alternative hippopotamus

I’m in the process of editing bits and pieces of the Take Back America conference into an audio documentary. I’ll post some more clips of talks that I thought were particularly important. It’ll take some time to get this into a presentable form. Meanwhile, I’m pretty clear about where I’m going with an over-riding theme.

This came to me after listening to the final luncheon where the Maria Leavy Award was presented to Ari Lipman. Video here.

Ari describes a story from the Torah, about the final passage to Canaan. Before they enter, the current leadership, those who were born into slavery, must yield to the new generation. God’s judgment is that even Moses cannot enter Canaan. Only new leadership can bring the nation to fulfill its destiny. It feels like our country has been lost, Ari continues, wandering in a desert. Our destiny is to live where justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. “Blessed are you, Adonai, who has brought us together on this day.”

This helps me to put recent events into context. We see the actions of the current White House, and recognize that the task of rebuilding the Democratic Republic is daunting. The fabric of ideas that held things together, our Constitution, has been rewritten without our consent. Our president ignores our laws, the guilty go unpunished, and those who point this out are ostracized. Indeed, their lives are often ruined. It’s hardly a place right now where “justice rolls down like waters.”

Here, I’m reminded of a passage from Victor Hugo. It’s from what we call “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” though I prefer the original title: “Notre Dame de Paris.” Our Lady of Paris. (text):

Under Louis XI., this sea of houses was seen to be pierced at intervals by several groups of ruined towers, from the ancient wall, like the summits of hills in an inundation,–like archipelagos of the old Paris submerged beneath the new. Since that time Paris has undergone yet another transformation, unfortunately for our eyes; but it has passed only one more wall, that of Louis XV., that miserable wall of mud and spittle, worthy of the king who built it, worthy of the poet who sung it,–
~Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant~.

(The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur.)

I hardly think I need to complete the analogy between Louis XV and a more current monarch.

What the incomparable Hugo is doing is recreating Paris. His lengthy history at the beginning of the third book of Notre Dame de Paris has the effect of distilling Paris into a Platonic form, the idea of Paris, which must manifest itself in time as the Paris in the time of Notre Dame, or in the day of its author. It’s the duty of each generation to remember what Paris is, beneath the surface, and to unearth where possible, and to rebuild what can’t be unearthed.

This isn’t a political notion, per se, but rather an approach to seeing the nature of civilization. An approach to seeing one’s role in society. What is our role, if not to recreate the principals of which our society by its nature consists?

Earlier today at TBA in a session titled Curbing the Imperial Presidency, Bob Fertik asked panelist Joe Conason about the possibility of impeaching the president. Joe responded that bringing up the impeachment of either the president or the vice president would be a mistake politically, but that it would be appropriate to look at impeaching the AG.

I hear Joe Conason’s sentiment expressed fairly often. Since he’s a very bright guy I’m surprised he doesn’t see the implications of his statement. If impeachment is not there as an option, there’s no mechanism to hold the Executive branch accountable. In most administrations the idea of appearing to be defying the law would be such a significant check that this alone would prevent an executive and his advisors from openly breaking laws passed by Congress.

As it turns out, this isn’t most administrations.

As Think Progress notes:

Federal agencies ignored 30 percent of the laws Bush objected to in signing statements last year, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office. In 2006, President Bush issued signing statements for 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills passed by Congress, claiming a right to bypass a total of 160 provisions in them.

The president, as head of the Executive branch, directs heads of the agencies to follow his signing statements rather than the laws as passed by Congress. Agency heads have the choice of obeying the president, or obeying the law, in which case they might lose their jobs.

And, what exactly is Congress’ remedy for this? Passing more laws? I think you can see the problem.

Aside from impeachment, the only option is expressing public disdain for the president’s actions, and hope that the accumulation of disdain results in the president turning over a new leaf. Quantum mechanically, that’s discribed as a zero probability event.

Part of my concern here is that when Joe Conason dismisses Bob Fertik in a forum like this, he’s telling him to sit down, be quiet, and keep his hands folded in his lap. The president is not accountable, and those who would like to see accountability should get over it.

Holy moly you gotta see Obamania first hand to believe it. When Obama says “Unlike some residents of the White House, I actually believe in the Constitution,” it might as well be Springsteen playing the opening chords of Born to Run. That’s how the crowd rocks to the groove of his stump speech.

