Rush Limbaugh : Economic Crisis a Democratic Plot to Elect Obama

Rush Limbaugh: What's he been smoking?
Limbaugh’s Crazy Conspiracy Theory:

'I am just wondering — as I say, it can’t be proven — I’m just wondering if a lot of this was by design to create economic panic.'

By Amanda Terkel / December 22, 2008

Today, the New York Times had an article about how right-wing talk radio is gearing up to aggressively go after President-elect Obama over the next four years. Rush Limbaugh demonstrated his commitment to this crusade today on his radio show by blaming Democrats — especially Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — for starting the current economic crisis.

Here’s how Limbaugh’s conspiracy theory goes: Schumer caused a run on IndyMac bank in California this summer, in order to create a feeling of financial panic amongst the public. Democrats then capitalized on this panic with electoral wins in the White House and Congress. The purpose of gaining this power, according to Limbaugh, was to nationalize U.S. industries:

LIMBAUGH: Who’s benefiting? Aside from the people being bailed out. The Democrat party and Barack Obama are benefiting.

They got elected, they increased their numbers in the House, they increased their numbers in the Senate, they got the White House now, and they’ve got a crisis that people think can only be fixed with the all-mighty and powerful government interceding to save this or to save that, when in fact, the government is going to nationalize the automobile industry. It’s going to nationalize some banks. It’s going to nationalize the mortgage industry, and may end up nationalizing the automobile industry.

Listen here.

This theory is quickly becoming a right-wing favorite. Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly also recently claimed that the economic crisis was deliberately manufactured — not by Democrats but by journalists who wanted to help elect Obama.

The economic crisis certainly wasn’t created within a five-month period, as these conservatives are claiming. As the New York Times wrote yesterday, the current situation was, in fact, long fueled by President Bush’s economic policies:

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone. […]

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”

CAP’s Tim Westrich has more on how the “root cause of the financial mess is the hands-off approach towards mortgage and finance markets by the Bush administration, and its lack of action when a disaster was imminent.” (HT: TP reader DK)

Transcript:

LIMBAUGH: Back to this October surprise. I am just wondering — as I say, it can’t be proven — I’m just wondering if a lot of this was by design to create economic panic. Remember now — the Iraq war had dominated everything, and the economy was said to no longer be an issue in the campaign for the first time. Corruption, other things were — ethics (well, the Republicans had those problems) — but the economy wasn’t. They wanted to create economic crisis, a mindset of this.

So Chuck Schumer starts a run — a $1.3 billion run on IndyMac, and then all of a sudden, look what we learn! All these mortgages are worthless. All the mortgage derivatives and the mortgage-backed assets are worthless. Everything was worthless. There was no there there. Every institution, every guy in the institution was an empty suit. We had to bail out this, we had to bail out that; it didn’t help. I just wonder if what was a planned attempt to scare people economically — starting a run on the bank, doing this, that, and the other thing — has spun so far out of control, it’s gone so far beyond what the intention was, just to win an election, that nobody knows what to do about it.

The only mitigating argument against is that the number one, the primary beneficiary of this — and you have to look that even in an economic collapse like ours there are beneficiaries — Who’s benefiting? Aside from the people being bailed out. The Democrat party and Barack Obama are benefiting.

They got elected, they increased their numbers in the House, they increased their numbers in the Senate, they got the White House now, and they’ve got a crisis that people think can only be fixed with the all-mighty and powerful government interceding to save this or to save that, when in fact, the government is going to nationalize the automobile industry. It’s going to nationalize some banks. It’s going to nationalize the mortgage industry, and may end up nationalizing the automobile industry. […]

So the Obama team and the Democrat party are benefiting tremendously from this, even if it has spun out of control. It’s spun out of control, but they’ll make due with a new crisis they created a la Rahm Emanuel. But the reason I think it has spun a little out of control and gone a little further than they intended is that even the Obama people are saying, “Hey, it’s going to be really bad for a really long time.”

Source / Think Progress

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Whad'Ya Know? Terrellita Maverick's Still Fighting for the Family's Good Name

Terrillata Maverick: A real Maverick still fights the good fight.
'Mother's interview was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world.'
By Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / November 23, 2008

After weeks of a whirl of pre-election interviews surrounding my family's indignant "John McCain, You're No Maverick" campaign, a period of joy and relief ensued with the November 4 election of Barack Obama. We felt good about what we had accomplished, but I, for one, was glad that I could focus on the emotion that was the result of this marvelous, historical victory.

But there was one more; my 82 year old mother (Terrellita Maverick) told me that she was to be interviewed November 22 on "some NPR radio show" at Trinity University in San Antonio. Turns out, the show was Michael Feldman's "Whadda Ya Know", a very popular and venerable (they have been around for over 20 years) quiz show in the format of "Prairie Home Companion" with live audience interaction and musical guests. Those of you who live in parts of the country other than Austin may be familiar with it; we, unfortunately are not.

Anyway here's a little rundown of what was in store for me and my mom today:

I had a long day; up at dawn to get mother to the beautiful auditorium at Trinity U, got her backstage for her gig as interviewee on "Whadda Ya Know," and settle myself in the audience with an elderly friend of hers (a lovely woman named Jane). The show was beautifully produced -- very regional decor on the big stage -- fiesta taco booths and Big Rainbow Colored Papier Mache letters spelling out "NIOSA" (night in old San Antonio). A very fine jazz band opened the show.

Mother's interview (about 15 minutes long) was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake - best I have ever seen her. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world in her late forties. You had to be there, but I was very proud of her. She was followed by Feldman's "quiz show" with an audience member, and a phone in guest, followed by a musical interlude with the Krayolas and Augie Myers, plus the West Side Horns. Then more audience interaction, and a great cooking demo with a local SA mexican chef (yes, you can do a cooking demo on the radio, you just have to talk about everything you are doing - and have fun).

Oh, and a 7 foot tall San Antonio Spur (I forget his name) was another guest. Cute guy!

Looks like you can get a podcast after Monday the 24th on the notmuch.com website -- check it out -- it's a hoot.

[The Texas Maverick clan -- a venerable pack of political progressives and iconoclasts who inspired the popular usage of the term "maverick" -- spoke out during the 2008 campaign about the theft of the family's good name by John McCain and his (not so) trusty sidekick Sarah.]

More from The Rag Blog on the Maverick family of Texas:

* Hey John : You're No Maverick. And We Can Prove it! / Brave New World Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 29, 2008

* Austin's Fontaine Maverick Tells CNN Why McCain and Palin are no Mavericks / Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 9, 2008

* McCain a Faux Maverick : Stealing a Texas Tradition by Paul in Austin / The Rag Blog / Sept. 13, 2008

* Fontaine Maverick : John McCain is no Maverick! by Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / August 31, 2008

And * This Maverick The Real Deal by Joe Holley / The Rag Blog / March 1, 2008

Also see Public radio host did his S.A. homework by Amy Dorsett / San Antonio Express-News / Nov. 23, 2008

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Seeing Purple : You Mean McCain DIDN'T Win Florida?

