Month: April 2012

Our post-racial society

by David Atkins

Welcome to our post-racial society:

The Newton County Sheriff’s Office is investigating why a couple was confronted at gunpoint by neighbors and then arrested and forced to spend the night in jail when they tried to move into the home they had just purchased, Channel 2 Action News reported.

The Kalonji family had just closed on a foreclosed home and were told by their real estate agent they should go over to the house and change the locks.

But when Jean Kalonji and his wife, Angelica, started working at the home, an armed man and another person who appeared to be the man’s son allegedly confronted them.

“He say to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us,” the husband told Channel 2.

The neighbors didn’t believe the couple when they told them they had bought the home and called the Newton County Sheriff’s Office. The Kalonjis didn’t have the closing papers with them, so deputies arrested them, charged them with loitering and prowling and took them to jail.

Yvette Harris, the couple’s real estate agent, said they never should have been arrested.

“They rightfully own this house,” Harris said.

Kalonji, who grew up in the Congo, said the experience brought back painful memories.

“There, they put me down with the gun to my head, and come here, the same,” he said.

Mark Mitchell, spokesman for the Newton Sheriff’s Office, said authorities are “looking into it, exactly what occurred, why it occurred.”

A person at the neighbors’ house said no one wanted to talk to Channel 2 about the incident.

Critics may say that hey, it’s just one incident. There will always be a few racists like this. It doesn’t a whole society make, any more than George Zimmerman a society makes.

But it’s not about the neighbors in this story, or about George Zimmerman. It’s about the police departments that did nothing–not about the Zimmermans, and not about this incident. It’s about the fact that we still have laws that permit and encourage this sort of behavior.

Those are the indicators that make all the difference.

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An engineer’s guide to cats

by digby

Some of you may need instructions, which are always best supplied by an engineer:

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They have lots and lots of back-up

by digby

ALEC may have abandoned its “voter fraud” project, but never fear, there are dozens of right wing organizations already working on vote suppression that can step into the breach. The “National Center for Public Policy Research” is particularly unsavory, with its history of funneling money to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and sending scare letters to senior citizens. It is run by a longtime conservative hit woman associated with Norquist and Rove from old days named Amy Ridenour. Here’s what they had to say in their announcement that’s they’d be taking up where ALEC left off:

“Unlike the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Public Policy Research eschews the use of violent references such as ‘War Room.’ We are, however, inspired by a particular passage in the 1987 movie The Untouchables: ‘They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.’ Indeed.”

Nice folks, huh?

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Randroid details

by digby

The great Trudy Lieberman has written a must-read piece on the social security debate over at Columbia Journalism Review dissecting in detail the egregious role of the press in the indoctrination of the public that there is a funding crisis. I won’t excerpt it, you have to read the whole thing.

Felix Salmon at Reuters links to it as well and connects yet another important dot:

The idea of “fiscal responsibility” seems to have become as American as motherhood and apple pie — both parties preach it, and say the other guys are the profligate ones. The group of people saying “hey, we print our own money, interest rates are at zero, inflation is not an issue, the corporate sector isn’t borrowing, there are a thousand more important things to worry about right now, why on earth is everybody worried about the deficit all of a sudden” is in a decided minority.

The obsession about fiscal prudence is a new phenomenon, and can be dated, pretty much, to 2008, when Blackstone went public and Pete Peterson took his billion dollars in proceeds and decided to use it to found the Peter G Peterson Foundation. Wherever fiscal prudence is preached, Peterson’s money can nearly always be found.

On May 15, for instance, the PGPF is hosting the third annual Fiscal Summit, featuring fawning softball questions for Bill Clinton, John Boehner, Tim Geithner, Paul Ryan, Alan Simpson, and others. I myself was asked to moderate a discussion in New York a couple of weeks earlier, launching “A Curriculum for Teaching about the Federal Budget, National Debt, and Budget Deficit” called Understanding Fiscal Responsibility. Peterson’s going to be there, and the likes of Peter Orszag and Kirsten Gillibrand have been invited.

