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Month: November 2011

Romantic Psychosis

Published by digby on November 21, 2011

Romantic Psychosis

by digby

Boy has Krugman really hit on something today. Talking about the delusion of technocratic saviors, he says this:

I know from technocrats; sometimes I even play one myself. And these people — the people who bullied Europe into adopting a common currency, the people who are bullying both Europe and the United States into austerity — aren’t technocrats. They are, instead, deeply impractical romantics.

They are, to be sure, a peculiarly boring breed of romantic, speaking in turgid prose rather than poetry. And the things they demand on behalf of their romantic visions are often cruel, involving huge sacrifices from ordinary workers and families. But the fact remains that those visions are driven by dreams about the way things should be rather than by a cool assessment of the way things really are…

[O]ur discourse is being badly distorted by ideologues and wishful thinkers — boring, cruel romantics — pretending to be technocrats. And it’s time to puncture their pretensions.

Read the whole column. He does know from technocrats and even though he doesn’t mention it, he’s talking about exactly the same dynamic we saw in the run up to the Iraq war. There it was the starry-eyed Neo-cons pretending to be “realists” by invading a country in order to build their own version of Barbie’s dream house.(See: Imperial Life in the Emerald City.)

These romantic delusions happen on all sides of the political spectrum but in recent years it’s the gooey dreamers of the right who have been wrapping the world in their fantasies of Greatness. History shows that tends to lead in some very unpleasant directions.

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No deal is the best deal

Published by digby on November 21, 2011

No Deal is the best deal

by digby

I’ll just let Bernie Sanders explain it to Wolf Blitzer, who appears to be extremely confused by the fact that someone might have liberal principles. In fairness, it’s not something he hears every day. Usually, it’s a Democrat explaining that he or she is more than willing to drive the social safety net over the cliff but the other side is refusing to kick in gas money.

This is very different:



BLITZER: Do you want this so-called super committee to reach a deal, a big deal by this coming week?

SANDERS: I want them to reach a good deal, a deal that’s fair to the middle class and working families of this country that does what the American people want, which says no cuts in Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, ask the wealthiest people in this country to pay their fair share of taxes, do away with corporate loopholes so that companies making billions of dollars a year in profits start paying some taxes.

BLITZER: But as you know, the compromise in the works has always been there would be some tax increases, which is what you want, but at the same time there would be cuts in what’s called entitlement spending, including Social Security and Medicare.

SANDERS: Well, I think that position is way out of line with what the American people want. I just saw a poll today. Seventy percent of Republicans, of Republicans say do not cut Social Security. Numbers are higher for Democrats and independents. In this economic moment when so many people are hurting, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are enormously important. They are life and death issues.

BLITZER: Are you open to reforms in Social Security, for example, raising the retirement age?

SANDERS: No. I’m open to reforms by lifting the cap taxable income so that millionaires contribute more into Social Security so that it will be solvent for 75 years. Let’s be clear. Social security has not contributed to one nickel to the deficit. Compare every benefit for the next 25 years has a —

BLITZER: Are you open to means testing for Social Security recipients, in other words, if you’re a millionaire, do you still need to get a $2,000 a month check?

SANDERS: Yes, you do. No, you know why — no, the millionaire should be asked to contribute more into it. Once you start with millionaire, trust me, next year it’ll be those making $100,000, and in 10 years it will be those making $50,000 —

BLITZER: So you don’t want to touch entitlement spending at all?

SANDERS: I want to make sure that in the midst of recession, when tens of millions of people are desperately hanging on, that you don’t cut those people at the knees so that they become even more desperate. The issue now, Wolf, let’s be clear, the richest people in this country are doing phenomenally well, large corporation, record- breaking profits. You do not balance the budget in a civilized democratic society on the backs of the most vulnerable. You ask those people who are doing well whose effective tax rates are lower than in that case to start paying their fair share of taxes.

BLITZER: But you know even President Obama is open to some changes on Medicare and Social Security, for example, adjusting what’s called the cost of living index so that there’s less of increase every year to deal with —

SANDERS: President Obama is dead wrong on that issue. He should go back and listen to what he said during his campaign. You go and talk to senior citizens and you say, you know, the COLA that you’re getting, it’s too generous.

BLITZER: COLA is the Cost of Living Allowance.

SANDERS: Right. The Cost of Living, it’s too generous. They’d say you’re crazy. For two years in a row when prescription costs, health care costs were soaring, we didn’t get anything. Zero is too generous? Nobody believes that. And again, the poll that I just saw, 70 percent of Republicans say do not go in that direction.

BLITZER: But based on if everyone took — the Democrats took your position, there would be no compromise with the Republicans because they are adamant they don’t want tax increases.

