Month: November 2008

Good Faith

by digby

Just in case anyone thinks the spirit of bipartisanship has overtaken the congress in light of the severe financial crisis, think again. From TPM:

Earlier this month, the Bush administration nominated Neil Barofsky, a federal prosecutor, to be the Treasury Department’s special inspector general on the bailout program. That’s a crucial post, given the astronomical sums at issue, the broad authority that Treasury has been given to distribute them, the concerns that have been raised about possible conflicts of interest, and the general urgency of our efforts to prevent an economic collapse. So you’d think Congress would be doing everything it could to get Barofsky confirmed right away. You’d be wrong. Last week, Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking committee, issued a little-noticed statement saying that although the nomination “was cleared by members of the Senate Banking Committee, the leadership of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and all Democratic Senators,” it was “blocked on the floor by at least one Republican member.” (itals ours.) Senate rules allow any senator to anonymously block a vote on confirmation to any federal post, for any reason. The rationale for the move remains unclear. But a Washington Post story from a few days before Dodd’s statement offers two suggestions. It notes that Barofsky supported Barack Obama, and describes an unresolved “battle between the Finance and Banking committees over which has jurisdiction over the confirmation process.”

Of course, it may also be that they’re doing the job they have been assigned — delaying oversight.

Not There Yet

by digby

Howie Klein has a great post up today discussing Mitch McConnell and the Republicans’ supposed move to moderation. I urge you to read the whole analysis. I know that many people think the GOP has to tack back to the center, and perhaps that will come to pass. But my read, like Howie’s, is that they are not there yet by a long shot.

Conservatives actually prefer obstruction and are good at it. In fact, when you think about it, it’s their natural place in the system since they claim to not believe in government. There’s something quite dissonant about being in charge of something you hate. So they are quite natural at being the party of obstruction, far better than the Democrats who proved that they really don’t have a talent for it at all.

One of the things that’s quite clear is that there will be a Battle Royale over the Supreme Court. They already have a nominal majority, but Kennedy is just eccentric enough to not be able to completely count on. They will be looking for someone to fill any vacancy who could potentially be a Souter or Stevens for their side — someone nominated as a moderate but who will end up being a comfortable vote for their side. At the very least they will try to force Obama to do what they forced Clinton to do, which is nominate moderates to all levels of the court to balance out the far right radicals that the Republican presidents insist they have a right to confirm. (Remember: the “consequences” of elections are that if Republicans win it’s a mandate for a far right agenda and if Democrats win it’s a mandate for moderate bi-partisanship. WTTW.)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that John Kyl was throwing down the gauntlet. It looks like McConnell is too. Howie writes:

The Times calls McConnell “genteel” (which is an absurd way to refer to someone who was kicked out of the army for grabbing an enlisted man’s private parts) and “cagey,” and offers some hope that he may be turning over a new leaf.

Senator McConnell is pronouncing President-elect Barack Obama off to a good start with an opportunity “to tackle big issues and to do them in the middle.” We have heard it before. Yet the heartening twist from the minority leader, newly re-elected after a race he found too close for comfort, is that he is quoting from Mr. Obama to make his point, retrieving a bit of prophecy from 2004, when the Democrats despaired in the minority and Senator Obama observed: “Whoever’s in power is going to have to govern with some modesty and some desire to work with the other side of the aisle. That’s certainly the approach I would advise Democrats should we regain control.”

Sounds like what McConnell has actually been saying, though, is that as long as Obama adopts Republican policy positions, he’ll go along with him. Last week he promised the radical right Federalist Society that he would do his best to undermine President Obama’s judicial nominees. According to McConnell “judicial nominees who have identified themselves with political causes in line with the interests of favored groups, including some of the politically correct ones identified by Obama during the presidential campaign, might not be able to keep their oath to uphold the law.” I kind of think the Times was a little naive in its assessment today.

Yeah.

