The “last, best hope”? – Moon of Alabama

February 18, 2008

The “last, best hope”?

It is President’s day so let me take another look at the aspirants. Even if there are only bad choice, one might want to look at their differences. In honor of this great shopping day, we will do so by looking at presidential quotes.

For me as a European,
the key point in judging candidates is U.S. foreign policy. The main point therein is exeptionalism as a justification for imperial policies and wars. Here is how John McCain saw it in 2000:

I believe in American exceptionalism. I believe we were meant to transform history. I believe that the progress of all humanity will depend, as it has for many years now, on the global progress of American interests and values. I believe we are still the last, best hope of Earth.
Sen. John McCain Addresses Shadow Convention, July 30, 2000

McCain has not changed his tone since then. This is him last week:

But now comes the hard part, and for America, the much bigger decision. We do not yet know for certain who will have the honor of being the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. But we know where either of their candidates will lead this country, and we dare not let them.
…
They will paint a picture of the world in which America’s mistakes are a greater threat to our security than the malevolent intentions of an enemy that despises us and our ideals; a world that can be made safer and more peaceful by placating our implacable foes and breaking faith with allies and the millions of people in this world for whom America, and the global progress of our ideals, has long been “the last, best hope of Earth.”
Text of McCain’s Potomac Primaries Victory Speech, February 12, 2008

McCain is wrong to claim that ‘either’ Democratic candidate is taking a less exceptionalist position than he himself.

Obama, in his major foreign policy speech, is reading from the same book McCain uses:

So I reject the notion that the American moment has passed. I dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another when, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good.

I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth. We just have to show the world why this is so.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, April 23, 2007

Imperialism is just a marketing problem? IOZ and Arthur Silber had the right words for that speech. Like Matt Stoller I found it simply awful. It reads like it was written by William Bennett.

Both McCain and Obama abuse former presidents’ quotes to justify expansionalism. Obama’s FDR quote is from a radio speech held two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:

When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil.

In that context, such words seem justified. But Obama takes them out of context and uses them where the U.S. is not attacked and where there is no imperial Japanese Army enslaving Asia and no Germanic hordes savaging Europe. To him they are a permanent state and the evil label can be be attached to this or that entity whenever needed.

The Lincoln quote as McCain and Obama use it is even more falsly applied. It is from the Annual Message to Congress sent in December 1862. The union was in in a civil war with the confederates over slavery and its economic value to the southern agricultural states. The Battle of Antietam was won and Lincoln used it as an opportunity to announce the Emancipation Proclamation. There was a selfish foreign policy aspect to it:

Abroad, as Lincoln hoped, the Proclamation turned foreign popular opinion in favor of the Union for its new commitment to end slavery. That shift ended any hope the Confederacy might have had of gaining official recognition, particularly from the United Kingdom. If Britain or France, both of which had abolished slavery, continued to consider supporting the Confederacy, it would seem as though they were supporting slavery.

That is the wider context of Lincoln’s speech. In it he lays out his arguments to an unconvinced congress, on how the abolition of slavery would help the civil war effort. He ends with this:

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

While Lincoln argues for certain domestic policy issue, freeing slaves and winning the civil war, as "the last best, hope of earth", McCain and Obama both abuse this quote to argue for an imperial foreign policy mandate.

Hillary Clinton also uses the Lincoln quote. But she, like her husband in 1994, has the context right and applies it to domestic issues:

Lincoln understood that who we are in the world begins with how we live at home. And during the darkest days of that war he said, my dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth. That is still a dream we all share. It is a dream that begins with making America work for its people, and making its people proud to work for America.
Remarks of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the 2006 DLC National Conversation, July 24, 2006

From my perspective from abroad, Hillary currently looks like the best choice out of the three bad alternatives. Not only by not abusing old presidential quotes, but also for her position on the prisoners in Guantanamo.

That said, I am sure she will start imperial wars of her own if she gets elected.

But at least she will not abuse Lincoln to do so.

Posted by b on February 18, 2008 at 16:55 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Not going to be drawn into a big shitstorm over this, but the issue of slavery was on the absolute periphery of the American Civil War. I know it’s easy for people to make everything into black and white issues (in this case, damned near literally so) as heuristics to understand their world, however, I thought the habitués here were better at grasping nuance than that. I’m sure that if I claimed that World War II was, in it’s entirety, based upon a single German’s dislike of Jews, I’d be skewered and rightfully so.
Boiling the issues down to a cartoon of Evil Southerners vs. Noble Northerners misses many points and does a service to nobody. Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant who suspended habeus corpus to pursue a largely economic agenda. It disgusts me that my countrymen have overwhelmingly elected this despot as the representative of “best President”.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 18 2008 17:13 utc | 1

Is it just me, or does the quote “last, best hope” remind anyone else of the voiceover at the beginning of each episode of the Sci-Fi program Babylon 5?
I looked it up,

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind
…
The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully
…
five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it’s our last best hope for peace.
This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
I saw the Hillary policy quote today too, Bernhard. Did you read this enthusiastic endorsement of Obama by a Hofstra U. political science professor on Counterpunch?

Most delicious of all, would you have ever believed that the bloody-handed enablers of the Iraq war–Clinton, Edwards, Kerry–all of whom knew exactly what they were voting for, and all of whom did it to advance their personal ambitions over the dead bodies of Iraqis and Americans alike, that these disgusting opportunists would have been handed their walking papers, in no small part because of this vote? And that the guy who had the courage to oppose the war from the beginning would perhaps be rewarded with the presidency–over their dead political bodies–in part because of that stance? My goodness, it’s enough to make you believe there is a god, after all. And that she’s taking very careful notes.
…
I admire the fact that he could have written his own ticket to serious financial success after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, but chose instead to be a community organizer.

Posted by: jonku | Feb 18 2008 17:20 utc | 2

Did you read this enthusiastic endorsement of Obama by a Hofstra U. political science professor on Counterpunch?
Yes – sounds good – but I am not sure how much is “sound” and how much is “good”. How much is Obama pandering, and how much is real? And the same with Clinton, but not to this high a degree.
The Obama speeches, especially the one on foreign policy, have too much “vision” in them. Compare that to Clinton’s foreign policy speech.
I had “vision” too when I took those nice small pills and saw all those funny colors.

