With people turning to gun violence during times of desperation and with the recession increasing incidents of desperation the MSM has been covering incidents of gun violence frequently lately. Of course in the MSM this topic always is an opportunity to discuss gun control. At the same time the Obama administration has been discussing gun control in relation to Mexican drug cartel violence on the border. In the MSM this leads to discussions that assume the return of the Brady Ban. I get the feeling that this is a wag the dog situation. Especially since it seems that reports in the MSM of violence on the boarder are inflated beyond all proportion.
My suspicions are raised even more that the MSM is just getting their gun control rocks off when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says that a renewed assault weapons ban would not be effective in reducing Mexican drug cartel violence.
Today U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled that Congress can subpoena members of the Bush administration. Unfortunately this is not the end of the legal philosophy of executive privilege since Bates also ruled that these aids can still invoke executive privilege in response to certain questions.
It is interesting to me that this article by Reuters chose to say that it is the Democrats that claim politics interfered with hiring and firing decisions at the Justice Department when an internal investigation by the Justice Department itself came to the same conclusion this week.
These are all small steps but they are steps on the path that lead to justice and accountability. We may yet falter on the way but it is proof that our system is not broken and still works. Let this be a lesson to all those who vainly spoke of moving to Canada.
That being said, its all well and good to gloat about Bush and the neo-cons who are using him as a vehicle getting their cummupance, but this story has a portion to it that should upset everyone. The problem is that it is buried past the critical first paragraph of most articles. According to the Justice Department's internal report, Monica Goodling the person under Attorny General Alberto Gonzales in charge of hiring, passed over a highly qualified and experienced counter-terrorism attorny because his wife was active in the Democratic Party. Instead she hired a Bush croney who had no experience working with counter-terrorism in any way. So she put political concerns above national security. Its useless to extend this behavior to other Republicans like some are tempted to do. History has shown us that career politicans are corrupt regardless of what party they belong to. The important thing is to be sure that this individual who put all of our lives at risk for her petty concerns takes responsibility for what she has done and faces justice.
OK so the previous post was a bit of an act of contrition toward the old media that gets so much of a beating in the blogosphere because for some reason I have been feeling a bit guilty about the hard time they are given. Except the beating the old media gets is usually justified. If there was more first person reporting of actual news and less fluff and opinion then there wouldn't be any reason to bitch.
This post is a specific bitch about the way the old media has been treating Obama's world tour this week. Not only has there been more coverage of Obama's speeches and doings than McCain's, news outlets have dedicated their fluff space to speculation about what he will do next and commentary on whether his speech in Germany was historic or epic. The LA Times tries at some apologetics for the unfairness here. The unfairness is one thing but the outright bias is another. This kind of tour has happened several times before. An international policy tour by a presidential candidate that was not a sitting president has happened a few times in the past and McCain himself has done so. But this is OBAMA! So even when a program recognizes that fact, they still go out of their way to book a guest that insists this is a one of a kind event.
Obama needs to be on his guard with the media. Howard Dean was a media darling for his campaign till he started criticising them. Then the two faced serpent turned around and destroyed his political career.
In the mean time the freedom haters in the old media are trying to make an issue out of concealed carry in national parks. Concealed carry will be the battleground of the future in gun control since an outright ban is out of the question now.
So apparently the big news today is that Cheney is an asshole and has been "secretly" trying to suppress testimony regarding global warming. The LA Times has decided to be clever and link this to when Cheney crafted U.S. energy policy in secret, working directly with energy industry lobbyists. They may be reacting to the fact that that story got no mileage seven years ago. It appears that the only reason anyone is paying attention to this latest move by the friendly and lovable members of the Bush administration who only want the best for the American people, is because someone in the Democratic party finally grew some stones and is standing up to this shit.
People on the right fringe give Al Gore tons of crap about "An Inconvenient Truth" but he never even brings up this shit. Its understandable why a respectable person would refrain from pointing the finger at the people who are trying to suppress the truth in order to gain a financial benefit. Usually when one decrys the influence of the big bad oil companies they immediately get labeled as a kook or a conspiracy nut. In some cases this kind of arm waving behavior may be paranoia but when the manipulation of public sentiment is actually happening why can't it be pointed out in a legitimate discussion? Why is the standard response to pointing out information manipulation the logical fallacy resort to ridicule? And why is that the end of the public discussion of the manipulation?
