disaster.
Returning to the theme of Judge Sotomayor's nomination, the facts are such: President Obama is in a position to select a candidate closely reflective of his own center-left politics. At the same time, Obama is in a position to acknowledge the contribution of an ethnic group to his candidacy. Finally, he has the option of a supremely qualified candidate who lives in this political neighborhood.
Now this is about to become fun-like watching Radio Disney switch to an all Garage Rock format.
First and foremost, the most partisan Republicans are going to come after Judge Sotomayor for her ethnicity. Hello? Does anyone think that Roberts, Alito, or Scalia were not given a pass by Republican principals for the simple fact of being white males? Of course they were. Part of the decision to pick the three of them is to reflect the concerns of conservative phallo-centric whites.
Sotomayor is no more or no less racially motivated than Roberts, Alito or Scalia. If that is a concern for the reader, perhaps the reader may wish to reconsider some of his or her own perspectives upon race. One suspects that Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) are suffering from a bit of projection here. Of course, part of that is because Sessions was rejected for a seat on the Federal bench by the Senate
Sessions' partner in crime, Mitch McConnell (R-KY, a/k/a Jim Bunning Lite) has raised a few concerns about Judge Sotomayor's qualifications. Way to go, Mitch! If you want to throw that rock, it's going through Clarence Thomas' roof. Judge Sotomayor has 18 years on the bench, having become a federal judge (roughly) concurrently with Thomas.
One would not feel as compelled to embrace Judge Sotomayor's nomination if, for example, she had hosted the courtroom on an afternoon television program. While one suspects that Judge Milian from The People's Court could capably run any courtroom where she sees fit-the type of court atmosphere where Judge Sotomayor is vastly different. Most of Sotomayor's litigants have a greater command of vocabulary, grammar, and precedent. They are major-leaguers in the field of being a boil on the tuchas of society.
Simply disagreeing with an individual does not make them unqualified. It is justification for withholding support, but one should be certain to have all of their ducks in a row when it comes to evaluating qualification. Should this fight continue, Mr. McConnell's emasculated little party would be in position to be splattered with all the mud.
That would not be of much concern in states like South Carolina and Alabama, where Latino votes are miniscule compared to those of black and white Americans. But in states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona a significant latino electorate would be in a position to turn out about fifteen percent of the remaining Republican senators. Georgia and North Carolina are already on the edge of being driven out of the fold. If those five large sun belt states wind up going blue, Republicans will wind up living next to the Whigs and the Know-Nothings of Millard Fillmore.
Thus it comes down to this. Republicans can pick a fight with Judge Sotomayor's supporters, and become the next inhabitants of the ash heap of history. Or they can make the discreet decision to choose a more appropriate battle. That is the choice they face in this debate.
One asks whether or not Limbaugh, Gingrich, Sessions and McConnell will choose oblivion over relevance based upon a flawed principle. One waits with bated breath.
President Obama has the prerogative to select the candidate he feels is best suited to being the next high court justice. Kudos to Senator McCain for stepping back quickly with the words, "...elections have consequences." Indeed, one could suggest that Mr. McCain is the prototypical centrist, once identified as Republican and now suffering the hangover of two Bush terms. After all, McCain was patient zero in the Bush disaster.
Returning to the theme of Judge Sotomayor's nomination, the facts are such: President Obama is in a position to select a candidate closely reflective of his own center-left politics. At the same time, Obama is in a position to acknowledge the contribution of an ethnic group to his candidacy. Finally, he has the option of a supremely qualified candidate who lives in this political neighborhood.
Now this is about to become fun-like watching Radio Disney switch to an all Garage Rock format.
First and foremost, the most partisan Republicans are going to come after Judge Sotomayor for her ethnicity. Hello? Does anyone think that Roberts, Alito, or Scalia were not given a pass by Republican principals for the simple fact of being white males? Of course they were. Part of the decision to pick the three of them is to reflect the concerns of conservative phallo-centric whites.
Sotomayor is no more or no less racially motivated than Roberts, Alito or Scalia. If that is a concern for the reader, perhaps the reader may wish to reconsider some of his or her own perspectives upon race. One suspects that Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) are suffering from a bit of projection here. Of course, part of that is because Sessions was rejected for a seat on the Federal bench by the Senate
Sessions' partner in crime, Mitch McConnell (R-KY, a/k/a Jim Bunning Lite) has raised a few concerns about Judge Sotomayor's qualifications. Way to go, Mitch! If you want to throw that rock, it's going through Clarence Thomas' roof. Judge Sotomayor has 18 years on the bench, having become a federal judge (roughly) concurrently with Thomas.
One would not feel as compelled to embrace Judge Sotomayor's nomination if, for example, she had hosted the courtroom on an afternoon television program. While one suspects that Judge Milian from The People's Court could capably run any courtroom where she sees fit-the type of court atmosphere where Judge Sotomayor is vastly different. Most of Sotomayor's litigants have a greater command of vocabulary, grammar, and precedent. They are major-leaguers in the field of being a boil on the tuchas of society.
Simply disagreeing with an individual does not make them unqualified. It is justification for withholding support, but one should be certain to have all of their ducks in a row when it comes to evaluating qualification. Should this fight continue, Mr. McConnell's emasculated little party would be in position to be splattered with all the mud.
That would not be of much concern in states like South Carolina and Alabama, where Latino votes are miniscule compared to those of black and white Americans. But in states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona a significant latino electorate would be in a position to turn out about fifteen percent of the remaining Republican senators. Georgia and North Carolina are already on the edge of being driven out of the fold. If those five large sun belt states wind up going blue, Republicans will wind up living next to the Whigs and the Know-Nothings of Millard Fillmore.
Thus it comes down to this. Republicans can pick a fight with Judge Sotomayor's supporters, and become the next inhabitants of the ash heap of history. Or they can make the discreet decision to choose a more appropriate battle. That is the choice they face in this debate.
One asks whether or not Limbaugh, Gingrich, Sessions and McConnell will choose oblivion over relevance based upon a flawed principle. One waits with bated breath.
22 May 2009
But...We're Not Dead Yet
All reports of the demise of the Republican party are as of yet, sadly, untrue. But there is hope, because they are on life support and their recent behavior is evocative of a stage 4 lung cancer patient walking into the QT for a pack of Marlboros.
A Democrat has to love Dick Cheney. His actions and outcomes are as predictable as an Univision telenovela. What Cheney says has ceased to matter as much as his smug, sarcastic delivery. Every time the man opens his mouth, he finds ways to turn off those within the eighty thousand or so people left willing to self-identify as Republicans.
