Hullabaloo

Monday, November 23, 2009

 
All In The Same Boat

by digby

I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons there are more benefits and privileges for working people in Europe than you do here is because their parliamentary systems encourage more working and middle class people to actually participate in electoral politics. (Shorter, cheaper elections etc.) Less representation from the upper classes means more representation for everyone else.

I'm sure you all have noticed that it's only when Republicans and their families are afflicted by a problem that they will agitate for government funding for research and the like. If that's so then, as Joe Klein notes, this is a very smart move:

My favorite provision requires that all members of Congress give up their federally-funded health care benefits and join the health care exchanges that will be set up by this bill. This is brilliant politics, addressing the tide of populist anger and fears of incipient socialism. But it also makes an important substantive point. The future of health care reform in this country will depend on how effectively the exchanges--health insurance super-stores--are working. If members of Congress have to participate in this system, you can bet they'll insist on a array of choices, similar to the system they currently use, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.

If they are personally affected, then they will likely ensure that the exchanges are adequate. It's not exactly how we all assumed that representative government worked, but in our culture of greed and self-dealing, this may be about the best we can do.


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digby 11/23/2009 10:00:00 AM |

 
Waiting For The Bubble

by digby

In today's column about the administration listening to Wall Street's scare stories about what will happen if they do what's necessary and actually try to create some new jobs, Krugman is as astonished by Obama's words last week about deficits causing a double dip recession as I was:

In December 2008 Lawrence Summers, soon to become the administration’s highest-ranking economist, called for decisive action. “Many experts,” he warned, “believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.”

Ten months later unemployment reached 10.2 percent, suggesting that despite his warning the administration hadn’t done enough to create jobs. You might have expected, then, a determination to do more.

But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about possible tax incentives for job creation. But “it is important though to recognize,” he went on, “that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

What? Huh?

Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts: the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.

He goes on to write that many Wall Street analysts are all having hissy fits about the debt because they are convinced that rates are going to soar and there's goingto be acollapse in investor confidence. (He later points out that these are the same analysts who were having major hissy fits just months ago about inflation --- and were arguing against the stimulus for that reason.) And the whole thing reminded me of this post I wrote last March:

I was just reading this interesting piece about narcissistic personality disorder and musing about the mindset that believes it's ok to take down the world economy and then dictate the rules by which it is fixed.(Not to mention turn a profit at it!) And then I read this:

In recent days, in spite of public furor over huge bonuses paid at American International Group Inc., the administration has concluded that it needs the private sector to play a central role in fixing the economy. So over the weekend, the White House worked to tone down its Wall Street bashing and to win support from top bankers for the bailout plan announced Monday, which will rely on public-private investments to soak up toxic assets.

But weeks of searing criticism by politicians and the public had left bankers leery of working with the government. After brainstorming about what to do about that problem, the White House resolved to try to take control of the debate, according to several administration officials. In weekend television appearances, President Barack Obama and other administration officials tempered their criticisms of the financial sector.

President Obama met with members of the National Conference of State Legislature at the White House speaking adamantly about how his $787 billion dollar bailout must be used wisely and that wasteful spending will be avoided. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his colleagues worked the phones to try to line up support on Wall Street for the plan announced Monday. They told executives they don't favor using the tax code to retroactively penalize specific individuals who had received bonuses, according to people familiar with the calls. They asked officials to sign on "in pencil, not ink," and to "validate" or "express support" for the plan, these people say.

Some bankers say they turned the conversations into complaints about the antibonus crusade consuming Capitol Hill. Some have begun "slow-walking" the information previously sought by Treasury for stress-testing financial institutions, three bankers say, and considered seeking capital from hedge funds and private-equity funds so they could return federal bailout money, thereby escaping federal restrictions.

Well that certainly clears this up:

“It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger,” President Obama said on Thursday of the banks he’s chosen to bail out. “You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk [to] them, ease that finger off the trigger.”

No kidding. Reading that WSJ article, I can't help but be reminded of another president who was shown in no uncertain terms who was really running the show:

Clinton's experience shows what such pressure can do to a president's agenda. Promises of spending on education, public works and a middle-class tax cut fell by the wayside as advisers led by Robert Rubin, who later became Treasury secretary, convinced the new president the best thing he could do for the economy was to show investors his resolve on fiscal discipline.

``You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?'' Clinton raged at aides, according to journalist Bob Woodward's book, ``The Agenda.''

As it was then, so it is now. (And you can bet that the fucking bond traders are getting ready to strap on the IED over health care and energy...) The owners of America will be appeased or they will destroy everything in their wake.

In another world, they would call this economic terrorism.

Krugman winds up his column with this:

Still, let’s grant that there is some risk that doing more about double-digit unemployment would undermine confidence in the bond markets. This risk must be set against the certainty of mass suffering if we don’t do more — and the possibility, as I said, of a collapse of confidence among ordinary workers and businesses.

And Mr. Summers was right the first time: in the face of the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, it’s much riskier to do too little than it is to do too much. It’s sad, and unfortunate, that the administration appears to have lost sight of that truth.

Since the same people who advised Clinton that his economic program depended on a "bunch of fucking bond traders" are advising Obama today, I guess we'd just better keep our fingers crossed that there's another once in a lifetime bubble right around the corner to get us out of this thing. It sounds like that's what they're counting on.

