Plus ca change

Today, a three-way confluence of history and politics. I traced a link from Hullabaloo to this item from the Douglas County Oregon News-Review:

A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists.

The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest.

Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home.

The Byerses said they got out of their car to stop vehicles from entering the driveway and one tea party member almost ran them over.

Sara Byers said she was so shaken she called 911. She said a Douglas County deputy called about an hour and a half later and said he had been unable to respond because of other incidents. Byers said she was still considering filing a criminal complaint against members of the tea party for harassment.

A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group's version of events.

“They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do.”

Members of the smaller group said Monday they were intimidated by the tea partiers, whom they accused of violating their constitutional right to peacefully assembly.

Roseburg resident Lillen Fifield, 70, called the group's actions an “act of domestic terrorism” and said she was appalled that a peaceful gathering — mostly of women older than 65 — was interrupted.

“It is not OK to go around and intimidate and threaten people. That is not acceptable in a polite society,” Fifield said.

Conservative organizers defended their actions and said they will continue to protest similar gatherings.

“We were there to find out what they had to say and to bring a notice to the public that this kind of thing was going on. Quite honestly, if they have it again, then we are really going to make it well known,” Raynor said.

Raynor said the group believes MoveOn.org is a communist front and said he would not stand for America becoming a fascist nation.

Then, I glanced at the opening of a Calvin Trillin piece in this week's New Yorker. He describes an encounter at a meeting in Santa Fe with a woman who, when five-years-old, integrated a New Orleans public school. That was fifty years ago. Trillin covered the story for Time. He was on the “Seg Beat” as the civil rights movement gained momentum. In the New Yorker piece, Trillin describes standing among jeering protesters as they spewed hatred towards the young black children escorted into school by US marshals. “Black ape,” was one of the most memorable epithets.

The New Yorker article, in turn, triggered my memory of “Travels with Charlie.” Near the end of that book, Steinbeck describes watching a similar (the same?) scene. I think he was in New Orleans, but it could have been Little Rock. Steinbeck was fascinated by the women in the screaming mob. He noticed that most lacked wedding rings and were, he assumed, childless as well as unmarried. Their hatred and vile rants were all the more surprising because they had no direct role in the dispute.

There is a straight, unbroken, 50-year-long line from screaming southern segregationists to Oregon tea partiers. Nothing new. Just reblended ignorance, fear, anger, and stupidity. Who else could label MoveOn.org as communists and, at the same time, inveigh against fascism? What a bunch of losers.

The fire this time

Here in New Mexico, June was a hideous month of smoke and fire. The mountains -- mostly National Forest land -- burned. I could see from my back yard aerial tankers flying low over rugged terrain and through blinding smoke to drop fire-stopping slurry. Helicopters carrying vast water buckets flew circuits all day from lake to fire and back. Athletic fields at the edge of Santa Fe were tent cities housing firefighting crews brought in from other states.

I tried to imagine the response to wildfires in a Randian/Tea Party world. Surprise! What they call freedom becomes a country dominated by insurers and litigators. The Las Conchas fire – which is now the largest wildfire in New Mexico history – is a good example. The blaze started on a privately-owned ranch when a power line was pulled down by a falling tree. Fire spread quickly across public, private, and tribal land. In Randworld, of course, all of the involved land would be privately held and all firefighting privately paid. The ranch owners where the fire started would need insurance against damage to their own property plus coverage in case their fire spread to neighboring property. The bank holding the mortgage would also insist on coverage against fires due to uninsured neighbors. This would be similar to auto policies covering uninsured drivers. Insurance premiums would skyrocket in times of drought – meaning now – as fire risk increased. And, there, once again, is the big hole in Randite logic. Why would any private insurer risk catastrophic losses from large wildfires? Expect them, instead, to cancel existing policies outright or indirectly by demanding exorbitant premiums. Think of a cancer survivor trying to buy health insurance.

The Randite market may be wise, but it is not stable. Without insurance, property values plunge. Banks will call in mortgages. Land owners may abandon their holdings, but can not escape their responsibilities. Coping with fires – whether due to lightning, felled power lines, or carelessness – remains the land owner's responsibility. Neighbors, who likely also hold canceled insurance policies, can try to help put out the flames or can help pay professional firefighters. What if that's not enough? The Las Conchas fire went from start to 43,000 acres in half a day. Imagine a raging fire three times the size of Manhattan. It is now close to 150,000 acres. The firefighting costs tens of millions of dollars. Will the newly destitute sue the newly destitute? Will land owners turn over their mutually charred property to the bank or firefighting company? How many Mediterranean Avenues can anyone want?

