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Although there hasn't been a new post here for over four months I see MEJ has gone over quarter of a million hits. We still average over 50 hits a day.
Don't forget the pamphleteers are still busy.
Ron at Newshoggers
Jazz at The Moderate Voice
Chuck at Chuck For....
Middle Earth Journal is now inactive although the pamphleteers aren't. Jazz can be found at The Moderate Voice , Ron can be found at Newshoggers and Chuck can be found at Chuck For... .
Ennui, I've been afflicted myself several times in the last couple months. The Democratic Primary drags on, ugly. The economy is stinking. The stupidity of ethanol has gained traction. We are not paying attention to what is going on with oil trading. Our kids are dying in for one man's stupidity. Sometimes I want to either cry or break things or just sit.
Does blogging do any good? I don't know, to a certain extent it is preaching to the choir, it also gives concrete voice to what many cannot voice. Sometimes it is a fresh outlook or rationale, sometimes it is just reinforcement. Sometimes it seems an entire waste.
Ron has been one of my regular stops from the beginning and he flattered me with an invitation to post here. I 've been an irregular poster, trying to have something fresh for two blogs is difficult for me. I'll miss this place. I hope Ron decides to come back.
This is the fourth anniversary of Middle Earth Journal and it seems like a good time to shut down for awhile. Jazz has a new a better soap box over at The Moderate Voice and I'm so discouraged I don't really have anything to say. I may be back - I may not, time will tell. I'm not really convinced it will really make any difference who is elected president in November. The country and the world's problems will not be addressed. We have reached Peak Oil and it's too late to avoid the pain. Climate change is real and the impact will be devastating. Now I don't know if it was ever possible to do anything about it but once again it's too late now. We are also at or near peak water and peak food. I think you could say we have reached peak people and there is nothing anyone can do. What will happen is the inevitable resource wars fought over not just oil but water and land where food can still be grown. They will make the War on Terror look like a minor play ground fight. So there is nothing I can do to make any real difference so I'm just gong to sign off for now. Thanks to everyone who has read and contributed to these virtual pages.
Still yet another reason to hope that the Clintons will simply go away:
It’s one thing for a good presidential candidate to embrace a bad idea. It’s worse when the candidate knows it’s a bad idea. It’s worse still when the candidate attacks her rival for failing to embrace a bad idea. And it’s the worst when the candidate feels so strongly about the bad idea that she starts running television commercials about it.Of course he's talking about Hillary Clinton and her support of John McCain's incredibly stupid gas tax holiday. Now we know it's stupid because Fred Barnes thinks it's a good idea. It's so stupid that even Thomas Friedman thinks it's stupid and He's rarely right about anything. Jonathan Alter calls it what it is:
Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year—an idea that actually could aid the terrorists. What's worse, both of them know that suspending the federal gas tax this summer is a terrible pander, and yet they're pushing it anyway for crass political advantage.So why is it so stupid? Alter explains:
Clinton and McCain have learned a destructive lesson from the Bush era: as Bill Clinton said in 2002, it's better politically to be "strong and wrong" than thoughtful and right. The goal is to depict Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. By any means necessary.
I could highlight a long debate among economists on suspending the gas tax, but there is no debate. Not one respectable economist—and not one environmentalist or foreign policy expert—supports the idea, unless they are official members of the Clinton or McCain campaigns (and even some of them privately oppose it). To relieve suffering at the pump, send another rebate check or provide tax credits or something else, but not this.
* It's a direct transfer of money from motorists to oil companies, which are getting ready this week to again report record obscene profits. If the federal excise tax were lifted, oil companies would simply raise prices and pocket most of the difference. Clinton's proposal to recover the money with a windfall profits tax on oil companies sounds nice but won't happen. That tax was easily blocked by the Senate in December and would likely be blocked again.What I have heard few talk about are the reasons behind the sky rocketing fuel prices. Of course we have reached peak oil which I first discussed here almost four years ago. But that doesn't explain why the US is being hurt much more than Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The reality is that oil costs a lot more dollars because the dollar buys a lot less. A majority of Americans now realize that the occupation of Iraq is responsible for much of our economic woes. That includes the price Americans pay for gasoline. The occupation of Iraq costs about three billion dollars a week. That money is all being borrowed driving up the national debt and driving down the value of the dollar. Now an gas tax holiday won't increase the supply of oil and if anything will decrease the value of the dollar driving up prices even more.
