Mat Bowles

Have I mentioned how cool it is to have a US President who feels like one of us? IT literate, a bit geeky, smart, likes a good debate, enjoys being challenged on ideas, etc. It's cool, isn't it? Thing is? He's just another political leader. Who am I talking about here:

Relatively obscure politician with a legal background, went to an expensive school and a top university, came out of nowhere while in opposition, good line in rhetoric and appealing to a broad church, very capable and intelligent wife, young family, wins on a landslide with the wishes of the nation having mobilised a massive national effort seeing record membership for his party. Promising change.

Yup, you're right. It's Tony Blair. And Barack Obama. Worse? Watch this ((via):
( Comedy Central's The Daily Show video with Jon Stewart covering the inauguration )
Scary, innit? Reminded me of something though. From a few years back, while Blair was still in office, while Cameron was still trying to build his 'brand'. I know, I know, he's still trying to build his brand, but still:
( YouTube video of Armando Ianucci's Time Trumpet comparing Blair to Cameron )
President Obama sir? I really hope I'm wrong on this one. Please don't turn into another Tony Blair.

Normally when I think of Kansas politics I think of things like evolution being banned in schools or those silly stickers they tried, but this is a refreshing change; an interesting and innovative use of the internet by a USian running for the Kansas state legislature and raising funds through an XKCD style webcomic. It's attracting reasonable coverage in the US media, including a fairly favourable write up in the LA Times, and he's getting record numbers of donations.

full comic / larger version

The nature of US politics makes it very different to directly translate fundraising techniques to the UK, even if it's appropriate, our focus on parties within a multi-party polity is very different to their focus on individuals within a two-party system (even if in most districts we have an effective two-party system anyway, gotta love Duverger), but this sort of thing is certainly going to appeal to the sort of demographic that should be voting Lib Dem anyway—wonder if anyone could come up with a more generalised UK version with a similar sort of message?

Odds are good if you're reading my journal you're at least paying a little bit of attention to the US election campaigns currently still going. Not least because at the end of it all, the person elected gets control of enough nukes to blow up the world a few times, which is rarely the case in a foreign election. It's, um, a bit of a mess, n'est ce pas?

For those that don't normally pay much attention, the US candidate selection Primary system is usually over by now. Usually. Normally both sides have got a clear front runner and the others pull out in the name of "party unity". This year? No chance, both parties remain too close to call. The drawback of personality politics and directly elected executives, you can't just elect a local MP, you need a candidate your party is happy with. And if you have a country the size of a continent and 6 times more people than Britain, that takes just a little bit more time. So, y'know, I thought it was time to

1. put on my psephologists head and
2. laugh at the stupidity of the BBC pundits who're getting so much wrong.

So, the US has two parties. The Republicans are best described as a bit like the Cornerstone Tory "faith flag and family" brigade, only with more money and less sense. The Democrats are best described as Ken Clarke style one-nation Tories, with a little bit of New Labour dressing. Note the lack of British-style liberalism (US liberalism is, for the most part, not liberalism by any sane definition of the word) and complete absence of any sort of real social democrat. In other words, two lots of corporatist, money grabbing loons, with one side slightly less bad. Of course, those generalisations are based around those they elect—A lot of Democrat activists are nearly as liberal as me, and there are some sane republicans, including a fair few non-loonies. So, well, let's start with the Republicans.
( The Republican nomination race )
( The Democrat nomination race )

Summary

In the Republican race, the Christian/conservative vote was split, giving McCain a false lead, now that Romney has withdrawn they might just select a lunatic with no chance, which would be good. In the Democratic race, it's too close to call, and while Hillary may be a perfectly good Democrat, she's not my type of democrat, and she could lose to the non-lunatic that the Republicans may still elect. Obama is ahead, and gaining momentum, but the situation could change. Can we hope it won't?

Yes, we can...

