American lessons ...

From a Canadian. An excellent Sunday morning read:

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Those of us who didn’t grow up in America, but under the sway of America’s media, imbibed a very pure form of the American mythos and civic religion. The American Civil Religion, with it’s secular saints such as Jefferson, Hamilton and Washington and it’s written Constitutional scripture is also a source of wonderment. Canada has no equivalent, no deep sense of history, no touchstone that is written back to to justify the present. Those words of your founders, those words that resound through history are words that inspire men and women who have never seen America and never will.

The Declaration of Independence spoke to all humans, with its assertion that all men are created equal and have unalienable rights. The US system of government, with its checks and balances, seemed unique and able to take shocks that might topple other democratic forms of government.

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Americans hung a lot of Nazis for the crime of pre-emptive war. Men who were in no way involved in the Holocaust swung high at Nuremberg because they attacked other countries that hadn’t attacked them first.

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America was founded in explicit rejection of aristocracy and inherited power. An American, I was taught, bowed to no one. And for most of two centuries, America tended to have less disparities of income and wealth than other western nations. Oh aye, during the gilded age, there were great disparities within America, but they were still less than in Britain, or France, or most of Europe. And America had the most social mobility - you really did have the most chance to make it to the top from the bottom (though this remained rare, despite the ideal.)

That’s no longer the case - America is the Western nation with the most inequality of any. And social mobility is dropping through the floor - a generation ago it was higher than almost anywhere, but the evidence coming in now is that if you aren’t born well off, your odds of moving up in the world are worse than they have been in generations. Meanwhile the tax code has been jiggered to remove much of the Estate Tax and to benefit unearned money over that earned by an honest day’s work. America is becoming a nation where power and money are inherited, where the rich get richer and where the working and middle classes are expected to borrow from their betters at usurious interest rates to make ends meet.

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Fashionably late whoring ...

Just like every Saturday, the next chapter of my novel The Fourth Estate is up at The Practical Press.

Help me, daddy ...

Yup, the Spoiled Brat-in-Chief must realize he's failed yet again. Daddy's coming to bail him out:

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For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Mr Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Mr Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.

The White House confirmed yesterday that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Mr Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.

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What's next, abdicating the Presidency to Cheney?

Prodigies ...

If the 'car bombs' in London are related to this, we got nothing to worry about. As Atrios says:

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Anyway, assuming this was an attempted terrorist attack it appears the ranks of international terrorists are filled with incompetent idiots.

Moyers on Murdoch

Hel-lo McFly?

Um, the people are speaking. How about giving a listen?

A CBS News poll shows Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war, President Bush and the Congress, as well as the overall direction of the country.

More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going badly, up from 66 percent just two months ago. Nearly half, 47 percent, say it's going very badly.

While the springtime surge in U.S. troops to Iraq is now complete, more Americans than ever are calling for U.S. forces to withdraw. Sixty-six percent say the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be decreased, including 40 percent who want all U.S. troops removed. That's a 7-point increase since April. [my ems]

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What part of 'get the fuck out' doesn't Congress understand?

Link thanks to the meme.

The Marines are pissed ...

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Did you get that, Commander Guy? A Marine speaks out in public and says you’re betraying them and they let him do it. I’ll say that again: The Marines let him do it and they’re not going to punish him—at all. Madden is going to retain his honorable discharge.

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The Angry Rakkasan notes the Marines are not taking action against a grunt who spoke out against the President publicly. The leadership of the Corps is sending a message.

La la la la la, I can't hear you ...

Watching bits and pieces of Larry King Live while surfing around my 200 channels for something other than porn or infomercials before the local news comes on this morning. Michael Moore was on with him (I happen to like MM ... a lot). Larry opened up the phones to the idiots who watch him and a call from one of the idiots got me.

This guy had no insurance, was 60 years old, and basically told MM that he would rather have no insurance than socialized medicine. He also said the problem with MM is that he says bad things about America and if only he'd say good things, stuff would work out well for everyone.

