Don't look now, but Sarah Palin is back on her death panel kick, just in time for Halloween. No, really, don't look. It just encourages the former governor of Alaska to recycle the exhaustively debunked allegation that health care reform will involve bringing the elderly and the disabled before "death panels" who will judge whether they are fit to live.
David Corn of Mother Jones caught Palin referencing the thoroughly debunked myth in her latest interview with the conservative website Newsmax. Oh, and she says she won't rule out a presidential run in 2012.
Boobs against breast cancer
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. The National Cancer Institute estimates that over 207,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and that nearly 40,000 will die of the disease this year. Breast cancer is the second-most common form of cancer in women.
Amie Newman of RH Reality Check notes that even Kentucky Fried Chicken is getting in on the awareness action with pink chicken buckets "for the cure." This month, KFC is donating 50 cents from each rosy-hued tub of Original Recipe chicken to Susan G. Komen For The Cure, a leading breast cancer advocacy group. The promotion is expected to raise between $1 million and $8 million for breast cancer research and activism. That's between 2 million and 16 million buckets of chicken. It's more of a barometer than a donation, really.
The fewer buckets they sell, the more awareness has been raised. Newman notes that KFC's french fries are an unusually rich source of acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen found in deep fried foods. In a recent study, women with the highest acrylamide intakes were at 43% greater risk for hormone-positive breast cancers.
Some marketers have decided that the root cause of our society's lack of breast cancer awareness is our lack of breast awareness in general. This doesn't seem quite right, especially because the breasts most likely to get cancer (those of women over 50) are seldom the breasts featured in the the various "save the gazongas" campaigns we're subjected to every October.
Martha Pitts of the Ms. Blog wonders whose bright idea it was to "raise awareness" about breast cancer by inviting women to list their bra color as a Facebook status update. Pitts wonders how learning about friends' underwear will motivate anyone to learn more about breast self-exams or mammograms. According to Ann Pietrangelo of Care2, the latest breast cancer "awareness" meme took a turn for the Dada-esque. This year, women were invited complete the sentence: "I like it on the..." referring, of course to where the Facebook user likes to keep her purse. Obviously, they need a meta-awareness campaign to explain what this has to do with breast cancer.
Monica Potts of TAPPED reminds us that while activists and policy makers are wrangling about access to mammograms, which may or may not improve women's odds of surviving breast cancer, about 4000 women a year still die of cervical cancer in the US, despite the fact that the disease is almost completely preventable with routine Pap smears.
Anti-gay bullying
In other public health news, anti-gay bullying is making headlines all over the country. A series of high-profile suicides by bullied gay youth have riveted national attention on the issue. The statistics are sobering. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, and LGBTQ youth are at significantly higher risk of suicidal behavior than their straight peers.
Nine out of ten LGBTQ youths told researchers that they had been harassed at school and two out of three said they felt unsafe at school because of their orientation, Jessica Strong reports for Campus Progress.
In Minnesota, three gay students the Anoka-Hennepin school district have committed suicide this year and the district is facing increasing pressure to crack down on homophobic bullying. However, not everyone's on board.
Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent reports that the head of a Christian rock ministry called "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" is opposing the anti-bullying programs, which he considers to be a recruiting tactic for gays, and by extension, child molesters (?!). Birkey also reports that Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Tom Emmer, has said he won't sign an anti-bullying bill if he is elected. Emmer has a strongly anti-gay record as a state legislator. The department store chain Target drew the ire of national gay rights groups when it gave a major donation to a pro-Emmer PAC.
Coming out for...
Monday was National Coming Out Day. To mark the occasion, Richard Kim published a piece in TheNation arguing that tougher criminal penalties aren't necessarily the solution to anti-gay bullying. Bullies are, after all, mirroring the prejudices they see in adult society:
It's tougher, more uncertain work creating a world that loves queer kids, that wants them to live and thrive. But try-try as if someone's life depended on it. Imagine saying I really wish my son turns out to be gay. Imagine hoping that your 2-year-old daughter grows up to be transgendered. Imagine not assuming the gender of your child's future prom date or spouse; imagine keeping that space blank or occupied by boys and girls of all types. Imagine petitioning your local board of education to hire more gay elementary school teachers.
