Sunday, August 27, 2006

Ned Lamont the ROCK STAR Democrat of 2006!

WHY is Ned Lamont the ROCK STAR of Democratic candidates (including incumbents cruising to easy re-election) in late campaign season 2006???

ans. - Apparently, Lamont is the ONLY (candidate for) Senate Democrat who has figured out that MILLIONS and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of us Democratic voters WANT OUR REPRESENTATIVES to CONTEST, CONFRONT, and OPPOSE the presidency of George W. Bush, and his administration that is headed by serial incompetents (and smear mongers) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld.


<< "He's captured folks' attention because he STANDS FOR SOMETHING and what he stands for is a principled, progressive Democratic Party that will STAND UP AND FIGHT against the failures of the Bush Administration and that's something that people have been calling for a while," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org. >>

[i.e., that "stand up and fight.... something" that Lamont is doing is something the 'REGULAR Democrats ALREADY in the US Senate have been FAILING TO DO for SIX LONG YEARS.]



Dems laud Conn. Senate candidate as star
By SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 26, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060827/ap_on_el_se/connecticut_senate_lamont;_ylt=AsyicoKNC0MSqlY00eEVfhRh24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-


HARTFORD, Conn. - Ned Lamont headlined a recent fundraiser for the liberal Democracy for America. Days later, the Democratic Senate candidate was rubbing elbows with celebrities at a charity event sponsored by the liberal MoveOn.org, and he's been a guest on Air America, the liberal talk radio network.

Has the Greenwich businessman who defeated 18-year-veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman in this month's Democratic primary hit rock-star status among progressive Democrats?

"He's pretty darn close," said Tom Hughes, executive director of Democracy for America, which helped raise more than $100,000 for Lamont during the primary.

Lamont was the top attraction at a recent fundraising event for the group, founded in 2004 by Jim Dean, brother of Howard Dean — chairman of the Democratic National Committee, former Vermont governor and former presidential candidate.

"It was the talk of the political town when he was here," Hughes said. "He is known to progressives across the country right now as somebody who just toppled a really behind-the-times entrenched incumbent. That's a huge deal."

Lamont, who announced his candidacy as recently as March, faces a three-way race in November against Republican Alan Schlesinger and Lieberman, now running as an independent.

Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, is quick to point out that even though his candidate has headlined a few out-of-state events, he is totally focused on Connecticut.

And Lamont himself downplays all the attention.

"No, I don't think so," he said, when asked if he's become celebrity in progressive Democratic circles. He said he's "talking to everybody I can. I'm going to small businesses and business associations, I'm talking to elderly, MoveOn.org."

Swan acknowledges that Lamont, a cable company executive whose only political experience has been at the local level, is in demand. He said the campaign has had to decline numerous requests for Lamont to appear for groups or other candidates. The campaign has also received numerous requests from politicians wanting to appear with Lamont.

"He's captured folks' attention because he stands for something and what he stands for is a principled, progressive Democratic Party that will stand up and fight against the failures of the Bush Administration and that's something that people have been calling for a while," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org.

Ken Dautrich, public policy professor at the University of Connecticut, and a former pollster, said he doesn't believe Lamont's status among liberal Democrats will be enough to defeat Lieberman in November.

"It's the traditional voter, the independent, which makes up a huge part of the electorate," he said. "They're not necessarily looking for a rock star, and that's what he is."

Still, Dautrich credits Lamont with energizing a segment of voters that haven't been enthusiastic about politics for years, especially young people. He said he sees students on the University of Connecticut campus wearing Lamont campaign buttons and talking about working for the campaign.

"He's kind of outside of the system. He's a newcomer to politics. Lieberman is as traditional as it gets in terms of a politician," Dautrich said. "(Lamont) is particularly appealing I think to young people who are more anti-war. He was able to unseat Lieberman and he has become almost a pop culture figure in politics."

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

BRAVO! a CALL TO ARMS for Democrats in 2006!

And Brent Budowski NAILS the problem that we here at C-dems.blgspt.com have been documenting for all these months:

<< It [the Republican Bush-Rove-Cheney smear campaign against Democrats] has worked before, largely because Democrats were weak and naive and did not know what they were up against or how to respond. >>

Actually, I fear Mr. Budowski is being a tad generous. We here at C-dems.blgspt.com have been shouting all along that ALL the Democratic senators had to do was BAND TOGETHER, oppose (CONFRONT) the lies, incompetence, and distortions (much less smears) of the Bush Republicans, and DEMAND that the press/media objectively cover the issue.

For example, one issue is an easy win/can't loose issue for Dems. THat would be the Murray Amendment, sponsored by Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), to fund $2.7 Billion for VETERAN'S REHABILITATION and VA services, services that have fallen far short of their pre-2001 funding because of the 2 wars that the Bush administration has embroiled us in.

JUST BY BRINGING MEDIA ATTENTION to that issue, the Democrats would portray George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Don Rusmfeld as LYING when they claim that they "SUPPORT THE TROOPS."

For, clearly, the above mentioned Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld Republicans have NO concern for the welfare of the troops, they consider tax-cuts for billionaires much more important than funding Veterans services.

But we digress.

Mr. Budowski offers a TERRIFIC OPPORTUNITY for Ned Lamont to undo half-a-dozen years of Democratic COWERING in the face of the Bush-Rove SMEAR machine... and opportunity that would, in Budowski's words, send KARL LIEBERMAN scurrying for the rat hole where he belongs.





