After we put a deposit on the house it was four months before the sale closed. The interim was filled with plenty of long distance recruitment and negotiations with inspectors and contractors and the bank and the realtors and so forth. I made a number of trips to New Mexico while things were being readied.
Work began within days of the closing in January, and by April, a great deal had been accomplished:
The windows are not the ones I specified, but they work, and the French door was a real treat after all the angst from the contractor and his subs. It wasn't easy to put in. Not only did they have to dismantle part of the adobe wall, they had to take out some of the granite foundation stones. Which are now steps to the back yard. Recycle, reuse! We discovered the foundation is unmortared stone with a skin of concrete. Interesting. Yikes! Surprising how well it has held up.
The third picture is of the bedroom that was in the worst shape when we bought the house. There was no woodwork, the plaster was falling off the adobe, there were holes and big cracks in the walls and ceiling, the floor was ruinous, windows were broken. It appeared that a renovation had been started but abandoned. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just crumbling from all the neglect.
What the contractors were able to do really surprised me. There was no sign at all of the prior destruction, and the pine floor refinished beautifully. The kitchen was turned into a really nice space, though the sink was not installed properly, and the smaller bedrooms on the west side of the house have become a very cozy workroom (with a somewhat elaborate shrine built in to the adobe) and an equally cozy library.
(One thing you will notice in New Mexico is that a lot of people have Books. And they read them!)
The interior renovation was essentially complete by October. That's the month I drove a truck full of furnishings out there from California. It was not quite a move in, but started the process. A process that's nearly complete, certainly more than adequate for occasional rest and relaxation stays.
There's a sense of real accomplishment -- and gratitude -- to have a place like this for just that reason.
From time to time, I've mentioned my acquisitive nature. I have what some might consider to be strange collecting urges. One of them is toasters.
There are only five or maybe ten of them split between the two houses, all popup models, all more or less functional, but this one is my favorite by far.
It's a 1934 Toastmaster popup toaster, model 1 B 4, sturdy and heavy as a Volvo, and chromed to within an inch of its Deco life.
When I got it out of one of the discard bins at the Goodwill, the plug had been cut off and the clockwork that runs the popup mechanism was frozen, but with a new plug and some gentle coaxing (together with several burnt offerings) I was able to get it to make toast, and we've used it every day since.
Unlike most toasters -- and pretty much all modern ones -- the heating elements of this one don't get cherry red, in fact, they show almost no color at all. They're embedded in mica sheets, and the whole heating gizmos -- mica and wires together -- get toasty warm; the timing mechanism moves the bread very slowly between the heated sections, and when it's done, the toast pops up smartly -- pretty nearly perfect every time.
I'm impressed. Pretty good for a nearly seventy-five year old appliance. But then, people paid a lot of money in 1934 for this moderne marvel. I've seen ads for a similar one (not this one exactly) for $25, the equivalent of $250-300 (or more) today.
Over the years, we've accumulated quite a lot of Old Things. We use a lot of them, too. An old Electrolux model 1205 can't be beat for vacuuming the rugs. The 1942 Philco radio is the best for AM reception, and we used to use it to listen to the Air America station, until that station had an unfortunate format change. The 1935 Crosley radio still brings in excellent shortwave, though I have no idea where most of the stations originate.
Couldn't have waffles without the service of the big, square c. 1948 Knapp-Browning waffle iron, and the coffee is made in a GE/Universal 11 cup percolator that probably dates to the 1950's. The stove is an early 1960's model Kenmore.
We have typewriters... and actually use them!
Sewing machines? Sure! My favorite is a cast iron but streamlined c. 1940 Montgomery Ward rotary that was missing a bobbin case, and so was useless. I checked online and found one available, for $70, and decided to pass. Then one day when I was driving to an appointment, I passed a sewing store, and there was the same model M/W machine sitting on the sidewalk. I went in and asked for a bobbin case for it. The man was very nice, said, "Sure, I can get you one. Come back in a couple of days." Went back, and he showed me a regular bobbin case that would fit in most modern machines. I said, "No, that's not going to work. Too big. I need one that will fit a machine just like the one on the sidewalk." Hmm, he said. So we went out there, pulled the bobbin case out of the one on the sidewalk. He said, "Is that it?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "OK, you can have that one, this machine is only to get people to look when they pass by." I said, "I guess it works!" He said, "Yep!"
So I got a bobbin case for the M/W, threaded it up, and it was perfect. (Good thing I had an operator's manual, cause I could never have figured out how to thread it on my own. Of course I wouldn't say I have any sewing skills, but that's another issue.)
My prognosticating skills got quite a workout during the 2006 election, and I was proved grossly wrong, predicting that the Senate and House would stay in Republican hands. I would say they are both still in Republican control -- what with the BushDogs and the Rs forming a working majority in both houses -- but nominally, both shifted to Democratic leadership, surprising quite a few people (including some House and Senate Democrats.)
Now we have this strange situation developing over the presidential campaign -- which has already been under way for a year or two -- with two "interesting" Democratic candidates battling it out for the nomination, versus a cranky old man who's the "presumptive nominee" of the Republican Party.
Over much of the so-called "progressive" blogosphere, there is a concerted campaign to get Hillary to drop out so that Obama can sail to the nominating convention Triumphant. Hillary refuses to do so, even though she cannot win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. Neither can Barack, but that's ignored by the Obamamaniacs. The nomination depends on the superdelegates, no matter what the results of the popularity contest turns out to be. There is intense pressure being put on those superdelegates to support one or the other Dem candidate, but many refuse to commit at this point, nor are they willing to join the chorus demanding Hillary's withdrawal.
