Shrill

Timothy Egan, in the midst of a brilliant riposte of Rush Limbaugh, tears apart Republican economic hypocrites:

There is a war, all right. We are witnessing the worst debacle of unfettered capitalism in our lifetime brought on by — you got it, capitalism at its worst. It cannibalized itself. Government, sad to say, had nothing to do with it — except for criminal neglect of oversight.

Now that government has been forced to the rescue, just who is insisting on taxpayer bailouts? Who is in line for handouts? Who is saying that only government can save capitalism? The very leaders of unregulated markets who injected this poison into the economy, the very plutocrats that Limbaugh celebrates.

And, of course, let us never forget that the bailouts of banks and insurance companies were initiated by the Republican president Limbaugh defended for eight years.

Cue sad antics from Rush.

NYT on 50 Year Anniversary of Tibetan Uprising

The New York Times Edward Wong again has a long, featured front page article on Tibet. It seems Wong was detained by Chinese paramilitary for trying to get into Tibet, albeit in areas outside the T.A.R. and in areas that do not have bans on foreign visitors. Along his way, Wong was able to find strong evidence of the impact of China’s harsh crackdown on Tibetans and vast militarization of Tibet:

There are no signs of protests now, residents say, because the town is completely locked down. Recent photographs taken in Xiahe show riot police officers marching in the streets.

“The security forces are everywhere, on every corner, day and night,” said a Tibetan woman reached by telephone. “Don’t come here.”

She paused when asked her opinion about the current situation. “We Tibetans who do business, we’re under a lot of pressure,” she said. “We have to keep quiet. I can’t say I disagree with the policies of the Chinese. It’s their country, and we’re only a minority.”

Like others interviewed for this article, she declined to give her name for fear of government reprisal.

It’s good to see the Times continuing to focus on Tibet and Wong’s reporting has been some of the best in recent weeks. Clearly, though, this article and others like it are about March 10th and what may happen inside Tibet on the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising.

China’s ban on foreigners to Tibet (the T.A.R. and Tibetan regions annexed to Chinese provinces), as well as the long standing media ban into Tibet, means it will be very difficult for the world to know what happens next week. Last year, the national uprising came as a surprise. There were journalists and many tourists inside Tibet to document the peaceful Tibetan protests which lead to violent Chinese response and subsequent rioting and greater protests. If such events happen this year, news of them will only come out by Tibetans risking their lives to tell the world. This is a deeply troubling fact and one that the Chinese government has worked hard to create through their draconian lock down of Tibet.

Releasing Secret Documents

As I’ve been intermittently critical of the Obama administration’s course of action on rule of law questions, I think it’s important to note that the release of secret legal documents yesterday is a huge step in the right direction and a meaningful signifier of the sort of change that is possible with Obama in the White House. Glenn Greenwald’s look at “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the U.S.” is particularly instructive of where we are today, less than two months after the conclusion of the Bush administration.

The essence of this document was to declare that George Bush had the authority (a) to deploy the U.S. military inside the U.S., (b) directed at foreign nationals and U.S. citizens alike; (c) unconstrained by any Constitutional limits, including those of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.  It was nothing less than an explicit decree that, when it comes to Presidential power, the Bill of Rights was suspended, even on U.S. soil and as applied to U.S. citizens.  And it wasn’t only a decree that existed in theory; this secret proclamation that the Fourth Amendment was inapplicable to what the document calls “domestic military operations” was, among other things, the basis on which Bush ordered the NSA, an arm of the U.S. military, to turn inwards and begin spying — in secret and with no oversight — on the electronic communications (telephone calls and emails) of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Clearly the task in front of the Obama administration to unwind and rollback extreme, anti-constitutional executive branch legal positions like this is great. It is up to Obama and his legal counsel to take all that was wrong and cut it out, swiftly and with no hesitation. If Obama’s team proves slow or even unwilling to do this, the onus must fall out congressional leaders to do what they failed to do over the last eight years: be an assertive check on the executive branch.

Greenwald points out the the military operations authorized were not abstract, but were actualized by NSA warrantless wiretapping of Americans on U.S. soil. Understanding the sort of legal doctrines the Bush administration used to justify these actions is a necessary, but not sufficient, step for restoring the rule of law in America. We also must know what specifically was done following the establishment of these legal positions. We must know who was spied upon, who tortured our prisoners, and who was sent abroad to be tortured. We must know how wide a net the federal government cast in their suspicions of innocent Americans. Knowing what secret laws were and are in place is a step in the right direction, but it is by no means a meaningful accounting of the assault on the Constitution under the Bush administration.