High Noon: Lamont Should Challenge Karl/Lieberman to 30 National Security Debates
Brent Budowski
08.16.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent-budowsky/high-noon-lamont-should-_b_27418.html



READ MORE: Iraq, Rep. John Murtha, Dick Cheney, 2006, 2008, Karl Rove, George W. Bush
I have been there and done that. One of the early targets of the Swift Boat attack-style campaigns was Lloyd Bentsen when Phil Gramm ran against him with the "soft on communism" attack. I remember Bentsen late one night, pounding his fist on his desk, saying: "I am going to destroy him". In that election, he did.

Connecticut presents an extraordinary moment


for Ned Lamont to change the course of our national politics and set Democrats on a new trajectory to national leadership.
Make no mistake: it has begun. Within weeks the Karl Rove-induced campaign of Senator Karl Lieberman will accuse Ned of being related to Don Corleone, sympathetic to Joseph Stalin (that one has already begun), and leaflets will appear suggesting that Ned is a flag burning transvestite.

Make no mistake: as a relative newcomer, Ned Lamont is vulnerable to a saturation slander campaign. It is no coincidence that within hours Dick Cheney and Karl Lieberman made the preposterous attack on Lamont based on the recent terror bust. But understand, folks, these guys are good at this. When Lieberman demeans himself aligning with Cheney with such a transparently bogus attack, he does it for a reason: it has worked before, largely because Democrats were weak and naive and did not know what they were up against or how to respond.

If Ned Lamont handles this well, by Veterans Day 2006, Senator-elect Lamont will be on the short list for Vice-President in 2008. Here is how: it is High Noon, and the good voters of Connecticut can fire the political shot heard around the world and run the Swift Boat style of smears right out of town.

Ned Lamont should challenge Karl Lieberman to thirty national security debates, face to face, man to man, head to head, issue by issue and truth by truth before veterans groups all over Connecticut.

He should announce this challenge surrounded by John Kerry, Max Cleland, John Murtha and any other American heroes who were similarly attacked and by a fleet of patriotic Democratic heroes from Bob Kerrey and Wes Clark to John Glenn and Stan Turner.

He should announce that on his first day in the Senate he will introduce new omnibus legislation that will authorize billions of dollars to do what President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Senator Lieberman have failed to do: provide dramatic upgrades in veterans health care, immediately meet any short term needs of our troops for armor, bandages, helmets and anything else with an emergency appropriations for whatever is needed to get the job done: and provide dramatic new aid for homeless veteran heroes and education and job training grants for troops returning from combat.

He will announce that he would pay for it, through a one time excess profits tax on mega-wealthy oil companies, contracting firms and others who have made bloated profits from this war.

He should challenge the good Senator to return every dollar of campaign contributions from donors and lobbyists who have been been the greatest financial beneficiaries of the war, because especially those who shout the loudest about World War III, should not make the greatest private profits from the sacrifice of our troops, then turn around and recycle those profits to politicians who seek to profit politically as they do financially.

Thirty debates, man to man, issue by issue, truth by truth.

Ned Lamont should say: from my first day in the Senate, I will fight to protect our country, to defend our homeland, to support our troops and to honor our vets. I will fight for this, from the very first day. I will for fight for this, for my entire term. I will fight for this, harder, truer and with more passion and commitment than you have ever shown on matters.

Look him in the eye, and say: Where were you, Senator, as the guy who wanted this war in Iraq for a decade, when our troops did not get enough armor, when wounded were asked to sometimes pay for their wounds, when 70% our casualties were preventable? Oh, sure, some of these matters you whispered in ears, or made a nice little insert in the Congressional Record, others you just ignored. But where was the fight, where was the passion, where was the commitment?

Where were you, Senator, when from 1995 there was concern about liquid bombs on airplanes, and yet nobody in Washington did a thing? Now it is your big political issue to promote fear, but where were you in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 when you could have made the difference, but had more important things to do?

Why didn't you fight like hell, Senator, to get our troops the armor, once this war had begun, since you wanted this war so badly, well before George Bush was even elected, you should have been first in line, and fighting the hardest, to get our troops everything they need. Where were you?

Was the problem, Senator, that you did not care enough to fight, or that you simply had no influence?

Where were you, in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 to protect our ports from our enemies, and to protect our subways and transit from the terrorists? These vulnerabilities continue to this day, to this hour. Where were you then? Where are you now? Why haven't you been fighting for this, day after day, week after week, since September 11?

Senator, its not to enough to enter high toned words into the Congressional Record, or grand comments in your newsletters, or make these issues when you return to Connecticut seeking our votes. This is about making this a fight, for our troops, for our vets, to close gaps in our domestic security, every day of every year. Its not enough to talk about it, dance around it, or use it for your reelection. Where was the passion, the commitment, the diligence, the follow through?

Why don't you tell your supporters, Senator, to stop insulting voters by calling my ancestors communist, and start fighting every day, the way I will fight every day from the moment I walk on the Senate Floor, for the things that matter?

And Senator, with all due respect, you have a very different view of bipartisanship, than I. When the only president in American history who uses war to attack the patriotism of war heroes from the Loyal Opposition, you should have been strong, and clear, and honest in attacking this divisive and demeaning style of politics, Where were you?

