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| Remembering Martin Luther King-- "Beyond Vietnam" Posted: 04 Apr 2009 05:15 PM PDT This is my second diary of the day about Martin Luther King's two famous speeches associated with April 4. The first, was about his speech delivered the evening before his assassination, this diary is about a speech delivered one year to the day earlier, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", It was delivered on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. It is, like all of King's speeches, a good deal more complex than the sorts of speeches that we're accustomed to in the political realm. These are speeches that embody struggle, a trait they inherit from many black sermons before them. Above all, King struggled throughout his life, and in many of his speeches and writings with the twin facts that he lived in a time of stark struggle between between good and evil, and yet there were vast areas of moral ambiguity and complexity as well. And that was no less true about this momentous speech. Although he says decisively that the Vietnam War is wrong, and that he cannot remain silent about it, he still recognizes there are significant areas in which much ambiguity remains. Just because what America is doing is wrong does not, for example, mean that anyone else is right. Nor does the fact that the war is wrong mean that it will be easy or straightforward to find another way of dealing with deep conflicts in the world. It only means that it is necessary to do so: a necessity that remains just as burning in our time today as it was 42 years ago, when King gave this speech. Indeed, the difficulty and the necessity of taking a clear moral stand in the face of uncertainty and conflicting moral duties are the first two major themes that King focuses on in the opening section of this speech: I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.It goes without saying, of course, that King and Obama are light years apart here--as would be any prophet and emperor. While Obama may be said to be seeking a "kinder and gentler" war on terror, under new and somewhat ungainly nomenclature, he is, nonetheless, still clearly an imperial leader, still clearly waging war, dropping bombs on innocent civilians, killing them in clear violation of international law. While it is no doubt true that one aspect of King's legacy was creating the possibility that someone like Obama could become President, it is even more true that his aim and intention was something far more profound than this. And one can readily see that this much more profound calling to transform America had a major role in this speech. First, there was a clear-eyed look at how we had fallen short: In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.And then, the equally clear-eyed vision of how we must change: I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered....And what it will mean to change: A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just."... This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.Of course, we're not talking about commmunism anymore. But the fact that communism has been replaced by another threat ought to tell us something, it ought to give us pause to reflect on whether there is not a fundamental problem with our own failure to live up to our own ideals as the original revolutionary force for human freedom in the modern world. King continues: These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every moutain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain." A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies....I know it is far, far easier to cheer the fact that we have emerged from the deep darkness of the Bush years, and not ask too many questions about the half-measures in the half-light we find ourselves living in today. But I cannot help myself, because I have the words above, and it is just not in me to turn away from "the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world." | |
| More From William Black On Responding To The Wall Street Meltdown Posted: 04 Apr 2009 03:45 PM PDT In comments to my earlier diary, "It's the Criminality, Stupid! Bill Moyers/William Black On The Wall Street Meltdown", the issue was raised whether Black was misrepresenting the scope of the Prompt Corrective Action Law, as alleged in a recommended DKos diary, "Please be smarter than the Freepers". While the accusation in the diary is over the top, the question of whether Black is misrepresenting the law (and if so, intentionally or not, clearly or not, etc.) is certainly germane to his arguments based on it. My initial response was that that was not my main concern, as there was a broader thrust to Black's argument that doesn't depend on legal specifics, and that broader thrust was my main concern. This contrasts with what's happening over at DKos, where the diary linked to above was responding to another more narrow and sensationalist diary. Then, in another comment, Joel wrote: But if the guy's lying about even one minor part of his argument, probably best to make an argument without relying on him personally. (Though maybe he's not lying. I'm gonna poke around and see if I can figure that out to my own satisfaction.)While I can certainly appreciate this approach in terms of gladiatorial argumentation--and want to hear what Joel turns up--it's somewhat different from a reporter's point of view, where even very unreliable sources sometimes provide invaluable information that turns out to be crucial as well as boringly true. Or sometimes they simply point you in the right direction by posing questions you hadn't thought of before. Questions, after all, aren't right or wrong. They're fruitful or not. Insightful or not. Misleading or not. Etc., etc., etc. So, on the flip I want to look back at a set of suggestions that Black and James Galbraith made last fall, which I referred to in my previous diary. I believe they stand up very well, and are not undermined in any way by questions about