Via Greenwald, Scott Horton writes:

 We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it. [Greenwald’s emphasis]

This is the imperative the Obama administration faces: how do we have such an accounting of the Bush “dictatorship” so as to restore the Constitution, while simultaneously instilling in the American public a degree of outrage and skepticism that will ensure that such actions are never again deemed acceptable by anyone serving in the federal government? Looking at our past is precisely what will ensure that our nation’s future is bright and defined by our freedoms and not their absence.

Landed Gentry

It’s hard to look at the quotes in SEIU’s “Scary Movie” video and not take note of the fact that Big Business and the GOP leadership are engaging in class warfare against working Americans. D-Day writes:

Apparently, allowing workers making something approaching the minimum wage the ability to collectively bargain instead of having their rights trampled by management, their organizers fired, their workplaces shut down rather than stay a union shop, and their colleagues intimidated is the central threat to the very fabric of American life. Hearing these landed gentry talk using the language of end-times apocalypse is pretty nuts.

Empowering Enemies or Creating Effective Bogeymen?

Hillary Clinton’s internet guru Peter Daou has a very interesting column on Huffington Post today, asking “Why on Earth Are Democrats Legitimizing and Empowering Rush Limbaugh?” I think evaluating whether or not elevating an ideologue like Limbaugh is valuable. Daou’s posts and the comments and his detailed updates reveal a lot of thought on the issue and I encourage you to read it.

That said, I look at the Limbaugh question in a similar way to how I think about people like Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal. The Republican Party is hemorraging support now. It lacks ideological direction that appeals to people outside the geographic south, the super rich, or religious conservatives. It is moving quickly towards being a regional political party. They are without a rudder now and that gives Democrats and more specifically liberal bloggers and talking heads the opportunity to define the GOP for the public and for the media. In this case, picking an objectionable character, known for regularly and repeatedly offending vast swaths makes sense. Likewise picking inept liars like Jindal or clueless not ready for primte time players like Palin also makes sense.

Limbaugh is a cipher for how we can define the GOP. Coincidentally he actually is becoming their party’s biggest spokesman. I love a situation where the choice between Democrats and Republicans is between Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh precisely because Limbaugh cannot play at Obama’s level. Does it give him more profile than he deserves? Yes, I would love to see him marginalized entirely, but I think elevating him in the short run may lead to that in the longer run.

In the mean time, we need to continue to talk about the positive Democratic agenda on the economy, Iraq, the rule of law. Doing this gives us a massive platform to show people what we are doing and when people look at the two, they will continue to choose Democrats over Republicans when Americans go to the polls.

Failure to Launch: Newt & Saul

Last Friday, Newt Gingrich rolled out a big anti-Employee Free Choice petition drive, at CPAC. His group, called AmericanSolutions.com, brought on former Michigan GOP chair and RNC chair finalist Saul Anuzis to manage the new media campaign. Key to their launch at CPAC was a bribe for joining up – they were giving away a free Nintendo Wii for getting people signed up against Employee Free Choice. After all, how can rights and a stronger economy measure against a free video game system?

Oddly the petition drive didn’t get off to a great start. By around midday on Friday, there were less than 40 signatories. I tweeted, somewhat ironically:

Anti-American Worker FAIL: @newtgingrich‘s anti-free choice petition tells how many have signed. Why do these 39 ppl hate the secret ballot?

The bigger point was that one of the GOP’s biggest figures was unveiling a petition drive at the biggest conservative conference, brought on a finalist for the RNC chair, and in the opening hours with major press attention had only garnered 39 signups (at least a few of whom were union organizers and progressive bloggers who want to know what Newt’s people are saying). It was a miserable turnout and one that was fairly funny in its meager scale.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon. Jefferson Morley of the Washington Independent has an article up on Gingrich and Anuzis’ efforts online against the Employee Free Choice Act. Morley writes:

So far, the Anuzis card check campaign on AmericanSolutions.com is based on one such question (When given the statement, “Every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union,” 77 percent agreed.), with a video that clocks in at 49 seconds, and an online petition that, as of Monday afternoon, had  been signed by 555 people.

As I write this, the Anuzis/Gingrich petition is at 598 people. CPAC and its thousands of participants had gone on for two days in the interim, there was major blog and news coverage of the Anuzis/Gingrich new media effort against Free Choice, and yet this massive new media campaign can’t scrape together 600 dead enders to stand with Newt and Saul against America’s workers.

Maybe Newt and Saul need to up the ante and pony up for an XBox 360 or throw in a year’s supply of Cheetos and Mountain Dew Code Red?

Disclosure: I’m proud to work for the Service Employees International Union. This post was neither approved by nor written with the knowledge of SEIU. It represents my views alone.