What Is This "Progressive Politics" Of Which You Speak?

First of all, being the first day of the new year, I do indeed have a resolution. Just one. I hereby resolve that, before the end of 2008, I'm going to build myself the fire-breathing robot Brandy mentioned. I will then send him to deal with the neighbors...

Second, as I've been somehow engaged to blog about something called "progressive politics" here at Moue Magazine (yeah, yeah, I have no idea how it happened either), I thought it might be kinda nice to set out a definition of what that means. In other words, when you see folks slinging the term "progressive" around like it actually meant something, well, it actually does mean something.

To many of us on this side of the political spectrum, the idea of progressive politics goes right back to the founding of this nation (the USA, in case you were wondering). The concept that human beings had certain rights just by virtue of being human beings, and that the role of government was not to bestow but to protect those rights, was the most progressive idea that'd come around in centuries. The American Revolution spun thousands of years of human governance around on its head.

Fast-forward through the Emancipation Proclamation and Women's Suffrage, when we realized that "everyone" meant, um, everyone, and we arrive in what's been called the Progressive Era, one of whose key figures was Robert "Fightin' Bob" LaFollette. Check out the link. Find out who he was and what he stood for and what he did. Get past the Einstein hair and listen to what he has to tell us now, a century later.

"America is not made -- it's in the making." That's Fightin' Bob, and that's progressive politics in a nutshell, the idea that we can and should always be striving to be better than what we are, that America is not complete, and that it cannot be a Great nation until it is a Good nation -- and that we haven't been very good at all lately.

Whatever other differences I may have with them (and there are many - more on those another day), the Greens have summed it up very nicely with their Ten Key Values:

1. Grassroots Democracy
2. Social Justice and Equal Opportunity
3. Ecological Wisdom
4. Non-violence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice
7. Feminism and Gender Equity
8. Respect for Diversity
9. Personal and Global Responsibility
10. Future Focus and Sustainability

I like those. I quibble -- sometimes harshly disagree -- with the definitions the Green Party gives, just as I quibble and sometimes harshly disagree with the definitions the Democratic Party gives. Mileage will vary with the individual, of course: for example, I'm just a wee bit more interested in the whole "respect for diversity" and "economic justice" deals right now, mostly for personal reasons, so my own emphasis may be different than yours, or Brandy's, or anyone's.

But as an encapsulation of what "progressive politics" means to most of us who label ourselves as "progressive", it's a good starting point and basis for discussion. There's a rich, rich, political season ahead of us, filled with decisions both major and minor that will determine the kind of country we will become.

It's gonna be a hell of a ride. C'mon along...

Shame Is, Like, So '90's

Okay, if you're not into moral outrage, skip over this post. I will think no less of you.

Via Daily Kos (aka "The Big Orange") comes a story from the Associated Press that got lost in the Friday, pre-New Year's "news dump". Apparently, the Bush administration has decided that they're giving way too much money to low-income disabled children and has decided to cut back to the tune of $3.6 billion over five years:

For example, schools can no longer expect Medicaid reimbursement for the planning of student immunizations. Schools also won't get paid for transporting students getting speech or physical therapy to school or back home.

It's insidious, if you think about it, since it's actually a double cut. They'll still reimburse the actual immunizations, but if the school can't adequately plan for them, well, then, there won't be as many immunizations to reimburse, will there? And they're not cutting out the therapies, they're just making it much more difficult for the kids to get to where the therapies are being offered. Fewer participants, fewer reimbursements. At this moment in Washington, someone is patting himself on the back for his ingenuity.

They'll end up saving a whole lot more than $3.6 billion on this. It will come at the expense of the most vulnerable members of our society. And our President approves of this, quite possibly because it'll pay for a whole entire week of his ridiculous war.

I'm not what you'd call a Bible-thumping Christian, but I've actually read the book, and I recall a passage where Jesus says something along the lines of "Whatsoever you do to the least among you, you do unto me."

George Bush once claimed Jesus as his favorite philosopher. I call bullshit. Bullshit times infinity.

In other news, Goldman Sachs is handing out end-of-the-year bonuses to the tune of about $18 billion this year. I do not begrudge the G-S employees their bonuses, I honestly don't, and frankly I know for a fact that there are more than a few bonus recipients who will turn right around and give huge chunks of money to disabled children and underfunded school programs. I just wanted to include the number for a little perspective. Make of it what you will.

And yes, I realize that my first two posts are a tad grumpy. I'm really not always like this, really, I'm not, but sometimes I just get all lathered up, as they say. I'll post something amusing tomorrow, promise! It'll be about Alan Keyes, so it's almost guaranteed to be funny, even if all I do is post the words "Alan Keyes" 250 times.

Attack of the Political Ghouls

Listen, I'm as big a fan of political chattering and nattering and horse-race-handicapping as anyone, but there are moments when you really do need to give it a rest. You would think that at times like this, people could break out of their own little worlds for just a moment. Just one. But according to the logic of the American political establishment, a tragedy left unexploited is a tragedy compounded.

