Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 2

Attacks on the Commons: Government is not your enemy, the 1% is

The past couple of weeks I have talked about what I call the Commons, that range of our social and political culture where the common interests of our society lie, that area where all can obtain benefit, all can take part, and all have some responsibility, each to the other and to the whole. I have also talked about attacks on that idea, attacks on the idea that we as a society, as a people, have common, that is, community, interests and responsibilities. It seems now that every week brings a new example, a new illustration of that attack.

This week, it comes from Witless Romney. He was, it was reported, "skeptical" of PHC*'s take on the economy. "Obama" - this is quoting Romney - "Obama says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message from Wisconsin? It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

There are a number of things about this statement that anyone with a brain and a conscience should find repulsive. One is the obvious one that he's saying that even as our population grows, we don't need more fire fighters, more cops, more teachers. Which is absurd on its face.

The second is that he is in essence saying not only that fire fighters, cops, and teachers aren't "helping the American people" but that they aren't part of "the American people." That they are separate, apart, that they are "not us," they are "them," they are "other."

Which brings me to the underlying point here. He referred to fire fighters, cops, and teachers, but I'm sure he would be willing to add public health nurses, sanitation workers, even bus drivers, and more - because they all have one thing in common: They are public employees. They work for the government.

Attacking government is a linchpin of the attack on the Commons because government is the most obvious symbol of the Commons; more than than, it's a central player in maintaining the Commons, in maintaining the possibility of being a society instead of an atomized collection of individuals, each isolated from and in competition with all others. Sometime ago I said that the ideal of government is that it is a vehicle through which a people act on their ideals. Obviously, I expect that all governments across history have fallen short of that, which is why I call it the "ideal." It's what you're shooting for. It is the idea of government. Which is why the attacks have slid so smoothly from ones on "big government" to ones on the ordinary people who work for the government, who do the public jobs. Because it never was about "big" government, it was never about making government "more efficient," it was about the very idea of government, about the very idea of the people of a society being able to work together for their own mutual and joint benefit.

Now, this is not new: Literally 30 years ago I was denouncing that I called

political programs that appeal to the worst in our cultural heritage, that speak to selfishness, competitiveness, suspicion, and a "what's-in-it-for-me" attitude.

I accused the right wing of seeking

to arouse a meanness of manner and selfishness of soul among the American people, to divide us against ourselves, empty us of compassion, and make what the British call "I'm all right Jack" our national motto.

That is,

they want you to think of just yourselves in isolation: You're working, you're not hungry, your mortgage hasn't been foreclosed, so the hell with everybody else.

A little later, I added that

that's why they speak of the personal but never of the public; of self but never others; of us and them but never we; of family but never of community. In fact, they're afraid to talk of community, because that means to talk of social obligations, of moral commitments to what you could call a type of extended family that goes far beyond their circumscribed view.

Let me pause for just a moment here to answer the question that you may be - legitimately, should be - asking: Who are "they?" I'll be blunt: I'm talking about the right wing and even more than that the rich, the economic elite - the 1%, if you will.

Now, don't anyone dare to write me claiming I said that every single person at that level of wealth is evil and citing some single seeming exception as a supposed ultimate disproof of everything I said. You'll only make yourself look lame, so don't bother.

I am not saying that every single rich individual is a money-grubbing, greed-driven, sociopath whose only concern for the rest of us is how we might be of benefit to their personal bottom line. I just saying that as a group, as a whole, those people are money-grubbing, greed-driven, sociopaths whose only concern for the rest of us is how we might be of benefit to their personal bottom line.

And the thing is, that economic elite, both individual and corporate, that elite is now essentially in charge of our government and the higher up you go in the level of government, the greater the control becomes. We saw that just the other day with the release of a batch of emails detailing how the Obama gang negotiated a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to get that so-called health reform law - better called the Health Insurance Industry Enrichment Act - passed and how as part of that deal the O crowd gave away the one thing that could have significantly and immediately reduced the cost of medicine to US consumers: the reimportation of drugs, now, still, specifically banned by law despite the absence of any safety, medical, or health-related reason - except, that is, the healthy profits of the drug companies.

Those sorts of I hesitate to call them concerns usually get a friendly reception in Congress, which is not surprising, considering that according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 249 current members of Congress, about 47% of the total, are millionaires and the estimated median net worth of a current US senator is $2.56 million.

Those are the sort of people who have the power now. They are. We have to face that. But they have a problem, a perpetual, on-going worry: There are a lot more of us than there are of them.

That's why they want you to feel isolated. They why they want you to feel alone. That's why they want you to feel that government is "them," that government, that everything to do with government, is "other," is separate from you, is somehow alien and even threatening, that government, as they will openly claim, is the problem. Because they know, they know, they know, that the one thing that can affect their power, the one thing that can provide a counterweight to their power, is an aroused citizenry acting through their - our - government.

Why do you think they promoted, moved in on, and then took over the Tea Party movement? Because those people had been successfully conditioned, if you will, to be predisposed to seeing government as an enemy. So the movement could be and was rather easily redirected away from its initial anger, which was directed pretty equally between government and the banks, to becoming strictly a "government bad, not government good" movement that could offer a facade of populist anger while actually serving the interests of the elites.

At the same time, why do you think they were to terrified of the Occupy movement? Why were they so eager first to dismiss it, then to mock it, then to undermine it, then to crush it, and now to insist it is dead and buried? Because Occupy identified - identifies, I should say - the issue, the enemy if you will, as concentrated wealth. As concentrated economic power, a concentration that has grown dramatically and continues to grow as all of our increases in our total national wealth continue to line the pockets of the rich even as the rest of us suffered a record decline in wealth between 2007 and 2010. Don't forget, it was the Occupy movement that introduced the idea of the 99%. So why are the elites so scared of Occupy? Because it aims at the right target.

Fire fighters, cops, teachers, public health nurses, sanitation workers, bus drivers, the scientists at the EPA, the clerks in the bowels of some state's bureaucracy - these people are not your enemies. And while our present overseers, our present governors, may well be our enemies, government is not.

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

Sources:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77209_Page3.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/47-of-congress-members-millionaires-a-status-shared-by-only-1-of-americans/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/americans-suffered-record_n_1587387.html

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 1

Good news on same-sex marriage: Another court finds DOMA unconstitutional

On June 6, Judge Barbara Jones of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is unconstitutional in that it denies federal benefits to same-sex spouses legally married in their home states. This came just a week after the First Circuit Court of Appeals came to the same conclusion in a case I mentioned last week.

In addition, two cases out of the Northern District of California have also held DOMA to be unconstitutional on the grounds that it discriminates against same-sex couples in a way for which there is no demonstrated "rational basis." One of those cases will be before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the fall.

After the Obama administration said it would no longer defend DOMA in court, House Speaker John Boner put together what he called his Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives - which has the rather appropriate acronym BLAG - to defend the law. They hired private attorney Paul Clement to do the deed. He has defended DOMA in four separate cases now, and has lost all four times.

As a footnote to this, I mentioned last week that the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court had declined to rehear a decision by a three-judge panel that Proposition 8, which undid rights gained by same-sex couples, could not stand. Three judges dissented from that ruling, saying in part that "we have now declared that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia."

Well, the legal basis was, again, you can't just take a group and strip away rights previously obtained. But yes, they're right: animus is the only conceivable motivation for denying same-sex couples the right to marry. Yes, it is.