I’m decidedly dubious about the wisdom of teaching sovereign fiscal responsibility to high schoolers. For one thing, it’s inevitable that many teachers will resort to the personal-finance metaphor, and thereby teach something which is downright wrong. And if you look at the way these curricula are constructed, there’s an incredibly strong bias in favor of spending cuts and against tax hikes.

I hadn’t seen this before, but it’s kind of chilling:

Take, for instance, the National Budget Simulation, a key part of many fiscal-responsibility lesson plans. Here’s how it works:

The new President of the United States has been elected on the promise of fiscal responsibility. He has promised the voters he will not raise taxes, and he will not reduce Social Security or Medicare…

Suddenly, the United States is subject to military attack — a turn of events not anticipated in the current budget. At the same time, a lingering recession reduces the government’s tax revenues and forces the government to increase its spending on unemployment benefits, welfare, housing assistance, food stamps, and other need-based programs. Because of the increased spending and reduced revenues, the nation falls into a projected deficit…

The President is committed to keeping his campaign promises, in order to maintain support for his reelection. He must protect the programs he promised to protect, and he cannot raise taxes, so he must cut spending on other programs… The President turns to you, his trusted economic advisor, for help.

They’re teaching kids that you simply cannot raise taxes or run deficits. As if it’s a law of physics. Presidents back off their campaign promises all the time and certainly have the ability to do it in an emergency. To hell with his reelection. Should he put people into the street? Why would that get him reelected?

They are turning “deficit” into a taboo when it’s a perfectly legitimate tool of government. (There are those who believe the whole concept is a fiction.) But they’re going to teach this to kids, along with the stupid personal finance metaphor that everybody seems to love even though it’s completely wrong, and inculcate in their minds a horrible belief that the government’s only option in the midst of economic suffering is to make people suffer even more.

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Taming the Tea monster

by digby

The monsters:

Time and again last year, House Republican leaders faced a nearly in­trac­table opponent: the very freshman class that propelled them into the majority with the historic 2010 midterm elections.

Revolting from the very outset of the 112th Congress and later wreaking internal havoc during talks to increase the Treasury’s ability to borrow funds, the massive freshman class repeatedly created problems for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), according to a new book.

The freshman resistance caused feuds among Boehner and his lieutenants that led some to fear a mutiny, heightened several showdowns with President Obama and eventually led to fissures among the rookies, pitting those who seldom trusted the leaders against those who reflexively did, according to “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” an account of the freshman class’s impact by Robert Draper.

The infighting reached such a point in the fall that some newcomers requested that the weekly freshman meetings be disbanded, because they had turned into shouting matches, with freshmen loudly criticizing the leaders.

“You’ve created a monster,” Rep. Renee L. Ellmers (R-N.C.), a former nurse elected in 2010, warned House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), according to Draper’s book.

The importance of the freshmen has subsided as the House and Senate have scaled back their agendas heading into the fall elections, but the group is poised to play a pivotal role in a lame-duck session in which Congress must reach a compromise or more than $5 trillion worth of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts kick in Jan. 1.
[…]
Many freshmen viewed GOP leaders warily from the outset and compelled Boehner’s team to make the rookies the constant focus of its attention. “I didn’t come to Washington to be part of a team,” Rep. Raul R. Labrador (R-Idaho) told the book’s author.

But according to Politico the insurgency has been defeated:

The 2012 meeting of the Republican national command shows just how little has actually changed in the Grand Old Party since the tea-party movement helped Republicans capture the U.S. House majority two years ago and announced that they were a powerful force in American politics.

While tea-party activists have won county chairmanships and seats on state central committees, few (if any) activists have clinched slots on the Republican Party’s 168-member governing committee. That’s not to say that tea-partiers have disappeared or that they won’t get their moment in the sun — but it may take years for them to climb the party ladder the same way as everyone else.

GOP elders sympathize with the movement’s ideas and want to channel whatever energy the decentralized groups offer for November. But when asked about the tea-party’s influence in interviews here, the movement was always spoken of in the third person and as one constituency in the larger Republican coalition, sort of like defense hawks or fiscal conservatives.

Many Republicans here said that tea-party activists now understand that things will run more smoothly if those with experience are in charge rather than those who put a premium on ideology over process.

