^∞Fouroboros

Anger over collateral damage, bitter sectarian violence, mass defection, battle fatigue, a toppling statue. It must suck to be a Conservative these days.

Spent a bit of time being a good listener for a few Republican neighbors this afternoon. It reminded me of something scribbled here back around Halloween, '03:

[10-27-03] Flip Kubler-Ross on her head and you can diagram what happens when parties (yes, of course both) abuse their faithful:

Acceptance: Maybe nukes, and definitely rose petals? Okay, I trust 'em. Not sure, but they're MY guys. I 'll go for that.

Depression: Ahh geez, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. But, ohh, maybe I'm wrong not to trust. Better wait. And see. Ahh geez. . .

Bargaining: Hey look, it's not great but it's the best anyone can do. Roses take time to grow, okay? You try and do better, brainiac.

Denial: We never promised you a rose garden. Roses were your idea. This has nothing to do with plants, you ingrate.

Anger: Those assholes, how could they do this to me? I feel like an idiot. You know, I never really trusted those guys, all that flower talk and what not.

Intelligence of voters has little to do with it, I think. It's purely a group identity thing. If you're not very careful, you mirror the irrationality you paint your opponents with. And if you're holding the stopwatch, it's hard to call yourself on a blown play because, well, because you're "better". I figure we're 1/4 to 1/3 through denial now entering Anger, but what a cost to get here. Tragic.

It sucks to be you (me, anybody) when you're wrong. It's no party even when you're mildly uncertain. But that's nothing compared to the dripping, white knuckled fear that comes from wondering if others can see you sweating. And from that further, self-imposed fear that you'll be revealed a simpleton or a blind zealot. I really believe this, because I see it 9 to 5 almost daily, usually in cases that are nano-scale trivial compared with the stakes McCain's we're all now talking about. I grew up under a parental neutron bomb that used to stop us kids dead in our tracks when we'd evade, dissemble or just plain lie to avoid a preponderance of some fact: Once an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern. I'm old enough that seeing otherwise sensible individuals suspend their healthy skepticism once they've tipped toward an individual or group or idea doesn't surprise me anymore. It's simple self- and self-image preservation. But the risk and the odds that they're willing to stay pat on, now that never ceases to amaze.

It sucks to be a Democrat under these circumstances, too. Because we're all losing the collective rosy bloom of what it once meant to be first, foremost, "an American."

Congressman James Sensenbrenner, (R) WI February 8, 1999:

The news media characterizes the managers as 13 angry men. They are right in that we are angry, but they are dead wrong about what we are angry about. We have not spent long hours poring through the evidence, sacrificed time with our families and subjected ourselves to intense political criticism to further a political vendetta. We have done so because of our love for this country and respect for the Office of the Presidency, regardless of who may hold it. We have done so because of our devotion to the rule of law and our fear that if the President does not suffer the legal and constitutional consequences of his actions, the impact of allowing the President to stand above the law will be felt for generations to come.

Joshua Marshall, Talking Points Memo February 14, 2004 :

I'm waiting to see what journalists are able to make of the president's Friday night military service record document dump. I don't have copies of them. So, like you, I'm waiting to hear what they find.

. . . Now, needless to say, if we were still operating under the rules that prevailed in the mid-1990s, James Carville would have been appointed Independent Counsel in the late summer of 2002 to investigate Halliburton. He'd have had the Intel shenanigans, the Plame matter and the Niger documents added to his brief since then. A cowed AG would have given him the Guard matter around the middle of last week. And in a couple days some FBI agents would be showing up on Calhoun's doorstep ready to squeeze him as silly as any freshly sliced wedge of lime in close proximity to a bottle of Corona.

Lucky for him Dems don't play so rough.

Lucky for us, voters do. When pushed far enough.

Papa was rolling stone.

Ananova:

Saddam's aide says dictator was 'heavily into drugs'

A former senior aide of Saddam Hussein claims the dictator was probably high on drugs when he decided to invade Kuwait in 1990.

Hmmmm. Drugs, lots of premium booze, tacky gilt furniture and lots of tassels, extensive porn collection, ferocious dogs. What we have here are Weapons of Mass Pimpin'.

War in Iraq + War on Drugs. Now THAT'S synergy!

(Of course, this leaves us pondering what these guys are on.)

Ahh, Geez.

First this...



Now this....




