Demand Bush Respond to the Downing Street Memo
Sign Congressman Conyers' letter to President Bush demanding an official response and full inquiry into the validity of the Downing Street Memo, which states that the administration knowingly shaped intelligence to construct a justification for invading Iraq, then 'sold' the war to the American public based on this distortion of intel.
If true, the Downing Street Memo--an official memo of our closest ally--is proof that
President Bush is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors; the definition of an impeachable offense.
If true, W lied to Congress in his 2002 State of the Union speech; a report that he is constitutionally required to give from time to time. I doubt the framers thought it necessary to include admonishments not to lie in such a report.
Big Words
OK, I know the following defies the ground rules (beware, polysyllabic discourse ahead), but I think it's fair to talk a little more about
why we're doing what we're doing (creating a new language for democratic politics). Since such discussion is going to be pretty darn
meta anyway, I'm pulling out the stops and using the big words. Fair warning given.
"Every education system is a political means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discourse, with the knowledge and the powers it carries with it"
Foucault, The Discourse on Language
Today, the true "Public Education" is, tragically, the mass media, which has increasing manifested a predilection for the reified neospeak of the far right, modifying the appropriation of discourse in their favor.
A leftwards lexical shift could remodify Americans' mental taxonomies in a similar manner.
Until then, the
vox populi will continue to speak (and think!) in the language of the right, even when critiquing it--thus weakening any such critique at the semiotic level.
...And while I truly believe that, I don't think I can sell it to America in such packaging.
Back to small words.
W Uses "Up or Down Vote" Four Times in Three Sentences
As opposed to a side-to-side vote? An in or out vote? Listen, this is intentional brainwashing! Today, from the Rose Garden:
"You know, I thought -- I thought John Bolton was going to get an up or down vote on the Senate floor, just like he deserves an up or down vote on the Senate floor, and clearly he's got the votes to get confirmed. And so I was disappointed that once again, the leadership there in the Senate didn't give him an up or down vote. And the reason it's important to have an up or down vote is because we need to get our ambassador to the United Nations to help start reforming that important organization."
W's Rose Garden Press Conference - White House Transcript
Less intentional was probably the end of his response to a question about the damning Amnesty International Report which was, according to the official white house transcript (above):
"And, you know..."
Well, no, I don't know! Daily Kos details how
Cheney has said that Amnesty can't be taken seriously, while Rumsfeld used Amnesty to justify war in Iraq! Which is it?
New Language: "Stop Lying to Our Troops"
The more positive spin the Administration puts on the outlook for the future that is being built (torn apart) by its own policies, the less I believe them. I didn't believe Cheney when he said, prior to the Iraq invasion that
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
Interview with Vice-President Dick Cheney, NBC, "Meet the Press," Transcript for March 16, 2003
The trick is, sometimes we wish we
could believe them, as when Bush declared
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 2, 2003
At that point, there had been about 160 American fatalities. Today, there are ten times that many.
We wish we could believe Cheney when he told Larry King yesterday that the war in Iraq will be over by 2009. But we can't. We wish we could, but we can't.
We stand with our troops as proud Americans, fighting to protect our country from threats, both foreign and domestic! We will fight to ensure our troops are NOT irresponsibly put in harm's way, and NOT LIED TO. We fully support our men and women in uniform and will continue to work for smart use of the world's best military.
New Language: "Stop Lying to Our Troops"
Bush Tells Naval Academy Grads a Whopper
Watching W address the Anapolis graduating class on CNN right now. There was tepid applause for this load of smoke up their ass:
So long as I'm your President, you will have the very best equipment and the resources you need to get the job done.
I suppose that's sort of true. They will have the best equipment
if their families buy it for them before they ship out.
Deaths in "Newsweek Riot" were a LIE
Not only is there
no evidence that anybody died in the Great Newsweek Massacre, it is also coming to light that the
riots were planned months in advance by anti-western forces, who merely seized upon the story as a good excuse to rally the troops.
In other news, I just updated the header to be less generic and more on-topic. The statistics it cites are up-to-date as of today.
- $7,780,229,236,305 in National Debt (*cough* surplus? what surplus?)
