Hey, you Beltway liberal types? Look, I’m bored silly by obsessively tracking every little move in the gladiatorial arena of DC, and I even think it’s destructive of serious politics. But I was with you on this whole weird Jeff Gannon / James Guckert story. Republican red herrings to one side, there was a real story here. The story was about how Gannon–a man who had no journalistic qualifications whatsoever and who engaged in some pretty transparent deceptions to try to cover over his life as a gay prostitute–was nevertheless clearly maneuvered, through immense administration favoritism, into the inner circle of the White House Press Corps, because he served as a useful administration-designated plant in the audience at press briefings. The story wasn’t about prostitution, much less homosexuality; it was about yet another glaring example of the Bush Administration’s willingness to institute the mechanisms of an overt propaganda machine–including using tax resources to exert control over the press corps through pay-offs and privileges to useful reporters and commentators. Or, here, creating a useful reporter out of thin air.

That’s an interesting (and depressing) story about the shamelessness of this administration. That’s why I was willing to get your back on it. But, hey, folks? This?

(Update: The reward is now $20k as of 03-02-05)

Have you seen this man?

A wealthy Washington socialite is offering a $10,000 reward for proof that Jeff Gannon (pictured), an allegedly gay kinky-sex prostitute / escort / white house reporter / GOP operative, has had any type of sexual, or romantic, relationship with any top-ranking Washington official(s) — or proof that he engaged in any illegal sexual activities or favors.

…

A local socialite, who wishes to remain anonymous, has teamed up with this site to offer a $10,000 reward to anyone that can provide hard proof.

We are looking for evidence (photos, phone pictures, locks of hair, DNA on a suit) that Jeff Gannon had any type of sexual, or romantic, relationship with any top-ranking Washington official(s) — or proof that he engaged in any illegal sexual activities or favors.

— Reward: Jeff Gannon information. Washington Socialites 2005-02-23

This is not an interesting story. This is gay-baiting. You are trying to dig up dirt on prominent officials’ sexuality and you are aiming to out them against their will–in order to destroy their political careers. That’s fucked up.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t object to destroying some dumb jerk’s political career. If I had my way, everybody’s political career would be destroyed. What I do object to–and what any one who claims to take homophobia seriously as a social problem should object to–is the fact that the tactic being used for destruction here is to out men who’ve been having sex with men before they are ready to come out, and the reason for outing them is to pander to the homophobia of hard Right voters. If that homophobia didn’t exist, and if the homophobes weren’t willing to ruin people’s lives over the gender of their sex partner(s), the plan wouldn’t work. But it does, and they are, and you’re willing to make use of it to try to score political points. That’s fucked up.

You might claim that the issue here is prostitution, not gay prostitution specifically. Horsepucky. It’s an open secret that powerful men, including some powerful Republican officials, have made a habit of patronizing women in prostitution. But there isn’t a bounty out for information on proof that some Administration official somewhere paid for heterosexual sex, is there? And you’re not musing on your blogs about it, are you? That’s because you’re not concerned about any of the ethical questions involved in the many different kinds of prostitution in the world; you’re concerned about political leverage, and you’re more likely to score a clean kill if you can out someone as gay. And that’s fucked up.

Get your heads out of the Beltway. Just stop it.

For the past few decades, libertarian and Leftist critics of U.S. foreign policy alike — from Noam Chomsky to Murray Rothbard — have put a lot of work into documenting and exploring the subtle mechanisms of control that the American government has developed to ensure that our supposedly free press is still reliably at the service of U.S. government policy. What their efforts have have revealed is an interlocking system of interests and manipulation, which manages to effectively carry out the aims of an extensive propaganda system without taking on the formal structure of one.

But it looks like here, as in so many other places, the Bush administration is committed to bolder leadership than its predecessors:

• New York Times (2005-01-7): Bush’s Drug Videos Broke Law, Accountability Office Decides

  WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 – The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people.

  The accountability office said the videos constitute covert propaganda because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said.

