UPDATE: In case you’re curious, at 9:40 PM, many of the tracking sites are crashing due to traffic, but two things are true: ONE- the stories you may have heard about the Lieberman site being hacked are VERIFIABLY FALSE, and seem to be a weak attempt to get in a dig at Lamont. TWO- It looks like Joe is going down. With 50.27% of precincts reporting, the spread is 52-48 in favor of Lamont. Conventional wisdom has the lead narrowing, as some of the urban precincts are expected to come in late, and Lieberman has a base of support there, but that 4% at this point will probably prove to be too high wide a chasm to fill. A tentative “Woo-hoo!”

Look, I’d be a dolt if I didn’t acknowledge that the main thing on most GMD readers’ minds today is probably the Democratic Senatorial Primary Election in Connecticut. Frankly, enough has been said by smarter folks than me on the subject, but I do want to make the pitch for those who are really into it to keep an eye on Philip Baruth at Vermont Daily Briefing over the next 12-24 hours. He’s really into this, and is promising periodic posts throughout the day. And you’ve got to remember, these are posts from a novelist, which means they lead in with things like:

Currently midway between Syracuse and Burlington, blogging from the undeniably gorgeous public library in Saratoga Springs. In fact the entire town is like Upstate New York’s version of old-money Louisville: leafy, bricky, languorous in its basic approach to life, and dead-serious in its approach to the Arts.

I mean, come on. Find me another blog that sets the scene for ya like that. Dude just needs some background music and he’s set.

I will leave folks with the following prophetic and all-too-true statement from Chris at MyDD:

no matter what happens later today, Wednesday will be the worst day of press for the progressive netroots in years. If Lamont loses, we will be branded as ineffectual, irrelevant, extremist, and destructive. If Ned Lamont wins, we will be branded as powerful, relevant, extremist, and destructive.

Me? I say Lamont by 2-and-a-half, but I really have no idea…

On Monday, August 28th at 12:00 noon, Green Mountain Daily will host Vermont’s first online political candidate debate between the Democratic primary candidates for Lieutenant Governor, Representative John Patrick Tracy of Burlington and Senator Matt Dunne of Hartland. The debate will be held in a live chat room linked from the GMD front page, with comments from viewers in a parallel live-blogging thread.

Yours truly will be moderating, and GMD front pagers Jack McCullough and Vermonter will be on site with the candidates for the duration of the debate.

Details on the format and updates will be forthcoming between now and the 28th. As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited. Mark your calendars and bring a bag lunch to work!

The study of this diary is encouraged. It is wise to recommend after the first reading.
All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
Those who gather to discuss the contents of this Diary shall do so below the fold.
(crossposted from Daily Kos)

Liber-Man al-Loser:
The Book of the Loss

Thelema of CT-Sen

1. Ha! The manifestation of Ned.

2. The unveiling of the complicity of Joe.

3. Every man and every woman is a Dem. Or if they ain’t, they oughta be.

4. Every such voter is included; there is no disregard.

5. Help me, o warriors of the blogosphere, in my unveiling of the sycophants of the bush!

6. Be thou in Hartford, but one centre, one heart and one town!

7. Behold! we were reviled by Bar-Ba-Ra, the minister of Hwat-the-Fuck?

8. The Kiss was on the Tube, and the Tubes are called the ‘Net.

9. Watch thou then the Kiss, and behold its light make you throw up in your mouth a little bit. Then of the Kiss shall be made a Float, which shall be borne before all upon wheels.

10. We are above Joe and in Joe’s face. Our ecstacy is his pain. Our Joy is no more Joe.

11. They are fools that Bush adore, both his pols and his pundits are fools.

12. Let his servants be few and far between, they shall be OWNED by the many and the knowing.

13. Come forth, O children of the Left, and take your party back!

14. For Bush is ever a Son, and we are as Bats of the Moon. But to us is the winged secret flame of Rightness, which is Leftness.

15. But Joe is not so chosen.

16. Burn upon his brows, his bald head, and his big ears.

17. Now, Behold, I am known to you in part by the name Kestrel, to which is added the number One Hundred times Ten times Nine.

