Hullabaloo

Monday, December 26, 2011

 

A Presidential Pageant

by digby

Kevin's talking about an alleged Japanese conspiracy theory here, and if you're curious about such things, I urge you to click over. (It's interesting!) I just wanted to highlight this:

[I]t would be interesting to see someone debate him on this subject. Not in a live debate, mind you, which I consider about the worst possible medium ever invented for getting at the truth, but in a printed debate. Bring your best evidence. Show us your tables and your charts. Take the proper time to both make and respond to arguments.

He's talking about an academic debate, but I think this is true for political debates as well. Presidential debates as we know them are ridiculous. Perhaps if people really did want to see Lincoln Douglas style debates, or even modern Oxford style debates, they might be useful. But what we call political debates in this country are poor substitutes for American Idol sing-offs, which is what a lot of people really want. And they don't inform us very well either.

So, maybe we should ask the candidates to do a beauty pageant for TV and stage a written debate to assess their official positions. It's true that Rick Perry would probably come off much better if his staff could write his answers for him, but is there any doubt that while he might very well win the swimsuit competition, he would certainly whiff the live Q and A?

I think we can imagine it:

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digby 12/26/2011 06:00:00 PM |

 
Entitled demagogue

by digby

I continue to be irritated by Mitt Romney's apparent strategy to turn himself into the worst kind of Tea Party demagogue with this "entitlement" nonsense. Coming from a rich kid who parlayed his name into hundreds of millions as a front man for a Vulture Capitalist firm, it's especially sickening.

Thomas Edsall had a nice piece on it yesterday, called "The Anti-entitlement Strategy",(which is funny in itself):

Romney and his aides have designed his rhetoric to define pretty much all spending on entitlements, including provisions for the injured, unemployed, sick, disabled or elderly as benefits to the poor who, Romney implies, are undeserving. And it doesn’t matter whether the money to pay for these programs comes from employer and employee contributions and not just tax revenue — they are all under suspicion.

In an op-ed published Dec. 19 in USA Today, Romney described the 2012 election as a battle between the partisans of entitlement and the partisans of opportunity:

Will the United States be an Entitlement Society or an Opportunity Society? In an Entitlement Society, government provides every citizen the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to innovate, pioneer or take risk. In an Opportunity Society, free people living under a limited government choose whether or not to pursue education, engage in hard work, and pursue the passion of their ideas and dreams. If they succeed, they merit the rewards they are able to enjoy.

Romney’s formulation exploits public distrust of programs that explicitly serve the poor. In 2010, about a fifth of the federal budget — $786 billion or 22 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — went to programs that “kept an estimated 15 million Americans out of poverty and reduced the depth of poverty for another 29 million people.” These programs include Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, earned-income tax credits, cash payments to eligible individuals or households such as Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor, unemployment insurance, food stamps, school meals, low-income housing, child-care and programs for abused and neglected children. 2010 spending for Pell college grants for low-income students was $21 billion and spending that year for Head Start was $7.2 billion

Without the underlying belief many voters hold that programs serving low-income beneficiaries perpetuate poverty and discourage work, Romney could not have banked on voter support for his answer in this exchange between the candidate and Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday the week before Christmas.

Wallace pressed Romney to explain how poor recipients of government entitlement programs would fare under his campaign’s plan to “cut Medicaid, health coverage for the poor, by $700 billion. Cut food stamps by $127 billion. Cut Pell Grants for low- income college students in half.” Wallace then pointedly asked, “You don’t think if you cut $700 billion in aid to the states that some people are going to get hurt?”

Romney replied without hesitation:

In the same way by cutting welfare spending dramatically, I don’t think we hurt the poor. In the same way I think we cut Medicaid spending by having it go to the states, run more efficiently with less fraud, I don’t think we’ll hurt the people that depend on the program for their health care.

In attacking the “entitlement society,” Romney is not breaking new ground; he is following in the path of conservative talk show hosts and Tea Party leaders who think social insurance spending is destroying America.

Elements of the conservative intelligentsia see it the same way. An editorial last year in The Wall Street Journal charged, for example, that the Obama administration’s health care reform bill was designed to become another element of the Democratic “cradle-to-grave entitlement citadel.”

A sign held up prominently at Tea Party rallies reads, “You Are Not Entitled To What I Earn.”

Maybe the people holding those signs are as rich as Mitt Romney, but I doubt it. Assuming they aren't among those poor deluded souls who are collecting SSI and holding up those signs, they are probably average working people who believe that government spending goes disproportionately to people who don't "deserve" it. (Each one has to answer for him or herself what that means.) And the very, very entitled Mitt Romney is exploiting their grievances and prejudices for his own enrichment and ambition, knowing very well that it's his class --- the 1% --- who are getting a greater return on their lobbying and campaign donations than they ever could have dreamed. That doesn't let the believers off the hook, of course, but it does make Mitt Romney a very special sort of asshole.


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digby 12/26/2011 04:30:00 PM |

 
Elections have consequences. Including this one.

by David Atkins

There's a lot of disappointment out with the Obama Administration, to be sure. I count myself as one of the disenchanted with the Administration's tepid rhetoric and lack of forward progress on the issues that matter most to me: reversing the financialization of the economy, doing something about climate change, forcing the super-rich to pay their fair share again, reducing America's over-expenditure on its war machine, protecting the social safety net, and increasing investment the rest of the federal discretionary budget not dedicated to Social Security, Medicare, and the military. Civil libertarians and education advocates would argue with some cause that the Administration's stances have actually reversed progress on their key issues.

