What we say goes.MR. BLITZER: So what's more important, human rights or national security?
SEN. DODD: Well, obviously national security, keeping the country safe. When you take the oath of office on January 20th you promise to do two things, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic. The security of the country is number one, obviously, yes, all right?
MR. BLITZER: All right. Okay, thank you.
SEN. DODD: Now secondly, this doesn't mean -- elections are only one note, as they say, in the tune of democracy here. Be careful what you wish for. If they were totally free elections in many of these countries we're talking about today, the Islamic jihad or the Islamic Brotherhood would win 85 percent of the vote. That's not a great outcome for us at this point here.
MR. BLITZER: All right.
....
MR. BLITZER: You say national security is more important than human rights.Senator Clinton, what do you say?
SEN. CLINTON: I agree with that completely. I mean the first obligation of the president of the United States is to protect and defend the United States of America. That doesn't mean that it is to the exclusion of other interests.
And there's absolutely a connection between a democratic regime and heightened security for the United States. That's what's so tragic about this situation. After 9/11, President Bush had a chance to chart a different course, both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and could have been very clear about what our expectations were. We are now in a bind, and it is partly -- not completely, but partly -- a result of the failed policies of the Bush administration.
16 November 2007
America forever
From last night's Democratic debate in Las Vegas:
ATNNFFARP
All The News Not Fit For a Real Post
Remember the fan consortium attempting to buy an English football club? They've found one; Ebbsfleet United of the Blue Square Premiere, the fifth tier of English football.
Awesome-sauce story of the week. The U.S. Women's Bridge Team has caused a worldwide furor with a spontaneous anti-Bush sign at an international competition. The local brownshirts are unhappy.
A Tiny Revolution explains the world. It's important to remember that, by their nature, right-wing nationalist regimes will inevitably come in contact with each other and, as a result, adopt legitimate critiques of the other. There's no need for progressives to feel embarrassed about the neocons sudden concern for human rights in Iran, being as transparently opportunistic as it is now that they'd like to bomb the Iranian regime. It's not easy to do this, of course, but important.
Remember the fan consortium attempting to buy an English football club? They've found one; Ebbsfleet United of the Blue Square Premiere, the fifth tier of English football.
Awesome-sauce story of the week. The U.S. Women's Bridge Team has caused a worldwide furor with a spontaneous anti-Bush sign at an international competition. The local brownshirts are unhappy.
A Tiny Revolution explains the world. It's important to remember that, by their nature, right-wing nationalist regimes will inevitably come in contact with each other and, as a result, adopt legitimate critiques of the other. There's no need for progressives to feel embarrassed about the neocons sudden concern for human rights in Iran, being as transparently opportunistic as it is now that they'd like to bomb the Iranian regime. It's not easy to do this, of course, but important.
15 November 2007
13 November 2007
On the wall
I've been meaning for awhile to put up a more thorough analysis of the recent explosion of aggressively anti-religion* literature and its tripartite vanguard of evangelists Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins. Mostly because I have little interest in actually reading any of their screeds, which seem to amount to little more than "fundamentalism sucks, therefore all religion is a cancer." It also reeks of the kind of intellectual elitism ("easy enlightenment through rejection of theism!") that tends to be incompatible with genuine left-populist politics (witness the decline of the aforementioned Hitchens, whose "bomb Teh Moozlims!" repetition has soured some of the AAR crowd but shouldn't surprise them.).
There is also the occasional habit of these folks to exhibit some of the more annoying features of the religious fundamentalists they claim to abhor. Most recently, concern that the Hollywood film version of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass will downplay the book's anti-religious sentiment. Flip sides and reverse two years, of course, and you could have found much the same thing being said about the film version of Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.** Altemeyer's book only describes in detail what he calls "right-wing authoritarians" (RWA) and the difference between them and anti-authoritarians. However, he does mention in passing left-wing authoritarians, the kind of people who slavishly follow whichever leaders are trying to overthrow the established order. Altemeyer doesn't elaborate much on this except to cite some radicals of the 60's and 70's as potential examples of LWAs. I think I have an idea where he might find a few of them remaining.
*I don't like to use the term "atheist" to describe them, since their beliefs typically greatly exceed the limited definition of atheist, which is simply a metaphysical statement about the existence or non-existence of a deity. It has nothing to say about "delusional, irrational, child-abusing God-botherers." "Anti-religious" casts a much wider net, and dismisses the term "fundamentalist atheist," which the AARs love to claim is a contradiction in terms (which it may be, but it's also irrelevant, as they aren't merely atheists.)
**Not coincidentally, in a way, since Pullman intended His Dark Materials to be a counterpoint of The Chronicles of Narnia. General consensus seems to be that Pullman was moving along fine through the first two books, before the third book devolved into an anvilicious nightmare. Which is what you'd expect from someone who doesn't trust his unenlightened audience to appreciate the Very Important Message he's preaching.
There is also the occasional habit of these folks to exhibit some of the more annoying features of the religious fundamentalists they claim to abhor. Most recently, concern that the Hollywood film version of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass will downplay the book's anti-religious sentiment. Flip sides and reverse two years, of course, and you could have found much the same thing being said about the film version of Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.** Altemeyer's book only describes in detail what he calls "right-wing authoritarians" (RWA) and the difference between them and anti-authoritarians. However, he does mention in passing left-wing authoritarians, the kind of people who slavishly follow whichever leaders are trying to overthrow the established order. Altemeyer doesn't elaborate much on this except to cite some radicals of the 60's and 70's as potential examples of LWAs. I think I have an idea where he might find a few of them remaining.
*I don't like to use the term "atheist" to describe them, since their beliefs typically greatly exceed the limited definition of atheist, which is simply a metaphysical statement about the existence or non-existence of a deity. It has nothing to say about "delusional, irrational, child-abusing God-botherers." "Anti-religious" casts a much wider net, and dismisses the term "fundamentalist atheist," which the AARs love to claim is a contradiction in terms (which it may be, but it's also irrelevant, as they aren't merely atheists.)
**Not coincidentally, in a way, since Pullman intended His Dark Materials to be a counterpoint of The Chronicles of Narnia. General consensus seems to be that Pullman was moving along fine through the first two books, before the third book devolved into an anvilicious nightmare. Which is what you'd expect from someone who doesn't trust his unenlightened audience to appreciate the Very Important Message he's preaching.
08 November 2007
The great commission
Saw this sad bit of business at LGM on Monday.
Something I've rattling around in my head for a couple of months--mainly due to my Orwell binge last summer--is the idea of the USA as a parallel to the mid-to-late stage Soviet Union, particularly in its willing ignorance of The Rest of the World (TROTW). The Soviets, of course, tried to convince the population of the decadent West, which, because it was depraved and unsustainable and always facing imminent collapse, was always scheming and plotting ways to choke off the Motherland. Americans likewise have a fantasy about TROTW and its far-reaching anti-American conspiracy fueled by its Godless, socialistic heresies which, any day now, will bring it to its knees.
During the Cold War, Americans used to boast that they were electing "the leader of the Free World." It was never suggested that the rest of the Free World should perhaps get to vote on the people who are going to have such monumental influence over their lives. But American voters have never taken the thought of voting with a more global conscience particularly seriously. And, as anti-immigrant stories like the one above show, we're increasingly shutting out how TROTW lives from our consideration.
I'll write more about some of the possible institutional reasons for this phenomenon when I write about Michael Moore's Sicko this weekend.
Something I've rattling around in my head for a couple of months--mainly due to my Orwell binge last summer--is the idea of the USA as a parallel to the mid-to-late stage Soviet Union, particularly in its willing ignorance of The Rest of the World (TROTW). The Soviets, of course, tried to convince the population of the decadent West, which, because it was depraved and unsustainable and always facing imminent collapse, was always scheming and plotting ways to choke off the Motherland. Americans likewise have a fantasy about TROTW and its far-reaching anti-American conspiracy fueled by its Godless, socialistic heresies which, any day now, will bring it to its knees.
During the Cold War, Americans used to boast that they were electing "the leader of the Free World." It was never suggested that the rest of the Free World should perhaps get to vote on the people who are going to have such monumental influence over their lives. But American voters have never taken the thought of voting with a more global conscience particularly seriously. And, as anti-immigrant stories like the one above show, we're increasingly shutting out how TROTW lives from our consideration.
I'll write more about some of the possible institutional reasons for this phenomenon when I write about Michael Moore's Sicko this weekend.
