The Janus in March

Ioz writes…

Link

“Iran is not some fictive evil empire; its rulers are not Mings the Merciless. It's a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as America is a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as all nations and all peoples are,…”

This is a basic truth and in fact I would go on to say that the average American has much more in common with the average Iranian than either one has in common with their respective leaders. You could almost divide the world into two parts, the leaders and those they rule. Pundits have often bemoaned that if only people paid more attention to politics or if only people were better educated that everything would be so much better but I seriously doubt it. Education is nothing more than an extension of the indoctrination of the average schmoe into the slavery of democracy and capitalism as well as the wonderfulness of the parent state. And why should people pay attention to politics? What good would it do them in their struggle for survival? Do they really have any choice in the matter? Looking at Obama and his opponents in the next election it seems clear that there is no choice, it’s more like buying a car where the only choice is which color you like best. The car will be identical no matter which color you pick. Red state, Blue state.

I think people who view Obama as weak, dazed, and backs down too easily in the face of Pentagon generals and people like Netanyahu are completely mistaken. In the last election his main backers were the Wall Street crowd and Obama bailed them out in what has been said to be the largest transfer of wealth from the masses to the wealthy in the entire history of the nation. Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan as he promised he would. Another large backer of Obama was the insurance industry and Obama helped them out as well with his “reform” stipulating everyone must purchase health insurance or be liable to stiff fines. He proclaimed that the health insurance companies would have new customers like Moses coming down from the mountain with his tablets, marching orders from God. This in the face of a public who wanted something entirely different.

Yes, there are all his broken campaign promises but he ditched those not because he was weak but because he wanted to. All presidents have sought to retain their power and to enhance it wherever they could with war often being the vehicle. This in effect has snowballed as each new president has inherited powers from the previous president and then added more and what we are left with is a presidential office that wields extraordinary powers and a congress that is a broken reed, or a useless organ like the human appendix which acts only as a money laundering operation or perhaps more accurately like a whore house. Give them money and they will pass any legislation without shame or remorse. And they do pretty much what the president wants them to. Recall Bush’s invasion of Iraq after 9/11. The vast majority of them fell over themselves in their eagerness to give Bush a blank check in war. Today, Obama didn’t even bother with congress rather sought the approval of the UN who does his bidding anyway in the American led invasion of Libya. One could say Bush at least paid lip service to the idea that only congress can send us to war. Obama didn’t even bother with that for he felt secure in his vast powers as president.

Looking at this election I see a Republican Party that has lost the presidential election before they even began to campaign in earnest. A more unlikely bunch of weirdoes, misfits, and losers, is difficult to imagine. They make past Republican presidents look like paragons of reason and logic. George W. Bush looked better even when dressed in his silly flight suit landing on the deck of a carrier. Obama must be laughing as he sizes them up. Their whole reason for being seems to be a determined effort to re-elect Obama with each asinine utterance that they continually blast out each one more ridiculous than the last.

From where I sit Obama rules this nation with an iron fist and does exactly as he pleases beholding to nobody except the money men that put him in the Oval Office. His supporters continue to believe Obama would do otherwise if only the Republicans would not thwart him. His opponents continue to accuse him of weakness in the face of his decree that he can murder anyone anywhere at any time answerable to nobody but himself and the result is that both sides have it wrong. Whatever one may think of his actions it is a fatal mistake to believe that Obama isn’t doing exactly what he wants to do.

28 September 2011 Oliver Sacks etc

via Skeptical Eye.

Matt Brownell, The Street, "The Most Corrupt Members of Congress"
09/26/11 - 01:10 PM EDT

Two from the Boston Review:

Jeanne Mansfield, "Why I Was Maced at the Wall Street Protests"

Alexander B. Downes, "Regime Change Doesn’t Work"

Pepe Escobar, "The collapse of neoliberal capitalism"

The murder of Valerie Percy

NYT obit of her father, Charles Percy of Illinois, who died recently. Percy was one of the last liberal republicans, and Eisenhower's protegé. His daughter's 1966 murder is still unsolved.[via]

Pat Boone vs Tony Bennett

above: Tony Bennett and Howard Stern, via Youtube and The Atlantic(!)

and below: "Singer Pat Boone insists Obama born in Kenya"
By Laura Donovan - The Daily Caller





From Wikipedia's entry on the Twilight Zone:

Throughout the 1950s, Rod Serling had established himself as one of the hottest names in television, equally famous for his success in writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned the censorship frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 production The Arena, intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."

Well, that was then. Naturally we have no idea what GWB said to Tony Bennett, but the idea that he would have deliberately told him he was wrong about invading Iraq, knowing Bennett's political disposition, seems pretty plausible. It is reminiscent of the feeding of seamy scuttlebutt to J. H. Hatfield, what with his checkered past and money problems, that he would write Fortunate Son so it could be subsequently yanked and discredited, as opposed to allowing lingering questions to linger. It probably helps that Bennett's 80 plus, although he sounds pretty lucid to me.

...

Helle yeah

Photo: Mogens Engelund



This is from Friday's Wikipedia news feed:

Helle Thorning-Schmidt (pictured) is designated to become the first female Prime Minister of Denmark after a centre-left opposition coalition wins the Danish parliamentary election.

At the US Open tennis tournament, Novak Djokovic wins the men's singles and Samantha Stosur wins the women's singles.

The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the first civilian nuclear power facility in the Middle East, officially begins operating in Iran.