Update: And then there's this. (h/t to mike)
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digby 11/23/2009 08:30:00 AM |

Sunday, November 22, 2009

 
Horror

by digby

Vaguely following up Tristero's post below, it should probably not go unmentioned that today was the 46th anniversary of JFK's assassination:

The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. Crowds of excited people lined the streets waving to the Kennedys as they waved back. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the President’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The Governor was also hit in the chest.

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But there was little that could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connolly, though seriously wounded, would recover.

The President’s body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m. Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently-hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy as well as the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J.D. Tippit on a Dallas street.

With the sick stuff that's out in the ether these days I couldn't help but be reminded of this.


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digby 11/22/2009 11:00:00 PM |

 
Vietnam/Afghanistan

by tristero

I'd like to revisit both the topic and links for two recent posts of Digby's, on Afghanistan. Those of us who lived through the multiple horrors of the Vietnam war - like Digby, like myself - need to make it crystal clear to those of you who didn't that the decisions Obama is about to make about Afghanistan will have the most far-reaching consequences imaginable, both for that country's future, and our own.

First, let's turn to the eloquent, ominous ending to Bill Moyers's report on Johnson's struggles with Vietnam. I can't improve on what he said. I urge you to listen to the broadcast, because the full emotional impact of these words can't be conveyed in pixels on the the intertubes.

BILL MOYERS: Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.

Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.

And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.

And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.

We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.

Which brings us to Garry Wills' dismaying essay in the New York Review of Books about the political cost Obama will pay if he chooses, as he should, to resist the crushing domestic political imperatives to continue Bush's war in Afghanistan.

Can even someone as brilliant as Barack Obama resolve this ghastly dilemma? Can he find a way both to avoid the bloody quagmire Bush - deliberately - left for the incoming president, and also serve for two terms? Wills seems to think it's all but impossible. Sadly, I agree.

Escalating the Afghanistan conflict will lead to disaster. Refusing to escalate it will lead to political ruin not only for Obama or the Democratic party, but for this country, which will be torn apart by the extreme right, even if there isn't a spectacular 9/11 attack after an American withdrawal.

Indeed, Digby is probably right: Obama will escalate, somehow. And countless American and Afghani lives will be sacrificed, for... what, exactly? Certainly not Hamid Karzai's corrupt government.

No. Escalation will likely have little to do with Afghanistan, or even foreign policy, but everything to do both with a sitting president's ambition as well as the prevention of an extreme right takeover in the next presidential election. Just like Vietnam. I hate the American far right as much as any liberal, but it is not worth getting people killed in Kandahar to prevent them from seizing power. If the US really is that far down the road to fascism, then escalating a pointless war will not prevent an imminent rightwing takeover.

We live in the most interesting of times, god dammit.

tristero 11/22/2009 07:30:00 PM |

 
Consumer Populism

by digby

I honestly believe that this is the kind of thing that affects people every day and is leading to a populist backlash. People not only blame those who do these things, they blame those who have the authority and power for failing to step in and stop it:

Three years ago, the Haggler’s credit card bill seemed to stop showing up in the mail. Another month went by — no bill. The month after that, still nothing. Each month, the Haggler would call the issuer, Bank of America, and pay over the phone, then ask the same question: "Why did you stop sending me a bill?"

We’re still sending you a bill, came the company’s reply each time.

Guess what? The company was right. It just was sending the bill in a restyled envelope, with no trace of “Bank of America." In other words, it looked like junk mail, and the Haggler kept throwing it away.

Now, the Haggler can’t prove it, but this seemed like a brilliant, low-cost way to pocket a fortune in late fees.

“We are not trying to fool people, and we don’t change our envelopes on a regular basis,” said Anne Pace, a company spokeswoman. She explained that the change in envelope design was prompted by the 2006 acquisition of several credit card companies, after which the envelopes of all customers were left blank “for the sake of consistency.”

Consistency? It would be consistent, as far as B. of A. customers are concerned, to leave the envelope unchanged, no?

Seriously, the person who dreamed up the envelope switcheroo must wake up laughing. Ever since, the Haggler has held a grudging, vaguely appalled respect for credit card companies.

The same thing happened to me. The plain brown envelope looked like it was one of those car dealership "checks" that were all the rage before the credit crisis hit. And because I didn't realize the first month that I hadn't gotten my bill, it created a black mark on my credit for a late payment which resulted in a cascade of raised rates on several cards.

It was clearly a sneaky trick. Yes, it's my responsibility to know when my bills are due, but I had been in the habit of putting the bill into the "to pay" file and paying it on the following Monday. It didn't occur to me that the bill would suddenly come in an envelope with no return address or label on it that didn't look like a bill and so I tossed it into a junk pile and didn't look at it right away.

And that's what people are dealing with all the time as consumers, with their health insurance, their credit cards, their mortgages, their pensions --- overwhelming complexity designed to trip them up and cost them money or deny them benefits to which they believed in good faith they were entitled. And its all perfectly legal --- or at least there's no visible accountability for it.

The late fee tricks we are seeing all over the news is apparently going to go on unabated for as long as they can get away with it. And it goes back to the same central problems that created the financial meltdown in the first place:

The backdrop of this boo-boo is an industry that for the last 10 years has been refining the low art of late-fee shenanigans. Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, says that starting in 1999 — when the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allowed commercial and investment banks to merge — credit card companies started looking to late fees for profit.

“It began with regulators allowing banks to say that if a bill arrived on the due date but after a certain time on that day — like noon — then it was late,” Mr. Mierzwinski said. “Now, how many people know when a bank checks their mail?”

Some banks started moving up due dates without notice. Others required that payments sent via overnight mail use a special address, so that if you sent a payment by FedEx to the regular address, you were late.