07 November 2007
Paulyannas
Greenwald yesterday had an interesting piece on Ron Paul, the Libertarian-slash-Republican presidential candidate who caused a stir recently by announcing a record day of internet fundraising ($4.2 million in 24 hours). He salutes Paul for making waves outside of the acceptable boundaries set up by mainstream pundits, and the Republicans have been playing Whack-A-Mole trying to make him go away. Even though this is only really true of Paul's foreign policy stances, it's still worth celebrating modestly.
Paul's views on interventionism have been getting him a lot of mainstream attention, and he obviously enjoys a lot of support from techno-libertarians who prowl the internet like predators looking for any mention of Paul they can pounce on.* What's particularly disappointing, however, is that Paul is sucking up a lot of support that could be occupied by a similarly antiwar but progressive candidate were they not all cowed by the ever-present smears of "Naderism." Paul even sprinkles his antiwar messages with terms like "imperialism" that you'd expect to hear from a hippy-dippy lefty, but the best we can do remains bumblin' Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich, God love him, seems like a nice guy who's only running because he's the only one naive enough to think he can make the Democrats pay any attention to the progressive caucus of their party.
Of course, I have a long list of disagreements with the rest of Paul's political philosophy, and even his isolationism is based more on old-fashioned chauvinism** than international cooperation, but if the Paulites manage to somehow pull it off in the Republican primary it would be an unequivocally positive development. Reforming the imperial strategy will, I think, be the most important issue of the 2008 election, and he is infinitely saner than all the other Republicans, and even some Democrats, here. If nothing else he would throw the Democrats a curveball of the standard Republican bogeyman they've grown so accustomed to attacking.
It's also possible, as I mentioned in a previous post, that Paul could jump ship and run as a third-party, particularly if he fares well in the primaries. I don't think this is terribly likely, but Paul is 72 years old and might just go for the hell of it. He has previously run as the Libertarian nominee in 1988. All these possibilities for major party crackups are just too delicious to be true. If Paul does win the Republican nomination, they will almost certainly prop up a Big "Murica establishment candidate against him, possibly Bloomberg who, although no longer a Republican officially, would have a niche to fill. You have the Dobsonites threatening to split if Rudy's the nominee, though they'd likely settle for the anti-abortion Paul. You have the Broderist wet-dream Unity08, which deserves its own post. And any combination or all of this would liberate a lot of progressives from the yokes of Democrats whining about spoilers, especially if Hillary is the nominee, which seems nearly inevitable now. If only we could find a candidate....
*Elsewhere at Salon, Andrew Leonard considers the prevalence of the techno-libertarian. It's a compelling case, but I see it as more simply a belief in inevitable improvement through technological progress with themselves as the vanguard, who ought not be encumbered by the concerns of the non-interfacing mortals ("who will rid me of these troublesome proles?").
**I disagree with Greenwald here that Paul's connections to extremist groups are entirely irrelevant. While this isn't to say he endorses all of their doctrines, there is a good reason why he tends to be the favorite of white supremacists and ultra-nativists.
Paul's views on interventionism have been getting him a lot of mainstream attention, and he obviously enjoys a lot of support from techno-libertarians who prowl the internet like predators looking for any mention of Paul they can pounce on.* What's particularly disappointing, however, is that Paul is sucking up a lot of support that could be occupied by a similarly antiwar but progressive candidate were they not all cowed by the ever-present smears of "Naderism." Paul even sprinkles his antiwar messages with terms like "imperialism" that you'd expect to hear from a hippy-dippy lefty, but the best we can do remains bumblin' Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich, God love him, seems like a nice guy who's only running because he's the only one naive enough to think he can make the Democrats pay any attention to the progressive caucus of their party.
Of course, I have a long list of disagreements with the rest of Paul's political philosophy, and even his isolationism is based more on old-fashioned chauvinism** than international cooperation, but if the Paulites manage to somehow pull it off in the Republican primary it would be an unequivocally positive development. Reforming the imperial strategy will, I think, be the most important issue of the 2008 election, and he is infinitely saner than all the other Republicans, and even some Democrats, here. If nothing else he would throw the Democrats a curveball of the standard Republican bogeyman they've grown so accustomed to attacking.
It's also possible, as I mentioned in a previous post, that Paul could jump ship and run as a third-party, particularly if he fares well in the primaries. I don't think this is terribly likely, but Paul is 72 years old and might just go for the hell of it. He has previously run as the Libertarian nominee in 1988. All these possibilities for major party crackups are just too delicious to be true. If Paul does win the Republican nomination, they will almost certainly prop up a Big "Murica establishment candidate against him, possibly Bloomberg who, although no longer a Republican officially, would have a niche to fill. You have the Dobsonites threatening to split if Rudy's the nominee, though they'd likely settle for the anti-abortion Paul. You have the Broderist wet-dream Unity08, which deserves its own post. And any combination or all of this would liberate a lot of progressives from the yokes of Democrats whining about spoilers, especially if Hillary is the nominee, which seems nearly inevitable now. If only we could find a candidate....
*Elsewhere at Salon, Andrew Leonard considers the prevalence of the techno-libertarian. It's a compelling case, but I see it as more simply a belief in inevitable improvement through technological progress with themselves as the vanguard, who ought not be encumbered by the concerns of the non-interfacing mortals ("who will rid me of these troublesome proles?").
**I disagree with Greenwald here that Paul's connections to extremist groups are entirely irrelevant. While this isn't to say he endorses all of their doctrines, there is a good reason why he tends to be the favorite of white supremacists and ultra-nativists.
05 November 2007
Dead certainty
Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight is the kind of no-nonsense, straight-laced documentary that has the critics swooning and Academy Award nomination written all over it. While I don't think it is the be-all and end-all for Iraq films, it is very powerful inside its limited scope, though I did find it lacking one important element.
The great majority of the film concerns the calamitous first six months of the occupation, where one disastrous decision after another by the Bush Administration quickly ended any possibility of a peaceful transition to democracy (provided any such possibility ever existed, which I'll talk about in a moment). Widely praised for his strict adherence to "insiders" as talking heads, former reconstruction officials, journalists, etc., Ferguson covers a time period which often goes forgotten and chronicles the policy of ignorance and outright callousness that is frequently shocking and always infuriating.
It began with the reassignment of Iraqi reconstruction from the State Department to the Pentagon, ignoring the piles of research State had already compiled. Rumsfeld then turned a deaf ear to several of his top generals suggesting that far more troops would be needed for the occupation and instead sent in a force inadequate to stop the widespread looting and trashing of the country that immediately followed the end of the war--including the destruction of much of the Iraqi National Museum, home to some of the most prized treasures of ancient Mesopotamian archeology.
The film interviews at length Gen. Jay Garner, the man initially left in charge of the reconstruction without much in the way of a plan or support from his superiors, a oft-repeated lament from other reconstruction staffers. Garner was quickly replaced by L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, which proceeded to turn a budding disaster into a hellish catastrophe. Bremer staffed much of the CPA with the recently-graduated sons and daughters of Republican donors, often in positions where they had no experience or training, such as handing over control of Baghdad's traffic control to one fresh-faced "intern" with no municipal planning experience. Years later, the rest of the world would learn of the American preference for cronyism when we found out the hard way that the man in charge of emergency response was much better qualified to maintain Arabian horses (but he was Somebody who knew Somebody, and that's how our capitalism works).
The dizzying failure climaxed with "deBa'athification", the firing of much of the former government staff, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. Not only did this remove a large pool of ready-made knowledgeable civil servants and security forces, it left many influential people angry and unemployed, a great many of whom were also very well-schooled in the art of blowing things up.
What the film doesn't offer is any kind of explanation for why Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bremer made those disastrous decisions. There's never any suggestion of whether there was an official malicious philosophy or whether they were simply Very Stupid People making Very Bad Decisions. The film did take some antiwar criticism for providing cover to the "incompetence dodge" of liberal hawks who claim everything would have gone just swell if only they had been in charge rather than Bush's bumbling band. There might be something to this, although we should perhaps give Ferguson some benefit of the doubt; none of the aforementioned Bush dead-enders would appear on camera, and no one suggests that a more competent reconstruction would have justified the military action. (As you might guess, I think there were reasons, but they'll have to wait until I get to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which has been sitting on my desk waiting for a review for a few weeks now.)
