Xark!

An energy plan we can believe in

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment.

“Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”

Well. There's a simple, visionary plan from a guy whose life has earned him the credibility and stature to propose it: Reverse the trend in carbon emissions, end our dependency on foreign oil (thereby changing our relationship to the Middle East) and kick start our economy with new industries, new products, new services, new public works projects.

We rallied around Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon in 10 years and to do other grand things, "because they are hard." Well, we've got a better reason to do this: Because it's going to save our sorry asses.

Sure, we'll have the usual people telling us this is just more stupid libtard stuff. And to put it bluntly, screw 'em. They've had their time, and they blew it.

Anyway, I've just started a group at MyBarackObama.com to encourage the explicit adoption of this challenge. I'll post the URL as soon as it gets processed.

Which one is smarterer?

Obama needs to hear from us

To put things in Army vernacular, Obama stepped on his dick last week. And no, I'm not talking about his reversal on fund-raising, which was hypocritical  but tactical.

No, I'm talking about the FISA bill. It was Obama's first true test as the leader of both a party and a movement, and let's be blunt: He flunked it. Badly. 

Lessig: The flaw in our OS

Reforming our corrupted and corrupting political system is Job No. 1 for Americans during the coming political era, and here's video of Xark hero Larry Lessig laying out the case for his Change Congress movement during his keynote address a week ago at the National Media Reform Conference.

If you haven't donated to Change Congress yet, please do. If you haven't taken the Change Congress pledge, please do that, too. And if you haven't taken the time yet to introduce yourself to these simple but transformative ideas, please watch this video (28 minutes) and wrap your brain around Lessig's clear, profound ideas.

Media sexism

I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan, and my estimation of her has diminished geometrically since April. But when Clinton supporters say that they're mad about sexism in the news media, don't dismiss it as sour grapes. They've got a legit beef.

Americans should demand better.

'You don't know what you're talking about'

Chris Matthew's talk-over-the-guest interviewing style on Hardball has always been nails on a chalkboard for me, but this might be the first time it ever came across as utterly appropriate. Kevin James, a right-wing talker from California, came on the show Thursday after President Bush's Knesset speech to talk about Israel, appeasement and Barack Obama, and his aggressive platitudes prompted Matthews to run a history check on his ass.

It immediately becomes clear that James doesn't have a clue who Neville Chamberlain was, or what happened in Munich. Partition of Czechoslovakia and dialog with Palestinians the Iranians? "It's the same thing!" he says.

What follows might be the greatest smack-down of a self-important, shallow idiot ever witnessed on national TV. Listen to the high-school essay-test evasion ploys and the empty wingnut counter-attack maneuver ("Thirty-eight or 39, Chris? Which one do you want?").

You've got to be morally and intellectually bankrupt if Tweety makes you look small in comparison.

Obama and "consolidation" of power

Matt Stoller wrote an excellent piece last week about Obama's quiet consolidation of party and grassroots power, based largely on the nominee-in-waiting's unprecedented ability to raise money.

I think the Stoller piece marks the beginnings of our noticing the forest instead of the trees: While Obama opponents continue to paint his success as some Svengali-like personality cult, a more grounded view reveals a hyper-competent modern organization that has managed to integrate multiple campaign efforts (fund-raising, various levels of community organizing, mass media, alternative media,  online, intra-party relations, "the ground game" and yes, the candidate himself).

To me, Obama's campaign represents a great selling point for his abilities as an executive, and I have no doubt that political scientists will be exploring its practices and principles as the first major case study in 21st century American politics. But to Democrats with a long-time stake in the party, Obama's success is both welcome (who wants to live in the wilderness forever?) and intimidating.

Why the angst? Here's a commenter on Stoller's follow-up piece:

The anti-authoritarian impulse common in a lot of liberals, and which I share, is definitely visible on both the pro and anti Obama sides.

