Showing posts with label tea party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea party. Show all posts
Voting made simple
The midterms are not about whether or not the president is a doing a good job.
They're about whether or not you want a legislature made up of people who think that facts are stupid; that Obamacare caused Ebola; that Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border; that George Washington authorized wide-scale electronic surveillance; that there is such a thing as legitimate rape; that taxing tanning salons is racist discrimination against pale Americans; that something isn't necessarily constitutional just because the Supreme Court says it is; that Roe v. Wade led to gun massacres; that equal rights for women is a socialist, anti-family plot to get women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians; that Tinky Winky is gay; that marriage equality will result in people having sex with their dogs; that Democrats want everyone dependent on crack cocaine; that the biblical Great Flood is proof that global warming is a natural phenomenon; that wind farms are using up the wind; that Christopher Columbus was a great American; and that immigrants should be forced to learn English, just like Jesus.*
*All opinions above expressed by Republicans, not Democrats.
Rants: The Founding Fathers hate you
Bill Maher went off on the Tea Party last night to good comic effect:
This is funny, and true as far as it goes. The members of the religious right who think the Philadelphia conventioneers intended to establish a Judeo-Christian version of Shari'an rule are wrong, of course. As Maher says, they were learned men whose study of history made them as wary of popes as they were of kings.
The irony, though, is that in one way the Tea Party does call back to the revolutionary era. Before control of the independence movement was seized by the worthies we now think of as The Founders, the merchants of Boston and other areas of the northeast secretly manipulated the fears and prejudices of ordinary citizens to advance their own financial interests, undermining respect for traditional authority in the process just as the Pete Petersons, Haley Barbours and Koch brotherses are doing now. If the merchants hadn't been overzealous in stimulating the mob, we'd probably be a nice commonwealth nation like Canada to this day.
In short, John Adams might hate the tea partiers if he was still around, but Sam Adams would love them.
This is funny, and true as far as it goes. The members of the religious right who think the Philadelphia conventioneers intended to establish a Judeo-Christian version of Shari'an rule are wrong, of course. As Maher says, they were learned men whose study of history made them as wary of popes as they were of kings.
The irony, though, is that in one way the Tea Party does call back to the revolutionary era. Before control of the independence movement was seized by the worthies we now think of as The Founders, the merchants of Boston and other areas of the northeast secretly manipulated the fears and prejudices of ordinary citizens to advance their own financial interests, undermining respect for traditional authority in the process just as the Pete Petersons, Haley Barbours and Koch brotherses are doing now. If the merchants hadn't been overzealous in stimulating the mob, we'd probably be a nice commonwealth nation like Canada to this day.
In short, John Adams might hate the tea partiers if he was still around, but Sam Adams would love them.
Politics: Those Wacky Republicans - a series
"Saturday Catchup" is still on vacation. The whackos in the GOP, on the other hand, never sleep.
See, also: In Search of the Craziest GOP Policy Proposal by Seyward Darby (The New Republic 2010-07-08).
See, also: In Search of the Craziest GOP Policy Proposal by Seyward Darby (The New Republic 2010-07-08).
The Right: Where is the Man on the White Horse when you need him?
Or is that, Where is the White Man on the Horse when you need him?
Modern American conservatism is based on an almost endless series of grievances. Author Thomas Frank coined a term for it: the conservative "plenty-plaint" -- a long and ever-evolving list of personal and cultural gripes dressed up as an ideology. But there's also fear! And while it spans the breadth of the movement, this is the year of the Tea Party revolt, when the grassroots right, disgusted with the idea of semi-affordable health-care and tepid financial reforms is rebelling against even its own establishment. And the divide between the grassroots base and its leadership extends to the very fears that animate them. As we'll see, the conservative movement's business-attired hacks and the hard-Right tea Party types waving misspelled signs out in the streets have some very different causes for alarm. So, here are ten of the most interesting things that absolutely terrify Wingnuttia. First, a few terrors of the real hard-core Right. For the Tea Partier, the midterm GOP primary voter, it's not just the anxiety over social change that typifies more traditional conservatism. A broad chunk of the GOP base today is animated by wildly unrealistic terrors -- monsters stalking them as the sun sets, perhaps hovering just beyond their peripheral vision. -- from 10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers by Joshua Holland (AlterNet 2010-06-12).
Modern American conservatism is based on an almost endless series of grievances. Author Thomas Frank coined a term for it: the conservative "plenty-plaint" -- a long and ever-evolving list of personal and cultural gripes dressed up as an ideology. But there's also fear! And while it spans the breadth of the movement, this is the year of the Tea Party revolt, when the grassroots right, disgusted with the idea of semi-affordable health-care and tepid financial reforms is rebelling against even its own establishment. And the divide between the grassroots base and its leadership extends to the very fears that animate them. As we'll see, the conservative movement's business-attired hacks and the hard-Right tea Party types waving misspelled signs out in the streets have some very different causes for alarm. So, here are ten of the most interesting things that absolutely terrify Wingnuttia. First, a few terrors of the real hard-core Right. For the Tea Partier, the midterm GOP primary voter, it's not just the anxiety over social change that typifies more traditional conservatism. A broad chunk of the GOP base today is animated by wildly unrealistic terrors -- monsters stalking them as the sun sets, perhaps hovering just beyond their peripheral vision. -- from 10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers by Joshua Holland (AlterNet 2010-06-12).
