Who reads Politizine?
An interesting thing happened this week. I got an email from SiteMeter, one of the companies I have counting the number of hits I get on this site. I don't recall when I signed up for SiteMeter. It was a while ago; maybe a year. One of the interesting things about the company, unlike other site counting companies, is that SiteMeter measures doesn't multiple count IP addresses, therefore it gets the most accurate count of people visiting the site.
In the early days of blogs and Web sites, people were hired to sit and visit the site all day, clicking away, in order to boost the numbers of people visiting the site. A company could then say, we have 1 million readers per day ... when in actuality, they had 10 folks working 8 hours per day clicking away in the back room of an office somewhere. Companies and geeks can't do that anymore; technology has advanced to the point of being able to track all kinds of information on the Web.
Anyhow, they sent me a site summary of visits, page views, days of the week, and time of the day for me to look at. This was the first time I have received this data from them and it is pretty cool. Being a numbers person, I found it all quite fascinating.
For example, in the last year, Politizine has had 8,722 hits and 11,739 page views for an average of 24 hits per day and 35 page views per day. This means that there is an average of about 24 random or regular readers to this site on any given day. Since the numbers fluctuate, from a high of about 55 to a low of about 18, it can vary, depending on what I have posted or when people are looking for new posts. On average, each reader accesses 1.4 pages of this blog. Meaning, readers probably only look at the front page. Here is what is even more interesting - or kinda pathetic, in some ways: The average reader spends a little over 2 minutes on the page. This means most folks aren't really reading too deeply into the page [or it is a safe assumption that people aren't]. Or, what could be happening is that some folks come to the site for a few seconds and leave, while other folks spend four or five minutes on the site.
Some other interesting data: During the week of numbers which were sent to me recently, most readers visited the site on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; numbers drop over the weekend; most readers visit the site at 5 p.m., between 9 and 11 p.m., and even around 1 a.m., meaning they must be casual readers and not reading it on their work hours.
On Monday, March 13, however, three viewers in the 8 a.m. hour accessed 10 pages of the site. Again at 11 p.m. that day, five viewers accessed 11 pages. On Tuesday, March 14, six viewers accessed 11 pages. On Thursday, March 9, four different people viewed the site at 1 a.m. and four different people again at 9 a.m. Pretty interesting, eh?
It is all anonymous; so don't think SiteMeter is the PATRIOT Act for blogs. They don't send me IP addresses or anything like that, just the random visit numbers.
However, to all the readers of Politizine, thanks for checking us out and I hope you enjoy the content. Please feel free to interact at any time. :-)

Back to business: Isn't it intriguing that newspaper editors always seem to save their best for the Sundays [or Saturday night, however you think about it]?
Here is the latest on the Dems attempting to co-opt the Republicans on security: ["Political offensive targets Bush"]. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that they will be riding around in tanks, looking all tough and silly.
Can I wonder out loud if this is the best strategy? What about the budget going crazy? All the "economic indicators" say things are great but we all know they aren't. Ask anyone who works at Dunkin' Donuts or Wal-Mart how things are. There has to be a better message than "We're better for Vets." Although, let's see the Republicans go after budget-busting with cuts in the VA system like they tried to do a couple of years ago. Yikes. Not a smart move.

Novak: ["Gore vs. Hilary"]. Ugh. Please, say it isn't so. Please, please, please. I fear that the insiders, in trying to put in some early caucuses between Iowa and New Hampshire, are essentially trying to set it up for an early win once again. One or two of these folks will be in the lead and the rest will fall under the bus, all under the guise of being "diverse" when in actuality, there will be no diversity at all. How is a Gore or a Clinton diverse?
It is clear that Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and anti-NH primary motivator, has been doing a good job of organizing folks. And, may I speculate, that our folks here in New Hampshire may not be doing such a good job. I'm not on the inside; I don't know. I'm just speculating. And sure, the state party is working on 2006 stuff. But before you know it ...
However, candidates are coming here; which is cool, especially from a news perspective. A few quick caucus states thrown in might not hurt our process; but then again, it might be harmful and not the best solution to the process problem. Instant front-runner, instant nominee, which is exactly what both major parties don't need in 2008.
Does anyone recall how boring the Gore vs. Bradley race was in 2000? The only interesting thing about it was Bradley actually talking about how bad race relations are in this country. Unfortunately, he allowed himself to be badly handled, strategy-wise. So boring was that primary that supposedly independent-minded liberal voters were flocking to vote for Sen. John McCain! How sad and hypocritical is that?! Those voters essentially crushed Bradley's campaign.
Insert mocking liberal voice here: "Oh, John McCain is a straight-talker. I don't care if he is pro-life or a member of the Keating Five, I'm going to vote for him anyway because he talks straight ..." They can vote for a conservative Republican in McCain because he supposedly talks straight, but they can't vote for conservative Republican Pat Buchanan who actually tried to save American jobs and preserve our country's standard of living? That makes no sense at all.
Insert mocking liberal voice here: "Globalism is great. All the peons from third world nations will do the dirty work and we can sit in life-long-learning libraries and never really do a hard day's work ... I think I will go think about something ..." Oh boy.
Now don't get me wrong, the mocking free trade slave businessman's voice will say the same thing ... without the thinking in the library bit.
Globalism, as a theory, is wrong. It doesn't work. We can't build a stable world of nations by enslaving them economically, the same way we can't build stable neighborhoods in our cities without home ownership. All you build is despots and dictators and people who need to be kept "under control" with weapons. It isn't working.
But back to the primaries. It's Sunday. I feel like a manifesto or how about a traveling road show concept?
Let's have a free-for-all. Let's have a totally bloody mess of a primary in 2008. Let's have eight to 10 candidates from each party beat the daylights out of each other ... or even having civil conversations with each other ... for their perspective nominations.
Let's set a time limit on it, say, January 1, 2007, as the starting gate. All candidates interested should make up their minds at that point and declare.
Then, the traveling road show would kick in. It could be like Howard Dean campaign's venture into the red states early in 2003 only instead of one candidate, it will be all the candidates, with each party organizing the events to coincide with each other over a specific period of time.
Let's make them all go out to the other states and talk to folks at supper halls, downtowns, and college auditoriums all across the nation. The would have the morning to walk around, with afternoon lectures and nightly debates in the evening at some auditorium.
Pretend it was a Battle of the Bands on tour for say six months, visiting each city over 100,000 people, traveling from one state to the next to the next. C-Span will tape it all; the mainstream press would help pay to finance it and then get the tapes as they go along.
The American people could actually meet these folks and the rest of us speculate about it from our couches. Voters and supporters can donate online when they have time to the candidates they like best.
The traveling road show can be scheduled between Thursday and Sunday. Monday through Wednesday, would be at the candidate's discretion to do what they want, like spend time with family or revisit other states.
Let's not have a return to the past, again, and again, and again, which delivers nothing but the worst of the worst, with the usage of shallow, sound bit snippets of nothing but gobbly-gook, all dictated and controlled by large campaign contributors and stuck-up cocktail party crowd blatherings.
Let's try something different. Let's try something informative and fun.
Let's also get the national media to agree not to cover horse race issues like money raised or polling data and instead, invest all the time, money, and energy spent on polling and data to really investigate the issues of the day. They can create long-form news content, on par with a "60 Minutes" segment, addressing these issues and candidates over a period of time, using footage from C-Span and material gathered on their own. Let's also get the national media to agree not to call the elections before every vote has been counted in either a primary or national election. If it takes days, it takes days. This is the presidency, after all.
After all this is done, everyone will have been given a taste of the candidates and the last person standing will have the best shot based on ideas and ideals - and not money, looks, and plastic.
Then, the voters of Iowa, then New Hampshire, and then one or two western and/or southern states with primaries or caucuses, get a chance to really eye-ball these folks even deeper - after everyone else has had the six month roadshow. This process would have brought the Iowa and New Hampshire experience to other states - and not stolen our experience from us.
Then, after the primaries are over, we do the process all over again.
Let's get the national media to agree to give equal coverage to the so-called "fringe" candidates of the two major parties and independent parties. Let's also get them to agree not to call Naderites, Libertarians, and Reformers, "spoilers" of any kind, except of a spoiled rotten and corrupt political system. Again, all candidates who are on the ballot in enough states which total a winning electoral college outcome will be put on a traveling roadshow on Thursday through Sunday to tour all the cities and states of America again, and debate and discuss the issues with the people of America.
Let us, as voters, writers, and speculators, demand a better process from the voting system, the media, and the public at large.
And then, the best person to run the nation will have won. And, while we won't all be happy, we will know everything and anything about the person who needs to lead the nation. It will have been a great experiment in civic responsibility and a good time by all.
Peace demonstrations: There are peace demonstrations all over the place for the third anniversary of the Iraq invansion. But the media coverage hasn't been as good as it has in the past. Oh well; what can you do?

