Month: June 2009

Covering Your BFF

by digby

Here’s a familiar story:

The media and the financial crisis: Journalism failed

Columbia Journalism Review this month took the first steps toward transforming the ghost stories and urban legends of America’s current recession into the formalized analysis of history. In “The List,” a table of 727 stories from the business media, CJR tracks the history of the recession’s coverage from its first rumbles and murmurs in 2000 to the cataclysms of 2007. In the process, the publication explores whether the media did, in fact, do everything that it could to protect its readers.

In its final analysis, the answer seems to be a resounding “no.”

Part of the problem has been a sort of institutionalized Stockholm syndrome. Much of the financial media have been all too easily swayed by the arguments of the very people and institutions they were supposed to watch. In some ways, this is completely understandable. In the context of an $85 billion bailout, the hundreds of thousands of dollars AIG spent on corporate retreats amounted to pennies. When one looks at a trillion-dollar mess, a few hundred million in bonuses seems almost meaningless. Given those terms, the outraged screams of America’s middle class seemed ignorant and shortsighted.

However, when one considers that the average American family lives on roughly $50,000 per year, a multimillion-dollar bonus isn’t an accounting error; it’s a judgment error. Moreover, when Wall Street’s gargantuan salaries were fueled off a combination of taxpayer dollars and the ill-gotten gains of exotic financial instruments, it starts to seem like many of AIG’s money men deserve not retreats and bonuses but fines and jail time.

More importantly, it starts to seem that insider knowledge about traditional ways of doing business becomes less a decoder than a blinder.

In all the navel gazing about the future of journalism, it seems to me that one of the most important is consideration of the cracking of the insider culture. The media’s failures of the past decade can be at least partially explained by its insular nature and class based identification with those they cover. (As James Wolcott so pithily illustrated with his description of Judy Miller and Scooter Libby “buttering each others’ toast” at the St. Regis.)

Good journalism requires something that is in short supply among many establishment journalists: a healthy skepticism toward power, money, celebrity and elite opinion. Unfortunately, all too many elite journalists swim in the same social and professional pool as the people they cover. I thought it was bad in politics, but when you watch the financial media it’s almost dizzyingly cozy and self-reinforcing.

Writing is hard, and nobody has more respect for good journalism than I do. And there are many, many good reporters out there doing great work, some of them at the biggest and best papers and news networks. But the fact is that American journalism is in crisis. They can pretend it’s all about the financial model and parasite bloggers or whatever other excuse they can come up with. But one of the reasons is a catastrophic loss of credibility because they are consistently either missing the most important stories of our time or helping the powerful manipulate them. And one of the reasons for that is because they are part of the same elite system they are covering.

Update: The NY Times public editor thinks Elizabeth Bumiller should have used more skepticism with her shoddy reporting on the Pentagon “terrorist recidivist” story. Same old story. Cheney’s minions give a story to the NY Times (Bumiller says she had to fight for this one, which makes it all the sweeter) and then Cheney goes on TV and quotes the NY Times as the authority.

And now it’s out there.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

SIFFting through cinema, Pt. 2

By Dennis Hartley

The 2009 Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing, so for the next week or two I wanted to take you along (especially since you helped make it possible for me, ahem).

Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. This year’s SIFF is screening 392 features over 25 days. It must be great for independently wealthy slackers, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s a bit tough finding the time and energy it would take to catch 15.68 films a day (yes, I did the math). I do take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality films (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for which titles feel like they would be up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.)

Some of the films I will be spotlighting will hopefully be “coming to a theatre near you” soon; there may be a few that will only be accessible via DVD. So let’s go SIFFting!

Welcome to my nightmare: Justin Hawkins IS Lord Sutch in Telstar

It’s somewhat ironic that I screened Telstar, a new biopic about the legendary, innovative and tragically deranged music producer Joe Meek (whose career abruptly ended when he shot his landlady and then himself in 1967), just one day after a judge sentenced the legendary, innovative and tragically deranged music producer Phil Spector (whose career abruptly ended when he shot actress Lana Clarkson) to a term of 19 years to life in jail.

