http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/17/fdl-book-salon-millennial-makeover/

2008, everyone says now with a knowing nod, is a "change election." If this interminable primary season has shown us anything, it's that people want something radically different than politics-as-usual -- or, as some of us are starting to realize, even politics-as-we've-known-it-since-Nixon. It's hard to ignore now that there's a quantum shift occurring in our national priorities, our tolerance for unproductive confrontation, and our faith in government's capacity to solve problems. And some of us even feel the cool, bracing stirrings of a tentative but rising hope that things that seemed impossible in the past might soon be within our reach at last.

This deep shift in mood has caught a lot of people by surprise (not least the Clinton campaign, which seemed determined to party like it's 1999.) But there were a few people who saw this coming a long way back, because this very shift was predicted long ago by William Strauss and Neil Howe's secular theory of history, which was first brought to public attention in the 1991 book Generations, and in nearly a dozen books since.

Strauss and Howe postulated that American history turns in a four-phase cycle of awakening, unraveling, crisis, and resolution that repeats every 80 years; and that this cycle is driven by the character of four repeating generational types that are both created by the cycle, and create it in turn. Their thesis foreshadowed 9/11 (which they predicted in striking detail in 1997's The Fourth Turning). It also suggested that somewhere between 2005 and 2010, there would be a dramatic -- and probably progressive -- political realignment not unlike the one in 1932, which restored faith in government, ignited a new generation of young voters, and brought the country together to rebuild the nation and revitalize its civic life.

Today's guests, Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, are media and marketing experts who've worked with secular theory throughout their careers to predict shifting trends. Their book, Millennial Makeover, applies secular theory to the 2008 election and what lies beyond, looking closely at the way the rising Millennial generation is changing our politics, and will likely transform the country in the decades ahead. Here's a summary of their thesis, from a WaPo op-ed they wrote in February:

Today's millennials look a lot like the GI generation, born between 1901 and 1924, which FDR described as having "a rendezvous with destiny" — a phrase Ted Kennedy echoed last week in his endorsement of Obama. In 1930, the GI generation was nearly twice as large as the two previous generations combined. Today's millennials are the largest generation in U.S. history — twice as large as Generation X and numbering a million more than the baby boomers. Though nearly 90 percent of the GI generation was white, it was diverse for its time. Many members were immigrants or the children of Catholic and Jewish immigrants. About 40 percent of millennials are of African American, Latino, Asian or racially mixed backgrounds. Twenty percent have at least one immigrant parent.

Civic generations are committed to political involvement and believe in using and strengthening political and government institutions. In the 1930s, young members of the GI generation regularly voted in greater numbers than older generations. Similarly, millennials have led this year's surge in voter participation, especially in Democratic contests.

In the New Hampshire Democratic primary, turnout was up by more than 50 percent over 2000 among voters under 30, while among older voters it rose by only a bit more than 10 percent. According to one research firm that tracks millennials' civic engagement, voters 25 and under accounted for 18 percent of all Democratic voters in New Hampshire this year. In 2000, the same age group (which then consisted mostly of the disaffected Generation X) made up only 13 percent of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote. In Iowa, according to CNN, the differences were even more dramatic: twenty percent of Democratic caucus participants were young voters, four times the number in 2004. Similarly unprecedented levels of voter participation in this year's Democratic elections in Nevada, South Carolina and even Florida's "beauty contest" primary have been driven by the enthusiasm of millennial voters.

Millennials' political style is also similar to the GI generation's. They aren't confrontational or combative, the way boomers (whose generational mantra was "Don't trust anyone over 30") have been. Nor does the millennials' rhetoric reflect the cynicism and alienation of Generation X, whose philosophy is, "Life sucks, and then you die." Instead, their political style reflects their generation's constant interaction with hundreds, if not thousands, of "friends" on MySpace or Facebook, about any and all subjects, increasingly including politics. Since they started watching "Barney" as toddlers, the millennials have learned to be concerned for the welfare of everyone in the group and to try to find consensus, "win-win" solutions to any problem. The result is a collegial approach that attracts millennials to candidates who seek to unify the country and heal the nation's divisions.

Unlike the young baby boomers, millennials want to strengthen the political system, not tear it down. According to a study last year by the Pew Research Center, most millennials (64 percent) disagree that the federal government is wasteful and inefficient, while most older Americans (58 percent) think it is. A 2006 survey by Frank N. Magid Associates indicated that millennials are more likely than older generations to believe that politicians care what people think and are more concerned with the good of the country than of their political party.

It also showed that millennials, more than their elders, believe that U.S. political institutions will deal effectively with concerns the nation will face in the future.

