For the Record

Good reporters opting for comparatively free expression

Being a columnist mean not having to launder your views.

Michael Moore, voice of reason

Very smart and obviously correct.  Warning: involves repeated pwnage of braindead bloviator Wolf Blitzer.

This about sums it up

Richard Gwyn, in today's Toronto Star, has an excellent "opinion" piece on the prospects for regulation and reform in the U.S.  The short cut:

[T]o really understand what's going on, follow the money. The American political system has become its hostage.

Oh snap!

Truly Delectable.

As usual with Greenwald, there are lots o' links.  Don't miss the initial report of Klein's BBQ ravings, and the comment porn on Klein's berserker post.  #26 is one of my faves:

The reading today is from the Book of Klein, chapter 73, beginning at the 13th verse:
.
And there were those who muttered against Klein, for there was discontent in the Land of Bafflegab, and the Centrists were discomforted. And there arose a mighty man of valor, that was named Greenwald. And around him were acolytes, many and pathetic, and they did say many unkind things, even unto publishing alarmingly accurate reports of things said at picnics, which did mightily enrage Klein, so that the blood rushed to his head and the steam out of his ears. And Klein took up his word-processor to smite them. Vast was the word-processor, of sounding brass and luminous silicon, and the length of it was seven bull-sh*ts, and the width of it was three. And the prophet Hoekstra blessed Klein and anointed him with his own manly juicings, and Klein went forth to battle. And as he issued from the Gate of Broder, through which a camel may not fit, the face of Klein was terrible, and his chariots numberless as the secret WMD sites of Iraq. And Klein came down unto the Plain of Fisa, and confronted Greenwald, who was a stripling youth, armed only with a sling.....

#35 and 63 are great, too, among many others.  CMAO (Chortling my ass off)!

Reality check

A couple of months ago I wondered why many policy issues continue to be treated as ideological or political (supposedly reflecting differences of opinon or taste) as opposed to broadly scientific.  We've got tons of evidence, for example, about which approaches to health care provide the most health for your buck, and interestingly, in this case, all the main desiderata---for an economical, humane, effective system---point toward single-payer or at least the general availability of universal, not-for-profit care.  The measly public option that is presently under discussion in the U.S. would appear to be the bare minimum one might do by way of respecting the clear facts... so (to raise just two questions) why aren't (supposedly reality-based) progressive politicians and mainstream media hammering home facts clearly supporting a public option, and why are so many right-wingers frothing at the mouth about it?

I don't think the answer to the first question can ultimately advert to politicians or media being in the pocket of the health insurance industry.  For example, politicians aren't really getting that much in campaign contributions---a few mill, tops (which makes me wonder why someone doesn't do whatever it would take to guarantee that these guys would, if they did the right thing, get compensating grass-roots monies).  Moreover, it's clear that in many cases no amount of lobbying would provide reasonable grounds for a politician to support an empirically discredited cause (e.g., Christian Science).

So I guess I still don't understand why politicians, pundits and the media don't just keep throwing up slides showing, in particular, cost and health- and life-expectancy figures as between the U.S. and all the developed and semideveloped countries with government-based universal coverage.

I was thinking that the presupposition of the first question (namely, that the facts aren't getting out) suggested an answer to the second question.  The reason so many U.S.-ers don't "get it" is that so many U.S.-ers are, for whatever reason, generally unaware of the empirical facts, about health care and other pressing issues of the day.  Relatedly, as a friend pointed out, many are unaware of relevant causal mechanisms between things that they protest against (e.g., "socialist" health care and education) and things they desire (e.g., stable, safe and fulfilled people and communities.)

