Ronald Reagan Film Festival

By Distributorcap

In honor of the Gipper's one hundred years (and of his eight years of horrendous policies poisoning this planet), we have the first centennial Ronald Reagan Film Festival. Forget the No-doz, bring Thorazine.

AOL buys HuffPost

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For a whopping $315 million.

As a (fairly frequent) HuffPost blogger, my cut will be... zero.

Good times.

**********

I really don't know whether this is a good thing or bad thing, but my inclination is to be optimistic.

Kevin Drum writes that it "sounds completely crazy" and that "[t]he odds of this being a good deal for AOL stockholders seem astronomical."

But, honestly, what is AOL these days? I can't remember the last time I visited an AOL website (except for MapQuest) and I can't remember the last time AOL mattered in any meaningful way as a major media outlet. To me, AOL is essentially the Internet for dummies, as unsophisticated as it is useless.

So AOL desperately needed to do something, anything to regain its lost significance. In particular, it needed content, which is what it gets a whole lot of in acquiring HuffPost.

Will the synergy work? Maybe, maybe not, but it's worth a shot, and certainly Arianna is positive about it.

And, what's more, Arianna will have editorial control over all AOL content as head of the new Huffington Post Media Group. Why is this a good thing? Well, because she's on the left, and because the content that appears on HuffPost -- including, of course, my posts -- are for the most part liberal/progressive.

In an age, then, of generally right-wing corporate control of the media, this AOL-HuffPost merger (which is what it is, even if the former is buying the latter) could create a huge liberal/progressive media outlet, much bigger than HuffPo is now. And that, if managed properly, is just the sort of thing we need.

As Steve Benen writes, "this seems like a pretty good deal. The Huffington Post gets an expanded reach, while AOL gets the eyeballs that follow one of the most powerful online news behemoths." And as Arianna herself explains:

By combining HuffPost with AOL's network of sites, thriving video initiative, local focus, and international reach, we know we'll be creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform.

Yes, let's hope so. In my own small way, I'm just happy to be a part of it. 

********** 

In related news, we're going to learn more about Keith Olbermann's future tomorrow.

Dictatorships 101, in 2011

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar

Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France.

(Ed. note: This is Ali's second guest post at The Reaction. In January 2010, he co-wrote a post on Iran with Bryan Tollin. -- MJWS)

As Egypt moves ever closer to life without Hosni Mubarak, governments and analysts everywhere ponder the important question of what will come next. The conventional and clichéd wisdom pronounced by pundits and politicians the world over focuses on the risk of a dramatic rise to power for the Muslim Brotherhood and the inevitability of a new Islamist, and implicitly dictatorial, ruling establishment. Disaster for the U.S., for Israel, and for the future of Egypt, right? If the events of recent weeks demonstrate anything, however, it is that dictatorship is increasingly difficult to manufacture in the age of modern communications.

Let's take a step back and acknowledge exactly what these Twitter and Facebook "revolutions" have managed to overcome in just Tunisia and Egypt so far (bearing in mind events in Jordan and Yemen as well). Former president Ben-Ali ruled over Tunisia, with the help of a highly-trained secret police force (among other levers of control), for over 20 years. Just weeks before he fled the country, few a Tunisian would have ever imagined a day where he and his cronies would not dominate the landscape of politics and life in Tunisia for as long as he lived. What had largely been considered one of the most stable and pacified populations in the Arab world, however, took to the streets in large numbers, rendering the president's apparatus of control inoperable against the masses of people from which it was drawn. Increasingly facing the possibility of internal betrayal and what that would mean for his own head, Ben-Ali fled. What happened afterwards, however, was in many ways more remarkable than his being deposed.

The government that immediately replaced the Ben-Ali regime was largely made up of his associates. And while that new government immediately pledged and took concrete steps to dismantle the means of censorship and develop democratic institutions, the Tunisian population, well-informed, continued to protest. Staging demonstrations and continuing to put pressure on a still-infant government, remaining elements from the old guard were purged from the new interim regime. All the evidence suggests that Tunisia is on its way to democratic institution-building and free elections. From communication to coordination, it is hard to imagine how such an historic sequence of events could have happened without the Internet tools that have only become widely used in the region in the last few years.

Events in Egypt are, in the most important ways, following a similar trajectory. While such events are impossible to predict, it is reasonable to hypothesize that, as in Tunisia, no group that fills the potential power vacuum in Egypt will have the clout, influence, or muscle that Mubarak developed over the last 30 years to implement his dictatorial rule. With the tools at the disposal of the world's citizens today, the fear of new dictatorships springing out of such well-established ones -- former dictatorships that had decades to harness accountability from their repressive systems -- seems almost far-fetched. The protesters and the press, emboldened by the information and images they see and transmit in seconds, are already focusing their rhetoric on a post-Mubarak era and the avoidance of a failed transition to democracy.

