PoliOlogy

I thought hard about saying this, and seeing as how I don’t believe in the place, I don’t know how much this really means, but may he rot in hell.

I just got an interesting call from the Boston Globe…look for bad news about Chomsky, no other indication of anything yet though

Ok, so the title is a bit misleading.  Those fans of Randy Moss will remember this incident, as quoted from wikipedia:

On September 24, 2002 in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, Moss was driving and was preparing to make an illegal turn. A traffic control officer, noticing what he was about to do, stood in front of his car, ordering him to stop. Eyewitness accounts of the event differ at this point, but Moss did not comply with the officer’s order, and she was bumped by his vehicle and fell to the ground. Moss was arrested, and a search of his vehicle revealed a small amount of marijuana.^[23] Initially charged with felony Suspicion of Assault with a Deadly Weapon and a misdemeanor marijuana possession, Moss pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor traffic violation and was ordered to pay a $1,200 fine and perform 40 hours of community service.^[24]

Well, meter maids, watch out, because The Freak just bought himself an arsenal. ESPN.com reports:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — All-Pro New England Patriots receiver Randy Moss is now a NASCAR team owner, announcing Thursday he’s purchased 50 percent of a Craftsman Truck Series team.

Randy Moss Motorsports will make its debut on July 19 at Kentucky Speedway with Willie Allen driving the No. 81 Chevrolet. The number was changed from 46 to reflect Moss’ NFL jersey number.

Moss has been eyeing entering NASCAR for some time, but said he decided to buy half of Morgan-Dollar Motorsports rather than build a team from the ground up. Moss wants the team to eventually move up to the premier Sprint Cup Series.

Up until this point, I thought NASCAR drivers only drove while swiggin’ moonshine, so it’ll be interested to see how a team of high drivers does. My guess: I wouldn’t recommend being an officer in the infield circle.

Over at Huff Po, Andy Borowitz more or less makes my point. The original link is here, reprinted below:

The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.

Suspicions about Sen. Obama’s true motives have been building over the past few weeks, but not until today have the bloggers called him out for betraying the Democratic Party’s losing tradition.

“Barack Obama seems to be making a very calculated attempt to win over 270 electoral votes,” wrote liberal blogger Carol Foyler at LibDemWatch.com, a blog read by a half-dozen other liberal bloggers. “He must be stopped.”

But those comments were not nearly as strident as those of Tracy Klugian, whose blog LoseOn.org has backed unsuccessful Democratic candidates since 2000.

“Increasingly, Barack Obama’s message is becoming more accessible, appealing, and yes, potentially successful,” he wrote. “Any Democrat who voted for Dukakis, Mondale or Kerry should regard this as a betrayal.”

Liberal bloggers said that they would be watching Sen. Obama’s vice-presidential selection process “very closely” for signs that he is plotting to win the election.

“Barack Obama still has a chance to pick someone disastrous as a sign that he wants to lose this thing,” Ms. Foyler wrote. “If not, he should brace himself for some really mean blog posts.”

It was a strange, and certainly ground breaking Special Comment on Countdown last night. Olbermann devoted it to criticizing Barack Obama over his support for the FISA bill.

OIbermann’s first criticism was that the Republicans are going to criticize Obama for being soft on terror regardless of his vote on FISA. That may be true, but look what happened when Kerry voted for the 87 Billion dollars before he voted against it. Giving people a concrete example may not be a great idea.

But the truly stupid, self-righteous, and arrogant point Olbermann brought up is that the FISA bill, as much as people whine about civil immunity, does NOT provide criminal immunity to them. He quoted the Christian Fascist Republican Party Senator Sam Brownback in stating that the bill has no such clause. Yet somehow, Olbermann thinks only he and someone he holds in high regard, John Dean, know this.

This is despite the fact that Olbermann was a former Sportscenter anchor. And that Senator Obama is a former civil rights attourney, and even taught classes on the subject.