Kim argues that simply heaping more punishment onto bullies is an easy way out for a society that doesn't want to grapple with widespread homophobia.
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The edges are fraying. While xenophobia is nothing new in American life, the use of particularly rancorous and fear-inspiring rhetoric by prominent spokespeople, affiliated with mainstream institutions that have real power to shape our dialogue, is surely on the rise, and ideas that were once whispered (or grumbled under the breath, perhaps after one too many drinks) are becoming increasingly mainstream. These ideas not only demean us all, but they are also one of the surest harbingers of those dark events in our nation’s history—the Red Scare, the Chinese Exclusion and Geary Acts, Executive Order 9066—that most fundamentally undermine our founding values.
I was distressed and sometimes terrified by what was happening during the Bush years; particularly 2002 to 2006 as I watched Congressional Republicans collude with the White House to fashion an American brand of authoritarianism.
That trajectory was changed by the 2006 and 2008 elections.
An essential part of our mission those two elections was, in fact, to stop - or at least slow - this right wing surge which dominated the first decade of the 21st century.
This year is different. The brawl is on among moderate, liberal and progressive Democrats. (This can make for quite an internal struggle for those of us who have a moderate, a liberal and a progressive living within a single brain).
Maybe we do need to beat the hell out of each other over what Obama, his crew and Congressional leaders did wrong. And maybe various constituency groups do need to act out their outrage and frustration. But probably, at some point, we're going to need a truce in order to fight our true adversary, those clever and devious Republican.
A demoralized and withdrawn Democratic base plays right into the hands of our opponents and legitimizes and reinforces the Republican strategy of twisting facts, blocking reform and disparaging the president. Do we really want to reward their bad behavior and give up ground to the likes of Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, John Boehner, Eric Canter, Tim Pawlenty and - oh yea - Sarah Palin?
I don't think so. I'm optimistic that Democratic activists are going to get over our disappointments and unite.
And one more thing...
As we continue to argue, posture and protest, is it possible that we try to lighten up at least a little bit? Yes, there's a lot at stake. But if politics and policy become too much of a drag, we'll all just want to take our ball and go home.
There are but three days to go, Gentle Reader, and the McCain campaign is now down to fear and Joe The Plumber.
Those who seek to spread The Fear are resorting to fantastic schemes and amazing leaps of logic in an effort to find something to make The Fear rise in voters.
But to be honest, the crazy speculation lacks...imagination.
I believe I can present crazy speculation that is at least as interesting as what they've put out-and funnier to boot-and with that and the Halloween just past in mind we present the final weekend edition of the 2008 campaign cycle's blogging.
So, ya wanna hear a few debunked made up rumors that, frankly, have a lot more creative style?
The label does have its drawbacks. There are probably many progressive activists on our campuses and in our neighborhoods that would happily join an organization that fights for a variety of broadly popular social democratic causes but would think twice before joining a group with the word ’socialism’ in its name. Their skepticism is justified, given the numberofkookyoutfitsout there that fly the flag. But ironically, the fact that red-baiting is once again en vogue may vindicate the continued use of that burdensome old ’s’ word.
The McCain campaign and National Joe the Plumber Week have proven that even something as mundane as progressive taxation (which has near-universal support among bourgeois economists) can be red-baited political purposes. Proving that, no matter what we call ourselves, conservatives will use it against us.
Is Barack Obama a socialist? No, he isn’t even particularly liberal. Will this prevent him from being constantly red-baited by his Republican opponents and the wide-eyed anti-Dreyfusards of AM radio? Of course not.
If even timid, corporate-friendly reforms like the ‘93 Clinton health care initiative have been labeled as socialist in the past, how can anyone hope that genuinely progressive proposals will somehow escape the same charge in the future?