This is certainly part of the answer, and would explain why people better at accessing information tend to support heath care reform:

A guy at AEI has a piece about how younger voters feel about health care. He begins with a relatively accurate description of how he thinks younger people today function, calling them “generation choice”. Then he posits three reasons why younger voters might be better disposed towards health care reform than older voters: (1) they haven’t analyzed the bill, (2) they care more about the fairness of expanded coverage, and (3) they don’t care much about health care because they’re young and healthy. There’s an obvious fourth reason: they know that our system costs nearly twice as much as anyone else’s and is consistently ranked at the bottom in quality among western countries. Hence, they would choose a different system if possible.

It’s always important to remember that many, if not most, beliefs and customs in our society exist because of the widespread propagation of falsehoods. It’s why some people believe we have a great health care system. It’s also why some American League managers continue to use the sacrifice bunt.

For whatever reason, the internet has curbed the spread of these falsehoods among (the mostly younger) people who are able to navigate the internet without using AOL key words (though it may well have hastened the spread among people who are not). And that may well mark a sea change in American politics.

But it turns out that even when people are presented with the facts, there's no guarantee these will penetrate.  As Sharon Begley explains:

Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe." [...] "For the most part," says Hoffman, "people completely ignore contrary information" and are able to "develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information."

Of course, we all experience (dis)confirmation bias to some degree, but what is surprising is the extent to which retrospective rationalization ("inferred justification") can occur:

For their study, the scientists whittled down surveys filled out by 246 voters, of whom 73 percent believed in a Saddam-9/11 link, to 49 believers who were willing to be interviewed at length in October 2004. Even after the 49 were shown newspaper articles reporting that the 9/11 Commission had not found any evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and quoting President Bush himself denying it, 48 stuck to their guns: yup, Saddam Hussein, directly or indirectly, brought down the Twin Towers.

When the scientists asked the participants why they believed in the link, they offered many justifications. Five argued that Saddam supported terrorism generally, or that evidence of a link to 9/11 might yet emerge. These counterarguments are not entirely illogical. But almost everyone else offered some version of "I don't know; I don't know anything"—that is, outright confusion over the conflict between what they believed and what the facts showed—or switched subjects to the invasion of Iraq. As one put it, when asked about his Saddam-9/11 belief, "There is no doubt in my mind that if we did not deal with Saddam Hussein when we did, it was just a matter of time when we would have to deal with him." In other words, holding fast to the Saddam-9/11 belief helped people make sense of the decision to go to war against Iraq.

"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman. Inferred justification is a sort of backward chain of reasoning. You start with something you believe strongly (the invasion of Iraq was the right move) and work backward to find support for it (Saddam was behind 9/11). "For these voters," says Hoffman, "the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war."

Begley suggests, plausibly, that anti-reform nuts are typically people who didn't vote for Obama (or more generally, think progressives are spawn of satan) and are accordingly mainly engaging in inferred justification for their anti-Obama/progressive stance.

UPDATE: On second thought, I'm not sure that the phenomenon of inferred justification ultimately undermines the basic (and more hopeful) thesis that those clinging to discredited beliefs are suffering mainly from ignorance.  Wrt the study case, for example: what the clingers seem to be doing is trying to make some rational sense of why we went to war... they cling to the Saddam connection (perhaps) because they are unaware of alternative explainations, primarily related to oil- and related military-industrial-corporation complex considerations.

Read this book (or at least the review!)

Larry Bartels's 'Unequal Democracy' reviewed here. Looks to be a treasure trove of interesting and/or surprising and/or hopeful info about the attitudes Americans hold about various political issues -- eg the alleged "rightward shift" in the US is pretty much entirely at upper income strata. (Not too surprising, when was the last time any high profile sources paid the slightest bit of attention to the "little guy"?)

How it works

When the govt is run by a band of deranged and lawless radicals, aided and abetted by team-playing conservatives, craven journalists and bedwetting Democrats.  Glenn Greenwald comments:

More revealing still is Goldsmith's description of how the Bush administration systematically violated one law after the next -- employing tactics that are truly the hallmark of the most lawless third-world dictators:

"In his book, Goldsmith claims that Addington and other top officials treated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the same way they handled other laws they objected to: "They blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations," he writes.