Can't say that I'm reading these signs correctly, but apparently Hillary and Bill Clinton have been going around to the supers saying straight out that "Barack cannot win." This is often interpreted by Obamamaniacs as a racial slur, and maybe it is. But maybe it isn't.
Given the tension in the Democratic ranks, and the strong popular appeal that Obama has among many, many people, Hillary's dropping out might be the smart thing to do. She and Bill Clinton are very smart politicians -- though I can't say either one of them has been particularly "smart" in this campaign -- and they know the value of strategic retreat. But Hillary is pretty much absolute: she will not withdraw, no matter what the popular vote is in the primary.
And I ask why she is so absolute about it, and why she and Bill are apparently going around saying Barack can't win, but not saying why they think that.
The Rev Wright controversy seems to have eroded some of Barack's support among white Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. The Noise Machine is pushing it for all it's worth, and then some. Despite initial assumptions, it was not the Hillary campaign that started and fanned this "issue," it was the media itself, beginning with FOX, thence to ABC, then everywhere, fanned by the McCain campaign. And interesting progression.
Might there be other "issues"? It hardly seems possible this would be the end of the smears and media frenzies about Obama's potential "unsuitability" for the Presidency. They're quite happy to dig things up themselves, but we can be sure that the McCain campaign has been doing its own opposition research.
I wonder if Hillary -- and Bill, and other Big Democrats -- know some of what's been turned up. I would suspect they do. Despite accusations, Hillary and Bill have not impugned his character, his sexuality, or his honorable intent. But what if they know something, or have heard something, about his sex life, or about -- say -- something corrupt in his years in Chicago's ward politics? Let's say they would never release it to the press (and maybe the press already knows what it is). But they know that somebody is going to drop the stink bomb on Obama sometime, say right after he is sure to get the nomination. Blam!
And let's say Hillary drops out prematurely.
What happens if the Democratic candidate is built up the way Barack has been built up only to be destroyed by "something" that comes out. (This being American politics, the "something" doesn't have to be true or even real, viz: Dean, Howard; Kerry, John.) What's the option? In 2004, we didn't have one. The attackers waited until Kerry was the nominee, and had a field day. Of course they would try the same thing with Obama.
And if the Clintons know -- pretty much -- what's going to be used against him, maybe that's why they are insisting Barack can't win.
I could be completely wrong of course, but there is something going on in the background, things are not as they appear to be, and if I am right, I think it would behoove someone from the Clinton camp -- or even better, a neutral -- to clue the Obama camp to what may be in store.
Digby posts about the War on the Media! declared at the Eschaton gabfest. OK. That's a thought, isn't it? Holding the Media to account! Dogging individual reporters who Get It Wrong! Dragging them through the Mud! Sounds like a plan.
Except it's been going on (with Digby herself often in the vanguard) for many a year, and media criticism has been a fundamental part of the Internets since first there was such a thing back in the days of yore. Jay Rosen questions -- I would say demolishes -- the premise.
An Internet guerrilla War on the Media has been under way since dirt was new.
Without much positive result.
Of course it is a matter of faith in the blogosphere that all the effort expended on skewering The Media is having a wonderfully tonic effect on the holding companies and corporate boardrooms, which in turn is positively affecting the presentation of the News on cable and network and newspaper and magazine outlets all over the country.
Just look at how much better Joe Klein has become since he has been exposed to relentless feedback from his critics at Time Magazine's blog effort, Swampland. Day after day, Klein, known colloquially as "Joke Line", is skewered through every orifice; everything he writes, everything he says, is "scrutinized" and criticized, ridiculed and denigrated by a group of regular "Joke Line" critics, in a cacophony of carping and poo-flinging such as hasn't been seen since Deborah Howell made a "mistake" at the WaPo in claiming that both Democrats and Republicans were sullied by the Abramoff mess -- which nobody remembers. A veritable Goat for Azazel.
Every. Farking. Day.
Of course he's getting better. Can't help it with such relentless Warfare on him.
Except nothing changes. It's the same every day. Klein writes rightwing enabling/ supporting propaganda in the magazine and speaks it on teevee and expands on it in his blog posts, and every day he is criticized for it -- by the same people -- and every day writes more of it, and there is more criticism and on and on and on and on.
World without end, Amen.
So now Digby and NTodd and so forth are declaring War on the Media, targeting reporters and journalists almost exclusively, especially high profile clowns like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert and that ilk, and they are to be exposed!!! for the lying, propagandizing, corporate shills they are.
Not to be snide, but So?
The point?
These people were exposed! years ago. They are clowns. The only credibility they have left is the credibility they receive from their hyperventilating critics -- like Digby and NTodd and what have you -- who simply go round and round and round the same thing over and over and over again.
Nothing. Changes.
Well but. What about Dan Rather? He was taken out by concerted blogospheric action, wasn't he?
In part, sure. But note, the right wing blogs that went after him over the 60 Minutes piece did so not by yelling at him, or even at his producers. No, they went directly to the executive suites and boardrooms, through the back door, as it were, essentially admitted into the august chambers through their connections in the White House (which has long directly supported the right wing blogosphere) and in the boardrooms themselves.
Easy.
For them.
In other words, the rightwingers went directly to the heads of the institutions involved, demonstrated what they were prepared to do if the weight of the institution did not come down hard on their chosen target, and demanded action forthwith. And they got it.
Lefty blogs go at it ass backwards, by always focusing on the individual miscreant, the reporter, the clown or the blowhard who pisses them off at the moment, yelling and carrying on about this latest Outrage! only to find they are being laughed off or ignored. Again.
