STAR WARS – QUIRKY BAD . . . BUT NOT THAT BAD

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about the new Star Wars flick. I saw it on Sunday; it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be (and politically it didn’t seem far left at all) and in an effort to be fair – I’m trying to keep in mind this post from Dean Esmay:

As for Anakin’s fall: I guess it must just be me. I remember all too well being a surly, angry, resentful, rebellious teenager (and early 20-something). Me? I bought into the whole thing as a refusal to grow up and face your own demons--which to me is the ultimate in cowardice.

It was made pretty clear to me that Anakin never really loved Padme--he loved the idea of her. She, on the other hand, really did love him even though she often found him incomprehensible.

Maybe this all because I grew up with what they call “father issues.” Growing up, I didn’t really have a father so much as a series of men who sort of tried to fill that role in various half-measures.

With the hope that this isn’t getting too personal (I don’t think I’m talking out of turn or saying anything secret here) I note that Solomon Mason loved Episode III as much as I did, and grew up in a similarly broken home. I suspect that as a result we both related to Anakin and his dark side almost instinctively. After watching Episode III I felt like I totally “got” Darth Vader. I thought, “Damn, yeah, if I were who I was back when I was 21, and I’d had that kid’s powers, I could well have turned into Darth Vader.”

That moment after Obi-Wan had defeated him in battle, and Anakin screamed, “I hate you!!!”--man, chills ran down my spine. He was filled with rage at Obi-Wan for not validating everything he wanted to believe about himself.

It does help if you keep in mind that Anakin was young--very young--and quite conflicted and alone most of his life. The Jedi Council was probably right that he was waaay too young for the responsibilities he was being given. But it wasn’t just his youth: it was obvious from day one that Anakin was kind of a mess.

We do need to be reminded at times that sometimes the folks endowed with god-given gifts are, in fact, “a mess” for various and sundry other reasons.

 

THE HITCHENS BROTHERS

Perhaps it’s because I have a brother just 11 months and four days younger than I am, and the fact the we are infamous for having arguments and debates that none of our four other siblings would have, but I find this London Guardian article on the sibling rivalry between Peter Hitchens and Christopher Hitchens.

IK [Ian Katz, interviewer] Christopher. You've talked slightly with your tongue in your cheek about regretting the competition for your mother's attention and you said in one interview with the Times: "Mothers aren't supposed to have favourites, are they? But boys know. And to know that your mother loves you most, more than anyone, more than your father, more than your brother, which I always did know ..." Did you have a firm conviction that you were favourite?

CH No, what I was trying to express there and badly, too, [was] an ambition, I hoped it was true but I am sure it was not. I don't usually use this term as a compliment but she was very even-handed. What I'm really saying there, which I think would be obvious to anyone who scanned the more successful words of Sigmund Freud, is that had I been an only child, I could probably have handled it, to have mummy to myself and then of course to kill daddy and marry mummy. I thought I had all my ducks in a row [only] suddenly [to] have to go to some nursing home and bring home a bundle. It was a shock and I may never have got over it.

IK Were your parents so perfectly even handed, Peter?

PH I don't know about the parenting, but there was a story of Christopher having been discovered gleefully releasing the brake of a pram.

CH That's when I took up drinking ...

PH There was another occasion when Christopher was sitting on the edge of a flower bed, admiring the blooms, when he saw a shadow, growing, behind him, and it was me, coming up behind him with a rake. I don't have any memory of that ...

Very, very interesting . . . at least to me.

 

MEMORIAL DAY, 2005

For a quite decent Memorial Day snapshot, go over to Winds of Change and review their links. Below, I’m posting a few photos in tribute to the United States military.

The face of the American soldier, in memoriam:

 

 Today, we remember not just individuals but the long line:

And today, a grateful nation honors her servicemembers:

 

We remember. We will always remember.

 

ONE YEAR!

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of my very awkward entry into the world of blogging. In another day or so I may do an entry that attempts to wrap-up the year but, until then, Gerard Van der Leun introduced me to the following two quotations that seem apropos for some reason:

1.

H. L. Mencken: “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule, and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

2.

Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago: “Everybody lies ... every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception.” Deceit is fundamental to the human condition.

A happy holiday weekend to one and all.

 

MSM ACKNOWLEDGES THE COMPLETE ASCENDANCY OF THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY

It could just be me, but I’m not sure I’ve read an article quite like this. I don’t know if Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post intended it to be an acknowledgment of the ascendancy of the Republican majority but that sure as hell is the way I read it:

As Democrats tell it, this week’s compromise on judges was about much more than the federal courts. If President Bush and congressional allies had prevailed, they say, the balance of power would have been forever altered.

