Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

White House tap

Transcript of secret White House conversation earlier this week:

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Bobby – what are you doing going off on progressives like that? You fuckhead! We may hate them, but we need them.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: Yeah. My bad. I just get so frustrated with them. They’re not voting the way we want. They’ve been a little hard to manage.

President Obama: Yeah. Bad move. Now we have to give them something.

Emanuel: Shit! See what you did, ratfuck? See what you did? OK. Done. What can we give them? Let’s think.

Obama: Can’t be anything important.

Gibbs: Can’t hurt anyone in congress – you know – can’t be something they have to take a stand on and maybe get hurt.

Obama: Symbolic. Empty. Meaningless. Think, guys, think!

Obama supports ground zero mosque! Obama supports ground zero mosque!

Sirota drives Ford into ditch

David Sirota goes all junkyard dog on Harold Ford

David Sirota assured himself that another Democratic Leadership Council member will never appear on his show. Harold Ford, former DLC head and member of Congress, supported Clinton’s trade deals and Bush’s tax cuts and wars while in congress, came on Sirota’s show to talk about his personal courage.

Sirota was having none of it. Click on the link to hear the ten minute interview. Great fun!

“Exclusion” is the driving force behind “free markets”

The front page of this morning’s Denver Post has an unintentionally revealing headline:

Audits cut costs in health coverage.

Have they discovered new efficiencies? Have insurance companies cut back on sales commissions? Have executive salaries been slashed?

No. Not at all. The article merely says that insurance companies are now doing audits to be sure that dependents are really dependents. If they are not, then they are excised from the system. They save costs by shifting the burden somewhere else, usually government.

The article really only highlights the principle of the “exclusion zone.” Insurance companies are able to extract a fee to let people into their system. If they could not exclude people, getting in would carry no benefit, and the companies would not exist.

Private health insurance companies can only make money if they exclude the elderly, the poor, the already sick. That’s why public systems in the thirty or forty other countries that use them manage to cover all their people at half our cost: They exclude no one.

Breaking the code

Cryptography is a science of deduction and controlled experiment; hypotheses are formed, tested and often discarded. But the residue which passes the test grows until finally there comes a point when the experimenter feels solid ground beneath his feet: his hypotheses cohere, and fragments of sense emerge form their camouflage. The code “breaks.” (John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, as quoted in The Code Book, by Simon Singh)

If only … people would treat politics like cryptography. The breaking of the ancient Greek Linear B was an intellectual accomplishment of historical significance – a remarkable feat. Understanding American politics is far less complicated. It is coded and needs to be unencrypted, but once done is quite easy to understand. There are several basic rules:

1. Assurances mean nothing. In fact, assurance are as often a means of disarming opposition. For instance, Obama’s campaign pledge to support a public option had just that effect. Assurance we are receiving now that the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire should not be trusted.
2. Politicians can favor something in public and fight it behind the scenes. And often do. Sen Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) public support of the public option as he worked against it was just such a maneuver.

Master of the fake voting record
3. Votes cast on bills can be real or fake. Perhaps this is the hardest idea to sell, even though it is so obvious. Once the votes are in place to pass or kill legislation, all subsequent votes cease to matter. They can be cast for cosmetic purposes.
4. Party affiliation is skin deep. Having two parties gives us the illusion of choice, but the same people finance each party and have power and leverage over them. So, when they go behind closed doors, it is about interests, and not parties. This gives rise to the notion that politicians ought to wear patches of their corporate sponsors, like NASCAR drivers do.
5. Politicians rarely appear on uncontrolled forums. There are always a thousand questions we would like to ask office holders, but they are never cornered on a public forum. They rarely take questions from the floor, and usually appear in scripted debates facilitated by professional journalists, who are taught not to be confrontational. Hosting a debate is a sure sign that a journalist is thought to be safe.
We just don't have the votes!
6. A politician who will not fight for an issue or idea is actually opposed to that issue or idea. When Democrats say that “the votes aren’t there”, what they mean is that they are not willing to fight for an issue. Ands that unwillingness is just another way of saying “screw you.”
7. Money matters, but power matter more. As I mentioned to my arch-enemy Rod Kailey below, the fact that wiretaps are everywhere in DC, and yet there are no investigations of those wiretaps, is telling. There are call girls all over DC, and office employees more than willing to canoodle the boss. There are free trips, junkets, tickets to sporting events, jobs for family members … and more. Each of these items opens the door for pressure. That’s how power works. They have to use force people to get people to do things they do not want to do. It takes power, and that power is knowledge.

