Practical Theory

There's real writing coming again soon... (I promise) but for now, enjoy the pictures from Jakob's First Thanksgiving!

Yes, I know... everyone hates spammers, but I really hate them today.

We've had some problems lately where Beacon's server has gone down inexplicably. Well, we've figured it out. Blog spammers are crashing our machine. Today, after admissions (which is what I really wanted to be writing about today), I came home and found us in the middle of a blog spam attack. The load on our machine was up around 200 by the time I was able to get a root prompt and shut down httpd. I had to let the machine calm down, restart httpd and then log into MT to be able to add the offending spammer to our blacklist. Each time I restarted httpd, the attack started again, and I had to shut it down after getting one step closer.

The whole process took about an hour of my life that I can't have back.

Now, right now, Beacon can't afford to upgrade to MT 3.1. So either we have to turn off comments, stop blogging or deal with the fact that we all will have really disgusting email messages in our inboxes every day and have periodic shutdowns of our system.

Pathetic.

Anyone have another option for us?

No... not John Kerry. Kerry Lutz, blogger and friend.

He's angry and he's sorry.

And he's not apologizing for it. And he shouldn't.

(Initially found on Kevin Drum's Political Animal.)

ABC News has a story about how the Secret Service was called when a high school band played Bob Dylan's Masters Of War at a talent show. Now the good news is that the principal supports the students, but the bad news is that a) a teacher who supported a student protest was questioned and b) parents and students started this whole thing by calling a radio talk show to complain.

Let's look at how scary this is. Number one, while it seems like the kids, teachers and administration who were put on the spot by this held up pretty well under the pressure of interrogation by the Secret Service, how many people would? What will the effect be on dissent in this country if every time someone sings a protest song they have to worry about a visit from the Secret Service?

Two, what possible reason could the Secret Service really have for investigating this? That's a forty year old Dylan song sung by a bunch of college kids? What is the agenda behind such investigations?

Three, have we become so polarized that a song sung by students can drive parents to call talk radio and complain? Although, from the few times I've listened to Rush Limbaugh, I guess I know the answer is yes -- anything can cause the followers of right-wing radio to call.

This is the fight we're engaged in -- and it's no less than a fight for our democratic ideals. We are a nation born of protest (Boston Tea Party, anyone?) and dissent is not only our birthright, it is our obligation. I would love to see students and teachers in schools all over our country decide to get together and sing "Masters of War" together on January 20th. Let the Secret Service come investigate all of us. Let's raise our voices and remind this administration that we are watching them... and the future will judge them.

If you are a Kerry voter, and you haven't seen SorryEverybody.com yet, go now.

I've visited it a few times in the past week, and honestly, it's been rather a comfort. Some of the pictures are quite funny... but mostly, it's reminded me in a very visceral way what all the "purple" cartography graphs that have been making the rounds lately are trying to do -- this nation -- even the "red" states" -- is filled with people who care about human rights, true freedom, education, social justice and other values that I share with them. When you see "I'm Sorry" from Nebraska, Ohio, Florida, North Dakota, etc... it reminds you that we will win this battle eventually. The GOP as it is currently constituted is playing an end game. We will mobilize, we will remind our neighbors of all that the Bush Administration has wrought on our world, we will vote, and we will win this fight eventually.

Guest Poster at Matt Gross's blog on the politics of vicitimization.

I'm sitting here watching Bill Mahrer, and Andrew Sullivan is just ranting and raving about the Democratic lack of "moral values." This is after Alan Simpson attacked Mahrer. This is clearly the new way to argue for the punditry of the right to argue now.

Thank God for Pat Schroeder, because she's just been powerfully intelligent on the show, and she's put Sullivan in his place much better than Mahrer has.

[I wrote this on the Beacon forums tonight... it was in a post-election thread with much hand-wringing. I can't claim all these ideas are mine... many of them came out of a conversation with my friend Carl tonight, and others came from the blogs, but I needed to get this out of my system.]

