Oh shit. I can see the headlines now: "Liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald calls U.S. troops terrorists"

Maybe my political sense isn't quite so well tuned, but I've been a loyal Greenwald reader for two years and I don't believe he's said anything quite as radical as this. Here's the whole article, and here's the healthy context:

In many Muslim countries, perceptions of the U.S. -- which improved significantly upon Obama's election -- have now plummeted back to Bush-era levels, while Obama's personal approval ratings, while still substantially higher than Bush's, are also declining, in some cases precipitously.  As Pew put it:

Roughly one year since Obama's Cairo address, America's image shows few signs of improving in the Muslim world, where opposition to key elements of U.S. foreign policy remains pervasive and many continue to perceive the U.S. as a potential military threat to their countries. [emphasis Greenwald's]

Gosh, where would they get that idea from?  People generally don't like it when their countries are invaded, bombed and occupied, when they're detained without charges by a foreign power, when their internal politics are manipulated, when they see images of dead women and children as the result of remote-controlled robots from the sky.  Some of them, after a breaking point is reached, get angry enough where they not only want to return the violence, but are willing to sacrifice their own lives to do so (just as was true for many Americans who enlisted after the one-day 9/11 attack) [emphasis mine].  It's one thing to argue that we should continue to do these things for geopolitical gain even it means incurring Terrorist attacks (and the endless civil liberties abridgments they engender); as amoral as that is, at least that's a cogent thought.  But to pretend that Terrorism simply occurs in a vacuum, that it's mystifying why it happens, that it has nothing to do with U.S. actions in the Muslim world, requires intense self-delusion.  How much more evidence is needed for that?

That could be problematic. Usually Greenwald is pretty good at not making statements that have been cordoned off with bright yellow police tape. If this statement gets traction, he'll probably have to apologize. I already feel like a troll for writing this, because he's been a huge influence on me. Since I would feel like a troll if I neglected to write about what I thought of the statement, I'm going to write about it.


Those in Muslim countries, whether or not they are Muslim or Atheist or Christian, are entitled to be angry at the U.S.. We don't get it. We have known why Arabs, Persians, Pashtuns, and Africans have resorted to terrorism, but we keep on doing the things they hate because we are an empire and that's what empires do. Before Obama, liberals chalked this behavior up to Bush's stupidity, but now it should be obvious to anyone that it does not matter in the least who the president is. We are an empire, and we act accordingly-- that is to say, with complete disregard for human life that is not our own, and with ~80% disregard for American lives. 


That said, when anger engenders a complete disregard for human life, as it does in the case of terrorist attacks, justice must be done in order to try and break the cycle of violence. This is why terrorists must be tried in courts rather than locked away forever or assassinated. 


It is clear to me that Greenwald was not comparing terrorists to U.S. soldiers, but rather he compared the anger of Muslims who resort to terrorism or resort to attacks against soldiers (those "willing to sacrifice their own lives") to the anger of Americans who enlisted after 9/11. So that is my take on what Greenwald said. Let me make this clear: I am not apologizing for him. If what he meant by his statement was what I interpreted it to mean, then what he said requires no apology.

judicial activism from the "conservative" wing of SCOTUS

In the latest national security ruling from the Supreme Court, the majority has

Upheld a federal law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups. The court ruled 6-3 that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.

NPR has reported that the majority argued [agreed with] two points [concerning the peaceful, legal support given to terrorist organizations] :

• It may ostracize allies.
• It may give terrorist organizations an "air of legitimacy"

These are not legal arguments. Just call balls and strikes, John.

Gapminder World: Coolest Thing Evar!

For a data and graph nerd, this is awesome.

This week's "This American Life" is awful.

Just listened to This American Life. Some background on TAL: It is the one show on NPR that understood that the entire financial crisis was caused by banksters trading stuff they had no conception of whatsoever. It looks like this sanity has worn off. They have now contracted the austerity virus, and they are spreading it. The premise of this latest show was that the WHOLE WORLD (ZOMG JESUS!) is facing a debt crisis-- not necessarily a recession, mind you, but a debt crisis. Now this would not be an issue if our political press were competent. Unfortunately, our lazy, incompetent press has a readymade narrative to deal with political crises and particularly budget intransigence: Those who refuse to slash education or the safety net are being children, whereas those who recognize that a balanced budget is more important than education or economic security are the grownups. We are told that the grownups are being "Serious", whereas the children, who are invariably liberal, only care about "pet projects", "votes", or worse, "pork". Of course, conservative Democrats help to fulfill this narrative by refusing to raise taxes on rich people. Indeed, conservative Democrats are likely to buy into the idea that raising taxes actually decreases revenue, or the idea that rich people can't afford to pay more. This is the real intransigence. It forces liberal Democrats to find money any way they can to keep families off the streets, in the hopes that perhaps next year they will be able to raise more stable forms of revenue.

