And Now, The Sports Report

Baseball season is over. Football season is just less than halfway done. Basketball and hockey are just starting up. I follow all four sports to varying degrees and can have a decent conversation with even the most die-hard fans of any of the American "Big Four". In baseball, I am a Braves fan because I live here in Atlanta and because I have a lot of respect for the success of the team over the last fourteen years. I root for the Falcons in football but to be honest I'm really more of a fan of Michael Vick than anything else; hardly the best quarterback in the game but one of the most, if not the most, exciting player in the NFL. I don't root for any particular teams in hockey or basketball (I still kind of follow the Orlando Magic, because I was living in Orlando when they were formed), but there are teams I like and teams I don't. Mostly I dislike showboating and teams that encourage it.

I wrote recently about how economic systems only work within the framework of law. Sports are the same way: you play by the rules of the game, which establish guidelines for victory. The teams I like the most are the teams that play the best within those guidelines: for example I admired the Jordan era Chicago Bulls, who challenged you to play better than they did. On the other hand, I despised the Ewing era New York Knicks, who tried to win by dragging you down to their level. I love the John Riggins Washington Redskins, who understood that three or four nine-minute drives can beat even the best teams, or the Baltimore Orioles of the sixties and seventies who were always in contention and always played with class and professionalism.

In sports terms, the Bush administration, the Republican leadership, and their financial backers are the kind of team that believes the final outcome is all important and will do anything to secure a victory, even (and sometimes especially) if it means deliberately trying to injure the other team's star players or buying out (or otherwise influencing) the officials. That attitude starts with the team ownership (the financial backers) and is enforced by the coaching staff (the administration and political leadership). And any player not sufficiently "with the program" is attacked as viciously as the opponents.

On the other side of the field, the liberals are completely disorganized. They have a group of financial backers as owners too, but this is a disinterested group who distance themselves from the workings of the game, while the coaching staff (nominally the leadership of the Democratic Party) is more occupied with preserving their own positions than in actually coaching the team. The players bicker among themselves and you even have groups that are forming shadow coaching staffs, or worse, deliberately sabotaging the team because they can't get their way. And no one seems to understand that you can have the intensity of the other side without adopting their tactics.

But this isn't a game. We can't afford to be lovable losers like the Chicago Cubs. Because losing at this level means that people go cold and hungry, or die in meaningless wars. These are the stakes, and we'd best understand that.

Work Till You Die

Some people wonder why I'm not as gung-ho about work as I probably should be. Me, I wonder why so many people bust their asses only to find out they're going to be royally screwed. For example, some of the snottier ladies who I worked with at Siemens who believed they were secure in their jobs, who are now or soon will be unemployed regardless of the years of work they put into the company. Some people have a hard time handling being out of work; me, I've been unemployed so often lately it seems like work is the exception rather than the rule. It just doesn't frighten me any more. My friends say I do a lousy job selling myself, which is probably true, but I also think that employers are looking for people who are too afraid of losing their jobs to challenge authority.

Over this last week I've been earning a few dollars delivering flyers to help a local Democrat, the areas I have been going to are some of the richest, most exclusive parts of Atlanta, and as I was working I was thinking to myself that unless I hit the lottery or something, I will never earn enough money to even think about looking at homes here. But then again, I look around my own neighborhood, which is a pretty poor one, and realize that I couldn't even think about a house here: as it stands with me right now, I couldn't even rent an apartment. Only the good graces of my landlord prevent me from being homeless.

But at least I can look back at my life and see why I'm in the situation I'm in: I've had a lot of trouble keeping jobs and I haven't always been the most diligent of workers. So for the sake of argument you can probably make a good case that I don't deserve any better than what I have now.

So what about the people who have done the right thing? The people who worked their whole careers at one company and are looking to retire? Over the last few years it's becoming possible that they've worked in vain. It never made as big a splash in the news as when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in the 80's, United's court victory, which allowed it to slough off their pension responsibilities to the already overburdened Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (or PBGC, the government's pension insurer), was the second great blow to working people in the US, perhaps a knockout blow. And while the GOP have failed for the moment in their attempt to destroy Social Security, you know that they'll try again.

So to all the working people who voted Republican over the years, to the ones that helped bring down unions and empower corporations, I ask: is this what you want? To work till you die? Because it's pretty clear now that unless you have some pretty specific skills or are pretty well-connected, that's your future. Years ago, unskilled workers could not only support themselves but could afford to send their kids to college and even buy a home of their own. Those days are over, and those of you who laughed and clapped when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers may come to find that the last laugh will be on you.

