David Broder and the media’s culpability.

“I don’t think we should ever doubt our capacity to deny reality. Until you get to be my age, you really believe you’re not gonna die – that fundamental fact of human life. That’s part of our problem. I could make the same argument about the current economic collapse. Who didn’t know this was coming? Who didn’t know that a system that encouraged us to live beyond our means – and provided all kinds of devious and ethically doubtful ways for us to do so – was going to fall apart someday? Who didn’t know that housing was overvalued and stocks were overpriced? Who didn’t know a system that makes the rich richer while the poor get poorer would someday face a curtain call? We all knew it at some level, just like we all know we’re going to die. And yet our capacity to deny reality is huge and I think that we don’t want to know what we really know because if we did then we’d have to change our lives.” – Parker Palmer [on Bill Moyers' Journal]

Please check out the drug policy article I did for The Huffington Post.  And if you like it: by all means, pass it on!

ZOMG, this product contains cannabis!

Does anybody alive even remember why it was outlawed?  No, of course you don’t – but you’ll do yourself well to look over the historical – and hysterical – record.

Let’s take a few choice quotes from the era of marijuana criminalization, shall we?

“Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”
[1934 newspaper editorial in favor of criminalization]

“All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff is what makes them crazy.”
[Texas legislator arguing for criminalization]

Read the rest of this entry »

“Various administrations have closed in gloom and weakness … but no other has closed in such paralysis and discredit (in all domestic fields) as did [President Ulysses] Grant’s. The President was without policies or popular support… half its members were utterly inexperienced, several others discredited, one was even disgraced. The personnel of the departments was largely demoralized. The party that autumn appealed for votes on the implicit ground that the next Administration would be totally unlike the one in office. In its centennial year, a year of deepest economic depression, the nation drifted almost rudderless…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s transcend politics and look at the arc of history today.  The hard work will come – but for now, I wish to revel in some starry-eyed honeymooning.  No matter who you voted for, here are some reasons to be proud of your country today:

Senator John McCain’s Call For Unity

Senator McCain’s concession speech was the most gracious and patriotic I have ever heard.  While his crowd seemed to want almost none of it, he – and most of his supporters – are better than that.  This is the man I was excited about in 2000.  Had he run like this – had he been this guy all year – and avoided the neocons who sunk their claws into him, we’d very possibly be looking at a different outcome today.  I continue to believe – as I always have and as I have said publicly loud and often – that John McCain is a good man who wants the best for his nation.  It wasn’t particularly obvious these last few months, and that was tragic.  This speech – and the action that will undoubtedly follow it – serves as a powerful exclamation point on a distinguished career.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really thrilled – more excited about this Election Day outcome than any since ‘94, when my friend Angus King won the Maine Governorship.

Our nation is confronting once-in-a-lifetime challenges, so the road ahead is rough.  But this outcome makes us far better equipped to face them.  I’m proud of us, and not just for the choice we made, but for the impressive numbers of people who engaged, spoke up, and turned out.

Shortly, the real work begins – but for now, maybe let’s celebrate a little.  Fireworks have actually erupted here in Venice.

Leading into the MSNBC announcement, Chris Matthews said: “The world will look at us – thank God – with wonder again.” NBC called it at exactly 20:00 PST, with a clearly emotional Keith Olbermann delivering the news:

image by tom.arthur via Flickr

Everyone – please, for the love of all that is holy, get out and vote tomorrow.  If you can vote early (at this point I guess that’s just today), do. Those of you who can’t vote early, please be sure you know where your polling place is, and that you bring anything you may need to bring (some states require ID for first-time voters.)

RockTheVote has a great resource center that helps you figure out where to go and what you need to bring.  Use it.  Now.  And DO IT.

Read the rest of this entry »

Looks like – if the McCain-Palin ticket wins – that Senator Reid is in for a big surprise. Because Sarah Palin says the Vice President is “in charge” of the US Senate. Golly gee, won’t that be neat!! But shucks, this is probably just more “gotcha” journalism, tryin’ to find out what a candidate knows and thinks n’ stuff…

Welcome Blog Action Day listeners.  Thanks Eric, Dawn, and Easton for having me on the show.

Now, let’s back up our talk with action:

Breadlines and Battlecries – a call for you all to get involved in your society today.

A way to fight poverty in Los Angeles.

A way to prevent future poverty everywhere.

A way you might not have thought of to help fight urban poverty and despair: change our nation’s drug policies.

More on my agitate page.

Conservatives are furious.  Here’s a good Politico piece on McCain’s latest plan to bail out homegamblers with our money.  Excerpt:

“Last night, he took that position on the housing issue of buying up everybody’s mortgage,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said on Fox News. “Conservatives are scratching their heads today and saying, ‘What happened?’”

“What on earth is that about?” Huckabee asked. “Then you got to ask, which houses? The condos in southern Florida, where people bought $500,000 homes as a second home and now can’t pay for them? Are we buying those, too?”

And in perhaps the only time in history I wanted to echo the words of Michelle Malkin:

Read the rest of this entry »

Valleywag picked up a FriendFeed discussion between a few of us yesterday regarding the bailout bill within which Scoble blames “people like [me]” for the coming “breadlines”.  It rings a little hollow considering where I’ve been on all this and where he’s been (i.e. nowhere), but it brings a much more important issue to the fore.

To the thread in particular, I realize how acerbic my tone can be when discussing such things and try to be cognizant of that every time I write.  Sometimes my frustration – the result of a bit too much anguish about our national slumber – gets the best of me.  But Americans sat mostly silent as international and domestic crimes were perpetrated in their names and their economy was wrecked – choosing to glide along as if they had far more important things to think about.