In my bipartisanship, Senator, we respect each other, we honor each others patriotism, we debate our differences with dignity, and we never, never, never slander war heroes because they are political opponents in either party and we always, always, always stand for honor and truth and respect in our democracy. That is my bipartisanship, Senator, and it would be a better world if you would stand with me, for that, rather than parroting those same demeaning lines of attack.

In my bipartisanship Senator, when our troops need armor we work together to get it. In my bipartisan when our airports need screeners and our ports need protection and our subways and rails need defense we work together to do it. In my bipartisanship Senator, we know that what the terrorists fear the most is a united country that stands together, and what the terrorists like the most is a divided country with leaders who cannot even agree to protect our ports and our rails and provide adequate support for our troops and vets.

30 debates. Head to head. High Noon. Man to Man. Face to Face. In a great debate that lays out the issues, That stands up for the troops. That protects the Homeland. That supports the vets. That respects the people and takes the issue to them honestly and directly and lets the accountabiblity of our democracy work the way it should.

If Senator Lieberman accepts, the people will decide, and the truth will out, and Ned Lamont will win that debate, hands down, again.

If Senator Lieberman refuses to accept the challenge, the voters of Connecticut will know who is brave, and who is not, and why.

Monday, August 14, 2006

NATIONAL SECURITY is the KEY ISSUE for Democrats in 2006!

Will the Democrats ALLOW themselves to be framed, flogged, defined, and smeared as "WEAK ON DEFENSE" by the Republican CHICKENHAWK crew - the Dick Cheneys, Karl Roves, Rush Limbaughs, George W. Bushs, and Newt Gingriches (etc) who NEVER EVEN TRIED to defend America when THEY had the chance?

Amazing video of Keith Olberman of Countdown:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az7yl-UnsQQ
Episode examines THIRTEEN CASES where the Bush administration/Homeland Security dept. declared a STATE OF EMERGENCY just days or hours after bad news or less favorable ratings came out for the Bush administration. In all cases, the ELEVATED SECURITY alerts BOOSTED the Bush poll ratings, and submerged the negative news.




Democrats See Security as Key Issue for Election 2006
By CARL HULSE
Published: August 15, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/washington/15dems.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1155614400&en=b5c5857dd0b0c75e&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — After being outmaneuvered in the politics of national security in the last two elections, Democrats say they are determined not to cede the issue this year and are working to cast President Bush as having diminished the nation’s safety.

“They are not Swift boating us on security,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader in the House.

Seeking to counter White House efforts to turn the reported terrorist plot in Britain to Republican advantage, Democrats are using the arrests of the suspects to try to show Americans how the war in Iraq has fueled Islamic radicalism and distracted Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress from shoring up security at home. They say they intend to drive that message home as the nation observes the coming anniversaries of Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 attacks.

But they are not waiting. A video Monday on the Web site of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed footage of Osama bin Laden, referred to an increase in terror attacks, highlighted illegal immigration and pointed out the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea.

“Feel safer?” it concludes. “Vote for change.”

In another example, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat running for the Senate in Tennessee, issued a statement Monday noting that the administration shut down a C.I.A. unit dedicated to pursuing Mr. bin Laden. The administration has said that the C.I.A. shut down the unit as part of a restructuring of its counterterrorism division and that the move did not diminish its focus on Al Qaeda and its leaders.

“The president told us that the British attacks are a stark reminder that the nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom,’’ Mr. Ford said, “yet his administration has dismantled the very infrastructure that is responsible for catching those terrorists.”

Those statements and others challenging Republicans head-on over antiterror initiatives are a sharp contrast to Democrats’ actions in the two previous elections, when they stumbled in the face of Republican efforts to paint them as weak. Democrats say polls show that Republicans and Mr. Bush have lost stature on the subject on terrorism as Americans have become disillusioned with the war in Iraq. They also believe that more voters are able to separate the war from efforts to protect the nation against terror attacks.

“During the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans tried to sow fear in the American public by claiming that they were the only ones who could keep America safe,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said in an e-mail message to supporters. “This from the same crowd that has driven Iraq to the brink of disaster, left Osama Bin Laden on the loose to attack again and continues to ignore our security needs at home.”

Republicans said they believed that the Democratic efforts would fizzle and that voters would ultimately choose to trust Republicans on the issue of security. And Mr. Bush, in remarks at the State Department on Monday, disputed the notion that his policies had contributed to a more dangerous world.

“Some say that America caused the current instability in the Middle East by pursuing a forward strategy of freedom, yet history shows otherwise,” Mr. Bush said, ticking off terror attacks that occurred in the United States, Africa and elsewhere long before he took office.

Democrats say that such comments may have had power in the past, but that Republicans are no longer getting the benefit of the doubt. They were heartened this past weekend when leaders of the Sept. 11 commission said the war in Iraq was draining resources that could be put to domestic defense.

Other Democrats say the administration’s initial support of a business deal that would have allowed a Dubai company to assume control of parts of some seaport terminals was a turning point in the public’s view of Mr. Bush’s credibility on national security. As a result, they say they are advising candidates to respond quickly and with force to Republican attacks.

While a new poll by Newsweek showed a rise in Mr. Bush’s public approval rating on security issues in the aftermath of the arrests in Britain, the latest nationwide CBS News Poll, conducted Aug. 11 to 13, found that the recent threat had had little effect on the public’s view of the president and the two political parties.

