For Those Who Celebrate

Happy Passover!

(Well, in a few minutes, but Be Prepared!)

The Bells, Bells, Bells

Avedon Carol:

Of course, there is a convenient set of lies trotted out by the Oligarchy to try to make you forget all this stuff, such as the fantasy that raising taxes on the rich somehow reduces jobs, or at least failing to cut taxes means there won't be new jobs created. The answer to this one is too simple: Well, we did, in fact, cut your taxes, and, amazingly, you didn't create any jobs! In fact, lots and lots of people are losing their jobs, those who are still working are working for less with fewer benefits, and the only people who have much money are people who contribute bugger-all to the economy, the culture, the community, or the country. What they are really doing with their extra money is performing the function of parasites, sucking the blood out of the economy and damaging the health of the body. Real innovation in America sank like a stone when these guys had to stop paying big taxes - and jobs began to dwindle, and paychecks started to fray as they kept stretching to cover more things that used to be better and cost less. (Yes, Virginia, there really was a Good Old Days before utilities and other natural government functions were privatized.) [Emphasis added.]

Shorter and pithier:

Everybody knows, including the Democratic leadership, that Americans do not want their "vision" of a harder, nastier life, and the Democratic leadership's answer to that is that we don't know what's good for us because we are too stupid and ignorant to understand the virtue of being more miserable so that rich people can be richer.

To paraphrase probably George Carlin, conservatives do remember the '60s, and what they remember is that that "hippie" stuff almost caught on.

Over at Booman Tribune, there's a squib of a piece on how one of the NY Times' pet conservative columnists (Fluffy) is trying to inject race into the conversation about social spending:

What Douthat seems to be saying is that if we don't slash entitlement spending now then a horde of young brown and beige people are going to riot against white retired people in the 2030's. This seems like an excessively contrived and remote way of injecting fear into the debate. Am I wrong? Am I missing something?

The columnist is trying to insert race into an argument (and an argument that assumes that there will be no "brown and beige" retirees, which, hello?) because his arguments are bogus (and his figures suspect).  To mix metaphors, that bogeyman won't fly.

Southern Beale on politicians and Coué wishful thinking:

So where are all the fucking jobs and economic growth that’s supposed to shower down upon us like manna from heaven? And how come no one ever challenges the righties on their steadfast belief in tax cuts as economic stimulus? Every time a Bob Schaeffer or Tweety or George Stuffinenvelopes interviews a GOPer about this, we get the same old line about tax cuts stimulating the economy and no one ever says, “well, it hasn’t yet!” I just don’t get it. It’s become almost ingrained in the national psyche that right wing voodoo economics works, when in fact it’s a fairy tale.

You want to know why a big swath of America votes against its own self-interest? It’s something every snake oil salesman, self-help guru and fad diet author knows: tell people what they want to hear and they’ll buy it every damn time. It doesn’t even have to work, as long as the people really, really want it to work. People want to think "the secret" to winning the lottery is to repeat some prosperity affirmation over and over. People want to think they can lose weight eating bacon and eggs and eschewing the toast and fruit. And people want to think the key to kickstarting the economy is to not pay taxes or invest in the country at all, but instead take all the goodies and let some invisible, magical force make everything alright, somehow.

It is just my own flawed nature that can't move all these bottles of snake oil.  Phooey.  (Not, of course, snake goddess oil.  Not the same thing at all.)

Coda from Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast:

I hope you enjoyed America. Because you don't have it anymore.

Rising Chorus

Mills River Progressive brings attention to the possible destruction of the Russian seed bank.

Quote of the Week:

A culture so stupid that it's willing to destroy its own living environment, food supply, air, and water for the sake of profit for a handful of billionaires is too stupid to survive.

Is Sitting Toxic?

Er, maybe.

Excuse me, I have to get up and fidget for a bit.

Department of What Took You So Long??

New York Times has discovered that the banksters have gotten off scot free.

