What is patriotism?
A veteran asks Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (who is challenging Sen. Ted Cruz): Do you share my frustration when NFL players kneel during the anthem?
Recorded at the August 10, 2018 at Senate campaign town hall in Houston.
Why the U.S. Should Provide Universal Basic Income
America is the richest civilization in history. Why, then, are our living standards so low compared to those of other wealthy democracies? A universal basic income would help close the income inequality gap, eliminating poverty and increasing opportunity for all Americans.
David McReynolds 1929-2018
R.I.P.:
✓ David McReynolds: Peace Movement Titan Is Gone by Chuck Fager (A Friendly Letter).
✓ David McReynolds, socialist, photographer, and lifetime WRL member, passes at 88 by Ed Hedemann (War Resistors League).
✓ David McReynolds:Socialist Peacemaker by Paul Buhle (Nonviolent Activist).
✓ A socialist presidential candidate — no, not that one — looks back by Joseph Mulkerin (The Villager).
End: Less War
The Long War has dragged on for nearly two decades, with huge losses in lives and wealth inflicted on countries suffering our attention, but also at great cost to American citizens.
In Yemen alone, for example, since the beginning of the conflict there, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least 40,000 wounded, mostly from air raids; the collateral deaths from damage to the infrastructure (hospitals, especially) and from "non-lethal" actions such as blockades and sanctions (from starvation, cholera, etc.) is immeasurable. This is just another illegal and immoral war racking up war crimes on our tab, crimes against humanity that have gone on far too long.
And yet there is no peace movement in the United States. Neither moral outrage nor the costs to the nation in lives, in quality of life and in reputation and influence has been enough to strike a spark of resistance.
What is wrong with us?
Must read: The War on Peace by Tino Rozzo (The Dissident).
A parody by a master, and a master parodied.
A take on the great Walt Kelly by the great Wally Wood in a Mad Magazine parody of Pogo from 1961.
The President of the United States hosts bikers at the White House
Donald J. Trump tries on his tough face:
These guys are perfect. Central Casting couldn't have done a better job.
Maybe if you never call a war a war, you never have to call peace peace.
North Korea wants a peace treaty before beginning denuclearization. South Korea wants a peace treaty, period. The U.S., which conducted the war in violation of the U.S. Constitution, is still resisting.
How the U.S. Helped Prevent North Korea and South Korea From Reaching Real Peace in the 1950s by Michael Pembroke (Time)
quote unquote
Man: "Well, baby, now we're poor again."
Woman: "No, we're BROKE again. We were already poor."
-- Overheard at Santa Fe Savers check-out.
Must read: War, war and more war
The War Party, comprised of nearly all Republicans and most Democrats, manipulated by the security-industrial state and the Pentagon, the craftiest lobbying operation inside the Beltway, must be stopped. Nothing can be fixed -- infrastructure, housing, health care, poverty, social services, the environment -- until military adventurism is brought to an end.
On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting slate of senior officers and politicians and editorial-page hawks, the wars have continued in varied forms and under different rationales each and every year since passenger jets struck the World Trade Center in 2001. They continue today without an end in sight, reauthorized in Pentagon budgets almost as if distant war is a presumed government action.The rest of the story:
The Pentagon’s failed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan left a generation of soldiers with little to fight for but one another: War Without End by C.J.Chivers (New York Times).
Down-ticket
California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom has amassed a massive money pile since starting his campaign more than three years ago. His total is nearly five times that of Republican John Cox.
Newsom can't lose.
Why isn't that dough being passed along to Democrats in tight congressional races?
Ron Dellums, R.I.P.
A Real News interview with Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig, discussing Congressman Ron Dellums, who died recently of cancer. He was elected in 1971 to represent California's 13th District and was an unrelenting warrior for peace and civil rights. He launched Vietnam war crimes investigations, stood with the Black Panthers, and he was singled out by Nelson Mandela as being integral in the US for helping to end apartheid.
"Denialism...
"...is more than just another manifestation of the humdrum intricacies of our deceptions and self-deceptions. It represents the transformation of the everyday practice of denial into a whole new way of seeing the world and – most important – a collective accomplishment. Denial is furtive and routine; denialism is combative and extraordinary. Denial hides from the truth, denialism builds a new and better truth."
The rest of the story:
From vaccines to climate change to genocide, a new age of denialism is upon us. Why have we failed to understand it? Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth by Keith Kahn-Harris (The Guadian)
The rest of the story:
From vaccines to climate change to genocide, a new age of denialism is upon us. Why have we failed to understand it? Denialism: what drives people to reject the truth by Keith Kahn-Harris (The Guadian)
Talk about mixed messages
"Do you have a story to share about Santa Monica, California?" asks an ad promoting tourism to Santa Monica. "Perhaps it’s about your first visit or something memorable you experienced. Submit it for a chance to win an electric bike."
