On eating in DC

Though much of this blog is dedicated, as one commenter points out, to my "utter preoccupation with injustice seeking," sometimes even us journalists with pretenses of fighting the power need to eat. In fact, over the holiday break eating is an activity I engaged in at least twice, with varying results.

Good Stuff Eatery

Started by a failed cable "reality" cooking show contestant -- which makes liking the place that much more difficult -- this Capitol Hill burger joint is actually quite good, from the potato bread rolls to the assortment of mayos to dip one's fries in. On my second trip there this past week, the owner, "Chef Spike" himself, was in the house having promotional photos taken (complete with his trademark fedora). So far, so good. However (and you should have seen a "however" coming), about 10 minutes into enjoying my burger my girlfriend and I were asked by a photographer to relocate, immediately, so she could take some pictures of Mr. Spike looking cool -- on top of our table. Not being a terribly fussy person, this normally would have been fine with me. Just one thing: there was no place else on the first floor to sit (despite the fact that said photographer redirected us to a table with one -- count it -- one seat), meaning we were expected to take our half-eaten food up a flight of stairs. Weak. Instead, we inhaled our remaining burgers and fries (not as good as the burgers) and left.

All that said, I'll probably still go back. I'll just hate myself for doing so.

Busboys and Poets

A local coffee shop/restaurant with a penchant for progressive politics (where in August I interviewed former U.S. senator Mike Gravel concerning the case of Sami al-Arian for a story published by Inter Press Service), this past Sunday I attended a screening there of the documentary "Tulia, Texas," which recounts the story of a small, rural town where 46 men and women -- 39 of whom were African-American -- were imprisoned based on the word of one undercover narcotics agent who had an outstanding warrant and a reputation for habitual lying. The event, co-sponsored by "A.C.T.O.R.", a community group dedicated to dialogue on issues of race, was packed, a hopeful sign that more and more people are beginning to see the folly of the so-called "war on drugs". However, the packed room also meant getting any food or drink was a bit of problem.

Nonetheless (and after 30 minutes of waiting), my girlfriend was finally able to speak to a waitress and order some food, a chicken salad sandwich and some chili, both of which were delicious. Paying the check, however, induced major irony in light of the racial awareness theme of the night. While one might suspect such an event to be so politically correct it bordered on conservative satire, the bringing of the check was a moment in decidedly non-PC irony, for instead of listing my girlfriend's order by her table number, the receipt (viewable here) described her only by her race: Asian. Though not malicious and actually kind of funny, the incident is a reminder that, despite the claims of some of the more deluded that the election of Barack Obama has ushered in an era of post-racial bliss, many continue to view others as a member of a race first, and a person-with-a-name (or a table number) second.

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After this post, I assure you I'll be back to issues of, you know, importance. Unless, of course, this post gets more hits than my writings about Palestine or U.S. foreign policy, in which case this blog will be dedicated to restaurant reviews and cute dog pictures from here on out.

The corporatist consensus

The Wall Street Journal reports:

WASHINGTON -- Key House and Senate negotiators were scheduled to meet Saturday afternoon to iron out the final details of a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street, with a goal of being able to announce a final agreement before Asian markets open Monday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D. Nev.) in an appearance on the Senate floor, said there are only a "handful of issues still lingering" for lawmakers to finalize. He said he hopes Congress and the Bush administration can at the very least release an outline of the bailout plan by Sunday evening to send a reassuring message to global stock markets.

When the entire U.S. political establishment agrees that there is a "crisis" that demands the public defer to their benevolent rulers to solve, it invariably means the American taxpayer is about to get royally screwed. Why, we must invade Iraq -- er, bailout our affluent campaign contributors or the entire economy will collapse, leaving your grandmother no option but to turn tricks on the street in order to pay for her blood pressure medication. Give us more power and money before it's too late! The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

What's particularly ironic about the proposed $700 billion transfer of wealth from the middle class to Wall Street is that it is self-proclaimed "progressives" -- the likes of Barney "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any financial crisis" Frank and the corrupt Chris "friend of Countrywide" Dodd -- who are leading the charge to artificially inflate housing prices by paying above-market rates for worthless mortgage-backed securities, all to the benefit of their investment bank buddies.