“The important thing for any group in the party to understand…is that you need experience to govern,” said New Hampshire Republican Chairman Wayne MacDonald. “Everybody has to start somewhere. It’s just important they learn the mechanics of how the party operates…It doesn’t mean new ideas aren’t welcome.”

They sound like Grover Norquist after the 2004 victory talking about the Democrats in congress:

Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

Nancy Pelosi was speaker two years later. I wonder if John Boehner will be.

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Just don’t call them intolerant

by digby

So I found myself on a Facebook page today called Veterans aqainst Occupy or some such nonsense. It had a lot of photos and a lot of comments about those photos.

I was reminded of how I felt reading Nixonland when I realized that the 60s weren’t really the 60s. There were several “60s” which were experienced very differently by different Americans.

What I found most interesting on this page was the fact that they seemed extremely upset at being called intolerant. Here’s a good example of one of their laments:

Followed by page after page of stuff like this:

Granted, they are set up to oppose the Occupy Movement, so I guess all the hippie punching is to be expected. (I guess I thought hippie punching was a metaphor.) But the endless complaints about how they are cruelly portrayed as being intolerant, interspersed with these images would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing.  Judging from the comments they are completely sincere in their belief that they are being unfairly described. But they seem to think that this degrading, hostile rhetoric toward hippies, liberals, blacks, feminists — indeed anyone they see as an enemy — constitutes the reality with which “everyone” really agrees. “Everyone”, at least who isn’t a whining liberal who needs to STFU (or get beaten, apparently.) Once in a while you’ll see a commenter point out that something is a little bit indecent and they are shouted down immediately by the group or accused of not having a sense of humor.

I guess this must exist on the liberal side to some extent. The left is not composed of angels. I know we made fun of George W. Bush a lot for being dumb and the Tea Partiers were mocked mercilessly for their costumes and signs. And there’s long been a disdain for southerners that still crops up. I’m not saying this stuff doesn’t happen among all groups of people to some degree. But there’s just so much of this imagery on the rightward tilt of the internet that it still astonishes me.

I guess the reason I feel unnerved by it is because I honestly feel that these people hate me personally in a very direct, immediate and violent way. I know we all accuse the right of being racists, and it undoubtedly unfair in many cases, but it’s not usually accompanied by violent imagery devoted to physically harming them or totally degrading them on every possible level. At least not that I’m aware of. At worst it’s an abstract war of words or a desire to confront the 1%. I honestly don’t think I ever saw anything online about beating up Tea Partiers. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but there certainly wasn’t this kind of violent, dehumanizing imagery featuring guns and open threats against regular citizens.

Maybe all this stuff is just harmless fantasy. Certainly the “communist” stuff is so delusional it’s hard to take it seriously, although they seem to really believe it. But it creeps me out anyway. That sample represents a tiny fraction of the pictures featured just on one Facebook page. How much of this stuff does it take for some people to decide that their domestic “enemy” is no longer even human?

Update: Oh, and lest you think this attitude is confined to the right wing fringe, get a load of the tweets Mitt Romney’s new spokesman just deleted and apologized for. He could easily have been one of the commenters on that Facebook page. And I’m sure he believes he’s extremely tolerant, kind and decent too. This is systemic.

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Beating down the blue line

by digby

No good deed goes unpunished:

Plenty of cop “beat downs” can be found online, but how often does the officer who stops others from handing out the beating get fired for it? That’s exactly what’s happening to Officer Regina Tasca in the Bogota Police Department.

Tasca’s dashboard camera captured her as she attempted to stop two officers from beating an emotionally disturbed young man. Just days after the incident, she was told she was being suspended with pay. A year later, her trial is about to begin as the Bogota PD seeks to fire her.

In Bogota, officers control whether or not their dashboard camera rolls. Fortunately, when Officer Tasca responded to a call in April 2011, she clicked her unit “on.” The black-and-white tape captures it all–a mother, Tara, screaming for police to stop punching her son on their front lawn. She had called to have her emotionally disturbed son Kyle taken to the hospital. Bogota police responded while waiting for the ambulance. Tasca was the sole officer on the road that day, so she called for back-up according to protocol. Ridgefield Park police then sent two officers. Tasca had just completed her state-mandated training for working with emotionally disturbed citizens.