The world's governments that have been criticized for becoming more dictatorial in the last decade seem to have done so through reform, not revolution. Take Venezuela, for example. The specter of an Iranian-type genuine revolution turned radical Islamic regime also seems unlikely in the Egyptian context. The lack of a unified and charismatic Islamic front (with the Muslim Brotherhood being rather late to the game), coupled with the modern means of communication that are helping to topple Mubarak, will threaten to make the consolidation of power for a new dictatorial regime untenable unless it is extremely popular.

Most importantly, though, let's acknowledge that democracy's growing pains, whatever they may be, deserve the opportunity to play themselves out. It is not the business of entities foreign to Egypt to try and divine the potential makeup of a future government, and then exercise preference over whether or not Egyptians have a right to their own destiny. Foreign influence (short of intervention) should be designed to help strengthen populations and countries that seek to take destiny into their own hands, in the model of Tunisia (with the U.S.' encouragement of Ben-Ali's stepping down), and not in the old model of Iran. Note that the undermining of Iran's popular and democratic movements of yesterday are thought to have contributed to the radicalism and anti-Americanism of its revolution and its government today.

U.S. policy suggests it is frantically trying not to be on the wrong side in Egypt, and in the region generally. We should consider, though, the monumental reputational damage the U.S. will sustain if it stands on the side of autocracy or even ambiguity as it has done in the last two weeks. The specter of loss of interests should yield to the realization that only democratic partners in the region can protect our interests permanently, and that those democratic partners had better be our friends.

The Packers win Super Bowl XLV. And yet we Steelers fans can still be proud of our team.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't really have all that much to say about the Super Bowl. (I tweeted a lot during the game, so check out my feed and, if you so desire, follow me.)

I was emotionally invested in the Steelers to an incredibly deep degree and it was a tough loss. And yet I'm not terribly disappointed.

I didn't think they'd make it this far, what with Big Ben's suspension and the injuries to key members of the offensive line, and they lost to a really good team on Sunday, a Packers team that was much better than its regular-season record and low playoff seed, a Packers team that is really quite likeable, much more so than the Ravens and the Jets and Steelers's main rivals in the AFC.

Okay, I'm disappointed. But I'm not bitter. And I'm disappointed because they didn't play nearly as well as they could have, and should have. They got off to a terrible start, turned the ball over three times, and didn't come through when it mattered. But they had a chance to win, long before the final drive. They just didn't do it. And while a Super Bowl loss is hard to take, it's still a Super Bowl loss, meaning the Steelers made it further than 30 other teams in the NFL.

I became a Steelers fan back in the '70s, when I was a kid growing up in Montreal. We didn't have an NFL team, obviously, and so everyone just sort of picked one. There were older Giants and Packers fans, newer Dolphins and Vikings fans, and of course, Steelers and Cowboys fans. I don't remember how it happened. I was four or five. I liked the Steelers even before I liked the Canadiens, who are a religion in Montreal. And I got to see them win a couple of Super Bowls, their third and fourth. And then it was a long stretch through some lean years until they got back on top, and I've seen them win two more Super Bowls in just the past several years. And, really, they've been one of the league's top teams for a decade. So why should I be all that disappointed?

I love the Steelers, and I take ever loss hard. After the game I wasn't angry or bitter. I just felt bummed out. I didn't say much. I had most of the game to anticipate a Packers victory, but that second half was intense, and it looked like the Steelers might just pull it off, an improbable comeback after a miserable first half. But it was not to be.

But I'm proud of what they accomplished this year, and I feel good about their prospects -- assuming there's even an NFL season this year.

And so we move on. It's the agony and ecstasy of sports fandom. The lows, even taken in perspective, are hard to take, but the Steelers have given us many highs over the years, and we Steelers fans, even in defeat, can find not just solace but a certain joy in being fans of such a magnificent franchise.

Congrats to the Packers. They deserved it. But congrats also to our beloved Steelers for a great year.

You're a good man, Hosni Mubarak

By Capt. Fogg

"I also think there comes a time for everybody when it's time to hang it up and move on,"

Said Former Vice President Dick Cheney. It would seem that he didn't feel the end of his term in office was such a time for him, smoothly transitioning from denouncing all critics in an official and perhaps illegal fashion to doing as much as a private citizen. He's only moved out, not moved on.

He was of course referring to the apparent end game of Hosni Mubarak, a "Good man" says he.

"he's been a good friend and ally to the United States, and we need to remember that"

That's a statement hard to remark upon so I won't. I'll only add the good Mr. Mubarak to the list of rogues our government has supported for similar reasons through the years, choosing "stability" over every other consideration. Like many administrations from Reagan, whose anniversary he was celebrating, to that of Cheney and Bush, we've provided weapons to tyrants while the people suffered from want. We've overthrown democratic choices and prevented elections and installed monsters and looked the other way at nauseating atrocities simply to serve our appetites.

Yes, Mubarak did what we paid him to do and you'll note that those are American tanks patrolling the streets, American jets overhead. He maintained an uncomfortable peace with Israel and helped us punish oil-rich Iraq. He did resist the pressure from fundamentalist Theocrats and he helped us to apply torture methods even our own flimsy consciences wouldn't allow -- and we paid him to do it and didn't place many strings on our largess. He was a good man.