In the spirit of Olbermann’s hyperbolic special comments, I give you a rant in its style, not necessarily suitable for basic cable:

He knows, asshole. He did this shit for a living. You know that school he mentioned he went to? Harvard? They teach smart people there, and as history would show, decent lawyers. They tend to be able to figure out what the hell is in a bill going through congress.

Now the people you self-righteously defend don’t get it. We are a nation of idiots, consumerists, and most of all, the easily frightened. The same people you claim to stand up for re-elected this idiot known as George W. Bush. We base our votes on totally irrational standards; in 2000 we would rather have a beer with Bush so he wins, and in 2004 we vote for the draft dodger over the war hero because the draft dodger is “tough on terror,” which means he engages in warrant-less wiretaps and torture.

We love this shit; we have never been the democracy our constitution promises us. When we lauded our freedoms early in our nation’s history, we built our infrastructure on brutal slave labor. When we decry Germany’s holocaust, we call the mass murder of native Americans “manifest destiny.” When we feared the USSR was setting up communist revolutions in countries, we got busy assassinating democratically-elected leaders and installing military fascisms. When we started a war on drugs, our CIA started selling heroin to veterans to finance wars. The government will do what it wants, as it always has, we just have a loose control over the reigns during every election. We have no control over the CIA, FBI, or other non-elected offices, and truth be told, they commit more crimes than George Bush probably ever has.

So when against all odds, a politician with good ideas actually gains a lot popular support, we don’t have to take it for granted that he knows of a loophole such as this one in the FISA bill. We can just look at the very quote Olbermann gives, which is something Obama has said numerous times before: Criminal Investigations will be pursued.

But the point, Olbermann, shouldn’t be in trying to get the Harvard-educated- attorney to recognize a rather simple provision in the FISA bill. Instead it should be, if you are opposed to telecom spying as you want us to believe, shutting up and letting the bill pass with no criminal immunity. Now all the certifiable crazies in the house can draft a bill for criminal immunity and it just might get passed.

The irony of this whole special comment is that, in accusing Obama of possibly wanting to cave to the telecoms, you have caved yourself. Glenn Greenwald called you out on not criticizing Obama on FISA, and naturally you had to devote 10 minutes to blowing a Democratic strategy that would actually make criminal arrests in these cases, which could have deterred the Republicans from ever practicing this fascism again. They would actually face jail if they did. So you get called out, and all you can do is continue to add to the problem, whether it be by helping to lessen the left’s support of Obama, or giving away the strategy for prosecuting Bush and/or telecoms.

So, you screw over proper strategy to cover your own ass. Who does that sound like?

One post comparing her to the disastrous-in-a-different-way Andriy Shevchenko, and the number of hits here quintuples in value? That’ll really shake your faith….

Bad start for new Slate editor David Plotz. In the hurry to nail Tom Cruise on his shitty new movie where everyone somehow has either a British or American accent whilst being German, Slate kinda didn’t do any fact checking. AP gotcha!

The Huffington Post’s big headline this afternoon is how the “netroots” movement is drifting away from Obama, or Obama is drifting away from them–Uh basically, what you need to know is that Democrats are aiming yet another loaded gun at their foot right now. Maybe it’s actually an automatic rifle.

Why is the left coming under attack from the more left? It’s probably not that Obama has foregone public financing, an issue he reversed his position on (and for god’s sake, from this point forward, this blog will never use the f***-f*** word. It’s the most arguably the most childish political term ever invented, and is directed at people who were dumb enough to vote for Bush in 2004. I won’t even use it for McCain, whom has more f***-f***s than Daytona Beach). Obama’s decision to not accept public financing isn’t that big of a deal because a) Democrats want to win, and b) he has basically used public financing, not taking contributions from PACs or lobbyists. What DKos, Think Progress, etc, etc are pissed about is the FISA bill which just passed in the House and is currently in the Senate.