Try a different scenario. Your privately-owned mountain paradise is parched by drought. Fires are demolishing thousands of acres of similar land near home and in adjacent states. You are like a rancher whose cattle are dying of thirst, or a farmer tending withered crops. You have been a conscientious steward of your property. You cleared tinder-dry underbrush from the forested areas. But, that's not enough. Living trees are so badly desiccated that fire can jump easily from crown to crown. In the Las Conchas fire, trees tops burned so fiercely that fist-sized burning embers were blown up to half a mile ahead of the fire line. Yes, you must destroy your land in order to save it. Cut down the trees and haul the logs away. (To where?) Cool mountain forest is transformed into rocky, sun-blanched high desert. The fire, if – or when – it comes, will rage around or over whatever remains. Breathe a sigh of relief. But, what happens when the rains come or winter's snow piles high? The water you craved in fire season is now the enemy. Nature serves up erosion, avalanches, and mudslides. Your fate – and bank account – are again entwined with your neighbors' after run-off from your property floods a neighbor's house, or barn, or buries their pick-up truck with sixteen tons of muck.

In the Randian United States, e plurbus unum is replaced with Go Fuck Yourself. Unrestricted selfishness generates endless bickering, threats, and counter-threats. Limited-imagination Randites believe that guns and more guns can maintain peace. They don't get it. The big problems will start when routine commerce operates without the guarantees now provided by government. Every Main Street transaction will needed to be hedged against the newest, ugliest economic catastrophe. If libertarian bozos complain now about lawyers getting in the way of everyday life, just wait until all buying and selling requires hold-harmless agreements, arbitration requirements, and specifications for a myriad of other contingencies. Insurance companies and litigators will inherit the earth.

Open Letter to Meghan McCain

Dear Ms. McCain,

What did you expect? Really. You are a Republican party shill. A conservative hack. You have criticized the obviously criticizable. That's your shtick. An inherited dollop of maverickism. You remain, however, the obvious product of your privileged upbringing. Your mother's inherited family fortune -- always huge -- has grown and grown and grown under 30 years of voodoo economics that has punished 90% of Americans. Have you complained about this inequity? No. Instead, you blast Wisconsin's unionized public employees and their supporters in the state legislature. Quelle surprise!

Republicans -- and you are one -- have been consistently wrong about the economy, taxes, the environment, global warming, energy, education, civil rights, women's rights, abortion, separation of church and state, Iraq, terrorism, Osama bin Laden, labor, the President's birthplace, the President's religion, unions, regulation, workplace safety, and Wall Street. You try claim a distinct identify by tugging at the edges: Sarah Palin and her clones, DADT, and California's Proposition 8. We get an ounce of sanity among a ton of crazy. Big deal.

Now, you have been burned by a right wing bomb thrower. Welcome to the club. Beck, Limbaugh, and the rest are the Republican party's brown shirts. Your crowd has long benefited from their lies and bullying. So don't expect us to share your outrage and indignation until you first speak up for every other victim of Glenn Beck's cruelty. I am waiting

How Much Is Enough?

Robert Greenwald has created a Facebook page asking for answers to, "What would Abbie Hoffman do to stop the Koch brothers?" Hoffman had a terrific sense of guerrilla theater. I don't; but, I can do math and am trying to create imagery and understandable statistics that compare the Koch family to the merely rich. Maybe someone else can find Abbie-Hoffmanesque inspiration from the grotesque size of the Koch family fortune.

Forbes reports Charles and David Koch's combined wealth at $43,000,000,000. How much money is forty-three billion dollars? It is a stack of $100 bills that is 29 miles tall and weighs 474 tons. Moving that much weight would require 18 tractor trailers. The next time you see a truck roll by try to imagine it loaded with $100 bills. Then include another truck and another and another until you have a fleet of eighteen tractor-trailers.

Now, take a standard airline carry-on bag and fill it with fresh, crisp $100 bills. The bag will hold four million dollars, or less than one hundredth of one percent of the Koch family fortune. Yet, $4 million would rank your wealth among the elite top 10% of all Americans. If you invested the money conservatively, you would collect $180,000 every year for the next 50 years and have a million dollars left for your children to inherit. You would not have to work. Just walk to your mailbox and pick up $15,000 every month for 50 years. Thanks to George Bush and his cronies, your money would be taxed at only 15% after one year.

What's that? You're worried about inflation? One-hundred eighty-thousand bucks a year is a lot of money today, but might not be worth much in 50 years. I agree. So, as long as we are playing imagination games, assume that you have ten airline carry-on bags each stuffed with $100 bills. Now, the Koch brothers are only a thousand times wealthier than you are. You may feel poor next to David and Charles, but, you've hit the big time; you get $1,800,000 a year without having to work. Every single day including weekends and holidays someone puts $4,900 into your pockets. Your earnings put you among the top 1% of all Americans. After a half century of high living -- champagne, caviar, first class travel, fast cars, slow horses, your kids in private schools -- you or your heirs will still have $10 million to play with.