True enough, the so-called Left generally doesn't have access to the executive suites and boardrooms the corporatists and their enablers on the right do. But interestingly, President Clinton was able to slam bad reporting and interviewing and actually get a (mild) mea culpa -- ordered from On High -- from clowns like Matthews and Wallace. Schuster actually got a time out for his comments regarding Chelsea.
Wallace even went to bat for Obama on FOX one morning -- though he seems to rue it now -- because the hosts were spending hours trashing Obama for his "typical white woman" statement.
These are relatively tiny steps, but they demonstrate that something can be done about the abominable news coverage in this country if the right people make the right pitch to the right people, and orders issue therefrom. President Clinton had to do it. Lefty bloggers may have been an amen chorus, but the word had to originate from On High, not from down below.
This should be an object lesson, but strangely it isn't.
And that makes me wonder if the so-called War is really anything of the kind, or even a skirmish. It looks like more of the same, which results in a constant reinforcement of the status quo: endlessly crabbing bloggers and laughing media clowns.
Want some real change in that situation? Really? Then go after the institutions, the power-centers, the executive suites and boardrooms where the coverage decisions are really made. Make it clear to them what you will do -- and that has to be something that will actually affect their power and their money -- if they don't clean up the acts of their clowns pronto.
The only things that seem to strike real fear into them is the return of the Fairness Doctrine and the break up of consolidated media. The only way to accomplish those ends is through election of candidates who will vote for them. But since our elections are so screwed up, elections may not prove fruitful.
The first image is that of Akhenaten, rebel Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. The second, of course, is our own Change Agent, Sen. Barack Obama.
I noticed a similarity in their appearance some time ago, but thought little or nothing of it. Then I found a picture of an Akhenaten statue that triggered this post.
I'm not a great believer in these sorts of things, and yet it's fun to speculate. The Wiki entry on the rebel Pharaoh is more than interesting, and there is a wealth of other information available.
I wonder. If Obama somehow does become president -- certainly a possiblity, but not at all easy -- just what sort of Change would he set in motion, and what would be response of the Establishment?
(Post begun March 13) Just returned to California from a whirlwind four day round trip to our place in New Mexico. Hadn't been there since November, and I don't like being away that long.
The house is old adobe, the original two rooms put up in around 1900 or so, the rest added on over the next 50 or 60 years. There are nominally 4 bedrooms, but we only use two of them as such. The other two -- which were divided from what I am pretty sure was once the kitchen -- we use as a library and a work room. The south facing portal was enclosed in the mid fifties or so to become a foyer, a dining area, a new kitchen and a laundry room/pantry. When we bought it in 2005, the house was a wreck, hadn't been lived in for two or three years, uninhabitable really, but to my eye it was salvageable, and the realtor, who'd had it on inventory for over a year, was convinced it could be fixed up real nice (he was from Louisiana) for a mere $15-20,000 or so -- and sold again for a handsome profit.
We didn't want it to sell, though. We were looking for a place in New Mexico to settle in, eventually retire. I was suprised at how many criteria I wanted met: paved roads, city utilities, out of the way (ie: not in Albuquerque or Santa Fe or even any city to speak of) but close enough to the highway for emergency purposes, not in a forest (fire, you know), and with "character" -- but without the overweening (and sometimes overpowering) Santa Fe Style. I must have looked through hundreds of listings, and made personal treks to at least a dozen before settling on this one.
It just "spoke" to me. Sometimes places do.
The realtor said that Toney Anaya had grown up there, and I suppose it's true, though the place seemed a bit fancy for that, given Anaya's description of his childhood in a two room dirt floor adobe casita. He isn't quite as old as some of the additions to the house, and it looks like there have always been pine board floors. But I could be wrong.
And renovations were going to cost a lot more than $15,000. But I was surprised at how much would be done for slightly more than $30,000. In fact, the final cost came in under budget, and how often does that happen in renovations?
The contractor, from Albuquerque, turned out to be quite a character. He grew up in the next town west, when it wasn't even a town, and had gone to high school right down the street. He sort of knew this house from when he was a kid, but he said he didn't remember it all that well. At first, he wanted to re-do the house by "modernizing" everything. When I insisted on maintaining as much of the early day character as possible, he thought I was pretty wack, but went along with it. The subs he hired had a tougher time with some of it, because the house is old and quirky and required some care to keep it together. Yet in the end, I think they did an amazing job, though not perfect.
I was wrassling with the stainless steel kitchen sink they put in -- not very well -- while I was there, and they never did get around to putting in a door with a window in the laundry room, so I wound up buying an old one in California and trucking it out to New Mexico and installing it myself. But they did wonders with the bathroom, and after complaining that they couldn't possibly put a french door in the living room, I went out there one time and there it was, just as I imagined. Of course I found the rain gutter installation was, shall we say, "faulty" when it turned out that most of the guttering on the front of the house was attached to... nothing. Looked nice, though! But it's New Mexico, and you make do without too much whining. Got out the ladder and fixed it. It's what you do.
There are still many -- many -- things to do including decking, pergolas, portals, fixing (or replacing) the garage, adding some electrical circuits and light fixtures, doing some work on the roof, fixing a closet the birds seem to have moved into while no one was living there (ew), and doing something about the skunks (and the cats) that took up residence under the house. Still need a washer and dryer and better heat in parts of the house the main heater doesn't reach (the old one in the living room was replaced with an updated version of the same thing.)
But it's all stuff that can be done at a relatively leisurely pace. As I've said in other venues, we don't don't have teevee or landline phone there. We do get radio stations from Albuquerque and Santa Fe. There is intermittant wireless internet (go figure), and the cell phone works as long as you're near a window or outside (all the neighbors have to stand outside to use their cellphones, too.) The electricity seems to be kind of iffy, goes out pretty regularly. The pipes have a tendency to freeze when they shouldn't (but the previous owner had them replaced with some kind of "freeze proof" plastic, which I'm told means they don't break when the water freezes in them.)
