CNN's strength has always been graphic design, not political reporting, so I'm hesitant to give this latest story too much weight. It is about the Democrats caving to the Right on health care though, so it might be accurate. My thoughts on this subject, namely, how much (read: little) faith we should have in the Democrats to provide the public with substantial reform of the health care industry, can be read here.
As I said, CNN's strength has never been reporting the news, and this body of text is no exception. It contains a proofreading error so embarrassing that one almost blushes at reading it. Come on CNN!
"Both [Democratic Senator Dick] Durbin and Republican Sen. John Cornyn signaled the precarious status of any “public option” in the final version of any health care legislation, with Cornyn calling the idea a deal-breaker [sic] Durbin repeating a reluctant willingness to sacrifice the idea to assure passage of a final bill. The idea is not considered likely to be included in the final Senate version of the bill, although a modified public option remains in the House version of the legislation." [emphasis added]
As near as I can tell, the sentence should read, "...deal-breaker, with Durbin..." Even that is kind of a gross construction. Also, the word "modified" in the above passage should be read as "weakened." Now, back to the content, not the delivery.
Despite overwhelming, OVERWHELMING support for a public option, many Democrats refuse to state, unequivocally, that it will be included in the final bill. Obama, rightly, has stated that he won't sign a bill that doesn't include a public option. That is a difficult move to make and it should be praised. Now more Democrats need to get on board with that. Sadly, that's something that Representative Henry Waxman (who, in fairness, is pretty badass about a lot of things, and has previously stated his support of a single-payer system) refused to do last week on Democracy Now:
"AMY GOODMAN: Public plan, the bottom line for you, that there is a public option? REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I want a—I want a public option. AMY GOODMAN: Will you not accept—like the progressive Democrats have written a letter saying they will not vote for anything but a public option. REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I don’t like drawing lines, but I expect we’re going to have a public option." [emphasis added.]
What the Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that the public WANTS them to draw lines. That's why in both 2006 and 2008 the country handed them substantial electoral victories, and it's why 2010 is shaping up to be the same way. Democrats are secure in their seats specifically, and in their control of congress and the White House generally, yet they still refuse to make and to commit to strict demands, like a public option, that are favored by the population.
Again, we won't know for several weeks what this bill will actually look like once it comes out of the House and Senate joint committee, but the prospects for progressive reform look more and more dim with each passing day.
I haven't written about the "Birther" phenomenon because it's all so obviously ridiculous that, until now, I didn't think it really deserved any attention whatsoever.
If you're somehow unfamiliar with the "Birther" movement--and, if that's the case, in many ways I envy you--here it is in a nutshell. Some idiots have refused to accept the fact that Obama has provided a perfectly adequate birth certificate showing that he was born to a human woman in Hawaii. They claim that he is not a citizen and therefore can't be president, even though, as I just wrote, he has provided ample documentation to prove that he is, in fact, an American citizen. You might think to yourself, "well, that should settle it, right?" and you'd be right, but you'd also be so wrong. Birthers are everywhere, and they're loud and angry and racist, three qualities that manifest themselves in tandem oh so often.
As a quick side note, noted Mexican-hater Lou Dobbs has joined the proud ranks of the Birther movement. So...if you needed another reason not to watch him, there you go. You probably didn't though, because that guy seriously hates Mexicans.
So, why bother writing about this collection of morons and racists now? Because, it turns out, that is the majority of the Republican party! Alex Koppelman of Salon reports:
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is out with a new poll that asked, among other things, about media coverage of the Birthers. A plurality of respondents -- 41 percent -- said they believe there's been too much, but 52 percent said either that there's been too little or the right amount. Republicans, unsurprisingly, felt more strongly about that.
39 percent of self-identified Republicans, a plurality, told Pew they believe there hasn't been enough coverage of the debate over President Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the presidency. Another 27 percent said there's been the right amount, while 26 percent said there's been too much coverage.[emphasis added.]
That's right, folks. 66% of Republicans polled believe that the issue of whether or not the president is a citizen, despite that fact that he undeniably is, has gotten either just enough or not enough attention. It's like they're the party of loyal opposition to reason.
