Daily Blog, 2004-2006

MCCARTHYISM (#32137)
by Tim M. Matthewson on March 21, 2004 at 6:41 AM
"The most menacing aspect of Marxism-Leninism was not that it was embodied in powerful states with nuclear weapons and huge armies, Fukuyama said, but that it was an idea that was "in some way appealing to people in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Paris, France."
This assertion is not only wrong, but it is also just a sophisticated form of mccarthyism.



THE COMING CHAOS IN IRAQ (#72585)
by Tim Matthewson on December 14, 2005 at 10:54 PM
I do not think that the future of Iraq can be controlled by the U.S. The probability is that chaos and civil war will ensue as the U.S. withdraws from the country, as the elections of 2006 and 2008 threaten Republican dominance. The Republicans do not want to be left holding the bag owing to the weak leadership of another President Bush; just as Bush 41's weak leadership led to the election of Bill Clinton, so the weak leadership of Bush 42 may lead to the election of another Clinton.
The problem is that Iraq will not conform Dubya's view of the future. I don't like to be so pessimistic, anticipating chaos and civil war, but that result appears much more likely than the triumph of some form of Wilsonian democracy in Iraq. One should remember of course that Wilson's democratic universalism did not even achieve its objectives in Europe; indeed, the weakness of the Wilsonian democracies in Europe provide fertile ground for Mussolini and Hitler and for Europe's descent into savagery, fascism and rivers of blood. Even in the new century, democracy is still an endangered species in parts of Europe, especially Russia. When President Bush looked into the eye of the Russian leader and saw there cause for optimism, he only saw his own reflection, not what was in the soul of the Russian leader.
On the eve of elections in Iraq, I hear constant talk about the emerging Iraqui democracy. But it is highly unlikely that an expatriate constitution and elections, will be able to overcome the 10,000 year old tradition of autocracy in Iraq. The Arab Muslim tradition in government is not democracy and does not involve voting.
Prior to the American intervention in Iraq. The type of government that will emerge in Iraq will likely following the model of Iran, where the Koran has been effectively used to foster a climate of hate for westerners and a cult of suicide bombing among Muslims.
Aside from the religious institutions of the Middle East, the strongest institutions in the region are the militias led by its clerics. The militias are likely to play a dominant role in the future of Iraq (as they do now during the insurgency), just as they do in Afganistan, Iran and everywhere else in the Middle East. Once the U.S. removes its troops from Iraq, militias will re-emerge to dominance.
For 10,000 years, Iraq has had a type of government much like that of Saddam Hussein, a strong man who had been able to dominate and exploit the militias owing to his murderous efficiency and I see nothing Iraq's recent history that promises a sure break with the Iraqui tradition in government.
I am sure that President Bush 42 genuinely believes that he is on a mission to implant democracy, however imperfect, in Iraq. He is a naive true believer. For a macho Texas it's always easy to tap the idealism of the American people in foreign policy, but raising America's idealistic hopes will only lead to cynicism and exaggerated disappointment when chaos engulfs Iraq and much of the region.



THE PRESIDENT'S WILSON CENTER SPEECH (#72594)
by Tim Matthewson on December 15, 2005 at 7:44 AM
The speech was the last of four speeches that have attempted to change the subject from "Why so many screw ups on the road to Iraq," to "Now what do we do now that we have troops in country?" The President has clearly lost the debate on the previous subject, admissing that "it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." But he's not thrown in the towel on what we should do now -- he wants the American people to be patient about Iraq, maintain an open ended commitment to "victory" in Iraq, and forget about the question of intelligence failures. It would be unpatriotic to talk about intelligence failures, suggesting that if the President was wrong about intelligence, why should we trust him about the prosecution of the war?
The president is 0 for 4. He was wrong about intelligent, 1) wrong about WMD, 2) wrong about oil paying for the cost of the war, 3) wrong that the price of oil would go down, and 4)wrong about Iraqis welcoming us with open arms. And one can add that the Pentagon was wrong to avoid planning for the post-war period in Iraq, wrong to abolish the Iraqi army, wrong not to seize control of the huge munitions stockpiles scattered about Iraq.
So the question comes up again -- If the president screwed up so badly why should we trust him in the future?


FIGHTING DEMOCRATS (#73105)
by Tim Matthewson on December 28, 2005 at 2:15 PM
More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority [...]



