A few days ago, I thought we had 'em. The credit card/bankrupcy bill and ANWR oil drilling passed the Senate and the House was sinking ever lower into the gurgling ethics scandal that has been brewing there ever since Tom Delay and his cohort started enacting procedural changes to cement the dominance of their 1994 "Contract With America," which was itself driven in large part by perceved ethical weakness on the opposite side of the isle.

I thought we had 'em. A wedge issue; a clear rallying point for the political base; a high-road means of attacking some of the most powerful figures in the GOP machine... and then they trotted out a (literally, not pejoratively) brain-dead woman from Florida, and everyone forgot about all that other shit.

This is a classic move, and politically very shrewd. Here's an issue that few Democrats have a solid opposition stance to (hint: it's here and here, folks), and which splits their caucus. Here's an issue that provides ready TV images, with the heightened emotional charge of "a life hanging in the balance."

Yes. You can see the logic. Here's something to take everyone's mind off the fact that there's solid proof that Tom Delay is crooked. Pay no attention to the fact that our Senate just voted to let unrestrained usury be business as usual in the credit card industry. Forget that as part of the overall budgeting process, Senate republicans have succeeded in opening up one of the last pristine stretches of American territory to petrochemical companies in the vain delusion that this will somehow make up for our lack of a coherant energy problem. Let's get back to the real issue, one vegitative woman in Florida and the lack of a solid moral message from the Democratic party.

Oh yeah; and it's the two year anneversary of the war. That's still happening, remeber?

The Republican Noise Machine is a powerful entity. The good guys won a round on Social Security, and I like to think I had a little part in that, but the volly has now been returned with plenty of topspin. How the Democrats handle what comes next is important. Once the pressure is off, if the GOP is able to build any momentum it will be hard to get it back. Someone on the left is going to need to go on the offensive pretty soon, or else driving at all the real issues is going to be more difficult.

A week ago, I thought we had 'em, and in the Long Game we very well might. But the ease with which everything was shifted is alarming. If the Democrats want to recapture the House (and they can) they need a strategy for a full-court-press. It's not fucking complecated; just a lot of work. I'll have more on this later.

Sterling Newberry :: So We Want A Revolution

Let us begin from the obvious truth: there are a billion people who seek to join the affluent society, primarily in China. Our current means of extracting this life from the fruits of the earth requires oil. Right now, the developed world outside of the United States supports 500 million people on 25% of the world's capacity for oil. A simple multiplication - there are 6 billions in the world - means that we would have to produce 3 barrels of oil for every one we produce today. There is no such capacity available, and even if it were, the pollution would cook the world and flood almost every ancient capital and booming new metropolis on the planet. This is the overwhelming fact from which there is no escape, not in this world, nor to any other: we cannot support the population of the world at a tolerable standard of living with the society and technology we have. The economy we have is inadequeate to the challenges we face.

Sterling is one of those people who really shows you where the relationship between eccentricity and genius lies. I like his writing quite a lot, even if -- like the rest of us -- he could use an editor from time to time. This whole piece is worth reading and thinking about.

When John Bolton's nomination to be Ambassador to the UN was announced, the Republican talking points were locked in:" he's a guy with experience who knows how to get things done." The response from the opposition were some rather disparaging quotes he made about the UN, and it all blew over becuase no one really cared all that much.

But now there's some video. It really makes you think. Watch it.

It's one thing to read a quote by a guy saying "the UN doesn't exist." It's another thing to see him shouting (realy shouting) at a bunch of other diplomats: "The United States make the UN work when it wants it to work, and that is exactly the way it should be because the only question, the only question for the United States is what's in our national interest."

It's this beligerent mix of imperialistic power -- "we make it work when we want to make it work" -- and isolationist mindset -- "the only question is what's in our interest" -- that I find so disturbing in the Bush Doctrine. It is a cocktail of some of the worst elements in the US national character. It is the dark side of "exceptionalism," the attitude that we are special, we are powerful, and therefore things should work out according to our desires. Why? Because.

This is dangerous stuff! The reality of the situation is we are not that powerful; we are not exempt from history, and we cannot exist as we currently do without the support of other nations around the world.

