Well, it seems Homeland Security and the TSA are classifying the anti-TSA backlash as a “domestic extremist” movement. A DHS memo from Janet Napolitano referred to the individuals who tried to “interfere with” the new airport security regime by objecting to it or opting out, along with public commentators and organized movements which encouraged such behavior, as “domestic extremists.” She called on the government to investigate individuals and movements associated with the anti-TSA backlash.
And now MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is dismissing the anti-TSA movement as a bunch of right-wingers. Monday night (Nov. 22) Matthews did a segment on the new back-scatter body scan machines. One of the guests, Ginger McCall of the Open Government Project and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, cited evidence that the machines are ineffective at detecting low-density materials like the powdered explosive carried by the Underwear Bomber, and simply create an “illusion of security.”
Matthews, outraged, demanded her explanation as to why the government would deliberately do something that didn’t work. McCall responded that it might have something to do with the fact that a lot of money was changing hands. When challenged further by the aghast Matthews, she elaborated that former DHS Secretary Chertoff had ties to the companies that manufacture the scanner.
This sent Matthews on a rampage for the rest of the segment, sputtering demands for names and documentation as McCall, attempting to talk in the face of his machine-gun interruption, tried to explain the concept of a revolving door between government agencies and private industry.
It’s pretty obvious, despite Newt Gingrich’s hysterics about Matthews as some sort of ultra-leftist, that the latter is really just a managerial centrist. The quickest way to provoke Matthews’ ire is to suggest that privileged interests have some sort of structural influence over the political system, or that there might be some sort of permanent, institutionalized relationship between big business and big government.
The kind of “dirty business” that he found so offensive in regard to DHS is standard practice among “defense” contractors: the manufacturers of weapons systems colluding with the uniformed services to rig tests and ensure the large-scale purchase of the systems. Apparently Matthews has never heard of the Military-Industrial Complex — either that, or he regards Eisenhower as a “conspiracy theorist” in the same category as David Ickes or Lyndon LaRouche.
Tonight (Wednesday) he continued with a segment on the backlash against the new TSA procedures — the body scans and “enhanced pat downs” — and rather disingenuously suggested it was just an orchestrated movement by Republicans pandering to the paranoid Right. The Republicans, he said, were becoming “soft on defense” and “soft on terror.”
Odd, that’s the first I ever heard that Glen Greenwald was a Republican — or that all those folks at Alternet are right-wingers. Jeez, you think the ACLU’s getting money from the Koch brothers?
The same line is being promoted at The Nation (“TSAstroturf,” Nov. 23): the whole anti-TSA thing is just a bunch of angry white males with paranoid anti-government views. For every Republican who cares about civil liberties only when there’s a Democrat in the White House, it seems, there’s a liberal who only objects to police statism when it’s done by Republicans. Of course this is the same The Nation which argued in the ’90s that imperialism wasn’t so bad when it was being done for liberal ends in the Balkans, and whose editor (Katrina van den Heuvel) celebrated the resurgence of faith in government after 9-11. (Odd, by the way, that someone who equates fear of government to being right-wing should have such a convergence of views with Samuel Huntington, who lamented the increased difficulty corporate elites had in governing the country because of the post-Vietnam/Watergate loss of trust in government.)
These people are being disingenuous in implying that the only political alternatives are plain, vanilla-flavored managerialist liberalism and the Right, and that anyone who isn’t one must be the other. As far as I’m concerned, this issue is the dividing line between the genuine Left and liberal goo-goos.
The opposition to the post-9//11 national security state is not a right-wing movement. It unites civil libertarians of left and right. The anti-TSA backlash isn’t about right versus left. It’s about liberty versus tyranny.
Citations to this article:
- David C. Morrison, BEHIND THE LINES: Our Take on the Other Media’s Homeland Security Coverage, LexisNexisNews via Congressional Quarterly via Infoshop News, 12/07/10
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20022876-5…
"Although some civil rights groups allege that they represent an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, Americans overwhelmingly agree that airports should use the digital x-ray machines to electronically screen passengers in airport security lines, according to the new poll. Eighty-one percent think airports should use these new machines — including a majority of both men and women, Americans of all age groups, and Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. Fifteen percent said airports should not use them."