Not only is Cheney unwilling to admit that his party lost six months ago, he keeps reminding the electorate as to why. Choosing a public confrontation with Barack Obama and Colin Powell is not the most appropriate form of swaying the independent voter back to the Republican Party. What is amusing is that despite both Obama and Powell being black, there has been little attention paid to the possibility of a prejudicial component.
Of course, no one harbors any illusions about Mr. Cheney having the first type of commitment to diversity-his crowd being diverse enough to include both Wonder Bread and Hellmanns Mayonnaise. The Republicans have lost all opportunity to connect with socially conservative african-american voters through Nixon's Southern Strategy. Latinos have been turned off by economic isolation strategies directed toward latinos while conflating all immigration with illicit behavior.
Thanks to Cheney coming off as a condescending (bag of fertilizer), a point has been reached where there are Republicans who feel that they no longer are white enough for their party...(see: Specter, Arlen. Before too long, also see: Steele, Michael.) An alliance with Rush Limbaugh and other quasi-sophist pundits has filled the party's ears with the idea that they're all right, but gosh dang it, they're just not conservative enough.
And Al Gore lost because he wasn't Liberal enough. That premise cost the Democrats several years of kowtowing to the anti-semitic, authoritarian Ralph Nader/Cindy Sheehan left. Leaving the center and surrendering a party to the most anti-libertarian forces of its base is a recipe for disaster. Had Gore moved further to the left in 2000, he would have lost twice the votes he got from Nader to Bush, and the whole Florida thing never would have happened.
If a party does not have a leader, they cannot manufacture one. The Republicans should ask John Kerry about that. At the moment, the choices for still-active political figures are limited to Sarah Palin and "Other," because every time Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) inserts himself into the discussion, one hears the late, great Harvey Korman saying "...too Jewish," in Blazing Saddles.
And the base is choosing to embrace Governor Palin in droves. Should Palin be the best that the Republicans can get, there is hope that the Yankees will be calling your pudgy, out-of-shape, 42-year-old Wandering Gentile to pitch...hopefully against the Red Sox. Mrs. Palin is not the cure for what ails Republicans...she is exactly what ails them; poor communication skills, a stale agenda, and an authoritarian political tack well to the right of the mainstream.
Should Republicans wish to rejoin the political forum, they have a few steps to take.
One: Conservative is not necessarily arrogant and caustic. The whole caustic and arrogant thing took off with Morton Downey, Jr.'s TV show in the late eighties, which was evocative of the radio show which predated Limbaugh in Sacramento. Reagan could be acerbic and inappropriate, but was rarely anything less than a perfect gentleman.
Democrats should not fear Sarah Palin, but they need their A game for Mike Huckabee.
Two: The whole State's Rights/Tenth Amendment resurgence that Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has put back on the table? It doesn't work. Primarily, it appears to be a vehicle for old confederacy types to retry institutionalized bigotry against latinos. Smaller jurisdictions enacting ordinances to review nationality documents with regard to rental properties and business licenses, 287g, and like laws are a pretext to harass latinos of all legal dispositions.
What happens when a progressive state whose economy is in the toilet uses the tenth amendment to vacate the parts of federal immigration laws that they don't like. (I'm talking to you, Michigan and Rhode Island) If driver's licenses and business licenses bring in new entrepreneurs without papers and the economy takes off, the current tenth amendment fans will howl for a constitutional convention to repeal the thirteenth through the seventeenth amendments.
As if they liked those amendments in the first place.
Three: Whether they like it or not, Republicans are going to have to move left to survive. At the moment, there is a very weak railing holding their political vehicle away from a looong drop into the drink. Republican potential lies in the increase of old, angry, affluent white Christians, which is a demographic which shrank under their watch, and the trends aren't looking too good for the future.
You see, their children grew up knowing Dora as well as their parents knew Miss Piggy. Those are children comfortable with diversity. They saw the government break the country's image, social compacts, and economy within five years of a surplus of goodwill, tranquility, and money. Those children reaching voting age this year know Democrats as the party of peace, prosperity, and minimal governmental intrusion.
Remember, the people that Republicans promised us that they would be?
A Democrat has to love Dick Cheney. His actions and outcomes are as predictable as an Univision telenovela. What Cheney says has ceased to matter as much as his smug, sarcastic delivery. Every time the man opens his mouth, he finds ways to turn off those within the eighty thousand or so people left willing to self-identify as Republicans.
Not only is Cheney unwilling to admit that his party lost six months ago, he keeps reminding the electorate as to why. Choosing a public confrontation with Barack Obama and Colin Powell is not the most appropriate form of swaying the independent voter back to the Republican Party. What is amusing is that despite both Obama and Powell being black, there has been little attention paid to the possibility of a prejudicial component.
Of course, no one harbors any illusions about Mr. Cheney having the first type of commitment to diversity-his crowd being diverse enough to include both Wonder Bread and Hellmanns Mayonnaise. The Republicans have lost all opportunity to connect with socially conservative african-american voters through Nixon's Southern Strategy. Latinos have been turned off by economic isolation strategies directed toward latinos while conflating all immigration with illicit behavior.
Thanks to Cheney coming off as a condescending (bag of fertilizer), a point has been reached where there are Republicans who feel that they no longer are white enough for their party...(see: Specter, Arlen. Before too long, also see: Steele, Michael.) An alliance with Rush Limbaugh and other quasi-sophist pundits has filled the party's ears with the idea that they're all right, but gosh dang it, they're just not conservative enough.
And Al Gore lost because he wasn't Liberal enough. That premise cost the Democrats several years of kowtowing to the anti-semitic, authoritarian Ralph Nader/Cindy Sheehan left. Leaving the center and surrendering a party to the most anti-libertarian forces of its base is a recipe for disaster. Had Gore moved further to the left in 2000, he would have lost twice the votes he got from Nader to Bush, and the whole Florida thing never would have happened.
If a party does not have a leader, they cannot manufacture one. The Republicans should ask John Kerry about that. At the moment, the choices for still-active political figures are limited to Sarah Palin and "Other," because every time Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) inserts himself into the discussion, one hears the late, great Harvey Korman saying "...too Jewish," in Blazing Saddles.
And the base is choosing to embrace Governor Palin in droves. Should Palin be the best that the Republicans can get, there is hope that the Yankees will be calling your pudgy, out-of-shape, 42-year-old Wandering Gentile to pitch...hopefully against the Red Sox. Mrs. Palin is not the cure for what ails Republicans...she is exactly what ails them; poor communication skills, a stale agenda, and an authoritarian political tack well to the right of the mainstream.