Similar to his American counterpart, the British-born Meek also reached his creative peak in the early 60s, and developed a signature studio “sound” that set his song productions apart from virtually everyone else’s. While the two shared an equally unpredictable and mercurial temperament, they were innovative in mutually exclusive ways. Spector’s much-heralded “Wall of Sound” was generated by utilizing elaborately staged “live” sessions, involving large groups of musicians assembled in cavernous, state-of-the-art studios. Meek, on the other hand, recorded piecemeal fashion, and produced most of his legacy in a tiny home studio, set up in a modest London flat. He would isolate musicians in different rooms in order to achieve very specific sounds for each instrument or vocal track, often utilizing overdubbing (SOP these days, but not at that time). Completely untrained (and unskilled) as a musician, his sonic experimentations were inspired by his obsession with outer space and informed by musical tonalities that came from, uh, “beyond”; his resulting forays have secured him a place as a pioneer in electronic music.

(OK, now engaging Music Geek Mode). One of my prized CDs is I Hear a New World-which was written, produced and conceived by Joe Meek (and recorded by “Rod Freeman and the Blue Men”) which I described thusly in a 2003 Amazon review:

Syd Barrett and Brian Wilson drop acid in a recording studio on the dark side of the moon, and the resulting session yields something that sounds very much like this long lost Joe Meek album. “I Hear a New World” was a more literal title than you might think, as the voices in his head were soon to drown out the sounds of the Muse for the tragically doomed Meek… Informed music fans will intuit snippets of templates here and there for the Residents, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream or even more recent offerings from Radiohead and The Flaming Lips. The fact that Meek bore a spooky physical resemblance to director David Lynch certainly adds fuel to his already eerie aura.

Telstar is named after Meek’s biggest and most recognizable hit from 1962, an instrumental performed by The Tornados (who were essentially his studio band at the time). The film (based on a stage play by James Hicks, who adapted the screenplay along with director Nick Moran) suffers a bit from an uneven tone, but I still think it is quite watchable (especially for fans of the era), thanks to the great location filming, a colorful and tuneful recreation of the early 60s London music scene, and a fearless, flamboyant performance from Con O’Neill (recreating his stage role as the tortured Meek).

In fact, the first 15 minutes of the film are infused with a door-slamming exuberance and manic musical energy that I haven’t seen since the memorable opening salvo of Julien Temple’s love letter to London’s late 50s pop scene, Absolute Beginners. Unfortunately, the last 15 minutes are more akin to the denouement in Taxi Driver. Then again, if you are already familiar with the story of Meek’s trajectory into paranoia and madness, you go into this film with the foreknowledge that it is not likely to sport a very happy ending.

The bulk of the film delves into the more soap opera-ish aspects of Meek’s personal life, like his stormy relationship with his protégé/lover Heinz Burt (JJ Field), a middling singer/guitarist who Meek had hoped to manufacture into the next Eddie Cochran (the plan didn’t work). In fact, one of Meek’s greatest tragedies was how he squandered a lot of his potential with missed opportunities, unfortunate judgment calls and misdirected energies. The most well-known example is reenacted, which is the time that Meek turned down an opportunity to produce some sessions for a certain (then relatively unknown) Merseyside combo managed by a Mr. Brian Epstein. I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on portraying Meek’s genius in the studio, but you can’t have everything.

Still, I got a kick out of the vivid recreations of performances by early 60s rock luminaries like Gene Vincent and Screamin’ Lord Sutch (who was a major influence on Alice Cooper). It’s during those moments (and the sporadic glimpses of Meek working his studio magic) that the film really comes alive. O’Neill’s performance is a real tour-de-force, and he is ably supported by some other fine turns, particularly from Tom Burke, who plays the supremely odd and spooky Geoff Goddard, who worked as an in-house songwriter for Meek (as well as a kind of “medium” for helping him retrieve some of those pop hooks from “beyond”). James Corden is quite engaging (and frequently provides some much-needed levity) as Meek’s long-suffering session drummer, Clem Cattini. The ubiquitous Kevin Spacey (who is featured in at least 3 SIFF entries this year) is also on hand as Meek’s chief investor, Major Banks. I hope this film finds distribution.

Previous posts with related themes:

The Killing of John Lennon/Control

The Gits

Kurt Cobain: About a Son

The Devil and Daniel Johnston/Mayor of the Sunset Strip

Goin’ out of my head: You’re Gonna Miss Me : A Film About Roky Erickson, Derailroaded-The Mind of Larry Fischer, A Skin Too Few-Nick Drake, Brian Wilson – I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, Hated , Stardust, Pink Floyd , New York Doll, The Nomi Song, Hard Core Logo, Still Crazy, Eddie and the Cruisers, Phantom of the Paradise, DiG!

