Ken Silverstein is leaving Harper's -- and Washington

Here's why:

"When you can read an entire column by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and never once feel the urge to cut out your own heart with a dull knife, you know that you no longer have the sense of outrage that is essential to reporting from our nation’s capital."

The rest is worth reading.

Still alive!

Dear readers: I'm still alive (sorry to disappoint)! In fact, I pretty much spend all day now blogging for Change.org, interviewing medical marijuana dispensary owners and writing about torture, police abuse and fun stuff like that.

Check out my work here and send me nasty (or nice!) comments based on what you think.

The siren call of electoral politics

It happens every November (and sometimes it never goes away): otherwise seemingly intelligent people get stupid and put their faith in politicians who without fail will, predictably, betray them -- cut the "betrayed" crap, please. Each corrupt incumbent is replaced with a do-gooding reformer who, in a few years time -- sometimes longer, usually sooner -- become a carbon copy of the corrupt bastard they replaced. Liberal disappointment in Obama was preceded by conservative disappointment in Bush, which was preceded by liberal disappointment in Clinton, which was preceded by conservative disappointment in Bush, etc., ad infinitum, QED. It happens every time: soaring rhetoric and high hopes dashed on the rocks of political reality. For sure, each party has its rogues, its "mavericks" who will carry the torch of Truth and Justice, at least for a time, but they are the one-in-a-hundred exceptions to the rule -- I'm being generous with that ratio, mind you -- and invariably have no real power over the functioning of the State. Sorry Dennis, it's sad but true.

But come election time, millions of nice, almost sickeningly earnest people -- appearing to forget all this -- will head out to their local polling station to eagerly vote for one of two ideologically indistinguishable corporate-sponsored candidates, convinced not only that it matters, but that they are fulfilling their greatest civic duty (as some even love to patronizingly lecture their peers -- yeah you). The one saving grace of the election season, at least in the United States, is that the majority of the public doesn't bother to participate. Most people it seems wisely prefer, to paraphrase George Carlin, the comfort of masturbating in their home to getting off the couch for the masturbatory ritual of casting a vote in a race to decide whether Kang or Kodos get to call the shots.

That's not to say the passivity demonstrated by the average American is something admire either, though. The problem with electoral politics isn't that it gets people engaged in their communities -- that's a good thing; it's that it diverts any enthusiasm there might be for affecting real social change into places like Congress and the White House, where good ideas and basic human decency go to die. The great Emma Goldman expounded on this theme in an essay she wrote back in 1917, a piece that is both comforting to my mind because it illustrates mindless subservience to politics and politicians isn't a maddening phenomenon unique to our times, but also -- and for the same reason -- incredibly, profoundly depressing.

Writes Goldman:

One has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-​pulling, intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete demoralization of character and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for anything from such a human derelict. Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust, believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find themselves betrayed and cheated. 

It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances. The State is the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such there be, would either remain true to their political faith and lose their economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly unable to do the slightest good. The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

Now if I had a chance to cast a ballot knowing my vote could defeat someone like Hitler, I wouldn't hesitate: I'd vote. And I don't see any problem voting on public referendums, like Proposition 19 in California to legalize marijuana, or even voting for congressional candidates, per se. Casting a vote can be a legitimate defense mechanism, and even a platform for spreading a movement's message. At the same time, though, it can also be a big 'ol waste of time and effort that'd be better spent organizing around issues and implementing change in your community independent of the state legislatures and city councils. And no, that doesn't mean Molotov cocktails. It means volunteering at your local soup kitchen instead of at the campaign headquarters for the latest charlatan begging for your vote, cleaning up your neighborhood yourself instead of complaining to some city bureaucrat about it. It could also mean, following the example of the employees at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, assuming worker control of a business whose owners have refused to pay wages owed.

What rejecting electoral politics doesn't mean, or at least doesn't have to mean, is embracing apathy or college sophomore nihilism, as some civic-duty (and simple) minded detractors might argue. No, if you want to peddle complacency, just tell people the problem is the politicians, not the governing institutions, and that everything can change! if you just get off your ass on November 2nd. Why? Because the unrelenting hype over elections pretty much guarantees the public will sit on its collective behind the other 364 days of the year, glued to the cable TV -- watching Tom DeLay go up against a five-year-old Border Collie in a surprisingly competitive battle of wits (the Border Collie only won by single digits) and some kids from Jersey exploring the many ways to kill a brain cell -- while waiting on some asshole congressman or president to change their world for the better.

