Category Archives: Politics & Government

“Throw the bums out!”

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Tom Chartier’s election day advice:

“On Election Day, vote for the candidates who will tie up the system in knots. If enough quarrelsome fools are “elected,” the new members of Congress will spend all of their time squabbling amongst themselves and never get anything done. Perfect! That was the Founders’ plan. Government at its finest… unable to function!”

This sounds like a good idea, regardless of which party is “in power.” Mr. Chartier’s full post is worth a read. I found his quote from Atlas Shrugged especially chilling:

“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?… We want them broken… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”

The Fog of War

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The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a documentary film directed by Errol Morris and released in December 2003.

The film depicts the life of Robert Strange McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, through the use of archival footage, White House recordings, and most prominently, an interview of McNamara at the age of 85. The subject matter spans from McNamara’s work as one of the “Whiz Kids” during World War II and at Ford to his involvement in the Vietnam War as the Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson

1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There’s something beyond one’s self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10. Never say never.
11. You can’t change human nature.

We have learned none of McNamara’s lessons. A powerful documentary. And, please, you can’t have an opinion about this movie unless you’ve seen it. Happy to discuss with anyone that has.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow doing a radio commercials

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Radio Iowa News Director (and blogger) O. Kay Henderson heard White House Press Secretary Tony Snow doing a radio commercial on a Des Moines radio station this week and found it blog-worthy. The New York Times liked the story too:

“Just imagine, you’re listening to the radio, Tony Snow has been speaking to you as the spokesman for the leader of the free world, and then a commercial comes on with him trying to sell you a window,” Ms. Henderson said Thursday. “He introduced himself as Tony Snow, talked about the travails of remodeling projects, boasted about the 30-year history of this business and delivered the 800 number of the business, twice.”

My favorite quote from the story was by Mr. Snow: “It’s like, you don’t have the White House press secretary flacking siding.”

I suppose Kay could have done a “human interest” piece for our network but this is perfect blog-fodder. Not a big deal, just interesting. And how many reporters heard the White House Press Secretary shilling windows on the radio and didn’t think to follow up on it?

NETWORK: “Television is not the truth…”

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“When the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome propaganda force in the whole goddamned world….” This scene from the movie Network (1976) is the reason the Academy gave Peter Finch the Best Actor award posthumously. The “Mad Prophet of the Airways” rants how it was, is, and always will be.

It’s gratifying to see that others remember this film and recognize its relevance in 2006.

Four more years!

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Dave Winer wonders if President Bush will leave office at the end of his term:

“Someone should ask him that question and listen carefully to the answer. An unequivocal “yes” is the only acceptable answer. I don’t think he’s planning to leave. That’s what all this maneuvering is about. The next step will be they’ll find some American citizens who are terrorists, and Congress will vote that in time of war the President doesn’t need to charge them with anything to imprison them until the war is over. They can already put non-citizens, legal or illegal, in prison, indefinitely without charging them.”

I wish that seemed crazier to me than it does.

Is it possible to cheat if the game is rigged?

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You’re playing Black Jack at some little out-of-the-way gambling joint in Nevada. You discover –beyond all doubt– that the dealer is cheating. No question. Knowing this, is it even possible for you to cheat? I mean, once the honesty of the game has been compromised, how can the other players “cheat?”

Your Sunday School teacher would tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right. And that cheating –even though the dealer or another player is cheating– is wrong because it harms you (at some moral/ethical level). And, perhaps, once you begin cheating, it some how validates the immoral behavior of the dealer.

If Congress and the White House are the casinos, they’re running a lot of crooked tables. Pissing away our tax dollars faster than we can send them to DC. I don’t have the balls to cheat on my taxes but I’m not sure I’d vote to convict someone that did.

“If you’re unhappy with your elected officials, smays, you should work within the system to elect new people to represent you.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s like saying, if you think this carney game is fixed, perhaps you should try one on the other side of the midway (I just need one more metaphor to tie the record).

In the words of Howard Beale/Paddy Chayefsky (Network):

“I want you to get mad. I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crying in the streets. All I know is first you’ve got to get mad.”

If you’d like to comment on this post… write your congressman.

Podcasting candidate endorsements

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Just listened to the latest podcast from the Missouri State Teachers Association. They call it The Pulse. Co-hosts Todd Fuller Gail McCray broke a little digital ground (I’m guessing) by using the podcast to announce the canidates the MSTA is endorsing in the November election. They spent the first part of the podcast explaining how their endorsement process works. Then they mentioned a few specific endorsements and pointed the listener back to their website for the full list of candidates.

Why do I think this is worth a post? As I listened to Todd and Gail explain this process, I kept thinking they would NEVER get airtime (radio or TV) for that kind of “deep dive.” But it’s important to their audience (teachers, candidates). And by using their podcast to make the announcement, it raises awareness of their podcast. (You now know about it because you read this blog which has nothing to do with education or politics.)

If you want to see/hear how to do an “association podcast,” check out MSTA’s The Pulse.

