Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Health Insurers' Willing Executioners

Baucus, Grassley, Hatch, Snowe. These are the murderers. Murderers for hire. They have been bought, or have willing sold themselves, to the Health Insurers — Wellpoint, Aetna, Cigna, United.... We remain ill, we die so they can make money.

In mythology and religious history, these vile creatures have their ancestors. In Dante, the Baucuses, Grassleys, Snowes suffer in the lowest levels of hell.

We the People must give them Hell on Earth, now.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

NASA's Messenger Spacecraft Flies by Mercury

Today, September 29th, the Messenger spacecraft will approach to within 142 miles (about 229 km) of the surface of Mercury. That's damn close — closer than many satellites are to Earth's surface.

Using the freeware Celestia, I created this image of what Mercury and the Sun would look like at a distance of 3000 kilometers, much further away than Messenger will be. The Sun looks a lot bigger there. Mercury is just 58 million km from the Sun, as opposed to Earth's 150 million km.
Further down, check out the comparison of how the Sun looks here on Earth with how it looks on Mercury (courtesy of messenger-education.org or here too). Click on the images to see full-size.


Monday, September 28, 2009

Twittering Again (too lazy to type)

Be afraid, be very afraid. Taser & all the Brave New Weapons can kill. But the gov't is sure they can be 'safely' used domestically & abroad

Less than Lethal Weapons: US et al (Brits, French, Israelis..) r all hot & bothered re Brave New Weapons LRAD sound cannon, Silent Guardian

Dept of Newspeak, 'Non-Lethal Weapons': LRAD Sound Cannon Used on Pittsburgh G20 Protesters http://gizmodo.com/5369190

Guess this is to make us feel better given we'll never be able to retire: "Workers thriving at 70, 80, and even 100" http://bit.ly/dM52N

RT @wired Fun fact: Colorado River Toads are psychoactive - skin contains hallucinogenic tryptamines which can be harvested by stroking toad

This is a Colorado River Toad. That's doing his best Spock impression. http://bit.ly/bUizU (via @nerdist) (via @wired)

Scary: Bullet Makers Can't Keep Up With Demand http://bit.ly/XjqG7 (via @AlterNet)

RT @bobfertik Historic first! Netroots crowdsourcing produces Bush Torture Indictment 2.0 http://bit.ly/U61Au @davidcnswanson

RT @thenation Arundhati Roy: So, is there life after democracy? Read "What Have We Done to Democracy?" @thenation http://tinyurl.com/ye63nwh

US dollar set to be eclipsed, World Bank president predicts http://bit.ly/11h8HW (via @GuardianUSA)

HuffPost - Obama Adviser Signals White House Giving Up On Climate Change Treaty - http://tinyurl.com/yamhnnw

HuffPost: Senator Schumer Receives $1.65 Million From Wall Street - http://tinyurl.com/ycdm4cx

Micheletti government suspends civil liberties in Honduras http://bit.ly/VuSQu And Obama & US support Micheletti - another Obama triumph

Stunning US successes in Iraq, Afghanistan so GOPs Jon Kyl & Kit Bond are calling for a 3peat in Iran http://bit.ly/p2mf0

Why is Obama pushing harder for Chicago's Olympic bid than he is for real change on the climate policy?

2 Parents, 5 Jobs, STILL not enough Health Care. Republicans, incl Olympia Snowe, think this fine. Obama grovels http://bit.ly/13qdfX

NYC is 49th in the Americas in Quality of Life. http://bit.ly/84WRB @mikebloomberg @Thompson2009

Mercer survey of quality of life finds the top 5 cities in the Americas are all in Canada: http://www.mercer.com/quali...

MAP: India as a growing global power. From Le Monde. http://mondediplo.com/maps/...
about 13 hours ago from web

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Paul Krugman: The American Dream Is Dying

This clip from the Huffington Post:
Krugman: On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country.

On good mornings I think "This is America" and we have always in the past managed to turn ourselves around, and there's an FDR just around the corner.... I was kind of hoping that Obama might be FDR, but maybe not.

If America was officially a third world country, the International Monetary Fund would come in and say, "You have to break the power of your oligarchs. Those banking interests, they have too much power."
...

The truth is that most people don't have parents who [can send them money].

...

The American Dream is not totally dead but it's dying pretty fast. You look at the numbers on social mobility, on the ability of people to move from modest or poor backgrounds up, the United States is way down on the list.... You have a much better chance of getting up the scale in Finland or Sweden or France than in the United States.

On "Real Time with Bill Maher" Friday night, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said that while the American dream is not totally dead, it is "dying pretty fast," particularly when it comes to social mobility. Krugman made this statement during a lengthy discussion with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and host Bill Maher about the troubled state of the American economy and where we are in terms of reforming the system.