McConnell raged, just as Kyl did, about Obama’s comment that he would appoint people who have “empathy.” This seems to have some currency on the right — look for it to join “tort reform” and “secret ballot” as huge applause lines.. Evidently, the last thing we should want is a judge with empathy. For real. That’s what they are saying.

I think that’s quite revealing, don’t you?

I Like Ike

by digby

He warned us.

Unsurprisingly, it’s also become a seamless part of the propaganda arm of the government, the media:

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity. The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles. Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007. Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. “No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,” he said. Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military. “That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus. Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help — “He’s got the heart of a lion” — or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

Read the whole New York Times article if you have the time. We knew the military “analysts” were working with the Pentagon already. But this adds the other dimension — the deep, moneyed ties between the ex-generals and the defense business and how they use their positions as media “experts” to benefit their contractor employers. (It also benefits their media employers — war means ratings.)
This is one of those subjects that makes the head hurt. The article talks a lot about the conflicts of interest and the deep ties these guys maintain with the military the media and the defense contractors to the point where the lines are blurred among them, but the fundamental problem that Ike describes isn’t really part of the story. That subject is so outside the mainstream to even question this stuff that you sound like a kook even bringing it up. But the fact is that one of the fundamental reasons we have deep intractable economic problems is this massive government welfare program we call the defense industry. It does create jobs. But it produces destruction and warps this country’s priorities to the point where they are incoherent. And there’s zero discussion anywhere about changing that.

Update: Greenwald documents the media’s total irresponsibility and lack of ethics on this story, which he has been chronicling for months. These networks are really unbelievable. They just don’t care — and nobody else does either.

Saturday Night At The Movies

(Note: Dennis wrote the following before the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He left it up to my discretion whether or not to post it. I don’t think it is disrespectful or in poor taste, but if any of you do, place the blame on me, not him — d)

Love means never having to say you’re sari

By Dennis Hartley

“Computer-ji! Who is Keyser Soze?”

Leave it to Danny Boyle, who somehow managed to transmogrify the horrors of heroin addiction into an exuberant romp (Trainspotting), to reach into the black hole of Mumbai slum life and pull out the most exhilarating “feel good” love story of 2008. Slumdog Millionaire nearly defies category; think Oliver Twist meets Quiz Show in Bollywood.

Using a framing device reminiscent of The Usual Suspects, the tale unwinds in first person narrative flashback, as recalled by a young man who is being detained and grilled at a police station. Teenage “slumdog” Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a contestant on India’s version of the popular game show franchise “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” has been picked up and accused of cheating, on the eve of his final appearance on the program, which could cap off his prodigious winning streak with a cool 20 million rupees. What makes Jamal suspect to the show’s host (played with smarmy aplomb by Bollywood superstar Anil Kapoor) is his apparent detachment. Despite the fact that he’s continually hitting the jackpot with the correct answer to every question, his pained expressions and mopey countenance suggests a slouching indifference. After all, he’s a dirt-poor orphan from the streets, so shouldn’t he be beside himself with joy and gratitude for this opportunity? What could possibly be motivating him to win, if not greed? Love, actually. But don’t worry, I’m not going to spill the beans (masoor?) here and spoil anyone’s fun. Suffice it to say, when you see the object of Jamal’s devotion, portrayed by the most classically beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous young woman to grace a screen in many a moon (Freida Pinto, whose “STARmeter” on the Internet Movie Database has gone up nearly 2000% since last week), you’ll be rooting for our hero (and rutting for Freida).

Of COURSE there’s a train station kiss (duh!)

Just like the best Bollywood offerings, Boyle’s most epic tale to date (co-directed by Loveleen Tandan with a script by Simon Beaufoy, adapted from Vikas Swarup’s novel) is equal parts melodrama, comedy, action, romance and kismet. It’s a perfect masala for people who love pure cinema, infused by colorful costume and set design, informed by fluid, hyperkinetic camera work (from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle) and accompanied by the type of rousing, pumping, eclectic music soundtrack that you’ll want to download into your MP3 player immediately after leaving the theatre. (OK, this paragraph reads back to me like hyperbole, too. But c’mon, I’ve been toiling away at this self-important endeavor in my modest little corner of the inter-tubes for 2 years…who DO I have to blow around here to get quoted on a movie poster? But, as usual, I digress.)