SANDERS: Then you go — let’s be clear, there is a situation there will be sequestration, which does not —

BLITZER: Automatic cuts, the triggers.

SANDERS: Military and others which do not begin, Wolf, until January, 2013. And then the American people can make a decision in this election, which side are they on? Do they believe and agree with Republicans that you give tax breaks to billionaires and you cut Social Security? If I were a Republican, believe me, I would not want to run on that proposal.

BLITZER: So what I hear you saying, and correct me if I’m wrong, senator, you would rather have what’s called the sequestration, the trigger, the automatic cuts beginning in 2013, half defense, half non- defense, rather than some sort of compromise which would deal with entitlement spending like Social Security?

SANDERS: I would rather have no deal than a bad deal. And the deals that I’m hearing — and in all fairness, I’m not on the committee. But what I’m hearing is revenue, maybe we get it from the middle class, maybe a little bit here and there. I’m not impressed by what I’m hearing so far.

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Moral High Ground by David Atkins

Published by digby on November 21, 2011

Moral High Ground

by David Atkins

The United States is truly leading the free world:

Two people were killed in Cairo and Alexandria this weekend as Egyptian activists took the streets to protest the military’s attempts to maintain its grip on power. And guess how the state is justifying its deadly crackdown.

“We saw the firm stance the US took against OWS people & the German govt against green protesters to secure the state,” an Egyptian state television anchor said yesterday…

Yeah—it gets harder and harder to maintain a moral high ground when videos like this and pictures like this are unavoidable.

How bad are things in Egypt? Pretty bad:

Reporting from Cairo—
Egypt is frayed, bloody and slipping toward a new revolt.

The clashes that erupted for the second day in a row Sunday between police and protesters are the most volatile challenge in months to the nation’s military leaders. The anger glimpsed through the tear gas and on the bruised faces of demonstrators marked a dangerous chasm between the Egyptian people and the generals who have refused to relinquish power to a civilian government.

What is unfolding in the streets of Cairo, Suez and the coastal city of Alexandria is the compounded anger over the unrealized promise of a revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February but has yet to steer the country toward a new democracy. Five people have been killed across the nation, including three Sunday in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and more than 1,000 have been injured since violence broke out on Saturday.

Security forces and military police, swinging batons, firing birdshot and driving armored personnel carriers, stormed the square late Sunday afternoon, chasing out protesters and burning tents. The troops quickly retreated and growing ranks of demonstrators returned to the area, yelling epithets against the military as darkness fell. Protesters numbered as many as 20,000 before midnight.

And the Egyptian police state authorities are using the American crackdown to legitimate protests as their justification.

I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.

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Setting the terms

Published by digby on November 21, 2011
Setting the terms

by digby

If you want to see how it’s done, watch Jon Kyl set the terms of the debate:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyGregory: Secretary Panetta has said the following about the impact of that. sequester, he said, which is the process by which those automatic triggers go into place, will lead to a hollow force that in effect invites aggression. He also said in a letter to senator Mccain of armed services, the impact of these cuts would be devastating for the department of defense. as a result we would have to forumlate a new security strategy that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense needs. would you support a workaround of some measure that would not — that would prevent the automatic tax cuts from going into place. excuse me, automatic lick spending cuts.

Kyl: what people should know is that one way or another we’re going to have $1.2 trillion in reduced spending. it could either be done the ugly way, which would happen if our committee fails. or we could do it more intelligently. but we do have the opportunity, even if the committee fails, to work around the sequester so that we still have $1.2 trillion in savings over ten years. but it’s not done in the very draconian way that secretary panetta is referring to. now that will require work on congress’ part, and some agreement. but i can’t imagine that, knowing of the importance of national defense, that both democrats and republicans wouldn’t find a way to work through that process so way still get to $1.2 trillion in cuts, but it doesn’t all fall on defense as secretary panetta pointed out.
Gregory: so you don’t think the defense cuts will happen?
Kyl: well, i think there’s a way to avoid that, if there’s goodwill on both sides. again, i think when the reality sets in and even those democratic friends who would like to see more defense cuts, when people like secretary panetta says this would be extraordinarily bad policy for the national security of the united states, we’ll find ways to work around that.
Gregory: do you feel some urgency to get this done? what about the potential of another downgrade of america’s debt?
Kyl: again there’s going to be $1.2 trillion in savings, whether the committee agrees on a method of doing it or it happens automatically, as you say. this shouldn’t foster a downgrade or run on the market or anything like that. $1.2 trillion in savings occurs one way or the other.Note Kyl’s language: he never says 1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. He says, “cuts”, “savings”, “reduced spending.” No taxes or revenue of any kind. He’s simply asserting that this is about discretionary and mandatory domestic spending cuts, period. And that trigger obviously means nothing.Then, you had John Kerry on right afterwards saying that the Democrats were more than willing to take a meat ax to the budget as well but they really, kind of, wanted some revenue too. It doesn’t look like they are going to get even that (thank God.) But the terms of the election year debate are all going to be about how the Democrats are insisting on raising taxes. After all, the only spending cuts that are controversial anymore are the defense cuts — which Democrats will never fight for.In fact, the Republicans will be able to say quite honestly in their campaign ads that the Democrats want to cut social security and medicare and raise taxes. Those are all very popular stands with the public.
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Virtually Speaking 9est/6pst–Civil liberties and Supercommittee extravaganza — Joan McCarter and Marcy Wheeler in the house

