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Fla. Gov. Orders Feeding Tube Reinserted
The government has no fucking right to intervene in people’s private lives like this. He should have kept out of this case. It’s none of his fucking business. Is this a fucking dictatorship or something? No government in the entire history of this country has intruded on personal liberties as much as the Bush brothers have done.
Today is the Bands Against Bush International Day of Action. They’re
encouraging people to get out and go see a band in their local area in protest against George W Bush’s presidency. But other than a piece in Rolling Stone and another in
Careless Talk Costs Lives magazine, I don’t think they’ve got much in the way of coverage. I’d hate to see all their effort go to waste. Or is informing people about the event on the day itself too late? Would you be able to organise something in time? Well, no. But bands like Radiohead and Coldplay are always going on about how political they are – now let’s see them do something about it in the future. [metafilter.com]
From Aaron Swartz: The Weblog:
I should be clear that I think the news has no liberal bias, and in fact has a strong conservative bias.
It’s hard to find a direct comparison, but take a thought experiment. If Al Gore was president, on the anniversary of 9-11 all the major news outlets would have said things like “Al Gore is under increasing public pressure, after having spent two years searching and still not found Osama.” But because Bush is president, they said nothing.
Now a lot of this can be explained by a bias towards reporting what other people are doing. The democrats are too timid to make a fuss about not finding Osama, so the media doesn’t bother to report on it. But even then I’m skeptical. The media picks up stories from conservative outlets (Clinton scandals) but not liberal ones (Plame affair). And they seem to do investigations into lies by liberals (Gore said he visited a site with James Lee Witt when he visited 14 other sites but not that one with him), but not conservatives (Bush said that “by far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom” when the bottom 60% get 14%).
But the journalists themselves don’t vote conservative, and aren’t socially conservative. So why are the stories skewed?
The conclusion that makes the most sense to me is that the media has a conservative political bias, caused by continuous pressure from conservatives to cover stories favorable to them.
Here’s what I want:
I want schools to teach critical thinking skills so that future citizens can sort facts out from fiction and are skeptical of claims by both sides. Unfortunately, schools (structurally) end up teaching the exact opposite — believe (and memorize) whatever is said by authority (the teacher) without questioning and regurgitate it when asked.
I want the media to simply provide the most important information while filtering out inaccuracies. Unfortunately, they’re a total failure at this, spending gobs of time on the least important information and amplifying the spread of falsehoods. I think that when 70% of the country thinks Saddam is related to Al-Qaeda, it’s a dereliction of duty for the news not to prominently correct this.
This item from CalPundit shows just how evil and dangerous the Republican party is and why it’s so important to defeat them in 2004:
Republicans won’t rest until abortion is completely outlawed, Social Security is abolished, the welfare state is completely rolled back, the book of Genesis is taught in science classes, and the federal income tax is abolished.
When I occasionally repeat (milder) versions of this here, my conservative commenters think I’m nuts. “Every party has a few wingnuts,” they say. “These guys don’t have any real influence.”
And the thing is, I think they’re telling the truth. With a couple of exceptions, I think the kind of conservatives who visit here don’t believe this. It’s absurd. It’s a caricature.
But the problem is that I’m not sure they realize what their party is becoming. The heart and soul of Republican grass roots activism can be found pretty easily: it’s in Texas. The New Model radical right took over the Texas Republican party a decade ago and elected George Bush governor. They have since taken over the entire state and propelled one of their own to the presidency and another to leadership of the House of Representatives. They bring a messianic fervor to their task, and after successfully taking over the second biggest state in the union their sights are now set on the entire country. This is not a fringe group. It is the biggest, most active, most energetic, and most determined segment of the Republican party today.
So it’s fair to ask, what do they really want? Not what their public face is, and not what’s politically feasible at the moment, but what are their goals? What kind of America do they want?
The answer is easy to come by if you really want to know, because the Texas Republican party regularly publishes a party platform. And like all true believers, they are very clear about what they want. So here it is: selected excerpts from the Texas Republican Party Platform of 2000. At the end of six years with George W. Bush at their helm, this was — and largely remains — their vision for America.
Some of the more frightening quotes from their platform:
Read the full story here. [update 9/10: fixed permalink URL]
Fundies get their way. [Morons Dot Org]
This is the most disgusting & offensive thing Bush has ever said. I’m speechless with anger.
I went to the Dean meetup tonight. Jim Stork, the mayor of Wilton Manors, was there & he announced some upcoming events. We also wrote letters to state representatives urging them to support Dean.
Ashcroft continues to pound the drum for more unchecked power while accusing people who question him and his agenda of being crazy… [Morons Dot Org]
From Aaron Swartz: The Weblog:
Gay marriage seems to be a popular political issue, but I have not heard one legitimate reason why it shouldn’t be allowed and mandated by the courts. Essentially, I see no difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage. In Loving v. Virginia the US Supreme Court struck down laws that banned interracial marriage. Can anyone explain why laws against gay marriage should be treated any differently?
To see how this comprehensive response works, let’s try it on a letter by Sen. Cornyn [via Volokh]:
[O]nly one kind of relationship has received such historic and multicultural elevated status in law, culture, and morality: the traditional marital union of two people of the same race. That is not because other kinds of relationships are unimportant, but rather because stable unions of two people of the same race are the strongest foundation mankind has ever known for ensuring the healthy upbringing of children. A wealth of social science research and data attest to this fact.
It does not disparage other kinds of relationships for society to recognize that children are raised best when they are raised by two people of the same race. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine an institution that has enjoyed such overwhelming consensus as traditional marriage. The traditional institution of marriage has existed as such throughout human history, across numerous and diverse cultures, countries, and civilizations as well as party lines, and in the laws, judicial precedents, traditions, and historical practices of all states.
In the next step in the war on terror, Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday launched an attack on… librarians! As uneasiness grows over the scope of the Patriot Act, librarians have been on the front line in calling attention to attacks on civil liberties. Today’s New York Times reports:
In an unusually pointed attack as part of his latest speech in defense of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism initiatives, Mr. Ashcroft mocked and condemned the American Library Association and other Justice Department critics for believing that the F.B.I. wants to know “how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.”
In response, Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s Washington office said, “If he’s coming after us so specifically, we must be having an impact.” Of course other critics of the administration, such as Head Start early education teachers, have already been warned by the administration not to talk back. Librarians have now joined the ranks of environmentalists, pro-choice Americans, and defenders of the Bill of Rights as Ashcroft’s list of respected targets. (They also join the ever-expanding list of Bush targets — including retired and current military officers, soldiers on the front lines in Iraq, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and news reporters — who dare voice any criticism of Bush policies.) [Kicking Ass]
“Mostly, we’ve been watching the president’s rhetoric spring leaks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So perhaps we haven’t paid enough attention to how many holes have popped open in his domestic socks. Joblessness that was supposed to be stanched by the Bush tax cuts. Urban food kitchens overwhelmed by the demand from people who are working but underemployed and end up out of money three weeks into the month. A domestic Peace Corps program (AmeriCorps) that is praised publicly by the president as admirable volunteerism but is being starved of money by the White House and congressional Republicans. But, still, you wouldn’t think he would stiff children and their schooling. That’s maybe the most disappointing thing this president has done here at home.”
Looks like the “No Child Left Behind/’accountability is the true foundation of education reform’/Texas education miracle” is just another Texas tall tale. [metafilter.com]