Month: November 2010

Welcome To The Police State

by digby

Everyone’s written about this “don’t touch my junk” story, but this new development is so sadly in line with my thesis about these things that it’s almost a cliche. When I wrote about it over the week-end, I pointed out that this was the latest in a series of steps leading to a police state — the building of a police bureaucracy and the intimidation and the incoherence of security theatre designed to confuse citizens and indoctrinate them to the idea that they should unquestioningly submit to absurd directives from authorities. It’s how you control a populace.

Anyway, here’s the latest on the the “junk” story:

The Transportation Security Administration has opened an investigation targeting John Tyner, the Oceanside man who left Lindbergh Field under duress on Saturday morning after refusing to undertake a full body scan.

Tyner recorded the half-hour long encounter on his cell phone and later posted it to his personal blog, along with an extensive account of the incident. The blog went viral, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers and thousands of comments.

Michael J. Aguilar, chief of the TSA office in San Diego, called a news conference at the airport Monday afternoon to announce the probe. He said the investigation could lead to prosecution and civil penalties of up to $11,000.

TSA agents had told Tyner on Saturday that he could be fined up to $10,000.

“That’s the old fine,” Aguilar said. “It has been increased.”
[…]

According to Aguilar, Tyner is under investigation for leaving the security area without permission. That’s prohibited, among other reasons, to prevent potential terrorists from entering security, gaining information, and leaving.

The incoherence and absurdity part is that the TSA authorities, including several “supervisors,” told him he had to leave the security area and escorted him out. This is pure Kafka (or perhaps more aptly, Joseph Heller.) It’s how you train a citizenry to follow orders that make no sense.

For instance, the body scanners are designed to see things that the metal detectors cannot see, including things hidden inside the body. But you are allowed to opt out of that to get a pat down — which doesn’t include a cavity search (yet.) This makes no sense unless you think that terrorists are so stupid that they can’t figure out where their bodily orifices are. In other words, the only way this could be construed as rational is if they required everyone to go through the scanner or get a full strip and cavity search.

But making no sense is a feature of the police state, not a bug. Just submit to arbitrary authority and move along.

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The Teabag Channel

by digby

They love her, they really love her:

Sarah Palin has once again refudiated her detractors. The critics may not have loved her new TLC reality show, but the former Alaska governor proved she is ratings gold.

“Sarah Palin’s Alaska” was the most-watched series launch in TLC history, with an average of 5 million total viewers tuning in to Sunday’s premiere, according to early data from the Nielsen Co.

So, it beat out “Sister Wives” and “19 Kids and Counting.” I couldn’t find the numbers for “16 and Pregnant” and “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant”, “Quints by Surprise” and “Sextuplets Take Manhattan” but I guess they didn’t do as well as the “Sarah, Todd, Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig” show either. Imagine if she had some more kids! Still, I think this one is likely to be a much bigger hit than any of them:

Kid Farm from FrontPage Films on Vimeo.

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Reconstructionist Libertarians

by digby

Julie Ingersoll at Religion Dispatches discusses Palin’s “economic” speech in which she mouthed some criticisms of the Fed’s quantitative easing, and explains the nexus between the Christian Theocrats and the so-called libertarians on the issue. This is fascinating stuff:

For the former Alaska governor’s audience, though, her attack on the Fed is adequate—shall we say—stimulus. In the Tea Party’s short life, the Federal Reserve has been a target of its oppositional rage, spurred by Tea Party godfather Rep. Ron Paul’s persistent calls to eliminate it.

While Paul’s anti-Fed crusade is widely thought of as economic libertarianism, the roots of this combat lie in a theocratic reading of the Bible, arising out of the nexus between Paul (and now his son, Senator-elect Rand Paul), Howard Phillips and his Constitution Party, and Gary North and the Christian Reconstructionists.

For decades, the elder Paul, Phillips, and North have shared the libertarian economic philosophy of the Austrian School, which advocates a strict free market approach to an economy they portray in terms of individual choices and agreements rather than systemic forces. With respect to the Federal Reserve System in particular, they have argued against its fractional reserve banking, and its manipulation of interest rates to control economic ups and downs.

North, the architect of Christian Reconstructionist economic theory, and controversial libertarian economist Lew Rockwell both worked on Ron Paul’s congressional staff in the late 1970s. That collaboration continues today, even after reports during the 2008 presidential campaign that Rockwell had ghostwritten racist and anti-gay statements in Ron Paul’s conspiracy-minded newsletter in the 1980s and ’90s. They continue to collaborate through the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded by Rockwell and the anti-“statist,” anti-New Deal economist Murray Rothbard, who believed Joseph McCarthy was “the most smeared man in American politics” in the 20th century.