Posted by: b | Feb 18 2008 18:00 utc | 3

“–all of whom knew exactly what they were voting for, and all of whom did it to advance their personal ambitions over the dead bodies of Iraqis and Americans alike”
Exactly. And that’s exactly where she lost me.

Posted by: beq | Feb 18 2008 18:15 utc | 4

I just read HRC’s speech linked above …
“Moreover, there are few security challenges we can meet entirely on our own. So in the words of Secretary Albright, “We should cooperate with others whenever we can and act alone only when we have to. Not the other way around.””
It is substantive, with plans for policing nuclear threats, a request to DoD for a detailed plan for withdrawal from Iraq, and support for human rights, mention of Africa and so on.
Not once does she use the words “energy” or “oil.”

Posted by: jonku | Feb 18 2008 18:55 utc | 5

Bush sen. is endorsing McCain.
Which lets me goggle and find:

This afternoon I would like to just share some of my thoughts on the past few years and on America’s purpose in the world. My thesis is a simple one. Amid the triumph and the tumult of the recent past, one truth rings out more clearly than ever: America remains today what Lincoln said it was more than a century ago, “the last best hope of man on Earth.” This is a fact, a truth made indelible by the struggles and the agonies of the 20th century and in the sacrifice symbolized by each towering oak on Simpson Drill Field here at Texas A&M University. The leadership, the power, and yes, the conscience of the United States of America, all are essential for a peaceful, prosperous international order, just as such an order is essential for us.
George H. W. Bush Speeches – Remarks at Texas A&M University (December 15, 1992)

Posted by: b | Feb 18 2008 19:11 utc | 6

b,
Adding to what beq said above, I could never vote for Senator Clinton because of her vote for the Iraq war. Period. Same goes for McCain. But I agree with b’s points on Obama – often Obama ends his speeches with the phrase something like “changing the world”. I have had quite enough of the U.S. “changing the world”. Maybe I will vote with my feet again – that is – not bothering to vote at all.

Posted by: Rick | Feb 18 2008 20:12 utc | 7

Don’t forget that Czar Alexander II, the one that semi freed serfs, aided in Lincoln’s France and England foreign relations aspect by sending his Atlantic fleet to NYC and Pacific to San Francisco in fall of 1863, and they stayed on those coasts 7 months.cartoon
Another Civil War thing to remember.

Posted by: plushtown | Feb 18 2008 20:19 utc | 8

@Monolycos – 1 – I agree that Lincoln was a “tyrant who suspended habeus corpus to pursue a largely economic agenda”.
Abolishing slavery was to him something that helped to win a war of economic advantage, not some genuine concern. Others may differ on that view.
@Rick- 7 – I don’t agree with Hillary in 90% of her stand and would certainly not like her in any powerful position. But I also find abstaining in votes a bad tactic. To tip the scale in the direction of the least damage is often the best one can do.

Posted by: b | Feb 18 2008 20:27 utc | 9

Salon has a story up about Obama concerning his interaction with a so-called genocide whiz named Samantha Power, who is or was a professor at Harvard.
I was a bit disappointed in the tone of the article and I believe most of you all would be too. The author and nearly all of the commenters think this woman is the greatest thing since sliced bread yet I challenge anyone to spot the difference between her and the evil woman Rice.

On the other hand, there are people who are so disgusted and disillusioned with the Bush years that they romanticize in some way this wily Iranian head of state instead of acknowledging that the Iranian government is by all accounts a supporter of terrorist acts, or that Ahmadinejad is a head of state who denies the occurrence of the Holocaust and has made no secret of his militant animosity toward Israel. My feeling is that we need something in between the extremes that acknowledges that this individual, this regime, is dangerous and unconstructive — but that also acknowledges we have strengthened its hand by saber rattling, invading Iraq, dislodging the Taliban and rendering Iran the regional heavyweight.
To neutralize the support Ahmadinejad has domestically, we need to stop threatening and to get in a room with him — if only to convey grave displeasure about his tactics regionally and internationally — and then try to build international support for measures to prevent him from supporting terrorism and pursuing a nuclear program. If we’re ever going to actually put in place multilateral measures to contain Iran, the only way we’re going to do that is if we do it in a more united way with our allies.

so with Obama we get a cute Irish “genocide chick” instead of the dowdy Madeline Albright that came with WJ Clinton.
and yeah jj, Samantha Power is in with CFR
I gotta tell you, my spirits are quite low. Before looking closely at Mr Obama and only hearing him speak I thought we were finally in for something at least a little better than the current fascist government. Now I fear we are headed for something much worse as this guy will have us happily building our own gallows.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 18 2008 20:30 utc | 10

b @ 9
many people agree with you on the principle of voting for the least bad. I suggest that one’s vote would be better placed voting for the best possible person and if that person belongs to a small party with apparently no chance of winning, so be it. Voting for the least worse is what has got us in this mess to start with. the dems do not need to listen to their voters because their voters consider any dem less bad than any republican and vice versa. so the election comes down to so called independents which make up probably 2 percent of the electorate.
if people would simply vote for who they like the major parties would have to become more responsive or risk becoming insignificant.
it might take a couple of cycles but at the end of the day, what do we have to lose? as you can clearly see, there is very little difference between the last three candidates.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 18 2008 20:40 utc | 11

b,
Everyones world-view is shaped to a large extent by their vantage point & circumstances in life. And John McCain gets credit for being upfront & outright on his unwavering belief in “American Exceptionalism”. No surprise there at all.
On the other hand, its just not plausible to imagine that Obama is close to the same world-view. Plus Obama’s statements do not conclusively extrapolate in that direction. In fact, his choice of words accommodate an interpretation that intends the USA as a honest broker.
Hilary’s world-view appears to be well characterized. Most plausibly, it shares a lot with Bills.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Feb 18 2008 21:06 utc | 12

dan of steele – edward herman has taken samantha power apart in a number of good critiques over the years.
here is one:

