FUCK REAGAN

I was reading a post at Hullabaloo a couple hours ago about former president and now conservative mythological godhead Ronald Reagan, and how for about a decade now right-wing activists have been making a concerted and somewhat successful effort to cast the Gipper as "greatest president ever" to a much larger portion of the US population. Needless to say, the context here is that Reagan not only wasn't the "greatest president ever," but he may very well have been one of the worst: out of thousands of conservatives who have been trying for years to dismantle the New Deal programs that literally created the middle class in this country, Reagan was probably the most successful in that he almost single handedly got the philosophical ball rolling on this grand right-wing project. But here in the 21st century, we're supposed to think he's like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

I know it seems like everybody fucking worships Ronnie these days, and that conservatism appears to be triumphant as a philosophy, but back in the day, back before the extended advertising and PR campaign, back when Reagan was doing his deeds, there were large percentages of Americans who hated him. Indeed, when he left office in January of 1989, he had very low approval ratings, down in the thirties, coming off the heels of the Iran/Contra scandal.

That is, in the days that preceded hard core conservative media action, many Americans were fully aware that Reagan had ramped up the class war to late 19th century levels, and were furious about it. I mean sure, Reagan won reelection to his second term in an electoral landslide, taking forty nine out of fifty states, but won the actual vote by less than twenty percent, and that was with a pretty shitty blast-from-the-past candidate, Carter's veep Walter Mondale, one of those sacrificial lamb candidates periodically offered up when party bosses don't want to try, you know, like Bob Dole in '96.

Anyway, all this made me remember a rather remarkable music video from 1986, Genesis' "Land of Confusion." Remarkable for several reasons. For starters, the video just slams the fuck out of Reagan, portraying him as a dottering fool who accidentally blows up the world. But Genesis is/was a fairly apolitical band. Even when they were being political, their art-rock lyrical stylings were usually so vague and abstract that you couldn't tell. Throw into the mix that MTV, also apolitical, put the video into heavy rotation. That is, people who usually didn't sully themselves with partisan politics felt like it was okay, desirable even, to bash the Gipper mercilessly.

This is the "greatest president ever"? Check it out. Now that we have a sense that Ronnie probably did have Alzheimer's his last few years in office, the video appears to be prescient:



Anyway, fuck Reagan. I was a fool to have ever liked him.

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Olbermann to Current TV as Primetime Host and Chief News Officer

From AlterNet:

In a conference call, Keith Olbermann and Vice President Al Gore announced Tuesday that Olbermann will host a new, hour-long primetime news show on Current TV beginning in spring. He will also act as Executive Producer of the show and Chief News Officer of the Network.

“Nothing is more vital to a free America than a free media, and nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news produced independently of corporate interference,” Olbermann said. “In Current Media, Al Gore and Joel Hyatt have created the model truth-seeking entity.”

According to EW, Olbermann also noted, “None of this should be directed at my nine full-time previous employers — there is nothing wrong with people making money and corporations being involved in covering information – provided there is an avenue in which those marketing forces are not the deciding factor in what we are doing. Current is not only the leading independent network, it’s the only one. To underscore and support that is my great privilege.”

In the call, Gore described Olbermann as “a gifted thinker, an amazing talent and a powerful communicator,” as well as “truly one of the unfettered voices on TV” and “one of our society’s most courageous talents.”

More here.

Well, that didn't take long.

The only problem I have with this is that I'm not included in the 60 million homes that get Current TV as part of their cable package. Maybe Olbermann's shows will be available online, you know, like they were at MSNBC. Indeed, most of my Olbermann watching was, in fact, online, at off hours. And Current TV does appear to have a lot of video on its website. Keeping my fingers crossed.

At any rate, I'm glad this guy's back quickly. I totally dig Olbermann. Also, it is interesting to note that Comcast, the right-leaning mega media corporate giant that seemingly ran Olbermann off from MSNBC, owns a ten percent stake in Current TV according to Wikipedia. This probably means nothing in terms of content. I mean, after all, the channel is apparently some kind of Al Gore vehicle, and, even though the former Vice President isn't exactly what I'd call liberal, I wouldn't really go so far as to say that Prince Albert is much of a conservative, either--you know, he is Mister Inconvenient Truth these days. Guess we'll see.

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BIZARRO ECONOMICS:
Taxes (As A Percentage Of Economy) Drop To Lowest Level In 60 Years

From the AP via the Huffington Post news wire:

Actually, as a share of the nation's economy, Uncle Sam's take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way.

And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing number of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike.

