Month: September 2009

Quarantine

by digby

If you have a chance to listen to Beck today, do. He’s going to unveil more details about the “secret plan” he alluded to on Saturday:

We need to quarantine Washington: Nothing in; nothing out.

We’ve all seen great people head off, newly elected to D.C., and what happens? They change. After a few months or a couple years, you start to think: “What happened to them?” They were infected with the disease of corruption.

No one in and no legislation comes out — infected legislation spreads across our country like… well, a plague.

So what do we do? We stop spreading the disease. It’s time to reconnect with our founding principles. Fifty-six men signed the original documents that every American patriot still believes in with all their heart over 200 years later. Fifty-six men changed the world forever. We currently have 535 people in the United States Congress. You can’t tell me that we don’t have 56 committed patriots there who understand that there’s an illness in D.C. and would like to do something about it, but just don’t know how or what to do.

Let’s offer them the way out.

First of all, we all demand daily to our representatives that they pass nothing until the corruption is stopped.

Second, we let them know that we all make mistakes and we offer them the chance for redemption. If they’ve been part of the problem, come forward, let us know about it and we’ll be forgiving. Now, if you’ve broken the law, obviously, you’ll have to pay for that. But if it’s something that has dishonored you, your office or your family, then confess it, deal with it and we will stand behind you if you help us clean up this mess.

We need to offer a way out to members of Congress. Now we know that some of these people are like Typhoid Mary, just spreading corruption wherever they can. Others, can and will find redemption and feel good about themselves and their country again. Still others have maybe not yet been fully infected.

I had this idea the other night, while reading Thomas Jefferson. Let’s begin the search for the 56 men and women who help us re-found America: Patriots, “refounders” willing to put their nation ahead of themselves and their party affiliation. Stop identifying yourselves as Republicans and Democrats; start identifying yourselves as Americans.

Republicans should begin the cleanup of the GOP and the Democrats clean out the corruption in the Democratic Party. We all know it’s there — so, admit it: Clean up the mess and let’s move on.

So, we stop talking about any policies or legislation passing — a total quarantine. We get Democrats to focus on fixing the Democratic Party and Republicans to focus on the Republican Party. Come out, find a microphone and purge the disease. Come out to CNN, if you’re more comfortable there — it doesn’t matter, just do it and restore your own party.

As for what you can do: You need to apply the pressure on Congress that enforces the quarantine. And, reach out to your neighbor with facts — not with emotion, not with anger, with facts. Don’t worry about the game players — those stuck in the right vs. left rut — forget them and move on. Talk to the reasonable ones.

We can’t seem to agree on anything anymore in this nation. But the one thing on which all reasonable Americans can agree is that we don’t want corruption in our government. In nearly every poll taken for the past several years, it is the No. 2 concern on the minds of the people.

Let’s stop thinking about it and do something about it.

It sounds like a heckuva plan.

Even the Freepers think he’s got issues:

My wife is manic depressive(Bi-polar) and we both feel that Beck might be going through a manic episode.

He looked like he was coming close to becoming unhinged as I watched some of his coverage last night.

I wonder if he hasn’t already accomplished what he needed to.

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I am staying away from his show for the next 6 months or so until he gets it together

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Is this the ‘Big Thing’ that he has promoting the last week? Is this related to his ‘there will be arrests’ comment last week.

This is all a little too weird for me.

When these people are questioning your sanity …

Of course, there are still the true believers:

It’s a third party movement. And it is a GREAT idea. We have all been trying to figure out HOW to start a viable third party that could actually make a difference. THIS could be the dynamite that blows the whole thing up. Do not underestimate Beck. It’s been done before. He’s a winner. Same as Rush. And Rush has his back.

Oh, I hope so.

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Are You Listening Mr President?

by digby

The cheese eating francophile Roger Cohen in the NY Times dispels some of the myths about the French health care system and points out that in many ways it actually mirrors our own:

So beyond all the hectoring, the main French-American difference on health care is not ideological but a question of efficiency. Both countries use a mixture of public and private. France is at a very far remove from “socialism.” The United States has already “socialized” a significant portion of its medicine. (Nothing illustrates right-wing ideological madness in the United States better than calls from some to “keep the government out of my Medicare!”)

The real difference is that the French state mandates health coverage for everyone, picks up the tab where necessary (as for the unemployed), holds down costs through a national fee system, and uses mainly nonprofit mutual insurers even for supplemental private coverage. The profit motive is outweighed by the principle of universal health care, with a corresponding effect on doctors’ salaries.