The answer is this:

Organize.

The Republicans beat us because they got -- as Rove said months ago -- the 4 million evangelical Christians who didn't vote in 2000 out to vote. How did they do it?

Wedge issues.

The GOP worked with the fundamentalist churchs. They got their parishoner lists and then they cross-referenced those lists with the state voter rolls, and they called every single unregistered person until they registered.

Then they got gay marriage referrendums on the ballot in eleven states. Then they called every person on those parish lists and told them that Kerry / Edwards were going to destroy the sanctity of marriage unless those ballot initiatives were passed. And they called, and they called, and they called until one out of every five voters who voted yesterday self-identified as a born-again Christian.

Kerry won a majority of people who identified as moderate, Kerry won a majority of people who identified as independent. Kerry won on people who said that terrorism was their number one issue. Kerry won on people who said that the economy was their number one issue. He lost because the Christian right voted in record numbers.

The GOP beat us on the ground. They got the vote out.

This is the way the game is played. It's not pretty, and you rarely keep your hands clean. But if you play it right, you get to make incremental change for the better. And if you play it really right and get very lucky, you get to make history.

And... while I greatly respect the intelligence and integrity of my colleagues, let me say that the political game is played by those who care if they win or lose. And this time, the stakes were high:

Two -- perhaps three -- Supreme Court nominations, which means that we can expect Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and quite possibly, 20 to 30 states will outlaw abortions after that.

We will have to go it alone in Iraq -- and we are about to launch major offensives in several cities.

Continued use of bigotry as a wedge issue to divide this country.

Extension of the PATRIOT Act and continued abuse of our civil rights.

Extension of a regressive tax cut.

No Child Left Behind.

Probable end of the UN as a real diplomatic force in the world.

Was Kerry perfect on these issues? No.

But he was much better -- and he ran a good campaign overall, and he was as progressive a candidate we could run and still have a prayer of winning. And while talk about the long-term is nice and all, how much damage will be done in the meantime?

They beat us fair and square this time because they played the game better than we did. They got the vote out by the millions, they used information technology better than the Democrats did, and they followed up every phone call with another phone call. The RNC coordinated every facet of this election -- and if you don't believe that the Swift Boat Veterans were working in coordination with Karl Rove, I've got a bridge a few blocks downtown for you... we worked with MoveOn and other organizations, but nowhere near as neatly and seamlessly as the GOP worked with their 527s.

Angry?

Good.

The mid-term elections are in two years. We should look to send every GOP Congressman in blue states home. Every Republican in New York state should be help responsible for the failures of the Bush administration. And we should look to run and support candidates that reflect the face of the progressive movement. And we should look to take down Pataki too.

Then we need to look to change the game, and increase the blue states by getting our message out there. Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado... even West Virginia and Virginia are winnable. But we need to play the game the right way. We need to galvanize our base -- and yes, that means Nader and Cobb voters too. Get Instant Runoff ballot initiatves on the ballot in key states, and give Greens a real reason to vote for Democrats.

Then, look at the wedge issues for moderates and independants and run on them. Convince moderates that Republican plans to privatize Social Security could threaten their retirement. (It has the added bonus of being true!) Remind Republicans over and over again that they are the party that wants to keep government out of our private lives and then point to the PATRIOT act and repeat -- over and over again -- that this is not the GOP they grew up supporting.

Politics is a game played for keeps with very high stakes. It's played by people who care if they win or lose. And it matters.

A lot.

It's 12:12 am. We've lost Florida. This doesn't look good.

... to pull the lever for Kerry. It felt even better to make a bunch of calls to Wisconsin tonight to urge folks to get out and vote. It'll feel downright great when Kerry wins, and we get to start the process of rebuilding our democracy.

Oh... and if you want to read a lovely open letter to voters of all stripes, go read what Michael Moore has to say.

If you haven't already today -- and you are voting age -- Get out and vote!