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November 14, 2004
Your Open Thread
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Have a look at the latest Wallerstein’s comment: “The 2004 Elections in the United States”
Posted by: Greco | Nov 14 2004 11:06 utc | 1
An interesting juxtaposition of programs on C-span this morning. The first was a discussion of Iran and the nuclear threat. It was emphasized that Iran should become a democracy, to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation.
I thought it had elected officials, just that the mullahs, as sort of a religious judiciary, stood by to see that they toed the line.
Jerry Falwell was was next and the similarities to what he is describing and the mullahs is frightening. He mentioned he had talked to Karl Rove “two or three” times last week and that he had had a conversation with Sen Spector about his statements apropo the appointment of judges. Sen Spector assured Falwell that “his comments had been taken out of context” and that all candidates put forward would be voted on by the full senate. Falwell assured Spector that if this changed after his confirmation, he would see that he was replaced.
Yeah, it should be an interesting four years in Washington, mullah-land.
Posted by: anonymous | Nov 14 2004 13:44 utc | 2
Iran has something like a religious Supreme Court. They make sure that the achievements of the 1979 Revolution do not get reversed. I assume that Bush wants something similiar.
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Nov 14 2004 14:48 utc | 3
zobgy smells a rat
”
In 30 precincts, more ballots were cast than voters were registered in the county. According to county regulations, voters must cast their ballot in the precinct in which they are registered. Yet in these thirty precincts, nearly 100.000 more people voted than are registered to vote — this out of a total of 251.946 registrations. These are not marginal differences–this is a 39% over-vote. In some precincts the over-vote was well over 100%. One precinct with 558 registered voters cast nearly 9,000 ballots. As one astute observer noted, it’s the ballot-box equivalent of Jesus’ miracle of the fishes. Bush being such a man of God, perhaps we should not be surprised.”
Posted by: annie | Nov 14 2004 18:19 utc | 4
Greco,
Excellent article – thanks. I think Wallerstein has it right: if the Bush machine fails to get what it wants, internal divisions in the Republican alliance will slow or stop it because there really is no opposition party right now. To keep the alliance in place, the MI complex and corporatists will have to turn over the social agenda to the Christian right while the budget cuts the corporatists want will have to hit only social spending so the MI complex stays on board. Further tax cuts should sooth any doubts the corporatists – which includes mainstream media – might have about these policies.
I believe those who look at Nixon’s and Reagan’s second terms (Watergate and Irangate) as hopeful precedents are mistaken this time. The Dems are a party in decay and moderate Repubs – sometimes called RINOs – will be marginalized or driven from the right wing movement. The South has risen again and the right wing movement is still gaining power. What will stop it? Probably only the economic time bomb this administration is building. Until it explodes, we’ll do a lot of damage in Iraq and possibly elsewhere; afterwards, we may well turn on ourselves.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Nov 14 2004 19:24 utc | 5
I have started a thread on wind power over at Le Speakeasy (which needs your presence to thrive!)
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 14 2004 19:30 utc | 6
The election had nothing to do with morals, only pseudo-morals and ideology. I don’t think that the Neocons will have the last word on morality. since it appears by their actions they are not acquainted with the term! Is Florida the first of the Brown Shirt states to get out of the closet? Only time will tell. The quote a certain moral philosopher and liberal, “Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known.” You Republicans claim God is exclusively on your side? Just wait. He in “history” has judged “his side” much harsher than the competition’s! If they want to play the God game the majority of Christians believe fundamentalism is nonsense and produces a God that is so pathetic and weak, He needs Christian Coalition to protect Him!
Nonsense. Two years in seminary when I was much younger taught me that. They cannot hide behind their lies forever.
Posted by: Diogenes | Nov 14 2004 21:43 utc | 7
A thread on wind-power!! How charming. Must be wonderful to live in a democratic country. I’d rather you tell us about that today.
Good stuff lurking on comments following lastest Chris Floyd’s column on smirking chimp. Scroll down An ex Diebold software-engineer called Link Tv the Sun before the election. He said that they knew votes could be transferred internally from one candidate to another. The machines were designed to make it invisible. This from the horse’s mouth.
Posted by: jj | Nov 15 2004 0:08 utc | 8
Oops. My post got truncated. Link doesn’t print here , but you can head over to smirkingchimp.com if wish. The gist was that an ex-Diebold software-engineer called Link Tv Sun. nite before elections & said that they knew that votes could be internally transferred bet. candidates. The machines were designed to make this undetectable. This from the Horse’s Mouth.
Posted by: jj | Nov 15 2004 0:15 utc | 9
Annie: Thanks! Been pursuing this “election” fraud vigorously myself, and there’s some new bit of info practically every day. Black Box Voting (.org) has gone on the offensive now, with multiple fraud investigations. (See Iraq thread or their site.)
Time to “hang ’em high!” 😉
Posted by: JMF | Nov 15 2004 3:00 utc | 10
BTW – has anyone done anything on the “distilling” of MoA into a pdf document? Any chance that we could do this on a regular basis on make it into a regular CD-Rom feature for our archives? I understand that I have access to distiller at work but do not have it on my own computer, so I’ll have to ask around. If successful, I’ll try to burn CD-Roms on request.