But it's a long way from there to arguing that elections don't matter, that Obama is as bad as Bush, and that therefore one shouldn't vote. Paul Krugman would have a few words to say on that front:

Surprise: I got my wish, in the form of new Environmental Protection Agency standards on mercury and air toxics for power plants. These rules are long overdue: we were supposed to start regulating mercury more than 20 years ago. But the rules are finally here, and will deliver huge benefits at only modest cost.

So, naturally, Republicans are furious. But before I get to the politics, let’s talk about what a good thing the E.P.A. just did...

The E.P.A. explains: “Methylmercury exposure is a particular concern for women of childbearing age, unborn babies and young children, because studies have linked high levels of methylmercury to damage to the developing nervous system, which can impair children’s ability to think and learn.”

That sort of sounds like something we should regulate, doesn’t it?

The new rules would also have the effect of reducing fine particle pollution, which is a known source of many health problems, from asthma to heart attacks. In fact, the benefits of reduced fine particle pollution account for most of the quantifiable gains from the new rules. The key word here is “quantifiable”: E.P.A.’s cost-benefit analysis only considers one benefit of mercury regulation, the reduced loss in future wages for children whose I.Q.’s are damaged by eating fish caught by freshwater anglers. There are without doubt many other benefits to cutting mercury emissions, but at this point the agency doesn’t know how to put a dollar figure on those benefits.

Even so, the payoff to the new rules is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal.

This E.P.A. decision would not have happened under a McCain administration, any more than this kiss would have been possible. And a Romney/Gingrich/Perry administration will likely reverse this E.P.A. ruling if it gets a chance.

Politics is often about taking the best choices one has available. The Obama Administration hasn't been anything close to perfect by a long shot. But as election season nears and the consequences of the choice that lies before the country draw into clearer focus, the voices who argue that voting is irrelevant because there's no difference between the parties are going to become self-marginalized.

But how, one might argue, does one leverage power from the Left if the votes of the Left are guaranteed, regardless? Well, that's what primary season is for, and that's why the Left must concentrate on building a stronger bench of progressive candidates, as well as mobilizing for progressive legislation at a statewide level. And keep in mind that when Democrats lose general elections, they invariably move to the Right, not to the Left. Not voting at all will accomplish precisely nothing in the effort to move the Dems to the Left, nor will a slightly-larger-than-usual group of people refusing to participate in the process somehow cause the two-party system to melt away. All that will happen is that we'll get the same system we had before, completely under the control of Boehner and Cantor's goons, even as a chastened Democratic Party moves even farther to the Right and issues mea culpas for having picked too liberal a President in Barack Obama.

So in a general election when the choice is between the people who want kids to get brain damage from mercury and the people who don't, not voting at all because of drones or Jamie Dimon doesn't make much moral sense--least of all to the kids.


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thereisnospoon 12/26/2011 03:00:00 PM |

 

Listen to your customers

by digby

I gotcher yer common sense for ya right here:

So simple even a baby can understand it.

I'm just sorry I'm probably not going to live long enough to vote for that little girl some day.


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digby 12/26/2011 01:30:00 PM |

 

Antebellum libertarianism

by digby

It's loads of fun watching the Ron Paul war erupt on the internet. Again. Especially on the left where it often leads to the accusation that you are a rank imperialist pig if you fail to support him. Good times

But it's not just the racist newsletters or the fact that he's a John Birch Society favorite. As a liberal (and a human being) my problem with Paul is this:

“A healthy, 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides: You know what? I'm not going to spend 200 or 300 dollars a month for health insurance, because I'm healthy; I don't need it,” Blitzer said. “But you know, something terrible happens; all of a sudden, he needs it. Who's going to pay for it, if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

“In a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him,” Paul replied. Blitzer asked what Paul would prefer to having government deal with the sick man.

“What he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself,” Paul said. ”My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced —"

“But he doesn't have that,” Blitzer said. “He doesn't have it and he's — and he needs — he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?”

“That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks.,” Paul said, repeating the standard libertarian view as some in the audience cheered.

“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die,” Blitzer asked.

“Yeah,” came the shout from the audience.

I fundamentally disagree with his stance, although in fairness he did say that churches used to give charity and so that's how things could be dealt with in the future. Since he also believes that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional, I'm guessing they'll have their hands full:

He usually votes against the wars (although not always) and he's a defender of civil liberties for which I am grateful. There are few on either side of the aisle to take those stances. He also votes against policies like the Ryan plan which is very useful. In the latter case, however, it's because he thinks Paul Ryan is a bit of socialist who doesn't go far enough. Indeed, on domestic policies in general, where he isn't an incoherent kook --- an anti-choice libertarian is an oxymoron, I'm sorry --- he's a champion safety net shredder.

I think the problem is that some people are confusing legislative and movement politics. In American legislative politics, alliances are traditionally formed across all kinds of unusual lines. Until the recent purges of non-doctrinaire conservative Republicans it was nearly required that all legislation have bipartisan sponsors and it often resulted in very strange bedfellows. It's only because it's so unusual these days that people point to Ron Paul working with Alan Grayson on the Fed and come to see Paul as some sort of ideological ally. He isn't. He has a viewpoint that is iconoclastic in today's GOP which leads him to vote to cut defense spending along with Medicare and student loans, unlike his Republican brethren. But his worldview and ideology are the antithesis of modern progressivism. When you support a politician (as opposed to working with him or her in discrete areas) worldview and ideology are important.