Please forgive the punny title, but now it's out of my system and I feel better. I know next to nothing about Mrs Thorning-Schmidt, although this Reuters item is tentatively encouraging about her views. In the US we've become accustomed to our prettier distaff politicians espousing all sorts of irresponsible varmintry, so I hope the Danes will be luckier both in her words and her deeds.


...

31 August 2011

Cenk Uygur,th' Young Turks: Banks Got Free Money From Fed

Uygur's argument about bonuses is a bit silly, although by now it's conventional wisdom for many. The federal government should not have forbade big bonuses for CEOS but rather substantially increased the taxes on such payouts, including a hike ( say, to 45% or higher) in the tax on incomes over 5 million for those CEOs, and all other incomes in that region, bankers and others. Also, they could have taken over some real estate holdings from the banks in exchange for the bailout dollars, and sold them to sounder, smaller banks. Wealthy Americans are undertaxed in general, not just bankers, and Obama (and the 2009-2010 democrats in general) decided to be part of that ongoing problem, at precisely the time when they had the most favorable conditions to overhaul the tax code and make it more progressive.



Rakesh Raman, Why You Must Not Compare Anna Hazare with Gandhi

I don't know if Raman is right in asserting that Gandhi was unconditionally against violence, as opposed to preferring nonviolence when it was possible, but recognizing that there might be circumstances where it was not.


BDR pondered who the dems would run in 2016 if Obama loses. I commented:

I say Russ Feingold '16, if he's willing to hug enough bankers. Feingold would be valuable as a measure of co-opting optics. Just like converting Kucinich's 'no' vote on the Healthcare Reform Will Get You Act of 2010 was valuable, lest some normals furrow their brows and try to figure out why a lefty would oppose it. They needed Dennis K's vote, if not mathematically, then thematically.

Additional thoughts: I wrote that because I couldn't help but note that if anybody could have usefully challenged Obama from the left in the primaries it was Feingold. At this point Kucinich is probably regarded as too old, and as a two-time loser.

Ted Kennedy challenged Carter in 1980 and actually made it a race for a while, but today as our politics become increasingly tribal something like that seems impossible. Whatever you think of Kennedy, if anybody tells you that he cost Carter re-election, recall what happened to a certain military operation in the Iranian desert on April 24th, 1980.

Duncan Mitchel, "The Trouble With Privilege Is That Everybody Doesn't Have It"


2 pajama-clad girls take stolen goat for walk
"Everything went according to plan for two pajama-clad stepsisters who took a goat they'd freed from a Minnesota zoo for a late-night walk..."

I may have linked to a different site discussing this same study before:

Upper-class people less empathetic than lower-class people: study | The Raw Story

People from different economic classes have fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world, according to research recently published in Current Directions in Psychological Science. [...] “One clear policy implication is, the idea of nobless oblige or trickle-down economics, certain versions of it, is bull," Keltner added.

Slate, "People Always Say You Should Invest Like Warren Buffett. Here's Why You Can't"

Adam Kessler | Cognitive dissonance, the Global Financial Crisis and the discipline of economics [note: pdf link]

I consider the social-psychological concept cognitive dissonance as the best explanatory framework for understanding this response. Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that when real-world events “disconfirm” deeply-held beliefs this creates psychological discomfort in persons...

Or, denial is a river, with flowcharts n' copious statistics.

What Caused the Financial Crisis? Don’t Ask an Economist


Business Insider, "Here's The Bomb That Might Blow A Hole In Bank Of America"

CNN: "U.S. ranks low for newborn survival"

The GOP War on Voting | Rolling Stone Politics

Norway killer tied to drugs, the Tea Party and the libertarian conspiracy:

Peter Dale Scott -- poet, U.C. Berkeley professor and former Canadian diplomat -- has written a fascinating analysis of the mass killings committed by Anders Breivik, which he views as a "deep" event. "Deep" is Scott-speak for "conspiratorial," although he operates on a wavelength very different from that of the conspira-cranks who gravitate toward Alex Jones.

Boingboing.net: "Ayn Rand took government assistance while decrying others who did the same"

Sibel Edmonds, "Politicians aren’t as Incompetent as They Seem"

25 August 2011

Koch Responds To Buffett: ‘My Business And Non-Profit Investments Are Much More Beneficial To Society'

America’s current tax system forces people making $50,000 a year to pay a higher rate than hedge fund managers making $2.4 million an hour. Warren Buffett penned an op-ed last week declaring that America’s super-rich have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.”

By way of counterpoint and context, there's Moon of Alabama's post linked below, with some cold water regarding Warren Buffet's alleged awesomeness. The devil's in the details, as is usually the case.
M of A - Buffet Is Lying On "Future Promises"

It would make sense, and save a lot of problems, if the U.S. would tax capital gains at the same rate as income form a regular job...

Two from Raw Story:
1. "Ron Paul suggests spending cuts could lead to riots"

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to make deep cuts to spending and entitlements, but he’s worried there might be European-style riots in the U.S. if he gets his way. “I see the anger building and problems getting worse,” Paul told Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Wednesday.

Ron Paul is a problematic figure for me. He generally comes down on the correct side with respect to civil liberties matters and his critique of the security state, as well as regarding our extensive network of military bases all over the world. But Paul and his son are pretty eager to tear down the social safety net, even as they have both made a lot of dough from collecting medicaid payments in their medical practices. Above all, do no harm. Or not.

