By John Ballard
Following Ron's earlier theme, I now balance the saccharine post just published with a quick summary of political bullet points for Thanksgiving Day. Inspired by a recent snarky comment from Dirty Greenie Hippy here is a sprinkling of various takes on the day.
?I'm thankful that the privatization of airport security meme (mindless, nutty alternative to TSA) is being exposed as naked opportunism. Even before it made the news an astute hip-hop blogger was on to John Mica's and Michael Chertoff's conflicts of interest.
...according to a recent ABC news article, over the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports. Once again its all about the money, the shadiness of a corporatist congressman and the manipulation of a public thats getting wall to wall coverage on the evening news about Price William getting married and not some simple investigative reporting about why we�re having protests against a screening process we all insisted we needed.[...]
So what this boils down to is union busting and political kickbacks and favors....Mica is one of those breeds of Congressman who is on the haterism tip on behalf of corporate security firms. Him and his croonies yearn for the days when we are the oppressive beck and call of a handful of corporate barons who want to work you for long hours and pay you substantially less. This means you as a worker will forever be economically beholden to the whims of your employer. In other words you may wind up with a dead end job that you have to keep because you can barely get buy.We can�t end this off without talking about former Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, remember him? Well during his reign under george Bush, he�s the one who pushed for these full body scanners that we are supposed to be objecting to. When he was advocating, very few pointed out that Chertoff had a business relationship with the manufacture Rapiscan Systems. Even now as folks are being critical, few people are calling Chertoff to the carpet for subjecting us to this invasive machine.
So Chertoff got paid and now Mica wants to get paid.. and they say the music industry is shady.
More details on this steaming pile of you-know-what at this piece in The Nation.
[Addendum: Commenter T.Greer points to a Glenn Greenwald column at Slate taking issue with the manner this article opened by maligning blogger John Tyner, whose viral video cast him as something of a folk hero among those opposing the invasive nature of TSA pat-downs. As Greenwald correctly says, the Nation piece is sloppy journalism at best and should not have been published, having opened with an ad hominem attack on an individual whose opposition to TSA searches (with which the article was in agreement) failed to perfectly match the political template of the writers. This careless treatment of the issue does more to undermine than support the larger argument.]
The links between Mica, the libertarians, the Kochs, and the TSA scandal are only now emerging, and we hope more journalists will dig deeper. So far, we have learned:
- Mica's longtime chief of staff, Russell Roberts, lists the Koch-backed Mercatus Center as the top sponsor of Roberts' privately financed travel expenses, according to Congressional travel disclosure forms. Roberts stated in his form that he participated in discussions related to "transportation policy."
- In 2005, Mica reportedly came out in favor of backscatter X-ray machines, or "porn scan" body scanners, which he now opposes.
- Immediately after the launching of the "National Opt-Out Campaign" by Washington grassroots lobbyist and "ordinary citizen" Brian Sodergren, Rep. Mica sent out letters to the heads of at least 100 airports across America advising them to "opt out" of the government-funded TSA program and hand over the job to private contractors. One of the first airports to sign on to Rep. Mica's privatization program, Orlando's Sanford Airport, happens to lie in Rep. Mica's district. The airport also happens to be a client of Rep. Mica's daughter, D'Anne Mica, who is listed as a partner in two lobbying/PR firms consulted by Sanford Airport. One of Ms. Mica's PR firms, "Grasshopper Media," boasts of its "history of success in organizing strategic and comprehensive grassroots campaigns." In other words: astroturfing.
- According to a recent AP article, "Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica's call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports." ("Airports Consider Congressman's Call to Ditch the TSA")
While so far there is no "smoking gun" linking Rep. Mica to the anti-TSA campaign, there is clearly enough evidence to call into question the official version of events as a "spontaneous" outbreak of anti-TSA hysteria carried out by "ordinary guys" that it claims to be. Instead, there is plenty of evidence of a coordinated campaign for purposes that are only just beginning to emerge�a campaign with a profit motive and a political objective. What we should not do is assume that, in the midst of the worst recession in decades, when untold thousands of families are being thrown out of their homes in fraudulent foreclosures, that the biggest most pressing issue facing Americans is the "porn scan" at airports.
?New Deal 2.0 has a roundup of Turkey Day links.
�I am thankful for the Web. It is an enormous potential equalizer in giving progressives without money comparable input into public debate as the right-wingers with lots of money. In this vein, the Huffington Post�s webhits are going up. The Washington Post�s circulation is going down.�
�I�m thankful that Sarah Palin might actually run for president. It will be a lot of fun to watch and we can feel confident that in the end she will be fully refudiated.�
�For all the disappointment, I am thankful John McCain is not president.�
�That the GOP ran three certifiably insane Tea Party candidates in Nevada, Colorado, and Delaware, thereby ensuring that the Democrats at least retained control of the Senate, and thereby arresting the complete descent into the abyss.�
�We�re grateful that Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas did not win the Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars, although we�re still confused as to which one was the star.�
�Thankful for the fact the Progressives seem to have woken up, feel abandoned, are angry, want information and steps to take. AlterNet traffic SINCE the election has broken every record by far, and over the past three weeks is averaging more than 700k UNIQUE visitors a week. On November 17th we had 257,594 visits, and 507,119 page views, according to Google analytics � one day. And suddenly Google news is featuring our articles, which is a new development. Hope it lasts.�
More at the link with attributions for each.
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My two personal favorites today are Tim Wise's Open Letter to the White Right, On the Occasion of Your Recent, Successful Temper Tantrum and Evert Cilliers' most recent screed ripping the president to shreds.
?Tim Wise's letter got national attention on CNN but the letter is lots more fun than the attention.
There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses.
But they lost.
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks �had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,� � this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you � and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees.
But they lost.
And you will lose.
So make a note of it.
Tweet it to yourself.
Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you�ll remember that I told you so.
It is coming, and soon.
This isn�t hubris. It isn�t ideology. It is not wishful thinking.
It is math.
Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math.
The kind of math that proves how your kind � mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like � are dying.
Read the whole thing. Slow and easy. Enjoy every snarky line.
?Finally, also linked above, is Evert Cilliers' latest. I have linked this writer before and as usual append a reader advisory that he used lots of words -- thousands -- to drive home his points. And he doesn't refrain from either profanity or in-your-face offensive insults. This piece is divided into eleven mini-chapters. Without further comment here is the link again.
Chapter Three sets the tone.
So how does Obama fit into this ongoing game of America the Great Nation of Suckers Bent Over Bottoms-Up For Their Daily Dose of Sodomy?Like a glove, darling, like a glove.
Here on our plantation, we've got things so hunky-dory-dinkum-dandy arranged, we've put our smart House Negro in charge. You may remember that before Obama discovered Reagan as a role model of a "transformative" president, he had a very different hero in his youth, one Malcolm X. This black man, who used to scare the melanin out of white people, had an interesting analogy to make about House Negroes and Field Negroes. I quote his analogy not only for its perception, but for its rage -- a holy rage sadly missing in our progressive left these days. The quote is from Malcolm X's �Message to the Grassroots� of October 10, 1963. In a mere 850 words, Malcolm X says more about life in America than anyone else ever has. While you read it, bear this in mind: you are a Field Negro and our rulers in Washington are House Negroes. See if you can guess who the master is.
�There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes -- they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good �cause they ate his food -- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master�s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, 'We got a good house here,' the house Negro would say, 'Yeah, we got a good house here.' Whenever the master said 'we,' he said 'we.' That�s how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master�s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, 'What�s the matter, boss, we sick?' We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, 'Let�s run away, let�s escape, let�s separate,' the house Negro would look at you and say, 'Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?' That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a 'house nigger.' And that�s what we call him today, because we�ve still got some house niggers running around here.
Most chapters are long reading. Redundant enough that only the dimmest of minds might miss the point.
But a couple are short and sweet. Here is Chapter Ten in toto.
Weirdly enough, there are still folks out there who are so charmed by Obama's rhetoric and smile and family, that they think he might come through for us like Prince Carlos of Spain. Carlos was the prince who was personally tutored by the Caudillo himself, the dictator Franco, to be his successor. Carlos sat eagerly at Franco's feet, learning how to be the next dictator. He never disagreed with Franco about anything, in private or public. Everyone thought he was Franco's toady. Franco totally trusted Carlos to carry on his ultra-conservative regime. Then, when Franco died, in 1969, the Prince came out of the closet as a secret liberal all along, fooling Franco and everyone else. The Prince promptly set about changing Spain into an actual democracy. Totally freaked by this turnabout, the conservatives finally made their move to bring back a Franco-like military regime in Spain. On February 23, 1981, two hundred soldiers from the Guardia Civil entered the Spanish Parliament under their Coup Leader Tejero, and placed the government under arrest. Other military leaders got their tanks ready to enforce the coup. The next day on television, Prince Carlos appeared for the first time in his official uniform as the Chief of the Army, telling the military coup leaders that he was their goddam official commander and as their goddam official commander he ordered them to stand down in favor of democracy pronto. They did.Now that was a man with major balls, and a liberal at that. Yes, some liberals have bigger balls than even the military, although you won't find them in America. If you think Obama has the balls to pull a Prince Carlos on his masters, forget about it. He's no secret progressive who in a second term will lead us all to the promised land. He's a born-and-raised House Negro.
?I almost forgot.
Kat sent us a Raw Story link to an AP piece with a fun theme: the president and Nancy Pelosi will now commence playing Good Cop - Bad Cop with guess who as the bad cop. Since AP is so sniffy about how their stuff is handled rather than attempt a pr�s, here are links to various permutations of their story.
World Magazine online. (Extended banner reads "Today's News | Christian Views" � God's World Publications) Is this some kind of Turkey Day joke that Nancy Pelosi may be sprouting wings because she's opposing Obama?
The best take on the story goes to SusanAnne Hiller, whose great column in Breitbart's Big Gevernment blog includes this perfect clip from The Big Chill.
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Something puzzles me now.
How come AP got such a good scoop?
And how come it got passed around quick enough to get legs over the holiday, just in time for the Rump Congress' last hurrrah which starts Monday?
Now I'm the last person in the world to suspect anyone might try to manipulate the lamestream media...
Just asking...
Hey, Media Matters! Ya'll wanna take your eyes off the Fox balls long enough to check this out? It strikes me a much more interesting. I think a bunch of folks (Isn't that one of The Boss's favorite words?) are getting punked.
I dunno, the Nation TSA piece struck me as something of a journalist smear job. That is what Glenn Greenwald said, and after reading both sides of the argument it is pretty hard to disagree with his take.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out. I amended the post accordingly and noticed Greenwald's piece is accumulating a string of "Updates."
ReplyDeleteMark Ames and Yasha Levine published A Response to Glenn Greenwald which admits "our article was less than clear about Tyner�s lack of Astroturf affiliations" and "Tyner is in all likelihood innocent in his motives." But they remain prickly about what they see as misdirected criticism missing a larger issue.
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Almost every discussion of security screening tosses around the term profiling as the only (presumably evil) alternative to the circus we now have. Of course "profiling" is conflated to mean RACIAL profiling which instantly rules it out.
Few want to say so but Israel's El Al security system, considered by many the gold standard, is far less intrusive for most passengers but makes no apology for applying what most people would call common sense, even though it smacks of all kinds of profiling. This from today's Washington Post illustrates the point.
Pini Shif, a founder of the security division at Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, estimates that about 2 percent of passengers flying from the airport are subject to the more intensive screening. For the others, the air-travel experience can be a delight, compared with flying in the United States.
"The security here is far more professional," said Sandy Kornhauser, who arrived with her daughter at Ben Gurion from Philadelphia on Wednesday to attend a wedding.
"I think they know who they are looking for," she added. "In the States, they don't know."
Israeli airport security authorities don't disclose the methods by which they single out passengers for extra scrutiny. They say only that they have a list of suspicious signs that they look for.
[...]
Israeli Arabs, who make up about one-fifth of Israel's population, are regularly subjected to a more intensive questioning that goes beyond the routine queries, such as "Where did you just arrive from?" and "Who packed your bags?" They also are subjected to body and bag searches more frequently than Jewish passengers.
I see no easy solutions but it is clear to me that beginning with the Patriot Act and permutations that followed we are well on the way down a very slippery slope. Some time ago I let my children know that if they decided not to present me with grandchildren they would have no objections from me. I love and treasure the ones I already have but grieve when I think of the world they will face as adults.