Masques

The Situation Room by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday Bruce Springsteen blasted the so-called leaders who refuse to wear masks in public, particularly Señor Trumpanzee. He used his Sirius XM radio show, From My Home to Yours, to make it clear what he think of calculating politicians who refuse to wear masks. Strumming a guitar, he said "With 100,000-plus Americans dying over the last few months and the empty, shamed response from our leaders, I'm simply pissed off. Those lives deserve better than just being inconvenient statistics for our president's re-election efforts. It's a national disgrace... We will be contemplating on our current circumstances with the coronavirus and the cost that it has drawn from our nation. We will be calculating what we've lost, sending prayers for the deceased and the families they've left behind... I'm going to start out with sending one to the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk. With all respect, sir, show some consideration for your countrymen and your country. Put on a fucking mask." He then played Trump Bob Dylan's "The Disease of Conceit."





Also yesterday Trump Regime press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that from here on masks, though recommended, are no long required for White House staff, a big mistake according to the results of a study in Health Affairs. In their abstract, they noted that "there is now substantial evidence of asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19" and that "mask wearing by infected individuals can reduce transmission risk, and because of the high proportion of asymptomatic infected individuals and transmissions, there appears to be a strong case for the effectiveness of widespread use of face masks in reducing the spread of COVID-19."

In the US, public health authorities did not recommend widespread facial mask use in public at the start of the pandemic. The initially limited evidence on asymptomatic transmission and concern about mask shortages for health care workforce and individuals caring for patients contributed to that initial decision. On April 3, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidance advising all individuals to wear cloth facial covers in public areas where close contact with others is unavoidable, citing new evidence on virus transmission from asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals. Guidelines differ between countries, and some including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, and South Korea have mandated use of face masks in public.

This study adds complementary evidence to the literature on impacts of widespread community use of face masks on COVID-19 spread from a natural experiment based on whether states in the US have mandated the use of face masks in public for COVID-19 mitigation or not. Specifically, we identify the effects of mandating face mask use in public on daily COVID-19 growth rates based on differences in the timing and issuance of state mandates.

In the US, 15 states plus DC have issued mandates for face mask use in public between April 8 and May 15. We examine the effects of state mandates for use of face masks in public on the daily COVID-19 growth rate using an event study that examines the effects over different periods. We also consider the impact of mandates for mask use targeted only to employees in some work settings, as opposed to community-wide mandates. This evidence is critical as states and countries worldwide begin to shift to “reopening” their economies and as foot traffic increases. Mandating public use of masks has become a socially and politically contentious issue, with multiple protests and even acts of violence directed against masked employees and those asking customers to wear face masks. Face cover recommendations and mandates are part of the current set of measures, following earlier social distancing measures such as school and non-essential business closures, bans on large gatherings, and shelter-in-place orders being considered by states and local governments, especially as regions of the country reopen. For example, most recently, Virginia started its phase one reopening on May 22, 2020 and required everyone in the state to wear face masks in public where people congregate. Therefore, it is critical to provide direct evidence on this question not only for public health authorities and governments but also for educating the public.

...There is a significant decline in daily COVID-19 growth rate after mandating facial covers in public, with the effect increasing over time after signing the order... The study provides direct evidence on the effectiveness of widespread community use of face masks from a natural experiment that evaluates effects of state government mandates in the US for face mask use in public on COVID-19 spread... Using an event study that examines daily changes in county-level COVID-19 growth rates, the study finds that mandating public use of face masks is associated with a reduction in the COVID-19 daily growth rate.

...These estimates are not small and represent nearly 16–19% of the effects of other social distancing measures (school closures, bans on large gatherings, shelter-in-place orders, and closures of restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues) after similar periods from their enactment. The estimates suggest increasing effectiveness and benefits from these mandates over time. By May 22, the estimates suggest that as many as 230,000–450,000 COVID-19 cases may have been averted based on when states passed these mandates. Again, the estimates of averted cases should be viewed cautiously as these are sensitive to assumptions and different approaches for transforming the changes in the daily growth rate estimates to cases.

Their conclusion is clear, though I doubt anyone could explain it to Trump. "The study provides evidence that states in the US mandating use of face masks in public had a greater decline in daily COVID-19 growth rates after issuing these mandates compared to states that did not issue mandates. These effects are observed conditional on other existing social distancing measures and are independent of the CDC recommendation to wear facial covers issued on April 3. As countries worldwide and states begin to relax social distancing restrictions and considering the high likelihood of a second COVID-19 wave in the fall/winter, requiring use of face masks in public might help in reducing COVID-19 spread."

Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Señor T by Michael Bender in which, among other assorted nonsense, the worst president in American history claimed many people wear masks as a sign they disapprove of him, rather than to stay healthy or keep people around them healthy. This literally defines what a narcissistic sociopath is.

Still no mask on the damn sociopath

Earlier in the week far right sociopath Tom Rice (R-SC) announced that he, his wife and their son have the "Wuhan Flu," the xenophobic, racist term neo-fascists and fascists use to describe COVID-19. Rice has refused to wear a mask on the House floor and has probably spread it to other Republican members who eschew masks. He represents the very red 7th district of eastern South Carolina, which includes Myrtle Beach and 8 counties. South Carolina-- where social distancing hasn't been taken seriously, is spiking badly now.

The counties in Rice's district haven't fared well. The state reports 388 cases per 100,000 people. As of yesterday, 6 of the 8 counties in Rice's district were faring worse than that average:

• Marlboro- 874
• Dillon- 654
• Chesterfield- 637
• Florence- 601
• Darlington- 531
• Horry- 404 (with the 3rd most infections of any county in the state)

Rice isn't the only House Republican refusing to wear a mask on the floor and endangering the other members and congressional employees. And Pelosi is now trying to force them to-- at least in committee meetings-- asking all the committee chairs to "enforce mask-wearing in all hearings." Republicans, of course, see this as tyranny rather than an attempt to save lives. They're also going berserk that she authorized the sergeant at arms to refuse entry to anyone who is not wearing a mask. (All the Democrats and most of the Republicans members where masks; it's just a handful of extremist Trumpian lunatics like Rice, Clay Higgins, Ted Yoho and Jim Jordan who refuse.)