Despite its flaw, though, the movie does have its utility, particularly for those few straggling remnants of the Gospel Band looking for American benevolence in Iraq, convinced every bit of bad news is courtesy of the stab-in-the-back liberal media. If their persistence survives No End in Sight, they are truly impervious to reality.
No End in Sight trailer
The great majority of the film concerns the calamitous first six months of the occupation, where one disastrous decision after another by the Bush Administration quickly ended any possibility of a peaceful transition to democracy (provided any such possibility ever existed, which I'll talk about in a moment). Widely praised for his strict adherence to "insiders" as talking heads, former reconstruction officials, journalists, etc., Ferguson covers a time period which often goes forgotten and chronicles the policy of ignorance and outright callousness that is frequently shocking and always infuriating.
It began with the reassignment of Iraqi reconstruction from the State Department to the Pentagon, ignoring the piles of research State had already compiled. Rumsfeld then turned a deaf ear to several of his top generals suggesting that far more troops would be needed for the occupation and instead sent in a force inadequate to stop the widespread looting and trashing of the country that immediately followed the end of the war--including the destruction of much of the Iraqi National Museum, home to some of the most prized treasures of ancient Mesopotamian archeology.
The film interviews at length Gen. Jay Garner, the man initially left in charge of the reconstruction without much in the way of a plan or support from his superiors, a oft-repeated lament from other reconstruction staffers. Garner was quickly replaced by L. Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, which proceeded to turn a budding disaster into a hellish catastrophe. Bremer staffed much of the CPA with the recently-graduated sons and daughters of Republican donors, often in positions where they had no experience or training, such as handing over control of Baghdad's traffic control to one fresh-faced "intern" with no municipal planning experience. Years later, the rest of the world would learn of the American preference for cronyism when we found out the hard way that the man in charge of emergency response was much better qualified to maintain Arabian horses (but he was Somebody who knew Somebody, and that's how our capitalism works).
The dizzying failure climaxed with "deBa'athification", the firing of much of the former government staff, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. Not only did this remove a large pool of ready-made knowledgeable civil servants and security forces, it left many influential people angry and unemployed, a great many of whom were also very well-schooled in the art of blowing things up.
What the film doesn't offer is any kind of explanation for why Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Bremer made those disastrous decisions. There's never any suggestion of whether there was an official malicious philosophy or whether they were simply Very Stupid People making Very Bad Decisions. The film did take some antiwar criticism for providing cover to the "incompetence dodge" of liberal hawks who claim everything would have gone just swell if only they had been in charge rather than Bush's bumbling band. There might be something to this, although we should perhaps give Ferguson some benefit of the doubt; none of the aforementioned Bush dead-enders would appear on camera, and no one suggests that a more competent reconstruction would have justified the military action. (As you might guess, I think there were reasons, but they'll have to wait until I get to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, which has been sitting on my desk waiting for a review for a few weeks now.)
Despite its flaw, though, the movie does have its utility, particularly for those few straggling remnants of the Gospel Band looking for American benevolence in Iraq, convinced every bit of bad news is courtesy of the stab-in-the-back liberal media. If their persistence survives No End in Sight, they are truly impervious to reality.
No End in Sight trailer
31 October 2007
Democracy, limited
It's easy to forget, if indeed one was even aware if it at all, that before Ralph Nader became Public Enemy Number One among limousine liberals he was, for a time, one of the most admired and respected voices among ordinary Americans. The recent documentary An Unreasonable Man traces Nader's career from the groundbreaking consumer advocate of the 60's and 70's to his controversial presidential run in 2000 which, to hear partisan Democrats tell it, is solely responsible for the disasters unleashed by George W. Bush.
Nader's breakthrough to the public consciousness came in 1965 when, as a young Washington lawyer, he published Unsafe at Any Speed, a landmark expose of the poor safety records of the American automakers, in particular General Motors, which hired goons to try, in vain, to dig up evidence of personal malfeasance to use against him at the Congressional hearing. In the 1970's, he organized a loose collection of recent college graduates the press called "Nader's Raiders" who tirelessly to protect consumer safety from corporate myopia. It came to an end during the Carter Administration, which failed to pass Nader's dream of a federal Consumer Protection Agency and, according to his critics, sent him on his way to being an egomanical malcontent.
During this time, the enormously popular Nader was often considered a potential candidate for national office, and was supposedly even contacted by the McGovern campaign in 1972, but he found it better to remain outside of the partisan fray. But after Reagan rolled back most of his gains in the 1970s, and Clinton proved equally intractable, the nascent Green Party tapped into Nader's disillusionment and, they hoped, his celebrity for their presidential ticket in 2000. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The film does a fine job of knocking around some of the myths that have persisted about that fated 2000 election season; for example, the idea that Nader purposefully tried to throw the election by focusing his campaign in swing states (Nader's former campaign manager says they spent 28 days in California compared to two and a half in Florida). Then there was Nader's battle with the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private entity sponsored by many of America's biggest corporations which refused to allow him or any other third-party candidate into the all-important debates. When Nader acquires a ticket to view the first debate at the University of Massachusetts from an auxiliary theater, the Commission's hired security guards refuse to let him in,
The basic liberal claim against Nader, as you well know by now, is that he stole voters in key areas who would otherwise have voted for Al Gore. This, of course, is fundamentally undemocratic, since no one is obliged to vote for someone when there is someone better aligned to them available. But, in a way, you can't blame Democrats for believing this, as they have long felt a proprietary right to left-wing votes even as they do very little to actively acknowledge them. As they party continues to lurch rightward into the waiting arms of Big Bidness, they have turned to invoking the spectre of Republican Disaster as reason enough to support their latest mushy effort.
They've also successfully turned any serious discussion of third-party candidates onto a personal evaluation of Nader and his most fervent supporters, who are usually dismissed as unserious stoners. And Nader likely made a mistake by attempting to run again in 2004 as an independent, though the Democrats did show their true colors by going to court to keep him off the ballot in many states (Nader is currently counter-suing). Of course, the Democrats went on to lose a race they should have won easily, and with minimal interference from the Devil Nader; their own incompetence just making them hate him all the more. This is unfortunate because, with the Dems again prepared to nominate the most hawkish, corporate-friendly candidate they can find in the party, a discussion of how to wrest back control is badly needed. (And no, Al Gore isn't going to swoop in and save us; his newfound status as a Progressive White Horse is likely a revision of his 2000 campaign to make Nader seem More Evil.)
Nader also made a mistake in claiming that there is "no difference" at all between the two parties--if indeed he ever said such a thing--because this only plays into the Democrats' hand. Their only play at this point is just keeping left enough of the Republicans to be visible. Though there are, of course, many important ways in which they are indistinguishable. Both are equally invested in the continued perpetuation of the restrictive, winner-take-all two-party system, the anachronistic, undemocratic Electoral College, and the exclusive, money-decides-everything primary system.
For the final word today, I'll turn to the much more eloquent Dennis Perrin.
Nader's breakthrough to the public consciousness came in 1965 when, as a young Washington lawyer, he published Unsafe at Any Speed, a landmark expose of the poor safety records of the American automakers, in particular General Motors, which hired goons to try, in vain, to dig up evidence of personal malfeasance to use against him at the Congressional hearing. In the 1970's, he organized a loose collection of recent college graduates the press called "Nader's Raiders" who tirelessly to protect consumer safety from corporate myopia. It came to an end during the Carter Administration, which failed to pass Nader's dream of a federal Consumer Protection Agency and, according to his critics, sent him on his way to being an egomanical malcontent.
During this time, the enormously popular Nader was often considered a potential candidate for national office, and was supposedly even contacted by the McGovern campaign in 1972, but he found it better to remain outside of the partisan fray. But after Reagan rolled back most of his gains in the 1970s, and Clinton proved equally intractable, the nascent Green Party tapped into Nader's disillusionment and, they hoped, his celebrity for their presidential ticket in 2000. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The film does a fine job of knocking around some of the myths that have persisted about that fated 2000 election season; for example, the idea that Nader purposefully tried to throw the election by focusing his campaign in swing states (Nader's former campaign manager says they spent 28 days in California compared to two and a half in Florida). Then there was Nader's battle with the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private entity sponsored by many of America's biggest corporations which refused to allow him or any other third-party candidate into the all-important debates. When Nader acquires a ticket to view the first debate at the University of Massachusetts from an auxiliary theater, the Commission's hired security guards refuse to let him in,
The basic liberal claim against Nader, as you well know by now, is that he stole voters in key areas who would otherwise have voted for Al Gore. This, of course, is fundamentally undemocratic, since no one is obliged to vote for someone when there is someone better aligned to them available. But, in a way, you can't blame Democrats for believing this, as they have long felt a proprietary right to left-wing votes even as they do very little to actively acknowledge them. As they party continues to lurch rightward into the waiting arms of Big Bidness, they have turned to invoking the spectre of Republican Disaster as reason enough to support their latest mushy effort.
