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Dan Proft Juliana Johnson Juliana Johnson posting for Dan Proft yet again published another asinine essay yesterday, this time pooh-poohing the Earth Hour campaign of all things.
Mr. Proft titles his screed, “Don’t Kid Yourself – 1 Hour Won’t Save World”.
Clearly, he’s ready to just throw up his arms and wimp out instead of putting up a good fight to actually ’save the world’. This attitude stems from the pat conserv-o-partisan answer to most of life’s most difficult tasks: life’s not fair so “don’t kid yourself” (or ‘…so why bother’).
Indeed, life isn’t fair and it is difficult at times. But why do we keep hearing from conservative partisans like Mr. Proft that we should stop working to make it more fair and to do what we can — large or small, together or individually — to improve things for all?
Earth Hour is the publicity stunt (yes, let’s name it what it is) which calls for turning off electric devices like lights and other useful but unnecessary items from 8-9pm on March 29. The intent is to raise awareness of just how much electricity we consume and engage regular joes like you and me in understanding that if we all do simple, little things the cumulative effect can be enormous.
Sometimes, to get a given organization’s point across, they engage in a public relations campaign (ie, “publicity stunt”). Even Mr. Proft’s friend John McCain does it — at home and abroad — as he campaigns for a third Bush term.
For whatever reason, Mr. Proft and his jolly partner Ms. Johnson appear to be quite crabby about this effort to raise awareness of just how easy it can be to combat global climate change in small ways. Mr. Proft even tosses mud directly on the very idea of “raising awareness”:
That’s why the explicit mission of these events is routinely the cleverly nebulous and unquantifiable raising of “awareness.”
Apparently Mr. Proft thinks folks are just supposed to use their ESP to know what things — small or large — can be done to protect Creation. Yes, things like going old school, pioneer-style for an hour actually can help and it’s easy to do. (Besides, aren’t conservatives supposedly really concerned about people watching TV? You’d think that an event such as Earth Hour which has the side benefit of encouraging family time would be praised by conservatives. You’d clearly be wrong as partisanship trumps logic for this con.)
But instead of actually offering some alternative ideas on saving whales and the like all Mr. Proft can do is give us some wails of his own. Through and through, his entire rant is chock full of ad hominems about people actually trying to get things done and fight the good fight against global climate change, pollution and other ills that affect us all. Mr. Proft’s whiney conclusion unwittingly reveals his partisan angst:
No one is for capricious destruction of the environment. Truly being “green,” however, demands more than annual self-esteem boosters.
Actually, yes, there are people in favor of “capricious destruction of the environment.” They just hope they don’t get caught and, more often than not, sluff off the bill and the consequences onto the rest of us when they do. Unfortunately for this particular conservative political strategist, these groups also tend to align themselves politically with Mr. Proft and his comrades.
And truly being “green” … well that takes both a raised level of awareness and direct action. And sometimes, as in events like Earth Hour or Clean the Parks Day, both.
(tip o’ the hat to Dan for the title reference)
Yesterday, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a solid speech on the economy at Cooper Union. Note that both his current opponents, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, have admitted they don’t understand the economy.
After the speech, he answered questions in an interview by NBC’s Wall Street reporter Maria Bartiromo. In that Q+A, Ms. Bartiromo asked Sen. Obama about his two-pronged idea of returning the highest income tax brackets to Clinton-era rates while simultaneously dropping middle and lower income rates and offering those brackets additional tax breaks… Specifically she asked him why he’d look into raising anyone’s taxes, wealthy or not, at all (a fair question):
“Well, look, there’s no doubt that anything I do is going to be premised on what the economic situation is when I take office,” Obama said. “I’m going to be sworn in in January, we don’t know what the economy’s going to look like at that point.
“And, you know, the thing you can… be assured of is that I’m not going to making these decisions based on ideology. I’m not a dogmatist,” Obama said. “I know that some, you know, my opponents to the right would like to paint me as this wooly-eyed, you know, liberal or wild-eyed…”
“You’re not a liberal?” Bartiromo asked.
“My attitude is that I believe in the market, I believe in entrepreneurship, I believe in opportunity, I believe in capitalism and I want to do what works,” the senator replied. ” But what I want to make sure of is it works for all America and not just a small sliver of America.” [...]
“And if it turns out — if somebody can make a persuasive argument to me that, you know what, what we need at this juncture, at this particular point in time is a different set of policies than some of the ones that I’ve proposed, I’m always going to listen to people,” he said.
