The Distant Ocean

Glenn Greenwald still flirting with out and out bomb-throwing radicalism

Glenn Greenwald delivers a richly-deserved groin kick to the New York Times for their soul-searing hypocrisy in criticizing Bush's public response to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002:

It's nice that the Times -- with a disgraced George Bush on his way out the door -- has come to view the Venezuelan military coup as the destructive, anti-democratic event which, by definition, it was.  And it's also nice that the Times is now willing to assign blame for anti-U.S. sentiments in Latin America at least partially to the actions of the U.S. Government itself.  But it's important that the Times not be allowed to delete its own involvement in those events. ...

There are vital lessons from the last eight years that get obscured when influential outlets such as the Times Editorial Page try to erase their own responsibility for events and heap all blame on "the Bush administration" -- which was able to do what it did only because it enjoyed the acquiescence, complicity and often blind support from so many of our leading political and media institutions.

The entire article is worth reading, and it'd hardly be out of place in Z Magazine.  The only flaw is the usual one: Greenwald still feels compelled to assert Democratic exceptionalism, even if only in passing, as in the care he takes to temporally circumscribe the "vital lessons from the last eight years"—as though there were no reasons to condemn US policy in Latin America prior to January 20th, 2001.

When I was learning the extent of US crimes in the world I went through a transitional phase where I still clung to a comforting (and long-held) belief that the Democrats were the good guys, even if they occasionally made mistakes or went astray.  But it was only a few weeks before it had withered away completely in the face of cold, hard facts.  Clearly Greenwald has been holding on to those sorts of beliefs for far longer than I did, but I'm still hopeful that he'll turn the corner someday—especially as the inevitable (and already budding) hypocrisies and betrayals of the upcoming Obama administration face him with a choice between doing so, or abandoning the principled stances he's committed himself to over the past eight years.  We'll see.

A Tiny Ocean

If you also read Jonathan Schwarz's A Tiny Revolution you may have been experiencing some deja vu lately.  I'll be posting occasionally on ATR—generally postings that are also available here.  There'll always be articles I only post on this site, though, and I'll probably spend more time on the comments here than there.

And if you're not reading ATR you should be, since Señor Schwarz writes insightful, funny stuff that accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of making politics enjoyable.  You can see a collection of some of his best offerings here.

Obama followers patiently awaiting instructions

Defending his unbroken string of establishment/hawkish/conservative appointments, the general speaks:

"What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking. But I understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That's my job -- to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to make sure then that my team is implementing."

And a soldier responds (see the comments at the link), in words that really must be read in their entirety to be appreciated:

Obama is picking people with the toughness and experience to get things done. We should be more supportive of his choices. The way I see it, we (the people who support Obama) are like foot soldiers in a nonviolent war for revolutionary change. Like any good soldier, I must trust my commander. Obama is my commander (in-chief) and I trust him. Okay, so here's the tricky part. In a war, it is not the duty of a foot-soldier to develop the entire strategy for the war, nor is it the duty of a foot soldier to decide what orders to obey and which to disobey. No war could be won by an army governed by anarchy.

In this war, (against radical Right-wing government and social forces) it is up to Obama to craft a winning strategy, not us - the disorganized rabble. When we judge his strategy in a negative light, our criticism is ignorant, because we do not know what his full strategy entails. Keep in mind, it would be foolish, in a state of war, to simply divulge what that strategy is. So we must have faith in Obama and trust him. If we want change (and I know I do) then we must trust him, even when we feel we can't. We must see beyond our fears, and remember that sometimes it is more important to follow than to try to lead. The Left does not need more wannabe leaders and more petty infighting. It's like each of us has a piece of a puzzle, but only Obama can put the pieces together to create an image for our future.

Once again, reality has left satire in the dust:

With nearly three weeks having passed since talk-show host Oprah Winfrey last issued an official command, approximately 60 million Oprah Winfrey Show viewers are on standby, stationed in front of their television sets and patiently awaiting further instructions from their leader.

"We must be patient with Oprah," said Winfrey fan Melanie Leupke, 44, of Stillwater, OK. "Ours is not to question why she is taking so long. When the time is right and we are needed again, Oprah will tell us what to do."

