Month: October 2010

Elder Abuse

by digby

So it turns out that after vociferously denying it, Rand Paul wants to charge seniors a $2,000 deductible for their Medicare after all. But he will only do it for people under 55, (even the ones who have lost their jobs and have little hope of becoming gainfully employed again, apparently.) They need to be “adults” and step up and solve the problem of high health care costs for sick and dying old people. (Far be it for Dr Paul to suggest that doctors might pitch in on that — after all, they “deserve to make a comfortable living.”)

“I’m not talking about changing the deductible for anyone who gets Medicare currently,” Paul told Cavuto. “But I am saying younger people — probably 55 and under.”

“We need people who will stand up like adults, admit to the problems, and try to fix these problems,” Paul added. “Not on the backs of current senior citizens, but on the next generation that comes forward.”

No word on where people who collect 12,000 a year and cannot work are supposed to get the money, but perhaps they can do some bake sales in the nursing homes.

The idea that the problem with Medicare is irresponsibility on the part of elderly patients is absurd. The system is broken and I’m sure there is overuse and waste and ridiculous over-spending, but it is not the fault of the senior citizens who use it. They follow their doctors’ advice and spend much of their lives battling their various illnesses and infirmities. It is ridiculous to say that they will make “smarter” choices if they have to pay more out of pocket. Unless they have a medical degree, people with the panoply of illnesses these people have are in no position to shop for the better health care bargain. To add to all that with more stress about how they are going to pay a large deductible every year is simple cruelty.

But then cruelty toward the most vulnerable people in society is what old Rand is all about.

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Let The Populist Flag Fly

by digby

Democracy Corps has released a new analysis (pdf) of their recent polling which suggests that the environment is shifting a bit and the Democrats have a chance to stop the bleeding if they make certain changes in their message. It’s happened before:

This is not a fool’s errand. In the 1998 election, we conducted national polls starting in September to see if Democrats could push back against the Republican overreach on Ken Starr and impeachment, as Democrats faced the prospect of historic losses in both the House and Sen-ate. Only two weeks before the election did the plates shift and a Democratic counter-message on impeachment became effective in our polls. In the end, Democrats lost no net seats in Senate, gained five House seats and Newt Gingrich resigned.

Take it for what it’s worth, but it turns out that what they believe works is the strong populist message the whining, half-empty DFHs have been pushing for the past year:

The strongest message is set out in the box below. The Democrat is the one who wants to change Washington so it is not run by corporate lobbyists and Wall Street, but works for the middle class. He or she supports tax cuts for middle class and small business and new American industries, while the Republican has pledged to maintain tax cuts for the top 2 percent and protect the right to export American jobs.

We have to change Washington. That means eliminating the special deals and tax breaks won by corporate lobbyists for the oil companies and Wall Street. (REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDIDATE) has pledged to protect the tax cuts for the top two per-cent and the big tax breaks for companies who export American jobs. I’ll take a different approach with new middle class tax cuts to help small businesses and new American industries create jobs. Let’s make our country work for the middle class.

This message is quite powerful with the ‘winnable’ voters Democrats need to get to expand their support; also with white unmarried women and whites under 40 years. These last two groups were critical to the new Democratic base of 2006 and 2008 – but support has lagged. But they seem ready to move.

Please note that this message is weaker if it fails to begin with a ‘change Washington’ message. That straight middle class/corporate message is much weaker with these groups. Democratic candidates must be talking about change – with a populist tinge – to get heard this year.

There is a second message that centers on made in America, creating American jobs and opposing the Republicans who supports trade agreements and tax breaks for companies that ex-port American jobs. The message is strongest with older women and seniors and with independents. These can be used in a targeted way, while working in our next poll and focus groups to bring these two messages together.

My passion is “made in America,” working to support small businesses, American companies and new American industries. (REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDI-DATE) has pledged to support the free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea and protect the loophole for companies outsourcing American jobs. I have a different approach to give tax breaks for small businesses that hire workers and give tax subsidies for companies that create jobs right here in America.

