Good News Of The Day
by digby
Despite South Carolina’s national image as among the reddest of the red states, Senator Jim DeMint is less than a shoo-in for reelection. Three recent polls show him approval rating in the 48-52 range, barely ahead of President Obama in the state, with voters indicating significant concern about DeMint’s seemingly greater interest in stimulating a national ultra-conservative movement than in South Carolina issues and interests.
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Utter Folly Posing as Wisdom
by digby
The right thing, overwhelmingly, is to do things that will reduce spending and/or raise revenue after the economy has recovered — specifically, wait until after the economy is strong enough that monetary policy can offset the contractionary effects of fiscal austerity. But no: the deficit hawks want their cuts while unemployment rates are still at near-record highs and monetary policy is still hard up against the zero bound.
But what about Greece and all that? Look, right now sovereign debt problems are taking place in countries with a very specific problem: they’re part of the euro zone, AND they’re badly overvalued thanks to huge capital inflows in the good years; as a result they’re facing years of grinding deflation. Counties not in that situation are not facing any pressure from the markets for immediate cuts; as of this morning, 10-year bonds were yielding 3.51 in Britain, 3.21 in the US, 1.27 in Japan.
Yet the conventional wisdom now is that these countries must nonetheless cut — not because the markets are currently demanding it, not because it will make any noticeable difference to their long-run fiscal prospects, but because we think that the markets might demand it (even though they shouldn’t) sometime in the future.
Utter folly posing as wisdom. Incredible.
I can’t help but think once again of Gene Sperling’s comments at the fiscal summit in 2009:
“I think there may be a lot more openness than we thought in the past for people to have an honest discussion about the shared sacrifice necessary to have Social Security solvency. That this would be a sure thing they could count on, and they could count on for the next 50 to 75 years … I really hate the whole argument about, is this a crisis or is this not a crisis? Why do we not want to preempt a crisis. Why do we not want to do something early? It is a shame on our political system that there has never been entitlement reform without a gun to our head…Wouldn’t it be a tremendous confidence-building thing to act early and smart?”
They really believe that asking for “shared sacrifice” is doing righteous work. (Coddling phantom bond traders and investment bankers, same same.) It’s all for our own good and they seriously believe they will be thanked in the long run for “reforming” the welfare state. But to quote the all too obvious person in this case, “in the long run we’ll all be dead.”
Montereyan at the European Tribune responded to and expanded on my post yesterday about this rise of global neo-Hooverism. It’s a great post and worth reading in its entirety, but this particular point is worth highlighting. He points out that this doesn’t work without buy-in from the public. The effects of 25+ years of neo-liberal economics combined with the right wing’s culture war propaganda have taken their toll. He writes:
The globe is entering a period of fundamental change. Here in the US, the assumptions, values, and lifestyles of the last 60 years are no longer viable and are on their way out. Virtually everyone seems to know it in their bones. Some of us embrace the opportunity to construct something better.
[…]
What I see happening here in the US is that austerity is being mobilized to protect existing privilege. Whites with some assets, property, and political/cultural dominance see in stimulus for everything from mass transit to schools and health care a threat to their privilege through government aid to those who are the agents of the massive change they feel is coming upon them, change they do not want.
And the right wing’s cultural indoctrination has given them a framework and a worldview within which to organize their thinking.
He is hopeful that if we have a “lost decade” a new framework for understanding will be developed, even if in fits and starts. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone can predict the psychology of a “lost decade” on a society. It’s certainly possible that people will rationally reorient themselves to a new reality. It’s also possible that they will go nuts. I’m doubting that we’ll enter another Dark Age, but there’s ample precedent for things going very wrong under this kind of stress.
And for the people in the middle and end of their lives, this is going to be a terrible reorientation. They are too old to make all the money and opportunity they’ve lost back again, even in good times. If the powers that be decide this is their opportunity to end the welfare state, this group is going to find it very hard to adjust. More ominously perhaps, I’m guessing that leadership with fascist inclinations will find a very willing audience.
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Very Serious Kooks And Spooks
by digby
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 [2003]— The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq’s illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.
The official, a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material ”unquestionably” had been moved out of Iraq.
”I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse,” [the General], who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.
He said he was providing a personal assessment. But he said ”the obvious conclusion one draws” was that there ”may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material.” A spokesman for [the General’s] agency, David Burpee, said he could not provide further evidence to support the general’s statement.