Eccentric ladyland: Giovanni has his hands full in Mid-August Lunch

And now for a palette cleanser…a wonderful slice-of-life charmer from Italy called Mid-August Lunch (aka Pranza di ferragosto). The film was written and directed by Gianni Di Gregorio (who also co-scripted the gangster drama Gomorrah, which I reviewed here). Slight in plot but rich in observational insight, it proves that sometimes, less is more.

The Robert Mitchum-ish Di Gregorio casts himself as Giovanni, a middle-aged bachelor living in Rome with his elderly mother. Giovanni doesn’t work, because as he quips to a friend, taking care of her is his “job”. He says that without a hint of irony; in fact Giovanni seems to enjoy being his mother’s fulltime caregiver. He is the quintessential “good son”, from cooking her a fresh breakfast in the morning to tucking her in at night.

Although nothing appears to faze the easy-going Giovanni, his almost saintly countenance is put to the test when his landlord, who wants to take a little weekend excursion to the countryside with his mistress, asks for a “small” favor. In exchange for some forgiveness on back rent due on the apartment, he requests that Giovanni take on a house guest for the weekend-his elderly mother. Giovanni agrees, but is chagrined when the landlord turns up the next day with two little old ladies (he hadn’t mentioned his aunt). Things get more complicated when Giovanni’s doctor makes a house call to give him a routine checkup, then in lieu of a bill asks if he doesn’t mind taking on his dear old mama as well (Ferragosto is a popular “getaway” holiday in Italy). The setup is kind of like an “inside-out” variation on Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, now that I think about it.

This is one of those magical little films where you’re not constantly being reminded that there’s a person behind the camera making “life” happen, but rather, life seems to be happening around the person behind the camera (if you catch my meaning). It’s all the little moments that really make this film such a delight. Giovanni reading Dumas aloud to his mother, until she quietly nods off in her chair. Two friends, sitting in the midday sun, enjoying some white wine and watching the world go by. And in a scene that reminded me of a classic POV sequence in Fellini’s Fellini’s Roma, Giovanni and his pal glide us through the streets of Rome on a sunny motorcycle ride. This mid-August lunch might offer you a somewhat limited menu, but you’ll find that every morsel on it is well worth savoring.

Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush…

Just a couple quick mentions here about more films to watch for. I can’t give you the full review of these yet, because the press is requested to “hold reviews” on those SIFF entries that have already found distributors and are all set for release in the near future.

Shrink is a dramedy starring Kevin Spacey as a psychiatrist who is just as screwed up as his patients, who are primarily hotshot L.A. showbiz types. I think you will be hearing a lot of buzz about this one, so keep on the lookout for it. As I said, I can’t tell you much more, but I will say that it’s a classic Spacey performance, a la American Beauty. Shhh!!

Tetro is the latest from Francis Ford Coppola, and it’s a return to form (in some ways-shhh!!). “Family” (in all its guises) has been a pet theme over the years for Coppola, and this film is no exception. It’s an operatic melodrama about two brothers (Vincent Gallo and Alden Ehrenreich) and the dysfunctional issues they have with their overbearing father (the great Klaus Maria Brandauer), who is a renowned composer and conductor. I’m no shrink, but um, Coppola’s dad is a composer and conductor (hey, I’m just saying!)

Next week: SIFF wrap-up!

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Saturday Night At The Movies Part I

All life is precious…

By Dennis Hartley

…nor can any be replaced: David Carradine 1936-2009

I was very saddened to hear about David Carradine’s passing this week. He may not have always necessarily been discriminating in his choice of roles (like Michael Caine, it seemed that he never met a script that he didn’t like) but he had a unique screen presence, and with well over 100 films to his credit over a 46-year career, was obviously dedicated to his craft. According to the Internet Movie Database, there were 6 films in postproduction and 1 in preproduction at the time of his death. He’s even in a SIFF film (screening next week) called My Suicide (I know what you’re thinking…but we still don’t know for sure at the time of this writing, so let’s not go there). One thing’s for sure, I don’t think I’ve met anyone in my age group who doesn’t have a certain nostalgic affection for Carradine that is forever cemented in their minds via the character he created in the TV series Kung Fu (which I’m pretty sure was your average ‘murcan teevee watcher’s first exposure to Zen philosophy). Here’s a few film recommendations:

Boxcar Bertha -This 1972 Bonnie and Clyde knockoff (produced on the cheap for Roger Corman’s AIP company) served as the launching pad for the then fledgling director Martin Scorcese. It is also one of the 4 films in which Carradine co-starred with Barbara Hershey (the two had a longtime off-screen romantic partnership as well). Carradine also landed a small part as a drunk in Scorcese’s breakout film, Mean Streets.