Recent surge in violence: Boy, check out this: ["Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous "]. If this doesn't say it all, I don't know what does. Three years worth of the same catch phrase? That sounds like a problem to me.

Uh-oh: The Howie Edition
Channel 5's David Boeri of all people has a blistering critique of Howie Carr's new book in the Phoenix this week: ["Howie Carr blows up"]. This is huge, despite the soaring sales of the book, because it goes through the thing point by point. What is also interesting here is that Boeri is basically confirming what we've all kinda known about Howie for a long time: He's been phoning it in for years; obsessed with trying to become the next Howard Stern. And when that didn't work, the next Rush Limbaugh. And then the next whatever, instead of being as great as he could be at who he is: Howie Carr. With newspaper sales sagging and his show limited to New England syndication, he really needed to come out with a really good book which wasn't just an overview - especially in the wake of the amazing "Black Mass." To be fair and balanced, Howie has always called the Phoenix, "a one-hand rag ..." But this didn't come from one of the great front section writers of the Phoenix - but a colleague in TV who has been covering the same story.

Wicked Local: Now, this is cool: ["Wicked Local Plymouth"]. Mark Jurkowitz posted this over at Media Log yesterday. A localized Web version - almost an expanded news blog - which is subsidized by a newspaper. The only problem I see here is the financial model. How do you pay to keep it up when there doesn't seem to be any advertising revenue around the model?
There isn't much about this and I can't seem for find any other information about how many towns this will be covering or anything else. But I did find this when I Googled "Wicked Local," from a conference by Suburban Newspapers of America scheduled for May 2006:

10:15 AM – 11:15 AM: WickedLocal.com – A Case Study in the Boston Suburbs, Presented by Bob Kempf, Vice President of Interactive Media, Enterprise NewsMedia, LLC. Locally based web-only companies are showing-up in markets across North America. What do you know about this new competitor…who are they and how do they operate?
One such approach was recently launched by Enterprise NewsMedia in Quincy, MA. Traditionally a print newspaper company, Enterprise NewsMedia identified this new threat early and decided that a strong offense was their best defense. Bob Kempf and his internet development team have just launched what is now known as ‘WickedLocal’. More than simply a separate brand, Wicked Local breaks new ground with a network of hyper-local websites that will draw news content from affiliate newspapers, offer a robust platform for citizen journalism and provide a comprehensive local search resource.
In this session we’ll hear how this new group of local, community based websites coexists with their traditional print products and what they mean to the communities they serve.

Well, maybe not so ...
Thanks to Adam Reilly over at the Phoenix for posting this: ["Romney backers paid the expenses of some to attend Tenn. poll"]. Since I rarely read the Globe anymore, I totally missed this. But, it makes the Romney second place poll finish look a bit, well, planned.

Democrats "cowering": That is how Feingold put it yesterday: ["Feingold Accuses Democrats of 'Cowering'"]. It seems pretty accurate. All talk; no action. Pathetic. Here is what the great William Greider thinks: ["A Peculiar Politician"]. The closing quote is a killer:

"For the moment, however, let us celebrate the man. The club will try to shove him in a closet and forget his little unpleasantness ever happened. I hope they fail and other Dems are properly embarrassed. Amid scandals in high places, Senator Feingold is fresh air. The country should rise up and sing."

Yeah.

Updated political site: I've been meaning to post that PoliticsNH.com, a junkie's dream site, has recently gone through a revamp. You can see for yourself by clicking here: ["PoliticsNH.com"]. James does a pretty good job covering all things 2008 as well as local New Hampshire political news. The upgrade is impressive.

The State of the News Media 2006
Here is a really interesting and thorough study on the state of the media in America, posted on Media Log yesterday: ["The State of the News Media 2006"]. I have only gone through the radio portion of it and wow, it pretty much shows a clear picture of how bad things are. I will look at the other portions of the studio at a late date but wow, what a study.

Bush censure?

Russ sticks his neck out: ["Feingold Calls for Bush's Censure"]. We'll see how this attempt goes. I recall a supposed move by Sen. John Kerry to call for the impeachment of President Bush but that never materialized. In addition, if President Clinton can be impeached for what he did - essentially being a sexual predator - surely Bush can be censured for acting like a borderline war criminal.

