The Unbearable Rightness of Being Certain

Giving lie to the conventional wisdom that bipartisanship is dead, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi today heaved her well-maintained self upon an increasingly crowded luxury bandwagon of Washington insiders, bull-horning to anyone who would listen: Bring Me the Head of Edward Snowden!

The more that the Democratic and Republican elites are joining hands in public to celebrate the death of the Constitution via massive domestic spying by the United States military, the more obvious it becomes that not only is the pseudoleft completely dead, it has been utterly replaced by the Big Righty Right.  If only we'd had PRISM before Nine Eleven, gushed Pelosi, we might have prevented Nine Eleven! This is what she burbled at a press con today:

"Certainly it would have improved the chances of doing that. I can't say with certainty that it would have, but it certainly would have improved the chance," she said. "It did give more opportunity to surveil."

Pelosi joins John Boehner, Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid and practically the whole Washington establishment in demanding that Edward Snowden be arrested and prosecuted for basically embarrassing the whole Washington establishment. They are, once again, blatantly acting in direct counterpoint to the mere citizens who elected them. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that at least a third of Americans consider Snowden a patriot, not a traitor, with another half unsure, and only a small minority believing he should be prosecuted. (this, despite the fact that a Gallup poll just a few days ago showed that half of us are not too bothered by being "surveilled" by the government. Maybe this will change as more people start paying attention.)

Meanwhile, yet another military poobah appeared before Congress yesterday to glibly claim that the National Security Agency spying apparatus has thwarted "dozens" of terrorist attacks. Naturally, he was not pressed for details or actual evidence. Names are being withheld to protect the nonexistent.

Meanwhile, not satisfied with calls for Snowden's arrest, resident Congressional xenophobe Peter King is also demanding the head of the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald,  When he made the outrageous McCarthyesque accusation that Greenwald intends to blow the cover of  CIA operatives, King was not pressed for details or actual evidence.

You can sometimes tell when generals and politicians are lying by their body language. The NSA's James Clapper, for example, nervously rubbed at his bald pate the entire time he lied to Congress. Other liars betray themselves by failure to make eye contact, rapid blinking and sweaty brows. But then there is that subset of psychopaths who are able to lie calmly and coolly because they lack a moral compass. They are the scariest of all.

And Peter King is in a class all by himself. His lies are debunkable because they're stupid. He only has to make his lips move to betray his mendacity. Here's Greenwald's takedown.

And here's John Oliver's takedown of the media coverage of Bring Me the Head of Edward Snowden.

With so many powerful movers and shakers trying to take us for a ride in their effort to declare the Constitution unconstitutional, we need all the takedowns we can get.

 

Play Misty Watercolored Memories For Me

No wonder half the American people are just fine with their government stalking them. The same number now hold a favorable view of George W. Bush.

If you look at the data (not mined, but gathered politely over the telephone with the consent of the questioned), you'll notice that almost a quarter of the Democrats polled now like Bush. His approval ratings have been creeping up at about the same pace at which Obama has been revealing himself to be more like Bush than not. It could just be a melding of personas.

Then again, as Gallup notes, Americans have always treated ex-presidents kindly. We are a polite bunch. If you're confronted by a stranger out of the blue, who brings up a guy back in high school named Joe Smith, and you have only a dim hazy memory of his being an obnoxious fellow, you're not going to blurt out "Yeah, he was a real S.O.B. I hate his guts!"

Since Joe Smith has not done you any actual harm in the past several years, you're more likely to be noncommittal and circumspect in your remarks,  and you might even say what a great guy he was, much the same way you reply "fine" when people ask how you're doing.  People tend to forgive, as well as forget, with the passage of time. No atrocity can be so bad as to linger in our minds forever. It behooves us to protect our mental health, not to dwell upon the past, and thus protect those least deserving of protection.

And the half of the population which approves of domestic spying? Same theory. What we never knew about never hurt us in any palpable sense. It's easier to trust leaders and experts than to educate ourselves on metadata and algorithms. It's easier, and safer, to say we approve of something when that something might be listening in on the phone call.

Breaking down  the Pew/Washington Post poll results, while half the respondents don't want the government eavesdropping on their private communications,  only a fourth of them take issue with the secret laws and secret courts that allow the practice. And as is usual in all repressive, authoritarian regimes, the fear factor is the cudgel that keeps the cowed populace in line. More than two-thirds of those polled point to fear of a terrorist attack as justification for the destruction of their privacy rights.

