The Raven' s Blog, Web Log of Eric Ferguson: First Half of March 2006 Archive

March 15
Let me justify the time you're spending visiting my little blog by putting together a couple things you probably haven't seen together. Early last year we learned the term "Salvador Option", which I'll warrant most of us subsequently forgot. It refers to fighting the Iraqi insurgency through death squads committing extrajudicial executions against suspected supporters of the insurgency, just like the war in El Salvador during the Reagan administration (even if Reagan's face goes on Mt. Rushmore and every coin, I will never stop pointing out the innocent blood on his hands). Bear in mind that the man in charge of intelligence is John Negroponte, who during that war was ambassador to Honduras and helped build the Contras, one of the best funded terrorist groups ever. Now look at recent news from Iraq about the daily discovery of bodies of people executed by some unknown executioners.Both Sunnis and Shiites are using death squads. You'd like to think Americans are better than that, but then I think of the idea a year ago to fight the insurgency through the "Salvador option", and I wonder. Something I'd like all the hawks to ponder when they ask why terrorism is OK for others but wrong for the US is that neither the Sunni insurgents nor the Shiite militias speak for me nor, if you're American, do they speak for you. Neither Al Qaida in Iraq nor the Mahdi Army are my government, so while I damn terrorists just as much as anyone reading this, it's not the same as when the terrorism is committed by people who supposedly represent me. So yes, it is worse when done by the US government.

March 14
I haven't had time to write lately and it's late now, but this must be said. Russ Feingold is the bravest of the Democrats in the Senate. Read his speech on the floor when he introduced his censure resolution, and you are either dead or a right wing-nut if you don't find it as logical as it is passionate. All the presidential wannabes in the Senate lost my support when they failed to support the resolution. Obviously I'd vote for these gutless wonders in the general election because I need only one hand to hold my nose and I want the culture of corruption gone, but when I donate what money I have to give to a presidential candidate, I'm heading first to Feingold's campaign site. Tell me, those of you who wonder if Feingold was right to take such a political risk, do you think the senator who tried to censure the acting president, and was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, will be lacking the guts to stand up to terrorists, or Iran, or China, or any other potential bad guys? As for the rest of the Democratic senators, if you won't stand up to Republicans and a flailing failing fake president, why would we expect you to stand up to Islamists? Why would we expect you to stand tough when China threatens to dump our economy by dumping our bonds?

March 10
Now that the takeover of six seaports by Dubai Ports World seems to be stopped, let me ask a question I haven't heard asked. Why has the running of our seaports been outsourced to private companies in the first place? Isn't that what port authorities are for? Maybe those living on a coast already knew this was the case, but it was news to me. So now that we've gotten past the issue of this one company running ports, why are these not public operations in the first place? We don't give our airports to private companies.

On a side note, has the Bush administration gone politically tone deaf not to realize what a disaster this would be? The bad news is they could screw up national security even more than they have. The good news is that if the incompetence has gotten this bad, maybe they'll blow the midterm elections. Maybe. Campaigning is unfortunately the one thing they're good at.

Last Tuesday Minnesota had it's precinct caucuses. Those are where the state parties start the process of choosing candidates. The debate over caucuses versus primaries is an argument over the breadth of participation versus depth and party building.We have a primary anyway, except for president, so the caucuses start the process of picking who gets the party endorsement for the primary.

It is certainly the case that many more people vote in the primary than attend caucuses, and the primary determines the candidate for general election. It is also the case that endorsed candidates for governor and US senator have a mixed record for winning primaries, and on the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) side we usually have the endorsed candidates for those two offices lose either the primary or the general election. Why then have caucuses? Because while all states have party endorsements, in a caucus system there is more grassroots control over the party. As one of those grassroots activists, I feel some measure of control over who runs the party and what the party stands for. By "activists", I mean the people who make the $50 donations, man the phone banks, drop the literature, set up the chairs, and participate in the caucuses.

