Glenn Greenwald turns on the wayback machine and shows how Howard Dean was right about Iraq at every turn, and notes how he was (and still is) belittled by people who have been just as consistantly wrong as some kind of extremist or unserious person. After a lengthy quote from a 2003 speech that literally hurts it's so right-on, Greenwald summarizes the current mindset within the traditional media and power-elite:

If you want to know what the U.S. should do about the new Middle East war and any other complex, grave national security matter, you have to talk to Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes and Stephen Hadley and Peter Beinart and Joe Lieberman and John McCain and Tom Friedman and Rich Lowry and Newt Gingrich and all the other "serious" tough guys who might have been wrong about every single thing they said about Iraq but, for some reason that is impossible to discern, are supposed to be the only ones with any credibility on these questions -- still. But whatever you do, just don't listen to Howard Dean or anyone of his ilk, no matter how right he might have been about Iraq.

This is our national debate, and its complete and utter lack of substance is a liability. It's because of shit like this -- and the inability of anyone (journalists and Democrats and activists alike) to do anything about it -- that we are where we are; stuck being hustled into Armageddon by an ignorant born-again ex-playboy who likes to play dress up as "Leader of the Free World."

John Robb has an "inside source" that says the 82nd Airborne will be deployed to Lebanon soon. This echoes speculation in Harpers that US Forces will be put in due to a lack of other countries feeling like putting their kids on the line to solve other peoples' problems.

Robb:

However, that won't work since Hezbollah won't comply. Their guerrillas will fight the effort and missiles will continue to fly. The result will be a widening of the war to include Syria and Iran to get at the "real sources" of the conflict...

This is something to watch for. This is something we should try NOT to do as a country. There's no benefit to us to getting involved here as a third party, and plenty of danger. Sadly, I think the political dynamics here are such that there will be no major mainstream opposition to such a deployment, and non-establishment action (e.g. protest, etc) won't start hitting where it hurts until things widen futher and there's a need for a draft or something. At which point...

Sweet light crude:

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) beat forecasts on Thursday with a 36 percent rise in second-quarter profits, boosting its shares, as high oil prices more than compensated for disappointing production news.

Investors were also cheered by Shell's reaffirmation that it was sticking to its 2006 and 2007 spending plans, despite rampant sector cost inflation.

ConocoPhillips also boosted quarterly profit, making more than $2B more than in the same period in 2005.

With that, and the previous news on BP, I'll bet ExxonMobil and Chevron/Texaco turn in bumper quarterly earnings reports too. Two years ago would have been a great time to buy Oil Futures. Thankfully that kind of investment is out of reach of normal people and most mutual funds. Only for the big boys, you know?

The numbers are looking promising for the Democrats to be able to build some power this fall (addl. Kos analysis). If you're at all interested, check this stuff out.

That's important. It means there's a decent chance we'll finally put a check on the Bush administration, perhaps even start some investigations. If things go well it will mean building a national progressive consensus around key issues. Health Care will get another shot if we can put together two winning cycles in a row (e.g. gain ground this fall and then take either the White House or Congress in '08).

My advice for you? Get savvy on your representatives. This fall's action is going to be faught in over four-hundred 500,000-person districts. It's going to mean a lot of local nuance, which is where grassroots participation can make the biggest impact. There's also probably some important action at the state/county/city level. The best strategy here is to flood the zone; to push forward on every front and juice turnout as much as possible. At the very least get registered and vote Democrat in the fall, and try to get your friends to do the same. If you're on board for the slow-steady takeover of the government (e.g. you really want that Health Care, out of Iraq, etc), then find a campaign (even a long-shot) and get directly involved.

Getting involved is actually doubly important. It's necessary if the change is to happen, and should Dems indeed put together a comeback with our help, they're going to start getting more and more of that corporate slush money. HMOs, Big Pharma, and the Insurance Rackets all give to the GOP about 2-to-1, but that ratio will probably change if there's a transfer of power. People power will be critical in keeping 'em honest.

Power and Free Markets, a good post for those wondering whether there's a connection between turing over public goods, services and utilities to private corporations, and all the blackouts this summer. Hint: yes.

Trad media talking heads are hostile to Stephen Colbert for the same reasons columnists are hostile to bloggers: they're facing competition from strangers who are pitching a product that hits above the brain-stem, and people are responding. It's pretty alarming how most members of the Press (I'm thinking in particular of the I've heard Mark Halperin of ABC's "The Note" say) view themselves as producers of a commercial product, with a pretty dim assessment of their "consumers."

It's a post-consumer era, mi amigos. Take a minute and let it sink in.

