Mel-Anon

Occupied!

2011-10-19T00:57:00.001-06:00

This blog has been largely dormant this year. There are a few reasons for that, the largest one being that I have started to see myself more as a tool for disseminating agitprop rather than a creator of it, and social media largely gives me a better vehicle to do that to whatever small world where I happen to be. There are plenty of people with more intelligent things to say than me, and I figure it's more of a service to do not as much exhaling as inhaling.

Nevertheless I think it would be abdicating some responsibility not to write a few words about what we can loosely call the "Occupy" movement, which is certainly the most significant left movement in my lifetime in the United States and likely the biggest moment for radical politics in the US since 1968.

It was not supposed to be so. The idea of a permanent encampment "occupying" Wall Street was initially conceived by the small radical magazine Adbusters and amplified around the internet by the hacktivist collective Anonymous, claiming inspiration from the Arab Spring and the Spanish Indignants. Few liberal pundits were prepared to take it seriously, foreseeing another small forgettable gathering of unintelligible hippies. Then something quite remarkable happened: A commune of protestors planted themselves in the media capital of the world armed with a simple class-war message, embodied by the ever-present slogan "We are the 99 percent," and began rapidly and inexorably gaining a mass base of popular sympathy completely unaided by the usual partisan Democratic "activist" groups. Copycat "occupations' have sprung up in dozens of cities around the world.

The mainstream press has of course been professing ignorance from the outset about what the "message" or "demands" were, and what they plan to use in place of the current system of power. This is purely posturing which is easily answered by spending any time in the occupied space, which in New York has been redubbed "Liberty Plaza." They are there to fight the war against the ruling class, and have set up a small self-governing city with a decentralized, leaderless consensus democracy of the sort enjoying wide popularity in contemporary anarchist circles. I am reminded of the old IWW notion of "building the new world in the shell of the old," there are numerous other influences as well.

There are considerable challenges ahead, however. The first will come from the political class and its liberal enforcers, who, after a period of scrambling to take stock of the moment, are now lustily eying the protests as a kind of Democratic answer to the Tea Party, an attempt to rescue a party's sagging image with a re-branding. There is no small risk that trained political managers will step into the leadership vacuum, strip the movement of any radical elements (one already hears the usual cowering of liberals from being associated with "anarchists" and other riff-raff) and utilize the branding of the popular occupation to flak for some tepid, ineffectual reform that is more bark than bite. There will likely be considerable resistance to this; much of the core of the movement, beyond the radicals, is made up of disaffected young Obama voters who have seen the deceptiveness of electoral politics in the Democrats' utter failure to deliver barely modest reform in the wake of historically smashing victories.

This would be a disaster on many fronts. The Occupiers have deliberately chosen to rally around the all-encompassing banner of "the 99 percent" rather than the middle-class reformism which Democratic politicians and liberal pundits blather ceaselessly. They have proven, contra the establishment of both parties and their media flacks, that an explicit class war message resonates with the public imagination, even if they are shrewd enough not to use those poisoned words exactly. Becoming an Obama campaign front would ruin much of the goodwill the Occupation currently enjoys, both in its association with establishment politics and the inevitable dilution of its message into a meaningless muddle by the liberal wing of the finance party.

I should also note as an aside that they have produced a popular non-partisan movement which is not enamoured of technocratic centrist billionaires. Old Mike Bloomberg has become something of the Scrooge of this story, in fact. I point this out just because it's fun to think of which hole Thomas Friedman has gone to hide in to console himself.

It is, however, entirely fair to wonder what the protests can accomplish. The electoral arena is dry, but, as of now, the occupiers lack the sheer critical mass to enforce change by presenting a direct threat to the well being of the ruling class. So far, marches have numbered in the thousands; that will have to increase to the millions for something like that to be achieved. Perhaps the most we can hope for at this point is the old left idea of "raising consciousness;" if the occupation continues to preach its beautifully simple, easily understood message, the great inert mass of Americans may yet shed their skepticism for a revolution.

Seeing double

2011-03-20T21:21:00.000-06:00

David Corn, Mother Jones

Yet the president, with this brief set of remarks, has crafted something of an Obama Doctrine for military intervention: The United States will join in a multilateral fight for democracy and humanitarian aims when it is in the nation's interest and when the locals are involved and desire US participation. In short, the Anti-Bush Doctrine.

I can't believe that a nice liberal like David Corn would tell me the reason the United States intervenes here but not there can be reduced to a factor of how much the budding humanitarian disaster affects our precious National Interest. Why, David, why? You were always so Serious and so Trustworthy. Why are you throwing in with Gnome Chompsky and the other hippies who see Western imperialist interests behind every military project?

Oh wait, he meant that approvingly? Oh dear, that's interesting indeed.

No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus

2011-01-29T22:48:00.002-06:00

To the unlearned observer, there is at least a superficial similarity between the 2009 post-election protests in Iran and the recent anti-government uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. There are, of course, various cultural, economic and historical differences between them, but they are all essentially public expressions of popular anger at corrupt, anti-democratic governments. But while the "Green Revolution" became a celebrated cultural touchstone in the American media, which covered it breathlessly if insipidly, the uprisings in Tunisia and, particularly, Egypt have produced a considerably more hesitant reaction from the government and its stenographers in the corporate media.

The reason for this should be obvious. The government of Iran is an official Enemy of the State, while the Mubarak government in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, the Ben Ali government in Tunisia have both been important US allies in the region and received considerable aid from the American government. The Egyptian police and military are now largely supplied with US weapons; telling photographs from the Egypt rebellion show protesters holding up tear gas canisters and other ammunition with "Made in USA" stamped on them. These thorny issues, of course, can't be brought up in the mainstream press, because of the need to preserve the popular belief in the fantasy that the United States always and only supports "freedom and democracy" in the rest of the world, and would never, ever be on the side of a dictator. (Joe Biden, always good for a laugh, insists Mubarak is not a dictator, so I guess that settles that.)

One need not be Noam Chomsky to realize this is bullshit. Anyone with even a moderate interest in American foreign relations will shortly discover that our idealistic principles become fungible with only the slightest provocation. Indeed, the job of Serious foreign policy analysts is to explain to those people who become too curious for their own good why support for strongmen is necessary for important things like Stability! and National Interest! This is also bullshit, but mostly from a mere philosophical standpoint; it is at least closer to the government's actual decision-making process.

Why then, dear readers, are we subjected to the charade of the government and media's public broadcasts maintaining our holy, untainted crusader image when most of us have put aside similarly disprovable fantasies by the time we reach kindergarten? That's a question you'll have to answer for yourself.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil

2010-12-07T23:38:00.002-06:00

Glenn Greenwald has as usual been doing a bang-up job on the war on Wikileaks. It's essential to read all of it, but I have only a couple things to add.

1) Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, Amazon; all private companies, all have joined the government's war on Wikileaks without any formal orders from said government. The tremendous power wielded by these corporations has made it more difficult for Wikileaks to receive funding despite the fact that the organization has never been charged or convicted of any crime. What they are doing is strictly vigilante justice, and it ought to worry anyone--regardless of their personal feelings about Wikileaks--who worries about excessive power of the government and the small private elite to unofficially prosecute class enemies.

Then there is the contradiction that seems to underlie much of the liberal tut-tutting about Wikileaks; which is that a) nothing in the leaks tells us anything we don't already know and b) it's dangerous and jeopardizes diplomacy somehow despite everything already being known. Justin of Americana has an interesting theory which is as good as anything I've heard to explain this (lots of other great posts there as well).

What wikileaks is debunking in its 'non-disclosure' disclosures, as the above esteemed members of the media call them, is the faith in the government's massive reservoir of complete information and wisdom. The leaks are revealing the belief that 'the authorities must know something we don't' is an absurd fantasy. In a perverse way, if the leaks truly contained bombshells of information that have were complete surprises and recast previously held opinions about government actions around the globe in a different light, then that would be less of an attack on the government's credibility. It turns out that government officials know about as much as the rest of us, often even less owing to the inherently blinding effects of power, and their pathological behavior is no more than it seems.

Indeed. The surprising thing is how much we actually know about how the American empire works, and how little it matters because of the networks of pressures that exist to make that knowledge invisible to most of the public. Even Jon Stewart referenced this recently.

I think you're underestimating how cynical Americans are about our government already. We've engineered coups in Chile, Iran, Guatemala, etc. We sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund Central American revolutionaries. We sell weapons to our enemy's enemy, who then somehow becomes our enemy and forces us to defend ourselves from our own weapons. It takes a lot to impress us. You really should read up on the shit we already know about us.

Yet most people probably don't know much about any of these things. Even though the facts aren't really disputed even by foreign policy professionals, the many, many excellent books on these topics from the Unserious are waived away as Trilateral Commission-esque conspiracy mongering in any public forum. It's the American Miracle! Why does the government need to suppress its dirty laundry when everyone knows that if you wish to maintain a good public face you'll ignore it? Are you a young journalist or academic who wants to write about your Unserious conclusions? Then forget about ever being published in the elite media or getting a comfortable think tank sinecure. Worried that donating to Wikileaks might make you a criminal even though the government has nothing but vague threats hanging over your head? Mission accomplished!

As you likely know, Julian Assange has been arrested in what must be a record for the most enthusiasm any international police force has ever displayed over a rape case. I endorse this post by Pink Scare for those who have mixed feelings about this. The charges against Assange are serious if true, though it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility that they are being completely worked. The timing certainly is.

Size doesn't matter

2010-12-01T21:25:00.002-06:00

I have to say I'm confused by the debate in this thread. Surely the scope of a government has little to do with its effectiveness at defending the civil rights and liberties of the population. Is the government of Finland (pop. 5 million) less effective at this than the federal government of the United States (pop. 300 million)? Likewise, if Russia attacks and annexes Finland (past performance notwithstanding) surely we wouldn't then say that Finland wasn't a legitimate political entity before then because it couldn't defend itself against a much larger enemy.

I should back up for a minute. Liberal arguments about the necessity of centralized government are always marshalled in the defense of Reconstruction or civil rights legislation of the 1960s. But this is a case of constructing an argument around a positive conclusion and calling it a good argument. It isn't necessarily so. Cheering on federal troops for enforcing civil rights laws in Mississippi seems like a short stop on the liberal-humanitarian ladder from declaring that we must bomb the women of Afghanistan to liberate them.

Political entities are not immutable, they're just human creations. The Confederacy was created to defend slavery, of course, but what if the balance of power had been slightly tilted the other way? What if Northern states had been fed up at being bullied by the over-represented slave states and decided to take their toys and go home? Would that also have been "treasonous?" What if Vermont decided to secede? Is that also a stronghold of Bubba redneckism that has to be reigned in by the virtuous federal government? The argument, apparently, is that the more diverse the population governed, the more likely the government will have to recognize the rights of minorities to survive. I don't think that's convincing or that it's really borne out by history, and not just the most famous example but United States history as well.

On the flip side, of course, there's nothing inherently righteous about decentralization either. Many rural areas in the United States are ossified class societies effectively run as neofeudalist fiefdoms by a handful of dynastic landlords. The democratic legitimacy of a government has little to do with the number of people governed but the nature of the power represented by that government.

Say it like you mean it

2010-11-13T11:54:00.002-06:00

Inside the Hall

So as the dust settled or the clouds lifted or the smoke cleared — whatever it was that happened in those first days after Crean arrived — it became abundantly clear that recruiting Cody Zeller would be important. Even as gawky sophomore, Zeller showed as much — if not more — promise than his brothers. He’d had to play them over and over in family games, after all. But this much was inevitable, too: he was the type of player that traditional IU fans wanted the team to be built around. He’s not flashy. He appreciates the fundamentals. He keeps it simple. He plays with gusto

Look folks, what I mean to say is that he's white.

VOTING (god God ya'll) what is it good for?

2010-11-02T11:01:00.002-06:00

I'm not going to be one of those people claiming that, if you vote, you're implicitly endorsing the feeble excuse for a democracy that our rulers eagerly feed us every two years. I don't think, at this point, whether they really bother to care anymore. They have no interest in increasing voter participation, and remain unmoved by low voter turnouts thus far. So I don't see how boycotting is going to make much of a difference. Follow your conscience and vote or don't, it isn't as though the act itself takes a huge effort.

But, in honor of that special day, let's roll through some propositions:

1: Choices, you hasn't got them. The present democracy in the United States is to actual self-government what baby talk is to adult speech. It is grunting and pointing at abstract shapes hoping that the adults in the room will be able to figure out what you want which, in this case, they have no interest in doing. The adults know you'll be pacified by just about anything as long as you can't choke on it, and they're careful to keep all the good stuff off the table where you can't reach it.

2: Voting shouldn't be the end of political action, though almost everyone invested in the electoral system will try to convince you that it is. Hence the endless drumbeats about "doing your civic duty" this time of year, as if afterward you can go back to your life and let someone else make the decisions that will affect you in the end. It's not like your boss is going to leave you any time to worry about it anyway! This is important to understand when you justify enabling lesser-evilism by voting; it is barely a beginning, let alone the end.

3: Campaigning and working on election campaigns is one of the least-efficient ways to spend your time/money if you're trying to bring about progressive change. This is especially true in these days where the campaign season never seems to end, and academic liberal technocrats are always insisting that we are on the cusp of great progressive change or doomsday fascism in the Most Important Election Ever Until the Next One. Cooperation, solidarity, mutual aid and direct action are the only ways to make the bosses perk up their ears and take notice. Serious liberals scoff at this nowadays, but old labor, civil rights marchers, and other fighters knew not to let themselves be herded in and out of voting booths on election day like cattle.

Why 2084 won't be like "1984"

2010-10-24T18:04:00.002-06:00

This article by Sara Robinson strikes me as all wrong. I don't doubt that the Tea Partyists, despite their protestations about Big Gummit, represent a nascent type of American fascism and would be happy as pumpkins on the vine in a one-party state which they controlled. They're very capable of compartmentalized thinking and at any rate have never had any quarrel with the police, military, or security state that would be the most identifiable trappings of a fascist government. But Robinson's warnings that we are one election away from Tea Fascism is mistaken, both because she misapplies Paxton's descriptions, and because old fashioned fascism as they both imagine it is a 20th century idea that is probably past its prime as an option for authoritarian control by the elite.

On the first issue, the chief strike against Robinson's argument is that the business elite, with a notable exception or two, really hasn't embraced the TP candidates very much. We all know the uneasiness is probably unwarranted, but nevertheless there's still a good bit of friction between the baggers and the Chamber of Commerce-types. In order for a fascist party to seize power, the elite has to feel it is sufficiently threatened by a popular movement from the left that its only option left is to empower the fascists. Robinson, being a good liberal, might imagine that the election of Obama represents such a movement, and it is possible that the potential empowerment of traditionally disillusioned segments of the population may have made the ears on a few plutocrats twitch, hence the emergence of the Tea Party as a precautionary measure. We know better than this, however; Obama has never been a threat himself, and has successfully corralled the energy of the popular movement surrounding him in 2008 and his dawdling has sent large portions of it back to the political abyss.

Secondly, if there is to be a successful authoritarian movement in the United States, it's not going to take the form of a classic, one-party dictatorship. Indeed, if there's one thing Americans learn from the cradle to the grave it's that "democracy" means "you get to vote every couple of years." Take that away and immediately everyone knows something fishy is up. And why would you bother with such a step? The elite already has everything it could possibly want now. Elections are contested between two political parties which are often indistinguishable, have nebulous policy aims, and regularly collude to keep pressing issues off the table. In the wake of one of these elections, the "will of the electorate" is evaluated, interpreted and presented back to it by media pundits who determine the mandate of the new government. The press itself vigilantly bars Unserious views from its pages and uncritically vomits government propaganda, all without any need for a minder. What more could you ask for?

This is the blueprint from which the next generation of totalitarianism will be built. A consumerist state, where "democracy" is not something that we make ourselves, but a world where politicians are produced and sold to us and we are only so delighted that we have such freedom to choose! Who needs to be a citizen when you can be a consumer? If you want a vision of the future, imagine a human hand swiping a credit card, forever.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

2010-10-23T12:49:00.002-06:00

FrumForum

Millennials take a very different view of politics from older cohorts of Americans. For example, offered a choice between a government that offers higher taxes and more services, or fewer services and lower taxes, older Americans choose the lower-tax alternative.