There are people for whom a particular issue is paramount and they may decide to support a politician solely for that reason. An anti-war activist or someone who's life work is dealing with the results of the drug war or maybe someone who really, truly believes in the Gold standard or dismantling the Fed above all else in political life, can justify support for Ron Paul for that reason. But they should be honest about it and say that's why they are making that choice. Too often what we are dealing with is a truckload of fatuous rationalization.

To insist for instance, as Paul supporters often do, that I should support Ron Paul even though he's anti-choice and wants to dismantle the welfare state because he would allow states to enact their own laws guaranteeing a woman's right to control her own body or programs to support the old and the sick, is to say that the United States of America doesn't really exist. That's more than a difference of wordview, it's a fundamental difference of identity. We fought a big war over this question and it's settled.

Libertarians who believe that "statism" is ok if comes from state of California but not the US government are not only living in the early 19th century, they are basically saying that their only real beef is if the government abridging individual freedom is the federal government. Tyranny on a smaller scale isn't their concern. And that isn't liberal or libertarian. It's just plain old antebellum era American politics -- which is what Ron Paul truly believes when you see his positions on issue after issue. And perhaps that explains those notorious newsletters better than anything else. The antebellum south is where his philosophy really comes from --- and where it leads. (And by the way, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the other famous congressional goldbug of the last quarter century was Jesse Helms. Birds of a feather...)

I have no beef with Ron Paul running. He has every right and a legitimate following who deserve to be heard in our politics. He's giving the conservatives heartburn because as much as they love his Antebellum politics when it comes to domestic issues, they're completely at odds with the right's jingoistic national chauvinism --- something that cuts to the heart of American conservatism. (And truthfully, in that as in so much else, Paul works against the tribal lines. Pre-civil war Southern culture was nothing if not martial. And it still is.)

But he cuts equally to the heart of progressive politics with his rigid dismissal of egalitarianism. You simply cannot find a worse candidate for the current era of gilded age inequality. He has absolutely no answers for the most pressing problem our country faces beyond telling us to basically dissolve the union. Somehow, I suspect that isn't going to get the job done.

Update:

Case closed (on the letters)?

The Dallas Morning News -- May 22, 1996.

Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation.

Dr. Paul also took exception to the comments of Mr. Bledsoe, saying that the voters in the 14th District and the people who know him best would be the final judges of his character.

"If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man's character, what kind of a world do you live in?" Dr. Paul asked.
In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.

"If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said.

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digby 12/26/2011 12:15:00 PM |

 
How the 1% recycles

by digby

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but the 1% is on a buying spree. They have so much money they don't know what to do with it. And so they are spending it on things that have no real value.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I suppose it's possible that the sale created a few jobs at the auction house and perhaps the heirs will hire a servant or two. (I'm sure they'll tip their waiters well, anyway.) But, while I know that John Galt likes to wear a tiara from time to time, buying items owned by a dead person at insanely inflated prices is hardly what I would call "productive."

The landmark auctions of The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor at Christie’s New York from December 3-17 realized a combined total of $156,756,576 (£100,324,209/ €120,702,563) with every single item sold. The sale drew unprecedented interest from bidders throughout the world, who gathered in Christie’s flagship Rockefeller Center saleroom to compete in person, on the phone, on-line and by absentee bid to win one of the Collection’s 1,778 lots of jewelry, fashion, decorative arts and film memorabilia. The total far exceeded Christie’s pre-sale expectations for the sale as a whole and for individual items, which were frequently hammered down for five, ten, or even 50 times their estimate in some cases.

Here's how the rich determine "value":

Look closely. The two diamond and gold bands on the right were valued at $6-8,000. They sold for $1,022,500.00

I like Elizabeth Taylor as much as anyone and I don't doubt there's collector value in those rings. But that's obscene.

Still, everybody likes an auction. And there have been a lot of them this year. Unfortunately, this is the kind in which most Americans are participating:

Banks in November scheduled more than 26,000 homes to be sold at California foreclosure auctions, a 63% increase from October and a sign that a surge in discounted, bank-owned properties is on track to hit the market next year.

The uptick in scheduled auctions follows an increase last summer in homes entering the foreclosure process by receiving default notices and was largely driven by Bank of America. It appears that many of those homes are now quickly working their way through the process, said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac of Irvine, a data tracker that published the November data.

Update: If you are part of the one percent and you missed the Liz Taylor auction, it's not too late to get a little stocking stuffer before the end of the New Year:

Ok, but that has to be unusual, right? Wrong.

The 200-foot Feadship, named April Fool, can be yours for a mere $69.5 million. The boat has a huge master stateroom, a Jacuzzi on the fourth-level sun deck and a sprawling outdoor eating lounge. Weill has only had the boat about five years, after trading up from his previous, smaller yacht…Jonathan Beckett [the yacht broker that’s selling April Fool] declined any comment on the boat’s ownership or reasons for the sale. But he said April Fool is in pristine condition, since it “was rarely used and never chartered.” Feadships, he adds, are the “Rolls Royce” of yachts. It also has an elevator, which is rare for a boat of less than 250 feet.

Who among us doesn't need a yacht with an elevator?

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digby 12/26/2011 09:30:00 AM |

 
Seeking Change

by David Atkins

The New York Times has a cheery thought for you as you try to get back to work after the holiday break (assuming you can get work in this economy):

At the end of one of the most bizarre weather years in American history, climate research stands at a crossroads.