Sunset on the Sea of Ethics
That’s it. It’s cynical, I know. There are many good people in Washington, mostly in the career positions. But with elected officials, remember that once they get there, once they realize how easy it is to fool the public, once they realize that they will not be punished for bad behavior nor rewarded for good – once they internalize all of this, they are corrupted. An alert and informed public would vote them out on a regular basis, and good laws would prevent them from lobbying or accepting jobs or payment for themselves of their family members after leaving office.

The only answer is eternal vigilance, and that ship sailed long ago.

Ken Buck for Senate! Ken Buck for Senate!

Well, the Colorado primary is over. The Obama-appointed Rahm-vetted Michael Bennet won, beating a more liberal contender, Andrew Romanoff. Bennet will lose in November, as a scandal erupted around him that was exposed by the New York Times in the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, 250,000 votes had already been cast by the time of the exposure. I’m a little concerned now that post card voting has real drawback. (The Denver Post had this story, and elected to sit on it.)

Romanoff got 46% of the vote -amazing given that Obama himself came here to support Bennet. It is testimony to the weakness of conservadems that there are such strong primary challenges, even to anointed candidates.

The lesser lesser, Ken Buck
Now it starts … we are going to be told that yeah, Bennet ain’t that good, but he’s better than the alternative. But he’s not. He’s worse. Here’s an example of why: During the health care debate, after the Democrats had killed the public option, Bennet circulated a letter to President Obama demanding that he include a P.O. in the final bill. It was Kabuki Theater – when Bennet had a chance to insert such an option in the reconciliation process, he declined to do so.

That’s his salt. That’s his ethos. He’s a fraud. It is not better to have a fraudulent Democrat in office than a Republican of any stripe. With a Republican we can organize. With a Democrat, we are fractured and pointless.

I am officially changing my voter registration from Democrat to Green this week. I only signed up as a Democrat to vote against Bennet.

I beg to differ!
I know, this sounds like whining. And honestly, Romanoff was an unknown quantity, himself a former member of the DLC. So often in this country we do not have real choices. As with Jon Tester in Montana, even if you get the desired result, the power and corruption in Washington undoes them when they get there.

Ground-level organizing is not just another way. It is the only answer. However, when Democrats are in power, it does not happen. So where Democrats put up fraudulent candidates, I will vote for Republicans. So for Senate this fall in Colorado, I will vote for Republican Ken Buck.

The fake left goes after the real left

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs lashed out at the “professional left” in The Hill magazine. He did not name names. But he made some interesting comments:

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it’s crazy.”

“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

“They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

“There’s 101 things we’ve done” (mentioning both Iraq and health care “reform”).

Follow just one line of thought: The Democrats gave away everything in the health care debate. They didn’t really even try. But to oppose such a sellout is said to be like wanting “Canadian Health Care.” He is adopting the extreme position to confuse the issue, to make it appear as there was no willingness to compromise on a reasonable deal on health care. It’s cagey perception management.

With Iraq, Obama is merely following through with the Bush agenda, permanent occupation. Nothing has changed. Afghanistan was on deck no matter who won the election. Guantanamo is still there and festering. Mere spying on Americans has turned into assassinating Americans. It is all as if George W. Bush were still in office, but … we are not allowed to say that. It’s “crazy.”

There is no mystery here. Gibbs hates lefties. So does Rahm Emanuel, and is logically follows that Obama too has a hard spot for us. Bill Clinton hated the left. But during his years the left was pretty much confined to the “Alternative Media” and Democracy Now! These days there are some prominent leftish voices out there, like Rachel Maddow, Elizabeth Warren, Glenn Greenwald, some blogs … and they are attracting attention.

