Ferguson heartbreak.

Today is a sad day. No, I did not expect the grand jury to indict Darren Wilson; that would have been contra everything I know about U.S. jurisprudence and the racist rot at the heart of vast swaths of American culture.

I am continually astonished that so many of my fellow whites shrug it off (or worse) while the state targets, brutalizes and incarcerates people in numbers that dwarf the rest of the world—and people of color, already among our most marginalized and impoverished citizens, make up a wildly disproportionate percentage of them. Not just disproportionate to their percentage of the general population, disproportionate to the number of whites (including cops) who commit the exact same offenses with impunity. Susan McGraugh, a criminal defense lawyer and professor at the St. Louis University School of Law points out:

Officer Wilson got preferential treatment. I represent only poor people, and he was given a lot of courtesies that my clients have not. I can guarantee you that if one of my clients had killed somebody with a gun, they would have been arrested and they’d have been charged. And they would have either had to post bond or sit in jail while the grand jury deliberated on their case.

This explains both why whites generally tend to have faith in the criminal “justice” system, and precisely why they should not. And just like our murderous for-profit health care system, imprisonment has been very profitably privatized, once again to the disproportionate detriment of people of color. And compounding all of these injustices, after serving their time ex-convicts are further disenfranchised and marginalized: in many places they are legally denied housing and other public benefits, jobs are virtually unattainable and they are prohibited from voting—for life. Is it really such a mystery why so many return to crime? Ask yourself who benefits from these policies. Christ, even these hateful assholes preach that once a person has been punished, they are not to be penalized further: doing so is not “Christian”—or at least, not biblical—which is really saying something, my friends.

I saw with my own eyes (mostly white) Occupy protesters surveilled, harassed and arrested by NYPD for being in a park; and from the relative safety of my apartment, I observed with growing horror the escalating police assaults and brutality, including pepper spraying and tear-gassing captive people who could not escape police cordons. It was not lost on me then or now that this is exactly what it’s like to live in many black and brown communities every single day.

Except the occupiers were not being routinely slaughtered in the streets.

Not this time, anyway.

The injustice of killer police (and police rapists and citizen vigilantes) going free should outrage every person of conscience. But even if you’re just a run-of-the-mill narcissistic shitweasel—i.e., conservative—if you think a militarized police and surveillance state could never come gunning for you, you are terrifyingly ignorant of all of history—including the recent history of the United States.

R.I.P. Michael Brown. May this day mark a turning point in the broader culture, for all of us.

__________

Recommended reading from the Palace Library:

• Americans Killed by Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed in Iraq War. Filming Cops (2013).
• 10 Prison Security Techniques Being Implemented on the American People. Brock, M., Police State USA (Feb. 2014).
• The Caging of America: Why do we lock up so many people? Gopnik, A. The New Yorker (Jan. 2012).
• The Leader of the Unfree World. Ford, M., The Atlantic (Jul. 2014). (“Mass incarceration, perhaps the greatest social crisis in modern American history, is without parallel on a global scale.”)
• New ACLU Report Finds Overwhelming Racial Bias in Marijuana Arrests: Groundbreaking Analysis Finds Marijuana Arrests Comprise Nearly Half of All Drug Arrests. ACLU (Jun. 2013). (“Black people are 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people despite comparable usage rates…marijuana arrests now make up nearly half of all drug arrests.”)
• One In 25 Americans Was Arrested In 2011. Balko, R., The Huffington Post (Aug. 2013) “[O]ne in 33 Americans were arrested for crimes that didn’t involve violence against another person, or theft of or damage to property. More people were arrested for drug crimes than any other class of crimes.”
• One Marijuana Arrest Occurs Every 42 Seconds In U.S.: FBI Report. Ferner, M. The Huffington Post (Oct. 2012) “[T]here were a total of 1.5 million drug arrests made nationwide in 2011, and out of those arrests, about 750,000 were for marijuana (just under half, 49.5 percent) — that’s one marijuana arrest every 42 seconds and one drug arrest every 21 seconds in the U.S.”
• Cop Caught On Dashcam Framing A Woman For DUI. youtube (Feb. 2014). (VIDEO).
• War Gear Flows to Police Departments. Apuzzo, M., The New York Times (Jun. 2014).
• Pennsylvania judge sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling teens to prisons. Colagiovanni, L., Examiner (Apr. 2013).
• Profiting from Probation: America’s “Offender-Funded” Probation Industry. Human Rights Watch (2014) (pdf).
• Too Good to be True: Private Prisons in America. Mason, C., The Sentencing Project (Jan. 2012) (pdf).
• U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations, Lipak, A., New York Times (Apr. 2008)
• U.S. States Grapple with Exploding Prison Populations, Cardinale, M., ipsnews.net.
• 4th of July DUI Checkpoint – Drug Dogs, Searched without Consent, while Innocent. (Jul. 2013) (VIDEO).
• Asset seizures fuel police spending. Robert O’Harrow Jr., R. and Rich, S., The Washington Post (Oct. 2014). (“Of the nearly $2.5 billion in spending reported in the forms, 81 percent came from cash and property seizures in which no indictment was filed.”)
• Cop Caught On Dashcam Framing A Woman For DUI. youtube (Feb. 2014). (VIDEO).
• Eric Garner’s Death and the Exasperation With Police Violence. Smith, M.D., The Nation (Jul. 2014).
• How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty. Balko, R., The Washington Post (Sep. 2014).
• Stop and seize: Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes. Sallah, M. et al, The Washington Post (Sep. 2014).

See also:

• Critical Resistance.
• The Innocence Project.
• Prison Culture.
• Prison Policy Initiative.
• The Sentencing Project.
• Stop Mass Incarceration Network.
• Police State USA.

BREAKING: Alan Grayson HEARTS Iris Vander Pluym, is still awesome.

Your Humble Monarch™ was cordially invited to a reception (read: fundraiser) Friday night for Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida. Held at the home of Bob Fertik and Antonia Stolper near Union Square, the event promised to be packed with other Democratic congresscritters: Yvette Clarke, Hakeem Jeffries, Nita Lowey, Carolyn Maloney, Grace Meng, Jerry Nadler, Charlie Rangel, José Serrano, Nydia Velasquez and—last, but not least!—Steve Israel, chairweasel of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and perpetual target of Palace loathing and scorn.

Because I am an intrepid world famous political journalist (or at least I sometimes play one on my blog!), I found this invitation far too intriguing to decline. Sure, meeting Grayson sounded fun; I have long been a fan and supporter. But the chance to encounter Steve Israel really got my beanie spinning. And so on Friday evening I disguised myself as Gender Conforming Democrat Barbie™—pearls, heels, makeup, nail polish, black slacks, classy blouse, badass jacket—and schlepped on over to Union Square.

I had of course compiled Top Secret dossiers on the expected politicos, and crafted trenchant and insightful questions for each of them in case the opportunity for an interview should arise. You know, questions like: “What the fuck is Steve Israel doing here, do ya think?” and “Can I have a hug?”

