Monday Morning Reads

Posted: September 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , | 66 Comments

Good Morning!

I’ve been reading some things that have really gotten me thinking lately.  The topic of racism has crept back into the public arena since the campaign season is now in full force. There have been two high profile media stories that have created a stir and one story that’s been percolating in my mind all last week.

There is the coverage of the President who opened the can of worms yesterday during a speech in front of a black audience. The other story was that of Morgan Freeman who called the Tea Party racist on the Piers Morgan Show.  Herman Cain shot back on Sunday saying Freeman didn’t get what the Tea Party was about.  Before both events,  I had actually read this post at The Nation written by Melissa Harris-Perry–who I admire–on white liberal racism that evoked a really strong tweet from Max Blumenthal yesterday. Then, LGF sent me over to Andrew Breitbart’s site where I got an eyeful of comments left there by republicans and teabots on the President’s words that were characterized as black power dog whistles by folks over there.  Calls of reverse racism filled the comments section.

So there’s my links to the re-emergence of the racism conversation. It hasn’t been pretty or civil. I really am not looking forward to any 2008 repeat of all that.  Thankfully, Sky Dancing has been a refuge from trolls for the most part.  I can tell you that Bostonboomer and I have had conversations on the phone about racism in the Tea Party before and I know we both feel there is overt racism in their ‘movement’.  This doesn’t mean every one that’s attended one of their rallies is a racist, but  all you have to do is look at their placards and you can’t deny it’s there.  So, I have to admit to agreeing with Morgan Freeman on his comments. Obama’s presidency has brought a lot of the worst stuff out on to the streets again.   I will also send you over to the LGF link to read the comments by Breitbart’s readers if you want to see exactly how alive, well, and thriving racism is in parts of the Republican party.  The weird thing is that the folks in the Breitbart comments section think the President is playing the race card.  It’s an odd juxtaposition of arguments to watch people screaming reverse racism using really overtly racist language and frames.  I mean, how can you talk about reverse racism when writing out your screed in some form of perverted ‘ebonics’ ?  Well, any way go look for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

 I agree with the Freeman comments that there has to be some underlying bit of racism in the republican obsession to get Obama out of office.  The republicans did some pretty nasty things to Clinton, but I’ve never EVER seen so many people willing to take our entire country down over the election of one man.  They’ve been at it consistently for nearly three years now.  It’s like watching the confederacy rise again. All we hear is state’s rights and complete mis-characterizations of the president’s policies which have been very conventionally Republican.  Draw out a game theory decision tree and tell me what sort’ve end game they have in mind when every strategic move they make is aimed at making Obama a one term president at WHATEVER the cost to the country.  It’s just not rational.

Freeman said it unnerves him that the conservative movement is garnering momentum during an appearance on CNN last week.

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term,” he said. “What underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here.”

Freeman characterized the actions of the Tea Party as “racist” and suggested that Obama’s presidency has only fueled the rise of the coalition of conservative activists, and in that context has made the issue of racism “worse.” He said, “It just shows the weak, dark underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. We really are. That’s why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. Look at what we are, you know? And then it just sort of started turning, because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.”

We know Obama’s candidacy stirred up the issue and we know he’s not beneath playing politics with racism when it behooves him to do so.  However, his “Come march with me” speech is a narrative that tries to put the President in the same light as MLK  when the President is no MLK.   I do not think Obama is playing any race card because it feels to me like your basic pandering to a voting segment while trying to shore up your base. I don’t think it’s going to be very effective and I don’t think it’s a black power dog whistle. The Republican reaction to the speech idoes expose some of that overt racism to which Morgan Freeman alludes. When people act like Obama’s going Black Panther every time he gives a speech to black people there has to be something in there that’s above and beyond basic political differences.

However, back to where I agree with Blumenthal and draw the line at Melissa’s statements at The Nation painting those of us who criticize Obama with a huge brush of having double standards for blacks and whites.  I had thought about posting this article before but I didn’t really want to go there.  I have had my fill of that three years ago.  However, in light of these other things, I thought I’d post the link and have the conversation.

Elements of racism are every where.  The Tea Party can’t seriously deny that its attracted a pretty virulent strain.  I’m not about to say that I didn’t notice it in the likes of people like Orly Taitz and other former Hillary supporters that jumped on the birther and secret Muslim wagon.  However, some of this activity by die hard Obama supporters still strikes me as a hunt for communists under the bed and making excuses for the man.  Maybe when you’re so vested in some one else’s success and they fail you repeatedly you  just keep grasping for all the straws you can.

Dr. Harris-Perry thinks when we try to hold President Obama to his campaign rhetoric and criticize the deals that he makes with Republicans, we are holding Obama to a different standard than we did President Clinton because of Obama’s race.   She believes that there has been unequal liberal criticism of Clinton’s triangulations and Obama’s “cave-ins”.  I see more contextual differences than that.  Clinton had a huge up hill battle given he got elected so close to the Reagan “morning in America myth”.  There was less of an outcry for change then.  Obama, to me, came in with a much stronger push for change and Dubya’s legacy was incredibly negative.  Changing Dubya’s course would’ve been welcome.  Trampling on the Reagan legacy would’ve gotten blowback.

This is Blumenthal’s response.

MaxBlumenthal Max Blumenthal

The Obamabot “you’re a racist” strategy may have shielded Obama from legit criticism in 2008, but it’s spent by now.

If even liberal-left critics of Obama are tarred as racists, critiques of real anti-Obama racism are cheapened, can be discredited by right

….if not discredited then dismissed.

Here’s Dr. Harris Perry’s closing thoughts after naming some  disappointing things done by Clinton and Obama.

These comparisons are neither an attack on the Clinton administration nor an apology for the Obama administration. They are comparisons of two centrist Democratic presidents who faced hostile Republican majorities in the second half of their first terms, forcing a number of political compromises. One president is white. The other is black.

In 1996 President Clinton was re-elected with a coalition more robust and a general election result more favorable than his first win. His vote share among women increased from 46 to 53 percent, among blacks from 83 to 84 percent, among independents from 38 to 42 percent, and among whites from 39 to 43 percent.

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.