Getting the picture? In May, Congress passed the Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, which curtails some of these practices. But critics predict that the elimination of some fees will give rise to new ones.

As we know, they are already doing some unbelievable tricks in advance of the law taking effect --- and the Republicans have put an inexplicable hold on efforts to stop them. All people see is more trickery, with the government spending vast sums on the bailouts and failing to enact meaningful reforms in a quick and forceful way.

The Democrats should be the consumer's best friends right now, valiantly and openly fighting these huge enterprises and demanding that they answer for their previous bad behavior. There is some action on these fronts in the congress, as with the credit card bill, but they are so slow-moving and opaque that hardly anyone knows about it. And when the Republicans stand in the way as they did with both the extended unemployment insurance or the necessary credit card reforms, the Dems don't bother to use their obstructionism to build a narrative that will stick with the Republicans come election time.

I just don't get this. This is a populist moment and with the exception of a few liberal economists and professors and a couple of Democratic congressmen, the whole field is being left to the teabaggers. This populist fever doesn't just affect the rural working folks, it affects people in the big urban centers and the suburbs just as much. Everybody's getting screwed. Somebody needs to address that or the wrong people are going to be blamed.


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digby 11/22/2009 05:30:00 PM |

 
Raising Little Fido

by digby


I enjoy the Dog Whisperer as much as anyone. He has a special way with man's best friend. But according to this article, some parents are so into his techniques that they think they should raise their children like he raises dogs. And they think it's such a nifty idea that they actually talked to the New York Times about it.

Cesar Millan doesn't talk about this on his shows, but he did explain how this whole thing might work when the reporter questioned him about it:

Mr. Millan says parents question him all the time. “I’m going to give them my point of view — I’m a father myself,” he said.

As a native of Mexico, he said, he adheres to a more traditional, hierarchical child-rearing philosophy, which he considers effective in both the pack and the family. There, “for thousands of years, the elder has always been the pack leader, it’s never the child,” Mr. Millan said. “In America, kids have too many options when they only need one: ‘Just do it, because.’ ”

If that doesn't work you can rub their noses in it.

Seriously, it seems like every generation rediscovers the patriarchal model and calls it progress because it turns out that authoritarian domination makes for less rambunctious little humans. Go figure. And if humans were as simple as dogs they might even willingly succumb to this order. Unfortunately, human beings evolved into creatures that have free will and a highly complicated psychological and intellectual framework, so these sorts of arrangements end up affecting them in less predictable ways than it does dogs.

Discipline is part of parenting, of course, but designed for the human psyche please, not for Fido. Even children who behave like animals aren't dogs.

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digby 11/22/2009 04:00:00 PM |

 
Reconciled

by digby

I'm hearing a lot of the usual chatter about using reconciliation for the public option in light of comments by various Dems, such as Ben Nelson. But Reid sounded pretty adamant the other day:

Reid also said he would not use a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation to pass the bill – a shift from previous statements when he would say all options are on the table.

“I’m not using reconciliation,” he said flatly.

As dday noted, this could be construed as only applying to the Saturday vote, but it actuallysounds to me as if he took it off the table in order to get that vote. I guess he could go back on that promise, but I would doubt it.

Reconciliation is looking more and more likely to be the best way they get a public option, but my guess is at this point that they are very unlikely to use it unless the liberals demand it. And I just don't know how much more stomach anyone has for this high wire act.

I gather that there is plenty of talk about the public option in the Senate and that it is not off the table in some form or another, so I am not one of those who are perpetually pronouncing it dead. People have been doing that for months and continue to look foolish when it doesn't turn out to be true. So, I remain hopeful that it happens, if only for political reasons demonstrating to the village that liberals have the political clout to push through their priorities. (Truthfully, I'm not sure if any of this is going to be worth it if they can't figure out a way to speed up the reforms, but that's another problem.)

However it happens I think Reid's words are fairly clear, especially since, as dday pointed out, reconcilation was the threat that Reid used to get the vote and when he took it off the table, the dynamic changed. I think the deal was made and that Reid probably won't bring it back.


But, as always, I could be wrong. My crystal ball is as cloudy as always.


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digby 11/22/2009 02:30:00 PM |

 
Don't Have A Seizure In Public

by digby

... unless you expect to get tasered:

A Washington man lost consciousness and was soon revived Wednesday after being hit twice with a Taser by city police during a struggle in which the man bit one of the officers several times.

Ronald Petruney, 49, of 1090 Jefferson Ave., remained in Washington Hospital Thursday, and his condition was not immediately known, city police said at a news conference that morning.

An officer, whose name was not released, was patrolling Jefferson Avenue when he encountered Petruney on the ground near his apartment about 1:05 p.m., suffering from what appeared to be a seizure.

Petruney then stood up, disoriented, and attempted to walk into traffic, police Lt. Daniel Stanek said at the news conference.

Petruney refused orders to sit down and charged the officer, biting him and swinging his arms when the two began to struggle, Stanek said.

Another officer, who also was not identified, arrived on the scene. Petruney was first shot in the legs with two Taser wires. The second officer then applied his Taser directly to Petruney's torso, Stanek said.

At that point, Petruney lost his pulse and was revived by paramedics.

Stanek said the officers followed department procedures in using Tasers. He said city police have had problems in the past with Petruney, who has known mental health issues. He has bitten a police officer before, Stanek said.

Police are preparing to charge him with aggravated assault and resisting arrest upon his release from the hospital.

