“The old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.”

Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand.

We move to November. Let us say that Ned Lamont defeats Joseph Lieberman and Alan Schlessinger, Jr — oh, 50.1 (just to hurdle us past the majority there) to 39.9 to 10. Joe Lieberman gives his concession speech.

“The old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand.”

At which point, a sniper shoots Lamont dead over at the Victory celebration, and Lieberman — surrounded by his Praetorian Guard, marches forth to his Senate office to resume his duties as Senator and … ahem… Statesman.

Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand. Cannot and will not let that result stand.

I’m thinking he probably would have had a good clean shot at the Governor chair in Connecticut. But then I’m thinking that he wouldn’t get anything done there. For one thing, the famed ten percent of his views that are out of step with the Democratic Party are outside the purview of Connecticut governor, and those ten percent are probably in the end-run his passion. Second, and more importantly, he would not have a good seat in the Beltway Establishment — for he is not a Democrat or even a Republican (even as he becomes a Republican proxy in the 2006 election campaign, as Republicans work an effort to churn out a story that a sensible Democrat has been “purged” out by a bunch of neo-McGovernites — who, incidentally, leads Nixon in the polls these days, into a reality that settles somehow into the electorate) but instead is a member of the Beltway Party. And the Beltway Party is nothing if not an advocate for a one-party system, one where a particular and peculiar line of thinking is strictly enforced.

I now note a strange irony. In 1992, the Republican Party was all aflutter that Bob Casey was not speaking at the Democratic Party Convention, probably trying to make political hay out of it by suggesting that anti-abortion — pro-life if you must — (more targeted: Catholic) voters are being consigned out of the Democratic Party, a litmus test is being enforced. Clinton and the Democrats maintain that the reason he didn’t speak is because he hadn’t endorsed Clinton for President. Either way, the “purge” storyline seeped into the Political storyline. 2006, while Lieberman is supposedly “purged” from the party — the Democratic Party cleared the field whereby Bob Casey, Jr. — politically speaking seeming to be a clone of his father — would be the party standard bearer in the Pennsylvania Senate race, what is considered the Democrat’s top political pick-up opportunity. How does this work? You purge one thing and then regurgitate it whilst purging a similar but distinctly different confection?

#1: “Islamo-Fascism” is not a real word, and anyone who uses it should be summarily dismissed as not being a real person. The word for what Bin Laden and et al are pushing for is called “Theocracy”. A brilliant notation to Thom Hartmann for pointing out the obvious, beyond the simple mind-numbing of that propagandistic term.

As evidence of this, simply go to the wikipedia entry on this term, and to the origins:

The Guardian attributes the term to an article by Muslim scholar Khalid Duran in the Washington Times, where he used it to describe the push by some Islamist clerics to “impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry”.

Theocracy, no?

#2: Iraq is NOT “the Central Battle in the War on Terrorism”, even in the sense that I tended to think that “that’s because the US made it so”. An attack in Spain, an attack in Britain, an averted attack in the US (stopped by international police work, tipped off by a Muslim in Great Britain, Bush uses the word “we” at his own dishonesty… he had nothing to do with anything.)

#3: In a very real way, incidentally, there is a “Move along, nothing to see here” quality to this news story. Plot hatched, as many a plot are. Plot attempted, as a handful of plots are. Plot dashed. Good job! My worldview is not affected, as I already knews plots were being hatched, attempted, and dashed.

#4: The Ned Lamont ad that showed Bush with audio from Lieberman coming out when he opened his mouth is truer now than it’s ever been, though I guess the most immediate connection at the moment is Dick Cheney.

#5: The government is now going to take away your lip-stick from here to eternity. A cottage industy shall arise replacing cosmetics for arriving passengers. Score one for the Terrorists. Inconvenience in the airport becomes just a little too burdensome and pointless.

Keeping in mind the rule, I think from Issac Asimov, that there are only seven plots going on — period — I will now point out that two movies with much hype to them coming out have pretty much the same premise. Oliver Stone’s 9/11 and the retro-b high concept for the sake of high concept thriller Snakes on A Plane.

I will also point out, on this day when a terrorist attack was said to have been thwarted and you can not bring liquid onto a plane, that whether conciously or subconciously, this is not an accident. Any where along the lines did the makers of 9/11 in their board meetings pitch that “This will capture the post – 9/11 Zeitgist and blah de blah?” I have no way of knowing.

