Month: June 2010

Metaphor Approval Form

by digby

Is it really true that you can’t use rape as a metaphor or even descriptively anymore? When I started to read this I assumed that Kristen Stewart had said something truly dumb and demeaning to rape victims. But here’s what she said:

The actress previously compared her life in the Hollywood spotlight and the constant hounding by the paparazzi to a sexual assault, telling Britain’s ELLE magazine in its July issue, “The photos are so … I feel like I’m looking at someone being raped. A lot of the time I can’t handle it. I never expected that this would be my life.”

Perhaps I don’t understand the true nature of the crime here and I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but that seems like a reasonable statement to me — and quite an evocative one, well expressed and illustrative.

This, on the other hand, strikes me as pretty ridiculous:

On Wednesday, Harriet Lessel, the executive director of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, told Radar Online, “Clearly that kind of violation is not the same as rape… it’s just not the same… understand that Kristen Stewart was expressing that she feels violated. Sure violation is a form of sexual assault, but it’s the most serious and the most personal. It’s clearly a poor choice of words.”

Well Stewart certainly came thorough with the big mea culpa so I guess everything’s ok:

The 20-year-old star said her regretful comments have torn her apart.

“People thinking that I’m insensitive about this subject rips my guts out. I made a big mistake,” she added.

I guess I’m just getting old. This whole thing is just too literal for me. I understand that demeaning language has to be called out, but I’m afraid I just don’t see it this time. And I hate the idea that someone is telling others what words they are allowed to use as a substitution. It’s beyond political correctness.

.

Fascist Kitsch

by digby

Here’s a good piece on how Ayn Rand managed to dupe the public and become an icon.

Rand may have been uneasy about the challenge her popularity posed to her worldview, for she spent much of her later life spinning tales about the chilly response she and her work had received. She falsely claimed that twelve publishers rejected The Fountainhead before it found a home. She styled herself the victim of a terrible but necessary isolation, claiming that “all achievement and progress has been accomplished, not just by men of ability and certainly not by groups of men, but by a struggle between man and mob.” But how many lonely writers emerge from their study, having just written “The End” on the last page of their novel, to be greeted by a chorus of congratulations from a waiting circle of fans?

Had she been a more careful reader of her work, Rand might have seen this irony coming. However much she liked to pit the genius against the mass, her fiction always betrayed a secret communion between the two. Each of her two most famous novels gives its estranged hero an opportunity to defend himself in a lengthy speech before the untutored and the unlettered. Roark declaims before a jury of “the hardest faces” that includes “a truck driver, a bricklayer, an electrician, a gardener and three factory workers.” John Galt takes to the airwaves in Atlas Shrugged, addressing millions of listeners for hours on end. In each instance, the hero is understood, his genius acclaimed, his alienation resolved. And that’s because, as Galt explains, there are “no conflicts of interest among rational men”—which is just a Randian way of saying that every story has a happy ending.

The chief conflict in Rand’s novels, then, is not between the individual and the masses. It is between the demigod-creator and all those unproductive elements of society—the intellectuals, bureaucrats and middlemen—that stand between him and the masses. Aesthetically, this makes for kitsch; politically, it bends toward fascism. Admittedly, the argument that there is a connection between fascism and kitsch has taken a beating over the years. Yet surely the example of Rand—and the publication of two new Rand biographies, Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market—is suggestive enough to put the question of that connection back on the table.

I’d say the teaparties put it right smack dab in the middle of table myself.

.

Shedding His Maverick Skin Once And For All

by digby

Huckleberry Graham finally removed the last tiny remaining piece of doubt among members of the political establishment and the press that his lugubrious “maverick” act was nothing but a scam. (It’s been obvious to me for some time, but apparently he’s very good at persuading people that this cornpone sanctimony is real.)

Turns out he just won’t be able to vote for the climate change bill after all becauswe it doesn’t contain enough offshore drilling. Shill, baby, shill.

Brad Plumer writes:

Graham’s complaints here are ridiculous. The differences between the bill he wrote and the bill as it exists now are relatively trivial. His main complaint seems to be that Congress isn’t embarking on an offshore drilling free-for-all. Well, sure. That’s what happens when an oil company poisons large swathes of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s going to be hard to get any major new drilling incentives passed right now. That’s not some inherent flaw in the climate bill—it’s just an indication that some of his colleagues actually seem to be learning or thing or two from the BP fiasco. This whole episode really makes you wonder if Graham was ever serious about energy and climate policy in the first place.

