Month: January 2013

US limping along while the Eurozone screams in pain

by digby

Oh good:

And now a real shock – the US economy shrank in the last three months of 2012.

Annualised GDP* fell by 0.1%, much worse than analyst expectations of a 1.0% rise. This is the first time that US GDP has fallen since the second quarter of 2009.

Dean Baker says it’s not quite as bad as it sounds:

A sharp drop in government spending, heavily concentrated in defense,
coupled with a decline in inventories caused GDP to shrink at a 0.1
percent rate in the 4th quarter. Government spending fell at a 6.6
percent annual rate, driven by a 22.2 percent decline in defense
spending, subtracting 1.33 percentage points from the growth rate in
the quarter. A $40.3 drop in the rate of inventory accumulation
reduced growth by another 1.27 percentage points. Without these
factors, GDP would have growth a 2.5 percent annual rate in the
quarter.

Pulling out these extraordinary factors, the GDP data were largely in
line with prior quarters. Consumption grew at a 2.2 percent annual
rate, driven mostly by 13.9 percent growth in durable goods purchases,
primarily cars. This number was inflated due to the effects of Sandy,
which destroyed many cars, forcing people to buy new ones. Growth in
this category will be substantially weaker and possibly negative in
the next quarter. On the other side, housing and utilities subtracted
0.47 percentage points from growth in the quarter. This is likely a
global warming effect with warmer than normal weather leading to less
use of heating in the quarter. (There was a comparable falloff in the
4th quarter of 2011 when we also had unusually warm weather.)

Basically we’re still limping along. So, let’s have some more austerity. It’s working so well. Bring on the sequester!

Oh, and by the way, how’s that austerity campaign working out in Spain?

I can hardly wait to see Paul Ryan’s plan to eliminate the US deficit in 10 years. If he and Mitt were in charge I’d bet we could give Spain a run for its money. Instead we’ll probably just tread water while wages fall and the 1% accumulate more of the nation’s wealth more gradually. I’m pretty sure that’s what we define as a big economic success these days.

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The Church of the Austerians is Shocked by the Heresy of Krugman

by David Atkins

Paul Krugman went on Morning Joe and challenged the Grand Wisdom of the Austerians. Joe Scarborough went and had a conniption fit worthy of a medieval prelate being confronted with heliocentrism for the first time. In Scarborough’s world, to believe that the deficit is anything less than a sword of Damocles is to be insane and unworthy of polite society. And yet, Krugman’s understanding of the economy is widespread, basic Keynesianism that has been proven right time and time again.

How is it that Scarborough lives in such an ideological bubble that standard Keynesianism is so shocking? Greg Sargent explains:

That’s true, but it’s worth reflecting on why Scarborough believes Krugman’s views are so marginal and isolated. It gets back to what I’ve called the “Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop.” The relentless bipartisan focus on the deficit convinces voters to be worried about it, which in turn leads lawmakers to spend still more time talking about it and less time talking about the economy, a phenomenon that is self-reinforcing. This is exacerbated by some commentators and news orgs, who continue to treat the deficit scolds with a great deal of deference, while marginalizing the opinion that we should prioritize boosting the economy and job creation as a means of getting the country’s fiscal problems under control over time without savage spending cuts that will hurt a lot of people. Back in 2011 one study actually confirmed that newspapers were spending far more time talking about the deficit than the economy — at a time when the recovery was in serious peril.

The Morning Joe crew’s reaction to Krugman perfectly captures this phenomenon. They treated him as a pariah. According to Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski compared Krugman’s “head in the sand” approach to that of climate deniers. You can almost picture Krugman sent on a lonely march through the Village square, head hanging in shame, with “DD” — Deficit Denier — printed on his back in big scarlet letters.

Of course, these folks only reacted to Krugman this way because they were apparently unaware of all the prominent voices who agree with him, thanks to the aforementioned Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop.

