The health care filibuster

Rachael Maddow and Glenn Greenwald expose here the corruption of Joe Lieberman (Asshole-CT) and Evan Bayh (D-IN):

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If the rightwing blowhards seem to be hypocrites…

…it's because they are hypocrites!

John Cole considers here this shameless dishonesty and does so with respect to the big fuss the right often makes about ACORN and, for that matter, Barack Obama. I quote his article in full because it is brutal, direct and true:

To refresh:

Investigating known links to the past administration and torture — beyond the pale.

Investigating known wrongdoing within the Justice department regarding firings — partisan politics.

Investigating Monica Goodling and that entire sorry crew — unseemly.

Creating a special prosecutor to ogle Bill Clinton's penis and another one to fish for some possible wrongdoing somewhere in a connection to Obama that doesn't exist — YOUR PATRIOTIC GOD DAMNED DUTY. WOLVERINES!

The United States, as we know, never actually gave itself a proper welfare state because the whole welfare state effort could be painted black, so to speak, by its opponents, found an unreceptive audience among America's racists and, to be sure, would prove to be disruptive to deeply entrenched economic interests across the country. Like this imaginary welfare state that could not come to be, the right has made ACORN a target precisely because its very existence does the poor and thus relatively powerless fraction of the country a bit of good! Yet, ACORN does not accomplish as much for the poor and weak as Washington's lobbyists do for big capital and finance as well as for the Pentagon and its suppliers. ACORN is just a scapegoat, a convenient, weak and thus advantageous target for the right, as Glenn Greenwald suggests here:

So with this massive pillaging of America's economic security and the control of American government by its richest and most powerful factions growing by the day, to whom is America's intense economic anxiety being directed? To a non-profit group that devotes itself to providing minute benefits to people who live under America's poverty line, and which is so powerless in Washington that virtually the entire U.S. Senate just voted to cut off its funding at the first sign of real controversy — could anyone imagine that happening to a key player in the banking or defense industry? 

Apparently, the problem for middle-class and lower-middle-class Americans is not that their taxpayer dollars are going to prop up billionaires, oligarchs and their corrupt industries. It's that America's impoverished — a group that is growing rapidly — is getting too much, has too much power and too little accountability.

It is clear — at least it is clear to the Republican Party and its materially threatened base — that unions, the poor, Black folk, unwed mothers, the retired who depend upon Medicare and Social Security are the dangerous 'special interests' who would bring down this magnificent country. That so many among this Party's base will soon find themselves among the impoverished, that they will need the help of entities like ACORN, that they would be better off if the United States had a proper welfare state…

Accountability

It is not too early to identify Obama administration as a criminal regime

Izzy Award winner Glen Greenwald again takes the Obama administration to task for affirming Bush era notions of justice, presidential powers, due process, etc.

Why read Glenn Greenwald?

Well, it is simple, really. Greenwald definitely possesses a boatload of good sense and is intellectually scrupulous, as this passage makes clear:

I'm going to leave the debate about whether Iran's election was "stolen" and the domestic implications within Iran to people who actually know what they're talking about (which is a very small subset of the class purporting to possess such knowledge). But there is one point I want to make about the vocal and dramatic expressions of solidarity with Iranians issuing from some quarters in the U.S.

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country — actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bombing Iran. The Wall St. Journal
published a war screed from Commentary's Norman Podhoretz entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran," and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he "hopes and prays" that the U.S. "bombs the Iranians." John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol — with typical prescience — hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way — just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called "attack on Iran" or "bombing Iran" in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many — obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it's some abstract decision in a video game.

And, to be sure, Greenwald pummels the right sort of folks by holding them accountable for what they say, write and do. He is indispensible.

Market populism vs. grassroots populism

David Sirota's take on the Santelli meltdown

The rhetoric of American class conflict grows hotter by the day. Sirota's recent article directly addresses this conflict when it gives his take on Rick Santelli's now famous if not infamous CNBC-Chicago Mercantile Exchange piece and on Lansing, MI mayor Virg Bernero's response to — actually, his beat down of — a Fox News talking head.

While Santelli's "let them eat cake" moment may turn out to be another spectacle which merely diverts attention from the real problems now confronting the country, the event may gain greater significance than that. For instance, as Sirota rightly points out, the mass media in America routinely treat market populism as populism per se; it also deems grassroots populism as a kind of political irrationalism which expresses mass resentment, ignorance and fear. This bias becomes a problem when the difference between the market populist ideology and common lived experience of most Americans grows starker and more disturbing every day. Such has been the case since 2007 for many Americans. Many Americans may now reasonably wonder whether good, hard work and honest intentions matter for much. They may doubt that these "goods" count at all since the discrepancy between ideology and reality reflects the dissolution of the "American way of life" that has proceeded apace since 1968. Given the secular decline of the American economic system, I suspect that the Reaganite consensus founded on this social disintegration has now reached its limit point and appears for what it always was: A commitment to extend and secure the national and global powers of American finance capital. Santelli's belligerence, his crude manner and sub-rational thinking, may reflect the sense of entitlement embedded within the market fundamentalist ideology.