Samantha Power’s conclusion is that the U.S. policy toward genocide has been very imperfect and needs reorientation, less opportunism, and greater vigor. For Power, the United States is the solution, not the problem. These conclusions and policy recommendations rest heavily on her spectacular bias in case selection: She simply bypasses those that are ideologically inconvenient, where the United States has arguably committed genocide (Vietnam, Cambodia 1969-75, Iraq 1991-2003), or has given genocidal processes positive support (Indonesia, West Papua, East Timor, Guatemala, Israel, and South Africa). Incorporating them into an analysis would lead to sharply different conclusions and policy agendas, such as calling upon the United States to simply stop doing it, or urging stronger global opposition to U.S. aggression and support of genocide, and proposing a much needed revolutionary change within the United States to remove the roots of its imperialistic and genocidal thrust. But the actual huge bias, nicely leavened by admissions of imperfections and need for improvement in U.S. policy, readily explains why Samantha Power is loved by the New York Times and won a Pulitzer prize for her masterpiece of evasion and apologetics for “our” genocides and call for a more aggressive pursuit of “theirs.”

and here is another – Richard Holbrooke, Samantha Power, and the “Worthy-Genocide” Establishment

What is astounding is that Power’s book could win a Pulitzer Prize and that a thinker of this caliber and with these biases would become an icon in great demand, even welcomed in The Nation and Le Monde Diplomatique. But then we must recall that Thomas Friedman and George Will have won Pulitzers; Claire Sterling and Paul Henze were media stars commenting on terrorism; Joan Peters’ fraudulent From Time Immemorial received raves in the mainstream and Alan Dershowitz, literally plagiarizing the Peters fraud in his The Case for Israel, is still treated with respect; and Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke are celebrated speakers…

see the links for the meat

Posted by: b real | Feb 18 2008 23:19 utc | 13

Bernhard:
From my perspective from abroad, Hillary currently looks like the best choice out of the three bad alternatives.
The US has the dominant position in the World and even if they voted Mickey Mouse in office trying to maintain that position will not change. The question then becomes how they will do it. I suggest you read the following links and keep in mind that she did not bother to read the NIE:
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html
http://www.projo.com/news/content/LInc_Chafee_01-27-08_PD8NPTK_v102.182ab97.html
I like to pay less attention to what they say in an election campaign and a little more to what they actually did (Kyl-Lieberman for example).
On a side note most Democrats voted voted against invading Iraq (22 in the Senate a minority and 126 in the House a majority).

Posted by: Sam | Feb 19 2008 0:15 utc | 14

We were watching community TV tonight, public hearing for a grand infrastructure
project that’ll bring $100M’s in new jobs to this rural county, turning a barren
patch of sand flats and scrub oak into a thriving revenue stream, $B’s in new
business and tax income … when a state tax-dole employee stood up and objected
bitterly, asking rhetorically, what would become of all the polluted storm runoff
in their local well water supplies?
“Why that bitch!” I yelled. My spouse corrected me like an autist. “We don’t call other people bitches or bastards anymore, now.” I howled: That state-welfare “worker”, making their “living” off property taxes, works for the very agency
which controls environmental permitting, including stormwater runoff they were
suggesting on live TV would go untreated, creating an “environmental catastrophe”!
In a pig’s eye!! That’s green-mail, in plain view, on prime time!!!
Which goes towards b’s “lesser of three evils theory”. Look, it’s a pyramid. It’s a
golf-delta ponzi scheme, and now it’s gone snafubar. Rotten to the very core. Here.
We have a kid in our neighborhood, nice kid, good in sports, graduated high school,
has a young wife and now a child, works fast food, rides a bicycle to work,
and they still live with their parents! I ain’t a’ whistlin’ dixie. Helping my
kids with summer employment, I’m finding premium jobs at luxury destination resorts
pay only $225 a week, and they deduct $35 for housing and $45 for food. Net-net,
that’s $145 a week for 40 hours on, and 80 trapped on the resort grounds, required
to stay out of sight of the guests, like livestock or field slaves.
That’s $3.62 an hour, and I’m being nice about it. There are kids in our block who
didn’t even turn the tassle on their hat, before they’d already signed up for Iraq.
There are zero jobs out there, fewer and fewer every day. Houses aren’t moving at
all. Zulu. Retail inventory is getting thinner and thinner on the shelves. Food
prices are going through the mutherluving roof, I ain’t a’ lyin’. You know it too.
So back to, “lesser of three evils”, is it any surprise in US “culture”, when state
tax-paid employees loll at their desks, trading e-mail jokes, while good projects
that could bring much needed jobs languish in permit perdition, $100,000, $200,000
or more in fees upfront, whether you get the permit or not. You can’t even get them
to look at a project proposal anymore! First, you’ll have to pay some ivory-tower
professional to massage it into CGI for a HALF MILLION BUCKS, then pay a QUARTER
MILLION BUCKS for permit fees, before they assign you to four months review delay
churn-cycle, another HALF MILLION BUCKS in escalation and lost opportunity costs!
No wonder our kids can’t read! What’s the point? $3.62 an hour? Are you foxtrot
kidding me?! This isn’t about the “lesser of three evils”. This is about the US
at it’s very core. It’s about blue-blood money and military power, versus
blue-collar union worker and alderman power, versus the blues minority non-power.
The Neo-money screwed the pooch. Fractional banking nee fractional mutual funds
nee fractional hedge funds and now we’re $45T upside down, and down by the bow.
1% of Americans control 45% of the wealth now. I just got the memo. They’re only
going to save the upper-berth passengers on this luxury liner. Third-class and
steerage are going down with the ship, starved, whipped and beaten. Then all
of John’s horses and all of Hillary’s men, couldn’t put it back together again.
Vote Obama. As we like to say in Georgia, it’s better’n a sharp stick in the eye.

Posted by: Par Anoyo | Feb 19 2008 2:34 utc | 15

From Sam’s link above, re: former Rhode Island Rep. Senator Lincoln Chafee’s book:

As Mr. Bush pressed insistently for war, Chafee requested a meeting with CIA brass to examine the evidence against Saddam Hussein’s regime. “Sooner or later, I have to vote on this war, show me everything you have,” Chafee requests of the CIA.
“What they had, I discovered as the meeting stretched into an hour, was next to nothing,” recalls Chafee. “They showed me what they had with little comment and no enthusiasm. Someone handed me one of the infamous aluminum tubes, the kind we were told Saddam was using to enrich weapons-grade uranium while plotting mushroom clouds over America, the ‘smoking gun’ that Condoleezza Rice warned about.
“I looked at the aluminum tube, looked at the analysts and thought, I can go buy one of these at Adler’s Hardware,” the Providence hardware emporium, writes Chafee.

