My own little "torture memos"

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This weekend I'll be writing some torture memos of my own to Senators Durbin and Burris, as well as Rep. Tim Johnson and the President. My point is going to be, of course, that it's a false choice to have politicians declare we need to decide whether we're going to look backward or forward. We have to do both, all the time, and everybody knows it. The "look forward" meme is simply code for "informally pardon powerful white people for their crimes". According to this phony logic, Pat Fitzgerald should tear up his indictments of Rod Blagojevich and let him prance off to the jungles of Costa Rica to become a TV star.

I'll post my memo in case you, the highly esteemed reader, wish to repurpose my text and send it to your elected representatives and executives. But there's no reason why you can't just compose and send your own.

The five strands

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A guy named Drew Westen has an insightful article about modern "conservatism" on HuffingtonPost that I might have written myself if I had better analytical skills. Westen identifies five strands of thought --- each one incompatible with one or more of the others --- twisted into a chimera ideology that really shouldn't exist in the real world. (Pardon me for my chimera of a metaphor.)

Westen refines the "three-legged stool" concept that we often hear about Republicanism: that it is supported by the triple pillars of religious fundamentalists, gunslinging libertarian refusniks, and captains of the military-industrial complex. He also identifies a somewhat well-intentioned (or at least intelligently self-interested) fiscal conservative who accepts the general New Deal style of federal governance, but with a stingier safety net. And, finally, he points to the unrepentant bigot strand of modern conservatism, which tries to stay out of the view of polite society but considers the Republican (and presumably Libertarian) party to be its political home.

The article does a nice job of arguing a point that most regular observers immediately feel in their guts: this whole complex of ideologies that goes by the name "conservatism" simply has never made any sense... except for the fact that they have managed to convince the nation otherwise since the days of Nixon. I agree with Westen's warning not to underestimate their ability to pull it back together and sell it to 51% of the voters again in the future. But, still, it is encouraging to me to see these lunatics and their sinister political cartel falling apart faster than a Chevy Cavalier.

Truly out of power [updated]

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In addition to all the obvious things that have been said about the tea-bag tax protests today, I have two observations.

First, it's really encouraging to me that self-identified conservatives are every bit as capable as liberals of ridiculously self-marginalizing public conduct. The tea parties are much, much stupider even than giant liberal puppets of George Bush.

Second, I take these events as the first real sign that the far right wing really, truly is out of political power for the first time since 1980. Yes, I include the 1990s, too, when Hillary Clinton's peckerwood husband did everything he could, intentionally and unintentionally, to keep the right wing appeased and emboldened. To me, this is huge news. After decades with their pudgy fingers all over the levers of power, the best they can do now is engineer ridiculous publicity stunts and (regrettably, still) haunt TV news-commentary shows where the corporate media continue to legitimize their absurd worldview.

That said, the ideas these people promote remain pernicious and influential, and the media are as much in thrall of them as ever.

Update: I added a sentence to the third paragraph that I forgot when posting last night.

Wise sayings

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If you have only one handkerchief with you while doing a 3-mile run, be sure to wipe the sweat out of your eyes before you blow your nose.