Yet, amid the partisan rhetoric, a little-noticed fact about modern politics has been lost: Republicans have already changed how the business of government gets done, in ways both profound and lasting.

[translation: damn, y’all are slick]

The campaign to prevent the Senate filibuster of the president’s judicial nominations was simply the latest and most public example of similar transformations in Congress and the executive branch stretching back a decade. [uh, no – the campaign re the filibuster was about restoring more than 200 years of Senate practice and protocol] The common theme is to consolidate influence in a small circle of Republicans and to marginalize dissenting voices that would try to impede a conservative agenda.

[translation: damn, y’all are serious about governing and staying on message]

Now, the White House and Congress are setting their sights on how to make the judiciary more deferential to the conservative cause -- as illustrated by the filibuster debate and recent threats by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and others to more vigorously oversee the courts.

[translation: y’all say attendant to their constitutional responsibilities . . . and limitations, we say deferential to the conservative cause]

Some of the changes, such as a more powerful executive branch, less powerful rank-and-file members of Congress and more pro-Republican courts, are likely to outlast the current president and GOP majority, they say. The Republican bid to ban the filibustering of judges made it easier for Bush to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court and holds open the threat of future attempts to erode the most powerful tool available to the minority party in Congress.

[translation: we say erode the most powerful tool available to the minority party in Congress, and y’all say prevent the abuse of the most powerful tool available to the minority party in Congress]

When Republicans won control of the House in 1994, conservatives turned an institution run by Democrats and veteran chairmen into a top-down organization that looked in some ways like the flow chart of a Fortune 500 business. The idea was to put power in the hands of a few leaders and place conservative loyalists in the most important lower-level jobs to move legislation as quickly as possible through Congress, according to current and former lawmakers.

[translation: damn, y’all are really, really serious about governing and staying on message

With control over the House Rules Committee, which determines which bills make it the floor, how they will be debated and whether they can be amended, Republicans have made it much harder for Democrats to offer alternatives -- for example, a smaller tax cut than one Republicans advocate. Democrats also are increasingly shut out of the final negotiations on legislation between the House and the Senate before bills are sent to Bush for his signature.

[translation: win elections, you govern; lose elections, you don’t govern; damn, democracy sucks]

Bush created a top-down system in the White House much like the one his colleagues have in Congress. He has constructed what many scholars said amounts to a virtual oligarchy with Cheney, Karl Rove, Andrew H. Card Jr., Joshua Bolton, himself and only a few others setting policy, while he looks to Congress and the agencies mostly to promote and institute his policies.

[translation: we say oligarchy, y’all say America’s first MBA President putting his skills to use]

President Bill Clinton oversaw a transition of government away from strong agencies, which historically provided a greater variety of opinions in policymaking. “On the surface it looks like Bush is doing this better than Clinton, but there is much more going on,” said Paul C. Light, an expert on the executive branch.

[translation: yeah, we know Clinton did it – but does Bush have to make Clinton look like such a pip-squeak?]

Light said Bush has essentially turned most of the agencies into political arms of the White House. “It’s not just weakening agencies but strengthening political control of the agencies,” he said.

[translation: Chief. Executive. What a concept.]

Bush has demanded similar loyalty from GOP lawmakers -- and received it. Republicans have voted with the president, on average, about nine out of 10 times. Critics and some scholars charge that the Congress now seldom performs its constitutional duty of providing oversight of the executive branch through tough investigations and hearings.

[translation: aaarrrgghhh, the Grand Old Party is acting like the Governing Old Party]

Now, the Republicans, with the support of the White House, are looking to reshape the courts in their image. The Senate’s bipartisan compromise on judges will cost the president a few of his nominees to the appeals court but will require him to secure only 50 votes for future picks for the Supreme Court and other openings. If Democrats filibuster, Bush and Republican senators can move again to pull the trigger on the “nuclear option” and, if successful, prevent the minority party from ever again using the filibuster on judges. “I will not hesitate to use it if necessary,” Frist said this week.

[translation: damn, did they just rope-a-dope the Democrats?]

But Washington traditionalists -- veteran Republicans among them -- warn that the new breed of GOP leaders is trampling time-honored procedures designed to ensure that multiple voices have influence on the most important matters in government.

[translation: damn, our sources – what the hell’s gonna happen to them?]

“I would remind my friends that you may one day be in the minority and you won’t want to be [run] roughshod over,” said former minority leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), who served in the House for 38 years, 14 as leader.

[translation: like this source, for instance – what the hell good is he gonna be?]

