Good News and Thursday Open Thread

 

Oh L'Amour - Erasure

(From back when the straight kids first starting going to gay clubs.) 

Great news from Washington State where the Senate has just approved a marriage equality bill by a vote of 28-21.  They even managed to snag four Republican votes in the process.  The House is expected to pass the bill as well, and Governor Christine Gregoire, who was so enthusiastic about the bill that she stood on the Senate floor throughout the vote, will sign it.  And just like that another victory for equality.  Expect Maryland to follow suit soon.  And then possibly New Jersey.

I'm down in southern Florida for a couple of days filled with meetings, so posting may be a bit spotty.

Carry on without me if need be.

Comments

[Greg]

What happened to all the other original authors? Especially Stephen? I generally read the blog through RSS but I don't recall reading something from Stephen in quite a long while. Anybody know?

[Lo]

Everyone who follows Sir Charles' consistently witty if not cynical blog posts, please take a moment to wish him a Happy Birthday today!

[Sir Charles]

Greg,

Everyone else has, for their own reasons, drifted away. I think it is fair to see that Stephen was finding that writing about politics wasn't making him particularly happy after a while.

Lo,

Thanks. I'd like to think the posts are only suitably cynical and not overwhelmingly so.

[low-tech cyclist]

Happy birthday, SC! Sorry you're having to spend it on the road.

And yes, that's great news from Washington state! And given that Maryland was really close a year or so ago, hopefully we'll be next.

[low-tech cyclist]

Good news and bad news:

The good: Unemployment, by any measure, is actually declining. As Kevin Drum points out, U-3, U-4, and U-5 are all down by about 1.5% since their peaks in the fall of 2009. U-6, the broadest measure, is down by 2%, and down by 1.7% just since November 2010. (Definitions here.)

They're still way too high, but if they continue to decline, it'll make Obama's re-election much more likely.

The bad: Mitch Daniels just signed Indiana's new 'right-to-work' law.

If the Dems had any idea of how to play this game, this would be the election where we won back the white working class, at least across the Midwest. Because the GOP, from Pennsylvania and Ohio all the way out to Wisconsin, is doing a great job of demonstrating just whose side they're on, and it's not the side of working men and women.

And as SC pointed out a few days ago, the GOP has basically never done anything to try to solve any of the problems facing working men and women. But when the stockholders and the big bosses sneeze, the GOP is there with a gold-plated box of tissues.

I'd love to see the Dems run a series of "Whose side are they on?" commercials about the GOP. With the answer being, on the side of your boss' boss' boss, and on the side of guys like Mitt Romney who buy and sell companies, like the one you work at, before breakfast each day.

[oddjob]

Stephen mentioned some time ago that he needed to take a break from political blogging.

[Paula B]

Happy Birthday, Sir Charles! Florida, gee, that's tough. We'll be thinking of you up here in the New Tropics.

And, terrific news about Washington State. I don't see how NJ and MD can hold out much longer.

Responding to l-tc, I wrote something off research done a few years ago by Harriet Epstein at UMCP, into quality of life issues within service occupations (hospitality, health care, entertainment, shipping, back office data management), which are part of the job sector showing the most growth today. Most service workers are female and many of them, members of minority populations. The jobs tend to be second or third shift, bringing a host of social and health-related problems to workers and their families, including high divorce rates, difficulties with child rearing, high rates of cancer and heart disease, etc. We might want to adjust our model of the white working class, accordingly. Sir C, does any of this resonate with your experience with associated unions?

[jeanne marie]

Happy Birthday! Cheers!

[oddjob]

This short, easy to read, to the point interview was in yesterday's Boston Globe (hopefully not blocked by a paywall) and I think it's worth reading:

How the farm bill affects consumers

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Happy Birthday, Sir C. (Was it really a year ago since we were saying it?) And may this upcoming year be for you what this calendar year -- so far -- has been for me. There have been stumbles, set-backs, and disappointments, but overall, I've seen more 'reasons to be cheerful' (and optimistic) personally and politically in these few weeks than in any year in the last dozen. May you feel the same about the past year on your next birthday.

l-tc: "If the Dems had any idea of how to play this game..." We're "Dems" too, and while we sometimes get distracted by the conversations and diversions in the dining area, we have a seat at the table too. [Insert standard Pruppish rant here.]

Let's make use of them and shove our own chips into the pot.

[kathy a.]

happy birthday, sir charles!

that really is great news from washington state!

"right to work" is another amazing euphamism, seeing how it means "the right for us to break worker protections."

i've been a little perplexed about the focus lately on "white" working class people -- because working people in general are being hurt in similar ways. but the GOP counts on fomenting resentment and division.

they will not blame the policies of corporate overseers for job losses or economic unfairness; instead, they hope that people who lost jobs will blame those who found jobs. it's getting to be an old tune, those women and colored people stealing "our" jobs, stealing "our" places at good universities, etc.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

kathy: Let me suggest a slightly different spin on the point you make. The white 'working class' self-defines itself as 'middle-class' and reserves 'working class' for minorities. (In this case also classic 'ethnic minorities' like the Italians, Serbs, Poles, even the Irish -- and to a great extent the only white working class that considers itself 'working class' are those groups -- and members of those groups that identify with 'the old country.' For some of the others, they may admit they are working class, but they still identify with the middle class they see their children entering.)

So, when a progressive talks about 'helping the working class' the whites don;t go "Hey, he's talking about us, let's pay attention to this guy."

No, they think "Here he goes again, using code that means helping 'them'" (whoever 'them' is in his mind at that moment) "... at our expense."

We need to keep on pushing our same plicies, but we need to emphasize that they are as good for the 'middle class' -- that part of it that the above workers see themselves as inhabiting -- as they are for the 'working class.'

In fact, we need to build a bond between the workers and the true lower middle class of small, local business owners -- not real estate agents but grocery store, liquor store, bar, and dry cleaner owners -- in much the way we have traditionally -- and with less justification -- tried to build alliances between workers and farmers.