Cheney as an unhealthy old man, younger but much sicker than Mubarak and I'm sure we can look ahead to other, not too distant days and the gathering of other people telling us Dick Cheney was a "good man" just like the other good and bloody handed friends and allies. Let the circle be unbroken.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Glenn Beck is crazy, but he's one of the Democrats' best friends

By R.K. Barry

I usually get home around six and almost immediately turn on MSNBC and pretty much keep it on as background noise through most of the evening. If you watch MSNBC with any regularity, you will know that show after show presents the day's political events from a relatively mild liberal-left perspective – at least from my point of view. 

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, etc. are on the roster. If there is one thing I wish they would do it's compare notes a little bit better because it seems that night after night they all cover pretty much the same stuff. Now, I know when world-changing events such as are happening in Egypt occur, it's impossible for any political pundit to refrain from commenting and that's fine.

But last week, on one given night, every single show did a little rant on Glenn Beck's recent fearmongering, conspiracy-theory claim that the events in Egypt are prelude to a generalized takeover by Muslim extremists in all parts of the Middle East as well as Europe and, who knows, even perhaps the United States. His claim is typically supported by an argument that radical socialists and communists will make common cause with radical Muslims because, as he argues, they have a common enemy – capitalism and freedom-loving people everywhere.

Having said all of that, I must also quickly say that I don't give a fuck what Glenn Beck thinks, though apparently a lot of people who reject his views still seem pretty focused on them.

What I struggle with is the extent to which I should pay any attention to this fool at all. More often than I can say I have either written or otherwise commented that I no longer want to write about or think about Glenn Beck. But here I am again.

When his lies and idiotic theories put the life of a hard-working, civic-minded, academic in jeopardy, simply because she is on the left, in the same way that a lot of us are, we have to call him out. This is just dangerous nonsense and we have to address it. I am of course referring to what he has been doing to City University of New York professor Frances Fox Piven, which you can read more about here.

But typically what he goes on about is so stupid and without any intellectual value that I want to ignore it. Then I think about the impact that he and Rush Limbaugh and others on the radical right are having on our national debate and have to rethink my willingness to call it fringe behavior unworthy of attention.

We do notice that Republican politicians are loathe to criticize Beck and Limbaugh and others, knowing that, if they do, those who watch such programming and are influenced by it are highly motivated and inclined to punish at the polls anyone who attempts to challenge the passionately held, albeit nutty, views espoused by these guys.

And this is the point. Right-wing extremism in the media, through the power of a focused and unrelenting message and the reach of media conglomerates, has by now a pretty good track record of motivating a significant segment of the conservative base to influence nominations and general elections. But as we also know, the outcome has not always been a happy one for the conservative side.

The reason for their mixed success is that so much of politics, especially in nomination contests, happens at the margins. Nomination contests are frequently about motivating true believers to care about yet another layer of political contest, which is where extremism can flourish.

This is why we end up with incompetent and unsuccessful candidates like former Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. This is why Sarah Palin can say any number of really stupid things and the Republican establishment has to pick its spots very carefully if it wants to criticize her. Establishment Republican candidates don't want to piss off those who are likely to be motivated enough to get involved in nomination battles, either as activists or voters. I don't know what percentage of the Republican base this characterizes. I don't know what percentage would be unhappy hearing their media heroes criticized by potential Republican candidates. Is it 5%, 10%, 15%? Whatever it is, it would be a big number in politics.

In politics, highly engaged voters at the margins are key. You need to keep them motivated, whether that motivation is about anger or about hope for a new future. They have a disproportionately important role to play in determining who gets to run in the general election. 

So, yes, I do resolve to pay limited attention to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the other right-wing crazies on the merits of their arguments, which, frankly, have no merit. But we should have no doubt that they are masters at stoking a certain kind of American political paranoia that has been with us for a long time, and let us at least give them their due for that.

A lot of people are saying that Beck has jumped the shark with his latest ramblings about Egypt. Maybe. For me, he's jumped so many sharks I've stopped counting.

I do think, however, that there is a bad moon rising for the Republicans as we head towards the 2012 elections, based on the dynamic put in play by the radical right and their cheerleaders on national television and radio.

Weak Republican candidates will continue to get nominated based in part on the passion of those on the margins who are driven by Beck and company. Republican presidential nominees will have to play to this constituency if they hope to secure the nomination, which almost surely guarantees their failure in the general election. There just aren't that many crazy people out there.

So there, I've talking myself into a changed position. Let's keep on talking about Glenn Beck. Let's help get his audience all excited and out of control. It can only help remind the sane part of the American electorate that they are not like Beck and those who take him seriously, that they are better than that.

I guess I also think that MSNBC should continue to go for it when it comes to Beck. But don't just do it in that way that you usually do, by mugging for the camera as he says one silly thing after another. That is just not that useful. No, I would challenge every responsible media outlet to ask every credible Republican nominee for office if they will disavow the crap spewed by Beck and Limbaugh. Force them to try to play the fringe of their own party against its vital center and then wish them good luck with that.