But several years after the financial crisis, which was caused in large part by reckless lending and excessive risk taking by major financial institutions, no senior executives have been charged or imprisoned, and a collective government effort has not emerged. This stands in stark contrast to the failure of many savings and loan institutions in the late 1980s. In the wake of that debacle, special government task forces referred 1,100 cases to prosecutors, resulting in more than 800 bank officials going to jail. Among the best-known: Charles H. Keating Jr., of Lincoln Savings and Loan in Arizona, and David Paul, of Centrust Bank in Florida.

I restrain myself from echoing Comrade Misfit.

Quote of the Day

Anyone talking about debt and deficits who is not talking foremost about jobs and health-care costs is either grossly misinformed or lying to you. Period.

There'll Be No More Aaaaaaaaa-aah-aah!

• Scott Horton in Harper's:

  In 2004, a group of prominent alumni of the Justice Department’s once-prestigious Office of Legal Counsel, shaken by disclosure of the torture memoranda and other evidence of unethical conduct within the office, signed a statement of principles to guide the Justice Department’s opinion writers. “When providing legal advice to guide contemplated executive branch action, OLC should provide an accurate and honest appraisal of applicable law, even if that advice will constrain the administration’s pursuit of desired policies,” they wrote. “The advocacy model of lawyering, in which lawyers craft merely plausible legal arguments to support their clients’ desired actions, inadequately promotes the President’ s constitutional obligation to ensure the legality of executive action.” Have the new tenants at Justice lived up to these principles? Not so much.

  and further elaborates on this at Foreign Policy:

  Apparently Obama's lawyers told him he could do it, and he liked their advice: "Prior congressional approval was not constitutionally required to use military force in the limited operations under consideration." We know this from the opinion drafted by U.S. Justice Department lawyers on April 1, which was publicly released on April 7, on the legality of military operations in Libya following the U.N. Security Council's go-ahead. The document presents few surprises and looks remarkably like a pair of memoranda -- cited in the new opinion -- that former Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, then head of President Bill Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), wrote to authorize the use of military force in Haiti and Bosnia. As such it is typical of the Obama Justice Department: It avoids referring back to the opinions written during the executive-power-expanding heyday of President George W. Bush's first term, while arriving at markedly similar conclusions.

• Driftglass on the American reluctance to face the realities of the Civil War (begun 150 years ago), with extensive quotes and a note on the evanescence of words:

  But there have been other struggles whose importance endures long past the death of the king and the last veteran's widow -- battles over the essential meaning of things: what it is to be human, to be free, to be a citizen, to be a Jew, to be a woman, to be a slave, to be an Irishman, to be the Other.

• Also on the Civil War, Ta-Nehisi Coates, who's been studying it in depth lately:

  I am telling you now--check out the books they own. It is your civic duty as an American to educate yourself about the country you claim to love. This is the revolution that birthed us. And at this late date, it's shockingly evident that many of us don't really know what happened. Our media isn't even sure what happened. Scholars who are the very face of black studies in this country give license to this ignorance.

Mr. Coates also pointed to a nifty article by another editor at the Atlantic on what Donald Trump's expensive investigators will find and how much it costs (sans mai-tai).  Really, racism makes one stupid, if one isn't already.

So,

I had two (2! 2 for the price of 1!) nightmares; most of the first is gone except for the last bit, which was me and another woman escaping from a serial killer in a conveniently open elevator.  The second involved me at a boring job (I know, what else is new?) in an office layout I have never encountered, going out to lunch except I kept getting interrupted, getting on the local train uptown, getting a quick lunch, and then...not being able to find the entrance to the downtown side through something like a maze and being late.  The horror.

And of course my body was in full fight-or-flight mode.  I'm surprised I made it to church.

Two items getting crossposted:

• NY Times report:  Is sugar toxic?  

  Sugar scares me too, obviously. I’d like to eat it in moderation. I’d certainly like my two sons to be able to eat it in moderation, to not overconsume it, but I don’t actually know what that means, and I’ve been reporting on this subject and studying it for more than a decade.