[...]"

They literally decided they would break whatever laws they wanted -- one law after the next, in critical areas -- based on patently baseless memos issued by obedient followers like John Yoo. Not only did they do this in complete secrecy from Congress, they refused even to allow Executive Branch officials who were told to follow orders to see the legal basis for what they were told to do. Addington, whom Goldsmith described as "someone who spoke for and acted with the full backing of the powerful vice president," would simply demand compliance with what Cheney wanted. And anyone who objected was subjected to this (emphasis in original):

"Months later, when Goldsmith tried to question another presidential decision, Addington expressed his views even more pointedly. "If you rule that way," Addington exclaimed in disgust, Goldsmith recalls, "the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands." "

While our national media was glorifying the Great Commander-in-Chief and actively disseminating their most manipulative claims and mocking Democrats on the pettiest of grounds (The Serious National Security Grown-ups are in Charge; John Kerry windsurfs! John Edwards loves his hair!), the Bush administration was dismantling the rule of law, systematically violating long-standing statutes and treaties at will. We were ruled by a truly lawless government, while our media institutions and political elite sat by meek and respectful.

Perhaps most infuriating is the fact that, as it turns out, violating these laws in secret was not even necessary -- because Congress was, and still is, more than happy to legalize whatever they wanted to do. Almost immediately after the Supreme Court finally imposed some mild limitations on the President's detention and interrogation powers -- first in Hamdi, then in Hamdan -- Congress, as Goldsmith says, "promptly passed a law that gave him everything he asked for, authorizing many aspects of the military commissions that the Supreme Court had struck down."

And the terrorist bomb about which David Addington was fantasizing in order to get rid of FISA was equally unnecessary, since the Democratic Congress, in the face of the types of threats Goldsmith recounts Addington routinely made -- "the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands" -- just eviscerated the crux of FISA's protections by law. Hence, what began as the administration's illegal and secret abuses have become the legally sanctioned policies of the United States.

It is critical to emphasize that Goldsmith -- like James Comey and John Ashcroft -- is no hero. He is a hard-core right-wing ideologue who continues to support many of the administration's most radical positions, including his view that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply to terrorist suspects (the position rejected by Hamdan). And it was Goldsmith who ultimately approved of the modified (and plainly illegal) NSA warrantless eavesdropping program.

Moreover, Goldsmith explains that he had not even intended to address the NSA surveillance program in his book, but changed his mind once he was served with subpoenas by the FBI in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation to find out who the whistleblower was who alerted the country to this illegality -- an investigation which Goldsmith supports. As Goldsmith says: "I'm not a civil libertarian, and what I did wasn't driven by concerns about civil liberties per se."

Goldsmith is commendable only by comparison to the truly extremist and reprehensible likes of Cheney, Addington, Gonzales and Yoo. He is, by and large, a True Believer in the Bush "War on Terror" and in theories designed to expand substantially executive power. That is what makes his revelations all the more credible, and all the more disturbing. What he is describing is a band of deranged and lawless radicals who, during his tenure, ran our government and who, after they forced him out, continue to do so.

But with little meaningful opposition to any of this -- either in the media or in the Congress -- little attention will be paid to these extraordinary revelations, and our government will continue to be shaped in the image of Dick Cheney and David Addington. Now that they have obtained most of their original wish list from a compliant Congress, just imagine what they are dreaming of, the still new unchecked powers which they believe are only "one bomb away."

How it works

Apropos of my recent post on what the pardon of Libby indicates, I bring you the brilliant James Adomian as Bush.

Here's a partial transcript... really, a tragic poem for our times.

[gives the finger]

My fellow America, welcome to the future.

I know a lot of you are pissed off about me computing Scooter Libby's sentence
I know a lot of you thought I let a good friend off the hook
because he was covering up my crimes.

That's stupid.  Why would I do that?
I commit crimes all the time out in the open
and nobody does anything.