Re: the movement, from glancing at other blog comment threads, I'm reminded of a very gut-level, "It's happening without ME, I am NOT included....therefore they will screw ME...."they" have decided I'm worthless...I don't want anybody having power over ME/My favorite orgs" self-absorbed reaction.   

And this reaction is disguised in a "but what I really care about is the party" pose.  It's really a paranoid fantasy.  It's all fear.

Brooks sees what he wants to see

I'm going to keep talking about this because pundits (in this case, NYT syndicated columnist David Brooks) keep getting it wrong.

Brooks' latest contends that Republicans can't run "traditional" (i.e. negative, destructive, bullshit-focused) campaigns against Democrats this fall. He believes the GOP brand is so damaged right now that such campaigning will cause voters to choose "Not You." Which might be true.

But here's where Brooks steps on the rake (again):

"The extended primary season has changed the profile of Obama supporters..."

"Obama has a much more liberal profile than he did several weeks ago..."

...and so on.  Brooks is yet another media pundit who is deriving absolute trends from sequential primaries and then generating causal outcomes from the notion that time is a primary factor in the differences we find in state-to-state polling.

Let's put this another way: If we vote in South Carolina one week and they vote in South Dakota next week, extrapolating much of a trend between the two would be pure idiocy.

Granted, if pictures of Hillary Clinton engaging in an immoral act with Rush Limbaugh appeared during the South Carolina primary, that could have an affect on the South Dakota vote. But none of that would account for the states' pre-existing differences in demographics, economics, history and culture. 

People who use differences between sequential primaries as evidence for some trend aren't reading statistics and illuminating the public. They're bullshitting.

Earth to Clinton: It's over

Is it really "no end in sight" for the Democratic primaries after last night's festivities? I'm not so sure. I think we may have crossed the line between "scrappy" and "delusional" sometime in the early morning hours, and people are waking up to that realization.

Yes it is over. The Clinton campaign found the people -- and bottom up campaigning too late I think. There is no math now. No case to win

-- Former 2004 Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, Tweeting at about 7:40 a.m.

Let people who want to believe its not over, believe its  not over. Its does not matter

--Trippi again, Tweeting at 8:26 a.m.

He's right, you know. Now we've just got to talk this up so that it enters the national consciousness strongly enough so that we bring this thing to closure. It's over. Pass it on.

UPDATE: Oh, and here's The Blogfather, who has really discovered his voice as a political journalist and analyst this year, chiming in with a Tweet at about roughly the same time as Trippi's.

The fact that HRC cancelled her media appearances this morning is a very good sign that she's going to get behind Obama now.

--Tech pioneer Dave Winer.

Let's talk this up. Get it out there. It's time.

UPDATE: I like the way Seth Godin put it this morning:

There isn't media bias in favor of Hillary ... Nor is there media bias in favor of floods. There's media bias in favor of drama.

Most of us are inclined to believe that government officials, doctors and the media are making an effort to tell us the truth. Actually, just like all marketers, they tell us a story.

Mainstream media coverage has tended to promote the sense that this is a dramatic, ongoing, close race -- a narrative that gives Clinton's continued candidacy legitimacy and makes us customers for their advertisers.

It's our job as citizens to cut through that narrative, and -- when necessary -- insert our own, corrective narrative, into the national discourse.

UPDATE 9:48 a.m.: HRC has added an event today, but let's not read too much into that yet. It says the internal discussions are ongoing -- no decision yet. If she didn't add an event this morning she'd create a vacuum and the MSM would fill that with speculation that she's out... effectively making the decision for her. Keep talking, keep Twittering...

A message to Tar Heels & Hoosiers

The Empire Strikes Barack!

Roman Lee's Message of Hope

On Tuesday evening, I went to sleep in a fairly even mood.  Things at work have started to slow down from the numbing speed of the last few months; everyone in the family seems healthy.  Given all that can go wrong, things are good enough to let me drift off easily.  To sleep, and then to dream.

