Nashville

On May 19th, the Tennessean reported that Jon Crisp, Chairman of the Davidson County Republican Party, had:

told supporters more than 24 hours before the Metro Council met to fill a school board vacancy that the party had already secured enough votes to elect home-school parent Kay Brooks.

So that's politics, right? You lobby, you line up your votes, and may the best man win. Well, not quite so much:

Crisp said Thursday that he and dozens of other Republicans had lobbied council members aggressively but had not coordinated efforts with anyone on the council. He said he "pretty much knew" they had the votes by Saturday — the day Brooks skipped a public forum for District 5 candidates because, she said, she had been advised that it would be hostile to her views.

So why would you lobby on behalf of a candidate who holds views you know run counter to much of the public's? Maybe because of this:

Steve Glover, an active Metro schools parent who is running unopposed for another school board seat in August, said Crisp's e-mail shows that the process wasn't open to public scrutiny. He said he also was offended by Crisp's e-mailed statement, "Kay is a conservative who will be entering hostile territory on our behalf."

"When did educating children become hostile territory?" Glover said. "I take offense to this. If we are not about the children of this city, we are in the wrong business."

Maybe you're NOT interested in governing education. Maybe you're not interested in governing at all, only power. Maybe you're thinking something along these lines:

The party is also working to help establish a conservative majority on the Metro Board of Education, saying it believes the local Democratic Party no longer represents the political thinking of mainstream Nashvillians.

But if that were true, why be concerned that those same mainstream Nashvillians would be hostile to your candidate's views?

Crisp also said the party is pushing for a more traditional approach to education, calling the Metro Nashville Public Schools one of the worst school systems in America.

“The Democrats that used to run Nashville were conservative Democrats,” Crisp said. “[Now] they’re the Vanderbilt-imported, liberal New England Democrats, and that’s why they’re not selling anymore — that’s why it’s difficult for them to get traction.”

Well, let's see if that's true. I'm inclined to disagree, given that three Metro high schools were among the top public high schools according to Newsweek (MLK, #39, Hume Fogg, #43, and Hillsboro, #504).

Two Magnet schools and a regular public high school, and all three governed by the School Board.

Now, if I were interested in consolidating power, I'd definitely be running behind the scenes to get home-school, private school vouchers, and charter school proponents onto the school board, and I'd aim for a majority. It would effectively remove any responsibility for governing schools from those endowed with the responsibility to govern the schools. It makes perfect sense.

I don't think I will just get over it and move on. I think I'm going to gear up for the next elections: August 3. Keep an eye on this space for information about the candidates in the various school board, council district, and other candidates. It's been proven in Connecticut that a handful of committed progressives can force elections, so let's find some people and elect them.

...desperation is a stinky cologne.

Big Oil Launches Attack On Al Gore

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” The ad, which will be aired in more than a dozen cities across the country, is being released just a week before the May 24th opening (in LA and NYC) of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.

Who is CEI? The Washington Post explains:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a “major donor” largely as a result of its effort to push that position.

CEI also gets funding from other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute.

Exxon documents reveal the company gave $270,000 to CEI in 2004 alone. $180,000 of that was earmarked for “global climate change and global climate change outreach.” Exxon has contributed over $1.6 million to CEI since 1998.

CEI’s general counsel Sam Kazman said, “I think what attracted [Exxon] to us was our position on global warming.” CEI’s position? The Institute believes the dangers of global warming are akin “to that of ‘an alien invasion.’”

Exxon’s spokesperson Tom Cirigliano has explained why the company is so dedicated to funding CEI’s pushback on global warming:

We want to support organizations that are trying to broaden the debate. … There is this whole issue that no one should question the science of global climate change that is ludicrous. That’s the kind of dark-ages thinking that gets you in a lot of trouble.

The science is not questioned because the science behind global warming is indisputable. Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus that the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concluded that humans are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions. And the EPA has said that the recent warming trend “is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years…due mostly to human activities.”

For the oil industry, Al Gore’s film exposing the truth is perceived as a threat, and they have no shortage of funds to try to distort it.

Actually, they might have fewer funds than they anticipated, and soon. Check this out, from today's NY TImes:

WASHINGTON, May 18 — In an attempt to revoke billions of dollars worth of government incentives to oil and gas producers, the House on Thursday approved a measure that would pressure companies to renegotiate more than 1,000 leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The measure, approved 252 to 165 over the objections of many Republican leaders, is intended to prevent companies from avoiding at least $7 billion in payments to the government over the next five years for oil and gas they produce in publicly owned waters.

Thanks for the tip, Ellen!

Among the many funny things making the rounds of the Internets these days, this gem from DailyKos has to be acknowledged:

I'm the decider.
I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided
As"just goddam paper"
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away.

Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider -
Like Jesus decreed.

Yes, I'm the Decider
The finest alive
And I'm nuking Iran.
Now watch this drive!

Have you heard about it? It's a new movie by Al Gore about our global climate crisis, and it opens May 24th. We're keeping our ears to the ground in case it comes to Nashville, but if you happen to be in one of the cities where it's playing, check it out. The movie got rave reviews at Sundance, and the first showing in NYC has already sold out. Do yourself, and the planet, a favor and go see it if you can.