Saturday Catchup 2010-05-29
"This week, we reached a grim milestone in Afghanistan: 1,000 U.S. troops killed since the war began in 2001. It is a sober reminder of the cost of the conflict, and every new military casualty will test the patience and resolve of the American public. But it’s another casualty list – the unknown number of Afghan civilians killed in our operations there – that is much more central to the ultimate outcome of the war. If we want to win – defeating the Taliban and dealing a decisive blow to Al Qaeda in the region – our troops must pursue a new strategy to minimize them. Specifically, we should borrow a page from two unlikely people: a little-known military officer and the world leader nobody today seems to trust, Afghan president Hamid Karzai." -- How to turn the tide in Afghanistan by Eric Blehm (Special Force 2010-05-23).
"We need a much deeper, more pervasive realization that we are radically interdependent, that we are all in this together, not only all human 'allies' and 'enemies,' but also coral reefs and infant fish. It hardly matters whether the momentum of our technological advance is driven by wonder, possibility and the thrill of risk, or by greed and fear, or a mix of all these. Absent a deep ethical reorientation toward what is best for the whole planet, that momentum will - will, not may - end in disaster. When might this realization begin to influence decisions taken by corporate boards, or supreme courts, or adversarial diplomats jockeying for national advantage?" -- Hubris: Techoil, Techweapons by Winslow (truthout 2010-05-28). Also, Case for a Moral Imperative by Eugene Robinson (truthout 2010-05-28).
Musical break: the masterful Billy Joe Shaver does "Black Rose" on Austin City Limits:
On YouTube.
The Maoster had no use for politicians who talk Left as they move Right. -- Is The President The Kind of Leader Chairman Mao Warned Us About? by Danny Schechter (CommonDreams.Org 2010-05-29).
Ron Paul is another kind of leader entirely. Last week, he voted to repeal the Clinton-era Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (or, more accurately, he voted to allow the Pentagon to repeal it if and when it chooses to) -- while 26 mainstream House Democrats voted to retain that bigoted policy; He changed his mind on DADT because gay constituents of his who were forced out of the military convinced him of the policy's wrongness. In 2003, he vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq, while countless Democrats -- including the current Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Senate Majority Leader, House Majority Leader, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and many of the progressive pundits who love to scorn him -- supported the monstrous attack on that country. In 2008, he opposed the legalization of Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and the granting of retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, while the Democratic Congress -- led by the current U.S. President, his Chief of Staff, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and the House Majority Leader -- overwhelmingly voted it into law. He vehemently condemned America's use of torture from the start, while many leading Democrats were silent (or even supportive). Compare his February, 2010 emphatic condemnation of America's denial of habeas corpus, lawless detentions and presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens to what the current U.S. Government is doing. He also opposes the war in Afghanistan, while the Democratic Congress continues to fund it and even to reject timetables for withdrawal. He is an outspoken opponent of the nation's insane, devastating and oppressive "drug war". What a nutbag. -- Who are the real "crazies" in our political culture? by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2010-05-28).
Outside the gulag known as "the Industry," rarely has popular music been more original and dynamic than it is presently (I'll argue for the 30s or the 50s, you'll say the 60s or the 80s, somebody will even try to make a case for the 70s, but in the here and now technological changes in the way music is reproduced and distributed have unleashed a maelstrom of creativity). Here's a small example: Mad World Imagine Eleanor Rigby Numb.
(On YouTube)
Because, in contrast to its death grip on film, music and software, copyright law's hold on the fashion industry is nearly non-existent, fashion benefits in both innovation and sales. Johanna Blakley's argument that the creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture deserves to be part of the debate.
(On YouTube.)
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein shares his hate mail with both friends and strangers the way elderly people show off photos of their grandkids. He has plenty of it to share. For the past four years, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been doing battle with a Christian subculture that, he believes, is trying to Christianize the U.S. armed forces with the help of a complicit Pentagon brass. He calls it the "fundamentalist Christian parachurch-military-corporate-proselytizing complex," a mouthful by which he means holy warriors in contempt of the constitutional barrier between church and state. Mikey Weinstein's Crusade: Meet the man who's trying to purge evangelical Christianity from the Pentagon by Stephen Glain (Foreign Policy 2010-05-24)
It must be something in the water. Coming in the wake of Carly Fiorina's batty Barbara Boxer As Blimp ad come comes this commercial for one of her rivals, avid lawn mower Chuck DeVore, suggesting that he is Jack Bauer's choice for Senate. Should someone clue him in that Jack Bauer is made up?
Can it be true that the U.S. government abandoned American POWs in Vietnam? "The CIA officials said their intelligence indicated strongly that the remaining men -- those who had not died from illness or hard labor or torture -- were eventually executed." -- Vietnam MIAs: Ghosts Return to Haunt McCain by Alexander Cockburn (truthout 2010-05-28).
Must read: Wall Street Journal story on the decisions BP made that led to the eruption at the Deepwater Horizon rig: "It was a difficult drill from the start. API Well No. 60-817-44169 threw up many challenges to its principal owner, BP PLC, swallowing expensive drilling fluid and burping out dangerous gas. Those woes put the Gulf of Mexico project over budget and behind schedule by April 20, the day the well erupted, destroying the Deepwater Horizon rig and killing 11 men." -- BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster by Ben Casselman and Russell Gold (Wall Street Journal 2010-05-27).
"If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down." -- 25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real by Michael Snyder (BLN 2010-05-25).