Homo Sovieticus Americanus.
I would have thought better of the Nation; I can't believe that Ellen Willis or Molly Ivins would have stood for this. Nor do I see how this abject surrender to authority could be considered liberal in any variant or according to any possible definition of the term. I am trying to imagine what goes on in the heads of these 'liberals' and draw a blank- these aren't the centre-leftists I've known.
Interesting analysis. I agree that the unholy alliance of corporatism and statism is at the heart of this new "security" development.
I would be fascinated to see a copy of the Janet Napolitano memo. It sounds like very immoderate language to use under the circumstances.
We're getting hardly any of this story over here in the British mainstream media, partly because the new scanners have not been rolled out here yet. I suspect a backlash when/if they are.
Where is this memo? I have the original Canadian news site where this story originates from and there's no proof other than that author's "please take my word on it" plea (Otherwise I would have been all over this myself).
You really may want to clarify the accuracy of this piece.
TSA "domestic extremists" memo article: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3028…
Although her political affiliation is unclear, this woman remains thoughtful and even-handed (and against these screenings) after being humiliated.
http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13534628
The origin of the Napolitano memo comes from Doug Hagmann, who is… different. I'm not sure what to make of him. He's obviously against the security state, but vociferously anti-Islam at the same time. I might even put him in the "right-wing nutjob" category.
Of course, this doesn't mean the memo is a lie. Napolitano stated earlier this year that any US citizen who plotted against the government was a "domestic extremist". I suppose you could extrapolate from that and come to the conclusion that the opt-out movement is – in her eyes – just such a thing. So far, he hasn't produced any evidence of a memo, but Napolitano hasn't denied it either. I guess we'll see how it susses out over the weekend.
Aster: I've seen polls in which the number in favor fell to around 60% fairly rapidly. The story's only recently got legs, and public sentiment seems to be shifting at least somewhat as awareness percolates. Then, too, only about 20% of the scanners have actually been deployed — I'd guess the anti-scanner sentiment is quite a bit higher among those who "know someone who knows someone."
OTOH, the American public has a long history of swallowing whatever bullshit it's told in the name of National Security.
Americans' saving grace is that they'll swallow such bullshit until it inconveniences them personally and requires more personal effort than a yellow ribbon decal on the SUV. The most herdthinking Soccer Mom will start getting disgruntled when she has to drive through six security checkpoints to take Dakota and Montana to ballet practice. When most air travelers have directly experienced the groping and grouse to their friends and families, I suspect things will be different.
Stephen and Todd: Thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye on developments in case I have to retract the memo stuff.
Kevin,
I have to be honest with you in that I'd love to flip time and space on it's head and make Obama, Napolitano, Pistole and Matthews Conservative Republicans and then watch as the sides re-divide themselves yet again and who supports what. Had all of this happened on the Bush/Republican watch, how much of the Tea Party crowd (not all of it obviously) would be like Matthews and how many would actually join the "other" Matthews as then he'd be the "principled" opposition? I guess when you're a centrist leech (I'd include Gingrich in that too) it's so easy while straddling the Big State fence to roll off slightly to either side when need be to play one side or the other. This schitt is like watching championship wrestling where the wrestler has a scripted epiphany of going from the dark to the light all in the name of a better show for the audience. At some point, you know he'll go back to the darkside but do you lie to yourself just to avoid the reality of it all?
However people are starting to arouse and thus the statist mouthpieces come to bare. People are tired of the over reaching state but let's not fool ourselves. The State is notorious to "test the waters" as a means of measure and then backoff only to allow a conditioning to take place so that at a later date the real intent comes full song. 2 steps forward, 1 step back but they're still making progress.