* It offers taxpayers only peanuts. The Congressional Budget Office says the average savings to motorists this summer would be a total of $30. Did I miss something, or was that measly number somehow not included in Clinton's explanation of her support?
* It sends more hard-earned money to the Middle East, which is terrible for our national security. Remember, 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia. How did they get the terrorist training? The madrassa indoctrination? Oil money.
* It worsens global warming by encouraging gasoline consumption. When you flee your house in 2020 because of flooding, remember which politicians pandered.
* It makes it more likely you'll have a car accident or will waste even more time in traffic. The proceeds from the gas tax go for highway construction and upgrades. Because the tax (24.4 cents a gallon on diesel fuel) was last raised 15 years ago, our infrastructure is a mess, with potholes and dangerous crossings practically everywhere. Thousands of repair projects will be further delayed.
* It will cost 300,000 construction jobs, according to the Department of Transportation. Makes it kind of ironic when Clinton starts her rallies saying she wants "jobs, jobs, jobs."
* It will cost the U.S. Treasury at least $8.5 billion and probably much more, according to state highway officials. For McCain that's no money at all—merely one month in Iraq. For Clinton it's money she's already spent. She has said in the past that any proceeds from a windfall profits tax would go for renewable energy. The $8.5 billion figure assumes the tax would be reapplied after Labor Day. Fat chance. The one-year costs are probably closer to $30 billion.
* It won't happen anyway because Congress isn't usually quite that stupid, and if it is, President Bush would veto the bill.
Much ado has been made of the so-called John McCain "flip flop" regarding his position on the fifty or one hundred year war in Iraq. Josh Marshall made quite a case about this, hinging on the fact that McCain was apparently "against having U.S. troops remaining in Iraq before he was for the idea." As was pointed out by Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, McCain's position may have evolved in light of facts on the ground and, he proposes, people should consider the fact that McCain is talking about a difference between war, occupation and "presence" where Americans are not suffering casualties and the occupied country is more of a partner with the Americans, such as in Germany and Japan. This, however, is exactly the area where I feel McCain has a tremendous weak spot which will be exposed if the media ever gets over the "honeymoon" period they have with Senator McCain as Josh Marshall notably points out.
My problem with this theory has long been that the difference between Iraq and Germany or Japan is not simply a difference of apples and oranges, but apples and aardvarks. They aren't even in the same phylum, class or family. This week I decided to go to some of the real experts on the subject and arranged a pair of original interviews. For the topic of Japan, I spoke today with Dr. John Dower in the first of a two part interview. (Look for a full interview transcript next week here on TMV.) Professor Dower is not some political hack or pundit. He is a historian and expert on the history of post-war Japan, the author of many numerous books on the subject, the recipient of multiple Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and the Bancroft Prize, all on Japanese history in the modern era. In our brief introductory session this week I asked him if there was any evidence of an insurgency against Americans by the Japanese during the occupation period of 1945 to 1952, similar to the Iraq insurgency. His answer was short and to the point.
Zero. There was zero evidence of any form of insurgency against the Americans in Japan during that period.
Starting last fall, we began to hear that U.S. policymakers were looking into Japan and Germany after World War II as examples or even models of successful military occupations. In the case of Japan, the imagined analogy with Iraq is probably irresistible.
