War burns.

Isn't there something weird, something downright suspicious and alarming, about the steady pace of violence savaging Iraq at this moment? War is not a steady state of civic chaos. Skirmishes are either random scrapes or probes for battle. Maybe revolutionaries and spies use sabotage as a strategy, but for generals, sabotage is only a softening tactic. Do we desperately believe that our enemy has no generals, then? Is the enemy real, or is it now the mission of the United States military to kindle world-wide hell?

Who is this enemy that has no generals but cannot be vanquished by the greatest killing power ever assembled?

If an apology is not a sign of civility, it is at least a sign along the way to civility.

I am grateful for the opportunity to publish a couple of apologies that went via e-mail earlier today. No one requested or suggested that I compose them.

Apology to Febble from macdust

Dear Febble:

Last Sunday on Daily Kos I replied to a comment of yours in a manner that was unduly prosecutorial and caustic with a comment entitled, "So they paid you and you changed your mind." For that I apologize, and I also thank you for your even-handed comments under the circumstances. The conversation was turning toward politeness when suddenly I found myself banned, and I have just been informed that it was as a result of that exchange. I suspect you are too kind a person to take any satisfaction from my being banned, and I do not ask you to take any steps to undo that decision.

The Presidential chopper throttles down on Cow Pad One.
Some rest and recreation, then resume The War For Fun.

The cable television industry has become the right wing's main lever for the suppression of democratic discourse, both liberal and conservative. As a matter of self-interest, it is time for liberals to disconnect cable.

The easy money in cable flows from densely populated areas, strongholds of civil discourse and progressive self-confidence. But the cable industry uses the cash flows from those areas to extend its political power and expand into less urban markets, along the way undermining the interests of its own best customers. In effect, it uses its lucrative monopolies in liberal districts to muffle civil discourse and support a political network that is sympathetic to corporate acquisition of exclusive market controls.

You are not crazy, so don't drive yourself crazy explaining the obvious to people who would rather demonize you than accept the truth. Here we are in the aftermath of the greatest republic in history, appalled by the transparent phoniness of a national election, and our political leadership is mute. There is a lot of explaining due. Don't let them off the hook by reciting the endless blizzard of hypotheses for how the election fraud was executed. Enumerating the holes in the system wears you out and perpetuates a broad condemnation of all reasonable observers as conspiracy theorists. Make them defend.  Make them demonstrate that the basic election process was sound, or even worthy of being taken seriously.

It is true that you are a member of that fringe demographic commonly called the Majority, but don't think you are alone. Individuals of your sort tend to respect the views of others and to consider criticisms, but these weaknesses do not discredit everything you say. Just don't try out for the demonization team. Stick to what you're good at, like truth and integrity.

Eschewing, as usual, the burden of investigative journalism, the Times waves away all suggestions that the election results are invalid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/politics/12theory.html

The enterprising reporters invented a new species of thought avoidance -- let's call it chatter-cancelling. Take an arbitrary sampling of sometimes hasty or dispeptic suspicions. Find counterarguments of equal weight. Declare tempest in blogspot.

Well, we don't have to know the specifics in order to know that the election results are wrong.

It is hard to speak the truth when grave consequence flows from it. But it is wrong to respect the official reports of the recent national election. The only reliable data, exit-poll results, indicate that George Bush did not win. There are no other creditable data.

Digital voting machines are not locked boxes. They are highly flexible processors obedient to everyone in position to deliver data or instructions. They do not preclude error. They do not preclude tampering. They do preclude verification, by eliminating traces of inputs. So how would we know whether to credit the results? The one reliable calibration is the exit poll. If the official result varies far from the exit poll, then the new system has failed to deliver an honest, accurate count.

This is a stark and simple matter. We must protect it, and ourselves, from the inevitable cloud of cacaphony deployed to distract attention away from the central issue. In this, it is most important that we not offer up any theories about what actually did happen. We don't know. We only know that the offical story is clearly and materially false.