And one way, btw, would be to remember, when we talk about the 'dignity of work' that no one shows it as strongly as these -- so often minority themselves -- business owners. And there's no law guaranteeing them 'time-and-a-half for overtime.' They get 'time-and-a-half' only if the extra hours bring in enough business.

[low-tech cyclist]

Jim - I've never figured out how to find my seat at the table when Dems running for Congress are deciding what issues to campaign on. I'm not in the room, or the building, or even the right zip code.

kathy - the reason I am talking about the white working class is that blacks of any class vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and given the GOP's recent antics, I think we'll get a hefty majority of the Hispanic vote this time around. I don't have to ask why they're voting Republican despite what the GOP does to make their lives worse, because they're not voting Republican to begin with.

But the white working class has been voting Republican for the past third of a century. Seems it's time to try to bring them back.

[Paula B]

Whoops, make that Harriet Presser, and her book is Working in a 24/7 Economy: Challenges for American Families, see http://hvrd.me/xi6Ea7 This story is older than I thought, from 2004, and numbers regarding service workers may be different today. Whatever, the point is we're not really talking about Archie Bunker here as your typical wwc worker. At least, not in jobs that are expanding/available.
Construction is a different story.

[kathy a.]

yep, LTC. romney's not a bad candidate to help us with that, either. he's got the "born with a silver foot in his mouth" thing going; and he lacks W's visceral appeal (baseball and oil fields, not that shrub actually played ball or worked in the fields).

[Davis X. Machina]

it's time to try to bring them back.

I'm not sure repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a viable political strategy.

[kathy a.]

ha! dxm, you truth-telling rogue.

[nancy]

♬ Happy Birthday Sir C. Cheers!

More good news from Washington state -- we could be about to deliver a bonus by the end of the year. Some think that the legislature might go ahead and move on this rather than waiting for the ballot. Woot.

[jeanne marie]

Re-Think Pink

[Sir Charles]

Thanks to all of you for your kind wishes.

kathy,

I think many of us are obsessed with the white working class vote because, as l-t c notes, it drives us crazy that so many people in this cohort vote Republican. It is mind boggling really. These people essentially deliver the margin for Republicans in every election. (The Democratic Party virtually never carries the white vote.)

Paula,

And some of the obsession with the more traditional white working class -- especially working class men -- is that 1) I work with them almost exclusively; and 2) they tend to be a really bad electorate for progressives. We do far better with white women -- other than in the South, where racial attitudes seem to overwhelm every other consideration. (And claims that people in the north are just as bad do not withstand scrutiny on the voting behavior front. Obama carried the white vote in about 18 states, but in the deep South he basically got between 12 and 25% of it.)

nancy,

Ah, stoned people getting gay married. Washington is trying to become like the coolest place out there.

[kathy a.]

exactly, jeanne marie!

the central question for this election -- well, it always is the question, but this time the question is prominent -- is "who is going to help you? who is going to help us all?"

romney as the protector of the workers is an awfully hard sell, from many angles.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

[TP actigup, anther two-parter]
l-tc: We can't sit at the table, but we can help supply the kitchen. We can produce the issues and make them issues, and then let the candidates decide what to do with them. That is pretty much what the TP did, we don't have to be that vicious 'against our own' (Inglis, Castle, Bennett) but we have an advantage -- we don't have to make shit up.

Take Komen, for example. I could see it used against a Republican who jumped to their defence -- even unknowingly, I lost my halo and might accept 'unfairness' here against someone who deserved it for other things. (Has anyone but Vitter done so? Sadly, in both senses, he was re-elected in 2010.)

It could be used as a 'springboard' issue: "If Komen was wrong for trying to defund Planned Parenthood for political reasons, then what about the Republicans in state and federal legislatures who offered or co-signed bills doing the exact same thing, only with 'force of law' behind them?"

Ideally (dream on, Prup) it could even be a 'pivot issue' allowing peope to reopen the abortion discussion from a whole new angle, and this time to defend it as a right, and not as a pity-gift.

I'm sorry (here he goes again) but that's the idea behind all my campaigns, to create an issue -- in fact, to take an issue that is being ignored -- and shape it so it is aimed right at the Republican heart, then bring it to public attention and -- while not tarnishing our 'white hats' by exaggerating or lying -- making people discuss it.

And, damnit, that's what the blogosphere is good for, not just talking to each other and patting each other on the back for phrsing our mutual agrement particularly cleverly, not for discussing the third level distillate of a blimp-related post.

We can and we do create issues, we can and do push candidates, and we do a pretty damn good job of it -- or did in 06 and 08.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

[Part Two]

Look what happened in 36 hours with Komen. Imagine how the story would have been covered if we hadn't intervened, as a 'she said/she said' dispute between two women's organizations. (If they haven't changed it for the web, that's the way today's print NY DAILY NEWS did handle it.)

We changed the story by marshalling information, and by getting an incredible number of people actually taking action instead of simply considering it -- or dropping Komen silently. We brought together the threads of Koch involvement, Handel, then finally Brinker, and we stitched in the threads of 'they sue other charities' and 'administrative costs' -- oddjob, your quote was brilliant way back there. It's a different story now, and we 'magnified the damage causing factor' by ten with what we did. Komen expected a little bad publicity, not the firestorm we caused.

Sir C: much to say but called away for a bit. Again, any comment on my piece above and the 'working class problem.'

[oddjob]

other than in the South, where racial attitudes seem to overwhelm every other consideration

Even if race weren't a factor the rest of the cultural values would still keep anything useful from happening. They voted for Jimmy Carter because he was an evangelical Christian and so they thought they were voting for one of their own. That turned out not to be the case (he was from them, but not of them) and they haven't ever forgotten.

[oddjob]

romney as the protector of the workers is an awfully hard sell, from many angles.