Robert is right to describe the financial mess as the result of our collective idiocy.  The bill for one or two generations of stupidity has now come due and our remaining credit cards have been declined.  And for the moment, the social media characters participating in the specific tendril of web masturbation that is Robert’s “what to do” post have come up substantially empty.  So, I’ll see what I can come up with.

Read the rest of this entry »

The bailout will be yet another crime foisted on the American taxpayer.  All the reward from the “up” has been consumed – burned away like the vapor it was – and now the risk, the cost of the “down” will be borne by us.  Privatized reward; socialized risk.  Tonight, House minority leader John Boehner called it a “crap sandwich“  — that he plans to vote for anyway.   It’s a really bad idea for many reasons – not the least of which is: it’s not going to work.

Never been a huge fan of the man from Alabama.  But he had some great words of wisdom at today’s Bailout of the Century hearing:

“I understand the situation is dire.  But so is the condition of the taxpayer… yes, the market is overwhelmed by greed, a lack of oversight… and the bottom line, as I see it, is that you’re [sticking] the taxpayer with it.  I think that’s shameful myself.  I know there are better ways – would it be without pain?  Oh no… but the best – and Chairman Bernanke, I’ve heard you say this – the best disciplinary mechanism we have is the marketplace.  The marketplace will discipline all of us with pain.  But we learn.  I’m not sure people will learn if this goes through.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Congress Told To Act Fast On Bailout Plan

Then allow Princeton economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman [on Bill Maher's show last night] to bring home the gravity of our current predicament.  “We hit the wall but good this time … there are no atheists in foxholes.”

I can’t help but notice some chilling similarities between the Bush Administration’s approach on the financial crisis and the Iraqi War Resolution.  I literally sat awake until almost 5:00 this morning fretting about this.
Let’s look at a few of them:

• We were told that calamity was imminent, and a failure to act and do exactly what Bush asked of us would result in a disaster;
• Congress was strongarmed into doing something big and something fast, without time for proper analysis;
• We were conned into spending hundreds of billions of our hard-earned dollars (much for the benefit of corporate malfeasants) – only to take a giant step backward;
• We handed legal immunity and absolute control to the very authorities who demanded the actions;
• We were lied to every step of the way.

And eventually the majority came around to see it as a colossal blunder.  So, I think Congress would serve itself and the People well if it took a much more measured approach to this, or even refused the bailout.  I know, I’m asking for cajones of steel here, but I can dream.

If this goes through, it will be the swindle of the century.

I’ll close with a few words from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That is fascism; ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

How did we get here?  Is it too late to stop it?

Today on MSNBC, lonesome truth-telling libertarian patriot Congressman Ron Paul said that McCain is “not someone I could endorse, ever.”  Not surprising, of course – but nonetheless interesting to hear from a fellow candidate for the GOP nod.

Every American should sit through (and actually digest) this interview in its entirety [Part 1] | [Part 2].  Whether you watch or listen, please take the time to do so with open ears and an open mind.  It is probably the most powerful and sobering assessment of the American condition I have heard in years.

Bacevich’s 2007 op ed in the Washington Post provides some sad but interesting background.  His new book is here.

I really want to push for everyone to feel that the Obama candidacy might be their best choice – Democrats, Republicans and independents – and that everyone should evaluate him regardless of their affiliation.  But it needs to be said that none have been betrayed by their “leaders” the way Republicans have.  Their party was hijacked by a few dozen neoconservative criminals, and our global reputation and economy are in tatters as a result.  The Republican party under Bush abandoned its ideals, and many Republicans are finding considerably more they like about Obama than they do about McCain.

I know more than a few smart Republicans – young and old school – who are supporting Obama.  But many of them don’t talk about it, or, if they do, not very loudly.  I hope that over the next couple of months they’ll speak a bit more loudly, because this is a candidacy that everyone should seriously consider.

Read the rest of this entry »

Growing up, there was a book that first got me excited about computers.  I’d never really forgotten it, but over the years it had faded deep into memory.  And fond memories they were – the book was whimsical, full of strange artwork and far-out metaphors.  It really helped me – a middle-school kid in the middle of nowhere trying desperately to think big – to see outside my small world and into a universe of infinite technological possibility.  I was probably 12 or 13, just starting to tinker with TRS-80s and early Apples and really having my mind opened up by these strange little boxes.

A few months ago – for some reason – that book popped back into my mind.  Who was that guy?  What was that book?  And off I went to figure it out.

Read the rest of this entry »

During the recent earthquake here in Los Angeles, I found myself mildly spooked.  Not because of the quake itself, nono – after all, I had, since I moved to LA, wished for exactly this kind of quake.  “I want a quake,” I told friends, “just strong enough for me to experience one [I'd never felt one before], but mild enough so no one gets hurt.”  The quake of a couple of weeks ago was exactly what I’d ordered.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chief Bratton, who feels the Paparazzi Task Force is a waste of time (I agree with him), just said on MSNBC:

“Since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore – thank God – and evidently Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don’t seem to have much of an issue.”

Hey, man, don’t blame me for Linsday – I tried.

Leo Strauss, the GrandPa of neoconservatism, spoke of stealth ideology when he talked about “noble myths” that leaders needed to use in order to rally the masses around a common purpose.  Now Len Hart at the Existentialist Cowboy describes how Bush and his men used stealth ideology to turn the Constitution into an ash heap.  Read and weep.

Robert Scoble suggested today that if he could make one rule about the Internet, it would be “no anonymity.”  I like Robert but I don’t like his idea.

Laura Fitton asked: “What one ‘rule’ would you make about the Internet?”, and in the thread that resulted, Robert replied that he’d eliminate anonymity. Read the rest of this entry »

I think the FairTax is worth talking about.  J00?