ATHIESTS, SCIENCE AND CAPITALISM (#73274)
by Tim Matthewson on December 31, 2005 at 2:26 AM
On the extreme left, the view that secular minded people ushered in the rise of science and capitalism takes on an even more bizarre form. There the view is that it was and is only athiests who were responsible for such changes, a view that is demonstrably false, but it is and has been a view that has been fiercely held in some circles.



THE DOMINO THEORY (#73673)
by Tim Matthewson on January 9, 2006 at 4:14 AM
The author claims that "Unlike Vietnam, there are real risks to the United States in leaving Iraq and imporant stakes there." Have I not heard this all before and was not the same said about Vietnam. Were we not told ad naseum that if we do not fight them there (Vietnam) we would have to fight them here (Santa Monica)?
Did not Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all believe in the international communist comspiracy? Were we not told that if the communists were allowed take Vietnam, they would then move on to Cambodia, Laos, Thiland, Indonesia, India, the Middle East, and then on to Latin America and finally the US. Were we not, in that hysterical period of history, that it was better to be dead than RED.
I do not see any significant differences between the justification for the war in Iraq and Vietnam. Now were are fighting not the international communist conspiracy but the international terrorist conspiracy and the justification for Iraq is that we have to take the fight against terrorism to them on their turf rather than fighting here.
Communism and terrorism are the best things that ever happened to the Republican party. I suspect that the Republicans would be powerless were it not for the foreign dangers they have been able to gin up over the years. If is is true that Republicans have always gained votes owing to their emphasis on so-called "wedge" issues, so too is it true that they have benefitted from a jingo foreign policy as a vote getter.



RE: THE DOMINO THEORY (#73709)
by Charles Edward Heisler on January 9, 2006 at 7:35 PM
To test Mr. Matthewson's theory that terrorism is "the best thing that happened to the Republicans" I will refer all to the elections of 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000, when Islamofacism was not an issue. No, the "best" thing that happened to the Republicans was the Clinton Administration and unbridled liberalism.
The march is not a march to war but a march away from old, tired assumptions that simply were not working for the American people.


I MAKE THE RULES AROUND HERE (#72778)
by Tim Matthewson on December 20, 2005 at 2:18 AM
Ed Kilgore has an important post at TPM Cafe highlighting how the House leadership, undoubtedly taking their lead from the White House, subverted all of the rules of democracy last night by adopting "martial law."
The brazen we-make-the-rules-around-here attitude reflected in the Bush administration's domestic spying ukase, and its let's-punish-the-leakers reaction to its exposure, is certainly not just an executive branch phenomenon. Last night's House Republican maneuvers on budget and defense appropriations measures exhibit the same mentality, especially in the strategem that made it possible: a rules change that basically abolished all the rules.

. . .

THE HOUSE GETS INTO THE ACT
by mcjoan
Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 10:15:56 PM PDT
Thanks to martial law, the incredibly convoluted series of decisions made totally behind close doors on the budget bill, turned into a simple loyalty test for partisans. There was a grand total of 40 minutes of debate, which was probably about right since nobody had the chance to read the bill in the first place.

Republicans have steadily degenerated from the party of law and order, to the party that is actually contemptuous of the law when it doesn't serve their purposes, and indifferent to constitutional and legislative order when it thwarts their will. What the Schiavo incident said about the true Republican attitude towards federalism and separation of powers, the "martial law" rule says about the GOP's true interest in rational policymaking and honest debate.



LIARS FROM THE FAR . . . (#72548)
by Tim Matthewson on December 14, 2005 at 8:56 AM
Horowitz lies again.... Horowitz hasn't changed, from when he was communist zealot. Communists excel in deception and wild innuendos. The only difference with Horowitz then and now, is that now he's a far-right liar, as opposed to a being far-left liar. (I wonder if he'll ever admit to that "student" he simply made up to whine about "liberal bias" on college campuses?)



IS THE DELUGE OF PORN AND VIOLENCE ON TV HARMFUL? (#71938)
by Tim M. Matthewson on December 3, 2005 at 11:51 AM
What do the stats say about the impact of violence and sex in the media? Well, they say that teen pregnancy and abortions are way down and so too are the stats on violent crime. These trends have been observable over the past twenty years, but there seems to be a disconnect between social trends and our willingness to relate them to the media. Perhaps the deluge of porn and violence in the media has generated an aversion to promiscuity and conflict in real life.

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RE: IS THE DELUGE OF PORN AND VIOLENCE ON TV HARMFUL? (#71961)
by Bryan D Ford on December 3, 2005 at 7:05 PM
Do you honestly believe that?