Sixty-two percent of over 65s prefer the lower tax alternative, as do 58% of voters in the 50-64 group, and 56% of voters aged 30-49.

Under 30s prefer bigger government by a margin of 53-43.

Under 30s are more socially liberal too, and less nationalistic than over 30s.

Slate

This year's surge of Republican enthusiasm is a male phenomenon. The simplest explanation for McMahon's lack of female support is that female voters aren't the ones who want to replace Democrats with Republicans.
In West Virginia, Republican John Raese leads Democrat Joe Manchin by 9 points among men but trails Manchin by 10 points among women. Time has Wisconsin Republican nominee Ron Johnson ahead of Russ Feingold by 15 points among men, but tied among women.

And in Washington state, where Democrat Patty Murray is running against Republican Dino Rossi, women favor Murray by 31 points, while men favor Rossi by 15. That's a 46-point gender gap—McMahon's gap is 27 points—with nobody making anybody bark like a dog.

Here is a paradox for you, friends. Young people, who face a lifetime of paying taxes ahead of them, are more likely to accept that tradeoff if it means increased spending on social programs. Old folks, who are heavily reliant on social spending, want to see lower taxes and Small Gummit. There is only one explanation for this that I can see. Old folks don't view Medicare and Social Security as government provisions; they view them as receiving their own money back from a private lockbox that's been kept by the government. They are only opposed to social spending that might make life easier for young people. Why? Because they want to see young people get screwed over. That's all.

If you want to explain American political behavior, you have to start with these two phenomena. Why do men hate women, and why do old people hate young people?

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST, AS REVEALED TO ST.GLENN, ST. SARAH, ST. MIKE, ST, JAMES, AND ST. BILL, THE APOSTLES

2010-10-22T00:46:00.004-06:00

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

He sent forth his prophets to warn Israel about the righteous path and to write the Scriptures.

He sent His only Son to atone for the sins of the world.

For the next 1750 years, God rested.

Then God realized His work was not finished. Thus he brought forth his Kingdom on Earth, which was called America, through his many disciples including Judas who was called Thomas Paine. And through His Founding Fathers He created a paradise to be ruled through His servants the clergy.

God's new Kingdom mostly walked a righteous path, but were from time to time tempted by servants of the Lord's nemesis. Among these enemies was the New Deal, which was an abomination unto the Lord, and He sent forth His prophet Barry Goldwater.

But the Lord knew that, while He loved his Chosen People, they were not fully prepared to do the work He intended. They elected Jimmy Carter, and then the Black Muslim from Kenya, and bought tickets to Michael Moore movies. Their wickedness was a sore in the eyes of the Lord, and so He once again sent His Son down to bring them righteous teaching and correction.

SERMON IN THE MALL

Jesus procured a soft pretzel and, after revealing himself to the crowd, went to the top of the escalator in the food court where He taught them saying;

“Blessed are the rich in material wealth, for they own the Kingdom of earth.

Blessed are the war-makers, for they shall inherit the Earth's natural resources.

Blessed are the merciless, for they are real men of strong discipline.

Blessed are those who beg to be persecuted for their righteousness, for theirs is a permanent home on cable news.

Blessed are you who revile and persecute and falsely accuse others on my account. Your reward is great in the warm feeling it gives you to smash others under your heel, just like the prophets did before you.

You have heard that it was said “Do not resist an evildoer, but if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” But I say to you, if someone strikes you on the left cheek, you are free to kick his ass, invade his country and set up a puppet government. You have also heard that it was said “If someone sues you and takes your coat, give to him your cloak also.” But I say to you, occupational safety regulations are the devil's handiwork. If the Lord had wanted steelworkers to have fingers, He would've given them new ones.

Do for others no more than what they do for you. This is the Platinum Rule. Keep a ledger if you lose track.”

Practice your piety before others so they may see you. When giving alms, do so as loudly and proudly as possible, so that the poor may know to whom they owe the privilege. Otherwise they may think basic human dignity is a right.

When you pray, do not be like those cowards who pray privately in the secrecy of their own homes. Pray as loudly as you can in public, preferably before graduations or sporting events. Always mentioned that you are likely to offend someone or get sued, because the Lord is a small Lord who can't survive the 9^th Circuit Court. Then after praying run the ball for a three-yard gain, because the Lord knows that defense and the running game win championships.”

JESUS PRINCIPALLY REFUSES TO FEED THE FIVE THOUSAND

The next day Jesus taught an all-day seminar on sharing your faith at a megachurch in suburban Chicago. A snowstorm had knocked out power in much of the city, and the attendees had nothing to eat. Many stragglers from the street joined them as well. '

The Youth Pastor approached Jesus saying; “Lord, we have many hungry people, and all we have to eat are these five loaves of Wonder Bread and two Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Can you bless this food and create enough food for this multitude?”

But Jesus rebuked them saying “You naive simpletons! Do you not understand how the Kingdom of God works according to the laws of the market? I do not produce wealth only to see it distributed to those who are starving with no food. What motivation will I have to invest in new luxury cars or provide jobs for domestic servants if I just go around sharing with my fellow humans? Do not worry about feeding the hungry; instead convert them to Christianity, for soon they will starve and be with me in paradise. As the prophet said:

Work and pray, live on hay,

You'll get pie in the sky when you die”

JESUS DOESN'T HEAL THE SICK FOR FREE

When Jesus was leaving the track after witnessing a stirring display of stock-car gladiatorial combat, a woman who had long suffered from hemophilia came near to Him and touched the belt loop of his jeans believing that Jesus had the power to heal her illness.

Jesus turned to her and, addressing the crowd, said “Truly I have met no one with any greater faith throughout the land. Unfortunately I also haven't met anyone with less health insurance. I say to you that the Lord your God does not give handouts, and being healthy is not a right but a privilege determined by your ability to pay.”

When they heard this, his disciples were moved, saying “But Lord, what about those who are saddled with medical bills they cannot pay?”

And Jesus answered them, “Those without health insurance must hold a community fundraiser with balloons, clowns and a bake sale. If they are deemed worthy in the sight of their friends and neighbors, then truly their sick shall be healed of their afflictions.”

HOW TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

When Jesus was wandering in the wilderness of Arizona, he was approached by two immigrants who asked him, “Master, how do we know if we will be allowed in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

And Jesus replied to them saying “When the Lord your God sits on the throne of judgment at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, he will look to those seated on his right hand and say 'come, enter my kingdom you who have blessed me. For when I was hungry, you picked my tomatoes for low wages, when I was thirsty, you carried me cold drinks on a tray, when I needed a scapegoat to explain social dysfunction, you went to prison for me, when I fondled your breasts in the office you didn't sue me, when I needed cheaper clothes you gladly gave up your job to a peasant in a third-world country with no labor regulations.”

And the inquisitors looked at Him saying “Lord, when did we do all of these things for you?”

Jesus replied “Truly, what you have done for the most of these, my servants on Earth, you have done it to me.”

THE LORD'S MESSAGE TO HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE

Jesus was in his office on a Thursday night calculating third-quarter profits when two journalists approached his desk saying;

“Lord, we know America is Your chosen country from the day you sent General Washington down Mount Sinai with the Constitution on two stone tablets, but we do not know how to measure the value of all other humans when compared to the elect. How many are we allowed to slay by aerial bombardment and remain holy?”

Then Jesus taught them saying, “Gentlemen, if English is good enough for Me, then it is good enough for you. Therefore, all English-speaking white people are equal to nine-tenths of one of you. Be careful of harming another of these brothers or sisters, because it may accidentally show up on the evening news. Especially if one of the sisters is blonde and attractive.”

The two journalists took studious notes as Jesus continued.

“White non-English speakers are secretly plotting against America in their gibberish tongues and should be watched carefully. However, most of them are too concerned with being lazy in their decadent welfare states to cause you any trouble. Brown People, encompassing the greatest mass of humanity are on the other hand an invaluable resource and can be used however you see fit, as their lives are essentially meaningless. Blow them up, use them for cheap labor, whatever you want. Occasionally try to convert a few of them to Christianity so it looks like you care about their needs, although in a strictly non-material way of course. If I had wanted them to be something other than dirt-poor and starving, then I would have seen to it.”

JESUS RECUSES HIMSELF FROM THE ALDURTERER'S TRIAL

Jesus was kicking back in the Orange County sun when three of his disciples came to him with a young woman in tow. Jesus said to them “Why are you bringing this woman to me?”

They replied, “Lord, we grabbed her coming out of the Planned Parenthood and she has admitted to having an abortion. Shall we post her picture on the internet and make sure everyone she sees knows that she is a whore?”

Jesus looked forward idly, stirred his drink absentmindedly for a few moments and then said finally;

“Look, isn't one of you going to cast the first stone? Gentlemen, the Son of Man is too busy being a wealth-producer to sit in judgment of every little thing. That's why I need people like you to go forth and do it for me.

I am the Subway, the Wal-Mart, and the MetLife. No one comes to the Father except through my appointed representatives on Earth. In my father's house there are many McMansions, which I am preparing for you once you make CEO or head pastor, or both. So I don't have the time or inclination to go rustling through everyone's private lives. That's your job.”

JESUS TEACHES ABOUT WEALTH

One day an unemployed recent graduate came up to Jesus while He was seated behind the church's table at a city job fair and said “Lord, what must I do to have eternal life? I have kept all the commandments to love my neighbor as myself, honor my parents, and not to kill.”

Jesus gave him a look of disdain and said “That's not important. In fact, if you had joined the military and gone to kill some infidels you would be sitting pretty right now. If you want to be saved, renounce all the government handouts you are getting and sign up for a real job washing shoes or something. Make sure to never join a union, always follow your boss's orders even when he is stone drunk and incoherent and then take the blame when he decides to change his mind later. And always, always vote to cut his taxes. I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a moocher and parasite like you to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

And the young man went away discouraged, for he had no possessions.

JESUS DOESN'T DIE FOR YOUR SINS, HE MAKES THE OTHER BASTARD DIE FOR HIS

After Jesus had tired of his careers as a hedge fund manager and financial adviser to megachurches, he settled on a career in the military where he quickly proved his value as an expert in overthrowing governments who transgressed against God's holy will and ushering many men, women and children into the afterlife. One day He was summoned by the representatives to give his testimony before Congress.

While being questioned Jesus said to them “All who live by the cruise missile shall continue to live by the cruise missile, because the other suckers have already been bombed back to the Stone Age.

Truthfully I say to you, every day you must give an offering of thanks to the American military, for through them you have received your salvation; the gift of freedom to work 80 hours a week for minimum wage, to not be able to pay the rent, heating bills, or give your family three meals a day. The freedom to choose your elected representative every couple of years between two candidates with nebulous, indistinguishable views who have been bought and sold several times over by the wealthy. The freedom to be told who you can marry or whether your religion is acceptable, and the freedom to sell your labor and become dependent on a boss for the rest of your life. All of these things have been freely given to you by the sacrifice of a few heavily armed men and millions of impoverished people around the world.”

JESUS GIVES HIS DISCIPLES THE HOLY INVISIBLE HAND

Finally Jesus elected to retire to a nice seaside resort town to further his wind-surfing habit. One day on the 15^th fairway he gave a final message to his disciples. “All power and authority on Earth I've given to you, but you already know that. Go forth and subjugate all the inferior nations of the world, baptizing them in the name of the Sport Utility Vehicle, the Holy Hand Grenade, and the Holy Invisible Hand of the Free Market, teaching them to obey everything you tell them if they want to stay in one piece.”

“Now, watch this drive.”

Every day's the end of days for some

2010-10-21T14:44:00.003-06:00

New York Times

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”
A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party.
“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”

Let us not be too hasty to judge Mr. Dennison, dear readers, because we can't know his particular circumstances. Instead, let us analyze this sentiment as it is most assuredly pronounced within the same short sequence of breath by those who are deeply, deeply concerned with burdening their children and grandchildren with a crippling national deficit. Yes, brothers and sisters, thanks to Tea Partyism not only will our children be saved from functioning roads, hospitals and libraries, they will not have to worry about having a habitable biosphere either. Because, children, the Lord did not give the earth to you, he gave it to us!

Oh well, not like it was going to last anyway.

Against the "Rally to Restore Sanity"

2010-10-19T00:05:00.002-06:00

Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Making Light:

The premise of Jon Stewart’s “Million Moderate March” is vacuous. There’s no inherent virtue in political “moderation.” The “moderates” weren’t the ones who were right about whether we should have marched into Iraq; it was the so-called extremist peaceniks who had it right from the start. The “moderates” aren’t the ones who are right about the priority we should be giving to the threat of global climate change; again, the people who are correct on this issue are labelled as “extremists.” And contrary to Jon Stewart’s foolish assertion, while it may be “moderate” to reject charges that the Bush Administration committed war crimes, it’s also wrong. Because in fact they committed war crimes. (Nor are the current administration’s hands much cleaner on this score, and those who point this out continue to be marginalized.)

I certainly love The Daily Show; it's the finest mainstream outlet for ridiculing the American political scene out there. But Stewart seems to have let the news clippings about his great political influence among the youth go to his head. The"Rally to Restore Sanity" is based around the idea that he is the lone voice of rationality crying out in the wilderness, and that our political problems could be hashed out if everyone put away their signs and let the nice sensible people sit down and have a crack at governing. Which makes him far from iconoclast he apparently fancies himself to be. Rather, he is taking up the mantle of every wannabe High Broderist pundit in the mainstream press; oh, if only we could come together, hold hands, and agree to a solution that both Republicans and Republicans can agree on!

Liberals who are looking to get some yuks at the expense of Tea Party yokels should take heed. As should be clear from the announcement video, the rally is steeped in the sort of conventionally equivalence that says that if you must find fault with a conservative, you have to find several hippies to punch to make up for it. If you marched against the Iraq war, in favor of LGBT or immigrant rights or workplace safety or anything else, this is not the rally for you. It is, by Stewart's own definition, a rally for people who don't go to rallies. In fact, given that Stewart's audience is mostly comprised of hip liberals like you, you are precisely the target audience for this message. "Leave us alone" the political class cries, "to do the Sensible Moderate work of the American people!" Is it any surprise that the rally is being organized by a couple of ex-Clintonite flacks and has been enthusiastically endorsed by celebrity peddlers of wishy-washy nothingism such as Oprah Winfrey and Arianna Huffington?

Finally, blaming "extremists" for the present condition of the American political climate is a cruel joke. Most of the present crises facing us, from the wars to the financial and climate disasters and the complete ownership of the legislative process by business interests, have been fully approved abetted by a bipartisan consensus that the Broderists insist they are always seeking. The problem with the likes of Glenn Beck is that he is a raving hack and dishonest huckster, not that he is an extreme political outsider. Vile as he is, neither he nor his cohort have as of yet any actual political power to affect any of these problems for better or worse. People who consider themselves to the left of the center-right wing of the Democratic Party should be careful about tossing in with the same folks who would gladly kick them to the curb shortly after they finish making fun of the bad spelling at a Tea Party rally.

What we need are more political extremists willing to put a few applecarts upside down in the name of dissent, not to have them herded like docile cattle to be told that the Sensible, Serious people have everything under control.

The cloak of conservatism

2010-08-27T23:53:00.002-06:00

Kind of a follow-up to this post.

""Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith -- and I don't care what it is."-Dwight Eisenhower

There are plenty of interesting and baffling things about Glenn Beck. Here is another. Glenn Beck is a Mormon. (Even stranger, apparently a convert.) You may not consider that unusual until you consider that Mormons used to be considered vile heretics by the same sort of evangelical Christians which Beck spends a great deal of time and effort wooing and hobnobbing.

Beck in this way is in the same boat as soon-to-be perennial presidential candidate Mitt Romney. You may recall that Fellow Mormon Romney gave a much-hyped speech during the 2008 primaries for just this purpose, to reassure other religious conservatives that the contents of any theological debate are moot in comparison to the broader shared experience of being pious about something and conservative (I stole the Eisenhower quote from this slacktivist post on the speech. Fred has a couple others as well.)