Scientists say they could, in theory, do a much better job of answering the question “Did global warming have anything to do with it?” after extreme weather events like the drought in Texas and the floods in New England.

But for many reasons, efforts to put out prompt reports on the causes of extreme weather are essentially languishing. Chief among the difficulties that scientists face: the political environment for new climate-science initiatives has turned hostile, and with the federal budget crisis, money is tight.

And so, as the weather becomes more erratic by the year, the public is left to wonder what is going on.

This is what it has come to: not only do we not have the political will to do anything about the greatest crisis our generation, we don't even have the political will to study the issue.

The various factions on the left can argue endlessly whether there's any point to seeking change through the ballot box, whether the President has done enough to advance liberal causes, and what the best course of action might be in the future.

But no matter what, it's painfully clear that the current system is broken, and small tweaks aren't going to fix it. The system is in need of a major overhaul.

The President's defenders would argue that he wasn't capable of making that overhaul alone. They would be right. But the problem is that before the overhaul can happen, people in positions of elected leadership are going to have to make the case for an overhaul--not just some folks occupying a public park.

And this is the core problem with most institutional Democrats. Given a system desperately in need of big and bold changes, almost the only ones making the case for radical changes and getting noticed are the psychos on the Right, not the Left.

Now, because most people don't really agree with the Right's "solutions"--if indeed they offer any at all, as on climate change where their "answer" is to do nothing--it may well be that Democrats will gain and/or hang onto power for a time.

But as the system itself breaks down and belief in the system deteriorates, the public will become increasingly enamored of those promising radical change. Any radical change.

The President promised that sort of change during his campaign. The President's defenders may say that he never did promise those things, that he only promised to "change our politics," and that far from taking bold, radical stances, the President simply promised to make partisans in Washington work more cooperatively together.

Well, if that's the case it hasn't worked. But more importantly, whether it worked is less relevant than the fact that whatever the President may have said about what he meant by "change," that's not what most people heard. What people heard when the President talked about "hope" and "change" was that we would get real changes in our lives that would truly give us hope again.

Now again, perhaps the President was not in a position to deliver it--perhaps no President could. In fact, there's no "perhaps" about it. There's no way a President could singlehandedly create the change that the Americans who elected Obama hoped he would bring. Those lofty expectations were never destined to be realized, not even if FDR had risen from the grave to take the oath of office.

But the President at least would need to make the case that these transformative changes are necessary, and that he is doing everything in his power to make them happen--even if, as with the case of the Boehner House, his power to make them happen is next to nothing. Whether the President actually even wants to make those changes is another issue, of course, but it scarcely matters one way or another what lies within the President's heart; what matters is what he says and does.

If safe and staid Democrats don't start promising some real populist changes to the system, the public will end up electing Republicans who promise a very different kind of populism we've seen all too often before, with disastrous results.

Here's hoping more Democrats change their rhetoric and priorities, and it doesn't come to that.


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thereisnospoon 12/26/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Sunday, December 25, 2011

 
Dank u, Sinterklaasje

by digby

Being a military brat of a certain age,I spent much of my childhood in various post-war Imperial outposts, and my earliest memories come from the time we spent in Holland. I learned to speak Dutch right along with English (later forgotten unfortunately) and for quite a few years after we came back to the states my parents would pay me a dime to sing
Sinterklaas, kapoentje for their friends.

Via #everyoneontheinternet, this David Sedaris telling of the Dutch Christmas story is hilarious --- and true. Dutch Christmas is different than ours. Very different.

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digby 12/25/2011 06:30:00 PM |

 
A Doggie Christmas Miracle

by digby


Ok, one last heartwarming Christmas post before we get back to our usual obsessive coverage of political outrage and human failing:

A blind dog that was lost and believed to be dead is reunited with his San Antonio family for Christmas, thanks to Craigslist, a school teacher and an animal care agency.

Nearly a month after Stevie Oedipus Wonder disappeared — and was reported dead — the cairn terrier mix puppy is home for the holiday, the San Antonio Express-News reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/unONGF .)

“This is my Christmas miracle,” Stevie’s owner Belinda Gutierrez said. “I actually thought I was going to have a sad end of the year and a sad Christmas.”

Stevie, a dog born without eyes and apparently abused by a previous owner, was found early in 2011 by Gutierrez’s daughter as he wandered near a city duck pond. Instantly, the dog became a part of the family, responding to their voices and dragging Gutierrez out for exercise.

Days after Thanksgiving, though, Stevie escaped — disappearing from the family’s home. Days later, Gutierrez’s landlord told her the dog was dead.

On Dec. 11, Stevie showed up at Animal Care Services. A collar and tag kept him alive for five days, Jeanne Saadi, the agency’s live release coordinator, said. But with outdated information, the agency failed to find his owners and prepared to euthanize him.

That’s when Brooke Orr, a high school teacher, saw the agency’s ad seeking a home for the blind dog. She agreed to care for Stevie over the holidays, buying him a few more days.

Meanwhile, Gutierrez’s distraught daughter posted a lost dog notice on Craigslist, hoping someone would see it and return Stevie.

Orr noticed the tag dangling on the dog’s neck.

“I thought that he must belong to someone. So I went to Craigslist and went to lost and found and I put in ‘blind dog,’ and there he was,” she said.

She contacted Gutierrez, who arrived at the Animal Care Services on Thursday uncertain the dog would be able to recognize her.

“All he had to do was hear my voice,” she said. “I stood at the entrance of the kennel building and called out ‘Stevie, Stevie.’ And he started barking all over the place.”