The Israel Dossier

Much of the material on Steve Israel comes straight out of the Palace archives.

Congressman Steve Israel (NY-3).

NY-3: most of the North Shore of Long Island, parts of Northeastern Queens. The district went for Bush/Cheney in ’04 and McCain/Palin in ’08; Obama barely squeaked by (50%-49%) in 2012.

Professional Background: PR, marketing.

Committees: Appropriations, various subcommittees thereof.

Caucus: Co-chair and founder of the Center Aisle Caucus.

Party Leadership: Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) since January 2011.

It is these last two resumé items with which the Palace most concerns itself.

First the caucus. Back in 2005, Steve Israel and his BFF, Illinois Republican Tim Johnson, co-founded the Center Aisle Caucus—or “CACA,” as I like to call it. Although the actual number is impossible to verify since CACA membership is Sooper Seekrit, the caucus has roughly sixty members, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The CACAs fancy themselves “defiant centrists”—or conservatives, as I like to call them. This would be terrible enough considering how far to the right the “center” has drifted, but it’s actually much worse than that: CACAs observe an unwritten rule never to engage in political campaigns against other CACAs. If the membership estimate is roughly accurate, this takes about thirty House congressional races right off the table for Democrats—courtesy of the chairman of the DCCC, Steve Israel.

The DCCC is extremely powerful within the party: it holds the purse strings to vast sums of campaign cash that it divvies out as it sees fit to both incumbents and new recruits. How the DCCC wields this power is quite telling.

In the last election cycle, the DCCC refused to fund Jim Graves. I bet right about now you’re asking yourself who the fuck is Jim Graves? The reason you don’t know the answer to that question is because neither the DCCC nor its PAC spent one single dollar to help Democrat Jim Graves beat Republican Michele Bachmann in a winnable race. Yes, you read that right: the DCCC would rather have Michele Bachmann in the House than a Democrat in her seat.

You’ve heard of her, now, haven’t you? Tea Queen of Kookville Minnesota ring any bells? If so, perhaps that’s because she was regularly cited by name in a relentless barrage of fundraising messages from the DCCC and its House Majority PAC. Rather than support Jim Graves, the DCCC poured an average of $1,710,159 each into the campaigns of a slate of conservative Democrats (“Blue Dogs” and “New Dems”). Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny noted:

In the 10th closest race, in Minnesota’s 6th CD, first-time candidate Jim Graves came within 4,197 votes of longtime incumbent and right-wing icon, Michele Bachmann… and it is the only [close] race the DCCC refused to spend any money on. Graves is a very indepedent-minded Democrat and, unlike almost all the other candidates the DCCC spent big on, he refused to join the reactionary and corrupt New Dems that Steve Israel and Steny Hoyer are determined to flood the House Democratic caucus with– even to the point of losing races.

Not counting outside money, Bachmann spent $11,946,232 on her reelection campaign, an incredible $66.65 for every vote. Graves spent $2,279,384 or $13.03 per vote. Just as an exercise, had the DCCC spent on Graves the average of what they spent on these close races, it seems inconceivable that he wouldn’t have won by a very substantial margin. Just sayin’.

I have a theory about this perfidy—two, actually. First is that up until she announced her retirement, Michele Bachmann was the single largest cash generator for the Democratic Party in history. But there is also another benefit to name-dropping Bachmann at every turn: she is so far off the right-wing rails she makes the craven, corporatist, conservative Democrats running the party look like flaming Marxists by comparison.

In the runup to the 2012 presidential election, the role of Bachmann the Bogeyman was played by right-wing sociopath Paul Ryan, a.k.a. Satan. Neither the DCCC nor its PAC gave one red cent to Rob Zerban, the Democrat running against Ryan in yet another winnable race. Nowadays, Ryan’s once again the star of Democratic fundraiser messaging.

Unretouched photo of Congressman Paul Ryan, a.k.a. Satan.
Dick Cheney said: “I worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on”—thereby confirming beyond any reasonable doubt that Paul Ryan is, in fact, Satan.

Let’s just let that sink in for a minute: the DCCC under Steve Israel’s leadership would rather have Paul Ryan in that seat than a liberal Democrat.

Questions for Steve Israel

• Considering your party’s fundraising emails over the last few years, I have to ask: is Michele Bachmann the single largest cash generator for the Democratic Party in history, or does that distinction belong to Paul Ryan?

• Is that why neither the DCCC nor its PAC spent a single dollar to beat Bachmann or Ryan in winnable races, or is it because Jim Graves and Rob Zerban are not corrupt conservatives like you?

• What the fuck are you doing here? This is an Alan Grayson reception.

• Have you met Rob Zerban? Hey Rob! Over here! I want you to come meet Steve Israel! Yeah, the doucheweasel who wouldn’t support your campaign against Paul Ryan!
  

As you can see, I am a total pro: I was nothing if not prepared.

_________

And I was nothing if not late, either. But I wasn’t the only one: Congressman Grayson arrived right behind me. As we crammed into the tiny elevator together, he introduced his companion as his girlfriend. “She’s a doctor,” he said, “So if you need her to take a look at a sore throat or anything…”

“It’s great to meet you both,” I said, “but no, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

As the doors closed he chirped “What floor?”

“Sixth floor, Grayson reception,” I deadpanned.

“Second floor, lingerie!” he shot back, cracking himself up as the elevator ascended.

I whipped out the daisy sticker he had sent to contributors (pictured above), and flashed it at him. “Before you leave, I’d like to get your autograph on this.” He smiled. “Wow, I feel like a fangirl in the presence of a lefty rock star,” I gushed, “just like I did that one time back in the 80s when I met Robert Plant!” His girlfriend laughed at that.

“Rock star, huh?” Grayson was laughing too.

To my great relief the elevator doors opened on 6 before I could say anything else to irredeemably embarrass myself.

The loft apartment was spacious and gorgeously appointed, and elegant hors d’ oeuvres drifted around the room on silver platters. As I made a beeline to the bar I scanned the crowd. These must be those librul eeleetz I’ve heard so much about! I spotted Rob Zerban, waved hello, and asked him how his race against Satan was going. He gave me a hug and a kiss, without my even asking.

People were happily mingling and introducing themselves when I suddenly remembered that I hate people. I found myself in a corner with some staffers from Democrats.com who claimed to be Occupy Wall Streeters, yet were inexplicably shocked and mystified to learn that the DCCC would not finance the Democratic opponents of Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann. Fucking people, I swear. I’d been there less than ten minutes and I already needed another drink.

The crowd swelled, and the Big Willies had apparently reached the necessary critical mass. Cameras began rolling and a parade of esteemed congresspersons made their way to the front to deliver impassioned encomiums to Alan Grayson. More than one of his colleagues mentioned that he is fun to work with—an exceedingly rare quality in Congress. All of the speeches were mercifully brief. (Unlike, say, this blog post.)