My suggestion is that you read the comments column for her post and then go back and look at the actual comments in the Brietbart piece and not just the LGF slice of it. You’ll get a quick lesson in spot the overt racism.

I did see some rethink of her position last night on Twitter after a bit of a pile on.

MHarrisPerry Melissa Harris-Perry
It’s completely possible that I’m wrong & economy is only meaningful variable. But race is worth discussing. Expect allies to agree to that.

Joan Walsh has a response at Salon. I suggest you read it because it’s full of examples of liberals criticizing Clinton.  In deed, much of that criticism of Clinton’s triangulations is what sent progressives away from Hillary Clinton in 2008 as I recall.  So, it’s a good perspective.

Outside of Congress, many of the white progressives giving Obama the most trouble weren’t uncritical Clinton supporters, either. While we remember Moveon.org getting its start to back Clinton during impeachment, it’s worth recalling that it wanted Congress to censure Clinton for his misdeeds; its slogan was “censure, and move on.” Also, the progressive online group was tiny back then, with nothing like the reach it has now. Obama critic Michael Moore was also a Clinton critic, who famously supported Ralph Nader over Gore in 2000. Nader and Michael Lerner, two organizers of the recent letter calling for a primary challenge to Obama, both regularly attacked Clinton.

For a final perspective, I suggest you go to Black Agenda Report–which btw is holding a fundraiser and could use some support–for some other thoughts on Obama’s form of triangulation.   I’m sending you to a recent article called: Barack Obama VS Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil? Bruce A. Dixon characterizes what he calls Black Misleadership.  I’d say he has the same criticism we’ve had and it’s certainly not sourced in white liberalism. However, he frames the complaints using race dynamics.

Since the forces financing Republicans are the same as those financing Democrats the directors of US political theater have the power to play games with us. For them, Obama is the preferable alternative. Only the First Black President could have disbanded the peace movement and rolled into town promising to “cut entitlements” without provoking a firestorm of protest. Only the First Black President could have accepted a Nobel Peace Prize with a war speech, and invaded an African country without millions of protesters in the street worldwide. Only the First Black President with a strong Democratic majority in Congress could have resumed offshore drilling after the Gulf BP disaster, and blocked any new regulation on the oil industry. Only the First Black President could have given GM back to its managers after sticking the unions with its underfunded health care and pension load. Only candidate Obama could have come in off the campaign trail in September 2008 to whip Democratic votes in the Democrat-dominated congress for the $3 trillion Bush bailout, and only the First black President could have quintupled down on that bailout, giving the banksters $15 trillion more once in office.

From their standpoint, Obama needed, and continues to need two things. First, Obama needs running room to his right. In order for Obama to enact the neoliberal policies of his militarist and bankster sponsors, the policy demands of Republicans had to move further and still further rightward. In other words, he needs Republicans to play crazy and crazier, so that wherever he lands can credibly be claimed to be a little better than what might have been under a Republican regime, even when Obama’s position is actually to the right of Bush or Reagan. Secondly, the bankster favorite Obama needs to distract the attention of his voter base with a loud and persistent clamor over cultural issues and sustained furor over instances of personal (but not institutional) racism among Republican candidates and supporters. Like in any production, every actor has a job to do, and everybody does their job.

Since the purpose of Sky Dancing is to discuss real issues, I really couldn’t let some of this burbling boiling social vibe stew stay on the fire without a bit of a stir.  So, the links are there for you.  Make of them what you will.  Since this post has run so long, I want to share one more topic with you.

Back to economists where I’m not such a fish out of water.  I had to point out this blog thread on frames by Jared Bernstein because I spent two huge blog posts on Saturday elucidating frames and their impact on markets and the economy.  What a co-inky-dink!  He talks about a related idea which is how the Republicans are ‘framing’  our historically progressive tax codes as class war fare instigated by that secret muslim, commie, Kenyan president of ours!  The same things have been making him think of frames.

That said, ever since the R’s countered President Obama’s emphasis on fairness in the tax code with shrieks of “class warfare,” I’ve been thinking a lot about framing.  These thoughts were amplified by this smart piece in today’s NYT, arguing that as the language of budgets (“fiscal sustainability,” “deficit reduction”) has replaced that of economic security, progressives have ceded key intellectual ground.

The piece compares, to great effect, the rhetoric of FDR during the Depression to that of today.  But that led me to reflect on the points Stan Greenberg made, as I reviewed them here.  In this regard, the most salient difference in this context between today versus the days of FDR is not just the rhetoric or framing.  It’s the underlying faith in American institutions, most notably government.

Greenberg’s point is that absent that faith, a positive frame, even if it’s based in fact (we really do have the right ideas re economic security and they really don’t) will fail to resonate.

This means progressives have some heavy lifting to do.  Our work must be to re-establish faith in the institution of government…the belief that this institution is a force for good in your lives and can be more so.  And that has to come from explanation, evidence, and effective implementation of government programs.

It also underscores the importance of the current fight for fairness: if people continue to believe that government has devolved into an ATM for the wealthy, an enforcer of the inequality-inducing policy agenda, and a bailer-outer of the rich and the reckless, no frame will be smart enough to convince them otherwise.

So, any way.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Friday Morning Reads

Posted: September 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Gulf Oil Spill, morning reads, religious extremists, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups | Tags: , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Good Morning!

I’ve been working on a lot of research recently to get ready for the big job market event for finance professors in October in Denver.  As a result, I’m enviously reading that a lot of you are already reading the Suskind book and kind enough to comment here.  Keep it up so I can live vicariously through your ability to read it and get a little fix and distraction while I work!

I found a few interesting links this morning to share.  Bill Clinton offered his opinions on the death penalty and the Troy Davis execution which was based solely on notoriously bad eye witness accounts that were later found to be coerced.  He believes that hard evidence is the essential to making our justice system do what its supposed to do.

While in office, Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which, according to Time, “reduced new trials for convicted criminals and sped up their sentences by restricting a federal court’s ability to judge whether a state court had correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution.” The law has been cited as one of the major obstacles that prevented Davis from being granted a new trial.

Clinton’s comments on Thursday seemed to suggest that he believes some of these cases should be slowed down in light of advances in technology.