Sources:
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/domas-federal-definition-of-ma.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/on-thursday-evening-a-federal.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/06/another-federal-judge-finds-doma-marriage-definiti.html
http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2012/06/07/doma-takes-another-hit-in-court-fed-definition-of-marriage-deemed-unconstitutional/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scottie-thomaston/9th-circuit-prop-8_b_1571220.html

Left Side of the Aisle #61

Left Side of the Aisle for June 14 - 20, 2012

This week:

Good news on same-sex marriage: Another court finds DOMA unconstitutional
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/domas-federal-definition-of-ma.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/on-thursday-evening-a-federal.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/06/another-federal-judge-finds-doma-marriage-definiti.html
http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2012/06/07/doma-takes-another-hit-in-court-fed-definition-of-marriage-deemed-unconstitutional/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scottie-thomaston/9th-circuit-prop-8_b_1571220.html

Attacks on the Commons: Government is not your enemy; the 1% is
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77209_Page3.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/47-of-congress-members-millionaires-a-status-shared-by-only-1-of-americans/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/americans-suffered-record_n_1587387.html

Clarabell Award: School punishes student for actions of others
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/anthony-cornist-popular-h_n_1573901.html
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/mt-healthy-schools-students-family-should-do-the-right-thing
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/withholding-students-diploma-illegal

Outrage of the Week: US commits acts of war against Iran; media shrugs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/06/01/cyberwar-is-war-white-house-said-but-nyt-didnt-notice/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/computer_malware/stuxnet/index.html

And Another Thing: Remains found of theater where Shakespeare's company performed; incredible precision of Large Hadron Collider experiments
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/full.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/curtain-theatre-shakespeare_n_1573445.html
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/big-bang-machine-suffers-interference-from-moon-gravity.php?ref=fpblg
http://www.universetoday.com/19426/distance-to-the-moon/

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 6

And Another Thing: More evidence on what happened to Amelia Earhart

In 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were flying over the Pacific Ocean, attempting fly around the world at the equator. The plane disappeared and for 73 years what happened to it remained a mystery, with most thinking the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.

But in June 2010, a group of investigators trying to find out what happened to Earhart and Noonan claimed to have found evidence that the pair might have been able to land on a remote, uninhabited island now called Nikumaroro, also known as Gardner's Island. Clearly, based on the evidence, someone was marooned of that island, the question was and is who.

Now, according to a new study by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, released just in time for the 75th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance on July 2, some radio signals recorded in the hours after Earhart's last inflight message, which previously were dismissed as bogus, were in fact genuine. If they are, it would mean that the plane was on the ground somewhere, on its wheels, for several days after the supposed crash into the Pacific, with Nikumaroro the obvious and likely choice.

It would also mean, more somberly, that Earhart and Noonan might have lived for weeks, even months, on the island before dying there as castaways.

Sources:
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-castaway-clues-island.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/a-small-broken-cosmetic-glass-jar-fragments-of-rouge-from-a-womans-compact-buttons-parts-of-a-pocket-knife-that-was-beat.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-distress-calls-120601.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 5

Some good news: One small, one major court victory for same-sex marriage

One small but important victory in the struggle for the rights of same-sex couples: On June 5, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a three-judge panel's earlier decision that California's infamous Proposition 8 - or PropHate as it came to be known - violated the US constitution's guarantee of equal treatment under the law because the measure took away a right that had previously been obtained through a decision of the California state Supreme Court. The case will now go to the Supreme Court, which likely will hear arguments in the fall and rule next year.

One not small and important victory in that same struggle: On May 31, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is unconstitutional - specifically, that part that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married in their home state. This was the section of the law that the Obama administration previously said it would not defend in court, and - credit where it's due - it didn't. While some district courts have found DOMA or some parts of it unconstitutional, the First Circuit is the first appellate-level court to do so.

What SCOTUS will do is anyone's guess: Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in decisions, has argued favorably on gay rights in the past. On the other hand, historically the Court has been reluctant to get too far ahead of public opinion.

But on the other other hand, in this case it wouldn't be: Support for same sex marriage is growing steadily, achieving majority status in some polls and a plurality in others. Indeed, it's getting hard to find a poll showing even a plurality against same-sex marriage. And just remember, when the high court struck down a ban on interracial marriage in 1967, just 45 years ago, polls showed a majority of Americans still opposed to mixed-race marriages.

What's more, the times, they are a-changin', as the cartoon to the side here shows. It portrays a same-sex, mixed-race couple getting married. What is the particular cultural significance of this? It's an Archie cartoon.

I've said it before: On this, justice will come.

Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop-8-20120606,0,2755661.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-doma-20120601,0,232338.story

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 4

Outrage of the Week: White House lies about "militants" to hide civilian casualties from drone attacks

So, we're told, the US recently killed another #2 in al-Qaeda. How many does that make now? A couple of dozen #2s or something? US officials called the killing of Abu Yahya al Libi "a major blow to the battered core leadership" of the group. How many such "major blows" is that now?

This whole thing increasingly reminds me of reading 1984, which described a population kept in thrall partly by the constant presence of war. The nation is always at war, always under threat, always at risk. But that could get people discouraged, even - oh, the horror - defeatist. So there are victories, lots and lots of victories, yes, we are winning, forever winning! But never have won. No matter how many victories, there is never victory. The war, the threat, the need for submission to the government for the sake of safety and national unity in the face of danger always remain.

Al Libi was killed in a CIA drone strike. The spooks had targeted him in three separate missile attacks over three days, finally succeeding in strikes that destroyed a house and a vehicle. There was nothing reported about the destruction or death from the previous two attacks.

The killing of al Libi was part of a recent surge in Predator drone attacks, a surge which is causing more problems for US-Pakistan relations. Pakistan's government has condemned the CIA's use of drones, which has killed civilians and which Pakistan says has provided a recruiting tool for insurgents. In the wake of this latest wave, Pakistan's foreign ministry said they "represented a clear red line for Pakistan." The US ambassador "was informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. Parliament had emphatically stated that they were unacceptable."

We don't care. We don't have to care. We're like Lili Tomlin's phone operator talking about the phone company. We're the US: We don't have to care about what Pakistan thinks.

But that's not why this is the Outrage of the Week. This is:

US news accounts keep referring to "militants" killed. It seems no civilians are hurt or killed in these attacks. Indeed, the White House insists that civilian casualties are in "the single digits."

The thing is, these media outlets have no idea whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. None. All they know is that officials, American or Pakistani, told them that they were "militants" and they blandly repeat that as fact. They report this not only without having the slightest idea whether it’s true or not but in the face of reports of civilian deaths by major international news agencies (Reuters, AP, BBC, and others). But worse, they do it with the full knowledge - but without ever mentioning - that the meaning of the word "militant" is being aggressively and deliberately distorted by US government propaganda.

Barack Obama - PHC* - has embraced what is politely called a "disputed method" for counting civilian casualties. This method regards all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, as "militants," as "terrorists," unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. I'm very sure first that US intelligence goes to great lengths to see if the people they killed were actually "militants" or not, and I'm equally sure that their families, their parents, wives, children, that the families of the dead - and the dead themselves - are very grateful for the posthumous finding that they were innocent victims.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: People in an area of known terrorist activity, or anywhere near a top Qaeda operative, they say, are probably up to no good. And "probably," of course, is a good enough reason to kill people.

But sure, this makes perfect sense. So let's go to Mattapan, let's go to the South Bronx in New York, and take everyone living there and throw them into prison. Because, after all, we would tell them, you're not just in, you're living in an area of known criminal activity so "simple logic" we can assume you are all criminals.

Guilt by association, murder by proxy, lies, and meanings of words changed to fit government policy in another echo of 1984. What more could you need for the Outrage of the Week?

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-20120606,0,6858392.story
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 3

Attacks on the Commons: Louisiana privatizes education; Florida scrubs voters

It's becoming an every week thing now, noting further attacks on the Commons, on the idea that we are a society and that everyone of us has obligations to all others. You know, that "we the people" crap. This week, two more examples.

First is Louisiana, which is embarking on a plan to privatize public education. As I said a couple of weeks ago, describing the general intent, the idea is not to support private schools, but to eliminate public schools in favor of private ones. Louisiana is prepared to go further with this than any other state so far, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners, and church pastors to educate children.