These are real distinctions. But the “socialism sucks” Republican broadside on Obama’s reform plans — with its overtone that the “cosmopolitan” president wants to “Europeanize” American medicine — is nonsense. It’s nonsense because the free market is vigorous in France (and Europe), because there are all sorts of European approaches to health (within the compulsory coverage), and because the United States has already “socialized” aplenty without turning its capitalism pink.

As Peter Baldwin makes clear in an interesting new book called “The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are alike,” U.S.-European contrasts can often be more about playing politics by comforting old myths — individualist at the new frontier versus collectivist at the beach — than facts.

He is impatient with both sides of the divide and takes his French friends to task for assuming that that America has some primitive wild west system where the is no government involvement, when in fact many, many millions of Americans are in some kind of government paid health care.

Then he explains as well as anyone I’ve seen why the public option is important (and why liberals care about it):

Still some facts of the trans-Atlantic health care contrast are disturbing and justify the incredulity of my French friends, none more so than the furor over President Obama’s support for a government insurance option (like Medicare) that would, among other things, keep private insurers honest. Its Republican critics have portrayed this idea as so dangerous it represents a fight for freedom over tyranny.

So Obama has retreated a little and portrayed this option as a “only a means to an end” that could be discarded. He should not retreat. The public option best enshrines the principle of the state’s commitment to insuring everyone.

Yes. Enshrined within the public option is the principle of universal health care. That’s why it’s politically and morally important to include it.

h/t to bb

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Finding Real America Again

by digby

From Boehlert I see that the Washington Post featured the Teabagger March on the front page today and devoted a lot of space to explaining that these are just regular folks from all around America expressing their thoughts. I’ve been getting the sense in the media for the past few days that they are about to take a U-turn on this story, even as they continue to highlight Joe Wilson and his outburst.

I could be wrong, but things like this make me nervous:

Most of us in what is called the communications field are not rooted in the great mass of ordinary Americans–in Middle America. And the results show up not merely in occasional episodes … but more importantly in the systematic bias toward young people, minority groups, and the of presidential candidates who appeal to them.

“To get a feel of this bias it is first necessary to understand the antagonism that divides the middle class of this country. On the one hand there are highly educated upper-income whites sure of and brimming with ideas for doing things differently. On the other hand, there is Middle America, the large majority of low-income whites, traditional in their values and on the defensive against innovation.

“The most important organs of and television are, beyond much doubt, dominated by the outlook of the upper-income whites.

“In these circumstances, it seems to me that those of us in the media need to make a special effort to understand Middle America. Equally it seems wise to exercise a certain caution, a prudent restraint, in pressing a claim for a plenary indulgence to be in all places at all times the agent of the sovereign public.”

Actually, that was a very famous piece written by the David Broder of his time, Joseph Kraft, back in 1968. And it’s what led to the Village of today — a bunch of wealthy elites who feel they have to identify with the white middle class of an America that only exists in their minds.

It would be depressing to see this ridiculous set of assumptions get a new lease on life, but I won’t be surprised if it does.

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For All The Happy People

by digby

… who don’t give a damn about universal health care because they have theirs:

Since 2000, a period of generally low unemployment, the portion of the population getting insurance directly from the government rose from 24.7 percent to 29 percent, while the portion receiving employment-based coverage fell from 64.2 percent to 58.5 percent. placeAd2(commercialNode,’midarticleflex’,false,”)

These data don’t tell the whole story about the decline of employment-based insurance. Not all insurance is created equal. If you’re a top dog at Goldman Sachs, your employer will provide a gold-plated plan and pick up the tab, which can run up to $40,000. If you’re a clerk at Whole Foods, your employer will offer a low-premium high-deductible policy—which is great for people who have extra cash and don’t have much occasion to use health care services. For most workers, the experience is somewhere in between Whole Foods and Goldman Sachs: Employers and workers share the costs of a plan that provides decent coverage.Economists have correctly noted that wages haven’t risen more in this decade in part because companies are paying more for benefits like health insurance. True. But employers have also been passing on rising costs to employees. And according to a new report by Mercer Consulting, companies are planning on doing a lot of that in 2010. If employers simply reupped existing plans, Mercer’s survey finds, costs would rise by 9 percent. But according to preliminary findings, “respondents plan to shave three percentage points off their annual renewal rates through a variety of cost-saving actions, holding overall cost growth to 5.9 percent next year.” How? The “first line of defense” is “shifting costs to employees.” Mercer notes that between 2004 and 2008, the median family deductible for in-network services in the type of plan offered by the largest number of employers soared from $1,000 to $1,850. Translation: Employees who used their insurance plans with any frequency saw their wages reduced by $850 in that period. And it looks like there are more such “cuts” coming. Next year, Mercer reports, “nearly two-thirds of all respondents (63 percent) will again ask employees to pay a greater share of health plan costs.” Forty percent say they’ll ask employees to pay a bigger chunk of the monthly premium, and 39 percent will boost deductibles or increase co-payments. Oh, and 18 percent say they plan to get rid of “more generous health plan options” as a way to move into cheaper ones like consumer-directed health plans. The upshot: Most people who receive employer-based health insurance will either be paying more for the same plan or be offered a plan that shifts more costs on to them.

