Baharestan Square, Iran

Reports of a massacre.

If wishes were horses... A wish to get in Khamenei's face for five minutes, and explain to him how he's already lost the Iranian people, that with every dead body there's family members and friends who will rise up, that sooner rather than later the regular army is going to rebel because it's their brothers and sisters dying in the streets, that he needs to stop the violence himself, that there are other ways... But it's too late now. There are no wish-granting djinn, there is no way some shmuck like me could wrangle a visit, there is no one who can talk sense into a dictator once he's got bloodlust in his heart.

Quick asides to other issues of the day

Having blogged constantly about Iran lately, I'd like to take a moment to look about at the rest of the political sphere of activity and make a few comments:

* The whole Obama-Asked-Nico issue is a non-story. As staged set-up questions go, this doesn't rise to the level of that whole Gannon fiasco. One, Nico Pitney is a real editor/reporter working for a real news/politics blog. Two, Nico posted beforehand he was going to the Obama presser to ask a question emailed to him from an Iranian. Odds are Obama and/or his staff saw that and knew it was coming away. And Three, considering how screwed up the Mainstream Media is nowadays, why NOT ask a blogger?

* I vaguely recall once thinking South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford could have made a decent Veep candidate for McCain in 2008. But then he had that brainfart on national television where he couldn't recall a single good thing McCain did as a Senator. And then when Obama pushed for a stimulus package that went towards funding projects at the state level, Sanford openly fought it trying to score political points on the national stage. Problem was, his OWN STATE REPUBLICANS fought back BECAUSE THE STATE NEEDED THE MONEY (personally, I have met people moving from South Carolina to Florida because the job market in SC is worse than in FL... what the hell?). And now, Sanford got caught disappearing for roughly six days. Lemme count each point out on this one:

• Sanford ditches his own security detail.
• Sanford doesn't alert his own Lt. Governor that he's going off for the weekend, and doesn't leave instructions or a telephone number in case of emergency. Basically, leaving South Carolina leaderless for what turned out to be six days.
• Sanford leaves his wife and kids at home. Doesn't let his wife know where he's going.
• Sanford is gone during Father's Day, basically ignoring his four sons. Nice Family Values gesture there, boss.
• Sanford's staff claims they don't know where he is.
• Sanford's cell phone is traced to being used in Atlanta before he completely vanishes. Officials find someone who spotted him boarding a flight at the airport.
• Sanford's staff then claims he's gone hiking on the Appalachian Trial. Problem is, that's 2,000 miles and 11 states long.
• Sanford finally returns Wednesday. And it turns out his staff lied - or he lied to his staff - about where he was. Sanford had gone to Argentina (!). Odder still, the U.S. embassy in Argentina didn't know, noting it was odd for any elected official not to check in with them.
  

There's about five things wrong here. One: Sanford basically abandoned his post without securing any emergency plans to cover his absence. Two: He doesn't even tell his own family where he's going. Three: People have lied at some point - either Sanford or his staff, maybe both - about where he went. Four: He went overseas to do something, but we can't be sure of what. Five: At any point of this going on, no one on Sanford's side of the situation showed any sign of common sense.
And Sanford is acting like he's going to run for President in 2012? Not if he's acting crazier than Palin.

UPDATE: Sanford just had a press announcement. He wasn't hiking. He wasn't in a fugue state (where a person under stress suddenly goes atraveling and doesn't snap out of it until he/she is in Mexico or in this case Argentina). And he wasn't "Going Galt".
Sanford was off on a f-ck run.
He's apparently resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association or some such thing (does that leave Crist or the Governator in charge? I mean, other than Palin and Jindal, who's left?). He ought to be resigning from a few other things, especially his job. Idiot didn't think his overseas journey through, did he? If he was smarter, or craftier, he'd have left the Lt. Gov in charge, at least pretend to go to hiking, and bring his Argentinian girlfriend to him to a secluded lakeside cabin in North Carolina or something. Sheesh. Instead, he pulls this crap, forcing everyone to question what, when, why, where and who, basically forcing himself to admit to this affair. IDIOT.
Also, running off for some nookie ON FATHER'S DAY??? I don't think his kids should have to get him any more Father's Days presents ever again.

* It seems rather crazy that the Democrats are gonna try for bipartisanship on the healthcare reform and environment reform bills they're trying to pass when the Republican side is offering no concessions and want to force the Democrats to water their own bills down into non-relevance.

* I've tried to get my parents to rely on more than one news source - and they do read the two local papers but I don't think that closely - but I'm catching them watching Glenn Beck. I can handle them watching the other Fox Not-News talking heads, especially since my dad did admit that O'Reilly was a blowhole, but BECK??? As such, my parents are highly miffed about the Walpin firing, during one dinner visit I basically just sat there and nodded and hummed while they griped at how partisan the firing was. Then I went and checked online through various other websites and news sources about this. TPM had a decent concise review I'm linking here. Where the Far Right is yelling conspiracy and investigation and criminal charges, a more balanced review showed that both sides were in the wrong: Obama is apparently supposed to give Congress notice to any IG firing; Walpin's conduct during the AmeriCorps/Kevin Johnson probe was questionable and partisan enough to have others involved in the investigation (especially US Attorney Lawrence Brown) complain about it. Mom, Dad... Obama may have screwed up the firing, but Walpin ain't a martyr.

Now, back to your previously scheduled Iran updates.

Oh and about the blog ads

Yeah, I'm allowing ads to show up on this blog. I don't know how to control which ads I get, otherwise I'd be blocking these damn scientology ads. I'm going to check in on that right now in fact. Meanwhile, Please DON'T click any of these dianetics ads. Remember kids, this is a wholesome Unitarian blog dammit!

EDIT: I went and cut the Adsense stuff anywho. Wasn't making any money on it.