What you learn really quickly from hearing mash-ups is that songs are pretty much the same in the realm of pop music. You can post a Beach Boys song over a Nirvana song with very little tweaking and come out humming. I imagine that the same is the case with these two movies: move dialouge from one movie to the other and it’ll come out, maybe a bit jarring, but not too far off.

I regret that I did not get that post “You Know What You need to do” up earlier than I did. I was unable to marshall the forces of Connecticut Democratic voters that are hidden within the half a dozen readers of this blog that would have brought Lamont to that magical ten point victory that, according to reports, would have had Lieberman bow out. For that I apologize to the entire Blog-o-Fascist community. On the other hand, my idea to hack into and pull down Joseph Lieberman’s $15 web-site, covered in the “you know what you need to do”, was shared by someone else, and that was good.

Now I ponder. This is supposedly the triumph of the Blogosphere. To a more particular degree, which the media at large is eluded to, it’s actually the dawning of the video-blog sharing at Youtube in political campaign uprisings, a wide pastiche of home-constructed pro-Lamont but mostly anti-Lieberman campaign ads and a large selection of videos hounding Lieberman on the campaign trail. Does that continue? If you go to youtube through the duration from here until whenever Lieberman bows out — will we see clips of hecklers waving the newly renovated with a different meaning “Sore Loserman” signs at him?

There was this moment in the 2004 election cycle where some blogger or other wanted Raph Nader bug out, and suggested that he run a quixotic primary campaign against Joseph Lieberman in 2006, because Lieberman represents all that he is against in the Democratic Party and he would raise his points and get a whiff of media attention in his crusade. This struck me as stupid for the simple reason that Nader was not about to defeat Lieberman, and I would have much rather preferred someone beat the man. Beyond which, Nader is not a Democrat, both for his dignity and the dignity of the Democratic Party. (He’s not even a Green, because, you know, he’s cooler than thou.)

So I watched from my perch a strange secession of would-be challengers, earnest though they may be tedious and lacking in the serious challenger category. Paul Newman floated his name should no one throw their hat into the ring. A college professor whose name escapes me because I never bothered to learn his name.

And then came along Lowell Weicker, the Republican who lost to Lieberman the first time out in 1988. At this point I shrug, but I do sense that we were getting closer. And then, stepped out of the void, Ned Lamont. Apparently he stepped in after reading Lieberman’s Wall Street Journal editorial, and the comment that “Democrats undermine the president at their own peril” jars. It was provocative words, and if one is to throw punches like this one cannot feign outrage at the indignity of someone punching back. His default position — you must respect my principle, my principle, my principle I say — falls down on fallow ground when he himself is not able to respect my principle, my principle, my principle I say.

At some point or other someone is just going to have to write the definitive book on this campaign. I think I can piece together a good chronology of events. I remember noting Bill Hillsman coming in to work with Lamont, and remembered it as a portence that this just might work out. At this point in time we may as well call Bill Hillsman a political genius — that’s Paul Wellstone, Jesse Ventura, and now Ned Lamont. I don’t know if he’s moving on now or not (on to Kinky Friedman’s gubernatorial campaign in Texas?), (does he roll across the nation, make quick stops, work his magic, and then leave in the dead of the night to work on his next project?), or what now.

The campaign continues. Unfortunately. The campaign should be over now, with the Republican having selected their weak candidate (who stands at 9 percent in the poll) and the Democrats having selected theirs. But Lieberman moves on. It’s a curious campaign. My hunch is that Lieberman will eventually quietly recede into the sunlight, but it’s just a hunch. Meanwhile the Republican Party believes that they can use Ned Lamont as some sort of bogey-man to prop themselves up with, that the Democrats are getting shrill and dropping such principled men as Lieberman. Chris Shays, Connecticut Republican Representative in a tough campaign — the last bastions of Moderate Republicanism, lines himself behind Lieberman, and therein lies the double-edge: it’s another Democratic Primary as a general election. Republicans are obliged to sit this out, vote for their mediocre candidate, or vote for Lieberman… who, I shall point out, Sean Hannity — before a big Lieberman backer and that tells you all you need to know, has now opted out of support for Lieberman.

I should move on now. I’m getting murkier and murkier here.

I don’t believe in Democracy, which is to say that the word is an abstraction whose pure essence does not exist in real life with competing components in it that collapse on themselves. Approach one ideal, and another ideal recedes over the horizon.