This message framework for the election is helped by an attack on the Republican candidate for supporting trade agreements and tax breaks that lead to lost American jobs. Those attacks are very strong with white older women and seniors.

We did test a robust form of the message that the president is using. It is painfully weaker than these messages. We made the message very populist and focused on continuing efforts to help unemployed, new industries that create jobs, and ending tax breaks for exporting jobs. It says that the economy shows signs of life, but the Republican candidate wants to go back to Bush and the old policies for Wall Street that cost us 8 million jobs. It is very strong with core Democrats and African-American voters, but compared to the other messages, it falls very short: 25 points weaker with ‘winnable voters’ and whites under 40 years, 20 points weaker with white unmarried women, and 9 points weaker with white older women. That message framework can-not extend the Democratic vote.

The strongest attack on the Republicans centers on Social Security and Medicare – that have re-emerged as issues as Republican candidates, the Tea Party and House Republican leaders decided this is not a third rail. It is the strongest attack here.

(REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDIDATE) has pledged to make sweeping cuts, in-cluding cuts to off-limit programs for the middle class, like Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans plan to privatize Social Security by shifting those sav-ings to the stock market, and ending guaranteed benefit levels. Medicare as we know it will end, as seniors will have to purchase private insurance using a voucher that will cover some of the costs.

This attack raises serious doubts with almost 60 percent of the ‘winnable’ voters and white older women.

And FYI, that’s why Paul Ryan is currently sulking on the sidelines (while whispering in the ears of his fans in the chattering classes that he plans to indoctrinate the new members of the GOP congress as soon as they take the oath.) The move against Social Security and Medicare may be the thing that undoes the GOPs gains among the senior population. They may enjoy a little tea, but they like their checks more.

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White Tea

by digby

Well, whodduh thunk it?

Members of the Tea Party, the burgeoning conservative movement whose membership is overwhelmingly white, feel they are losing ground to African-Americans and other minority groups, according to analysts who conducted a wide-ranging survey of the attitudes of its members.

With the movement playing an influential role in next month’s congressional elections, the Public Religion Research Institute poll highlighted the role its values are playing in the electoral debate.

Almost two-thirds – 64 per cent – of people who identify as members of the movement agreed “it is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others”, compared with 41 per cent of the general population.

Almost as many – 58 per cent – said that African-Americans and other minorities were getting too much attention from the government, much higher than the national average of 37 per cent, the poll found.

The survey of 3,013 adults, published on Tuesday, is the latest in the institute’s bi-annual American values study.

Tea Party members were trying to “redefine whiteness as an object of racial discrimination”, said Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, an ordained minister and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think-tank.

People who declared themselves part of the movement were overwhelmingly white (80 per cent) and Christian (81 per cent), the institute found.

They don’t wear white robes and they aren’t burning any crosses, but in a country that is still majority white and in which the leadership of all major institutions is still nearly all white and in which the vast majority of the wealth is owned by whites, these people seeing themselves as an aggrieved minority can only come from the idea that they shouldn’t have to share society’s privileges with non-whites.

When they say they want to take their country back, it’s this world they are lamenting the loss of:

In his 1935 Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. Du Bois first described the “psychological wages” of whiteness:

It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule.

That world is gone. The election of a black president vividly brought that fact home to a whole bunch of people who preferred the old way.

Like all Americans, they feel insecure about their futures, let down, discombobulated. But unlike most of us, a majority of Tea Partiers (also known as Republicans) believe that the reason can at least partially be attributed to racial and ethnic minorities gaining rights and privileges at their expense. That’s modern racism. And just because they don’t define it as such and admit openly to hating blacks or thinking they are inferior, it doesn’t change that.

*The poll also found out that they are overwhelmingly socially conservative and vote Republican. And they love Sarah Palin and Fox News.