Small gestures

The Obama Icon site now has a feature for Iran Vote, so I went and made one. Lemme see if I can get it up on mah blog here:



I think it worked.

Yeah, I know this doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, while real people are dying on the streets of Iran for their rights and their freedoms... but we need to, all of us need to let the Iranians know we are with them...

With the current news that the protests are now switching to strikes, that the police are increasing arrests, and that the Guardian Council overseeing the election has basically said "Nothing to see here. Move along," this is proving to be a long struggle. The struggle for freedom never is:

...Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. - Thomas Paine

This won't end in a week. Maybe in a month. Possibly a year. But it will end. We can only pray it ends the right way: with less blood spilled and Khamenei and his pawns driven from power.

Why I Don't Think The Iranian Revolution Will Stop Any Time Soon

When you look back on Iran's history, you see a pattern.

Iran as we know it emerged in the 1500s as a shi'a nation under the Safavid dynasty. It was pretty much stable (with a few Afghan problems) until the late 1700s under the Qajar dynasty.

From the late 1700s to the early 1900s, Iran got caught up with border wars with Russia and later on became a pawn in Russian vs. British interests in the Middle East (aka the Great Game), which weakened the regime. So for all that whittling away at a once-great Persian empire, the Iranians could blame the Russians and the British.

From the early 1900s - say, 1925 - the Qajar dynasty ended and the first Shah propped himself up. Unfortunately, World War II made Iran a major pipeline for the British and Soviets, and with that Shah's pro-German leanings, the Allies invaded in 1941 and installed the Shah's son (Reza Pahlavi) as a puppet. So again, the Iranians could blame the Russians and the Brits.

In 1953, a popularly elected prime minister Mossadegh was nationalizing the oil industry. The Brits encouraged the United States to depose the prime minister, which they did. This led to Pahlavi becoming a dictator, crushing political opposition for 25 years. So for that, the Iranians could now blame the Americans.

In 1978-79, the Ayatollah Khomenei led an uprising against the Shah, driving him out into the protection of his American patrons. One hostage situation later, a lot of bad blood builds up and remains there between the U.S. and Iran. Iranians could still blame the Americans for that.

In 1980, Saddam Hussien figures he could smash and grab Iranian territories to expand his rule and greater access to Gulf seaports. So he goes to war against Iran, 8 bloody years of it, even with Saddam using chemical weapons. Iranians could now add Saddam to the list of blame.

From the 1990s to 2005, Iran was able to focus on internal matters and improving their economy. On foreign matters, they had to deal with Saddam to their West and the Taliban to their East, with Russia and their breakaway Islamic states to the North. Times are hectic, but slowly reforms are being made, and quiet attempts at reconciliation with the West being made. But Sept. 11, 2001 happens, and in 2002 Bush comes out with his "Axis of Evil" speech putting Iran on the spot. Getting bunched together with Iraq (whom they hate) and North Korea (with whom they really didn't do a lot of business) doesn't do the moderates in Iran's government any favors. Equally harsh is that the United States stops their dealings with Iran, even after the successful team-up they made driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan. Slipping prestige and a hard-line reaction to Bush's bullying by the governing mullahs prevent moderates from running for elections in 2005 (either the moderates failed to get permission to run, or they refused to out of frustration). When a hard-line crazy guy Ahmadinejad became President, Iranians suffer under his poor rule (corruption, global embarrassment, etc.). However complex the whole mess is, Iranians could seriously blame Bush and his neocon cronys for inflaming the situation.

Now, it's 2009. Ayatollah Khamenei basically calls a questionable election result too early and too eagerly for Ahmadinejad. Even though enough Iranians know among themselves there's no way Ahmad could have won all those provinces so handily, even with widespread reports of ballot box tampering and fraud. Now acting like a bullying teenager caught in a weak lie, Khamenei is threatening violence on anyone who dares question him, and starts acting in a very Shah-like manner with violent arrests, use of acid sprays, the works. Thing is, for all of Khamenei's rhetoric against the Brits, and the Americans, and Zionists and 'foreign interlopers', the Iranian people know that's not really true. There's no evidence the Brits or the Russians or the Americans tampered with the election. It wasn't BBC or Fox News rushing to proclaim Ahmadinejad the winner "by divine will" inside of an hour after the polls closed. This time, the Iranians have no one to blame but their own leaders. And that's why I think the protests are going to continue, because Khamenei is now the target of blame. The violence will get worse, which is the pity of it all, but it's not gonna stop until he's gone.

Iran. Day Eight. Blood and Tear Gas

As always I've linked to Sullivan, who is updating the Iranian crisis on what is now a minute-to-minute basis. He's pretty much it. The cable news have gone to WEEKEND features, MSNBC is showing re-runs of hour-long crime specials for God's sake, just like they did LAST weekend. They haven't learned from their mistake last week where they got lamblasted for ignoring a major global event, and they've forgotten what made Cable News: the non-stop coverage of wars and global events like the fall of the Berlin Wall from the late-80s through to the first Gulf War. CNN and Fox are providing some updates, whereas MSNBC is still stuck in Weekend repeat mode. I still suggest if you want any television coverage on Iran, go find BBC World on your HD. They're doing a *slightly* better job of it, but still not as in-depth as I'd want...

Khamenei threw down last time I posted, saying that any future protests would be violently put down, and saying it would all be on Mousavi's hands. Of course, Khamenei isn't about to admit that the person ordering the violence is himself responsible, can he... So today there's more violence in the streets. The cops are now using anti-riot gear, tear gas, water cannons, and now reports of acid sprays - apparently an old trick from the 78-79 uprisings. Again Congratulations, Khamenei: You're now the moral equivilent of the Shah. You must be... so thrilled...

