I'm concerned that conspiracy is becoming a political movement

In 2001 sometime, I experienced a guy on the uptown 4,5,6 platform in Manhattan shouting, "Do you understand that if you have a square R with a 5-R configuration, flickering back and forth, you will be shot dead by federal agents. You understand that, right?" (I mentioned this here too.) Right! It was kind of an amusing moment in subway-nut conspiracy think. And I kept an eye out for that 5-R configuration for years, to no avail.

Then a few weeks ago I came across this Xerox of a Wall Street Journal article, scotch-taped to a lamppost in Santa Monica:

This little clipping of colored-pen conspiracy scratch rivals the subway caveat above, in that none of it makes a shred of sense. The underlined text makes no sense; the circled words around it make no sense; and the thread of logic from "Catholic Church" to "Roman Monster" to "chess" to "Berlin Nazi" also, makes no sense. Though I must give this conspiracist props for his flags: they're quite compelling.

I'd typically write this off as another bit of isolated lunacy, but there's a disturbing context for this disjointed bit of crazy. Thomas Friedman might've put it best in an editorial today, in which he opines the "poisonous political environment" being created by conservatives, who seek to delegitimize the president by any means possible. The wanton Hitler comparisons, the interchangeable cries of fascist/communist/socialist, the shouting of "you lie" by a congressman during a presidential address — it was just this kind of environment that emboldened a right-wing Jewish nationalist to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.

For RNC chairman Michael Steel to call Friedman a "nut job" reveals that conservative leadership is in denial of the toxic stew they're fomenting. "[They're] saying, because you disagree with the president on policy," Steel said, "that all of the sudden we're going to make this leap into, you know, assassinations and all this other stuff." No, Mr. Steel — what Friedman is saying that your rhetoric is whipping up an uninformed fringe to take that action. And the facts point to that possibility.

A credible white supremacist assassination plot was already foiled last year; death threats against the president are up 400% this year; Fox-inspired protesters proudly carry signs saying, "We came unarmed — this time." Just yesterday, a conservative editor wrote an article outlining the possibility of a military coup to dethrone the president, suggesting it was better than letting the president achieve his goals: "A coup is not an ideal option," the editor wrote, "but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable."

If these aren't signs that the heated rhetoric is having a dangerous influence, I don't know what would be. It's well time the conservative movement — Fox and all — dissociated itself from this lunatic fringe. If they want to lead this democracy in a different direction, they need to assume a responsible leadership role that doesn't score points by slurs, smears, and disinformation. Until then, they are stoking the indiscriminate anger of a volatile minority, and their base will continue to evolve into something like this guy:

And yikes! — who knows what he's capable of?

Gore sketches America's fourth republic for Obama

Two informed articles this weekend offer an inspired context and vision for the next chapter of American history. On Friday, Michael Lind outlined the three major republics of American history over at Salon. And today in the New York Times, Al Gore seems to respond by presenting a plan for the initial phase of the fourth.

Lind's "Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic" argues that America's republics start with a Hamiltonian impulse to big government solutions and conclude with a period of Jeffersonian reform seeking to pare down the federal buildup. His timeline lays the hammer on the outgoing administration, putting it helplessly in a class with Hoover's and Buchanan's: 

The final president of a republic tends to be a failed, despised figure. The First Republic, which began with George Washington, ended with James Buchanan, a hapless president who refused to act as the South seceded after Lincoln's election. The Second Republic, which began with Abraham Lincoln, ended with the well-meaning but reviled and ineffectual Herbert Hoover. The Third Republic, founded by Franklin Roosevelt, came to a miserable end under the pathetic George W. Bush.

But more to the point, Lind speculates that technologies and economies of the age correspond to the cycles of political backlash:

Lincoln's Second American Republic marked a transition from an agrarian economy to one based on the technologies of the first industrial revolution -- coal-fired steam engines and railroads. Roosevelt's Third American Republic was built with the tools of the second industrial revolution -- electricity and internal combustion engines. It remains to be seen what energy sources -- nuclear? Solar? Clean coal? -- and what technologies -- nanotechnology? Photonics? Biotech-- will be the basis of the next American economy.

Al Gore presents his own five-point answer in "The Climate for Change":

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

Gore's points run the fiscal-eco-political gamut: 1) large-scale government investments in solar, wind and thermal; 2) a $400 billion dollar unified electric grid that would pay for itself in three years; 3) a package for big automakers and startups alike to accelerate hybrid auto adoption; 4) tie mortgage relief to an initiative retrofitting buildings and houses with energy-efficient insulation, windows and lighting; 5) trailblaze a Kyoto treaty replacement next year capping global carbon emissions and reducing deforestation.

Indeed, these measures summarize quite nicely the new technologies and economies that will define America's fourth republic. Together, the articles lend credence to the abundant comparisons of Obama to Lincoln and FDR, the presidents who launched the last two American republics. This means the energy and sense of change felt by most Americans isn't just real, it has a historical precedent. And noting the energetic youth engaged with Obama's presidential campaign, Gore offers a very real analogy of hope: 

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

If Obama challenges America, as he has and surely will, to come together and make change, just think where we could be in 10 years. The mind stretches to fathom what the unified thought and might of 300 million Americans couldn't accomplish.

My brother scored an international picture of the year

My brother has a good story regarding his photo of Barack Obama that has garnered an Excellence award from Pictures of the Year International. The story is on his blog. Click on the link below to see POYi's official details.

http://www.poyi.org/64/18/ae01.php

Everybody loves Fox News

... for its overtly partisan infotainment, not for its news coverage.


The Democratic Party has allowed Fox to host a Democratic presidential primary debate this summer in Nevada. Now I'm all for fair and balanced, but anyone who watches Fox knows that they're a parody of their own slogan. Watch their "coverage" of Barrack Obama, their "scoops" on his middle name, his father's religion, and the fact that he smokes. And then sign this petition to encourange the Democratic Party of Nevada to have anyone else host the event:

http://civic.moveon.org/foxdebate/?referring_id=-3375554-xa2HwG&taf=1