We're in for a very long four years.

George Monbiot is a dirty plagiarizing bastard

When I saw Obama's encouraging statements about global warming last week I said to a friend, hey, it's great to hear him saying that he takes this threat seriously.  All he needs to do now is time travel back to 1992, when the approach he's outlined would have been exactly what was needed to save the planet from the catastrophic effects of climate change.

Now, I assumed these remarks were private, but apparently George Monbiot was either lurking in a darkened corner or has developed some sort of remote mind-scanning device, because here's what he wrote just a few days later:

Barack Obama’s speech to the US climate summit last week was an astonishing development. It shows that, in this respect at least, there really is a prospect of profound political change in America. But while he described a workable plan for dealing with the problem perceived by the Earth Summit of 1992, the measures he proposes are now hopelessly out of date. The science has moved on. The events the Earth Summit and the Kyoto process were supposed to have prevented are already beginning. Thanks to the wrecking tactics of Bush the elder, Clinton (and Gore) and Bush the younger, steady, sensible programmes of the kind that Obama proposes are now irrelevant.

I find it especially sneaky how Monbiot tried to disguise his theft by expanding on my dinner conversation at great length, adding a wealth of informed and carefully-sourced commentary.  All very impressive, George, but just who do you think you're fooling?  Not me, that's who.

Brazen copycat Monbiot goes on to observe:

The trajectory both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have proposed - an 80% cut by 2050 - means reducing emissions by an average of 2% a year. This programme, the figures in the Tyndall paper suggest, is likely to commit the world to at least four or five degrees of warming, which means the likely collapse of human civilisation across much of the planet. Is this acceptable?

No, George, it's not.  And you know what else isn't acceptable?  That you're living high on the hog from the wads of cash you're collecting for the article you shamelessly cribbed from my offhand comment, and I'm not going to see a penny of it.

FURTHERMORE: This isn't the first time I've felt the sting of Monbiot's pilfering.

Thanks-giving

I hope we all have a lot to be thankful for today, but I've got one thing in particular: you.  I'm honored and humbled that people take the time to stop by on a regular basis and read what I have to say.  I remarked to a friend recently that keeping this site going is like having an essay assignment every single day (sadly, these postings don't write themselves, and they can take a lot more time than you might imagine); it's relentless, and that does start to wear at times.  But one of the things that keeps me going when I occasionally think about hanging it up is the reward of knowing that a lot of smart people I've never met are interested in hearing my take on the world.  So, thanks to all of you.

And a special thanks to those who take the time and effort to contribute to the site themselves, by sharing their thoughts and turning what could be a boring sermon into a much more interesting discussion (the first time two people were talking to each other in comments was a big thrill for me).  Anyone who's been reading here for a while knows this site is like an iceberg—there's the small bit that's obvious to the casual observer, and the equally interesting but much larger part you don't see from the surface.  It's inordinately pleasing to me that a bunch of articulate and intelligent folks choose to offer their views here, and I'm always impressed by the level of thought that goes into it.  Even when I don't respond you should know that I read and appreciate every comment.

(If you were in the first group but not the second, why don't you consider decloaking now and again to share your views?  I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to hear what you have to say.  And that way you'll get the even-more effusive praise the next time around—and you can't really put a price on that, now, can you?)

So thanks again, and whether you're eating tofu or murderbird, here's hoping you have a delectable Thanksgiving with people you love.

At least it's not 10 out of 10

Multinational Monitor just published their list of the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008.  The good news: only 20% of them are represented by our future Attorney General's law firm!

Chomsky on the marketing of elections

Here's Noam Chomsky with one of his typically deep insights, this time on the nature of advertising and its application to elections:

The goal of advertising is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. Those of you who suffered through an economics course know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices. But industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to undermine markets and to ensure, to get uninformed consumers making irrational choices.

And when they turn to selling a candidate they do the same thing. They want uninformed consumers, uninformed voters to make irrational choices based on the success of illusion, slander, and effective body language or whatever else is supposed to be significant. So you undermine democracy pretty much the same way you undermine markets. Well, that’s the nature of an election when it’s run by the business world, and you’d expect it to be like that.