He added that increased reliance on DNA evidence and its ability to decisively prove the innocence or guilt of a defendant is the “the most important thing that’s happened in criminal justice in the last 30 years.”

“When there’s any chance a DNA test can resolve this, then there should be no proceeding with the [death] penalty until that’s resolved,” he said.

“I actually spent some time yesterday on this appeals case, just listening to the news coverage,” he continued. “The thing I found strange was that even though there were some people who apparently wanted to change their testimony when there was a hearing before the court — the lawyers for the defendant didn’t bring them on to say what they had to say. So it’s an unusual case.”

Davis’ attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.

Clinton supported the death penalty as president and oversaw four executions while serving as governor of Arkansas, including the controversial case of Ricky Ray Rector.

In 2000, Clinton stayed the execution of Juan Raul Garza, who was just five days away from being the first federal prisoner executed since 1963. He ordered the Justice Department to examine “racial and geographic disparities in the federal death penalty system.” Garza was eventually executed in 2001.

Clinton held a round table with bloggers in a side conversation during his Global Initiative being held in NYC.  He also addressed the Middle East situation mourning the losses of Rabin to assassination and Sharon to illness.  He did not have the same kind words for current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom Clinton blames for the current problems in the peace process.  He also blames Arafat for being unreasonable during the peace process when he was directly involved with negotiations.

“The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were [Yitzhak] Rabin‘s assassination and [Ariel] Sharon‘s stroke,” Clinton said.

Sharon had decided he needed to build a new centrist coalition, so he created the Kadima party and gained the support of leaders like Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert. He was working toward a consensus for a peace deal before he fell ill, Clinton said. But that effort was scuttled when the Likud party returned to power.

“The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had, it didn’t seem so appealing to Mr. Netanyahu. They wanted to believe they had a partner for peace in a Palestinian government, and there’s no question — and the Netanyahu government has said — that this is the finest Palestinian government they’ve ever had in the West Bank,” Clinton said.

“[Palestinian leaders] have explicitly said on more than one occasion that if [Netanyahu] put up the deal that was offered to them before — my deal — that they would take it,” Clinton said, referring to the 2000 Camp David deal that Yasser Arafat rejected.

But the Israeli government has drifted a long way from the Ehud Barak-led government that came so close to peace in 2000, Clinton said, and any new negotiations with the Netanyahu government are now on starkly different terms — terms that the Palestinians are unlikely to accept.

“For reasons that even after all these years I still don’t know for sure, Arafat turned down the deal I put together that Barak accepted,” he said. “But they also had an Israeli government that was willing to give them East Jerusalem as the capital of the new state of Palestine.”

Republicans attending the debates for presidential candidates continue to set lows for hateful, angry, bigoted, nasty behavior.  First, they scream loud approving hoorays at Perry’s horrible record of state murder in Texas, then then screamed “let him die” in response to a question to Ron Paul on people with no health insurance.  This time they boo’d an active duty soldier serving our country in the Iraq War in the second Fox News Hater Fest.   These are people that are sick sick sick and I wonder who invited them to the shindig and how we can export them all to Devil’s Island where they can create a hell realm all to themselves.

Planet Michele was in full alignment last night with the alternate universe.  She thinks taxpayers should keep all the money they earn.  I guess the government will have to hold bake sales to run the war in Afghanistan.  What ever happened to those t shirts?  We’ll have to redo them for her bits of policy wisdom, I guess.

Former IRS lawyer Michele Bachmann has an interesting approach to taxation: she thinks Americans should get to keep “every dollar” they earn, though she says the government needs to get money somehow.

Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Bachmann about a question at a previous Republican debate on how much of every dollar taxpayers should get to keep. Bachmann said that she talked to the young man who asked the question at the last debate.

“I said ‘I wish I could have answered that question, because I want to tell you what my answer is. I think you earned every dollar, you should get to keep every dollar that you earned,’” Bachmann said. “That’s your money, that’s not the government’s money, that’s the whole point.”

Some one needs to check when the jeebus cult love bombs that  just keep going off in her mind for expiration dates.  Also, her campaign staff

New poster woman for WHAT NOT TO WEAR

needs to send her to TLC and What to Wear where: “Stacy London and Clinton Kelly help the frumpy by giving them life-changing fashion makeovers and fashion advice.” She looks and acts like the Manchurian candidate for Wonderland.  Michele, when you are standing as the only woman in a line up of men and want to be taken seriously, you cannot wear ghost white panty hose and tacky tacky sandals.  Isn’t the styler for Quitterella available? She always looked terrific! It almost made you forget the insanity that spewed from her mouth.  I really think Marcus HAS to be dressing Michele from his secret wardrobe.  I found the picture on the left to be just as bad as it gets.  Look at those shoes!!!  If you want to be a power player, you freaking have to dress like one!  Notice that none of the men are ever out of their traditional corporate monkey suits!  Bachmann’s a total ditz and I wouldn’t want her in charge of anything, but I really think women in positions that should command respect have to go out of their way dress themselves to avoid looking trivial unless they want to be treated that way!  It’s still a power suit world in politics and business. Strappy sandals are for cocktail parties given by lobbyists!

The Villagers are obsessed with the nonperformance of Perry who appeared to have left the Texas part of his personality at home. That didn’t leave much.  Frank Luntz was trying to convince every one that would listen that Perry was yesterday’s plate of grilling beans and that Romney was becoming more Reaganesque every debate and waking moment. He was even seen directing his post debate ‘focus group’ to mimic his talking points.  His eyes kept pleading “Romney can beat the one!  Please LIKE HIM DAMMIT!”  The group describe Perry as a waffler and that Romney held himself accountable for all those ‘mistakes’ that seemed a lot like complete flip flops to the rest of us.  There were some fireworks between the two on Social Security among other issues. Oh, and the newbie to the crowd, some governor whose name I forget from New Mexico ripped a joke off from Rush Limbaugh.  Every one thought it was great until they discovered the source.  Hint to yahoo politicians from New Mexico:  don’t plagiarize any one on your first major TV appearance. You may think that ripping off Rush gives you creds with the ditto heads but it really brings out the worst in the media.

