The only lesson from the 2010 Midterms...

... is this.

Yup, pretty much encapsulates everything wrong with the Democratic establishment:

Speaking of politicians being scum,

Every liberal should read this post twice, and the links therein.

Liberals, just because we believe that government can provide a safety net and can effectively direct public investment, does not mean that we may trust politicians. Politicians, remember, are scum. Even Alan Grayson and Dennis Kucinich should be treated as if they're about to screw us at any moment. The survival of democracy, at the very least, depends on its citizens not treating politicians like celebrities. The people who cheered on Obama during the election like he was goddamn Justin Bieber might as well have been screaming, "I want you to institute fiscal austerity measures in the middle of a recession because investment bankers come first!!!! Now look at my boobies!!!!"

Institutional analysis becomes conspiracy theory when the government says so.

At least, Cass Sunstein would like to make that official. Papa Cass is one of Obama's closest confidants and head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He's considered to be a major contender for the next Supreme Court opening, which should really scare the shit out of both liberals and conservatives because he's open to the idea of "cognitive infiltration" of those who investigate or foster conspiracy theories. Cass Sunstein is not crazy by the way -- well, yes he is. What I mean is, he acknowledge's that several bad conspiracy theories turned out to be true during the Cold War, like the one about the DOD manufacturing terrorist plots and blaming them on Castro. It's just that now is the present, which as every Serious government official knows has nothing to do with the future. Anyway, why would someone who acknowledges that many government conspiracy theories have been verified as accurate want to have the same government interfere with the public dialogue -- that is, any more than it already has through the MSM? Well, that's an easy one. Glenn Greenwald explores Cass's reasoning behind "cognitive infiltration" in the first link, and I largely agree with his analysis. I think that what it boils down to is this: Cass Sunstein is a bad elitist, which is worse than a neutral elitist. Here are my definitions: 

elitism (neutral) - the belief that elites (those who have distinguished themselves based on merit or subjective criteria) should lead, teach or otherwise influence society in a non-deceptive manner and that this elite guidance achieves the most favorable results for society as a whole.

bad elitism - the belief that elites must deceive the public or conduct covert propaganda in order to achieve the most favorable results for society as a whole.

Does this make sense?  I found the dictionary definitions inadequate. One could write a PhD dissertation on the modern conceptions of elitism, but I've chosen to draw the line between neutral and bad elitism at the point of deception. In this construction, Cass is (not coincidentally) a bad elitist.

P.S. - Do try to muddle through the abstract of Cass's paper in the second link. I think Cass accurately describes most conspiracy theorists as "typically suffer[ing] from a crippled epistemology," but Cass needs to take a timeout and realize that covert government interference in public debate is designed to cripple epistemology in society at-large. If it indeed becomes standard practice to make undisclosed payments to experts who are willing or pleased to tow the government line, then every expert opinion becomes fair game for government skeptics. Now, you could argue that we've been dealing with this sort of corruption for a long time and no epistemological crises have crippled society yet, but Cass seems to be open to the idea that cognitive infiltration be legalized and accepted by the high courts as Constitutional.

The Good War and You

There's one aspect of the Obama Nobel Award story that I haven't heard much about. I haven't heard the usual suspects like Greenwald, Digby, Chris Floyd, etc., ask the question, "Now that a president can win the Peace Prize despite escalating a dirty war, is the Bush Doctrine here to stay?" You know the Bush Doctrine (because you're not Sarah Palin): It's our post-9/11 ad hoc foreign policy of preventative war (and preventative detention and torture). There was a brief debate about it pretty early on because Bush and Co. was trying to distract the public from another debate that should have been taking place: whether or not the Iraq War casus belli was complete crap. Anyway, I know Afghanistan is the "good war" and all, but frankly I feel really, really, viscerally enraged with the conduct of this administration, so I'm searching for a way to compare this Afghan escalation to the Iraq invasion. Won't you join me?

Disclaimer: Before I proceed, don't tell me I should not have been surprised by this escalation, because I'm not. I'm enraged; there's a huge difference. I voted for Black Jesus because Hilary was channeling Giuliani in the Primary and McCain-- well, if McCain were President we would all be in Iran right now, and it might look something like this:

Battle of Jerusalem - MyVideo
(Only I don't think McCain knows his way around scaffolding and siegecraft. I could be wrong though. He is old as fuck.)

In his speech on the escalation, Obama actually addressed his liberal critics, trying to convince them of how Afghanistan is not Vietnam. The reasons he gave were surficially reasonable: 

Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action.