Book review: Capitalism isn’t working. Not in the US and not in other parts of the world. In fact, virtually anywhere one goes, suffering is pervasive. Almost half the world’s population - more than three billion people, the equivalent of the population of ten United States - live on less than $2.50 a day. A billion people are undernourished and go to bed hungry each night. Two in five people around the world lack access to clean water, and one in four lacks basic electricity. Here in the US, whole communities are being decimated by evictions and foreclosures, health care is a shambles, and hunger and homelessness are at near-record levels. Twenty percent of children are born into poverty, and illnesses correlating with inadequate nutrition are epidemic. In 2009, the world’s 793 billionaires had a combined worth of $2.4 trillion; this translates into twice the combined gross domestic product of all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa: the three billion human beings at the bottom of the economic food chain have fewer resources than the 793 people at the top. -- Alan Maass' The Case for Socialism, reviewed by Eleanor J. Bader (truthout 2010-05-26).
Book review: "In reacting to the economic insecurities of the past forty years, the nation's colleges and universities have adopted corporate practices that degrade undergraduate instruction, marginalize faculty members, and threaten the very mission of the academy as an institution devoted to the common good."-- Ellen Schrecker's The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom and the End of the American University, reviewed by Eleanor J. Bader (truthout 2010-05-28).
Finally, why it's so hard to build a Tea Party:
As seen on YouTube. Also, How Dummies Respond to an Oil Spill.
"We need a much deeper, more pervasive realization that we are radically interdependent, that we are all in this together, not only all human 'allies' and 'enemies,' but also coral reefs and infant fish. It hardly matters whether the momentum of our technological advance is driven by wonder, possibility and the thrill of risk, or by greed and fear, or a mix of all these. Absent a deep ethical reorientation toward what is best for the whole planet, that momentum will - will, not may - end in disaster. When might this realization begin to influence decisions taken by corporate boards, or supreme courts, or adversarial diplomats jockeying for national advantage?" -- Hubris: Techoil, Techweapons by Winslow (truthout 2010-05-28). Also, Case for a Moral Imperative by Eugene Robinson (truthout 2010-05-28).
Musical break: the masterful Billy Joe Shaver does "Black Rose" on Austin City Limits:
On YouTube.
The Maoster had no use for politicians who talk Left as they move Right. -- Is The President The Kind of Leader Chairman Mao Warned Us About? by Danny Schechter (CommonDreams.Org 2010-05-29).
Ron Paul is another kind of leader entirely. Last week, he voted to repeal the Clinton-era Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (or, more accurately, he voted to allow the Pentagon to repeal it if and when it chooses to) -- while 26 mainstream House Democrats voted to retain that bigoted policy; He changed his mind on DADT because gay constituents of his who were forced out of the military convinced him of the policy's wrongness. In 2003, he vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq, while countless Democrats -- including the current Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Senate Majority Leader, House Majority Leader, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and many of the progressive pundits who love to scorn him -- supported the monstrous attack on that country. In 2008, he opposed the legalization of Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and the granting of retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, while the Democratic Congress -- led by the current U.S. President, his Chief of Staff, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and the House Majority Leader -- overwhelmingly voted it into law. He vehemently condemned America's use of torture from the start, while many leading Democrats were silent (or even supportive). Compare his February, 2010 emphatic condemnation of America's denial of habeas corpus, lawless detentions and presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens to what the current U.S. Government is doing. He also opposes the war in Afghanistan, while the Democratic Congress continues to fund it and even to reject timetables for withdrawal. He is an outspoken opponent of the nation's insane, devastating and oppressive "drug war". What a nutbag. -- Who are the real "crazies" in our political culture? by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2010-05-28).
Outside the gulag known as "the Industry," rarely has popular music been more original and dynamic than it is presently (I'll argue for the 30s or the 50s, you'll say the 60s or the 80s, somebody will even try to make a case for the 70s, but in the here and now technological changes in the way music is reproduced and distributed have unleashed a maelstrom of creativity). Here's a small example: Mad World Imagine Eleanor Rigby Numb.
(On YouTube)
Because, in contrast to its death grip on film, music and software, copyright law's hold on the fashion industry is nearly non-existent, fashion benefits in both innovation and sales. Johanna Blakley's argument that the creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture deserves to be part of the debate.
(On YouTube.)
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein shares his hate mail with both friends and strangers the way elderly people show off photos of their grandkids. He has plenty of it to share. For the past four years, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been doing battle with a Christian subculture that, he believes, is trying to Christianize the U.S. armed forces with the help of a complicit Pentagon brass. He calls it the "fundamentalist Christian parachurch-military-corporate-proselytizing complex," a mouthful by which he means holy warriors in contempt of the constitutional barrier between church and state. Mikey Weinstein's Crusade: Meet the man who's trying to purge evangelical Christianity from the Pentagon by Stephen Glain (Foreign Policy 2010-05-24)
It must be something in the water. Coming in the wake of Carly Fiorina's batty Barbara Boxer As Blimp ad come comes this commercial for one of her rivals, avid lawn mower Chuck DeVore, suggesting that he is Jack Bauer's choice for Senate. Should someone clue him in that Jack Bauer is made up?
Can it be true that the U.S. government abandoned American POWs in Vietnam? "The CIA officials said their intelligence indicated strongly that the remaining men -- those who had not died from illness or hard labor or torture -- were eventually executed." -- Vietnam MIAs: Ghosts Return to Haunt McCain by Alexander Cockburn (truthout 2010-05-28).
