Month: December 2011

Here’s a candidate with the right idea about big money corruption in politics:

I am personally of the belief that money plays a much more important role in what is done in Washington than we believe. I personally believe that when campaigns spend the kind of money they’re now spending — this race, I understand, [my opponent] will spend about ten million dollars to be reelected. He’s been in 32 years. 10 million dollars — I think that’s wrong. And that’s not his own money, that’s all from other people, and to get that kind of money, as an incumbent you’ve got to cozy up to other people — all of the special interest groups that can go out there and raise money for you from their members — and that kind of relationship has an influence on the way that you’re going to vote. […]These kinds of associations between money and politics, in my view, are wrong. And, for that reason, I would like to have campaign spending limits. […] I also would abolish PACs.

That would, of course, be Mitt the first, back in 1994 — before he turned himself inside out to be a Tea Party conservative. I don’t happen to think he ever believed that. He was trying to beat up Teddy Kennedy for being a rich guy at the time and it sounded good. And then, times changed too, largely as a result of the wrecking crew that Newtie and the gang brought into power that very same year.

Again, I do not understand why the Tea Partiers are so hostile to this guy. If they truly believe their agenda is popular and right, they have no reason to think Mitt won’t fulfill it. He has shown that he will do whatever it takes. If they maintain their control of the House, they’ll be home free. He’ll sign anything they put in front of him.

Focus on the brain damage

by digby

For those who doubt that most of social conservatism is simply tribal identification rather than religion or ideology, check this out, from Right Wing Watch:

Calvin Beinser of the Cornwall Alliance has no scientific credentials but has become the go-to person for right-wing activists on questions of science, particularly climate change. While he lacks any credentials what Beisner does have is close ties to organizations financed by the energy industry and a history of attacking scientists, spreading misinformation, and fueling fears that the environmental movement is a pagan plot to destroy Christianity and kill “about 95% of the human race.”Beisner is especially concerned about growing calls for environmental protection made by evangelical Christians, and has went out of his way to Green Dragon video series to disparage the EEN for thanking both Republican and Democratic politicians who supported efforts to reduce mercury emissions.

The Focus on the Family letter says it all:

According to the EEN, one of every six American babies is born with harmful blood mercury levels, “which causes permanent brain damage in the unborn and infants.” Therefore, the 12 federal legislators EEN is thanking with radio, TV and billboard ads for supporting the EPA restrictions are “pro-life.”

In truth, only one in every 1,000 American babies is exposed to harmful doses of mercury, and the slight delays in cognitive development it may cause generally disappear by age 7, says Beisner. Moreover, all 12 of the federal legislators EEN is supporting are among the most pro-abortion Congress has to offer.

“Calling this ‘pro-life’ is quite a misnomer, but it will result in a lot of people being confused about who’s really pro-life and who’s not,” Beisner said. “Some of these people have 100 percent pro-abortion voting records in Congress, so people need to know they’re really getting the wool pulled over their eyes if they fall for this.”

Right. Mercury is no biggie and, more importantly, being against babies being exposed to it without also being anti-abortion is meaningless (and confuses the rubes.) Therefore, “pro-lifers” must be against environmental regulations that might prevent permanent brain damage. (Pay no attention to the fact that this charlatan is paid by the industries that are causing the brain damage.)

I think this is a perfect illustration of the problem with the religious right. Their demands to regulate everyone’s marriages, bedrooms and wombs is bad enough. But they have such a strong tribal identification that they can even be manipulated into believing something as counter-intuitive as “we shouldn’t regulate mercury levels that might cause brain damage because the wrong people are for it.” That’s Jim Jones level brainwashing.

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Rebel Yell

by digby

So, we’re still playing chicken on the payroll tax cut and Unemployment Insurance extension and both parties are heading over the cliff at Christmas. Great. Unfortunately, history shows this tends to set the stage for a Democratic capitulation.

If that happens I think everyone needs to take a step back and re-evaluate whether all this “rebellion” isn’t part of the kabuki dance. It certainly does seem to work for the Republicans every time it happens.

