Drew Westen: Hoping for Audacity

(HuffPo) The President is offering the public a series of stories that are all missing half the plot and half the characters–namely, the part of the plot that says how we got where we are (e.g., 50 million without health insurance, half a million losing their jobs every month, 1 in 8 homes foreclosed or in danger of foreclosure, 70% of our energy coming from regimes hostile to us and gas prices on the rise again even as demand has fallen)–and the characters responsible for those gaps in the stories. He is trying to sell health care reform without calling out the drug and insurance industries, whose profits have soared at our expense. He is trying to sell financial reform without pointing his finger squarely at the banks and speculators who bankrupted us. He is trying to sell energy reform without blaming the oil companies who racked up record profits as Americans racked up record debts paying for their gas. And he is trying to sell all of these essential reforms without mentioning that there’s been a party–not just nameless “naysayers”–that has been fighting every one of these reforms for decades. When the President does feel compelled on occasion to mention the people who not only put their interests above the public interest but are now funding the lobbyists and attack ads aimed at derailing his agenda, he speaks in passive voice about how “mistakes were made,” or refers to unnamed “naysayers.” The President’s hero is Abraham Lincoln, but it is the Lincoln who penned the Gettysburg Address, not the Lincoln who ordered Union troops to fire.

Roosevelt never made the mistake of letting Americans forget for one moment that the Great Depression was Hoover’s depression. And as Paul Begala noted this week on Bill Maher, Ronald Reagan, who inherited an economy in trouble and an American public that felt humiliated over our government’s inability to recover our hostages from Iran, never failed to blame Jimmy Carter for every mistake he ever made as President–and then some. We remember Reagan’s brilliant ad as “Morning in America,” when in fact, the first line of that ad was, “It’s morning again in American” (emphasis added). The ad was, indeed, inspirational in tone, but it was also relentlessly critical by contrast with the “dark night” of Carter/Mondale.

No one should have been allowed to play with our financial futures the way the banking industry did. No one should have been allowed to amass fortunes in the oil industry or in oil speculation as everyday Americans were loading themselves down with credit card debt to pay four dollars a gallon for gas. No one should have lost a job or a home because someone wanted to turn a quick buck and didn’t give a damn what the impact might be on millions of families, shareholders, or pensioners. No industry should have been incentivized to increase its profits every time it denied insurance to someone with a “pre-existing condition” or stamped “denied” on a legitimate medical claim.

Those are stories the American people need to hear. Those are stories conservative Democrats need to hear echoed from their constituents if they are going to do what’s right by them.

As the President is fond of quoting Martin Luther King, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.

Mr. President, now is the time to make it bend. Dr. King didn’t seek conflict, but he never avoided it. It’s time to follow his example.

AMERICAblog asks “Why are Democrats caving on Health Care?”

Why bother to have elections if you’re not going to use the authority that voters delivered? When a winning campaign is based on the theme of change, then change, dammit. The Democrats want to buckle under to the status quo special interests and win over Republican support. To hell with that folks. Look at the numbers which leave little doubt about which direction Americans want. More on the NYTimes/CBS News poll:

The poll found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.

Yet the survey also revealed considerable unease about the impact of heightened government involvement, on both the economy and the quality of the respondents’ own medical care. While 85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt, 77 percent said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their own care.

Because our elections have become, by and large, a ball of yarn for the kittens, a useful distraction, an illusion of some say in how this country is run.  Banking interests own the Senate, Health Care interests own the House; we’re never going to see Wall Street CEOs do perp walks and we’re never going to see a reasonable health care system in this country that doesn’t chain the wage-slave to his job.

I literally believe there are businessmen at the top levels of all industries who strongarm our government into getting what they want by threatening to just pull the plug on the economy and bankrupting this nation.  They and their families and friends have enough money to live anywhere in the world in the lap of luxury; why would they care if they had to sink one of their companies and can a whole bunch of workers in Representative Spineless’s district or Senator Blowhard’s state.  The Rep. or Sen. is the one who the people will fire, not CEO Douchebag.

