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» I had never heard of the Overton Window, but I'm glad Rafe pointed me to this:
For a lot of reasons, not all of them bad, most people don’t like feeling like they’re disconnecting themselves from the majority of their fellow human beings... [F]or most people, being perceived as an eccentric outlier is something to be feared. This isn’t fundamentally because most people are corrupt, it’s fundamentally because most people are social animals, and feeling connected with the pack is critical to our sense of well-being. This is why “moving the goalposts” works, even when those doing so barely bother to conceal it.
This particular discussion focuses on politics (and that's important) but this is one of those ideas that will resonate in every aspect of your life: at work, when dealing with your kids, affecting social change, and so on. Read the whole thing. (via rc3)
Update: It dawned on me a few minutes ago when reading the Wikipedia entry that the Overton Window is related to my usual argument in favor of certain radical groups: they open up an avenue for discussion and consideration. People may reject PETA's premise, for example, that animals should never be used in testing of any kind. But in doing so, those same people may decide that—while medical testing on animals is acceptable—certain forms of testing on animals in the manufacture of cosmetics should be eliminated.
Come to think of it, I suppose this is the purpose Ann Coulter serves for the far right. She's so very extreme that almost anyone else appears to be reasonable by comparison. See? I told you this was an idea that kept on giving.
Update: Jason Kottke links to a good introduction to the Overton Window by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:
A politician’s success or failure stems from how well they understand and amplify the ideas and ideals held by those who elected them. [...] Therefore, they will almost always constrain themselves to taking actions within the "window" of ideas approved of by the electorate. Actions outside of this window, while theoretically possible, and maybe more optimal in terms of sound policy, are politically unsuccessful.
[...] So, if a think tank’s research and the principles of sound policy suggest a particular idea that lies outside the Overton window, what is to be done? Shift the window.
/ (5) Comments / [ 04/05/07 ]
» A Hillary Clinton/1984 Apple Super Bowl ad mashup is on YouTube—but no one knows where it came from. ["Hillary 1984" represents] "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama. It's about the end of the broadcast era." Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute. / (2) Comments / [ 03/19/07 ]
» Nancy Pelosi's first 100 Hours.
Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.
Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds &mdash "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.
All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.
To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level." She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. [...] "We believe in the marketplace," Pelosi said of Democrats, then drew a contrast with Republicans. "They have only rewarded wealth, not work."
I'm all for it. Let's see if she can do it.
/ (2) Comments / [ 11/08/06 ]
» Today's the day: Vote! [ 11/07/06 ]
» This is a really interesting observation: Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes. Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute [wikipedia] freedom scholar.
Update: When I say "interesting" I mean "What a strange thing to say". If it's true, what does that say about the Administration? If it's not true, just what is Mr. Ledeen implying? / (1) Comments / [ 11/07/06 ]
» The Difference Two Years Makes. Be sure to vote tomorrow. [ 11/06/06 ]
» Malcolm Gladwell:
The Risk Pool. What’s behind Ireland’s economic miracle—and G.M.’s financial crisis? / (1) Comments / [ 08/22/06 ]
» Der Spiegel interviews Jimmy Carter.
There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always had a policy of not going to war unless our own security was directly threatened and now we have a new policy of going to war on a preemptive basis. Another very serious departure from past policies is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book. This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible with this. The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We've never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.
[ 08/21/06 ]
» Bush v. Gore has started to disappear into a legal memory hole—and why it should not.
The heart of Bush v. Gore’s analysis was its holding that the recount was unacceptable because the standards for vote counting varied from county to county. "Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms," the court declared, "the state may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another." If this equal protection principle is taken seriously, if it was not just a pretext to put a preferred candidate in the White House, it should mean that states cannot provide some voters better voting machines, shorter lines, or more lenient standards for when their provisional ballots get counted — precisely the system that exists across the country right now.
[ 08/17/06 ]
» I'm sure you've already heard about the Livestock Compensation Program .
In all, the Livestock Compensation Program cost taxpayers $1.2 billion during its two years of existence, 2002 and 2003. Of that, $635 million went to ranchers and dairy farmers in areas where there was moderate drought or none at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post. None of the ranchers were required to prove they suffered an actual loss. The government simply sent each of them a check based on the number of cattle they owned.
