Great time for a freaking vacation
For all of you visiting for the first time via this Daily Kos post, thanks so much for coming by. Wouldn't you know it, my first kos link comes during the very week that I decide to up and go on vacation. (I'm in the Puerta Plata area of the Dominican Republic, and it's lovely.) I'm really hoping that you'll consider visting again after I get back and things are up and running again. In the meantime, here, here, here are some posts that I think might give you a flavor of me and the site in the meantime.
Again, please do think about stopping back in. I'd really appreciate it.
On Kos part II
About the Washington Monthy profile of Markos of Daily Kos, I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that Markos doesn't need to be all things to all people. If he seems himself as a tatician or attack dog, let him be just that. There are, you know, other people in the Democratic Party. This ties in to an idea that has been making a lot more sense to me since I left Washington for the greener pastures of New York. There are roles in politics -- some of us are attack dogs, some noise makers, some advocates, some thinkers, some pundits, some activists, some moderate elected officials. Nothing wrong with that, I think. But the article raises an important point: the liberal blogosphere can be a rigid environment -- one that rewards those in every role who act with absolute certainty and disdains those who don't.
I reject that idea that it's a simple matter of valuing partisanship over wonkery, the way that Kevin Drum talks about it here. In my mind, it's deeper than that, deeper than even health care policy. What I'm starting to think that one thing missing on the progressive side of things is an exploration of the intellectual and academic underpinnings of the movement. (Off of the top of my head, I'm thinking of things like this: lessons learned from the civil rights movement in this country, our connection to freedom movements all over the world, the progressive take on technology, a thousand different things.)
It of course makes complete sense that we have overdeveloped the tactical/attack dog side of things -- we've been under direct attack for the last several years. But it might now be time for some of us to break off from day to day tactics, take a step back, and begin to think about how we grow the other parts of the movement.
It's not entirely clear that blogs, for all their wonderfulness, are the means by which to grow the thinking part of the progressivism, or that our existing think tanks and niche publications (Washington Monthly, American Prospect) are up to the job. Maybe we shouldn't even be worrying about having dedicated thinkers at all, and should instead focus on coopting the thinking that's already out there in universities and churches and such that is progressive in nature. I dunno. It's well worth exploring other ways of doing this. I have a couple of ideas, and I'm sure others do, too.
On Kos
For your reading pleasure -- Washington Monthly has a new piece on Markos of Daily Kos; Markos has corrections.
The future and its enemies
As I've only been a New Yorker for two months now, and didn’t know my TWU from my MTA until this week, I’ve been having a bit of trouble making sense of the ongoing transit strike. After a lot of thinking and reading, here's where I come down.
As a matter of principle, I support need for unions to do what is necessary to protect their workers. Organized labor won us many of the rights that we know enjoy as working people, of course. It’s because of their importance that we shouldn’t support bad behavior on their part.
I have great sympathy for the transit workers who dislike their jobs. It is unfortunate that people have to work underground all day long. But Bloomberg is reporting that subway conductors make more than $62,000 and booth operators more than $50,000. If those numbers are accurate, it’s hard for me to imagine how those aren’t adequate rates of compensation for those jobs. One sociologist that worked for four years as a subway conductor says that part of the problem
for transit workers is an abusive and hurtful public. Doesn’t seem like calling for a strike one week before Christmas is going to improve that situation.
We can argue about the high cost of living today, health and wellness, work/life balance, service jobs, how we spend money on stuff we don’t need. But this isn’t about those things. This is about propping up a system that over-rewards certain jobs just because the relevant union has the power to bring the city to a halt.
The bigger picture for me is that the only constant is change. The very idea of work is evolving in this country. We can either come up with new progressive ideas to deal with that reality or try to keep the old model up creaking along with duct tape and a prayer.
All that said -- I know that I should take no joy from a situation that is causing a lot of trouble for everyone involved, but man do I love New York. Interesting and important stuff happens here and everybody has an opinion. Fantastic.
The Baltimore City project
A side project that I've been working on just launched. The city of Baltimore -- working together with local hospitals and pharmacies -- has set up a new program that will monitor and respond problems that might arise when seniors transistion over to the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program on New Year's Day. The idea is to both prempt problems with the transition before they can cause real public health damage and to strenghten the city's emergency response muscles. The website for the project is here and a great L.A. Times story on it is here.
