Cogitamus

America Is The Greatest Nation In The History Of Awesome, And Here's Why

The Honduran Generals Have Confessed Their Guilt

This is more litbrit's area than mine, so if she is able to post on it she can feel free to delete this or something.

But I would like to invite our Honduran friends back to the CogBlog to share their thoughts on this:

The military officers who rushed deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of the country Sunday committed a crime but will be exonerated for saving the country from mob violence, the army's top lawyer said.

In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador's elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya -- and they circumvented laws when they did it.

Zelaya broke no laws - no one has actually suggested that he did.  The accusations against him are that he was going to break a law, maybe, or try to change the laws, and anyway he was friends with Hugo Chavez, so shut up, that's why!

As digby points out, though, laws are primarily for the little people to follow, and anyway it's ok for important people to break them as long as it's for a really good reason.  The Honduran generals who removed their democratically elected president are just following in the grand tradition established by Nixon, Reagan and both Presidents Bush, after all.

And, it must be said, when it comes to preventive detention or whatever they call it now, even in the footsteps of President Obama

Free & Priceless

“This proves once again that the lesson of history is that we don’t learn the lessons of history.”

Terence Doherty
on China's grim economic future

“My friend the editor of the local paper here suggested that someone must have found her in bed with either a live moose or a dead Democrat.”

RAMA
on Sarah Palin's resignation

“The supreme irony of China today is that the Chinese Communist Party have conspired with the Chinese people, and together, this "Communist" country has somehow managed to create the very conditions that inspired Karl Marx to write the "Communist Manifesto" in the first place.”

Walkingshadow
on China's grim economic future

“[I]s it possible to disgrace the gop? they are not disgraced by the worst president in history, nor his treasonous vice president, they are not disgraced by always wrong krystol, they are not disgraced by gay bashers who are gay, family firsters who are adulterers, abstinance only-ers who have out of wedlock teenage daughters, draft dogers claiming military knowledge and the list goes on. what on earth could possibly disgrace them?”

perris
on Sarah Palin's resignation

When I'm Paying You, Keep Your Views To Yourself

It's amazing how insulated one can be from personal experience of crazy wingnut views, even in Kansas.  Not that all my friends, relatives and acquaintances are progressives; far from it.  But I was surprised and more than a little dismayed when the hygienist at my dentist's office decided, while cleaning my teeth, to engage in a nonstop litany of crazy wingnut talking points.

- She asked me if I knew very much about the Roman empire, mentioning how she had read a book about Cicero which quoted him predicting the demise of the Roman Empire because the government had started "handing out freebies to everyone, just like with America now becoming socialist." 

- She lamented what has become of California, and professed great sympathy for "poor Arnold,' who probably wishes he had never run for governor. 

- She talked about Texas - and Montana, apparently? - passing resolutions asserting their sovereignty as states and how the federal government shouldn't be able to do anything not expressly spelled out in the Constitution.

- She discussed the people moving to New Hampshire to try and establish a place outside of federal control.

- She even talked about people moving to Costa Rica "to have more freedom."

All this while cleaning my teeth, people.  My wife was proud of me for not calling my dentist into the room to demand someone not brain-damaged by exposure to the toxic effects of right-wing "thought."

The Crazy Hygienist Lady obviously expected it to be a conversation, but rather than attempting to engage her directly, I just tried to chip away at the edges.  Things like pointing out that the Roman empire actually lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, so Cicero was off by around 1,500 years in his prediction of the empire's demise, that Texas was using federal money to repair its own governor's mansion, so they can hardly be considered to be all that concerned about federal interference, etc.

It's one thing to read conservative blogs or hear pundit/entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck spouting off nonsense.  It's quite another to run into someone who actually buys into all their bullshit.  No wonder it's so hard to make any progress in this country.  What should by rights be the realm of wild-eyed ranters on street corners has been mainstreamed and believed by large swaths of the population.

Cute or Mad?

You decide.

I know there are documented cases of cheetahs being successfully domesticated, but this story still strikes me as slightly nuts.

h/t naked capitalism

Why Congressional Sausage Sucks

The legislative push for so-called common ground, together with the health reform process, are indicative of one of the worst ways in which the DC political process and media are skewed to favor conservatives over progressives.

Digby catches Jon Cohn worrying that progressives are pushing too hard on the public option, when that is not the be-all and end-all of health reform:

I happen to be a strong public plan supporter myself. . .

And yet I confess to a certain ambivalence when I hear, as I frequently do, statements like the one Dean made at the rally. Yes, the public plan is a key element of reform. But it is not the only one.

Just consider what was going on inside Capitol Hill meeting rooms as Dean was speaking. Over the past week, leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have been busy hacking away at their proposed legislation, in order to bring the total price tag in at under $1 trillion over ten years. To accomplish this, the committee leaders have proposed cutting the subsidies that reform will make available to people who have trouble paying for insurance on their own.

If those cuts end up in the final legislation, fewer people would get assistance and, quite possibly, those that still got assistance wouldn’t get as much. The result would be more uninsured and more underinsured.

And that's not the only major issue in play.

On the abortion issue, Amanda raises valid concerns over what "common ground" will eventually mean:

What I fear is that the “let’s all make friends” tendencies that rule over Democrats will kick in, and they’ll let the anti-choicers kill the contraception angle in order to get something passed that they can call “common ground”. . .On its surface, the common ground discourse about giving more support to mothers makes it seem like anti-choicers are coming around to the view of women that’s more sympathetic.  They’re all big eyes and pity for women who abort because they can’t afford to have another child.  But since they’re big fans of deceptive tactics, we should assume that this stance is also likely to be a lie.  I suspect what’s going on is that they hope that they can offer women a little more support, and when this doesn’t result in the abortion rate going down, they’re going to say, “See?  We told you they’re dumb sluts who only abort because a baby would interfere with their mani-pedi schedule.”

What ties these together is the impulse to pass legislation at all costs.  Since the media have thoroughly shown that they don't care about policy, preferring instead a simplistic analysis that easily condenses into an "X won the day narrative," members of Congress have an incentive to get a bill, any bill, passed in order to avoid being painted as the day's loser.  Then they can campaign on the number of bills they managed to shepherd through the process, knowing that their constituents are already primed to accept a raw number like that as a sign of significant accomplishment.