After the Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the Second Mendment protects an individual right to own a handgun for self defense there was much hand wringing from self righteous freedom haters across the globe. Editorial pages were filled with bias that dragged the national dialog down. The sense of loss was palpable among those who wished to ban guns. Even from news outlets that one would not particularly expect to have such a bias. Clearly they were upset that they have forever lost the possibility of not only banning guns, not only banning handguns, but also requiring trigger locks, and possibly also having to submit to concealed carry programs. All the editorials combined over the four days would be enough to give the impression that banning of handguns was a mainstream position without regard for whether or not it is true. One of the many reasons the MSM continues its fall from relevancy. Normally all this arguing that fear should trump freedom gets me really upset but now that the point is moot, I allowed myself to feel smug.
The worst hand wringing came from FBI director Robert Mueller who took the opportunity to go off topic and claim that universities are hotbeds for terrorist sympathisers. While he still maintained focus on what he was griping about, Mueller also managed to act as a fear monger when he wondered aloud whether guns would be allowed on university campuses. This after Scalia expressly stated in the majority opinion that gun bans on school and government property remained in effect and are reasonable restrictions on a citizens right to self defense.
Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, And Illinois have all been hit by massive flooding over the last week. Some heroic boyscouts have garnered all the press from this storm but there is another story with wider reaching implications. The flooding has caused damage to farmland across the nation's breadbasket, ruining thousands of acres of fields prior to harvest. These fields are primarily corn and as detailed in a prior posting, corn is the backbone of the U.S. comodoties market. Further, such a huge loss in corn will cause the prices of all foods to rise even more than the international food crisis has caused. The bottom line for you, expect to pay more for all kinds of meat, cerial, grains, milk, and of course, gasoline.
This all brings up the concept of inflation. The general rise in the price of goods as measured by the United States excludes the cost of comodities like food and energy(oil). The standard reason given for this is that even when the economy is stable the costs of oil and food fluctuate wildly and are thusly not directly pinned to the general economy. That reason turnes into a mere excuse to ignore bad news in times like these where inflation is being driven by world crisis level food prise increases and devistating growth in cost of oil. Yet economists will continue to use the old measure and more tellingly the old media will continue to parrot what they are told in their role of controling the public.
Yesterday, the Bush administration offered up a sacrificial lamb to the gods of public perception with the resignation of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson. However, it looks like the priests of public opinion in the old media have not taken the bait. Clearly, some blame rests with the crony that was ostensibly responsible for the housing sector. The real fiasco for this secretary was in its Katrina response that was just as bad as the rest of this administration. Like most resignations of Bush appointees the best question to ask is, "Why now? Why not two years ago?"
There are two issues going before the Supreme Court in the news today. The hearing challenging the Washington D.C. gun ban and a challenge to broadcast indecency regulation by Fox. Both of these cases have to do with the relationship of individual to one's government. And, in both of these cases freedom is being defended by right wing maniacs. The same maniacs who have been decidedly anti-freedom under the Bush administration.
It's difficult to defend freedom of speech when its offensive, and it's difficult to defend the right to have and use a lethal weapon without resorting to a slippery slope argument that evokes an opressive totalatarian 1984 regime.
Many of the Founding Fathers were philosophically libertarian. This philosophy describes the American way the individual relates to one's government. Power is vested in the government by the citizens and the purpose of the government is to preserve the rights of its citizens. This is the only way sovereignty can be legitimate. Under this philosophy, the rights delineated by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not granted by the document but ensured by it. Every human has these rights, it is the purpose of government to ensure the freedom to use these rights.
Freedom can be a scary thing. Its hard to trust strangers not to abuse their freedoms and infringe upon ours, but that is the freedom that each of us gives up to live within civilization. As long as no one infringes on your rights, you do not have the right to be offended.
The national debate over guns is often depicted as having one side that declares, possessing guns is an individual human right, and another side that declares that guns kill people. I do not see these as counterpoints to one another. Saying that a gun kills is like saying water is wet. A gun is a tool for killing and a pistol is a tool for killing other humans. The point is so obvious that it overlooks a fundamental difference in ideology that stems from the Western fear of death. We believe that death is bad and killing is wrong as if they are intrinsic universal truths. In an urban life, separated from the terrifying freedom of nature, and surrounded by a comforting layer of concrete and glass it is easy to believe, "my life does not cause death," but that is not true. It seems to me that this is the same kind of foolishness that leads to veganism. Though, as much as I believe it to be foolish, it is each person's right to choose when it is acceptable to kill. And in a society where our killing is done for us by others, it is difficult to stop. I can only accept that by being alive that my life necessarily causes death, one day I will die, and something will eat my body.
All this wheel of life shit is too philosophical for the debate at hand. The point is that sometimes, killing is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to kill another human being. For instance, in self defense when that human is trying to rape you, kill you, or severely injure you it is acceptable to use lethal force to protect yourself. Libertarian philosophy supports this conclusion and our laws regulate its effect by apportioning guilt. If you accept these two points, that there are acceptable times to kill and one of those times is to protect your person, the only remaining debate is one of tool choice and the question of banning guns becomes one of reasonable regulation. Should weapon choice be limited, and in what way?
