It's been about a week since we last checked in from Bostodelphia HQ. Here's what we've been missing:
I, your friendly deadly sandwich, had an editing freak out which threw a wrench into our plans to deliver you Steampunk Mania last week. Fear not, it appears we've salvaged the work and are just tinkering up a revitalized Steampunk-a-go-go to be unveiled any moment now.
PA's governor may or may not have played the race card against the Obama campaign.
MA's governor lent some words to Obama's rhetorical arsenal, apparently in good faith as like minded people are sometime wont to do. Someone else wants you to think otherwise.
We'll cease belaboring our apology and stick with those five. Now for those of you still tuned into us, this is what we got coming:
The aforementioned Steampunk-a-go-go. Jake von Slatt. A Steampunk Monstrosity from the twisted mind of Dr. Cod Peace. And from me: a free associative think piece on all this hot air waltzing the waters to the Stooges. (Hopefully this week.)
Some thoughts from yours truly regarding Gov. Rendell's aforementioned hand, if he was even playing. (Mos' Def this week.)
Having seen it on opening night, I've been wanting to write on Cloverfield since it first came out. With Diary of the Dead in theaters this week, I'll probably be able to do so. (In a couple of days).
That's just what I can think of right now. We're back, and our more unstructured musing are too. First up though, who needs a drink? Have one.
Republicans: KEEP THIS GUY AND HIS ENTOURAGE THEATRE AROUND ALL THE WAY TO THE CONVENTION! I want to see V. for Vendetta guys and people in colonial tri-corners standing in the rafters of the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. Oh come on! The conventions going to be in St. Paul! The Party needs at least a keynote from the one wizened prophet daring to speak the truth given the namesake. Send Paul to St. Paul!
Joe had a point, Rudy G's message was just a bit too limited. Former Hizzoner should have rolled with this:
Well Rudy backers, you all knew when you look at the man through clear lenses, you knew backing him was completely insane. You still can maintain the madness though. Bostodelphia advice: stick with the GOP's race's one true wild man.
NYTimes is reporting Edwards will formally withdraw from the Democratic primary race today at a 1 p.m. EST speech in New Orleans. The setting is (still) a fitting location to remind voters and the remaining candidates what and who he's been fighting for.
Bostodelphia needs to discuss whether we maintain our common endorsement of Edwards through Super Tuesday, or shift to a different candidate. We'll let you know our decisions shortly.
For what it's worth, for those of you on the other side of the aisle, despite a 3.2% showing in the Florida primary, this guy apparently ain't going anywhere. So, for the repubs out there, keep with Paul. He makes this election coverage fun, and on our side of the race things have got a little bit less fun.
For what it's worth, Edwards pulled in 4X as many Dem votes as Paul did Republican votes.
How can we not love this guy? He characterizes those who oppose his movement as "Tolkien's Orcs." Where's all the money going? Who knows? But he's just now able to add his political friends to paid staff positions. People are not just giving up mad props, they're putting blimps up there for him!
Full disclosure, since our tangle with the Ron Paul movement over matters of basic media literacy, we've actually had more to say about Ron Paul's campaign than either Coddy or I have had time to really broach. That Orc thing, for instance. Please, those of you not putting a word into the good fight of the Democratic primary, we beg you. Drop your ballot for Ron Paul. The longer he stays in this thing, the longer we'll have a ready topic to blog about for you, dear readers. This is about more than Ron Paul. This is about you. And us. Specifically us having something for you to read.
Edit: Bostodelphia will be fleshing out our Edwards Endorsement as the MA primary approaches, and Philadelphia twiddles its thumbs until the late April PA primary. We'll also be giving a more coherrent endorsement for our selection from the Republican pool. Until then, here's a glimpse backstage at our careful deliberation process.--CTI
From a series of recent emails:
On Jan 8, 2008 3:34 PM, Cheesesteak The Impaler <cheesesteak.the.impaler@gmail.com> wrote: Ok, should we do Repub nominations too, for the hell of it? We could even refuse to nominate anyone, and do a quick run through why. I'm changing the title to reflect your endorsement. --cti
On Jan 8, 2008 4:47 PM, Cod Peace <cod.peace@gmail.com> wrote: That's a short post:
"We refuse to endorse any of the Republican candidates because they are all batshit fucking insane."
