the mojowire

A Few Heartfelt Words About The Election...

This post was originally going to be some incredulous snark about The Senile Josey Wales and his rambling, pointless 12 minutes with an empty chair in GOP primetime...

But then something much more important happened... The Democrats got up to bat.

Michelle Obama was tremendous and authentic, The Big Dog was... well... The Big Dog; even Old Uncle Joe managed to not step on his own taint in public... and a number of others managed to articulate a vision of America that was respectful, progressive, patriotic and attainable but for the political will to make-it-so...

And of course, Barak Obama... his speech -- which I think is greatly under rated right now -- will later be looked upon as a masterpiece of modern political oration.

But as Charles Pierce rightly picked out last week, the line from the President's speech: "the hard and frustrating and necessary work of self-government..." is the take away line from that address; hell, from the entire convention...

But for those who tuned in late on Thursday, or perhaps were too busy listening to chatting heads and other self-important jag-offs vent their various gaseous opinions and analysis into the aether, you may have missed one of the most important bits of political speech in the last 40 years.

I say the most important not because of the actual text or the delivery, but the context of the speech given the current state of American politics.

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia got up to the podium and had a few words to say about voter disenfranchisement... and he's a guy who should know; he was nearly beat to death by Alabama State Troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for daring to insist he was every bit the citizen that white people were in the south on an early March afternoon in 1965.

So when he gets up to talk about the modern Republican party's betrayal of Abraham Lincoln through modern voter supression, folks should maybe listen to what he has to say:

My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots.

Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state’s new voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.” That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not just.

And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I’ve seen this before. I’ve lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

So when the President talks about the  "the hard and frustrating and necessary work of self-government..." this is a large part of what he's talking about; pushing back against ginned-up bullshit "voter fraud" and intimidation accusations in places where the only election fraud and intimidation in the last 100 years has been the work of rich white men trying to keep minorities, women and the poor from the polls.

This is the political fight of this generation: not abortion or gay rights, not prayer in the schools, not national security or welfare or other entitlement programs, or their funding. As critical as those issues are -- and they are critical -- without the right of meaningful political participation in our government through the franchise it all means nothing; we're all just shouting at the wind without a legitimate vote.

The most basic struggle we still face is the right to exercise political power at the polls, and to defeat the herculean efforts of a few entrenched interests in this country to ensure that only a select group can exercise that right.

Saw a picture recently that reminded me of this: a woman in early 20th century garb -- a sufferage reenactor you might say -- was holding a placard that said "I can't believe it's 2012 and I still have to protest this shit!" This is what I think when I hear about efforts in Florida to toss minorities off the voting rolls or Pennsylvania's efforts to enact ridiculous and needless "voter ID" rules...

For guys like Rep. Lewis, watching this has to be a horrific form of deja vu! The Repblican Party machinery in several of the states where they control the machinery is openly working to keep minorities and the poor from voting this November.

Why? Simple. Numbers; we have more...

Instead of articulating a vision of leadership that will be better for this country's working poor, struggling middle class and minorities (who, I might add, are increasingly all part of the same group) they decided it would be easier just to disenfranchise them.

This in itself is significant. It should tell us something about the reality of the current GOP and the Movement Conservatives. They are interested in America made up of only of their ideas and people they deem fit.

They won't be bothered with creating a vision of an American Democracy or Repbulic that respets diverse opinions or pluralistic society. No, much easier just to make sure that those voices, such as they are, can not participate in any meaningful way.

Sound a bit turgid? Yeah...but look at the difference between the two parties. For decades the Democrats have been chided, ridiculed and parodied as the party of circular firing squads and undisciplined, unruly politics.

Why is that? Because we respect and tolerate a diversity of opinion and ideas within the party. We may fight like cats and dogs and at times some get off the reservation and try to make the party into something it's not (DLC, Rahm Emanuel, I'm looking at you...).

However, it is a political party that will have a permanent majority in this country so long as: 1. We continue to realize that the Democratic Party is the party of inclusiveness and plurality and 2. the GOP remains committed to pathological idelogical purity that owes nothing to the Enlightenment values that inform the ideals enshrined in our founding documents.