[ 08/03/06 ]
» Is anyone else baffled by the US obsession with Castro and his illness? (Cuban immigrants aside: of course they have strong feelings about events in their country of origin.)
Our entire relation with Cuba is an artifact of the Cold War, and that's been over for years. At that time, Cuba represented the Soviet Union in our own hemisphere, a possible foothold for the Communists who were bent on taking us over. Once the Soviet Union fell, why didn't we instantly normalize relations with Cuba, in effect saying "You, yourself, are actually not a threat. You're just a teeny little country." That's far more powerful than this vestigal fear—in fact, our outdated policy imbues Cuba with more authority than any objective measure ever would. Do you think Castro hasn't noticed that he still terrifies the United States? / (2) Comments / [ 08/02/06 ]
» What's the most effective way to curb illegal immigration? Raise the minimum wage. / (1) Comments / [ 07/26/06 ]
» Three from Robot Wisdom:
[ 07/25/06 ]
» All cultures seem to allow for retribution: an in-kind act to repay an affront and to balance things out. But studies suggest that people tend to remember the causes of their own actions, and the consequences of other peoples'. To complicate matters, volunteers instructed to respond to a physical touch with equal force typically respond with about 40 percent more force than they had just experienced. It all adds up to this: He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t. / (1) Comments / [ 07/25/06 ]
» Bush cuts the number of estate tax lawyers working in the IRS. Sharyn Phillips, a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in Manhattan, called the cuts a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.” I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat. [ 07/24/06 ]
» Wow. I'm with Rafe: Why wasn't this Spike Jonze film interview of Al Gore shown during the 2000 election season? It's 15 minutes long. Save it for your lunch hour or when you get home. You'll be glad you saw it. [ 07/19/06 ]
» NYT: An American Foreign Policy That Both Realists and Idealists Should Fall in Love With. Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, outlines his approach to foreign policy: progressive realism.
This sounds harsh, but it is only acknowledgment of something often left unsaid: a nation’s foreign policy will always favor the interests of its citizens and so fall short of moral perfection. We can at least be thankful that history, by intertwining the fates of peoples, is bringing national interest closer to moral ideals.
Harnessing this benign dynamic isn’t the only redemptive feature of progressive realism. [Hans] Morgenthau emphasized that sound strategy requires a “respectful understanding” of all players in the game. “The political actor,” he wrote, “must put himself into the other man’s shoes, look at the world and judge it as he does.”
This immersion in the perspective of the other is sometimes called “moral imagination,” and it is hard. Understanding why some people hate America, and why terrorists kill, is challenging not just intellectually but emotionally. Yet it is crucial and has been lacking in President Bush, who saves time by ascribing behavior that threatens America to the hatred of freedom or (and this is a real time saver) to evil. As Morgenthau saw, exploring the root causes of bad behavior, far from being a sentimentalist weakness, informs the deft use of power. Realpolitik is reality-based.
/ (4) Comments / [ 07/17/06 ]
» What Bill Clinton learned from his predecessors about being president, and his formula for fairly judging any president. "I really think the circumstances determine where you are ranked — whether you have big wars, like the Civil War or World War II. But there are three or four tests you can apply to any president, which are much fairer than ranking them where the deal is rigged based on the time in which they served." William Jefferson Clinton, Forty-Second President of the United States. [ 07/11/06 ]
» Media Literacy Moment: In May, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, wrote the President a four-page letter warning him that the failure to disclose secret intelligence activities to Congress may be a violation of the law. The activities were disclosed to the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee by whistleblowers. But that's not why I called you here today.
I wanted to point out the photograph that accompanies the article (or did when I read it Sunday morning). It is typical of a photo selected to illustrate an article of this type: President Bush, caught in an uncomfortable moment, his back turned to photographers, head down, as if, perhaps, in shame.
But click through to the picture and you'll see that the caption reads "President Bush attends a Sunday morning church service in Washington, July 9, 2006". Now read the picture: President Bush, caught in a private moment, his back turned to photographers, head down, as if, perhaps, in prayer.