And more to the point,

Of the general election, Chafee writes that he was both “irked and amused” at the “parade of Democratic Bush enablers” who trekked to Rhode Island to campaign for Whitehouse.
“Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and others who had voted for the war urged my constituents” to defeat him, Chafee writes.
Yet, Chafee doesn’t mention that such GOP war supporters as former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and First Lady Laura Bush traveled to Rhode Island to raise money or campaign for Chafee.

Posted by: jonku | Feb 19 2008 2:58 utc | 16

I am with dan on election strategy. The chance of your individual vote tipping any scales are minimal, so in terms of real effect you always waste your vote. But if many starts to vote for whom they really want to elect it changes the landscape, and someone has to start. If you stay home instead it just gives power to those that actually vote.
All this assuming the vote count works.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 19 2008 3:03 utc | 17

On the last point, you know they just found some photos of Abe at the LOC, they were filled under grant. And for policy is key with me as well, especially if it deals with the declining dollar. But more importantly for me is eduction, which i here very little about. And Im around the world a lot, and i see 10 year olds speaking 4 or 5 languages fluently and math, beyond proficient

Posted by: rawdawgbuffalo | Feb 19 2008 3:06 utc | 18

@dan #11
That’s how I’ve always voted… except for 2004, when I was pressured by people into voting for Kerry against my conscience.
Still, with electoral mechanics being what they are, even if people abandoned one or the other of the two major parties, you would in short order just be looking at the same product with a new name. Two parties (one “new” one filled with representatives from the old one) entrenching their own interests… which is why after the 1860’s the Democrat aren’t battling it out with the Whigs anymore.
To circumvent this, according to Duverger’s Law, the electoral procedure would have to be fundamentally changed, which is something I would be all kinds of behind.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 19 2008 3:33 utc | 19

@18, to add an observation on education :
unlike other parts of the world, boarding-house for teens in the USA is the exception rather than the the rule. Hence, USA kids tend to rely more on help from their parents (as compared with mutual-help from their mates) than is the case elsewhere. And the USA curricula is geared accordingly. One side effect is that kids in the USA may not acquire quite the same spirit of team-work & competitiveness in education as their peers elsewhere.
as a result, it may come as a surprise to many that outside the USA, kids who get absolutely no help (i.e with homework) from their parents, can & will often do very well in school. Another factor is that curricula outside the USA tend to focus more on basic skills. Hence, non-USA kids will sometimes study from the very same books passed down by their parents and sometimes grand-parents.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Feb 19 2008 4:07 utc | 20

American Exceptionalism is the most dangerous idea in the world today. I think its particularly dangerous because Americans seem to have a cynicism deficit. More than most they’re willing to believe something if it sounds nice. Combine these with someone like McCain and an unaccountable presidency (precedent now properly established) and you have a recipe for a alot of conflict as the American Empire starts to fade away.

Posted by: swio | Feb 19 2008 6:35 utc | 21

America has reached a turning point where it has decided that it needs to consume an inordinate share of the world’s resources in order to maintain its ideals of Liberty and Freedom. At which point it feels compelled to sacrifice the latter to ensure the former.
As long as we continue to consume six times our population’s weight in energy reserves, we should not be surprised when we find six times our share of the World’s problems laid at our doorstep.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Feb 19 2008 7:08 utc | 22

Jonku #2–
“It was the dawn of the third age of mankind
…
“The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully
…
“five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it’s our last best hope for peace.
“This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.”
BUT. One of the charming things about Babylon 5 was the way it evolved. Unlike Star Trek, it was not detached episodes.
The intro evolved too. The grandiosity gets muted by an undertone of impending failure. Into something like:
“The year is _______. The place is Babylon 5, our last, best hope for peace–which failed!”

Posted by: Gaianne | Feb 19 2008 9:05 utc | 23

Hey Mono, last federal election I voted for the green party, next time I am going to vote communist. Unfortunately there isn’t a rhinoceros party (citizen activist Richard (the Troll) Schaller) candidate in my riding, otherwise I would probably campaign for them.
Since my natal Canada is no longer a peacekeeper (section 6) but a peacemaker (section 7) I am duty-bound to vote for a candidate and party that are not war makers.
I’ll try to add links …. done.
More clear, my opinion as a voter is that I cannot vote for half-measures. Perhaps if my vote could save the world from nuclear devastation, and I knew so without a doubt, I could do so.
But it doesn’t really matter does it. My vote is meaningless between Liberal and Conservative parties.
They are both wrong. Thus the green vote last time and the communist vote this time.

Posted by: jonku | Feb 19 2008 9:18 utc | 24

Gaianne … wow.
Through some happenstance of tv scheduling and my own schedule, not to mention interests, I watched most of the Babylon 5 episodes for the first couple of years. I guess that was 1995 or so.
Did they get all into fighting after that? I really enjoyed the idea of working out problems on the station, smugglers, the autonomous zones where the security guy would go by himself.
But I missed out on the later Mimbari wars and so on. I really did like the aliens, they were well done.
Do you think that the B5 plots were commenting on real life during the mid-1990s, or were they just escalating a limited plotline, or …

Posted by: jonku | Feb 19 2008 9:28 utc | 25

i’ve voted rhino and communist…

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 19 2008 9:41 utc | 26

no later Minbari wars, these happened before the series started. Like most Sci-fi, it examined the human condition and after five years it wrapped up as planned – the Shadows and the Vorlons got a stern talking to from Brucie and Mira and then peace ensued.

