The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Friday
Jun192015
The Commentariat -- June 19, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
Sari Horwitz & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "The gunman charged with killing nine people in an African American church was unrepentant during a confession to police, even after almost backing out of what he called his 'mission' because church members were so nice to him, according to law enforcement officials and others briefed on the investigation. Dylann Roof not only confessed to causing the Wednesday night carnage in Charleston, but said he wanted his actions known, said the law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is unfolding." ...
... Alan Blinder & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "In an emotional confrontation, relatives of people killed in a shooting at a storied black church here directly addressed the suspect in court on Friday, one after another, tearfully offering forgiveness, and hope that he would confess and repent."
Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration on Friday announced plans to tighten fuel-economy standards for heavy trucks, buses and vans, taking aim at a transportation sector that contributes a quarter of the greenhouse-gas pollution emitted by U.S. vehicles each year." ...
... Here's Jon Stewart's monologue from last which contributors applauded in the Comments:
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: On a fundraising trip to Southern California, President Obama reminded Democrats "'When I ran in 2008, I in fact did not say I would fix it. I said we could fix it,' Obama told an audience of about 250 at a fundraising event here at the stately hillside home of film mogul Tyler Perry. 'I didn't say, 'Yes, I can.' I said, 'Yes, we can.'"
Amateur Hour with Jeb! Tierney Sneed of TPM: A day after giving a speech in which he discussed the Charleston massacre, Jeb Bush said he didn't know if the attack was racially motivated." (CW: Had to check with Roger Ailes, I guess.) "Soon after..., Bush spokesman Tim Miller said on Twitter that 'of course' the former governor thought the attack was racially motivated." CW: Bush's spokesman knows what Bush thinks, but Bush doesn't know what Bush thinks. ...
... Jonathan Chait gets why GOP candidates are skeert to admit that white cops or other groups are racists -- they need the racist vote, after all -- but "Neither Jeb Bush nor other Republicans need the votes of racist murderers to win an election. It would be very easy to identify a confessed white-supremacist murderer without doing violence to the overall conservative worldview." ...
... CW: I know! I know! It's because their own inflammatory rhetoric & the beliefs of their racist followers are just barely south of violence. These politicians encourage not only racism, but also the means to carry out racist attacks. The entire confederate worldview is a violent, racist tease. Given the environment the confederates have created & nourished, they dare not say anything that might reveal their culpability.
... Lindsey Graham is a little ambivalent about flying the confederate flag. "It's who we are," he says, but at the same time he acknowledges "it's time for people in South Carolina to revisit that decision [to fly the flag]." ...
Liz Kruetz & Rick Klein of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton didn't call The Donald out by name, but she suggested in an interview Thursday that comments like ones the real estate tycoon-turned-Republican presidential candidate made during his recent announcement speech could 'trigger' events like this week's church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina."
Allesandra Stanley of the New York Times: Brian Williams' "'Today' interview was expected to be a sincere but pro forma act of contrition to clear the air before Mr. Williams goes back to work and Lester Holt takes over his former job. (Parts of the interview are set to air on NBC's 'Nightly News.') Instead, it was a tortured mea culpa that didn't close a chapter. Mostly it raised more questions and gave hardened media scolds another chance to castigate a man who has been punished plenty."
*****
CW: Another day I'm falling down on the job. I'll be traveling today, so nothing more till much later. To anyone who fills in the blanks, thank you.
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday passed a $600 billion defense policy bill that would rein in pension costs, ban the use of torture and authorize lethal offensive weapons for Ukraine. But it then immediately rejected a measure to pay for it, the first battle in a spending fight that could end in a government shutdown this fall."
Jennifer Steinhauer: "The House on Thursday again approved a measure to give President Obama accelerated negotiating authority to pursue a sweeping, legacy-building trade agreement with 11 Pacific Rim nations, part one of a complex legislative strategy devised by Republicans to get a trade package to Mr. Obama's desk. Led by Republicans, with the support of a few Democrats who support the trade deal, the House passed the trade promotion authority measure, 218 to 208. It will now be sent back to the Senate, where a more narrow band of Republicans and Democrats will be asked to approve it after already passing their own bill that included protection for workers, a provision favored by Democrats." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Henry Louis Gates in a New York Times op-ed: "I have no doubt that had the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney lived, he would have become known -- and celebrated -- across our country for his leadership, rather than sealed immortally in tragedy, one more black martyr in a line stretching back to the more than 800 slave voyages that ended at Charleston Harbor." ...
... Douglas Egerton, in a New York Times op-ed on "The Lives of Denmark Vesey": "In the coming days, the world will find out more about Dylann Storm Roof and his state of mind. But to dismiss him as simply a troubled young man is to disregard history. For 198 years, angry whites have attacked Emanuel A.M.E. and its congregation, and when its leaders have fused faith with political activism, white vigilantes have used terror to silence its ministers and mute its message of progress and hope." ...
... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times has more on the history of Emanuel AME church. ...
... Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "... many civil rights advocates are asking why the attack has not officially been called terrorism. Against the backdrop of rising worries about violent Muslim extremism in the United States, advocates see hypocrisy in the way the attack and the man under arrest in the shooting have been described by law enforcement officials and the news media." ...
... Anthea Butler in a Washington Post op-ed: "While white suspects are lone wolfs [suffering from mental illness] ... violence by black and Muslim people is systemic, demanding response and action from all who share their race or religion. Even black victims are vilified.... There was a message of intimidation behind this shooting, an act that mirrors a history of terrorism against black institutions involved in promoting civil and human rights. The hesitation on the part of some of the media to label the white male killer a terrorist is telling." ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "After a tense overnight manhunt, Roof was nabbed about 250 miles to the north in Shelby, N.C., after a local florist said she recognized him and his car from news reports." ...
... The AP has more on Debbie Dills, the florist who first saw Roof in his vehicle near Shelby. She followed him & got a plate number, while her boss, Todd Frady, whom she had phoned, called local police. ...
... Karen Attiah of the Washington Post: "The danger in invoking the myth of the presupposed racial tolerance of millennials (and subsequent generations) is that it works to absolve today's society of actively confronting and undoing the damage of the legacy of slavery, segregation and institutionalized racism.... It ignores how the cold logic of racism, white supremacy and anti-blackness has worked for generations and how it continues to work." ...
... Michael Safi, et al., of the Guardian: "The 21-year-old accused of killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, had been 'planning something like that for six months', his roommate has revealed, as friends recalled Dylann Roof's tirades against African Americans 'taking over the world' and his desire to ignite 'a civil war'." ...
... CW: It is appropriate that on the day we heard the news of this racist mass murder, the Supreme Court gave the state of Texas the right to refuse to allow the confederate flag to be emblazoned on license plates. It is also notable that four confederate justices dissented, & that Clarence Thomas, the only black justice, & one who almost never sides with the more liberal justices, did so in this case. Will the proximity of their published dissent to the racist terrorism in South Carolina shame them? Nah. ...
... ** Cristian Farias of New York more eloquently makes the connection: "Rarely does a decision of the Supreme Court -- often shrouded in legal formalisms and procedural abstractions -- meet so directly with a real-time tragedy in the headlines. But Walker is such a case: Vox reports that even now, a Confederate flag still flies in the South Carolina statehouse."
And, just as one cannot burn down someone's house to make a political point and then seek refuge in the First Amendment, those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate to make their point. -- Clarence Thomas is a lonely dissent in Virginia v. Black, 2003
South Carolina statehouse.
... Schuyler Kropf of the Charleston Post & Courier: "The Confederate flag flying at the Statehouse in Columbia became part of the Charleston church shooting story Thursday after the U.S. and South Carolina flags were lowered in mourning but the [confederate flag] was left flying at its full height." ...
... Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: The confederate flag "was removed from the Capitol dome after massive protests in 2000, and as part of a compromise, relocated to the Confederate memorial. But the flag's origins in Columbia are a remnant of segregation, not the Civil War -- it was first flown over the Capitol in 1962 in response to the civil rights push from Washington. Despite the most recent incident of racial violence, don't expect the flag to come down any time soon. When Republican Gov. Nikki Haley was asked about it at a debate during her 2014 re-election campaign, she argued that it was a non-issue.... In a photo posted by the New York Times, the alleged gunman, Dylann Storm Roof, is seen posing in front of a car with a license plate bearing several iterations of the flag."
... Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "Roof's crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol -- the Confederate flag.... The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act -- it endorses it. That the Confederate flag is the symbol of of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it: 'Our new government is founded ... upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.'" ...
... Jason Horowitz, et al., of the New York Times, sort of profile Dylann Roof. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of the avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point it's going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it. -- Barack Obama
... J. M. Ashby of the Bob & Chez Show: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) is all choked up & mystified about how this could have happened in a state where "we love each other." ...
... Dave Weigel of Bloomberg: "Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told a crowd of social conservatives that a 'sickness' in the country was responsible for the mass shootings in South Carolina, adding that the problem 'isn't going to be fixed by your government..'" ...
... Matt Wilstein of Mediaite: Lindsey Graham says Roof was probably a guy just looking for Christians to kill. ...
... Brendan James of TPM: "Presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Thursday called the attack by a white gunman on a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. part of a broader assault on 'religious liberty' in America. 'It's obviously a crime of hate. Again, we don't know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be?' Santorum said on the New York radio station AM 970." CW: Maybe you boys should check the news & find out. Well, okay, not your preferred source of "news":
;)
... Carimah Townes of Think Progress: "After the shooting..., Fox & Friends advocated for more guns, arguing people could've defended themselves if they were armed. 'Had somebody in that church had a gun, they probably would have been able to stop him,' host Steve Doocy remarked. 'If somebody was there, they would have had the opportunity to pull out their weapon and take him out.'" ...
... Also see Akhilleus's comments on Fox "News"'s coverage of the massacre in yesterday's thread. ...
... Chauncey DeVega in Salon: "... a local Charleston reporter asked a group of African-American activists, community leaders what the black community could do to prevent events like the mass shooting at Emanuel Baptist. This bizarre moment continued with the reporter ... suggest[ed] that the black community gives comfort to 'snitches,' thus wondering if black folks will in fact turn in a white domestic terrorist who had killed at least nine people."
"I'm Sorry." Margaret Hartmann of New York: Brian Williams is embarking on an apology tour.
Presidential Race
** Paul Krugman masterfully takes down Jeb!onomics, or, as the boy's old man used to say, "voodoo economics." Hilariously, Jeb! is portraying the housing bubble that brought on the Great Recession as a good thing & a feather in his cap.
Matt Taibbi: "The 47 Funniest Things about Donald Trump."
Species Megalomaniac. Species Megalopyge.
News Lede
Guardian: "The European Central Bank provided just enough support on Friday to stave off the collapse of the Greek banking system as political and financial pressure was piled on Athens before a crisis summit of eurozone leaders on Monday."
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Reader Comments (24)
Call me old and sad, but I've lived around the world, and in no other country that calls itself civilized, does one give a gun on a birthday, not to mention to one already who could be seen as unstable. (Okay; maybe in Finland, maybe in Canada, a person might receive a hunting rifle ...) The crisis, which will be forgotten next week, and will certainly be talked about - Americans sure can talk - but I'm with Obama on this one: your gun culture will have to be addressed someday.
Before I weigh in on the S.C. shooting, I'd like to acknowledge my gratitude to Akhilleus and Kate for their support yesterday and especially to D.C. who sent me two songs which I'll reciprocate ...
"That's what Friends Are For"–––Bayer/Bacharach
Much appreciated!
The coverage of this shooting like the coverage of the shooting before that and the shooting before...followed the same template. In this case we had coverage like PBS news that never mentioned our country's rampant lack of gun control; never mentioned that the confederate flag flies high over the S.C.'s capitol building; never mentioned that the streets in Charleston are named after confederate heroes. But on other channels we had the same questions, the same horror, the same prayer vigils, the awful grief expressed, the same discussions of loonies getting guns, and so forth and so on.
If we call it a terrorist attack will that awaken our gun lovers in Congress? Scare them? Certainly calling this a "hate crime" won't do squat––and those who think this crime was committed because of religion will just pray some more and do nothing about guns and race baiting. I think it's time for a revolution-––how far would we have to march to make a change?
And last night Jon Stewart couldn't do his job.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/jon-stewart-charleston-no-jokes_n_7618110.html
Re: Krugman on Jeb!onomics
Here's a brief interview that Jeb! gave to Der Spiegel while he was in Germany trying to acquire his bona fides on foreign policy.
He commends that Germany is on the "(right) path" by ending their fiscal year with a budget surplus.
He also says, "That's pretty amazing. I don't think our country should be lecturing a country that lives within its means. That's something we should learn from. And while we had some success in lowering our deficit, we shouldn't celebrate a deficit of several hundred billion dollars."
Well, guess what? The US used to run a surplus too before you aided and abetted your dumb-ass brother getting into office, who then proceeded to blow up the country with unfunded give-aways and military adventures overseas.
What a fucktard!
@PDPepe: You beat me to it re Jon Stewart. His message and his act of refraining from even prepping a "regular" show were incredibly powerful. The Times also has a piece.
I also posted this on Facebook:
How much safer we all would be if every schmo packed heat. If pants did indeed catch on fire when one habitually lied, the Fox and Friends crew would spend a fortune on wardrobe.
Oh, and the amazing notion that the Charleston attack was motivated by a hatred of religion. Well, you just took my breath away. Imagine how many of us atheists truly disdain the nonsense emanating from people like Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, and Rick Santorum.
And then note that no member of Westboro Baptist has ever come to an untimely end. One can disdain peacefully.
Some, however, hate violently, and our representatives' craven kowtowing not only to the NRA but also to right-wingers who cry "foul" when White Power and Neo-Nazi groups are called out by intrepid organizations like the Southern Poverty law Center empowers those people.
We voters must accept collective guilt because we don't hold our legislators' feet to the fire. Clearly, yet another yet another yet another yet another yet another mass shooting never bothers us enough to take on the gun lobby. No matter: The conditions continue to be ripe for the next mass shooting, when we can all mourn anew and wonder yet again what we could have done.
Just got his latest on the TPP from friend Stan Sorscher who said he wrote it to keep my blood pressure up. He (and the RC community) knows he didn't need to.
It's a good run-down of what's wrong with the deal (and by extension much of what's wrong with the way we manage the country).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-sorscher/the-presidents-trade-deal_b_7618160.html
Jack,
Funny, but just the other day, driving home from work, I was thinking about the next Big Thing, the next national tragedy, and wondering when it would hit. It seems they happen with increased frequency and many of them (most?) have to do with the glut of deadly weapons abroad in the land. Confederate "logic" and inability to do simple calculations, or even acknowledge the possibility that simple calculations might be correct are making this country hurt, and hurt very badly.
Here's just a few examples:
Less revenue from taxes means more revenue in the federal coffers.
More guns will dramatically reduce shooting deaths.
The fewer people allowed to vote, the stronger the democracy.
Ignoring science in favor of voodoo (religion) will guarantee a better world.
It really is like saying that the less water we have, the more we can drink. It really is that stupid.
It's not just that they're wrong. They are. The really scary thing is that they couldn't possibly be MORE wrong! And what's worse, they have a mighty media empire consisting of national, state, and local TV, radio, online, and print outlets, working tirelessly to crank out support for these positions and policies that couldn't possibly be MORE wrong.
So we can expect the next big event involving guns and death and mass murder to take place soon. The NRA guarantees that if you're thing is dead bodies in the street, you won't have to wait long. As we speak, Wayne LaPierre is tacking up a picture of Dylann Roof on the NRA's Hall of Fame Wall.
In the meantime, ignorance increases exponentially. I'm still in awe of that "tide goes in and out, who can explain it?" thing. It says something about the state of the Confederacy when one of its premier representatives, a guy who speaks for millions of them, is nowhere near as smart as a fourth grader, or a precocious first grader.
In the 'I-doubt-this-surprises-anyone' file of NRA bullshit: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/nra-board-member-blames-clementa-pinckney-charleston-shooting-119202.html. If pride goeth before the fall or however the biblicals say it, the fall can't happen fast enough for this NRA board member. This NRA claptrap is racism dressed up like gun rights for the simple minded.
PD,
Good question. Will calling the murders in Charleston the acts of a terrorist change anything?
Answer: No.
First, no Confederate will call Dylann Roof a terrorist, and certainly no Confederate TV hack. Few news outlets have dared to even hint at the word. But here is what CNN has to say about Roof's confession in which he admitted he killed those people in order to "start a race war":
"By telling authorities his aim, Roof admitted he attacked unarmed civilians for political purposes in an act of terror."
He carried out an act of terror in order to pursue a political goal. He killed people for political purposes. An entry on history.com has a piece about a law called the Enforcement Act of 1871. The act was made law in order to challenge groups, notably the KKK from engaging "...in terrorist raids against African-Americans...employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims"
Seems pretty clear that according to a federal law, what Roof did is an act of terror. But will you hear Fox come out and admit that? So far what we've been hearing is that Roof is disturbed, might have mental issues, could have been mistreated as a child. He's just a misunderstood kid. A WHITE kid, is what they mean. Can you imagine the furor and hatred erupting had this been a black kid murdering a bunch of white fundies while they were READING THE BIBLE?? Confederate heads would be exploding all across the country. 'Bagger Politicians would be scrambling to see who could be the first to write a law making lynching legal.
Oh, but hey, I did find a recent call for a prosecution under the Enforcement Act, known also as the Klan Control Act. Oh man, you'll love this one. Wingnuts, always ones to mix metaphors, recently called for the Klan Act, on the National Review site, to be used to arrest and prosecute Democrats using "Gestapo tactics" against poor Scottie Walker while he was being investigated for his many illegal and irregular activities. Always the fucking victims, eh?
Let's use the Klan Act to arrest people for daring to ferret out Republican wrongdoing, but use it for the purpose for which it was written, to prosecute those who use terror, intimidation and murder against black Americans, or even invoke it to call this kid a terrorist?
Not on your life.
Citizen,
I'm wondering then if this Charles Cotton asshole can be blamed for being a stupid dick.
I'm gonna say yes.
Unwashed,
GOP perfidy surrounding budget issues raises mendacity and unscrupulous misdirection to heights that would make even the Nixon White House marvel in awe at such chutzpah.
Take, for example, a screed issued yesterday from the rectal regions of one Loofah Boy O'Reilly, who declared that it was time for all good Confederates to leave the United States. Well? I'm waiting. Why are they all still here??
His reason? That mean ol' black guy who won't steppinfetchit like he's supposed to. What's he gone and done now? Why, he's broken it. Everything. The debt is out of control. He's raised it and it's just out of control and....and....everything.
Wah, wah, wah. Give that baby a bah-bah.
O'Reilly is correct that the debt has risen. That's true. But he lies outright about the reason. Of course, for the worshipers of the stars and bars, everything is Obama's fault (hey, maybe he's the guy who makes the tide go in and out! Never thought of that...).
But O'Reilly is simply singing out of the Confederate hymnal. Here is what's really going on. Supply side voodoo economics has never worked. Reagan started it, Bush 41 continued (actually he tried to rein it in, remember how he had to go back on the Read My Lips thing? Republicans made him pay for that...), and Bush 43 rode it off the rails.
In the twenty years that supply side theory (cut taxes on the rich and we'll all be living on Park Ave.) has been assiduously followed--and I mean ASSIDUOUSLY, baby--the debt has risen every year. During the 16 years of previous Republican administrations NOT hypnotized by supply side gobbledegook, the debt went down in 11 of those years. Clinton handed the Decider an economy in the black. Bush proceeded to wreck it.
And so here we are. The results of terrible economic decisions don't evaporate at midnight of inauguration day for the next president. Obama was saddled with Bush's problems for most of his presidency. When Obama took office, Bush had ratcheted the debt up to over $10 trillion.
And the debt continued to rise because of several things, specifically. Ongoing wars that Bush never budgeted for, the bailouts required by the Bush Depression, Bush's Medicare drug program ($300 billion and counting), and last but certainly not least, the enormous Bush tax cuts which have cost trillions. Unemployment caused by the Bush Depression certainly didn't help. Unemployment payments and the loss of taxes and productivity by out of work Americans also increased the debt.
Add to that additional payments on the national debt (interest goes up as the debt goes up--that's money that can't be used for more constructive purposes) and there is no way you could keep the debt from going up.
Not to mention the fact that the national debt is the not same as debt incurred by a family when they borrow money for, say, a mortgage, something Paul Krugman has said until he was blue in the face.
But you'll never hear that from O'Reilly. Master of Lies.
And by the way, don't forget that the "brain" behind supply side economics, Arthur Laffer, is STILL being touted as an economic genius by economic ignoramuses such as Lyin' Paul Ryan who, after decades have proven this theory to be the bunk, wants to continue to follow its premises.
Makes me realize how right Pete Seeger was about so many things:
"...waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool (GOP) said to push on."
Fox just can't give it up.
The terrorist race murders in Charleston are anything but to Fox.
Here is what one of Fox's many staff racists, Todd Starnes, has to say, in true Fox Fear-Mongering style, about the events in Charleston (spoiler: he never uses the words "black" "African-American" or "race").
Christians, be very afraid. They're out to kill you.
And he doesn't mean black Christians either.
"...foremost experts in church security fears the Charleston massacre could only be the beginning."
Only the beginning. A virtual torrent of church massacres against good white Christians is about to begin. We're victims! Again! Forget about those black blah, blah, blahs, we're the real victims. Over here! Look at us! We're the victims!
So it's not about racism, not about guns. It IS about the War on Christians.
And the answer? Oh, c'mon, you guys know what the answer is:
MORE GUNS. And round the clock protection for those poor white fundamentalists who are now targeted for assassination.
You'd hope that some editor would look at this and say, "What the fuck is this? Are you kidding with this shit?" but not at Fox where each and every bad thing that happens can be twisted around so that the real victims--and the only victims--are white Christians who are being killed because the love Jesus. And guns. And FREEEEDOM.
Didn't Loofah Boy tell all these people to leave the country? Let's get moving, douchebags.
@Unwashed: Of course Jeb! is too dumb to know it, but Germany's surplus is sort of a scandal. They should be using the surplus plus some to build something & hire workers from Euro countries with large debt -- Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. -- so those countries could pay off a bit of the huge debts they owe to German & other investors.
That's one of the problems with having a governor move to the Oval. Almost all of the states, including Florida, have to balance budgets by law, so Jeb! can't figure out how the global economy works (or doesn't work). He just thinks Germany is great for being so "fiscally responsible." Actually, no. Their "fiscal responsibility" translates to political instability in a Europe where German economic domination hurts most of the other Euro countries.
Marie
Well, shit.
I try to find something relatively light for Friday afternoon, but this week has been so awful it's difficult.
Nevertheless, I've found a review of a bio that might interest you RCers. The Times Literary Supplement has a review of a new biography of John Maynard Keynes, famous to most of us purely for his work as an economist.
Attacking Keynesian economics has never gone out of fashion for the right especially for his advice on how to get out of a recession: spend. The funny thing is that wingers spend plenty on stuff they like, wars, weapon systems, killing people, armies. They just hate spending on stuff they don't care about, poor people, the middle class, infrastructure, education. So Keynes's image has a place of honor on most of their dart boards.
Not long ago, right-wing historian, libertine, and stern advocate of severe austerity (for everyone else, but not for himself), Niall Ferguson, attacked Keynes's theories as being unreliable because--and I'm not even kidding about this--he was gay! He was actually bisexual, but whose counting? Ferguson also sniffed that Keynes was married to a ballerina and read poetry to her because *hint-hint*, who likes ballet and poetry? Nudge, nudge.
But even worse than reading poetry to a ballerina, according to Ferguson's wingnut hater brain, Keynes couldn't possibly care about the future (meaning his economic theories could not be relied upon in the long run) because he was gay and didn't have children. This, of course, suggests that anyone who does have kids cares immensely about the future, like, say, George W. Bush, who has said he doesn't really care about how things play out because in a hundred years we'll all be dead and who fucked up the future for millions of people. This must also mean that all those climate change deniers who have kids care about the future even though the evidence demonstrates--no, proves--the exact opposite.
Anyway, haters and idiots aside, back to Keynes. I often cheat when doing my homework. That is, rather than going out and buying and reading bios like this, I read reviews of them in places like the TLS and the NYRB. Hey, you can learn a lot in just a few thousand words. But reading that Keynes gave Bertrand Russell the shakes thinking of possibly having to argue some intellectual point with him (Bertrand Russell!) makes me want to find out more. I also didn't know that he was the guy who brokered the WWII lend-lease agreement between FDR and Churchill. Good Keynesian trivia right there, baby. Impress your friends!
So anyway, if you don't want to read a 400 page bio of JMK, but wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about the guy, check out this review.
Oh yeah, and I also learned that according to one of his lovers, Keynes was an "iron copulating machine". How many economists have you heard described thusly?
Take that Niall Ferguson.
Well shit. Let the rending of garments begin. Pathetic pablum, "our thoughts and prayers are with fill-in-the-blank", "we're sorry for your loss". How about acknowledging that the reason we have so many killings is about money not basic cause and effect, morality or mental illness. How about "I'm sorry I f-ed up and your loved ones were killed. I, me, us didn't vote for reducing the number of guns available and with huge teeth baring grins, willfully allowed the NRA to establish laissez faire gun policy". We did that because, nobody can tell me what to do and I'm apparently afraid of my shadow and.. and... and the 2nd Amendment, of which I have no actual knowledge. If you pull the piece of dental floss sticking out my ass, I will holler FREEDOM.
Mental illness is not a monolith and the mentally ill are not inherently dangerous. People with guns are dangerous, not always with intent, but because they have a lethal weapon. A lot of people suffering from psychosis, character disorders, hallucinations etc go undiagnosed and/or refuse treatment. Identifying the tiny # of people who would commit murder, especially mass murder, based on a mental illness is almost impossible. (I'd wager Tarasoff warnings rarely bear fruit)
After the killing(s), identifying the perpetrator as mentally ill creates a great "look over there, nothing to see" moment. There's a lot of talk about identifying people who are mentally ill, a lot of yada yada about more funding for mental health and a whole shit load of useless hushed sentimentality.
More to the point, I don't think people who are driven to lethal action by racial hate, religious hate, gay hate are mentally ill. No questionnaire given by an arms seller is going to result in identifying terminal dickheads before they buy a weapon. I'll just get a gun from my mom or from some guy on the street.
There is lots of wrong headed stuff going on in the country right now; racial hate, disenfranchisement of lots of groups, a celebration of willful ignorance upheld at every chance by the Supremes, which have more complicated, long term solutions. Gun control is obvious.
"The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize"
~ V. I. Lenin
I fell off the map for a few days. Went to the beach. Left the wifi at home.
I feel so small today. How small we've become as a nation. What kind of country have we created? What kind of country are we creating? Where are we headed?
The local response to the Charleston shooting, preaching forgiveness, patience and faith, is both impressive and much needed in such situations.
But what makes me the sickest are the apologists. The systematic machine of spin, of excuse, of misguided blame, of outright lies. It's well-oiled, smooth as silk, missionary.
The defeatism is suffocating. The NRA wins again. Decency's defeated. How to accept living in a society blind of its historical debts when you can plainly see?
Tomorrow's another day.
@Unwashed: sometimes people get deficit and debt confused. I'm wondering whether Jeb! is one that is confused or he was just trying to humble himself in front of all those Germans.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/feb/27/debt-vs-deficit-whats-difference/
PD,
Girl, you know Bushes don't do humble. They can barely manage polite. Superior beings who see other people as pawns in their quest for power relegate "humble" to the category of what the lessers do in their presence.
If Jeb! seemed to be amenable to Germany's stifling and economic bullying of other EU countries, it's more than likely his natural enjoyment at seeing the strong force their will on the weak. A Bush specialty.
This is one of the most outrageously stupid pieces the Times has published lately, especially the headline:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/politics/mixed-effects-are-seen-on-an-affordable-care-act-repeal.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad
The top comments, on the other hand, are magnificent; do read them.
Victoria,
Thanks for the tip. The Times continues down the path to irresponsible equivalence in its reporting. It's as if they were writing a piece on the age of the earth and felt the need to head off a tilt toward scientific evidence with a quote from Ken Hamm who declares that the Bible is the only source required for such questions, and they leave it at that.
Even more incredible is the aside that the report, such as it is, was complied using the diktats of the GOP. I'm sure those rules make for a trustworthy conclusion.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/19/1394713/-Rick-Perry-says-guns-aren-t-to-blame-for-Charleston-accident-it-was-prescription-drugs
Leave it to Rick Perry to make a really awful situation even worse than it is as quoted by Hunter in the above link.
True, AK and Victoria. As Paul Krugman is fond of saying, a typical modern headline might be "Views Differ On Shape of Earth."