That’s obviously some neocon nutcase who was completely discredited for those ludicrous remarks, which even people at the time thought were bizarre and unbelievable, and which turned out to total nonsense, right?
Sadly, no. This is the fellow President Obama has chosen to head up the Director of National Security, General Clapper. Yes, that’s right. That person, who is either a fantacist or an unrepentant propagandist, is going to oversee all the intelligence activities for the United States. If we have another terrorist attack, prepare to invade Finland.
As Jonathan Schwarz pithily observed: America. Still completely fucking nuts.
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Capital Punishment Quick And Dirty
by digby
A porn actor wanted for allegedly murdering a co-worker with a samurai-style sword died after jumping from a cliff edge following a standoff with Los Angeles police, police said.
Stephen Hill plunged around 50 feet off a sheer rock face after being stunned with a Taser by Los Angeles Police Department officers who had been negotiating with him for several hours.
Television footage of the incident showed Hill scrambling off the edge of the cliff feet first as police moved in after stunning him.
“He jumped down off the cliff after he was Tased,” LAPD spokesan Bruce Borihanh said. Whether Hill died from being Tasered, the fall or possibly landing on the sword he was armed with was under investigation, Borihanh said.
He “jumped” after being tasered? Ok. This is reminiscent of another taser event that ended in terrible tragedy for both the taser victim and the police officer who ordered the tasering.
Common sense usually tells you that shooting people full of electricity when they are in a precarious position is deadly. But in a society in which its citizens believe that police have a right to torture them into submission, it’s hardly something for which the authorities will be held accountable.
And speaking of the police state, are you aware that there is now a move afoot throughout the country to make it illegal to photograph or video police in the course of their work? There is.
In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.
Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.
The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.
Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, “[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want.” Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, “The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law – requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense.”
The courts, however, disagree. A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler’s license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.
The police should think twice about this. These ubiquitous taser videos are raucous entertainment for a large number of people and have turned the whole idea of shooting people with electricity into good clean fun. (Kids want to try it!) If they stop turning up on Youtube and television all the time, people might take them seriously and wonder whether or not they actually have any place in a free country.
h/t to bb
Confusing Expertise With Authority
[Obama’s] most conspicuous flaw is his unshakeable confidence in the collective management brilliance of the best and the brightest he selected for his White House team — “his abiding faith in the judgment of experts,” as Joshua Green of The Atlantic has put it…Obama has yet to find a sensible middle course between blind faith in his own Ivy League kind and his predecessor’s go-with-the-gut bravado.
By now, he also should have learned that the best and the brightest can get it wrong — and do…
Obama’s excessive trust in his own heady team is all too often matched by his inherent deference to the smartest guys in the boardroom in the private sector. His default assumption seems to be that his peers are always as well-intentioned as he is…
It’s this misplaced trust in elites both outside the White House and within it that seems to prevent Obama from realizing the moment that history has handed to him.
There’s a lot going on in what I’ve quoted above, but I want to focus exclusively on just one, nearly hidden, problem caused by some rhetorical slippage on Rich’s part.
From what I can tell, Rich wants to make the argument that Obama is listening to people who come from his own class, meaning Ivy League-educated with impressive mainstream resumes. I have no problem with that. I think it’s true that Obama has a “misplaced trust in elites.” But Rich elides some terms: he starts by describing the “experts” Obama relies on and ends up talking about the same people as “elites,” as if the terms are in some sense equivalent. I have a lot of problems with that. Worse, Rich has a lot of problems with that. It leads him into sheer silliness.
By conflating elitism and expertise, Rich’s first bad assumption is in thinking that the elites Obama is listening to are, in fact, experts. Clearly they are not. Or, to be more precise, while they may be expert in finance or oil spills, they are self-interestedly providing inexpert – ie, non-objective – information and advice to the president. Clearly, Obama needs to insist upon hearing from genuine experts – that is, from people who can be objective.* The notion that experts are elitists and can’t be trusted is a canard. If good analysis and proposals comes from a professor teaching at the elite Princeton University – say his name is Paul Krugman – Obama should listen carefully. Ditto if the professor’s teaching at a non-Ivy League university – NYU’s Nouriel Roubini.** Rich is aware that there might be something wrong with the advice Obama’s getting. But he’s wrong to locate that blame in expertise. That is not the problem: the problem is that the advice Obama is getting is elitist and not that expert.
