Godwin's Law. part 1

First of what will invariably be a series. Republican shill Dan Riehl has his panties in a bunch at Glen Greenwald's dissection of Mansfield's advocacy of an American Fuehrerprinzip in the Opinion Journal.

Standard ad hominem attack and invective for the first part, and then the Godwin's violation:

The tactic of mis-characterizing enlightened argument with which you may disagree is fascistic, at best. Salon should be ashamed.

Um, mis-characterizing an argument is facsist? All intellectually dishonest people do that no matter their political stripe. Dan Riehl YOU FAIL NOW.

tag clouds for first republican debate

Pollster.com had done this for the democratic debate and it was interesting. here's the republican side from last night's opening clusterfuck 2008.

I was joking last night before even seeing these that Gilmore's would show "consistent conservative" pretty prominently. Looks like I was right! (Though I overestimated his message discipline - he had too many equally weighted words for the consistent conservative message to come through as prominently as I thought. Calls into question the true utility of the tag cloud though... as while he was speaking, at least to me, these words, along with other con- words for thematic effect, came up so much as to be laughable.)

Contrast that to Rudy "Did I say I was mayor of New York" Guliani and Mitt "America and Americans" Romney. Overall, a nightmarish field of crazy and crazier, with nobody except earnest libertarian oddball Ron Paul having any kind of critique of the way things have been going. To look at them, you get only sunny optimism.

Taking the Pledge

13-min documentary about sex workers, and how to get US money they need to sign a loyalty pledge rejecting prostitution. Of course, any HIV/AIDS-prevention efforts need to address this demographic, but that would bump up against the oh so moral Bush administration. Also problems with gay communities and similar subjects of HIV education. This has created a whole litany of problems including increased police harassment even.

And did we mention that the guy the Bushies put in charge of this is heavily embroiled in DC Madam-gate? Sexual morality for thee but not for me! Yipee! (Hat tip: FDL)

media criticism

Glen Greenwald on the John Edwards' hair story and how the coverage of it lays bare the worst flaws in modern media culture. New Drudge-affiliated online political magazine The Politico is the offender here. The lead political reporter writes piously about how the story 'won't die' and is somehow catching some groundswell of interest -- as if he himself is not driving it with eight stories in the last two weeks!

Greenwald goes on to make a 3-part point about the degeneracy of the media these days:

1. reporting objectively false claims ("the American people don't want Karl Rove subpoenaed" - when polls show they do, etc.)
2. pass on government statements with no analysis or evaluation
3. focus on vapid and catty stories to the exclusion of substance

one world government

Orcinus post (Sara, not Dave) on One World Government -- how it's not a Jewish plot, but rather an expression of the Problem of the Commons. Summary quotes:

The Roaring 20s happened in no small part because the newly-emerging corporate order could profit handsomely by taking undue advantage of a virtually unregulated interstate commons. It had gotten to the point where the largest corporations were rich enough to bully state governments into giving them whatever they wanted, or threaten to go elsewhere -- a clear sign that business was now operating at a scale where state government wasn't big enough, strong enough, or organized to put a meaningful boundary around corporate behavior. Structurally, this was an underlying cause of the "tragedy of the commons" we now recall as the Great Depression.

And now:

Over the past four decades, we've begun to struggle with another quantum shift in scale. We've come to realize that oceans, arable land, aquifers and watersheds, and the entire atmosphere represent a global commons that every one of us depends on. At the same time, business roams the planet taking what it wants -- just as it roamed America in the 20s -- making unimaginable profits and creating irreversible damage (global warming, anyone?) because there's no one entity big and powerful enough to put a boundary around its activities and regulate its behavior.

Basically, its the idea that business has sought unregulated territory in order to take whatever it wants, bully local governments from a faraway position of immunity, and escape
consequences. While in turn creating bad consequences for the people in areas the abuse (global warming, etc.) Makes you actually think that it should happen, even if it won't.

who counts as a terrorist?

Firedoglake post about rightard Debbie Schlussel; she's quick to jump on the terrorist bandwagon, even when it's just some rednecks throwing homemade firecrackers. But they live in Dearborn, MI, and there are a lot of "Pakis" there.

Meanwhile, white guys are arrested for plotting to machine gun illegal immigrants. Right wing terror ftw!! (why the FoxNews link? ugh!)

I wonder if I should even keep track of these? Once you start linking to all reports of right-wing terrorism, you're going to use up all your link tokens pretty quick.

UPDATE: Sadly, No! also on the case.

Josh Marshall's bitchslap theory of politics

I've been saying this since the Swiftboating - the parallels with the Weimar electoral history I was researching at the time were just too great. But I hadn't heard JM's term for it... it's perfect. Money quote:

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.

Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.

As I've said for a long time, it's not (just) about knocking down his Vietnam heroism. It's about demonstrating his current weakness by his refusal to hit back. And to an ignorant American public longing for a Great Leader authoritarian daddy figure, they don't care if someone is intelligent or even right on the issues, as long as he'll act like a prick on America's behalf they're happy. Never mind that, as we've seen recently, this may not be the most effective strategy.