Krugman himself calls it incestuous amplification:

Back during the early days of the Iraq debacle, I learned that the military has a term for how highly dubious ideas become not just accepted, but viewed as certainties. “Incestuous amplification” happen when a closed group of people repeat the same things to each other – and when accepting the group’s preconceptions itself becomes a necessary ticket to being in the in-group. A fundamentally flawed notion – say, that the Germans can’t possibly attack though the Ardennes – becomes part of what everyone knows, where “everyone” means by definition only people who accept the flawed notion.

We saw that in the run-up to Iraq, where perfectly obvious propositions – the case for invading is very weak, the occupation may well be a nightmare – weren’t so much rejected as ruled out of discussion altogether; if you even considered those possibilities, you weren’t a serious person, no matter what your credentials.

Here at Hullabaloo we call it the Kool Kids Table, a pathway to power and social acceptance inaccessible to those who don’t hold the “right” views.

Do I believe that everyone in Joe Scarborough’s sphere of influence knows that Keynesianism is accurate and that Krugman is right, but chooses to say otherwise because it pads their bank account? Of course not. It takes a conspiracy theorist and an idiot to believe that. Washington is corrupt, but it’s not that corrupt.

No, most of these people believe what they say. I don’t doubt that Scarborough’s perplexed shock is genuine. Just like I believe that most of the conservative theologians who burned Giordano Bruno at the stake believed that our solar system was the only one of its kind. After all, anyone who believed otherwise wasn’t taken seriously and didn’t advance in the Church hierarchy. Everyone who was anyone knew better, and since Bruno refused to accept the conventional wisdom he had to be shunned and ultimately silenced. Bruno’s ideas were unserious and dangerous. The man had his head in the sand and couldn’t see what seemed obvious to everyone else.

Perhaps one day the Church of the Austerians will belatedly apologize to Keynes, Krugman, Stiglitz and all the other great economists whose names have been dragged through the mud. But not likely soon, and not during their lifetimes. In our own sordid lifetimes, Popes Simpson and Bowles will continue to bestow favors upon their cardinals, giving communion only to the Kool Kids who deserve it.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

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Marriage For All, As Long As You’re A Conservative

by tristero

If I get the gist of this guy’s nearly incoherent argument, he’s saying that he’s now ok with gay marriage. And since he’s no longer shilling for bigots,  he expects gays to join him and other conservative straights to sign up for a far right discussion group formed to “strengthen” marriage.

I guess when he’s thinking of conservative straights who have strengthened the institution of marriage, he’s got in mind the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and oh so many, many others.

Good luck with all that, pal.

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Bob Borosage has a good piece of advice about how to deal with our coming austerity battles:

Mass unemployment, declining wages, and faltering growth suggests the United States has already suffered too much austerity, too soon. And yet the political debate is focused on how much more to impose. Washington imposed $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years in the 2011 “debt ceiling” deal. Washington stumbled past the year-end “fiscal cliff” with a deal that featured about $600 billion in tax hikes over ten years, including returning rates for the richest Americans back to Clinton era levels, and ending the payroll tax holiday, adding 2 percent to every working family’s payroll tax rate.

Now Congress has created an even more precarious fiscal peril to extort even greater cuts. Between now and the middle of May, we’ll hit the debt ceiling again, the automatic cut (sequester) of military and domestic budgets for the remainder of the year will kick in, and the temporary appropriations for government will expire. This sets up a new negotiation to forestall these ruinous calamities, now with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid directly targeted.

The leaders of both parties suggest that more deficit reduction is needed and that it would help the economy. Not surprisingly, polls suggest that most Americans believe that cutting spending will help the economy, not harm the recovery. The reality is that spending is not out of control, the deficit is already plummeting, and we should be focused on fixing the economy to make it work for working people, not on austerity driven by wrong-headed deficit hysteria.

Here’s how we can make the case against it.

Start with the struggles families are facing. The budget debate now underway in Washington, focused on “fixing the debt,” misses the point. Americans are still suffering record levels of long-term unemployment. Poverty has risen to a level unseen in generations. Inequality is at new extremes. Wages are at the lowest percentage of the economy on record, while corporate profits are at the highest. We should be focused on fixing our economy.