The war in Iraq remains the most important issue facing the country, the poll shows, but terrorism has re-emerged as a major issue for many Americans, cited by 17 percent, up from 7 percent last month. The latest CBS poll showed no change in Mr. Bush’s job approval rating, which is at 36 percent, the same as in a New York Times/CBS News poll last month. His approval rating on handling terrorism, long a central element of his political strength, also remained unchanged at 51 percent.

While Republicans are still seen as doing a better job than Democrats in handling terrorism, the difference in the latest CBS poll is now about 8 points, about the same as a month ago, compared to the 25-point advantage Republicans held on the question four years ago. The telephone poll was conducted with 974 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said such findings reinforced his view that Mr. Bush had failed to blend the Iraq war and antiterrorism in the public’s mind. Mr. Emanuel said that Mr. Bush’s public standing was cemented in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and that Republican efforts to improve the president’s image by emphasizing terror could not overcome the damage done by the bungled response to the storm.

“Katrina equals competency,” he said.

[Katrina equal Bush INCOMPETENCY!" is what he SHOULD have said!]

Marjorie Connelly contributed reporting for this article.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

GREED and TREASON... TREASON and GREED:

Bush-Cheney's GREED for OIL PROFITS makes US VULNERABLE to OIL WARS in Mideast.
China ratchets up oil consumption; Oil deals in Mideast, Africa, and Central Asia


Oil may fuel Sino-US conflict
By Adla Massoud in New York
Thursday 29 June 2006, 9:45 Makka Time, 6:45 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/59F15F30-6ECB-45E1-951E-2472A16B8017.htm

China recently signed a number of oil deals across Africa

Related:
Iran offers Shanghai bloc energy ties
China gets Kenyan oil exploration deal
King to sign Saudi-China oil deals
China seals $2.3bn Nigeria oil deal
Opec and China plan oil dialogue
Kazakhstan opens oil pipeline to China

China's quest for oil in the Middle East is threatening US energy and security interests in the region and increasing the risk of a conflict between both nations, analysts say.


Flynt Leverett, senior fellow at the New York-based Saban Centre for Middle East Policy, told Aljazeera.net: "There’s a force of increasing tensions in the Sino-American relationship and if you carry that trend out long enough, you do begin to run a more serious threat."

As the dominant geopolitical power in the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf, America's main concern is not only the acquisition of cheap fossil fuel but also the growing involvement of China's energy sector in a number of ''problem" states such as Iran, Sudan and lately, Syria.

George Bush, the US president, recently told the American public that "addiction to oil is a matter of national security concerns".

"Some of the nations we rely on for oil have unstable governments, or agendas that are hostile to the United States. These countries know we need their oil, and that reduces our influence, our ability to keep the peace in some areas."

Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and national security council Middle East analyst, told Aljazeera.net that just as the US oil needs had helped to keep dictatorships in power in the past, China was buying into oil in places where those purchases supported governments of countries seen as hostile to the West.

"It can be very detrimental to the US, particularly if the Chinese were to adopt the role that the Soviets did during the Cold War, supporting whichever state opposed the United States," he added.

Investing in Sudan

China has invested more than $8 billion in Sudan, which now supplies over 7% of the Asian giant's oil. It has also invested another $70 billion into Iran's oil and gas industry, which meets 11% of its energy needs.

"There are a lot of Arab states in the region who are looking to China ... as a potential political counterweight to the US"

Kenneth Pollack

In return, Beijing offers powerful incentives for these countries' energy resources: Economic and military aid, access to Chinese markets, and support at the United Nations where Beijing wields veto power at the Security Council.

China has also shown willingness to oppose US policies as it did in 2004 when it threatened to veto a US proposed resolution to impose sanctions on Sudan, or when it signalled resistance to any UN measure that would include the threat of military action against Iran.

Analysts say China's need for oil has been a major factor in Beijing's refusal to support stronger action against those countries and that it has an interest in seeking peace in the Gulf to ensure the security of its growing energy investments.

"The US' argument to China, which the Chinese recognise, is that Iran with nuclear weapons would be very destabilising to the region and that could jeopardise China’s number one priority in the region which is the flow of cheap oil," Pollack said.

As the world’s third largest oil consumer, China relies heavily on the Middle East, which provides about 45% of its total oil imports, with Saudi Arabia accounting for about 17%.

Growing industrialisation

While China still consumes far less oil than the United States, increased production in industries such as steel, aluminium, and cement have driven up its energy consumption and oil prices.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Chinese oil imports will rise more than six times between 2002 and 2030, from 1.7 to nearly 11 million barrels per day.


China depends on shipping for
almost all of its energy imports

In other words, China's oil imports will rise by an amount nearly equal to Saudi Arabia’s total current oil production capacity.

Meanwhile, Middle Eastern energy producers are looking to China as an alternative to US hegemony in the region.

"I think there are a lot of Arab states in the region who are looking to China not just as a potential economic partner, but also as a potential political counterweight to the US. The more they bring the Chinese into the region and the less they will have to do what the US tells them to," Pollack said.

Even the staunchly anti-communist Saudis - whose oilfields were developed by US companies - is cultivating China as a consumer of its oil and gas to hedge against further deterioration in US-Saudi diplomatic relations.

Said Pollack: "In the aftermath of 9/11, if you look at the anti-Saudi backlash in the US, the Saudis had to take seriously the possibilities that their strategic partnership with the United States might deteriorate. Fundamentally they needed an alternative."

Sino-Saudi ties boosted

In late April, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, flew to Saudi Arabia for talks with Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer.


