3 posts tagged “msm”

The news last week was that only 20-30% of Americans are willing to identify themselves as "Republicans". When John Dvorak's blog polled its users as to their politics and party affiliation and asked them what the Republicans needed to do about this, the first response included the following,

Its likely a third party…conservative, will rise, if the Republican party cannot cleanse itself of Democrats aka RINOs

Then we would have no choice but form another party…however we are hopeful we can expel them…and recover those who left.

The Republican party is shrinking and losing votes, and the response of an ardent advocate of the party is that what they need to do is "cleanse itself" of the "Democrats aka RINOs" that are inflating its membership. Somehow, if the party can expel the Democrats in their midst they can then recover the true Republicans who left the party because of all these Democrats in their midst.

If I may, "WTF?!"

As an Independent who vote about 40/60 Republican/Democrat for the last three decades of the 20th century and who has voted 100% Democrat for the 21st, I think we Independents may not have made ourselves clear. The problem, dear Republicans is not that you aren't extreme enough, not pure enough, too infiltrated by Democrats. So, let me lay out what I, as an Independent who has stopped voting with the Republicans am looking for. It sure isn't a purer stricter, more conservative Republican party. And, by the way, it isn't what the Democrats of today are. They are second only to the current Republican party in needing to be torn to bits and rebuilt from scratch. I'm looking forward to turning on them. But not until there is something better.

So who the Hell am I, anyway? I'm an Independent. I do not consider myself a Conservative or a Liberal, a Republican or a Democrat. I might call myself a "Progressive" except that that label is used by Liberals who are afraid to use the word "Liberal" to describe themselves because the Conservatives have made it a dirty word.

So, labels being useless, let me say what I believe in:

• I am a fervent Civil Libertarian
• I am vehemently pro Habeas Corpus, pro-Posse Comitatus
• I am just as vehemently anti-torture
• I am anti-Big Government, Big-Business, Big-Labor
• I am pro-choice
• I am anti-abortion
• I am anti-war
• I am pro-veteran
• I am pro-gun
• I am pro-decriminalization of marijuana
• I think that ethics, and family values are in a shambles
• I am pro-marriage equality
• I am an agnostic. I'm sick of the religious right and the fundamentalist atheists
  

In all of that, the key concept is that very few things are Black vs White, harsh dichotomies wherein one side represents virtue and the other all that is wrong wit the world. I tend to feel that truth is found in medias res, as they would say back when it was more popular to pepper your American with Foreign.

With the nomination of a Souter replacement on the horizon, we are soon to be blessed with the spectacle of the Democrats and Republicans beating each other with the absolute and diametrically opposed values of "a woman's right" with "baby killing", just as if that made sense. And the Media will egg the two sides on, just as if there were two sides. It's all very simple, really. You either believe in freedom or tyranny, life or death. You are on the side of the Angels or of the Devil himself.

Except that real life is nothing like that. As I said above, I am pro-choice and pro-life. In the 42 years since someone facing the decision first asked my advice, I have always said that it is the woman's decision, the woman's choice, her moral conundrum, and I have always advised for life, and against abortion. I have offered my support, my sympathy, my hand to hold and my shoulder to cry on, regardless of the decision. I do not believe in abortion. I have yet to encounter in life a time when I thought it was the right choice. That is my ethical judgment. I may disagree with a woman's judgment, but I refuse to judge her as a person for any difference that her judgment has from mine.

And the vast majority of the country agrees with me. And every woman that I have known who has faced the decision has known to her very core, that it is not a black and white issue, that there is no 100% unquestionable right or wrong for all people for all time. They see the decision, the choice, the responsibility, they weigh it, they are tormented by it, and they come to a decision. They need our respect and our support and our love. Not polarized polemic.

But we will not see that in the next few weeks, not unless we are very very lucky, not without the hand of Providence, I'll warrant.

Having looked of the future of Supreme Court nominations, lets turn to the recent past, the big "debate" of the last couple of weeks: the tortuous wrangling over torture. Since when has torture been a core Conservative value? When did the "Rule of Law" become the sole purview of the Left? How do you reconcile the "Inherent and Unenumerated Power of Sole Supervisor of the Unitary Executive, and Commander in Chief of All the American People" to detain and torture enemies of the state without trial, without probable cause, without right to counsel, without the right of habeas corpus or His right to spy in absolute secrecy on enemies of the state without warrant or probable cause with the Conservative values of small government, states rights or personal liberty?