Mitt in stunning second place finish: When there is a hometown boy in the race, the talk is never about first place. And in the case of yesterday's Southern Republican Leadership Conference, second was everything: ["Frist Leads Informal GOP Poll for '08"]. I picked Romney to place sixth: ["Guess Romney's straw poll finish, win a DVD!"]. So, I won't be winning the DVD ... and so much for what I know about southern folks, eh? Or maybe not: ["Faith Hill, Tim McGraw Blast 'Humiliating' Katrina Cleanup"].

"When you have people dying because they're poor and black or poor and white, or because of whatever they are — if that's a number on a political scale — then that is the most wrong thing. That erases everything that's great about our country."

Respect for the dead: Do these people have no shame?: ["Hecklers harass families of US soldiers killed in Iraq"]. What happened to unconditional love? I know it is hard. But you are supposed to at least try. These people need to stop judging people and start looking at their own behavior.

I missed posting these earlier in the week: ["Ranking of World's Billionaires by Forbes"]. 2006 - Rudderless Dems: ["Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity"]. Dant dah dah dant, dant dant dah: ["The A-Team Reunite For TV Special"]. V is for: ["The Mad Man In The Mask"].

Some quick stuff from Massachusetts' politics
First, this: ["UMass pollster worked on the side"]. While this isn't too surprising - it happens a lot - I've always wondered about DiNatale. I've seen him say some things over the years that revealed him to either be completely clueless - or totally in the tank to some interest. Well ...

Second, polls. First, this one: ["Reilly leads, Patrick gains in new poll"]. UNH Survey Center does a pretty good job of polling, so I don't think the Globe fixed this. But, it is interesting to see these numbers - with both Dems winning; Miho potentially affecting Healey's campaign; and a whole slew of undecideds.

And that Globe poll is completely different than the one posted by SurveyUSA/WBZ just last week: ["New Poll Shows Tight Race For Governor"]. Of course, this poll asked 200 more voters than the Globe poll. But the Globe poll was a week later. A lot can happen in a week. Although, nothing in this campaign has happened to see numbers move around like that. The electorate in Massachusetts is fickle right now.

The WBZ poll also allows the reader to go into the numbers a bit. Here are some interesting things inside the poll that I noticed:
* Mihos is surprisingly more popular with women than men. This is the same guy who helped to run Jane Swift - working mom, governor - out of town on a rail. Reilly is even stronger with women - if he ends up being the nominee.
* Healey is more popular with men than women. This isn't that unusual since every woman I know thinks Healey is a dingbat and men tend to swing conservative anyway.
* Healey wins over young people [18-34] and Boomers [50-64], while Patrick gets the X-ers [35-49]. But Reilly wins most age groups if he is the nominee, with Healey taking the 65-plus. It is interesting to see young people flip so easily between one candidate and the other. This shows that there is no real party loyalty there in the 18-34 bracket.
* Healey gets 43 percent of the Hispanic vote with Patrick in the race ... wow, so much for the "logic" that the minority candidate would automatically get the minority vote. But if Reilly is the nominee, he sweeps all races. Very interesting.
* Mihos earns more Democrat votes than Republicans [16 to 14] with Patrick as the Dem nominee. With Reilly in, 4 percent more swing to Mihos ... but Healey also loses 7 percent of the Dems. This shows that Reilly turns off some indie-minded Dems who would support Patrick with other Dems going to Reilly over Healey. It also shows that those Dems would prefer Healey over Patrick. Very interesting.
* And if Healey wins, the Democratic nominee - in this case, Patrick - can blame the 19 percent of Dems and 21 percent of voters who described themselves as "liberals" who voted for her.
Is race a factor with these so-called enlightened Democrats and liberals? It seems to be in the last two categories here.

Halo 2
I had a great time last weekend playing Halo 2 with my buds. We set up two TVs put two games through a router and networked the games. Seven hours later ...
It is interesting. Gone are the days of Pong. Damn. Gone are the days of Defender. Now, as a grown man, I can still play with the best of them. Hah.

R.I.P.: Harry Browne
Two-time Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne died today: ["Harry Browne, Libertarian candidate, dies"]. I got a chance to interview Browne in 1996 and he gave me the whole hour for an interview even though my show was on a 125 watt non-profit FM station. He was gracious and seemed to have a real concern for the American people. While I didn't agree with all his ideas, Browne truly cared about the country.

Mihos roundup: Even though I no longer live in Massachusetts, I'm still watching the gubernatorial campaign there with interest. It has made for good reading and will be all the more interesting to watch as Christy Mihos jumps in as an indie. Here is Mihos' official Web site: ["Christy Mihos for Governor"] and the latest roundup of stories:
["Mihos workers abandon ship in rough seas"] This is not a surprise: Ron Vining has been involved in Republican campaigns for a long time. I doubt he would work for an indie.
["Mihos Campaign Faces Challenges"]
["Independents need to step up in political arena"] Here is a letter from an aquaintance of mine, John Valianti, who was involved in the fight to Save Fenway Park.

Why Kerry Murphy Healy will never be governor of Massachusetts
Four words: Christy Mihos, independent candidate: ["Mihos to run as independent"].
Mihos, whose family founded the Christy's Markets store chain, is one of the reasons Jane Swift isn't governor today, after he fought off being fired by Swift during the Big Dig/Turnpike scandals. He is also one of the reasons that Mitt "Guy Smiley" Romney is governor today, encouraging the Mittster to break his promise that he wouldn't challenge a sitting Republican for gubernatorial seat but bumped-off Swift anyway. Despite what people said, Swift wasn't a bad governor in the scheme of things. She was a moderate Republican who cared about the right things. But the good ole' boys didn't like that should could breed and govern at the same time.
Then, 9-11 hit on her watch, with the hijacked jets flying out of Logan and Guy Smiley was later featured with fireworks and flags at the Olympics in Utah. Presto, instant governor.
Adam Reilly has one of Mihos' big - albeit probably unrealistic - ideas: ["Mihos's Big Idea"]. Reilly also has a piece on AG Tom Reilly's collapsing campaign: ["Ship without a rudder"].
More on the logistics of a potential Mihos indie run after he officially announces.

In the Better Late Than Never category, place this: ["Is 'Made in U.S.A.' back in vogue?"].

"'U.S. retailers are finally looking at lost sales as lost revenue,' said Cohen. 'They know that in order to capture maximum sales they need to turn their inventory much quicker.' The disadvantage of importing from China, he said, is that it requires a longer lead time of between three to six month from the time an order is placed to when the inventory is stocked in stores."

Eh, is it this or the fact that stuff in China is junk? But no matter what the reason, this is good news for the nation, long-term.

