Month: May 2010

“Right to Left and Top To Bottom”

by digby

At 11 this morning (pdt) click over to Crooks and Liars’ and meet Claudia Wright, Blue America’s latest endorsement for the House of Representatives from Utah’s 2nd district. She’s got quite a story, both personal and political.

On the personal side she’s the openly gay great, great granddaughter of Brigham Young (plus much, much more.) And the political story is just as interesting. Here’s Howie:

The congressman from the second is reactionary Blue Dog Jim Matheson, son of two-term Governor Scott Matheson, and he pretty much always votes with the Republicans on important issues. He first got elected by attacking Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore for his healthcare reform proposals. Needless to say, Matheson was an eager aisle crosser when it came to the recent votes on healthcare reform. And three weeks ago Democratic activists in his district– despite a parachute jump in by wheeler/dealer Steny Hoyer– were eager to deny Matheson the Democratic Party endorsement. They forced him into an open primary with today’s Blue America endorsee, Claudia Wright.

Not that anyone in the Village noticed, of course, what with all the hoopla around unseating Senator Bob Bennett, but it’s clear that the tea partiers aren’t the only activists in Utah. Sure it’s a red state but that doesn’t tell the whole story anymore.

Howie explains:

Inside the Beltway pundits and political “pros” insist that Democrats only win in red areas like UT-02 by running on Republican talking points. Ignoring the outstanding campaigns run by working family champions– from Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) to Dave Loebsack (D-IA) and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), each of whom ousted an entrenched Republican incumbent in a “red” district– the conventional wisdom is that only corporate shills like Jim Matheson can win in places like Utah. We know conventional wisdom is wrong and ignores the reality of the district. And so does Claudia:

Mr. Matheson and the party wasn’t prepared for the reception he got at the mass meetings we had last March. He had no idea how angry he made his constituents. He was boo-ed and jeered… The party has misread its membership and misread the fact that we are witnessing a political realignment, not just here in Utah, but across the country. The alignment is shifting right to left and top to bottom. A large number of delegates at our convention were actually moderate Republicans who are now more at home with our party than they are with the extremist right of the Republican Party.

Interesting, no?

Come over to Crooks and Liars’ comments section to meet Claudia (at 11am/PT, noon in Utah). You can contribute to her campaign through Blue America’s ActBlue page and everyone who donates to Claudia’s campaign this weekend (offer ends Sunday at midnight, PT) will have their name entered in a contest to win an autographed copy of Al Franken’s book The Truth AND an autographed copy of the Al Franken DVD God Spoke.

See you at 11.

Update: if you watch that Youtube, you’ll see Wright discuss a failed Utah initiative to deal with STDs among teenagers and the fact that many of them will end up sterile, among other things, because they aren’t educated about it and don’t get treated. She relays the response from some social conservative harpy which was,”I don’t think we should do anything to interfere with the natural consequences of an immoral act.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put more starkly. In my mind, that is the essence of evil.

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Painful

by tristero

Better karoli than me. There is no way, no way in hell, I could sit through a broadcast of a Texas Board of Education meeting without going completely insane.

The Great Civil War Debate

This one went on all day, from kindergarten right on up through 12th grade. The argument, of course, was over slavery, and the role it played as a cause for the Civil War. One board member, clearly frustrated by the ongoing claim that slavery wasn’t really too much of a contributing factor, finally said straight up “It was all about slavery. That’s ALL it was about. You can call it what you want, it was about slavery.”

Sadly, her point was not well taken. Texas children will learn from the time they enter school until the time they graduate, that the causes of the Civil War, in the order of importance, were sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery.

Comic relief: Probably the best moment of the whole stupid debate was when one male board member referred to sectionalism as “sexualism.”

Side arguments: Whether Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address should be studied and analyzed alongside Abraham Lincoln’s. The board concludes that yes, it should. Also, should Jefferson Davis be characterized as a “hero”? Yes, the board says, he should. Finally, should Confederate generals be included on a list of “heroes of the Civil War”? Yes, the board says, oh hell, yes. All hail, Confederate heroes, kids. Because we just don’t have enough of them.

Painful.