Now back at home, Stevie will awake Christmas morning to a stocking stuffed with doggy treats, rawhide chew toys and carrots, one of his favorites.

He's a good boy.


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digby 12/25/2011 05:00:00 PM |

 
A Christmas present for the environment?

by David Atkins

From TPM's Idea Lab, this seems pretty cool:

Scientists at the University of Illinois are developing a self-healing electronic circuit that could mean a far longer lifespan for next-generation cell phones and other electronic devices, as well as for batteries. Aside from saving money for consumers, the new “autonomous” circuit could help untangle the complex chain of environmental issues that wraps around broken electronic products and spent batteries.

The basic concept of a self-healing circuit is fairly straightforward. The U of I team developed tiny capsules about ten microns (ten millionths of a meter) in diameter that are filled with a liquid metal and inserted alongside the circuit. When the circuit breaks, so do the capsules. The liquid metal seeps into the crack and restores the circuit.

As explained by U of I chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore in a recent press release:

“It simplifies the system. Rather than having to build in redundancies or to build in a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself.”

Self-healing circuits could help solve a sustainability conundrum for the rapidly growing consumer electronics market: batteries are essentially non-repairable, and many products are far cheaper to replace than to pay someone for repair work.

For that matter, as electronic technology keeps pace with Moore’s Law, electronic chips are becoming smaller, more densely packed and more complex, leaving fewer opportunities for human hands to fix a problem. The result is a rapidly growing mountain of e-waste.

Aside from helping to deal with consumer e-waste issues, autonomous circuits could become a significant factor in advanced applications, particularly aeronautics and military equipment, where there is little or no time for a lengthy diagnostic process let alone manual repairs.

U of I’s self-healing system works almost literally on the fly, with the potential to effect repairs before a human operator is aware that the circuit was even broken. In lab tests using just a small number of microcapsules, the U of I self-healing system repaired broken circuits in fractions of a second, and the research team reported that 90 percent of their samples were restored to within one percent of their full conductivity.

Every generation has had its Malthusians who insist that the end of the world is coming due to overpopulation and lack of sustainability. Climate change is certainly the one problem that might validate this generation's pessimists, as it's an encroaching problem that threatens the survivability of entire ecosystems rather than just of humanity itself.

But the Malthusians have always underestimated humanity's capacity for innovation and invention to overcome these issues. It will be interesting to see what sorts of solutions are brought to bear against our current myriad sustainability crises.

But one thing's for sure: more government support would be nice. Current levels of public investment in technological innovation are far too low. Increasing it would not only help address a generational sustainability crisis, but help with our transitory employment crisis as well. Fat cats who refuse to pay taxes are killing this country and the world in more ways than we can count.


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thereisnospoon 12/25/2011 03:00:00 PM |

 
Occupy Santa

by digby

You know it's a sweatshop:

Taking a page out of the Occupy Wall Street playbook, elves at the North Pole took a stand against their abusive bearded boss: Santa.

The New Visions: Journalism and Media Studies class of 2011 produced this movie short documenting the heroic attempts of a vertically-challenged group of workers rising up to fight for their own rights. You’ve seen the trailer, so here is the movie: Occupy North Pole. Keep an eye out for the “uncut” version to be posted later.

I think the kids get it.


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digby 12/25/2011 01:00:00 PM |

 
The Most Surreal Christmas Video Of All Time

by digby



The real one ... almost as surreal



That is all.


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digby 12/25/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
Your present

by digby


Look what Santa left you:

Merry Christmas everyone.


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digby 12/25/2011 09:00:00 AM |

 
Ebenezer Scrooge, Conservative

by David Atkins

For your holiday pleasure



A Republican would defend himself by saying that the liberals in the story were asking for charity rather than for increased government services. But after all, if charity had been sufficient to the need in the 19th and early 20th centuries, there would have been no need for the modern welfare state, would there? To say nothing of the fact that leaving the nature social services to the whims of the charitable is a very bad idea, anyway. The Republican model of charity for social services has already been tried--and it failed miserably. That's why most decent societies have moved beyond it.

And yet, conservative economists today write in defense of Mr. Scrooge:

Dickens's ignorance of basic economics would, if acted upon by Scrooge, have produced adverse consequences for Cratchit himself. Had Ebeneezer paid Cratchit a higher salary for his work, he [Scrooge] would very likely have been able to attract a larger number of job applicants from which he could have selected employees whose enhanced marginal productivity might have earned Scrooge even greater profits. At such a point, terminating Cratchit's employment would have been an economically rational act by Scrooge. As matters now stand, Scrooge's employment policies have left him with the kind of groveling, ergophobic, humanoid sponge we have come to know as Bob Cratchit; a man we are expected to take into our hearts as an expression of some warped sense of the "Christmas spirit." Being an astute businessmen, Ebeneezer Scrooge was well aware of the marketplace maxim that "you get what you pay for."

Unaccustomed as Commissar Dickens is to the informal processes of the marketplace, we would not expect him to tell us anything about competitive alternatives for Cratchit's services. Perhaps there are employers out there prepared to pay him a higher wage than he is receiving from my client. If this is so, then we must ask ourselves: did Bob Cratchit simply lack the ambition to seek higher-paying employment? It would appear so. At no time do we see this man exhibiting any interest in trying to better his and his family's lot.

Fans of Scrooge the unreformed villain now dominate our politics and economics. Truly a repulsive state of affairs.


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thereisnospoon 12/25/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Saturday, December 24, 2011

 
*I'll keep this post at the top of the page for a while. Please scroll down for new posts.