Face to face in confrontational debate, Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Perry sarcastically accused each other Thursday night of flip-flopping on Social Security and health care, flashpoints in their early struggle for the party nomination.

Romney accused Perry of having said the federal government “shouldn’t be in the pension business, that it’s unconstitutional,” a reference to Social Security benefits.

The Texas governor disputed the charge, saying it “wasn’t the first time Mitt’s been wrong on some issue before.” But Romney mocked his rival’s denial, adding crisply, “You better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that.”

Perry soon returned the favor, saying that Romney switched his position on health care between editions of a book he had published. In one edition, Perry said, Romney advocated expanding the health care program he signed in Massachusetts to the rest of the country. “Then in your paperback you took that line out, so speaking of not getting it straight in your book, Sir.”

“It’s like badminton,” said Perry.

WTF is it with men and really stupid sports metaphors?  Sheesh! They’re always like two small steps away from being those little boys on the little league team that can’t do anything right. Oh, and the joke rip off has already gone to Rush’s big fat lying head …

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson brought down the house at Thursday night’s Fox News/ Google debatewhen he joked about how his “next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.”

The joke killed among the GOP faithful. But was Johnson the first to use it?

Just today, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh delivered a similar joke on air.

“My dogs have created more shovel-ready work than Obama has just this week alone,” Limbaugh said. “The new puppy. Honest to God. More shovel-ready work for me this week than Obama has created all two and a half years.”

So what does Limbaugh think of the similarity?

“I guess I’ve become show prep for the GOP debates now, too,” Limbaugh told The Huffington Post in an email. Limbaugh said he thought he used the line yesterday, “but the days run together, so I’m not really sure.”

Well, the guy’s name is Gary Johnson–how could I forget that!–and he used to be the Governor of New Mexico. His one chance to be remembered and he’ll be known as the guy that plagiarized Rush Limbaugh!  Alrighty then … I’m continuing my policy of making sure we don’t forget the BP Oil spill.  Here’s one from my local rag that’s worth your reading time about the silencing of Gulf oil spill Investigators.

A U.S. House committee was forced to postpone a hearing on the findings of a federal investigation into the causes of the BP oil spill because the Obama administration suddenly refused to let investigators testify, the committee chairman said.

The alleged silencing of the members of the joint Coast Guard and Interior Department investigative team comes in the wake of the sudden resignation of Interior’s lead investigator, Hammond resident David Dykes.

In a news release late Thursday afternoon, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, blasted the Obama administration.

“It took far too long for the final report to be issued and the Obama administration is now further delaying proper oversight by suddenly refusing to allow members of the investigation team to testify,” Hastings said in a statement.

Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the Coast Guard said they never wanted “line investigators” to testify. They are seeking to clarify that with Hastings at a meeting Friday, apparently to offer more senior agency officials to testify.

“BOEMRE and the Coast Guard were responsive to Chairman Hastings and his Committee’s request late last week for a hearing. However, we felt strongly from the beginning it was inappropriate for BOEMRE and Coast Guard line investigators to testify, and presented alternative options,” a joint statement from the two agencies said.

Wow!  I just think I made it through an entire morning news post without mentioning ONE economics story.  Must be a record!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Thursday Reads

Posted: September 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 34 Comments

Good Morning!!

As I’m writing this, the Supreme Court is considering whether to stay Troy Davis’ execution. I’m following a blog on NPR. From NPR at 9:04PM Wednesday Night:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that more than a dozen Georgia state police in riot gear have moved into the area outside of the prison. “They were met by choruses of ‘Shame on you’ from the protesters,” reports the AJC.

Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International, which has led protests in support of Davis, told Democracy Now! they don’t know much about what’s going on. He said they’ve met with protesters to try to prepare them for bad news, he said, so they could react properly and within the peaceful spirit of the campaign.

“All we can do is wait and pray,” said Cox.

At The Nation, Richard Kim offers some background on the SCOTUS justices and their past statements about the death penalty.

It does seem that Georgia’s government is determined to kill Davis tonight. Earlier today Davis was refused an opportunity to take a polygraph.

Sadly, everything I wrote above is now moot. I’ve just heard (10:24PM) that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Davis’ stay request. What a sad day for the so-called justice system. Texas killed another man tonight and Georgia may yet follow suit.

UPDATE: Troy Davis died last night at 11:08PM. From CBS News: Troy Davis executed, supporters cry injustice

Strapped to a gurney in Georgia’s death chamber, Troy Davis lifted his head and declared one last time that he did not kill police officer Mark MacPhail. Just a few feet away behind a glass window, MacPhail’s son and brother watched in silence.

Outside the prison, a crowd of more than 500 demonstrators cried, hugged, prayed and held candles. They represented hundreds of thousands of supporters worldwide who took up the anti-death penalty cause as Davis’ final days ticked away.

“I am innocent,” Davis said moments before he was executed Wednesday night. “All I can ask … is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight.”

Prosecutors and MacPhail’s family said justice had finally been served.

From The New York Times:

“It harkens back to some ugly days in the history of this state,” said the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church, who visited Mr. Davis on Monday.

Mr. Davis remained defiant at the end, according to reporters who witnessed his death. He looked directly at the members of the family of Mark MacPhail, the officer he was convicted of killing, and told them they had the wrong man.

“I did not personally kill your son, father, brother,” he said. “All I can ask is that you look deeper into this case so you really can finally see the truth.”

He then told his supporters and family to “keep the faith” and said to prison personnel, “May God have mercy on your souls; may God bless your souls.”

One of the witnesses, a radio reporter from WSB in Atlanta, said it appeared that the MacPhail family “seemed to get some satisfaction” from the execution.

Family members of murdered police officer Mark MacPhail

How can anyone “get satisfaction” when the wrong man may have been murdered by the state? I just don’t understand that. In my opinion, the U.S. cannot be considered a civilized or even moral country as long as we murder people in the name of the state, not to mention in the name of profit in our so-called “health care system.” In this country, it is still a crime to be poor, to be black, to be “illegal,” to be muslim, to be different.