There is something about him, particularly seeing him live, that makes you just a bit less cynical.

Your moment of Obamania here.

One of the most amusing talks today had to be the The War of Ideas: How Conservatism Has Failed.

I particularly liked Max Blumenthal’s intro to a documentary short he shot at CPAC. Here he explains what motivated him to create this short.

This morning I spoke to Jeffrey Feldman about his book Framing the Debate.

More linguistic bloggy goodness at Frameshop.

This is the definitely the most blogger’s I’ve ever seen in the same place. Leaning over the laptop is Chris Bowers from myDD. Off camera is Robert Greenwald, chatting with Bob Fertik.

As part of last night’s YKos fundraiser, a few speakers talked about issues that were most important to them. A number of them were running for office, and spoke about why they were running.

Both Jim Dean (Howard’s brother) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (whom you may have seen on the Colbert Report) spoke about DC voting. If you’ve been following the issue, you may know that DC gets a Rep, and Utah gets an extra Rep, a political quid-pro-quo. But, it turns out there’s more to the story.

Listen here to why Utah is so motivated to help DC get a vote in Congress.

Over the next few days I’m going to be blogging at the Take Back America conference. After looking at the material I had from last year’s conference, I thought that what would be interesting is podcast coverage of some of the breakout sessions. Because it takes a bit of time to put together a finished product, I figured the best approach was to find some excerpt from the day, and post that while I was editing together other stuff.

I occupy an unusual niche in the blogosphere. While this isn’t a blog that attracts a huge number of hits, aside from the occasional reference on wonkette, or in the Express (free paper from the Washington Post), I know a lot of people from coordinating DCDL, the DC chapter of Drinking Liberally. I was also a figure on the comedy scene in Cambridge, and know a number of people from that.

So, my point of view for blogging at the conference, is kind of like how Kathy Griffin started her wildly successful “Life on the D List” show. More from the outside, looking in. But with a history that includes a little bit of the “in.”

Take tonight’s event.

The Yearly Kos benefit tonight was the unofficial start of Take Back America 2007. It wasn’t an official TBA event, but a number of the folks that you might want to meet were there tonight.

I finally met Bill Scher, who’s been overseeing blogger’s row. I didn’t know that Bill’s out of Northampton, MA, not so far away from my old stomping grounds. Northampton is a classic New England town, as close to style and form as Cambridge as you can imagine, but set in rustic Western, MA. The Boston Underground Film Festival, part of my close circle of contacts, ran a festival out of Northampton.

I asked Bill about the blogging heads episode he’d done a few months ago with Jonah Goldberg. He shared some insight over the episode, which would be difficult to summarize in a short post, but mentioned an interesting bit of trivia: that Michelle Malkin was an editor of his at one point, and that he had appeared on Hot Air. Which makes him one of the few people to be on both Politics TV and Hot Air. That is pretty interesting.

Duncan Black, Atrios to you and me, was there with his wife. I teased him a bit over things he’s said over the years regarding DC, which he attributes to the company town nature of the District. His wife asked how come she’d never run into me at the Philly Drinking Liberally, which I’ve attended a number of times. Duncan suggested, tongue in cheek, that she wasn’t there because she had advanced warning.

Finally I got to meet Jane Hamsher. A delightful and thoughtful person, and I’m glad to see that Firedoglake has become as successful as it has. She mentioned that she’s going to be moving here in July through the election. I’ll try to work out a FDL night at DCDL.

Answer: very.

As part of Take Back America (June 18-20, Our Fair City, The People’s Republic of DC) the Campaign for America’s Future has a novel concept: it’s your conference.

I mean, literally, it’s your conference. Therefore, you should have the ability to organize your own events. Of the self-organized talks, here’s my favorites so far:

• June 18. 12:45 pm. Global Warming And Voter Apathy - Inextricable Linkage
• June 18. 5:15 pm. Election Protection 2008
• June 19. 11:00 am. SweatFree Campaigns to End Sweatshop Procurement
• June 19. 4:30 pm. Make Something Pretty–Use your art to advance a progressive agenda

I’m going to be on Blogger’s Row (as I was last year) and want to blog the conference with a series of podcasts. Up ’til now I’d been planning to focus on the break-out sessions, but a mix of break-out and these events could be very interesting.