True patriots

The Washington Post reports on the domestic spying program and toward the end of the article I found some interesting stuff.
First, the National Security Agency machines are not selective:

. . . the agency has acknowledged use of automated equipment to analyze the contents and guide analysts to the most important ones. According to one knowledgeable source, the warrantless program also uses those methods. That is significant to the public debate because this kind of filtering intrudes into content, and machines "listen" to more Americans than humans do . . .

Second, in the NSA version of reality, they haven't actually done anything even if their machines listen to every single phone call and email ever sent anywhere:

NSA rules since the late 1970s. . . have said "acquisition" of content does not take place until a conversation is intercepted and processed "into an intelligible form intended for human inspection."

So the conclusion I draw is that all the phone calls that everybody makes could well be available electronically in the NSA database somewhere and NSA would continue to claim they actually had not "acquired" this data.
You see the hole here, don't you?
The data is sitting there, just waiting to be processed. Just because some NSA supervisor or even some judge hasn't approved it, doesn't mean that the data could not still be used.
To make money, for one thing -- imagine being able to listen in on Bill Gate's phone calls to find out when would be a good time to buy or sell Microsoft stock.
But mainly to keep the Bush administration informed about what the Democrats are up to. Remember that in Karl Rove's universe, absolutely everything is political. Democrats are, by definition, traitors. Cheney said a year ago that voting for Kerry was risking the security of the United States. It wasn't just a cynical ploy -- they really believe this.
So it might well be possible to convince some super-loyal, super-patriotic NSA employees that the Democratic congressional leadership, say, or Howard Dean or the DNC are a threat to the repubic -- particularly if the NSA is also hiring 24-year-old presidential campaign workers like NASA is.
They would think that listening in on Teddy Kennedy's phone calls would be the patriotic thing to do.

He's back!

The delightful prospect of a new war in the Middle East is bringing the old timey neocons out of the woodwork again. This Reuters article quotes Richard Perle advancing the self-serving argument that the lousy intelligence in Iraq justifies preemptive strikes against Iran -- because, after all, the only way you can "try to wait until the very last minute" to attack over Iran's nuclear program is if you are "very confident of your intelligence because it you're not, you won't know when the last minute is".
Time to stock up on the duct tape again, is it?

Ding, dong

Well, I know employers are supposed to be responsible and all that, but in this case I still think its too bad that they didn't just let Dingwall sue.
Now, the Globe is reporting that: "an independent arbitrator . . . concluded that Mr. Dingwall had not resigned, as the government suggested at the time, but had been fired . . . after a prolonged controversy about his six-figure office expense account. A subsequent review by PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm concluded Mr. Dingwall's spending was within the rules with minor discrepancies."
Also, its rather disingenous for Stephen Harper to act so amazed now at the news that Dingwall was fired -- he was deservedly shown the door for embarassing the government with his prolifigate spending and inane statements like "I'm entitled to my entitlements" -- which the Conservatives made good use of in in their TV commercials before the election.

Kettle, pot, tables turning, etc

Well, well -- how do ya like them apples?
Surveillance Prompts a Suit: Police v. Police:

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.
Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."
"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.
Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.
Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

If

On my way to work this morning, my car was hit on the freeway by someone running a red light -- he was from out of town and just didn't see it. He hit the front fender on the passenger side so my car is totalled.
I'm OK, though I had double vision at first -- very odd sensation, that -- and I am still very sore where the seatbelt hit me and my knee is bunged up from hitting the dashboard -- and the other driver is better than me -- he had an airbag which I did not.
Maybe some slow posting the next few days until my chest stops hurting when I type.
Interesting to think about what might have been, though, isn't it -- if I hadn't had to clean up a broken dish this morning I would have left for work earlier, and if I hadn't pulled into a different lane I wouldn't have been in this fellow's way when he came through the intersection.
Then again, in either of those scenarios he might have t-boned someone in the opposite lane and maybe even killed them, who knows?

Great line of the day

In The State of the Union, Driftglass examines Bush's appeal last night for bipartisanship to clean up the mess he had made:

This is the bitter and divided world you and your minions created, Mr. President. And you did it deliberately, calculatedly and with premeditation. On September 11, 2001, without earning or deserving it, you were handed a Truly United States of America. And for tawdry, partisan motives you and Karl and the rest of your Shitkicker Mafia decided to drive a venomous wedge straight through its heart without any regard of the poison you were unleashing into the body politic. Congratulations; you have reaped what you have sown . . . in the Dubya Era a person can be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but they can no longer be both. And that, Mr. President, is quite obviously the world you wanted all along.

Emphasis mine.

Have you heard the good news?

Great to hear that Alberta is sending cheques to people in other provinces. Well, I'll be watching my mailbox now, too.

Get it? Got it?Good!

The story on dropping the Sheehan charges gives this explanation:

"The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol," Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said in a statement late Wednesday.

