Radar: 10 Items of Note
This world just gets crazier and crazier.
With the election over, most of us lay citizens have been taking a much-needed vacation from the political rat race...or even news altogether, since frankly, ain’t a whole lot of it good. My vacation from politics, though, lasted only a handful of days post-election before I was back to the old steady state of hyper-awareness through real-time electronic media addiction.
Lots of big things are flying under the radar right now. We don’t want to think about Iraq or Social Security—we wanna think about Christmas presents and eggnog. We don’t want to worry about the deficit or a gay marriage amendment or the results of a Ukrainian election—we want to worry about expanding waistlines and top twenty lists and credit cards maxing out. Which is all perfectly fine. For now.
But the month and a half since Black Tuesday has proven to be remarkably eventful. The wheels are beginning to come off the Bush juggernaut—and though he hasn’t been sworn in yet, the stage is being set for what should be a very interesting Second Term (gasp! I never thought I’d have to say that!).
Items of note, early afternoon, December 17, 2004:
1. The bizarre transformation of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Dioxin poisoning is a bitch, in case you haven’t seen the before and afters yet. Needless to say, conspiracy theories abound.
2. Russian President Vladimir Putin, codename: Pootie Poot. Methinks Dubya may not be quite the judge of souls he thinks he is. Kristof gets it right: "The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism."
3. As for Gen. Augusto Pinochet, justice stalks him. Finally this evil man, personally responsible for the deaths of thousands in Chile from 1973 to 1990, will face the families of his victims. Next up on the chopping block? Dr. Henry Kissinger, perhaps, willing accomplice of Pinochet’s, among others. I mean, really, was there a single Latin American dictator that our country didn’t support in the seventies and eighties? Well, there was always Castro, I suppose.
4. It seems Donald Rumsfeld’s club of admirers is dwindling by the day. McCain, of course, you expect his dissent, but a substantial number of other Republicans have followed suit, including Bill Kristol, and now Trent Lott. Trent on the Donald: "not a fan." Mr. President? Are you listening? Now that we’ve been over in Iraq for almost two years now, don’t you think it's about time we did this right? Give Rummy the boot and send Wolfie and Feith with him. The despicable quality shared by these men (and Kissinger) is their tendency to "look at battlefield soldiers as chess pieces at their disposal. In the end, they care about nothing except their game."
5. Bush’s idea of an economic conference: a cheerleading rally in his own honor ("There were no real dissenting viewpoints from the panelists.") It seems that fantasy worked so much better than reality in the first term that the Dubya is sticking with it to the bitter end.
6. Friedman scolds Bush again. It seems the administration has held up the release of the third Arab Human Development Report, due back in October, because of language critical of the US invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation:
7. Speaking of expensive failures, have any of these missile defense tests ever worked right? And what’s this secret spy satellite program all about? Weren’t conservatives supposed to be, well, conservative when it came to your tax dollars?
8. The Bernard Kerik Story and the Job nobody wants.
9. Bush fiddles as Iraq burns. Bob Herbert delineates our misplaced priorities. Meanwhile, Saddam is reportedly in high spirits. I suppose he has some reason to be, what with the success of the guerrilla tactics that he likely shaped in a significant way. So we wait for the elections and pray.
10. Finally, lots of soul-searching in the Democratic party since the election. Where did we go wrong? How do we fix it? Predictably, there’s an intraparty fight underway between the liberal MoveOn faction and the DLC centrist types. It’s an argument worth having, but only with the sense that, in the end, we’re all on the same side. It need not end in the victory of one over the other, as some on both sides have foolishly suggested—rather, it MUST not end as such, or the Dems won’t win another election this century. On a macro- level, we don’t need to go left or move to the center—we just need to extract the common sense from both sides, define our message more concretely and inclusively, and do a better job of framing the debate.
We also need some new blood. Did you know that there are no more than twenty people younger than the age of 40 on the 447-member DNC?? That is a travesty on its face. This article has it right on:
Recent Jukebox fodder:
Sister Rosetta Thorpe – Shine for Jesus!
Amon Duul II – Yeti
Enslaved – Below the Lights
The Lounge Lizards – s/t
Donovan – Live in Concert
Crime – San Francisco’s Still Doomed
Zolar X – Timeless
Dismiss – the demo tape
With the election over, most of us lay citizens have been taking a much-needed vacation from the political rat race...or even news altogether, since frankly, ain’t a whole lot of it good. My vacation from politics, though, lasted only a handful of days post-election before I was back to the old steady state of hyper-awareness through real-time electronic media addiction.
Lots of big things are flying under the radar right now. We don’t want to think about Iraq or Social Security—we wanna think about Christmas presents and eggnog. We don’t want to worry about the deficit or a gay marriage amendment or the results of a Ukrainian election—we want to worry about expanding waistlines and top twenty lists and credit cards maxing out. Which is all perfectly fine. For now.
But the month and a half since Black Tuesday has proven to be remarkably eventful. The wheels are beginning to come off the Bush juggernaut—and though he hasn’t been sworn in yet, the stage is being set for what should be a very interesting Second Term (gasp! I never thought I’d have to say that!).