Challenge the austerity myth. And here’s the real deal. You can’t fix the economy by “fixing the debt.” Cutting spending now will only slow the recovery, put more people out of work – and as we have seen in Europe, end up adding to our debt burdens.

In fact, fixing the economy is the necessary first step in getting our books back in order. Our deficits are largely due to the recession, with the costs of unemployment and the lost revenue from the loss of jobs. In these conditions, the best deficit reduction program is to put people back to work.

Even the slow growth we’ve witnessed has begun to reduce our deficits as jobs have been created. Despite all the hysteria, deficits are down by 25% compared to the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office. They are falling faster than anytime since the demobilization at the end of World War II. And our debt level is basically stabilized for the next decade. More austerity – whether balanced between taxes and spending as the president calls for or focused just on spending cuts as Republicans suggest – will only serve to slow growth, cost jobs, and impede the recovery needed to get our books back in shape.

Worse, the austerity debate is now focused on whacking at the basic pillars of family security – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The cuts under discussion – slowing the inflation adjustment for Social Security, raising the eligibility age for Medicare or the retirement age for Social Security — would harm the most vulnerable in our society.

Describe the way out. Fixing our economy requires a very different agenda than mindless cuts. We need to invest in areas vital to our future, and stop squandering resources on things we don’t need and can’t afford. End the wars abroad, bring our troops home, and invest the savings in rebuilding America – putting people to work while modernizing our decrepit infrastructure, from roads and rail to broadband and the electric grid.

End the subsidies and tax breaks to big oil companies and invest the resources in research and development to capture a lead in clean energy and the green industrial revolution sweeping the country.

Crack down on global tax havens, tax Wall Street speculation, tax investors at the same rate as workers, and use that income to provide every child with the opportunity to learn, from universal preschool to affordable college.

Lift the minimum wage, empower workers to gain a fair share of the profits they help to generate and curb perverse CEO compensation schemes that give them million-dollar incentives to ship jobs abroad.

And fix the sole source of our projected long-term debt problems – our broken health care system. Don’t cut benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Instead, take on the insurance and drug company lobbies that have made our health care cost nearly twice what the rest of the industrial world pays.

This sounds like common sense to me. And yet he might as well be speaking Swahili for all that you hear of this in the national dialog. There’s time to change this if progressives and Democrats will make this case.

Personally, I would have thought that an election campaign would have been a good time to do it, but that ship sailed. But it’s never too late.

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Wherein I strongly agree with Chuck Grassley

by David Atkins

Sherrod Brown and Chuck Grassley want answers on too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail banks:

U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter today to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder questioning whether the “too big to fail” status of certain Wall Street megabanks undermines the ability of the federal government to prosecute wrongdoing and impose appropriate penalties. They also requested that the Justice Department disclose the identities of parties with whom prosecutors consult about the appropriate level of penalties for financial institutions.

“Wall Street megabanks aren’t just too big to fail, they’re increasingly too big to jail,” Brown said. “Already, the nation’s six largest megabanks enjoy what amounts to taxpayer-funded guarantee by virtue of their size, making it harder for regional and community banks to compete. Now, these megabanks may also enjoy some impunity when they violate the law by laundering money or illegally foreclosing on homeowners. Wall Street should pay the full price of its wrongdoing, not pass the costs along to taxpayers.”

“The best deterrent to crime is to put people in prison,” Grassley said. “That includes those at powerful banks and corporations. Unfortunately, we’ve seen little willingness to charge these individuals criminally. The public deserves an explanation of how the Justice Department arrives at these decisions.”

I think we’d all like to know. The American people would like to know. The banking cartel has become immune from prosecution because they collude to threaten our economy with destruction if we so much as look at them askance.

But it’s an empty threat. They’re not a force of nature. They exist because of laws on the books. And while it might be a little messy, the various pensions, bonds and investments they hold on their books can be transferred to a variety of smaller, more manageable institutions.