I think a Romney nomination will make Scott Brown's re-election chances worse than if he was running for re-election on his own during a mid-term election. (I also think that's true of pretty much all of the remaining candidates with the slightly possible exception of Ron Paul. However I'm more inclined to suspect that a Paul nomination would hurt Brown, too.)

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

[before oddjob's comments]
Sir Charles:
First, there are a lot of components to the white vote we have lost. I'm not going to try and discuss reaching them here, but I will mention them. And there is considerable overlap between groups -- and of course I am discussing 'tendencies' not absolute rules. For clarity (?I hope) I'm choosing those members of a group whose 'self-definition' starts with that membership. (Inudderwoids, a farmer could start off calling himself a Baptist, a German, a business man, a Hawkeye, a 'father of a son who's a dpctor,' or many others. I'm thinking of people whose self-description starts "I'm a farmer who is also..."

Farmers (the idea of a Farmer-Labor Party, today, or even a pitch towards a 'community of interest' would be seen as so Thirtyish we'd be expected to reintroduce the Townsend Plan next.) We face two barriers. Some of them believe the myth that they are 'dependent on help from the community and their neighbors, but they are independent of the government, which only causes trouble." (It is a myth, but they sincerely believe it, and won;t take our word that it is a myth. They need to 'unlearn it' and that's a slow process. We need to start it, but it's not going to show many immediate results. Others get government subsidies -- and while we hear about the millionaires, for small farmers they make the difference between keeping the farm and losing it -- and they are afraid 'liberals' -- who they assume don't understand their problems -- will take them away. They are more reachable, but not by running crypto-Republicans who can only seem phony or unnecessary;

Professionals, with a drop off in younger ones (who are particularly susceptible to pressure from the climate created by older peers, and by the climate of their new neighborhoods as they move with success -- particularly if they have been too busy learning their profession to pay attention to politics, something we ignore when we equate grad student with 'politically literate.' (These people are as caught up in their profession as athletes are in theirs, and if the athletes have more time for partying, the professional wannabee is spending his studying. Maybe some of them are progressive by nature, intelligence, or family background, but even then they have little time to learn or act.) And that 'drift rightward' can carry with it members of the family, not just immediate family but siblings, parents, even cousins, especially if the family features 'family dinners.' We can reach these people, but carefully.

Racists: The hardcore ones we can't reach and don;'t want. The emphasis is because sometimes Democrats seem to be afraid to offend even then, as if we had a chance of reaching them. FDR could have "Progressives For Whites Only" -- John Rankin, the worst racist and anti-Semite in the House of his time was also a staunch New Dealer -- but we can't and shouldn't.

Casual and unconscious racists may be different. These people (forget 'self-definition' for this group, they'd swear they weren't what they, in fact but possibly unintentionally, are) respond to racial 'code' without realizing it is code. They equate (transitively) welfare recipient with 'black'; 'illegal' with 'Hispanic' not because they are being vicious and evil, but because they really believe the groups are the same -- or overlap so strongly that exceptions are rare.

We do stand a chance with some of them -- despite DXM's comment -- if we avoid directly challenging their beliefs (better, directly challenge them for having these beliefs) but instead avoid pressing their buttons while seriously attempting to educate them. (This is a very similar group to those of my time who responded to the PSA jingles -- long before 'Schoolhouse Rock' teaching racial understanding. Not now, but I'll look for some on YouTube. The jingles were aimed at kids, but affected -- not unexpectedly -- parents as well, and helped the bettering of intergroup relations.)

We have one advantage with these people. They are the most likely to react 'I don't agree with him at all, but I have to admire him for coming right out and saying what he believes.' Only we usually forfeit it by nominating Pussyfoot McTiptoe who tries desperately to hint he 'really agrees with you folk, but I can't buck the party and come right out and say it.' (A mistake we make in a lot of contexts.)

The religious: Forget it. With one exception I'll get to, they are a lost cause. We haven't had anyone who could reach them since Bryan died except, for a short while, Carter, but that eventually rebounded against us. The "Double Barrelled Baptist' ticket of Clinton and Gore didn't make much progress among their fellow Baptists, and things have only gotten worse. In fact, the efforts we make towards placating them hurt us more than help us, and even attacking them directly -- we do it in the blogosphere, but no real candidate does -- might help more than it hurt, if done well.
These people are impervious to economic appeals -- God will provide and they already tithe and more. They consider class unimportant compared to religious belief. (Many of them see riches as well as a sign of God's approval -- hence the 'prosperity gospel- -- and above all they are hopeless for us.) They have been taught to respect 'authority' over evidence, so they can't be appealed to through their (barely existent)critical sense. And -- too long to explain -- they don't even rethink their positions when their spokesmen are shown to be hypocrites or 'sinners.'
The one slight chance we have to reach them is through an appeal to fairness, to compassion, or to their self-image. They may be racists, but they don't like to think they are -- and they remain human enough that even if they are homophobes, a Sheppard killing reaches them, or the dragging death. (Just don't try 're-explaining scripture' to them. They don't recognize you have aby better knowledge than their pastor, and you'll lose them at once.)

(I haven't said this out, but we have 'believers' on our side, yes, but very few whose primary identity is religious.)

One more then we both need to breathe.

The elderly. Hard to generalize, because of how different their earlier experiences were -- and that varies by age as well. But let's just look at the "Limbaugh Line." I'm guessing -- based on logic and observation, but guessing -- that most of this group didn't have muchtime for politics in their pre-elderly years. They may have had a mild interest, may have voted, may even have been progressive and union members, but it mattered less to them than the bowling tournament, the home team, or the sleazy blonde they fantasize about or more.