Still not too sure what can be done from this end of things other than to pray for everyone's well-being - and that God's Mighty Anvil falls on Khamenei real frakkin soon - but with escalation to violence by the regular police, that means wounded and dying. Part of me is wondering if we can check with groups like the Red Cross/Crescent or Amnesty International about what can be done for the peoples of Iran.

UPDATE: One question to consider for ponderment. What happens if this round of violence doesn't keep people off the streets like the mullahs hope? The Iranian economy is starting to crimp from the growing number of strikes, closed offices, and lack of normal telecommunications. Khamenei and his lackeys aren't controlling the images getting out to the world. The longer this gets strung out, the more likely international condemnation from other Islamic nations will increase. For all the violence we're seeing - and I know this sounds cynical because it's not my life on the line - this really isn't as bad as it *could* be: the Iranian leadership is too afraid to kill too many people lest they create a literal army of dead martyrs. They're trying to kill *just enough* people to induce fear and hopelessness... but that doesn't seem to be working as more people are out in the streets chanting. And they're still making too many martyrs for the protesters' cause.
This isn't China, where the protest was focused primarily in Tianneman Square, where the army could go bulldozing in and flatten 2000-3000 people, and be able to do it mostly off-camera (this was before twitter and cell-phone cameras ever existed). The protests are in multiple cities, covering a broad array of the population (while the secret thug police have been smashing up colleges, they're going after the more high-profile targets but missing everyone else marching in the streets), and with enough of the population armed with 21st century technology that the mullahs can't stop.
One other point about this not being China: lack of viable allies. China in 1989 still had a Soviet Union to back them up internationally, and the nuclear firepower (and growing financial power) to ensure the United States and the West not argue the point too often or too loudly. Iran? They may be on good speaking terms with Russia, but this isn't their fight (Russia could benefit from a more liberal Iran that's not agitating other Islamic ethnicities to rise up). Can you think of any Islamic nation (not internal terror group, btw) that has openly accepted the questionable voting results, or would now ally with a mullah-led state that's openly supressing their own people?
Another point about this not being China: the regular Iranian army is still not moving in. With China, in went the tanks, out went the bodies (except for this guy. Oh Gods. I still hope he's alive and following this story), and that was that. The longer the army stays on the sidelines, the better. And the Iranian army can afford to stay on the sidelines. The mullahs can't go after the army too harshly if they do prevail, because that will get the army back into the fight on the protesters' side: the citizenry will be grateful to the army's non-intervention if they prevail, and whatever civilian power comes into office will need the army to stablize what will be a chaotic next few years. It's win-win for the regular army to just sit there. Mind you, if they do go in it's game over for the protesters and it'll be a win of sorts for the army: but only as long as Khamenei stays in power. And Iran will be another unstable military/mullah junta with zero international credibility. One would question if Russia or China would help Iran continue their nuclear program...
Now there is the Revolutionary Guard special forces army, but they don't have enough manpower/firepower to take care of all the protests nationwide, and if they go in to bloodily wipe out any one citywide protest that would actually cause an inverse reaction where the protesters will throw up more barricades and prolong the fight like it was 1840s France... or 1979 Iran...
What was my point again? I admit, I meandered there. The point is, Khamenei played a game of chicken with the protesters: the protesters called his bluff. And while the body count is going up, the bodies are showing up on global TV and creating an environment where global political pressure is going to fall on Khamenei (not Mousavi). This can, as said before, get a lot worse. Depends entirely on how stubborn Khamenei is compared to how worried he has to be that he's already lost one way or another...

Iran, Day Seven

From Sullivan:

@elilake: "Shorter Khamenei: Ajad won, u are all going to take it, if u don't my goons will murder u." - posted by Ambers.

That might be a bit too concise, but Khamenei's speech basically went that way: he claims the vote counts were legitimate, that the protests are all the work of foreigners and dirty Zionists, and that the "British are the worst" (WTF? England hasn't f-cked with Iran since 1945. Let's be blunt: the U.S. has been a far worse transgressor. Why bring the Brits into this? Unless the guy hates Dr. Who or something... ooooo, Khamenei's a tasteless bastard, now we HAVE to get rid of him). And that any continued protests will lead to more violence that will be blamed on the Zionists and foreigners.

The biggest problem with Khamenei's speech, other than that he's a damn liar, is that he's throwing off the gloves. The odds that the Revolutionary Guards (not the regular Iranian army, nor the local street thugs) are about to jump into the fray went up to - literally - dead certain. The violence is going to get worse. The big question is now, will the other mullahs and will the regular army step up for the people?

And Iran. Day Six.

As always, keeping up with Sullivan on this.

Sullivan linked to a 16-point brief as a means of sifting through the mass of rumors and unconfirmed reports, which itself is commenting on a thread posted at Anonymous Iran. The best verifiable news?

7. Protests have occurred not just in Tehran yesterday, but in Ahvaz, Mashhad, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Shiraz, Tabriz and EVEN Qom. [Largely verified, although we are checking the Qom claim.]
13. As of today, not a single report of the military’s intervention into the peaceful protests has been established. Not a single one. [Verified. Apart from a brief reports of tanks on the streets on Monday night, there has been no evidence of Iranian military challenging the demonstrations.]

Also, when the ICHC political section Pundit Kitchen (site no longer valid) had some protest photos uploaded, I couldn't resist:

Keep watching. Keep praying.

(Update 8/30/2016): Yeah, it's been seven years since this article. I'm still getting traffic to it, even though some of the political dynamic have changed since 2009. I'm mostly here to fix the links with permanent (hopefully) additions of the original photos I created in I Can Has Cheezburgr site, which should help those still looking for this blog.

Click the Iran tag at the bottom of this article, you should get the more current blogging I've done on this ongoing situation. Thank ye.

New color: Iranian Green

One thing we can do for the protesters standing up for their freedoms in Iran is show solidarity.




Go Green.