whether Black was right or wrong about the Prompt Corrective Action Law, either wittingly or not. Others may not agree. But, hey, what's a comment thread for? The Galbraith/Black piece was called "Bailout Plan: Trust But Verify.". In it they said: Congress must now impose conditions to protect the public, the national interest and, not least, the interests of the next administration. Herewith a short list:Needless to say, no such list of conditions was adopted, but it could have been adopted when Obama took office. Instead, Obama opposed any added safeguards. Here, then is the list: 1) A disclosure clause. Treasury should have immediate and complete access to information about portfolios, counterparties, the internal valuation methods used by financial firms, their proprietary models and the history of adjustments made to those models to recognize or conceal losses as the crisis unfolded.This seems both eminently sensible, and in no way related to, or thrown in question by any concerns about Black's statements about the Prompt Corrective Action Law (PCAL from here on out). 2) A pricing clause. Treasury should establish a transparent mechanism to establish a before-the-bailout fair market value for mortgage-backed securities, set limits on the premium paid over that value and require that financial institutions value their full portfolios at the sale price. In other words, the practice of concealing losses--"accounting forbearance"--should be prohibited.Again, this seems perfectly reasonable to me, and totally unrelated to Black's claims about the PCAL. 3) A fraud clause. Securities purchased should be reviewed and those found to be based on fraudulent appraisals, inadequate documentation, predatory and other abusive practice should be kicked back to the lenders at a penalty rate.Again, seems quite reasonable to me. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, of course. But how is refusing to honor fraud a bad thing? Again, no connection to Black's statements regarding the PCAL that I can see. 4) An enforcement clause. Treasury should be required to establish a framework for investigations and criminal referrals and to prove that the framework is in aggressive use. Participating firms should be required to investigate and document past frauds, to establish internal anti-fraud controls and make criminal referrals as necessary. The FBI and Assistant US Attorneys should get "'blank check" authorization to pursue the crimes behind this debacle.I can certainly understand why Republicans would object to this. But I'm of the opinion that any Democrat who does ought to be kicked out of the party. Connection to Black's statements about the PCAL? None. 5) An arbitrage clause. One big danger of Paulson's plan is that non-US institutions, hedge funds and others will seize the chance to sell their bad holdings to eligible US institutions, replenishing the swamp just as the Treasury seeks to drain it. All US financial institutions should be required to provide baseline information on their mortgage-backed securities and other eligible holdings as of September 15, 2008.Another seeming no-brainer to me. Tell me why I'm wrong, and I'll listen. But I doubt if anyone can draw a connection between this and Black's statement about the PCAL. 6) A transparency clause. Treasury operations under this plan, including communications and consultation with outside advisers, should be transparent to Congress, which should be get whatever information it wants, at regular intervals. No exceptions.Congressional oversight is one of Congress's most basic and vital functions. It's why we have separate branches of government. To make sure they keep each other honest. What part of "separation of powers" doesn't who understand? And WTF does this possibly have to do with whatever Black said about the PCAL? 7) A crony clause. This program must be run by people who are free of abusive conflicts of interest. To ensure this, the Treasury should require full financial disclosure for anyone hired to administer the program, and impose rules and a system to enforce a strict conflict code. Special note to Congress: John McCain personifies and embodies the crony system. Do not pass a bill that would give him, as president, unfettered control over how this program is run.Another no-brainer. Another no-connection-with-Black-re-the-PCAL. 8) A modification and disposal clause. As foreclosures mount, Treasury will end up in control of physical properties, which degrade rapidly if not sold or rented and occupied. To prevent this, a new agency should be established to rapidly modify existing mortgage contracts, to manage rental conversions and to lease, sell or demolish vacated homes. This agency can be run as draft boards were in wartime, by citizens in each community under federal guidelines.A very commonsense idea, and one that others made as well. Again, no connection with Black's statement re the PCAL. I think the above is a very good demonstration of why Black is well worth listening to, even if he was wrong about the PCAL. Of course I would want to know if he is wrong and why, because one wants to know about people's fixations, blind spots, foibles, etc. But one does not want to throw out valuable sources of insight willy-nilly. One wants to be judicious, even when dealing with people one discovers to have given you bad information from time to time. As Black and Galbraith said, "Trust But Verify." This actually came from Gorbachov before Reagan, btw. Please go ahead and verify. | |
