The Commentariat -- July 6, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Afternoon Update:
AP: "President Barack Obama made a rare visit to the Pentagon Monday to get an update from military leaders on the campaign against the Islamic State. Obama's meetings with top Pentagon officials and other national security advisers follow a wave of weekend airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Syria. The coalition says it was one of the most sustained aerial operations carried out in Syria to date." ...
... CW: President Obama is scheduled to speak to the press at 3:55 pm ET from the Pentagon.
The New York Times is liveblogging the Greek debt story. 2:50 pm: "The European Central Bank will maintain emergency loans of about 89 billion euros, or about $98.4 billion, to Greek banks, enough to keep the banks from failing but not enough to prevent them from running out of cash that they can issue to depositors within a few days." 2:43 pm ET: "Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France said on Monday that Europe was ready to negotiate with Greece." ...
... Liz Alderman & Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "Germany maintained a hard line with Athens on Monday after Greek voters rejected Europe's austerity policies in a referendum, intensifying pressure on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to restart bailout talks and opening a rift with European countries that appeared more inclined now to consider softening the push for austerity. As Mr. Tsipras changed his finance minister Monday and laid plans to restart bailout negotiations with creditors, however, it appeared the jubilation that followed the no vote in Greece could fade quickly as signs of financial collapse become more evident." This is an update of the story linked below.
Amy Chozick & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "The ample crowds and unexpectedly strong showing by Senator are setting off worry among advisers and allies of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who believe the Vermont senator could overtake her in Iowa polls by the fall and even defeat her in the nation's first nominating contest there. The enthusiasm that Mr. Sanders has generated ... has called into question Mrs. Clinton's early strategy of focusing on a listening tour of small group gatherings and wooing big donors in private settings. In May, Mrs. Clinton led with 60 percent support to Mr. Sanders' 15 percent in a Quinnipiac poll. Last week the same poll showed Mrs. Clinton at 52 percent to Mr. Sanders's 33 percent."
Lindsay Dunsmuir of Reuters: "Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will return as a partner at the law firm he had left [-- Covington & Burling --] to become the nation's top law enforcement official, his new employer said in a statement."
*****
Suzanne Daley of the New York Times: "Greeks delivered a shocking rebuff to Europe's leaders on Sunday, decisively rejecting a deal offered by the country's creditors in a historic vote that could redefine Greece's place in Europe and shake the Continent's financial stability. As people gathered to celebrate in Athens's central Syntagma Square, the Interior Ministry reported that with more than 90 percent of the vote tallied, 61 percent of the voters had said no to a deal that would have imposed greater austerity measures on the beleaguered country." ...
... Here's the Guardian's liveblog. Jill Treanor of the Guardian looks ahead to what's next. ...
... Liz Alderman & Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "Greece's combative finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, who took a strong stand in demanding that creditors write off some of his country's debts, abruptly resigned on Monday morning.... Mr. Varoufakis had threatened last week to resign in the event of a yes vote, and his decision to step down after he and his allies prevailed in the referendum was unexpected. His resignation appeared to be the first move at conciliation toward Greece's creditors by the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras." ...
... Daniela Deane of the Washington Post: "... Combative Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis left his government post Monday in his trademark way -- by sparing no words hitting back at the euro zone governments he accuses of trying to break the back of his economically-embattled country. In a blog post more akin to a war cry, Varoufakis, a 54-year-old Greek-Australian economist, said Sunday's referendum will go down in history as the time when a 'small European nation rose up against debt-bondage.'" ...
... Here's Varoufakis's post. ...
... Paul Krugman: "Tsipras and Syriza have won big in the referendum, strengthening their hand for whatever comes next. But they're not the only winners: I would argue that Europe, and the European idea, just won big -- at least in the sense of dodging a bullet.... European institutions have just been saved from their own worst instincts." ...
... Update. Ode on a Grecian Turn (thanks, W!): Here's Krugman's full column on the Greek crisis: "The [European Central Bank] now faces an awkward choice: if it resumes normal financing [for Greece] it will as much as admit that the previous freeze was political, but if it doesn't it will effectively force Greece into introducing a new currency."
