Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Back to the good 'ole days

Yes, the south has changed soo much. From Huffpo:
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.
The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that “things have changed dramatically” in the South in the nearly 50 years since the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965.

If the Chief Justice means that Bull Connor isn't hosing black people down en masse while giving a giant middle finger to Northerners sympathetic to Civil Rights, yes I suppose it has changed. But it won't be long at the rate open racism and segregation is returning to public life. Thanks Paula Deen!

If anything, the preclearance statutes should be extended to the entire country. *Cough, cough* [fitzwalkerstan!]

Monday, June 24, 2013

Time to start drinking



After the successful conclusion of the Second Punic War, a wave of stability and affluence settled over the now Superpower of Rome. But to peruse the equivalent of Roman newsstands and bookshops. a visitor to the eternal city would believe the end was near. Polemics about imminent decline were all the rage during the height of the republic's power, or so said historian Thomas F. Madden. There certainly were changes, in tastes, in values, in political wrangling, and in concentrations of wealth and power. But the Roman state in the West persevered for nearly five centuries after vanquishing Carthage, and nearly a millennium after that in the East. While I am no Roman expert ready to compare Sulla or Cesar to American presidents, it can be said with some certainty that problems facing the United States are not new in history. Madden would be the first to point out that states rise and decline in history, some fade away altogether, and the Romans really had a good run.

However, Edward Luce presents a picture of America with real problems, not simply fretting about the rise in value and status of slaves who could cook or "effeminate" easterners with their cultured ways taking over from hard working natives as his ancient predecessors did. The tradition of cultured foreigners visiting an emergent new power and reporting their findings goes back at least to Roman times as well. Though Jonathan Rauch in his review noted that Luce is a longtime resident of the US and has worked for the Federal Government in addition to his extensive experience as a reporter.

Unlike other prophets of doom yanked from American mothers on American soil, Luce seems to have no axe to grind and genuinely seems to want the republic to get back its former glory. The title of this post is quoted from Rauch's review play on words, and as a patriotic American drinking is probably what one wants to do after reading this book. It is not a pretty picture. Instead of looking at the children of darkness in America and all the trouble and harm they cause, Luce concentrates on the dysfunction in government bureaucracy and the struggles of the (relatively) more progressive elements of American business.

If you chose instead to listen to this book on CD or downloaded from Audible.com, drinking might not be the best idea if Time to Start Thinking was for your commute or work. Make sure to have alternatives available too, after less than a half hour each session I had to stop listening because the temptation to simply accelerate into a tree was becoming harder and harder to resist. The problems just bombard your ears and sink into your brain. To the point where I have not entirely finished the book and therefore cannot comment on Luce's conclusion yet.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is also not for partisans of the left. Luce seems to suffer from doublethink in spots, where he comes close to actually blaming tangible individuals and groups but then backs off and cites "bureaucratic scoliosis" as the cause of American ills. Perhaps a bland admonishment of "anti-state ideology" or maybe suggesting in passing that electing leaders adhering to this belief system is not a viable strategy for addressing what plagues the US. There is hesitant praise for President Obama and his administration's attempts to address the dysfunction, the inertia, and as Luce puts it "the utter lack of ambition in American government." In describing the Government Accountability Office, the British journalist comments that the hardworking staff nails the problems in almost all cases but are extremely cautious and timid in proposing remedies because 1.) the vested interests who benefit from dysfunction,
2.) the dependence on Congress for budgetary requests, and
3.) the synergy between those vested interests and members of Congress who readily accept campaign contributions.

In the end, if even those charged with watching the watchers who are supposedly regulating this country are cowering in fear or at least resigned to irrelevance, maybe it is time to start drinking.

Friday, June 21, 2013

It is not just me

A very frustrating aspect to political debate occurs when your opponent refuses to accept any evidence or premises you offer. The conservative mind seems never able to admit a point that did not originate with them and simply ignores attempts to demonstrate hypocrisy or illogic. I used to feel that my many jousts with my nemesis, the DJ, were special cases in this regard but this morning Lincoln Log ran into the same difficulty.
I realize now that you are indeed an advocate of Alexander Hamilton--not any libertarian nonsense. Your obsession with cost-recovery as the basis for any action, assuming that the rich know what they are doing, and government as the ultimate custodian of property rights--these are Hamilton. You may think you are endorsing Jefferson, but your posts are a Hamiltonian as can be.
[responses]As usual, LL, you are eloquent in your premise. And, as usual, you are wrong.

Please point me to any one place where I have argued that the "rich know what they are doing," any more or less than any of the rest of us. I doubt you have one to offer.

Rather, my basic premise is that they are entitled to the same fundamental expectation that they be more or less "left alone" as are the rest of us.
 