Meaningful hard data is difficult to come by since through studies have been done by either side of the issue and anecdotal evidence can be pointed to by either side. In my recent posts on this blog I have referenced some stories from the past year that tend to support the conclusion that gun regulation either does not work or is counterproductive. One story noted a significant decline in violent crime in Detroit, every year for the last ten years since the passing of Michigan's concealed carry law. In the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech, the killer had been declared to be a danger to himself or others. Existing gun control laws prohibited him from purchasing a gun but he was able to anyhow, either because of bureaucratic bungling by law enforcement or through the negligence of the shop owner. Even more recently a gun toting maniac shot up a convent and was stopped from killing more people by an armed member of the congregation that had the lawful right to carry and had been a police officer.
One last point about the Second Amendment. The founding fathers were radical revolutionaries who had just overthrown their government through a violent war. They knew this was only possible by having armed citizens who could be loosely organized into militia when there was a need for extra military force. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Such an audacious quote brings me to the topic of freedom of speech. You are not really using your freedom of speech unless someone is trying to take it away from you. The gurantee of this freedom exists not to protect mundane and polite speech, but offensive, shocking, profane, and challenging speech. This is why freedom of speech means you do not have the right to be offended.
Speech is impossible to regulate. Profane language is derived from emotion and is meant to convey that emotional content. The power is only marginally in the words but it really stems from the emotional content they are meant to convey and the power we invest in them. You might as well attempt to regulate anger and criminalize rage.
Even if one could make a list of say, seven words, that must never be spoken and if that regulation can actually have an effect on stamping out those words. Other words will be granted offensive power by being filled with the same emotional content and social stigma making the old words meaningless and silly. Language is fluid and meaning changes in relatively quick time even in regular words. "Humbug" used to be a profoundly profane word and is hardly used today.
Further, such regulation is inherently self-defeating. Labeling certain words as taboo only encourages their use for the purpose of shocking others. Thusly, restricting a words use as profane, only enshrines its profanity, and further empowers it to do harm.
I am certain that this was the goal of the performers who used these offensive words and caused Fox to be fined by the FCC. It seems ironic to me that Fox, the network that curtailed political speech and freedom of the press through social pressure and jingoism in the frantic run-up to the Iraq war where the MSM failed its duty to the entire world, is the one who is fighting for a small victory for free speech. Then again, if anyone is going to go to court over profanity, its going to be the network that brought you "Who wants to marry a millionaire?"
Not long ago a shrill bitter woman published an op-ed decrying the contemporary propencity of men in their late twentys to delay marriage and career advancement. Many outlets of the old media recognized the inflamitory nature of her insult and decided to piggyback on its ratings generation powers by printing articles like this. (freedom hating British!)
Most responce to the author has been either an attempt to counter the assumptions in the article or to simply disagree with the author or the traditional notions of success. My contention is that her position is immoral.
This is best explained from a Kantian perspective; Hymowitz is treating all western males as means to an end rather than ends in themselves. To use the language of feminism, she is objectifying men. Or to describe my own moral outrage; Hymowitz has no right to declare that I be of use to her.
We have now said two things that may appear to be contradictory. We have said both that the Old Media consistently fails to predict accurate results of voter behavior and that they control voter's behavior. If you read TheRedKap's previous posts you should be able to discern the elements of what is being said that make these two arguments consistent. For those who may miss it, the Old Media is doing both. There is a groupthink among political pundits because they all ride around in the campain busses with the candidates and they all go back to D.C. or New York together so their perspectives are altered by the social dynamics of their little click. They are also lazy, selfish, and stupid just like any other human so they only want to wright about a limited feild of candidates. I don't know to what extent personal preference enters into it but after the run-up to the war in Iraq, I refuse to assume there is such a thing as journalistic integrity. This is the control aspect of what the media does. They limit the field of candidates based not on quality or support but on unrelated social factors from within their profession, and their own lazyness. After this decision has been made for the people by the media it affects peoples perceptions and those who like a "third party" candidate or a "fringe" candidate vote for someone the media tells them is a mainstream candidate so they don't "throw their vote away." This alteration is not about substance, its simple social manipulation that any social primate, down to the colobus monkey, could see through. Thats right I called you a monkey.
This time around you had three candidates getting free publicity by this time last year so it was almost unthinkable for anyone else who might run for president to wait till the traditional start of the presidential race. After all the early announcements the states decided to get in on the action and push the primary race earlier than ever before. I think an anomaly in diversity of candidates this year has caused a permanint change in the election system, the full effects of which are yet to be seen. But, I digress.