2. John Dean rips Cheney’s memoir: It displays his ‘authoritarian personality’


Then and now, MLK and Malcolm X; I have a feeling Rob Payne and Duncan Mitchel were unaware of each other's similarly themed essays, both worthwhile, illustrating a similar theme drawn from different material:

Rob Payne: Forgetting MLK, "We cherry pick the past in order to cherry pick the present"

Duncan Mitchel:"He Who Controls the Past Controls the Future"


Dave Anderson, "Austerity kills"
Rachel Tabachnick, Talk2Action, "What is it About Uganda? Bachmann Campaign Faith-Based Organizer Arrested There in 2006"
(via Jay Taber, "Christian Dominion")



The Onion, "Report: At This Point, Most Americans Feel More Comfortable In Dying Economy" August 23, 2011 | ISSUE 47•34

"You get used to sending 50 resumés into the void each day and having them all go unanswered," said Mary-Lee Jones, 46, of Cleveland, who later called the enduring unlikelihood of ever finding employment "her rock." "The emotional trauma of not knowing if or when I'll work again has just become a regular part of my life. Honestly, not living on the knife's edge of poverty might make me a little anxious."

The report also found that many take comfort in the dependable stream of ominous fiscal predictions in the media, particularly in seeing, on a regular basis, the weary face of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the cover of major newspapers, accompanied by giant bold letters announcing the dollar's latest slide.

"Even if the economy did start to make a miraculous recovery, all that would happen is I'd get my hopes up and then, boom, it would collapse again like it always does"...

"You know, this used to be a helluva good country"

Excerpt from Easy Rider[video link]

Yes, Easy Rider is dated. And the idea that long hair represents rebellion seems quaint, because most or all of the signifiers of rebellion and discontent from the 1960s have been co-opted for marketing purposes, to sell perfume or cars or mutual funds, etc.

Ian Welsh, "What the Debt Limit Crisis Should Have Taught You", July 31


Arthur Silber, "Tell Me Again: Who's the Stupid/Weak/Incompetent One?" August 1st


Zachary Karabell, Time: "The U.S. is not drowning in debt", July 15th

20 July 2011

This is old, and the language is arguably a bit hyperbolic. All the same, I couldn't help but remember this essay when I heard of the "Gang of Six" and Obama's fondness for their plan, because it sounds like it could be discussing BHO as easily as it's about GWB:


Clear-cutting the middle class, By H.N. Arendt, 2003


The Gang of Six plan supposedly reforms the tax code by removing one or two token tax breaks intended for wealthy executive types, while it lowers the top tax rate from 35% to 29%, or even less, and does away with the AMT. And, oh yeah, it cuts social security. On the news on TV they're saying it will raise an extra trillion in revenue over 10 years.

This is garbage of course, as the raging deficit they've made so much fuss about will only get worse, under such a scheme and there will be less revenue, not more. But for the sake of a breezy narrative on a 30 minute nightly newscast with commercials, the networks just need to compare it to the "Cut, cap, and balance" plan to make it seem like they're covering the story fairly. One imagines at least some of the reporters realize this is a crock, and that both plans are designed to head the US towards a fate like Greece's. I wonder, because the human tendency to believe what you are compelled to promote is also strong.

(Some of these are from June; I'm catching up.)
Man Robs Bank for $1 To Get Health Care in Jail


Pelosi's wealth grows by 62 percent

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saw her net worth rise 62 percent last year, cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress. Pelosi was worth at least $35.2 million in the 2010 calendar year, according to a financial disclosure report released Wednesday. She reported a minimum of $43.4 million in assets and about $8.2 milion in liabilities.

Euronews.net: Budget cuts leave UK ‘unable to hold Falklands’


Guardian: Secret US and Afghanistan talks could see troops stay for decades

Robert Bonomo, "Who's Afraid of Ron Paul?"


Ben Doherty, The Age, "Fasting becomes weapon of choice for the disaffected"

Apparently hunger strikes by dissidents are 'aggressive', and they upset Mr. Doherty, who writes:

Ninety years on, the realpolitik of hunger is forefront in India. Fasts are common practice. They are effective, they draw public attention and force opponents to act. But also, they leave governments paralysed. Affairs of state and social reform are held hostage to one person's caprice.

And,From earlier today: Ian Welsh asks, “will I crawl on my belly, will I fight, or will I try to make a separate peace?”

Piers Morgan vs Louise Mensch

Added On July 19, 2011
CNN's Piers Morgan tackles British MP Louise Mensch, who accused him of admitting to phone hacking.

Update July 20th,2011, with a newer link, below.


Speaking of news organizations making it difficult to embed their videos, as I was the other day, it seems CNN is transitioning to a new and supposedly improved system which won't offer the embed codes. You'd think they'd appreciate bloggers who make their clips available to people who otherwise avoid watching teevee. I guess not.

This, I guess, is what it takes to get CNN to stop taking about Casey Anthony: The Aftermath. (Cue the reverb.)

As you may know, members of the US Congress are also protected from litigation regarding things they say on the house or senate floor as British MPs are, but can you imagine an American pol taking an American marquee journalist to task the was Louise Mensch does with Piers Morgan? Maybe it has happened, but I'm pretty sure it's been a while. I haven't read the book she refers to and have no idea of the veracity of her assertions, but naturally my curiosity is now aroused. Speaking of appreciating people, you'd think Morgan would appreciate Mensch calling attention to his book, instead of trying to bait her into saying something litigation worthy, which is what he seems to be doing. (Incidentally, I think the UK laws on slander make it even easier to successfully sue somebody than those here.)