In terms of its importance and explanatory power, "the goal of advertising is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices" is right up there with "the major media...are corporations 'selling' privileged audiences to other businesses" (from).

Chomsky also points out that the Obama campaign was named "Marketer of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2008, edging out Apple.

Keeping the serfs in line

I appreciate the New York Times for its invaluable service in educating us about how elites see the world.  For instance, here's an informative (albeit incomplete) delineation of their political spectrum:

Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury — suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.

So it goes from clear-headed "pragmatists" on the center-right to unreasonable "ideologues" on the ostensible left (meaning those who at least partially share the viewpoints of the vast majority of Americans, and should therefore be ignored).  Doesn't that make things clearer?

And on Friday the Times told us all we need to know about one of Obama's key upcoming appointments with an article titled "For Treasury, Geithner Said to Be Choice; Wall St. Cheers."  A few hours later, apparently realizing they were giving away the game a bit too much, they dropped the highly instructive "Wall St. Cheers"—though you can still see it on the Internets*.

The Times always has its ideological agenda, of course, but it's rare to see it so baldly displayed as it has been over the past few weeks.  It's not hard to understand why: while addled Obama supporters feel they should give him a grace period, the Times realizes that the time to enforce ideological discipline is right now, before the die is cast.  By the time Obama's leftmost supporters get around to  criticizing him in earnest (hey, I'm an optimist), it'll be too late.

* A day later they revamped it entirely to "Fed Official is Said to be Choice for Treasury," which is neither as ideologically illuminating nor as amusingly awkward as the original.

UPDATE: FAIR is nothing but a bunch of totally big fat copycats.

Creamed Corn

Jeremy Scahill just wrote an article titled "This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites, and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House."  And David Corn, looking at the same reality through the lens of his soggy accommodationist liberalism, wrote another article titled "The Agents of Change on Obama's Transition Team."

How to resolve this contradiction?  A brutal cage match, of course!  Which is well worth reading (or watching) in its entirety to see the principled and ferociously acute Scahill dismantle Corn's attempts to put a positive spin on Obama's Clintonhawk coterie.

I'm sure you'll find your own highlights, but my favorite moment was when Corn decided to take on Reality thusly:

Listen, you know, Obama got a lot of grief during the campaign trail for his statement that he wanted to reach out to our enemies and have direct negotiations with heads of states from what some people consider to be thuggish, roguish regimes. And, you know, did he ever run away from that position? No, actually, he stuck by that position.

Reality responded by pointing out what Obama originally said in July 2007...:

QUESTION: [W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries? ...

OBAMA: I would. ... And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We've been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.

...and following that up with Obama's radical restructuring of this vow in July of 2008, in which he not only undercut what he'd said but pretended he'd never said anything different, and how could anyone think such a crazy thing:

I think that what I said in response was that I would, at my time and choosing, be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national security interests of the United States of America.

And, Dan, that continues to be my position. That if I think that I can get a deal that is going to advance our cause, then I would consider that opportunity.

But what I also said was that there is a difference between meeting without pre-conditions and meeting without preparation.

Reality replied that no, Obama said none of that.  Actually Obama went from "I would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, anywhere in the world, in the first year of my administration, without preconditions" to "I would be willing to consider meeting with any leader, at a time and place of my choosing, with sufficient preparation, if I think I can get a deal that is going to advance our cause and if it will promote the national security interests of the USA."  Reality pointed out that the word "if" introduces a condition, which is fundamentally at odds with the phrase "without precondition."  And then Reality grabbed Corn by the lapels and shouted that not only had Obama "run away" from his original position, he'd backpedaled so much that he could have won the Tour de France in reverse.

Between Scahill and Reality, David Corn had a rough day.

BONUS: Yesterday Corn lauded Obama's potential talking-to-rogues as "far more progressive than George W. Bush and even Bill Clinton" (you've got to love that "even", as though the notion of a politician being more progressive than Bill Clinton is so outré that it needs a modifier).  But when Obama actually said it back in July 2007, Corn called it a "flub" and a "mistake" that lacked "sophistication" and revealed that Obama wasn't "steeped in the nuances, language, and minefields of foreign policy."