(image from digby's Hullabaloo blog)




Stand up. Sing out.

P.S. Obama's supposed to be speaking re: Iran by 5 pm, makes it less than 1/2 hour from now. Hope he's wearing a green tie. >:-)

UPDATE: John Cole of Balloon Juice caught some flack from Sullivan about Cole's questioning how changing your font color is gonna save the world. Thing is, Cole, Sully wants to do something, anything, that includes being the funnel through which all the news about Iran is going through, and changing font colors as a sign of solidarity is merely part of the moment. It's akin to an expression of passion, for the Iranians standing up. It may be meaningless in the real world, but it's from the heart...

Save Iran

Right now, all any of us outside that country can is pray. All we can do is sit here and read the Twitter reports coming in. People are dying, they are getting rounded up by the truckload, school dorms shot up, the violence, the madness.

The Iranian people are asking for our help. But what can we do? Any military saber rattling and the Ayatollah and his cronies will be screaming 'imperialism' and 'Death to America', and then claim the protesters are traitors and justify to themselves their 'right' to line 'em all up against the wall. Think the violence is bad now, think how bad Ahmadinejad and Khamenei would get the second the U.S. or any other nation in the region (Turkey or even Syria, for example) makes any noise about all this. Any action we could do would cause an unequal and more violent reaction. So the 40-plus million unarmed Iranians rising up against the crooked election are going in physically alone against their own armed police and armed military. Rest of the world is praying for 'em (other than the usual suspects of idiots like Hezbollah and U.S. Neocons), but prayer can only go so far...

I wish to GOD I could more than sit here and cheerlead. I'm no soldier else I'd be AWOL and parachuting in on my own. I'm no politician else I'd be in ambassadors' faces calling for sanctions and military intervention. I'm no wise man else I'd have found a solution to this whole sorry mess years ago.

Keep watching. Keep praying. Pray to God this will end up like the Philippines in 1986 when People Power worked.

I'm just wondering why Jimmy Carter didn't go in to observe the Iranian 2009 Election...

Well, among other things, that is.

Iran's 2009 Presidential election promised to be interesting for one thing: to see how much cheating the clerics who actually run Iran would commit to block the reform-minded forces from winning.

Let's try to note a few things first:

• The incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been unpopular during his term of office (I'm tempted to use adverbs like "monstrously" or "hideously" before the word "unpopular", but that would be rude). His administration has been dogged by charges of corruption, by inability to deal with the current global recession, and by various controversial statements that - if you're being charitable - bordered on Holocaust Denial and outright elimination of Israel.
• Iran's election isn't as open as they claim: all candidates have to be approved by an oversight committee - The Guardians of the Universe sorry Guardian Council - basically meaning the candidates have to kiss the ring of the Ayatollah just to even get the right to step outside their house. While I can gripe about how candidates have to suck up to our two established parties here in the U.S., at least they aren't forced to suck up to a non-elected dictator who rules for life and answers to no one (and despite the rhetoric, Limbaugh doesn't have *that* much pull).
• For all I'm reading on how Iran holds it's elections, I see no method of independent review and oversight to ensure fair results: all the counting is done by an election commission that answers to - you guessed it - a non-elected dictator who rules for life and answers to no one.

The election's done, and the shouting is just switching to bonfires and street riots. The reform candidate Mousavi is claiming voter fraud: and interestingly there's already a damn good chart on Sullivan's blog showing just how sick the election results are proving. My God. The chart goes in a STRAIGHT LINE. Incoming election results DON'T work like that: they peak and valley, up and down, they fluctuate as the results differ from region to region as they report in. I took classes on statistics and research methods for my journalism and library science degrees: polling results are organic, they ebb and flow. A straight line like that can only occur through direct interference with the numbers: a straight line is a FRAKKING ALGEBRA EQUATION. They're not even trying properly to fake it.

C'mon. They're giving a guy like Ahmadinejad who couldn't consistently break 50 percent in the pre-election polls (the only polling service that gave Ahmad-whateva anything close to that was some outfit called Alef, which I just noticed has ties to Iran's official broadcasting service: nearly every other polling service was showing close wins either way but mostly to Mousavi) a 69 to 28 percent victory? Anything over 52 percent and we're talking fishy numbers here. He's getting 69 percent? Obama didn't get 69 percent. Reagan in 1984 didn't get 69 percent of the popular vote, for God's sake, and that was one of the biggest butt stomping election wins in American history.

I have just one question for the Ayatollah: if everything happens by the Will of Allah... Why did you have to cheat? I just have one other thing to say to the Ayatollah: Congratulations. You are now just like the Shah of Iran that your dad drove out of power. Enjoy.

Sullivan's explanation about why the Ayatollah and his lackeys cheated is the simplest: the clerics panicked. People who enjoy the status quo always do.

And now it's on to an easier bigger, and even nastier, question: does the Iranian military enjoy the status quo enough to roll in the tanks and squash the rioters? Or will enough officers in the military see an opportunity here, to end an unpopular theocracy and broker a peaceful transition of power from the clerics to honestly-elected officials? Because we've seen this film before: that time, it didn't have a happy ending...

UPDATE: Keep reading Sullivan. He's as obsessed about this as I am, and he's got better sources of information.
On the bad news side, there's reports of deaths in the streets now. Mousavi apparently under house arrest. On the good news side, Sullivan's most current update suggests people have been protesting well into 4 a.m. Iran-time. The Iranian people are NOT backing down on this yet. Gods, I hate this waiting. It'd be nice to be able to do something to help, other than just cheerlead from the keyboard. But for all this can affect other nations, this is an internal affair: there's nothing we can do to get our government to anything to help the people of Iran. The best we can hope for is that enough cops, enough soldiers realize the Ayatollah's days are numbered...