The term “tyranny of the majority” comes to mind, by way of explaining why it is that an election does not a democracy make. I hear that Hitler was duly elected, occasionally the proper qualification is put in place — no, no he was basically appointed, more frequently not. The deal here is that the will of the majority is all good and well so long as it doesn’t mean the minority are shoved into ovens. A sense of pluralism must fall into the picture somewhere.

For the purpose of dissolving this scape-goat tendency away (Homosexuals aren’t having much of a good time in Iraq these days), I hear that democracy requires a genuine middle class, or perhaps the idea that the vibrancy of a nation ought be defined by that standard as opposed to the the ruling class. A pop quiz: what do you think of when you think of Ancient Egypt? What do you think of when you think of America in, say, the 1950s? King Tut and Hula hoops respectively, or some iteration of those themes that brings out the consumerist bias in us all.

The whiff of aristocracy, or King Tut, comes through in the United States’s system of government with the in some corner’s famous Alan Greenspan quote that he felt it was his responsibility to maintain a degree of worker insecurity. Other examples exist, and I may well need to pull together a blog burst of some sort.

Move to Hugo Chavez, champion of the poor, for the flip-side in the stumbling to a coherent democracy. John Dean wrote a book recently that claims Authoritarianism is the province of right-wing politics’ adherents, aptly assigning, say, lingering yearnings for communism in Russia to the right by way of “tradition” — the same will probably be true in a hypothetical post-Castro Cuba, if it can get past the USA stamping it into a neo-liberal mold of basically giving Cuba back to United Fruit. Hugo Chavez is something of a classic populist model of a leader in a third-world nation (whither that middle class?) — he reminds me, and apparently Greg Palast who’se a bit more sympathetic to both figures here– of Huey Long. More importantly, he’s example A of John Dean’s left-wing authoritarian figure — what else would he be?

Muslims, I’ve heard whimpered about as well as cynically disputed by the Bush Administration, cannot hold a democracy — it is against their religion. Truth be told, democracy is at root against every religion, and why you don’t want religious clerics (elected or otherwise) running your nation. Put Pat Robertson in charge of this nation and see what happens. Pluralism dissipates on contact.

Lebanon is a democracy. Or so I hear. Bush says it is, and claimed it as one of the triumphs of his Doctrine of War. Hezbollah, I guess, has acted in the political process of Lebanon as, say, Tammany Hall did in New York: at bottom and at its most benevelont, a social service network for the needy — beyond that, something else. Not a precise or even useful analogy beyond the narrowest precepts, but what are you going to do? I mentioned Hezbollah on this blog in 2004, by way of correcting Patty Murray’s 2002 statements which showed up predictably in her opponent’s campaign to unseat her. (Patty Murray has a Different View of Osama Bin Laden)

Israel, I hear, is a nation we need to throw 1,000 or 10,000 percent support behind, whatever they choose to do, because it is, I hear, the only democracy in the middle east. Except for Lebanon. And Turkey (which I think is more Muslim than Lebanon). I sense also that it is about to become chic to throw American support around the Kurds, and their desire to form what’d be a more democractic than their Sunni and Shiite counterparts in Iraq — Kurdistan. That would bring about some strife with Turkey — not a war, mind you, because, as I heard, it is impossible for Democracies to go to war against each other.

Land back to Lebanon and Israel and I guess you get around that rule by that rule with “They’re fighting Hezbollah — a Country within a Country!” Or rather, Israel is turning the nation toward supporting Hezbollah, thus subverting that original theme of the perils of Democracy and that country within a country more fully merges with the country proper, and thus Lebanon is no longer a democracy, so that steadfast rule of Democracies never ever fighting each other (in neoliberal parlence by way of Tom Friedman — conflates the two — two nations with McDonalds have never gone to war with each other — by now a rule long gone) is safely averted.

It is now 7:03 in Connecticut. And every registered Democrat in Connecticut knows what he or she needs to do.

Hillary Clinton: There’s a track record here. This is not 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, when you appeared before this committee and made many comments and presented many assurances that have frankly proven to be unfulfilled.

Donald Rumsfeld: Senator, I don’t think that’s true. I have never painted a rosy picture. I’ve been very measured in my words and you’d have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where I’ve been excessively optimistic. I understand this is tough stuff.

