Short Stories, Long Odds

…but apparently, Congress has lost its goddamned mind.

First of all, let me point out that when George Bush was Governor of Texas, he signed into law a bill that allows hospitals to unplug patients in a vegetative state if no one can pay the bill and there’s no hope for recovery. George Bush, leader of the Republican Party for which the Terry Schiavo case is a widely proclaimed “matter of principle”.

Secondly, Tom DeLay has been quarterbacking this highly charged moral issue, all the while making character attacks on Terry Schiavo’s husband. Tom DeLay, thrice spanked by the House Ethics Committee and what should be a hair’s breadth from fending off criminal charges.

Third, the bill itself is a truly bipartisan effort, and I cannot believe the lengths to which Senate Democrats have gone to fail so stupendously. The Washington Post snagged a memo to Senate Republicans concerning the bill:

This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue,” said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. “This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.

I would like to single out a Senate Democrat to righteously wail on about voting in favor of this bill, but I can’t, because the vote was unanimous. There were seven initial holdouts for the Dems, but simply holding out for concessions shouldn’t have been an option. To top it off, when DeLay was forcing the issue of blame on Senate Democrats if the bill didn’t pass, Fearless Leader Harry Reid passed the buck on Thursday:

I am pleased Senator Frist and I were able to pass the bill that protects the life of Terri Schiavo by allowing her parents to go to federal court. If the House Republicans refuse to pass our bipartisan bill, they bear responsibility for the consequences.

Way to go, you retard! You are learning well! By attempting to take the moral high ground on an issue that is abjectly absurd to begin with, you totally gave all claims to morality to the Republicans. To the GOP, a party with a membership that regularly writes off wartime civilian innocent deaths as acceptable collateral damage. Tom DeLay spewed forth the idea that if what was being done to Terry Schiavo by her husband was being done to a dog, it would be illegal. He made no mention of what the legality would be if it were being done to an Iraqi child.

So, we have the absolute failure of the Democratic Party to manage the national agenda, policy or otherwise. This isn’t necessarily difficult to understand, owing to the massive powers of agenda control that rest with the office of the President, regardless of who inhibits that office. That isn’t to say they couldn’t have fought harder, but fear of political retribution replaced the legislative brains of these fools and this is what we’re left with. The true, best part of this whole mess, however, the real punchline, is the legal implication of this travesty of a bill.

First of all, the GOP calling the bill a bipartisan compromise could very well be an attempt at pre-emptive damage control – they have successfully exerted federal power in the matter of the wholesale control and determinance of the fate of an individual citizen. Bush may feel like American families are better at investing their money than the US Government, but apparently American families are ill-equipped to make medical decisions on behalf of loved ones. This should go far in showing classic conservatives where the priorities of the GOP lay: they are no longer afraid to increase the power of government over the individual, and they are willing to go to any lengths, even calling a BRAIN DEAD WOMAN TO TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS, to assert those powers.

Additionally, I as usual take issue with the language of the bill because issue must be taken: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but states rights are under attack. By way of the inclusion of the phrase “de novo,” this bill is sending a clear message: we get a do-over. This is a case that’s been fully and formally litigated in the Florida state courts, and Congress didn’t like what they came up with. So, in effect, they are going to wholly disregard any and all decisions made on the issue by Florida courts and are just going to ;askjhdasdt[[[[[[[[[[[[

I’m sorry, I think I was having a tiny stroke.

Social Security reform is dead. Bush’s numbers are in the dumper. The GOP’s salt-of-the-earth base did not react with the election year outrage about the gay marriage upheavals last week. Memos are already circulating addressing the RNC’s concerns about losing seats in the mid-terms. Since their against-all-odds victories in November the NeoCon Funhogs have been getting trounced left and right, foreign and domestic.

Suddenly, an issue that’s been going on FOR YEARS in Florida rears its head and DeLay latches on like a rabid wolverine, without any apologies for not being around before. They can push their Culture-Of-Life hogwash to the extreme and because DeLay and the ProLifers have charged the language with such emotional context, they can totally disregard the normal, Old Tyme Conservative bent about the government staying out of the lives of the little people.

As a husband, I can’t imagine the hell Michael Schiavo is living in. Nor can I imagine how any good conservative can stomach the idea of Bush, first Governor Jeb and then President George, throwing their weight around to overturn the decisions of 19 Florida judges, all of whom have sided with Michael Schiavo. What about the Rule Of Law? What about the GOP’s rank and file derision of the Democrat’s polticization of issues? What about state’s rights? What about, dare I say it, the little-mentioned concept of human dignity?

Congratulations, America. This is what you voted for. Its often said that In a democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve. In this case, we’re getting a government that gives us what it thinks we deserve, whether we like it or not.

I’ve been avoiding beating the hell out of you guys with social security because Schwarz and that other, more senior Josh are doing a much better job than I ever could.