Americana-Carradine and Hershey teamed up again in this odd, no-budget 1973 character study (released in 1981) that Carradine directed and co-produced himself. He plays a Vietnam vet who drifts into a small Kansas town, and for his own enigmatic reasons, decides to restore an abandoned merry-go-round. The reaction from the clannish townsfolk ranges from bemused to spiteful. It’s a little bit Rambo , a wee bit Billy Jack (although nowhere near as violent as those films) and a whole lotta weird. In fact, what makes this film a curio in the “coming home” genre is the fact that none of the violence in the film is committed by the protagonist. Carradine also composed and performed the song that plays during the closing credits. This pre-dates The Deer Hunter by 4 years, BTW.

Death Race 2000– At first glance, Paul Bartel’s film about a futuristic gladiatorial cross-country auto race in which drivers score extra points for running down pedestrians is an outrageous, gross-out cult comedy. It could also be viewed as a takeoff on Rollerball, as a broad political satire, or perhaps a wry comment on that great, timeless American tradition of watching televised bloodsport for entertainment. One thing I’ll say about this movie-it’s never boring! Carradine is a riot as the defending race champ, “Frankenstein”.

Bound for Glory-You can almost taste the dust in director Hal Ashby’s leisurely, episodic 1976 biopic about the life of Depression era songwriter/social activist Woody Guthrie. Carradine (as Guthrie) gives his finest performance, and does a very credible job with his own singing and playing (from what I understand, music was his first love).

The Long Riders-An underappreciated western from the highly-stylized action film maestro Walter Hill. I think it’s one of the more entertaining renditions of the oft-filmed tale of Jesse James and his gang, largely due to the stunt casting on display. Three sets of well-known acting siblings (the brothers Keach, Quaid and Carradine) portray three sets of legendary outlaw siblings (the brothers James, Miller and Younger, respectively).

Q – The Winged Serpent-I know this darkly comic horror flick from psychotronic writer-director Larry Cohen isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a personal guilty pleasure of mine. It’s actually one of my favorite Carradine performances. He plays a New York police investigator looking for the nest of a flying lizard that is randomly terrorizing the city. Michael Moriarty (in a truly demented performance) is ostensibly the star, but Carradine’s straight-faced character gets to deliver some very wry lines, and I think he shows some very subtle comic timing throughout the whole film. Also look for Richard Roundtree and Candy Clark. C’mon-a dragon in NYC…you’ve gotta love it!

Kill Bill – Volume One / Kill Bill – Volume Two-Ever since Jules told Vincent (in Pulp Fiction) that his “retirement” plans were to “…just walk the Earth. You know, like Caine in Kung Fu…” you just knew that at some point, Quentin Tarantino and David Carradine were going to work together. It took 10 years, but it landed Carradine one of the most plum roles of his latter-day career, giving him a second wind with a whole new audience of potential fans.

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Wrong Again
by digby
The torture apologists are out in force trying to confuse and obuscate and the paper of record is helping them do it. Marcy’s on it:

As I have pointed out in the last two posts, the NYT has a story up claiming that Jim Comey approved of torture, but that grossly misreads the Comey emails on which the story is based. In fact, the memos appear to show that the White House–especially Dick Cheney and David Addington–were pushing DOJ to approve the torture that had been done to Hassan Ghul, without the specificity to record what they had done to him; in fact, one of the things the push on the memos appears to have prevented, was for Comey and Philbin to have actually researched what happened to Ghul. But the NYT instead claims that Jim Comey approved of torture legally, even while downplaying his concerns about the “combined techniques” memo that was the focus of his concerns (and not mentioning his response to the third memo). But there is more news than that in the Comey emails–news the Grey Lady doesn’t seem to think is news.