It's The Little Things

Frank Rich writes that we've only seen the tip of the pyramid as far as indictments are concerned:

To believe that the Bush-Cheney scandals will be behind us anytime soon you'd have to believe that the Nixon-Agnew scandals peaked when G. Gordon Liddy and his bumbling band were nailed for the Watergate break-in. But Watergate played out for nearly two years after the gang that burglarized Democratic headquarters was indicted by a federal grand jury; it even dragged on for more than a year after Nixon took "responsibility" for the scandal, sacrificed his two top aides and weathered the indictments of two first-term cabinet members. In those ensuing months, America would come to see that the original petty crime was merely the leading edge of thematically related but wildly disparate abuses of power that Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, would name "the White House horrors."

Whether Mr. Bush and his people are more or less corrupt than Nixon's group is debatable, because the thing that is most different today is that the Washington press corps are first hand witnesses to a crime of national security as opposed to outsiders seeking to shed light on a secretive administration. Even Bob Woodward, one of the two reporters that broke the Watergate story, has shown himself to be totally in the Bush camp. This administration simply has more control over the message than Nixon ever did, the jury is still out as to whether or not it will be enough.

Beware of leaders who drink their own Kool-Aid, Mr. Rich wrote not too long ago, but if we've learned one thing from recent American political history, it's that that kind of arrogance will eventually cause them to over-reach. Nixon had a huge lead in the polls before he sent Liddy and his "plumbers" out to burgle the office at the Watergate Hotel. Wilson's op-ed, while damning, would have simply faded into the distance, fodder for us "loony conspiracy theory" types, smearing Wilson and outing his wife simply wasn't necessary. It was done because that's how they operate, they don't know any other way. It was a little thing to them, to smear someone who got in their way. It reminds me of a passage from Tolkien's Unfinished Tales. Gandalf was talking about discovering the Dwarf King Thrain who had been imprisoned by Sauron in the tower of Dol Guldur, and how that led to the successful Quest of Erebor (aka The Hobbit) and eventually to their victory in the War Of The Ring:

I think that the Dark Power had desired nothing from him except the Ring only, and when he had taken that he troubled no further, but just flung the broken prisoner into the pits to rave until he died. A small oversight; but it proved fatal. Small oversights often do.

Open Thread: Show 107

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Listen here. Comment below.

You can also use the thread to talk about the recent indictments or your favorite blogs or whatever.

It's good, by the way, to get back on some sort of regular schedule. And hopefully next week I'll have some work lined up, we'll see. Meanwhile, enjoy!

-Joe

President 38%

Funny isn't it how Bush's overall approval ratings can hover in the upper 30's and low 40's and yet the impression you still get from the so-called professional media is that Mr. Bush is still a "popular" president. Under normal circumstances those would be torch & pitchfork numbers, but I think what you're seeing are people afraid of losing their jobs if they say the wrong thing.

And to all the pollyannas crowing about how "it's all over" for the Republicans, let me point out that, in the wake of rising costs for heating, the GOP Congress passed a bill to drastically cut food stamps. Maybe they think being cold and hungry is just "incentive" to find work that likely doesn't exist to begin with, at any rate I'm sure there are plenty in the GOP leadership who would be happy to see a few people starve or freeze to death over the winter. It's not like the poor are human or anything, you know.

Hill Of Beans

Well, we have our indictments: As you all know by now, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff has resigned after being indicted on several charges, we'll see what kind of punishment awaits him, if any. If he escapes jail time, it shouldn't surprise anyone; as we've seen, the amount of "personal responsibility" you take for your actions varies inversely with the amount of money and/or power you have. Naturally, like the petulant, spoiled bullies they are, the right is whining about the "criminalization of politics", by which they mean to say that powerful people who have the authority to set and enforce policy ought to be shielded from the law. This is, of course, pure bullshit: "policy" must still be wrapped within the framework of the law. When they go outside of it, we have the right to stop them and prosecute them, period.

They don't see it like that, of course. They firmly believe that they are our "betters", the "motor of the world", who by virtue of their wealth and privilege (however they attained it) have the right to make the world in their own image. If they want Iraq, our job is to get it for them, we have no right to oppose or even question their judgement. Their treatment of anyone who disagrees with them is proof positive of that attitude, that they have managed to bamboozle or frighten so many of us into following along or stay out of the fight changes nothing.