Now they have time to spend, and they turn on the radio and hear a voice. They don;'t know the background, they don't know the arrests, the drugs and marriages, the hundreds of proven lies -- hell, until the station break they may not know the guy's name. But he's funny and entertaining -- and he really can be, if you can control your nausea -- and he's telling them all sorts of things about stuff they've never thought about, and it seems like he knows what he's talking about, maybe, and he's so confident, and maybe he picks on something that they've been bothered about too, only he has an explanation, and they don't know enough to doubt it, and...

We can reach them, probably in higher nubers than the others. Again, we have to choose our weapons. The anti-bigotry works here as everywhere, but more than elsewhere we can stress hard facts as well as button-pushing. We have to give them the same "Hey, i never thought about it that way, let me think about it' response Limbaugh did -- but not in the same way. Air America didn't work, and couldn't be restarted -- even if it should -- in any reasonable time.

So that's at least a good sample of the non-working class Republican white voters. We can reach some of them, but only if we actually think about what we are doing. And for some of them, even if we reach only a few, they do serve as potential nexuses for the long-term reclaiming of the dialogue. They can, with luck, begin to affect their friends, not, maybe changing them, but at least opening their minds.

Workingmen next, if I can get to it. This thing mushroomed.

[corvus9]

Happy birthday, Sir Charles! Today is also noted Irishman and drinker James Joyce's birthday. Happy birthday, bard of Erin! And, uh, labor lawyer of Washington! Abortions for all!

[KN]

Since I haven't the energy or the time to apprise myself of how the various discussions above have developed I'll just do a bit of a topic change.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/02/1061106/-Climate-Emergency%3A-2-Million-Mexicans-Have-No-Water-Drought-Expanding-Across-Southern-US-?via=siderecent

There is a better link but I can't find it at the moment. I raise this issue because we are easily distracted yet also compelled to juggle many balls at once.

[big bad wolf]

happy birthday, SC.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

And sorry, but I can't help it...

We interrupt this thread for a moment of Pure Pruppish Pedantry

Sir C: You mention the late 80s as the time when straight kids started going to gay clubs, but they had been dancing to 'gay music' long before that. "Disco" became so identified with 'black and Hispanic' so early -- there were racial elements in the 'rock-disco war' -- that we forget where it came from.

*ahem**cough,cough,cough* "Disco" originally came from 'discotheque' the London clubs -- innovative at the time -- that depended on records for their entertainment insted of booking live acts. And, btw, one reason they became famous was that they were regularly visited by members of live acts who were just hanging out and dancing.

At first they just played the regular records. but they became so popular and influential that they became able to ask acts to record special singles, remixed to make them more danceable. And, I believe, one group of clubs led the way in this, clubs that had the same celebrities, but which were mostly gay -- and we forget how many now married rock stars were known to be bisexual at the time.

(Pruppish dash to irerelevancy -- but I saw the original JEFF BECK GROUP -- and fairly close to the stage. I saw the interaction between Rod Stewart and Ron Wood -- and they were later band mates in SMALL FACES. Watching them, I would have sworn their relationship went beyond bandmates. Does anyone know if this was true?)

Abyway, it was only then that some groups took the 'added elements' and made it into a music of its own, distinct from rock. And that was the music that made it here as 'disco,' and was immediately taken up by a large, mostly minority audience. (And the racial aspect was always buried, but it was there and could feel ugly. One time Dave Herman, one of the great NY DJs, decided to argue that 'good music is good music, forget the labels' and decided to illustrate it with some Donna Summer that really used elements of both. Today we'd all agree, but then his audience was *ahem* not exactly pleased with him.)

Anyway, the minorities who were so proud of saying 'we don't need whitey's music, we got our own' might have been surprised whose music it had originally been.

End of Pruppish Pedantry

I actually started this at noon today, and was going to drop it in, but I didn't get a chance to get back to writing until I had more important stuff to say. Which I'm not finished saying, which means this might not be the last comment from me tonight.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

One quickie, then back to the main thread. SGK canceled their grant with PP because they were 'under investigation.' Was it a pretext, or the unfortunate necessary carrying out of a rule. Well, they haven't canceled their grant to one organization yet...

Penn State>

Q.E.D.

Now to the working class, to class consciousness, and why we do such a bad job when we use it. (I'll ignore the lingo we use, soaked in 30s cliches, used interchangably against a Scott Walker and an Andrew Cuomo, and at least partially tainted by a remembered audience of Ralph Kramdens, when today's Kramdens are named Rafael, Raven, Rahim, Rachel, not Ralph.)

That last is one reason why I think 'appeals to class solidarity' are counter-productive. There really are two 'working classes' and they do seem to tie up with 'group identity.' The first, let me call it the 'working middle class' -- I think it describes how it feels about itself -- is mostly composed of whute 'non-ethnics.' I'm over generalizing, but not much. And since I am using 'non-ethnic' to refer to a specific attitude, not just to mean 'of Northern European or British heritage, as it is usually used, let me explain it. A 'non-ethnic' is someone, whatever his background and 'ethnic identity' does not consider that to be an important part of his identity. Thus there can be black, Hispanic, and Asian non-ethnics as well (though the push to maintain that identity against prejudice is always there for them).

Let's look at them closely, and then we can ask if we can appeal to them with traditional 'class solidarity' rhetoric. These people identify with the 'middle class.' The vast majority of them would claim they were already middle class -- and, if income and not type of work is the criterion, many of them are right. Others expect to get there someday, either through a lucky break, God's Grace, or simple patience. (I'll keep working long enough to save up enough to open that ___ I dream of and will be my own boss.) And the very least "I'm sending my kids to college so they don't need to live the life I did."

These people would be turned off by someone suggesting they should show solidarity with a class they either have left (and gladly), dream of leaving, or want their children to leave. They hate being reminded that someone could still consider them 'working class' or they don't want further ties to a class when they hope to break their previous ties, or they hate the life.

But there are factors that make such propaganda increase the liklihood of their voting Republican -- maybe especially if his party is all they know of the candidate.

