The Hackiest of the Hacks

Matt Taibbi concludes his brilliant "Wimblehack" series, or the First Quadrennial Election Hack Invitational, awarding the top prize (or not) to Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times.
(Greg Sargent also singles out Bumiller's hackiness.)

Here are the previous rounds of "Wimblehack":
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4, which illuminates this gem of pure hackiness:

In an Oct. 21 piece [Bumiller] co-wrote with third-round dropout Jodi Wilgoren ("A Blistering Attack by Bush, A Long Indictment by Kerry"), Bumiller managed to relay 1325 words of Bush-Kerry accusations on security issues without including one detail about what their actual Iraq policies are. In the spaces where those explanations should have come, she and Wilgoren just stuck in Tumulter-saults** as in this passage:

"Mr. Kerry sought to rebut Mr. Bush with a detailed policy speech Wednesday, unusual for this late stage in a campaign. His aides said Mr. Kerry delivered the speech because he must prove himself as an acceptable wartime leader before he can win over undecided voters on domestic issues like health care and embryonic stem-cell research."

** dfn: "Named after Karen Tumulty, who pioneered and perfected its use, the Tumulter-sault is a neat little literary device through which reporters refer to 'details on the issues' without ever elaborating upon those actual details."

This is a good one, confining a "detailed policy speech" to the words "detailed policy speech" in order to leave room for more newsworthy stuff like this:

"Mr. Bush's aides said they were delighted to see Mr. Kerry spend the day discussing national security, the central component of the president's campaign, because they believed it meant he was on the defensive."

Try to imagine that scene. Elisabeth Bumiller is sitting somewhere in Iowa chatting up a Bush aide (or "aides," according to the attribution). One of the aides deadpans: "You know, Elisabeth, we're delighted that Kerry spent the day discussing national security, because that means he's on the defensive."
Bumiller nods seriously, writes it down in her notebook... And then an hour later, she fucking publishes it? Her husband must have to restrain her from taking notes when they go used-car shopping.

The partisan and ideological biases of outlets like Fox News and of the Loud 'n Louder punditry are obvious. Taibbi's more astute media criticism diagnoses the democracy-threatening disease of passive conformity which infects most contemporary journalism. Election coverage is stripped of political content in favor of the "flash 'n' clash" sensationalism of personalities engaged in competitive sport:

That is what our national elections are all about. It's a gladiatorial spectacle in which individual dignity is ritualistically destroyed over the course of more than a year of constant battering and television exposure. Whether this is a trick of the elite to deliver a frightening object lesson to the population, or whether it represents the actual emotional desire of an impressively mean and stupid citizenry, that's hard to say. Either way, it sucks.

It was all a game to these people, which is why they covered it like a game.

The watchdogs have become lapdogs, repeatedly chasing the ball thrown by their masters and returning it, tails wagging, knowing they'll get treats and pats on the head. Say what you will about the plutocratic elite, they recognize dogs as their best friends and treat them very well.

For Albert (1989-2004)

Loyalität für Sicherheit

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator."
--George W. Bush

After repeatedly complaining about the "hard work" of leading the most powerful nation in history, Dubya continues his attack on the reality-based community, making it easier to shape facts to fit his divine mission:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush.... MORE

The (likely) future Attorney General shares his predecessor's disdain for the law and the Constitution:

Federal judges are jeopardizing national security by issuing rulings contradictory to President Bush's decisions on America's obligations under international treaties and agreements, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday.

The president is not above the law!?!? "Unacceptable!" cry Ashcroft and others -- The Uncurious [sic(k)] One has declared it thus:

"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
--George W. Bush

But Ashcroft's concerns will disappear as W continues packing the bench with more accomodating judges.

Who exactly is threatening "our way of life"?

“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
--George Orwell

Jim Garrison said the following in 1967:

What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one of the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.

"It can't happen here"?

"The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it."
--Mark Twain, "The Czar's Soliloquy" (1905)

Liberals Return To Sodomy, Welfare Fraud

BERKELEY, CA—No longer occupied by the 2004 election, liberals across the country have returned to the activities they enjoy most: anal sex and cheating the welfare system. "I've been so busy canvassing for the Democratic Party, I haven't had a single moment for suckling at the government's teat or no-holds-barred ass ramming," said Jason Carvelli, an unemployed pro-hemp activist. "Now, my friends and I can finally get back to warming our hands over burning American flags and turning kids gay." Carvelli added that his "number-one priority" is undermining the efforts of freedom-loving patriots everywhere.