So when Democrats come up with some really good legislation, Republicans know that all they have to do is demand the inclusion of some incredibly dumb idea - or the removal of the key element  - and then sit back to let the perverse incentives of the system work for them. 

This favors Republicans because they don't want the federal government to ever accomplish anything good; whether it's by passing bad legislation or blocking good, they accomplish their goals.  And since the media is only capable of comprehending a win-loss record of legislation passed vs. killed - and only barely at that - GOP politicians are able to comfortably advance their agenda on whatever media space they inhabit.

What's worse, GOP members of Congress are acting according to their supporters' wishes, because they also want to see the federal government fail at all costs, while progressives are constantly trying to push their ostensible representatives along on every issue.  That's why it's so damn hard, and so damn frustrating all the damn time.

Torture Continues

From Bob Herbert's op-ed in yesterday's NYT:

"There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad’s freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible — without merit, of no value."

The person Herbert is talking about was a child when he was captured.  A child.

Honduras: As you are me and we are all together--Coup, coup, k'joob

Today in Teguc (emphasis mine):

One day after the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.

The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. “We’re defending our president,” said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”

Leaders across the hemisphere joined in condemning the coup. Mr. Zelaya, who touched down Sunday in Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, insisted, “I am the president of Honduras.”

As you may have noticed in comments about the Honduran coup at Cogitamus, a number of opposition party supporters have deluged my post, as well as writings at other US blogs and newspapers, with bold assertions about the Honduran army having "protected democracy" and "upheld the rule of law". Numerous allegations about President Zelaya's various transgressions are scattered throughout the thread, but not a single one is supported with linked documentation; I have not been able to verify them independently, outside of what the international media are reporting, and what they are reporting--namely, that the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations, and the European Union, unanimously and unequivocally, condemn the illegal arrest and kidnapping of President Zelaya--flies in the face of that which our new Honduran rightwing friends are saying, and saying with gusto, sometimes in ALL CAPS, and often in Spanish, with a few insults aimed at CNN for good measure.

Having only read portions of the Honduran constitution (and arrgh, if you think legalese in English makes for tricky reading...), I cannot say for certain that it does not have a special amendment tucked into it somewhere that legally authorizes the congress to order soldiers to invade the president's bedroom, kidnap him at gunpoint, fly him out of the country in darkness, falsify a letter of resignation from him and forge his signature on same, and install a brand-new president within hours. But I'm reasonably sure there are no provisions of that nature. If, however, there is such an article, subsection, or amendment that I may have missed, Estimados Lectores con abilidad de leer en Español e interpretar la ley Hondureña para nosotros Gringos, favor de avisarme.*

[*Dear Readers with the ability to read in Spanish and interpret Honduran law for us Gringos, please let me know.]

Mr. Zelaya, 56, a rancher who often appears in cowboy boots and a western hat, has the support of labor unions and the poor. But he is a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and the middle class and the wealthy business community fear he wants to introduce Mr. Chávez’s brand of socialist populism into the country, one of Latin America’s poorest. His term was to end in January. [...]

The military also appeared to be moving against Mr. Zelaya’s allies. Local news outlets reported Sunday that Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas and the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city, had been detained at military bases.

The government television station and another station that supports the president were taken off the air. Television and radio stations broadcast no news. Electricity was cut off for much of the day in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, in what local reports suggested was on military orders. Only wealthy Hondurans with access to the Internet and cable television were able to follow the day’s events.

The Congress met in an emergency session on Sunday afternoon and voted to accept what was said to be a letter of resignation from the president. Mr. Zelaya later assured reporters that he had written no such letter.

Interesting, don't you think? Grassroots movements cannot possibly spread when they're trampled by combat boots day in and day out; contrarily, Astroturf will grow like a bloody weed when its opponents can't access any means of electronic communication. And as you'd imagine, the poorest citizens of the Americas' poorest nation are not exactly weighed down with Apple products and satellite dishes.

Also at litbrit.

Heads Up: Honduras in political crisis after apparent coup

UPDATE II

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemns Zelaya's arrest.

Countries and leaders of all political persuasions, and across the Western Hemisphere, are united in their opposition to the Honduran coup.

A Honduran resident, commenting at the NYT (emphasis mine):

I want to report that all national and international news networks were pulled out from the cable system as the Coup unfolded. Now at noon only the Televicentro Network, owned by Rafael Ferrari, and main critic of Manuel Zelaya Administration along with OPSA (owned by Jorge Cahanhuati) is back on air along with others that favored the Coup (Maya TV). The rest of newtorks that leaned towards Zelaya remain off the air along with international networks. Even CNN HD was pulled out shortly after John King reported President Obama's comments on the issue.

The Congress has received a resignation letter from President Zelaya and has accepted it. Mr Zelaya has denied he signed the letter on CNN en Español.

Hope The Times do something to verify my version and denounce this limitation of freedom of speech.

UPDATE

From President Obama's statement:  “I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic charter,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

From Tegucigalpa:

Later on Sunday, the Honduran Congress voted Mr. Zelaya out of office, replacing him with the president of congress, Roberto Micheletti. [...]

Political tensions have increased as Mr. Zelaya pressed ahead with plans for a nonbinding referendum that opponents said would open the way for him to rewrite the constitution to run for re-election despite a one-term limit. In the weeks leading up to the referendum, supporters and opponents of the president held competing demonstrations.

Last week, the Supreme Court and Congress both declared the referendum unconstitutional. But on Thursday, the president led a group of protesters to an air force installation and seized the ballots, which the prosecutor’s office and the electoral tribunal had ordered confiscated.

After the armed forces commander, Romeo Vazquez, said that the military would not participate in the referendum, Mr. Zelaya fired him. But the Supreme Court declared the firing illegal.

Honduran soldiers guard streets around the residence
of just-exiled President Zelaya

Early today, presumably in the wee hours of the morning, Honduran soldiers burst into the bedroom of President Manuel Zelaya, firing shots; according to his wife Xiomara de Zelaya, they then beat the president and dragged him away.

Troops moved through the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and surrounded the presidential palace and other government buildings. The state television network was off the air as hundreds of angry Honduran citizens poured into the streets and shouted support for Zelaya. "The fact is, this is a coup d'etat and the president of Honduras has been kidnapped and beaten up," Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, told CNN's Spanish-language network.

