Mind the Gap

I got into another Internet Spat this week, 'cause nothing was on TV.  For the most part, we were talking past each other, because the basic reality of the situation was pretty simple.  It got a little silly toward the end, but nearly halfway civil as we finally agreed to disagree.

(Normally I cut off "debate" when the person in question starts calling names, but like I said, there was nothing on TV, and there was some halfway decent argument in the fellow's posts)

Anyway, I got this little gem in my email the other day, "When Debating a Liberal, Start With First Principles", by hardworking Big C Conservative Mark Alexander.  It's a nice little essay on how to slide your way around talking points without having a real conversation.  He's at least honest enough to say that when you're up against another True Beleiver, it's not going to end with agreement, but with a scorched earth, and the only thing that counts is ammunition.

I remember seeing a similar article after the 2006 election.  It was titled "How to talk to a Conservative" or similar, but damned if I can find it now.  It was taken from texts on how to convert former religious folks and smokers.  I found it a smarmy bit of writing and disregareded it. 

eHow.com has a surprisingly good article on simply having a discussion.  Yes! Magazine, who's new to me, has a whole series on talking past the gap.

I've been watching the Coffee Party, which hasn't decided what it'll be when it grows up, but it shows promise.  Guess we'll see.

In other news, Redstate has banned Birthers.  Good move, I think.  Wonder if my Rep knows?

7+ hours in 1,000 words or less

Thanks to Fark.

Republicans: The American People want this bill gone because they hate it. Look at the polls.


Obama: Yes, but they love every individual thing in the bill when it isn't spun that there are going to be death panels and other lies you all made up. What they hate is the cost, but the reality is that bills cost money.

Republicans: But you are taking over the entire health care industry.

Obama: Alright, but you say that citing reasons which are actually Republican ideas that we included in the bill.

Republicans: Whatever, we want it all scrapped or we will continue to filibuster, and we don't want you to use reconciliation or anything else we used to ram our ideas down your throats for the first 6 years of Bush. These Senate rules that allow for a simple majority vote are un-American!

Obama: What don't you understand about how being in the minority works? If you want me to phrase it differently, we have a Democratic President and the 2nd largest majority ever, down from the largest majority ever by 1 vote, because the American people you are so fond of quoting voted your asses out after 8 years of you completely farking up our entire system. Know your place.

Republicans: Ok, fine, but the American people hate this bill because it costs too much money. We can't afford it.

Obama: Yeah, but the CBO states it will reduce our deficit in the long run compared to doing nothing. That's otherwise known as "not paying as much." It does cost money, and health care reform will cost a lot of money. It won't cost us more money than would otherwise be spent though.

Republicans: Fine, but we want it all done in small bills rather than a big, comprehensive one. That's how it should be done.

Obama: That's what we've done since you guys killed reform in the 90s. Now look where we are. If you go to fix one thing, you have to enforce it by fixing another thing, which leads to another thing, and not taking care of the side-effects each change has is the reason so many of our small bills in the past like the donut hole are now destroying us.

Republicans: But we want it all scrapped. We have to start over even though we agree on a majority of the things in the bill. We believe that suddenly all these issues will magically change and we will come up with brand new ideas tackling these problems that haven't been thought up in the past year. And we'll play fairly with you this time rather than completely abusing the filibuster process and demanding you do not use similar tactics that the majority gets to enjoy, we promise!

Obama: You already said you wanted it scrapped, I already said no.

Republicans: Ok well then we want the bill to consist mainly of our bill instead of yours. That way we can only cover 1/10th of all the uninsured people and basically do nothing useful to avert the impending disaster we are heading into at our current rate.

Obama: YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY. YOU DON'T GET TO CALL THE SHOTS. WHAT IS SO farkING DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS?

Republicans: But this bill costs too much money. We can't afford it and the American people don't want it.

Obama: ... ok now you're just farking with me, right?
 
Now, to be fair, it wasn't all Obama, all the time.  Most of these points were made by Democrats and Obama.

Putting Money Where My Mouth Is...

I finally signed up with ActBlue.  There are Republican alternatives, most notably RedSlate.  Looking at RedSlate's list, it's not likely I'll be sending money that way, but you never know.

Right now all I've got is a recurring $10/month donation to an as yet unnamed Democratic candidate against Randy Neugebauer.

Not much, but it's a start.

Lemme get out my violin...

"There is fury...Absolute fury."

This is in regards to Executive Order #13490* (up from 13476), which an order that "bars anyone appointed by the President who has been a federally-registered lobbyist within the past two years from working on particular matters or in the specific areas in which they lobbied or from serving in agencies they had lobbied."

Pity poor K street, which for the last 8 years, had been pretty much given free rein over all aspects of the legislative and executive processes. 

I'm not shedding any tears. The less lobbyists have to do with government, the better. 

Now the big problem is this. The CQ article mentioned that small businesses and groups wouldn't be able to afford to staff the lobbying firms and the panels.  So the panels aren't going away, and big business will have the same if not more access to lawmakers. 

My answer is to ban lobbyists alltogether, but that may be a little too much fire applied to the forrest. 


