Last Days, Campaign 2004
October 12, 2004
ACT: This is Existential Politics
There was such a demand for the Sundance Channel that Cablevision couldn't accommodate us when we asked for it today -- all becaue of the ACT-America Coming Together concert, with Springsteen, R.E.M., Dixie Chicks, Bonnie Raitt, Jurassic 5, Jackson Brown, James Taylor, John Fogerty, John Mellencamp and lots of others. The Vote For Change concert. Luckily we got the audio portion on WBAI 99.5 in New York. It is playing as I write this. I am taping it. My mind is blown.The energy of this event, the purpose for which these people are gathering and performing, is so powerful, it makes it a unique event. The energy that is coming into focus through this event and through these artists is awesome in the archaic meaning of the word. The energy is bigger than the artists, it is bigger than all the people there and all the people listening. The artists are not creating all that energy, not alone anyway. But they are tapping into, resonating with, focusing, channeling, augmenting it. The artists are a focal point through which the energy of the whole mass of humanity is passing.
This is existential politics. It is all about to unfold. Forget everything that has happened. The polls are only predictions, games played according to certain rules. Everything that anyone ever told a pollster is just words, blown away with the wind. The theater of the campaign that has us in its grip, these are all just ideas. None of what has happened up to this point will matter on November Second. On that moment the ideas become manifest. After a trillion ping pong balls have bounced back and forth, now the reality of it approaches.
Momentum be damned. All history be cast off, because the one thing that is clear about history is that is never ceases to throw up the novel. Imagine Russia in the days before the fall of the Soviet Union. Remember West and East Berlin, when the wall came down. Our history is yet to be made. This media system, this overwhelmingly powerful propaganda system has pounded into the minds of the American people a certain narrative about how this election is supposed to go. But that is a fantasy that serves the purpose of the owners of the media system. We do not have to accept that interpretation of reality. There is another way. We can make a new reality on November Second.
Someone said to me tonight, "But what if they rig the voting machines?"
Well, what if they do? What has to happen, I told her, is that this energy that we are feeling in this concert needs to be amplified, continued, parlayed until it grows into a huge, historical movement that will show such awesome power that it will roll over attempts to illegitimately suppress the rights of the people, so momentous that even its relentless foes will realize there is no use resisting anymore.
It has to be so strong that no amount of voter fraud and voter suppression can keep it down. It has to show such determination that the usurpers of power will see that the people will not allow their democratic society to be stolen from them. We just will not allow it. We have the power. We have the power of the majority, and we have the power of principle. We cannot allow them to steal another election.
In fact, there is no acceptable alternative. It all becomes real in three weeks. The Constitution demands that we stand up for it. The dream must be continued. We have to save the democratic experiment for our grandchildren. We cannot allow a small mean man and his pack of misanthropes to orchestrate the power of the greedy against us, to turn our republic into an empire.
Now is when the trodden masses take a minute to look up from their toil and see their chance to save the world. It is only now that people are really tuning in. There is a sound in the land and it will be heard.
When I hear those voices raised, and I hear the voices of the crowd and imagine all the people listening to it in their homes like me, I know the power is there to take this country back from lawless government.
What if they do rig the vote? We already know they are, they are already doing it, in Ohio, in Florida. We have to be so strong we don't let them get away with it. We have to fight for our democracy. We are in a war, a war declared on us by a corporate elite fronted by George W. Bush. They have declared war on the American people, and the people are just waking up from the sucker punch.
But one really good thing we still have going for us: they have only been able to hold onto power by pretending to support democracy. The corporate state longs to come out totally in the open and stop having to pay false homage to democracy. The Bush mob wants to come out and be an out-and-out dictatorship, just like George said. They want to be like Pinochet, just bring brutal martial law down on the country right now, suspend democratic rights, imprison and kill your opponents. But so far they have not been able to openly declare that they do not really support democracy. They must still pretend to believe in and support democratic principles. Bush justifies the Iraq takeover by saying he is spreading freedom and democracy.