Consider that these same lawmakers, who denied all along that there were problems with the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claim to be the biggest advocates for "affordable housing". Yet, when housing prices finally fall to a point where they are actually affordable, these same defenders of the poor and downtrodden proclaim that there is a "crisis". Why, it's much better to give poor people massive loans for overpriced houses they can't afford -- to the benefit of the real estate industry and the investment banks now reaching for your wallet -- then to actually allow home prices to fall to their true market value, where low-income families just might actually be able to purchase them without falling into massive debt.

Instead, Democrats in Congress are essentially calling for a massive injection of corporatism -- wherein the economy is centrally planned by a a political and business elite -- in the name of the very poor who benefit the most from the bursting of the housing bubble. Indeed, the explicitly corporatist nature of the proposed bailout is evident everywhere one looks -- need I point out that the progenitor of the bailout scam, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, was the head of the very investment firm, Goldman Sachs, that now stands to gain billions of dollars at your expense?

But while the Democratic sellout to Big Business is completely predictable, what's disappointing is the response from rank-and-file Democrats -- the ones you think just might balk at granting the Bush administration the unilateral authority to run the economy. But as a liberal friend remarked to me the other day, the only ones opposing the bailout at this point are those in the "nutjob, black helicopter crowd". And while the bailout might be "unfortunate", with the right (wait for it) oversight -- from the same regulators who failed to stop or predict the current debacle -- another giveaway to Wall Street can be avoided.

The view that, with just the "right people" in place -- that is, Democrats -- the current credit-based, chronically-in-debt U.S. economy can hum right along to the betterment of all is to me rather curious, and not at all based on the actual history of these here United States. It also reminds me of a piece by Albert Jay Nock I noted a few months back, on the essential difference between liberalism and radicalism: while the average liberal sees the state as what it could be -- a guarantor of peace and justice for the downtrodden -- the radical sees it as it actually is.

As Nock writes:

In the philosophy of public affairs, the liberal gets at his working theory of the State by the "high priori road"; that is to say, by pure conjecture. Confronted with the phenomenon of the State, and required to say where it came from and why it is here, the liberal constructs his answer by the a priori method; thus Carey, for example, derived the State from the action of a gang of marauders, Rousseau from a social contract, Sir Robert Filmer from the will of God, and so on. All these solutions of the problem are ingenious and interesting speculations, but nothing more than speculations. The radical gets at his theory of the State by the historical method; by tracing back and examining every appearance of the State, to the most remote examples that history can furnish; segregating the sole invariable factor which he finds to be common throughout, and testing it both positively and negatively as a determining cause.

The result carries the radical to the extreme point of difference from the liberal in his practical attitude towards the State. The liberal believes that the State is essentially social and is all for improving it by political methods so that it may function accordingly to what he believes to be its original intention. Hence, he is interested in politics, takes them seriously, goes at them hopefully, and believes in them as an instrument of social welfare and progress. He is politically minded, with an incurable interest in reform, putting good men in office, independent administrations, and quite frequently in third-party movements. The liberal forces of the country, for instance, rallied quite conspicuously to Mr. Roosevelt in the good old days of the Progressive party. The liberal believes in the reality and power of political leadership; thus, again, he eagerly took Mr. Wilson on his hands at the last two elections.

The radical, on the other hand, believes that the State is fundamentally antisocial and is all for improving it off the face of the earth; not by blowing up officeholders, as Mr. Palmer appears to suppose, but by the historical process of strengthening, consolidating and enlightening economic organization. The radical has no substantial interest in politics, and regards all projects of political reform as visionary. He sees, or thinks he sees, quite clearly that the routine of partisan politics is only a more or less elaborate and expensive byplay indulged in for the sake of diverting notice from the primary object of all politics and political government, namely, the economic exploitation of one class by another; and hence all candidates look about alike to him, and their function looks to him only like that of Dupin's pretended lunatic in "The Purloined Letter."

While Nock's description of liberalism would appear to apply to your average Obama voter today, the above essay was written in 1920, highlighting the fact that while many believe in some form of progressive, linear view of history -- where things are constantly improving, with a few hiccups along the way -- nothing has changed when it comes to the relationship between the common man or woman and the government. 

