More Electoral College Obsession

Recently the California State Senate approved joining the interstate compact to hand over its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote -- as is its right to assign electors in whatever manner it sees fit, and helping subvert my bete noir, the Electoral College. Lawyers, Guns and Money does the heavy lifting, so I can continue to focus on the script pages.

Walrus Magazine: Iran's Quiet Revolution

Walrus Magazine is one of my favorite magazines, for a variety of reasons. Even if you're not Canadian, I'd recommend it. Just having the view of international affairs from outside the high walls of American media, but without a lot of the sins of the BBC or The Economist, makes it worthwhile.

I'm not sure of its newstand availability, but it's worth the subscription for both print and online (although they should smarten up and open up their online archive after a certain date). My focus this month in on a pretty great article about the state of Iran by a journalist who recently visited.

Anyone who's somehow fallen for the hype -- completely forgotten the pro-US demonstrations in Iran after 9/11, how Iran aided us in prosecuting the war against the Taliban -- and now believes Iran is seething expansionist Islamofascist state chock-a-bloc with suicide bombers and Imams should read this.

If there is one new law of warfare we desperately need our Dear Leaders to understand, it is this:

Law of Modern Warfare #001: When you bomb people for their own good, they never, ever get your point in the way you hope.

Bomb Iran, and you unite the entire nation behind the nationalist strongmen who are just waiting for the moment we hand them the rallying cry. We already helped unseat the moderate President with the whole "Axis of Evil" idiocy. This would be the cherry on the Idiot Cake.

Let's even ignore, for a second, what'll happen to our supply lines in Iraq. And if you bomb Iran, and our troops get cut off in Iraq, I will indeed say "I told you so." Except I'll be in the Rose Garden with a fucking torch when I do so. Fair warning.

Rember the Soviet Union. Remember East Germany. Let the bosses rot in corruption, keep selling the kids jeans, cell phones and dreams of financial success until those trends collide. I know it doesn't stoke your need for a Grand Metaphor and Engorging Struggle for Liberty, but it's how we win. For chrissake, I'm only asking that you be as internationally engaging as REAGAN. Could you do that? Please?





(Oh, and Global Guerrillas is kind of mandatory right now. At least his recent summary on the state of war.)

Dissent

via Crooks & Liars -- I can only dip my head in respect. From tonight, about the vicious slur Rumsfeld committed against his fellow Americans yesterday. Go to the link for the video, it's worth it. But here's the transcript:

"The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald S. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday demand the deep analysis - and the sober contemplation - of every
American.

For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality or
intelligence - indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who
oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, they credit those same transient occupants - our
employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither
common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad,
suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of
human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the
kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still
fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it
is right — and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was
adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis.

For, in their time, there was another government faced with true
peril - with a growing evil - powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the
facts. It, too, had the secret information. It alone had the true
picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in
terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s - questioning their intellect and their
morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It "knew" Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone
England.

It "knew" Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all
treaties and accords.

It "knew" that the hard evidence it received, which
contradicted policies, conclusions - and omniscience — needed to be
dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already "knew"
the truth.

Most relevant of all - it "knew" that its staunchest critics
needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost
of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile - at
best… morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name… was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this
evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way
Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England
- taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his own
confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the
man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.
Excepting the fact that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute - and exclusive - in its knowledge, is not the
modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the modern
version of the government… of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscients.

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused… is simply this:

This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such,
all voices count — not just his. Had he or his President perhaps
proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin
Laden’s plans five years ago - about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago
- about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one* year ago - we all might be able to
swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful
recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own
arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or
intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to
Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to enveloppe this
nation - he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have - inadvertently
or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and
the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the
Emporer’s New Clothes.

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised?

As a child, of whose heroism did he read?

On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day
to fight?

With what country has he confused… the United States of
America?

—–

The confusion we — as its citizens - must now address, is
stark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when
men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and
obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier
Americans always found their way to the light… and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and
this Administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the
terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for
which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City,
so valiantly fought.