• Charlie Crist apologizes (on video) to David Byrne for unlicensed use of song (from Mediaite via skippy the bush kangaroo).

  Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist has recorded a no-nonsense video apologizing to Talking Head’s front man David Byrne for the unlicensed use of the song “Road To Nowhere” during his Senate run of last year.

Air-Raid Siren

• Southern Beale:  Walgreen's Is The Answer to All Your Healthcare Needs.

  Two people who have never, ever used Planned Parenthood’s services telling people who need Planned Parenthood’s services that they don’t really need Planned Parenthood’s services.
  [...]
  These are the death panels that already exist in our broken healthcare system. Everyone keeps telling us American healthcare is the best in all the world, except if you can't access it, it might as well not even exist. I mean how can these idiots not get that? It doesn't matter if our healthcare is the best or second best or even 37th, if your system excludes millions of people it's a failure. End of discussion. And if your politics refuses to recognize that then it, too, is a failure.

• Brilliant at Breakfast:  Setting the stage for generational warfare.

  Cantor is 48. No wonder he takes so much money from the securities, real estate, and insurance industries. He's lining his own pockets for when he's successful in dismantling Social Security. Oh, and by the way, HE gets a government pension and taxpayer-funded health insurance FOR THE RESET OF HIS LIFE after he leaves office.

Conservatism is failure. It is regression. It is self-starvation to cure a hangnail.

Klaxon

Anna van Z at Mills River Progressive:  Are you as disgusted as I am?

Instead of making banksters pay, instead of insisting that huge corporations pay some taxes, YOUR REPRESENTATIVES HAVE DECIDED THAT YOU ARE GOING TO END UP WITH NOTHING. No break on your student loans for you! No help with your mortgage for you! No bailouts for you! No big tax rebates for you! No Pell grants for you or your kids! And the utter mess of so-called "healthcare reform" touted by the Dems, features as its centerpiece MAKING YOU BUY PLANS from corporate health insurance providers! With no rate caps! This is their great fucking plan! Are you kidding me?

And now they want to take your Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. "Because we're broke".

I don't know what it takes for most of y'all out there to wake the hell up and DO something - even if it's just calling these asswipe congressional reps every damn day - but I suggest we get it in gear NOW. Because by the time 2012 rolls around, things are going to be way, WAY grimmer for 98.5% of us. And you know I'm right. It's time to take a stand, folks. Now is the time.

Turn off the reality TV shows and Fox and --

Oh, right. Americans and History; total strangers. Well. History is about to bitchslap us about, and short of a revolution we will have to take it.  You ready for a revolution?

As Shark-fu would say, *cue crickets*.

On the Domestic Taliban

Comrade Misfit:

The Christian Taliban's indifference to life goes far beyond that, of course. If they truly cared about the lives of others, you might assume that they would be all in favor of making health care affordable to all. You might assume that they would be in favor of early education programs, such as Head Start. You might assume that they would want to make education as rich and as vibrant an experience for children as possible.

You might assume all that. You would be wrong to do so.

If the Christian Taliban cared about the unborn, you might assume that they would push to make prenatal care available to all mothers. You might assume that they would work to establish programs for prenatal nutrition. You might assume that they would lobby for courses for new mothers on how to care for their children.

You might assume all that. You would be wrong to do so.

The fight over abortion has nothing to do with the babies being aborted, although that is how it has been sold to the sheeple who comprise the grunts of the Christian Taliban. It has everything to do with sin, more specifically, the punishment of sin. The Christian Taliban regards having sexual intercourse for any reason other than baby-making to be a major sin. (For that matter, the Christian Taliban regards having fun as a sin.) If a woman has sex for fun and ends up getting pregnant, than as far as the Christian Taliban is concerned, both the ensuing pregnancy and the years of caring for the child to follow are the Lord's punishment for her immorality.

There's more, and it's all good.

