Andrew Sullivan's Palin obsession: This is getting creepy

I mean, why not start following her around until she gets a restraining order? Dude, enough.

Excellent Diary at Daily Kos

This is excellent analysis:

I'll start with this matter of "corporatism." Glenn Greenwald was essentially correct in identifying corporate power as the primary obstacle for progressives, as the main opposing force we face. Unfortunately a lot of the discussion about his article has focused on the issue of "left-right alliances," obscuring the truth of the matter.

If you want to defeat the right, we must defeat corporatism. This is a truth I thought we'd all learned during the decade now ending, but apparently we did not.

The right-wing in the United States is still a fringe movement when you look at its overall numbers. {Tea-partiers] are a noisy but tiny group not worth the concern. Even after 30+ years of right-wing dominance of our politics, their ideas remain fundamentally unpopular.

Not Breaking: System Is Rigged

I would like to be able to say that this surprises the hell out of me, but sadly, it does not.

“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”

My one and only post about Brittany Murphy

I didn't personally know Brittany Murphy. No one I know knew Brittany Murphy. It is probably a safe assumption that no one commenting here on my blog knew Brittany Murphy.

How about the media do a straight news story (amounting to maybe a couple paragraphs)? The people reading the news story might offer a quick prayer for Brittany and those who loved her. And then (and here's the thing) move on.

Or, to put a slightly finer point on it: why should I expend any energy whatsoever caring and discussing and speculating about this whole "situation" beyond the above point? I mean, whether drugs or anorexia or, I don't know, cocaine-fueled bestiality orgies caused her death is really none of my fucking business, you know?

Whose interests are served by mass hysteria surrounding celebrities? "Cui Bono?" - Who benefits?

There is hope.

Hookay then. The Democratic leadership in the Senate hands the Narcissist from Connecticut the payback he's sought since his defeat in the 2006 primary. Is this surprising? Sadly, no.

But I'll be damned if I'm going to let that Droopy-Dog, weasel-voiced, reprobate piece of crap "Senator" take away my hope.


Lieberman is a compromised, covered-in-fatcat-pocket-lint, sold-out son of a bitch. We knew this. I knew he'd find a way to screw the left back for screwing him in '06.

Now, here's the thing: Does his petty, childish payback sting? You betcha. Will he get the final laugh? Not on your life. Ultimately, we progressives are going to make the Joe Liebermans of the world irrelevant. That will hurt him far more than anything we can do now.

The way forward for progressives is becoming crystal clear: we need to recognize that we are NOT in power; we need to oppose, in public terms:

1. First and always, the Republican Party and the money powers they represent;

2. Secondly, Democrats who won't stand up to them.

This means agitating from the left, targeting both the Republicans and the weak-kneed, beholden-to-the-money-powers Democratic Leadership.

If we can learn anything from the ridiculous fiasco this is becoming, it is that Our Job Is Not Done.

I had hopes for the possibilities presented by a charismatic young president and big majorities in congress; I envisioned Obama using his personal popularity and charisma to drag the Democratic Congress kicking and screaming to a rebirth of progressive politics in the United States. It is now apparent that those hopes have been shown to be premature, at least for now.

2008 was a false dawn: the real dawn will come, but we need to keep working for it.

We have a movement, but we need to strengthen it. We need to keep building a progressive movement from the bottom up. It is clear that Obama and the current congressional Democratic leadership are NOT (at least so far) the "change we seek," as Obama put it during the campaign: WE, the activist base, are the change we seek. We need to build our movement to the point that we can no longer be ignored by the Democratic leadership. We have made incredible progress, but we're not there yet. We will get there, believe me. The leadership of our party obviously (at this point) are not willing to lead the country in a truly progressive direction - so, once again it is up to US to force the issue.

That does not mean I have no hope, however.

Look, folks; The progressive grassroots/netroots movement has always been about Building a Movement. Crashing the Gates.

Yes, we're looking at defeat now; but let this be a reminder that we have work to do ourselves, continuing to build a movement that, eventually, will not be ignorable or dismissible by the powers that be. The old order is doomed, because they have, ultimately, only money and the superficial power it brings; we have us. 80% of the country (everyone other than the top 20% of the income scale) is getting screwed by the Powers That Be. Our long-term victory will be won ultimately by pointing that out every chance we get. The Truth Will Out.

If we do not give in to despair, if we keep moving, keep building, not letting the corruption of the Democratic Leadership make us give up hope on OUR movement, then we will eventually have our our victory.

Despair? That's letting the Powers That Be win. We are already stronger than they are. They just need to see it, and we need to get strong enough to show them. We have now seen the enemy, and They Will Be Ours.

Best Snarky Comment On Sarah Palin Ever. EVER.

This is hilarious:

President Palin decides to send 200,000 more troops into Afghanistan. But unable to find it on a map, she mistakenly sends them to Argentina. When the liberal elite media run the story of her blunder, she responds, "You know, Joe Sixpack doesn’t know where Afghanistan is. You east coast media types need to stop obsessing over geometry. Smaller government is what we need to get government off our backs. Tax cuts for small businesses so they can put more money on the table. We’re a strong nation and we will win the war on drugs that started in Afghanistan. And when the fish swim, the turkey is done." With that she flies back to Alaska to give birth to her grandson, Algebra.

Little Green Footballs' Founder Comes To His Senses

Charles Johnson, the founder of Little Green Footballs, has decided to leave the right wing behind, due to the mounting evidence that the American Right has wandered off into an absurdist crazyland:

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

Your 5 Minute Physics Lesson For Today

Snopes tackles the physics of Santa Claus, in which the incineration of a quarter million reindeer is postulated.

The Machine

There are millions of ex-manufacturing workers who used to make good livings making things here in the USA. The "New Economy" had and has no real place for them: the Old Economy is the only place that offered them a way to use their skills and gifts in a way that afforded them the basics of life plus a little fun.

Again: the economy offers people with less than a college degree precious few (and vanishing) ways to support a family in anything approaching comfort.

Here's the thing: there are millions of folks who are, to be blunt, not smart enough, or are temperamentally unsuited, (or increasingly, too poor) to go to college. Are they to be consigned to working at 7/11 and making 9 bucks an hour? Don't we as citizens have an obligation to see that they have work available to them that will allow them to support their families in a dignified manner, and maybe even allow them to put something away for college for the kids and even something for their golden years?

These questions have not been asked of Americans in any public and consistent way for years - decades even. The very clause, "we, as citizens, are obligated to..." is, in the libertarian, Hobbesian world of economic mercilessness we've allowed to flourish, a nonsensical phrase full of meaningless words. We are no longer "citizens" -- active participants in the building of our civilization -- but "consumers", defined by our economic worth; mere cogs in the soul-impoverishing machinery of "wealth creation" and economic oligarchy; passively doing our part to keep the whole corrupt machine humming, nothing demanded of us but to Consume.

I didn't quite realize it at the time, but the thing that most creeped me out about the movie The Matrix was the sense I had that it was not really about some future dystopia, but rather a piercing parable for the present world we live in; there is this sort of Machine that we all participate in, so immersive that we can't escape its greedy maw, can't but serve its needs rather than the needs of our brothers and sisters.

To break out of this losing game, we must realize - we must RESOLVE - that, to coin a phrase, the Economy is made by and for us, and not us for the economy.

Martin Luther King Jr. used to say "You can't ride a man's back unless it is already bent." It took decades for the ceaseless propaganda of the Machine to bend our backs; it only takes a moment, an instant, to decide to straighten your back and thus undo all its work.

Sing a Song for Freedom

Oh Mary. You were a national treasure. Your heart was golden, you helped the Cause, and to top it all off, you were one fabulous babe. RIP, Mary Travers.

If You're Management, Don't Call Yourself a Lefty

There is this conceit among the management class (particularly members of that class who style themselves as left-of-center) that if we just send former workers in the devastated production sector to college so they can become "knowledge workers" or something, then that will make up for destroying the industries that provided them a decent living. Former President Clinton used to harp on this a lot when he was president.