The problem is that few if any of the ingredients that made this success possible are present—or would be present—in the case of Iraq. The lessons we can draw from the occupation of Japan all become warnings where Iraq is concerned.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright has not looked or talked like a minister in the United Church of Christ. He has looked like a ego driven huckster trying to get as much publicity as possible to sell his upcoming book. In the process he is making life very difficult for Barack Obama with the help of the corporate press and both the Republicans and the Clinton campaign. Was he in Clinton's camp all along or has he always just been in Wright's camp? In any event I think if you dusted his attempt to undo Barack Obama the last few days you would find the fingerprints of active Clinton supporters if not the campaign itself. Now Obama was very critical of Wright today and divorced himself from most of Wright has said the last few weeks.
"The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," he said. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church."Will it be enough to halt the feeding frenzy? Probably not but Clinton may become part of the feed not the feeder if she becomes tied to this.
"They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs," he said.
"If Reverend Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either."
The vile and hateful John Hagee is not running for president - John McCain is. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is not running for president - Barack Obama is. When John McCain tried to distance himself from John Hagee that was the end of it. But as Bob Herbert and Andrew Sullivan explain when Barack Obama tried to distance himself from Wright the corporate media, Reverend Wright himself or the Clinton Campaign will allow him to do so. And now we have this from Thom Hartmann - It was a Hillary Clinton supporter who arranged for for Rev Wright's appearance at the Press Club.
Hour One - Who arranged for for Rev Wright's appearance at the Press Club? Photo from the National Press Club's website and outed in a story by Errol Louis in today's NY Daily News, captioned: "Rev. Wright gets the inside story from Rev. Barbara A. Reynolds, the Speakers Committee member who organized the Wright breakfast. (Photo by John Metelsky)" According to Louis' article, Reynolds' website, which is now vacant of all text, had until today said that: "'My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you' to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency."This from Errol Louis:
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.Is this just another example of dirty Rovian politics on the part of the Clinton campaign?
Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.
A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).
It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.
On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.
The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."
Karl Rove's dream was a permanent Republican majority. After nearly eight years of the Bush/Cheney cabal the reality is far different. Fewer Americans identify themselves as Republicans than at any time in the last 20 plus years. And when you look at those between 18 and 29 it looks even worse.
It's no secret that Republicans have a brand problem; the gap between Dem and GOP party identification is greater today than at any point since the vanguard of the Reagan revolution, when Republicans held a double-digit advantage. Researchers at Pew have put a decade's worth of data through their analytical minds and come to the conclusion that the leading edge of the Democratic edge is among young voters. This isn't surprising, but it is noteworthy. Consider: Voters under 30 in the Midwest are twice as likely to call themselves Democrats as they are to identify as Republicans. 63% of women under age 30 identify as Democrats versus just 28% who call themselves Republicans. Democrats even have the affiliation of a majority of young men.As Jazz explains over at The Moderate Voice:
Among voters ages 18 to 29, in 1992 the split was 47 to 46 in favor of the Republicans. Today, Pew Research is showing that same demographic as breaking 58 to 33 in favor of the Democrats.
[.....]
Politically, today’s cohort of 18-to-29 year olds came of age during the Bush presidency. It has turned them into Democrats.
Two years ago I wrote Neocon Hillary where I discussed Justin Raimondo's commentary in the American Conservative Magazine, Hillary the Hawk. He quotes from a Hillary Clinton speech given on January 18, 2006.
“Let’s be clear about the threat we face now,” she thundered. “A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime’s pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not—must not—permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons.” To be sure, we need to cajole China and Russia into going along with diplomatic and economic sanctions, but “we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran—that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.”Now it may appear that Hillary as made a move to the center but the Boston Globe reminds us that not much has changed.
AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.It was not only dangerous but she sounded more like Dick Cheney or William Kristol that someone trying to get the Democratic nomination for President. At a time when it is becoming obvious to a vast majority that neocon policy and ideology has been a dangerous failure are the Democrats really going to nominate someone who talks like Dick Cheney? If the corporate media has it's way the answer is yes but it went virtually unreported.
This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.
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