Warning:  this might be considered Christian-bashing.  While I don't think it's coincidental that some who identify as Christians support this sort of thing, I have to suspect that the Taliban Puritanical (someone, somewhere is wrong on the Internet having fun definition) side is ascendant, complete with misogyny.  Because, as we all know, it takes two for reproduction (usually), and one of the parties (that would be that Rev. Dimmesdale guy) can walk away.  I don't hear anything about condoms.  I don't hear anything about voluntary celibacy.  I don't hear anything about vasectomies.

What's next, banning epidurals during birth?

In Memoriam

Sidney Lumet, director.
Edward Bigelow, dancer.

I Have Too Many Tabs Open

And I've forgotten what the articles were supposed to illustrate.  Or support.  Or verify.  Whatever.

1. Skeevy-looking observation outpost business in Virginia.
2. Shark-fu calls out Missouri's GOP State Senators for the weasels they are:

   So the mess that’s happening in Jefferson City is this – a gaggle of GOP State Senators, who are trying to save face after their own colleagues turned against them for this ridiculous and damaging filibuster, are holding unemployment benefits in bondage so they can emancipate working Missourians from the tyranny of federal stimulus money and the oppression of the unemployed being able to put food on the table.

3. Flavia Dzodan at Tiger Beatdown talks about rapist culture and quotes bell hooks.
4. I have been thinking lately (OK for a while) about forgiveness, and what one can forgive (as conservatives have trouble with the part of the gospels that counsel caring for the poor, I'm having trouble with the bit about loving one's enemies and forgiving those who do one ill), and this essay rang a bell.  (The line about keeping the tsar far away from us is of course from Fiddler on the Roof.)
5. Brilliant at Breakfast posts a video of Senator Bernie Sanders talking about the budget.
6. Another fakefeminist, via Shakesville.  
7. Southern Beale:
1. Projecting the Maine labor mural;
2. State of Wisconsin.
8. Call to action at Mills River Progressive.  Literally.  Unless you want all wildlife to consist of various species of rat.  Like much of Congress.

In Two Parts

• I don't know who this guy is but I'm in love, via Mills River Progressive. [ETA:  Avedon has clued me in; Mike Papantonio's a host, with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Sam Seder, at Ring of Fire Radio.com.]
• Thought for today:  We voted for Barack Obama, but we seem to have gotten Alan Keyes.

Bearing Study

Via a comment at Whatever, the Amish America website for information on all things Amish.  Example:  Amish phone use.

The fact that the Amish choose to regulate how the phone is used shows continuing concern over potential ill effects, were it to be fully accepted. At the same time the Amish take a practical approach in using the telephone in limited ways, as they do with most forms of technology.

In Memoriam

Manning Marable, scholar (his biography of Malcolm X is scheduled to be published today.)

John McMillan has a memorial article at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog at the Atlantic.

Must-Read

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.

The radio station played the obligatory "In the Name of Love," and Terrance of Republic of T. posted an eloquent piece referring to the life and work of Dr. King with side excursions on the symbolism of mountains and rivers, pulling it together with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The events in Wisconsin, and the movement that has grown out of them are an encouraging sign that Americans are still journeying towards the “promised land” King envisioned. How many more mountains we must climb or rivers we must cross before we get there, he didn’t say. But he believed we would get there.

Perhaps we will if, every step of the way, we practice the dangerous unselfishness King spoke of, and thus transform “What will happen to me?” to “What will happen to them?” into “What will happen to us? — and remember that we are one.

Arthur Silber Resorts to Satire

A respirational fantasy.

Oh, and I Almost Forgot... People See This In Florida, Right?

UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS! UTERUS!  


Also, Ovaries, Fallopian Tubes, Cervix, Vagina, Vulva, Labia.  Just to be complete.

[Edited for symmetricality.]

Equal Time:  Testicles.

I Read This Story in F & SF Many Years Ago...