Both Krugman and Spitzer expressed optimism that America could right itself in the coming years if the correct steps were taken, but they were also highly critical of the degree of inequality that has become a part of American life and the lack of reform that has so far taken place.

"On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country," Krugman said. "But on good mornings I think, well this is America, we have always in the past managed to turn ourselves around, and there is an FDR just around the corner if we could only find him. I was kind of hoping Obama might be FDR, but maybe not. "

Friday, September 25, 2009

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Will War's Idolaters Ever Just Shut the Fuck Up?

Martin Bright in the Spectator
Incidentally, I now think the invasion was indeed an error: carried out at the wrong time, by the wrong coalition for the wrong reasons. But where I do agree with the “decents” is that those who opposed intervention in 2002/3 were arguing for the murderous Baathist regime to stay in power. This should remain on their conscience just as the murderous consequences of the invasion are on the conscience of those who supported the war.
(via Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber, via comments at Aaronovitch Watch)

Martin Bright's assertion that those who argued against the war were arguing for preservation of the Baathist regime is simply idiotic. False logic, false dichotomy.

First, it is patently obvious that the intent of the two sides was different, and the difference is essential. The pro-war brigade intended that the 'coalition' go to war. (I'm tempted to say they wanted a war. That might be unfair, though not in the case of the Dick Cheneys. It both fair and accurate that a significant portion of them wanted to see Arabs killed. Whether Martin Bright is among those genocidal racists I do not know. Daniel Pipes, Ann Coulter and their ilk certainly are.)

The anti-war activists expressly (1) advocated other techniques for achieving 'regime change (if that really was the goal of war's advocates — it wasn't), or (2) argued against war on the grounds that the consequences of war would be disastrous (which has proven true), or (3) argued that Bush & Co had not only failed to make their case but had likely misrepresented the facts (at best) or lied outright (which has also proven true). This is by no means an exhaustive list of the arguments against the war. The second argument is unambiguously one of accepting the lesser of two evils — by no stretch of the imagination an argument for the continuation of the lesser evil.

Let's take an example from ethics and popular entertainment. A person is threatened with the murder of her child if she does not surrender secret X — the nuclear launch codes that will enable terrorists to kill vast numbers. Any of us can easily imagine the person herself desperately arguing that she cannot surrender the codes. I do not imagine many, if any, saying that she is arguing for the murder of her child even though a consequence of her following the line of her own argument will be the child's death. You might as well suggest that, because she won't surrender the codes, she is killing her child. And of course, the weak-minded right-wing did indeed take this line of un-reasoning from 2001 on — that those not "with us" were "against us," those against the war were for terrorists. Utter nonsense, bordering on actionable libel.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Plausible Stupidity

Have you noticed the frequency with which conservatives and assorted right-wingers are caught denying they said something revolting when in fact they did say that thing.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, John Boehner, Dan Quayle.

Let's face it: These guys are dumb. They just aren't particularly intelligent. Whatever native intellect they once possessed was long ago obliterated by the blind hatreds and bigotries that infest right-wing thinking in the United States.

We need a new term — Plausible Stupidity. Incidents of right-wing Plausible Stupidity are typically characterized by a flat denial by the wingnut even when confronted with direct evidence.