A second, and much worse, false assumption Rich makes is that there is some kind of contrast between Obama’s “blind faith in his own Ivy League kind” – and Bush’s “go-with-the-gut bravado.” The first clue that this can’t be a real dichotomy is that it is simply laughable for Rich to suggest that anyone, let alone a president of the United States, should be more Bush-like in his decision-making. In fact, it is quite clear from what Rich himself writes that the real problem here is that Obama already shares far too much with Bush’s style.
Whereas Bush had a mis-placed faith in his infallible gut, Obama has a mis-placed faith in his infallible “Ivy League kind.” Therefore, the real problem with both presidents is their over-reliance on faith-based decision-making, the classic fallacy of over-valuing authority. They are both behaving quite irrationally. The solution is for Obama to be more rational and seek more diverse experts. It’s certainly not to be more like Bush – just ask Glenn Greenwald about that!!!
If Obama better recognized his fundamental error of mistaking high authority (and right-leaning centrism) with expert knowledge and advice, it would enable him to seek a wider array of opinions. Of course, in addition, Obama needs to listen to a wider variety of political advisers (or if you prefer, he needs to stop listening exclusively to “blue dogs” and corporatists).
To be sure, there certainly is a correlation between expertise and impressive resumes. You don’t become head of an oil company if you know as much as I do about petroleum. However, the correlation is by no means exact. Not every financial expert is a billionaire; likewise, many rich people got that way because they simply were lucky.
If your job is to make complicated decisions based upon imperfect knowledge and reliance on others’ expertise, it behooves you to consult different experts, then weigh their advice and fashion a plan. It is in the weighing and the overall planning that the decision-maker’s expertise and experience plays a crucial role. No one who understands how to consistently make good decisions – sure, your gut can get lucky – would call such a process a “gut” call, in the sense used to describe Bush. It may be a quick decision, but the process has little to do with Rich’s call for some bravado or guts. Rather, it is a job for a very thoughtful person.
There seem to be two major problems with Obama’s decision-making. First is the incredibly restricted information he receives and values, limited to the right, the right of center, and the corporate right. There are many reasons for this, among them his own proclivities as a moderate, and his staff’s.
The second major problem is Obama’s reaction to the political climate. That climate is awful: A rampaging rightwing, a cowed and uninvolved center, and thoroughly marginalized liberals. Obama responds to this, not as we liberals would like, by setting an agenda but by trying to negotiate some common ground between all these players. Like every other liberal, I know that’s impossible. Obama, whatever the reasons, doesn’t think so. Perhaps he’s worried the right really will tear the country apart. Perhaps it’s just a personality thing and he’s more trustworthy and less cynical than me. Whatever. As a result, nearly every liberal I know has grown increasingly frustrated with him (even as they make clear that they have no intention to vote anything but Democratic in ’12, which most likely means Obama).
The answer to the first problem is to increase the number and range of experts. The solution to the second is to abandon so much as a semblance of bipartisanship and instead create policies, based on expert advice, that depend as little as possible upon the non-existent good faith of bad political actors.
The first solution is easy. The second, very difficult. But nothing useful will come from following Rich’s advice. Obama doesn’t need to react more from his gut, show bravado, be less “cool,” or – worst of all – ignore genuine experts merely because they’re they come from Harvard or Yale. Just the opposite.
Obama needs to be more liberal.
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*There is a weird belief stalking our post-modern world, namely that objectivity is impossible. Without getting into a huge, messy argument, this is simplistic. It may be true that genuinely pure objectivity is difficult to obtain, if not impossible. So what? It is also the case that people can learn how to identify their most distorting biases, examine how those biases are affecting their decision making, and factor them out (or at least, moderate them). To a good extent, that is what the process of becoming an expert is all about.
Obviously, in a complex situation, experts will differ, no matter how objective they are. That is why the way out of the problems Obama is having is not, as Rich suggests, for Obama to become more Bush-like in his decision-making, but for Obama to consult more experts with a wider palette of viewpoints.
**Duh: Lousy ideas and lousy advice can come with apparently great academic pedigrees, eg Wolfowitz. That’s my point: the institutional authority doesn’t matter. The quality and variety of ideas does.
Saturday Night At The Movies
SIFFting through cinema, Pt. 3
By Dennis Hartley
Visionaries: Avant-garde films make my eyes hurt
The Seattle International Film Festival is in its third week, so I am continuing to share some more highlights with you. Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. SIFF is presenting 405 films over 24 days. That’s great for independently wealthy types, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s tough to find the time and energy that it would take to catch 16.8 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 offerings (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 films most likely to be up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.) Hopefully, some of these will be coming soon to a theater near you. So-let’s go SIFFting!