While we’re on the subject, here’s a cute poll to crash.

Lisbeth Salander, My Mother

by tristero

For fans of Stieg Larsson’s wonderful Millennium novels, this Times Magazine piece contains very little information we don’t already know. Easily the most interesting nugget I hadn’t heard before (the dispute over the estate interests me not at all) is that the English translations were prettified (and a character’s name changed over a petty squabble with Larsson’s father and brother). Perhaps one day we’ll get the original translations, or re-translations – the perfect excuse to re-read the novels.

Apparently, sanitized translations of modern novels get released with nary a peep from just about anyone. For example, there is an exceptionally gritty, and very interesting, noir novelist from Japan, Natsuo Kirino, whose book Grotesque was apparently seriously bowdlerized, mostly by eliminating a lot of rough gay sex towards the end. I doubt if the Larsson novels were changed as drastically, but it would be nice to know we’re reading a translation that captures the flavor of the original as closely as possible.

There’s been much talk about the curious appeal of Larsson’s books but I don’t think there’s anything curious about it at all. Much has been made, rightly, of Lisbeth Salander – a truly wonderful character – but I’ve yet to see anyone put their finger on the most extraordinary aspect of our attraction to her.

This is one seriously damaged, withdrawn, sullen, and violent girl… yet somehow Larsson manages to evoke all sorts of paternal/maternal instincts. We want to protect her from harm – ironic feelings, given that Lisbeth is more than capable of protecting herself – and do a far more thorough job than we can imagine. Larsson seems almost deliberately to toy with the notion of paternalism, perhaps even turn it on its head. He insisted that the first novel, the one we know as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, be titled Men Who Hate Women in Swedish. And…well, I cant say much more other than the men who are seemingly committed to Salander’s welfare turn out, shall we say, not to be acting in her best interests.

There is another, even less remarked, appeal to these books. That is their unambiguous, and unpretentious assertion of liberal values, from the easygoing attitude the protagonists show towards their love affairs to the depictions of the personal and political horrors of corporatism and rightwing extremism. Larsson, whatever his faults may have been – certainly not caring a whit for his health was his major one – was one helluva heroic writer. While these thrillers are clearly meant simpy to be enjoyable reads first and foremost, it is clear that they were written by a very intelligent and thoughtful progressive.

For some reason, Larsson’s progressivism is given short shrift, at least in America. Now, why is that, I wonder…

NOTE: Post title with apologies to Kathy Acker.

Terrorists Aren’t Terrorists. When They’re White And On The Right.

by tristero

One more act of terrorism in the United States. Think anyone but a few liberals will describe it that way?

Oh, and in case you missed it, there was another terrorist act recently that flew under the radar. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Sergeant Brandon Paudert and Officer Bill Evans weren’t so lucky. They are only the latest victims of American-born right-wing terrorism. They won’t be the last:

Mark Potok, who directs hate-group research at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Kane [one of the two terrorists, the other being his son] had not been in the group’s database before Thursday. But he said that was not surprising, given the “explosive growth” in the antigovernment movement in recent years. With 363 new groups in 2009, there are now 512, Mr. Potok said.

This Is Going To Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You

by digby

… and other stupid sayings.

Krugman thinks that it’s looking like one of those prolonged period of economic stagnation, like Japan in the 1990s, (which is really bad news for people my age.) And he thinks that people in charge know it, but that they’ve been successfully cornered by the deficit hawks, which will only make things worse:

I strongly suspect that some officials at the Fed see the Japan parallels all too clearly and wish they could do more to support the economy. But in practice it’s all they can do to contain the tightening impulses of their colleagues, who (like central bankers in the 1930s) remain desperately afraid of inflation despite the absence of any evidence of rising prices. I also suspect that Obama administration economists would very much like to see another stimulus plan. But they know that such a plan would have no chance of getting through a Congress that has been spooked by the deficit hawks.

In short, fear of imaginary threats has prevented any effective response to the real danger facing our economy.