Should Republicans wish to rejoin the political forum, they have a few steps to take.
One: Conservative is not necessarily arrogant and caustic. The whole caustic and arrogant thing took off with Morton Downey, Jr.'s TV show in the late eighties, which was evocative of the radio show which predated Limbaugh in Sacramento. Reagan could be acerbic and inappropriate, but was rarely anything less than a perfect gentleman.
Democrats should not fear Sarah Palin, but they need their A game for Mike Huckabee.
Two: The whole State's Rights/Tenth Amendment resurgence that Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has put back on the table? It doesn't work. Primarily, it appears to be a vehicle for old confederacy types to retry institutionalized bigotry against latinos. Smaller jurisdictions enacting ordinances to review nationality documents with regard to rental properties and business licenses, 287g, and like laws are a pretext to harass latinos of all legal dispositions.
What happens when a progressive state whose economy is in the toilet uses the tenth amendment to vacate the parts of federal immigration laws that they don't like. (I'm talking to you, Michigan and Rhode Island) If driver's licenses and business licenses bring in new entrepreneurs without papers and the economy takes off, the current tenth amendment fans will howl for a constitutional convention to repeal the thirteenth through the seventeenth amendments.
As if they liked those amendments in the first place.
Three: Whether they like it or not, Republicans are going to have to move left to survive. At the moment, there is a very weak railing holding their political vehicle away from a looong drop into the drink. Republican potential lies in the increase of old, angry, affluent white Christians, which is a demographic which shrank under their watch, and the trends aren't looking too good for the future.
You see, their children grew up knowing Dora as well as their parents knew Miss Piggy. Those are children comfortable with diversity. They saw the government break the country's image, social compacts, and economy within five years of a surplus of goodwill, tranquility, and money. Those children reaching voting age this year know Democrats as the party of peace, prosperity, and minimal governmental intrusion.
Remember, the people that Republicans promised us that they would be?
25 April 2009
Chill Out, I Got This
It appears that the Obama Administration is off to a roaring start in its first hundred days. The man has managed to lead from the center, and he seems to be holding all of the credibility cards.
This is extremely bad news for Republicans and Conservatives.
If the Gentle Reader will recall, the original tactics have not worked out very well. Opposing everything that the Administration supports, screaming "SOCIALIST" really loud, and hoping that Obama gets recognition for everything proposed and passed have basically made Republicans look like the Hillbillies and neighborhood Yard Nazis that most of them are.
One will recall what a Yard Nazi is: a white male between 45 and dead who drives a full-size American sedan, and calls the cops any time he sees a neighborhood kid touch his grass. He is also the guy who got egged every Halloween. If somebody chucked an anonymous bag of used diapers out of a car, they went on his beloved lawn. And the Yard Nazi was always the number one target of getting his house rolled/tp'ed or his front door (excrement)-bombed.
They are the last ones listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. For those readers who saw pictures of the Teabaggers at their local venue, who can honestly state that the people seen there were not a 60%-38% mix favoring Yard Nazis over Hillbillies?
One appreciates that there were some very sincere and honorable people at the Tea Parties. But when one's political activism only includes grievances and broad policy objectives without any specific method for achieving said objectives, the activist becomes his opposition's best advertisement. Thus by losing Reagan's optimism and pragmatism, Republicans are pushing the center away with a Snowplow.
This is something Obama pulled out of his ear. He is the first Democrat to get that optimism and pragmatism appeal to the center. Has President Obama managed to achieve all of his objectives from the campaign trail? No, because no one can live up to any campaign's litany of goals. Has he managed to move on controversial actions and prevail? More often than not, Obama has been successful.
By appealing to the center, where a third of the country's voters abide, he risks losing a few on the ultra-left by not being Liberal enough, and the perpetual right wasn't going to vote for him anyway. The further Republicans move toward the Teabagger mentality, the wider the center willing to hear Obama becomes. As the economy eventually recovers, the question will become that of the '84 Reagan campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
The moment is coming where one wish of Conservative pundits is about to come true, and it's going to backfire on Republicans. The hope was that President Obama be credited for every act of the new administration. Once economic recovery takes root, all of those "no" votes are going to haunt Republicans like Marley's ghost.
It begins now. The same talkers desiring Obama get full accountability for the measures to counteract the recent unpleasantness are working on borrowed time. Local conservative talk has imploded in California, with ratings now drilling for oil under Hell. Tertiary hosts are one, maybe two ratings books from gone, and secondary hosts will be out within a couple of years.
After this winnowing, the only ones left will be Rush, Sean, and a couple of hosts in deep-red local markets like Atlanta's Neal Boortz and Dallas-Fort Worth's Mark Davis. There are already indications that Conservative talk radio is beginning to infight and pressure lesser-known hosts into staying on the reservation. The same sub-national presenters are evidencing a use of the smaller programs as a source of callers to nationally syndicated broadcasts.
As things exist right now, the local figures are serving to identify callers who are still in step with the agenda of national programs. There is a case to be made that screeners are coaching the same callers to expel talking points in a prescribed order which leaves the shows feeling as spontaneous as the construction of a shopping mall.
Conservative talk is dying, and lives in denial of its mortality. An opening now exists which was not even believable a year ago. Liberal talk did not fail on the merit of ideas, as is so frequently suggested by conservatives. If liberalism had failed in the realm of ideas, Mitt Romney woud be the POTUS. Liberal talk became dormant upon a litany of mediocre broadcasters.
If a Jon Stewart or a Bill Maher were to begin a syndicated broadcast leaning upon Liberal ideas, it could succeed. The nation has already accepted a left-of-center president with enthusiasm. A left-of-center radio broadcast with an entertaining host and some semblance of spontanaeity could provide an offset to the structured ennui that has become Conservative radio.
Perhaps that could be the greatest accomplishment of progressive leadership.
This is extremely bad news for Republicans and Conservatives.
If the Gentle Reader will recall, the original tactics have not worked out very well. Opposing everything that the Administration supports, screaming "SOCIALIST" really loud, and hoping that Obama gets recognition for everything proposed and passed have basically made Republicans look like the Hillbillies and neighborhood Yard Nazis that most of them are.