Their work is also found at LewRockwell.com, where North currently writes, often in support of Paul. In promoting their libertarian economic views, Rothbard and Rockwell have, according to the libertarian Reason magazine, “championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist ‘paleoconservatives.’”

While each of these figures comes to the table from different places, they come together in agreement on Rothbard’s anti-statism, which dovetails with North’s views. For North, the Bible limits the legitimate functions of civil government to punishing “evildoers” and providing for defense. Reconstructionist theocracy, based on the Reconstructionists’ reading of the Bible, gives coercive authority to families and churches to organize other aspects of life. In this view—one that also meshes with Tea Party rhetoric—the Fed’s control of monetary policy is a prime example of federal government “tyranny.”

North argues that the Federal Reserve is unbiblical because it usurps power not legitimately held by civil government (because God didn’t grant it) and it promotes inflation, which he says is nothing more than theft from those who are not in debt in favor of those who are.

Evidently, these ideas are a big part of the Christian homeschooling movement.

If you wonder how the libertarians and the social conservatives can possibly get along, read the whole thing. This explains it.

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Blame Game

by digby

For someone who never wants to hold anyone accountable for anything, the president sure is anxious to accept blame for himself. But some of us, most famously Greg Sargent, have been making the point for a long time that when a president boldly promises to change the way Washington works and the other side obstructs his every attempt at cooperation and bipartisanship, the voters don’t blame the other side, they blame the president for failing to deliver on his promises. (Indeed, the Republicans are so bold as to openly blame him as well.)

Apparently, Obama hasn’t learned that lesson:

Just 20 days after his inauguration, with Republicans trying to block his stimulus bill, President Obama refused to acknowledge that he had underestimated how hard it would be to change the way Washington works.

But as the president returned home on Sunday to face an even more rigidly divided capital, Mr. Obama went even further by blaming himself for failing to do what he had repeatedly promised — change the tone in Washington.

He said his own “obsessive” focus on implementing the right policies had led him to ignore a part of the reason voters handed him a mandate in 2008.

“I neglected some things that matter a lot to people, and rightly so: maintaining a bipartisan tone in Washington,” he told reporters in a brief question-and-answer session aboard Air Force One as he returned from a 10-day trip to Asia. “I’m going to redouble my efforts to go back to some of those first principles,” he promised.

[…]

Creating a new tone in Washington was a central theme that ran throughout Mr. Obama’s campaign for the presidency … And just six days before the 2008 election, as he campaigned in North Carolina, Mr. Obama told a large crowd that “the change we need isn’t just about new programs and policies. It’s about a new politics — a politics that calls on our better angels instead of encouraging our worst instincts.”

For much of the last two years, Mr. Obama and his aides have pointed the finger of blame at Republicans, saying that efforts at changing the way Washington works have been systematically blocked by Republicans.

But Mr. Obama appears to have now concluded that some of the fault is shared by his own staff, which often pursued politics by traditional means as he tried to push through fiscal stability measures, health care reform and new financial regulations.

So despite the fact that he spent the first two years of his presidency doing back flips to get even one Republican to vote for his program, even as they demonized him as a socialist and a coward, he is assuming responsibility for the failure and earnestly promising to do better. And just like before, when the Republicans rebuff his every gesture, the American people will see someone who is unable to fulfill his promises and will blame this failure for all their problems.

If Obama wanted to be like Gandhi or Jesus he should have started a movement or a religion instead of becoming a politician. Politics is about persuasion and power, not transcending human nature. He’s going to lose in two years if he doesn’t start using the power of his office to fix this economy instead of moping around about “tone.” If he doesn’t fight, the only politicians the voters will see fighting for them are the Tea Partiers.

*typo fxd.

Complexity And Institutional Failure

by digby

Alternet has excerpted a piece of Matt Taibbi’s new book in which he talks about the Know-Nothingism of the tea party, in particular, Michelle Bachman, who is evidently so dumb that even the GOP couldn’t allow her into the leadership. And that’s saying something considering who is already in the leadership. It’s a vastly entertaining look at the woman who thought that when the Chinese suggested replacing the dollar as the international reserve currency it meant that we’d all be forced to use Yuan for our Happy Meals so she proposed a bill to ensure the dollar could never be replaced as the American currency.