Janina del Veccio, minister of security for Costa Rica, confirmed that Zelaya was in her country. She told CNN that the president said he had been kidnapped from his bedroom and bundled into an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica. He was scheduled to speak to the press later this morning, she said.

The military action followed days of unrest ahead of a referendum over constitutional reforms scheduled for today. The vote was to ask Hondurans whether they wanted another referendum to change the constitution in a number of ways, including allowing re-election of the president.

Army leaders opposed the vote, which they, Congress and election officials said was illegal. In response, Zelaya last week fired the top military commander and then ignored a Supreme Court order to reinstate him.

I confess that despite my higher-than-average level of interest in Honduran current events (I lived in Tegucigalpa during my middle school years), I was caught completely unaware this time, and sort of stumbled upon the news of the coup via the BBC website, which led me to search around for more information.

But I predict we'll all be hearing more about this as the days pass. So here's at a bit of background on what has precipitated the current crisis, along with my memories of the bloodless (thank goodness) coup that took place back in 1974, when my family and I lived there.

Essentially, the current president-now-in-exile, Presidente Manuel Zelaya of the Partido Liberal de Honduras (the Liberal Party of Honduras or PLH), was chosen by the people in yet another controversy-wracked election in late November, 2005. The results were hotly contested and challenged by the runner-up and his party; Zelaya was declared the winner in early December '05, and ballot counts confirming his victory were released later that month. He took office in January 2006.

Zelaya's term, however, has been characterized by infighting, controversy, and severe disagreements with Honduras' military leaders, to put it mildly.  The most volatile of these disputes centered around Zelaya's efforts to put to the vote a referendum that would have modified the Honduran constitution, including allowing a president to serve a second 4-year term if the voters so chose:

Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, has found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of Sunday's planned referendum. It would ask voters to place a measure on November's ballot allowing the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation's charter to allow the president to run for another term.

His four-year term ends in January 2010, and he cannot run for re-election under current law.

The Honduras Supreme Court had ruled the poll illegal, and Congress and the top military brass agreed, but Zelaya had remained steadfast.

In the end, it appeared the opposition to Zelaya was too great.

The military confiscated the ballots from the presidential residence, in effect canceling the disputed vote.

Honduras is no stranger to military overthrows of the government; indeed, the election of the PLH's Roberto Suazo Cordova in 1981 was the first time in over a century that the country had a civilian government. Nor is she a stranger to what I will charitably call "American guidance". At the bilingual school I attended in Tegucigalpa in the early 1970's, most of my classmates were the children of American and British diplomats, US Army and Air Force personnel and officers, agents of The Company, or--like my father--employees of American or British businesses operating in Honduras. As an eleven-year-old, it didn't occur to me to wonder why a small and terribly poor country--over 80% of Hondurans live in poverty--would attract so many Yanquis, nor did I question the purpose of building an enormous US-Honduran air base--Palmerola (now known as Soto Cano Air Base)--in nearby Comayagua. But years later, with my political conscience (and guilt-levels) appropriately raised, I figured it out.

Honduras is not an especially resource-rich country, but it is located right next door to Nicaragua, home of a then-brewing Marxist revolution movement--the Sandinistas--that grew out of disgust and disaffection with the corrupt, brutal reign of the Somoza family. The situation was obviously being carefully monitored by Uncle Sam et. al., and this was years before President Reagan upped the ante:

Upon assuming office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining with Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador. His administration authorized the CIA to have their paramilitary officers from their elite Special Activities Division begin financing, arming and training rebels, some of whom were the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded "counter-revolutionary" by leftists (contrarrevolucionarios in Spanish).

So, I watch today's developments with interest, with a heavy heart, and with no small number of memories awakened and rattling around in my head: turning on the radio one school-day morning and realizing that instead of the usual American Top Ten fare my friends and I enjoyed, it was now playing military marching music.

My mother telling us there was no school that day, and just to be on the safe side, let's all stay indoors. Soldiers, soldiers everywhere, even on the country's two television stations (which annoyed us housebound kids to no end--believe me, ancient re-runs of Popeye or Fractured Fairytales, all in black and white and dubbed in Spanish, are better than nothing, and certainly better than endless loops of soldiers marching!) Gunshot/guerilla drills when school did re-open (mainly, you're supposed to hit the deck immediately). Shortages of various food staples like sugar and flour, advance news of which had led my practical, smart Mum to stock our basement bodega, which dark and somewhat spooky storeroom, we were instructed, would also be the go-to hiding place for us children should our parents be away for some reason and soldiers came to the door (thankfully this didn't happen, but my arms bristle with goosebumps as I type this; my own boys just ran into the room, and once again I marvel at, and am grateful for, my mother's amazing calm and ability to somehow impart survival lessons to us without terrifying us to the point of paralysis).

I don't know the extent to which America is or will be involved in this latest development, but the fact that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has condemned the Honduran military's early-morning actions, and called for President Obama to do likewise, probably speaks volumes. My thoughts are with the warm and generous Honduran people, the poorest and least powerful of whom have been used as pawns, manipulated, stolen from, brutalized, and abused for as long as I can remember.

Photo via Reuters.

Also at litbrit.

Rhode Island Had Plantations?

Who knew?

I've Got Your Stimulus Package Right Here

(Or, how do you solve a problem like Maria?)

Where to begin with the Mark Sanford debacle -- so much to unpack that you need the metaphorical jaws of life.

- First, I watched the press conference and was left with the initial thought that I wished deeply for the quiet dignity of the "Checkers" speech.  Jesus, I wanted to take a shower -- stop fucking sharing you self-indulgent twit.  Your kids are going to watch this thing someday -- and then the therapy bills are really going to mount.

- Will the phrase "I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail" catch on as some kind of sexual slang -- I certainly hope so.

- Mr. Sanford's description of himself as a "bottom line kind of guy" achieved a certain poetic poignancy when his emails lauding his lover's tan lines were revealed.  I'm witcha big guy.  There is a purpose to all things under heaven.

- When he reeled off the names of his four sons -- Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake -- I had this uneasy feeling that this was a union busting law firm with whom I had dealt.  Also, the members of a whites only country club.