I went last week to see Roger Waters The Wall and in the lyric line in the song Mother, you hear the line, "Mother should I trust the Government" and the thunderous response from the audience was a huge "HELL NO!" Damn I thought the roof would fall it was so loud. I don't for one minute believe all those folks were wild eyed, right wing tea baggers of the Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh stripe by any stretch. I doubt seriously they could have sat through the entire Wall performance and handled the video images they showed that were absolutely anti-war, anti-authority, anti-state and anti-crony capitalist. Youtube "Roger Waters The Wall 2010" and watch with your own eyes. The Wall is cracking and the powers that be know it but the question begs can they control the chaos of their own doing and keep the masses happy too? If the soccer mom loses it, then all bets are off! LOL!
I forgot to mention, they've done a lot of research in the past on Koch-sucking Libertarians and astroturf (which can all be read in their archives), so that's where that came from. Suffice to say that the opt out 'movement' was portrayed as being spontaneous and grassroots, when in fact it appears that several of the key individuals are active in Koch-funded organizations, despite people like that being a very small proportion of the population. Even if it's true that there are a great many people who are outraged over the scanners and gropings, the way it has played out in the media and on the internet stinks of an astroturf job.
You disappoint me as much as Greenwald. I’ve been reading the exile, the website of the people who wrote that Nation article, http://exiledonline.com/ for years (ever since the War Nerd) and anyone who criticizes them should, too, before they overshoot. Ames and Levine have as much vitriol for Democrats as for Republicans, and for reasons that any Anarchist and libertarian should appreciate- they correctly consider every politician to be a whore. However, they also correctly point out that many libertarians are just capitalists who say “freedom!!” a lot, and they are (again, for good reason) very cynical about the media and astroturfing. They don’t have an Anarchist economic theory yet, but they cheer on every riot and stock market crash, despise the Tea Party for its idiocy and proto-fascism, and don’t give a fuck about patriotism.
I was really cheering on the “Opt Out” story, but Ames/Levine have done their investigating, and it’s really disheartening that so many good people are trying to dismiss their work (such as that the WeWontFly website was registered on Nov. 3) without acknowledging their most important points (such as to compare the media coverage of this protest to the media coverage of other protests and other, far more serious issues like poverty) and without knowing anything about the people they were attacking. I don’t think Ames/Levine were saying, “This is an astroturf plot,” they were saying “There is evidence this is an astroturf plot”.
Those, like Greenwald, who so ignorantly attack Ames/Levine have shown that it is in fact THEY who are stuck in the Right vs Left worldview. In doing so, they miss the larger point that there are things people on the ‘left’ and ‘right’ agree with, which ought to reveal yet again that the real struggle is not horizontal, but vertical (as you are saying here, and as I think Ames/Levine usually mean). Instead, the Left is engaging in its national pastime: the circular firing squad.
While we argue over who said this, who said that, and what it might mean, the fact remains that the state is becoming ever more invasive and repressive. Regardless of party affiliation, those of us who value the rule of law, a certain sense of morality, have got to get together. Political parties of whatever stripe appear to have been co-opted by whatever money interest groups feel they can influence. The success of the "divide and conquer" strategy has been on display for centuries. We have to admit that we've been had. All of us. As Dave DeGraw on AmpedStatus has pointed out, we are 99% of the population. We have to forget our little differences, our egos, and connect, however we can, to bring about any kind of real change.
But thou know'st this, 'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Author: William Shakespeare
Don Hawkins,
Perfect, Don. Thanks for that.
I've been trying to circulate the "bank run" idea that seems to have come from an ex-soccer star in France, Eric Cantona (see Lindorff on CommonDreams (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/22-11).
And while there are arguments (that may be valid) about the little banks working in concert, whether voluntarily or by necessity, I see no reason why we should not, at the least, make an effort to demonstrate our outrage at the pillage of our labor.
To those who keep yelling "Koch! Koch!" in the face of the Ames/Levine smear job on Tyner, whose sincerity has never been disproved other than by innuendo, I have to wonder what the real motive is? What does Koch have to do with the TSA protests? Nothing.