I wonder if her colleagues ever refer to her as The Mensch.

Update: there's a recut version of the previous video here. This time it has Morgan mentioning his book by its title; I don't know if he did so in his entire conversation with Mensch, but the snippets from the previous version of their exchange did not feature this. And of course both are very brief, so neither may include the entire exchange. At any rate there's a lot less of her talking in this second version.

Cheap date

55ella2007k, a video blogger* I've linked to once or twice before,

calls attention to this dKos diary[ video link] from one Giles Goat Boy:

"President Answers Collective Bargaining Question with Right-wing Talking Points"

Here's a sample from his essay:

GGB:I said all through the Wisconsin protests that we did not need President Obama to come here to validate our movement. I said he needed us more than we needed him. It wasn't a criticism. I truly believed that we could handle this without the distraction of having the President walking the picket line with us. I thought it was strategically smart to keep him away. I still believe that.

I assumed he would do his part in Washington and elsewhere to fight for the right to collectively bargain. I thought he had our backs. Apparently he has been taken in by some truly ridiculous Fox News-style talking points. That's what I find disappointing. Here is his answer, with the truthy parts highlighted:

BHO:The first thing I want to emphasize is that collective bargaining is the
reason why the vast majority of Americans enjoy a minimum wage, enjoy weekends, enjoy overtime. So many things that we take for granted are because workers came together to bargain with their employers.

GGB:Uh, oh. He's praising the Labor movement first. Here it comes...

BHO:Now, we live in a very competitive society in the 21st century. And that means in the private sector, labor has to take management into account. If labor is making demands that make management broke and they can’t compete, then that doesn’t do anybody any good.

When I read something like this I am often skeptical, given the kind of mental contortions I've seen people do to rationalize voting for and still supporting Obama after the abundant evidence he's offered to anybody paying attention that he's just a corporate shill. In no particular order:

1.He has to say what he says because of how far right the country has drifted;

1b. because of the viciousness of the press, especially Fox News,

2. he's playing 'eleven-dimension-chess', deftly out-maneuvering his opponents,

3. he has to keep the Blue Dogs happy, or they'll bolt for the GOP,

4. I voted for him without illusions, because a more liberal candidate wouldn't have been viable, etc.


In Goat Boy's case, this bit stood out:

"I assumed he would do his part in Washington and elsewhere to fight for the right to collectively bargain. I thought he had our backs. Apparently he has been taken in by some truly ridiculous Fox News-style talking points."

So Goat Boy belongs to yet another camp, the one that believes that BHO is an impressionable naif. Michelle, don't let him watch so much teevee! I suppose if he's naive that explains why he doesn't seem to see any contradiction in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and ramping up the war in Afghanistan, or starting one in Libya; presumably this would vex a more sophisticated sort of person.

Ella opines that maybe Goat Boy will be banned from Daily Kos for daring to criticize the president and pointing out that BHO sounds like he's essentially sympathetic with the goals of the GOP regarding worker's rights because the people who run dKos generally don't take kindly to lefties who rock the boat for team democrat. But I don't think he has too much to worry about, regarding possibly getting kicked off dKos. Maybe she didn't see this from the Kos comments(there were over 200):

I rec'd the diary, but can't tip the jar. (78+ / 0-)


At some point we progressives are going to have to ask ourselves, "How does guaranteeing our vote for those that don't represent us effect change?"
"What does 'holding accountable' mean?" To all those who whine, "But, look what happened in Wisconsin," I say, "Look what is HAPPENING in Wisconsin!"

by WisePiper on Thu Jul 07, 2011 at 11:54:36 AM PDT

That's cool. (20+ / 0-)

My decision is based on a number of factors including the way our government is structured. I'll vote for him, but I understand why some people won't.It's not that easy being green.

by Giles Goat Boy on Thu Jul 07, 2011 at 11:59:06 AM PDT

******


Yes, WisePiper, at some point progressives are going to have to ask themselves, "How does guaranteeing our vote for those that don't represent us effect change?"

Who can doubt this? Nobody!

And Goat Boy**, it's very big of you to understand why some people won't vote for Obama. I hope you understand why BHO couldn't care less about your opinions.





*or vlogger, if you insist.
**I wanted to create a sock-puppet commenting identity over at Kos as 'John Barth' and demand my title back , but it seemed like too much bother.

Not your friends

A common trope among lefty bloggers is the complaint regarding how stupid and mentally lazy ordinary Americans are supposed to be. I don't read conservo blogs terribly much, but I wouldn't be surprised if you occasionally see it there too, although I imagine it would be coming from a different angle, maybe invoking rich liberals who have illegals tending their kids while they text their brokers, spending their money on the Bejing stock market destroying American jobs and so forth.

My impression, however, is that the US media works incessantly to misinform and confuse regular people, who still depend on television to get most of their news, with vagueness and "optics" and regurgitated spin. The major US news portals aren't particularly liberal so much as they are corporatist, although upon occasion they tilt a little this way, then a little the other way for apparent balance. (Fox News tilts to the left by periodically inviting Dennis Kucinich on the air and not yelling at him.) The cumulative effect is an endorsement of the two-party system and the star politicos, even if this is done obliquely, with puffery, extolling smart, hard-working officials who know what they're doing even if they don't always agree.