- Sanford actually said "the biggest self of self is self."  What the fuck can you get to smoke in Buenos Aires, because I want some of that shit.  That was easily the trippiest thing I've ever heard a sitting governor say, and that includes Jerry Brown.  I think five days of break up sex were just too much for his little mind.

- Kudos to Sanford's wife for not being there.  Double fucking kudos.

- American women aren't good enough for you?

- Sanford -- trying to rebuild the GOP's standing with Hispanics, one Latina at a time.  [She probably can't vote Mark.]

- I keep having the great Dylan song "The Groom is Still Waiting at the Altar" running through my head and I realize it's because of the line buried in my subconscious: "Ain't seen her since January, she could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires." 

- I love the right wing bloggers and their commenters who are claiming that we Democrats get away with this stuff because we have no standards.  Tell that to Eliot Spitzer.  And explain to me David Vitter, Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, and Rudolph Giuliani among others.  Also, let me lay this out to you real nice and slow, as they say -- I don't give a fuck about who is fucking whom -- I really don't -- and as soon as you liars, adulterers, closet cases, and pervs stop campaigning on your Christian recitude and "family values" then we'll leave you alone and won't laugh our asses off at your fallen state.  But until then, oh we're going to have some serious fucking laughs.  

- Who paid for the trips to Buenos Aires?  I am willing to bet that this is going to be a major problem for Sanford.

- Stealing from an unknown commenter with apologies, but we could have a Vitter/Sanford ticket with the slogan "Pampers and Pampas."

- Whenever I feel a sense of compassion for Sanford, I think about the unemployed people that he would have deprived of stimulus money, just to be a grandstanding prick.  Fuck him.

- It appears that Sanford and John Ensign were in the same Bible study group on Capitol Hill -- what version of the Bible were these guys reading, the Bob Guccione edition?  "Dear God, I never thought I'd be writing this letter, but when you created women . . . . "

- I won't quote from the emails -- it's a voyeuristic bridge too far.  We have all been fools for love and lust.  If only the right wing could simply accept that the heart wants what it wants, then we could be spared this sort of thing as public spectacle.   

Doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel

In light of the unfolding news this week, it seems only appropriate to post a photo of fucking elephants. Photo by Flickr user Deanka, used under CC license. No word on whether these elephants, at least, were being faithful.

That 9% Favorable Rating Among 18-29 Year Olds is just too F*#kin' High

The beauty of being a rightblogger is that you can from zero to foaming at the mouth in three seconds over nearly anything -- organic gardens, puppies, date night, ice cream, and now skateboarding.

Yes, Tony Hawk has been skateboarding down the halls of the White House, and, evidently, in the process crushing the hopes for "Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!" in Iran.   Rightblogger outrage ensues -- followed by barely masked racism of the "there goes the neighborhood" variety.  

These people are taking frothing madness to new heights.  And there's nothing the young people like so much as humorlessness.  Or so I am told. 

Kudos to Roy for invoking David Lynch's cartoon masterpiece "The Angriest Dog in the World."   

Why are Democratic Senators Afraid of the GOP?

As Krugman points out today, the only people who don't seem clued in to the Republicans express ride to oblivion are the corporate clown caucus consisting of the Senate's Blue Dog Democrats.   Of course what they lack in political courage they make up for in sheer stupidity.  Not to defend them in anyway, but in part I attribute it to the atmosphere of the Village, in which it is always 1993, Newt Gingrich is a visionary man of ideas, and Democrats are losers. 

Someone needs to buck up these lads and show them the latest Research 2000 poll and the current standing of the Republican Party.  It is a stunning portrait of a party becoming ever more marginalized throughout the country.  Just a few numbers suffice to paint the picture.  The Republicans have favorable ratings of 3% among Blacks (Thomas Sowell, Juan Williams, and Clarence Thomas were at Starbucks together), with 94% unfavorable.  Even better, after the highly sensitive treatment of the Sotomayor nomination, 8% of Latino voters now view the GOP favorably against 86% unfavorable.  Among women the favorables are a whopping 16% with 79% unfavorable.  As for the voters of the future, the Republicans are viewed favorably by 9% of those between the ages of 18 and 29, and unfavorably by 87%.  Regionally, the GOP is approved by 8%, 18%, and 20% of respondents in the Northeast, Midwest, and West respectively,  Only in the South do they attract a respectable amount of the populace, and even there unfavorables outweigh the favorables by 47% to 45%.   

Best of all, those on the right seem to have no idea how repulsive they are to people whose brains are not vestigial organs.  (This linked piece by Andrew McCarthy is an excellent example of the genre -- Obama is a "man of the hard left;" "radical Islam and Radical Leftism" have "more in common that not;" and Obama is "steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America's history.")  The amazing thing is, I think McCarthy (a name he comes by honestly) is crazy enough to believe this stuff.  Somehow I doubt that the vast majority of people surveyed above would see Obama in the same way. 

Food, Inc., the movie: Food for thought; fuel for debate

In his Sunday column, and today's blog at the NYT, Nicholas Kristoff discusses the new movie Food, Inc., which aims to enlighten our increasingly unhealthy populace about the madness that is the nation's current and predominant food-production system (also known industrialized corporate agriculture or simply, Big Ag).

I’ve often criticized America’s health care system, and I fervently hope that we’re going to see a public insurance option this year. But one reason for our health problems is our industrialized agriculture system, and that should be under scrutiny as well.

A terrific new documentary, “Food, Inc.,” playing in cinemas nationwide, offers a powerful and largely persuasive diagnosis of American agriculture. Go see it, but be warned that you may not want to eat for a week afterward.

Full disclosure: my husband Robert's new venture--a solar-and-wind-powered organic and hydroponic vegetable farm with enclosed greenhouses--will be harvesting its first round of crops this fall. So as you'd imagine, Robert and I will definitely be going to see Food, Inc.; hopefully our state's various agribusiness barons didn't order armed guards to confiscate all the reel copies of it at the Georgia-Florida border (I kid, I kid...).

Have any readers seen it, and if so, what are your thoughts about the movie in particular and the effort to educate the public about Big Ag--and the health woes caused by processed, hormone-laden, genetically-manipulated, overly-fatty, corn-syrup-saturated rubbish that America has been conditioned to accept as food--in general?