  …

  In May the office found that the Bush administration had violated the same law by producing television news segments that portrayed the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

  The accountability office was not critical of the content of the video segments from the White House drug office, but found that the format — a made-for-television “story package” — violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda.

  …

  A spokesman for the drug policy office said the review’s conclusions made a mountain out of a molehill.

• USA Today 2005-01-07: Education dept. paid commentator to promote law:

  Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

  The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts, and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

  …

  Williams said he does not recall disclosing the contract to audiences on the air but told colleagues about it when urging them to promote NCLB.

  …

  The contract may be illegal because Congress has prohibited propaganda, or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. And it’s propaganda.

  The Nation Capitol Games (2005-01-10): Armstrong Williams: I Am Not Alone:

  And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. This happens all the time, he told me. There are others. Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. I’m not going to defend myself that way, he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.

  The Blue Lemur (2005-01-12): Columnist Bush paid to promote No Child law still on Bush fellowship board (via Wendy McElroy @ Liberty & Power 2005-01-12):

  Armstrong Williams, the columnist paid $240,000 by the Bush Administration to surreptitiously promote Bush&’s No Child Left Behind Law remained listed on the White House website as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships as late as Wednesday, RAW STORY has learned.

  The discovery, first reported by D.C. Inside Scoop, suggests that the White House has declined to sever ties with the discredited pundit. Williams was terminated by the company syndicating his column, Tribune Media Services, last Friday.

• Financial Times (2005-01-11): Allawi group slips cash to journalists (via Strike the Root 2005-01-11):

  The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, [U.S.-installed] interim Iraqi prime minister, yesterday handed cash to journalists to try to ensure coverage of its press conferences, in a throwback to Ba’athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.

  After a meeting held by Mr Allawi’s campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a gift of a $100 bill in an envelope.

  Many of the journalists accepted the cash, equal to about half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi news-paper, and one jokingly recalled how the former regime of Saddam Hussein had also lavished perks on favoured reporters.

Welcome to the mainstream news media for the new millennium, in which Noam Chomsky has become obsolete: they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. Interlocking interests and subtle mechanisms of control aren’t even the point anymore; the Bush machine and its clients now pass out government-manufactured news segments and lucrative tax-funded bribes for useful political commentators. The Bush League may not be making government smaller, but they are making radical critique simpler–may God help us all.

I’m more than a little worn out from driving, so there won’t be much to say about the March tonight. But I would like to point out that it was incredible, that it was enormous, and that I’m humbled, and delighted, to have been a part of it.

The organizers estimate an astounding 1.15 MILLION PEOPLE attended the March. Volunteers were working on putting together a person-by-person count; I’d be interested to see how close that poll came to the estimated figure. In any case, even the lowball police estimates (according to the Washington Post) put the figure over 750,000-850,000. No matter how you count it this was the largest march on Washington DC in history. The downtown of Washington has something of the air of a stately necropolis; but on Sunday, it was no longer the tomb of American law. It was alive and seething, and we were standing up there to make the law defend a woman’s right to control her own body.

Snide sidebar: Randall Terry gave an interview on the morning news the day of the March, promising an ocean of signs and banners to confront the marchers. It seems that like the Aral Sea, Terry’s ocean had receded quite a bit. There were a few antis strung out in ragged lines across two or three city blocks; Randall Terry positioned himself in front of some fetus signs pasted up on free standing boards. When I saw the interview on the morning news, I went back to the hotel room and made up a sign for blocking the computer-generated fetus graphics that read Randall Terry GO HOME; if I’d known what the anti contingent would be like, I would have made it Is this the best you can do?

I am awestruck and hopeful about what has just happened in the capital. This was incredible. It was historic. I only wish that I could have sat down with the organizers and talked about the mobilization effort that went into it over the past several months; I am sure that there is a fascinating story to tell about the use of the March for Women’s Lives MeetUp and other Internet geegaws for organizing, and the incredible way in which these online tools were transitioned into real offline action.