Monday, September 14, 2009

My Twitting Twitting Twitting

  1. IF there is a time when it is incumbent upon us to speak freely, it is before the president, who so far is proving deaf as a doornail
  2. 2. Decorum be damned. If free speech exists anywhere in US, it exists in Congress (may not be practiced but it does exist) AND
  3. I've caught flak 4 defending Joe Wilson. 2 thoughts: 1: Wilson is a idiot & like rt-wing generally, engaging in no more than mudslinging BUT
  4. If "He's our president" is true, then is "We're his people" true also? (Maybe some will want to say "We're his subjects".)
  5. Still waiting for explanation of why we owe the president unique respect that doesn't take form: "Because he's our President!"
  6. @mikebloomberg We know you sneer at questions, Mike. But: What'll happen to your Brave New York when unemployment stays over 10% for years
  7. RT @Greg_Palast When Obama opened..talk to Congress sayng he'd saved..economy, I thought all that's missing is..banner: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
  8. Between 3 and 6 percent of Earth's total surface is rainforest. 50 percent of all animal & plant species live in that 3 to 6 percent.
  9. Darwin film can't find US distributor because...too many Americans still have a fit over evolution. http://tr.im/yBl6
  10. #SinglePayer & #PublicOption Debate: we know what moves Libs - Justice. What moves rt-wing? Money? Is that best they can say 4 themselves?
  11. Question for Republicons & Blue Doggy Dems: Why does private insurance have priority over getting health care to every American?
  12. Sen. Gregg, NH, "no way the private sector will be able to compete" w/ #PublicOption YET Britain France Canada have both http://tr.im/yAo4
  13. New York Times admits #PublicOption dead. Obama's big biz bosses, health insurance & big pharma oppose it. End of story http://tr.im/yAo4
  14. Democrats are afflicted by the need to have everyone like them, Republicans by the need to get their way - 2 siblings forever fighting
  15. The 'Moderate Center' supported war in Iraq, bailouts for billionaires, denial of rights for detainees. Some moderation! Some center!
  16. The 'Moderate Center' (which is neither) paints all left & right as fanatics, then claims the 'Right' to ignore them (esp. the left)
  17. US political discourse is marked by each band of the spectrum shouting it needn't talk to others. The 'Moderate Center' is worst on this.
  18. Is there an 'American attitude' that leads athletes to behave revoltingly, like Serena Williams, and politicians to act like spoiled brats?
  19. Nikki White because she was denied health care - she had no insurance. http://tr.im/yzut
  20. @BeathThePressDB Do you believe estimates of number of Americans w/out health insurance are understated, as are figures for unemployment?
  21. Personal vitriol upending political compromise isn't new: Witness Alexander Hamilton & John Adams, election of 1800; Hamilton & Burr...
  22. 1790 Hamilton et al agree to US capital on Potamac. New York becomes business capital. 2009 Wall St moves to Washington: http://tr.im/yzoY
  23. @KatrinaNation "degradation of..political sphere..hatred" needs understanding, much as y some hate US. It's not new, the ill-formed polity
  24. Any thoughts on the psychological profile of @mikebloomberg ? I suspect a little man bedeviled by longstanding feelings of inadequacy
  25. Suggestion @mikebloomberg - You have a multi-million dollar mansion in Bermuda. Move there & appoint yourself Lord Protector or whatever
  26. Did @mikebloomberg just wake up one morning and think, "New York just can't do without me. I am too important to the city."
  27. GOP & Blue Doggy Dem states to get hammered most by Climate Change in US! Must be The Wrath of God! http://tr.im/yydD
  28. 80% of Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch (twice the size of Texas) is just discards by people on shore. http://tr.im/yyco
  29. 10% of the 260 million TONS of plastic produced worldwide each yr end up in oceans. 26 million tons. 52 billion pounds. http://tr.im/yybq
  30. Giant rat discovered ... NOT in New York subways! http://tr.im/yyap
  31. And now a word from our sponsor, Planet Earth: "Before you try to re-engineer me to stave off warming, think." http://tr.im/yya7
  32. They're all Lucky! They're all Stars! Be Faithful and Be Saved!
  33. Who is Your Personal Lucky Star? Could it be Timothy Geithner or Larry Summers or Lloyd Blankfein or maybe Barack Obama or Dick Cheney?
  34. Do you have a personal relationship with Your Lucky Stars?
  35. Join The 1st Church of Your Lucky Stars. Church of Modern Media Saints! Church of The New York Times, Harvard, Goldman Sachs. Say Amen!
  36. Have you thanked your lucky stars today?
  37. Every day I thank my lucky stars we have 'experts' 'journalists' 'scholars' to tell us what's right, what's wrong, what's true, what's false
  38. Bernanke, Blankfein, Thain, Greenberg, Lewis. The very archetypes of Failure by any reasonable measure. But they = Success in US Meritocracy
  39. Go to the Hugh Sansom Business School. Cost: Zero. 3 Easy Lessons: Lie Cheat Steal. Harvard BS teaches same, charges over $100k
  40. Meritocracy Case 5: Bernard Kerik, former NYPD Commish, Harvard Kennedy School; now under indictment for conspiracy, wire & mail fraud