What's going on with the austerity is really class war. -- Noam Chomsky
... Joshua Keating of Slate: "Greece called Europe's bluff.... In a confusing referendum over a potential bailout package that hasn't actually existed for several days, many voters in the 'no' camp seem to have been motivated less by specific economic concerns than by a desire to end the humiliation of having unpopular policies forced on them by foreign governments, resulting in dire economic conditions. They've won a victory today, and have been cheered on by anti-establishment figures around the world ranging from Britain's far-right UKIP leader Nigel Farage to Bernie Sanders." ...
What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up.... When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations. -- Thomas Piketty, in a Die Zeit interview, translated from German
Karen DeYoung & Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday tamped down growing optimism that agreement on a nuclear deal with Iran is near, saying that negotiations 'can go either way' as a Tuesday deadline approached. 'I want to be absolutely clear,' Kerry told reporters after exiting a session with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, his third of the day. 'We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues.'"
Frank Bajak & Nicolle Winfield of the AP: "Latin America's first pope returned to Spanish-speaking South America on Sunday for the first time, bringing a message of solidarity with the poor and with an ailing planet as he began an eight-day tour that will take him to some of the continent's most impoverished countries.... [Francis,] the 'pope of the poor,' will highlight in his visit to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay his priorities of protecting the marginalized and the planet from injustice and exploitation."
Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "Over the past six years, Colorado has conducted one of the largest ever real-life experiments with long-acting birth control.... Teenagers and poor women were offered free intrauterine devices and implants that prevent pregnancy for years.... The birthrate for teenagers across the state plunged by 40 percent from 2009 to 2013, while their rate of abortions fell by 42 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. There was a similar decline in births for another group particularly vulnerable to unplanned pregnancies: unmarried women under 25 who have not finished high school.... The private grant that funds the state program has started to run out, and while many young women are expected to be covered under the health care law, some plans have required payment or offered only certain methods, problems the Obama administration is trying to correct.
... CW: Just one more egregious example of how right-wing ideology trumps equal rights, economic pragmatism & common sense. As Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote exactly a year ago, "Colorado is saving money thanks to the drop in teen pregnancy: Medicaid costs are lowered by $5.68 for every dollar spent on the contraception program."
... Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "The South Carolina legislature is expected on Monday to take up the fate of the Confederate battle flag that flies on the State House grounds, responding to demands that it be removed after the June 17 massacre of nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston. The State Senate, encouraged by Gov. Nikki R. Haley and many other elected officials, is scheduled to consider a bipartisan proposal to move the battle flag, long viewed by African-Americans as a defiant tribute to South Carolina's segregationist past, to the state's Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in Columbia." ...
... Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "If teaching history is how society shows younger generations who they are and where they came from, the Civil War presents unique challenges, especially because of the fundamental differences in the way the cause of the war is perceived 150 years after its last battle. Nowhere is the rejection of slavery's central role more apparent than in Texas, where elected members of the state board of education revised state social studies standards in 2010 to correct for what they said was a liberal slant.... Historians acknowledge that disagreements over states' rights played a role in the Civil War. But the states' rights issue was inseparable from slavery, they say: The right that states in the South were seeking to protect, after all, was the right to buy and sell people." ...
... Susan Haigh of the AP: "The massacre at a predominantly black South Carolina church has institutions from Alaska to Connecticut evaluating whether they should continue enshrining the names of historical figures linked to slavery and the Confederacy. ...
... This March 2014 story by Carol Bass in Yale Alumni Magazine has some background on Yale's Calhoun College, including the baudlerization of that stained-glass window depicting John C. Calhoun proudly standing over "a black man in shackles, in tatters, [who is] kneeling before him." ...
... Look Away, Dixieland. digby stitches together some ostensibly unrelated stories to demonstrate how "the southern cavalier never came to terms with the South's defeat and the blow to his sense of natural superiority, not just over former slaves, but over Yankees. Old times there may not be forgotten, but some things must not be mentioned." ...