Starting this fall, thousands of students will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools. These schools have supposedly been vetted by the state to ensure the adequacy of the curriculum offered, but it's hard to credit that claim: Some approved schools use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; some use Bible-based math books that don't cover concepts such as set theory (and which, I can only assume, insist you express your answers in cubits); some use biology texts built around refuting evolution - not that merely ignore it or deny it, but seek to actively refute it.

Next year, in 2013, students of any income will be eligible for "mini-vouchers" that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships. Industry trade groups, businesses, online schools, tutors, and others can be paid with these vouchers.

The thing is, every time a student receives a voucher of either type, their local public school will lose an equal amount of state funding. This program is a conscious plan to undermine public education and turn education into just another profit center whose quality depends solely on how rich you and how well-connected your family is in order to get you into the handful of slots available in the schools that actually do offer a quality program. And if you're neither rich nor well-connected? Them's the breaks and don't expect any of these creeps to want to do anything about it. Because they do not believe in "we the people."

Second item on the topic this week is an update to last week's discussion of the state government of Florida, which is looking to purge as many as 239,000 voters from its rolls. Local officials across the state, both Democrats and Republicans, resisted the purge because they said the data provided by the state sucks. But the state kept pushing. Interestingly, just as happened in the purge of 2000, many of the supposedly ineligible voters are more likely to vote for Democrats. In 2000 it was blacks; this time its Latinos.

Recently, the DOJ sent a letter to Florida state officials saying this purge violates both the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. In response, all 67 county elections supervisors suspended the voter purge.

Even more recently, however, state officials say they will defy the federal warning and they plan to continue scrubbing the election rolls, using inadequate and often erroneous data, the inevitable result of which would be to tilt the voting population in favor of the right wing, that is, the very people who deny any obligation to others, the very people who deny the Commons.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/louisiana-makes-bold-bid-_n_1563900.html
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/02/florida-elections-supervisors-shut-down-rick-scotts-voter-purge/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/florida-voter-purge-federal-warning_n_1564131.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-voter-purge-gets-pushback-from-elections-supervisors-2387004.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 2

Clarabell the Clown Award: North Carolina considers ordering ocean level not to rise

A new occasional bit here: The Clown Award, given as reason arises to those people or institutions who are being mind-bogglingly stupid. This first one goes to the state of North Carolina.

Recently, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission predicted a one-meter - about a 39 inch - rise in sea levels by 2100. That could threaten 2000 square miles of North Carolina's low-lying coast.

Faced with this news and prompted by developers worried about sea front properties, state lawmakers swung into action. They forced the commission to remove the reference to a one meter rise from its report and Republican legislators are now circulating a bill which states that sea level rise "rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly."

In other words, these dodos want planners to be required to assume a straight-line rise in sea level, even though every prediction, every model, describes an accelerating rate of rise. Using a straight-line prediction limits the rise in sea level by 2100 to just 8 inches.

This almost literally is like they want the state of North Carolina to order the Atlantic Ocean to not rise more than 8 inches over the next 90 years. As Stephen Colbert said of this, "If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved."

Unfortunately for them, the real numbers keep getting worse. CO2 levels in the Arctic have now passed 400ppm (parts per million), with 350ppm regarded by many scientists as the "highest safe level," that is, the highest level that could be maintained without serious climatological consequences. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have not been this high for at least 800,000 years.

Of course, more CO2 means more warmth, and more warmth means higher sea levels. A number of states have realized the implications and are starting to plan for it. Maine is preparing for a rise of up to two meters by 2100. Delaware is looking at 1.5 meters, Louisiana one meter. Southeast Florida is projecting a rise of up to two feet by 2060. On the west coast, California is preparing for a 1.4 meter rise in sea levels.

But not North Carolina. There, Tom Thompson, director of a group of local legislators opposed to planning for higher sea levels, said of the Coastal Resources Commission, “I’m not saying these people are liars. I’m saying they have a passion for sea-level rise and they can’t give it up.” In other words, they're not liars, they're just wild-eyed fanatics!

No, Mr. Thompson, what they are, are researchers looking at the science. And what you are is a clown.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/colbert-north-carolina-sea-level_n_1571329.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/28/2096124/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/01/sea-level-bill-would-allow-north-carolina-to-stick-its-head-in-the-sand

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 1

How free is your speech? Supreme Court okays retaliatory arrests

You think you have free speech? Think again: In modern America, you have as much right to criticize your betters as they choose to allow you.

In 2006, "The Big" Dick Cheney was visiting a mall in Colorado. A guy named Steven Howards got in the line to meet Cheney and when he reached the vice president, told him his "policies in Iraq are disgusting." As Cheney moved away, Howards touched him on the shoulder and then turned and walked away.

A Secret Service agent named Gus Reichle followed Howards, accosted him, got into an argument with him, and then - only then - arrested him for assault. The charges were quickly dropped and Howards sued Reichle and another agent for violating his free speech on the grounds of having made a retaliatory arrest - that is, Reichle arrested Howards because Howards gave Cheney grief. The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in Howards' favor.

On Monday, June 4, the Supreme Court unanimously - yes, which means "including the so-called liberals it was so vitally important to have there" - overturned that decision, letting the agents walk without consequence for their behavior. Justice Clarabell Thomas, writing for the Court, rejected Howards' argument that the "general right to be free from retaliation for one's speech" made what officers did clearly unconstitutional, thereby opening them up to being sued. The justices instead held that the agents were entitled to immunity from such a suit because no federal court had clearly established the "specific right to be free from a retaliatory arrest that is otherwise supported by probable cause."

Let me disentangle that: The Supreme Court found that no federal court has specifically said that managing to come up with some way to arrest someone, some justification for it, doesn't automatically exempt you from a claim you violated that person's constitutional rights. And because no court had said that, the top legal minds of our nation ruled that Secret Service agents could not possibly be expected to understand that arresting Howards just because he criticized "The Big" Dick Cheney was a violation of Howards' rights.

If you're on good terms with a cop, ask them: If they wanted to, could they come up with some superficially reasonable basis to arrest someone, maybe one of those vague catch-alls like disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, failing to obey a lawful order, or some such? They'll tell you yes. Which means that the practical, real-world, effect of this ruling is that federal agents can punish you for free speech, can arrest you for giving grief to some nearby official, without consequences to themselves.

Three more things about this same case should be noted:

Reichle's lawyer, Sean Gallagher, raised the issue a "free speech zone" in connection with the agents' duties. This is about the idea that the Secret Service can establish a zone, a bubble, around any official they are guarding, inside which free speech ceases to exist. Some of these "zones" have been like a city block in size and people have been arrested simply for carrying a sign inside such a bubble. There was no indication in any news account of this case that this reference raised any eyebrows anywhere in that courtroom. It is now apparently to be taken for granted, to just be assumed, that the Secret Service can, on its own authority, simply wipe away the First Amendment within any perimeter it cares to establish.

A second thing is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer issued a concurring opinion in which they said Secret Service agents are required to "make singularly swift, on the spot, decisions whether the safety of the person they are protecting is in jeopardy." What swift decision? What the hell are they talking about here? Reichle followed Howards, accosted him, got into an argument with him, and only then did he arrest him. What "swift decision" are they talking about? Plus there's the fact that these are Secret Service agents. These are the folks whose job it is to be ready to take the bullet meant for the person they are protecting. These are the people ready to throw their bodies on that person to protect them from the bomb blast. But now we're supposed to think that the possibility of being sued will paralyze them with fear? What the hell?

