Aztec sacrifice

Chickenhawks fail at the fundamental moral task of putting themselves in the place of those whose lives are at risk:

For chickenhawks like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney who grew up during Vietnam conscription, deft draft-dodging provided them safety and psychological distance from bloodshed. As the data show, compared to draftees, that distance likely made them feel comfortable demanding other people face death on the battlefield, knowing that they wouldn't face such a fate themselves. Put another way, having avoided the draft, there was no "self-interest" in opposing war -- indeed, there was only self-interest in promoting wars in a media and political environment that increasingly rewarded rank bellicosity.

It's no wonder they can't put themselves in the place of the needy. They have no familiarity with the golden rule, the foundation of morality.

Someone else always gets his heart ripped out, not them.

Forty-two years

Since Richard Nixon took office in 1969, Democrats and liberals have failed to call lies and bullshit what they are.  This is why our public conversation is so filled with bullshit and lies:

[T]his aggressive stupidity politically props up the arguments of the anti-government right. With so many Americans evidently not knowing they receive benefits from the government, it's easy for opportunistic politicians to seize on our "me-first, screw everybody else" culture and misleadingly deride the government as some distant entity that exclusively benefits the "other." And if you don't know that, in fact, you are "the other," then you are more likely to conclude that that opportunistic politician is correct, and more likely to cheer on that opportunistic politician as he/she slashes the programs you directly rely on.

(h/t Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog)

Banana republic

Republicans want us to be a banana republic with the generals in charge. At least if a Democrat is in the White House.

If a Republican is in the White House, he'll hide under the skirts of the generals.

A nation of assholes

David Sirota nails the trouble with our current culture of political hysteria.

Most often, the haters have succeeded in turning political discourse into a war of attrition against their personal demons -a war won by those who can go nuclear the fastest.

That's clearly been the story of the summer on health care - and it continues to be the story on most major issues. I mean, conservatives are quite literally calling the president's plan to promote the value of education to the nation's schoolchildren a secret socialist plot. All of it has convinced me we are living through one of the darkest periods in the last 50 years - one in which intense hatred has now become an accepted - even celebrated - part of our democracy.

This hysteria is mostly driven by the right, though not quite completely. But it infects me, too, to name only a single minor example. There are days when I don't easily find my arsenals of snark and sarcasm - the best rhetorical weapons against frothing stupid rage - and I defend myself and my ideals from attacks with strong counterattacks.

I'd rather be an asshole myself than a sap. I wish that were not my choice. As a nation, we need to find a way to broaden our choices from the current polarization.

All the gossip that fits

David Sirota smacks the abandonment of journalism by journalists:

Rather than investing in the valuable steel and concrete of hard reporting, national news outlets began printing the most worthless kind of commercial paper -- rumors, personality profiles and other such speculative derivatives that consumers could find elsewhere. News, in short, mimicked finance: Just as Wall Street made bets on bets with credit default swaps and then watched investors bolt, print journalism mass-produced gossip about gossip, and now sees its audience flee.

Nobody cares who reports on Britney going commando. Any lucky blogger can handle it. You either have pictures or you don't.

If you can report facts, you actually have something of value that can't be replicated without effort. That used to be the competitive advantage of big media, but they trashed it.

Larry Summers loses another job

I've had enough of Larry Summers already. (Yes, Tim Geithner, too.) Here's why:

Obama advisor Larry Summers couched his passive-aggressive defense of AIG's thieves in the saccharine argot of jurisprudence. "We are a country of law -- there are contracts (and) the government cannot just abrogate contracts," he said.

...

Last month, the same government that says it "cannot just abrogate" executives' bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions' wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to G.M. and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and "extract[ing] financial concessions from workers." In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished.

It is vital for liberals like me who advocate spending for the benefit of the commonwealth that we spend our shared resources well. So far, Obama's bailouts have been only marginally better than Duhbya.

GOPxymoron

David Sirota has a good piece up on Salon on the prospects for Republican populism in the 2010 election cycle. It's good, though even this is too temperate for the likes of me:

[W]hile many Democrats joined in the kleptocracy, the Republican Party was the primary force behind almost every regressive tax cut, crony contract, rigged trade deal, deregulation scheme, corporate welfare handout and "elite bill" that became law over the last three decades. The idea that the GOP's Nottingham sheriffs have genuinely become Robin Hoods might be plausible in a burlesque subtitled "Men in Tights" -- but this is real life, not a Mel Brooks spoof.

I've posted my opinion there, but the title here sums it up. Here's a sample:

The wealthies run things, and they won't give that up. Ever. So any populism the Republicans may advocate will always be a lie, sorry, marketing.