Pop Culture Does the Work of the Pros

Matt Taibbi’s article in the current Rolling Stone (The Great American Bubble Machine) about Goldman Sachs is very good. It’s not up on the RS website yet, but is worth the price of a paper copy.

It reminds me of a couple of things:

1. The Daily Show these days is doing NBC/CBS/CNN’s job, and Rolling Stone is doing NY TImes/WaPo/Wall Street Journal’s job. Pop culture has stepped in to fill a vacuum. Isn’t that interesting?

2. Years ago I was a victim of Goldman Sachs – I had invested for years in Montana Power for my kids. The price had skyrocketed, and I didn’t know what to do. I consulted a professional investment adviser who said that long-term prospects were very good. (I’ve never consulted one since – they don’t know any more than you or me, maybe even less.) I took a bath, and ended up buying out my kids at half of what the stock was worth at its high – the point where I should have sold.

Goldman Sachs was mentioned in a 60 Minutes piece on the demise of Montana Power, one of the stupidest business moves since New Coke. Apparently, Bob Gannon, CEO of MPC, used Goldman to sell of its power-generation assets and reinvest in fiber-optic cables. According to the 60 Minutes piece, Goldman was the “driver” of the deal, insisting it be done before the market for the MPC assets collapsed. Montanans took a bath (still do in the form of higher utility costs), employees of the once venerable institution were jettisoned, and retirees ate worms.

Gannon, in a boldface slap-in-the-face of everyone in the world, took a million dollar bonus. Goldman Sachs made $20 million on the deal.

Footnote: Check out Taibbi’s blog. He gets hammered pretty good by commenters.

The Late Great John S. Adams

I listened to John S. Adams’ last interview (listen here and here) with Senator Max Baucus. I mean “last” not in the sense of “most recent”, but rather that he’ll never get another, having broken the journalists’ code, which works something like this:

Wait in line. Do not take cuts. Enter the office looking down. Do not attempt to make eye contact. Step sideways two steps, forward two steps. Ask your question. Do not be confrontational lest you hear the words ending your tenure in journalism: “No access for you!”

There were some interesting highlights in the interview, many actually. At one point an aid cuts in, telling the Senator he had another call. (Apparently Baucus has an elaborate call-waiting system that kicks in when he is in a dangerous interview.) Again, later in the interview, the aid simply tells the Senator he has to move on. (Adams named the aide who was interrupting in his post, but that post is now gone.)

Adams grilled the Senator about his treatment of single payer advocates. Baucus said he was planning to meet with some advocates in Montana. Adams asked who he would be meeting with and Baucus got testy. He told Adams not to get “confrontational”. Adams reminded him that it was a worthy question, and the Senator said that it was his tone that was “telling”.

Baucus didn’t answer the question, by the way. That was the whole point of the maneuver. It was a dodge. The single payer people he is going to meet with are your aunt and her dog, and the meeting will be held on the tenth of Never, 5:00 sharp.

Later, the senator said that there was no bill in the senate for single payer. He’s wrong – Senator Bernie Sanders introduced S. 703: The American Health Security Act of 2009 way back in March. Baucus doesn’t know this. That’s … how would you phrase it … telling?

Adams then raised the matter of money … campaign contributions from health insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Baucus seemed indignant. He said money means nothing to him, that he pays no attention to it.

He’s raising a worthy point. We who advocate campaign finance reform dwell too much on the money aspect. It’s much more than that – it’s power. Many times if a politician does not take money from one side of an issue, he’ll get it from the other. Money can be neutered.

But with the Senator and single payer, there is only one money tap, so it does matter. But power factors in – it is revealing how Baucus dealt with single payer advocates at his health insurance “hearing”. He had them arrested, holding them in literal and figurative contempt. That’s … how would you phrase it … telling?

Baucus understands power – who has it, who doesn’t. He acts accordingly.