It's a little bit like House Speaker John Boehner being unwilling to criticize birthers in his own caucus.

Let us resolve, then, to make every Republican candidate wear the foolishness coming out of all those televisions and radios as Democrats march on to success in 2012. Seems like a plan.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

How the GOP is a party of words: Promises are promises are promises...

By Nicholas Wilbur

Transitions are always difficult. If you're a Republican, Change® is particularly tough to swallow – which is why the GOP spent the last two years projectile vomiting on anything that tasted like "Progress" and throwing filibuster tantrums whenever Congress debated a bill on Capitol Hill.

They swept the midterm elections, nonetheless, not with a strong record – or any record at all – but by riding the coattails of the anti-government prattle of the Tea Party patriots who flooded the mainstream media with sensational circus theatrics and apocalyptic prophesies of the country's imminent demise were Democrats to remain in power.

The seemingly sane but obviously stubborn Republicans teamed up with Tea Party candidates and capitalized on the nation's fears and doubts by crafting a national message so bold it could not be ignored, even by liberals, who, for good or ill, were transfixed. Traditional Republicans, as the media has since dubbed the non-Tea Partiers, touted a "repeal and replace" strategy to undo the alleged devastation wrought by the Obama Administration and his Democratic Party minions in Congress. The Teabaggers, as the left-wing media dubbed the ideological extremists, did their part by peppering the rhetoric with threats to amend the Constitution and deny citizenship to brown people, abolish the IRS, and defund the departments of interior, commerce and education that these Fox News junkies believed had become a black hole for taxpayer dollars. 

But Republicans knew they couldn't continue riding in the back of the leadership bus through 2011. With majority control of the lower branch of Congress, there was a sudden expectation that these new leaders would actually lead, that these new lawmakers would actually make laws. Bitching and whining and obstructing the legislative process at every turn would not suffice with majority status in "the people's house" of Congress. 

They had to appear, at least on the surface, that they were worthy of the government paychecks they received.

And so, after a year-long campaign focused on accusing Democrats of ignoring the main concern of the American people – job creation – Republicans got right down to business upon entering office. Sort of. 

They amended the House rules to require that all bills brought to the floor include a constitutional citation of lawfulness. They rescinded the already limited voting rights of delegates from D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and elsewhere. They required that all bills include spending cuts to offset any costs needed for implementation of the newly-proposed legislation (exempting, of course, tax cuts for the rich and their repeal of President Obama's health-care law). And they changed the House schedule to give every lawmaker one week off for every two weeks worked. 

That was just the beginning. 

As they settled into their new positions of power, Republicans showed their dedication to the financially strapped American working class by introducing... a bill to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, a bill to abolish the IRS and eliminate the income tax, and another bill that would redefine rape. 

Having promised to cut $100 billion from the federal budget this fiscal year, Republicans drafted legislation to free up a whopping $61 million (yes, million) in the budget by abolishing public financing for presidential elections. Most recently, they voted on what amounts to an office memo, a skeletal outline, a very rough, very unspecific, and very ambiguous House Resolution that calls for $32 billion in cuts.

Not exactly landmark legislation. Not legislation at all, in most cases. In fact, the only significant piece of legislation proposed thus far by Republicans has been the health-care repeal bill, which, given its chances of becoming law, wasn't much of a bill at all. They spent the last year promising to "repeal and replace" the 2,000-plus-page law known by conservatives as "ObamaCare," but the "replace" portion of the promise was conveniently absent from the two-paragraph repeal bill passed in the House. As they knew it would, this faux legislation failed in the Senate.

So here we are one month into the new Congress, with Republicans still reeling from a landslide victory over Democrats in the midterm election, and what do we have to show for it? 

Nothing. 

And looking back, we should not be surprised. We all saw this coming. 

After "shellacking" Democrats in the midterm elections, Republicans returned to Washington intent on "saving millions of taxpayer dollars." They began this quest by attempting to eliminate grant funding for public radio. The $3.2 million in projected annual savings was pittance, they knew, and doomed to failure, as they eventually saw. But they tooted their horns and banged their drums nonetheless, eventually blaming liberals for offering government handouts to Not Pro Republican media outlets. Next in line: banning earmarks, another pittance estimated to save $16 billion a year. That fell flat when Republicans realized that banning earmarks meant they could no longer fund infrastructure projects in their home states. There were also targeted efforts to deny unemployment benefits, thwart the judicial "interference" in cases where employees are raped on the job, and kill a bill to award health care to 9/11 first responders. 

The last two months of the 111th Congress saw more of the same blind Republican opposition that had defined their presence in Washington, really, since Democrats won the majority in 2006. In the final days of 2010, Republicans followed up their backward opposition to the DREAM Act and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by fighting vigorously against even the no-brainer nuclear arms treaty with Russia, New START. 

They railed against excessive government spending (without acknowledging their role in the unpaid-for prescription drug program, the Bush tax cuts, and the two wars that created a $1.3 trillion deficit by the end of Bush's second term), but then balked when it came time to identify specific spending cuts. Perhaps in their most egregious display of hypocrisy, Republicans threatened to shut down the government if President Obama and the Democrats didn't get on board with the GOP priority of extending Bush's tax cuts for another two years. 

