Here is an interesting post over at 4&20. Some women made a statement by baring their breasts in a gathering on the Clark’s Fork River near Missoula. The comment thread isn’t particularly useful – it’s just an exhibition of two ugly features of American life: Victorian prudishness, and Rosie the Riveter feminism.

The women are demanding “equality” in a stupid manner – they want to be able to display their chests in public in the same manner that men can. They forget one poignant feature about women: breasts. Men find them extremely attractive. Men are stimulated by looking at them. *

Breasts are really neat things. They are just globules of flesh designed to deliver milk to infants through a nipple on the front, and yet evolution has set them aside for another purpose – to attract and stimulate men. Our bodies, like women themselves, are complicated products of long evolutionary selection processes. The curves on the female body for instance, are there to allow her to bear children, and yet that 70% waist-to-hip ratio drives men nuts. Female features are soft – the hair, the faces … don’t get me going here.

The Clark’s Fork brigade – are they really that stupid? I suggested in the comments something I’ve noted about nude beaches and nude pumpkin runs and bike rides and such – that the women (and men) putting their wares on display in public are usually those who don’t enjoy much demand in private. A woman with a really attractive rack knows only to titillate (pardon the expression) without going on full display. The male imagination does the rest.

Is it discrimination that men can show their wares while women can’t? I suppose. It ought not to be illegal, but that is a Victorian hangover. If it were legal, it would be no more prevalent than it is now. Attractive women would not be walking down the sidewalk or into work with their mammary units in full bounce mode. The research on this issue was best explained by Elaine Benes on Seinfeld (paraphrased): Women’s bodies are works of art. Men’s bodies are functional. Women don’t get the same jolt at seeing a naked man as men do with women. When women go on display, men get aroused. That could be dangerous. Women want to filter potential mates, and public advertising of racks is a poor choice of media.

Woody Allen also chimed in on this issue, regarding the male organ – it is, he said, both an object of revulsion and attraction on the part of women. Once attracted to the other qualities of a potential mate, a woman will enjoy his giblets, but before that time, she has no interest in seeing them. It’s just not the same.

We’re different, Clark’s Fork cadre. We’re just different.

By the way, I know I will be accused of sexism and misogyny for writing this. I know that form of posturing well. Here are two things to consider: As we age, we become less attractive. I am sixty. If I show myself in public without proper cover, I would rightly be arrested for genuine indecency. Secondly, the positive outcomes from the hard and courageous work of feminists – greater opportunity and equality in the workplace, sexual liberation and more avenues to enjoy life and freedom – none of that is affected in the least by what is written above. Men still like looking at women.
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*Better yet, looking a breasts is good for men. There was a bizarre study in Germany that compared two groups of men – one group was asked to look at breasts for ten minutes daily, the other, poor schmucks, not. The results: The ogling group exhibited longer life expectancy, lower blood pressure, better blood circulation, and less chance of coronary heart disease. Further, the study said, the ten-minutes of admiration had the same effect as a 30 minute cardio workout.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” (Albert Einstein)

Well, Social Security is under attack again, and the attacks are serious, even more so now that Democrats are in power. Paul Krugman put up a good column today.

A lot of the Beltway establishment has a thing about Social Security — in a way, by the way, they don’t have a thing about Medicare, which is a vastly more important long-run problem. No matter how much you talk logic or numbers, they’re obsessed with the idea that Social Security must be cut; as I wrote back when, somewhere back in the 90s talking tough on Social Security became a badge of seriousness, and facts just can’t make a dent in that social convention.

Indeed, facts don’t matter, but action does. And we need serious action now to once again save the program from predators.

In my time, the first serious attack on the program came in the early 1980’s when Ronald Reagan was president. It was full frontal, and failed miserably. They quickly learned that the program was extremely popular, that it was a third rail. They backed off, and did two things:1) Using JuJitsu, they instituted the largest tax increase in history, applied solely against working people and retirees receiving benefits; 2) they set out to convince the younger generation that the program could not be sustained, and that they would never receive benefits. (Most youth that I have talked to echo that choice bit of propaganda.)

The next, and more serious attack,came in the late 1990’s, when Bill Clinton was president. As revealed by aides after he left office, he was set to spring a secret privatization plan on us, and it had gone so far as to have measurements be made of the amount of keyboard input time would be necessary to set up the new private accounts. Fortunately for all of us, Clinton is a sleazeball, and his presidency was jeopardized by the Monica scandal. To shore up support, he needed to rally his base, and so became a champion of the program. The “Lock Box” was created.

But it was close. Too close.

The next attack came from George W. Bush in 2005. He said he was going to spend some “political capital” to privatize the program. But since he was perceived as a right wing Republican, and since he had very little capital, it was easy to mount opposition, and the plan quietly died.

We are in trouble now, serious trouble. One, a Democrat is in office, and two, his administration is offering assurances that the program is safe. Assurances are nothing more than a disarming tactic. As with the Public Option, the linchpin of health care reform, Democrat assurances are probably meant to forestall ground-level organization. They will then, in Clinton fashion, spring on us the fully developed privatization plan.

These are Democrats. I may not know much, but I know Democrats.They are far, far more dangerous than Republicans. Now is the time to join organizations that exist to prot3ectSocial Security, and spend what money and effort you can for that cause.

MoveOn is running a campaign.

National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Preserve

Preserve Your Social Security

And, of course, write to your representative and senators. Be polite but firm. Tell them that the issue is important, that if they betray trust, you will vote for their opponent in the next election. (That makes your one vote into two.) It takes courage to vote for a Republican to punish a Democrat, but it is easier to unite against Republicans. Only Democrats can undermine Democrats.

From Glenn Greenwald: What political courage looks like:

Park 51 opponents have made much of the fact that polls show majority support for their view, as though public opinion should dictate where religious minorities can congregate. A new poll today reveals that 62% of Americans — a record high — now oppose the war in Afghanistan. By the reasoning of project opponents, shouldn’t that mean that public opinion should be honored with a withdrawal from that country? After all, religious freedoms are not supposed to be dependent upon the approval of majorities; the whole point of such liberties is to protect minorities from majoritarian frenzies. By contrast, wars are actually supposed to be fought only with the support of the citizenry. If majority sentiment should prevail, a far more compelling case can be made that it should do so with regard to Afghanistan than with the religious liberties of a minority group.

Asking for political courage from politicians who represent the most frightened and neurotic people on the planet is a fool’s errand. Of course they know what is up, how wrong what they are doing is. But what is there to make them do the right thing? In American politics, doing the right thing is its own punishment.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.