It’s important that there exist explicitly social democratic voices in order to put Barack Obama and other centrist politicians in proper perspective. What Obama certainly doesn’t need is our formal endorsement - we self-identified pinkos are insignificant in numbers* and influence and our support would not be welcome anyway. What Obama does need, especially if he wins the election, is vocal opposition from the left. For example, if the national debate on health care is to be between President Obama and hard right (the insurance industry and its puppets in Congress and the media), the resulting compromise will be totally unacceptable. But if the debate on health care is between Obama and an angry, vocal, recession-radicalized progressive movement, the resulting compromise might be halfway decent.
In the event of an Obama victory, the Republican noise machine will go into high gear, spinning deranged conspiracy theories about Obama, Tony Rezko and their terrorist picnics with al-Qaeda. Super sleuth Kenneth Starr can investigate! The left will be tempted to defend Obama from this bullshit, but it really won’t be worth our time. He doesn’t need us in his corner. Obama has tons of liberal groupies, particularly in the blogosphere, who will back him up. As radical social democrats, our mission should be to find constructive ways to be Obama’s enemy.
_______________ * I believe there are millions of progressive Americans who could be unconscious social democrats, and real majorities that would support no-brainers like universal health care.
When last we met, Gentle Reader, we were talking about more or less $150,000 in clothing and beauty services that had been purchased mostly for Sarah Palin's use by the Republican National Committee.
Since then, we have learned that John McCain himself once tried to outlaw the very type of contribution that led to this situation, we've heard McCain's campaign offer a very non-maverick-y denial...and we've learned that the highest paid member of the McCain campaign staff-the person who presumably has the magic touch needed to turn this thing around-will be working her magic with a makeup brush.
As we discussed yesterday, I think I could have dressed Palin for 1/3 of what the RNC paid. Yesterday we "purchased" five of the outfits I think she needs...and with half the shopping done, we're $670 over budget.
Can she be dressed for a mere $43,000?
Let's see if we can pull it off...
Palin is a divisive force for the Republicans. She is rallying the far-right rednecks, while McCain wants to keep a shred of dignity to his campaign, in the hope of appealing to independents and moderates.
In a previous post ("Carving up the elephant - the future disintegration of the GOP"), I speculated on how we might turn the different factions of the GOP against one another. Someone replied to my post with the suggestion that Palin might form a splinter faction within the Republicans. We can hope for that outcome, and try to encourage it.
Okay, first we had the news about McCain's campaign doling out $150,000 over the past few weeks to buy his new lady-in-waiting pricey, designer threads. That story, while humorous, could hardly be considered a deal breaker for normal people. Now, however, a New York Times story documents that McCain is also breaking the bank to pay for her makeup also - to the tune of $11,400 per week!
As I said, in my opinion the clothing story was a side show and didn't really deserve all the attention that it got. But the new revelation that the McCain/Palin campaign is paying more for Sarah's MAKEUP than they are paying the top staffers in charge of FOREIGN POLICY and COMMUNICATIONS is another thing entirely.
Not only did you pick a totally unqualified "pretty face" for a running mate who has no concept of national policy, but you're paying more money for her to just "stand there and look good" than you're paying to the people you are relying on for advice on public policy?
Seriously?
Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain's presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?
Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain's chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staff member. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin's traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.
Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?", was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records.
So, in doing the math, you will pay a makeup artist for your vice president $592,000 per year while your Directors of Foreign Policy and Communications makes about half of that and the average White House staffer makes a little closer to $50-60k.
John McCain, you have just made it official: You have no judgment.
You are UNFIT TO LEAD.
John McCain is all excited today, because, in his mind, Joe Biden has really Screwed It Up This Time by claiming that Obama will be tested by a foreign policy challenge, that Obama will act in a way we might not immediately trust, and that we should stand by him if it happens.