Purple America / Contested South. Graphic from Facing South.
Emerging demographic trends differentiated Florida, Virginia and North Carolina from the rest of the south sufficiently to overcome any 'Bradley Effect' and shift them into the Democratic column.
By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / November 22, 2008

On November 3rd I sent out an e-mail predicting that McCain would narrowly take Florida (see below). As we've seen, Obama took not only Florida, but also Virginia and North Carolina.

Emerging demographic trends differentiated these three states from the rest of the south sufficiently to overcome any "Bradley Effect" and shift them into the Democratic column.

An article entitled "A New South Rising" on the Institute for Southern Studies Facing South blog [see below] does a good job analyzing the trends, including: urbanization, young white southerners with a different outlook than previous generations, stronger minority voter turn-out, and a growing Latino population.

Other southern states are experiencing these trends. Given the region's high population growth, the political significance of the south will increase.

I am glad to have been wrong about the election outcome.

My email:

Not to rain on anyone's parade, and I hope otherwise, but my prediction is that McCain is going to win Florida.

It'll be close. Maybe not as close as the 2000 election, but very close.

Based on a Mason-Dixon poll, this morning's Orlando Sentinel shows Obama slightly ahead: 47% to 45%, an error margin of 4%, and 7% undecided. This is a fairly large "undecided" factor with early voting well under way in Florida. 84% of the 7% undecided are white, and I think this is where the so-called "Bradley effect" is hiding.

There are still voter intimidation and suppression shenanigans which may play out on Tuesday as well.

Obama has been waging a very strong and effective campaign in Florida, much stronger than either Gore in 2000 or Kerry in 2004. If Obama loses the state, it won't be his fault. We'll see.

A New South Rising
2008 proved that the South is politically competitive and growing in importance. But the pundits are telling a different story.

On the day before Election Day -- that final moment when candidates decide where they want to make their last case to the voters they want to win the most -- Barack Obama chose to visit three big battleground states: Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

Since 1968, these Southern states had voted Democratic for president only six times between them. And president-elect Obama was about to ask voters in these states -- all members of the old Confederacy -- to vote the first African-American ever into the White House.

Obama's Southern Strategy worked: the states went blue, and history was made.

But just as Southern Democrats were clinking glasses of sweet tea in celebration, the powerhouses of political punditry -- especially in the North -- made a bizarre move: They turned against the region that had just given one-third of its Electoral College votes to the President-elect.

Ignoring McCain's dominance in, say, the Great Plains and Upper Mountain states -- Obama's most crushing defeats came in Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming -- legions of commentators instead curiously trained their guns on the South, dismissing the region as politically irrelevant, a bastion of red-state conservatism uniquely out of touch with national trends.

Read all of this article here / Facing South: The Online Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies.

Also by Jay D. Jurie on The Rag Blog: Orlando Homeless Win Big Victory in Federal Court / Sept. 27, 2008

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Thorne Dreyer : Our Progressive Opportunity

New Start / mogallery.com.
'Millions have been newly engaged and motivated as a result of the recent electoral process and most are not traditional players who automatically buy in to the traditional assumptions.'
By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / November 20, 2008

History has taken an unexpected turn and, astounding as it may seem to those of us made numb by decades of disappointment, the possibility of building a viable progressive movement is before us.

Millions have been newly engaged and motivated as a result of the recent electoral process and most are not traditional players who automatically buy in to the traditional assumptions. Add to that the critical and tantalizing fact that these people need not fall back into the woodwork thanks to the unprecedented communications networks that we now have at our disposal.

The emergence and consolidation of a serious progressive movement is nowhere near a given, and we certainly have a tradition of blowing it -- especially through turning in on ourselves rather than intelligently identifying and directing our energies at the real enemy -- but we'd be fools not to bust our butts trying to make it happen.

We must recognize and be tolerant of our differences in ideology and approach, but we must also recognize that our only power is in unity. It is not only our right but our responsibility to address the Obama presidency with a critical eye; we must always hold Obama accountable to a progressive vision.

But we must likewise be supportive and leave the Obama-bashing to those who are best at it -- the rabid right. The resurgent clout of the racists and the fear-mongers will be underestimated only at our serious peril.

The crises we face now scream of catastrophic potential and there may not be another chance.

Rag Blog reading list on the task at hand (much more to come):

I highly recommend that everyone read Carl Davidson’s Bumpy Road Ahead: Obama and the Left posted on The Rag Blog Nov. 18, 2008.

Few of us will agree with every word, but I believe it to be a bold and thoughtful beginning. Please join in the discussion by clicking the “comments” at the end of this (and every) post.

Other articles recently published on The Rag Blog that analyze the election from a left perspective and address the question of the day: what do we do now?

Robert Jensen : Real Hope: Facing Difficult Truths About an Uncertain Future by Robert Jensen / The Rag Blog / Nov. 18, 2008

'Two Party' or Not 'Two Party' : A Rag Blog Discussion on Change with articles by David P. Hamilton and Scott Trimble / The Rag Blog / Nov. 16, 2008

Bert Garskof on the Obama 'Movement' : Shoot Where the Ducks are by Bert Garskof / The Rag Blog / Nov. 10, 2008

Paul Buhle : The American Elections of 2008: A First Take by Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / Nov. 8, 2008

Makani Themba-Nixon : A Black Woman Looks at the Election by Makani Themba-Nixon / The Rag Blog / Nov. 8, 2008

Obama Presidency : What the Left Should Expect by David P. Hamilton / Nov. 8, 2008

Ayers Seems Relieved That the Election is Over by Bill Ayers / Nov. 7, 2008

The Crash of 2008 : More 'Washington as Usual' Under Obama? by Dr. S. R. Keister / The Rag Blog / Nov. 7, 2008

Ron Ridenour on Obama : Conditional Hope from Across the Seas by Ron Ridenour / The Rag Blog / Nov. 6, 2008

Tim Wise : Tuesday Night Obama Made History; Now the Work Begins by Tim Wise / Nov. 5, 2008

Paul Buhle : FDR, Obama and a new Popular Front by Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / Nov. 5, 2008

Michael Moore : Pinch Me! by Michael Moore / Nov. 5, 2008

[Thorne Dreyer was a pioneering underground journalist in the sixties and seventies and was active with SDS in Texas and nationally. He lives in Austin where he works with MDS/Austin and Progressives for Obama. A writer, editor and bookseller, he is a contributing editor to Next Left Notes and is co-editor of The Rag Blog.]