Context is everything in interpreting this photo, which was chosen—not to document the moment when Bush was confronted with his wrongdoing—but to illustrate a [repentant/wronged/uncommunicative/ashamed/angry/take your pick] response to the news. [ 07/10/06 ]
» An Army document proves that Guantánamo interrogators were taught by instructors from a military school that trains U.S. soldiers how to resist torture. The most enlightening part of this article is the description of mock prison camps in the "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape" (SERE) school, from a retired Army Ranger who passed the course in 1994. American soldiers are subjected to a variety of abuses in an attempt to prepare them for possible capture by the enemy.
In addition to sexual humiliation, psychological duress is a big part of the program and comes in a variety of flavors, including an overall assault on a soldier's values. Mock interrogators desecrated an American flag, stepped on a copy of the Constitution, and "kicked the Bible around," the Ranger said -- an echo of the abuse of the Koran alleged at Guantánamo. Soldiers were ridiculed for their lack of knowledge of the Constitution and U.S. history. "They begin to preach propaganda and attack your institutional base," the Ranger said. "Everything about SERE school is a mind f***."
We imagined a most terrible enemy, then, in a time of great fear, modeled ourselves on that creature. It's almost literary in its tragedy. / (4) Comments / [ 06/30/06 ]
» A Little Weekend Reading: Mark Crispin Miller responds to Farhad Manjoo's dismissal of the Rolling Stone article that alleges the 2004 election was stolen—and he's having none of it. Worth reading, particularly for his analysis of the media's response to the allegations. Interestingly, Salon refused to run his piece.
Bill Anthony, the Democratic chair of Franklin County's Board of Elections, has quietly contradicted what he said both to Manjoo and Baker, telling Bob Fitrakis, on the record, that he does believe Bush/Cheney stole Ohio, largely by fiddling with the numbers in the rural counties in the state's Southwest (a major vote-theft, as Kennedy explains in Rolling Stone). [...] Bob Hagan, a Democratic state senator from Youngstown, tells of having had his own e-vote for Kerry flip to Bush -- a glitch that wiped out Kerry votes throughout Ohio (and at least a dozen other states), and yet the Democrats told Hagan not to mention it: "The Kerry campaign said, 'Leave it alone. Don't talk about it. It's not something we want to get out.'"
(via rw) / (1) Comments / [ 06/23/06 ]
» Ernest Partridge argues that Salon's rebuttal to evidence of fraudulent behavior in the 2004 election ignores most of the charges made.
Manjoo complains that Kennedy commits "numerous errors of interpretation and ... deliberate omission of key bits of data." But "the whole story" cannot be told in the allowed space. Even so, with his 206 endnotes, RFK makes a valiant attempt. More telling are Manjoo's omissions. [...] I found at least twenty key elements of Kennedy's case for fraud that were totally ignored by Manjoo.
[ 06/15/06 ]
» Must-read article of the year: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?. "Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen. You look at the turnout and votes in individual precincts, compared to the historic patterns in those counties, and you can tell where the discrepancies are. They stand out like a sore thumb." Lou Harris, the father of modern political polling. [ 06/05/06 ]
» Over at Salon, Farhad Manjoo says No, it wasn't. You'd better read them both and see where you think the preponderance of evidence lies.. [ 06/05/06 ]
» In poetry-loving Yemen, tribal bard takes on Al Qaeda - with his verse. "Other countries fight terrorism with guns and bombs, but in Yemen we use poetry. Through my poetry I can convince people of the need for peace who would never be convinced by laws or by force." Amin al-Mashreqi, a Yemeni poet who is fighting Islamic militancy with poetry. [ 05/15/06 ]
» The Gun Owners of America has sent out an op ed piece to conservative news outlets explaining why it agrees with Moveon.org, in the fight for network neutrality.
The real problem is that we are under a distorted market from the get-go. Government is setting the rules. The result has been a government-supported oligopoly. We are lucky that those controlling physical access to the Internet have been forced to give every purchaser of bandwidth equal access – it doesn’t matter whether Gun Owners or the Brady Center is purchasing a T-1: all T-1 purchasers pay the same for the same level of service. And moreover, the phone company has to tough it if they don’t like what is being done with that bandwidth.