While this is structured like an old fashioned, slam-bang entertainment, it still contains many snippets of Boyle’s patented brand of visceral, in-your-face “smell-o-vision”; the flashbacks of the protagonist’s hard-scrabble childhood in the impoverished slums of Mumbai spins the neo-modern Indian folk tale vibe into Brothers Grimm land for a spell. Speaking of “smell-o-vision”, Boyle actually out-grosses his “worst toilet in Scotland” scene from Trainspotting. I will say no more; if you gag easily, just, um, be prepared.

Patel and Pinto have an appealing, effervescent on-screen chemistry (some viewers may recognize Patel as a regular cast member of BBC-TV’s cult series, Skins ). Madhur Mittal is excellent as Jamal’s brother Salim, with whom he has a complex and mercurial relationship. I don’t know where Boyle found them, but the child actors who portray the pre-teen versions of the three core characters and other supporting roles deliver some extraordinary performances; from a pure acting standpoint I think they are actually given the more demanding and difficult scenes to play, and they pull it off in a convincing, genuinely heart-wrenching fashion. An honorable mention goes to Ankur Vikal, who plays the most evil villain of the piece, a Fagin-type character who exploits street children in the worst way possible (no one will accuse Boyle of sugar-coating slum life).

Believe the hype-this one really delivers the num-nums. I never thought I would actually say this in a review, but I literally felt like dancing in the aisle when the lights came up (and I would have, but not for two seriously arthritic knees; so as a public service, I courteously refrained). Oh, and you’ll definitely want to stick around for the credits, particularly if you are a Bollywood fan. And if you feel like dancing, knock yourself out!

Slumdog international: Salaam Bombay , Water, City of Dreams, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Nil by Mouth, Naked , Insiang, Dodes’ka-den, Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves , Umberto D. , The Harder They Come, Rockers , The 400 Blows,La Haine , Tsotsi, Cairo Station, Bye-Bye, Colossal Youth, Pixote, Black Orpheus , City of God, City of Men, Rodrigo D: No Future, Our Lady of the Assassins, Los Olvidados, Amores Perros, Secuestro Express, Once Were Warriors, The Godfather Part II , West Side Story, Mean Streets, Gangs of New York, Fort Apache, The Bronx, Paris Is Burning, The Pawnbroker, The Brother From Another Planet, Across 110th Street, Juice, Boyz ‘N the Hood, Colors.

Previous posts with related themes:
Sita Sings the Blues
Eastern Promises/This is England

Stars ‘n Bars ‘n Hammer ‘n Sickle

by digby

A reader wrote in to respond to my post yesterday about the confederate flag and Christianity and anti-communism and schooled me a little bit on the long history of it’s use in that regard.

It’s really good so I thought I’d share it with you:

When I was growing up in the south in the 1960s, the confederate flag was used as a symbol of the forces fighting three perceived threats to civilization: communism, atheism, and race-mixing. These three boogie men were seen as an inseparable triad of evil; cords braided to make the rope that would be used to hang white, Christian America. In particular, I remember a billboard outside Smithfield, North Carolina on Highway 301, which spanned a gap in the then yet to be completed I-95. This sign depicted a robed and hooded clansman mounted on a horse before a burning cross. The text proclaimed, “The Klan welcomes you to Smithfield. Help fight communism and integration.” I mentioned the location of the sign with respect to the highway system, as it was no doubt intentionally located to be seen by Jews from the north on the way to their Florida vacations. In addition to white supremacy and foaming at the mouth anti-communism, the reactionary forces of the south were also dyed-in-the-wool anti-semites.