18. Multiply, then multiply again, and understand.

19. Then saith the posse and the slaves of the Traitorous One: How dare he who brings the Challenge eateth the Burgers in peace? We shall disrupt his meal, and as one reveal our T-shirts of Doom. The steamed burgers shall grow Tepid upon the Plates; indigestion shall befall those who would eat them.

20. For Joe is not only kissed by the Son of the Forty-One, but he is beloved of the Sean, the Ann, and he who knows not the difference between the Loofah and the Falafel.

21. The word of Sin is TRIANGULATION.

22. Every gop is the same, there is no difference.

23. We must teach, but may make severe the ordeals. At least, we sure hope so.

24. The word of the Law is ELECTION.

25. The numbers of Quin-Ni-Pac are Fifty-Four over Forty-One.

26. O Joe, refuse not your constituents! O constituents, if thou wilt, depart!

27. In the sphere we are everywhere but the center, for in the middle of the road shalt thou be run over.

28. Them that speak of the Fox, and the Wolf that Blitzeth upon Cee-Enn-Enn do not speak the words of the Ol-Ber-Mann; they throweth not the wads of paper, counteth not the days since the Forty-Third, who woreth the Suit of Flight, spewed forth the Word of the Offal of the Bull from the deck of the Mighty Ship.

29. Li-Ber-Man and Li-Ber-Al are not the same. Them who speak this lie are accursed! Accursed be them to the aeons! Hell.

30. Their Lament shall be Lamont, and their anguish shall be of their own making.

31. I see some that shake their heads, but I care not, for I am moved past the first Pack of Six into the Second.

32. And this is why these words are brought unto Dai-Lee-Kos.

33. For the hours between now and the Reckoning grow shorter and shorter.

34. And says Li-Ber-Man: Ye are against the people, O my chosen!

35. But he speaks this in words that are set against themselves: one day he is kissed of the bush, and damns his own that damn it; yet when his own damn his words and his kiss, his tune he suddenly changeth.

36. But it is the same old song, but with a different meaning once he is gone.

37. For we are sick and tired of hearing his song, telling us how he will change right from wrong, and if you really want to hear our views; he hasn’t done nothing.

38. Wo-Ho-Ho! Doo-Di-Whop!

39. Let him rise forth and condemn the Minister of War! For those who hath wisdom know that in truth, it is that place at the Table of the Bush that is coveted by the Li-Ber-Man; for he knows that soon he will be shown the door.

40. The Forty-Second may be forgiven his transgression – though he did support the treacherous one who placed the knife into his back, in a short time may the Forty-Second demand silence of the Lie-Ber-Man. Then shall we once again smile upon the Forty-Second and say, We have forgiven the stain upon the azure gown, and this shall we forgive as well. But shall he not demand the silence, then the Forty-Second shall we shun, and shall we shun his wife, except to ask of them wherefore such treachery is rewarded! And we shall ask this at every turn, in loud and angry voices. 

41. With our Donkey’s Hooves shall we kick the Ass of the Joe.

42. With the screech of a raptor shall I cheer on those of Co-Nect-Tic-Cut.

43. I flap my wings in the face of the Dee-Ell-See and blind them.

44. Alfrom! VilSack! I spit on your crapulous creeds!

45. The fool readeth this Book of the Loss, and its comment; & he understandeth it not.

  THE COMMENT.

Do with thy vote shall bring it home for Lamont.

  Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire.

  There is no Law beyond Do with thy vote.

  Love is the law, love under will.

  The priest of the princes,

  kestrel9000

Just got a piece of Tarrant lit handed to my kid. It continues Tarrant’s habit of trying to talk about state issues that a US Senator has little impact on (such as state education policy) in an effort to reach out and colonize any hot-button issue he can find, regardless of whether its germane. It’s fairly run of the mill, except for two things:

• It mentions the word Republican nowhere (although it prominently features his “true independent” campaign slogan).
• It says:
  

  Rich Tarrant has bold, new ideas to create jobs and economic growth. His “Rural Technification Plan” will give young people the opportunity to stay and work in Vermont

Okay, bold? New? Okay, first of all what “Rural Technification Plan?” I see no reference to such a thing on his website or in a google search. If his “bold, new” plan is to, as he briefly mentions in the lit, bring broadband to rural communities and boost tech ed, (what, is he running for Governor?) just throwing those things out there as nice goals is hardly a “plan.” Nor are they “bold” or “new” as many, many actually engaged people have suggested and are working on such things (and by the way, if Tarrant is concerned about the internet as a tool for economic growth and innovation, where is he on net neutrality, for that matter?)

