May 4, 2010 archive

OPEN THREAD

Distrust in democracy and “the common man” is used as a rationale for having different classes of people invested in different “grades” or “tranches” of truth.  The belief that commoners can’t handle the truth is probably the central dogma of modern politics.  The belief is to some extent real, as self-deception is critical to credible lying, but primarily serves to mask the deep conflicts of interest of those holding power.  The dogma is frequently presented in a way to suggest that truth is imminently dangerous to national security concerns, justifying the invocation of state’s secrets.  One version of this “Father knows best” attitude was famously articulated by Irving Kristol:

“There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

Irving’s taxonomy of people according to grades of maturity and education, which I read as code words for “ideological intelligence” is almost diabolically funny, in retrospect.

There have been many predictions that the oil leak from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon catastophic oil well blowout will enter the Gulf Stream since the well is at the end of one branch of the stream.

There hasn’t been much talk so far about what happens if it does get into the Gulf Stream.

Here’s a visual of where it can go from there…

Click image to view full size

There was a very nice warm sunset tonight in the Bronx.

If you would like to see sixteen more in order of appearance, then enjoy the view below the fold.  

I am one of The Other 98%, and I am really proud of this growing organization.  Since the beginning of April, nearly 30,000 fans have joined us on facebook.

And this is certainly an awesome video that we made to showcase our involvement in the Show Down on Wall Street.

This Wall Street action was just the beginning, The Other 98% will be back in Washington on May 17th to take on K Street’s corporate lobbyists and their stooges in Congress.

It is going to be a good time; get involved here.

According to Cassandra LaRussa writing on May 01, 2009 at CommonDreams.org British Petroleum (BP), like most of the oil industry, enjoys enormous lobbying strength and very close ties to the lawmakers who are responsible for regulating oil industry practices as a federal investigation looms over them in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon debacle in the Gulf of Mexico.

Cassandra pointed out in her article that:

During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP — a Center for Responsive Politics’ “heavy hitter” — contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

And make no mistake, a debacle it is, and one that makes all other industrial ‘accidents’ in history pale by comparison.

As Political Spin Examiner Maryann Tobin noted  back on March 31 after President Obama announced his plans to lift the longtime ban on offshore drilling:

The shores off America’s coast had been safe from oil drilling – until now. President Obama has announced plans to allow oil companies to drill in areas that were previously protected.

The newly opened oil fields will span from Delaware to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico and parts of Alaska.

“In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling off Virginia’s shorelines and considering it for a large chunk of the Atlantic seaboard,” according to the AP.

Environmental group, The Sierra Club, believes that more drilling will not stop US dependence on foreign oil. According to a statement to MSNBC, offshore drilling will only serve to end another boundary of protection for the environment.

The beneficiaries of offshore drilling will be the oil companies. Exxon Mobile and Chevron posted more than $50 million in profits last year.  After President Obama’s announcement this morning, oil stocks began to rise.

Lifting the ban on offshore drilling will erase a prohibition that has been in place for more than 20 years.

Despite the system trying to project an aura of unflinching omnipotence, I believe it is actually extraordinarily sensitive, even fragile.  Thus it took 10’s of 1,000’s of dead in Vietnam to bring down Lyndon Johnson, but Bush went psychotic over there being any pictures of coffins coming home from Iraq.

Likewise, they greatly fear the images of the homeless.  It’s fascinating how many Republicans have voted for extensions.

But the Democrats tried hard to bury the lack of a Tier 5 for unemployment benefits (benefits beyond 99 weeks).  Any one of “our” good liberals could have made news by addressing the issue.  Obama could have talked about the country’s commitment to the victims of the depression.  Instead, the headlines all bragged that Congress had extended benefits, they were going to take care of the long-term unemployed, yakked about benefits to the end of this year, yay Congress.  No details.  This was deliberate, to prevent us from building momentum to help the 99’ers (those about to lose their benefits after the 99 week max).

Although the political ramifications remain to be seen from this shocking revelation, in an interview with Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, former Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK) admitted to both smoking marijuana and eating brownies “laced” with it.  “Those were pretty good,” said Senator Gravel.

More information, including videos, below the fold.

You remember Erik don’t you?

Well, Jeremy Scahill of The Nation had access to a tape of him speaking that he’s planning on reporting but you get to see early via his blog RebelReports and Atrios.

Erik the Bloody-

A little known fact, you know when the shoe bomber in Iraq was throwing his shoes at President Bush, in December 08, we provided diplomatic security, but we had no responsibility for the president’s security-that’s always the Secret Service that does that. We happened to have a guy in the back of the room and he saw that first shoe go and he drew his weapon, got a sight picture, saw that it was only a shoe, he re-holstered, went  forward and took that guy down while the Secret Service was still standing there flat-footed. I have a picture of that-I’m publishing a book, so watch for that later this fall-in which you’ll see all the reporters looking, there’s my guy taking the shoe thrower down. He didn’t shoot him, he just tackled him, even though the guy was committing assault and battery on the president of the United States. I asked a friend of mine who used to run the Secret Service if they had a written report of that and he said the debrief was so bad they did not put it in writing.

emptywheel’s take-

Erik Prince Proposes Blackwater Become Big Oil’s Enforcer

By: emptywheel Monday May 3, 2010 3:36 pm