But here's the worst, saved for last: Some of the Justices had expressed concern that a decision in favor of the agents could block all suits for retaliation filed against law enforcement. Gallagher said he was looking for a narrow decision, applying only to the "special circumstances" of Secret Service agents. But Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan, arguing before the Court on behalf of the Obama administration in support of the agents (no surprise there), told the Justices that "it also makes sense to apply [officer immunity] in other situations." In other words, it is the declared position of the Obama administration that there should be an across-the-board ban on First Amendment retaliation claims. Not just Secret Service agents, but any cop at any level from federal to local, should be able to retaliate against you by arresting you for exercising your First Amendment rights without fear of consequences to themselves, so long as they can come up with some plausible-sounding reason for the arrest.

Welcome to more of the change you were tricked into believing in.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/dick-cheney-supreme-court_n_1370670.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/supreme-court-dick-cheney-secret-service-free-speech-first-amendment_n_1567793.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60

How free is your speech? Supreme Court okays retaliatory arrests
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/dick-cheney-supreme-court_n_1370670.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/supreme-court-dick-cheney-secret-service-free-speech-first-amendment_n_1567793.html

Clarabell the Clown Award: North Carolina considers ordering ocean level not to rise
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/colbert-north-carolina-sea-level_n_1571329.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/28/2096124/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/01/sea-level-bill-would-allow-north-carolina-to-stick-its-head-in-the-sand

Attacks on the Commons: Louisiana privatizes education; Florida scrubs voters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/louisiana-makes-bold-bid-_n_1563900.html
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/02/florida-elections-supervisors-shut-down-rick-scotts-voter-purge/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/florida-voter-purge-federal-warning_n_1564131.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-voter-purge-gets-pushback-from-elections-supervisors-2387004.html

Outrage of the Week: White House lies about "militants" to hide civilian casualties from drone attacks
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-20120606,0,6858392.story
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/

Some good news: One small, one major court victory for same-sex marriage
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop-8-20120606,0,2755661.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-doma-20120601,0,232338.story

And Another Thing: More evidence on what happened to Amelia Earhart
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-castaway-clues-island.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/a-small-broken-cosmetic-glass-jar-fragments-of-rouge-from-a-womans-compact-buttons-parts-of-a-pocket-knife-that-was-beat.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-distress-calls-120601.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 4

Thoughts on heroism

Finally for today, a few thoughts on heroism. I recorded this week's show on May 30, the traditional Memorial Day before having a three-day weekend and holiday sales became more important, so I want to quote something I post on my blog every year right about now [which is also posted here below].

In May 2002, someone on a mailing list I was on posted a message asking people to take a moment of silence on Memorial Day, saying "Let us ensure that those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom are not forgotten."

In response, I wrote: And in that silent moment remember, too, the many nonviolent warriors who struggled, searched, sacrificed, for justice and freedom, who remain without songs or memorials to celebrate their lives or their passing, but who at some moment stood weaponless against the machinery of oppression and showed in their simple “No more” a force that can move history.

With that in mind, it seems that Chris Hayes, who does a news and commentary program on MSNBC on weekend mornings, sparked some controversy on Sunday with an observation on the general topic of sacrifice and heroism. In the video, you can see that he's struggling to find the right words to say what he means.

After noting that "it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the word 'heroes,'" he said he was "uncomfortable" with the word "hero" "because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war." He went on to say that of course there can be heroism in combat, "But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic" - problematic, that is, because the image of all soldiers killed in war as "heroes" makes it too easy to promote more wars.

And of course there was a blaze of outraged protest and of course he later issued an apology. It was, however, a sort of non-apology apology because he expressed regret for coming across as a "removed pundit" disconnected from the actual emotions of a decade of war but not for the actual sentiment. Which is good because he should not apologize for anything he said (with the possible exception of the phrase "rhetorically proximate"). Because the sentiment is true.

In fact, I said much the same thing in even stronger language four years ago. My focus there was somewhat different; I was addressing what I called the disturbing and increasing tendency among "progressives" to adulate all things military, which was happening, I argued, because the left was thinking it was a path to legitimacy on national security issues. That is, we had to prove we were as tough, as pro-military, as ready to go to war, as anybody. But knowing in advance where this would lead, and similar to Hayes' struggling with his words, the piece opened by saying

I've tried various ways to start this, wanting to make sure that I say what I mean and only what I mean. But I've come to realize that there is no way that will not be misunderstood, either accidentally or deliberately, by some. So I gave up trying to do anything other than say it outright.

A bit further in, I got to what is relevant here:

Let me be clear here: Soldiers are not "heroes." A "hero" is by definition someone who is in some way extraordinary, remarkable, worthy of emulation. It is at best a risky business to define someone as "extraordinary" simply by virtue of wearing a uniform and in fact it is potentially dangerous as it makes it too easy to slip into the militaristic attitude that what soldiers do goes beyond "necessary evil" or just necessary, beyond even honorable, to admirable, to something to celebrate, an attitude that makes it all to easy to promote additional enlistments, additional weapons, and even additional wars.

This way of thinking, I said elsewhere, "distorts our way of thinking, drops a magnet on our moral compass." War and its symbiotic partner militarism do not recognize "good" and "bad" but only life and death and, ultimately, only winner and loser and they will feed off one person's blood as readily as another.

Or, as I put it some years ago, "Every war is just when modified by the adjective 'my.'" Militarism destroys souls right along with flesh, war blows away conscience as readily as concrete.

So I will conclude here as I have concluded before with something that often is far clearer to the soldiers themselves than it is to their fawning fans, particularly those among the chickenhawks of the right, so eager for wars so long as they do not have to fight in them: Soldiers are not heroes. They can be heroes, they can act heroically, they can do heroic things. But heroes are defined by their actions in life, not the fact of their death, and the act of putting on a uniform and agreeing to put your conscience in a lockbox for the next so many years does not make your life more important than others and it does not make your death more important than others and it does not exempt you from moral judgment. It does not make you a hero.

And we should not fall prey to hero-worship.


Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/05/annual-memorial-day-post.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/chris-hayes-uncomfortable-soldiers-heroes_n_1550643.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2008/06/heroics.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/10/parting-shot-2.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 3

Outrage of the Week: SCOTUS sides with the corporations - again

On May 24, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Freeman v. Quicken Loans. I don't expect you heard about this case, but you should. It arose from a group of lawsuits out of Louisiana, combined into one, in which borrowers claimed that Quicken Loans violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA, by charging them loan-discount fees on their mortgages without providing reduced interest rates in return - that is, the company charged them fees for services that were never rendered.

According to a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, that's just fine. The law in question, they said, requires that these "unearned fees" be split with a third party, and since there was no third party, there was only Quicken Loans pocketing the cash for doing nothing, they were free to do so and jolly good for them. As a result of this decision, technically mortgage lenders can legally cheat homebuyers out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars by charging them fees and doing nothing in return. Put another way, SCOTUS has now found that by not specifically allowing for, not specifically banning, in the law a single-party rip-off, congress intended to allow your mortgage company to rip you off as long as they kept it all for themselves.

Circuit courts had been split on this question, which means at the very least that the requirement for a clear third party was debatable. But SCOTUS had no trouble, no difference of opinion, in coming down on the side of the corporations and against the individuals. Based on its record of the past couple of decades, including that being established by the "liberal" wing, that is no surprise - but it is still an outrage. The Supreme Court is again the Outrage of the Week.

Sources:
http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2012/05/corporate-court-gives-thumbs-up-to.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 2

More attacks on participation in the political life of the nation

Updated Two weeks ago, I talked about loss of the Commons, about the attack on the idea of a social community involving shared resources and a shared community responsibility for the welfare of all.

I talked last week about some means being used to limit participation in the political life of the nation as part of that attack. This week I'm going to mention some more.

I've talked several times about attempts to limit the franchise, that is, to limit the ability of people to vote, usually in reference to these insane voter ID laws. But that's not the only way. Another way, which I have also mentioned before, is registration restrictions: Just make it harder for people to register to vote in the first place. Another way is simply kicking you off the rolls.