News round up:
Here are some things going on you may have missed. I probably would have missed them - had I not been looking - because I've been pretty busy these days.

Just as our own Senator John Sununu is getting some faint praise for working out a deal on the PATRIOT Act, another senator comes to his senses: ["Byrd Says He Regrets Voting For Patriot Act"]. FoxNews had this first - probably because they are on the Byrd death watch [they also caught the "white n*gg#r" comment on tape, which Byrd made a couple of years back. Byrd was a former Klansman]. This, of course, is the key point to everything involving this act and other things the government has been doing over the past 10 years, paraphrasing Ben Franklin:

"Ben Franklin, that wise man among the Constitution's framers, perhaps said it most simply," Byrd says now. "'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'"

Of course, Byrd has seen better days - and recently incurred the wrath of some Dems for voting to appoint Alito to the Supreme Court. But, it is pretty good having him there because he realizes the big picture.

The Brothers Bulger
Howie Carr has finally released his book about the Bulger crime family, most specifically Whitey, the notorious Southie mobster, and his political thug brother and former Senate President, Billy. Three excerpts were published last week in the Boston Herald, in order to generate some sales interest. Howie has been making the rounds on all of the cable talk shows too. Here are the links:

["Blood Brothers: How Whitey made good his escape"]
["How the state cops let Whitey slip through their hands"]
["Hoodlum wannabe Whitey was Hub hustler"]

I waited to buy "Black Mass" in paperback so I might have to wait for this to come out in paperback too.

Sex Pistols won't play!
For years, I have been bitching about the Sex Pistols not being inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame even though the band kept saying they wouldn't accept the honor. Well, they were named this year ... and they aren't showing up: ["Sex Pistols spit on Hall of Fame honor"].
The text was posted on "The Filth and the Fury" Web site, the site of a great documentary film on the band and the time period in England ["The Filth and the Fury"].
Thinking about it now, this is probably the correct decision for them, although I wonder. They are making a bold statement about the pomposity of the music business. It is an industry - always has been - even if it didn't start out to be that way. It is always best to at least attempt to stick to your laurels [Plus, who knew it was $25k for a damn table! Warners has made a fortune from them. Pony up already].
And what would the jam session be like? Steve Jones mocks a pretty good Chuck Berry but can you hear Johnny Rotten trying to sing Blondie's "Call Me" or Skynyrd's "Free Bird"? Ugh. Imagine the ever obnoxious Eric Clapton or some other wank-off trying to follow along to the Pistols' anti-abortion opus "Bodies" or "God Save the Queen" [Clapton could pull of the solo in "GSTQ" but it kinda wouldn't be the same now would it?]. Although, they might be able to pull off Iggy's "No Fun" or The Who's brilliant "Substitute" together. Will Mike Love show up drunk and call Paul Cook onto the stage to jam and have Cook kick over the rack bopping the TM specialist on the head with a cymbal? Love might sue! Sid Vicious could come back from the dead as a ghost pissing in the champagne and shooting bullets from his revolver at everyone to the glorious musical back drop of "My Way." Oh, the horrors ... Better yet, they should just show up and not pay the table fee. Or grab the statue, say "Bullocks!" and bolt.

Depleted uranium
This is an interesting article which didn't get much play recently but might be worth a second look: ["UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells"] and a more thorough opinion piece here: ["The Queen's Death Star"].
In 1998, when I ran for Congress in Massachusetts' 8th District, I was invited to a lecture about the dangers of DU usage being put on by local Arab-American activists at Somerville High School. I was the only candidate who responded to their invitation or even showed up to other events sponsored by the group.
The lecture was surprisingly covered by NECN because it was right around the same time the President Clinton was bombing aspirin factories and other such nonsense [I got no play in the coverage but that was OK, the event wasn't about me]. Since most of the candidates were Democrats, and wouldn't speak against their president's actions, I was also the only one who talked about the issue. The bombing campaigns were wrong then; the bombing campaigns were wrong in 2003.
To this day, I can still recall the endless array of photos on display at the lecture of some of the Iraqi victims who had been affected by DU shells. The photos, especially of the women and newborns, were some of the most horrific you would ever see in your life. I won't go into the gory details ... but you can just imagine. The pictures will forever be seared in my mind like a bad dream.
I know in my heart that Jesus would never want anyone to be treated that way. And no one who proclaimed to follow the political philosophy of Jesus Christ would ever allow this to another human being, especially over oil reserves or to get a little intern sex scandal off the front page.
Years later, my father and sister came to visit us in Boston and we made the rounds of some of the tourist sites in the middle of a freezing January day. As we were passing by the Park Street Station, some of those same activists were standing outside with signs as we walked by. "Anthony, Anthony," one of them shouted to me, as we waved and walked over for a quick minute. The guy heaped praise on me for forwarding their cause against DU during the campaign, telling my father what a good man I was. It was a little embarrassing but when my dad looked at me and said, "He sure is," and gave me a pat on the back, it was made all the more meaningful.
It is always important to remember that it isn't whether you win or lose the fight, it is all about what you stand for and the issues you forward as a human being.

Radio
The continuing demise of local radio is covered in this recent piece in the Boston Globe: ["Mixed signals"]. The line about the lady coming in just to read the school lunch menu was pretty funny. Now that is local. Do kids even eat school lunches anymore? And how about that price tag: $4.5 million for two 1,000 AM stations granted, on the outskirts of the Metro Boston market [11th in the country]. Wow. In reaction to the sale of WJDA, the fledging and award-winning WADT on the South Shore is making a play for more listeners: ["WATD to broaden its listening base"].

2001
There is an interesting Flash file here of someone's take on Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": ["Kubrick 2001"]. Interestingly, this got me thinking about Zacharia Sitchin's books and I did a Google and found his site here: ["Zacharia Sitchin"].

The Village Voice and 9-11
The Village Voice, one of the premiere papers in the country for investigative journalism, has been delving into the 9-11 situation a lot lately. Last week, there were a slew of articles on some of the theories and people trying to advance some "conspiratorial" concepts:
["The Seekers"]
["Conspiracy 101"]
["The Usual Suspects"]
["Your Turn: Ground Zero stories"]

President's Day post
It is interesting to ponder the consolidation of these two important holidays in February - Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday - into one generic "President's Day." Was this an anti-union conspiracy? A way of taking a holiday away from the average working man [or woman]?
In the rage to name everything after Ronald Reagan, where is the "Reagan's Birthday" holiday, along with Washington and Lincoln? Not that I think the guy should get a day of his own but I'm just surprised his fans haven't tried to promote it. You can almost hear how that would go over in the halls of Congress: 'Oh, well, we can't do that, it would go against capitalism, forcing companies to offer a paid holiday on Feb. 6, blah, blah, blah ...' [and what's with the February birthdays?].
Andy Rooney had a great bit on "60 Minutes" last night lamenting that naming the holiday after all the presidents insinuates that they have all been worthy of a holiday. It was a good point; made all the more relevant when you think how great Lincoln was compared to recent batch of boneheads we've had in the Oval Office.

