iowa underground blog

What with the popularity of you-tube, disseminating your own self-styled campaign spots has never been easier, and with the advent an open-source application by the name of CamStudio – actually making the videos has perhaps never been simpler. The folllowing ad was pieced together simply by opening a few files up in photoshop – manipulating the images while the RECORD button in Cam Studio is pushed, then hitting PAUSE for the frame break. This is a pretty rudimentary example of what can be done – tap your own creative juices and slap something together that will help push Iowa back into the blue, what say you?

Thanks to profo, on the Iowa Underground forums, for the concept.

• pdx

From the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: But if reform has to come from the people who are benefiting from the system, are we going to get reform?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: We’re going to get reform if and when they believe that the public will have the tar cooking and the feathers waiting if they don’t do reform. We’re not there yet, Bill.

THOMAS FRANK: Can I say two things about this question? First of all, the people who are in charge now have a vested interest in increasing our cynicism. They are the party of cynicism against government. And when they do these things, that’s just an added benefit that they’ve managed to get the cynicism numbers up where they have. That’s good for the Republican Party, the party that tells you that what? Remember what President Reagan used to say about government, you know? It was a joke, the idea that they were here to help you, all that stuff.

The second point I want to make is go back to the 19th century, the sort of parallel experience to what we’re going through now. You had a series of reformers come up in the 19th century. And every single one of them from, you know, Horace Greeley all up to the 1890s failed miserably, you know, were rejected in huge sweep. I mean, the corruptionists just whipped these guys. It was a piece of cake. It was easy. The only thing that—what really changed it is when reform became a broader thing, when it became Progressivism. And when it became, you know, look at society as a whole. We’re going to change the entire direction that we’re moving in. When—I’m talking about here people like Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. That’s when this stuff started to abate. Not before that.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: You know, one problem we have here is what we really need is politicians. Politicians understand the nature of politics and the importance of the institutions. How to do give and take and compromises in an effective fashion. What’s happening now is where this flame of cynicism in the public, somebody pops up and says, “I’m not a politician.” And we say, “Okay, great. We’ll elect you.” And what we get are people who are on an ideological crusade, people who have a contempt for politics and believe that it is all sleaze, everybody does it. So bribery is a way of life.

BILL MOYERS: Is there hope when money trumps everything else today?

THOMAS FRANK: You don’t want to ask me that. I’m, you know, I’m a very pessimistic guy. And I don’t think there is because, you know, earlier we were talking about the Democrats and their reaction to all this, and I think their reaction has been lukewarm to feeble. No, they want that money, too. You know, they want to turn this around—-

BILL MOYERS: I saw the other day a very powerful House member, Democrat, saying, you know, “We’re going after some uncharted sources of money in the financial community. And we’re telling them that the next majority leader might be a Democrat.”

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Yeah. You know, we’ve had a telecommunications bill that’s been up and pending in Congress for a long time, and they’re going to keep it pending for a long time. And every once in a while they say, “It’s going to pass, going to pass.” So then each side keeps throwing more money into it. Some of this stuff is difficult to deal with. It’s an ages-old problem. We have to constantly be at it to keep the money system from careening out of control.

In the short run, we’ve got a big problem here. We have a sharply polarized political system. We called the book The Broken Branch because Congress is thoroughly dysfunctional. It isn’t going to change overnight. We need new leadership, including a presidential campaign that may bring it. But we’ve got a process that’s going to take us years to reconstruct. I have long-term hope. We’ve always done it before. But short term, I’m very pessimistic.

BILL MOYERS: Does history, Mr. Historian, give us any reason for hope?

THOMAS FRANK: Sure. Absolutely. But in the very long term, I’m sorry to say.

BILL MOYERS: George Bush came to office in 2000, vowing to clean up Washington. And I just looked at one of his speeches this morning. “We’re going to clean up Washington,” he said. What happened?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: They cleaned up in Washington.

More discussion on the forums.

• sousy

With a ‘thanks’ once again to A.V. Krebs comes this opinion piece from the New York Times:

THE ULTIMATE AGRICULTURAL EFFICIENCY
Editorial New York Times
September 23, 2006

Any American history of pork—- the meat, that is—- shows a steady concentration of more and more hogs in the hands of fewer and fewer producers. That is what modern agricultural “efficiency” looks like. It’s good for the bottom line of the big industrial players, but bad for farmers, hogs, the environment and, ultimately, consumers.

That history took another step in the wrong direction when Smithfield Foods—- the biggest pork packer—- agreed to buy the second biggest pork packer, Premium Standard Farms.

This is a deal that deserves to be closely examined by antitrust regulators. It would mean fewer markets for farmers and fewer choices for consumers. Already, packing giants like Smithfield and Premium Standard Farms use their market power, when buying hogs, in ways that violate the spirit of the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, which prohibits undue price discrimination. Their power in the marketplace allows them to negotiate price premiums that smaller packers can’t offer.

The public should also understand what the deal would mean for the future of American farming. It would push farmers still farther down the road to becoming nothing but contract laborers.

There is little or no role for the independent farmer in this landscape. The logic is simple: Why bother to buy pigs from farmers when you can own them yourself? If this deal closes, more than half the pigs Smithfield kills would be pigs it already owns, a percentage that is sure to increase.

The hog farmers’ job would no longer be farming. They would be janitors in confinement barns across rural America where the packers’ huge herds of pigs are crammed in stalls to live out their short lives.

And that would be the ultimate efficiency of American agriculture—- doing away with the farmer by doing away with competitive markets.

Most independent pork producers have already discovered this fact: if you don’t have a ‘semi-load’ to sell…. you don’t have a buyer. Independent sale barns have closed nearly everywhere and the ‘free market’ for pork is dwindling in favor of contract growers that promote a certain type of industrial efficiency. Packer ownership of livestock will only further industrial efficiencies as a way of life dwindles to a final generation.