Science Fair Chic
by matttbastard
Equality: Totally Not Pro-American
by matttbastard
Dennis Prager clarifies what constitutes (pro) American values:
Equality, which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value. Let me tell you that right now. I know this sounds offensive to half of my fellow Americans, because they have been Europeanized in their values. The French Revolution is not the American Revolution. The French Revolution said Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. The American Revolution said Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We have lost touch with what our distinctive American values are. We have distinctive American values. … We have a better value system, and this is being protected by one of the two parties: the Republican party.
It’s a good thing Prager was there to explain the ideals behind the American Revolution. Otherwise, Americans might have relied on “Europeanized” documents like the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…
Or if they had looked to the United States Constitution, they may have erroneously thought “equality” was an important American value:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Thank you, Dennis, for helping this ignorant little Canuckistanian socialist (ideologically and ethnically socialist–EEK!) realize that the Founding Fathers actually hated “distinctive American values.”
PSA: October 30th: Be Bold. Be Red.
by matttbastard
In October 2007 people all over the United States gathered physically and in spirit to speak out against violence against women of color. Some of us wore red all day and explained that we were reclaiming and reframing our bodies as a challenge to the widespread acceptance of violence against women of color. Some of us wrote powerful essays about why we were wearing red and posted them on the internet. Some of us gathered with bold and like-minded folks and took pictures, shared poetry and expressed solidarity.
This year, on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, we invite you to make your bold stance against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible. In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color will be gathering to renew our commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence, and this time, we’ll be using a new technology called CyberQuilting to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about CyberQuilting, which is a women of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.
This letter is an invitation for you and yours to participate in a gathering in your city on Thursday, October 30th that will be webcast to similar gatherings in other cities. We are calling on you because we recognize and appreciate the work that you and the organizations you work with are doing everyday to make this a more loving and less violent world for women and girls in oppressed communities. Please join us on October 30th so that other warriors in this struggle can be strengthened and affirmed by the energy of our collective ferocity! Also we will upload the video of the video conference on this website on October 31, 2008 so that everyone can see what happened during video conference.
PSA: Petition for the immediate release of Esha Momeni
by matttbastard
Via For Esha, the One Million Signatures Campaign has started a petition calling for the immediate release of imprisoned graduate student and womens rights advocate Esha Momeni:
To: His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi,
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei,
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi,
We, the undersigned, have heard with great alarm of the arrest in Tehran, on Wednesday October 15, 2008, of Esha Momeni, a graduate student in film and communication at California State University, Northridge. This arrest was made by Tehran traffic police on the pretext that she had made an illegal turn, but we have since been informed that she has been transferred to Section 209 of Evin Prison and kept in solitary confinement.
We wish to make clear that at no time has Ms. Momeni been involved in any activities contravening the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She had returned to Iran for an extended visit mainly for the purpose of seeing family and friends, and also in order to carry out research related to her MA degree at California State University, Northridge. Ms. Momeni, a women’s rights defender and a volunteer of the California branch of a grassroots campaign called the “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws”, decided to make her Master’s thesis project a personal exploration of the shared experiences of everyday Iranians. This included interviews with some members of the Campaign. The activities of the Campaign are peaceful and merely aimed at reforming the Iranian laws in areas that discriminate against women; the Campaign has no political objectives.
Those who are privileged to know Ms. Momeni are fully aware of the sincerity and passion for justice which she brings to the promotion of a truer image of Iran outside the country, and we are therefore dismayed that she should have been arrested and detained despite not having engaged in any unlawful activities.
We, the undersigned, therefore demand Ms. Momeni be released immediately and without conditions so that she can return to complete her education. In addition we urge you to:
1.Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni;
2.Assure that while in detention she is granted immediate and regular access to her family, a lawyer of her choice, and any medical treatment necessary in light of her medical condition (kidney stones);
3 Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with international and regional human rights instruments ratified by Iran.
Yours sincerelySincerely,
Please add your voice here. Make sure to take note of the caveat offered by For Esha:
We request you not to sign petitions organized by organizations other than the One Million Signatures Campaign. While such petitions may mean well, they often contain inappropriate language and factual errors and as such are more likely to endanger Esha than help bring about her release.
And please forward the official petition to as many people as you can.
PSA: Free Esha Momeni
by matttbastard
Update: Be sure to sign the official petition calling for Momeni’s release.