With all of the hand wringing going on about the Gang of 14, I’ve taken to saying to folks that it’s beginning to look like a Republican strategy (strategery, anyone?). It’s effectively blinding some folks to the complete victory that compromise clearly is. VandeHei clearly sees it as such, however. Regarding the Gang of 14, here’s what I recently argued on Patrick Ruffini’s website:

Governing parties have to deal with multiple “coalitions of the willing” all the time. The Senate is constitutionally designed to be an institution of compromise. Those two facts came together here. That’s all -- yet activist bloggers are losing their mind when they should be able to see this for the complete victory that it is . . . . A governing party has to deal with this all the time and has to be mature enough to deal with this . . . all the time.

There are some folks failing this present test [determining whether the Grand Old Party can be the Governing Old Party], it seems to me, but they aren’t those seven so-called centrist Republicans.

I’m feeling more and more confident of that assessment as each day passes.

 

WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THE GOOD HELP THESE DAYS?

The Black Informant, in the wake of the Vincente Fox comments and subsequent calls from folks to boycott Mexico, discusses a lament from the African American Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia on the difficulty finding good help these days:

Let’s look at this sentence closer:

Among the impediments to finding suitable employees, the businesses said, was “technical skills deficiency,” “insufficient training,” “lack of expertise in the business’s specialty,” “lack of education,” a “lack of a clean background”

For the most part, Mexicans coming into this country have all of these strikes against them (the clean background part does not apply to all. For sake of argument, let’s replace that with the fact that they are illegal), yet somehow they still outnumber us in this part of the employment sector.

Now look that the next part of this sentence:

…and a “lack of work ethic

All of us know of some “folk” in our own family that seem to be this way since day one. Before you get your shorts bunched, I am not saying all black folks are like this. I am simply saying that if we are honest with ourselves, we know that if we just look at the next generation of black folks (10-17yrs), the work ethic of our parents/grandparents is simply not there. Ask any public school teacher.

Hell, ask any blatantly honest man or woman. We all know this is unquestionably true. The “unreality” of expectations in the modern, illusory bling-bling world really makes you stop dead in your tracks sometimes.

 

ANOTHER POINT ABOUT THE SENATE COMPROMISE ON FILIBUSTERS

Isn't it obvious that the odds are likely that the Democrats can’t filibuster a candidate for the Supreme Court with the same qualifications of the three judges just accepted? How will those seven Republican “centrists” possibly countenance such obstructionism? My short answer is -- they can’t. So . . . if the Democrats push the issue, the filibuster still goes down.

Chill.

This, to me, is a classic example verifying the fact that so many Americans on the left and the right still don’t recognize the genius of our political system. That genius doesn’t simply ask for compromise, it demands it. DEMANDS IT. That’s what we saw last night. Ultimately, that means you have to see incremental advance for what it is – an advance.

It’s also an example of why so few Senators ever become President.

 

THE DEMOCRATS BLINKED, REPUBLICAN ACTIVISTS NEED TO CHILL THE HELL OUT

Here’s why: you have to pay very, very close attention to the contextual politics:

If these Republicans would look at settlement rationally, they would recognize that it is a complete victory.

First, Democrats are forced to let three of the President’s nominees come up for a vote. We will now see these filibustered nominees win confirmation with 55-59 votes. So much for the Democratic argument that filibustered nominees are extremists.

Second, the President did not have to drop, as earlier proposed settlements said, two of his nominees. There is no decision on either nominee, and I expect Frist will call for a vote on their nominations shortly.

Third, the decision is an admission of failure by the Democratic leadership. If he were confident that it had the votes to overcome the constitutional option, Reid would have nixed any negotiations. Instead, he has to let three of the President’s “extremist” nominees win confirmation without any nominee being voted down.

Fourth, we can expect a Supreme Court vacancy this summer. With the eyes of the nation upon them, with their claim that Bush’s nominees are extremists in logical shreds, Democrats will have to either commit political suicide by filibustering or let the SCOTUS nominee go through the Senate.

Fifth, if Democrats continue to filibuster judicial nominees, it gives Republicans a potent issue to portray Democratic Senators in Red States as obstructionists.

In short, this is the submission of the minority to the will of the majority. Democrats and wobbly Republicans can spin it as they will, but you, my readers, will I hope see otherwise.

Thanks to Alexander K. McClure of PoliPundit for that politically savvy outline of the current situation. In fact, it appears to me that the Democrats have been set up once again. The strategy pushed by the Republicans [zeroing in on a black female candidate for the bench and a white female candidate] worked beautifully. The shrill, over the top claims of extremism have been put to rest by this agreement. The MoveOn crowd can’t be happy. Most surprising to me is that so many people seem to be missing the fact that the Democrats have expended much capital trying to convince the country that these women were extremists. It didn’t work and folks were getting tired of it.

Contrary to many of the right-side-of-the-aisle comments I’ve read at this early stage of analysis, this is a steady albeit incremental advance. Remember, a steady drip of water will wear a hole in a rock.