This is the only way I can reconcile the health care issue.  Take my small niche, marijuana.  In 2004, Barack Obama is running for Senate and saying things like our war on drugs is “an utter failure” and that “our marijuana laws need to be decriminalized”.  By 2009, he’s laughing at marijuana law reform even as support for legalization is topping 50% in some polls, decriminalization enjoys 70% support, and medical marijuana enjoys 80% support.  So what changed?  I imagine the pharmaceutical arm of the health care industry, making bank on 20,000%-to-500,000% markup on the top-five best-selling anti-depressants and addicted return customers for the top-three opioid painkillers, doesn’t like the idea of people growing a bush in their backyard for free and cutting demand for those pills by 50%-to-75%.

Whenever you have a question about this country in the form “Why the hell does X happen when the people obviously want Y?” the answer is inevitably “Because wealthy people obviously want X.”  And by “wealthy”, I mean that in the Chris Rock sense (i.e., “not rich, wealthy.  Shaquille O’Neal is rich, the white man who signs Shaq’s checks is wealthy.”)

Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism and Princess Barbie Talibania

As I catch up on the news regarding the Christian Fundamentalist Terrorist* who assassinated George Tiller, I’m floored by the statements of the hate-spewing anti-abortion activists who are shocked – shocked d’ya hear? – about one of their own murdering an abortion provider.

(Christian Broadcasting Network) Randall Terry’s remarks and Scott Roeder’s alleged action against Tiller are not what pro-lifers are really about. Don’t get me wrong. Pro-lifers are frustrated and yes angry about the deaths of millions of these aborted babies.

One thing I will say for Scott Roeder is that he’s one of the few anti-abortion activists who really believes that abortion is the murder of babies. If I knew for a fact that there was a man in my town murdering babies, and the police knew and the people knew and nobody was doing anything to stop it, wouldn’t it be insane for me to allow that to happen day after day? Would you be content holding a sign or signing a petition to stop the bad man from murdering babies in your town?

These anti-abortion creeps are running like cockroaches now that the spotlight has focused on the rage they foment. They want to be able to have it both ways, to say that abortion is the murder of millions of babies, but no, we don’t want anyone to kill the murderer (an especially odd position for the non-Catholic pro-death-penalty anti-abortionist.)

Again, what would you say about a person who allows wholesale baby murder for near forty years, but doesn’t take direct action to stop it? It was inevitable that someone would take a look at the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” ethic and decide it is finally time to take action against baby murderers, especially when Christian theology is chock full of martyrs who disobeyed man’s law in order to implement God’s law (and this is the God who sent she bears to massacre 42 children for teasing Elijah about his bald head, so all bets are off regarding what “pro-lifers” are really about.)

Sorry, you can’t call abortion “America’s Holocaust” and then convince me you’re upset that someone assassinated Hitler. Hate speech has consequences.

*Hey, rhetoric that’s good for the Islamic goose is good for the Christian gander. Hmm. Islamic goose, is that even halal? Continue Reading…

California Supreme Court rules majority can take away minority’s rights

Today the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, the constitutional amendment that took away the right of gay people to marry in the state.  The majority may now invalidate a minority’s rights at the ballot box.

Remember, this isn’t the same as the other couple of dozen states, like Oregon, that have banned gay marriage in their constitution.  In those states, the right for gays to marry did not exist.  In California, the court declared the right for gays to marry to be a constitutional right, and then the haters passed the constitutional amendment to take away that existing right.

Strangely enough, the Court left intact the marriages of some 18,000 gay couples who exercised their right before Prop 8 passed.  I guess somehow that 18,001st gay couple to get married would’ve been the trigger for gaypocalypse or something.  Weird, isn’t it, that 18,000 gay Californians have a right that hundreds of thousands of other gay Californians do not, a right the 18,000 would lose if they ever got divorced.

Conceivably, a majority of Californians could pass constitutional amendments to ban anyone from anything, so long as they didn’t touch the federally-protected classes of gender, religion, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, familial status, disability, or veterans status.  No decision on rights from the California Supreme Court can be considered final, because the majority could always overturn it.  This is much bigger than a ban on gay marriage, this sets precedent for the majority to take anyone’s rights!  A right isn’t a right if it can be taken away; it’s a privilege.  The California Supreme Court just decided that all rights in the Republic not granted by the federal constitution are now just privileges, granted unto you by the majority.