It worked. The rich kept their disproportionate tax breaks, but the result didn't quite live up to the Republican Party's pledge to cut spending back to 2008 levels, as outlined in their "Pledge to America" campaign manifesto. Conversely, it cost about $100 billion more than the 2009 economic stimulus bill they so loathed. 

The empty promises, the lofty and impractical goals, the "repeal and replace" agenda that has thus far come up empty on both fronts – these have all proven mere strategies in a shell game of hallow rhetoric meant to brainwash taxpayers into thinking that their new leaders in Washington are well-deserving of the $174,000 (plus health care benefits) that we pay them for representing We the People.

The naysayers and witch hunters of anything smelling of liberalism have demonstrated that they are not patriots defending against Socialism as much as they are stalwart defenders of the Bush-era status quo. The people loved them for it throughout the last congressional session, they praised them for it throughout the campaign season, and they turned out in swaths to reward them for it at the ballot box on Nov. 2, 2010. Now a month into the 112th Congress, Republicans are enjoying their highest popularity rating in years.

Republicans interpreted the last election as a mandate against the progressive agenda. Voters, they said, showed unequivocally that they wanted whatever was the opposite of progress and change. 

This is about as close as it gets.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.) 

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Background photo of John Boehner from National Journal.

Republican favorable/unfavorable chart from Gallup.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.us

The economic aspects of the Egyptian protests

Guest post by Dan Fejes 

Dan Fejes is a blogger at Pruning Shears. He lives in northeast Ohio.

(Ed. note: This is Dan's second guest post at The Reaction. You can find his first, on the Arizona shooting, a response to the stupidity of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, here. -- MJWS)

**********

Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have pretty quickly settled on an ideological basis for the unrest in Egypt. By doing so, it has ignored a more compelling -- and prosaic -- explanation.

There appears to be a yawning chasm between what is happening in Egypt and elite opinions in D.C. Consider this exchange between Chris Matthews and NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engel:

ENGEL: The Muslim Brotherhood is telling the army that it can be a reasonable, rational organization. I did an interview tonight with one of the senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was telling me to tell the American people that the Muslim Brotherhood can be reasoned with, wants to be a player, isn't a radical group. So you're trying -- you are seeing the Muslim Brotherhood legitimize itself, much in the same way you saw Hamas try and legitimize itself during the elections in Gaza.

MATTHEWS: Does that surprise you, as someone who really grew up over there as a journalist, living among the Muslim Brotherhood? Does it surprise you that they could be copacetic with the military?

ENGEL: Not at all. A lot of them are truly patriotic Egyptians. They don't necessarily want to overthrow the military regime. In the belief structure and the political structure that the Muslim Brotherhood has, which is common in Islamic moments, they believe in a strict hierarchy. There can be a ruler. There can be a military ruler. But as long as that military ruler doesn't impede on the ability of the Muslim people to worship, then they have no problem with that. So they could live very copacetically with the military. It's not that it is a Taliban kind of movement that wants to take over...

MATTHEWS: I get you.

ENGEL: ...and tell everyone what to do and how to do it. They're very patriotic. They have lot of supporters. You mentioned I lived with a lot of them. They were nice people. I mean, If you fell down in the street, they would come and help you out. If you didn't have enough money for the bus, they would give you money. There was a community feeling that a lot of people are nostalgic about in this country that is still present in the poorer, more Muslim -- more Islamic communities here.

What people are so upset about is prices have gotten so high, there's become this elite class of Egyptians that...

MATTHEWS: Right.

ENGEL: ...no longer reflects a lot of the traditional cultural values here. And the Muslim Brotherhood still does embrace those values very close to its chest.

Matthews comes across as somewhat surprised that the Muslim Brotherhood could play a legitimate role in a new Egyptian government. The assumption, apparently widespread in Washington, is that a populist Islamic movement is necessarily violent. (In fairness, they might just be extrapolating from America's own experience with religious extremists.)

In fact, he might even be something of an outlier in his mildness. Tom Friedman, who usually -- but not always! -- hides his anti-Islamic fervor well, had this to say: "For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had all the leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy and build a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood."

He simply postulates that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite pole of an authoritarian state. He does not appear to have done any analysis to arrive at that conclusion. He has not spoken with anyone in the organization (my God man, are there no taxis in Cairo?) (Also see this, just because.) He just assumes that everyone intuitively grasps exactly what he does.

That seems to be roughly the center of conventional wisdom. To find the far edge of fear and loathing, see this from Richard Cohen: "The next Egyptian government -- or the one after -- might well be composed of Islamists. In that case, the peace with Israel will be abrogated and the mob currently in the streets will roar its approval." His entire misanthropic screed throbs with the message: these savages cannot govern themselves. It isn't even subtext at this point. It's right there on the surface.