Uhm, no. What he was serious about was being a power broker in the senate, but they yanked his chain. And he was never, ever, not for a minute going to be a reliable vote. Sure, he might have followed through under certain circumstances. But he was just as likely to do what he’s done — drawl on about he really, really tried to be bipartisan, but the Democrat just wouldn’t give an inch so — more in sorrow than in anger, of course — he just had to string them along until the last minute and then drop out. It’s his shtick.

Plumer updated his post with this illustration of Mr Integrity’s idea of principles:

[O]nce upon a time, Graham was saying stuff like this: “All the cars and trucks and plants that have been in existence since the Industrial Revolution, spewing out carbon day-in and day-out, will never convince me that’s a good thing for your children and the future of the planet.” But never say never. Here’s Graham today: “We can have a debate about global warming, and I’m not in the camp that believes man-made emissions are contributing overwhelmingly to global climate change, but I do believe the planet is heating up.” That was fast.

He was second in line to the maverick throne, but he saw what was happening to his pal McCain and abdicated. He is a bad faith actor and always has been. Nobody should ever make that mistake again.

Virtuous Sadism

by digby

Krugman says that the new fiscal austerity fad among economists is driven less by class warfare than a psychological desire to be seen as tough and serious and a willingness to succumb to the “seductiveness of demands for pain”:

Calling for austerity and tight money feels courageous, tough-minded, and virtuous; it allows the economist making such calls to take the pose of a Serious Person standing firm against the easy-money guys.

Yes, I know that’s insulting. But what’s so striking is that in all three cases I’ve cited you had highly trained economists — that is, people who have spent their whole lives arguing in terms of carefully laid out models — making arguments that aren’t backed by any model I can see.

And may I say, I think that by giving in to the seductiveness of calls for pain, some of my colleagues are doing a lot of damage; at a time when we really need clarity of thought, they’re adding to the intellectual murk instead.

He understands the thought processes of economists as well as anyone, so I imagine he knows what he’s talking about.

Two thoughts leap to mind. The first is that this is very reminiscent of the intelligentsia in 2002/2003 during the Iraq war debate. Indeed, that’s where the “Very Serious People” critique originated. This psychology is very much a product of group think and the feedback loop of insiderism, which always seems to come out on the side of the ruling class. I suppose I expected it of pundits and policy analysts, but until recently I didn’t realize just how compromised the economics profession is.

But I’m not sure that on some level even this isn’t class warfare, at least in the sense that very comfortable elites seem to find it satisfying to prescribe massive pain and sacrifice for people other than themselves. I’ll remind everyone again of Mrs Alan Greenspan’s comments from over a year ago:

MSNBC commentator: … The subtext of all of this [call to service] is “hey Americans, you’re gonna have to do your part too. There may be some sacrifices involved for you too.” Do you think he’s going to use his political capital to make those arguments and will it go beyond rhetoric?

Andrea Mitchell: It does go beyond rhetoric. He needs to engage the American people in this joint venture. That’s part of the call. That’s part of what he needs to accomplish in his spech and in the days following the speech. He needs to make people feel that this is their venture as well and that people are going to need to be more patient and have to contribute and that there will have to be some sacrifice.

And certainly, if he is serious about what he told the Washington Post last week, that he wants to take on entitlement reform, there will be greater sacrifice required from a nation already suffering from economic crisis — to ask people to take a look at their health care and their other entitlements and realize that for the long term health and vitality of the country we’re going to have to give up something that we already enjoy.

Needless to say, millionaire celebrity journalists married to the Oracle of Objectivism won’t be among those required to suffer for the greater good.

Or as a puzzled Martin Wolf put it in this piece for the Financial Times today:

Premature fiscal tightening is, warns experience, as big a danger as delayed tightening would be. There are no certainties here. The world economy – or at least that of the advanced countries – remains disturbingly fragile. Only those who believe the economy is a morality play, in which those they deem wicked should suffer punishment, would enjoy that painful result.

Evidently there are a whole lot of elites in various professions who think that they need to be “tough” by prescribing a world of hurt for ordinary people. Maybe it isn’t class war. Maybe it’s just sadism. But whatever the motivation, the result of this austerity fad is that this thing could easily take on a life of its own and these shallow egotists could wake up one morning in a global economic nightmare. Of course they can always just blame the sinners again, but at some point the sinners are going to start blaming somebody too. And there are a whole lot more of them.

.

Churlish And Petty

by digby

I’m going to be charitable and chalk up these churlish comments from an unnamed official to fatigue rather than stupidity. But in the future the White House would probably do well to remember that as much as they loathe their base that they still need them to get out the vote in November. They should also remember that Blanche Lincoln is not a particularly reliable ally to the administration while labor is essential.