Here is an honest question. What happens if the country is unsatisfied with the Democrats and Obama? Can the party of the Birthers really regain power? The Republicans are now best embodied by Palin and the Birthers, which is also the name of a band that Levi Johnson should start. Will the country eventually swing "Right" again? History tells us that it will, but, who will actually do that?
The changing demographics in America have rendered the Southern Strategy--in which you use code words to convince scared white southerners that you're on their side--obsolete. Latinos, who traditionally have voted Republican, are moving to the Democratic party in droves. It remains to be seen if the youth vote will remain as strong as it did for Obama in the coming years, but they certainly won't be the ones to give power back to the GOP. The Republican base is shrinking fast, and there's no reason to believe that that trend will reverse itself.
All that said, I have no faith at all that this country can support a viable, progressive, third-party alternative, though I hope I'm wrong. Corporate media alliances and rigid election laws make meaningful inclusion in the electoral process of anyone but the two major parties very difficult.
So what will happen? Will the Democrats simply retain control of the country for 10 or 15 years? If that is the case, is that something to be praised? Are we now at a time when the country is finally ready to break from two-party politics? And why is Lou Dobbs so fucking crazy?
The New York Times is reporting today that the White House and Congress have promised not to attempt to extract further cost-saving measures for consumers from large drug makers. Progressives have long feared that the Obama administration would go along with this back-room deal, and now it appears that they are. From the Times:
"Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.
Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.
In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul."[emphasis mine.]
The article goes on to say that Billy Tauzin, former Republican congress-person and current CEO of PhRMA, a pharmaceutical lobbying group, was promised that the administration wanted this deal with drug makers to go forward. Back to the Times:
A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin’s account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.
“The president encouraged this approach,” Mr. Messina wrote.
Sigh. By blocking the government from being able to collectively bargain for drug prices, this deal guarantees that prices will continue to rise. Only the government's massive collective purchasing power--since we're talking drugs, think about buying 100 million pounds of weed; you'll get a discount--will be able to bring soaring costs down. Now, it looks like lobbyists have flexed their muscle to stop that from happening.
Scarecrow, over at FireDogLake, has an excellent analysis that can be read here. Scarecrow writes, in part:
"The White House has been telling the American people that we need to have an insurance Public Option to compete against the private, for-profit insurers to encourage price reductions and to keep the insurers honest. But the same arguments apply with at least equal force to the major drug companies, whose record of deceptive advertising, misrepresentation (here and here), corruption and price collusion (more here, here, and here, and here) are every bit as offensive as the mega insurers' practices.
The Times notes the deal was negotiated by Senator Max Baucus, with WH participation and approval. The LA Times version adds the deal was cut in the White House with Rahm Emanuel. So what should we expect from the WH/Baucus' negotiations with Republicans on the rest of the reform package?"
I highly suggest reading the whole article, and following the links that are embedded in the above passage. Even skimming where those links take you will more than prove Scarecrow's point that drug manufactures are "every bit as offensive as the mega insurers' practices."
In somewhat related news, an animal rights group calling itself Militant Forces Against Huntigdon has claimed responsibility for a fire that burned the hunting lodge of Novartis' CEO, Daniel Vassella. European News reports:
"A group called Militant Forces against Huntigdon (MFAH) Austria posted a message on a US website, claiming it started the blaze because of Novartis' alleged cooperation a with British company conducting tests on animals.
'It hasn't been your week has it, Daniel?,' MFAH wrote on the site www.directaction.info, 'This will continue until you severe all ties with Huntingdon Life Sciences.'
Novartis does not make its cooperation partners public."
Huntigdon Life Science calls itself a research facility, and has been accused of carrying out cruel and unnecessary experiments against animals.
MFAH's claim that, "It hasn't been your week," refers to a separate incident that happened last week when animal rights activists stole an urn filled with the ashes of Vassella's mother, who died in 2001, and sprayed "Drop HLS [Huntigdon Life Sciences] Now," on her gravestone. Novartis claims that they don't have any current connection with HLS, despite claims to the contrary by many animal rights groups. Novartis doesn't disclose their partners to the public, though one would certainly expect them to deny any connection with HLS.