Goodstorm
Andy Rappaport and others have launched GoodStorm: "Capitalism Done Right."
Politics vs. government
Matt Stoller has a post on the evolution of his political thinking:
Over the past few years, I've gone through a sort of journey. When I started in politics, I thought that the problem was Bush, and that if we could only go back to Clinton it would be alright. Then when Bush's actions didn't explain our predicament, since the war was prosecuted so badly and under such false premises, I considered the right-wing message machine and their fealty to power and the raw emotional narcotic of fear. Then when that didn't explain our situation, I turned to the the media, since surely they should have punctured the lies. Then when that didn't explain the actions of those who knew the truth but acted against it anyway, I turned to the Democratic leadership and local party machines. Yet that doesn't make sense either as a total explanation, for there are people of tremenous integrity in and out of the party.
So I think the only answer to why we are where are as a country, and the judgment history will render, is that all of us, progressive or not, but all of us as citizens are in our own ways responsible for what has happened.
I agree with Matt and it’s worth reading the full post. I’d suggest one thing that Matt doesn’t mention, that I’m starting to think is one of our greater failures. It's still very much a fuzzy concept in my head. But I’ve kept coming back to the general idea in the last several months as I’ve tried to make sense of Washington, so I suspect there’s something to it. I’ll explain it as best I can.
The basic idea is that one of the worst things that happened to this country over the last several years is the blurring of the line between what is political and what is government, typified, of course, by Karl Rove’s role in the White House. As John DiIulio, the guy Bush picked to run his faith-based initiatives program, famously said:
There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus… What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm.
As a result, we -- as citizens -- now have to keep an eye on everything little coming out of every office in Washington, and interpret it this light. Unfortunate, but it has to be done. What I’m starting to see is the matter with this approach is that not everything that happens in Washington is political -- there’s a lot of running the country stuff that happens in a non-political context. When we interpret everything that happens in government though a political lens, it comes out all warped and difficult to understand.
This might shed some light on something that Matt has talked about lately – the appeal of John McCain to Democrats. Matt’s right that it’s crazy for anybody who considers him or herself a Democrat to vote for John McCain for president. But yet the Zogby poll that Matt talks about says that 53% of Democrats would be more likely to support a candidate based on a McCain endorsement. I think that one way of understanding why that might be the case is to consider distinguishing between John McCain, senator, and John McCain, presidential candidate.
Observing McCain from the other side of the Hill, I’ve found him to be a senator who stands on principle more often than most. He seems to work hard at his job. Since I believe in principled leadership and the honor of government service, these things are important to me. There are members of Congress who I am more aligned with politically who fail these basic tests. So I, even as a strong progressive, can look at John McCain and feel a certain amount of appreciation for him.
Now, that said, I would never ever never never vote for him for President. Never. As a President – a political position -- he’d be just awful.
One possible way of reducing McCain’s appeal to Democrats is to say that McCain is bad through and through. And as a politician, we’re probably right. But people judge with their own eyes that, no, McCain seems to be an all right. And as a government official, they’re probably right. The cognitive dissonance between what we say and what people see ends up confusing them so much that they pull out of the process. They end up voting for people on the basis of who they think that they can trust. And that ends up being John McCain. Or George Bush. Twice.
I admit that this is still at the stage of fuzzy thinking, but I think there’s something to it.
He did not pass go
Rev. Rob Hardies, the senior minister at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in DC, was arrested in yesterday's budget protest. It's particularly neat because of All Souls' long history of working for social justice. Rob's a remarkable minister -- I highly recommend going taking a Sunday to go hear him preach.
Built Ford tough
John Aravosis has a letter that Ford released today in which they attempt to clarify their stand on gay and lesbian issues, in light of the recent controversy. It's worth reading the whole thing, but in my mind the money paragraph is this:
You asked directly for us to have Jaguar and Land Rover reverse its plans and advertise in gay and lesbian targeted publications in 2006. As we said, Jaguar and Land Rover made a business decision about their media plans and it would be inconsistent with the way we manage our business to direct them to do otherwise. It is clear there is a misperception about our intent. As a result, we have decided to run corporate ads in these targeted publications that will include not only Jaguar/Land Rover but all eight of Ford's vehicle brands. As we have said, the content will be appropriate and effective in connecting with the intended audience. It is my hope that this will remove any ambiguity about Ford's desire to advertise to all important audiences and put this particular issue behind us. (emphasis added)
I'm not entirely sure what "corporate ads" are and that they're not some sort of handout intended to placate critics. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force seems pleased and I tend to trust them. But I have imagine that for them to react that way, more was settled in their meetings than is revealed in this letter.