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Good Bye And Good Riddance

by digby

I wish I could feel sorry for these anti-choice Dems who are being hounded out of office by anti-choice groups, but I just can’t. Apparently, they didn’t realize what it was like to be in the cross hairs of anti-abortion fanatics who are drunk on their own deluded sense of reality before. Well, now they know:

On a chilly January morning in Erie, Pa., members of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List stood outside Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper’s office to thank her for opposing a health care bill that didn’t include stringent abortion restrictions.

Ten months later, Dahlkemper and other anti-abortion Democrats are at risk of becoming an endangered species in the House.

She and others eventually signed on to the health reform law, endorsing an executive order that barred federal funding of abortions. But SBA List and other anti-abortion groups opposed the executive order, contending it was too weak.

Now, SBA List is engaged in a multimillion-dollar attack on its former allies, replete with bus tours and billboards alleging that members “voted for taxpayer-funded abortion.” The group invested $1.5 million in its “Votes Have Consequences” bus tour in August, targeting anti-abortion Democrats who supported health reform. Just last week, SBA List spent $55,000 on 32 billboards dotting the districts of three vulnerable Democrats.

[…]

“It’s been extremely frustrating at times,” Dahlkemper told POLITICO. “All along, I have donated. I have marched. I have been an unmarried pregnant woman who chose life. I have lived this. Now I’m 52, and in the last six months, all of a sudden, people are questioning who I am.”

Really? And they are doing it based on utter bullshit too? How uncomfortable that must make her. Not quite as uncomfortable as it is for young girls who are harassed on their way into a clinic or for a doctor’s family when he is murdered by anti-abortion zealots, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

If the previous decade saw the rise of the anti-abortion Democrats, the next few years could well be their demise. Abortion rights opponents triumphed in socially conservative and traditionally Republican districts, helping solidify Democratic control of Congress.

In the 43 districts held by Democrats with mixed or complete anti-abortion voting records, as scored by the National Right to Life Committee, the outlook is bleak: four lean Republican, 12 are tossups and nine lean just slightly Democratic, according to The Cook Political Report.

Just 12 anti-abortion Democrats’ seats are considered safe.

“We’re hoping to hold our members, but I’m afraid we may lose some,” said Kristen Day, executive director of DFLA. “It’s partly the political climate and then the health care bill definitely being used against these members.”

[…]

Their ranks read like a “Who’s Who” of endangered Democratic lawmakers: Reps. Tom Perriello of Virginia, Steve Driehaus of Ohio, Chris Carney of Pennsylvania and Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota.

“I fully expect they will be in decline,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who previously worked for anti-abortion Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia. “Not only with their decision making but because the Democratic Party has not been overly enthusiastic about protecting them.”

I suppose it’s too much to ask that the press explain that the anti-choice lobby’s complaint is total nonsense and that the health care bill actually restricted access to abortion. (That would be considered rude and beyond the pale, I’m sure.) But the fact is that these anti-abortion Democrats did vote for an anti-abortion bill — all the Democrats did. What these people are getting stabbed in the back for is failing to derail a bill that the GOP (though its mendacious social conservative faction) desperately wanted derailed. It is simple political payback for refusing to fall on their swords for the Republican party over a completely made up issue. Lie down with dogs …

As far as I’m concerned, it’s good riddance to bad Democrats. These people work against something that I consider fundamental and the leadership ends up using women’s bodies as a negotiating chip whenever they need something to throw to the Republicans. The parties breaking down on lines that more clearly show who is and isn’t for women’s autonomy will make it far less likely that they’ll consider it a useful “bipartisan” chip to use whenever they hit a stalemate.

Moreover, these anti-choice Democrats have been willing dupes of a social conservative movement that is far more concerned about its political clout than it is about principles or honesty — and that political clout resides in the Republican Party. If they lose, they should run as liberal anti-choice Republicans next time and see how anxious the GOP really is to find “common ground.” Somehow, I don’t think even they can be so deluded as to think that was ever a two way street.