(the beginning of a publishing empire?)
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 15 2004 10:21 utc | 12
Mark Ames is at it again. The clever commentator who said that many suckers would vote Bush because they just want to make the others feel as miserable as they are (the spite vote), is at it again with his modest proposal of the final solution to Middle America’s bad voting habits.
For a starter, this is Middle America: You cannot appeal to their better instincts because they have no better instincts. They don’t think. They don’t analyze. They simply buy, sell, consume, and listen to right-wing talk radio, and a few times a week, they hear some closet case in a powder blue suit and his hair molded tighter than a cat’s ass feed them more and more hate and fear in the name of Jesus Christ. They voted for a doomed war, against progress, against modernity and against culture. They are driven by envy and cult superstition and hate. And they want to slaughter other people to make up for the fact that they cannot produce anything of value, that they are nothing but welfare queens and cheap labor whose only consolations is that they aren’t niggers, queers, spics.
And he has some really good and thought-provoking points, notably his characterization of Evangelical fundies (“Evangelical Christian philosophy is based on a simple hatred of man, hatred of life, hatred of pleasure, and hatred of everything beautiful on this planet, especially animals and forests.”), and his analysis of the Left’s critical mistake (“The Left believes that the Masses of people are inherently Good, that they want to do what’s Right for themselves and for each other”).
As you’ll see, this is one very pissed off American. I also tend to think the US liberals could do with far more Leftists as pissed off as Ames. This is “pissed off mindset” straight in the line of the rant Steve Gilliard was mailed and posted a few days ago.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 15 2004 13:41 utc | 13
CJ – as you probably know, Ames created the exile in Moscow, which is a must read for contemporary political commentary (if you can tolerate the mysoginistic (sp?) and scatological content throughout the publication…).
Back in the US, he also created the Beast in Buffalo, NY. Same tone…
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 15 2004 14:55 utc | 15
My wish would be that Colin Powell would be a real hero and blow the whistle on these guys, but I fear he will go off to the World Bank, or some such, and live happily, not even guiltily, ever after.
Posted by: mdm | Nov 15 2004 14:58 utc | 16
Here is a fairly careful analysis of the exit poll issue.
Here is a Party functionary’s response to the persistence of the exit poll issue.
Here a little humours relieve from Danziger. No not a cartoon, it an commentary he wrote for the LA Times.
Straight From the Horrors of D-day: War Is Heck!
Who says GIs need to yell naughty words as they’re saving democracy?
But what screenwriters can write, other screenwriters can rewrite. The remake of “Saving Private Ryan,” I can now report, is in the works, and I have done a few fixes myself (although I never take a credit).
Tentatively titled “Praying for Private Ryan,” the story cleans up some of the gore and all of the language. Here are some examples:
Off camera, a howitzer tears Tom Hanks’ friend in two. “Well, double hockey sticks to that,” exclaims Tom, speaking from the heart.
Up the beach we go, through enemy fire, crawling over bodies and wrecked materiel. Finally unable to stand any more carnage, Tom cries out: “Darn these Germans, anyhow!”
In one of my favorite scenes, Tom is approached by a fresh-faced young corporal. “I’m worried, sir,” the soldier says. “We’ve run out of ammunition!” “Fudge!” Tom says.
“What?” asks the young lad, appropriately shocked.
“I mean fiddlesticks!”
It’s not easy writing this stuff, trying to be accurate and yet OK for prime-time TV. But I and my fellow script doctors have done our homework, and we’ve based the best lines on actual soldiers’ memoirs. Some of these lines are just great, punctuating the fire and smoke of battle with pithy, yet morally valuable, sentiments. For example, “Drat, there goes my leg!”; “I’d like to kick Hitler in the pants!”; and the searing, “By Jiminy, we’re all going to die.”
Finally, Private Ryan is located, (“There you are, you son of a biscuit!”) and a happy ending is appended. The audience is happy, the FCC is happy and the execs at the ABC affiliates are happy.
Most important, the true picture of men at war is provided to a country now somewhat fearful about the nature of armed conflict, even when led by men of towering faith. The lesson is that if soldiers are fighting for freedom and democracy they can get the job done without a lot of bad words.
It’s been fun, giving a positive tone to a great American war movie. I reread my own words and even I am uplifted. My agent is happy too. He’s gotten me a gig rewriting a made-for-television biopic on Dick Cheney.
Well, I am reconsidering, maybe it is not that funny! Actually it is rather sad.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 16 2004 6:59 utc | 19
Clueless Joe
The modest proposal was the perfect antidote to the Iraq thread, my eyes are still watering, and woke up half the family in the midnight hour with LOL
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 16 2004 9:30 utc | 20
What’s happening? Are the BOJ-ers heavily aslept?
USDJPY:103.92 (!!!)
Posted by: Greco | Nov 17 2004 17:09 utc | 21