If he was gaining a following by openly declaring his true desire to be unhindered by any law, to be sole dictator of the earth, we would be in a lot worse trouble. Now he has to maintain power by maintaining the sham that he is promoting democracy by all his tyrannical acts.
His power stands on a base of deception. When the truth is widely heard and understood, the glass house will come down.
[See also "Martin Luther King and Existential Politics".]
October 6, 2004
A Bush supporter on Charlie Rose is saying Cheney "did a beautiful job: He was thoughtful, serious..." And wrong. Someone is saying he came out ahead of Edwards in "having the gravitas that you want in a vice president." They stick closely to superficialities, matters of style, image.
How about that tie Cheney had on! That was some power tie, right? That's the kind of a tie you expect out of a vice president, and I think he really came out ahead of Edwards on that. Edwards' tie was okay, sort of a trial lawyer style tie, a color favored often by child abusers.
The kind of crap that passes for serious discussion on American TV is astonishingly moronic. Now "gravitas" is becoming a popular word to insert in place of or adjacent to "presidential". "I think the American people saw the kind of gravitas that they want in a vice president and made them feel sure they could trust this man to be president..."
October 6, 2004
Cheney in Wonderland
Cheney's relationship with the truth is a magical one, that of small child. He thinks he can say whatever he wants and that will make it so. Or at least he can get away with it. No one will realize or they won't remember. In last night's debate he asserted that he "never suggested" that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He's been suggesting it for years relentlessly. He's been the last holdout as the others in the Bush administration caved into reality one by one. Now he thinks he can just deny it on TV and it will be as if it never happened.Cheney's performance in the debate must be evaluated as just that, a performance. His ability to obscure the truth successfully will be the measure of his success in the debate, because the truth is unjustifiable and extremely unpleasant. So how does one evaluate lying as an element in a debate? In a real debate in a high school or college it would count against you. But it's different in a presidential debate. In a presidential debate you can lie, and if you can do it smoothly and you're on the side the corporate networks support, it will work in your favor -- as long as you display "gravitas" while you do it.
October 7, 2004
October 8, 2004
I fear for my country. I cry for my country. Today I read that New Jersey, which Al Gore won by a double-digit margin, is now a toss up. What is happening? People are under the dreadful delusion that Bush keeps them safe, that his misguided aggression will not bring more calamity upon America.On Democracy Now for October 7, an Iraqi author said that only part of the public message from bin Laden after the Madrid bombings was translated in the West. The part that was not heard in America said that bin Laden was suspending activities in America until after the election because he wanted Bush to be re-elected. Bush's strident policies would convince the Muslim world that the West is at war against it. The best the for the rest of the world, the author said, was if Bush is re-elected so that the U.S. would become further isolated from the rest of the world and it would bring about the collapse of the empire.
How tenuous our position is in America. Americans are afraid, but of the wrong things. They are like trusting lambs being led to slaughter by men they believe will protect them.
America is in great peril and the aggressive policies of George W. Bush will only continue to bring us into greater danger. How sad it is that Americans are so deceived.
First of all, check out these pictures at Is Bush Wired? . Although the debate rules negotiated between the Bush and Kerry camps prohibited pictures taken from the rear, the cameramen did it anyway. In the pictures of Bush from the rear, there is a clearly outlined rectangle outlined on his back as the suit pulled tightly when he leaned on the podium. There's some fascinating discussion about the possibilities on the site. See also here for an example of a tiny device that can be inserted into the ear invisibly, a device that can be purchased for only $680. See this site for some examples of broadcasting units with earpieces that might well have created the shape on Bush's back.
This is not at all implausible given the Bush family's love of covert operations and ways of cheating. He has never subjected himself to any challenges to his authority as president and is hardly up to facing Kerry in a debate. He has no capacity for research or study and never has and could not be expected to cram for a debate with former prosecutor and 20-year senator Kerry. So it's more than plausible that he would wear a wire.