[I'm obviously not finished, even with this subsection, but I had to break for the final work of the night, and when I got back, my fumes were running on fumes. Rather than keeping my browser open all night, I'll post now and get back in the morning -- I hope. (You, maybe not so much -- I hope I'm never sued by someone who injured their finger scrolling past my screeds)

[MR Bill]

http://www.peters.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=22&sectiontree=21,22&itemid=490

Shorter Cong. Mike Peters: "The entire House Republican caucus refuses to admit the Bush Tax Cuts added $2 billion to deficit".

[MR Bill]

And a belated Happy Birthday Sir Charles, I well remember stumbling here, follow a thread mocking one "Cigarskunk"...glad you are willing to blog in this often terrible hour.
I used to do Craft Shows in south Florida twenty plus years ago, and even then, the insane overdevelopment made Hiiasen less of a satirist than a prophet. Florida makes senses to me for perhaps 3 months out of the year, and the Burmese Python Rampant is an appropriate symbol of Land Boom Republicans.

The only sensible thing I can add just now to Prup et al's discussion of 'getting the white working class vote' is that you are talking about getting majorities: you are getting 20 to 30 percents in even reddest districts.
The Right is playing tribal/team politics: I get the sense a lot of working folks are ready for something that is actually helpful from their government.

Apropos of nothing: why was it ok for G Bush to give out a stimulus check and not Obama? Has everyone forgotten how extraordinary it was?

[Paula B]

Good news---unemployment drops again, this time to 8.3%. 243K jobs added in January.

[Paula B]

FYI:

Interesting little story on Time Goes By about white working class folks starting their own Occupy protest, related to a plant closure and the failure of management to come through on promises it made to former employees:
http://bit.ly/w0kaKb
A dozen men and women in their 60s, 70s and even 80s have been occupying a median strip in front of a closed Century Aluminum plant in Ravenswood, West Virginia since mid-December.
I thought this fit in nicely with our discussion on the white working class, who they are and how Dems might reach them. Of course, WV has a long history with Democrats, so the analogy might not be fair.

[oddjob]

Apropos of nothing: why was it ok for G Bush to give out a stimulus check and not Obama?

The collective, wilfull amnesia of the GOP has decided that Obama gave that first stimulus check (the one handed out during Shrub's administration).

It must be nice to be a Republican nowadays since it means you never have to admit you were wrong or inconsistent....

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

[Warning: Off the Wall alert, even for me.]

I couldn't help it. I woke up this morning and read the latest about Komen, and I started hearing one of my favorite voices of all time. (I couldn't have been the only person at my Columbia College Orientation who grinned lustfully rather than gasp when every session was peppered wih jokes about Johnny Mathis being gay.)

Only I heard a song, but the lyrics started to change, and demand I write them down. And that's the way it always felt when I was producing poetry regularly. I never felt like I ws writing them, instead that the poem had popped up in front of me and I was merely being its stenographer.

So here goes, but warning, it's been decades since i tried anything close to this, rewriting lyrics, and then I was either going for comedy or keeping a tone but changing the subject. (I rewrote the CHAD MITCHELL TRIO's "Rum by Gum" as "Fanny Hill" but the tone remained the same.)

This time I'm taking a love song and making it into a triumphant political one. I hope it comes close to working -- I already had to change the verses from four lines to six.

Anyway, here's the original and the younger among you might need to hear it, might even be hearing it for the first time. (Mathis is, with Cole and Roy Hamilton, one of thse unforgettably great voices.)

And here's the version I heard:

Sometimes we talk round and round bout our woes As we wait for the word from out the sky. I look in your eyes as your mind starts to change And you think, "Why wait for them when I have I." Then you look at me with the fire in your eyes And I know we've remembered how to fly.
Then our friends join our plans. It's wonderful, wonderful
Oh so wonderful to work.

Sometimes we stand looking down from above
Pity-scorn for those who speak below
"It's just dessert for the choice they made'
Blaming them for things they did not know
Then I see your face as your mind starts to change
And our faith in truth and love restarts to flow

What a moment to share, it's wonderful, wonderful
Oh so wonderful to hope.

The world is full of ugly things, it's true
But with work, with hope and truth we will win through.

Some quiet night we'll look round at the world
That our fight and work and words all helped rebuild -
A world that's far more fair, where the rich pay more their share
And with hatred fewer hearts are ever filled
Where people are seen plain without race or sexual screen
Where liars fail and armies less are drilled.

And we say to ourselves, its wonderful wonderful
We made it wonderful with love.

Okay, the fit has passed. I'll be back with my usual ranting sometime soon.

[kathy a.]

Komen has reportedly changed its mind, and will restore the PP funds.

i still prefer to donate elsewhere.

[Paula B]

I always hated the color pink, anyway.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Once we made the PP cut-off only part of the story, and made the story about Komen, the back-off is unlikely to help them. The other slime-dwellers we pulled from under the Komen rocks and tossed on the table aren't going to disappear from people's memories, the suing, the Koch connection, the VP and the Founder being Republican politicians turned charity workers, the administrative costs. people are going to back away from 'thinking pink.'

[After I wrote that paragraph, I discovered this. And this particular 'scorpion' may have a lasting bite.]

And again, that 'we' was the blogosphere, doing what it is, above all and above everyone else, best equipped to do.

(And there's one thing I don't understand. Why, of all times, did they choose to announce this on Monday, when they must have known Pink Ribbons, Inc., devastating doxumentary from Canada on them, was opening in Canada today and probably -- especially now -- will be in the US very soon. Without the controversy, the documentary would probably have gotten great reviews in the 'also showing' section of the entertainment sections, the VOICE would have loved it -- and it would be playing to audiences of a couple of dozen people at a time. Now I wouldn't be surprised if it gets long lines, and maybe even gets reshown on the premium channels like HBO and SHOWTIME, or even included in the pay-per-view movies. Didn't they expect this? Or did they figure that 'any publicity is good, and we'll gain more than we'll lose.' MISSSS-take.)