The old line southern conservatives perceived any progressive movement that opposed segregation or unfettered capitalism as a fifth column dispacted from and controlled by the Kremlin. I remember my childhood opthamologist, Dr. Lloyd Bailey, had pamphlets in his office denouncing the nascent environmental movement as a communist effort, along with the trade unions, birth control advocates, and everything else this side of proponents of walking upright. If that name seems vaguely familiar, it’s because Dr. Bailey truly had 15 minutes of fame as an elector appointed to the Electoral College of 1968. While Nixon had easily carried the state, Dr. Bailey exercised his privilege as an elector to disregard the popular sentiment and cast his vote instead for George Wallace, whom he thought more capable of saving the nation from the perils of the civl rights and antiwar movements. Dr. Bailey unintentionally provided the valuable service of being an object lesson in the anti-democratic nature of that institution.

To us southerners who lived through the 1960s, the ole stars and bars serving as a symbol of the self-proclaimed protectors of “democracy” and “christianity” from the red (and black) peril is an old, familiar story. Oh, and another particular aspect of that old southern bigotry was that the term “Christian” excluded Catholics, who could not be trusted because of their fealty and obedience to Rome, a foreign, and thus suspect, influence. It was quite a feat of cognitive dissonance to lump Jews and Catholics in with the godless Communists, as the right wing in Europe had only managed to lump together the first two as the common subject of their conspiracy theories. Of course, Mitt Romney’s difficulties with southern conservatives is yet another product of the prescribed limits of acceptable Christian observance, which ranges from straight-laced Calvinism to wop-bop-a-loopa fundamentalism.

Plus ca change….

So, there’s actually nothing new in using the rebel flag as a symbol of all that is pure and good and non-commie. It’s a tradition.

Legacy Costs

by digby

In your dreams:

“I’d like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush told his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, in a conversation recorded for the oral-history organization StoryCorps for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

I’m sure that would be nice, but instead you will be remembered as the man who invaded a country that hadn’t threatened it using lies and propaganda — and ended up “liberating” millions of people from their lives.

“I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn’t going to sacrifice those values; that I was a president that had to make tough choices and was willing to make them,” he said

No, it wasn’t a tough choice to invade Iraq or ignore Katrina or allow the financial system to run completely amuck. It was a unique combination of stupidity and malevolence, which will be studied for centuries by historians struggling to imagine how such a person was ever given such power by a supposedly democratic people.

I believe he did go to Washington with a certain set of values — after all he’d signed over 150 death warrants without even reading the paperwork. That’s exactly the kind of person who would legalize torture and suspend the constitution. And naturally a man who would steal an election and then govern like he’d won in a partisan landslide would politicize the Justice Department. Surely anyone who would hire a thug like Karl Rove could be expected to spy on Americans and use the presidency for political purposes.

Yes, his values are intact, no doubt about it, and his legacy is intact.

Omegas

by digby

Here’s an interesting look at the “center-right” debate that’s been happening in the blogosphere and elsewhere, by Tom Edsall at Huffington Post. He goes over the terrain that readers of this blog and others are all too aware of and concludes that the country is center-right in some ways and moving left in others. He sees that Obama is learning the lessons of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton by not being too far left, although he knows he owes the left something for his election, so they will get a hearing.

I would actually argue that Obama doesn’t owe anything to the left for his election other than our helping to prepare the ground for the Iraq argument which gave him unique credibility at a definitive moment. I don’t think he won with ideology, but rather with inspiration and competence, which he didn’t limit in terms of political philosophy. He always positioned himself as a pragmatist who would work with both sides of the aisle and that’s what many people liked about him after all the years of ruthless Republican partisanship. But the left does largely believe in him as well, and they will, on the whole, give him quite a bit of room. (The only people who want him to fail are those who are openly hoping the economy tanks so badly that the country will be disenchanted by 2012 and elect a Republican to fix “The Obama Depression.”)