Oddly enough, within seconds of that speech and interview, a herd of Sen. Obama’s opponents to the right did indeed try to paint him as this wooly-eyed, you know, liberal…
From Dan Curry’s spin:
Barack Obama gave another economic address today and then submitted to a rare interview to a non-fawning reporter. His answers on taxes should frighten America even more than the rantings of his racist pastor.
That one was a two-fer … snip out only the parts of Obama’s replies that score some cheap political points and repeat the partisans’ info-pimped lie about his pastor. Good work for the spinmeister. Later in Mr. Curry’s post, he complains about what he calls a “tired redistribution ideology.”
Odd that Mr. Curry doesn’t think a CEO-to-Average Employee pay imbalance worse than 260:1 is any sort of “redistribution ideology”. It’s not like average joes don’t work 60+ hour weeks or anything. The Robber Barons of the last century liked that sort of “redistribution ideology” also.
But Mr. Curry’s ranting wasn’t the only one. Some guy from GOP HQ took time away from losing White House emails and auditing sham RNCC finances to give us this new way to say the same pointless thing twice in one sentence:
Alex Conant, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, offered this response to Obama’s remarks for reporters after the program: “Barack Obama’s arguments concerning tax increases and economic policy would be laughable if they weren’t so ridiculous.”
These cons are getting too predictable. They ought to try actually listening to what Sen. Obama has to say instead of just blindly pulling the next knee-jerk reaction out of their rhetorical hat.
In particular, those supposedly ‘pro-capitalist’ Obama opponents from the self-proclaimed Party of Big Business and Fat Cat CEOs ought to listen to the presidential front-runner’s nuggets like, “I believe in opportunity, I believe in capitalism and I want to do what works… if somebody can make a persuasive argument to me that … what we need at this juncture … is a different set of policies than some of the ones that I’ve proposed, I’m always going to listen to people.”
Or maybe they’re not really in favor of capitalism after all and simply prefer beating the drum of partisan chicanery and desperately working to ignore what the guy’s actually saying.
At least Sen. Obama will listen, even if his opponents won’t.
“I hate Obama,” “Obama haters” and similar phrases have been — for several weeks now — consistently ranking as among the top search engine terms which lead readers to this blog.
Does this mean that people who hate Obama are looking to rationalize their anti-social behavior or that people who support (or are even neutral toward) the presidential candidate are just wanting to learn more about what is being said of him and the facts which contradict the plethora of partisan smears being circulated about him?
We report, you … do whatever it is you do on the other side of the Internetty tubes.
Swami says a certain Republican Congressional challenger, ex-hockey player, college dropout and overall neophyte political gadfly with money to burn named Steve Greenberg is a mean ignoramus and a real toadstool…
I can’t agree more. From Suburban Chicago News’ Swami political column:
Swami, what’s the ugliest moment so far in the election process in Illinois? Anybody come off as a real toadstool? Signed: Amphibian in Antioch
Ah, where to begin, Am?
For sheer mean ignoramus-osity, we give the nod squarely to 8th District Republican congressional whizbang Steve Greenberg who has stirred up a 1,500 year blood feud by arguing his foe, Melissa Bean, is a secret friend and agent of Serbian Neo-Fascist terrorists.
Hard criticism for a woman who mostly wears pastel business suits.
He’s even gone so far as to begin identifying her with her maiden name, Luburich, which has its origin in Serbia.
As with many misaimed political missiles, this one started with Bean giving Greenbrrg [sic] a small opening with a tactical mistake. Though she opposes the Prez’s support for Kosovar independence (as do many of the globe’s nations), Bean erred in having a fund-raising dinner at the home of the Serbian consul general in Chicago. It was his wife, an American-born lawyer of note, who was actually hosting the soiree but Greenberg leaped at Bean’s throat with all fangs bared.
[Note: That fundraiser was actually canceled and Mr. Greenberg took the credit for the cancelation. The Tribune subsequently reported that Rep. Bean has seen an uptick in unsolicited donations anyway.]
First of all, if you want to run for Congress, there are plenty of current wars over which to have a fist fight rather than sliding back into the goo of the Serbian-Albanian scuffle which Bill Clinton put on hold momentarily with a pre-emptive bombing run.