Also, constantly belittling the democratic process and condescendingly telling their voters to shut up and do as they’re told is not likely to garner the defense of the netroots who are the only defenders they have when the right wing and the villagers decide to turn the administration’s sleazy-but-legal political practices into a scandal. It gets harder and harder to work ourselves up on their behalf when they say things like this.

This is just stupid politics and they should be above it. I assume they do want to win some more elections against Republicans, but maybe I’m wrong about that. They certainly seem less inclined to use them for a doormat for petty reasons and they rarely forget their manners to quite the same extent.

.

Jack Beeson

by tristero

My great composition teacher, Jack Beeson, died on Sunday. I never wrote anything like him – in fact, we had, aesthetically, very little in common when it came to music. But I learned so much. His ability to hear what you wanted to do – but didn’t know how – was truly extraordinary. My God, talk about empathy!

Beeson affected a quirky, prickly persona, but it didn’t mean anything, at least in my experience as his student. If you played some music he liked, or if you talked with him about music with any kind of passion, you found yourself talking to a warm, sensitive, totally unpretentious man who treated you like a colleague. He had that rare ability to make his callowest student (ahem) feel as if he was as knowledgeable and talented as himself. I loved him dearly. Of his music, I especially loved The Sweet Bye And Bye , which is rarely performed – I heard what I think was a private live recording in the Columbia Music library.

The bio doesn’t mention it, but there was a reason Professor Beeson kept a large picture of Bela Bartok in his office (he also resembled him, I thought). I asked him once about it and he told me he was Bartok’s student for a while. My jaw dropped and he smiled. He knew exactly what I was thinking.

“We Have No Short Term Deficit Problem”

by digby

That’s AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, railing against neo-Hooverism at AFN2010. Jared Bernstein, sitting next to him on the stage, looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here. It’s a tough gig.

Bernstein said that we must not lose sight of all the administration successes and then rattled off a long list of same. He also said the White house is not obsessed with the deficit but insisted that “we have to prove to the American people and the markets that we have a brake and that we will use it when the time comes.” I’m not sure why since the people need jobs, credit and peace of mind and the bond market seems to think US treasuries are a very safe bet, but whatever. The CW prevails. Bob Herbert then stepped up to give a call to arms —“It’s impossible to overstate the depth of the unemployment crisis.” (Bernstein didn’t hear any of this because he left as Herbert started speaking. So much for dialog.)

After hearing that and attending the scary lecture on America’s broken pension system I was actually starting to get freaked out thinking about the horror of the looming cat food commission on top of it. What’s going to happen? Then I ran into a couple of very savvy ladies who organize senior citizens and they set me straight. They said “they’ll have some very angry cougars on their backs if they even try it.” They listed all the times that the government has tried to mess with social security and all the times they’ve beaten it back and I have to say from the determined look on their faces and their assertive attitudes — I believed them. (I guess they don’t call themselves panthers anymore…)

Dday dubbed this “the surly conference” and I think it’s apt. People don’t seem depressed or apathetic but they are also not interested in listening to platitudes. (And the days of delirious excitement are definitely over.) I think that’s probably a good sign. There’s some heavy lifting ahead.

.

The Dog Whistles Are Getting Lower

by tristero

My God.

I can’t improve on what Dave Neiwert says:

It’s really very simple: If Fox News continues to employ Glenn Beck after this, it will forever after be known as a TV network that employs an apologist and advocate for Nazism.

If so, it will have irrevocably proven itself to be not a news organization, but a propaganda organ for the worst kind of racial and ethnic hatred known to man. It’s pretty close to that judgment now.

Now, Dave is both an expert on the right wing in the United States and a very cautious person. He is not someone who recklessly flings incendiary phrases at people. He now accuses Glenn Beck of being “an apologist and advocate for Nazism.” All of us should take Dave’s words very, very seriously.

That Beck has become so open about his sympathy for Nazis and their writings – and there’s a lot more highly visible racism and creepiness around, eg, that Republican “fucking raghead” guy – can only mean that more and more of the mask is slipping from the face of American fascism. We can argue as to why that is so: Has the right become increasingly crazed and desperate since 2008? On the other hand, has it become supremely confident that it can and do just about anything – including torture and other violence – without fear of repercussion? Or, somehow, is it both? Whatever the reason, it is simply impossible to deny the increasingly open sympathy for Nazism and its ideological cousins among some of the most powerful members of the Republican party, and therefore, some of the most powerful people in the country.

In other words, the dog whistles are getting lower. We can hear them loud and clear. And that is very, very scary.

Special Note to our right wing readers and others with similarly severe cognitive deficits: Yes, I heard you. What Helen Thomas said was stupid, reprehensible, unforgivable, and crazy.