As often happens when I’m content, my dream was perversely one of terror and panic.  I don’t recall what psychological demon was terrifying me, mind you, but I do know that I was in a panic, adrenaline pulsing, without hope of salvation.  I was sitting in the backseat of an old sedan, and someone who looked as if he had walked off the set of Mad Men was driving.  Smoking and driving.  Sweating, smoking, and driving.  Things felt very edgy, hopelessly so.

The news narrative is broken: Let's fix it

I've touched on this before, but let me bring it farther into the light: This idea that presidential primaries can be explained via analogies to sporting events or military campaigns is a fundamentally confused media construct. Why? Because for all our talk about "momentum," each primary or caucus is an inherently local event.

Which is to say:  It is often true that any perception of momentum or success is more the result of the order of the contests than the actual performance of the candidates.

FOX ATTACKS: Going after Obama

The FOX VIRUS...

Even Chris Wallace gets disgusted by it...

Just for context on the M.O. of Rupert Murdock's corporate news philosophy, The Investigators meet The Buzzsaw...

No, of course we're not surprised. I'm sure they originally prepared for an all-out assault on Hillary Clinton, but they retrenched, retooled, and sent their minions out after Barack Obama instead. And let's face it: The GOP is going to continue this steady drumbeat of sleaze from now through the election, supposedly at arm's length via their "remote operative," Roger Ailes, at the FOX News Division.

Our job is to recognize it, name it, talk about it, share it. Human beings, like many living things, are quorum sensors (bacteria do it chemically; we do it psychologically). So it isn't just the quality of the signals we receive from our environments that matter -- the number of signals of certain types that we receive quite literally count toward shaping our image of reality.

Ailes, Rove and others on the Right understood this many years ago.

Which is why I say: Share these videos. Embed them. E-mail them. Every time you use the power of human relationships and social networking to spread this exposure of media sleaze you are acting as an antidote to the sickening virus FOX keeps deliberately injecting into our culture. We have to become D.I.Y. media antibodies in defense of our society. We must inoculate ourselves against bullshit. When you show a thing that attempts to be secret, you remove some of its power.

To clarify: I have no quarrel with anyone who opposes Obama for policy reasons. Don't like his ideas about Iraq, or social security, or economics, or taxation? Fine. I disagree, but I respect reasonable disagreement.

But if you think that Obama is a Muslim, or a black racist, or a shadowy figure who secretly hates America? Conversation over.  You've just defined yourself out of  relevancy. My suggestion? Take another look at why you believe what you believe, and then rejoin the rest of us in our imperfect lurching toward a better future.

Hat tips: Janet, Revere at Effect Measure, MoveOn.org, Robert Greenwald.

For the record: In their own words

Received this a.m. via my subscription to Christian Newswire: 

Rev. Wright is Wrong - Conservative Media are Wimps 

MEDIA ADVISORY, March 21 /Christian Newswire/ -- Barack Obama has pulled the race card (which effectively brings to an end all meaningful conversation) while FOX News and conservative talk radio have proved once again that "conservatism" is pretend salt. Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et. al., cannot see, nor do they dare to portray, the cataclysmic "change" that Barack Obama is espousing. It is a shift from one God and standard of Law to another. It is a shift from the God of the Bible and our Founding Fathers to the false god of Rev. Wright. Rev. Wright serves the god of his own hate-filled, bigoted imagination and calls it "Jesus." Yet our conservative friends dare not call this blasphemy treason. They have yet to call Wright for the apostate he is.

Wright is preaching "a different gospel" (2 Corinthians 11: 3-4). The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 1:6- 7, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to 'a different gospel' which is really no gospel at all..." Rev. Wright is wrong about the Jesus of the Bible!

Pastor Jeremiah Wright's church is apostate as are all the United Churches of Christ (UCC) in America. Long ago this institution abandoned its rich Christian heritage and responsibility to stand upon the Word of God. It now follows the god of, "...everyone does that which is right in his own eyes." Abortion, Homosexuality, Islam, and every false religion are welcome in Trinity United Church of Christ. It's one Commandment is, "Don't judge me!" Biblical Christianity is, however, not allowed.