Grayson took the floor to rousing applause, thanked everybody, and proceeded to rile up the room with his trademarked firebrand quips. Did you know that more money was spent by the opposition—$5 million—during his last race than was spent in a House race against any candidate, ever? And that $4 million of it came from the Koch Brothers? Well actually yes, I did know that. But that is not the point! The point is that Grayson comes off just as sharp, funny and genuine in person as he does in his campaign messaging and media appearances. His audience ate it up, clapping and cheering as if to punctuate zinger after zinger.

Meanwhile, I took a lot of pictures that all came out more or less like this:

At some point Congressman Eliot Engel arrived, and made his way to the front. Look! Here’s a picture!

Wait, did Engel just crash this party? He was not on the honorary host list, and I had prepared no dossier on him. Grayson noticed him immediately, interrupted his spiel to acknowledge him, graciously thanked him for coming, and announced with great enthusiasm that there is “no greater friend to Israel in Congress than Eliot Engel!”

Silence.

The room that a few seconds ago had been buzzing right along with Grayson’s every utterance fell strangely quiet. It took every bit of willpower I could muster, but somehow I resisted the urge to yell “OMIGOD AWKWARD!”

Grayson soon wrapped up, and opened to floor to Q & A. After a few d00ds took their turns, I asked, “What would it take for the Democratic party power center and leadership to shift to the ranks of the Progressive Caucus from, say, the Center Aisle Caucus?”

Grayson replied that we could all learn a lot from the Tea Party—not from their ideology of course, but from their tactics. For example, they run their candidates in primary campaigns against Republicans they feel aren’t conservative enough.

Whoa. For years I have been writing screed after screed urging that liberals deploy exactly this tactic, yet up until that moment I had never heard a politician express anything even close to it. Wait. OMFG! Alan Grayson has been reading my blog! Obviously!

We had a nice exchange, wherein I pointed out that Tea Partiers are willing to run a primary candidate even with no hope of winning the general election against a Democrat: unlike the lefties, they’re actually willing to lose an election rather than have a Republican candidate they don’t approve of win. He said that’s not their intention, but yes, the tactic sometimes has that effect.

I would have argued that in order for that tactic to work it has to have that effect, at least potentially, but he had already moved on to the next questioner. (Clearly Alan Grayson needs to study my blog more closely.)

After the Q&A broke up, I obnoxiously insinuated myself right up next to Grayson and demanded he pose with me for a selfie—a request he happily obliged.

I whipped out my daisy sticker once again, and a blue Sharpie. “Can you please sign this for me?”

“Sign it? Sure!” Grayson wandered over to a quiet windowsill and sat down. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and began to write.

“Make it good!” I said. “I’m gonna frame this!”

He took his time, and when he was done handed it back. “Thank you,” I said, “It’s really been a pleasure and an honor to meet you.”

“Oh, it was great meeting you, Iris! I hope I see you again!”

“Well I hope I see you again—in Congress.” We shook hands, and I took my leave.

Then I annoyed everyone taking selfies with them on my way out the door. (Charlie Rangel! Yvette Clarke! Howie Klein!)

Guess who was a no-show? Steve. Fucking. Israel.

__________

I took the elevator down with Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. “So what brings you here?” she asked.

“I’m a blogger, and a big fan of Alan Grayson.”

“What’s your blog about?”

“Politics, sex, religion,” I said. “You know, all the things we’re not supposed to talk about.”

“I like it already. Got a card? If you give me your card, I’ll send you some links.”

“You might not like my blog. I go after conservative Democrats.”

“You should go after the Republicans,” she replied.

“Why? There’s no hope for them.”

(You know something? I really don’t like people telling me what I should or shouldn’t write about…)

I handed her my card, and she looked at it before stashing it away.

“This is your blog?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty sure you won’t like it.”

“Well,” she said, “I like you.”

We had reached the street. “Ciao, Congresswoman—nice to meet you.”

She waved as she turned right, heading East on 17th Street.

And I, of course, went left.

John Pike: An object lesson in mockery.

[TRIGGER WARNING: image of violent assault of peaceful protesters, bullying.]

Readers may recall an incident in November of 2011 wherein police officer Lt. John Pike pepper sprayed students peacefully protesting tuition increases at University of California, Davis, while he and other cops blocked their exit from the school’s quad. Much has been written about the incident, and we won’t recount that here—except to say that at the time it was one among several high-profile reports of excessive force deployed by law enforcement against non-violent Occupy protesters.

But this incident was special. The images and video footage splashed all over the news was a gut check for many Americans, in that it portrayed exactly what our militarized police forces were capable of doing once a fascist impulse took hold. Pike’s casual nonchalance made the incident all that much more disturbing. This was no Kent State massacre, but the difference was one in degree, not in kind.

And then the Internet responded—but wait, I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Photo: Lt. John Pike dousing sitting protesters with pepper spray on Nov. 18, 2011.

Now comes news of the latest and perhaps final chapter in the story of Lt. John Pike:

UC Davis pepper-spray officer awarded $38,000

A former UC Davis police officer whose pepper-spraying of protesters gained worldwide notice thanks to a viral video has been awarded more than $38,000 in workers’ compensation from the university for suffering he experienced after the incident.

Former police Lt. John Pike, who gained a degree of infamy for his role in the incident, was awarded the settlement Oct. 16 by the state Division of Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The claim “resolves all claims of psychiatric injury specific or due to continuous trauma from applicant’s employment at UC Davis.”

I know. Galling, isn’t it? Especially in light of the fact that the three dozen protesters Pike assaulted each received less than that amount in their settlement with UC Davis earlier this year. But as it turns out, there is more here than meets the eye:

More than 17,000 angry or threatening e-mails, 10,000 text messages and hundreds of letters were sent to Pike after the video went viral, according to the police union.

Pike repeatedly changed his phone number and e-mail address and lived in various locations. He left the campus police force in July 2012.

That’s right, people: Lt. Pike was treated as badly as a typical rape victim, or a woman on the Internet with an opinion, and thereby permanently impaired.

It may be tempting to scoff at Pike, and perhaps it is perfectly natural to feel some satisfaction upon the deliverance of vigilante justice. But it is not one of our nobler moral impulses. That’s why advanced civilizations have impartial justice systems—as flawed and as prone to human foibles as ours most certainly is. Still, here’s the thing:

NO ONE DESERVES TO BE HOUNDED, THREATENED, DRIVEN FROM HOME TO HOME AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY TORTURED TO THE POINT OF PERMANENTLY DISABILITY.

No one. Not John Pike. Not even Dick fucking Cheney, the sociopathic war criminal responsible for the torture, deaths and/or displacement of millions of people.

For the record: I am very glad that Lt. Pike will no longer be working as a police officer. That is the just and necessary outcome for his assault on unarmed student protesters. But I am deeply saddened that it came about in this way.