[ 05/12/06 ]
» In a recent fundraising letter, Elizabeth Dole sought to rally the faithful with the warning that if Democrats "seize control of the Senate" they will "call for endless investigations, congressional censure and maybe even impeachment of President Bush". Wait, the Republicans don't approve of that? [ 05/10/06 ]
» Department of Agriculture employees have been instructed to incorporate talking points on Iraq into their speeches. Scratching your head? The email includes several helpful segues, like "Several topics I'd like to talk about today — Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu . . . but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always ask about . . . progress in Iraq." The examples are hilarious — but they all come round to assuring you that the President has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq. (via usfp) [ 05/09/06 ]
» CSM: The US does not consider the Taliban to be terrorists. "The Afghan Taliban is better organized today than it was in 2001. They have more recruits [and they] have been able to take advantage of the lawlessness, the criminal gangs, and the corruption in the government." Kathy Gannon, the former Associated Press bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan. / (1) Comments / [ 05/03/06 ]
» Salon has an excellent article that explains network neutrality and what is really at stake if the Telcos get their wish. For an analogy, think of the way cable companies operate. Have we seen competition emerge amongst cable companies within individual cities and neighborhoods? Do they always choose the programs you want to see for "Basic cable"? Do you have any recourse if they decide not to carry a particular station you want to watch? Now imagine that same state of affairs when you surf the Web. If this issue is new to you, it's worth your while to understand why the Telcos are lobbying Congress so hard. (via rc3oi) / (1) Comments / [ 05/03/06 ]
» Flickr photos arranged by "Interestingness": A Day Without Immigrants. [ 05/02/06 ]
» I sure hope this isn't true. Is Covert Military Action in Iran 'Under the CNN Line'?
COL. SAM GARDINER: Well, the evidence is beginning to accumulate that a decision has already been made to use military force in Iran. Now, let me do a historical thing, and then I’ll tell you what the current evidence is. We now know that the decision and the actual actions to bomb Iraq occurred in July of 2002, before we ever had a U.N. resolution or before the Congress ever authorized it. It was an operation called Southern Focus, and the only guidance that the military — or the guidance that the military had from Rumsfeld was keep it below the CNN line. His specific words. The evidence that we’ve already —
AMY GOODMAN: Keep it below what?
COL. SAM GARDINER: The CNN line. In other words, I don’t want this to appear on CNN, okay? That was his guidance to the military, you can begin to bomb Iraq, but don’t let it appear on CNN.
[ 04/20/06 ]
» Andrew Leonard takes a look at the convoluted positions partisans have been twistered into by the immigration debate. [Commercial required to read article.] (via rc3oi) [ 04/12/06 ]
» A new study claims that insecure children tend to grow up rigid and traditional, hence politically conservative, while more confident children, eager to explore alternatives, tend to become liberal. I think the naysayer in this article has a point: these insecure people might be gravitating toward authoritarianism or the status quo, which in the US would be the right, but in China would be the (leftist) state party. For what it's worth, I was an insecure child. [ 04/04/06 ]
» Notes for Converts, Jane Smiley
Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.
/ (1) Comments / [ 03/31/06 ]
» What Does it Mean to be 'Political'?
The words "politics" and "political" have been so degraded and defiled that maybe it's just as well Beebo doesn't want to call us "political" but, in my opinion, we are all political writers. Indeed every act of personal reflection (however minute) followed by the public speech act of opining to the universe is a political act. It is why freedom of speech is so fundamental (and so frightening to the fascists).
Amen. [ 03/30/06 ]
» Go Grrrl News: In response to South Dakota's new law banning abortion, Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has announced that she plans to establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Whump's reaction is right: a move from tribal casinos to tribal medicine can only benefit everyone. / (4) Comments / [ 03/23/06 ]
» A Little Weekend Reading and Reflecting: It's hard to look at the Abu Ghraib pictures, but I feel that we Americans have a duty to know what has been done and is being done in our name. Even if you can't bear to click through the thumbnails to see the full-sized images, at least read the accompanying articles that explain what happened, and the events surrounding the abuse. Jeanne d'Arc has looked at all of them, and she has some very thoughtful observations on how these soldiers got from who they were to who they became. She's quite honestly much more empathetic and forgiving than I think I can be.