Esha Momeni, women’s rights advocate and a member of the Campaign from California was arrested on Wednesday October 15, 2008, while on a visit to Tehran. Momeni who is a photographer and graduate student was arrested in an unusual and illegal manner after being pulled over on Moddaress highway, by individuals who identified themselves as under cover traffic police on the pretense that she had unlawfully passed another vehicle while driving. Esha was arrested and taken to Section 209 of Evin Prison, managed by the Intelligence and Security Ministry.
Prior to her transfer to Evin, security officials searched her home and seized property, including her computer and films which were part of her thesis project. The security officials had an arrest warrant and court permission to search the home and seize property.
While Esha’s friends and colleagues were insistent about announcing the news of her arrest immediately, based on requests from her family this news was announced with delay. Security forces had promised Esha’s family that she would be released quickly if news of her arrest was not published.
Esha’s parents went to the Revolutionary Courts today, on the fifth day of her arrest, to follow up on the case of their daughter. Court officials told the Momeni family that they should not come to the courts again, and that their questions will not be answered until the investigation of Esha’s case comes to a close.
Esha Momeni is a graduate student at the School of Communications, Media and Arts at California State University, Northridge. Esha had come to Iran two months ago to visit with her family and to work on her Masters thesis project, focused on the Iranian women’s movement. To this end, she had conducted video interviews with members of the One Million Signatures Campaign in Tehran.
Women’s rights activists object to the unusual manner in which Esha was arrested, as well as the irresponsible treatment of her family members by security forces. Further they strongly object to the unjustified and unwarranted arrest of this women’s rights defender.
A weblog in support of Esha pressing for her release has been established, which includes interviews with her professors… . The weblog as well as the site of the Campaign, Change for Equality, will continue to provide news on developments about Esha’s case. Take a look at the blog For Esha.
Take action now–please write to the following contacts:
- [express] concern at the arrest of Esha Momeni, and [urge] on the authorities to treat her humanely in detention, and protect her from torture or other ill-treatment;
- [ask] the authorities to ensure that while in detention she is granted immediate and regular access to her family, a lawyer of her choice, and any medical treatment she may require;
- [express] concern that her arrest was apparently in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research;
- [urge] the authorities to release her immediately and unconditionally if she is not to be charged with a recognizably criminal offence and brought to trial promptly and fairly
h/t Vanessa @ Feministing (via Feminist Daily News); more from CNN, DKos, Melissa Wall, and David Blumenkrantz. Also see this article on the 0ne Million Signatures Campaign, written by Momeni in 2007.
Previous Change for Equality PSAs:
Background: More on the still-ongoing One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality from Change For Equality (more here) and Ms. Magazine.
If you haven’t done so already, be sure to add your name.
Update: Be sure to sign the official petition calling for Momeni’s release.
Three Challenges for the Planet – Jeffrey Sachs
by matttbastard
ForaTV:
Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs outlines what are, in his view, the three greatest challenges to peace the world will face over the next several years.
Complete video here.
More Cobblestones on the Road to Hell
by matttbastard
Here in the Great White North, accountability is out and banality is in as The Nuremberg Defence seems to be enjoying a resurgence in respectability.
The actions of Canadian officials contributed indirectly to the torture of three Arab-Canadian men in Syria, a federal inquiry has concluded.
“I found no evidence that any of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were a part,” former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci concluded in his report, made public Tuesday, 22 months after the inquiry began.
The probe focused on whether the detentions of Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati resulted from the actions of CSIS, the RCMP and the department of Foreign Affairs and whether Canadian consular officials acted appropriately in the cases.
“It is neither necessary nor appropriate that I make findings concerning the actions of any individual Canadian official, and I have not done so,” Iacobucci wrote.
More from The Toronto Star:
The Iacobucci report concludes that all three men were detained and suffered mistreatment that amounted to torture as defined in the United Nations convention banning torture.
El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin were, separately, detained and imprisoned in 2001, 2002, and 2003 respectively while travelling in Syria.
All were interrogated and, Iacobucci concluded, tortured at the same Syrian military prison as Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was deported by U.S. authorities to Syria.
El Maati was also sent to Egypt where Iacobucci accepts he underwent further torture.
The men claimed their interrogators relied on information that could only have been gleaned from Canadian authorities, and that Canadian security and police agencies were complicit in their mistreatment.
But Iacobucci stops well short of indicting the Canadian officials for complicity.
And what do the Little Eichmanns in Canada’s New Government™ have to say about the matter?
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day declined to apologize, telling reporters, “This government can’t take responsibility for processes in place under a previous government.”