The real reason for this absurd linkage is that there is now a preprogramed response by some progs to anything or anyone libertarian. You simply yell "Koch" and point to that silly New Yorker article or any of the similar bunk recently published. Never mind the facts, it's all about the Kochs. The fact that the Koch Bros have long been exiled to their own tiny corner of libertarian land due to their heavy handed efforts and suspect motives doesn't matter.
This is a mirror image of the Glenn Beck jihad against George Soros, perhaps even intentionally so.
When the supposed lefties end up claiming that public outrage against public TSA prison strip searches is simply ginned up rightwing hysteria, one has to wonder who is pulling their strings?
RanDomino,
But so what if it's, in part, an astroturf thing? Seems like a strange thing to focus on if you're in any way sympathetic to the idea that the new airport security might be violating people's civil liberties. That Nation article struck me as not much more than an anti-libertarian hatchet job, regardless of how good the authors' positions usually are.
Kevin,
"It’s pretty obvious, despite Newt Gingrich’s hysterics about Matthews as some sort of ultra-leftist, that the latter is really just a managerial centrist."
I'm starting to think that the hallmark of "moderates" like Matthews is that they just love authority, no matter where it's coming from.
If the arch-capitalist fake-libertarians are trying to privatize the TSA, then it should be made clear that people want the rapescanners removed and groping ended, not for the TSA to be privatized. If it gets privatized, the obvious contractors are the mercenary outfits like Blackwater; and now rumor has it that DHS is thinking about implementing this level of security at other major transit centers like trains and subways, which would obviously be awful (especially if it gets privatized to a mercenary gang).
It's funny; unionizing the TSOs might actually put a stop to the dangerous scanners and humiliating body searches… it almost seems to be turning into the old fight between unionization and privatization, but I find myself unable to get that worked-up over it since I want the TSA to be eliminated entirely. My dog in this fight is that people are yelling and pointing fingers at the wrong places. This should be a topic where we can find common ground, but instead people who see themselves as on the left or right are almost trying to find every excuse to argue. It's like people are conditioned. I mean, to accuse Ames and Levine of being "loyal Democrats" for questioning the veracity of the Opt Out protest is just insane, idiotic.
See joebageant.com for more details.
When you light on a subject that gets Chris Matthews and Dorothy Rabinowitz shrieking in horrified unison, you know you’ve hit the main sewer pipe. Hacks. All working for the same national security state employers.
When Bush wanted to read peoples’ e-mails the Right defended it “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” But the Left screamed “This is just like Nazi Germany!!! Bush is Hitler!!!” Now the Left is defending much more invasive groping in airports (soon to come to mass transit stations, sporting events, etc.). The hardcore political types (who go to party caucuses) are scary people.
For all those who may not understand my point of view: I live overseas. I’m not up to date on all the latest screaming contests on American TV. We buy our food locally( what we don’t grow ourselves) don’t have a car, etc. We do have the internet, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. We do with less, always with the thought of reducing it more.
Peace.
No, Lloyd, the “Left” is not demanding these searches… The political class is not right or left, they’re just that, the political class. If you’re going to put them on the “left” for this then you should most nearly all the Bush administration there, too, which obviously doesn’t make any sense.
Well, the article in The Nation does make a sweeping generalization and explicitly names George Donnelly as one of the founders of We Won't Fly (he is) and paints him in with their greater theme of corporate astroturfing. Is that the type of journalism you wish to defend?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/pat-downs_hit…
Here's another one. The message ought to be violations of civil rights are wrong for brown peoplw, wrong for white people, and we should oppose all of it. The message is: rown people have had their civil rights routinely nelglected, so shut up you privileged wankers and deal with taking it yourselves.
Dear goddess. I've been treated like an untermenschen by American police plenty of times (my favourite was being served a traffic violation while walking), and I totally get that privileged white suburbanites often live in a fantasy world where they just can't imagine that Officer Friendly routintely brutalises their poorer neighbours who live a few kilometres away. Coming out as transgender as a white person was a cold water shock to the realities of the American social system, and I've met at least one individual (a psychopathic former Olympic skater and corporate productivity consultant) who was such a total bastard that her torture at the hands of cops did feel like some kind of justice. Unforttunately, the police torture only made her more of a total bastard.