Yeah, well, the political situation is likely to get even worse, in my opinion, particularly with the Obama administration pretty much throwing in their lot with the worst of the deficit hawks by appointing a commission made up of nothing but safety net slashers:

[M]embers of President Obama’s newly-formed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform …lack racial and gender diversity, and more importantly, they lack diversity of opinion. Their mantra is that “everything is on the table,” but their one member who has any expertise with respect to defense spending, for instance, is the CEO of a major defense contractor that devotes millions of dollars each year to lobby Congress for more defense spending.

“Everything is on the table,” they say, but the members appointed by the minority leaders in the House and Senate have made clear that they do not believe that the problems in this country stem from under-taxing, rather from overspending. The one area that they seem to be in agreement on — and which they are in fact, focusing on like a laser — involves programs that help the middle class and those Americans who are the most vulnerable. Even liberal Senator Richard Durbin has stated, “the bleeding-heart liberals… have to…make real sacrifices to strengthen our nation.”

The co-chairs, in particular, seem to have a clear agenda. Even before the commission held its first meeting, Erskine Bowles went on record before the North Carolina Bankers’ Association saying that if the Commission doesn’t “mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security … America is going to be a second-rate power” in his lifetime. (And he is already 64!) Alan Simpson, known for giving ugly voice to harsh, ageist stereotypes, described the future of the fiscal commission: “It’ll be a bloodbath. Let me tell you, everything that Bush and Clinton or Obama have suggested with regard to Social Security doesn’t affect anyone over 60, and who are the people howling and bitching the most? The people over 60. This makes no sense. You’ve got to scrub out [of] the equation the AARP, the Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare, the Gray Panthers, the Pink Panther, the whatever. Those people are lying… [They] don’t care a whit about their grandchildren…not a whit.”

If only Simpson could muster that kind of rhetoric for climate change. That really is going to kill his grandkids.

The deficit hawks are on a roll and they aren’t going to stop just because we’re looking at a lost decade or two. They have the opportunity, with a president who shares their goals and a congress that is desperate to hurt the American people, thus proving how responsible they are. There will be no more stimulus. The safety net will be much less generous. Retirement will be harsh for large numbers of citizens. There will only be pain (for the little people.) That’s how our wealthy Daddies teach us our lessons.

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Depends On What You Mean By “Assassination”

by digby

Chris Hayes hosts a fascinating conversation with law professor Mike Nellis on the burning question of whether the United States government can assassinate people.

In April, it was revealed that the Obama Administration has authorized the CIA to target and kill American-born Islamic cleric, and alleged Al Qaeda operative, Anwar al-Awlaki. According to the subsequent testimony of Admiral Dennis Blair, the administration’s Director of National Security, the targeted hit on al-Awlaki was not an exception to the rule; it fell within the legal rights granted to the executive. The unrestricted bullseye attached to al-Awlaki has many human rights activists, civil libertarians and legal scholars increasingly concerned about expanding executive authority. If the administration reserves the right to kill US citizens without due process, where does the slippery slope end? To explore the legality of assassination and targeted killings, this week’s Breakdown with Christopher Hayes welcomes Vanderbilt law professor Mike Newton.

Evidently, it all depends on whether you call it “targeted killing” vs “assassination.” And under international law, the criteria for “targeted killing” are irrespective of nationality. They are incredibly difficult targeting decisions, though, so that’s reassuring.

As for killing Americans on American soil — well, it’s legal too, although it would cause the government to jump through some legal hoops:

There are generally a variety of other way that are better and more suited and more lawful and are more clearly within the tradition of American law and respect for protection of human rights, but what it gets back to in truth is a very disciplined, good faith application of these non-wavering international rules.

As Hayes says dryly, that’s unsettling.

Listen to the whole thing. It’s short.

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Let’s Not Play The Blame Game

by digby

Harry Shearer brings up a point about Rand Pauls comments on BP that I hadn’t thought about:

What’s escaping public notice so far, though, is his take on a far more contemporary issue: accountability. Here’s Rand Paul on the BP oil spill:

I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.

The reason this quote isn’t inflaming debate the way Paul’s Libertarian dance around the Civil Rights Act has is simple: on this issue, Paul is not fringe-y or extremist or unusual; he’s spouting a line we’ve heard incessantly, from defenders of BP, from apologists for the US Army Corps of Engineers (in the case of the flooding of New Orleans), from architects of the Iraq War. Paul is channeling Donald Rumsfeld: “Stuff happens.” Nothing to see here, move on.