The family of Troy Davis

Amnesty International:

“The U.S. justice system was shaken to its core as Georgia executed a person who may well be innocent. Killing a man under this enormous cloud of doubt is horrific and amounts to a catastrophic failure of the justice system. While many courts examined this case, the march to the death chamber only slowed, but never stopped. Justice may be blind; but in this case, the justice system was blind to the facts.

“The state of Georgia has proven that the death penalty is too great a power to give to the government. Human institutions are prone to bias and error and cannot be entrusted with this God-like power. The death penalty is a human rights violation whether given to the guilty or the innocent, and it must be abolished.

“Our hearts are heavy, but we have not lost our spirit of defiance. Millions of people around the world now know of Troy Davis and see the fallibility of the U.S. justice system. As this case has captured the American conscience and increased opposition to the death penalty, Amnesty International will build on this momentum to end this unjust practice.”


__________________________________________________________________

In other news, this story from Mexico is unbelievable. I hope this isn't what the U.S. has to look forward to as we sink into third world status: 35 bodies dumped in Mexican city as president begins effort to woo tourists

As Mexican President Felipe Calderon was unveiling a new campaign and TV program Tuesday to draw wary tourists back to his country, a gang dumped 35 bodies at a busy intersection in the tourist zone in the coastal city of Veracruz….

The images from the travel television program, called “Mexico: The Royal Tour” — clips of gray whales, Mayan pyramids and glasses of amber tequila — clashed with shaky videos captured by cellphone cameras of panicked commuters, wailing police vehicles and half-naked bodies dumped on an underpass near the Veracruz beaches.

Authorities in Veracruz said the 35 bodies included 24 men and 11 women. They quickly tried to calm the public — and foreign visitors — by saying that most of the dead were criminals who were killed by a warring drug cartel.

That wouldn’t calm me one bit!

A couple of new polls have come out that show Obama continue to loose ground in important areas. A new Washington Post-ABC News Poll show his favorability ratings are dropping with African Americans.

New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.

“There is a certain amount of racial loyalty and party loyalty, but eventually that was going to have to weaken,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, who studies African Americans. “It’s understandable given the economy.”

African Americans have historically correlated approval ratings of the president to the unemployment rate, she said. The slip in the strongly favorable rating continues the decline Obama has seen among all groups, but black voters have been his staunchest supporters. Overall, they still hold a generally favorable view of the president with 86 percent saying they view him at least somewhat favorably.

Gillespie’s view that the decline is tied to the disproportionately high jobless rate faced by African Americans correlates with the drop in their view of Obama’s handling of the economy. In July, only 54 percent of blacks said they thought Obama’s policies were making the economy better compared with 77 percent the previous year.

And a new Gallup poll shows that a “slight majority” of Americans blame Obama for the state of the economy.

A slight majority of Americans for the first time blame President Obama either a great deal (24%) or a moderate amount (29%) for the nation’s economic problems. However, Americans continue to blame former President George W. Bush more. Nearly 7 in 10 blame Bush a great deal (36%) or a moderate amount (33%).

Gallup found a substantially wider gap in public perceptions of how much responsibility Bush and Obama each bore for the economy when it first asked the question in July 2009, the sixth month of Obama’s presidency. That narrowed by March 2010, caused mainly by a jump in the percentage blaming Obama a great deal or moderate amount, and has since changed relatively little. However, the results from a new Sept. 15-18 USA Today/Gallup poll are the first showing a majority of Americans, 53%, assigning significant blame to Obama. Forty-seven percent still say he is “not much” (27%) or “not at all” (20%) to blame.

I managed to find a little humor for you. Elizabeth Warren has gotten quite a bump after her announcement that she’s running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Although Scott Brown’s campaign claims he’s not concerned, a little birdie overheard Brown talking about it on the phone and then told Talking Points Memo.

A Hill staffer, who spoke with TPM by phone, sends this dispatch from the Senate side in the wake of today’s PPP poll showing former White House financial reform adviser Elizabeth Warren leading Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA):

“Just walked passed Senator Brown’s office and in the hallway was the man himself, lamenting into his cell phone, ‘I don’t understand how she can be down 20 points one week and is now up 2. What is going on?’”

Our tipster describes the scene:

Was heading to a meeting after just having read your reporting on the new poll. Was just about to walk by Senator Brown’s personal office when he walked out of the main door of his office, cell phone in hand. He was mid-conversation but was responding to something on the other line with the line I reported. Was kind of dumbfounded to hear that kind of candor in a very public hallway. I’m guessing he realized that too, because he then looked over his shoulder, saw me, and hurriedly entered a side down to his office down the hall.

As a Massachusetts voter, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that Pretty Boy Brown is a little freaked out by the competition.

That’s it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Tuesday Reads: Obama’s Deficit-Reduction Plan, Backsliding Obots, Rev. Wright, and Dr. Doom

Posted: September 20, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: American Jobs Act, Barack Obama, Democratic Politics, Domestic Policy, Global Financial Crisis, income inequality, Medicaid, Medicare, morning reads, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 45 Comments

Good Morning!! Let’s see what’s happening in the news today.

Well, of course the Obama apologists are claiming that he has suddenly grown a backbone of steel and become the liberal messiah they all dreamed of in 2008. I already told you about Ezra Klein’s delusional column last night. The other usual suspects are also getting leg tingles, and former Obots are starting to backslide.

Greg Sargent has put on his rose-colored glasses and taken a few swigs of LSD-laced Koolaid:

This has to be the clearest sign yet that Obama has taken a very sharp populist turn as he seeks to frame the contrast between the parties heading into 2012. During his remarks this morning, Obama directly responded to Republicans accusing him of “class warfare,” but rather than simply deny the charge, he made the critical point that the act of protecting tax cuts for the rich is itself class warfare, in effect positioning himself as the defender of the middle class against GOP class warriors on behalf of the wealthy.

Wow! I’ll bet it never occurred to anyone that income inequality equals class warfare until Obama figured it out. Amaaaazzzzing!!