But Coleman is making a global statement before the public, and the standards change. His point is valid. But this doesn't read like a desire for liberty jaundiced by pain and balanced by a desire for equality. It reads like a wearied acceptance of intrusive authority and glee that this time it's the rich white Republican base that's getting hurt.
I hate the Red State crowd enough to defend a welfare state and antidiscrimination laws because they're the only armour I have against very real naked conservative prejudice. But Coleman, Matthews, and the Nation are defending a police state and what amounts to an internal passport system on the same grounds. America seems to have become a Roman style system where whichever faction captures the state uses it to hammer harder and harder blows at the mass of their factional enemies. Guys, giving the TSA power to hurt white guys doesn't do a thing for brown people. And it ensures that when the Red Staters get in charge of the state machinery and do their thing the result will be one step closer to a gas chamber.
hm… yes, after reading more of Donnelly I’ll agree that was a mistake. especially judging from this: http://georgedonnelly.com/libertarian/tea-party-corporate-astroturfing
Heck let’s all sell all that we own start tomorrow and find a tent a big one that can hold 500 people and give them hell. Topics Socialism, climate change, war and on and on. Make a sign for the front of the tent, KNOWLEDGE, give them hell. Kind of an alternative to the bullshit. It was how warm in the Arctic in October, the bank’s do what and get away with it maybe twenty people to start and we have a meeting kind of a high council and then vote then give them hell.
Hello people why are you here today? Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
I’m trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.
Free your mind.
Why do my eyes hurt?
You’ve never used them before.
I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.
What is the system? Control. The system is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
[holds up a Duracell battery] Hello Mr. Anderson
RUFF DRAFT!
“But Coleman, Matthews, and the Nation are defending a police state”
Unless people are explicitly defending them, I don’t think it’s necessarily right to assume they are. Coleman and Matthews iirc have explicitly said to stop complaining about the scanners, so f’k them. But I think that anyone at The Nation is going to _automatically assume_ that the reader is against the scanners and gropings, and therefore they don’t feel the need to state it.
It's unfair to talk about the Kochs without pointing out how much money that have spent promoting criticism of the national-security state, both its militarist and anti-civil liberties dimensions. Anyone who looks at the record of their organizations will easily see this.
Did anyone notice that Ames has previously called for "anyone [who] says anything libertarian" to be spat on because they are "by definition enemies of the state"? Call him what you will, but he's no left radical. He's a Chris Matthews "liberal."
"Anytime anyone says anything libertarian, spit on them. Libertarians are by definition enemies of the state: they are against promoting American citizens’ general welfare and against policies that create a perfect union. Like Communists before them, they are actively subverting the Constitution and the American Dream, and replacing it with a Kleptocratic Nightmare."
http://exiledonline.com/the-rally-to-restore-vani…
Yes, dL over at Rulingclass just posted an interesting piece on this: http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/playi…
Ok after Hello people why are you here today? Show a video of say the weather channel giving the barbeque report in front of a stadium or the golf report in Arizona maybe a few high’s and low’s then we could talk about fashion and the clothes they are wearing maybe a little on body language then something like did these people go to school I mean climate and weather well let’s take a look at this. Show the temperatures in the Arctic this summer and now in October gave a brief history of just the weather this summer on planet Earth Russia, Mid East, South America, China, the States and then say is this going to get better or worst? Then maybe show that video of Inhofe and the girl from Fox New’s talking of the big hoax and go into body language a little more and mention that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. Still a ruff draft or maybe when Brian Williams on the nightly new’s has on Andria Mitchell and after well dressed foolishness say’s Andria that was very important talk about the media being a tad bit controlled by unseen forces. Fox New’s so much to show so little time. Anyway back to reality look’s the Chinese are taking a hard line.