Looking out for number one: Mitt’s principles

by digby

The NY Times has an expose of Mitt Romney’s nearly unimaginable wealth and the fact that he’s still collecting millions from his former company many years after he left it:

Almost 13 years ago, Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, the successful private equity firm he had helped start, and moved to Utah to rescue the Salt Lake City Olympic Games and begin a second career in public life.

Yet when it came to his considerable personal wealth, Mr. Romney never really left Bain.

In what would be the final deal of his private equity career, he negotiated a retirement agreement with his former partners that has paid him a share of Bain’s profits ever since, bringing the Romney family millions of dollars in income each year and bolstering the fortune that has helped finance Mr. Romney’s political aspirations.

The arrangement allowed Mr. Romney to pursue his career in public life while enjoying much of the financial upside of being a Bain partner as the company grew into a global investing behemoth.

In the process, Bain continued to buy and restructure companies, potentially leaving Mr. Romney exposed to further criticism that he has grown wealthier over the last decade partly as a result of layoffs. Moreover, much of his income from the arrangement has probably qualified for a lower tax rate than ordinary income under a tax provision favorable to hedge fund and private equity managers, which has become a point of contention in the battle over economic inequality.

An examination of Mr. Romney’s public financial disclosures, as well as interviews with former Bain partners, business associates and counselors to his campaign, reveals the extent of his financial relationship with Bain Capital and how it has allowed him to continue amassing a personal fortune while building a political career.

Not to worry though. I’m sure there is no conflict of interest. After all, Romney is a man of principle who would govern purely on the basis of his ideology and beliefs. He’s never been one to base his decisions on personal ambition.

Oh, right.

What should liberals be trying to accomplish?

by David Atkins

For all his inane and sophomoric blather, Thomas Friedman is right about one thing: globalization has changed the face of the world economy in a profound way. Almost any job that doesn’t involve face-to-face interaction or infrastructure building can ultimately be outsourced on the global labor market. In terms of major economic shifts in America, the main focus of the last several decades has been on the loss of domestic blue-collar manufacturing jobs or service jobs like drive-through window ordering and technical support centers. But white-collar jobs aren’t safe, either: technology already allows radiologists, IT technicians and similar occupations to be outsourced. Within a few years, communications technology will challenge domestic legal, education and finance professionals as well.

It has been the basic goal of 20th century liberalism to build and sustain a large middle-class, country by country, through protectionist trade policies, union organizing and, most importantly, investments in education, infrastructure and the social safety net. That focus worked–for a time. But the last twenty years of globalization have been changing all that.

Of course, it is true that the liberal program has been under assault from the direct intervention of plutocrats and their allies, who have relentlessly crafted economic policies designed to destroy the middle class. But it’s also true that that the plutocratic agenda has been made possible by the existence of a more globalized world in which to ply the politics of global labor arbitrage. More simply, it used to be that Henry Ford paid his employees well, because paying them well ensured a good, stable middle-class market for the purchase of his cars. A modern Henry Ford need not pay his employees well, since the cost of overseas labor is incredibly low, and the biggest growth market for cars lies outside the United States, anyway. A modern Henry Ford no longer needs the American middle class.

This point was well argued by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh in his recent essay “Keynesian versus Marxian Explanations” in Counterpunch. The whole thing is worth a read, but the conclusion sums up his argument succinctly:

To sum up, the Marxian theory of unemployment, based on his theory of the reserve army of labor, provides a much better explanation of the protracted high levels of unemployment than the Keynesian view that attributes the plague of unemployment to the “misguided” or “bad” policies of Neoliberalism. Likewise, the Marxian theory of subsistence or near-poverty wages, also based on his theory of the reserve army of labor, provides a more satisfactory understanding of how or why such poverty levels of wages, as well as a generalized or nationwide predominance of misery, can go hand-in-hand with “healthy” or high levels of corporate profits than the Keynesian perceptions, which view a high level of wages as a necessary condition for a “virtuous” or expansionary economic cycle. Perhaps more importantly, the Marxian view that meaningful, lasting economic safety-net programs can be carried out only through overwhelming pressure from the masses—and only on a coordinated global level—provides a more logical and promising solution to the problem of economic hardship for the overwhelming majority of the world population than the neat, purely intellectual, and apolitical Keynesian stimulus packages on a national level, which are based on the hope or illusion that the government can control and manage capitalism “in the interest of all.” No matter how long or loud or passionately our good-hearted Keynesians beg for jobs and other New Deal-type reform programs, their pleas for the implementation of such programs are bound to be ignored by the government of big business. Only by mobilizing the masses of workers and other grassroots and fighting, instead of begging, for an equitable share of what is truly the product of their labor, the wealth of nations, can the working majority achieve economic security and human dignity.

