He's talking about The Ownership Society again. Pass the Spitballs!

If he's not going to answer questions in press conferences, at least the mainstream TV personalities can try to make a point of their own -- something that might actually provoke him.

"Oil is going to disappear within our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children, so how can you call trying to suck the earth dry as fast as possible an energy policy? How can you totally ignore fuel economy and conservation?"

They're like the wonky kids at the front of every classroom trying to impress the teacher with their respectful questions, concentrating on the command of details rather than any big picture. You know they've always been in the front row and at the top of their classes, telling teachers and bosses what they want to hear.

"If you're adding a means test for benefits and grafting on private accounts, call it Welfare + IRAs, but don't call it Social Security. Oh, sorry, that's not a question. Which part do you expect your Republican Congress to eventually drop, the Welfare for those poor people (read, "freeloaders" and "cheats") or the Private Accounts for themselves and their friends (i.e., "The Ownership Society" MEMBERS ONLY)?"

And, finally, isn't the only question that should be asked about Iraq

"How can you sleep at night?"

I watched the whole news conference with my son last night (even though it is TV Turnoff Week) and I really can't decide whether I'm more upset at the Empire's Chief Cheerleader behind the podium, or the straight A students in their good clothes giving him their respect and attention.

I want disrespect. Unshined shoes. Talking out of turn. Open collars. Spitballs. Note passing. A healthy lack of awe for "the office".

True Blue Liberal

Free Your Captured Eyeballs This Week!

Here we are, into the third day of TV Turnoff Week and I forgot to remind you all.

Here's an interesting quote from an article in The Guardian (April 25 | "Anti-TV guerrillas wield their new zapper"):

"For most people, TV has become a default activity. If you're not doing anything else you tend to watch TV. People become very defensive when you challenge them about it. If you sleep for eight hours and work for eight hours, people give half the rest to TV," said David Burke, the founder of the UK arm of White Dot which is organising the protest on this side [or the other side, as seen from here] of the Atlantic.

The group - named after the light circle that appears on a screen just before it goes blank - has the motto: "Turn off that TV set, go outside and live!"

Mr Burke points to the rise in the last few years of so-called "ambient" forms of television advertising as evidence of a spreading epidemic.

Supermarkets, petrol stations and even hand dryers feature televisions, he says, so you can't ignore them even if you want to.

"Television companies are facing a real problem. You go to these conferences and they're terrified about losing 'eyeballs'. The language is actually of 'capturing eyeballs'. We're offering people the chance of liberation," he says.

Do something - anything - that's not the passive reception of someone else's idea of news or entertainment.
FREE YOUR EYEBALLS from CBS ABC NBC FOX MTV & CNN for at least a week!
And thanks to Urban Fox for reminding me to remind all of you on this side of the pond.
True Blue Liberal

How Sweet ...

From WashingtonPost.com
"Love is in the Air, or
Bush Urges Saudis to Boost Oil Production":

". . . Bush gave Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler a warm embrace and a kiss on both cheeks in welcome. Bush kept a firm, guiding grip on his guest's hand as they walked up the path, past a field of bluebonnets that the president took care to point out . . ."

The pictures of them holding hands reminded me of the Shiny Happy People montage in Fahrenheit 9/11.

How Sweet,
TBL

Dylan, Gaye, Starr, Prine, Mitchell, Newman, Ochs, or Zappa?

There's a virgin poll of the week here and in the sidebar. See if you can get your choice in first!

Have another song from the sixties that you feel trumps all of these? Then suggest it in the Comments.

Which Vietnam-Era Song is the Best Anthem for the BushCheney Era?
	Masters of War - Bob Dylan
	What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
	Political Science - Randy Newman
	Who are the Brain Police? - Frank Zappa
	Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell
	Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore - John Prine
	I Ain't Marching Anymore - Phil Ochs
	War - Edwin Starr
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Last week's poll results as of 2:57 pm on 4/25/05. Readers of True Blue Liberal find that Montgomery Burns is a scarier fictional Republican archetype than Major Frank Burns by 67% to 34%.

Mayors Bill and Jerry?

The mayor of Oakland, in his blog entry from April 20, weighs in on the next New York City mayoral election:

"[Bob] Kerrey's not taking the plunge, but there is always Bill Clinton. He would have a ball as mayor."