Oh My God You Have To Vote For Me, is the McCain response, because we can't afford someone who will be tested in office.
As it turns out, Joe Biden is the smarter guy in this argument, a few calm words are in order...and I'm here today to offer a response that will set McCain's foolishness right back on its heels.
While reading a deeply disturbing piece about the historical use of lynching photographs by Dora Apel entitled Lynching Photographs and the Politics of Public Shaming, I couldn't help but be constantly reminded of the displays of race-driven anger and fear at McCain/Palin rallies over the last week. I know this has been pointed out before, but the structures of the two situations truly do mirror one another - not only in the symbolism of words and actions, and in the mediums (photographs and video) used to describe them, but in the reactions of those not involved.
Last night was crazy in New York City. Drinking Liberally ended up hosting three events in Manhattan just to make sure we had enough space, and our venues still were packed.
Laughing Liberally comedian Elon James White captured the spirit of the night and repackaged it fast into today's episode of This Week in Blackness. Elon interviewed two groups of debate-watchers for their views: people of color, and white women.
Of course, white or black, man or woman, everyone shared one thing: they were drinking...liberally...
Taegan Goddard makes the case, briefly. The latest bit of evidence supporting this thesis is McCain pulling out of Michigan, which Goddard (plausibly, IMO) argues would not be happening if Romney was on the ticket. Whether he would have been enough to really tip the state, though, is another question.
The best case for Romney is a retroactive one that McCain could not have known about at the time he made his VP choice: the financial market implosion. Just from the standpoint of knowing stuff about economics, Romney is far and away the best spokesperson the Republicans have at the national level. If he had been on the ticket, a plausible approach for their campaign in dealing with the economic crisis would have been to make Romney the point man for discussing it with the media. It certainly would have taken a lot of pressure off McCain--Romney would be able to handle the messaging entirely on his own, a stark contrast with the ticking time bomb that an unchaperoned Palin represents--and perhaps even avoided the scenario where McCain felt the need to engage in preposterous theatrics like "suspending" his campaign.
On the flip side, of course, the two biggest problems with selecting Romney were (a) McCain hates him and (b) the evangelical GOP base largely dislikes Mormonism and sees it as a weird cult. The key strength that Palin unquestionably brought to the ticket--exciting the base--would have been an uneasy potential weakness with Romney. And in an electoral landscape where McCain's prospects were always going to be difficult, having to deal with a running mate whom he can't stand on a personal level might only have made his short temper and irritability even worse.
So in retrospect, I would argue that events have shown Romney to have been their best possible choice because the financial meltdown has been a major drag on McCain's prospects, and Romney is the one potential VP pick who could actually have helped them deal with it. But the opportunity cost with the base of not choosing Palin, not to mention the additional drag of tension with the fundamentalist base, is still out there as a big strike against Romney.
I guess this thought experiment is just more evidence that McCain didn't have any particularly good choices available to him.
*Titles and affiliations of each individual are provided for identification purposes only.
Governor Palin's cavalier approach to learning about U.S. national security policy is offensive, given that she is well aware of the horrific impact that the war in Iraq has had on the Alaska National Guard.
When I read the preliminary findings from Veterans for America National Guard Program's work in Alaska, I was outraged. It is unconscionable to think that the citizens of Alaska are suffering in part from her neglect while she - and others associated with the McCain-Palin campaign - uses them to boost her own national security policy credentials.
I have spent the better part of a year trying to get our presidential (and now, vice presidential) candidates to recognize the unprecedented sacrifices that have been asked of our National Guard, but, to date, the response has been inadequate.
I don't have the video-editing skills to do this, but I'd love to see an ad intercutting Palin drivelling about God's plans in the Gibson interview and speeches she's given, and saying that "perhaps" we would need to go to war with Russia over its incursion into Georgia, with Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone, screaming at the general to put his hand on the scanning screen and authorize a missile launch, then telling his horrified advisers, "The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" Anybody here up to the challenge of putting it together?
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