... ** CW: As to those Democratic Jefferson-Jackson dinners Haigh cites, read Jonathan Chait: Andrew Jackson was "the father of the modern Republican Party.... Jackson was a populist, but he directed his populism not at the local elites (of which he was one) but at the federal government. He favored the gold standard, and his opposition to a National Bank served the interests of the local banks that competed against it. He believed the Constitution prevented the government from taking an active role in managing economic affairs. He was instinctively aggressive, poorly educated, anti-intellectual, and suspicious of bureaucrats. (Jackson replaced more qualified federal staffers with partisan hacks.) He resisted any challenge to racial hierarchies."
Los Angeles Times Editors: "The Department of Homeland Security announced recently that it would release hundreds of mothers and children who are seeking political asylum, so that they can await their hearings in freedom rather than in detention facilities. That was a welcome move, but the government should go further and undertake a top-to-bottom review of the entire immigration detention system with an eye toward jailing as few people as possible."
Erwin Chermerinsky in the New Republic: "Although Senator [Ted] Cruz has the right intention, his proposed solution [-- retention elections --] would endanger the independence of the Court, rather than bolster it.... However, there is a reform that truly deserves thoughtful consideration: term limits for Supreme Court justices.... Term limits appropriately does not favor either political party or any ideology and has strong bipartisan support.... The best idea is that each justice should be appointed for an 18-year, non-renewable term, thus creating a vacancy every two years.... A system of government that allows a handful of men and women to hold great power for such an extended period of time is, by nature, more feudal than democratic.... No other country in the world gives life tenure to its judiciary. Only one state (Rhode Island) does."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Steve M. wants to know: "Why is Maureen Dowd still at The New York Times? Why hasn't she joined the likes of Dick Morris and Judy Miller and become the regular Fox contributor she's obviously qualified to be? Her fixation on the Lewinsky scandal would make her perfectly at home in Wingnuttia, where old scandals are endlessly rehashed and grievances are nurtured for decades.... Give it up, MoDo. Go over to the dark side. We're sick of you here."
Presidential Race
Jana Kasperkevic of the Guardian: "As he surges in the polls, closing the gap on Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders is being taken increasingly seriously as a potential presidential candidate. In a 10-minute interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Sanders -- an independent senator from Vermont running for the Democratic nomination as a self-described 'democratic socialist' -- fended off tougher questions about that identification than he had previously been asked. Repeating a familiar line from his campaign and TV appearances so far, he said his popularity was in part due to the fact that ordinary American voters wanted a candidate who was willing to take on the establishment."
Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "In the lush countryside and teeming city neighborhoods where Senator Marco Rubio's family cut sugar cane, toiled in tobacco mills and scraped by to make a better life for their children, the first Cuban-American to have a plausible chance to become president of the United States is the island's least favorite son.... [Rubio] has argued for years that normalized relations with the United States would only strengthen an oppressive Cuban government that impoverishes its people, limits access to information and violates human rights.... Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the other Cuban-American Republican running for president, hardly registers." Rubio blames state-controlled media for his unpopularity among Cubans.
Ben Gittelson of ABC News: "Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said he didn't believe that his fellow 2016 contender Donald Trump 'understands the challenge' of strengthening the U.S.-Mexico border, adding he was 'offended' when Trump labeled Mexicans 'rapists' during a speech last month." ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post (July 4): "Jeb Bush says he's 'absolutely' personally offended by Donald Trump's recent incendiary comments about Mexico and immigrants coming from the country. Bush, the former Florida governor whose wife is from Mexico, made his comments about Trump to reporters at the end of two Independence Day parades in the first-in-the-nation primary state." ...
... CW: One has to wonder why it took these profiles in courage three weeks to mention it wasn't okay to characterize Mexicans as criminals & rapists. ...