  41. Meritocracy Case 4: Mike Bloomberg, NYC Boss, Harvard BS; currently proving understanding of democracy by overriding voters, buying 3rd term
  42. Meritocracy Case 3: John Thain, ex Merrill Lynch CEO, Goldman Sachs 'alum', MIT, proved superior intellect shitting $35,000 on toilet
  43. Meritocracy Case Study 2: Lloyd Blankfein, CEO Goldman Sachs, Harvard U, Harvard Law, proved business skill by stealing 100+ billion from US
  44. Meritocracy Case Study 1: Katherine Weymouth, Washington Post publisher, Harvard Oxford Stanford, inherited job, now driving into oblivion
  45. Myth of Meritocracy, Pt. 1: How many people have a 'boss' who couldn't organize a riot?
  46. Truth about @nytimes reporter Stephen Farrell who got 3 people killed in Afghanistan because he wouldn't heed warning http://tr.im/yxdj
  47. Georgia arrests man, seizes 500 turtles...to protect the turtles. Man is acquitted. But Georgia has *killed* 362 of the turtles...protection
  48. Newt "PornBoy" Gingrich names Porn Co 'Entrepreneur of The Year' for 'Stimulating' ... uh ... the economy
  49. Birthers Truthers now Tenthers. Governors of limited intelligence may challenge Fed HealthCare by appeal to 10th Amendment http://tr.im/yx9p
  50. @washingtonpost Heard you guys lost $143 million. Maybe Katherine Weymouth should go to school that actually requires learning something
  51. @KBAndersen WaPo lost $143 mill: Katherine Weymouth proves the value of Harvard, Oxford, Stanford degrees - big poles up big asses
  52. Here's the Greek or Old Testament solution 4 Annie Leibovitz: She can keep 1 mill for each silver gelatin print of her's that she can eat
  53. Annie Leibovitz charges $100,000 for 1 portrait (yeah u read it right) & she still can't keep her financial shit together. Just like Wall St
  54. Leibovitz: 3 adjoining houses in Greenwich Village (many millions); Estate in Rhinebeck (more millions); Chutzpah - priceless
  55. If Annie Leibovitz is such an 'artiste', what's with her money-grubbing lust? Whatever happened to old world Greek or biblical justice...
  56. Wall St gets bailout, Annie Leibovitz gets reprieve. http://bit.ly/AMnKB What do us regular folks get? A kick in the teeth.
  57. Can I get an Annie Leibovitz deal on my credit cards? Maybe I have to owe millions first. http://tr.im/ywN9
  58. RT @wiredscience: Universal "death stench": Is dead bug juice the best defense against infestations? Yummy, yummy.
  59. 1 Yr After Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St http://bit.ly/Lt2L1 Surprised? Obama & Co REWARDED Wall St w/ 100s of billions
  60. http://tinyurl.com/nbraqm - Summers: Unemployment To Remain "Unacceptably High" For YEARS. Good for green shoots?...
  61. RT @haaretzonline Amos Harel: Clock is ticking for Iran as Israel appears ready for strike http://bit.ly/3q4aJA
  62. The hysteria over the mere shout against a president is proof of how completely Americans believe that President is also King
  63. Where does this idea that we owe fealty to the president come from? Joe Wilson's a vile idiot for lying, not for daring to challenge Obama
  64. Health industry lobbyist sees some sense, particularly on the criminal behavior of health insurers http://tr.im/yu5P
  65. Brzezinski: We're moving "to a [Soviet] level of military force" http://tr.im/yu3h In fact, with US mercenaries, we exceed Soviet level
  66. 1979: Brzezinski on Afghan war "We've given Soviets their Vietnam" 2009: B says "We're giving ourselves Soviets Vietnam" http://tr.im/yu3h
  67. RT @FDLnewswire Pelosi Fundraiser at UnitedHealth Lobbyist’s Home, just after Pelosi shitcans the #PublicOption http://bit.ly/RVHhp
  68. RT @haaretzonline France's interior minister allegedly caught on cam uttering anti-Arab slur http://bit.ly/4CVqGq
  69. Jeter beats Lou Gehrig's all-time hits record! Here's to Jeter & to The Iron Horse, one of the finest ball players ever http://tr.im/ytP3
  70. "Bring Richard's...private art collection into your home" So reads ad 4 re Weisman's collection http://tr.im/ytKc Someone took it literally
  71. RT @jeremyscahill UnitedHealth Lobbyist Announces Pelosi Fundraiser As She Begins Backing Off #PublicOption http://bit.ly/YtHDY
  72. Person stands on pier next to life preserver but does nothing as swimmer drowns. Life guard does SAME. Who has committed greater crime?
  73. Obama is engaged in a war purportedly to bring to justice the murderers of 3000 Americans. Health insurers kill hundreds of thousands.
  74. [The People] can exercise their constitutional right of amending [the government] or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it
  75. Lincoln "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it" Not Obama, Not GOP, Not Dems, Not Insurers, Not the Rich
  76. @nprnews "Muslims Seen As Facing Discrimination" http://su.pr/1jGpoN No, NOT Muslims SEEN as facing.... Muslims ARE facing discrimination
  77. If Obama will not prosecute and impose sentence on the health insurance murderers, We the People must do so.
  78. Angela Braly, Wellpoint. H Edward Hanway, Cigna. Ronald Williams, Aetna. Murderers all. All should be subject to the penalty any murderer is
  79. Sacrificing people's health and lives for money makes a person a murderer for hire. It's a crime. It's murder.