For example, if you watched Thursday night's CBS broadcast you might be forgiven if you didn't realize that Obama had signaled his cave-in on cutting social security.

Anchor Scott Pelley and Chip Reid had this exchange towards the end of the segment[4:20-4:40]

Pelley: Is the White House insisting on cuts in social security?

Reid: No they are not, Scott. The White House is saying that social security is on the table for discussion, simply because everything has to be on the table for discussion, but they are not pushing hard for cuts...

Oh well, at least they're not pushing hard. Don't you feel better? Maybe Cantor and Boehner and the rest of the Republican leadership aren't pushing to cut social security, and Obama is just agreeing to talk about it. Who's pushing? Nobody! Maybe regular people are in fact stupid, or at least awfully impressionable, if they buy this. Do they? You can't tell by watching the TV what other viewers might think, although it seems pretty clear that the TV people do regard the viewers as stupid. And if you're not stupid, they'd really like you to be.

Maybe most people don't follow the news that closely, and just rely on general impressions, and certainly the CBS report [video link] seems designed to soothe and reassure the viewer that the professionals are in charge and there's nothing to worry about.


For some reason I'm reminded of the scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life in which Eric Idle comes out of a refrigerator and sings a song to persuade a poor old lady to give up her liver, in the "live organ transplants" bit.

[NOTE: video may not be 'work-safe' due to Monty Pythonish naughty images.]





Pelley didn't ask Chip Reid if tax hikes for the wealthy were "on the table"(surprising, huh?) but then he didn't have to, because the administration has been calling closing a few small loop-holes "tax increases" which suggests a tax rate increase, and CBS and the rest of the corporate media has been going along with that. Presumably the "grand deal" being hinted at will be designed to offset any revenue from those loop-holes being closed with lower tax rates, negating the effect of any increased revenue that might otherwise go towards lowering the deficit. Why? Because it's not about paring the budget deficit, but looting the government while it's still solvent, on behalf of their benefactors.

Obama wants to capitulate to the GOP. He's made vague noises about raising taxes on wealthier people back to where they were in the 1990s during the Clinton administration, but he folded in December of 2010 so there's no reason for the Republicans to be scared of him. And most democratic commentators, at least the ones who get any significant face time on television, will insist that democrat voters have to support Obama, otherwise, those horrible republicans, etc...

But it's not just television reporting that does this. Here's Jamelle Bouie, The Nation:

With Entitlements on the Table, Obama Plans to Go Big on a Budget Deal

What does this mean for liberals? Well, they can complain and attack Obama—they’ve already begun—but criticism from the left has yet to budge the president, and it’s doubtful that this time will be any different. Demonstrations sound great, but they don’t actually carry a high chance for success; if your only option for changing the political calculations of a president is protest, then you’re probably too late to the game. Likewise, a primary campaign against Obama sounds like it might work, but outside of activist circles, there is little appetite for a challenge. The Democratic establishment is satisfied with President Obama, and will work to ensure his reelection.

Indeed, given the importance of presidential elections, Obama will be able to count on organization and support from every member of the Democratic coalition. Moreover, if a deal comes through, it will probably help him with independents, who support modest reductions in entitlement spending.

Simply put, liberals don’t have much leverage over the Obama administration, which, unfortunately, makes our concerns—and our anger—a second-order consideration at best.

(Or, behave yourselves and don't cause trouble for Obama, or Michele Bachmann will get you.)

And there's Andrew Leonard at Salon,

"Social Security is not on Obama's hit list":

The president knows that Republicans won't agree to the revenue increases necessary for a "grand bargain"

(the original title, per the url, was apparently "Reasons not to panic on Obama and Social Security")


Glenn Greenwald's discussion is more useful. And, as Ian Welsh points out, the warnings that Obama would do something like this have been telegraphed for quite some time.

For my part I imagine Barry is hoping that people are more likely to remember early July 2011 as the time when the Casey Anthony verdict came out rather than the time when he agreed to cut social security. He's getting help with that. Whether it's the reporters or the politicians, they are reading from the same memo. They extol bipartisanship, or at least reasonableness, and they seem like such nice people. But they are not your friends.


See also, Ian Welsh, "Obama's Personality"(including 'dandelion's' comment)

5 June 2011

RSA video: Barbara Ehrenreich, "Smile or die"(above)

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa,"Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything?"

Paul Craig Roberts:"The Default Specter as Political Theater"


OBL video fake?

The slow(er) boat to hell

[video, above] Tenebroust, The "left" sets up the "right" for takeover, Feb 15, 2010 (1st posted at DH here, "Fascism USA...")

Ian Welsh: "A blast from the past and a reminder about the future", April 24, 2011

Obama is not turning things around, what he is doing is negotiating with Republicans how fast the decline will be, and how much and how fast it is necessary to fuck ordinary Americans in order to keep the rich rich. If Obama wins another term, he will continue to negotiate the decline, then, odds are very high, a Republican will get in, and slam his foot on the accelerator of collapse.

Chris Hedges, "The corporate state wins again", April 25, 2011

The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour.

Xymphora: "Hell or heaven", April 29, 2011

I'm getting sick and tired of these elections fought by the left on the basis of promising to take you on the road to hell, but a little slower than the other guys. This is killing the Liberals in the current campaign, as they have nothing positive to offer but that they are not the utter hopelessness of Harper.