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RE: IS THE DELUGE OF PORN AND VIOLENCE ON TV HARMFUL? (#72036)
by Matthew E. Mason on December 5, 2005 at 11:44 AM
If the media don't shape behavior, the advertising industry needs a massive refund.

ADVERTIZING AND BEHAVIOR (#72059)
by Tim M. Matthewson on December 5, 2005 at 6:16 PM
The goal of advertizing is very clear and the short term results are clear. When one repeats the words "buy soap brand X" over and over again, it may seem safe to assume that there is some connection between the commercial message to "buy soap" and the purchase of brand x soap.
But it's far more difficult to make a connecton between a story, a dramatic presentation, the specific elements of the story and the behavior of the people viewing the story. Assume that the story has themes of love and hate, how can we be sure that those elements influence behavior? The elements of the story are not designed to motivate behavior; they are not designed to be instrumental and don't strive to elicit behavior. A story may produce an adverse reaction or an opposite reaction. If a story has both elements of love and compassion and hate and violence, how can we measure the impact of such stories on the behavior of people?
Human behavior is very complex; motives are very complex. Linking specific instances of violent and love and compasion to media presentations would be very difficult, if not impossible. Keep in mind that the best laid plans, often have unintended consequences.



RE: NOW WE ARE GETTING THE TRUTH? (#71942)
by Tim M. Matthewson on December 3, 2005 at 12:23 PM
This note is a clear case of historical parallels run rampant to the point of absurdity.

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RE: NOW WE ARE GETTING THE TRUTH? (#71946)
by Steven R Alvarado on December 3, 2005 at 2:34 PM
Well here's another one for ya. Who will be the next McClellen? Murtha or Kerry.


BIZARRE! (#71941)
by Tim M. Matthewson on December 3, 2005 at 12:17 PM
This essay makes me wonder where the author has been over the past couple of years. He claims that the media is not self critical, but leaves out the attacks of Maureen Dowd and others on Judy Miller, Woodward, and others. He claims that the White House has only made one critical mistake, which is the failure to put the war in the proper moral perspective, but he does not mention WHD, the problems of post-war planning, the disappearance of huge arsenals of munitions to the insurgents, or other outrageous blunders and failures. He says that we "took no oil," as if we had a choice, and as if the Iraquis have not been demolishing the pipelines every time they are opened. Was it idealism that promoted the US intervention or a neocon cabal which influenced a naive president to intimidate surrounding Arab states? The author is good at putting up straw men -- was it wrong to remove Saddam?-- but such reliance on specious arguments only serves to remind readers why the president's credibility has fallen so low and why the vice president has once again disappeared into his previously undisclosed location.


KIMBERLY STRASSEL'S ATTACK ON M. BELLEISLES, ARMING AMERICA
by Tim M. Matthewson on March 18, 2004 at 5:35 AM
The only reason why Kimberly Strassel,of the notoriously right wing editorial page of the WJW, would write about an obscure academic tome such as "Arming America" is because it has aroused the ire of the National Rifle Association and its allies in the Republican Party, who in their hysterical devotion of distorted notions of the second amembment, have relentlessly hounded an obscure professor by personal and ungrounded attacks. Strassel should start an attack against Belleisless or any other historian by getting her facts straight, a sin which she directs against Belleisles. First, Belleisles's book never was an "academic bombshell"; and neither did it go against "long-held beliefs by claiming that few colonial Americans actually owned guns." Far from it, such facts were generally known, as historian Edmund Morgan noted in his review in the New York Review of Books. What made Belleisles's book stand out was the relentless way he put the story between two covers, not the originality of his thought. Far from it, the books has never been accused of being original in its thought or research!!!



US SHOULD FACE ITS UGLY PAST! (#72123)
by Tim M. Matthewson on December 7, 2005 at 2:14 AM
And the US does not have such maps? and Henry Kissinger and others did not advocate the use of nuclear weapons to defeat communism? and the solgan better dead than red was not a commonplace in the US? and the movie Dr. Strangelove was entirely fictional and had not relation to the US?



NYTIMES REPORTS ON ALITO'S EXPERIENCE IN SENATE (none / 0)
by firstnew on Fri Jan 13, 2006 at 04:30:40 AM PDT Daily Kos
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: January 13, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - In over 18 hours responding to some 700 questions at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. mostly described a methodical and incremental approach to the law rooted in no particular theory."
NYTimes screws up extimate on Aliton's questioning. If it were true that Alito responded to 700 question, that would mean that he had 1 minute and 1/2 for each question. Mr. Liptak needs to retink his estimate and the Times should be embarassed by its willingness to accept such an estimate.