And lattes for everyone! (paid for by Michael Moore's tax cuts)

Torture & Tanks

While many, including myself at times, think the "fascist" label is inappropriate when applied to this Bush regime, the evidence keeps mounting...

• Meet Bush's nominee to replace Ashcroft as U.S. Attorney General: Alberto Gonzales, who has justified torture and related crimes and has supported the execution of the mentally retarded. (This reminds me of the Orwellian irony used by the LAPD, which puts its motto, “To protect and serve,” in quotations on the sides of its squad cars.) But it looks like the Democrats won't raise a fuss.
  
• Armored tanks -- armored fucking tanks!!! [CORRECTION: Marine APCs, not tanks] -- showed up at an anti-war protest in Los Angeles.
  
• A neo-con pundit has suggested that Zell “I Challenge You to a Duel!” Miller should replace Colin Powell as the next Secretary of State. Yeah, he'd be perfect to help make peace in the Middle East.
  

On a more upbeat note:

• SEIU's Andy Stern is pushing for much-needed change within the labor movement. MORE
  
• Election Day had a few positive results.
• Bush's whatever-that-thing-was-on-his-back is inspiring a fashion trend.

Urban Distress & Cartographic Comfort

Hendrik Hertzberg on the immoral "values" of the American Taliban:

The election’s outcome defies logic, and perhaps that is the point. The early analyses credited Bush’s victory to religious conservatives, particularly those in the evangelical movement. In voting for Bush, as eighty per cent of them did, many of these formerly nonvoting white evangelicals are remaining true to their unworldliness. In voting for a party that wants to tax work rather than wealth, that scorns thrift, that sees the natural world not as a common inheritance but as an object of exploitation, and that equates economic inequality with economic vitality, they have voted against their own material (and, some might imagine, spiritual) well-being. The moral values that stirred them seem not to encompass botched wars or economic injustices or environmental depredations; rather, moral values are about sexual behavior and its various manifestations and outcomes, about family structures, and about a particularly demonstrative brand of religious piety. What was important to these voters, it appears, was not Bush’s public record but what they conceived to be his private soul. He is a good Christian, so his policy failures are forgivable. He is a saved sinner, so the dissipations of his early and middle years are not tokens of a weak character but testaments to the transformative power of his faith. He relies on God for guidance, so his intellectual laziness is not a danger.

and on the targeting of big cities by fundamentalists, both domestic and foreign:

Here in the big coastal cities, we have reason to fear for the immediate safety of our lives and our families—more reason, it must be said, than have the residents of the “heartland,” to which the per-capita bulk of “homeland security” resources, along with extra electoral votes, are distributed. It was deep-blue New York (which went three to one for Kerry) and deep-blue Washington, D.C. (nine to one Kerry), that were, and presumably remain, Al Qaeda’s targets of choice. In the heartland, it is claimed, some view the coastal cities as faintly un-American. The terrorists do not agree. They see us as the very essence—the heart, if you like—of America.

Somewhere in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Osama bin-Laden is laughing his ass off.

Those "red state/blue state" maps perversely focus on real estate instead of human beings; these cartograms better illustrate the reality.

And the blue states do have some strategic advantages, as Michael Moore notes:

We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes!

The Can't-Blame-the-Reds Blues

Like others on the left, my head is spinning trying to make sense of the election results: Was it fear of terrorism? anti-gay bigotry? Kerry's shortcomings as an oppositional candidate? voting machine shenanigans? While we consider the relevance of each of these explanations, we should take a step back to consider the most disturbing truth of all, as pointed out by Mark LeVine:

Abu Ghraib? Mass civilian casualties caused by a war launched on demonstrably false pretenses? The erosion of civil liberties? The transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer money (not to mention Iraqi resources and capital) by the US government to its corporate allies? To more than 70% of America’s eligible votes -- that is, the approximately thirty percent that voted for Bush and the forty percent that didn’t feel this situation was compelling enough to warrant their taking the time to vote -- none of it really matters.

45 million eligible voters didn't bother to vote, but their voice was as loud and clear as the 60 million who voted for Bush.

While many of us placed great importance on this election, it's useful to remember that the selection of a president does not (and should not) determine the course of democratic progress, particularly where the system has been thoroughly infected by the corporate capitalist virus.

Gary Leupp:

The moral of the story is this: elections (even the freest) do not necessarily have anything to do with freedom. The freely cast vote of an individual whose opinions themselves are shaped by an oppressive social structure may easily become a vote for more oppression. The Weimar Republic in Germany (1919-1933) was from a constitutional standpoint among the most democratic the world had known, but it morphed into the Third Reich through the legal electoral process. Good decent people, not knowing what they do, can vote in the worst sort of leaders, including fascists. In November 1932, Adolph Hitler's Nazis won 30% of the vote in Germany, more than any other party. Hitler was soon appointed Chancellor.