People are entitled to voice their outrage: in my opinion, that is also a just and necessary outcome in response to a police officer assaulting unarmed student protesters. But there are constructive ways to do it, and it will not surprise Loyal Readers™ that among our most favored tactics in this regard is High Mockery. In the case of Lt. Pike, the Internet rose to the occasion with one of the most perfect memes of all time. Behold…Pepper Spray Cop.

This is how it’s done, people. Haters and vigilantes: please make a note of it.

Flashmob FTW.

Inspired. And inspiring.

September 5th, 2013, Raleigh, NC – As Walmart workers petition managers to reinstate employees who have been unfairly treated, a flash mob breaks out.

Wilbur on Daily Kos said:

I signed in just to recommend this.  It is one of the most important diaries I have seen on dailyKos because it shows that individuals are beginning to understand and use the Internet for their own rights.  It makes me much more confident about 2014.

Just a note about whether this is a flash mob or a step show.  They are NOT mutually exclusive.  As a matter of fact flash mobs almost always have a purpose whether a Michael Jackson dance or playing Beethoven’s 7th.  What a flash mob is when people interconnect using the Internet to engage in some function at a specific place and time for a specific period.  The people arrive confident they will be joined by other members of the event, but not knowing for sure who is going to be there.  At the agree upon time the flash mob comes together in the chosen venue, it performs their event, and then it quickly disperses.

What this will do in protest if it is used like it was used here is completely take away the power of the militarized police.  The mob quickly makes its point and then disperses into the air before the police can arrive and arrest anybody.  The events need to be both entertaining and focused to be effective, but they can be more effective than long term occupations.  I am hoping this is the direction Occupy Wall Street goes.  When police arrive in all their regalia they are left staring at empty space.

This, my beloved Loyal Readers™, is civil disobedience of the most excellent kind.

New York City has a great tradition of flashmobs: often they are just for fun and entertainment, but flashmob protests of a political nature are not uncommon (e.g. Occupy deployed them). I would very much love to see the use of this tactic expanded. For one thing, I think if the phenomenon really took hold it could turn out to be something of a prophylactic against aggrieved mobs turning violent instead. It doesn’t need to be a tightly choreographed event like the Walmart protest: ordinary people can participate in something simpler that requires only showing up, and perhaps holding a sign or note. If (when?) people show up in big enough numbers, at the very least we can all enjoy the spectacle of watching America’s Owners and their goons in government and major media piss themselves. Maybe they’d even throw us a table scrap. Or, possibly, two!

May our revolution be remembered for its joyous dancing, clapping, singing, chanting and stepping. Otherwise, the terrorists win.

Casualties of war.

The War on Drugs is not a war on drugs, at least not as that phrase is commonly understood in the English language. Assess the misery associated with the drug trade, and you would have to be on drugs yourself to believe the War on Drugs is anything other than a total, abject failure. From measures of public health, addiction rates, narco-terrorism, police corruption, gang violence, vast criminal networks spanning the globe to the inhumane prison-industrial complex here at home, the War on Drugs has made the world a far worse place.

Of course the U.S. government has long known that (a) military strategies do not work and may actually boost profits for drug traffickers, and (b) drug treatment is far cheaper and twenty-three times more effective than supply-side approaches. If the War on Drugs is such a spectacular failure in every respect, why would the feds continue to perpetrate it? The answer is that it is not a failure in every respect: the War on Drugs provides an excellent pretext for violent action by the U.S. and its client states in the Western hemisphere. Not in service to democracy, freedom and human rights, mind you—strictly for the benefit of elite U.S. business interests.

Since 1946, the U.S. Army has been training Latin American government and military officials at its School of the Americas (now WHINSEC) in “counterinsurgency,” for the purpose of suppressing leftist movements that might interfere with the unimpeded exploitation of natural resources by U.S.-based conglomerates. We helpfully trained these people in various torture techniques, civilian targeting, extrajudicial executions and extortion. We enthusiastically encouraged terrorism, sabotage, arresting people’s relatives and blackmail. We have engineered violent coups and murders to keep in power cooperative governments. We have deposed, assassinated and otherwise interfered with democratically elected officials and other leaders who exhibit the merest hint of socialism.

In recent decades in Colombia alone, the U.S.-trained army and its allied right-wing paramilitary groups have killed thousands upon thousands of union organizers, peasant and indigenous leaders, human rights workers, land reform activists, religious leaders, leftist politicians and their supporters. Some paramilitary leaders have attempted to “cleanse” Colombian society by murdering drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, petty criminals and the homeless. It’s true that some Colombian presidents have attempted to address the social, political and economic issues that the guerrillas claim are their grievances. But the United States government will not have any of that. With assistance from its allies in the Colombian political, economic and military elite, efforts at meaningful reform have all been thwarted. And so those pesky guerrillas—who have no love for the drug trade—will continue to strike back the only way they can: by blowing up oil pipelines. That is why there is a “War on Drugs” in Colombia.

Sound familiar? It should. The War on Terror works exactly the same way in the Middle East. That is, it doesn’t work, at least not for its stated purposes. No one seriously doubts that our policies create far more terrorists than we could ever capture or kill, or that we have long supported and armed some of the most brutal, tyrannical, anti-democratic and oppressive dictators in the region for the benefit of the world-warming, profit-pumping petroleum industry. Take a look at this nifty interactive map of Yemen, and then try to tell me with a straight face that we’re over there drone bombing Muslims to Keep Us Safe™ from terrorists, as opposed to, say, protecting a very cooperative Yemeni regime.

The War on Terror has led to profound changes in American society. The populace has meekly accepted the militarization of domestic police forces, the rise of a vast and insidious surveillance state and the erosion of constitutional rights and civil liberties, all in exchange for empty promises of safety. It’s long been clear that none of it works. Meanwhile, on the home front the War on Drugs has subjected generations of citizens to mass incarceration. More than two million people are behind bars in the U.S.: that is 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Prison populations have exploded since the 1980s, with the majority of the increase comprising low-level offenders, particularly drug offenders, and disproportionally black and Latino men who are no more likely to dabble in drugs than their white counterparts. What happened after the 1980s? The previous go-to excuse for invading, bombing and otherwise imposing our imperial will on other countries—the Cold War—had just collapsed, but the War on Drugs had already begun. Eventually, Osama bin Laden did America’s Owners a big favor, and the rest, as they say, is history. What could be a more perfect pretext than a “War on Terror”? Let’s invade Iraq for oil! We’ll just say Saddam’s in league with Al-Qaeda or something! The press?! Pfft. They’ll help us do it, bro. 

This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. No matter which party is nominally in power, the U.S. government will use every tactic at its disposal keep the American left marginalized as effectively as the Colombians do. Obama saw to it that the Occupy movement was crushed. FBI, NYPD, State Police and other law enforcement agencies have long been infiltrating and monitoring groups opposed to U.S. economic policy, immigration policy, harmful trade agreements, union-busting and racial profiling. The feds are also interested in keeping tabs on anti-death penalty groups, labor organizers, those who support Palestinians or the Israel divestment campaign, and, unsurprisingly, anti-war groups. After all, how are we all going to be duped into the next War on Whatever if we have a formidable peace movement?