There’s an implicit and uncomfortable moral argument to be made against latter 20th century Keynesianism as well: why, in fact, should an American worker make a good middle class income and drive a BMW, when a worker in Malaysia could do the same work for 1/10 the money while climbing out of abject poverty? The usual answer from Democratic politicians is rooted in nationalism and Americana, which is fine politics, but less than adequate morality. A more rational argument is that if you follow that process to its logical conclusion, there won’t be a middle class consumer market for the product the worker is creating. But that’s not so certain, either, as countries like China, Russia, Brazil and India (the BRICs) grow their own middle classes.

The reality of globalization is that almost all work that doesn’t require either very specialized skills or face-to-face personal attention will eventually be fungible on a nearly limitless and desperate global labor market. Specialized skill jobs are few and far between; whole economies can’t run on them. Face-to-face personal attention jobs don’t typically pay very well.

So…whither liberalism in that context? Given the current capital consumer economy, progressives are fighting a battle we cannot win, attempting to protect a developed-world middle class from the encroachments of developing world underclass eager to do the same work for 1/10 the wages. Morally speaking, it might not even be a battle we should win. Those who would stop world trade and technological advancement in order to protect an American middle-class lifestyle at the expense of an impoverished Brazilian can hardly lay claim to the moral high ground.

But that doesn’t mean the answer is to allow the plutocrats to engineer a world with themselves at the very top lavished with unprecedented wealth, a small technocratic class below them, and a vast impoverished underclass consisting of 90% of society beneath them. The workers of the world must indeed fight back, while rejecting the horrific historical errors of state-based Communism.

The pushback must be on a global scale if it is to happen at all. No one nation’s middle-class can stand alone against the global labor arbitrage juggernaut. Liberalism must go big or go home.

There is evidence of just such a global consciousness beginning to emerge. It can be seen in the solidarity between the Occupy movement in America, and the protesters in Tahrir Square. But just what that solidarity will look like, and what sort of new order it might produce, must be the subjects of debate for progressives over the next few decades.

Laissez-faire economists have been proven wrong in their vision of the world–not to mention morally bankrupt. But insofar as Keynes was ever right, the world has in many ways moved beyond him. The future of the world will belong to people and intellectuals who can organize on behalf of dignity and a fair economy for workers worldwide in a new global economic system that is willing to try out new solutions to increasingly vexing problems.

Otherwise, the structural underpinnings of capitalism and globalization will inevitably leave us all in the hands of the plutocrats.

Barney Frank makes the argument

This is just the intro:

AMANPOUR: Congressman Ryan, thank you very much. And Congressman Barney Frank, your opening minute and a half.

FRANK: Yes, we have too much government, and yes, we have too little government. There is this mistaken view that says, you know, we have a fight between the people’s money and the government’s money. It’s all the people’s money. The question is, as people, intelligently, we have two sets of needs. We have needs that we best pursue individually, with money for ourselves and our families. And we can make personal choices. But then there are things that we have to do together.

I understand the appeal of tax cuts, but in all my years of government, I have never seen a tax cut put out a fire. I have never seen a tax cut build a bridge or clean up toxic atmosphere.

The point is that there are some things where we are inevitably together. We are interlocked in the economy. We’re all subject to the same environment, we all have the same public safety needs. And there, I think, we have sometimes had too little government.

On the other hand, and my conservative friends who claim that they are for small government are the ones who tell us that an adult shouldn’t be able to gamble on the Internet. We have the leading judicial conservative, Antonin Scalia, absolutely in a snit because you can’t be sent to jail if you have personal sexual relations of which he does not approve. We have a series of interventions by the conservatives in those choices that should be left to individuals.

So my conservative friends have it absolutely backwards. I do want there to be regulation so that you don’t have the kind of manipulation in the financial area that leads to crises. And I do want to be able to clean up the environment. No matter how rich you are, you can’t get your own air to breathe.

