July 24
Remember a while back I advised supporters of the DFL to mention Hwy. 62 anytime Minnesota Republicans try to claim managerial competence in running the state government? Add an outstate highway to that statement, specifically Hwy 53 which runs between International Falls and Duluth, and has serious safety problems. It also has federal funding thanks to an earmark by the representative for that district, Democrat James Oberstar. MnDOT however can't get itself organized to use the money and get the highway improved. Very telling is this quote from Brad Larsen, MnDOT's federal relations manager: "Everyone in the state is unhappy that they aren't receiving enough money to meet their transportation needs." Oh, well, if it's lousy for everybody, then that's OK. Actually it's a gift to the DFL, because the Crosstown project, as iconic as it is, might not mean much outstate, and Hwy 53 might not mean much in the metro area, but now we get an icon for both if we're smart enough to use them.
Funny the coincidences one runs into. Saturday afternoon I went into a Starbucks for the first time, and Saturday evening I learned they're accused of firing workers who want to organize unions. I had a gift card to use, and discovered that Starbucks has a ton of coffee, a few premium sodas, and a few sandwiches. Since I don't drink coffee I have to admit the appeal was limited. Since I believe strongly in the right of workers to organize, I find Starbucks even less appealing. I also have most of the money left on the card and being a frugal Scotsman, it's hard to let Starbucks keep that. Do you know how copper wire was invented? Someone tried to pull a penny away from a Scotsman. I'm not familiar with the cases of wrongful discharge alleged on starbucksunion.org, but such things happen so frequently to pro-union workers that I believe it.
I had a minor thrill the other day when my question got used for the Ask Dr. Maddow segment of the Rachel Maddow Show on Air America. Thanks to podcasting I never miss her show, even though I rarely hear it live. On the July 14 show, I was the otherwise anonymous Eric who asked why Guantanamo is referred to as "Gitmo". For those who don't know, the Navy's abbreviation for the base at Guantanamo is "GTMO", which turned into the slang name "Gitmo", and (here we get to the part I did know) has been adopted by people who want to sound like their in the know. At some point if it hasn't it will enter normal language (my opinion --- Maddow didn't go in to this) , just like "General Purpose Vehicle" became "GP", and got phonetically re-spelled to "Jeep". Jeeps are still used in American suburbs and in "Beetle Bailey."
Since I bemoaned the careless bicyclists I observed while bicycling the other day, just to be fair I'll complain about a careless driver I encountered today, specifically a smoking driver. I saw the driver in a white sports car shaking his hand in an odd way and for a long time in a shake I eventually recognized as a cigarette smoker shaking a pack the pack the tobacco tighter, at least I recall a smoker telling me that's why they do that. What happens shortly after was quite predictable. Some piece of garbage, the plastic wrapper I assume, went out the window and bouncing along the highway to complete its transition from wrapper to litter. I doubt cigarette smokers are the only drivers who toss their crud out the window for the rest of the world to share, but it sure seems like the crud coming out is mostly cigarette packs and butts. Highway litter isn't exactly global warming, nonetheless, it's damned annoying, and if smoking is ever banned in outdoor public places, it will be less the health of the smoker than some cigarette smokers' attitude that the world is their ashtray.
July 23
You may not be familiar with the concept of "framing", except as it pertains to pictures and carpentry. The political meaning is setting the terms of a debate in such a way that hearers think about an issue in a certain way right from the start, and the side that wants them to think in a different way has the problem of explaining why the basic way the issue is understood is wrong. A classic example is "death tax" instead of calling it what it actually is, the "estate tax". Those on the pro-tax side have the chore of explaining it doesn't tax death or dead people, but instead taxes otherwise untaxed estates being handed tax-free to heirs. Most people support eliminating it because they think their much less than seven figures estates will be taxed. Another example of framing is "war on terror", which sounds frightening and allows the user to connect unconnected events, specifically the war on Al Qaida and the invasion of Iraq. If you've wondered why it's been so hard to get he public to see what was going on in Iraq, and why roughly a third still think Saddam was working with Osama, that's because of the highly success framing by conservatives. They are far better at it than liberals. We think to much in nuance and detail, and start out trying for a clear case if examined by an informed person. Conservatives look for simplistic ways to sell something. Intellectual conservatives, and there are some, would rightly resent that last sentence. Let them however resent the conservatives who run the Republican Party.
This is all introductory to showing you the current framing, and I hope we can counter it. You may have heard that Newt Gingrich has taken calling the current conflicts and tensions with fundamentalist Muslims "World War III". I expected it when I heard Sean Hannity repeat it on his radio show. The term is being repeated by other right wing politicians and pundits. Another term you may have been hearing is "Islamofascism". In his speech to the National Press Club last week, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA married the two terms, mentioning World War III and repeating the term "Islamic Fascism".
