"Liking" is for cowards

• Jonathan Franzen in the NYTimes: very well stated.

• A City by City series from n+1, whose current issue also features a rather convincing, devastating review of C by Tom McCarthy (subscribers only).

THREE MELTDOWNS confirmed at Fukushima

One of them actually began within 5 hours of the earthquake, readers of TEPCO propaganda might be surprised to hear. The Washington Post reports. And more.

Germany, like Italy, knows what's what.

The Cancer Industry is Collecting Donations

Happy Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For those still unaware, here is how the scam functions:

These people make money polluting with impunity, saturating our world with organochlorines such as pesticides (DDT was the first) which have been directly linked to causing the cancer pandemic (now affecting 1 in 2 men, 1 in 3 women). These cynical bastards then shamelessly raise money from a traumatized population for research on expensive "treatments" that don't work (and often even cause other forms of cancer) and financially destroy entire families while making these same industries even more obscenely rich, all the while censoring any hint of a discussion about CAUSES or PREVENTION.

Guess who originally founded and still holds veto power over all Breast Cancer Awareness Month material? Look it up. The sad truth is that this collection of powerful and interrelated corporate interests is not even remotely interested in a "cure," less it can be spun into yet another problem that will make them even more money. They have it far too damn good. And don't expect any of your child's fundraising to be used for any research that might hurt their bottom line. When it comes to the mounting body of evidence about CANCER CAUSES and REAL PREVENTION (not just "early detection" so they can start selling you drugs sooner) these same people are criminally neglectful.

Fred, David and Charles Koch, Inc.

Update: And then there's this...

Seriously, what a bunch of weirdos, signifying everything that is most wrong with America.

Shamelessly dishonest, self-important extremist mediocrities with their deluded self-serving Ayn Rand sound-bot psuedo-philosophy and more blood money than is healthy for any democracy to let fester in private hands.

I mean, it sure seems to me anyway, that once a corporation is allowed by law to intimidate its employees into voting for whoever the bosses say, especially when it is for some batshit crazy, fundamentalist politician who will turn around and cut their wages even more and hurt their families, then this is not a country worth living in anymore. Certainly it is antithetical to any "freedom-loving democracy."

In light of which barbaric mediocrity, may the Koch brothers' losing continue.

“Now, companies like Koch Industries are free to send out newsletters persuading their employees how to vote. They can even intimidate their employees into voting for their candidates.” Secunda adds, “It’s a very troubling situation.”

[...]

Further into the company newsletter is an article headlined “What’s a Business to Do?” It portrays corporate titans like the Kochs [net worth over $44 Billion] as freedom-fighting underdogs, modern-day Sakharovs and Mandelas targeted for repression by Big Government statists: “Citizens who are openly critical of the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels or the out-of-control government of the United States are being shouted down by politicians, government officials and their media and other allies.”

In this scenario, Big Government wants to muzzle the Kochs before they can spread their message to the people. That message comes down to preaching the benefits of lower wages.

[...]

Travis McKinney, an employee at a Portland Georgia-Pacific distribution center, says, “They drill into your head things like ‘The 10 Guiding Principles of Koch Industries.’ They even stamp the ten principles on your time card.”

McKinney, a fourth-generation employee of Georgia-Pacific, says relations have sharply deteriorated since Koch Industries bought the company in late 2005. He and fellow employees at three Georgia-Pacific distribution centers are locked in a yearlong contract battle with the new Koch Industries management. Workers there, members of the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific (an affiliate of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union) recently voted unanimously to reject management’s contract and voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if management continues to try to impose cuts in benefits and job security in the new contracts. (read the whole thing)

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5 Scott Walker Republicans Down, Only 2 to Go

Hell fucking yes:

Yesterday, local activists in Wisconsin submitted over 100% of the signatures needed to recall Republican Senator Alberta Darling.

That's 3 Republicans recalled in one week, 5 in total! (What a week!)

After local officials certify the signatures, these Republicans will face do-over elections against Democratic candidates. PCCC supporters in Wisconsin and across the nation have been vital to this accomplishment -- thanks for all you've done. And congrats!

We'll keep our powerful TV ads up through Election Day so long as folks keep chipping in. We've raised $580,000 -- can you help us reach $600,000 by Monday? Click here to chip in $3.

Help keep our ad on TV!

This ad is jointly done with our friends at Democracy for America.

Republicans declared war on the middle class. And with your help, we're going to win. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

-- Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Matt Burgess, Jason Rosenbaum, Amanda Johnson, and the PCCC team

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Last post on the BP/Halliburton/TransOcean Macondo well blowout

"We're stuck doing what we've done ever since we lived in caves. Whenever we want some energy we light fire to something. The United States is stuck in a debate that says that harnessing the eternal sources of energy that run the planet is too expensive and too impractical. But China is not under that delusion, neither is Germany, Denmark or Spain. Nor Canada.