You might've already seen this superb piece by William Rivers Pitt, written in response to Richard Cohen of the Post:

Why the anger? It can be summed up in one run-on sentence: We have lost two towers in New York, a part of the Pentagon, an important American city called New Orleans, our economic solvency, our global reputation, our moral authority, our children's future, we have lost tens of thousands of American soldiers to death and grievous injury, we must endure the Abramoffs and the Cunninghams and the Libbys and the whores and the bribes and the utter corruption, we must contemplate the staggering depth of the hole we have been hurled down into, and we expect little to no help from the mainstream DC press, whose lazy go-along-to-get-along cocktail-circuit mentality allowed so much of this to happen because they failed comprehensively to do their job.

George W. Bush and his pals used September 11th against the American people, used perhaps the most horrific day in our collective history, deliberately and with intent, to foster a war of choice that has killed untold tens of thousands of human beings and basically bankrupted our country. They lied about the threat posed by Iraq. They destroyed the career of a CIA agent who was tasked to keep an eye on Iran's nuclear ambitions, and did so to exact petty political revenge against a critic. They tortured people, and spied on American civilians.

You cannot fathom anger arising from this?

Personally speaking, I've been good and angry for about five years, but for a long time I wrote off the disconnect between the anger I felt and the relative comfort and ease of my fellow citizens as a product of simple circumstance: none of the atrocities provoking my anger really impacted most Americans. They do not know the smell of concrete burned by jet fuel in fires that rage for months. That's a Good Thing.

But slowly more and more people started having neighbors, relatives, and friends go to Iraq and come back broken, only to be sent in again. We all started hearing more about how much money was lining the pockets of the oil barons and the contractors, and when we went to the gas pumps we realized it was our money doing the lining. And we first watched the horror of a beautiful, magnificent city left to drown, and then we welcomed the people who lived through that atrocity into our own cities, as they were exiled from their homes.

It started touching all of us.

At nearly every meeting I see at least one person shake with rage, and say with surprise how very, very angry they are. This anger comes as a shock because most of us are of a generation that has been soothed and pacified by the calming bleeps of credit card machines and the dampening forces of anti-depressants. We are not supposed to be angry. Our "leaders" literally exhort us to respond to tragedy by shopping. So we're surprised by the force of this anger, but we're also embracing it. It's strong and powerful and passionate. And we're right to feel it.

Yesterday the City Paper reported on a poll it had taken in response to a NY Times report that Bush's approval ratings had fallen to unprecedented lows. The City Paper wrote:

About 86 percent of those polled had a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Bush while just 12 percent felt unfavorably toward the second-term commander-in-chief.

I was shocked the numbers were so lopsided, but yesterday evening there were about eight new people hanging out with us at the Saucer. And at one point someone stood up, hands shaking, and said, "I am just. SO. ANGRY!"

Good. We're going to need it.

(cross-post)

I'd like to encourage CNN to improve the quality of its programming and increase its credibility by rejecting the type of bombast that smears American journalism today, which is personified by Glenn Beck.

CNN is a broadcast entity using public airwaves, and if it's all the same to you, I'd rather our public airwaves not be used to call women prostitutes, Native Americans exploitative (though I do appreciate the projection inherent in that comment), and former presidents who've made housing the homeless their life's work "waste(s) of skin."

I am an American, and this is not what we want.

Thank you,
amie

For all the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth on the part of the "values voters" whose values apparently begin in my bedroom and end in my doctor's office, you'd think that at least one of their pet peeves, the debasing of the discourse, would have some legs. You'd be wrong.

Media Matters tells us that Glenn Beck, a radio host from Philadelphia, will indeed be getting his own show on CNN. Part of the problem here is that the bile spewed on right-wing radio is so noxious that most of us don't have any idea of what's being said, and that listeners are believing it. Click that link to read some of Glenn's recent gems, and let me know if you can make it all the way through any of MM's links to his remarks in context; I had to call it quits halfway through the one in which he roped in Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Kim Jong Il, and Britney Spears.

No, really.

CNN giving Glenn Beck a show is roughly the equivalent of NBC hiring Howard Stern, and I'm pretty sure we all remember how much our favorite "conservatives" tsk-tsked over Stern's antics.

So why don't you take a moment and let CNN know what you think about dumping that kind of trash all over our airwaves, m'kay? And remember: it's positive feedback when you suggest that perhaps we could hew just a little bit closer to our actual values.

(crosspost)

If you're anything ilke me, there are people in your world whom you consider to be good, decent, all-around nice people who are...right-wingers. As it happens, there's still hope! Author Jim Derych has written Confessions of a Former Dittohead and he's going to let us know how it's done. No longer will you have nothing but a smack to your own forehead the next time you hear, "Yeah, but I don't really care." Whew!

Our friend Mary Mancini of Liberadio interviewed Jim yesterday morning (click here for the audio); Cecily Friday of Left Turn will be talking with Jim on Wednesday evening, 7pm on Radio Free Nashville.

So bring your lists of the most annoying brush-offs you've gotten from your favorite rightie, and come get edumacated this Thursday, 6pm at the Flying Saucer!

Here's what I've seen floating around the local blogophere about last Thursday's CtG event:

Nashville Is Talking

TV on the Fritz

DailyKos

Know of any others? Drop a comment and I'll add them to the list.

Also, if you didn't get a chance to buy your own copy of Crashing the Gate at Mafiaoza's, click here to purchase online.