Employed teabaggers can get sick — and teabagger employers can make you pay even more for your coverage. Nobody is immune from illness and exploding health care costs. It can happen to anyone.

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It’s Not Dead Yet

by digby

… at least according to the President:

John Amato writes:

Fox News is telling us that the public option is dead and the do-nothing Republicans are calling for it to be gone, but in a huge speech Saturday that took place to a fired-up campaign-style crowd in Minnesota, Obama was as strong on the public option as I’ve ever heard him.
Listen to the crowd cheer wildly over the idea of a public option. If he’s so against the public option, then why did he stand as strong as he did in this speech? The bottom line is that if the president wants it, then he can get it done.

Yes he can!

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Thank You For Your Service

by digby

From Scott Horton :

Former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak and former CENTCOM Commander-in-Chief Joseph Hoar have a word for former Vice President Dick Cheney and his advocacy of torture. It’s “irresponsible.” Here’s what they have to say in a joint op-ed published today in the Miami Herald:

[W]e never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas — and his scare tactics. . . In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Cheney applauded the “enhanced interrogation techniques”–what we used to call “war crimes” because they violated the Geneva Conventions, which the United States instigated and has followed for 60 years. Cheney insisted the abusive techniques were “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the United States.” He claimed they were “directly responsible for the fact that for eight years, we had no further mass casualty attacks against the United States. It was good policy . . . It worked very, very well.” Repeating these assertions doesn’t make them true. We now see that the best intelligence, which led to the capture of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was produced by professional interrogations using noncoercive techniques. When the abuse began, prisoners told interrogators whatever they thought would make it stop. Torture is as likely to produce lies as the truth. And it did. . .

Love it or leave it hippies.

Update: More unhinged leftist propaganda, here.

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Social Insurance

by digby

This essay in the New York Times is an excellent primer on the government’s role in risk management. And he uses the term “social insurance” which seems to me to be a great way to describe the safety net in a way that people can readily understand.

I particularly like this:

The financial markets had prided themselves on their expertise in pricing and managing financial risk prudently. But left on their own, they proved that they could not even manage properly as simple a transaction as a mom-and-pop mortgage loan, let alone fancy derivatives such as the collateralized debt obligations (C.D.O.’s) that were based on sloppily-written mortgage loans and the credit-default swaps (C.D.S.’s) meant to insure the value of these C.D.O.’s, but without adequate reserves to back up that credit insurance.

In the end, like teenagers who hate Mother’s strictures when all is well, but run to Mommy whenever they get in trouble, the swashbuckling oligarchs of the financial sector ran to government for cover, owning up once again to the time-honored mantra of this country’s legendary rugged individualists:

When the going gets tough, the tough run to the government.

Another term for “government risk management,” of course, is “social insurance.”

It is a social contract with government that Americans quietly love, but in the shouting matches that now pass for our “national conversation” on public policy so often profess to hate — as when they cry for government to stay out of Medicare, or when they sit on their beachfronts in the Hamptons waxing worried about government intrusion in the economy, all the while basking in the security of federal flood insurance.

Read the whole thing. Social insurance is a great way of describing what liberals believe government should provide to its citizens. You simply can’t have a dynamic society where people are petrified to take any risks for fear they will lose everything. And you can’t have a society where the oligarchs are unregulated or they will take ridiculous risks and depend upon the people to bail them out.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Superbaad

By Dennis Hartley

Radical chic(k): The Baader-Meinhof Complex

The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a new German political thriller that largely eschews the politics for the thrills, with nary a sympathetic character in sight. I feel sorry for writer-producer Bernd Eichinger and director Uli Edel. Marketing a film in this day and age that dutifully recreates a 10-year reign of terror by Germany’s most notorious (and nihilistic) group of underground radicals (especially this close to another anniversary of the 9/11 attacks) has got to be a tough sell, no matter how honorable the intentions. Still, the truly objective viewer will find much to admire within this admittedly difficult 2 ½ hour opus.