The problem for the left isn’t Obama, per se, it’s that the political establishment, including some members who are now populating the Obama administration, see the left as the Omega wolves of the American political pack. They serve a useful purpose for the group: even though all the wolves fight amongst themselves for supremacy and have a strict pecking order, the pack is united in its mutual loathing for the Omega, which they all abuse with equal vigor. It’s pack ranking at its most primitive.

For years liberals have allowed themselves to be cowed by the right (hell, they even turned the word itself into an epithet)and continue even to this day to apologize over and over again for their supposedly humiliating error of seeking equality for minorities and lifting people out of poverty, which is what apparently ruined everything.(Read Edsall’s article for the full litany.) Those Beta members of the establishment who are on the leftish side are embarrassed by their associations with such losers and must go out of their way to separate themselves from them if they expect to be taken seriously — in the wild Betas often brutalize the Omega worse than the Alphas do.

Politicians don’t usually care about rehabilitating an ideology or philosophy. Why should they? They are about getting and maintaining power, hopefully at least some of them, for good (even liberal) purposes. If it is useful for them to kick the left to make the establishment happy, they will do it, unless kicking the left presents some downside for them. And at this point, there’s no reason to believe there is and no serious, working mechanism for changing that.

The good Omega knows its place in the hierarchy and even respects its own debasement: it’s all for the good of the pack. After all, the politicians all have to live together and work together and they need at least one thing they can all agree on. Beating up on the left has been very useful for that purpose for a long time. But I don’t think that when a lot of us signed on to the newly minted progressive movement to work for the “common good” that’s exactly what we had in mind. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Keep in mind, please, that I’m not talking about policy here so much as the common reflex to use the left as a foil for the political establishment of both parties. If people want to play that role for the good of the country, so that Democrats can secretly enact liberal legislation without having to identify it with us Omegas, I guess that’s their privilege. I’m not temperamentally suited to it personally.

For more on the “hard left’s” alleged disenchantment with Obama, here’s the view from the rightwing at PJs media.

Laura’s Dreamy Bubble

by digby

Julia finds that somebody forgot to give Laura Bush a briefing since about 2003:

The Bush family have recorded a Story Corps interview about George W. Bush’s presidential legacy, and what they’re most proud of. This is what Mrs. Bush had to say

Well, it’s certainly been very rewarding to look at Afghanistan and both know that the president and the United States military liberated women there; that women and girls can be in school now; that women can walk outside their doors without a male escort.

Well, then. I would have been more charitable, but since Mrs. Bush has chosen this as her legacy, allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Bush’s legacy:

Afghan police have arrested 10 Taliban militants involved in an acid attack against 15 girls and teachers walking to school in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said Tuesday. “Several” of the arrested militants have confessed to taking part in the attack earlier this month, said Kandahar Gov. Rahmatullah Raufi. He declined to say exactly how many confessed.

High-ranking Taliban fighters paid the militants a total of $2,000 to carry out the attack, Raufi said. The attackers came from Pakistan but were Afghan nationals, said Doud Doud, an Interior Ministry official.

The attackers squirted acid from water bottles onto three groups of students and teachers walking to school in Kandahar city on Nov. 12. Several girls suffered burns to the face and were hospitalized. One teenager couldn’t open her eyes days after the attack, which sparked condemnation from around the world…

Kandahar province’s schools serve 110,000 students at 232 schools, Raufi said. But only 10 of the 232 are for girls. Some 26,000 girls go to school, he said.

Arsonists have repeatedly attacked girls’ schools and gunmen killed two students walking outside a girls’ school in central Logar province last year. UNICEF says there were 236 school-related attacks in Afghanistan in 2007.

Read on

I’ve always felt kind of sorry for Laura Bush. She certainly didn’t offend me the way she did some people. She just seemed like someone trapped in a role she really didn’t care about. I never could see that she cares about much of anything.

Needless to say, things are not better for Afghan women. The Taliban and the rough Islamic culture of the area are barbaric.Indeed, the plight of women in Afghanistan was a cause among feminists long before anyone gave a damn about the place. Also needless to say, Laura wasn’t among them.