It's not just Mormons, however. The general trend among conservative public figures of any sort, and the particular stock in trade of the Beck/Palin populist variety, is to talk vaguely about "values" and "faith" while only very rarely making any specific comment on creeds or doctrines. The enemies are no longer people of the wrong religion (with the exception for the moment of Muslims until the Middle East runs out of natural resources), it's people of no faith, or at least people who don't believe faith should interfere with the political process. It's oddly ecumenical for people who would otherwise regard ecumenism as a dangerously relativistic liberal subversion. These are people (various Protestant sects vs. each other and Catholics, Christians vs. Jews etc.) who have historically been at each others' throats over doctrinal minutiae, who adhere to strict scriptural literalism, and regard the tiniest heresy as tempting damnation. Why are they suddenly able to handwave all of these differences and get together in a friendly drum circle?

It's because they do not believe in any creed so much as the ecumenical creed of conservatism. They have discovered that their shared interests--preservation of sexual/gender hierarchies, etc--and a shared duty to act as a barrier between the elite and the working class trumps any temporary concern they might have about eternity and damnation and all the rest. So shockingly, religious conservatives are not sincere in their beliefs. Hoocoodanode?

The dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life

2010-08-16T18:31:00.003-06:00

I hate to be all "we've finally succumbed to the vortex of stupid!" on you, but the fact that this "Ground Zero Mosque" non-story still has legs makes me feel we have crossed some final threshold of no return.

Yes, the "controversy" which initially began as a few far-right Islamophobes getting all pouty that the brown heathens were approaching the consecrated crucifixion scene has somehow transformed itself into a legitimate political issue on which our Serious leaders are being asked actual questions and are expected to respond in some way other than "Have you dumbasses ever read the First Amendment?" If there was any doubt about how much the right controls popular discourse, and how desperate the ruling class is to talk about something other than the shape of the economy, this should be proof enough.

How many mental hoops do you have to jump through to manufacture some outrage about this story? Well, there's the fact that the "Ground Zero Mosque" is neither a) a mosque (not that it matters) nor b)at Ground Zero (it's two blocks away, and can't even be seen from there.) Then you have to bypass the dangerous precedent of declaring where and when a minority religion gets to practice, although, given the rise across the country in anti-Muslim fervor I suppose this is past the point now. Why don't we skip right to the yellow crescent stickers? Nevermind that, though, because how could you have missed the outrage of scary Muslims praying in the Pentagon of all places! To steal Elliot's great number, they didn't even have the decency to move two blocks away!

I'm struggling to come up with ways to express how ridiculous and outrageous this story is, and what it says about the complete depravity of our elite opinion-makers and the right-wing knuckle-draggers they are so eager to swoon over. What's somewhat surprising is that the United States has generally been better at integrating its Muslim population, probably moreso than Western Europe, for example. Even George Bush, perhaps unconvincingly, tried to insist he was not at war with the entire religion of Islam. That appears to be very over. Why now? Obviously, there's always the opportunity that economic crisis brings to facilitate the scapegoating of a small, unpopular and powerless minority. The more likely cause, though, is the need of the war party to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11 martyrdom and keep the public's thirst for destruction primed for the liberation of the next enemy.

In the beginning, God created snake-oil and called it good

2010-07-31T19:15:00.003-06:00

I've been spending some time today browsing the website of Chris Rodda, a senior researcher for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Rodda wrote a book a few years ago called "Liars for Jesus" which, while it could encompass any number of things, in this instance focused on the charlatans who sell Christian-nationalist revisionist history to churches and homeschool parents. Playing the John Brinkley to Rodda's Morris Fishbein is a Texan (where else?) named David Barton, who's come into some provenance recently as a "professor" at Glenn Beck's online "university." (The scare quotes are going to be hot and heavy in this post, folks.) A couple observations occurred to me, laid out here in easy to understand bullet points.

1. The strategy of Christian revisionists is basically to scour documents from the early history of the United States, cherry-pick quotes that have an affirmative reference to Christianity, and then declare it as unassailable that the founders really intended, if not for a theocratic government, then some arrangement in which Christianity would be enshrined with special privileges. As Rodda aptly demonstrates time after time, however, these quotes are almost always ripped completely out of context and demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the historical moment. This isn't surprising, though, when you consider that the Christian revisionists read the Founders in exactly the same way conservative evangelicals read scriptures. Memorizing a random assortment of prooftexts, mashing them together and then interpreting them through the lens of contemporary Christianity is the order of the day for folks like Barton. One shouldn't accept their Biblical pronouncements with any more credulity than their analysis of the United States founders. Unfortunately, many mainstream and Nu Atheist commentators do exactly that.

2. The contrast in style between Rodda and Barton is in itself very telling. Barton presents himself as a comic jockey, delivering one big whammer after another each punctuated with a variation of "har har are secularists dumb or what?!" Barton's clearly not trying to win anyone over; just to provide ammunition to the faithful and instill them with a dose of that smug superiority. Rodda combats his snideness with measured, even-tempered coolness. Relating to my post yesterday, if you were to pick a side solely on the basis of which of them you'd spend a lot of time around, there's no doubt about who most would choose. This blustering smart-assed swagger is the same kind of thing you'll get out of Ken Ham and the Creation Museum; it's apparently an involuntary tic produced by the subconscious realization that they are hopelessly grasping at straws.

A little birdhouse in the sky

2010-07-29T20:37:00.002-06:00

I don't generally get asked that often about my religious views because, well, I don't generally get asked about much at all. But there is something that tends to come up frequently in those conversations, something which I remember quite well from my evangelical days also.

That is, the assumption that I am no longer espouse any spirituality because of some personal bad experiences with religious believers. That's hardly the case. I thought many of the young evangelicals I knew in my time with that crowd were sincerely decent people caught in a belief system that made them act inhumanely. Sure, some of them were creeps who had found a home to justify their superiority and personal authoritarianism. And, of course, there are a great many religious types whose bad theology results directly in their being terrible people. If you believe in some future divine-stomping extinction of humanity, then you're a borderline sociopath. You're mostly harmless in that there is of course not going to be any rapture; not so much if you are sitting on your smug ass while the world is struck by preventable afflictions. That makes you a terrible person, no matter how much we seem to revere any kind of faith as worthwhile.

Digressions aside, the point is that my religiosity or lack thereof has little or nothing to do with the actions of religious people. There are a lot of religious folks whose actions for social justice causes I find very admirable. From my perspective on the left, anyone who's on the side of peace, justice and equality is on my side regardless of what their motivations may be (and I suspect in many cases our fundamental presuppositions about the world aren't that different at all. I try to keep abreast of the news from progressive religious groups, but I could not join them for the simple reason that my own experience has never left me feeling any kind of personal spiritual connection to the supernatural. That is why I am not a religious believer in a nutshell; I cannot find any reason to suspect that there is any kind of extra-dimensional presence that is puling the world around on a kite string.

In a nutshell, my religious philosophy is this: if a God exists and has any kind of personal opinion about how the planet operates, he or she must care primarily about how we go about making the lives of people we can see around us better, and furthermore that we have been given the capacity to understand how to do this on our own. Otherwise, God would be a deceptive, unreliable bastard who wouldn't be worth paying attention to. The god of say, fundamentalist Christianity who selfishly demands arbitrary tasks be performed to no practical end whatsoever can't in any sense actually exist anyway. Furthermore, any god that's going to demand personal recognition of some kind as an arbiter between salvation and damnation had better do a damn sight better job of making itself more readily apparent.

If Christianity could turn itself around from being a mystical self-help religion of navel-gazing and panty-sniffing and recover its tradition of social justice and egalitarianism, I would be happily cheering from the sidelines. But I still wouldn't be reapplying for membership.

More to say on this another time.

Have you given up on Democrats yet?

2010-06-09T11:43:00.002-06:00

Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln survived a primary challenge yesterday from the state's Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Organized labor and other progressive groups had been backing Halter against Lincoln, a staunch, business-friendly Blue Dog and, when it appeared she was in jeopardy, the establishment Democrats showed up in force to bail her out, even though polls had given Halter a better chance of winning the seat in November. People say Democrats don't have principles. Nothing could be further from the truth. Business Democrats have such strong principles, in fact, that they would rather lose elections than betray them. There is nothing new under the sun in that department, as Upton Sinclair will tell you.

Gabriel Winant sums it up nicely:

In other words, elite Democrats had a real choice, and they decided to stand with the Chamber of Commerce and treat the unions like the misbehaving hired help. They ran the same campaign that conservative Southern Democrats have been running for the better part of a century to keep labor out of the South, and it worked.

The direction we're headed in, judging by that White House official, is for Democrats to show the door to working-class voters. For years, Democratic leaders have desperately wanted theirs to be the party of upper-middle-class suburban professionals. And if Blanche Lincoln loses in November to her Republican challenger, as she probably will, all we'll be able to say is that Democrats got their wish: They wrote off working people, and working people wrote them off too.

The message could hardly be clearer. Democrats would rather be the minority party than leave their corporate masters at the mercy of the grubby hands of the working class. Stop wasting energy and resources believing they will someday change if you ask nicely enough.

Dolce et decorum est

2010-05-30T16:16:00.003-06:00

So Sarah Palin apparently plagiarized this poem on her Twitter feed. I couldn't care less about that, but let's take a closer look at the sentiments in this post, which are commonly held by military fetishists.

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It goes on like this for some time, but you can get the basic idea here. I am generally of the philosophy that you shouldn't get much credit for fixing something you broke in the first place. And indeed, all of the benefits the author claims as the byproduct of the military require similar armed coercion to remove them in the first place. Indeed, the more present the military is in public life, the less free the society tends to be, as any citizen of Burma or North Korea could tell you. Which they won't because, well, you know.

Individual soldiers may well believe in their mission as entirely benevolent crusaders for all sorts of high-minded enlightened causes. As a unit, though, their actions are entirely controlled by an absolute hierarchy ending with the government at the top. They are no more and no less than the muscle behind the Gummit's interests and are completely dependent on the state for moral direction, or the lack of it. Thus, this poem attributes a philosophical independence to the military which doesn't exist, and would be highly dangerous if it did. Conservatives, I suspect, know this, which explains the paradox between condemning Big Gummit while enthusiastically backing the Gummit's Hammer. They hold out hope such a break will occur and save them from the unfortunate democratic impulses of their fellow citizens.

Smedley Darlington Butler gave a much better summary of the soldier's duty in 1935.

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Don't know much about title-ry

2010-04-29T17:28:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure quite what future conflicts over religion in the world will look like, but one thing seems clear enough; the era of struggles between different world religions as they are traditionally understood is coming to an end. What we will get in its place are struggles between interfaith coalitions consisting of hierarchical, patriarchal fundamentalists and egalitarian progressives.

I got the impetus for this train of thought from reading James Loewen's "Lies my Teacher Told Me." Loewen mentions that American history textbooks rarely emphasize the role religious conviction has played in the lives of historical figures because of the objections of both religious fundamentalists, who will object to any unflattering portrayal of their religion, and axe-grinding atheists, who will object to any positive mention of sincerely-held beliefs. The latter note is extraneous for the moment. The interesting corrollary is how many formerly combative sects have come together to scrub any mention of their historical conflicts from the record. This is part of a larger compact between Protestants and Catholics, and between Christians in general and conservative Jews, which has been made in the past few decades, a trend which I think will continue into the future as more and more fundamentalists realize that shared material and power interest outweigh their theological differences.

Now, Ditchkins*-flavored Nu Atheists will doubtless jump in here to say that it is their gains and not the liberal religious which has caused the global circling of the wagons. This I doubt. Nu Atheists have a symbiotic relationship with the fundamentalists in which each replenishes the other's raison d'etre. They share, in the apostate class, a common enemy. And why would the Nus want to get rid of their most valuable resource; easily-manipulable strawmen? Plus, there is the reality that Nu Atheism in its design can never become a mass global movement; it exists to make Western liberals feel smugly superior from the ignorant masses, not achieve any kind of social change to threaten the entrenched power structures.

The greater threat here, as it always has been, is the apprehension by the religious elite that their own theological impulses can be turned against them. This has been most readily apparent in the past few decades with the Vatican's war on liberation theology and its association with the Latin American left movements. More recently (and more ambiguously) it has been the struggle between old-line evangelical Christians and the younger "emerging" movement which is dangerously apostate on the Real Issues. I suspect there were similar sorts of ecumenical kumbaya moments at comparable points in history; just before the Civil War, for example.

The other point of note here is that Western fundamentalists do at least still claim to be in conflict with fundamentalist Muslims. But this too seems to be more as a result of ongoing political necessity than any material disagreement. One would imagine that, when all sides come to realize their shared interest in censorship, patriarchy, and preserving the proper political succession, any alleged differences will also melt away.

*h/t Terry Eagleton

Got a Polish email in my pocket...

2010-04-18T20:19:00.002-06:00

Stephen F. Hayward:

Surprisingly, the survey reveals Tea Partiers to be slightly more economically secure than the general population. Combine those findings with the fact that Tea Partiers are a well-educated cohort, and the narrative that the Tea Partiers are a bunch of pitchfork populist rubes becomes harder to maintain.

Hayward presumably means this as a defense of Tea Partyism, but says it only one paragraph after approvingly asserting the Teabaggers populist bona fides. Consequently, his own narrative that tea marchers are spontaneously organized bands of working people genuinely concerned that over-taxation is grinding them into poverty also becomes rather hard to maintain. As Michael Lind succinctly puts it elsewhere in the Times compilation, "Tea Partiers put the “petty” in petty bourgeoisie."

The Tea Parties have arisen (in such cases as where they are not simply a rebranding of local Republican Parties) out of an honest concern that their privileged position in American political and economic life could be threatened by the present moment. Naturally, then, there's little they fear more than an organization of the working class, thus even such modest organizations such as the SEIU or the late ACORN play a pivotal role in Teabaggers' conspiracy lore. Like most self-proclaimed advocates of liberty, their principled stand against the tyranny of federal governments erodes quickly when it comes to the dissolution of voluntary mass organization along class lines. It's instructive to compare their rhetoric of liberty to that of Eugene Debs in 1895 righteously upbraiding government intervening on behalf of the Pullman car company. Certainly libertarians wouldn't be nostalgic for such days of tyranny would they?

Oh.

Death'n'taxes

2010-04-15T22:05:00.002-06:00

The great problem with democracy, the bourgeois revolutionaries found to their dismay, turned out to be resolving the contradictions between concentration of wealth in a few hands and the fact that the throng of impoverished could still vote. "Democracy," says our libertarian interlocutor, "means people can vote themselves wealth they haven't earned!" "Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism," said another right-winger with a mustache who invaded Poland. Luckily, someone has found a solution.

Natural habitat

2010-04-12T18:18:00.003-06:00

Balloon Juice:

Kos has a good piece about why Democrats should try to do immigration reform before the 2010 midterms. The gist is that Dems can’t do much worse than they did in 2008 among working class whites—the group that is most likely to be anti-immigration reform—in any case, but that it might be able to improve its standing among Latino voters (especially in terms of turn-out) if it passes immigration reform.

Of course, there's an important discussion to be had on illegal immigration, the reasons why it exists, the real effects it has on working-class citizens, and how to solve it in a way that empowers workers of all races.

Screw that, though. The important thing is to pump an immigration reform that's as racially divisive as possible, because there's a hot new demographic that can be locked into voting Democratic on the basis of fundamental ethnic preservation. And as we know, the purpose of Democrats winning elections is that Democrats will have won elections, which will allow us to feel better about ourselves and continue to laugh at "working-class white" people, who surely have no problems we might want to address.

Hating sinners

2010-04-09T19:12:00.003-06:00

Renegade Evolution:

...in all these threads and what not about Bullock and James, people are fuckin’ up in arms and ready to burn people alive due to James’ alleged racism and hate, but at the same time, a whole hell of a lot of them are hating on, well, “low life” gearhead/”sleazy” white folk with tattoos and whatnot. It’s all woohoo- we hate racists and racism, we hate intolerance and stereotypes- that shit is bad- but fuck if we cannot stand those crackers!

We are headed for an endgame in American politics where the two-party monopoly locks us all into a world of stagnating, mutually-reinforcing tribalism. The elite right stirs up white fear of a cavalcade of different-looking people coming to look and sound different from you and steal your shit!, while the liberal wing points at the former and reminds their constituency of the dire consequences of a giant cracker army turned loose. Meanwhile, actual policy distinctions become harder and harder to elucidate.