OK, time for one snarky comment: so what was the Cold War, World War Two and a Half? Back to being serious.
Why are they using these terms? I believe they really do see a general struggle with Islamic fundamentalists, and I'll admit they have a case. The instances they cite are different conflicts with different roots and including people with differing objectives, but there is an undeniable common denominator of Islamic fundamentalism. That's the grain of truth in what they're saying. I'll even believe many conservatives have honestly and simplistically jumped to the conclusion this must be a world war. However, in the case of Santorum, Hannity, and Gingrich, this is less a conclusion than a sales strategy.
Here's what I think they're thinking with these terms. In the use of "fascism", they know fascism has strong negative connotations. It's an epithet we on the left sometimes apply to the right, usually inappropriately, but we do so because instinctively we know the word has power but isn't quite as evil as "Nazi". I suggest some conservatives are trying to deflect that term onto the likes of Iran and Al Qaida. I suspect another motivation though I doubt this is conscious. They're trying to end the use of the term "fundamentalist" to describe "Islamofascists". The difference is "fascist" describes a totalitarian political philosophy organized around ethnicity and nationality. Wikipedia has a good definition. The term comes from the Fascist Party in Italy that was the mechanism for Benito Mussolini to rule as a dictator. It has come to be generically applied to extreme right wing movements like the Nazis, the Japanese nationalists, and the American KKK. "Fascist" can be used to describe people who oppose the expression of viewpoints they deem unpatriotic, who proclaim the superiority of their nation, race, or ethnic group, or who call for conquest of other cultures based on the perceived threat of other belief systems.
The problem then with the term "Islamofascism" is it describes a philosophy based on religion, not nation. That's not to say fascists might not see a religion as one of the nation's characteristics and therefore see nonbelievers as a threat. Japanese nationalism was tied in inextricably with Japan's religious beliefs, Nazism gained support from German Christians, and those American conservatives who can rightly be described as fascists are organized around some version of Christianity as well being white Americans, but religion isn't the organizing principle. If the Lebanese Muslims being described this way in the last week were fascists, they would still be Muslims, but they would proclaim the superiority of the Lebanese over their neighbors, or in an Arab context they might organize around the superiority of Arab culture. However, Hezbollah and the other "Islamofascists" are cross-national and pan-Islamic, within their sects. That's the another complication the right prefers to ignore, as if there is a monolithic enemy like the Axis powers or the Soviet Union. In fact the pan-Islamic groups or governments are in fact pan-Shiite or pan-Sunni. Hezbollah and Al Qaida are enemies, but it's handy to pretend they're one big force arrayed against us. The Afghans and Iraqis have shown they don't even have a common national or ethnic identity, yet they have the Taliban and would-be theocrats in Iraq.
So why not use the more accurate term "Islamic fundamentalist"? Or the more precise terms "Shiite fundamentalist" or "Sunni fundamentalist"? My guess is because the term "fundamentalist" can be applied to any religion. The word goes back only about 100 years to its coining, but the concept is much older of course. It implies moving away from the modern and towards the basics of the religion, and taking the religious texts literally. In practice at least, fundamentalists find the outside world something to at least be wary about and perhaps even fear, to see the nonbeliever as per se a threat. So if the problem with Islamic terrorism and Islamic theocracy isn't that it's fascist but that it's fundamentalist, couldn't that imply that all fundamentalism is dangerous? Even if you answer no, for a believer, that question has to be uncomfortable. Nonetheless, if we want an accurate description of the threat we face, we have to call it what it is -- religious fundamentalism. So what I suggest is conservatives are trying to frame the debate over the threat of Islamic fundamentalism in terms that don't suggest religion is the problem lest we ask whether Christian fundamentalists or other fundamentalists are a problem too.
I made the snarky comment about the other frame I'm hoping to alert you to, World War III, but there's a serious point behind it. Conservatives are trying to make the public think we're in the biggest struggle since World War II, so as to make liberals defend our refusal to take the situation seriously. How can you not take a world war seriously? Especially when conservatives have been generally successful in deceiving modern day Americans about one aspect of World War II, that the left tried to convince the country to take on Hitler before Pearl Harbor, while the right opposed American involvement until we were attacked. I'd wager the majority of Americans believe the opposite to be the case.