Tasca described what we see on the videotape: “The Ridgefield Park officer automatically charges and takes him down to the ground. I was quite shocked. As he’s doing that, another Ridgefield Park officer flies to the scene in his car, jumps out and starts punching him in the head.”

On the tape you can hear Tara, the mother, and Kyle, her son, screaming, “Why are you punching him?” and “Stop punching me!”
[…]
What happened next is so baffling to so many.

Tasca’s voice began to waiver as she recounted the meeting with her superior officer:

“The next thing I know he asks me to turn over my weapon and be sent for a fitness for duty exam,” she said.

Bogota PD, after hearing Tasca’s story, believes she is psychologically incompetent to be a police officer, and she is being sent for testing. The Ridgefield Park Police officers seen tackling and punching an emotionally disturbed man waiting for an ambulance are never questioned. never interviewed by an Internal Affairs Investigator, and are still working the streets today.

Bogota Police chose to suspend Tasca, an 11-year veteran with numerous commendations. There are photographs from the hospital documenting the bruises on the 22-year-old’s head, back, arms and wrists.

Tasca says the real reason she’s being called out on these charges is she crossed the “blue line” by refusing to support another officer even when he used excessive force. The other problem? The Bogota Police Department is very small–fewer than 20 officers. And there, she is a definitive minority.

Tasca spells it out: “I’m the only female–the first female ever–and the first and only gay female also.” When asked if she feels targeted because of her sex and her sexual orientation, she doesn’t hesitate in here answer: “Yes.”

Watch the tape.

But don’t we have to cut “entitlements”?

by David Atkins

Via Kenneth Quinell at Crooks and Liars:

In the 2011 Melbourne Mercer Global Pensions Index, the U.S. was given a middling grade of “C,” along with France, Singapore, Brazil, Poland and Germany.

Ken Quinnell quotes the Melbourne Index, which points out that pension system could actually use better funding:

A country given a C has “a system that has some good features, but also has major risks and/or shortcomings that should be addressed,” the report states. “Without these improvements, its efficacy and/or long-term sustainability can be questioned.”

The United States ranked close to average among 16 countries in adequacy of benefits provided and above average in sustainability, the likelihood that the system can maintain the benefits in the future. It fell short, however, on a sub-index focused on the private sector pension system.

The U.S. could take steps for a better score, the report said, including raising the minimum benefit for low-income retirees, improving benefits vesting, and further limiting access to funds before retirement.

Of course, the best way to do this would be to raise the payroll tax cap. Back to Quinnell:

SEIU reports that the upper one percent of Americans have already stopped paying Social Security taxes for 2012 because of a cap on what earnings pay into the system. Currently, once someone reaches $110,100 of income they have paid Social Security taxes on, they pay no more into the system for the year. Eliminating this cap is widely seen as the easiest and fairest solution to shoring up the future of Social Security. SEIU has an action opportunity for citizens to contact Congress and demand they scrap the cap.

Instead, we’re being told by members of both parties that we have to “cut entitlements.” Since clearly doing something about the insanely low tax rates and extreme income inequality for the top 1% is out of the question for some reason.

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Saturday Night At The Movies Shame about the rainforest, but I’ve got the latest iPhone By Dennis Hartley

Man in the mirror: A Short History of Progress

No lunch for you!

by digby

I haven’t worked in a corporate office for a while, but I guess I’m lucky. Towards the end of my so-called career, it became more and more necessary to stay in for lunch, but I thought it was a function of the fact that I was doing consulting on specific projects and there was a lot of pressure to meet certain deadlines. Then I saw this last night and I wondered if it had become the new normal in American workplaces:

Taking a real lunch break used to be the norm in offices. Indeed, it was usually required, even if you just went into a break room and ate your sandwich. In the early years of my so-called career, they wouldn’t let you eat lunch at your desk.

I realize that this is just a stupid McDonald’s ad campaign and it’s jumping on the “protest” theme, but as I said, I was noticing this “working lunch” theme a while back. It seems to me they couldn’t do this if it wasn’t a recognizable phenomenon for at least some people.

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