First of all, no, I am not saying that Hedges and Xymphora are just filching from Ian Welsh, nor am I saying that Ian is filching from Tenebroust. (It's highly unlikely the other three have even heard of Tenebroust, who is not, er, conventionally articulate. (although I suspect he could be if he wanted to be, but just doesn't feel like it.))The same idea can spring up roughly simultaneously in many places.(incidentally, I gather that Tenebroust and Welsh are both cautiously pro-nuclear power, while Hedges and Xymphora are both steadfastly anti-nuke.)

At any rate, to me it seems that one of the reasons an idea spontaneously springs forth in divers minds may be because it is increasingly valid. (I was tempted to say 'increasingly resonant' but I'm getting tired about hearing about how ideas and spin 'resonate', and didn't want to contribute to the din.)

If you can recall other instances of having seen this line of argument please email me, or better yet tell me in the comments.

The Unseen

from a Facebook page(the names have been changed , as you probably guessed):

Thora Larson
Do I consider myself a liberal? In the sense of being broad-minded, I do. (Of course, even the word Republican does not mean the same thing it did 100 years ago.) I do play devil's advocate, and I am an instigator of free thinking. The people who are in power (and I am talking about the Unseen, not the seen) are not Immoral so much as Amoral...they work on a whole different playing field as you or I.
2 hours ago


Guy Witherspoon and 4 others like this.

John Davenport: Well put my dear
8 hours ago ·

Doreen Cantwell: feelin' it
3 hours ago

Lori Griffith: Pretty much had this same discussion with a friend today about the Unseen as you put it. Couldn't agree
more.
3 hours ago

Natalie Stephenson: Tune in, drop out.
3 hours ago

Guy Witherspoon: So you are saying that the "Unseen" are people?
2 hours ago

Thora Larson: People who do not bring attention to themselves in the limelight as rich and powerful...not GHOSTS bwahhh!

about an hour ago

Terri Ortega: Very well said!
about 18 minutes ago

Sandy Roberts
‎"They thrive on our misery. They are the eaters of souls." In Their gestalt what happens to or with Us is inconsequential.
17 minutes ago

Vonda Washington: I want to eat their souls and thrive on their misery.
12 minutes ago

Maybe it's not cricket to post this, even with the names changed, because outside of "FB" a different audience may look at the sentiments posted uncharitably, and if the real "Thora Larson" or some other person associated with this thread saw this in this different context maybe they would regard their own words differently. In Facebook people tend to do a lot of sarcastic blathering and don't necessarily mean what they say. It's practically expected, cool distancing irony being the mode du jour on Facebook for most participants in most public contexts, at least as far as I can tell. I posted this partly because it makes me think of the perennial schism between voters saying in polls that they distrust government and have a poor impression of the congress, et al, and the tendency of incumbents to get re-elected, over and over, as well as the tendency to see 'change', whether the Obama-copyrighted variety or any other, to always be a question of replacing the D with and R or the R with a D, or the D with another D, etc. I also wonder how many of these people voted for Obama and possibly disapprove of some of the things he has actually done, and yet still support him. And don't you wonder how do they feel about all those darn Wikileaks, making so many hitherto unseen things seen?

(Incidentally, why are "the Unseen" amoral? Isn't suggesting the Unseen operate under a different moral code, or beyond a moral code altogether, in effect saying they are some kind of Randian supermen, and we should sentimentalize them and be in grudging awe of them? Can't people who do immoral things be, in fact, immoral people? Is it uncouth or unseemly to suggest this?)

Having said that, I'll admit I find the concept of the Unseen fascinating. I suspect a lot of people look at things like this, and Thora Larson is onto something. It sounds a little like a medieval incubus, that surreptitiously sneaks into a maiden's chamber at night, as opposed to the strapping young lad next door. I suppose a Tea Partier might regard, say, George Soros as a manifestation of "the Unseen", while some liberal-ish progressive who reads Talking Points Memo or Digby might see the Unseen as the Koch brothers. Does one have to be right, and the other wrong, in order to properly think about these things? What if they're both wrong, or even worse, both right? And once you've seen the Unseen, then what do you do?

The Unseen also sounds an awful like "Don't hate the player, hate the game", something some tediously hip person once said, which always sounded to me like an excuse, accepting corrupt behavior in a system without examining one's complicity, nor the complicity of others who are seen.

Finally, to me the Unseen suggests a sort of Star Chamber to which politicians must go to get their instructions, and all we can possibly do is....vote for them, time and again. After all, it's not their fault for occupying the offices they hold, and doing the things they do, they're trying their best, but the Unseen are too powerful to resist. And it's not our fault for voting for them. We did the best we could, with the choices we were offered.



"U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show"


Glenn Greenwald, "Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating"


Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian, "Meltdown: not just a metaphor"

BHO is not MLK

Linh Dinh, March 2011(via John Caruso):

Suave, articulate and personable, Obama is proving to be just as deadly as Bush, but clearly more cynical. A great, loyal tool of the establishment, Obama has dampened protest from American liberals. Though they know he has betrayed them, they’re reluctant to show appropriate outrage because, not that long ago, they have cheered and wept for him so openly.