As you've no doubt seen splashed across the airwaves, Benazir Bhutto was killed on Thursday. Her assassination has basically thrown an already volatile nation into even deeper turmoil -- it wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say it's the worst crisis Pakistan has faced, and given the situation in the rest of the region, it couldn't come at a worse time. Digby explains why.

So if you're a candidate for the most powerful political office in the world, how do you react? Well, if you're Rudy Giuliani, you remind everyone that everything that happens in the world is all about YOU!

"Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere - whether in New York, London, Tel-Aviv or Rawalpindi - is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the terrorists' war on us."

Silly me, I thought the attack happened in Pakistan. But to hear Rudy tell it, it's all about America, and Terrorism in America is always all about Rudy "noun-verb-9/11" Giuliani (thanks to Joe Biden for the Rudester's nickname).

Now keep in mind that at this point there's no clear idea of exactly who was behind this, whether it was "terrorists" in the al-Qaeda sense of the term or whether it was political warfare of a kind tragically common in Pakistan. But Giuliani apparently has no need for such fripperies as "facts" and "analysis" where terrorism is concerned.

So if our political leaders can't break out of their own self-absorption for five minutes, we can always turn to the press for sanity, analysis, and equilibrium, right? Right! It's the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza to the rescue!

But, with the Bhutto's death and the broader implications of the fight against terrorism worldwide likely to dominate the coverage for the next day or two (at a minimum), Giuliani immediately becomes relevant again.

Why? Well, in Cillizza's universe, nothing matters but the Presidential horse race, and as we all know, Giuliani is the most qualified candidate to deal with terrorism because... because... um... He happened to be in a city that was attacked by terrorists.

Seriously. Think about it. Other than being the guy who happened to be Mayor of NYC on 9/11, Rudy's qualifications for being the Great Anti-Terrorist Savior are pretty much nil. By his "I was there when it happened" logic, there are 1.5 million people in Manhattan alone who are just as qualified as he is. And we won't even get into his actions as Mayor that may very well have compounded the 9/11 tragedy.

But Cillizza insists on his "conventional wisdom" -- Bhutto's death helps Giuliani. Why? Because Giuliani is the strongest anti-terrorist candidate. Why? Because Chris Cillizza read it in someone else's column sometime, that's why. Don't ask so many questions. And ignore the fact that analyzing how a woman's death affects a political campaign half a world away when her body isn't even cold is ghoulish beyond redemption.

By the way, as Josh Marshall points out, the Democrats aren't any better.

And in the meantime, Pakistan is burning. In order to find out what's really happening, you have to break out of the American media bubble and get it straight from the source.

I sigh a lot these days. Is that okay?

You're Giving Me a Chumby

Popular Science seems to have a fascination with redesigning the Chumby. This is the second Chumby modification I've seen in the magazine in the past year or so and I haven't been reading regularly. I can understand why they would want to make the squishy Chumby box look more hip (and why you would want to convert it to battery power). But is there really even a point to buying a Chumby?

Besides having a name that is both fun to say and vaguely dirty, the Chumby is an always on wireless internet device that will show information that you choose from the web nonstop. You can get news, stock and sports tickers, play your mp3 files and charge your IPod, play digital pictures across the frame, monitor incoming email and use it as an alarm clock. It is designed to be hacked, with open source hardware and easily disassembled components.

For the geeks, the hardware specs are a 350 MHz ARM9 controller, 64 MB of SDRAM, 64 MB of NAND flash ROM, a 320 x240 3.5 inch touchscreen TFT LCD running at 12Hz, stereo 2W speakers, an integrated microphone, audio output, two USB 2.0 ports and integrated WiFi.

I'm not knocking the Chumby for being a pudgy little widget player. My problem lays more in the area of price. The retail price is $179. 95. The 8 GB iPhone- albeit a flawed device of its own- has the ability to access the same information as the Chumby, WiFi, a music/video/picture playback, PDA software, web browser and is a phone. It retails for about $399 (and falling).

Like a forum poster on a tech site said, the Chumby is what clock radios will be in about five years. It isn't a useless product, but I can't see it being worth the money. Wait this one out awhile and you'll be able to get a Chumby for about $50 very soon.

If I'm going to hack something just for the thrill of it, I'm going to make a Roboraptor spit fire.

Indie Retailer of the Day: Lollibomb Beauty

I am not a vegan but I try to buy beauty products that are. While I might eat an animal, I don't think they need to be involved in making my moisturizer. Lollibomb Beauty has vegan products that are: 1) adorably packaged 2) awesome smelling and 3) affordable.

The "Let Them Wear Cake" Moisturizer Sampler has 5 ml samples of the yummy smelling Whipped Body Frostings in Angel Cake, Birthday Cake, Strawberry Shortcake, Vanilla Frosting and Devil's Food Cake. The cost? $5 with free shipping. Other 5 pack moisturizer samplers feature chocolate or holiday scents. Full sized moisturizers are 8 oz. and a mere $9.

Lollibomb also sells scrubs, body sprays, mineral cosmetics and edible massage oils. I would really like to try one of the massage oils since most of the oils on the market are only edible in the sense that a light bulb is edible. Meaning, you could eat it but no one would really recommend it.