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April 28, 2004
The fruitlessness of our rhetoric
There are two possible aims of political rhetoric: 1) to rally supporters, and 2) to persuade undecideds to become supporters. Most political rhetoric in this country falls in the first category, and the blogosphere in general is one of the worst offenders.
Take Google bombing as an example. It makes us smile to see Bush listed for "miserable failure" and it makes wingnuts smile to see Kerry listed for "waffles". For undecideds, it has no effect whatsoever.
The Bush administration and its allies in the conservative media regularly engage in vicious partisan rhetoric, lowering the bar so much as to sink beneath the floor. The natural instinct of many liberals is to strike back - to hit them as hard as they are pummelling us, to take the gloves off and go for the jugular.
Blogs, most of which are run by committed partisans, fall into this trap easily, and indeed the majority of American political blogs, of either political stripe, spend most of their space criticizing their opponents. Some are dignified and polite, others venal and vindictive, but few indeed have much to say to those who don't share their general views.
However, the electoral record shows that attacking the other side has only a limited effect. In order to cross the threshold into building a winning majority, we have to construct actual policy themes that voters can relate to. People vote for something, not against someone.
This is nowhere near as satisfying as rebutting the latest Bush smear, or exposing Bush as a chickenhawk or hypocrite. But in order to win elections, we have to figure out what voters want and give it to them. What voters want to hear is often much different from what partisans want to say.
In 1992 Bill Clinton had a clear set of themes - fiscal discipline, investment in infrastructure, health care, and welfare reform. These were themes that matched people's frustration at a stagnant economy and a disconnected administration. The elder Bush had only meaningless partisan rhetoric to counter him with. He lost.
In order to win the election, we have to move beyond Bush-bashing.
Posted by Tyrone at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2004
Sudan - we must do something
Ten years after the Rwanda genocide, another one is happening in the Darfur region of western Sudan. And just as it did nothing for Rwanda, the world seems ready to do nothing, again.
Human Rights' Watch report speaks for itself:
...In many cases the severity of the crimes committed by government forces and allied militia as well as the widespread and systematic way in which these abuses are carried out amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity....Attacks on civilians have increased in scale, number, and brutality and have been conducted on villages and towns in the absence of rebel presence or military targets. Civilians sharing the ethnicity of the rebel movement...have become the main targets of government military offensives aimed at destroying any real or perceived support base of the rebel forces. Government forces and janjaweed militias have inflicted a campaign of forcible displacement, murder, pillage, and rape on hundreds of thousands of civilians over the past fourteen months.
Dozens of refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch and others have described repeated attacks on their villages and towns. Hundreds and hundreds of villages have been destroyed, usually burned, with all property looted. Key village assets, such as water points and mills, have been destroyed in an apparent effort to render the villages uninhabitable. Numerous civilians have been killed and injured by aerial bombardment and militia raids. Hundreds of women have reportedly been raped by militia and government troops. Children have been abducted in large numbers. Once they fled their homes, thousands of civilians have been subjected to systematic attacks, looting, and violence by militias in government-controlled towns and at janjaweed checkpoints that dot the roads...
The evidence from Darfur points to a systematic campaign by government forces and allied militias to violently force rural civilians from their homes and render them destitute and corralled in government towns and camps.
We need to make the public more aware of this horror. Write letters to the editor of newspapers, call talk radio shows, mention this in your blog if you have one.
Both the Doctors Without Borders are trying to deliver food aid to the displaced civilians (with mixed success, as government troops are blocking many food convoys). Donations to either of these two would be of great help.
Remember Rwanda. Never again!
Posted by Tyrone at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2004
An angry letter to Kristof
Today's Kristof column repeats the tired old canard that child labor is a good thing, and makes the usual Kristof dig at anyone who actually cares about people in poor countries. At least this time we're spared his fatuous praise for the Bush administration.This is the text of a letter I sent him:
'Issues such as child labor receive only a fraction of the attention they deserve in American media. Your articles on this and related issues are some of the most prominent in the nation, and you deserve credit for bringing them into better light.
However, in many of your columns you seem almost compelled to make digs about progressive activists who have done the most to draw attention to these issues. You seem to have a pet peeve against activists and are convinced they do more harm than good. You feel like Scrooge because you are talking like him; he, too, believed that low wages and harsh conditions on the poor were social necessities. He was wrong and so are you.
Today's column crosses the line from snide remarks into factual inaccuracy. Child labor does not promote economic development. At best, it is a symptom of underdevelopment; at worst, it actively undermines development by taking children out of schools and into the labor force.
It is not even always true that child laborers work to feed their families; many of them are kidnapped into the practice and trafficked as slaves. Many more do not earn wages as such; they are given by their parents as collateral for a loan, which they then must earn their way out of through indentured servitude. Often this becomes a lifetime of debt bondage.
This does not help poor families. It makes them poorer. It is how millions of poor families remain in the thrall of wealthy landowners and moneylenders.
You make a snide remark about "Westerners should channel their indignation into getting all children into school". With all due respect, have you even bothered to examine closely the campaigns of child labor activists Transferring children from work to school is at the heart of their campaigns. They ARE sponsoring school meals in places like Toukoultoukouli. A visit to the web sites of groups like Free the Children or the Child Labor Coalition could have confirmed this.
The Pakistani children who used to make soccer balls are now able to - and do - attend school, thanks to programs put into place with the help of the sports companies, human rights organizations, and the International Labor Organization.
It is true that mistakes were made in the 1992 garment workers' bill. But that was 12 years ago and activists have changed their strategies since then. It has been years since anyone called for boycotts or bans of goods made by child labor. The call has been instead to provide safe, clean working conditions for children, better wages, and an opportunity to attend school at least part-time.
Yet instead of applauding the work of activists, you accuse them of "self-righteous indignation". I think you should take a look in the mirror to see who is guilty of that.'
Posted by Tyrone at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2004
North Korean kerfuddle
Is the threat North Korea poses to the world in fact largely the product of PR campaigns under both the Clinton and Bush administrations? This article has some interesting facts.
Posted by Tyrone at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)