Given the public's disapproval of both Congress and President Bush, we're going to need all the optimism and change we can generate to overcome those challenges. Luckily, the millennial generation, like its GI generation forebears, is arriving right on time to deliver just what America needs.

Millennials are naturally progressive in many ways, write Winograd and Hais -- but that doesn't mean that the Democrats don't have plenty of chances to alienate them, especially if Boomers don't handle the generational transfer of power gracefully over the next few years. Since 2008 will likely be the election in which these new voters forge the party allegiances that they'll follow for the rest of their lives, it's absolutely critical that Boomer and Gen X leaders understand this new cohort of voters. America's progressive future may well depend on our willingness to move over and make room for their far more expansive and hopeful view of the world, and allow it to re-shape our sense of what's politically possible. It's not an overstatement to say that what's happening now in this election is going to shape the political beliefs of a generation, and set the country's course for the next 40+ years.

Jerome Armstrong at MyDD said that Millennial Makeover is the best book on elections he's read since The Emerging Democratic Majority. Frank Rich thought it explained quite a bit about why Obama's winning in places nobody thought he could. As a long-time fan of Strauss & Howe's model of social change, I welcome this as thoroughly researched documentation of long-predicted trends playing out in real time -- and reason to look ahead to the future with considerable optimism.

Coming to us live from Southern California, let's give Morley and Mike a big FDL welcome.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/014703.html

Tourist girl #1: You know that movie Juno? Is it named after "Ju-no", like, "You know?"..."Ju-no"?
Tourist girl #2: I think it's her name.
Tourist girl #1: Oh... Ok.

--6 Train

Overheard by: Emily

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/05/17/ted-kennedy-hospitalized/

I posted about this on a thread at my place, but wanted to post it here in case folks had heard any more developments.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy was rushed from his Hyannisport home to Massachusetts General Hospital this morning after an apparent seizure. One government official said the 76-year-old senator suffered a second seizure aboard a helicopter transport flight from the Cape to Boston.

Kennedy’s Senate office released a written statement just after 2 p.m. today offering the first official confirmation, saying, “It appears that Senator Kennedy experienced a seizure this morning. He is undergoing a battery of tests at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine the cause of the seizure. Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably, and it is unlikely we will know anything more for the next 48 hours.”

…The Cape Cod Times published a photograph of Kennedy, strapped to a gurney, being carried onto the chopper by paramedics.

John Kerry released this statement (came in my inbox at 3PM):

BOSTON, MA- Senator John Kerry today released the following statement in regards to Senator Edward Kennedy. Senator Kerry is currently at Massachusetts General Hospital with Senator Kennedy and members of the Kennedy family.

“Ted Kennedy is beloved and respected on both sides of the aisle in the Senate in which he’s been a giant for close to half a century, a legend in Massachusetts, and a dear friend to me and Teresa. He’s also been a fighter who has overcome adversity again and again with courage, grit, and determination. Teresa and I are praying for Teddy, Vicki and all of his family and we know that everyone in Massachusetts and people throughout the nation pray for a full and speedy recovery for a man whose life’s work has touched millions upon millions of lives.”

Video below the fold.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/17/best-oreilly-tributes/

Bill O’Reilly’s embarrassing “Inside Edition” tirade has been on the web for five days now, and has spurred various creative internet users to put together some hilarious spoofs. Aside from Colbert’s laugh-out-loud recreation, these are the two best I’ve seen so far. Both, obviously, are NSFW.

F**k It! The Dance Remix:

Bill O’Reilly’s Producer Speaks:

Being at a...well, not a crossroads, but rather a four-way intersection with a broken stop light, a five-car pileup ahead of me, and a SUV being driven by a alcoholic housewife right behind me one inch away from my bumper, has led me to some interesting idle thoughts and embarrassing acts of desperation. Most recently, I walked into a bookstore/cafe that didn't advertise but nonetheless obviously had a conservative Protestant Christian bent. Still, it had a good lunch menu and, since at least they didn't sell "liberty fries", I ordered a meal. As I waited and browsed and without any real hesitation, I started cruising the cook. I'm not sure if cruising staff at a conservative bookstore is a pathetic act of desperation or a subtle act of cultural terrorism, but either way I couldn't help myself. I was consumed by two types of animal appetite that afternoon.

