Will there be an 'O8?

Empire Notes: "Instead of talking about who should run in '08, the Democrats should be asking themselves if there will be an '08.

The storm gathering on the horizon is already breaking. And it will get a lot worse before it gets better. The agenda on which Bush intends to spend his political capital is not privatization of Social Security or making the tax cut permanent or even reversing Roe v. Wade. Those are mere epiphenomena of the true agenda -- the systematic transformation of American society and culture in a more authoritarian, more fanatical, more overtly imperialist direction, and the consolidation of the right wing in power to the point that it cannot be challenged.

Many on the left have already written about what lies ahead and the purported need for unity with the Democrats in the face of this threat. They are missing the point. In order to have a chance of facing this, the left needs to do its job and to make the Democrats do theirs. Whether it's selecting Harry Reid or rolling over for Alberto Gonzales, the Democrats have made it clear that they won't do their job, even though it's their heads on the block, unless they are dragged kicking and screaming.
"

Our "victory" in Fallujah.

News: "Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said allied forces had 'completed the move, for all practical purposes, from the north of the town to the south'. Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, said there had been 'a clear-cut win over the insurgents and the terrorists'.


But the pacification of the rebel stronghold could be a hollow victory. The Americans will leave behind them a shattered city, having unleashed the full might of the US military against an estimated 6,000 insurgents.


There was plenty of evidence across Iraq that the war is far from over, and the devastation of Fallujah is likely to have fuelled the resistance"

Why was Gonzales picked as the new AG?

In order to push the Administration's pro-torture agenda.

What a hack.

So, my fellow liberals, do not cheer when one of these assholes resigns. There's just another asshole right behind him.

From MydDD -- tanks roll in the streets of America.

MyDD :: Due Diligence of Politics, Election Forecast & the World Today: "Tanks were deployed to an anti-war protest in Los Angles yesterday:
LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location."

Maureeen Dowd on Dubya

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Rove's Revenge: "W.'s presidency rushes backward, stifling possibilities, stirring intolerance, confusing church with state, blowing off the world, replacing science with religion, and facts with faith. We're entering another dark age, more creationist than cutting edge, more premodern than postmodern. Instead of leading America to an exciting new reality, the Bushies cocoon in a scary, paranoid, regressive reality. Their new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches.

America has always had strains of isolationism, nativism, chauvinism, puritanism and religious fanaticism. But most of our leaders, even our devout presidents, have tried to keep these impulses under control. Not this crew. They don't call to our better angels; they summon our nasty devils."

Does this mean US forces are under foreign control?

washingtonpost.com: U.S. Forces Launch Attack on Fallujah: " U.S. forces entered the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah Monday, launching a long-anticipated urban offensive that is widely seen as the most significant and controversial battle since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 19 months ago.


The assault is code-named Operation Phantom Fury. It was led by U.S. Marines and members of the Army's 1st Infantry Division and follows weeks of bombing by U.S. aircraft. It came about 11 a.m. EST, hours after Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, announced that he had formally authorized the attack.


'I gave my authority to the multinational forces, Iraqi forces. We are determined to clean Fallujah from the terrorists,' Allawi declared earlier Monday in Baghdad. 'I have reached the belief that I have no other choice but to resort to extreme measures to protect the Iraqi people from these killers and to liberate the residents of Fallujah so they can return to their homes,' he told a news conference."

We aren't the only screwed-up imperial power. Witness the French.

washingtonpost.com: French Unleash Force Against Ivory Coast Chaos: "The French military used overwhelming force Sunday to put down an explosion of anti-French violence in its former West African colony, deploying troops, armored vehicles and helicopter gunships against machete-waving mobs that went from house to house hunting for foreigners.


In the second day of military operations, French forces seized strategic control of the largest city, Abidjan, commandeering airports and posting gunboats under bridges. French military helicopters swept in to rescue a dozen trapped expatriates from the rooftop of a hotel.


The chaos erupted Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes launched a surprise airstrike that killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker. The government called the bombing a mistake.


France hit back within hours, wiping out Ivory Coast's newly strengthened air force -- two Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters and at least three helicopter gunships -- on the ground.


The slain troops were among 4,000 French peacekeepers and 6,000 U.N. troops who have served as a buffer between Ivory Coast's rebel north and loyalist south since civil war broke out in September 2002.


The airstrike on the peacekeepers came after government forces last week broke a cease-fire in place for more than year and bombed rebel positions."

Garry Wills -- the smartest man in America -- on the results of the election.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out: "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed 'a candid world,' as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of 'a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.' Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated."

If only...

Ben Tripp: My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!

Ben Tripp: My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!Bush represents the end of American history as a noteworthy subject. It is Bush who will preside over the final ruin of America's promise to the world, the despoiling of her natural treasures, the failure to respond in time to global climate change, Bush who will be the cementer of 'intolerance' as the defining characteristic of our people. The French are great lovers, although there hasn't been a great French lover in seventy years. The Germans are warlike, although they've behaved themselves for half a century. Americans are intolerant: they voted for Bush. It's just our bad luck that the entire course of history happens to hinge on this particular span of years, and we chose Bozo the Hun for a president.