The blunt truth is, that plan isn't going to work, at least not in a place possessing the scale and complexity of the United States. The Swiss can be the world's bankers; The Arabs can be the world's oil company; the United States, if it is going to be a prosperous place, needs to be a place where the main engine of prosperity is taking raw materials, making something valuable out of them, and then selling those valuable things at a profit.

We can't be a first-tier economy by selling each other life insurance and software; we need to make things. Physical, need-machine-tools-to-make-them things - cars, boats, clothing, machine tools, electronics. The Democrats used to know this, and acted accordingly; now they are the members of the management class who want to send line workers to college so they can become computer programmers. My Democratic Party has become a sold-out, pathetic shell of its former glory. It's made itself absolutely ridiculous. It's become ineffective and delusional. Call the rest home and make the arrangements already: they're done.

Since when did being a lefty become about cultural stuff?

It seems to me at times that the political fights in this country are between rich people: economic libertarians on the right and social libertarians on the "left" duking it out over the legal status of fetuses and gay people, and gee, there's no time left after discussing those issues to talk about how working people are getting screwed over more and more and more.

The democrats have been all but useless on economic issues for 30 years; the "kitchen table issues" that Truman focused on are long forgotten. NAFTA, the repeal of Glass-Steagal, EFCA, the abandonment of Progressive taxation and a million other cuts have bled the working class into economic ruin, and the Democratic Party has stood by (Yes, Clinton made some pious noise about sending all those former assembly line workers to college so they could be knowledge workers or something, which sounds nice but is actually kind of ridiculous.)

Here's the thing, Lefties: people are flocking to militias and birtherism and tea parties because the left stopped talking to them - or rather, the problem is the left offers words (but even those, rarely) but precious little else.

Granite Counter Tops and Stainless Steel Refrigerators.

Can we all agree that we will stop equipping kitchens with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances?

I mean, yeesh. 10 years ago it seemed sort of, I don't know, fresh and cutting edge. But now? It's been done to death and seems like just mindless conformity. If the next apartment I move to has a stainless steel refrigerator, I'm painting the damned thing.

Granite Counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Granite Counter Tops and stainless steel appliances.

Make. It. Stop.

The thing is, granite is hard to clean and dulls knives, and stainless steel, once it gets a scratch, is really hard to get looking good again; ditto with stains on granite.

What is it with stainless, anyway? It looks (to my eyes) sort of cold and clinical. I expect stainless refrigerators in a setting like, I don't know, the morgue? In my kitchen, I'd like a little warmth, thank you.

(Un)ethical Hunting

So on opening day of rifle season, Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota wounded a deer, failed to track it down, and then went off to a fundraiser while his staff attempted to find the animal he shot.

As a hunter, this is one of those things that gets me steamed. To wound an animal and then neglect to track it down is one of the more egregious violations of hunting ethics, and is grossly irresponsible, especially if you are an authority figure. Once you put a bullet in a deer, you have a moral obligation to immediately track that animal down and finish it off - both to end its suffering, and to ensure that the meat isn't wasted. Pawlenty apparently found blood but no buck at the place he last saw the animal, but rather than immediately begin tracking the wounded animal he returned to camp to "ponder his next move?" No, Governor: you know (or should know) that your "next move" is to, right then, track down that animal and end its suffering. Sending your staff out to beat the brush after breakfast isn't nearly good enough. He's not only neglecting his own responsibilities; he's also setting a bad example for young hunters. If one of my hunting buddies did that, he would never be invited back.

Stewart Does Beck

This is both hilarious and dead-on:

Spoke too soon

Looks like Joe Lieberman has de facto resigned from the Democratic caucus: we'll see whether the Dem leadership calls his bluff: if they do and he does not fold, the leadership needs to make his break from the Party official by stripping his committee assignments and excluding him from caucus meetings.

I kind of expected something like this from him, but yesterday lulled me into a sense of hope.

That's More Like It

It ain't over til it's over, as Yogi Berra would say, but it looks like the chances are now very good for Health Care Reform, real health care reform, to pass Congress and be signed by the President. Personally, I would have preferred single payer or a hybrid along the lines of what the Germans do, but it has a robust "Public Option" and is a huge, HUGE step forward. My congratulations to President Obama and the Congressional Democrats for an unassailable triumph.

I will be so bold as to predict that this is the beginning of the end for the radical right faction of the Republican Party.

Grayson v. Broun - a joy to watch

TWC

Am I the only one who hates the way the Weather Channel covers the west? "Atlanta has received almost half an inch of rain today, causing slick roads. Oh, and there was some flooding and mudslides and stuff in California. We go now to Jane who has more details on the Atlanta situation..."

To My Idiot Democratic Party: A Rant

From a blogger I occasionally read who goes by the name of "Digby" (no relation to frequent Vox Nova commenter Digby Dolben) - in the context of a review of Michael Moore's new film:

It's extremely disheartening to see the administration and so many Democrats in congress completely ignore the political and policy ramifications of failing to engage in fundamental financial reform and fiery populist rhetoric at a time like this. This [tea party] movement is happening in a vacuum created by a lack of interest in this topic by liberals who are so enamored of being members of the new "creative class" and the like that they aren't paying attention to the cynicism and anger that's reaching critical mass among average working stiffs out there. It's easy to dismiss it, but very, very foolish. The issues Moore raises in this film will be answered on the right with authoritarianism, militarism, immigrant bashing and violence. It's a recipe for disaster unless the left takes this on in direct, political terms.

I'm getting more and more peeved at people who think of themselves as "liberals" because they drive Priuses, are pro-choice, eat organic food and treat the nanny like a member of the family: sorry to be the one to break it to them, but that's horse dung.

Being a liberal used to mean protecting ordinary working stiffs from the excesses of their boss's boss's boss. It meant standing up for unions by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, refusing to shop at Walmart, Whole Foods and other union-busting stores.

Being a liberal means recognizing that the government has an important role in helping balance society by equalizing the distribution of society's goods through: 1. A (way more than now) progressive tax system, and 2. redistribution of wealth through both direct payments, and indirectly through support for public education (K through college) that is heavily subsidized and of excellent quality, and other public services.

The top marginal tax rate during the administration of that fiery Leninist, Ike, was between 91 and 94 percent. The meant that 94 percent of the top portion of your income (translated into today's dollars, that portion above about $2 million) went straight from your bank account to the government. This had a chilling effect on executives awarding themselves obscene bonuses, because taxes would just eat up the majority of it before you could purchase a congressman with it. The structure encouraged a flattening of income distribution, and that's exactly what happened.

(This is amazing: Republican president Dwight Eisenhower was more (genuinely) liberal than virtually any Democrat of national significance today? I think I see the real problem many Americans have with the Democratic Party: they refuse to be real, actual Democrats.)

Harry Truman is not just spinning in his grave: he's going to pop out of the ground, stalk up to Capitol Hill and start kicking people's tails at this rate.

We STILL don't have health care? What the hell?? You know how to fix this: either single payer, or a hybrid system like in some European countries. The fix isn't about "give dump trucks full of money to insurance companies," I can assure you. Get. It. Done.

Look, Dems: the job of the Democratic Party is to protect Joe and Jane average from the rapacious greed and exploitative power of capitalism's captains - the folks Roosevelt called "the Money Power." Do your jobs, okay?

The thing is, if you do, you'll have power for the next few decades, I promise you. You'll be heroes to millions, just like the New Dealers were.

Or, you can sell your souls to support what this nation has become: a plutocracy, and plutocracies tend to be either reformed (see 1930s New Deal) or end in considerably more grief (see various armed revolutions in Latin America, Africa and Asia.) I much prefer (and could only endorse) the "reform" route of the two choices, but the choice is in your hands, Dems.

American Plutocracy

What we have now is a plutocracy, and plutocracies tend to be either reformed (see 1930s New Deal) or end in considerably more grief (see various armed revolutions in Latin America, Africa and Asia.) I much prefer the "reform" route of the two choices.

