Friday, August 31, 2012
EMBLEMATIC OF THIS MOMENT IN OUR POLITICS
Clint Eastwood's imitation of an aging drunken stand-up comedian was pretty accurate. But he gave the lie to rightwing Republicans pretending, or trying to convince themselves, let alone the rest of us, that they don't have any prejudice or disrespect or disdain or contempt for our president. Implying that our too courteous and considerate president tells his opponents to go f@#k themselves, when the only time that has been recorded in our history it came from Dick Cheney's mouth because a Democrat stood up to his bullying is disingenuous to say the least.
The onslaught of lies continued on this last night of the Republican convention epitomized by Eastwood's sometimes incoherent act and Romney's coherent but lying act. The easiest way to demonstrate what the Republicans are doing, and might pull off because so many people fall prey to Carl Rove's version of the old Nazi "big lie" technique is to quote Juan Cole's list of the top ten lies in Paul Ryan's speech:
The onslaught of lies continued on this last night of the Republican convention epitomized by Eastwood's sometimes incoherent act and Romney's coherent but lying act. The easiest way to demonstrate what the Republicans are doing, and might pull off because so many people fall prey to Carl Rove's version of the old Nazi "big lie" technique is to quote Juan Cole's list of the top ten lies in Paul Ryan's speech:
- "Ryan blamed the US credit rating downgrade on President Obama. But it was caused by the Republican Congress's threat not to raise the debt ceiling. That is, the fault for the credit rating downgrade from AAA to AA belongs with... Paul Ryan.
- Ryan continues to claim that President Obama said business owners did not build their own businesses. Obama said that business owners benefit from government infrastructure and programs, which they did not build. No small business owner has built an inter-state highway or bridge, but those are the means whereby their goods get to market. Ryan's (and the GOP's) talking point in this regard is a typical Karl Rove Big Lie, and among an informed electorate it ought to discredit them.
- Ryan depicted Obamacare as virtually a turn to Soviet-style totalitarianism, as incompatible with liberal freedoms for the individual. But the logical conclusion is that Ryan's running mate, Mitt Romney, turned Massachusetts into a Gulag.
- Ryan slammed President Obama for not implementing the deficit-cutting measures recommended by the Simpson-Bowles commission. But he himself voted against Simpson-Bowles.
- Ryan keeps attacking Prsident Obama's stimulus program now. But in 2002 when then President George W. Bush proposed stimulus spending, Ryan supported it. "What we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed," Ryan told MSNBC in 2002. Ryan says that the stimulus had not positive effects, while economists say it saved or created millions of jobs and pulled the US out of a near-Depression.
- Even more embarrassing, in 2010, Ryan asked for $20 million in stimulus money from Obama for companies in his district, then repeatedly denied requesting stimulus funds. He finally admitted he had done so, but continues to slam the stimulus program as a failure (even though the economy pulled out of a Depression as a result of it).
- Ryan slammed President Obama for the closure of an auto plant that closed in late 2008 under George W. Bush. Ryan's running mate, Mitt Romney, opposed Obama's actual auto bailout, which was a great success and returned Detroit to profitability.
- Paul Ryan charges that Barack Obama has 'stolen' $700 billion from medicare for his Obamacare. In fact, these expense reductions do not cut Medicare benefits, and, moreover,Romney and Ryan supported these reductions! The difference is that they would give the savings to the affluent, whereas Obama uses them to cover the presently uninsured.
- Ryan continues to push his longstanding plans for a steal-from-the-elderly-and-give-to-the-rich medicare plan, which President Obama warned would cost ordinary recipients over $6000 a year extra. Politifact checked and rated Obama's charge as correct, though they noted that the figures referred to CBO analyses of Ryan's last plan, not his 'new' one, which hasn't been subjected to similar analysis. Ryan certainly recently put forward a plan that would cost ordinary people that much extra.
- Ryan neglected to note that under the tax plan he favors, Gov. Mitt Romney would pay less than 1% in annual federal taxes, highlighting Romney's already low rate compared to ordinary Americans (slightly lower than Ryan's own!) and putting the spotlight back where Ryan's appointment was supposed to misdirect it."
Thursday, August 30, 2012
TOO PREDICTABLE TO SAY MUCH
I've been a political junkie since I was a kid, working for my old man who, besides being a small business owner (home repairs), was part of what was called "the Democratic machine" of Essex County New Jersey. I've been watching the presidential nomination conventions every year ever since we got our first TV.