By labeling the flurry of warlike news as World War III, conservatives are trying to cloud the issue. We're looking at conflicts with different causes and only limited connections, none of which come up to the scale of the Cold War let alone a world war. The conflict in Kashmir, which just drew attention through the commuter train bombing in Mumbai, has long roots in the battle (literally) for control of Kashmir between Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan. Somalia comes from 15 years of chaos since the last dictator fell in a poor Islamic country. The conflict in Gaza is part of the long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The war in Lebanon comes from the civil war in Lebanon, the poverty of Lebanese Shiites, and the extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Lebanon. The occupation of Iraq is the cause of the sectarian killings and possible civil war (where the line is between sectarian killings and civil war I'm not sure). Without making an exhaustive list, you see the point. There are multiple conflicts that may have connections but not always. This is of course a harder position to explain than saying, "Look, lots of fighting, lots of Muslims, it must be an Islamofascist world war!".
So why do conservatives put it that way? My opinion, I expect they would deny it, is they've trying to prevent a more nuanced and more accurate analysis. They're trying to change the issue from how Republicans and Bush administration have consistently screwed up. I admitted earlier there is a common denominator in current conflicts of Islamic fundamentalism, but there is also a common denominator of Republican incompetence and corruption. In Iraq, there has been less concern with development than with handing out money to crony contractors. The invasion of course was on false pretenses, and whether that was lies or dreadful mistakes, either is really bad. In Afghanistan, Bush invaded and instead of using near unanimous public support (me included -- not only would President Gore have invaded, I think President Nader would have invaded), blew it off to invade Iraq. In Palestine, Bush took a one-sided view and ignored it, aside from taking credit for free elections (does he take credit for Hamas winning the last election?) Tensions have only risen with Iran. Hezbollah has become a real army. Darfur has been ignored. Somalia has been ignored. We still don't inspect cargo coming into our seaports.
So we need to counter conservative framing quickly before they make national security work for them again in this year's elections. We must agree the world is dangerous or we'll look like we just don't get it, and that's no lie, the world is dangerous. But then we must use their tactic in the service of honesty, and use the term "Islamic fundamentalism" as much as necessary to make it part of the frame of the debate. We must repeat the list of Bush screw ups until the GOP is on the defensive. We must not avoid national security as an issue as so many Democrats are wont to do. Do NOT say "I think national security is fixing our health care system" because that's an obvious dodge. We should adopt the Rovian tactic of taking on our opponents on their strength, which need not be dishonest. We can tell the truth while going after the acting president and his enablers in Congress on the one issue where they're strong. I am convinced that the secret to electoral success (assuming of course the votes are counted right) is we must make the public have more confidence in us than our opponents when it comes to protecting the country.
And actually, maybe my snarky "World War Two and a Half" would work.
July 20
A bit more good news on the Culture of Corruption: Americans for a Republican Majority's political action committee is paying a fine and closing down because of campaign finance violations. This is Tom DeLay's organization. It spawned Texans for a Republican Majority. It was this group's fundraising and alleged moneylaundering that got DeLay and some cronies indicted.
There are allegations of election fraud in the 4th district of Georgia from Tuesday's primary. Rep. Cynthia McKinney's campaign claims to have affidavits from voters who saw their votes for McKinney switched to her opponent who came in a close second, Hank Johnson. It's not surprising this would happen in Georgia, which is using all touchscreens with no paper trail, which had weird results in 2002, and frankly the Democrats were getting optimistic in 2004 as registrations were way up, which is all to say I can believe fraud in Georgia. It's likewise no surprise they were using Diebold machines. It would seem odd they would interfere in the primary. McKinney was expected to have an easier time of it, so Johnson's success is a surprise, which lends credence to the allegations of fraud. However, from visiting Johnson's web site, he doesn't look like someone Diebold, or Georgia Republicans, would want getting into Congress. He's pretty liberal. On the other hand, I've heard allegations of odd goings-on in the last Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary, when Janet Reno was expected to win and was thought the stronger candidate, leading to suspicions her opponent was helped along.
We don't know what happened this time, but we can be sure about a few things. Georgia's record is cause to suspect and investigate. The reports of votes being switched are too many to just dismiss. The motives of whoever may be manipulating the votes can be figured out after we know the manipulation happened and figure out who did it, whereas if manipulation can't be proved then motives don't matter. Johnson looks likely to vote the same as McKinney. McKinney's incident with Capitol security must have reduced her support. It smacks of Bush/Kerry that all the switching would be from McKinney to Johnson, never the other way. The upshot is that I ask Johnson to acknowledge the problems with the machines and ask for full investigation in order. That's the best way to protect his legitimacy should he win the runoff. Most important of course, we wouldn't be having this controversy if only the machines had paper that could be audited.