But let’s rewind for a minute…

“Technification?” What – is that a derivation of technify? Technificate?

I suppose if you, uh, want to be talking about innovation, you might…er… say that innovating new words could sorta, I dunno… fit a theme or something. But if you’re talking about education in campaign literature, that’s just a little bit ridiculous, no?

I did check definitions at thesaurus.com and found nothing for technification, technify, or technificate:

No entry found for technificate.
Did you mean disinfect?

Suggestions:
disinfect
Disinfector
To no effect

No entry found for technify.
Did you mean technic?

Suggestions:
technic
techno
technique
technofear

In fact, the only other occasion I could find of the use of that word was, well, Tarrant again, addressing a group in Bethel.

On that theme, we’d like to suggest some other education-oriented plans for the Tarrant campaign to work on:

• Grammarifize Vermont 2006!
• Rural Spellication Bee
• Mathetate our Schools for the 21st Century!

Just think. With Tarrant in the Senate, rarely will the question need to be asked again; is our children learning?

Technify!

Since political junkies of all stripes are collectively holding their breath in anticipation of the Connecticut Democratic Senatorial Primary this Tuesday, I thought it might be nice to provides some helpful links to some good news and discussion on what has become a fight for the ascendence of an anti-war majority, as well as for the soul of the Democratic Party nationally. Here are some links to GMD’s soapblox-sibling-site, My Left Nutmeg:

• Dems Want Joe To Bow Out Gracefully on a poll reflecting Dem opinions on a potential Liberman loss
• Has it really come to this, Senator?, on the recent thuggish tactics of Liberman supporters
• Don’t Believe The Last Minute Lies – Volunteer!
• Gallup: It’s not just Connecticut, the whole nation doesn’t like you Joe
• By the numbers for Ned Lamont
  

And if you want help understanding what this is really all about, check out this great Rolling Stone article:

Even the most casual Democratic voters understand by now that there is a schism within the party, one that pits “party insiders” steeped in the inside-baseball muck of Washington money culture against . . . well, against us, the actual voters.

The insiders have for many years running now succeeded in convincing their voters that their actual beliefs are hopeless losers in the general electoral arena, and that certain compromises must be made if the party is ever to regain power.

Looking forward to Tuesday…

This is a big deal.

The Vermont Supreme Court said Friday that Vermont courts, and not those in Virginia, have exclusive jurisdiction over an emotional case between two women arguing about custody over a child they had while they were in a lesbian relationship.

The unanimous ruling in Vermont conflicts with a series of decisions in Virginia courts, which held that that state’s anti-gay marriage laws controlled the case.

In recognition of the legal union, the Vermont Courts have ruled for joint custody of the former couple’s child. The Virginia courts, of course, refused to recognize the validity of the union – and therefore the family – at all.

(Quick background – the case involves a spouse in a civil union who became a quote-unquote “ex-gay” and renounced her sexual preference. “Reparative therapy” has been condemned by mental health professionals as destructive, but is very popular among the evangelical set. They often parade the “successful” ex-gays around as success stories. They have to while they can, as this “treatment” never takes… surprise, surprise! Here’s a link)

This will likely have to be settled at the US Supreme Court, where the 4 conservative activist justices – Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia will without question vote against the Vermont courts. As such, all eyes will be on Justice Kennedy, who is the default “moderate, swing vote” on the Court these days, even though he is clearly conservative. Still, there is hope, if for no other reason than he is not a gleeful reactionary, as evidenced by his authorship of the majority opinion in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case that overruled the Court’s previous 1986 decision upholding sodomy laws (Bowers v. Hardwick). In throwing out Bowers, Kennedy wrote:

“The state cannot demean their [homosexuals’] existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

At least he’ll have an open mind. No reaction yet on the website of the Center for American Cultural Renewal, the Vermont wannabe-players in the National Religious Right scene who were peripherally involved in the case initially. Click on theres more for an update:

UPDATE: Vermont’s local theocrats at the CFACR just weighed in:

The Vermont Supreme Court ruled on August 4, 2006 that Vermont courts have exclusive jurisdiction over the Lisa Miller-Jenkins custody case. Virginia had ruled other wise, finding that Lisa was entitled to custody over her daughter born while she was in a lesbian relationship with Janet Miller-Jenkins. This ruling is a blow to pro-family advocates and everyone wanting laws to mean something.