Thanks folks

by digby

Thank you so much for your support and kind words during our holiday fundraiser. Special thanks to Sam Seder and fellow bloggers, particularly Atrios, Tbogg and Bill in Portland Maine at Daily Kos and for putting out the word. Very Merry Christmas to Ye Olde Blogosphere.

Happy Hollandaise everyone.

cheers,

digby

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digby 12/24/2011 11:00:00 PM |

 
Saturday Night at the Movies

The mole from the ministry

By Dennis Hartley

Smiley’s sense of snow: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

It is always the quiet ones that you need to be wary of. I’m sure you’ve watched enough nature documentaries on the National Geographic Channel to figure that one out. Lions will sit patiently for hours, waiting for the right moment to pounce. As casual and disinterested as they may seem at times, they never lose their focus. They are studying your every move, all the while visualizing how nicely you will fit on today’s fresh sheet.

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s new film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (adapted from John le Carre’s classic espionage potboiler by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan) is chockablock with such animals. However, these are not creatures of the four-legged, furry variety that you will find in the sun-drenched African Savanna, lurking about in tall grasses. These are creatures of the bipedal, D-deficient variety that you will find in the fog-shrouded British Isles, usually lurking in musty offices with nicotine-stained ceilings.

The story is set in 1973, against a Cold War backdrop. Our unlikely hero is not so much a leonine, but rather an owlish sort of fellow. His name is George Smiley (Gary Oldman), and despite the fact that he would look more at home behind a library check out desk than behind the wheel of, let’s say, an Aston Martin, he is a seasoned intelligence agent for MI6. Actually, Smiley’s long-standing career with a branch known as “The Circus” is not going so well. When his boss, known simply as Control (John Hurt), gets booted out for a botched operation in Hungary, Smiley finds himself out of a job as well (more as a scapegoat). It seems that the office politics of the Circus are nearly indistinguishable from the acrimonious and paranoia-fueled spy games played in the field with “enemy” agents.

Smiley’s forced retirement doesn’t last too long (it can’t…we wouldn’t have a film!). He is summoned to a meet with a government under-secretary (Simon McBurney), where he is sasked to come back to work (in secret). There are suspicions that there is a double agent amongst the higher echelons of the Circus, who has been feeding sensitive intelligence to the Soviets for a number of years. Smiley’s mission, should he decide to accept it, is to smoke out the mole. Interestingly, it was Smiley’s former boss, Control (now dead), who originally sniffed out this possibility, narrowing the field of suspects down to five men in the department (including Smiley, now in the clear). Given that he didn’t seem to have too much going on outside of his job (apart from brooding about his estranged wife), Smiley jumps at this chance to get back in the game. And of course, as the movies have taught us, the Crusty yet Benign (city editor, senior lawyer, police inspector, seasoned beat cop, or in this case, Master Spy) needs an Ambitious Young Apprentice to be his eyes and ears (Benedict Cumberbatch as the up-and-coming agent).

What ensues plot-wise is much too byzantine and multi-layered for me to synopsize here. Besides, it’s always much more gratifying to solve a Rubik’s Cube yourself than to have someone hand you an EZ step-by-step cheat sheet, no? And when I say “byzantine and multi-layered”, I mean that in the best way possible, thanks in no small part to that rarest of animals found at the multiplex these days: The Intelligent Script (#1 on the endangered species list). Not only do Alfredson, his writers and actors refuse to insult our intelligence, but they aren’t afraid to make us do something that we haven’t done in a while: lean forward in our theatre seat to catch every nuance of plot and character (it’s been so long that I think I pulled something). Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but more often than not I find myself pressed back in my seat, cowering in a semi-state of shellshock from the aural overkill and ADD editing in most Hollywood fare (so at what point did going to the movies morph from an act of enjoyment into a feat of endurance?).

That is not to say that this is a static and somber affair. There’s a bit of “action” here and there (people do occasionally get hurt in the spy biz), but it’s not calculated and choreographed for maximum impact; Dr. No’s island doesn’t blow up at the end. When violence does occur, it’s ugly, ungraceful and anything but cinematic (as it is in real life). Most of the “thrills” are drawn from the arsenal of the skilled actor; a sideways glance here or a subtle voice inflection there can ratchet up the tension as effectively as someone holding a gun to your head. And there are many skilled actors on board. This is Oldman’s best performance in years. It’s nice to see him take a break from playing cartoon villains and getting back to where he once belonged (his bespectacled, enigmatic characterization harkens back to another Cold War film spy hero for those of us of “a certain age”, Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer). Rounding off a top-notch cast are Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong (a standout) and the wonderful Kathy Burke (who, with a world-weary sigh, nails 2011’s best movie line concerning middle-aged malaise: “I don’t know about you George, but I’m feeling seriously under-fucked.”).

DP Hoyte Van Hoytema (who also photographed the director’s moody 2008 vampire tale, Let the Right One In ) deserves a mention. He sustains a bleak, wintry atmosphere that could be pulling double duty as a visual metaphor for the Cold War itself; or for the arctic desolation of the pasty-faced souls who populate this tale. Not unlike vampires, they are twilight creatures who prefer to stalk their prey under cover of darkness, and live in mortal fear of illumination and discovery. As I said…always be wary of the quiet ones.