Bran Nue Dae: Walkabout, the musical?
I know what you’re thinking- “Enough, already with the Aboriginal musical-comedies!” I’m being facetious, of course; to the best of my knowledge, the Spell-check-challenged Australian import Bran Nue Dae is the first (and don’t go making up titles like Jimmy B: Bring on da Chant, Bring on da Axe in the comments section to try and fool me, either). So how does it fare? Well, it has all the sizzle of a potential audience-pleaser (especially when you consider the sizable number of sunny-side-up romps that have come out of Australia over the last decade or two), but unfortunately, the steak is a bit undercooked.
Set in the late 1960s, the wafer-thin narrative offers up a sort of Aboriginal variation on Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows. In the sleepy little port town of Broome, a young Aboriginal named Willie (Rocky McKenzie) is conflicted between pleasing his religiously zealous mother (Ningali Lawford), who is pushing him toward the priesthood, and his raging teenage hormones, who are urging him that he needs to start investigating if his longtime friendship with the lovely Rosie (Jessica Mauboy) comes with a benefit package. Just when things start to get interesting between them, mom packs Willie off on the bus for another year at his Catholic school in distant Perth. It’s not long, however, before Willie’s yearnings for Rosie, combined with the tyrannical rule of mean old Father Benedictus (an ultra-hammy Geoffrey Rush) overwhelm him, and he runs away. As Willie makes his way back to Broome, he has encounters with the requisite Whitman’s Road Movie Assortment of colorful goofballs, eventually hooking up with a young hippie couple (driving a VW bus, of course) and a hobo with a heart of gold (Ernie Dingo, who steals all of his scenes). Hilarity (as well as much exuberant singing and dancing) ensues.
I really, really wanted to like this film (especially since I’ve always had a soft spot for stories that are centered on Aboriginal culture) but I’m not sure I can give it a hearty endorsement. There was a lot to like about it (particularly the easygoing charm of the young leads and Dingo’s engaging performance) and I think the filmmaker’s hearts were in the right place…but…I was too distracted by the sloppy editing (which tends to work against the choreography) and almost unforgivably bad lip-synching for some of the musical numbers. While some of the songs were catchy, others were cringe-worthy. Then again, I’m not a huge fan of musicals; if you are a diehard, you might be more forgiving.
Beautiful Darling: For whom the colored girls sing
I find I’m leaning more heavily toward documentaries this year. Not that I have anything against the latest Coen brothers-influenced neo-noir thriller from the Principality of Lichtenstein, mind you; there just seems to be a fair number of intriguing documentaries on the SIFF calendar. So, here are some more you might want to be on the lookout for:
Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling-Yes, we’re talking about “that” Candy Darling, so famously name-dropped in Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”. Who was “she”, exactly? Should we care? I went into James Rasin’s documentary with a little consternation. Yet another film about Andy Warhol’s Factory, and his orbiting freak show of sycophants, wannabes and “superstars” who were (mostly) famous just for being famous? As it turns out, Rasin’s film is not so much about the Factory, or really ultimately “about” Darling, who fascinated Warhol for the requisite “15 minutes”, before getting kicked to the curb. It’s a study in sadness. It’s the sadness of a lonely childhood; of a boy growing up on Long Island (as Jimmy Slattery) who yearned to be a famous female movie star; no more, no less. She was featured in a few Warhol films and had the lead in a play tailored for her by Tennessee Williams-only to die of lymphoma in 1974, at age 29, virtually penniless. It’s the eternal sadness of her friend, Jeremiah Newton, still carrying a torch for a long-gone (platonic) relationship, as he dutifully arranges a belated burial for her ashes, 35 years on. It’s the sad sad mood of Rasin’s film-as wistful and ephemeral as the androgynously translucent Darling’s moment in the sun.