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 19 2008 9:48 utc | 27

It’s a shame I’m not Swedish, or I would vote for the Piratpartiet (Pirate Party). Aarrh. (friendly nod here to ASKOD.)
As for the sci-fi threadjack, I am hesitant to contribute to it since there was a certain nasty, snarly little former waste of bandwidth who tried to typify me in unflattering (and laughably inaccurate)ways as a pop-culture geek. Fact is, from the standpoint of cultural anthropology, I think you really can glean a lot of the psychological inner workings of a society from the entertainment they gravitate towards (for example, nobody should be surprised by the cult following the fictional character Jack Bauer has on the looney right… he’s even been referred to by US Supreme Court justices as a defense for torture! ), but I’ve been hesitant to make those kinds of observations publicly after being trivialized for the largely imaginary sin of nerdhood when a particular troll didn’t dare to trivialize me as a “conspiracy theorist” in a watering hole filled to the brim with them.
Then I recall that one of Billmon’s latest posts dealt with the demise of sci-fi writer Cyril M. Korn and the film Idiocracy, and Debs is dead has written more than once about the guilty pleasures of mass entertainment and what it says about a society without anyone taking any cheap shots at him for it.
Fact is, I’ve never seen Babylon 5 or even many shows at all. I’m given to understand that Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek is a fascist paradigm and George Lucas’ Star Wars is an argument for despotism. I’m not sure that I believe that, however I’m not very well versed in their respective sub-cultures and my contact with them was restricted to a brief stint as a videotape salesclerk from many years ago (Hey, I needed the money and if somebody wanted to gush to me in Klingon about whether the new or old Trek was superior… well, I wasn’t there to judge).
The only sci-fi that ever really attracted me was Doctor Who for spiritual reasons when I was younger (Jesus rose from the dead? Yeah, well, Doctor Who did that TEN TIMES!), but I stopped keeping up with it around the same time that I no longer had three hours to spare to watch an episode (roughly coinciding with the end of my adolescence and the beginning of my working life).
I did find one sci-fi show that spoke to me on a very base, very mundane, very political level, and that show was Firefly (and the subsequent film Serenity). It summed up and laid out all of the things I believed in and hadn’t quite articulated in a quasi-depressing, quasi-uplifting way. Unlike most of the sci-fi programs, there was no utopian ideal here; it was all problems and no solutions. It didn’t preach to me about how things should be; it simply laid out how to deal with the way things are. Of course there were idealized and fantastic elements or it wouldn’t have been sci-fi and wouldn’t have had an audience, but even the most fantastic elements had plausible and immediate real-world correlations. You don’t need to be Libertarian to appreciate it, although apparently, that helps.
Long story short, maybe we do need archetypal heroes on a personal level… even as much as I’ve railed against them. The Robin Hood stories have kept many folk throughout history going when their spirits should have otherwise been broken. Muslims were roused by a highly confabulated Saladin at the same time that the Christians were roused by a conflated King Arthur. The real value, beyond merely uplifting us through difficult times, would be that these stories reveal to us who we are and codify for us what we truly believe. If utopian entertainment is being purchased, then it is safe to say that the culture yearns for a utopia. If right-wing hate is being purchased (for example, 24 or the Left Behind series of books), then that, too, should be telling us who we truly are as a culture. Degrading the human condition through “reality” shows like Fear Factor has a direct correlation to the gladiatoral games of Rome during its decline. Pop culture is a gnomon for us if we can figure out how to use it wisely.
To reiterate, I am not familiar with the Babylon 5 series, but if it does, indeed, represent the failure of a “last, best hope”, then we can interpret that the sub-culture that produced it is accepting itself in a negrido stage of development (for you non-alchemical types, that would be decline before renewal). Not a very utopian outlook, but it serves the same purpose that Firefly/Serenity does for me. It keeps me going when I want to just give up.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 19 2008 15:12 utc | 28

Who’s Jack Bauer?

Posted by: beq | Feb 19 2008 17:40 utc | 29

@beq
Fictional hero to the right-wing pro-torture terror-hysteria crowd. That’s what search engines are for.
And, for the record, I’ve never seen that show, either.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 19 2008 18:06 utc | 30

I didn’t know who it was either, but when it was mentioned along with 24, I figured it was another stupid TV show that – are working 24/7 fleshing out rightwing fantasy narratives for the slow learners.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 19 2008 19:08 utc | 31

Who’s Jack Bauer?
My ex was adicted to that 24 show. When I pointed out that it is deeply rightwing stuff and comunicating fashism and torture she didn’t get it. On of the reasons she is ex.
It is well made in that it induces permanent thrill – things are always running against the clock and the plot has many suprizing elements. But the basic is a very right wing mindset (the producer is a rightwing nut too) and last year a delegation from the Pentagon jetted to California and told the producer to turn done the torture tone.
That even those folks think it is too extreme tells you something.

Posted by: b | Feb 19 2008 19:42 utc | 32

I don’t need no steenkin’ search engines.
😉

Posted by: beq | Feb 19 2008 20:15 utc | 33

The article about Star Trek was a bit funny, if you have seen the series. Basically the article states that because the humanity of Star Trek is non-capitalistic and non-religious its laughably absurd. Add that you follow a military vessel, and apparently it adds up to fascism. He also takes a stab at calling Star Trek rascist because some species (Vulcans) are smarter then others. I suppose he never practises specieism by viewing other species (lets say octopusses) as less smart then humans.
In Star Trek the have materia-converters that conjures up material goods, thus ending scarcity and by implication capitalism. Apparently the author of the article is to incensed over the fact that they are not capitalistic to appreciate this utopia. He also seem to have a problem with human activity without the ever-present demand for material goods. This would be like people demanding information-control to keep up scarcity on information when the infinite copying machine was already invented…
Agree that Firefly is better though, but I thought it was a bit of disappointment after Buffy the vampire slayer (for those who do not know, Joss Whedon is the creator of both). The dark and broody leader, choosen by fate or bad luck, concept works better with a character that wants to be just a normal person, then with someone enjoying the broodiness. Should have seen it coming after Angel though (Buffy spin-off).
/closing tag for nerdy pop cultureism
Agree with the larger point though. Stories are important.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 19 2008 22:25 utc | 34

Could have been a pop culture nerd. I was well on the way when Star Trek came on waaaay back. Everyone in school was into it and it was HOT! Suddenly my folks said, “No teevee on school nights.” and phit, that was it. I never seemed to get the habit after that, I had a guitar and all the books I wanted after homework.
Annnyway, in my mailbox today: “A Nielson Ratings TV Viewing DIARY”!!!
Maybe I can mend my wicked ways.
I agree about stories too. Books have them as well. And the Moon.
[beginning lurkmode]

Posted by: beq | Feb 19 2008 22:51 utc | 35

Welcoming you back to lurkmode – have a cold one with me in a dark corner.