They've also successfully turned any serious discussion of third-party candidates onto a personal evaluation of Nader and his most fervent supporters, who are usually dismissed as unserious stoners. And Nader likely made a mistake by attempting to run again in 2004 as an independent, though the Democrats did show their true colors by going to court to keep him off the ballot in many states (Nader is currently counter-suing). Of course, the Democrats went on to lose a race they should have won easily, and with minimal interference from the Devil Nader; their own incompetence just making them hate him all the more. This is unfortunate because, with the Dems again prepared to nominate the most hawkish, corporate-friendly candidate they can find in the party, a discussion of how to wrest back control is badly needed. (And no, Al Gore isn't going to swoop in and save us; his newfound status as a Progressive White Horse is likely a revision of his 2000 campaign to make Nader seem More Evil.)
Nader also made a mistake in claiming that there is "no difference" at all between the two parties--if indeed he ever said such a thing--because this only plays into the Democrats' hand. Their only play at this point is just keeping left enough of the Republicans to be visible. Though there are, of course, many important ways in which they are indistinguishable. Both are equally invested in the continued perpetuation of the restrictive, winner-take-all two-party system, the anachronistic, undemocratic Electoral College, and the exclusive, money-decides-everything primary system.
For the final word today, I'll turn to the much more eloquent Dennis Perrin.
An Unreasonable Man trailer.
Critique either these fantasies or the corrupt system that make them necessary, and the liberals will vomit all over you. You are insane, in need of professional help, a Naderite, a Bush supporter, a Christo-fascist, or at the very least a very stupid person who doesn't understand the Two Party System. Is it perfect? No, they'll concede. But that's all there is, all there could conceivably be, so shut the fuck up, vote Dem early and often, and focus all of your critical energies on Michelle Malkin and David Horowitz.
James Wolcott once compared liberal bloggers to 18th century pamphleteers, and indeed there are similarities, primarily in the Publish Yourself realm. But many of those early polemicists were radical democrats who saw a world beyond that of Crown and Church. That world had yet to exist, but this didn't stop them from pushing for its realization in the face of tremendous opposition and derision. They were told by the liberals of their day that direct democracy was a boy's dream, that the radicals needed to grow up and get with the existing program. A world beyond Crown and Church? Tosh, pish-posh, and twaddle.
Today's liberals, many of them, anyway, cannot see a world beyond that of Global Corporate Order, which is why they'll continually serve one of the GCO's control mechanisms, the Democrats. The corporate mules know of and count on this acquiescence every election season. And you wonder why Hillary smiles so much.
29 October 2007
The crack-up
The Sunday Times magazine yesterday had a lengthy piece by David Kirkpatrick on the growing state of political detoxification of American evangelicals, covering the same general topics I've touched on in the past year or so but with much more detail and exposition. Kirkpatrick in particular cites several examples of the laity revolting against the single-track gospel-as-Kulturkampf message preferred by the powers-that-be. (Another possible explanation is that, being authoritarian followers, they are uneasy with the prospect of no longer being on the winning side.)
The indispensable Jeff Sharlet writing in The Revealer, however, worries that Kirkpatrick's article will be the latest in a long history of declaring conservative evangelicals prematurely dead as a political force. Sharlet points out that the trickling of evangelicals away from the Republican party has less to do with a leftward political drift from their part as much as the Democrats careening rightward to try to win them over. (The DLC-Blue Dog Dems would love nothing more than to trade in their leftist base for docile, corporate-friendly petty bourgeoisie.)
This shake-up has produced some strange and seemingly inexplicable outcome, such as the support for Rudy Giuliani among some evangelicals while others in the Old Guard plot a third-party bid if the thrice-married, pro-choice Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.* Giuliani's popularity, I think, can be atributed to being a Unity Candidate in an otherwise lackluster field; he is the biggest Big "Murica hawk of the bunch, surrounding himself with the likes of Norman Podhoretz and Daniel Pipes, the Architects of the architects that delivered Bush's imperial presidency.
*The possibilities for third-party candidates in 2008 could turn out to be quite intriguing. Will Michael Bloomberg throw his billions into the ring (creating the possibility of a three-way all-New Yorker race)? Will Ron Paul take his newfound national fame to the Libertarian Party ticket--on which he's appeared before? I'll take this opportunity to note the Socialist Party has recently unveiled its 2008 ticket.
EDIT: By the way, not running for President? Lyndon LaRouche.
The indispensable Jeff Sharlet writing in The Revealer, however, worries that Kirkpatrick's article will be the latest in a long history of declaring conservative evangelicals prematurely dead as a political force. Sharlet points out that the trickling of evangelicals away from the Republican party has less to do with a leftward political drift from their part as much as the Democrats careening rightward to try to win them over. (The DLC-Blue Dog Dems would love nothing more than to trade in their leftist base for docile, corporate-friendly petty bourgeoisie.)
This shake-up has produced some strange and seemingly inexplicable outcome, such as the support for Rudy Giuliani among some evangelicals while others in the Old Guard plot a third-party bid if the thrice-married, pro-choice Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.* Giuliani's popularity, I think, can be atributed to being a Unity Candidate in an otherwise lackluster field; he is the biggest Big "Murica hawk of the bunch, surrounding himself with the likes of Norman Podhoretz and Daniel Pipes, the Architects of the architects that delivered Bush's imperial presidency.
*The possibilities for third-party candidates in 2008 could turn out to be quite intriguing. Will Michael Bloomberg throw his billions into the ring (creating the possibility of a three-way all-New Yorker race)? Will Ron Paul take his newfound national fame to the Libertarian Party ticket--on which he's appeared before? I'll take this opportunity to note the Socialist Party has recently unveiled its 2008 ticket.
EDIT: By the way, not running for President? Lyndon LaRouche.
27 October 2007
Over there
Let's all cool our heads for a moment from thinking of how the @^$@$%^@!! Red Sox make us want to kill and eat children and talk about something a little more humorous and agreeable.
The NFL will hold its first ever regular season game in Europe tomorrow when the Giants and Dolphins meet at Wembley Stadium in London. Michael Silver at Yahoo! Sports has a related puff piece on how brilliant and innovative the NFL's marketing plan is. And what does this innovative, brilliant plan entail? Apparently, realizing there is, in fact, a rest of the world.
One doesn't expect the latest attempt by the NFL to get anyone other than bloodthirsty Americans to watch their damn game to be any more successful than the previous tries, but that won't stop the league and its fawning legion of sportswriter lackeys from regaling us with tales of milk and honey in the promised land. Here is Silver in a particularly grand moment of hubris
Silver, in fact, wants to go for the whole cow and send the Super Bowl itself overseas. After all, since ordinary fans can't attend the game anyway, who cares where it's held?
The NFL is less secure as the dominant player in American sports than people realize. Major League Baseball is close to catching the NFL in total revenue, something unthinkable just a few years ago. It has two major problems going forward; the absence of global expansion being one. The other is being tied to the medium of sit-on-your-ass television that is becoming slowly obsolescent. Football came in with the uniquely late-20th-century ubiquity of television and its promise of allowing ordinary folks to see every game their team played with a modest expenditure of effort. It will go out with the exploding accessibility of wireless internet, satellite radio, and digital video recording.
And because only violence-crazed Americans want any part of it.
The NFL will hold its first ever regular season game in Europe tomorrow when the Giants and Dolphins meet at Wembley Stadium in London. Michael Silver at Yahoo! Sports has a related puff piece on how brilliant and innovative the NFL's marketing plan is. And what does this innovative, brilliant plan entail? Apparently, realizing there is, in fact, a rest of the world.
One doesn't expect the latest attempt by the NFL to get anyone other than bloodthirsty Americans to watch their damn game to be any more successful than the previous tries, but that won't stop the league and its fawning legion of sportswriter lackeys from regaling us with tales of milk and honey in the promised land. Here is Silver in a particularly grand moment of hubris
Sunday's game at Wembley Stadium between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins is only the beginning, the equivalent of the Beatles' 1964 foray to the States that spawned the British Invasion.They'll welcome us with tea and scones! "What is this game you call Foot Ball, and why have we never heard of it before!" The goalposts are already on their way, to be set up at Old Trafford and Stanford Bridge by the end of the month!