Must read: Wall Street Journal story on the decisions BP made that led to the eruption at the Deepwater Horizon rig: "It was a difficult drill from the start. API Well No. 60-817-44169 threw up many challenges to its principal owner, BP PLC, swallowing expensive drilling fluid and burping out dangerous gas. Those woes put the Gulf of Mexico project over budget and behind schedule by April 20, the day the well erupted, destroying the Deepwater Horizon rig and killing 11 men." -- BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster by Ben Casselman and Russell Gold (Wall Street Journal 2010-05-27).
"If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down." -- 25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real by Michael Snyder (BLN 2010-05-25).
Book review: Capitalism isn’t working. Not in the US and not in other parts of the world. In fact, virtually anywhere one goes, suffering is pervasive. Almost half the world’s population - more than three billion people, the equivalent of the population of ten United States - live on less than $2.50 a day. A billion people are undernourished and go to bed hungry each night. Two in five people around the world lack access to clean water, and one in four lacks basic electricity. Here in the US, whole communities are being decimated by evictions and foreclosures, health care is a shambles, and hunger and homelessness are at near-record levels. Twenty percent of children are born into poverty, and illnesses correlating with inadequate nutrition are epidemic. In 2009, the world’s 793 billionaires had a combined worth of $2.4 trillion; this translates into twice the combined gross domestic product of all the countries in sub-Saharan Africa: the three billion human beings at the bottom of the economic food chain have fewer resources than the 793 people at the top. -- Alan Maass' The Case for Socialism, reviewed by Eleanor J. Bader (truthout 2010-05-26).
Book review: "In reacting to the economic insecurities of the past forty years, the nation's colleges and universities have adopted corporate practices that degrade undergraduate instruction, marginalize faculty members, and threaten the very mission of the academy as an institution devoted to the common good."-- Ellen Schrecker's The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom and the End of the American University, reviewed by Eleanor J. Bader (truthout 2010-05-28).
Finally, why it's so hard to build a Tea Party:
As seen on YouTube. Also, How Dummies Respond to an Oil Spill.
Saturday Catchup 2010-05-15
Mad Crowd Disease: "A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. Anarchistic like the Sixties, selfish like the Eighties, contradicting neither, it is estranged, aimless, and as juvenile as our new century. It appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that. This is the one threat that will bring Americans into the streets. Welcome to the politics of the libertarian mob." -- The Tea Party Jacobins by Mark Lilla (New York Review of Books 2010-05-09).
Alone Together (Naturally): A call for more freedom is really a demand for power, "our power to make real choices, about not only our personal lives but about the forces determining the quality of life in our communities." So many of the factors that affect our opportunity, our freedom to thrive -- general access to quality education and to health care, say, or to public transport and libraries and parks, or to clean air and potable water, to say nothing of police and fire protection -- all require a fair and functioning society. We can’t even achieve the state of being “left alone,” alone. -- Why Freedom Should Be the #1 Issue for Progressives by Frances Moore Lappé (AlterNet 2010-05-13).
The (Tea) Party is over: When trouble comes, those who complain the loudest about big government are the first ones with their hands out for federal help. "Until tea partiers are willing to tear up their Social Security cards and Medicare cards, and reject all help from the FBI, Coast Guard, EPA, FEMA, or any other federal agency, they're nothing but a bunch of phonies." -- The Death of the Tea Party Movement by Bill Press (Baraboo News Republic 2010-06-09).
I'd say Что делать?, but that'd kinda be like raising a red flag: Here's a video from a grass roots campaign that is working to "wrest control of our economy from the big banks, crony capitalists and financial elites:"
( Watch on YouTube.) Action: Go to ForOurEconomy.org, download their 12-point primer on how to seize a measure of control over our economic lives; join; donate; protest.
Change Watch: "There is nothing inherently good about compromise. The ability to form a good compromise, when it is necessary, is an important skill. But you should compromise only when you can’t completely achieve what you want without it. If you have sufficient votes or support for your position and think it is the best choice of action, then you should pursue it. Compromising in that instance is stupid. The problem with Washington is the fake 'compromise fetish' (which is similar to the 'bipartisan fetish') that turned compromise into the desired goal–without regard to policy value or whether there is a need to compromise in the first place. What is the source of this fetish? Compromise destroys accountability. Politicians hate being held accountable and so they have a vested interest to support this fetish and those who share it." -- Compromise Fetishists: How Secret Deals Obscure Accountability, Subvert Democracy by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-05-08).
Or to put it another way, summer's (almost) here and the time is right for fighting in the streets:
Or watch it on YouTube.
Don't want what they're smokin': "Just days after the White House released their inherently flawed 2010 National Drug Control Strategy (Read NORML’s refutation of it on The Huffington Post here and here), and mere hours after Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske told reporters at the National Press Club, 'I have read thoroughly the ballot proposition in California; I think I once got an e-mail that told me I won the Irish sweepstakes and that actually had more truth in it than the ballot proposition,' the Associated Press takes the entire U.S. drug war strategy and rakes it over the coals. It’s about damn time!" -- After 40 Years, $1 Trillion, US Drug War “Has Failed to Meet Any of Its Goals” by Paul Armentano (AlterNet 2010-05-13).