China's oil imports are expected
to increase six fold by 2030

The visit marked the latest episode in a continuing Chinese effort to ensure access to Saudi Arabia's 9.5 million barrels per day of oil production.

That visit, coming just after meetings between Hu and George Bush, the US president, was closely monitored in Washington.

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice-president for defence and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told Aljazeera.net that "the Saudis regard China now as a very important customer for oil and will be increasingly important in the coming decades".

"I don’t think that's a terribly smart thing for US interests. The US has made an economic and political competitor again on the global scene which is something we've really not had since the end of the Cold War in 1990," Carpenter, who is also the author of the book America's Coming War with China, said.

China-US rivalry

The IEA predicts that by 2015, 70% of China’s oil imports will come from the Middle East. And more than half of its oil will have to transit the Malacca Straits, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, located between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

The US navy controls the sea lines of communication (SLOC) or primary maritime routes, in all the major energy transit junctions, including the Straits of Hormuz, the Malacca Straits and the Southeast Asian sea lanes.

US analysts say there is an expectation among Chinese strategists that the US will use its naval leverage to disrupt its energy imports should any conflict over the status of Taiwan arise.

The Chinese are reinforcing their navy, concerned with the insecurity of the maritime routes upon which almost all of China's energy imports travel.

But "it will not be a threat to the US unless China has a very large modern and capable navy which it has not remotely done to this point", Carpenter said.

Hoping to avert a new war of the Pacific, Beijing is developing alternative oil delivery routes that are meant to avoid US naval control.

China has bankrolled more than 80% of a $248 million project to develop a deep-sea port in Gwadar, Pakistan. This would lessen its reliance on sea routes by allowing oil to be transported overland through Pakistan to western China.

China also recently opened a 1000-km link carrying 190,000 barrels per day of Kazakh oil, providing its first direct access to potentially rich central Asian fields.
Aljazeera

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

As we all know, the DLC (Democrat Leadership Council, or big-business frindly Democrats who control the Dem. Senate caucus) have been running around in complete, abject disarray for the past half dozen years.

In 2000 Texas Governor George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency on a platform of "a new, more bipartisan tone in Washington," "a uniter, not divider," "restoring Honor and Dignity to the White House," and "conservative compassion."

Indeed, within these four moral or personal qualities hyped on by George W. Bush and his campaign about the governor's character, we can see that there is an inherent CONTRADICTION: "restoring honor and dignity to the White House" implies that someone has stolen or robbed from, or disgraced, the honor and dignity of the White House. This implied criticism is pretty close to a slur or smear - 'the democrats, who control the White House (through the 8 years of the Clinton administration) have DISGRACED the dignity and honor of the nation's first residence.'

For those who pay close attention, the 4th notion of this Bush campaign focus on personal character also contained a CONTRADICTION of the "more bipartisan... uniter, not divider" notions, because those in the Deep South (the driving force of Republican Party power as we now know it) RECOGNIZED "compassion" as an icon of the virtues associated with the ante-bellum South, that is to say, the pre-Civil War slavery South, the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the segregationist white supremacy rule of the post-Reconstruction South. "Compassion" being a White, Christian virtue which nevertheless ALLOWED for the torture, death, and systematic cruelty necessary to sustain SLAVERY as a cultural, social, and economic system. For more on the psychology of, and influences of, the social rationals that sustained slavery, we recomment THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK IN AMERICA TODAY: "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics," by author Michael Lind.


The First Rule of War, of course, is "know thine enemy." This principle predates human war not by centuries, not by millenia, but by tens of millions of years. A lion that does not show sufficient respect for its prey's hooves or horns could well receive a fatal wound to the jaw or belly. Even today, nature documentaries of lions in Africa show young, bold lions learning the hazardous lessons of porcupines over and over again - while the rest of the pride moves on from a porcupine in the path of their pride prowl, one young lion can't understand while the meal-on-wheels that smells just like any other prey item is granted pardon to shuffle along unmolested by the other grown lions. The bold young lion gives the "meal" a try - and in an instant, his entire nose and jaw are infested with razor-sharp quills. While not poisonous, the barbs work the quills deeper into the flesh and tissue of the victim, and can lead to bacterial infections or make the jaw useless, leading to a long, slow death. There is probably a good PhD thesis in-waiting for a statistical survey of the portion of lions and other predators killed by encounters with otherwise tasty porcupines on the defensive versus the ability of the pride to impart the deadly lesson of porcupine encounter without injury, but what is important is that this vital lesson in lion survival must be RELEARNED generation after generation, for all the millions of years that porcupines have been inhabiting predator territory.

Every generation young lions relearn a lesson their their elders have learned a million years ago, and so it is with the Democrats in 2006. Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, and other Democrat "leaders" HAVE YET TO LEARN THE LESSON about the true radical right agenda of the neo-Confederate South, an agenda that is DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE everything that liberals, progressives, and progressive Democrats (and progressive Republicans) had fought for for over 100 years.