And "gov't as the ultimate custodian of property rights"? I have no idea where in the world you are coming up with that. I want nothing more from gov't than to see it shrink by 80 to 90%. 
Now DJ's favorite is to cry "whoa is me" and "oh, everything is great about government except when dubya was running it" or something to that effect. 'always blame dubya' and the like. It never fails because fair-minded people do not want to kick losers when they are down. But obviously, the empirical evidence that dubya did screw everything up is irrefutable. I for one am so utterly exhausted about arguing this though, especially after living through that administration and watching them blame everyone for their own mistakes. What was it? bush could not think of a single mistake he made during his terms? Maybe because everything he did ranged from harmful to disastrous?

Why is it that people outside the conservative movement, authoritarians if not worse inside, have such a hard time challenging baseless assertions? Why do we have such a hard time calling lies what they are? Or correcting the blurring of definitions and debunking nonsensical accusations?

I know it is not just me that tires easily from trying to counteract the black magic of conservative thinking. I know it is not just me who encounters this debate style. And I know now that I am not the only one who cannot make a simple statement without getting attacked.

It is not just me who appears weak without responding to conservative baiting. Good to know.

PS, several people chimed in to point out the respondent's inconsistency and misunderstanding in LL's original posts.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Spaceballs voting!

Photo: Spaceballs

Evil of course being the universally recognized shorthand for right-wing authoritarian/religious double-high social dominator/demogauge. Yes, they are "smart" in the ways of manipulation and naked ambition, definitely skilled in pursuing self-interest at any cost. Truth, social cohesion, the destruction of definitions, and simple empiricism fall before the onslaught.

Propaganda, the manipulation of public opinion through carefully-constructed lies, blossoms best when planted in a fertile seed of existing prejudice.

So now, yes the kraken is expanding his study of human inhumanity to include those wacky spaceballs. Because sometimes Reinhold Niebuhr, Robert Altemeyer, Thomas Frank, James Burnham, George Lakoff, and Joseph Goebbels have nothing on understanding the intersection of arrogance and ignorance. Mel Brooks gave us the perfect interplay of dummies leading the blind faithful by the nose in Spaceballs.

I do not know where the voter fraud conspiracy theory came from, but to self-righteous morons who cannot possibly believe there can be other points of view, it must make some kind of sense. So when I came across Jeff Simpson's post the other day I racked my brain trying to find the right movie metaphor for this moment of derp.

Keep in mind this post was amongst the spaceballs themselves, not trolling some legitimate news site or rational discussion among non-spaceballs.
Just for starters. I followed three different vans with out of state plates carrying around the same groups of people from one polling place to another. They all went in and same day registered then voted. While inside watching same day registrants I observed them all using a letter that appeared to be a form letter as some some proof of residency. This went on all day. That was just one polling place in one city. These type of reports were coming in from all areas. Fraud was RAMPANT. I saw it first hand. The problem with the system is that there is vertically nothing you can do after the fact. Voter ID will go a long way to curtail this.

 Now, I won't give it away but find which scene this reminds you of in any Mel Brooks film.
Oh, and if you track the post back through the functional links you can find the drooling originals on Facebook with an account.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Republicans inside you

I am sorry to say that I refrained from analyzing the utter nonsense coming out of the chauvinist pigs on the right up to now. And honestly, I do not understand the incredible attack on women's rights. I do not like to think of women as a special interest group, and really, in a sane society they would not be. I always felt women were the most genuine representation of "the public interest" you know, that thing that republics are supposed to be about. It makes no sense. Why the full-court press to attack their, republicans', wives, mothers, daughters, etc.? There has been so much traffic of late online covering protests and actions against rape, I did not understand that rape was such an issue. And all the insane rhetoric and bills against all manner of reproductive rights and access to healthcare; those seemed to be far away in backwards-ass southern states. I mean rape is rape, what the world are the 'wingers doing by making women into a special interest to demonize? Are they really so confident in the power of stupid to keep enough women in line and under the spell of patriarchy?

For the umpteenth time, this is not conservatism. The republican party is now made up of PAGANs, People Against Goodness And Normalcy.