I can’t tell you how often I heard over the past week that the crisis in journalism is going to destroy democracy as we know it. How can we live without the great investigative reporting of the papers of record, something with which I agree? But never once did I hear any of those who defend mainstream journalism actually admit the fact that its stuff like this that is killing them as much as anything. The story is factually wrong, which can be proved by their own previous reporting.

Read Marcy’s series of posts on this. it’s going to take a lot of work to unravel this nonsense. It’s journalistic malpractice. Again.

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Paying For Coffee

by digby

This post at FDL discusses the refusal of the Department of Justice under the Bush administration to enforce the FACE Act, which stands for the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act. The man who shot Dr Tiller had been violating that law repeatedly for years. Read the whole thing, it’s an important part of the story.

It reminded me of an article from 1997, that puts it into even greater perspective:

Tuesday, April 1 1997; Page A04

When Wichita physician George Tiller made a $25,000 contribution last year to the Democratic National Committee, he asked a Kansas party fund-raiser for a special favor in return.

One of the few doctors in the country who perform third-trimester abortions, Tiller wanted a chance to personally thank President Clinton for 30 months of door-to-door protection by the U.S. Marshals Service. The service provided to Tiller, who was shot in 1993 by an antiabortion extremist, goes far beyond what the government has afforded to any other abortion provider faced with threats and on-the-job violence, interviews show.

Tiller got his wish and last June 17 was one of 13 guests at an intimate coffee hosted by the president. The chain of events and circumstances surrounding the coffee illustrate the 1996 campaign’s unusual minuet of fund-raising and government action in a year when controversial figures such as Chinese industrialist Wang Jun, convicted felon Eric Wynn and others gained an audience at the White House as the party made a pell-mell effort to raise campaign funds.

Tiller abruptly lost his Marshals Service protection last month, shortly after Kansas news media reported his presence at the coffee.

Those coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom were among the stupidest of the Clinton scandals — if all people wanted was to meet the president or spend the night at the white house in exchange for campaign contributions, that’s the most benign form of corruption possible. (We soon learned that having closed door meetings with an unknown list of energy giants to game the system in favor of their industry is far more “seemly” to the villagers. Clinton just didn’t think big enough.)

But I digress. The DOJ said that the two events were unrelated, but that’s very hard to believe. If you were around during that time, we were in the grip of an hysteria not sen since the Salem Witch Trials. As far as the Village was concerned those coffees were worse than Watergate. I don’t believe for a minute that that the withdrawal of Tiller’s protective service was related. The prevailing narrative was that anyone who contributed to Clinton and attended those coffees had no legitimate claim to government services. It was automatically corrupt.

You can’t blame Tiller’s assassination on this, of course. It was over ten years ago. But it underscores the fact that the culture wars are inherently political and that you can’t separate the conservative movement from the fringe. It’s a seamless system.

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The Funny Demagogue

by digby

The right wing populist message may sound like incoherent nonsense to our ears, but there’s a long history of it working very well in times of economic stress. And there’s no better practitioner of it at the moment than Glenn Beck, who has skillfully wrapped himself in the cloak of comedy, rather than religion, with his new “Common Sense Comedy Tour:”

The Common Sense show was light on the histrionics and explicit doomsday talk that have attracted viewers to Mr. Beck’s Fox show and drawn condemnation from liberal commentators (though he did slip in a reference to thinking the unthinkable). There were no tears. Perhaps Mr. Beck dialed things back because the show is largely a promotional vehicle for his new book, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense,” which he hawked from the stage and which was advertised relentlessly during that 15-minute break. There’s some cognitive dissonance there: one of his big applause lines, which is also one of his few clearly stated points, is “we need to stop spending.” On everything except Glenn Beck’s books and DVD’s, apparently.

But despite the modulation, and the smooth, folksy Garrison Keillor-with-a-bee-in-his-bonnet delivery, there was little in the show to reassure those who see Mr. Beck as a right-wing ranter bordering on a demagogue. Agreeable sentiments about personal and fiscal responsibility, education in citizenship and the value of nonpartisanship were wrapped in a vague, pandering mix of populist cliches, conspiracy theories and jokes that pounded away at blue-state punching bags: Nancy Pelosi, unions, the National Endowment for the Arts, government regulation and taxes, taxes, taxes. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Democratic Representative Henry A. Waxman were both made fun of for their looks; Mr. Waxman’s nose was the subject of a particularly unpleasant visual joke.