Let’s all take a moment to chuckle at the idea of supporters of this administration expressing concerns about “wanting laws to mean something.”

Both yours truly and occasional GMD front-pager mataliandy are among those tapped to (and have agreed to) be part of the Vermont Democratic Party “Platform Content Subcommittee.” Lamoille County Dem usual suspect John Bauer is taking point on the process, and apparently was intrigued enough by this diary from last week to reach out to we netroots-types.

For my part, I told John that including me would include an attempt to reach out through the blogosphere for as much input as possible, and this diary is part of that effort. It will be a clearinghouse for any and all input from all sources. Everything is on the table, and everything will be read and considered.

There will be a button on the left that will take users straight to this diary even as it falls off the front page. Also, to view the 2004 Platform (as well as those few comments that have already been made before the beginning of this more formal process), click on this link.

Thanks to Ian Carleton (VDP Chair) for going along with this. Let’s make this a true “Open-Source Platform.”

Click on “theres more” for the project timeline and comments…

8/11 deadline for comments

8/18 platform committee meeting

8/23 deadline for candidate comments

8/25 platform committee meeting

8/30 deadline for sending 06 proposed platform to State Committee

I obviously have strong feelings about what the VDP Platform is/should be, but will reserve them for the comments below.

Have at it, folks! You can’t complain about what’s in it after it’s ratified if you don’t take the opportunity to tell us what you think should be in there (well, you can complain, but…you know…)

Sorry it’s been so quiet on my end. I’m on vacation atDemocrat Vacation Central–that’s right, Martha’s Vineyard. Not much chance to blog from the beach, I’m afraid.

Still, I noticed a couple of bright spots in today’s news. Since we naturally tend toward the grim and alarmist, I thought I’d link to these:

First we have this story showing that Holy Joe is having more and more problems with his reelection campaign in Connecticut. The new Quinnipiac poll shows Lamont leading 54% to 41%. I don’t know what it will take for the party to convince him that Party money isn’t going to be there for him and the only way for him to hang on to the last shred of dignity is to go away when he loses.

Second, news from the Midwest. In the continuing seesaw about science versus religion in the Kansas science curriculum the moderate, pro-evolution (i.e. pro-science) candidates have won, which will lead to a 6-4 majority in favor of teaching evolution.
You have to wonder when reality will start to intrude. I’ve had two kids go through the process of applying for college, and they’ve both wound up where they wanted to go. I know it’s a big strain for high school seniors. I can’t imagine having to apply for college, maybe for a science or pre-med curriculum, and coming from a school system that doesn’t believe in evolution. Even being educated by people who think creationism (I know they call it intelligent design, but it’s just another name for creationism) is science seems likely to set you back intellectually and in the competition with other graduates.

Give the recent history in Kansas we can’t assume things will stay this way, but we can always hope.

That’s it for me right now. See you when I get back from the ocean!

This is hardly an issue I should be wading into on a Vermont blog, but as the Republicans through their talk radio mouthpieces such as Sean Hannity are filling local airwaves trying to suggest all the “blogofascists” like myself are Israel-hating, terrorist-coddlers, I figure it’s probably appropriate for me to author a diary on the current Middle East conflict (that – don’t worry – is guaranteed to make everybody mad…)

The “who’s the bad guy” game in discussions of the Israel-Lebanon escalation was predictable, but discouraging. It is the latest example of the intellectual cul-de-sac that so many in our country find themselves in due to the fallacious way we approach the abstract concepts of blame and responsibility.

It’s hardly breaking news that we live in a market culture. But more than that, we live in a culture that views the market as a moral, not just an economic infrastructure. As such, whether we realize it or not, we tend to consider even intangibles in terms of economics, of supply and demand. Market economics come down to math games that deal in commodities, and commodities are finite, measurable variables. If America consumes a quarter of the market’s oil supply, that leaves only three quarters for everyone else. It’s easy to understand and morally evaluate such figures.