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Breaking Down The Doors

by digby

This home foreclosure fraud story gets more and more unbelievable by the day. The mortgage holders basically hired a bunch of thugs who don’t follow the proper procedures or have any of the necessary paperwork to intimidate people out of their homes. It’s one of the most amazing stories of the recession.

(Here’s an example of what’s happening to your fellow Americans every day.)

I wonder where all the property rights fetishists are on this? They are out in force when some town needs an easement for a new highway or a sewer but hired thugs literally breaking down your door and kicking you out of your home doesn’t seem to raise an eyebrow.

And while there has been some discussion of this in the national news, and politicians from the California Democratic congressional delegation to Senator Al Franken are calling for investigations, this has mostly been a Florida story so far, despite the fact that Attorney Generals in a number of states have suspended foreclosures.

This is a huge story, with people all over the country being caught in a bureaucratic nightmare from which they believe they have no recourse. (And in many cases the courts aren’t helping.) If homeownership is the centerpiece of the American Dream, for millions of people it’s now officially the American Nightmare.

Dday, who has been doing exceptional work on the foreclosure crisis in general, did some great reporting over the week-end on a group that’s trying to guide people out of the morass that’s well worth reading.

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“A Country Of Invaders“

by digby

There’s nothing to see here folks. Just move along. These are very nice fellow Americans who have your best interests at heart.

You can read the “non-partisan” email that accompanies that video here. It doesn’t tell anyone who to vote for but just points out that Republicans are righteous and Democrats love homosexuality and abortion.

Who is Rick Scarborough you say?

Rick Scarborough is a former Southern Baptist pastor from Pearland, Texas, who heads Vision America, Vision America Action and the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration.

Oh, and he was a featured speaker at the Tea Party Convention last spring:

Among the first keynote speakers yesterday, meanwhile, was Rick Scarborough, the pastor and firebrand founder of Vision America, which had its own stall here yesterday laden with books he has written, among them Liberalism Kills Kids. He also wanted to discuss the Tancredo speech which he apparently liked very much. “I didn’t hear racism,” he told this reporter, before spelling out his worries. “America is a country of legal immigrants but the Left has turned it into a country of invaders,” he offered bluntly. “Look at Europe and the rampant invasion of England. They are practicing Sharia law and I think this crew is going to fight that.” Mr Scarborough also outlines how the US is a “special country” – more than any other in the world – and that is how God intended it. He adds: “If we are to become 30 per cent Hispanic we will no longer be America.” (And therefore no longer special.) “That would be a bad thing.

But hey, he hasn’t beheaded anyone recently so there’s no reason to be concerned that he and his millions of fellow adherents believe in (racist) Christian theocracy.

Scarborough is also the fine fellow who blamed Katrina on gays and he happens to be quite a big influence in the Tea Party these days:

On a conference call for Rick Scarborough’s Vision America, Bishop E.W. Jackson of STAND (Staying True to America’s National Destiny) America PAC claimed that the Democratic Party “embraces this anti-Christian, anti-God” worldview. Bishop Jackson continued to say that the Democratic Party is “nothing less than a party of dependence, [and] in effect created a new form of slavery on a liberal plantation that it wants to keep black people on.”

Bishop Jackson and Rick Scarborough joined Tom DeLay and Phyllis Schlafly in releasing a voter’s guide that shows the average score of Republican and Democratic members of Congress from the American Conservative Union. Scarborough called himself “a Christocrat” but that “as a matter of principle I simply vote Republican 90 percent of the time.” Schlafly added that “you’re better off to vote the straight Republican ticket than the Democrat ticket.”

All four speakers criticized the Democrats while praising the Tea Party. Bishop Jackson maintained that the Democratic Party represents “godlessness,” and stands for “fiscal irresponsibility, moral relativism or amorality, anti-Christian bigotry, and a foreign policy of surrender and appeasement.” Addressing concerns that the Tea Party was ignoring social issues, Bishop Jackson said that Tea Parties are “very, very socially conservative as well,” and Scarborough asserted that he receives “rousing ovations at Tea Parties when I talk about the God-factor.”