One of Mr. Beck’s favorite rhetorical tactics is a combination of misdirection and guilt by association: he doesn’t say nasty things about ethnic minorities or homosexuals, but he will slip in a reference to how all our cars will soon be built by undocumented workers, and he will, in a long, lame anecdote about “liberal” artists and the Metropolitan Museum, switch into a high, lisping voice for just a second. Mr. Beck’s appeals to racial solidarity are delivered in the same winking way: speaking of the “grand, magnificent” founding fathers, he leans toward his visibly homogeneous Midwestern audience and says “and we’ve lost touch with how much like us they were.”

It’s easy to dismiss this guy, ad if the world is sane at all, he will be remembered as a sideshow. But his mish-mash of government and minority bashing, the weaving in of criticism of the Fed and unnamed conspiracies, the bogus historical references and the purposefully vague “us vs them” rhetoric (which allows the listeners to believe the enemy is anyone they choose) is a time tested form of right wing, populist misdirection.

The fact that Beck is a multi-millionaire, corporate celebrity who is out there hawking a book should make people suspicious about who he’s really representing in all this. But it doesn’t. One of the defining characteristics of the right wing is that they always blame the weak rather than the strong are are easily led by those who know how to play to their fears and prejudices.

Beck’s a clown. But what he’s saying has powerful potential and will seem even more powerful a couple of years from now if the economy doesn’t markedly improve. I would never dismiss him outright.

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Culture ‘O Life

by digby

Bob Enyart, spokesman for Colorado Right to Life, which has demonstrated against Hern for decades, said that although his group doesn’t condone Tiller’s slaying, abortion providers should expect that violence begets violence.

“If a Mafia hit man gets killed, people recognize it’s an occupational hazard,” he said.

Hern has been familiar with the hazards for decades. After performing abortions for more than half of his life, the 70-year-old doctor has never been injured, but the constant threats with which he has lived since 1973 have transformed his life into a series of security measures: sleeping with a rifle, scanning rooftops for snipers, wearing a protective vest.

[…]

In 1988, a gunman fired five shots into his clinic’s waiting room, prompting Hern to install four layers of bulletproof glass and an electronic security system. That year, Hern and his wife of six years divorced, a breakup Hern attributed in part to the stress of his work.

The ever-present threats made it hard to develop relationships, Hern testified at a 1999 trial in which he and other doctors sued an antiabortion group for placing their names and personal information on a “Deadly Dozen” list. “It has made me feel a great sense of personal isolation, and that has been the most painful part of this experience,” Hern said, according to the Associated Press.

He and the other doctors won a verdict of about $108 million, although an appeals court later reduced that to $16 million.

Enyart has no sympathy. “The perpetrators of widespread injustice like slave traders and Nazis expect to go home and live in tranquillity. That’s an absurd expectation.”

ter⋅ror⋅ism
 
–noun
1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

ter·ror·ism

n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

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Privatizing Death

by digby

Maybe if we start calling all this war spending “entitlements,” we could get someone to pay attention to this:

KBR, Halliburton and the private security firm Blackwater have come to
symbolize the excesses of outsourcing warfare. So you’d think that with a new sheriff like Barack Obama in town, such practices would be on the “Things Not to Do” list. Not so.

According to new Pentagon statistics, in the second quarter of this year, there has been a 23% increase in the number of private security
contractors working for the Pentagon in Iraq and a 29% hike in Afghanistan. In fact, outside contractors now make up approximately half of our forces fighting in the two countries. “This means,” according to Jeremy Scahill, author of the book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, “there are a whopping 242,647 contractors working on these two U.S. wars.”

Scahill, who runs an excellent new website called “Rebel Reports,” spoke with my colleague Bill Moyers on the current edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. “What we have seen happen, as a result of this incredible reliance on private military contractors, is that the United States has created a new system for waging war,” he said. By hiring foreign nationals as mercenaries, “You turn the entire world into your recruiting ground. You intricately link corporate profits to an escalation of warfare and make it profitable for companies to participate in your wars.”In the process of doing that you undermine US democratic policies. And you also violate the sovereignty of other nations, because you’re making their citizens combatants in a war to which their country is not a
party.