Motorized vehicles are prohibited on the municipal bike path, but
Here's what the City's code says:
"3.12.550 Bike-path and beach promenade. "(a) It shall be unlawful to ride a bicycle or to coast in any vehicle upon the Beach Promenade; bicycle riding shall be permitted along the beach bike-path, within the City limits and in those areas where the Promenade constitutes a portion of the bikeway and are otherwise permitted by sign. All persons riding bicycles on the bike-path shall comply with all lawful signs and directional markings, including, but not limited to, painted, directional arrows, bike-path route boundaries, and signs designating permissible travel lanes. "(b) It shall be unlawful to operate a pedicab upon the beach bike-path.The City, despite its recent move against Bird scooters and their ilk, is seriously deficient in its maintenance of the bike path. Segways, Vespas, etc., are routine. Signage is confusing when it isn't wrong, misleading or absent. No effort whatsoever is made to control pedestrians and dogs. And pedicabs routinely troll for customers along the bike path, blocking traffic when people get on and off.
"3.12.560 Prohibited vehicles. "In the area where bicycle riding is permitted by Section 3.12.550, no vehicle of any type shall be permitted except unicycles, bicycles, bicycles with training wheels, wheelchairs, and single-person tricycles operated by a person eighteen years of age or older."
It's a tribute to the City's pr flacks that it has a reputation as pro-bicycle and pro-pedestrian.
Something to think about.
According to the National Education Association, the average salary of teachers in U.S. public schools has declined by 4% since 2008. At the same time, according the the National Center for Education Statistics, 94% of teachers spend their own money on school supplies, at an average per teacher of $479 per school year.
We'll always have Florida.
Or not.
"Forget sharks; hookworms are lurking at the beach. Sharks will tear open your flesh. Jellyfish will double you over in pain. And now, another villain has joined the list of threats at the beach. Beware of hookworms lurking in the sand. A teenager from Memphis was attacked by hookworms after his friends buried him in the sand at Pompano Beach, his mother says." -- Florida Sun Sentinel
"Forget sharks; hookworms are lurking at the beach. Sharks will tear open your flesh. Jellyfish will double you over in pain. And now, another villain has joined the list of threats at the beach. Beware of hookworms lurking in the sand. A teenager from Memphis was attacked by hookworms after his friends buried him in the sand at Pompano Beach, his mother says." -- Florida Sun Sentinel
Should we let go of Roe?
With Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court short-circuited the political debate that we needed to have about abortion if the issue was ever to be successfully terminated. It appears that the court is about to short-circuit debate again, with untold harm befalling countless women and families. But
Required reading:
✓ "How can someone who calls herself pro-choice oppose Roe v. Wade? Let me count the ways: Let Roe Go by Megan McArdle (Washington Post).
Extra credit:
✓ Europeans may have stricter abortion laws, but Americans have less abortion access: Abortion Is Different in Europe Because Religion Is Different in Europe by Amanda Marcotte (Slate).
✓ Why Is the US Still Hung Up on the Abortion Debate? A Bioethics Perspective by George Dvorsky (io9).
✓ Leo Varadkar vows legal terminations by end of year after huge vote for change: Ireland votes by landslide to legalise abortion (Guardian).
✓ A proposed law to ban abortion outright has sent thousands of Poles onto the streets, coat hangers held aloft and drawn on posters -- a long-standing symbol of dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions: 'Coat Hanger Rebellion' Grips Poland by Cassandra Vinograd and Eva Gallica (NBC News)
Without Diana Ross, The Supremes couldn't cut it
But the Supremes without Anthony Kennedy won't change a whit. So he hit a few left notes right: he was no moderate.
Three Blue Dog Democrats, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, met with Donald Trump at the White House last week, along with GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, and judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley, to discuss the president's plans to pack the Supreme Court with reactionary ideologues.
So far they claim to be in wait-and-see mode, all having raised doubts about whether they would vote for a nominee with a record of opposition to Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act.
But talk is cheap: Donnelly, Manchin and Heitkamp all crossed the aisle last year to support Rightist blowhard now-Justice Neil Gorsuch, as terrible an appointment as anyone Trump is likely to unearth.
The Democrats have the power to shut down the Senate until they get a satisfactory compromise nominee or the election happens, whichever comes first. Or, for that matter, to achieve any other goal they're serious about (DACA, say).
For Democrats, unfortunately, being able to do something and doing something are two very different matters.
Or: they could hold out for changes to the terms of judges. The primary argument for lifetime appointments, judicial independence, a horse that escaped from the barn years ago, is as well served by single terms longer than a president's two. If justices were limited to 12-year appointments, say, they would still be independent, but you would no longer have the incumbent party trying to control the judiciary decades after it has left office.
An interesting sidebar is what should happen to the terms of justices currently ensconced on the court that exceed the new limit, especially since removing them simultaneously would require also that several new judges be appointed at once. But in politics everything is negotiable. There is nothing impractical in working out a formula to dispose of the longest-serving justices (who are Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer and Alito, the latter, conveniently, having been there 12 years) if their removal supported the intention of the reform.
With the promise of more turnover, any single appointment would be less fraught. The Democrats would lose the opportunity to influence this court seat, but by forcing a change to termed justices they might make future appointments less contentious for being less momentous.
Extra credit:
✓ If Democrats refuse to participate in roll call votes, the Senate will come to a halt for lack of a quorum: How Democrats can shut down the Senate by Gregory Koger (Vox/Mischiefs of Faction).
✓ Quorum-breaking can be very disruptive but does not provide a long-term option for blocking a Supreme Court nomination: How Democrats can shut down the Senate, part II by Gregory Koger (Vox/Mischiefs of Faction).
✓ How can someone who calls herself pro-choice oppose Roe v. Wade? Let me count the ways: Let Roe go by Megan McArdle (Washington Post).
✓ “Massive numbers of women resisted the law” -- a historian on life before Roe: The secret lives of women before Roe v. Wade by Rickie Solinger (Vox).
✓ A testy exchange with Dianne Feinstein helped make a former Notre Dame law professor a favorite of conservatives: How Amy Coney Barrett vaulted onto Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist by Eliana Johnson (Politico).
✓ Humans are living longer. That means judges are serving longer, too: It’s Time to Retire Lifetime Appointments for Supreme Court Justices by Adrienne LaFrance (Slate).
Three Blue Dog Democrats, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, met with Donald Trump at the White House last week, along with GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, and judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley, to discuss the president's plans to pack the Supreme Court with reactionary ideologues.
So far they claim to be in wait-and-see mode, all having raised doubts about whether they would vote for a nominee with a record of opposition to Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act.
But talk is cheap: Donnelly, Manchin and Heitkamp all crossed the aisle last year to support Rightist blowhard now-Justice Neil Gorsuch, as terrible an appointment as anyone Trump is likely to unearth.
The Democrats have the power to shut down the Senate until they get a satisfactory compromise nominee or the election happens, whichever comes first. Or, for that matter, to achieve any other goal they're serious about (DACA, say).
For Democrats, unfortunately, being able to do something and doing something are two very different matters.
Or: they could hold out for changes to the terms of judges. The primary argument for lifetime appointments, judicial independence, a horse that escaped from the barn years ago, is as well served by single terms longer than a president's two. If justices were limited to 12-year appointments, say, they would still be independent, but you would no longer have the incumbent party trying to control the judiciary decades after it has left office.
An interesting sidebar is what should happen to the terms of justices currently ensconced on the court that exceed the new limit, especially since removing them simultaneously would require also that several new judges be appointed at once. But in politics everything is negotiable. There is nothing impractical in working out a formula to dispose of the longest-serving justices (who are Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer and Alito, the latter, conveniently, having been there 12 years) if their removal supported the intention of the reform.
With the promise of more turnover, any single appointment would be less fraught. The Democrats would lose the opportunity to influence this court seat, but by forcing a change to termed justices they might make future appointments less contentious for being less momentous.
Extra credit:
✓ If Democrats refuse to participate in roll call votes, the Senate will come to a halt for lack of a quorum: How Democrats can shut down the Senate by Gregory Koger (Vox/Mischiefs of Faction).
✓ Quorum-breaking can be very disruptive but does not provide a long-term option for blocking a Supreme Court nomination: How Democrats can shut down the Senate, part II by Gregory Koger (Vox/Mischiefs of Faction).
✓ How can someone who calls herself pro-choice oppose Roe v. Wade? Let me count the ways: Let Roe go by Megan McArdle (Washington Post).
✓ “Massive numbers of women resisted the law” -- a historian on life before Roe: The secret lives of women before Roe v. Wade by Rickie Solinger (Vox).
✓ A testy exchange with Dianne Feinstein helped make a former Notre Dame law professor a favorite of conservatives: How Amy Coney Barrett vaulted onto Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist by Eliana Johnson (Politico).
✓ Humans are living longer. That means judges are serving longer, too: It’s Time to Retire Lifetime Appointments for Supreme Court Justices by Adrienne LaFrance (Slate).
Øبيبتي ، بيبي ، تقود سيارتي.
Palestinian cellist Naseem Alatrash and Syrian singer Nano Raies produced this rendition of the Beatles’ 1965 song “Drive My Car” to celebrate of the lifting of the Saudi women’s driving ban. Alatrash arranged the piece, arabizing it both lyrically and vocally, while Raies provided the vocal. ref
Aspirational thought o' the day
When Andrés Manuel López Obrador presides in Mexico, Jeremy Corbyn is British prime minister, and Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is president of the United States, what a better world this will be.
Youth is irrepressible
Palestinian youth performing the Palestinian Dabkeh on the border under the close watch of Israeli snipers.
Fun Fact
"The Teddy Bear was invented in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. On a bear hunting trip in Mississippi, Roosevelt's hunting party cornered a Louisiana black bear, then tied the bear to a willow tree and suggested that the President shoot it. Viewing this as extremely unsportsmanlike, Roosevelt refused to kill the bear. Political cartoonist Clifford Berryman heard the story and drew a cartoon celebrating the President’s decision. A Brooklyn candy shop owner by the name of Morris Michtom saw the cartoon and decided to create a stuffed toy bear and dedicate it to the president who refused to shoot a bear. He called it Teddy's Bear and children have been enjoying them ever since." -- doi.gov
Central America: So far from God...
...so near to the United States.
How much of the refugee crisis in the Americas is caused by our own actions?
And at least one more, in Venezuela, almost certain soon to come.
"The four countries discussed in this report [see, below], Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, share a history as well as contemporary social and economic characteristics. The Spanish colonial period, which lasted from the early sixteenth century until 1821, laid certain institutional foundations whose legacies are still in place. Two legacies stand out: concentration of land in the hands of a small powerful elite and the exploitation of the indigenous labour force. The economies of all four countries are dominated by a handful of extremely rich families while the overwhelming majority is socially marginalized, economically and politically excluded, and suffers the lacerating effects of poverty, racism and discrimination. Moreover, the bloody internal conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s produced large-scale displacement, economic hardship, and debilitating fear. The recent surge of everyday violence rips into the most vulnerable, but society as a whole suffers from the instability resulting from the failure to reign in criminal activity.
"The new gang-related violence can be attributed to several factors including decades of internal wars and impunity, extensive displacement to urban areas, the absence of social and economic programmes to integrate the youth, the migration to the United States, and the over all social exclusion of a large proportion of the population. The continuation of death squad violence and the expansion of the drug trade is a reflection of the absence of the rule of law as well as the continued links between these clandestine organizations and the military and other power elites.
"The harsh response to the variety of gang activities in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras has proved ineffective. While the problems are real, the government and the press find it more expedient to target the gangs and street children for virtually all the rampant violence in the society. In response, many citizens support draconian anti-gang laws and self-help “social cleansing” practices. In the process, the more powerful clandestine organized crime units tend to be overlooked, in part because of the links, influence and control they exercise at various institutional levels in the governments. Nicaragua, while the poorest country in Central America, has fewer gangs and less violence and its government’s alternative approach to rehabilitate and integrate gang members into society has been much more successful.
"Violence against women is an extremely serious problem. These crimes are seldom solved or punished, creating further fear and vulnerability among women. Crimes against homosexuals are less identified and are also likely under-reported. Politically motivated violence against party workers, human rights defenders, and professionals dedicated to investigating and bringing to justice those responsible for these crimes, especially in Guatemala, has seen an alarming rise. The judicial system and the police have proved largely to be ineffective. The serious instability and danger resulting from violence and the failure of national protection leads to displacement and migration out of the country, especially to the United States. These undocumented migrants live in limbo with the increasing threat of deportation back to the country they fled, often in fear for their lives."
From Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua): Patterns of Human Rights Violations (pdf) by Beatriz Manz (University of California, Berkeley) commissioned by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Status Determination and Protection Information Section (DIPS) (Writenet Independent Analysis).
Writenet is a network of researchers and writers on human rights, forced migration, ethnic and political conflict.
See image larger.
(Resource: GreenNet is not-for-profit collective, established in 1985, providing internet services, web design and hosting to supporters of peace, the environment and human rights.)
How much of the refugee crisis in the Americas is caused by our own actions?
"The four countries discussed in this report [see, below], Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, share a history as well as contemporary social and economic characteristics. The Spanish colonial period, which lasted from the early sixteenth century until 1821, laid certain institutional foundations whose legacies are still in place. Two legacies stand out: concentration of land in the hands of a small powerful elite and the exploitation of the indigenous labour force. The economies of all four countries are dominated by a handful of extremely rich families while the overwhelming majority is socially marginalized, economically and politically excluded, and suffers the lacerating effects of poverty, racism and discrimination. Moreover, the bloody internal conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s produced large-scale displacement, economic hardship, and debilitating fear. The recent surge of everyday violence rips into the most vulnerable, but society as a whole suffers from the instability resulting from the failure to reign in criminal activity.
"The new gang-related violence can be attributed to several factors including decades of internal wars and impunity, extensive displacement to urban areas, the absence of social and economic programmes to integrate the youth, the migration to the United States, and the over all social exclusion of a large proportion of the population. The continuation of death squad violence and the expansion of the drug trade is a reflection of the absence of the rule of law as well as the continued links between these clandestine organizations and the military and other power elites.
"The harsh response to the variety of gang activities in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras has proved ineffective. While the problems are real, the government and the press find it more expedient to target the gangs and street children for virtually all the rampant violence in the society. In response, many citizens support draconian anti-gang laws and self-help “social cleansing” practices. In the process, the more powerful clandestine organized crime units tend to be overlooked, in part because of the links, influence and control they exercise at various institutional levels in the governments. Nicaragua, while the poorest country in Central America, has fewer gangs and less violence and its government’s alternative approach to rehabilitate and integrate gang members into society has been much more successful.
"Violence against women is an extremely serious problem. These crimes are seldom solved or punished, creating further fear and vulnerability among women. Crimes against homosexuals are less identified and are also likely under-reported. Politically motivated violence against party workers, human rights defenders, and professionals dedicated to investigating and bringing to justice those responsible for these crimes, especially in Guatemala, has seen an alarming rise. The judicial system and the police have proved largely to be ineffective. The serious instability and danger resulting from violence and the failure of national protection leads to displacement and migration out of the country, especially to the United States. These undocumented migrants live in limbo with the increasing threat of deportation back to the country they fled, often in fear for their lives."
From Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua): Patterns of Human Rights Violations (pdf) by Beatriz Manz (University of California, Berkeley) commissioned by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Status Determination and Protection Information Section (DIPS) (Writenet Independent Analysis).
Writenet is a network of researchers and writers on human rights, forced migration, ethnic and political conflict.
See image larger.
(Resource: GreenNet is not-for-profit collective, established in 1985, providing internet services, web design and hosting to supporters of peace, the environment and human rights.)
quote unquote: Molly Ivins
I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag. -- Molly Ivins
It's sad, when you stop to think about it.
Here we are.
In a revolutionary moment.
And we have no revolutionaries.
It's good to be the king...
Having one, less so.
The Founders intended the legislature to be preeminent, with the President largely an administrator (and the Supreme Court a referee), but over time Congress has ceded far too many of its responsibilities and far too much of its power to the executive, until we have reached the point where what we have is a sort of serial monarch, one chosen -- because of Citizens United and other electoral corruptions -- by the nobles, like a Polish King. And although we still have a more or less (mostly less) functioning legislature, our king has vastly more power than any constitutional monarch among his contemporaries.
How we make our way back to truly representative democracy is the most central political question of our times.
The Founders intended the legislature to be preeminent, with the President largely an administrator (and the Supreme Court a referee), but over time Congress has ceded far too many of its responsibilities and far too much of its power to the executive, until we have reached the point where what we have is a sort of serial monarch, one chosen -- because of Citizens United and other electoral corruptions -- by the nobles, like a Polish King. And although we still have a more or less (mostly less) functioning legislature, our king has vastly more power than any constitutional monarch among his contemporaries.
How we make our way back to truly representative democracy is the most central political question of our times.
We have met the enemy and he is us (with apologies to Walt Kelly)
Ironically, given our long and sordid history of meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations, regime change in the U.S. is now a reasonable foreign policy goal for our former allies.
Party poopers
“Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.” -- Alexander Hamilton, 1787While at present political parties are practical mechanisms for the expression of political intentions, for average citizens allegiance to party -- partisanship -- is self-defeating.
It was the existence of independent concentrations of power and influence, especially labor unions, national associations (such as the NAACP) and, on the local level, social clubs, that gave ordinary people muscle in the long struggle for economic and social justice.
Restoring such organizations must be part of any long-term reform of our democracy.
“If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” -- Thomas Jefferson, 1789
There's more going on than the Russia investigation, Stormy Daniels, and pee tapes
"He succeeded in dragging the Republican Party into the White House with a minority of the votes. And this is a Republican Party that is one of the most radical mainstream political parties in all of American history, perhaps with the exception of the pro-secessionist Democrats at the time of the Civil War. And they’ve been in there, they’ve been implementing a rightist revolution, doing the massive transfer of wealth in part via the tax bill, but also an important part by systematically, agency by agency, trying to gut the constraints on large corporations and the oligarchs, regarding the environment, their treatment of labor, their ability to discriminate, their ability to commit fraud without fear of being sued by the public, increasing the rights of rich individuals to intervene in politics, decreasing the rights of collectives of working people to intervene in politics, like the Gorsuch-led Supreme Court decision just the other day, inhibiting the ability of workers to file class-action lawsuits against their employers.
"It’s a systematic program that’s been in the works since 1980, really. In a sense, it dates back to the old Powell memorandum, where Powell, who later joined the Supreme Court, said we, the representatives of the rich, we’ve got to fight back against this new environmental movement, against this consumer movement, against the labor movement, and also implicitly against the Civil Rights movement. 'These people have been making too many gains, we’ve got to organize ourselves.'
"And they did!"
The rest of the story:
Allan Nairn On How Trump Dragged a Rightist Revolution to Power by Jeremy Scahill (The Intercept)
"It’s a systematic program that’s been in the works since 1980, really. In a sense, it dates back to the old Powell memorandum, where Powell, who later joined the Supreme Court, said we, the representatives of the rich, we’ve got to fight back against this new environmental movement, against this consumer movement, against the labor movement, and also implicitly against the Civil Rights movement. 'These people have been making too many gains, we’ve got to organize ourselves.'
"And they did!"
Allan Nairn On How Trump Dragged a Rightist Revolution to Power by Jeremy Scahill (The Intercept)
Advice
"Leap Before You Look"
The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.
The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.
The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.
Much can be said for social savoir-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.
A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.
-- W. H. Auden
quote unquote: J. M. Keynes
“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.” ― John Maynard Keynes
What's wrong with this picture?
2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than for military service members. You are safer in our various and sundry war zones than you are in school.
"Running, With Confidence, to Topple a Dictator"
"Election in Venezuela Looms as Crossroad for Democracy." -- N.Y. Times headline and subhead, front page, 2018/05/18
Put it this way: a foreign leader is a dictator if the Times isn't pleased with him or her. An election is "democratic" only when it achieves the outcome the Times desires.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, an act of economic warfare, to influence the outcome.
We've been down this road dozens of times in Central and South America. It never works out well for the country targeted by our bullying.
Put it this way: a foreign leader is a dictator if the Times isn't pleased with him or her. An election is "democratic" only when it achieves the outcome the Times desires.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, an act of economic warfare, to influence the outcome.
We've been down this road dozens of times in Central and South America. It never works out well for the country targeted by our bullying.
Our long-running political theater of the absurd
Closing soon?
When Scott Pruitt is fired he will be replaced by his deputy, Andrew Wheeler (not incidently a coal lobbyist and former aid to Jim Inhofe, the Senate’s most prominent denier of climate change), who will calmly, efficiently, and unostentaciously proceed along the same course as Pruitt, polluting air and water, trashcanning regulations, shutting down enforcement, highjacking public lands, and generally undermining 70 years of hard-won progress on the environment.
The system will have worked, however: the corrupt and "extremist" Pruitt will be banished (but, not to worry, he will in all certainty spin through the revolving door to a high-paying precinct from which he will pester his former employees for special treatment for the same industries he currently -- nominally -- regulates).
The same dynamic will follow Donald Trump's departure. We will be told ad nauseum that our "exceptional," "democratic" system of checks
 |
| Dan Wasserman twitter@wassermantoons |
If the system worked, it hardly needs to be said, we wouldn't have a Pence or a Trump in the first place. Nor for that matter, would we be burdened with elected officials like blue dog Democrats Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly who helped to deploy Andrew Wheeler for his assault of the environment.
Extra credit:
✓ If scandals oust Pruitt, Andrew Wheeler is an ex-coal industry lobbyist pledged to end the ‘pure hell’ of Obama regulations: Scott Pruitt's new EPA deputy could surpass boss in scrapping protections by Oliver Milman (The Guardian)
✓ The US election and the systematic failure of modern politics by Benjamin Farrand (Critical Legal Thinking)
What does he think, drone pilots grow on trees?
Barack Obama made a point of criticizing electronic devices in a commencement speech to more than 1,000 graduates and thousands of their family and friends gathered on the football field at Hampton University, a historically black college in
"Obama said today’s college graduates are coming of age at a time of great difficulty for the United States. They face a tough economy for jobs, two wars and a 24/7 media environment not always dedicated to the truth, he said.
"Added to the mix are the distractions offered by popular electronic devices that entertain millions of Americans.
“'With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,' Obama said."
The rest of the story:
Obama criticizes iPods & iPads; Xboxes & PlayStations -- Reuters news story.
Resource:
Your Empire At Work
Does anybody know if our honorable client-state, Saudi Arabia, has crucified (sic) Ali al-Nimr, the teenager so sentenced last year?
He was only 17 years old when he was condemned to death by crucifixion (sic) for participation in an illegal demonstration and for a large number of other offences, including “setting up a page on his Blackberry with over 800 people, naming it ‘The Liberals,' with the goal of inciting demonstrations by way of sending pictures of the demonstrations, their time/locations and inviting people to participate"?
I can't find any follow-up coverage in the press, although there are plenty of happy and not-so-happy stories about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his efforts to "stabilize" the Saudi monarchy.
For instance, have they yet chopped the head off Mujtaba al Sweikat, the 17-year-old arrested, at the airport on his way to matriculate at the University of Western Michigan, for “supervising” a group on Facebook and “photographing the demonstrations, which is punishable according to the cybercrime bill”? And has the disabled teenager Munir Al-Adam been beheaded yet for his participation in Arab spring protests?
All these executions would be crimes under international law, by the way. Any word from Turtle Bay or The Hague?
--
Postscript: Despite a deadly war he is waging against neighboring Yemen, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been awarded 'Personality of the Year' for his role in “uniting and protecting” the Muslim community.
He was only 17 years old when he was condemned to death by crucifixion (sic) for participation in an illegal demonstration and for a large number of other offences, including “setting up a page on his Blackberry with over 800 people, naming it ‘The Liberals,' with the goal of inciting demonstrations by way of sending pictures of the demonstrations, their time/locations and inviting people to participate"?
I can't find any follow-up coverage in the press, although there are plenty of happy and not-so-happy stories about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his efforts to "stabilize" the Saudi monarchy.
For instance, have they yet chopped the head off Mujtaba al Sweikat, the 17-year-old arrested, at the airport on his way to matriculate at the University of Western Michigan, for “supervising” a group on Facebook and “photographing the demonstrations, which is punishable according to the cybercrime bill”? And has the disabled teenager Munir Al-Adam been beheaded yet for his participation in Arab spring protests?
All these executions would be crimes under international law, by the way. Any word from Turtle Bay or The Hague?
--
Postscript: Despite a deadly war he is waging against neighboring Yemen, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been awarded 'Personality of the Year' for his role in “uniting and protecting” the Muslim community.
When you hear the word "reform"...
...reach for your gun.
The most pointed irony of the DCCC/DNC interventions in California, specifically, is that here the party leadership is being hoist on its
own petard. They colluded in a "reform" effort led by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to lock insurgents and independents out of general elections by limiting the final contestants to the top two vote getters in open primaries, assuming they would be the establishment picks from each party. Now the party bosses are forced to intervene to protect their pre-washed, pre-shrunk, pre-approved, corporate-friendly choices from an army of progressive challengers and angry Democratic voters.
The rest of the story:
✓ Fearing Chaos, National Democrats Plunge Into Midterm Primary Fights by Alexander Burns (New York Times).
✓ Democrats consider attacking their own California candidates to win back Congress by Emily Cadei (Sacramento Bee).
Reading list:
✓ Unintended consequences of California’s open primary by Martin Wiskol (Orange County Register).
✓ California GOP should embrace open primary system: Orange County Register editorial 2017/10/22.
✓ The political parties would like voters to kill California's top-two primary system in 2018 by John Myers (Los Angeles Times).
✓ The defining characteristic of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for too many years has been its well-honed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: Texas Progressive Laura Moser Is Beating Democratic Insiders by John Nichols (The Nation).
✓ While this article is mostly true, it would be fairer to say that, after 30 years of Democratic missteps, the chickens came home to roost during Obama's stay in office: The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama Presidency. Here's Why by Mara Kiasson (NPR).
✓ Instead of campaigning on issues that reform-minded voters care about, the DCCC is going after a GOP “culture of corruption.” Once again, elect us because we're not them. It worked then. But not since. Will it work now?: Democrats Look To Their Successful 2006 Messaging In Bid To Retake The House by Amanda Terkel (Huffington Post).
Extra credit:
✓ Maybe they can hire the lawyers who won the Citizens United case: DNC Lawyers Argue ‘Primary Rigging’ Is Protected by 1st Amendment (Liberty Headlines).
The most pointed irony of the DCCC/DNC interventions in California, specifically, is that here the party leadership is being hoist on its
 |
| Drew Shebeman—Tribune Media |
"The approach is laced with peril for a party divided over matters of ideology and political strategy, and increasingly dominated by activists who tend to resent what they see as meddling from Washington. A Democratic effort to undercut a liberal insurgent in a Houston-area congressional primary in March stirred an outcry on the left and may have inadvertently helped drive support to that candidate, Laura Moser, who qualified for the runoff election next month."The same thing is happening across CA where the party establishment's chronic distrust of voters is leading them to make the same mistakes that have cost them countless seats in local, state and congressional races (not to mention Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton) since the 1990s.
The rest of the story:
✓ Fearing Chaos, National Democrats Plunge Into Midterm Primary Fights by Alexander Burns (New York Times).
✓ Democrats consider attacking their own California candidates to win back Congress by Emily Cadei (Sacramento Bee).
Reading list:
✓ Unintended consequences of California’s open primary by Martin Wiskol (Orange County Register).
✓ California GOP should embrace open primary system: Orange County Register editorial 2017/10/22.
✓ The political parties would like voters to kill California's top-two primary system in 2018 by John Myers (Los Angeles Times).
✓ The defining characteristic of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for too many years has been its well-honed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: Texas Progressive Laura Moser Is Beating Democratic Insiders by John Nichols (The Nation).
✓ While this article is mostly true, it would be fairer to say that, after 30 years of Democratic missteps, the chickens came home to roost during Obama's stay in office: The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama Presidency. Here's Why by Mara Kiasson (NPR).
✓ Instead of campaigning on issues that reform-minded voters care about, the DCCC is going after a GOP “culture of corruption.” Once again, elect us because we're not them. It worked then. But not since. Will it work now?: Democrats Look To Their Successful 2006 Messaging In Bid To Retake The House by Amanda Terkel (Huffington Post).
Extra credit:
✓ Maybe they can hire the lawyers who won the Citizens United case: DNC Lawyers Argue ‘Primary Rigging’ Is Protected by 1st Amendment (Liberty Headlines).
On Hanging Together
Some claim I'm a pessimist.
Not true.
I'm an optimist.
Things always turn out worse than I predict.
This is a post from 2015, titled "Block the Kochs":
Not true.
I'm an optimist.
Things always turn out worse than I predict.
This is a post from 2015, titled "Block the Kochs":
When Dylan sang "Your old road is rapidly agin'/Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand/For the times they are a-changin'," he was sending out a warning to the establishment of the day, the old order, the holders of the reins of authority, the guardians of business-as-usual.2015 seems like a long time ago.
And the times changed all right, just not the way he predicted. Now, it is we the people who need to heed the warning. The counter-revolution is nearly over. The oligarchs' final victory is around the next turn of the road. Despite the valiant resistance of individuals all over the planet, there are still too few willing to lend a hand. Difficult as it will be, we have to find the way to collective action.
"We must all hang together," Franklin said, "or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Potted history, episode #947
We exited WWII with the most powerful military in the world and didn't demobilize, making a quick and seamless transition to neocolonialism and Korea. Surely, the existence of the Soviet Union was a boon, but the Reds were more of an excuse than a threat; in accounts of the Cold War it is clear that the Kremlin was usually playing catch-up when it came to escalation. A world map of the 1950s shows the Soviets surrounded by American bases and surrogates, not the other way around (Russian screwing with Cuba was an example of playing catch-up, however feebly). Long before the fall of The Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, we were engaged in military adventurism around the globe, the sorriest example being Vietnam. Luckily for the military-industrial complex, 9/11 and The War of Terror arrived in time to keep the global network of military outposts and franchises thriving.
Rule of Law
Ex-CIA chief Mike Pompeo says the president has authority launch missile strikes without congressional action: "I don't think that has been disputed by Republicans or Democrats throughout an extended period of time."
Sen. Rand Paul: "Actually, it's disputed mostly by our Founding Fathers."
Sen. Rand Paul: "Actually, it's disputed mostly by our Founding Fathers."
Experience
“I use those skills every day.” -- deputy minority leader Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), on being the only former preschool teacher in the Senate.
Budget deficit. So what.
Liberals and progressives need to think twice about making an issue of deficits. The federal debt, per se, is not a problem. If the government uses deficit spending to invest in the nation's future prosperity, as it must and should, we would not have a complaint. What needs to be attacked is our retrogressive tax system, corporate welfare, and military waste and adventurism. Deficit funding -- of efficient and economically competitive infrastructure; health care; lifetime education (not just pre-K to college and technical school, but skill-maintenance and retraining to avoid obsolescence); housing; and guaranteed basic income -- would be a bargain in the long run. Fetishizing the federal deficit runs the risk of making needed spending too expensive politically.
Bookkeeping
Spend like there is a tomorrow.
Liberals and progressives should be wary of making an issue of deficits, despite the imbalance resulting from the GOP's hypocritical tax cuts. The federal debt, per se, is not a problem. If the government used deficit spending to invest in the nation's future prosperity, as it must and should, there would be no occasion for complaint. What needs to be attacked is our retrogressive tax system, corporate welfare, and military waste and adventurism. Deficit funding -- on efficient and economically competitive infrastructure; health care; lifetime education (not just pre-K to college and technical school, but skill-maintenance and retraining to avoid obsolescence); housing; and guaranteed basic income -- would be a bargain in the long run.
Israeli troops shoot 750 Palestinians at Gaza border
Ready-made movie pitch, spotted in Harper's.
A clinical lecturer in surgery at Imperial College London proposed a scenario wherein “an Oedipus-like individual exposed to a Gödel closed timelike curve would sire a child during his maternal fertilization cycle. As a consequence of heteropaternal superfecundation, he would father his own dizygotic twin and would therefore generate a new class of autofraternal superfecundation, and by doing so creating a ‘twin-father’ temporal paradox."
Netflix will grab it in a New York minute. You're welcome.
Must read: If MLK were alive today, his words would threaten most of those who now sing his praises
A radical man deeply hated and held in contempt is recast as if he was a universally loved moderate.
"The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King’s courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs.
"In this brief celebratory moment of King’s life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King’s strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives."
Martin Luther King Jr was a radical. We must not sterilize his legacy by Cornel West (Guardian).
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