Big h/t to Right Wing Watch, which does the dirty work of keeping tabs on the things that our fine fellow Americans like Scarborough who deserve our respect are doing. Like this:

Save America…STOP Obama Tyranny National Coalition Chairman Dr. Rick Scarborough announced the successful conclusion of a petition drive: “In Support of The Tea Parties And Against Defamation.”

Signers include such notable conservative leaders as Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Gary Bauer (American Values), Brent Bozell (Media Research Center), Wendy Wright (Concerned Women for America), Richard A. Viguerie (ConservativeHQ.com), Morton Blackwell (Leadership Institute), Alfred S. Regnery (The American Spectator), Gov. Mike Huckabee, Judge Roy Moore, Don Irvine (Accuracy In Media), Tom McClusky (Family Research Council), Herbert I. London (Hudson Institute), Rev. Louis Sheldon (Traditional Values Coalition) and Phyllis Schlafly (Eagle Forum). Organizations listed for identification purposes only.

Scarborough observed: “Conservative leaders lining up behind the Tea Parties — representing every segment of the movement — include five rabbis, the Executive Director of Faithful Catholic Citizens and a number of well-respected pastors — as well as the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America and the Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. Economic conservatives are represented by Seton Motley (Less Government), Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform), Dick Patten (American Family Business Institute) and Jim Martin (60 Plus Association). Leaders working on defense and foreign policy include Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs), Elaine Donnelly (Center for Military Readiness) and Herb Zweibon (Americans for A Safe Israel). Jordan Marks (Young Americans for Freedom) is the executive director of the nation’s oldest conservative youth group.”

The petition calls the Tea Parties “one of the best hopes for restoring constitutional government,” but notes they have been “subjected to an unprecedented campaign of lies, distortion and vitriol, most recently by the NAACP which called on them to ‘expel the bigots and racists in your ranks.'”

Scarborough noted these attacks, “magnified by a compliant media,” are part of an overall strategy: “The left is running scared. Its president is wildly unpopular. It is now looking at huge loses in the mid-term elections. It hopes that by stigmatizing and marginalizing the Tea Parties — the most visible symbol of opposition to big government — it will thereby discredit all opposition to this administration.”

The Petition charges that the anti-Tea Party campaign also “represents a cynical attempt to manipulate minority voters and exploit their fear in the upcoming election.”

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The “M” Word

by digby

It appears that it’s become an official dogwhistle:

Looks like the latest Muslim-baiting ad of the season is here, this time in the Ohio state treasurer’s race.

Republican Josh Mandel released an ad that ostensibly targets Democrat incumbent treasurer Kevin Boyce’s ethics. But, as you’ll see, there’s also a claim (of questionable accuracy) made about a mosque. And the ad references a lobbyist linked to Boyce who goes by Noure Alo. But in the ad, Alo’s full name — Mohammed Noure Alo — is used, Barack Hussein Obama-style.

The incumbent state treasurer happens to be Christian. And African American.

h/t to ab

Suitable For Lamination

by digby

Do yourself a favor and print this out. Or memorize it. Read it at least. It is written by Paul N. Van de Water, a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where he specializes in Medicare, Social Security, and health coverage issues:

In a new paper, I’ve tried to correct some of the misinformation that critics of Social Security have been spreading about the program.

Here are the facts. Social Security is a well-run, fiscally responsible program. People earn retirement, survivors, and disability benefits by making payroll tax contributions during their working years. Those taxes and other revenues are deposited in the Social Security trust funds, and all benefits and administrative expenses are paid out of the trust funds. The amount that Social Security can spend is limited by its payroll tax income plus the balance in the trust funds.