I start wars for no good reason
against all kinds of laws.
I torture people.

I torture people.

Torture!

Nothin' happened.

That's why I computed Scooter Libby
Not to cover up for me
Just to torture you folks a little bit
Just to piss ya off

Cause I know I could get away with it

That's what you need to start learning.

Listen, I could walk outside of the White House right now
and shoot a kid!

Who would do anything about it?
TV?
heh heh.  I don't think so.

You see, I decide.
I'm the executive branch
and as far as I'm concerned, that's the only branch that exists

What else you have?
Ya got the Supreme Court.
I appoint them.
Ya got the, eh, whatever branch Dick Cheney is.
I picked him.

What else is there?
House?  House branch?
Run by a woman.  A girl.
That don't scare me too much.

So all you bloggers out there in blogland
need to quit whining and squitching and squawking
about impeachment, censure, and all that.

We all know that ain't gonna happen.

I can get away with whatever I want to.

All you complainers, all I gotta say to you folks is Fuck you.
Fuck you hard.

I ain't gonna do nothing I can't get away with.

You may think you're so much different than TV or radio
Let me tell you.    TV and radio print whatever I tell them to print.

You're not that much different.
You may be a little bit off the beaten track
But I still, I still got ya where I want ya.

MoveOn.org?
Guess what, MoveOn
I'm still here.

People like me and Scooter Libby's always going to be here.

And guess what?
We're gonna pardon each other
and we're gonna make each other rich
and we're gonna control shit.

That's the way it fucking works.

Watch your back, bitches.

Looks like the future

The Chicago Sun-Times veers to port:

The tabloid that shifted toward political conservatism under the brief ownership of Rupert Murdoch more than two decades ago now says that it is "rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."
 
Under marching orders from Publisher John Cruickshank and Editor in Chief Michael Cooke, new Editorial Page Editor Cheryl L. Reed introduced a new Commentary section Tuesday with a promise to turn the tabloid back into the liberal-leaning paper it was for decades before the Reagan administration.
 
"We are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune -- that Republican, George Bush-touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue," Reed wrote. "We're rethinking our stance on several issues, including the most pressing issue facing Americans today: Bush's war in Iraq."
 
Reed, who did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment about the change, is the paper's former book editor who was asked by Cruickshank and Cooke to, she wrote, "conceive an editorial and opinion section that looked like the future."
 
Her instructions: "'Don't be conservative,' Cruickshank urged me. 'We don't want you to hold back.'"

Waking up to power

Here is a brilliant commentary by Keith Olbermann on Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence.  The comparison with the trajectory of Watergate---where Nixon's injudicious firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox was the final straw leading to Nixon's resignation---indicates how the political landscape has, since then, hardened into a seemingly impermeable crust of criminality and corruption.

At issue now as then, Olbermann suggests, is Cox's question of whether we are to be a nation of men, not laws.  I agree, but on the other hand it has always been persons, and more specifically certain of their virtues---their integrity, their compassion, their desire to do good, their desire to avoid shame---that have ultimately kept us safe from the abuses of those in positions of great political power.  What has happened since Nixon had the decency to resign is that right-wingers have woken up precisely to the fact that it wasn't laws that were preventing them from achieving their nefarious purposes; that if they ditched their scruples and shamelessly went for the gusto, nothing in particular would stop them.  The real question now, as then, is whether we are to be a nation of law-abiding persons, not criminals.  And what's different now is the answer given by those even at the highest stations of government: yeah, we're criminals; so what?

This right-wing strategy has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams thanks not just to the opposition's still playing by the old rules and assumptions, but also because almost no one has been able to admit to themselves or anyone else that criminals have been installed as the leaders of the U.S., much less take appropriate action to put them behind bars or at least out of office.  Human virtues are also the ultimate ground of the laws' being enforced, and here too things have evidently taken a turn for the worse.