Speaking of presidents, has anyone else been watching this issue of handing over our ports to a company owned for a foreign government, specifically, the UAE ["Democrats plan bill to block Dubai port deal"]? What good is a War on Terror if we are handing over regulation of some of our biggest ports to company which could be potentially infiltrated by terrorists? It almost seems as though the administration is trying to allow a dirty bomb into the country! They are doing nothing about the porous borders; they are doing nothing about trying to heal the problems our nation has with the Muslim world; now, they want to hand over operation of our biggest ports to a strange company owned by an unstable Middle Eastern country? Insane. At least that is what one dad of a 9-11 victim thinks: ["'President's gone insane' - 9/11 dad "].

"'I'm a lifelong Republican and I think the President's gone insane,' said Gadiel, 58, who heads 9/11 Families for a Secure America.
Two of the 19 9/11 hijackers were citizens of Dubai, the Arab emirate whose bid to run ports in New York, New Jersey and four other cities was okayed by the White House even though investigators have found signs that money used to finance terrorism flowed through Dubai banks."

Well, yeah, insane just about nails it, eh? No true conservative and no one in their right mind would allow this to happen. But without checks and balances, without fighting opposition parties, this kind of stuff is bound to happen. Thankfully, some folks seemed to be trying to stop it.

Speaking of the "fighting opposition," here is interesting column by another Nader defender - Bob Koehler, of Tribune Media Services - about his problems with some folks on the Web: ["The Nader Effect: Democrats are chasing ghosts instead of Republicans"]. I especially like this:

"While the ghost of McGovern, who was mauled by Richard Nixon in 1972, is the most deeply ingrained and enfeebling, seeming to guarantee uncritical Democratic support ("we love America, honest") for every cynical Republican military or civil-liberties outrage concocted in the name of national security, the ghost of Nader is the most life-threatening. Its effect is emetic, causing an immediate discharge of rationality among the party faithful at every hint of a challenge from the party's values base. The Nader Effect causes Democrats to upchuck the very medicine that will save it."

Exactly. The medicine is simple: Stand for something. Imagine, that a column entitled "Give Peace a Vote," would garner such madness from those people who propose to be the saviors of the nation? Koehler's offense, of course, was suggesting that someone better could represent the 8th District of Illinois instead of the incumbent Democrat. And, with Democrats like this - she voted for the bankruptcy bill, the estate tax repeal, CAFTA, the AHP bill that guts state healthcare protection laws, the Enron/Halliburton energy bill, the PATRIOT Act, the Real ID Act, the Iraq War, another bloated defense budget, the flag desecration amendment, and the recent leave-no-millionaire-behind "tax relief" bill, according to Independent candidate Bill Scheurer's Web site [winwithbill.com] - who needs Republicans?
Plus, why are they eating their own ["Backroom Battles "]? This is the kind of potential candidates the Democrats need:

"Hackett, an Iraq War combat veteran, was hailed last summer as just the kind of “fighting Democrat” the party needed to reinvigorate its base and end its years in the congressional wilderness. After narrowly losing a race for Congress in a lopsidedly Republican district outside Cincinnati last August, the telegenic veteran—famous for dissing President Bush as a “chickenhawk” and “sonuvabitch” while on the stump—was courted heavily by Democratic leaders, including Sens. Charles Schumer and Harry Reid, to take on DeWine. But no sooner did Hackett enter the Senate race last October than Brown announced his candidacy for Senate, reversing an earlier decision he had made to stay out of the race."

Now don't get me wrong, Rep. Sherrod Brown doesn't sound like a bad guy. But why should Schumer and Reid even be involved in this? They are from New York and Nevada, respectively, not Ohio.

Retirement. Once you hit 40, you start thinking about it. You may not be doing much about it, but you are starting to think about it. I worry about it too and not just because I have a very young son and I am wondering about all those things he may need in the future. But, I wonder if I will ever see retirement and whether or not that is such a bad thing.
And, this isn't just about Social Security solvency or beach homes, this is about retirement in general ... the act of not working ... on something. I wonder if I will really ever be able to retire. Not just because I may not have the money to retire, but the fact that I probably won't be able to stop working.
I like working. I like working hard. I always have even when I was doing menial things like washing dishes. There is no indignity in work and the more fulfilling, the better. Plus, what can you do in retirement when you have done almost everything you've ever wanted? Can you spend the whole rest of your life living on a beach catching up on your reading? I go stir crazy after a week away from work. How am I going to handle not working at all?
Anyhow, this whole thread of thought recently came to me after I read this article: ["Retirement age 'should reach 85'"]. Hey, I'm all for working late in life ... but 85? That seems a bit much. I might not fully retire but I don't want to wait until 85! Come on.

2008. Interesting articles in the Sundays this week about 2008: ["Primary buzz is building early"] and this: ["Pols lining up at the gate for 2008"]. As well as this from earlier in the week: ["Conservatives Divided on '08 Candidate"].

March Noise Magazine Top 30 Chart
Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC

1. Campaign for Real Time – Yes … I Mean, No
2. Compass – Munchy the Bear
3. Galaxie 500 – Peel Sessions
4. Rooftop Suicide Club – Always Like This
5. The Bags – Night of the Corn People [Reissue]
6. Chris Brokaw – incredible love
7. Certainly Sir – Tan
8. The Beatings – Holding on to Hand Grenades
9. Rick Berlin – Me and Van Gogh
10. Chop Chop – Chop Chop
11. Constants – The Murder of Tom Fitzgerril
12. Damone – Out Here All Night EP
13. Karacter – Karacter
14. Mascara – Spell
15. The Dents – Time for Biting
16. The Glass Set – The Glass Set
17. Victory At Sea – All Your Things Are Gone
18. The Curtain Society – Every Corner of the Room
19. The Cyanide Valentine – Let it Rot
20. Digney Fignus – Trouble on the Levee
21. The Hidden – Smash to Ashes
22. Slim Jim and the Mad Cows – homebrewed
23. Tiger Saw – Sing!
24. The Texas Governor – The Experiment
25. The Bleedin Bleedins – Life Without Computers
26. UV Protection – Consumer Material
27. Ad Frank & The Fast East Women – The World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend
28. The Chainletter – Home for Troubled Boys EP
29. Lincoln Conspiracy – “Our Blue Sky Is Not Falling Down”
30. Auto Interiors – Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends

Press releases
In the news business, you get a lot of press releases. It seems unending at times. Sometimes, the press releases are things you can use; other times, it's just some public relations flack trying to get some press. Sometimes, the PR flack doesn't know what he is doing and sends the press release to a strange, abandoned company email account. This separates the wheat from the chaff; and whether a PR rep truly knows about your media company or whether he is sending it out blind to flog the idea.
Anyhow, I got this one earlier today. It isn't something we would necessarily use but being a blogger, I'm intrigued by its findings and concept. Also, a quick Google of "Pierce Atwood LLP" revealed no known articles about the firm and blogging. This leads one to believe that this random press release didn't get much play.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
AS WORK-RELATED WEB BLOGS PROLIFERATE, NEW NATIONAL SURVEY FINDS FEW EMPLOYERS ARE PREPARED FOR THE IMPACT
5% of workers polled by Employment Law Alliance say they maintain a blog
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 7, 2006) – Web blogs are booming, but the latest survey conducted by the Employment Law Alliance (ELA) is reporting that while millions of workers – perhaps as many as 5% of the American work force -- are maintaining the online personal diaries, only about 15% of employers have specific policies addressing work-related blogging.
Some estimates put the number of workplace bloggers as high as 10 million. And with only a minority of companies regulating blogging at work, the conditions are ripe for disputes if employees use blogs to vent workday frustrations.
“The problem is not that an employer learns in a blog that an employee is dissatisfied, but that the dissatisfaction is made available to an unknown, potentially limitless audience,” says James Erwin, a labor and employment law attorney at Pierce Atwood LLP, a law firm with offices in Portsmouth and Concord, New Hampshire.
Work-related blogging was once thought to be benign, but it is now one of the hottest, and most complex and far-ranging issues in the workplace, according to Stephen J. Hirschfeld, the CEO of the ELA and a partner in the California-based labor and employment firm of Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld & Kraemer, LLP.
Blog-related issues cover a broad spectrum well beyond concerns by employers over the web-posting of company secrets. For example, can the employer regulate off-duty blogging because they believe the content injures the company’s reputation, is embarrassing to a company, or disparages a company’s products, management or customers?
“An employer does not want to intrude into an employee’s private life, but a company needs to protect its reputation for the sake of the entire workforce and the future of the business,” adds Erwin.
Erwin recommends all employers include a blogging policy in company handbooks, detailing what is and is not allowed and the consequences for violation. The practice of firing a worker for what is deemed inappropriate blogging even has its own name, doocing (named for a fired worker who maintains the www.dooce.com website).

The telephone poll of 1,000 adults, with a confidence interval of +/- 4%, was conducted over the weekend of January 22, 2006. Besides finding that 5% of American workers maintain personal blogs and that only 15% of their employers have a policy directly addressing blogging activities, it also revealed that:

• 59% of employees believe employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate workers who post confidential or proprietary information concerning the employer
• 55% think employers should be allowed to discipline or terminate employees who post damaging, embarrassing, negative information about the employer
• 23% support fellow workers being free to post criticism or satire about employers, co-workers, supervisors, customers, or clients without fear of discipline

Of the employees polled who work for a company with a blogging policy:

• 62% say the policy prohibits posting any employer-related information
• 60% say the policy discourages employees from criticizing or making negative comments against the employer
• 58% say the regulations deal with all blogging regardless of content.

Dr. Ted Reed, President of the Reed Group, LLC, a Philadelphia-based research firm and Survey Director for ELA, says the poll is indicative of a steady growth in adult blogging. A 2003 national survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that approximately 2% of American adults who used the Internet maintained a blog. “Based on our current research, we can have as many as 10 million bloggers among the American workforce.”
Pierce Atwood LLP is the ELA member law firm for Maine and New Hampshire. The law firm is the largest based in Northern New England and has more than 120 attorneys who serve regional, national and international clients from offices in Portland and Augusta, Maine. As part of the firm’s continuing growth strategy, Pierce Atwood LLP established a Portsmouth, New Hampshire office in 2001, and expanded further in 2003 when it acquired the well-respected law firm of Sanders & McDermott in Hampton. In December, 2004 the firm opened a Concord, New Hampshire office. For more information about the firm, its attorneys and services, please visit www.pierceatwood.com.
-END-
Contact: Jennifer WhittierPhone: 207-791-1244
Email: JWhittier@PierceAtwood.com
The Employment Law Alliance is the world’s largest integrated, global practice network comprised of premier, independent law firms distinguished for their practice in employment and labor law. There are member firms in every jurisdiction in the United States and over 65 countries around the world. For further information, including access to the survey charts and graphs, visit www.employmentlawalliance.com.

1,000 days ...
In 1,000 days, there will be another presidential election.