But the sky is amazing, day or night, with the night-sky being literally take-your- breath away gorgeous. Just open the front (or back) door and step outside: "My God! It's full of stars!" That makes up for the lack of any "view" to speak of. Well, we can go down to the end of the street (a couple of hundred feet) and look out over open range to the mountains in the west and to the north. But we do have trees. They suffered in the decade long drought, but they seem to have survived, and there is lots of dappled shade in the summer; lots of wild flowers, too.
On I-40 you enter New Mexico from Arizona through a cleft in a pretty fancy, nay almost baroque, mesa. It's very dramatic. The entrance to the state lets you know, in no uncertain terms, you have arrived Somewhere Else Again.
We first took that route (which parallels Hwy 66) almost 30 years ago and went back again and again and again as if drawn by some magnetic force. Even though it was the height of the real estate boom when we bought, it was, for whatever reason, the time to do it.
I really find the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's religious ranting to be jejune to say the least. Obama's response to the "scrutiny" was measured, responsible, and broad-ranging, and it didn't really get into what the "scrutiny" is all about: A Scary Black Man Hollering Scary Stuff.
Won't somebody think of the children?
Booga booga.
It does seem to have affected Obama's polling, especially in head-to-heads with Grumpy Gramps McCain, and all those who are trying to deny it need to take a step back and come to grips with the reality of White Fear of Black Rage, especially the fear among older whites who lived through a very tumultuous era of what is delicately called Civil Unrest. Riots, in other words. Again and again, all over the country.
This White Fear is easy to re-energize, and the media has been eager to do it. They play the Wright tapes in an endless loop, designed not to provoke dialogue, but to inspire Fear, fear of Black Rage. And it works.
Clinton sits back and lets it happen. After all, those fear-ridden whites are supposedly her base. Meanwhile it comes out that the McCain campaign was responsible for pushing the Wright stuff, and is laughing about how easy it was to do. And it sure lets Grumps get away with some whoppers about Iran and alQ. Win-win, hunh?
Obama has been running a Generational campaign, trying like anything to push the Old Farts off the bus, let them fend for themselves in the wilderness for all he cares, but let them please just shut up and go away. Including Rev Wright. That tack has a tremendous appeal among the young, and there's no reason he shouldn't use it except for the fact that Old Farts vote, in vast numbers, and the aging Boomer cohort is likelier than most to pull the lever.
"Unity" has been Obama's strength, so, in a classic Rovian ploy, the Media-McCain nexus uses it against him by pulling out Wright's ministry and showing the whole wide world what Obama's Spiritual Mentor has been saying, in Church, in front of the Children(!), and wah-lah, Obama's numbers go into a tailspin.
Suddenly, in a head-to-head with McCain, Clinton is surging, and Obama is way behind.
Rev Wright is... scary.
Funny, though. Hagee's anti-Catholic rants, and reverence for Apocalyptic genocide by Jee-suss throughout the evangelical teevee priesthood is considered just fine by the Powers That Be.
Until Americans are ready to take the Power away from them and their devotees and ilk, and cast them into the fiery pit where they long to be, not much Change is gonna happen.
Darth hawked up another of his patented hairballs yesterday as he opined on ABC that he doesn't care what you -- or anyone else -- thinks, he has a Lincolnesque "vision" and you can go fuck yourself.
Raddatz: Two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting, and they’re looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.
Cheney: So? [sinister smirk]
Raddatz: So — you don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn’t had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there. And this President has been very courageous, very consistent, very determined to continue down the course we were on and to achieve our objective.
Of course he just does this to rile up the masses. But the notion that he and his cohort in the White House are somehow Lincolnesqe, persuing a "vision" is just ludicrous.
They're insane.
Simply put.
And the other thing is that he does and says these outrageous things because he knows he can and n o b o d y is gonna do a dambed thing about it. At all.
In the haute blogmonde as well as much of the mass and alternative media these days, "scrutiny" is the catchall description of the ridiculous candiate (and candidate supporter) poo-flinging that passes for discussion, debate, and discretion in Modern American Political Life.
American Heritage Dictionary scru·ti·ny (skrōōt'n-ē) Pronunciation Key n. pl. scru·ti·nies
1. A close, careful examination or study.
2. Close observation; surveillance.
[Middle English scrutinie, taking of a formal vote, from Latin scrūtinium, inquiry, search, from scrūtārī, to search, examine, from scrūta, trash.]
Hurling insults and invective is not an "examination" or "study", nor does it represent "close observation." Smearing the candidates is not scrutiny.
Yet that's what goes on hour after hour, day in and day out at some sites, the hate-filled and contemptuous anti-Hillary site Daily Kos setting the "scrutinous" standard these days, and many people are wondering what's the point of this?
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for or support Hillary, similar reasons not to vote for or support Obama, and unending reasons not to vote for or support McCain during this election cycle. Applying scrutiny to their records and statements suggests strongly that all of them are corporatist/imperialist warmongers. The worst of that lot is McCain, who not only loves his 100 Year War in Iraq, he is devoted to concepts of American exceptionalism and warriorism and expansionism that have got us in to the pickle we're in now.
Both Hillary and Obama are better, on the record, than that, thank goodness, but neither is so much better that they would actually turn the nation from the path its been on. At least not from their statements and actions to date.