If this characterization of the situation is accurate, then the issue of the day becomes: Which one among America's many possible futures will the country select, a future which includes American militarism and Wall Street-led globalization or a future which respects the ecological limits imposed upon humanity as well as the dignity that necessarily inheres within the world's diverse assortment of human ways of life?

Update (2.22.2009)

Glen Greenwald's latest reflects upon the Santelli outburst by comparing it to a noteworthy forerunner, namely, the resentment-laden, tribalist militia movement which opposed Bill Clinton's presidency, "fought" the culture wars and brought about the Contract with America Congressional class of 1994. Greenwald continues by considering the civil war mongering that has begun to take hold of the rightwing dead-enders who seemingly cannot accept that the world will never again mirror their vainglorious imaginings. It is in cases like this where one can see the paranoid political style generate fearsome dangers for everyone involved, especially since this hard core has access to the mass media. Greenwald then rightly asks: "…I wonder what would happen if MSNBC broadcast a similar discussion of leftists plotting and planning the imminent, violent Socialist Revolution against the U.S. Government."

The hypocrisy of the ‘political class’

It often seems that Glen Greenwald has made it his life's work to document this hypocrisy as one can find it in Washington, DC. For instance, in his latest Salon post, Greenwald compares the mandatory and severe prison sentences given to those convicted for committing petty crimes to the leniency demanded for those individuals who authorized heinous war crimes and the rankest abuse of the law:

Our political class has embraced mandatory minimum sentencing schemes as a way to eliminate mercy and sentencing flexibility for ordinary people who break the law (as opposed to Bush officials who do) [emphasis in the original].

The American way — sadism reserved for the weak, mercy showered on the powerful:

Under all circumstances, arguing that high political officials should be immunized from prosecution when they commit felonies such as illegal eavesdropping and torture would be both destructive and wrong [not to mention, in the case of the latter crimes, a clear violation of a treaty which the U.S. (under Ronald Reagan) signed and thereafter ratified]. But what makes it so much worse, so much more corrupted, is the fact that this "ignore-the-past-and-forget-retribution" rationale is invoked by our media elites only for a tiny, special class of people — our political leaders — while the exact opposite rationale ("ignore their lame excuses, lock them up and throw away the key") is applied to everyone else. That, by definition, is what a "two-tiered system of justice" means and that, more than anything else, is what characterizes (and sustains) deeply corrupt political systems. That's the two-tiered system which, for obvious reasons, our political and media elites are now vehemently arguing must be preserved.

Accountability in government?

Glenn Greenwald rightly takes to task those duopoly politicians who publicly support Israeli state terrorism in the Gaza. After writing about the consensus among America's political elite on the Israel question, Greenwald then points out that:

By itself, the degree of full-fledged, absolute agreement — down to the syllable — among America's political leaders is striking, even when one acknowledges the constant convergence between the leadership of both parties. But it becomes even more striking in light of the bizarre fact that the consensus view — that America must unquestioningly stand on Israel's side and support it, not just in this conflict but in all of Israel's various wars — is a view which 7 out of 10 Americans reject. Conversely, the view which 70% of Americans embrace — that the U.S. should be neutral and even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally — is one that no mainstream politician would dare express.

In a democracy, one could expect that politicians would be afraid to express a view that 70% of the citizens oppose. Yet here we have the exact opposite situation: no mainstream politician would dare express the view that 70% of Americans support; instead, the universal piety is the one that only a small minority accept. Isn't that fairly compelling evidence of the complete disconnect between our political elites and the people they purportedly represent?

Indeed…

When is bipartisanship more than hot air?

When the Democrats need the Republicans to get something right

Glen Greenwald notes and lists some of the rightwing opponents of the Plan. He then observes that "Right-wing opposition to the Paulson plan is vital for having any meaningful chance to stop it." What makes this cross-aisle collaboration vital? Greenwald continues:

Does anyone have any confidence at all in the Democrats' willingness and/or ability to impede this bailout train if the Bush administration and the Right were vigorously behind it, warning the nation of impending doom unless we submit to vast, unchecked government power of the type Henry Paulson is demanding? The instances of complete Democratic acquiescence under those circumstances — including when they "controlled" the Congress — are far too numerous to allow any rational person to think Democrats, standing alone, would stop the Paulson plan. As sad as it is, meaningful right-wing opposition is critical for that to happen.