Monday, September 7, 2009

What Rough Beast

What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Now we know, the beast Blankfein, the beast Braly

We the People need to provoke a suit for libel by Angela Braly or Lloyd Blankfein so that, via discovery, we can uncover the hideous beast

Perhaps a new subspecies has evolved, so retrograde devolution from Homo sapiens - Homo moneta, Man of money. That crawling creature, leech

We need a new word, not "lust", to describe the ravenous hunger for money of Lloyd Blankfein/Goldman Sachs or Angela Braly/Wellpoint

RT @nytimes Movie Studios See a Threat in Growth of Redbox http://bit.ly/6znXn (translation: studios see threat in competition)

RT @ThePublicRecord Growing Number of Guantanamo Detainees Cleared For Release Remain Imprisoned. http://bit.ly/4x83wa


Monday, August 31, 2009

DISNEY BUYS MARVEL COMICS

What are things coming too? I confess, I do not believe that Marvel Comics is that cat's jimjams of comics. But, DAMN!

Snow White, Mickey Mouse, TinkerBell versus SpiderMan, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Captain America

Captain America, my fellow Americans. Snow White and Mickey Mouse own Captain America.

@wired @harrymccracken Who would win fight? Mickey Mouse v SpiderMan http://wp.me/pg9un-4gg SpiderMouse? SnowMan? The Frankenstein Minstrel?

Snow White hooks #Spiderman. #Disney buys #Marvel Comics. #MickeyMouse = SuperHero? End of world as we know it http://bit.ly/a7vdn

I'm raving. I know it. I'm shocked, stunned, dumbfounded, gobsmacked.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY


Let's make this intuitive. Suppose we had $10,000 to distribute to 10,000 people. The current inequality means that 1 (one) person would receive $600. The top ten percent (10%) or 1000 people would receive about half the money ($4970 to be precise). The remaining 90% would receive the other half. So the remaining $5000 would be split among 9000 people. So one person would get $600 while 9000 would have to make do with about 55 CENTS each. (Of course the distribution for the 90% is not linear, so in fact the poorest 20 percent probably have to make do with something like 10 cents each).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Another Great Example of How Economics 'Reporting' Works

Yesterday the big economics news was that home prices were up in May. Today the big news is that first-time unemployment claims are up above what was expected.

Yesterday, the good news was universally hailed as a sign of more good news to come: a 'trough' has been reached, the drop in home prices has bottomed out, etc.

Today, the bad news on jobs is just an 'aberration': "Proper accounting of seasonal factors would explain away this unexpected increase in unemployment." (Note that everyone expected some kind of increase in jobless numbers, just not by this much.) NPR, for example, emphasizes that "the trend is down" in numbers of first-time unemployment claims (again, not down in overall numbers of unemployed).

Some have pointed out that there are seasonal variations in home prices. Easier to look in warm weather, properties look more appealing, problems like heating, are less apparent, more people are moving (students, families with kids out of school for the summer). Curiously, this was not immediately or prominently offered as a caveat with regard to the 'good news' about home prices.

Contrary to what some assert, the media does indeed get to pick and choose its facts. The excuse is "editorial necessity" or "experts tell us". The same editorial necessities and expert advice that guided reporting on Iraq, the entire Middle East, and of course, the economy.

Unemployment Up,
Durable Good Orders Down,
Profits Down, But ...
Home Prices Up So ... ?

Yes, one bit of good news — good news especially for huge property owners — and that is sufficient for economists, politicians, journalists and pundits to start hailing the "trough". The economy has bottomed out.

One month, one statistic, and the sunlit uplands are hailed:
By contrast, here is some of the news that evidently can be ignored when asking how the economy is doing:
  • 584,000 Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week. This was instantly dismissed as a seasonal anomaly; nevermind that, even if anomalous, it proves that unemployment is still climbing rapidly. The total number of people collecting benefits decreased — probably because people are reaching the end of the alloted time for collecting.
  • There remains near-universal agreement that unemployment will exceed 10% nationally.
  • Durable goods orders are down. Unless you exclude automobiles and aircraft, in which case they're up. When data element x or y upsets the picture you are trying to paint, come up with an ad hoc reason to exclude that data.
  • Sony posts a loss of $390.5 million
  • Profits down 66% for quarter at Exxon Mobil
  • Volkswagen 6-month profit down 81%

Friday, July 24, 2009

More on Obama on Gates

This was written in response to an essay by Melissa Harris-Lacewell in The Nation.

I largely agree with Harris-Lacewell on the Gates affair. I find Obama's involvement more interesting. Some thoughts:

1. My impression of Gates is that he is a prima donna at an institution specializing in prima donnas. There are a great many African-American scholars doing better, more insightful work elsewhere. Gates is a great promoter and popularizer (needed in their own right, but not scholarship).

2. If Gates were the edgy radical that some want to condemn him as, he would not be at Harvard, which is notoriously hostile to independent thinking. It is an essentially conservative, money-driven institution.
This point is best illustrated by the case of Cornel West, driven out of Harvard by the intolerant bigotries of then-president Lawrence Summers who is now -- surprise! -- a member of the Obama administration. So much for Obama's concern about bigotry. (Summers has repeatedly express revolting positions regarding women, blacks, Arabs and all who criticize Israel.)

