Everything is getting worse

I woke up this morning depressed, and THEN I looked at the headlines. I actually don't even have the will to pick a story and rail about anything. We're losing in Iraq, more of our guys are getting killed than ever, everyone in the world hates us, out political system is hopelessly screwed up, our Constitution is in tatters and George Bush is using those tatters to wipe his ass after he just shit across all our faces. The supreme court has gone totally conservative on everything except protecting said Constitution, and Roe v. Wade will fall before the end of Bush's presidency. We're going to get terror attacked again within the next five years, and with any luck it'll happen in Hollywood and take me with it. Happy Friday.

Congress issues meaningless subpoena 5 years too late.

This article on HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070627/eavesdropping-subpoenas/??

describes the subpoenas issued today by the congress for a whole slew of documents related to warrantless wiretapping, and other blatantly illegal programs employed by the administration during the war on terror.

First, I would point to the same insightful comment I posted a few days ago. Tying this up in the courts is, for the administration, just as good as killing the subpoenas. 2008 looms closer and closer, and all Bush et al has to do is get to the end of his term. It would take a fool to believe that these problems will follow him back to his ranch in Crawford, whence he will disappear in January '09, only to emerge for $250,000 speaking engagements in front of morons who worship him.

Goddamn I hate this guy.

The Washington Post on Cheney, Part 3

Here is the third part of that profile on Cheney:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/index.html


Finally, here is some of the muckraking that ought to have been the standard for this entire run of articles. This section focuses on Cheney's continued and viscous attempts to undercut environmental regulations for the benefit of industry, particularly the energy industry.

Like yesterday's article, there isn't a broad theme that I didn't already know existed. If you had asked me whether Cheney was Pro-Environment or Pro-business, I would have guessed the right side of the coin. But still, the details are enough to chill the blood.

Now, this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. I'm a hugely Pro-Environment person, to give full disclosure. I believe that the degradation of the environment is the number one issue facing humanity today, and that a solution (or rather a comprehensive solution, involving countless small changes and fixes, in both regulation and personal behavior) is in the interests of EVERYONE. And if you're a farmer, or a fisherman, or a logger, who thinks your industry will suffer from increased regulation, too bad. You shouldn't have over-fished, clear-cut logged, or over-irrigated in the first place. You've been doing whatever you want for a hundred years, now it's time for Mother Nature to get some back.

To return to Cheney, I'd like to point out something about his tendency to "reach down" and talk directly to the people involved in the issues of interest. It's something for which he has been universally praised, and that's just ridiculous. Cheney called the 19th ranked person at the EPA, and left a message on her voice mail instructing her to "call the White House." That's not attention, that's intimidation.

What I mean, of course, is that what has been interpreted as Cheney "sinking his teeth" into an issue or some such bullshit, is Cheney going low enough on the totem pole to find people he can easily intimidate with his office, and people he can fire easily if they fail to respond to his intimidation.

And fire them he has. Over and over in the article, we see evidence of the Vice demanding his way, and demanding (and getting) resignations from people that disagreed with him. He abused his position by using it as a bully pulpit against people flustered and surprised at even receiving a call from the second most powerful man in the country.

To conclude, I place a ton of blame at the feet of the people who resigned instead of fought, and on the whole did so without a lot of clarity (or outright lies) about why they were resigning. One example is the head of the EPA, who said she was resigning for "Personal Reasons". Now she comes out for this article and says that it was actually because of the White House's behavior over environmental regulation.

Coming forward now, after it's too late to do anything except place blame on top of a large heap, is a cowardly, expedient thing to do. Where was her anger and her whistle-blowing when it would have made a difference? Then she just didn't want to be bothered with the heat that would have come down for her position. Now that the popular kids are saying what a bad guy Cheney is, she figures she'll jump on the pile.

It is this kind of cowardice that facilitates the kind of abuses described in this article. See lady, when you leave, they just put someone in your place who agrees with them. That's how we got in this shitty mess. All the people of principle (I'm talking to you Colin Powell) leave, and Bush/Cheney put talking heads in their place. It's pathetic.