In fact, her adoption of this issue was nothing more than a public relations ploy thought up by the precursor of the infamous White House Iraq Group:

“We’re getting the Band together,” White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett told the group on their first conference call last week.

The “Band” is made up of the people who brought you the war in Afghanistan—or at least the accompanying public-relations campaign. Their greatest hit: exposing the Taliban’s treatment of women.

Now, they’re back for a reunion tour on Iraq. The Band’s instrument, of course, is information.

I guess that was the only time Laura was given her own propaganda portfolio and she’s hung on to it ever since.

The sad fact is that life for women in Afghanistan is still a nightmare, although I’m not sure how you change that at the point of a gun (seems like part of the problem, not the solution.) The Bush administration has been as ham handed about this issue as it’s possible to be. (Remember Karen Hughes running around the mideast telling women everywhere that she’s a “mom” just like them?)

And yet, women do make up more than half the population of the planet and some solutions to big problems (like poverty and education, which contribute to terrorism) might actually lie with dealing with them as something other than afterthoughts by the first lady. In fact, this might be one area when Clinton could have a serious impact — she’s long been involved in global women’s rights and empowerment. It certainly can’t hurt to have someone involved in foreign policy who is serious and knowledgeable about the issues associated with half the global population. Maybe it will create some fresh thinking, who knows?

Bystanders In East Asia

by dday

The attacks in Mumbai are grisly enough, and it’s a relief that they appear to be coming to an end. But the question over involvement of Pakistani groups has the potential to make things much, much worse, and really cripple any hope of stability in the region.

Pakistani militant groups on Friday became the focus of the investigation into the attacks in Mumbai as India and its archrival Pakistan jousted over who was responsible. Both sides pledged to cooperate in the probe, but tensions remained high amid fears the conflict could escalate.

Pakistan initially said Friday that it had agreed to send its spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, on an unprecedented visit to India to share and obtain information from investigators there. Later Friday, however, Pakistani officials changed their minds and decided to send a less senior intelligence official in Pasha’s place, according to a Pakistani source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was unclear what prompted the reversal, but the Pakistani source said the Islamabad government was “already bending over backwards” to be cooperative and did not “want to create more opportunities for Pakistan-bashing.” Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told reporters in Islamabad, “I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents.”

Worse, the preliminary speculation focuses on Kashmiri militants.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said some “signatures of the attack” were consistent with the work of Pakistani militant groups known as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed that have fought Indian troops in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and also are reported to be linked to al-Qaida.

At this point, it’s not particularly relevant whether or not these allegations are true (and it may not be). It’s that they are being made at all. Because the charges themselves are enough to raise tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. India and Pakistan have been at war over Kashmir almost since Pakistan has become a sovereign nation. National pride demands that neither side surrender. And if the voices continue to rise about Pakistani involvement, India will react, whether by massing forces at the Pakistani border or even engaging in a first strike, which under cover of the Bush Doctrine has a patina of sanction.

A lot of basically sensible people […] who may well find themselves with positions in the Obama administration, have suggested that maybe we don’t want to throw the alleged baby of preventive war out with the bathwater of Bushism. I always think people thinking along these lines need to keep in mind that the United States isn’t the only country on the planet. I don’t think we want a world in which India claims to have a U.S.-endorsed right to launch preventive military strikes on Pakistan, or a world in which Pakistani policymaking is dominated by fear of a potentially imminent preventive Indian military attack.

Ultimately, our so-called “strategy” in that region of the world, including Afghanistan where we have a shooting war, means exceedingly little in the eyes of the Indians and the Pakistanis compared to the threat posed by each other. We have very little ability to shape these events, and any attempt to choose sides or play one country off of the other will have devastating consequences. Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts will be consumed by anti-Indian efforts. Afghanistan could become a proxy fight between the two East Asian powers, as we saw when the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed.

This is a terribly explosive situation and it had better inform the incoming Administration’s continued presence in the region.