Is Vladimir Putin the new Chuck Norris?

Looks like Putin's strongarming bad guy image is gradually getting him a cult status to rival Chuck Norris's, sham democracy and human rights abuses or not.

Poor President Medvedev gets short shrift... (h/t Eternal Remont).

Puzzled about what you're looking at? Here's the description for the YouTube vid:

"Vova", commonly known as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is a superhero according to Ukrainian band Dress Code, who have released a song devoted to the merits of the James Bond-defying, child-saving, universally adored Russian. Banned in Ukraine, the video is causing quite a stir.

The band behind the controversial homage is certainly profiting from its prohibition. Since the song "And Vova Rules" was taken off air for "political reasons", the illustrated music video has become a huge online hit in both Ukraine and Russia, where, incidentally, it was never shown on TV in the first place. Putin propaganda, a big joke, or a publicity stunt? Whatever it is, the video's already been viewed over 350,000 times.

The illustrations are pretty self-explanatory, but here are a few of the lyrics:

"James Bond isn't fit to shine his shoes. He's a superman, he's adored by the rich, by celebrities, by professors, by village folk and the West. He'll always be there in your time of need. He'll always protect you. If necessary he'll whack bad guys, even in a toilet. Indeed, Vova rules, and, surely, he rules just the way it should be done."

See whether you recognize anyone except Putin and Medvedev .. like Berlusconi in the audience. ;)

Happy Fathers' Day, Everyone

From our boy-besieged Chaos Central to yours, with armloads of love and good wishes to Daddys everywhere on this warm summer Sunday.  As well as bear-hugs for single Dad MR. Bill, who, with his sons, recently survived a devastating fire.  And many hoorays and happy cheers for low-tech cyclist on his first Fathers' Day.

XXXXX
Deborah

Happy Father's Day

"Outfit" - Jason Isbell

Jason Isbell, formerly of Drive by Truckers, with one of the great fatherhood songs that I've ever heard. Happy Father's Day to one and all, and a special happy first Father's Day to our friend low-tech cyclist. 

This song reminds me so much of so many of the men that I've represented over the years and called my friends and brothers.    

You want to grow up to paint houses like me, a trailer in my yard till you're 23
You want to feel old after 42 years, keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears

Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing and I figured you already know
but in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow

Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, don’t give it away.

Five years in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama and I got to missing you too.
So I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that’s what I’ll always do

So don’t try to change who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man’s paint.

Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent. Don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, Don’t give it away.

@ President Obama: Please stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act

We Floridians are having one of those classic sticky-toffee summers, you know, the body-baking, inertia-promoting kind that predispose you to being in a bad mood, often before the day has even got off the ground.

It's not that. The normally all-affecting weather is irrelevant.

Nor is it the fault of Messrs. Worry and Fear; although I know them well (and who wouldn't, given how incessantly, how intrusively, they've been hanging around these days). Nor is boredom to blame, although that too, especially when I see someone engage in the same reprehensible behavior over and over, and especially, especially when that someone is not a child, but rather, an adult whom I'd previously admired; a leader, shall we say. At such times, as now, what I tend to feel is an oddly combustible combination of boredom and frustration, the results of which might best be described as fury, if that makes sense.

Right now, I am furious that in 2009, there are still some Americans who do not have equal rights, neither in reality nor even scrawled somewhere within the laundry list of moral abstractions that is the law. And I'm furious that the very presidential candidate who in February 2008 said this:

"Now I’m a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday," he said, to a sudden wave of noisy applause and cheers.

"I hear people saying things that I don’t think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian," he said, and the crowd seemed to come along with him this time.

...and who went on to become the first African-American to be elected president, igniting a breathtaking cosmic lightshow of a win for civil rights in America, has now, for reasons I cannot fathom, defended the loathsome Defense of Marriage Act in a brief filed by the DOJ, the logic of which was flawed; the language, utterly offensive.

From Credo, who will present a petition (goal: 30,000 singers, and they're already 70% of the way there) to the White House:

President Obama and Attorney General Holder cannot stand behind a brief which, per the New York Times, "cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece."

Sign this petition today to ask President Obama and Attorney General Holder to withdraw this brief and apologize for its contents. We expect better from this administration than to compare same-sex marriage to incest.

Please do sign it, dear readers. It's but one thing, but it's something.

Also at litbrit.

Burying the lede on police's anti-terrorism powers

Police search more whites 'just to balance the books', watchdog claims, the Daily Mail headlined its story yesterday about the new annual review by Lord Carlile on Britain's anti-terror laws. In the report he presented to Parliament, Lord Carlile paid special attention to the use of extended stop-and-search powers the British police were granted under Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. And he found, in the Mail's telling, that "Police are making unjustified and 'almost certainly unlawful' searches of white people to make Government figures racially balanced."

For once, the narrative in the right-wing tabloid rag was echoed throughout the print press, on the left and the right. "Police are making unjustified and 'almost certainly unlawful' searches of white people to make Government figures racially balanced," the Guardian opened its story. "White people are being unjustifiably stopped and searched to provide racial balance in police statistics," was the lede in the Times. The Scotsman opened, "WHITE people are being stopped by police to prevent accusations of racial bias because of the higher number of Asian people being detained under terrorism laws".

This, then, must not be the usual tale of the Mail trumping up a tendentious story to sell papers to its rabid constituency. The conclusion must be legit, and something strange must have been happening.

It appears that the observation the media have collectively judged headline material is paragraph 140 in Carlile's actual review. He writes:

Examples of poor or unnecessary use of section 44 abound. I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist, and no other feature to justify the stop. In one situation the basis of the stops being carried out was numerical only, which is almost certainly unlawful and in no way an intelligent use of the procedure. [..] I believe that it is totally wrong for any person to be stopped in order to produce a racial balance in the section 44 statistics. There is ample anecdotal evidence that this is happening. I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice; but it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches. It is also an invasion of the civil liberties of the person who has been stopped, simply to ‘balance’ the statistics.

Can't argue with that. Nevertheless, it strikes me that there is a preponderance of judgement here, and a dearth of data. He first specifies the problem of police stopping and searching people for merely statistical reasons as occurring "in one situation," then adds that there is "ample anecdotal evidence" that it is happening, without specifying said evidence. The rest of the paragraph is condemnation of the practice. You've got to wonder whether that's really enough meat to choose this paragraph as the main story for almost every news report.