These are the people, along with Billy Tauzin and his revolting lobbying ilk, that the Democrats are cowtowing to. Every day, it looks less and less likely that the final health care bill will contain a robust public option that exists to serve the citizens, not the private interests. We won't know at least until September what the bill will look like, but news like today's is not a cause for optimism.
It seems that knife-maniac Rahm Emanuel isn't the only potty mouth in the Obama administration after all. According to the Wall Street Journal, King of Money Tim Geitner also likes to use a bit of the ol' sailor-speak if the occasion calls for it. The occasion in this case was a meeting of the nation's top financial regulators, a collection of the fuck-iest shitstains this side of Horsecockville, if this blog may speak frankly. The WSJ reports:
"Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner blasted top U.S. financial regulators in an expletive-laced critique last Friday as frustration grows over the Obama administration's faltering plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation, according to people familiar with the meeting."[emphasis mine.]
Reason #4,893 for the death of print. WSJ, you HAVE to print that "expletive-laced critique." Seriously guys, I would pay the online subscription fee for that sensitive information alone. Also, I assume that once you pay the online fee, you can tell all the members of the editorial board to get their shit-stained short-pants back to Horsecockville, which is worth the $8 a month or whatever it costs to read the Horsecockville Herald (WSJ).
The recent revelation that GE and News Corp. privately agreed to stifle reporting is just the latest example of how the national press is failing the country. This episode highlights how increasingly difficult it is to find any news outlet that even deserves one's time, let alone one's trust.
For whatever reason, the country operates under the general assumption that although giant parent corporations own every major TV news outlet, they somehow don't interfere in their reporting or shape their editorial content. After the publication of this story from the New York Times on Friday, that fallacy has been laid as bare as possible.
The Times' report describes how the bitter feud between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann was ratings gold for both shows, but also that both parent companies, News Corp. and GE, respectively, were getting worried about the fighting. "But wait," you might be thinking, "the feud increases the viewership of both shows, so what's the problem?" Well, in the process of attempting to beat each other bloody, Olbermann, and probably despite himself, O'Reilly, were doing some real reporting. In an attempt to discredit the other, both were going after their competitor's parent company, which was making the corporate overlords very uneasy.
So, as the Times reports,
"At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in mid-May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.
Both moguls expressed regret over the venomous culture between the networks and the increasingly personal nature of the barbs. Days later, even though the feud had increased the audience of both programs, their lieutenants arranged a cease-fire, according to four people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal. ... The reconciliation — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations."[emphasis added.]
This story came to my attention via Glenn Greenwald, who has written two fantastic posts about the subject. The first can be read here, and his latest from today can be read here. I highly recommend reading both in their entirety. The first piece also has the added benefit of highlighting MSNBC's disgraceful use of Richard Wolffe, a PR man they bill as an independent "political analyst." Greenwald discusses Wolffe's many appearances on "Countdown," and the fact that he guest-hosted while Olbermann was away, while never disclosing his eggregious conflict of interest. To quote Greenwald:
"When Olbermann is there, Wolffe is a very frequent guest on Countdown, where he is called an "MSNBC political analyst" and comments on political news. All of this, despite the fact that Wolffe left Newsweek last March in order to join "Public Strategies, Inc.," the corporate communications firm run by former Bush White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, its President and CEO. ... Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover."
For further reading on the issue, I recommend this post by David Sirota. He provides an excellent history of instances in which parent companies dictate to their media outlets what stories are or are not appropriate on which to report.
If you take this example of GE and News Corp. silencing figures that, for better or worse, are labeled "journalists," mix it in with MSNBC's lack of disclosure of Richard Wolffe's conflict of interests, throw in the Washington Post's recent attempt to whore out its reporters and editors at $25,000 a pop, add to that that Politico (who broke the WaPo story) is in bed with lobbyists as much as anyone, sprinkle on a little program where NBC News (and others) presented retired military generals who were getting paid by companies that stood to earn a shit-ton of money from the war as "independent military analysts" (which the networks still have not disclosed to their viewers), and top it all off with the idiotic stance from NPR that they won't call torture torture, you get a pretty grim image of our media landscape.