On the other hand, as I said, there are overreaches by the conservatives. And by the way, they include militarily. I think we have a wonderful military, full of able young people, very well equipped, and they can stop bad things from happening. But they’re not really good at making good things happen in foreign societies. And it’s on the whole my conservative friends who want us to be rebuilding other societies where we’re not very good at it. So the answer is yes, we should have more government where we need in an interactive way to protect ourselves against abuses, but there should be more personal choice. And so that’s the — that’s the current situation.

Watch the whole thing. You won’t regret it.

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Hitchens

by digby

There are so many encomiums to Christopher Hitchens this week-end that I don’t suppose the world needs another post or article on the subject. But I wrote a lot about him over the years and this one little anecdote came back to me as I read about him all week-end. Reminiscing about his first meeting with Ahmad Chalabi in 1998, Hitchens observed:

At our long meeting, Chalabi impressed me for three reasons. The first was that he thought the overthrow of one of the world’s foulest-ever despotisms could be accomplished. I knew enough by then to know that any Iraqi taking this position in public was risking his life and the lives of his family. I did not know Iraq very well but had visited the country several times in peace and war and met numerous Iraqis, and the second thing that impressed me was that, whenever I mentioned any name, Chalabi was able to make an exhaustive comment on him or her. (The third thing that impressed me was his astonishingly extensive knowledge of literary and political arcana, but that’s irrelevant to our purposes here.)

The 25 year exile Chalabi greatly impressed him by bravely saying he thought the world’s only imperial power could overthrow a third world dictator. Plus he knew famous Iraqi people and he dropped lots of political and literary references into the conversation. Imagine that. All those things in one meeting with the Orwell-worshipping, name dropping literary and political snob, Christopher Hitchens. If I were a cynical type, I might just think the world-weary, grim crusader Hitch got himself well and truly conned. (Of course, he was hardly the only one.) I always wondered how often that had happened.

Hitchens was not my cup of tea even before he took his neocon turn after 9/11. When he sanctimoniously jumped into the Lewinsky affair allegedly out of gentlemanly concern that those in power would besmirch a good woman’s name, it reeked of narcissism and phoniness. (And that was confirmed a few short years later when he righteously defended the vilification of Valerie Plame.) Despite the fact that he gored a few oxes that I enjoyed seeing gored, it always made me feel slightly dirty once it was over.

He shut down anyone who disagreed with him as a moron (or a “fascist crackpot“), unable to even see moral complexity much less acknowledge it. And as a fellow non-believer, I can’t say that I feel he did those of us who agreed with him any favors. He fulfilled every stereotype of the dissipated, immoral atheist while giving aid and comfort to the most backward theocrats in America in their imaginary “clash of civilizations.”

Judging by the outpouring of grief I’ve been reading he’ll be greatly missed by his friends and family and that’s certainly a tribute to the affection he inspired among many of the people who knew him. Many also celebrate his writing talent which was impressive and he was nothing if not prolific. But he was an intellectual bully and I think our public life could do with a little bit less of that. I’m awfully tired of listening to angry men spitting out every rude thought that travels through their minds and calling it an act of courage.

The Good, the Bad and the Stupid

by David Atkins

Someday the people and companies responsible for ginning up doubts and controversy over climate change will need to held to account for their crimes against humanity. For now, though, it’s tough to know whether to scream, laugh or cry when reading this:

Over his long career as a public planner, Lewis L. Lawrence grew accustomed to the bland formalities of planning commission meetings in Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, where forgetting to cover one’s mouth while yawning through a lecture was about as rude as people got.

But lately, the meetings have gotten far more exciting — in a bad way, said Lawrence, acting executive director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. A well-organized and vocal group of residents has taken a keen interest in municipal preparations for sea-level rise caused by climate change, often shouting their opposition, sometimes while planners and politicians are talking.

The residents’ opposition has focused on a central point: They don’t think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. When planners proposed to rezone land for use as a dike against rising water, these residents, or “new activists,” as Lawrence calls them, saw a trick to take their property.

“Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man,” said Donna Holt, leader of the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, a tea party affiliate with 7,000 members. “If they can find an end to their means, they don’t care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it.”