Waller here is obliquely referring to the NFL's failed venture to create a developmental league called NFL Europe which was finally scrapped last year after 15 forgettable seasons. At the bitter end, NFL Europe had five of its six teams in Germany, the only country where it could sustain a modicum of interest. He is trying to convince us that the failure of the NFL's international expansion has been due to not sending out NFL-quality product. We will have to remind him that this has not stopped the much more successful export programs of baseball and, particularly, basketball, because no one else, least of all Silver, is going to point this out.You'd might as well start calling it the IFL, because it's becoming increasingly clear that the new national pastime is no longer ours to hoard.
"If you want to grow something, you've got to share it," Mark Waller, the NFL's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said Thursday during a break in the conference. "Once this takes root here, and it will, people are going to expect to see the best, in the same way that you know the World Cup is the ultimate for soccer and the Olympics is the ultimate for track and other sports. If (the Super Bowl) travels, it makes you part of what the world is today, which is truly a global community.
Silver, in fact, wants to go for the whole cow and send the Super Bowl itself overseas. After all, since ordinary fans can't attend the game anyway, who cares where it's held?
Usually, adopting a tone other than Voice of the Proles is forbidden territory for sportswriters. But this is the NFL we're talking about here, and some things just take precedence. The proles must submit themselves to the Greater Good of the NFL's bottom line. (I will, for now, avoid the appallingly vile first half of that paragraph which I didn't blockquote, which deserves its own book.)
Another argument against going overseas is that the Super Bowl draws working-class fans of the competing teams, and they won't be able to afford a trip to London. That may be true for some fans, but not most of the people I see during Super Bowl week, who are paying $500 or more per ticket and seem to have plenty of disposable income. This isn't George Mason reaching the Final Four and a bunch of starving students hopping on Greyhounds; the typical Super Bowl fan, in my anecdotal experience, tends to be Joe from Sales on a company-approved junket, and he'll probably fly to London as readily as he will to Phoenix.
The NFL is less secure as the dominant player in American sports than people realize. Major League Baseball is close to catching the NFL in total revenue, something unthinkable just a few years ago. It has two major problems going forward; the absence of global expansion being one. The other is being tied to the medium of sit-on-your-ass television that is becoming slowly obsolescent. Football came in with the uniquely late-20th-century ubiquity of television and its promise of allowing ordinary folks to see every game their team played with a modest expenditure of effort. It will go out with the exploding accessibility of wireless internet, satellite radio, and digital video recording.
And because only violence-crazed Americans want any part of it.
Baseball Farm
Serious Orwell
The creatures outside looked from Red Sock to Yankee, and from Yankee to Red Sock, and from Red Sock to Yankee again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The creatures outside looked from Red Sock to Yankee, and from Yankee to Red Sock, and from Red Sock to Yankee again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
24 October 2007
World Serious: One last grasp at salvation
In brief, a few reasons to hope the Rockies overcome the odds and spare us the sanctimony of Red Sox Nation:
Coors Field: Even in the days when they were awful, the Rockies have always been a formidable foe at home in the rare air of Denver. The park doesn't play as severe as it once did, thanks to the use of a humidor, but it still packs a wallop on unfamiliar foes. As the Minnesota Twins can tell you, being dominant at home is a great card to have in your pocket in a short series. Unlike those Twins teams, the Rockies don't have the four games at home, but they should have enough to drag out the series and bring it down to the final games where anything can happen. Then there is Coors' famously cavernous outfield....
Defense: The Rockies are not "the best fielding team of all time," which is widely touted in the press because of their all-time high fielding percentage, but they are awfully good, and certainly a fair shot better than the Sox, especially if Boston resorts to playing David Ortiz in the field during the middle three. And there is Manny Ramirez, who may get lost in the Coors outfield and never return. The Rockies defense should also help them to adapt better to Fenway, where they also played a three-game series during the regular season.
A serviceable DH: It's my opinion that AL teams have a bigger advantage regarding DH maneuvering in the World Series because they construct their team with an additional slugging first baseman, while NL teams often have to slot in a light-hitting utility player. Colorado, however, has Ryan Spillborghs available, a very respectable hitter who played most of the final two months of the season in center field.
The weather. Mother Nature is a great randomizer, and the chance for lousy weather in the World Series is once again high (honestly, how much more can the series be pushed back into late fall? Will we eventually have the Winter Classic?). The Rockies practiced in the snow last weekend, though at last check none is forecast for Denver this coming weekend. (Though with these things one should always be careful. Veterans are usually more reliable mudders, and Boston has many more of those.)
They're actually good: Winning 21 baseball games out of 22 is by definition a fluke. But the Rockies current run is also too long to be merely a fluke. A cursory glance at the talent the Rockies have assembled here makes you think they could easily win 95-100 games over a full season. They shouldn't be underestimated just because they needed a torrid run down the stretch (and a lot of help from elsewhere) to sneak into the playoffs.
It's the World Serious. Enough said about that.
Coors Field: Even in the days when they were awful, the Rockies have always been a formidable foe at home in the rare air of Denver. The park doesn't play as severe as it once did, thanks to the use of a humidor, but it still packs a wallop on unfamiliar foes. As the Minnesota Twins can tell you, being dominant at home is a great card to have in your pocket in a short series. Unlike those Twins teams, the Rockies don't have the four games at home, but they should have enough to drag out the series and bring it down to the final games where anything can happen. Then there is Coors' famously cavernous outfield....
Defense: The Rockies are not "the best fielding team of all time," which is widely touted in the press because of their all-time high fielding percentage, but they are awfully good, and certainly a fair shot better than the Sox, especially if Boston resorts to playing David Ortiz in the field during the middle three. And there is Manny Ramirez, who may get lost in the Coors outfield and never return. The Rockies defense should also help them to adapt better to Fenway, where they also played a three-game series during the regular season.
A serviceable DH: It's my opinion that AL teams have a bigger advantage regarding DH maneuvering in the World Series because they construct their team with an additional slugging first baseman, while NL teams often have to slot in a light-hitting utility player. Colorado, however, has Ryan Spillborghs available, a very respectable hitter who played most of the final two months of the season in center field.
The weather. Mother Nature is a great randomizer, and the chance for lousy weather in the World Series is once again high (honestly, how much more can the series be pushed back into late fall? Will we eventually have the Winter Classic?). The Rockies practiced in the snow last weekend, though at last check none is forecast for Denver this coming weekend. (Though with these things one should always be careful. Veterans are usually more reliable mudders, and Boston has many more of those.)
They're actually good: Winning 21 baseball games out of 22 is by definition a fluke. But the Rockies current run is also too long to be merely a fluke. A cursory glance at the talent the Rockies have assembled here makes you think they could easily win 95-100 games over a full season. They shouldn't be underestimated just because they needed a torrid run down the stretch (and a lot of help from elsewhere) to sneak into the playoffs.
It's the World Serious. Enough said about that.
22 October 2007
Say it ain't so
I've always thought you could basically carve up the Republican Party into three core factions: Big Bidness (neocons and corporations), Small Gummint (paleocons and libertarians) and Big Jeebus (religion and social cons). Like the three superpowers in 1984, these three regularly exchange alliances and modest internecine scuffles which are held together by duct tape and, when the time comes to face the rest of the nation, a mutual love of Big 'Murica.
For example, the current administration is mostly Big Bidness, with a veneer of Big Jeebus for show. This has confused and alienated Small Gummint, and also given them a built-in excuse for its failures. But Big Bidness will never actually care about Small Gummint per se; only as much as Small Gummint serves its interests. Big Bidness also doesn't care about Big Jeebus beyond utilitarian ambition; as soon as Big Jeebus becomes an albatross (with offensive social views that threaten profit prospects) away it will go.
With that in mind, let's take another look at Mike Huckabee. Huckabee should, by all accounts, be the favored son of Big Jeebus in the Republican race. He hits all of their favorite social marks with a gusto hardly anyone has seen before, and does it with a geniality which naturally deflects media attention from his extreme social views. Huckabee cruised to victory at last weekend's Values Voters Summit, a kind of Big Jeebus party congress.
Yet there is something conspicuously absent from this.