The discussion at Is Bush Wired? , gives the impression that the debate was not the first time Bush used some sort of covert prompting device. But what is funny is that it was a miserable failure in making Bush a good debater. Using a prompter to give a speech is one thing, using it in the heat of rhetoric battle is quite another. The person doing the prompting would have to be a good debater him/herself. Timing issues could be extremely difficult to deal with. And in the Bush-Kerry debate, Kerry's confrontation of Bush seemed to drive Bush into a rage that made it hard for him to function at all. Even if he's had experience using the prompter, he's had little experience being confronted or challenged in a situation he was not in complete control of. He was a raging bull.
Bush's temper is well known and Kerry may have had his number on that one. If not, he surely does now.
A fascinating subject, anyway, and something to watch in the future.
LATE SATURDAY NIGHT MUSINGS
Because the stakes are so high in ejecting the Bushies from power I have gotten intensely involved in this contest. But at the same time I keep in mind that Kerry's policies are far too much of an accommodation with Bush's positions to make him the leader we really need right now. I have at times engaged in the indignity of comparing the contest with a boxing match.
But Chomsky is right that the mass media framing of the election is a fraud, an intentional deception and smokescreen. It's extremely important to see beyond that. But it's also true that in this election, if never before, there is a difference that makes a difference to people on practically all levels of American society, even of the whole world. So the contest is about as important as any worldly event in the foreseeable future.
So it's useful to double track it. On one track, you can become extremely involved in this election struggle, its ins and outs and its dynamics. But keep an eye on the underlying forces that are more important, more fundamental, and will continue after the election no matter who wins. Democracy is not casting a vote and then forgetting about it for a couple of years.
Chomsky: "I have precisely emphasized [that] we should “not focus only on the individuals but on the underlying power interests that they represent,” and should be constantly working on this, not becoming obsessed with the extravaganzas, and spending only a few moments making (I think quite obvious) decisions about them. Within the existing framework of institutions, there are different options. Rumsfeld-Cheney-Wolfowitz etc. happen to constitute a radical jingoist extreme of the narrow spectrum, committed to violence and enhancing very serious military threats abroad and destroying what exists of decent government programs at home. That’s why they have received such unprecedented condemnation from the heart of the mainstream."
So here we are at a cataclysmic time for America. The Republic has fallen into the hands of a reckless mob who is piloting it toward disaster. And the people are fooled into thinking that the very people who are throwing a bowling ball into the ten pins of their civilization are the only ones who can save them. The forces that are in motion might be reasonably predicted to be on a collision course. The U.S. is breaking its own back, destroying its own military, economic and political power in the world. The empire will very likely collapse just as Osama bin Laden predicted it would. The Reagan Bush mob may turn out in the end to be the ones who finally bring down America.
What a different perspective we'll have on all of it if the Bush juggernaut is not stopped and it is allowed to run until it reaches its own natural limits. I spoke to a very intelligent man the other day who repeated to me something he surely heard on TV. "If it wasn't for Ronald Reagan we would all be speaking Russian today."
What? I said. What are you talking about? You know it's a Fox news mantra by the fact that it doesn't hold up to the mildest examination. The myth is that Reagan brought the Soviet Union to a collapse by engaging it in an arms race that finally broke the bank in the USSR, just finally exploded the economic system. If not for that we would be speaking Russian, he said, which presumably means that if another president had been elected, the U.S. would not have engaged the Soviet Union in an arms race, and instead it would have taken over the U.S. and invoked a law making it illegal to speak anything but Russian. And we who were already full grown at that time and not very facile at learning languages, would be speaking broken Russian, maybe occasionally blurting out a few words of English when we are in a delirium from lack of food because the Russians are taking all the food and giving it to their fat politicians of the Politburo, who have set up their headquarters in the White House, etc., etc., etc....
If Reagan so cleverly tricked the Soviets into destroying their own economy by spending their money on a lot of useless garbage, what do you think it did to the U.S.? Why was throwing money down the toilet any better for the U.S. than it was the Soviet Union. We survived it, that's all, and the Evil Empire, or the Other Superpower didn't. The U.S. has a more vibrant, robust economy, sure. And yes, it has everything to do with the fact that the U.S. is a free society, and democracies and free market systems do tend to produce much healthier, more productive societies than dictatorships. That's all true. What isn't true is that the Reagan and Bush so-called Conservatives really support free markets or democracy. They demonstrably don't. They support their buddies, a little network of corrupt friends who give them huge campaign contributions and in turn get to rob the treasury.
