Cheney's Democrats

More evidence that party labels mean nothing.

So when we speak of change in 2008, let’s not let that mean the Democrats replace the Republicans; these labels are worthless. Let’s make it mean people who do what we believe in, and let’s start with torture. If they’re not against it, all the time, 24-7, in any case, against any person, well, they’re just not living up to the PR of what America—let alone Humanity and God—is supposed to be all about. If the person who wins the election supports torture, than nobody wins. Period.

This doesn’t mean voting for the opposition and it doesn’t mean not voting. It means starting right now to change your government into something that represents you. Voting is the last step of that process.

Look around you, at your town First Selectman/woman, the head of your school board, your lawyer, your butcher, your mail carrier. Would they value their political legacy over their innate moral conviction that torture is wrong? Would they play little rhetorical games about whether the fingernails are being ripped from the hand of a ‘prisoner of war’ or an ‘enemy combatant’?

If not, maybe they should run for office, and maybe you should help them, because clearly the career politicians are failing us. Because the only way we are not people who torture is if we don’t vote for people who say it’s okay to torture.

So Joe Lieberman of Connecticut? Out.
Kent Conrad of North Dakota? Out.
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana? Out.
Ben Nelson of Nebraska? Out.
Ron Wyden of Oregon? Out.

Party labels are worthless.

This proves it.

It also shows exactly what it wrong with the Democrats. When you have Democrats that will support torture, then the Democratic Party looks like it stands for nothing. People who vote for torture out of political expediency are the spineless scoundrels. The Democratic Party should have room for diverse views, but pro-torture Democrats?

No way.

Cheney's Democrats

The Torture Administration

Liner notes from U2 Live in Chicago DVD:
"Do not become a monster to defeat a monster."

Perhaps someone should tell the Vice President of Torture.

The Torture Administration

Green Disease

"G-R
E-E-D
G-R
E-E-D
It's a disease and they're all green
It emanates from their being
Satiation with occupation
Like weeds with dead leaves
Stealing life from what's beneath
Will they have more
Still they take more.

-"Green Disease", Pearl Jam

Guess who recommended that CEO pay be limited to 20 times the pay of lowest-paid worker in the company?

Not Marx. Not Lenin. Not Mao. Not Fidel.

Hint: Fortune Magazine says he was "justly lauded as the greatest management thinker and writer of all time."

Yes, Peter Drucker, who passed away November 11th, made this "radical" recommendation. I'm sure all those business friendly, anti-regulation "free market" proponents who line up to feed at the public trough for subsidies and tax breaks would find such a recommendation appallingly un-American, unpatriotic, and terrorist friendly, which only means that it is a good idea.

Why? Let's begin here.

At most companies, compensation issues are being left to corporate boards, which are hiding behind the notion that "independent" directors can objectively assess their CEO's performance. (A lot of good such independence did in the past -- recall that Enron's board was also largely comprised of "independent" directors like the dean of the Stanford Business School.)

In reality, the CEO pay game is a kind of merry-go-round of interlocking boards who hire kiss-up consultants to tell their compensation committees that their CEO is just like every kid in Lake Wobegon -- above average and ergo deserving of above average pay.

[...]

Today's executives are increasingly receiving all kinds of "stealth compensation" in the form of pensions, reloaded options, plane junkets, etc. Often it all comes out of the hide of investors. A new study by The Corporate Library suggests that in 2003 the top five executives at each U.S. public company received compensation that on average amounted to 10.3% of their employer's profit, up from 4.8% in 1993.

As you can see, the executive compensation system in this country is one giant conflict of interest. I approve my pal's comp. You approve his comp. He approves mine.

That's why CEO pay now averages 431 times that of the lowest paid worker. 431 is slightly greater than 20, even when you use fuzzy math.

Thanks to Peter Drucker (and Warren Buffett, too), criticizing that fact doesn't make you a radical. It makes you an advocate of common sense compensation for executives, for the benefit of shareholders and employees.

Time for a little rabble-rousing, I think.

Green Disease

Dear Mr. Thirty-Six Percent

The Democrats did not have the same intelligence that you had, because you and your administration held back any intelligence that would have revealed to the Democrats and the American people that you were completely full of shit.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

55% of the American people now realize that you were full of shit. Continuing to lie will not help.
At the very least you might want to change up the speech a smidge.

Note: To my loyal readers, I am back from my Presidential blog vacation and have been assured by the Bush Administration that I will have plenty to be pissed off about for the near future, so please stop back, if you ever visit. And, the first person to contact me via email will receive a $15 iTunes gift certificate for being so loyal. If no one claims it within a month, I'm giving it to myself since I will have been talking to myself for a month.

Dear Mr. Thirty-Six Percent