What I found most exciting about this film were the three fearless and incendiary lead performances that lie at the heart of it. Martina Gedeck (pictured above) is a marvel as Ulrike Meinhof. Meinhof was a well-known left-wing journalist in the late 60s, when she first met radical activists Gudrun Ensslin (a super-intense Johanna Wokalek) and Andreas Baader (Mortiz Bleibtreu, who played Franka Potente’s boyfriend in Run Lola Run). The couple had recently begun to make the transition from protest to action; their firebombing of a department store (in protest of the Vietnam War) made an impression on Mienhof, who was already toying with the idea of making that jump herself. Within a year of their first meeting, Meinhof was firmly in league with Baader and Ensslin, who all eventually would form the nucleus of the self-proclaimed “Red Army Faction”. After a prison break in 1970 that freed Baader (who had earned a 3-year sentence for the department store arson) and a stint of military training in Jordan with El Fatah, the R.A.F.’s actions began to lead to an ever-increasing body count. This naturally precipitated intense pursuit by authorities, who had the three principals and most of their associates rounded up by 1972.

Although the founding members were now incarcerated for good, there would still be another five years of activities by the R.A.F. Mark II- the so-called “second generation” of the organization; this period of their history (1973-1977) accounts for the final third of the film. It is this part of the story that I actually found most fascinating. This is because it demonstrates how (although doesn’t necessarily go to any length to explore why) such radical groups inevitably seem to self-destruct by becoming a microcosm of the very thing they were railing against in the first place (in this case, disintegrating into a sort of self-imposed fascistic state that became more and more about internal power plays and individual egos instead of focusing on their original collective idealism). This aspect of the story strongly recalls the late German filmmaker Rainier Werner Fassbinder’s 1979 political satire, cheekily entitled The Third Generation, in which he carries the idea of an ongoing disconnect between the R.A.F.’s core ideals and what he portrays as little more than a group of increasingly clueless, bumbling middle-class dilettantes who bear scant resemblance to the original group of hardcore revolutionaries, to ridiculous extremes.

This is not a film for everyone. The 150-minute running time will be daunting if you only have a passing interest in the subject matter. As I mentioned at the top of the review, this is not exactly a political film, per se (vis a vis “making a statement”). Screenwriter/producer Eichinger (who adapted from Stefan Aust’s book of the same name) has stated in an interview that the intention was neither to make “…a didactic film nor a modern morality play about German terrorism,” but rather present events as they actually occurred, and allow the viewer to draw their own conclusion. I think they succeed in achieving this intended neutrality; it’s a wise choice, because these are not easy (nor pleasant) characters to spend 2 ½ hours with. If you find the story intriguing as socio-political history (and appreciate top-notch acting), I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you want to see it strictly as an “action” thriller (it does have its fair share of such sequences) I suspect that you may be going to see it for all the wrong reasons.

There is a line in the film that really stuck with me. It is uttered by Bruno Ganz, who plays the head of the German Federal Police Force. It’s almost a throwaway, but I think it’s significant. Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact quote, so I will have to paraphrase. During a strategy meeting, he says something to the effect of “In order to effectively fight terrorism, it is essential to be able to step back far enough to objectively understand the terrorist’s point of view.” The reaction of his colleagues is very interesting; they seem aghast and quite ruffled by the fact that he would even say such a thing. It’s such a simple concept (to me, it’s simply a variation on the old axiom, “Know thy enemy”) but so difficult for the powers-that-be to understand sometimes, hmm? It reminded me of an era not too far past (September 12, 2001-January 19, 2009 to be precise) during when such “objectivity” was interpreted by certain members of our government as “empathy” (read: “unpatriotic”, “not supporting the troops”). Good times!

Previous posts with similar themes:

Monkey Warfare

Chicago 10

Che

Zippy little number: 9

A stitch in time saves…oh, never mind.

In the course of my weekly scribbles here, I haven’t exactly been shy about relaying my general aversion to the Pixar-influenced school of animation (I know, it’s a personal problem). There’s just something about it that is too cold and detached; it doesn’t feel “lived in” and seems to lack the relative “warmth” of hand-drawn cel animation. It’s all too… oh, I don’t know…digital (I liken it to the hoary “vinyl vs. CD” audiophile battle). I dunno. Perhaps I have an innate fear of technology that I have yet to come to grips with. How ironic, then, that one of the first such animated films to catch my fancy happens to be a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about a world where the “warmth” of the human imprint has been eradicated by cold, detached machines. That is the premise of 9, an imaginative variation on a well-worn genre, directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton.