3. Let's be blunt. Racism is rampant in the US. Arab-Americans can best attest to this today. But Gates and Obama both enjoy singular privilege. By no stretch of the imagination do they instantiate anyone's common experience. To me, Gates has appeared eager to appear a victim (which he may indeed be, but his reaction is a distinct phenomenon in its own right).

5. More interesting, Obama's reaction --(A) Were this a white person victimized by standard police excesses (as were many in NYC by Mayor Bloomberg's totalitarianism during the '04 RNC), Obama wouldn't dream of criticizing the police. --(B) Were this a black man in Harlem shot by cops for Living While Black, Obama would be silent. And worst --(C) Obama has actively rejected justice in the case of Bush et al., greatest war criminals in 30 years.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Obama, Justice for a Friend, Justice for the Rest of Us

A letter I have written to Barack Obama:

Dear Mr. Obama:

Regarding your eagerness to jump in without knowing the facts, you show yet again your indifference to fact, substance and justice. As you have with your bailout, your exclusion of labor from discussions on stimulus packages, your exclusion of single-payer as an option on healthcare, you show yet again that you are a president of the privileged -- indifferent to the circumstances of the people whom you serve.

You work for us. You are our servant, lest you forget.

Henry Louis Gates may be right. The officer may be. They may both be wrong. Who knows -- probably not even them. We do know that Gates, like you, is among the most privileged people of color in the entire world. He has little if any first-hand experience of the conditions of those people he now claims to represent. You, admittedly, have somewhat greater claim in that regard. But let's not pretend that you have any idea what it is like to be black in Bedford-Stuyvesant and confronting a cop determined that you are guilty. You are utterly ignorant on the conditions of any such person or the conditions of roughly 300 million other Americans. If you did, you could not now be displaying such revolting hypocrisy on economic justice or civil liberties.

Whatever the facts and ultimate outcome in Cambridge, you jumped in -- for a personal friend -- without any more facts at hand than any of us. YET you won't say WORD ONE in criticism of ANYTHING the Bush administration did -- torture, war in Iraq, attacks on civil liberties. You say NOTHING in substantive pursuit of justice. You rule out any investigation of likely Bush war crimes.

YET you leap to pre-judge a tempest in a teapot in Cambridge, MA.

Inexcusable.

With regards,

Hugh Sansom

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

American Gods

Michael Jackson has ascended to the throne of the Gods. He has become what Americans needed him to be, something he grasped he had to be . . . infinitely maleable, all things to all people. The formless matter suitable for any person to fashion into whatever idol was needed.

No surprise that Jackson worked so hard to refashion himself. He was American culture's Frankenstein monster, simultaneously a masterpiece and a horror.

Now he has done what Elvis did before him, and so too the lesser god John Lennon . . . . He's made a good career move. Now he can be fully commodified. Utterly vilified by that petty moronic bigot, Congressman Peter King. Canonized by that self-serving greasy opportunist, Reverend Al Sharpton.

Elvis departed to the realm of Graceland, Lennon to Strawberry Fields, Jackson to Neverland. The manufactured realm of the unreal.

So I have a response to the response to his death. I do not understand the popular reaction. I did not understand Michael Jackson. I rarely thought of him in any connection. Nevertheless, on hearing of his death, I called my ex with a sense that something that marked our youth had passed. So be it.

I am more interested in the contempt thinly veiled in the remarks of some in the media and elsewhere, a contempt expressed unambiguously by Peter King. King himself can be tossed aside. Anyone who's had the misfortune to hear two syllables uttered by him knows him to be one of the stupidest idiots in a Congress of Idiots.

What was so clear in the reactions of some, like Brooke Shields, was genuine compassion. And in truth, I feel great pity for Michael Jackson. Who knows what was really going on for him. But the sight of his daughter breaking down on the stage of that mass market fare-thee-well must move any person (but not Peter King).

He was indeed destined. Destiny is the application of force by a higher power. For him, the higher power was his father. His Son had to die for somebody's sins. Might as well be the father's.

So, deprived of any childhood, he spent his life trying to invent one, recover one, discover one — the search for lost time.

And let's be perfectly honest. Let us suppose that Michael Jackson really was the person that Peter King claimed. In the scheme of things, the also recently departed Robert McNamara was vastly worse. McNamara, a true war criminal, was treated with the greatest respect by many of the same media hacks marvelling at the send-off for Jackson. But Jackson, even under the worst possible light, did nothing remotely as reprehensible as McNamara.

In time, other gods of the powerful will kick off — Henry Kissinger, Ariel Sharon, Dick Cheney, George W . . . take your pick. Every one of them will be treated with near-reverence by the likes of The New York Times or CNN or NPR. Yet every single one of those icons of power is guilty of vastly greater crimes — crimes against humanity — than Michael Jackson.