The reaction from some of the knuckle-draggers has been predictable.  This on from the HuffPo comments is typical:

There is ONE and only ONE fair solution to this problem and it is the same solution that has been proposed by many people including Elton John. Homosexuals should be granted all of the same rights, benefits of married heterosexual couples, the union should be identified by a different term than “marriage”.

Homosexuals don’t seem willing to accept that and I think that it speaks volumes to the underlying intentions.

Great point! Just like little black kids in the 1950s should be granted all the same rights and benefits of education as the white kids, but they should be housed in separate buildings identified by a different term than “schools”.

Strange how gay folks don’t seem willing to accept their lifelong loving partnerships being trivialized by straights as some sort of “sub-marriage” or “alternamarriage”. Homobigots don’t seem willing to see gay folks as equals and their need to cling to a word speaks volumes to the underlying intentions. You’d grant an equal marriage so long as it isn’t called “marriage”? It’s really just an eight letter word you’re hung up on?

Is marriage religious? Fine, keep it in your church, take government out of it completely, and ban anyone from it who makes you uncomfortable. But if marriage is a civil institution with government benefits, all citizens get to participate equally. Restricting one’s choice of lifelong partners to just half the population isn’t just homophobic, it’s sexist!

It will be fun being a cynical old coot, someday telling my grand-nieces and nephews about the days when we used to openly discriminate against gay people… if I can get past their holo-tattoos and cyber-implants.

Back to the Blog! And Very Very Important Subjects!

Howdy, Radicals!  It’s been a long time since I posted here.  I took the end of my show pretty hard and every time I thought about posting here again it just made me sad.  Thank you so much for all the emails and comments expressing your love for the show and missing it.  I miss it, too.

Many people have asked if I am returning to the air anytime soon.  Probably not.

Here’s the deal: Not only was I the host of the show, but I also had to produce it, engineer it, record it, write it, sell it, promote it… basically aside from Stevie doing a fantastic job with answering phones and running the live engineering, everything about The Russ Belville Show was done by me.  I won the talk radio contest and they put me on XM with no budget, no staff, no advertising, and no promotions.  In fact, they were going to dump me six months into the deal when I rose a stink about being promised “a year-long contract” for winning the contest.  As it turned out, being on for twenty months was 14 months longer than they expected and 8 months longer than I expected.  Every show I put on the air actually ended up costing me $67 by the time you work through all the income vs. expenses.

(You want an idea why progressive talk radio is in the shitter?  Do you think it is the talent of the hosts, or… y’all discuss it; any speculation from me would be seen as ’sour grapes’.)

Now, if someone from a progressive talk radio network called up and said, “Hey, we found your old shows and thought you’d be a hit.  We’ve got a studio for you, a producer, and an engineer.  We’ll begin a big ad campaign and we can start you on five of our network’s stations right off the bat.  Interested?”, I’d be in the air faster than freeway chase in LA.  But doing it all myself?  No, never again.

So, what after three months has inspired me to return to the Radical Writ?  Is it Obama backing away from nearly every campaign pledge?  Is it the not closing Gitmo, not prosecuting torture, bringing in the insurance industry to ruin health care talks, giving money hand over fist to Wall Street thieves, snickering at the marijuana legalization question, not ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and tacitly endorsing every right-wing fraidy-cat terrists-gonna-kill-us FOX talking point?

Yeah, sure.  But first, I want to talk about something REALLY important: the embarrassment that was the selection of Kris Allen as the next American Idol.