*signed waaay back in January.

Checking out that Tea B*gger thing...

Man, c-span, you used to be cool. What is it with this awful internet feed?

I loves me some Ray Charles

Looking at the signs: "Less Taxes! More Freedom!"  Well, that might as well read: "Less Services! More Chaos!"

Ha!    "Should you trust the government? Ask an Indian!"

"End the Federal Reserve" and then what?

Wow, already? "Impeach Obama?" He just got here!  Give him some time to really screw up!

Don't know who's speaking now, (James Anderer, Linderhust New York) talking about bankruptcy and oh - his chrysler dealerships being 'stolen' and given to another.  Corporate politics and a compliant government.  "I am an angry american"

Invoking the Founding Fathren, and call & response. 

Obama wants to pass all these changes before we wake up and understand what he's done.

Amens and shouts from the crowd.

Oh no! Our taxes are so high, it's destroying our way of life!  Reps represent special interest groups who give them money! NO! REALLY? You've been too busy making a living and raising your kids to pay attention to this?  I call bullshit.  My parents made aliving and paid attention. I'm doing the same.  Screw you.

Yeah, totalitarianism is only good if your guy's doing it, right.  Please.

Hey, you wanna organize, you wanna vote them out, I'm with you.  Just vote for folks who're gonna acutally do campaign finance reform.

"Vote them out! vote them out!"

Wait, what about the terrorits?  What?

Wow! Actual facts about the mortgage/derivative disaster!  And unelected ppl generating the rules.  Well, hey.  Whaddya know?

Dog wistle!  10th amendment!  Drink!  Oh, damn, no alcohol.

Um, this crowd looks kind of sparse.

Professional video by the American TaxPayers Union.  Introducing Andrew Moylan

Ok, I'm seeing titles of "Government Affairs Director" and "Federal State Head" and stuff like this.  There's a lot more money than people involved in this.  Must look these orgs up later.  "FreedomWorks" indeed.

Oh, NOW you're worried about the deficit.  Right.  Welcome to the party.

Huh. "Take your your cellphone right now and call your congressman"  "Na Na Na Hey Hay Hay, Goodbye" cute.  Straight from the Obama playbook.  Nicely done.

Are they singing on their phones? To congresscritters? I can't tell. Stupid c-span feed.

Tea party Patriots - more dog whistle!

Another national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin

Kellen Giuda Park bench Blog Founder
Talking about New York Tea Parties.  I'm not understanding. Oh.  Tea Bagging is not a Fox news thing because punk rockers are talking about tea parties. Mkay.  They may not be running the engine but they sure provided kindling.  And gasoline now, from what I can tell.

Modern pop culture - we're taking it on!  Rolling Stone Magazine!  They're the establishment! we have our own counter culture now!
We need a pop culture base?  Who knew?

Pop culture is dissing you!  Join the pop culture counter revolution! 

Oh! lost kid!  Good on y'all.  Hope he's ok.

More professional video.

High Caliber? The only conservative hip hop artist? Ok.  Oh, sorry, misspelled:  Hi-Caliber

Vince Venom

Are there any right wing extremists in the house today?

Rap shout out to Rick Perry.  Well, who saw that coming! 

Well, that was cute.

Oh, there's more.  My speakers can't make the words intelligible. I'll have to check it out later.

Oh, please. "where's the birth certificate"

Huh, so it's not that the crowd is sparse, but the area directly in front of the stage is kept pretty clear.

Great, parading the troops as human sheilds so you can stand behind them to critize the president.  Everyone supports the damned troops. What most of us DON'T support is stupid wars.

Dog whistle "blood and treasure"

Hey, I can get behind that "vote out all incumbents" sign

A sign quoting St. Reagan about "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" Except Reagan increased the government, dear.

Checking out trafficland.  I'm not seeing people.  Well ok, people but not crowds.

Deneen Borelli National Center for Public Policy Research, Project 21 Fellow

Oh, again about freedoms being looted by elected officials.  We could have used you eight years ago, dear.

Opposing Obamacare because of principal, not race!  What's the drill? "Pay your taxes? Is Rangel not doing that? Whoops, guess not.  Bad boy

Conyers.  "read the bill". That's your job!  Heh, can't argue with that.

Diane Boxer admires CASTRO!

Waters - nationalize oil companies!

Something about raising the cost of energy so we use less.  CAP & TAX = BALL & CHAIN. Nice meme. I don't buy it, but  I can recognize a good tactic.

Bruce Webster. 
Seldom is liberty lost all at once
Lincoln: america is the last best hope of earth.

Yes, well, again, we could have used you 8 years ago.

Deploying those human sheilds again.

i've got family and had family in the thick of this too. I don't parade them around. Screw you.

"last full measure of devotion" finally remembering you're the party of Lincoln?

Government by the congress?  Fool, it's government of the corporate donors.  Man, I'm gonna be looking up your opensecrets page. Whoops, you're not a pol.  Dude, you're a geek?  Eh, I'll check out your Systems Design stuff, but man, where were you during the Bush years?