Moreover, the GOP knows this. It is this fear of finding themselves out in the political cold as a fringe political movement with little to offer the American people as a whole that has them scrambling to make sure that a majority of the American people are no longer eligible to participate in their country.

But because the small group of would-be oligarchs and plutocrats driving this are also in control of much our national material and monetary wealth, they have something of an advantage. They have the abilty to gin up fake populist movements like the Tea Party and convince some folks -- most often those least capable of defending themselves from such -- that the golden halls they are promised are really just shearing pens with red velvet ropes for corrals.

This is the "the hard and frustrating and necessary work of self-government." The work of ensuring self-government and defending it from interests who want nothing more than to dismantle the 230-some-years of democratic machinery we have put in place to work towards a "more perfect union."

So when John Lewis gets up and sounds the alarm about the encroachment of anti-democratic forces we thought had been largely relegated to the history books or backwaters where people weren't looking carefully, then we'd best pay attention, because it means we are also falling down on the job.

If they are succesful in cheating us out of our franchise and our rightful place in the Republic's body politic, then we will have to shoulder part of that blame, because it will be partly because we we're not strong enough, smart enough, or paying enough attention at the right time to stop them.

mojo sends

What's Past is Prologue... Meditations on 1996

Reading a little of Charles Pierce's fine blog posts on his trip "up the river" to confront Colonel R-Money in Tampa this week, I have found myself reflecting on my own quest into the Heart of Darkness back in 1996, and the portents I brought home from that venture.

In my now adoptive home of San Diego in July 1996, the GOP put up their grand olde statesman Bob Dole and his mouth breathing flying monkey Jack Kemp to be their standard bearing warriors (or ritual sacrfices in the Thunderdome -- pick your metaphor) to battle the Bill Clinton reelection juggernaut.

One of the memorable things I remember from that convention was Ted Kopple and many other of the media elite complaining bitterly that there was nothing "newsworthy" happening at the convention; that the whole thing was little more than a four-day self-congratulatory circle-jerk.

They were mad because the big headlines weren't being hand-fed to them like peeled grapes and that to find the "real news" from the convention, they would have to do some actual reporting.

What our national chatting class elite could not seem to grasp was that their frustration was being shared by a large portion of the delegates and other GOP party faithful on the floor and outside the hall. And that was the story.

Talk of open revolution from the rank and file on the floor; terrible butt-hurt from realizing they were simply unpaid extras in a Bob Dole infomercial for the Party Bosses. Remember, this was still in the time of St. Reagan's famous admonition "thou shalt not hack thy fellow Republican!" 

Mr. Pierce writes about the "invasive species" that seem to have flourished in the Republican Party and are currently threatening to make it into something unrecognizable to most Americans.

Well, to carry on with that analogy, I have two very distinct memories of watching the overgrown pets slip their leashes and get loose on the American body politic. I was doing a story on the Anti-Choice plank in the party platform that year; really the only thing that had generated much mainstream media heat, but I wanted to talk to delegates and others, not the Party Bosses, who would only schplort the same talking points at me that they had spooging all over the dais for the last day and a half.

First was the scene in a park in suburban San Diego, where a hardened Xtian culture warrior from Ohio named Joe Slovenec was holding court with his gang of anti-woman thugs. Strychnine and I had been chasing him around the city for a good part of the morning as they hit women's health care clinics in an attempt to intimidate doctors and patients and get their grills on National TeeVee News...

At the park, they were having a late lunch and Joe was pumping up the troops. We approached and after being escorted to Commandante Joe by a couple of his Blackguards, he deigned to speak with me and my "editorial assistant." I asked him a question based on my (now understood to be naive) concept on the Christian Fundamentalist place in the Republican establishment at that time: "If this is partly, as you say, to gather attention for your cause, then haven't you already succeeded, I mean the Christian Coalition has a place at the table; Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson have seen to that..."

His answer was as blunt as it was chilling: "We don't want a seat at that table. We want to tip that table over."

It would be the better part of a decade before I came to realize the real implications of that statement, however... not merely a desire to seize the American political apparatus, but a fundamentally different view of how the American political system should be organized and used.

Next, I was on the floor of the convention and I was in the heartland section, right in amongst the Iowa and Oklahoma folks, many of whom were still wearing Pat Buchanan paraphrenalia.