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Homophobia : The Great Unifier

Button: Rainbow Youth Niagra.
'That complete strangers could be so unequivocally united in their homophobia was a chilling reminder that hatred of queers is not quarantined to one community.'
By Luna M. Yasui

On Nov. 5, I awoke to the uncomfortable realization that more Californians had voted to protect the living conditions of chickens than to preserve my civil rights. Chickens deserve a good life; they bring exquisite joy when fried up and served with a side of biscuits. I may not be as delicious, but why hate?

My bittersweet post-Election Day was foreshadowed by this street corner exchange near my polling site: on Election Day, I joined a few young queer women of color in handing out No on 8 flyers at my polling place. (Yes, I was a safe, non-electioneering 100 feet from the polls.) A construction crew of men approached two of the women and informed them that in order to protect their children, they had voted yes on 8. The posse of men then sat on a stoop to enjoy their sandwiches and entertained themselves by tossing homophobic slurs our way. Soon after, we were brushed back from the curb by a roaring SUV, full of venomous, epithet-screaming young men. The construction crew joined the jeering. Men of color in worn work boots and doo-rags echoed the hate spewed by the SUV-riding white men in baseball caps and polo shirts. Homophobia the great unifier, bridges fashion and racial divides.

It was just one incident, but my hopes died somewhere in that convergence of vitriol. That complete strangers could be so unequivocally united in their homophobia was a chilling reminder that hatred of queers is not quarantined to one community.

Yet, that was not the post-Election Day message, for every failed campaign must find a scapegoat. I wanted to revel in the promise of a New Day full of Hope and Change, but instead was confronted with the tired old Blame Black People mantra. "Seventy percent of African Americans voted Yes on 8!" went the indignant assertions by the liberal and not so liberal media. Culled from one exit poll of 2,240 voters, this "finding" was based on the responses of a mere 224 African American voters. Some 224 people speak for the entire African American electorate in California? The poll only included 90 African American men — too few to produce any statistics.

For the sake of argument, let's accept this 7 out of 10 statistic. According to the U.S. Census, African Americans are 6.7 percent of the entire California electorate — that's 2.3 million people. White people comprise 43 percent, or 22 million people. Our "venerable" exit poll says white people were evenly split on 8, which means about 11 million white people voted Yes on 8. Simple arithmetic reveals... whoa... way more white people voted Yes on 8. Wait... that's almost five times the entire black electorate.

If we want to play the blame game with this exit poll, the groups to blame for the passage of Proposition 8 are white Republicans (82 percent for Prop. 8) and voters of all races who attend church on a weekly basis (84 percent for Prop. 8).

I've also heard a few Asian Americans attempting to claim Moral Model Minority status based on our purported majority opposition to Proposition 8. To them, a few words of caution: always be wary of polls that lump all Asian Americans together. Some 134 "Asians" polled represent the ever-mythical unified Asian America? As the most ethnically and linguistically diverse racial group in the United States, we are rarely, if ever, one blended happy South Asian-Filipino-Chinese-Japanese-Tongan-Samoan-Vietnamese-American family. Talk to your parents, aunts, uncles or born-again cousin about queerness lately? Catch the hundreds of Yes on 8 Chinese Christians rallying in Portsmouth Square Park? There's a lot of in-house work to do.

Every community has its homophobes — even in San Francisco 24 percent of the voters approved of Prop. 8. That's right, 1 in 4 residents of the purported "Gay Mecca" voted to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

A majority of California voters decided to write discrimination into the state constitution. If questionable exit polls tell us anything, it is that homophobia is everywhere. It is not confined to a single race, religion or county. So let's quit the blame game and start confronting the hate and homophobia embedded in each of our lives. Then, maybe next time California votes on my rights, I'll fare as well as the chickens.

[For more than a decade, Luna Yasui has worked as an attorney and organizer on behalf of low-wage immigrant workers, communities of color, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The views expressed in the preceding commentary are not necessarily those of the Nichi Bei Times. The Nichi Bei Times is a Japanese American news weekly.]

Source / Nichi Bei Times / Posted Nov. 13, 2008

Thanks to Jeff Jones / The Rag Blog

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MEDIA / The Minnesota Recount and the Manufactured 'Debacle'

Recount (Heaven help us) Florida style.
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Democratic challenger Al Franken. Photo from wdcpix.com, Wikimedia Commons.

The news media's tendency to compare any recount to the "butterfly ballots and hanging chads" made famous during Florida's 2000 recount, and to breathlessly report the merest rumor of impropriety, is not merely lazy and absurd and sensationalist. It is also dangerous.

By Jamison Foser / November 14, 2008

With only about 200 votes out of nearly 3 million cast separating Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, the race is headed to a recount.

Naturally, conservative radio hosts are working themselves into a lather, baselessly accusing Democrats of trying to "steal" the election. That shouldn't surprise anyone. But NBC and The New York Times have also pushed the dubious notion that the Minnesota recount has been plagued by chaos and impropriety.

Here's how Meredith Vieira, co-host of NBC's Today, began a report on the Minnesota recount: "If you thought the election debacle in Florida could never happen again, wait until you see the situation in Minnesota."

This is nonsense. The "debacle" in Florida wasn't that there was a recount; the "debacle" was an absurdly designed ballot that led to thousands of people who meant to vote for Al Gore voting for Pat Buchanan instead. The "debacle" was that thousands of voters were improperly purged from voter rolls. The "debacle" was that the state's electoral votes were awarded to the candidate for whom fewer voters attempted to cast ballots. None of those factors are present in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Senate race is simply in the midst of a recount. Recounts happen. They aren't the illegitimate, anything-goes street fights the media pretend they are; they are a part of how elections work, their process written into law and executed every year. They are necessary, for a perfectly obvious reason: They make it more likely that the candidate who receives the most votes takes office. That is an unequivocally good thing.

During that Today segment, reporter Lee Cowan announced that the situation "has some remembering shades of Florida, of butterfly ballots and hanging chads. There are neither of those here."

What possible reason could there be for bringing up "butterfly ballots and hanging chads," given that "there are neither of those" present in Minnesota? Whatever the intent, the effect is clear -- it creates the impression that the situation in Minnesota is utter chaos, a "debacle" in the making.

Cowan continued: "Still, ballots have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, including some found unsecured in an election worker's car."

That appears to be completely false. Election officials have said the ballots did not "suddenly appear[] out of nowhere," and they were not "unsecured." The claim about unsecured ballots in a car appears to have originated with Norm Coleman's lawyer. Cowan did not attribute the car story to anyone or anything, he simply asserted it as fact. Adopting and repeating Coleman's lawyer's claims as though they are facts is bad enough. What makes it worse is that the lawyer had already backed off the claim. Two full days before Cowan's report, the Coleman lawyer had been quoted saying that "we've heard enough from the city attorney to let go of this. It does not appear that there was any ballot-tampering, and that was our concern."