Seriously, it is long past time to stop referring to 'wingers, either in office or the rank and file psychopaths, as conservatives. They are authoritarians at the very least, practicing terrorism and intimidation, dividing civil society against itself to conquer and pillage.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Reagan: The Problem

I was hoping for more from the title: A Short Breakdown Of How Reagan Broke Our Economy, Killed Jobs, And Rewarded Greed A little more history perhaps, at least an explanation of how political polarization led to Reagan's election and subsequent policy ransacking. But no, all we get from Sarah Wood is an analysis of the symptoms and effects of monopoly on the American people.
Reagan’s abandonment of antitrust laws and the refusal of policy makers even today to start enforcing them again is what collapsed our economy and rewarded greed.
While this is true, there is much more to it and simply stating that the reaganites gave business the green light to make their greediest dreams come true ignores the context of the times. For example, there were republican presidents before Reagan, why did Nixon or Ford not take their hands off the wheel and allow big business to rip apart the social contract? Events outside the US? Or recent history of that time? History is rarely a simple "A alone causes B." Looking at the 1980s from the perspective of what followed is a fallacy. While you will get no argument from me that non-enforcement of antitrust laws played a great role in the economic polarization of the contemporary US; it is a major source of the vast inequality of wealth and income, the stagnation of the economy as a whole, and ever-growing poverty, one cannot argue that this phenomenon occurred in a vacuum.

What follow in Wood's essay is a fairly standard recitation of the collapse of civil society, the result of economic ruin for the middle class and ever-deepening chasm swallowing working people into poverty.

Here is the salient point of Wood's thesis:
consolidation of industry has stifled our growth. Jobs grow through small business, individual entrepreneurship, and actual competition. However we need laws to allow this to happen which keep markets and wages fair. This doesn’t make me a socialist, this makes me a person in favor of capitalism who appreciates competition, but also appreciates laws that protect the small from being devoured by the large. These laws also protect us from these giant monopolies dictating laws that may potentially harm us (food safety, etc.) so they can increase profits by cutting corners. (Emphasis mine)
 Ahhh, let's not even pretend to understand the difference between socialism and varying forms of capitalism. Make sure you don't think of any white elephants while reading her essay. Funny how inoculation only works one way, when the Children of Light try it they only end up activating the Children of Darkness' frames. However, somehow anytime a progressive CoL brings up Reagan or God help us George w. bush the wailing of trolls begins. "Oh, of course it is all dubya's fault." Those knee-jerk schmuck declarations that dare you to agree, but reflexively we know what is out-of-bounds. It is the same reflex that all but forces liberals to defend small businesses as bastions of goodness.

Indented and italicized for no apparent reason and with no supporting source is this gem:
Industry consolidation also cuts down on workers’ rights. This is why Republicans hate and demonize unions. Workers having a voice cuts down on the ability to be greedy. 
The trouble is, and obviously there are exceptions, but most big business prior to the Reagan "revolution" had made peace with organized labor. Consolidated industries, like steel, or energy, or manufacturing were too vulnerable to workers' resistance in the days before subsidized outsourcing. The treaty of Detroit, where management finally conceded labor's right to bargain, meant high wages but no say in how business was run and compared to the days before the treaty had brought relative labor peace.

It was small businessmen who irrationally feared and loathed anything that smacked of bargaining with "the help." It was the NFIB that freaked out so hard about the Clinton administration's healthcare reform proposals in 1993, over a portion that required providing bare bones insurance for all employees at a cost of about 10 cents an hour. Twenty years later the fight is still joined at that level. The so-called tea party, if it has any real existence beyond Astroturf, is a rogue's gallery of small business types so it does not matter how dead unions really are this merry band of idiots and racists are frightened beyond belief that their busboys and stockers are just waiting for their fellow minority in the White House to give the word to agitate for fair treatment. This of course will cause utter chaos, the ruin of tea partiers' cult of self-importance, and possibly the violation of our white women.

Sorry folks, but race is, was, and probably will ever be America's original sin. Reagan did not kick off his campaign by memorializing and standing by 'states' rights' in a southern town that murdered several civil rights' activists during the 1960s because he himself had Klansman hoods in his closet, but he knew how to play the game for those that did. Reagan did not let loose his many counterfactual descriptions of "welfare queens" without the certainty of what images these fairy tales would conjure up in the minds of his supporters.

There is so much more to the wrecking of the relatively stable, fair, and equal America built by the Greatest Generation and refined by well-meaning Americans for a half century. But that will have to wait... because dang, that is a big, big story. Historians and lots of very smart people are still in shock that America unraveled this quickly and how far we will continue to fall. I don't mean to knock Sarah Wood or Political Shake for printing her piece, monopoly is a huge problem, but to pretend that there is a silver bullet which can undo all the damage of the last three decades is just naïve.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Read. Now!



If I ever go back for an MA in library and information science, this poster will adorn my office wall.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

From the mouths of rascals

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart.  If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." -Misattributed to Winston Churchill.

We deal with much that is myth-making and fairy tales on this blog, especially when it comes to the "conservative movement" at its fantasyland or fever swamp. What happens when reality, discernible, objective reality smacks conservatives in the face? As it turns out, the liars simply wave it away and attempt to make their fairy tales a little more palatable. If you spend any time around older conservatives, you are bound to hear Churchill's supposed wisdom in one form or another. The sentiment is always the same, "young people are too stupid, uninformed, or idealistic to understand how the world works and therefore should not vote because... they vote the wrong way." And of course, the old keep aging, so you will never "catch up," or find the slightest respect for your beliefs if they contradict "common sense." Whatever bill o'reilly says common sense is at that moment.