The power of the hyperlink

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Iowa Senator Tom Harkin talked, by phone, with a group of Iowa radio reporters on Thursday morning. One of the reporters asked the Senator for his reaction to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s comments about President Bush at the UN. One of our reporters was on that conference call and posted a story about the senator’s response to our website, RadioIowa.com. (“Harkin defends Venezuelan President’s UN speech against Bush”)

Radio Iowa News Director Kay Henderson blogged the entire story but the short version is The Drudge Report linked to the story…a shit storm rained down on Senator Harkin…his people try to get Kay to change the headline of our story on the web… a long, stressful day for everyone.

This is just one more small example of how the web has changed things. The stations the other radio reporters (on the conference call) work for probably all have websites but I don’t think they post news stories. So, in all likelihood, our little story was the only one online, at least initially.

BTW (Before the Web), one or all of those reporters might have aired the story on a couple of newscasts and people in Des Moines or Sioux City might have been pissed at the senator. And even if the wire services picked it up, it would have taken a little time to ripple out, and the reaction would have been diluted.

It’s now Saturday morning and I googled “Tom Harkin.” The top search result is: “Hearing Is Believing” on what appears to be a blog called Power Line.

“Harkin must have taken some heat for his comments on the radio, because he put a completely different statement on his web site, after the fact. To see what he really thinks, listen to the audio below.”

Power Line didn’t bother to link to our story or mention our network by name. And they stole our audio and posted the MP3 file to their site. But no matter. You get the idea.

Media was once an orderly thing:
Local radio station(s) – Local newspaper
Handful of larger city newspapers, TV stations & radio stations
Statewide radio network
Associated Press
National media

You could manage these. If you were clever, you could spin and control them a little. No more. We’re all breathing the same media air.

If Senator Harkin does the radio reporter conference call again, I sure would like to listen in.

“Baghdad Is Burning”

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The following is an excerpt from a dispatch written by William Langewiesche to his editors in June of this year (2006) and published in the September issue of Vanity Fair magazine. I was unable to find the full text online but will watch for it and post link if/when I find it.

“The government is hardly a government at all. There is some small hope–a last, residual hope–that the new prime minister may be able to pull things together, and through force (rather than conciliation) keep the civil war from growing. Nobody really expects it to happen, and they give him at most a few months. Afterward? The middle class is trying desperately to get passports and take refuge elsewhere, especially in Damascus and Amman. Meanwhile, a small group of elected officials and high bureaucrats, most interested mainly in stealing as much as they can before they escape the country, huddle in the Green Zone, protected by American forces, going through the motions of governing. The money they take comes for the most part from the United States, though apparently the on-again, off-again oil production is also making some people very rich. On every level corruption here is pervasive, inescapable, and beyond anyone’s ability to contain.”

Blogging for president

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I’m sorry, but radio and TV has completely fucked up the way we elect the leaders of our country. Think about it. We elect presidents and senators and governors and damned near everybody based on:

* :30 TV spots
* Debates that aren’t
* Speeches the candidate didn’t write
* Yard signs (that’s a small town thing but it’s universal. The guy with the most yard signs wins)

Do any of these reveal anything about the ideas or intelligence of the candidate. No way. You know what would? A blog. A blog written 100% by the candidate (not sure how you could keep the bastards from cheating and you know they’d try).

Make every candidate blog during the year leading up to the election. They can post as often as they like… about any topic they like.

This has the added benefit of requiring the American voter to get more involved than watching some mindless network television salted with attack ads.

“Wait a minute, smays. Leadership requires courage and values (like mine) and a bunch of other qualities that have nothing to do with how well you express your ideas in writing.”

Horse shit. If you can’t think… you can’t lead. At least not well. And I want to measure the quality of your ideas. Not the ideas of your campaign manager, or your PR firm… your ideas.

If you’re hung up on the writing thing… let’s throw a podcast into the mix. Every candidate produces a weekly, fifteen minute podcast. Any topic, any format. But the candidate must produce it him or herself (they go into a glass walled studio, put it together and upload it).

Imagine reading blogs written by George W. Bush; Bill Clinton (or Hillary Clinton); Al Gore; John Kerry; John McCain; Al Sharpton; Dick Cheney; Ralph Nader… you get the idea. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have a better feel for who these people are and what they really believe? Of course they’d try to scam and bullshit you. But it would be so much harder to do.

I can fool you for 30 seconds at a time. Especially if you’ re not paying much attention. But if you’re reading what I say every day, for a year… you’re gonna learn some things about me. Good and bad.

And here’s the proof of this pot of pudding: Regular readers of smays.com have NO doubt that I would make a really bad (fill in the elective office).

Feedback: LeAnn says the tone of this post lacks “the same effervescent, entertaining qualities of your other posts. I am concerned someone pissed you way the “f” off on Thursday.” Nope, Thursday was a very nice day. But the post does read “angry,” doesn’t it. I should really stay away from politics.

I had to look up the definition of “effervescent” (vivacious; gay; lively; sparkling). I think I can sparkle but vivacious will be a stretch.