.

Dispatch From Real America

by digby

Did you know that the confederate flag is actually a symbol of Christianity and anti-communism? Neither did I:

Barack Obama’s presidential victory upset James and Linda Vandiver.

So, on election night, the couple — owners of the historic Faubus Motel in downtown Huntsville — walked outside, lowered Old Glory and raised the Confederate battle flag in its place.

It’s remained there ever since, flying high in silent protest of election to the nation’s highest office a politician the pair says is a “Marxist.”

You no doubt noticed the name of the motel, right? Yep. It was previously owned by the Governor who famously ordered the National Guard to lock out the black students who the court had ruled must be admitted to Little Rock Central High.

But this has nothing to do with race, don’t misunderstand:

The Vandivers said they didn’t raise the Rebel flag to protest a black man moving into the White House, as many of their neighbors assume. Instead, they did it because they believe the country has abandoned the principles of its founders by electing Obama.

Linda Vandiver said the Democrat is a Marxist who wants to turn America into a socialist country.

Obama wants to redistribute wealth by raising taxes on the rich, create a universal healthcare system and institute a global tax aimed at eliminating worldwide poverty, she said.

“We think socialism is deeply rooted in him, and we’ll see it manifest in all areas,” Linda Vandiver said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with despising Mr. Obama’s color. We’d like to celebrate the fact that for the first time we have a black president. But we can’t.” Obama is also a friend to terrorists, James Vandiver said, referring to Obama’s association with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground. The group bombed public buildings during the 1970 s.

“If Obama was just a regular Joe Citizen, he would not be able to get security clearance to get in the White House,” James Vandiver asserted. “This is the only way I know to send a message to the people of our country that we are in protest of someone like this being in the position of president.” But like all symbols, the Confederate flag carries different meanings to different people.

Yes it does. It’s usually something to do with slavery, southern heritage or white supremacy. I’ve never heard it used as a protest against Marxism before. But they’ve got it all worked out.

In another ironic twist, the area newspaper is owned by relatives of Orville Faubus and they are on record disagreeing with the use of the confederate flag to protest Obama. The paper is chronicling the controversy:

In the three weeks since Election Day, the Record has gotten 20 to 25 letters to the editor about the flag, Mooty said. Most weeks, the 5, 275-circulation weekly is lucky to receive two letters.

Mooty published 11 of the letters. Many of the others are unprintable or unsigned, he said.

For Steve Maher of Whorton Creek near Huntsville, the Rebel flag is an “offensive symbol.” Maher wrote to the Record that townsfolk should boycott the motel, the City Council should condemn the action publicly and the town chamber of commerce should revoke the Vandivers ’ membership.

“I respect the freedom of speech, but this symbol of racism can’t be allowed to represent our community,” Maher wrote. “If we do nothing, we are silently supporting or at least accepting the symbolism of that flag.” For Loy Mauch of Bismarck in Hot Spring County, the Confederate flag is a symbol of America’s Christian roots, from which he believes the nation has strayed.

“The government has lost its moral authority over God-fearing Americans and I wish more patriots like James Vandiver would take their stand for what the Confederate
Battle Flag truly symbolizes,” Mauch wrote.

[…]

Steven Fowler, an accountant from nearby Alpena, which sits on the Boone-Carroll county line, called Vandiver to tell him that he supports what he’s doing after he read about it in the Record.

The Battle Flag of the Confederacy, with a version of St. Andrew’s cross emblazoned across it, is a symbol of Christianity first and foremost, Fowler said.

But it also represents the supremacy of the states over the federal government.

By flying it, Fowler said, the Vandivers are warning against an Obama presidency that he believes will expand the federal government by nationalizing health care, redistributing wealth and broadening the welfare system.

[…]

Owens said he thinks the majority of people in Huntsville understand why the Vandivers are flying the flag and have no problem with it — they’re just afraid to say so.