Too big to fail is still too big to exist.

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Heckling the mourners

by digby

Usually, this sort of thing is confined to Fred Phelps and his constitutionally protected band of psychopaths. But apparently it’s become socially acceptable for everyone these days:

“He was my son, he was my buddy, he was my best friend,” testified Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in December before a Connecticut gun violence prevention hearing Tuesday. “And I never thought I’d be speaking like this and asking for changes on my son’s behalf. He’s my only son, he’s my only family.”

As Heslin asked legislators to tighten restrictions, gun rights activist interrupted his testimony, yelling “our rights will not be infringed!” and “Second Amendment!” Local news sources reported that there were nearly a dozen hecklers, who were quickly silenced.

Heslin continued to ask why anyone needs assault weapons and high capacity magazines.

“We’re not living in the Wild Wild West, we have the strongest military in the world we’re not living in a third world. We don’t need to defend our homes with weapons like that. I just hope everyone in this room can support change—ban assault weapons and high capacity clips and magazines. That’s a step in the right direction.”

Heslin’s son, Jesse Lewis, died after trying to flee the gunman with other students.

“Jesse died bravely trying to lead other children to safety. He ran into the hallway to help when he heard the shots. In our hearts we already knew because that was the way he lived his life—fearless, full of courage and strength,” his family said in a Legacy.com obituary.

If only six year old Jesse had been armed. Sure, a few more bodies would have probably fallen, but that’s the price we pay for freedom.

Another father of a 6-year-old boy murdered in the shootings fought back tears as he told lawmakers to make any changes in gun laws simple.

“I don’t believe it’s so complex,” said Mark Mattioli, whose son, James, was among the first-graders slaughtered on Dec.14.

“We need civility across our nation,” said Mattioli, who appeared with his wife, Cindy, before the legislative panel. “The problem is not gun laws. It’s a lack of civility.”

Heckling the father of a boy who’d been killed with semi-automatic weapon fire by evoking the 2nd Amendment is more than uncivil. It’s indecent. So yeah, civility is a problem. But so is the gun culture that makes it impossible for adherents to understand that their right to own certain kinds of guns is coming into direct conflict with an innocent little boy’s right not to be mowed down in the middle of his first grade classroom. I would think that any human being with some basic empathy would at least be decent enough to be silent as his mourning father was testifying.

On the other hand, this callous behavior is hardly confined to gun owners. There does seem to be a major empathy gap in our culture at large, doesn’t there? It’s tempting to ascribe it to the bad economy, but unless they were forgetting how it really was, I recall my parents and grandparents always saying that the Great Depression brought out the best in everyone, not the worst. So, something’s different this time. (It does make you think about the behavior of some of the Europeans during their time of economic stress in that era. I suppose incivility is one way to describe how they treated one another.)

I would be more sympathetic to these fanatical gun owners if they were truly in danger of losing their right to bear arms. But nobody’s threatening that. All anyone’s saying is that gunmen shouldn’t have the capacity to kill large numbers of people in the matter of a few seconds with an easily obtainable weapon. After all, nobody’s saying they shouldn’t have the right to easily buy a handgun and kill children one by one. We’re all good with that. The only thing that anyone’s trying to do is make it hard for one murderer to obtain an obscenely high body count in one single event. That just doesn’t seem like too much to ask to me.

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No thanks, we don’t need another pro-Wall Street, pro-gun proliferation Representative


by digby

From Howie:

Residents of the IL-02– Jesse Jackson Jr.’s old Southland seat– will decide who’s going to Congress on February 26, 4 weeks from today. And although there are nearly two dozen candidates running, polls show only two in the double-digits, progressive state Senator Toi Hutchinson and self-described “conservative Democrat,” ex-Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson. They’re neck and neck but Chicagoland voters who haven’t been paying close enough attention to see the difference got a big jolt from a headline in the Chicago Tribune yesterday: Halvorson Says She Won’t Join Democrats On Assault Weapons Ban.