When did the Republican Party become the party of Party Loyalty over the Rule of Law? When did Tyranny, the rule of a supreme leader in Washington DC dictating to the states become a Republican value?

There is one perspective that I can see that as making sense from. If you regard the Republicans as the Party of Lincoln, and do so from the perspective of a loyal Confederate, you can see where that trend has always been present in the party. If you view Lincoln as a modern day Caesar, tyrannically turning the Army on the citizenry, suppressing the rights of states and individuals in favor of a unitary federal power and the interests of New York bankers, then I suppose you can regard the Republican Party as having a tradition of choosing strong central authority over freedom. It's a fairly narrow view of the party, but it makes a certain amount of sense. BUT! But the people who are most prone to see things that way, to take the states rights position, to view the Republican party heritage as one of federal tyranny are conservative Southern whites. And they are the ones most embracing this modern authoritarian abuse. The party of Lincoln and northern banking interests is strongest among Southern white males. If I may, "WTF!?!"

I'm a heterosexual who will be celebrating 36 years of marriage in just over a month. I am grossly disheartened with the state of marriage and the family today. I swore before God and my family to love honor and obey in sickness and health all the days of my life, and I meant it. And too few people do that. I have watched dozens or scores f marriages break up over problems less severe than some my wife and I have worked our way through. for the last 7 or 8 years we have taken in other people's children, given them a roof over their head and a bed (or couch or bean bag chair, depending upon crowding) to sleep on, when their own families wouldn't.

I believe in family values. Deeply. And I am aghast at the state of disrepair and neglect that they have fallen into. I'm a philosopher by training and an ex-lay minister. Ethics and values are as important to me as my family and family in general. And so, I support the right of any couple to marry. Back when I was a teenager, that right was guaranteed even for mixed racial couples. I remember that event and I was enormously proud when that guarantee was extended to same-sex couples in my Commonwealth.

If marriage is in a sorry state today, it is not because of the efforts of those who have been denied access to it. It isn't the fault of them, of queer ("strange and unusual" in Joe the Plumber's words) others, it is due to people like me, to the majority of us, to people who were permitted to marry, who did so and made a terrible mess of it, to people who were permitted to marry and didn't bother.

I won't claim that I am typical of the Independents of this country. I know that I'm a little eccentric. Many of my values are a bit out of the mainstream, and when they are mainstream, they are often a mixed bag, a collection that many would see as in conflict with each other. But if my specific beliefs are not themselves typical, the fact that they are diverse, complex, involving shades of gray, that is typical. That is the character of Independents as a group, of the middle ground of American political belief. America may not agree with me. No other American may share all of my values or opinions, but the truth is that the swing voters, the Independents, the moderates, and probably the majority of Americans as a whole are like me than they are like the black and white, simple minded dichotomy that the Republicans, Democrats and Media present us with.

This country is becoming more diverse with every passing day. We are becoming a majority-minority country. We are becoming more ethnically diverse. More opinions, religions, sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds are becoming empowered and active in the political scene, and the parties had better figure out how to deal with that.

It is totally in keeping with the traditions of this country. Our Founding Fathers were a diverse and squabbling lot. This isn't a Christian country, for instance. It is a country founded on Religious freedom specifically because it was a country in which Catholics and Protestants, Puritans and Quakers, Deists and Jews all had to tolerate each other when all other countries were Protestant or Catholic or divided between two, with Catholics and Huguenots in a deadly embrace or some such. We are the place where citizenship went from being just for land-owning members of the local parish to any land owner, to any freeborn man, to any man to any human. We can cope with universal rights, with diversity, with personal responsibility.

JimB. aka Brons
Jim Burrows
Vox Libertas

I have recently started posting Vox Libertas on The Daily Kos, and since I had a backlog of blogs, I have been revising my older works for posting on Kos. The first of these consisted largely of a merging of my The Issue of Habeas Corpus and Alberto Gonzalez: “There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution" postings into a singal unified Kos Diary called Habeas Corpus Redux.

My latest Kos Diary is an update of Just What Is "Out of Line"?, which I've called The "Mary Cheney" Question Redux. This time I've added substatntial new material, dealing with the columns of Leonard Pitt, jr. (Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at the Miami Herald) and the issues he raised there. Feel free to visit dKos and recommend my diary if you are a Kos reader.

I did edit the previously published material some, but the bulk of the changes were additions at the end of the posting. For those not interested in going over to the Daily Kos version, here is most of the new material...