Posted by: rapt | Feb 19 2008 23:59 utc | 36

jonku #25–
I had heard that the overall plotline of Babylon 5 was mapped out before the first episode was shot. I assume they had to deal with issues like actor availability along the way, but the reason the layered subplots worked so well is that they were not episode-by-episode improvisations.
Not sure how much I can plot-spoil here, but, having dropped in sometime late in the series, the crises that were leading to instability more or less steadily increased. I have forgotten the names of the two super-aliens who lurked in the background of the ongoing fights between the Centauri Republic and the G’Bari(?)–and others–but gradually it came out that the “good” super-aliens (which look like lumpy robots) and the “bad” super-aliens (which look like octopi) were both evil invaders from beyond the Galaxy, using the entire Galaxy to fight a proxy war, with poor fools like Earthlings suckered in and caught up in the middle. The Psy Corps, of course, turned out to be traitors (to Earth, and indeed, almost everybody) with Nazi proclivities, but they (somehow) lost out when things really got hot. Several MAJOR characters die in the final battles (episodes), with a fair amount of heroism (but not Ramboism). It turns out that the head of the Centauri Republic is possessed by a demon in service to the octopi, who only sleeps when he is falling down drunk. He knows this. So he, the demon’s puppet, drinks himself into a stupor to put the demon to sleep and then betrays the Centauri Republic to the Earthlings. The Centauris are destroyed. The G’Bari(?) do not fare much better, (I forget details) though at this point they have less to lose.
The series ends in optimism though, as the survivors set about putting together a new Galaxy-wide federation. Both races of super-aliens have somehow been kicked out of the Galaxy.
Babylon 5 is rich in possible geopolitical parallels. Totally under the radar.

Posted by: Gaianne | Feb 20 2008 9:22 utc | 37

OOPS–
I should have read the whole thread. Not G’Bari, Mimbari. The Vorlons were the robots, the Shadows the octopi.
Yes, the Vorlons and the Shadows get a talking to. It is surely a fault in the show that it is not clear how they are kicked out. Presumably everybody just quits believing their lies and accepting their weaponry. Is that really enough?
StarTrek does have its element of soft fascism. Every once in a while they take time out from boldly exploring and put in some time making the Galaxy safe for resource extraction. But it doesn’t get any worse than that. The culture is not military, rather, what the military (should) look like in a democracy.

Posted by: Gaianne | Feb 20 2008 9:38 utc | 38

“Presumably everybody just quits believing their lies and accepting their weaponry. Is that really enough?”
that’s what happened
Star Trek had the first inter-racial kiss on TV, the fascists
One thing all those sci-fish shows do gloss over is the one thing we, today, can’t – energy requirements

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 20 2008 11:15 utc | 39

A little background on the Earth Minbari War – started due to the typical arrogance of the earthlings (despite warnings) and a cultural misunderstanding.
The Minbari were far more advanced than the Earthers and were at the brink of annihilating the planet when they suddenly and inexplicably surrendered.
This makes sense to no one, until later in the series it was revealed the Minbari had captured and examined a human.
Within this human they found the soul of their most revered holy teacher – Valen…
Serenity – shiny
Oh and that kiss, given the racial climate of the mid-sixties (My Dad wouldn’t accompany me Mum & I into the shiny (through the eyes of a seven year old born into the TV age) US – he was too dark) the producers had to frame the kiss as being forced on them telekinetically (nice plot device, but nothing more) because, as any network censor knew, no self respecting white man would want to kiss a negress

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 20 2008 14:38 utc | 40

For beq:
Man Gets Probation After Claiming To Be Jack Bauer

A college student was given probation for repeatedly ramming his car into another man’s vehicle, claiming the man was a terrorist and he was the character Jack Bauer, a federal agent on the Fox television show “24.”
However, the victim, Marlon Cantoral, 30, provided a false address to police and did not appear in any of the court proceedings, prompting prosecutors to enter into a plea deal with the student, Edgar Sullivan, 23, of Elverson, Pa. The student faced up to 10 years in prison for second-degree assault, a charge that was dropped as part of the plea deal.
Cantoral may have been living in the United States illegally, and that may have caused him to provide the fake address, said Wayne Kirwan, spokesman for the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office.
According to charging documents, Sullivan was driving his Ford Escape on Interstate 95 last February when he struck Cantoral’s van. Cantoral left the highway and was struck a second time before he drove over a grass median strip and fled on foot into the lobby of the Patuxent Institution Correctional Facility.
Sullivan followed Cantoral inside and tried to assault him, shouting “he’s a terrorist,” according to charging documents. “My name is Jack Bowers (Bauer) and I work for the FBI and the Secret Service. My wife and family was kidnapped by the president and terrorist,” Sullivan continued, The (Baltimore) Examiner reported Friday, citing charging documents.
Officers contacted Sullivan’s father who said his son was not married and the family was fine, authorities said. In court Thursday, Sullivan apologized for the incident, telling Howard County Circuit Judge Richard Bernhardt that he has been attending alcohol treatment and plans to graduate in May.
Sullivan, a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County who pleaded guilty in September to drunken driving, smiled but did not speak as he left the courthouse with his parents.
“This is rather embarrassing for him,” Sullivan’s attorney Charles Broida said after the court appearance.
“It was bizarre, but he doesn’t remember it.”

Maybe I should take back that business about needing stories and heroes. Folks get weird with ’em.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 23 2008 4:50 utc | 41

i’ve never watched more than a few 5 minute segments of 24 while flipping channels. i don’t watch shows that make my nerves tight. the sound effects, the tension, i can’t watch it. and i don’t watch torture. i’ve never watched that dustin hoffman film where they pull his teeth out. i wouldn’t watch mel’s christ movie. i walked out of natural born killers during the eenie meanie miney moe scene. yuk! i also don’t like star trek. sorry. i’m no fun! clockwork orange, forget it.
monolycus, good one!

Posted by: annie | Feb 23 2008 6:32 utc | 42

Thanks Monolycus. That’s creepy. I’m with annie. The older I get the less I can stand what’s served up as “entertainment”. I don’t even look. Maybe there’s something better on cable but I can find better ways to spend that kind of money. And time.
My Nielson diary is going well. Two hours +/- of news programs a day and maybe 2 hours of Britsits Saturday night on pbs. If I remember. I can fill the thing out ahead of time.
🙂

Posted by: beq | Feb 23 2008 15:12 utc | 43

I keep trying to leave this thread alone, but it just keeps pulling me back.
Too bad I wasn’t a psych or sociology major back in university. I could make a career out of guys like this: Survival expert and Stallone fan changes name by deed poll to Rambo
Snip…

Not content with sharing the same name as the tough action hero and dressing the same, he has also perfected Sly Stallone’s distinctive slow drawl.
The charity worker helps teach outdoor survival tactics at his local Air Training Corps.
He said: “I really am the real-life Rambo.
“Generally people think twice about what they say to me. Nobody messes with me.
“Sometimes people don’t believe I’m serious at first. They just think it’s quite amusing.
“Then they realise the truth.”