For the aforementioned liberal technocrat, the specter of cracker racism is an all-encompassing narrative. There is nothing it can't do to obscure and indeed justify his own class privilege. It is, for him, the same kind of corrupting cancer that homosexuality is for a certain kind of right-wing Christian. There are no lengths to which he will not go to uncover the association with the vile prejudice which comes from never taking an African-American studies class, your general sense of common justice be damned. When he finds it, any and all of your unique circumstances can be waved away. Are you losing your house? Well, you once called a black guy "articulate," so we'll be outside cheering on the bank.

Of course, our right-wing Christian homophobe at least recites the game claim that he "loves the sinner but hates the sin." Rightfully no one believes him, so I suppose it's a blessing that the liberal technocrat makes no pretensions to doing anything but look for sins to excuse his class and cultural prejudices. Meanwhile, it's highly debatable whether any of his ostensible anti-racist crusaderism has done a lick to decrease the amount of actual racism. Indeed, when you have Pat Buchanan wailing that you should be irrationally afraid of non-white people, "intellectuals" incessantly reminding you that you are irrationally afraid of non-white people, well, damned if you don't start to believe you're irrationally afraid of non-white people.

This will become even more pronounced as liberals become increasingly unable to defend the current Democratic government's rightward surge on the merits (and right-wingers find fewer and fewer places of ideological disagreement). It's the Iraqification of America, the victory of vacuous tribal politics while the ruling class parasites walk away from the table with everyone's chips.

Tommy pop-pop

2010-03-24T15:44:00.002-06:00

It's hard for me to get too unkempt over The Mustache of Understanding's latest shite because, while it is filled with the usual pig-ignorant twaddle about the desperate Hole in the Middle of American politics, he actually ends it by stumping for an instant-runoff voting system, an easy common-sense reform I also support. Now, Friedman may not be aware of this, if a taxi driver from Bangalore hasn't told him, but IRV advocacy is usually the territory of the independent left, not the center, precisely because progressives will no longer be forced to cave to ConservaDem demands under threat of ZOMGRepublicans! If Tommycakes thinks the Democratic Party is in the throes of the Radical Left now, what will he think when the party's right wing minority is no longer able to bar the exit doors because what's beyond them is the vacuum of space?

All else is commentary

2010-03-21T21:37:00.002-06:00

Lawyers, Guns, and Money:

A great progressive moment.

I am largely ambivalent about the passage of the health care bill. It seems likely that, whether the bill passed or failed, the window for passing serious health reform will be closed for a generation. Had it failed, of course, the ruling class would have declared the subject closed and decided. With the apparent passage, the establishment--both Serious Liberals and Beltway status-quo-ites--will now claim victory and retire to the sidelines. Earnest progressive boosters of the bill who hope it is some kind of first step are headed for disappointment. The bill does nothing to cure the real disease of American health care, in fact, it enshrines the maximum profitability of health inscos and pharmaceuticals into law. I can't see how you plan to build on that.

With that in mind, it's hard to see how online liberals can hail this as any kind of progressive "victory." That's hardly how I would characterize squandering considerable popular political will for reform by watering it down first in a futile attempt at the unattainable holy grail of "bipartisanship" and later buying off the support of industry-owned conservative Democrats. It was not a progressive victory to allow a small cadre of far right nutters to drive the public debate while whipping the left into line. Backers have sent out the old standby of reformists everywhere, that it provides short-term relief to the uninsured; in this case with the same junk for-profit insurance which already leaves many millions of citizens under-insured.

No, this hardly seems like a victory. While the supposed wild unpopularity cited by opponents is a fiction, the modest new institutions aren't likely to be popular enough to survive the next Republican government. What we have here is evidence for the vacuity of the Serious Liberal admonition to "work within the system." Fellow workers, if this is the best you can do within the system, then it is the best you will ever do within the system. It is time to change the system.

Maple Leaf Dawn

2010-03-20T17:59:00.002-06:00

Fellow Workers!

After careful analysis of all rhetoric* on the issue here at Mel-Anon Labs, I believe I have solved the health care crisis once and for all!

All we need to do is the following:

1.) Convince Canada to invade.
2.) As mounting any kind of civil defense would be too expensive and We Just Can't Afford That Right Now, said invasion should be a walkover.
3.) Hello, United States of Canuckistan!

This seems like a foolproof plan to me, so call your Member of Parliament today!

*Okay, mostly just television ads during the basketball.

Hammer time!

2010-03-07T23:56:00.002-06:00

The Raw Story:

"There is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits, keep people from going and finding jobs," he told CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday.
"In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out," he argued.
"People are unemployed because they want to be? " asked Crowley.
"Well, it is the truth. And people in the real world know it," said DeLay.

Supposing DeLay is right, the question which immediately arises is why anyone would choose to barely subsist on unemployment benefits rather than earn a meager wage being overworked at menial labor by tyrannical bosses. Oh, but I've answered my own question, haven't I? The Hammer, of course, prefers an entirely non-coercive free market where the choice between starvation and slavery is left up to you!

Vainglorious bastards

2010-03-07T23:06:00.002-06:00

Two very worthwhile reads sizing up the Tea Party movements can be found at Americana and the New York Review of Books.

Trying to nail down a taxonomy of tea partiers is difficult because of the great potpourri of programs bandied about, ranging from Paulian escapists to local Republican parties hoping for a re-branding. There are upper-middle class suburbanites afraid for the first time that popular movements from below might reshuffle the tax burden (they have nothing to fear, of course, but the fear itself is helpful to someone.) And there are working-class people angry at the elite power structure who are looking to throw their weight behind anyone who will give them some answers.

This confusion is encapsulated by the media's response to it.

The tea party is an interesting movement because it is a combination of people that can be shit on without repercussion and powerful interests looking to exploit the movement for political gain. The media is in a sort of holding pattern, some coverage is hyper-critical and other hews to the standards of covering the powerful.

Case in point is this David Brooks column in the New York Times. Brooks, the quintessential establishment conservative, dismisses the Tea Partiers with a series of thrown-together superficial similarities between them and the New Left of the 1960s. Brooks not only re-assures the establishment that he is not on board, but also reminds everyone that Non-Serious people, regardless of their particular proclivity, are distinguished first and foremost by their Non-Seriousness and exist in a kind of solidarity likewise.

However, there is this:

I see the rank and file as working class people, generally. I don’t fault people for not having enough time to research the world because that time and energy is a luxury that many people cannot afford. I don’t fault them for being ignorant about that which has not, until recently, been relevant to their lives. They as much as tell you that they are angry, violent and afraid of the future, that is

I would sympathize with this if I felt it were descriptive of much of Tea Party Nation. But I'm not sure it is. Here is Jonathon Rabun at the Tea Party Nation in Nashville.

Few of us would see much change from the $1,500–$2,000 we'd spent on travel to Nashville, the $558.95 convention fee with service charge, a room at the hotel, and a couple of drinks at the hotel bars, where a glass of the cheapest wine or whisky cost $12. Seen as a group, we were, I thought, a shade too prosperous, too amiably chatty and mild-mannered, to pass as the voice of the enraged grassroots.
I asked one woman whether she'd been part of "9/12," as tea partiers call the great taxpayer march on Washington, D.C., last September. No, she'd missed it, she said, and "felt really guilty" about doing so, but she and her husband had been on vacation.

"Where did you go?"

"We spent a week in Amalfi, then we toured Tuscany, then we spent a week in Rome."

I can believe that many of these people really did have a "political awakening" of sorts leading them to tea-partydom, but it was not likely born out of a lack of leisure time to consume political news, but instead--as I hinted above--from a realization that sudden upheavals and class unrest could be in serious jeopardy for the first time in their lives. Tea partying served as a kind of pre-emptive strike; using the standard right-populist framework of mimicking a working-class, salt-of-the-earth ethos.

Give me syrupy or give me death

2010-03-04T20:45:00.003-06:00

Here's a conclusion I didn't think I would ever reach.

Of the following, I much prefer the saccharine naifs with their huggy puppy romance to the self-righteous pietists who, like the puritans who need to constantly remind you they don't own a television, must constantly assure themselves and you how above it they are. Of course, they are lying to themselves and the rest of us. Join a monastery or convent if you want to prove your chaste bona fides. Otherwise, stuff it. I don't believe you.

Crass warfare, part II

2010-03-02T23:21:00.002-06:00

Found on the internet:

...it’s more accurate to say all white Americans are implicated in a racist system, because we all benefit from it. Even those of us who are not racist in any way... are still inheritors of the system.

Nothing will ensure the continued prevalence of racism quite like reminding working-class white people of how much they benefit from it. Perhaps it can only be topped by assuring them that, yes, their economically-precarious position does in fact come from previously marginalized minorities taking away their jobs. It used to be you had to rely on the ruling class and white-supremacist reactionaries like Pat Buchanan to make these arguments; now you can get it from zealous, self-flagellating liberals.

Perhaps that's the point

2010-02-25T16:21:00.001-06:00

If the composition of government will always be regarded by Broderist bipartisanship fetishists as an even 50-50 split, why have elections?

Dick Cheney Appreciation Night

2010-02-18T00:34:00.002-06:00

You've got to hand it to the guy. By defiantly defending his participation in crimes against humanity, he dares mealy-mouth reformists, Serious thinkers and play-nicers to continue plowing the ship of empire right through the iceberg which is now plainly visible for all to see. Previous American war criminals at least kept their activity out of the press long enough for establishment historians to edit it out of the textbooks. But this guy is putting it right out there, making the apologist scribes look even more venal in defending him from The Hague than any genuine anti-imperialist ever could.

Crass warfare

2010-02-14T00:14:00.002-06:00

BroadSnark:

Here’s a hypothetical situation.

You work in a town with one factory. You need your job. Moving to another town, starting your own business, or getting some other means of survival is not an option at the moment.

One of your coworkers (let’s call him Bob) is a racist, sexist, homophobic SOB. You are a black lesbian (let’s call you Michelle) who, for obvious reasons, does not get along with Bob.

You and Bob have found yourself in a situation. Your employer (let’s call him Dick) is planning on cutting your salaries in half and doubling your work load. Dick is counting on the animosity between you and Bob preventing any collaboration to thwart his plan. Dick has his eye on a lovely yacht that he will be buying with your recouped wages.

What do you do here? Take the cut in pay? Move into your car? Live on Ramen noodles? Or do you find a way to work with Bob to fight Dick?

ladypoverty:

The working class has one option to further its interests, and it is not in finding common cause with the ownership caste of the country, but in reconciling the differences within itself and striking at the economic heart of its enemy -- in the workplace and within communities -- where all class power is fundamentally derived.

There's a reason why a great many successful liberation movements--in the USA prior to 1970 and around the world to the present day--has held that success in winning equality for an oppressed group won't come without a component dedicated to fighting against imperialism and in favor of broad economic justice. This is important to remember as the current exploding fad in American public history of remembering the struggles of women and ethnic minorities--we are in Black History Month, after all--is trying to extricate these elements and retroactively jam these movements into accepting the contemporary neoliberal utopia of a post-racial, post-gender free market Pax Americana.

The reason is this: As long as people understand innately--as they will-- that they are getting unjustly worked over by the economic system they are in, they will be looking for someone to blame. Without organizing themselves as a class, that blame will usually fall on someone deemed to be less powerful on more vulnerable. Women, blacks, immigrants, whatever looks like a division to be exploited; it will be a whack-a-mole cycle of blame until the real culprit can be identified.

Unfortunately, such an organization may require temporary tactical alliances with people who have not yet combed through magazine advertisements unlocking the racial symbolism. But if the liberation movements of the past could understand this, why are our current batch of liberals so squeamish?

Did not do the research

2010-02-08T19:31:00.002-06:00

Shorter Mahablog:

Anarchists and right-libertarians both hate government, therefore they are exactly alike. Also, the USA and USSR were on the same side in World War II, ergo FDR was a Stalinist.

Maybe this will help.

All-American zero

2010-02-01T19:33:00.000-06:00

Despite laying off hundreds of workers in recent years, Focus on the Family--much ignored around these parts lately--is laying out as much as $4 million on a Super Bowl ad featuring golden boy Tim Tebow and his mother with what will presumably be an anti-abortion message. Being the nice guy that I am, I think even fundamentalist Christians should have jobs. But there'll be pie in the sky when they die, at least. CBS has accepted the ad, reversing it's prior policy, and the policy of all networks regarding Super Bowl commercials, of not airing what it deems political "advocacy" ads, likely as a result of discovering that big game ad revenue is not recession-proof.

It's hard to imagine exactly what the backers hope the ad accomplishes; even if the Tebow story is believable, there's the jaw-droppingly-obvious-to-non-insane-people conclusion that, hooray, the woman had a choice about what she wanted to do. And that's before they realize the grotesque logical result of the story, which is apparently that anti-choice nuts think all women ought to endanger their lives to bring forth the holy fetus, where good Christian conservatives will proceed with ignoring its well-being until it reaches employable age.

There's little more to be written about Tebow which hasn't already been said about the most media-fellated jock in the history of sports. Alas, the Great White Hope of a nation doesn't seem to have the kind of skills needed to continue his residency on your television set as a professional. His power-running quarterback shtick is just what professional football teams were looking for...in the 1920s. Perhaps that's why he is taking this unusual career step. While there are certainly no shortages of pious professional athletes, very few wade into the water publicly shilling for contentious social issues. Pro sports are big business, of course, and ownership doesn't want to alienate the customers, meaning athletes of any kind of political sympathy typically stick to promoting bread-and-butter non-controversial charities approved by the leagues. So Tim Tebow looks at his future life carrying clipboards and decides now's the time to make his mark while the last live snap he took is still a recent memory. Or maybe he's that delightful breed of arrogant virtuousness who believes he can be the heroic proselytizer where his forbears have failed. Watching him flounder will be delightful.

It's good to be a corporation, part II

2010-01-21T20:07:00.002-06:00

As discussed here some months ago, the Supreme Court today handed in its decision on Citizens United v. FEC declaring limits on corporate campaign spending unconstitutional.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.

Well, it's awfully magnanimous of them to make unions exempt as well, since there's nothing the American labor movement needs more than to throw away more money in a Sisyphean effort to battle corporations in the political arena. This is, I guess, the court's idea of "balance;" I don't see how this provision doesn't help big business even further.

On the positive side, it will now be impossible--if it weren't before--to deny the elephant in the room of corporate-bought democracy. Maybe, as many have suggested, our politicians can take a page from auto racing and wear the logos of their sponsors on their suits. Imagine the acceptance speeches now! "I'd like to thank the boys of Citibank and DuPont for giving me a great car out there this campaign season." It could go places.

MOAR: American Leftist.

Your kids now belong to the state of Massachusetts

2010-01-20T22:40:00.002-06:00

I'd guess most mainstream liberals are skeptical about the merits of plebiscite democracy, at least the few I've read on the subject are. And it does correspond well to their general attitude toward the stupidity of the mob rule. The preponderance of anti-gay ballot initiatives and the general political malaise in California are generally cited as examples of where allowing popular votes on policy go awry.

The MA-Sen race, however, provides a pretty good oppositional case against media-managed representative government. Despite the localized nuances of the race and the fact that a not insignificant number of Brown voters were in protest of watered-down healthcare reform and timid policing of Wall Street, the narrative of Brown's win is nonetheless being written to fit the script prepared by the managers of democracy. Choosing between two candidates with purposefully ambiguous policy aims makes it virtually impossible for the public to make concrete political desires manifest.

Keep doin' watcher doin'

2010-01-19T21:23:00.002-06:00

Even before the polls closed in the Massachusetts special Senate election tonight, Eli Lilly's personal senator Evan Bayh could tell us What It All Means.

“ The only we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates,” Bayh said. “Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country -- that’s not going to work too well.”

One is tempted to ask Bayh to cite examples, but that would be pointless. One is also tempted to wonder whether Democrats winning huge majorities in Congress was a huge mandate for the "furthest left elements"...oh what the hell, the tool is just giving you the interpretation that you are always going to get from Broderists of all stripes. Regardless of what political activity is actually happening on the ground, the Democrats are forever in danger of lost to the grasp of the non-bathing hippies. This, of course, is the reason progressives ought to be louder and meaner, because it is futile to try and assuage the paranoid fears of the permanently Concerned Centrist.