Income tax payments this year will be nearly 13 percent lower than they were in 2008, the last full year of the Bush presidency. Corporate taxes will be lower by a third, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The poor economy is largely to blame, with corporate profits down and unemployment up. But so is a tax code that grows each year with new deductions, credits and exemptions. The result is that families making as much as $50,000 can avoid paying federal income taxes, if they have at least two dependent children. Low-income families can actually make a profit from the income tax, and the wealthy can significantly cut their payments.

More here.

So, while I am bit disturbed that the Republicans have pretty much gotten away with branding Obama as a tax-crazy liberal, even though the evidence shows that the exact opposite is true, what concerns me more is that this news destroys a key piece of contemporary conservative philosophy, but nobody involved in the political discourse is going to point that out, certainly not the Republicans, who never met a tax cut they didn't like, certainly not the Democrats, who don't like to explain things, and certainly not the corporate news media, for reasons unknown.

Of course, that key piece of philosophy is that lower taxes stimulate the economy. Indeed, the Republicans have for years even gone on to assert that tax cuts stimulate the economy so much that, in the end, more tax revenue is gained, even though the tax rates have been lowered. By this standard, we should now be experiencing a federal budget surplus, instead of a deficit, and the economy should be booming, with increasing levels of employment, and higher levels of individual wealth overall.

Needless to say, this is not the case. We continue to run massive budget deficits. The economy, while technically now in a period of growth, is sluggish, and unemployment stubbornly hovers around the ten percent mark with no relief on the horizon. This is real world evidence, not some kind of vague philosophical argument, that tax cuts don't do much, if anything, to help the economy. But like I said, this will not in any way affect the conventional wisdom on tax cuts. Pundits and politicians alike will continue with their fantasy narrative about tax cuts as though reality doesn't matter. Business as usual.

Really, I find myself warming these days to an argument that's been floating around the left side of the blogosphere for a few years now: high taxes, not low taxes, help cause economic growth. The long and short of the argument, which deals more with taxing businesses and the rich than the general population, is that, because taxes are on profits, rather than revenue, in a high tax environment, people will find creative ways to avoid claiming revenue as profit. Generally, this means funnelling such income back into your business, or into investments, which translates into expanded economic activity, with more job creation, better wages and benefits, higher production, and better product quality. Without higher taxes, however, revenue drains out of business in the form of profits, and is then spent on luxury items, which has a negligible effect on economic growth, or simply dropped into savings, where it does nothing.

That is, the conventional wisdom on taxes comes from Bizarro World: me want good economy, so me cut taxes to make economy stagnate! Where's the real man of steel when you need him?



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Bush Cancels Visit To Switzerland Due To Threat Of Torture Prosecution

From Reuters via the Huffington Post news wire:

"President Bush has admitted he ordered waterboarding which everyone considers to be a form of torture under international law. Under the Convention against Torture, authorities would have been obliged to open an investigation and either prosecute or extradite George Bush," Brody said.

Swiss judicial officials have said that Bush would still enjoy a certain diplomatic immunity as a former head of state.

Dominique Baettig, a member of the Swiss parliament from the right-wing People's Party, wrote to the Swiss federal government last week calling for the arrest of Bush for alleged war crimes if he came to the neutral country.

Bush, in his "Decision Points" memoirs on his 2001-2009 presidency, strongly defends the use of waterboarding as key to preventing a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Most human rights experts consider the practice a form of torture, banned by the Convention on Torture, an international pact prohibiting torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. Switzerland and the United States are among 147 countries to have ratified the 1987 treaty.

More here.

In the United States, President Bush's status as war criminal is only mentioned in the public discourse in terms of denial. That is, when the subject comes up, which isn't often, it virtually always serves as a springboard for castigating as crazy or stupid the person who dared broach the topic. Even liberal hero John Stewart poo-poos calling our last President a war criminal.

But in more civilized parts of the world, this truth is fully embraced.

Make no mistake. Bush is a war criminal. Not only did he approve the harsh torture regime that began shortly after our ill fated and ill considered invasion of Afghanistan, he also waged an aggressive war against the sovereign nation of Iraq: according to the legal principles established at the Nuremberg Trials, aggressive war is the most heinous war crime of all, worse than bombing civilian populations, worse than genocide, because all other war crimes come from the waging of aggressive war. All signatories to the above mentioned Convention on Torture, including the United States, are compelled to prosecute war criminals. It only makes sense that the Swiss, or any other treaty member, would wish to oblige their treaty obligation and prosecute our former President. This is not weird.

