I'm a poet and teacher living in Iowa City, where I've been hired by our local paper, the Iowa Press-Citizen, to write a regular piece for the opinion page. The idea presented to me was to do something like what Calvin Trillin does for the Nation with his "deadline poetry" series (but without Trillin's hefty syndication fee).

I've been posting them here at Kos for your poetastin' pleasure. This one is more pissed off than the others. I had been reading a right wing blog before I wrote this to sort of rev me up. I guess they're good for something. Anyway, below the fold you'll find "A Mirror for the Far Right." Enjoy!

I'm a poet and longtime Kos reader from Iowa City, and I've been hired by the Iowa Press-Citizen to contribute a regular piece of doggerel poetry to their opinion page.

The idea presented to me was to do something like what Calvin Trillin does for the Nation with his "deadline poetry" series (but without Trillin's hefty syndication fee).

I've been posting them here at Kos, and my latest entry steals from Markos and his righteous indignation at the Sierra Club's endorsement of Lincoln Chaffee. If nothing else, I've come up with a catchy title to steal for your future blog posts on the topic. My poem's below the fold.

                             A Fitzmas Carol

Oh little town of Washington, we know you love to lie,
And when you want to go to war, the cow turds really fly.
And if a critic whineth, the case for war's a bust,
They'll find a way to punish him and teach you who to trust.

Just listen to Dick Cheney, or Condoleeza Rice,
This man Saddam has got the bomb, and he's not very nice.
If we don't move to stop him, with air strikes true and proud,
We'll suffer for our tardiness beneath a mushroom cloud.

(More Fitzmas tidings below the flip)

So I heard that the local opinion editor of the Iowa City's Press-Citizen was thinking about creating a weekly column which would include doggerel poetry satirizing politics and current events. Such an enterprise actually has mass appeal in Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and friend to all things literary. I love churning out the rhymes, and I wanted the job.

This editor -- a fine fellow named Jeff Charis-Carlson -- was thinking of something like what Calvin Trillin did with his "Deadline Poetry" series in The Nation, later collected in a book that sold really well for poetry. Now Trillin is an OK prose writer, but a godawful poet. So I wrote Jeff with a sample of my versifying prowess.

(More below the fold, including "The Ballad of Dead-eye Dick")

"Pastordan" and "Darksyde" mudwrestle in Purgatory! Leftists wax religious! Disinterested nondenominational non-theistic, neo-agnostics with at least one drug-induced "religious experience" under their belts--which they distrust, yet which never-the-less prevents them from fully agreeing with the "atheists"--scratch their heads at the exchange between atheist and Protestant!

Holy freedom fries Kossacks, this is unbelievable. I know, I know. We're discouraged here at Kos from posting a diary just to share a link, but this is worth it. Everyone reading this should go to the following site to watch this "patriotic" video. You will be stunned by its awfulness. Flabbergasted, you will spit your coffee at the monitor. You will destroy several thousand brain cells just watching it, but it's worth it: imagine Michael Bolton singing with Whitesnake as his back-up band in a video directed by Phil Collins with lyrics written by Tom Delay. Well, actually, that's being a little too kind. And this is no joke. It's real. Here's the link (thanks to Mark Dowdy for passing this along):

http://www.americawestandasone.com/video.html  

Let's all try to get the Gannon story out there. Remember how the right hammered and hammered away at Rather? They kept at it until it broke. This story can break too. Why not write a letter to your local paper? I've summarized "Gannongate" in less than 200 words. Please feel free to use my letter (below the fold) in any way you feel appropriate:

In the Orwellian world of Bush-speak, it is helpful to have a dictionary. Kossacks already know these things, but some of our neighbors and friends could probably use a little guide to help with the next four years.

"Flat tax" means "cutting taxes for the rich, raising them for the poor."
"World leadership" means "isolationism."
"Climate change" means "global warming."
"Supporting education" means "not enough funding, increased tuition."
"Growing economy" means "rich get richer, poor get poorer."
"Collateral damage" means "dead Iraqi civilians."
"Pre-emptive strikes" means "we bomb who we want"
"Pre-emptive strikes" also means "more national debt."
"More pre-emptive strikes" means "impending draft."
"Tax relief" means "having our children pay off the national debt."
"Conservative" means "spending like a drunk sailor."
"Moral values" means "anti-gay."
"Patriotism" means "vote for me."
"Support our troops" means "shut up."

Anyone care to add to the list?

PBS is about to add Tucker Carlson to its line up. That's right, as if we needed to hear more from Tucker than we already do, we're going to be listening to noise from his particularly ugly tunnel of the echo chamber on PBS. On top of that, Bill Moyers will be leaving soon, and PBS currently has not announced any plans to balance their line up. Check it out in this must-read article here: http://www.fair.org/activism/pbs-goes-right.html

I just wrote an email expressing my views to Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of PBS. Contact information follows below, as well as the letter I just sent off.

Pat Mitchell
viewer@pbs.org
Phone: (703) 739-5000
Fax: (703) 739-5777

Or use the PBS comment form:
http://www.pbs.org/aboutsite/aboutsite_emailform.html

You might also want to contact your local PBS affiliate about PBS's rightward lurch:
http://www.pbs.org/stationfinder/index.html

Dear Pat Mitchell,

I've recently learned about your plans to add more conservative talk show pundits to PBS, and I'm writing to ask why you are caving in to the right wing. As you know, television broadcasting is heavily biased to the right, and PBS has been the only place where many of us can get any alternate viewpoints. Now you are cutting left-leaning shows and adding Tucker Carlson, who already has his opinions voiced 5 days a week on another network. Why on earth would you think that adding Carlson would help provide a broader perspective? We can just watch CNN for that. Instead, you will be caving in to the right wing echo chamber and reinforcing it.