We should not therefore be surprised that Barak Obama will defend his pastor when he (his pastor) is exposed to the light of the true Gospel of Christ. We should furthermore not be surprised when FOX News can't seem to get it right about Rev Wright. Rev. Wright is no more a Christian than he is a poached egg.

We are indeed heading for change with Barak Obama. Oprah is helping us to get there. For the first time in its history, the United States of America may elect a President who does not acknowledge the Jesus of Scripture as the Savior of the world. Barak Obama and black liberation theology (a mixture of Islam, false Christianity, and any other religion that opposes true biblical Christianity) is not Christianity, and those of us who know better (real salt) need to say so.

We could not give our Lord Jesus a better gift on this Good Friday than to just say so!

Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue

For comments by Rev. Flip Benham 980-722- 4920

www.operationsaveamerica.org

Christian Newswire

Got it? Treason.

I don't assume for a moment that this is what most white Americans, or most Christians, believe. But sometimes it's good to see the opposition unfiltered beyond what they choose to present to the world. Because if these people are against us, I feel pretty good.

 

What he said

It's rare that you hear a presidential candidate speak like this. Let's not allow this man to be crushed by his enemies. Let's push back against America's sick status quo and its corrupt defenders, each of us individually, all of us together.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

I'm generally a pretty optimistic guy, and there's a general logic to that attitude:  Things have pretty much always looked bad to some degree, yet things have, generally,  gotten better over time.  So you shut your eyes and you keep on walking and you whistle past the graveyard and then, you know -- the sun comes out.

But now a-days you look around, you do the math, and you realize: Holy shit, dude -- are we fucked?

I get the sense that this is one of those moments when things are much worse than "they" are letting on. Which makes me think: We need an "F-Scale."  Like, if stuff is just sorta screwed up, but things generally work and you can pretty much expect that you're going to be able to keep your job and your house and suicide bombers aren't going to move in next door and really downgrade your property values, that would be F-1.

And then an F-10 would be economic depression, the destruction of the Bill of Rights, civil war and environmental collapse. And so on.

So where does that put us? Because when the Feds are bailing out the banks and the President is giving the economy a "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie" pep-talk, and currency converters in Amsterdam stop exchanging dollars because their value is dropping so fast, that's got to be like an F-7.

And when we're five years into a botched, brutal war and still hoping that the latest strategy is someday going to give the Iraqis a chance to build a society that's stable enough to do simple shit like, say, provide electrical power to most of the grid for most of the day, that's at LEAST an F-8.

And then we've got a political campaign where the entire focus of the past few days has been a concerted, deliberate attempt to destroy an inspiring presidential candidate by endlessly looping out-of-context statements by his preacher?  At essentially the same time that the President of the United States of America is openly advocating TORTURE? And the media doesn't even think the torture veto is really all that NEWSWORTHY?

Where's the F-scale on THAT?

Answers, please, on a post card...

Diebold accidentally releases election results

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Via Dave Weinberger.

Make the change real: Draft Lessig in '08

Geeks, bloggers, artists and new-media pioneers have been in love with Lawrence Lessig since... well, forever. When you think about the things we love about the Web, Lessig is in each of them: In every Creative Commons license (Xark, btw, is licensed through a CC  "Attribution-Noncommercial- Share Alike 3.0 United States License"); in the work of the Center for Internet and Society, in the civil-liberties-protecting brilliance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Lessig is more than a law professor, more than an intellectual. Even the term "visionary" fails to capture the practical leadership role he has filled in the amorphous space we think of as "web culture." Yet to see him solely as a get-things-done leader is to miss out on the power of his remarkable ideas. If we were a village, he would be one of our respected elders.

Since the death of California Congressman Tom Lantos earlier this month, a grassroots movement has been forming around the idea of <