A senior administration official tells me that parts of Obama’s “class warfare” broadside were ad-libbed. Here’s the key chunk — and it’s a script that could have been written by just about any card-carrying member of the “professional left:”

Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There’s no justification for it. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million…
We’re already hearing the usual defenders of these kinds of loopholes saying, “this is just class warfare.” I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare. I think it’s just the right thing to do. I believe the American middle class, who’ve been pressured relentlesly for decades, believe it’s time that they were fought for as hard as the lobbyists and some lawmakers have fought to protect special treatment for billionaires and big corporations.
Nobody wants to punish success in America … All I’m saying is, that those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible.

Holy sh*t!! Obama ad libbed? Hope ‘n’ change! Change we can believe in! I guess it’s just me, but I thought that speech sounded kind of weak and defensive. But what do I know?

Booman has an even better rationalization for Obama’s behavior than Beltway Bob Ezra Klein. According to the ever-gullable Booman,

…the president has a lot more credibility now when he takes his ideas to the public and says the the Republicans aren’t interested in compromise. You have to try and fail to get a compromise before that argument has any resonance. It’s not so much 11-Dimensional chess as basic common sense. Everyone’s poll numbers suffered during the summer, but no one’s standing was weakened more the Republicans’. That’s not an accident.

So Obama must have planned this. The man is brilliant!!

Digby says Obama is in campaign mode and that’s why he’s trying to sound strong and determined.

My first thought is that it appears the administration has finally decided that there’s nothing to be gained with exclusively delivering post-partisan pablum. It certainly sounds as though he’s thrown down the gauntlet. Unfortunately, the President appears to want to have two fights going into this election, one over job creation and one over whose plan to cut the deficit is better, which I think is a confusing waste of time. (Focus like a laser beam on jobs and tell the Republicans they’ll have to go through you to get to the safety net and I think people would instinctively understand that he’s on their side.) But that isn’t this president’s style and perhaps it wouldn’t be believable if he did it. So, this is at least a change of tactics, more confrontational in tone, which is his best hope for reelection since it turns out people aren’t really all that impressed that he’s the most reasonable guy in the room if it appears that he gets punk’d every time.

Digby things the proposed Medicare cuts are a loser politically, though–especially for Congress members running for reelection.

Jon Walker at FDL was “pleasantly surprised” that Obama didn’t call for Social Security cuts or “any specific major cuts to Medicare benefits,” but he hasn’t gone back on the Koolaid.

This is a positive development. Having President Obama publicly call for major cuts in Medicare benefits or change in age eligibility would have been terrible for our senior citizens and a total political disaster for the Democratic party. But it is important to remember: simply because the president did not put such cuts on the table doesn’t mean he took these cuts off the table.

President Obama has already privately signaled that in theory he would be willing to support major cuts to Medicare. And he’s hinted he’d be willing to cut Social Security benefits. They were both earlier put the table for a theoretical deal and this speech didn’t take them off the table. There was no veto threat to protect Medicare and Social Security benefits.

Actually, there do seem to be specific proposed cuts to Medicare. Jonathan Cohn breaks down the detail of the President’s deficit reduction proposal in a very technical piece that you can read if you’re interested. According to Cohn,

President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan includes about $320 billion in cuts to government health care programs. Most of the cuts from Medicare and that is sure to get a lot of people’s attention, if not now then in the presidential campaign.

But these reductions are less severe, and less worrisome, than some of the proposals Obama indicated he was willing to support over the summer, while he was negotiating with House Speaker John Boehner. In particular, Obama did not call for increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, as folks like me feared he would.

In fact, the cuts Obama has in mind are more or less consistent with the kind of cuts that you find in the Affordable Care Act: They are reductions designed to change the way Medicare pays for treatment and services, ideally (although not always) in ways that will actually improve the efficiency or quality of care. To the extent they would force individual seniors to pay more, it’d be in the form of higher premiums from wealthy seniors or higher co-pays for treatments likely to be unnecessary or wasteful.

For a reminder of who Obama really is, I’ll turn to Glenn Ford at the Black Agenda Report. His post was written a few days ago–before today’s speech–but I still think he has Obama’s number.

The GOP can count on Obama to offer up Social Security on the alter of austerity, as he has done consistently since January, 2009, while still president-elect. Back in April, he proposed $4 trillion in cuts over 12 years – nearly as draconian as his hand-picked committee – with the focus on the safety net. “By 2025,” warned the apocalyptic and grossly misleading president, “the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt.”

Obama promises that his grab-bag, mostly supply-side and wholly inadequate jobs scheme will largely be “paid for” by cuts that include “modest adjustments [hah!] to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid.”

Social Security stands to be mortally wounded at Obama’s hand. His second round of cuts in the payroll tax further undermine, not just the program’s trust fund, but its status as a free-standing entity outside of the usual congressional process. Congress will, theoretically, make up the temporary shortfall in payroll taxes through appropriations. But that puts Social Security in the middle of the budget deficit debate, where it does not belong and from which it has been purposely shielded since its origins in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Through rhetoric and calculated action, Obama has for the past two and a half years been in league with Republicans in falsely conflating Social Security and the federal debt. He is now positioned to knock the program from its protective pedestal.

The Social Security cuts are already taken care of as long as the GOP goes along with extending the payroll tax holiday. The more money Obama can suck out of the Social Security trust fund, the more likely he can “reform” the Social Security into a welfare program or Wall Street ATM.

If Obama succeeds, Social Security will become just another “entitlement” to be mangled in a grand bargain with the GOP, like Medicare and Medicaid. Obama wants to be remembered as the president who brought the Republicans and the right wing of the Democratic Party into harmonious consensus – over the dead carcass of the New Deal. That’s what he means by “Go big!”

Chris Hedges has another excellent article up at Truthdig. It’s an interview with Obama’s former pastor and spiritual adviser: “The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Recalls Obama’s Fall From Grace.” I know not everyone will agree with Hedges’ point of view, but I mostly do. As outlandish as Wright was made to seem in the media, I couldn’t fault much of what I heard him say about America and racism. It’s a lengthy article, but I hope you’ll take a look at it.

One of the things Wright discussed with Hedges was the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington DC. Wright himself raised $200,000 for the project.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing that the country would recognize someone as important as Dr. King,” Wright said when I reached him by phone in Chicago, “and recognize him in a way that raises his likeness in the Mall along with the presidents. He’s not a president like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. But to have him ranked among them in terms of this nation paying attention to the importance of his work, that’s a good thing.”