One thing that bugs me about people who call themselves "liberals" is that there are enough upper income ("creative class") people calling themselves that that any mention of the typical means of reform (steeply progressive tax rates and income redistribution) is greeted like the rantings of Marxists, rather than the thoroughly sensible, historically proven ideas they actually are.

Storm Coming In

The heat of summer is soon to be a distant memory. This is an "El Nino" year in California, which means torrential rains during the wet season (Oct-Apr).

This coming Monday the weather service is predicting the first storm of the season, and it promises to be a wallopaloozer: 60mph winds, up to 8 inches of rain spread over 2 days.

As dramatic and potentially hazardous as that is, I really see it more as a reason for hope: California has been in a moderate drought for a number of years, and the copious rains of an El Nino year are great news for that.

But also, the beginning of every rainy season in California is somewhat analogous to Spring in the "4-seasons" parts of the US: it is the season of new life. The oaks, laurels and madrones are becoming stressed at the end of the dry season, the grasses are long-golden and rattle dry in the wind; the creosote and ceanothus bushes are looking pretty twiggy and dessicated, the creeks have slowed to a few pools and trickles, and a fine layer of dust coats the leathery leaves of summer-dried eucalyptus up on the ridgetops. It is as if nature is crying out for rebirth and renewal.

But just lately there has been a hint of humidity in the winds, as over the horizon in the Pacific the autumn rains prepare to break at last through the last ramparts of summer heat and overrun the mountains and fields with blessed, long-missed rain.

[Update: now may be close to 10 inches in some areas. Yeesh.]

Andrew Sullivan posts a note from a reader:

There is no denying that religion, and the Catholic Church in particular, has inspired and fostered many wonderful people. I think of Peter, humble and contrite and transformed after his denial; Mary Magdalen, of whom nothing need be said; the fathers of the Egyptian desert and their almost unbearable kindness and gentleness; Francis of Assisi and his Lady Poverty;

Francis de Sales, who found a way to be both a prelate and a saint; and in our own times, Dorothy Day, who practiced a Christianity as radical as Christ's own, while remaining a faithful daughter of the Church. And I say nothing of the countless mute, inglorious saints whom only God knows.

But the Church as an institution is mired in the world to its own great detriment. The worst thing that ever happened to it was Constantine's conversion and its consequent establishment. For the Church itself should have remained a pilgrim. No cathedrals and episcopal palaces. No mitres, croziers, and gorgeous vestments. No princes of the Church. Just plain men and women going out to find and care for lost sheep, the wisest among them showing the way by example and quiet counsel.

It might have gone that way. It could yet. But the need to overawe people and demand obedience from them is powerful and seductive. It is a part of that world that the kingdom of heaven is not of.

There are certainly things there to criticize - mainly the generally protestant take on history: the Church wasn't "established" in the wake of Constantine, for example, and it depends what he means by "demand obedience." But the idea that my Catholic Church's presentation of itself could definitely be more along the lines of the presentation of its Founder -- humble, prophetic, identifying itself far more explicitly with the poor in its public face, "afflicting the comfortable," and so on -- is something that has occurred to me as well.

Is Libertarianism the Real Problem?

I'm beginning to think that libertarianism is actually a big part of the problem, on both sides of the political "divide". Right Libertarians say "keep your government hands off my riches" and if people are poor or without healthcare it's no business of the government; Left Libertarians say "keep your government hands off my body" and if fetuses are "terminated" that's no business of the government. I see both as failures of solidarity. They are a failure to see that we should not consider ourselves as solitary atoms moving through space untouched by the needs and dreams and gifts of others: we fail to see that we are parts of molecules and compounds that need one another as much as hydrogen and oxygen need each other to make water.

The question to ask of the Great Libertarian Civil War is, "Cui Bono?" Who benefits from all this noisy, trumped-up "conflict?" Is it possible that it is a way of preventing another faction - a faction that questions the libertarian premises of both "sides" - from having a seat at the negotiating table?

I imagine that amazing progress could be made on several fronts - abortion and healthcare, to name two - if both parties had the fortitude to kick their libertarian factions to the curb, and ask themselves what their constituents actually need.

Joni Mitchell Story

I had a friend who was dying of Cystic Fibrosis, who loved Joni Mitchell - just a huge, huge fan. A mutual friend wrote Joni a letter thanking her for the joy she had brought into our friend's life.

Joni looked up our friend's phone number, and called her one day out of the blue, and talked with her for an hour or so.

William Safire

William Safire, 79, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and language maven for the New York Times, whose penchant for the barbed and memorable phrase first manifested itself in speeches he wrote for the Nixon White House, died Sept. 27 at Casey House, part of Montgomery Hospice in Rockville. A longtime friend and former colleague, Martin Tolchin, said Mr. Safire had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Safire obviously had different politics than myself, but he (along with William F Buckley) was a conservative I could respect. RIP, Bill.

Yep

Quit Blaming Baby-Boomers

I get really sick of hearing about how the Baby Boomers Ruined Everything. I mean, think about this for a second: the idea that a bunch of hirsute, peace-loving hedonists (who were themselves but a fraction of the boomers) Destroyed Civilization in The Sixties is just…yeesh. I mean, how fragile would civilization have to have been for that to be true?

“Baby-Boomers” has definitely become a caricature in certain culture-war contexts.

Please, Won't you Help?

Hat Tip - My friend Tara on Facebook

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Republicans = "The Borderer Party"

Interesting diary at Daily Kos. The diarist describes the historical origins of the culture that makes up the current Republican base: "Borderers" who emigrated to the United States originally from the borderlands between Scotland and England.

For 700 years, the kings of Scotland and England violently disputed the borderlands between the two countries, while warlords on both sides of the border fought among themselves, the strife ceasing only briefly under the 17th-century reign of James VI. This resulted in the creation of a tenancy system designed to maintain reserves of fighting men for local nobles. The lack of established authority created a power vacuum that was exploited by criminals, including whole outlaw clans that prospered by banditry and rustling livestock. The perennial violence made the region wretchedly poor. It also intensified the importance of blood relationships; loyalty to family and clan were valued more highly than loyalty to the crown. With little or no trust in established authority, borderers resolved disputes through retaliation and payment of blood money.

When the region was pacified in the 17th century, entire clans were executed or banished -- and many of the banished clans made their way to America. "The so-called Scotch-Irish who came to America thus included a double-distilled selection of some of the most disorderly inhabitants of a deeply disordered land," Fischer writes in Albion's Seed (630). Meanwhile, back in Britain, old warrior families were replaced by capitalist entrepreneurs who exploited the region's people as laborers and miners rather than fighters, and rack-renting and eviction became common. This led to even more Borderer migration to American shores.

Bittersweet

Few songs I've come across express unrequited love with the poignancy of Linda Ronstadt's "Long long Time."

I wager that most adults have someone in their past the memory of whom, years later, causes a twinge of regret, and an ache for what might have been.

Heat Wave Coming

Every fall in Northern California, the coastal zones get a taste of the torrid heat the interior zones have been sweating under all summer, and such an event is shaping up for this coming week. Highs will be well into the 90s, even in coastal areas, and just inland from the coastal hills the temps will be up around 110.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this: on one hand, it is nice to be able to go to the beach and wear something lighter than a parka (I'm only slightly exaggerating): on the other, no one near the coast has air conditioning, so trying to drop off to sleep when the temperature in your apartment is 85 degrees is not much fun.

One thing nice about it is what it portends: fall heatwave = rainy season coming soon, which means green grass and new life. Sweet.

War - What is it good for?

From Democracy Now:

In other Iraq news, an unarmed Iraqi man was killed by US forces in Fallujah Wednesday after throwing his shoe at their convoy. The military says the soldiers opened fire thinking the shoe was a grenade. The shooting came one day after the Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi was released from prison after a nine-month term for throwing his shoes at former President George W. Bush.