So I gather there are a lot of Americans out there who feel the same way?

Listen to me. Life ain't pretty. Yes, life is beautiful but shit happens in the real world. The only way to improve things is to look at a situation squarely, honestly, and objectively and make decisions stemming from those observations.

Listening only to flowery rhetoric is equivalent to burying one's head in the sand. I think that's one of the major problems with this country, a goodly portion of our population would rather hear stuff they want to hear than stuff they need to hear.

That's why people would rather go bankrupt, rather die from inadequate care, or no care at all, than believe the system we have is broken. They'd rather believe all the crap from the corporate suits than admit the health care system we have in this country is a failure. I mean, this is America, the greatest nation in the world; what could we possibly learn from anyone else?

Certainly not from those 'Old World' Europeans. Certainly not from the Canadians. We do everything better and if only people like Michael Moore would say it, things would be just peachy.

I have a low tolerance for stupid and it seems we have a bumper crop of it in America. I'm sorry, but if you feel this health care system is good, you are a moron. If you believe this lassiez faire policy toward an industry that has the power of life and death over Americans is a good thing, you are stupid. As Moore said, you don't run a police or fire department on a for-profit basis, our health care system shouldn't be either.

This is just another mess brought to you by the American Republican Party. If you'll notice, all of the industries deregulated by Regan have turned into cash cows for their leadership while screwing their employees and the American people.

As long as there are idiots in this nation of the type who called in to Larry King, the Republicans and Big Business will screw us regularly with neither a kiss nor lubrication.

[A big welcome to readers from Crooks & Liars.]

I dunno ...

It just seems to me these London bomb scares aren't what they are supposed to be. The little voice in my head (no, not that one) is telling me this has the CIA's or MI-5's fingerprints all over it. I have no evidence, mind you, but I've been around.

After what they pulled off in the tube a few years back, if these car bombs were intended to explode, they would have.

Just a gut feeling ...

Update:

Larisa Alexandrovna has a voice too, I see:

Okay, I know that a faux bomb threat of huge nonsensical scope was reportedly about to take down all of London, but here is the real news - in cased you missed it for lack of coverage an op-ed in NYT, by Richard Butler:

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To use a tired old blogism, read the whole article.

Update (Saturday morning):

Larisa expands on the London car bomb hype:

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Let's be very clear right off the bat here. Al Qaeda has become the garbage can title for every act of violence and terrorism imaginable. And more importantly, that fear concept has clouded the judgment of reporters and apparently police alike:

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So on one side, I am left with a hysterical, emotionally charged and ethically bankrupt media and on the other side, I am left with a public convinced that either UK or US authorities tried to bomb London. This is the insanity we live in and it is astonishing to me just how insidious these two world views have penetrated our culture. Either fear or paranoia, but reason no longer rules the day.

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She is correct. My comment from her page:

After 6 years of Chimp/Cheney and their manipulation of Tony Blair, I put nothing past them, especially not when a week of bad news for the White House just concludes. Remember the security level increases before the '04 elections? Remember all those inept 'jihadis' from the Fort Dix bunch to the Florida potheads they bust when things go south somewhere else? I don't believe the White House has reached its low point yet.

While I'll concede you're probably right about the Russians or the Saudis, if it does turn out to be the Saudis, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about U.S involvement behind the scenes.

I wish a day would come when I can trust my government to tell the truth. I'm tired of being lied to.

Light Blogging Today

I finally got my new digitizing turntable hooked up and my furniture problems as to where to put it so it's close to the computer kinda semi-solved, so today I'm playing with it and trying to figure out how to work it. So far so good. It records to the 'puter just fine, but I have to watch the LP because I can't hear it! I don't know if it's supposed to be like that or if I'm missing something, but I can live with it. I guess if I hooked it up to an amplifier I could play music through speakers, but that ain't the way it is. Once it digitizates, it plays back off the 'puter just fine.

For you technos out there, the software is Cakewalk Pyro 5.