This is the result of a direct and intentional campaign by evil people to fool a bunch of very stupid and gullible people with loud mouths. Pity the stupid and gullible, rage against the evil, and laugh at the folly of mankind.

The rule of law is in the eye of the beholder

by digby

I think people have forgotten the tenor of the political dialog that surrounded the impeachment of President Clinton and the subsequent election in 2000. A certain kind of loose “coup” talk was commonplace — the pundits all speculated about such things every day for hours on television. That Newtie is still speaking in those terms should come as no surprise. It’s a defining feature of the modern Republican party’s radicalism:

SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing… how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?

GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.

This question came about because Gingrich said yesterday that he would ignore Supreme Court rulings he didn’t agree with:

“I’m fed up with elitist judges” who seek to impose their “radically un-American” views, Gingrich said Saturday in a conference call with reporters.

In recent weeks, the Republican presidential contender has been telling conservative audiences he is determined to expose the myth of “judicial supremacy” and restrain judges to a more limited role in American government. “The courts have become grotesquely dictatorial and far too powerful,” he said in Thursday’s Iowa debate.

As a historian, Gingrich said he knows President Thomas Jefferson abolished some judgeships, and President Abraham Lincoln made clear he did not accept the Dred Scott decision denying that former slaves could be citizens.

Relying on those precedents, Gingrich said that if he were in the White House, he would not feel compelled to always follow the Supreme Court’s decisions on constitutional questions. As an example, he cited the court’s 5-4 decision in 2008 that prisoners held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had a right to challenge their detention before a judge.

“That was clearly an overreach by the court,” Gingrich said Saturday. The president as commander in chief has the power to control prisoners during wartime, making the court’s decision “null and void,” he said.

But the former House speaker demurred when asked whether President Obama could ignore a high court ruling next year if it declared unconstitutional the new healthcare law and its mandate that all Americans have health insurance by 2014. Gingrich said presidents can ignore court rulings only in “extraordinary” situations.

On his website, Gingrich spelled out his views on courts.

“While abolishing judgeships and lower federal courts is a blunt tool and one whose use is warranted only in the most extreme of circumstances … it is one of many possibilities to check and balance the judiciary,” he wrote. “Other constitutional options, including impeachment, are better suited” to check wayward judges.

“In very rare circumstances, the executive branch might choose to ignore a court decision,” he wrote.

Gingrich also said that as president he might ignore a Supreme Court ruling if it held gays and lesbians had the right to marry.

“The Constitution of the United States has absolutely nothing to say about a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Were the federal courts to recognize such a right, it would be completely without constitutional basis,” he wrote

If you’re expecting philosophical consistency from this person, you’ll be disappointed. After all, he also said this a few months ago:

Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich discussed how President Obama “is breaking his word to the American people” over the Defense of Marriage Act, and stated:

“He swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He’s not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody.

Imagine that Governor [Sarah] Palin had become president. Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her judgment was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone’s right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed. The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment. The fact that the left likes the policy is allowing them to ignore the fact that this is a very unconstitutional act.”

When the host asked, “Is what he’s doing impeachable in your view?” Gingrich replied: “I think that’s something you get to much later. But I think clearly it is a dereliction of duty, clearly it is a violation of his constitutional oath, and clearly it is something which cannot be allowed to stand.

When the host pressed further, “At what point would the House or would you recommend the House consider articles of impeachment for that?” Gingrich replied:

“I think first you’d ought — you have to communicate. Look, I don’t think these guys set out to cause a constitutional crisis. I think they set out to pay off their allies in the gay community and to do something that they thought was clever. I think that they didn’t understand the implication that having a president personally suspend a law is clearly unconstitutional. This is an impossible precedent.”

Sadly, this position isn’t really that odd, is it? Are we surprised that Republicans believe that one of their own should be able to ignore laws or constitutional principles he doesn’t like but a Democratic president shouldn’t? They trust their guy to do the right thing, so the principle is only important when it’s applied to the other side.

The GOP has been going this way for some time, Bush vs Gore probably illustrating the phenomenon better than anything. But Democrats have, in recent times, joined them in their “political relativism.” Perhaps that’s the inevitable result of living in a post-modern world, but for those just trying to keep some grasp on the concept of basic reality, it’s enervating and depressing.