And really, if you want an apathetic public you couldn't do much better than the system we have now.


Photo Credit: Aziez Ahmed

'If they're gonna use it, they're gonna use it.'

Colorado cop and DARE officer Vern Rucker probably didn't set out to undercut the stated purpose for the war on drugs when he spoke to the reporter for the Cortez Journal, a paper located in a small town in the southwestern part of the state. But that's just what Rucker did, thoroughly undermining one of the key rationales for the war when asked what effect the presence of licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in Cortez would have on rates of usage among Our Most Precious Natural Resource, the damned kids:

"I don't think (the presence of medical marijuana dispensaries) has anything to do with it," he said. "If they're gonna use it, they're gonna use it. They don't have to have a card. They just go get it."

Exactly. On behalf of drug legalization advocates the world over: thanks for making our case, Officer Rucker!  Now here's an organization you might be interested in.

New gig

Beginning September 7th, I'll be working full-time for Change.org, writing about issues like the war on drugs, police abuse and the evils of the U.S. prison system; that is, about everything I pretty much rant about in my free time, except now I'll actually get paid for it. I'm not quite sure what the jobs means for this here blog, as my desire to write about injustices in the world is very likely to be satiated by my day job for the first time in my life, but I'd expect a bit less posting over the coming months.

I'll still find the time to mock Tom Friedman, though -- of that I am a sure.

As for the new gig, I expect everyone reading this post to visit the site I'll soon be editing, criminaljustice.change.org, and send me any scathing (but constructive!) observations that cross your mind -- what's good, what sucks; could it use a blog? Should a certain issue be covered more? -- by emailing me. And don't let me down: I've got a lot riding on you all making me look smarter and better informed than I really am. I need this.

Because it's Friday . . .

. . . and life's too short to let Sarah Palin or Barack Obama ruin your weekend, I'm posting a music video from At the Drive-In, a band from El Paso that broke up almost immediately after I got into them*. Not that the subject matter covered in this one will cheer you up either.


At The Drive-In - Invalid Litter Dept
Uploaded by poum. - Watch more music videos, in HD!


*Still bitter about that. And yeah, I know all about Mars Volta (and Sparta), but it's not the same.

Petraeus declares Afghan war strategy 'fundamentally sound'

NATO troops and civilians, particularly women and children, are dying in ever-increasing numbers as a result of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan, but General-Scholar-Saint David Petraeus -- doing what he does best: public relations -- is confident of Victory, according to a recent interview he gave to The Washington Post:

In his first six weeks as the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus has seen insurgent attacks on coalition forces spike to record levels, violence metastasize to previously stable areas, and the country's president undercut anti-corruption units backed by Washington.

But after burrowing into operations here and traveling to the far reaches of this country, Petraeus has concluded that the U.S. strategy to win the nearly nine-year-old war is "fundamentally sound."

Petraeus' assessment might reassure the editors of the Post and other supporters of the war among the media elite, but it brings to mind a previous, equally bold profession of confidence that was almost immediately regretted: Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) assertion on the campaign trail in August 2008 that, despite all evidence to the contrary, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

I get the feeling this will not end well.

In defense of Rand Paul (no, seriously)

Democratic candidate for Senate Jack Conway (right) draws a police officer's attention to a group of pot-smoking hippies in need of incarceration.

Jack Conway, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Kentucky, is a Very Reasonable Liberal running against the crazy, kooky Republican nominee Rand Paul. Being sensible and mainstream, Conway -- who as attorney general has overseen a state prison population that has grown 45 percent over the last decade, one of the fastest rate's in the nation -- believes the best solution to the "problem" of people who prefer smoking a joint to drinking Kentucky bourbon is imprisonment. As I said, he's a very reasonable man.

As the sensible one in the race -- did I mention Rand Paul once, OMG!#!EXTREMIST!!, smoked pot and engaged in stupid pranks while in college? -- Conway has gone on the attack against his opponent for outrageously suggesting that maybe, you know, the whole federal war on drugs thing has been a huge waste of money (editor's note: and lives).

"Rand will handcuff local sheriffs trying to combat the drug epidemic, and I will make sure Kentucky's law enforcement has the tools they need to protect our families," Conway said in response to Paul's proposal to cut federal aid to state drug enforcement programs, according to a humorously slanted, drug-traffickers-will-rape-your-blonde-haired-and-blue-eyed-children account from the AP. "That's my record as attorney general, and that's what I'll do in Washington."