There does not appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might be driving the protesters. What was touted as an economic miracle was disastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; Nomi Prins called this "the appearance of enhancement." Robust economic growth was outpaced by inflation, which lead to widespread hunger (I refuse to use the euphemism "food insecurity"). Food riots have killed people. The marvels of globalization have been decidedly less wonderful for many.

Do the anti-Islamic commentators in Washington have any sense that such workaday issues might just be front-and-center in the protester's minds? And that any party that begins to address them will thereby enjoy the consent of the governed?

**********

As a coda, those of us in the West might want to consider the following thoughts William Gamble shared about Tunisia:

All authoritarian governments everywhere, by definition, are not limited by any legal restraints. This allows elites to become rent seekers often through state-owned companies and monopolies. Without legal limits, the percentage of the GDP that they take for themselves will constantly increase.

[snip]

The main impact of an economy of corruption is on investment, the investments necessary to create jobs. For Tunisia and many other emerging and frontier markets, this is a major if not the issue. The unemployment rate in Tunisia is officially 13%, but it is probably twice this for younger people. Even university graduates face an unemployment rate of over 15%. This is not unusual for these markets where unemployment rates among younger workers can rise as high as 40%. According to the IMF, the Middle East needs to grow 2% faster every year to avoid its present chronic and high unemployment.

Worsening inequality, impunity for those at the top, reduced investment leading to high unemployment: a multi-party democracy in which a governing majority is persistently unresponsive to public opinion is functionally similar to a one-party state. And prone to similar expressions of dissatisfaction.

John Kerry really wants to be secretary of state

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Joan Vennochi writes in the Globe:

The Bay State's senior senator is running an unofficial campaign to become the next secretary of state. For once, he looks artful, as well as ambitious.

His recent opinion piece in the New York Times said what President Obama couldn't or wouldn't: Mubarak must go.

Kerry's conclusion was elegant, but unequivocal: "President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure."

Of course, one has a certain freedom as a senator that one does not have as secretary of state -- or even as president -- and so Kerry can be direct in a way that Obama and Clinton cannot. Still, his strong position on the situation in Egypt is admirable, and while picking Hillary to be secretary of state made sense for Obama after the tough primary battle they waged, a "team of rivals" to unite the Democratic Party, it makes sense to turn to Kerry next, whenever Hillary leaves her post, perhaps after the 2012 election should Obama win.

I have defended Obama's handling of the situation, from the American perspective, but I agree to a certain extent with Vennochi that his administration generally "looked unprepared and off-balance when Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo." I don't necessarily fault Obama for this, as the situation and its likely outcome was unclear and he needed to walk a fine line with Mubarak, if only not to alienate him (and endanger U.S. interests) in the event he remained in power, but I do wish Obama would respond with greater moral clarity for once instead of equivocating (and, in this case it would seem, dismissing the pro-democracy movement and supporting, even if just as a "transition," yet more tyranny).

I'm not sure Kerry would bring such moral clarity to Foggy Bottom, and, even if he did, he wouldn't really be in a position to articulate it as formal U.S. policy unless authorized to do so, but he would be a smart, refreshing addition to Obama's team.

A conflicted life ends -- Last Tango in Paris actress Maria Schneider dead at 58

By J. Thomas Duffy

It was quite a surprise to see the name of actress Maria Schneider in the obit column today.

As much for remembering the long-ago crush, as for how long she has been out of the news, the limelight dimmed for quite some time.

Last Tango in Paris

Maria Schneider, Brando's "Last Tango" costar

Ms. Schneider died yesterday in Paris "following a long illness," a representative of the Act 1 talent agency said, but declined to provide details.

Ms. Schneider was 19 when she starred opposite Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's racy "Last Tango in Paris." In it, she played Jeanne, a young Parisian woman who takes up with a middle-aged American businessman, played by Brando.

Full of explicit sex scenes, "Last Tango" was banned in Italy for obscenity for nearly two decades, returning to cinemas there only in 1989. In the United States, the movie still has an NC-17 rating for its sexual content, meaning it can't be seen by children under 17 years of age.

I'm quite sure anyone over the age of 18 back in 1972 either (A) flocked to the movies to see the film Last Tango in Paris, or (B) was aware of the controversy surrounding its explicit sex scenes, or (C) rushed to the record store to get the smoking soundtrack featuring the great saxophonist Gato Barbieri.

I indulged in A and C of the above.

In her youth, Maria Schneider was incredibly beautiful, which was likely the factor in getting her two big roles. Three years after Tango, she starred with Jack Nicholson in The Passenger).

All the obituaries mention "a long illness," which included drugs and, as a few referenced, "mental illness."

No doubt, Last Tango in Paris was perhaps the beginning of what seemed to be a troubled life:

In the film, Jeanne enters into a brief but torrid affair with a recently widowed American, played by Brando. Their erotically charged relationship, played out in an empty apartment near the Bir Hakeim Bridge in Paris, shocked audiences on the film's release in 1972, especially a scene in which Brando pins Ms. Schneider to the floor and, taking out a stick of butter, seems to perform anal intercourse on her. The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an X rating.