I think Jerry Brown's absolutely right. Now that his memoirs are finished and published, I think Bill Clinton would prefer the action and spotlight of (the world's greatest) City Hall to sitting in his Harlem office tower writing the sequel about life as a Senator's spouse, or travelling the world with Bush père. Maybe those of us in the New York area, and elsewhere in the country, should start a petition to encourage him. There would be a certain symmetry to the two main Democratic combatants from the 1992 presidential race -- the ex-Governor of California & the ex-Governor of Arkansas -- sitting in the mayors' chairs on opposite coasts. It would show the GOP, along with the stellar example of President Carter, what real public servants look like.

What do you think?
True Blue Liberal

there IS a crisis, but not the one the bushies are pushin' (Part II)

The New York Times >
April 22, 2005 >
Paul Krugman: "Passing the Buck"

". . . decades of indoctrination in the virtues of market competition and the evils of big government have left many Americans unable to comprehend the idea that sometimes competition is the problem, not the solution."

As promised, PK delivers the goods again today on the nuts and bolts of the American Health Care Crisis. Read him. Forward him to your friends. There's not much I can add here, except a simple Thank You.

True Blue Liberal

FUH2 | Fuck You And Your H2 (especially on Earth Day)

Here's a happy site to celebrate Earth Day tomorrow:
FUH2 Fuck You And Your H2

After browsing through the photos on the site for inspiration, go out, find one (unfortunately it's not too hard if you're in the USofA), take a picture, send it to fuh2.com, and then pray for $4-a-gallon gas.

Happy Earth Day,
True Blue Liberal

Religion in America not so very long ago

Here's an interesting entry in Ted Rall's Search and Destroy blog from Tuesday:

". . . during the 1970s, one respite from the constant onslaught of capital-C conservatism on the political scene and small-c conservatism in local culture was the church. . . "

It was refreshing to read that (in what turns out to be a lament about the New Pope® entitled, "Sad News for the World's Catholics"). When I see younger bloggers writing about Religion, and The Church, it is almost always as a negative, conservative force, but in my case -- as in Ted Rall's -- this was not the case. I remember the Rightist wingnuts (at that point represented by the John Birch Society, Goldwater, and Governor Reagan) complaining constantly about the liberal National Council of Churches. I remember the Berrigan brothers on trial, Father Drinan in Congress (before the church forced him to quit), Liberation Theology, the Maryknoll Sisters in Latin America, Bob Dylan invoking Jesus against the Masters of War, Quaker & Brethren pacifists . . . I remember thinking that I could use my church as a sanctuary if the Selective Service came to call. The only southern churches I thought about were the churches of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, and those that were the targets of terrorist bombers because of the skin color of their Sunday School students (oh, sorry, I forgot, in New America® good ol' boys can't be terrists, only ferners can be terrists). I didn't think much about fundamentalists except as the fall guys in "Inherit the Wind" until I discovered them on television in the early eighties, and then Jimmy Swaggart and Ernest Aingley were only good for a belly laugh when they screamed HEEEEEEALLLL and asked us all to put our hands on the television screen and money into their pockets.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that The Church as a simplistic overarching conservative entity is a recent, largely fictional, achievement of the conservative government and its media who have used it, as they've used everything else, as an electoral wedge issue to solidify their power.

Fuck 'em all.

Love,
True Blue Liberal

Ratzo Benedikt intervened for Bush in 2004 election campaign

Yahoo! News -
"New pope intervened against Kerry in US 2004 election campaign"

"German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry."

This is what T.B.L. still doesn't understand. Why were those Catholics who supported an illegal Iraqi war -- condemned by the heads of the Roman Church and the United Nations as such -- and why are those Americans who support the death penalty, allowed to accept the church's consecrated cookies?

And if this ex-Nazi Youth's aim was to influence our election, isn't there a little matter of the church's tax exemption for some activist judge to reconsider?

just asking,
true blue liberal

Major Frank Burns or Montgomery Burns? Which fictional Republican archetype burns you up more?

So, the question is simple.
Which of the following fictional Republican archetypes do you find the scariest, Montgomery Burns or Major Frank Burns?

For the benefit of those of you who have taken TV Turnoff Week to its logical extreme and made it into a permanent state in your house (for the past 30 years), "Monty" Burns (of The Simpsons) is the 104-year-old owner of Springfield USA's local nuclear power utility. He is greed and the power of unrestricted capitalism personified (think "Dick" Cheney with less pallor and a more "animated" personality). And Major Frank Burns (from M*A*S*H, the movie and the TV series) is a self-righteous holier-than-thou hypocrite (think Senator "Rick" Santorum cheating on his wife with Anne "Hot Lips" Coulter).

