According to Salon, some Democratic Party media flacks are wringing their hands over ads from MoveOn, the Media Fund, and others. The fear? No centralized command-and-control. Thus, they worry, Liberal group ads may muddy Kerry message:

Liberal interest groups are running television ads meant to hurt President Bush and, in effect, help Democratic rival John Kerry. But some media strategists say such efforts could backfire by muddying Kerry’s message of the moment with the electorate.

Interest groups can’t legally coordinate advertising with political campaigns. That means their ads could address different issues than Kerry’s commercials, be nastier than his advisers prefer, clutter the airwaves, stray from obvious themes — the economy and national security — or politicize issues Kerry would rather leave alone.

[N.B.: issues Kerry would rather leave alone is short for the war —Ed.]

If I were Kerry’s folks, I’d be up nights worrying about this, said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic media consultant.

Personally, if I were Kerry’s folks, I’d be up nights worrying about the logically prior question: doesn’t Kerry need to have a message before anyone could count as muddying it?

At last, a bombing campaign that I can support.

As it turns out, certain anti-Semitic imbeciles have gotten their nutsoid conspiracy site (charmingly entitled JewWatch, which I shan’t link here, lest it throw off the GoogleBombing) listed as the number one site returned by a Google search for the word Jew.

But there’s a campaign afoot–just in time for Passover–and that is about to change.

Sporadic GoogleBombing sorties have been lighting up LiveJournal for a the past few days; today, Alas, A Blog is letting loose, and the campaign is spreading out through other political weblogs. It’s time for a ruthless carpet-bombing of the whole area. So, if you have a web page or weblog, and if you prefer objective, factual information about Jews to raving fascist conspiracy theorists, here is how you can help out:

1. Go to your webpage, weblog, LiveJournal, or anything else that Google can see. If you don’t have one, get one — set up a free website from Geocities, Angelfire, Pitas, BlogSpot, or wherever you like. It doesn’t matter where. Just sprinkle it with a bit of personal information (or put up that huge site you’ve always dreamed of), and remember to add the Google bombing code somewhere on your page (see below). You can help even more by helping to spread the idea further: provide a link back to this page or to the post from Alas, A Blog, or provide your own explanation of what the GoogleBomb is and how people can get involved.

2. Somewhere in the HTML on your site, include the following snippet. You can either include it in the HTML of updates themselves, or in the linkroll. The more frequently you update your site with this HTML snippet present on it, the better the results:

   <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew" title="WikiPedia: Jew">Jew</a>

   Which will result in a link like this:

   Jew

3. Add the URI for your website to Google if you haven’t already.

And from there, watch the magic of precision GoogleBombing work!

Onwards!

–The Management

P.S. You may notice that I have added a Precision Bombing section to the linkroll for all my pages; this drastically boosts the number of pages supporting the GoogleBomb, and also ensures that the support won’t drop when my initial post scrolls down past the bottom of the front page.

Today is the first anniversary of the Bush administration’s war on Iraq. hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets in protest of the war, the occupation, and the lies that were used to murder some 8,000 – 10,000 Iraqi civilians in a bloody game of geopolitical chess, and to create a rudderless, hopeless war between heavy-handed occupying forces and brutal terrorist guerillas. President Bush, meanwhile, keeps repeating the same old crap, perhaps in the hope that it will start to stick through sheer force of repetition. Apparently we are supposed to forget the deception and the manipulation and the bullying of dissenting voices, and the simple fact that the past year has proven that we were right and he was wrong, and pitch in with support for this bloody occupation:

No concession will appease their hatred. No accommodation will satisfy their endless demands, Bush said after deploring last week’s Madrid bombings, which were followed by the election of a new prime minister eager to remove Spanish troops from Iraq. There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy. Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence, and invites more violence for all nations.

As if trying to prove a point, Bush trots out every tired neo-conservative creepy spendthrift fascist trope about the war: the terrorists as the new Hitler, Bush and his cronies as the new Churchill, the new Chamberlain in Decadent Europe and the rest of us who feel just a tad squeamish about a completely unrepetant gang of lying warmongers who profess to be on our side. But the real battle cry here is not from World War II; it is from Vietnam. Apparently we are supposed to persist in a deadly and useless occupation of a Third World nation that the U.S. government annihilated on fabricated grounds because if we pull out now, we will give a sign of weakness. We will send the wrong message.

I don’t know quite what to say to this appalling idea — except to quote from a fine film:

Zhivago: It seems you burned the wrong village.

Strelnikov: They always say that. And what does it matter? A village betrays us, a village is burned. The point is made.

Zhivago: Your point, their village.