The Reagan-Bush axis has not brought greater democracy and freer markets, but have pulled America away from both, toward greater and greater concentration of power exercised by a few who are increasingly isolated from accountability either legally or economically. Like Bush in the debate the other night, they have forgotten how to compete. The richest corporations are good at gaming the system, just as Bush is. They know how to cheat and they have no restraint about doing it. But they have long forgotten how to really compete fairly with a better product, better service at a better price, or in the political arena, with a better program.
The Neocons are power hungry. They saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to fill the power vacuum -- with themselves. They want to be the sole superpower, the boss of the world. They want to be the new Evil Empire, and they are bringing America down just as the power elite in Russia brought down the Soviet system.
But back to Corrigan's point, the empire may very well collapse, and sooner than most Americans dare to think. But life will go on. For many, at least.
"The only thing the Bushies have to fear is the end of fear itself." -- Katrina van Heuvel
(NOT VERY)
HAPPY See "Columbus Day: Celebrating a Holocaust" at Indian Country.
Though some of the early colonies were founded by people fleeing religious persecution, it's a big jump from there to "this country was founded by Christians." The Pilgrims didn't start this country, the United States of America was founded by Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, et. al., and they were very explicit about whether or not they were founding a Christian nation. They didn't leave it up to us to interpret it. They said explicitly that religion was not part of government, it was a part of life that was in the realm of the freedom of the individual. They may have been or may not have been Christians, however you define that.
I would argue that the aggressive, warlike people represented by George W. Bush are not Christians in any authentic meaning of the word, and what it derives from historically. Their values, as represented by their actions, are severely unchristian, in direct and violent opposition to the basic principles Jesus preached.
Ironically, the founders of the U.S. were undoubtedly more Christian in spirit than these violent, hateful "Christian Soldiers" who are wielding so much political power today. But they explicitly were not founding a Christian nation.
Having governments force public school textbooks to be wiped clean of any references to the theory of evolution without giving equal time to the "theory" of creationism, which isn't a theory it's a belief system. A scientific theory is not meant to be "believed" in the same sense as religious belief. It's a different realm with a different approach. There is no need to see them as being in conflict. A scientific theory is a working model that can be useful, until a better one comes along. The scientific method requires that one always remains open to revisions of one's ideas. Religion doesn't need to do that. It deals with the unchanging, the eternal, the reality that underlies the world we build our civilization upon. The founders were wise to keep the two realms separate. After all, religious tyranny was what many of the first Americans fled their home countries and took their chances in a relative wilderness.
A lot of mainstream Americans are now waking up to a nightmare of what happens when right wing, militaristic, religiously dogmatic people take over the government and harness its vast power to drive their agenda. I'm talking about the mellower, down-to-earth people who just want to go ahead with their lives, not fight battles about whether the discovery of evolution is somehow a violation of one's religious conviction, or fight wars with dictators who "could have developed weapons of mass destruction". This is really the majority of Americans. They are liberal in spirit. "Liberal" comes from "liberty" and it is one of the Enlightenment concepts on which Jefferson, Franklin and others based their design of the American republic. It's about freedom to do your own thing. Americans are also conservative, fiscally, and morally. They don't want governments wasting their money or managing it less responsibly than they would themselves. And they are, on the average, fairly conservative morally. But that does not extend to wanting to exert tyranny over others personal moral decisions. These aggressive "Christians" are not "Conservative" either, as they claim, either fiscally or morally.
Remember "Thou shalt not kill"?, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"? That is moral conservatism, not screeching about abortions while you are murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilian Iraqis. And lying to your own people about why you are doing it.
America has gone crazy and I hope masses of these more moderate mainstream Americans wake up before the country makes the tragic error of giving the Bush fanatics another four years to destroy America.