At the precinct level, we pick the low level party officials, the level where you get the work but not the power and glory, and debate the resolutions that eventually become the party platform. I doubt any office holder ever refers back to the platform before making a decision, but the platform is a statement of where the party stands on many issues, and our principles are expressed thereby. Starting at the precinct level as the source of the resolutions that become the platform gives the grassroots the ability to control the overall direction, even if candidates feel free to ignore it for their own campaigns. At least they know by taking contrary positions, they buck the will of the pool of campaign volunteers. This year I'm more involved than the prior years I went to caucuses, and I have a better appreciation for all the work that makes many activists demand to know of candidates whether they will respect the endorsement process.

Now before I make such a sweeping statement as the caucus system is why the DFL is stronger than most state Democratic parties, I would need to know a lot more about how other parties organize themselves and how strong they are. However, I suspect that's the case. For one thing, the Republicans are strong too, using essentially the same system. So suffice it to say that I suspect the reason the DFL is stronger than other state parties because we have this mechanism for local control and grassroots involvement that builds the party base the national party is really just starting to work towards.

In case you were wondering, I did offer a resolution at my caucus, and if you've been reading this blog at all it won't be a surprise that my resolution regarded paperless voting, and the prohibition thereof. Touchscreens aren't used in Minnesota where we usually use optical scanners, and the same will shortly be true in Maryland too, but touchscreens are used in other states and are the primary reason I believe Bush stole the election in 2004.

March 5
Hope you missed me while I was gone. The raven moved to a new nest and I write this amidst a plentitude of packed boxes. So, let me start out with that awkward action of patting my own back, or think of it as pointing out to anyone interested that I was way ahead on this one. I asked all the way back in September if former FEMA director Michael Brown was being scapegoated, and noted that surrisingly little blame was being assigned to Brown's boss Chertoff, his predecessor Jim Albaugh, and the big boss who picked Brown, the acting president. The newly released (leaked?) video shows Brown among others trying to say how serious the situation could get in New Orleans. Bush and Chertoff were sitting there and heard the warnings. A few days later, Bush blatantly lied by saying no one anticipating the breaking of the levees. Maybe you could buy that no one in the Bush administration had noticed any of the non-governmental warnings, but this is too much.

Now take notice of something else. While Brown was made the butt of jokes, Bush and Chertoff said nothing. When congressmen heaped abuse on Brown at hearings, they said nothing. When Brown was ridiculed for coming from a horse association before joining FEMA, did they defend his pre-horse job qualifications? No, they said nothing. Brown did do one foolish thing though. He didn't give any substantiation to his claims he did a decent job, and loyally allowed himself to be verbally pummeled. The Republicans in Congress (they're the ones with the subpoena power remember) didn't make Chertoff sit there for some abuse, thereby helping to give the impression Brown was entirely to blame while Bush let them do it. For a Minnesota angle, because in case you're new here I live in Minnesota, Brown might have given the DFL a campaign commercial when he asked Norm Coleman what he wanted from him, as Coleman sat there berating Brown and as Brown pointed, declined to ask a question. I suggest the commercial be entitled "How a Bush Toady Behaves", and I also suggest Coleman stop grandstanding at these hearings. Given how so many of his findings about the UN Oil for Food program were wrong and George Galloway made him look pretty small, he should learn to avoid these things.

"You don't care about me."
16 year old Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, when he realized the Canadian agent he thought had come to take him out of Hell and home to Canada was just another interrogator.

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose."
Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the Mexican War, expressing why allowing a president sole discretion to decide when to invade another country is dangerous to the liberty of his own country.

"The OPR [the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility]also has been far behind in producing required annual public reports summarizing its activities. Last month, it released its report covering fiscal year 2005. That means many investigations undertaken during the tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales remain under wraps."
LA Times reporter Richard B. Schmit, in an article written in July 2008, on how the OPR is hiding the results of investigations --- assuming they actually are investigating.