How ingrained is the argument? One side quotes the unfairness of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia as a pretext for continuing hostility, for crying out loud. WESTPHALIA! (emphasis added)
I might add … 1648! While certainly this matter is not “goofy” for the Kosovars, Serbs and others directly involved over the generations, Mr. Greenberg is in essence making a mockery of their conflict by trying to claim a sitting United States Congresswoman is some sort of traitor to the U.S. simply because she is not siding with the Republican President on the matter… oh, and because she is descended from Serbian immigrants. And, yes, this “mean ignoramus” really has taken to including her maiden name when talking about her to emphasize that she’s of Serb lineage.
Certainly it has become abundantly clear over the past few election cycles that the Republican Party and conservatives in general have chosen to identify themselves as the anti-immigrant party. Mr. Greenberg takes up that unfortunate flag by dissing Serb immigrants, a rather large population of whom lives in the Chicagoland area and are quite familiar with both this issue from the land of their heritage and also, increasingly, with this completely over the top smear Mr. Greenberg has decided to launch against the incumbent Melissa Bean.
Unfortunately for citizens in the 8th district, it is only March and Mr. Greenberg’s blarney has already blown past adjectives like bizarre and ridiculous and is well on its way to record-levels.
Then again, since Mr. Greenberg has decided to crack open the history books, let’s recall that it was Mr. Greenberg’s German predecessors and their allies who, in the early and mid-parts of the last century, invaded and decimated Serb regions. Perhaps the more things change the more they stay the same and Mr. Greenberg is choosing to refight those old battles on a new front. Somehow, though, I doubt this “real toadstool” is even aware of that relatively recent bloody history given his efforts to parody international affairs for his own weak-kneed political gain.
…Commence Mr. Greenberg’s attacks on my own Czech ancestry. Or perhaps he’d prefer to go after the Irish, Swedish, English, or even the German bits (among others — I’m a mutt). Mir!
(h/t Kevin Fanning at CapFax)
While I disagree with quite a lot of Gov. Mike Huckabee’s policies as a movement social conservative, here he hits the nail on the head by recognizing exactly what Sen. Barack Obama was discussing in his historic speech on race relations in modern America:
HUCKABEE: [...] And one other thing I think we’ve gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told “you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus…” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me. (emphasis added)
That’d be a little thing known as “context” and concisely echoes the thoughts that columnists Derrick Jackson and Bob Herbert, among several other Americans, have laid out…
PS: The Wright sermon on 9/11 (here) is quite clearly discussing the notion that we reap what we sow; something Christ himself instructed in giving us the 11th Commandment (John 13:34).
For conservative partisans like Washington Times’ Diana West Christ’s New Commandment apparently implies “anti-Americanism” which is odd since her fellow conservatives like Rev. Pat Robertson and the late Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 not on America’s past actions at fomenting unrest abroad but on their fellow Americans instead…. Is it not “anti-Americanism” to blame one’s fellow Americans just because they’re gay or a woman? What doesn’t Ms. West understand about that? 
(h/t Daily Kos)
Manya Brachear is the Chicago Tribune’s faith issues reporter.
Early last year, just after Sen. Barack Obama announced his presidential bid, Ms. Brachear helped write an article which had the unfortunate effect of promoting a fringe view that completely misrepresented the now-well known Trinity United Church of Christ. In other words, Ms. Brachear unwittingly helped a bunch of partisan Obama opponents info-pimp their misinformation campaign, an effort that (given the amount of explanatory information available with a 0.21 second Google search) can only be described as an intentional attempt at distorting Trinity’s beliefs and deliberately working to foment discord against both Obama and his church.
That article’s title says all that needs be said:
Race is sensitive subtext in campaign
South Side church’s tenets spark criticism of Obama by some conservatives
With articles like that and others the traditional media inadvertantly helped bolster the conservative partisans’ efforts to paint Obama’s church as somehow “other” — illegitimate, racist, anti-American, …simply “wrong” according to their partisan politicking.
Trinity’s tenets didn’t “spark criticism”. Deliberate partisan attempts to misrepresent a theology with which many Americans were unfamiliar manufactured an info-pimped “controversy” where none, when all the facts are on the table, actually exists. But that theology — based on Christ’s own teaching found in Luke 4, Matthew 25, etc. — was in and of itself not at all wrong.
In later weeks and months conservative talker Sean Hannity (among many other conserv-o-partisans) subsequently labeled his church “separatist” and “segregated” while conservative WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush referred to it as a “cult” on Hannity’s FOX show. Whether Ms. Brachear cares to acknowledge it or not, that Trib article helped set the stage for such bullshit by lending the smears an air of legitimacy with the implication being “If the Chicago Tribune is covering some controversy over that church then it must be controversial….”