And also to quote from a fine website, which adds a heart-rendingly fresh update of the theme. in the wake of the 3/11 massacre in Spain and the upsurge of public rage over the Aznar government’s manipulations and lies:

El gobierno miente, manipula, extorsiona, oculta información, asesina, no escucha, insulta, acusa a la oposición, le importa una mierda 200 muertos con tal de sacar votos y no perder, somos objetivo de terroristas islámicos por culpa de la prepotencia, la chulería, el afán de protagonismo, los aires de grandeza de un pequeño gran hijo de la gran puta llamado Aznar.

– Vuestra guerra, nuestros muertos [Perdido en Madrid]

The Government lies, manipulates, extorts, hides information, murders, doesn’t listen, insults, accuses the opposition; 200 dead aren’t worth shit so long as they get votes and don’t lose; we’re the target of Islamic terrorists and it’s all the fault of the power-mongering, the insolance, the eagerness for heroism, the airs of greatness of that little son of a bitch called Aznar.

– Your war, our dead [Lost in Madrid]

In spite of the warhawk hand-wringing over cowardly Spaniards and their appeasement, the electoral crash-and-burn of the Aznar gang is a courageous step: a popular upsurge against the politics of fear, and emboldened by their much-touted white-hot rage—turned not only on the thugs who inflicted this slaughter on innocents, but also on the lying thugs who launched a dirty war and left 200 innocent madrileños to face the consequences. That the Spaniards can find the courage to throw the bastards out in 2004 gives me some hope that we’ll be able to do it here, too.

This is connected to a broader point about terrorism, war, and the State; it’s a point well worth reflecting on on this anniversary. The essence of the State is irresponsibility: that is, States (as opposed to voluntary associations) always exist in virtue of one group of people inflicting the costs of their decisions on others against their will. The most mundane form of the phenomenon is taxation; the most egregious are War and State terrorism. This is something to remember whenever some politician is droning on about duty, sacrifice, and glory; they mean their glory taken from your duty and sacrifice. George W. Bush will never pay for the destruction that he has wrought. You will pay for it when you surrender your taxes in about a month. Donald Rumsfeld will not be the one who faces death for his agenda in the Middle East. The troops he has deployed will be the ones who have to face the consequences of his decisions. José Maria Aznar and Tony Blair will not be the ones killed in the subway for the war they helped unleash. All too many of us—Spaniards, Britons, and Americans— are the ones who have been put into the crossfire by their reckless war-mongering. Should we be surprised that the health of the State is a disease that we have to live with, and they don’t?

Anarchism: Because it isn’t your fault that George W. Bush is a dickhead.

For further reading:

• GT 2/11/2004: Lies and the lying liars who recant them
• GT 2/8/2004: What You Mean We?
• GT 11/11/2003: Winning the Peace

Thirty-one years ago today, the United States Supreme Court made a remarkable human rights ruling: it finally recognized that a woman has a fundamental human right to control her own body, including her uterine lining. January 22 is Roe v. Wade Day, the anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in every state of the union, and one of the most remarkable victories of radical feminism in the late 20th century.

Yes, I said radical feminism (gasp!). Most people don’t realize it today, but (as Susan Brownmiller documents in her history-memoir In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution) it was radical feminists–such as Kathie Sarachild and Carol Hanisch of the Redstockings, Susan Brownmiller, and Flo Kennedy–who organized and led the struggle for abortion rights, when no-one else would; it was radical feminists such as who pushed for the repeal of all abortion laws when liberal feminist groups (especially NOW) were afraid to touch the issue or thought the demands should be limited to calling for some mild reforms. It was radical feminists who understood that abortion is not just a medical issue (although it is that), or an issue of sexual privacy (although it is that, too). They framed it as an issue of choice: that is, of a woman’s human right to choose what to do with her own body. They, too, recognized that because abortion was a human right, the criminalization of abortion and the back-alley butchery that went on underground was a form of State violence against women. It was radical feminists, too, who brought the urgency and the clear justice of the cause into the public eye through consciousness-raising, through speeches, and especially through speak-outs and confrontations with the men who claimed power over them:

On the same wintry day in mid-February when NARAL’s founders were traveling to Chicago for their first conference six state legislators held a public hearing in Manhattan on some proposed liberalizing amendments to the New York [abortion] law. Typical of the times, the six legislators were men, and the speakers invited to present expert testimony were fourteen men and a Catholic nun.

On the morning of the February 13 hearing, a dozen infiltrators camouflaged in dresses and stockings entered the hearing room and spaced themselves around the chamber. Some called themselves Redstockings, and some, like Joyce Ravitz, were free-floating radicals who were practiced hands at political disruptions. Ravitz, in fact, had been on her way to another demonstration when she’d run into the Redstockings women, who convinced her to join them.