Money is but one tool of power, and perhaps not even the most important one. Powerful people have many means at their disposal: They can threaten to finance opponents in either primary of general elections. They can generate bad publicity through newspapers they own or advertise in. (Right wing newspaper publishers abound, after all.) (Baucus has a cozy relationship with most Montana newspapers, the Great Falls Tribune apparently an exception at this time. Journalists ought to look into that.)

More tools: powerful people can lure politicians into compromising situations involving women or drugs or back-door sex. They can offer privileged flights on private jets to exotic locations or to sporting events. (Baucus’s staff members once watched the Super Bowl from a private box.) They can hire relatives to lucrative jobs for which they are not qualified – think Wendy Graham or Beau Biden, or Elizabeth Dole running the Red Cross for $700, 000. Perhaps most importantly, powerful people can offer delayed bribes – jobs and riches after politicians leave office. Tom Daschle has made $220,000 in health care doing “consulting” work since his electoral defeat. His wife pulls down a lucrative salary for lobbying for defense contractors. And of course former Senator Conrad Burns immediately went into lobbying after his 2006 defeat.

Powerful people can also use wiretaps and spying. We are probably seeing only the tip of that iceberg. And then there are prostitutes and seductresses who are as common around power as plastic phasers at a Star Trek convention. Here’s an interesting anomaly: Elliot Spitzer was actively challenging corporate power. He was exposed for using high-priced hookers. That’s not something that I can afford approve of – the question is, why him, and not the countless others who are likely sampling the expensive candy?

Senator Max Baucus is corrupt*, but to say that it is due to taking money from a certain industry for legislative favors is to give that industry far too little credit. It’s more than money – it’s both positive and negative incentives. It’s not something applied haphazardly – these are serious people who want serious favors, and who know how to get their way. It’s not a game – it’s a business. High-priced talent does persuasion for a living. So when Baucus says “Money means nothing to me”, he may be right in a narrow sense. He merely left out the last part of the sentence: “… but power owns me”.

Towards the close of the interview, Baucus rattled off a list of things that he had done that had offended health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. There was no time for follow-up, of course, as the breaker was hovering. Given more time, Adams might have asked how many of these offensive initiatives actually came to fruition, how many Baucus actually took a leadership role on. Baucus has a display window voting record. Much of what he does has no effect, and is mere dressing for that window.

The Adams interview is rich, and John was courageous, confrontational and incisive. American journalism has long been in need of a compass – reporters long ago lost sight of the fact that they are often our only window to power. They are more than stenographers, and they need show only perfunctory courtesy to political and corporate office holders. Their role is to hold powerful people accountable. One can only speculate, but if Baucus had been annoyed by pesky journalists of Adams’ caliber from the day he took office, he’d probably be herding sheep right about now.

If current journalists hold true to form, John will get the tap. He will meet with his editor and advised to tone it down. He should not, he will be told, become “partisan” or “emotional”. Those are code words for “disrespectful of power”.

Footnote:Adams’ post and the interview are gone from his blog. Fortunately, a link to was put up at Left in the West by a commenter, and thus the YouTube links above. I hope they stay in place.

*The word “corrupt” is used here not to mean that Baucus is storing money in his freezer, but rather that he is corrupted as a computer file might be: No longer useful and in need of replacement.

Vapid Pretty Faces

Torture wouldn’t exist in our countries if it weren’t effective; formal democracy would continue if it could be guaranteed not to get out of the hands of those that hold power. (Eduardo Galeano)

The events in Iran are encouraging, with caveats:

One, we will not know for years, perhaps decades, how much of a role the U.S. and Britain have played in fomenting the crisis. If it is of Western making, the ends are assuredly not democratic.

Secondly, even if it is a true democratic movement, it will exist only in the shadow of a monster – the U.S. has surrounded Iran will military bases and fire capability. They are perpetually threatened, and such threats usually result in oppressive governments to “protect” the population. (Example: The U.S. has been threatening Cuba for decades, the Cubans rely on oppressive government to protect them from dangers, real and imagined. The U.S. then complains that Cuba is not “democratic” enough for us. A true democratic movement in Iran will taste similar blatant hypocrisy.)