Banned from Kos ... again!
On Tuesday, Jan. 31, I was troll-rated into oblivion at the Daily Kos political chat site and lost access to participating at the site.
This has occurred twice before: Once during the famous primary wars of 2003, for defending Ralph Nader repeatedly and criticizing Gen. Wesley Clark and former Gov. Howard Dean, who I ended up voting for; and then again, in late 2004, when I stated early one Sunday morning that an "SNL" skit showing John Kerry to be a flip-flopper was funny and factual correct.
After the second banning, I took a break from the site for almost a year, although I did continue to glance at it now and again for news stories and other political nuggets.
But after talking to some folks via email who had participated in the site and missed some of my interaction, I decided to participate again. I also made it a personal policy that I wouldn't get into too much controversy, as to not anger those true believers which would get me troll-rated again into oblivion and start the whole process over again.
Well, I failed.
For the most part, it was a safe strategy and it seemed to work. My contributions were part of what I thought was a healthy discussion about politics in general, strategy, and other things that would empower people to be more involved in the process. The thought was that if you can get people to shut off their computers and learn how to run field campaigns, for example, they would be able to create more change than bitching at a blog site. Bitching on a blog site doesn't create change; it is just bitching.
Of course, anyone involved in campaigns in the past knows this to be true; field is everything. Information is everything. But anyone involved in campaigns in the past also knows that progressives and liberals, generalizing, have an adversarial relationship with the hard work that goes into producing winning electoral campaigns. They do a lot of pontificating about "movement building," but they rarely follow through with the work that needs to get accomplished.
It was hilarious when I was involved in the early days of the Massachusetts Green Party - after volunteering for Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in 1996 - and would talk about purging voter's lists to find the good voting residents. "Activists" would look at me and say, "What's a voter's list?" They were too busy Marching for Mumia to realize that the only way to influence voters was to actually find out who they were and talk to them. It was only until activist Iowa Karen Kubby put the process into a cartoon format and passed it around on the Web that folks inside the MGP and other places took the process of purging seriously. Later, in some of the smaller campaigns, Greens were able to take this process onto near wins - like Jesse Perrier's Selectman's campaign in Winthrop, Mass., in which he got 40-plus percent of the vote. Another candidate, Paul Lachelier, challenged long-time state Rep. Tim Toomey, a double-dipping Democrat layabout, and received 37 percent of the vote, in Cambridge and Somerville. Other Greens in super liberal areas of Western Massachusetts were able to garner similar numbers by actually going out and talking to voters. Statewide candidates - not really using the purging process but still significant - were able to garner decent vote returns too. James O'Keefe, who ran for Treasurer in Massachusetts as a Green, won more than 9 percent of the vote in 2002 in a climate where the state Dems were pounding Green gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Jill Stein. President Bill Clinton even visited the state telling voters not to be "Nadered" by Stein who was clearly more qualified to be governor than Mitt Romney or Shannon O'Brien. O'Keefe managed to skirt most of the damage from Democrats which was squarely aimed at Stein. But he didn't get much help from the mainstream media. Despite having a Masters degree in Economics and a background in computer software engineering, they didn't feel he was qualified. The major daily newspapers ignored his campaign, with the Boston Globe even editing O'Keefe out of a three candidate picture. The picture had all three candidates extending their hands jointly together in a sports metaphor with the Globe editing O'Keefe completely out of the picture ... except, of course, his hands! Some television stations were kinder; allowing O'Keefe to participate in some of the debates, probably because the Republican Dan Grabauskus had no chance of beating eventual winner "Tim for Treasurer" Cahill.
My discussions on Kos weren't about anything more than empowering people and chatting up political gossip, something I don't do at work very much and prefer to do online, during downtime.
But then, the blogosphere started to really let loose after the Alito nomination follies. Some of the more popular posters on Daily Kos started to openly talk about rebellion within the Democrat Party and even leaving the party to punish Senators who were supporting Alito. They'd had enough, especially after some Senate Dems smartly abandoned John Kerry's seemingly clueless filibuster attempt against Alito. In fact, some of the more popular posters, like MaryScott O'Connor, a former actress in California who also runs the My Left Wing site, called for a re-registration to "Independent" in an effort to influence the party [O'Connor is a super liberal poster who I happen to respect because of her thoughtfulness and deep convictions even if I may disagree with her rage]. She was particularly infuriated by southern and western Dems ignoring the dangers Alito might bring to Roe v. Wade. Kos himself seemed to stay out of this fray and allowed people to argue back and forth about it, although he did sympathize with the rebellious poster's anger at the lack of action against Alito. Kos even went so far as to brag that the netroots were organized in this fight. He mightily roared that now, Senate Democrats would take them seriously, even if they had little to no effect on the process.
While Kos has openly stated that he has little tolerance for indie voters or indie liberal parties, he has openly called on his followers to target Sen. Joe Lieberman - advocating and encouraging anyone, independent or otherwise - to run against him! This, historically, as anyone involved in the party knows, is a no-no. You don't eat your own, no matter what.
But with Kos and his posters, there is a bit of hypocrisy on this. Lieberman is a Republican with a big-D label by his name, they say, so it is different than a guy like Nader trying to bring truth and honesty to the political arena. Kossacks correctly think the same of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, labeling him: "Sen. Joe Biden, D-MBNA," after the big financial company from his state which he seems to serve so well - much to the detriment of credit card holders everywhere.
A lot of excuses were posted for this strange change in philosophy between no tolerance for indies and tolerance for them when they are against someone we dislike or someone who Kos targets. But, whatever.
Having worked in both Dem and indie arenas and have voted for Republicans against Democrat candidates I couldn't stand, I commended O'Connor and others, and encouraged them to think about the idea of abandoning the Dems. I didn't advocate for the idea; I just said folks should think about it. I shared some of my own experiences trying to reform the Democrat Party in the late 1980s when I was an active member of Ward Committee meetings in Boston, as well as my experiences with the Greens during the mid- to late-1990s. I stated that it was nearly impossible to reform the Dems and I did openly advocate not joining the Greens because of their unrealistic illusions and propensity to be totally disorganized [Sorry my Green buds still out there reading my stuff, this is the reality of the situation].

Sidebar: This dynamic of rebellion in the wake of the Alito nomination from within the ranks of this ragtag collection of people talking amongst themselves online has virtually received no attention from the press - despite the popular sentiment online. O'Connor did manage to get on John Gibson's Fox radio program after she posted a rant entitled "We are fucked." The audio is posted somewhere but I have yet to listen to it. There was little else in the way of press about this very interesting dynamic in the country right now. In fact, it is a testament to the lack of a political press interested in covering anything deeper within the party structures, something they always used to do in the 1960s and 1970s. Whole sections of books have been written about the intra-party struggles, like the move to diversify the Dems in the 1970s after U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm’s populist campaign for the presidency found itself completely shut out of the political process [Check out "Marathon: The pursuit of the Presidency, 1972-1976," by Jules Witcover, a fascinating read about this era of Democratic politics].