As a retired judge opined that abortion might be countenanced as a remedy after a woman had fulfilled her biological service to the community by bearing four children, Kathie Amatniek [Sarachild] leaped to her feet and shouted, Let’s hear from the real experts–women! Taking her cue, Joyce Ravitz began to declaim an impassioned oration. Ellen Willis jumped in. More women rose to their feet.

Men don’t get pregnant, men don’t bear children. Men just make laws, a demonstrator bellowed.

Why are you refusing to admit that we exist? cried another.

Girls, girls, you’ve made your point. Sit down. I’m on your side, a legislator urged, raising the temperature a notch higher.

Don’t call us girls, came the unified response. We are women!

–Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, 106-107

The victory in that struggle is one of the most remarkable victories in recent history — in 1968 abortion was criminalized in every state; in 1970 the first major victory was gained with the repeal of the abortion law in New York; on January 22, 1973, only 5 years later, the United States Supreme Court recognized the right to choose in every one of the 50 states.

The passion, radical energy, and fundamental justice of that movement — a movement against the colonization of women’s bodies by the male-dominated State, and against the mutilation of women’s bodies by back-alley butchers — should never be forgotten. Take the time on Roe v. Wade Day to say a Thank you! to the radical Women’s Liberation movement, and to remember the victory that Roe v. Wade represents — for all its many limitations (which I will have more to say about later). This is a day for celebration, and don’t let the anti-choice jerks in Washington (whether they are visitors or residents) intimidate you into silence. Happy Roe v. Wade Day–and here’s to many happy returns!

Right on cue, Salon and other leftist outlets have begun their handwringing and pre-emptive Nader-blaming over a possible Green Party run in 2004. Here’s the line: Nader unreasonably pushed his campaign through the 2000 election, creating an acrimonious rift withiin the American Left, and now the Dems are worried that he’ll do it again, siphoning off votes from the Democratic candidate and putting King George II in office for another four deadly years. Those who think otherwise are blind Green ideologues who can’t see the possibility of achieving their goals through the Democratic Party.

The problem with trying to adjudicate this debate is that both sides of it are acting like morons. The lefty Democrats because they are perpetually unable to honestly acknowledge the severe problems that the Democratic Party has faced since, well, always. Also because they are apparently constitutionally incapable of thinking of any strategy to form a Popular Front campaign against Bush except to whine and vilify Greens. Just think of the arrogance of the rhetoric coming out of their mouths: the assumption that Greens are siphoning off voters who belong, by right, to whatever jackass the Democratic leadership happens to pick; the notion that a messageless and meandering Democratic Party couldn’t possibly be to blame for its pathetic election returns over the last two election cycles; the dismissal of third party activitists as naive and idealistic simply for recognizing that, as a matter of hard-headed pragmatism, the chances of achieving significant leftist goals through the established power structure of the Democratic Party are very close to nil.

On the other hand, the Green Party shares a common disorder with much of the rest of the third party movement: their entire electoral strategy is a cockamaimey plan for wasted resources and eventual implosion. I think that building a strong Green Party is absolutely necessary if we are ever to get out from under the claws of the Republicratic Leviathan. Indeed, as an anarchist, I also think that building a strong Libertarian Party is absolutely necessary too, while we’re at it. But none of this can happen with the current stock set of third party campaign strategies. Based on their past few decades of behavior, one of two things can be concluded about third parties: either they being run as think tanks rather than political parties (issuing policy positions and maximizing fundraising to support office staff, rather than trying to win elections)—or else they are being run by a bunch of drunk baboons. Either they are rationally pursuing some goal other than electoral success, or else, they are irrationally throwing contributor money down the toilet. I don’t know which would be worse for the development of independent parties.

What I mean is this: every four years, the whole independent party movement—Greens, Libertarians, the Constitution Party, the Workers World Party, and everyone else, all get bunched up about the Presidential race. Fundraising appeals go out; money is thrown into advertisements; grassroots activist energy is poured out. The issues are predictable: trying to get a few news interviews, hiring professional petitioners to ensure ballot access, getting indignant over exclusion from the debates, putting out a few press releases that get published by a few papers, and going around the country to talk with local party activists. The goals are almost always unclear: candidates generally acknowledge they have no chance of winning, but they hope to get the message out. Ralph Nader, at least, had a relatively clear purpose in 2000: he wanted to get 5% to get federal funds for party-building. But that, too, failed, and even if it had succeeded, it’s unlikely it would have helped that much—one need only watch the decline and fall of the Reform Party over the past decade to see that funds mean nothing without a strong party structure in place, at the local level.