The promotion of "democratic elections" as an end in itself can mask support for highly repressive social systems. *** "Under the rule of a repressive whole," [Herbert Marcuse] wrote, "liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear---that is, if they sustain alienation."

Sean Gonsalves:

Democracy isn't something you do every four years at the polls. The life of democracy depends on critical thinking and active participants in and outside of the political process, willing to organize and join democracy-building movements in between election cycles.

It seems a large segment of the population has confused consumerism with citizenship. Democracy is not a spectator sport and having liberty as consumers to choose between a variety of products doesn't have a thing to do with freedom in any meaningful sense of the term.

Rick Perlstein:

[T]he tragic thing about our public life is not that we are led by liars. It is that they have turned us into a nation of liars. For every time a leader whom ordinary, decent people want nothing more than to trust as a source of authority—a president, a minister, a leader of an outfit like the Maryland Family Values Alliance—says something untrue, it gets repeated by these decent people as truth. That feels like civic death to me.

Our ultimate goal should be the destruction of hierarchical ideas and practices, whether they take the form of organized religion or consumer capitalism. We must stop searching for a white knight to come along on a blue horse and save us from the forces of destruction, injustice, and oppression. Radical democracy is a continuous struggle for peace, justice, and freedom. Those of us who take ten minutes every four years to cast a ballot, or who take a few hours to make phone calls and distribute literature in support of lesser-evil candidates, must dedicate some time every week to unite and build a movement.

George Lakoff:

An unfortunate aspect of recent progressive politics is the focus on coalitions rather than on movements. Coalitions are based on common self-interest. They are often necessary but they are usually short term, come apart readily and are hard to maintain. Labor-environment coalitions, for example, have been less than successful. And electoral coalitions with different interest-based messages for different voting blocks have left the Democrats without a general moral vision. Movements, on the other hand, are based on shared values, values that define who we are. They have a better chance of being broad-based and lasting. In short, progressives need to be thinking in terms of a broad-based progressive-values movement, not in terms of issue coalitions.

While Democrats (or whatever liberal/progressive party is salvaged from its remains) must take back the language we use to order our rational senses and collective memory (i.e., history), the arts also have an important function: By calling into question the dominant modes of non-verbal perception, and in providing opportunities to remake connections among all of our senses and between ourselves and the world around us, the arts enable renewed awareness and understanding of the details of life, as manifest in their fascinating order and sublime chaos.

Sentient compassion is a must; it has to be developed in order to alleviate cruelty and thoughtless acts. That won't happen if you develop a sense of compassion. You'll have that connectedness, that knowing that the same life that's in you is in every other being, so you're not going to mishandle life.
--David S. Ware

As The Ex song goes, it's time to “Listen to the Painters” (from the excellent new release Turn):

We need poets, we need painters
We need poets, we need painters
We need poetry and paintings

Narrow minds are weapons made for mass destruction
File them under giant-ass seduction
Sheep with crazy leaders, heading for disaster
Courting jesters who take themselves for masters

The shrub who took himself for a park
The squeak who took himself for a bark

We need poets, we need painters
We need poets, we need painters
We need poetry and paintings

We need filmers and writers, dancers, musicians
Actors and sculptors, bakers, electricians
Thinkers and doctors, cyclist and builders
Lovers, friends and neighbours, others
Filmers, writers, dancers, musicians
Poets and painters, poets and painters

Election 2004: U.S. Chooses Fascism

The people have spoken. Welcome to America Old-Style.

• To the tens of thousands of dead Afghan and Iraqi civilians, we say: "Your lives don't matter. We will sacrifice the lives of our children and bankrupt our treasury in order to strengthen the hegemony of Western capitalism. In using overwhelming lethal force, we will not discriminate between those among you who pose a genuine threat and those unfortunate enough to live in the same general region. Your resistance is 'terrorism' by 'evildoers' -- our aggression causes 'collateral damage' by 'liberators.'"

• To the nations of the world, we say: "Fuck off. We're the U.S. and you're not. We don't follow the law, we are the law."

• To the poor, the unemployed, and the uninsured: "You're on your own. Find a decent set of bootstraps or get married. What do you mean 'stop pissing on us'? That trickle-down stream is sacred. Trust us. The pharmaceutical companies need as much money as possible to advertise their latest erection-helper, right?"