Is it surprising then when the college republicans find (shock! horror!) that young people have no love for or respect for the aging, angry elder beliefs? Other commentators like Alex Pareene have already put the "duh?" into the CRs findings, and simply reiterating that young people are not that into fucking over their neighbors, scapegoating people a little different than them, or any of the other myriad implications of a party seen by them as "closed-minded, racist, rigid, [and] old-fashioned."

ThinkProgress summarized the CR report with 11 points:
1. GOP economic polices are to blame for the recession. “Although ‘Republican economic policies’ is the factor least likely to be viewed as playing a major role in causing the crisis, this is mostly due to young Republicans in the sample hesitating to pin blame directly on their own party, and an outright majority of young people still think those Republican policies are to blame – hardly an encouraging finding.”
2. Lower taxes will not create jobs.” In the August 2012 XG survey, there was not a strong consensus around the virtues of lowering taxes and regulations on business. Only 34% of respondents in that survey thought they’d be better off if the corporate tax rate were lowered, and only 36% thought such a move would make it easier for young people to get jobs.”
3. Increase taxes on the wealthy. “Perhaps most troubling for Republicans is the finding from the March 2013 CRNC survey that showed 54% of young voters saying ‘taxes should go up on the wealthy,’ versus 31% who say “taxes should be cut for everyone.”
4. End the attacks on women’s reproductive health. “[T]he issue of protecting life has been conflated with issues around the definition of rape, funding for Planned Parenthood, and even contraception. In the words of one female participant in our Hispanic voter focus group in Orlando, “I think Romney wanted to cut Planned Parenthood. And he supports policies where it would make it harder for a woman to get an abortion should she choose, even if it were medically necessary. That goes head in hand with redefining rape.”
5. Expand universal health care coverage. “Many of the young people in our focus groups noted that they thought everyone in America should have access to health coverage. In the Spring 2012 Harvard Institute of Politics survey of young voters, 44% said that “basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it.” … As one participant in our focus group of young men in Columbus put it, “at least Obama was making strides to start the process of reforming health care.”
6. Provide comprehensive immigration reform. “The position taken most frequently by young voters was that “illegal immigrants should have a path to earn citizenship,” chosen by 35% of respondents… Some 19% chose “illegal immigrants should be deported or put in jail for breaking the law,” while another 17% took the position that “illegal immigrants should have a path to legal status but not citizenship.”
7. Cut the defense budget first. “Indeed, a large number of respondents pointed to the defense budget as the place where cuts should start. In the survey, 35% of respondents thought that “we should have a smaller defense budget and leaner military,” including 49% of young independents.”
8. Democrats are more responsive on student loans. “Many focus group members did think that Democrats were responding to the student loan crisis. “I think they’re more in tune to what we need right now with student loans, getting a job, fixing the housing market and the environment,” observed one participant from Orlando, with another adding that he had “heard Obama once say, oh, he has student loans, he went to school, he knows what we’re going through.”
9. Climate change is real. “Ultimately, while voters may say they are concerned about climate change, they rarely list it among the issues on the top of their minds.”
10. Bush’s wars blew up the deficit. “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan themselves, however, were largely viewed as having been a net negative for the U.S. In fact, during focus group discussions about the recession, one respondent said she felt that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had contributed in part to the economic crisis.”
11. Marriage equality for all. “Surveys have consistently shown that gay marriage is not as important an issue as jobs and the economy to young voters. Yet it was unmistakable in the focus groups that gay marriage was a reason many of these young voters disliked the GOP.”

So, is it any wonder that the strategy so far by the gop has been to disenfranchise young people? These attitudes existed before this report was even some bow-tied wet dream. Cynicism reaches the peak when contrasted with the diseased idealism sold by the AstroTurf tea party. "Capitalism now, capitalism next week, capitalism forever!" Hard times conservatism as analyzed by Thomas Frank; angry, confused old people raging against the government and imaginary threats while ignoring real ones. Coincidentally, Dr. Frank does an excellent write-up of the college republicans in The Wrecking Crew that shows the CRs as not just some silly auxiliary to the "conservative movement" but the leading edge of radicalism on campus. Abramoff, Reed, Rove, Ryan, and countless others wiled away their college years disrupting meetings, starting bestiality clubs, and shaking down businesses to do dirty work such as destroying PiRGs and other activist groups.

Those professional conservative entrepreneurs started on the radical right, and stayed there. Thus leaving the Old Lion's legacy intact but whomever actually uttered that quote was slightly mistaken.