What's weird is the utterly bizarre sense of denial in the US that prevents both the political and economic establishment, as well as rank-and-file citizens, from accepting that the man who was once our leader needs to be brought up on charges. I mean, we're the ones who should be doing this, not Switzerland. This is our responsibility. But we've failed miserably, if only because we cannot grasp the horrible truth, cannot allow ourselves to even imagine that we twice elected an evil man to our nation's highest office.

America, in the twenty first century, has failed in too many ways to count, but our unwillingness to see justice done on this gravest of issues is probably the most emblematic: we Americans cannot accept responsibility for our wrongdoing; we cannot honestly look at ourselves in the mirror. We are a delusional people. We cannot comfortably exist in reality as it actually is.

This will be our eventual undoing.

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TEACHERS UNIONS

My old pal Matt comments on my school vouchers post from last week:

Come on, you're skipping some big issues! Education unions have made it hard to change schools or make them accountable for results - so people want to give more funding to private schools because they are union-free. So, just like car buyers, steel purchasers and other consumers, when unions began negatively impacting the quality and/or value of the product, people looked for providers that were not so encumbered. Vouchers are an attempt to defund the teachers unions. And there are some good reasons to do that.

And my response:

Okay, I'm going out on a limb here. The teachers unions have absolutely nothing to do with the problems in our schools. I mean, I'm sure we could find some actual problems they cause if we used a fine tooth comb, but the notion that our school problems are because of "bad teachers" is nothing but right-wing anti-union rhetoric. The biggest problem with this point of view is very similar to what I write about in the main post: because it is so difficult to accurately gauge how well students are learning, it is necessarily difficult to gauge how well teachers are teaching. When student achievement on standardized tests is so clearly tied to family income, it is almost as though teacher quality, whatever that may mean, is irrelevant. Yet the entire establishment ignores this fact, and it is a fact, asserting that teachers whose students score poorly on standardized tests are "bad," but the evil unions won't let society do away with them.

I mean, sure, we've all had good teachers; we've all had bad teachers. We remember the extremes the best. On the other hand, how do we know who was good and who was bad? And how do we rank all those teachers we had who weren't at the extremes? That makes it a bit more difficult. Now throw in the fact that the payoff for educational work may very well take a decade or more to become manifest. And by that time, it's much more murky as to who taught what and how well they did it. The bottom line here is that education, as a "product" like the steel you mentioned, is extraordinarily intangible and abstract, which makes it really difficult to assign causes and effects the way we do with other consumer products. I mean, when steel is brittle and easily breaks, we know it was poorly manufactured. When a student scores poorly on a test, it is not easy to know how much of that comes from "bad teaching" and how much of that stems from other factors, like poverty, drug abuse, or community violence.

Teachers unions serve as a moustache twirling villain with a face for television news spots on education. Like I said, unions may very well play a role--in fact, I think they do, but only because their views on education are very much in line with the conventional wisdom, which serves to reinforce that conventional wisdom. But as a major cause for low student achievement, the unions are simply a distraction, nothing more.

BTW, I'm still looking at that Economist article on unions. Obviously, I'm going very slowly.

Here's a Democracy Now piece from last October discussing the anti-union propaganda film Waiting for Superman that delves more deeply into this issue.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Reine



Dash



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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STAR TREK
Requiem for Methuselah

From Wikipedia:

"Requiem for Methuselah" is a third season episode of Star Trek, first broadcast on St. Valentine's Day, 1969. Its repeat broadcast, on September 2, 1969, was the last official telecast of the series to air on NBC. (Star Trek would immediately debut in syndication on the following Monday, September 8, a full three years after its debut.) It is episode #74, production #76, written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Murray Golden. It guest-stars James Daly as "Mr. Flint", and Louise Sorel as "Rayna Kapec".

Overview: The crew of the Enterprise encounter an immortal human in this science fiction variation on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

More here.

Watch it here.

Notes and pics:

* Another deadline oriented medical mission.

* Another Nomad type robot. I like the design better--oh, I see, that's Nomad's head underneath.



* "Constantinople, summer 1344..." I do like the standard history speeches given by immortals.



* If this really is loosely following The Tempest, that makes Flint out to be Professor Morbius. I mean, Prospero.

* Professor Morbius:



* Voyeur chick.





* And she must be Miranda. Eew, he tried to kiss her.



* Mmmm. Saurian Brandy. And Spock's going to have some!



* Undiscovered da Vinci paintings, this is very Doctor Who. Oh, I see, Flint was da Vinci. Also very Doctor Who.

* And the robot with the Nomad butt must be Caliban.

* And Kirk is Ferdinand--"Oh, brave new world..."

