October 28, 2004
Eminem’s Mosh
For the past few days the blogworld has been buzzing about Eminem’s new video, Mosh. Directed by the Guerilla News Network’s Ian Inaba, this song’s driving beat, conveying a greater sense of urgency than even Eminem’s powerful “Lose Yourself,” urges voters disillusioned with Bush to remove him from power.
   
| There’s been a call-in drive to elevate this video to number one in MTV’s TRL. Last night, at least, the video was in the top 20. MTV was compelled to broadcast the video, but only part of it. They cut out two of the most powerful scenes of the video: a shot of a collage showing dozens of newspaper articles, their headlines announcing the grave misjudgments of the Bush administration. Before the collage stands Eminem, angrily pounding the walls.
The video proceeds to show several individuals dramatically affected by Bush’s policies: an urban black man, a target of racial profiling; a working mother about to be evicted from her apartment; a U.S. soldier ordered to Iraq. These individuals and many more begin to march/mosh behind the passionately rhyming Eminem. Their destination is revealed in the final scenes, which MTV did not show last night: the army of angry moshers storm the steps of a courthouse, not to riot, as it first looks, but to orderly exercise their right—and power—to vote. I’m disappointed but not surprised that MTV (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Viacom) did not show the controversial video in its entirety. “Mosh” is one of the strongest indictments I’ve seen of President Bush since Fahrenheit 9-11. Eminem has already been targeted by the FCC and FBI, and this video probably places him squarely on Bush’s enemy list. (More likely Karl Rove’s list, since Bush doesn’t read the news.) |
October 27, 2004
Embattled Presidents
Seeing Clinton on the campaign trail stumping for Kerry—a seemingly triumphant MacArthuresque return—brought back some memories of Clinton’s later years in office. One phrase that keeps coming back to me which the media used to the point of clichehood to describe Clinton in those years was embattled.
Simply doing a quick LexisNexis search in major newspapers for the phrase “embattled Clinton” or “embattled President” during Clinton’s second term in office shows over 250 results. “Embattled Clinton finds public support eroding,” announces the Boston Herald on September 20, 1998. “Embattled Clinton forges ahead; will public follow?” asks USA TODAY earlier that year, on January 28.
What was so embattling Clinton? Remember? Not his economic policies, not his environmental record, not his foreign diplomatic endeavors. Sex. Monica Lewinsky and Kenneth Starr’s pornographic report.
Now, I’ve done a similar LexisNexis search for occurrences of “embattled Bush” in lead paragraphs of major newspapers during the past five years. The results? Bush is called “embattled” only five times, and four of these are in the foreign press.
Why is it that, at this point in Bush’s presidency, so close to elections for a second term in office, with virtually every foreign and domestic policy of his administration an utter failure, Bush is not called “embattled” by the American media?
Is it because Bush’s biggest failures—Iraq and his war on terror—satisfy some sort of primeval desire in the American mind for violence? There can be no doubt about it: America is the most violent nation on the planet. And what we sometimes lack in real bloodshed we make up for in cinematic gore.
When it comes to sex, though, as the Clinton example demonstrates, America is the equivalent of a repressed Victorian.
Every evening, Americans can witness a dozen grisly murders on their television screens—and that’s before the 11 o’clock news—but show us one glimpse at a bare nipple during the Super Bowl, and it’s time to call in the morality police.
October 21, 2004
All in the Family
Thanks to the Political Wire for the alert:
A cadre of Bush’s second cousins have come out in forceful support of Kerry. On their site, Bush Relatives for Kerry, they announce that “blood is thinner than oil.” And they’re right.
Of course, as Political Wire also points out, Bush and Kerry are themselves cousins, twice-removed. It seems that something like 10 or 12 generations ago the children of Edmund Reade (1563-1623) and Elizabeth Cooke (1578-1637) married spouses who are direct forebears of President Bush and Senator Kerry.
October 20, 2004
Exxon Secrets
Last May I mentioned Josh On’s website They Rule, and lately I’ve been exploring his newest creation, Exxon Secrets. Produced with his wife for Greenpeace, Exxon Secrets details how funding from the ExxonMobil corporation funds influential institutions and think-tanks that promote anti-environmental agendas. In particular, these groups challenge at every turn all scientific proof of global climatic change. Since 1998 ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, has given over $12 million to organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the neocon American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (which has enormous ties—some might say a stranglehold—on the current Bush administration).