One will recall what a Yard Nazi is: a white male between 45 and dead who drives a full-size American sedan, and calls the cops any time he sees a neighborhood kid touch his grass. He is also the guy who got egged every Halloween. If somebody chucked an anonymous bag of used diapers out of a car, they went on his beloved lawn. And the Yard Nazi was always the number one target of getting his house rolled/tp'ed or his front door (excrement)-bombed.
They are the last ones listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. For those readers who saw pictures of the Teabaggers at their local venue, who can honestly state that the people seen there were not a 60%-38% mix favoring Yard Nazis over Hillbillies?
One appreciates that there were some very sincere and honorable people at the Tea Parties. But when one's political activism only includes grievances and broad policy objectives without any specific method for achieving said objectives, the activist becomes his opposition's best advertisement. Thus by losing Reagan's optimism and pragmatism, Republicans are pushing the center away with a Snowplow.
This is something Obama pulled out of his ear. He is the first Democrat to get that optimism and pragmatism appeal to the center. Has President Obama managed to achieve all of his objectives from the campaign trail? No, because no one can live up to any campaign's litany of goals. Has he managed to move on controversial actions and prevail? More often than not, Obama has been successful.
By appealing to the center, where a third of the country's voters abide, he risks losing a few on the ultra-left by not being Liberal enough, and the perpetual right wasn't going to vote for him anyway. The further Republicans move toward the Teabagger mentality, the wider the center willing to hear Obama becomes. As the economy eventually recovers, the question will become that of the '84 Reagan campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
The moment is coming where one wish of Conservative pundits is about to come true, and it's going to backfire on Republicans. The hope was that President Obama be credited for every act of the new administration. Once economic recovery takes root, all of those "no" votes are going to haunt Republicans like Marley's ghost.
It begins now. The same talkers desiring Obama get full accountability for the measures to counteract the recent unpleasantness are working on borrowed time. Local conservative talk has imploded in California, with ratings now drilling for oil under Hell. Tertiary hosts are one, maybe two ratings books from gone, and secondary hosts will be out within a couple of years.
After this winnowing, the only ones left will be Rush, Sean, and a couple of hosts in deep-red local markets like Atlanta's Neal Boortz and Dallas-Fort Worth's Mark Davis. There are already indications that Conservative talk radio is beginning to infight and pressure lesser-known hosts into staying on the reservation. The same sub-national presenters are evidencing a use of the smaller programs as a source of callers to nationally syndicated broadcasts.
As things exist right now, the local figures are serving to identify callers who are still in step with the agenda of national programs. There is a case to be made that screeners are coaching the same callers to expel talking points in a prescribed order which leaves the shows feeling as spontaneous as the construction of a shopping mall.
Conservative talk is dying, and lives in denial of its mortality. An opening now exists which was not even believable a year ago. Liberal talk did not fail on the merit of ideas, as is so frequently suggested by conservatives. If liberalism had failed in the realm of ideas, Mitt Romney woud be the POTUS. Liberal talk became dormant upon a litany of mediocre broadcasters.
If a Jon Stewart or a Bill Maher were to begin a syndicated broadcast leaning upon Liberal ideas, it could succeed. The nation has already accepted a left-of-center president with enthusiasm. A left-of-center radio broadcast with an entertaining host and some semblance of spontanaeity could provide an offset to the structured ennui that has become Conservative radio.
Perhaps that could be the greatest accomplishment of progressive leadership.
28 March 2009
All The Fits That's News To Print
Obama vs. Special Olympics
Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele expressed his grave displeasure about the quip comparing President Obama's bowling skills to the Special Olympics.
According to Steele "...(we) are a big tent party. While developmental and cognitive disabilities are not prerequisites for membership in the Republican party, those with developmental and cognitive disabilities are welcomed within our numbers. We are proud of our record in helping the mentally impaired, having elected George W. Bush, the first developmentally disabled President of the United States of America.
When asked to elaborate, nationally-syndicated radio host (and noted Hydrocephalic) Sean Hannity responded succinctly, "Urrrrgggghhh!"
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III vs. Human Decency
Joy defined: Rush Limbaugh on the snack aisle of a CVS, with an open OxyContin/Viagra bar. Rush's nickname is "Tiger," not derived from his long game on the links of the Dominican Republic, but from the fact that his little white balls are done with a small hole in four strokes or less.
Charles Grassley vs. AIG
After Senator Grassley (R-IA) suggested that seppuku would be an appropriate demonstration of contrition for bonus-receiving AIG executives, several AIG executives asked the Senator to demonstrate the proper technique.
Dick Cheney vs. Obama
Now, let me see if I get this straight. Dick Cheney is linked to Halliburton, an oil company. He states that President Obama is making the country vulnerable to terrorist attack. If terrorists attack, the price of oil takes off for the moon. Oh, snap, I forgot about lost revenue from no-bid contracts,opposed by the Obama administration. That's why Cheney and his pals are so upset. They would take a pay cut from a killing to a living.
Geithner and Obama vs. AIG
It's not about the bonuses. It's the fact that the new ownership of an enterprise has the right to reset compensation as they see fit. Ask anyone who works/worked for a company that merged, if they're still employed. Republicans only balked when they figured out that legislative leverage may be brought to bear in cases of tax benefits or corporate subsidies, a/k/a corporate welfare.
Sneaky damn Democrats! They almost got Republicans to require that Capitalists use Capitalism!
Bill Maher vs. Ann Coulter
In their male-appendage measuring contest, Mr. Maher lost.
Ms. Coulter is also uncircumcised.
Miami vs. West Palm Beach
Miami and West Palm Beach, two distinct media markets with individual urban centers have been merged into the same metropolitan area. Meanwhile, LA/Ventura/Riverside and San Francisco-Oakland/San Jose are considered to be separate metro areas despite being much more closely linked than Miami and West Palm.
Great, if having overlapping suburbs is a qualifier, let's merge Boston-Providence, Baltimore-Washington, San Antonio-Austin, Tampa-Orlando, and New York-Philadelphia. One is certain that the people in the smaller market will not mind losing their identity and character to the larger. Just ask Fort Worth.
Ann Coulter vs. Meghan McCain
For crying out loud, Ann Coulter has to run around in the shower to get wet. The woman doubles her weight by eating a Quarter-Pounder. In her world Nicole Richie and the anorexic Olsen Twin are buxom. Boobies are something to be envied, pertpetually inaccessible without surgical intervention.
Were a physical confrontation to occur, the well-endowed Miss McCain could swing one breast and knock Coulter into the next solar system. Hopefully, the other breast would send fascist runt Michelle Malkin into the next Galaxy.
My goodness, that last sentence almost works as rhyming slang.