It is funny that he mentions Dickens. Remember this press conference from July of 2005?

Rumsfeld: Was it the best of times? Yes. Was it the worst of times? Perhaps. Was it the age of wisdom? Could be. Was it the age of foolishness? Maybe. Was it the epoch of belief? I think so. Was it the epoch of incredulity? I guess you can decide for yourself. Was it the season of light? I think so. Was it the season of darkness? We can all go to the dictionary and decide what you want to call something. Was it the spring of hope? You bet! Was it the winter of despair? If you say so.

Last Saturday, the news rolled across the blogosphere that the New York Times had endorsed Ned Lamont over Joseph Lieberman for the Democratic Primary in the Connecticut Senate race. Strangely I read the editorial in the honest-to-gosh print edition, having a copy of the print edition of the New York Times in my hand before I washed ashore online Sunday. In case you missed it, this is the totality of their case for Ned Lamont, as aside from the case against Joseph Lieberman:

Mr. Lamont, a wealthy businessman from Greenwich, seems smart and moderate, and he showed spine in challenging the senator while other Democrats groused privately.

I hear someone from the peanut gallery (albeit a really well-off and wealthy peanut gallery) shouting “Hey! I’m Someone Else!”

A spin through the New York Times archives shows that Ned Lamont was mentioned in the newspaper twice during the twentieth century, with just as much broadband. Case in point, January 30, 1983:

With about 125,000 households in the 10 towns in the area, Cablevision of Connecticut is hoping to sign up about every other household, said Ned Lamont, project director for Cablevision Systems. “As has been the case elsewhere, movies and sports are the mainstay of the services requested,” Mr. Lamont said.

The next town to be serviced will be Greenwich, starting in March or April, and all 10 towns are due to be wired by the summer of 1984, he said.

I don’t know what my point there is, precisely. Stick quote-marks around “cable television” and preface it with “so-called”, by way of explanation. But apparently Lieberman commissioned a poll at the dawn of the year to see how he would fair in a hypothetical primary match-up with a “Democratic candidate who opposed the war and was critical of the Bush Administration”. The poll came back 50-50. There’s a propensity to overthink these things. Who is Ned Lamont? A man who looks as though he can play give and take in a legislature and whose views better match your own on some very crucial issues than does Joseph Lieberman. Isn’t that enough?

It’s become a bit rote to point out that “we’ve created a Shiite Crescent” in the Middle East, running through Iran, Iraq becoming essentially an Iranian Client state, and into those troubles in Southern Lebanon. It’s a bit curious as Americans, amp up the concerns once expressed by Sunnis, when Americans couldn’t tell you the difference between Sunni and Shiite if theire life depended on it, choosing to lump them into the same Muslim umbrella and let that be it. This ignorance is excusable to the population at large to a certain extent, less excusable to the chattering class who end up crafting the language of discussion on matters of foreign policy, and completely inexcusable to the Bush Administration, Bush the Lesser reportedly not knowing the difference between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds right on the eve of launching the War in Iraq.

What’s prickling me these days is another tired canard. It’s a gag I hear all the time, from the John Stewart Show to right wing radio to any dumb random person on the street. It is the phrase “Holy Shi-ite!” or any substitution of “Shi-ite” for the word “Shit”. To wit, “You know, the Israelis are bombing the Holy Shi-ite out of Lebanon!”

My mind reels to an Australian broadcast from the start of the Iraq War, looking at Fox News and Al-Jazerra, starting the broadcast with a clip of John Gibson saying “The Shi-ite is going to hit the fan.” The Australian news-caster then said, “Human Beings as Feces. That’s just one of the things you’ll hear on the American Fox News Network.”

After a few years, my initial indifference to the jab turns to irritation. It’s political and not political at the same time — which is to say that it is an easy meme to pass to the general generally apolitical public. It’s a lazy affront, a stupid pun, and a means toward dehumanizing a population, theoretically and in some alternate universe one the US Government is “liberating”. The contradictions collapse onto themselves.

… watched the session from behind a 2-way mirror. To get at voter’s real feelings about Duke, the Roemer aides had the moderator ask a series of questions about a hypothetical candidate. “What would you think of a candidate who had evaded teh draft during the Vietnam War and lied about it later?” he began.