... Ali Elkin of Bloomberg: "... Ted Cruz says he won't attack primary rival Donald Trump for his comments on Mexican immigrants.... 'I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration,' the Texas senator said on NBC's Meet the Press in an interview that aired Sunday. 'The Washington cartel doesn't want to address that.'... To his 3.1 million Twitter followers, [Trump] urged Rubio to 'stand up for US'; said Romney 'lost an election against Obama that should NEVER have been lost!'; said Perry 'failed at the border' and 'needs a new pair of glasses to see the crimes committed by illegal immigrants'; and said Bush 'will never secure our border or negotiate great trade deals for American workers." ...
... AND, if you just happened to miss Chuck & Ted's excellent conversation, Driftglass reprises all the parts you need to know. Just for the record, Chuck & Ted were unable to solve some minor problems, like the 11 million-plus undocumented people living in the U.S. But as Chuck wisely noted, the segment was short, & the boyz would figure it out in a future installment of Press the Meat. Tune in next week, people, when Chuck will not solve other pressing issues: Grexit! Iranian nukes! Wealth inequality! ...
... Ali Breland of Politico: "Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday announced that he had raised more than $51 million in his first few months as a presidential candidate, split between his official campaign and the super PACs supporting his 2016 bid."
Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Sunday blamed the media for continuing to link him to the Bridgegate scandal that has ensnared two of his top former aides, saying he deserves an apology. 'Three different investigations have verified exactly what I said the day after this incident happened, that I have no knowledge of it and had absolutely nothing to do with it,' Christie said on 'Fox News Sunday.'" CW: I'll be looking for the fact-checkers on that one. "Couldn't find fingerprints" and "verified innocence" have quite different meanings, Mr. Former Prosecutor. And I'm awfully, awfully sorry for linking to all that liberal trash talk.
Rand Paul -- Still Making Up the Stuff He Doesn't Plagiarize. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "By a wide margin, the most popular fact check of June is a Four-Pinocchio ruling concerning an oft-told tale by Sen. Rand Paul about an elderly man imprisoned for having 'dirt on his land.' Little of Paul's account turned out to be true."
... He was convicted of a RICO conspiracy. RICO's something you're supposed to be going after gangsters for. You know what his conspiracy was? Conspiracy to put dirt on his own land. We've gone crazy. We've run amok. -- Rand Paul, June 9
Lucas was convicted of mail fraud, conspiracy and environmental violations -- not of organized crime. He was convicted for his role in developing 67 lots inside federally protected wetlands, building on wetlands without approval and knowingly selling land with illegal sewage systems that were likely to fail. And he did not serve the full nine-year sentence in prison. -- Glenn Kessler
Beyond the Beltway
Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Times: "In a scathing audit, state tax officials slammed nonprofit health insurer Blue Shield of California for stockpiling 'extraordinarily high surpluses' -- more than $4 billion -- and for failing to offer more affordable coverage or other public benefits. The California Franchise Tax Board cited those reasons, among others, for revoking Blue Shield's state tax exemption last year, according to documents related to the audit that were reviewed by The Times. These details have remained secret until now.... The company continues to appeal the state's revocation."
Hector Tobar, in a New York Times op-ed: "... a survey by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found an 85 percent increase in the number of people [in L.A.] living in tents and cars over the past two years.... California has both the most 'ultrarich' (people worth more than $30 million) and the worst poverty rate in America."
Sam Collins of Think Progress: "Hours after [Philadelphia Police Chief Charles] Ramsey announced the rollout of a new policy that mandates the public disclosure of officers in police-involved shootings, Lodge 5 Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the union organization representing the employees of the Philadelphia Police Department, filed an unfair labor complaint against him, saying that he implemented the new policy 'without negotiating with or securing the approval of the FOP.'"
News Ledes
ABC News: "As Americans were celebrating the Fourth of July holiday, four Russian long-range bomber aircraft flew close enough to the US shores that they were intercepted by military fighter jets. The first set of two bombers flew near Alaska and just 30 minutes later a separate set flew far off the west coast of California. According to officials at NORAD the flights stayed within international airspace and at no time did any of the Russian bombers enter or get close to entering sovereign North American boundaries." CW: Sarah Palin saw them from her porch.
Los Angeles Times: About 18,000 attended a birthday celebrate for the Dalai Lama at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
New York Times: Pope Francis is in Equador.