Which Burns, the CEO or the religious zealot, is really in control of today's Republican Party, and our nation, and which is capable of doing (or has already done) the most damage? It could also turn into a great parlor game, trying to figure out which prominent Republican matches which archetype (if Dick is Monty, then Dubya, of course, is Waylon Smithers).

I look forward to your comments,
True Blue Liberal

Don't want to comment, but have an opinion??
Poll added on 4/20 at 2:30 est:

Which fictional Republican archetype scares YOU the most?
	Montgomery Burns
	Major Frank Burns
Free polls from Pollhost.com

The Liberal Quote of the Day from Irvine Welsh (re: power & leprosy)

Read the whole interview of Irvine Welsh by Michael March in today's Guardian here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1463350,00.html

MM: Is power the leprosy of the world?

IW: Yes. There is nothing good and honourable that cannot be destroyed, corrupted and warped by the pursuit of power. Every decent enterprise can end in tyranny and brutality if those in charge are allowed to pursue it.

there IS a crisis (but not, of course, the one the bushies are pushing)

The New York Times >
Opinion > April 15, 2005 >
Paul Krugman: "The Medical Money Pit"

Glad to see Paul Krugman back on the Health Care Crisis -- showing once again that it's only OK to waste money in this country when the waste is ending up in some corporation's bottom line. HOW MANY CRISES IN THIS COUNTRY ARE BIGGER THAN "THE SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS"? In his next column, P.K. promises to "explain why the most privatized health care system in the advanced world is also the most bloated and bureaucratic." T.B.L., for one, can't wait. (It's also a very good sign that P.K. feels he can step away from the Privatization of Social Security in his columns; it's another hint that that battle is already being won by the good guys.)

If my name were Gallup or Usatoday and there was one poll question I could ask the American people and then publicize on front pages, it would be this one. In your family's life, which is the more immediate crisis, the cost of health care and private health insurance, or the possible partial insolvency of Social Security in 40 or 50 years? (What, too loaded? What poll question isn't?)

It's just amazing that the Democrats can't jump on the obvious Health Care Crisis for fear of being labeled "socialists" or, even worse, advocates of "Hillary-Care". If anything shows how money is able to win an argument in this country, just look at what the powers-that-be were able to do to the last half-hearted attempt to institute a little health-care justice in the US to try to catch up with the rest of the developed world. And just look at how they are able to push their own pet privatized accounts as the "solution" to a nonexistent crisis.

How quickly would health care become a crisis if Dick Cheney's government-financed 24-hour-a-day 10-person Montgomery Burns Memorial Emergency Cardiac Care Unit were withdrawn from service??

And shouldn't the Culture of Lifers support free and equal health care for all God's children before they look at bail-out schemes for the stock manipulators of Merrill Lynch??

just asking.
à bientôt,
true blue liberal

How the Republican Asbury Park Press buries the party affiliation of one of its own

Marlboro, New Jersey is former farmland that has metastasized into just another cancerous suburban factory for McMansions® and McMansionettes© in developments with generic names like Pleasant Valley Estates, Castle Point, Sterling Woods, and Fucking Eyesores. Its mayor (shock) has just admitted, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to having his hand in the developer's cookie jar.

Click here on APP.COM:
"EX-MARLBORO MAYOR: I TOOK $245K IN BRIBES"

Though it's obvious from his actions that Mayor Scannapieco is a Republican, the Asbury Park Press (WHICH WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN BY TBL FOR ENDORSING THE CURRENT PRESIDENT IN 2004) buried this piece of information far from the front page headlines. If he were a Democrat, they would have had front page pictures of him shaking hands with Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey.

Local newspapers (especially these Gannett papers), with their local boosterism and lite news, are the only supplement many Americans have to their Fox News. When the local GOP (rhymes with slop) is running amuck as it currently is in Monmouth County New Jersey and in many other places in the country, it should be held to account. It's not a case of a few bad apples falling from the tree. The tree is rotten in its roots, and in its "heart".