- That's $26,268 per US citizen!
- Over 21,795 Dead Iraqi Civilians
- Over 1,800 Coalition deaths
I don't have my $26,268 share of the national debt stuffed in my mattress (my mattress isn't that big), so I hope W doesn't come looking for it anytime soon.
Let me know what you think of the new graphic, plus any other comments are more than welcome.
Democrats Win on Social Security
With an approval rating of ~30% on Social Security, Bush has lost this one. The Democrats win (hunh? wah?). As
Josh points out on Kos, now's a good time to spread the word.
New Language: Education Lowers the Abortion Rate, Abstinence-Only Programs Increase It
As Clinton said, abortion should be legal and rare.
To me, it is incomprehensible that the same people who want to outlaw abortion because it is so wrong (and it
is a worst-case scenario, no matter which side you are on), also prevent our
clearly sexually-active
youth from learning how to prevent pregnancy. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized country--twice that of the UK.
People who promote abstinence-only "education" are actively harming our teenage population!It has been shown through years of research that teenagers exposed only to "abstinence education" acquire STDs at a higher rate than others. (Kirby D,
Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy, Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001.)
Moreover, abstinence-only education has never been proven to have any significant effect on the rate at which teens become sexually active. In contrast, according to the Surgeon General, sex-ed that includes instruction in the proper use of contraception HAS been proven to:
- delay the onset of sexual activity in teenagers
- reduce their number of sexual partners
- increase contraceptive use when they become sexually active
(Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior, former Surgeon General David Satcher, June 2001)
Thankfully, teenage pregnancy is declining, and studies have shown that 25% of this decrease is due to "delayed onset of sexual intercourse" and the remaining 75% of the decline can be attributed to "the increased use of highly effective and long-acting contraceptive methods among sexually experienced teenagers." (AGI,
Why is Teenage Pregnancy Declining? The Roles of Abstinence, Sexual Activity and Contraceptive Use, New York, AGI, 1999.)
Note that 0% of the decline in teen pregnancy can be traced to abstinence. Perhaps this is because abstinence education has not been proven to in
any way increase the actual practice of abstinence (see above)!
This data, as noted, has been available for the great majority of the current administration, yet they continue to try to remove comprehensive sex education and install completely ineffective abstinence messages.
This
irresponsible criminally negligent neocon policy can only lead to:
- increased teen pregnancy
- increased rates of STD infection
- ultimately, increased abortions
Abstinence should be advocated, but clearly, that is not enough. Abstinence-only education is like leaving a teenager with a loaded weapon, but not teaching them gun safety.
It is criminally negligent, and it is our own teenagers who we are putting in harm's way.
We know what works and what doesn't.
We know that simply leaving to parents to decide has caused a nation-wide epidemic of teen pregnancy that is costing taxpayers millions of dollars and putting a tremendous stress on our medical and childcare systems.
We must reduce teenage pregnancy. And this will have the effect of reducing the number of abortions performed, which we all think is a good thing (Just trying to be clear. There are those that think pro-choicers somehow "like" abortion. Ew! Fuck you!). According to the CDC, 50% of all abortions are performed on teens(18%) and those in their very early 20's. It is shown that education lowers pregnancy rates in this critical demographic, thus...
New Language: Education lowers abortion rates.
Big hat tip to The Alan Guttmacher Institute for much of the data cited above.
New Language: "Identical Human Rights for All Humans"
Today,
Amnesty International blasted the US, saying that its increased disregard for international law has led to a sharp decline in civil and human rights across the globe.
The Secretary General for this organization that seeks to prevent torture and inhumane treatment of captives (as well as wrongful captivity) rightly pointed out how the neocons currently in control of our great nation have hijacked our language and have twisted the meaning of such words as "freedom" and "justice."
"Governments are betraying their promises on human rights. A new agenda is in the making with the language of freedom and justice being used to pursue policies of fear and insecurity. This includes cynical attempts to redefine and sanitize torture...
Governments are failing to confront their lack of success in addressing terrorism, persisting with failed but politically-convenient strategies. Four years after 9/11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow...