The Associated Press reported that "The tightening mask rules came as the House Judiciary panel conducted a drafting session Wednesday on a policing bill, the first such meeting held under new rules permitting remote attendance. At a hearing last week, several GOP lawmakers, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, declined to wear masks, which are considered an easy, effective way to combat the spread of the virus. An advisory by Attending Physician Brian Monahan said that for House members 'in a limited enclosed space, such as a committee hearing room, for greater than 15 minutes, face coverings are REQUIRED.' It said face coverings will be provided for those who arrive without face covers. The Capitol physician’s guidance 'cites new studies that speak to the broad scientific consensus on the effectiveness of mask-wearing to prevent the spread of COVID-19,' the Democratic aide said in an accompanying statement, adding that the Sergeant of Arms will deny entry to lawmakers who don’t wear masks and committee chairs can refuse to recognize them."

With new coronavirus caseloads spiking in Oklahoma just before Trump's Death Cult Rally on Saturday, his campaign's "precautions" go no further than forcing attendees to sign a waiver saying if they contact the disease they cannot sue the campaign or the venue.

Trump’s campaign advisers believe his first rally in three months on Saturday night at an indoor arena will rejuvenate his base at a time when a string of national and state opinion polls have shown the president falling behind Democratic rival Joe Biden.

“Ultimately, the president doesn’t ask for permission before he” goes to places, said Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt during a briefing on Wednesday. “So we found out that president was coming, so we are going to make sure it’s the best and as safe as possible.”

Oklahoma health officials are urging anyone attending the rally to get tested for the coronavirus before arriving and then to self-isolate following the event and get tested again. The health commissioner urged those over 65 or at higher risk of coronavirus-related complications to stay home.

...In most of the states where cases are spiking, COVID-19 hospitalizations are also rising or at record highs. Unlike spikes reported in new infections, rising hospitalizations cannot simply be attributed to increased testing.

"Die For Me" by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, John Pavlovitz warned the country that a mask is a stupid hill to die on. Lots of people seem to think that not wearing a mask will Make America Great Again. Pavlovitz wrote that "Despite how many people have died, despite how decimated our economy is, despite the near complete shutdown of life (that you’ve been moaning like a dirty-diapered infant for months about)-- this minuscule task is too much to ask? A mask is the small, selfish, ignorant hill you’re choosing to die (and kill) on? The multitudinous non-maskers aren’t a monolith, of course, but most can be loosely organized into two groups:

1) Self-centered narcissists, who simply refuse to make the smallest sacrifice for the health and well-being of others, because they’ve been so weaned on individualism and have so little appreciation for interdependent community-- that anything less than completely unfettered freedom feels restrictive.

2) People with such a cultic adoration of this president that they refuse to wear a mask, because to do so would mean that he was wrong all along and that they were lied to and that we are in grave danger-- so in an oxymoronic attempt at self-preservation, they swallow a toxic cocktail of tearful nationalism, Fox News fakery, macho flexing, and willful ignorance-- and kill people to own the Libs.  

He continued to remind the non-mask wears that "this isn’t about your personal freedom... [or] about physical toughness... If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you’re not making America great. You’re abusing your freedom, you’re intentionally placing fellow citizens in harm’s way, you’re damaging the economy, and you’re dooming us to far longer restrictions than if you simply put a piece of cloth over your mouth. If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you’re also not pro-life. You are showing a reckless disregard for yourself and for loved ones and for strangers; the supposedly sacred lives you preach to treasure in the womb, but in practice really aren’t all that concerned with outside of it. And if you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic-- you’re just not a very good person. We’re in an unprecedented health crisis that has literally shut down the world, and you won’t do literally the simplest thing you’re being asked to, in order to prevent other people from getting sick and dying. Congratulations. You’re failing the 'human' test. Enjoy your hill. It will look great with a headstone."

Trump Has Utterly Failed His Test-- Guess Who Suffers (+ Bob Dylan's 17 Minute Song)

The GOP death cult is super-duper strong in Alabama, where the moron governor has challenged the coronavirus to come and kill all her citizens. Still, Nazis, fascists and assorted racists from all over the U.S. head up to their idea of an Aryan Nation-- Idaho's panhandle. The state voted or Trump in 2016 by a massive margin-- 59.25% to just 27.48% for Hillary (who won just two of the state's 44 counties.) The panhandle counties were even Trumpier than the rest of the state:

• Benewah- 74.0%
• Bonner- 60.8%
• Kootenai- 67.1% (the neo-Nazi capital of America)
• Shoshone- 64.4%

And even though Trump's net approval has decreased by 10 points since he first occupied the White House, 58% of Idaho voters still approved of the job he is doing, compared to just 39% who don't. None the less, Idaho's very conservative Republican governor, Brad Little, just issued a statewide 21-day stay at home order. Like most states, there is a long list of exceptions to the shutdown:

• Healthcare operations
• Grocery stores including liquor stores
• Food cultivation such as farming, fishing, and food processing
• Businesses that provide food, shelter and services for economically disadvantaged individuals
• News media services
• Gas stations, auto supply and repair facilities
• Banks, credit unions and financial institutions
• Plumbers, electricians and landscapers
• Hardware stores and firearm businesses
• Businesses providing mailing and shipping services
• Educational institutions to provide distance learning resources
• Childcare providing services that enable employees exempted in this order to work as permitted
• Laundromats and dry cleaners
• Restaurants can stay open but can only provide take out or drive-thru services
• Hotels, motels and shared rental units
• Businesses that supply people products to work from home
• Shipping businesses that deliver food, goods or groceries
• Airlines, taxis and private transportation needed for essential travel
• Home-based care for seniors, adults or children
• Essential tribal operations
• Legal or accounting services when necessary

Yes, even Idaho. And even Fox News. Their website carried a warning from the Surgeon General that the U.S. could be worse than Italy if 15-day guidelines are disregarded. Who's stupid enough to disregard them?