The blogs are of course all over the story, a few openly gloating over the outcome, but I remain skeptical that the future will improve. Opposition to the status quo is still too fragmented, far too many people are too involved with their own concerns to pay much attention, and just as many think (and not without good reason) that little would change if the Democrats were in power. There is a desire for change in this country, but no one can seem to articulate just what direction that change should take. My feeling is that we need to look for change on a much larger scale: the problems we face aren't just local or national ones, technology has made us a global society and we have to start thinking in those terms. As I've said many times before, we need more than a party, we need a movement, and we need one on an international scale. I just don't see that happening any time soon, and I don't see the leaders of the world giving up their power without a fight.

Ten thousand years of human civilization have changed us very little. Wealth and power still go hand in hand, and the great majority of humans still work too hard and earn not enough to enrich the lives of the very few at the top. Just saying it has to stop isn't enough; human nature is not going to change easily. Though I hope otherwise, my gut tells me it will take much more bloodshed before we finally reach a point where such a fundamental change can take place, I think it all too possible that we will wind up killing ourselves anyway.

The affairs of Bush, Cheney, Libby and Rove still only amount to a hill of beans viewed in the greater context. If they get away with what they're doing now, they'll only reach for more until a more powerful force stops them. If they are defeated, they will return in years to come unless we build a world that stops them before they can even start. Building that world means we have to start rejecting all the premises that they use to divide us: racism, misogyny, fundamentalism, etc. These are their weapons, we have to disarm them. Until we do that, there will be more of the same.

Joe Goes Punk

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Hey while I was busy with other things I managed to find the time to record a show about punk rock featuring my good friends Matt Murray and C.B. Smith from Corn Pone Flicks. It turned out real well but next time I gotta watch Matt's sound levels...

You can stream the sound by clicking on either the m3u file or the pls file (whichever works best for you), or you can just right click here and download the file right ("Save File As", or "Save Link As" if you have Firefox) on to your computer.

Dear John Tierney

If you, like me, have been trying to figure out the point of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation, Howard Dean has a couple of answers.

Neither involves the original reason for the special prosecutor's investigation - the accusation that White House aides deliberately outed a covert C.I.A. agent. Much of Washington now figures that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby didn't violate that law.

Much of Washington (especially you) wouldn't know their asses from a hole in the ground.

Can You Kick My Ass?

Delicate Monster has written a lengthy post at DailyKos concerning Libertarianism and its numerous faults, it's good reading, if a little long-winded, and if you have the time. I've spoken on Libertarianism before, so allow me to summarize what Delicate Monster has to say.

While in theory Libertarianism sounds like a great idea (just as Communism or any ism sounds good in theory), in practice the entire philosophy can be summed up in one simple question: can you kick my ass? Because in economics, as in everything else, rule of force overwhelms any oath or deed. Property rights are first and foremost on the list of important things in the minds of Libertarians: let me ask, what good is that "deed" if it's just you and your small family against an armed mob? Because without the actual force of law protecting you, that's what will eventually occur. What are oaths to the unscrupulous?

Let's be clear: as DM points out, there is no such thing as a "free market". Economic systems only function within a framework: even outside of the actual law, a market needs rules under which to operate. A deed holder needs the force of law to protect his property, not just in words but in reality. Hire a private security company, you say? What's to prevent some other guy with more money from getting a bigger security company, or better yet, buying out the one that's supposedly protecting you? Ask yourself if this is what you really want, if this is how you want to spend the rest of your life.

What we're witnessing now in this country is a shadow of what went on before the New Deal: in the days before there were child labor laws, minimum wage laws, etc. Did you think liberalism was created out of a vacuum? It was a direct result of the failures of the unregulated market: the reason government had to step in in 1932 is because a few people got together to rig the system for their own benefit, and now that liberalism has been publicly humiliated we're seeing it happen all over again. People who have worked hard and been loyal to their companies are suddenly finding themselves without a pension: a pension they've earned mind you. And the burden of government is falling more and more on those who can least afford to bear it.

All this is falling on deaf ears, of course. Knowing nothing about history, and less about the true nature of humans (or perhaps understanding it all too well), the Libertarians will never understand how wrong they are. They're being played for suckers by people who are looking to make a profit at their expense ("Don't worry kid, we had him when he decided he wanted to be somebody."). If they were the only ones who suffered by the decisions they made, I wouldn't even bother thinking about them (a fool and his money, etc.). But unfortunately, they're dragging the rest of us down with them, and that's what most of us just can't abide.