More to the point, whether you consider the practice sufficiently substantiated or not, is this really the most important thing to take from the report? Consider what else Carlile wrote. Here's the Guardian - emphasis mine:

[Lord Carlile] said there was little or no evidence that the use of section 44 stop and search powers by the police could prevent an act of terrorism.

"While arrests for other crime have ­followed searches under the section, none of the many thousands of searches has ever resulted in a conviction for a terrorism offence. Its utility has been questioned publicly and privately by senior Metropolitan police staff with wide experience of terrorism policing," said Carlile. He added that such searches were stopping between 8,000-10,000 people a month.

Reuters put it more succinctly:

"There is little or no evidence that the use of Section 44 has the potential to prevent an act of terrorism as compared with other statutory powers of stop and search," [Lord Carlile] said in his annual report.

Section 44 prescribes far-reaching police powers. Under the more conventional Section 43, police can stop and search any person it "reasonably suspects to be a terrorist to discover whether he has in his possession anything which may constitute evidence that he is a terrorist”. But Section 44 goes further. Under that section, police can authorise special stop and search powers for any geographic area, in which stop and search actions then "do not have to be founded on reasonable suspicion," as Carlile points out. As the Guardian explains, it allows "the police to search anyone .. without suspicion that an offence has occurred." It is an offence not to comply. And in practice, Carlile adds, "It is used throughout London on a continuous basis".

In short: 8-10,000 people are stopped and searched every month under blanket authorities covering all of London on grounds that don't even prescribe reasonable suspicion. And none of these searches has ever uncovered any terrorist.

Wouldn't that be the real issue here?

Health Care

I need some help with the current state of health care reform.  It seems to me that passing a bill with a public option - that is, making a government-run health insurance plan available to all Americans - is in serious danger of being killed entirely in the name of bipartisanship.  That's bipartisanship, DC style, which as we all know means "everyone does what right wing extremists in the GOP want."

Anyway, there's simply no reason to pass any health care legislation at all without creating a public option, because that's the only actual reform which has been proposed.  Everything else that might happen will, at best, be a case of nibbling at the edges, and will prove incredibly easy for insurance companies to circumvent.

So if Congressional Democrats don't write a bill with a public option - and if President Obama doesn't use his political capital with the public to force them into it - anything they do pass will become a failure.  Health insurance will continue to get more expensive, millions of Americans will still go without any health insurance at all, and the deficit will continue to expand.  And most importantly, all of this will be blamed on President Obama and Congressional Democrats, because they're the ones in charge.

Do I have it right?  Or is there some sort of political jujitsu going on that people who aren't "in the know" can't see

litbrit joins the twitter olympics

Well, the heavy-handed censorship that Iran imposed on its citizens during the recent election couldn't contain the ongoing uprising and the thousands of twitter messages that made it out to the world; this, above all else, has convinced me that I ought to get with the program, join the kewl kids, and give the, er, newfangled whizzo technology twit-thingie a try, so here goes (eventually, I'll get the feed thing going in the right margin over at litbrit). I don't know if any of my fellow Cogitamus writers will be giving in, but for the time being, you can at least follow this writer/mother/dreamer's quips and quotidian mumblings on twitter, should you be so inclined:

http://twitter.com/litbrit

Also, this gives me a great excuse to post another Python video (as if I needed an excuse, right?)

How Business Works

Acme, Inc. makes all sorts of things, and as you're probably aware, they're the main supplier for coyotes looking for that extra edge when trying to catch roadrunners.  I'm not entirely sure how coyotes get so much money, and it seems that at least a few of the items Acme sells should be illegal.  But their ability to stay in business is very straightforward.

An examplet:  Acme has rocket-propelled roller skates for sale.  It costs them a certain amount to manufacture rocket-propelled roller skates, and they sell them to the coyotes for a higher price.  Probably, given the demo they're serving, a much higher price.  Acme's profit, then, is directly tied to the number of products they are able to sell.  If they have customers besides coyotes - who apparently don't care if things actually work or not - their ongoing ability to sell their products, and therefore make more profit, is tied to their products' level of quality.

Yes, this is fairly elementary, but stick with me, because an awful lot of people (read: politicians, Village media) seem like they fail to grasp this.

Next lets think of Acme, LLC, which is a web-hosting company.  The coyotes have discovered the joys of textured vegetable protein, but since they still have an insatiable desire to capture roadrunners, they've created World of Roadrunner, an online game, which is wildly popular.  They need a lot of servers to keep it running, and Acme, LLC, as a tier-3 data center, is able to host all the servers in a secure environment with 99.99999% uptime.  They don't sell a product that the coyotes can hold, but a service.  Even with this difference, though, the basic business model and motivations are the same.  Acme, LLC has to pay a certain amount for bandwidth, electricity, infrastructure like CRACs (air conditioning), UPSs, diesel generators, payroll, etc., and they charge the coyotes a price that's a bit higher than their costs so they can make a profit.  Their ability to continue to make this profit is directly tied to the quality of their service - uptime, ability to upgrade servers, all that good stuff.

Now, let's consider Acme Healthcare United, a health insurance company.  Coyotes tend to get injured a lot - it used to be things like broken bones, skin grafts for burns, major trauma types of things.  Now the coyotes need treatment more for carpal tunnel syndrome, eye injuries, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other ailments that come from a sedentary, Cheetos-rich lifestyle.

Marriage, That Dream Within A Dream

Jumping on tristero's comments, I'm tired of people excusing all sorts of unethical, despicable behavior from people just because the criminal in question is faithful* to his wife.

Really, though, that's why people like Senator Ensign granstand about their marriages and other ways they're being sexually moral.  It's an easy way in this culture to establish one's moral credentials without messing around with inconvenient things like acting ethically toward one's business associates, employees or constituents.

*Speaking of being faithful, the vows my wife and I made to one another on our wedding day were long on honor, love and respect and pretty short on the whole "I won't have sex with interns or my secretary" thing.  Honestly, ISTM that not having sex wtih other people is just about the easiest part of marriage.  Again, that's probably why people like Ensign pay so much attention to that aspect, and why they so often end up failing to meet even that standard.