Here’s the thing: if you’re going to have a military, especially one that is sent to fight as many wars as ours is, you need to desensitize soldiers to the value of human life, so that they will kill without hesitation or reflection.

The military must work against something very powerful. There is a very strong, intrinsically human revulsion to killing our fellow humans. You can talk all day about “it’s ok because it’s war” and “it was you or them” or any of the other nonsense Mother Culture tells you about killing in the particular instance of war, but unless you are a sociopath, the reality of what war actually is -- hellish, brutal, murderous, senseless and soul-destroying -- always trumps that, somewhere inside.

Sending young men to commit warfare is a monstrously evil thing to do, when you peel away the rationalizations, legalisms and veneer of nationalist triumphalism.

And then the Greek language comes out with another word; it is the word agape. Now agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Now agape is understanding creative redemptive goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love, which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. And when one rises to love on this level, he is able to love the person who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. And he is able to love those persons that he even finds it difficult to like for he begins to look beneath the surface and he discovers that that individual who may be brutal toward him and who may be prejudiced was taught that way—was a child of his culture.

-Martin Luther King

War and deep, agape love cannot coexist together: you can either do one thing or the other, never both.

There was a saying half a century ago in the protests against Vietnam: “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In other words, if you have the world’s most powerful military, then it will tend to be the card you reach for first: it is your strongest suit.

I don’t ultimately blame the soldier who blew away that civilian: I’m sure he was a frightened kid who reacted instinctively (but tragically) to a perceived threat to his life. I ultimately blame the power structures that put him there; a power structure that uses violence to maintain its power in the world.

I have a hard time with folks who try and wave it off with some explanation like “Well, what is one to do? In a fallen world, war will always be a fact of life...”

Well, no.

War is there because we either support it, at least tacitly, or else we don't do enough to stop it.

So now we see how it is
This fist begets the spear
Weapons of war
Symptoms of madness
Don't let your eyes refuse to see
Don't let your ears refuse to hear
Or you ain't never going to shake this sense of sadness
I could hold you in my arms
I could hold on forever
And I could hold you in my arms
I could hold on forever

Ray Lamontagne, Hold You In My Arms

A Little Humor

Hillaire Belloc was a prolific Catholic writer from the late 19th century through the early 20th. Among his writings was a satire of the common "Cautionary Tales" of the Victorian era. Cautionary tales were often stern, priggish and humorless, and were used to instruct children on the prospective consequences of misbehavior (with titles like, "John, Who Attempted to Light the Stove Himself and Suffered a Terrible Fright"), concluding with a moral lesson - "And this is why little boys should check with mother before lighting the stove."

1 American = 60 foreigners

This is from an interview with Barry Goldwater conducted by either the Army Times or Stars and Stripes, I forget which. It made such a powerful impression on me that I remember it word-for-word. I can't link to the article because it dates to pre-internet days. I am 100% confident that I am not in any way mis-representing what he said: I suspect someone who has a Lexis-Nexis account can find the article. It is from one of the two publications I mentioned, between January 1986 and October 1987.

The interviewer asked him how the Vietnam War might have gone differently, had he been elected in 1964. His answer:

"I would have gotten every B52 I could get my hands on, and flown them all over North Vietnam. They would have dropped leaflets that said, "We'll be back in 3 days." They would also have said the next thing they dropped would not have been leaflets.

If they didn't quit the war, I would have made a damned swamp out of North Vietnam. I mean that: I would rather have killed 2 or 3 million North Vietnamese than the fifty thousand American boys we lost."

[UPDATE] The irony of course, is that he ended up getting a grim two-fer: 50,000 American deaths and 3 million Vietnamese.

Interesting Article

Stanley Fish writes an interesting essay at the NYT blog about the decline in writing standards he noticed among his graduate students.

I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to "teach the canon" versus "let's expand our horizons beyond dead white men" debates. Stanley is too, apparently:

The arguments pro and con are familiar. On one side the assertion that a core curriculum provides students with the distilled wisdom of the western tradition and prepares them for life. On the other side the assertion that a core curriculum packages and sells the prejudices and biases of the reigning elite and so congeals knowledge rather than advancing it.

Have we lost our way or finally found it? Thirty-five years ago there was no such thing as a gay and lesbian studies program; now you can build a major around it. For some this development is a sign that a brave new world has arrived; for others it marks the beginning of the end of civilization.

It probably is neither; curricular alternatives are just not that world-shaking. The philosophical baggage that burdens this debate should be jettisoned and replaced with a more prosaic question: What can a core curriculum do that the proliferation of options and choices (two words excoriated in the ACTA report) cannot? The answer to that question is given early in the report before it moves on to its more polemical pages. An “important benefit of a coherent core curriculum is its ability to foster a ‘common conversation’ among students, connecting them more closely with faculty and with each other.”

Margaret and Helen

Margaret and Helen are a couple of octogenarian best friends who have one of the more amusing blogs out there. They are (fairly) liberal, but 20 years too old to be ex-hippies.

Margaret is it just me or did combing your hair become optional when going out in public? I’ve been watching news clips of these town hall free-for-alls and we have definitely become a nation of tired, poor, and huddled masses clearly tempest-tossed, but without access to a good beauty salon. Universal Hygiene – now that is something I could get behind. And all of them are asking for their America back. I wonder which America that would be?

Would that be the America where the Supreme Court picks your president instead of counting all the votes? Would that be the America where rights to privacy are ignored? Would that be the America where the Vice President shoots his best friend in the face? Or would that be the America where an idiot from Alaska and a college drop-out with a radio show could become the torchbearers for the now illiterate Republican party?

I fear that would not be the America they want back. I fear that the America they want back is the one where black men don’t become President.

I remember that America. In that America people screaming at public gatherings were called out for what they were – an angry mob. Of course, they wore sheets to cover up their bad hair. Let’s be clear about something: if you show up to a town hall meeting with a gun strapped to your leg, the point you are trying to make isn’t a good one. Fear never produced anything worthwhile.

To Really See

If we could, for once, see clearly how much God loves each of us – more than we could possibly imagine – more than we love our own selves – more than we want him to – more, even, than we are able to want him to – the God who holds the universe balanced in existence by an act of his will, loves each of us with infinite love – then we could not possibly find a justification for war, or torture, or abortion, or letting our brothers and sisters who are infinitely loved by our creator, die needlessly of preventable illnesses, or perish in wars whose purpose is to protect the interests of powerful men who lust for power in a vain attempt to fill the emptiness which can only be filled by God Who is all-powerful.

It would be impossible to judge anyone as lazy for their poverty or wealth or condemn anyone for being as much of a sinner…as we are.

We must realize our brother- and sisterhood, and see that we must live together not as trenchant foes nor as enemies under truce but as reconciled family on this one God-given world.

We must see that the biker mama and the racist and the besuited WASP manager and the assembly line worker and the unemployed carpenter are all the same “us” – and not only them, but the drug addict and the abortionist and the corrupt banker and the imprisoned murderer and Osama bin Laden are also all the same “us” who need our prayers as much as we need theirs. There is no “us” and “them” in the world as God sees it: only “us.”

May I come more and more to see others as God sees them, myself as God sees me, and to see God as He sees Himself.

Whose Side are we on?

I am on the side of the people who are being burned, cut to pieces, tortured, held as hostages, gassed, ruined, destroyed. They are the victims of both sides. To take sides with massive power is to take sides against the innocent. The side I take is then the side of the people who are sick of war and want peace in order to rebuild their country.

Thomas Merton, Faith and Violence

War Crimes

When I was in the Army, some of the guys in my unit would make a game of tossing rations to kids when we rode in our tracks through villages: as time went on they’d throw the rations closer and closer to the front of the track, and the risk of crushing the children increased. The guy that got a kid to grab a ration the closest to the front of the track “won”.

I have no idea if the particular incident described by Sam Rocha happened; I do know, from sad personal experience, that it is plausible.

Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism

Definitely worth a read.

The Fox-News-and-Talk-Radio end of conservatism has been showing some worrisome tendencies toward authoritarianism of late.