“I feel that the end game of all of this could well be the disintegration of the nation-state apparatus in the world. And it could be replaced by a scenario where you have corporations with their own private armies. To me, that would be a devastating development. But it’shappening on a micro level. And I fear it will start to happen on a much bigger scale.”

Jeremy Scahill’s comments come just as Lt. General Stanley McChrystal, the man slated to be the new commander of our troops in Afghanistan says the cost of our strategy there is going to cost America and its NATO allies billions of additional dollars for years to come. In fact, according to budget documents released by the Pentagon last month, as of next year, the cost of the war in Afghanistan – more and more known as “Obama’s War” – will exceed the cost of the war in Iraq.

Scahill appears on Bill Moyers tonight to discuss this. And it couldn’t come at a better time, considering that the congress seems to be getting ready to once again blindly fund an “emergency” supplemental to pay for all this without even knowing what they’re paying for.

Meanwhile we have the fiscal scolds out there pounding the message that we have to rein in “entitlement” spending right this minute or the country is going to implode. The question of privatizing wars for profit — by the trillions — isn’t even on the table.

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What Is Jerry Coyne’s Complaint?

by tristero

Full disclosure: I’m proud to count Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse, a devastating critique of so-called “intelligent design” creationism, a personal friend. I don’t recognize her when Jerry Coyne describes her:

Accommodationists like Forrest and the National Center for Science Education have been using the “let’s-make-nice-to-the-faithful” strategy for several decades. What is the result?

Accommodationist? Barbara Forrest? Has Dr. Coyne actually read her book? Has he read her articles, seen her speak? Dr. Forrest advocates no accommodation – none, zero, zip, nada, zilch – for those who would dilute science education. And she suffers no fools and provides no quarter to christianists.

I truly have no idea what Coyne is talking about. For example, he complains about this description of Forrest:

Forrest then gave three reasons that secularists should not alienate religious moderates:

1. Etiquette. Or as Forrest put it, “be nice.” Religion is a very private matter, and given that liberal religionists support church-state separation, we really have no business questioning their personal way of making meaning of the world. After all, they are not trying to force it on anybody else.

Who could possibly object to this? And on what grounds? But Dr. Coyne does, or rather, he thinks he does:

Let’s first dispose of one argument: Mooney and Forrest’s implicit requirement that atheists should “make nice” with their religious, evolution-accepting opponents and never, ever criticize them.

You catch that? Forrest said, “Be nice,” but Coyne understands that to imply, “Make nice.” Hell of a difference. Being nice is merely manners but making nice is aggressively fawning. And that’s for starters. You’d have to be completely unaware of the ways in which Southern hospitality works (Forrest is from Louisiana) to mistake “being nice” for accommodation! But Coyne apparently can’t tell the difference and goes after a straw man. He’s arguing with himself and he certainly makes a compelling case. But his argument has nothing whatsoever to do with what Forrest said or, more importantly, how she fights against creationism and for science education.

I’ll address Dr. Coyne’s question (“What is the result?”) in a moment. But I have to note that I simply don’t understand Dr. Coyne. Not his science, which sounds fascinating, but his cultural/political assertions. He certainly can’t be saying that science proves religion is bogus because, of course, science has proved no such thing. There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is that the term “religion” is, from the standpoint of a scientific investigation, far too general a term to mean much. Ditto God, another term that is left undefined, although Coyne seems to think it means “a white guy in the sky,” as if that is anything remotely resembling a description of God for most religions. So what is he talking about, what is he objecting to that is different from what Barbara Forrest objects to? I honestly have no idea. They both vigorously support science education, of course. The only difference seems to be that Forrest knows exactly what she opposes – creationism – and Coyne doesn’t – religion, whatever that is.

Sounds like intellectual incoherence to me. But Dr. Coyne is a very smart person, and so I can only assume I am not capable of following his thought. Hopefully, one of you in comments will enlighten me.

Now, to answer Coyne’s question. Again:

Accommodationists like Forrest and the National Center for Science Education have been using the “let’s-make-nice-to-the-faithful” strategy for several decades. What is the result? First, American acceptance of evolution has stayed exactly where it is for 25 years. The strategy is not changing minds. Second, the progress that has been made is not in changing minds, but winning court cases, as in Dover. However, winning those court cases does not require that we show that science and religion are compatible. Rather, it requires showing that creationism and ID are forms of disguised religion.