No need. He died.

I understand the officers fearing being bitten and can appreciate the difficulty in dealing with the mentally ill in these situations. But when someone is having a seizure, biting and disorientation are common, and they should be trained to deal with it without shooting the person full of electricity. Especially since seizure disorders are caused by electrical disturbances in the brain:

In seizure disorders, the brain's electrical activity is periodically disturbed, resulting in some degree of temporary brain dysfunction.

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Many people have unusual sensations just before a seizure starts.
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Some seizures cause uncontrollable shaking and loss of consciousness, but more often, people simply stop moving or become unaware of what is happening.
*
Doctors suspect the diagnosis based on symptoms, but imaging of the brain, blood tests, and electroencephalography (to record the brain's electrical activity) are usually needed to identify the cause.
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If needed, drugs can usually prevent seizures.

Normal brain function requires an orderly, organized, coordinated discharge of electrical impulses. Electrical impulses enable the brain to communicate with the spinal cord, nerves, and muscles as well as within itself. Seizures may result when the brain's electrical activity is disrupted.

Does it make any sense to be shoot someone who is experiencing such a thing full of electricity?

It's impossible for me to believe that cops didn't have better ways of dealing with these situation, and mental illness too, before tasers came into the picture. They seem to be completely losing any sense of judgment in dealing with sick members of the population since they got this magic all purpose torture weapon.


h/t to JAT
digby 11/22/2009 12:30:00 PM |

 
The McDonnell Strategy

by digby


Howie talks about the vaunted McDonnell Strategy that all the GOP establishment poobahs are selling as the next big thing. Howie sagely points out that depressing the Democratic base, as McDonnell admits was a big part of the strategy, will depend upon the individual Dem candidates' willingness to adopt the Creigh Deeds strategy of moving right even as your Republican opponent was desperately trying to pretend that he isn't captive of the crazies.

McDonnell recently said:

“I never shied away when I got attacked on pro-life-- I said, ‘Yeah I’m pro-life, I’ve governed myself that way for 18 years [in the political arena] and I’m going to be a pro-life governor,” he said. “Now let’s talk about jobs and the economy. So it was more a matter of focus, not a matter at all of backtracking on things that we believed in.”

That seems to me to be the exact strategy Democrat Mark Warner used in Virginia throughout the decade, which was also touted as the super-duper winning strategy for Democrats everywhere. I think I'd start to consider whether Virginia is the fabulous microcosm of Real America that everyone who lives in its environs thinks it is. They choose to elect the same dull technocrat over and over again regardless of party and I'm not sure there's a lot of evidence that the rest of the country is as enamored of such types as Virginia obviously is.

Indeed, if there's any lesson from Virginia to be taken in this moment, it's that the Republicans are the ones who feel the need to downplay their true beliefs in favor of an appeal to competence, which should indicate to the Democrats that they can more safely run on theirs. Naturally, timorous Dems who've been traumatized by years of Republican dominance and media abuse, simply can't conceive of a circumstance in which it might actually be better for them to embrace their more liberal instincts. (In a situation where the opponent on the right is trying to direct the electorate's attention away from his social conservatism, you'd think they'd get a clue.)But these are opportunities to move the goalposts and give liberalism some exposure to people who have had almost no experience with it.

If the lesson that Democrats take from this is that they too need to have more candidates like McDonnell, just as they believed they needed more candidates like Mark Warner (who is a very nice centrist and obviously perfect for Virginia, if not the rest of the country) then Republicans will be back in the majority before too long. Unlike the Democrats, the GOP understands that when the other side is on the run and trying desperately to erase the differences between the two parties, it's an opportunity to move even farther to the right, thus shifting the center. Democrats, on the other hand, often believe that when the Republicans are on the run, it's a good time for them to tack to the right, thus ensuring that the "center" remains firmly conservative no matter what. The only way to understand this is to believe they are stupid --- or they all want the country to stay as far to the right as possible.


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digby 11/22/2009 11:00:00 AM |

 
Lamentations

by digby

You've all heard about the winguts sporting bumperstickers and buttons that say Psalm 109, which is calling for Obama to be replaced (or killed, depending on how you look at it.) The good Christians sporting these bumper stickers insist it's no biggie and that everyone should just lighten up.

Max Brantley says otherwise --- at least if you take your Bible seriously:

Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet explains that Psalm 109 is one of the “imprecatory” prayers, “a lament in the form of petition to destroy one’s enemies.” While perhaps intended to be a joke, she notes that the psalm actually “entreats God to destroy the president”:

It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another–and usually more powerful–person. The words of Psalm 109 are those of deep agony, the longings of a victim for retribution and justice. This psalm is considered one of the most difficult of all the psalms–full of violent images of vengeance and death.

h/t to bb
digby 11/22/2009 09:30:00 AM |

Saturday, November 21, 2009

 
Saturday Night At The Movies


The worst years of our lives

By Dennis Hartley
















The bad news bearers: Harrelson and Foster in The Messenger


Well, it took long enough. Someone has finally made a film that gets the harrowing national nightmare of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars right. Infused with sharp writing, smart and unobtrusive direction and compelling performances, The Messenger is one of those insightful observations of the human condition that quietly sneaks up and really gets inside you, staying with you long after the credits roll. This is easily one of the best films I have seen this year (and one of the few with real substance). First-time director Owen Moverman and co-writer Alessandro Camon not only bring the war(s) home, but they then proceed to march up your driveway and deposit in on your doorstep. Quite literally.