A Couple of Modest Thoughts on Iran

The situation in Iran is bringing out the usual blather from people who have no idea what they are talking about or who seek to settle scores with those who have had the temerity to be right about other events in the Middle East. 

I can say unequivocally that I deeply dislike the rule by the mullahs in Iran -- we left wing atheist types are not typically enamored of theocracies -- that's a right wing dream -- and would love to see that little shit of a president there sent packing.   That being said, I think the appropriate response by Obama and the U.S. is a low key embrace of the human rights of those who have taken it to the streets in Iran, with little said about the legitimacy of the election, absent compelling evidence of fraud.  In the end, however, this is not about the U.S. and shouldn't be made to appear to be.

Let me repeat that -- this is not about the U.S.  We are not always the center of the universe that we imagine ourselves to be.  Let the Iranians try and sort this out for themselves.  If we can help the forces of liberalization, terrific, but let's try to avoid doing harm.  Making those people look like instruments of American policy is the worst thing that we can do. 

The other thing of which people need to be mindful is how utterly fucking serious this is -- truly a matter of life and death.  People should not be deluded about the magical power of twitter, cell phones, the net, etc.  If the guys with the guns decide to shut this thing down it will be over, and over fast, see e.g. Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, and, of course, Beijing 1989, among others.  The Berlin Wall fell not because of the magic of the Velvet Revolution or the continued awesomeness of Ronald Reagan -- it fell because Gorbachev, to his everlasting credit, lacked the stomach to kill people that his predecessors had in spades.  

There are limits to the powers of repression, but we should not underestimate the ability to control people through violence and fear.  I hope fervently that the forces of civil society prevail in Iran and that they are able to create openings that may lead to a more free and more secular society.  But I have no illusions that the bad faith baying of idiots like John McCain (who was willing to kill these same said people without hesitation) will be helpful to the people of Iran and their plight.        

The Conservative Senate

Frank Luntz has been advising Senate Democrats, both as a group and in special sessions with Harry Reid.

Digby, it very nearly goes without saying, has the definitive take on what this means for America's public discourse.  What interests me is why the Democrats would want to rely on Frank Luntz.  Why DC is wired to privilege the conservative point of view - not just a right-of-center view, but insane, unhinged from reality rantings about ludicrous conspiracy theories, calls to violence against fellow Americans, constant warmongering, worship-the-rich economics with a heaping side helping of the worst delusions of Randian libertarians; it can't just be from all the whining conservatives have done about the so-called liberal media.

The only answer I can come up with is that with just a few exceptions, the Democrats in the Senate are simply more conservative than I am -  and almost certainly more conservative than you, no matter who you are.  In fact, if your position on America's political spectrum is anywhere at all to the left of "straight-up conservative," then the Democrats in the Senate are more conservative than you.  This is especially true of our famously anti-choice, anti-same-sex marriage Majority Leader.

Senate Democrats enthusiastically supported Bush's warmongering, the Patriot Act, DOMA, the "partial-birth abortion" ban.  A Democratic Senator is always available to worry on TV about the deficit, to bash unions, to offer his unqualified support for the bankers' regime in DC. 

For the pedantically inclined, of course not every Democrat in the Senate does this.  Anyone who makes this point in comments will be ridiculed mercilessly.  The point is that the majority of them are what would be called, in a less dysfunctional political system, conservatives - and not only that, but more conservative than solid majorities of the American public, who want to get rid of DADT, institute a government health care plan, preserve and strengthen social security, keep abortion legal, get us out of Iraq, etc.

There's been quite a bit of discussion about how the Senate is institutionally designed to impede progress.  But the plain fact is that Harry Reid has a lot of power - and the knowledge and skills - to move legislation forward when he wants to.  It's just what when it comes to truly progressive legislation, he doesn't want to, and few members of the Democratic Caucus care enough about progressive policies to put any pressure on him.  So we can go two ways:  transform the Senate's rules, procedures and most imporantly, its privileges, or transform the Democrats in the Senate.  Neither option is attractive, but ISTM that primaries will be more effective than trying to remake The World's Greatest Most Ridiculous Deliberative Body

Why We Need Card Check and Labor Law Reform

I haven't weighed in all the much on the Employee Free Choice Act, in large part, because I often like to keep a little distance between work and blogging.  But recent events make me feel like sharing a little on this issue.

One of my clients in the building trades recently undertook an extremely difficult campaign to organize a non-union contractor.  The odds against them were profound -- the company is located in a so-called right to work state (and one of the most anti-union in the country), the workforce at the company was almost exclusively Latino and primarily Spanish speaking, and it occurred in the midst of a pretty severe downturn in the construction business.  Nevertheless, through exceptionally hard and sensitive work, the union got over 70% of the proposed bargaining unit to sign authorization cards to have the union represent them -- the bargaining unit in question consisted of over 100 craftsmen -- how many were here legally I can't say. 

Under the Employee Free Choice Act, this would have been sufficient to demand that the employer recognize the union as the bargaining representative of this craft group.  Instead, however, under current law, the union had to file a petition for election with the National Labor Relations Board.  And here is where the fun starts under labor law.

Almost immediately upon receiving news of the election, the employer began a campaign of intimidation, both subtle and not so subtle.  Suddenly the company owner began handing out paychecks in person on the job sites.  Just as suddenly work began to dry up, allegedly requiring layoffs.  Then the firings began.  There was one guy who we claimed should be on the list of eligible voters for the election.  At first the company objected, claiming he was a supervisor.  Shortly thereafter, they decided to agree with our position and put the employee on the list.  The  next day they fired him.

A flood of propaganda issued from the employer indicating that if the employees voted for the union, there might not be work for them or that their working conditions might actually worsen.  Unceasing claims that jobs might disappear, reinforced by firings and mass layoffs ensued.  By the time of the election on Friday, the active work force had been cut in half, and those that remained were thoroughly cowed by this show of employer power.  The union lost the vote by a two to one margin.

This is everyday bullshit in the world of organized labor.  Immoral employers and their management lawyers -- really the scummiest group in the entirety of the bar -- routinely violate the law and intimidate employees in order to maintain a "union free environment."  When they are taken to task for illegally firing workers in an organizing campaign, the remedies take years to occur, and the penalty is to simply pay the employee back pay for what he would have made less the money earned in any subsequent employment.  There is no punitive or exemplary damages, no fine, and very little cost to the employer.  