UPDATE: HRC is pleased, too.
New to me
This, I hadn't seen before: Since Sliced Bread, a project of SEIU featuring a range of strange bedfellows from Amy Sullivan to Glenn Reynolds.
If Jesse can be saved...
Jesse Helms has long been a major roadblock to the U.S. progress on HIV/AIDS, seemingly driven by a pathological dislike of the homosexual. Yet of all the people in the world, Helms has just released a video pressuring Americans to care about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. To be sure, there’s no sign that his hatred of gays is anything but alive and well. But as for AIDS in Africa, he credits our man Bono with changing his thinking.
I think that points to an important point. Before Bono, the story of AIDS in Africa was one of death and despair. Heck, the popular story of the entire continent of Africa was that of a place consumed by death. It reminds me of a time in grad school when I listened to another student talk about her research on the competition for resources in Africa. She went on and on about the suffering and misery there, about disease, infant mortality, and ethnic violence. The picture she painted was of the darkest and most horrible place on earth. At the end, our professor said something like, “Your facts are right. But I don’t even recognize the place you’re describing.” Bono, with his artistic flair and wraparound sunglasses, has started rewriting that Africa death narrative. To be sure, the facts are still pretty awful. But at least it’s not so crazy anymore to think that they don’t have to be.
That hope is a powerful thing, of course. But so is alliance building. Bono made the choice at some point to engage folks like Helms, Bush, John Snow, and he’s gotten a fair amount of crap for it. But hey, seems to me like there are worse outcomes in politics than expending a little time and energy, and winding up with Jesse Helms hawking AIDS videos.
Cologero
Among the myraid sad realities of the Lillo Brancato situation is the dawning realization that so few people my age seem to have actually ever seen A Bronx Tale. It was heretofore one of my favorite movies, one of the I've ever seen more than two or three times. And now I can't like it, because I'm incapable of enjoying the acting of people guilty of (or even likely guilty of) of heinous crimes. For instance, I have to turn off The Naked Gun when it comes on the television because of O.J. Simpson. (I'm not sure how it is related, but I have a similar reaction to listening to music by those who died prematurely. INXS, for example.)
Politics is hard work
Ha. From the personal website of Matt Stoller -- most recently, Jon Corzine's blogger-in-chief: "I've worked in politics for the past three and a half years, and now I get that politics is really really hard."
Corruption on the march. Like the penguins.
I'm not entirely sure what to make of the new Transparency International report that purportedly shows that corruption is on the rise worldwide -- mainly because I can't seem any information more detailed than that in the official press release -- but one glimmer of hope seems to be that almost half of Kenyans surveyed think their country is somewhat less corrupt than it was just three years ago. [UPDATE: Ooh, found the full report in pdf. But now I have to read it.]
Audit reports (with jokes)
Cool. A colleague tells me that a fun thing I helped put together a while back -- an online tool that lets you click and reveal the incriminating details that the Pentagon allowed Halliburton to redact from its own audit reports -- is mentioned in the new Al Franken book, The Truth (with jokes). Alas, no search on Amazon. Now I'll have to go flip through it surreptitiously in the book shop down the road. (UPDATE: Aww, I went down to the book store to flip through it and it's not true. Our online tool is not specifically mentioned. What it is is that Franken writes about Halliburton's heavily redacted audit reports and credits "hero congressman" Henry Waxman for uncovering them.. Guess that's something.)
Going both ways on gay marriage
Arianna got her hands on a copy of the internal memo that plots out Hillary Clinton's plans to broaden her electoral appeal to "red state" voters. Her strategy on gay marriage:
HRC proposes amendment to Defense of Marriage Act making it mandatory for gays to marry...but only heterosexuals. It might even play both ways: she's pro-gay marriage (indeed, it's compulsory), but anti gays marrying gays.
Ha. Makes about as much sense as the Vatican. The whole memo is pretty funny.