“There was a time when Americans were free to do what they wanted. But now we have to measure up to some politically correct ideal,” Owens said. “People ought to take [James Vandiver ] at his word. He has a right to make a statement against a political figure.”

Linda Vandiver wrote in a letter to the Record printed Wednesday that blacks, gays, Democrats — even liberal filmmaker Michael Moore — are all afforded a right to freedom of speech and political protest. So why not white, Southern Christians who are disenchanted with the incoming administration ?

“Our statement in raising the flag is ‘ Barack Obama is not our president, ’” Linda Vandiver said in an interview. “If the Democrats can say that about President Bush, then we can say that about Barack Obama.”

(Well, there was that little matter of bush losing the popular vote and the Supreme Court stopping the vote count and appointing him the winner, but there’s no need to belabor it…)

Notice what’s missing from this bill of indictment? Nobody called Obama a Muslim. Maybe they just forgot, but it seems that they are really homing in on the Joe-the-plumber lines from latter McCain campaign. They clearly don’t know what socialism really means, but it sounds political and I guess it still carries with it some traditional wingnut anti-communist resonance. There’s certainly nothing new in accusing mainstream black political leaders of being Marxists:

Helms Stalls King’s Day In Senate

By Helen Dewar

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesady, October 4, 1983; Page A01

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), charging that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused “action-oriented Marxism” and other “radical political” views, yesterday temporarily blocked Senate action on a House-passed bill to create a new national holiday in memory of the slain civil rights leader.

Helms’ assault on King, which prompted a scathing denunciation from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), came as the White House was putting out word that President Reagan intends to sign the measure, even though the administration once had opposed it.

[…]

Although Helms’ colleagues had expected his effort to derail the bill by sending it to committee for hearings, the tone of his attack–linking King to what he called “the official policy of communism”–appeared to take them by surprise.

“I will not dignify Helms’ comments with a reply. They do not reflect credit on this body,” an angry Kennedy said, adding that what Helms said should be “shunned by the American people, including the citizens of his own state.” Later, Kennedy accused Helms of using “Red smear” tactics.

Asked before television cameras to say whether he considered King a “Marxist-Leninist,” as he had suggested earlier on the Senate floor, Helms at first demurred, then said, “But the old saying–if it has webbed feet, if it has feathers and it quacks, it’s a you-know-what.” Asked again later if he considered King a Marxist, Helms said, “I don’t think there is any question about that.”

When asked if his attack on King would cause him political trouble in North Carolina, where he faces a tough race for reelection next year, Helms said bluntly, “I’m not going to get any black votes, period.”

[…]

A federal holiday should be an occasion for “shared values,” but King’s “very name itself remains a source of tension, a deeply troubling symbol of divided society,” Helms said.

Helms said King had used “nonviolence as a provocative act to disturb the peace of the state and to trigger, in many cases, overreaction by authorities.”

He asserted that there were Marxists in King’s movement and that King had been warned against them by the president at the time, apparently meaning President Kennedy.

Added Helms: “I think most Americans would feel that the participation of Marxists in the planning and direction of any movement taints that movement at the outset . . . . Others may argue that Dr. King’s thought may have been merely Marxist in its orientation. But the trouble with that is that Marxism-Leninism, the official philosphy of communism, is an action-oriented revolutionary doctrine. And Dr. King’s action-oriented Marxism, about which he was cautioned by the leaders of this country, including the president at that time, is not compatible with the concepts of this country.”

He’s dead now, but the dream lives on, apparently. Socialism may be just another word for the boogeyman, but it’s one that’s been embedded in the DNA of rightwingers everywhere and it seems to have particular meaning to racists. Which is, of course, what’s really going on here. They may not have read Marx, but they sure as hell know what raising the confederate flag on the occasion of the election of the first African American president means.

And it sure must warm the Republican Big Money Boyz’s hearts to see these small town motel owners and their friends out there fighting the good fight against taxing the rich and universal health care. It’s so sweet, it probably almost makes up for the 50% hit they’ve taken in the market.

h/t to bb