When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity."
I suppose that I'm un-American to agree with her.
I propose that we work on refining the new language: "Identical Human Rights for All Humans."
Alarmingly, the neocons have managed to transform the essential human rights of such "outcast" groups as Queers, Muslims, and prisoners into "special rights." This is because to a neocon, human rights = rights conferred under ultra-conservative Christian values.
In so thinking, they are as wrong as the Wiccan, Satanist, or Amish who think their religious beliefs should be used to define human rights. Just because there are more neocons (in power, anyway) than members of these groups, does not give them the "special right" to define human rights for the rest of the world.
Human rights are not up for redefinition. Human rights cannot be lost; even criminals have human rights. Certainly then, human rights cannot be denied to groups based only upon their sexual orientation, skin color, etc!
We must have a single, universal application of human rights--and we already do. It's the neocons who have granted themselves the special right to disregard the rights of others. It's just one of the many ways in which the word "neocon" may rightly be substituted with "nascent fascist."
Think I'm going to far? Check out the 14 Characteristics of Fascism, and the specifics of how the Bush Administration meets and surpasses them all.
And just because I'm pissed at the moment, I'm going to Godwin my own post. Sorry:
Why Bother Helping the Democrats?
Why is this blog called democratic planks? Wouldn't it be better to have a third party?Well, yes. It would be better--as a global leader, this country needs a political discourse that goes beyond the mutual masturbation of Blue vs Red.
However, the Neocons have successfully taken over the Republican party, and in only five years transformed it from the party of small government and fiscal responsibility into the party of the largest government expansion seen by any living American, with the possible exception of the WPA. It has expanded not only in physical size, but into the areas of controlling the press, and invading our privacy (which really flies in the face of conservatism, does it not?).
We already have the infrastructure to fight them with: the tattered remains of the Democratic Party. People are already registered to vote Democrat, for instance. Building a new party will take too long to combat the imminent threat, and besides, we already have a model for how to proceed: do exactly what the neocons did--redefine the discourse through lexical shift (that is, a new language).
We are going to do nothing less than rebuild the Democratic Party by redefining it and the language it uses.
Prolegomenon to Any Future Metalanguage
or, "Why Build a New Democratic Language? The FAQ"
What are we doing here? We are creating a new Democratic language. With this language, we will state our position as liberal democrats.Why?Because people "think" in words.
If we think in the words of the neocon movement, facts become distorted. It becomes "up and down votes" instead of "good or bad judges."
That's sort of a weak point, isn't it?
Not at all. How we talk changes how we understand and gerenally think about the world around us.
If America continues it's ever increasing usage of theocratic social conservatives' "neospeak," liberal thought will be exterminated at the level of ganglia.There's a lot of academic work to back this up. Benjamin Lee Whorf wrote in 1956 that, "users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world."
A valuable nugget, but hard to understand (sort of like today's Democrats). Basically, it says "Two people with different languages will comprehend given evidence differently from one another."
What on earth do we do with this knowledge?
We teach people to speak our language, by rebuilding it to be as clear, concise, irrefutable and self-evident as possible. We carefully introduce this new language to ensure maximal absorption.
Will you please rant a little?John Kerry was incomprehensible, and [thus] completely unclear as to where he stood.
That was bad. Most politicians are like that, however, so it's not just Kerry.
W. speaks like an advanced fourth grader, so everybody understands him, even if his actual arrangement of words rivals Yoda on a martini binge.
OK, enough ranting!
Sorry. Last thought: Dean was much more clear, but not careful enough. If he had spoken a consistent language, that would have structured his approach at such a fundamental level that it would have been harder to flip out so often in public. (Note: "Aiiargh!" is not to be included in any future metalanguage).
New Language: "Smart Use of the World's Best Military"
Perhaps we should use the phrase
"Intelligent Smart use of the world's best military."Where best implies: - best equipped
- best trained
- most effectively sized
I stress
implies, so that when questioned, we only then pull out the big guns of specifics: equipment, training, and size, as if to say "what are you, a moron who knows nothing about the military?" Citing these too soon can lead to MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over).