| Remembering Martin Luther King-- "I've Been To The Mountaintop" Posted: 04 Apr 2009 01:30 PM PDT Today is the 41st anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. April 4th is associated with two of King's most memorable speeches. One of them was actually given on April 3rd--the night before he was assassinated, in which he seemingly foresaw his death. The other was given on April 4, 1967, in which he spoke out forcefully against the Vietnam War, against American imperialism, and against war in general. I want to remember both those speeches today, beginning with his last speech. There is, inevitably, with King, an extreme tendency to simplify him, to make him fit into some preconstructed framework. Some are laughably silly. Some are much more sophisticated. But we need to remember that what made him great was the fact that he, as an American, faced one of our greatest historical challenges, and he did not turn away. The greatness came from both the challenge, and from himself. And it consisted in breaking free of the constraints of the past. So any effort to make sense of that greatness must always be cognizant of the fact that it is by necessity partial, and that the very essence of what King was about was drawing on the widest range of resources, to unite the widest range of human aspirations, to create the widest range of future possibilities. Here, for example, is a clip combining two passages from the speech (along with some film-editors license)--the well-known final passage with its prophetic ring along with another passage, different in tone, that also characteristic of one of his most repeated themes, of how the struggle for freedom, human dignity and justice was inscribed at the core of the American creed, and that those who struggled for their freedom, dignity and justice did so in the name of America, whoever might stand, and whatever might be said against them. The combination of these two passages creates a diptych which is greater than either of them alone. And these are only two passages from this great speech, which itself framed in the conceit of God giving King the choice of any place and time in which to live, and King choosing exactly his own place and time in history. And this is only one speech. I want to focus on the beginning of this speech, how it is framed, and two aspects of the significance of this framing. After a brief bit of self-depricating banter, the speech begins in earnest: Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.What I want to take note of here, first of all, is that King is using a trope most commonly used by conservatives: that one is always better off simply chosing whatever is one's lot in life. Rebellion is bad: acceptance is good. Indeed, King can even be seen as consciously echoing Hegel (whose works he had studied as a young man) in his world-historical sweep. It's also, of course, theologically conservative trope as well. But King takes that trope, and shows that it doesn't have to be conservative at all. Indeed, the reason he choses his own time is not because it is the most illustrious, majestic time in history, but because it is a time of struggle, "because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around" because "only when it is dark enough can you see the stars." And here's the second point I wanted to make--that in doing so King echoed the thoughts of Tom Paine, "If there be trouble let it be in my time so that my children may know peace." This sentiment then comes to fruition in the final passage of the speech, when King says: Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!And this, then, is most important message of this speech for me: that whatever struggles, whatever hardships we face we should willingly embrace as an opportunity to make it possible for our children and our children's children to live in the Promised Land. Which is why I don't believe in sugar-coating anything. We do not root out evil by ignoring it, by pretending it isn't there. We only leave it to grow to trouble future generations. I don't play that. That's not how Martin Luther King lived. And it's not how he died. And that's a good enough reason for me to do the same. | |
| It's the Criminality, Stupid! Bill Moyers/William Black On The Wall Street Meltdown Posted: 04 Apr 2009 11:30 AM PDT  Last night on Bill Moyers Journal (transcript here), Moyers and his guest, William K. Black, took a look at the Wall Street meltdown through a forbidden lens: that of massive and systemic criminality. Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry, and was in New York for a conference, as Bill Moyers put it, "to ask the question, 'How do they get away with it?'" Here's how the interview started off: BILL MOYERS: I was taken with your candor at the conference here in New York to hear you say that this crisis we're going through, this economic and financial meltdown is driven by fraud. What's your definition of fraud? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Fraud is deceit. And the essence of fraud is, "I create trust in you, and then I betray that trust, and get you to give me something of value." And as a result, there's no more effective acid against trust than fraud, especially fraud by top elites, and that's what we have.This is the great truth that cannot be spoken: what we're seeing here is massive elite criminality. And it, of course, the natural result of 30+ years of virtualy unfettered elite rule. This is what the Democrats ought to be standing militantly against. If they were, the GOP would dissolve within a few election cycles, as the Federalists did during the Monroe Presidency. But, of course, the Democrats are almost as deeply aligned with the criminals are the Republicans are--and Giethner, Summers and Rubin are the proof of the pudding. This is not a question of right vs. left. It's a question of left vs. wrong. Because calling a banker a criminal makes you a Commie, right? Even if it's true. Heck, especially if it's true. Next, Black provides an incredibly concise blueplrint of how that criminality works. First, there's the basic mechanics of the money-making scam: BILL MOYERS: How did they do it? What do you mean? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, the way that you do it is to make really bad loans, because they pay better. Then you grow extremely rapidly, in other words, you're a Ponzi-like scheme. And the third thing you do is we call it leverage. That just means borrowing a lot of money, and the combination creates a situation where you have guaranteed record profits in the early years. That makes you rich, through the bonuses that modern executive compensation has produced. It also makes it inevitable that there's going to be a disaster down the road.Then, there's how you pull it off: BILL MOYERS: So you're suggesting, saying that CEOs of some of these banks and mortgage firms in order to increase their own personal income, deliberately set out to make bad loans? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes.The one more element I would add to this mix is confusion. What Black is doing is shedding light, bringing clarity. He is describing things in black-and-white terms, and that is entirely appropriate. But this massive fraud was enabled precisely because of moral confusion, because of a repeated and habitual blurring of the lines. As I've said before, only a very small percentage are truly without conscience. What allows them to do so much damage in an institutional setting is the capacity to influence and corrupt everything around them, and this requires a blurring process that obscures the bright lines of right and wrong. At the broadest level, this is obviously facilitated by conservative ideology in its various forms, most obviously figures such as Rand and Hayek. But it is also facilitated by moderate ideology, such as Rubinite/Clintonite/Obamaite neoliberalism, which turns its back on the moral progressive traditions that have created what is best about America. Not only did the neoliberals collude with conservatives to do away with regulations, and celebrate unbridled greed on the front side (never undersetimate the importance of a moral tone, or lack thereof), they obfuscated, excused and justified on the backside, as when Obama has repeated made the point that those who took out loans they couldn't pay are also to blame, and shouldn't be helped. So far, his repeated insistence on this has been far more vigorous than any efforts to relieve the plight of millions of innocents who have lost, or are close to losing their own homes. Of course, we know that the vast majority of such people had no idea what they were getting into. They were not intentionally taking out loans they couldn't repay. That would make no sense. They were trying to realize the American Dream. And they were easy marks for a system set up to pray on them, as Black makes clear. It's how the biggest scores could be made: BILL MOYERS: If I wanted to go looking for the parties to this, with a good bird dog, where would you send me? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, that's exactly what hasn't happened. We haven't looked, all right? The Bush Administration essentially got rid of regulation, so if nobody was looking, you were able to do this with impunity and that's exactly what happened. Where would you look? You'd look at the specialty lenders. The lenders that did almost all of their work in the sub-prime and what's called Alt-A, liars' loans.The standard narratives you will read describe a process whereby financial instruments just sort of evolve. A natural unfolding of the creativity of the marketplace, as neoliberals like Obama just love to enthuse about. Not at all, says Black. Our, sure, there's creativity, all right. But there was nothing benign, much less uplifting about the process: BILL MOYERS: Is it possible that these complex instruments were deliberately created so swindlers could exploit them? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Oh, absolutely. This stuff, the exotic stuff that you're talking about was created out of things like liars' loans, that were known to be extraordinarily bad. And now it was getting triple-A ratings. Now a triple-A rating is supposed to mean there is zero credit risk. So you take something that not only has significant, it has crushing risk. That's why it's toxic. And you create this fiction that it has zero risk. That itself, of course, is a fraudulent exercise. And again, there was nobody looking, during the Bush years. So finally, only a year ago, we started to have a Congressional investigation of some of these rating agencies, and it's scandalous what came out. What we know now is that the rating agencies never looked at a single loan file. When they finally did look, after the markets had completely collapsed, they found, and I'm quoting Fitch, the smallest of the rating agencies, "the results were disconcerting, in that there was the appearance of fraud in nearly every file we examined."In short, the only reason that there were, indeed, a whole lot of people intentionally or inadvertantly mis-representing their ability to repay on the front end--which could only cause them devastating loss in the end--was that there was an entire industry dependent on them doing so. There's an old rule of thumb that I always rely on: When one person screws up, first thing you do is look at them and ask "What did that one do wrong?" When a thousand people screw up, first thing you do is look at the system, and ask "Why did the system screw up?" Same principle with the Palm Beach Butterly Ballotss that helped "elect" Bush in 2000. Blame 18,000 people, and you get a psychopathic president in the White House. Blame the system, as you should, and you have a moral imperative for a limited revote (as had happened before in a presidential election) and the rule of law is preserved. There is much, much more in this interview, you should go read the whole thing for yourself. But I want to highlight just two more things from it. First, is the rather self-evidence fact that Geithner is part of problem, and absolutely needs to go: WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's going to take $2 trillion - a trillion is a thousand billion - $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they're fine. These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because...Could there be clearer proof of Geithner's unfitness for the job than his own testimony? Well, now that you mention it, yes there could be. As the