The Social Security trustees — the official body charged with evaluating the program’s long-term finances — project that Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits through 2037 and about three-quarters of scheduled benefits after that, even if Congress makes no changes in the program. Relatively modest changes would put the program on a sound financial footing for 75 years and beyond.

Nonetheless, some critics are attempting to undermine confidence in Social Security with wild and blatantly false accusations. They allege that the trust funds have been “raided” or disparage the trust funds as “funny money” or mere “IOUs.” Some even label Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” after the notorious 1920s swindler Charles Ponzi. All of these claims are nonsense.

Every year since 1984, Social Security has collected more in payroll taxes and other income than it pays in benefits and other expenses. (The authors of the 1983 Social Security reform law did this on purpose in order to help pre-fund some of the costs of the baby boomers’ retirement.) These surpluses are invested in U.S. Treasury securities that are every bit as sound as the U.S. government securities held by investors around the globe; investors regard these securities as among the world’s very safest investments.

Investing the trust funds in Treasury securities is perfectly appropriate. The federal government borrows funds from Social Security to help finance its ongoing operations in the same way that consumers and businesses borrow money deposited in a bank to finance their spending. In neither case does this represent a “raid” on the funds. The bank depositor will get his or her money back when needed, and so will the Social Security trust funds.

As far back as 1938, independent advisors to Social Security firmly endorsed the investment of Social Security surpluses in Treasury securities, saying that it does “not involve any misuse of these moneys or endanger the safety of these funds.”

Moreover, Social Security is the “polar opposite of a Ponzi scheme,” says the man who quite literally wrote the book about Ponzi’s famous scam, Boston University professor Mitchell Zuckoff. The Social Security Administration’s historian has a piece on this topic as well.

Unlike the frauds of Ponzi — and, more recently, Bernard Madoff — Social Security does not promise unrealistically large financial returns and does not require unsustainable increases in the number of participants to remain solvent. Instead, for the past 75 years it has provided a foundation that workers can build on for retirement as well as social insurance protection to families whose breadwinner dies and workers who become disabled.

See how simple that is?

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“Compassion Compassion Compassion”

by digby

I haven’t written about that Tennessee fire department letting the house burn down for lack of a $75.00 fee because it’s just so depressing and so many others weighed in that I didn’t have the heart.

But I can’t resist sharing this from Beck’s radio program today:

GRAY: (mocking Cranick’s accent) Even tho’ I hadn’t paid mah seventy five dollahs I thought dey’d put it out. […] I wanted ‘em to put it out, but dey didn’t put it out. BECK: Here’s the thing. Those that are just on raw feeling are not going to understand. […] GRAY: But I thought they was gonna put the fire out anyway, but it burned down. Dat ain’t right! […] What’s the Fire Department for if you don’t put out the fire?! […] I thought they’d put out mah fire even if I didn’t pay seventy five dollars. BECK: This is the sort of argument that Americans are going to have. GRAY: It is. BECK: And it goes nowhere if you go onto “compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion” or well, “they should’ve put it out, what is the fire department for?” […] If you don’t pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can’t use those resources, and you’d be sponging off your neighbor’s resources. […] It’s important for America to have this debate. This is the kind of stuff that’s going to have to happen, we are going to have to have these kinds of things.

Don’t you just love it when multi-millionaires lecture you about how “we’re going to have to have these sort of things?” Beck has an entourage and a bevy of servants whom he can pay to stand in a circle and urinate on his house if it catches fire if necessary. And anyway, it’s highly unlikely that a wealthy celebrity would be held to these standards since they “contribute” so much to society.

This hideous conversation is so indicative of this period in America. It’s not libertarian or Randian or fiscally conservative. It’s just plain old selfish and mean. I wonder if all the stuff we used to hear about people coming together during the Depression was just misty nostalgia and Americans were actually a bunch of nasty, dog-eat-dog individualists at each others throats in the bread lines? If not, we clearly had a different social contract than the one we have today. “Fuck yer neighbors if they don’t have the money” doesn’t seem like the America they used to talk about.