The world will still spin even if the rule of law is a joke and the nation is run purely on the basis of blind and hypocritical tribalism. But I think it’s far more likely that it will to turn to superstition. What a choice.

The beam in the wingers’ eyes

by digby

The other day I wrote about Norman Lear’s inspiring speech at the People For the American Way dinner. Naturally, the wingnuts went wild:

The 20-minute speech, delivered Dec. 5 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, went largely unnoticed when posted at the Huffington Post on Tuesday, but two minutes was sliced out by the Media Research Center and the audio was widely circulated across the Internet.

“I want to suggest we lefties start laying claim to what we see as ‘sacred’ and serve it up proudly to the Religious Right – to the James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove hate-mongers, sheathed in sanctity,” said the TV legend who created All in the Family, One Day at a Time and Sanford and Son.

“Over the past several decades, the power-grabbing right has built a powerful infrastructure of radio and TV networks. They’ve built think-tanks, colleges and law schools,” Lear complained.

“And now, as frightening as it is, where do we find that holier-than-thou sanctity most apparent in politics today? Among the seven candidates attempting to prove in every debate we have seen that they are the right kind of Christian to be the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States.”
[…]
“When you hear Lear speak this way,” wrote Noel Sheppard of the MRC, a right-wing watchdog group, “you have to seriously wonder whether he was the model for Rob Reiner’s character on the hit series All in the Family — aka Meathead.”

On Wednesday, nationally syndicated talk-radio host Dennis Prager played the clip and interrupted himself several times to refute the claims made by Lear. Then he summed up with:

“I am very saddened when my fellow Jews adopt values that I think are antithetical to Judaism and to the Judeo-Christian value system that I so uphold. He is angry at Christians, and when there are right-wing Christians, it is the combination of the two things he is most afraid of, the right and Christianity. So when you put them together, they really frighten a man like Norman Lear.”

Oh, boo fucking hoo. Lear should be afraid of right wing religious zealots as should any right thinking person. After all, look at how they portray anyone who isn’t like them. Here’s a recent column by Dennis Prager himself:

The major difference between Hitler and the Communist genocidal murderers, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, was what groups they chose for extermination.

For Hitler, first Jews and ultimately Slavs and other “non-Aryans” were declared the enemy and unworthy of life.

For the Communists, the rich — the bourgeoisie, land owners, and capitalists — were labeled the enemy and regarded as unworthy of life.

Hitler mass-murdered on the basis of race. The Communists on the basis of class.

Because the Holocaust was unique in its industrialization of death and in its targeting of every Jew, including babies, for death, the post–World War II world has been rightly obsessed with eradicating racism (but not anti-Semitism!), i.e., the hatred of another solely because of race.

But the world has not been obsessed with eradicating the other source of genocide: classism, hatred of others for reason of class.

The reason for this embrace is that class hatred is as fundamental to the Left as the Trinity is to Christians, and the Left dominates the media and education…

This is dangerous because there is an ideological continuum from the democratic Left to the Communist Left. Making the “rich” scapegoats for society’s ills unites the Left. The democratic Left believes in democracy, and, before the 1970s, some of its adherents were fierce anti-Communists. But while the decent and the indecent Left differ on democracy-versus-tyranny, and on nonviolence-versus-violence, the nicest Leftists in the world agree with the indecent Left about who the enemy is.

Being on the left means that you divide the world between rich and poor much more than you divide it between good and evil. For the leftist, the existence of rich and poor — inequality — is what constitutes evil. More than tyranny, inequality disturbs the Left, including the non-Communist Left. That is why so many on the Left fell in love with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, and, at other times, with every left-wing dictator. Non-leftists see these men as thugs; much of the Left sees them as fighters for equality.

How very temperate of him. Larry Elder got in on the act too, saying that liberals own every single part of the media and make it impossible for the right to even get a word in edgewise. He said this on his nationally syndicated radio show.

Norman Lear is not intimidated by these whining hypocrites. But an awful lot of liberals are and it’s too bad. They should be dismissed and derided for this kind of hypocrisy.

Here’s Lear’s speech if you missed it:

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