Despite his booming popularity with the congregation, Huckabee hasn't yet caught an endorsement from any of the Big Jeebus bigwigs, and his fundraising hasn't followed his rising stock. How could this be, when they could hardly ask for anyone more ideal?
Well, Huckabee has a problem. Two problems, in fact. Big Bidness and Small Gummint. While governor of Arkansas Huckabee crossed the unspeakable threshold guaranteed to immediately unite both of them, he raised taxes and expanded government spending for social programs. Even though Huckabee supports replacing the IRS with a "fair tax" system--a favorite crusade for Small Gummint--they still don't trust him enough, especially when there are nearly a dozen other dogs ready to slobber for them.
But wait, won't Big Jeebus stand up for their man? Would Perkins, Colson, Mohler et.al. buck the flock and back another horse?
Yup.
Because they're not Big Jeebus at all.
What, you thought these guys were right-wingers because of "moral values?" Ho ho, weren't we all taken for suckers. The base is, oh yes. The proles filling the pews on Sunday believe Huckabee's trope that illegal immigration is a byproduct of abortion. Their political clergy may or may not; it isn't required. Their job is to reliably deliver Big Jeebus to Big Bidness (Small Gummint hasn't quite realized it's the junior partner in this relationship yet).
This time, Big Jeebus might have its own plans.
Luckily, Mike Huckabee is no William Jennings Bryan. William Jennings Bryan is the most dangerous man in American politics. Except he's been dead 80 years, and couldn't get on the ballot of either major party if he were alive. Bryan thought a conservative theology led to progressive economic policy. Imagine that! You say you want a class war? Bryan would give you one. He wasn't quite a Christian Socialist, though he was sometimes reasonably close.
Yes, there used to be such creatures. Francis Bellamy was a Christian Socialist. He wrote the original draft of the Pledge of Allegiance, and he didn't even put "under God" in it. The nerve!
For example, the current administration is mostly Big Bidness, with a veneer of Big Jeebus for show. This has confused and alienated Small Gummint, and also given them a built-in excuse for its failures. But Big Bidness will never actually care about Small Gummint per se; only as much as Small Gummint serves its interests. Big Bidness also doesn't care about Big Jeebus beyond utilitarian ambition; as soon as Big Jeebus becomes an albatross (with offensive social views that threaten profit prospects) away it will go.
With that in mind, let's take another look at Mike Huckabee. Huckabee should, by all accounts, be the favored son of Big Jeebus in the Republican race. He hits all of their favorite social marks with a gusto hardly anyone has seen before, and does it with a geniality which naturally deflects media attention from his extreme social views. Huckabee cruised to victory at last weekend's Values Voters Summit, a kind of Big Jeebus party congress.
Yet there is something conspicuously absent from this.
Despite his booming popularity with the congregation, Huckabee hasn't yet caught an endorsement from any of the Big Jeebus bigwigs, and his fundraising hasn't followed his rising stock. How could this be, when they could hardly ask for anyone more ideal?
Well, Huckabee has a problem. Two problems, in fact. Big Bidness and Small Gummint. While governor of Arkansas Huckabee crossed the unspeakable threshold guaranteed to immediately unite both of them, he raised taxes and expanded government spending for social programs. Even though Huckabee supports replacing the IRS with a "fair tax" system--a favorite crusade for Small Gummint--they still don't trust him enough, especially when there are nearly a dozen other dogs ready to slobber for them.
But wait, won't Big Jeebus stand up for their man? Would Perkins, Colson, Mohler et.al. buck the flock and back another horse?
Yup.
Because they're not Big Jeebus at all.
What, you thought these guys were right-wingers because of "moral values?" Ho ho, weren't we all taken for suckers. The base is, oh yes. The proles filling the pews on Sunday believe Huckabee's trope that illegal immigration is a byproduct of abortion. Their political clergy may or may not; it isn't required. Their job is to reliably deliver Big Jeebus to Big Bidness (Small Gummint hasn't quite realized it's the junior partner in this relationship yet).
This time, Big Jeebus might have its own plans.
Luckily, Mike Huckabee is no William Jennings Bryan. William Jennings Bryan is the most dangerous man in American politics. Except he's been dead 80 years, and couldn't get on the ballot of either major party if he were alive. Bryan thought a conservative theology led to progressive economic policy. Imagine that! You say you want a class war? Bryan would give you one. He wasn't quite a Christian Socialist, though he was sometimes reasonably close.
Yes, there used to be such creatures. Francis Bellamy was a Christian Socialist. He wrote the original draft of the Pledge of Allegiance, and he didn't even put "under God" in it. The nerve!
19 October 2007
Opulence
George Saunders at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, from his new book The Braindead Megaphone.
Satirist Stephen Colbert's nascent presidential campaign (he claims to be running only in his native state of South Carolina) gives us a brief glance into the dues you owe to be a real-live candidate.
The Burj Al Arab is the only seven-star hotel in the world, even though the rating system only goes up to five. The most expensive Burj suite goes for twelve thousand dollars a night. The atrium is 590 feet from floor to ceiling, the largest in the world. As you enter, the staff rushes over with cold towels, rosewater for the hands, dates, incense. The smell, the scale, the level of living, fascinated attention you are receiving, makes you realize you have never really been in the lap of true luxury before. All the luxury you have previously had--in New York, L.A.--was stale, Burj-imitative crap. Your entire concept of being inside a building is being altered in real time. The lobby of the Burj is neither inside nor out,. The roof is so far away as to seem like sky. The underbellies of the floors above you grade through countless shades of color from deep blue to, finally, up so high you can barely see it; pale green. Your Guest Services liaison, a humble, pretty Ukrainian, tells you that every gold-colored surface you see during your stay is actual twenty-four-karat gold. Even those four-story columns? Even so, she says. Even the thick, four-story arcs the size of buses that span the columns? All gold, sir, is correct.
Satirist Stephen Colbert's nascent presidential campaign (he claims to be running only in his native state of South Carolina) gives us a brief glance into the dues you owe to be a real-live candidate.
An unusual public appearance in America for a man who has not been christened an Enemy of the State, but will be. Bolivian president Evo Morales on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.However dismissive Mr. Dawson may be about Mr. Colbert’s plans, he said that he did not believe the Republicans could stop him from seeking both Republican and Democratic delegates.
“There is nothing in our filing that would prohibit him from running on both ballots, if he chose to pay the filing fees,’’ Mr. Dawson said.
And what is that fee? A steep $35,000, said Mr. Dawson.
“The great thing about America,’’ Mr. Dawson said, “is if you can meet the constitutional requirements to run for president of the United States, you can do so. In Mr. Colbert’s case, we look forward to his paying the filing fee before Nov. 1.’’
17 October 2007
Obey
Bob Altemeyer is a Canadian social scientist who has dedicated his career to studying the "authoritarian mindset," both those who seek out power and those who obediently follow it. His work was cited extensively in John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience (which I haven't read), and decided to write a brief, non-technical distillation of his ideas and release it as a free PDF (get it here).
I've only read the first chapter, but I have to make a note of something because it reinforces a recurring idea that I was kicking around last month.
The paper is available for free, so I encourage you to go have a read. Of particular interest as well is the result of a global simulation done once with people of little authoritarian bent and another with their high-RWA counterparts. The outcome calls to mind a quote I once saw on the web, paraphrased: "That someone wants to be president is reason enough to declare them unfit for the job."
I've only read the first chapter, but I have to make a note of something because it reinforces a recurring idea that I was kicking around last month.
"RWA" is an abbreviation of "right-wing authoritarian," which doesn't necessarily mean the political right, but rather an adherence to convention and tradition; the current Establishment, whatever it may be. I was listening to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's commentary for The Lives of Others when he noted somewhat casually that, after the Berlin Wall fell, many of the old GDR bureaucrats landed upright on the boards of major corporations. It makes one question exactly how sincerely they believed in the official Communist byline they once recited religiously.
Thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev (Thanks so much, Mikhail!) I can show you how
thoroughly some high RWAs sop up the teachings of another set of authorities, their
government. As soon as Gorbachev lifted the restraints on doing psychological
research in the Soviet Union an acquaintance of mine, Andre Kamenshikov,
administered a survey to students at Moscow State University with the same freedom that western researchers take for granted. The students answered the RWA scale and as well a series of questions about who was the “good guy” and who was the “bad guy” in the Cold War. For example, did the USSR start the arms race, or the USA?