* Kirk debates humanism with Flint while playing pool.



* Spock is apparently a classically trained pianist. Nice waltz.

* You know, I've railed away a lot on Shatner's awkwardness with love scenes, but I should cut him some slack: the writers here are asking him to do the impossible; Kirk going head-over-heels just doesn't make sense.

* This dance is going on forever.



* More awkward love.

* I'm really starting to get bored.

* Oh my, the robot's back.

* Kirk: "I don't like the way he orders her around." This one's going south fast.

* Spock finally figures out that Flint is really really old. Kind of anti-climactic at this point.

* I must admit that watching the kiss on television with Flint is, at least, visually interesting.



* Kirk: "You love me! Not Flint!" Oh man.

* Isn't that sweet. Spock is trying to protect his friend's heart...

* ...because he's already figured out that Rayna is an android. This whole concept worked much better with "What Are Little Girls Made of?"



* Flint: "I am Brahms..." This is quite a good speech, a very nice example of the sci-fi immortal. Immortals always have a sort of pathos about them.

* Okay, the miniature Enterprise on the table, complete with a shot of Kirk's eyes looking into the view screen is pretty cool. A sort of expansion of the concept first seen in "Catspaw."





* So it's all been a plot to somehow activate Rayna's emotions. And Kirk now feels "used." This is just too fucking stupid to buy.

* Flint, with his tights and blue cape, looks like a superhero, or super villain, while he fights Kirk.



* Even Spock's pat explanation of Rayna's death is stupid.



* One shining highlight: Spock psychically removing Kirk's memory of the affair is, when totally removed from context, quite beautiful, and very reinforcing of their friendship.



* Two stars. This one kind of sucks. I mean, it doesn't totally suck, and it's not offensive. Well, it's not particularly offensive, anyway. But make no mistake, this one does suck. Its most cardinal sin is that it's boring, but the story, too, has lots of elements that just aren't believable. Sure, there are a couple of interesting ideas, but, in the end, they're just cheap gimmicks that promise a lot without delivering. Ho hum.

If you want to watch a good science fiction treatment of The Tempest, go rent Forbidden Planet, and groove to Professor Morbius.

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WikiLeaks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

From AlterNet:

Julian Assange's whistle-blower website WikiLeaks has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Norwegian politician Snorre Valen, who was behind the nod, tells Reuters. Valen called WikiLeaks one of the century's "most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency" and said that "[b]y disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize."

Can you imagine the sh*tstorm that would ensue if WikiLeaks actually won? The way the government is scrutinizing and dragging through the mud everyone involved with the site, you can bet the Nobel committee would feel major heat if they awarded WikiLeaks the prize.

More here.

Right. And if you think the shitstorm coming out of the Fox and Tea Party sector about Obama winning the prize was something for the ages, just imagine how fun it would be to watch the US establishment go into freak-out mode over Wikileaks getting it. I mean, we'd finally have something to be bipartisan about. Democrats and Republicans alike are frothing at the mouth over Wikileaks. Professional television "liberal" Bob Beckel, for instance, openly called for the assassination of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange while pontificating a few months back on Fox News. I'm really hoping this nomination gets some traction with the Nobel committee. Not only do I think the organization ought to get the honor, I'm really hoping to see the US establishment totally lose it's mind.

I'm already on record as being in full support for what Assange and Wikileaks are doing, in as much as the light they're shining on both governmental and corporate secret corrupt bullshit. But I think I may very well love the spectacle of it all even more. These leaks are playing themselves out on a global stage, like a cool play, but over the course of many days, with major and minor characters strutting and fretting their hour on the boards, gnashing their teeth and all that. Throwing in a Nobel Prize as funky deus ex machina makes it even more theatrical.

This is fun. Really fun. And I'm thinking that the Nobel people these days are all about sticking their finger in authority's eye. Giving the Peace Prize to Wikileaks would be totally in keeping with that. I can't wait.

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Al Gore Explains Winter Snow To A Perplexed Bill O'Reilly

From Media Matters courtesy of Eschaton:

Last week on his show Bill O'Reilly asked, "Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?" and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

"In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow."

A bit more here.

Anybody who's read anything at all about global warming understands that the climate change phenomenon is about average annual global temperatures, rather than what the weather's like outside your window at any given moment. I mean, you don't even really have to have read about global warming in order to understand this: if the weatherman gives you a 100% chance for rain tomorrow, but then it stops raining for an hour or two in the afternoon, this is not evidence that the field of meteorology is junk science; rather it means that this field deals with the big picture instead of excruciatingly specific minute-by-minute predictions.