Right then, the US primaries are on us, and a bunch of people are backing anyone they think is anti-establishment or just anti-Bush. One in particular is getting a load of support online. The "libertarian" called Ron Paul. The scare quotes are there for a reason, he ain't any kind of libertarian I recognise. Ages back I somehow got myself on left-leaning news magazine The New Republic emailing list. I've kept meaing to unsubscribe, but think I may keep it going for a bit longer. Real, proper investigative journalism, digging out and wading through years worth of his newsletter archives (anyone who tells you "blogging" is new has no clue what blogging is). In the past, when archives of his racism have been dug out, he's said that it was written by someone else, well digging back further into the depths gives us evidence of a very Angry White Man:

whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles ... seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him—and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing—but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Jennie has found more at The Gob and is linking to pope_guilty's post on the same article and also to his regular copy/paste Paulbomb. Reading on in the TNR article gives quotes condemning Martin Luther King, supporting the KKK's David Duke, calling for the quarantine of AIDS victims (and perpetuating the saliva transmission myth way after it was proven false) and calling Israel a "national socialist state".

Paul is anti-war. So is Kucinich. Paul is pro-legalisation of marijuana. So is Kucinich. Paul is a racist bigot. Kucinich isn't. If you want an anti-establishment "big money" candidate, back Kucinich or an actual Libertarian (actually, don't do the latter, the US FPTP is even worse than ours). Paul's only main strength is his appeal to "the constitution" as if it's some hallowed document. Even the people that wrote it didn't expect it to be relelvent 50 years afterwards, that it's lasted 300 is testament to their genius. Times changes, the economy changes. Appealing to the "sacred words" of some dead white slaveowners and refusing to accept it'll ever need updating is insanity writ large.

In the primaries, if you've got a vote, vote for the candidate closest to you on the issues. If you genuinely think that candidate is Ron Paul, then, seriously, get a reality check. It isn't.

ETA: Paul has distanced himself from the articles, saying:

“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

So either he's lying, or he's not competent enough to take responsibility for words written in his name. Either way, he's unfit to be the leader of the free world. Thanks for the head's up Aaron!

The Political Compass has an analysis of the candidates in the US Primaries 2007:

Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are depicted on the extreme left in an American context, they would simply be mainstream social democrats within the wider political landscape of Europe. Similarly, Hillary Clinton is popularly perceived as a leftist in the United States while in any other western democracy her record is that of a moderate conservative.

and plots the candidates like so on the graph:
( Plot of positions of main candidate )
It's telling how close together they all are, and I concur completely with their analysis on it being linked to the electoral system. It also shows why I keep getting Kucinich on all those "who should you vote for" things that are kicking around.

Of course, the US media is even more biased than in the UK, and is almost completely beholden to corporate/advertiser interests; at least in the UK the press is following market positions at the same time as trying to affect that market (if anyone really thinks Murdoch backed Blair for political reasons then they really weren't paying attention). The result of this is that candidates coalesce around a media friendly center, but the media/mainstream is so far to the top/right that anyone else looks extreme. Ah well.

Land of the free, home of the brave. As long as the corporations are happy with you.

Via a comment at theweaselking's, it transpires that The Media Can Legally Lie:

In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves.

That's Rupert Murdoch's Fox network there, the equivalent of the Times, Sun, News of the World and Sky. Honesty is not a requirement in reporting, merely ratings.

Having picked up a copy of the Evening Standard for the first time today, it looks like Associated share the same policy in their reporting as well.

So, I'm doing some Googling ^[1], and I find this:
The Texas Independence Movement

They appear to be linked to a bunch of conspiraloons, and the website is so tortuously bad I had to boot up IE to figure out what it was trying to do in some places (really badly coded javascript navigation panel), but, y'know, Texan independence?

I prefer the subdivision option myself.

---

[1] Texan Independence, to see how long Texas had been independent from Mexico before annexation to the US, for a discussion on US immigration and that stupid wall they're building.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/walken.asp

It isn't to be. So, publicity for the new film, random hoaxers or sinister conspiracy?

Trying to wade through the style authorship guides to figure out how I can fix the wandering righthand boxes; if anyone can find a quick fix form me without dumping the 3 column them I'd appreciate it. I may get around to writing up those reviews I promised at some pointas well. Ah well; took the morning off work exhausted; finished Lost in a Good Book which I recommend and then bimbled in to work.

Not sure I like the randompost thing; no annoying memes yet (fortunately), but the feed is stripping out the lj-cut text, so you get the whole thing even if they were good enough to cut it. So, having watched lots of people join up, I may dump it after less than a day's trial. Meh.