Oh, the humanity. Let's see what Mother J. has to say: A chronological timeline of our valiant boys travelling the warrior's way to manhood. One, sailing the elysian Mangrove-lined tributaries of Viet Nam. The other, battling the relentless Anopheles and Spanish Moss of Alabama.

link via Isebrand dot com

In Memoriam

Heraclius. Byzantine Emperor

Born: Carthage, 574

Died: Constantinople, February 11, 641

Son of a Carthaginian Exarch (territorial governor) of the same name, Heraclius liberated Constantinople. As prize, he was crowned emperor and inherited a Byzantine Empire under wide assault by Turks, Persians and Slavs. Heraclius restructured the military and reformed a corrupt public sector. After a dismal first few foreign policy years, losing Jerusalem, Egypt and Damascus, Heraclius took to the field at the head of his troops and succeded in driving the Persians out of Asia Minor. Turning again to domestic issues, as a devout Christian he tried and failed to quell discord between competing christian sects--basically, arguments about whether Christ was a God only, or a man and a God at once. Or something like that. While Heraclius was refereeing this fight, he was being blindsided by the previously fractious and ineffectual Arabs who had now been united and mobilized by Mohammed under "Islam". The Arabs retook Syria, Egypt and Palestine, pushing as far as Paris and reversing most of Heraclius' gains. He died, on this date, in 641, brilliant in battle but a failure at "the big picture," shamed by the destruction of the once mighty Eastern-Roman Empire.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Internationalist pro-engagement aware Democratic Presidential candidate of your choice.

[Prompted by an email reminder from the friendly folks at about.medievalhistory]

Blake, over at American Footprint noticed a daisy in the concrete of a New York Times editorial on the Administrations Environmental policy. Namely, the DoE's FutureGen project, announced by President Bush, a year ago thusly:

"Today I am pleased to announce that the United States will sponsor a $1 billion, 10-year demonstration project to create the world's first coal-based, zero-emissions electricity and hydrogen power plant..."

Sounds ginchy. But $1 billion... over 10 years? That covers one week of our extended demonstration project in Iraq. Blake points out that this appears to be the real deal, but projects like this tend to fall into the boondoggle machine and become virtuous-sounding fig leaves for yet more old style, old economy footdragging and pocket lining. Read his interpretation, he's found some great links to testimony from the National Resources Defense Council and others, here.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. And anticipate.

There are a pair of terms we've come to use in our company, terms my partners and I arrived at after seeing management and employee, company and consumer get at ridiculous cross-purposes to each other: Insulated Deciders. Isolated Deliverers.

Salon: [get the day-pass, it's free.]

"The biggest fear people have isn't terrorists," says Don Pellow, a full-bearded, burly former president of the main United Auto Workers union local at the Electrolux plant. "The terror is that they won't have medical care, not getting blown up in a taxi by an Iraqi."

It's not just their own fates at stake, either. If there are no jobs or only Wal-Mart jobs, says union president Carl Hoag, "there won't be any money to run the government .... How you gonna fix the state deficit if people aren't working?" And the impact will ripple further into the community. A local doctor, for example, will soon be forced to move by his health-plan employer. In all, local estimates say, the Electrolux shutdown will cost the economy here 8,000 jobs.

But the reaction of 74-year-old Mayor Walker to his failed effort to save the plant is a little more surprising. "It's a tough time for me," he said, reflecting on his experience in the cozy parlor of his home. "I've been a lifelong Republican. I have never voted for a Democratic president or a Democratic governor, but I think I'm going to change this year. I think NAFTA -- and I supported that -- is just killing the industrial strength of this country. Michigan is being hit especially hard."

(emphasis mine)

With the exception of extremely deep-pocketed organizations, we are seeing in the people who come to us for suggestions on how to get out of the ditch, an unusual, and deeply dispirited, alignment of those insulated deciders and isolated deliverers--management and employee.

While many influentials have focused on "anger" as the emotion du jour, the press, as per usual obsesses on the wrapping paper and not the present inside: Fear. 9-11 brought fear, but time eased the tension, despite overseas adventures and transatlanic distemper. This fear is different. It reminds me of an odd parallel, involving, of all things, cancer patients....

[Continued Here]

From Skippy: look for the union label...somewhere else

as if the ad nauseum repetition of his energizing rallying cry (as some sort of proof he was crazy) wasn't indignity enough, dr. dean suffered the embarrassment of having one of the key labor unions withdraw their support of his candidacy.

He links to the San Francisco Chronicle story on the AFSCME union defection then adds:

we refrain from pouring salt on any of the people-powered howard campaign's wounds. dr. dean did at least energize the democratic grass roots and helped national democrats remember where their spines were. now, if they can just find their balls...

Too true. And a shame really. Had Dean recognized two things he'd still be able to see the brass ring.

1. His pivot point was a month before Iowa zero hour, that's when his heat needed begin shifting to warmth. Base secure outside Iowa, he needed to transition. (Hindsight prophylactic: I said the same in October over at Calpundit). Anyway, I'm half english and I've learned that passion's a dodgy thing in this country, mid-western Americans (I'm married into a gaggle of them--SD, NB, IA, KS) regard it with suspicion, as do many everywhere, especially in business. TV only distorts it, hence,

2. It's Kabuki. I was shocked at Dean's lack of awareness and savvy on scream night. That was his national Star Search moment. No matter how much Dean wanted to change the system, he should have used it. His pre-primary opponent was the press a much as Bush and he didn't co-opt them, he lumped them in with the bad guys. True enough in many cases, but they're reactionaries, not progressives. They view everything win-lose and his novel means of ascension meant their decline in influence. William James:

The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. The point I now urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths . . . their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle; for by far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

[posted this on skippy's comments also]