The Wandering Gentile vs. Kim Kardashian's big ol' thick booty and awesome unibrow.
A man can dream, can't he?
Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele expressed his grave displeasure about the quip comparing President Obama's bowling skills to the Special Olympics.
According to Steele "...(we) are a big tent party. While developmental and cognitive disabilities are not prerequisites for membership in the Republican party, those with developmental and cognitive disabilities are welcomed within our numbers. We are proud of our record in helping the mentally impaired, having elected George W. Bush, the first developmentally disabled President of the United States of America.
When asked to elaborate, nationally-syndicated radio host (and noted Hydrocephalic) Sean Hannity responded succinctly, "Urrrrgggghhh!"
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III vs. Human Decency
Joy defined: Rush Limbaugh on the snack aisle of a CVS, with an open OxyContin/Viagra bar. Rush's nickname is "Tiger," not derived from his long game on the links of the Dominican Republic, but from the fact that his little white balls are done with a small hole in four strokes or less.
Charles Grassley vs. AIG
After Senator Grassley (R-IA) suggested that seppuku would be an appropriate demonstration of contrition for bonus-receiving AIG executives, several AIG executives asked the Senator to demonstrate the proper technique.
Dick Cheney vs. Obama
Now, let me see if I get this straight. Dick Cheney is linked to Halliburton, an oil company. He states that President Obama is making the country vulnerable to terrorist attack. If terrorists attack, the price of oil takes off for the moon. Oh, snap, I forgot about lost revenue from no-bid contracts,opposed by the Obama administration. That's why Cheney and his pals are so upset. They would take a pay cut from a killing to a living.
Geithner and Obama vs. AIG
It's not about the bonuses. It's the fact that the new ownership of an enterprise has the right to reset compensation as they see fit. Ask anyone who works/worked for a company that merged, if they're still employed. Republicans only balked when they figured out that legislative leverage may be brought to bear in cases of tax benefits or corporate subsidies, a/k/a corporate welfare.
Sneaky damn Democrats! They almost got Republicans to require that Capitalists use Capitalism!
Bill Maher vs. Ann Coulter
In their male-appendage measuring contest, Mr. Maher lost.
Ms. Coulter is also uncircumcised.
Miami vs. West Palm Beach
Miami and West Palm Beach, two distinct media markets with individual urban centers have been merged into the same metropolitan area. Meanwhile, LA/Ventura/Riverside and San Francisco-Oakland/San Jose are considered to be separate metro areas despite being much more closely linked than Miami and West Palm.
Great, if having overlapping suburbs is a qualifier, let's merge Boston-Providence, Baltimore-Washington, San Antonio-Austin, Tampa-Orlando, and New York-Philadelphia. One is certain that the people in the smaller market will not mind losing their identity and character to the larger. Just ask Fort Worth.
Ann Coulter vs. Meghan McCain
For crying out loud, Ann Coulter has to run around in the shower to get wet. The woman doubles her weight by eating a Quarter-Pounder. In her world Nicole Richie and the anorexic Olsen Twin are buxom. Boobies are something to be envied, pertpetually inaccessible without surgical intervention.
Were a physical confrontation to occur, the well-endowed Miss McCain could swing one breast and knock Coulter into the next solar system. Hopefully, the other breast would send fascist runt Michelle Malkin into the next Galaxy.
My goodness, that last sentence almost works as rhyming slang.
The Wandering Gentile vs. Kim Kardashian's big ol' thick booty and awesome unibrow.
A man can dream, can't he?
05 March 2009
C'mon. Put Your Back Into It.
I regret that the idea of having the earth give way under Mr. Limpbaugh's mass did not occur to me until after the cartoon was inked.
07 February 2009
When Right Is Wrong
As the worthy opposition in talk radio rants and raves about President Obama's economic recovery package, one wishes to suggest that the conservative talkers are spectacularly wrong about everything.
Privately-based solutions to issues facing the public are infinitely preferable to those coming from the public sector. However, the state of the private sector is such that the catastrophic collapse of large segments of the private intellectual infrastructure has occurred. Free markets can only survive when both the production and consumption sides function as equals.
In the case of the US banking and finance industries, the lack of public oversight left the consumer at a disadvantage to the producer. Ultimately liberties were taken which could not be supported by the market, leaving the production side of the equation with a handful of well-intentioned wishes which were legal and worthless tender simultaneously. Whether we like it or not, the public sector has a role in assuring that the practices of the production side do not overmatch the capabilities of the consumption side.
This goes the same for petroleum companies not gouging the price of gasoline and unions not gouging the price of labor.
At a moment when the economy is shrinking, government has a role as as a parallel conduit for capital improvement. If progress is blocked by large dead obstacles on the normal private path, then it is the necessary role of the public sector to ascertain that the well being of the nation continue to progress regardless.
President Obama's plan appears to have a functional system of mechanisms which appear to promote at least an illusion of rewarding initiative and empowering incentive for enterprises which accept risk. This is not Socialism, which attempts to restrain risk through planned production and scheduled shortage to perpetuate an underserved market receiving inferior product protected from competition by legislative fiat. Socialism isolates a nation behind walls, holding its people incommunicado from new ideas, ultimately enslaving multitudes by appealing to atavistic mistrust of the unknown.
Frankly, the cultural practices of socialism reflect more those of conservative talk radio than the last-resort leveraging of the public sector by a President faced with an economic crisis not of his making. We appreciate the thought that a strict orthodoxy of lower taxes, smaller government, and minimal reliance upon the public sector are keys to the nation's prosperity. Unfortunately, a sampling of large nations indicates that this is not true.
The tax burden in Germany is 42%. Norway's burden is 29%. The USA, Canada, and Australia are all at 24%. Mexico is at 8%. So far, if this wisdom holds constant, Mexico should be the most affluent of all of the countries.
A review of hourly incomes in manufacturing jobs after taxes in Germany, the US, Australia, and Canada has all four countries hovering between US$17-19. The Germans are at the high end, US$18.86, while the US, Canada, and Australia hover within about a quarter of US$17.60. The Norwegians smoked everybody drawing US$24.59, and the Mexicans came in at US$2.30.
Wait a minute, I'm confused! The Mexicans, with the lowest tax rate, the greatest local control of schools, the smallest presence of labor unions, a stricter emphasis upon border security and the strongest structures impeding imported goods, came in DEAD LAST? But, AM talk radio has been telling us that these things would lead to prosperity for twenty years!