Since I can't leave my revered Brainers in the dark as to what's goin' on, here it is in a nutshell:

Repugs BAD, Dems better.

Later.

They ain't completely useless ...

Digby:

... If any of the Dem contenders make it, we will have a president who speaks normal English, in complete sentences and responds to questions fluently and with real meaning. I can't tell you what a relief that will be after these last six years of alien gibberish and bizarre, robotic responses that everyone has been pretending are normal ways of speaking.

At least we'll be able to understand the lies* they're telling us. Heh ...

Off to the shop ...

*I will continue to believe all politicians lie to us until one of them runs the White House openly in the full light of day. Every President plays the CYA game of trying to keep hidden as much as possible so it doesn't come back to bite them one day. The Chimp has taken it to the extreme but all of them do it.

You know ...

In our quest to get the Chimp and Cheney out, we should make some time to do something about their appointees on the Supreme Court.

Blondie:

WASHINGTON, June 28 — Striking down an antitrust rule nearly a century old, the Supreme Court ruled today that it is no longer automatically unlawful for manufacturers and distributors to agree on setting minimum retail prices.

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FYI: You know who benefits from this; the big business cronies of the Rethugs. [background]:

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The Act was intended to prevent arrangements designed to, or which tend to, increase the cost of goods to the consumer. It was not specifically intended to prevent the dominance of an industry by a specific company, despite misconceptions to the contrary. According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company that "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act. The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. [my em]

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Not no more.


John Amato:

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In one full term, this Court has severely curbed local efforts to promote racial diversity in schools, upheld a right-wing ban on a necessary medical procedure for women, curbed students’ free speech rights, crippled Congress’ ability to keep corporate money out of political advertising, prevented taxpayers from challenging the constitutionality of Bush’s faith-based initiatives, made it almost impossible for women to prevail on claims of longterm sex discrimination . . . and they’re just getting started.

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I suggest making the Chimp's appointments to the Supreme Court invalid considering all the ... ethical questions coming to light recently. Dems take note, you screwed the pooch on that one too.

Must read ...

The great Glenn Greenwald has an interview up with the legendary, iconic, uber-great Helen Thomas. Do not miss it.

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HT: I think the American people, like people all over the world, know that under international law, you only go to war if you're attacked or you have a treaty with another country to go to war if they're attacked.

An unprovoked war, based on every rationale that turns out to be untrue, certainly has caused our esteem in the world -- we are despised -- not because we gave them something and took it back. It's because we were on a pedestal. We had a halo. Everything we represented, people all over the world aspired to.

And what we did was absolutely betray those great values and principles. You do not attack a country that did nothing to you.

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An Important Reminder From Molly Ivins

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!”

—Molly Ivins (from her last column)

Jim Webb and the Populist Pitch

David Ignatius on Jim Webb in today's WaPo:

Sen. Jim Webb is talking about his mother's family, which lived in hardscrabble eastern Arkansas during the Great Depression and was so poor "there was nothing -- not even money." The Democrats built their party around such people, Webb is saying, while the Republicans never cared about them.

And then the freshman senator from Virginia begins quoting some lyrics from "Song of the South," recorded by the country rock group Alabama:

"Well somebody told us Wall Street fell,
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell.
Cotton was short and the weeds were tall.
But Mr. Roosevelt's a-gonna save us all."

That kind of populist anger is part of the Democrats' past, and Webb argues that it's the party's future as well. But he worries that "the people at the top of the party don't comprehend the power of that message" and that as a result the Democrats may miss their best chance in a generation to reconnect with the American middle class.

On the issue of fairness (if not political correctness) some influential Democrats are starting to come Webb's way. In a recent paper for Rubin's own Hamilton Project, Summers and fellow economists Jason Furman and Jason Bordoff made a powerful case for restoring the progressivity of the tax system. They found that in 2004 the top one-tenth of 1 percent in America made as much before-tax income as the bottom 28 percent combined. Actual federal tax rates on that top one-tenth have fallen sharply, from 60 percent in 1960 to 34 percent in 2004.