While the numbers are similar to polls conducted during the Bush years, there's been a near-total flip flop on the views of Republicans and Democrats on domestic spying programs. Back in 2006, only 37% of Democrats approved and 61% disapproved of the NSA surveillance program. The most recent results show that 67% of Democrats are fine with being spied on, since President Obama is the one doing it.

Three out of four Republicans loved it when Bush peeped on them. And while they say they hate it that Obama is doing them now, they don't hate it as much as the Dems hated being hounded by the odious George. Almost half the Republicans report tolerating abuse under Barack. They are just not as principled and choosy as Democrats, it seems.

We are a nation of short attention-spanned hypocrites.

So, thank God for the Germans, who do have long memories. Just before President Obama is set to perform at the Brandenburg Gate, the Germans are accusing him of Stasi tactics. The NSA sweep is sweeping them up, too. NSA, when you actually try to pronounce it, is almost a homophone of Nazi. From Reuters:

Government surveillance is an extremely sensitive topic in Germany, where memories of the dreaded Stasi secret police and its extensive network of informants are still fresh in the minds of many citizens.

In a guest editorial for Spiegel Online on Tuesday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said reports that the United States could access and track virtually all forms of Internet communication were "deeply disconcerting" and potentially dangerous.

"The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," she said.

"The suspicion of excessive surveillance of communication is so alarming that it cannot be ignored. For that reason, openness and clarification by the U.S. administration itself is paramount at this point. All facts must be put on the table."

Markus Ferber, a member of Merkel's Bavarian sister party who sits in the European Parliament, went further, accusing Washington of using "American-style Stasi methods".

I am looking forward to watching Obama's speech, to be appropriately delivered adjacent to the Tiergarten (Garden of Beasts) and the old Reichstag.

One Singular Snoopy Sensation

If you'd told me last week that Glenn Greenwald would be the featured guest on the corporate-funded Sunday blather-fests, I would have asked you what you were smoking.

If you'd told me last week that a creepy outfit named Booz Allen Hamilton was working in cahoots with the American government to spy on virtually everybody on the planet, I would have asked what you were drinking. Can I have my Booz on the rocks, please?

If you'd told me that the leaker would be a high-school dropout with an aristocratic name, as articulately well-versed in the law, politics, technology and humanitarian thought as any Ivy League meritocrat, I would have told you to throw your Clooneyesque Everyman script right back in the reject pile.

What a difference a week makes. The National Conversation has been turned upside down, and the elite official conversation-starters have landed on their collective ass in the Thump Heard Round the World. It doesn't get any better than this. It gives me renewed hope, knowing that a few people can indeed make a difference.

The outrage is palpable, the sense of relief that one person and a marginalized journalist and an independent foreign newspaper can drastically alter the way we view our country and our leaders overnight is miraculous. How do you spell B-a-c-k-l-a-s-h?

Some are saying that the irrefutable evidence that our government is spying on us will create a chilling effect, make us hesitate to use our phones and write emails and post comments saying what is really on our minds. But just in reading the more popular comments threads on media outlets like the New York Times and even more "conservative" sites like Politico, it is obvious that people are mad as hell in droves, and are not going to take it any more. At least for the time being, anyway. Whether this anger will lead to more right-wing nuts coming out of the woodwork, a resurgence of the Occupy movement or other forms of  public protest, or just a gradual slide back into lives of quiet desperation remains to be seen.

Somebody took issue with my observation yesterday, in response to Maureen Dowd's column, that the power players of the Security State are desperately trying to spread their manure of blame all over their disaster capitalist playing field. What does capitalism have to do with it, he asked. George Orwell certainly never warned us against capitalism. It was communist totalitarianism back in the day. The Cold War was just getting started when Nineteen Eighty-Four was published 65 years ago.

This was before the stunning revelation that the government is actually outsourcing spying to private corporations. 9/11 spawned a whole atrocity industry. There's a reason the Washington DC metro area is now the wealthiest enclave in the country. The Security State lives there. If you haven't yet read Dana Priest's Top Secret America, pick it up. Or, you can read the condensation here. It's Orwell with a side of Kafka and Huxley for dessert. If you don't particularly care one way or another, just keep popping your Soma with a chaser of Obama.

It's official. Capitalism has morphed into fascism, and fascism has spawned feudalism. And the lords and ladies of the manor cower behind their raised drawbridges, dreaming of falling men and rising profits, even as the peasants once again ponder sharpening the pitchforks.

I flew over the world trade center going to Senator Lautenberg's funeral. In the distance was the Statue of Liberty. And I thought of those bodies jumping out of that building, hitting the canopy, part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe.