He claimed the procedures and “deficiencies” identified in this and the previous Arar inquiry have been “vastly improved,” and suggested that if the reforms his government had made were in place at the time, the incidents might not have occurred.
But Day did not single out any agency or officials for blame. He pointed to the Iacobucci report which said people were carrying out “conscientiously” the duties of their institutions.
“It’s more a case of good people acting with deficient procedures and deficient policies.”
“Justice, truth, the value of a single human being”? Pfft–go back to your September 10th fantasy world, Haywood, and tell it to Jean and Paul. Partisanship über alles.
Related: Almalki, Nureddin and El Maati discuss how their lives have been upended by their horrific experiences, along with the sense of betrayal felt thanks to the (indirect!) actions of Canadian government officials; Amnesty International Canada condemns the inquiry, warning that the probe “extended secrecy to everything, not just the national security concerns” and, as a result, “[excluded] the suspects and public from the proceedings in their entirety“. The 544 page public (read: heavily redacted) version of the Iacobucci whitewash report is available here (PDF)
Update: More from Alison @ The Beav
Spot the Logical Fallacy (Or, How Colin Powell Stopped Being Every White Conservative’s Token Non-Threatening Black Friend)
by matttbastard
I’ve never heard of this Gordon Campbell asshat before today, and, judging by his totally satirical depiction of Colin Powell as Benedict Arnold in blackface, that is something to be thankful for.
Quoth Mr. Campbell:
“No sane person would question his patriotism toward the United States or even the Constitution and the principles of democracy… . But his support of such things as affirmative action and Roe v. Wade placed him too left of center for the bulk of the GOP electorate… .
“”The only reasonable explanation for such a public political “about-face” in the midst of this important election is that Colin Powell, perhaps understandably, wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House… .
“It’s my opinion that General Powell has based his endorsement of Barack Obama on the color of his skin, not his qualifications, his experience or the content of his character.”
Just so we’re clear, Campbell freely admits that Powell’s “support of such things as affirmative action and Roe v. Wade placed him too left of center for the bulk of the GOP electorate”. Indeed, John McCain has stated that he supports neither affirmative action nor Roe v. Wade, and his running mate, in addition to supporting the overturning of Roe, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Yet, for some reason, rather than putting two and two together (ie, Powell, much like McCain-supporting dissident Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Lieberman, chose to endorse the candidate who he believes best represents his ideals, regardless of partisan affiliation), this observation instead inexplicably leads Campbell to conclude that “[t]he only [emphasis mine] reasonable explanation for such a public about-face…is that Powell…wishes to see someone who looks like himself [ie, a fellow neeegro] in the White House”.
Which, in turn, forces yours truly to surmise that the only reasonable explanation for Campbell’s painfully contorted reasoning (to say nothing of the FRICKIN’ BLACKFACE CARTOON–SWEET BABY JESUS!) is that he’s a cross-burning, sheet-wearing bag of racist douche who vigorously masturbates to Mein Kampf every night before bed. One would have to be insane (or, at the very least, unreasonable) to conclude otherwise. There is no alternative.
h/t Paul the Spud @ Shakesville
Related: More Powell-inspired Party of Lincoln outreach to teh black community from George Will, Pat Buchanan, and RedState (h/t Think Progress). Also see Renee, who asks an obvious question: “Why is it that whites who have been voting for white people since the US became a country were not engaging in racial solidarity voting, and a black man endorsing another black man is?“
That didn’t take long…
by matttbastard
Aannd here we go –as expected, former Secretary of State (and Republican) Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama:
(h/t Petulant for the vid)
Already some pro-American residents of Outer Wingnuttia have declared that Powell is only voting for Obama because they are both scary neegros. Which, according to airtight wingnut lawjick [sic], makes Powell a big fat RAAACIST!!!!11 jerk. (Wingnut lawjick [sic] also apparently dictates that USING BLOCK CAPS BUTTRESSES YOUR POINT!!!)
"Hang on--I've nearly found some support for my argument..."
Still, in all seriousness, there is admittedly some substance to Realipundit’s carefully-crafted “big fat racist jerk” thesis. Racial solidarity would certainly help explain why well-known GOP soul brotha Chris Buckley, along with a number of other prominent chocolate-coated Obamacons, are also wearing ‘Team Obama’ t-shirts in public–and why Powell famously stumped for Alan Keyes in 2000.
So, does this mean (apparently) prominent Democratic something-or-other Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild broke partisan ranks to support McCain out of racial solidarity, too?