However, there’s a very simple method of explaning what’s wrong with Bush’s plan, and I could no longer pass it up:

Seriously, it uses math. Check it out.

Spc. Graner was found guilty by a true jury of his peers, and may go to jail for around 18 years. Pfc. Lynndie England faces trial some time early this year.

These are the ghouls smiling in the all the famous pictures. England even recently gave birth to a child believed to be Graner’s. The argument these two and their colleagues have posed most often is that they were “just following orders.”

So, following orders absolves some people of some responsibility some of the time in some situations – if anything, soldiers not following orders based on any number of reasons in the current Politco-Military climate has become a regular thing. It also seems to be a foregone conclusion that gleeful, smiling snapshots don’t normally fall under the auspices of most ops, and certainly not in military corrections. It can be also assumed that commands wouldn’t lay along those lines.

On the absolute polar other end of the spectrum, you have Bush, Rumsfeld, and Gonzales. These are the guys who gave the big OK to the use of torture in the War On Terror. Based on a DoJ letter to White House Counsel, Gonzales made recommendations to the Bush Administration along these lines. This is information with which we’re all familiar. You may be less familiar with the White House’s smothering of a Senate bill that would have specifically regulated and forced disclosure of interrogation tactics, while prohibiting intelligence officers from torturing foreign prisoners.

So the quandry is this – where does the buck stop? We’ve all hooted and hollered about holding people high up the chain accountable for not only Abu Ghraib but an entire war based on lies. Rumsfeld and Bush will, barring some sort of legal Holy Grail, be totally bullet-proof at least until 2008. Its becoming common knowledge that the Bush White House is all but done with Rumsfeld, but, again, that pesky Politico-Military Climate comes into play. Firing Rumsfeld now would be the equivalent of admitting defeat, and that, of course, is unacceptable.

The buck doesn’t stop with Graner or England, and it obviously doesn’t make its way to Rumsfeld or Bush. The top legal authority in the United States is the Attorney General, so one might assume that the buck would stop there, but current evidence is to the contrary – Gonzales, the man who made recommendations to the White House as Special Counsel as to the legality of torture (not to mention how to get around the Geneva Conventions) is most likely going to be confirmed this week. The White House refused to make relevant communications available to Congress prior to his confirmation hearing.

The people who did the abusing and torturing are all going to go to jail, but the people who willfully created operating environmments in which that abuse and torture could take place are either immune or getting promoted.

Other bloggers take note, this is how we do it:

The GOP is running a new ad. Its called ‘Wolves’ and features wolves in a forest waiting, presumably, to metaphorically attack and eat some form of America that is palatable to carnivore / scavengers. The ad uses incredibly shady language and plays up on the same attention-grabbing sound bites that truly define the “politics of fear” Bush talks about so often. If you don’t mind, I’d like to rip this ad apart in a way everyone can understand and no one can argue with. Polls show that the American public is buying what Bush is selling, but we must do our part as professionals and debunk like all hell.

Ready? Okay. Every single part of this add is either a total fabrication, a half truth, or an intangible. If anyone has ever thought to themselves “I bet that Bush administration isn’t entirely honest but I wish I had a simple example of how they pull it off!” then your ship has just arrived, pal.

Here is a transcription of the voiceover in the ad, which I recommend you go watch before you listen to me. Trust me, it’ll make it better. Read along if you’d like.

In an increasingly dangerous world,
even after the first terrorist attack on America,
John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted
to slash America’s intelligence operations by six billion dollars.
Cuts so deep they would have weakened America’s defenses, and weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.

First of all, some background information – this add refers specifically to a vote on an amendment (SA 1452) to a bill (HR 3759, 103rd Congress, 1994) in the Senate. (Offical Congressional Archive) This amendment was written by Kerry and cut quite a few dollars from quite a few programs, over six billion dollars worth. The problem is this: those six billion dollars included cuts from the Agriculture, Defense, the World Bank, Space Station Freedom, and the Super Collider. Also, THIS VOTE TOOK PLACE IN 1994.

LIE: Intelligence wasn’t cut by $6,000,000,000, as the ad claims. It was cut by $1,000,000,000. The total amount of cuts from the budget if this amendment had passed would have exceeded $6,000,000,000, but the Intelligence cuts alone did not even approach this number.

Subtitle C–Foreign Relations and Intelligence

SEC. 5301. RESCISSION OF FUNDS FOR INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE-RELATED ACTIVITIES.
Of the funds made available in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 1994 (Public Law 103-139), $1,000,000,000 is rescinded, to be derived from programs and activities of the National Foreign Intelligence Program and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities.

LIE: “John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted” is an inaccurate representation of the vote that actually went down. The GOP makes it sound like all the Democrats got together and tried to fast-track this amendment through the Senate by force. This is far from the truth, in that most superliberals and even Ted Kennedy voted against it, while Republicans accounted for two of the 20 positive votes: Grassley (R-IA) and Jeffords (R-VT). The other 18 votes were Democrats. 75 voted against and 5 did not vote. THIS HAPPENED IN 1994.