So Cowan offered a sensational and -- by his own acknowledgement -- wholly irrelevant comparison to the "butterfly ballots and hanging chads" of the 2000 recount. Then he made a false assertion of ballots materializing out of thin air, and of unsecured ballots -- an assertion that seems to have been based entirely on the already-retracted claims of a Coleman campaign lawyer.

Vieira concluded the segment by referring to the "mess in Minnesota." But there is no mess. There is simply a recount -- a recount that does not involve butterfly ballots or hanging chads, a recount that, despite the best efforts of Vieira and Cowan to convince us otherwise, has not a thing in common with the "debacle" in Florida. Just a simple recount.

Today's New York Times similarly promoted the idea of chaos and impropriety in the Minnesota recount -- without actually providing any evidence or examples. The Times reported:

If Fritz Knaak has his way, Mr. Franken will never have a shot at solving those problems. A lawyer hired by Mr. Coleman expressly for the recount, Mr. Knaak described himself as "the new gun with the shiny pistol." Citing suspicion over what he called a series of "shenanigans" that have narrowed Mr. Coleman's lead, he has requested the official paper tape with the number of ballots and the time stamp printed out by each ballot machine, in every voting precinct.

The Times gave no examples of "shenanigans" or any indication of who is "suspicious" that such "shenanigans" have occurred. Nor did it give any indication that it asked Knaak for examples of either shenanigans or suspicion.

Later in the article, the Times reported:

Mr. Coleman's campaign manager, Cullen Sheehan, accused the Franken campaign of "a brazen, last minute act of desperation," by asking Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, to reconsider 461 rejected absentee ballots.

Mr. Franken's lead lawyer, Marc Elias, called such assertions of ballot stuffing "fanciful and bogus."

But there were no "assertions of ballot stuffing" -- none the Times reported, anyway. The Times simply quoted Coleman's campaign manager saying the Franken campaign's request to reconsider previously rejected ballots is an indication of "desperation." That's quite different from making an allegation of "ballot stuffing."

Then the Times reported that Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten expressed concerns about the ability of Minnesota's Democratic secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, to act impartially during the recount, without indicating Kersten's own political leanings. As Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert explained, "Kersten is a right-winger who smeared Franken right before Election Day as a 'slanderer of Christianity.' "

Next, the Times quoted a "Republican researcher" who is "very, very concerned" about Ritchie. Then it quoted Sean Hannity saying "[f]ishy business" is occurring in Minnesota, where Democrats and elections officials are "up to no good." To what "[f]ishy business" was Hannity referring? Were his allegations legitimate? The Times did not say.

Finally, the Times quoted the Facebook status of "Noah Rouen, 34," a Minnesota man on a pheasant hunt who, along with his friends, "could not help but hatch a conspiracy theory."

If it seems the Times is desperate to find people concerned about the legitimacy of the Minnesota recount -- resorting to quoting vague allegations from hard-right partisans like Sean Hannity and Facebook conspiracy theories -- maybe that's because Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's Republican governor, says there is "no actual evidence that there's been any fraud or problems." (That quote didn't appear in the Times article; maybe it got cut to make room for the pheasant hunter's Facebook status.) And as Media Matters noted, the Times did not note that Pawlenty said that the bipartisan state canvassing board Ritchie appointed to oversee the recount was "fair" and that a lawyer for Coleman's campaign reportedly said that the "state should feel good about who's on the panel."

The news media's tendency to compare any recount to the "butterfly ballots and hanging chads" made famous during Florida's 2000 recount, and to breathlessly report the merest rumor of impropriety, is not merely lazy and absurd and sensationalist. It is also dangerous. It causes people to be frightened and concerned about all recounts -- to be wary of the very concept of recounts. But recounts needn't be like the "debacle" of 2000; in fact, they rarely are. They are far more frequently the best way to ensure that errors in counting do not result in the candidate who received fewer votes taking office. (Indeed, in 2004, a manual recount in the Washington governor's race reversed the results of the initial Election Day tabulations and machine recount.) Sensational and baseless reporting like that produced this week by NBC and The New York Times runs the risk of undermining public confidence in an essential part of the democratic process.

[Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.]

Source / Media Matters

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GOP : Whoops! There Goes the Firewall...

Click image to enlarge.

Firewall status: Six GOP senators have lost their places on the wall, falling off just like a bunch of Humpty Dumpties. Three more GOP seats teeter precariously.
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2008

This is an update to an earlier article on Senator Orin Hatch's frenetic September internet email plea for $7.00 donations to “defend the firewall!” Just two months ago, the Vice Chairman of the angst-ridden GOP Senators' Club was mainly concerned that Al Franken would beat Norm Coleman in Minnesota. Now, Franken and Coleman are barely a couple hundred votes apart. A Statewide vote recount gets underway there shortly. Franken could win. Poor Senator Hatch is still digesting the cold, hard post-Nov. 4th election results which saw him lose a half dozen of his fellow Senators in a massive firewall breach. What's a Senior Senator to do?

In September Sen. Hatch warned, “Al Franken is the poster-boy for the liberals' plan to break our firewall in the Senate and to seize total control of our government. Frankly, Al Franken is unfit for office." Damn, imagine, Al Franken unfit and a poster boy to boot! Al graduated cum laude from Harvard College, is a highly successful author, and a little of his SNL humor in the Senate chambers might be a good idea. Orin should read Franken's, 1993 book, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me."

Since the early panicked pleas for money, here’s the firewall’s status: Six GOP senators have lost their places on the wall, falling off just like a bunch of Humpty Dumpties including a long-time Dumptyette, Liddy Dole. Three more GOP seats teeter precariously. Democrats now have 57 Senate seats. Three more wins for a true firewall-smashing majority of 60 votes is very possible.

They are still counting in Alaska in legendary incumbent and convicted felon, Senator Ted Steven's race. At this writing with some 35,000 ballots left to count, Democratic challenger and Anchorage Mayor, Mark Begich, has the lead. Again, Al Franken has a good shot in Minnesota as the recount gets underway there.

And three's a charm in Georgia. A December 2nd runoff is scheduled there between GOP incumbent, political hack Saxby Chambliss, and Democratic challenger, Jim Martin, an Atlanta attorney. In 2004, then Georgia Senator, Max Cleland, a triple amputee who was awarded the Silver Star for exceptional bravery in Vietnam was targeted by Chambliss and the GOP slimemeisters in a filthy Rove-style campaign of lies and denigration. The ever lovely Ann Coulter was Chambliss' cheer leader savaging Cleland with her vapid vitrol. And the Senate Republicans are only worried about firewalls?