Worst president ever (WPE)
I've often pondered, seriously pondered in a forehead on fist kinda way, whether once historians have considered the question in retrospect, George W. Bush will be judged to have been very worst American president to ever hold the office. Well now via Matt Gross comes an informal George Mason University survey that found that of 415 historians responding, 50 judge that, yes, George W. Bush is in fact WPE. Annecdotal to the point of uselessness, yes, but a good reminded that this will be compelling question to consider down the road.
Unrelatedly, in the Yahoo News article that Matt links to as the source on the study numbers by liberal-seeming columnist Richard Reeve, a few lines on James Buchanan (our heretofore WPE) struck me:
[H]e was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. ... It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual. Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union..."
You see, even if he was gay, it was when he stumbled into a civil war that pit brother against brother that he really screwed up. Being a homo was just one of his more minor failings. Got it.
The DLC and multiple choice
It really does make me wonder why somebody like the DLC's Marshall Wittman -- a fellow one might assume, if one didn't know better, would have the best interests of the Democratic party at heart -- would go on record in the Washington Post with a statement crafted to reify the negative impressions of that party:
Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group, said the rift over Iraq highlighted a long-running dilemma for Democrats, how to appear tough on national security while appealing to their antiwar base.
"Karl Rove couldn't have choreographed it any better," Mr. Wittmann said. "This is the dilemma that the Democrats see. Their base is inflamed against the war. The war is unpopular, and yet if they call for a precipitous withdrawal, they only play into the hands of the Republican Party, which wants to depict them as the party of retreat."
Of course, Wittman's use of "them" and "they" goes a long way toward clearing things up.
And the point he makes is just the sort of stupid thinking that you see all the time in politics and in Washington. You see, in the real world, people hold core principles and then apply them as situations warrant. For example, I strongly believe that burglars should not break into my home and take my stuff. To that end, I might have an alarm system and bars on my ground floor windows. As a matter of principle and in practice, I'm very strong on home security.
My neighbor, however, has decided to forgo the alarm system and bars and has instead taken to shooting every FedEx or UPS delivery person who appears on her doorstep as a precautionary measure. I'm very strongly opposed to her behavior. It's illegal, immoral, ineffective, and dumb. If Park Slope held a "Let's Stop Killing the Delivery People" rally, I would attend. One can just as easily be strong on national security and oppose the Iraq war. So simple a concept, really.
But to Wittman and much of Washington's chattering class, this is wishy-washy thinking. To them, every question is a multiple choice one that very often has only two answers. Strong on national security or anti-war, take your pick.
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain tickets are now on sale on Fandango. Remember, every ticket sold helps make this guy:
"It's the most stupid move he [Jake Gyllenhaal] could make...It'll alienate his teen-girl fan base and could kill his career. What a waste."
look more and more like an idiot.
Ford
A quick synopsis of the Ford situation. John Aravosis is covering it and ably, of course, but I myself was a bit confused on the specifics and decided to do some research. It's important to get these things right. So, in short, here's where we stand. Earlier this year, the American Family Association announced a boycott of Ford because of the company's extending of marriage benefits to same-sex couples and for its support for the "gay agenda" through such actions as sponsoring pride parades. Last week, the AFA announced that the boycott was through:
"We called for a boycott of Ford, then a group of dealers requested a meeting with us -- and we've met with Ford several times in the last several months," he [AFA founder and chairman Donald E. Wildmon] shares. "They've heard our concerns; they have responded, we think, in a very positive way. We've opened lines of communication, [and] we think those lines of communication will stay open."
Wildmon believes the boycott is no longer necessary, and that Ford executives are addressing pro-family concerns in good faith.
"They've heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns. We are pleased with where we are," he says. "Obviously there are still some small matters of difference, as people will always have, but generally speaking we are pleased with the results -- and therefore the boycott that had been suspended [is] now officially ended."
One week later, Ford announced its decision to drop its advertising of its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in the Advocate and other gay publications, a move that they said was part of a larger effort to cut advertising budgets and not in response to AFA demands. And just today, John is reporting that Ford has also agreed to stop supporting gay events. Ford has heretofore stated that it will not roll back the significant benefits that it accords gay and lesbian employees. That's the end of my summary.
And the beginning of my commentary. Listen, I applaud Ford for the benefits they provide their gay and lesbians employees. Far more generous than those offered to gays and lesbians toiling in say, the United States Congress. (That's true.) But what seems indisputable is that Ford met with a pro-hate group to rationally discuss their demands, and then seemingly acceded to the bulk of those demands. If they feel that was a business decision that they felt that they had to make, they should at least be compelled to admit that they chose to perpetuate discrimination and hate in a effort to protect their bottom line. At the least, they should have to admit it.