Here's another way of looking at it. Asserting that a single snowstorm, or even fifty for that matter, contradicts the rising mountain of evidence that man-made global warming is somehow not a scientific fact is tantamount to saying that a few molecules worth of impurity in a gold ring makes it worthless.

I would say I'm surprised, but these are the same people who think cavemen walked the Earth alongside dinosaurs. When I was a kid, I used to think grownups are smart, just because age brings wisdom. Now I know that's bullshit.

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There's No Such Thing as a Free Market

AlterNet excerpts from the first chapter of economist Ha-Joon Chang's book 23 Things They Don't Tell you About Capitalism:

Recognizing that the boundaries of the market are ambiguous and cannot be determined in an objective way lets us realize that economics is not a science like physics or chemistry, but a political exercise. Free-market economists may want you to believe that the correct boundaries of the market can be scientifically determined, but this is incorrect. If the boundaries of what you are studying cannot be scientifically determined, what you are doing is not a science.

Thus seen, opposing a new regulation is saying that the status quo, however unjust from some people’s point of view, should not be changed. Saying that an existing regulation should be abolished is saying that the domain of the market should be expanded, which means that those who have money should be given more power in that area, as the market is run on one-dollar-one-vote principle.

So, when free-market economists say that a certain regulation should not be introduced because it would restrict the "freedom" of a certain market, they are merely expressing a political opinion that they reject the rights that are to be defended by the proposed law. Their ideological cloak is to pretend that their politics is not really political, but rather is an objective economic truth, while other people’s politics is political. However, they are as politically motivated as their opponents.

Breaking away from the illusion of market objectivity is the first step toward understanding capitalism.

More here.

Okay, so I've said as much before many times here at Real Art: the market, because it is artificially constructed by government, cannot ever possibly be free from interference in its "freedom." And really, that's pretty obvious when you think about it for, like, two seconds. But what interests me here is Ha-Joon Chang's assertion that all economic decisions are political in nature.

In my life, I've had two face-to-face conversations with neoliberal economists, one at an economics seminar when I was in high school, and the other with my macroeconomics professor at the University of Texas. Both of them said something that disturbed me then, but later grew to outrage me: economists aren't interested in morality; they're just interested in understanding the efficient production and use of goods and services--morals are something for the politicians to wrangle with.

In the same way that journalists fool themselves that there is such a thing as objectivity, even while they and their editors decide what is newsworthy, who to quote, what tone to take, and how many times to report on a given story, so, too, do economists fool themselves into thinking that decisions about who gets what, how much, and in what way, is somehow devoid of moral ramifications. I don't even think I need to explain why this is the case--I mean, when Big Agribusiness starts buying up huge tracts of land in India, and local farmers who have worked that land for generations start to kill themselves because they can't compete, that's a moral ramification of an economic decision, one that makes good sense to everybody in the field because it makes more "efficient" use of resources. As if preserving lives, livelihoods, and ways of life didn't make good sense.

Ha-Joon Chang uses the word "political," but "moral" works just about as well--sure, politics and morality aren't the same thing, but there is a hell of a lot of overlap, so his line of thinking applies either way. The bottom line here is that because our political and economic establishment projects almost god-like powers of wisdom onto the field of economics, the public discourse overwhelmingly tends to treat economists' pronouncements, which are almost always from the point of view of the capital holding class, as written on stone tablets, sort of a morality unto themselves.

Until economists, and the politicians who worship them, start to look at economics as a moral exercise, instead of simply an examination of efficiency, we will continue to be doomed to enduring trillion dollar bailouts, decreasing wages, unemployment, and an ever lower standard of living.

I continue to be amazed by how stupid, craven, and mean our leaders are.

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Today, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower Would Be Bernie Sanders

Just to put that title into perspective, consider this: even though he is usually identified on television as "Bernie Sanders (I., Vermont)" he is actually a socialist, the real deal, not that fake Obama kind, the farthest to the left elected official in the federal government these days.

Let's see what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has to say about this. From AlterNet:

Listen to the way he goes after the right here. "Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and"--and the president says--"their number is negligible and they are stupid."

That is not what Barack Obama said last night. That is way to the left of any national Democrat at this point. That was all Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower. That was all the stuff he said when he was president.

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, president when the top tax bracket for the richest people in this country was 92 percent. President Eisenhower defended that tax bracket. He said we cannot afford to reduce taxes until, quote, "the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." Eisenhower insisting there must be a balanced budget and that taxes on the rich are the way to balance it. Dwight Eisenhower, you know, noted leftist.