Southern Beale:

WTF does that even mean? It sounds like business school clap-trap to me. It seems Jay Steele is hell bent on turning our city’s youth into fodder for the jaws of commerce, and I guess we’re supposed to cheer along and marvel at what a great start in life our youth are getting, what great business skills they’re learning and how they will be wonderful worker bees for the corporatocracy. Is that it? Forgive me if I’m wrong here, but was there a problem of some kind I’m unaware of? Were businesses not choosing to locate in Nashville because our kids are dumb?

Look, I get that we need to educate our kids so they can go to college and get jobs; I get that we need to start them off in life on the right foot. I even applaud the idea of offering classes that educate kids for high-demand fields. But for crying out loud this Chamber of Commerce crap has got to stop. Y’all can just wait in line before you get your greedy paws on ‘em, okay? Let them be kids for a little while.

This is dehumanization, plain and simple. It’s telling our kids their value is only in their earning power.

[...]

And to Jay Steele, look: I know this is a radical idea for some of you young whippersnappers raised in a post-Reagan age, but I don’t happen to think that capitalism is the cure for every problem.

[...]

Slouka’s point was that an emphasis on math and science education at the expense of the humanities is a great way to create worker bees to feed the machinery of capitalism, and also a great way to starve the nation of critical thinking skills and knowledge which breeds dissent. It also devalues art, music, literature and the entire cultural spectrum of things which make life worth living.

It’s hard not to see capitalism’s creep into our schools, and watch as teachers are being devalued at every step, and then read about efforts to roll back child labor laws around the country and not wonder if there’s a connection.

Signal Boost

Rally in Asheville, N. C. on April 4.  (Via Mills River Progressive)

Form to RSVP and map.

Instead of Coffee

In which Shark-fu lives up to her blog title.

Let’s talk about the removal of comprehensive sex education from our schools and how our young people enter adulthood with the abstinence only advice to put a quarter between their legs and squeeze.

Let’s talk about how the debate over life ends at birth…about the young women I’ve met who chose to have a baby only to find that the same people praising them for that decision won’t hire them, don’t want them moving into their neighborhood, will one day grab their handbag and lock their car door when that black baby becomes a black man who walks by them on the sidewalk.

Under the Radar

Southern Beale posts on religious leaders beginning a fast/hunger strike to protest the Republican-authored (Federal) budget:

Anyway, I’m posting this information for a couple of reasons. 1) Not all Christians are right-wing, intolerant assholes and 2) Budgets are moral documents which tell the world your priorities. Where your treasure is, so is your heart. And if your treasure is devoted to war, and torture, and bombs, instead of feeding poor children and funding schools and the rest, then you’re in deep trouble as a nation. You're failing your people. And when no one in power stands up and says "enough, this will not stand," then you no longer have the moral authority to tell anyone else in the world how to behave.

[Link and emphasis added.  And by the way?  Not feeding poor children?  Deeply un-Christian.]

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Jurassicpork's guest blogger at Welcome Back to Pottersville is Susan Lindauer on Libya.

More Information

Zeno Ferox discusses the Cronon blogpost, the Republican reaction, and some more information about ALEC (no, not the actor who played Obi-wan Kenobi nor the Baldwin brother -- the American Legislative Exchange Council, a shadowy group):

The book begins by offering a bogus quote from Abraham Lincoln, the long-since refuted litany that begins, “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.” Perhaps it's significant that ALEC's book opens with a hoax, especially given the hollow-shell justifications of Republican politicians who claim that collective bargaining must die if workers are to prosper. I presume they will soon introduce measures to establish more prisons and workhouses to manage the poor.

Is the old ALEC paperback out-of-date and of little use to us today? I think not. Although it carries a publication date of 1980, the 92-page booklet is oracular in its contents. The nutcase wet-dreams of yesteryear are the standard policy planks of today's teabagger politicians. Here, for your edification, is a sampler of the Source Book's list of model legislation. The headings are from the booklet and the descriptions are excerpted from the actual text. A few may seem like motherhood and apple pie (both of which, come to think of it, are now more controversial than they used to be), but there are some real nuggets of crazy in here. The first item is especially pertinent (complete with Wisconsin reference!).