But Taibbi makes an interesting point at the end of it, which I partially agree with and partially don’t. He says this:

Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate will power to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power. On the other hand, movements like the Tea Party more than anything else reflect a widespread longing for simpler times and simple solutions — just throw the U.S. Constitution at the whole mess and everything will be jake. For immigration, build a big fence. Abolish the Federal Reserve, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education. At times the overt longing for simple answers that you get from Tea Party leaders is so earnest and touching, it almost makes you forget how insane most of them are

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I think he’s right that the world is about complexity and that the Tea Party is yearning for simpler times. (Conservatism usually is…) But the answers about how to deal with the complexity aren’t simply technocratic, they’re philosophical and ideological. And the combination of the three are what people are, in the end, voting for. The average voter can no more be expected to master the details of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations any more that they should be expected to master particle physics or brain surgery. There is always going to be a need to entrust certain things to experts and elites, whom they charge with mastering the details on their behalf. Not everyone can be conversant in the arcane workings of high finance and they shouldn’t have to be. That’s supposedly what we have government for.

Our core American belief systems are still struggling along, fighting it out. They aren’t especially useful, but they aren’t where the problem is. What’s broken down is down is the institutional system that forced elites to work at least somewhat on behalf of the people. Government, clergy, journalism, high finance, the legal system, the military, all of it, has stopped functioning properly. I don’t know what the reasons are for all of this (although I know someone who’s writing a book on the topic which I can’t wait to read.)

The ideological question for the people simply comes down to whether or not you believe that society is better off with a government mitigating the sharp edges of capitalism or whether you think society is better off without it. The practical question is what to do about the fact that however you come down on that question, the elites who are running the institutions you depend on and believe in are corrupt.

Basically, everyone’s confused and agitated because both capitalism and government are failing the common people. And nobody really knows what to do about that.

Update: The professional left may be a pain in the ass, but get a load of the Know Nothing Tea partiers.

And they have a whole lot more clout than the left has ever had.

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Think NAFTA

by digby

Ezra Klein says that deficit reduction isn’t going to happen over the next two years and I think he’s probably right. That would explain why Social Security is on the Deficit Commission’s menu even though it isn’t counted in the deficit numbers — and why recent economic advisor Peter Orsazg is on the pages of the NY Times touting SS cuts as leading to “credibility” and talking up its bipartisan possibilities.

Think NAFTA.

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Credibility

by digby

Who knew that Peter Orszag was such a comedian. He tells us that the social security shortfall years from now has nothing to do with the federal deficit but says it should be cut anyway. Evidently, it is necessary to solve a problem that doesn’t exist in order to establish “credibility.”

[E]ven though Social Security is not a major contributor to our long-term deficits, reforming it could help the federal government establish much-needed credibility on solving out-year fiscal problems — which in turn could improve the political prospects for providing additional short-term stimulus for the economy. All of which suggests that Democrats in Congress should support the basic construct of the Bowles-Simpson proposal, while arguing for some changes to improve it. That has not, however, been their reaction thus far.

I can hardly believe anyone of his stature could argue this nonsense. Orszag agrees that SS does not contribute to the long term deficit and yet is trying to convince us that that the Deficit Commission draft just put it on the table anyway, apparently out of a surfeit of progressive idealism. Huh? Moreover, he also thinks it makes sense to jump right on the third rail in American politics because it would be desirable” to do something about a potential future problem — when we are in the middle of an epic economic shitstorm with stubborn 10% unemployment and a banking and housing crisis that shows no sign of abating.

Is he ignorant of the fact that most people in this country are convinced — mainly because they’re being told it every single day by every politician, talking head and gasbag — that “entitlements” are destroying the economy and the future of the United States? The idea that social security cuts could buy the administration a chance for more stimulus is delusional. The Republicans have shown that they have absolutely no intention of dealing realistically with health care costs, defense and tax hikes are off the table and the rest is chump change. Any “deal” will only go toward the destruction of social programs. That’s the Grand Bargain, period. (Oh, they’ll take extension of the Bush tax cuts too, I forgot.)

Even more incredible than the idea that this will improve prospects for further stimulus is the ridiculous proposition that doing this will “help the federal government establish credibility” even though it has nothing to do with the problem it’s purportedly supposed to solve. I’ve got a revolutionary suggestion about how the government could establish credibility for real. It could solve some of the very real and pressing problems confronting the nation right this minute instead of obsessing over something that at worst will be a problem 30 years from now. I suspect it might pay off politically.

I’m fairly sure Orszag was around the last time the Democrats “established credibility” and balanced the budget. A man named Bush came along and started screaming “It’s yer muneee!” and they gave it all away to rich people. And here we are ten years later with the rich much richer and the wingnuts screaming that the Democrats are socialists. So much for credibility.

He concludes with this side-splitter:

It is therefore crucial that the Obama administration recognize the opportunity and respond to it more positively. The White House has been handed a highly progressive reform plan for Social Security that could attract Republican support as well.