Florida became notorious in 2000 when a purge of supposedly ineligible voters wound up wrongfully stripping thousands of mostly black - and therefore mostly Democratic - voters of their right to vote. Florida is at it again. The state wants to kick literally tens of thousands of people off the lists of registered voters, using various excuses including "we think you're a felon," "we think you're dead," and - the big one this time - "we think you're not a citizen." Taken together, Florida claims this totals as many as 239,000 voters.

The state, under the baleful eye of Governor Voldemort, is pressing this even as local election officials openly doubt both the accuracy and the quality of the data the state is providing. So why is the state pushing this despite the objections of its own local election officials? Interestingly, in an initial list of nearly 3,000 voters to be purged from the list, nearly 60% are Latino - who are largely Democratic voters. Doubly interestingly, the state is doing this so close to a federal election - close enough, in fact, to have already potentially violated federal law on the matter - that legitimate voters wrongfully affected by this may well not have enough time to get it resolved and get back on the rolls before the election. That is exactly the pattern we saw in 2000.

In early may, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner - this year's Katherine Harris - released a statement in which he said the presence of just one ineligible voter on the state's voting rolls represents a real threat to the integrity of the voting process. Apparently, the possibility of thousands of eligible voters being wrongfully kept off the rolls is not a concern for him - provided it's the "wrong sorts" of voters who are affected.

Last week I also mentioned the weaponization of police. This is seen not only in the almost common use of pepper spray against protesters, such as in the now-notorious case at UCal Davis, but in something which I haven't mentioned for a while: tasers, one of the hi-tech ways being increasingly used by cops to control individuals and crowds. And they want to be able to use them pretty much in any way and to any degree they find convenient.

In 2004, cops in Seattle used a taser three times in less than a minute on a pregnant woman who refused to sign a traffic ticket because she incorrectly thought doing so was an admission of guilt. She sued, but last fall the cops won, with a majority of the 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruling that while the cops had used excessive force, the relevant law was not clear in 2004 so they had qualified immunity and couldn't be sued. However, by its very nature that decision also put cops on notice that future such incidents could well be actionable - that is, the cops could possibly be sued.

So even though they won, the cops are appealing to the Supreme Court because they want the Court to rule that tasers are, in their words, a "useful pain technique" and therefore their use can't be considered excessive force. It is not excessive force, they are claiming, to repeatedly taser a nonviolent, nonthreatening person because the cops - there were three of them at the scene - were so damned lazy or such wusses that they couldn't be bothered physically pulling this woman out of her car. In a supporting brief, the Los Angeles police argued that - get this - if the determination of excessive force is not overturned, it "won't be long before the word spreads throughout society's criminal underground that the Ninth Circuit hasn't simply given them a 'get out of jail free' card, but a 'never have to go to jail in the first place' card.” that is how far this madness goes; that is how determined cops are to be able to used tasers any time, to any degree, on anyone they choose.

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide on May 31 whether or not to hear the case. I'll tell you what they court did next week.

Oppressive violence from police is only one threat we face to our ability to participate in the political life of the nation. Increasing surveillance is another. Last week I mentioned the federal government's moves to enable increasing surveillance of internet communications, that is, increasing surveillance of your online life. There is, as you surely know, a companion effort ways to increase surveillance of your physical life.

This summer, the Army is to present a demonstration of so-called "ground-based sense-and-avoid" technologies with the goal of winning FAA approval of far larger numbers of military drone flights in US civilian airspace - a success which in turn will be, in fact already has been, used to advance the ability of local police forces to do the same.

Lobbying both by the military and by private contractors has become intense, particularly by the latter, who see a booming future of local police buying drones. As a result, this year's FAA reauthorization bill requires the agency to safely allow unmanned aircraft to fly in US.commercial airspace by 2015. What's more, the FAA recently issued streamlined licensing rules for using drones for police and other so-called "public safety agencies" and the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland is working to speed the introduction of the rules and so the drone flights.

Drone manufactuers call them "force multipliers" for local cops, who then soft-pedal the implications by going on about "finding the lost child" and "finding the wandering alzheimer's patient" - while in the next breath exulting about how with drones they can read a license plate from 400 feet up. So in a couple of years you can go out your front door wondering if some police force eye in the sky is watching your every move.

Talking about surveillance, how about this:

The Illinois chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relation says that across the 19 states where CAIR has offices, there have been "dozens" of complaints by American Muslims, American citizens, discovering they are on the "no fly" list for who knows what reason and then being told by FBI agents that they could get off the list if they agreed to go undercover, spy on other Muslims, and report information back. Remember, the only people who would complain would be those who said no. There is no way to know how many said yes.

And there are even more direct threats. I've talked before about the National Defense Authorization Act, which included a particular provision - Section 1022, to be precise - that would allow the White House to have the military imprison people indefinitely, without trial or even charge, based solely on the president's decision that the person is a suspected terrorist.

Well, on May 16, Federal Judge Katherine Forrest found that the law is unconstitutional and violates the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights to free speech, against unreasonable seizures, and to due process.

She did so after a Kafka-esque hearing in which lawyers for the government repeatedly refused to explain what the law's impossibly vague terms like "associated forces" and "substantial support" mean and instead tried to argue that the seven plaintiffs - who included journalists, researchers, activists, and a member of the Icelandic parliament - did not have "standing" to sue. That is, they couldn't sue because the law hadn't affected them - they hadn't been indefinitely detained. Which means that the government argument is that the only folks with standing are those already beyond the reach of judicial system.

However, the day after that decision, welcome as it was, the House of Representatives voted to keep Section 1022 intact by rejecting an amendment to guarantee civilian trials for any terrorism suspect arrested in the US. Suppo0rters of the amendment said letting president decide to detain anyone - including Americans - deemed to be a terrorist was granting the executive too much power. And with over 400 accused terrorists having been tried and convicted in civilian courts while dozens of plots were prevented, the law was unnecessary.

But oh no, we can't do that, cried the opponents. Why, it would tie the president's hands! It would interfere with the ability of the president to act like a military dictator! Don't you know we're at war? You want to give terrorists special rights!

I bet it does come as a surprise to you to hear that a trial is a "special right."

When the NDAA first passed, supporters of the provision in question responded to civil liberties concerns by calling them silly: This would never apply to americans! Don't be daft! But now, like right wingers so often do, they are airily acknowledging what they previously vociferously denied. Everyone agrees now that except for the injunctive relief offered by Judge Forrest, federal law now allows the president - this or any future president - to imprison anyone, including American citizens taken on American soil, indefinitely and without charge based solely on the the president's unreviewable, uncheckable assertion "I think you're giving substantial support - whatever that means - to a terrorist-associated force - whatever that means."

And I do mean everyone. Back in February, the White House released rules waiving Obama's authority under Scetion 1022. But by waiving the authority, they are acknowledging it exists and therefore acknowledging it can be asserted by any future administration. What makes that statement doubly bizarre is that is said the provision "does not apply to US citizens" - but in the hearing before Judge Forrest, government lawyers refused to say that the provision would not be used against the US citizens who were among the plaintiffs.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Update: The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of the case involving the Seattle cops. The net effect is that while the cops got away with it this time, they might not in a similar situation in the future.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/27/voter-purge-florida-showdown-minority-voting_n_1547541.html
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/05/17/53k-dead-people-on-florida-voter-rolls/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812435/state-purges-7000-felons-from.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-non-citizen-voter-list-will-be-vetted-2362075.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/12/2796905/noncitizen-voter-hunt-targets.html
http://www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.aspx?id=577
http://www.care2.com/causes/police-argue-tasers-are-useful-pain-technique.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/police-taser-use-on-pregnant-woman-goes-before-supreme-court.html?hp
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/national-news/30700-taser-pain-may-be-considered-by-supreme-court-as-excessive-force
http://defense.aol.com/2012/02/08/army-leads-pentagon-in-push-to-get-faa-to-ok-uavs-in-u-s/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/drone-lobbying-companies_n_1546263.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/14/privacy-concerns-as-us-government-rolls-out-domestic-drone-rules/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/muslim-no-fly-list-fbi-informant_n_1524419.html
http://naomiwolf.org/2012/03/ndaa-hearing-notes/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/indefinite-detention-bill-fails_n_1525659.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/homeland-battlefield-act-unconstitutional_n_1522587.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/federal_court_enjoins_ndaa/singleton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/indefinite-military-deten_n_1308129.html?1330475319
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/38/3806.asp

