I’d like to see this theme expanded to other topics and adopted as a rallying point for progressives:

Any force that tries to make you feel shame for being who you are, and loving who you love, is a form of tyranny over your mind. And it must be rejected, resisted, and defeated.

— Al Gore, speaking at the Human Rights Campaign Gala on March 25, 2006, at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Tyrrany over the mind…says it perfectly to me.

(Via John, via Pandagon.)

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem too early to start opposing a war in Iran. Whether a political stunt or genuine insanity, noise needs to be made now.

This American Prospect cover story by my favorite blogger—and now full-fledged journalist&mdashEzra Klein give me some great hope for the future. A number of things are coming together lately to make me feel like we’ve passed a point of inflection, that we’re beyond the nadir of this—in too many ways—crappy decade. I have to hope that we’re at the start of a new enlightenment.

This reminds me of the good ol’ days of first term. Maybe I just haven’t been playing close enough attention, but it feels like it’s been a little while since the ‘Possible Attacks on America’ argument was trotted out. Now we gotta pass preznit’s defense budget OR ELSE. My favorite bit: just why is the threat more pronounced now than previously?

New CIA Director Porter Goss said the Iraq war was giving terrorists experience and contacts.

I’m glad we nipped that Iraq threat right in the bud…aren’t you?

Can we go on Orange Alert now? Please please please pleasepleaseplease?

Bobo Brooks proposes a radical alternative to Bush’s lame-duck Social Security privatization…uh, personalization…uh, destruction plan. You gots your own personal tax-deferred savings account, just like with Bush, ya see, then you cut traditional benefits by saying you’re indexing them based on prices instead of wages, also just like Bush. And you get to choose whether you want the piddly reduced benefit in full or you want to toss some of that money into the glorified 401(k) account. All sounds like Bush’s program, right? Yeah, but here’s the kicker, the thing that’ll make it just take off:

Are you ready?

The accounts will get a goofy name, and the government will throw in $3500 gratis!

So, that eliminates all of my concerns; who wants cake?

Hey, alternatively we could just divert up to 100% of our payroll taxes into the purchase of lottery tickets! Chances are somebody’s gonna be retiring well, at least!

Just realized that I’ll be spending inauguration day in about the best place I can–the antipodal hemisphere to the US! If all goes to plan, I shall be tramping along the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand while Bush promises four more years of fear, lies, and willful destruction of all that is good in the world.

Essentially:

“Exurbs aren’t cities. People live there. I could not host book signings there, so it is impressive that the residents voted for George Bush. Exurbs are bland and formulaic, without any civic life, but it is absurd to think so. Don’t listen to me.”

Finally saying something sensical, at least.

David Brooks sure is working hard to make Kerry’s Iraq speech pin him as the ‘anti-war candidate’:

Rhetorically, this was his best foreign policy speech by far (it helps to pick a side). Politically, it was risky. Kerry’s new liberal tilt makes him more forceful on the stump, but opens huge vulnerabilities. Does he really want to imply that 1,000 troops died for nothing?

I didn’t realize it was ‘liberal’ to say that Bush has majorly screwed up on the war. And why should an implication that more than 1,000 troops have died for nothing (or worse than nothing) place the blame on Kerry, and not on the man responsible for their deployment? Perhaps the new definition of ‘liberal’ is ‘telling the truth’…or maybe that’s not such a new definition.

As for Brooks’ claim that Kerry’s primary goal is quick withdrawal from Iraq: if that’s the case, Kerry could have stated it more clearly than this:

In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot throw up our hands. We cannot afford to see Iraq become a permanent source of terror that will endanger America’s security for years to come.

and:

Our troops have served with extraordinary courage and commitment. For their sake, and America’s sake, we must get this right. We must do everything in our power to complete the mission and make America stronger at home and respected again in the world.