Really, just think about this list above. It makes you want to just punch a wall or something. That list shows us that a reasonable citizen who spends a few minutes a day trying to keep him or herself informed, is probably being either mislead or lied to from any number of different organizations, regardless of where they are getting their news.
Whether or not these outlets report some accurate stories is beside the point. Once an institution shows that it will sell out for money, or mislead its reading/viewing/listening public out of either cowardice, malice, or incompetence, the whole institution becomes suspect. I'm not arguing that journalists can't be allowed to make errors. That's an insane and unreasonable position. My criticisms, and much of the blogosphere's criticisms, are not about honest mistakes. Rather, the problem arises when these outlets deliberately deceive their audiences for months on end by refusing to disclose conflicts of interest, or by committing any of the other infractions listed above.
I'll leave you with two funny videos concerning this topic. The first is from SNL, and the second is the great David Letterman (thanks to Mike Drucker for the heads up for both).
Tracy Clark-Flory writes today in Salon about an abstinence-only high school pep rally full of cheerleaders in short shorts leading the crowd in what may be the most disturbing cheer I've ever heard. The costumed lolitas chanted:
""Stop, don't touch me there, this is my no, no square," while drawing boxes in the air in front of their va (clap) jay (clap) jays."
As a side note, in the future this blog will only refer to women's genitalia as "va (clap) jay (clap) jays." Ahem.
Call me a prude, but getting a bunch of sprightly young women in cheerleader outfits to point at and teasingly refer to hoo-has while a gymnasium full of family members and priests look on strikes me as a bit, oh, I don't know, SEXUAL. And also, oh, I don't know, CREEPY. Look, abstain if you want to [note: "abstain" substitutes hilariously for "don't dance" in Safety Dance. "'Cause your friends abstain and if they abstain, well, they're no friends of mine". --ed.], but the idea of gathering an entire community together to gaze at a gaggle of females drawing BOXES around their...you know what word I was going to use, so let's be adults and move on... it's just so obviously meant to titillate.
"This is my no, no square." I mean, come on. This event is only slightly less creepy than the Daddy-Daughter balls that you hear about every once in a while. As I understand these perv-vents, fathers and daughters go to the prom together to gross everyone out or something and then no one can have a healthy sex life because that would be shameful! That description might not be ethnographically responsible, but I think it does the trick. I will not be providing any links, because doing a google search of "daddy daughter balls" might return some hits that are not appropriate for the internet connection I'm using. Ironic, no?
Here's a video of the event, which I haven't watched yet, because I think it might send the wrong message to people I'm sitting next to if they see me watching cheerleaders pointing to their va (clap) jay (clap) jays. So...tell me how it is.
As an afterthought, Russell Brand has a good bit about the hypocrisy involved in the abstinence-only business, specifically "purity rings." Can't embed because it's flash, but he makes several good points.
Oh, and also, this sex rally took place in Mississippi, which Clark-Flory reports, "not only has the highest teen birth rate in the country, but also the eighth-highest HIV rate among those in their early 20s." So there's that.
I haven't done this in a while, but it's raining out and I feel like procrastinating on other things I should be doing, so here's another edition of the Sunday Afternoon Movie Review at ComedyandPolitics!
Put simply, In The Loop, a new political comedy from Armando Iannucci, is one of the finest films I've seen in a long time. Excuse the profanity, but, honestly, it's so fucking good. And while we're on the subject of swearing, let me say that In The Loop transforms foul language from the comedic crutch that it often is into a kind of poetry. The movie is so filthy, and so, so funny.
The plot centers around Simon (Tom Hollander)--a mid-level aid to the (unnamed) British PM--who speaks off message, the communications director, Malcolm (perfectly played by Peter Capaldi), who tries to fix the problem, and a handful of other British and American politicos, all of whom are looking out for number 1. The film is set vaguely in the run-up to the Iraq war, but it doesn't feel dated, because the criticisms it levels are more structural than topical.
And it's funny. I can't repeat that enough. As proof, here's a clip featuring Malcolm telling Simon just how much he fucked up when he said that "war is unforeseeable."
"We've got enough Pentegon goons here to stage a fuckin' coup d'etat."