At the time that I wrote the above, the media had largely ignored most of the questions that the various situations raised. A few days later, Leonard Pitts, jr, of the Miami Herald addressed the issues head on. Back in December, Pitts had written:

I find it telling that Vice President Dick Cheney hews to the hard conservative line on virtually every social issue, except gay marriage. It is, of course, no coincidence that Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian. Which tells me his position is based not on principle but, rather, on loving his daughter. It is a fine thing to love your daughter. I would argue, however, that it is also a fine thing and in some ways, a finer thing, to love your neighbor's daughter, no matter her sexual orientation, religion, race, creed or economic status—and to want her freedom as eagerly as you want your own.

After the abortive Situation Room interview, he wrote a column in which he managed to offend both the right and the left. On the matter of the propriety of the question, he sided with Chrissy Gephardt, and disagreed with Mary Cheney writing,

She is wrong. What Mary Cheney has in her womb is both a child and a political statement. One is reminded of how a simple act like drinking from a public fountain once became a political statement because some people said other people ought not have the right to do such things.

Similarly, although women all over America are carrying babies right now, Mary Cheney and any other lesbian woman who does the same unavoidably makes a political statement. Because some people believe they ought not have the right to do such things.

He also disagreed with Vice President Cheney's claim that Blitzer was "out of line."

He, too, is wrong. The Bush administration has used gays as Southern politicians once used (and often, still do use) blacks -- as scapegoats, boogeymen, distractions. Largely because of that, Heather Poe will have no legal parental rights to ''her'' child.

Dick Cheney is that administration's No. 2 official. So there is nothing ''out of line'' in asking him about any of this.

At the same time, perhaps surprisingly, he agreed with at least part of James Dobson's criticism of Mary and Heather's decision to have a baby specifically because he does see the baby as a statement, a tacit statement that fathers don't matter.

When this agreement resulted in Pitt being accused of being an anti-gay bigot, he wrote a second column explicating his position. The author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, Pitt's major concern is what he sees a diminution of fatherhood and the disintegration of the family, especially the black family:

But as 16 percent of white kids and a whopping 51 percent of black ones grow up father-free, facing all the difficulties that portends, I definitely have something against the idea, whether advanced by straight women or lesbians, that father is unnecessary, that so long as there's some uncle around to show a boy how to hit the mark in the toilet, everything is hunky dory.

Like Dobson, he cites

a growing body of research ... which tells us the child raised without his or her biological father is significantly more likely to live in poverty, do poorly in school, drop out altogether, become a teen parent, exhibit behavioral problems, smoke, drink, use drugs, or wind up in jail.

In her own response to the Situation Room interview, Mary specifically addressed these claims, saying:

"Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment."

As it turns out, both sides have a certain point. Dobson and Pitts are correct. Children from "broken homes" and the children of poor unwed mothers are at a great disadvantage, but what they are failing to recognize is that the world is far more complex than the simple black and white of their world view. That single mothers are often poor, unable to spend as much time as they would like or ought with their children and the trauma of divorce, death and desertion are all factors. At least as importantly, the world isn't divided into 2-parent+kids households and broken homes, and neither of those is the historical norm.

Most of humanity has lived in multi-generational extended families. One could with some justice argue that grandparentless households were just the first step on the path to the fatherless households. Beyond that, while the human lifespan has been three score and ten--seventy years--since Biblical times, many people died before reaching that age, and so these extended families were often missing some members, mothers, fathers, one or more grandparents or had substitutions, stepparents, aunts and uncles and such. Even when everyone was alive, often family members had to be away from the family for extended periods. As a descendant of generations of sea captains, I am well aware of this.

Families have always come in a wide number of shapes and sizes. Focusing on the 1950s Leave It To Beaver husband, wife, two or three kids and a dog model as the only healthy configuration is historically, sociologically and psychologically unjustified. As I said, Dobson and Pitt are correct, a healthy, rich family life is important to children. They are wrong in their narrow view of the limits of that life. And what we need as a society is an examination, an honest evaluation of what we can do to insure that as many families are as healthy as they can be.

And it is very very far from certain that denying Mary and Heather the right to build the best family that they can will help. It is almost certain that criticizing them in Time magazine, and condemning their family as unhealthy will not make life any easier for their child. It is unlikely that failing to defend your daughter's family when they are publicly condemned will help, or that the families of millions of other gays and lesbians will be helped by public figures failing to stand up for theirs.