Baby, it’s cold outside: Funeral in Berlin , The Ipcress File , Billion Dollar Brain,Spy Who Came in from the Cold , The Tailor of Panama, The Little Drummer Girl, The Constant Gardener, The Looking Glass War, The Defector, Jigsaw Man , Torn Curtain, The Tamarind Seed , The Deadly Affair, North by Northwest ,From Russia with Love, The Russia House, The Iron Curtain , Human Factor, The Kremlin Letter, Topaz, The Fourth Protocol , Defense of the Realm, Gorky Park,The Falcon and the Snowman , Pickup on South Street, Our Man in Havana, Hopscotch , No Way Out, Spy Game

Previous Posts with related themes:

Burn After Reading

The Good Shepherd/638 Ways to Kill Castro

Fair Game

Breach

Charlie Wilson’s War

The Good German

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Dennis Hartley 12/24/2011 04:30:00 PM |

 
Disqualified

by digby

I'm sure you've heard that Newtie and Perry couldn't get their acts together enough to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, which pretty much disqualifies all of them for president as far as I'm concerned. Seriously, if you can't even get on the ballot in all the primary states you're running in ... well.

But they're not the only people who are disqualified today. The very handsome Niall Ferguson has made a total cake of himself as well:

I get that self-avowed “neo-imperialist” historian Niall Ferguson relishes his gig as academia’s most celebrated colonial nostalgic/conservative reactionary. But this is too much:

I just read the transcripts of some lectures [Newt Gingrich] gave in the 1990s on “Renewing American Civilization.” They positively fizz with historical insights and brilliant brain waves. They make the case against big government as vividly as anything you’ll ever read.

This nugget of praise, apparently written in all seriousness, appeared in the December 19th edition of Newsweek, where Ferguson writes a weekly column. I too read these transcripts as part of an assignment for The New Republic (learn all about it here if you’re a print subscriber) and they simply don’t warrant this level of praise.

Here's an example of the "brilliant brainwaves"

I would assert that no civilization can survive with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year- olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, and 18-year- olds getting diplomas they can't read.

They're nothing more than typical 90s era GOPAC cartoon agit-prop.

I think Ferguson's disqualification may be worse than Gingrich's. After all, he can't lay blame for it on his bad staff or mismanagement. Those silly words of praise are his and his alone.


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digby 12/24/2011 02:00:00 PM |

 
Effective persuasion

by digby

Matt Yglesias wrote something this week that I wanted to post today. It's just a quick observation:

Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein are back to debating the hoary counterfactual of whether the Obama administration could have gotten a larger stimulus bill out of Congress had they fully recognized the depth and breadth of the recession they were facing. One thing I want to say about this is always that insider testimonies on this subject provide sort of poor evidence. This is often discussed in terms of arm twisting or political pressure, but administration officials who were there assure me they did everything they could and I more or less believe them. But maybe they could or should have been more genuinely persuasive? Presumably if Ben Nelson sincerely believed that appropriating hundreds of billions of extra dollars in stimulus spending would meaningfully imprve the American economy, then he would have voted for it. Pressure is nice, but on some level there's no substitute for sincere conviction which means there's no substitute for effective persuasion.

The problem in our politics isn't just money, it's cynicism. And that goes for activists as well as politicians. Persuasion is the very essence of politics and at some point, if you believe in representative democracy, you just have to get down to it and elect people who believe as you believe. Persuasion always beats coercion for the long term.


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digby 12/24/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
When Glenn met Norman

by digby

One of my favorite Blue America candidates is Norman Solomon. If he wins the seat vacated by Lynn Woolsey in Northern California we're going to have another Bernie Sanders in the congress.

Here's why:

Solomon wrote it up for Common Dreams:

When I picked up a ringing phone Monday morning, the next thing I knew a producer was inviting me to appear on Glenn Beck's TV show.

Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics on CNN Headline News -- urging war on Iran, denouncing "political correctness" at home, trashing immigrants who don't speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks.

Our segment, the producer said, would focus on a recent NBC news report praising the virtues of energy-efficient LED light bulbs without acknowledging that the network's parent company, General Electric, sells them. I figured it was a safe bet that Beck's enthusiasm for full disclosure from media would be selective.

A few hours later, I was staring into a camera lens at the CNN bureau in San Francisco while Beck launched into his opening. What had occurred on the "NBC Nightly News," he explained, "was at best a major breach of journalistic integrity." And he pointed out: "The problem isn't what NBC is promoting. It's what they're not disclosing."

A minute later, Beck asked his first question: "Norman, you agree with me that they should have disclosed this?" The unedited transcript tells what happened next.

SOLOMON: "It's a big problem when there's not disclosure. I'm glad you opened this up. And I wouldn't want any viewers of this program to be left with the impression that somehow General Electric is an environmentally conscious company.

"On the contrary, they have a 30-year history of refusing and actually fighting against efforts to make them clean up the Hudson River, which GE fouled with terrible quantities of horrific PCBs, other rivers as well. People told they can't fish in the Hudson River. General Electric still lobbying to not have to clean up.

"General Electric, even today -- and this report is very timely -- General Electric is lobbying to get Congress to pass $18 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for a huge GE product which is General Electric components for nuclear power plants. So we should not be fooled in any way by efforts to greenwash General Electric or any other company."

BECK: "You know what's amazing to me? GE has a bigger budget for -- special interest budget than all of the oil companies combined, and yet nobody says anything. Let me reverse this.

"Norman, do you think if I got on as somebody who says I don't know what we can do about global warming, I'm not sure man causes it, and I certainly don't want to have laws and regulations on this, if I got on and said that but I was being -- my corporate -- my corporate parent was Exxon Mobil, do you think I'd get away with that for a second without that being on the front page of the New York Times?"

