The Distant Ocean

I appreciate it when people say what I say, only better

Marie Cocco does her take on the "Hillary, martyr to misogyny" theme, too predictably to bother excerpting.  Much more worthwhile is RichM's response in comments, which nails the real problem with Hillary and the real problem with these kinds of criticisms (and echoes what I wrote a few days ago, but says it better):

This article is shallow & trivial, taking aim at a much-too-easy target. Sure, it’s bad to hurl sex-based hate at Hillary. But that’s because there are so many more insightful & accurate ways to despise this loathesome creature. Her gender has nothing to do with it. It’s her Bush-like sense of entitlement, her sociopathic narcissism, her utter lack of principles, & her grasping ruthlessness — all characteristics she shares with her sleazebag husband.

That's dead on.  I'll believe that the bulk of Hillary criticisms are motivated mainly by misogyny the day that someone of the temperament and caliber of Michelle Bachelet gets similar treatment in a similar context here (a test we're not likely to see in our lifetimes, of course, but I can dream).

Also in comments, Cocco defender Eric J-D asks this question:

What’s the male equivalent of being a “bitch”...?

Asks it rhetorically, that is, since the purpose is to make us gape in wonderment as the realization slowly dawns that women are particularly beset with pejorative monikers, the like of which would never be applied to a man.  The problem, though, is that that's a complete crock.  The word you're looking for would be "asshole", Eric—a term that's an exact gender-specific analogue to "bitch", and for which all the criteria except one are essentially identical (granted that it would be less jarring to hear the former applied to a woman than to hear the latter applied to a man, but 19 out of 20 experts consider it a usage error).  And of the two terms, there's no doubt which one has the less pleasant referent.

Eric might also want to take a look at the plethora of male-exclusive alternatives on the "asshole" reference page, like bastard, cocksucker, dickhead, motherfucker, prick, and SOB.  And various and sundry combinations and derivations not mentioned therein—but you get the idea.  When it comes time for dullards to chastise someone, they've got plenty of gender-specific options, no matter whether or not the target has a Y chromosome.

ALSO: People concerned about the effect of all this harsh invective on the delicate constitution of HRC might want to read this.

Blog sabbatical

I'm sure you've noticed that I've been taking a blog sabbatical for the last week or so.  Part of this is that I haven't been feeling the motivation to whip myself to spend the hours it often takes to craft a post, and that's exacerbated by the fact that I finally succumbed last night to a dastardly virus that's been dogging me for weeks.  So posting may continue to be light to nonexistent for a while.

To Hillary Clinton, from your secret admirer

You've probably noticed that I've had some hard words for Barack Obama, but I'm curiously quiet about Hillary Clinton.  Maybe it's even made you a tad suspicious.  Am I, you wonder, surreptitiously wielding the mighty influence of my corner of the web to sway primary voters and wayward superdelegates away from Obama, knowing they'll thence accrue to the secret object of my allegiance?  Or is it even more personal than that?  Do I sit and gaze out the window during the day, indulging forbidden fantasies of jowly smoochfests?  When I hear "Rodham", do I think of the salacious possibilities its separate syllables seem to promise?  To put it bluntly: am I subscribing to her newsletter?

Well, no.  There are a few reasons why I don't talk about Hillary Clinton.  One is that I think she's one of the most vile human beings in mainstream politics today; she practically oozes ruthless ambition and blood lust.  I can take maybe 15 seconds of Hillary talking before I feel the gorge starting to rise (which puts her second only to George Bush).  And writing about her isn't much better.

But the bigger reason I don't have much to say about her is that she's a Republican in all but name, and I find it difficult to understand how anyone who pays attention could think otherwise or consciously choose to support her.  Every time I see or hear a Hillary fan expressing genuine enthusiasm for her, my brain goes blank, refusing to accept the reality of it, like I've just seen an alligator fly a mechanical doughnut out of a dog's anus.

For the true believers out there, though, there've been a few unmistakable signs of her true nature in the past few days.  Like this:

Unlikely Allies Campaign for a Gas Tax Holiday

Senators John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton found themselves taking a lonely stand on the campaign trail Thursday, defending the proposed gasoline-tax holiday while critics from both parties lined up against it.

(Which is fine except for the "Unlikely".)  And this:

"You're a polarizing personality," O'Reilly said [to Clinton]. "You're like I am and I hate to say that."

It pains me to agree with Bill O'Reilly (a solid contender for third on the aforementioned list), but he hit the nail on the head here: she is indeed like him, in the worst ways.

Should Hillary somehow manage to claw her way into the final round of her quest for the power of total obliteration, I'm sure I'll have more to say about her.  But for now I'm just hoping she'll accidentally get caught out in the rain at a campaign stop, melting, melting, and finally ending up as a greasy puddle, thus saving me (and all of us) the unpleasant task of thinking about her anymore.

More Obama Republican smooching

Really, they should get a room:

OBAMA:  Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE:  Such as.

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation, I think that back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a lot of the way we regulated industry was top down command and control. ... I think that on issues of education, I have been very clear about the fact, and sometimes I have gotten in trouble with the teachers union on this, that we should be experimenting with charter schools. ... when I voted for a tort reform measure that was fiercely opposed by the trial lawyers, I got attacked pretty hard from the left.

Yes, a whole host of better ideas.  The common thread in each case is right there, though unstated: like the Republicans (and nearly all other Democrats as well), Obama favors corporate interests over human interests.

Over the past few days I've been thinking that the best thing about Jeremiah Wright is that he's blowing Obama's progressive-in-centrist-clothing pose—but really, what's the point?  Obama does it repeatedly himself, standing at his window to empty his chamberpot on the throngs of admirers below, and they just marvel at how he can call down rain from the sky.

(More unseemly PDAs here and here.)

Bashing the Wright-bashers

Dennis Perrin eviscerates liberal bloggerdom's predictable response to Jeremiah Wright's uppity sass-mouth:

How dare Wright point to plain reality while the most important election ever since the last most important election ever hangs in the balance! Obama caters to mainstream political mythology in order to win votes? That's lunacy! Any sane person knows that Obama's "changing the very nature of politics," right before our eyes. If you doubt this, move to Gaza and await the new dawn. It should arrive no later than, say, August of next year.

And about Wright's purported "egomania" and "self-aggrandizement", Dennis keys on the point that always leaves me wondering how mainstream liberals can withstand a level of cognitive dissonance which by all rights should melt their brains:

These epithets are swiftly employed when liberals sense that their worldview is being challenged. Ralph Nader was and remains a selfish egomaniac, while Al Gore just wanted to serve his country. Jeremiah Wright borders on the sociopathic, while Obama and Hillary are merely exploring ways to save this great nation. And of course, there's nothing egomaniacal about liberal bloggers and commentators sliming Wright while telling Obama what he must do and when he needs to do it. They're simply humble patriots, heads held high under fluttering flags, doing their bit for the US of A.

(I think it's not just that their worldview is being challenged.  It's that in their minds, people like Wright and Nader are nothing—flies buzzing around the feast, irritating distractions from what really matters.  And because they're nothing, the only thing that could possibly motivate them to refuse to shut up and get out of the way of the anointed Democrats, as they know they should, is an overblown ego.  And I say "anointed" because this kind of thing isn't just reserved for people like them; if a Democrat like Dennis Kucinich gets in the way of the chosen few, he can expect similar treatment.)

Do yourself a favor and read the rest of Dennis's demolition job here.

Plucky US stands up to malevolent Iranian superpower

Robert Gates finally decided to drop his Jon Lovitz impression and admit that maybe, just maybe, the Iranians might reasonably feel it's significant that the US has parked yet more firepower right off their coastline:

Gates played down the addition of a second carrier to the Gulf, saying that the number of ships there rises and falls continuously. He said he doesn't expect there to [be] two carriers there for a long time.

Asked if the carrier move went hand in hand with the rising U.S. rhetoric against Iran, Gates said, "I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."

Fans of The Godfather will recognize just what kind of "reminder" this is:

It would be easy to get the impression from this that the US has the upper hand, but only until we remember how boldly Iran flaunts its numerous strategic advantages:

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran's still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran's uranium enrichment plant show the country's defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

To help us comprehend the scope of this threat, let's take a look at one of the Iranian vessels that's menacing US warships in the Gulf:

I think it goes without saying that that bow-mounted machine gun could scrape a significant quantity of paint off of the hull of an American destroyer, causing major short-term damage to its appearance.  And don't forget that the Iranians have the audacity to mount these intimidating naval operations against the US in their own coastal waters.  Is there no limit to their perfidious ambitions?

Now, between this daunting show of force and the deliberate mockery heaped on them by the heartless Iranians, you might think the US leadership would be deterred.  But you'd be wrong:

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can't strike.

"I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," Mullen said.

Of course the Iranians may already have been tipped off to this by the fact that the US military budget is roughly 100 times greater than their own, but it never hurts to just put it right out there.  As CBS was careful to inform us, the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but the Iranians are now on notice that if they continue their incessant attacks on us we will defend ourselves by launching massive air strikes against their country—no matter how long the odds might be.  That's just the kind of fearless, can-do nation we are.

Israel doing what it does best, again

When I heard that Israel had wiped out another family in Gaza, the only question was how long it would take them to come up with a story that would let them blame it on the Palestinians.  Just a few hours, as it turns out:

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that a blast that killed six Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza earlier in the day was not caused by an IDF tank shell, as the Palestinians had earlier reported, but was rather a result of militants' explosives.

The IDF investigated the incident, which left a Beit Hanoun mother and her four children dead along with a 17-year-old passerby, and concluded that the deadly explosion occurred when the Israel Air Force, targeting two Palestinian gunmen, fired a missile and hit the gunmen's bags, which were full of ammunition. The missile caused the ammunition cache to explode with force, setting off a chain reaction of additional explosions.

I've always said that the easiest way for a Palestinian to get a gun is to be killed by the Israeli military; after all, even peace activist Tom Hurndall managed to change from his bright orange safety jersey into "tiger fatigues" and get himself a rifle after he was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.  At least Ehud Barak was helpful enough to make the reasoning explicit:

Hours after the explosion, Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed Hamas for the continuing deaths of Gaza residents, saying "we see Hamas as responsible for everything that happens there, for all deaths..."

"Whether or not they actually were," Barak should have added.

Israel claims it's attacking Gaza to stop rocket attacks against Israeli border towns, of course, so this seems like a good time to recall just what prompted Hamas to break its self-imposed truce and start participating in the rocket fire back in 2006:

Hamas militants called off a truce with Israel on Friday after a barrage of Israeli artillery shells tore into Palestinians at a beachside picnic in the Gaza Strip, killing seven civilians.

The declaration raised the prospect of a new wave of bloodshed. Hamas militants suspended a campaign of deadly suicide attacks on Israelis with a February 2005 cease-fire, and have largely stuck to the truce.

You'll be shocked to hear that Israel followed the standard script then as well, blaming the killing of the Ghalia family on Hamas; see here, here, and here for a detailed look at Israel's lies in that case.

Regrets? I've had a few. No, wait, none.

Peter Camejo tries to talk sense to Medea Benjamin, who was offended that the Nader/Gonzalez campaign would use the word "shameful" to describe  her and other prominent progressives who "supported the pro-war, pro-Patriot Act, anti-labor, and anti-environmental candidate John Kerry in 2004":

The front line in this denial of democracy is the Democratic Party because it is the instrument that controls, channels and co-opts the forces that otherwise could challenge the rule of concentrated money.

It is precisely the "differences" between the two major parties that makes the system effective.

And the front line in the battle for the control of money over people are the so-called "progressive" Democrats who talk the talk. They confuse people, prevent free elections, and fight hardest to undermine a Nader/Camejo candidacy or a Nader/Gonzalez candidacy or any other candidacy whose voice for democracy begins to be heard.

They may think they are helping move the country toward a more progressive agenda. But in fact, they are deepening the illusion that answers can be found through the Democratic Party. In turn, this reinforces the two-party domination over the United States, making possible the horrendous policies we have seen over the last eight years.

You -- Medea Benjamin -- are now one of those on the front lines defending the two-party domination, and as a direct result, defending the rule of concentrated money and other illegalities and injustices of our present system.

You can't have it both ways.

Testify, brother Peter.  It's sad but not surprising that Benjamin not only hasn't realized any of this on her own and has no regrets about 2004, but actually goes into high dudgeon at the utterance of a single unflattering (but accurate) adjective.

I've had words similar to Camejo's for Medea Benjamin here in the past, and I'll go the Nader/Gonzalez campaign one better: it wasn't just "shameful" to work so hard to undermine Nader and try to get John Kerry elected, but misguided and ultimately deeply destructive.  The 2004 election was a critical moment—a time when progressives needed to show that 2000 was not an exception, and that the Democrats could no longer count on progressives to hand over their votes unless the Democratic Party made significant changes.  It was especially important because by 2004 it was crystal clear that the feedback effects of global warming are rapidly approaching the point where they'll become irreversible, and a business-as-usual approach may literally cost us the future of the planet.  But if John "the Kyoto Protocol is not the answer" Kerry promised anything, it was business as usual.

Unfortunately, Benjamin and many others like her chose the path of fear and capitulation.  And what did they get in return for their surrender?  Another four years of George Bush anyway, of course, but also a seriously weakened progressive movement, a Democratic Party that knows it can count progressive votes before the election even happens, and therefore a guarantee that any rapid change in the system is all but impossible.  We may literally all pay the price for that mistake in the not-too-distant future.

[ Past takes on the same themes here and here. ]

Sacco and Vanzetti would'a sure been proud...

Today was the first time I'd heard this element of the defense in the Sean Bell case:

With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor sought cover.

To be crystal clear here, the only "bullets flying" were the 50 bullets the cops were methodically pumping into Sean Bell and his friends.  So the message to police would seem to be: if you're going to shoot, shoot a lot, because then you can claim you were just defending yourself from the confusion caused by your own gunfire.

And I wonder: how well does this defense work if you don't happen to be a cop?  If I shoot at a group of people and then some friends start shooting them as well, can we claim that all the commotion made us think we were being attacked?  And what if the group we're shooting at happens to be cops themselves?

Yes, I'm aware of the flaws in that analogy (like the first shot, which is much more likely to be legal coming from a cop than from me).  But it doesn't take away from the ridiculousness of the defense in this case.  You wonder just how far the NYPD would have to go before a judge would be willing to hold them accountable.

The best comment I've heard on the case was this one:

"We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours," said an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his closing arguments. "Not to risk our lives to protect their own."

Product placement holy grail discovered

Following up on that last posting, I've found a site that helps you track down just what's being pimped to you in movies or on TV.  Read what eVisure can do for you!

If you've ever wondered, "where can I buy that adorable pink laptop that Reese Witherspoon used in Legally Blonde 2?", or dress like the guys on HBO's Entourage, wait no longer. Through a basic search on eVisure.com, users will locate the product(s) of their choice, opt-in to receive additional product information upon request, or gather details on where to purchase the item via a store locator listing. ...

The official eVisure site will be available to the mass consumer public in the spring of 2006.

(Last sentence included just because I'm so fond of the phrase "mass consumer public.")

Spotting product placements has always been like having a math book with no answers in the back, but all that's changed now.  So if you watch Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking (the film he made before Juno) but don't realize you've just been infected with commercials for Heinz 57 sauce, the Chrysler Sebring convertible, and the Zero Halliburton Elite 4" ice blue attache case, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

This is going to provide me with no end of amusement.  Thanks for the life enhancement, eVisure!

[ NB: Don't watch Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking.  If you really want to see Aaron Eckhart doing best what he does best, try In the Company of Men instead—but I warn you, it'll hurt. ]

News flash: Prostitutes to start paying YOU for sex!

I watched Juno over the weekend.  It's rough going at the beginning thanks to a seriously over-written script, but it rises above that on the strength of good performances and a second half that has some moments of emotional honesty, and overall I'd recommend it.  If you've seen Rushmore and Saved!, though, it'll seem like awfully familiar territory; in fact it's basically the next good Wes Anderson film (though that's not such a bad thing to be, since Wes Anderson's own Wes Anderson films have been on a slide lately).

But I digress.  The reason I'm posting about it is the brain-thumping level of product placement, and one in particular: in the introductory sequence of the film, as the first of 16,782 indie pop songs jangles at us, Juno walks around town carrying an enormous jug of Sunny Delight for, oh, three minutes.  The jug is lovingly tracked, label-on, so we can fully appreciate it throughout the sequence.  It's even animated at one point, ferchrissake.  And just in case we somehow missed it, it's written into the dialogue as well ("I drank, like, ten gallons of Sunny D").  So while I was impatiently waiting for the movie to start after this extended commercial—possibly the longest product placement I've ever seen in a film, and I'm a connoisseur—I was thinking, man, that must have cost them a fortune.

What a fool I was:

Sunny Delight - popularly known as Sunny D - did not even pay for its role in the first three minutes of the movie, when the title character walks through town chugging a giant bottle of the drink. ...

"Sometimes companies are slow to react because they might not be sure what to do with it, or are afraid of the response," said Brian Hankin, CEO of Atlanta branding firm (R)evolution Partners. "But it's these kinds of opportunities that are few and far between that companies should take the most advantage of."

Especially since it's free, and apparently effective. Product placement has steadily grown among top U.S. films over the past five years, according to Brandchannel.com, a site operated by international branding firm Interbrand, with offices in Norwood. In 2006, the average number of product placements among top-grossing films rose to 21 per movie, compared with 13 in 2004, and 17 in 2002. Many of these spots were paid for.

Not that Sunny Delight was immediately on board. The producers of the movie called company marketers early on, seeking permission to use the beverage. Sunny Delight said "no." The producers came back a second time, and then a third, before convincing Sunny Delight that "Juno" was a serious film, with a respected director (Jason Reitman, "Thank You for Smoking") and a strong lineup of actors.

(Take that, E.T.!)  And apparently this is the rule and not the exception:

"As big as branded entertainment is, I will still venture to say that 90% of the brands you see in shows are there for free," said Jeff Greenfield, executive vp entertainment marketing firm 1st Approach. "A lot of brands get in for free not because they're cool but because they happen to be there."

Five of the leading product placement agencies estimate that 70%-95% of their placements are still barter deals only. Norm Marshall & Associates said it orchestrated more than 10,000 free product placements last year. ...

Entertainment marketers say that despite efforts by the networks and studios to crack down on free placements, they are still happening for a variety of reasons: Many integration decisions are still being driven creatively rather than financially; production companies still want to save money by getting free product on the set; branded entertainment deals do not come close to covering the amount of product that is needed to dress a set; many changes in props or sets are made during filming, long after product integration deals are sealed; and producers don't always want to spend the time and money required to satisfy the demands of brands willing to pay for integration.

You mean to tell me that product placements have nearly doubled just in the past few years, but the companies aren't even paying for it? So the vast majority of corporate whoring that violently jolts me out of my fantasy wonderland every few minutes, pissing me off to no end, is being done for free?  And not only that, the film's producers are so bent on prostituting themselves that they'll beg and cajole a company multiple times to please, please, please compromise their film?

I realize this is just another of capitalism's endless series of dark alleys, and not even a particularly scary one at that.  Just another of the myriad corruptions of our daily lives.  Nonetheless: holy madre del Diablo.  It's getting to the point where it's not "product placement" in a movie, but "movie placement" in a series of ads.  I'm so upset I can barely finish typing this posting on my Sony VAIO® laptop!  On the bright side, though, it does allow me to dress up my anti-Hollywood film snobbery with suitably progressive ideological trappings.

There's a more complete list of Juno product placements here (several of which were also written into the script, like Benihana, the burger phone, Gibson, and Hot Pockets).  Some surprises in there even for me, and I was watching closely.

(More ranting about similarly trivial crap here.)

UPDATE: In case you're tempted to go suck down some orange drink now, here's what the Center for Science in the Public Interest says about it: "There is nothing either sunny or delightful about a junk food that’s dressed up as real fruit juice. But Sunny Delight is not much more than sugar water with negligible amounts of juice and a bit of vitamins added. ... Sunny Delight’s marketing campaign is designed to deceive, and it succeeds."

Earth Day thoughts from Sheldon Rampton

Here's Sheldon Rampton on Earth Day and greenwashing:

How did the actual practice of Earth Day become such a corrupted version of the original concept? As John Stauber and I wrote in our 1995 book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, this transformation was no accident. It reflects deliberate, carefully calculated strategies by the public relations industry. PR firms have carefully studied opinion polls which show that the vast majority of people in the United States (and throughout much of the rest of the world as well) are concerned that human actions are damaging the natural environment. Rather than confront public opinion head-on, therefore, they use environmental rhetoric -- often consisting mostly of empty words and minor, symbolic gestures -- to make themselves look green while continuing to do business as usual. ...

As a result of its reliance on greenwashing, the public relations industry has redefined the terms "environmental" and "green" to mean the very opposite of what those terms evoke for most people. "Environmental public relations," for example, refers to a PR campaign designed to lobby against environmental regulations. E. Bruce Harrison, the man often considered the founder of "environmental public relations," got his start when he helped the pesticide industry attack Rachel Carson and her classic 1962 environmental book, Silent Spring. By the 1970s, however, Harrison began to adopt a more subtle approach, aimed at undermining environmental activism from within, by offering corporate cash to environmental groups that could be persuaded to moderate their activism.

If you haven't already, you should definitely consider reading both Toxic Sludge Is Good For You and Trust Us, We're Experts, by Rampton and John Stauber, to see just how thoroughly manipulated the information bubble we live in really is.   These are two of the most eye-opening books I've read, and I don't know of any others that deal with these particular subjects with the same depth, skill, and accessibility.

In other greenwashing news, Greenpeace launched an anti-greenwashing site today.  Pretty sparse now, but hopefully it'll become more worthwhile as they develop it.

My Earth Day story: when I was living on the east coast in the early 1990s I went to Washington D.C. for the Earth Day celebration.  Sitting a few blankets away was a guy who looked an awful lot like Don from Lost in Space...and it turned out that that was because he actually was Don, aka Mark Goddard.  He was an immensely cool dude, very amiable and willing to spend some time chatting with fans, and (of course) concerned about things that matter.  Nice surprise, that.

I don't care as long as it's a DEMOCRAT! (Michael Moore edition)

Michael Moore slathers his face with makeup and puts on his shortest skirt before he heads out for a busy night:

I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name. ...

I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.

You see, he doesn't care, as long as it's a DEMOCRAT!

There's actually a perfect symmetry here, because the Democrats don't give a rat's ass what Moore (or anyone like him) thinks, feels, needs, or cares about.  Just as long as his vote has the word "Democrat" beside it on the ballot, then that's good enough for them.

(Maybe Moore is just doing this out of empathy; after all, he used to have a backbone too.)

Chomsky on libertarianism and Murray Rothbard

Since it's relevant in the context of that last posting, here's one of my favorite selections from Understanding Power, in which Noam Chomsky discusses the difference between libertarianism and anarchism and comments on the world envisioned by Murray Rothbard:
_____________________________

Man: What's the difference between "libertarian" and "anarchist," exactly?

Chomsky: There's no difference, really. I think they're the same thing. But you see, "libertarian" has a special meaning in the United States. The United States is off the spectrum of the main tradition in this respect: what's called "libertarianism" here is unbridled capitalism. Now, that's always been opposed in the European libertarian tradition, where every anarchist has been a socialist—because the point is, if you have unbridled capitalism, you have all kinds of authority: you have extreme authority.

If capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive. Now, you can say, "they rent themselves freely, it's a free contract"—but that's a joke. If your choice is, "do what I tell you or starve," that's not a choice—it's in fact what was commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example.

The American version of "libertarianism" is an aberration, though—nobody really takes it seriously. I mean, everybody knows that a society that worked by American libertarian principles would self-destruct in three seconds. The only reason people pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon. Like, when somebody comes out in favor of a tax, you can say: "No, I'm a libertarian, I'm against that tax"—but of course, I'm still in favor of the government building roads, and having schools, and killing Libyans, and all that sort of stuff.

Now, there are consistent libertarians, people like Murray Rothbard—and if you just read the world that they describe, it's a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it. This is a world where you don't have roads because you don't see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road that you're not going to use: if you want a road, you get together with a bunch of other people who are going to use that road and you build it, then you charge people to ride on it. If you don't like the pollution from somebody's automobile, you take them to court and you litigate it. Who would want to live in a world like that? It's a world built on hatred.¹⁹

The whole thing's not even worth talking about, though. First of all, it couldn't function for a second—and if it could, all you'd want to do is get out, or commit suicide or something. But this is a special American aberration, it's not really serious.