Recycling Rhetoric: "The term has so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment. 'Sustainable' has been used variously to mean 'politically feasible,' 'economically feasible,' 'not part of a pyramid or bubble,' 'socially enlightened,' 'consistent with neoconservative small-government dogma,' 'consistent with liberal principles of justice and fairness,' 'morally desirable,' and, at its most diffuse, 'sensibly far-sighted'.” -- Theses on Sustainability: A Primer by Eric Zencey (Orion magazine 2010-5/6).
Following up on Jon Stewart's brilliant impersonation of Glenn Beck a couple of months back, Lewis Black brings on a diagnosis of Beck's Nazi Tourette's Syndrome:
Or go to The Daily Show.
Budget whoas: Underpinning Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s speech last week on Pentagon spending is an understanding of what Spencer Ackerman calls the "mutually distorting relationship between unsustainable defense budgets and political courage" (Gates Claims Eisenhower’s Mantle, Challenging Pentagon Overspending -- Attackerman 2010-06-08).
Someday, won't we just run out of places to invade?: The House is about to vote on a $33 billion bill "war funding," a euphemism for legislation that will pay for the Obama administration's escalation of the war against Afghanistan that must have George Orwell spinning in his grave. The White House is asking the House to treat the expanded war as a fait accompli. In an excellent account of how we got here, David Swanson asks "how much money are we talking about exactly? Well not enough, evidently, for the teabagging enemies of reckless government spending to take notice. Clearly not enough for the labor movement or any other advocates of spending on jobs or healthcare or education or green energy to disturb their slumbers. God forbid! Yet it's still a sizeable number by a certain reckoning. After all, 33 billion miles could take you to the sun 226 times. And $33 billion could radically alter any non-military program in existence. There's a bill in the senate, for instance, that would prevent schools from laying off teachers in all 50 states for a mere $23 billion. Another $9.6 billion would quadruple the Department of Energy's budget for renewable energy. Now, what to do with that extra $0.4 billion?" Victory at all costs in Afghanistan by David Swanson (Asia Times 2010-05-13).
With friends like these...: "The British government has estimated that 70 percent of the terror plots it has uncovered in the past decade can be traced back to Pakistan. Pakistan remains a terrorist hothouse even as jihadism is losing favor elsewhere in the Muslim world. From Egypt to Jordan to Malaysia to Indonesia, radical Islamic groups have been weakened militarily and have lost much of the support they had politically. Why not in Pakistan? The answer is simple: from its founding, the Pakistani government has supported and encouraged jihadi groups, creating an atmosphere that has allowed them to flourish. It appears to have partially reversed course in recent years, but the rot is deep." -- Terrorism’s Supermarket: Why Pakistan keeps exporting jihad by Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek 2010-05-07).
You think?: "The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy." -- U.S. Approval of Killing of Cleric Causes Unease by Scott Shane (New York Times 2010-05-13).
Be prepared: "In the raw aftermath of a successful attack, it will be very hard for an American president to shift the debate in a more productive and honest direction. Imagine if, after a fatal attack, President Obama responded by proposing greater outreach to Muslim communities domestically and around the world, in an effort to undercut radicalization. That is precisely what we and other nations should be doing, but it would undoubtedly be decried as a weak, starry-eyed reaction by our commander in chief, especially after an attack that revealed deficiencies in our counterterrorism system. But right now, after a near-miss, there is a better opportunity to adjust than in an emotionally charged period when the nation is mourning. Though a good dose of political courage would still be required, it would constitute a major improvement to our debate if leaders could come together now and agree on a few key points about our efforts to battle terrorism." -- The Times Square bomb failed. What will we do when the next bomb works? by Richard A. Clarke (The Washington Post 2010-05-09).
First it was our boys in Afghanistan doing a cover of Lady Gaga. Now, from Iraq, “Watch: Straight Soldiers Show Their Support for Gays in the Military by Dancing to Ke$ha”:
The future's last half century: "Fifty years ago this Sunday, Theodore Maiman and his fellow scientists at Hughes Research Laboratory shined a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod, triggering a beam of coherent light: the first laser.
It wasn’t long before the Pentagon started dreaming up military applications, and futurists were predicting that our soldiers would all get ray guns. Well, not quite. But lasers have revolutionized the U.S. military — changing the way it targets bombs, scares off insurgents, and, yes, blows stuff to bits." Wired's Danger Room remembers some of the greatest hits (and biggest misses) from the first half-century of military lasers. -- 50 Years of Real-Life Ray Guns by Noah Shachtman (Danger Room 2010-05-14).
Not on our airwaves leased from the American people you won't: Faux News refused this ad from the progressive veterans organization Vote Vets:
(also available on YouTube). What's doubly odd is that only a few weeks ago they were running an even stronger spot by same outfit.
Present Shock: A new report from Brookings reveals that our nation now faces five “new realities” that are redefining who we are, where and with whom we live, and how we provide for our own welfare, as well as that of our families and communities. In each of these five areas -- growth and outward expansion, population diversification, aging of the population, uneven higher educational attainment, and income polarization -- the nation reached critical milestones in the 2000s that make those underlying realities too large to ignore any longer. And large metropolitan areas -- the collections of cities, suburbs, and rural areas that house two-thirds of America’s population -- lay squarely at the forefront of these trends. -- State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation (pdf) (The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program 2010).
Burke's Without Peerage: Sometime toward the end of the last millennium, Jerry Wexler and I, spending a happy couple of hours sharing music we liked, discovered that both of thought that, if there was such a thing as the greatest soul singer of all time, it was probably Solomon Burke. Still is.
Or go to YouTube.