Michael Glitz writes at HuffPo:

But for a theory about how Kris pulled an upset over the wildly popular Adam Lambert, the Christian vote is a pretty good one. It’s certainly one factor. (So is talent, Tiger Beat ready looks and viewers who get tired of being told someone is a lock when they haven’t even voted yet.) In fact, look at seasons past and where there’s a clear Christian vs secular showdown, the Christians have been winning handily. Take that, Charles Darwin! Sometimes the survival of the fittest goes to the person with the best telephone prayer chain. Check it out. (And please keep in mind I’m not talking about their personal faith, just our perception of it from what we told on the show at the time they were competing. Someone I describe as worldly might be exceptionally devout while the contestant prominently sporting a cross might be at the juke joint on Saturday and never even make it to church on Sunday.)

Season One featured wholesome Kelly Clarkson vs the worldly, media savvy Justin Guarini. Clarkson won big time and set the standard for Idols to come.

Season Two: Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard both held forth on their faith. Ruben had an edge perhaps from the tight-knit black churches that came out strong for him. But this was a Christian vs Christian finale so you can’t draw any conclusions from this one.

He continues on through the current season, pointing out how the contestant with the most “God cred” wins the Finals.  (However, for Season 2, while both Ruben and Clay had the God card, don’t forget that Clay was “teh gay” for those Christian viewers.)

But I think the true theory is the Southern AT&T Text Messaging theory, only with the Christian vote acting as tiebreaker. In Idol voting, you’re allowed to call or text in ten votes per line. However, calls get you busy signals and you have to keep redialing to get just two votes, much less ten.

Text messaging, though, gets no busy signal and you can send in ten of them in the time it would take to get through one Idol phone call. Now, understand that anyone can call, but only AT&T subscribers can text, and AT&T’s subscriber base is largest in the South.

So when watching Idol Season 9, ask yourself, “Who would a 13-year-old girl in Mobile vote for?”

Evidence?

Allen (Arkansas) vs. Lambert (California)
7) Cook (Missouri) vs. Archuleta (Utah)
6) Sparks (Arizona) vs. Lewis (Washington) (Religion wins tiebreaker)
5) Hicks (Alabama) vs. McPhee (California)
4) Underwood (Oklahoma) vs. Bice (Alabama) (Religion breaks tie)
3) Fantasia (North Carolina) vs. DeGarmo (Georgia) (Religion breaks tie)
2) Studdard (Alabama) vs. Aiken (North Carolina) (”Not gay” breaks tie)
1) Clarkson (Texas) vs. Guarini (Pennsylvania)

What are the chances you’d get three finalists from Alabama and only two from California? Or that ten of sixteen finalists would be from former Confederate States and zero from the Northeast?

The Russ Belville Show is CANCELED

It saddens me to report that I have just received a call from the VP of Original Talk for the newly-merged XM/Sirius Satellite Radio to inform me that, effective immediately, The Russ Belville Show will no longer air on satellite radio. This will also mean no more replays on AM 620 KPOJ as well.

It has been a fantastic experience, from entering the local KPOJ contest and winning to visiting Washington DC for the first time to win the national contest. I’ve met Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Bill Press, and other behind-the-scenes radio professionals, all of whom have been extremely generous in helping me to become a talk radio host. I’ll never forget it.

In a way, this is a blessing. As many of you know, I am the Associate Director of Oregon NORML , a non-profit dedicated to ending adult marijuana prohibition. Since April 21, 2007 (debut of the show), I have been unable to participate in our twice-monthly Saturday meetings where we help desperate medical marijuana patients acquire medicine and plants. Those meetings were a big spiritual part of my life – cannabis church, if you will – and it lifted my soul to help sick, disabled, and sense-threatened Oregonians find free alternative health care and learn about political activism. Now I will be able to return to those meetings just in time to help patients fight discriminatory legislation currently in the Oregon statehouse .

Also, time demands on my life have been stretched to the breaking point. I continue my work as the blogmaster/podcaster for NORML (http://stash.norml.org ), producing a 45-minute news/music/interview show that is downloaded by tens of thousands of listeners per day. My reporting is read by 5,000 per day, with traffic doubling week after week. I anticipate this job to continue to grow, and I was already trying to figure out how to balance the podcast, the blogging, my marriage, and a radio show. That decision has now been made for me.