First, what is FISA and what does it mean. FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is legislation which dates back the Cold War. At the time, it was an anti-espionage bill targeted primarily against the Soviet Union. Also, it was passed in 1978, not exactly a great diplomatic time for America. The current FISA bill, as I understand it, establishes special courts that grant warrants to tap phones (including cell phones) in the interest of fighting terrorism. While the original FISA bill only authorized special courts for people suspected of being spies for other countries, the passage of the Patriot Act extended those courts jurisdiction to terrorist organizations unaffliliated with a country. That already sounds a little 1984ish, but, as there would have to be a warrant issued, it would have been constitutional. (this important to note: requests for FISA warrants are rarely denied. I heard recently that as little as 2 were rejected last year). It’s pretty hard to argue against that in any capacity (other than that the requests for warrants aren’t made public). However, in an earlier version of the FISA program, the Bush Administration collaborated with the telecom (AT&T, Sprint…) companies to wiretap citizens, without the authorization provided by a warrant. Thus, “warrantless wiretapping,” and thus, unconstitutional.

When the Democratic congress took over, the “netroots” community (which is helping, and has helped raise money for progressive candidates) pushed to have a new FISA bill, that would correct the sins of the past actions of the Bush Administration. Here’s where it starts to get tricky, and there are a number of factors involved.

First, we have to look at Nancy Pelosi’s statement upon becoming Speaker of the House. She said, famously, that the impeachment of President Bush is off the table. This angered many of the progressive activists that helped get her party the majority and for good reason; you can get impeached for getting a blow job, but not for lying yourself into an unnecessary war and spying on your own people? Regardless, considering how much of a political disaster the last impeachment was (or even the one before that), Pelosi found it more politically expedient to just try to move forward. Hey, at least Cheney doesn’t get to be president.

So that brings us to a bill such as FISA, which again, attempts to loosely correct some the (and there’s no other word for it) crimes of the Bush administration. The bill that ended up passing in the House included criminal immunity for the telecom companies which participated in the program at the administration’s request. This provision has upset the netroots, who largely believe that the telecom companies are equally as guilty as the administration, and thus should be able to face legal recourse for their actions.

Netroots sites have put extreme pressure on Democratic politicians to come out and oppose the retroactive immunity for telecoms, even going as far to say that Democrats in favor of the bill (and there are a fair amount, more on that in a second) are selling out our constitutional rights. And again, it is certain that warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional, and has even been tested before to some extent in the Supreme Court.

However, as FISA is essentially an anti-terrorism bill, much like the prospect of impeachment, it puts the Democrats in an awkward position.  For one, if they were to come out as strongly as the netroots wants them to, they would be dragged through the mud by Republicans who would call them soft on terror. However if they support the bill entirely, including telecom immunity, they “sell out,” and they risk alienating that powerful progressive base. A lot of these people supported Nader in 2000, and have since supported the Democrats because they have seen how much worse the Republicans are. That being said, with libertarianism on the rise, enough to make the Republicans nervous, whose to say that there won’t be another progressive party to contend with soon enough?

Finding the balance here is where the Senate, and especially the dust up over Obama comes in. Obama has come out in support of the bill, but says he opposes immunity for the telecoms. It’s a politically convenient position (and not an all together unreasonable one), but the bill will have to come up for revision first. With telecom lobby money seeming to buy out many a Democrat (the average amount on lobbying spent per congress person by telecom companies has increased by thousands), it seems that it may be unlikely Obama will get to have his cake and eat it too on this one. Chances are, he’ll vote in favor of FISA and take the strong anti-terror stance. So the telecoms will never be charged with anything, in all likelihood, as its going to be hard to properly change this thing, and if it isn’t changed, it’s too tough to vote against. Obama is about to be called a sell out, and the near ritualistic political suicide will commence in the Democratic party before November. The Dems can probably can overcome it, but it’ll be a lot closer than they want it to be.

But wait. Doesn’t this whole thing sound a little fishy?

Let’s go back to Pelosi refusing to bring up impeachment. Isn’t that what this is really all about? Is it really the telecoms we should be punishing? Did they just randomly spy on their customers and turn the information over to the government because they thought it would be good for business? Hell, isn’t it possible that, despite being ethically wrong, the telecoms alone really didn’t commit a crime?