The role fixed Ms. Schneider in the public mind as a figurehead of the sexual revolution, and she spent years trying to move beyond the role, and the public fuss surrounding it. "I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol," she told The Daily Mail of London in 2007. "I wanted to be recognized as an actress, and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown. Now, though, I can look at the film and like my work in it."

The famous butter scene, she said, was not in the script and made it into the film only at Brando's insistence. "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci," she said. "After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take."

It still brings about a veil of sadness.

RIP Maria Schneider.

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Last Tango In Paris trailer

Gato Barbieri -- Last Tango in Paris

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

"Those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint."

By Capt. Fogg

I don't have to look for evidence that the United States of America isn't united, unless you consider enraged confusion to be a uniting factor. A Pew polling report last year showed that only 34 percent of Americans think Obama is a Christian. I have no idea how many Americans like me, don't give a damn if he's a Zoroastrian as long as he keeps his scriptures under his pillow and not under mine. His religion or lack thereof is no more significant to me than his favorite basketball team and indeed the private beliefs of most of our better presidents have rarely been a factor in their official lives.

Of course those who wish to destabilize and polarize what's left of the informed electorate for reasons of partisan gain are happy to make an issue of it and for them it's indeed a game with few rules and only one strategy: attack, attack, attack. Prominent amongst that breed of snakes is of course, Fox News, who can depend on a base of religious chauvinists and racist bigots who know less about the certainties they profess than their enthusiasm might indicate.

Take the recently manufactured "scandal" about the inaccuracy of Obama's reading of Isaiah 40:31 at the National Prayer Breakfast this week. Fox Followers can't really be expected to know much about the archaeological history of Isaiah, the variations between extant scrolls or that chapters 40 - 66 seem to have been written about two centuries after Isaiah himself, but apparently they have so little regard for the knowledge of America's scholarship that they also don't expect us to remember that there are other and better translations than the King James version, some of which have incorporated what has been found at Qumran and most of all: that the original certainly isn't in English. President Obama was simply quoting the very popular New International Version. Some scandal.

One can hope that these fragments scraped from the bottom of the GOP slime barrel, indicate that the barrel is empty. Sad to say, it's very easy to make a fool of one's self in America, but it's still difficult to get Americans to notice it amidst the sound and fury.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Tea Partier’s nude photo drama fuels TSA paranoia

By Nicholas Wilbur

Baseless Paranoia isn't a Christian folk band, but if it were Michele Bachmann would be the lead singer.

The Tea Party representative from Minnesota recently added herself to the ever-growing list of Republicans who abhor the space-bubble etiquette violators known as TSA scanners. The reason was not constitutional in nature, surprisingly. It did include a riff about airport security privatization, not surprisingly. But mainly it was personal: Bachmann will avoid TSA scanners because she fears naked pictures of her will turn up on the Internet.

We have always known that there is a vein the size of a fire hose that pumps paranoia into the organs of the Tea Party. What we didn't know, until now, is that the 54-year-old founder of the Tea Party caucus in Congress is a World Wide Web virgin who so trembles at the unknown ether world that she has proposed handing over our national security to the unregulated whims of profit-based corporations in order to thwart potential voyeurs.

It will probably not calm this Heartland harpy to know that beyond the websites and blogs that spew left-wing propaganda, advocate atheism, denounce farm subsidies, demand logic-based political discourse, and lament the intellectual decline of the conservative demographic, there is also a cache of risqué photos of Bachmann already circulating the Internet.

And yes, some of them show the milk maid farm girl of the Breadbasket in the nude. Others show her drinking cocktails with suggestive expressions on her face. Another shows her in the seductive pose of pin-up model. A few show her as the subject of the Spanish Inquisition-era painting, The Naked Maja. And at least one shows her in the least flattering light of all – as a 54-year-old woman (wrinkles, stretch marks, sagging baby feeders, and all.) For all ye who hath grappled with the curse of curiosity, rest assured that none of the photos are worth viewing.

Nor would I recommend sharing the photos with Bachmann. That would be like giving The Origin of Species as a Kwanzaa gift to your creationist Catholic mother-in-law. It would be like showing a copy of the president's birth certificate to your Fox News-addicted grandfather. It would be like returning from a hunting trip and dropping an elk fetus on the dining room table for your six-year-old daughter to dissect as practice for achieving her dream of one day becoming a veterinarian.

Such brisk exposure to the World Wide Web might cast Bachmann into the solitary confinement of a priest's confession chamber for the rest of her life.

Then again, it would be irresponsible to become an enabler of such hyper-paranoia. The truth, as they say, will set you free. So perhaps we should free Bachmann of her ignorance and open her eyes to how ridiculous it is to criticize airport security on the hypothetical basis of leaked nude photos.

The fact is, TSA scanners make us cringe not because they are an infringement on our freedoms, but because we can't accept the fact that we are imperfect beings. We are a nation of fat people living in a hypersensitive society where a blemish is akin to sin, and we will stop at nothing and invest in anything to hide this reality from ourselves.