From Republican President Teddy Roosevelt's "Trust Busting" to Woodrow Wilson's reform agenda to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression, the middle-class, egalitarian, public infrastructure America that we take for granted today IS NOT the America that rulers of the Radical Right agenda long for. For them, the natural order is to have an extremely weatlhy upper class (what Buzzflash.com calls the "neo-confederate plutocracy" in their interview with Lind) (http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/03/20_lind.html) with an entirely subservient underclass. Of course, the poorer the underclass, the closer they live to poverty, destitution, and abject squalor. In the pre-Confederate South, slaves were so poor that they were issued ONE pair of shoes per year, which would wear out during the summer, necessitating the slaves work the whole summer through in the fields and plantations BAREFOOT. (Although it must be remebered that much of the Confederate Army marched and fought barefoot during the Civil War; the battleground of Gettysburg famously choosen when one Rebel army unit was searching for a rumored shoe supply depot.) (And, aside #2. Both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were extremely conservative, racist, segregationists. Bowing to his Southern sensibilities, even Wilson, formerly the President of Princeton University, refused to entertain Black guests in the White House - a terrific snub to a major constituency of "the Progressive movement," Black Americans seeking the same freedoms as White Americans. (Even then, even wealthy White women did not have the vote, either.)


What is important is that neither the Gore nor Kerry presidential campaigns, nor the Lieberman-Daschle midtermof 2002, nor the Pelosi-Reid-DLC Democratic Leadership in the 2006 campaign to date, have yet RECOGNIZED, much less CONFRONTED, the "neo-Confederate Plutocracy agenda"of this first half-decade of the 21st century.

And make no mistake - these are not merely academic discussions. You look at NEW ORLEANS after the post-Katrina flooding, and you see ENTIRE SWATHS of the city revert to third-world conditions... while the President of the United States indulges in guitar-strumming and cake-eating photo-ops! The reason that Mr. Bush was so cavalier about the conditions of New Orleans in catastrophe is because he did not see it as a tragedy, BUT AS A DESIRABLE OUTCOME: African-American residents of New Orleans just 1/2 step removed from the abject poverty and subsistence existence of the segregation era (if not the slave era itself).

There is a famous rock-and-roll song "When the Levee Breaks" performed by a modern 4-man rock band, but written by a young black woman during the 1927 Great Mississippi flood. During that flood, Whites in boats armed with shotguns FORCED poor blacks to labor on the levees AT GUNPOINT - refusing to provide even food or fresh water! It was a 20th century REVERSION to outright slavery, albeit for only a limited time, under disaster conditions.

Yet as Michael Lind explains, neo-Confederate culture DEMANDS an enemy, either domestic workers to subjugate, or external enemies to expand against. This social culture demands a militarized, hierarchical culture that is largely conformist and obedient to the defined needs of the nation or warror clan.

In this culutral makeup, POVERTY and SUBSISTENCE LIVING at the bottom rungs of society ARE NOT A PROBLEM, but (as Political Science doctorates put it) A DESIRABLE OUTCOME.

In 2006, isn't it time for Democrat "leaders" to STOP SIGNING ON TO THE RADICAL-RIGHT, reactionary, neo-con, neo-Confederate, anti-democratic, subsistence and subjugation agenda????


Indeed, IF Democrat "leaders" DO NOT REALIZE the full nature, goals, and tactics of the reactionary-right agenda, then not only are they grossly IGNORANT, but they are AIDING and ABETTING that agenda - what in the Civil War were termed "Copperheads."



===================================



Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465041213/qid=1151436199/sr=1-16/ref=sr_1_2_16/701-0234028-7735513



Michael Lind, Author of "Made in Texas"

A Buzzflash Interview
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/03/20_lind.html



If you ever wanted to learn the full lowdown on Bush's roots as a full-fledged member of the Texas Neo-Confederate plutocracy, "Made in Texas" is the book to read. Michael Lind, who wrote the celebrated "Up From Conservatism," offers a trenchant intellectual analysis of the reactionary, right wing roots of Bush in the lone star state.

Lind's central thesis is that -- despite the popular stereotype of Texas as a "Western" state -- Texas is really a state with two distinct traditions. Bush is not a product of the "Western" cowboy heritage (although he is packaged that way). Rather Bush is heir to the Southern economic and political perspectives that were forged during the years of slave-powered cotton plantations (the ultimate in a low-wage economy).

The book casts a wide net in exploring the implications of Bush's Southern style outlook, including his immersion in Armageddon theology.

BuzzFlash learned more about Bush's worldview in Lind's book, sub-titled "The Southern takeover of American Politics," than any book we have read in the last year.

Lind is a Senior Fellow of the New America Foundation. His three previous books of political journalism and history, "The Next American Nation" (1995), "Up from Conservatism" (1996) and "Vietnam" (1999) were all selected as "New York Times Notable Books." He lives in Washington, D.C. and has a ranch in Texas.

* * *

BUZZFLASH: The most fundamental premise in your insightful book, "Made in Texas," is that despite the stereotype of Texas being a Western state, there are actually two major cultural and political traditions that divide Texas. Can you summarize their characteristics?

MICHAEL LIND: Despite its Western trappings, Texas has always been part of the South, which provided the ancestors of the majority of white Texans as well as the dominant culture into which newcomers of all races tend to be assimilated. The demographic center of gravity in Texas has always been East Texas, which is cotton plantation country, not cattle country.

The major exception to the rule is Central Texas -- Austin, San Antonio, and the Hill Country -- where immigrant German pioneers with values similar to those of Germanic Americans in the Midwest and Great Plains were historically more progressive than the dominant Southern conservatives.

BUZZFLASH: How does George W. Bush represent the part of Texas that is an extension of the deep South?