Honestly, I’m unsure. It seems to me that making the telecoms legally responsible is just a cheap way to get to the Bush administration; in other words, practically making up a crime for the telecoms in order to bust (hypothetically) the Bush administration for conspiracy to commit said made up crime. This situation would occur in lieu of actually busting the administration on actual crimes. But we know this isn’t going to happen, as it is “off the table.”

Lost in all of this is the possibility that the telecoms may not have even been the most willing participants. Due to the secrecy and coercive tactics of the Bush administration, and given the political climate at the time the Bush administration started doing this all, isn’t it expected that the telecoms would listen the Department of Justice? If a cop or judge or other legal authority figure tells you to do something, isn’t it pretty standard operating procedure to in fact do what they say?

I don’t want to close myself to the possibility that I could be missing something in all of this. Certainly I’m seldom one to give the benefit of the doubt to big corporations such as the ones involved in this ongoing scandal/legislation. Considering I’m at about 1300 words right now, most of which was a relatively brief summary of the law and the current bill, this is very complicated stuff, and could play out for years–if Obama does win he says he will investigate criminal activity by this administration, which at this rate could take decades.

What I sense is that there are many civil libertarians who are very upset about what has happened since 9/11 in this administration. They are angry about the fact that their constitutional rights were blatantly violated by a corrupt administration with the excuse of patriotism at its back. I’m sure it hurts civil libertarians doubley, as this version of American fascism was also completely incompetent in just about all of their ill-advised ventures. It will come as a great irony that this president’s greatest achievement was actually one of humanitarianism, as he has greatly increased aid to Africa (because Bono told him to). That is beside the point though.

I disagree with Pelosi and others who thought impeachment wouldn’t have been politically wise. We could have gotten arguably the worst criminals in presidential history, and set a powerful precedent for limiting executive power. Plus support for the illegal war was at an all time low, and fewer than 20% of the country believe that the Bush track is the right one to go down. I am most concerned with getting the Bush administration on the crimes which they committed. When I hear that people who represent a strong hope in the fight to take the office back from the neo-cons complaining about telecom companies, I cannot help but think: how petty.  Your going to lessen your support for a candidate that can put an end to these violations, because you want to pretend you can take down the Bush administration through this bill? It’s just absurd, and wreaks of past Democratic failures.

If I’m wrong on this, or I am missing crucial information, please let me know. Otherwise, think about this rationally. A time for a more progressive country will come, but it will come incrementally. Didn’t Nader teach everyone that?

There’s going to be many tributes coming, but I have to say it will be interesting to see how Carlin’s death is handled. As Carlin was a staunch atheist, we can only hope that people will respect him and his beliefs enough not to say “he’s looking down on us now,” or “he’s happy now.”

Looking at things now, George Carlin actually helped shaped a lot my own beliefs, exposing the superstition of religion, the pettiness of the American people, the foolishness of the left, but mostly the right; most importantly, the ability to speak the truth no matter how much it went against conventional wisdom, how much it hurt feelings, or how ridiculously funny it is.

There’s going to be a lot of people in the next couple days that will say “I don’t agree with everything he said” in a pathetic attempt to cover their own ass or beliefs. No one believes entirely what anyone else does, let alone a politically incorrect comedian! People may just say he was eccentric, they may accuse him of being “troubled” for his time in rehab. Certainly his involvement in the Supreme Court’s obscenity cases will be raised, and that will cast him as a foul-mouthed potty humorist. But as Carlin himself would have said, it’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for ya. While it may be contrary to the nature of comedians,  there is no comedian that should be taken more seriously than Carlin.

Watching his HBO specials, and noting his popularity (my mom told me today that even my late grandfather was a huge fan of his), there was always something that confused me about Carlin–how the hell does he get this many people to listen to this stuff? Again, while I am a huge Carlin fan, I also admire the philosophies in his humor, not to mention that Carlin never stopped being relevant or engaged–ever. Are there really that many people out there that can appreciate this stuff on the same level?