-CP
On Jan 9, 2008 9:24AM, Cod Peace <cod.peace@gmail.com> wrote: We should endorse Ron Paul precisely because of the batshit crazy quality. He's an easy go to when we run out of things to talk about, and I think his "base" may well be the electorate equivalent of ComicCon (in terms of freakshowness copping "mainstream" appeal for a weekend).
--cti
So there you have it! Ron Paul is the officially endorsed Republican candidate from Bostodelphia, based solely on his entertainment value.
And he decried the Civil War, calling it a needless effort for which hundreds of thousands of Americans paid with their lives. He rejected that the war spelled the end to slavery in the United States, saying that the U.S. government could have simply bought the slaves from the Confederate States of America and freed them.
That's right, Ron Paul would have preferred making slavery vastly profitable for the Confederacy over ending this scourge on the American landscape. Look, the Civil War was incredibly nasty and its aftereffects still echo throughout American culture and politics to this day, but to call it "needless" is just ludicrous. Stick a fork in this guy, he's done.
Well, this guy fell off our radar too for a bit; and it looks like the MSM is currently fixated on the Huckabee v. Romney v. Giuliani threeway (an epic battle of monstrous political views I think we can safely term Destroy All Integrity. But he's back with an air force!
Now there'll be more said on this aerial maneuver in future posts. For instance, there's interesting campaign finance "logic" being applied here; but for the time being we at Bostodelphia are particularly tickled with this brand of optimism:
Imagine.. the mainstream media is mesmerized as the image of the Ron Paul blimp is shown to tens of millions of Americans throughout the day (and throughout the month).
Imagine: the major market media (new term coined, trademarked Bostodelphia, out of annoyance with the aforementioned MSM) are going to be captivated by a blimp. Does Goodyear even have their branded blimp anymore? Like the efforts of grassroots Ron Paul supporters to associate November's money bomb with the parliament bombing imagery of Guy Falkes and V for Vendetta, is it really smart to associate their candidate with a giant bag of hot air? I've been wrong on Ron Paul before, at least according to Ron Paul's own news machine. However, I think there's just something to kamakaze-quaint in this earnest effort to use really old media to generate Ron Paul buzz. In short, an attempt to get big media exposure without making media buys; but really, when was the last time a blimp made major news?
Ron Paul, in his campaign for president as the "most Constitution-loving candidate" often refers to a desire to allow young people to opt out of Social Security. It is never made clear exactly what this would entail for the Social Security system. He also makes the constantly-debunked claim that SS is in dire straits and needs rescuing...despite us being 40 years away from any crisis.
First, a definition of the SS program via Wikipedia: the Social Security Act encompasses Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Health Insurance for Aged and Disabled (Medicare), Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (Medicaid), State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The everyday meaning of "Social Security" refers to "benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death". The original Social Security Act was signed by FDR in 1935 and was implemented because poverty rates amongst seniors was over 50% in the Great Depression.
Ron Paul has a page on his website dedicated to Social Security. He cites three bills filed regarding SS: the Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act (HR 191) which prevents taxation of SS benefits, the Social Security for Americans Only Act of 2007 (HR 190) which prevents SS benefits being paid to immigrants, and the Social Security Preservation Act (HR 219), which makes money paid into SS only available for SS benefits. The 1st and 3rd of these aren't too complicated, let's set them aside. I have found an excellent description of the effects of HR 190, which is more interesting:
Here is a good example of why I don't like Ron Paul and why I think Ron Paul is anti-immigration.
He has sponsored a bill this year called "Social Security for Americans Only Act of 2007." It prevents any wages earned by people who are not American Citizens after the end of this year from being included in any calculation of any future social security payments made to them. It has two primary impacts on immigrants:
1. Taxes that immigrants pay into the social security system before they become citizens, such as while they are living in the United States on visas, or green cards, are essentially forfeited. The US Government takes that money but does not pay any benefit on it.