Jerome Adams explained his divergence with Trump by noting that the non-leader in the White House "is trying to be optimistic for Americans with his Easter timeline and also asked those not taking the coronavirus seriously to understand there is a possibility America could reach a worst-case scenario if residents do not follow the guidelines."

And optimistic for himself? I mean, Pope Francis asked the faithful to stay out of churches on Easter Sunday; Trump wants them filled with people celebrating his own resurrection. That's some step from "Hoax!"

Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that a record-breaking 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits. The Washington Post put it like this: "Last week saw the biggest jump in new jobless claims in history, surpassing the record of 695,000 set in 1982. Many economists say this is the beginning of a massive spike in unemployment that could result in over 40 million Americans losing their jobs by April. Laid off workers say they waited hours on the phone to apply for help. Websites in several states, including New York and Oregon, crashed because so many people were trying to apply at once."

“The most terrifying part about this is this is likely just the beginning of the layoffs,” said Martha Gimbel, a labor economist at Schmidt Futures.

The nation’s unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in February, a half-century low, but that has likely risen already to 5.5 percent, according to calculations by Gimbel. The nation hasn’t seen that level of unemployment since 2015.

...“We may well be in a recession,” said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in his first appearance on morning television on NBC’s Today show. “The first order of business is to get the virus under control and then resume economic activity.”

...Both the scale of the layoffs and the speed at which they are happening are unprecedented. During the Great Recession, for example, the worst week for jobless claims was 665,000. Last week the nation saw five times that amount.

The Trump recession has begun and now what we have to hope for is that it doesn't become the Trump Depression. With him at the helm, we could be looking at 40 million unemployed by Easter. Read any independent economist and the words "it’s going to get worse" are always in their analysis. Writing for HuffPo, Zach Carter and Amanda Terkel reported that Mnuchin is basically in his own delusional world and that everything will be fine after he gets his hands on the half trillion dollar slush fund. After the unemployment spike was announced yesterday, he told CNBC's audience that "I just think these numbers right now are not relevant, and you know, whether they’re bigger or smaller in the short term. I mean, obviously, there are people who have jobless claims. And again, the good thing about this bill is the president is protecting those people. So you know, now with these plans, small businesses hopefully will be able to hire back a lot of those people. Last week, they didn’t know if they had protections. They didn’t have any cash. They had no choice. Now with this bill passed by Congress, there are protections."

This is wishful thinking, to put it mildly. Despite its big price tag, economists believe the legislation passed by the Senate on Wednesday is far too modest to meet the scope of the coming economic crash.

The $349 billion the legislation sets aside for small businesses will be exhausted quickly, but experts also believe that it will take months for the aid to reach most small firms. During that time, many of them will simply fail, and you can’t rehire workers if you don’t have a company.

The key provision of the bailout bill is a $454 billion program overseen by Mnuchin that can be leveraged 10 times over by the Federal Reserve to do essentially anything Mnuchin and the Fed want to do with it. But firms that receive this money will still be allowed to lay off up to 10% of their workforces over the next six months-- and that figure would be calculated based on this week’s employment. The 3.3 million people who were laid off last week wouldn’t count.

The coronavirus crash isn’t a simple shortage of cash. It’s a crisis on several different economic fronts that will require months, if not years, of aggressive government action to combat.

Global supply chains are breaking down as companies that manufacture goods in other countries find themselves unable to access factories and materials that they have relied upon for years. The collapse in U.S. consumer spending won’t simply return to normal.

The legislation’s protections for people who are laid off or struggling to pay the bills are simply too paltry to restore the plunge in purchasing power from unprecedented layoffs, not to mention the fear that most families are now experiencing. Every household in America will be pinching their pennies for the foreseeable future, and that loss of spending translates into a loss of revenue for businesses, and lower payrolls. The loss of American purchasing power will resonate both at home and abroad. This may well culminate in a shock to the financial system akin to the meltdown of 2008.

Thursday’s unemployment number is likely undercounting how many people are without work as well. Some people who have tried to apply for unemployment benefits have reported phone lines and websites frozen and jammed up by the crush of applicants. And people who are self-employed, undocumented, students or gig workers are ineligible to apply and therefore not counted.

Don Beyer (New Dem-VA), vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee: "These numbers are far worse than anything we saw during the Great Recession. We need to move quickly to help those that are getting hurt. It not only protects those families but it protects the economy-- so everyone benefits. That is why the bill passed by the Senate to increase unemployment insurance by an extra $600 a week for four months and make billions available for small business grants and loan payments is so important-- only Congress can make sure that those who are out of work right now, and the small businesses that employ them, do not go broke. It is vital that the federal government continue to follow the directives of medical professionals and public health experts, and not yield to the urge to 'reopen' the economy too soon. Doing so could cost lives and drastically deepen and prolong the damage to the economy. Stopping this pandemic and protecting human life is the most important thing we can do, and it is also the best thing we can do for the economy. I continue to urge all who can to please stay home."

As Chris Martenson says every single day in his podcast-- not to mention Erasure-- it didn't have to be this way. Obama made it look so easy that even a brainless blowhard-- who assured us he only hires "the best people"-- could be president. Turns out, he only hires the worst people. In yesterday's NY Times Jennifer Steinhauer and Zolan Kanno-Youngs noted that "Of the 75 senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security, 20 are either vacant or filled by acting officials, including Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary who recently was unable to tell a Senate committee how many respirators and protective face masks were available in the United States. The National Park Service, which like many federal agencies is full of vacancies in key posts, tried this week to fill the job of a director for the national capital region after hordes of visitors flocked to see the cherry blossoms near the National Mall, creating a potential public health hazard as the coronavirus continues to spread. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, workers are scrambling to order medical supplies on Amazon after its leaders, lacking experience in disaster responses, failed to prepare for the onslaught of patients at its medical centers. Empty slots and high turnover have left parts of the federal government unprepared and ill equipped for what may be the largest public health crisis in a century, said numerous former and current federal officials and disaster experts. Some 80 percent of the senior positions in the White House below the cabinet level have turned over during President Trump’s administration, with about 500 people having departed since the inauguration. Mr. Trump is on his fourth chief of staff, his fourth national security adviser and his fifth secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Between Mr. Trump’s history of firing people and the choice by many career officials and political appointees to leave, he now finds himself with a government riddled with vacancies, acting department chiefs and, in some cases, leaders whose professional backgrounds do not easily match up to the task of managing a pandemic."