Law and Order spin-off series would have it, there's Criminal Intent. As in continuing a deliberate coverup. Which is what Black goes on to argue that Geithner is involved in now. Which brings me to my second parting point, which is the rather self-evidence fact that Geithner is part of problem, and absolutely needs to go--first with some important historical context for how you are supposed to respond to major financial mega-scandals: WILLIAM K. BLACK: The Pecora investigation. The Great Depression, we said, "Hey, we have to learn the facts. What caused this disaster, so that we can take steps, like pass the Glass-Steagall law, that will prevent future disasters?" Where's our investigation? What would happen if after a plane crashes, we said, "Oh, we don't want to look in the past. We want to be forward looking. Many people might have been, you know, we don't want to pass blame. No. We have a nonpartisan, skilled inquiry. We spend lots of money on, get really bright people. And we find out, to the best of our ability, what caused every single major plane crash in America. And because of that, aviation has an extraordinarily good safety record. We ought to follow the same policies in the financial sphere. We have to find out what caused the disasters, or we will keep reliving them. And here, we've got a double tragedy. It isn't just that we are failing to learn from the mistakes of the past. We're failing to learn from the successes of the past.No fricken kidding! One again we are faced with a situation where Obama-style "pragmatism" is anything but. What he means by "pragmatism" is political compromise with those who are the cause of our problems in the first place. And in this case--as in many others--they are not only the cause of the problem, they are outright criminals of the first order. p.s. Way back last fall, when Congress was first being panicked into writing a big blank check, Black teamed up with James Galbraith to write up a simple set of guidelines about how to do a bailout right, "Bailout Plan: Trust But Verify." Click the link to read the whole thing. It's quite brief and to the point. I'll just list the elements involved: 1) A disclosure clause....It's easy to understand why no such set of elemtns were part of the Bush/Paulson Plan. It's absolutely criminal that the same can be said about Obama and today's Democratic Congress. | |
| George Will, Malignant Narcissist? Posted: 04 Apr 2009 10:00 AM PDT  Grand Theft. Pathological Lying About Global Warming. Attempted Genocide. Back in February, George Will went into a paroxym of lies about global warming, and WaPo editor Fred Hiatt and Ombudsman Andy Alexander both vigorously defended him. I wrote about this (as well as the work of debunkers--Hilzoy, The Wonk Room) in "George Will, Washington Post: Traitors To Humanity". Now Will is up to his same old tricks. A deeper look is called for this time around--a look into Will's class-based criminal pathology. George Will is a criminal. In 1980, he helped Ronald Reagan prepare for the presidential debate with Jimmy Carter, using a stolen Carter debate book. Receiving stolen property is a crime. The value of the stolen debate book was incalculable. Possibly enough to cost an election. But certainly enough to qualify as grand theft. That makes receiving it a felony. And George Will is guilty of it. One should always remember this about George Will: He is a criminal. A felon. An unrepentant one. But, then, he is a member of a criminal class--the aristocracy. When I wrote a diary about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) last weekend, several commentators made the point that the aristocracy as a class suffered from NPD, and while there are certainly plenty of individual exceptions, the point is most certainly true. And a perfectly straightforward way to show what this means is to look at George Will, and his steadfast refusal to acknowledge any error whatsoever when he gets absolute everything wrong about global warming. Sane, mature adults make factual claims based on facts, to the best of their knowledge. When challenged in a reasonable manner, they either defend their claims by marshaling facts in support of those claims, or they admit to having made a mistake. But narcissists cannot be bothered with any of this. Engaging in good faith arguments is beneath their exalted sense of dignity. Indeed, the only way that aristocrats know how to settle factual disputes is the same way they settle all disputes: by dueling. Which is to say, by ritualized attempted murder. Attempts to get George Will to act like a responsible interlocutor on the issue of global warming have failed once again, and this is the simple reason why: he is psychologically incapable of being a responsible interlocutor. He does not recognize anyone else's factual claims. He is an aristocrat. The only thing he recognizes is an offense to honor, from another aristocrat. Nobel Prize-winning scientists be damned. The fricken human race be damned. He is a lord of the realm. Only we don't have such things in America. It's time we remembered that and started acting accordingly. Because George Will is damn sure never going to. Let's review the evidence, and see what I mean. Clinical Prelude First off, just to get us oriented, recall that narcissistic personality disorder is chartacterized by at least 5 of the following 9 traits: 1. An exaggerated sense of self-importanceThere were some criticisms last week about diagnosing an individual (since I'm not a pschotherapist) particularly from affar (since I'm not Bill Frist). So just to make this perfectly clear, I don't give a hoot about what's actually going on inside George Will. What I care about is exhibited behavior, which is part of a set of shared group characteristics, and plausible hypotheses that make the best sense of them possible given the information we have to go on. So, in short, the above are offered as a set of behavioral benchmarks for future reference. Do they have anything to do with discovering truth? No, they do not. Do they have anything to do with impeding discovering the truth? Yes, in fact, quite a bit. And what about motivations to care if the entire human race is put at risk as a result of one's indifference to the truth? None whatsoever. Depraved indifference to human life on a limitless scale? "You betcha!" Will's Petulant Performance In this new column, Will is once again using a totally bogus argument (it was hotter in 1998!) to claim that global warming doesn't exist--totally decimated as noted at TPM. But that's hardly surprising as it's an argument that's already been totally destroyed--just a few weeks ago, in fact, the last time Will trotted it out. I began my previous diary, "George Will, Washington Post: Traitors To Humanity" thus: George Will, "Dark Green Doomsayers", Feb 15:Farther down in the diary, I went on to note:"according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade"U.N. World Meteorological Organization, "WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 2007" (pdf), p4:January 2007 was the warmest January since global surface records were instituted. I'll say one thing for George Will: at least the guy believes in recycling--when it comes to global warming lies, that is.... While Will and the Post tried desperately to minimize the scope of Will's travesty Will's first column was all about recycling a set of well-worn lies that global warming denialists have been recycling for more than a decade now:I went on to note that full extent of the scientific consensus was not realized until 2004, when historian of science Naomi Naomi Oreskes published a survey of the scientific literature Science magazine in December 2004, "BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". You see, the proposition "there's a debate among climate scientists over whether man-made global warming is real," is itself a scientifically testable proposition. Oreskes tested it, and found it to be false. There are indeed scientists who argue against man-made global warming. They just haven't managed to come up with scientific arguments that pass muster with the anonymous peer review process used to keep the junk out of professional scientific journals. The Cultural Big Picture This is indicative of a much larger cultural phenomena: how the reality-oriented bourgeoisie (broadly conceived to include professionals) managed to work their way out from under the sway of the religious/aristocratic dominance, and their authoritarian epistemologies ("Why? Because I say so!" "Por que? Porque lo dijo!") But the authoritarian/aristocratic power never really gave up the fight, as George Will's denialist columns so richly demonstrate. Reality-based logic says that the truth of a proposition depends on the ability of a competent advocate to demonstrate its validity, and to respond to all well-grounded challenges. Thus, both reality itself and a critical engagement with other reality-based specialists are foundational. The authoritarian logic is utterly different. It says that the truth of a proposition depends on the authority of whoever makes the statement. And that authority comes from, well, whoever the authoritarians claim it comes from--God, tradition, made up quotes by Thomas Jefferson circulated on the internet, whatever floats your boat. "Weak" does not begin to describe this "intellectual" position. Question it once, seriously, and it all falls apart like a pack of cards. The point is, the authoritarian position depends on preventing serious questioning, shutting it off completely where possible, suppressing it even, and obfuscating all questioning than somehow manages to leak through (as was seen in the WaPos defense of Will the last time around.) There are three sorts of interactions one can think about here. First, there are factual disputes in the bourgeois reality-based world, which are settled by evidence and argument. This is true of scientific disputes as well as legal ones, and is a powerful prototype for resolving professional and even personal disputes as well. Second, there are disputes in the religious/aristocratic world, which are resolved either by recourse to authority or by force, be it war, a duel or contest of strength. While factual disputes hold a special significance in the reality-based realm, they are utterly marginal in the religious/aristocratic world. What matters is not facts, but power. Facts are what we say they are, as Ron Suskind was curtly reminded. This brings us to the third sorts of disputes, those between the two worlds--the reality-based world vs. the authoritarian. Attempts to resolve these by normal reality-based means are doomed to failure. The Washington Post clearly demonstrates why. It keeps trying to pretend that Will is a good faith reality-based interlocutor, when he is actually nothing of the sort. And the most they pretend, the more they become just like him: an authoritarian bad-faith actor. For the reality-based world to effectively respond to and defend itself against the authoritarian world, it must not simply rely on its own internal guidelines--though of course, it should certainly do that, and recognize that Will and his ilk do not qualify for inclusion in the realm of rational discourse. The reality-based world must do more than that, however. It has to become self-aware, self-reflective, capable of regarding itself as an object, in the sense of Kegan's Level 5. And it has to realize that it inevitably shares some of the authoritarian models characteristics, since force and power inevitably hold sway in many sorts of bourgeois disputes. Indeed, the clearest understanding of genius of modern liberalism--from its roots in religious tolerance to its touting of markets, its classical core that even most conservatives approve of--is that it works by developing structures, practices and values that work to product a harmonization of self-interest and the common good (disinterest, altruism, benevolence, etc.) This realization, however, makes no sense if one denies that fact that self-interest persists--the very same sort of self-interest that is the sole, unregulated concern of the unreconstructed narcissist, and which is only restricted by arbitrary authority in the religious/authoritarian world. | |
| Student Who Distupted Illegal Land Auction Charged With Two Felonies By Obama DOJ Posted: 04 Apr 2009 08:30 AM PDT In the waning weeks of the Bush Administration, Tim DeChristopher disrupted a lease of public lands for oil and gas exploration by bidding up prices against those who intended to drill on the lands if oil or gas was found. (Democracy Now! reported on December 22, and I diaried about it here the following Sunday.) The leases were subsequently invalidated, because the hurried process of bringing them to bid violated federal regulations. Although he had no money to pay for the leases when he bid on them, DeChristopher subsequently did get the money to cover them, as the result of becoming an instant folk hero. He was prepared to pay for the leases, but the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) couldn't accept the money, since the leases had been invalidated. Now, however, DeChristopher is being charged with two felonies, even though the only reason he didn't make good on the payments is because the sales were withdrawn. Apparently, the act of exposing the rigged nature of the bidding was crime enough--"disrupting" the tacit collusion whereby bidding stopped well short of what the bidders were actually willing to pay. And this is the Obama Department of Justice we're talking about now. Story from Democracy Now! on the flip. Democracy Now!: AMY GOODMAN: Tim DeChristopher had been hoping the Obama administration would not press charges, but on Wednesday US Attorney Brett Tolman indicted DeChristopher for two felonies. If convicted, Tim faces up to ten years in prison and a $750,000 fine. Tim DeChristopher joins us on the phone right now from Utah. Tim, were you surprised by the charges announced this week?Pretty surprised, indeed. What earthly reason is there for him to be prosecuted? If the Bush Administration had followed the law, the auction would never have happened in the first place. Whatever disruption he caused, he was disrupting an unlawful proceeding--one that Obama himself should have, and could have taken action to prevent. This auction was rather high-profile, moreso than many of the "midnight regulations" and other surreptitious actions being taken by the Bush Administration in its waning days. The process had been so hurried that all the required inter-agency procedures hadn't been followed. (In fact, even the normal intra-agencies hadn't been followed, which is why DeChristopher was able to so easily infiltrate the proceedings.) Obama could have, and should have spoken out and said that all such questionable actions were going to be reviewed, and that in the case of actions that involved clear violations of laws and regulations such as this land auction in particular the entire proceeding would be voided, so there was no point in going ahead with it in the first place. This is what a truly aggressive break with the lawlessness of the Bush years would have looked like, and it would have eliminated the need for DeChristopher to have taken action in the first place. AMY GOODMAN: After the Obama administration came in and Ken Salazar became the Secretary of the Interior, didn't he nullify or say that the land could not be sold? TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Yes, yes. All the parcels that I bid on were part of that decision, so all of those were nullified. That's why we had raised the funds to actually make the payments on there and offer that payment to the BLM, but they weren't able to accept that because of the Salazar decision, because it was all invalidated. And I think that they made that decision because they saw all the rules that the BLM didn't follow in this case, that they didn't give this auction the due process that it deserved. And so, I saw that really as an official ruling that what I was standing against was something illegal and unjust, and so I was surprised that they still wanted to prosecute me for my opposition to that unjust procedure.Hmmmm. Looks like the community organizer in chief is not that kindly in his views of citizen activism after all, I guess. His own reluctance to speak out in advance against a clearly unlawful auction was the only reason DeChristopher had to act in the first place, yet here his DOJ is, going after DeChristoher, and ignoring all the insider lawbreaking involved in this case. AMY GOODMAN: How much support have you received, Tim, since the December auction? TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: I've received a huge amount of support really of every kind. I have received countless emails and calls from people expressing their support from around the country and around the world. I've received financial support, both back when we were trying to raise the funds to actually pay for the leases and financial support for my legal team. And we're collecting those donations again for my legal fund through the website bidder70.org. I had my amazing legal team of Patrick Shea and Ron Yengich step up to defend me, and they're donating their time.It's really important that he's getting this sort of support, because without it, the Obama DOJ would just roll over him like he was a bug, apparently. Now here's the really good part, where he explains what he's being charged with: AMY GOODMAN: Tim, can you explain exactly what you were charged with? TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Yes. I was charged with two counts: one of making a false statement to the government and one of violation of the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act, which was supposed to establish a competitive bidding process for oil and gas leases.So, "making a false statement to the government". You mean like Bush did to Congress in taking us to war with Iraq? Well, then, we'll be seeing charges filed against Bush any day now, right? Yeah, right. And here's the great irony behind this second charge: by stepping in and bidding up the prices of a number of parcels before he finally managed to buy one himself, DeChristopher inadvertantly demonstrated that the bidding was essentially rigged. It was not the competitive bidding process that the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act was supposed to establish. People were paying substantially less than they would have been willing to pay if there was a truly competitive bidding process. The pattern of bidding that occurred with him in the process clearly showed this. What he did caused no harm at all to anyone--except a bunch of corporate crooks trying to rip off the government. Indeed, what he revealed was a long-standing pattern of collusive bidding that has cost the government untold thousands, probably mil;lions, if not tens of millions of dollars. There should be investigations and felony charges, all right. But not against DeChristopher. Those charges should be brought against the oil and gas companies that have been defrauding the government for who know how many years. More info at Bidder70.org and PeacefulUprising.org, where you can also donate to his defense fund. | |
| Versailles' Culture of Narcissism: Ted Stevens Edition Posted: 04 Apr 2009 07:00 AM PDT In a comment to my diary Narcissism, The Bubble Economy and American Exceptionalism--Part 1 last weekend, Cugel snipped off the last part of the list of 9 traits characterizing narcissistic personality disorder (5 must be present to justify a diagnosis of NPD), and wrote: If they gave those "personality tests" to the French or British Aristocrats at any time up to the later 20th century, what you'd find would be identical to this theme:The same, of course, goes for Versailles, as was particularly evident when AG Eric Holder's scrupulously honest dismissal of charges against Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct was egregiously misrepresented by all his Versailles buddies as vindication of his ahem! "sterling character". What better way to thoroughly blacken their own?5. Has a sense of entitlementAll the same features that Wall Street exhibits today. It's simply part of an effort by elites in all times and at all places to turn themselves into an aristocracy and to justify their greed and exploitation of the poor by believing they are separate. At TPM, Zachary Roth reminds us "Beltway Establishment's Misplaced Orgy Of Stevens Sympathy" that the dismisall is not a vindication: But even leaving criminal wrongdoing aside, no one disputes that Stevens accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of home renovations and gifts (remember that massage chair?) from a supporter who had a slew of business interests that Stevens was in a position to affect as a powerful federal lawmaker and appropriator. That's what we call "corrupt". As Melanie Sloan of Citiziens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put it, according to The Hill's paraphrase: "Holder's decision in no way should be viewed as a vindication of Stevens but rather as an indictment of the Justice Department's inability to do one of its most important jobs."Echoing that, at OpenSecrets.org, Lindsay Renick Mayer reminds us, "Stevens Trial May Have Been Flawed, but Senator's Unusual Connections to Convicted Contributor Aren't in Doubt": While the fairness of Stevens's trial may be in question, that the longtime senator had a clear financial connection with Allen and VECO is not. Stevens, who lost his re-election race in November shortly after the conviction, had collected at least $156,000 in campaign contributions from VECO through his campaign and committees he used to support fellow Republican candidates. CRP calculated the total to Stevens and other federal lawmakers in 2007 after two VECO executives, including Allen, pleaded guilty to bribery in a separate case involving Alaska state legislators. At that time Allen acknowledged rewarding VECO executives with bonuses as repayment for campaign contributions, which is illegal, and paying employees to work on renovations of Stevens's property. The company has since been sold. OpenSecrets.org's Personal Financial Disclosures database contains the six years of reports that the federal indictment said Stevens falsified, plus his other financial disclosures back to 1995.And Zach continuites: So bear that in mind as you read these expressions of sympathy from aggrieved Washington power players rallying around one of their own: George Stephanopoulos of ABC News (via Twitter): "Whatever your politics, hard not to feel for Ted Stevens."Yes, who can possibly forget how Ted Stevens responded to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, by magnanimously announcing he wanted to transfer the funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" to Louisiana, to rebuild one of the most-traveled bridges in the country? Oh, wait... On October 21, 2005, Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment to remove funds for the Gravina Island and Knik Arm bridges, and divert the funds to rebuild a bridge over Lake Pontchartrain that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska became the object of strong media criticism when he strongly opposed diverting the Gravina and Knik Arm Bridge funds to help in the disaster aid.[10] In his speech on the Senate floor, Stevens threatened to quit Congress if the funds were removed from his state.Wait... Republican Sen. Tom Coburn's amendment to rescind federal money from the Knik and Gravina bridges won him the fury of Sen. Ted Stevens and only a smattering of votes. His attempt failed 82-15 after fist-pounding arguments from Stevens, R-Alaska. p.s. The Alaska GOP is asking for a do-over, since Stevens was improperly convicted after the election. Presumably, if he'd been improperly convicted before the election, he should just be given back his old seat outright. |
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