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 1

Good news: Dolores Huerta receives Medal of Freedom

On Tuesday, May 29, Dolores Huerta received one of the nation's highest civilian honors - the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Any liberal of my age range knows the name Dolores Huerta. Alongside Cesar Chavez, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers Union. She was its first veep. The grape boycotts and lettuce boycotts which the UFW organized and pushed were a steady presence in the activist years of the '60s. The dedication and nonviolent activism of the farmworkers, backed by the economic power of those boycotts, won not only recognition of the union and establishment of union contracts with actual guarantees regarding pay, pensions, and safe working conditions, but perhaps more importantly won recognition of the rights of migrant farmworkers, the rights to decent treatment and respect.

Consider what Huerta considers her proudest accomplishments: Spanish-language ballots for voters, public assistance for immigrants, toilets in the fields, drinking water protection from pesticides, and an immigration act which gave legal status to more than one million farmworkers.

Just think of that for a second: Think that things like having toilets at your place of work - because the fields are the workplace for these workers - and having drinking water at your workplace that you don't have to worry is contaminated with pesticides being sprayed on the fields, after which you have to go work in them, that simply having legal status, were things that in my adult life still had to be achieved in this country for literally millions of workers.

In 1960, Edward R. Murrow produced a documentary titled "Harvest of Shame." You can still find it on YouTube. It described migrant workers as "the forgotten ones." There is still much more to do: Migrant workers are still not covered by mandates for health insurance or protections for overtime and or sick pay, for example, and too many still wind up living in what are no more than shanty towns. But things have improved and thanks to people like Dolores Huerta and the nonviolent activism of the United Farm Workers, whose members withstood arrests, threats, and brutality from both ranchers and police, migrant workers can no longer be thought of simply as "the forgotten ones."

Congratulations to Dolores Huerta.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/dolores-huerta-presidential-medal-of-freedom_n_1553163.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkV3oVn209s&feature=relmfu
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/us/california-farmworkers-community-hurt-by-budget-crisis.html
http://www.ufw.org/

Left Side of the Aisle #59

Left Side of the Aisle #59 for May 31 - June 6

Good news: Dolores Huerta receives Medal of Freedom
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/dolores-huerta-presidential-medal-of-freedom_n_1553163.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkV3oVn209s&feature=relmfu
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/us/california-farmworkers-community-hurt-by-budget-crisis.html
http://www.ufw.org/

More attacks on participation in the political life of the nation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/27/voter-purge-florida-showdown-minority-voting_n_1547541.html
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/05/17/53k-dead-people-on-florida-voter-rolls/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812435/state-purges-7000-felons-from.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-non-citizen-voter-list-will-be-vetted-2362075.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/12/2796905/noncitizen-voter-hunt-targets.html
http://www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.aspx?id=577
http://www.care2.com/causes/police-argue-tasers-are-useful-pain-technique.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/police-taser-use-on-pregnant-woman-goes-before-supreme-court.html?hp
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/national-news/30700-taser-pain-may-be-considered-by-supreme-court-as-excessive-force
http://defense.aol.com/2012/02/08/army-leads-pentagon-in-push-to-get-faa-to-ok-uavs-in-u-s/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/drone-lobbying-companies_n_1546263.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/14/privacy-concerns-as-us-government-rolls-out-domestic-drone-rules/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/muslim-no-fly-list-fbi-informant_n_1524419.html
http://naomiwolf.org/2012/03/ndaa-hearing-notes/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/indefinite-detention-bill-fails_n_1525659.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/homeland-battlefield-act-unconstitutional_n_1522587.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/federal_court_enjoins_ndaa/singleton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/indefinite-military-deten_n_1308129.html?1330475319

Outrage of the Week: SCOTUS sides with the corporations - again
http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2012/05/corporate-court-gives-thumbs-up-to.html

Thoughts on heroism
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/05/annual-memorial-day-post.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/chris-hayes-uncomfortable-soldiers-heroes_n_1550643.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2008/06/heroics.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/10/parting-shot-2.html

Annual Memorial Day post

I post this every year around Memorial Day.

In May 2002, someone on a mailing list I was on posted a message asking people to take a moment of silence on Memorial Day, saying "Let us ensure that those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom are not forgotten."

In response, I wrote:

And in that silent moment remember, too, the many nonviolent warriors who struggled, searched, sacrificed, for justice and freedom, who remain without songs or memorials to celebrate their lives or their passing, but who at some moment stood weaponless against the machinery of oppression and showed in their simple “No more” a force that can move history.

It is indicative of how we as a culture regard things that on the whole, we celebrate our soldiers while they are alive and our nonviolent warriors only when they are safely dead. Then again, I'm not so sure we're so different from others in that way.

And the Lack of Self-awareness Award goes to...

...Faux News Chief Roger Ailes, who in a speech last week at Ohio University called the New York Times a "cesspool of bias" run by "a bunch of lying scum."

What really secured the award was that Ailes also accused the Times of running - on the front page, no less - an false critical article about him, only to have it develop that he was totally wrong and the paper had done no such thing.

Projection and false accusation, together again. Well done, Rog.

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 6

Attacks on our ability to participate in the political process

In my rant last week about loss of the Commons, I said there is an attack on political participation, on our ability to take part in the political life of the nation, one that went beyond restrictions on voting and the increasing power of money - and that I'd point out some examples this week. So here we go.

First, I just love this one because it is so revealing. In the summer of 2010, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates both announced a ban on BlackBerries on the ground that they were unable to monitor the communications conducted on those devices - that is, citizens could communicate in private without the government being able to listen in. the Obama administration condemned the ban, calling it “a dangerous precedent” and a threat to “democracy, human rights and freedom of information.”

Just six weeks later, the Obama administration proposed a mandatory “backdoor access” for all forms of Internet communication. That is, they wanted to force all companies dealing in Internet communication to build into their systems a convenient way for the government to spy on you.

They haven't won that particular battle yet, but they're still at it: Just a couple of weeks ago, CNet reported that the FBI is pressing Internet companies to decline to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors whose purpose would be to enable government surveillance.

Blogger and columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote:

The hallmark of a Surveillance State is that police agencies secretly monitor and keep dossiers on not only those individuals suspected of lawbreaking, but on the society generally, including those individuals about whom there is no suspicion of wrongdoing.

We have seen that in an abundance of ways, such as the New York Police Department, often working in conjunction with the CIA, engaging in a wide-spread spying campaign aimed at Muslims in the US, including individuals, students, institutions, and mosques located even hundreds of miles beyond the borders of New York City, all without any prior indication that a single one of these people or organizations were doing or even planning anything illegal.

Along with the growth of the Surveillance State, we are seeing attacks on the freedom of the press. Last Friday, May 18, the Obama administration was at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals insisting that New York "Times" reporter James Risen should be forced to testify in the trial of former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with leaking classified information to Risen about a botched plot against the Iranian government.

The District Court had ruled that Risen had a qualified privilege not to testify against Sterling, saying "A criminal trial subpoena is not a free pass for the government to rifle through a reporter’s notebook." Astonishingly, in looking to have the Appeals Court overturn that ruling, the government argued that there is no such thing as a reporter's privilege. That is, the "balancing act" between freedom of the press and the public's right to know on the one hand and the government's desire for secrecy on the other must be decided in favor of the government. Even more: The Obama administration is arguing that such a balancing act does not even exist and the government's desire for secrecy must trump all else.