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

There's one thing left to do. The 'pink gun' story will turn off a lot of Democrats -- Stephen, it demands a Repor on it -- but we want to shake up Republicans too. If you know of any Republican-leaning blogs -- not the real zoos, but ones where moderately -- okay, slightly -- sane Republicans gather, or any newspapers which Republicans read -- again, local, not the big ones -- you should send an e-mail along the lines of

I see that SGK still had no problem keeping their contract with Penn State, despite the Paterno-Sandusky scandals. Interesting 'values' cut off an organization that spends 3% of its money on abortion services 'because its being investigated' -- by one Congressman -- but keep funding a school who is the center of investigations surrounding a scandal involving repeated sexual abuse and cover-up. And it isn't just one Congressman, one agency, or one state that is investigating Penn State.

[kathy a.]

a good way to make my head explode is to show me a pink gun, for breast cancer "awareness."

[Linkmeister]

"Why, of all times, did they choose to announce this on Monday"

I think Planned Parenthood issued a press release about it immediately it got the notice and that forced Komen's hand. They didn't initially want (or possibly even think it warranted) publicity.

I may be wrong, but that's the timeline as I understand it. There was a sense of grievance in Brinker's words in her first video appearance, as though she felt sandbagged.

PP's Richards is a far brighter exec. She was on every media outlet that would have her on day one, which won half the PR battle right there.

[kathy a.]

cecile richards is doing her late mama proud.

PP also has the advantage of strongly advocating access to care for all women -- and it is used to being the underdog and under attack. and PP has built very effective ways of passing the word swiftly to large numbers of supporters, who pass it on to their friends. some of their friends are public heavy-hitters; a lot are just ordinary people who think folks should make family planning decisions themselves, and also that reproductive health care is as important for poor people as it is for others.

komen just stepped in it with this move. their decision to reverse course doesn't undo the scrutiny of their operation.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

But why do it then anyway? The whole thing was based on a pretext, they could have issued the ruling a week before -- so, they'd think, the publicity would die down -- or wait a bit. (Politically the later the better, no?)

[nancy]

This story gets worse, the more you find out .

Second, sitting on Komen's Advocacy Alliance Board is Jane Abraham, the General Chairman of the virulently anti-choice and anti-science Susan B. Anthony List and of its Political Action Committee. Among other involvements, Abraham helps direct the Nuturing [sic] Network, a global network of crisis pregnancy centers, organizations widely known for spreading ideology, misinformation and lies to women facing unintended pregnancy and to use both intimidation and coercion in the course of doing so. Also on the board of Nuturing [sic] Network is Maureen Scalia, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, no hero to women's rights and health.

What next? Ginny Thomas must fit in here somewhere.

An update to the gun story claims no connection. At this point...

And Prup, if you still have your rewrite of "Rum by Gum" -- Chad's daughter is my son's BFF. I could send it on to him if you like ;-)

[kathy a.]

nancy, that link is worth a read. thanks.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Nancy:
Wow
except
if I do still have it -- I think I do remember seeing it this last decade -- it is probably in a bin of papers I will not get around to sorting, literally, until April. And that's if I get going on the earlier part that is stalling out a little.

If I do find it I'll post it here, and would love to hear his response -- and yours as well. There's a slim chance it is one place I might get to sooner, but still not at once.

But still,
WOW!

and thanx!!!!

[nancy]

More.

So much for gender solidarity and 'gee, women in politics will change' (read fix) everything. I guess we should be glad to put that bit of naivete behind us once and for all. My feminist card has always been accompanied by some other important ones which none of these women seem to carry. Pink my ass.

[beckya57]

Happy Birthday Sir C!

I'm enjoying watching Komen eat it. They've done a lot of damage to their brand. According to Kevin Drum the "won't give to organizations under investigation" was just a pretext, as we all assumed; they were looking for an opportunity to ditch PP, and the absurd congressional "investigation" gave them the excuse they needed. No more money from me, that's for sure.

I am indeed pleased that my home state of WA has decided to join the 21st century. Unfortunately, Kevin D. also posted today on which states have the most regressive tax structure. Leading the pack was...my home state of WA. Not surprising to those of us who live here, given the absence of an income tax and our consequently insanely high sales taxes and fees, but gruesome nonetheless.

[Eric Wilde]

Sir C,

Happy Belated Birthday!

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

nancy: I thought 1920 settled that, when the newly enfranchised women proudly grasped the right won for them after many decades of suffragette struggle, marched to the polls, and overwhelmingly chose, as their first selection to occupy the office of President, that ideal candidate...

Warren Gamaliel Harding.

The men voted for him too, but I believe in slightly smaller percentages.

If that don't do it for ya, bunky, think about those fine feminine nuturing, caring, innate skills shown by Schlafly, Malkin and Coulter, the innate wisdon of Michelle Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, or either Buchanan, Virginia or Bay.

Then you demonstrate Handel's exemplification of the inherent honesty women would bring into politics, but you could have added Jan Brewer, and a certain half-term Governor who seems to bet into the news from time to times. But women bring a spirituality to politics as well, just ask Cindy Jacobs and Janet Folger Porter.

Geraldine Ferraro was merely the most prominent example of the understanding their own oppression gave women about the struggles of other minorities. Sir Charles would rightly add Louise Day Hicks (and yes, Sir C., Ferraro's attitudes were known, if not as blatant. Her nickname "Archie Bunker's Representative" meant more than her district covered his supposed address -- and that of the house that opened the show).

Then there is (or was) Helen Chenoweth...

Sorry nancy, you guys don't deserve the vote because youse is better than us testosterone-fueled monsters. Nope, its because you ain't no worse than we are, and the percentage of assholes don't vary with the shape of the genitalia.