All of this is precisely what one would expect from a system of unbridled, imperialist capitalism constrained by neither law nor conscience. The System is the problem.

__________

On Tuesday afternoon, I attended a rally at Union Square. It was the NYC kickoff for an “Abortion Rights Freedom Ride,” a cross country caravan organized by StopPatriarchy.org, with rallies planned along the route including places where some of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws have been passed: Fargo, North Dakota; Wichita, Kansas; and Jackson, Mississippi. Take Mississippi, for example: since 2002 only a single clinic providing abortion services has been in operation. The state’s legislators and governors, who clearly have no other problems to attend to, have been very busy attempting to shut down that last remaining clinic by passing disingenuous laws purporting to protect women’s health. (As if anyone, anywhere, believes conservatives are concerned about anyone’s health. OMGLOL.) Not to be outdone, North Dakota—another state with only one remaining clinic—passed a ban on abortions after six weeks, a point at which many women have no idea they’re pregnant.

I had recently written a piece mentioning StopPatriarchy.org and their refreshingly plain language and savvy messaging: “Abortion on Demand Without Apology.” “Women are NOT incubators.” “Forced motherhood is female enslavement.” When their campaign started to gain attention, the liberal hand-wringing came right on cue. There were concerns, you see. This Abortion Rights Freedom Ride will be “too confrontational, too vociferous and may turn off people to the cause.” The activists will be viewed locally as “invading outsiders.” Mass political protest only “distracts from important court cases.” Besides, it’s better to “rely on officials channels of politics.”

Really. How’s that been working out? In the past three years, states have passed nearly 180 restrictions on abortion, and 2013 is already on track to record the second-highest number of abortion restrictions in a single year, ever.

And these concerns sounded familiar. Where had I heard this before? Oh, that’s right: from critics concerned about the Occupy movement, who in turn echoed nearly verbatim critics of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, and critics of the women’s suffrage movement before that. Quiet down, they said. Wait. Work with The System. Please. When has anything short of confrontational, vociferous, mass political protest ever yielded more than lip service or a few table scraps from The System?

America’s Owners do not care one whit about abortion rights, except insofar as the issue drives conservatives to the polls to elect their Republican servants or outrages liberals enough to elect their Democratic servants. Indeed, they have every reason to keep the War on Women raging.

This is why voting is not enough: the game is rigged. As Chris Hedges put it so succinctly, “There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs.” Democrats have concern-trolled themselves right into irrelevance. They are The System. The System is the problem. The math is not hard.

I’ll leave you with something promising. There are people who get it. I met some of them at the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride rally.

Meet (L-R) Noche Diaz, Jamel Mims, and Carl Dix, members of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and defendants in cases brought for nonviolent civil disobedience actions protesting the NYPD’s Stop & Frisk practices. To be honest, when they were first introduced I wondered why three d00ds would be speaking together at an abortion rights rally. It didn’t take long to find out: their explicit message was that if women, who make up half of humanity, are not free, then none of us are free. They spoke powerfully and eloquently about the oppression that they and their communities have faced—and linked it directly to the same source of oppression and exploitation that women, workers and millions of marginalized people face, here and abroad: The System.

The difficult part is predicting what will spark the revolution—and where we will end up after it’s all said and done. To have a shot a desirable outcome, we need more citizens to realize that we, too, are casualties of war.

I’ll see you in the streets.

Dropping like a stone.

[Cross-posted at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy.]

“[A]ny degree of ‘flexibility’ about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone — the rare exception fast becoming the rule.”
–Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, former commandant of the Marine Corps and former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, respectively.

The Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment recently issued its report. Charged with “providing the American people with a broad understanding of what is known — and what may still be unknown — about the past and current treatment of suspected terrorists detained by the U.S. government,” the Task Force conducted a two-year investigation into detainee treatment under the most recent presidential administrations. In her preface to the report, Constitution Project president Virginia E. Sloan issues a bold statement: “We believe it is the most comprehensive record of detainee treatment across multiple administrations and multiple geographic theatres yet published.” The claim is all the more extraordinary given that the Task Force is a nongovernmental body working with no legal authority, no subpoena power, and no obligation on the part of the government to provide access to classified information. In addition to analyzing vast amounts of information already made public, the Task Force conducted dozens of interviews, noting in its report that with the passage of time many people have become more willing to speak candidly about their experiences.

The eleven members of the bipartisan Task Force were drawn from high-ranking former officials in the judiciary, Congress, the State Department, law enforcement and the military, as well as a few respected experts in law, medicine and ethics.  Its website states that the Task Force includes “conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats” — yet one would be hard-pressed to find a single lefty in the bunch. The Republican co-chair, Asa Hutchinson, was a Bush appointee to DEA Administrator (2001-2003) and then to the Department of Homeland Security (2003 to 2005), where he was responsible for thousands of federal employees in the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (%#&@!). It doesn’t get any more right-wing-law-&-order than that. Hutchinson’s Democratic counterpart, co-chair James R. Jones, served under Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, successfully steering the passage and implementation of NAFTA and overseeing new initiatives in the War on Drugs; previously he was Chairman and CEO of the American Stock Exchange (1989-1993).  It doesn’t get any more right-wing capitalist than that. If the word liberal is to have any meaning in our current political discourse, Drug Warriors and Free Marketeers do not get to claim it just because they slapped a “D” after their names.  Thomas Pickering, Special Assistant to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, merits an equally withering assessment.

Another member is Dr. Azizah Y. al-Hibri, a professor emerita of law and the founder and chair of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. Dr. al-Hibri is an impressively accomplished person, but it is difficult — to put it mildly — to reconcile Islam with human rights, much less with leftism.

Then there is Dr. David P. Gushee, a professor of “Christian Ethics” at some faith-based operation in the State of Georgia called Mercer University. Without knowing exactly which Christian ethics Dr. Gushee espouses — executing gay people? murdering women’s healthcare providers? worldwide pedophilia coverups? — it is nigh impossible to ascertain what his political views might be. Regardless, I remain warily suspicious of theologians, mainly because for the life of me I have never been able to figure out what it is that they do. As best as I can determine, the word “theology” comes from the Greek logos, meaning knowledge, and theos meaning imaginary beings. I cannot imagine how this knowledge might apply to detainee treatment, but for all we know Dr. Gushee was appointed to the Task Force merely to serve as a cautionary tale.

Still, it can be considered a strength more than a weakness that the Task Force comprises people with whom lefties would generally disagree, for it is the centrist and conservative makeup of the Task Force that renders its two primary findings all the more remarkable — and believable:

Finding #1:  U.S. forces, in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment. Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaties. Such conduct was directly counter to values of the Constitution and our nation.

