piss off, bold progressivism

I think they got my email at a rally, or bought it, or maybe I gave it to them to let me know when the election results were in. At any rate, Bold Progressives have been streaming me a steady load of BS for the past two years.

Personally, I am a hard line social libertarian. Hard core. Progressives, based on the Bold ones anyway, have no interest in a substantive foray into social issues; that is fine, considering I assume they would be bad at organizing any kind of general modus operandi.

 Fiscally, governmentally, I am not a libertarian through and through. I consider myself not a moderate or progressive, conservative or liberal, but some kind of balanced Realist. The government is sometimes the best at providing services because they have specific channels of delivery that no corporation currently or ever should have access to. Similarly, there are some channels of delivery the government should never take advantage of and should be restricted to individuals. This view is neither libertarian, progressive, conservative, or liberal; it is entirely distinct. Many people will say "I don't trust the government to do anything, so they shouldn't"; some will propose the obverse maximal position. Ultimately, this is a failure of due deliberation; think it through and you realize they can do some things and not others and shouldn't over-reach. A wise man knows what he doesn't know, or whatever.

We should admit the government can do some things, and has a better chance of innovating in the process (look at the history of our country and it's more evident than you would suspect, further the innovations are public domain). We should admit that individuals have an enormous ability to innovate, they just have a limited ability to develop, deploy, and sustain. Economic incubators across the country are a proto-example of middling groups trying to (a) help with that and (b) invest in the future / skim money from the top (some only take stake interests, some have onerous terms to starting-up).

Anyway, we are dredging through the end of a century where the gears of war and economy and government and corporations became so twixt that today they appear insoluble. We need to realize they are soluble, that they don't need to be seen as indistinct or so shaded in the light of some Frankenstein's monster that they cannot be separated without the other dying. What does need to die are the support groups that reenforce their current connectivity.

The first thing I would look at is any group that told you to tell a given politician that because they X on single issue X'ing, you won't ever vote/support them again. Bold Progressives told me to tell Obama that because [he said benefits are being negotiated to redress our current debt and deficit issues] that [I will not vote for him]. They tried to back up their claims with other circumstantial statements, tried to cast Obama as in league with Republicans, as making taxes efficacious.

Bullshit absolutist positions are one thing; trying to not only hold them, but force them on others and thereby affect a politician's behavior is wrong. It is not wrong because a group is lobbying for something they believe in. It is wrong because they are affecting an absolutist stance; in other words, trying to back a politician into a corner, narrowing their options to act to affect change. Face it, politicians are some kind of necessary tool, and without options those tools die. This is what drives politicians to indecision, this is what drives them to campaigning and fund-raising the day after their inauguration. This is one of the many things wrong with the political apparatus. This Bold Progressives is not helping further a discussion that is fucking urgent, but rather they are hindering it by inserting absolutist positions into a situation where a deal needs to be struck immediately.

Anyway, after their email about some apparent outrage with Obama (that he would try to get an intractable situation between parties in Congress under control), I finally had to unsubscribe and tune out from their message. It's not that I wouldn't have liked to agree with them, they were just too much noise for too little signal. I guess its just EFF, FFRF, and AU now. Those three groups' influences are limited and articulate and I can handle anything they send my way.

(Collective) Bargaining

Symptoms

After the fires of anger have been blow (sic) out, the next stage is a desperate round of bargaining, seeking ways to avoid having the bad thing happen. Bargaining is thus a vain expression of hopethat the bad news is reversible.

Bargaining in illness includes seeking alternative therapies and experimental drugs. In organizations, it includes offering to work for less money (or even none!), offering to do alternative work or be demoted down the hierarchy. One's loyalties, debts and dependants may be paraded as evidence of the essentiality of being saved.

it's past one pm. im skipping the protest bold progressives invited me to on Capitol square. i have and need to keep a job. last week i meandered over to the capitol's lawn to listen to some testimony (mostly supporters of SB5). there was a lot of red (anti-SB5), and red (pro-SB5); there really should have been a memo. one guy, i think he had on firemen's clothes, had a big paper bag over his head. it actually seemed like a decent idea. at least, for everyone like me in ohio in a union, and who also feels as i do: like there's a cross-hair on my head.

i have heard a lot of posturing and political hay-making on this whole union-breaking issue. at the core, what i think the real Kasich strategy here is to make the unions appear juvenile. the pols who are going to pass this bill (and it will be passed, or it will be embedded in the budget; ergo, it will pass) have one thing they are trying to accomplish. that is to disenfranchise organized labor and decentralize bargaining efforts. whether you think that is for better or worse, that is what they are doing. they are doing so by making the unions seem like corrupt children who deserve no place at the bargaining table. you may say, 'well yeah they dont,' and thats fine. but dont pretend like theres some greater principle at stake, you just dont like organized labor. and thats fine. you probably fit the Kasich mold; there are grown-ups who need to make decisions, and the workers are basically on trained chimps on welfare (they have jobs).

thats one bit of the governor's perspective that isn't articulated. he doesn't think people with jobs are entitled to want to better their lot in life. (a job is for paying the bills, an investment account is for bettering your lot in life.) so no upward mobility to begin with when it conflicts with corporate interests, but especially if they are government employees. it appears Kasich believes that private employees deserve whatever scraps theyre left; the government employees, they can have the refuse of the private employees' scraps.