I'm no fool: I don't believe that "government" is the solution to all our problems. I believe it has a role to play in our lives, but only as a part of a greater society: a balance between government, the market, and a free press. The government uses force of law to protect the rights of everyone and to make everyone equal under the law. The market gives people the economic power that makes these rights meaningful, a free press to keep the public informed so that they can best make their own decisions. What we have now is a government and a press controlled by corporate interests, and as we have witnessed, it is hardly "free".

Dear Maureen Dowd

You'll forgive me if I take your latest column with a grain of salt: after all, while the Judy Millers of the world were busy going all gung-ho for the disastrous war and occupation, it was columnists like you who helped George W. Bush and his neocons get into power in the first place. Al Gore was just too boooring to you and to others to be allowed to become President, don't you know?

Well, now we have almost two thousand dead US soldiers, thousands more whose lives have been destroyed economically by lengthy stays in Iraq, and tens (maybe hundreds?) of thousands of dead Iraqis whose only crime was living in the wrong country at the wrong time. Terrorism has increased and not decreased. And times for the working class, which were bad enough before, have gotten much worse.

But hey, Maureen, at least it's not boooring. And I'm sure that, no matter what happens, your life will be largely unaffected; in fact, you're making out like a bandit getting big tax cuts while the people who work at the supermarkets and department stores you shop at have to work harder to make up for that lost revenue.

In a just world, you and many of your compatriots at the NY Times would be forced out of the business of journalism. I once wrote the Times demanding that they fire you because you're little more than a gossip columnist, now I think damn near the entire paper ought to get sacked just to set an example that there's a price to pay for the kind of hubris displayed by the Times and other supposedly professional news organizations. But I forget myself, this isn't a just world, this is George Bush's Bizarro America, where incompetency in high places is rewarded.

Open Thread: Shows 105 and 106

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Listen here. Comment below.
I want to thank everyone who has sent condolences or who has donated. I won't be shy: while the donations have been extremely helpful the truth is that until I get back to work I still need all the help I can get. Cathy had a long illness which required my attention for months, making it difficult to even think about finding a new job, never mind the fact that jobs are hard to come by these days. And to make matters worse, Cathy passed away before a verdict was reached on her disability (which we first applied for nearly two years ago), which means that the money we were expecting to get from that, which was earmarked to pay back rent, will not materialize. My landlord has been a patient man, but I would still like to get back caught up. So if anyone still cares to donate please feel free to do so by clicking here.

Thanks everyone once again and I should be back on track with more regular posts and shows soon.

Update: Rather than start a new thread post without anything in between them, I decided to just put them all together. Makes sense, doesn't it?

By the way, when I say The Poor Have More Fun I mean it in the sense that the poor's outlook on life, despite their poverty, is superior to the worldview of those who desire wealth and power for its own purposes. I hope we can one day build a world where success is measured in different ways than by how much you have in the bank, or by how many lives you can control. It won't solve all of our problems but it will solve the basis for most of them.

Grieving

We held the funeral service for Cathy yesterday. It was only a week after Cathy died, yet it felt like months had pssed. I've been pretty busy so I haven't had time yet to sit down and go through my thoughts: I had to take care of the cremation and then drive down to Orlando on Sunday, and return on Monday. That's about a thousand miles of driving in two days with very little sleep, thankfully nothing serious happened. I drove Cathy's older children down from Atlanta, her youngest drove with his aunt and grandmother (on his father's side).

Cathy's family came down from California for the ceremony: her father, stepmother and two of her three sisters , my father, brother and stepmother, who all live in Orlando, were there as well, also Cathy's first husband and a few friends of the family. I spoke only briefly, but my words conveyed the sense of loss I will always feel. I loved Cathy for over twenty years before we were together, and even though we had our share of difficulties, both financial and via illness, they were five happy years. I feel a great deal of sadness, of course, because there was so much we wanted to do together, but I am thankful that there were no regrets, no moments I could look back on and say "if only I had done this". I have yet to have a big emotional moment, and frankly I don't know if I will ever have one: I will grieve for Cathy in small ways for the rest of my life. When I get settled I will create a web page in her memory.

This week I am going to go through her things and I will finish the week having re-arranged and cleaned the entire room, signaling a new beginning in my life; I have yet to determine what the future holds for me in the long term, in the short term I an just interested in finding work and getting back to some kind of routine. Ben Burch of the White Rose Society is putting together his radio network, if that takes off I will be employed doing that. But you can expect the radio shows to start up again next week as well as some more regular posting, maybe even sooner depending on my mood and how much I get accomplished.

Once more I want to thank everyone who has written or donated or sent cards or called. Your kindness and generosity have been a great help to me, and it will not be forgotten.