One of the problems I have had with both the Democratic candidates is that they are both in the Senate, and yet they do not lead on important issues. McCain, also in the Senate, does lead -- even though much of his "leadership" is leading down the wrong path -- and has long been able to promote and push his curious right wing agenda, sell it as "bi-partisan," getting a surprising amount of it enacted or adopted, or at least into the public trough.
That has long made McCain a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, neither Hillary nor Obama has used their position in the Senate to promote their own agenda of so-called Change. That's not merely a matter of introducing or co-sponsoring legislation. Both have done that. But neither has used their Senatorial platform to promote whatever Change it is they seek, to persuade and browbeat their colleagues, to build support, to challenge convention, etc. They've used their presidential campaigns, almost exclusively, for that.
In the FISA controversy, for example, Chris Dodd, then a presidential campaigner, too, went back to the Senate, took a leadership role, and said he would stand athwart the body if the Senate was about to pass a telecom immunity bill. Of course, in the end he didn't do it (Senatorial courtesy and all that), but his threat -- and the fact that he left the campaign trail to make it -- was enough to push the notion that the telecom immunity provisions of FISA "reform" were simply wrong, and the fact that he did it, just said so in the Senatorial forum, and threatened to block Business as Usual, may have helped inject a little bit of spine into the House members who have now repeatedly rejected Bush and his threats over the legislation.
Have either Hillary or Obama done anything comparable?
Well, maybe they need to.
That's what real "scrutiny" is about. I'm not hurling invective or flinging poo. I'm pointing out that neither of the major Democratic candidates have used their positions in the Senate for leadership on the important issues of the day, and they need to do it if either one of them expects to be president one day.
The frantic maneuvering of the Fed and the Treasury these days is as sure a sign as we need that the economy is going into a tailspin. The objective is to protect the rich at all costs, at the direct expense of everyone else in fact, with no succor to the poor and middle classes whatsoever.
It's gonna get nasty, and if the recent past is any guide, there will be no uprising, little outcry, and the reordering of wealth will be accomplished with almost no resistance at all. This is the real legacy of the Reagan Revolution, a completely passive, nonresistant, compliant population which identifies with those who wield their wealth and power over them.
This Spitzer business would be funny if it weren't so stupid and sad. Once again, the country is being thrown into hysterics over other people's sex lives. Once againg, the only thing that matters to nearly everyone who opines on the matter is that Mr. Spitzer's sex life be denounced and that Mr. Spitzer be forced from office therefore.
It's Clinton's Cock on steroids, again.
Now I've been in New Mexico the last few days, where I don't have any teevee at all, and my only news is over the radio (generally NPR) or over the internets on those few occasions when the wireless works. So my perception of Hysteria in this latest Sex Scandal du jour is based on what I've heard and briefly read.
Americans' tendency to Puritanism and Hysteria, often at the same time, is well-known but rarely discussed. We take it for granted that other people's sex lives are the appropriate venue for discovering and declaring Morality Most Pure, and that Public Figures who violate the Puritan's Moral (Sex) Code can be (depending) subject to hysterical calls for denunciation and removal from office.
These denunciations and calls for removal can sometimes be most shrill from the target's own friends and/or colleagues.
While this particular outbreak of Puritan Moralist Hysteria is centered on Eliot Spitzer's sex life (which prurience is "justified" by the fact that He Broke The Law), the tendency to moralize and denounce can be much broader based than that.
For example, my local newspaper ran a big front page story about the mayor a while back. She was "accused" of spending money on travel. The whole point of the story was to make it appear that there was something corrupt and unethical about the mayor's trips to various countries and to various conferences. Over five years, she'd spent over $150,000 in taxpayers' money for these trips. Outrageous!
A close friend, who follows these things carefully, started calling and at first questioning the mayor's ethics then denouncing her for her profligracy. I said, "You know you're repeating the smears that were in the paper? Have you looked into the issue beyond what was in the paper? Her travel expenses are relatively modest, and her destinations have been completely in line with the obligations of her job. The only reason it's an issue at all is because it's in the paper."
Yet he could not be dissuaded initially. It "looked wrong" -- therefore the paper was doing a "service" and we should be grateful. But there was nothing wrong at all, it just something to stir the pot, and he was falling into that trap. It took weeks for him to realize that the paper had an agenda -- get rid of the mayor. By then, though, the damage had been done, and even now, he's suspicious of her.
So it goes. If a politician is targeted by Powers That Be, for any reason, doubts can be sewn, traps set, violations of this or that law or Moral Code can be found, and smears and denunciations can be generated. This can often lead to pressure to leave office, either by resignation in disgrace or through impeachment, which is sometimes followed through on. It's like pushing a button.
Why?
In the case of Spitzer, many of the commenters yesterday were pointing out how much he is "loathed" in New York by just about everyone. Therefore he "deserves" it.
Obama took Vermont. At least there's that. That's 12 In A Row! And Hillary takes the Big States. Well, most of them. And the delagate hunt continues.
Those who are pushing the notion that one or the other of them should drop out or declare Victory are missing the point. Both of them are remarkably to the right of any form of Liberalism or Progressivism I'm aware of. Neither is likely to significantly change Bushevik policies, though either of them would mitigate some of the worst Bushevik abuses. Neither would restore the Constitution. The idea of doing so at this point is radically laughable and Left WingNutty. It's just not going to happen.
So I'm not really into either Hillary or Obama. I will grant that they represent an improvement over the Busheviks, but apart from that, I don't see much to recommend either one.
And I see nothing at all to recommend that crazy old coot, McCain.
A lot of Americans are looking at the choice before them and saying "Enh."
Got other things to do. If this is The Most Important Election In History, why do we have such.... mediocre choices?