*cough*
Related: Colin Powell is a big fat socialist jerk, too (h/t skdadl @ BnR):
Partial transcript:
We can’t judge our people and hold our elections on that kind of basis. Yes, that kind of negativity troubled me. And the constant shifting of the argument, I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis the campaign said ‘we’re going to go negative,’ and they announced it. ‘We’re going to go negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers.’ Now I guess the message this week is we’re going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there’s nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying les, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that I don’t think is accurate.
“[T]axes are necessary for the common good” = not pro-American. Go back to Northern Virginia where you belong, hippie!
Update: Donovan McNabb fanclub president Rush Limbaugh puts down the pill bottle long enough to once again prove how so not racist he is (or isn’t).
“Real” and “Unreal” Americans
by matttbastard
Well, looks like we’ve finally established where one of those anti-American domestic strongholds that Palin mentioned the other day are located: the Obamabot enclaves of Northern Virginia!
On MSNBC this morning, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer asserted that “real Virginia” does not include Northern Virginia:
I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.
MSNBC host Kevin Corke gave Pfotenhauer a chance to revise her answer, telling her: “Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge — Did you say ‘real Virginia’?”
But Pfotenhauer didn’t budge, and instead dug a deeper hole.
Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will.
Thorpe ended the segment noting that Pfotenhauer was appearing via satellite from Northern Virginia. “Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign, joining us from Arlington, not really Virginia.” “Alright, I’m just gonna let ya– you’ll wear that one,” Corke responded.
Ok. Real Virginians don’t support Obama. Gotcha.
But then there’s this, straight from the horse’s mouth (so to speak):
My opponent’s answer showed that economic recovery isn’t even his top priority. His goal, as Senator Obama put it, is to “spread the wealth around.”
You see, he believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism.
Socialism–totally un-American, natch. So is all this simply boilerplate campaign rhetoric, or is there a more disturbing subtext at play? Adam Serwer looks at the historical context of the ‘socialist’ smear as it relates to POC (h/t Jill):
Conservatives, now and in the past, have turned to “socialism” and “communism” as shorthand to criticize black activists and political figures since the civil-rights era. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X as written by Alex Haley, Malcolm recalls being confronting by a government agent tailing him in Africa, not long after his pilgrimage to Mecca. The agent was convinced that Malcolm was a communist. Malcolm spent years under surveillance because of such bizarre suspicions. Likewise, J. Edgar Hoover spent years attempting to link Martin Luther King Jr. to the communist cause. King, for his part, welcomed everyone who embraced the cause of black civil rights, regardless of their ideological ties. This included communists and socialists, but the idea that a devout man of God like King saw black rights as a mere step in a worldwide communist revolution was absurd. Malcolm was a conservative. King was a liberal. To their enemies, they were simply communists.
The feeling that black-rights activists were part of a front for communism and socialism was widespread. Jerry Falwell famously criticized “the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations.” Falwell charged, “It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed.” For the agents of intolerance, things haven’t changed much. On October 9, a McCain supporter told the candidate that he was angry about “socialists taking over our country.” McCain told him he was right to be angry.
The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism’s flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is “more Maoist than Stalinist,” and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.”
[...]
John McCain is no George Wallace, and a direct comparison may not be what [John] Lewis intended. Rather, Lewis was expressing concern that the McCain campaign’s rhetoric could lead some of their supporters to conclude that violence is the only rational response to an Obama victory.
Also keep in mind some of the highlighted right-wing sentiments from this post as Billmon repeals Godwin’s Law, once and for all (h/t pogge @ BnR):
Powerful elements of the Republican Party and the conservative “movement” aren’t just preparing themselves to go into opposition, they’re preparing themselves to dispute the legitimacy of an Obama presidency — in ways that could, if taken to extreme, lead to another Oklahoma City.
[...]
I’ve been following politics for going on 35 years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Republican candidate publicly refer to his Democratic opponent as a “socialist” — not even while hiding behind a cardboard cutout like “Joe the Plumber”. This from a man who told the entire nation on Wednesday night that believes an obscure nonprofit group is “perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
Likewise, I don’t think there’s ever been an American vice presidential candidate who explicitly referred to entire regions of the United States as “pro-American” — with the clear implication that other regions are something less than “pro-American.” Not since the Civil War, anyway.
We’ve crossed some more lines, in other words — in a long series of lines that have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party and an explicitly fascist political movement. And John McCain and his political handlers appear to have no moral compunctions whatsoever about whipping this movement into a frenzy and providing it with scapegoats for all that hatred, simply to try to shave a few points off Barack Obama’s lead in the polls.