Jonas Salk, M.D., and a fiftieth anniversary well worth celebrating

Here's a golden anniversary worth celebrating. I was born in 1955, so I don't remember a fear of swimming pools and urban crowds. I don't remember polio as anything but as the disease that crippled FDR, all because of the discovery that was announced by Jonas Salk on April 12, 1955:

"He further endeared himself to the public by refusing to patent the vaccine. He had no desire to profit personally from the discovery, but merely wished to see the vaccine disseminated as widely as possible."

Exactly like all those selfless capitalist drug companies today.

-TBL

"Brother Pointy Implement of Contemplation" (a.k.a. TBL) asks if you have your Unitarian Jihad nom de guerre yet




My Unitarian Jihad Name is:
Brother Pointy Implement of Contemplation.
What's yours?

You can also find a name here at the Unitarian Jihad Name Generator. Keep trying names at both generators until one fits. I think the "rules" are fairly liberal.

Love,
B.P.I.o.C., a.k.a. TBL

TV TURNOFF 2005 - coming up this month, beginning 25 april, so spread the word!

Get Ready for TV Turnoff Week || 25 April 2005 -- 1 May 2005

Click this link: TV TURNOFF 2005
where Adbusters is offering you a TV-B-Gone at cost until 4/25 so this year you can turn off televisions other than your own.

Sometimes we have to remember that the source of many of our problems is the media, that they aren't going to remind us about TV Turnoff Week, and that the ConsolidatedAmericanMediaCorpse is going to continue to try (usually with great success) to marginalize any criticism. Why do they hate Michael Moore so much? Because, as anyone who saw them knows, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 09/11 were not about guns & about bush, but about the media & about the media.

Francesca's Liberal Wingnut Corner has pointed today toward the contest over at Freepress.net for the "Big Media Hall of Shame". Vote for one of their five nominees or add your own. I had to cast my vote for Lowry Mays, head of ClearChannel (and if that doesn't sound like a word coined by Orwell or Aldous Huxley to describe a future dystopian government's device or drug of choice, I don't know what does) because I'm old enough to remember when radio seemed free and vital . . . and because they ran those staged pro-war rallies and gave them more coverage than the true demonstrations on the other side . . . and because his picture on the contest site looks like another made-up and hairsprayed Republican Stepford man (à la DeLay) whose brain has been given an overdose of uncut ClearChannel.

I wonder what funeral of the week we'll miss by not watching TV during the last week of this month,
True Blue Liberal

Go Get 'em Henry! End the taxpayer-funded propaganda junkets!

Rocky Mountain News , April 8, 2005:
"Waxman Seeks Cost of Bush Trips"

Spurred by the ouster of three Denver residents from a speech by President Bush last month, a congressman is seeking a formal accounting of the cost of Bush's Social Security trips.
Rep. Henry Waxman, of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, also is questioning whether the White House is using taxpayer funds for political purposes.
'Informing the public is the president's responsibility; using taxpayer resources to mount a sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaign is an abuse of the president's high office,' Waxman said."
...
Waxman said that expelling people with contrary views and promoting a partisan agenda are "hallmarks of campaign events, not government-funded political meetings."

This was the question I asked on March 30, but with so many questions and so many crimes piling up daily, where is one to start dealing with them? Thanks to Henry Waxman for his early and never-ending quest to find the weak link in this Administration's teflon chainmail of hubris and deception.

A tip of the cap from,
True Blue Liberal

What if Bill had paid Hillary and Chelsea $500,000?

The New York Times >
Washington >
April 7, 2005>
"DeLay Denounces Report on Payments to His Family"

He called the article "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me," contending that his wife and daughter had legitimately earned the money by working as valued members of his political team.

"My wife and daughter have any right, just like any other American, to be employed and be compensated for their employment," Mr. DeLay said. "It's pretty disgusting, particularly when my wife and daughter are singled out and others are not, in similar situations in the Senate and as well as the House."

His Republican colleagues continued on Wednesday to rally to his defense, although a few have begun to question how long the leadership can withstand such withering coverage.

Tom DeLay can denounce The Librul Media all he wants, but the fact remains that this doesn't pass The Hillary Test. If Hillary and Chelsea (or Roslyn and Amy, or Theresa and Alexandra, or Tipper and . . . well, you get the idea) had received five HUNDRED dollars of campaign funds for services rendered to their husband and father, Tom DeLay would be screaming for the reappointment of Ken Starr, the GOP (rhymes with flip-flop) would be calling for Democratic heads to roll -- and so would "the liberal media."