2. The US has reciprocity agreements with a number of countries so that people who live some of their life in one country and some of their life in another country can access social security upon retirement based on their payments into both programs. This rule would end those agreements for everyone except people like me who have been dual citizens from a young age.
My father lived about a third of his working life in Canada, a third as a US immigrant on visas, and a third of his working life in the US as a citizen. We could not have immigrated to the United States if such a rule were in place in the 1980's, as the financial impact on his ability to retire would have been prohibitive. If such a rule is made retroactive, as many in this movement would like to see, it will have a huge financial impact on my family, because my mother's future social security earnings will be substantially reduced. It may result in her moving back to Canada.
This isn't anti-illegal immigration. It is anti-immigration. It is not fueled by genuine fiscal libertarianism or any concept of fairness, as it involves taking taxes from people without offering benefits and marooning American Citizens who live abroad by undercutting reciprocity agreements. Its fueled by the "blame the Mexicans" xenophobic scapegoating that became popular just as soon as people realized that there wasn't going to be an emotionally fulfilling military victory in Iraq.
I will not support this. This hurts me and my family.
Ah, so preventing SS payouts to immigrants isn't as simple as Ron Paul's campaign claims...and I thought legal immigrants were the ones we were supposed to be helpng! Illegal immigrants of course receive no SS benefits, although many DO pay into the system since they use bogus SS cards to get jobs.
So what about allowing young people to just opt-out and put all their money into a 401k? Sounds great, don't it? The problem is this: SS is a pay-as-you-go system, in which current tax revenue is turned around and paid to the retired, disabled, and bereaved. If enough young people start opting out, then SS will go into a death spiral as workers retire and there aren't enough incoming revenues to support them. Opting out as a policy position is a sneak attack on the whole SS structure, not some sort of benefit for the young. You see, if you mismanage your 401k you can get screwed and have nothing, if you die your children do not get paid 401k benefits to help them live, if you are disabled your 401k had better be in real good shape to last the rest of your life. Social Security does all these things - it provides a basic safety net for everyone. And considering Wall Street's latest hijinks, do you really want people who can't even handle mortgages correctly handling your entire financial future as well in a SS-less world?
Alrighty, so Bostodelphia's gained some attention via our coverage of the Ron Paul rally. Welcome to those of you who've dropped by and I hope a few of you stick around. We're still getting settled here, some of our furniture's not even been delivered, and we can't even agree on carpet or hardwood floors yet, let alone color of polish or fabric.
Now, I could have kept what follows in the commentary within the aforementioned Ron Paul thread, and it might sound redundant in parts to those who've been following that disucssion. However, it speaks to an issue bigger than just Ron Paul, and also outlines some general ground rules for productive discussion in this blog.
To begin, I said this earlier and I'll say it again, I could be well off with my 500. It's been over a decade since I had to perform crowd estimates with any sort of responsibility on the line, so yeah, I'm rusty at it. My number could have easily been inadvertently processed through a coefficient value reflecting the incredibly "underwhelmed" vibe the whole shindig had for me, the unconverted. For the record, I'm a registered Dem so have no stake in the Republican primary. I actually think a Ron Paul ticket would make the White House more of a cake walk for the Dems that it currently is. That said, I'm a fairly empathic person, and I can see why people are charged up by causes on the other side of the aisle. In this case, I wasn't feeling it. Not at all.
That said, I'm sticking with my number for the time being until someone else comes up with a more trustworthy figure for me to redact in favor of, a reputable source that also cites the means through which its number was derived. Both in these postings and on Digg Ron Paulists have offered this as contesting evidence:
Ron Paul Philadelphia Veterans' Rally Draws 5,000
Monday, Nov 12, 2007 - 11:19 AM By NBC 13 Staff PHILADELPHIA, PA.– Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul today addressed a crowd of over 5,000 enthusiastic supporters in Philadelphia. The Veteran's Day weekend rally took place from 1:00 to 3:00 PM at Independence Mall.
Hundreds of veterans and their friends and families heard country music superstar Rockie Lynne open for the Texas congressman and rising GOP contender, Dr. Paul. John Holland, the founder of Rolling Thunder, a leading advocacy organization for troops, veterans, and POW/MIAs, delivered an enthusiastic endorsement of Congressman Paul, before the congressman addressed the crowd.