And

Historically, the process of a Democrat trying to find the center in politics has seen Democrats chasing the center as it moves to the right. The thing that's different about the left and the right in this country is that there isn't an equal and opposite force on the left that's anything like the conservative movement on the right. The conservative movement exists outside the Republican Party, and it serves to constantly pull the Republican Party further to the right.

So, when you have a president like Bill Clinton who found popular centrist decisions by splitting the difference between where the Republicans were and where the Republican--where the Democrats were and where the Republicans were, and the Republicans kept moving further to the right because they're being pulled there by the conservative movement, when you have a president who triangulates like that, what you end up with is a president who as a Democrat moves the country further to the right, because he shifts to the right every time he takes another centrist position.

More here.

I've been making similar statements along these lines since pretty much the beginning of this blog back in '02. Probably the most common iteration is something like this: today "liberal" means "moderate," "moderate" means "conservative," "conservative" means "far-right reactionary," and "far right" means "psychopathic Nazi." Note that there is no term to denote real liberals because they don't exist in the public dialogue. Or in politics, for that matter, excepting, of course, the above mentioned Senator from Vermont, who can't really do that much all by himself, facing political hostility toward his ideas from not only the Republicans, but also the Democrats, with whom he caucuses.

I would say that the country has moved to the right, except that it would be untrue. What has happened is that the political establishment has moved to the right, leaving the country in its wake, confused and frightened. And really, I think the country continues to be as liberal as the establishment was back in the 1950s: polls of the general population continue to show strong support for social services, universal health care, an equitable distribution of income, and high taxes for the rich. That is, the country isn't "liberal;" rather, these "liberal" ideas are, in fact, moderate, in spite of what the politicians, from both parties, and the mass media elite tell us over and over again.

Last Christmas, as I sat around the dinner table with my far-right conservative family, one of them casually asserted that President Obama is a big liberal. They seemed a bit shocked when I strongly asserted that the President is not a liberal. "Sure he is, Ron" my older brother said. "No, he's not." I shot back. I was wearing a Noam Chomsky t-shirt my girlfriend gave me for my birthday last year, and, in an attempt to change the subject, my sister-in-law asked me who's face was on my chest: "a liberal," I answered.

Liberals don't give private banks and brokerage houses trillions of dollars in free money. Liberals don't sell out to Big Pharma and the HMOs and call it health care "reform." Liberals don't suck the oil industry's big huge cock and call it good for the nation. And on and on. But conservatives and the establishment think that's what liberals do.

So what do real liberals do? What do real liberals want? Well, for my answer to that question, just read this blog, or any of the other political blogs listed, appropriately, on the left side of the page--I mean, you're certainly not going to find any liberal ideas in the mainstream media; well, okay, there's Rachel Maddow, to be sure, but her fate now is dripping with uncertainty after Olbermann's hasty departure from the network in the wake of the Comcast merger.

But that's really the problem with this continual establishment push to the right: lots of good and reasonable ideas are completely excluded from the grand debate because they are no longer considered to be within the accepted American political spectrum. I mean, if Obama is as far to the left as you can get, then what the hell am I? Answer: a non-entity.

And that's a total drag. By mid twentieth century standards, I'm not even particularly liberal. I'm more of a moderate. Even by today's standards, if you look at what most Americans actually think about the issues, I'm fairly moderate. But by today's establishment standards, I don't exist. Or I'm so fucking crazy, my views don't matter. Whatever.

The bottom line is that, by cutting ourselves off from a whole host of political ideas and points of view, this country has totally crippled itself. Actually, we may very well be destroying ourselves.

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Egypt News: At Least 62 Killed In Last 2 Days, Officials Say

From the AP via the Huffington Post news wire:

With protests raging, Egypt's president named his intelligence chief as his first-ever vice president on Saturday, setting the stage for a successor as chaos engulfed the capital. Soldiers stood by – a few even joining the demonstrators – and the death toll from five days of anti-government fury rose sharply to 74.

Saturday's fast-moving developments across the north African nation marked a sharp turning point in President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule of Egypt.

Residents and shopkeepers in affluent neighborhoods boarded up their houses and stores against looters, who roamed the streets with knives and sticks, stealing what they could and destroying cars, windows and street signs. Gunfire rang out in some neighborhoods.

And

The crackdown on protesters has drawn harsh criticism from the Obama administration and even a threat Friday to reduce a $1.5 billion foreign aid program if Washington's most important Arab ally escalates the use of force.