Trump rules by chaos, fear, personal loyalty and whim. No American president was ever less prepared for something as catastrophic as this pandemic as Trump was. There is no part of the federal government functioning adequately.





Last night, Bob Dylan alerted his fans, via tweet, that this previously unreleased 17 minute song, "Murder Most Foul," is now available. Alexis Petridis for The Guardian: "People have mooted that it’s a standalone release, appearing now because Dylan understandably thinks it’s timely, March 2020 being a pretty apropos moment to release an epic song filled with death and horror and apocalyptic dread ('The age of the antichrist has just begun... it’s 36 hours past judgment day'), or perhaps to give his diehard fans further incentive to stay indoors. You rather get the feeling some of them will still be self-isolating months after the coronavirus all-clear has sounded, delicately unpicking its manifold knotty allusions-- the line about playing it for Carl Wilson down Gower Avenue requires the listener to know that the late Beach Boy sang backing vocals on Desperados Under the Eaves, the concluding track from Warren Zevon’s eponymous 1976 album, which ended with the line 'look away down Gower Avenue'-- and arguing on message boards as to whether the Susie mentioned midway through is just a reference to the Everly Brothers, or to Suze Rotolo, the girlfriend with whom Dylan watched the aftermath of Kennedy assassination unfolding, holed up in their New York apartment... The point is clearly the lyrics, which are dense and intriguing enough to hold your interest, and give the listener plenty to digest. Quite aside from all the cultural references, there’s a narrator that keeps switching from Kennedy himself to Dylan, who in turn seems to keep switching from firebrand mode to the grimly resigned old grouch of Things Have Changed and It’s All Good ('I hate to tell you Mister but only dead men are free') and a plethora of details about the assassination itself: 'Don’t say Dallas don’t love you, Mr President' is a mangling of the last words spoken to Kennedy by Nellie Connally, the first lady of Texas."

Congress Votes For War, Death And Destruction... Against Defenseless Civilians

A Step Backward by Nancy Ohanian

Wednesday evening, by a vote of 201-187, the House voted to make sure Saudi war crimes against Yemen would continue unabated— and with U.S. support. House Democrats, primarily led by Ted Lieu and Ro Khanna, have been working to end the slaughter in Yemen since Obama was still in office. Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy made sure this effort would fail and were backed by 195 Republicans and 6 Democrats. 15 Republicans abandoned their party to vote with 172 Democrats who would like to see the war end asap— and to see U.S. participation end immediately. This was a vote on whether or not to allow a vote on Ro Khanna’s resolution on U.S. backing for the Saudi-led war against Yemen. Ryan’s highly unusual procedural ploy attached a one-line rule change to a resolution about wolves. The members who voted in favor of war will never be called out on it by their constituents because of how complicated and hard to find the vote was.

The 6 Democrats who crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP:

Anna Eshoo (Silicon Valley)
Gene Green (South Houston)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-western Minnesota)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-California’s Central Valley)
Filemón Vela (Blue Dog-Brownsville, TX)
Vicente González (Blue Dog-South Texas)

God only knows what Eshoo’s problem is, although it may be something to do with her Assyrian Christian heritage. The other 5 are very right-wing, often voting with the Republicans, and very corrupt, definitely susceptible to bribes from Saudi lobbyists and arms manufacturers.



Most of the Republicans who crossed the aisle in the other direction oppose U.S. entanglements overseas and are part of the Freedom Caucus:

Justin Amash (MI)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Rod Blum (IA)
Dave Brat (VA)
Johnny Duncan (TN)
Louie Gohmert (TX)
Morgan Griffith (VA)
Jim Jordan (OH)
Raul Labrador (ID)
Tom Massie (KY)
Mark Meadows (NC)
Ralph Norman (SC)
Bill Posey (FL)
Mark Sanford (SC)
David Schweikert (AZ)

Ro Khanna, the principle author of this resolution: “It’s unfortunate that the Republicans broke precedent and blocked our resolution to end US involvement in the war in Yemen. They are abdicating congressional oversight duties on their way out of power… While today’s vote did not go our way, we will not stop fighting to end US involvement in the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history. We must end US complicity in Yemen’s humanitarian disaster.” He vowed to bring it up again in January, when there will be far fewer Republicans in Congress and far more Democrats.

Meanwhile, our country is responsible— meaning we (you and I) are responsible— for as many as 14 million people dying of starvation and disease. We, us… you… me. Trump. And those 6 Democrats and 195 Republicans in Congress yesterday. Horrifying.

Abdellah Taïa May Be Gay And Arab But His Vision Is For The Whole World-- Go Rimbaud!

We first met Moroccan author Abdellah Taïa here at DWT about a year and a half ago in a discussion of marriage equality. I found his work in Out back then, and the new issue of the same magazine has an essay by him on the Arab Spring from another perspective: "Gay, Muslim, and Free." He says the Arab Spring has changed his writing. "I write as a revolutionary now, more political than ever. To join Arab history as it moves is a duty. I feel like Arthur Rimbaud. I see. To clean the slate is imperative."

Ever since I was a kid grappling with my own sexuality, one of the most positive things about being gay was the outlaw aspect, the social rebel. I don't know how many young gay people can even find that aspect in the clutter of glamorized, commercialized acceptance these days. I remember relating to Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" (video above) through that prism.

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

And then there was Kris Kristofferson's song that Janis Joplin made into a smash, Me And Bobby McGee:

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,
Nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free, now now.
And feeling good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues,
You know feeling good was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

It's part of my theory that gays always play a disproportionately large part in any revolutionary movement, whether political, cultural or social-- or at least they did before all the acceptance kicked in. But if that theory doesn't work in California and New York, it sure still works in Mississippi and the Arab world. Taïa has been living in Paris but he seems very inspired by events from Bahrain to his own native Morocco.