Alone Together (Naturally): A call for more freedom is really a demand for power, "our power to make real choices, about not only our personal lives but about the forces determining the quality of life in our communities." So many of the factors that affect our opportunity, our freedom to thrive -- general access to quality education and to health care, say, or to public transport and libraries and parks, or to clean air and potable water, to say nothing of police and fire protection -- all require a fair and functioning society. We can’t even achieve the state of being “left alone,” alone. -- Why Freedom Should Be the #1 Issue for Progressives by Frances Moore Lappé (AlterNet 2010-05-13).
The (Tea) Party is over: When trouble comes, those who complain the loudest about big government are the first ones with their hands out for federal help. "Until tea partiers are willing to tear up their Social Security cards and Medicare cards, and reject all help from the FBI, Coast Guard, EPA, FEMA, or any other federal agency, they're nothing but a bunch of phonies." -- The Death of the Tea Party Movement by Bill Press (Baraboo News Republic 2010-06-09).
I'd say Что делать?, but that'd kinda be like raising a red flag: Here's a video from a grass roots campaign that is working to "wrest control of our economy from the big banks, crony capitalists and financial elites:"
( Watch on YouTube.) Action: Go to ForOurEconomy.org, download their 12-point primer on how to seize a measure of control over our economic lives; join; donate; protest.
Change Watch: "There is nothing inherently good about compromise. The ability to form a good compromise, when it is necessary, is an important skill. But you should compromise only when you can’t completely achieve what you want without it. If you have sufficient votes or support for your position and think it is the best choice of action, then you should pursue it. Compromising in that instance is stupid. The problem with Washington is the fake 'compromise fetish' (which is similar to the 'bipartisan fetish') that turned compromise into the desired goal–without regard to policy value or whether there is a need to compromise in the first place. What is the source of this fetish? Compromise destroys accountability. Politicians hate being held accountable and so they have a vested interest to support this fetish and those who share it." -- Compromise Fetishists: How Secret Deals Obscure Accountability, Subvert Democracy by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-05-08).
Or to put it another way, summer's (almost) here and the time is right for fighting in the streets:
Or watch it on YouTube.
Don't want what they're smokin': "Just days after the White House released their inherently flawed 2010 National Drug Control Strategy (Read NORML’s refutation of it on The Huffington Post here and here), and mere hours after Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske told reporters at the National Press Club, 'I have read thoroughly the ballot proposition in California; I think I once got an e-mail that told me I won the Irish sweepstakes and that actually had more truth in it than the ballot proposition,' the Associated Press takes the entire U.S. drug war strategy and rakes it over the coals. It’s about damn time!" -- After 40 Years, $1 Trillion, US Drug War “Has Failed to Meet Any of Its Goals” by Paul Armentano (AlterNet 2010-05-13).
Recycling Rhetoric: "The term has so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment. 'Sustainable' has been used variously to mean 'politically feasible,' 'economically feasible,' 'not part of a pyramid or bubble,' 'socially enlightened,' 'consistent with neoconservative small-government dogma,' 'consistent with liberal principles of justice and fairness,' 'morally desirable,' and, at its most diffuse, 'sensibly far-sighted'.” -- Theses on Sustainability: A Primer by Eric Zencey (Orion magazine 2010-5/6).Following up on Jon Stewart's brilliant impersonation of Glenn Beck a couple of months back, Lewis Black brings on a diagnosis of Beck's Nazi Tourette's Syndrome:
Or go to The Daily Show.
Budget whoas: Underpinning Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s speech last week on Pentagon spending is an understanding of what Spencer Ackerman calls the "mutually distorting relationship between unsustainable defense budgets and political courage" (Gates Claims Eisenhower’s Mantle, Challenging Pentagon Overspending -- Attackerman 2010-06-08).
Someday, won't we just run out of places to invade?: The House is about to vote on a $33 billion bill "war funding," a euphemism for legislation that will pay for the Obama administration's escalation of the war against Afghanistan that must have George Orwell spinning in his grave. The White House is asking the House to treat the expanded war as a fait accompli. In an excellent account of how we got here, David Swanson asks "how much money are we talking about exactly? Well not enough, evidently, for the teabagging enemies of reckless government spending to take notice. Clearly not enough for the labor movement or any other advocates of spending on jobs or healthcare or education or green energy to disturb their slumbers. God forbid! Yet it's still a sizeable number by a certain reckoning. After all, 33 billion miles could take you to the sun 226 times. And $33 billion could radically alter any non-military program in existence. There's a bill in the senate, for instance, that would prevent schools from laying off teachers in all 50 states for a mere $23 billion. Another $9.6 billion would quadruple the Department of Energy's budget for renewable energy. Now, what to do with that extra $0.4 billion?" Victory at all costs in Afghanistan by David Swanson (Asia Times 2010-05-13).
With friends like these...: "The British government has estimated that 70 percent of the terror plots it has uncovered in the past decade can be traced back to Pakistan. Pakistan remains a terrorist hothouse even as jihadism is losing favor elsewhere in the Muslim world. From Egypt to Jordan to Malaysia to Indonesia, radical Islamic groups have been weakened militarily and have lost much of the support they had politically. Why not in Pakistan? The answer is simple: from its founding, the Pakistani government has supported and encouraged jihadi groups, creating an atmosphere that has allowed them to flourish. It appears to have partially reversed course in recent years, but the rot is deep." -- Terrorism’s Supermarket: Why Pakistan keeps exporting jihad by Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek 2010-05-07).
You think?: "The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy." -- U.S. Approval of Killing of Cleric Causes Unease by Scott Shane (New York Times 2010-05-13).
Be prepared: "In the raw aftermath of a successful attack, it will be very hard for an American president to shift the debate in a more productive and honest direction. Imagine if, after a fatal attack, President Obama responded by proposing greater outreach to Muslim communities domestically and around the world, in an effort to undercut radicalization. That is precisely what we and other nations should be doing, but it would undoubtedly be decried as a weak, starry-eyed reaction by our commander in chief, especially after an attack that revealed deficiencies in our counterterrorism system. But right now, after a near-miss, there is a better opportunity to adjust than in an emotionally charged period when the nation is mourning. Though a good dose of political courage would still be required, it would constitute a major improvement to our debate if leaders could come together now and agree on a few key points about our efforts to battle terrorism." -- The Times Square bomb failed. What will we do when the next bomb works? by Richard A. Clarke (The Washington Post 2010-05-09).
First it was our boys in Afghanistan doing a cover of Lady Gaga. Now, from Iraq, “Watch: Straight Soldiers Show Their Support for Gays in the Military by Dancing to Ke$ha”:
The future's last half century: "Fifty years ago this Sunday, Theodore Maiman and his fellow scientists at Hughes Research Laboratory shined a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod, triggering a beam of coherent light: the first laser.
It wasn’t long before the Pentagon started dreaming up military applications, and futurists were predicting that our soldiers would all get ray guns. Well, not quite. But lasers have revolutionized the U.S. military — changing the way it targets bombs, scares off insurgents, and, yes, blows stuff to bits." Wired's Danger Room remembers some of the greatest hits (and biggest misses) from the first half-century of military lasers. -- 50 Years of Real-Life Ray Guns by Noah Shachtman (Danger Room 2010-05-14).Not on our airwaves leased from the American people you won't: Faux News refused this ad from the progressive veterans organization Vote Vets:
(also available on YouTube). What's doubly odd is that only a few weeks ago they were running an even stronger spot by same outfit.
Present Shock: A new report from Brookings reveals that our nation now faces five “new realities” that are redefining who we are, where and with whom we live, and how we provide for our own welfare, as well as that of our families and communities. In each of these five areas -- growth and outward expansion, population diversification, aging of the population, uneven higher educational attainment, and income polarization -- the nation reached critical milestones in the 2000s that make those underlying realities too large to ignore any longer. And large metropolitan areas -- the collections of cities, suburbs, and rural areas that house two-thirds of America’s population -- lay squarely at the forefront of these trends. -- State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation (pdf) (The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program 2010).
Burke's Without Peerage: Sometime toward the end of the last millennium, Jerry Wexler and I, spending a happy couple of hours sharing music we liked, discovered that both of thought that, if there was such a thing as the greatest soul singer of all time, it was probably Solomon Burke. Still is.
Or go to YouTube.
Saturday Catchup: Some stuff you may have missed
The 'Obama doctrine': Don't detain; kill! by Asim Qureshi (Guardian UK 2010-04-11). George Bush left a big problem in the shape of Guantánamo. The solution? Don't capture bad guys; use drones to assassinate them.
As David Swanson put it, murder is the new torture.
Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear Weapons by Rick Rozoff (StopNATO 2010-04-10). Only one country has the military and scientific capacity and has openly proclaimed its intention to be the world’s sole military superpower. One that aspires to remain the only state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the air, on the seas and in space. To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle groups, jet fighters and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next year.
“Looting Main Street” – Matt Taibbi on How the Nation’s Biggest Banks Are Ripping Off American Cities with Predatory Deals. (Democracy Now! 2010-04-12). The Rolling Stone writer looks at the experience of one small Alabama town and its disastrous dealings with Wall Street: “The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens.”Matt Taibbi is political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. His latest article is Looting Main Street.
“Job Creation” – Stupid Is as Stupid Does by Richard C. Cook (RichardCCook.com 2010-04-06). Many commentators have said, as a joke, that it would have been cheaper if the government had just printed the money and given it away. But such an approach would not be a joke at all. Compared to what actually happened, it would be enlightened public policy.
Brief musical interlude:
A Banana Republic With No Bananas by George Washington (Washington's Blog 2010-04-12). Experts on third world banana republics from the IMF and the Federal Reserve have said the U.S. has become a third world banana republic. Are they right?
How Financial Reporters Create Illusion to Cover Up Wall Street's Scams by Scott Thill (AlterNet 2010-04-13). The corporate media's job is to sell confidence on Wall Street's numbers, rather than tempered or even depressed expectations, no matter how realistic they may be.
The financial crisis: Story Pirates explain it all for you
In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis by Henry A. Giroux (truthout 2010-04-14) | Crucial to a functioning democracy, though "seldom accorded the status of intellectuals that they deserved, they remain the most important component in the learning process for students, while serving as a moral compass to gauge how seriously a society invests in its youth and in the future. Yet, teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards."
How the FCC Can Protect the Internet from Pro-Corporate Judges and Greedy Telecoms (AlterNet 2010-04-15). Net neutrality ensures a fair Internet. The telecom industry has the money and power to make sure that doesn't happen -- but the people (and the FCC) can fight back.
"While the rest of the world spirals into economic degradation, environmental pestilence and complete systems failure of all of the old world models, Lady Gaga reigns above the flames. Pay attention to the lesson. Lady Gaga is the only person prospering in this cultural climate. Therefore she has done something right. She is the necessary evolutionary adaptation to our times and this is why she disturbs people: This is what we must all become. Indestructibly vacant." -- Jason Louv, Lady Gaga & the Dead Planet Grotesque (H+ 2010-03-16).
Here's a story about a remarkable farmer's market in Norfolk, Virginia that offers a blueprint for creating jobs and boosting a local economy:
Cow Tunnels and Manhattan by Nicola (Edible Geography 2010-04-12): Lost infrastructure or urban myth? Plus, I love this graphic:
Image: Subterranean New York City, as diagrammed by National Geographic (where a scale version and bibliography are also available).
Reclaiming Our Hope by Paul Rogat Loeb (The Nation 2010-04-06). "It's been a frustrating time since November 2008, but our challenge is to spend less time bemoaning our disappointments and more energy engaging with ordinary citizens the way so many of us did a year and a half ago. If we give people enough ways to act on our present crises, we never know how history might turn."
I know I keep saying we have to reach out to the Tea Partiers because some of them, at least, are right about the problems we face if completely at a loss about solutions. Any thoughts of a possible alliance between rational people and the TPs goes out the window, however, when you witness what actually goes on at the parties:
Btw, fake teabaggers (sane/normal people) have begun infiltrating tea parties with their own signs. Here are the best signs from a rally on Boston Common.
To clear your head, here's Type O Negative doing Black No 1, their only hit, offered as an antidote to the loony Williams and, also, sadly, a farewell to Type O Neg's frontman Peter Steele who died of heart failure this week at 48.
As David Swanson put it, murder is the new torture.Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear Weapons by Rick Rozoff (StopNATO 2010-04-10). Only one country has the military and scientific capacity and has openly proclaimed its intention to be the world’s sole military superpower. One that aspires to remain the only state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the air, on the seas and in space. To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle groups, jet fighters and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next year.
“Looting Main Street” – Matt Taibbi on How the Nation’s Biggest Banks Are Ripping Off American Cities with Predatory Deals. (Democracy Now! 2010-04-12). The Rolling Stone writer looks at the experience of one small Alabama town and its disastrous dealings with Wall Street: “The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens.”Matt Taibbi is political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. His latest article is Looting Main Street.
“Job Creation” – Stupid Is as Stupid Does by Richard C. Cook (RichardCCook.com 2010-04-06). Many commentators have said, as a joke, that it would have been cheaper if the government had just printed the money and given it away. But such an approach would not be a joke at all. Compared to what actually happened, it would be enlightened public policy.
Brief musical interlude:
A Banana Republic With No Bananas by George Washington (Washington's Blog 2010-04-12). Experts on third world banana republics from the IMF and the Federal Reserve have said the U.S. has become a third world banana republic. Are they right?
How Financial Reporters Create Illusion to Cover Up Wall Street's Scams by Scott Thill (AlterNet 2010-04-13). The corporate media's job is to sell confidence on Wall Street's numbers, rather than tempered or even depressed expectations, no matter how realistic they may be.
The financial crisis: Story Pirates explain it all for you
In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis by Henry A. Giroux (truthout 2010-04-14) | Crucial to a functioning democracy, though "seldom accorded the status of intellectuals that they deserved, they remain the most important component in the learning process for students, while serving as a moral compass to gauge how seriously a society invests in its youth and in the future. Yet, teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards."
How the FCC Can Protect the Internet from Pro-Corporate Judges and Greedy Telecoms (AlterNet 2010-04-15). Net neutrality ensures a fair Internet. The telecom industry has the money and power to make sure that doesn't happen -- but the people (and the FCC) can fight back.
"While the rest of the world spirals into economic degradation, environmental pestilence and complete systems failure of all of the old world models, Lady Gaga reigns above the flames. Pay attention to the lesson. Lady Gaga is the only person prospering in this cultural climate. Therefore she has done something right. She is the necessary evolutionary adaptation to our times and this is why she disturbs people: This is what we must all become. Indestructibly vacant." -- Jason Louv, Lady Gaga & the Dead Planet Grotesque (H+ 2010-03-16).Here's a story about a remarkable farmer's market in Norfolk, Virginia that offers a blueprint for creating jobs and boosting a local economy:
Cow Tunnels and Manhattan by Nicola (Edible Geography 2010-04-12): Lost infrastructure or urban myth? Plus, I love this graphic:
Image: Subterranean New York City, as diagrammed by National Geographic (where a scale version and bibliography are also available).
Reclaiming Our Hope by Paul Rogat Loeb (The Nation 2010-04-06). "It's been a frustrating time since November 2008, but our challenge is to spend less time bemoaning our disappointments and more energy engaging with ordinary citizens the way so many of us did a year and a half ago. If we give people enough ways to act on our present crises, we never know how history might turn."
I know I keep saying we have to reach out to the Tea Partiers because some of them, at least, are right about the problems we face if completely at a loss about solutions. Any thoughts of a possible alliance between rational people and the TPs goes out the window, however, when you witness what actually goes on at the parties:
Btw, fake teabaggers (sane/normal people) have begun infiltrating tea parties with their own signs. Here are the best signs from a rally on Boston Common.
To clear your head, here's Type O Negative doing Black No 1, their only hit, offered as an antidote to the loony Williams and, also, sadly, a farewell to Type O Neg's frontman Peter Steele who died of heart failure this week at 48.
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