Looks like you should have asked for more than $7.00, Senator Hatch. More than money, your private senator's club needed a dose of humility and a reality check. And that is just what you have just gotten. You might have also considered that your firewall was already being attacked from the inside by the excess weight of Senatorial hubris, greed, negativity and a massive overgrowth of moss in your midst.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Our Correspondent : Germany's Alternative 'Rag' Hopeful About Obama

Die Tageszeitung: 'As Obama so often said: Change is not about me, it is about you. Europeans should feel addressed by that.'
By David MacBryde / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2008

BERLIN -- After the election, the headline of the radical German daily newspaper Die Tageszeitungis a pun: "Gute Wahl" means both "good choice" and "good election.” They were happy that their favorite won, and that the election process worked, was not stolen as some had feared.

Media background information: The Tageszeitung (literally "Daily Newspaper") can be considered, with a little stretch, to be a younger sister of The Rag. How so? The Rag was an "alternative" paper published in Austin, Texas from 1966 to 1977. [The Rag was originally edited by The Rag Blog’s Thorne Dreyer, and Carol Neiman; The Rag Blog is The Rag's spiritual stepchild.] The Tageszeitung was founded in 1979 as an alternative platform in the local media landscape, after others in Germany had tried to start "leftist papers" that were usually sectarian and usually dull, and failed.

Younger, back then, Germans had been impressed by new forms of civic actions in the US civil rights and free speech movements. The alternative papers in the US were seen by some here, and for example the Furry Freak Brothers [Gilbert Shelton’s sixties underground comic strip that originated in The Rag] got laughs, and respect. Now, while the TAZ is radically critical of aspects of US policies and society, there is a lot about the USA that is appreciated and respected.

The front page editorial is titled "Wir sind Obama" -- "We are Obama"

Excerpts (my rough translation/paraphrase):

"So there he is now. The favorite candidate in the world has also been able to convince the US Americans that he is the right guy for the White House. That is good so. A day worthy to be thought about, an historical chance -- not only for the USA. Does anyone still remember that vanguard thinker of the neo-conservatives, Robert Kagan, who announced in 2003 that in strategic and international issues the USA and Europe were so far apart, like coming from the different planets Mars and Venus? If there is any possibility with a politician of getting us down to earth, and together, then it is with Obama. Europeans would be crazy not to use this chance.

“However of course Obama was not elected president of Europe. For many years the European Governments have asked to be listened to. But actually what do they have to say? Now that Obama has been elected, what are the Europeans going to do? For a long time it has been easy for the German government to hypocritically criticize US mistakes and dominance verbally, but often remain passive. It would be better to come up with our own suggestions to put on the table (e.g. Afghanistan). It could be good for the potentially new relations with the USA under President Obama if he could meet with allies who did not duck issues or waited, but thought for themselves. As Obama so often said: ‘Change is not about me, it is about you.’ Europeans should feel addressed by that."

A test of that, and, looking forward, also a tip about something to keep an eye open for: this weekend, Nov. 15, 2008, the "financial summit" meeting in Washington will be "interesting". I do not expect any detailed decisions there, and do not know anyone who does, given the lame duck US administration and their position on issues. But there will be an effort to set up a working agenda and a time frame looking at March to get results. One historical point of reference: A year and a half ago at the "G8" richest country summit in Germany there was a theatrical blockade outside. Inside, the real blockade was by the Bush administration, which blocked the issue of the growing financial crisis from being put on the agenda. Now a broader range of countries intend to take initiative.

For now, and for the future,
David MacBryde
your correspondent in Berlin

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Larry Ray : Post-Election Kibbles 'n Bits

'A presidential campaign produces a mother lode of ideas. One learns to keep a pad and pen handy.'
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / November 11, 2008

Every reporter or writer has story ideas and scrawled words left in their notebooks after extended major news events. The daily news focus is ever changing. Wars, global warming, killer hurricanes, and of course, politicians and political campaigns. A presidential campaign produces a mother lode of ideas. One learns to keep a pad and pen handy. It is not possible to use each idea you jot down as a central theme for an article. But it always seems a shame to let them just fade away because the hot theme du jour has changed from wayward politicians caught flagrante delicto, to deadly earthquakes in California.

So, here are some of my recent sketchy notes plumped out into mini-articles. We are in a recession, so best to use everything in the pantry.

America's veterinarians are reportedly getting an income boost since the campaign is over. Sarah Palin cost them untold dollars in potential exam and treatment fees because, as one Vet observed, "Damn, that woman has a voice that would worm a dog at thirty yards!" And sure enough, soon as her nasal twang quit filling America's living rooms, dogs again started dragging their butts across those same living room floors about a week after she packed up her designer duds and returned to Alaska. The dogs are reportedly lots happier having the vet worm them than the moose mom.

Continuing the pet theme . . . Billions of American taxpayer's dollars have been shelled out to "rescue" huge Wall Street firms because of lax Federal oversight allowing greedy management to royally screw up. But there is no such thing as a Chagrined CEO. Soon as the cash was deposited in their depleted tills what did do they do? Go into the conference rooms of their posh high rise office digs and start planning how to get a grip and tighten things up? Oh, no. The almost-on-the-rocks mortgage and insurance moguls booked thousand dollar a night rooms at distant posh resorts and flew the whole management staffs there from Wall Street . . . first class. Poolside penitence. Between spa treatments, lobster niblets and lots of Dom Perignon they discussed how to best spend all the new money we just gave them. A TV news investigative team followed and caught them red-handed. That night America saw the AIG hotshots poolside, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. Outrage! Fire them all! (this call for their heads lasted for two, maybe three days)

Then, only a few weeks later, the Fed gives them another 80 billion or so of bailout money to keep their doors open, and guess what the top AIG managers did? A bit of conference room contrition? Not on your life. They kept the doors open at AIG so they could dash out of them again and fly off first class to yet another poolside executive "workshop." Again they were caught by waiting cameras. We see them on the nightly news stonily walking away from a reporter's microphone as they are asked why they are pissing away all our money.

This should be called the "Bad Dog" syndrome. These hedge fund hotshots are basically peeing on America's rug, over and over just like the family's pedigreed pooch, who despite threats and attempts to change his behavior, continues to pee the carpet. The pooch just won't learn, but at least he displays a slinking, hang dog indication that he knows it is wrong. Ever see a hang-dog sub-prime hotshot? When they talk about having a leg up on everyone else, we now know what that really means.

Finally, I was playing with the idea of the nation's self-service gas stations all of a sudden feeling the pinch of the recession with gasoline dropping from four bucks to less than two bucks. Regular gas at the Exxon station near my house has always been lots higher than the big discount station across the street from it. Now they're having a gas-war with just pennies difference in their prices. Today the discounter had regular for $1.95 and Exxon had it for $1.97. Lots of readers are too young to remember, but when Exxon was Esso, all the stations had a gimmick to get you to buy gas at their pumps. You stayed in the car while an attendant came out, asked you how much and what grade of gas he could put in your tank. Then he checked the oil and cleaned the windshield while the gas was pumping. If you got a fill up, you got a free dinner plate or coffee cup. The idea was to get you to return and eventually get a service for six of dinnerware. Wonder if Exxon and Chevron will be forced to actually compete for business in the coming couple years of recession? There would be no trouble filling the station attendant jobs. But I wonder if folks will have any use for the dinner plates?