The true cost of AIDS
The true cost of HIV/AIDS cannot be measured in the price of treatment or mortality rates alone. Take this, for example. In the tiny African nation of Malawi (the capital of which is Lilongwe, which I only mention because oh, how I like to say Lilongwe.) A former advisor to the UN and the Malawian government on agricultural issues reports that of the several hundred food and agricultural experts he trained there in the 1990's, about a third of them have since died and most of AIDS-related causes. The result? NGOs set up agricultural projects and there's no one local there to run them. The NGOs eventually leave, the projects go downhill, and the state of agricultural goes right back to where it was before.
AIDS and Zimbabwe
Mother Jones has a provocative photo essay on the devastation of AIDS in Zimbabwe, sadly titled "On Their Own." I found this photo of a woman tending to her grown son the most affecting. Compared to the rest of Africa, Zimbabwe is actually doing well, with a significant drop in infection rates according to the latest U.N. study. Yet one in five pregnant women there still test positive for the HIV virus.One, two, three, four, BOOM.
Shame, been eyeing those hybrid Escapes
Under pressure from anti-gay groups, Ford has decided to stop advertising in gay publications and thus I have decided to stop buying Fords. Course, I own a Honda, but no matter.
Seems like we're getting closer and closer to a time when more and more corporations, organizations, and individuals will have to answer the question, "whose side are you on?"
The New New England
From British ex-pat Andrew Sullivan:
If I had stayed there, I'd be a fully equal citizen by now. Which prompts an interesting question: how many American immigrants in the past have actually had to give up liberty in order to come to this country? Welcome to the future.
I'd contest the idea that this makes him a full full citizen -- see this BBC Q&A for the differences between civil marriage and civil partnerships -- but still, a fine question.
"I do"
Check out this picture, of an image projected on the side of the British Parliament yesterday.
Good to be gay
It doesn't suck to be gay, all the time. The last two weeks have brought some much needed and much welcomed good news. First, in South Africa, where the constitution already explicitly and gloriously bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the Constitutional Court has decided that the nation's marriage laws must be rewritten so that marriage is defined simply as the "union of two people." Two people, that's it. Man/man, man/woman, woman/woman, all fine. Then, in this morning's New York Times, we find that all over Britian, from Northern Ireland to Wales, from England to Scotland, gay and lesbians will in the next several weeks be able to start joining together in what they're calling "civil partnerships." While certainly not "real" marriage, civil partnerships convey some of the same financial benefits and responsibilities of traditional marriage. As for the credibility of such an approach, well, suffice to say that Elton John is on board.
Reading that New York Times story this morning made me reflect upon something. I can remember when, just a few years back, Howard Dean ran for president and his support for civil unions was considered the mark of an extreme lefty. It was enough, conventional wisdom went, to make him unnacceptable to much of the electorate. And now, a few years later, on a good day "civil unions" is the official position of George Bush.
Of course, things still fairly suck for gay people here, and far more so in many other places in the world. And we now are facing the embarrassing display of the Vatican trying to calculate just how long it takes for a man who has thought about another man in that way to qualify for what I always understood to be a celibate position. But sometimes it's just nice to take a look at how rational sane folks are progressing on gay issues, and how quickly we seem to be doing it.
Takes money, baby
Campaign finance reports released today reveal that Mike Bloomberg spent $78 million on his campaign, much of it his own money, just slightly more than the $75.4 million that Corzine and Forrester spent on the Senate race in New Jersey, again much of it out of their own pockets. Want to run for office? Start saving.
Brooklyn
Turns out that I have moved to one happening place.
Among the Masai
I'm sorry but I find this remarkable -- a Japanese tour guide marrying an already-married Masai man and living in Masailand not too far down the road from a French anthropologist married to a Masai with nine other wives. What a world.
"I'm the warrior"
Via Andrew Sullivan, I got the shivers watching this sitting alone in my own kitchen. A right-Christian woman absolutely flips, just flips, about the "un-godliness" of her Trading Spaces redecoration. I mean, I know they can come with some ugly -assed wall art and such, but damn.
Her poor children.
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