UPDATE II: Mousavi not under house arrest (for now), violence has gotten worse for both sides, with reports of college dorms getting shot up and students and professors disappearing. For the most part, the army and official police are staying out of the fight. The real bloodshed is being spilled by some sort of auxiliary security force called Basij, with additional reports that Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon being bussed in for out-of-town muscle (I immediately thought of Hessians when I heard about that). There's still too much unresolved and up in the air. If you're seeing this, Keep reading Sullivan (and yes Cole he's sliding into poetry readings: so what, I'm tempted to break out some e.e. cummings before too long!).

Another Shooting, Another Tragedy

Just as the arguing over the violence inherent among conservatives in the pro-life movement was fading from the big media, we get this: Yesterday a well-established white supremasist who WENT TO JAIL for attempting to "arrest" Alan Greenspan (!!!) back in 1981, and who over the last several months posted online messages warning of violent action, showed up at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and opened fire with a rifle, killing one guard before other guards could wound the gunman.

As I said before, in a message to all goddamn Right Wingnuts: who else are you gonna shoot, huh? You're shooting Unitarians, you're shooting doctors, you're shooting police officers, you're shooting up our churches and our schools and our businesses and now our museums. THERE WERE KIDS THERE! My nephew and niece could have been there, my cousins living in that area could have been there. GODDAMN YOU.

I've been to the Holocaust Museum. Visited with my sister more than 12 years ago. Has it been that long? It's a very solemn place to be, humbling as hell to look at mock-ups of the boxcars and the camps, to track the flow of events from a person's ID booklet to see what happened to them from the ghettos to the roundups to the aftermath. And of course the neo-Nazis want to shoot up that place, to blow it up: they deny the Holocaust out of one side of their mouths while out the other side they insist Hitler should have finished the job. Of course that place will be a target. It's a pity that the guards working there are on the front lines of an increasingly violent battle that's honestly moving from the wingnut blogs onto the streets. It's a pity Stephen Tyrone Johns died: all he did was open the door to let the gunman in. Jesus. Johns was my age.

And of course, the big Far Right media is gonna swear off this, that O our constant ranting about socialism and Obama's birth certificate and evil libruls taking your guns away isn't really driving all the gun-and-bomb-happy wingnuts to the brink. Glenn Beck is even trying to dismiss the gunman (and by extension all Nazis) off as a "lefty" and that it's all Obama's fault "for stirring up a boiling pot"! O'Reilly claims this isn't even newsworthy. Hannity never mentioned it last night, focusing instead on the firing of Miss California a D-list type celeb who became the poster girl for the Far Right because of her marriage views. And Limbaugh, ringmaster for this goddamn Far Right Circus of Stupid? He's leading a charge by other conservative media hacks to drive Shep Smith off of Fox Not-News for being the only one on that channel to make direct links between this shooting and a Homeland Security report warning of increased far-right violence... a report the Far Right immediately attacked so viciously that they forced the Homeland Security Secretary to apologize for the report. EVEN THOUGH THAT GODDAMN REPORT IS TURNING OUT TO BE GODDAMN ACCURATE. I don't see anybody apologizing to Napolitano, do you? Of course not. The goddamn Far Right Noise Machine and their gun-toting brownshirts never apologize for a goddamn thing.

It's official. Look at the escalating political violence. Look at the so-called patriotic Right calling for seccession, even elected officials like Texas' governor dropping hints about it. The Far Right has declared war on the United States. It's not a question now about "if". It's now a question of "when" there will be another shooting. It's now a question of "how bad" it's gonna be. But it shouldn't be a question of "who's next" on the hit list. Because that's US. Everyone who's not in their goddamn shrinking purity club. We're next.

Goddamn them.

Now THESE Are Pirates We Can Support

The European Parliament elections just came and went, and yeah it's a really big deal because the EU is primed for WORLD GLOBAL DOMINATION as soon as they defeat the ungodly Snake menace on our airlines, but I digress. The point I want to make is that Sweden voted 7 percent for their very own Pirate Party.

They're actually a political group fighting for file sharing, copyright reform, government transparency (Sunshine Laws of FOIA stuff) and increased right to privacy. But they want to be pirates. In a good way. :)

The Swedish Pirates are a relatively new group (2006?) but are already the third largest party in Sweden... albeit at .63 percent of the vote in 2006. You need 4 percent to secure a seat in Sweden's national government. But today is 2009, and with that 7 percent turnout the Pirates have 2 seats in the EU.

The big news is how the Pirate Party plays for the up-and-coming generation - the 18-to-29 group - and there the Pirates have a decent 21 percent fanbase. Mostly because the issues they support (file sharing above all) are issues directly affecting youths who grew up with music and video downloading.

These Pirates could well surpass the now stodgy Loony Parties for political coolness. Avast!

Wonder if we can start a Pirate Party here in the U.S. We *do* need a viable third party what with the Republicans committing ritual self-immolation...

Angry

Dear Right Wingnuts:

who are you gonna shoot when you run out of doctors?

who are you gonna shoot when you run out of Unitarians?

who are you gonna shoot when you run out of cops?

who are you gonna shoot when you find out that it wasn’t liberals and blacks and Puerto Ricans keeping you down, it was the rich fat white guys sitting in their radio booths urging you to kill other people?

Don’t sit there, Wingnuts, crying like you’re the victims in all this, that it’s not your fault your fellow Wingnuts are going around armed to the elevens, that the big mean libruls are to blame for your violence and hate. It’s not the libruls pulling the trigger. It’s not the Unitarians painting bulls-eyes on their shirts. It’s not the doctors and the cops going about doing their jobs trying to bring order to a chaotic universe. It’s you pulling the trigger. It’s you painting bulls-eyes on everyone. It’s you shooting up schools and clinics and churches and offices and homes.

Goddamn you, Wingnuts. Goddamn you all to Hell.