AP: "The surviving escapee from a prison break and three-week manhunt will spend 23 hours a day in a maximum-security cell, much more confined than he and a fellow murder convict were in the prison from which they managed a getaway, officials said Sunday. David Sweat, who was shot and wounded during his June 28 capture, was taken early Sunday from Albany Medical Center to the infirmary at the Five Points Correctional Facility in the central New York town of Romulus...."
New York Times: The U.S. took the Women's World Cup in a 5-2 victory against Japan.
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Reader Comments (10)
Chomsky is right. That is, I agree with him, totally.
Just sent this to the NYTimes on today's Krugman:
"In addition to all Dr. Krugman has said for years now about the stranglehold the Euro has on Greece and other debtor European countries, maybe we should consider the possibility that something more fundamental is going on in Greece and elsewhere.
We invented money as an avatar for the way we distribute resources. It is the way we keep score, establish winners and losers, and it is also the means by which we rig the game. What money and the value we place on it does not do is take into account the many costs to the environment and to humanity upon which the profiteers choose not to place a dollar sign.
Some of those uncounted costs have become more evident with the rise of globalization, a process created and controlled by corporate interests limited only to profit.
Greece was profitable as long as it paid interest on its debt. Since it can no longer do so, its people become economic non-entities.
We call it a crisis, but it far more than a crisis; it is a human tragedy affecting millions.
But the real tragedy is that we can expect more and more of them. As long as we allow those who have the money to set all the rules, when whole populations are no more than interest-generating chattels, or in other parts of the world just inconvenient bodies in the way of more resource extraction, we will undoubtedly lurch from one crisis to the next.
And that will happen as long as we play by other people's rules, simplistically valuing everything in dollars and cents."
Hope everyone in RCworld had a fine 4th. As one of my sons remarked yesterday, the eight 4ths before the last 7 were really hard to take.
@Ken Winkes: Excellent comment to the Times. Should make it to a top spot.
I look upon every Independence Day as a good day as long as my house doesn't get burnt to the ground.
Marie
Now that GOP presidential candidates have found, or rented, some balls enabling them to criticize Donald Trump for his flagrantly untrue and vicious comments about Mexican immigrants, the wingnut backlash has begun. Rich (Sarah Palin winked at me!!) Lowry with his puddle-deep moral authority has weighed in on politico.com and decided that Trump is right. He has a point about those dangerous Mexicans.
But before wiggling his microsized pecker about the place in Confederate joy, Lowry took time to describe how evil left-wing bullies have juiced up Trump's bona fides with the idiots because anytime one of their own is criticized just for "something they said" and then attacked by all the corporations who have been tossing Trump aside like radioactive waste product and who, naturally, take their marching orders from those left-wing bullies (don't I wish), again for nothing more than "something he said", they will circle the paranoia wagons and celebrate the good man's health, wishing him long life and plenty more opportunities to spread Confederate dung droppings.
A couple of things about this fractious and fractured line of thought.
First, since when is calling someone out on an outrageous statement "bullying"? Trump is the biggest bully in the shithole, but he cries like a baby whenever someone tells him he's out of line. Second, to echo Ken's comment, in the money world, everyone's your best friend as long as 1.) you make them money, and 2.) you pay up. When you start costing them money, they will dropkick your ass. This is the Way of Capitalism and Trump, who reminds anyone who has the stomach to hear it again, that he practically invented capitalism, should know this. Instead he whines and cries, threatens lawsuits and says things like "you can't fire me, I fired you first..." and other mature utterances.
Another thing: words matter. What people say matters. Words don't appear out of the blue. They are--with most people--the result of a considered opinion. And opinions form the basis for policy ideas and policy ideas translate into real world acts affecting actual human beings. So the idea that Trump believing that Mexicans coming to this country are gangsters and rapists and murderers isn't just "something he says". Such statements matter in the real world and he should be prepared to back them up or suffer the consequences. You can't get away with saying, "Well, I hey, I was just sayin'".