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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MEDIA / Larry Ray : Parsing the Pundits

Graphic by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog.
'Like pond minnows swarming around a morsel tossed into the water, every news outlet on TV, and especially cable talk shows, have a feeding frenzy when a speculative gem is broadcast by any one of them.'
By Larry Ray / November 9, 2008

After months of endless guessing, speculating, pontificating, fear mongering and blathering, came the evening of November 4th, and the TV talking heads had spectacularly shown their asses. Ordinary American voters had it right. The talking heads had just been jabbering.

Let’s set this up a little first. As a retired nightly newscaster from the old school, I stayed on the air just into the gender-correct Alphonse and Gaston vaudeville co-anchor era, I know the difference between correct and commercial chowder. I lament what passes for news and commentary today. I wish America’s broadcast and cable news operations were still run by tough-nosed editors, news directors and assignment editors instead of by their corporate headquarters.

Today’s news and commentary offerings, with very few exceptions, are run strictly as major revenue producers. Most are dog food factories with higher paid, better looking employees. Good looks, perfect hairdos and smooth teleprompter reading skills are the hallmarks of “good” today. What they read is second to how it all looks. America’s remaining three major networks, broadcasting over the public airwaves, still have one newscaster sitting in the chair introducing stories beamed in via satellite as 30 second to two minute “packages.” What little network news there is sandwiched between interminable commercial breaks is generally OK, excluding the fluff stories. Cable news has lots more time to fill, and so there is lots more about Paris Hilton than there is about Paris, France, and lots more fluff.

Like pond minnows swarming around a morsel tossed into the water, every news outlet on TV, and especially cable talk shows, have a feeding frenzy when a speculative gem is broadcast by any one of them. In a matter of minutes everyone is doing their own version of the gem. “Bradley effect, is a good example.” “Bradley effect” sent the 20-something desk producers and ‘researchers’ to the Google servers. Faster than you can say “Exclusive,” all news and sorta-news outlets were predicting a dire hidden force eluding the polls that menaced the Obama campaign. In a loud “Not so” to the prognosticating pundits, more white men across the nation, and even into the old South, voted for Obama than for any Democrat since Jimmy Carter. More voted Obama than for Bubba Clinton.

Obama Hussein, the secret Muslim terrorist, was not going to get the Jewish vote, and Florida was portrayed right up to election day as teetering and a toss up. A huge helpless sigh issued from TV sets across America. Ooops. Wolf got blitzed and Olberman was overruled. In a turnout even larger than that for John Kerry, 78 percent of America’s Jews voted for Obama. And endless shuttles to the polls from retirement homes in Florida as well as the Cuban-American vote there helped produce a handy win for Obama.

The ones listening hardest to appellations like terrorist, socialist, most liberal, inexperienced, were apparently the TV pundits who endlessly repeated and combined them ad nauseam. The ones really listening to America's heartbeat and making their own assessments clearly were average American voters, not the pundits.

There is a lesson in here somewhere for those who fill the time on cable channels and for folks reading teleprompters and doing interviews. Producers and millionaire show “hosts,” why not do your own Google searches for, “initiative,” “resourceful,” “original,” “variety,” “lucid” and “accurate.” We’ll see how you do in four years. Faux News, never mind, you don't count.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Marijuana a Winner in 2008 Elections

Talk show host Montel Williams is shown speaking out in support of legalization of marijuana for medical uses. Williams has described his need for medical marijuana to deal with the pain associated with multiple sclerosis.
Voters say 'Yes' in Cannabis-related initiatives.
By Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / November 9, 2008

Marijuana-related measures on various ballots around the country did fairly well in last Tuesday's elections.

In Michigan, a medical marijuana initiative passed by 63% to 37%, making MI the 13th state to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail. MI becomes the first medical marijuana state in the Midwest, and the second largest in the country (behind California).

In Massachusetts, a landmark initiative to decriminalize marijuana passed 65% to 35%, removing the threat of arrest for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, and replacing jail time with a $100 fine, payable through the mail. This is the first time that voters anywhere have passed a statewide decrim initiative! Also in MA, four state House districts passed nonbinding public policy questions directing their representatives to vote for legislation allowing seriously ill patients to use cannabis, with the approval of their doctors.

In California, a measure that would have cut public housing benefits for those convicted of recent drug offenses, increased prison and law enforcement spending, and raised penalties for gang-related activities and other crimes, lost 70% to 30%. However, another measure that would have diverted more drug offenders from prison into treatment and improved the marijuana decrim law enacted by CA's lege in 1975 went down to defeat, 60% to 40%. Meanwhile, in Berkeley, a measure to expand non-residential zones where medical marijuana dispensaries can locate, issue zoning certificates, and bring the city's marijuana possession limits into line with recent court rulings passed, 62% to 38%.

Fayetteville, Arkansas and Hawaii County, Hawaii passed measures making adult marijuana offenses the lowest priority for local law enforcement, 66% to 34% in AR and 53% to 39% in HI.

For more information, go to Marijuana Policy Project.

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Paul Buhle : The American Elections of 2008: A First Take

Banners congratulating president-elect Barack Obama hang Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, outside of City Hall and the Cook County Building in downtown Chicago. Photo by José M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune.
'Obama, former community organizer, is the figure of a new century, with the combination of unprecedented prospects and complications faced by any multi-racial leader.'
By Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / November. 8, 2008

It was a historical moment not to be forgotten.

So many things about the Grant Park, Chicago, crowd of nearly two hundred thousand on election night, will remain in global memory for a long time. The young people, every skin-color, wildly enthusiastic, overwhelmingly hopeful offered television viewers breath-taking moments, alongside aging African Americans who had been part of the civil rights movement and remembered Chicago as one of the most brutally segregated cities in the US. These older people remembered most vividly the 1983 victory of Harold Washington as the city’s first Black mayor, a victory organized by leftwingers of various ages but notably the old, former organizers of labor and radical movements of the 1930s-40s, still on the job, mobilizing local support among white working class people for a progressive black candidate and against racism one last time.

Until now.

Another political memory of Grant Park is quite different: police rioting against peace demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic convention, just forty years and some months before this year’s post-election events. Now, in 2008, the Chicago police were orderly (some of their former officers are under investigation or indictment for torture). Now, the young people and others were in support of a president coming to power, no longer successfully shut out by the hawks in the Democratic or Republican parties.

