Dana Blankenhorn

The End of Impunity

One thing which has marked the last two decades, and it's as true for ordinary people as for our leaders, has been a sense of impunity.

Democrats complain often of how the Bush Administration displays impunity. The rules don't apply to them. They make up their own reality. The President cannot break the law.

We talk a lot less about our personal impunity. We can buy what we want. We can walk away from our debts. We don't have to make hard choices.

Democrats most fear talking about the impunity inherent in their own positions. We'll get out of Iraq on our own schedule, and stay in Afghanistan "to win," they say. We'll give ordinary people tax cuts and raise spending on health care and education.

The end of all this impunity is a big theme in our current crisis and all of us -- Democrats, Republicans, consumers, businesses -- remain in the denial stage of the process.

Last week's biggest story may have been Joseph Stiglitz' (above) estimate of the Iraq war's cost -- $3-5 trillion. (It's all here in his book.) The figure seems unimaginable so let me put it into perspective.

It's going to cost the U.S. its autonomy. It's going to cost our currency. It's going to cost you your life savings, and me mine. It's going to end the era of American impunity.

Dirty F'ing Haties

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 9 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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One of the smartest things I have written at this blog came from my daughter, Robin. In a 2006 post I compared right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts to hippies from the 1960s.

No, she said. They're haties.

She's right, but the historical comparison remains apt, and I've made it many times. The haties are in the same historical role that hippies were 40 years ago.

The key to understanding the political changes of that time was its rejection of the hippies, then all those who enabled them. It was these people Spiro Agnew was describing in his speeches about liberal elites -- he was extending the public distaste for hippies to those who found anything redeemable in them.

The historical rejection of the hippies is a key to understanding the Nixon Thesis of Conflict, the political assumptions which have dominated America since that time, and which still dominate our media discourse.

The next step, after dismissing the hippies, was to defang them, and in this their supposed supporters in the media were highly complicit.

You can see it proceed throughout the 1970s. First they were turned into cartoons -- Scooby Doo. Then they were turned into suburbanites -- the Partridge Family. By the end of the decade they were merely a laughable stance -- Mork & Mindy. And they were an historical artifact, forgotten, crushed under history's wheel.

This process is just beginning for the haties of today. I would like to urge you to join in.

Fear Itself

UPDATE: To learn what you can do about this scourge check out our latest post on the Dirty F'ing Haties.

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Liberal bloggers are getting their undies in a bunch over the Far Right's hate campaign against their man Barack Obama.

It's a game, says Josh Marshall. People won't see through it.

There are lots of charges you can make against liberalism, and by far the worst is their assumption of defeat. They're constantly Charlie Brown before the football, absolutely convinced it's about to be pulled away, because Lucy always gets away with it. (To the right, Cincinnati bloviator Bill Cunningham, of the McCain rally. Give him one back.)

Oh, and the American people are stupid enough to fall for it, say the libs fretfully. Again and again and again. They'll never learn. They're sheep.

It's this assumption of American stupidity I find most alarming. If Americans are that stupid, then maybe democracy is a mistake, and maybe we should have government of our betters, by our betters, for our betters.

Problem is, Mr. Liberal Jackass, you think you're our better, but you're not. Our better is always the ruthless one, the man who best harnesses our base fears. It was true in Latin America for decades, true in Europe before that. True in Africa today. You're not ruthless enough or twisted enough or evil enough to be our better.

Our better is giving you the finger.

What Starbucks Can Learn from Barack Obama

I have been to several Starbucks in my travels over the last few days. (Picture from MIT's Branding Blog, which is missing the point I'm about to make.)

They've got trouble. Terrible, terrible trouble. Their merchandising is stale. The message from their all hands meeting the other night is they're happy being McCoffee.

What's worse is they think they're in the coffee business. They're not in the coffee business. They're in a host of businesses, most of which they're doing as afterthoughts. Mainly they're supposed to be in the experience business.

Their coffee equipment selection sucks -- my carafe broke today and I couldn't replace it there. Their music selection is horribly limited. Their baked goods are stale. Worse, the employees don't care -- all the chain cares about is making good coffee.

I could jazz that place up in 5 minutes. Watch me:

• Bring in musicians. Empower local stores to find them. Add their CDs to the rack. So what if each gig only brings in a half-dozen souls -- that's all the place can hold. But it starts a process of connecting to music's grassroots.
• Better doughnuts. Or brownies. Or whatever. You need your people checking out the local bakery purveyors, bringing those suggestions up the chain, and you need to empower lower-level managers to try something new. Something fresh. Something from the area.
• A Better WiFi deal. The current AT&T deal lets people with a Starbucks card get free WiFi. Why not print a daily passcode on your receipts so anyone who buys a coffee drink today gets free WiFi today?
• Better merchandise. I wanna carafe. I want better selection, which means you need better buyers who will scour the globe (as they used to claim they did) for coffee-related stuff. Start it small, buy more if it does well. Spruce things up.

Oh, the Obama headline? There's a ton Starbucks can learn from Barack Obama. But you'll have to click through to learn what it is.

Still Got It

I hope regular readers have missed me the last several days.

I’ve been reporting. I do that. I’m a journalist.

Specifically I was reporting on the HIMSS show for ZDNet. HIMSS is the big event in the health care IT world, and I hoped that by learning about the players I could improve the coverage at Healthcare.Zdnet.com, maybe come up with more readers, maybe even justify the faith they placed in me by handing out the beat in the first place.

But there was a second reason for me to drive to Orlando Monday, hustle around the convention center Tuesday and hustle back here to Atlanta on Wednesday.

I wanted to see if I could still do it.

Could I take apart a big event, something outside my comfort zone, hunt down its essential stories, and explain what was happening in clear, simple English? Could I ask the right questions, take good notes, read those notes, write on deadline, and attend the after-show party, without collapsing in a heap?

Fact is I haven’t done much hands-on reporting since the dot-bomb dropped 8 years ago now. Back in the 1990s I was traveling so often I actually had an airline medallion card. Since 2001, nothing. The last event I covered as a reporter was th 2006 Freedom2Connect conference in Washington.

I used to look down on those old-timers who would haunt their old playing fields, trying to prove themselves to themselves. This week, in a way, I was one of them.

People and their Government

My friend Tariq Mustafa wrote from Karachi this morning.

He was complaining about a New York Times editorial shedding crocodile tears over President Pervez Musharraf's open threats against a journalist.

Tariq's point was that the Times said nothing when Musharraf fired the nation's judges and attacked civil society last year. Instead, the Times (like the U.S. government) seemed more concerned with whether Pakistan would remain an ally in our own "War on Terror" than whether its society was allowed to function.

Today the ZDNet blog Threat Chaos is filled with similar condescension toward Pakistan. First, President Musharraf demanded that access to YouTube be shut, accusing it of blasphemy. Then, a local ISP trying to deal with the order cut itself off entirely from the Internet, taking the whole country with it.

Richard Steinnon concluded, with enormous condescension:

I could say: “be careful what you wish for” to those elements that object to free and open access to information and expression of ideas. But to put it in terms they might understand better: Do not anger the Internet gods or  you will suffer their wrath!

He's right, but....