Bye Bye Tom?
True Blue Liberal

[Postscript: I found this comment I left on someone else's blog yesterday and it seemed appropriate here, because I'm still not sure if The Hammer is leaving, or even if I'm sure I want him to:
I hope he turns on the party, but unlike milquetoasts like Paul O'Neill and Christie Whitman and the rest of the forgotten defectors, he actually bares his poisonous fangs and bites the hand that formerly fed him, trying to pull a few of his fellow malefactors down with him. Wouldn't it be great to see him lash back with some inside dirt about Dick and his energy dealings?

If DeLay stays, it will probably indicate that he does have some dangerous information that he has threatened to loose on the world. And remember, he's from the state of Enron and Halliburton and Dubya's murderous governorship -- he certainly has ammunition, and we know he has a mean streak.

If they don't give him the boot, then we have him as the Republican posterboy for the 2006 midterms, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.]

"Stand your Ground" by Boycotting Florida

This story came to my attention from the ALWAYS interesting Shakespeare's Sister, with her blog entry "The Land of the Freaks and the Home of the Deranged". The long and short of it is that the Florida legislature has just made it easier to inflict your own brand of good old-fashioned vigilante capital punishment (please don't call it lynching) on the streets of The Sunshine State®.

The "Stand Your Ground" act is extending the "Castle Doctrine" that made it easier to kill baddies in your home, place of business, or car. Now the legislature (94-20 in the House / 39-0 in the Senate) is removing the last impediments to killing wherever you feel threatened.

Outside the home, however, courts have ruled that most victims must at least attempt to escape before using deadly force, a provision gun advocates say puts victims at greater risk. The proposal removes that requirement if a person has a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm.
Critics say the measure could lead to racially motivated killings and promote deadly escalations of arguments.
"All this bill will do is sell more guns and possibly turn Florida into the OK Corral," said Democratic state Rep. Irv Slosberg of Boca Raton.

The NRA of course is crowing over at their website about this great victory. Next up, arming American teachers with weapons that have a little more killing power than the traditional paddle. And if a kid comes to school wearing a trench coat . . .

Shakespeare's Sister asked" Who in his right mind prefers to go on the offensive and take someone else’s life on the chance that the other person means to take his?" While her "right mind" proviso may have excused him from competition, the obvious answer is George Dobeliou Bush (and his friends -- I passed a quote from Condi somewhere today about the danger of "under-reacting" to insufficient intelligence). Killing pre-emptively is a national foreign policy that will now be extended domestically -- with the inevitable stroke of Dubya's little brother's pen -- to the streets of Miami, Orlando, and The Magic Kingdom.

And while Jeb and the other "Culture of Lifers" thought it was wrong to kill Terri Schiavo by removing her feeding tube, I guess it would have been OK to shoot her if you mistook an involuntary twitch for a threat. After all, no one is ever held responsible for bad intelligence in today's modern America.

Let's stand OUR ground. Spread the word about this latest legislative atrocity in your own way, and please think twice before planning a vacation in Florida.

Is there an Activist Judge in the house?
True Blue Liberal

a simple cheap crook who should be thrown into a texas jail by an "activist judge" with balls, since the house ethics committee has neutered itself...

The New York Times >
Washington >
"Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader" This headline in today's Times website is a weak whitewash, as explained in the first phrase of the first sentence of the article:

"The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees..."

If one of "the relatives" in question is sharing his home, isn't Tom DeLay in effect paying himself out of these campaign funds (unless he's in the process of pulling the plug on his marriage like previous hypocritical Republican Congressional leaders)??

There was also an interestingly repulsive clip of him on the ABC News last night taking part in the Republican Congressional Committee's Physician of the Year scam. For 1,250 dollars you get a phony certificate for your office wall and a picture with your Republican Representative (who is already planning to pass a large portion of your payment on to one of his campaign worker / family members).

à bientôt,
true blue liberal

Henry VIII must be rolling in his grave

In CNN.com - "Irony of prince's wedding delay" - Apr 5, 2005 - Martin Kettle is quoted as saying,

"Until very recently the mere idea that a prime minister or the head of the Anglican church might have any kind of dialogue with Rome -- never mind rearrange the next Protestant King's wedding to suit the cardinals in Rome -- would have been regarded as close to treason."