American society at large has changed greatly, of course, since the 1960s-70s, and that is no small part of the story. White men over age 60 seem to have voted, in majority, for John McCain, and so did rural counties of whites populations in many places. But first-time voters (68%) and the fastest-growing sectors, Latinos (67%), voters under 30 (66%) and Asians (63%) voted for Obama. The “silent majority” of Nixon and Reagan victories, not to mention the dubious majority of George W. Bush’s victories, had never been a real majority but its votes had been rallied by conservatives, especially Catholics and evangelicals. These are now populations stuck in the past and slipping away, grown increasingly hysterical about “our country” and its demographics, thus eager to take Sarah Palin as their heroine and consolation (nevertheless, 55% of American women voted for Obama).

Beyond all this, the historic role of the Left nationally is crucial to explain and explore here. The New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt corresponded, after 1934, with the Popular Front, some of whose local participants had already begun working in alliance with the Roosevelt administration before the global Communist declaration of a new, anti-fascist direction. The re-election of Roosevelt in 1936 was powered by the rise of the Left-led Congress of Industrial Organizations, that is, industrial unions and their voting power; while the cultural wing of the New Deal, its “public face” in the popular arts, was very largely a leftwing operation. Franklin Roosevelt quietly depended upon leftists, and Eleanor Roosevelt (more personally sympathetic) invited them to the White House.

Notwithstanding the “Pact Period” and Communist opposition to Roosevelt in 1940, the momentum of New Deal politics was owed greatly to the rank-and-file activists, the keen political strategists, the Hollywood Left, and all those who articulated and fought for a more egalitarian, inclusive American democracy.

All this seemingly ended in the Cold War era, with the martyred candidacy of former vice-president Henry Wallace in 1948 (supported by young George McGovern and actress Katharine Hepburn, among other notables). It was crushed by avowed warrior Harry Truman and by the anti-communist crusade directed by businessmen and political conservatives along with cooperative liberals, mobilized by Catholic and Protestant conservatives. The Wallace campaign marked the final push against the permanent militarization of the economy, and the rush of American empire-building to replace the fading European colonial powers with US control of the Third World. Afterwards, the defense industry and consumerism, weapons, suburbs, a national highway system and accelerated depredations of the natural environment went hand in hand, actually aided by fears of Atomic war and Communist influences elsewhere in the world. Notwithstanding Elvis Presley and a certain youth uneasiness, the system seemed to have become a self-enclosed loop.

The unlikely revival of peace sentiments during the 1960s, driven by the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and the associated draft, also by youth cultural rebellion, drew upon a new generation but also upon the children and political networks of the veteran leftwing activists driven underground but not quite out of existence. Communists, Trotskyists and others from the “Old Left” continued to have an influence, especially in mobilizing demonstrations, if little actual following. The Democratic party absorbed sections of young idealists uneasily, unwilling to accept peaceniks and quietly determined to preserve its leaders’ own close ties to the military and intelligence agencies.

The collapse of the organized New Left after 1970 found a generation of activists practically stranded, successful in dozens local campaigns or brief and vivid political moments, but forever stymied in any larger visionary agenda. The Clinton years introduced empire-building, civilian population bombings and invasions in a new vein, and exuded confidence in the wake of the East Bloc collapse. Even the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, one of the most vivid of the anti-war, Left-connected moments in recent history, ended in a practical demobilization. Momentum, as so often, could not be maintained, even as revelations of horrors increased. Minus the draft, minus major US defeats, the wars slipped to the back pages.

Until, that is, the opening of the nomination process in the Winter of 2007-08. Peace activists and others, now linked closely once more with civil rights enthusiasts and prominent African American personalities, seized onto the unlikely campaign for Barak Obama, pouring into it an amazing amount of energy, just as it seemed prepared to take off…or die. Close observers joked that the coalition could be called the “Harry Belafonte Left,” devotees of the aged Caribbean-born actor who had been hugely popular as a singer in the 1950s (many said, the first Black sex symbol in American life), but so committed to militant protest and leftwing activities that he was denied a Hollywood career. Now aged but joined by younger supporters (Danny Glover in the lead) eager to jump into the familiar campaigns against US invasions and for popular mobilizations, Belafonte symbolized all that was vibrant in American radical traditions.

During the process of the election campaign, especially after a hawkish Hillary Clinton had been defeated, Obama eased toward the center on foreign policy as in other issues. And yet, neither conservatives nor liberals could forget his past allies and political friends (the “red flag” for conservatives was William Ayers, former Weatherman, then respectable professor). More important, the more that conservatives appealed to a hard-right following of Sarah Palin, deeply racist and nativist, the more Obama seemed to represent something starkly different.

Newscasters, commentators, bloggers and ordinary people, not only in the US but world-wide, have for some months referred to the 2008 presidential campaign as the “election of a lifetime” or “election of a century.” As the voting approached, forty percent of each body of supporters in the US registered “fear” of the consequences if the other party’s candidate were elected. A degree of cynicism in all this is inevitable. The passions of the election season are highly orchestrated, and many billions of dollars will be rewarded to the winning party by lobbying and “friends” in one way or another. Popular sentiment, however, is unquestionably at its peak since the early 1970s, more widespread than even during the two Reagan election years, 1980 and 1984, when global and domestic policies were correctly seen to be facing drastic conservative changes.

Now looking back at the election season and the election itself, there have been two outstanding and utterly remarkable developments, accelerated over the last months of the campaign. That these events take place against the background of an economic crisis of unknown but vast proportions can be taken up shortly.

The first is doubtless the turnout of crowds, and the demography of crowds, for Obama rallies. While John McCain was forced to bring school children by bus from neighboring towns to bring an Ohio crowd to 20,000, Obama occasions ranged from 10,000 to 100,000 (in St. Louis, historically one of the most racially divided, heavily blue collar cities), with audiences of white, Latino, black and Asian in mixed numbers, age leaving heavily but by no means entirely toward youth. A single shared sentiment: that the direction of the country was, or might be, about to change dramatically, far more dramatically than the cautious candidate himself was likely to seek.

The second is the crowds for Sarah Palin, much smaller in number but no less intense, signaling something very different. In what Palin refers to as ”pro-American” regions of the country, a phenomenon nearly approaching an American fascism could be seen and heard. Among the crowd in Phoenix, at John McCain’s concession speech (as has been widely reported, Palin sought unsuccessfully to inject herself as speaker before McCain), scarcely a nonwhite face could be found, and the white faces were hard. Denied victory, they would be looking for revenge.

That the decisive factor in the popular (but especially “swing”) vote has almost certainly been the state of the economy rather than what could rightly be regarded as a “culture war” between two very different views of the United States and its place in the world, is perhaps the most predictable element of the outcome. But the willingness of large parts of blue collar America to vote against its own financial interests is so much a familiar part of the political landscape since 1980 (and long before, in many ways) that an eclipse of this support has been a shock to the system. In the “battleground” states, one in five votes of self-described conservatives and one in three self-described Evangelicals went for Obama.