Dissonance

Why is it that "the government" is construed by conservatives as this sort of "other" Entity That Screws Up Everything And Thus Will Ruin Healthcare, but they are comfortable with saying that "We" won world war II and "We" won the cold war and "We" have the best highway system in the world and "we" landed a man on the moon?

Yeesh. The cognitive dissonance must keep aspirin sales healthy among conservatives.

This is Nuts

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

Check Your Soul at the Barracks Door

When I served in the US Army, there was a feature of US military culture that made me uneasy – for reasons I could not really fully articulate at the time.

Every theater on every US Army post is named after a posthumous recipient of the medal of honor. I used to go to the movies pretty regularly when I was in garrison, and would read the citations of the actions that caused the particular soldier to receive the medal of honor, and it seemed to me that there was a subtle narrative being communicated, and that narrative was designed to evoke the virtues of Christianity (self-sacrifice, “no greater love hath any man…”) but which was, at its heart, pretty foreign to me as a Christian.

What I read in the narrative – the values being expressed – was "all for country." Those medal of honor recipients died doing heroic things (in the classical sense) but from a Christ-ian perspective, also in the commission of horrific violence against their brothers and sisters. When Christ said, "all who live by the sword shall die by the sword," I think he was talking about more than just the tendency of soldiers to die in wars. He was talking about more than the body dying in battle; he was talking about the soul of the sword-wielder.

Through my military experiences, I came to see nationalism as the idol it surely is, and like all idols, it demanded, finally, my immortal soul. And that, I would not surrender.

Tick Tock

In the last three weeks, while congress has been fighting about healthcare, 53,507 people filed for bankruptcy due to crushing medical debt.

The United States is the only rich country that routinely bankrupts the sick. That's just unconscionable. It's insane.

Don't you want to live in a society that can describe itself as "just"? Don't you want to comfort the afflicted and not stand by while they are bankrupted, even if the price is more "affliction of the comfortable"??

I hear the objections from the political right to universal health care, and what I hear is ideology trumping both facts and compassion. But then, the 8 years prior to January 20th, 2009 were characterized by ideology trumping reality.

For My Catholic Readers...

I've been wanting to do specifically Catholic blogging for awhile, and have accepted a contributor role at Vox Nova (literally, "New Voice") where I will have an opportunity to do just that. I'll continue to blog here as well.

"Gee, Where'd All the Money Go?"

I get tired of all the theatrical hand-wringing on the right about “How is Obama going to pay for all of this?”

If Bush had not destroyed the structural surpluses that were originally projected for the last 8 years, the government would not be paying almost a half trillion dollars a year in interest on the (vastly expanded) national debt. I’m enough of a cynic to believe that was actually deliberate: utterly destroy the country’s fiscal standing, so that the next time a Democrat is elected, there is a smooth transition to theatrical hand-wringing and bleats that “Gee, we’re too broke to be able to afford to help all those people…”

But the thing is, as a matter of math it is actually fairly simple to pay for everything Obama wants and more, AND pay down the debt, if you make the income tax resemble what if was in the Eisenhower administration: the top marginal rate hovered between 91 and 94 percent, and there were more brackets.

Another thing I’ve heard proposed is a 13% asset tax on all assets over 10 million dollars. This would apparently pay off the entire national debt, more or less instantly. That would then free up tons of money to make our fellow citizens’, and our own, lives better through investments in things like job training, better schools, social workers and so on, to finally tackle in a comprehensive way the economic and social decay in our inner cities; upgrading and modernizing our inter-city train system to standards that obtain in the rest of the developed world (a project whose need will become more apparent in the coming world of ever-costlier oil); government-subsidized day care to ease the path of single mothers out of poverty; new incentives and even direct investment in green energy sources and a smart grid.

I think if you ask most Americans if they want those things, they’ll say “yes.” If you propose a much more progressive tax system to pay for it, they’ll be fine with that, too.

My First Youtube: Miserere Nobis

The Music is from the Missa de Beata Virgine by Palestrina.

Frank McCourt has died.

Yeesh. When it rains it pours:

Frank McCourt, the retired New York City schoolteacher who launched his late-in-life literary career by tapping memories of his grim, poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir "Angela's Ashes," has died.

Frank McCourt captured the mixture of sweetness and melancholy that is what I love about my Irish heritage. My father (also named Frank) and McCourt had very similar stories: both his and my Father's families came to America in the twenties, and both fled back to Ireland when the Great Depression brought immense suffering to America.

Reading "Angela's Ashes"was almost overwhelming for me: there is a certain habit of melancholy that is worn by the Irish, and McCourt could capture the character and cause of that melancholia like few authors I've read.

RIP Frank. Say hi to Dad.

Walter Cronkite

I've just learned that Walter Cronkite has passed away at the age of 92.

Uncle Walter (and the word "avuncular" was practically created for the man) was a fixture every weeknight throughout my adolescence. He'd seen and reported on the major events of the middle third of the twentieth century (World War II, Korea and Vietnam; The JFK assassination and funeral, the moon landing and Watergate...) and thus had a sense of perspective - where current events fit in history - that younger or more polished reporters lacked, and which is wholly lacking in just about any television anchor I can think of today.

"Objective and impartial" seemed to be the watchwords at CBS News under his management: none of this "fair and balanced" nonsense of today where your job as a newsman is to convey both sides' talking points but take no position on which side the objective facts actually support. No: With Cronkite the mission was to determine the truth of the matter, and then explain it, no matter who it hurt or who called William S. Paley to complain. The powerful from both parties feared him; both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon called him an enemy.

That was the thing with him: People tuned in to Cronkite not just to find out what happened that day, but also what it meant: where it fit into the ongoing story of America as of broadcast time on that day. Sometimes the story he told of America was troubling, sometimes uplifting and inspiring, but it was always "the way it is." The story he told was closer to the actual truth of the thing than any other broadcaster of his day. People intuitively sensed that, and thus trusted him implicitly.

An anchor with that kind of gravitas is almost unimaginable in the present day media environment. He did more than report the news; he conveyed the truth. We'll not see his like again.

A Note About the Ads

The ads on my site are by Google ads: I have no control over the content, so if you see Ann Coulter up in the banner, there is no (and I mean NO) implied endorsement.

Summer Showers

So today, smack in the middle of California's summer dry season, the sky opened up and it poured rain, causing my Berkeley neighbors to make surprised noises and scramble to move their barbecue implements under the eaves, and another neighbor lady to dash outside and pull her clothes off the line.

I grabbed my umbrella and took a walk, and immersed myself in the sight of cars swishing by, their wipers making rhythmic clicking sounds, and couples drawing close under shared umbrellas, with the smell of freshly-wet dust filling the air. To top it all off, there was a double rainbow, brilliant against the dark-clouded sky.

What a treat.

Vatican: Obama not the Antichrist

[UPDATE: Edited for clarity - Matt]

I need to read Dionne more often.

In fact, whether he is the beneficiary of providence or merely good luck, Obama will have his audience with Benedict just three days after the release of a papal encyclical on social justice that places the pope well to Obama’s left on economics. What a delightful surprise it would be for a pope to tell our president that on some matters, he’s just too conservative.

That’s certainly my beef with Obama – he is too beholden to the power of economic elites to qualify as a true “liberal” (as compared to, say, Harry S. Truman) in my book.

The conservative minority among the bishops as well as political activists on the Catholic right have insisted on judging the president only on the basis of his support for legal abortion and stem cell research.

But the Vatican clearly views Obama through a broader prism. Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio in Washington, has privately warned American bishops that harsh attacks on the president threaten to make the church look partisan.

I’m glad someone in authority is saying that – the Church is not supposed to be either The Republican or Democratic Party On Its Knees.

The Vatican press has been largely sympathetic to Obama, and in a recent article, Cardinal Georges Cottier, who was the theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, praised Obama’s “humble realism” and on abortion went so far as to compare the president’s approach to that of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Pray this won’t go to Obama’s head.)