…

Finding #2:  The nation’s most senior officials, through some of their actions and failures to act in the months and years immediately following the September 11 attacks, bear ultimate responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of illegal and improper interrogation techniques used by some U.S. personnel on detainees in several theaters. Responsibility also falls on other government officials and certain military leaders.

The report details a litany of revolting abuses, including the barbaric deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, and much of it will be familiar to those who have followed reports on detainee abuse since 2001.  Nor will anyone likely be surprised at the actions of the Bush Administration, whose contributions to the U.S. torture regime range from blundering incompetence (e.g. Bush) to glib indifference (Rumsfeld) to enthusiastic sadism (Cheney).  After conspiring to engineer a dubious legal loophole for CIA interrogators to escape the grasp of the Geneva Conventions and rewriting the Army Field Manual’s section on detainee treatment to render it deliberately vague, the administration’s subsequent lack of consistent guidance or indeed any meaningful oversight made the worldwide horror show that followed virtually inevitable.  But where the report particularly excels is in tracing the pernicious ways that systematic detainee abuse — originally sanctioned only for CIA interrogations and only for a few high-level Al-Qaeda operatives — went viral.

John Sifton of Human Rights Watch is quoted with respect to detainee abuse in Iraq:

There’s been spontaneous abuse at the troops’ level; there’s been more authorized abuse; there’s been overlap — a sort of combination of authorized and unauthorized. And you have abuse that passed around like a virus; abuse that started because one unit was approved to use it, and then another unit which wasn’t started copying them.

There were, of course, many who raised objections, even very early on.  Such concerns fell on deaf ears, or worse:  in Iraq, a senior intelligence officer interceded to stop the brutal interrogation of a detainee by Army Rangers.  Another Ranger heard that he was “coddling terrorists,” and responded by sharpening a knife in his presence and warning him not to sleep too soundly.  In a statement to the Navy’s inspector general, Alberto Mora, the Navy’s general counsel, recounted concerns with “force drift,” which NCIS chief psychologist Michael Gelles had voiced with alarm:

[Gelles] believed that commanders [at Guantánamo] took no account of the dangerous phenomenon of “force drift.” Any force utilized to extract information would continue to escalate, he said. If a person being forced to stand for hours decided to lie down, it probably would take force to get him to stand up again and stay standing. … [T]he level of force applied against an uncooperative witness tends to escalate such that, if left unchecked, force levels, to include torture, could be reached.

It seems the Bush administration did excel at one thing:  dismissing anything that contradicted what they wanted to hear.  (See, e.g., WMD in Iraq, response to Hurricane Katrina, global warming denial, abstinence-only sex education, etc.)

It is chilling to ponder how easily abusive practices spread, becoming “standard operating procedure” very, very quickly.  In light of this, it is also chilling to consider the militarization of domestic police forces, the disappearing boundary between law enforcement and the CIA, and the undercover monitoring of liberal groups — particularly in the wake of the police brutality we witnessed against peaceful Occupy protesters, and their designation as “terrorists.”

The most disturbing statement in the report may be the Task Force’s third conclusion:

Finding #3: There is no firm or persuasive evidence that the widespread use of harsh interrogation techniques by U.S. forces produced significant information of value. There is substantial evidence that much of the information adduced from the use of such techniques was not useful or reliable.

All for naught.

Revisiting Julian Assange.

[Cross-posted at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy.]

Scenes outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, January 30, 2013.

[UPDATED, UPDATE 2 BELOW]

A piece by Julian Assange published last November catalogs the malevolent machinations of the U.S. government as revealed by thousands of U.S. State Department cables released by Wikileaks.  Reading it, one cannot help but discern whose interests U.S. foreign policy actually serves.  (SPOILER ALERT!  It is not We the People.)

Yet a curious thing often happens when I mention Wikileaks:  people express a visceral disgust for Julian Assange, even though in context he is personally irrelevant.  Why?  Well, the press campaign to smear him has been relentless and nearly universal — and it is worth noting that it long preceded the sexual abuse allegations against him.  Years before Wikileaks dropped its first bombshell, the Pentagon issued a report deeming it an “enemy of the state” and set out to destroy its credibility and reputation.  But the Pentagon did not need to do anything:  U.S. and U.K. “journalists” descended on Assange with a vengeance, exhibiting a pettiness and personal animosity bordering on deranged.  Rather than focusing on the monumental threat to press freedoms at stake in any U.S. prosecution of Assange, instead we learn about his dirty socks, his alleged toilet habits, uncorroborated musings on his assumed motives and amateur psychological diagnoses by Assange’s enemies.  Glenn Greenwald put it this way:

“By putting his own liberty and security at risk to oppose the world’s most powerful factions, Assange has clearly demonstrated what happens to real adversarial dissidents and insurgents – they’re persecuted, demonized, and threatened, not befriended by and invited to parties within the halls of imperial power – and he thus causes many journalists to stand revealed as posers, servants to power, and courtiers…nothing triggers their rage like fundamental critiques of, and especially meaningful opposition to, the institutions of power to which they are unfailingly loyal.”

With a minimally functional adversarial press, there would be no need for Wikileaks.  But the establishment press, as its name suggests, serves the establishment.

A second curious thing occurs when I mention Wikileaks:  almost invariably the unevidenced assertion is made that Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London only to avoid questioning by Swedish authorities on the sexual assault allegations.  Worse, prominent feminist writers have uncritically endorsed the Fleeing Rapist narrative, as if there were nothing else of importance going on that long preceded the sexual assault allegations.  What I find most troubling is the implication that one cannot be a defender of Assange’s rights as a political prisoner and also advocate that he face justice in Sweden:  defenders of his asylum request have been accused of being “rape apologists,” despite repeatedly asserting that Assange should be subjected to questioning by Swedish investigators, and charged and tried if warranted — just like any other accused offender.

But this is manifestly not what Swedish prosecutors are after.  If they were, they could interview Julian Assange at the embassy in London today: interrogating suspects abroad is, in fact, a routine matter for Swedish prosecutors.  They could question him, today, via Skype.  They could interview him today in Sweden, provided they guarantee he will not be extradited to face the U.S. legal system — once the envy of the world, now a Kafkaesque nightmare — where Assange would face espionage charges that could put him in a supermax prison for decades for committing the heinous crime of…journalism. This is hardly unprecedented:  the U.S. imprisoned a Sudanese journalist for Al Jazeera at Guantanamo for six years, without charges.