"Mr. Chairman, I think the number's actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth � was 25, 26, 27."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, on the number of detainees killed in Bush's prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and locations still secret.

"Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short. The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, if Washington adapts to address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold great expectations."
James Hansen, on the 20th anniversary of his testimony before Congress where he informed them global warming was now certain, and how little time remains to prevent catastrophes.

"Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, 'Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing---why did they sit on their hands?'"
Sen. Chris Dodd, in his speech on the Senate floor opposing the FISA bill and retroactive immunity.

"We had the worst natural disaster in the history of this country Katrina, and there wasn't a drop of oil spilled."
Sen. Norm Coleman, proposing more offshore oil drilling. There was actually enough oil spilled to match the Exxon Valdez. Whether Coleman is lying, or ignorantly repeating Republican talking points, is unknown.

"I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us."
George Carlin, in an interview with Salon, on how he became a disappointed idealist.

"To date, seven long years after we scooped up our first detainees in Afghanistan, not a single one of them has faced evidence, his accusers, or anything remotely resembling a legal court hearing on his guilt or innocence."
Joseph Galloway, military correspondent for McClatchy, on how responsibility for war crimes goes right to the top, despite efforts to confine consequences to the bottom, in light of the recent McClatchy series on detainees.

"As I was leaving the UN food distribution center in Damascus, Layla Atiya, the widow with seven children, touched my arm. 'Can you tell me one thing?,' she pleaded. 'Why did America do this to us? What did we do to America to make her hate us so?'"
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, writing about her visit to Iraqi refugee camps.

"So we're sitting here and, for example, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who said that he wanted to be a martyr on 9/11, make no mistake about it --- he said that he just couldn't get a visa --- launched into a description of what kind of psychotropic drugs he's taking here at the prison camp, or being given here at the prison camp. And the media monitors hit the white noise button. We didn't get to hear what exactly he's being given and we didn't exactly hear his explanation about why he's on medication.

And one of the escorts here explained that this was HIPAA protection, the Health and Information Protection Act on a place where the Bush Administration says the Constitution doesn't apply."
Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, on the restrictions placed on the press and mistreatment of detainees.

"If the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was really concerned about fairness, it could have simply asked the Florida Supreme Court to devise a universal standard, appoint a judge to enforce it, and then extend the state's meaningless 'safe harbor' deadline to make it possible to complete the recount. It did not do so because it was not interested in counting the votes. It wanted George W. Bush to win."
Gary Kamiya, Salon writer at large, in a review of the HBO's "Recount", on how the Supreme Court stole the election for Bush.

"Convicting and imprisoning Paul Minor on corruption charges could be a powerful way to curtail contributions to the local Democratic Party."
U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on political prosecutions by the Bush DOJ. Minor was a vital contributor to the Mississippi Democratic Party.

"Where does the madness end? Where do words lose their meaning? Al-Qa'ida is not being defeated. Hizbollah has just won a domestic war in Lebanon, as total as Hamas's war in Gaza. Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza are hell disasters � I need no apology to quote Churchill's description of 1948 Palestine yet again � and this foolish, stupid, vicious man is lying to the world yet again."
Robert Fisk, columnist and resident of Lebanon, responding to remarks by Bush that show he hasn't the least understanding of the region he's mucking up.

"The short version: Republicans in Congress, McCain included, have slashed the United States budget for wind energy since Carter was president, which is why McCain has to speak at a Danish turbine manufacturer instead of an American one."
Mother Jones reporter/blogger Jonathan Stein, noting that McCain made his climate change speech in a Danish wind turbine factory after repeatedly cutting funding for wind development here.

"We get off on warfare."
Rev. Rod Parsley, McCain's spiritual advisor, who calls for mass murder, in a snippet of a sermon in a video by Mother Jones and Brave New Films. That line of Christian charity comes about 1:25 into the video.

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