Hoo boy…I fear that popping sound I just heard was conservative Catholics' heads exploding.

The Wisdom of Madmen

They teach young men to drop fire on people, but won't let them write the word 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's 'obscene'.

Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

Where I've been

I got a new job a couple weeks ago, and have been consumed with settling in to my new position, which is why blogging has been non-existent since then. I should be back to regular posting relatively soon; I'm starting to "get my feet under me" in the new position.

Yeesh

So, a swim club in Philly is turning away black children because they would "alter the complexion of the club." This is just appalling.

NBC reports that more than 60 African-American campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club because -- according to John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club -- "there was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion ... and the atmosphere of the club."

It may surprise some Americans to learn that not only do certain private clubs still refuse to admit African-Americans, women, and gay people, but that this kind of enrollment discrimination is considered perfectly legal.

Such aching loneliness...

Michael Jackson's passing fills me with sadness - he always seemed a tragic figure to me. His talent was colossal, almost overwhelming to consider.

A couple months ago, I was surfing the web and came across the video below, and watching it, and knowing what I knew about his [lack of a] childhood, the cruelty of his father, the distortions that early superstardom imposed on his personality, and so on -- I found the video almost impossibly moving.

Maybe it is just that I know the story of his life, but it seemed to me that as I watched him sing this song, I got a glimpse at a frightened, lonely, bewildered child, aching in vain for the kind of friend he was rhapsodizing about in this song. I didn't know him personally of course, but I got the sense that he lived (and died, now) carrying an immense burden of pain.

I hope he has found some peace.

Mr Guthrie got me thinkin'...

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

-- Woodie Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land

Progressives, these are our people. These are the people we fight for. These are the people who ought to haunt our thoughts and consciences and inspire our dreams as we work and advocate and build our future. These folks ought to get taken care of first: the rest can come after.

These are the people who ought to be able to go to the Doctor, not in shame at not having the money to pay, but in hope of finding a treatment for their sickness, and proud of their country for taking care of folks like them.

These are the people who wish that using the term "trailer trash" would be a public scandal -- a career-ender for any politician foolish enough to utter it.

These are people like the woman I know in the ghetto, a woman who lost 2 grandchildren to murder and is bleary-eyed with grief, and yet somehow lifted by hope as she works valiantly in programs that help at-risk youth. She prays, every night, for the ones she helps, and also for the ones she has lost to prison or murder. She deserves every program and counselor (and prayer) we can send to her and the people that she cares for with fiercely protective love.

When America was a Communist Country

Note the top tax rate in the 1950s; north of 90%. During the greatest economic upsurge in the history of any country on earth. A broad and solid middle class. Relative labor peace (and high unionization rates). Social stability to the point of being boring.

Yes, In a Nutshell...

Captain Obvious (aka, Robert Reich)

Bottom line: Genuine financial reform will be almost as difficult to achieve as real universal health care. Immense private interests are amassed against the public interest in both cases because staggering amounts of money are at stake. But they are the two most important domestic issues right now. Keep careful watch, and weigh in.

Immense private interests are amassed against the public interest

There's your problem right there.

More on War-fetishizing and "Manliness" on the Right

A good friend of mine told me a story once of calling in an airstrike on a bunch of NVA regulars in a treeline about 150 yards away.

He spent the next few minutes (minutes he wishes desperately he could forget) listening to the ... consequences when napalm incinerates human beings - men about his age, just as frightened as he was, who were loved by their mothers just as much - screaming their lungs out as they were incinerated. The ones who were caught in the main blasts died pretty quickly, as they inhaled burning napalm which destroyed their lungs and suffocated them. The ones who were on the edge took long, agonizing, screaming minutes to expire.

Killing people didn't make him feel manly or heroic or powerful. He says the way he felt that day gave him a glimpse of what being in hell might feel like.

Umberto Eco talked about one of the features of "Ur-fascism" was a cult of masculinity.

Regarding the Color Change on the Blog...

...Andrew is right.

What is it with New Yorkers, anyway??

What I want to know is, why does everyone who lives within about 50 miles of New York act the way they do?

I work in a customer service call center, and we all hate calls from NY and northern NJ - there are certainly exceptions, but with many, MANY callers the premise of everything they say seems to be that my only desire in life is to cheat them out of what is rightfully theirs.

They are blunt, demanding, tactless, and display a bottomless sense of entitlement.

When I talk to folks like that, my approach is the following: "What is the minimum I'm required to do - by law - to help this person?"

On the other hand, if I'm talking to some sweet little old lady in Iowa who's practically in tears because her product is confusing her, I will walk through the fires of hell to make her as happy as I possibly can. No sacrifice is too great. I'll end the call by giving her a nice, big coupon for her next order.

"Class War"

Why do they only call it class warfare when we fight back?

Suburbs to be bulldozed

Jim Kunstler has speculated that, due to gasoline getting ever more expensive from here on out (aside from economic collapses like 2008-2009), the auto-dependent outer suburbs many people live in are going to become unworkable and will basically be abandoned soon.

And now, there are proposals to actually raze entire districts of cities.

It's kind of weird to think that the way the country has occupied the landscape since 1950 or so is soon going to vanish forever.

Please Excuse my Cuss-Words

Here's the thing, rich people: you've been running the country for your benefit, not ours - to the point where the entire fucking system is now coming unglued. You have warred and underpaid and cripple-em-with-debt-ed your way into a big fucking crisis, and all I have to say to you is:

SCREW YOU.

In the last 30 years, your compensation has increased to the point where you are making hundreds of times what your average employee is making. I'm sorry, but you don't work 300 times as hard as I do, you don't experience 300 times the stress I do (want stress? Try getting by on what I'm making some time - it'll be not just "fire the nanny" but "kids, we'll be eating spam for the rest of the month.")

When was the last time you were out of money? And not, stuck in Paris in the summer after college and waiting for mommy and daddy to wire more money, but more like the following situation:

Money in checking account: $8.23
Money in Savings account: $36.18
Days til payday: 8
Proportion of that paycheck that will go to rent: 90%
Proportion of the post-rent remainder of your check needed to buy food until your mid-month paycheck: 108%
Reaction: "Oh, fuck."

That's spelled S-U-F-F-E-R-I-N-G, and millions and millions and millions of people are experiencing it, not just now, but for fucking YEARS because of what you have done and what you have failed to do.

To the politicians who are too afraid to stand up to this corrupt, wicked bunch:

FUCK YOU TOO.

What is so damned hard to figure out about our situation?

We need to organize the working poor into unions who will fight to raise their poverty wages; we need to re-industrialize the economy so that we're taking raw materials and using them to create things of real value and can afford to pay good wages, as opposed to an economy based on hallucinatory "returns" on financial instruments based on abstractions of other financial instruments.

We need living wage laws, and a real, functioning social service system. Government-provided, free daycare for anyone who needs it. Single-payer healthcare. Mixed-use development that is aimed at creating communities with a mix of incomes, rather than a population divided into either "exclusive" communities or slums. Geographically dividing the upper middle class and above from the poor is a good way to destroy the social fabric of a country.

We need a tax system that rewards work, but in which wealthy people pay a higher and higher price for each incremental increase of income, and that pays support to poorer folks in larger amounts as you go down the wage ladder.

We need to support small farmers with crop subsidies and cash supplements to their incomes, while providing incentives to use their land wisely, especially incentives to grow their crops as near to pure-organic as is practicable.

We need more taxes, especially on the rich. Way more taxes. Why is the media treating the huge deficits in California and the federal government as great big, gee-what-can-we-do mysteries?? You either need to:

1. Cut services (which will cause already suffering people's lives to become constant, desperate emergencies, which in turn will result in lots of social unrest and eventually, if it gets bad enough, armed revolution) OR

2. Raise taxes substantially on people who can afford to pay more, which will result in lots of huffing and puffing from the Limbaugh and business right (but I repeat myself), and if it gets bad enough, ridiculous, badly written polemical crypto-fascist novels featuring characters named "John Galt".

