Category: Politics

The implication of this Metafilter post is that someone is providing soldiers with pre-written letters which they simply sign and send to newspapers. Or, according to this article, someone is signing the letters for them.

This kind of thing has been nicknamed astroturf — i.e., a fake grassroots. The Republican Party is fairly fond of it.

I think it’s more than usually repugnant when it’s used to misrepresent what our soldiers think, however. The men dying in Iraq deserve better than to have their views hijacked by a public relations flack.

The news that Ivan Reitman was named to Arnold’s transition team is only significant insofar as Reitman’s an old friend of David Cronenberg’s. I’m going to be very disappointed if we don’t start seeing biocybernetic devices propagating throughout California.

If I were part of any sort of political movement in California, I would pay close attention to this map. I would not waste time complaining about how foolish people were. I would figure out why the map looks like that, and take advantage of the reasons.

Talking about how it’s time to stop holding back counts as complaining, by the by.

Couple of things you may have missed in the excitement of the recall:

Condoleezza Rice is now in charge of Iraq. The State Department couldn’t get it done, and the Pentagon couldn’t get it done, so it’s the White House’s turn. Somewhat surprisingly, nobody told Rumsfeld.

Judge Brinkema decided that since Zacarias Moussaoui can’t introduce the evidence that might exonerate him, prosecutors can’t introduce evidence that might convict him. The government considered putting Moussaoui before a military tribunal, but perhaps realized that it might look as though military tribunals and the enemy combatant label were just terms of convenience. It kind of bothers me that the government is blowing the case against an admitted Al Qaeda operative — get the damned evidence out there and let’s see what’s what already.

Oh, and Arnold won. Cross your fingers that he lets Warren Buffet run the California economy. I don’t think that’ll happen, but honestly? It might just barely be worth the rest of it if someone as financially savvy as Buffet is getting California out of its budget problems.

Charles Kuffner is still the man for Texas redistricting news. At the moment, the Republicans can’t agree on a map. The Legislature has adjourned until Wednesday for Yom Kippur. They’ve missed the deadline for redistricting in time to get all the necessary changes made before the 2004 primaries, which means that if they want to redistrict now they have to reduce the importance of Texas in the presidential primary process.

Now, I suspect that the impending pressure of the end of the third special session (next Monday) may result in a deal before then. It’ll be very embarassing if Texas has to call a fourth special session to get this done, and it’ll probably squelch any possibility of the redistricting occuring before the 2004 elevtions, so I can easily see a few Republicans putting aside their redistricting differences.

But man. What a foulup on the part of Texas Republicans. Maybe redistricting was a bad idea to start with, huh?

Thanks for the responses (and the other responses). The inimitable regis makes the apples and oranges point, which I had in mind as well — the Dixie Chicks aren’t selling politicized songs. She also asks about quality. The book, from the chapters available, appears to be exceedingly poorly written.

Merlin notes that “Perhaps not publishing the novel could be seen as a leftist bias.” I’d disagree with that. One reason I care a lot about this particular book is because I’ve become convinced that media transmitters of extremist beliefs is a problem. (But not one that we should solve with censorship.) Baen does publish a reasonable spectrum of material — they focus on military fiction, which tends to be right-wing, but Spider Robinson gives them a touch of left-wing representation. But in general, yeah.

Giving money to hate groups is not my worry. I tend to be more concerned about validating and amplifying the beliefs of hate groups. It’s not so much the publication of the book which bugs me — I think that Kratman should get published. It’s the fact that the book was published by Baen, which means the ideas and poisonous concepts are going to be semi-legitimized in the minds of some readers. “Oh, sure, Baen does those funny military books with Sluggy Freelance references; let’s check this out.” And some will say “Ew, lame extreme book,” and some will say “Ha, knew it all along.” And some won’t say anything, they’ll just absorb it without thinking about it.

Those are the ones who worry me. So my reaction tends to be “educate, get the word out, spread the antigens.”

Anyhow, thanks for commenting. I actually wasn’t sure anyone would, and I’m honored.

Baen Books publishing repugnant Patriot Movement novels.

Dixie Chicks mouthing off about the President of the United States.

Appropriate reactions. Compare and contrast. I have my own thoughts but I’m curious. This is the first time I can recall making one of these “tell me what you think” posts, so disappoint me at your peril.

Baen’s taken that final step over the edge; they’re now publishing a book which goes beyond right-wing military fiction to embrace the Patriot movement. A State of Disobedience, by Tom Kratman, opens with a gem of a screed:

For the Republicans, however, the Democratic dream was a nightmare: thought control through linguistic control, micromanagement of the economy by those least suited to economic power, social engineering under the aegis of the most doctrinaire of the social engineers, disarmament of the population and the creation of a police state to rival that of Stalin or Hitler, at least in its scope if not by design in its evil.

Which is not the problem. This is America; we get to criticize politics we don’t like. Still, it’s a pretty big hint as to where Kratman is coming from. By the seventh chapter, he’s written about an evil lesbian Hillary Clinton look-a-like killing a man so as to become President; she promptly launches a Waco-style raid against a Catholic mission in Texas.

And — not terribly surprisingly — despite strenuous objections and cries of “Hey, he wrote a book with good gay people in it once,” Kratman’s more than happy to characterize book burners as “left-leaning gay and lesbian storm troopers.”

Don’t miss his signature file, either. “Lee surrendered; I didn’t.” Or the thread in which he blithely implies that the Irish have been “fucked with” more than blacks. Charming guy.

Yeah, none of these things by themselves are dead giveaways. However, the totality makes Kratman’s politics absolutely clear. Jim Baen read a manuscript which has the same elements you’d find in a Patriot Movement tract about the evil government and decided it would be a great book to publish. Perhaps his customer base will be enthused. Baen Books certainly makes a great transmitter.

Not to harp on Glenn, but I think this is actually an important general point: are bloggers amateur or professional? I think it’s past time we stopped equating “blog” with “amateur.”

In this post, Glenn defends his right to write about whatever he wants, which is a right I certainly support. He also says we shouldn’t use him as our only news source, which is commendable. However, he also says “And this is, as Eugene properly notes, an amateur activity.”

His very next post is a pointer to his TechCentralStation column.

He didn’t get the column gig because he’s a famous law professor. He got it because he’s a famous blogger. He’s not getting paid for Instapundit.com, but it sure has led to paying jobs. That doesn’t make it a professional pursuit, per se. Does it blur the line between amateur and professional? Of course it does.

Glenn Reynolds, once again, is confused.

THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.

If you follow the link, you’ll find Bill Hobbs ranting about a speech Joseph Wilson gave on June 14th, 2003. The very perceptive among us will notice that June 14th is somewhat later than the date on which Wilson went to Niger to look into the yellowcake assertions.

Let’s say you went to Niger to investigate claims that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq, and you found out that the claims were false. You made a report to that effect. Despite your report, Bush kept claiming that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq. It became an important component of his justification for war, and you knew it was a lie. It further became evident that the remainder of Bush’s allegations concerning WMD were inaccurate.

Might your views change?

What’s more likely: that Bush chose an investigator who was deeply and fundamentally biased, or that Joseph Wilson altered his opinions in light of the way his report was treated?

It kind of boggles me, in either case, that Reynolds could claim with a straight face that views Wilson expressed on June 16th, 2003 were a good reason to not send him to Niger in 2002.