But this is the first year I've been tuning out. I watched snippets of Ann Romney's speech last night and a few others, and a good portion of Paul Ryan's tonight, as well as others. But pretty much every word they said was so predictable and so predictably untrue (except for the bromides, like we're for freedom or we love America etc.) and the obvious disgust, even venom felt toward our president seemed to me unprecedented.
Mocking the opposition, even getting snide about the opposition, is classic presidential politics in my experience. But obvious outright lies projecting and promoting the idea that the president is beneath contempt, the epitome of evil and deliberately trying to undermine our union and society and well being etc. etc. etc. No, that's descended to a new level.
Every speaker got elements of that justification for contempt for our democratically elected president into their speeches somewhere somehow, and some that's all they did (I learned later from watching analysis and The Daily Show and Colbert and reruns etc.). Like the chairman of the Republicans, who illustrated exactly the point I'm making when he answered a question about running ads and making speeches that tell lies about Obama's record by dismissing "fact checkers" as irrelevant and then went on to give a speech full of lies.
Ryan is the poster boy for this, including lies even about his home town and home state (as well as about Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts). The reality is though, that certainly Republicans themselves buy into the lies and like the chairman of their party dismiss facts as irrelevant to the story they're trying to convince voters about. And unfortunately so do a lot of others, like so-called "independents" who don't fact check and pick up their information from the media that gives equal weight to facts and fiction in their coverage because they want a horse race and one that's exciting and dramatic and close enough to keep people interested for the duration.
If the Republicans were not successful in getting laws demanding picture i.d. to vote in a majority of states now, that will repress the vote, for example in Pennsylvania by as much as 9%, enough to turn that blue state red, and if the media actually talked facts and not opinions etc. Obama would be reelected by a landslide. Just the media making it clear that the economy does not need to be "turned around"—that's what Obama did, turn around an economy speeding into the abyss of another Great Depression. The economy needs to grow faster, but it IS heading in the right direction, thanks to Obama and the Democrats in Congress whose attempts to make it grow faster have been thwarted every step of the way by an obstructionist Republican party that declared on the first day of Obama's administration that their top priority was making sure he failed!
But that's not reality. What's happening is the Republicans have more money, especially the undisclosed donor kind that can run nasty lying ads in more states and more times than the Dems, and they have their own media as well as the mainstream media cowed by their insistence that any questioning of their lies only proves their "liberal" bias, etc. and many voters will stay home out of disappointment in what they believe are Obama's failures because they have bought into the message of the rightwing lies in their ads and media repetition of those lies, or not be able to vote because Republicans have managed to get voter i.d. laws passed that mostly will keep the poor and the elderly from being able to vote. There's a very good chance Romney/Ryan can "win" this as a result.
Plus a lot of folks are just tired, probably feel battered by the relentlessness of the rightwing Republican machine's repetitive propaganda (and maybe of the Democrats failure to transcend these attacks) and have lost interest in the whole political process. Which will only help the Republicans. But if we want to avoid an even worse future than the one we have ended up with after Bush/Cheney moved the country further to the right than Reagan who moved it further right than Nixon, etc. we've got to buoy each other up with enthusiasm and encouragement to not just vote but to get the message out to anyone we encounter or can reach through any means.
Here's to rising to the occasion.
[In the meantime, to the poster I shared in my last post as a rejoinder to the right's idea that anyone can become wealthy if they work hard enough and a comment on the first night of the Republican convention, here's another poster to share as a rejoinder to the second night:]
But this is the first year I've been tuning out. I watched snippets of Ann Romney's speech last night and a few others, and a good portion of Paul Ryan's tonight, as well as others. But pretty much every word they said was so predictable and so predictably untrue (except for the bromides, like we're for freedom or we love America etc.) and the obvious disgust, even venom felt toward our president seemed to me unprecedented.
Mocking the opposition, even getting snide about the opposition, is classic presidential politics in my experience. But obvious outright lies projecting and promoting the idea that the president is beneath contempt, the epitome of evil and deliberately trying to undermine our union and society and well being etc. etc. etc. No, that's descended to a new level.
Every speaker got elements of that justification for contempt for our democratically elected president into their speeches somewhere somehow, and some that's all they did (I learned later from watching analysis and The Daily Show and Colbert and reruns etc.). Like the chairman of the Republicans, who illustrated exactly the point I'm making when he answered a question about running ads and making speeches that tell lies about Obama's record by dismissing "fact checkers" as irrelevant and then went on to give a speech full of lies.