As I made rounds with the delegates, speakers on the dais were discussing the Anti-Choice language in a merely speechifyin' pro-forma manner. I asked delegates the same question: "You got what you wanted in this platform plank, that has to be some comfort I would imagine, even if some of you are not as strident about Bob Dole as some of the others who ran..."

Now I can't remember what they all said verbatim, but it can be summed up in the words of a middle-age couple from Tulsa who stated unequivocally that they knew the platform plank was a sham, the party would take no real action to implement it and that it was just cosmetics to make people like them vote and get out their wallets when the candiate passes around the hat.

"And one day, we're gonna get fed up with this crap... hell, we're already fed up," the man said looking me dead in the eye, serious as the proverbial heart attack. "The party is gonna hafta learn the hard way that they have to take regular folks like us seriously, and that day is comin' faster than they know..."

That day of reckoning for the party bosses is comin' faster than they know... This was the message I took from the floor of the convention. Party loyalty was all well and good, but a lot of these folks were just tired of being the establishment's collective bitch.

They had the anger, just no real experience with expressing those kinds of feelings within the structure of the GOP. But no amount of cheap perfume from the speaker's dais, no quantity of free Coors Light and foot-longs, red, white and blue balloons and Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American", was going to mask the rising stench resentment and genuine anger from a lot of those people on the floor.

Now, I'm a life-long Democrat, so I know all about the auto-canabalistic circular firing squad. Hell, for the Democrats, that's just what we call Tuesday, for crying out loud... But this was from the loyal rank and file of the GOP's heartland and just about every other place I stopped to question delegates and others on the floor.

An internal revolt in the GOP? Inconceivable!

But the seeds of discontent and internal rebelliion had been planted. When? I can't say, for certain. There had been a mutant strand on the GOP chromasome since the early 50s, at least, and that allele began to express even stronger through the turbulent 1960s, but here in San Diego in 1996, the seeds born of that mutation were clearly germinating and starting to throw off shoots.

I remember a few months later, Strychnine, Biz and I were hunkered down somewhere in San Francisco talking about this experience and what we thought It-All-Meant. I think that was the point we realized that we possibly witnessed the start of a nascent splintering of the GOP; something was in the wind, we just couldn't put a finger on it, but it was like watching dark clouds mass up off-shore and that first twinge of a cold breeze starts... storm's comin'...

The anti-establishement anger many of these people had was ameliorated a bit in the wake of Bush v. Gore and the 9/11 attack, but only for a bit. Many felt they finally got their guy when Maximum Leader came to power in 2000.

But I have since spoken to Tea Party activists who tell me their break with the party finally came on W's watch, and the election of Barack Obama was the final bit of conspiratorial noise that just finally crashed whole wave form for them. Their cognitive dissonance had just become too much to bear and it was time to head to the bunker.

Whipped up into an hysterical stew of fear and loathing during the early years of the 21st Century, those party malcontents finally decided they had had enough. This nearly psychotic break with reality we're seeing in segments of the traditional Republican Party and the establishment's inability to come to grips with them; this is the penultimate desitnation of where those first hints were leading.

This post is not about "I told you so" or bragging about the Mojowire's editors' awesome powers of observation or prognostication; it's simply an acknowledgement that we were there at what we thought looked like a beginning of something, and that this current moment in American history and political culture did not just spring up out of the ground fully formed overnight.

Animus and discontent in the GOP has been growing and organizing itself for many years now and we have been expectantly awaiting its arrival.

But I said "penultimate destination." What Charles Pierce has been pointing too (remember Charles Pierce, this a blog post about Charles Pierce) has been a transformation of the Republican rank and file from a political party participating in the American electoral process to an organism that has a radically different view of what American government, it's electoral process and, indeed, society should be.

That transformation has started at the bottom, with a significant amount of seed money and organizational help from a few interested individuals, pushed along by Right Wing media and finally is filtering up to the upper echelon's of the party.

To use Charles' metaphor again, the invasive species have not only taken over a particular segment of that eco-system, they have become the top predators and are breeding this mutation into older and less adaptable portions of the ecosystem.

It is turning into something fundamentally un-American. Something that fears and rejects the Enlightenment era ideals that the nation was founded upon, the pluralistic standards of equality and justice, seeking instead something else entirely, even if they haven't yet really defined it themselves.