It is no suprise that given the criteria used by the Old Media to determine the content of election coverage are not in line with the thoughts of the average voter. Thankfully we have the intertubes as a communication tool where candidates can bypass the media filter of lazyness and ignorant preferance and speak to us directly. Or even better, citizens of a democracy can speak to each other about their options for presidential candidate. It gives me hope for our country when I see a maniac like Huckabee win a primary when the media had written him off.
To draw the distinction more clearly: the Old Media does manipulate their reporting and consequently the election but thanks to the internet, involved citizens can educate themselves and override the marching orders handed down to them by the groupthink overlords.
Political pundants sounded the death knell of Sen. John McCain in the summer. Now, he has won the New Hampshire primary. The same jackasses smelled blood yesterday when Clinton got all weepy like the nation's mother and were all but waiting for tonight so they could call her political career dead. Don't get me wrong, I dislike Hillary Clinton, but I hate the media with a rabid passion. One pundit quipped that the public had the audicity to ignore the media. I say tar and feather the pundits and run the idiots out of town.
Ron_Paul is being excluded from the Republican presidential debate hosted by Fox. When political commentators are asked to justify this they claim Ron Paul is not electable. What makes a candidate electable? Money? Polling numbers? Or is it that these commentators have decided as a group, that average Americans wont flock to their brand?
Personally I think these political commentators should be asked to justify their existance. Not just once, but every time they offer their opinion on anything. Because their opinions are so frequently wrong. I am not talking about a particular commentator, but all of them because they all live in the same close circle of group thinkers, they have no idea what normal people outside the beltway think.
Case in point, todays Iowa caucus results. On the Democratic side John Edwards came in second, but the media play that off as a razor thin margin and call it a tie for second. They all act as if they intend to continue to ignore Edwards as a candidate.
An amusing trend to arise from the Iowa caucus is that Hillary Clinton was described as unelectable by people that would have voted for her otherwise. They don't think that she can carry a national election, so she is having a tough time carrying the democratic primarys.
The Democrats are perpetually weak and cowardly, continuing to falter to the same political rhetoric that has been defeating them since 9/11 and lets face it since Clinton left office. Probably since before but I am too young to remember a time before Clinton. So whats the solution? Blame Fox News! They are to blame for the same cowardly behavior in the media after all.
How do we stop Fox News? Fox needs to be counered by an equeally radical channel on the left. Air america failed not because Liberals can't shock people with the same circus but because the average person can't relate to liberalism. That's why the charge of being liberal elietists sticks. There is no clear common sense connection between liberal philosophies like single payer healthcare and the daily lives of normal people. Colbert hit the nail on the head with"truthyness." People believe in O'Riley even when he's lieing because they feel his truthyness and that underlying "moral" message speaks to them.Also, Liberalism does not benefit from years of intentionaly tieing the politics of the party to unrelated issues of morality like the Goldwater Conservatives. I don't just mean their lip service to the religious right, but the strong pathos associated with a work ethic in America. People hate anything broadly defined as wellfare because the American values independence and self reliance and feels shame at taking a handout because we are taught by our society to work for our bread. Until liberals can play the same dirty game the conservatives have been and play it correctly and earnestly by actually believing their own bullshit and tie issues of social justice directly to the common perception of what is right we will never hold on to the gains we have made in the last election.
Basically the born again types believe that Jesus will return only when Israel is returned to its biblical boarders and there is then a massive war in the region, triggering the rapture and the end of the world.
There is so much willful, self serving, ignorance among people out there that they would probably not even care if this were being reported in the old media. But CNN would rather report on skateboarding dogs than risk offending the 50% of maniacs out there who believe they are right and 26% who believe noone else has the right to think differently.
Seriously the old media really has a hard case to make to prove that they are still relevant. They dropped the ball on the lead up to Iraq and still use the kid gloves when dealing with the administration and corporate welfare, like the government bail out of the housing market, but waste time and space on fluff. If people weren't dying because they failed to uphold their responsibility I wouldn't be so enraged. They say that primary source reporting would disappear if the old media was brought under by the power of the intertubes, but they are not doing it. All the old media is doing is following celebrities around cogitating about what they are wearing, and who they are fucking. If they expended this level of effort on Capitol Hill the corruption would be rooted out or driven deeper into hiding. But congress continues to misappropriate our money and people continue to die in a never ending war that we were lied into and the smug media just writes off our fully justified outrage.
CNN takes a break from its coverage of the Blackwater story and delving deeper into the whole subcontracting the war thing, to tell us that men dont wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Perhaps its because we can pee standing up.