Arabs are finally in the process of exiting the prisons in which many dictators have tried to imprison them. The Arabs-- the people that have been called fatalistic and submissive-- are staging a revolution. Better than that: They are reinventing the idea of revolution.

...This uprising overwhelms me, brings tears to my eyes and allows me, as an Arab writer, both Muslim and gay, to dare to feel hope. The determination I've always had, since childhood, to be myself, to tempt the truth, despite insults and misunderstanding—I see it now among other Arabs. Not only my own country of Morocco, but also with Arabs who, until recently, were far from my thoughts and my heart.

Before, the Arab world seemed like a fiction, a unified façade invented by the elite in order to dominate the people, to maintain them in poverty, unemployed and silent; to impose upon them a religion in order to control them; to keep them from thinking or from becoming free.

Now, a miracle is emerging in front of our eyes daily. Nightly. Arabs are emerging from their fear, defying power, sacrificing themselves. This moment is historic. It comes from within itself. And it's there because free voices continue to emerge. We want a lay society, freedom of religion, freedom of the body. We want equality, justice. We want to define our own existence. We want individuality, not only recognized by the legal system, but protected by the laws. For heterosexuals, as well as for homosexuals.

...I know some homosexuals who stood daily with the millions of Egyptians on Tahrir Square, in Cairo, in order to topple the regime and force President Mubarak to resign. I know homosexuals in Morocco, in Syria, in Tunisia who participated actively in the revolution.

I speak of homosexuals because I am one. And this revolution is also mine-- ours.

I am not a dreamer. I am not an idealist. For the first time in my life, I see that the Arab world can change. Will change. Has even started to change.

Go Rimbaud!

Inside/Outside Strategy-- Still A Must If You Want Real Progress Rather Than An Anarchistic Bloodbath

David Korten's book, Agenda For A New Economy sounds like it laid the groundwork for #OccupyWallStreet. "Leadership for transformational change must come, as it always has, from outside the institutions of power," he wrote on page 1. Of course, I'm so old I remember Bob Dylan singing "Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters." (Watch the video up top; that's Allen Ginsberg with the tallis in the background.)

The amorphous "left" made a horrific miscalculation when a mainstream conservative in a Blue T-shirt talking a slick populist game was elected president to follow Bush. American voters empowered not just Obama but huge, unassailable majorities in both Houses of Congress. Progressive activists relaxed, more or less and did some Obama cheerleading. What could go wrong? If you've been reading this blog for the past couple of years, you know exactly the answer to that. Obama followed a mainstream conservative agenda-- obviously not the crazy right-wing, reactionary, fascist agenda pushed forward by the GOP at the behest of its Daddy Warbucks financiers, but... well many of those Daddies are giving warbucks to Obama and to more than a few congressional Democrats as well. A majority of Americans expect Obama to not win reelection, even if they personally feel a Republican would be much worse for the country.

Early yesterday Obama's reelection team issued a memo that indicates he's going to keep following the Elizabeth Warren populist approach to the voters. It's done wonders for her, as the second poll in a row shows her in a dead heat with Wall Street shill Scott Brown. But will voters believe Obama, after three years of playing footsie with Wall Street? And if, by some miracle, he is reelected, what does that campaign memo suggest about how he would govern during a second term? Absolutely nothing. Here's the memo itself:

From economics to immigration, Governor Perry, Governor Romney and the Republican field have embraced policies that the American people oppose. The campaign to win the Republican nomination has become a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Tea Party. They would return to policies that have been tried before and done nothing to improve economic security for the middle class, rewarding special interests who can afford to pay for lobbyists instead of looking out for working families.

While the President is fighting to create jobs and put money in the pockets of middle class Americans, the Republican candidates have proposed extending tax breaks for large corporations and tax cuts for the wealthiest while allowing special interests to write their own rules.

The Republican candidates universally want to repeal the protections that the President put in place to prevent another financial crisis and instead allow banks to write their own rules, but an overwhelming majority of Americans-- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- favor strong oversight of Wall Street and an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [Lake Research 7/11].

Governor Perry called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and continues to question its constitutionality and Governor Romney supports turning Social Security funds over to Wall Street. Yet even a majority of Republicans oppose a fundamental overhaul of Social Security [Gallup 9/15/11].

According to recent surveys, a strong majority of Americans favor asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share in order to create jobs and get our fiscal house in order. Seventy three percent support ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes on their total income as those who make less, and in a recent Gallup poll asking the wealthiest Americans to pay more was the single most popular proposal to reduce the deficit [PPP 9/22/11; Gallup 8/7/11]. Seventy three percent of Americans support repealing tax breaks for oil and gas companies [CNN Poll 7/21/11]. Yet none of the Republican candidates would ask the wealthiest to pay an additional dime and their economic plans maintain tax breaks for large corporations.

The Republican candidates have embraced Republican budget plans-- from the Ryan budget to the so-called Cut Cap and Balance plan-- that would end Medicare as we know it, erode Social Security, and eliminate investments in education and research and development. Fifty seven percent of Americans oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would be used to help pay for health insurance [Bloomberg Poll 9/12/11]. And recent surveys have all reflected support for the investments the President has proposed we make to create jobs and spur the economy-- from putting first responders and teachers back to work to rebuilding our roads and bridges-- rather than a retreat from them.

Instead of laying out a plan to promote America’s competitiveness, the Republican candidates have focused on what they want to dismantle. While the EPA has become the Republican candidates’ favorite punching bag, 71% of Americans believe we should continue to fund the EPA to enforce greenhouse gas emission standards and other environmental regulations [CNN Poll 4/10/11]. A majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, and a majority of Independents believe that the Department of Education should remain [CNN Poll 9/11/11]. But Governor Perry called “cutting back on the Department of Education” a “good idea,” and Representative Bachmann said we should “turn off [its] lights and lock the door.” 