I can't even imagine the kind of rhetoric that would be flying around if the prisoners in these photographs were Americans being held by any other nation at all. So it's important to know what, exactly, happened. I am ashamed and outraged that this was done by our people on our behalf. That each of these abuses was done in proxy for me. And that those responsible are still in office and on the job. (via rc3oi) [ 03/17/06 ]
» NYT: "An examination of regulatory filings by The New York Times shows that companies with electric utilities in at least 26 states have pocketed money intended for income taxes, and that utilities can legally do so in 21 more states." (via dm) [ 03/16/06 ]
» A third case of Mad Cow disease has been found in Alabama. Predictably, the USDA and National Cattlemen's Beef Association say this is evidence that the voluntary program is working. Public-interest groups say voluntary programs are not enough, and are urging Congress to make permanent bans on allowing "downer" cows into the human food supply, and to extend it to pigs and other livestock. Frankly, I'm shocked to discover that this was a temporary measure. "There is no reason to play Russian roulette with the food supply, nor is there any reason to torment nonambulatory livestock by dragging or pushing them into slaughterhouses with chains, bulldozers, or forklifts." Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. / (3) Comments / [ 03/15/06 ]
» The revolutionary matriarch of Hamas. Mariam Farhat, who lost 3 militant sons in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has recently been elected to the Palestinian legislative council. She now hopes to enforce stricter Islamic practices in her state, and to resist the Israeli occupation by any means necessary. Moderate Muslims are not so sure. "People are so willing to die for this, and then these people become untouchable and much like a taboo. I think we can bring her down to earth by having her in parliament." Eyad Serraj, the head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Center. [ 03/15/06 ]
» Contradicting the NYTimes study, researchers at Baruch College at City University of New York have found that abortion rates declined significantly among Texas girls after the state enacted a parental notification law, though girls 17 1/2 or slightly older were 33% more likely to have an abortion in the second trimester in order to escape the notification requirement. "[Lead researcher Ted Joyce] said [the NYTimes] analysis had a different outcome because it included two states with tiny populations, one state where the law was overturned, and two states near areas where abortion is easily accessible without parental involvement." [ 03/10/06 ]
» Sen. Barack Obama has a plan for US energy independence, and boy is it smart. Someday I will vote for him for President. (via rc3oi) [ 03/08/06 ]
» A New York Times analysis of the states that enacted parental notification and parental consent laws from 1995 to 2004 found no evidence that those laws had a significant impact on the number of minors who got pregnant, or, once pregnant, the number who had abortions. "I see far more parents trying to pressure their daughters to have one. As a parent myself, I can understand. But I say to parents, 'You force her to have this abortion, and I can tell you that within the next six months she's going to be pregnant again.'" Jane Bovard, owner of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, N.D.
I guess the interesting thing to me is that if parental consent doesn't significantly affect the rates of teenage pregnancy and abortion (and there is some evidence that abortion rates go up in states that adjoin those that require parental consent), then there's less reason for many pro-lifers to support these laws, and for pro-choicers to oppose them. Of course, these are two "bright-line" groups. There is no room for nuance in this debate. Comments? [ 03/07/06 ]
» After Christian groups noticed the success of the Jewish community in helping Soviet Jews, they turned their attention to an effort that is now bearing fruit: the evangelization of US foreign policy. "A 20-year civil war [in Sudan] actually ended in large part due to the activism of evangelicals and their alliance with others, including Jewish groups. It's an unheralded story, but it's also a historical fact." Allen Hertzke, author of Freeing God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights. [ 03/06/06 ]
» If only we could get them interested in human rights at home. "Unfortunately, I think the government's right; it's a correct reading of the law. The law says you can't torture detainees at Guantanamo, but it also says you can't enforce that law in the courts." Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. (via b&s, who has much more here) [ 03/06/06 ]
» Wow. First South Dakota, now Mississippi. All at once that rhetorical fear-mongering in the Planned Parenthood and NOW fundraising letters is starting to sound like cool, accurate assessment. [ 03/02/06 ]
» America's Long War.
Looking beyond the Iraq and Afghan battlefields, US commanders envisage a war unlimited in time and space against global Islamist extremism. "The struggle ... may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come," the report says. The emphasis switches from large-scale, conventional military operations, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, towards a rapid deployment of highly mobile, often covert, counter-terrorist forces.
(via rw) [ 02/17/06 ]