If you have fancy TV, you can watch In The Loop on demand by clicking here.
As long as we're here, I'll pass along another movie recommendation, because why not. Yesterday, Molly and I saw Flame and Citron, a film about the Danish resistance in 1943 and 1944. Holy hell it was awesome! So badass. It's about these two guys, Flame and Citron, who go around killing Nazis one by one. There just two guys, with guns, and a few friends, and the sack it takes to kill Nazis at their door. Do you have that sack?! Do you?!?!?!?!
Here's the trailer.
I highly recommend seeing both of these movies if you get a chance. Movie review time over.
I have nothing at all to say about the "beer summit" that this picture doesn't capture perfectly. If you had to choose one image to display how foul, trivial, and embarrassing our national media is, I'm not sure you could find a better one than this.
Juxtaposition, you're a doll. Give me a call when they make Cheney drink a shot of monkey stool for every death in Iraq. Until then, ugh. (via Wonkette)
This morning, I received an e-mail from FireDogLake, asking people to call progressive members of congress and ask them to support a plan with a strong single payer option. That website, with instruction on who to call, can be found here.
The e-mail from FDL reads in part as follows:
"Dear Friend, It's working. Your phone calls are making the difference.
The progressive caucus is finally realizing it can stand up for a real public option. Yesterday progressive members actually blocked the Blue Dogs from watering down health care reform - for the time being."
Their article about the "liberal insurrection" in the House can be found here. FDL is "cautiously optimistic" about these new events, though ComedyandPolitics is not optimistic in the slightest, for several reasons. Here is one of them, from the New York Times this morning:
"Efforts to pass sweeping health care legislation took a big step forward on Wednesday as House Democratic leaders reached an agreement with fiscally conservative party members that would cut the bill’s cost and exempt many small businesses from having to provide health benefits to workers.
...
Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, the chief negotiator for the fiscally conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs, said the changes were “a huge win for us.”"[emphasis mine.]
That juxtaposition should more than speak for itself.
Here's the thing. Anybody who has any faith at all in the Democratic Party to lead the way to a more progressive and just society is delusional. I could link to hundreds of articles that make this point, but Matt Taibbi's blog post from two days ago hits all the right notes. He writes:
Make no mistake, this [watering down of the health care bill] has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Bill Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds.
The reason a real health-care bill is not going to get passed is simple: because nobody in Washington really wants it. There is insufficient political will to get it done. It doesn’t matter that it’s an urgent national calamity, that it is plainly obvious to anyone with an IQ over 8 that our system could not possibly be worse and needs to be fixed very soon, and that, moreover, the only people opposing a real reform bill are a pitifully small number of executives in the insurance industry who stand to lose the chance for a fifth summer house if this thing passes.
It won’t get done, because that’s not the way our government works. Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters.
That last sentence describes our country and government as accurately as anything I've ever read. And if any Obama apologists are getting upset with me right now, read the following passage from The Hill:
"Within hours of the liberal complaints, Obama was on the phone with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a fellow Illinois Democrat and Energy and Commerce member who is in charge of the healthcare issue for the Progressive Caucus.
He told her the bill should go forward, Schakowsky said."
We now have a country coming out of the most disgraceful period since the administration of Andrew Jackson, a Democratic president with overwhelming political capital, a Democratic majority in the House, a Democratic and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and a issue (health care) that will cripple this country if it is not dealt with in a progressive way. And what is happening? The exact same thing that always happens. Democrats make noise about universal health care, and a robust public option, and then when a bill gets put on the floor the lobbyists and special interests are the only groups that really win.
If anybody, ANYBODY, thinks that supporting the Democratic party as an idea after this disgraceful episode will help the poor, the uninsured, and the most at-risk patients, then nothing at all will dissuade them from that delusional position. What possibly could?
Vacation time is now over and normal life resumes. My alarm clock this morning was particularly loud, giving further evidence to my belief that that foul machine has it out for me personally. Like Boroughs' typewriter in Naked Lunch, I imagine my alarm clock transforms into a ruthless bug at night, waiting in the wings to torture me from 7:50am to 8:14am, depending on my snooze cycle.