Instead, the party liberals are out in force with the latest update in tool-enabling Blame-Ralphism just in case the Coakley loss could be blamed on a lack of enthusiasm from the party's left base. Which, as we know, also permanently owes its vote to Democrats in perpetuity regardless of policy action because ZOMGFascisms and shut up that's why.

And the depth of the revolt against Obama has been striking too. As near as I can tell, there's a small but significant minority who are so enraged that they'd be perfectly happy to see his presidency destroyed as a kind of warning to future Democrats. It's extraordinarily self-destructive behavior — and typically liberal, unfortunately. Just ask LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. And then ask them whether liberal revolt, in the end, strengthened liberalism or conservatism.

Ah, but here's the catch to reliable hippie-hater Drum's point. This strategy almost always works for the right. During periods of exile, the Republican party reliably becomes more conservative than it was before. Theoretically, a similar tactic of ignoring a left-denying Democratic Party should have the same effect for progressives. Provided, of course, that Democrats really cared about winning elections, which one assumes is the goal of a functioning political party. The Democrats are not, however, a usual political party. They are the Washington Generals of American politics, a caretaker ruler for those moments when the preferred business party needs a moment to regroup. Thus there is no meaningful way to punish them. The game is already lost.

Richard Estes continues with his usual perspicacity.

...appeals for support for Coakley took on more and more hysterial tones. If Brown won, they screamed, Republicans would return to power and destroy the country. Voters who refused to respond to the rhetorical horsewhipping administered by Democratic activists deserved what they will get. Left unanswered, of course, was whether voters deserve what they are currently getting from Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress. Coakley supporters were left with such emotional appeals, because there have nothing to substantively say that would persuade voters that Coakley, and by extension, Obama, have any intention of challenging the plutocracy that controls the government.

It's important--though probably futile--to mention that the MA-Sen election doesn't translate perfectly to any national interpretation which we'll inevitably hear in the coming days. It's hard to imagine the vote representing a plebiscite on the "extreme left" health care reform bill when Massachusetts citizens already have a health care system which is more progressive than anything being floated presently. Any single race is always dependent on the characters involved, in this case Martha Coakley who, by most accounts, ran a terribly lackadaisical campaign expecting to cruise to victory.

Sex is dirty

2010-01-17T19:50:00.005-06:00

Here's something you ought to know, though hopefully you will never find yourself in this position. If you are 28 years old, a virgin (indeed, the entirety of your romantic relationships can be boiled down to three weeks when you were 19), unattractive, devoid of most useful skills, not very independent, and so forth, you have to come to grips with a certain set of facts, no matter how much you would like to avoid them. You are not finding a partner. You are not getting laid. The end.

I'm not saying this resembles anyone I've ever met. Just hypothesizing.

A person, we'll say a straight guy just for kicks, who finds himself here has a couple of options for how to rationalize this situation. He can, if he wants to become a bitter, narcissistic old goat from whom all discerning parents will keep their children at a healthy distance, blame the entirety of the female population for some inherent flaw in womanhood which prevents all of them from seeing what a really wonderful person you are underneath all of the signs pointing to what a terrible person you are. If you have landed at this space, do not pass go, do not collect $200. The less said, the better.

The other option, if you don't want to cordon yourself from half the human race, is to realize that women make perfectly fine companions who can provide you with fulfilling friendships even if none of them wants to spend any quality time with you naked. The notion that women are people, too has the added virtue of being something you ought to believe anyway regardless of how much action you're getting. But in my...I mean, your situation, it's absolutely essential to avoid a lonely life of bitterness.

But there is a problem here which is going to interrupt our egalitarian vision of ponies and comradeship. Eventually, biology intervenes. Or perhaps the saturation of the great majority of human culture does. The distinction is important, so maybe I should deal with it, but for now I won't*. Point is, times will come when, despite what you've convinced yourself rationally about the unnecessary luxury of romantic partnerships, you're still struck by some murky desire for a more intimate connection.

Now, I'm sure all of you are jumping out of your chairs to yell "sex!"** I do that all the time. But that brings us to the next step on our journey. Sustaining your principles about the just person-hood of the opposite sex here requires one of two mutually exclusive positions. Either a) everyone screws or b) no one does. The first is straight out. Even if it's probably healthier for everyone (and I'm not sure monogamy can be intellectually defended anyway) it's not going to solve your problem because, as we've already established, you're hideous.*** Even if people think you're kinda cool, they aren't going through that with you.

So that leaves us with the "sex is base and vile" position. At first glance this makes a certain kind of sense. After all, what kind of quantifiable meaning do you get out of it? No one talks with his mouth full, as it were. I may be imagining things, or extrapolating from limited data, but this seems to be making something of a comeback in some progressive circles as a reactionary position to the mainstreaming of more casual sex; i.e, the perversion of the masses is no substitute for our spiritual/philosophical/emotional bonding. Can't we have all of our needs for emotional connections and communication met without it?

The bonus here is that, as most people define a relationship as whomever they are physically intimate with****, shouldn't forswearing the need for sex eliminate the need for them? That's where we will have to leave it, because I don't have the answer. I don't think so, but I don't know. I cannot completely crush those periodic longings for a unique, completely uninhibited relationship with another person. That's at once baffling and frustrating. Geez, I am too old for this sort of thing.

*I'm pretty sure it's biology, but I'm aware I may be making excuses.

**In the interest of our more sensitive viewers, you can substitute "physical intimacy." Your Sunday School teacher was right, hand-holding is basically indistinguishable from the real thing. Adults have moved past this argument, though. See this great post from Roger Ebert of all people.

***"What is wrong with your FACE?" (6:00 in)

****Again, presuming one speaks to members of the other sex who are not your partner.

Too many footnotes.

Short answers to good questions

2010-01-15T21:03:00.002-06:00

ginandtacos.com - A Modest Proposal

Stationed in Baltimore, the Comfort can be ready to sail in five days and it'll take a couple more to reach Haiti. A lot of people who could have been saved will have died in the interim. So here's my idea. Let's build five of them. Staff them with medical students and military doctors, distribute them around the world (Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc.) and have them on duty 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Make calls in poor countries and provide medical care for people who have nothing. When disasters happen, the ships can be there in hours, not a week. You know, doing stuff that might make people around the world less likely to hate us. If we can maintain military bases in 30 different countries around the world we can afford a handful of ships. But without any guns, it would be a hard sell on both Congress and the public.
Isn't the military always going on and on about that "winning the hearts and minds" shit after they turn some nation into rubble? That might work – one of these decades. Or we could spend a tiny fraction of our obscene military budget on, you know, helping people. But that doesn't interest us. We want to do as we please and then find some way to make people like us afterward. It worked well in Vietnam and Iraq, so why change now?

John Cole at Balloon Juice makes a similar observation, noting that a BBC poll showed the United States with a 70% approval rating in Indonesia, due largely one assumes to goodwill accumulated by American aid in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. Given the shocking discovery that generosity tends to make people "hate us for our freedoms" much less, why don't we practice it more often?

Alas, empires don't run on candy and good thoughts. US aid during major natural disasters is more public relations spending than anything else. Catastrophes like the Haitian earthquake are too high profile for the United States to be seen sitting around doing nothing, especially by its own population which expects to have the image of the great American spirit of generosity reinforced. So, in isolated cases like this, we come bearing alms blowing our trumpet before us, before going back to business as usual, helping subvert Haitian democracy and driving the agrarian population into an overcrowded shantytown slums which....oops.

A little action

2010-01-15T15:27:00.001-06:00

Swim, swim aching soul
through the mighty sea of earth.
Feel the cool licking of countless teeming bodies rushing past,
how can we choose whom to breathe and whom to expel?
I cannot choose at all;
they come and go or don't,
with joys and woes, dreams and fears,
always too quick for my staggered gasps of breath.

How I would have loved them,
but my limbs are short and knobby,
my gurgling lungs atrophied for want of a good cry,
my lips unable to pray a kiss.
This human drama has me;
I fly but sink, limp and exhausted
surrendering to a solitary journey; floundering listlessly through
the golds and the roses and the tears
to the bottom, like a needle, never touching anything.

The uses of anti-intellectualism

2010-01-11T19:58:00.002-06:00

Ask any loyal liberal about the great vices ensnaring America and one won't have to wait long before the lamentations about the exceeding dumbness of the American unwashed masses start to pour in. There seems to be a virtual cottage industry dedicated to understanding how stupid we can be. Furthermore, the story goes, not only are we dumb, but we are proud of our dumbness, and hate eggheaded intellectuals solely because they have the temerity to know things.

Now, one imagines there is a great deal of self-flattery involved in this monologue. Our hypothetical liberal professional is mighty proud of those degrees, not to mention the money he spent on it, and what better way to pass the time than imagine there is a mob of sulking parasites who are stewing in their jealousy of you. This is pretty standard behavior in a competitive society, though; substitute looks, money, athleticism, etc. and you'll find a similar attitude among many other people. Our liberal naturally thinks he is above that sort of thing, and that his learning has elevated him above such petty feelings of superiority, but, well, the line starts here.

In the political arena, of course, this is manifested by the obsession with Sarah Palin and other right-populists leaders who allegedly represent the common-sense knowledge of everyday Americans against the murky "elite" who control government, culture, and all and sundry. Liberals largely buy into this frame because, as I said, it flatters them. (I should be more careful with terms; populism need not be anti-intellectual, but it does if you can't abide the thought of philistines learning things, so liberals distrust it.)

There's just a slight problem: For a country which supposedly derides the "elites" and favors good old fashioned truth from the gut over science and the ivory tower, we have a pretty foolproof record of letting those elites do what they want with the country. We elect incumbents to Congress at a rate that would make the Politburo blush. Any kind of strike or mass protest of any kind on the level seen in other parts of the world is big news. There was some anger at the decadence of Wall Street in the wake of the financial meltdown, but it was mostly unfocused and ultimately nihilistic.

So it is somewhat puzzling then to read liberals complain that there are never any mass movements to do anything these days. No marches on the streets for single-payer health care, no rallies to end the wars, no protests for election reform or cleaning out government-by-money. Why should there be? We think our elites are doing a good job. After all, they have the credentials to prove it and there's no way that we, the uneducated toilers of the hoi polloi, would dare think we could do their job better.

How low can Joe go?

2010-01-08T22:31:00.002-06:00

Public Policy Polling - Lieberman tanks

81% of Democrats now disapprove of Lieberman's job performance with only 14% approving, and he's not real popular with Republicans who disapprove of him by a 48/39 margin or with independents who do so by a 61/32 spread either. It all adds up to a 25% approval rating with 67% of his constituents giving him bad marks.

Conventional wisdom amongst mainstream pundits as well as many Sensible Liberal outlets is that "Blue Dog" Democrats in conservative states and districts must make a show of holding up Democratic legislation in order to electorally survive or be seen as complicit to the radical Marxi-liberal agenda of whatever corporate Democrat is in the White House. In practice, however, your hypothetical Blue Dog succeeds only in alienating everyone. Republicans will hate him or her merely for having the temerity to associate with the Global Communist Conspiracy, and progressives will be uninspired by one capitulation after another. Granted our congresscritter is in a nearly-impossible situation; she isn't likely to survive the right-wing backlash of a first-term midterm election anyway. So why take the one approach that's guaranteed not to work? Alan Grayson may lose, but he isn't going to go meekly.

Lieberman is a special case, of course, as he comes from a very liberal state and was already, for all intents and purposes, elected as a Republican in 2006. Nonetheless, it's gratifying to know that the media-darling Broderist ubermenschen act has put his approval numbers into Dick Cheney territory.

Basketball Jones

2010-01-04T20:15:00.002-06:00

Paul Campos has found the most exquisite metaphor for our elite media's hysterical assessment of our vulnerability to terrorism.

I’m quite sure I could beat LeBron James in a game of one on one basketball. The game merely needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and as soon as I score I win. Such a game might last several hours, or even a week or two, and James would probably score hundreds and possibly thousands of points before my ultimate victory, but eventually I’m going to find a way to put the ball in the basket.

He then goes on to wonder why we spend so much energy demanding a stronger government response to something with such a low likelihood of ever killing anyone.

Meanwhile, in the week that began with a terrorist incident in which no one other than the pathetically incompetent aspiring terrorist was hurt, approximately 47,000 Americans died. Around 13,000 of these people never reached old age, including nearly one thousand children.

Indeed over the past seven days approximately 350 Americans were murdered. About twenty of these murder victims were women killed by their husbands and boyfriends, while something like 35 were children who died as a result of abuse. Several hundred Americans committed suicide between Christmas and New Year’s Day and several hundred others died as a direct consequence of not having any medical insurance.

...

Another reason has to do the imaginative capacities of our elites. The typical Congressional subcommittee chairman or cable news anchor or syndicated columnist can’t really imagine not being able to afford to take his child to a doctor, or being wrongly convicted of a crime, but he is quite capable of imagining being on a Paris to New York flight that’s blown out of the sky. And while it’s true the risk he faces of suffering this fate are very close to zero, they are not, as they are for a poor person, literally zero.

I've thought for awhile that there may be something to this; that terrorism so frightens the ruling class because it is indiscriminate and cannot be passed off to the poor the way most dangers can. Even so, however, the chances of the well-to-do perishing in some terrorist attack are much less than any number of other natural or man-made disasters. The point may be that none of those work nearly as well at, shall we say, "terrorizing" the rest of the public or acting as a red herring from other curable maladies which the rulers believe are simply necessary for keeping society ordered the proper way.

Real Seriousness

2009-12-29T10:09:00.002-06:00

Glennzilla sums it up in a paragraph.

There very well may be some small number of individuals who are so blinded by religious extremism that they will be devoted to random violence against civilians no matter what we do, but we are constantly maximizing the pool of recruits and sympathy among the population on which they depend. In other words, what we do constantly bolsters their efforts, and when we do, we always seem to move more in the direction of helping them even further. Ultimately, we should ask ourselves: if we drop more bombs on more Muslim countries, will there be fewer or more Muslims who want to blow up our airplanes and are willing to end their lives to do so? That question really answers itself.

This reality has been evident to me for some time now. Yet there are apparently reams and reams of Serious Foreign Policy Analysts carrying unassailable validation of their rationality from America's finest universities who are nonetheless dedicated to the simplistic proposition "America good! You bad!" Of course it's possible to acknowledge, as Glennzilla does, that there are a handful of fanatics who would "hate the West" or whatever the hawks are saying today regardless of our actions and still realize that our actions have had the undeniable effect of making those fanatics look right to a great many of their fellow believers. And yet, the torch-bearers of cold realism and careful, reasoned judgment have, in their pursuit of denying any negative consequences of their actions, reached the same moral capacity of a four-year old: It's awesome, because I did it!

Help me out here

2009-12-24T17:32:00.002-06:00

Creating/expanding government-operated health plans to cover the uninsured = totally unacceptable to Serious Centrists.

Paying predatory private companies a premium to do the same thing and hoping that, golly, they just play nice and don't use their lobbying power to strip out whatever useful controls are in the deal = just fine and dandy.

Politics sure are weird.

The trouble with Taibbi

2009-12-17T18:53:00.002-06:00

The latest front in the long war between Hippies and Sensible Liberals is threatening to go nuclear over the half-assed Big Pharma handout posing as health care reform as well as the Afghanistan escalation, but the biggest shot so far has been fired by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone documenting Obama's wholehearted embrace of neoliberals in his economic policy team.

The debate is pretty much the usual for this sort of thing. The Sensible types accuse us of naive, puritannical immaturity who are interfering with Obama's 32-Dimensional Ninja Chess Mastery. Alternatively, we're putting undue pressure on Obama to do more than what apparent political realities allow. (This varies depending on which Sensible you ask.) Of the numerous things written on this topic, Taibbi himself has the most succinct reply:

First of all, we should get one thing out of the way — it’s not any citizen’s job to give a politician credit for his political calculations. In fact, that should rightly be part of the calculus of any political calculation; a politician should have to weigh the benefits of making, say, an unsavory insider alliance against the negative of public criticism for that move. If a leader doesn’t have to earn the admiration you give him, then a) that admiration doesn’t mean anything, and b) he will surely spend all his political capital on the people who do make him earn it.