Visionaries: An old pal of mine was always fond of dismissing “experimental” film as little more than “movies that hurt your eyes”. As I was watching this new documentary about avant-garde movie critic, filmmaker and curator Jonas Mekas, directed by legendary editing whiz Chuck Workman, I began to chuckle to myself. Viewing the parade of clips from the likes of movement pioneers like Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Luis Bunuel and Kenneth Anger, I began to see what my old pal was driving at. Because, when viewed strictly as non-contextualized clip montage, it does strike one as a jumbled confusion of nonsensical jump cutting, herky-jerky camera movements, images that are under-exposed, over-exposed, fluctuating wildly in and out of focus…in short, a headache-inducing experience that, well, kind of hurts your eyes. But it was precisely this kind of “visionary” and free-form style of filmmaking that informed and inspired the work of more familiar contemporary directors like David Lynch (who appears in the film) and Guy Maddin (who, rather puzzlingly, does not). Now, just because a film might be labeled as “visionary”, does not necessarily equate that it is, in fact, “watchable”. Consider Andy Warhol’s infamous stationary camera epics, Sleep (5 hours, 20 minutes of real-time footage depicting a man catching his Zs) and Empire (8 hours observing the ever-static Empire State Building). Do you know anyone who has actually sat through them (while remaining completely awake and alert)? I stayed awake and alert through Workman’s film; it’s certainly a startling assemblage of images (if anything). But it neglects to address the most important question (which was the impetus behind the excellent documentary My Kid Could Paint That, which I reviewed here)-Is it truly Art?
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work-“Do you want to know what ‘fear’ looks like?” exclaims Joan Rivers, motioning for a close-up of her fingers, as they tamp impatiently on a blank page of a weekly planner, “THAT is what ‘fear’ looks like.” Later on in the film, she laments “This (show) business is all about rejection.” Any aspiring stand-ups out there need to heed those words of wisdom (and I will back her up on this). Fear and rejection-that’s the reality of stand-up comedy. That being said, one could also take away much inspiration from Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s engaging “one year in the life” portrait of the plucky, riotously profane 75 year-old, as she rushes from nightclub and casino gigs to TV tapings, taking meetings and sweating over the writing and production of her one-woman stage play. The film also reviews her rollercoaster of a career, from Borscht Belt beginnings to anointment (and infamously, subsequent blackballing) by Johnny Carson, then slowly back up to middling. What emerges is a woman who is still working her ass off, putting people half her age to shame with a fierce drive to succeed. There’s something to be said for perseverance. As Kathy Griffin notes, Rivers was instrumental in breaking down barriers for women in standup. Joan, on the other hand, is not so sure. “I swear-if one more female comic comes up and thanks me for kicking the doors open, I’m gonna say: Fuck you! I’m still kicking them open.” Hey…at least she’s still kicking.
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Teabag Originalism
by digby
After reading my piece yesterday about the call for the repeal of birthright citizenship among the neocon teabaggers, a reader sent me this link to the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association’s website. If you have any illusions about the motivations among certain police officers in Arizona, you will lose them once you read this:
Is This the Intent of the 14th Amendment?
Danny_Ledezma_MartinezDHS and ICE indices were negative for the suspected shooter Danny Ledezma Martinez (DOB 10/16/79). Database information indicates that the suspect is a native born US Citizen. The suspect’s parents Ezequiel Martinez-Lopez and Norma Ledezma-Soto both became naturalized in Phoenix on May 25, 1987.
Was the intent of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution to allow foreign nationals to run onto US soil to birth their children as a means of obtaining US Citizenship? This practice has become so frequent over the years that children born in this manner are referred to as “Anchor Babies”. Phoenix Police Officers and their families continue to pay the ultimate price at the hands of suspects who are themselves illegal immigrants or who like Daniel Martinez have a direct connection to illegal immigration.
Once again Chief Harris is on the wrong side of the issue. While officers continue to die in the street, the Chief was in Washington DC along with police Chief’s from several other states to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and hold a national press conference for the express purpose voicing their opposition to SB-1070.
So it’s not just “illegal immigrants” and children of “illegal immigrants” it’s even children of naturalized citizens or anyone who’s a “direct connection to illegal immigration.” What do you suppose are the chances of profiling among the people who belong to this organization?
It’s becoming clear that the 14th amendment really is under assault. But just because it’s the amendment put in place after the civil war to guarantee the citizenship of former slaves, due process and equal protection doesn’t mean these people are racists. Not at all. Why would you even think such a thing?
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Twitter Twit
by digby
A lazy neighborhood bar-b-que in the village:
Many people think there’s nothing wrong with this. Everybody’s human, it’s fun for the kids. But do you think this sort of thing makes it easier or more difficult for journalists to maintain their independence?