They're going to cave. The House of Representatives is going to cave on telecom amnesty.
As mentioned here and elsewhere, the Problem the House has with the orders from the White House to provide telecom amnesty forthwith is not the orders themselves. No, the Problem is that the White House, as it did with the Senate, tried to circumvent normal procedures, and that is a big, fat No-No!
So. Like the Senate, the House has dug in its heels and refused to comply with the commands from the White House toot-sweet. Of course they will comply in the by and bye, just as the Senate did, but they will get there in their own sweet time. No tin pot dictator in the White House is going to tell them when to do something. Ha! Never!
(Except at summer break, but that's different.)
But it's not about Principle. It's not -- absolutely not -- about defending the Constitution or the Rule of Law or anything other than the House asserting its perogatives to debate and consider on its own terms.
They will cave. That's what they do, and with a more than sufficient number of Blue Dogs to align with the Rs for this measure -- as they have with so many others in the past -- when the reveal comes, it will be fast and ugly.
[Note: I started this post a while back but got side tracked, as is so often the case these days... there is much more to come some day]
Well. After all the trauma, the plumbing and wall-restoration is essentially complete. A few minor details -- finding some tiles to replace the ones broken in the bathroom, some escutcheons for the pipes under the sinks, etc. -- and that part's done.
For the time being, the Floors are on hold, carpets and rugs will do just fine to cover a multitude of horrors.
Things have settled down to a more or less acceptable routine, the inspectors are satisfied, and breath can be caught. For now, anyway.
The Regime's efforts to scare the country and its representatives in Congress assembled into caving to demands for telecom immunity are falling flat. This is not to say that the propaganda effort is diminishing in any way. In fact, universally throughout the mainstream news media, the issue is formulated precisely as Bob Orr did on the CBS Evening News last night (via C & L):
BOB ORR: At issue is whether or not telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T should be protected from lawsuits when they help the government tap conversations of suspected foreign terrorists - when those calls and emails are routed through the U.S.
When, as C & L, and most of the Lefty Blogosphere points out, that's not the issue at all.
Actually, the issue is whether retroactive immunity will be granted to telecoms so they can’t be sued by Americans, for illegally participating in wiretapping American citizens in America.
That's about as simple and straightforward a statement of the Issue as it is possible to get, and yet, to date, not one mainstream news outlet has been able to say it that way.
It's so bad that the other day, as reported by Glenn Greenwald, John King, experienced political reporter at CNN, had Adm. Mike McConnell, Director of Intelligence, on to discuss the issue and stated:
KING: To most Americans out there, and to a guy like me who's spent most of his time, in the past several months, out covering a presidential campaign, this is highly detailed stuff that's pretty hard to follow.
No. It's not. It never has been "hard to follow." This question at issue is whether or not the Congress will provide immunity to large corporations that broke the law and spied on Americans without warrants or court supervision of any kind for several years.
The Senate has voted to provide that immunity. The House has voted not to.
The resolution is to be found in conference committee. Nearly every observer assumes that the conference committee will provide partial or full retroactive immunity to the telecoms, and that by doing so, the governmental interests who conspired or colluded to induce the telecoms to perform these illegal acts of domestic surveillance will be shielded from investigation or culpability.
The issue has NEVER, EVER been about whether telecoms should be immunized from suits over spying on calls from or to suspected terrorists. Immunity for following lawful government orders is already provided. The problem is that the orders (or "requests") were not lawful and following them was not lawful; further, so far as anyone can suss out, the surveillance was never limited (and so far as we know, is not now limited) to "terrorists." Essentially all domestic and foreign communication is potential fodder for warrantless surveillance, making moot the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.
But nowhere in the mainstream media -- with the odd exception, such as when a "critic" is allowed to speak, briefly, on the topic, or when Keith Olbermann focuses on it -- is the issue accurately described, even though the fearmongering of the White House, the intelligence agency heads, and Republicans in Congress has been almost entirely repudiated.
They discussed all the many aspects of the Liberal Fascist subversion of this country since Woodrow Wilson and Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Destruction of the Christian Nation, yadda, yadda, yadda, and they summed up their mutual stroking with consideration of Michelle Obama's speechifying, which was clearly Fascist according to them both, and then with a parallel discussion of Obamamania, which is so overtly and obviously Fascist, there is no way to beat it.
Got that? No way to beat it. Well, not no way, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more. But if things run their usual course it will be a very hard row for McCain to hoe against the Negro. Thus Barack, if he is the Democrat Nominee, is almost -- repeat, almost a shoe-in to win the election in November.
It's that Liberal Fascism, don'tcha know.
Meanwhile, over at The Corner, we learn (via "Accuracy in Media") that Negro men and white women were hooking up in the 1950's and 1960's only one way: through Communist cells operating in the land before they could be dismantled by the authorities. Ergo. The Half-Black Obama must be the product of one of these nefarious cells, because there was no other way in those days, for the Black Man to come into intimate contact with the White Woman. It just couldn't happen.
Which makes Obama himself a Communist by breeding, and lookit here: he's also an ideological Communist. Once you understand the dynamics of his upbringing and all.
So.
As a Commun-o-Fascist, the Epitome of Evul, Barack may think he's got the Presidency sewed up, but that crusty old warhorse St John McCain is the Right Man to give him a run for his money. McCain, American fighter of Commun-o-Fascists, Resister. Winner! Martin Luther King was a Communist, too. Don't you deny it! He wouldn't have stirred up all that trouble if it weren't for the Communists infiltrating the SCLC. It's a Known Fact.
Just remember, there wouldn't be a Barack without the World Wide Communist Conspiracy that McCain and Barry Goldwater and St. Ronald Reagan fought their whole lives and defeated.