He earned checks in almost all the boxes in my internal list of desireable physical characteristics: taller than me, long-hair (stuffed poorly but provocatively under a cap), and stubble. What really fascinated me, though, was how rude - well, outright disdainful - he was toward his co-workers. When one told him she couldn't find where the extra mayo was, he simply without saying a word - without even looking at her - went into the storage area for it and, again without a single word or a nod, later found it and handed it to her. He carried around the sort of tight-lipped, expressionless face that wards off casual pleasantries like an asshole's crucifix. If I was a straight woman, I'd have a chorus of "Nice Guys" behind me, whining about how I only flirted with jerks. So when he finally returned my admiration with a look that could either be interpreted as an examining glance or as a shot of contempt, I knew I had made my day.

As I ate (not surprised but disappointed that he didn't tuck away a slip of paper with his phone number under the fries), I imagined that he was enraged by the necessity of having to work at such a place. In the storyline that unfolded in my mind, he enlisted me in his war on the uptight Establishment management by gesturing me toward a back room, where he preceeded to "get it" with me against a bookshelf, all without ever saying a word. My head knocks off the shelf books with such classic homophobic titles as "Marxism and The Gay Conspiracy" and "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS." It's sex where even lust isn't the primary purpose; instead it's political, sex as an act of terrorism, and I'm nothing to him but a vehicle for backroom defiance. (Was I really objectifying the cook if, in my objectification scenario, he is actively objectifying me? Now that's postmodernism I can get interested in.)

Of course, none of this happened, and the impossible to understand but thrilling glare I was awarded with was the limit of our interaction. In spite of the apparent views of the management, I'll probably eat there again - a good, cheap lunch trumps politics in my book - so maybe he and I will "meet" again (or perhaps even meet for real, although I'm sure after the fantasy I had any real encounter will inevitably be a painful disappointment).

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-is-my-favorite-week-ever-by-dday.html

This Is My Favorite Week Ever

by dday

In the comments of the last post, Jemand von Niemand ran through some of the week's highlights.

On May 15th, the Senate cast a near-unanimous vote to reverse the Federal Communication Commission's December 2007 decision to let media companies own both a major TV or radio station and a major daily newspaper in the same city. (freepress.net)

On May 16th... Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here Friday to make a second attempt to persuade the Saudi government to increase oil production and was rebuffed yet again. (NYT)

The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage on May 15th ... invalidat[ing] virtually any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. (LA Times)

On May 14th, about 100 House Republicans refused to vote for more war funding, voting 'present'... Democrats were able to increase their 'no' vote number on funding from 141 to 149; the bill failed...

Finally the GI bill passed with overwhelming margin of 256 votes in the House, including 32 Republicans... This might actually be the most remarkable piece of the votes today; conservative Democrats agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for educational benefits for veterans. (Matt Stoller)

On May 16th, Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who never had Democratic support to win confirmation, withdrew his nomination on Friday. Bush "reluctantly accepted" von Spakovsky's request, the White House said. (sfgate.com)

Hell of a week, huh, Bootsie? And there are thirty more to come.

Not even a mention of Travis Childers' win in a Mississippi House seat that has caused Republicans to despair of a landslide loss in the fall.

Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.

“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

And let me give you another one to add to the list. Remember that Missouri voter ID scheme that Digby wrote about earlier in the week? Turns out the State Senate refused to consider it.

In a victory for all voters, Missouri lawmakers ended this year’s legislative session without a final vote on legislation that could have prevented up to 240,000 Missourians from voting. The proposed change would have altered Missouri’s constitution, allowing for strict citizenship and government-issued photo ID requirements that would make Missouri one of the toughest states in the country for eligible, law-abiding citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot.

“I am relieved that I will be able to vote this fall,” said Lillie Lewis, a St. Louis city resident, “I’ve been voting in every election since I can remember, but if I needed my birth certificate, that would be the end of that. I hope this is the last we hear of this nonsense.” Lillie Lewis was born in Mississippi, but the state sent her a letter stating they have no record of her birth.

Birdell Owen, a Missouri resident who was displaced by hurricane Katrina, also voiced her relief. “I should be able to participate in my democracy,” she said, “even if Louisiana can’t get me a copy of my birth certificate. I’m glad Missouri politicians had the sense to protect my right to vote.”

Oh, and Series of Tubes Ted Stevens might lose his Senate seat after 50-odd years.

We're seeing an entire political party's collapse happen before our eyes, and in many of these cases a strong citizen-led movement, aided by leadership in the political sphere, has been decisive. There are two things at work here. One, you have a conservative movement that has been horrible for the country and created all these terrible policies which have made us less safe, less economically secure, and weakened in the eyes of the world. And you have a vibrant progressive movement that has been able to broadcast these failures widely. Consider what we've learned in the last month or so:

• The Defense Department embedded "military analysts" as propaganda engines inside US media with the full knowledge of the White House, mainlining the Pentagon message directly to the public with the imprimatur of independent media voices.