From an economic perspective we have lost our base of industrial productivity and now maintain ourselves through consumption and finance. Now, if we were running a tight ship (e.g. balancing our budget, investing in infrastructure, living within our means) that kind of post-industrial information economy might work. But we're not doing that. We're in a structural decline. Our currency is dependent on the generosity of Asian central banks; our consumption is financed through runinous consumer debt; and our corporations have taken the concept of financialization to the logical extreme, maximizing shareholder value by any means necesssary. All this while our educational institutions crumble, our middle class dwindles and our base of small business and enterprise is ground under by the advance of franchises, big box retail and foreign-made goods created with what really essentially amounts to slave labor.

This is not a strong economy. It is a large one, the largest on the planet, but it is fundimentally unhealthy. It is fat. It is dumb. It is greedy. And it is bleeding. This cannot last. In our lifetimes we will either lead the world by reforming our own systems, or we will drag the world down with our decadence.

From a military perspective as well, we are really not as muscular as the hawks would like you to believe. Attempting to win the peace in Iraq is straining our resources to the limit, and in the paradigm of 4th Generation Warfare simple killing power is not enough to create security. We cannot bomb our way out of our problems -- we must prevail in the moral sphere. At the moment we are failing mightily to do this. No matter how much we may pat ourselves on the back for being "liberators," the truth is no one throws roses down in the paths of American troops. They plant bombs by the side of the road. This isn't the sort of situation you can get our of through force alone; you have to be wise, and willing to let other people get what they want. One really can't imagine Bolton helping out much in this respect.

And thta's pretty much the point. Much like Paul Wolfowitz's nomination to head the World Bank, Bolton's nomination is a message from the People In Charge that they are going to continue to have it there way, and the rest of the world can either get on board or get bent. It will probably continue to work for a while, but it takes us further along a badly charted course. As some point, the shit has to start adding up. Just watch this video and think about what it means that this guy has been hand-picked to represent the United States to the rest of the world. It's a sign of the times.

If you live in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, or Wisconsin, you have a Sentator -- someone who is supposed to represent you -- on the Foreign Relations Committee. They're the people who will evaluate Bolton for his job. If you live in one of these states, pick up the phone. If you've never called your Congressperson or Senator, now's a good time to get the experience. It's really not hard, and it does matter. America needs to have this conversation.

The New York Times: Bush Seeks to Ban Some Nations From All Nuclear Technology

In what amounts to a reinterpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Mr. Bush now argues that there is a new class of nations that simply cannot be trusted with the technology to produce nuclear material even if the treaty itself makes no such distinction.

This is pretty interesting. The diplomatic tactics at work here are shady, and the scope is too exceptionalist, but this development shows that lightbulbs are going off above some heads on Team Bush. You can't have widespread nuclear power without the widespread possibility of nuclear weapons. Reactors require all sorts of dual-use technology, and they also make great places to hide clandestine enrichment and development facilities.

The problem is that with the breakdown of the cold war balance of power, having some nations go around and tell others that certain energy technologies are off limits is a recipie for trouble. The opportunity here is for some bold peacenik to propose the real solution: a global ban on nuclear power. That's a non-starter, but if you're serious about preventing enemy nations from constructing atomic weapons and you want to make sure other states aren't building stuff on the side which can be sold, the first step to a working enforcement regime is shutting down the cooling towers.

More broadly, it strikes me again that so many of our political conflicts have roots in thermodynamics. I remember being a kid and talking with my chemist father about the possibilities of cold fusion, how there might come a time when everyone would have their own "Personal Sun." That''s a recipie for a kind of utopia, as long as people didn't, say, start using their PS to shoot lasers at one another.

In any event, there's a growing consciousness on the left and right that energy issues are really at the root of a lot of problems we'd like to fix. Maybe the Apollo Alliance will finally get some play.

Flipping along tonight past Cspan-2 -- where a bunch of Democratic insiders are talking about the primary schedule (ugh) -- onto the flagship and theres Tony (Antonin) talking before some foundation. He's a good talker and clearly quite smart. I actually think there are some things he says which might be applicable in ways he would completely detest.

For instance, he talks about how the limited right to abortion or the right to engage on sodomy should be legislated and not left to the court. He's right, of course, in terms of ending these debates. We should take that to heart. There's pressure on Bush now to push a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. but he won't do it. However, when the time comes -- in 10 or 20 years -- we should do the opposite. Because it would work at that point, barring facism or something.