See, right there I could have resorted to a Bush PR move – I almost wrote “Republicans accounted for 10% of the votes to pass Kerry’s amendment” and left it at that, ambiguous and implying that a lot of Republicans voted for it and that maybe it even passed. But I didn’t. The idea of implication brings us to the next aspect of deception: language structure.

SIGNS AND SIGNIFIERS AND OMG LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU
Semiotics is an extraordinarily useful science – one of signs and signifiers, originally developed by linguistic theorists in pursuit of understanding how and why we interpret language the way we do. It is a cornerstone of study for any PR man worth his salt because perception, as they say, is everything. Following is a partial semiotic analysis of the ‘Wolves’ voiceover.

In an increasingly dangerous world

I refer to this as the index – this line of dialogue and an ominous sound effect or two set the tone for the entire ad. Yes, the world is increasingly dangerous, so saying this isn’t something you can claim as a lie, but even if the world weren’t growing more dangerous everyday, this statement is ambiguous enough to be unquantifiable.

It wouldn’t matter if puppies and kitties snuggled for the remaining 26 seconds of the ad, you’d still feel creeped out. It creates not only a functional contextual index, but an overall ominous context of fear, which is perfect for the next line:

even after the first terrorist attack on America

Think fast! What was the first terrorist attack on America? 9/11? The USS Cole? The Oklahoma City bombing? The Lusitania?

I’d bet a sawbuck that most of you, when you first read or heard that phrase, thought of 9/11.

The pinions of this part of the sentence are largely ambiguous so “America” could mean American citizens, and if that’s the case then we’ve been undergoing terrorist attacks since at least the Carter administration. It could mean American soil, which would lead some to argue that Pearl Harbor was the first. But this portion in the context of the previous portion conjoined by concepts like immediacy, tangibly increasing levels of danger, and terrorist attacks heavily suggest the first big last one, or 9/11. Its is the most recent and its details set it far above any other terrorist attack in emotional relevance and immediacy for the general citizenry.

Not only that, but it has come to be the typified, defining example of terrorism in a world where terrorism is rampant and infinitely varied. Don’t think this is a mistake: the Bush team has worked hard to hammer 9/11 into your brain as the prime example of terrorism, and this turn of phrase takes advantage of that. 9/11 was horrific but it was not the first, last, or defining act of terrorism.

Also, it is important to note that the first portion (“increasingly dangerous world”) refers to present day while the second portion (“after the first terrorist attack”) refers to circa 1994, which is when this vote took place.

Lastly:

Cuts so deep they would have weakened America’s defenses

More very negative connotations, but the most important part of this ad is the phrase “would have”. They never tell you the vote didn’t pass. By assigning the action verb ‘voted’ and pairing it with ‘to slash’: “Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America’s intelligence operations by [$imaginary]” it becomes a done deal in the listener’s mind. “Would have” is already a soft container phrase – it only has meaning when something is assigned around and to it. and on top of that the diction of both words is soft.

In addition, the sign ‘cuts’ is a repeated word and part of a negatively indexed idea with an entirely seperate focus on ‘Kerry’. ‘Would have’ becomes nothing more than a joining phrase, and its implications instantly slip the mind of the viewer / listener. I didn’t notice the speaker even said “would have” until the second viewing of the ad.

It has also been suggested (specifically by Drek) that “would have” leaves an open-ended “IF”, as in “would have weakened America’s defenses” IF “not for President Bush!” The connotation is clear.

Again, THIS VOTE HAPPENED IN 1994. Bush would have had nothing to do with it, ever, if he weren’t running for re-election against Kerry.

I hope you’ve gotten the picture by now because the kid needs to sleep. Tomorrow I will be mailing this out to the media and trying to get someone to talk about the gross improprieties, etc. It is unfortunate that about the facts, but they may be feeling that fighting back directly is impossible and I don’t blame them.

Remember last Thursday when I said Colin Powell made some remarks concerning Iraqi Aid money getting reshuffled to security? Well, the DoD is actually owning up to the other main reason for fiscal rebalance: the first was increased security in a war we seem to be losing, and the other is oil.

One interesting thing you may notice in these articles is that they all mention job creation programs. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I would love to know how many jobs Bush has created in Iraq.

Yes, security is important, and without security there won’t be any power or water or sewage. But what you haven’t heard alongside this story is an important impetus for these new financial considerations is the insurgents are starting to get smarter and now they’ve started bombing oil pipelines in earnest. I’m sure I don’t have to connect the dots for you.

None of this is a secret – oil is vital to establishing the new Iraqi economy and, through some strange accounting where we get profits from Iraq’s oil and at the same time forgive $4,000,000,000 of Iraq’s debt to us, the oil is vital to our continuing operations there. Which, I don’t mind complaining about, NO ONE HAS AN EXIT STRATEGY FOR.