Assange sought asylum from Ecuador only after a U.K. court determined that he should be extradited to Sweden.  (This is the same U.K., by the way, that refused to extradite Augusto Pinochet, the architect of a mass rape, torture and murder regime.)  While it would be a welcome development if U.K. authorities were serious about seeking justice for sexual assault victims, the reality is quite the opposite.  In an extraordinary editorial in The Guardian last August, Women Against Rape, a U.K. advocacy group supporting women and girls who were subjected to sexual abuse (including asylum seekers), took an unequivocal stand against Assange’s extradition, noting:

“In over 30 years working with thousands of rape victims who are seeking asylum from rape and other forms of torture, we have met nothing but obstruction from British governments. Time after time, they have accused women of lying and deported them with no concern for their safety. We are currently working with three women who were raped again after having been deported – one of them is now destitute, struggling to survive with the child she conceived from the rape…

“Like women in Sweden and everywhere, we want rapists caught, charged and convicted. We have campaigned for that for more than 35 years, with limited success.”

Does that sound like a country that takes justice for sexual assault victims seriously?

When interviewed about the Women Against Rape statement, Amanda Marcotte gave a dismissive and presumptuous response:

“I don’t know why they do that…It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if you support Wikileaks then you must support Assange at all costs.  And I think that’s basically what’s going on.  Even if they really should know better, because again if you look at accusations they’re not anything that falls outside of the realm of even questionable assault. If they’re true, they’re obviously assault. So I really just think it’s one of those situations where they may not know the details, but more importantly they may be ignoring inconvenient information, because they have fallen into the trap of thinking that support Wikileaks equals support Julian Assange.”

The only trap anyone seems to have fallen into is thinking that one cannot be a defender of Assange’s rights as a political prisoner and also advocate that he face justice with respect to the assault allegations.

On a recent trip to London I went by the Ecuadorian embassy and interviewed some Assange supporters keeping vigil.  One was a woman, and I was particularly interested in her reasons for being there.  Although I directed my questions to her, her male counterpart interjected to answer, while she nodded along.  “Well,” he said, “We’re here because we’re anti-war, anti-imperialism, and pro-free speech.”  He then launched into a monologue on the history of extradition treaties, beginning in the fourteenth century (?!).

“I’m interested in more current events,” I finally interrupted, and turned to her again.

“To bring you up to the 1950s,” he continued, “Blah blah blah reformed extradition treaty of 1979 between the U.K. and Ireland…”

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but I’m focusing on recent events.”  I asked her if she was involved with the Occupy movement.

“Then in the 1990s, — wait, Occupy?  Yes, yes, in fact I was the spokesman for…”

I moved between them to face her.  “It’s a shame,” she said, “But it’s pretty clear they were infiltrated.”

“In fact, I gave a 45 minute interview on…”

“I find it difficult,” I said to her, “to defend the rights of Assange without getting pushback on the rape allegations.”  She reached into a folder and handed me a printout of the Women Against Rape editorial.  “Here,” she said.  “This is key.”

“… because, you see, the United States is not a signatory to the ICC…”

I thanked them both for their protest work and said goodbye.  As I walked away he was still talking.

Unfortunately, women are entirely used to being dismissed and lectured to by men.  (There’s a good word for that.)  It seems to be particularly common in the context of political discussions.  Thus it is problematic that the Fleeing Rapist narrative is so ubiquitous in the feminist blogosphere, and so effective at derailing discussion of other implications of the Assange case.  To the extent that those things are in conflict, only the Swedish government has the power to resolve it — today.

__________

UPDATE:  This recent interview of Assange by Bill Maher is excellent.

UPDATE 2:  See also: Pravda UK: Guardian’s Assange Coverage Descends Into Farce by Simon Wood.

Uh-oh. SIWOMB-A.

Someone Is Wrong On My Blog — Again!

My dearest correspondent:

I wrote a post wherein I reiterated my claims that (a) our conservative president, Barack Obama, is “a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor,” (b) lesser-of-two-evilism is the very mechanism that ensures the continued rightward trajectory of the Democratic Party, and (c) abandoning conservatives in the Democratic Party in droves is the only course of action short of massive civil unrest that has any chance of steering the country even slightly leftward.  The post references my ginourmous 6-part opus in which I documented (in excruciating detail, for reasons I explained here) the evidence and reasoning in support of those claims — none of which you have to date acknowledged, much less successfully rebutted.

Instead, you responded to my post with “PLEASE don’t say there isn’t much difference between the two candidates.” You went on to repeat the very same Supreme Court argument that I specifically referred to in my post, which indicates that either you did not read it, you did not comprehend my point, or you believe that I am uninformed about the state of reproductive rights in the U.S. as well as the present makeup of the Supreme Court and therefore in need of being schooled on these topics — by you.  And then you said this:

Also, you can visit http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com to be reminded of some of the non-existent accomplishments of the last four years.

This statement is, of course, snide and patronizing:  its implicit premise is that I am under the impression Barack Obama accomplished absolutely nothing of value during his first term, and that I therefore need to be “reminded” of his “nonexistent accomplishments.”  I took umbrage at this, not least because of its arrogance and pomposity.  Still, it could conceivably come from a simple misreading of my argument — though I find it incredible that anyone could possibly misconstrue that argument as “Barack Obama accomplished absolutely nothing of value during his first term.”  The remainder of your original comment is comprised of a series of statements in defense of the ACA/Obamacare.

Perhaps by taking your arguments at face value, addressing them seriously, and assuming that you were actually arguing in good faith, I gave your original comment more credit than it deserved.  In fact now I am sure that is the case, because your latest comment clarified a few things for me.  I appreciated the opportunity to respond to your original comment in the hope of clarifying for you (and for other confused readers) where you had gotten me badly wrong, pointing out where your statements are unsupported, and explaining why I think they are unpersuasive.  Perhaps then you might have meaningfully responded to what I have actually said, a prospect I would have welcomed.  This is, after all, how disagreements are resolved, or at least crystallized:  by people engaging in well-reasoned, good faith discussions.

But that is not what happened here, is it?  No.  You responded to me again, and yet you still addressed nothing of substance from my previous post, and nothing of substance in my subsequent reply to you, which you inexplicably characterize as a personal attack.  Not only that, you have now doubled down on the snide patronizing.  It’s as if by my voicing serious, well-supported criticisms of Barack Obama’s policies — criticisms you have still failed to address — I have engaged in the rhetorical equivalent of baselessly calling your mother a whore.*

I have now concluded that you actually do believe I need to be schooled on the status of reproductive rights in the U.S., the current makeup of the Supreme Court, as well as all of Barack Obama’s accomplishments, and most hilariously, that you are just the d00d to ‘splain all of this to me.  On my own blog.  Without substantively addressing any of my arguments.  (LOL.)  Now that I have ceased giving you the benefit of the doubt, your original comment comes across as a non sequitur; it reads like an irrational, defensive rant, the kind that childish bullies (and conservative politicians) revert to when they are called on behavior that they cannot reasonably justify.  Thus I feel perfectly justified in responding to your latest comment with exactly the respect it deserves.