“I can’t imagine a man who wouldn’t serve his country,” one man said.
“What about a candidate who had plastic surgery?” the moderator asked.
“I’d wonder about his sexuality,” another man said.
“What would you think of a candidate who hadn’t paid his taxes?” the moderator asked.
“I pay my taxes,” a woman said, “and I expect a politician to.”
“What about a candidate who has never held a job?”
“How can anybody understand our problems if they’ve never held a job or sweated for a living?” a man asked.

As the first group filed out, Strother told Dawson and Lambardo that he wanted to try something differen with the second group to ferret out and gauge more accurately the pro-Duke sentiment. This time the moderator would discuss the hypothetical candidate and then identify him as David Duke. When the second group was asked how they felt about Duke’s haaving evaded the draft, a man leaped to his defense. “Everybody of that generation was trying to evade the draft,” he said. “I went to Vietnam, but I would have evaded going there if I could have.”

When asked about the plastic surgery, a woman said, “What’s wrong with a politician having plastic surgery? Movie stars do, and politicians, after all, are movie stars.”

What about Duke not paying taxes? “Only dumb people pay taxes,” a woman said. “Politicians and millionaires don’t because they’re smart. Duke must be smart.”

What about his never held a job? “He’s a politician,” one man said. “Politicians don’t work.”

What about his having been in the Klan? “It was when he was a kid,” a man said. “Kids do crazy things.”

What had been unacceptable character flaws in an unidentified candidate were now acceptable when it was revealed to be Duke. In his nearly 30 years in politics, Strother had never seen anything like it. He was shaken and turned to Dawson. “Itos over for Buddy,” he said.

(page 211-212, The Rise of David Duke

………………………..

After the speech I stand outside on the wooden porch with Bill while he has a cigarette and tried to unwind. He’s a Toomey (the conservative challenger to Arlen Specter in the 2004 Republican Pennsylvania Senate primary campaign) voter, a man guaranteed to go to the polls. “I vote on social values. I don’t even mind paying taxes, as long as we get something for our money. I want smaller government, less intrusion into our lives. I’m against stem cell research, and I’m pro-life. I’m against cloning — that’s way out in left field.”

He strikes me as a military guy, and a man for whom integrity plays an important role. Toomey is unwavering in this regard, so I ask him about the president. I ask him about Bush not wanting to go to Vietnam and if that will affect his vote in the fall. “Bush wasn’t avoiding going to Vietnam,” he told me. “If he was he would have gotten a deferment. He joined the National Guard to fight.”

I try to see what brand of cigarette he’s smoking and consider asking him for one though I haven’t smoked in twelve years. The Specter caravan piles out behind us. I have to get to Pittsburgh soon. “But his father,” I say, smiling just enough so that he doesn’t think I’m making fun of him but also so he knows I don’t quite share his ground, “got him to the head of the line. There were a lot of people that wanted to join the National Guard. And the National Guard only meets once a week. If he wanted to go to Vietnam he could have joined the military.”

“I don’t see that as an issue,” he says. “I do see that as an issue with Kerry that the guy after his said he wasn’t fit to serve.”

Bill is referring to the commander who replaced Kerry on his boat in Vietnam, a Republican with harsh words for the Democratic nominee. Bill’s comments stay with me on the long drive to Pittsburgh, where I pass a sign that says “Remove Sunglasses” and another that reminds me to “Be Alert.” These are people whose minds will never be changed. And there’s evidence that 45 percent of likely voters are like Bill. There’s another 45 pe4rcent like me and if Bill knew what I really thought he probably would have kidnapped me to be presented to local militia, where I would likely have been skinned and made into furniture.

(Looking Forward to It, Stephen Elliott, 176-177)
……………………………

Nader’s in Portland because of a state law that allows a candidate to qualify automatically for the ballot if he can gather a thousand supporters in one room to get them all to sign a petition. The hall they’ve rented for the occasion is at Benson High School, on the northeast side of the city, and holds 1,200.

The protesters are out in full force in front of the school. Billionaires for Bush are there to thank Nader for helping their candidate. They wear fake furs and blow exaggerated kisses. They’ve set up a bed near the end of the sidewalk where two of them roll around in fake money. I talk to several of the “billionaires”, pointing out that in 2000 it was Billionaires for Bush and Gore and the group had protested both candidates equally, essentially supporting Nader. On their website in 2000, they had run a list of donors who had given money to both Democrats and Republicans, hoping to buy influence on matter who won. None of the “billionaires” in Portland knew their history.

(240-241)