Thursday, April 15, 2004
Trouble to the Max
Remember the Sony Betamax--the pioneering home-video technology of the late 1970s and early 1980s? If you've still got one in the attic, it's a museum piece now--swamped by a competitor widely recognized as inferior, but one that was better-marketed, the VHS VCR. On Alternet this week, Laurie Spivak argues that Democrats have been "betamaxed" by the Republicans in the marketplace of ideas. Republican ideology is inferior, but is simply marketed more effectively. Twice as many Americans self-identify as "conservative" than "liberal," even though survey data shows voters consistently prefer by large margins liberal themes like stronger environmental protections and tighter handgun control. Spivak explains how it happened, and offers some suggestions for turning it around.
Other recommended reading this morning is from analyst Micah Sifry, who explores reasons why Americans continue to support Bush on Iraq. He also examines the likelihood that John Kerry has an idea better than Bush's "stay the course." To this point, it doesn't look like it. Sifry says that strictly as a political matter, Kerry needs to stop framing the argument as "Bush has it wrong and I can do better," and roll out a specific plan for finishing the job. Only a handful of peace protestors want us to get out now--the majority of Americans want us to finish what we started and leave Iraq better than we found it. For all its faults, Bush at least has a plan for finishing, and you can't beat something with nothing.
Mohammad Ali Eskandari is a press attache with the Iranian embassy in London. He wrote in The Guardian yesterday about the disconnect between the West's talk of support for democracy and what we have historically done in the Middle East. Since the United States helped overthrow a legitimate, popular democracy in Iran more than 50 years ago and reinstalled the autocratic Shah (who was propped up by the British from the 1920s forward), Western talk about favoring democracy over dictatorship has seemed like a joke over there. So any government installed by Westerners in Iraq is going to be viewed as less than legitimate by many of those governed--because it's always been that way.
No news from Fallujah and Najaf over the last 24 hours or so has seemed like good news--but those two cities will be back on the front page soon enough. A peace group in Tacoma, Washington, has posted two worthwhile pieces on its website, one from Newsday on the preparations soldiers are making for their assault on Fallujah, and one from the Christian Science Monitor, on conditions inside the city. (Scroll down to find them.)
Remember the Sony Betamax--the pioneering home-video technology of the late 1970s and early 1980s? If you've still got one in the attic, it's a museum piece now--swamped by a competitor widely recognized as inferior, but one that was better-marketed, the VHS VCR. On Alternet this week, Laurie Spivak argues that Democrats have been "betamaxed" by the Republicans in the marketplace of ideas. Republican ideology is inferior, but is simply marketed more effectively. Twice as many Americans self-identify as "conservative" than "liberal," even though survey data shows voters consistently prefer by large margins liberal themes like stronger environmental protections and tighter handgun control. Spivak explains how it happened, and offers some suggestions for turning it around.
Other recommended reading this morning is from analyst Micah Sifry, who explores reasons why Americans continue to support Bush on Iraq. He also examines the likelihood that John Kerry has an idea better than Bush's "stay the course." To this point, it doesn't look like it. Sifry says that strictly as a political matter, Kerry needs to stop framing the argument as "Bush has it wrong and I can do better," and roll out a specific plan for finishing the job. Only a handful of peace protestors want us to get out now--the majority of Americans want us to finish what we started and leave Iraq better than we found it. For all its faults, Bush at least has a plan for finishing, and you can't beat something with nothing.
Mohammad Ali Eskandari is a press attache with the Iranian embassy in London. He wrote in The Guardian yesterday about the disconnect between the West's talk of support for democracy and what we have historically done in the Middle East. Since the United States helped overthrow a legitimate, popular democracy in Iran more than 50 years ago and reinstalled the autocratic Shah (who was propped up by the British from the 1920s forward), Western talk about favoring democracy over dictatorship has seemed like a joke over there. So any government installed by Westerners in Iraq is going to be viewed as less than legitimate by many of those governed--because it's always been that way.
No news from Fallujah and Najaf over the last 24 hours or so has seemed like good news--but those two cities will be back on the front page soon enough. A peace group in Tacoma, Washington, has posted two worthwhile pieces on its website, one from Newsday on the preparations soldiers are making for their assault on Fallujah, and one from the Christian Science Monitor, on conditions inside the city. (Scroll down to find them.)