SOLOMON: "Well, other networks, including General Electric's NBC, have been very slow on global warming. And in fact, General Electric has major interest in components and products used by the oil and gas industry.

"I think if you look across the board, all the major networks, even so-called public broadcasting, which has Chevron underwriting its 'Washington Week' program every Friday, there is a problem, as you say. I think your words are very apt, 'promoting' but 'not disclosing.'

"But let's be clear about this, Glenn. I have a list here, for instance, that I jotted down.

"ABC, owned by Disney. ABC doesn't disclose in their relevant news reports about Disney's stake in sweatshops.

"Fox News -- and now as of the last couple of days now, Wall Street Journal owned by the same entity, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp -- they don't disclose that the ownership is entangled with the Chinese government to the detriment of human rights but to the advancement of the profit margin of the parent company."

BECK: "See --"

SOLOMON: "We would be remiss, Glenn, if we left out CNN, because CNN has a huge multi, multibillion-dollar stake in Internet deregulation and the failure of the Congress to safeguard so far what would be called net neutrality. So every time CNN does a news report on the Internet, on efforts to regulate or deregulate or create a two- or three-tier system of the Internet, CNN News should disclose that Time Warner, the parent company, stands to gain or lose billions of dollars in those terms.

"And one more thing."

BECK: "Real quick."

SOLOMON: "A major -- a major advertiser for CNN is the largest military contractor in the United States, Lockheed Martin. So when you and others --"

BECK: "I got news for you, Norman. Norman --"

SOLOMON: "-- promote war -- when you and others promote war on this network --"

BECK: "Norman -- Norman --"

SOLOMON: "-- we have Lockheed Martin paying millions of dollars undisclosed. So I would quote you --"

BECK: "Norman -- Norman --"

SOLOMON: "Promoting but not disclosing is a bad way to go."

BECK: "Norman, let me just tell you this. First of all, Lockheed Martin is not a -- not a corporate overlord of this program."

SOLOMON: "It's a major advertiser on CNN."

BECK: "That's fine. That's fine. Advertisers are different. But let --"

SOLOMON: "Well, it is fine, but it should be disclosed."

BECK: "Norman, let me just tell you something. If you think that it's warmonger central downstairs at CNN, you're out of your mind. But that's a different story."

SOLOMON: "Well, upstairs, when I watch Glenn Beck, in terms of attacking Iran, it certainly is. It's lucrative for the oil companies, as well as for the major advertiser on CNN, Lockheed Martin."

BECK: "But we're not talking about advertisers. We are talking about --"

SOLOMON: "Well, you don't want to talk about it. So let's talk about the Internet stake."

BECK: "No, no, no. Norman --"

SOLOMON: "Let's talk about the Internet stake that the owners of CNN have. Huge profits to be made or lost by the parent company of CNN depending on what happens in Washington in terms of Internet regulation."

BECK: "Norman, let me tell you something."

SOLOMON: "That should be acknowledged, don't you think?"

BECK: "Absolutely. And if it was on this program, it would be acknowledged.

"I thank you very much for your time.

"That just goes to show you, you've got to beware of everybody who you're getting your news from. Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while somebody came on and said, you know, I don't really have an agenda except the truth? It's my truth. If you don't like it, you should go someplace else."

During the back-and-forth, I'd understated the present-day role of Chevron as a funder of key news programming on PBS. Actually the Chevron Corporation, which signed on as an underwriter of "Washington Week" last year, no longer helps pay the piper there -- but the massive energy firm does currently funnel big bucks to the most influential show on PBS, the nightly "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

The corporate funders of the "NewsHour" now include not only Chevron but also AT&T and Pacific Life. There must be dozens of journalistic reports on the program every week -- whether relevant to the business worlds of energy, communications or insurance -- that warrant, and lack, real-time disclosures while the news accounts are on the air. Meanwhile, over at "Washington Week," the corporate cash now flows in from the huge military contractor Boeing and the National Mining Association.

And that's just "public broadcasting." On avowedly commercial networks, awash in corporate ownership interests and advertising revenues, a thorough policy of disclosure in the course of news coverage would require that most of the airtime be devoted to shedding light on the media outlet conflicts-of-interest of the reporting in progress.

And what about Glenn Beck? The guy is another in a long line of demagogues riding a bull market for pseudo-populism. Brought to you by too many corporate interests to name.

That was 2007, folks. He's been talking this talk for decades and he's not going to change once he's in Congress. He's the real thing.

You can support the campaign, here.


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digby 12/24/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
Best New Show: Chris Hayes

by digby

Now we know:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I don't think most people know all that --- which is why everyone should watch this show. It's the only political show that's going to make sure they do.


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digby 12/24/2011 09:30:00 AM |

 
Some RedLetterMedia fun on Christmas Eve

by David Atkins

If you've been living under the Internet equivalent of a rock, you might have missed RedLetterMedia's now legendary eviscerating YouTube reviews of the Star Wars prequels. Rogert Ebert has Roger Ebert has highlighted the reviews on his blog. For a taste of RedLetterMedia's unique brand of humor and insight, here's Part 1 of their Phantom Menace review:



Well, the RedLetterMedia team has done it again with a biting take on the fourth Indiana Jones film.




There's a lesson here for progressives about emotional communication as well, for those with an ear to hear it. Simplicity and emotional directness win the day in politics as in art.


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thereisnospoon 12/24/2011 07:30:00 AM |