While Americans oppose repeal by a margin of 52-37, the Republican candidates would repeal the Affordable Care Act, allowing insurance companies once again to refuse to cover preexisting conditions [Kaiser 9/12/11].

Americans don’t want to return to policies that haven’t worked in the past, and they don’t want to start doing away with sensible environmental safeguards and investments in education. They want a forward looking plan to take on our economic challenges, to create jobs and to ensure that America wins the future in a competitive global economy. The Republican field has become increasingly out of step on immigration. While 64% of Americans believe the U.S. should allow undocumented immigrants to become citizens under certain conditions, the leading Republican candidates oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants [Gallup 6/12/11]. And a majority of Americans have consistently supported the DREAM Act which the Republican candidates universally oppose at the federal level.

Fighting for a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility has been at the center of this administration’s mission. Upon taking office, the President took immediate steps to address our historic economic challenges. He stood up to the banks and passed sweeping credit cards reforms ensuring that they couldn’t gouge consumers through deceptive lending practices, he ignored the pundits and extended a loan to the auto companies that saved 1.4 million American jobs, and instead of carving out tax breaks for large corporations, he cut taxes for small businesses 17 times in order to fuel the true engine of job creation.

America’s future will be defined by the success of our middle class, but the Republican candidates are positioning themselves as champions for large corporations and special interests whose plans would leave working families in the lurch.

So what's the takeaway? Whether Obama wins or loses, we need a strong progressive activist base working outside the system and a strong progressive cohort inside the system working for the same goals we're working for, not Blue Dogs and not New Dems or DLC hacks... honest to goodness New Deal Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Bernie Sanders in the Senate and like the progressive challengers Blue America has found who are running for House seats. We need both to get anywhere, regardless of Obama. Chris Donovan has been both an outsider and an inside player-- an SEIU organizer and the current Speaker of Connecticut's House. He's running for Congress and Blue America has endorsed him. He totally "gets" OccupyWallStreet. Here's what he told us this morning: "The Occupy Wall Street protests are a clear sign that Americans are angry about the lack of accountability for the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires that brought our economy to the brink of collapse. Now is the time to focus on bailing out Main Street by creating jobs, building bridges, roads, and rail, hiring teachers, nurses, and firefighters, and relieving the crushing burden of student loan debt.

"And we must reduce income inequality by instituting the Buffett Rule ensuring that billionaires do not pay a lower tax rate than their middle class employees. As we did in Connecticut, millionaires and billionaires should be asked to pay their fair share of an equitable economic recovery."


UPDATE: Advise... From An Ex-Teabagger

It's an interesting open letter about cooption and it brings up a lot of points worth considering. Keep in mind it comes from one person's perspective, a Paultard no less, for better and/or worse:

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDITS: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared: http://vimeo.com/20355767

If my essay seems too conspiratorial or tl;dr for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."

Outernational, A Band

Unlike the Cure's Robert Smith, I've always had a special place in my heart for "message music." It didn't always have to be Phil Ochs or Country Joe and the Fish though, although I loved both of the songs I just linked to. The Velvet Underground was just as radical... to put it mildly, in an expansive way of defining political messaging. Not to mention Dylan. And Dylan is kind of what this post is semi-about. Well, it's not really about Dylan except that Amnesty International is making a new album of Dylan cover songs.

Did you listen to that Velvets song at the link? Man did I love that... it was behavior altering for a semester I dropped out of college. Before I did though, I never missed a Velvets show in NYC. I think I went to every single Exploding Plastic Inevitable gig at the Dom on St Marks Place. I was just a teenager at the time-- and damn lucky I could get in-- but I met all kinds of cool people at those shows. Including 3 fellow teenagers who had just arrived in NYC from California, Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley and Steve Noonan. They weren't famous, just cool. I invited them back to crash at my campus after the show, about an hour away from the city. I was booking the concerts at the college and they were all singer songwriters and I got them gigs whenever I could. I gave Tim the opening slot on the Doors concert. Jackson wound up as the quasi-lead singer of the campus house-band, the Soft White Underbelly, a precursor of the Blue Oyster Cult.

Last week one of my neighbors, drummer Jim Keltner, was recording a new song with Jackson. He's worked with Jackson before. Who hasn't he worked with? He's probably best know for the drumming he did for George Harrison, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Dylan (hold that thought... it'll come in handy in a moment), the Stones, Gary Wright, Leon Russell, Roy Orbison, Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello, Ry Cooder, Sheryl Crow... you know... everybody. If he's not the most famous drummer in the world, he's totally the most famous drummer on my block.

Remember that band I mentioned a week or so ago, Outernational? It was in connection with some anti-American hysteria Cuban-American fascist Marco Rubio was pushing at the Ronald Reagan Library. I posted a cool song and talked about how they were in Mexico working with Calle 13 and how Tom Morello from Rage and Chad Smith from the Peppers produce them. They're back from Mexico City and this weekend they're doing their song for the Amnesty International album, a new version of the one way up at the top, "When the Ship Comes In" (1964, way before any of these Clash-inspired NYC musicians was born). But lately their drummer has been Chad and this week his other band has a new album out they're out promoting.

So... who's the best drummer in the world who I know who knows Dylan songs and who heard the Outernational demos and totally loved them? Right! So this week, Jim Keltner started the week working on a new Jackson Browne song and ended the week working on a cover of an old Bob Dylan song with a band that only a handful of people know about so far. Remember I said how I booked the Doors to play at my school a few paragraphs back? I paid them $400. No one knew who they were when I booked them and Steven Krantz, the sophomore class president shook me out of a reverie during the show to demand I not pay "these clowns." "Light My Fire" had just been released as a single but the band wasn't famous yet. I knew them from a tiny bar where they played all summer one year under the 59th Street Bridge. The place only held like 60-70 people and I went every night so I got to know them. That's what seeing Outernational's going to be like if you catch them now.

I don't know what their version of "When The Ship Comes In" is going to sound like but listen to Dylan doing it with some Stones up top and then listen to this random Outernational song below and see if you can figure it out. I can't help thinking about what it was like on that first big Clash tour in 1977 with the Buzzcocks, the Slits, and Subway Sect. Special. Catch 'em if you can, although lately all they seem to do are immigrant rights gigs in Arizona.