Yes, Dick Cheney, things are going well in Iraq.

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Iraq Declares State of Emergency as Insurgents Step Up Attacks: "Faced with a surge in deadly guerrilla attacks, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared martial law across most of the country today, as American and Iraqi troops made final preparations for an all-out assault on the insurgent stronghold of Falluja.

Dr. Allawi's move is the first time the martial powers, drafted in a law in July, have been put into effect. The state of emergency will last for 60 days throughout all of Iraq except for the northern Kurdish region and will allow Dr. Allawi's office to issue orders imposing curfews, conducting house-to-house searches and detaining people suspected of being security risks."

Another victory for ignorance.

Salon.com Life | Wisconsin city allows teaching creationism: "GRANTSBURG, Wis. (AP) -- The city's school board has revised its science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.


School board members believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum 'should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,' said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.


Last month, when the board examined its science curriculum, language was added calling for 'various models/theories' of origin to be incorporated."

The following things are not true.

The motto of the United States of America will be changed from "E Pluribuis Unum" to "Kill them all, let God sort them out."
Members of the military will not have to swear personal fealty to the President. When offering the stiff-armed salute, they will say "Hail Dubya."
Michael Moore will be declared Public Enemy Number 1 for the crime of lese majesty.
"The Star Spangled Banner" will be replaced on all public occasions by "God Bless America," and "God Bless America" by "Onward Christian Soldiers." "Onward Christian Soldiers" will be replaced by "America, Fuck Yeah.".

Katha Pollitt asks a tough question

Mourn: "It's an article of faith among progressives that moving to the left wins votes, and I have written many columns in witness to the creed. But what if it isn't true? What if it wins fewer votes than being a liar and a bigot? One leftist intellectual I saw at an election-night party suggested to me that Kerry shot himself in the foot when he didn't throw Abu Ghraib in Bush's face and proclaim that as President he would never permit torture. I would have wept with joy to hear that speech, but where is the evidence that significant numbers of voters not already committed to Kerry--let alone voters who supported Bush--were outraged by Abu Ghraib? Did I miss the demonstrations, the sit-ins, the teach-ins, the lying down in traffic by swing voters and nonvoters to force the Bush Administration to account for this outrageous crime against humanity?"

----

This makes no sense to me as an explanation of the recent election. It doesn't explain, for example, why Republicans gained in both House and Senate. It doesn't explain why Californians rejected a referendum to amend their three-strikes law so that twice-convicted felons wouldn't get twenty-five years for shoplifting, or why Arizonans voted solidly to bar undocumented aliens from obtaining a wide range of essential public services and to require public servants to report them if they try. It doesn't explain why the Kansas school board is once again a chorus line of creationists.


Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, "safety" through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President.


Where, I wonder, does that leave us?

Coalition with that funky feeling.

What our "allies" think.

Mirror.co.uk - GOD HELP AMERICA: "This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.


This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.


And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.


But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.


A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: 'I feel good,' as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity."

Salon.com | Bush, God and the Democrats

Salon.com | Bush, God and the Democrats: "There is no sense in belaboring the point. Kansas may have a problem, but it will not be solved without a political strategy that has recourse to a religious and nonrational rhetoric and imagery. The Democratic leadership needs to do some hard thinking and feeling in the coming weeks and come to terms with a not so simple, but obvious fact: The country we live in is neither secular nor rational and won't be for quite some time to come. "

Scripting News: 11/4/2004: "Driving through Bush Country, looking Jewish with Massachusetts plates on my Lexus, I felt really self-conscious. 51 percent of the electorate looked the other way and re-elected a President who started a war with a far-away country that was no threat to the US. Why do people like me feel so scared of what this country has become? Simple. How do we know they won't go to war with us?"

From MyDD -- chilling words

MyDD :: Due Diligence of Politics, Election Forecast & the World Today: "The reactionaries have finally achieved what they have fought decades to achieve: a government that will completely destroy every last remnant of the New Deal, make us a worldwide colonial power, and be able to institute to most frightening aspects of the 'culture war.' Despite our best efforts, the reactionaries have achieved total victory. Prepare for hell. While I believe that selling liberalism and clawing our way out of the minority is the only way to reverse this trend, I am not sure how we go about doing that. However, I do know it is time that we at least start talking about it. We are in the minority, and that must end. It is time for us to grow.
"

The odious Andrew Sullivan on what's to come.

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: "A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR: That's Bill Bennett's conclusion. He won't be the only one. What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today's world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.
"

Cliff Schechter is right on --

The Gadflyer: Fly Trap: "But I am sorry, I must say something else. And if I regret it later, so be it. All you have to do is read a book like What's The Matter With Kansas, and it just reminds you how fuckin stupid many of the people in this country are. That's right, I said it. Sue me. What's the old saying, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. I cannot think of an aphorism more apt.