“I read Maya Angelou’s piece about the way the quote was put on the monument,” Wright said in referring to the editing of a quote by King on the north face of the 30-foot-tall granite statue. The inscription quote reads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” But these are not King’s words. They are paraphrased from a sermon he gave in which he said: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” Angelou said the mangled inscription made King sound “arrogant.”

“I read the explanation as to why we couldn’t include the whole quote,” said Wright, who helped raise $200,000 for the monument. “Kids a hundred years from now, like our pastor who was born three years after King was killed, they’re going to see that and will not get the context. They will not hear the whole speech, and that will be their take-away, which is not a good thing. My bigger problems, however, have to do with all the emphasis on ’63 and ‘I Have a Dream.’ They have swept under the rug the radical justice message that King ended his career repeating over and over and over again, starting with the media coverage of the April 4, 1967, ‘A Time to Break Silence’ message at the Riverside Church [in New York City]. King had a huge emphasis on capitalism, militarism and racism, the three-headed giant. There is no mention of that, no mention of that King, and absolutely no mention of the importance of his work with the poor. After all, he’s at the garbage collectors strike in Memphis, Tenn., when he is assassinated. The whole emphasis on the poor sent him to Memphis. But that gets swept away. It bothers me that we think more about a monument than a movement. He had a movement trying to address poverty. It was for jobs, not I Have a Dream, not Black and White Together, but that gets lost.”

He’s right. The powers that be have worked for years to minimize King’s work to end the Vietnam war as well as his determination to wipe out poverty. It’s interesting that this is the second time King has been misquoted on Obama’s watch.

This post is already too long, so I’ll end with an article by Dr. Doom (Nouriel Roubini): Eight drastic policy measures necessary to prevent global economic collapse. None of them will be popular. The first recommendation is that

we must accept that austerity measures, necessary to avoid a fiscal train wreck, have recessionary effects on output. So, if countries in the Eurozone’s periphery such as Greece or Portugal are forced to undertake fiscal austerity, countries able to provide short-term stimulus should do so and postpone their own austerity efforts. These countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the core of the Eurozone, and Japan. Infrastructure banks that finance needed public infrastructure should be created as well.

Read the rest and weep. Our current “leaders” aren’t likely to pay any attention.

So sorry if I depressed you with that one. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Monday Reads

Posted: September 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, American Jobs Act, Barack Obama, Cameroon, Democratic Politics, Economy, Environment, Environmental Protection, Foreign Affairs, India, morning reads, Reproductive Health, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Good Morning!

Fall is definitely in the air! This has to be the nicest September in New Orleans that I’ve ever experienced.  I’m told that a lot of this has to do with with the absence of both La Nina and El Nino.  I just know I’m seeing weather I usually can expect in October and I like it!

I’m going to start the morning reads off with Paul Krugman and his NYT blog thread  “Hysteresis Begins”.  I continue to see signs of recession and it worries me greatly.  Our economy is certainly not on the mend in any sense of the word. Krugman continues to put into words exactly what I’ve been feeling.

The slump in the United States and other advanced economies is the result of a failure of demand — period, end of story. All attempts to claim that it is somehow structural, or maybe the result of reduced incentives to produce, have collapsed at first contact with the evidence.

But there is a real concern that if the slump goes on long enough, it can turn into a supply-side problem, because investment will be depressed, reducing future capacity, and because workers who have been unemployed for a long time become unemployable. This is the issue of hysteria “hysteresis”.

And if you look at manufacturing capacity, in particular, you can already see that starting to happen.

I have no idea why this meme has taken hold that it’s lack of confidence because of Obama, lottsa obscure regulations, or high taxes that are causing the current slump.  It is definitely none of the above.  Businesses do not have customers. Customers do not have incomes or jobs or job security.  It’s a demand thing!  What on earth do economists have to do to get policy maker’s attention these days?  I suppose I could answer that.  We’d all have to become corporations, hire lobbyists, and donate to some one’s political campaign.

Rep Emmanuel Cleaver gets it.  The black caucus sees the incredible unemployment in the community and understands.  Yet, they feel hamstrung to try to do anything about it.  That’s a damned shame in my book.

Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

“If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. “There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.”

CBC members have expressed concern in recent months as the unemployment rate has continued to rise amongst African-Americans, pushing for Obama to do more to address the needs of vulnerable communities.

“We’re supportive of the president, but we getting tired, y’all,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in August. “We want to give [Obama] every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is.”

The biggest problem is that no one but a few advisers seem to be able to get these points across to the White House.  They seem intent on pandering to independents who–as yet–appear unmoved.  They’re losing the base and the center.  Why can’t they just do the right thing?  Just to reinforce the it’s a demand problem idea, here’s the same thought from the chairman of Google who is pushing for more stimulus.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt called on Washington to think big about solutions for the nation’s struggling economy calling the current emphasis on cutting spending instead of new stimulus “ludicrous.”

The economy would need “not just something like the jobs bill, but also significant government stimulation in terms of buying power and investment,” said Schmidt on ABC”s “This Week” on Sunday.

“Otherwise, we are set up for years of extraordinarily low growth in the economy and no real solution to the jobless problem,” he warned.

“The current strategy is ludicrous. You have a situation where the private sector sees essentially no growth in demand. The classic solution is to have the government step in and, with short-term initiatives, help stimulate that demand. If they do it right, they’ll invest in income and growth producing things like highways and bridges and schools, new opportunities for the private sector to go then build businesses,” proposed Schmidt.

So, I’m getting really disgusted at state of US policy these days; especially the continued attack on women’s rights.   I’m going to focus on some good news about women around the world.  Have you ever heard of breast ironing?  This is a practice in Cameroon and here are some ‘aunties’ that are educating some mothers in the country.  The practice is actually done when mothers are concerned their daughters are maturing sexually too early which could subject them to becoming child brides.

Aside from causing burns and permanent deformity this practice also leaves deep psychological scars.

“After (I) have it done, apart from the pain, I felt very, very ashamed. I was ashamed of myself,” said Forghab. “I thought, if my parents are ironing my breasts at that age it means that I am not supposed to have them.”