But we dont stop with true commodities. That perspective is so pervasive throughout our culture (people are “human resources,” children are our “most precious natural resource”) that we do it reflexively when faced with the need to make even an abstract evaluation, such as a moral one. This leads to the strange, useless, and ultimately counterproductive arguments we see flying around the Middle East conflict.

Consider: During our saner, more considered moments, we would all agree that an unprovoked missile launch into a civilian population would be morally unacceptable. Yet user Ritter at DailyKos responds this way to the suggestion that Hezbollah should be condemned for their actions:

What Israel is doing now is executing a plan that has been in the making for a long time.

Nice real estate in South Lebanon, but in order to plant settlements you first of all have to occupy with the military and then plant settlements, as in the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

If Hezbullah hadn’t resisted and eventually expelled Israel from South Lebanon in 2000 there would now most certainly be Israeli settlements in South Lebanon, just like, as said before, the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

Forget about ‘proportionality’, this is all about land-grab. The invasion will follow shortly. They are not going to give up, especially with the US encouraging them.

We would also agree that breaking a promise to hold fire to allow civilians to escape and UN Humanitarian aid to those who need it would also be worthy of moral criticism. And yet this is how dKos user RichardR responds to the criticism of Israel’s actions:

And of course, the Anti-Semites see nothing wrong with Iran, Syria and Saudi  Arabia feeding sophisticated weapons to the terrorists who use them to murder Israeli civilians on a fairly routine basis, and in some case New Yorkers, Washingtonians and Londoners.

Like any sovereign nation, Israel has an obligation to secure and protect the safety and well-being of its people.  Hezbollah and Hamas need only stop the attacks and peace will be secured. Israel will withdraw from Lebanon and live in peace with a Palestinian state.  To argue against that is simply nonsense and nothing but Anti-Semitism.

Odd? Not really. Both are looking at moral responsibility as a finite commodity – as though “blame” were a pie that there were only so many slices of to choose from. From both of their perspectives, the “other side” long ago performed actions so morally egregious, that they became full owners of all the pie, leaving none left for themselves or any others – ever. Not only is this a simple and easy way to approach  the concept of responsibility, it frees one up to employ any actions one wants, without having to worry about getting any of that pie in the face.

Now when you think about it this way, it becomes ludicrous, but this is hardly the only example of the way we commodify blame. The moral crimes of the Soviet Union were constantly used to justify anything and everything the US might do in fighting its influence in the world. Republicans refer to the left as the “blame America first” crowd because, in their eyes, any attempt to accept responsibility for ills in the world is to diminish the responsibility of others, as there is only so much responsibility-pie to go around.

And we don’t stop there. Frighteningly, we commodify even our most basic rights as well. How many times have we heard in response to liberal concerns about the death penalty and the rights of the accused countered with “what about the victim’s rights?” In a sense, this is an attempt to establish a “right of vengeance” for the aggrieved, but it’s based on the argument that there is a finite “rights-pie”, and that by giving a slice to a bad guy, you leave fewer slices for the good guys.

At some point, we must acknowledge that approaching abstractions such as blame and human rights as commodities is not only wrong, it quickly perpetuates and enflames conflict. One person’s rights do not diminish another’s, and those real points where individual rights come into conflict, the rights of the community also come into play and must be dialectically reconciled, which is a very different thing than doling out shares of dessert. The concept of trading off our rights for security and peace of mind should be considered a logical absurdism given that we’re clearly not talking about livestock or stock shares.

And responsibility is responsibility. It is not cattle futures. Sure, we make mitigating judgments of a given situation based on other factors, but those judgments are in the context of the blame we assess for a specific action, not whether or not there are still enough “blame credits” in circulation.

Hezbollah is responsible, and should be morally condemned for lobbing rockets into Israel, killing civilians.

Israel is responsible, and should be morally condemned for a disproportionate response that is killing children.

…and as we go back in the long, revolting history of the Israel-Arab conflicts, each side should bear the full moral condemnation of the world community for each objectively immoral act they have committed. Until we step back and start making these clear, moral assessments, untethered by ridiculous notions of who is “more awful” or how many bodybags one side is now morally allotted to fill based on the transgressions of the other, it is going to get worse and worse and worse… and we will ALL bear some of that responsibility.