The trip was amazing though. Seattle lived up to, and in some ways exceeded, an already high standard it had set for itself several years earlier. Chop Suey on Wednesday night in Seattle is my new favorite night in comedy. San Francisco was great as well. The Punchline is a fantastic club (thanks again to Ali Wong for the spot) that I'll hopefully get another chance to work sooner rather than later.
And in a perfect example of form fitting content, my trip of comedy shows ended with a marriage, which was both funny and touching, and gave me a chance to see some fantastic people I hadn't been in touch with in far too long.
Big thanks to everybody who put me up for a night, or several, and here's hoping that we all see each other again real soon and dance.
I'm in Seattle right now, so blogging will be light to non-existent in all likelihood for the next 2 weeks. But! The Onion just used another of my headlines! Woo! Here's the link.
Here's the headline:
Man At Bar Clinging To Muted 'King Of Queens' Episode Like Life Preserver
The next time you find yourself in that situation, know that I (and all of the rest of us) have been there too.
This amazing video of two guys fighting goes on for a long time, but it's pretty funny. The doorman is completely non-plussed by the low-level action happening in front of him, as are the two people who WALK AROUND A BRAWL to get through the lobby. (via The Awl)
This video is a few days old, but it's well worth watching for Anderson Cooper's reactions alone. At minute 4, he starts to wonder if a joke is being played on him.
Fox News anchor Shep Smith holds the distinguished title of "least insane man at Fox" because he has not yet personally killed a Palestinian, and, as a result, liberals tend to like him. He seems like the kind of guy who would fire off a few rounds into the air in the middle of a street fight and yell out, "All right fuckers, everybody calm the FUCK down!"
Here's a link to see Shep just about lose it, then bring himself back from the brink.
Roger Cohen's semi-weekly dispatches from Iran have been one of the recent highlights of the NY Times' editorial page. In his column today, he argues that it may be best for Obama to refrain from any new diplomatic outreaches to Ahmadinejad as a means of putting pressure on that country after it's tumultuous election. Truth be told, I mildly disagreed with his arguments, but not enough to write about it, until I saw this! [emphasis mine]:
The price of Obama’s engagement may just have become Ahmadinejad’s departure. I think it has. His defenestration is not impossible; it would be forced from within where disaffected clerics and moderates abound;
Holy moly! For those unfamiliar with the definition of defenestration, here it is:
–noun -the act of throwing a thing or esp. a person out of a window: the defenestration of the commissioners at Prague.
Good lord! Roger Cohen, respected op-ed columnist for the New York Times wants to throw I'm-a-dinner-jacket out of a window! What is this? Prague?! Again, from the ol' dictionary:
defenestration 1620, "the action of throwing out of a window," from L. fenestra "window." A word invented for one incident: the "Defenestration of Prague," May 21, 1618, when two Catholic deputies to the Bohemian national assembly and a secretary were tossed out the window (into a moat) of the castle of Hradshin by Protestant radicals. It marked the start of the Thirty Years War.
That picture is from the wiki-dinner-jacket article on defenestration. Cohen may have left himself a legal out, though, as the wiki definition claims [emphasis mine]:
Although defenestrations can be fatal depending on the height of the window through which a person is thrown (see Falling), or lacerations from broken glass, the act of defenestration need not carry the intent or result of death.
You're a smart cookie, Cohen! But you'll slip up someday, and when you do, ComedyandPolitics will be there.
The few people in the world who believe they have found the one, true God are notoriously rational and scientific. It is in this clear, grounded spirit that Plumber Joey! [! mine] offered up his evidence as to why he shouldn't run for elected office. WorldNetDaily reports (via Thinkprogress):
Asked if he [Joe the Plumber] has plans to run for public office, he replied, "I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, 'No.'"
That's right folks. God said, "no."
To celebrate this unlikely parallel thinking between this blog and God, here is a song by the wonderful Dan Bern, aptly titled "God Said No." (Apologies for the truly awful video that accompanies it. It was all they had.)