Let us now praise Monsanto's lawyers

Glenn Greenwald offers this apologia for Eric Holder's defense of admitted murderer-financier Chiquita:

Attempts to criticize a lawyer for representing unsavory or even evil clients are inherently illegitimate and wrong -- period.   Anybody who believes in core liberties should want even the most culpable parties to have zealous representation before the Government can impose punishments or other sanctions.  Lawyers who defend even the worst parties are performing a vital service for our justice system.  Holder is no more tainted by his defense of Chiquita than lawyers who defend accused terrorists at Guantanamo are tainted by that.

This seems like a reasonable argument until you take a minute to think about it and realize it's an absurd argument with a reasonable facade.  First of all, note that Greenwald enjoins us from merely criticizing any person who defends any party, for any motivation, at any rate of pay, for any crime; after all, their role in society is so crucial that they're above even the slightest condemnation.  By his logic, then, well-paid mafia lawyers who get a cut of the money they help their clients make from murder, extortion, and prostitution are no more deserving of even the mildest criticism than (say) public defenders representing people who've had confessions beaten out of them by the police.

And I can't put enough emphasis on well-paid.  I respect the lawyers who defend accused terrorists at Guantanamo for many reasons, but one of them is that they're doing what they do for no financial reward.  To equate them to well-heeled corporate lawyers—whose only risk in refusing to defend an odious, filthy rich corporation is that they might have to move to another high-paying law firm or temporarily forgo a second Ferrari—is ridiculous.

Lawyers who defend accused terrorists at Guantanamo (or anywhere else) deserve praise precisely because they're putting principle above personal gain, often at great personal risk.  In choosing to defend Chiquita, though, Eric Holder did the exact opposite—and he most certainly deserves to be criticized for making that choice.  As does Barack Obama, for failing to take it properly into account in retaining Holder as a top legal adviser or considering him for Attorney General.

[ Thanks to SteveB for the pointer to Greenwald's article. ]

AND ALSO: Here's more background on Holder's selfless service to Chiquita:

The day after the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Eric Holder Jr. is working from Covington & Burling's elegant new Manhattan offices inside the year-old New York Times Building. He's there to prep Fernando Aguirre, the CEO of Chiquita Brands International Inc., for an interview with "60 Minutes," which will be broadcasting a segment on the company's past involvement with Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces. Last March, Holder helped Chiquita secure a slap-on-the-wrist plea deal to charges that it had paid off the terrorists.

Some of Covington and Burling's other corporate clients include arms merchant General Electric, monopolist Microsoft, drug-peddling price-fixer Merck...and yes, Satan's personal favorite corporation, Monsanto.

FURTHERMORE: Ralph Nader chimes in (indirectly):

[Nader] said that corporate lawyers begin to develop what he called "retainer astigmatism," where lawyers justify anything their client wants them to do on the grounds that everybody deserves zealous representation.

"I beg to differ," said Nader. "Corporations shouldn’t be afforded the same rights as human beings."

The form without the substance

Barack Obama has repeatedly said he opposes the Colombia Free Trade Agreement because "the history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions"—one of the few genuinely laudable stances he's taken, even if it may have been just a sop for labor unions in the US who've lobbied against the deal for just those reasons.

However:

Although no final decision has been made, the New York Times reports that the President-elect’s transition team has signaled to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior Clinton Justice Department official, that he will be selected as the next attorney general. ...

What is not being discussed too much, and was not even mentioned in today’s New York Times report, is Holder’s key role in defending Chiquita Brands International in a notorious case relating to the company’s funneling money and weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC, the right-wing paramilitary organization on the U.S. State Department’s own list of terrorist organizations.

In 2003, an Organization of American States report showed that Chiquita’s subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex, had helped divert weapons and ammunition, including thousands of AK-47s, from Nicaraguan government stocks to the AUC. The AUC – very often in collaboration with units of the U.S.-trained Armed Forces - is responsible for hundreds of massacres of primarily peasants throughout the Colombian countryside, including in the banana-growing region of Urabá, where it is believed that at least 4,000 people were killed. Their systematic use of violence resulted in the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of poor Colombians, a disproportionate amount of those people being black or indigenous.

(Much more on Chiquita's financing of chainsaw-murderer paramilitaries here.)