Others might “realise the truth”; I somehow doubt this guy does.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 24 2008 4:11 utc | 44

it is interesting that what many find repellent is really quite tame when compared to Japanese entertainment

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 24 2008 13:21 utc | 45

So Nader’s going to do it again.

Posted by: beq | Feb 24 2008 14:20 utc | 46

ya know beq, I may vote for him. it will be fun to watch the serious democrats savage him. If he could tap into the Ron Pauliacs, the followers of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and somehow appeal to the Huckabee faithful he could win. He would of course have a serious health issue of one kind or another before taking office though.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 24 2008 14:50 utc | 47

I still can’t get around this.
S.O. said he’d vote third party if Kucinich dropped out. We’ll see. I voted for Obama in the primary because Kucinich bowed. Going to be interesting.
It’s all about Iraq with me.
[Huckabee people?]

Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 24 2008 15:55 utc | 48

48 twas I.
😉

Posted by: beq | Feb 24 2008 16:03 utc | 49

I don’t really have that much of a problem with the folks that support Huckabee. There are so many people in the US that really have the same views as he does. It is not so radical to be against abortion and to believe that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman to build a family does not seem to be all that crazy either. He has some good ideas about how to make life better for the average Joe and the mere fact that the establishment fears and loathes him speaks volumes.
I have become so disillusioned with Mr Obama after looking closely at what he really is that it will be hard to vote for him. I voted for Kerry and even gave the bastard money because I thought anyone would be better than bush but I will not do that again. I like and admire Nader, if enough people can vote for him there will be a basis for building a third party. He needs legitimacy, people were hesitant to vote for obama too until they realized that it was safe to do so.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 24 2008 16:43 utc | 50

Sorry, Dan, it really is THAT RADICAL to oppose abortion – they’re older than prostitution. 12% of the abortions every year are had by women who are anti-abortion. As the bumper sticker says “Shit Happens”. ~50% of the abortions each yr. are by women w/families who can’t possibly raise yet another child. The only people who are lifelong anti-abortion freaks are stupid guys who will never have one or fundies. It’s even more radical when one realizes that they should be sacraments, as the most Urgent priority is reducing the population by 2/3’s as quickly as possible before we exhaust the planet. As such one doesn’t need a good reason for an abortion, rather one needs a goddamn good reason for littering the planet w/yet another child w/NO Future.
And, yes, it’s even more radical to support Huckabee as he said in a speech early in his campaign that the Constitution must be brought in line w/”God’s law”. It’s a 2fer – if he’s their Candidate, Bloomberg will be forced to run to prevent him from winning by any means.
What I find really scary, is that Fundie Bastards have such a stranglehold on Repug apparatus that the only non-Fundie/religiously fixated candidate is 71. So, what happens in 4 or 8 yrs.? Is there really any way to forestall Am. becoming a Theocracy w/in next 2 decades? Or consider it another way, isn’t Fundie Religion the natural concommitant of Economic Fundamentalism, which ALL candidates across the board support, though the Clintons the least? Oybama is definitely a Friedman Fundie.

Posted by: jj | Feb 24 2008 21:11 utc | 51

jj, I was pretty sure I would get a rise from you on that. for the record, I believe that abortion should be legal and extremely rare. it should not be just another form of birth control imo but that is a morals issue.
I do not find credible that Mr Huckabee will be able to outlaw abortion by decree, the rightwingers have had 8 years to do that and they never touched it. apart from one state that I know of (South Dakota) no new anti-choice legislation has been introduced. even with a solid rightwing supreme court they have not overturned roe vs wade.
It is not likely that a Huckabee administration will be able to impose Southern Baptist as the official religion of the US. Can you imagine that?
So that leaves the Constitution being modified to align with God’s law. What do you think that means? Prayer in school? Are we talking about Old Testament or New Testament where Jesus says render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and render unto God that which belongs to God? Do you believe he would actually implement the old Jewish laws of the Old Testament with the eye for eye crap and all the smiting that went on then?
I suppose I am being deliberately provocative but it is because I need to understand why Huckabee is so feared. Is it because people believe him when he speaks of his faith? when little boots spoke of taking orders from his heavenly father most people just snorted, no hysterics then.
what I see in Huckabee’s appeal is social justice and a yearning for some order in society. watching some of the trash on MTV I can really understand that. I am no prude but lemme tell you, that stuff would have been rated X when I was in high school.
anyhoo, I only brought it up in the harebrained idea that the Huckabee voters could find some common ground with the Naderites.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 24 2008 22:57 utc | 52

Why does Nader just pop up and run for president? Why does he go for the top job? Always. Why?

Posted by: beq | Feb 25 2008 0:48 utc | 53

One thing Huckabee is despised over is his ability to rally the fundies away from the conservative establishment by offering an agenda that Fred Thomson said sounds more like a democratic party platform, rather than a republican platform. Or in other words, Huckabee minus the “christian values” thing, is a populist democrat. And since neither party seems willing to actually implement their values into law, Huckabee leads the flock away from the money boys and toward the dems – who are offering a better deal.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 25 2008 3:40 utc | 54

I’ll vote Nader. when what’s behind doors 1 and 2 are me-too PNAC/AIPAC-vetted warmongering imperialists I’ll check out door 3 or 4.

Posted by: ran | Feb 25 2008 4:28 utc | 55

@beq, completely agree. Why doesn’t he spend the yrs. between elections building a coalition against the Unca Milties Wall St. economic agenda; restoring the concept of citizens in a secular state, opposing the hollowing out of the state Elites working so hard to implement. If he did that, it would make sense then for him to run on that agenda he’d been working so hard to implement & he’d get amazing support from all those people who’d been working so hard along side him. Now he just looks like a Giant Egotist. That said, I don’t know what I’ll do on election day, but I Know it won’t be voting for an Elite Sock Puppet who’ll hack what’s left of our country to bits.
To me it’s unfathomable that there is so little dicussion of the Elite agenda & organizing around alternatives. The Silence is Postively Deafening, as deafening as it is frighening.
For ex. Howard Zinn offers this historical perspective on elections & democracy in a recent post:
So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.
Yes, two minutes. {This refers to the time it takes to actually vote.} Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens. Election Madness