But like the man said: "That day's comin' faster than they know..."

 

mojo sends

Mittens R-Money picks kid who eats paste to be VP

Look, I was going to blog this out, but as usual Charles Pierce has not only said it best, but said it first... so the bottom line is this: Get thee to Charles' place and read up on the "Zombie-Eyed, Granny Starver" who would be VP.

(I still say he reminds of Ralph Wiggums in an Armani suit, though... "What's a diarama?")

 

mojo sends

Hippy Punching in Lakeside

So it's been a couple of days since this incident and I have been trying to figure out what I want to say about it.

Disclaimer.1: Please understand that this is not boasting or bragging or just telling "war stories." This was a real incident that I think illustrates something important in our current politics; something becoming increasingly dangerous.

I guess I should start at the beginning then... See, Mrs. Mojo and I went to the rodeo here in our little town of Lakeside in east San Diego County the other night.

Disclaimer.2: I like rodeo and my wife has forgotten more about horses and riding than most any three people will know in a lifetime.

God as my witness, all I wanted to do Friday night was go out with my wife, have a beer and watch some rodeo...

At the beginning of these things nowadays, there is a bit of pro-patria political theater, and they usually ask veterans in the grandstands to stand up and get a round of applause, and when they do, I stand up. It is usually a fairly innocuous and benign display.

About 30 minutes into the first round, the rodeo clown/arena field announcer (as opposed to the booth announcer) starts bantering to kill time while they're loading more bulls into the chutes. And he starts in with a schtick he probably does at every rodeo he clowns at: "So I wanna take a poll... since it's an election year, how many proud conservative Republicans are here tonight... stand up, let's hear ya..."

There is a lot of folks jumping up and shouting and clapping and all that; then he starts, "okay... now let's see if there's anyone..."

And I'm thinking "oh just don't...please just don't," because I know what comes next.

"...dumb or brave enough to say they're a Democrat."

Through the smattering of laughter a huge voice booms out "YEAH... RIGHT HERE!" And I'm only a little surprised to find that the voice is coming from me and I'm on my feet.

And I look around... and in a rodeo stadium of about 2,500 people, I am the only person standing.

The look on the clown's face was priceless. Like I said, he probably does this schtick at every rodeo he works, and he is looking like this is the first time someone's called him on this...

Now, I won't say there wasn't a little bit of calculation here. Right now people are looking at me and thinking this all a joke bit, or that I'm some kind of space alien. But after I said that there were cartoon crickets... seriously... you could hear a pin drop.

There were two choices for me here: 1. Punk out and just sit down sheepishly, or 2. Throw Down!

My calculation was that most of these people there were just like me in one important respect: all they were looking for this evening was to have a beer or two and watch some rodeo, and they were not emotionally, psychologically prepared for this.

But if I punked, then I would have run the risk of inviting the reaction of any typical bully. So I chose option two.

I spread my arms out and started looking around, digging down and finding the command voice I learned in the military and some later training, I started in: "What?! Who's got something to say about that?!" And as I turn around facing the rest of the stands and I find I am staring down some 2,500 beered up rodeo fans...

At this point, my brain is furiously pumping rather unsubtle doses of combat preparation hormones as this odd little drama is nearing some kind of endgame.

The clown/announcer looks like he saw the potential for something bad to happen in regards to his attempt to play the crowd, so he quickly regathers his compsure, and tries to continue the bit to get me to sit the hell down, "well, how about that... hey... so how about that Obamacare... you in favor of that?"

My answer (still in command voice): "You mean the Affordable Care Act? Hell yes... we need health care for everyone." Another calculation; he wants to bring this up, fine. I dare him even on the most simplistic and base level to engage. It had the desired and expected result. This was a rodeo, not a healthcare policy debate roundtable and that was clearly where I was prepared to take this...

He said something like "well okay then..." joked it off and moved on to the next thing and I sat down.

A few minutes later, he invited me down to the arena edge to shake my hand and thank me for being a good sport. I said something that took him aback a bit:

"Hey, if I can stand up as a veteran, then I can stand up as a Democrat." He seemed to like that.