Correction: They recognized-- past-tense-- the legitamacy of our action. Now how gung-ho are they? Not very. Except perhaps for Britain, to the dismay of its people. 

Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. 

Correction: How do we know? Soldiers aren't getting killed as much as they were in Iraq? Whatever. Obama might add that we're not facing the armed forces of another country, which North Vietnam was. I think they earned the right to call themselves a country once they kicked the French out.

And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border. To abandon this area now – and to rely only on efforts against al Qaeda from a distance – would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.  

Correction:  He's basically saying here that if we don't fight them there, they'll kill us here. That argument was bullshit when Bush made it, and it remains wet and steamy to this day. The Taliban were not "harboring" Al Qaeda. That's like saying Woodstock harbored the brown acid. If we're going to blame the Taliban for harboring Al Qaeda, then when are we going to blame Saudi Arabia for nurturing the reactionary, theocratic cultural environment that produced the 9/11 hijackers?

Vietnam and Iraq were all about sending a message (Specifically, "Suck on this.") to our shadowy enemies. We settled for those pitiful actions because we can't very well attack shadows-- only send them stern messages. Now tell me: how has this eight-year-old Afghan war not reached the point where we are vainly and haggardly trying to get our terrorist enemies to "suck on this"? 

Now what about this Bush Doctrine? I think I've shown that Afghanistan, at this point in the war, is basically the same as Iraq and Vietnam. However, I also feel that it's necessary to throw the Bush Doctrine albatross around Obama's neck for good measure. But I can't. I've realized that there was no such thing as the Bush Doctrine. It was just a euphemism for wild ejaculation and feces-tossing. The real villain in American foreign policy has always been imperialism, which is of course nothing new, except that now they give out Nobel Peace Prizes for it.

God damnit, Harry!

This post will probably be the first in a series of posts describing exactly why Democrats suck at politics and how this country's dispossessed are being fucked because of it. Any reader of the liberal blogosphere during the past five or so years already has a few ideas of their own about why the Democrats can't serve their traditional constituencies, including the trivial answer, which is that their constituencies are often not the dispossessed but the monied elites. Of course, this trivial answer holds in many cases, but sometimes liberals within the Democratic Party cannot be ignored, and incremental reform is forced through. This post is a short analysis of one of those cases in which a Democrat takes a short break from whoring themselves out, and instead tries to advance a liberal cause. I will try to explain how a relatively simple exercise in describing an injustice and what you plan to do about it turns into a shitstorm:

This morning, Senate majority leader Harry Reid got up in front of a Senate microphone to speak about the opposition to health care reform and this happened:

"You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," [Reid] continued. "In this country...there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' " - about slavery.

When women wanted to vote, he went on, opponents said, " 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that -- the day isn't quite right.' "

He finished with: "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

There are those who would say that Harry Reid was simply describing conservatism, that he was simply drawing historical parallels, not comparing degrees of wrongness. They are right of course. Conservatism is, by definition, always on the wrong side of history in every single matter of importance in American society. Conservatism is not a set of principles. It is defined by the defense of the status quo, whatever that may be. The American Revolution was liberal because it resulted in freedom from a monarchy. Unions are liberal because they result in freedom from economic exploitaition. Universal health care, Medicare for all, or the more limited public option are liberal because they will result in freedom from corporate abuse and corporate "death panels".

However, what Harry Reid said was incredibly stupid because the American people do not learn political history in school. That is, they do not learn about politics in the context of society. They do not learn the various ways in which power is controlled and abused in a democracy. Instead, they are taught that democracy is simply government by the people. So what the American people heard in Harry Reid's above quote was not a reminder of the history of American reactionary politics and how it has manifested itself today, but simple hyperbole.

The Democratic Party can't or won't teach the people about the role of the elite in democracy, so the public is not prepared to hear strong condemnations of power coming from the powerful. Instead, the public has been dicked around so much from thirty years of entrenched conservative governance that they fail to notice when their interests are being advanced. Instead, they think that everything their government does is an abuse of power. Right now, Jeffrey Dommer could convince people that health insurance companies are villains. Harry Reid can't. Why is this? Maybe it has to do with the fact that deep down, under all of the centrist whoredom is a pissed-off liberal fighter. Sometimes that liberal fighter is let out screaming, but unfortunately the political context into which the fighting words are loosed is devoid of understanding. I would advise Democrats to shut up about history. Americans don't understand it. What Americans do understand is being fucked around with, and I suggest the Democrats learn how to tell it to people straight.