All these countries are ahead of us in developing clean technologies, diversified energy sources, creating the jobs that go with it and the infrastructure that goes with it...as we pretend that it's impractical, while our factories rust and we complain about high unemployment."

The whole show is worth watching. Meanwhile in Japan...


See also new site, CounterSpill.

One Down, Seven Scott Walker Republicans To Go

This movement is still growing. Keep the pressure on.

The Truth about Nuclear Power

UPDATE 4/4: Well, this latest catastrophic development (via) sure makes this rosy-tinted bullshit look like what it is.

That's 7 tons of radioactive water per hour into our ocean, with an optimistic path to containment still months away. Sound familiar?

As the first photos to be released of the human guinea pigs inside Fukushima, earning only $100/day (and they are strikingly few) fail to reassure anyone...and as the estimated levels of radiation released only so far amount to 50% that of Chernobyl...

The following is from Andre Delattre, U.S. PIRG Executive Director:

People across the country are clearly grappling with this contentious issue, so I wanted to provide answers to some of the most common questions that have crossed my inbox.

Q: Just how risky is nuclear power?

A: Very. Every operating nuclear power plant in the United States has a pool of spent fuel on site, and the possibility of a Fukushima-like loss of coolant—and ensuing release of radiation—is quite real. A worst-case accident involving one of these pools could make more than 2,700 miles of land unfit for human habitation, lead to as many as 143,000 cancer fatalities within 500 miles of the accident site, and cause more than $700 billion in property damage.[i]

Even minor exposures to radiation released during a nuclear accident can cause health problems, including cancer later in life.[ii] Radioactive materials stay dangerous for thousands of years.

Q: Wasn’t the disaster in Japan caused by a combination of events—the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent power outage—that couldn't happen here?

A: Between hurricanes, tornadoes, human error, the potential for terrorist attack, mechanical failure, the age of our nuclear reactors and yes—earthquakes and tsunamis—it’s not outrageous to think that a major incident could happen at any one of the 104 nuclear reactors operating at the United States. Each of America's nuclear power stations share the same vulnerabilities as the nuclear reactors in Japan.[iii]

Q: Don’t we need nuclear power to keep the lights on?

A: Not necessarily. Nuclear power currently generates about 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and it would be difficult to immediately shut existing reactors down. But we don’t need to continue to allow nuclear reactors to operate beyond the 40 years they were originally designed for, and we don’t need to build new reactors.

We have vast safe energy resources that can do a better job of keeping the lights on. And they don’t explode, spill, or contaminate food supplies with radiation. For example, if we improved efficiency, in the next 20 years we could free up as much electricity as 100 new nuclear reactors could generate.[iv]

And America’s entire electricity needs could be met by the sunlight falling on a 100 square mile patch of Nevada desert, or by the wind blowing across North Dakota.[v]

Q: But isn’t nuclear power cheap?

A: No, it’s expensive and a bad investment. Nuclear power is among the most costly approaches to solving America’s energy problems. You just have to look at the history of nuclear power to understand. Of 75 nuclear reactors completed between 1966 and 1986, the average cost was more than triple the original construction budget.[vi] In 1985, Forbes magazine wrote that “the failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”[vii]

The industry instead turned to taxpayer support. Over the last fifty years, American taxpayers have subsidized nuclear power to the tune of $145 billion.[viii] That’s more than the entire value of the electricity produced.[ix]

Wall Street investors still won’t touch nukes because the technology is too risky and too expensive. In contrast, investors are lining up to support newer renewable technologies, because they are more cost effective. Per dollar of investment, safe energy solutions—such as energy efficiency and wind power—deliver far more electricity than nuclear reactors.[x]

Q: Isn’t nuclear power better for the environment?

No. Energy efficiency is better. So are wind and solar power. These energy sources are better at preventing the kind of pollution that comes from fossil fuel plants than nuclear reactors because they are cheaper. They also don’t pose any risk of contaminating land, water or food with radioactive pollution.

For more information, and to get regular updates, visit our blog.

Sincerely,

Andre Delattre
U.S. PIRG Executive Director

P.S. Please feel free to share this message with your friends and family.


[i] (In 2011 dollars.) A Safety And Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants, Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, August 1997.

[ii] According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a single dose of 0.1 Sieverts would result in approximately 1 person in 100 developing cancer over their lifetime. Lower doses produce proportionally smaller risks. For example, a single exposure of 0.01 Sieverts would cause 1 person in 1,000 to develop cancer during their lifetime. Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, National Academy of Sciences, 2006.

[iii] U.S. Nuclear Plants Have Same Risks, and Backups, as Japan Counterparts, New York Times, March 13, 2011.

[iv] The High Cost of Nuclear Power: Why America Should Choose a Clean Energy Future Over New Nuclear Reactors, U.S. PIRG, March 31, 2009.

[v] Wind: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply[pdf], DOE/GO-102008-2567, July 2008.
Sun: Bernadette del Chiaro, Tony Dutzik and Sarah Payne, Environment America Research & Policy Center, On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming, Spring 2008.

[vi] This figure actually underestimates the degree to which nuclear projects exceeded budget targets. It excludes escalation and finance costs incurred by construction delays, and does not include data from some of the most over-budget reactors. See Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, Nuclear Power’s Role in Generating Electricity[pdf], May 2008, based on data from U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs, Technical Report DOE/EIA-0485, 1 January 1986.

[vii] J. Cook, “Nuclear Follies,” Forbes, February 1985.

[viii] Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies[pdf], Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2011.

[ix] Federal energy subsidies: Not all technologies are created equal [pdf], Renewable Energy Policy Project, July 2000.

[x] The High Cost of Nuclear Power: Why America Should Choose a Clean Energy Future Over New Nuclear Reactors, U.S. PIRG, March 31, 2009.

Nuclear-related readings...

A letter written by my brother, David:

Dear Governor Shumlin,

My farm is ten miles from Vermont Yankee in Halifax. I am very concerned about the Vermont Yankee plant, which is the same GE Mark 1 design as the Japanese Fukushima reactors. Although it is scheduled to be shut down in 2012 -- and must be! -- there is a massive amount of spent fuel on-site which is obviously not safe from terrorism or any unforseen event that could cause a prolonged power outage. (And in Vermont, we sometimes have those just due to weather!)

If there is one lesson above all from the Fukushima disaster, it is that the spent fuel -- housed outside the containment structure -- is even more dangerous than the reactor core itself. Obviously we must look again more closely at the plan to maintain the spent fuel on-site after the plant is decommissioned. The simple fact is that just keeping the spent fuel pool wet can be impossible once cooling is interrupted and radiation drives workers away from the site. Fail safe, passive backup water delivery systems should be in place at all spent fuel repositories, with no assumptions allowed about the continued availablity of electric-powered systems.

Proper maintenance after shut-sown will be expensive. This is where Entergy's feet must be held to the fire! I have no doubt they will try to do only the minimum, and will not want to provide additional backup systems.

Vermont is at least ahead of the curve in having voted to shut down, rather than reauthorize and extend the life of, our creaky old reactor. Other states are not so lucky, and now face an uphill battle to rescind reauthorizations.

Please read the attached technical article by Christian Parenti about aging U.S. nuclear reactors.

At Fukushima each reactor has between sixty and eighty-three tons of spent fuel rods stored next to it. At Vermont Yankee, with its GE reactor of the same design as the Fukushima plant, there are a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods onsite. What’s worse, spent fuel rod pools at Vermont Yankee are not equipped with backup water-circulation systems or even backup generators for the existing water-circulation system.

Thank you again for your insistence that Vermont Yankee be closed in 2012, and please work to ensure proper safeguards are put in place in light of what we are learning from the Japanese experience.

David

• http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-16/nuclear-power-plants-ranking-americas-most-vulnerable/

• http://www.thenation.com/article/159300/warning-japan

Fun facts vs. Republican lies

Domestic oil and gas resources are nowhere near enough to fulfill US need, no matter where or how deep we drill, and that is just a stubborn fact (whether NPR has any actual journalists on its staff to report on it or not).

Let me repeat that: There is NO CONCEIVABLE SCENARIO in which the U.S. becomes oil-independent from Saudi Arabian dictators by drilling (and inevitably polluting and despoiling), or expanding natural gas production (which is also dirty) more domestically than it already does.

On the other hand, government land in the mid-west of the United States alone has the potential to supply enough solar and wind energy for 1/3 of the entire current US demand.

And that's only on government-owned land.

What about now?

Fukushima/TEPCO

Regarding this ongoing radiation disaster....

The above link is an informative primer, although I have to say, it smacks more than a bit of that insider's/scientist's/industry-friendly pretension (I prefer the outsider's alarmism, as the public's normal state is already one of false trust and complacency) particularly in what its author chooses to either gloss over or simply omit. That being said, basic ignorance (my own included) has to rectified somewhere, and this provides a start.

Meanwhile, live television from Japan (in English) is extremely interesting, here.

As for the necessary grains of salt (corrections welcome if any of this is factually wrong):

The scale of the earthquake, for which there is already precedent in human history, was over five times what the plants were built to sustain. Why?

What greasy politician on earth lets an industry with potentially apocalyptic risks get away with being so unprepared? These things should be built to sustain a natural disaster 10 times as strong as the largest thing on record (particularly as with global warming, natural disasters will only get worse), or not built at all. We need a fundamental change in principle from corporate profits with lies and gambling about risks, to 'first do no harm.'

They also claim the tsunami was unusually large. In other breaking news, it turns out that large tsunamis are often caused by large earthquakes, say fucking geniuses.

Or let me guess: maybe it was yet another "perfect storm".... just like the ever-increasing cancer epidemic, clearly caused by all those woman who don't exercise and get tested enough.

There were mixed reports originally about the overall integrity of the containment vessels...one can only trust the industry to measure accurately and everywhere inside and outside the vessel...taking a notoriously deceitful industry (and government) at their word, on this point. Meanwhile further large aftershocks are very likely.

The elaborate practice they "train" for is literally as sophisticated as this: they are using fire hoses to pump sea water at the problem, without any way of measuring the temperature to know when to stop.

Some idiot turned the wrong valve off and apparently nobody was paying attention; simple human error caused the explosion and fuel rod exposure at Reactor 2. It should be mentioned that anyone working at these plants, including the 10 or so experts requested from the US, are doing so at enormous personal risk of dangerous exposure (again, reassuringly all part of "the plan").

Any further interruption to this jerry-rig cooling operation could still result in a meltdown that breaches the containment vessel at any of these sites, and is still a real possibility (outside experts agree). Especially with a 70% chance of further large aftershocks.

The industry as a whole routinely lies about the magnitude of earthquake nuclear plants (including those in the US) are built to sustain.


Japan is one of the most highly-regulated, technologically sophisticated countries using nuclear power. Whatever potential for disaster exists in Japan (whether that complete disaster comes to pass or not), exists in the US as well.

Also no mention that #3 is fueled in part by plutonium, much more difficult to control than just enriched uranium, although the extent of that leak seems, at least until the next aftershock, to be "controlled..." whatever that means (the truth is, they don't even know, because there's no corporate incentive to know).

That an aircraft carrier 100 miles away detected radiation and was ordered to leave the area isn't particularly reassuring.

More, and more:

....“We are on the brink,” said Hiroaki Koide, a senior reactor engineering specialist at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. “We are now facing the worst-case scenario. We can assume that the containment vessel at Reactor No. 2 is already breached. If there is heavy melting inside the reactor, large amounts of radiation will most definitely be released.”

Another executive said the chain of events at Daiichi suggested that it would be difficult to maintain emergency seawater cooling operations for an extended period if the containment vessel at one reactor had been compromised because radiation levels could threaten the health of workers nearby.

If all workers do in fact leave the plant, the nuclear fuel in all three reactors is likely to melt down, which would lead to wholesale releases of radioactive material — by far the largest accident of its kind since Chernobyl.

Even if a full meltdown is averted, Japanese officials have been facing unpalatable options. One was to continue flooding the reactors and venting the resulting steam, while hoping that the prevailing winds did not turn south toward Tokyo or west, across northern Japan to the Korean Peninsula. The other was to hope that the worst of the overheating was over, and that with the passage of a few more days the nuclear cores would cool enough to essentially entomb the radioactivity inside the plants, which clearly will never be used again. Both approaches carried huge risks...

And more...

Recall the Wisonsin Republicans–Make Them Pay

The movement grows against these greedy, lying, worthless scumbags.

We just contributed what we can, every month for the next five months. So should you.

The hell is Obama thinking. Coward.

Regarding the McCarthyite Hearings on Muslim "Radicalization"

Mother of 9/11 Victim Condemns King Hearing on Muslim "Radicalization"

See also this devastating take-down of both the hearings and the public embarrassment that is Peter King: The Lyin' King.

General Strike!

Think you're immune? This is not just about Wisconsin.


(image via)

It's time.

Rethuglicans aren't even pretending that it's about the budget anymore. They think they can just screw working families with impunity. Democracy and "The People" aren't even in their vocabulary.

Fast forward to the 6:45 mark...



Somebody, perhaps PCCC or DFA, needs to produce a recall ad campaign, not just one tv ad in one state, right now. And someone with deep pockets needs to drop a couple million dollars into it. Just consider it back-taxes. Moveon, I suppose, can still run their tweets, and raise money from the yuppies.

Meanwhile, Robert Greenwald has launched a new battle in the war against the Koch brothers' pollution (to the tune of $324 million in dirty money) of the democratic process, here.

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

America is not broke

Keep fighting the anti-democratic Koch brothers, right here. Update: and now here!

After spending over $324 million on an extremist political agenda that is devastating to the lives of 98% of Americans, despoiling what was once a potentially good planet for everyone while they personally prosper to the tune of $43 billion, David Koch and Charles Koch are finally getting the sort of embarrassing attention they deserve, as every freedom-loving, hard-working American should be glad to see.

And remember, even though a self-employed woodworker in North Carolina pays over three times as much in property taxes as Tom Cruise, and on a (far less desirable) fraction of the acreage, has no health insurance, and still owes tens of thousands in college loans well over a decade after graduating even though he went tuition free, "class war" is still a dangerous fiction invented by elitist poor people to subvert Jesus (link, or something).



• The hell is Obama thinking.

• This is the reality.

• Also, to hell with polite progressive groups like Moveon.org (especially the absolutely boring local Asheville chapter). Those folks lost their critical exigency years ago, and have resigned themselves to knocking on doors in the projects, once every four years. A good summary of the Wisconsin fight is here (via Jodi Dean).

Scott Walker has lost the war

So sayeth Forbes magazine.

Also:

The Wall Street Journal reports -- "Conservatives in Wisconsin are getting nervous that three Republican state senators may defect on the collective-bargaining reform vote."

NBC news in Wisconsin reports -- "four moderate Republicans are wavering and could break with the GOP and vote against Walker's budget repair bill."

The New York Times reports -- "Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute."

And Talking Points Memo reports on a brand new poll by a Republican leaning pollster -- "Rasmussen Poll: Almost Six In Ten Wisconsin Voters Disapprove Of Gov. Walker."

Do your part. Fight the greedy bastards, here.



Update:

Recent blocks...

GreenRiverWoods.Etsy.Com

Anybody seen a Democratic President?

I get it, Obama is on thin ice politically (for which he has largely himself to blame, it might be added). But this milquetoast political cowardice at this stage just isn't going to cut it. Who votes for a weak leader out on the ice in slippers, flopping around getting nowhere, much less helping anyone who's drowning?

Democracy yet to come?

To the defining disease of our time, caused by fundamentalist economic hubris: meet your cure. (More here.)

Scott Walker must resign

Walker incriminates himself, admits to having considered bringing in thugs to taint protests with violence. This is priceless:

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

via The Other 98%, Mother Jones, FDL, etc. etc.

What's most amusing is Walker's utter lack of surprise at the shit "David Koch" is saying. The conversation is at once less overtly offensive than you might expect and more offensive than ever in the mundanity of the cozy relationships of power it reveals. Also, Walker is unbelievably stupid.

But then that sort of goes without saying for anyone who's been hand-picked for the job of neo-Stalinist Reaganbot.

What's happening in Wisconsin

• In NYTimes-speak.

• In you-tube:

(and more)

• In Kossack

• In teh facebook

• In blog

• Meanwhile...

Jon Stewart, no longer funny

Our feelings exactly:

...Calls for"civility"are usually just a way to shut people up and sadly, I'm fairly sure that the only people who listen to Stewart are liberals who are getting the idea that it's wrong to get in the streets or call out the other side in rough language. Conservatives just think he's a useful idiot. I find this attitude very perplexing coming from a comedian, especially one who commonly does things which could be perceived as unfair, silly and undignified.

This is why Colbert's satire is so much more effective and, frankly, much braver. His satire is firmly aimed at the right, so he cannot take both sides. That's why it works --- it takes a position. By contrast, I'm increasingly not finding Jon's church-lady finger wagging all that funny, much less cool, and I fast forward though his opening segments more often than not. If I wanted a nightly lecture on proper behavior I'd consult Miss Manners or go to church.

Obama's legacy?

Obama's Budget: "Shared Sacrifice" My Ass

How insulting to everyone's intelligence. The most obvious take-away from Obama's budget is that the poor and middle class have just lost another in a long streak of losing battles in the ongoing class war of the last several decades. And politicians like Obama still have (or rather pretend to have) the naïveté to wonder, why it is so hard to convince the vast majority of our citizens that "big government" isn't the problem, and isn't just another extension of big international greed. The logical explanation for team Obama's political idiocy is to follow the money for 2012, but there is probably a deeper psychological, or biographical element at work as well. Obama is beating himself up to prove a point to the nation, and to Republicans about real sacrifice. He is clearly Jesus, and we just aren't willing to hear him.

Meanwhile John Boehner, Prince of Pork, is still getting his $456 million earmark. And the Rethuglicans still won't be happy until not only are people literally freezing in their houses but their Social Security and Medicare are gambled away just like their mortgages. Congratulations, David and Charles Koch...the America you want is coming to pass. And congratulations to Obama, for holding on to that precious moral high ground.

nb. Keep your eyes on Wisconsin.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an Anti-Democratic Piece of Shit, cont.

Read all about it....

Storyteller-in-Chief...Failure

Dean Baker is spot on. Obama can do better.
Update: And more and more and more and more...

Will the wave of democracy in the Middle East ever reach US shores?

Obama today, quoted from DailyKos:

So Brenda and her husband know what they can do without. But they also know what investments are too important to sacrifice. Their daughter, Rachel, is a sophomore in college with a 4.0 grade point average. The tuition is a big expense. But it’s worth it, because it will give her the chance to achieve her dreams. In fact, Brenda is looking for a second job to ensure, as she told me, “the money is there to help Rachel with her future.”

Really? This is where we've landed? In a place where a special-ed teacher from Missouri, with a husband on a half-pay pension, is considering taking on a second job to pay for the tuition of her 4.0 GPA daughter? And the president of the United States is holding this up as a good model? [link added]

Where is the federal student aid for a family like this?

Why isn't investing in our young people up there with investing in all the broadband, clean energy and research? In fact, how can you be investing in research for the future without investing in educating future researchers?

Still, this address today will probably score well with most audiences. Families are struggling, and belt-tightening by government will be welcomed. And at least the president is continuing to push the investment angle, which is certainly not a message that's going to be trumpeted at CPAC or on Fox News this week.

Bob Herbert today:

When the game is rigged in your favor, you win. So despite the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, the stock markets are up and all is well among the plutocrats. The endlessly egregious Koch brothers, David and Charles, are worth an estimated $35 billion. Yet they seem to feel as though society has treated them unfairly.

As Jane Mayer pointed out in her celebrated New Yorker article, “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry — especially environmental regulation.” (A good hard look at their air-pollution record would make you sick.)

It’s a perversion of democracy, indeed, when individuals like the Kochs have so much clout while the many millions of ordinary Americans have so little. What the Kochs want is coming to pass. Extend the tax cuts for the rich? No problem. Cut services to the poor, the sick, the young and the disabled? Check. Can we get you anything else, gentlemen?

The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.

Egypt's Future

Well, actions will always speak louder than words, but Obama surely deserves as much credit for nurturing the conditions (with one good speech, especially) hospitable to Egypt's inspiring and now genuinely potential democratic revolution as Reagan ever did for tearing down the Berlin Wall. What happens to Suleiman the torturer sort of remains to be seen, but apparently the military is not pleased with him, and clearly he is reviled by most Egyptians who (rightly) equate him with Mubarak or worse (link via)...DemocracyNow has been streaming live all day, and together with the irreplaceable Al Jazeera (now being broadcast, instead of hunted, by the liberated Egyptian state television!) has been covering, amidst incredibly poignant interviews, what appear for the moment to be various encouraging signs that the working class Egyptian military is prevailing in being serious about real and meaningful reform. Mubarak's assets are allegedly frozen by the Swiss, and should they ever find their rightful way back (with interest) to an Egypt working over the next couple of years toward real independence and social democracy, perhaps they would no longer have to force the poverty of structural adjustment and privatization on their people, not to mention the looting of public money or torturing people at the behest of other countries for a living.

Israel's current rulers of course, with their Medieval Fortress Economy, would rather have a friendly dictator back than dare to dream of true democracy, peace or human prosperity.

One probably cannot overstate the significance of the newfound global self-consciousness, universal courage, resolute peacefulness, humanity eloquence and above all pride of the Egyptian people (and throughout the region, and the world). Let's dare to hope not, at least, beyond the end of this historic day.

Parrhesia in Egypt, and How the US should be standing for universal freedom, but isn't

Real patriots of the United States (as opposed to drum-beating nationalists, or realpolitik bloggers/hobbyists with delusions of self-importance, for whom politics is first and foremost a kind of spectacular soap opera), have every reason to be infuriated with the Obama administration's pathetic series of public statements and ongoing policies regarding Egypt.

Here is the man Obama sends to Egypt. Unfortunately for Obama's meticulously-maintained image campaign, Wisner doesn't mince his words and reveals a little bit too much truth of the situation for comfort.

Here is the man the US currently and openly supports to replace Mubarak, and that only once Mubarak steps down more or less at his own pace. Plus ça change...suffice to say, Suleiman is a well-known US-trained torturer reviled in Egypt, a CIA stooge and all-around bad, bad man, no different than Mubarak with the exception that instead of remaining in a self-imposed protected bubble he actually has real blood on his hands(much more here, also here and here).

As always, the real news (and inspiration) is on ground level with the people. (Much more here.)

If only we had governments around the world capable of acting on their behalf in such moments in true democratic fashion, that is to say, willing to take risks for actual democracy (as opposed to being lapdogs to the violent corporate cycles of rape and repression, with a status quo of mass poverty, unemployment and privatized misery dialed up every new and wondrous "technological breakthrough" moment to make even Reagan's former criminal high finance advisers and thieves blush). Is appeasing Israel, and following the crazed and thoroughly discredited ongoing mandates of Bush's "WAR ON TERROR" really that important to Obama (let alone the vast majority of Americans), such that we in the US must throw all our weight behind the only alternative to Mubarak we still trust to torture people for us, and keep the ministers of high finance assured of some working illusion of order?

If the Egyptian people have demonstrated anything over the past two weeks of caring for one another, and in courageous solidarity against both state brutality and World Bank oppression, it is that they deserve better.

Update: via Huffington:


Part 2 and Part 3.



Hell, even Anderson Cooper seems to have woken the fuck up, after some admirable reporting from the streets and in harm's way (where real reporting used to be done and still is, full-time at least by one of the best remaining genuine news organizations on the planet).

Update II: Also some rag called the NYTimes: Mr. Suleiman’s Empty Promises

Pro-Democracy Christian Protesters, Protecting Muslim Prayers in Egypt

• This is an excellent article:

"Revolution is like a love story," said Alaa Al Aswany, the Egyptian novelist whose writings about the hypocrisy of the Egyptian government and the need for free elections have helped inspire the pro-democracy movement. "When you are in love, you become a much better person. And when you are in revolution, you become a much better person."

• More seriously

Social democracy works, Republican lies and class warfare, Harper's Magazine

• "The bottom two-thirds of America would be better off in Europe."

• New proof that Republicans who blame the poor are wrong, as if any were still needed.

• Harper's Magazine publisher John R. "Rick" MacArthur is apparently a gynormous cunt:

Being dedicated to the survival and well-being of Harper’s Magazine, and hoping to further its 160-year-old tradition of bringing you the very best in journalism, essays, and fiction, we, the members of the Harper's Union, are asking for your help. In 2010, we lost five of our most experienced editors and now are asked to lose two more, including Ben Metcalf, who was a driving force behind the organizing here. We have shown numerous means by which Harper’s Magazine might cut costs and increase revenue without laying off its most skilled and experienced editors, and in particular we have urged the magazine's foundation to raise funds from outside sources. This possibility has been rejected by the labor lawyers representing John R. “Rick” MacArthur, our publisher. They argue that fund-raising takes time, and that there is no time to be wasted in reducing our editorial staff by two union members. We wish to counter this argument by showing Rick MacArthur how much money can be raised in just a few days via the extraordinarily useful medium of the Internet. Please pledge what you can and pass this on, with the assurance that all funds promised here will be offered, in friendship, to the Harper’s Magazine Foundation. If the pledges we garner are refused by the foundation, your generosity will cost you absolutely nothing; if accepted, they will help to sustain America’s oldest, and finest, monthly.

custom end grain butcher blocks

12/4 spalted maple:




GreenRiverWoods.Etsy.Com

Speaking of the need for protest...

The uncomfortable truth about Egyptian dictatorship and corruption, widespread poverty, inflation and income inequality is of course that Egypt was simultaneously being applauded and praised by the IMF and World Bank as an "economic miracle"...forced privatization, subsidy cuts, "opening-up" of markets, forced structural adjustment...same new story of macro economics and corporate profits masking real world suffering...people literally dying while waiting for days in "bread queus"...Anyone expressing solidarity with Egyptians' right to freedom from tyranny should understand the origins of the familiar scam that propped up Mubarak:



Meanwhile, the same class warfare is being openly waged by Rethuglicans (propped up by their multi-billionaire ideologue sponsors like David and Charles Koch, along with what amounts to Democratic complicity) in the US right now, and has been for decades (beginning in earnest with Reagan, the first outright bankers' politician).

The bottom line for anyone connecting the dots is: Americans should absolutely be in the streets of their own country right now too.

Obama's writers knock it out of the park, for Griftopia

It's Reagan, all over again.



Update: Robert Kuttner says it best:

Pitch perfect. What logically follows from the president's invoking of the history of American prosperity is a call for more public investment in 21st century infrastructure. This is not in-your-face partisanship, but the astute marketing of a progressive message and ideology that contrasts radically with the conservative one.


But then the president said this:

Now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable. Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same.


So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.

This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of hard-working federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs.

My friend Westen was incredulous. Why would a Democrat give aid and comfort to a right wing ideology that is also wrongheaded economics? Why sacrifice Medicaid and programs for kids for the sins of the bankers? Why add fuel to the right's attack on public employees?


People watching the speech rightly wondered: How do you freeze domestic spending -- and also dramatically increase outlay on 21st Century infrastructure? How do you win public support for more desperately needed public investment when you brag that you will reduce domestic spending to its lowest share of the economy since the Eisenhower years?

In the 2008 election, people with incomes of under $50,000 supported Obama and the Democrats by wide margins. But the kind of mixed messaging in the president's State of the Union address reinforces political anomalies such as the 2010 mid-term election, where white working class voters supported Republican House and Senate candidates by a staggering margin of 30 points.

The administration's mixed signals on aid to Wall Street are so potent that in the 2010 election, a majority of voters who blamed the collapse on Wall Street nonetheless voted for a Republican candidate for Congress.

On January 17, the New York Times published a letter to the editor from a woman named Susan Kross, of upstate New York, praising governors for "reining in labor unions."

The shocker was her concluding paragraph. She wrote, "I was reared on a family farm where pennies were always pinched, every day was a workday, and there was no such thing as a pension or vacations, let alone paid ones."

Such is the state of ideological muddle and confused self-interest that a hard working rural, middle-class American could disdain pensions and paid vacations as unnecessary luxuries too good for working people. This woman's family farm, if it has truly been in her family for generations, probably survived thanks to the New Deal. She gets her crops to market thanks to government-subsidized highways, and uses modern farming methods thanks to USDA. Her parents and grandparents, who benefited from Social Security, most likely did not share her contempt for pensions and paid vacations.

This moment cries out for a combination of clear leadership and mass protest...[right here in America, of Americans for America, not just Egypt]

Centrism in Griftopia

The end of this article is much better than the beginning (via PTDR, which has been on a roll lately):

Obama critics decry his failure to use the presidential bully pulpit, compared to its use by Franklin Roosevelt. Apart from it not being Obama’s style, there are two additional problems with this idea. It would be very easy for the Right to portray him as a militant black—making him a black president rather than a president who is black. Obama has assiduously cultivated the latter persona. But more important, FDR had rivals who filled the bully pulpit role and claimed the allegiance of significant constituencies, or could at least threaten to gain them: CIO President John L. Lewis, whose industrial union movement had mushroomed in the 1930s to over three million members; conservative populist radio priest Father Charles Coughlin; African-American leader A. Philip Randolph; senior citizen hero Dr. Francis Townsend; Louisiana populist Governor Huey Long; and perennial socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Each of them could mobilize millions of people.

When FDR had to be pressured from his left, there was someone there to do it. That’s a key element of Von Hoffman’s point: if Roosevelt said to John L. Lewis, “go out and make me do it,” Lewis and the industrial union movement could do it—just as the Deep South civil rights movement could keep the heat on John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. President Lincoln met with African-American former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the Radical Republicans of his own party. With whom would Obama meet today? Who can deliver Democratic constituencies today? The heart of the progressive problem is that the answer is, “no one.”

Blaming the money that is spent to defeat peace and justice candidates who run on progressive issues isn’t an adequate response. We know that kind of money is going to be spent against progressives. That’s a given. Water is wet and rocks are hard. If there isn’t enough grassroots organization behind a peace and justice candidacy to counter the money, then the campaign shouldn’t be run in the first place.

As we know, the Republican sweep knocked both progressives and Blue Dogs out of Congress, including Russ Feingold in what is often a progressive state. Did any third-party, progressive candidates win? Not that I’m aware of. Did any anti-incumbent Blue Dog nominees win Democratic primaries in June, then get elected in November? Not that I’m aware of. Did any new peace and justice congressional candidate get elected? Not that I’m aware of. And even if there are one or two, the likelihood is that the candidate was running against a Tea Party crazy—against whom any Democrat would have won.

What then?

We are in a period in which we have to build toward national victories. That building takes place primarily in local campaigns. It’s a long process, not a short one.

Update: In the wake of Obama's State of the Union, here is one very good place to begin, with Nicholas Ruiz:

if Obama is in need of some regulations to reasonably review, Democrats can help. For example, let’s review the stifling minimum wage regulation. The minimum wage, unreasonably and unrealistically, remains untethered to the consumer price index. Therefore, it almost never goes up. But market prices sure do. And that’s why the buying power of the average American today pales in comparison to the buying power senior citizens had when they were young. Deregulate the minimum wage by tethering it to the market via the consumer price index. Republicans, whose charms and favor Obama seems too eager to court, will be happy, too: it has the word ‘market’ in it.

things

• Ross Benjamin talks about his new translation of Joseph Roth's Job: The Story of a Simple Man. Book launch events in NYC to be held here and here.

• A first translation of Roland Barthes

• http://nplusonemag.com/the-arkansas-boys

• http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/post_tucson_mclemee_on_guns_and_violence_in_american_life

• http://idiommag.com/2011/01/aggressive-nostalgia-on-chaos-and-classicism/

• http://idiommag.com/2010/04/atypical-usage-gary-hill-george-quasha-and-charles-stein-at-eai/

• http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3302

New Year's in Iceland