Just remember that. Harrumph.
[Ed note: the level of desperation these pathetic attempts to smear Barack Obama as a Communist/Fascist represent is kind of breathtaking. It's hard to imagine anyone under the age of 50 cares. It is so 20th Century.]
William Arkin has an interesting blog post over at the WaPo blogsite that digs into the issue of "permanent bases". He points out, as most of us have sensed for a very long time, that there is no intention, whatever, to remove American forces from the Persian Gulf any time in the forseeable future. Despite all the pledges of no "permanent bases" in Iraq, permanent bases are being constructed and the infrastructure for a permanent American military presence is being built in the Persian Gulf right now, in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, etc. Ultimately, there will be a significant permanent American military presence throughout the region. Period.
Ah. More Imperial hubris?
This has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, and it has everything to do with regional hegemony. Which has been the point all along.
Terrorism -- whether Islamic jihadi, homegrown, or anarchic -- is a mosquito in the context of that all important power projection game that is American foreign and military policy. "Fighting terrorism" is a convenient excuse for the imposition of American power abroad and the imposition of a domestic Autocracy at home.
Mosquitos may be insignificant creatures when compared with the bulk of their prey. But they have been known to do considerable damage if they carry disease.
As much as we may not like to think so, the jihadi mosquitos seem to be loaded up with microbes fatal to their American targets.
He really doesn't seem to be up to the standard of the Times, but this week he tries, oh dear me, how he tries.
His topic is the defense of retroactive telecom immunity which the House of Representatives is -- for now -- resisting. We might recall that the Senate, too, briefly resisted the commands of the White House to pass immunity legislation without "further" debate, the Time For Debate being Over and all, or maybe we don't recall since the gameplan was obvious from the outset when Harry Reid brought the Intelligience Committee bill to the Senate floor rather than the Judiciary Committee bill. From that point on, everybody knew immunity would pass. But not without the courtesy of Senate Debate. And not without a bazillion calls and emails from the people telling them Not to Cave (again.) Calls and emails ignored as they usually are.
So it is that the White House has now ordered the House of Representatives to pass the Senate bill immediately and without "further" debate, the Time For Debate being Over and all. Like the Senate before them, the House says "No." Only this time, they don't have to yield to the commands of the White House at all, they've already passed a bill without immunity, so that can go to conference with the Senate bill, and the conference committee can come back with a resolution (which will no doubt include immunity) which the House and Senate can pass in the dead of night by unanimous consent and be done with the whole stinky mess.
Only Kristol doesn't like the mechanisms in place to pass bills that he likes, for example "updating" FISA to include immunity for past "cooperation" with the Government by telecoms. He doesn't like the way the Senate works and he doesn't like the way the House works. What he likes is legislative bodies following the commands and orders from the White House, bodies lacking any legislative authority but to follow orders from on high. That's what he routinely calls for. That's his agenda as it were. Not simply an authoritarian state -- which the United States has long been -- but an Autocratic state, which he's been spinning and working overtime in his numerous venues for years to accomplish before he dies of heartbreak or ennui.
In his column today, he posits George Orwell's consideration of Kipling, c. 1942, as the correct metaphor for his increasingly desperate longing for American (Bushevik) Autocracy. We have to be clear here; he's not talking, thinking, or dreaming about an Autocracy clean of political considerations, by no means. His metaphor is explicit:
Having controlled the executive branch for 28 of the last 40 years, Republicans tend to think of themselves as the governing party — with some of the arrogance and narrowness that implies, but also with a sense of real-world responsibility. Many Democrats, on the other hand, no long even try to imagine what action and responsibility are like. They do, however, enjoy the support of many refined people who snigger at the sometimes inept and ungraceful ways of the Republicans. (And, if I may say so, the quality of thought of the Democrats’ academic and media supporters — a permanent and, as it were, pensioned opposition — seems to me to have deteriorated as Orwell would have predicted.)
In other words, the Autocracy he seeks is that of the Ruling Party alone, with no consideration whatsoever of the "sniggering" opposition. The Ruling Party, of course, is the Bushevik version of the Republican Party.
Orwell was describing his view of Rudyard Kipling's adherence to British Imperial "outreach" (now there's a word I've come to despise); Kipling had a “morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting” belief in the rightness of the British Empire which, according to Orwell, acknowledged "reality." Indeed. In 1942, that Empire was under fierce and bloody assault all around the world. But in 1900, when Kipling was in his heyday, the Empire went about its business of conquest and exploitation, expansion, and the White Man's Burden, with slight opposition by the Natives, soon crushed, and with what amounted to a pro-forma opposition in Parliament, an opposition long since coopted by the Ruling Power.
Kipling therefore fit his times, say what you will about his literary achievements.
Somehow, in Kristol's warped imagination, that commentary by Orwell about British politics between 1900 and 1942 is turned into an overt approval of Bushevik Imperialism and Will to Power and Domestic Autocracy, c. 2000-2008. Of course nothing of the sort should be imagined. It's quite simply deranged to think so, and yet it is so utterly of a piece with everything else Kristol and his ilk have been twisting to suit their ideological need for Autocracy. Kristol is using the thoughts of the man who wrote 1984 to justify the imposition of 1984-like universal surveillance. Of course. He's been doing this sort of thing for years, and tristeroover at Digby's place has an excellent post and commentary of his own on how the Right Wing Authoritarians, Kristol's imaginary Ruling Party, manage to get their twisted perspectives mainstreamed all the time.
So Kristol gives it a shot at the Times. Why not? It works so well everywhere else.