It certainly isn’t the first time Halvorson has been more in tune with right-wing Republicans than with her own party and with the constituents who once sent her to Washington. She was one of only 27 right-wing Democrats who opposed Wall Street reform and voted against Dodd-Frank, almost all of whom, including Halvorson, were subsequently defeated when Democratic voters boycotted their reelection bids. She worked with the GOP to water down the tough provisions that were meant to protect investors and bank customers from the financial predators who have nurtured her own tawdry political career.

Halvorson is also a darling of the NRA. She refuses to back President Obama’s common sense, moderate approach to putting an end to the NRA’s reign of terror in American streets and schools. A few weeks ago Senator Hutchinson did a guest post at Down With Tyranny laying out why she’s sponsoring a ban on assault weapons in the Illinois legislature and why she backs President Obama’s approach:

There is no question that in America we have a problem with guns. The Newtown tragedy, the Aurora shooting, Columbine. These are places– events– that all of us will remember for the rest of our lives. And for me there is no question that there are certain kinds of weapons soldiers should have, and other kinds that civilians should be allowed to own.

As a State Senator I represent a district that straddles the landscape of South Suburban Chicago and the rural counties of Will and Kankakee. And if I win this race for Congress in the 2nd district, I will cover even more rural areas. I have a lot of constituents that are hunters. These people firmly believe that they should always be allowed to own guns that they need for recreation, and I’m with them. But I know, and they agree, that no one needs an AR-15 to bring down a deer. And no one needs a 100-round magazine on that semi-automatic for recreation or self-defense. So while I always will stand up for the hunters in my district, I also am a cosponsor on two bills in Illinois that would outlaw assault weapons and high capacity clips.

Halvorson is the only serious candidate who refuses to back the President and the Democratic Party– and the public’s grassroots public opinion– on an assault weapons ban. She’s sticking with the NRA. She read off a list of Republican Party talking points written by the NRA at a candidates forum on Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ on W. 95th St. “For her part,” reports The Tribune, “Halvorson was adamant against looking at a gun ban. ‘I refuse to take a look at these wide ranging gun bans and pass one more law against a law abiding citizen until there is something done against those who get their guns illegally or criminal,’ she said after the forum.”

She doesn’t sound anything like Toi Hutchinson:

“Many across the country were hopeful that the NRA would moderate their position after the profound tragedy we experienced at Newtown, but unfortunately their prescription for the epidemic of gun violence that has gripped our country has been not only distributing more guns, but also letting them into our schools. Their response angered me. This kind of ideological, single-minded approach to our problems isn’t acceptable to me and it’s why I am a co-sponsor on legislation here in Illinois to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines.”

Blue America is eager to help Toi respond to the barrage of misleading campaign mail Halvorson has been sending out. We have four weeks to make a difference. Please consider making a contribution at the Blue America special election page here.

There are lots of routes to change in this nation’s politics.  And I applaud every single person who is engaged on what ever level they are engaged. Blue America is in the business of trying to make the US House of Representatives more progressive one seat at a time.

The political establishment is, naturally, backing the pro-Wall Street, pro-gun conservadem because well, she’s one of them. This is the seat that was held by Jesse Jackson Jr.  To see it fall into the hands of a New Dem would be a setback.   Please help if you can. 

This is Toi:

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Mainstreamed Racists 

by tristero

Given all the nonsense we hear about living in a post-racial society, one would think that anyone with an overtly racist resume would have a lot of difficulty these days getting close to the mainstream of American discourse.

Not so.

With these positions, Robinson and Taylor are at the center of mainstream conservative infrastructure. But each also sits on the three-person board of America’s PAC, a far-right outfit that in 2004 gave $5,000 to the Charles Martel Society, a white nationalist group, according to the PAC’s filing with the Federal Election Commission.