Knock, knock.

"The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your (son, daughter, husband, wife) (died/was killed in action) in (country/state) on (date). The Secretary extends his deepest sympathy to you and your family in your tragic loss."

Those are words that no one ever wants to hear, and I can’t imagine any job in the world that could possibly be any worse than being the person assigned to deliver that message. “There’s no such thing as a satisfied customer,” deadpans Casualty Notification Officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to his new apprentice, Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), who is emotionally shattered by his virgin encounter with bereaved “NOK”.

Sgt. Montgomery is a decorated, recently returned Iraq War vet whose enlistment is almost up. Although he accepts this one last thankless assignment with the stoic obedience expected from a professional soldier, he appears to privately suffer from PTSD; a condition that makes an odd bedfellow with his new responsibilities. Stone is a hardass, a cynical careerist who carries a fair share of personal baggage himself. When he bluntly asks Montgomery if he is “a head case” right after meeting him, you suspect that this may be a case of “it takes one to know one”. Stone (and Harrelson’s portrayal) is reminiscent of SM1 “Bad Ass” Buddusky, Jack Nicholson’s character in The Last Detail.

In fact, there is a lot about this film that reminds me of those episodic, naturalistic character studies that directors like Hal Ashby and Bob Rafaelson used to turn out back in the 70s; giving their actors plenty of room to breathe and inhabit their characters in a very real and believable manner. A subplot involving a relationship between Montgomery and a recently widowed Army wife (Samantha Morton) strongly recalled one of my all-time favorite sleepers from that particular era and style of filmmaking, Mark Rydell’s Cinderella Liberty (worth seeking out, if you have never seen it, BTW).

Although the filmmakers hold back from making any overt political statements, the notification scenes in the film say it all-we continue to ship scores of young American men and women overseas whole of limb and spirit, and return many of them home sans either or both (or in a box)…and for what justifiable reason, exactly? And as heartbreaking, gut-wrenching and hard to watch as these scenes are-I am sure they pale in comparison to the agony of those families and loved ones who have answered the door and received that news for real. In fact, I’ll take this one step further. I challenge anyone out there who feels we “need” to dig ourselves in deeper into our present Middle East quagmire to watch this film, reassess their justifications, and get back to me. Go. I’ll wait.



All power to the people

























And speaking of lost causes… there’s a fascinating new documentary making the rounds that you might want to keep an eye out for. William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a sometimes stirring, sometimes confounding but ultimately moving portrait of the iconoclastic and controversial defense lawyer who was sort of the Zelig of the radical Left throughout most of the 1970s. Somehow, he became THE key legal champion for the Chicago 7, The Black Panther Party, anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan, the American Indian Movement and the ill-fated inmates who initiated the Attica prison riots.

However, beginning sometime in the 1980s (for reasons known only to himself, or perhaps just merely in keeping with the inherently contrarian nature of a defense lawyer) he slowly but surely turned to The Dark Side (at least in the opinion, and to the chagrin, of many of his professional cohorts and former “co-conspirators”). He started to take on high-profile cases involving clients who were, well, decidedly less sexy to the dedicated followers of fashionable radical chic; terrorists (including the chief planner of the first World Trade Center attack and the man accused of murdering Rabbi Kahane), mobsters (John Gotti and other Gambino family associates), notorious murderers (L.I. Railroad killer Colin Ferguson) and rapists (the Central Park jogger assault case)-to name a couple.

The filmmakers may have more personal reasons than anyone else to be stymied by this apparent mass of contradictions that constituted Kunstler’s persona, and are arguably the best qualified to take a stab at earnest analysis-because after all, he was their Dad. Luckily for us, Emily and Sarah Kunstler were precociously budding filmmakers from an early age; they were able to capture a lot of wonderfully un-self conscious vintage home movie moments from a man who was almost always otherwise playing to the news cameras with the Right Profile and the Grand Gesture. These moments temper the usual talking heads reminiscences and archival news footage in a unique fashion, adding an unusually intimate element to the film. To their credit, they don’t sugarcoat that they were truly horrified by some of their father’s professional choices (not to mention the fact that some of those choices precipitated some all-too-real death threats against the family).

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Kunstler’s eventual decision to seemingly pull any defendant’s name out of the Fuckit Bucket and give it his all, regardless of the political correctness involved, the real takeaway you get from the film is the same one his daughters touchingly acknowledge in the denouement-there’s never anything wrong with making a stand against social injustice, even if you’re the only one who perceives it may be taking place. This point is brought home beautifully when Emily and Sarah remind us that the young African Americans who were originally brought to trial in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, roundly vilified in the media and vigorously defended by their father were exonerated in 2002, when DNA linked a murderer to the rape. And so it goes.

Previous posts with related themes:

Stop-Loss

Lions for Lambs

Chicago 10


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Dennis Hartley 11/21/2009 05:30:00 PM |

 
Protest At Your Own Risk

by digby

This is from last week's protests at UCLA:

UCLA is no stranger to Taser Gun use. After a horrible video in 2006 surfaced of a student, who was already retrained by officers, being tasered several times, the school suffered a good amount of drama and settled with the student for $220,000.

During protests over the past two days, at least a few students were tasered. UCLA officials said two were tasered on Wednesday and photos show that at least one student was on Thursday.

A witness to Thursday's incident tells LAist that two people were tasered during a scuffle captured in photos. "In fact with this particular incident," said the student, "there were actually two students who were tasered, the girl lying down next to Rustin O'Neill on the right in the first photo posted was also tasered, once, in the arm, and Rustin was tasered multiple times over the heart."