• To women who want to retain autonomy over their own bodies: "See, we're multicultural: We're open to ideas from our Wahhabi Islamist friends in Saudi Arabia. Choice? Well, you may not have a 'choice' about becoming a parent, but you will have a 'choice' for your kid's schooling."

• To those who share their beds with people of the same sex: "Let's call it 'citizenship lite': fewer rights with all the obligations of citizenship."

• To those who find media consolidation and corporate wealthfare problematic: "Shut up! Friends is on! Opinion polls say that Friends is the most popular show. So shut up and let me watch!"

• To those concerned with personal injuries and environmental damage: "Our taxpayer-funded legal system exists for the benefit of corporations and to compensate corporate attorneys, not to deter harmful conduct or to compensate victims." UPDATE: more here on corporate regulation of citizens.
  

• To the millions of black people imprisoned on nonviolent drug offenses and disenfranchised upon release: "Well, maybe we can work out a deal: we'll repeal these drug laws and sentencing guidelines if you also let us repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and overturn Brown v. Board. (It's right there in the Constitution: 'three-fifths of a person.')"

• To those who care about clean water, clear air, and renewable energy: "Load up your solar-powered spacecraft with Evion and head for Mars." (that may not be a bad idea, actually)

UPDATE: in other words, as Anatol Lieven wondered before the election:

Suppose, then, George W. Bush dropped all pretenses and simply declared, "OK, you wanna know my domestic agenda? Here it is. Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay and I aren't just gonna defeat the liberals, we're gonna obliterate them, along with every progressive reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, every New Deal program, every Great Society entitlement. Why else do you think we're running these sky-high deficits? We're handing as much dough as we can to the people who know how to run this country -- namely the super-rich. Sure, that's gonna cost the rest of you jobs and social services, but isn't it worth it to give the poor, the nonwhite, the welfare queens, the gays and the feminazis a swift kick in the teeth? "What's my foreign policy? Listen up. We're gonna yank that oil out from under those dysfunctional Arabs because we need it to preserve our gas- guzzling way of life, and I'm not asking anybody for a permission slip to do that. We're God's chosen people and we intend to make the most of it. And if anybody gets in our way, we've got what it takes to clobber them."
If Bush took that line, I wonder if it would it cost him a single vote he doesn't already have.

Full steam ahead for the 19th century.

Regardless of your partisan affiliation or position on particular issues, we now have cause for genuine fear: A one-party system on both federal and state levels, across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. There are no checks and balances within this system, and we cannot expect any meaningful challenges from its servile partners in Big Media. Laws can be passed, individuals incarcerated, and court decisions made with little opportunity for anyone to speak for the powerless to prevent (or even raise awareness of) exploitation, repression, and injustice.

Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is.
-- Jean Anouilh

The Christian fundamentalists are now in charge. While it's comforting to note that Alan Keyes got an embarrassing ass-whuppin' here in Illinois, there is little doubt that if he had run as a white man in a Southern state -- saying the same things and advocating the same policies -- he would have been elected to the U.S. Senate:

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04dowd.html?hp

UPDATE: more here on the new Xtreme Senators.

How to respond? First we must borrow a few pages from the playbook of the new conservative backlash, and get serious about organizing on a widescale, grassroots level. What we are seeing today is the result of years of organizing among fundamentalists following the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater. We must focus on and fight for the best of the liberal/progressive tradition; as Katha Pollitt says:

We liberals and progressives and leftists have our own noble principles, our own beautiful abstract words. We should take our stand on them. Fairness is a liberal value. Equality is a liberal value. Education is a liberal value. Honesty in government, public service for modest remuneration, safeguarding public resources and the land--these are all values we share. Liberty is a liberal value, trusting people to make their own decisions, letting people speak their minds even if their views are unpopular. So is social solidarity, the belief that we should share the nation's enormous wealth so that everyone can live decently. The truth is, most of the good things about this country have been fought for by liberals (indeed, by leftists and, dare one say it, Communists) -- women's rights, civil liberties, the end of legal segregation, freedom of religion, the social safety net, unions, workers' rights, consumer protection, international cooperation, resistance to corporate domination -- and resisted by conservatives. If conservatives had carried the day, blacks would still be in the back of the bus, women would be barefoot and pregnant, medical care would be on a cash-only basis, there'd be mouse feet in your breakfast cereal and workers would still be sleeping next to their machines.

UPDATE: see "A Day in the Life of Joe Republican" in this David E post.

Our nation is not so much "red vs. blue" as varying shades of purple. The redder states will not turn bluer if we hold our breath. We must organize and fight. We should not be optimistic, but there are reasons to be hopeful.

"Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope."--Barack Obama