Month: January 2013

Saturday Night at the Movies

“Whadaya think…this is like the Army, where you can shoot ‘em from a mile away?! No, you gotta get up like this, and budda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.” –from The Godfather , screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

But that’s just me. Perhaps Zero Dark Thirty is intended as a litmus test for its viewers (the cries of “Foul!” that have emitted from both poles of the political spectrum, even before its wide release this weekend would seem to bear this out). And indeed, Bigelow has nearly succeeded in making an objective, apolitical docudrama. Notice that I say nearly. Here’s how she cheats. After opening with a powerfully affecting collage of now sadly familiar audio clips of horrified air traffic controllers, poignant answering machine adieus and heartbreaking exchanges between frustrated 911 operators and hapless World Trade Center office workers, Bigelow segues into those torture scenes you have undoubtedly heard about. Tugging at our heartstrings to incite us to vengeful thoughts? That’s not playing fair. “Remember how terrible that day was?” she seems to be saying, “…so the ends justify the means, right? Anyone? Bueller?” The rub is that by most accounts, none of the intelligence instrumental to locating Bin Laden’s whereabouts was garnered via torture…unless the director knows something the rest of us don’t. That being said, the harrowing scenes (around 10 minutes of screen time) would not be out of place in a film about, say, Abu Ghraib (maybe Bigelow is making an oblique reference?).

However, if you can get past the fact that Bigelow or screenwriter Mark Boal are not ones to necessarily allow the truth to get in the way of a good story (and that The Battle of Algiers or The Day of the Jackal…this definitely ain’t), in terms of pure filmmaking, there is an impressive amount of (if I may appropriate an oft-used phrase from the movie) cinematic “trade craft” on display. While a tad lukewarm as a political thriller, it does make for a terrific detective story, and the recreation of the SEAL mission, while up for debate as to accuracy (only those who were there could say for sure, and keeping mum on such escapades is kind of a major part of their job description) is quite taut and exciting. Chastain compellingly inhabits her obsessive character, and there are excellent supporting performances from Jennifer Ehle, Jason Clark, Kyle Chandler and Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy ’s Mark Strong (who is becoming one of my favorite character actors). If this sounds like a mixed review-well, I suppose it is. But hey, I still support the troops!

Previous posts with related themes:

Standard Operating Procedure

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

Lions for Lambs

W

Inglourious Basterds

Saturday Night at the Movies archives

All the neocon Hippies

by digby

This is hilarious. Michael Moore mentioned yesterday that Chuck Hagel once made the rather obvious observation that the Iraq war was all about oil. And William Kristol immediately called for the fainting couch, proclaiming this revelation the death knell for any Hagel confirmation. We all know that the only reason we invaded was to give the Iraqi people a bracing whiff ‘o freedom, cos we’re just that exceptional. (Well, and that unfortunate misunderstanding about the WMD.)

Moore very gently responds by pointing out that some of Bill’s closest friends have said the same thing. It’s quite a list. My favorite is this one:

“We’re not in the middle east to bring sweetness and light to the whole world. That’s nonsense. We’re in the middle east because we and our European friends and our European non-friends depend on something that comes from the middle east, namely oil.” – Midge Decter, author, May 21, 2004. (Listen here, at 35:55.)

In case he forgot, Michael reminds him that Midge was a founding Neocon and that Kristol was with her on the broadcast where she made that remark. You’ve gotta love it.

But maybe that was too obscure. So many war drums, so little time. Perhaps he’ll remember Midge’s famous breathless homage to her manly idol:

What Rumsfeld’s having become an American sex symbol seems to say about American culture today is that the assault on men leveled by the women’s movement, having poisoned the normally delicate relations between men and women and thereby left a generation of younger women with a load of anxiety they are only now beginning to throw off, is happily almost over. It’s hard to overestimate the significance of the term “stud” being applied to a man who has reached the age of 70 and will not too long from now be celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary.

He works standing up at a tall writing table, as if energy, or perhaps determination, might begin to leak away from too much sitting down.

I suppose it’s possible that Midge was so addled by Rumsfeld’s oozing testosterone that she didn’t know what she was saying about oil back in 2004. But what do you suppose was Alan Greenspan’s excuse?

.

Training the tykes

by digby

Christmas may be over but birthdays will be coming up. And this is the perfect little educational toy to teach the kiddies all about how to be a good citizen in an authoritarian society:

The woman traveler stops by the security checkpoint. After placing her luggage on the screening machine, the airport employee checks her baggage. The traveler hands her spare change and watch to the security guard and proceeds through the metal detector. With no time to spare, she picks up her luggage and hurries to board her flight!