A few more minutes later I'm back in the stands, and the guys starts in again: "I don't mean to get philosophical here but..." and again I'm thinking "Oh God, just don't. I just wanted to come watch the cowboys and have a couple of beers,"

"...but that fella who said he was Democrat just said something pretty powerful to me, and I thought it was worth repeating..." There was a small knot of applause, mainly from others in the stands I saw standing up earlier as veterans.

Well... that happened, I thought. Then had to go grab a beer and walk off some of the adrenaline for a minute.

While I was walking around, I was asking myself: "what the hell got into you up there?" Turns out the answer to that question is actually pretty easy. If you are reading this, chances are you have read the Wire before. You know who we are and what we are about and we make no pretense to anything else.

I exhort people to a particular point of view, sometimes pretty stridently. I use this space as a place where I can take a public stand for those things I believe. 

If I didn't stand at that moment, I could never write another word here ever again.

Oddly enough, I was feeling bad about all this because this was horribly mortifying for Mrs. Mojo, who is uncomfortable in crowds to begin with, and hates massed attention, much less hostile massed attention.

And make no mistake... there was a genuinely dangerous moment or two of a "Chinese standoff;" where this could have all gone very bad, very fast.

Because the joke here was this: The point wasn't to see if there were any "Democrats" in the crowd. He knew there were probably a few. This was just garden variety social "hippy punching." The point was to tell anyone identifying as "liberal" or "Democrat" that we are hopelessly outnumbered so just sit down and shut up. Just lie down.

That's not me. Not ever.

And on an evening when I just wanted to go out and do something fun with my wife, to be put in that position, kind of ticked me off. Sure, you can criticize my choices here with a perfectly good argument about "choosing one's battles."

But I fear we are entering a time and place where we are increasingly not afforded that luxury. I felt like I was being asked at that moment: "you gonna put up or shut up; where are you at?"

I suppose I have my answer...

mojo sends

Amendment VII: In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States

Okay... that headline is out on a bit of a limb here, but...

Usually this would be the space where I or one of my two fellow editors engage in further outrage at the extrajudicial murder of American citizens by their own government. And you might well be justified in asking: "And this has what to do with the right of Americans to engage in at times not-so-civil litigation?"

The ACLU and their fellow travellers have filed suit on behalf of the survivors of Anwar al-Aulaqi and others Americans toad-cranked in the last year by the Obama Administration without any due process in the name of the so-called war on terrorism.

I tweeted this excellent brief yesterday from Justia.com's blog... it's a short read; check it out, I'll wait...

All done? Very well... then as you will know from your reading, the point here is that the original attempt to prevent the government from doing this was never heard on the merits.

This is a critical point, because the Stalinist right wingers currently waging an increasingly hot culture war against our traditional pluralistic values all hold up that previous decision as some sort of greenlight for extreme government sanctions against its own citizens without any kind of oversight or review that makes a functioning democracy... well... a functioning democracy.

But the judge in that case only ruled that the plaintiff at that time lacked standing to bring suit on the grounds as a proxy stand-in for other family members in jeopardy; at no time did he address the question of the legality of state's actions.

That may be about to change.

In filing what are essentially "wrongful death" suits against the government, a judge may now get to hear those arguements brought by plaintiffs with proper standing to sue.

The Obama Administration has a couple of ways around this: Ask for demurrer or summary judgement based on 1. The Political Question Doctrine for wonks only and 2. The State Secrets Privelege only slightly less wonky.

Either one is a probably a way out... as Democrats and progressives we need to let this administration know that we are watching this one carefully.

Yeah... I know, we have taken a pretty abrupt turn into electoral politics, but hear me out... right now, most professional pollsters and political bookmakers are pulling their hair out on how close this race is tightening up. At any given hour of the day, it could be either guy's race and anyone who tries to say with any definitive authority who the winner will be is a rube or a con.

The one thing they all agree on though is this: turnout will be the definitive factor.

Right now it looks like turn out will favor the Republicans. Even if Independents and swing blue-dog Dems decide to sit this one out and not vote for anyone, that will still be a net gain for the GOP, given that GOP turnout estimates for November are better than 85 percent while Dems are hovering in the mid 70s.