Posted by: jj | Feb 25 2008 4:41 utc | 56

Huckabee is a folksy, pleasant mannered, Baptist minister. But before anyone assumes that he’s just a republican version of Jimmy Carter, one needs to be clear about the sinister political input of the fundies in American politics. The appearance of right-wing fundies in the republican vanguard became clear starting with Bush pere; and now after 7 years of George w. Bush, we see the corruption has entered the Justice Department, and the concept of “lawfare” with its fruits extending to the recent Siegelman case, where a Democratic governor of Alabama gets framed for bribery, and sent to prison.
We are not supposed to be living in a country where religious faith trumps the secular system of law and constitutional structure that our founders laid out. I don’t know if Huckabee is representative of this movement; but you can’t blame Americans, at this point, for worrying about whether he is. Wasn’t Huckabee one of those in the early republican debates, who raised his hand as being one who doesn’t believe in evolution? So Genesis is not a metaphor, to him; the world was created in 7 days then, and the age of the planet would be thousands, not billions of years.
Before one is seduced by Huckabee’s disarming manner and sense of humor, some questions should asked of him. What does he think of the Justice Department being packed with the graduates of fundie law schools? What does he think about politically motivated prosecutions? Does he think this country is a secular establishment? Were the founders christians or deists? Is there a real separation of Church and State? Did “Adam and Eve ride dinosaurs to work?”

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 25 2008 6:42 utc | 57

Excellent. Thanks for that post JJ, @56…
When Zinn says, “This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
He is speaking to me; bellgong wrote something in the ot to the effect of it taking, “7 of the next 9 election cycles or so..” or some such, I’m not sure we have that long, nay, I’m damn sure we don’t, and even if we did, who the hell has the time to wait?
Like Neil Young sang, “…I’m getting old..”
I’m tired of waiting, I’m sick of being Charlie Brown ever trying to kick that football, I’m ready to smash Lucy in the face for once, metaphorically speaking of course, I’d never attack a female cartoon.
How many years do you guys have?
I’ve been waiting, and working and hoping, voting for “change” for decades, as I imagine most of you have, and every year it gets a little bit worse, slowly, mind you, ever so slowly, so we aren’t aware of it, but the water keeps rising and we keep adjusting to it.
We collectively are like the Katrina victims left alone to drown, only slowly, ever so slowly and our social intelligence tells us something is wrong. But we dare not look. Better to not see the social and moral and material decay around us.
We best not look to hard, because the water is up to the back porch by now.
But it’s getting to the point, that we can not not look anymore, in other words, it’s damn near in our face, inside and out, now.
Inside within even our own immediate families, outside within our communities, and civil infrastructure. I’m reminded of a post by Loose Shanks, or taint amie (sp?) or someone talking of…
ahhh, here it is ‘about being lost in the wilderness, indeed,
“Wilderness is tryin’ to make it to Social Security age, when the cost of living is up and going through the roof, with your paycheck worth less and less in phoney US dollar play money. That’s what I’m talking about … Wilderness.
Wilderness is having poor relatives calling you for a handout, and everyone staying away from Uncle Ernie’s funeral, because nobody can afford the bill….”
tenebrous, and witty but oh so true, oh so serious. At least from where I sit. Anyway, it’s been two years and that post still sits with me, I’d encourage you guys and gals to go and read it.
/rant
I’ll go rant somewhere else now, thank you…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2008 6:52 utc | 58

@ Copeland, et al…
re: Siegelman, it’s worse than you know…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2008 9:25 utc | 59

wow!

Posted by: DM | Feb 25 2008 9:57 utc | 60

For those of You keeping score at home…
In other words, those following the Siegelman story from my post above, may find the following comment from Larisa Alexandrovna’s huffpo story of interest…

You know, we’re supposed to be going to mandatory digital TV broadcasts for high power stations in 2009. Low power stations are exempt for now, but they serve rural areas. They’ll still receive analog.
“To put an exact number on it is difficult but think of it this way ” most full-power stations are the stations affiliated with national broadcast networks, like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, UPN, etc. Low power, Class A or translator stations are generally in smaller or rural markets, distribute non-English programming and/or function in a big market to a smaller niche group of individuals.”
The FCC just allowed for mega corps to consolidate media venues too. This is a very disturbing trend. We all know how digital video is editable before broadcast. I’m not sure what the implications are, but it can’t be good. Any dissidence or news-suppression is made simpler by going digital. This compromises our media beyond anything we’ve ever experienced in the history of our nation. Once net neutrality goes, there we go.
A company wishing to block a broadcast like the 60 mins segment will be much easier to do once we go digital. And tracing the source of the block will be impossible. Not good people.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2008 10:58 utc | 61

There’s more updates to this story:
It wasn’t a technical problem!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2008 11:35 utc | 62

Steve Earle – F the CC
I used to listen to the radio
And I don’t guess they’re listenin’ to me no more
They talk too much but that’s okay
I don’t understand a single word they say
Piss and moan about the immigrants
But don’t say nothin’ about the president
A democracy don’t work that way
I can say anything I wanna say
So fuck the FCC
Fuck the FBI
Fuck the CIA
Livin’ in the motherfuckin’ USA
People tell me that I’m paranoid
And I admit I’m gettin’ pretty nervous, boy
It just gets tougher everyday
To sit around and watch it while it slips away
Been called a traitor and a patriot
Call me anything you want to but
Just don’t forget your history
Dirty Lenny died so we could all be free
Sarangel Music (ASCAP)

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 25 2008 16:21 utc | 63

Rove and fundie justice are taking fascism for a test drive in Alabama. There has been associated political violence. A republican, Jill Simpson, in republican Governor Riley’s organization, blew the whistle on the conspiracy to frame Siegelman for bribery. Sometime later, Jill Simpson’s car was run off the road and totaled, and her house “caught on fire”; and Simpson later went to nearby Georgia to file an affidavit, because she felt that was an appropriate precaution. This criminal conspiracy against Siegelman occured because he had cried foul over voting irregularities in the election that ousted him from office, and because he was making another run for the office of Governor of Alabama.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 25 2008 18:27 utc | 64

@jcairo
Steve Earle singing F the CC at the Operation Ceasefire Concert in Washington DC on 9/24/2005

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2008 18:59 utc | 65

Thanks Uncle $cam, nice preview for next Tuesday

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 25 2008 19:14 utc | 66

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