Now, if Paul really was proposing to handcuff local sheriffs, I might actually consider breaking my whole no-voting thing and becoming a Kentucky Tea Party activist. What he is suggesting, though, is only that "issues like drug use and abuse are best dealt with at the local level." Scary.

Of course, Paul has plenty of actually silly and stupid ideas, having enjoyed The Fountainhead a bit too much as a young man, and has said a number of actually silly and stupid things -- like arguing oil giant and global asshole BP was somehow being unfairly treated in the wake of its destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. He also rather, uh, inarticulately defended his philosophical opposition to a piece of 1960s-era civil rights legislation, to put it mildly.

What's interesting, though, is that Paul has been called a no-good dirty racist for opposing a law that has absolutely no chance of going anywhere while his opponent, Jack Conway, has been lauded by all Right Thinking progressives even as he demagogically defends a federal war on drugs that has led the U.S. to have the largest prison population in the history of the world -- disproportionately affecting Hispanics and African-Americans, who are jailed at a rate roughly twice that of whites.

Rand Paul may be a racist, I don't really know, but it's his Democratic opponent who is grandstanding on behalf of a policy that is actually racist in its implementation. If only the professional left got as angry about that as they do about fucking Aqua Buddha.

Image courtesy of the Conway campaign.

UPDATE: Just to make this abundantly clear: Rand Paul is still a total prick, as evidenced by his recent statement that he opposes the legalization of marijuana, even for medicinal purposes. My intention was merely to point out that his ostensibly more liberal opponent viciously attacked him over his opposition to federal funding for the drug war in the silliest fashion possible, and that Democratic partisans who had attacked Paul as a racist have said nothing about his opponent's outspoken support for -- and background enforcing as attorney general -- a policy that disproportionately impacts minorities.

Yeah, told ya

Yesterday I pointed out that -- misleading spin dutifully regurgitated by The New York Times aside -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates is not proposing any actual cuts in total Pentagon spending, but is rather seeking to reshuffle funds so he can spend more money on killing poor foreigners Defending America and less on the military bureaucracy itself, with the military one of the few institutions immune from budget cutbacks amid the ongoing recession. Despite this, I noted it was readily apparent that the GOP (and more than a few Democrats) would blast the out-of-control-commies in the White House for risking the lives of good, god-fearing Americans by spending marginally less on some politician's pet weapons system.

From Businessweek, the oh-too-predictable fallout from Gates' announcement:

Republican Rep. J. Randy Forbes was livid at the decision, calling it "further evidence of this administration allowing its budget for social change to determine defense spending."

"What we are witnessing is the piecemeal auctioning off of the greatest military the world has ever known," he said.

[Virgina Republican Gov. Bob] McDonnell shared Forbes' sentiment, saying he sensed a fundamental reordering of priorities by the Obama administration.

"When I see the federal mandates being put on Virginia by various federal legislation, when I see spending growing at $1.16 trillion a year, it appears to me that there are being cuts in defense made to fund other programs that are, in my view, much less important," McDonnell said.

I know actual facts have no place in politics, but worth pointing out: President Obama is spending more on the U.S. military than George W. Bush ever did, with his administration seeking a record $708 billion in defense budget for 2011 -- excluding the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because the godless Blue Team is in power, I understand that Republicans are legally bound to blast the administration for engaging in cr-a-zy liberal social engineering no matter what they do; they'd have a stronger case, though, if they noted that social engineering is primarily taking place in Kabul, not Kansas.

Who's cutting what now?

According to The New York Times, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has just announced a plan "to cut billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget." Great! With states running massive budget deficits and the official unemployment rate hovering around double-digits, what better time could there be to "trim back on unaffordable defense spending," as the Times puts it in its lede, right?

Except, of course, no one's talking about actually cutting the amount spent on the Defense Department. In fact, all Gates is proposing is basically reshuffling the money the Pentagon spends on its army of private contractors and retired advisers so it can spend more on its military occupations overseas. The Times, though, waits until the 12th paragraph to inform us of that:

The goal is to convert as much as 2 percent or 3 percent of spending from “tail” to “tooth” — military slang for support services and combat forces. Mr. Gates argued that if Congress guaranteed a 1 percent increase in real defense spending over years to come, the savings he seeks would be reinvested in the combat forces and would be sufficient to pay for national defense.

The budget measures go beyond what many previous defense secretaries have done to cut redundancies and inefficiencies.

But they do not represent an actual decline in year-to-year total spending.