Never forget, though, that even with $40 million in the bank, the Kochs make your family look like pikers, poor relations, chumps, schnorers, Beverly Hillbillies, fly specs, and people directed to the servants entrance. Your wealth is Koch brothers rounding error. The stuff they toss to mean-streaked tapioca-brain teabaggers like Scott Walker and Chris Christie.

Ask the question. Not the one about Abbie Hoffman , but the bigger question: How much is enough? The Kochs are not an example of the American dream. Far from it. They have created an American nightmare in which wealth and political paranoia bring all of us down. It is enough to make this Jewish atheist turn to the New Testament, "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." (1 Timothy 6:10)

Dog Bites Man!

From the newspaper of record:

The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry.

What a big surprise! We needed a 10-person elite Federal panel to figure it all out. In this modern age of incompetence and conservatopian fantasy, only a six panelists could see what was written in big bolded text. The others, meaning the Republicans, are doing the cockroach scurry blaming everyone except Wall Street's giant vampire squids.

Why Liberals Are Wrong

There are false equivalences and then there are false equivalences. "Both sides do it," is widely known. Less so -- but equally wrong -- is the idea that conservative thought or morality is a mirror image of liberal ideology.

Krugman falls into the trap here

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty

Lawrence Davidson of Reader Supported News fails here (my italics):

The United States is, once more, increasingly a house divided. It is not divided by "slavery agitation" though some of the issues have their roots in that era. It is divided over fundamental differences in the meaning of the nation's Constitution and the very nature of government. These differences bring with them feelings that are just as emotional and inherently divisive as was slavery.

There are a growing number of Americans who no longer believe in the modern interpretation and application of US Constitution. They insist that the way Constitutional interpretation has evolved over the past half-century is a betrayal of true American principles. Many of these Americans are apparently enamored of the 19th century outlook that the only government that is legitimate is that which sees to the police, the military and the law. Everything else should be a private concern. If you tax them for programs that have to do with social equity or economic justice (even in its pitifully weak form), or even to maintain public functions such as education, transportation and social services, they consider it theft and imagine that they are subject to a new tyranny. In addition, many of them are not willing to go along with any election that might run counter to their outlook. Some are very close to advocating sedition, and a few are obviously already gunning for their imagined "tyrants."

Krugman and Davidson are looking down into a cesspool and think they see dirtied reflections of themselves. No, they are looking at a cesspool.

Let's start with Prof. Krugman who says that conservatives have a moral code different from liberals. Well, he is correct only in the sense that nothing is different from something. Morality requires thought. An ability to evaluate different ideas. Training a dog to behave politely -- to sit on command, come when called, and walk without tugging at the leash -- does not make the dog moral. It just makes the dog behave as its master chooses. The same dog could next be trained to snarl, bark, and bite, and would do so without contemplating moral distinctions between the two types of behavior. So goes American conservatism.

Davidson also assumes too much. Have you ever talked to Tea Partiers? They are indiscriminate ignoramuses unable to answer the simplest questions about their beliefs. Remember, they are the same people who are frightened of government involvement in Medicare and Social Security. The same people who can't understand that investing excess Social Security funds in government securities is good and reasonable. Self-righteous patriots who enthusiastically support our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but can find neither country on a map. Think of all those polls showing American's staggering lack of knowledge about history, science, politics and geography. The worst of the worst, the most ignorant of the ignorant, are the conservative base.

For years they have tried to make legitimate their gun fetishism by shouting "Second amendment. Second amendment." Knowing one-half of one tenth of the Bill of Rights is not constitutional scholarship. Nor is expanding their parroted phrase list to include "original intent." These are people who are wrong by a full century when asked to put the Civil War on a time line. People who confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. People who can't name the three branches of federal government, and can't explain how the US government differs from that of Britain. Michele Bachmann -- congresswoman, Tea Party call girl, and Presidential aspirant -- goes deep stupid when talking about slavery's legal history.

The right wingers can't tell the difference between intellectual conversation and speaking in tongues. Enough.

Madness

Yo, Republicans!

This is one of yours, not one of ours. He is a registered Republican. He really believes the right wing blather about returning to the gold standard and government mind control and self-protection through grammatical absurdities.

Forget all the pundits debating vitriolic talk, climates of hatred, and nudge-nudge wink-wink incitements to violence. We must instead realize that ideology built entirely of lies and cruelty can succeed only by attracting this guy and thousands like him. Who else is going to buy that crap? Who else can be goaded into sputtering apoplectic rage about a heath care law that guarantees insurance coverage to children despite pre-existing conditions, allows parents to keep their children insured until they are 26, and repairs the "doughnut hole" in Medicare drug payments? For crying out loud, the designated hitter rule is more controversial. Except to this guy and his Play-Doh-brained ilk.