Published by digby on November 21, 2011

Virtually Speaking Sunday

by digby

It’s a good pair for this week. Civil liberties and Supercommittee extravaganza:

9 pm eastern | 6 pm pacific |McJoan is back with emptywheel.


Joan McCarter and Marcy Wheeler discuss developments of the week, highlighting issues neglected or misrepresented on the Sunday morning broadcasts, drawing from their work of the prior week and the wickedly funny Bobblespeak Translations. Worth tuning in for Culture of Truth on the Most Outrageous Moment from the Sunday morning talk shows. Follow @JoanMcCarter @emptywheel.
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Sweet ‘phobe Alabama

Published by digby on November 21, 2011

Sweet ‘phobe Alabama

by digby

The good news is that Alabama is equal opportunity xenophobic. The bad news is that they aren’t really supposed to be:

A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver’s license with him under Alabama’s new law targeting illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday, in an otherwise routine case that drew the attention of Gov. Robert Bentley.

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.

The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.

The length of his detainment and the status of his court case weren’t immediately known.

Mercedes-Benz, which is a division of Daimler AG, builds sport-utility vehicles at a large plant in Vance, about 20 miles east of Tuscaloosa. The automaker’s decision to open a factory in Alabama in 1993 was considered a major coup for the state’s economic development efforts and launched a trend of other foreign automakers and suppliers who opened major factories in the state, including Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

Bentley, a Republican who signed the illegal immigration law earlier this year, called the state’s homeland security director, Spencer Collier, after hearing of the arrest to get details about had happened, Collier said in an interview.
[…]
The law — parts of which were put on hold amid legal challenges — requires that police check citizenship status during traffic stops and take anyone who doesn’t have proper identification to a magistrate. Anderson said that’s what was done, but someone in the same situation wouldn’t have been arrested before the law took effect.

“If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn’t be arrested like this,” he said. Previously, drivers who lacked licenses received a ticket and a court summons, the police chief said.

Mexico issued a travel warning to its citizens thinking of visiting Arizona after it passed its draconian immigration law. Maybe European countries should think about doing that for Alabama. It’s clearly a dangerous place to be a foreigner — even if your employer provides thousands of jobs to the locals. But surely they never meant for it to impact a nice German man. (And somehow I really doubt that the GOP leadership and the Governor’s office normally gets involved in these things.)

Meanwhile, I continue to be surprised to learn that individual states have created “homeland security” departments. Why do they need such a thing on top of their state and local police departments, various Federal DHS agencies plus the FBI? Alabama’s DHS web site explains:

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security (AL DHS) was established by an act of the Alabama State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Bob Riley on June 18, 2003. Alabama is the first state in the Nation to create its own legislatively enacted Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The head of AL DHS is Director Spencer Collier.

Alabama’s Homeland Security Department is staffed and organized to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Alabama Department of Homeland Security is divided into four major functional areas including: Borders, Ports and Transportation; Science and Technology; Information Management and Budget; and Emergency Preparedness and Response.

The mission of the AL DHS is to work with our federal, state, and local partners to prevent acts of terrorism in Alabama, to protect lives and safeguard property, and if required, to respond to any acts of terrorism occurring in Alabama. To accomplish this mission, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security works closely with both public and private sector stakeholders in a wide range of disciplines: law enforcement, emergency management, emergency medical, fire services, public works, agriculture, public health, public safety communications, environmental management, military, transportation, and more.

Since its inception, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security has administered, throughout Alabama, over $100 million in federally appropriated homeland security grants.

Well, there you have it. A brand spanking new police agency with an incredibly broad mandate and a whole lot of money. What’s not to like?

Update: I guess I’m the last to know, but Mr Google tells me that dozens of states have “Departments of Homeland Security” and they and other public safety departments are recipients of many millions of DHS grants to “fight terrorism.” I knew, of course, that vast amounts of federal money was flowing to state and municipal police agencies in the wake of 9/11 but I did not realize that states were explicitly replicating the federal DHS at the state level. I guess you just can’t have too many redundant policing agencies.