A Catholic Sect Crazy Enough For The Teabaggers?

Authoritarian religion & fascism: a match made in Heaven

Although the right-wing/Know Nothing faction of the Republican Party has traditionally been not just Protestant but vehemently anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic, things have changed lately. Right-wing bigots in charge of the GOP and the Tea Party are happy for whatever support they can get-- including Jews and Catholics. In fact, conservative Catholics-- I mean really, really conservative Catholics-- couldn't be better suited for the anti-Science dogma at the heart of modern right-wing movements like today's GOP. Extremists in the Catholic Church are rewarded for the kind of mindless, faith-based devotion that any authoritarian or totalitarian agenda like the Republicans' is dependent on. Yesterday Manya Brachear reported in the Chicago Tribune not on Catholics in politics but on Catholics who are unable to accept any science-based reality whatsoever. The Society of St. Pius X, for example, rejects most of the modernizing reforms made by the Vatican II council from 1962 to 1965.

A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church's original teachings as proof that Earth is the center of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church's clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago.

...Those promoting geocentrism argue that heliocentrism, or the centuries-old consensus among scientists that Earth revolves around the sun, is a conspiracy to squelch the church's influence.

"Heliocentrism becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of a budding movement to get scientists to reconsider. "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions — thus the state of the world today.… Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her."

...[S]upporters contend there is scientific evidence to support geocentrism, just as there is evidence to support the six-day story of creation in Genesis.

There is proof in Scripture that Earth is the center of the universe, Sungenis said. Among many verses, he cites Joshua 10:12-14 as definitive proof: "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, while the nation took vengeance on its foe... The sun halted in the middle of the sky; not for a whole day did it resume its swift course."

But Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., said the Bible is silent on geocentrism.

"There's a big difference between looking at the origin of the planets, the solar system and the universe and looking at presently how they move and how they are interrelated," Ham said. "The Bible is neither geocentric or heliocentric. It does not give any specific information about the structure of the solar system."

Just as Ham challenges the foundation of natural history museums by disputing evolution, Sungenis challenges planetariums, most notably the Vatican Observatory.

Crackpots? Well, sure, but well-financed, well--armed, determined and... you know what Bob Dylan said about people who are certain that they have God on their side. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers the Society of St. Pius X a dangerous right-wing group that grew right out of Nazism. Founded by a psychotic French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is one of the most reactionary, anti-democratic elements in French politics, advocating a restoration of an absolute monarchy while condemning the French Revolution and everything it stood for (Liberté, égalité, fraternité). Lefebvre himself is a dedicated fascist and pro-Nazi supporter of the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain and the neo-Nazi National Front of Jean-Marie le Pen (something like a French version of our own teabaggers). In fact Lefebvre urged his supporters to vote for le Pen based on le Pen's unambiguous opposition to women's Choice. And their disdain for women goes beyond health issues... and, of course, beyond France. (Remember, this is the anti-Semitic cult Mel Gibson finances.)

Kansas recently elected an extreme right Catholic Opus Dei governor with SSPX sympathies, Sam Brownback. He was born into a normal Protestant family, moved to extreme evangelicalism and finally discovered something far more reactionary, the Opus Dei/SSPX branch of Catholicism. But in Kansas? You bet! Here's a 2008 report from Topeka on Good Morning America:

Just minutes before she was scheduled to referee a boy's varsity basketball game at St. Mary's Academy, Michelle Campbell was told she would not be allowed to work the game because she is a woman.

St. Mary's Academy, near Topeka, Kan., is a controversial religious school that follows older Roman Catholic laws, but many argue that religious beliefs does not give the school the right to discriminate.

"The policy of the school was that they indeed do not permit female officials to officiate the boys athletic contests at their school," said Gary Musselman, executive director of the Kansas State High School Athletics Association.

The school's policy-- straight from the SSPX hymnal-- is to not allow women to have authority over men. Perhaps that's the mentality that was behind the total melting away of Michele Bachmann's Republican Party support within days of Rick Perry entering the GOP presidential race.

Are The Blue Dogs Really THAT Bad?

Yesterday my pal Jill Richardson posted about the how too many Democrats are falling for the carefully scripted conservative hysteria about deficits and austerity. Short version: their mania for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy (not to mention corporate welfare) drove our country's economy into a ditch and now it is the duty of the victims to buck up and take it like a man-- even if the victims are malnourished school children. Jill focused in-- and rightfully so-- on greasy Steny Hoyer. Today, as part of our 4th of July weekend, I'd like to spread that out a little with a look at Hoyer's allies, the Blue Dogs. Early today we looked at one particularly horrible Blue Dog-- perhaps the worst of all-- Oklahoma reactionary Dan Boren.

When the real Tea Party patriots sparked a revolution against the British monarchy, thousands of wealthy conservatives fled back to England. Even more went to the British West Indies and Canada. But not all. Alas, some conservatives stayed in America. Their ideological descendants are basically today's Republican Party-- plus conservatives in the Democratic Party, like Boren and his fellow Blue Dogs. The Blue Dogs didn't start as an official House caucus until 1994 when a bunch of southern reactionaries started meeting in the offices of Louisiana Democrats Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes [each of whom, now sleazy K Street lobbyists, switched to the GOP the following year, a natural next step for any Blue Dog. Other right-wing and racist Democrats who jumped the fence at the same time include Nathan Deal (GA), Mike Parker (MS), Greg Laughlin (TX), followed later by Ralph Hall (TX) and Parker Griffith (AL)].