All Politics Is Madness: The Sotomayor Gambit

It's been a mad week, in more ways than one, with Obama announcing his first Supreme Court Justice nominee with Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican woman with a long career as prosecutor and judge... and with the wingnut talking head faction of the Republican Party responding by going into Crazy-Ass Insane Mode so quickly that forget Light Speed, they've gone to Plaid.

The best I can do right now is throw up a few thoughts:

• Sotomayor isn't Harriet Miers. Miers was at most an office manager throughout her legal career: she had some corporate litigation cases but most of her time was served as head of the Texas Bar Association. Miers lacked courtroom experience, above all the experience of being a judge at any level. Even conservatives were balking at her nomination. Bush the Lesser's administration tried to weaken that argument by pointing out other SCOTUS nominees like Earl Warren never had judicial experience as well: that actually inflamed the Far Right more because conservatives hate hate HATE that Warren as the worst of those detested Activist Judges.
  Before I lose focus on this: By comparison Sotomayor has judicial experience up the wazoo. Placed at a District level by Bush the Elder in 1992, Clinton bumped her up to the Appellate level in 1996 and she's been on the Democrats' SCOTUS short-list since 2005. Toss into that her brief career as a DA prosecutor and that's already a career equal to the likes of Alito, Breyer and Ginsberg (the other Justices have barely a few years of judicial experience but have decades with the Attorney General's office and related federal agencies that handle constitutional issues on a daily basis, giving them quality experience).
• Sotomayor is Puerto Rican, and would be - technically - the first Hispanic SCOTUS Justice ever (there's semantic arguing over how to classify Justice Cardozo: he's Portuguese/Spanish, but he had considered himself of Jewish ethnicity above all, so...)
• I think Obama knew exactly what he was getting himself, his administration, and this nation into when he nominated Sotomayor. I think he knew the Far Right Noise Machine would go straight into Insanity Mode and attack Sotomayor within three seconds of the pre-announcement leak. He knew that the likes of Limbaugh, Gingrich, Fox Not-News, NRO, Weekly Standard, WSJ and other Right-leaning sources would not stand for ANYONE he picked, so he picked the nominee that would cause the Republicans the most self-inflicted damage. I bet Obama even knew that one little paragraph (and it IS little, for God's sake) where Sotomayor said her life experience as a "wise" Latina woman would give her "better" judicial insight than a white male and that it would drive the Limbaugh crowd to crazier heights of shriekitude, that her one statement would make the Republicans overreact to her being a woman and a Hispanic. That the Far Right would even go so far as to charge Sotomayor (and by extension their true target Obama) with "reverse racism" or even outright racism (focusing on the Ricci case, which will most likely be the blunt instrument used against her in the Senate), even when her actual judicial record shows no such evidence. The Far Right is going so far as to bring back retired SOB Tom Tancredo. Remember him? The one idiot who went out of his way to insult Miami Cubans (!!!), and then feigned outrage when they assaulted him when he dared to show up later in Miami for a book signing. There's crazy, and then there's stupid, and then there's Tancredo the one Republican who automatically drives every Hispanic-American into the arms of the Democrats. And so you've got all this overreaction by the wingnut base that would further alienate women and Hispanics against the Republicans. When a Hispanic Republican media adviser openly complains about the flame war - he didn't hide behind the "anonymous source" shield - that's telling you something.
• And all Obama had to do was select a qualified judge. All he has to do now is stoke the Far Right with a few more half-hearted pseudo-apologies, and then sit back and let the GOP eat themselves with their own rage, impotence and racist stupidity. Dear G. Gordon Liddy: don't confuse Puerto Ricans for illegal aliens. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens (since 1917). They may be Hispanics but that is such an over-arching umbrella covering everyone from Mexico to Chile that its' ethnic status is actually rather fluid.
• The current polling numbers show Obama's gamble is playing beautifully: all the polling shows comfortable acceptance margins by the public for Sotomayor and for Obama's handling of the pick. While the poll numbers always fluctuate, there's little the Republicans can say or do that would make things worse for the Sotomayor selection. Unless they get even more racist and misogynistic than they already are. It *would* be nice to see if libel and defamation laws have any teeth left...
  
• The odds of a filibuster are surprisingly low. While it may be the one weapon the Republican Far Right wingnuts will eventually hope (grope?) for, the deal is the Republicans who are actually in office with their own asses on the line aren't about to go nuclear on a pick like this. Having a heavy hitter like Sen. Cornyn openly rebuke Limbaugh is rare: equally rare is that there's no sign Cornyn has back-stepped his statement or apologized to the Grand Overlord Rush (yet, the weekend is still young).
  If a Republican is crazy enough to force a filibuster, or even a cloture vote on the matter, you are gonna see the biggest stampede of Puerto Ricans to the local Elections offices to switch their voter IDs to (D)emocrats in human history (by the by, there's more Puerto Ricans in the U.S. than in Puerto Rico!).

That's all I have for the moment (but not the nonce, by what my dictionary tells me). I'm sure there'll be more batsh-t crazy stuff over this as the days pass.

Unfinished Business

Twenty years this month, Chinese students and workers began a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square during a similar democracy movement in Eastern Europe.

The protests grew from hundreds of thousands to millions, spreading to other Chinese cities. With the whole world watching, it seemed as though China would enjoy - like the Philippines in 1986 - a People Power moment that would reform the government from one-party authoritarianism to a multi-party government, surely as cumbersome and ineffective as any other parliamentary system but at least an open system.

And then the night of June 3, 1989.

The day after the tanks rolled in and violently quashed (The actual body count may never be known, but nearly everyone eyewitness or researcher on the crackdown notes at least a hundred soldiers and thousands of protesters dead) the student protests, before the Chinese government could completely close off the media and censor anything and everything about Tiananmen, cameramen caught on film a lone protester standing in front of a row of tanks, challenging the horror that the army brought on their own people.


see more Political Pictures

That's my sentiment. It's been twenty years. I hope he's still alive. I hope there's still a chance in my lifetime to see China end its insane and corrupt one-party rule. I hope.