Representative Daniel Lipinski, Congressman from the Third District of Illinois, has finally arisen from the back bench to which his posterior has evidently been welded and made an endorsement in the Democratic Presidential primary.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/
Please note that other than Rep. Emanuel (IL-05), who has a serious issue either way and has been “hiding under his desk” for months now, Rep. Lipinski becomes the last member of the Illinois delegation to declare – including Rep. Foster (IL-14), who has been a Member for, what, twelve minutes? (Yet another reason, as if we needed one, for progressives to start working Right Now to help keep Bill Foster in his seat)
Danny Boy – about freakin’ time, dude.
The connection is obvious, even if it isn’t being aired on CNN every 4 1/2 minutes, 24 hours a day…
The Huffington Post has learned that Bill O’Reilly — who claims to love America — spent Sunday at a “church” run by a former Hitler Youth named Joseph Alois Ratzinger. Ratzinger has gone to elaborate ends to hide this connection, including taking on the absurd pseudonym “Pope Benedict XVI.” Which, even if it doesn’t prove anything, certainly makes you think.
This shocking revelation comes only a week after Barack Obama admitted he attends a church formerly run by Jeremiah Wright, who talks smack about America, although probably less than Goebbels did.
This would all be holy water under the bridge, except for one disturbing and undeniable fact: Bill O’Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and Benedict “Joey Ratz” XVI worked for Hitler, as did Unity Mitford, whose baby sister was Jessica Mitford, who knew Maya Angelou, who knew Betty Shabazz, who was married to Malcolm X, who knew Louis Farrakhan.
Is there any place in our public discourse for men like Bill O’Reilly, who won’t even repudiate their links to Louis Farrakhan? I’ll give you the last word, and then cut you off in the middle of it: No there isn’t.
But at least Mr. “typical white person” O’Reilly knows how to order an iced tea in a civilized manner.
(h/t S-CAM)
–
“I know you’re probably tired of seeing that video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but here it is again.” – Rick Sanchez, CNN anchor, as paraphrased from last night’s Newsroom
Dear AT&T,
Harry Caray is dead.
Nothing against John Caponera, but please stop those damn commercials. Here I thought ComCast’s racist stereotyped “guru” commercials were bad. Then your ads came out. Yours somehow manage to be worse.
Thank goodness for WOW.
Best, Me
Boston Globe reports:
John McCain has officially broken the limits imposed by the presidential public financing system, according to spending reports filed last week by the campaign. [...]
McCain’s lawyers contend that the spending cap no longer applies.
Does it no longer apply because of … magic?
McCain’s no Maverick … he’s a Washington Wizard! It’s all so clear now.
The senator was certified to enter the matching-funds program last year when he was starved for cash. But once he started to win, he decided to hold off. On Feb. 6, after his Super Tuesday victories, he wrote to the Federal Election Commission to announce he would withdraw. [...]
But David Mason, chairman of the commission, wrote to McCain’s campaign last month to alert him that the commission had not yet granted that withdrawal request [...]
Oops. Not so magical after all. More like deciding to ignore the law and deal with the consequences later, if caught.
Sounds like another Republican we know and love. One note that the Globe skipped over — even though McCain never took cash from the public funding kitty he did have material gain from his certification for the program by obtaining a bank loan thanks to McCain using the forthcoming public funds as collateral. (This is different than 2003/4 Presidential candidate Gov. Howard Dean who never had any material gain from public funding before withdrawing and being granted permission to withdraw.)
While typically little ironies like Sen. John McCain apparently breaking the spending limits in the McCain-Feingold law would tend to be manna for media mavens’ 24/7 tape loops, those guys are apparently more interested in taking liberal pastors out of context, ignoring conservative pastors who’ve uttered similar or worse, and, most important of all, salivating over thoughts of back massages and specially-seasoned ribs.
So-Called Austin Mayor has the latest scoop on Sinbad’s quest to meet the Commander in Chief threshold.
When is the Keystone primary? …Not soon enough.
My kids had Life this morning. The cereal was pretty much all shaped like Colorado and Wyoming with a few looking more like North Dakota or Utah.
Clearly, one box of Life will cover their tuitions at the U of I. Move over Mikey.
God bless our troops as they faithfully and patriotically execute our Commander in Chief’s orders. May they come home safe, sound and soon.