What I propose is this: independent parties, if they want to get anywhere, are going to have to completely write off the federal government for the next 15-20 years. They should encourage their base to vote strategically on life-or-death issues (abortion, war, civil liberties, etc.). Greens and Libertarians have built up an extensive base for fundraising and activist support; they need to turn that base more or less completely towards local and state-level races. Why? Because we can win local races now—with some basic planning, we can win them in a cakewalk. We can start winning state races within the next few election cycles. It’s only by winning these races that we will make winning the federal races possible.

Imagine if, for example, Ralph Nader could take his eyes off the Presidency for a moment, and run for Governor of California instead. Imagine if he used his celebrity, immense fundraising ability, and good name to recruit an unprecedented slate of Green candidates for state legislature, city council, and mayor. What might be achieved in a state with a strong Leftist contingency, an tradition of independent party activism, and a corrupt Democratic Party that only barely made it through an election cycle that should have been a cakewalk?

I think the results could be stunning. Why?

1. Local and state level races very often go uncontested—allowing independent party candidates to enter into two-way races, rather than three-way races.
2. Local and state level races are covered by local media, which offers far more opportunities for free coverage and affordable advertising than the national media.
3. Winning local and state races builds up a critical mass of name recognition and experienced candidates.
4. Winning local races allows us to take immediate action on the issues that impact people’s everyday life: getting rid of urban-sprawl-creating zoning regulations, calling the police off of their pursuit of the war on people who use drugs, making sure the police are sensitive and responsive to violence against women, cutting down on cronyism and corporate welfare, and so on.
5. Winning state races allows us to take immediate and serious action on nearly every issue that matters to us: reforming laws on violence against women, ensuring abortion rights and abortion access, abolishing drug laws, ending the death penalty, ending corporate welfare… need I go on? The vast bulk of these programs are implemented not at the federal level, but rather at the state level. Trying to make serious progress on them by running a Presidential candidate every four years is a fool’s game.
6. Finally, winning state-level elections is what will make a robust independent party movement possible. Why? Because the state governments are the jackpot for ballot access, Instant Runoff Voting, term limits, initiatives and referenda, and nearly every other sort of political reform that is necessary to pry the democratic process out of the hands of the two-party oligarchy.

Now, in all this, I don’t mean that significant victories won’t be possible before some time decades in the future—when they happen, they tend to happen quickly, seemingly out of nowhere. But if they do end up being possible, they will only become possible as an unforseen consequence of the groundwork we lay between now and then. So I’d like to propose some guidelines for Lefties and Libertarians over the next few election cycles.

• Forget about the federal: vote strategically. In fact, don’t even bother nominating Presidential or Senatorial candidates at all if there aren’t compelling ballot-access reasons to do so.
• Focus on the legislature, not the executive: these races are very often unopposed, but ultimately promise a lot more power to bring about democratic reforms than gubernatorial or Presidential victories.
• Blitz the local media: Get your name and message out through every means possible—letters to the editor, local TV appearances, local press coverage, billboards, guerilla media, and so on.
• Work with frustrated two-party voters: Find issues where there is a distinctive message that will draw two-party voters–for example, the war on drugs or the death penalty.
• Build resilient, activist local parties: They’re the only way you can eventually build a strong, democratic national movement.

And now that I have lectured the Greens and Libertarians, allow me to say a bit about what lefty Democrats, in particular, owe us if they expect to get anywhere.

1. Stop vilifying Greens: many people of good conscience had perfectly good reasons to be disgusted with the Democratic ticket in 2000. Trying to browbeat them back into the party is not an effective way to build a good, hope-based relationship with your party base.
2. Get back to the issues: voters expect a clear message and a clear distinction between the two candidates. If you make the 2004 race a referendum on abortion, the environment, the economy, civil rights, etc., then the Democrats will win. They represent the majority position on these issues. Bill Clinton came from nowhere in 1992 to win precisely because he knew this, precisely because he had a clear and hopeful message rather than mealy-mouthed meandering, Republican imitation, and fear-mongering (Bill C. had plenty of all of those too, but he won in spite of them, not because of them).
3. Work together with independent parties, instead of trying to keep them out: trying to prevent spoiler debacles by throwing independent party candidates off the ballot, excluding them from the debates, bullying their supporters, and so on only makes you look sleazy and debases the democratic process. Instead, work with them to open the process up and pass constructive measures that will prevent such conflicts from happening in the future. In particular: Democrats, for the love of God, stop whining about Greens and start supporting Instant Runoff Voting. If your goal is to change things rather than to clutch every scrap of incumbent governmental power that you can, this is the only long-term hope for your success.

The bottom line, I think, is this. It is long past time to stop forming our circular Leftist firing squads. It’s time to start finding constructive and creative ways of working together, and getting smart about how we can actually start achieving our goals.

Let’s begin.