Somebody forgot to read their memo. Luckily he lived. But it's going to be an expensive lawsuit.


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digby 11/21/2009 04:00:00 PM |

 
The Cow Is Over The Fence Again

by digby

If you missed Bill Moyers' Journal last night, I urge you to find the time to watch it or at least read the transcript:

With an eye on President Obama’s deliberations on whether to deploy more U.S. troops in addition to the 68,000 already in Afghanistan, Moyers presented a montage of recorded conversations and his personal memories of President Lyndon Johnson’s decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam. He said:

“Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama’s mind. He is apparently about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another President – Lyndon B. Johnson. I was 30 years old, a White House assistant, working on politics and domestic policy. I watched and listened as LBJ made his fateful decisions about Vietnam... Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. The situation is different. But listen – and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.”

Refrains like this:

US Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements.

But he said that timeline is threatened by US President Barack Obama's delay in rolling out a new Afghanistan strategy.

"I am absolutely convinced and totally confident that with sufficient resources we can turn the situation around," McCain told reporters at an international defense summit in easternmost Canada.

"I even am bold enough to predict that in a year to 18 months you will see success if the effort is sufficiently resourced and there is a commitment to get the job done before setting a date to leave the region," he said.

They always say that, knowing that it's so much more complicated, but also knowing they can make political points. From the Moyers broadcast:

ROBERT MCNAMARA: ... If we're going to stay in there, if we're going to go strictly up the escalating chain, we're going to have to educate the people, Mr. President. We haven't done so yet. I'm not sure now is exactly the right time.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: No, and I think if you start doing it, they're going to be hollering, "You're a warmonger."

ROBERT MCNAMARA: That's right. I completely agree with you. So this is the-

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I think that's the horns that the Republicans would like to get us on. Now if we could do something in the way of social work, in the way of our hospitals, in the way of our province program [...] and in the way of remaking that area out there, and giving them some hope and something to fight for, and put some of our own people into their units and do a little better job of fighting without material escalation for the next few months, that's what we ought to do.

BILL MOYERS: The President's hopes for a kind of 'New Deal' for South Vietnam are stymied by the corruption and incompetence of the government there, which is again on the verge of collapse, even as the enemy - the Vietcong - are consolidating more and more control in the countryside. The walls are closing in, and the President turns once again to his old mentor in the Senate, Dick Russell.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I'm confronted with-I don't believe the American people ever want me to run. If I lose it, I think that they'll say I've lost, I've pulled in. At the same time, I don't want to commit us to a war. And I'm in a hell of a shape. I can't do-I just don't know.

RICHARD RUSSELL: We're just like the damn cow over a fence out there in Vietnam.

The whole thing is so reminiscent of what's currently going on --- the clear knowledge that it's useless, the right wing using it as a political weapon, the wishful thinking about nation building, the sense of inevitability. And you can't help but be struck by the fact that everyone knows the right always uses war as a weapon and that the liberal political establishment always believes it must cower from the threat.


Update: Bill Moyers is retiring. I don't know what we'll do without him.


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digby 11/21/2009 02:30:00 PM |

 
Blanche

by digby

Blanche Lincoln has also generously decided to let the health care bill come to floor for debate today (which was more or less expected), but she seemed to promise that she will help the Republicans filibuster any bill that contains a public option:

"Let me be perfectly clear. I am opposed to a new government administered health care plan as a part of comprehensive health insurance reform, and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by Leader Reid as it is written.... I've already alerted the Leader and I'm promising my colleagues that I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included."

So, looks like triggers are back on the table and President Snowe has been called back from Elba:

After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told reporters she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will soon have to choose between a triggered public option and no health care bill. She also says Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate one of its most fierce and vocal public option advocates--has been tasked as a point man on the issue.

"I believe it's going to be very clear at some point very soon that there are not 60 votes for the current provision in the bill, and that the leader and the leadership are going to have to make a decision and I trust that they will figure out how to do that," Landrieu told reporters.

"At some point very soon," meant when Lincoln came to the floor, I'm guessing.


One step at a time ...


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digby 11/21/2009 12:30:00 PM |

 
The Christianist Manifesto: A Partial Fisking

by tristero

Led by an admitted felon,* a bunch of extreme, but influential, christianists have released a rambling statement which they've pompously called "Manhattan Declaration." Get it? That's "declaration" as in "Declaration of Independence" rather than "manifesto" as in "The Communist Manifesto." I prefer the latter, though. It bugs 'em, that's why.

A hat tip to Americans United for the heads up and for this response:

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This declaration is certain to be deeply divisive. These religious leaders want to see their doctrines imposed by force of law, and that goes against everything America stands for.

“The United States is an incredibly diverse nation,” he continued, “and it would be a disaster if government started favoring one religious perspective over others.”

Well, in fact, the US has started favoring a religious perspective, via the faith-based initiative program, continued under Obama with the addition of a faith-based advisory council.** But let's not get distracted; I'll confront the F-BI on another day, as will, in more eloquent language than I can muster, Reverend Lynn. What Colson and his fellow creeps are up to is a more salient issue.

The "Manhattan Declaration" is an odiously grandiose screed. It preambles with a long, brain-glazing history lesson starting some 2000 years ago, the point of which is - well, it's not too clear, but it seems to be that 2000 years of Christians and Christianity fully support the tedious obsessions of modern American christianists. The inconvenient truths of Christian history - pogroms; tortures; burnings; religious persecution; the undermining of the sincere faith of believers in order to foment war, greed, and other political/cultural atrocities; and the perpetuation of stupefying ignorance - are swept under the rug in zippy little subordinate clauses:

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages...

