January 2008 archive

NB: This is a candidate diary with the references to the candidate removed. The candidate diary itself will go live on the Big Orange, sometime a little after midnight.

One serious confusion in some progressive populist thinking online has been a misunderstanding of the role of the progressive blogosphere as a tool for building a progressive movement.

However, as a progressive populist looking at the passive-voice descriptions that “populist messaging fails because there is not a populist movement” … I feel like jumping up and down and yelling, “read your history books you idiots!”

A populist movement is not created in coffee house discussions, whether live or online … it is created in the process of fighting for things, and in the process learning how to engage in a political fight and transform ourselves from political consumers to citizens of a Republic.

And without populist messaging leading the way, there will be nothing to take to our fellows when we get out amongst them.

Picture Credit: David Leeson (#8)

Agence France-Presse had these hopeful words:

Amid the chaos, a mediating team led by Kofi Annan, which has been in Kenya for a week, said it would launch formal dialogue between President Mwai Kibaki and his opposition rival Raila Odinga at 4:00 p.m. (1300 GMT) in Nairobi.

If Annan’s mission fails, however, it might be time for the international community to step in. With force. Because this was the real story, in that story:

The slaying of a Kenyan opposition lawmaker sparked riots Tuesday across the east African nation already reeling from weeks of deadly clashes set off by disputed elections.

Police fired tear gas and hundreds took to the streets of opposition strongholds in western Kenya and Nairobi’s slums to protest the murder of opposition MP Mugabe Were from Nairobi’s Embakasai constituency.

Heavily-armed police patrolled two recent western Rift Valley flashpoints of violence, the lakeside towns of Nakuru and Naivasha, where scores have died in gruesome attacks in recent days, pushing the overall death toll since the December 27 election to more than 900.

Plumes of smoke rose from Naivasha’s slums and machete-wielding youths burned houses and roamed the streets, an AFP correspondent said.

The machetes should chill the blood of anyone who remembers the genocide in Rwanda. Both sides have charged the other with committing or approaching genocide, Genocide Watch has called a Stage 6 alert, and the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide is sending staff. It does not get more serious.

The Great Orange Overlord has spoken on the New Hampshire Primary recount.  All is well in the world of Kos, and we should be greatful.

     Welcome to an intensely romantic, tingly all over, pre-Valentine’s Day edition of Pony Party, during which we gaze deeply into each other’s eyes — and whoever blinks first buys the next round. That’s fair, isn’t it? Especially since we’re exploring that vast, uncharted, explosive-laden territory called “love.” (Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s where the “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” sign was supposed to go. Shouldn’t it at least be displayed at both places?)  

    Tonight, Pony Party is brought to you by Mortified: Love is a Battlefield by David Nadelberg. David’s earlier book, Mortified: Real People. Real Words. Real Pathetic., dredged up the pain of adolescence with actual quotes from diaries, essays and letters.

    Love is a Battlefield narrows that perspective. The book is an ode to love gone bad, a celebration of defeat, disgrace and dashed hopes that are the essence of first love. (In fact, recalling those disastrous days just makes me wonder – why are we so dogged in our pursuit of an emotion that never fails to turn around and bite us where it hurts most?  Isn’t this like insisting on repeatedly flying in an airplane that was specifically designed to crash and burn? But I digress….)

    Based again on diary entries and love letters, Mortified covers “the boundlessly embarrassing topic of childhood love … unrequited crushes, awkward hookups, odd celebrity infatuations and all manner of romantic catastrophes.”

    Hilarious doesn’t do this book justice – here’s just a teeny tiny little copyright-infringement-free sample:

“Introducing Live Evil: Laurent Martini

              Least Likely to … Roll with His Safety On

I was launched to sink. I was short and fat and had braces and huge glasses. My desperate desire to be cool was most likely only surpassed by my extreme desire to have a girlfriend. Knowing that my looks put me at an insurmountable disadvantage, I decided that the only way to achieve my goal was to become a rock star and form the greatest metal band ever: LIVE EVIL.”

Fueled by a fixation on Motley Crue, and with inhibitions smothered in Jack Daniels and Bailey’s Irish Crème (gak!), Laurent created more than 100 songs, including: “Blame it on the Booze,” “Shot of Jack,” and “Shit for Brains.” Yet, mysteriously, both love and rock stardom remained elusive. Now older and wiser, Laurent has at least come to terms with the failure of his bad-boy rocker dream:    

“The only drawbacks? My upper-middle class upbringing in the San Francisco Marina District, elite private French schooling, and the fact that I was too lazy to actually form the band.”

Of course, all good things come to those who wait, and Laurent demonstrated that some old adages are not complete crocks. He did find a woman and get married. And although that proved to be a short-lived state of bliss, he also got around to the rock band part of his dream. Sadly, it’s … well, I’m going to refrain from commenting. You can experience it for yourself at www.lifeevilrocks.com.  