No, the sequester is not really going to take place (And Ryan knows it)

by digby

I hope everyone understands that when Paul Ryan said they were going to leave “entitlements” alone and the sequester would take place that it was a form of political trash talk before the negotiation, right? Nobody really believes that either side will allow defense cuts of that magnitude to take place. Nobody. And the domestic cuts would cause havoc too, so they aren’t going to do that either. I’m sure there are a few Tea Partiers who would be fine with all that, but they no longer have the hold on the caucus John Boehner might have once wanted us to think they do.

But just because the looniest Tea Partiers aren’t in charge doesn’t mean the Republican majority in general is suddenly a nice bunch of Rockefeller Republicans who are eager to put all this ill will behind them and work with the Democrats to preserve the welfare state. There all nuts you know, even if they aren’t all kamikazes.

I’m going to take a wild leap here and guess that Ryan said they wouldn’t touch Social Security and Medicare because they’re hoping they can get the White House to be the ones to put it on the table (again) in the negotiations.  They know by now that this is likely to divide the Democrats and they are seeking a negotiating advantage.

Here’s a fascinating little discussion about all that from The Cycle on MSNBC yesterday:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Kornacki: It’s hard to believe but the inauguration was just a week ago. In that speech, the president staunchly defended medicaid, medicare and social security and at least made it seem like they would be safe in the next round of debt talks but a month ago he was singing a different tune and hinted at makes cuts to medicare. That move could lead to some Democratic intraparty fighting like we have seen within the GOP recently. Which Obama will show up for the state of the union and more importantly the spending battle ahead?

Here to help us make sense of it, Buzzfeed contributor, Blake Zeff. You have been writing a lot about this. I guess what i’m trying to make sense of right now is where Obama is sort of strategically on this. Two summers ago during the debt ceiling talks, there was signals of the White House to raise the eligible age of Medicare like two months ago signals ago CPI change is good and then Paul Ryan saying I don’t think there’s anything and going to accept the sequester, you know, which touches defense and not the social safety net at all and that’s it. Have we entered a new face and Medicare and Medicaid off the table? What do you think?

Zeff: I wouldn’t be so sure. You’re right the president is all over the map on this and yesterday there’s an interview with him in The New Republic that might have been code words and wanted the talk about judicious reforms to Medicare and make changes to Social Security and how he’s willing to buck what he called I think “the ideological wing” of the party, this kind of a thing. And so as you mentioned, he’s many times before have been willing to even interested in floating changes to Medicare and Medicaid and now to think he’s not going to is a stretch at this point.

Krystal Ball: Have Republicans kind of missed they should moment, though? because as Steve is saying, the president seemed to be willing to offer up entitlement reforms and during the fiscal cliff negotiations, there was an offer of reduced Social Security benefits. Have Republicans kind of missed their chance to really force reforms on the democratic party? have they saved news a sense?

Zeff: It’s a good way of putting it. If that’s what happens, that would be the cause. Republicans had overreached or overplayed their hand and certainly possible but I do think that, you know, I just want to be clear. Obama is on the record many times over in the past saying he supports changes to the programs including change CPI as Steve mentioned and raising the age for Medicare and so it would not surprise me at all to see these things come back in talks over the next month or two.

Neither would I. And I’m fairly sure Paul Ryan wouldn’t be surprised either. Ryan is obviously going to be a big player in the next negotiations. He’s been charged with writing the Republican Dream Budget that erases the deficit within 10 years. Whatever they are saying right now is meaningful only to the extent that it positions them in public opinion and among the elite Villagers.

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Crimes against history are crimes against humanity

by David Atkins

News like this makes my blood boil:

Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town’s mayor, in an incident he described as a “devastating blow” to world heritage.

Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings that held the manuscripts, some of which dated back to the 13th century. They also burned down the town hall, the governor’s office and an MP’s residence, and shot dead a man who was celebrating the arrival of the French military.

French troops and the Malian army reached the gates of Timbuktu on Saturday and secured the town’s airport. But they appear to have got there too late to rescue the leather-bound manuscripts that were a unique record of sub-Saharan Africa’s rich medieval history. The rebels attacked the airport on Sunday, the mayor said.