No prominent figure in government or the media will dare speak ill of any of those war criminals when the time comes. Obama, President of the United States, won't dare speak ill of them now.

So a word to all those who sneer at the hullabaloo over Michael Jackson. If you are capable of lionizing some of the worst Americans ever to crawl across the Earth, what does that make you?

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Biden Relays an Obamal Bull on Foreign Policy

In the flea circus of Sunday morning blab sessions among politicians, pundits and 'experts', Vice President Joseph Biden dropped a clanger. Asked by George Stephanopoulos about a possible Israeli attack on Iran, he said, "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." (For example, Lebanon and the Occupied Territories of Palestine.) Biden said further that the US cannot "dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

This directly contravenes the express American position with respect to North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and of course, Iran. It's a position we all know the US takes; thus, according to the BBC, "White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Mr Biden was not signalling any change of approach on Iran or Israel."

Some nations, we know, are more equal than others. Israel is the first among equals in timid, sheepish, money-grubbing Washington. So Israel has blanket immunity. Other friends do not. Britain's sovereignty does not give it the right to investigate American war crimes. The US threatened to withhold key intelligence info, purportedly vital to British security, if Britain did not quash any investigations into torture and other crimes at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Spain is certainly under similar or greater pressure.

While this does not mark a major shift in American policy, it does serve as declarative punctuation in the US position on Iran. It marks the official cessation of any US government concern or support for pro-democracy activists in Iran. Iran must be popularly demonized to lay the foundation for American acquiescence in a new round of Israeli war crimes.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Mountain Men, Modern and Old, and Those Who Follow Them

The New York Times runs a story on July 5th on the story and mystery of Everett Ruess, a young, 'modern' mountain man, who disappeared in Utah three quarters of a century ago — in 1934 — at just 20 years of age.

His remains were believed found and confirmed by DNA analysis until the Utah State Archaeologist raised questions about the dentition.

I put "modern" in scare quotes (thus, 'scare') because some might dispute 1934 being "modern" and Utah was far more wild then than it is now.

Ruess "followed his bliss", as Joseph Campbell would have said, lived very much by his own devices, traded his woodcut prints for food, trekked about with a horse or burro. Lived Henry David Thoreau's imagined ideal — simple.

Jon Krakauer writes of Ruess briefly in "Into the Wild" (briefly, because there is little to be said about him).

It's a mystery. A young wanderer probably murdered. Of kind, I think, with Kit Carson, John Colter, Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass, and others who seemed to prefer comparative isolation, the wilderness.

I am among their admirers, even idolaters. The idolaters of those who go alone, or near alone, into the wilderness (rarely, but nevertheless occasionally, against the wilderness). A simpler life. A life of pure beauty, pure art.

I sound like a fucking self-help book.

More to come.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Questions and At Least One Comment for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford

Doesn't the Gov look like the cat that swallowed the canary?
(Bush still manages those "please don't hit me!" eyes.)

Some questions and comments for Gov. Mark Sanford:

1. Did you use a love glove, Gov?

2. Argentina and Appalachian both start with "A" but that's as far as it goes.

3. Did you study at the Strom Thurmond School of Family Values?

4. Do you now see a need for stimulus money? Could go to spelling skills. Compare "Argentina" & "Appalachian"

5. How surprised were you when the space aliens dropped you in Argentina? Did they 'probe' you?

6. Are you being un-American for passing over American affairs for Argentine?

7. Do you plan to join the Silvio Berlusconi Club?

8. Do you plan to join fellow Republican Bob Dole as a spokesman for Viagra?

9. Given your special needs, was Viagra enough?

10. Governor, how much did it cost taxpayers for you to 'go south'?

Suddenly, There Is a Martyr

Then can a I drown an eye, unused to flow. . .

Barack Obama seemed near to a tear on speaking of "the 'heartbreaking' video of a 26-year-old Iranian woman whose last seconds of life were captured by video camera after she was shot on a Tehran street."

"'While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful,' he said, 'we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.'" So he was quoted in The New York Times.

"No iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness." But his iron hypocrisy is. He has quite effectively "shut off the world from bearing witness" to American crimes at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, and elsewhere.

Obama did not show anything like his emotion over Tehran when Israel took the lives of 1500 Palestinians standing up for justice and self-determination just before he took office. Indeed, he defended Israel's war crimes (as most of the world seems the assault). Many members of Congress were even more enthusiastic in their support for Israel's rampage, including some (like John McCain) who now decry Iranian government crimes in Tehran.

Obama has shown no emotion at all for the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in an unjust, unjustified and unjustifiable American war in Iraq. No emotion for the tens of thousands of civilians dead in Afghanistan, numbers bound to grow as he expands the war there.