To anyone left in the government with some principle: Ask yourselves why you got into government in the first place. Was it to protect the things you care about? This woman was the head of the EPA. Her career had nowhere else to go. Yet she saved face and, I assume, saved her "career" by resigning for "Personal Reasons" instead of stopping play and calling foul. That is a failure of the system, it is a failure of policy, and it is a failure of personal courage.

I'M DONE WITH PARIS HILTON

Paris Hilton got out of jail last night. She says she has changed. Either that is true or it isn't. If it is true, there's no more story. If it isn't true, I'm not giving that attention whore any more reinforcement. I refuse to be a party to her co-dependency with the tabloids a moment longer. If she comes on TV, I'm changing the channel.

The Washington Post on Cheney, Part 2

Here is the second part of the WaPost Article on Cheney:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/a_strong_push_from_back_stage/index.html

I know I said I wasn't going to be updating as regularly, but I don't want to lose any regular readers I might have gained, and I have a few minutes, so...

I found this article deficient in the ways that the first installment was, but not nearly as bad. I think the basic problem the Post has is that they want to be perceived as objective, but if they wrote an objective piece on Cheney it would come off as a hack-job because the guy is so fucking evil.

Or maybe I'm just reading the article as a free pass because the things they are saying aren't a surprise to me. Looking at their narrative, it is actually a rather stark description of a Vice-President seeking to expand his power by deceiving anyone he has to, including the President. It's just that I already knew that was Cheney's MO. It's like a guy in prison for murder, and then somebody tries to shock me by telling me that he shot a guy. It's like, yeah, I get it, the guy's a killer. Tell me something I don't know.

Also, the article really hasn't dealt with a lot of the newer stuff about Cheney, and that's the stuff that I find the most problematic and absurd. I mean, compared with the transparently, flagrantly dishonest shit he's trying to pull now, the "I'm not part of the Executive Branch thing, all the stuff he's done as a run-up to that seems tame.

As a side note, I heard something really insightful on Hardball last night about that whole affair. I think it was David Gregory who said "Cheney is just trying to run a delay right now. He knows how much longer he has in office, and if he can stall with these ridiculous tactics for that long, he can do whatever he wants until he leave office." Great point. Cheney may indeed be the Anti-Christ.

Back to the article: One thing I did find really interesting was their blow-by-blow description of how Cheney got his way on the specifics of Bush's 2003 Tax Cuts. First, he screwed Greenspan (Chairman of the fed and most respected economist in the country) out of getting his say by placating him and then discrediting his evidence. Then, when Bush didn't want to include the capitol gains break that Cheney wanted, Cheney pitched the idea directly to members of the relevant House committee, had them put it in the bill, then went back and told the President that he had to give in to get the bill passed. Asshole.

So overall this profile has been a disappointment so far. Hopefully they'll get more into the meat tomorrow. I'll make sure to blog again at that point.

Temporary slowdown of posting

Hello to any loyal readers,
I'm currently directing a film, and we're really stepping up preproduction. I'm going to try and continue posting, but things are getting pretty crazy and I won't be able to update every day. Please bear with me, and I promise that starting July 11th, I'll be back up and posting multiple times a day.

Yours,
OGWiseman

Pay attention to Rhetorical shifts or you'll be in a diferent conversation without knowing it

I just found an EXCELLENT, GREAT, SUPERLATIVE article on Salon.com that I wanted to share:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/index.html

This article describes the rhetorical shift among the bush administration and the military leaders from calling the people we are fighting "insurgents" or "Sunni/Shia fighters" to calling them "Al Qaeda". This is the kind of thing that changes conversations, and the fact is that (as the article states) the Bush administration only a few years ago freely admitted that only the smallest portion of the enemy was actually Al Qaeda affiliated.

This is the kind of reporting that is truly important, and keeps people honest, particularly if others take notice and start to call officials on it directly.

At least as important, the author points out that the NY Times has picked up the administration rhetoric and put it in dozens of stories. Papers that are infamously liberal (at least according to those on the right) like the NYT should not blindly accept terminology changes like this, especially ones that are obviously bullshit. That's how conversations get changed, and rhetorical battles get won.

I've just written a letter to both the times and salon.com, chiding the one and congratulating the other. I suggest you all do likewise. This is an absolutely CRITICAL issue.