LIND: As odd as it may seem, the West Texas in which George W. Bush grew up was an extension of the Deep South, for the simple reason that most West Texans were of Southern descent and shared Southern conservative values. Immigrants like Bush's Yankee parents were not numerous enough to change the culture; on the contrary, they were assimilated to it. The West Texas in which George W. Bush grew up was a homogeneous society dominated by transplanted Southern Protestants. It was Goldwater country and Reagan country before it became Bush country.

Although he was born in Connecticut, Bush is a genuine cultural Texan, having lived in Texas from infancy. His political values -- ranging from aggressive militarism in foreign policy to small-government ideology and fervent support for laissez-faire economics -- are those of the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian political culture of Texan Southerners.

BUZZFLASH: You contrast Bush to Ross Perot? On economic issues, how do they represent the two different branches of Texas business traditions?

LIND: In "Made in Texas," I argue that Bush and Perot represent, respectively, the rival traditionalist and modernist philosophies of political economy in Texas and similar Southern and Western states. The low-investment, low-wage, low-tax, low-regulation approach favored by Texan conservatives is suited to the interests of the resource-owning oligarchy in a region with an economy based on primary production -- cotton, cattle, oil. The Texan modernists, like Perot, want a high-tech, middle-class society. Finding little support from the wealthy native oligarchy in Texas or the oligarchy's business partners in New York and other global financial centers, Texan modernists, including some with conservative social views, have usually been keen on enlisting the federal government -- including the military-industrial complex -- in the role of a public-sector "venture capitalist" helping to catalyze economic growth in Texas. Indeed, by means of the military, NASA and the Pentagon-supported computer industry, the federal government is directly or indirectly responsible for the high-tech islands in the backward Texan economy. All of this explains why Texan modernists like Perot and LBJ puzzle both the left and the right. Their "Japanese" vision of government-business cooperation to promote the technological modernization of a rural society baffles the social-democratic left, which tends to favor activist government but distrusts business, and enrages the Jeffersonian right, which sees government as the enemy of business rather than its partner.

BUZZFLASH: Can you talk a little bit more about how Bush's economic policies are an outgrowth of the cheap labor/natural resources tradition of the South?

LIND: From the earliest years of the Republic, the Southern oligarchy feared urbanization and industrialization, because this would undermine their ability to control rural blacks (slave and free) as well as rural whites. They had no objection to machines and technology, they simply wanted it to be located elsewhere and used selectively in a way that did not undermine the South's hierarchical caste and class system. In his First Inaugural Address, Confederate President Jefferson Davis defined the South as "an agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity [cotton] required in every manufacturing country" and therefore interested in "free trade" with manufacturing nations like Britain, France and the (Southless) United States. Following the Civil War, the Southern oligarchy remained in control of the South and promoted only the infrastructure projects that benefited large farmers and ranchers. It was the federal government, during the New Deal and World War II, that finally industrialized the South from above, with the help of Texan and Southern modernists.

Tragically, however, the federally-sponsored modernization of the South has been incomplete. While federal investment and, later, private capital built up modern highways, factories and cities in the South, the Southern political elite -- formerly Democrat, now predominantly Republican -- kept wages and benefits low. By combining a First World infrastructure with quasi-Third World labor conditions, Texas and the South have been able to lure away industry from the Northeast and Midwest since the 1960s.

Wages and unionization have been further depressed in the South by the entry into the low-end labor market of many unskilled immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere, who are grateful to work for little and historically difficult to unionize (this is not a nativist insult, merely an observation of an important fact about today's labor market). Bush, Texas Senator Phil Gramm, and other right-wing Republicans support amnesties for illegal immigrants or guest-worker programs not just to win Latino votes but to provide agribusiness with an enormous pool of non-unionized, low-wage workers. By treating an open-borders immigration policy as a "progressive" idea -- instead of what it is, a cheap-labor subsidy to employers unwilling to provide high wages and good benefits -- American liberals are hurting working-class Americans of all races, including naturalized immigrants already here who are hurt by a loose labor market.

BUZZFLASH: How does crony capitalism fit into this?

LIND: In "Made in Texas" I distinguish between ordinary corruption and crony capitalism. Ordinary corruption presupposes the existence of two legitimate elites, the business elite and the political elite; what is illegitimate is the influence on one of the other. In crony capitalism, by contrast, there is a single oligarchy, with different parts labeled "the private sector" and "the public sector." Crony capitalism tends to be found in formerly rural, semi-industrial societies like Indonesia, Mexico and Texas, where the native land-owning elite moves in to occupy new positions in government and the private sector. Crony capitalism is a greater threat than ordinary political corruption, because the line between the public and the private is faint or nonexistent.

The Enron empire is a perfect example of crony capitalism, at its worst. Enron was as much a creation of Texas politics as it was a creator of Texas politicians like Bush. For their parts, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are not business executives, in the conventional sense. They are career politicians, whose business careers were arranged for them, and their fortunes bestowed on them, by their allies in the Texan crony capitalist oligarchy. Most of George W. Bush's personal wealth comes from a "gift" to him by his partners in the Texas Rangers investment group.

BUZZFLASH: Bush was born an Episcopalian. He became a Methodist after he married Laura. But he speaks and acts like a fundamentalist. What's going on here? Is he really at heart a Southern Baptist, or is that just a role he plays at the request of Karl Rove to ensure that the religious right comes out in great numbers to vote for him in 2004?