Have you written a letter to the editor of your local newspaper explaining your support for the March (and abortion rights) yet? If not, you should. It’s time to take this piece of history into the future. The political bloviators and spin-meisters need to hear, loud and clear, how 1.15 MILLION PEOPLE just stood up and marched for choice, and how millions more stand behind them. If we raise this issue–if we put women’s rights to their own bodies on the table–if we make George W. Bush talk about it rather than utter mealy-mouthed dodges from one side of his mouth and anti-choice code words from the other–if we make John Kerry talk about it rather than look nervous and start muttering weak euphemisms–then we will win and the antis will lose.

Let’s begin.

(this post is part of the Stand Up For Choice BlogBurst)

I support the March for Women’s Lives

on April 25, 2004 in Washington DC

Stand up for choice!

Here’s three ways you can support the March for Women’s Lives, even if you can’t be there yourself:

1. Show your support for the March by putting a post like this one on your own website. Be sure to add your own thoughts on why you support the March and a woman’s right to choose!

2. Take those thoughts and turn them into a letter to your representatives in Congress. (Make sure you mention your support for the March, and make sure they know you’ll be voting pro-choice in November.) Then, take that letter and turn it into a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

3. Make a small contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: support the effort to protect choice as a right and to make it a reality.

Why?

I stand with the March for Women’s Lives because American women’s right to choose is under threat. Four more years of anti-choice politics will mean an unprecedented opportunity to chip away at the landmark victory of Roe v. Wade–and may even mean the opportunity to overturn it. That cannot stand. Everyone has the right to control their own bodies, and for women that right doesn’t stop at the uterine wall; a government that bans abortion is forcing women to continue pregnancies against their will–and that is nothing less than legalized slavery. While men in government offices play at politics, women will hurt and women will die because men in government uniforms think they have the right to tell them what to do with their own bodies.

A generation ago, women (and the men who stood with them) rose up, organized, and agitated to win the right to choose. This weekend, we will rise up again. Together, we can win again. And we will.

Onward!

We will make ourselves heard. We will support pro-choice work in our communities. Our struggle is here. Our time is now.

P.S.: Don’t forget to spread the word: if you support the March and its goals, rip off this post for your own website. Do it! Now!

Martin Striz (of plausible thoughts fame) asked me an excellent question in an e-mail the other day: are there any emblems or other efforts to show support for the March for Women’s Lives this weekend if you can’t go yourself? (The March websites have some pages on ways to support the March if you can’t make it, but they all focus on things that you could have done a few months ago to help publicize the March.)

Well, it’s late in the game, but we are working on Internet time here, so here’s my idea. (I’m just tossing it out to see if it sticks; feel free to rip it off, alter it, deride it, ignore it, or whatever seems best.)

If you’re not going to the March this weekend–or even if you are–why not show your support by participating in a [BlogBurst][] in support of the March and abortion rights?

We can (1) get out the pro-choice message and bring it front and center in political discussion, (2) raise the visibility of the March even more through Google and political weblogs, and (3) take our support out into the world–and help others do the same–with letters to the editor, letters to our representatives, and contributions to pro-choice organizations. Here’s the format (you can see a SAMPLE POST here):

1. A post to your web page headed up by a link back to this BlogBurst:

   <p><strong>(this post is part of the <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2004/04/22/stand_up.html">Stand Up For Choice BlogBurst</a>)</strong></p>

   and either the March emblem:

   

   or this one:

   

2. Link to the March for Women’s Lives website.

3. Offer three ways to support the March for Women’s Lives even if you can’t be there yourself:

   Here’s three ways you can support the March for Women’s Lives, even if you can’t be there yourself:

   1. Show your support for the March by putting a post like this one on your own website. Be sure to add your own thoughts on why you support the March and a woman’s right to choose!

   2. Take those thoughts and turn them into a letter to your representatives in Congress. (Make sure you mention your support for the March, and make sure they know you’ll be voting pro-choice in November.) Then, take that letter and turn it into a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

   3. Make a small contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: support the effort to protect choice as a right and to make it a reality.

4. If you’d like to follow any or all of these suggestions yourself, well, hell, it couldn’t hurt, could it?

Sound reasonable? I’ll get the ball rolling with an example post here at the RGPD. Let’s begin!