Is the US now a “post racial” society? Definitely not. Will the Obama presidency bring changes as sweeping in public welfare, education, health and the environment as the New Deal did during the later 1930s? Probably not, unless allowed and compelled politically to do so by economic crisis and a popular mobilization that goes far beyond voting and may revive third party prospects at the local and state level (the Working Families Party enjoyed some modest advances in several states as part of an Obama team). Will an Obama presidency rein in the American pursuit of total global control and pull back upon the brutal demands of the American empire? That is the biggest question of all.

It should be remembered how ferociously Democratic power-brokers resisted supporting student peace demonstrators in the 1960s and early 1970s, how determinedly Democratic hawks (including the leaders of the American labor movement) deserted George McGovern’s peacenik presidential bid in 1972, and how the same figures schemed, gathered financial resources, and punished peaceniks within the Democratic party, as they returned to power within the Democratic party even before the Reagan years. The successful centralization of power by the Democratic Leadership Council, with its sources in Democrats for Nixon was foreshadowed by Nixon Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s defeat of antiwar “old left” congresswoman Bella Abzug in the New York Senatorial primary of 1972, and accompanied by the heavily-funded attacks against the Jesse Jackson campaign of 1988. In the same years, Harry Belafonte was widely discussed as a possible Senatorial challenge, from New York against the repellant Republican rightwinger Alfonse D’Amato. He was dropped when the redbaiting by Democrats and Republicans set in. This story, however, brings us up strangely toward a moment, a symbolic image, in the present.

Belafonte, the global citizen dressed in his signature windbreaker on the cover of Life magazine at the end of the 1950s, looked like nothing so much as a late-campaign photo of Obama in the New York Times, dressed in a rain-spattered jacket. They were handsome brown men, almost beyond handsome in their charismatic looks. They were, everybody knew, also really intelligent, measured in their judgment, shrewd in their public personae. Belafonte, who began his activist career under the most difficult possible circumstances of the Henry Wallace campaign, had carried his generation’s message as far as it could go within the deeply racist society and the militarized economy of mid-century. Obama, former community organizer, is the figure of a new century, with the combination of unprecedented prospects and complications faced by any multi-racial (in standard American terms: nonwhite) leader.

Would the Empire drag him down? That was the question as large as the economy, and marked by the same immediate issues of “experts” brought over by the president-elect from the Democratic Clinton years. No presidential aspirant likely to win can avoid promising to defend America’s global supremacy, with the military budget (and near-certain bloodshed) to go along. Would an Obama presidency squander the extraordinary good will of a global population desperately eager for a new path toward peace and some greater degree of cooperation on the environment, health and all the other related issues? Or would some way be found, by Obama and beyond Obama, to make the mobilization across the US become a global mobilization?

These are questions for the near and further future, unavoidable and difficult. For now, the faces of the crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park tell us what we need to know. A new day has arrived.##

[Paul Buhle, publisher of the New Left journal Radical America during the 1960s, has written or edited many books on radicalism and culture. He now organizes leftwing comic books.]

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Baylor : Obama Signs Burned; Noose Hung from Tree

Noose. Photo by AP.
University officials denounce racial actions on election day.
October 5, 2008

WACO — Baylor University officials said they are investigating an apparent noose hanging from a tree the day Barack Obama was elected the nation's first black president.

Campus authorities also responded to a barbecue pit fire where several Obama campaign signs were believed to have been burned, interim president David E. Garland said.

"These events are deeply disturbing to us and are antithetical to the mission of Baylor University," Garland said in a statement Wednesday. "We categorically denounce and will not tolerate racist acts of any kind on our campus."

On Tuesday afternoon at the world's largest Baptist university, some students notified officials that a rope resembling a noose was in a campus tree, Garland said. Campus police took the rope and are investigating.

"We believe that the incidents on our campus yesterday were irresponsible acts committed by a few individuals," Garland said.

No students had been taken into custody as of Wednesday afternoon, Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman said.

Source / AP / Google News

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Paul Buhle : FDR, Obama and a new Popular Front

FDR: Time for a new Popular Front to support Obama?
'The young and not-so-young folks in Times Square, Harlem, Capital Square in Madison, Grant Park in Chicago are our people, and have every potential of mobilization for the long haul.'
By Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog / November 5, 2008

Hello everybody. I was asked to write an election piece for a French leftwing mag, and will be doing so in the next couple days.

I say, the small blip that produced new SDS (and the effort to create a real MDS) a couple years ago was a precursor of the large blip that brought young people into a decisive role in the election.

We all know the limitations of Obama's campaign and advisors and all that, no need to dwell on those for the moment.

What counts more, in my view, is the prospect or possibility that, as FDR, an embattled Obama being pushed in every-which direction will need the kind of voting and support bloc that the Popular Front created, mainly through the new CIO but also through a range of cultural organizations, for FDR's re-election campaigns (leaving aside 1940 and even then, FDR depended heavily upon the movement that the Pop Front had created). The Left built itself up around and beyond the titular political leader.

I showed my "Jewish Americans: Films and Comics,” an animated 1944 film piece, a couple days ago, made by folks who quit Disney after the strike, and other lefties; I could identify several of my interviewees in the credits. It looked, more than anything else, like an Obama video ad.

Let's savor this moment and use every possibility to our advantage.

The young and not-so-young folks in Times Square, Harlem, Capital Square in Madison, Grant Park in Chicago and all those places are our people, and have every potential of mobilization for the long haul.

Let's help them win their place in history.

[Historian Paul Buhle is a writer, editor and senior lecturer at Brown University, and a leader of Movement for a Democratic Society.]

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Michael Moore : Pinch Me!

President-elect Barack Obama addresses victory crowd at Grant Park in Chicago Tuesday night. Photo by Pat Benic / UPI.
'Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war.'
By Michael Moore / November 5, 2008

Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.

In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.

There was another important "first" last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.

It's been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That's because most Americans haven't really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here's their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.

But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country's greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.

We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, "gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?" Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We've entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.

An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.

We really don't have much time. There is big work to do. But this is the week for all of us to revel in this great moment. Be humble about it. Do not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years. Show them the grace and goodness that Barack Obama exuded throughout the campaign. Though called every name in the book, he refused to lower himself to the gutter and sling the mud back. Can we follow his example? I know, it will be hard.

I want to thank everyone who gave of their time and resources to make this victory happen. It's been a long road, and huge damage has been done to this great country, not to mention to many of you who have lost your jobs, gone bankrupt from medical bills, or suffered through a loved one being shipped off to Iraq. We will now work to repair this damage, and it won't be easy.

But what a way to start! Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Wow. Seriously, wow

Michael Moore's website.

The Rag Blog

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