Now might be a good time for us to let the Obama campaign and Democratic Party at large know that if they want another turn at the wheel, then they can't ignore the turn out of their electoral base and will think twice about trying to kill this case in the crib if they want our money or votes (and yes, I am aware of some of the legal-ethical considerations here, such as failing to provide a complete and zealous defense for your client...).

Given the time it takes a suit to wend its way through the federal court system, the election will probably be done by the time we get into any meaningful litigation. But they need to know -- now -- that we want this one.

And then, of course, even if we get a short term "win," we need to come up with political leverage to get the Administratio to maintain a litigation posture that allows the case a full and fair hearing.

Polyannic? Yeah, probably... but if this is truly a "political question," then perhaps it's time to bring politics to bear. To quote the great Toby Zeigler from the West Wing: "I don't mind the fights we lose, I mind the ones we don't even suit up for."

If we can't suit up for this, then we really have lost already...

 

mojo sends

The End of America as We Know It (And I feel fine...)

During the past 24 hours or so as the Supremes decided to uphold the ACA (or RomneyCare as we like to call it in the Wire's editorial bullpen) I have been seeing lots of bloody-shirt-waving, pearl-clutching, wailing, weeping and gnashing-o'-teeth variations on "The-End-Of-America-As-We-Know-It!!!!11111Q!34e2ERqrwefaw3"

And yes, the salty tears of infantile rage and political impotence from Tea Party types are the most satisfying of all...

Yet, I would like to validate their opinion. It is the end of American as you know it:

The end of America where 35 to 40 million of your fellow citizens have to choose between healthcare and food.

The end of America where getting sick gets you kicked off your health insurance plan.

The end of America where kids can not stay on their folks insurance longer.

Yeah... that place sucked... good riddance!

Sure ACA has some problems, and makes some debatable assumptions, and those are going to have to be fixed.

But the premise that America is a place where -- in spite of massive wealth -- we still can't seem to get people in to see the doctor, is done.

Let me throw the right a bone here, if you will... If I believed the court had politics on its mind, I would be tempted to say that the Dread Judge Roberts ruled the way he did (Mandate is unconstitutional under Commerce Clause, but we can't overturn it as a tax) essentially wrote the Romney Campaign's biggest -- and to my mind, most successful -- campaign ad.

To wit: Obama administration and Democrats in Congress force massive tax on American people to push them into buying health insurance.

Remember what Roberts actually wrote: Congress has the power to levy taxes, it is not the court's place to rule on the wisdom of that. That is reserved to the people.

If I was politically cynical, I might think Roberts did this on purpose to influence the election... if I was politically cynical...

 

mojo sends

All Your Base Are Belong To Booker

My fellow libs and Dems need to chill out over the self-serving hype surrounding Cory Booker's intellectually-crippled apologia for Bain Capital.

At the end of the day he is just another in a long line of pre-indicted grifters to find politics in New Jersey only slightly more lucrative than mugging tourists at the Port Authority terminal.

I'm sure someday he will be regaling his fellow inmates at FCI Fort Dix how he took the rubes for all they worth before convincing them to elect him to his own little North Jersey fiefdom. Good times, man... good times...

 

mojo sends

The two most important posts you'll read today...

Get thee hence to Jack Balkin's salt mine of legal wisdom: Balkinzation and read up on the latest in American democratic republic fail. From there direct yourself to the provided link and read this post at Lawfare on the same topic.

Hint: these are about your rights to not be disappeared in the middle of the night by government security forces... rights that are quickly evaporating in our dangerously dysfunctional political climate.

 

mojo sends

Commence the circular firing squad: An answer to Matt Stoller

Matt Stoller calls out liberals abuse of Ron Paul:

Modern liberalism is a mixture of two elements. One is a support of Federal power – what came out of the late 1930s, World War II, and the civil rights era where a social safety net and warfare were financed by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the RFC, and human rights were enforced by a Federal government, unions, and a cadre of corporate, journalistic and technocratic experts (and cheap oil made the whole system run.) America mobilized militarily for national priorities, be they war-like or social in nature. And two, it originates from the anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam era, with its distrust of centralized authority mobilizing national resources for what were perceived to be immoral priorities. When you throw in the recent financial crisis, the corruption of big finance, the increasing militarization of society, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the collapse of the moral authority of the technocrats, you have a big problem. Liberalism doesn’t really exist much within the Democratic Party so much anymore, but it also has a profound challenge insofar as the rudiments of liberalism going back to the 1930s don’t work. 