So despite the fact Gates is not actually slashing spending -- the announced cuts merely intended to insulate his department from calls for real reductions at a time when cities are turning off their streetlights in a desperate attempt to save money -- the paper of record acts as if the big story is that a few DOD bureaucrats and contractors may lose their jobs rather than the offensive reality that the department is immune from budget cuts during the worst recession in decades, presenting the Defense Secretary as a stern, committed budget-cutter while neglecting the crucial detail that his vaunted cuts are simply part of an attempt to free up more tax dollars for killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan (and for not-so-covert ops in Iran, Yemen and Somalia).

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of it all? I fully expect to see a press release from the Republican National Committee tomorrow and impassioned speeches on the floor of Congress denouncing the Obama administration for "cutting defense spending" and putting us all at risk of Another 9/11 (TM); real men know that if you aren't going to increase war funding by at least 10 percent a year you might as well wave the white flag and surrender to the terrorists, after all. And so the charade continues.

Two completely, entirely unrelated stories

The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) has determined that the Israeli, tree-trimming soldiers who were fired upon by the Lebanese army near the border fence between the two countries were in fact operating on Israeli soil, a development that appears to be a significant diplomatic victory for the Jewish state. Reacting to the news, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings proved that the "Lebanese attack on our forces was both unprovoked and unjustified."

Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated story, a "Palestinian militant" was killed and another wounded on Wednesday after being shelled by the IDF, according to Reuters. "The Israeli military said aircraft fired on a group of Palestinians who had approached the Gaza border fence, where army patrols sometimes come under gun or bomb ambushes." I wonder if the UN will weigh in?

Simon v. Simon

In a piece published this week in The Washington Post, Council on Foreign Relations fellows Steve Simon -- a former member of the National Security Council under President Clinton -- and Ray Takeyh lay out what has been derided as a "'how-to-bomb Iran' manual," detailing a scenario where "diplomacy has run its course" and "reliable intelligence" (ha!) indicates that Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons program "is very close to reaching its goal."

"Facing such conditions, would Obama use force against Iran?" the authors write before, in typical establishment fashion, casually listing the factors the president should consider before launching another preemptive war over the purported threat of weapons of mass destruction (none of them having to do with dead Iranians, of course). "First, there is the United Nations to consider," Simon and Takeyh argue, suggesting the major European powers would likely balk at authorizing the conflict, preferring another round of sanctions to out-and-out war. "Domestic consensus would be critical as well," they add, as "[o]ne of the tragedies of American history is that presidents have too often entangled the country in conflicts without forthright conversation with the public." I would argue that too often presidents have entangled the country in conflicts that had absolutely no moral justification, but then I'm not employed by the Council on Foreign Relations.

"The views and reactions of the Arab world would also be relevant," they write -- how thoughtful! -- and as Obama "contemplated the use of force, the administration's decision-making would be further complicated by the need for a plan to unwind military hostilities and make sure a confrontation did not escalate out of control."

Though "the world imagined here may not constitute destiny," Simon and Takeyh conclude, "it will be hard to escape."

Now, there are several problems with the essay, despite the fact that it is not as outrageously blood-thirsty and ludicrous as, say, your typical Commentary magazine call for war. But as Inter Press Service's Ali Gharib notes, that might actually be one of the most troubling aspects of the piece, as it adds the appearance of a respectable, liberal veneer to the idea of attacking Iran over a nuclear weapons program even the U.S. intelligence community says doesn't exist. It suggests that reasonable, serious people consider preemptively attacking Iran to be a reasonable, serious policy option. But rather than engage in a long-winded debunking of the piece myself, I thought it might be useful to note an Op-Ed published in The New York Times, "Bombs That Would Backfire," that pretty much makes my case for me.

"We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been," the article begins. "A brief look at history shows why":

"Now, as in the mid-90's, any United States bombing campaign would simply begin a multi-move, escalatory process. Iran could respond three ways. First, it could attack Persian Gulf oil facilities and tankers — as it did in the mid-1980's — which could cause oil prices to spike above $80 dollars a barrel.

Second and more likely, Iran could use its terrorist network to strike American targets around the world, including inside the United States. . . .  

Third, Iran is in a position to make our situation in Iraq far more difficult than it already is. The Badr Brigade and other Shiite militias in Iraq could launch a more deadly campaign against . . . American troops. There is every reason to believe that Iran has such a retaliatory shock wave planned and ready."

Further, "No matter how Iran responded, the question that would face American planners would be, 'What's our next move?' How do we achieve so-called escalation dominance, the condition in which the other side fears responding because they know that the next round of American attacks would be too lethal for the regime to survive?"