Despite a daughters’ tears and pleas to stop, mothers continue to perform this practice on their daughters assuring. “It is for their own good,” many mothers say.

But what good? What could possibly be worth justifying such a harmful intervention? Breast ironing is a traditional practice that currently affects about 25 percent of all girls in Cameroon.

More commonly performed in the rural areas than in cities, “breast ironing has existed as long as Cameroon,” says Dr. Sinou Tchana, a Cameroon gynecologist and vice-president of the Cameroonian Association of Female Doctors.

It can seem shocking that mothers, the same mothers who are supposed to love and care for their children, are also the ones hurting them the most by burning their body. But many mothers who still practice breast ironing are hoping to prevent their daughters from getting pregnant at a ‘too-early’ age. What starts as an attempt to protect often leaves girls injured and confused.

“While the minimum legal age for a woman to marry is 15, many families facilitated the marriage of young girls by the age of 12. Early marriage was prevalent in the northern regions of Adamaoua, North, and particularly the remote
Far North, where many girls as young as nine faced severe health risks from pregnancies,” says the U.S. Department of State in a new report on Cameroon.

The good news is that women are taking it on themselves to go around the country to teach women their are other ways to protect their young girls.  Please read the article it’s very interesting and I think you’ll love the Women’s News site where I found it!  Also,  here’s some information on the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India. SEWA has been registered as a trade union since 1972 and works for the right of poor, self-employed women. It’s doing wonderful things over there and I thought you may want to check it out.

Some of the most exciting recent  initiatives for SEWA have been the promotion of green livelihoods.  SEWA earned an award from the Sierra Club for its work.  Here’s some information on what they have done to promote women and environmental sustainability.

More than 60% of SEWA’s membership comes from the rural areas and are poorest of the poor from the most disaster prone areas. Thses women consume less oil and coal based energy, recycle many many items in their daily life, productively reuse solid waste when possible and are eager to use, produce, and manage green technology such on solar lamps.

The many benefits of combining new, green technologies with traditional farming techniques are evident in the success of SEWA’s campaign. Through green Energy and Green livelihood initiative 139,665 members earn average annual total income of Rs.1,175 million. Further SEWA’s effort in this area has not only lead towards green livelihoods but have also worked towards mitigating the effects of climate change. “While the rest of the world talks and negotiates, we the poor women of India cut down carbon emission,” said Reema. “We have learned this power of small concrete act by many from Gandhiji,” she added.

To this end, SEWA has trained 3685 barefoot technician women in water conservation, construction, repairs and deepening of water structure, nursery raising, solid waste recycle, fodder growing, vermicompost production, building eco-friendly rural infrastructures, solar lamp production, developing eco-friendly energy sources, garment production with eco-friendly fabrics and natural dyes, green livelihoods focusing on food security and other environmentally friendly and economically beneficial activities. Demand for such training is ten fold.

Biomass, which was earlier burnt, is now being used as a source of organic manure. More than 13 lakh farmer families have been benefited from these eco-friendly campaigns, 26 Lakh hectares of land are brought under organic cultivation and 2018924 trees have been successfully planted and maintained.

Through these Green Energy and Livelihood Initiatives, SEWA has been at the forefront in promoting green energy and generating green livelihoods in villages.

“If poor and women can take leaps towards green and clean economy the others have excuse to be inactive. May we invite all Indians, and also all Americans, today to catch up?” Reema requested.

Beverly Gage–a history professor at Yale University–wrote an interesting piece in the NYT this weekend called “The Unacknowledged Victories of the American Left” in a book review of Michael Kazin’s “American Dreamers. There’s really not much of a left wing left in the US today, but what is left does have a proud history.

“American Dreamers” is Kazin’s bid to reclaim the left’s utopian spirit for an age of diminished expectations. An editor at Dissent magazine and one of the left’s most eloquent spokesmen, Kazin presents his book as an unapologetic attempt to give the left a history it can celebrate. For more than two centuries, he writes, American radicals have sounded the alarm about crucial injustices — slavery, industrial exploitation, women’s oppression — that the rest of society refused to see. It is time for the left to stand up and take credit for these efforts.

Who is — or was — “the left”? Today, many Americans use the word interchangeably with “liberal.” As Kazin points out, this would have been anathema to earlier generations, when leftists and liberals often viewed each other as ideological foes. For most of the 20th century, liberalism meant tinkering, finding a kinder and gentler way to preserve the status quo. Leftists, by contrast, put their faith in structural change. Kazin’s left includes all those who fought for a “radically egalitarian transformation of society,” from abolitionists to Communists to the modern feminist and gay rights movements.

By far the most important of the early movements was abolition, and abolitionists linger throughout the book as Kazin’s archetypal leftists, prophets and dreamers who saw an injustice and fought to correct it despite the blindness and hostility of the larger society. The best among them practiced what they preached, forming interracial cooperatives and marrying across color lines. They also suffered for their ideals, enduring violence, social ostracism and, in some cases, death. In the end, they were vindicated by history, the ideals that they championed finally inscribed as the nation’s conventional wisdom.

There’s also a fascinating article up at Spiegel On line on the work German scientists are doing on computers studying differences between Neanderthals and modern humans that is worth a look.  Here’s more information on ongoing work to determine what was going on back during the time when Neanderthals still walked the earth.

Last year’s decoding of the Neanderthal’s genetic makeup provided strong evidence in support of this thesis. Researchers working under Svante Pääbo, the director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, found that modern Eurasians inherited a small portion of their DNA sequence from Neanderthals . This suggests that the two species of man must have had sexual intercourse.

What’s more, the genetic researchers were also able to narrow down the timeframe of this momentous genetic intermingling. According to their findings, the intercourse took place between 65,000 and 90,000 years after modern man set foot on the Eurasian landmass, presumably on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean.

Scientists are now trying to determine the exact relationship the inhabitants of these Israeli caves had with the forefathers of modern-day Eurasians. In particular, they are examining the fossil remains to see if there are traces of the interaction between the two species.

Okay, so I tried to throw in a little interesting news along with the general economic and political malaise items. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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