According to this latest show's first half, the role of "the children" is played by the Democrats in charge of the New York state legislature. "The grownup" is played by Very Serious person Richard Ravitch. Ravitch is one of those great hangers-on in politics. He came up through the LBJ administration, but unlike-- say, Bill Moyers, Ravitch took a very well-worn path to Serious Personhood: (1) stay out of political battles, (2) work on only the most non-partisan projects you can find, and (3) accumulate gravitas. The result of this effort? Behold. Also, Ira Glass will call you a hero.

So what does Ravitch have to deal with? What is the background story, according to This American Life? Interestingly, very little is mentioned about the current recession we are in. Instead, the show focuses on one-time revenue sources called "one-shots" and the political climate that forces lawmakers to resort to one-shots. Now, on the one hand, explaining the standard budget clashes that occurred in every state long before the recession is essential to understanding the budget dynamics of the present. However, the show bolsters the false sense that it was this standard political bickering over budgets that caused the recession. Those who have listened to TAL during the recession have been treated to some excellent, easy-to-understand analysis of what happened to cause this recession. In short, it was banking shananigans, not political shananigans. To the extent that politics was involved, it was the failure to regulate or even pay attention to what was going on on Wall St.. If you are an informed news consumer, you will know this. But if you are not, and if all you pay attention to are headlines and talking points, you may begin to think that deficit spending somehow had something to do with the recession. Worse yet, a Democrat you may have voted for may say something as criminally misleading as this: "We've asked government to take on too many tasks that cost too much money, and here we are, in a quagmire, in many ways because of it." That was a statement from Governor David Paterson that Ira Glass let pass. No mention of whether "quagmire" referred to the recession, mind you. We are just left to stew in this uncertainty. It's what modern political journalism does best.

Another egregious part was when Ira Glass explained that the stimulus money was being used as a "one-shot". Glass said that people might not realize the stimulus was being used this way. This has been a Republican strategy to sour the public on the stimulus money. What they have done, and what Glass has done (most likely unwittingly) is to feign surprise whenever and wherever they see the stimulus money applied. Of course, the fact that stimulus money was being used to plug state budget shortfalls was no secret. That money allowed states to keep on paying for Medicaid and to keep people employed. That money did more to stimulate the economy than one-time payments to individuals did because the Feds knew that the states would actually spend the stimulus, rather than invest it. However, the show failed to mention that the state stimulus money was-- you know, actually spent. Instead, New York's budget director said that the stimulus would actually exacerbate the problem in unprecedented ways. Why? Because the money will run out. Yeah, I shit you not. According to This American Life, money that runs out in two years is not actually money.

To deal with the current shortfall, Ravitch roles out his plan. His "bipartisan" plan, at least we are told, does not include tax hikes on those who can afford it. It only includes cuts and the implementation of standard accounting practices. In lieu of taxes, Ravitch proposes taking out a 2 billion dollar loan. Republicans opposed this because they saw it as a way to enable more deficit spending on the part of Democrats. Some Democrats, supposedly the conservative ones, opposed it as well. Governor David Paterson did not support the Ravitch plan because it was politically unpalatable, though we are not told why. At the end of the day, the listener is left with the impression that a tax hike on the rich would be even less popular than a 2 billion dollar loan. I would like to have seen the polling on this question. We are also left with the impression that in New York state, liberals are children who simply fail to realize that money does not grow on rich people. (Yeah, who knew? Guess where it grows instead!)