Would the United States launch a sneak nuclear attack on the Soviet Union if it knew
it could do so without retaliation? Would the USSR do that to the United States? Does the Soviet Union have the right to invade a neighbor who looks like it might become allied with the United States? Does the USA have that right when one of its neighbors starts cozying up to the USSR? At the same time Andre was doing his study, I asked the same questions at three different American universities.
We found that in both countries the high RWAs believed their government’s
version of the Cold War more than most people did. Their officials wore the white
hats, the authoritarian followers believed, and the other guys were dirty rotten
warmongers. And that’s most interesting, because it means the most cock-sure belligerents in the populations on each side of the Cold War, the ones who hated and blamed each other the most, were in fact the same people, psychologically. If they had grown up on the other side of the Iron Curtain, they probably would have believed the leaders they presently despised, and despised the leaders they now trusted. They’d have been certain the side they presently thought was in the right was in the wrong, and instead embraced the beliefs they currently held in contempt. (boldface mine)
The paper is available for free, so I encourage you to go have a read. Of particular interest as well is the result of a global simulation done once with people of little authoritarian bent and another with their high-RWA counterparts. The outcome calls to mind a quote I once saw on the web, paraphrased: "That someone wants to be president is reason enough to declare them unfit for the job."
15 October 2007
Yeesh
I was looking back at my blog posts from this year, trying to come up with something suitably representative of my handiwork and lo and behold, it occurs to me that all my writing just sucks nowadays.
What happened?
I'm taking suggestions....
What happened?
I'm taking suggestions....
Lords of the manor
I know I haven't done a good enough job convincing everyone to read Joe Bageant's absolutely essential book Deer Hunting with Jesus, but I'm going to make another feeble attempt at it. The first chapter alone, "American Serfs," does more to peel back the veneer of rural white America than several whole tomes written by either urban liberal intellectuals or whitewashed right-wing propaganda.
An excerpt:
It's a necessary element in maintaining the illusion of the "American Dream" that each of these small communities throughout the country has its own miniature version of the great class hierarchy that pervades the country as a whole. I had a teacher in high school who once boasted that American capitalism had wrought the world's first classless society; the very dream of socialism realized right here!, though that, of course, is not quite what he meant. His vision of a classless society was one in which the aristocracy was accessible to even those of modest means, so long as they were willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to use the metaphor the Right is so enamored of. So occasionally they even swallow and induct a new family in to the club.
This has two advantages which has helped to vaccinate the modern aristocracy from the pernicious effects of populism. Giving each little community in the heartland its own little tycoons to admire and ogle is not only a source of local pride but a way to keep them plugged in to the greater American Hologram*. Out in the country they can imagine that, whatever the big-city eggheads are dreaming up to screw them over, it can't have anything to do with money, because our home-bred money would never do anything untoward.
It also saves Big Money from the wrath of all those people who inevitably fail to climb the ladder, like Bageant's friend Buck.
*Another great invention by the Bageant book
An excerpt:
Despite globalism, owners of small and medium-sized businesses run much of the heartland. Many of those picturesque towns you whip by on the interstate are small feudal systems, ruled by local networks of moneyed families, bankers, developers, lawyers, and merchants. That part of a community's life you cannot see from the road of from your Marriott hotel room and is certainly does not appear in tourist brochures pushing Winchester's Apple Blossom Festival or the Oktoberfest in your Midwestern town. It is in the interest of these well-heeled conservative provincials to maintain a feudal state with low taxes, few or no local regulations, no unions, a cheap school system, and a chamber of commerce with the state senate on its speed dial. At the same time they dominate most elected offices and municipal boards. It seems only natural that these small business owners, after generations of shaving down the soap bars in the back room and soaking the pork chops in water for extra scale weight, would conclude that America is solely about the quickest buck. "Screw the scenic creek, you tree hugger. I'm getting an Outback Steakhouse franchise. Pave it, baby!"
Members of the business class, that legion of little Rotary Club spark plugs, are vital to the American corporate and political machine. They are where the multinational rip-off of working-class people byt he rich corporations finds its footing at the grassroots level, where they can stymie any increase in the minimum wage or snuff out anything remotely resembling a fair tax structure. Serving on every local government body, this mob of Kiwanis and Rotarians has connections. It can get a hundred acres rozeoned for Wal-Mart or a sewer line to that two-thousand-unit housing developement at taxpayer expense. When it comes to getting things done locally for big business, these folks, with the help of their lawyers, can raise the dead and give sight to the blind. They are God's gift to the big nonunion companies and the chip plants looking for a fresh river to piss cadmium into--the right-wing's can-do boys. They are so far right they will not even eat the left-wing of a chicken
It's a necessary element in maintaining the illusion of the "American Dream" that each of these small communities throughout the country has its own miniature version of the great class hierarchy that pervades the country as a whole. I had a teacher in high school who once boasted that American capitalism had wrought the world's first classless society; the very dream of socialism realized right here!, though that, of course, is not quite what he meant. His vision of a classless society was one in which the aristocracy was accessible to even those of modest means, so long as they were willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to use the metaphor the Right is so enamored of. So occasionally they even swallow and induct a new family in to the club.
This has two advantages which has helped to vaccinate the modern aristocracy from the pernicious effects of populism. Giving each little community in the heartland its own little tycoons to admire and ogle is not only a source of local pride but a way to keep them plugged in to the greater American Hologram*. Out in the country they can imagine that, whatever the big-city eggheads are dreaming up to screw them over, it can't have anything to do with money, because our home-bred money would never do anything untoward.
It also saves Big Money from the wrath of all those people who inevitably fail to climb the ladder, like Bageant's friend Buck.
Buck finds there's no room for him at the trough. He is not part of the old-money Byrd family, which owns our local and regional newspapers, or the Lewis family, which owns our conservative talk radio station. And when, after kissing these people's asses all his life, Buck allows himself to realize that it's never going to happen, he turns nasty, breaks bad on the world. He had the right stuff and deserved to be wealthy, so somebody else must be to blame. It must be the welfare bums. It must be all of those taxes for "social programs for minorites," code for "throwing money at blacks and Mexicans." Or tax-and-spend liberals. Or "big governments." It can't possibly be because of the rich elites, because, damnit son, rich is what Buck is trying to be!This is where the right's new program of cultural populism has worked miracles. In the past, someone like Buck might have realized the inherent injustice facing him trying to ascend the socioeconomic ladder. He doesn't know any drag queens or Muslims, but he does know some millionaires, and they're good white church-going folks like him. Instead of running into the arms of progressive agitators, he falls softly into the new safety net of social conservatives with a new blame game that's more satisfactory to his tribal loyalties.
*Another great invention by the Bageant book
14 October 2007
It's never too early
If you are, like me, the token Commie in your family, you know how hard it can be to find appropriate Christmas presents for your loved ones. Fortunately, Jillian at Sadly, No has found the perfect gift for the wingnut who has everything; a tasteful "God, Country, Capitalism" sticker for their favorite consumption machine!
She adds;
She adds;
Amen, and pass the collection plate...to me!
So often, we liberals seem to forget that Jesus was a graduate of the Chicago School of Economics. Our atheistic ways mean that we rarely read His Supply Side Sermon on the Mount, with its stirring and heartfelt claim of blessings for those who manage offshore funds — for theirs will be the Kingdom of No Capital Gains Taxes. This tasteful and decorative magnet can be a reminder of the lessons learned from the parable of the loaves and fishes, when Saint Milton, in a moment of senile dementia, asked Jesus to feed the poor, and Jesus replied, “Though the power to multiply loaves and fishes is within my grasp, the creation of such fiat food would cheapen the supply of actually existing food, and lead to a dangerous spiral of food inflation. The poor shall be fed when Caesar stops taxing the small business owner, allowing him to create more jobs, for which these mooches who follow me will qualify.” The wingnut in your life will be grateful for your recognition of the fact that God is both an American and a capitalist, and will hopefully therefore shut up for at least five minutes about how George Soros is actually Stalin’s first cousin.
11 October 2007
October baseball
I missed out on posting before the baseball playoffs began last week, which turns out to have been mostly inconsequential as the four division series combined went only one game over the minimum. The Red Sox, Diamondbacks, and Rockies swept the Angels, Cubs, and Phillies respectively, while the Yankees only managed one win against Cleveland. What promised to be a fascinating divisional round with only one repeat playoff team from 2006 (a fact you would have heard much more about were this the NFL) was largely anticlimactic.