I’ve listened to Obama’s words on the subject. If actual policy were conveyed by a mouthpiece, it would be encouraging. But remember, this mouthpiece serves an apparatus that invaded a neighbor of Iran’s, murdered half a million (at least) of its civilians. This apparatus installed a “democratic” regime, but only in the sense envisioned by Galeano above – that if it falls under the control of our power centers, people are allowed to vote among various choices we offer them. If not under our control, we will attack.

I used to put up a piece here on the anniversary of 9/11 called “September 11, 1973” to commemorate the overthrow of the democratic government of Chile by the United States. We cherish our democracy here, hold it up as an example for the rest of the world, but when others enact true democratic reforms of a type that we ourselves are not allowed to experience, we trample them.

Iran is on a precipice – many of their people remember what it was like before 1979, when a U.S. toady, the Shah, ruled, and didn’t even bother with sham democracy, as they have now.

Iran, not unlike Venezuela, has a chance to break free of both of local Mullahs foreign thugs alike. There is always hope. If it is truly a democratic break, we will isolate and attack. If it is a for-show only government that takes power, if it has cut a deal in advance with us, then the country will be submerged yet again in an abyss of darkness. Let us pray.

—-

The Daily Show has done some remarkable work by sending correspndent Jason Jones to Iran. (See here, here, and here.) Their goal was comedic, but as in so many countries under oppressive rule, the best outlet for political protests is by means of comedians and court jesters.

Jones has been exposed to everyday Iranians, and found them kind and intelligent. To contrast this, he interviewed Americans in Times Square, asking them basic questions about our government. It’s pathetic. It’s a comedy show, of course, and so exaggerates for effect, but Jay Leno made mockery of this same phenomenon by asking ordinary Americans very basic questions about news and government. It was painful.

A very large percentage of us are pathetically ignorant. We on the blogs are better informed, but let’s not kid ourselves that ordinary everyday Americans are in any way affected by anything but the highest and most visible news. They know we have a new president, that there is turmoil in Iran, and are fed images of various demons to keep their minds right. Beneath awareness of only the most painfully obvious events dangled before them is mush. The American people are so easily manipulated that it doesn’t even take skilled propagandists anymore, as it did prior to World War I.

We are not a functioning democracy – we don’t have an educated citizenry, our institutions are controlled by powerful moneyed interests. There is a rumbling of discontent, as most of us understand that our health care system doesn’t work very well and is too expensive, and that international cooperation is a good thing. We all know this on some level, but we have no effective mechanism for translation of those impulses to government policy. We have only the comedians, who these days deliver our real news.

I’ll take one Daily Show over ten Russert’s, and fifty Brokaw’s, or a thousand of the vapid pretty faces that mock us from their perches as CNN and Fox and all the others.

An Apparent Contradiction

Dave Budge has challenged me in a number of areas, as usual, and go see Electric City Weblog to get the full dose. NSFW.

The one area I wish to address here is the notion he puts for that I am comfortable with government domestically, but do not trust it with foreign policy.

I quote General Smedley Butler (a widely known citation):

I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.* I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

That’s only one man’s opinion, but one that I have shared for years, that foreign policy is run at the behest of American corporations, and that all of our foreign policy apparati were formed to advance those interests, among them the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Agency for International Development, the Alliance for Progress, not to mention the Jesuits and the Peace Corps. It is no accident that policy does not change as we switch from Democratic to Republican administrations. The people we elect are not in charge.

Do I trust my government to run foreign policy? Yes. I wish it would.

If these corporations are so big and powerful that they run foreign policy, why not domestic policy too? In large part they do, but there was an intervention of sorts called the New Deal, in which populist and progressive ideas were put in force – Social Security, unemployment compensation, SEC, Glass Steagall, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Those things are slowly being undone. But these things were all done by government, and were good things. They are being undone not by government, but by private power, which has largely taken control of government.

So in answer to the question why do I favor government for domestic policy but not foreign, the answer is that I trust it to do both well, and wish it would.

*Part of the Bush Family legacy, and the source of much of its wealth.

Stifle!

It’s been taken down, replaced by other breaking news, but there was a shocked – shocked! report at Huffington Post over the weekend that the Iranian government had been conducting Gestapo-like midnight raids on the homes of suspected instigators of protests.

Here’s a snippet from Casaveria.com, an independent news-gathering site:

Officially the government will not confirm the allegations that Basij militia have been breaking in to people’s homes and abducting members of the opposition under cover of darkness. Efforts by citizens’ groups to use the fabric of their communities to watch out for, single out and evade or protect against the secret members of the Basij are now being characterized by some as “Basiji hunting”, a development the regime might use to claim a right to military defense.

Yes, indeed, the Iranians are doing some nasty stuff, and they are bad guys.

But the reason this caught my eye – perhaps the reason it was taken down – is the unspeakably grotesque hypocrisy. Huffington was shocked that police would conduct midnight raids on homes in Iran. Huffington doesn’t have a clue that the U.S. has been conducting midnight raids on homes in Iraq for six years now.

It’s policy; it’s standard counterinsurgency practice. U.S. soldiers and mercenaries go out at night and break down the doors, screaming and yelling, forcing the family members to sit and watch as the fathers or brothers or other male occupants are interrogated, humiliated, and taken away to the torture chambers.

As many as 60,000 Iraqis had disappeared by 2005, according to independent journalist Dahr Jamail. Many times they never reappeared – families would appeal to U.S. authorities to know the location of their loved ones. At times they would confirm that they were holding them, but not disclose the location. Most times they just stonewalled.

Abu Ghraib was no aberration, nor an isolated incident. Torture and disappearances and midnight raids were policy. Are policy. It’s going on right now.

Chris Hedges did a piece in the Nation Magazine (The Other War, 7/9/07) where he interviewed fifty or so returning veterans. They talked about it.

And we were approaching this one house,” he said. “In this farming area, they’re, like, built up into little courtyards. So they have, like, the main house, common area. They have, like, a kitchen and then they have a storage shed-type deal. And we’re approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, ’cause it’s doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn’t–motherfucker–he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out. So I see this dog–I’m a huge animal lover; I love animals–and this dog has, like, these eyes on it and he’s running around spraying blood all over the place. And like, you know, What the hell is going on? The family is sitting right there, with three little children and a mom and a dad, horrified. And I’m at a loss for words. And so, I yell at him. I’m, like, What the fuck are you doing? And so the dog’s yelping. It’s crying out without a jaw. And I’m looking at the family, and they’re just, you know, dead scared. And so I told them, I was like, Fucking shoot it, you know? At least kill it, because that can’t be fixed….

“And–I actually get tears from just saying this right now, but–and I had tears then, too–and I’m looking at the kids and they are so scared. So I got the interpreter over with me and, you know, I get my wallet out and I gave them twenty bucks, because that’s what I had. And, you know, I had him give it to them and told them that I’m so sorry that asshole did that.

“Was a report ever filed about it?” he asked. “Was anything ever done? Any punishment ever dished out? No, absolutely not.”

Specialist Chrystal said such incidents were “very common.”

According to interviews with twenty-four veterans who participated in such raids, they are a relentless reality for Iraqis under occupation. The American forces, stymied by poor intelligence, invade neighborhoods where insurgents operate, bursting into homes in the hope of surprising fighters or finding weapons. But such catches, they said, are rare. Far more common were stories in which soldiers assaulted a home, destroyed property in their futile search and left terrorized civilians struggling to repair the damage and begin the long torment of trying to find family members who were hauled away as suspects.

Raids normally took place between midnight and 5 am …

Any activity by the Iranians must be measured against activities by the Americans in Iraq since 2003 (1991, actually), and citizen indignation at violation of human dignity stifled accordingly.

Americans have no right to judge anyone, and must STFU.

Thoughtful bumper stickers

I haven’t put a bumper sticker on a car since “Keep It Wild” in the 1990’s. Before that was “Wallace 68”, “Impeach Earl Warren”, and before that “I Like Ike”. (Actually, I barely remember Ike.)

Candidate stickers are a mystery to me – can’t they make them removable? All that a “Kerry/LiebermanEdwards (wow – what a memorable campaign!) 04″ sticker tells me is that you are easily pleased and have an old car.

A company called Zazzle” offers somewhat thoughtful bumper stickers. They are for people who are ambivalent about issues and don’t want to put their views in your face. Here’s a few:

I’d rather be engaging in any one one of several activities that I find more engaging than driving.

I attended or am otherwise affiliated with a creditable university, to which I give my continued allegiance.

The benefits of environmental protection measures should thoughtfully be weighed against their costs, and the sound ones enacted.

Some of your bumper stickers make me a little uncomfortable.

Yes, my child might be on board, but I recognize that you are already driving as safely as can be expected, if only to protect yourself.

And my favorite:

In many contexts, “What would Jesus do?” is not a particularly helpful inquiry.

I could not agree more – Jesus was never faced with some of the harder issues of the day – abortion (he was a virgin, no matter what Dan Brown says), never served in the military, never had to vote, and certainly had no clue that he’s ever be referenced on a bumper sticker, since bumpers were a 1,885 years away, give or take.

Fix Medicare First?

Gregg put up an interesting link to The Dynamist regarding inefficiencies in the Medicare system. Gregg’s conclusion is that before we can fix the private system trains, the public system has to run on time.

But saying “Fix Medicare First” is odd reasoning, like saying that I cannot put out a fire in the garage while the house is burning. Medicare is attached at the hip to the larger care system, merely reimbursing doctors and hospitals and abiding by decisions made in the private sector. It is therefore subject to every inefficiency wrought by our health care system (except for the excessive overhead of private insurers). Every cost control feature, every protocol, every guideline for use of resources that we could build into the private structure will benefit Medicare.

The same expense doom and gloom forecasts that are applied to Medicare apply to the private sector as well. It’s not just Medicare’s problem – the program, like all large programs, has inherent managerial challenges, but is efficient given its subordination to private sector decisions. Future costs will eventually overwhelm our entire health care system. Eventually we will be able to cure almost everything, but at what cost?

My mother just underwent expensive treatment for non-malignant skin cancer tumors. She’s 92. A friend of ours was seriously considering knee replacement for her 90 year old mother – the doctor approved the procedure (!), so Medicare would have paid.

We’re not being realistic and are avoiding hard decisions. How do we establish protocol for these hard decisions? That’s what leaders are for. Unfortunately … all we have are Democrats and Republicans who are financed by wealthy individuals and corporations. Any guidelines and protocols would be written by these financiers, and so would be skewed to favor them.

Fix campaign finance first.

Only in Boulder, Colorado

Honest, sincere and for-real headline in today’s Boulder Daily Camera:

Maple Tree Pierces Two Priuses

There was a micro burst on Broadway in central Boulder that knocked down a very big elm tree. It fell out into the street, and wouldn’t you know it, it landed on two passing Toyota Priuses. Only in Boulder. (One slight injury.) A woman driving one of the vehicles said she’s often told her husband that “you can’t throw a stick in Boulder without hitting a Prius.”

Reminds me of a South Park episode: Smug Alert.

We have looked all over the surrounding foothills for a place to live, and found not very much. So we decided to rent in Boulder, and located a nice little condo today. We’ll be close to Barnes and Noble, Whole Foods, Vic’s Coffee, and the movie complex. What more can a liberal progressive lefty ask?