LibraryThing currently down

Somehow, my LibraryThing list got co-opted by a default. It looks as though the LibraryThing site has a new method of plugging widgets in... and I have no frakkin idea how that works just yet.

So, in the meanwhile, just remember that Republicans think that filibustering Supreme Court nominees is wrong, WRONG!... oh wait, they're not in the majority anymore. Nevermind. Prepare for the filibustering of Sotomayor.

UPDATE: Figured out the widget to add LibraryThing's custom HTML code. Go ahead and check out mah readings. Oh, and buy my book!

To reaffirm: Amendment ideas

Noting that I can get sidetracked with political squabbles of the day, I've considered re-printing the core amendment ideas I've been bouncing aboot since Post One (whenever that was...)

The Top Five Amendment Ideas I'm really keen on:

• The President of the United States is NOT above the law. The system of checks and balances between all three branches of government remain in effect AT ALL TIMES (even wartime).
• All campaigning for federal elections (which also should affect state and local elections) CANNOT begin until the actual year of election: no fundraising, no warchests, no organizational or exploratory committees until the actual calendar year. No ifs ands or buts.
• The Presidential primary must be held on the same day in all states (and territories): no more Iowa and New Hampshire going first, no more states fighting over who gets to go first, every American gets to make their choices for candidates at the same time everyone does. And the primary candidates have to spend and advertise and campaign equally in all states.
• Universal Voter Registration.
• Lying is NOT protected speech. Any elected official or government civil servant caught making false statements to be suspended without pay pending investigation into those statements. If it's found the lying SOB knew that he/she was lying, they will be removed from office/impeached and barred from any government interaction forever.

That's it. The five amendments I'd love to see in my lifetime. Now, to actually *DO* something about 'em...

It's Official: the Republicans think it's a marketing problem

From Roger Simon at Politico:

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution re-branding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

While I know there's only 4 to 7 people ever viewing this site, meaning no one high up on the Republican food chain would have read what I already wrote about how stupid it is to use 'Socialist' as an insult anymore, I'd have hoped someone else with better connections would have tried to warn the GOP Establishment by now. Seems that hadn't happened.

The Republicans used to use proxies - like their media cohorts, allies like Fox Not-News and their Party Leader Limbaugh - to dish out the insults and name-calling the past 20 years or so. But now, they're making the actual party take over such duties.

Worse, they think that this attempt at name-calling is actual good policy: That instead of thinking up new positions on taxation, or business regulation, or social issues like civil unions and abortion and immigration, all they have to do is come up with better insults and BLAMMO, the Republican Party will be in the majority again.

Guys, I take it none of you watched The West Wing. You missed that episode where C.J.'s backstory had her working as a disillusioned media hack for Hollywood and a media mogul wants her fired for not promoting his crappy movies into more Golden Globe nominations:

"...The movies were bad, Roger, all of them. Even the little kid was bad, but he was a little kid, he had a couple of scenes, big eyeglasses, lisp, he's going to the Golden Globes. You know why the New Coke marketing campaign failed? Because nobody liked New Coke. The movies were bad. If the movies were unknown, I could help you, but they weren't. They were just bad!"

Calling them 'Socialists' isn't going to make the Democrats less popular or less trustworthy, wingnuts. Calling them 'Socialists' isn't going to solve the problems YOU have as Republicans selling a crappy product ("Tax Cuts! No Gays! Bomb Everyone! It's Not Torture Because We Say So!"). If you think it's a marketing issue, wingnuts, you ought to look first at fixing your crappy product instead of mocking your competitor's product.

UPDATE: On May 20th, the RNC changed the proposed insult campaign and decided instead to decry Obama and the Dems' "March towards Socialism". Apparently someone realized directly accusing Lefties of overt "Socialist" attitudes wasn't selling well outside of the 30 percent Rightie base, so they figured making the Democrats look like a bunch of walking ethusiasts would work better. The Republicans still haven't figured out it's not the Democrats' product, it's the GOP Sh-tburgers no one wants to buy anymore that's the problem.

Florida Politics: Crist and the GOP Paradox

I know, I haven't written about amendment ideas for a good while - it's because the ideas already thrown out there like "No More Lying," "Death to Greedheads" and "President Is NOT Above the Law" are kinda it, any other amendment idea comes along as response to a momentary crisis, but I digress - but at least the political scene keeps me motivated in publishing from time to time.

The choice news du jour is local: Florida Governator Charlie Crist will officially thrown his hat into the ring for the open U.S. Senate seat for 2010.

While the polling numbers for the competitive race (both primary and general) are still early they also look pretty good for him. Crist remains popular across the board in Florida, even among Democrats (!!!) at a time any Republican Governor would feel lucky to be polling above 5o percent. Despite the budgetary woes Crist has been able to keep himself away from that mire, leaving it to an increasingly unpopular (thanks for all the corruption, guys!) state Lege.

But as for being a popular - or even a Moderate - Republican, well, a closer look is warranted... and if he truly is a Moderate Republican, closer concerns need to be addressed...

Crist's popularity among moderates (and Democrats) is derived mostly from three things: 1) Sincere attempts to court state Blacks and Hispanics, mostly by improving voter access for minorities and stopping dubious voter roll purges; 2) Presenting himself as eco-friendly regarding carbon emissions and Everglades protection; 3) He's not Jeb Bush, even though their gubernatorial achievements are mostly similar outside of points 1) and 2). Where Jeb had it better over Crist was unshakable support from the Republican ranks... but even there Crist is still popular with rank-and-file GOP voters. It's the local (and federal) Republican leadership that is at odds - rather openly - with Crist.