I should point out that these organizations not only strive to influence national environmental policy, they have also provided much of the ideological justification for the war in Iraq. Freedom! Liberty! Of course, whatever ideology says, the real reason for the war is oil. Exxon Secrets reveals, for example, the little remarked-upon fact that Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor, is a former director on the corporate board of Chevron, the world’s fourth largest publicly-held oil and gas company, with drilling facilities as far away as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. (Kuwait? Didn’t America do something there a few years back? Can’t remember what. But whatever it was, ChevronTexaco’s “production in the Partitioned Neutral Zone, between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, has more than tripled since 1990.”)
Chevron was so impressed with Rice, who served as a director from 1991 to 2001, that the company even named an oil tanker after her in 1993. Alas, in May 2001, shortly after Rice left Chevron to become Bush’s National Security Advisor, Chevron quietly renamed the Condoleezza Rice tanker to Altair Voyager. Chevron’s spokesperson said that this was simply “to eliminate the unnecessary attention caused by the vessel’s original name.”
They’re so modest, those oil companies.
Josh On provides a few more insights to Exxon Secrets in this online interview with the online zine Kopenhagen.
October 19, 2004
Popular Culture: The ENEMY
In the New Yorker’s recent account of George Soros’s multimillion dollar endeavor to oust President Bush, journalist Jane Mayer points out that“the astonishing amount of cash that Soros has poured into the Presidential race is nonetheless dwarfed by Republican efforts to influence public policy through private donations.”Mayer then highlights a report put together by Rob Stein, which details how a handful of absurdly wealthy conservatives have contributed millions upon millions of dollars during the past three decades to conservative and right-wing institutions and foundations, in effect “financing a war of ideas to tilt mainstream thinking in America rightward” (New Yorker, October 18, 2004, p. 188).
I hadn’t heard of Stein’s report, but apparently it’s been making news. First, this summer in the New York Times Magazine, and then in September in Harper’s. In the New York Times Magazine article, Matt Bai summarizes Stein’s report as demonstrating how conservatives have established a “message machine” that spends $300 million every year pushing its right-wing agenda.
Jane Mayer lists a few of the institutions that comprise the conservative “message machine,” and one of these instantly caught my eye: the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, funded in part by Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the 200 or so “anchor donors” for the conservative movement.
Why, the study of popular culture—that sounds like something right up my alley. Not much different from Pop Matters or PopCultures, right?
Not really.
The innocuously-named Center for the Study of Popular Culture is not the place to go if you want to read a feminist analysis of the latest episode of The Apprentice or to read thought-provoking explorations of hip-hop culture.
No, it’s the place to go when you want “constant updates on the ongoing crises of our day, from multiculturalism to the war on terror.” Yes, multiculturalism is a grave threat. And if Kerry is elected, I’m sure Dick Cheney would say, multiculturalism WILL STRIKE AGAIN!!!
Those wacky white billionaire conservatives. What will they think up next?
October 13, 2004
The Presidential Debate
The next few comments are all my attempt at “live blogging” during the presidential debate tonight. Except when I wasn’t yelling at my television screen I was trying to write. You can tell I was yelling quite a bit.
9:17 PM: Watching the debate…I don’t feel so hot. Our man is a broken record. Tora Bora again? There’s got to be more you can criticize Bush for during the war…
9:19 PM: So Bush is working with Canada to see if they’ve got a flu vaccine they can share? What about their killer drugs?
9:24 PM: The president just “whewed” in a falsetto. Man, that rocks. Did the bulge in his back tell him to do that?
9:30 PM: Let’s amend the constitution. Yeah! Give the citizenshry the power! Bush doesn’t want the courts to define marriage. So he’s going to do it for them.
9:36 PM: The horse and buggy days were BAD. I’m glad I know where Bush stands on that issue.