The rally coincided with the launch of the Veterans for Paul Coalition, which is composed of several hundred war veterans.
"Dr. Paul's support among veterans is extremely high," said Paul campaign spokesman Joe Seehusen. "These great patriots who have fought for our country know that only Dr. Paul's foreign policy of peace and secure borders can guarantee true national security, and they want him fighting for our country's freedom."
I and Coddy have pointed out two things to our challengers providing this "evidence." 1.) In no way does this "show us" because it entirely lacks both the photographic perspective allowing for empirical evaluation and any explanation as to where the number 5000 came from. 2.) This item from Channel 13 - an NBC affiliate serving Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Anniston Alabama noted for its crackerjack Philadelphia desk (do I have to say "not"?) - looks strangely like this:
Press Release: Ron Paul Philadelphia Veterans Rally Draws 5,000 November 10, 2007 7:00 pm EST PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA– Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul today addressed a crowd of over 5,000 enthusiastic supporters in Philadelphia. The Veteran's Day weekend rally took place from 1:00 to 3:00 PM at Independence Mall.
Hundreds of veterans and their friends and families heard country music superstar Rockie Lynne open for the Texas congressman and rising GOP contender, Dr. Paul. John Holland, the founder of Rolling Thunder, a leading advocacy organization for troops, veterans, and POW/MIAs, delivered an enthusiastic endorsement of Congressman Paul, before the congressman addressed the crowd.
The rally coincided with the launch of the Veterans for Paul Coalition, which is composed of several hundred war veterans.
"Dr. Paul's support among veterans is extremely high," said Paul campaign spokesman Joe Seehusen. "These great patriots who have fought for our country know that only Dr. Paul's foreign policy of peace and secure borders can guarantee true national security, and they want him fighting for our country's freedom."
This duplication isn't some Shakespeare's monkeys fluke. Rather, the good staff of NBC13 decided to take a press release from the Ron Paul campaign and run it on their website unvetted with no corroborative work by getting in touch with say, their affiliate counterparts at NBC 10 in Philadelphia who haven't even bothered to archive any coverage of the rally. This isn't journalism. This is a sad comment on the state of modern network affiliate television journalism, and I'll go further to say that this problem not limited to television either. A note to the staff of NBC13: if you're just recycling press releases as news content, you're not being journalists, you're just "tools" on a lot of levels.
Press being picked up by press outlets and disseminated as news aren't anything new. In fact, it's been worse:
Those who know the story know that nothing in the Negativland angle was true, for those who aren't familiar with the facts of the matter:
Now the Ron Paul grass roots could be thinking they've successfully infiltrated the factual consensus by getting a remote news provider to uncritically distribute the campaign's press releases, and in the Paulists postings here and on Digg were rubbing their deceitful epistemological triumph in our faces. In which case, shame on you and don't insult our intelligence in the future. I get the feeling though that what we're dealing with here are some people who honestly believe that if it's on an NBC affiliated website, it's got to be true, regardless of the source's remote relationship to the location of the event or uncanny resemblance of the news item's text to the exact language of official campaign literature. If that is the case, how is anyone supposed to take seriously a group claiming to have a reading of the Constitution at the heart of their beliefs when they demonstrate in this discussion a complete lack of media literacy beyond the Sesame Street level?
Again, if an intelligent Ron Paul supporter can back the campaign claim up, thus proving me 90% blind, please do so. We want to keep this blog accurate when need be; and I got good health care so my vision corrective prescription will be covered. More importantly we want to cultivate a reasonable discourse based on intelligent discussion of thoughts grounded in critical evaluation of evidence, not a standard of evidence that wouldn't pass mustard in a high school research paper. So far Paulists, I'm even less impressed with the movement than when I left your rally.
I replied to CtI's inital Ron Paul post the other day claiming that the MSM would eventually take down Ron Paul if his candidacy looks to threaten Giuliani's nomination. Mike Whitney posted over on Smirking Chimp and article titled "How the Media Plans to Ambush Ron Paul" where he, er, repeats my point completely. It just goes to show that there's no original thoughts and I certainly swiped it from someone else...