MEDIA ROULETTE
It all fits together so perfectly, all we know about Bush's life, his gaming the system throughout school, the military, his "business ventures", the whole CIA, pro-Nazi history of the family -- why should it be in the slightest implausible that Bush would choose to use a prompting device that could protect him from having to ever face real questions about his job as president without some help. Now people are selecting public domain pics that we have seen before, but suddenly now that it is pointed out, there is indeed a rectangular bulge on his back in many of them. An unmistakable, geometrically perfect rectangle, quite large and prominent on his back. How very strange!
This opens a window upon a whole different kind of a presidency than most ever imagined before. Sure, it was clear he was a puppet in some ways, it was never clear how far it went. But now we see evidence of something unexplained, and the theory put forth to explain it is not conclusive by any means. But it is plausible. So much so that it is easy to feature it, and imagine the Bush presidency with that added component. It's not really much of a jump, but it's just such a striking detail.
Now that people seem to be onto it, what must the White House be doing? They must be excreting bricks. Again, all they would have to do would be to explain it. "The president has a back brace for a slipped disk." But they seem unable to do that kind of thing. There was the outrageous explanation for how he got the baseball bat lump under his eye, the choking on the pretzel story. There's the refusal to make any effort to set the record straight about Bush's lost year in his military career.
So will this just be another of myriad elephants in the room in the weird Bushworld we are citizens of? In the grand array of Bush crimes, it's not much. But it is a singular historical event. That cannot be denied. We are truly in Looney Toons now.
Bush denied saying he wasn't concerned about Osama. I just heard the recording the other day. What were the exact words? Can we roll the video tape please?!
There it is. On the White House Website: "So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you."
Results of a CBS News online poll at 11:30 Wednesday night after the debate:
John Kerry: 84.82%
Course online polls don't mean nuthin'. Still, looks good. This could be a time when there is an online revolution in polling itself. There has already been an online revolution in how elections take place. This time we may see a dynamic that will be so new the traditional pollsters don't know how to put their fingers on it. It's hard to be sure, but I get a sense of democratic action rising out of the country itself that may translate into a turnout of a significant number of people who have never figured into the voting landscape before. We'll see what happens, but there are indications that what is rumbling now three weeks from the election is going to continue to move toward a peak on election day. This last few weeks the acceleration curve may become close to vertical before it cuts off Nov. 2. Then it will be a whole new world, whatever happens.
Bush was asked about the shortage of flu shots this winter. He said, "We were relying on a company out of England for those, and it turned out they were contaminated..." What? The whole United States was relying on this one company? What happened to the free market? Let's get back to that one. He jumped right into talking about young, healthy people not getting them this time, so there will be more for the people who really need it. Right, yes, of course. But what about this one company?
The first very pronounced impression of Bush is that his main focus is to give a smiling, upbeat appearance. Don't let them get anymore pictures of you scowling, you idiot. He looks practically breathless with happiness as he listened to Kerry deliver an organized series of karate chops to his throat, knees, solar plexus. He looks positively giddy.
You can see him really disciplining himself to maintain an upbeat, friendly smile while Kerry is talking. It's a visible effort. They've got him on some split screen shots while Kerry delivers an effective critique that tears his record to shreds in a clear, vivid way that average Americans can understand. And Bush is just smiling.
He looks almost disassociated, like he's not connecting, not really in the same room. It looks like it's a file photo they are just holding up there because Bush couldn't make it. When he looks at the moderator and talks, he's not focusing on him, or the camera. It's almost as if he's concentrating on something else, a broken filling, a telephone call waiting. Is he listening to something?
I tried to look at his back tonight, but no way. The guy was more conscious than a trained actor about not turning his back to the audience. All that strict denial just makes people more curious. Come on, George, just tell us what the hump is, man. How bad can it be? Are you pregnant?
Actually I now think I know the answer to the question what is the hump on Bush's back. I believe Bush is secretly a Geisha.
Still, try as he will to keep an upbeat demeanor for the photos, he starts to lose his composure and return to his truculent self as he hears Kerry's sledge hammer blows: "He's the first president since Hoover to lose jobs; he's the first president to have family income go down..." Ouch. But someone impressed on him: the scowling ain't making it.