I wasn’t being an a$$hole when I posted the link to that website,

Sure you were.  And to frame it as if the reason I suggested that you stop being an @$$hole is that you merely posted a link to whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com is completely disingenuous.  You could have posted it and inquired whether I had seen it or considered it.  Instead, you helpfully informed me that I could visit the site “to be reminded of some of the non-existent accomplishments of the last four years.”  That’s an @$$hole move, and entirely unwarranted.  It’s the reason I responded with “Don’t be an @$$shole. Please point to where I said that the Nobel Peace Prize Winner has accomplished exactly nothing of value, or retract this statement.”  I note that you have declined to do either.

it was a futile attempt to remind you, as I do all the rest of the principled purists, that there were some very real and meaningful accomplishments in Obama’s first term.

It was a futile attempt all right, but not because I am a “principled purist.”  (LOL!)  It was futile because nowhere have I disagreed with the claim that there were some very real and meaningful accomplishments in Obama’s first term.  Why, in my very response to you, I enthusiastically applauded his Supreme Court appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, and I acknowledged that reproductive rights is another area where he is clearly better than Mitt Romney.  Did you miss that?  Or is the real problem that I am just not showing enough proper deference to your favorite Wall Street-serving corporatist/ radical and lawless executive/ unrepentant, murderous warmonger for you?

You seem to like to point out the negatives instead of the positives. You’re more of a glass half-empty cynic I guess.

Right.  That is why I have been so fiercely advocating that Democrats abandon lesser-of-two-evilism and stop supporting conservative Democratic candidates:  because I’m a bitter Debbie Downer.  Hahaha.  Let me repeat this for those in the cheap seats:  if you can think of any way to move the party leftward other than consistently voting conservative Democrats out of office, I am all ears.  I note that you have not offered anything.  Maybe you just don’t agree that the party or the country desperately needs to move leftward, because you are a conservative like Barack Obama.  (This would explain a lot, actually…)

I prefer to focus on the positives because they outnumber the negatives in my opinion.

Why?  An honest, conscientious citizen would focus on both the positives and the negatives.  And I sincerely hope you meant to say “outweigh,” rather than “outnumber.”  Because if you just listed “all of the stuff I like that Obama did” in one column and “all of the stuff I don’t like that Obama did” in another, counted the items in each list to determine which is numerically longer, and proceeded to dismiss the shorter list regardless of the real-world implications of the policies that are on it, then you would either be a morally malignant monster or an idiot.  Or, conceivably, both.  Frankly, I would much prefer if you just came right out and said it just doesn’t bother you that our conservative president, Barack Obama, is a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor.  Sure, you’d be a sociopath, but at least you would be an honest and straightforward one.  But if that’s not really the case, perhaps you can help me understand why Bush/Cheney policies are somehow no longer profoundly, unacceptably evil simply because they are being implemented by a Democrat who is a lukewarm advocate for reproductive rights (see, e.g., the Obama administration’s political interference in the FDA’s decision on Plan B).

I honestly don’t get it.

Of course opinions are like a$$holes, we all have one and so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

This is a fine sentiment in principle.  It is worth noting, however, that some “opinions,” such as “The earth is 10,000 years old,” or, say, “Obama’s ACA is an intermediary step toward single payer,” are contravened by logic and mountains of evidence, and can therefore be dismissed (with or without uproarious laughter).

I don’t appreciate your lengthy and particularly nasty attempt at ridiculing and belittling me.

Oh, cupcake.  Had I made a “particularly nasty attempt at ridiculing and belittling” you, you can rest assured it would have looked a lot different than the serious, substantive, detailed, factually-supported, well-reasoned, perfectly on-point, entirely appropriate and directly responsive rebuttal I made to your original comment.  If my response made you feel ridiculous and small, perhaps you might reconsider why that is the case.  (Helpful hint: a mirror, whether real or metaphorical, would undoubtedly prove helpful.)

I’m sure you would’ve rather Romney won since there wasn’t much difference between the two candidates.  At least there would be new blood in the White House. All things being equal, change is always good, right?

Um, no, that’s not my argument.  I would not prefer a Romney presidency because he’s “new blood” and I believe “change is always good.”

Wow.  Either you’re a much bigger @$$hole than I thought, or you’re just not very bright.  All right: to be fair, it could instead be that I failed to make my arguments clearly enough to be understood.  I admit I’m not a super-genius wordsmith, and poor communication on my part has been the cause for many misunderstandings in the past.  So if this were all an honest misunderstanding on your part (unlikely as that now seems to me) it could very well be a result of my own failings as a writer.  Assuming that this is the case — and that you are not a much bigger @$$hole than I thought and/or not very bright — I would like to point you to some truly great writers who may prove far more enlightening to you than I have been on these matters:

Chris Hedges.  Chris Floyd.  Glenn Greenwald.  VastLeft.  Michael J. Smith.  Arthur Silber.

In closing, I will note that I don’t expect you to meaningfully address a single substantive point I have made in this post.  Apparently it’s your M.O.  But I will just reiterate here that until you provide compelling evidence and sound arguments that (a) our conservative president, Barack Obama, is not, in fact, “a Wall Street-serving corporatist, a radical and lawless executive, and an unrepentant, murderous warmonger very much like his predecessor,” (b) lesser-of-two-evilism is not, in fact, the very mechanism that ensures the continued rightward trajectory of the Democratic Party, and (c) abandoning conservative Democrats in droves is not, in fact, the only course of action short of massive civil unrest that has any chance of steering the country even slightly leftward, you will have failed to rebut my argument.  Again.

Most sincerely,
-Iris Vander Pluym

__________

* Not that there is anything wrong with a person having multiple sexual partners, either simultaneously or sequentially, provided of course all that parties enthusiastically consent.  (Hey, some of my best friends are whores!)  I employed the “your mother’s a whore” meme here because it is perfectly representative of the kind schoolyard taunt that tends to upset little boys to the point of knee-jerk defensiveness and irrationality.

Happy Birthday Occupy.

Many times over the past year I’ve written about and posted photos of Occupy Wall Street (and Occupy San Francisco and Occupy DC), including most recently the dismaying designation of the occupy protesters as terrorists by the NYPD.

Occupy is a stunning development in our politics, and I want to see the movement stay energized, dynamic and provocative.  I wholeheartedly concur with Glenn Greenwald’s analysis from last November:

Here’s how former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson put it in The Atlantic* when equating the contemporary United States to the corrupted “emerging market” oligarchies which caused past financial crises on which he worked:

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

That last phrase is the essence of why I hope OWS, at least for now, remains a movement that refuses to reduce itself into garden-variety electoral politics. What is missing from America is a healthy fear in the hearts and minds of the most powerful political and financial factions of the consequences of their continued pilfering, corporatism, and corrupt crony capitalism, and only this sort of movement — untethered from the pacifying rules of our political and media institutions — can re-impose that healthy fear.

Indeed. And the fact that the non-violent #ows protesters have been designated terrorists by the largest police force in the country is a sign of fear.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OCCUPY!
-Perry Street Palace

___________
* That piece by Simon Johnson in The Atlantic is an interesting and informative read.