And

The protesters united in one overarching demand – Mubarak and his family must go. The movement is a culmination of years of simmering frustration over a government they see as corrupt, heavy-handed and neglectful of poverty.

Egyptians were emboldened by the uprising in Tunisia – another North African Arab nation, and further buoyed by their success in defying the ban on gatherings.

At the end of a long day of rioting and mass demonstrations Friday, Mubarak fired his Cabinet and promised reforms. But the demonstrators returned in force again Saturday to demand a complete change of regime.

The president appeared to have been preparing his son Gamal to succeed him, possibly as soon as presidential elections planned for later this year. However, there was significant public opposition to the hereditary succession.

More here.

Okay, this is pretty serious.

Of course, I'm no expert on Egypt, no Egyptologist, but I do have an understanding of Egypt's overall role in the whole Middle East dynamic, which puts me way ahead of most Americans, which, admittedly, isn't much to write home about. Nonetheless, here are a few thoughts.

Even though Israel kicked Egypt's ass in 1967's Six Day War, the outcome of the next one, the 1973 Yom Kippur War was far more ambiguous, and threatened to bring the Soviets into the conflict. This made the US reconsider the regional situation: only a few years later, President Carter brokered the Camp David Peace Accords which ended hostilities between the two nations, and essentially turned Egypt into yet another US client state run by a brutal dictatorship.

This was good for the US for a couple of reasons. It kept the Russians out of Egypt, which my older brother once described as the only Arab country that's actually a nation state in the way we understand the term here in America, and it effectively ended Arab hopes for toppling Israel. Thus, Egypt became the biggest recipient of US aid money after Israel, and the vast majority of that aid has been in the form of military spending.

This relationship has been the lynch pin for American diplomacy in the Middle East for over three decades, and it's worked pretty well from that point of view. Egypt's government is secular, a plus from a diplomatic point of view, and the nation has been pretty stable over the years, which is really all the US establishment gives a shit about. Of course, the US establishment doesn't give a shit about the fact that such stability exists only because of the Egyptian government's willingness to fucking torture any and all dissidents. And many of these dissidents are Muslim radicals.

Indeed, one of the first rogue actions of the jihadis who eventually formed the nucleus of what is now called Al-Qaeda, people we were supporting in their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was to assassinate Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, the guy who signed the Camp David peace agreement with Israel, back in 1981. And we shouldn't forget that two of the 9/11 terrorists were Egyptians. So not only does Egypt produce more than its fair share of Muslim extremists, their radicals aren't just willing to kill to further their political goals: they've already done it quite spectacularly.

This is not to say that this uprising is all about radical Islam. It's not. It's probably safe to say that, while Muslim, most Egyptians prefer, and are very used to, secular governance. But make no mistake, the sometimes locally popular brutal dictatorship that has controlled Egypt since the 1950s has been heavily supported by the US since the late 70s. And this kind of relationship, the US supporting evil dictators in the Middle East, is exactly the kind of thing that has inspired and motivated the radical Muslim terrorists we say we're fighting in the endless "War on Terror." That is, if this thing turns out badly, if Islamic extremists somehow end up running Egypt, it will be, to some extent, our own damned fault. Indeed, it's almost laughable to hear the US State Department and the President issue statements in support of Egyptian democracy, when we've helped prop up their oppressor for decades. Typical bullshit rhetoric.

More generally, if Egypt ends up with an entirely new government, whether secular or religious, it is very probable that the new boss will reevaluate its relationship with the US. I don't know exactly what this would mean. They may think there are good reasons to continue the status quo as far as peace and stability go, or they may want to stop being one of America's client states, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, given Israel's utter intransigence on the Palestinian issue, and America's utter unwillingness to use its leverage with the Jewish state to force some progress.

So, in short, I have no idea where this is all going. Nothing terribly significant could happen, from the US's standpoint, or the entire geopolitical calculus of the Middle East might shuffle itself overnight, for better or worse. But this is a big deal. I wish the news was explaining it all better.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Evil Roi



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics! (Note: Modulator's on vacation until the end of the month, but go check it out, anyway. It's a good blog.)

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STAR TREK
"The Way to Eden"

From Wikipedia:

"The Way to Eden" is the nineteenth episode of the third season of Star Trek: The Original Series, and was broadcast February 21, 1969. It was written by Arthur Heinemann, based on a story by Arthur Heinemann and Michael Richards, and directed by David Alexander.

Overview: The Enterprise is hijacked by an insane doctor and his fanatical, hippie-like followers, in an attempt to find paradise.

More here.

Watch it here.

Notes and pics:

* Where's Uhura? Who's this white chick?