(And what’s with the exceedingly condescending southern accent employed by the Becks lieutenant? I thought that sort of thing was frowned upon.)

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Creeping Coup

by digby

This article about the military beginning to openly advocate for defying the civilian leadership is the creepiest thing I’ve read in a while (and that’s saying something.)Apparently, some scholars are even creating an intellectual defense for it, precipitating a rather vociferous argument among the brass itself.

Military resistance to civilian authority has been rare until recently, when bungling by the Bush administration in Iraq drew the ire of active-duty and retired generals. Gregory Newbold, a Marine lieutenant general, fought Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over inept planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom – and then resigned in quiet protest. Four years later he went public, explaining that “we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it.”

But the current unrest among midcareer officers is new. One reason may be that today’s majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels grew up in counterinsurgency warfare, leading men into combat as young platoon leaders and having to create new ways of operating in dangerously complex political and social environments never imagined by their elders.

“We’ve been telling our officers for almost 10 years to become comfortable with strategic communications, key leader engagements, political nuance, etc.,” Lt. Col. Paul Yingling told me in an e-mail. “Many have taken the message to heart.” An Army officer who served three combat tours in Iraq, Yingling has been highly critical of the old generation of military brass, whom he accused of failure of command in Iraq. No wonder, he wrote, young officers are “chafing at traditional restrictions on engaging in policy debates.”

This coincides with our new fetish for everything military, including the president of the United States announcing over and over again that he would “listen to the commanders on the ground” which likely gave more than a few of them the idea that they were the ones in charge. When you add that to the canonizing of the The Man Called Petraeus during the Bush years, this seems like a logical outcome. (I would also add that more than a few of them may be part of the religious “crusade” that some of the evangelical military brass are involved with.)

Even more chilling is the fact that some of these people may not be just kvetching or writing scholarly tracts:

But rather than chafing, some officers are simply throwing over the old restrictions and ethics of military decorum. In his new book, “Obama’s Wars,” Bob Woodward writes of Col. John Tien, an Iraq war veteran on the White House’s National Security Council staff, instructing the president that he must override his own misgivings and give in to the military’s demands for more troops in Afghanistan. Tien’s “advice” to the president comes across as a threat, highly unusual – to say the least – coming from a relatively junior staff officer.

“Mr. President,” Tien said in Woodward’s retelling of the scene,”I don’t see how you can defy your military chain here. … You just can’t tell him [McChrystal], just do it my way, thanks for your hard work, do it my way. And then where does that stop?”

In a post on Small Wars Journal, Yingling writes: “There is no constitutional principle more important to a democracy than civilian control of the military. Unless the armed guardians of the state remain strictly subordinate to civil authority, no other liberty can long remain safe.”

[…]

Still, there is no question that many in the officer corps are smoldering. “Reading letters to the editor confirms that Colonel Milburn’s essay resonates with more than a few military professionals,” writes David H. Gurney, the former editor of Joint Forces Quarterly, who selected Milburn’s essay for publication last month. “His candid essay,” says Gurney, is “too important to ignore.”

In fact, Yingling writes, Milburn should be thanked for making his “regrettable” views public. “Many others who apparently share his views lack his candor,” Yingling writes. After all, they are “made of the same genetic material as the centurions who followed Caesar across the Rubicon” to wage war against Rome’s civil authorities. “Anonymous military officers’ bitter condemnations of civil authorities are now far too common features of public discourse,” Yingling continues. “These are the officers we should truly fear — those who skulk sullenly in corners with like-minded victims of alleged civilian malfeasance, drawing their wages while condemning the society that pays them.”

After reading Milburn’s essay, he writes, “I fear the Rubicon may be closer than we think.”

We are living in a time when all the elite institutions are failing and the continued respect for the military (and the cultural prohibition against virtually any kind of criticism of it) makes this something to keep a very close eye on.

Read the whole article.

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