What I don't get is why a progressive Democrat like Whitney would then go through with an endorsement of Ron Paul:
First we stop the killing, and then we restore the Constitution. These are our two main priorities. And that's why I'm voting for Ron Paul. He is the only candidate who's promising to do both. And he'll keep his word. That makes him the only truly American candidate running for president.
The Democratic Party already has a candidate who would do all these things, and that's my man Dennis Kucinich. Of course, Dennis has the key problem of actually attempting to impeach Cheney, which clearly shows that he has entirely too much sense and patriotism to be allowed near the Oval Office.
It should be noted that super-Constitution-defender Ron Paul voted against the impeachment resolution.
I was there, with at most 500 people by my own generous estimate based on a rough average of people lining crowd ranks and files. Heard it was his biggest turn out yet, which pumped the crowd. As for his stump speech, it was basically a list of talking points familiar to anyone who’s gone over his website. The whole thing struck me as crowd cheering to a Powerpoint presentation, even though the overhead projector was busted so the presenter had to read off notes on his blackberry.
I don't see how you can really buy into anything he’s selling, unless you accept the dogma that pretty much everything since the ratification of the Constitution that has happened in U.S. history and resulted in federal action has been intrinsically misguided. I did walk away seeing Paul supporters as at best what one might call "Constitutional Fundamentalists" which seem to have the same sort of blindspots as Biblical Fundamentalists. Both camps have a refusal to acknowledge the organic nature of human thought, whether inked or put down in stone tablets. In the case of their “enshrined” Constitution (though I’d say their enshrinement is more a set of blinders than any sort of reverence for the document and its history), they fail to remember that it’s a human document, in human custodianship and yes, subject to conservation - but conservation within a nation and world that’s considerably changed since it was first drafted to determine the security and social position of a bunch of land and business owners. A good number of people in the audience, including the white men, likely wouldn’t have the vote had we maintained the sort of static Constitutional view they seem to be clamoring for. As I've said before, it's like they think government has a reset button, and not realizing in pressing it they'd delete the "cheat codes" that got them where they are in the game.
Otherwise, sorry, not much of a fringe show, only one guy with some neck tattoos that might have suggested skinhead and one guy in head to toe camo with mirrored sunglasses and some sort of earpiece. The crowd was mostly young, by that I mean under 30, and I'd say in that crowd mostly under 25. I blame an educational system that has failed to teach the majority of Americans civic engagement. That's not teachers’ fault necessarily. Rather I see this as the result of the entrenched ignorance and disempowering parochialism that amounts to the “interest” in education displayed by a very vocal segment within the national discourse determining the content and funding of education.
A telling moment as the crowd on Independence Mall disbursed, walking behind me were two college aged women who sounded “well traveled,” been to Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Ibiza, etc. I picked up that their tours of these cultural hotspots were enabled by study-abroad programs. You know, those opportunities ostensibly to broaden one’s understanding of the world, but have pretty much become a training ground for folks wishing to come home with a broadened “sophisticated” understanding of partying. Any case, the worldly young women (whose broadened understanding seemed to boil down to “people in Europe are weird about politics and stuff”) paused in their review of the event (a review consisting basically of noting points in Paul’s speech that marked their series of progressive minded ex boyfriends as “weird” like the people in Paris) to wonder, “Wait, isn’t there like some historical things or stuff around here? Like the Liberty Bell and stuff?” For those needing some spatial orientation, Independence Mall is basically a football field sized space across the street from Independence Hall.
There were plenty of men their age within earshot too. Unfortunately, I couldn’t gather much from them for comment beyond their call and response chanting of “Who You Gonna Call? Ron Paul!”
And with that, Bostodelphia puts a lid over this week's panfire.
Ok, so this is all taken from here. Yeah, on the online forum from my old hood I lurk and sometimes shout out as a douchebag. It's the internet and I get cranky sometimes. Anyhow, gentrification in my neighborhood has brought an influx of the apparently young, ill-informed, yet possibly affluent: Ron Paul supporters.