Yeah, we all make mistakes, it's true. Like the Spanish Inquisition, Or imprisoning Galileo. And christianists credit the religion they mock - yes, these people make a mockery of a great tradition - with any liberal idea they think they can get away with:

It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade;

Took 'em a while.

And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement.

Indeed. And were excoriated for it by other Christians.

The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures

And those very same "crusades" were opposed from the pulpits of countless churches throughout the land, And oh, yes, the leaders of the civil rights movement, which included humanists, Jews, Christians, atheists, and others, were denounced as irreligious liberals.

Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person...

That's why so many of the signers of this declaration spoke out so forcefully against the torturing regime of George W. Bush and his cohorts. They did, didn't they?

...and to stand for the common good.

And that is as close as this Manifesto gets to acknowledging that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, liberals, humanists, gays, and others have anything close to a right not to believe what christianists believe. Or that many rights, period.

Let's go on.

In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society

In other words, all humans are equal but heterosexuals are more equal.

and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

Which means...well, it's not clear, but it seems like they're comparing themselves, and their nonsensical crusades against things like decent science education, as well as their well-funded greed machines ministries to the poverty of Christ.

Humble people, christianists. Some more humility:

We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.

Huh, what? You say something? Oh. Yeah, sure, you can say whatever nonsense you want, it's a free country (unless you want to get married to the person you love and a christianist finds some hare-brained reason, like matching genitals, to object to). But you can't force me to listen to it. Or take it seriously.

It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season.

Humble people, christianists.

Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government.

Catch that? "Pro-life: versus "pro-abortion" which, unlike "pro-life," is an "ideology."

Now, readers of this blog, being normal, realize that it is christianists who are the ones who've actively encouraged unwanted pregnancies as well as abortions that could have been avoided through proper prophylactic pedagogy, which they enthusiastically oppose. And you, intelligent readers, also understand that we are the ones who are genuinely pro-life, not criminals like Charles Colson.

But that's not what's meant in the Manifesto, of course. And it's no accident that this particular language is employed here. I'll give Colson and his BFFs this much: they never make the rhetorical mistake of comparing their opponents to a bunch of mushrooms after a spring rain. To Colson et al, liberals don't remotely resemble a verdant forest after a drizzle: we're baby-killers. There's no way to misunderstand them.

Am I suggesting we call the people who wrote and signed this nonsensical Manifesto something akin to "baby-killer?" Of course not! Two lies do not make a truth. No. Instead I think we should simply and accurately describe them. For example, "a felon and his like-minded accomplices" will do quite nicely in the current context.***

Ever more humility:

We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.

That's why the signers of this statement have been so vociferous in denouncing the Bush/Cheney regime for dramatically increasing hunger in America by 13 million citizens in the last year of their reign alone. They did denounce them, didn't they?

A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable.

That's why they, to a person, oppose the death penalty. Right? Well, no. These guys**** are talking about carrying fetuses without brains to term for no other reason than...I can't figure it out, like God wants women to suffer through childbirth to carry dead babies to term? And they're also talking about Schiavo: they're proud of what they did (and well they should be).

I could go on, but I have more important things to do than read more of Colson's repellent garbage, like pare my toenails. I'd like to leave you with one more excerpt, however. I thought about giving you the spectacle of Colson, et al, deploring births out of wedlock, which they didn't do, and didn't do it ever so convincingly, when Sarah Palin was parading her pregnant-out-of-wedlock daughter around. But that's too easy: you'll just instantly agree with me and that's no fun. Liberals, at least the liberals I like, enjoy a good argument. And I like you folks. Soooo...

Instead, consider the following:

The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called "therapeutic cloning." This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and "voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."

Of course this is bullshit, anyone sane will agree, and the distortions and poor associations between different pseud0-facts make for incoherence, if you try to make actual sense of it. So what is this about? Why is this weird passage in the Christianist Manifesto?

Focus carefully on the style. Get it? No? Ok, let's spell it out. Check out what this passage contains:

The President and many in Congress...Industrial mass production...human...to be killed...assisted suicide..."voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons...Eugenic...lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life")...the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave.

In other words, Colson and his cronies are saying Obama is Hitler and Democrats are Nazis. They're planning a Holocaust for Christians.

Disagree that that is the intent? Perhaps you think the gratuitous use of the German was just an accident, or mere intellectual posturing. Or that it's just a coincidence that the phrase "The President and many in Congress" occurs so close to "Industrial mass production" as well as the word "human" and the phrase "to be killed."

If you really think this is just some kind of random half-baked nonsense, just boiler-plate, then - and I mean this very sincerely - you don't know the first thing about how language works in modern American political discourse. And so, you will be satisfied with a liberal rhetoric that counters this disgusting demagoguery with something as unfocused and ineffective as spring rain and mushrooms. And nasty creeps like Colson, Donohue, and their ilk will continue to have regular access to sitting presidents .

And no, I will not get over it.***** This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no...

-----

*h/t: The Smoking Gun

Charles Colson, chief counsel to Richard Nixon, served seven months in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice as well as other Watergate related charges.