The answer is I don’t know. It’s often comedians that can make the most profound statements, but only because we write them off as “just kidding.” Unless Carlin was talking about killing people (and even sometimes then), I basically never wrote him off like that; I hope going forward, in this election and in our culture, we are to take a more serious look at one of the funniest people who ever lived.

Cheers all,

I must admit that, as I said in my first ever post for Poliology, I did have some selfish reasons for starting this blog. Perhaps my Emerson education has brought out my need to communicate, perhaps its only brought out or developed my arrogance, but regardless of my motivation, I was extremely curious to see if my blog would have any impact on the world. You never know what viral video is going to go around, what photograph, and maybe even what opinion will go on to catch on in the mainstream media. For the most part, I haven’t really seen too much evidence of my posts reflected in the mainstream media, but yesterday, something happened that was probably even more satisfying.

As many of you know, Laura Crawford had a guest post earlier this week on Poliology. Deciding to write it upon seeing the most recent episode of Intervention, Laura thought she could take a comical look at the life of a cancer survivor, or rather the cancer survivor, Lance Armstrong. That is because in this most recent episode featured Chad, who at one point competed with United States Postal Service Cycling team, and at the time of the episode was addicted to crack. During the course of the episode, it is explained that Chad has a confrontation with Armstrong, in which it is implied that the fight led to Chad’s downfall from the US Team. Laura also mentioned Owen Wilson and cancer survivors, but considering the post was triggered by seeing Chad’s episode, it is only appropriate what happened next.

I rarely get comments on this blog, although I have been getting a good number of hits; this is fine with me, personally, I’m just happy people are reading. However, I noticed I had received a comment on Laura’s post around 4pm yesterday. First impression: Oh God, it’s long. Laura pissed off cancer survivors, or worse the cancer survivor, and I was going to be taken out by a bunch of cyclists on the sidewalks of Cambridge. Then, I realized that his happens nearly every day, and I became less worried, and looked more carefully at the comment.

Paul Gunther shared some further insight on Chad, and it proved why this whole internet thing may just be better than television. During the episode, we are given an image of Chad as a rebellious, obnoxious vagrant who seems to ramble about his past glory, which the rest of the world never got to see. The editors and writers at Intervention seemed to cast him almost as a stereotype; a young runaway living in the land of redwoods, where needle exchange programs, homeless shelters, and free public transportation provide the perfect place for a young white kid to be homeless.

What is disappointing, although understandably contrived about Intervention, is that the show really only concentrates on the darkest periods of a person’s life. Crack and self-pity had clearly consumed Chad, but hearing his story, it seemed like his downfall from cycling was really the result of an act of self-destruction. Gunther explained that Chad that his personality may not have been fit for the support, but he certainly had the talent and drive to succeed. What is even more interesting is that, in the world of cycling where it seems as if doping has become almost necessary, Gunther said Chad never doped, and still managed to achieve success in the sport over those who were. When one thinks about the Tour de France in the Lance Armstrong era, it is apparent that Armstrong, Jan Ulrich, and Floyd Landis have at least brought much controversy to the sport–and when those people are respectfully a cancer survivor desperate for success, a man who was up against someone who was the unbeatable and unquestionable icon of the sport, and the man who was destined to take the American hero’s place, the accusations and failed doping tests begin to make sense. But that is a post for a different time, and if it is a truth about Armstrong, then it is one that simply will never be accepted by the American public. And if you don’t believe that, then the CIA has never tortured anyone or sold drugs in this country.

Regardless, Gunther’s comment allowed us to see Chad in a more complete light–he was unrestricted by the average television watcher’s schema, or by an editor’s desire to create a narrative. This comment is, most importantly, a greater view of the truth than, god help us, than what we see on TV.

It is a comment like this which makes it painfully obvious that if one comment by one person knowledgeable on a topic can change the paradigm of which we view the topic, then God only knows what is really going on Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. Perhaps one day people will greater realize the capacity for truth we have in ourselves. Until then, we’ll keep watching television.

Thanks to Paul Gunther for his enlightening comment, and I hope I will see more in the future–remember, if you comment, I may just write a long post about you here.