LIND: Many Washington insiders have assumed that Bush's religiosity is an act, designed to fool the religious right voters he needs to be re-elected. The evidence indicates, however, that his conversion to a hardline version of Protestant fundamentalism during a midlife crisis in his late thirties was genuine. Cynics in more secular parts of the country such as the Northeast and West Coast tend to assume that this kind of religious belief is limited to ignorant, lower-class people. But in Texas and other Southern States, born-again Christians are found in abundance in the country club and the office park as well as the country church and the trailer park.

BUZZFLASH: Your second chapter is called "The Confederate Century." In what ways is the Bush administration "The Confederate Presidency"?

LIND: The Bush administration is not "Confederate" in the sense of being racist. While many white conservatives may remain uncomfortable around black Americans, segregationist sentiments like those of Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond are fading. But the Southern tradition, contrary to popular belief, was never defined solely by racism (which was shared by most white Americans). Southern notions of military power, masculine and feminine honor, social hierarchy, religious fundamentalism and free-market fundamentalism -- notions sometimes appealing to nonwhite Southerners, too -- have always distinguished the American South.

Quite apart from racial politics, Southern political culture influenced the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, but was ameliorated by other, non-Southern conservative traditions. Thanks to the decline of Northeastern Rockefeller Republicanism and Midwestern Taft/Dole Republicanism and the rise to power in the GOP of former Southern Democrats or "Dixiecrats," a distinctly Southern conservatism is more powerful today in Washington, D.C. than at any time since before the Civil War. Since 1865 there have been Southern presidents who were not -- at least by Southern standards -- conservative (Wilson, Truman, LBJ, Carter, Clinton) and there have been conservative presidents who were not Southern (Reagan, the first President Bush). George W. Bush is the first Southern conservative President since before the Civil War.

BUZZFLASH: You call your book a story of "dead white males." Why?

LIND: In my introduction, I note that the historical story I tell is largely one of "dead white males" in order to forestall criticism from the left that I have ignored the struggles of blacks, Mexican-Americans and women for justice in Texas. Indeed, I have ignored those struggles, not because they were not important, but because the history of civil rights is not central to my theme, the rivalry between the traditionalists and modernists in political economy in Texas. Because Texas, before the Civil Rights Revolution, was a white-supremacist, patriarchal society, the leading progressive politicians as well as the leading conservatives were almost exclusively white Protestant men. Thanks to the Civil Rights Revolution, that is no longer the case, and Texans like the late Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards and Henry Cisneros are literally -- and belatedly -- changing the face of Texan and national politics.

BUZZFLASH: You discuss the southern white male war culture. How does that reflect upon the administration's Iraq war policy?

LIND: The military values and economic attitudes of the South both reflect the fact that its culture has been profoundly shaped by an aristocratic land-owning elite that considered military service more honorable than participation in trade or commerce. The martial tradition of upper-class Southerners, who have always been over-represented in the U.S. military, combined with the combativeness of Scots-Irish "yeomen," explains the intense martial spirit found in Texas and other Southern states. White Southern men are much more likely than other American groups to support Bush's policy toward Iraq. This is nothing new; from the quasi-war with France in the 1790s until the present, white Southerners have been the most bellicose, and white New Englanders the least bellicose, groups in the population. The difference goes back to the fact that New England was settled by middle-class Puritans with a civilian ethic who disapproved of violence as a way of settling personal or international disputes, while the South was settled by English aristocratic "cavaliers" and their imitators along with Scots-Irish frontiersmen given to feuds, like Andrew Jackson and the Hatfields and McCoys.

BUZZFLASH: You are a fifth generation Texan. George Bush is a first generation Texan, and he spent his high school and college years at elite eastern schools. At this point, would you consider George Bush an honest-to-goodness heir to the Confederate branch of Texas? Or to put it another way, if he weren't a politician, would he hold the same Neo-Confederacy fundamentalist values he espouses as the occupant of the White House?

LIND: As a fifth-generation Texan, I must reluctantly concede that George W. Bush, born in Connecticut but raised in the Lone Star State, is a genuine Texan in his accent, his mannerisms, and his outlook on life. To be more specific, he is an undistinguished, run-of-the-mill example of the dominant social type in Texas, the Southern conservative. Unlike his father, he is not a Rockefeller Republican pretending to be a Pat Robertson Republican in order to win votes. He's the real thing. This should be a lesson, to any Yankee parents thinking about moving their families to Texas: their children may go native.

At the same time, as a ranch-owner from a family of farmers and ranchers, I must also say that George W. Bush's attempt to impersonate a rancher is as unconvincing as that of any frat boy from Dallas or Houston. My friends in Texas and I have been greatly amused to watch the president using his vacation time on his ranch to cut down cedar (technically, mountain juniper) trees with a chain-saw. Real Texan ranchers use bulldozers and chains to take down a lot of cedar trees at once -- and unless they're very poor indeed, they hire professionals to do this very nasty job.

My fellow Texans also enjoy the photo opportunities in which Bush's Crawford neighbors (most of them affluent professionals who live in Crawford, which is really a Waco suburb, not a hardscrabble frontier town) sit on bales of hay in a faux-Western setting while the President gives a speech or signs a bill. I've been telling anyone who asks, "Oh, yeah, I grew up in Texas sitting on bales of hay. Hell, we didn't even know what chairs and sofas were until the 1980s, and we're still not used to them. Before that, when folks came over to visit, we invited them to pull up a bale."

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW