US politics – Page 55

I’ve Got A Little List…

Published on March 7, 2007

This riposte to Joe Klein by Mickey Z came via JayVinVT in comments over at Wis(s)e Words (see, I put the brackets in) :

Top Ten Reasons Why the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchal Culture (WSCPC) …
…Will Not be Toppled Any Time Soon

1. The “average American” (AvAm) believes in the two-party/land of opportunity/god’s country scam

2. The AvAm is too busy “just getting by” to worry about the WSCPC

3. Not tonight, “American Idol” is on

4. Now is not the time; we’ve got evil-doers to kill, goddammit

5. What passes for dissent usually involves asking permission to hold a sign
in a predetermined “free speech zone” for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon

6. To seriously challenge the WSCPC is to invite potential imprisonment and/or physical threat

7. The AvAm would gleefully turn in anyone willing to take such drastic measures to provoke change

8. Decades of intense conditioning have made the WSCPC virtually invisible to the AvAm

9. Uh…what was I saying?

10. Never mind…

And before I forget, Happy 5th birthday to Martin and Wi(s)se Words (see, I remembered twice even!), beginning the sixth consecutive unbroken year of blogging, which is longer than most and longer than the Iraq war. . I started not long after him but at Take It As Red, which I’ve put on hiatus since the advent of our life and blog-mateship in 2003.

All these self-proclaimed blogging Kool Kidz? Hah. They’re just babies man, they’re just babies…

Libby Guilty – One Down, Lots More To Go

Published on March 6, 2007

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Libby Verdict Reached

Jane says noon.

(By request I’m not linking directly to them to preserve their servers).

I’ll try to post here as soon as I hear. FDL’s getting hammered. They may decamp to Daily Kos. MSNBC has real time coverage it seems.

…Walton entering courtroom.

…Verdict has been reached on all 5 counts. No hung jury.

…Jury not in room yet.

…Jury now in.

…Juror 12 is foreperson.

Count 1 guilty
Count 2 guilty
Count 3 not guilty
Count 4 guilty
Count 5 guilty

-Atrios 11:39 AM

Political Video Roundup – First The Snitty, then The Nitty-Gritty

Published on March 5, 2007

US humorist Lewis Black on being invited to host the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, via Avedon Carol

Then there’s CPAC: The Unauthorized Documentary, a tour of the US hairtrigger loony Right’s premier annual fundraising conference, from that very plucky and good-looking fella Max Blumenthal, of The Nation. Notable features are Michelle Malkin, unable to comprehend that if you have to issue an errata slip, it’s likely your work’s not exactly reliable, and David Horowitz, coming over in person as exactly as obnoxiously as one might expect.

All great fun, but it’s easy to forget when pointing and laughing at the ridiculousness of Washington and its voracious attendant suckerfish that the policies of the corporate right have real world consequences.

The last video is of Belgian firefighters in pitched street battles with the police last week: all over Europe, where the neoliberal economic policy of opening up public services to privatisation by multinational corporations like Group4, Wackenhut, Brown & Root, Serco…. the list goes on and on… is being vigorously resisted by normally peacable public servants. [Sorry about it being in German, it was the only embeddable clip I could find.]

If you’re a public servant and have ever wondered about the police’s loyalty to their fellow taxpayer-employed colleagues, wonder no longer. This is the purely market-driven world the US corporate right and their EU allies want for everyone and resistance will be met with force if necessary, as this video shows. Where public services like firefighting and justice are made subject to the rules of the free market the police will always act in their own interest and side with the highest bidder. Someone has to pay for all those nifty riot guns, paramilitary outfits, deadly anti-personnel toys and all that overtime.

US To Europeans: “We can Torture and Kidnap You and There’s Not A Damned Thing You Can Do About It.”

Published on March 4, 2007

Not only won’t holding an EC passport save you from being kidnapped and tortured by out of control CIA goons who won’t be disciplined for it, let alone charged, but if you then attempt to sue the criminals responsible for civil damages the American courts will just cover up for them by citing ‘national security’ –

The court said that to make his case, el-Masri “would be obliged to produce admissible evidence not only that he was detained and interrogated, but that the defendants were involved in his detention and interrogation in a manner that renders them personally liable to him.

“Such a showing could be made only with evidence that exposes how the CIA organizes, staffs and supervises its most sensitive intelligence operations.

“The defendants could not properly defend themselves without using privileged evidence,” the decision said.

American Civil Liberties Union director Anthony Romero said the court was wrong.

“Regrettably, today’s decision allows CIA officials to disregard the law with impunity by making it virtually impossible to challenge their actions in court,” he said in a statement.

“The state secrets doctrine has become a shield that covers even the most blatant abuses of power,” he said.

With all due respect to those US expatriates who’re iving on the continent perhaps it’s time EU governments just started snatching random American students, or tourists for instance, from the crowds that throng here – to then ship them off blindfiolded, beaten and drugged, to be tortured in some hidden former Cold War hellhole. See how how you US citizens take it. Why not, this kind of behaviour is openly sanctioned by your government and courts and a large swathe of your population, what possible objection could there be?

Nothing personal, but what else is it going to take to make your country respect the law?

I’m Spartacus, And So’s My Wife

Published on March 3, 2007

What views do pampered US pundits consider to be extremist these days?

According to this nifty little list posted at Time’s well-named Swampland blog by that blowhard Joe Klein, basically everyone in the world who’s not Anerican is an extremist.

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

–believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

Check.

–believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

Check.

–believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

Check.

–tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

–doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

–believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

–believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

–believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

–believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

–believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

–is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

–dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

–regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives.

Check, check, check though somehat simplistically put, check…..

Hey Joe, better get to that panic room quick…… you’re surrounded.

[h/t Avedon Carol]

UPDATE: Oh yes, there is one indicator that Klein forgot:

— wantonly makes fat jokes

There, Joe, I fixed your post. No charge, man.