Human intelligence isn't going to do it, because you can't -- it's a different culture. So, this kinds of strict strictly overseen, it's overseen by the justice department, by inspectors general, by audit, by a 90-day review, by the court, is looked at like a method. I'm very happy if there's a better way.

-- Secrecy fetishist Dianne Feinstein, speaking on ABC/Disney on Sunday.  This 80-year-old woman needs to retire, very soon, to the Magic Kingdom Assisted Living Facility for the Obscenely Wealthy in Neverland, USA.

The Middle Digit of Digital Dissent

Good morning, Sardonicky readers and all the fine folks at the NSA.... or should I say, the fine computers at the NSA. If the reports are true, the security state machinery is culling this blog-post as fast as I can write it, looking for suspicious words and their placement in cyberspace, the better to keep me safe, secure, and suppressed. Fat chance. I hereby give the middle-finger salute to the dweebs. 

I think I finally figured out the real reason that Congress is trying to destroy the Post Office. Even though George Bush issued that infamous signing statement back in 2007 giving himself the right open your mail, it's just way too time-consuming and messy. Actual people with hands and eyes and bodies and benefits and union cards would have to do the actual opening. Paper cuts are a real menace, along with that annoying coating of tongue glue from having to reseal so many envelopes. Cyberspying is cleaner.

 So make it difficult for them. If you have something important to say, write a letter, maintain a semblance of privacy, and support our beleaguered postal workers, paper companies and Bic at the same time.

If, however, you can't tear yourself away from the instant gratification of the instantaneousness to which you are now accustomed, there are allegedly some ways you can make it harder for James Clapper (and the corporations both serving and served by him) to glom onto your info. Roberto Baldwin of Wired gives you the low-down. In a nutshell: ditch your phones and switch to the same pay-as-you-go disposables that all self-respecting terrorists and criminals use. And don't pay with your credit card, of course. Make sure the person you're calling has a burner phone too. Use an encrypted email service, and don't click on any links while doing so. Meet people in person, the same way the various resistance movements have made contact throughout the long global history of repressive authoritarian regimes. 

And, if you do use snail mail, pay for the stamps with cash, so that the security state can't accuse you of obstructing their efforts to keep you safe. And don't forget to smile at the ubiquitous face recognition software. Or, just give the finger at random, knowing that the chances are pretty good that some security camera somewhere is picking it up for posterity, for perpetual enshrinement in the Utah storage facility.

Meanwhile, here are a few links that absolutely essential and safe for you to click on:

Glenn Greenwald on whistle-blowers, and why he does what he does. A must-read.

Marcy Wheeler calls bullshit on the White House's self-serving talking points.

Josh Gerstein eviscerates Obama's "Let's Have a Debate" drivel. (He's eager to have a national discussion on stuff only when the stuff is exposed against his will.)

Margaret Sullivan of the New York Times diagnoses her paper's schizophrenia . (Is Obama incredible, or what?)

That should also keep you low-level techies at NSA busy for all of a microsecond. Go ahead.... take an off-the-clock coffee break. I'll never tell. 

"Right now I think everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that's brand new -- it's been going on for 7 years." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Whew.... what a relief. If it had been going on for seven days, it would have been a reprehensible outrage of epic proportions. What we didn't know could only have hurt us if we knew. I guess it's kind of like being drugged and raped.

Big Brother Caught Peeping, Again

Actually, my headline is too mild. Big Brother has been caught ogling. With his pants down, into every window in America. And the strobe lights are flashing all around the world.

The Orwellian security state and the Obama administration may have put the Arctic chill on leaks, but at least one whistleblower hasn't been cowed, handing over to The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald  a classified court order authorizing the FBI to seize millions of phone records.

No response yet from the government, although I am sure Attorney General Eric Holder was already drawing up the indictment against Greenwald this morning before he even took his first sip of coffee. (thankfully, Greenwald does not reside on American soil and is free from Homeland predations)

 That day last week when Holder professed to have rued secretly glomming onto to the phone records of reporters is nothing compared to the regrets he'll feel now that this giant cat is out of the bag.

I couldn't be happier that it was Greenwald who got this scoop. He has been fearless in his criticism of the Obama administration's assault on whistleblowers, resulting in sometimes outrageous attacks by Obamians who value Loyalty to the Leader above all else. Somebody in the government was encouraged enough by Greenwald's civil liberties advocacy to risk going to jail by giving him documentation, which has been sought under a FOIA request by other news agencies, including the New York Times. Access has been consistently denied by judges, themselves probably fearful of arrest for compliance with the First Amendment.