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Progressive Caucus Recertified by David Atkins

Published by digby on November 20, 2011

Progressive Caucus Recertified

by David Atkins

There was a significant hubbub caused when the California Democratic Party delayed recertifying its Progressive Caucus (of which I am a member, though I wasn’t present to vote on the resolution in question) after it passed a resolution encouraging a primary challenge to Barack Obama.

Much of the progressive blogosphere freaked out about this, claiming that the Party was attempting to quell dissent and expel anyone who stepped out of line. In truth, the delay in recertification at the last CDP executive board meeting in Anaheim took place in order to avoid an ugly and bruising floor fight that might have resulted in the decertification of the aucus, particularly at the hands of angry minority groups (whose constituents still strongly support the President) including the African-American Caucus.

The delay in recertification was the right move at the time, as I have said in the past. It allowed cooler heads to prevail and for rifts to be at least partially mended. And today at the CDP Executive Board meeting in Burlingame, I was proud to be among the board members to vote to recertify the Progressive Caucus in the California Democratic Party.

In any organization particularly on the Left, you’ll mostly find good people usually trying through fits and starts to do the right thing. Processes often get corrupted and bad leaders can do extraordinary damage sometimes, but by and large these are real people in these organizations, giving hundreds of hours of their time for free for a cause. The CDP has been doing a fantastic job of late as one of most progressive and effective Democratic organizations in the country, and the handling of the Progressive Caucus business has been no exception.

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Libertarian patriarchy

Published by digby on November 20, 2011

Libertarian patriarchy


by digby
I’ve been given to understand that Ron Paul really does believe that the half of the population that manages to get by without a penis is entitled to liberty just as the one’s who are lucky to have them. I have been skeptical of this position since he also believes that women don’t have the freedom to control their own bodies and has long history of associating with Christian Reconstructionists.
I think he may have clarified his position once and for all at the Thanksgiving Family Forum:

Ron Paul (at 15:22): “Matter of fact, when the people came to Samuel and said, “Look, we need more rules and more laws. We want more government to tell us what to do and we — we need more of this.” And Samuel was old and ready to retire and he says, “No, that’s a bad mistake. You don’t need more rules and more government. You don’t need this — the government will overreact.”

And today this is what I think has happened to us. We have deferred to.. to the federal government. We have weighed too much government. We should go in other directions. Before you know it the next step — what if the next step is, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the United Nations defined marriage?”

I don’t want to go that way, I want to go back down… all the way to the family and the Church — believe me it would be a happier and more peaceful world if we went in that direction, rather than asking the government and asking the King to solve all these problems… we need the family to deal with it.

And we can take our message and learn something from the Old Testament, how there was such a strong emphasis on the Patriarchal society and the disputes settled by judges rather than looking for Big Government.”

Those really were the good old days.

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Polar Occupation

Published by digby on November 20, 2011
Polar Occupation
by digby

I’m fairly sure this is the northernmost Occupation in the world:

Saturday marks the two-month anniversary for the Occupy Fairbanks movement. Instead of the police crackdowns seen elsewhere around the country, the Interior Alaska protesters are contending with punishing cold and local grumbling about the legality of warm-up tents.

Brent Baccala, a 41-year-old self-described preacher and software designer from Maryland, continued his vigil at Veterans Memorial Park sporting a donated Northern Outfitters blue suit and matching boots Friday. He slept in the nearby tent as overnight temperature dropped to minus 36, Thursday, three degrees cooler than the record low for that date, set in 1969. It was the second time this week area temperatures set new daily lows, according to the National Weather Service.

Baccala, who’s been in Fairbanks two weeks, said he felt a religious calling to join the movement while reading about Occupy Fairbanks in Juneau, where he’d been preaching to tourists. People should live the Christian life of “giving, forgiveness and generosity,” he said Friday. “My focus is the immorality of capitalism.”

John Watts, 50, had ice forming on his mustache Friday as he explained his motives for supporting Occupy Fairbanks.

“Elements of the tea party are connecting with the thinkers,” he said. “Something is wrong. Media wants to set it up to look like the solution is either we are free or not free, the far left side or far right.”

Baccala and other protesters contend the First Amendment’s protection for free speech implies a right to stay warm in the process. The Fairbanks North Star Borough, which maintains that protesters are squatting on downtown space, prohibits camping in its parks, except specific camping sites.


I went to school there and believe me, that’s cold. It’s also brave. Fairbanks is the home of Tea Party senate candidate Joe Miller and his gun-toting fans. (He was once the attorney for the North Star Borough, where he famously conspired with Sarah Palin.)

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