She is now history. Beck is not. The present subject is Beck and his Nazi sympathies. It is sheer cowardice on your part to try to deflect it.

Vote!

by digby

Ed Kilgore has an informative and entertaining recap of the big races today around the country. I particularly like this one:

South Carolina: The Ghost of Lee Atwater

The Governor’s Race

South Carolina is the original home of Republican dirty tricks and skullduggery, having schooled a young Lee Atwater in the art of character assassination through pungent innuendo, and it remains a nest of vipers today. (Remember John McCain’s “love child” from the 2000 campaign? Or the 2008 attacks on Mitt Romney’s religion and Fred Thompson’s love life?) This year, it hasn’t disappointed. Just as State Representative Nikki Haley, a hard-core conservative who began the campaign as an underfinanced protégé of disgraced Governor Mark Sanford, began to ascend in the four-candidate pack, a blogger/consultant named Will Folks–a former Sanford and Haley staffer who had been promoting her candidacy for months–came forward to claim that he’d had an affair with the very-married and very “pro-family” Haley in 2009. As Folks trickled out circumstantial “evidence” of the affair on his blog FITSnews.com (slogan: “Unfair. Imbalanced.”), Haley’s allies accused him of having been bought by rival campaigns, while Haley herself denied everything. In fact, she actually managed to prosper, framing the scandal as another sign that she’s being hit with dirty tricks, because she’s a principled right-winger seeking to overturn the Dixiecrat-flavored old boys’ network of Palmetto State GOP politics. Sarah Palin and Erick Erickson rushed to her defense.

And then a second political consultant, who was a top aide to rival candidate and Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, claimed he had also had a fling with Haley. This was followed shortly by a bizarre diatribe by Haley’s own state senator, a Bauer ally with the fine Southern political name of Jake Knotts, who spent much of an Internet interview denigrating Haley, a second-generation Indian-American, by calling her a “raghead,” he said, just like Barack Obama. You really just can’t make this stuff up.

These events have prompted an even larger pro-Haley backlash, which has given her a decent chance of winning the nomination without a runoff (and if she doesn’t get that many votes, it appears her most likely runoff opponent will be Congressman Gresham Barrett, an Upcountry favorite whose cross to bear is an ignominious vote for TARP). Still, Haley is now promising to quit the race–or if elected, the governorship itself–if it is proven she did fool around. This is making Republicans nervous, particularly since Folks is still hinting he has definitive evidence of an affair, and it could possibly scare away primary voters at the last second.

And these people have the nerve to say California is full of nuts.

And speaking of California — if you haven’t voted yet — go do it. If you live in Ca 36, Vote for Winograd. Polls are open until 8:00pm today. Please get out + vote! Find your polling place: http://www.lavote.net/ Voter Hotline (800) 345-VOTE.

.

The Good Old Days

by digby
USA today reports

The rate of children living in poverty this year will climb to nearly 22%, the highest rate in two decades, according to an analysis by the non-profit Foundation for Child Development. Nearly 17% of children were living in poverty in 2006, before the recession began.

The foundation’s Child and Youth Well-Being Index tracks 28 key statistics about children, such as health insurance coverage, parents’ employment, infant mortality and preschool enrollment.

The report projects that the percentage of children living in families with an “insecure” source of food has risen from about 17% in 2007 to nearly 18% in 2010, an increase of 750,000 children. Up to 500,000 children may be homeless this year, living either in shelters or places not meant for habitation.

Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says family poverty increases many risks for children, including low birth weight, premature delivery, learning problems, asthma and other health problems. But the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector says the index offers little new information. He says the report doesn’t mention that poor children’s family incomes are supplemented by programs such as food stamps and housing assistance. “Most of the report is an advertising tool for more government programs and spending, which are pretty ineffective in increasing child well-being,” he says.

So this report is flawed because it doesn’t mention that only reason these poor kids aren’t starving and living on the streets like Dickensian street urchins is government programs — which are ineffective in increasing child well-being and should be abolished.

I know Newt Gingrich was a big fan of orphanages, so maybe we could get that going. Debtor’s prisons are good too — as long as you make the prisoners work for their food and shelter. Otherwise they get lazy with all that free room and board and you know what that leads to.

I’m beginning to see the outlines of the plan here, I think. The right is proposing to make illegal immigration unattractive to our Hispanic neighbors by creating a competing underclass of Americans with no safety net. These children’s “well-being” will then be vastly improved by learning a good work ethic growing up picking strawberries and working as servants. Hey, it worked fine for centuries, didn’t it?

.