—-

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country
faces a "new type of fascism."

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew
everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he
said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

—-

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble
tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist
Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I
come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of
us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew
everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral."

Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954.

"We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction
depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be
driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history
and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men;

"Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to
defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

If I may, inadequately, add:

Dissent. Dissent dissent dissent. Dissent is why people died for you. Dissent is your birthright. Dissent when a Republican is President. Dissent when a Democrat is President. Dissent when your party is out of power, dissent when they are in. Your alliance is to the Constitution, not a party. You are a citizen of a nation of laws, not loyalties.

There is no wrong time for dissent -- good policy or truth is never harmed by having a greater light turned upon it. A war plan that can't survive pointed questions can hardly stand up against cunning enemies.

Remember why treason is the only crime specifically described in the Constitution -- because the Founding Fathers knew that charge would be the first out of the bag when the Powerful became uneasy, and they wanted to make sure it couldn't be abused. The Founding Fathers knew the first ones to call treason are the bastards.

Never, ever forget that.

Dissent dissent dissent. Question, probe, doubt doubt DOUBT until even the leaders you agree with beg forbearance with ragged voices. The ease with which the best men will become if not corrupt with power, far too comfortable with it, is frightening. Our will to dissent, to question, saves both them and us, their souls and our freedom.

You know the old saying: "A crowd is always just two meals from being a mob, as the dog is always just two meals from being a wolf."

We don't have to walk as wolves. But show them the goddam fang. Always.

How to Write Screenplays ... Badly

Slater and Whitehead's joint got a nod from WIRED magazine, Spetember issue. Remember your friends when you're big-time, boys.

Fisher House: Grand Total

Seeing as we're almost into September, I figure it's time to wrap up on the latest fundraiser. Also, there's no way I'm going to dupe the traffic any time soon I got from "FISA in One-Syllable Words" or Lions, the Electoral College Series, Bar Talk or particularly Scared -- which somehow wandered everywhere from Schneier to Andrew Sullivan of all places. And some libertarian blogs who I think would be a little goddam disturbed if they read the rest of my site.

The grand total for the fundraising from May through August was, in mostly $5-10 increments, a fine $2,618.23

Rounded to $2,620 and then matched from my funds, you've raised $5,240 for Fisher House. Nicely done. A special thanks as always to conservative but still cool Gaijin Biker, top donor yet again. Great to see the ex-pats stepping up for the hometown team. And soon I will finally convince him not to read Malkin. But until then, still buds.

All-in, the readers of this site have raised (since we started fundraising) $26,440 for everything from Army relief, wounded veterans' families, to Pakistani earthquake victims to Katrina aid. Or, minus my matching fund, about eight hundred dollars a month in constant donations. And again, mostly in $5-10 dollar increments. Not bad for a dinky little screenwriting/gaming/comics/political rant website. Nicely done, Monkeys.

I'll leave the Fisher House link up for now, and sometime in October we'll pick another charity. Suggestions always welcome.

Karr-toon Media

Still in page-count hell. Rather than slamming the media, as everyone else is doing quite rightfully and admirably, I do have a quick real question, and hoepfully one of our law-enforcement readers can help me out.

Why fly Karr to the US if a DNA sample is all it took? Why not just hold him in custody in Thailand? Do they not have advanced cheek-swab technology in Thailand?

I mean, the fine folks of Boulder paid for that perv's first-class ticket, right? Is somebody going to ask this question of that DA? I ask seriously, and please correct me if I'm not understanding -- was this justified as SOP in this kind of case?

Oh, and one quick mention to the media before I go back to work: I understand pretty dead girls are good ratings. So here are some. Maybe you could drag your asses over to take a look at this story, please? I know it's hard, and scary, because you might actually have to ask questions of Important People Who We Should Trust. But I have faith in you.

It's All Gone, Pete Tong

is on cable again, and I'm sucked in again. Not the least for Mike Wilmot, an old comedy friend, showing he has some pretty great -- and I mean great -- acting chops in that gravely-voiced bag of tricks of his. I call dibs on him for a show when I get back up North.