The National League pennant will be decided between two teams from the Mountain time zone deploying mostly home-bred young players sprinkled with a random assortment of journeymen. The Colorado Rockies are the whitest and most Jesus-y team left in the playoffs, and by far the hottest, streaking to 16 wins in their last 17 regular season game to force a one-game wildcard tiebreak, then swept Philadelphia in the division series in a matchup featuring two teams making their first playoff appearance since the mid-90s (again, baseball; no parity. Remember that). Arizona fulfilled this blog's prediction of having the NL's best record, though they went about it in an unorthodox fashion, with a season-long run differential in the negative numbers. The Snakes did the world of favor by dismissing Chicago's North Siders in the first round, a result not likely to ease us of Cubs Nation's pathetic monasticism, but which was necessary nonetheless.
We are not out of the woods, however, as over in the heavyweight division American League, the Boston Red Sox, Evil Empire Lite, remain alive and kicking, that designation made more salient by the howls of protest it elicits from the Sawx faithful, forever denying, however futily, the club's increasing resemblance to the Hated Yankees. Facing off against the Sawx shiny, store-bought monolith is a Cleveland team that. like the two National League finalists, consists mostly of young, cheap talent groomed through its farm system. Eventually baseball owners will see a pattern here in about, oh, thirty years. But they need a salary cap, y'know, 'cause low payroll teams can't compete.
Both series are close calls. Both NL teams have major questions after their No. 1 starter, but at least Arizona has veterans, though the Colorado offense is a legitimately all-terrain powerhouse. Nevertheless, the Rocks will have to cool down eventually, and they've had several days off to do so, a fate that felled the streaking Tigers in last years' World Series. Plus, their mammoth home field edge will be negated somewhat by facing a very familiar opponent. 'Zona in six.
Cleveland has a good recipe for postseaon success; two dominant starters in C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona which make them the favorite to win four of the seven games. Unfortunately the other three starts will be made by the much less inspiring duo of Jake Westbrook and the anachronism Paul Byrd. They also have a problem lurking at the back of the bullpen. Thanks to the Proven Closer fallacy, the possibility of a handing one or more key games to Joe Borowski is too great to feel comfortable about. Damn Sawx in seven.
The National League pennant will be decided between two teams from the Mountain time zone deploying mostly home-bred young players sprinkled with a random assortment of journeymen. The Colorado Rockies are the whitest and most Jesus-y team left in the playoffs, and by far the hottest, streaking to 16 wins in their last 17 regular season game to force a one-game wildcard tiebreak, then swept Philadelphia in the division series in a matchup featuring two teams making their first playoff appearance since the mid-90s (again, baseball; no parity. Remember that). Arizona fulfilled this blog's prediction of having the NL's best record, though they went about it in an unorthodox fashion, with a season-long run differential in the negative numbers. The Snakes did the world of favor by dismissing Chicago's North Siders in the first round, a result not likely to ease us of Cubs Nation's pathetic monasticism, but which was necessary nonetheless.
We are not out of the woods, however, as over in the heavyweight division American League, the Boston Red Sox, Evil Empire Lite, remain alive and kicking, that designation made more salient by the howls of protest it elicits from the Sawx faithful, forever denying, however futily, the club's increasing resemblance to the Hated Yankees. Facing off against the Sawx shiny, store-bought monolith is a Cleveland team that. like the two National League finalists, consists mostly of young, cheap talent groomed through its farm system. Eventually baseball owners will see a pattern here in about, oh, thirty years. But they need a salary cap, y'know, 'cause low payroll teams can't compete.
Both series are close calls. Both NL teams have major questions after their No. 1 starter, but at least Arizona has veterans, though the Colorado offense is a legitimately all-terrain powerhouse. Nevertheless, the Rocks will have to cool down eventually, and they've had several days off to do so, a fate that felled the streaking Tigers in last years' World Series. Plus, their mammoth home field edge will be negated somewhat by facing a very familiar opponent. 'Zona in six.
Cleveland has a good recipe for postseaon success; two dominant starters in C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona which make them the favorite to win four of the seven games. Unfortunately the other three starts will be made by the much less inspiring duo of Jake Westbrook and the anachronism Paul Byrd. They also have a problem lurking at the back of the bullpen. Thanks to the Proven Closer fallacy, the possibility of a handing one or more key games to Joe Borowski is too great to feel comfortable about. Damn Sawx in seven.
28 September 2007
A million little HItlers
No sooner had the previous post come off the press than the American hawks erupted anew over the latest Super Evil Hitler to be sighted; Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While in New York for this week's United Nations Summit, Ahmadinejad was booked to speak at Columbia University, and the outrage machine went into overdrive at the audacity of an American university to give a platform for an Enemy of the State to hypnotize our college kids with his Super Evil Voodoo spells. (Front page splash in Rupert's New York Post, "The Evil has Landed")
Glenn Greenwald (again) has a thorough collection of the ludicrous posturing that surrounded Ahmadinejad's visit, including a laughable interview on 60 Minutes, in which Scott Pelley discovers his journalistic cajones when he's not interviewing a member of the United States government. Rick Perlstein compares the reaction to Big A's visit with a different world leader many years ago who once possessed a significantly greater threat to American existence.
Ahmadinejad is certainly a bit kooky, but not much more than your average Midwestern Republican. Attempts to portray him as a murderous dictator are exaggerated on both counts; he was popularly elected, though barely, and doesn't hold the power in the Iranian government to make the kind of radical foreign policy decisions attributed to him by the hawks and the American press. That ultimately rests with the Supreme Leader. That is who the hawks want a war with, anyway; Ahmadinejad has just made enough of a fool of himself to give them a public face to make a target of hate for the American public.
While at Columbia, Ahmadinejad made the since-endlessly-riffed-upon claim that there are no homosexuals in Iraq, which has sent the hawks on a new and curious road of persuasion. While we welcome their sudden concern about equal rights for queer folks, we do have to wonder if we can't think of a nation closer to our own shores where we might agitate for this problem. Besides, in the matter of bombing the hell out of people to liberate them, I generally take the notion that it's noticeably harder to enjoy all that freedom and equality when you're fucking dead.
I dunno, just me.
At Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte wonders what's driving the Ahmadinejad Fear Machine. In light of the dismissive reaction of the Big A at Columbia she mentioned, I think it might be mistaken to categorize the censorship impulse as actual fear on the part of the hawks. At least, not fear of Ahmadinejad himself, but rather the fear that the public will see Ahmadinejad unfiltered and recognize he is small and silly rather than the bloodthirsty New Hitler they are being sold by the hawks and the media. That's not an outcome they can tolerate.
Glenn Greenwald (again) has a thorough collection of the ludicrous posturing that surrounded Ahmadinejad's visit, including a laughable interview on 60 Minutes, in which Scott Pelley discovers his journalistic cajones when he's not interviewing a member of the United States government. Rick Perlstein compares the reaction to Big A's visit with a different world leader many years ago who once possessed a significantly greater threat to American existence.
Ahmadinejad is certainly a bit kooky, but not much more than your average Midwestern Republican. Attempts to portray him as a murderous dictator are exaggerated on both counts; he was popularly elected, though barely, and doesn't hold the power in the Iranian government to make the kind of radical foreign policy decisions attributed to him by the hawks and the American press. That ultimately rests with the Supreme Leader. That is who the hawks want a war with, anyway; Ahmadinejad has just made enough of a fool of himself to give them a public face to make a target of hate for the American public.
While at Columbia, Ahmadinejad made the since-endlessly-riffed-upon claim that there are no homosexuals in Iraq, which has sent the hawks on a new and curious road of persuasion. While we welcome their sudden concern about equal rights for queer folks, we do have to wonder if we can't think of a nation closer to our own shores where we might agitate for this problem. Besides, in the matter of bombing the hell out of people to liberate them, I generally take the notion that it's noticeably harder to enjoy all that freedom and equality when you're fucking dead.
I dunno, just me.
At Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte wonders what's driving the Ahmadinejad Fear Machine. In light of the dismissive reaction of the Big A at Columbia she mentioned, I think it might be mistaken to categorize the censorship impulse as actual fear on the part of the hawks. At least, not fear of Ahmadinejad himself, but rather the fear that the public will see Ahmadinejad unfiltered and recognize he is small and silly rather than the bloodthirsty New Hitler they are being sold by the hawks and the media. That's not an outcome they can tolerate.
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