Ian Welsh,

1.December 2010, "Obama isn’t about compromise"

Let me put it even more baldly. Obama is, actually, a bad man. He didn’t do the right thing when he had a majority, and now that he has the excuse of a Republican House he’s going to let them do bad thing after bad thing. This isn’t about “compromise”, this is about doing what he wants to do anyway, like slashing social security. The Senate, you remember, voted down the catfood comission. Obama reinstituted it by executive fiat.

and 2, October 2010, "Repudiating Liberalism or Obama"



***

Virtually every day there is something in the news that reminds me of my revulsion for Barach Obama's administration, and how he has come to personify for me the sense that we live in Upside Down World. The age of Obama is an age in which a president can

1.announce the expansion of a war on a backward and essentially defenseless country (and subsequently be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize),

2. obligate millions of poor people to buy healthcare coverage, as a gift to the private insurance companies,

3.make plans to strip-mine social security,

and have besotted and hoodwinked millions hail him as their Great Liberal Hope while millions of others are convinced he's a socialist, secretly African, and possibly even the Antichrist.

As far as I can see both groups of millions are deluded and easily fooled, not necessarily because of stupidity per se, so much as a hunger to believe convenient things that square with their fears and prior beliefs, and don't require much work to sort out. OK, a dose of stupidity also helps.

While I see Obama as a champion con man and a right wing corporate stooge much as Ian Welsh, John Caruso, and Linh Dinh (and many others) do, I sometimes wonder if I have lost my objectivity. I have wondered in the past if Obama's apparent fondness for deliberately ironic bad timing was just a product of my imagination. For example, in late 2009 I wondered if he delayed announcing whether or not he would approve a "surge" of troops in Afghanistan until just before he was due in Norway to accept his peace prize partly in order to pair the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli of the two events, like Pavlov's warmongering dog, hoping to encourage people to associate Obamawar, his own special brand, with peace and humanitarianism. War is peace, freedom is slavery, etc. Was I being too harsh, and seeing links that weren't there? I wasn't sure.

Strictly speaking, the fact that Obama decided to formally announce his 2012 reelection bid today, on the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King jr's assassination, doesn't necessarily corroborate my suspicion, nor does it prove BHO's narcissism, or even that he takes black people for granted. But it does disgust me.

(I note also that in terms of linking events deliberately, the administration chose today to announce that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would get a military trial.)

the Mystery of Obama-ism, pt 1

Alan Silverleib,CNN, "Senate GOP pledges to block all bills until tax dispute resolved"

Nancy Cordes, CBS News, "Unemployed Face Holidays Without Gov't Benefits":
"Tough Choices:" Congress Wrestles with How to Pay for Extending Benefits as Intensity Grows on Debate over Bush-Era Tax Cuts



The republicans are practically giving him the 1990s government shut down shadow-play all over again. It should be a slam dunk for ole Barry, right? Disavow the deficit commission's recommendations, and call the GOP's bluff regarding making the extension of unemployment benefits deficit neutral, linking it to a tax hike on the over 250k set that he winks at and supposedly demonizes. The full-throated, anti-bizarro world argument that raising taxes may actually raise revenue, especially when levied on people who have a lot of it, hasn't been made in a while. But you'd think it wouldn't be a hard sell, right?

But if you are remotely sentient you know he isn't going to do it. I see no point in blaming the tea partiers, they've already done their damage. Obama wants to lose this battle. A while back Rob Payne and I argued about his intelligence, Rob arguing that I was wrong to see Obama as amoral but smart, basically arguing that he was amoral but not very bright- and I'm beginning to think Rob is right. A smarter Barry would realize that if all he does is capitulate eventually this will hurt his re-election chances, and you'd think he'd stop fantasizing about Saint Reagan for just a bit, not for our sakes but just to save his political neck. But I'm guessing he wont see it that way, and obeying the oligarchs who installed him will be more important to him, so the welfare state strip mining project will continue on schedule.


Ruth Calvo, WaPo Writer Blames Public for Unemployment
via Avedon Carol.


Rob Payne, "Every Year"

"Federal Reserve's 'astounding' report: We loaned banks trillions"

Are you stupid? Why not?

update below.

Friday evening I had just finished reading Kollapsnik's "America- the grim truth" as the CBS evening news came on. Ireland seems to be coming apart at the seams, there is a potential war brewing in Korea, but the headline story was about Obama busting his lip. The second story was about how the stores were doing with the so-called Black Friday shoppers. Over the years I've come to believe that news portals like the CBS, ABC, NBC, the cable news networks, and even to some extent the fancier print news portals like the New York Times and the Washington Post are engines of stupidification, designed to persuade you to either give up on your fellow man and woman as irredeemably stupid, or even join in the fun and be stupid yourself, heeding the sirens calling you, to buy stuff and quit moping.

Mind you, I don't automatically think we're all that stupid, but suggestibility, like practically everything else, must exist on a continuum. Some people just don't buy it, some buy it a little bit, some don't buy it but are resigned to 'the way things are' and are convinced everybody else buys it(so hey, quit complaining!). And some people rely on figuring out what others believe to be true before they decide which bandwagon to jump on, making their minds fertile ground for the media to plant seeds of consumerist blather. There are still other gradations, and I may have gotten the order wrong, but you get the idea. I also see the media as a kind of "forgetting machine" designed to make sure that every new event and every news cycle is unrelatable to the past, that historical context is for suckers.

Not too long ago Ian Welsh wrote that we did not face any problem we couldn't solve, but the problem was political will. I tend to believe this, but I know that deficit commissions and bailouts of crooked financial schemes aren't the answer. Is there hope for America, let alone the world? I wish I knew.