Even though we've known for a long time that the government was conducting a massive spying campaign against us, the evidence, in cold, stark black and white, was never there before now. Read the document; it's guaranteed to send a chill up your spine. It actually orders the recipient of the subpoena (Verizon) not to talk about it under penalty of some unknown fate.

As Greenwald points out in his piece, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, in various "cryptic" statements, have already all but admitted that such a blanket surveillance operation is underway in this country. But they, too, were under threat of arrest if they went any further than veiled warnings.

Now all we have to do is wait for the reactions* to the revelation. Will it be a monumental "Meh" from jaded citizens? Will Greenwald be subject to new rounds of attacks? Will President Obama grin sheepishly as he protests that spying on innocent people Is Not Who We Are? Will progressives protest that Big Brother Loves Them?

Stayed tuned.

* White House sources (anonymous to protect the sensitivity of their cowardice) are, as expected, defending the spying program because it keeps us safe from Terrah. Also the Justice Department is wasting no time going after the leaker who dares to give aid and comfort to the citizenry.

Of Flotuses and Hecklers

One more person finally had enough of one too many politicians pontificating about how we're here for the children.... the Children.... our Children.... We have to do it for the CHILDREN....  when she finally let loose on Michelle Obama and wondered out loud (very loud) why the president has not yet fulfilled his campaign promise to guarantee equal rights for gay employees of federal contractors.

It seems that just hours before a Washington DNC fundraiser yesterday featuring the first lady, Spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged that President Obama would renege on his campaign promise to sign an executive order ending such discrimination . Once again, he would punt an issue back to Congress for its inevitable demise. So, armed with tickets starting at $500, some LGBT GetEQUAL activists attended the exclusive confab on a private estate to GetREAL with Mrs. Obama. From the pool report:

Most notable part of the event was an interruption from a protester (later identified as Ellen Sturz) about 12 minutes into the 20-minute speech. A pro-LGBT rights individual standing at the front began shouting for an executive order on gay rights. (Pool did not hear exactly what.)

“One of the things I don’t do well is this,” replied FLOTUS to loud applause. She left the lectern and moved over to the protester, saying they could “listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.”

Crowd started shouting that they wanted FLOTUS to stay.

“You need to go!” said one woman near the protester.

The protester was then escorted out, shouting “…lesbian looking for federal equality before I die.” (First part of the quote was inaudible.)

As New York Times editorialist Andrew Rosenthal hilariously puts it, "Mrs. Obama did not handle it terribly well by threatening to take her marbles and go home." But, since Michelle was the most popular girl in the tent (did I actually hear her putting it to a voice vote?) the crowd voted for Michelle, and the activist was led out by a security detail. There is no word whether she was issued a ticket refund.... or a ticket.

I wouldn't care about this tawdry episode were it not for the over-the-top reaction from the progressive blogosphere. (see the Times reader comments to the Rosenthal post.) "You Go, Girl!" was the most common response, favoring Michelle Obama, as if she were the bullying victim next door instead of a wealthy seasoned politician. Then there are the protestations that she is not the reflection of her husband's policies, nor is she a paid member of his cabinet.... and most of all, that the heckler was rude. For god's sake! --  heckling is meant to rude. Heckling is what a desperate person does when all else fails -- be it patience, politeness, groveling, friendly calls to Congress, campaign contributions, voting for a politician who pretends to be for the little guy. Heckling is a healthy response to lies, platitudes and demagoguery. Heckling is a valuable tool. It gets you press you wouldn't ordinarily get. Would anybody be talking about the punted employment rights bill today were it not for the heckler? Would the corporate media establishment have written about Medea Benjamin if she hadn't heckled Obama at his frightening oral excuse for state-sponsored terror and murder?

 I tend to agree with Rosenthal, that Mrs. Obama could have handled the situation better. Since the gathering was exclusive, what would it have cost her to promise the woman a private meeting afterward? Instead, she went genteel-ballistic and held the distraught (and rude, rude, rude!) woman up to ridicule, even denigrating her cause -- "It’s not about you or you or your issue or your thing. This is about our children.”

It reminds me of the very different, but equally gauche, way that Laura Bush once handled a heckler. Not to mention the very dissimilar ways the faux-gressives treated the episode -- because I can't seem to remember any Democratic outcry over the rudeness of the bereaved Iraq war mother who heckled Mrs. Bush during a campaign speech in New Jersey in 2004. Sue Niederer showed up at that event wearing a t-shirt bearing the message: PRESIDENT BUSH: YOU KILLED MY SON.