I have no idea which of the many strategies the NCSE uses has worked or not worked over the past decades, and neither does Coyne. No one’s examined the evidence in a scientific fashion. For that matter, no one has carefully quantified or measured the amount of influence NCSE has had on the debate.

In other words, Coyne’s assertion that they have had virtually no influence in changing minds is simply his opinion, to which he is entitled. I, however, beg to differ.

NCSE, including Forrest, played, by all accounts, a pivotal role in Kitzmiller v. Dover, a case which I believe (and I’ve studied both extensively), is far more important in the battle against the establishment of religion than Scopes. The impact of this decision has been profound, far beyond the merely legal which Coyne asserts. One small example: After Dover, the New York Times (and many other mainstream media) dramatically changed its news coverage of ID creationism, and no longer, as far as I know, publishes puff pieces about creationism and creationists.

Perhaps the best thing to say about Dr, Coyne’s assertion that this isn’t enough – let’s be nice, after all – is, “Yes, of course.” Obviously, more can be done to safeguard – and improve! – science teaching. No one fighting the good fight, least of all NCSE and Barbara Forrest, would disagree. So what, exactly, is Coyne’s disagreement?

To be clear, I certainly don’t want Coyne to shut up – which he claims, completely without foundation, Forrest does. Rather, I want Dr. Coyne to continue to speak out, but clearly. When it comes to what he calls “accomodationism,” he has been extraordinarily difficult to understand. Certainly, nothing I know about Forrest, both intellectually and personally, can by any reasonable criteria be described as intellectual or political “accommodationism.” She is intellectually uncompromising and politically tough (and also very nice). The label is absurd.

[Updated to correct a misattributed quote.]

DIY Lobbying

by digby

It’s ironic that after I wrote about how ineffectual progressives are compared to the new Democratic Industrial Complex (DIC) , we have an example of how they actually can leverage their clout on a major piece of legislation. Here’s Greenwald:

When I wrote about this several days ago, the Senate had passed the Graham-Lieberman secrecy law as an amendment to the spending supplemental bill (which includes funding for Iraq and Afghanistan) without even bothering to take a formal roll call vote (on a voice vote). Although the House version of the supplemental bill did not contain this amendment, it was widely expected that it would simply be inserted in the House-Senate conference and then easily passed along with the final bill. But passage of Graham-Lieberman now appears much less certain because of what appears to be the refusal of some key liberal House Democrats — including Barney Frank — to support it. The votes of liberal House Democrats actually matter (for once) because most House Republicans are refusing to support the overall supplemental bill due to their objections to a provision for $5 billion in funding to increase the IMF’s lending capacity. To pass the supplemental spending bill, House leaders need the votes of numerous House Democrats who are currently refusing to vote for anything that contains the photo suppression amendment. If Congressional Democrats succeed in blocking enactment of this amendment, that would be a critical assertion for the first time of Congressional checks on Obama’s desired powers and would, independently, prevent a truly odious new secrecy power from being enacted.

There are a lot of moving parts on this. The Blue Dogs don’t want to pass the IMF provision, but they are for the war funding and secrecy provision. Some progressives are hostile to the war funding and the secrecy provision but not to the IMF. (The DICs prevail on that one.) I would assume that there are a handful who are hostile to all three. Evidently the process is very chaotic and nobody really knows what’s going on. And that brings opportunity to influence the outcome.

Jane Hamsher:

Rahm Emanuel is exerting pressure on progressive members of Congress to switch their votes and help pass the supplemental bill. The bill would not only fund the war in Afghanistan, it would also include IMF funding and the Graham-Lieberman amendment, which allows the administration to block the release of detainee photos in response to FOIA requests. If 39 Democrats commit to vote against the supplemental, it won’t pass. For once, the votes of progressive members of Congress actually matter when it comes to funding the war. But they are being heavily pressured by Democratic leadership to toe the line. Call members of Congress and tell them to vote against the bill. Our whip list includes Democrats who voted against the supplemental the first time, those who have expressed reservations about the IMF funding, and also those who don’t want to see Lieberman’s hideous amendment pass. We could actually win this one. You can find the Whip List here, which includes phone numbers and the place to let us know what you learn.

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