Ryan is the poster boy for this, including lies even about his home town and home state (as well as about Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts). The reality is though, that certainly Republicans themselves buy into the lies and like the chairman of their party dismiss facts as irrelevant to the story they're trying to convince voters about. And unfortunately so do a lot of others, like so-called "independents" who don't fact check and pick up their information from the media that gives equal weight to facts and fiction in their coverage because they want a horse race and one that's exciting and dramatic and close enough to keep people interested for the duration.
If the Republicans were not successful in getting laws demanding picture i.d. to vote in a majority of states now, that will repress the vote, for example in Pennsylvania by as much as 9%, enough to turn that blue state red, and if the media actually talked facts and not opinions etc. Obama would be reelected by a landslide. Just the media making it clear that the economy does not need to be "turned around"—that's what Obama did, turn around an economy speeding into the abyss of another Great Depression. The economy needs to grow faster, but it IS heading in the right direction, thanks to Obama and the Democrats in Congress whose attempts to make it grow faster have been thwarted every step of the way by an obstructionist Republican party that declared on the first day of Obama's administration that their top priority was making sure he failed!
But that's not reality. What's happening is the Republicans have more money, especially the undisclosed donor kind that can run nasty lying ads in more states and more times than the Dems, and they have their own media as well as the mainstream media cowed by their insistence that any questioning of their lies only proves their "liberal" bias, etc. and many voters will stay home out of disappointment in what they believe are Obama's failures because they have bought into the message of the rightwing lies in their ads and media repetition of those lies, or not be able to vote because Republicans have managed to get voter i.d. laws passed that mostly will keep the poor and the elderly from being able to vote. There's a very good chance Romney/Ryan can "win" this as a result.
Plus a lot of folks are just tired, probably feel battered by the relentlessness of the rightwing Republican machine's repetitive propaganda (and maybe of the Democrats failure to transcend these attacks) and have lost interest in the whole political process. Which will only help the Republicans. But if we want to avoid an even worse future than the one we have ended up with after Bush/Cheney moved the country further to the right than Reagan who moved it further right than Nixon, etc. we've got to buoy each other up with enthusiasm and encouragement to not just vote but to get the message out to anyone we encounter or can reach through any means.
Here's to rising to the occasion.
[In the meantime, to the poster I shared in my last post as a rejoinder to the right's idea that anyone can become wealthy if they work hard enough and a comment on the first night of the Republican convention, here's another poster to share as a rejoinder to the second night:]
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
THE STORY
I'm concerned about the election. As scientists and others who study the mind have made clear, and we all knew anyway, humans think in terms of "story"—i.e. we interpret reality as a story, our lives as stories, problems and the solutions to them as stories, etc.
Any good politician, let alone leader, let alone success at almost anything, knows that the story is paramount. Clinton got that, so did Reagan. Carter did in his campaign for president than seemed to abandon using "story" to get his perspective and goals and policies, most of which were good and would have made our country better had he been able to achieve them all including a second term. But he totally lost control of the story and the result was the idea that he was ineffectual, when actually his achievements made the world a better place and if we had followed where he was trying to lead in terms of energy and the environment we could have avoided all kinds of problems that came up under Reagan's policies, etc.
Obama had a great story, embodied it in the convention speech that got him first noticed and honed it some in his 2008 campaign, but then let the Republicans, the rightwing Republicans (which is sort of redundant now) distort and transform his story and he didn't seem to see the damage it was doing or have the inclination to counter it.
Yes, he's campaigning well with the story of the Republicans wanting to make life even easier for the wealthy but harder for the rest of us, but he needs to bring his single mother and his Kansas grandparents and the WWII service etc. and Michelle's father's illness and the sacrifice of her parents sleeping on the couch to give their kids the bedrooms, etc. to the table in every speech and every talking point.
Otherwise he will continue to be too easily defined by snide birther jokes and not so subtle race-card playing with references to how he wants to give welfare money to people for not working etc. or even more threatening to his campaign, he'll be defined by the distortions and contortions and outright lying in the rightwing Republican propaganda movie OBAMA 2016.
Not to mention the media loves an easy story they think their audience will go for like Paul Ryan is a "big idea" guy who is willing to face the tough choices, yeah sure, if they don't effect him and his fellow wealthy and only harms the rest of us.
Most of "the media" is so corporate controlled and obedient to their corporate masters it's difficult to get any story out that doesn't support corporate agendas. Most of the media also falls for a simple easy to understand story, and the rightwing Republican media experts seem to understand that better than Obama's or most Democratic politicians.