In a statement about the joint naval exercises, which are scheduled to begin on Sunday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said: “We hold a consistent and clear-cut stance on the issue. We oppose any party to take any military acts in our exclusive economic zone without permission.” NYT
Maybe we will see a little on this today from the well dressed fool’s then maybe some on how to cook Christmas dinner on just five dollars in front of the studio or cyber Monday and the great deal’s. We could talk about twenty nuclear weapons going off and the effect’s on the planet sorry bad for consumer confidence. Ruff draft
Someone could say at this point my eye’s hurt.
Free your mind.
Why do my eyes hurt?
You’ve never used them before.
Sheldon,
Talking about where the Koch's money is going or any of these other little partisan spats, while peripherally informant, is not the point. I think enough of us understand the system has been rigged and won't give up without a fight. A nasty one, at that. As I said before, referring to Amped Status, we are 99% of the population. Why can't we get together?
The TSA thing is just another distraction in the circus. We have to get our heads around all the noise, sit down with our neighbors and actually talk about things. In a civilized manner. With a few facts at hand. And, as far I'm concerned, those facts come from everyday lives.
Peace, above all.
Steve
Steve-
Outside of a few shores of refuge such as beautiful New Zealand, some of us aren't sure that our neighbours will show us any more justice than the oligarchs. America's Christian evangelicals and the Tea Party crowd will probably take the breakdown of the imperial centre as their chance to establish a localist communitarian theocracy. The same is true for reactionary elements worldwide, all of which will treble in strength as the lights begin to go out. Late imperial modernity may be monstrous, but compared to Hindutva, Islamism, or the European ancien régime it is a paradise. One's neighbours are not your friends if they accept without question conventions of social status which confine women to the home or demand the suppression of reason, passion, and joy. Trade, travel, and the internationality of intellectual and artistic culture are humanising forces and without their continual cultural pressure an open society is unlikely to be sustained. The world made by hand is Earthly Hell for those of us who will not live by community and convention.
I want to read a few more books and meet a few more people in the environmental sustainability movement before making a binding choice, but if indeed the choices work out as I think they do, then I would choose one year in cosmopolis over my remaining allotted thirty-eight in holy simplicity (in which, given my medical needs, I could not survive, even if I wished to, which I do not). Simplicity has shown little love for artists, free-thinkers, free-spirits, and philosophers. I highly suspect that millions of liberal urbanites for whom the open society is non-negotiable will make the same choice. The unexamined life is really not worth living and the barbaric world after the Empire will not permit that unexamined life to women.
I may not have to make this choice in New Zealand. As stated, I wish to first make certain that the magnitude of the crisis is indeed as severe as I think it is, and that the environmental movement is as constitutionality incapable of assimilating liberal individualist values as I believe that it is in essence. But if I look at these and I'm not wrong, then I'll take my stand with those 'liberal elitists' who have been humane and kind to me. And their lives are inextricably tied to complexity and the city.
If that places me on the side of the 1%, then so be it.
Alice.
To Aster,
Thanks for our thoughtful comment. I'm not into dividing people into different groups. I recognize differences, of course, but, confronted with "leviathan" or whatever you want to call it, it's time to forget our petty differences, time to rub shoulders, share stories, meals (when we can), and consider what we, all of us, can do.
That could be many different things, for lots of different folks. The point is that we should try to be fighting against that which is killing us. Whether it be in New Zealand, Norway, northern Michigan, or anywhere else.
The 1% thing, while probably pretty accurate, does not mean that all 1%ers are the enemy.
As Bonnie Raitt said: "Have a heart …"
Steve
RanDomino-
http://www.salon.com/news/media_criticism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/11/24/tyner
http://www.thenation.com/article/156679/response-glenn-greenwald
http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/66,365,7762
Here’s some more of the debate, FTR. I must state my admiration for the ability of American progressives to throw a scandal.