July 19
I've regretted not having time to comment during an interesting time in state politics. The whole Matt Entenza story has ended before I had time to say anything. He might have salvaged a chance at reviving his political career by admitting he was hurting the party and getting out. I'm glad he declined to follow William Jefferson's example and stop embarrassing his party, which he was doing. Even though as you can tell if you read more of this blog I'm an active supporter of the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor Party, the Minnesota Democrats), I found Entenza disingenuous. It seemed like his answers fudged the truth, and he was making that mistake people caught in scandals often do of admitting what was discovered, and denying the rest only to inevitably be discovered. It's as if they think even though so much of a scandal has come out, the rest somehow won't. I suspect that when he denied hiring a private detective, it was a half-truth in that the firm he hired isn't considered a private detective, but he knew what the question meant. Even before this, there was the question of conflict of interest since his wife is an executive of UnitedHealth, which leads to the question of whether he could investigate the company or even the industry. The industry has come in for a lot of attention by Mike Hatch, and UnitedHealth in under investigation over the backdating of executive options. Though I had planned on supporting the endorsed candidates in the primary, I was uncomfortable with Entenza running for AG, and after this scandal broke I was hoping someone would run against him in the primary. He would be my one departure from the endorsements.
Now on the up side, and there is one, we caught a break in that this broke before the filing deadline and other candidates filed. There are strong candidates, including former congressman Bill Luther and State Senator Steve Kelley. Gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch is expected to support his assistant, Lori Swanson, and Jennifer Mattson got a favorable write up by Nick Coleman who pointed out that though she's only 29, Harold Stassen was only 31 when he became governor and he's highly regarded in state history by people who know more than that he was a perennial candidate.
Not that Entenza's mistake doesn't make it look like the whole DFL is in disarray, but remember that in 1990, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Grunseth won both the endorsement and the primary and then dropped out in October due to a sex scandal. The quick fill in was Arne Carlson, who defeated incumbent Rudy Perpich and easily won reelection in 1994. This trouble with a down ballot race in July isn't the same scale of disaster, so we need hardly despair over the loss of this race. I would expect Republican Jeff Johnson to be the favorite, but it's not done yet. So no despairing DFL.
The part of the story I don't get is why Hatch should be damaged. He was the one who got investigated and nothing was found except a parking ticket. It may look bad that he sought a candidate to challenge Entenza in the primary but I had doubts about Entenza too. Hatch is accused of lying because his candidate search indicates he still has a rivalry with Entenza even though they both said it was settled. My guess, if you're interested and you're still here I notice, is Entenza did opposition research on Hatch because he was considering a run for governor and Hatch was expected to run too. If Hatch didn't run, he was expected to seek reelection as AG, for which Entenza was known to have his own ambitions, making it likely they would be opponents for the same office. Hatch has made the HMO industry a target as AG and probably thought Entenza would end that emphasis, on top of however bitter he may have been about being investigated. So I don't buy that the rivalry is over, but I also wouldn't expect either to go public about it, but to say things were settled.
One more piece of good news for Democrats. Yes the GOP is happy to have beaten Entenza and can regret only that he dropped out and ended the story, but we got a win too. Ralph Reed was beaten in the GOP primary for Georgia Lieutenant Governor. He was thought to have a sure win and a high likelihood of winning the general election, so this is a big upset and is attributable to his role in the Abramoff scandals. Though the office is worthless if the governor doesn't die, Reed was one of the most powerful people in the Republican party. He will still be influential, unless of course he goes to jail and hey, this Abramoff story is far from over. The Culture of Corruption is still a strong issue for us. Let them name Entenza, or Jefferson, or whatever other Democratic scandals they can: the list of Republican scandals will be much longer.
July 16
Here's an interesting tidbit to follow up what I wrote on the seventh about Norah O'Donnell's interview of Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan wrote in an article on Common Dreams about their off-camera conversation. She said she told O'Donnell the Hugo Chavez isn't a dictator, to which O'Donnell replied, "We had a big discussion about that and we decided that he ruled like a dictator." Apparently that was the end of that discussion as far as O'Donnell was concerned. She might it seems share with Sheehan and the viewers just what they discussed, because it's not a clear point of agreement. The American right has an irrational hatred of Chavez that apparently is all they need.
I saw Tom Brokaw's documentary on global warming tonight, and a thought struck me. I was I had the engineering skill to bring this about. There was a scene in a green building in New York where Brokaw was speaking with the executive in charge of construction, and in the background was an escalator running with no one on it. It took the second time it came in view before I realized they were talking about the ways this building saves energy while this thing was running without being used. I'm sure it didn't occur to me because every escalator I've seen runs continuously whether it's in use or not unless it's turned off altogether. But why run them when no one is using them? How about escalators that run only when in use, whether passengers push a button or it's weight sensitive?