Of course 1994 wasn't really the beginning of the virulent Blue Dog strain, just the latest incarnation of the rebels who started the Civil War, founded the KKK, enforced a brutal and dehumanizing Jim Crow regime throughout the South, proudly called themselves Dixiecrats-- and stood in school doorways with ax-handles-- and then went under the boll weevil monicker. This morning I was reminded by Rick Perlstein in Nixonland that when Democrats passed the 1971 Voting Rights Act, giving the franchise to 18 year olds, is wasn't only conservative Republicans who objected and who agreed with right-wing Democratic cartoonist and Nixon ally Al Capp when he said "the opinions of eighteen-year-olds are valuable on things they know something about, such as puberty and hubcaps, but nothing else." In fact conservative Democrats and Blue Dog forerunners were as implacably opposed to expanding voting rights as were Republican conservatives. Perlstein:

The people most terrified of the eighteen-year-old vote were Old Politics Democrats afraid of New Politics primary challenges

This year Blue America has been supporting primaries to Blue Dogs in California (Jane Harman), Utah (Jim Matheson), Georgia (John Barrow), Oklahoma (Dan Boren) and Florida (in an open seat between a corrupt and reactionary Blue Dog, Lori Edwards, and a populist, reform-minded Democrat, Doug Tudor). Hoyer, significantly, as been extremely active in these races on behalf of the Blue Dogs, most often getting corrupt lobbyists and his corporate cronies to pour money into the campaigns on behalf of the Blue Dogs. We have three races to go and I hope on this 4th of July weekend you'll be inspired by the same progressive ethos that inspired patriots who rose up against the British conservatives in the 18th Century. It's a battle that never ends and as Bob Dylan reminded us:

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Enjoy the music and please, if you can, lend a hand to Regina Thomas, Jim Wilson and Doug Tudor, Democrats we can be proud of rather than Blue Dogs we have to be ashamed of. (If these three Democrats were voting Thursday night, instead of warmongers Barrow, Boren and Putnam, the Afghanistan War would have been defunded.)

Tangled Up In Yoo

Last week David Swanson wrote this really great song, "Tangled Up In Yoo." This version was sung by Margaret Flowers. I thought watching the video would be an uplifting way to start the week.



Not everyone is enamored of the use of anthemic songs like this for social and political causes (although you rarely hear people crying anymore when their favorite classic turns up in an ad selling a crappy car or detergent). Kay Bailey Hutchison, a right-wing Texas senator running against a further right secessionist governor for his position, uses songs on YouTube clips, as does the secessionist. The secessionist has an air of corruption around him-- a well-deserved one-- and Hutchison has been using the O'Jay's For the Love of Money. "Political campaigns like ours have long considered the use of such songs in Web videos as acceptable under fair use rules," Hutchison campaign spokesman Joe Pounder said. The secessionist's spokesperson agrees. "It's an inexpensive way to put out a message. The goal in the campaign is to use every outlet possible to get your message out." Usage like the one above isn't for narrow political gain, but for the benefit of mankind.

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO'S THE WORST WAR MERCHANT OF THEM ALL?

Nazi propaganda poster; under Bush, the shoe kind of fits

Who says America doesn't manufacture anything anymore? We certainly do turn out lethal weapons. In fact, according to a report in this morning's NY Times we sell more arms to the third world than anyone else ($10.3 billion). Russia ($8.11 billion) and Britain ($3.1 billion) are numbers 2 and 3. And the big buyers are Pakistan (oy), India and Saudi Arabia. "The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to increase profits and to expand political influence through weapons sales to developing nations, which reached nearly $28.8 billion in 2006."

The U.S. is pissed off that Russia sells weapons to Venezuela (the world' 4th biggest arms buyer since Bush started saber-rattling in their direction) and Iran. The U.S. sells weapons to countries Russia wishes it wouldn't sell to.

War is big business and from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower, we as a people have been warned about not allowing the military-industrial complex to have undue power. Now we're in a situation where the military-industrial complex-- of which the Republican Party and a good chunk of the Democratic Party is a subsidiary (see Rahm Emanuel's disgraceful appearance on Bill Maher's show)-- allows the citizens of this country very little influence. As a people we are a disgrace ourselves; we've allowed our liberty and our dignity to slip out of our hands while we watched Monday Night Football.

On Friday The Nation published a piece by John Nichols about how Congress surreptitiously passed more financing for the occupation of Iraq.

The Senate agreed on Thursday to increase the federal debt limit by $850 billion-- from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion-- and then proceeded to approve a stop-gap spending bill that gives the Bush White House at least $9 billion in new funding for its war in Iraq.

Additionally, the administration has been given emergency authority to tap further into a $70 billion “bridge fund” to provide new infusions of money for the occupation while the Congress works on appropriations bills for the Department of Defense and other agencies.
Translation: Under the guise of a stop-gap spending bill that is simply supposed to keep the government running until a long-delayed appropriations process is completed-- probably in November-- the Congress has just approved a massive increase in war funding.
The move was backed by every senator who cast a vote, save one.

Instead you get a congressman (John Hall) introducing a bill to limit the use of the private Republican army of mercenaries put together by Erik Prince a mentally disturbed, billionaire Bush supporter (Blackwater) and the immediate response is for the Bush Regime to award them a big shiny new contract and to give Congress the finger.

Those who would be leaders-- Obama and Hillary (as well as Biden, McCain and Brownback)-- were out campaigning and managed to avoid the vote. Milt at PleaseCutTheCrap says they all need brains, heart and courage-- and he's the most moderate Democrat I know! Meantime, Russ Feingold (D-WI) voted against the bill, a lonley voice once again. In the House the only votes against this were 13 anti-war Democrats and Ron Paul (R-TX). The Democrats:
Earl Blumenauer (OR)
William Clay (MO)
Keith Ellison (MN)
Bob Filner (CA)
Barney Frank (MA
Maurice Hinchey (NY)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Jim McDermott (WA)
Donald Payne (NJ)
Barbara Lee (CA)
Maxine Waters (CA)
Diane Watson, the Congressmember from DWT Headquarters (CA)
Lynn Woolsey (CA)

John Arovosis over at AmericaBlog discovered that not all western countries are following Bush's lead: Iceland is the latest to pull out of the "coalition of the willing"-- and with great panache.

Bob Dylan hasn't lost his relevance since I was a kid. Maybe someone should do a hiphop version or a trance version of this song. People need to hear its message again: