Long ago and far away, there was a time when network television poked fun at power. It was a time when light hearted satire skewered cold-hearted politics. It was a time when Saturday Night Live was still funny, and SCTV made Canadians laugh ’til they cried.

Sadly, those times are gone. Network TV has ruled out funny in favor of stupid, or harmful, or propagandistic:

This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind “24.” Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. At first, Finnegan-wearing an immaculate Army uniform, his chest covered in ribbons and medals-aroused confusion: he was taken for an actor and was asked by someone what time his “call” was.

In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise-that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security-was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.”

But in the dark recesses of a network known mostly for it’s special blend of “stupid” and “propaganda,” there comes an occasional spark. Fox, the progenitor of what some call Faux News, has brought us this little satirical gem:

So whaddaya think folks? Isn’t it about time Apple cuts the funding for the iRack?

More seriously, the skit’s reference to “No Exit (plan)” calls to mind Sartre’s play about hell, coincidentally titled “No Exit.” In the play, hell’s not really so bad, it’s just that there’s no way out. The condemned are consigned for eternity to to stay right where they are. They can handle it … for a while .. but then the endlessness of the situation begins to take its toll.

This administration intentionally failed to devise an exit for the Iraq war, and as a result, created a hell on earth.

Let’s hope that the Democratic House and Senate use all the best tools in their toolbox to craft an exit that is really a way out. And be sure not to leave loopholes that allow the President to pull the sort of dishonest shenanigans that are his hallmark. Shenanigans such as, perhaps, relabelling all the “combat” troops as “support” troops, and leaving them right where they are, leaving them once again, with No Exit.

What is it with these DLC types? Fun certainly isn’t in their vocabulary, is it? The Hill is reporting that:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman, has told new Democratic members of Congress to steer clear of Stephen Colbert, or at least his satirical Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report.”

“He said don’t do it … it’s a risk and it’s probably safer not to do it,” said Rep. Steve Cohen. But the freshman lawmaker from Tennessee taped a segment that last week was featured in the 32nd installment of the “Better Know a District” series. Colbert asked Cohen whether he was a black woman. He isn’t.

Eyes (but thankfully, not heads) roll in Emanuel’s office when other freshmen stumble, such as the time Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) got into a debate about the merits of throwing kittens into a wood-chipper, or when Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) explained that he is not his predecessor, convicted felon Bob Ney (R).

The freshmen respect Emanuel, but they don’t always follow his orders. On the other hand, avoiding the kind of publicity that only “The Colbert Report” can confer on a lawmaker may be the only advice from Emanuel that freshman Democrats are ignoring.

Emmanuel’s advice, like many other times, seems to be the opposite of what should be done, which I suspect is another requirement of being in the DLC. Play it safe and go nowhere seems to be the mantra. It’s what helped keep the Dems in the political wilderness for 12 years.

Think Progress is reporting that Sen. Leahy will get Karl Rove to testify in Congress regarding the attorney purge, whether he is willing or not:

“Frankly, I don’t care whether [White House Counsel Fred Fielding] says he’s going to allow people or not. We’ll subpoena the people we want,” Leahy said. “If they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation I suspect they don’t want to have.” Asked whether he’ll subpoena Rove, Leahy answered, “Yes. He can appear voluntarily if he wants. If he doesn’t, I will subpoena him.“

Rove has been like a cat with nine lives in his ability to stay out of trouble in the Bush Administration, much of which he had a direct hand in. Hopefully, he’s used up his last one.

UPDATE: Republicans have blocked Rove’s subpoena. Gotta protect Bush at all costs. Remember, party loyalty trumps loyalty to the Constitution with these people. From Americablog:

Today, at the Senate Judiciary Committee markup, authorization for subpoenas was approved for several Department of Justice officials: Mike Elston, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Bill Mercer, Mike Battle. Republican members of the committee blocked the authorization for subpoenas for White House officials, namely Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, and William Kelly.

 
One week ago, the calls for impeachment at Vermont town meetings showered sparks across our state, igniting a smoldering populace. We are coming to realize how great our numbers are, and we shall now harness our power to direct the attention of our representatives.
This past weekend, Cindy Sheehan, John Boniface and I spoke in Greenfield and Northampton MA, and the flames are spreading south of our border as well. The Western Mass. Progressive Democrats of America are working with MA towns to organize impeachment resolutions for town meetings in the coming months. The energy is palpable in the air.
But our spontaneous and determined march for democracy now meets with an unlikely barricade: the very leaders whom we have grown to trust and admire, the men and women who have spoken for the conscience of the Democratic party, stand in our way. From the chair of the state House Judiciary committee, to Gaye Symington the Vermont Speaker of the House, to our Senators Leahy and Sanders, the Democrats have taken their lead from Nancy Pelosi’s declaration that impeachment is off the table and have so far refused to consider even debating the issue.
When our representatives took their oath of office, they swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. Our Democrats have instead made their first allegiance to their party. In violation of their oath, they are making an election-oriented political calculation about an issue that is the very bedrock of our Constitution.
To make it worse, this unpatriotic calculation is not even accurate. By relying on the outdated D.L.C. philosophy of staying as close as possible to the Republicans on issues, so as to not lose the middle, the Democrats will instead lose everyone.
Their actions with respect to ending the war in Iraq show that they are not with us. Their actions on impeachment show that, not only are they not with us, they are against us. Their actions to date have done more to protect and defend George W. Bush than they have to defend the Constitution.

In November, America went to the polls and voted an overwhelming declaration against the war and the Bush administration’s policies. The Democrats knew this, yet they were out on November 8 saying that we had voted for bipartisanship and raising the minimum wage.
The same Democrats, who while in the minority were clamoring for the chance to investigate impeachment, are now saying that it is a luxury, or a waste of resources.
The American people have moved way beyond their leaders on this question. We can see clearly that the system has been violated, and we want it fixed.
  Vermonters and neighbors in other states have been shocked to hear about the resistance of our Democratic representatives. Pat Leahy, Bernie Sanders and Gaye Symington have done many admirable things in their careers, and we have become complacent, assuming that they would always act in our and the Republic’s interest. They are proving us wrong. Are we now willing to shake off that complacency and call for accountability? Are we willing to chip away at some of the guild on our political icons and realign their foundations as necessary?
The Vermont legislature returns from a town meeting recess today, March 13. They will be greeted at lunch by citizen lobbyists, who will be scheduling meetings with the Speaker and other members, and buttonholing lawmakers every day that they are in session, convincing them that Vermonters deserve to have a debate on impeachment, and that the Judiciary Committee should stop sitting on an impeachment resolution introduced a month ago by over 20 co-sponsors, and instead start working on it.
Vermont airwaves and news pages will be carrying ads, spreading the news about our people’s movement.
If our representatives continue to refuse to take direct action to end the war and save the Constitution, their constituents will occupy their offices. This is a movement to turn anger into creative change. This movement is the expression of the people’s sovereignty.
Our freshman Congressman, Peter Welch, faces a predicament. Should he back the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, and take his place in line with all the other unremarkable Representatives who do as they’re told? If he does, he can count on keeping his fine committee assignments and perhaps even moving up in the Democratic Party ranks.
Or will he listen to his constituents, take a stance for the constitution and file articles of impeachment against members of this administration? This would make him an American hero, not only in Vermont, where his bold action would be rewarded with a return ticket to Washington in ’08, but in America and the world as well.
It is time to speak to all Democrats about the power that is accorded those who make principled decisions, about the dignity that is bestowed upon those who live up to their oaths and promises, and about the scorn that is heaped upon those who would do neither.
They needn’t be our adversaries on restoring the Constitution. It’s now up to us to educate them.

( – promoted by JDRyan)

The freedom to end one’s life with the help of a physician in the face of painful or degenerative illness is not an issue I’ve been active in either personally or professionally over the years. Few have, in my experience. Despite this, opinion polls virtually anywhere show strong support for such options, particularly in Vermont where a February Zogby poll showed a whopping 82% in favor of the concept.

And yet the bill currently under consideration, which until recently most people considered a slamdunk, is now threatened, and it’s future looks dicey. In recent weeks, opponents have mobilized. Mirroring the debate in Oregon in the early nineties (and giving me a serious case of deja vu, as I was living there at the time), religious congregations – Catholics in particular – are being politically activated. As in Oregon, there are numerous reports across Vermont of priests delivering fiery political language from the pulpit, casting this singular political debate in a context with abortion and gay marriage as an organized assault on Christianity, and tarring proponents with pejoritives. Reportedly, inflammatory materials are being distributed.

As a result, lawmakers have become skittish over the Town Meeting break. With the bill in the House Judiciary Committee this week, it behooves supporters to make their opinions known (here is a link to the Judiciary Committee roster).

It’s important to remember that the churches are probably not breaking any laws. It’s a myth that their tax status precludes *any* political activity. What it precludes are candidate endorsements, while demanding that this sort of political activity be kept to a small percentage of their resources (which, these churches likely have done). Still, why is it that a teensy, vocal minority stands to quash such an overwhelming popular mandate?

Why, it’s the “passion gap,” and the way it feeds into that pesky social manifestation of Newton’s Second Law of Motion. (Explanation on the flip)

Backing up a bit – When listening to Rep. Michael Fisher (R-Lincoln) and Rep. Anne Donahue (R-Northfield) debate the matter on last night’s Switchboard, I was struck at how apples vs oranges the conversation was. Fisher, like most of the 82% from the poll approached the issue from a bottom-up moral construction. He clearly has a moral perspective from which he’s built an ethic, and that ethic requires that he support this sort of legislation. Donahue approaches the argument in a completely inverted way. She is a strict enough religious practitioner that she starts from the moral conclusions dictated by her faith and works backwards into the general ethic and moral construction that Fisher and others start from. This is the basic difference on these issues between the strict religionists and those for whom religious upbringing is only one piece of a greater environmental soup from whence they build their morality. This is why so many debates on such matters seem ultimately pointless.

Of course if we broach this topic in this manner, we are often accused of being anti-religion, even while we are relentlessly admonished to include religion in public discourse. In truth what those who disseminate that line (yes, I’m looking at you, Barack) really mean is that we should all be speaking religiously, while actually speaking about religion is still politically hyper-incorrect.

But I digress as usual. The point is that those who support the death with dignity movement and those that oppose it are coming from completely dissimilar places. As far as the opponents go, the matter is a dictate from god almighty, and they interpret any effort to legislate the majority opinion on the matter as not simply tantamount to a “culture war” designed to destroy them, it quite literally is. Passion, committment and activism therefore runs very high.

On the majority side, the truth is that the issue is about twenty-third on most of our lists. Seriously, how impassioned are most of us likely to feel about fighting for the right to take a lethal dose if we dont have a direct family stake in the matter?

So there you have it – a passion gap.

And the passion gap matters. I’ve blogged before on how I believe Newton’s Laws of Motion make for useful social metaphors, and in this case I’ll cite the second one; the law of acceleration. This is f=ma, which tells us that the force of an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration. With this issue, 82% is a pretty healthy mass, which gives us a pretty healthy force, one would think. But if proponents just sit still, their collective force isn’t gonna come to much in the end.

Opponents on the other hand may start from a small mass, but “with god on their side,” they are all about acceleration, and in the last two weeks they’ve seriously hit the gas, making for a pretty formidable force that has lawmakers noticing.

If proponents want to save this legislation, they better start looking at both variables in that equation fast…

When Congressman Welch was in our chilly county a couple of weeks ago, I went to see him hanging out at Food City (by report, Hannaford and Price Chopper refused to allow the Congressman table space in their entryways: wouldn’t be good for business). He was meetin’ and greetin’ the folks, mostly working class regulars (except for the tie-and-jacket types accompanying Rep. Welch and a few political junkies there to see him specifically). One or two asked him about the war. He asked a few others their opnion while I was there. Most could barely be bothered to shake his hand, they  just wanted to get the damned shopping done, leave ’em alone. A few seemed impressed that their congressman had come to see them on their turf.

So, in a quiet moment I asked him: Peter, why won’t you support impeaching the president?

And here’s what he said: “For me, it’s all about ending the war.”

But Peter, I came back at him, what’s going wrong in this country is way bigger than the war — it’s the Constitution! It’s surveillance and corruption! It’s reclaiming our entire country’s integrity!

“I hear you,” he said, “and I understand your passion. But for me, really, it’s all about ending the war.”

The fact is that Democrats need Republicans if they are going to have any hope to do that. And once impeachment comes out of the closet where the Democratic leadership has stashed it, Republicans retreat to hunker down behind their castle walls, pull up the drawbridge, lower the iron portcullis and man the battlements armed with hot pitch, boiling oil, and poisoned arrows.

I hate it, but that’s reality.

Unless and until the impeachment tidal wave rolls over Washington, of course, and  more and more folks of all political stripes (except the extreme right wingnuts who don’t really believe in democracy of any kind) begin to see that if they want to keep their seats, they’d better get with the program of the people.

I’m not holding my breath — not when the Democratic county chair, acting as the moderator of his town meeting, acts to prevent the impeachment bill from even being presented and discussed.

NanuqFC

Rep. Pete Stark is the first member of Congress known to have declared publicly that he is an atheist.

I think this is great news. It’s about time we have someone in Congress who is actively committed to governing based on rationality and reality instead of on superstition.

There’s more in Slate.