Despite the pleading, self-interested calls from people such as Frank, Dodd, and Paulson to bailout Wall Street for the sake of "Main Street", the state, as Nock points out, has always been interested not in the common good, but in the enrichment of those in power; that is, "the economic exploitation of one class by another". Keep that in mind the next time you shell out half your income in taxes and wonder why it primarily funds war and tennis lessons for some investment bankers snot-nosed kid.

The audacity of irony

While I did my best to avoid tonight's "debate" (joint press conference) between Barack Obama and John McCain, living in DC makes that more difficult than it might seem, and I ended up catching a few exchanges while eating dinner at a local bar. 

What caught my attention was not the ludicrousness of the most powerful country on Earth pretending to be a "democracy" while allowing but two candidates to debate each other on whose biography is more compelling -- one party rule being totalitarian, while two parties is just right -- but Obama's laborious attempt to make McCain seem reasonable in contrast.

After making several cogent points regarding McCain's lack of judgment in supporting the Iraq war, Obama proceeded to repeat his call for a war with Pakistan -- though he of course did not call it that. Instead, the supposed peace candidate in this election-that-will-not-end cast his support for violating international law and Pakistan's sovereignty by speaking of "strikes" against "terrorists" in the the Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan (the "good" military occupation to U.S. liberals).

What was amazing was that John "crazy old warmonger" McCain responded to Obama's call for another military conflict by pointing out that maybe, just maybe, the United States should not launch unilateral strikes against a sovereign nuclear power that just so happens to be an ally -- for better or worse -- of the U.S. government. (That said, McCain still hinted that perhaps we should launch attacks against Pakistan, but we just shouldn't talk about it.)

Now, while I won't profess to be a master political strategist (I still have something of a soul left), one would think the Democrats could capitalize on the American public's general discontent with the status quo with regard to the state of the economy and U.S. foreign policy by running a campaign centered around a rather simple message: no more wars, and no bailouts for the irresponsible rich. Unfortunately, one can rest assured that won't happen.

Why? Because rather than a departure from the status quo, Barack Obama represents merely a fresh new face committed to the same old policies in furtherance of the American empire -- as should be evident from the Democratic Congress' unabashed support for endless war, corporatism, and the centralization of power. 

Sadly, the difference between Obama and McCain is a lot like the difference between Coke and Pepsi: while some are committed partisans to one or the other, in the end, they are both little more than corporate products that ultimately just might kill you.

Questionable timing

The National Review has obtained a draft copy of the Republican Party's 2008 Platform language on energy and climate change that repeats the same talking points that you've probably heard aplenty over the last few months. For instance -- and to no real surprise -- it hails that paragon of free-market virtue (and recipient, by some estimates, of more than $145 billion in subsidies over the last 50 years), nuclear energy, as the answer to all of the U.S.'s energy and environmental concerns. But what I found interesting -- if a bit ill-timed -- was this:

Nuclear energy — a gift to mankind implanted in matter itself — is the most reliable zero-carbon emissions source of energy that we have. Unwarranted fearmongering that has no relationship to current technologies and safeguards has prevented us from starting construction of a single nuclear power plant in 31 years. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has for decades relied upon nuclear vessels, while other advanced nations have harnessed nuclear power to provide a major portion of their energy consumption. There is no reason why the United States cannot do the same. Confident in the promise offered by science and technology, Republicans will pursue dramatic increases in the use of safe, affordable, reliable — and clean — nuclear power.

So why do I say ill-timed? Because on August 7th, newspapers across the country ran variations of the following story:

Navy says sub leaked radiation since 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. Navy submarine leaked trace amounts of radioactive water for two years as it made port calls in Japan and other Asian nations, the Navy said Thursday.

Last week, Navy officials told Japan that the USS Houston, a Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine, had made one port call -- in March -- while leaking the contaminated fluid.

But after reviewing records of the sub, the Navy told Japanese officials Thursday that the Houston had been leaking much longer, since June 2006, and had made port calls to Japanese bases at Sasebo, Yokosuka and Okinawa before the leak was discovered.

Officials also have told the governments of Malaysia and Singapore that the sub made port calls to those countries while leaking the radioactive water, Navy officials said. The Houston also made stops in Guam and Hawaii.

Granted, this was no Chernobyl, but would it have killed the platform writers to cite a different example -- or is it still too early for Republicans to say anything nice about France?