The second half was somewhat better. It examined the difference between two small Caribbean islands: Barbados and Jamaica. The show spent most of the time on Barbados. Barbados is doing well; Jamaica is poor. Both countries had to deal with the IMF and its standard imposition of austerity. We learn that how the two islands dealt with fiscal austerity determined their disparate economic fortunes. As I said, most of the segment was on Barbados. The only thing we are told about Jamaica is that their PM basically told the IMF to go fuck itself. He was determined that for once, the poor would not be the ones to suffer the IMF's kiss of death alone. He actually told the upper classes that if they did not want to shoulder their share of the IMF's austerity, they could leave their island paradise. That turned out to be a mistake, 'cuz they did.

Now those who are susceptible to conservative talking points will point to Jamaica as confirmation of all they know and all they will ever know. They will say that John Galt WILL leave you if you tax him. And what can we liberals say? Unfortunately, we live in a world where small countries like Jamaica are at the mercy of rich people who can pick up their capital and leave, thereby devastating the communities that raised them. This sad situation does not confirm conservative philosophy. It only proves that conservatives and rich people are dicks.

In the global recession of 1991, Barbados had its turn at the IMF's chopping block. This American Life tells the story of how, instead of dividing along class, Barbados was able to negotiate a deal whereby the austerity measures would be shouldered evenly across the class spectrum. To this day, there is a culture of cooperation between labor and management that is pretty inspiring.

So that's the story about how we easily forget why we're in a recession to begin with and how the upper classes can use the media (including the lib'rul media) to convince people that the only grown-up response is that everyone, including the poor who have no control over the various whims of our financial elite, must sacrifice. They convince people who cannot give to give more. They guilt them into the poor house, or no house at all.

Suck it, Hummer! The BP Oil spill only gets ZERO miles per 400,000 gallons -- per day!

From the AP:

BP officials previously said they believed the burner system could incinerate anywhere from 210,000 gallons of oil to 420,000 gallons of oil daily once it's fully operational. Work to optimize the new system was still ongoing, and the company did not say how much oil it has burned so far.

True.

Holy crap, someone made it on NPR's "Marketplace" with a good idea!

NPR's "Marketplace" program is usually the worst offender on NPR when it comes to parroting the verbal flood of bullshit that comes from government and corporations, which is why this segment I just heard from Chris Farrel surprised me (skip to 3:57):

The amazing part comes at 6:00, when Chris endorses the idea of removing trade protections for companies and instead providing vouchers for laid-off workers, who they refer to as "free trade losers". NPR usually never talks openly about public policy solutions that would anger corporations. And that one would REALLY piss them off. It's not perfect, of course. Protecting companies does go a long way toward protecting workers. What we should do in addition to the voucher idea is keep hassling China over their exchange rate policy. 

In other news, in the segment just before Chris Farrel, we learn that investors gave BP a boost because of the 20 billion oil leak victim fund. Supposedly investors responded to the uncertainty being lifted. Do they interpret 20 billion as a cap? Is this the new cap everyone's talking about?

I want Alvin Greene in the Senate. I NEED Alvin Greene in the Senate.

Is it too much to ask, voters of Amurica, to have someone who eschews politics as usual-- or politics at all-- in the Senate? This guy is like the Democratic version of Joe the Plummer; he didn't come up through traditional channels, he just came up! I, for one, think it's refreshing. I think he's a diamond in the talus heap of South Carolina politics. So he has some legal troubles, so? If I had a dime for every black man accused of obscenity by a white woman-- well, I would have plenty of dimes.

On a more serious note, Jim DeMint is one moderately fucked scandal away from getting booted out of office. Come on progressives! Let's do this!

9/11? What 9/11?

The Afghan War is now officially about the fuckin' lucre. We will never leave now.

update: Well, I've since learned (see here, and links therin) that the "discovery" of 1 trillion in mineral wealth beneath Afghanistan is not quite so fresh and its importance to the Afghan economy has been exaggerated. Mining companies need an easy way to get the loot out of the country, after all.

Whatevs. Judging by the feverish manner with which the story "broke", I'd say the Pentagon is angling for another justification for war. Afghans are fucked five ways from Tuesday.

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

the evolution of elite conservative thought:

John Adams, Federalist: "Let the human mind loose. It must be loosed. It will be loose. Superstition and despotism cannot confine it."

Newt Gingrich, Republican: "I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history. We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."