Finally, "how would bombing Iran serve American interests?" the authors ask. "In over a decade of looking at the question, no one has ever been able to provide a persuasive answer."

The authors? The Council on Foreign Relation's Steve Simon and Richard Clarke, the former top counter-terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, writing back in 2006 amid speculation the Bush administration was itching for another invasion. A year later, Simon echoed the same points in an interview with me that aired on Connecticut public radio station WSHU, criticizing as ludicrous the argument from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) at the time that the U.S. needed to take "military action to stop the Iranians from carrying out a deadly proxy war against American troops in Iraq." I liked that Steve Simon. Perhaps he and Steve Simon should have a chat?

Lack of self-awareness watch

Emboldened by the fact that U.S. troops have gone a whole four months without being caught digging bullets out of the bodies of Afghan women they murdered, Admiral Michael Mullen, the top ranking U.S. military official, took to the airwaves Sunday to denounce Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for releasing more than 90,000 documents chronicling the failing war effort in Afghanistan:

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

Worth noting: A little over a year after Mullen was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October 2007, U.S. warplanes "bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people, including 23 children and 10 women," as USA Today recounts. Meanwhile, more than 740 U.S. troops have died in that time. So who is it again that has the blood of some young solider or Afghan family on their hands?

(h/t John Caruso)

Beware the 'progressive agenda'

Since taking office nearly 18 months ago, Barack Obama has failed to deliver on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay, has expanded the war in Afghanistan, has dropped cluster bombs on civilians in Yemen, has intensified a proxy war in Somalia and is currently seeking the authority to search every Americans e-mail and web history without so much as a warrant from a rubber-stamping intelligence court. In other words, he's been successfully advancing the progressive agenda, or so liberal magazine The American Prospect tells me in a piece that notes the bulk of the professional bloggers and Democratic activists who attended the recent "Netroots Nation" conference in Las Vegas likewise believe our smooth-talking murderer-in-chief is a Pretty Swell Guy.

Take it away, Jamelle Bouie:

The Netroots Nation straw poll, conducted during the conference by Revolution Messaging, shows President Obama with an approval rating of 84 percent among the attending activists, journalists, and bloggers. Given the mostly somber mood of the conference, this is higher than I expected, but on reflection, I'm not too surprised. Among conference attendees, there didn't seem to be much disagreement with the idea that Obama has been pretty successful in advancing a progressive agenda. While I'm sure there was plenty of disappointment over the lack of a public option in the Affordable Care Act, for example, I don't think anyone challenged the notion that passing health care is a defining achievement for the administration.

I particularly like the last line: while sure the president didn't actually deliver on his promise to enact a public option, much less the single-payer system desired by much of the liberal left, passing something and calling it "health care reform" was certainly an achievement, and shouldn't we all be proud of that? Absent from the piece, you'll of course notice, is any mention of all those dead foreigners that liberal cosmopolitans purportedly care about, which I guess might just indicate that they never really cared about them. A civilian killed by a Democratic president in an unjust landwar in Asia just doesn't inflame a liberal's passions as much as when it's a nasty 'ol Republican dropping the bombs.

Beyond just the sickening partisan morality of these activists, the Netroots poll also shows that the liberal lore that the Democratic rank-and-file are more willing to stand up to their politicians than their mouth-breathing Republican counterparts -- carbon-copies, I say -- is just that: Lore. Fiction. Bullshit. The Netroots liberals are just as impressed by the pomp and prestige of the presidency, are just as worshipful of authority and liable to join a creepy cult of personality, as any conservative.

What, too much? A bit unfair? Yeah, well: 84 percent.

Beltway liberalism in 24 words

"From a Keynesian standpoint, I believe that with the economy depressed it’s better to spend the money in Afghanistan than not to spend it."

-- Matt Yglesias, Center for American Progress

The above excerpt comes from a post noting the inconsistency of self-styled deficit hawks complaining about the relative pittance spent on social programs and its contribution to the national debt even as they vote in lockstep to drop another $37 billion on a failing nation-building exercise in Afghanistan. And as far as the point goes, it's a good one: there has long been a glaringly obvious inconsistency in conservatives railing against totalitarian "Big Government" while pledging undying allegiance to growing a military-industrial complex that sucks away more and more of their tax money while helping chisel away at the remainder of their civil liberties.