 Molly Ivins described the event in her book Bill of Wrongs:

When Laura Bush started speaking about the war, Niederer stood up and shouted "Why aren't your children serving?" She was swarmed by young volunteers carrying placards, who had instructions to surround any protester, hold up their signs, and chant "Four more years! Four more years!"

The commotion caught the attention of the first lady's security detail.

Laura Bush might have seized the moment. Confronted by a grieving mother who had lost her son a few months earlier, she might have paused and asked Sue Niederer to meet with her in private after the event concluded. A mother -- "a mom" as George W says -- of twin daughters two years younger than Seth Dvorin was when his life ended in Iraq might empathize.

For a moment, Niederer thought that might happen. She had overestimated the compassion and agility of the first lady."Her jaw dropped and her face froze when I spoke" Niederer said.

The bereaved mother was then escorted out by the Secret Service, jailed and handcuffed to a wall until the campaign event was over, and Laura Bush was safely out of town. Charges were eventually dropped, because they couldn't think up a crime fast enough.

It reminds me of the time during the Obama campaign, when the prez was set to face off against  Mitt Romney for the infamous Binders Full of Women debate, and Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Cherie Honkala showed up. Those women never even got the chance to heckle (not that they necessarily would have, mind you) before the Secret Service whisked them away and handcuffed them to metal chairs....  until the Obamas and the Romneys were safely out of town.

I am actually surprised that the Washington establishment does not get heckled regularly. They deserve it. And it's a healthy means of expression for the abused and the marginalized. Tomatoes, rotten eggs and flying shoes are also in order.

Of course, there is that little matter of H.R, 347, passed last year, which facilitates the criminalization of demonstrations within the sight or hearing of any public figure receiving Secret Service protection.

There are free speech zones.... and then there is the Twilight Zone, where democracy sunsets, humanists are ridiculed, and crowds mindlessly chant "Four More Years! Four More Years!"

 

Annoying Email of the Day

 

Dear Karen,

Last November, we did something special: we took on the full power of the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, FOX News, and the energized Republican Right, and we re-elected President Obama.

How did it all happen? In The Center Holds, Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an embattled President fighting back with the support of millions of us.

Buy yourself a copy and savor our historic victory!

Bob Fertik

This is the same Bob Fertik who co-founded the anti-Bush, anti-war organization called AfterDowningStreet.org (I still wear my ADS tee shirt occasionally, and my ADS sticker is still affixed to my old laptop.) This is the same Bob Fertik who, in 2009, called for the newly-elected Barack Obama to hold the Bush war criminals accountable for torture and worse. This is the same Bob Fertik who apparently hasn't noticed that "the man you re-elected" has not only embraced Bush's anti-democratic policies, he has expanded upon them. And that the man "we" re-elected raked in over $1 billion from kowtowing to the rich donor class, and that his re-election victory was wholly dependent upon that money paying for non-stop branding, advertising, and super-secret data mining.

Oh, and the fact that Mitt Romney was the greatest gift that the Wall Street Democrats could ever have asked for. Mitt Romney is the devil incarnate, and Obama is the devil in disguise. "We" chose the Satan Sandwich with the more appealing garnish. 

Incidentally, the Jonathan Alter book, based on the usual insider intrigue, sycophantic access and schmooze, is getting lukewarm reviews. (here, here, here ) I'd already decided to give it a pass after Maureen Dowd plugged it in a recent column. As I mentioned in my comment at the time, I'd call such discourse shallow were it not for the fact that whenever I read that kind of stuff, I feel like I'm suffocating in a deep hole, with no chance for escape.

The centrist cult center of the plutocrats that Alter serves so well may be holding, but millions upon millions of Americans are barely hanging on by a thread. And because six media companies now control 90% of everything we read, see and hear, Alter is getting the grand book tour star treatment. The true center cannot hold for very much longer. It's shrinking as fast as the polar ice, as almost all of the gains since the 2008 meltdown have gone straight to the top. A recent report from the St. Louis Fed reveals that the average household has only regained 45% of the wealth it lost since the beginning of our long depression. And put another way, via Pew Research," the end of the recession in 2009 through 2011 (the last year for which Census Bureau wealth data are available), the 8 million households in the U.S. with a net worth above $836,033 saw their aggregate wealth rise by an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the 111 million households with a net worth at or below that level saw their aggregate wealth decline by an estimated $0.6 trillion."

Yeah. It's a deep, dark, suffocating hole. It's the Class War. And yet here we have an erstwhile "aggressive progressive" tell us that it's really all about a Battle Royale between Obama and his enemies.