Seriously, rather than matching snark with snark, I always worry about segments of groups who argue that their group has certain inherent characteristics that make them superior, yet the majority culture treats them as inferior. Not only are the 'superior characteristics' as mythical and stereotypical as their persecutors' negative image; but these groups are least likely to extend themselves for other persecuted groups -- and may agree with the majority about them.

[low-tech cyclist]

Just when you'd think it couldn't, the Komen story gets even more interesting:

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

[low-tech cyclist]

Prup - I don't think Democratic candidates should appeal to class solidarity, so much as engage in it themselves.

Democrats, unlike Republicans, can convincingly say: "We know the problems you face, because we've been there. We know you're worried about having a job at all, let alone one that pays decently. We know you're worried about what happens to your health insurance if you lose your job, or if your employer decides to just not pay for it anymore. We know you're worried about your kids' education.

"Well, we're trying to do something about these things. We're trying to pass bills that would put people to work, repairing and improving this country's infrastructure - roads, trains, water and sewer systems, our power grid. We already kept our automobile industry alive, saving millions of American jobs. We're trying to help out local governments with Federal money, while times are tough, so that they don't have to cut their school budgets because they don't have any money. And in less than two years, if President Obama wins re-election, you'll never have to worry about losing your health insurance, ever again.

"But Republicans have been voting against all of these things. They don't care if you don't have jobs, or lose your house, or your kids can't get an education. They've been taking away your right to organize, all across the Midwest. And they want to repeal Obamacare, so that the insurance companies can drop their coverage the moment you need it, for any reason or no reason at all.

"If you don't worry about any of these things, then by all means vote Republican. But if these things matter to you, then there's only one party that gives a flip, and that's the Democratic Party.

"There's one party that's on your side, and one party that is against you. It's as simple as that."

[Paula B]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html”>This is really, really scary, and answers a lot of questions for me. Like, why would perfectly good people in nice towns be against clean air and bike path projects, and why would seemingly intelligent and upstanding citizens of states like Virginia want to lift limits on handgun purchases. Bingo! It’s the threat of the One World Order!
I’ve actually seen some of these wild-eyed folks along roadsides, and believe I mentioned it once (KN, didn’t you comment on how you recall there were all kinds of nuts around here, even right wingers?), but never understand what it was about. Now, I do, or at least understand as much as is possible, when the subject is mass hysteria.
I put the blame for this lunacy at the feet of Rupert Murdoch, evil wizard of Oz.
Thanks to Sir Rupert, millions of Americans (some in my own extended family) view everything in life as part of a 1950s sci-fi cartoon, in which the good guys fend off the evil, slant-eyed devils to save the planet. It’s Ron Paul as Flash Gordon vs. Obama as Emperor Ming. We know the plot.
This means it doesn't matter how positive the message, how clean the candidate, how extensive the outreach is to any demographic. Until we can clean up this mess:
We. Are. All. Screwed.

[Paula B]

I don't know why I can't post html in comments on this blog. Here's what I want you to read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html

[MR Bill]

Had hoped to get some links on the odious Komen VP Karen "how much can you" Handel's backstory (she was, as Secretary of State, Ms Voter Supression of 2008), or discuss the highly selective nature of Ga. Rep.Phil Gingry's (who made a great show of walking out on the President's remarks at the Nat'l Prayer Breakfast)tolerance for religion in politics (hint: Jesus' is Republican Property, and never said anything about the Poor)(and hell the bastard has a Public record of Rightwing Piety), but as Tim's SSI disability was approved, and we gots stuff to do..

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

[Somehow, when TP ate my long-winded post, I only kept the second half in memory, istead of the whole thing and just erasing each half before reposting.

Maybe it's better that way, becayse what I am left with is a summary -- if the terms I use are understandable -- and a suggestion. But *sniff* you people are saved, er, spared, er, fail to have the benefits of my lovely prose and metaphor.]

A quick summary of the above, one final point, and then solutions in the next post, later.

I've argued that while there's nothing wrong with Sports Talk Radio - type blogging, that we all do it and its fun, it isn't important, and that we lose our credibility when it looks like that's all we are doing.

I've pointed out we can and should 'run onto the field ourelves' and have suggested we concentrate much of our thinking on how to use that privilege most effectively.

And I've suggested that, instead of adding to the pressure in the middle of the line, where the pros are most effective, we should concentrate on shoring up and even developing those defenses the pros' formations aren't able to or willing to cover.

[Can we have a funeral for the metaphor, it must be dead by now?]

And a final remark, which might even be a summing up of the 'solution' part of this, and I'll phrase it as another "Prup's Law" (#4, I think.)

The first step in convincing anyone is to get them to 'unlearn' the 'things they know that ain't so.' And sometimes the best way to do that is to shake their confidence in the authorities they rely on by attacking the authorities on a completely unrelated matter.

To be, oh Lord, continued -- but then all these posts are as interrelated as they are long-winded.

[Paula B]

Mr Bill--I hope you'll eventually have time to pass along those links, but am glad you're able to help your friend.

[kathy a.]

prup, i want to respond to your response to nancy, delivering a lecture on women and knocking down a straw man about gender superiority.

the reason for women needing to vote and to have a place at the public table is not because we are just as much a bunch of assholes as men. it is because women were traditionally shut out of decisionmaking affecting them and their families, and because we bring a range of experiences that may differ -- sometimes significantly -- from those of men.

some of our concerns are unique to our own bodies -- women's reproductive health covers matters that men do not personally experience. in that sense, yes, the experiences of women with needing women's health care IS superior to that of even the most supportive men. we can get pregnant. we have a much higher rate of breast cancer than men -- when we get lumps, which are common, we cannot tell without medical help whether they are cancerous or benign. we can get cervical cancer, and need to be screened; HPV basically causes no problems for men, but can cause this cancer in women. changes in our menstrual cycles can be frightening and potentially dangerous, and need to be checked. etc.

this is personal. PP is often the only option for women who are not insured.

i read nancy's comment as expressing frustration that women would go so far to deny basic health care to other women, particularly those with limited access to health care generally. of course we know there are nasty women out there, but it still stings -- particularly when it comes from top brass at an organization billing itself as advocating women's health. stings even more that there is a backstory.