On the system design - really? You're just now finding out how laws are written?  I cut my teeth on the "Patriot" Act.  You kind of redeem yourself in part 2.  If you have solutions in Part 3, I'll listen. 

ABC news says 1.5 million people are here.  Hey, you made it*.

ROFLMAO!  TEXT FREEDOM TO ME!  This is going to get you an accurate count?

Well, I've had enough.  Like the peace marches at the conventions, this is mostly harmless. 

I'll pointout: no shock troops, no "freedom areas", no SWAT teams.

Laterz

===========================
*turns out they didn't

Well, now, the game's afoot.

Governer Hair(R-eally, Texas) is sending the Rangers to the border to get "boots on the ground" to deal with the increasing violence.

Well, on the surface that sounds good. El Paso/Juarez, especially, has been getting more violent, though other Texas are running close seconds. But now that the drug trade is emperilling 'legitimate' bizniz, well, we gotta Do Sumpin'.

And here we find that our beloved governor is very good at laying traps. First, he requests 'MOAR PLZ' from National Security - the very government he'd like to secede from. Then, for some reason, it all gets hung up on who's payin' fer it? Really, sir? This is a difficult question? So now he gets to blame Warshington for the delays. Except that, maybe, all this ain't needed, and might even be harmful.

But wait! Let's not analyze this situation with actual facts! We have the Challenger! In this corner, Kay Bailey Hutchison (hereafter to be called "Hutch" because I liked Starsky and Hutch as a wee lass). She's the fightin' Texas Lady, here to save us all from Do Nuthin' Perry.

Well, she too fell into the trap. "she's been in Warshington 16 years and she thinks she's done enough for you?!" was the gist of the response. Oh, dear me. After all she's done for veterans, too.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Gov. Hair has announced this on a national day of "oh, $deity, it's that day again." People are distracted by mourning, remembering, raging, and other such. For reasons that are good, bad, and awful, people are reminded of The Other, and are afraid. So someone finally standing up and appearing to Do Something about Something that Makes Us Afraid is going to score points.

But look at what's happening. Gov. Perry has a very good reason to use the Rangers instead of the National Guard. The Guard could be nationalized and used against him. The Rangers cannot. However expensive, however harmful, whoever dies because of this, it will all be his doing, under his control. He's using the Rangers' well deserved reputation to bolster his own stature: gilt by association.

Not everything that glitters is gold, Governor. We'll be watching

Ask not what your country can do for you...

[He]need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Edward Kennedy, speaking at Robert Kennedy's funeral in 1968.

In lieu of flowers, pass meaningful healthcare reform.

Oh, look, it's 2010 already

And NewsMax is ready to rumble.

1. Poll: Majority Leader Reid Vulnerable in 2010
2. Gingrich: GOP Could Take House in 2010
3. Congressional Junkets 'Rival Club Med'
4. Hugo Chavez Targets 'Bourgeois' Golf
5. Club for Growth: Democrats 'Fail Miserably' on Pork
6. Imus in Talks With Fox Business Network

THE SUMMER SMASH!

HEAR how the insurance industry THREATENED helpless Democrats and FORCED them to ACQUIESE to their evil plans!

SEE how Republicans SPOKE AS ONE from a single memo authored by an insurance lobbyist!

WONDER at the easy way former government employees become lobbyists and go right back into the fray as paid shills.

EXPERIENCE the HORROR of executive compensation being directly tied to denying health insurance coverage!

WATCH as a former insurance executive EXPOSES the ugly truth behind the "naked" consumer!

Or just watch the video or read the transcript of a Bill Moyers interview with Wendell Potter.

Ugly stuff.

Health reform starts with campaign finance reform. Money. Is. Not. Speech.

You just lost the game

That's actually a username on some site I go to. I love that name. It's what came to mind when I was reading about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Docket No. 08-205). (Background in non-legalese here and here.)

The producers of "Hillary, the Movie" wanted to show their, uh, documentary on television instead of movie theaters. "Well, ok", said the FEC. "But it's not a documentary, it's a hit piece, so you'll have to disclose the people who financed and contributed money to this."

"Aw hell no!" And so the fighting started. And more than a year later, here we are.

See, there was nothing standing in the way of showing this piece, except having to disclose who funded it, and not being able to show it within 30 days of an election, and a few other rules from our almost-got-it-right campaign finance reform McCain Feingold laws.

But the producers wanted to be counted as "news" and "documentary" people, and not have to embarass whoever was really behind them. That's a hell of a tell.

Yes, yes, anonymity is the last defense against tyrrany. There was nothing stopping the producers from running the film in more theaters. Word of mouth, echo-chamber mailing lists and blogs would have gotten a sufficient audience for it...but that was the problem. How to get it to the eyeballs of people who *gasp* didn't agree with them?

Well, since the idea of simply sending a CD to every house in a city hadn't been thought of yet, I guess this was the route to go: claim you've made a documentary and try to show it as news, and then complain about "bias" and "freeeeedom!" when you're told "no". Even the classic R bugaboo Michael Moore doesn't try this nonsense.

Any publicity is good publicity, but I'm not buying it, even if it is listed by Amazon as a documentary.