The makeup, the girdles, the loose-fitting clothing, the attempts by "big-boned" women to draw attention to their oversized breasts – via low-cut blouses and push-up bras – in hopes of drawing attention away from their oversized arses, thighs, and midriffs – these are all zealous yet failed attempts at over-emphasized vanity.

And if you're a man with a complex about having TSA workers mock your less than Herculean genitalia, do what others in your position have done: overcompensate with intelligence. With a million bucks in your pocket, you can hire your own airport security. With a trophy wife on your arm, self-esteem won't matter.

If you fear a grainy x-ray image of your figure being leaked to the web, stop eating at McDonald's, begin an exercise program more vigorous than lifting your fat ass out of the sofa for a second serving of Häagen-Dazs every night, and, most importantly, stop worrying about what you aren't.

As for Bachmann, she's a 54-year-old woman who has brought five beautiful children into the world. A lifetime supply of Victoria's Secret lingerie, Cover Girl, and Mary Kay will not turn you into a pencil-thin supermodel. So get over it. Web surfing voyeurs jacking off to ultrasound images of your pixilated silhouette should not be a source of paranoia.

Especially not when there are Kenyan colonialists turning this country into a socialist state populated by pot-smoking liberals bent on upending the Constitution and stomping on the graves of our Founding Fathers. Get your fucking priorities straight.

There's no need to start calling for Israeli interrogation-style airport security just because our body parts don't point in the same direction they did as vestal maidens and strapping young lads.

I can promise that a TSA image of Michele Bachmann wouldn't go viral. Most of us already know what a middle-aged woman looks like nude (we can all thank Kathy Bates for the hot tub scene in About Schmidt for that revelation).

We expect more from our elected representatives in the United States Congress than this.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

McCain slaps Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

McCain takes a swipe at Rumsfeld:

Sen. John McCain said he "thank[s] God" that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down from the post in 2006 and didn't lead the Pentagon's strategy in Iraq during the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency.

"I respect Secretary Rumsfeld," McCain said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America," before quickly changing his tone. "He and I had a very, very strong difference of opinion about the strategy he was employing in Iraq, which I predicted was doomed to failure. Thank God he was relieved of his duties and we put the surge in. Otherwise, we would have had a disastrous defeat in Iraq."

A swipe of retaliation:

McCain's comments came in response to a question about the depiction of the Arizona senator in Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown," in which he's described as having a "hair-trigger temper" and "a propensity to shift his positions to appeal to the media."

Not terribly juicy -- besides, does anyone really care what either of these two has to say these days?

Regardless, it's hard to disagree with Rummy on this one, and I suppose McCain's quite right as well that it was better not to have Rummy at the Pentagon anymore, even if he overstates the "success" of the surge.

Why, oh why, can't all the warmongers just get along?

From Mubarak to Suleiman, one tyrant to another, with America's blessing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've been praising President Obama's careful handling of the situation in Egypt, making the case that he deserves enormous credit for trying to push Mubarak out while remaining generally non-interventionist.

I stand by that, even if I don't think Obama has shown nearly enough direct support for the pro-democracy movement that has the support of the people, but this -- even as I would like to give Obama, Clinton, et al. the benefit of the doubt -- is rather troubling:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday. 

What this means is that the U.S. -- and Obama in particular -- is looking to replace one tyrant with another, as Omar Suleiman is just the sort of dictatorial type the U.S. has preferred to deal with not just in the Middle East but around the world -- Pinochet, Noriega, the Saudi royal family, etc., ad nauseam. He's now the new VP, but he was the country's intelligence chief, involved in rather messy business (to say the least), including America's rendition program. In a way, you could call him Egypt's torturer-in-chief.

The key, I suppose, is that Suleiman would only head up a transitional government. But transitional to what? And what assurances do we have that he wouldn't just be another Mubarak?

And what about those brave people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, those who have risen up against oppression and who are demanding meaningful change, those who want to be free and who want their country to be a democracy? Screw them, it would appear.

So much for the Lotus Revolution.

The self-aggrandizing bullshit of Hosni Mubarak

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ABC News's Christiane Amanpour sat down yesterday with the Tyrant of Cairo, Hosni Mubarak. Here were some of the highlights of the interview:

He told me, "I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other." 

Then stop sending your thugs out into the streets to attack the peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, as well as journalists. We get what you're trying to do. You're creating "chaos" so as to be able to justify a crackdown -- or at least to secure your position for the time being, until you leave on your own terms. And perhaps you're also trying to goad the pro-democracy protesters into committing retaliatory violence so as to discredit them in the eyes of the rest of the world.

But it's you, Mubarak, who has no credibility.

When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt." 

Sure you don't. Which is why you have a history of silencing your critics.

Sure you do. Which is why you have a history of oppressing its people.

He told me that he is fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos.

Well, maybe you're tired, sure, but the rest is pretty much what all authoritarian dictators say, isn't it? And of course it might only descend into chaos because of those thugs of yours. (Do you really think so little of your fellow Egyptians that it would be chaos and not peaceful democratic governance?)

Let me repeat: You have no credibility. Period.

Good riddance -- whenever you do finally leave office. Or are forceably removed.