The customer reviews are well worth reading. And the customer pictures are even better. Here’s one:

Chris Hayes and Oliver Stone: a fascinating discussion

by digby

Chris Hayes hosted Oliver Stone this morning for a rare long form discussion of his work and the Showtime Documentary Series “The Untold History of the United States.” It’s fascinating from beginning to end.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyVisit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyIt was very clever of Chris to pick up how Stone, as director, pulls up clips from popular culture to subtly illustrate how the Security State propaganda was spread, but also to show just how conservative Hollywood is and how complicit it’s been in selling the government line. And if anyone knows about that it’s Oliver Stone, not only in the myths it sells but the business that runs it. It’s a very big corporate entity, which is only as liberal as good profits from liberal material requires it to be. Let’s just say they don’t bankroll Oliver Stone out of sympathy with his worldview. It’s just very hard for them to find anyone who can make them money, and he happens to be someone who can. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyVisit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyWatching The Untold History has been a really great experience. The National Security state is so embedded in our culture now that it’s not even examined, much less criticized except on the fringes of the left. It’s very helpful to take a look at how we got here and the implications for our future and this is a very accessible and lively way to do it.

.

Bankrolling the crazies

by digby

I hope that people don’t think because Barack Obama handily won re-election that this sort of thing is benign and we needn’t worry our pretty little heads about it, from Mother Jones:

Last month, the Washington Post reported that Richard Stephenson, a reclusive millionaire banker and FreedomWorks board member, and members of his family funneled $12 million in October through two newly created Tennessee corporations to FreedomWorks’ super-PAC, which used these funds to support tea party candidates in November’s elections. The revelation that a corporate bigwig like Stephenson, who founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and chairs its board, was responsible for more than half of the FreedomWorks super-PAC’s haul in 2012 undercuts the group’s grassroots image and hands ammunition to critics who say FreedomWorks does the bidding of rich conservative donors.

Big donations like Stephenson’s are business as usual for FreedomWorks. According to a 52-page report prepared by FreedomWorks’ top brass for a board of directors meeting held in mid-December at the Virginia office of Sands Capital Management, an investment firm run by FreedomWorks board member Frank Sands, the entire FreedomWorks organization—its 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofit arms and its super-PAC—raised nearly $41 million through mid-December. Of that total, $33 million—or 81 percent of its 2012 fundraising—came in the form of “major gifts,” the type of big donations coveted by nonprofits and super-PACs. (FreedomWorks’ nonprofit components do not have to disclose their funders.)
[…]
According to ex-FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey, when he joined the organization in 2003, FreedomWorks relied heavily on corporate donations. The group, he says, subsequently weaned itself off such underwriting and used direct-mail lists—some provided by Armey—to build up a base of small donors. But in the last year, there was a “big surge in private individual contributions,” most of which Armey says he didn’t know about. “The details were kept secret from me,” he remarks.

Yeah, sure. Not that it matters. It’s well known that these big tea Party groups are astroturf. And it’s a mistake to think they won’t ever be effective just because they weren’t terribly effective in 2012. They have managed to turn the GOP into a toxic wingnut swamp where each member is petrified of primaries. And that’s where these groups have an advantage. Primaries are very hard to do without substantial money. And since these moneybags donors are in ideological sympathy with the Tea Party they are wiling to bankroll them. That’s going to be a problem.

.

Our socialist regime

by digby

so·cial·ism [soh-shuh-liz-uh m]
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the government.

2.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

How’s that program going anyway?

The December jobs figures out today indicate that there were 725,000 more jobs in the private sector than at the end of 2008 — and 697,000 fewer government jobs. That works into a private-sector gain of 0.6 percent, and a government sector decline of 3.1 percent.

In total, the number of people with jobs is up by 28,000, or 0.02 percent.

How does that compare? It is by far the largest four-year decline in government employment since the 1944-48 term. That decline was caused by the end of World War II; this one was caused largely by budget limitations. The only other post-1948 four-year drop was during Ronald Reagan’s first term, when government employment fell 0.6 percent.

Going back to Dwight Eisenhower, there have been only two administrations that turned in a worse performance in private-sector job growth. There were small declines in Eisenhower’s first term and in George W. Bush’s first term. Mr. Bush’s second term posted a scant 1.1 percent gain in private-sector employment — a gain that was wiped out during the first two months of 2009.

Over all, Mr. Obama’s first four years narrowly — and preliminarily — escaped being the second four-year presidential term since World War II to suffer net job losses. The first was George W. Bush’s first term.

Until Obama took office I hadn’t even heard the word socialism in a couple of decades, and certainly not from right wingers. Having the word and concept out of circulation so long seems to have confused them — they have mistaken it for mainstream conservatism. (Or maybe it’s just their old reflexive assumption that all black people are communists. Why they thought that always baffled me.)