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!!!!"

our wingnut cousins in the former USSR

This is a good documentary on the growing right-wing/authoritarian movement in Russia and what it looks like on the ground. The best part is at 35:55, which looks like a militia gathering in the U.S. Of course, in Russia, their wingnuts are more influential. Note that during the gathering, the head Y-chromosome talks on the phone with a parliament member.

Helen Thomas, and the real problem with Washington "journalism"

I'm not an apologist for old people racism (OPR). I'm the first to tell my grandma to shut the fuck up when she starts in on the Irish (not true). But it's a damn shame Helen Thomas has to go out like this, because Helen Thomas, unlike most of the DC press corps, actually did her job responsibly. I honestly think she hates powerful people, as any decent journalist should. So it's a shame we're talking about Helen Thomas because this,

is the only problem in journalism worth talking about. Joe Biden and Rahm Emmanuel help command the largest, most powerful military in the world. The economic policies that they help craft mean the difference between life and death for those in the Third World, and between comfort and destitution for those in the First World. We need to stop treating these masters of the universe as fellow human beings. They're domestic tranquility is not ours. They're suffering never compares to ours. They are politicians. They are scum. They are not worthy of representing a pile of shit, let alone me. Few people in DC have the conviction and self-respect to act as proper journalists, so anyone who does so deserves praise. Helen Thomas has been one such person. One outburst of OPR won't change that.

For more analysis of Thomas's offending comments, go here. What made her comments noxious was the notion that Jews should go back to Germany and Poland. All nations are to some extent afflicted with the original (and in many cases, ongoing) sins of conquest and oppression. In Thomas's comments, I doubt she was referring to these children, for instance, who would sew seeds of peace if only their parents would permit it.

Eric Cantor needs your help.

His homework project is to cut spending in a recession, thereby weakening the national recovery (such as it is) and providing succor to foreign bond markets. However, he does not know where to start because he is, in fact, only 12 years old. You can give young Eric your ideas on how to cut the budget at this website. But if you ask me, the budget cuts he has featured are pretty miniscule: in the 10-100 million dollar range. In order to counteract Obama's huge stimulus package, for instance, you need cuts on the order of 100 billion to 1 trillion. Here are my ideas on how to approach the appropriate level of cuts:

• end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• end all funding for fancy weapons systems
• legalize marijuana
• end mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strike laws

What do you think? If you agree, tell little Eric.

speaking of money-sucking blood funnels...

I was reading this post, and this financial tidbit deserves repeating: Did you know that China lends us money at 3.3% interest? Well, not just China, but the entire bond market? People all over the world who want to invest in the United States for a period of 10 years only want 3.3% interest. Wow. They're nice. China is nice. Credit card companies and U.S. banks, on the other hand, not so nice. The interest rate on a 24 month personal loan: 10.83%. The average credit card interest rate: 14.26%. This means that American banks hate us approximately 3.8 times as much as the rest of the world. This makes some sense; domestic institutions know us better. But still! Fuck you, American banks!

Thank you, Matt Taibbi, for this post

Goldman Sachs CEO and human/squid hybrid, Lloyd Blankfein, is participating in a too-cute NPR series on summer jobs. Before growing his money-scenting blood funnels, young Master Blankfein worked as a concessioner at Yankee Stadium. He says that he learned the value of a dollar by making 3 cents per drink sold. I believe I speak for all present concessioners at Yankee Stadium when I say, "Go fuck yourself Lloyd." Actually being a productive human being for one summer does not absolve you of the fact that you are presently a parasitic cephalopod.

Rest in peace, man.

Dennis Hopper passed on. Here's one of my favorite scenes in film:

National Sacrifice

From John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, 1961:
Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

Dulce Et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen, 1918:
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


On this Memorial Day, let's talk about national sacrifice. Wilfred Owen, in the most famous poem about war (with the possible exception of the Illiad), derides national sacrifice as "the old Lie." His poem does not provide a political explanation for why holding the pointy-hats at the French border failed to equal the loss of England's blood and treasure. It was probably self-evident to his audience. On the other hand, the crotchety old fucks who were grateful for the war surely viewed Owen's poem as treason. Surely it was also viewed as arrogant. If I were one of those crotchety old fucks, I would press Owen on the relevance of "the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, / Obscene as cancer". Of what importance is the loss of individual life when compared to the Cause? Surely, of even less importance is the manner of such loss. Is not dwelling on "vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues" a bit indulgent?