Okay, well, Mexico has a heavily deregulated and completely private health care system. They should be the best cared for people, and the life expectancy should reflect that. The Mexican people only spend 6.2% of their GDP on medicine. Men can expect to live to 72.6, women 78.3.
Americans spend 15.2% of their GDP on a private health care system, over US$5700 per person, and get 74.8 for men, 80.1 for women. But this is supposed to be the best health care system in the world. So how come Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians pay less per capita (9-11% of GDP) but get over a year more life expectancy from their nationalized public health systems than we do in the United States? The average dollar outlay is even more dramatic, hovering at half(!!!!!) of what we pay for our health care as Americans.
One country would be a fluke. Two would be questionable. But a view of industrialized nations with nationalized health care shows a consistent per capita cost of between US$2500 and US$3200 per person. One may not speak for a gentle reader, but it looks like Americans are getting the raw end on this one.
After further review...the ruling is such...talk radio is lying to their listeners. The leveraging of public resources for the good of the population paying for them may qualify as socialism under a very broad interpretation of the term. However, the lesson of other industrialized countries, including our next door neighbors in Canada and Mexico, indicates that a certain level of taxaton is necessary and a certain level of publicly-based solutions are necessary for the continued wellbeing and prosperity of the nation.
For those who have invested their faith in the Portly Pundit and Hannie Pie, go get a World Almanac and prove me wrong. Utopianism, be it through a Capitalist or Socialist economic model, is spectacularly unworkable.
Imitating the practices of the Mexican Government is most likely to produce the same results as Mexico. We would be well served by taking our lessons from the neighbor which does not have millions of people risking their lives for a better existence as the object of scorn and prejudice.
Nobody is trying to deport Mike Myers, no matter how little they liked The Love Guru.
01 December 2008
Conservative Suicide
If Conservatives were less intent upon attending to other people's business and assuring that they legislated effectively, they would not be scrounging around the Beltway for lobbying jobs today. If Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter had been more cognizant of the situation facing the nation; had Lou Dobbs ever bothered to vet a statistic, then Conservative ideas may have earned broader acceptance in the marketplace.
Conservatives got what they asked for.
One does not wish to discredit conservative punditry's knowledge of it's audience. Among them, discussion of alterations to the Tax Code, Abortion, Immigration Reform, or Gay Rights provokes a visceral, immediate and almost uniform reaction. Regrettably (for them), the Far Right Opinion Machine had either no idea or no reverence for the growing chasm between them and the majority.
The Far Right lost on alterations to the Tax Code. Governor Mike Huckabee, and Representative Ron Paul followed behind the "Fair Tax," a consumption tax scheme designed by Atlanta-based radio host Neal Boortz, and Representative John Linder. The basis of its appeal, the decommissioning of the IRS and the sixteenth amendment, is also its downfall.
While one is disinclined to speaking favorably about the IRS, the IRS also has the unenviable task of enforcing the tax codes of the United States. The Internal Revenue Service is overdue for reform in more aspects than can be enumerated here. But doing away with it and moving to a consumption tax lacking regulation or enforcement mechanisms is a vote for the same lack of oversight that put the nation in dutch in the first place.
One also questions a system which allows government to know exactly what and in what quantities an individual purchases. (Hey! Bob just bought fifteen gallons of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Why does he need that?) The current system stinks, but it's better than this alternative.
While questioning President-elect Obama's credentials as a Capitalist, there has been no outcry from Far-Right punditry about the redistribution of wealth from 99% to 1% of the population via current tax policy. One is loath to use a broad term like oligarchist, but what, precisely, is different from the Bolsheviks apart from the transparency of the wealth transfer?
The wealthy have the option of sitting upon their wealth. In the middle classes, a pent up demand exists for liquidity which will purchase cars, homes, durable goods and health care. Call it Trickle Up, a/k/a a rising tide lifts all boats.
The worthy far-right opposition totally lost the abortion debate. The majority is disinclined to reinstating governmental authority over abortion, at times in spite of intense moral opposition to the practice itself. The majority feels that the home is the best place for this discussion, as opposed to public fora. That, and about half of the population is biologically incapable of ever having an abortion in the first place, and would really rather watch football.
In the case of Immigration Reform, four candidates made their opposition a centerpiece of their campaigns. To put it in perspective, in Georgia's Republican primary, the two most vocal opponents to Immigration Reform, Representatives Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, managed to gain 1,076 votes combined.
The author of the Immigration Reform bill despised by Representatives Hunter and Tancredo, Senator John McCain, was a very credible second place with 303,639 votes. Governor Huckabee, who had actually enacted legislation which could be construed as benefitting people who had entered illegally, took first place with 326,069. Call that a 585 to 1 differential against Hunter and Tancredo.
The Far Right Opinion Machine got one small victory in 2008. Proposition 8 failed in California. Judicial resources are going to be tied up for the foreseeable future, and anybody betting on prop 8's survival in the Golden State should be encouraged to send that money via The Wandering Gentile's Commode, P.O. Box Flush-Like-Rush, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
The Gay activist community may soon discover that they are better served by exacting revenge upon the talismen of conservatism. A few well placed ballot initiatives with regard to additional levies upon SUVs, McMansions, guns, and politically active faith communities in California could be much more effective than protesting in West Hollywood.
There is a country which already has many of the things that the Far Right Opinion Machine embraces already. This crucible should be seen as a oracle for the far right. That country has one of the lowest tax burdens in the world. Nativism has been an obstacle to diversity. The country has a strong relationship with a Conservative Christian community of both clergy and laity. Money is not spent on onerous schools or social programs. The wealthy have authority in all matters, and Mexicans are leaving in droves.
That country is Mexico.
Conservatives got what they asked for.
One does not wish to discredit conservative punditry's knowledge of it's audience. Among them, discussion of alterations to the Tax Code, Abortion, Immigration Reform, or Gay Rights provokes a visceral, immediate and almost uniform reaction. Regrettably (for them), the Far Right Opinion Machine had either no idea or no reverence for the growing chasm between them and the majority.
The Far Right lost on alterations to the Tax Code. Governor Mike Huckabee, and Representative Ron Paul followed behind the "Fair Tax," a consumption tax scheme designed by Atlanta-based radio host Neal Boortz, and Representative John Linder. The basis of its appeal, the decommissioning of the IRS and the sixteenth amendment, is also its downfall.
While one is disinclined to speaking favorably about the IRS, the IRS also has the unenviable task of enforcing the tax codes of the United States. The Internal Revenue Service is overdue for reform in more aspects than can be enumerated here. But doing away with it and moving to a consumption tax lacking regulation or enforcement mechanisms is a vote for the same lack of oversight that put the nation in dutch in the first place.