REPUBLICANS, DICK ARMEY, AND THE ECONOMY
by firstnew on Sun Jan 01, 2006 at 09:51:34 AM PDT
A few year back, Republicans, led by Dick Armey and others, were all talking about the economy and their supposed ability to better manage the economy than the Democrats. Of course that was before the Clinton prosperity of the 1990s kicked into high gear and before the .com expansion.
Tax cuts were President Bush's answer to all economic woes of the country, but the results have been less than inspiring. Still the supply siders are still out there and are prepared to offer prescriptions -- cut taxes -- as the avenue to prosperity; we didn't cut taxes enough, they will say and should cut them more.
A good response to the inevitable calls for cutting taxes still further is not only that they enrich the already rich, but that supply siders are ignorant about the way the economy work. Just remember Dick Army when he, as House Majority Leader, stood before the congress to call emphatically even violently for opposition to the Clinton financial measures, saying if fact that they would produce an economic collapse, depression, and destruction of prosperity. As we now know, the measure that President Clinton pushed thru congress in 1992 produced the best economy ever for America and much of the world.
So when Republicans speak up saying that they know best about how to manage the economy, ask them, What about Dick Army?



ENHANCING THE POWERS OF CORPORATE AMERICA
Hot button issues such as abortion and affirmative action and the like may well turn out in the years ahead to be of secondary importance and instead the more important issues may turn out to be enhancement of the powers of corporate Amermica.
The key issues may turn out to be out the changing social structure, which is witnessing the errosion of the middle class, the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few and pay scales of corporate leaders. The feeling that we are all in this thing together has given way to the feeling of every person for himself, as the quest for the $3000.00 shower curtain takes precedent over production of useable goods.
I am still struck by Americans who are willing to give up their citizenship because they have an aversion to America's high taxes and instead take up residence in some Asian country where one can do whatever one wants, the quest for unbridaled and unchecked power assuming a commanding position on the American pantheon of virtues.



BUSH'S READING HABITS
by firstnew on Wed Dec 28, 2005 at 02:06:03 AM PDT
Bush has bragged about his poor reading habits, saying that he read "a" book in college, and other reports support the claim that he was a party animal. For this reasons, one has to wonder whether the claim of the president's press secretary about Bush being an "avid reader" is just spin or whether he picked up stronger reading habits somewhere along the way, perhaps from his wife, who seems to have had a positive influence on him, both in terms of his drinking to excess and experimentation with drugs.
Of course, poor reading habits do not exclude one from being president or from performing well as president. Ronald Reagan's reading and working habits were about as bad as possible, and he too commented on his lack of self discipline when it came to reading and work generally.
President Reagan, however, had good instincts, knowing that focusing on a few key issues and mastering them would lead to success and popularity; and he mastered the art of communication, although his grasp of the facts was notoriously inadequate. President Bush does not have good political instincts, does not have the ability to be a good speaker, and does not have a good education and fund of factual data which could carry him thru tough times.
So I suspect that what President Bush is attempting to do is play catch up on history, political science, and the like. Still, he knows that he is well intentioned and he just can't understand why the public does not respond well to him. Regretably, even though he is playing catch-up for all of those years which he devoted to partying and playing at life, it is too late, I suspect, to salvage the balance of his presidency and to rescue his reputation from the misery of a wretched defeat and withdrawal from Iraq.
President Bush has been all over the map unlike President Reagan and in attempting to change everything, he has succeeded in changing nothing.



Sleepless Nights (none / 0)
by firstnew on Wed Dec 28, 2005 at 12:02:57 AM PDT
"The 70's were also a heady period for the press, which reached the zenith of its power when it swayed public opinion on Vietnam and exposed Watergate. Reporters got greater access to government secrets with a stronger Freedom of Information Act."-- Maureen Dowd, Published: December 28, 2005.
Rummy and Cheney were stuck in the Ford adinistration and dreamed of various ways of enhancing the power of the executive. One way turned out to be the implicit (but secretive) sidestepping of the FISA court, which modified the administration's requests for surveilance authority. The FISA court's decisions to modify their requests for authority was a nightmare, returning them psychologically to the days of the Ford adminstration, which produced many sleepless nights.



CHENEY
by firstnew on Tue Dec 27, 2005 at 11:49:29 PM PDT
"Dick Cheney. Then and now, the man is a menace" -- Maureen Dowd.
Take a look at Maureen's most recent column.