Anyway, I feel more safety with progressives and centre-leftists than with libertarians, and don’t have any particular desire to fault the Nation. I agree with you that their reporting in regard to Koch astroturfing seems sound enough, and is worth stating. I would just have prefered an early loud-and-clear statement that the TSA is an unspeakable evil, regardless of the unsavoury nature of some forces opposed to it. Radio Free Europe involved some extremely corrupt as well as utterly sincere people, and this was likely worth stating and knowing, but not in a manner which neglected the human meaning of Soviet totalitarianism. What I really don’t like Levine/Ames’ attitude that civil libertarianism is obviously a back burner issue in comparison to economic or imperalist issues, which reminds me too well of everyone who’s ever told me that feminism or queer rights or sex worker rights isn’t as important as the kind of evil which is hurting them. My level of empathy for rich white guys mar vary with the time of day, but I feel a bit scared when anyone’s rights are proclaimed to be not the point. I’m pretty sure that a system willing to sexually abuse rich people and annoying libertarians will be willing to do nasty things to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That said, Koch Industries has done far worse than use duplicitous means to further libertarian ends. They are one of the big funders of climate denial:
http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&pwst=1&&sa=X&ei=aobyTO-EHY28sAPGtbWmCw&ved=0CBUQvwUoAQ&q=koch+climate+denial&spell=1&fp=7d91512f3aa370d6
If the activities of Koch Industries have stalled American and therefore international debate on climate change for, say, one year, then Koch Industries has shown a level of audacity in grandiose crime to place it in the ethical category of a Bond villian. But death totals are a relatively superficial matter- on a civilisational level, Koch has been systematically subverting scientific awareness of reality, thereby striking at the root of all human awareness, life, and value. Climate denial is capitalism’s Lysenkoism. An ideology which finds it structurally necessary to inculcate falsehood to preserve itself therefore immediately declares intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy. A=A, you lying bastards. You picked class over atoms.
It is debatable how deeply this sort of thing implicates libertarianism as such. I look at the reality of climate change and its many parallel ecological emergencies and my personal sense is that the implications in indictment go so deep, so far, into the premises and psyche of everything I cherish in the world as to place any possible satisfying settlement of account beyond the horizon’s horizon of possibility. Carson’s amendments to libertarianism salvage as much of what I can still recognise an individualist worldview as I suspect can ever possibly be justified. When the environmental bill finally comes due- a process which has clearly already begun- the scientists and historians who process that democidal ledger of reckoning are not likely to find themselves well disposed towards libertarianism, or towards capitalism, or towards all of us and the entirety of XX century civilisation. What leaves me white with horror is the likelihood that the blame will be placed upon the essentials of liberalism and the Enlightenment and of the human right to the pursuit of happiness- a process which many environmental writers have also already begun, and which we may be certain that conservative, religious, and fascist intellectuals will soon greatly magnify.
My spectral hope is that liberalism and the individualist spiritual core of libertarianism will somehow survive this century. If there is any reality to such a hope, one of the better things that could happen would be for honest individualists to give the Koch Lysenkoists a firm and rude shove of detachment and disassociation.
I personally hate the Kochtopus less than I do some other sectors of the libertarian movement, such as the paleolibertarians , simply because the neolibertarians have not consistently exerted their energies to create a right-wing cultural universe in which I cannot live. For that matter I attended an Institute for Humane Studies Seminar two clueless lifetimes ago, so I’ve got my own bit of Koch blood money on my hands.
The People have lost trust in their government & that is the initial downfall of any government & thus the knee-jerk response of martial law.
When the left & the right come together & agree on a particular subject (here TSA pat-downs & body scans) then what's next? The government has a lot to fear right now from the People.
The Fraud and Violations are So
Vast, Known and Admitted…
Not Being Anti-Fed is Pro Al Capone, Pro Crime
Don’t Be Fooled
It’s a ONE PARTY POLITIC
Under The Double Eagle
A Nation Divided DEM v REP
A Nation United The Democratic Republican Party
sovereignthink.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/a-nation-divided-dem-v-rep-a-nation-united-the-democratic-republican-party/
http://sovereignthink.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/do…
-sovereignthink