9:56 PM: “Border Governor”—I think Bush is talking about Texas, but I’m not really sure. Bush pantomines an illegal immigrant carrying a “card.” I would’ve thought he and Ashcroft would have preferred ID chip implants. Kerry says our borders are LEAKING. Could we sink? Should I buy flood insurance? Who do I sue? Uh-oh: Kerry’s the biometric fan.
10:11 PM: Kerry hunts. But wait, I thought he was French.
10:18 PM: Bush: You can worship the ALMIGHTY, but if you don’t want to, fine. It just means you’re not as good as me. And you’re going to rot. In the ALMIGHTY’s hell. Bush: God wants everybody to be free. Little did you know that God is actually a co-writer of the seventies feel-good show, Free to be You and Me.
10:26 PM: Bush met his wife at a barbeque in Texas. It’s like The Last Pictureshow in Texas all over again, but not.
October 09, 2004
Dred Scott
Is it just me, or did Bush’s remark in Friday’s debate about Dred Scott come out of bizarro world?
In response to a question about whom he would choose to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Bush referred to the Dred Scott decision, in which, Bush explained,“Judges years ago said the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That’s personal opinion, that’s not what the Constitution says. The Constitution says we’re all…it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t speak to the equality of America.”Does this make any sense? The only thing I can reasonably assume is that Bush means he would not appoint a Supreme Court justice who approves of slavery. Swell. How enlightened of Bush. I’m glad to know that he draws the line at reinstating slavery.
October 08, 2004
Florida, the Gift that Keeps on Giving
On Overstated, Cameron Marlow has created an interactive perl script that will scan the presidential and vice-presidential debate transcripts for particular phrases. For example, the Debate Analyzer lets you search for “hard work,” and you discover Bush repeated the phrase eleven times. The analyzer highlights the phrase and shows its context, enabling you to see that, in this case, Bush is mostly using it describe his job. Don’t you just feel so sorry for the man? Maybe he deserves some vacation time?
One thing I discovered with this tool is that in the first debate Kerry mentioned “Florida” twice, while Bush doesn’t mention the state by name at all, ever. It’s as if Bush is afraid to jinx the upcoming election by drawing people’s attention to the state. Pretty remarkable, considering the debate was held in Coral Gables, FL. Is Bush hoping Florida will once again be his trojan horse? Or is it a gift horse? Or simply a stolen horse?
October 07, 2004
Lies, Continued
There’s been so much debunking of the lies that Bush/Cheney are telling that I hardly need to repeat the truth here. But please pardon me if I do point out that I was saying they were liars all along.
Several blogs that have become daily reading in the run-up to the elections:Check ‘em out. They have their act together (and I don’t…Lists of Links are a poor man’s blog).
October 04, 2004
Ants
Feeling frustrated with your fellow Americans after looking at the latest presidential poll results? Vent with the Ant City game!
If the predictions are correct and Bush wins, can we all expect to be issued a “Visual Language Survival Guide”? — a glossy, colorful pamphlet given to U.S. troops and independent contractors in Iraq, intended to help Americans communicate with prisoners of war, enemy combatants, and the random Iraqi civilian.
The top image to left is presumably for those situations in which you’re not sure (a) if the sniper is in a building, and if so, which floor; or (b) if the sniper is behind a grassy knoll. (You know, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a link between Saddam and JFK’s assassination…Has Bush mentioned anything about that yet?)
The bottom image very helpfully allows you to politely inquire about where, exactly, the mad suicide bomber hid his explosives: (a) on his yellow sweater; (b) duct-taped to a stationwagon; or (c) carefully hidden on the side of his truck.
I’ve only got two comments about this image: damn, those are big ass sticks of dynamite. And, wow, can he really drive looking out the window like that? I mean, that’s a major safety hazard. If that’s the way Iraqis really drive, then they do deserve to be invaded, occupied, and subjected to American graphic artistry supremacy.
October 01, 2004
Fraud
In my local public library today I saw a copy of Paul Waldman’s Fraud: The Lies Behind the Bush Presidency, which systematically deconstructs the populist, plain-spoken persona of George W. Bush and reveals the deceitful, misguiding and misguided policies of the current White House.
I’m dying to read the book more closely, but I decided
I wonder, though, whoever does check it out, do they risk having their library records monitored by the FBI (perfectly legal and even encouraged by the PATRIOT Act).