• The politicized show trials scheduled to crop up at Guantanamo during the fall election have been delayed because of the amount of perversions of justice employed by interrogators. The top DoD adviser to military commissions has been barred from participating in them because of evidence of bias, and one detainee had his charges dropped because torture was used (authorized by the Secretary of Defense), making the testimony inadmissable. Meanwhile the US is planning a huge new prison in Afghanistan, suggesting that indefinite detentions of masses of prisoners will continue.

• Domestic spying in the United States has spiked at a time when actual terrorism prosecutions have decreased, a massive violation of citizen privacy with no material benefit in stopping crime.

• The US government routinely injects psychotropic drugs into detainees to keep them sedated during deportation flights. , in violation of international human rights standards.

• An official at the VA told his staffers to stop diagnosing returning soldiers with PTSD, in an attempt to lower the costs of permanent disability payments. Many leaders in Washington, including Sen. Obama, are demanding an investigation.

The Republicans are wasting away because of more than just bad branding. It's because over the last eight years they've taken the country we know and done something terrible to it. And despite media blackouts and whitewashes, Americans intuitively know this. The historically high wrong-track numbers have a basis in economic struggles, but I believe just as much in this loss of faith in what we've become as a country in the Age of Bush.

It's going to take years to repair all of this, and the Republicans will be all too happy to sabotage those efforts as the opposition and pin the blame on their opponents. It's what they do.


.

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2008/05/birth-trauma.html

BIRTH TRAUMA. At Sadly, No! Gavin does a fine job of twitting Pat Buchanan's latest Death of the West column. Buchanan is concerned that the Jewish people are being outbred by the jihadists, and blames the secularization of many Chosen, specifically "American Jews themselves, who have led the battles for birth control and a woman's right to choose."

This sort of thing comes up fairly often in conservative circles. Along with everything else the West is doing wrong, it isn't having enough children. Yet I have seldom seen a mechanism proposed for solving the problem. Criminalizing abortion is usually implied, but not often stated outright, perhaps because the moment such authors find themselves typing a simple declarative sentence stating that we must force people to have babies so the West can outnumber its enemies, they start to imagine how normal people would react. Better to just throw up the numbers and let the punters figure it out themselves.

Some authors, of course, are not so reticent. Way back in 2000 Steve Sailer proposed a very specific program of incentives and disincentives, including this:

Start a campaign telling citizens it's their patriotic duty to have more kids. Most Europeans are probably too self-destructively sophisticated to respond to this, but the Greeks might, since the Turks give them somebody to hate and fear.

But you see the problem. Hate and fear may be a sufficient aphrodisiac in some cultures, but we in the decadent West are, by Sailer's own admission, too self-destructive for this demographically-driven sort of hate-fuck, and prefer scented candles and maybe a nice dinner with wine. Maybe by now Sailer has moved on to edible body paint subsidies; I haven't got the stomach to look.

The most comprehensive program I ever saw was Stanley's Kurtz's, which involved reversing or destroying enough social programs that "people will once again begin to look to family for security in old age — and childbearing might commensurately appear more personally necessary." In fact, on at least an unconscious level, the Republican Party seems to have been following this plan for years. But they've been getting a lot of push-back lately, so the collapse of the safety nets that encourage birth control may not be effected in time.

If they were really serious about all this, they might consider a different approach.

For years conservatives complained about the babies welfare mothers were having on the public dime. We got welfare reform, and conservatives have been cheered by what they see as the resulting decline in our illegitimate birthrate, especially among black people.

Maybe it's time the demographic-suicide wing of the movement communicated to their brethren at the City Journal and the Heritage Foundation the pressing need for more American children, and proposed a welfare counter-reformation to jack up the birth rate by any means necessary. In fact, if they really think the issue is as important as they portray it, maybe our welfare programs should be made more generous than before. What matter that many of the babies may be illegitimate and impoverished? All the better for the "hate and fear" conditions that will make committed anti-jihadists out of them.

This will be expensive, but we are at war, after all. Instead of fooling with untried plans and issuing dolorous rants, why not go with what has been shown to work in the not-so-distant past?