As you ponder whether or not Obama's consideration of Holder fatally contradicts his professed concern for human rights in Colombia, consider the veritable army of lawyers he could choose for Attorney General who didn't defend the interests of massacre-funding corporations like Chiquita.

So much alike in meaningless ways

On the surface Evo Morales is a lot like our new president: he's thoughtful, intelligent, and articulate; he often talks about change; and most of all, he's the first president of his country to come from an ethnic group that's faced vicious discrimination.

But unfortunately for us they're not similar in any of the ways that matter.  Unlike Obama, Morales' first priority is the welfare of the poorest and most powerless citizens of his country; he believes that the rights of people should be placed above the interests of corporations; he's dedicated to the peaceful resolution of disputes; he's willing to take tremendous political risks in order to achieve deep, systemic change in his country; he believes in fair trade rather than corporate-managed trade; and so on, and so on, and so on.

This is why I couldn't care less about melanin count or genitalia where politics is concerned.  What I wouldn't give to have a president here who was like Evo Morales in meaningful rather than superficial ways—even if it was a rich lily-white dude whose ancestors on both sides came over on the Mayflower.  Instead, we have all of the empty symbolism but none of the critical substance.

If you'd like to see just how fortunate Bolivians are, read this.

I misunderstood Ehud Olmert

I misunderstood Ehud Olmert.  I thought his unexpected bout of honesty and clarity a month and a half ago regarding the Palestinians also extended to Iran, due to an overly-generous reading of this other comment he made at the time:

"Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself."

And so when I saw this recent statement of his...:

"Iran has not stopped its pursuit of regional hegemony and creating chaos in this tormented region." he continued. "We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with great force."

...I thought, what a jarring contradiction!  But there's really none at all.  In the first comment, all he meant by "megalomania" was that he felt it was overreaching for Israelis to talk about attacking Iran alone; after all, some long-range refueling support would really make things simpler.  So in the second comment he makes it clear that Israel should let the United States take the lead in combating this nonexistent threat.

Reading the NYT's explanatory text for the original quote (which was much earlier in the article) made his meaning a little clearer, and I did recognize the potential double meaning when I first read it, but I suppose I assumed the thrust of the story was Olmert's startling ascent into sanity—and so I lumped his remark about Iran in with what he was saying about the Occupied Territories.  I apologize for overestimating him; it won't happen again.

And, uh..."malevolent diligence"?  Now there's a left-handed compliment.  I hope it catches on, though, because I'd rather hear about Iran's "nefarious meticulousness" or maybe its "naughty assiduousness" than hysterical (and dangerous) conflation of Ahmadinejad and Hitler.

This place is totally turkey-tastic!

I've never understood how, despite the fact that Google is indexing over 8 billion web pages that presumably contain tens of billions of images, I can do one posting featuring a picture of a turkey and end up on the front page of the Google image results for "turkey".  Yes, you heard that right: this site is now a primary source for turkey imagery on the Internets.  Turkey!  Turkey turkey turkey turkey!

And how did I find out about this?  Well, yesterday I saw a huge influx of hits from images.google.com for "turkey" searchers, probably prepping announcements for their impending Thanksgiving feasts (or perhaps wondering: just what is this "turkey" I keep hearing about? is it even a genuine person, place, or thing?).

On the plus side, this drives a lot of traffic to my own pick for one of the funniest postings I've ever done here.  On the minus side, most people are just there to see you-know-who get it in the you-know-what from a t-u-r-k-e-y, so they might miss the probing political commentary.

Choices, choices

Ran HaCohen writes:

[T]ake the voting patterns of American-Israelis. John McCain won 63% of the votes in the State of Utah, 65% in Wyoming, 66% in Oklahoma; no state gave him more. But among the 40,000 American voters residing in Israel (mostly well-integrated immigrants, or their children), McCain got as much as 75% of the votes, according to polls. That's extremism.

(To the right of Oklahoma?  Now that's saying something.)

No wonder: though official Israel was wise enough to keep silent, the media made it clear that McCain was Israel's preferred candidate, due to the concerns that Obama might take a more balanced (i.e. "Anti-Semitic") stand towards Israel.