To my current engineer, Stevie: We’ve been sacked!, but cheers, mate, all is tickety-boo, despite Sod’s Law biting us in the knickers the past couple fortnights. You’ve truly been the dog’s bollocks and I was a jammy bastard to get a chum like you engineering the sounds coming our of this Yank’s cake hole.

To my first producer, Woody: thanks for believing in my talent and teaching me the Prime Directive of Talk Radio (”Be Good. Don’t Suck.”)

To my first engineer, Peter: thanks for throwing the Bill Press substitute gigs my way and riding herd over a newbie talker.

To my mentor, Thom: thanks to you and Louise for all the advice – you’re still the top talker in my book and the smartest man it has been my pleasure to dine with.

To all my listeners: Thank you for your calls and emails and appreciation. I have actually noted every single call I have received on the air, by name and location, and I will post the Google Earth map of it soon. It’s amazing to think of all the people across this continent whom I have spoken to in 21 months! And now Dave in Chicago has to call someone else on Saturday mornings.

To my current engineer, Stevie, again: I apologise again for the end of the radio show. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked. The rest of this email has been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.

On to the next adventure…

“Radical” Russ Belville
Host – NORML Daily Audio Stash
Associate Director – Oregon NORML

Special assistance from “Ralph” the Wonder Llama.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

After pointing out that George W. Bush left us with 71% more unemployment, 2% less median income, 37% less value in the stock market, 13% less domestic oil production and 13% more foreign oil imports, and an 86% higher national debt, Devilstower at DailyKos points out that it’s not because Bush was a bad president, but because he was a perfect Republican.

Bush wasn’t just a Republican president, he was the Republican president. Bush was the guy who took everything on the GOP platform seriously. He went to bat for every idea that ever got the official elephant nuts seal of approval. The record that resulted isn’t just a measure of Bush’s incompetence, it’s a measure of just how bad Republican ideas are in practice.

Republican insistence that the market could be self regulating wrecked the market… as it has every time it’s been tried.

Republican insistence that rewarding folks who already had loads of cash was the best way to spark the economy failed to make things better for the average American and widened the gap between rich and poor… as it has every time it’s been tried.

Republican insistence that giving the oil companies billions would result in a burst of domestic production failed… as it has every time it’s been tried.

Republican insistence that the market alone would position us for our energy future left us more vulnerable to those who control overseas oil resources… as it has every time it’s been tried.

January 24th – Not wanting to be a Best of…

Hey, Radicals, if you’re listening now and thinking, “Bummer, it’s a repeat,” then join the club.  I was ready to go on air when a critical piece of communications equipment over in Stevie’s studio in Washington DC gave us an “error”.

Stevie’s on the job trying to fix the botch and take the spanner out of the works, and hopefully we’ll be on live later in the show.

I deeply apologize, listeners, and really wish I was talking to you for my first show of the Obama Administration… you’re going to love my take on John Roberts administering the oath… –”R”R

Merrill Lynch pays out $4 bn in bonuses covered by TARP funds

The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $15 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion.

That’s way more than just an outsized sense of entitlement, that’s flat-out stealing.  And the money for this comes from, you guessed it, the US government. The Bank of America was prepared to back out of the deal once the size of the Merrill Lynch loss became apparent. The deal was completed only after guarantees of government money by the US Treasury.

What’s more, because Congress is so up close and personal with all their friends on Wall Street who donate so generously to their re-election campaigns, those bonuses are not subject to payroll tax and are treated as long term capital gains income, taxed at a mere 15%. Since the payroll tax is just over 15% (half paid by the employer), they essentially are paying less tax on their income than minimum income wage slaves.

I read another blogger who had compared the financial bailout to the incident of Colin Powell waving around the vial of anthrax.  There was no anthrax, but boy, the fear of the anthrax made everyone forget commonsense and asking questions and taking things slowly.  Same with the Wall Street “crisis”, waving around these “toxic securities” like anthrax, screaming that if we didn’t do something immediately there would be grave consequences, right now, no questions asked, give us money, no oversight!

Show 2009-01-10

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Richardson bows out of cabinet, Israel/Gaza conflict with Saleem Siddiqui from HotConflict.com, compromising with a failed ideology.

Continue Reading…