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/05/making-naan-bre.html

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/05/17/i-cant-stand-a-naked-light-bulb-any-more-than-i-can-a-rude-remark-or-a-vulgar-action/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/17/i-can%e2%80%99t-stand-a-naked-light-bulb-any-more-than-i-can-a-rude-remark-or-a-vulgar-action/

Phyllis Schlafly, the woman who encouraged other women to be the housewife she never was, goes to Washington University to receive an honorary degree and all hell, wait... okay, all heck...no?...um, all kinda quiet breaks loose:

Some applauded while Schlafly was hooded. But about a third of the graduating students draped in the school’s green and black robes turned their backs to her, along with some faculty members sitting on the stage behind her. Many family members in the audience also took part. Three faculty members made the extra point of walking off the stage and then turning their backs from the audience. One of the protesters was Darla Dale, an assistant dean and a faculty marshal at the ceremony. Dale said she decided to participate after making sure the protest was intended to remain respectful. Dale said she strongly disagrees with Schlafly’s views on the role of women in society as well as with her work to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. And students encouraged her to join them. "It felt good," Dale said of turning her back.

This leads Jim Hoft, the racist ninnyhammer of Gateway Pundit, to come down with a bad case of the Fluttery Blanches:

This is frightening and it is no different than what has happened in any other Leftist socialist state. The moderates or conservatives are assaulted, attacked, protested, abused until they are silenced.
AMERICA BETTER WAKE UP!!

Oh get a grip, Mary.

She was shunned, not stoned, you nit. Jesus, no wonder these guys can't win any wars; always bursting into tears at the drop of a slight, and piddling their pants at the sound of a loud noise.

It's not like "Leftist socialists" haven't given Schlafly a chance to speak her mind before:

Later, I try to get some straight answers from antigay crusader and Eagle Forum leader Phyllis Schalfly.

"You said in your speech in Escondido that you were very proud of the platform," I remark. Schlafly, who is celebrating her 72nd birthday this week, is wearing a blindingly bright, multicolored print dress, and her bleached hair is an exotic helmet, piled high on her head in hardened swirls and curls. "And yet the platform specifically calls for excluding gays from legal protection. How can you resolve this with the fact that your son is a homosexual?"

"Oh now, come on, is this really important to talk about?" she shoots back. Schlafly was horribly embarrassed in front of her religious Right chums when her son John came out reluctantly after being outed in 1992. It made Phyllis seem like a hypocrite and, worse, a hateful mother.

"Yes," I tell her, "it's certainly relevant."

"Well, look, I don't have a problem with any of that, OK?"

"You don't?"

"No. Look, my son is not going into the army or getting a marriage license."

"What about the fact that he could be fired from his job or thrown out of his apartment. Did you know that?"

"Uh, no," she says, her voice beginning to crack. "Look, this is not, just not, a subject to talk about. Go away. Run along."

"Oh, I think it most certainly is a subject to talk about," I say to her, whipping around in front of her as she attempts to turn away. "Ms. Schlafly, are you in denial about the fact that your son is a homosexual?" "Run along! Shoo! Shoo!" she says, becoming upset, gesturing with her arms. "Go! Shoo! I'm not putting up with this, I'm just not! Why can't you people just leave me alone? Why can't you just go away?" "Phyllis," I tell her, "we are never going away."

Oh. The humanity. Someone better get Hoft his laudanum and make room on the fainting couch because he doesn't want realism. He wants magic! Yes, yes, magic.

Calgon, take him away...

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/05/17/good-old-republican-obama-edwards-fag-baiting-wapo-op-ed/

The Republican stupid - it burns. From Kathleen Parker’s column at the WaPo:

Well, at least they didn’t kiss.

I was bracing myself for the lip lock Wednesday when John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.

Don’t look at me. David “Mudcat” Saunders, Edwards’s former rural adviser, came up with the idea, saying Obama should kiss Edwards on the lips “to kill this 41-point loss,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in the West Virginia primary.

Instead, the two men exchanged a manly air-hug to commemorate the moment when Edwards threw Clinton under the upholstered sofa on his grandmama’s front porch.

Holy smoke, is the “Breck Girl” reference to the former NC senator going to make comeback? I leave it to Brad at Sadly, No to break this sh*t down.

It’s tough to list all the things that make this column so mind-crushingly stupid, but let’s give it a shot:

• Parker begins the column by calling Edwards and Obama fags.

• Then, not having the courage to stand by this novel and poignant insight, she claims that it wasn’t her idea to call them fags, but was instead the idea of one of Edwards’ advisers. But hey, they’re still gay homo fruits who like to take it up the homobutt.

• Next, she pulls out the oldest trick in the Wingnut Punditry Bible: she lectures us about what Real Americans think! Never mind that she’s spent her entire working life on the Wingnut Welfare circuit - she’s got her hand on the pulse of The People, baby!

• And what do Real Americans think, you ask? Why, they’re apparently super-duper happy about the state of the country! Even though, like, 85% of them are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. And even though Bush’s approval rating stands at a sterling 28%. And even though the Republicans just lost a goddamn seat in freaking Mississippi.

How come I don’t hear about this loving - ahem - male bonding:</p>