But there's something wrong -- something sick, really -- with Ygelsias' war-as-stimulus argument that strikes me as far more offensive than the fact that some fiscal conservatives are hypocrites when it comes to the National Security State. If you believe the war in Afghanistan is vital to protecting America, well, go ahead and make your case. Explain why pushing the couple dozen or so members of al-Qaeda allegedly still in the country over to Pakistan, while creating new enemies with each errant air strike, actually makes us safer.

What you shouldn't do in a debate over war, at least if you want to maintain your status as a Non-Despicable Person, is argue that bombing and occupying a foreign nation makes good economic sense. Even if it were true as an academic point, it's grotesquely out of place in a discussion of matters of life and death. War, if it can ever be justified -- and I have my doubts -- can only be so on the grounds that it is absolutely necessary to protecting human life: there is no other choice, it's a last resort. Yet Yglesias discusses the continuation of a major, bloody armed conflict as if it were just another jobs program; perhaps not the most effective one to his mind, but hey, it's better that the federal government spend money on a pointless war than do nothing at all (like actually save money by ending said pointless war). Read the line again: "I believe that with the economy depressed it’s better to spend the money in Afghanistan than not to spend it." Sorry, but someone truly familiar with all the horrors of war, someone who could actually empathize with an Afghan mother or father losing their child to an American smart bomb -- or a child watching their parents die in a botched night raid by U.S. marines -- could never write that.

On Twitter I brashly argued that Yglesias' statement demonstrated that he was in fact a "truly awful human being" -- an assertion I regret because I don't actually think Matt Yglesias is"awful" in the sense that he would, say, shoot an Afghan child in the head if he thought it'd boost U.S. Treasury bonds. As I've argued before, Yglesias and other war supporters likely wouldn't dare countenance violence in their personal lives, and are probably perfectly nice people who spend their weekends doing perfectly normal, nice people things. And these very people who wouldn't think of kicking a dog much less killing a person are capable of cooly endorsing monstrously awful actions overseas, the distance -- and their safety behind a MacBook screen in a DC think tank -- removing them from the ugly reality of the killing be carried out in their name. War to the Beltway wonk essentially becomes just another intellectual exercise, something to be endlessly debated, a game of dueling white papers and comment threads, and not so much a matter of life and death, of newlyweds killed and children's limbs blown off by some guy pulling a 9-to-5 in a Nevada control room. No, wars and the merits of launching new ones become something you debate on BloggingHeads.TV before getting drunk at the local hipster bar's trivia night.

Yet despite the self-evident horribleness of defending war spending on the basis that not spending the money on a military occupation would harm your 401k, Yglesias acted surprised anyone could be offended by his post when challenged on it. "Is Paul Krugman also awful for raising this point," he asked me, "or is economic illiteracy necessary for goodness?"

But of course the issue isn't who knows more about economics. The issue is the fact that economics is irrelevant to the question of whether the U.S. ought to be in Afghanistan, and that it is deeply disturbing to frame a war supplemental as if it were a less-than-ideal second stimulus package -- and to bolster your argument by pointing to the fact that the illegal Iraq war, too, was ultimately good for your bank account. Invading Norway might stimulate certain sectors of the economy and perhaps even bring the unemployment rate comfortably below double-digits for a time, but does anyone outside of a Weekly Standard editorial meeting think that's a morally defensible argument for dropping some bombs?

In a back-and-forth debate on Twitter, though, Yglesias stuck to his argument. "I think you don't understand how stimulus works. See the Krugman item," he told me, adding that he didn't see why "a factual dispute make[s] me 'immoral.'"

The Krugman item, as it happens, doesn't really help Yglesias' case as much he thinks. Yes the esteemed Nobel Laureate argues that "war is, in general, expansionary for the economy," but he's not so cynical as to argue that countries should therefore prolong military quagmires to promote such an expansion, which is Yglesias' implicit argument. And there is still a major flaw in Krugman's analysis: he doesn't even begin to consider the potential downsides to creating entrenched economic interests whose well-being depends on there being a perpetual state of war, nor the economic impact on the people in Iraq and elsewhere who are being bombed. We are all cosmopolitans now, right? So if we're going to weigh the economic impacts of war, one would think a good liberal would not be so parochial as to focus just on one party -- their party -- in a conflict.

It's also unclear to me how spending loads of money on missiles and Predator drones actually benefits society as a whole, rather than just a select few politically connected military contractors; sure, it might boost GDP temporarily, but only because the government is borrowing money from China -- itself an act of dubious morality given the Chinese government's human rights record -- to build a bunch of weapons that serve no purpose other than killing people. So I sound like Cindy Sheehan: it's true.