One also questions a system which allows government to know exactly what and in what quantities an individual purchases. (Hey! Bob just bought fifteen gallons of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Why does he need that?) The current system stinks, but it's better than this alternative.
While questioning President-elect Obama's credentials as a Capitalist, there has been no outcry from Far-Right punditry about the redistribution of wealth from 99% to 1% of the population via current tax policy. One is loath to use a broad term like oligarchist, but what, precisely, is different from the Bolsheviks apart from the transparency of the wealth transfer?
The wealthy have the option of sitting upon their wealth. In the middle classes, a pent up demand exists for liquidity which will purchase cars, homes, durable goods and health care. Call it Trickle Up, a/k/a a rising tide lifts all boats.
The worthy far-right opposition totally lost the abortion debate. The majority is disinclined to reinstating governmental authority over abortion, at times in spite of intense moral opposition to the practice itself. The majority feels that the home is the best place for this discussion, as opposed to public fora. That, and about half of the population is biologically incapable of ever having an abortion in the first place, and would really rather watch football.
In the case of Immigration Reform, four candidates made their opposition a centerpiece of their campaigns. To put it in perspective, in Georgia's Republican primary, the two most vocal opponents to Immigration Reform, Representatives Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, managed to gain 1,076 votes combined.
The author of the Immigration Reform bill despised by Representatives Hunter and Tancredo, Senator John McCain, was a very credible second place with 303,639 votes. Governor Huckabee, who had actually enacted legislation which could be construed as benefitting people who had entered illegally, took first place with 326,069. Call that a 585 to 1 differential against Hunter and Tancredo.
The Far Right Opinion Machine got one small victory in 2008. Proposition 8 failed in California. Judicial resources are going to be tied up for the foreseeable future, and anybody betting on prop 8's survival in the Golden State should be encouraged to send that money via The Wandering Gentile's Commode, P.O. Box Flush-Like-Rush, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
The Gay activist community may soon discover that they are better served by exacting revenge upon the talismen of conservatism. A few well placed ballot initiatives with regard to additional levies upon SUVs, McMansions, guns, and politically active faith communities in California could be much more effective than protesting in West Hollywood.
There is a country which already has many of the things that the Far Right Opinion Machine embraces already. This crucible should be seen as a oracle for the far right. That country has one of the lowest tax burdens in the world. Nativism has been an obstacle to diversity. The country has a strong relationship with a Conservative Christian community of both clergy and laity. Money is not spent on onerous schools or social programs. The wealthy have authority in all matters, and Mexicans are leaving in droves.
That country is Mexico.
16 September 2008
How Obama Gets His Groove Back
Apparently, Your Wandering Gentile is a Black, Muslim, Socialist, Anarchist, Miscegenist, Anti-American Pawn of the New World Order, harboring closeted homosexual tendencies, immediately disposed to the murder of infants and the elderly, and perverting kindergarteners with free access to pornography.
Wow, I got all of this for one small donation to the Obama campaign!
To those who share their viewpoint with the lead paragraph, I would also like to say that I dislike puppies, SUVs, and the idea of persons wearing uniforms being granted the authority to review my papers on a whim. While we're at it, the idea of a fence as a barrier between my nation and the rest of the world suggests an infrastructure to convert the nation I love into a prison, an idea which is spectacularly offensive.
Okay, I don't really dislike puppies, but I am allergic to them.
I live in the middle of America, the suburbs of a major city, with an income, age, and educational attainment that sit exactly in the middle. I am John Doe. I am the guy who John McCain got in 2000, and the man he lost in 2008.
That being said, the Obama campaign has a couple of issues that need to be fixed...yesterday.
The campaign must address the fact that issues that face black America are fundamentally the same issues that face white, latino, asian and native Americans. Economic issues in particular have a disproportionately negative effect on black Americans, as do questions of selective enforcement and overt bigotry. To Obama's credit, all of the issues which are not receiving the attention appropriate to their importance were addressed in The Audacity of Hope.
The focus has to be moved on two fronts.
The first front is to demonstrate credibly that the interests of Americans of every identity are more alike than they are different. That in and of itself is a whole hell of a lot easier to say than do. The Republicans have been spectacularly effective in communicating that Obama and his supporters are different and strange, in such a fashion as to make a monolithic body which is questioned for its ability to be considered as a part of America.
This is the overwhelming theme of Conservative opinon, particularly talk radio which has a twenty year head start on Liberal talk radio. The best idea is not by attempting to discredit or disprove allegations, but by moving the conversation to where the audience overlaps in opinion with Obama.
As Chris Rock pointed out in Head of State, the worst thing that Bugs Bunny could do to Elmer Fudd was not blowing him up, but kissing him. An Obama presence with The Portly Pundit and Hannie Pie would be a better opportunity to reach middle America than a billion dollars worth of TV ads. All he would have to do is show up for an hour, take a couple of phone calls which are likely to come from hostile people, and hope the presenter would blow his stack, or in the unlikely event of a civil discussion, he connects with an audience which was not likely to seek his message.
Whether or not Democrats like it, Limbaugh and Hannity are big power brokers in the middle of America. A great big chunk of their audience is rural, white, and blue collar, a few of whom are highly susceptible to rumors and innuendo. The idea is not to mine those who are absolutely opposed to Obama under any circumstances, but appeal to the large component of middle class listeners to these programs who are fair minded and willing to review their decisions based upon a fair hearing of the facts.
There is no question of "legitimizing" Right-wing talk radio. It is not an issue of legitimization or de-legitimization. Right-wing talk radio simply is and no definition of the word is necessary. There is nothing to fear except abandoning an audience which lives in Obama's weakest demographic. One counts upon the junior Senator from Illinois bringing his charisma and charm to the microphone, swinging a few opinions to his side. This idea is a winner.
The other front is deemphasizing the "Change" brand. Senator Obama's resources have him in a position to upgrade his brand from "Change" to "Hope." One supposes that the Gentle Reader is considering that The Wandering Gentile is in deep need of a drug screening after suggesting that Obama show up on Rush Limbaugh and alter his branding.
Change tells the voter that the candidate would do things differently from the current administration, but it does not delineate how or how much. The idea of casting a candidate from the incumbent party as the incumbent is proving to be a non-starter. Hope is what persuaded voters to Clinton in '92, Reagan in '80, Roosevelt in '32. While McCain's policies are deeply similar to Bush's, he remains a different man, thusly falling under a generic idea of change.