Despite the fact that the TV pundits will find a spin for it that will flatten out any distinctions, turn it into a "toss up", no one really won. Bush will be seen to have done a great job -- compared with himself and his historic low-water mark of the first debate, so that will be enough to say he won, or at least "held his own," which is in itself pretty pathetic for the incumbent chief executive.
But turning off the TV before the pundits get their chance to mold your fresh impression, apart from the "who won" trivia (no contest), Kerry is a gifted debater. He's more at home as a debater than as a public speaker, and he's pretty good at that. But as a debater he is totally in his element, totally in command of the situation, calmly dominating, thinking and talking rings around a befuddled Bush. By the third debate he had it down to the extent that he pretty much totally controlled the debate, easily put down Bush's few meager challenges. He finishes a dense series of points and Bush goes, "Whew!" Signifying what, exactly? Bush tries to crack a joke, only his own nervous laughter echoes in the silent hall.
His manner, his schtick, worked okay in 2000 when he was an outsider and could just hurl criticisms about the previous administration. He kept blaming everything on Clinton until pretty recently, but that won't wash in a re-election campaign. Bush is not credible defending an indefensible record. He has nothing. To say. Discussing domestic policy, he brings every answer back to "education", his "No child left behind" act, his one legislative accomplishment as president other than tax cuts and war initiatives.
What do you plan to do about jobs, mr president? Well, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs program if you think about it. If we get people educated, they can get good jobs, that's why I passed that No Child Left Behind Act with that Senator Kennedy...
He tells people. "You've got more money in your pocket since I passed my tax cut to boost the economy," he says, with a hint of pleading. But that doesn't sell. People know they do not have more money in their pocket. And the No Child Left Behind Act is not going to change that, any more than the tax cuts did. This is that moment where Bush, like his father in '92, shows that, like he has said, "I really don't understand how poor people think."
In the debate context, Kerry is dazzling. He expresses coherent, compelling ideas. He really knows these subjects from having lived them. The entire performance is something on an entirely different level than something that can be transmitted through an earpiece.
If Bush had Einstein himself, or even Clinton feeding him lines, he could still never put up a good contest against Kerry in that setting. There's no comparison. It's hard for me to imagine people walking away from these debates and saying Bush is the more qualified, more inspirational, more confidence inspiring candidate.
Bush's message to the younger generations about Social Security is not reassuring. "Sure, we'll honor our commitment to seniors, but when it comes to our children and grandchildren, we're going to have to find a different strategy," he said. What are you saying?
Bush was able to do a sort of media analysis on Bush's statements, and cut into them and reveal the inherent lies, which the newsmedia rich journalist celebrities never do. It wss a fascinating interchange. Kerry made mincemeat out of Bush. Bush must be happy tonight. He will never have to face John Kerry in another debate.
The moderator asked how the candidates would deal with the problems of staffing the military, to relieve the stresses on people who have served longer than their contract requires. Bush said, "The best way to take stress on our soldiers is to win in Iraq, so we can bring them home..." Is anybody buying this stuff?
October 9, 2004
Happy Birthday, John
Love is all you need. War is over, if you want it.
October 10, 2004
COLUMBUS DAY
October 11, 2004
Those who are still up at 2 a.m. on Sunday night, October 11, in Greater New York could be watching this documentary on channel 13 "In the Life." It's an amazing examination of the Christian Right's aggressive assault on homosexuals. Beyond that, it gives a snapshot of the political power that has been wielded in America over the last 25 years or so by extreme, aggressive Christians who have done things like force textbooks to be changed to conform to religious dogma. During the '80s when many ordinary Americans just considered people like Pat Roberts as a harmless lunatic, this insanely grinning cherub with the bobbing head was building a political movement to "take back" control of America. This country was founded by Christians, he said, and we can take it back.
October 12, 2004
October 13, 2004
Wind-Up Commander in Chief
October 14, 2004
Debate Impressions -- Debate Number Three. How strange it is. They walk out, shake hands, touch each other's arms. You see them chatting. What are they saying? You lyin' sack of ... I'll kill ya! SSSSSSS!!
President Bush: 14.60%
Draw: 0.57%
October 15, 2004
October 16, 2004
October 17, 2004