In the Clinton years, the left was frozen out of the debate. Gibbs’ only frustration is that we have a foot in the door. This is, after all, The United States of America, and in this country, there are Republicans, Democrats, but if there is to be a left, we will hire actors to play them.

If Democrats are voted out of power in the coming six years, as they should be, the left will be blamed. And the ultimate insult will be this: Democrats will never acknowledge that having Democrats in power made no difference anyway. They are that dense.

Monday talk radio update

Here is an interesting exchange that took place on a national call-in show yesterday regarding the recent ruling on Proposition Eight.

Caller: Hi Thom. I’m calling about that judge’s decision on proposition eight. It doesn’t make any sense!

Thom Hartmann: In what way?

Caller: Well that judge is just writing law. He’s sitting there making stuff up. We all know that marriage was meant to be a man and a woman.

TH: Where in the Cons…

Caller: It’s like every time we try to do the right thing Obama steps in and forces us to do the wrong thing.

TH: But it wasn’t Obama …Caller: I don’t care! He’s changing everything! I just want my country back! Now I can’t even know who’s living next door to me, or if I can let my kids out to go the store … TH: Have you read the rul… Caller: It’s like when we tried to clean up our neighborhoods and some socialist judge tells us we have to read people their RIGHTS when we’re just trying to fight to keep our country safe from the terr…TH: But what’s Miranda got to ….. Caller: I have a daughter and I want her to get married like anyone to a regular guy and now I can’t even know who she’s marrying because of some Obama judge telling me that she has to marry …. TH: But that wasn’t the ruling …Caller: It’s you guys and your socialist ideas that are making it hard for regular people to just be themselves what with people coming across the border now and living in basements …TH: Let’s get back to Proposition 8 – why do you think…Caller: The people of California SPOKE and said they don’t want Adam and Steve living next door and a judge tells them they can’t SPEAK! It’s socialism like when Obama took over GM and now cars are running off the highway everywhere … TH: Let’s try to stay on subject here … have you read the rul…Caller: I want my country back! You guys are ruining it for all of us with your immigrants living in basements and socialism and now gay people having to get married and my daughter can’t even talk to her friends because she doesn’t know … TH: Caller … I’m going to stop you here … let’s not talk over one another. Now, when I put you back on the air, I want you to tell me if you have read the judge’s ruling, and also where in the Constitution marriage is defined … OK? Alright. Put him back on. Caller – are you there? caller?

_____________________

OK OK … I made it all up. That call never happened. But doesn’t it sound like talk radio?

Inceptions,

We spent time back in Montana on our recent trip, and had meals out with everyone we wanted to see that we had time to see again in Bozeman. Each of those meals was a trip of its own, leading to long conversations that I wished would never end. My thanks to our good friends who read this blog and spent time with us. It was really fun.

One dinner companion had an interesting observation: Most people who read this blog don’t get it. Most Americans don’t get the kind of talk that goes on here. They don’t look behind the curtain, don’t suspect that greater minds than ours are about the business of managing our perceptions. That phrase itself is an insult, as each person presumes to know his own thoughts and to be the originator of those thoughts.

Christopher Nolan
I asked one meal companion, who doesn’t come here, if he had seen the movie “Inception.” He’s a movie buff, and generally our tastes run the same way. On this movie, his reaction was negative. He hated that movie. He’s smart and patient, so it isn’t that he didn’t get it. Quite the opposite – he got it. It offended him. The very idea that anyone could plant ideas in his mind was abhorrent. He claimed, with mock self-deprecation, that he believed himself to be too smart to allow such a thing to happen.

So we all think alike, and we all think the same things, and we are all the originators of our own thoughts.

Cuban propaganda poster
In most countries, perception management isn’t much of an issue. There’s some of it going on no matter where we live – the French and Canadians and Ruskies all believe in the essential goodness of their own homelands, and all turn a blind eye to their own weaknesses, just as Americans do. That is natural, and not a result of active thought management. But certain countries have set about to manage their populations so as to keep them contained and controlled – among them are the Russians, the Cubans, North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Americans.

American propaganda poster
This is not the same as totalitarianism, where brutal thugs threaten people who go astray. It’s much easier to think for oneself in such places as Saudi Arabia or Sri Lanka, as the only requirement is to shut up about it.

But to actively manage a population that thinks itself free is a much more difficult task. So it starts early, when we are very young. Our schools teach us a version of history that probably never happened, and it becomes our backdrop. We are also taught that our form of governance is the best, and that we had forebears that were saintly and courageous. We are constantly put through rituals, such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the national anthem, to reinforce those ideas. We monitor one another to see if the open displays of patriotism are appropriate – do our neighbors take off their caps, put hand over heart?

Most importantly, after our leaders are decided for us, we decide on our leaders. It is essential that we view ourselves as self-governing.

It is usually enough to reach a person in the primary education phase. Most will go on to ordinary workaday careers, the backdrop firmly in place. Their lives will be occupied with work and bills and children and sports. Many of the poorer classes will be called upon to become soldiers and participate in attacks on other countries, and will presume to know that the cause is just, and will demand honor and repayment for their dishonorable work.

A few of us are people who Napoleon referred to as being “of noble mind.” We think further and harder, and so it is not enough that we be swathed in patriotism as young children and let go. The process has to be ongoing, reinforced in higher education, and deeply embedded by the social reward system. You might think the intellectual class of people to be the hardest to manage, but they are not. They are Orwell’s trained circus dog. They actually teach themselves to jump through the hoop without the crack of the whip of the trainer. They self-indoctrinate.

He's really, really good at it
I’ve had encounters with many of the educated class, and there is usually hubris littered about, and I usually react negatively. I’ve had run-ins with a manager of a public radio station, two newspaper editors, Budge, and many others. It is essential that the journalists serve the state, and that profession is buried under six feet of self-adulation. They are so sure that they have arrived at their own thoughts that the mere suggestion that anyone else was managing their perceptions causes them to not merely disagree, but to react with anger. Hence, our dinner companion, a genuinely nice man, did not just dislike the movie “Inception,” He “hated” it.

Not pictured: Power
Every country has an intellectual class, and these people share certain characteristics. One, they cannot stand the idea of being “ordinary”, and so they go to great lengths to separate themselves from the masses. Two, they usually hook up with power, somehow serving the interests of non-intellectuals who can give them the proper rewards for their service. So, if you are one who haunts the cable news dial, you will see that it is loaded with members of this class, each pontificating in a serious manner on why the leadership of the country is right about this or that, why our wars are just, why tax policies that punish the working classes and favor the rich are appropriate. They work for power. It can be no other way.

If they are Republicans, they are critical of Democrats, and visa versa. When necessary, when new people take power, they switch positions, criticizing the same policies they once espoused, since that policy is now being carried out by the other party. The act of position switching, which recently happened on our resource wars in the Middle and Far East, and on budget deficits, is truly a wonder to behold.

This class is everywhere to be found in chatterland, with one exception: Anyone who eschews the two-party makeup is ostracized. Outside the two parties, you will find honest thoughts and observations, critical thought and true patriotism, which is the love of a land and people couple with a desire for the good will of others and prosperity and happiness for the entire planet.

Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed the movie Inception, seems to be at once uniquely talented and smart enough not to openly challenge power and the perception management system. He is smuggling his message to us. Good film makers do this – David Russell with Three Kings, Barry Levinson with Wag the Dog, Stuart Rosenburg with Cool Hand Luke … the list goes on far into the night – The Wizard of Oz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Lesser attempts that more pistol-whip than smuggle include There Will Be Blood and Avatar.

Luke emptying Boss's hole
Books can also smuggle truth, but in a non-reading culture, who cares? Movies can reach us with smuggled messages because independent thinkers in that industry are let free to do their work, and are rewarded if they make money for their sponsors. The embedded message slips right by the power structure. Ad-based television cannot do this, though the pay channels occasionally offer up good fare. But it is in movies that we find embedded messages that sometimes hit their mark. In the anger that I saw in our dinner companion, there was evidence that the movie Inception succeeds in delivering its message.

For that reason, I am going to see it today. It must be quite good.