It's not persuasive, nor was it ever. The Obama campaign requires the message of Hope to propel the conversation in its direction. Change without hope? Hell, I can get that with McCain. Non-Traditional on the ticket? Sarah Palin is not a traditional person on the ticket. Change is coming regardless.
No, change kind of sucks as a message. Obama would be well served to dance with the one what brung him, and that one is Hope. This is the point where the Clinton assets should come to the table. The Clinton brand was built on hope in the nineties, a particularly potent message in the atmosphere of the Bush 41 recession and the Keating Five. Considering the atmosphere where financial institutions are dropping like cell phone calls in the boonies, and all of the other crud the economy is going through now, hope combined with a clearly articulated agenda has a lot of potential.
The idea is not for either candidate to change their positions, but for both candidates positions to appear clearly and comprehensibly to the electorate. This absurd pattern where both parties' wedge issues are taking center stage needs to end now. While the candidates engage in volleys of juvenile name calling and finger pointing, the issues affecting the quotidian lives of real Americans are not being addressed.
A gifted orator and communicator like Obama can survive the slings and arrows of the partisan opposition if his campaign sticks to the qualities that make him compelling combined with a principled and concrete discussion of his positions. Playing a game invented by his opponents suggests that Obama's presence at the inauguration would be at the discretion of President-elect John McCain, not the American people who have worked so hard to support him.
One asks- does Senator Obama feel that the campaign lives up to the expectations of his supporters?
Wow, I got all of this for one small donation to the Obama campaign!
To those who share their viewpoint with the lead paragraph, I would also like to say that I dislike puppies, SUVs, and the idea of persons wearing uniforms being granted the authority to review my papers on a whim. While we're at it, the idea of a fence as a barrier between my nation and the rest of the world suggests an infrastructure to convert the nation I love into a prison, an idea which is spectacularly offensive.
Okay, I don't really dislike puppies, but I am allergic to them.
I live in the middle of America, the suburbs of a major city, with an income, age, and educational attainment that sit exactly in the middle. I am John Doe. I am the guy who John McCain got in 2000, and the man he lost in 2008.
That being said, the Obama campaign has a couple of issues that need to be fixed...yesterday.
The campaign must address the fact that issues that face black America are fundamentally the same issues that face white, latino, asian and native Americans. Economic issues in particular have a disproportionately negative effect on black Americans, as do questions of selective enforcement and overt bigotry. To Obama's credit, all of the issues which are not receiving the attention appropriate to their importance were addressed in The Audacity of Hope.
The focus has to be moved on two fronts.
The first front is to demonstrate credibly that the interests of Americans of every identity are more alike than they are different. That in and of itself is a whole hell of a lot easier to say than do. The Republicans have been spectacularly effective in communicating that Obama and his supporters are different and strange, in such a fashion as to make a monolithic body which is questioned for its ability to be considered as a part of America.
This is the overwhelming theme of Conservative opinon, particularly talk radio which has a twenty year head start on Liberal talk radio. The best idea is not by attempting to discredit or disprove allegations, but by moving the conversation to where the audience overlaps in opinion with Obama.
As Chris Rock pointed out in Head of State, the worst thing that Bugs Bunny could do to Elmer Fudd was not blowing him up, but kissing him. An Obama presence with The Portly Pundit and Hannie Pie would be a better opportunity to reach middle America than a billion dollars worth of TV ads. All he would have to do is show up for an hour, take a couple of phone calls which are likely to come from hostile people, and hope the presenter would blow his stack, or in the unlikely event of a civil discussion, he connects with an audience which was not likely to seek his message.
Whether or not Democrats like it, Limbaugh and Hannity are big power brokers in the middle of America. A great big chunk of their audience is rural, white, and blue collar, a few of whom are highly susceptible to rumors and innuendo. The idea is not to mine those who are absolutely opposed to Obama under any circumstances, but appeal to the large component of middle class listeners to these programs who are fair minded and willing to review their decisions based upon a fair hearing of the facts.
There is no question of "legitimizing" Right-wing talk radio. It is not an issue of legitimization or de-legitimization. Right-wing talk radio simply is and no definition of the word is necessary. There is nothing to fear except abandoning an audience which lives in Obama's weakest demographic. One counts upon the junior Senator from Illinois bringing his charisma and charm to the microphone, swinging a few opinions to his side. This idea is a winner.
The other front is deemphasizing the "Change" brand. Senator Obama's resources have him in a position to upgrade his brand from "Change" to "Hope." One supposes that the Gentle Reader is considering that The Wandering Gentile is in deep need of a drug screening after suggesting that Obama show up on Rush Limbaugh and alter his branding.
Change tells the voter that the candidate would do things differently from the current administration, but it does not delineate how or how much. The idea of casting a candidate from the incumbent party as the incumbent is proving to be a non-starter. Hope is what persuaded voters to Clinton in '92, Reagan in '80, Roosevelt in '32. While McCain's policies are deeply similar to Bush's, he remains a different man, thusly falling under a generic idea of change.
It's not persuasive, nor was it ever. The Obama campaign requires the message of Hope to propel the conversation in its direction. Change without hope? Hell, I can get that with McCain. Non-Traditional on the ticket? Sarah Palin is not a traditional person on the ticket. Change is coming regardless.
No, change kind of sucks as a message. Obama would be well served to dance with the one what brung him, and that one is Hope. This is the point where the Clinton assets should come to the table. The Clinton brand was built on hope in the nineties, a particularly potent message in the atmosphere of the Bush 41 recession and the Keating Five. Considering the atmosphere where financial institutions are dropping like cell phone calls in the boonies, and all of the other crud the economy is going through now, hope combined with a clearly articulated agenda has a lot of potential.
The idea is not for either candidate to change their positions, but for both candidates positions to appear clearly and comprehensibly to the electorate. This absurd pattern where both parties' wedge issues are taking center stage needs to end now. While the candidates engage in volleys of juvenile name calling and finger pointing, the issues affecting the quotidian lives of real Americans are not being addressed.
A gifted orator and communicator like Obama can survive the slings and arrows of the partisan opposition if his campaign sticks to the qualities that make him compelling combined with a principled and concrete discussion of his positions. Playing a game invented by his opponents suggests that Obama's presence at the inauguration would be at the discretion of President-elect John McCain, not the American people who have worked so hard to support him.
One asks- does Senator Obama feel that the campaign lives up to the expectations of his supporters?
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