Laurent’s Live Evil saga is just one of many heart-throbbing tales in Love is a Battlefield. It would be remiss not to mention chapters like Marnie Pomerantz’s “Hot for Teacher,” “My Life as a Biker Babe” by Jane Cantillon and Johanna Stein’s priceless tribute to Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Winnipeg.” In fact, other than a couple of truly weird ones, the entire book is a hoot.  

    Please, do your Valentine a favor and buy Love is a Battlefield, or at least get it from the library. But do not rec the Pony Party. The ponies are all weepy and their mascara is running from remembering their own adolescent heartbreaks, so get off their backs, okay? Record your own lovesick childhood foolishness in the comments (we won’t laugh, promise! ha ha ha). Then be excellent to yourself and giddy-up on over to the esteemed Front Page and Recent and Recommended Diaries, where there are serious people discussing important issues without bursting into tears and wondering how that bottle could be empty already and if the package store delivery service is still available. Pass me a tissue, would you please?  

UPDATE: The ponies are dragging me off the class. Be back later. Don’t make a mess while I’m gone, you hear? Love you!    

1. I know this will come as a shock to some, but Attorney General Michael Mukasey is blocking an investigation into Alberto Gonzales. Sorry to burst the bubble. The Los Angeles Times reports the Justice Department is accused of blocking Gonzales probe by the Office of Special Counsel.

   The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

   Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly “impeded” his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch’s letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

   The Justice Department wants Bloch to wait until its own internal investigation is completed. A department official signaled recently that the investigation is examining the possibility of criminal charges.

   But that, the regulator wrote, could take until the last months of the Bush administration, “when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible” being taken by his office.

   Bloch’s allegations show how the controversy, which mostly focused on the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006, continues to boil inside government.

   So much for Mukasey being “independent”, “not part of the Bush political circle”, and “hard to see him becoming a subservient tool of the White House.” Didn’t see that one coming, did ya? Right?

2. Another shocker story from the Los Angeles Times, A Cold War redux is seen on the horizon. “Growing friction between the United States and Russia over Iran is only part of an increasingly difficult relationship that many diplomats and experts consider to be in its worst shape since the end of the Cold War, and at risk of further deterioration. Although U.S. officials are publicly playing down the rising tension, a series of conflicts has prompted some within the Bush administration to conclude that, for domestic and geopolitical reasons, Russia is now more comfortable with the U.S. as an enemy than an ally.”

   “Russian analysts acknowledge that the Putin government is trying to exploit anti-Americanism for political purposes… [But,] Russian analysts argue that the United States bears as much or more responsibility for strained relations. The two countries have often clashed because of flawed foreign policy on the part of the United States, they say.” I lay the responsibility for Cold War II at the feet of Bush administration and their joke-of-a-Russia-expert, Condi Rice.

3. How’s that occupation working out for ya? Well if you’re poor and from Latin America, maybe not so well. According to yet another Los Angeles Times story, Iraq contractors tap Latin America’s needy.

   In the United States, [Gregorio] Calixto might be under treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Iraq, receiving daily physical therapy and counseling. Here he’s an unemployed street vendor, renting a spartan room and struggling to recover physically and emotionally from severe shrapnel wounds.

   He is one of several thousand Latin Americans who have taken jobs with U.S. contractors as security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 1,200 Peruvians are in Iraq, mostly guarding sites in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Chileans, Colombians, Salvadorans and Hondurans have also served as part of the polyglot assemblage providing “conflict labor” in U.S. war zones.

   Although most appear to have returned to Latin America safely and with enough cash to buy houses, taxis and businesses, others, such as Calixto, have been unlucky: seriously injured in Iraq and left to negotiate a labyrinthine and what he terms inadequate U.S. insurance system.

4. The Washington Post reports despite Wall Street driving the U.S. economy over a cliff, Year-end bonuses keep coming! “The grim toll that the U.S. mortgage crisis has taken on financial markets has been felt worldwide… But largely spared have been financiers on Wall Street, a place where brokers, bankers and traders are called into corner offices at the end of each year and told how large a bonus they’ll receive for the year’s work. The size of the figure reflects their value to the company, and many feared — even complained out loud — that the amount would be badly affected by the subprime mess. They needn’t have worried. Wall Street bonuses totaled $33.2 billion in 2007, down just 2 percent, by the estimates of the New York state comptroller’s office. Seven of Wall Street’s biggest firms boosted their total compensation and benefits to a combined $122 billion, up 10 percent since 2006, despite seeing their net revenue collectively fall 6 percent”. Booyah!

Four at Four continues below the fold with a story about the 7-year prison terms facing the 10 Burmese protest leaders and Al Gore’s IPO.