On the other hand, I suppose they have successfully moved the Overton Window on this question to the point at which the leftward side of American politics has moved so far right the leaders of the Democratic Party today openly brag about having the same policies as “mainstream” Republicans of just a few years ago. You have to give the right wing credit. This stuff works.

If the left started calling everyone to their right totalitarian fascists I wonder if it would have the same effect?

.

Meanwhile, we’re all going over the climate cliff

by David Atkins

As much as the fate of Social Security, Medicare and the welfare state as we know it are topics of great interest at this moment, very little of what happens over the next two months is likely to be more than a historical footnote decades from now. Stupid and cruel cuts made today can theoretically be restored tomorrow by a more progressive government. Progressive gains made today can be rolled back tomorrow.

But what can’t be fixed, and what will really matter to future generations, is this:

It’s not yet official, but 2012 was the hottest year in American history. Recorded history, that is; we’ll allow climate change deniers the possibility that the United States was hotter when it was a still-forming Pangeal mass of semi-solid lava. Beyond that, though: hottest ever.

This led to a bumper crop of “hottest year ever!” stories in local media last week. Here’s a Google News search for “hottest year.” Among the areas noting that accomplishment: Lexington, Richmond, Topeka, New Jersey, Cleveland and Columbus, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Burlington, Louisville, and New York City. In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that its 170,000-odd monitoring stations in the U.S. recorded 24,280 new record highs over the course of 2012, and 9,728 tied highs.

Even the Great Depression only lasted about 12 years, and most people survived it. A runaway greenhouse climate is potentially forever, with a survival rate of near zero.

.

Smile of the week

by digby

I admit to having a sentimental streak and this one got to me:

As it happens, I witnessed one of these moments over the holidays half a block from my house. I saw a young soldier, dressed in fatigues sort of lurking around the bushes of my neighbors house, which naturally drew my attention. A car drove into the driveway and a couple of fellows got out at which point the soldier jumped out of the bushes and startled them. At that point they all started jumping around and laughing and hugging one another — obviously a very joyous reunion. I don’t know the story, but the sheer happiness among the group was such that I think it’s probably fair to assume that he’d been gone some time, probably deployed overseas. There’s something very unique about the combination of joy and relief in welcoming home someone who’s been in a war zone.

These are scenes that have been taking place for millenia. It would be nice if, someday, we didn’t have them anymore.

Watch what Wall Street does, not what it says

by digby

I think one of the undercovered stories in all this hoopla is the fact that despite the constant scare mongering among politicians about The Market Gods being angry unless we throw old ladies into the streets and let millionaires keep every penny of their ill-gotten gains, the markets themselves have been saying something else entirely:

Bloomberg:

“U.S. Treasury bond investors — who most directly bear the risk of a government default — aren’t alarmed … investors remain confident the two sides will compromise rather than inflict what Obama called ‘catastrophic’ consequences. Yields on long-term U.S. debt are near record lows. ‘It’s ugly in Washington, and getting uglier,’ said Matthew Duch, a fund manager in Bethesda, Maryland, for Calvert Investments, which oversees more than $12 billion in assets. ‘But that is just resulting in even lower rates as the market is much more concerned about growth than if the U.S. will be able to pay their bills.‘”

That’s a rational assessment, I’d say.

Unfortunately the leadership of “the market”, the big names, are the ones the politicians all listen to and they have been Chicken Littles all year long:

From John Paulson’s call for a collapse in Europe to Morgan Stanley’s warning that U.S. stocks would decline, Wall Street got little right in its prognosis for the year just ended.

John Paulson, who manages $19 billion in hedge funds, said the euro would fall apart and bet against the region’s debt.

Paulson, who manages $19 billion in hedge funds, said the euro would fall apart and bet against the region’s debt. Morgan Stanley predicted the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index would lose 7 percent and Credit Suisse Group AG  foresaw wider swings in equity prices. All of them proved wrong last year and investors would have done better listening to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, who said the real risk was being too pessimistic.

The ill-timed advice shows that even the largest banks and most-successful investors failed to anticipate how government actions would influence markets. Unprecedented central bank stimulus in the U.S. and Europe sparked a 16 percent gain in the S&P 500 including dividends, led to a 23 percent drop in the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, paid investors in Greek debt 78 percent and gave Treasuries a 2.2 percent return even after Warren Buffett called bonds “dangerous.”

“They paid too much attention to the fear du jour,” Jeffrey Saut, who helps oversee about $350 billion as the chief investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida, said by phone on Jan. 2. “They were worrying about a dysfunctional government in the U.S. They were worried about the euro quake and the implosion of Greece and Portugal. Instead of looking at what’s going on around them, they were letting these macro events cause fear to creep into the equation.”