So the Bush administration is enforcing unwritten laws, while at the same time they are ignoring the laws that are actually written down.
Right, I think I've got it sorted out now.

Mr. Bush? Saudi Arabia is calling on Line 2

And Kuwait is on Line 3.
And boy, are they pissed!
But don't worry, boys -- I know you think you understand what you think Bush said. But what you don't realize is that what he said is not what he meant.

Feeling hopeless?

Read this -- Homeless man given highest award for civilian bravery for helping save woman

"2,245 Dead — How Many More??"

Oooo -- how scary! Subversive, even! Arrest that woman! How dare that Cindy Sheehan wear a t-shirt to the State of the Union saying "2,245 Dead — How Many More??" -- such goings-on simply cannot be tolerated in a democracy!
The priceless thing about the whole story is this: in their eagerness to spare King Bush the slightest embarassment, his Brownshirt-Lite Royal Guard have just killed any positive momentum which Bush might have achieved with this speech.
Cindy Sheehan had virtually disappeared from the major news media over the last few months. If they had let her sit in the gallery, wearing her t-shirt during the Bush speech, chances are the network cameras would have panned over her once or twice during the speech and that's it. But now, this needless arrest has put Cindy front and centre again. She was all over the news tonight and will be again tomorrow -- apparently she is going to be on the morning TV shows now too.
Bush's speech is dull news now - stay the course in Iraq, switch to ethanol at home, ho-hum, same-old, same-old.
I'll bet the White House is simply furious.

The golden age

This Newsweek article about evangelical debaters - Cut, Thrust and Christ - made me think about the overall goals of the religious right.
When you look back over the last hundred years or so, the 20th Century, you see the larger picture, I think -- basically, how the rise of the progressive left in the western democracies helped both individuals and society make a lot of social and economic progress.
Progressives supported unions, to end sweatshops and help working people get paid what their labour was worth. And medicare and access to education and workplace safety regulations and old age pensions, to make people's lives safer, more secure and to protect people against economic catastrophe. With these advances also came so-called "liberal" courts which brought us things like the privacy rights, birth control, abortion rights, affirmative action, and equal rights, which ended anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and discrimination of all kinds.
These left-wing advances were not just theoretical constructs. People today may not remember, but men and women died fighting for these 'liberal' ideas -- union organizers were killed in the early 20th century; civil rights workers in the South were beaten and hung. And millions of people have benefited directly and personally from these changes -- they were paid decent wages for their work, they could save money and buy their own homes, their working conditions were made safer, their children got educated in decent schools, they got health care when they were sick, they had enough money to live on when they got old, and they had the right to pursue happiness without being held back by discrimination.
Now the right seems to think it is their turn -- the pendulum has swung their way, they think.
The problem I have is that I cannot discern what the right wing wants to do with all their new-found power, except to somehow turn back the clock and dismantle everything the liberals created.
This Newsweek article about how right-wingers are training their young to rule the world gives us some insight into right-wing goals:

. . . the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country. Seventy-five percent of Liberty's debaters go on to be lawyers with an eye toward transforming society. "I think I can make an impact in the field of law on abortion and gay rights, to get back to Americans' godly heritage," says freshman debater Cole Bender.

Godly heritage? What is that, and how does it help a working person qualify for a mortgage? Well, its a mythical golden age, back to when America was founded, when men were men and women were women and "God's in his Heaven. All's right with the world."
So what would a society based on a "godly heritage" look like? Well, forget about using the Constitution to protect anybody's rights, forget about government entitlement programs, forget about those burdensome government regulations (except to outlaw abortion). Such a society starts to look like this one or this one.

I am liberal, hear me roar . . .

After the disappointment of seeing the Alito cloture vote approved, I was thinking how downhearted the progressive blogosphere would be tonight.
But they're not, not at all.
They're reciting Shakespeare, and channeling Churchill, and praising Kerry, and quoting Robert Kennedy.
Reminds me of a song:

I am liberal, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

I am liberal, watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make conservatives understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am liberal

With apologies to Helen Reddy.

Doesn't CBC News use Google?

In Comments, pale (aka fuddleduck) notes this CBC News article - a poorly-researched story about American Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and his latest love song to what he sees as a sneakily clever Stephen Harper strategy.
With friends like these , etc etc.
Anyway, this Weyrich fellow -- who is described in the article only as a "U.S. right-wing strategist" rather than the fascist wing-nut he actually is -- calls same sex marriage and abortion "cultural Marxism". The CBC naively goes on to say "He does not say how these things are linked in his mind to Marxism."
Why doesn't CBC know how to google? Just google "cultural marxism" and you get this page which takes you to this Southern Poverty Law Centre website on their Intelligence Project which gives a detailed and very scary description of a well-established, vile, anti-Semitic, fascist philosophy -- its far beyond just a crazy idea in Weyrich's mind:

"Cultural Marxism," described as a conspiratorial attempt to wreck American culture and morality, is the newest intellectual bugaboo on the radical right. Surprisingly, there are signs that this bizarre theory is catching on in the mainstream.
The phrase refers to a kind of "political correctness" on steroids -- a covert assault on the American way of life that allegedly has been developed by the left over the course of the last 70 years. Those who are pushing the "cultural Marxism" scenario aren't merely poking fun at the PC excesses of the "People's Republic of Berkeley," or the couple of American cities whose leaders renamed manholes "person-holes" in a bid to root out sexist thought.
Right-wing ideologues, racists and other extremists have jazzed up political correctness and repackaged it -- in its most virulent form, as an anti-Semitic theory that identifies Jews in general and several Jewish intellectuals in particular as nefarious, communistic destroyers. These supposed originators of "cultural Marxism" are seen as conspiratorial plotters intent on making Americans feel guilty and thus subverting their Christian culture.
In a nutshell, the theory posits that a tiny group of Jewish philosophers who fled Germany in the 1930s and set up shop at Columbia University in New York City devised an unorthodox form of "Marxism" that took aim at American society's culture, rather than its economic system.
The theory holds that these self-interested Jews -- the so-called "Frankfurt School" of philosophers -- planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values -- Christianity, "family values," and so on -- are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left.
The very term, "cultural Marxism," is clearly intended to conjure up xenophobic anxieties. But can a theory like this, built on the words of long-dead intellectuals who have little discernible relevance to normal Americans' lives, really fly? As bizarre as it might sound, there is some evidence that it may. Certainly, those who are pushing the theory seem to believe that it is an important one.
"Political correctness looms over American society like a colossus," William Lind, a principal of far-right political strategist Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation . . . and a key popularizer of the idea of cultural Marxism, warned in a 1998 speech. "It has taken over both political parties and is enforced by many laws and government regulations. It almost totally controls the most powerful element in our culture, the entertainment industry. It dominates both public and higher education. ... It has even captured the clergy in many Christian churches."
The idea of political correctness -- the predecessor of the more highly charged concept of cultural Marxism -- was popularized by the mass media in the early 1990s, highlighted by a 1991 speech by the first President Bush in which he warned that "free speech [is] under assault throughout the United States." By the end of 1992, feature stories on the phenomenon had appeared in Newsweek, New York magazine, The New Republic, Atlantic Monthly and the New York Review of Books.
The Wall Street Journal. . . said it posed a "far worse ... threat to intellectual freedom" than McCarthyism. In the pages of The Washington Times . . . Heritage Foundation scholar Laurence Jarvik wrote angrily that "storm troopers" were attacking "Western culture."
Of course, the phrase was basically a politically charged construct that was used to mock the left and even liberals. Challenges to gender bias, efforts to diversify the nation's universities, and similar policies were dismissed as attempts to turn the universities into "gulags" under the thumbs of left-wing thought police. The term was used to attack ideas while avoiding any discussion of their merits.

And it is the promoter of this theory -- Paul Weyrich -- who is now enamoured of Stephen Harper and the Canadian conservatives.
He was the one who emailed American conservatives just before our election to tell them not to speak to Canadian reporters for fear they would say something nutty and thereby jeporadize Harper's election chances. Now he has written a laudatory article about Harper's victory -- the CBC said his story was on the Free Congress Foundation website but they provided no link and I couldn't find it. Anyway, CBC quotes him as writing this about Harper:

"Harper is pleased that the media and many in his own party are nay-saying," he writes. "Harper thinks that such pessimism would lower expectations and give him additional latitude to accomplish his agenda.
"Harper's game plan apparently is to pit the federalist Liberals against the Bloc Québécois and the decentralizing Bloc against big-government Liberals.
"Canadian media understands that Stephen Harper greatly would expand defence spending. He does not like the Kyoto Treaty . . . More importantly, Harper favours participating in the United States missile defence program . . .
"It is not widely known in this country that a Canadian prime minister has more power than a United States president. Harper could appoint 5,000 new officials. (No confirmation is required by the Canadian Parliament.) The prime minister also could appoint every judge from the trial courts, to the courts of appeal to the Canadian Supreme Court, as vacancies occur.
"Harper's partisans believe he could maintain power for four years, during which time Conservatives hopefully would witness many vacancies created by Liberals leaving the courts. The Supreme Court of Canada currently is dominated by Liberals.
"As has been the case in the United States, cultural Marxism largely has been foisted upon Canada by the courts. If judges who respect the Constitution were to be appointed they would confirm that such rights are not to be found in that document. Sound familiar?"

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it does. But it sounded better in the original German.

Voting against Alito

One more reference to recent American news -- I think the Alito filibuster is another battle where the only choice is to decide which side to be on.
The side to be on in this battle is the filibuster side, whether it wins or loses.
America will hate Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court justice -- he is a toady and a syncopant, as well as a right-wing pro-lifer. Americans will remember who tried to put him on the court and who tried to stop it.