“It’s true. They have burned the manuscripts,” Cissé said in a phone interview from Mali’s capital, Bamako. “They also burned down several buildings. There was one guy who was celebrating in the street and they killed him.”

He added: “This is terrible news. The manuscripts were a part not only of Mali’s heritage but the world’s heritage. By destroying them they threaten the world. We have to kill all of the rebels in the north.”

There are many on the left who argue that the modern Islamist movement is nothing more than the latest reaction to a combination of Western imperialism and domestic corruption. But that’s simply not the case. The ideology that drives these people is criminal on a historic scale.

The people of Afghanistan are a long-suffering lot. They’ve been conquered, ravaged, reconquered, re-ravaged, and been the victims of savagery and imperialism of all kinds for centuries. But through it all the Bamiyan Buddhas stood tall for a full one thousand five hundred years. The Buddhas continued to stand even during the predations of Genghis Khan. The same Mongols, those most brutal and awful murderers in human history who committed one of the greatest crimes against humanity when they besieged Baghdad, slaughtered its people and destroyed its library such that the Euphrates ran black with ink, still managed to leave the Bamiyan Buddhas intact. They survived the regime of the Persian Saffavids, and remained to overlook Timur’s Afghan Empire. They watched in silence as the Brits marched in and out. They survived the survived the Soviet incursion, and the brutal Afghan civil war that followed. All of the imperial conquerors and the subsequent resurgences of local power respected them and their contribution to history. It was understood that imperial powers, religious affiliations and ethnic feuds were ultimately transient. But history…history is permanent. History is larger than the individuals walking the stage. History is not to be tampered with.

But not the Taliban.

Once the Mongols left Baghdad, its treasures were secured in various ways and eventually placed into museums. Baghdad was conquered and reconquered by various forces in the years that followed. But it was not until the United States failed to secure the museums and the religious extremists began their looting that the priceless objects were lost to humanity, probably forever.

And now the latest casualty of this new brand of extremist conservative religious totalitarianism is the library at Timbuktu, which stood for 800 years of war, exploitation and ideological change. Until today.

There are those who will mock me for caring more about dusty old books and statues than about real people. Fine. But generations come and go. People live, die and are largely forgotten. History is forever. All of humanity is the same species, and our species has survived literally countless wars, ethnic cleansings, incursions and imperial aggressions. But once an irreplaceable artifact of history is gone, it’s gone forever. Thanks largely to a similarly barbaric cleansing on history on the part of early Christians, the world has lost 107 of Livy’s 142 books of Roman history, as well as Aristotle’s On Comedy–both losses of enormous consequence. These are crucial pieces of the human experience we will never recover.

There is an unforgettable scene in Raiders of the Last Ark in which Indiana Jones, holding a rocket launcher, threatens the Nazi regiment carrying the Ark of the Covenant. The villainous archaeologist leading the Nazis, Belloq, says to Jones: “All your life has been spent in pursuit of archaeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well as I. Indiana, we are simply passing through history. This, this *is* history.” That reminder was enough to make even Indiana Jones allow himself to be captured, though it meant almost certain death.

Belloq is right. The Nazis, evil as they were, will ultimately have amounted to little more than a footnote in the pages of history. For Jones to have destroyed the Ark in order to save his girlfriend or punish a few Nazis would not just have been shortsighted or contrary to his profession. It would have been an epic crime against humanity. Nothing was worth the destruction of that artifact: not Jones, not Marion, and not that temporary tug of war between Allied and Axis powers.

There is something deeply barbaric about casually, intentionally destroying humanity’s heritage. Something terrifying, and something new to this world in the modern era. Something more inherently barbaric than run-of-the-mill murder or even mass murder.

It’s a big problem, one that transcends the usual Hegelian dialectic of imperialism and nativism. The loss of the libraries at Timbuktu will resonate across the centuries long after 99.99% of the people alive on this planet are gone and forgotten.

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