As for the confusion as to how taking one side in a "factual dispute" could make someone "immoral", well, again: I don't consider it so much a dispute over facts because my fundamental criticism is not that Yglesias is wrong that spending another $37 billion on the war in Afghanistan will benefit the U.S. economy, but that it doesn't matter, and that by acting as if it does he is displaying a rather unfortunate and ugly nationalistic bias. True or not, I don't see why anyone with a functioning conscience should care if the Afghan war boosts consumer demand for iPhones and DVD players at home, and it's frankly a bit disconcerting that he can't understand why some would consider his an immoral (amoral?) line of argument. All this doesn't make Yglesias an awful person, per se, but it does certainly demonstrate an awful callousness on his part toward those who will undoubtedly die as a result of his and George Bush's brand of economic stimulus.

(h/t toombzie)

UPDATE: IOZ weighs in.

The United States of British Petroleum

If you're anything like me, or if you've spent more than five minutes over the last decade glancing at the headlines, you're probably suffering from some form of outrage fatigue. Well, make room for one more thing to get mad about.

From Reuters:

Fishermen in Mississippi say they are angry that under the terms of BP's $20 billion oil spill fund, money they earn doing clean-up will be subtracted from their claim against the company.

The fishermen reacted after Kenneth Feinberg, the federal official in charge of administering the compensation fund, announced the decision at a town hall meeting in Biloxi on Friday.

Cast as a great victory against the heartless oil giant that caused the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico it turns out -- surprise! -- that the Obama administration was basically working to help limit BP's financial liability. No other excuse flies when the White House's own head of the fund, Ken Feinberg, is pronouncing that all those fishermen who have been busy cleaning up the same mess that destroyed their livelihood have been working for the very corporation that caused it have been doing so for free.

It doesn't help that Feinberg was a patronizing ass when he announced the dick move:

"[W]orkers can file a claim, but we will subtract the amount they are paid from BP from their claim. That is how it has to work . . . . Of course you can file a claim. You must file a claim, but you cannot get paid twice," Feinberg told the meeting.

Right -- the U.S. government reserves paying people twice for corporate agriculture.

Of course, when it comes to the Gulf we're not talking about paying people twice for the same thing, but rather reimbursing them for the ruin by corporate malfeasance and compensating them for their efforts to try and fix the damage -- two separate, distinct things, as far as BP's financial responsibility is concerned.

But not only is the administration's move unjust, it's simply counterproductive and destined to slow recovery efforts -- why risk your health cleaning up the Gulf when you can get paid the same amount sitting at home watching Terminator? And in light of the public mood towards BP, it's also likely to provoke a good deal of grandstanding from across the political spectrum. If there's a significant outcry, I wouldn't be surprised if the White House somehow found a way to reverse its decision, or explain away Feinberg's comments as an unfortunate mix-up, a miscommunication. And it's not hard to see why: the administration's current stance is akin to letting an arsonist burn a house down and then charge the victim for the cost of rebuilding it -- except you'll never really be able to rebuild the Gulf.

Put another way: it's f*cked. It's also a great example of the State swooping in to protect an influential, major corporation under the auspices of punishing it -- great theater, really -- in this instance crafting a compromise settlement that appears aimed at being just enough to quell popular calls for tarring-and-feathering those British, yacht-racing bastards, without actually forcing Tony Hayward to give up any of his private floating islands.

(Cross-posted at AlterNet)

Yeah, and we don't invade countries either

From a story claiming the U.S. "came out ahead" with respect to that Iranian nuclear scientist who alleges he was abducted by the CIA:

A U.S. official, who is not authorized to talk to the media about such issues, told CNN last month that it would be "ludicrous, absurd and even preposterous" to claim an individual was kidnapped by the United States and held against his will.

To which I respond: uh, then what the hell has the U.S. been doing at Guantanamo Bay all these years?

We believe in nothing!

It would be incorrect and unfair to say that Washingtonians are all horrible, amoral, principle-less little pricks who live only for the thrill they get when some no-name congressman from wherever-the-hell Middle America remembers their name. However.

Being the preeminent power of our day, it should come as no surprise that the imperial capital on a swamp would attract an unusually large number of groveling, almost pitiable worshippers of power and authority; not the kids who used to suck up to the teacher and remind them when they forgot to assign the homework, but the kids who now fetch those other kids' coffee, always remembering to tell them how good they look on a Big Day. While those that argue there's a dime's worth of difference between the major political parties and that voting ain't worth a nickel are often cast as the cynics (*ahem*cough*clearing throat*), the real nihilists, I would argue, are the anonymous flacks and hacks of Washington who day in and day out serve whoever it is they think can provide them with the most power, money and, laughably, prestige -- people like Deryck Spooner, the likes of whom literally believe in nothing.