Progressive activists should be fanatical puritans. That is the role they play in the political system; that is, insofar as Sensible Liberals share the goal of moving the range of what's attainable to the left. It seems to me that the Sensible folks are the naive ones. On the health care bill, for example, they happily followed the lead of moderate Democrats in declaring the most progressive solutions off the table by the outset. Then they are apparently surprised when Republicans and Blue Dogs cut out all of the remaining progressive elements of the bill during the inevitable bargaining phase. Why can't they see that our original bill was so rational and Sensible?

Ideally, Democrats and liberal apologists could use progressives to give them a left flank to use as a hammer in policy negotiations. They won't. Democrats won't care about alienating their base because they care more about losing corporate money than losing elections. And Sensible Liberal pundits want to be on the teevee next to Bob Schieffer, angling for a future campaign job with one of said Democrats by burnishing their anti-hippie bona fides.

Shorter Barack Obama

2009-12-12T21:09:00.002-06:00

Full text of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech.

Hey guys, I've got to justify having this big hammer, so I'm going to keep whacking at everything vaguely nail-shaped, because that's working out brilliantly so far.

Didn't really fit into the previous post, but it was screaming out for a "shorter" treatment.

Don't make me do this again

2009-12-12T20:18:00.002-06:00

Behold, I have uncovered the secret of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech and it is...that the first draft was written by a high school freshman who has learned just enough from world history class to make himself dangerous on the internet. Or so it seems. This may just be the level at which the American foreign policy establishment operates. Witness these gems:

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I have seen this sort of thing on bulletin boards before; wankers who muse with barely-concealed ruefulness what good fortune Gandhi's independence movement had by not meeting up with Imperial Japan. Not that they wish that would have happened, of course. Not at all.

Semi-related note on this passage: Glennzilla points out that Obama botches this section by saying he is sworn to defend and protect "his nation" when, in fact, he is only sworn to defend and protect the Constitution. (Huh, I could've sworn I read this in Greenwald's post, and it seems like the kind of thing he'd say, but now I can't find it.) This may as well be deliberate; if so, Obama should get some credit for dropping the pretext that American military adventurism has some relation to pie-in-the-sky ideas of American "values" or altruism, and is merely about perpetuating the empire in itself.

the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.

Well, it's finally happened. An American leader has gone before all the world and made a prettied-up version of the dick-slapping "if it weren't for us you'd all be speaking German-Russian-Japanese now" argument. Most of our arms at present are doing very little to "underwrite security," whether they are used by us or someone else.

I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.

I'll leave this to Jonathon Schwarz, who, in his unique way, notices that all Obama apparently sees of the past six decades is that he'd prefer to undo them.

This machine kills corporate Democrats

2009-12-10T23:13:00.002-06:00

People who follow my Facebook feed know I've been on a Woody Guthrie kick lately. You can probably guess why I'm trying to keep Woody alive, but to reiterate, here's a story I ran across on Truthout today.

here are at least eight million daily followers of Glenn Beck in America, and a good chunk of them are people like my grandmother and my uncle Billy - well-intentioned people that care about their country, their families and their communities, otherwise they wouldn't watch a show about politics. However, to label all these Glenn Beck followers as unreachable, bigoted racists is an extraordinary dangerous and misleading move for the progressive movement, which aims to include all people.
My grandmother's own vocal protest for gay rights in her church disproved that Glenn Beck followers tend to vote Republican merely because of gods, gays and guns. Sure, this wins over a large portion of them, but it doesn't explain how the Republican Party is able to win over people like my grandmother, who were once hardcore Democrats and never fell prey to such hate-baiting tactics in the past.

The divide-and-conquer tactic of keeping the working class divided on superficial grounds of racial or cultural identities is as old as time itself, yet liberals will gladly play along by marginalizing the white working class as an irredeemable mash of ignorant, bigoted rednecks who can only be reached by surrendering progressive stances on racial justice or women's rights. Witness the recent outrage over Stupak-Pitts, where liberals raised a great moan over conservative Democrats selling out abortion rights in an attempt to hold onto their supposedly conservative rural districts. The response in the libosphere was a great finger-wagging "this is what you get for 'reaching out' to working-class white voters." Well, no. That is what you get for allowing Democrats whose commitment to neoliberalism is non-negotiable to do the reaching. The liberal wing of the business party knows who butters its bread, and it isn't the great social causes favored by campus liberals.

On a related note, here's Taibbi on Sarah Palin and the media.

It’s much easier to figure out who’s “left” and who isn’t using cultural litmus tests than it is using position papers. What’s the left position on monetary policy? I have no idea. What’s the left’s position on American Idol? Easy: it rolls its eyes.

This is the crux to the perversion of populism unleashed by Palin, Beck and like. You should have solidarity with your boss rather than fellow workers from the city because neither you or your boss can figure out what the hell Un Chien Andalou is about. This stuff is catnip for liberals, of course, who cannot in their smugness resist the delightful idea that there are countless rubes out there who hate them just because they are so gul-durned smart. That they may actually be doing their alleged enemy's work for him probably doesn't cause them to lose much sleep.

Praise him whose wars we love to fight

2009-11-13T16:10:00.002-06:00

A couple of days ago, I posted to my Facebook status:

Veterans Day: It's the least your boss could to do thank you for fighting his wars for him.

This could probably stand to be fleshed out a little more.

Today, Rooney contended, Veteran's Day is little more than a celebration of militarism and war. He wants to re-brand Veteran's Day as "No War Day," and Collins supports that view.

And not just because he believes Veteran's Day celebrates militarism. He also believes that its celebration is an insubstantial bone thrown to veterans by a government that could not care less about them the other 364 days a year.

In his commentary, he detailed the treatment of vets after each of America's wars. Soldiers in the Colonial Army were swindled out of land grants promised to them by some of the Founding Fathers. Collins says homeless and mentally ill Civil War vets were common sights in the streets of Reconstruction America. Many of them suffered from PTSD, which back then went by a name that somehow manages to be both quaint and disturbing, sort of like a Stephen King title: "soldier's nostalgia." And then there was the Bonus Army of World War I vets, whose Washington Mall encampment was smashed by a Douglas MacArthur- and George Patton-led cavalry charge in the darkest days of the Great Depression.

I don't quite understand the notion that we antiwar hippies are somehow to blame for the abject condition of 'veteran's affairs" in this country. Our quarrel isn't with the largely working-class rank-and-file who are de facto conscripted into military service by a lack of alternate economic opportunity. We are after the ruling class whose bloodlust creates the wars that they are forced to fight. Of course, our rulers are well aware of this, hence their noise machine does its best to herd all debate over war policy into empty sloganeering about "supporting the troops," as if the pom-pom act absolves them of any and all future responsibility. Well, we know what the ruling class thinks of its cannon fodder as individuals, and it's certainly much less than any tofu-eating Berkleyite.

The man comes around

2009-11-06T16:00:00.002-06:00

LA Times:

President Barack Obama, lamenting "a horrific outburst of violence" in the killings today of at least a dozen soldiers and the wounding of more than 30 other people " at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, promised to "stay on this."

Well, this is good news. Now that the president is suitably 'horrified" by such "outbursts of violence," this must mean he will view the exponentially greater "outbursts of violence" unleashed by his military on Afghani and Pakistani civilians in a new light.

Oh, wait, this was not a wedding party? Bombs away, then!

Shorter Washington Post editorial page

2009-10-25T14:59:00.002-06:00

A Critical Question

We would've cared about people dying from lack of health care if only they were killed by Muslims instead

There's poo in there

2009-10-21T18:42:00.002-06:00

I seem to be awash in crankism lately (truthfully I've become pretty fascinated by it after reading Pope Brock's book on John R. Brinkley). I've been digging into the famous New Madrid earthquake prediction of Iben Browning for the museum, and now I've stumbled upon the weird world of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, who have apparently become re-energized with the availability of the H1N1 flu vaccine.

While the anti-vaccine people are wrong, it's worth nothing that, as far as I can tell, their instincts aren't necessarily incorrect.* As long as we maintain a for-profit health care industry which can control and manipulate government regulatory agencies, people ought to be skeptical about the appearance of "wonder drugs" which coincidentally give pharmaceutical companies a license to print money. Capital can and will attempt to purchase scientific credibility to suit its interests; global warming denialism being the most ready example.

As with many conspiracy theorists, vaccine cranks end up doing their own side a disservice by making actual muckrakers of corporate malfeasance look crankish by association. They should be dealt with according to their ineptitude, but not without reminding the public that they are the natural byproduct of an inhumane system.

*Okay, there are also your bog-standard nihilists who think the world is doomed to be run forever by a cabal of Jews and Masons, but there's no saving those folks.

Bipartisanship

2009-10-13T16:58:00.002-06:00

When did it become unconstitutional to pass a bill with no votes from the opposition party? I was previously under the impression that the makeup of the legislature was decided during elections, not by Very Concerned pundits who must have Balance at all costs even if it means overturning the unfortunate decisions of the voting public.

My sweet Nobel

2009-10-09T15:45:00.003-06:00

So, Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. As best as I can figure, this can only mean one of two things:

1) The previous administration set such a low bar that anyone else looks like Jesus and Buddha put together by comparison.

Or

2) The rest of the world has basically said to America, "Look, we'll give you whatever trinket you want, just please stop blowing stuff up."

The Nobel Peace Prize, of course, doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. The committee is apparently obligated to award it to someone every year, and there sadly aren't enough people who actually deserve it. Hell, they awarded one to this guy, so you know this isn't the worst choice they've ever made.

Conservatives are naturally unsure of what to make of this given their hate-hate relationship with the rest of the planet. It was just last week, after all, that they crowed about the international smackdown delivered to Obama by the Olympics. The result is also interesting in light of this poll showing the United States is apparently the most-admired nation in the world once again in the post-Bush era. Righties, and many Sensible Liberals, believe as an article of faith that many global surveys, like the infamous World Health Organization rankings or Reporters without Borders' press freedom survey, are skewed because of the rest of the planet's irreversible 'Murica-hatin' syndrome. As it turns out, the rest of the world apparently likes many Americans, it merely shares a mutual hate society with American conservatives.

From the archives of Republican Jesus, vol XVIII

2009-10-05T12:26:00.001-06:00

This may be the best thing ever.

…and then a Samaritan passed by the man, and saw that he was grievously wounded, and would surely die, so the Samaritan said, “let us offer this man a tax cut so that he can afford a high-deductible catastrophic care policy, combined with a tax-advantaged health savings account to defray his expenses. Furthermore, let us mandate that all must purchase such policies from the insurance companies, so that they may increase their wealth, and raise rates for all policyholders, lest the increased burden of covering unfortunate wretches like this one before me who…appears to be dead…(kicks body to be sure)…yup, dead! Oh, well, he would only have been a burden to his insurance provider anyway, and would have caused my rates to go up too.”

Right to Life

2009-09-29T14:31:00.001-06:00

Didn't know there was going to be an anti-war march here. How about that?

"Conservatives want live babies so they can grow up to be dead soldiers." -George Carlin.

Silver lining

2009-09-24T15:49:00.002-06:00

The silly and embarrassing Congressional hatchet-job on ACORN might be worth it if we can do this.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

In their haste to grandstand for news cameras, legislators had to write a particularly broad bill in order to get it done without an independent investigation. Glennzilla explains.

The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to accomplish an unconstitutional act: singling out and punishing ACORN, which is clearly a "bill of attainder" that the Constitution explicitly prohibits -- i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a trial. The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding). But the broader they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and whom they obviously don't want to de-fund). The narrower they make it in order to include only ACORN, the more blatantly unconstitutional it is.

Rep. Alan Grayson is compiling a list. Vroom vroom!

The Two Bums

2009-09-17T19:36:00.001-06:00

The bum on the rod is hunted down
As the enemy of mankind;
The other is driven around to his club
And feted, wined and dined.

And they who curse the bum on the rods
As the essence of all that is bad
Will greet the other with a winning smile
And extend him the hand so glad.

The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite;
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.

The bum on the rods is a load so light
That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men
To furnish the other a meal.

As long as you sanction the bum on the plush,
The other will always be there,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush;
Don't worry about the bum on the rods,
Get rid of the bum on the plush!

-George Millburn, The Hobo's Hornbook

It's good to be a corporation

2009-09-17T14:57:00.002-06:00

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, which began life as a censorship case but has metastasized into a potential ruling which could grant corporations nearly unlimited access to the government in the form of campaign donations.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas are already on record wanting to overturn these cases. Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts have been inclined to wait. The question today is whether we wait no more.

See also last week's podcast of This is Hell.

Needless to say, if this succeeds the final barrier to a complete, unabashed oligarchy will be broken. Though perhaps it's just a matter of time, anyway, as we've apparently already established that money = speech. So presumably, if you have more money, you have more speech, and I kinda thought eliminating those people with "more speech" was the point of democracy. Oh well.

Meanwhile, the Beckites are getting their jollies over an apparent sting operation on the community group ACORN, which has become the white whale* of the right. Congress is on the ball, though, voting to cut federal benefits to ACORN with the benefit only of evidence from a fratty right-wing filmmaker whose previous "expose" involved promising donations to Planned Parenthood only if the money was used to abort black fetuses.

Greenwald:

ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million in federal funds over the last 15 years -- an average of $3.5 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the last year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by Halliburton subsidiary KBR. All of those corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists and bottomless donor activities that ensure they dominate our legislative and regulatory processes, and to be extra certain, the revolving door between industry and government is more prolific than ever, with key corporate officials constantly ending up occupying the government positions with the most influence over those industries.

That's some real brave corruption-fightin' right there. Obviously, ACORN's real mistake was not dumping 1.3 million PCB's into the Hudson River.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - Let Freedom Ka-Ching

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Protests

*Color of whale may vary, if you know what I mean.

A teabag in every pot

2009-09-13T22:16:00.004-06:00

Vastly underrated comic performance artist Glenn Beck sent his ~~millions~~ thousands of teabaggers Saturday to the nation's capital to protest...well, something or other. If you're curious about the choice of the date, Beck would like to see the country return to its post-9/11 willingness to bomb and torture Muslims and hand over their money to the wealthy without asking any questions. Uniting the Nation in shared hatred of a dastardly Enemy is pretty much in the clinical definition of fascism, but I said Beck was funny, not intelligent.

The theme of the meeting, or lack thereof, is summed up pretty well by this photo and its bizarre, abstract Pelosi sign. (And you thought lefty protesters couldn't say on message.) This is the third such Teabag Protest Day, and while the message I guess is supposed to be anti-Gummit, but the actual turnout seems to be an excuse for any and every conservative cause to come out and get its picture on the teevee.

Mostly they seem to be pissed off about losing the election. Alas, as this is not a parliamentary system, they can't have Congress call a new one. Though if they'd like to start that petition, I'll sign up. But I doubt it, parliamentary government is something Communist countries have. I gather this because they seem to be shaking and trembling over the notion that the Democrats might be faintly pursuing policy they campaigned on during the last election. Perhaps they overslept that day.

This, of course, only makes the Democrats' capitulation even more pathetic to contemplate. Give in to the right's every whine and folly, like removing end-of-life counseling from the healthcare bill because morons think it's a "death panel," and conservatives still wail and moan about the president being terribly, terribly divisive. These are spoiled children; they will have it all or go to their room and pout. There's nothing you can do to bargain with them. The Democrats will, though, because caving to the right is what Democrats do, even if no one is asking for it.

Ben Franklin

2009-09-12T23:40:00.001-06:00

Letter to Robert Morris, 1783:

All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

But....freedom!

A fairy tale mashup

2009-09-11T20:05:00.002-06:00

You and I live in the same town. You're the biggest tycoon in the neighborhood, loved and feared by all. I live in a dinky shack on the wrong side of the tracks. But one day I happen upon a goose that lays golden eggs. I've struck it rich, but as it turns out the elves who make your widgets can only subsist on golden eggs. So instead of negotiating a fair price for my eggs, you decide to start stealing them. I can never catch you in the act, as it happens, because you have a magical cloak which makes you invisible.