Or does this really show us more about the current culture of global celebrity scheduling conflicts than about the titanic clash of religious cultures and the nation-states of "old Europe"? This is not necessarily a "liberal" issue, but we can't resist it when the mainstream media starts using the word "Irony" in its headlines. It sounds as practical as the NBA avoiding a television conflict with the Super Bowl. But on a more personal level, I think I have some idea how most future wives would react to their "big day" being moved for "something more important" -- maybe not the best way to start a marriage. Though it could be the premise for the pilot of a great royal sit-com -- to quote Groucho or Karl Marx (paraphrasing Hegel),

all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. [... ] the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

Which would apply perfectly to the George Bushes too, if the first George Bush weren't also a farce (OK, now it's a liberal issue fit for this blog).

- true blue liberal

Dump DeLay ? - A link to TrueMajority's appeal

Dump DeLay - TrueMajority

Look, we all know he's a scumbag, but do we really want the Republican Congress to boot him now? It's a tactical question. They're going to push the same agenda with or without Tom DeLay, so aren't we better off with that agenda having a hateful face as we get closer to the midterm elections of 2006?

The Republican National Convention of 2004 showed us that they will always push their last remaining moderates to the front of the stage (Rudy, Ahnold, Laura, Mike Bloomberg & George Pataki) when it's time for them to win an election. Aren't we better off if the Republicans are seen by the electorate as the party of the men behind the curtain -- the party of Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney and Jerry Falwell?

Just asking,
True Blue Liberal

precycling, mainstream media & the internet - - True Blue Liberal turns Green in April for Earth Day (1)

Here's a 1994 article from Environmental Defense entitled "Precycling: How to Shop for Future Generations". Precycling is an awkward term in need of a philologist, but it's an interesting concept as True Blue Liberal starts the run-up to Earth Day 2005 on April 22. Note their suggestions on how to reduce the amount of waste you create by buying in bulk and cutting down on packaging. How about cutting the amount of newsprint that you have to recycle by 80, 90, or 100%? How many of us are doing it already by reading our New York Times and Washington Post and LeMonde and Libération and LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle and Asbury Park Press and Guardian and Village Voice just by clicking a link or a bookmark? There's no need for us to feel guilty about recycling advertising circulars and sports sections and classifieds and stock market tables that we don't even glance at. And we're giving nothing up in the bargain (except for maybe those full-page underwear ads in the Times), and getting a much wider selection of the worldwide mainstream media than the small sample that used to be tossed toward the puddle in front of our front door. This month, let's all think about every purchase we make to reduce the waste our economic system depends on, but especially paper products like newspapers and magazines that we might be able to read just as easily on the computers that we're already staring at.

More suggestions for the month are welcome.

so, what are YOU driving? the Times examines blue cars and red trucks in today's issue

Click Here: The New York Times
> Automobiles
> Driving: Your Car: Politics on Wheels

So, what are you driving? I'm in a VW Golf, which may tell you a little something about my politics even before you see the Kerry bumpersticker fading on its back window. This article is interesting not only for the prejudices it confirms about insecure Republican males and their big trucks, and the fact that Democrats are more likely to live in cities where parallel parking spaces favor the nimble and small, but for the surprises:

• There's a whiny country singer with a hit song about what happens when a liberal lady in a minivan makes fun of the patriotic bumper sticker on "The Bumper of my SUV." Boo Hoo Hoo. (Another piece of conservative claptrap about those oppressive liberal elites with all their keying of bush/cheney bumperstickers, spitting on Vietnam veterans, burning of flags, and other [sub]urban legends.)
• "Porsche owners identified themselves as Republican more often than owners of any other cars, with 59 percent calling themselves Republicans, 27 percent Democrats."( I would have thought Hummers would be at LEAST 75 percent Republican. And I used to dream about driving an old 911 Targa.)
• Steve Sailer, "a conservative journalist who has analyzed the red-blue divide" tells us that NASCAR has an American-made requirement (no smart remarks about what might have been if Dale Earnhart had been driving a Volvo, you liberals you!) and that "In truth, a lot of fans would be sore about ending the all-American monopoly. Nascar has become a covert ethnic-pride celebration for red-state whites of Northern European descent."(COVERT? The only things they lack are the conical hats and white sheets.)

So, what are you driving and what are your politics? (Full disclosure: I've owned an MG, 3 VWs, a Fiat, and a Datsun in the thirty years I've been driving and I'm a True Blue Liberal.)