All of this would seem to be obvious to me, but that's only because I'm barely getting by.

Too many people call themselves lefties because they drive Priuses, are pro-choice and treat the nanny like a member of the family. Methinks they need a reminder of what real, actual leftism looks like.

Barbara Ehrenreich on what this recession/depression is doing to the poor

The recession of the ’80s transformed the working class into the working poor, as manufacturing jobs fled to the third world, forcing American workers into the low-paying service and retail sector. The current recession is knocking the working poor down another notch — from low-wage employment and inadequate housing toward erratic employment and no housing at all. Comfortable people have long imagined that American poverty is far more luxurious than the third world variety, but the difference is rapidly narrowing.

[...]

Maybe “the economy,” as depicted on CNBC, will revive again, restoring the kinds of jobs that sustained the working poor, however inadequately, before the recession. Chances are, though, that they still won’t pay enough to live on, at least not at any level of safety and dignity. In fact, hourly wage growth, which had been running at about 4 percent a year, has undergone what the Economic Policy Institute calls a “dramatic collapse” in the last six months alone. In good times and grim ones, the misery at the bottom just keeps piling up, like a bad debt that will eventually come due.

Indeed. Unless things change for the better, and soon, violence against the system may become all but inevitable.

Manliness?

What is this bullshit on the right I come across regularly that equates war-making with manliness? Just ask a European over the age of about, oh, 70 or so how "manly" and heroic war is. And don't shut your ears when he tells you stories about how his family lived in a bombed-out cellar in some obliterated city for a year and a half, surviving on aid packages, bread and the occasional cat.

Try and describe how glorious and manly war is, and he is rightly going to look at you as if you are insane.

The Machinery of Night

If liberty and freedom survive in America, I'm convinced that it will be in no small part due to the relentless clarity and general excellence of Glenn Greenwald's analysis:

A much more critical issue here is whether the President should have the power to conceal evidence about the Government's actions on the ground that what the Government did was so bad, so wrong, so inflammatory, so lawless, that to allow disclosure and transparency would reflect poorly on our country, thereby increase anti-American sentiment, and thus jeopardize The Troops. Once you accept that rationale -- the more extreme the Government's abuses are, the more compelling is the need for suppression -- then open government, one of the central planks of the Obama campaign and the linchpin of a healthy democracy, becomes an illusion.

I hope Obama, and enough Democrats in Congress, come to see the truth of this: if not, we the people need to demand that they see it or suffer our wrath.

The pessimist in me fears that the country may be too asleep from mindless, pornographic entertainment and the decayed remains of the Fourth Estate to care much about the potential utter ruination of America as a Republic. Maybe the Powerful in America have figured out that you don't need to be a formal autocracy to rule the world and your citizens as an empire; you just need to keep the plebes busy with porn and "When Planes Crash" -style "reality" television and gladiatorial contests and bread and circuses. Just keep their reptilian brains busy and stimulated enough so they don't notice their increasing powerlessness and slavery - they just feel free because they vote every four years for candidates, none of whom pose any real threat to the lever-pullers controlling the Machinery of Night (to borrow a phrase from Ginsburg) that binds their souls and enacts their slavery.

Or, maybe Americans will begin to talk to one another one-on-one about the danger posed to their freedom by ceaseless propaganda-in-service-of-empire, and turn off their televisions and porn and stop eating themselves into gaseous stupors, so they can look hard enough to actually see what's really going on all around them.

Torture and Freedom

One of the things that makes torture so dangerous to democracy is that it metastasizes; once it is ok to use on foreigners, it becomes conceivable to use it on citizens (”only in certain very narrow circumstances” of course, and with a court order, etc…) and then no one is safe.

For all the talk from the right about national health care or auto company bailouts being “tyranny” or “threats to freedom,” their relative silence in the face of real, actual tyranny and threats to freedom speaks volumes. The right wing scares me deeply.

Yeah, What She Said

What the talking heads of the right do not realize is that regardless of whatever Barack Obama is, he is a vast improvement over anything the republicans have EVER produced. Constructive conversation of open minds solves issues that threats can't begin to address.

Katt Mann, Lyford Cay, Bahamas

An Encouraging Sign

New York Times:

After months of insisting he would leave the details to Congress, President Obama has concluded that he must exert greater control over the health care debate and is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, senior White House officials say.

I've been looking forward to Obama doing some congressional arm-twisting; JFK was inspiring but had trouble getting his vision for the country enacted in Congress; it took the formidable wheeling-and-dealing skills of LBJ after JFK's assasination to actually get a lot of his agenda passed into law. Obama has the potential to be an LBJ-JFK synthesis.

P.S.: I hope Afghanistan is not his Vietnam.

Some Things We Lost

There was a time before the mid-sixties when kids (especially teenaged ones) dressed more or less like their parents. If you doubt this, go to your school district office and check yearbooks for your local high school from the the decade of the sixties - especially the grades BELOW 12th (seniors have pretty much always dressed in tuxes). Some time during that decade, the clothing stopped looking adult and starting looking what we think of today as "teenaged."

For kids to NOT dress like their parents was definitely a change, and not for the un-alloyed better, in my view. The shift signified by that event has had corrosive effects on our cultural integrity which have been a mixed blessing: yes, the 50s were a time of mindless conformity, but too much "do-your-own-thing" does not account for the obligations and responsibilities we have toward one another, and too much fissioned individualism corrodes social cohesion.

In 1948, Oakland California had about the same population as it does today, about the same racial make-up, roughly the same mix of incomes...and 15 murders. Last year there were over 100.

Things that make me want to shower

When you say the word "racism" most people think of Bull Connor and firehoses in the 1950s and 60s. Things are better since then to be sure, but we still have a long way to go. This is appalling:

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

“We just went right after them,” said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank’s top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans.”

Ms. Jacobson’s account and that of the other loan officer who gave an affidavit, Tony Paschal, both of whom have left Wells Fargo, provide the first detailed accusations of deliberate racial steering into subprimes by one of the nation’s top banks.

I'm guessing there aren't a whole lot of blacks in the loan unit in question - "mud people"?? That's something I'd expect to read on far-right racist sites like Stormfront or the Klan. But we can't have affirmative action because that's, you know, racist.

On Obama's Cairo Speech

The long road back from GW Bush's disastrous presidency shows signs that it may get less bumpy as time goes on:

From Cairo to Baghdad, Arabs watching President Obama's speech said he won their admiration for peppering the address with the type of moral message Muslims receive at weekly homilies as well as the straightforward talk that they rarely get from their own leadership.

"He seems like a committed and serious man," said Ahmed Farouk, a 25-year-old movie producer who sat in an Egyptian coffee house a few minutes drive from Cairo University, where Mr. Obama spoke. "Just one of him is worth 10 George Bushes."

Muslims in Nairobi, Kenya, generally were encouraged by Mr. Obama's outreach Thursday, especially his emphasis on living in peace with the Muslim world, saying his speech had done much to repair damage to that relationship. But they still are waiting for action to match his words.

Whole lotta Shakin'

I just felt an earthquake. I haven't checked the USGS site yet: I'm guessing 3.8 on the Richter...

...and having now checked: 3.2 preliminary magnitude.

More from batocchio

Conservative stances on economics, foreign policy and human rights provide a pretty bleak snapshot of the Republican party. The poor remain faceless to them, as do foreigners blithely bombed and the victims of torture and abuse. Torture, with its dynamics of power and false confessions, actually makes a frighteningly apt metaphor for movement conservatives and obstinate ideologues everywhere. Why do these people ignore data and counsel, inflict suffering on populations foreign and domestic, and fiercely dismiss overwhelming evidence against their favored approach? Just as with torture itself, it's simple - they like the answers it gives them.

Not a Cheering Thought

If present trends continue, scientists may eventually have the capacity to destroy the entire universe and the uncountable trillions of beings, plants, civilizations, etc. that dwell in it. I'm not kidding.