Bonus link: Matt Stoller pens a great piece in Net Neutrality.

Trad media talking heads are hostile to Stephen Colbert for the same reasons columnists are hostile to bloggers: they're facing competition from strangers who are pitching a product that hits above the brain-stem, and people are responding. It's pretty alarming how most members of the Press (I'm thinking in particular of the I've heard Mark Halperin of ABC's "The Note" say) view themselves as producers of a commercial product, with a pretty dim assessment of their "consumers."

It's a post-consumer era, mi amigos. Take a minute and let it sink in.

Bonus link: Matt Stoller pens a great piece in Net Neutrality.

Samuel Taylor ponders the ol' WWJD, and emerges with Anarcho-christian minimalism:

i’ve been reading up on st francis of assisi and listening to some anarcho-folk punk in a room five by ten feet, minus a corner for the closet. this summer i’ve been thinking a lot about goods. artifacts. the thought process has been spiraling outwards, demanding more and more of my consideration. poverty is the big thought this summer.this, then, is something like the fruits of my considerations.

Are we witnessing the Red Dawn of Pre-Apocalyptic America or are we on the cusp of the Post-Consumer revolution? It's a toss up. The Big D is coming one way or another, and it's going to shake things up for sure. What comes out is up to us.

I used to be an adherant to the Utopa of Oblivion line of thought, but in real terms things aren't quite that dire. I think we've got the Global Thermoneuclear War thing under control. I don't belive it's Oblivion so much as the potential for a Great Leap Backward, a new Dark Age. Nor is Utopia really feasible. The challenge now is more about how to live well within our means, prevent the ice age coming, be a happy enough nation to cut back on the Prozac, get fit, etc.

I've been thinking along these lines a lot. It seems to me that most people I know (and indeed, most people in the country) believe we're "on the wrong track," as the polsters put it. Things are not working out in a whole lot of ways, and one of the critical questions we need to answer is whether we're going to face the coming troubles alone or together.

There's a chance that on the national level things will begin to swing back this fall; I think the Democrats will get one more clean crack at Health Care, and maybe figuring out how a non-Imperial America behaves in the world. But the truth is that while these are good things, the federal government isn't going to fix all our problems. It can stop making them worse and be helpful in some key areas (again, Health Care, Energy Independence, etc), but what's wrong is not just our political leadership, it's the culture and economic situation that are at the root of all this folly.

Voting alone can't possibly cure that. It goes deep. It's a philosophical and spiritual problem, and it requires answers on the same level. Government doesn't really go there-- unless it's totalitarian, which the Bush administration arguably is in some respects. What's needed is a better way of thinking about ourselves, our communities, our country and our world. Luckily, we're on our way.

Another productive day here in the State of Jefferson. I've been cranking away at my major client projects during the day, and feeling stimulated creatively and starting to write things down at night. It's a good mix.

The one last thing I absolutely need to do is develop a social life outside the household. This is harder than you might think. I don't really get along with the sort of hippies you get out here. I'm from the old stock, and trendy rope-heads up from Hayward in their SUVs cruising for "heady nugs" rankle my posseur-radar. I'm also a pragmatic man coming outta Brooklyn, so I don't want to hear about crystal healing or the Indigo children either.

But efforts must be made, connections found, etc. There's supposed to be a theater scene here, and there have got to be nerds too. I don't need much, but it's important to me to have some independence, and that means Other People to hang around with from time to time.

Ok. Now, to the gym!

Jerebus:

The UN in Lebanon says the Israeli air force destroyed [an] observer post, in which four military observers were sheltering.

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble.

Beyond being tragic, this seems so blindingly stupid. Abulances have been hit too (photo), along with power plants, sewer systems, trucks full of food, and plenty of other stuff that doesn't make much damn sense to me.

It's hard to even imagine what the hell is supposed to be accomplished here. The Hez dropping rockets on a train yard is just as bad, but the motives there are at least clearer: provokation. This just is senseless. It's out of control. Terrible.

....

Billmon:

Morality aside (since terror now seems to be the order of the day on both sides) this is a very bad sign for the Israelis. It has the smell of panic about it. It's like the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi -- an exercise that served no rational purpose other than to vent Richard Nixon's rage at his own inability to bend the North Vietnamese government to his will.

The difference is that Nixon could get away with it -- he'd just won a landslide re-election, and the destruction of Hanoi wasn't being covered in real time by every television network on the planet.

I hope that the sheer brutal idiocy of all this forces everyone to step back, but I fear that with so many egos (personal and national) on the line, the response from the People In Charge will be to push further forward, to escalate again in some way.