** Some observers I spoke to at AU's annual meeting believe that the Advisory Council is not what it appears to be on its face. By appointing, they said, a broad spectrum of people who hate each others' guts, Obama seems to be encouraging gridlock on faith-based initiatives rather than a smooth flow of funding. Perhaps: after all, Obama is a very astute politician, and there is more than one way to prevent the government from funding Colson-approved boondoggles. But AU leaders were emphatic in denouncing the very notion of the advisory council, insisting it represented an ominous expansion. I tend to agree.

***I jest. Or maybe not. After all, Colson is a convicted felon. And the others who signed this document think like him. And they've served to help him accomplish the writing and marketing of "Manhattan Declaration".

****I counted eleven women out of 154 authors and/or signatories.

***** But, if cute mushrooms are inadequate, what would effective liberal rhetoric sound like? Well, here's Rick Hertzberg, for example. More like this, please.

tristero 11/21/2009 11:00:00 AM |

 
Blasphemy!

by digby

Yesterday, I made fund of the fact that little Luke Russert thought that Harry Reid was the new liberal standard bearer because he got a vote to the floor. But this might actually do it:

"In tomorrow's Washington Post, David Broder, their distinguished senior columnist, certainly not a political conservative, expresses his reservation as a citizen about the steps that we could be about to take," McConnell said.

Reid couldn't have been less impressed. "To focus on a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while is not where we should be."

Update: Democrat Mary Landrieu just announced that she's generously going to allow the historic Democratic health care reform bill to come to the floor. That's very kind of her.

So it looks like we're going to get a vote. The question now is what the bill is going to look like after all the amendments.

... it never ends ...

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digby 11/21/2009 10:00:00 AM |

 
The Trolls Under The Bridge

by digby

There's been a lot of talk about Haley Barbour refusing to say whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. I saw the interview at the time and was actually struck by something else:

Matthews: ... let me ask you this. Your party deserves credit because you pushed through welfare reform, a tough bill, because Newt Gingrich pushed it and the president had to sign it under duress in 1996, I think. He might have lost 4 or 5% in that fight with Bob Dole. I don't think he would have lost but he would have lost a lot of ground. So you guys showed the upper hand, you got the job done, you forced a Democrat to eat it and he did.

Why didn't you ever do that on health care? You've had power. You've had both houses under Bush, you've had both houses and the presidency. You had plenty of chances to get a really good health care bill using taxes or whatever to serve the country that's not being served by healthcare. But yet you wait around, like a troll under the bridge, waiting for the Democrats to do it and then you come out and bite their leg. Who don't you walk across that bridge, why don't you have a healthcare bill when you're in power?

Barbour: We trolls who are hiding under the bridge, candidly, a lot of Republicans, including me, believe it would be much better to let the states do some things like we've done in Mississippi where we've had serious tort reform and our medical liability reform has brought down insurance premiums by 60% in four years, we have reformed medicaid so that we are saving the taxpayers money. We think let the states go for a while, see what works see what doesn't and then come together with a rational bill at the federal level is a better approach.

Mississippi rates 51 (out of 50 states plus DC) in health care ranking. It seems to me that with that record, he should rethink his argument.

If Mississippi improved to the level of the best-performing state in each of these categories, this is what its citizens would see:

Insured Adults	297,552	more adults (ages 18-64) would be covered by health insurance (public or private), and therefore would be more likely to receive health care when needed.
Insured Children	74,308	more children (ages 0-17) would be covered by health insurance (public or private), and therefore would be more likely to receive health care when needed.
Adult Preventive Care	145,277	more adults (ages 50 and older) would receive recommended preventive care, such as colon cancer screenings, mammograms, pap smears, and flu shots at appropriate ages.
Diabetes Care	80,492	more adults (ages 18 and older) with diabetes would receive three recommended services (eye exam, foot exam, and hemoglobin A1c test) to help prevent or delay disease complications.
Childhood Vaccinations	8,456	more children (ages 19-35 months) would be up-to-date on all recommended doses of five key vaccines.
Adults with a Usual Source of Care	237,036	more adults (ages 18 and older) would have a usual source of care to help ensure that care is coordinated and accessible when needed.
Children with a Medical Home	135,603	more children (ages 0-17) would have a medical home to help ensure that care is coordinated and accessible when needed.
Preventable Hospital Admissions	12,046	fewer preventable hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions would occur among Medicare beneficiaries (age 65 and older) and
	$67,451,446	dollars would be saved from the reduction in hospitalizations.
Hospital Readmissions	2,178	fewer hospital readmissions would occur among Medicare beneficiaries (age 65 and older) and
	$24,016,832	dollars would be saved from the reduction in readmissions.
Hospitalization of Nursing Home Residents	2,659	fewer long-stay nursing home residents would be hospitalized and
	$17,704,944	dollars would be saved from the reduction in hospitalizations.
Mortality Amenable to Health Care	2,018	fewer premature deaths (before age 75) might occur from causes that are potentially treatable or preventable with timely and appropriate health care.

The state is a disaster when it comes to health care on every front. But they have reduced their premiums and now nobody can expect restitution if a drunk doctor cuts off the wrong limb, so everything's just ducky in Haley's world. In fact the whole country should "experiment" with Mississippi's great successes.

In case you were wondering, number one is Vermont, followed by Hawaii and Iowa. If Barbour and his buddies were willing to take the lead of the states that actually deliver pretty good health care his words wouldn't ring so hollow. But all he cares about is destroying trial lawyers on behalf of his rich friends and throwing poor people off Medicaid. I don't think that's a serious solution to the problem so there's no reason to listen to anything he or any other Republican says on this subject.

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digby 11/21/2009 09:00:00 AM |