This is terrible history.  It is exactly this sort of limited and often false theoretical approaches to history that anyone with pretensions to use history to grapple with difficult questions should avoid.  I'll get into some specific reasons why I find this method of problematic, but first I need to address this:

This is why Ron Paul can critique the Federal Reserve and American empire, and why liberals have essentially no answer to his ideas, arguing instead over Paul having character defects.  

The answer to his ideas is that they are wrong on the merits and will not solve any of the problems Paul claims they will solve.  In regards to the Fed, Paul's claims about the Federal Reserve and fiat currency are completely at odds with reality, and his economic history is objectively false and distorted.  His constant distortion of economic and political history is a habit of Paul's, and its on that basis that liberals who actually know what Paul's Austrian economic theories are based on regard him as a dangerous crank.  His critiques on American Empire would get a more sympathetic hearing from liberals if didn't also have some bizarre and again false historical arguments about our participation in World War II and World War I.  The fact that he is actually right when he attacks the expansion of executive power doesn't make those other elements any more palatable.  

Look Matt, if you want to critique the Federal Reserve, American empire, and liberalism in general, fine.  That is a perfectly reasonable set of targets to criticize.  I probably share some of those critiques.   But please do not pimp this utter pile of noxious crap that I have to stomach a single moment of the wretched garbage peddled by Ron Paul to make those critiques.   Those of us who were paying attention to the White Supremacy movement back in the day can tell you we knew decades ago Ron Paul was a racist hate monger, economic history crank, Neo-Confederate apologist, and outright loon way before he tickled your fancy attacking foreign wars and banking regulators.   And even if Ron Paul isn't personally a racist, he trafficked in the worst racist demagoguing this side of Nathan Bedford Forrest to enrich himself, which in my book is just as bad. I do not know what is in the mans heart, or whether he is a good person, but its clear Ron Paul's view of the Constitution or the economy should not be implemented, nor should Dr. Paul be allowed to exercise power as President.  Not if you value economic or social justice.  

Its not enough to simply decide that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  Because Ron Paul attacks the drug war and criticizes institutions like the Fed and the Pentagon doesn't make him any less of a collaborator in the effort to overturn the Civil Rights Act and end, yes, permanently end the application of the protections and guarantees of the Federal Bill of Rights to the States.  You did know, Matt, that Ron Paul's views on the application of the Commerce clause, the 14th Amendment, and incorporation theory will lead to that, right?  That's actually more important to most liberals than whats currently up his or your ass about the Fed.  His argument about State vs. Federal power is almost exactly what opponents to the Civil Rights Act argued about the Commerce Clause and the application of the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment.  You and Greenwald may have strong arguments about the abuse of executive war powers by Bush and Obama, but those concerns should not trump legitimate concerns about Ron Paul's clear intention to eviscerate the nations civil rights laws.  You don't have to take my word for it, listen to the man on these topics.  He is clear as a bell on them.  

BTW, his attacks on Lincoln are not simply criticisms on an icon.  He is making the arguments that Neo-Confederate apologists have made about Lincoln since Reconstruction  because they want to tarnish his legacy, including and perhaps most importantly the Reconstruction amendments.  They have been aided in the past in that effort by Progressive historians who argued that the Civil War was only about the North imposing economic hegemony over the South.  Historians of that period have come to their senses about that Matt, and anyone familiar with the current scholarship on the Civil War recognizes that purely economic interpretations of historical events can lead to terribly wrong conclusions.  His argument that Lincoln started the war is a terrible slander and a pure falsehood that even someone with a cursory knowledge of the Civil War should know.  The South was threatening secession constantly for decades prior to the onset of hostilities, and they finally seceded because they refused to accept the outcome of a democratic election they did not like.  Pinning any of that on Lincoln is a nasty lie to further the ends of people who don't want to accept the fact that the war was fought, at least in part, over the claim made by the Confederacy they had the god given right to impose brutal enslavement on millions of people for their own economic and social benefit.  The basis for this claim was pure white supremacy untarnished by any recognition that the people they held in bondage were human beings and deserving of the same rights under the law they enjoyed.  Paul's dalliance with this is deplorable and not simply a minor oopsie of having your name attached to some newsletters churned out by a crank associate.  He openly declared his beliefs on the Civil War on Meet the Press.  I'm not shooting the messenger here, he shot himself.  

And correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have some sympathy for Paul's Gold Standard arguments.  Gold Standard economics is a system that favors the creditor (banks) as 19th century Populists were correct to point out.  Adherence to that system caused terrible deflationary shocks and speculation bubbles, far more brutal than any we have experienced since the Great Depression.  Anyone who demonstrates concern about concentrated economic power and financial elites will not find any help for those problems in the gold standard.  No matter how bad you think the Fed is, its role in managing the money supply, particularly lately, is preferable to what we experienced under the gold standard.  Paul is perfectly happy to blame every economic issue of the post war period on the Federal Reserve when it is in fact a better deal for anyone concerned with democracy to have a bunch of autocratic bankers appointed by Congress and the President managing the money supply than to subject workers to the mercies of the Gold Standard he envisions, which by the way is not the pound sterling system of years past or the IMF version.  Bernake is right to expand the monetary base even if helps douchebags on Wall Street, and he has supported efforts at Stimulus by the Government.  He should do more, but that's not really what Paul is arguing for. He thinks the Federal Reserve directly cause the crisis by its reliance on fiat currency.  That's is plainly wrong Matt, and while the Federal reserves cheap money policies under Greenspan contributed to the crisis, they are not the fundamental cause as Paul argues.  Its a critical distinction.  His version of the Gold Standard is predicated on ideas we know to be disastrous, and in no way will the gold standard help any liberal or leftist cause I am familiar with.  

And on the histiographic front, modern liberalism is not simply a mixture of Federal power and anti-war sentiment. That is purely an economic and political interpretation.  It is solely concerned with mechanisms and political aspirations.  The essential question it misses, or avoids,  is what do modern liberals believe and hope to achieve by these mechanisms, (Matt's definition of those mechanisms I think is problematic, but that's a fight for another day). It has  roots in the social movements of the 3rd Great Awakening, the populist movement of the 1890's, and the civil rights movements both for African Americans and women.  It is a political ideology concerned, in part, with social justice and equality.  It certainly harnessed Federal power to try to achieve those ends, particularly in the form of the judiciary and the application of the Bill of Rights to the states.  And that effort as social justice by applying the Reconstruction Amendments to the states and establishing civil rights laws is a deal breaker for liberals when dealing with Ron Paul.   I'm not challenged by Paul's views on executive power.  I recognize him for what he is, someone who has constructed a false historical narrative on social, legal, political, and economic fronts and has managed to avoid accountability for most of that by playing on the public's  general ignorance of his actual views.   I cannot imagine a worse ally for liberals than Ron Paul short of Dick Cheney, who probably is as much a racist and a homophobes as Paul's is, which is to say likely not that much.  We can do better

 

Vox Populi Saturday

Let's take another stab at a regular feature, shall we?

Welcome to the weekly open thread: Vox Populi Saturday.

Anything sticking in your craw? Horrible things you want to say about any of the editors? Current political, economic, social, cultural issues you want brought up? Have at it; just remember to have a take and do not suck.

Let's throw a couple of things out there to try to prime the pump:

1.  The new media narrative is that Mittens, who's had a recent surge in the polls, is already the nominee and the GOP primaries are now over. True?

2.  Given that Iran is making some overtly threatening gestures about closing the Persian Gulf for business and the U.S. Navy's response of "Yeah? You and what navy?" how real is this? Are we getting closer to a real Persian/American war?

3.  Tim Tebow; has the clock finally run out on St. Timmy of the Wobby Underthrow? Whence Juicebox Jesus? (h/t Tbogg for the gloss)

4. Lastly, RawStory clip o' the day: The Supremes are going to weigh in regarding redistricting in Texas. Dems are celebrating, but that could be grotesquely short-sighted. What are the legal and poltiical implications for California, given our state's bipolar and dysfunctional history of redistricting?

So remember, opinions are like elbows: everyone's got at least two -- or more if you live too close to a nuclear waste pit -- so don't be shy.

mojo sends