Yes, Obama's "balanced" approach on Israel is well-known.

In my wildest fantasies I imagine what it's like to be an Israel-first voter:

Average voter: Hmm, the broken glass sandwich or the cow pie dumplings?  I can't decide.

Israel-first voter: Hmm, the free Lamborghini or the free Lotus?  It's so hard to choose!  Can I just have both?  I can?  Thanks!

Speaking of AIPAC: isn't it interesting that Mr. "real change isn't another four years of defending lobbyists who don't represent real Americans" has gone on bended knee year after year to swear his loyalty to lobbyists who don't represent real Americans?

That didn't take long

Barack Obama last year:

One year from now, we have the chance to tell all those corporate lobbyists that the days of them setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race - and I've won. I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am President, they won't find a job in my White House. Because real change isn't another four years of defending lobbyists who don't represent real Americans - it's standing with working Americans who have seen their jobs disappear and their wages decline and their hope for the future slip further and further away. That's the change we can offer in 2008.

Barack Obama today:

President-elect Barack Obama, who vowed during his campaign that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House," said through a spokesman yesterday that he would allow lobbyists on his transition team as long as they work on issues unrelated to their earlier jobs.

And I imagine our definition of "unrelated" might differ from theirs in numerous subtle ways.  Obama could fill out his transition team and his other government appointments without using lobbyists, of course, but it would mean reaching out beyond the Washington establishment—you know, altering how things are usually done.  And if there's one thing we shouldn't expect from Obama, it's variation.

I was dismayed to see Amy Goodman passing along the Obama team's spin about these being "the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history" without mentioning how he's just reversed himself on one of the major themes of his campaign:

Transition Team Limits Lobbyist Role

Meanwhile, the Obama transition team says it’s issued a set of regulations that will limit the role of lobbyists in the incoming administration. Under the new rules, lobbyists joining the transition won’t be allowed to work in the field in which they previously lobbied. And transition officials who go on to become lobbyists will not be allowed to lobby the Obama White House for at least one year.

In the hope that this was just an oversight, I sent her his quote from 2007 and suggested that she correct this report on tomorrow's show.  We'll see what happens.

UPDATE: Nothing on today's show, and she hasn't responded to my email yet either.

UPDATE 2 (11/18/2008): Still no correction or response, so it seems clear at this point that none will be forthcoming.  This isn't quite as bad as her interview with Wesley Clark, but it's still disappointing to see her uncritically passing along official spin—something she never did with Bush.  Hopefully not a harbinger of things to come, but Democracy Now! certainly isn't immune to Obamamania (even if their case isn't as severe as most).

Uncle Tom redux (with full transcript!)

Ralph Nader posted a response to the Uncle Tom brouhaha on his web site:

Anyone who has worked in the areas of civil rights, economic justice, and health and safety over the decades knows that whenever minority candidates are elected to legislative offices, their minority constituents remain wary regarding whether the entrenched power structures are affecting these self-avowed representatives, or whether the reverse is occurring – that is, they are standing up to the corporate supremacists. All political pioneers have to answer this question as they move into these positions of trust. Unfortunately, as many people of color – struggling through the day in often desperate circumstances – know from the lessons of history, there are more than a few times when they are let down by a surrender to the rich and powerful – an obeisance that has its vernacular. Let us all hope that this will not happen. Tens of millions of Americans await what actually does happen. Everyone, as alert citizens, should strive to make sure that courses of action are taken that put people first and finally make corporations our servants and not our masters.

"An obeisance that has its vernacular"?  Dude is hilarious.

There's also a link to the full audio of the KTRH interview.  And since the transcript is apparently unavailable on the Internets at the moment, I'm going to be a standup guy and transcribe it myself (below the fold).  Did you hear that, Google?  THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INFAMOUS NADER "UNCLE TOM" INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE HERE.  Index away, baby!

You know what really steams my clams about all this?  If Obama hadn't given every sign that he's going to be such a complete and total Uncle Tom for the giant corporations who are running America into the ground, so that Nader was forced to call him out in exactly those terms, it would have saved me a lot of hassle.