I would say that’s undoubtedly part of it. These people think they are experts in everything including politics and mingle with all the insiders and so believed the hype. It was a panic feedback loop as the political types all thought they were listening to the oracles of Delphi (they must be geniuses in everything — they’re so rich!)

But on the other hand, it served them pretty well. They managed to keep everyone’s eyes focused on a portential future problem (the deficit) so nobody noticed Dodd-Frank being watered down, the lack of a financial transactions tax being on the table and the capital gains tax and estate tax being kept very low. (I’m sure no one will forget that Mitt Romney only paid 14% in taxes and that was in years he knew he’d probably have to make public.)The real revenue we might have gotten from Masters of the Universe was largely left alone. I’d call that a win for them, despite their bad calls. I’m just not sure they’re really clever enough to have planned it.

Still, their fear mongering has infected the dialog in the beltway in a truly pernicious way. The Villagers treat their every utterance as if it was the word of God. And yet, like all Very Serious People in recent years, they couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat. Go figure.

.

Conservatives refusing to pay their own bills

by David Atkins

When conservatives inevitably attempt to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, it will almost certainly be portrayed in the traditional press as a case of Republicans getting what they want (cuts to earned benefit programs) in exchange for something Democrats want (an increase to the debt ceiling.)

However, Greg Sargent and Jamelle Bouie do a good job of explaining why that framing of the situation is so unreasonable. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t prevent the government from spending money or increasing the deficit. The government won’t shut down as a result. Failing to raise the ceiling simply means that the government cannot pay out on obligations it already took on. Those obligations include not only payments to foreign creditors, but also to domestic bondholders as well. Social Security and Medicare recipients would fail to receive their checks, federal employees would fail to be paid, and the full faith and credit of the United States would be called into question by our own Congress, thereby doing more damage to the economy than any ratings agency downgrade. None of this should be treated as a matter of political negotiation, nor was it ever considered a matter for partisan negotiation until very recently. Failure to increase the debt ceiling doesn’t hurt Democrats or Republicans–it hurts the entire country and the world economy.

What that in turn means is that when Republicans attempt to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for raising the ceiling, it won’t be a matter of political negotiating but one of blatant hostage-taking. Worse, it will be hostage-taking in order to enact conservative priorities that just recently failed in the marketplace of ideas that was the 2012 election. Republicans hold the House due to gerrymandering, but well over a million more voters preferred Democratic House candidates. And as a matter of pure politics, the hostage drama takes on an even darker dimension. As with the fiscal cliff deal, it’s entirely likely that whatever regressive legislation makes its way out of the hostage negotiations will be voted down by a majority of Republicans as being inadequately conservative, forcing Democrats to shoulder the burden of cutting Medicare and Social Security. That in turn will be gleefully used by the Republicans to run against those same Democrats in 2014. When the realities are taken together, this situation becomes less a matter of political partisanship than a matter of partisan piracy.

But even all of this misses a crucial point that Sargent and Bouie don’t directly address: the fact that the spending Republicans already authorized but are unwilling to actually pay for includes federal disbursements made for conservative priorities. After removing the distorting effect of capital cities, Republican Congressional districts received an average of $111 million each from the stimulus. It was Republicans who supported the insanely expensive invasion of Iraq (a majority of Democrats voted against it.) It was the Republicans, obviously, who supported George Bush’s budget-busting tax cuts. It was Republicans who primarily pushed for the radically expensive expansion of the boondoggle-filled homeland security apparatus. One of the many reasons that red states tend to be recipients of more tax money than they pay in is the large numbers of military bases in red states, which are themselves part of a big-government jobs program. Republican states and big ag contributors are the primary recipients of farm subsidy federal largesse, and the same goes for big oil subsidies. It’s also worth noting that the sort of military and big corporate subsidy spending preferred by Republicans (to say nothing of tax cuts) does far less to stimulate the economy than does the stimulative sort of spending on the poor and middle class preferred by Democrats.

In short, Republicans have already raided the federal treasury for a huge portion of the money they simply refuse to pay the bills for now, choosing to pretend the issue is a matter of Democratic spending. This is not dissimilar to when Ronald Reagan exploded the deficit with tax cuts and military spending, forcing Bill Clinton to take steps to balance the budget while Republicans blamed Clinton for fiscal excess.

In this respect, the Republican position is to go on a massive spending spree, quit their jobs by decreasing revenue, and then threaten to throw the bills they racked up into fire unless their spouse stops feeding the kids.

There may be words for that sort of political philosophy, but it scarcely deserves to be called “conservatism.”

.