This is part and parcel of President Hopey-Changey's* attack on freedom of the press, which has included a record-setting number of prosecutions of whistleblowers, in the course of which the 1917 Espionage Act has been used against more accused leakers than all previous presidents combined.

A consensus has emerged during the presidency of Barack Obama: His administration is increasingly regarded as the worst on issues related to freedom of information and transparency. (Didn't he come into office promising "the most transparent administration in history?")

What's more, there is a different sort of attack on the press, on our ability to know and understand events, going on: An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill. Right now, the lies and propaganda which the State Department and Pentagon inflict on other people around the world can't be disseminated domestically. Some quaint idea about how the government should not actively lie to its own citizens. (I know, you don't have to tell me.) The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of such materials, according to a summary of the law, enabling the government to treat us like the residents of a hostile foreign nation to be manipulated and duped. (Again, yes, I know.)

Meanwhile, there is an attack on both freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, as dozens if not hundreds of journalists and Occupy protesters have arrested for the supposed "crime" of attempting to document events as they happen, including, especially, the behavior of police. It's enough that nine free speech groups have appealed jointly to the Justice Department to protect the rights of media and protesters, saying "The First Amendment has come under assault on the streets of America."

However, even though the DOJ did take a good stand with regard to the Baltimore police department, those groups probably shouldn't expect an energetic response. Some weeks ago, a new pile of documents surrendered by the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request made it increasingly evident that there was and is a nationally coordinated campaign to disrupt and crush the Occupy movement.

The documents are heavily redacted with much information blacked-out, but even so they indicate the extent of the government’s concern about the wave of occupations that started with Occupy Wall Street. They reveal “intense involvement” by the DHS’s so-called National Operations Center, which the DHS says is “the primary conduit for the White House Situation Room” and “facilitates information sharing and operational coordination with other federal, state, local, tribal, non-governmental operation centers and the private sector.”

What I found particularly interesting is that back in mid-November, I raised the possibility that the police attacks on encampments were coordinated because both the tactics employed and the official justifications offered were so similar: It was always about "unsanitary and unsafe conditions" in the particular encampment being forcibly shut down. So I found it particularly interesting that in the documents, there is on November 21 a reference to how to handle things "if a protest area is on federal property and has been deemed unsafe or unsanitary by the General Services Administration or city officials."

Then there is what can only be called the weaponization of police, where riot gear seems to be normal street wear for cops and armored vehicles are replacing squad cars. An outfit called the LRAD Corporation has developed a device of the same name: LRAD, or Long Range Acoustic Hailing Device. It can generate recorded sounds - the thing has an mp3 player in it - or produce a screeching siren, all at tremendous intensities of 137 to 162 decibels. To give you an idea of how loud that is, 130 decibels is threshold of pain.

The company insists it's to help police "provide clear instructions to protesters from long distances." "We really don't look at this as any kind of weapon," says the company's PR flaks. Right. Like the "instructions" involved will not consist of "stop protesting and leave now (or else)" - especially when you consider the device has already been used on Occupy protesters in Oakland, California.

Finally, there is the classic thing of an attack on dissent by means of police corruption and lying.

Last week I noted how cops can lie on the stand and expect to get away with it. Well, the NYPD has arrested thousands of protesters and journalists since Occupy Wall Street began in September - but the first actual trial of a protester ended last week. With an acquittal. What's important is how that happened.

Alexander Arbuckle is the name of the defendant, and he was arrested on January 1 with a bunch of others who were marching down 13th Street in lower Manhattan. The NYPD charged those arrested with disorderly conduct, claiming they were in the street blocking traffic. That's what the police report said, that's what a cop testified to under oath at the trial.

The problem was, photographs and video taken that night - including from the NYPD's own Technical Research Assistance Unit, which follows the protesters with video cameras (in almost certain violation of a federal consent decree) - clearly showed the protesters on the sidewalk and it was the cops who were in the street, on foot and on scooters going the wrong way down the one-street, blocking traffic.

There simply was no getting around it: The cops lied through their damn teeth. That's why Arbuckle was acquitted. But that should also make you think about all the other times when that particular set of fortunate circumstances does not arise and how many wrongfully-arrested, wrongfully-charged, wrongfully-convicted protesters have been the victims of official lying.

Sources:
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/06/surveillance_state_democracy/singleton/
http://www.dir.salon.com/2012/02/22/nypd_spying_program_aimed_at_muslims/singleton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/reporters-privilege-obama-war-leaks-new-york-times_n_1527748.html
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/03/05/the-worst-administration-on-foia/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/03/groups-call-on-justice-department-to-protect-right-to-record/
http://www.correntewire.com/did_the_white_house_coordinate_the_police_crackdown_on_occupy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/long-range-acoustic-haili_n_1526968.html
http://www.justiceonline.org/docs/dhs-occupy-2.pdf#page=3
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/05/in_the_first_oc.php

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 5

Outrage of the Week: unemployment is the fault of uneducated, lazy workers

Jeffrey Lacker is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He's part of the Federal Reserve system. And he knows what the problem with our economy is, specifically, what causes unemployment. It has nothing to do with lack of stimulus, nothing to do with corporations sitting on two trillion in ready cash and doing nothing with it, nothing to do with lack of demand.

Oh, no, none of that. The biggest reason, he says, is "labor market inefficiencies" such as the difficulty of matching workers with skilled jobs. In other words, he means we need more job training - more exactly, job retraining - the same bumper sticker that has been fed to us for more than 40 years and that makes the inadequacies of workers' skills the sources of their problems - along, that is, with the reluctance of workers to just move wherever the jobs are without being concerned with silly things like having a stable life.

Those "inefficiencies," he claims, could account for as much as 5.9 percentage points of the 8.1 percent unemployment. That would make the unemployment rate just 2.2%!

And just like one of those late-night TV commercials for The Amazing Gizmo-thingy, "But wait! There's more!" You know what the other big thing is, the other main source of unemployment? Unemployment compensation! If it wasn't for unemployment compensation, Lacker tells us, allowing all those lazy slobs to loll around without working, the unemployment rate would drop another 1.7 percentage points!

So what part of unemployment is not due to the shortcomings of workers, according to this member in good standing of the Masters of the Universe? Just one-half of one percent!

Of course, even after that, Lacker might have some trouble dealing with the fact that while the "official" unemployment rate is 8.1%, a broader measure which includes discouraged workers is at 14.5%. What's more, the employed as a portion of the population was at an historically low level in April of just 58.4%. The number of long-term unemployed is down but still at a stunning 5.1 million, and even that decline is largely because of people having used up all their unemployment. And the number of part-timers who want full-time work was up in April to 7.9 million.

Meanwhile, half of American families are surviving on incomes no more than twice the federal poverty line and in a ranking of 34 countries with modern economies done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranked fourth in income inequality - or, if you prefer, 31st in income equality. Only Chile, Mexico, and Turkey came out worse.

But according to the president of the Federal Reserve bank of Richmond? The real problem is lazy, uneducated workers who dare to want to set down roots.

Fortunately for us, he is not the only voice in the Federal Reserve system; there are some others who are more rational. But Jeffrey Lacker - who is well-named as he seems to lack a lot of things, such as compassion, understanding, and a basic connection to the economic reality in which most of us live - Jeffrey Lacker is the Outrage of the Week.

Sources:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1202/Unemployment-rate-How-many-Americans-are-really-unemployed/Official-unemployment-rate-Down-in-April-to-8.1-percent
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-07/lacker-says-fed-easing-cant-fix-structural-unemployment
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/12/16/census-shows-1-in-2-people-are-poor-or-low-income/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57343397/census-data-half-of-u.s-poor-or-low-income/?tag=strip
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/12/09/keeping-people-in-poverty-by-trying-to-bring-them-out-of-it/

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 4

Everything You Need to Know: about corporate influence on the media

Everything You Need to Know is our occasional feature where you can learn a great deal about something in no more than a few sentences. In this case, it's everything you need to know about corporate influence on the media in just three sentences.