The story centers on a diminutive, sentient, semi-organic laboratory creation simply named “9”, a cross between Frankenstein and Pinocchio who looks like a voodoo doll stitched together with recycled burlap and held intact by a handy zip-up front. He awakens one day on the floor of a lab, Rip van Winkle style, to a decimated, desolate and very strange world, alongside the scientist who created him (long dead). As he wanders about getting his bearings, it becomes apparent that the machines, as they say, have “taken over”. Very nasty machines, like a frightful predatory contraption that resembles a T. Rex that might be constructed in a fever dream by a demented Erector Set enthusiast (the mechanized beasts get bigger, and more fantastical, as the story moves along-but I won’t spoil anything by going into detail). When a chance encounter throws “9” in with a tribe of similar beings who have also somehow weathered the apocalypse, a possibility arises that some spark of hope and humanity might still remain-and the mystery is afoot.

The “fear of technology” theme has been a sci-fi film staple, from Fritz Lang’s 1927 prototype, Metropolis , to The Terminatorand beyond. In fact, while I was watching 9, I was thinking that if Fritz Lang were alive today and were to work with computer animation, he would probably cook something up that looked very similar to this (then again, I might have Lang on the brain because I re-watched M just a few weeks back). At times I was also reminded of the transportive otherworldliness of the Brothers Quay (Street of Crocodiles), all set to a moody soundtrack by Danny Elfman (who else-with Burton in the mix?). The film is so wonderfully atmospheric and visually stunning that I was willing to overlook its weaknesses; namely its disintegration (after a compelling start) into a series of loud, repetitive action sequences and an abrupt, anticlimactic finish.

I’d be curious to know if the director (who created the original story from which Pamela Pettler adapted her screenplay) was inspired by The Lord of the Rings. His film is, after all about a “fellowship” of nine who set about (against all odds) on a quest to save their world from the dark forces which are bent on destroying it (and the fact that our little Frodo-like animated hero is voiced by a, um, Mr. Elijah Wood adds fuel to that fire, no?). Other familiar voices: Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly and the irrepressible Crispin Glover (who, perhaps, is best heard…and not seen?).

BTW, what’s with all the “nines” at the box office? Numerologists must be having a field day with the convergence of the recent District 9 (which I reviewed here), Acker’s 9, and the upcoming Nine-the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, based on Fellini’s 8 1/2. Hmmm…maybe the machines SHOULD take over soon. Time to hit the “reset” button…

Bad machines: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Westworld, Futureworld, Blade Runner, I, Robot, The Demon Seed, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Kronos, Wargames, Dr. Strangelove, The Matrix Revolutions, Transformers, Steamboy, Modern Times, Wild Wild West, Christine, Maximum Overdrive, Killdozer.

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Stray Thoughts

by digby

Sent in by reader Steve L:

How quickly the United States government fires ACORN

How slowly the United States Doesn’t Fire Blackwater

But then Blackwater only murdered people. ACORN gave legal advice.

Funny that.

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Yer Friends And Neighbors

by digby

9/12:

“Obama, we have waken up to your evil plans to destroy our country. Take your racist unamerican Acorn groups and arrogant wife back to your own country and strip their rights away!”

Here’s the opening to Beck’s 9/12 message:

We changed for a brief time and then slipped right back into bickering, partisan, factions. What happened? How did we lose that 9/12 feeling so quickly?

Well, for one thing, we don’t trust each other any more. It’s always Republicans against Democrats, Democrats against Republicans and independents against them both.

Then we have the media continually beating that partisan drum. Let me ask you a question: Who, in everyday life, ever worries about political party affiliation? When was the last time you asked someone at a barbeque, “Hey, are you a Republican or a Democrat?”

When you’ve had an accident or you’re sick and you’re in the emergency room filling out insurance forms, how many times have you been asked what political party you most associate with?

When you die and you’re standing at the gates of heaven, will the proverbial St. Peter, who proverbially stands at the gates, have you check Republican or Democrat before entering? No! It’s ludicrous! Who cares?

It’s this back-and-forth battle — constantly at each other’s throats — that stops us from talking about the things that do matter.

yeah.

Yglesias was at the protest and has pictures and commentary. The upshot seems to be that these people believe that the entire world has completely turned upside down in just eight months to the point at which their everyday lives are unrecognizable to them. Considering that the only thing that’s happened is the bailout of auto companies, some stimulus spending and cash for clunkers I’d say their lives must have been pretty bizarre to begin with.

One thing is for sure. If anyone ever had any doubts that Al Gore would have been impeached after 9/11 I don’t think we need to wonder anymore. Imagine what these people would have done if the Supreme Court had installed him in 2000 instead of Bush …

They simply do not believe that a Democrat can be a legitimate president.

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