As an tangentially related afterthought, check out Hitchens' latest article on Slate. I rarely agree with him as much as I do on this issue. The piece is a funny, vicious attack on Nixon, and few writers are funnier and more vicious than Hitchens. He writes:
In debates with religious people, I keep being told that even if not all of religion's supernatural claims can be defended as literally true, at least it can be said that religion encourages morality and makes people behave better. In every Nixon tape that has so far been released, he is at his lowest and ugliest and most inhuman when being incited and encouraged and sometimes outbid by the most famous Christian ever to be born on American soil [Billy Graham]. I merely pass on the observation.
I can't recommend reading the rest of the column highly enough.
Bill O'Reilly is generally and correctly thought of as one of the worst people currently living. If you follow the link below, however, you will see a man grasping with the complex moral issue of whether or not murder is something that people should be doing on their own, in the streets, after TV pundits tell them to. It's like Dostoevsky!
O'Reilly recently got a lot of heat for calling health-care-provider George Tiller "Tiller the baby killer" on his nightly opinion/hate show. When a fringe lunatic murdered Tiller, Billy was all, "oh, wow, I can't believe that happened! Oh me oh my I NEVER wanted that!"
Since that controversy, O'Reilly must take the unfamiliar position of not advocating murder on his show. He recently had Geraldo--who, by the way, not-so-subtly called for the execution of a private citizen by other private citizens--on the show, and the two of them discussed the finer points of mob justice. Geraldo is all excited about this new era wherein the populace takes the law into it's own collective, righteous, Fox News-watching hands, but O'Reilly must force himself to play devil's advocate and disagree. He is obviously uncomfortable with this new "pro-life" stance, as indicated by his stumbling over phrases like, "Now, we shouldn't actually KILL these people, right?"
I disagree with parts of Berlet's argument in the Fresh Air interview, particularly when he equates left- and right-wing extremism. Although I don't subscribe to the Truther movement, I have found that--by and large--that community is driven by skepticism of the official government explanation of 9/11, not bigotry, xenophobia, or any of the other wonderhate ideologies that are so often a part of right-wing extremism. That said, the interview is still well worth listening to. Here's a small excerpt from his Huffpo piece:
Demagogues and conspiracy theorists use the same four "tools of fear." These are 1) dualism; 2) scapegoating; 3) demonization; and 4) apocalyptic aggression. The tools of fear are a connected constellation of frames, narratives, and processes used by demagogues to mobilize resentment and undermine the democratic process.
The basic dynamics remain the same no matter the ideological leanings of the demonizers or the identity of their targets. Meanwhile, our ability to resolve disputes through civic debate and compromise is hobbled. It is the combination of demagogic demonization and widespread scapegoating that is so dangerous. In such circumstances, angry allegations can quickly turn into apocalyptic aggression and violence targeting scapegoated groups like Jews or immigrants.
Let's just say it's lucky for this blog that the Irish are now just considered White, because if they were hated like they used to be, I'd be blogging from my mom's basement.
Iran recently became the cause celebre for keyboard warriors--such as this blog--and well-meaning internet people the world over. We had important work to do! There was retweeting, avatar-color turning (which I did and I'm not apologizing for--yes, it was purely symbolic, but probably better than nothing, if only in a small way), video sharing, location jamming...
The list goes on. For reasons that are not yet clear, the weekend coup in Honduras has not captured the imagination of the world in the same way. While the situations aren't identical, one would think that if Americans can get worked up over a fraudulent election in Iran, they can also get worked up over the military ousting of a democratically elected president of a country that the United States has had a military presence in since the 1980s.
Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at NYU and author of Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, spoke on Democracy Now yesterday and had this to say:
The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government.
Yikes! Yowza! Etc. Grandin continued:
Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras. Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances. So if the US is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward. Zelaya will return, if the United States—if Obama and Hillary Clinton are sincere in their statements about returning Zelaya to power.
In a show that Honduras really may be taking its cues from Washington, the NY Times reports today:
In the face of criticism from across the hemisphere, the new government hunkered down in Mr. Zelaya’s old office, ringed by soldiers and defending its actions as a bid to save the country’s democracy, not undermine it.
Acting outside the law to preserve it! I'm pretty sure that the Bush/Obama administrations have used that same rationale to justify suspension of habeus corpus rights. The world is finally looking back to the USA for moral guidance. Shining city on the hill!