This country desperately needs an actual public discussion of values and issues, not an exchange of hateful barbs and name calling, but a give and take wherein people actually listen and strive to learn. Wolfe appears to have tried to engage in such a discussion if rather crudely and half-heartedly. John Stewart and Chrissy Gephardt actually did a credible first step. Leonard Pitts wrote thoughtfully, and shows signs of being the sort of person who can listen.

One columnist and a comedy show is still a pretty weak showing though. As John Edwards is fond of saying, We're a better country than that. Or we can be.

One of the things that led to the creation of this blog was my conviction that new media and social networking could be a powerful tool for defending democracy and liberty in the modern age. In part, I came to this conviction because of the roll of Enlightenment Era "new media and social networking" in the creation of this country and in part it was due to... The Daily Show.

At the time, news had just broken that a study had shown that The Daily Show had just as much substantive content as the network evening news. Combined with studies that showed that about as many 18-29 years got their news from it as from the network news and that Daily Show viewers tended to skepticism about government and the news media,  but confidence in their own political understanding, it gave a picture of a generation whose politics were substantially influenced by a fake news show on a comedy channel.

While many in my generation view that notion with considerable trepidation, I took it as essentially good news. The combination of faith in themselves and skepticism of those in power could result in voters who are more concerned with liberty, civil rights and such. The down side is that the skepticism could discourage them from voting, but that's a problem that can be worked, and in future posts I will address some of the ways that I see of doing this.

The Daily Show also provides another valuable service. It puts the mainstream press into a sharp and critical light. Probably the best known example of this is the president of CNN, Jonathan Klein's citing of Jon Stewart as one of the causes for the cancellation of Crossfire, a show that Stewart appeared on, accusing them of being bad for America, and that as a news show, he at least, had higher expectations of them than they did, expectations the failed to live up to.

Another example came up this week. Last week Wolfe Blitzer on his show The Situation Room had tried to question Vice President Dick Cheney on the negative statements made by his supporters regarding his lesbian daughter's pregnancy. The VP objected strenuously to the question even being asked. This week, Stewart did a long segment on whether the question was legitimate.

Chrissy Gephardt on The Daily Show

The first part was a typical Daily Show satire, but the second half was an interview with Chrissy Gephardt, the openly gay daughter of Dick Gephardt who claimed it was a perfectly legitimate question. The way he conducted the interview was interesting and relevant. (If you haven't seen it, take the time to watch it at Comedy Central or iFilm.) Jon never actually mentioned that Chrissy was gay. Instead, he said that like Mary she is a political activist and the daughter of a national political figure, and interviewed her on how hard it is being the daughter of a politician, whether he chose to be a politician or was born that way, and whether politicians should have children. He then asked her if Wolfe's question was fair, and when she replied that it was, he framed the question of the hypocrisy of not defending people who are like your daughter in terms of the "hypothetical" case of segregationist Strom Thurmond having a black daughter.

Turning the religious right's question of whether gays and lesbians should have children and the claim that the lives of such children are unfairly difficult around is both good humor, and as satire makes the point that who we are and the decisions we make can make life hard for our children, but that what is important is how we treat them, how we treat others, and whether we are honest and consistent in our beliefs and actions. It also kept the piece being about the issues rather than on who Mary and Chrissy are.

This segment stands out because:

1. Jon asked a question that the mainstream media should have, but didn't.
2. Chrissy was articulate, funny and made the point excellently.
   
3. He assumed that the viewer knew that Chrissy was a lesbian and that Thurmond actually had a mixed-race daughter. It treated the audience as knowledgeable and intelligent.
   

What we have here is a "fake news" comedy show that treats its viewers and guests with respect and asks questions that mainstream journalism ought to be asking, but too often aren't. On the one hand, the good news is that someone is asking the questions and someone is getting through to young people. But that leaves us with the question of why it is up to a comedy show to examine the appropriateness of Wolfe's question? Many news media reported that Cheney rebuffed Blitzer's question as "out of line", and video media showed Wolfe's chagrin and awkward backpedaling, which carried the obvious implication that he recognized his guilt. But few brought up the issue of whether the question was actually out of line, or whether the criticisms, by people who helped get Cheney elected, of his daughter weren't even more out of line, or needing response.