Kasich honestly seems to think that workers are on the dole if they (a) work in the public sector, or (b) belong to a union. His sentiment that 'they should be happy to have a job' belies a frightening specter of development in Ohio. leaving aside ideas of whether people should be allowed to bargain to better their lot in life, and the fact he pays his state appointees quite well, I would like to address the fact that Kasich keeps referring to SB5 as part of a package.

Kasich, as any good tactician should, is explicitly planning a multi-step recovery. He has said as much referring to SB5, and JobsOhio, as part of a package for recovery. What all else comprises this (admittedly difficult to swallow) package I'm not sure of, nor have I dismissed out of hand. But what I have dismissed are Kasich's appeal to paint anyone in a union as the reason for the current economic state, rather than as a co-author of the solution. Everyone in a union has a part to sacrifice (and has been doing so for the past two contract negotiations, including a state-wide pay freeze for three years), its true just like everyone else something to sacrifice. However, when management paints labor as children it sounds like they have no interest in asking the people who will suffer about what they're willing to do without.

I haven't made up my mind. And two years from now, if there is some kind of recovery, paid for by lost wages and raised premiums (but not higher taxes, thanks GOD not higher taxes), don't bother to stop to wonder where the gratitude is. 

"Stop trying so hard. He doesn't like you. Jesus, don't kiss an ass if it's in the process of shitting on you."

Olbermann... and any person's struggle with their better angels.

those bold progressives, they spam me so much. and it's not so bad. much of it is some kind of food for thought; not so much a thinking person's protein and nutrients, but more like mental fiber and ruffage - keeps the colon clear.

i got this gem last night:

Keith Olbermann announced Friday that it was his last show with MSNBC. Details are still coming out. But one thing's for sure: Keith Olbermann spoke truth to power and he deserves our thanks.

Please sign the "Thank you, Keith" statement -- and then pass it on. 

I apologize off the bat if you want to go and say thanks, because I do not feel the urge to say thanks and am not feeling like dropping those kind of links. Instead, I'll drop a link to their campaign page and if you're really interested you can follow up. Anyway...

The reason I bring this up at all is I think that Olbermann, even for many of us who can find argreeable the things he demagogues about, is all noise. In the war to cancel out the white noise of one group with the white noise of another, he and Maddow play their parts. I can only hope his role has been completely retired at MSNBC.

good night.However, in the war for one's own mind, he is among the choir of demons screaming down our better angels. All broadcasters who fit the mold of noise combating noise fall into this category. We do not need 'yes' men. I don't attend church for many reasons, one of which is that i dont need someone preaching to me, riling me up, assuaging and pandering to my sympathies. One reason attending church isn't a bad idea has always been for cases where a scripture or a priest pops up with a challenging idea. Or a challenging commitment. One where you have to look past your assumptions, past who you are and have been and your prior good deeds; and you have to reassess everything.

We had a moment recently where we were given a challenge. As a country, at least as an electorate anyway, we were challenged to allow the president and the congress do work. We were challenged to not assume someone of a partisan persuasion was an inherent threat to the well-being of our democracy and progeny. People rose up and admitted there were problems, both in how they had managed themselves and in the fundamentals of our political landscape. In order for anything to happen we need to budge from our bunkers and see the faces of the people in the other bunker for what they are; fellow americans who are as frightened, hurt, and disenfranchised as whoever 'we' happens to be.

I do not know if this was to be some magnanimous stepping down by Olbermann, but I should like to believe it is symbolic of a down-shift in the noise war. With one keystone gone, perhaps more will follow. Perhaps at least one news network is re-aligning and taking seriously the desire to change the signal to noise ratio, and provide people with the facts and dialog they need to be marginally informed. Perhaps single issue politicians and social value policy PACs will take a back seat to people actually trying to improve this country. Perhaps with less noise we might find ourselves coming to understand what the hell is going wrong across the country.

The claim that Olbermann spoke 'truth to power', and the 'good night, good luck' ending to his show are both patronizing. He was not some vulnerable person, nor did he have anything at stake; as such he was enchanting in his prose but shrill in his content. His allusion to and borrowing of "good night..." has always been a pander to Bush-hating first, but galvanizing of some kind of perpetual victimhood of his audience second. He may have known his audience well, but McCarthyism and Murrow's criticism and attack of the Red Scare are journalistic ambitions he never did quite live up to; yet Olbermann maintained the illusion and self-delusion up until his last broadcast (albeit with David Letterman camera flourishes)

In a way, with Olbermann stepping down, it's like one less Siren trying to steer us to shipwreck; and perhaps one of our better angels may come alight.

Update on 9:09AM by mfg

by the way, the corresponding poll on who should replace Olbermann will expire Saturday; you can go here to stuff the ballot box if you want to pick a suitable replacement for his soapbox.