1. On Sunday, May 20, the Boston "Globe" carried a front-page article about the efforts of Partners HealthCare Inc. to lobby against a proposal for closer oversight of the prices and operations of hospitals and associated physicians groups, that is, outfits like Partners HealthCare.

2. In the fourth paragraph of the story, still on the front page, the "Globe" said this: "The Harvard-affiliated Partners has led the lobbying charge among hospitals deeply worried that the House legislation and other bills could harm their ability to provide high-quality care and cost jobs."

3. Which means that the Boston "Globe" has just presented as unquestioned fact the corporate propaganda that their real interest, what they're really worried about, is "high-quality care and jobs" instead of their bottom line.

And that is everything you need to know.

Sources:
http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-20/health-wellness/31779610_1_spending-on-medical-care-massachusetts-hospital-association-expensive-providers

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 3

The Little Thing: "precipitous withdrawal"

Readers of my blog know that I occasionally refer to "the little thing." So this is I think the first in what might be an occasional series called just that - "The Little Thing." I often find that what really gets me, what really gripes me, about something is not the big thing that everyone else is talking about, but it's rather some little thing, some minor point, some aside, in a story that sets me off. So here's an example:

You know, or at least I hope you do, about the vote this past Thursday where the House of Representatives rejected an amendment that would have put a swift end to the war in Afghanistan by saying funds could be used only for the "safe and orderly withdrawal of US troops and military contractors." It lost; in fact it wasn't even close. The vote was 303-113.

Opponents did this despite admitting that Americans are tired of this pointless war and that it is as unpopular as Vietnam was in the early '70s. Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan by a margin of well over 2-1. But that fact, to what should have been no one's surprise, didn't matter.

I wasn't surprised either by the result or even by the margin: After all, it wasn't until 1970 that the first significant move in Congress to cut off funding for the Indochina War was seen and Congress didn't actually cut off funding for combat operations in the area until after the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. So now as then, the people are, in the words of Rep. Barbara Lee, "far ahead of Congress."

So that wasn't the thing that got me. No, it was this little thing, quoting from the article: "Opponents of the amendment conceded that the public has grown tired of war, but they argued against a precipitous withdrawal."

I read that and was like AARGH! "Precipitous withdrawal?" What decade is this? Talk about your '60s flashback. "Precipitous withdrawal?" That's exactly, in those words, what calls to end the Indochina War were labeled - that is, when they weren't called "cutting and running" and we weren't called "nervous Nellies" (or "an effete corps of impudent snobs" or "nattering nabobs of negativism" - good times, good times).

"Precipitous withdrawal"- that means "getting out of a stupid, pointless, wasteful, idiotic, inane, cruel, bloody, mindless, destructive war any faster than the militarists already planned on doing because doing that would mean admitting how badly they screwed up in the first place and we just can't have that, the desires of the public be damned." It's what we heard then, it's what we hear now, it's what we hear every single freaking time that the people of the country suss out just how lame our misleaders really are when it comes to spilling our blood.

"Precipitous withdrawal." When you hear that, you know one thing: They intend for us to continue to kill and die - and they don't have one damn actual good reason for it.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/defense-budget-house-gop_n_1523877.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/mcgovern-hatfield-amendment
http://www.answers.com/topic/case-church-amendment

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 2

Global warming: hottest 12 months in US history

Since I just mentioned global warming, some recent global warming news:

The last 12 months - May 2011 through April 2012 - were the hottest 12 months in US history since record-keeping began in 1895. This according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. In fact, all of the ten hottest 12-month stretches have all come in the last 12 years. Now, to be fair and precise, these are not calendar years, they are 12-month periods, so they can overlap. That doesn't change the fact that the ten hottest have all been in the past 12 years.

April was the fifth warmest April on record worldwide; it was the third hottest April in the United States. April’s worldwide average temperature was nearly 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.7 degrees Celsius, above the 20th Century normal, that is, above the average for April across the entire 20th century.

The last time the globe had a month that averaged below the 20th century normal for that month was February 1985. April makes it 326 months in a row of above long-term average temperatures. Nearly half the population of the world has never seen a month that was cooler than the norm established across the 20th century.

But oh no, we don't need to worry: One commenter, responding to one of the articles that reported this, wrote that we "only need to see past the data to know the world is actually cooling." We only need to be able to see past all the facts. That person was being sarcastic, but the attitude it expressed is quite real: Just last month, Pat Robertson, that well-known climatologist, claimed that global warming is a hoax and people can't possibly be affecting the climate because, after all, there are no SUVs on Mars. Yes, he said that.

The thing is, in recent years, some astronomers have detected a slight warming trend on Mars, and the nanny-nanny naysayers have seized on that bit of trivia to screech their "Fraud!" screeches. The thing is, however, variations in solar output from one decade to another are on the order of a fraction of a percent. On Earth, that's not even enough to provide a detectable signal in the surface temperature record. There is no model of solar radiance that can explain the warming of the past few decades. There is no climate model that can explain that warming without a significant input from human activity. There isn't one.

Sources:
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/05/heat-records-shattered-us-past-12-months
http://www.care2.com/causes/april-2012-heats-up-as-5th-warmest-month-globally.html
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/17/pat-robertson-global-warming-a-hoax-because-no-suvs-on-mars/

Left Side of the Aisle #58 - Part 1

Using the 14th Amendment to restrict reproductive rights

I mentioned last week that there had been arguments advanced about changing our understanding of the meaning of the 14th Amendment as to just who is a citizen. I said not much had been heard about that of late, but it turns out I was wrong at least in a way. I was referring to the idea of restricting the reach of the 14th Amendment to exclude children of immigrants. The 14th Amendment says that if you're born here and subject to the laws, then you're a citizen. Some folks want that to not be true for the children of certain immigrants. We haven't heard too much about that for a year or two.

However, it develops there is also a push, not to restrict the understanding of who is a citizen to eliminate some immigrants, but to expand the understanding of who is a citizen to include the so-called "unborn." And on that score, we're heard things much more recently.

(I'll note here as I always try to do when this comes up: There is no such thing as an "unborn child." Referring to a fetus as an "unborn child" makes exactly as much sense as referring to a tadpole as an "unborn frog." If it's not born, it's not a child. But leave that aside for now.)

Last fall, then-GOPper presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bonkersman told a GOPper forum that she would rely on the part of the 14th Amendment that empowers Congress to pass legislation to enforce the guarantee of equal protection under the laws and support a bill to overturn Roe v. Wade by declaring "the unborn" to be "persons" under the meaning of the amendment.

And just recently, in a fundrasing letter dated May 14, Sen. Rancid Paul proposed a "Life at Conception Act" that would do just what Bonkersman proposed: define fetuses as "persons" under the 14th amendment.

This is - not surprisingly - complete nonsense, as Congress can't simply decide what the 14th amendment "means." Such interpretation is the job of the courts. What's more, the Roe decision itself specifically said that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn.”

But simple facts won't stop them here any more than they do about things like evolution or global warming. It's another example of that "right-wing reading comprehension disorder" I mentioned last week, the inability of right wingers to recognize the meaning of the words right in front of them.

And as a footnote to this: Credit where it's due. The guy I mentioned last week who came up with the phrase "right-wing reading comprehension disorder" is Kevin T. Keith and the blog is LeanLeft.com.

Sources:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/06/312155/bachmann-will-openly-defy-supreme-court/
http://www.care2.com/causes/rand-paul-urges-congress-to-ignore-roe-v-wade.html
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/14/483788/rand-paul-signs-fundraising-email-calling-for-congress-to-simply-ignore-roe-v-wade/
http://leanleft.com/