Tom Engelhardt: "The incredible shrinking withdrawal date"

The Barack Obama administration's drawdown date of 2011 from Afghanistan was slowly recalibrated to 2014, and now that goal has been dismissed as "aspirational", with "2015 and beyond" touted. With an unshakable belief in his counter-insurgency program, Afghan war commander General David Petraeus is only offering Obama and world leaders two strategic options: more or a lot more.

Reuters: "Generation Y: the new depression generation?"

China Daily:"China, Russia quit dollar"(via CFO)

BDR:"Ruth Marcus tells you to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up."

Huffington Post:

Warren Buffett rebutted claims that the Obama administration is unjustly hurting business orders with high taxes by saying that in fact, the wealthy have never had it so good."I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in a clip played on "This Week" on Sunday.

When Amanpour pointed to critics' claims that the very wealthy need tax cuts to spur business and capitalism, Buffett replied, "The rich are always going to say that, you know, 'Just give us more money, and we'll go out and spend more, and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.' But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on."

update: As I wrote in the comments, I'm convinced there's plenty of outrage out there, but one of the primary functions of the media is to convince you that it's just you, that you're unreasonable to be upset. Look around you: don't you see how not-upset everybody else is? There! Now don't you feel like an idiot being so fussy?

It's. Just. You.

So shut up and buy stuff.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-american-class-struggle-works.html

Olbermann, etcetera

The fuss over Keith Olbermann "donating without approval" seems to be over, now that MSNBC has announced that he'll be back on the air(well, cable) on Tuesday. I generally don't pay much attention to these things, but I was interested in following it because I suspect that lots of "on air talent" fly under the radar in terms of disclosing their political contributions. (Alex Pareene discussed this recently in Salon.) I imagine MSNBC just wanted to make an example of Olbermann because it would help them burnish their conservo cred.

However I was struck by the irony that, writ large, the question of to whom million dollar talking heads might make political contributions is a much more serious question than whether or not NPR was just in firing Juan Williams recently, or whether or not they "handled it correctly." And yet the Williams firing, ostensibly cutting the other way politically, seemed to receive a lot more attention. (I say ostensibly because ultimately they both belong to the same corporatist political class, although that was probably why it generated more attention.)

One thing I didn't see discussed with respect to Juan Williams is the likelihood that, if you monetized the value that his association with NPR amounted to, in terms of conferring the imprimatur of seriousness and legitimacy that his presence on Fox News had, then arguably

a. Williams owed his ability to score a hefty Fox Corp paycheck to NPR, and
b. Fox News, especially in their early days, also benefited from the conferral of legitimacy on their "fair and balanced" shtick that their indirect association with NPR represented.

Just sayin'. (As they say.)




From the annals of loathesomeness: David Broder's op-ed from yesterday, calling for "seeming" to call for another needless war.

And, from polling report's twitter feed(groan if you must):

Democratic Party should: Renominate Obama 73% / Nominate a different candidate 22% (CNN/ORC Poll -- asked of Democrats)

30 September 2010

Ralph Nader "ONLY THE SUPER-RICH CAN SAVE US"


"UT shooting comes just as Austin campus debates concealed weapons law"


Sacre Blow! A Tale of Rachida Dati. (I don't see how this link could be NSFW; it's the BBC for Chrissakes...:^))


I don't know if this is disinfo, but it amazes me how much the establishment media is afraid of incurring right-wing wrath:"Was Sarah Palin Booed At DWTS? ABC Explains Mystery Jeering"


Apparently IOZ calls Matt Yglesias Wiggles. He does so apropos of this Marie Antoinette-ish piece of tripe. (Sometimes I have a hard time telling Wiggles and Ezra Klein apart, so the pet name helps.)


Speaking of purveyors of lefty received wisdom, occasionally Digby is useful: "Mission creep:the new surveillance state" (although I note she just takes the TSA to task and spares the administration.)



Andrew Reinbach, The Huffington Post, From Sydney, New York, population 5,993.
"Tiny Upstate New York Town Wants Local Muslims to Dig Up Their Cemetery"

Two from Helena Cobban:
1. "23% of Israelis ready to leave Israel at any hint of problems?"

2."That all-American urge to punish"



"It Is Official: The US Is A Police State"
by Paul Craig Roberts, September 25, 2010

26 September 2010

A 2 part interview w Chris Hedges;Collapse of American Liberalism(1), and
(2)Inverted Totalitarianism(below)(both via pulse media)



Newark Not Elated by Zuckerberg Donation
The New Jersey Star-Ledger | Friday, Sept. 24, 2010(via Slate)

The Facebook founder gave $100 million to the city's struggling schools, but many residents see the transfer of authority to Mayor Cory Booker that accompanied the donation as "an end-run around the law."

David Swanson: Only in America Can Blair Go Out in Public

Felix Salomon, Reuters:The whining rich (via BLCKGRD)

The Terrorism Fraud by Philip Giraldi, September 23, 2010

Is it wrong to find this amusing?

Helena Cobban on the recent Afghan election;
she argues that Obama's policies in Afghanistan are more geared for US consumption than stabilizing the country. C'mon, no way Helena!

Salon, The Democratic surrender on tax cuts

All signs point to no vote before the election. Republicans and the richest Americans win. Obama loses. By Andrew Leonard

(Of course that assumes Obama wants to "win" right?-JV)