The rest of the post consists of summaries of some of the proposed legislation. A sample:

Improving Education

Textbook Content Standards Act. The suggested Textbook Content Standards Act establishes the requirement that textbooks and teaching materials adopted for use in public schools accurately portray American history, tradition and values. Abraham Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the classroom today is the philosophy of the government tomorrow.” [There's no citation, of course. Is this another bogus Lincoln quote? If so, how nice to find it in an item about accuracy in textbooks!]

Honor America Act. The suggested Honor America Act requires that all public elementary and secondary school students recite the Pledge of Allegiance during each school day.

It looks reasonable until you think about what is meant by "American history, tradition and values." Also, although the folks at ALEC probably don't know this, those who took the Pledge seriously are diametrically opposed to everything conservatives desire ("liberty and justice for all" will probably get edited out of the ALEC-approved Pledge), not to mention that some religions do not pledge or take oaths.

Sunlight!  Sunlight!

[ETA:  via Amygdala, and apparently I've had that window open for two days.)

Snarking the Pol

Via jurassicpork (who is requesting donations), "The Rant" by Tom Degan, who dissects Newt "Not related to 'Whiplash Willie'" Gingrich's ambition.

Why bother with fact when there are volumes of lies waiting to be exploited? Newt fancies himself a historian. His specialty seems to be historical fiction. My advice to him would be to find another line of work. Gore Vidal he ain't.

Verrrry Interesting...

Via Shakesville:  T. A. Frank at Washington Monthly back in 2007 on why Bob Herbert is not more "influential:"

...Beltway insularity is to blame. Never have I felt more inclined to resort to this explanation than when I met Bob Herbert, whom I wound up liking just as much as I feared I would. He makes a pretty good case for the idea that it is cocooned Washington types like me who are the problem.

[...]

This whodunit will not have an ending worthy of Agatha Christie. But it will, at least, have a resolution: Bobdunit. It's true that elites don't care enough about the world of the working class or the poor. It's true that human nature is inherently biased against Herbert-style entreaties. These obstacles make his job very, very hard. But they are constants. A columnist must use the only variable, his column, to surmount them. Instead, Bob Herbert disregards them. His underlying problem turns out to be simple: he doesn't write with his audience in mind.

If we're using the beer test *ptui* I'd have the alcoholic beverage of my choice with Mr. Herbert; Mr. Brooks and/or Mr. Douthat would wind up, sooner or later, wearing the beer.

In Memoriam

• Diana Wynne Jones, author;
• Olga Ulyanova, niece of V. I. Lenin (né Vladimir Ulyanov);
• Geraldine Ferraro, 1984 Vice-Presidential candidate;
• Richard Leacock, documentarian.

Late Breaking News: Bob Herbert Leaving New York Times

His last column for the Times:

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.

Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century.

That leaves no one whose op-eds I would read. That means I am only reading the Paper of Record for the obituaries and the occasional deep background article.

Actually Fair and Balanced

Via Echidne of the Snakes, the history of the rebirth of conservatism by William Cronon, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, who's done some research on this matter.

I want to add a word of caution here at the end. In posting this study guide, I do not want to suggest that I think it is illegitimate in a democracy for citizens who share political convictions to gather for the purpose of sharing ideas or creating strategies to pursue their shared goals. The right to assemble, form alliances, share resources, and pursue common ends is crucial to any vision of democracy I know. (That’s one reason I’m appalled at Governor Walker’s ALEC-supported efforts to shut down public employee unions in Wisconsin, even though I have never belonged to one of those unions, probably never will, and have sometimes been quite critical of their tactics and strategies.) I’m not suggesting that ALEC, its members, or its allies are illegitimate, corrupt, or illegal. If money were changing hands to buy votes, that would be a different thing, but I don’t believe that’s mainly what’s going on here. Americans who belong to ALEC do so because they genuinely believe in the causes it promotes, not because they’re buying or selling votes.