I laugh at the notion that secret ballot elections are needed to keep unions from intimidating employees.  In the real world this just doesn't happen -- especially in a right to work state where no one has to join a union or pay dues even where a union successfully obtains a contract.  Employers, on the other hand, manipulate the secret ballot elections with grotesque acts of intimidation, a fact that seems to trouble all too few people.

I know that people on the right don't care.  Anything that stops unions is a good in their eyes.  My target in writing this is some of the commenters I see at places like Ezra's or Matt's where otherwise "liberal" folks claim not to understand why these secret ballot votes aren't a good thing.  And the answer is because America's employers are all too often lawless motherfuckers, enabled by a management bar that cares nothing about its ethical obligations.  Employers have such an inherent ability to intimidate that they should have no say whatsoever in the choice of employees to unionize or not.  They should be barred from electioneering, from holding captive audience meetings, and in any way trying to influence this decision.  And the law needs to be changed to make firing union supporters an expensive and perilous move.  Only when this happens will unions have anything like a fair chance to organize workers who desperately need their help.        

Saturday Night Song for Jonah Goldberg

"I Never Said I was Deep" - Jarvis Cocker

I was going to try to find a suitable Saturday Night Song of Oppression as per bigbadwolf's suggestion, but I kept thinking about this one.  I heard it the other day -- and it intermingled in my mind with the right wing meme that the Holocaust Museum shooter was somehow a "multicultural leftist" or the equivalent of a "Lesbian Studies" major.  And all I could think of was the man to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for this audacity of bullshit, Jonah Goldberg.  The chorus in this song seems like it was written for the Doughy Pantload himself:

I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow
My lack of knowledge is vast, and my horizons are narrow
I never said I was big, I never said that I was clever
And if you're waiting to find what's going on in my mind, you could be waiting forever
Forever and ever

 Tomorrow I shall try and write about card check or something serious.  Tonight, I'll just laugh at the fatuous assholes at NRO an their fellow travelers.  

This Is Why Amanda Is Such A Goddamn Good Writer

Writing of the possible demise of casual dining chains and suggesting that it's because people just aren't interested in spending their shrinking dining-out budgets at places like TGI Fridays anymore:

It seems like this is the most obvious reason to someone like me, who lives in a town where there’s an endless array of quality, independent restaurants that offer the same medium-level prices and mixed drinks as the casual dining chains, but don’t suck so bad that you feel like you just had sex against a dumpster with your sworn enemy after you eat there. (emphasis mine on the best part)

Makes you want to read the whole post, doesn't it?  For my part, when we lived in Korea, my wife and I would occasionally feel the need to have some good ol' nasty American food, and we would drive to a Chili's on the south side of Seoul for that purpose.  On the return drive of less than an hour, we would inevitably need to stop at one of Korea's great rest stops to hit the bathroom, because when your basic diet is rice and vegetables with a little bit of chicken, fish and a tiny bit of pork, having a huge hamburger and french fries or, God forbid, a steak, tends to hit your system fairly hard.

The Chili's in Korea was exactly like the ones here.  Same for Outback, the fast food restaurants like Burger King and KFC, and for TGI Fridays.  TGI Fridays sucks so bad that even if we were really feeling homesick and culture-shocked, we still wouldn't eat there. 

So yeah, it's not exactly surprising to see TGI Fridays suffering right now.

Feminism vs. the faint of heart: Help, help...I'm being repressed!

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses!

Posted as a little thank-you to talented feminist blogger The Apostate, who found herself hosting an impromptu (and ever-growing) discussion group for the departing readers and ex-contributors (like Yours Truly) of The Feminist Blog Formerly Known as Shakespeare's Sister. In a June 4th post, Apostate wrote:

There’s more drama going on at Shakesville. It doesn’t seem like that blog is going to survive long in its current format. That format would be the “community we cherish” format. That format is doomed to failure because online communities are by definition dysfunctional.

If you read the threads linked in the comment I linked to, and if you have been following many of the ridiculous McEwan flounces over not getting enough money from blog-readers, and other conniption fits and the ensuing apologies, and the slams on regular commenters over minor infractions and the constant language policing, and the self-shaming and the worship at the altar of McEwan, and blah blah blah, you know what I’m talking about – it’s a madhouse.

Shortly thereafter, the 'Ville went dark, sending its current readers into a tailspin over the weekend. Then, early this week, a magisterial magnum opus appeared, one which chided "the community" for all its transgressions against their leader--to whose head, it must be noted, no gun was held (and that metaphor right there would've led to me being drawn and quartered, as would that metaphor), since blogging, as we know, is neither mandate nor sentence, but rather, a voluntary exercise in expression--and laid out an eight-point commenting guide (!) from which condescension dripped and splattered like so much spilled syrup.

As Apostate noted:

I’m not sure why online “communities” are so fragile. I think the problem really is the medium. You can’t do community except in person, face to face. Any time you start writing shit down, congregating around a cause, or are removed from the physical presence of your fellows, there’s that much more information to manage and agree to without the civilizing influence of looking another person in the eye.

Yes. The concept of a "safe space" is, ironically, far easier to uphold in a physical environment for that very reason: humans are much less likely to insult or threaten a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being who's right in front of them.

If you haven't read the naughty konagod's take on safe, er chafe spaces, I commend to you, with my heartiest cheers, kona's lengthy, hilarious, Carlin-esque parody of the aforementioned Magnum Hopeless:

While konagod considers konagod a progressive blog, or at least considers himself progressive in a lazy hippie kind of way, this is also a chafe space. Visitors need not check their privilege at the door (we have no bouncers and somebody without privilege might make off with it) so best you keep it close at hand and just be aware of it. No one is expected to be perfect; everyone is expected to be willing to self-examine and if you want to touch yourself in strange places while here, far be it from konagod to interfere. Focus on the fun. It's a blog. He can't see you.

And if all this strikes you as an awful lot of insider baseball because you've never wandered over to that blog and aren't especially interested in watching a trainwreck-in-progress, well, at least you've now got two compelling, new-to-you voices to check out--The Apostate and konagod--and a terrific political Python clip to watch. What are you waiting for?!

Also at litbrit.