Who, you ask? According to a story in Greenwire about the American Petroleum Institute's many new hires, Spooner -- "who ran the Nature Conservancy's push to spur legislative action on climate change" -- was "nabbed" in something of a coup earlier this year by the well-funded trade group for U.S. oil and gas companies. "Spooner now heads API's grass-roots activism arm."

Putting aside the faults of The Nature Conservancy and the merits of the climate legislation it seeks, Spooner's move is still pretty jarring, even by a-flack-in-DC standards. Not only is he now spinning for one of the leading opponents of capping or taxing carbon emissions, a basic feature of most proposals to address global warming, but he heads the very "grass-roots activism arm" of API -- when's the last time you met a "grassroots" oil activist? -- that last year organized "citizen" rallies against the sort of climate legislation that he spent months, years, working to enact. It ain't pretty, and it's certainly not proud, but that's sorta kinda Washington.

(Cross-posted at AlterNet)

'Ok, so Paulson, Geithner and Summers walk into a bar . . .'

As Matt Yglesias himself admits, the regulatory reform bill currently making its way through the Senate won't actually do anything to prevent another major financial crisis or fundamentally alter the way Wall Street works, nor will it stave off the need for taxpayers to ultimately foot the bill for the mistakes of some asshole investment banker. Instead, certain provisions of the legislation dear to the Washington wonk's heart, Yglesias argues -- in this case "resolution authority,"granting the president greater power to seize control of firms in the name of economic stability -- hold out the "possibility of coping with the aftermath of such failures in a politically and economically viable way" (emphasis original).

For those that don't speak Washington: the State would still intervene to prevent major disruptions to the economic status quo under Financial Reform, still move to prop up failing financial firms whose executives would have no compunction pushing old ladies into oncoming traffic if they could somehow turn the practice into a CDO, but its efforts on the behalf of the financial establishment -- the ruling elite, if you prefer -- would be somewhat more deft, perhaps a little less ostentatious.

The selling point of this "reform" (scare quotes justified), other than the presumed diminishing number of pitchforks at lawmakers' constituent meetings?

"[T]he three people whose practical experience has positioned them to know what kind of authority the Treasury Department needs to deal with a financial crash are [Henry] Paulson, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers and they all think this will work. That’s something."

This is typical Yglesias. Rather than really argue for granting the president resolution authority on the merits, our progressive intellectual is more interested in impressing his readers will all the other Really Smart members of the political establishment who think just like him. That you wouldn't trust these people with the remote to the TV, much less the reins to the economy, is no matter -- they're powerful! And as Yglesias would say, "That's something."

And indeed, it is "something", isn't it? All of the "somethings" I can come up with, though, entail pointing out that all three -- Paulson, Geithner and Summers -- in their roles as top U.S. economic officials over the last two decades had a direct hand in fomenting the current, ongoing global financial catastrophe. That and a string of profanities.

(Cross-posted at AlterNet)

Obama's 'number one foreign policy priority'

What would you imagine Barack Obama has focused on most when it comes to foreign affairs since taking office: The war in Afghanistan -- you know, the one he committed another 50,000 troops to fight? Or how about Iraq, where U.S. troops are supposed to withdraw next year (ha!) despite the fact the country's political parties can't manage to actually form a government?

According to a White House transcript of an interview the president gave this week to Israeli television, the answer's none of the above. Said Obama:

"The single most important threat to Israel -- Iran, and its potential possession of a nuclear weapon -- has been my number one foreign policy priority over the course of the last 18 months."

Obama also declared it "unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon," and that "we’re going to do everything we can to prevent that from happening":

"What I’ve also tried to do is build an international consensus so that Iran can’t somehow play a victim, can’t suggest somehow that they’re being singled out by the West."

Barack Obama, one should remember, is speaking in the above excerpt as the political leader of the only country in the world to have ever used nuclear weapons, and as the head of a nation providing nuclear material to known proliferator India and billions of dollars to Pakistan, which likewise covertly developed nukes while allied to the US. Obama is also speaking to a television station based in a country, Israel, known to possess hundreds of nuclear weapons -- some no doubt aimed at Tehran -- which refuses to allow its facilites to be inspected by the United Nations' nuclear agency.

Leave it to those crazy drama queens in Iran to argue they're being singled out.