Now everyone in the town knows it's you, because you make a big show of proudly giving me useless things I'll never need as supposed compensation for stealing my eggs, like a blender that turns rocks into boll weevils. And you've got the police and the judges in your back pocket, so there's no hope of going to the authorities. So one day after months and months of you stealing my golden eggs while I still live in poverty, I finally lose it. I take a machete, go to your house, and brutally hack up your spouse and children.

Of course, I've overreacted. Worse, my retaliation is worthless because I've punished innocent people who had nothing to do with you stealing my eggs.

On the other hand, you still stole my eggs.

QOTD

2009-09-10T22:17:00.003-06:00

Doug Henwood, liveblogging Wednesday night's presidential address.

“I want to speak to seniors”: Medicare is pretty great, isn’t it? But we can’t let the rest of the population have it, because that would be Canadian or something.

This is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Why aren't all these old farts sputtering around town hall meetings screaming OMG GUMMIT TAKEOVER spending more energy complaining about te network of crate warehouses they are housed in as a result of being on Medicare.

(Full disclosure: As I'm legally blind I'm covered by Medicare. And it's quite useful, though I've never had any health problems to speak of. Perhaps this will be the in the Democrats' final compromise bill; all the uninsured can just put their eyes out.)

Money money money money!

2009-09-08T21:26:00.002-06:00

But, but, but," the teabaggers whine "healthcare costs mooooooney!" Yes, all upon fall, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If we're going to decide that lacking cash is not a good reason to let people rot in the gutter, then someone's going to have to pay for it.

So.

What we've got here is a fundamental question of whether or not those people who are Not Me are actual human beings or a collection of ideas that we sometimes have to pay attention to because they seem to be existing in the same universe as I do.

Boo hoo, we can't paaaaaaaay for it!

The people who face financial and/or physical ruin from our delightful Free Market health insurance industry are already paying for it. It's not a matter of whether health care will be paid for, but who will be doing the paying. Cold cash ain't the only kind of capital.

But I am my own man! I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps! I wear bootstraps! Whatever pantywaist commie said you should love your neighbor as yourself obviously didn't believe in the American Dream. Freedom! Freedom means I can punch someone else's nose and laugh because they can't afford to pay for it!

Sane countries admit that they are nations of communities as well as individuals, and so every individual acknowledges hir responsibility to pay a little extra so individuals aren't destroyed by events out of their control. This is not a sane country. This is a country of cruel, savage individuals driven to sociopathic lengths to annihilate everyone save our own bloodline. I am surprised we manage to keep the polite veneer.

I am a little sad that I was not around to hear the teabaggers debate the introduction of socialized fire departments. "Forsooth," our hypothetical teabagger must have said, "we just don't have enough water to put out a house that can't afford a proper central heating system." It is to chuckle.

Are you being served?

2009-09-06T14:08:00.002-06:00

Van Jones is a longtime activist for environmental and prison reform causes, and, up until yesterday, was brought in to be Obama's "green jobs" czar. The trouble with having activists near the White House, though, is that they often say true things which are Not Serious. Jones apparently signed in a petition in 2004 which may have had a loose connection to 9/11 Trooferism. Given Jones long history in activism, this seems like a marginal offense, and he has denied ever being a Troofer. Nonetheless, he's been purged, because liberals are disposable.

Soon after the election, the Administration began corralling the big liberal DC interest groups into a variety of organizations and communication networks through which they telegraphed their wishes -- into a virtual veal pen. The 8:45 am morning call co-hosted by the "liberal" Center for American Progress, Unity 09, and Common Purpose are just a few of the overt ways that the White House controls its left flank and maintains discipline.

My own experience with the Veal Pen came indirectly, when some of them had the temerity to launch a campaign against Blue Dogs. They were rebuked and humiliated in front of their peers as a lesson to them all at a Common Purpose meeting, which is run by lobbyist Erik Smith. White House communications director Ellen Moran attends. It isn't an arms-length relationship between these groups and the administration.

A few weeks ago, Rahm Emanuel showed up at a Common Purpose meeting and called these liberal groups "fucking stupid" for going after Blue Dogs on health care and ordered them not to do so any more. Since that time, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have.

Ah, I knew Rahm Emanuel would be delightful to have around. And to think, some people believed he might occasionally turn that hard-assedness on Republicans!

LMAO

2009-09-04T17:38:00.003-06:00

School speech backlash builds

OK, I admit, I can see a situation where people might have been exercised if Bush had given a similar address. If he didn't; it seems like such a banal thing for the president to do that I can't imagine each of them hasn't done similar. And American party politics has a ridiculous my-team-versus-your-team streak where no one actually cares if what you're screaming about now matches what you were saying five years ago. So now Republicans think it's trendy and cool to be out on the street protestin' against the man and tyranny by the Gummit.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

The key difference in any kind of equivalency formula, though, is that one can readily find the stupid emanating from the official channels of the Republican Party. Here's Florida Republican chairman Jim Greer.

As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power

Greer may be a little confused because he doesn't mention where Obama's socialist ideology will put the means of production in the hands of workers. But no matter. Can you imagine any official Democrat issuing a statement about "President Bush's fascist ideology?" S/he wouldn't remain in the party much longer.

Once again, we have conservatives allegedly outraged that their chillens' is gonna be indoctrinated upon leaving the immediate supervision of an Approved Authority. Righties must be terribly afraid of being lousy parents, given how little faith they seem to have in their children resisting any and all ideas they might randomly encounter.

UPDATE: Found this great bit of business in the LGM comments. It's worth it to post the whole thing.

Here's part of my imaginary Obama speech to the little ones:

First, don’t pay attention in class. Daydream instead. The way this country is going, those dreams are the only things you’re ever going to have.

Second, don’t listen to your parents and teachers -- you should know why not by now. Geez, just look at ‘em.

They voted for George W. Bush twice! They think Sarah Palin is smart! They still believe Saddam Hussein destroyed the Twin Towers! They all refinanced into interest-only option ARMs 6 months before the real estate market crashed! They didn’t diversify their 401k’s!

Sorry, kids, those are grown-up concerns. Got off target there.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. When you’re old enough, quit school. Really, there’s no reason to stay beyond age 15 or 16 because you’ll be able to hook and to cook by then, and that’s pretty much all the skilz you’ll be needing in 21st- century America.

Just don’t come crying to me when your meth-rotted teeth fall out during some domestic dispute. I tried to get you some healthcare but your parents and your teachers… well, Christ, go ask them. They still think Marx, Lenin, and Stalin are hiding under their bunk beds.

Look, I only have a few minutes so I have to wrap this up fast.

First, evolution is real. Don’t go believing all that creationism crap.

Second, abstinence doesn’t work. Use a condom. Each… and… every… time.

Third, if the hooking and cooking don’t work out, try to marry a Canadian.

Remember, if your parents and teachers ask, we talked about studying hard and making the honor roll and Japanese crap like that.

The Preacher and the Slave

2009-08-29T17:57:00.001-06:00

IWW songwriters like Joe Hill and T-Bone Slim would often steal the tunes of Christian hymns and rewrite the lyrics. This was done for two reasons. 1) The tune would already be familiar to many in the intended audience who could then sing along which was particularly useful for 2) disrupting Salvation Army rallies (the Wobblies called it "Starvation Army,") by singing along with..rather different lyrics. This song--written by Hill to the tune of "In the Sweet By and By"--also introduced the saying "pie in the sky" into popular parlance.

Ho-hum

2009-08-20T20:25:00.002-06:00

This may slide under the radar, but it's quite important to point it out. The NYT today reports that Tom Ridge is claiming in a tell-all book that the Bushies pressured him to raise the turr'st Threat-O-Meter in the days immediately preceding the 2004 election. This basically establishes what most Unserious people already suspected; the color-coded nonsense was little more than a political tool which could be raised and lowered whenever the GOP needed a boost.

Yup

2009-08-19T17:28:00.002-06:00

Again, it's difficult to disagree with anything Glennzilla sez.

The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

Much has been made of the wide berth given by Democrats to the screaming, occasionally armed, town hall nutters when Bush and Co. would have anyone with a disagreeable t-shirt sent to the penalty box. Because, quite unintentionally, the crazies are doing the White House a favor by acting as a determined if deranged popular opposition--much out of proportion to the general public, of course--to any kind of public plan. "This is why they started from "public option" rather than "single payer;" they knew when the inevitable Broderist demands for bipartisanship came and they were forced to make concessions, they would already be much closer to the right.

By getting a bill that includes mandatory handouts to the insurance industry, Obama and Emmanuel get the best of all possible worlds. They please their Big Bidness sponsors and, in 2010, Democrats can go home claiming to have passed the promised Health Care Reform, and that will be the end of that for the next 20 years.

Hold on to the water

2009-08-17T14:53:00.002-06:00

Just saw this Tweet from Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher.

Baseball fans: Wash Nats just hours away from NOT signing top pick Strasburg. MLB's lack of economic parity pitiful.

"Economic parity" in sports sounds nice and socialistic on the surface, but in practice inevitably means artificially reduced salaries and resultant increased profits for management. Which is likely why so many people who would run screaming at any mention of socialism support the idea so uncritically. There's no reason to cry any tears for the Nationals who may be making the smartest move in franchise history so far--given the track record of previous "can't miss" pitchers in the draft--by not succumbing to Boras' ridiculous demands. On the other hand, they knew the risk when they drafted him, so as ever the Nationals can only lose by winning.

How I know there is a common ancestor

2009-08-13T10:10:00.002-06:00

Why do primates have the irresistible urge to throw things?

As part of a promotional night to debut the new "Reggie Bar", a candy bar named after Reggie Jackson, fans at Yankee Stadium received free samples. The marketing scheme backfired though as fans threw hundreds of them back onto the field forcing the game to be halted until the ground crew was able to clear them away.

The only reason humans no longer throw our own dung is that no one will conveniently hand it to us.

Naked shilling for the rich

2009-08-11T21:46:00.002-06:00

I have to admit I was wrong. I felt the political shit-storm of 2009 would be over Employee Free Choice, but that bill has already undergone a mercy killing by corporate Democrats. But it doesn't matter; the same fundamental dispute is at the heart of the health-care fracas namely, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the right of the fortunate to not be restrained in exercising tyranny over the unfortunate.

In fact, it may be a blessing that the ruling class has chosen this particular battlefield given the absolute ridiculousness of their position is visible to anyone halfway conscious. Claiming ostrich-like that the 'Murican health care system is da best in the world while Europe and Canada keep the elderly in pens fed with gruel is now roughly the equivalent of saying that Jesus is green unicorn cheese. Yet they push on, feeding their paranoid authoritarian followers with even more absurd hysterics: "Obama gon' kill yo' granny!" Now, apparently, the Gummit is going to going to control all of your bank accounts! This is 9/11 Trooferism elevated to the status of essential debate.

Ah, the Gummit, the Gummit. I've noticed the Gummit started being the bad guy again on or about January 20, 2009. Which is odd, because Obama has never really stopped doing any of the things right-wingers want the Gummit to do; kill Muslims, spend on "defense," eavesdrop wantonly, and erect a wall around information in the name of national security. Suggest that the Gummit could serve the interest of someone other than American business and wealthy straight white men and suddenly you've got a bona fide leeee-getimiate revolution on your hands. Let freedom ring! And such. What is it about the Gummit that makes it so much more ominous and malicious, even when private industry is already doing the very things that hysterics believe are imminent with Gummitcare?

Of course, freedom isn't working out so well for the 50 million citizens without health insurance. But no matter, they deserve it for being poor. And if Jesusamerica decided they deserved to have health insurance, then they would. They certainly shouldn't use their voting rights to elect a government to give them healthcare; that would be voting themselves money they didn't earn. After all, the moneyed classes never vote in their own economic interest; that would just be class warfare, comrade.

Not only that, why, those longsuffering Americans would rather die than have Gummit interference in their health care! What patriots! Now, it's true that their house is burned down, the mail hasn't come in years, and they can't drive on a public highway or take public transit, so it's not likely they've got much of a life left. But they died free, and with their hands off of my money, so we should salute them.

Today in teh stooopid

2009-08-10T18:15:00.002-06:00

As far as I care to tell, the Investor's Business Daily is a Serious, well-respected informant for the nation's ruling classes. As such, you'd expect them to be impeccably honest and accurate and those other things our moneyed classes demand of their news sources. Ahem.

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Stephen Hawking is British, and was living in the UK, under the iron-toed boot of the NHS, when his disease was diagnosed.

Belief

2009-08-06T18:40:00.002-06:00

Continuing the new bizaro-world right-wing embrace of protesting, the teabaggers have taken to taken to healthcare town hall meetings across the country to read aloud from their inbox and talk-radio script. In a not-quite-revelatory discovery, I've noticed that these self-styled glibertarians who squeal on and on about the Constitution tend to have the same predilections that befall another group of people who claim to take their scriptures literally.

Both Biblical and Constitutional literalists have a fun way of ignoring or creatively interpreting sectoins of the holy book which don't reinforce their prefabricated worldview.

Which is irrelevant because the reason people appeal to scriptures in the first place is to obfuscate the fact that their beliefs--in the case of the teabaggers, opposition to universal health care--can't be defended by appeals to common reason.

(This is especially peculiar for Constitutional literalists, since the document was never meant to be permanently inerrant. So who knows why they cling to the idea.)

Can't imagine why

2009-08-04T19:01:00.002-06:00

So apparently the sterling, seminal argument being pushed by right-wingers, including preeminent "Christian" toolbag Tony Perkins, is that government-run health care will lead to a grimy dystopia where the elderly are euthanized to save money, which is borne out by the horror stories of gulag hospitals in Great Britain and Canida. Because, you know, the government doesn't already pay for the health care of citiznes over 65, and 29 other countries--most with national health care--don't have longer life expectancies than the United States.

I'm beginning to think people are kind of gullible.

A long way between horizons

2009-08-02T20:33:00.002-06:00

Paul Krugman wonders:

When I saw that Michelle Malkin will be on the Stephanopoulos panel this week, my first thought was that nobody as far to the left as she is to the right would ever appear on such a panel. But then I started to wonder (a) what I mean by that (b) if it’s true.

Well of course it's true. Regardless of whether one finds him agreeable, Noam Chomsky is one of the country's great academics and extremely popular, yet will never appear on a Sunday talk show panel. Partially because the people who would read a Gnome Chomsky book aren't going to watch This Week with George Whoever. Conservatives, for all of their obstinate kvetching about lib'rul media, will gladly flock to whatever corporate outlet genuflects to them. Generally, the only place on television one can find actual lefty or anti-imperialist libertarian voices are on Bill Maher's show or occasionally the Stewart/Colbert hour (such as whenever Lewis Black is on The Daily Show). Turns out not only do you get better news from comedy, but a wider range of opinions, too.

Government

2009-07-29T20:52:00.002-06:00

Matt Taibbi:

The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. There is insufficient political will to get it done. It doesn’t matter that it’s an urgent national calamity, that it is plainly obvious to anyone with an IQ over 8 that our system could not possibly be worse and needs to be fixed very soon, and that, moreover, the only people opposing a real reform bill are a pitifully small number of executives in the insurance industry who stand to lose the chance for a fifth summer house if this thing passes.

It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. And that’s what they’re doing.

Indeed. Greenwald specifically points to the first poll on that sheet, but really all of them show solid support for guaranteed health coverage. 55 percent believe guaranteeing coverage for everyone is more important than containing cost. Yes, the number has been slipping, thanks to the one-sided propaganda war waged by Serious People and their corporate media lackeys, but it remains positive. That's not nothing.

Liberals, of course, are barely much help. Smoky, backroom debating among intellectual philosopher-kings is just how they imagine government working; it's only a matter of finding that elusive combination. They paid for that education. Surely it ought to give them some special clout. Populism? Let's not be uncivilized here!

The first epistle of Apostle Milton to the Suckers

2009-07-27T15:56:00.002-06:00

Yes, we are near the blessed end of the Sarah Palin era in American politics, but one more before we go.

She also attacked Hollywood, which enlists "delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets" in their "anti-Second Amendment causes," against which "patriots will protect our individual guaranteed right to bear arms." She warned against "enslavement to big central government," because "it can't make you happy or healthy or wealthy or wise," which comes instead from "God's grace helping those who help themselves."