[kathy a.]

great news about tim's SSIDI, MR Bill!

[Paula B]

Needed to be said, kathy. It's easy for me to dismiss some of my wing-nut male relatives when they're guys, but I feel physical pain when I hear women advocate shortchanging women. As you say, now that we have a voice, we need to use it for ALL women, not just ourselves.

[Sir Charles]

Jim,

I don't think nancy's point was that women are somehow better and nobler than men, but that one cannot help but be disappointed that these women -- who at some point in their lives all share these same basic health concerns -- show so little empathy with their fellow women.

I think I feel similar pangs when dealing with the union guy who goes out and votes Republican. How can he not know better?

Thanks again for all of the kind birthday wishes.

I ended up in a meeting until 12:40 AM on my birthday night. It's a glamorous life. (It did, however, keep me from being hung over the next day.)

[nancy]

Internet issues on and off all day, so I don't want to count on trying to write much and assume it posts. I guess I should try to add to my last comment, Prup. Short version though is that, as I would have argued years ago, one shouldn't overestimate nor rely on 'sisterhood' as it's been understood. 'Sisterhood' is much more complicated and fractioned/parceled, class and color-driven, not to mention career-driven (for some), than a lot of second-wave feminists wanted to admit. Komen threw that in our faces.

Also Paula, the NYT story you linked to is disturbing. When the police have to be called to keep order at a meeting in Missoula -- that's meaningful. Montanans are known for their resourceful taciturnity. Not that stuff. Looked like the people in the room though were well into the Medicare years. That's something to keep noting about the UN/One World paranoiacs.

[nancy]

One last thing. The presence of Ari 'people need to watch what they say" Fleischer, anywhere near Komen and advising the bunch is unforgivable.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

Sadly, I think it is par for the course.

Nancy Brinker is another Texas Republican and any notion that she is not a partisan pretty much got destroyed this week.

[paula b]

Nancy, true, the photo showed a bunch of old folks,but they vote,especially in local elections. The people I saw carrying signs on the Coolidge Bridge in Northampton were much younger and had a few young children with them.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

First, on Komen: this is what I've been talking about. This is a battle we, down here on the ground, in the blogosphere have won. And only we could have won it.

Media Matters is already reporting the 'push-back.' And we can be sure that the 'balance is everything' chorus is already working to figure out what are the sides, so they can be sure to report an equal number of comments from each -- and 'it ain't our job to editorialize' -- except it is -- or 'to try and tell you what is true and what is false.' Just as long as they make both positions 'perfectky clear' even if they have to lean over backwards t clrify the right-wing one.

If it had stayed up there, the controversy would have been a two-day wonder, maybe. Certainly it would have changed emphasis, turned into a discussion of Planned Parenthood -- just like the Republicans wanted.

This (from Mike Huckabee, h/t MMfA) is the sort of statement that they'd hoped would be the main 'topic of discussion:

"it's tragic that the Planned Parenthood organization" tries to present itself "as primarily a health organization when they are primarily an abortion provider." He added: "They provide some services. I will grant you that. But they are maybe on the fringes -- are external portion of what they are primarily all about."

Damnit, that's what the Republican Party expected would be the main topic -- and if the blimp riders had been the 'other side' it would have been. We would have been so involved in disputing the lies about PP that by now, half the people who are talking about it in the real world today would -- in Republican plans and in reality -- would have remembered that 'some breast cancer group -- can't remember which -- cut off funding to Planned Parenthood because of their abortion work.' Komen would be a small sidebar to the main story of

PLANNED PARENTHOOD:
Abortion provider or, as 'the left' claims, Women's Health Provider

And even now, we've only made one pinky sore, the other fingers are still holding on tight. We could have used this as an opening to restart the abortion debate from our perspective. (I didn't say 'should' -- I'm not sure -- just 'could.') We could have made the Komen defenders prime exhibits on our wall of "Republican lies about women.'

We've made some great progress, sure, and made some great responses. (Sometimes you just have to quote, but this, at least, is from the resolute 'ground-hugger' "YellowDog" from Blue in the Bluegrass

C'mon, Planned Parenthood: tell Komen to fuck off and die. You know they're going to fuck you again as soon as the furor dies down. You've proven that your support network is bigger, louder, richer and more powerful than theirs. You don't need them any more, and continuing to associate with them is just going to piss off all your newly energized friends.

Tell Komen thanks but no thanks. You know you want to.

Still, and maybe this is the mistake I crowed we had avoided, and why I'm not sure I agree with me, we have yet to argue "Planned Parenthood provides 'essential women's health services, and all their work -- including their abortion services -- are just that."

But the important thing is that we did what we did. Now maybe we can keep doing it. Maybe now we can remember how it felt -- that watching that gigantic gasbag doughboy that was Konen deflate at our attack felt so much better than all the praise we ever got from the blimp for rephrasing -- for the hundreth time, but in a particularly clever way -- another ineffectual but brilliant argument. And maybe we aren't even sure if the couple of darts we throw actually helped, but we like to think we added a few more pinpricks for their foul air to escape.

[oddjob]

HPV basically causes no problems for men

kathy a, this quibble doesn't at all change the significance of your reply nor its general accuracy, but HPV does cause some health problems in men, particularly gay men. From what I gather online the percentage of oral cancers caused by HPV over the last 15-20 years has increased dramatically (I assume that's at least as much a reflection of the decline in the rate of smoking as an indication of increased prevalence of HPV spread by oral sex). I also think I've read that HPV can cause anal cancers & is thought to play a role in at least some prostate cancers, but I'm not sure I'm correct about that.

[kathy a.]

thanks, oddjob -- you're right. (not sure about prostate cancer, but the others, yes.)