Now, that certainly isn’t a partisan position, is it? Our Democratic administration made a veritable fetish of “stuff happens” so let’s not look in the rear view mirror.

But Shearer places it in a slightly different context:

The deeper meaning of the quote is the standard Republican assault against lawyers who have the temerity to challenge, in court, established power. Just this week, the Louisiana legislature defeated a bill that would have punished the Tulane Legal Clinic for its work taking government agencies to court. The bill had the support of the Louisiana Chemical Association.

Until I read that I had not seen the accountability issue in that light. Naturally the “stuff happens” defense contributes to a belief that there’s something wrong with seeking accountability and redress when companies and individuals cut corners that result in mayhem, death and destruction. And that leads directly to the most obscure and bizarrely energizing rallying cry ever devised: “tort reform!”

Democrats who undermine accountability are furthering GOP propaganda and policies designed to protect moneyed interests — and defund Democrats in the process. Well played.

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In A Nutshell

by digby

Here’s Congressman Ron Paul on the floor of the House in 2004:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

(Quotas? Oy vey.)

Why is everyone so surprised that Sonny wasn’t prepared for the reaction he got when espousing these same views? Nobody seemed to care when Pops said it. The difference in the reaction, of course, is that by winning against the Republican political establishment he’s the poster boy of the Tea Party and the new face of the GOP. People are actually paying attention to what he and his Dad believe.

Here’s the thing about Paul’s position, as if it isn’t obvious. The civil rights act came in response to Jim Crow which was defined by institutional racism. Although Paul seems to think that “institution” in this context, can only be government institutions, it’s not. Here’s a good definition at wikipedia:

Institutional racism is distinguished from the racial bigotry, by the existence of institutional systemic policies and practices meant to place non-white racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to the institution’s white members. Restrictive housing contracts (see restrictive covenants) and bank lending policies (see redlining) are effective forms of institutional racism. Other examples are racial profiling by security guards and police, use of stereotyped racial caricatures (e.g. “Indian” sport mascots), the under- and mis-representation of certain racial groups in the mass media, and race-based barriers to gainful employment and professional advancement. Additionally, the differential access to goods, services, and opportunities of society are defined within the term institutional racism, such as unpaved streets and roads, inherited socio-economic disadvantage, “standardized” tests (each ethnic group prepared for it differently; many are poorly prepared), et cetera.

During Jim Crow the government discriminated, to be sure. And Rand and Ron both believe that the government had a right to end that. But they don’t agree that it had the legitimate power to end discrimination of private institutions that were open to the public because the government does not have the inherent power to interfere in such private enterprise. Here’s the thing: throughout the civil rights era, the very public institution of the police force was used to “protect” private owners’ right to discriminate. Here’s an example:

Libertarianism has an inherent contradiction. They want you to think they simply believe the government should be completely kept out of the affairs of private ownership beyond enforcement of contracts. But that’s not true. They want the government to actively protect the private property owner’s right to discriminate. And that’s exactly what happened, as you can see in that picture, until the federal government made it illegal to discriminate, thus putting the government on the other side of the equation, in favor of those seeking equal rights.

Now you can argue that it’s not the side the sacred founders intended or that it goes against your personal political philosophy. But there is simply no position on this which doesn’t include government involvement in this sort of dispute. It just depends on what side you want the government to be on.

Update: More here touching on this.

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A Gift For Mrs Lincoln

by digby

In case anyone wonders why in the hell Maria Cantwell was out there laboring to strengthen Blanche Lincoln’s derivative amendment while Lincoln gaped like a deer in the headlights, read this from dday:

It’s very clear that Cantwell, not Lincoln, was the driving force behind the derivatives title. According to Business Week, Lincoln couldn’t even defend her own derivatives proposal at a Democratic caucus meeting, and Cantwell had to step in and bail her out. Lincoln was clearly fed the strong language, when she was planning a much weaker proposal with Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), to project an image of a populist Wall Street reformer for her suddenly tough primary challenge from Bill Halter.