But in truth Crist is a rather solid conservative: openly pro-life and pro-Jebus for one thing; heavy on the gov't spending cuts and avoidance of tax hikes wherever possible for another (what else to call Amendment One for Super-homesteading he promoted, which evaded the real problem the state has in raising revenue via property taxes?).

The thing that really gets the GOP leadership all hot and bothered is that Crist DOESN'T stick to the script. When he needs to, which has been often, Crist jumps the Republican Reservation fence and goes rogue. The most obvious example is the one the Club for Greed, primary challenger Marco Rubio (a local up-and-comer who DOES toe the party line), Rush Limbaugh, GOP Guvnners like Palin and Jindal and Sanford, and nearly every GOP Congressperson and Senator NOT named Specter, Snowe or Collins will point to:

Crist openly supported Obama's stimulus package.

It's only a really big deal simply because the Republican Party had decided, back in January and February when every economist not on the Club for Greed and CATO Institute payroll were screaming for federal relief from a massive Recession, to simply deny and obstruct the stim package in toto. And that the whole party had to reject the Stim. Simply on principle. Because after 8 years of reckless GOP spending and relaxing of financial and business regulations that helped CAUSE the economic crisis in the first place, the Republicans finally decided they were the Responsible Fiscal Geniuses all along and they all wanted Obama to FAIL and so the Stimulus package had to be opposed even in the face of economic armageddon.

Except for Crist. Crist hosted a rally in Florida, posed with Obama, praised the Stimulus money coming to his states and all the other states. Even as the rest of the Republican Party voted No even with Obama's attempt at bipartisanship and compromise, became the Party of No much to the chagrin of the whole country... and even as the Republican Party kept losing voters across the board (SEE Tedisco's Failure to Win New York District 20 Even Though Its A Solid GOP District) and even as Crist's popularity never wavered (why else is Nate Silver projecting an EASY primary AND general win?).

Because this is really the one thing in Crist's favor: He's not stupid. He may be crazy - as all Floridians tend to be, hi guys! - but he's not stupid.

Because Crist, sitting in the governor's seat, was seeing a looming state budget threatened by a massive financial shortfall. Florida's meager tax system was generated by property sales and millage rates that went into the red as the housing/mortgage bubble went POP; sales taxes from all those tourists we USED to get before 9/11, the gas crisis of 2007-08, AND the unemployment crisis of 2007-Current kept them from enjoying our beaches and crappy Disney rides; and by avoiding any direct taxation on companies to move their corporate HQs here as a means of generating better state-level wealth so that residents wouldn't rely on public resources, only to have said companies ship all their jobs overseas to India and China anyway.

Without that Stimulus funding, Crist was facing something few states want to face: utter bankruptcy. A lot of states, even Republican ones, were facing massive deficits and possible bankruptcies. The typical GOP Governor response was "Not gonna take the Stim money." Palin said it, Sanford said it, Perry said it... until their own State Leges - some of them Republican-led and none of them thinking of running for the White House in 2012 - basically knee-capped them and said "WE NEED THE FRAKKING MONEY!" Except Crist. Like I said, not stupid: Crist saw the mood of the populus, he did the REAL basic math all politicians ought to do, and he full-heartedly applauded Obama and gave the President the bipartisan cover he needed to sell the Stimulus nation-wide. And that Stimulus money - for the most part - saved the state budget (what's gonna save it next year, though...).

So this is the deal: The Republicans as led by Rush, Newt, BillO and Grover are reeling right now, mostly from self-inflicted wounds they won't even admit to, and currently in a serious anger mode not only focused on Obama but anyone who even dares to associate with him. Which means Crist, currently the most prominent Republican caught on film hugging Obama, is also on their "Hate Him" List. Other Rubio allies are gonna have to include Mike Huckabee, who has to be thinking if Crist wins the Senate in 2010 he'll be in a better position to run for President 2012; and Jeb Bush, who has a personal animus against Crist (mostly because Crist has done almost the same things Jeb did but got more praise for it, and when Crist did things Jeb opposed it made Crist even MORE popular). Meaning these prominent Republicans are gonna seriously go out of their way to hurt one of their own. Almost like when the Kos crowd went out of their way to hurt Lieberman in 2006, the only difference being that if the GOP hardliners hurt Crist it's actually going to make things worse for the whole Republican Party.

'Cause here's the Paradox: Crist is running as an extremely popular Republican at a time nearly no other Republican is polling such high numbers, statewide or nationwide. Yet you're going to see a large part of the Republican's political machine turn against him, even though Crist represents the best possible chance the Republicans will have to A) keep a Senate seat (R), and B) prove that the Republicans are not a dying party. 'Cause this is the thing Kos and his krewe want: they WANT Rush and Co. beating up on Crist during the primary, because it'll be just like when the Republican hardliners beat up on Chafee and Gilchrist and ended up losing those incumbants' seats to solid Democrats. Democrats are terrified of Crist: if he survives the primary, even wounded, he'll still be a more attractive candidate than the likely Democratic challenger (Kendrick Meek). And even though Obama won this state in November (and McCain won it in the 2008 primary, even over more 'acceptable' conservative choices like Romney (bleh)), Florida is a solid GOP state: Crist survives the primary and the Democrat might as well concede right then.

So this is the challenge to the GOP. Should the party wake up, accept Crist as a solid candidate, and make it a smooth ride to November 2010 and ensure the Republicans don't lose more footing in the Senate? Or should the party continue its descent into irrational (and it IS irrational) Obama Hate and Tax-Cut Obsessiveness, push hard for a Rubio candidancy, make it more likely the next Senator from Florida is Meek, and make it absolutely certain the Republicans have NO power at the Federal level for the next 2-6 years (or even longer)?