Unfortunately, during this very enlightening phrase of interaction at Daily Kos, I got into a side argument about Al Gore Sr., a southern Democrat who had a pretty bad civil rights record. Everyone knows this and it has been covered by editorialists from the left and right. Everyone knows that southern Democrats attempted to kill the Civil Rights Act and Gore Sr. was one of the leaders in that movement. Everyone knows that it wasn't until after years and years of fighting integrating that Gore Sr. finally came around, not unlike Alabama Gov. George Wallace and others later on. Everyone knows that when Vice President Al Gore in 2000 was talking about his father's legacy of civil rights advocacy that he was rewriting the history about his father [While the Bible does say, Respect thy mother and father, it doesn't say Fib about thy mother and father to rewrite history and cover your political ass]. Everyone knows that if it weren't for northeastern Republicans, blacks still wouldn't have civil rights today. All this information is in the Congressional Record. There are voting records and comments by other Democrats, like then-President Lyndon Johnson, who openly thanked Senate Republicans for their assistance in passing the Civil Rights Act. Going back a bit further, everyone knows that if it weren't for Republicans in the late 1800s, blacks would still be slaves today. It is fact. There is no argument about it ... unless you currently hate Republicans and are a part of the "liberal blogosphere" in 2006. You're drinking the Kool-Aid, like Jim Jones' followers did, as the saying goes. A cryptic metaphor but accurate nonetheless. The Dems can do no wrong, even after you are targeting Lieberman and others from your desktop.
Well, my comments didn't sit right with some folks and wham, troll-rated into oblivion again. This is what happens when you don't know your history - you are condemned to repeat it, as the saying goes. This is what happens when you hate so much that you can't look at the bright side of anything.
Personally, I'm not happy with the Republicans in Washington. I think the current bunch are corrupt as the day is long. They are a disgrace to their forefathers and Republicanism. It is nothing more than a political label now. But I'm not happy with the Democrats either. I see no difference in the hiding of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy plan and the crap that went on when Hilary Clinton - not an elected official, but the wife of the president - was meeting in secret to scheme up a supposed insurance policy for Americans. I won't even get into the alleged pharm market manipulation or other things from that era.
But this is what happens when you are so worried about political labels and less about political integrity that you are scarfing down that Kool-Aid. Any mindless following of political labels is a train ride to fascism and tyranny. Needless to say, I am going to probably give up on the educational dialogue of the blogosphere and will instead, spend time doing more fruitful endeavors. I will probably still cross-post at MyDD and have also been invited to cross-post at My Left Wing, despite my online debates with O'Connor, a class act in the blogosphere [She rages sometimes, it's OK though. She has come around].
But at some point, you have to give up and stop wasting your time trying to help people empower themselves. You can't make people see the truth. No matter how important speaking truth to power and "teaching" people the tools to change their lives, you can't force people to do it. You can't teach people common sense. It can be a lost cause.
I have always believed that lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. But for now, more important writing deserves to be written.
I just thought my regular readers, many who were Kossacks and starting coming back to Politizine after I started posting again, should know why I'm no longer there.

The people who control the world?
It isn't often that I post entire articles here which aren't written by me. But this piece just says it all, doesn't it? And people think there isn't a conspiracy to run the world ... they aren't hiding, are they?

["Partying at Davos"]
By Jeff Faux
The world’s rich and powerful are heading this week to their annual meeting in the plush mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland. Hosted by the great global corporations (Citigroup, Siemans, Microsoft, Nestles, etc.), some 2000 CEO’s, prominent politicians, pundits and international bureaucrats will network over great food, fine wine, good skiing and cozy evenings by the fire contemplating the world’s future.
This is not a secret cabal; journalists will issue daily reports to the rest of us on the wit and informal charm of our financial betters. Rather it is like the political convention of those who manage the global economy. Call it the Party of Davos.
All markets are systems of rules that determine what sort of people are winners and what sort are losers. Politics is largely conflict among the different sorts – or classes – over who gets what. In stable societies, a social contract provides for enough wealth to trickle down to keep the lower orders from rebelling. Thus, in the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of defense said that what was good for General Motors was good for America, most Americans – including the United Auto Workers – agreed. Within the boundaries of the US economy, capital and labor needed each other.
But as corporations went global, the mutual dependence weakened. And in the absence of global democracy, their owners and top managers seized the opportunity to set the new rules without social constraints. The first head of the World Trade Organization called these new rules a “constitution for the global economy.” It’s a constitution that protects just one world citizen – the corporate investor. It prohibits effective protections for the workers, consumers and the environment.
In America, as in most places, the party of Davos is bipartisan. It includes Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney, Robert Rubin and Don Rumsfeld, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. (George Bush is also a member, but he doesn’t like to travel). John Kerry is quoted as having called himself a “Davos” man.
Indeed, without reference to economic class it is impossible to explain why Democratic elites championed NAFTA, the WTO and the other instruments of corporate protectionism, which traded away the interests of its blue-collar industrial base in favor of the GOP constituencies in Wall Street and red-state agri-business. Nor is it possible to explain why Washington is indifferent to a relentlessly rising trade deficit, and the resulting foreign debt that has put the country’s future in the hands of the central bank of China, while the Pentagon simulates war games with China as the enemy.
The media language we use to talk to each other about globalization hides its class structure. The press consistently talks about national “interest” without defining who exactly is getting what. Thus, American workers are told that the “Chinese” are taking their jobs. But the China threat is in fact another global business partnership – this one between commissars who supply the cheap labor and the United States and other foreign capitalists who supply the technology and two-thirds of the capital used to finance China’s exports. The rest of the world calls this “neo-liberalism,” a term unknown among America’s media “internationalists.”
The politics of the global marketplace are a one- party system. The opposition to Davos is unorganized globally. What might be called the Party of Porto Alegre – the NGOs who meet at the same time in Brazil – is politically marginal. The trade union movement’s effort to organize the workers of the world is at best at a very early stage.
Still, there may be some bad new ahead for Davos. After a quarter of a century, the world is beginning to resist policies that have shifted wealth and power away from people who work for a living to those who invest. Scarcely a day goes by without a major riot somewhere in China, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. In South America, anti-neoliberal parties have come to power in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Argentina – and already have slowed down the effort to extend NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere. Very close to home, a leftist candidate is leading in the campaign for Mexico’s next president.
But perhaps more important, Davos’ chief champion – the U.S. governing class – is in trouble. The opposition to the War in Iraq has demonstrated the limits of America’s willingness to send its children to die in order to force the world’s cultures into one vast shopping mall. And the looming crisis of America’s foreign debt will cramp the ability of our elites to use the countries’ economic power to support their global corporate backers. The erosion of the American social contract – already being reflected in stagnant wages, financial insecurity and collapsing health care system – could soon force the governing class to pay more attention to Bloomington, Illinois than to Baghdad, Iraq.
Globalization will not go away. Improvements in communications and transportation will continue to make the world smaller for as far into the future as we can see. Nor will economic classes soon disappear. The question is, as always, who sets the rules and in whose interests? So although the parties at Davos may not be over, the rest of the world seems less willing to pay for them.

Jeff Faux, the founder and former president of the Economic Policy Institute, is the author of the new book The Global Class War, a study of the impact of globalization abroad and on U.S. living standards and politics. He is a contributing editor to The American Prospect, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. His articles and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Prospect, Foreign Affairs en Español, The Nation, The Columbia Journalism Review, and many other popular and professional publications.

Haunting
Christopher Lee blasted some of the so-called actors involved in films these days recently: ["Lee laments Hollywood 'stars'"]. However great Lee is, let's be honest: He has been in some clunkers over the years. Gremlins 2, Howling 2, 1941, Meatcleaver Massacre, and a ton of cheesy Dracula movies.