• right now most people favor handing the show off to lewis black and cutting the show's duration to 3 minutes. not only would this be cost effective in terms of ego and salary, but also they could put real news, or archive footage of 1950s era county fairs(!), on the station for the other 57 minutes (minus commercials of course).
• Larry David also has a solid foothold in this too; although im not sure what an hour of talking about nothing would look like (being accustomed to KO's hour of bloviating about anything).

Upton: after election day its vacay

Did you know it's time to go on a paid vacation for the duration of your term if you are a congressperson who was not re-elected?

I didn't. But fortunately, despite 12/21 being a working day for me and most other Americans, Fred Upton (R-Mich) thinks that the FCC should back off working that day. In his view, we should wait even longer to pass some net neutrality rules and the FCC should just take the whole month of December off. Or maybe they can busy themselves with a holiday party session.

Seems to me that, since they have been directed to do something about this, and have dragged their feet and had their feet dragged, they might as well finish it so it's not just another new year's resolution.

I'd imagine any governmental office in a state of transition continues to run despite the blip in time between administrations. Also, does anyone remember hearing the term lame-duck congress thrown around before democrats were in control? i don't, but im young and could be wrong. Anyway, Upton's head is up his ass; I don't care if its the Tuesday before the Saturday that's Christmas, go to work and get paid because you're working. 

On a side note, Genachowski also met resistence from "Republicans who warn that net neutrality rules amount to burdensome regulation that would discourage broadband providers from investing in their networks." 

sign a petition for boldprogressives; get spammed by bp! don't you know its your civic duty to save the internets!Aren't they the party of the free market and market pressures leading to robust competition? I know; I understand the mantra that regulation creates a race to the bottom, the lowest prices for the lowest quality goods.

However there are a few things wrong with that mantra as it relates to Road Runner, Comcast and other residential ISPs. [1] The technology hasn't advanced from terrestrial broadband providers since 1998 (when I got my first cable connection and became addicted; though the date might extend further back than 13 years). We've have been middling in 2-3mbit at an advertised 10 mbit for $40 per month since then. [2] Obviously you need to upgrade to a $50-60 package to get a stable and latency reduced package; this is not premium, it's just necessary due to the poor management by ISP companies of the infrastructure. [3] The government built the infrastructure and maintains much of it aside from the last 9/10s to your house; just as other countries subsidize theirs.  Other countries have substantially better networks and implemented technologies, while we are price-gouged. [4] Last, if the ISPs were that interested in customers and investing in infrastructure we would have a much better broadband penetration rate than we do. This is not a rural vs. urban center problem; this is crisis of providing the lowest possible service at the highest possible cost and creating a scarceness of a commodity where there is none.

Netflix and Comcast: Level 3 Super Saiyan

I am fortunate enough to not live under a Comcast Regime. Yet why is it that whenever i hear of evil trend setting, Comcast is always at the top? How can a company people love to hate remain so agile?

Is it their sage acquisitions, no-bloat service, their innovative products?

No, simple screwing of customers and anti-competitive practices. Why bother investing in the above when you could cut right to the chase the old fashioned way like a shark in a kiddie pool? (That metaphor also works because sharks are spineless, insofar as spines are generally bone and sharks are all cartilage see that and the metaphor is an ad hominem attack; sneaky! thank you studying for LSATs!)

Anyway, I am disappointed that Bold Progressives are the only ones picking up on this for political leverage. I personally would have preferred to sign a petition by, aw hell, let's say anyone else than theirs (not that online petition signing has any meaning, but i digress). Yet they and IGN and the Kos are the only people getting into it.

Actually, if IGN (independent gamers network, a reasonably reputable News Corp subsidiary) offers one, I will indulge the whims of Rupert Murdoch and offer him up a junk email account from my stable. 

Interesting question; does IGN have the balls to spit in the face of News Corp and support Net Neutrality (the underlying issue, if you hadn't picked that up)? I have no grudge with IGN, except that I can barely get a recommendation from them for PS3 games. They make me think any purchase I make is likely to blow up in my face, but with 7.8/10 points of awesomeness. 

Do any of the Entertainment Creation Companies (and hamlet industries) have the balls to stick up to their Entertainment Delivery Older Siblings or Parents? How does a political football of an issue and concept that has providers and creators and infrastructure at odds with each other become something other than a rat's nest of tangled wires? 

who are these bold progressives?

so im sifting my junk email account and found something from...

...asking me to fill out a survey for them. okay.

In general, what are you thinking tonight?

mfg: congress should be overthrown; not one or the other party, but the politic and its PACs

What do you think the progressive movement should do next? As in, immediately...

mfg: it should join together with the tea party and changecongress.org and create an Anti-PAC PAC that neutralizes other PACs

Do you think Pres. Obama and congressional Dems should fight harder for progressive policies or seek middle ground with Republicans? (Please elaborate.)

mfg: I think President Obama, and every elected official worth the feces that got them elected this year, should work to end the corruption of PACs, lobbyists, and the legislative politic that is strangling our country.