To call this “country first” only works if you assume your opponents (and scapegoats) are not really part of that same country. And we all know where that leads.
As Colbert King put it in Saturday’s WaPo, “[t]ell a rabid audience that Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” (as Palin has done), imply that Obama is friendly with people out to destroy America (as she also has done) and what do you expect?”
DJ rewind:
Powerful elements of the Republican Party and the conservative “movement” aren’t just preparing themselves to go into opposition, they’re preparing themselves to dispute the legitimacy of an Obama presidency — in ways that could, if taken to extreme, lead to another Oklahoma City.
Rhetoric–yes, mere words, Senator McCain–can have consequences.
Just Don’t Call ‘Em ‘White Trash’
by matttbastard
Hey, remember that teapot tempest over Heather Mallick’s now-infamous (and since 404′d) CBC News online op-ed [link corrected -- thanks, Alison] about Sarah Palin’s redneck pro-American support base?
From an upcoming NY Times profile of Palin’s overwhelmingly male booster club:
“You rock me out, Sarah,” yelled one man, wearing a red-checked hunting jacket as Ms. Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, strode into an airplane hangar here on Thursday. He held a homemade “Dudes for Sarah” sign and wore a National Rifle Association hat. Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” blared over the loudspeakers, and the man even danced a little — yes, a guy in an N.R.A. hat dancing in a hangar, kind of a Sarah Palin rally thing.
*blinks*
Dancing to “Danger Zone” while rockin’ a flannel hunting coat and a (presumably meshback) NRA ball cap. If the stereotype fits…
I mean, Jesus — Bocephus even wrote a fiery, factually challenged Wallace voter anthem in honour of the 2008 Palin-McCain backlash campaign:
“John N Sarah tell ya/Just what they think/And they’re not gonna blink/They don’t have terrorist friends/To whom their careers are linked.”
It doesn’t get more ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas’ than that, true believers.
In light of all this overwhelming evidence, methinks that, rather than teh poor, put-upon Palin or the ever-aggrieved Fox News fanatics (and their Northern kin), it is Heather who’s owed an apology–and/or a dry Elderflower Martini.
Mistress of Spices.
by Isabel
Has anyone seen Mistress of Spices?
I’m a sucker for movies about cooking, and while Mistress of Spices isn’t technically about cooking, it IS about spices. And love. And duty. And precognition. All very interesting things. It’s a beautiful movie, exquisitely shot, and perfect for watching while you create dozens of won-ton ravioli by hand. The protaganist is a mystical purveyor of spices who can see potential futures and use different spices to affect the outcome.
4 tbsp of cinnamon out of 4.
What I really want to see next: Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)
Chris Floyd: “[T]he money to maintain, secure and improve the lives of their families and communities was always there”
by matttbastard
Beginning with Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, government after government — and party after party — fell to the onslaught of an extremist faith: the narrow, blinkered fundamentalism of the “Chicago School.” Epitomized by its patron saint, Milton Friedman, the rigid doctrine held that an unregulated market would always “correct” itself, because its workings are based on entirely rational and quantifiable principles. (See John Cassidy in the NY Review of Books for more.) This was of course an absurdly reductive and savagely ignorant view of history, money and human nature; but because it flattered the rich and powerful, offering an “intellectual” justification for rapacious greed and ever-widening economic and social inequality, it was adopted as holy writ by the elite and promulgated as public policy.
This radical cult — a kind of Bolshevism from above — took its strongest hold in the United States and Britain, and was then imposed on many weaker nations through the IMF-led “Washington Consensus” (more aptly named by Naomi Klein as the “Shock Doctrine”), with devastating and deadly results. (As in Yeltsin’s Russia, for example, where life expectancy dropped precipitously and millions of people died premature deaths from poverty, illness, and despair.)
According to the cult, not only were markets to be freed from the constraints placed on them after the world-shattering effects of the Great Depression, but all public spending was to be slashed ruthlessly to the bone. (Although exceptions were always made for the Pentagon war machine.) After all, every dollar spent by a public entity on public services and amenities was a dollar taken away from the private wheeler-dealers who could more usefully employ it in increasing the wealth of the elite — who would then allow some of their vast profits to “trickle down” to the lower orders.
This was the cult that captured the governments of the United States and Britain (among others), as well as the Republican and Democratic parties, and the Conservative and Labour parties as well. And for almost thirty years, its ruthless doctrines have been put into practice. Regulation and oversight of financial markets were systematically stripped away or rendered toothless. Essential public services were sold off, for chump change, to corporate interests. Public spending on anything other than making war, threatening war and profiting from war was pared back or eliminated. Such public spending that did remain was forever under threat and derided, like the remnants of some pagan faith surviving in isolated backwaters.