While Wilfred Owen did not find it necessary to mix war and politics in his famous poem, plenty of people at the time were starting to awaken to the fact that war is politics by another means, or vice versa. Class struggles in the nineteenth century caused the citizens of the great empires to differentiate between the interest of the state and the interest of the people. This is the dominant theme in the late Howard Zinn's studies of history: history from the point of view of the people, rather than from the state. (Before nationalism came to dominate conservative political thought, it was also a dominant theme of conservatism-- that is, the primacy of the individual.) Zinn wrote, "... we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been." (Again, I can't help it. William F. Buckley could have said that, yet Zinn is the communist. Go figure.) The thoroughly liberal concept of the individual and the community decoupled from the state must inform all discussions of national sacrifice. Specifically, we may determine national sacrifice to be justified if the nation acts in the interests of the community. If the nation projects alien or perhaps foreign interests onto the community, or needless to say, when it lies or exaggerates a threat, then losses to the community in the course of protecting the state's interests are in vain.

The idea of national sacrifice is as old as civilization, but it has certainly evolved. In the beginning, pharaohs would slaughter millions of their own in battle in order to kidnap and rape the opposing pharaoh's harem-- or something. Today, pawns like us have defense mechanisms against such abusive treatment, but not nearly as much as liberals like Howard Zinn would have liked. Noble sacrifice in service of the nation is something that we all pretend still exists but which no one really understands with any sophistication. We generalize too much when it comes to soldiers and war. When the newly sacrificed are fresh in the ground, we dare not ask if the cost is justified. And even as those who died in Vietnam were turned to bone, Democrats dared not question the liberal bona fides of JFK.

The truth is, there are few instances in which national sacrifice can be described as trans-partisan or in the interest of communities across our nation. Lincoln's implicit message at Gettysburg was that every life sacrificed on that famous battlefield was equal in value. He knew that was bullshit. The South slaughtered both Northern and Southern soldiers because they wanted to continue to slaughter Africans for profit. National sacrifice has been a corrupted idea, a mere political meme, for a very long time. The new liberals who broke with the Establishment during Vietnam were certainly not the first to realize this, but they were perhaps the first with the potential to do anything about it -- namely, to stop the next aggressive war from happening. They clearly failed, and that's really fucking depressing. What's more depressing is the reason why they failed: our stupid parents are still fighting not only Vietnam, but the Civil War as well. Here's something fun to try: go back in time and show Lincoln -- just before the Gettysburg Address -- maps of the last 150 years of electoral college results. He would have stood at the podium on that sacred ground and told the audience, "Screw you guys, I'm going home!" And as for Vietnam's terrible legacy -- John Kerry lost the 2004 race because he fought in Vietnam. If 40 years ago, Kerry had joined the Massachusetts Air National Guard and kept his mouth shut about the justification for war, he would have won.

A democracy can only last so long without fighting tyranny before it loses its purpose. The United States ran out of external threats long ago, and terrorist organizations are unworthy substitutes for authoritarian superpowers. With each Memorial Day that passes without being engaged in a credible Manichean struggle with evil, citizens will continue to look inward for those Who Hate Our Freedoms. In the case of myself, I look at news like this everyday, and I can't wait until we pass on the World Police badge to people who are not crazy -- or better yet, to no one at all.

Well, I don't know how to wrap this up. Do you really need it wrapped up, though? I feel like you've got the gist.

UPDATE: Dennis Hopper is dead.

UPDATE 2: The oilocalypse continues.

UPDATE 3: Fuckin fuck balls.

Scott Brown is a traitor to bears everywhere.

Scott Brown made history in February when he became the first bear to serve in the U.S. Senate. Well, not anymore he's not. Sources deep inside the Brown administration have revealed that he is about to relent to a relentless Teabagging: "It's ugly. They're threatening that if Brown dares to follow the 2/3 majority (of his voters!) who support repealing DADT, then he will not enjoy Teabagger support in 2012." Head Teabagger Sarah Palin cried, "Scott Brown has fucked us for the last time! From now on, it is we who shall do the fucking! My army of unwashed balls and taints shall descend on Taxachussets and mercilessly rub out all opposition to wingnut orthodoxy!" She then added, "Mwahaaahaaahaaaa!"