The most recent tragedy in Afghanistan? The deaths of some 60 people attending a funeral — killed by in American Predator drone attack. The New York Times picked up the story almost a full day after the BBC had first run it. The Times headlines the report on page A6 of the June 24 edition, but devotes only four column inches (including the standard caveats about 'nothing being confirmed') of about seventeen devoting most of the report to Pakistani efforts against specific members of the Taliban.

The New York Daily News (granted, no 'newspaper of record') splashes "Obama grieves for Iranian martyr Neda" above it's full-page headline "Death That Broke His Heart". The Daily News carries no mention of the Predator attack in Pakistan.

The Wall Street Journal, front page, proclaimed "Obama Rips Iran in Tactical Shift". On page A11, under the headline "Rival of Pakistan Taliban Chief is Assassinated", the paper devoted two paragraphs, two column inches, saying "up to 50 militants were reported killed in suspected missile strikes by U.S. pilotless drones" [emphasis mine]. Militants. Both the Times and the BBC refer to the dead as "people". Only the BBC reports that people on the ground say only five of the dead were militants.

The American media mirrors the president's responses. Outrage over Iran. Silence or actual support for Israeli attacks in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the West Bank.

If the Iranian government were to use the standards endorsed by Obama, they would ban (as indeed they have) the distribution of footage like that of suffering protesters on the grounds that it might inflame opinion against the Iranian regime. That is the 'justification' that Obama has used to ban further release of photos of American crimes at Abu Ghraib.

Is it possible Obama does not see the parallel? Is it possible that he has not seen those photos? Not one? If he has seen them, has he not been moved by the injustice of American war criminals?

Obama Decries 'Unjust' Violence

She is dead. A crime justified by nothing more than a brutal determination to silence dissent. Now ask yourself a question: Have you ever seen so graphic an image of an innocent killed by an American attack?

I can think of one — the young girl burned in a napalm attack running naked down a road in Vietnam, over 35 years ago. I can think of no such image, certainly not one receiving such coverage, from an American attack in the past 20 years.

Unjust. Unjustified. Violence.
___________________
President Obama hardened his tone toward Iran on Tuesday, condemning the government for its crackdown against election protesters and accusing Iran’s leaders of fabricating charges against the United States.

In his strongest comments since the crisis erupted 10 days ago, Mr. Obama used unambiguous language to assail the Iranian government during a news conference at the White House, calling himself “appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the past few days.”
So reports The New York Times on the new found indignation of Barack Obama.

"Appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments. . . ."

Is it possible that this man is so small-minded that he does not see the absurdity, the hypocrisy in an American president, in this American president, saying such things?

This is the president who refuses categorically to prosecute or even investigate the Americans who drove this country into a war that has seen tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of deaths — for nothing — for the trumped up fictions eagerly accepted and elaborated by American media and politicians .

This is the president who has hired a significant number of leftovers from the Clinton years, Clinton being the man responsible for years of sanctions and bombings in Iraq which caused something like half a million deaths among children. His henchmen including his partner Hilary, Dennis Ross (now ensconced at the White House), among others.

This is the president who has endorsed continued denial of basic human rights to people who have been imprisoned without charge of due process of any kind for years. The justification for continued imprisonment? "If they weren't guilty before, they are likely to have been radicalized by their imprisonment."

The president who has expanded a war in Afghanistan which has to date seen at least 30,000 civilian deaths at American hands.

This president, who has to date done nothing more than pay lip service to Palestinian democratic aspirations for self-determination. Indeed, Obama endorsed Israel's atrocities in Gaza at the end of the Bush term. He has repeatedly reiterated exactly the 'justifications' Israel itself offers for killing hundreds of civilians to get at one (if any) 'militant'.

And he is only months into his reign.


Unjust?


Unjust. Just. Unjustified. Justified. Violence.

The Iranian despots clearly think themselves justified. Theirs is an act, they think, of self-preservation. The Chinese thought themselves justified in their attacks on Tibetans before, during and after the Olympics.

Most notably in recent history, Israel thought itself 'justified' in a murderous campaign against all 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. In that case, many American politicians, pundits and 'journalists' applauded Israeli 'justice'.


The Principle of the Excluded Left

There is actually a principle at work here, one described at length and repeatedly by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and many many others (all from the excluded left).

An act is justified and just by definition, if it is carried out by the United States. This is a broad statement of the principle stated explicitly by Nixon: "If the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

This principle is widely used in the United States. It is the principle in use when The New York Times or NPR or CNN fail to call torture by Americans torture. It the principle at work when Americans react with genuine indignation on the suggestion that the United States has committed crimes against humanity.

It is more than just a dictionary-style definition. It is a defining element of the way most Americans think. It is certainly not isolated to the US. The Chinese clearly just cannot imagine why anyone would oppose their actions in Tibet. The Israelis, in large majority, cannot grasp that people might think that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon. The British, the French, take your pick. Very nearly every aggressive power simply does not see itself as an aggressor.