But such things don't matter to a guy like Lowry who was ready to make Sarah Palin number two in line to blow up the world just because he thinks she winked at him.
So back to his assertion that Trump has a point about those awful Mexicans.
According to Lowry, Trump is 100% correct when he says that Mexico is not sending us their best (so let's send Trump to Mexico and call it even). But "not their best" is not the same as "rapists and murderers". Something else that doesn't matter in Right Wing World. If you're on their hit list, facts and logic do not matter.
And not only that, what ever happened to the idea of "land of opportunity"? This is a country built by immigrants. Today, however, opportunity is only for them that already gots.
Every day there's a new passel of douchebags from the right. It's Rich Lowry's turn (again) today.
P.S. And a big "fuck you" to Politico for providing this fraud a regular platform from which to piss on everyone else.
The Thomas Piketty interview in Die Zeit is more than worth your time. It is another example of how ignorance of history can warp current thinking and endangers the future by opting for bad decisions based on fantasy. We see it in this country all the time. Marie links a story about an experiment in birth control in Colorado has had multiple effects, all good, in social, personal, political, and economic spheres. That is the indisputable history. Yet Republicans are willing to ignore all of that for an ideological win, which will turn back all the gains and end up costing everyone. For what?
Confederates and supporters of Confederate policies have been holding to the lie that the Civil War had little to do with slavery and that continued fealty to the stars and bars is nothing more than a natural affinity for regional heritage and an ongoing support of states' rights. The truth is the exact opposite, but policies and positions based not on history but on fantasy have had terrible impacts on that region and the nation as a whole.
Germany wishes to lecture Greece, and anyone else in financial troubles about how to handle their own finances and behave like Angela Merkel's "thrifty Swabian housewife" when Germany, historically has done nothing of the kind. (It's funny to see Piketty drill the interviewer a new asshole for his or her own lack of historical perspective).
But we see pretty much the same thing in this country where moochers like Jamie Dimon demand to be respected as "job creators" when they've been the architects of a financial crisis that thrust millions into unemployment and now Wall Street Masters of the Universe, cheerleaders for profligacy and wildly dangerous economic chicanery now lecture the rest of us on austerity and tax relief for the wealthy.
History matters. Wingnuts know this. This is why they assiduously strive to control what kids learn from history books; why they've removed much actual history and replaced it with Confederate reworkings based on fantasy and fiction.
The latest sock full of excrement being flung around by Li'l Randy is proof positive that professional liars in our present political mise en-scène never pay the toll. How many people do you think read about Kessler's assessment of the "Imprisoned for dirt on his land" canard as a four Pinocchio whopper vs. the number who have read about this horror of government tyranny on wingnut websites, on Fox, or by word of mouth which, by the time it gets that far, has Barack Obama himself clobbering this guy and nailing his hands and feet to a cross pulled out of a fundie chuch by pipe wielding black men who paused only long enough to rape all the white womens before setting the church ablaze with white babies locked inside?
Professional liars get even more press than truth tellers. Why? Just look at Trump. Because these people generate the all important website clicks. Confederate whoppers are guaranteed click bait, which means advertising dollars go up.
So why print a story about GOP support for Wall Street bankers who are raping the economy when you can opt for a juicy story about a poor old man imprisoned by liberal tyrants because he loved FREEEDOM! or a tale about Mexicans planning to murder white 'mericans in their sleep?
Confederate Backlash in Support of the Iconography of Slavery.
Fox (who else?), is pissed. PISSED! that the Confederate flag is coming in for such hard times and Confederates are being attacked for their love of heritage...and stuff...when all those liberals are still allowed to purchase and flaunt pictures of Che Guevara and other murdering commie bastards. So poor, victimized wingnuts can't fly their heritage flag, which is only about states' rights and fried chicken, while some of the worst villains in history are given a pass and even celebrated by 'merica hatin' lib'ruls. Because slave owners were such nice guys.