Congratulations to the Rosa Parks Islands

Back in January I wondered if the Marshall Islands, which had just elected an atypically independent government, might start charting its own course in terms of its United Nations decisions rather than continuing to hand over its vote to the United States.  And sure enough a few weeks ago it abstained from the annual UN General Assembly vote condemning the US economic embargo of Cuba—or as Reuters put it, "unexpectedly and without public explanation broke ranks."

Going from support to abstention may not seem like much, but take a look at the voting record for the Cuba embargo resolution over the past eight years:

2000  167-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)
2001  167-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)
2002  173-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)
2003  179-3 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands)
2004  179-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)
2005  182-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)
2006  183-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)
2007  184-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau)

And considering that US funding accounts for about 60% of the Marshall Islands' budget, defiance even on this small a scale is an enormous risk.  So congratulations to the Marshall Islands for having the courage to assert this small but very significant measure of independence from the United States.

A handy rule

Chris Floyd has some excellent advice:

[W]e would like to suggest the following conceptual framework for analyzing and understanding the moral, ethical, social, economic and legal implications of the policies and actions of the coming administration. (And it even comes with its own handy acronym!):

"WIBDI: What If Bush Did It?"

This user-friendly analytical tool provides a quick and easy way of determining the value of any given policy while correcting one's perception for partisan bias. Simply take a particular action or proposal and submit it to the WIBDI test: If Bush did this, would you think it was OK? Or would you condemn it as the act of a warmonger, or a tyrant, or a corrupt corporate tool, etc.?

This is just a variation of a question that's exceedingly useful to apply to US crimes and misdemeanors: what if <country X> did it?  For example, what if China channeled funds to anti-government political groups in the United States?  What if a Cuban organization sent planes to drop leaflets over Washington, D.C., and they were shot down?  What if Russia bombed Costa Rica for 78 days (ostensibly to defend a small breakaway region) and left behind a military base so enormous it could be seen from space?  What if Iran harbored a terrorist who'd blown an airplane out of the sky, killing 73 Americans?

Dedicated moral relativists will say that you can't apply that kind of reasoning because the United States is inherently different from other countries, and I suspect that many Democratic relativists would use a similar dodge.  But it's still worth a try (in both cases) because it highlights hypocrisy better than any other question—and while most people can live with quite a bit of cognitive dissonance in the background, there are fewer who can stand to see it brought so thoroughly into the light of day.

Thank you, David Sirota!

For producing a specimen of my absolute favorite species of progressive article: the open advice letter to the Democrats.  Filled with imperatives, these missives instruct the Democrats about what they can, nay, must do in the future to fulfill their "progressive mandate":

Obama, be progressive!

Voters want you to go big and go liberal

Maximizing this opportunity relies on Democrats understanding...  Meeting expectations requires championing far-reaching -- even radical -- initiatives. ...  To meet the challenge, Democrats have to...  They must ...  They should also...  Democrats need to....

Yes, David, I'm sure they'll get right on all that stuff they have to, must, should, and need to do to keep you happy.

What's the difference between a progressive writer giving instructions to the Democrats, and an insane homeless guy screaming at invisible devil dogs on the street corner?  The homeless guy knows nobody cares what he says.

And the Democrats are absolutely right to ignore Sirota, and all the other advice-brandishing liberals out there as well.  Why?  Let's let Sirota explain it.  Here he is talking to Amy Goodman before the election about Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama:

DAVID SIROTA: My concern is that Barack Obama has taken somewhat differing positions on the war. He spoke out pretty forcefully against it when it was politically opportune, when he was running in a Democratic primary for the US Senate. And then, when he got to the Senate, he was basically silent on the war. ... And what disturbs me most is, is this idea that not only is Powell endorsing Obama—Obama can’t prevent that—but that Obama has responded by saying that Powell might play a key role in an Obama administration. And we should ask ourselves, what does that say about Barack Obama’s promises to end this war quickly? ... And I think this declaration by Obama that Powell is going to be a top adviser in the White House potentially previews an administration that continues to write out antiwar critics. ...

AMY GOODMAN: And, David Sirota, who will you be voting for?

DAVID SIROTA: I just cast my vote. I voted for Barack Obama.

David Sirota really needs to talk to Lawrence O'Donnell.