Probably, by correlation (and I personally was under the impression there was going to be no math involved in this, so you crunch the numbers), the poorest states with the largest education gaps are the ones who supported President Yellowcake with the most votes.


Why? 22% cited moral values as their top concern. This put this non-issue in a statistical dead heat with the economy, Iraq and terrorism.


Moral values?!? Yes, now apparently the Republic is most desperately threatened by the Saddamites and the Soddomites.


We have poverty growing at a rate that will have us building Hoovervilles, a budget deficit that is growing faster than the dementia in Jim Bunning's 'brain,' a war raging based on lies and a corrupt government that every week finds a new way to stick it in the average person's ass like they're O'Reilly with a loofah and you're lathering up in the shower. But damnit, two men you don't know may choose to get married, and some other guy might want not want to say 'Under God' during the pledge of allegiance. Better vote for the moral Brady Bunch of the former drunk driving/draft dodging Pres/VP team."

The Gadflyer: Where Do We Go From Here?

The Gadflyer: Where Do We Go From Here?: "So where do progressives go from here? First, they should spend the next four years fighting. If Kerry had won, there would be Republicans drafting articles of impeachment at this very moment, ready to fill in the blank of an imagined crime in January. As I did in the article I wrote for the launch of this magazine, I offer the movie quote that best describes today's Republican Party, from The Terminator: 'It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop – ever – until you are dead.' There are a lot of very bad things George W. Bush is going to try to do over the next four years, but they can be stopped.


Second, progressives should abandon any illusion that Democratic candidates or the Democratic Party can be trusted to do anything right. Like so many campaigns before it – and like the Party itself – the defining characteristic of John Kerry's effort was fear. As E.J. Dionne wrote in his recent book Stand Up Fight Back,


Instead of framing new choices, Democrats run away from their old commitments. Instead of reaching for greatness, they argue that they are not as bad as everyone thinks they are. The party that once galvanized a nation by declaring that there is nothing to fear but fear itself has become afraid – afraid of being too liberal, afraid of being weak on defense, afraid of being culturally permissive, afraid of being seen as apologizing for big government. Democrats are obsessed with telling people who they are not. As a result, no one knows who they are.



This is not going to change until the progressives in the party force it to show some courage."

Kos -- words to ponder

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.: "We put together an unprecedented ground operation, but it was matched by the zealots on the right. We experienced an explosion in the blog world and started a nascent liberal radio network, but our message machine was far outmatched by the rightwing noise machine (Fox News, the Washington Times, Drudge Report, Talk Radio, etc.) We put forth quality candidates in races nationwide, only to see most outclassed and outgunned by a GOP which ran on three simple tenets: God, guns and gays.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but one that should hopefully lead to a brighter future. Bush owns his messes, and now he'll be forced to clean them up. He won't be able to hide behind 9/11 seven years into his term. Unless the Republicans can engineer a recovery of epic proportions, they will have a great deal to answer to in the 2006 midterms and 2008. And God help Bush if this nation suffers another terrorist attack.

But best of all, we'll continue to see this great resurgence in progressive activism - the kind not seen in American politics in over a generation. None of these new activists heeded the call to arms only to abandon the fight today. We are energised, and will continue to fight for a better future for our country."

Good words from the Bull Moose.

Bull Moose: "The issue for donkey is neither moving to the right nor to the left. The Democrats have the opportunity to become the true reform party. It is not as if Bush won on a positive mandate. His main message was 'vote for me or they will kill you.' With an increasingly ossified Republican establishment now fully in control of Washington, Democrats can truly become the insurgent party advocating fundamental reform in political and governmental institutions on behalf of the middle-class. It might be helpful to consult the old Gingrich playbook on how a minority party can seize power. Yes, the Republicans back then had voter mobilization, but they also were a party of ideas and seized the reform agenda.
"

Is there anyway I can invest in Iranian Nuclear Arms futures? Cuz that's going top be one hell of a growth stock.

Woo hoo

Wonkette: "A certain high ranking former republican senator called Karl Rove around 5:15 this evening.  Bush's brain sounded 'dejected' and gave less than a 30% chance for a Bush win.
"

Exit Polls From GOP Pollster Luntz: Very Kerry -- via Wonkette

Exit Polls From GOP Pollster Luntz: Very Kerry: "rom an email being circulated which uses numbers by GOP pollster Frank Luntz:

Way too close to call/BUT leaning Kerry by 1 percent
Fla.
Ohio
Pa.: 54 percent for Kerry
Wisc: 3 point lead for Kerry
Iowa.: 1 point lead for Kerry (Bush supposed to win)
NM: Kerry plus 2
Nev: Bush plus 1
NH: Kerry by 3
NJ: 8 points for Kerry
Colo: Bush plus 2
Mich: Kerry plus 4"

How one Bushie spent the day.

The Corner on National Review Online: "Practiced calm resignation"