Where intelligent smart means: - Having a soup-to-nuts strategy, and the equipment and manpower to carry it out
- Looking to military history and learning from it
- Using technology where possible to save lives
Small phrases are the lead!When someone disagrees with us, we say:
"You don't believe in the military?
Continued rebuttal here."
or
"Not smart.
Continued rebuttal here."
This way, even if we get cut off (
a la Ann Coulter, or worse,
Bill O'Reilley), our soundbite gets through, converying our point while simultaneously highlighting the ignorance of the questioner.
It sounds petty, I know, but it has clearly allowed the neocons to consolidate power.
On another note, is terrorism trendy? From the outline below, one might initally think that our military is primarily concerned with defeating terrorism.
I think this misses the point entirely. The role of the military is to
protect America and its citizens. Period. As we move forward in creating solid, non-trendy planks, we should be careful about our language, and set larger, more straightforward goals.
The Current Outline
Here's the Table of Contents from the current Democratic Platform. Let's use this as a starting point. Does this represent our position? Does it leave anything out?
- A STRONG, RESPECTED AMERICA
- DEFEATING TERRORISM
- KEEPING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION OUT OF THE HANDS OF TERRORISTS
- PROMOTING DEMOCRACY, PEACE, AND SECURITY
- STRENGTHENING OUR MILITARY
- ACHIEVING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
- STRENGTHENING HOMELAND SECURITY
- A STRONG, GROWING ECONOMY
- CREATING GOOD JOBS
- STANDING UP FOR THE GREAT AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
- STRONG, HEALTHY FAMILIES
- REFORMING HEALTH CARE
- IMPROVING EDUCATION
- PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
- A STRONG AMERICAN COMMUNITY
OK, to begin with, folks, while repetition works, just saying the word "strong" a lot does not
strengthen your postion. And it certainly doesn't define it, which is what this document is supposed to be about. I think it's fairly obvious we dont want WEAK America (though, actually, this is how we are painted, as so afraid and unwilling to be strong that we are, in fact, unamerican).
I'm a little bummed out that Civil Rights isn't on this list. Some of the most important groups that support Democrats do so because of our history of advancing civil rights, yet it's not to be found on this list.
I'm a little distressed that the environment is filed under "Family Issues." It's also a very important economic issue, and a homeland security issue (e.g., nuclear plant companies that point to
economic reasons that they can't
tighten their security protecting potientially
devastating enviromental hazards). Environmentalism is not about pretty trees, though I like pretty trees as much as the next guy.
A PDF? Are You Shitting Me?
No wonder nobody knows what the hell Democrats want! You have to download the platform in PDF format! I mean, come on.
And then once you get this hard-to-work-with file downloaded, it is not until page 8 out of forty-three that we actually get solid position statements. Pages 1-7 are just a bunch of smoke up your ass.
WTF?
How about this: Our specific propositions can be put forth in plain language in 10 pages or less.
Think we can do it?
Speaking Our Own Language
I'm not brain dead.
NYT:
"The only reason he's still up there in the 40's is that the Democrats are really brain dead and have nothing positive to put on the table," said one veteran Republican who has close ties to the White House, referring to approval ratings in polls that are at or near Mr. Bush's low points.
What's this guy talking about? Bush has done such wonderful things for this country, like years of peace, no deficit, scientific advancements, and a renewed biparitsan spirit.
Oh.
I'm going to try to make that one of the last times I talk about Bush, or his cronies for that matter. Once we start phrasing our arguments in terms of the opposition, the oppsition has already won. Plus, we are just handing over our air time by explaining how we are against A, B, or C.
We must come up with our own language. Instead of talking about "up or down votes," we must talk about the OBVIOUS and GLARING incompetence of judicial nominees that we oppose.
We must start talking about the SPECIFIC and SIMPLE steps that we will take to repair our country and its foreign relations after going into a war on faulty intelligence and without any plan WHATSOEVER for how to fix what we have broken (the violence in Iraq is
increasing, not decreasing).
Most of all, we must start planning for the next round of elections, and be sure that no one in America can say that they didn't know exactly what we stand for!