Year after year, the ordinary citizens were told by their governments: we have no money to spend on your needs, on your communities, on your infrastructure, on your health, on your children, on your environment, on your quality of life. We can’t do those kinds of things any more.
Of course, when talking amongst themselves, or with the believers in the think tanks, boardrooms — and editorial offices — the cultists would speak more plainly: we don’t do those things anymore because we shouldn’t do them, we don’t want to do them, they are wrong, they are evil, they are outside the faith. But for the hoi polloi, the line was usually something like this: Budgets are tight, we must balance them (for a “balanced budget” is a core doctrine of the cult), we just can’t afford all these luxuries.
But now, as the emptiness and falsity of the Chicago cargo cult stands nakedly revealed, even to some of its most faithful and fanatical adherents, we can see that this 30-year mantra by our governments has been a deliberate and outright lie. The money was there — billions and billions and billions of dollars of it, trillions of dollars of it. We can see it before our very eyes today — being whisked away from our public treasuries and showered upon the banks and the brokerages.
As they say, read the whole damn thing.
Quote of the Day: Blog Action Day 2008 Edition
by matttbastard
Deceit and manipulation has convinced that masses that social programs are too costly and any move toward *gasp* socialism would bankrupt the country/world economy. Yet if you look around after decades of rampant unfettered capitalism and corporate welfare the world economies are in collapse and governments are resorting to enormous amounts of socialist cash infusion into the banking industry to try to provide a solution to a world wide depression. No where near the amount of money spent on this fiasco could have provided decent housing, health care, eliminated, or vastly decreased, child poverty And proper regulations surrounding the treatment of workers and the expectations of corporations to keep jobs in Canada would have resulted in good jobs and plenty of cash influx into the economy. Yet instead we are told to tighten our belts while CEO’s reap obscene amounts of money even in a crashing economy.
- April Reign, 2008 Blog Action Day: Poverty
Shorter David Frum
by matttbastard
“I’ll show those playa-hatin’ motherfuckers at The Corner who’s down with the Georgetown cocktail party circuit!“
(Yeesh. Only a partisan hack born and bred in the Great White North could launch an ad hominem attack with such oily, passive aggressive guilelessness while simultaneously bemoaning the sorry state of contemporary political discourse. Frum’s bullshit-coated doe-eyed innocent routine is as Canadian as maple fucking syrup–just ask Jason Cherniak.)
Update: Also see Dr Prole @ ACR
Conservative MP Suggests Stephen Harper Party Will Reopen Abortion Debate
by matttbastard
Oopsie–somebody’s slip is showing:
This is what happens when you don’t hand out enough muzzles to keep the pack from howling…
Om nom nom
by boomgate
Remember kids, always eat your vegetables
Sarah Palin’s Secessionist Pal Speaks
by matttbastard
Does Sarah Palin hobnob with radical extremists?
On the afternoon of Sept. 24 in downtown Palmer, Alaska, as the sun began to sink behind the snowcapped mountains that flank the picturesque Mat-Su Valley, 51-year-old Mark Chryson sat for an hour on a park bench, reveling in tales of his days as chairman of the Alaska Independence Party. The stocky, gray-haired computer technician waxed nostalgic about quixotic battles to eliminate taxes, support the “traditional family” and secede from the United States.
So long as Alaska remained under the boot of the federal government, said Chryson, the AIP had to stand on guard to stymie a New World Order. He invited a Salon reporter to see a few items inside his pickup truck that were intended for his personal protection. “This here is my attack dog,” he said with a chuckle, handing the reporter an exuberant 8-pound papillon from his passenger seat. “Her name is Suzy.” Then he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol — once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops — out of his glove compartment. “I’ve got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement,” he said, clutching the gun in his palm. “Then again, so do most Alaskans.” But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call “the 48.” “We want to go our separate ways,” he said, “but we are not going to kill you.”
Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin’s campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.
Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution’s language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as “Black Helicopter Steve,” to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. “Every time I showed up her door was open,” said Chryson. “And that policy continued when she became governor.”
But but but but…WILLIAM AYERS! ACORN! SCARY NEGRO WITH FUNNY NAMEZ!
Jesus fucking Christ.
Make sure to also check out David Talbot for more on Palin’s not-so-mainstream associates.
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