Now, in this forum, I made a bad call. I assumed Paul's Grassroots 5th of November campaign would just fizzle, not blow their candidate into a vaguely Deanish netroots fundraising spotlight. In light of that, I admitted making a bad call, but asserted I think this isn't the first shot in any sort of true political revolution, just some flash powder in pan that's been hit before and will likely be hit again. Some others chimed in, recycling the "Paul is a loon" mantra that got ensconced in the conventional wisdom after a number of profiles in the mainstream media, like this one. This prompted a response from one "pip," an apparent Ron Paul supporter, shaming the tone of ridicule.
My rebuttal follows, slightly edited for clarity:
"You can disagree with his message, but trying to discredit the man as a "loon" is downright insulting. The man is a doctor of medicine and understands economics (having studied the Austrian school of economics) better than most politicians in the race."
1st off, I'm not sure why you think those credentials are impressive. The guy's got an M.D. Lots of people do. Heck there are people with PhDs and doctors of law (J.D.s) on this board. Doesn't mean I want any of them running the country, though I do have this moonshine operation to whom I'd confidently hand a few of them the reigns.
He understands economics? Howso? Does he have an advanced degree in economics, has he ever worked as an economist? Do you know what "the Austrian school" is? Here's a hint, it thrives in the world of "radical" economic theory (kinda like Marxism still exists on the fringes of modern social and cultural theory) and I don't know of any stable economy using it as a model outside of maybe a long running game of Sid Meier's Civilization.
"Lastly, he's the only candidate who had the courage to vote against both the Iraq war and the Patriot act, when it was unpopular to do so. No major Democrat candidate will commit to removing troops from Iraq."
That is true, he can make a speech and vote his conviction. Tell me this, can he effectively lead? What is his legislative record? Has he authored (not signed on to) any major legislation or enacted policy? Held any legislative chairships? Or did he spend his years in Congress around his voluntary break operating as a "straight shooter" who didn't hit anything and a "straight talker" who no one really listened to?
The Philadelphia Weekly does a great job capturing what the why Paul doesn't have a prayer perspective:
'Hello, young American! Does the very mention of the Constitution inspire a long-dormant patriotism that has nothing to do with pointless flag-waving and destroying other countries? Ron Paul looks pretty good these days, eh? His rambles pass for political courage as he goes around announcing that he believes in more personal rights. Except being a libertarian, kiddos, doesn't just mean you're pro civil liberties. It means you're anti lots of other good stuff. Like Medicaid and Medicare and the idea of some sort of actual universal health coverage. You're against federally funded public schools and subsidized college loans. You're against programs to help the poor, the hungry, the sick, the very young and the very old, and you think everyone needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or go to hell. And if that's how you feel, go ahead, go to Ron Paul's Liberty Rally 2007 and scream about the "revolution." Believe you're out there fighting for freedom because you're with a Republican who wants to end the war. But if you're into the real principles of the Constitution (check the Preamble if you're confused; it contains the phrase "promote the general welfare"), stay home and read a god**** book that isn't written by Ayn Rand. (Alli Katz)'
I see Paul's isolationism as a comic bookish alternative to the U.S.'s current foreign policy (hence the interest from the V for Vendetta Fan Base who really didn't get what Guy Fawkes was all about). The last thing the country should do is disengage from the globe. No country, since the mid twentieth century, can function in such a bubble, and those that try like Turkmenistan and N. Korean, well do we want to be in that club?
Domestically, he serves the parochial interest of his small Texas town just fine. But the U.S. is not a small Texas town. You want to peel back all the country's social programs including financial policies that enabled most of us to get an education, so that the whole country takes on the idyllic character of a small Texas town, culturally, economically, and intellectually. You keep on rooting for him.
Maybe I'm wrong, but this guy sounds like his big constituency in the republican race stems from Gen Y types who want to click reset on the U.S. Playstation, a demographic who apparently has never heard of Pat Buchanan or Lindon Larouche. There is nothing new to this guy, other than a digiterati trying to re-enact the Howard Dean playbook for him. I actually preferred Dean as a moderate back in '04, and I think playing to his "radical" following is what doomed him (and the yell). My bet, Paul, if he gets any primary ground, goes down the same way.
Oh and he's on my turf this Saturday. I think I'm there.