Items of note, early afternoon, December 17, 2004:
1. The bizarre transformation of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Dioxin poisoning is a bitch, in case you haven’t seen the before and afters yet. Needless to say, conspiracy theories abound.
2. Russian President Vladimir Putin, codename: Pootie Poot. Methinks Dubya may not be quite the judge of souls he thinks he is. Kristof gets it right: "The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism."
3. As for Gen. Augusto Pinochet, justice stalks him. Finally this evil man, personally responsible for the deaths of thousands in Chile from 1973 to 1990, will face the families of his victims. Next up on the chopping block? Dr. Henry Kissinger, perhaps, willing accomplice of Pinochet’s, among others. I mean, really, was there a single Latin American dictator that our country didn’t support in the seventies and eighties? Well, there was always Castro, I suppose.
4. It seems Donald Rumsfeld’s club of admirers is dwindling by the day. McCain, of course, you expect his dissent, but a substantial number of other Republicans have followed suit, including Bill Kristol, and now Trent Lott. Trent on the Donald: "not a fan." Mr. President? Are you listening? Now that we’ve been over in Iraq for almost two years now, don’t you think it's about time we did this right? Give Rummy the boot and send Wolfie and Feith with him. The despicable quality shared by these men (and Kissinger) is their tendency to "look at battlefield soldiers as chess pieces at their disposal. In the end, they care about nothing except their game."
5. Bush’s idea of an economic conference: a cheerleading rally in his own honor ("There were no real dissenting viewpoints from the panelists.") It seems that fantasy worked so much better than reality in the first term that the Dubya is sticking with it to the bitter end.
6. Friedman scolds Bush again. It seems the administration has held up the release of the third Arab Human Development Report, due back in October, because of language critical of the US invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation:
Once again, Bush’s inability to admit a mistake or to even reevaluate past events in light of "what we know now" rears its ugly head. And more soldiers die.So there you have it: a group of serious Arab intellectuals - who are neither sellouts nor bomb throwers - has produced a powerful analysis, in Arabic, of the lagging state of governance in the Arab world. It is just the sort of independent report that could fuel the emerging debate on Arab reform. But Bush officials, along with Arab autocrats, are holding it up until it is modified to their liking - even if that means it won't appear at all.
It makes you weep.
7. Speaking of expensive failures, have any of these missile defense tests ever worked right? And what’s this secret spy satellite program all about? Weren’t conservatives supposed to be, well, conservative when it came to your tax dollars?
8. The Bernard Kerik Story and the Job nobody wants.
9. Bush fiddles as Iraq burns. Bob Herbert delineates our misplaced priorities. Meanwhile, Saddam is reportedly in high spirits. I suppose he has some reason to be, what with the success of the guerrilla tactics that he likely shaped in a significant way. So we wait for the elections and pray.
10. Finally, lots of soul-searching in the Democratic party since the election. Where did we go wrong? How do we fix it? Predictably, there’s an intraparty fight underway between the liberal MoveOn faction and the DLC centrist types. It’s an argument worth having, but only with the sense that, in the end, we’re all on the same side. It need not end in the victory of one over the other, as some on both sides have foolishly suggested—rather, it MUST not end as such, or the Dems won’t win another election this century. On a macro- level, we don’t need to go left or move to the center—we just need to extract the common sense from both sides, define our message more concretely and inclusively, and do a better job of framing the debate.
We also need some new blood. Did you know that there are no more than twenty people younger than the age of 40 on the 447-member DNC?? That is a travesty on its face. This article has it right on:
In this sense, then, I endorse Howard Dean for DNC chair. I did not support Dean for president in the primaries, though I admired many things about his strong campaign. But what didn’t work well in a presidential campaign might work splendidly from this position, with just an ounce of savvy. He’s a fresh voice, not from Washington, full of new ideas, youth support, and enthusiasm. I believe that he understands what the party needs to do. And, really, Dean ain’t the wacko leftist he was made out to be last year—as a governor he was more of a fiscally conservative centrist. I think Dean is the guy that can reach out to both factions of Democrats, bring them together, and make them the majority party once again.Young Democrats believe that the party is dominated by people who came of age politically in the 1960s, and it's time for them to make room for new ideas and new voices. Theirs.
"We respect the struggles of the feminist movement, the civil rights movement and Vietnam, but (we) are not defined by those struggles," says Kirsten Powers, 37, a New York-based strategist and commentator for Fox News. "We want to take what is good in liberalism and make it better, and get rid of what is not working."
Recent Jukebox fodder:
Sister Rosetta Thorpe – Shine for Jesus!
Amon Duul II – Yeti
Enslaved – Below the Lights
The Lounge Lizards – s/t
Donovan – Live in Concert
Crime – San Francisco’s Still Doomed
Zolar X – Timeless
Dismiss – the demo tape
posted by Jonathan Wright at 1:46 PM EMAIL POST
