Choosing Focal Points

I suppose there were reasons for following the health-care deliberations on C-SPAN March 21, were it not for the far more interesting results in March Madness, which kept Michigan State Spartans in the crawling distance, at least for the time being. At least the turmoil surrounding the final health debate let us see tea-party activists wearing their true colors, shouting "nigger" and "faggot" at members of Congress, and prompting RNC Chairman Michael Steele to admit that a sector of the tea party crew wore stupidity as a favored outfit.

But that's about as far as my excitement extends. How can I spend time worrying about a bill that has removed public options, ignores a woman's right to accept or turn down an abortion, and does little to really crack down on insurance companies - while driving up deficits? In short, I can't. I understand Dennis Kucinich's decision to say that the health bill may not be real change, but it starts a ball rolling. My problem is, I don't play incrementalism. I like the long bomb in football, the mid-court basket attempt, the radical risk against all possible odds. This health care stuff is tedious, and my eyes glaze over. Pixelslip is fuzzing me out.

But I had plenty of things to be perfectly focused about this week. New efforts in June and July at national conferences to prepare critiques of the Nuclear Posture Review and Quadrennial Defense Review. Further meetings on Colorado Springs' homeless encampment issues. And yet more invigorating time with the mighty mighty Flobots. Folks following this blog know how much I reiterate my respect for this Denver band for walking the walk of many, living up to commitments for social change, and making great music in the process. This past week, they gave an in-store concert of new music at Denver's Twist & Shout:



And then Flobots' viola player, Mackenzie Roberts, played the national anthem for a Nuggets game:



So forgive me for thinking these are the things that matter, and that health care as provided to us in a flawed bill is somewhere where I have no dog in the hunt. My dogs are too busy acting like toddlers in time out. My own dog, Misty the husky, was chasing mule deer in our recent snowstorm:



And my daughter's dog, Max, was visiting the homestead and establishing dominance where he could:



Incrementalists would no doubt say that lazy sods like me allow reaction to take place. And as they nitpick health care to death, I'll fall asleep. We all have to focus on what we deem important, and I'm concentrating on March Madness, Flobots, keeping dogs separated, dazzling risks, and a Loving Universe of Shiny Things. Lots of 20/20 vision for that.

Involuntary Servitude for the Financial Industry?

It was wonderful to see CNN's Situation Room do a short clip Oct. 23 featuring Dennis Kucinich, who wants to launch new legislation preventing those banks who were helped in the bailouts from granting bonuses to key executives. CNN interviewed some asshole economics professor who said that leading financial barons needed to be provided some sort of incentives to stay at distressed banks, or they'd go work for hedge funds or sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). Well, that's assuming that we don't place them in a position of involuntary servitude.

Why not modify the Thirteenth Amendment to say that slavery is abhorrent except when applied to key investment-banking executives, hedge-fund managers, and Nobel laureates in mathematics who work in the financial field? We lock in the financial services industry today, forcing everyone currently working in the industry to remain in place, working for minimum wage. They will be forbidden to switch to SWFs or hedges. Their $40 million apartments on the Upper West Side will be provided rent-free to community non-profits, and they will be given seedy apartments in Alphabet City, which they will be forced to travel to using mass transit. Weekend chain gangs will be led, not by Ben Bernanke, but by Saint Greenspan himself, for continuing to hew to the Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman school, while giving only the mildest of mea culpas. Time for slavery! And no reparations in a century for financial robber barons!

Dennis Kucinich and the Anti-Democratic Role of Mainstream Media

David Bauder of Associated Press had a nice piece Jan. 27 on Dennis Kucinich's Quixotic efforts to force the mainstream media to include him in debates. Bauder concluded there was danger in court rulings that suggested that private media companies could do whatever the hell they wanted to with political debates, but also an important point Kucinich made showing that the MSM (as Eric Alterman of The Nation magazine calls mainstream media) have no interest whatsoever in promoting democracy.

Execs in charge of CNN, broadcast networks, and similar outlets claim they're trying to make a bipartisan debate manageable, and that this requires a shutout of Kucinich and Richardson on the Dem side, and the snubbing of the rogue Ron Paul campaign on the Republican side. But you know and I know what is really going on. If MSM cared about democracy promotion, they wouldn't even limit debates to the two major parties, but include everyone from the Revolutionary Communist Party to the American Nazis. Claims that this would make things uncontrollable ignore the fact that usually five or fewer minor parties ever make the ballot anyway. True democracy entails a cacophony of voices, and it's precisely that wide-open chaos the MSM can't stand.

The problem is worse than simply limiting debate to a few easily-identified faces. Brian Fuller's always-interesting Greeley's Ghost blog put forth the not-so-wacky conspiracy theory that advertising-driven media wants to control the public, not enable democratic practices. No better example can be provided than CNN's despicable behavior in the YouTube debates, when moderators like Wolf Blitzer tossed out serious questions of policy in favor of the silly and superficial. As Alterman stresses in his column again and again, MSM outlets will never operate in ways that enhance democracy. We have to unplug our most popular news sources and gain democracy by forcing it, but in a consumer-driven somnanbulent society of passive observers, how many people will be willing to fight the good fight?