At the same time, his argumentation is full of holes and contradictions. For instance, talking on and on about how the Supreme Court has become politicized because of the notion of a "living constitution," how that's driven questions of "majority rule" and extending what the constitution means and made confirmation battles in the Senate so rancorous. Then he cites the SCOTUS decision not to consider the question of a right to die as an example of how... the constitution is being extended beyond its meaning?

And then, after ending on a note about how the living constitution is a threat to the protection against majority rule, not five minutes later he says again that when it comes to questions about homosexuality and abortion that the ballot box exists to advance these issues. Which is, essentially, majority rule. Nice.

But he sounds very believable when he says these things. They're logically inconsistant, but he's nimble on his feet and never gets flustred. So you can see why these people love him.

Someone might think that the democratic establishment would have watched Gladiator. Juaquin Phoenix: "I will give them a vision of the greatness of Rome and they will forget all about the sermonizing of a few dry old men."

That's a rather simple political strategy, but it pretty much sums up every winning presidential campaign in my lifetime. Got it? Good. Now keep it.

Strange phone calls as Bush's Social Insecurity Road Show Continues:

"The man who called was very polite and nice," says John Gasquet, owner of Empire coffee at 2 S. Main in Downtown Memphis. "He said he was special agent Something-or-other. He said that due to the fact that in some states the President had been to, there were issues of security regarding area businesses, he was calling businesses to tell them not to put up any negative signs in their windows that were negative toward President Bush. He said there were designated areas of protest and this would cut down on the possibility of problems."

This is pretty fucked. There's no telling who was making these calls, but this aught to be investigated. If if was really a fed, it's a big constitutional no no, and someone should at the very least take a fall. If it was someome (maybe an over-enthusiastic GOP Team Leader) impersonating a fed, then that's a crime and they aught to be prosecuted.

Apparently it's not just this one guy, but a number of other business owners in more than one state. I hope this is followed up on, because this is really honestly how the ugly phases of facism get started -- as opposed to the merely ominous phases of propaganda, doublespeak and groupthink -- so it would be nice if we could nip it in the bud.

As for me I'm enjoying a nice litle Sunday. I got some really tasty food to cook and I'm watching a movie and later on I'm going to try and write something legitimately artistic. Huzzah.

Update: Recommend the kos diary, get the meme going.

Update 2: It looks like I didn't break through. That's ok. I'll just work the idea up a little more. Here's another interesting angle: usury.

It's spelled W-E-D-G-E I-S-S-U-E:

Let me tell you something, ok? When Freepers sing Krugman's praises, and the king of righty bloggers comes down against the every Republican in the Senate there's something going on.

Oh, and the fact that Credit Card Debt (and that payday/title loan bullshit) constitute nothing less than 21st-Century sharecropping make reforming consumer credit the right thing to do. It's not just an electorial winner, it's consistent with your principles to boot. This wedge has your name written all over it. Do you want to pick up seats in 2006 or not?

It occurs to me that with a modest effort similar to what Matt and Bob and I did with There Is No Crisis we might actually get this on the national radar. I'd really rather the Chairman or someone of similar stature take the lead, but I'm not holding my breath.

See This Movie

And when you do, be prepared to laugh and to cry. Fucking seriously.

It's a hot question these days.

All I can add is that from my experience on campaign 2004, people who blogged are generally more ego-driven, more likely to enjoy hearing themselves talk about politics. I'm not excerpted from that (I often epitomize it). For whatever reason, Women in America seem to do that less.

On the other hand, I saw more women managing yahoo groups, moderating discussion forums, and keeping up actual organizational connections. I won't speculate on why this is, but I will note that these activities often produced much more political and social value than blogging did.

Without wading too deeply into pseudo-sociology, I think there's potentially something gendered about the attention-centric ethos of pure personal publishing (read me! read me!) vs. the outcome-centric ethos of organizing (lets get something accomplished). There's also something potentially gendered in the difference, for instance, between "outward facing" web publishing (e.g. the man-heavy blogosphere) and more "inward facing" ventures (e.g. livejournal, which has a lot more prominant female participants).

My gut and recent experience suggests that women online seem more driven by connections and conversations; men by recognition and reputation. That could be an insightful view into the heart of the American Equation, or it could be a temporary blip in the development of online culture. Or I could be totally wrong.