Yes, I’m sure it can. And then they will tell senior citizens that Democrats just cut their social security and run with it all the way to the White House. Think they can’t get away with it? Think again. These are the same people who had no compunction about telling the American people that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

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Too Much Stimulation

by digby

We’ve all seen the TV ads for Viagra and Cialis which are verging on sheer farce at this point. This is the one that captures the absurdity the best IMO:

And I’m sure you’ve all seen these unbelievably ridiculous commercials on TV, right?

You undoubtedly remember them because you said at the time (no pun intended) “there’s a sucker born every minute.” They are ubiquitous. They even sell them at Walmart and at the airport these days.

So what’s up with this?

When Rachel Braun Scherl, 45, a Stanford University business school graduate, co-founded Semprae Laboratories, which developed Zestra Essential Arousal Oils, a product described as a botanical aphrodisiac, she thought bringing its message to the airwaves would be a snap. Research had shown that tens of millions of American women had sexual difficulty and no products to remedy it.

Scherl, 45, a married mother of two, and company co-founder Mary Jaensch, 58, a married mother of three, thought they had an answer for this unmet need, along with the cash to pay for ads on TV.

In an apparent double standard, many networks and some websites have declined the company’s ads; a few will air them during the daytime, and others only after midnight. There is no nudity, sex, or mention of body parts, unlike ads for men’s products referring to “erections lasting more than four hours.”

“The most frequent answer we get is, ‘We don’t advertise your category,’ ” Scherl said. “To which we say, ‘What is the category? Because if it’s sexual enjoyment, you clearly cover that category. If it’s female enjoyment, you clearly don’t.’ And when you ask for information as to what we would need to change so they would clear the ad for broadcast, they give you very little direction. … And yet they have no problem showing ads for Viagra and other men’s drugs. Why?”

Zestra’s ads feature women of various ethnicities who appear to be in their 40s and 50s talking to the camera about how sex “doesn’t feel the way it used to” before they had children and that their bodies “don’t react” as they did when they were younger.

Zestra’s website states that the oil (classified as a cosmetic) works by “heightening sensitivity to touch.” The website contains endorsements by three medical doctors and the founder of a sexual health institute, and cites two clinical trials proving its effectiveness.

The oil has been featured on TV shows such as “Rachael Ray,” “The Tyra Banks Show,” and “Dr. Oz” and ABC’s “Nightline,” even though the network would allow a Zestra ad only during the late-night “Jimmy Kimmel” show, Scherl said.

A spokeswoman for Oxygen network, which accepted the ad from midnight to 4 a.m. and during “Bad Girls Club” and “Snapped,” declined to specify what was objectionable about the ad during other daytime programming, citing client confidentiality.

Can you believe this bullshit? You can sell absurd Penis Enlargement Pills on TV and you can advertise Viagra with a bunch of men dancing in the streets proclaiming they are Champions for managing to get it up, but women’s sexual pleasure is relegated to”Bad Girl’s Club” if it’s allowed on TV at all.

Not surprising, but come on (again, no pun intended):

“When you see naked women bounding around in any music video or open a magazine and see ads for cars or cosmetics, half-naked women are everywhere,” Grindstaff said. “That is not women’s sexuality. What you see is completely bound up and constructed by male ideas of what women’s sexuality ought to be. An ad like Zestra’s, with no men in it, about women’s pleasure for the sake of pleasure, is threatening, I guess. What other explanation could there be?”

I would bet if they changed the campaign to feature gorgeous young women getting hot for middle aged men, they’d have no problem getting on the air. I suspect that part of the problem is that it features middle aged women instead of young sexy babes, which just makes everybody uncomfortable. It’s one thing to see a bunch of paunchy, middle aged men dancing in the streets celebrating the fact that they got it on. It’s normal to think of them having sex. Middle aged and older women? I suspect that programmers and ad buyers think that’s just icky.

h/t to reader CS

The Tea Parties Now

by digby

Rick Perlstein’s keynote address at the Berkeley Conference called “Fractures, Alliances and Mobilizations in the Age of Obama: Emerging Analyses of the ‘Tea Party Movement'”

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Natural Allies

by digby

And why not? Think Progress reports:

It’s not surprising that SB-1070 has attracted extremism. The lawyers who are credited with authoring it are employed by an organization that has reportedly accepted $1.2 million in donations from the Pioneer Fund, “a foundation established to promote the genes of white colonials.” The law’s sponsor, state Rep. Russell Pearce (R-AZ), has faced criticism in the past for cozying up to local neo-Nazis. He even endorsed one of “Arizona’s leading neo-Nazis,” J.T. Ready, when the he ran for City Council in the spring of 2006.

Oh well.

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