I am curious as to where this theological tradition comes from. It seems to have become part of the canon of Free Market Christianity. Apparently, when John the Baptist said "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same," he forgot to add "but only when he is satisfied that the man with none has worked hard enough to earn one."

Resolve

2009-07-19T14:52:00.002-06:00

Statement A: Government-run enterprises are bulkier and more inefficient than privately-owned business.

Statement B: Government cannot be allowed to run a health care program because it will compete out the more-efficient private insurance in the "free market."

Hypothesis: People who reflexively claim Statement A don't actually believe it.

Uniquely American

2009-07-15T18:33:00.003-06:00

An email from my esteemed representative.

There are many parts of our health care system that are the envy of the world, but the parts that aren’t working threaten to bankrupt families, businesses and government alike. We literally cannot afford to not address this challenge head-on. As we move forward, our goal should be protecting what works and fixing what doesn’t.

Only a uniquely American solution will fix the weaknesses in the current system, and any solution must first start with an honest and open conversation. I’ve always said we will never achieve real health care reform without giving all of the stakeholders in this debate a seat at the table. That includes you.

I've figured it out. The United States is like the aging hipster of the world community; the kind of person who won't listen to a band if their entire fanbase can't fit in his closet. Why can't we learn anything from other industrialized democracies who have faced similar challenges and...really don't envy all that much about our health care system? Because we're just that special, that's why.

Things I remember happening

2009-07-14T21:27:00.001-06:00

The National League winning the All-Star Game.

Class warfare

2009-07-09T10:24:00.000-06:00

And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment.

All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You've looted the earth and lived it up. But all you'll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you've done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.

James 5, The Message

Pope speak, you listen!

2009-07-08T18:46:00.002-06:00

Pope calls for a new financial order.

In a key passage, the encyclical says: "The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from 'influences' of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way. In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise."
Then in an unequivocal critique of unbridled markets, the pope writes that "grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution."

This is not especially new; popes have been issuing similar encyclicals on economics for a hundred years. Of course, they are always careful to spend a great deal of effort to distance themselves from socialists, which is as cute as that little hat on the pope's head, but whatever gets the job done.

There's nothing in it about abortion, though, so no one in the American press, whether mainstream or the important "liberal" outlets, will pay much attention.

Accidental reporting

2009-07-06T19:10:00.002-06:00

Living where I do, the drooling of Bircherites and other righty tinfoil-hatters eventually trickles down and gets me wet. Here a couple of whoppers I've come across lately:

1) The Radical Muslim Black Christian Nazi Communist Preznit is somehow going to commandeer 2010 Census data as some kind of evil plot to steal your children or somesuch. The Census bureau is even taking this seriously enough that it has dispatched representatives to town council meetings urging them to reassure residents that turning in their census forms won't get them sent to a gulag in Montana.

2) Digital TV converter boxes are equipped with audio/video recording equipment so Big Brother can watch you. I suppose this one was inevitable, since any new piece of equipment or identification which everyone has to buy--except, you know, those who don't--will become a Lindseyan mark of the beast. Bur really, consider the utter absurdity of this for a moment.

It's not that I'm completely unsympathetic to people who are skeptical of government intrusiveness, rather that I'm highly doubtful most of the people pushing these new conspiracies had the same skepticism seven months ago. That's the trouble with conspiracy theories, though, and perhaps it's not just a right-wing thing. Americans seem to be fascinated by conspiracies in inverse proportion to how believable they are. Iran-Contra? WMD's? Extraordinary rendition? Pfft, no one cares. The Masons had JFK killed? Gimme some of that action!

(Yes, I am reading Charlie Pierce's book.)

Ebert

2009-07-06T17:15:00.003-06:00

I never thought anything concerning Michael Bay, even a post ridiculing Michael Bay, could contain such pearls of wisdom.

What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable. If someone I respect tells me I must take a closer look at the films of Abbas Kiarostami, I will take that seriously. If someone says the kung-fu movies of the 1970s, which I used for our old Dog of the Week segments, deserve serious consideration, I will listen. I will try to do what Pauline Kael said she did: Take everything you are, and all the films you've seen, into the theater. See the film, and decide if anything has changed. The older you are and the more films you've seen, the more you take into the theater. When I had been a film critic for ten minutes, I treated Doris Day as a target for cheap shots. I have learned enough to say today that the woman was rarely gifted.

One good turn

2009-07-05T20:43:00.002-06:00

I've been cynical about the trendy outpouring of enthusiasm from American desk jockeys supporting the Iranian opposition by making their Twitter icon green. But I've also noticed that public interest in the Honduran coup has been unusually high, and I wonder how much of it is a byproduct of Americans' sudden interest in foreign struggles.

If there is a causal relationship, I suspect it's largely unintended. The American ruling class is quite happy to fan popular outrage at the Official Enemy in Tehran but would probably wish for fewer prying eyes looking at the history of military coups in Latin America.

A patriotic song

2009-07-04T18:50:00.000-06:00

The only one worth a damn.

Can't...look...away.....

2009-07-03T16:48:00.003-06:00

Palin is clearly not setting up a run at the presidency; otherwise she would have simply not sought re-election. As it stands, she now has the mark of someone who couldn't manage to finish one term as a governor.

It's more likely that she's become bored with the day-to-day minutiae of governing the Alaskan wasteland and can't wait to become a full-time member of the right-wing media circuit which she has been essentially since the end of the campaign. If the ink isn't already dry on the Fox News contract, I'd be surprised.

If only I could say I love you

2009-07-01T16:57:00.002-06:00

Mark Wesbrot wonders how sincere Washington's opposition to the Honduran coup really is.

The coup leaders have no international support, but they could still succeed by running out the clock – Zelaya has less than six months left in his term. Will the Obama administration support sanctions against the coup government in order to prevent this? The neighbouring governments of Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador have already fired a warning shot by announcing a 48-hour cut-off of trade.
By contrast, one reason for Clinton's reluctance to call the coup a coup is because the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits funds going to governments where the head of state has been deposed by a military coup.
Unconditional is also a key word here: the Obama administration may want to extract concessions from Zelaya as part of a deal for his return to office. But this is not how democracy works. If Zelaya wants to negotiate a settlement with his political opponents after he returns, that is another story. But nobody has the right to extract political concession from him in exile, over the barrel of a gun.

Indeed, rumors have been circulating that a deal may be in the works for Zelaya to return to power if he gives up his calls for constitutional reform.

In the Honduran coup, the Obama administration claims that it tried to discourage the Honduran military from taking this action. It would be interesting to know what these discussions were like. Did administration officials say, "You know that we will have to say that we are against such a move if you do it, because everyone else will?" Or was it more like, "Don't do it, because we will do everything in our power to reverse any such coup"? The administration's actions since the coup indicate something more like the former, if not worse.

There are always pretty good reasons to suspect U.S. complicity in any coup in Latin America; we have a long history of such things (even preceding the Cold War) and, in Honduras particularly, the military has been heavily subsidized for years by Washington. It is difficult to believe--though theoretically not impossible--that it would have taken such a drastic action without first getting American approval. Because of this, the administration won't be able to credibly claim ambivalence; it will have to come out against the coup to avoid looking guilty.

Things which are surprising but should not be

2009-06-30T18:01:00.002-06:00

In the wake of Al Franken at long last being confirmed as a Senator, it's important to remind your Republican colleagues blowing on about liberal celebrities in politics that their very own Most High and Exalted Saint Ronnie Raygun himself came to public prominence first as...an actor.

Unless they believe Saint Ronnie was really a cowboy, which I admit is possible.

Oh, and some pop star died

2009-06-28T23:48:00.002-06:00

There's been a military coup in Honduras (is there any other kind?). Bernard Chazelle analyzes the New York Times' coverage.

From the byline alone, you know this is going to be good: Elizabeth Malkin, in Mexico City, with reporting by Simon Romero from Caracas. Which makes perfect sense since, as we all know, Mexico City and Caracas are the two major cities in Honduras. (Too bad they had no reporter in Bangkok. I hope the Pulitzer committee doesn't notice.)

The driving point behind the coup appears to have been a non-binding straw poll set for Sunday gauging public support for convening a new constitutional convention. Some people have itchy trigger fingers.

MOAR

...apparently too itchy, as the State Department has issued a condemnation. Somebody somewhere got their wires crossed in this deal.

The loathing of Fehr

2009-06-24T20:31:00.002-06:00

Via Lemieux, I'm also behind this Joe Sheehan piece on the retiring Donald Fehr.

There are jobs that demand of the person filling them that they be able to forgo popularity to do them well. No one likes public defenders. No one likes tax auditors. And no one likes the men who have chosen to represent baseball players as if they were a group of laborers in an industry long dominated by a paternalistic management and covered by an unquestioning press largely bought and paid for by the same.

Don Fehr took on this task and did it very well for a quarter-century. He did it as his peers in the NFL, NBA, and NHL all lost major labor battles and saw their unions weakened, or in the NFL's case completely broken and turned into a house union. The relative popularity of Fehr and his NFL counterpart, the late Gene Upshaw, ran in inverse proportion to how good each man was at his job of representing the athletes in their charge. Since 1983, when Fehr took over following the brief, unlamented stint of Ken Moffatt, the MLBPA has established itself as the most powerful players' association in sports, and one of the few successful unions in American labor. They won three grievances over collusion at a time when free agency was still in relative infancy. They beat management in the courts when necessary. Under Fehr's watch, we're into the longest stretch of labor peace since the players were serfs.

There's a worthwhile question over whether a professional athletes' union should be considered a part of "labor." The answer, I think, is a qualified yes. There's no question pro athletes make exponentially more than their value to society, and management has used this to great effect in turning public opinion in its favor while no one takes a second glance at what the owners are making. However, one can see from the reaction to Fehr's career that the Divine Right of Bosses is still in effect regardless of how much money labor's piece of the pie represents.

Labor should look to the MLBPA as an example of what's attainable rather than holding it in contempt. Of course, this is precisely the reason the press is so intent on stamping out the union's legacy and fostering resentment. The contrast with the beatification of Upshaw, who oversaw the complete submission of the NFLPA to the league, is a good one; the media's ideal portrait of a Good Union Boss as opposed to a Bad One. It shouldn't be overestimated how much the relative power of labor has influenced the bourgeouis media's love affair with pro football.

Mean Green

2009-06-23T19:20:00.002-06:00

I think Jonathon Schwarz explains well why I remain somewhat unable to get too excited about the ongoing demonstrations in Iran even though I'm naturally sympathetic.

2. I'm amused by all the attention this is getting from some of the best U.S. liberal bluggers, such as Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings. Even when they're at their best, American liberals essentially follow in lockstep the agenda of the governing classes. Would they care anywhere near as much if Iran weren't an Official Enemy? Obviously not. Thus even when "opposing" William Kristol, they're ratifying the right's power by giving them the ability to decide what gets talked about.

Quite. There are any number of rigged elections going on around the world at any given time; it's blindingly obvious that the only reason this one is getting the celebrity treatment from the American media is that the Iranian regime is not a US client state. I can hardly remember a similar reaction to the street demonstrations after the 2006 elections in Mexico. In fact, those protesters were dismissed the same way our right-wing Serious media handles demonstrators in the United States; i.e. as unemployed leeches who should get a real job and let the ruling class worry about ruling. Now suddenly conservatives are holding "tea parties" and cheering on foreign demonstrators as gallant and courageous. The world is turned inside out.

Maybe it's because there aren't any giant paper-mache heads. Perhaps that does it.

Men are desperate

2009-06-14T19:07:00.002-06:00

If someone can explain the social forces behind "pay-per-view" events, please let me know.

It can't be a coincidence that the only sporting (or "sports entertainment") events that are at least modestly successful as pay-per-view franchises involve men beating the tar out of each other.

Really, what sporting event would you pay $50 to see on television? The 2008 Wimbledon final? Not even that would make the cut for me.

But apparently men will dole out any amount of cash to see blood or sex.

Though there are boxing fans who will say that moving all major fights to pay-per-view, while perhaps a financial windfall for the sport's benefactors, has been one of the many reasons for the decline in popular interest.

Persian snooker

2009-06-14T13:57:00.002-06:00

Can anyone figure out what happened in the Iranian presidential election between conservative favorite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and would-be reformist Mir-Hossain Mousavi.

In these presidential elections, Iranians have a 'candidate of change' (yes, literally the same slogan) in the person of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Now, this is very interesting, since Mir-Hossein Mousavi, currently a member of the 'reformist' camp, was the prime minister (when the post existed) from 1981 to 1989. Back then he was a member of the 'left wing' due to his advocacy for a state-run economy. Nowadays, he has changed indeed and supports all manner of privatization (as do all 'reformers').

Mousavi's premiership coincided with the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), during which his economic management carried the country through very rough times. Among other innovations, he introduced the coupon system that made sure everybody received the minimum ration of needed nutrients during those hard times.

Mossavi has been widely touted in the Western media, which views Iranian politics--like American politics--solely through the lens of liberalizing the socially-repressive theocracy, ignoring the fact that poor people tend to be concerned initially with not starving, with clothing options coming second. Most were led to believe that Mossavi would be ride in easily in another color-coded revolution (this one green). So they were stunned when voting results claimed to show Ahmadinejad winning in a landslide.

Immediately, many began accusing Ahmadinejad of colluding with the theocratic clerics to either steal the election or launch a pre-emptive coup (covered well here). While this seems possible, if not likely, one shouldn't discount the third possibility; that the Big A actually won the election. The Western press appears to have grossly overestimated Mousavi's support because it rarely leaves the upper-crust bubble in Tehran.

Perhaps from the start Mousavi was destined to fail as he hoped to combine the articulate energies of the liberal upper class with the business interests of the bazaar merchants. The Facebook campaigns and text-messaging were perfectly irrelevant for the rural and working classes who struggle to make a day's ends meet, much less have the time to review the week's blogs in an internet cafe. Although Mousavi tried to appeal to such classes by addressing the problems of inflation and poverty, they voted otherwise.

As if on cue, here's a New Yorker correspondent claiming to know the electon was stolen because everyone she knows with Blackberries in the Grand Hyatt ballroom voted for Mousavi.

Of course, Iran's quasi-democracy should be viewed with some skepticism, given that potential candidates have to be pre-approved by the clerical administration before they are allowed to participate. Americans should find this system very familiar, although we mostly prefer our gatekeepers to be business leaders rather than clerics.

It's all very difficult to unravel, which doesn't mean that the American media won't find a way to strip all the nuance away when it wakes up tomorrow morning. I expect a simplistic outporing of finger-wagging, condemnation, and condescention toward anyone who wonders about the "done stole it!" narrative. Needless to say it'll be boom times for the "bomb bomb Iran" chorus line, who'll eat this shit like candy. Some were even forthrightly rooting for The Big A to win, because a moderate could lull us into forgetting his Brown Muslimness.

Really, I'm skeptical here because of my unwritten rule of rigging elections: If you're going to steal it with any concern for subtlety, you have to produce a result that people could believe. Ahmadinejad giving himself 67 percent of an election he was expected to lose doesn't make sense unless a)he's ragingly obtuse (possible) or b)that's roughly what he got.

The times, they are unchanging

2009-06-12T10:00:00.002-06:00

June 7 [1890] the Farmers Mutual Benefit Association and The Knights of Labor held a joint convention at Washington Daviess county and nominated a full county ticket The candidates were about equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. At Fort Wayne on September 11 the Farmers Alliance and various labor organizations decided to put forth an independent county ticket The Democrats were said to be making efforts to prevent this action.

"The People's Party in Inidana," Indiana Magazine of History December 1918.

About that...

2009-06-07T15:46:00.003-06:00

Obama's "address to the Muslim world" last week contained this bit of surprising Unseriousness.

"In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," Obama said in a keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

It was the first time a serving US president had publicly admitted American involvement in the coup.
The US Central Intelligence Agency, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhand methods to get rid of a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests.
Washington went on to become the major backer of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Yes but WHY DO THEY HATE AMERICA BLARGITY BLARGH!!!!!

Things you didn't know were in the Bible, part I

2009-06-07T14:32:00.002-06:00

You have wearied the LORD with your words.
"How have we wearied him?" you ask.
By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" or "Where is the God of justice?"

See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.

-Malachi 2-3