Not once in his entire column does the concept of "Law" intrude in his reverie. And "Law" -- of some sort, whether it be FISA or the Constitution, or what have you -- is at the core of the dispute over retroactive telecom immunity. This is the way the RWA has always discussed the topic: something bad happened, the telecoms "cooperated" with the Government, they should be held harmless for it; what they did -- egregiously breaking the Law -- is never, ever to be mentioned. And the concept of "Law" itself is always to be denigrated.
Orwell would have mordantly chuckled, to say the least.
Why does Kristol have a forum outside his own publication, again?
Every now and then, I get this sensation that We've Been Down This Road Before. It's not exactly deja vu, because I'm not (necessarily) the one who went this route in the past.
It's the Nation.
Two characteristics keep cropping up over and over again:
The smug, judgemental Puritan tight ass;
The wild-eyed, fast-talking (though it may be jibberish) Hysteric.
We toggle between them perpetually.
Right now, we're in a Hysterical phase with the Puritans anxious to return to the fore. We've been in a state of Hysteria for nearly a generation, since the advent of the Reagan Era, and we're wearing out.
The Puritans -- call them Progressives if you like -- are Ready to step in, chain up the Hysterics for a while, and start cleaning up the mess.
But are the Hysterics ready to let go?
Hillary! gets them more riled up than they usually are. Barack seems to soothe them, calm them down. And by "them", I'm referring to the RWA crowd as well as a whole raft of Opinion Leaders, Pundits, and a national zeitgeist that derives from them.
It's been predicted that if McCain goes against Hillary! in the fall, McCain wins; if he goes against Barack, Barack wins. That prediction seems sensible. Until Obama's rise, Hillary's victory was all but foregone, no matter which R she ran against, so much so that Limbaugh himself was resigned to President Hillary in '09 and was gently preparing his dwindling audience to accept the Inevitable.
And Hillary! is a quintessential tight ass Puritan, oozes take-charge superiority and empowerment. Focus. Discipline. Planning. After a generation of Hysterics, she would seem to be what the country badly needs.
But along comes Barack Obama, out of Chicago by way of quite a journey through the rest of the world, and he not only upsets the Clintonian Inevitability Showcart, he starts us down a whole other path.
He's neither a Hysteric nor a Puritan, at least as far as anyone can tell. He's completely different. Well. Not completely, but different enough from what we're used to, and so filled with Redemptionist fervor, the Clintons can't get any traction against him, and the RWA's are mystified, perplexed, and oddly charmed.
The House is going to let the FISA Reform (PAA) they hastily passed last summer lapse and tell Bushie and the rest of his ilk to take a long walk off a short pier.
Man.
Things are totally out of hand now.
Silvestre Reyes wrote a letter to the President that pretty much sums it up.
Washington, DC - Congressman Silvestre Reyes, D-TX, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, sent the following letter to President George W. Bush today regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The text of the letter is below:
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
The Preamble to our Constitution states that one of our highest duties as public officials is to "provide for the common defence." As an elected Member of Congress, a senior Member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I work everyday to ensure that our defense and intelligence capabilities remain strong in the face of serious threats to our national security.
Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration's warrantless surveillance program.
Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) has authority to conduct surveillance in at least three different ways, all of which provide strong capability to monitor the communications of possible terrorists.
First, NSA can use its authority under Executive Order 12333 to conduct surveillance abroad of any known or suspected terrorist. There is no requirement for a warrant. There is no requirement for probable cause. Most of NSA's collection occurs under this authority.
Second, NSA can use its authority under the Protect America Act, enacted last August, to conduct surveillance here in the U.S of any foreign target. This authority does not "expire" on Saturday, as you have stated. Under the PAA, orders authorizing surveillance may last for one year - until at least August 2008. These orders may cover every terrorist group without limitation. If a new member of the group is identified, or if a new phone number or email address is identified, the NSA may add it to the existing orders, and surveillance can begin immediately. We will not "go dark."
Third, in the remote possibility that a new terrorist organization emerges that we have never previously identified, the NSA could use existing authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor those communications. Since its establishment nearly 30 years ago, the FISA Court has approved nearly every application for a warrant from the Department of Justice. In an emergency, NSA or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may begin surveillance immediately, and a FISA Court order does not have to be obtained for three days. The former head of FISA operations for the Department of Justice has testified publicly that emergency authorization may be granted in a matter of minutes.
As you know, the 1978 FISA law, which has been modernized and updated numerous times since 9/11, was instrumental in disrupting the terrorist plot in Germany last summer. Those who say that FISA is outdated do not understand the strength of this important tool.
If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don't have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations - including al Qaeda -- that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough linguists to translate the reams of information we currently collect. We do not have enough intelligence officers who can penetrate the hardest targets, such as al Qaeda. We have surged so many intelligence resources into Iraq that we have taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, you have allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself on your watch.
You have also suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized.
The issue of telecom liability should be carefully considered based on a full review of the documents that your Administration withheld from Congress for eight months. However, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to say that we will be vulnerable unless we grant immunity for actions that happened years ago.
Congress has not been sitting on its hands. Last November, the House passed responsible legislation to authorize the NSA to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists and to provide clarity and legal protection to our private sector partners who assist in that surveillance.
The proper course is now to conference the House bill with the Senate bill that was passed on Tuesday. There are significant differences between these two bills and a conference, in regular order, is the appropriate mechanism to resolve the differences between these two bills. I urge you, Mr. President, to put partisanship aside and allow Republicans in Congress to arrive at a compromise that will protect America and protect our Constitution.
I, for one, do not intend to back down - not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.
We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.
Sincerely,
Silvestre Reyes
Member of Congress
Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