Bill Moyers, I understand, is leaving. What left-leaning shows are you adding to balance your new tilt to the right and your efforts to placate right wing conservatives?

About a third of all Americans lean left. Right now we have no place to go but to you. We account for your ratings. If you abandon us, you will lose your audience. Do you really think we need another Fox-lite?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Matt Miller

Gabriel Gudding, a youngish poet, has posted this poem, by another poet, Eliot Weinberger, on his blog. It's an enormous, devastating, pointed, and terrifying collage of facts about and quotes from Republicans. It's a must compendium of Repug lunacy. The link is below, followed by a brief excerpt. This section is on Republicans and voting machines, but that's only one of many dozens of topics. Check it out here

Excerpt on Republicans and voting machines:

Republicans like electronic voting machines. In the 1980's, Bob and Todd Urosevich founded a voting machine company, eventually called American Information Systems (AIS), with money from the Ahmanson family of California. The Ahmansons are Christian Reconstructionists who want to establish a theocracy based on biblical law and under the "dominion" of Christians. They support the death penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, and alcoholics. They are members of the secretive Council for National Policy, which combines remnants of the John Birch Society with apocalyptic Christians and is considered by many to be the driving force of "hard right" ideology. The Ahmansons sold the company to the McCarthy Group, whose Chairman and co-owner was Chuck Hagel. The McCarthy Group bought another voting machine company, Cronus Industries, from the Hunt oil family in Texas, also Christian Reconstructionists, who had supplied the original money for the Council for National Policy. The two voting machine companies were merged and became Election Systems and Software (ES&S), with Hagel as CEO.

Republicans like electronic voting machines. ES&S counts 80% of the vote in the state of Nebraska. In 1996, Hagel resigned from ES&S to run for Senator from Nebraska. His victory was called a "stunning upset" by Nebraska newspapers: African-American districts that had never voted for a Republican voted for Hagel. In 1992, Hagel ran again and received 83% of the vote? 3% more than ES&S-tabulated votes and the largest election victory in the history of Nebraska. His Democratic opponent asked for a recount, but the Republican-dominated state legislature had passed a law that only ES&S could recount the votes. Hagel won the recount. No longer Chairman of the McCarthy Group, Hagel had been succeeded by Thomas McCarthy, who was his campaign treasurer.

Republicans like electronic voting machines. When Jeb Bush first ran for Governor of Florida, his first choice for Lieutenant Governor was Sandra Mortham, a lobbyist for ES&S, who was receiving commissions for every county that bought ES&S machines.

I'm thinking of posting this around the blogosphere, but I'd like some feedback first.

Here's a line for Kerry (or his supporters) when confronted with his supposed flip-flop on Iraq.

[This is framed as if talking directly to Bush or one of his lackeys. Slight revision would be required if talking to the media, obviously.]

First, say the usual: that the initial vote was intended to create an international inspection team to disarm Iraq -- a good thing and something which Kerry has always supported -- then describe the ever-more-obvious fact of the war's failed implementation (same ol', same ol', so far, I know). Do it with muscular speed. Then tag on something along these lines:

You know, at one point about 70% of all Americans supported the war in Iraq. Now about 40% do.

Are you implying that I -- and the rest of these people -- are "flip-floppers?"

Do you mean to insinuate that those Americans who have already -- or are now in the process of -- re-evaluating their perspectives based on evidence we see, daily, tragically, before our eyes -- are you suggesting that these people who  are simply living with their eyes open somehow lack integrity -- are "flip-floppers"?

I sure hope not.

And I think you need to open your eyes.

*

What do you all think?

Radiotony posted a thoughtful list of reasons why Bill Richardson would make a poor VP choice. I disagree. Here's his cons and my pros for Richardson as VP (I also think Clark would make a good choice). What do you all think?

"has said he doesn't want it"

Means nothing. It would be interesting to see what percentage of VPs once said they didn't want it. And it's not all about the primary. Richardson could have other reasons related to his current position, etc. My feeling is that Richardson would take the position if offered. He's playing coy.

"he was at the Energy Dept. during a time period when numerous nuclear secrets were leaked to American enemies, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report in 1999"

This is your strongest point, most likely, and it's certainly the line on why not to want Richardson for VP. But I don't really think that either our base or swing voters will care. That's a line that the wingnuts will go for, but not voters who matter.

"Richardson didn't forward any meaningful energy legislation to hold the automobile industry to increase gas mileage in cars, promote alternative energy like solar or wind to make the country energy self-sufficient"

Kerry is strong enough on the environment. This won't matter.

"New Mexico only has five Electoral College votes so it isn't a very strategic choice"

Here is where we really disagree. I think Richardson will make a significant difference--not just in New Mexico, but in Arizona certainly, and, I believe, through out the midwest and to some extent in Florida. I disagree with your statement to the effect that Hispanics won't be swayed by Richardson. Ethnicity does matter. Richardson's appeal is not limited to a state or region. It cuts across lines and will send a powerful signal to Hispanics all across the board.

It's not just about ethinicity, either. Richardson's is a charming, endlessly positive, upbeat, good-humored man. His personality balances Kerry's quite well.

He was nominated for the Nobel peace prize (twice if my memory serves me).

He has lots of foreign policy experience. With his open-heartedness and modesty, I think that he will make a fine diplomat (obviously a big part of being a VP -- nevermind Cheney).

Richardson will send a powerful message to Hispanic voters and the liberal base. Personally, he is my first choice. My second pick would be Clark.

My two cents. What are your pros and cons about Richardson as VP?