A couple of days later Mary Cheney also criticized Blitzter's question and the media carried that, usually highlighting her statement that her baby "is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue". Interestingly, that phrasing appeared within hours of Cheney's appearance on The Situation Room in a discussion of the show on an internet gossip site (emphasis is mine):

15. Cheney is obviously ashamed of his daughter, despite what he proclaims or he wouldn't have such a hissy-fit when asked a question like this. Cheney's in the public eye and should be accustomed to being asked this type of question repeatedly. It is an interesting news item. Here's a man who's aligned with a party that hates homosexuals, and the #2 man has a daughter that is gay. I found it rather interesting to hear it referred to on a news program some weeks back that Cheney's daughter's partner was the "wife", yet Cheney's daughter is the one pregnant. I guess in a confused relationship like this, gay women as husband's are now capable of having children; sort of like being the mom and dad rolled into one. I'm sure the kid will be loved, but it's also going to grow up really confused, which will lead to other psychological issues. Pity the child. Cheney's daughter is only concerned about herself and her partner; afterall, the kid is merely a political statement and a liefestyle choice prop.

Posted at 6:47PM on Jan 24th 2007 by TH

I suspect that it is no coincidence that when Mary spoke out a few days later she used the same wording as this comment. I suspect that it or a repetition of it reached her ears and was very hurtful, with its claim that her father is ashamed of her, that the party that both he and she campaigned for hates homosexuals, and that she is moved by selfishness rather than love.

Given that it led to such hurtful things being said, mightn't there be some truth to the claim that the question is over the line and shouldn't be asked? Doesn't she have a point that she deserves some privacy and respect? Yes. Those are valid points, and deserve consideration. But, the counterpoints that she is open about her sexuality, publicly announced the pregnancy, worked on her father's campaign, and has written a book about her life are also valid. And the issue didn't start on The Situation Room. Wolfe was only citing very negative, and probably quite hurtful claims made the Cheneys' political allies, and asking if they shouldn't be answered or rebutted. Is Wolfe more at fault for asking the father if he would care to reply to those who criticize his daughter than the ones actually criticizing her?

In the end, by the time that she has announced her pregnancy, the right has attacked her, Wolfe has brought the topic up, Cheney has rebuked him, and Mary has said that neither side should be using her baby, the issue of whether it was a legitimate question is an open issue, that you would expect the press to consider. And if it is out of line to ask the VP to address the topic, if Mary Cheney's pregnancy is nobody's business, how does that affect the whole issue of the privacy of gay and lesbian couples in general? Do they as a class deserve to be left alone, or is it just the families of the rich and powerful?

And now we're finally back around to the question that this blog as a whole is always concerned with, whether we are in danger of sacrificing liberty, whether we are laying the foundation for turning Republic into Empire. We have heard that it is only a "private family matter" when the President's two daughters are charged with alcohol related crimes, and when his brother Jeb's sons and daughter have similar brushes with law involving liquor, sex, drugs and the like. Yet both the President and the Governor supposedly believe in being tough on crime, strong on "values", tough on drugs, and such, and trot out other people's families for display at public speeches. It sounds like asking for special treatment, and in past years the press has argued that even in the cases of the under-age Bush children there was a legitimate story.

But now, a few years later, in the case of Cheney's adult, political activist, public figure daughter, the argument that respect for the VP should dictate discretion in what questions he is asked seems to be taken to heart. The press appears to be learning to show deference, and I cannot help but wonder if after all the talk about the President's inherent power, the way that major votes on habeas corpus, wire tapping, detention without trial, and even torture are being voted on on party lines, out of "loyalty to the President" or in opposition to him, if we aren't shifting our mental habits to the rule of men rather than the rule of law. The President and Vice President are due greater respect than the common man, because of their power and position. The press having learned in the five years since 9/11 not to "embolden the enemy", not to appear disloyal or unpatriotic, is getting used to the habit of deferring to power.

For myself, I can see going a little easy on the private lives of the families of public figures, to at the very least offering them the same discreet privacy that we would show the families of the common man. But in the case of an adult who is a political activist and a public figure in her own right, when she is criticized or attacked in a way that embodies the ways that others are also treated, I don't see the reason for extraordinary deference. Gay rights, gay marriage, gay adoption, and gay parenting are all very vital issues of the day. The debate over them has at times sunk to the level of death treats against gay families. Addressing these issues in polite public debate is important.

It is a sad commentary that it is left to a comedy show to address such serious issues, but it is a hopeful sign that a large and growing fraction of our younger citizens are attending to these issues, informed through such a show.

As ever, don't take my word for it. Watch the shows; read what's been written; get involved; speak out and make a change.