No kidding. I had no idea the sale of pictures of Stalin and Lenin and Che Guevara is so lucrative. I dunno about you guys, but I cherish the posters of these guys I have in my secret commie altar built in my garage. I also have pictures of Hitler and Mao and Ho and a special area roped off for professional serial killers. Every Sunday morning, when I should be in church, I turn the crucifix upside down in front of Lenin and burn an American flag. Because that's how liberals roll.
It wouldn't be quite so tiresome if it weren't so predictable.
First, posters of Che Guevara are not relevant to the people who are murdering innocents, setting black churches on fire, and working day and night to deprive certain Americans of voting rights and civil liberties. And second, Che wasn't American. One could probably make a point that if you're gonna decide not to sell Confederate paraphernalia, then you shouldn't be selling pictures of Che Guevara or T-shirts with images of Lenin on them. But why stop there? Why can you still buy copies of "Mein Kampf" or the Koran? Why allow someone to make a movie or write a book about anything other than Fox approved faux American history?
So you could try to make this argument, but it might not be too successful. Lenin and Che were not integral to the history of this country and their images are mostly adopted by college kids who want to present as counter cultural in some way. And I'll bet my mom's DAR lifetime membership card that Confederate iconography exerts a far greater influence and has a much higher visibility than posters of Che fucking Guevara.
Che Guevara had some troubling aspects of his life, no doubt, but his influence, and that of Lenin's, in this country doesn't compare in the slightest to the impact of Confederate imagery (which I saw in abundance, by the way, on the Fourth of July--must have missed all those commies with their Lenin T-shirts).
But for Fox, this is a perfect "They do it too, and they're WORSE than us!" moment.
N.B.: My mom wasn't in the DAR. It would've been funny if she tried though. Her family was picking potatoes and catching fish on the Aran Isles until well into the last century. I've heard tell of some who tried to get into the DAR, but like the Mafia, if you don't have Sicilian blood, you ain't gonna be a made man, or, er, lady.
@Akhilleus: The trouble with Li'l Randy's lies is that they're not just big-fish stories. As you say, a lot of people hear them, the lies fit into their "political philosophies," so they believe the lies.
I read a stat this morning that 74% of Iowa Republicans don't want "the government" to do anything to address inequality, which in itself is rich because obviously the government, via the tax structure, already meddles with "equality." It's part of the reason Mitt pays taxes at half the rate I do (that, & his Caymen Island tax dodges). But of course when Li'l Randy's & Santorum's followers hear the question, they translate it into Grand Old Patois: "Do you want the government to take your hard-earned money & give it to 'blah' people?"
Li'l Randy is teaching the sheeples well. It's a crying shame.
Marie
Marie,
Yeah....But I wonder if all those Iowans anxious about government intervention would feel the same if "The Government" decided to stay out of their lives altogether. No services, no roads, no public schools, no state or local police or fire departments, no interstate commerce either. Iowan farmers would have to arrange for and enforce all sales contracts themselves and pay the going rate, whatever it was, by pirates, who had no controls or oversight. Bet they'd also love it if the EPA and FDA stayed out of their hair too. Anyone could bottle Coca Cola laced with formaldehyde and ginseng or brown sugar and sell their snake oil at $50 a pop. Guaranteed to cure what ails ya. Also, when the fracking guys come to town, if your tap water ignites on contact with the air, good luck trying to call anyone (good luck with that anyway).
Confederate propaganda has been so successful that people have no idea what they're talking about when they start in about "the Guv'mint".
"The Government" is all of us. Which means Fox and the winger pols and pundits have been promoting a kind of mass suicide. Only don't tell anyone. It'd infringe on their FREEEDOM.
An article in the NYT yesterday addressed the amount of time candidates have to spend posing for "selfies" with their supporters.
I was reminded of a line from the National Lampoon parody 'The Polaroid Print of Dorian Gray' by Michael O'Donoghue:
"Perhaps the Bushmen are right... having one's photograph taken really does steal the soul, which would go a long way toward explaining the vapidity of movie stars and top fashion models, not to mention the mindlessness of television."
It would certainly go a hell of long way toward explaining our political culture.
Thomas Piketty on German moralizing re Greek debt:
http://wapo.st/1J0M6kx