* They look like Space: 1999 aliens.



* Space: 1999 aliens:





* "No go! No go!" Really, hippies haven't changed too much in forty years. Still annoying.

* "You've got a hard lip, Herbert." Great one liners in this one.

* This reminds me of that episode of Dick Cavett or Mike Douglas that brought on something like six or seven of the performers at Woodstock. David Crosby was a raging hippie asshole.



* Now Spock's going to try to rap with them.



* Spock: "One."

Dr. Sevrin: "We are one."

Spock: "One is the beginning."

Adam: "Are you one, Herbert?"

Spock: "I am not Herbert."

Adam: "He's not Herbert. We reach."

These exchanges are fucking surreal.

* Adam: "Right, brother!" You know, I used to think this one was really silly because of how it got the hippies so totally wrong. I still think it's really silly, but I'm finding myself thinking that they got the hippies totally right.

* "Herbert Herbert Herbert Herbert..."

* Kirk sounds like that guy in the Woodstock movie who's like "They're all on pot!" Spock sounds like a sympathetic university professor.

* Alright! Adam's singing! What the fuck is that he's playing? Sounds like an electric harpsichord, but looks like a space-guitar. Actually, it's not such a bad song. BTW, Adam is played by the now veteran character actor Charles Napier, always pretty great, whether he's playing a vengeance seeking country and western band leader in The Blues Brothers or a Rambo villain. This is early in his career, but he's as great here as anything else he's ever done.



* You can buy wigs like that in shops on Bourbon Street.



* She's a Ruskie. Probably a commie, too.

* Yeah, Chekov, go get some of that groovy free love!



* This is like a community college production of The Cherry Orchard or The Three Sisters.

* Fantastic! A real 60s hippie riot. I mean, you know, it's only five people, but they're very convincing.



* Typical arrogant asshole hippie: he carries a deadly disease, but calls it a government plot.



* Sulu's gonna get some of that free lovin' action, too!



* Adam again bursts into song, a nice off-kilter anti-authoritarian quickie.



* The guy playing Sevrin played Melakon in the second season's "Patterns of Force." From Nazi to hippie. Actually, that's not such a stretch. I mean, David Horowitz went from hippie to Nazi, so why not?



* Spock: "Doctor Sevrin is...insane." Great line, well delivered.

* There's that weird alter thing in Spock's quarters again.



* Adam: "Hey brother, do you play? Oh ho, that's now, that's really now. I reach that brother, I really do."



* Now Spock's going to play.



* And Adam totally digs it.



* So, naturally, they're all going to jam together.

* More bad community college twentieth century Russian realism.

* She's really coming onto him. Fucking hippie slut.



* They might as well be plotting to take over the dean's office.



* I've performed this first one in front of live audiences.



* This is so incredibly retarded that it's great.

* I did this second one, too.

* The crew fucking digs it!



* Spock arrives.



* Spock takes the stage. Once, years ago, my buddy Shane had this episode playing with the sound turned down while we were listening to a Ministry album or mix tape or somesuch. When the song "Stigmata" came on, someone in the room noticed that this scene was playing and it appeared that they were jamming along with the Ministry song. I assure you, this was way cooler than watching The Wizard of Oz turned down with Dark Side of the Moon playing could ever possibly be. Okay, we might have been on acid, too.



* Okay, how is it that these lame-ass hippie fucks are able to take over the ship? Well, Spock did say they were all grad students and scientists and shit. Typical. But I just don't see a bunch of grad students taking over the Enterprise.



* I love that Spock is in philosophical sympathy with the hippies. He also fit in with the fascist mirror universe, too. I'm liking this Nazi/hippie theme they're pushing.

* Adam croons a slow ballad about Eden.



* You know, I should adapt this episode for the theater.

* Now Sevrin wants to kill the crew. It's like Charles Manson and the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers and Altamont and the Viet Cong and Jane Fonda all rolled into one.

* Scream, Chekov, scream!



* Adam o.d.'d. Bummer, man. It's just like Janis and Jimi and Jim.



* Nasty foot.



* What's with the mirror shots of Kirk in this one?



* Five stars. Yeah, this one's bad. Really bad, just spectacularly bad. But it's bad in all the right ways. And it's a musical. The only Star Trek musical I know of that's considered canon. The hippies are spot on, and Doctor Sevrin makes for an excellent groovy sunshine villain, like something from an issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson, or The Teen Titans. And the dialoge is some of the worst, and by "worst" I mean "best", in all of Star Trek. Yeah, five stars. Fuck you, fucking smelly self-righteous hippies.

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