Louis Menard, On Neoconservatism's Exhaustion

Via Digby Batocchio guest-posting on Digby's blog (whose entire post you need to read - it is one of the best things I've read in left-blogistan in years), Louis Menard back in 2006 examined the then-seriously-fraying neo-conservative movement in terms of its psychology.

The present condition of the neoconservative movement is the outcome of a classic case of the gradual sclerosis of political attitudes. All the stages of the movement’s development were based on the primitive psychology of the “break”—the felt need, as one ages, to demonize the exact position one formerly occupied. The enemy is always the person still clinging to the delusions you just outgrew. So—going all the way back to the omphalos, Alcove 1 in the City College cafeteria, where Kristol and his) friends fought with the Stalinists in Alcove 2—the Trotskyists hated the fellow-travellers they once had been; the Cold War liberals hated the Trotskyists they once had been; and the neoconservatives hated the liberals they once had been. Now the hardening is complete. Neoconservatism has merged with the politics that its founders, in their youth, held in greatest contempt: the jingoist and capitalist American right. We look from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it is impossible to say which is which.

Musicians who suck

If I hear Donovan's "Catch the Wind" in one more friggin' commercial, I'm taking a sledgehammer to my television. I am not kidding.

Here's the thing: Donovan sucked. Hard. "Catch the Wind" is basically a re-write bald-faced rip-off of Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" but with all the lyrical artistry and originality gone. He sang it with the closest approximation of Dylan's voice he could muster, and played his guitar in the closest approximation of Dylan's guitar playing he could muster.

And his later stuff? "Mellow Yellow" and "Epistle to Dipsy" were Sergeant Pepper...after he been busted down to private. He. Friggin'. Sucked. Why does anyone love this guy??

Martin Luther King on the proper basis of power

Power...is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love... What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Joe Hargrave on Immigration

The fact that some of my fellow Catholics oppose reasonable immigration policies distresses me; I guess what distresses me most is that the political divisions in this country infest my Church as well.

In any event, Joe's entire essay is worth a read, especially by my fellow Catholics. An excerpt:

[T]here can be absolutely no doubt as to what our Christian duty towards immigrants, regardless of their legal status, is to be. Matthew 25 gives an account of the last judgment and makes clear that what we do for, or fail to do for, the least of our brothers, we do or fail to do unto God. On that list is included:

"I was a stranger, and you took me in"

And:

"I was a stranger, and you took me not in"

Immigrants are strangers in our land, and so our duty is singular and clear: to welcome them. They are also poor so our next duty is also clear: to feed them, or at least enable them to obtain the means to feed themselves. It is what they come here for in the first place.

The Old America

Via Andrew Sullivan, this is an American poster from World War II. It used to be that torture was something that America used to provide distinction from from its enemies. No longer.

We need to make a choice: will we tacitly abide torture by sparing from punishment those who perpetrated it? Or will we make examples of them of how torture is henceforth and forever anathema to this country?

Sullivan Sums Up the Bush Administration

As always, [Bill] Kristol's sole principle seems to be the wielding of power. He, like Cheney, is beginning to understand that history is beginning to gel around the assumption that the Bush-Cheney administration presided over the worst attack on US soil in history and failed to capture or bring to justice any of its perpetrators, put the next generation into unparalleled and unsustainable debt, did nothing to combat climate change, viciously opposed the civil rights movement of its time, shrunk the GOP to one in five voters, precipitated the worst recession since the 1930s, took the US into two grueling, unwinnable wars, humiliated the US at the UN with fatally flawed intelligence for war in Iraq, and destroyed the credibility and endurance of the Geneva Conventions, thus ensuring that future captured Americans will be tortured with no recourse.

I sometimes wonder if the Bush Administration's sole purpose was to destroy America's credibility in the eyes of the world.

Children are not Status Totems

There seems to be a common idea that children are a means of reflecting prestige or shame on the parents – if little Timmy gets into Harvard, that means that you are the parents of the year; if he becomes a grocery bagger, assembly line worker or filling station counter guy, then you’ve “failed.”

Something is out of balance there; not every kid has the smarts to get into Harvard, and as long as your kid grows up to be kind, responsible and contributes to society, you did just fine. Pushing your kids as hard as I see lots of parents pushing theirs is not an expression of love, but of narcissism, I think. It’s not about whether little Timmy is happy and well-rounded, but about the amount of bragging you’re able to do at the next parents’ get-together.

That aside, there is another piece to this, I think; it used to be that you could make a decent living and raise kids on a working-class wage (meaning the kind of job that does not require college) but this is way less true than it used to be. This, combined with the shabby way our society treats poor people (I’ve heard Jay Leno use the appalling term “trailer trash” and get a laugh) means that fear plays a part in parents pushing their kids as well.

But It's Ok, Because We're America

An estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, [including] some who were clearly tortured to death.

The only way to prevent this from recurring is to prosecute and imprison both the Bush administration officials who approved torture, and those Democrats and Republicans in Congress who were in positions of responsibility to uphold the constitution and the nation's laws but failed to do so.

Otherwise, some future president is tacitly free to say, "Well, I respect former president Obama's reasoning in his decision to discontinue [insert Orwellian euphemism here], but I must take all factors into consideration. I realize the gravity of this decision, and I make this decision with a heavy heart, but I feel that in order to protect America, I have no choice..."

The president after that can then say, "Look: there is an established history of this happening. It's one of those decisions I don't enjoy making, but if any situation calls for [insert Orwellian euphemism here], the current crisis is certainly one of those times."

Where has Americans' sense of collective decency gone?

Andrew Sullivan, On Torture Being Described as "Inhuman"

It's odd, isn't it, that we use this word to describe abuse and torture of prisoners. The reason it's odd is that I'm not sure any animals torture. Yes, they can kill and maim and inflict dreadful suffering in the process of killing, eating or fighting. But the act of intentionally exploiting suffering, of lingering over some other being's pain - using it as a means to an end - is not an animal instinct, unless I'm mistaken.

And so torture is in fact extremely human; it represents in many ways humankind's unique capacity for cruelty.

EWTN: the Splendor of Conservatism

I watch EWTN occasionally, and enjoy “the Journey Home” and Daily Mass and Exposition and Benediction, among other programs; that said, I have noticed that when EWTN speaks on issues that intersect politics, the issues they choose tend to be conformed to the narrative that American conservatism uses.

There is plenty on abortion, for example. I have no complaint with that, per se, of course; but where’s the voice for workers, say, or against corporate greed and exploitation? Where’s the voice for the poor, for the distraught residents of our ghettos? Against torture, or unjust war, or racism?

To the extent that EWTN even addresses those other issues, they do so from pretty Republican premises and frames of reference.

It would be nice if there was a “Social Justice hour,” say, or some program highlighting people who are working for non-violent social change in Latin America and elsewhere.

It seems to me that EWTN speaks to and is aimed at Catholics who are politically conservative, rather than the full spectrum of Catholics in America.

Mark Shea takes apart torture apologists:

Suppose I asked, "Are there any circumstances when it would be okay for the president to order an interrogator to crush a nine-year-old boy's testicles?" What would you answer?

If you are a normal person and not John Yoo, the man who, from 2001 to 2003 was employed as the Justice Department's legal advisor to President Bush and who was among the authors of the memos advocating the legality of torture, you'd say, "Hell no!"

(Yoo's answer to this question was: "I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that.")

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"Extremism in the cause of cheap rhetoric is no virtue"

Some of the descriptions I hear from movement conservatives - that Obama is a “leftist” or “extremist” or “socialist” - remind me why I left the Republican Party behind a decade and a half ago, and have never looked back.

I get the tactic, of course - try to define the political “middle ground” ever more to the right - so that Obama raising rich peoples’ tax rates to a rate that is still almost two thirds lower than they were under Eisenhower is “socialism” and “radical wealth redistribution,” rather than being a modest adjustment of the tax code in a more progressive direction.

The thing is, most of the country is extremely tired of, and see right through, Republicans’ cheap attempts at manipulation, and is behind Obama, and they trust him and want him to succeed.