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Objectively Pro-Satan
by digby
Can someone please explain to me what the difference is between Tony Perkins and Fred Phelps? Here’s Joe.My.God:
It’s time for the Southern Poverty Law Center to reclassify the Family Research Council as an official hate group, not merely anti-gay as they are now listed. According to the FRC’s official lobbying report for the first quarter of 2010, they paid two of their henchmen $25,000 to lobby Congress against approving a resolution denouncing Uganda’s plan to execute homosexuals. The resolution passed in the Senate on April 13th, but remains languishing in the House almost four months after being referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Did the FRC’s lobbying kill it? As we learned last week with Malawi, international pressure CAN sway even the most virulently anti-gay government.
Below are three screencaps of the 20-page Family Research Council lobbying report supplied to me by Duncan Osbourne at Gay City News. Among the other items they lobbied against are the overturn of DADT and DOMA, which is to be expected. But it’s almost astounding, almost, that they would lobby the members of Congress against denouncing the death penalty for LGBT people. THIS needs to fucking THROWN in Tony Perkins’ and Peter Sprigg’s smirking faces the next time they appear on cable television to speak in soothing voices about the FRC’s godly gentle love for homosexuals.
Click over to see the documents.
Clearly there is no limit to the hatred that these so-called Christians have for gay people. And I suppose their followers will all sing Hosannah’s to their alleged adherence to the scriptures. But at what point do decent Americans shun these evil people? What will it take?
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Global Neo-Hooverism
by digby
I was having an interesting email exchange with a smart person this morning which, in the interest of killing two birds with one stone, I’ve decided to turn into a post. My correspondent wondered why there was an international move to neo-Hooverism considering the differences in cultures between the various European countries and the US. I replied with a somewhat glib and facile response about disaster capitalism and Pete Peterson, and he pressed for a reason why the rest of the world is on the same bandwagon, especially considering their more generous history with the welfare state. (He also mentioned that Tim Geithner was surprisingly Keynesian at the G20.)
After thinking about it for a bit, I’m not sure the same phenomenon we see here isn’t happening internationally. It’s an article of faith among financial elites across the planet that the welfare state is an abomination and this is a global opportunity to end it. Each culture will deal with it slightly differently — riots in Greece, marches in France, blog posts in America. But in the end, the result, short of revolution, will be similar everywhere — the post-war welfare state will be weakened or destroyed. The left is barely relevant anywhere anymore and they simply do not fear any kind of serious populist uprising. I’m not suggesting conspiracy. I think it’s more of a natural result of ideological capture.
I just saw this exchange on CNN between Ali Velshi and some hedge fund manager. They were discussing whether Europe’s woes could come to America:
Hedge fund manager: It all comes down to debt — if you believe that you can solve the problems that are anchored in debt with more debt… At the end of the day America’s debt to GDP ratio is exactly like Greece. And anytime we have an issue like today’s jobs report, what is the answer? More government, more government spending. Which is going to keep pushing that deficit higher.
Velshi: Hold on hold on hold on. What are you talking about? When you have a jobs report like this week’s there’s got to be more government spending. Where did you hear that from? We’ve been discussing it endlessly and that’s not been anybody’s suggestion.
Velshi was the vociferous defender of government there, insisting that nobody in their right minds was talking about more government spending to create jobs. That’s the limit of our discussion. I know that this is braindead American TV, but I see little appetite to challenge that CW among elites anywhere.
As for Geithner at the G20, I’m guessing that at a minimum, they may see the efficacy of maintaining some flexibility. Their magical thinking hasn’t gotten them to where they hoped it would —the market hasn’t “fixed itself” at least on terms that are politically sustainable — and so perhaps they are seeing this as a long term challenge instead of a short term cyclical crisis. I don’t know. But aside from the inadequate stimulus, everything they have said up to now is in service of the hoary old Hooverite ideas about belt tightening and sacrifice even down to giddily announcing they are going to reform social security the “right way.” The re-institution of Paygo, the deficit commission, the constant lip service to austerity has led to a validation of the erroneous idea that deficits are causing our economic problems and that government needs to hold back spending to fix them — when the opposite is true.
I think it’s easy to over think this. The world economy is unstable for myriad reasons. But the reasons for insisting on austerity are fairly obvious. The question is whether or not people will see through this or not. Disaster capitalism depends upon the people being confused and stressed for its success. (In that sense, rioting in the streets may actually help them.) And all over the world right now, with the rapid change from globalization and resistance to modernity in general, there is a tremendous amount of social stress and cultural upheaval on top of this economic downturn. It’s the perfect time to strike.
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