Webb's "fairness agenda" is political dynamite, in the best and worst senses. It's a powerful rallying cry, but it could turn into protectionist demagoguery if it isn't managed carefully. But Webb has one big thing right: America is becoming a more stratified society, in which the rich receive a disproportionate share of the growth in national income.

Denouncing the fairness argument as "class warfare," as Republicans like to do, may not work this time. The Democratic candidate who gets the fairness issue right could find a new way to rally the party and the country.

A musical group that you've never heard of is The New Lost City Ramblers. Here's their lyric about Mr. Roosevelt from their album Songs From The Depression (you can hear snippets at the site):

"...Back Again (Back Again)
Back Again (Back Again)
We've got Franklin D. Roosevelt back again
Since Roosevelt's reelected
Moonshine liquor's been corrected
We've got legal wine, whiskey, beer, and gin..."

A good populist move is to let us get fucked up legally so we won't notice what's going on in the Halls of Power. Maybe this time we'll get legalized marijuana...

It's something to think about, Dems...

"...show me a sign..."*

Go see the other signs PTCruiser put up in the EssEff Bay Area.

*From an old Linda Ronstadt tune (lyrics)(video):

And I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
And I'll be willin' to be movin'

"Media Putz of the Week" Award

I won $5 from myself betting on who the first recipient of this award would be.

For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.

For our first BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week, we had so many nominations for Chris Matthews that we had to pick one by lottery. Before we even launched MediaPutz.com, it appears Matthews is already positioned for a lifetime achievement award.

Chris Matthews, you are indeed a trailblazing Media Putz -- and more than merit being named the first recipient of this dubious BuzzFlash distinction.

Every week, you remind us how easy it is to separate journalism from the truth.

Please read the rest.

Be sure to watch Noballs today. He's gonna have Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens 'debating' God knows what, but it oughta be funny.

Dear Dr. Dean,

Paradox asks Howard Dean for money:

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One of the reasons liberal and democratic blogs barely limp along on amazingly little money is that their true talents, functions and values are vastly undervalued by the Democratic Party, and their effect on the political dynamic is so new what they contribute is not nearly appreciated enough. I’m quite sure, Dr. Dean, you have an immediate sense of who bloggers are and what they do, and I’m also quite sure it’s very insufficient, no disrespect an’ all.

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What’s ethically wrong with the Democratic Party paying liberal bloggers a stipend every month as long as they continue to blog? Nothing, not that I can see. 100 bloggers paid $3,000 a month is $3,600,000 a year, total chump change.

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Dear Dr. Dean,

Keep your fucking money. I don't want money from any political party. I don't sell ad space. I don't ask for donations.

Know why?

So no one can question my credibility or ethics. The day I take money from anyone for doing this is the day people can say, "I wonder who Fixer is shilling for?" My integrity has never been, nor will ever be, for sale.

I don't want your money. I want your party to do the job I and a bunch of other people sent you there to do. End this war, get rid of the Chimp and Cheney, and then you'll get money from me, lots of it, get it? Keep fucking around like you've been doing for the last 6 months and you won't get shit. Keep fucking around and you're gonna have me breaking your balls here until you get on the stick.

Here's the ball, Dr. Dean. Time for you and the party you chair to run with it.

Regards,

Fixer

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

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'Cause, see, the Rude Pundit still has the moral high ground, even if we discover Ann Coulter was killed by raping rhinos with stiletto horns. You could be standing neck deep in a shit filled sewer, covered with syphilis sores and shoving a crucifix up your ass, and you'd still have the moral high ground over Ann Coulter.

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That's about right.

More, More Dick ...

Now this is what I'm talking about:

The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush's controversial eavesdropping program that operated warrant-free for five years.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The four parties have until July 18 to comply, according to a statement by Leahy's office.

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Let's see you claim executive privilege now, you fourth branch of government motherfucker.

Great thanks to John Amato.