I wondered why Cantwell became the derivatives avenging angel. Apparently,somebody had to clean up the mess and Lincoln just wasn’t up for the task. dday writes:

The entire Lincoln derivatives issue was a charade. And this is proven by her muted response to a fight over the potential loophole, as well as the virtual certainty of weakening in conference, again without a peep from her.

Someone should ask Lincoln to explain all this. Or just explain what section 716 is. It would be fun to watch anyway.

Sadly, dday also goes on to say that the banks are very sure that this will go in conference and then will never see the light of day. They really, really didn’t want this one.

Update: John Warner told Andrea Mitchell that the derivatives language will be out of the final bill. So there you go.

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Libertarianism: Not Ready For Primetime. Never Will Be.

by tristero

The folks who believe in libertarianism are like the folks who believe in Bigfoot. They can point to respected academics who share their delusion. They never let reality get in the way of a good story. And ultimately, libertarianism, like Bigfoot is nothing other than a white guy cavorting around in a cheap gorilla suit, an obvious fake.

I’ve said just about all I want to say about libertarianism here. Short version: The only good ideas in libertarianism are those that are already part and parcel of liberalism. The rest is poppycock. But someone who suffers fools far better than I has written a useful takedown in case you think there’s any there there. The nub:

never, and I mean never, has there been capitalist enterprise that wasn’t ultimately underwritten by the state. This is true at an obvious level that even most libertarians would concede (though maybe not some of the Austrian economists whom Rand Paul adores): for the system to work, you need some kind of bare bones apparatus for enforcing contracts and protecting property. But it’s also true in a more profound, historical sense. To summarize very briefly a long and complicated process, we got capitalism in the first place through a long process of flirtation between governments on the one hand, and bankers and merchants on the other, culminating in the Industrial Revolution. What libertarians revere as an eternal, holy truth is in fact, in the grand scheme of human history, quite young. And if they’d just stop worshiping for a minute, they’d notice the parents hovering in the background.

Libertarians like Paul are walking around with the idea that the world could just snap back to a naturally-occurring benign order if the government stopped interfering. As Paul implied, good people wouldn’t shop at the racist stores, so there wouldn’t be any.

This is the belief system of people who have been the unwitting recipients of massive government backing for their entire lives. To borrow a phrase, they were born on third base, and think they hit a triple. We could fill a library with the details of the state underwriting enjoyed by American business — hell, we could fill a fair chunk of the Internet, if we weren’t using it all on Rand Paul already.

One of the problems with taking the trouble to refute bad rightwing nonsense – intelligent design creationism, birtherism, libertarianism – is that it is a complete waste of time. Everyone, including most of the people propagating them, knows these ideas are ludicrous, Regarding intelligent design creationism, for example:

ID is not only dead, it was stillborn. No one believes in it; it is a sterile abstraction with no evidence that was cobbled up entirely to pass the church/state separation tests in the courts…
men
The Dover trial laid it bare. ID was simply the façade a troop of fervent Christian creationists used to conceal their true motivations.

Libertarianism, especially in public political discourse, is the same thing, just one giant dog whistle for racism and other behavior whose covert purpose is to hoard and extend the privileges of the few at the expense of the many. Arguing over its non-existent merits as a political philosophy takes time away from thinking seriously about the unbelievably grave crises this country faces, crises precipitated and aggravated by the Bush administration’s far-right extremists, including libertarians. I’d rather argue about the existence of Bigfoot.

Joan Walsh is right that not all libertarians are racists, but many surely are, finding libertarian nonsense the perfect cover to cloak their racism in lofty-sounding “higher” moral/intellectual principles.

As for Rand Paul, I don’t care how often he claims he’s not a racist. The fact is that his associations, stated beliefs and actions empower racists, empower those who would discriminate against qualified workers based on an irrelevant disability, and empower those who wish the American people to be even more ignorant about the world and the way it works than they already are.

It is a national disgrace that this cheap-minded little man who has less emotional maturity than a sulky eight-year-old, is a candidate for any public office, let alone a high national one.