Now that it looks like Romney/Ryan will have much more money to spend on TV advertising, and has been doing that in recent weeks and will do even more in the little more than two months until the election, their story will be seen and heard by more voters more often than Obama's. It's a pretty dicey situation for those of us informed enough to know that a Romney/Ryan victory would be more disastrous than the Bush/Cheney one was. And that's saying something.
Any good politician, let alone leader, let alone success at almost anything, knows that the story is paramount. Clinton got that, so did Reagan. Carter did in his campaign for president than seemed to abandon using "story" to get his perspective and goals and policies, most of which were good and would have made our country better had he been able to achieve them all including a second term. But he totally lost control of the story and the result was the idea that he was ineffectual, when actually his achievements made the world a better place and if we had followed where he was trying to lead in terms of energy and the environment we could have avoided all kinds of problems that came up under Reagan's policies, etc.
Obama had a great story, embodied it in the convention speech that got him first noticed and honed it some in his 2008 campaign, but then let the Republicans, the rightwing Republicans (which is sort of redundant now) distort and transform his story and he didn't seem to see the damage it was doing or have the inclination to counter it.
Yes, he's campaigning well with the story of the Republicans wanting to make life even easier for the wealthy but harder for the rest of us, but he needs to bring his single mother and his Kansas grandparents and the WWII service etc. and Michelle's father's illness and the sacrifice of her parents sleeping on the couch to give their kids the bedrooms, etc. to the table in every speech and every talking point.
Otherwise he will continue to be too easily defined by snide birther jokes and not so subtle race-card playing with references to how he wants to give welfare money to people for not working etc. or even more threatening to his campaign, he'll be defined by the distortions and contortions and outright lying in the rightwing Republican propaganda movie OBAMA 2016.
Not to mention the media loves an easy story they think their audience will go for like Paul Ryan is a "big idea" guy who is willing to face the tough choices, yeah sure, if they don't effect him and his fellow wealthy and only harms the rest of us.
Most of "the media" is so corporate controlled and obedient to their corporate masters it's difficult to get any story out that doesn't support corporate agendas. Most of the media also falls for a simple easy to understand story, and the rightwing Republican media experts seem to understand that better than Obama's or most Democratic politicians.
Now that it looks like Romney/Ryan will have much more money to spend on TV advertising, and has been doing that in recent weeks and will do even more in the little more than two months until the election, their story will be seen and heard by more voters more often than Obama's. It's a pretty dicey situation for those of us informed enough to know that a Romney/Ryan victory would be more disastrous than the Bush/Cheney one was. And that's saying something.
STREET LEAGUE
Entertaining and delightful. I'm grateful to my boys for sharing their love of this unique individual sport and art and helping me to appreciate it as well. Only wish it had been around when I was a kid. Can't wait for the Olympics to catch up to it. Though my boys think it would spoil the purity of its street cred. If you ever get a chance to watch some great skateboarders, take it.
Here's a link to a video of one trick in slo mo so you can see how difficult it is (after the commercial, then the first try and major mishap that would have put me in the hospital—that's concrete he's landing on—second try beautiful).
Saturday, August 25, 2012
WHY I LOVE MELODY GARDOT
Thanks to JenW for sending the links for these two YouTube videos of behind the scenes for two Melody Gardot recordings.
The first is with some old(er) jazz masters in which the "newcomer" not only holds her own but from my perspective even threw them a little. The second is more recent of Melody doing her version of "La Vie En Rose" which'll make you want to dig the recording without the behind-the-scenes- interruptions.
If you don't smile during the first with delight at the depth of her talent, or find your eyes filling up during the second, well, then you're just not a sentimental old Irishman I guess [or maybe just haven't had brain surgery, as in my case, or severe brain trauma as in Gardot's] [but you have to listen and watch them both all the way through too] [and the Hancock one first].
The first is with some old(er) jazz masters in which the "newcomer" not only holds her own but from my perspective even threw them a little. The second is more recent of Melody doing her version of "La Vie En Rose" which'll make you want to dig the recording without the behind-the-scenes- interruptions.
If you don't smile during the first with delight at the depth of her talent, or find your eyes filling up during the second, well, then you're just not a sentimental old Irishman I guess [or maybe just haven't had brain surgery, as in my case, or severe brain trauma as in Gardot's] [but you have to listen and watch them both all the way through too] [and the Hancock one first].
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