tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1042508341817684082024-02-19T03:22:45.410-05:00demosdemospietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.comBlogger165125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-78834408874820607342013-12-23T15:59:00.002-05:002013-12-23T15:59:44.677-05:00inverted totalitarianism<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/JKROM2y6pwY" width="420"></iframe>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-64057982121480447862013-05-19T17:03:00.001-04:002013-08-10T21:10:01.383-04:00machiavelli the democrat<br />
For a profoundly revisionist take on <a href="http://www.demosdemos.blogspot.com/2008/12/for-2009.html">the Florentine</a> listen to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b11JTX5Lgzs">this "Occupy interview</a>" with John P. McCormick, Professor of Political Science from U Chicago, and author of <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item5695990/?site_locale=en_GB"><i>Machiavellian Democracy</i></a>. You can also read McCormick's <a href="http://www.artoftheory.com/mccormick-machiavellian-democracy/">brief article</a>, "Defending the People from the Professors," which not only departs from the the Machiavellis of old, ( Straussians, neo-Republicans, and those who McCormick refers to as "self-proclaimed radicals,") but presents a Machiavelli for "democrats" for "theoretical insight, institutional inspiration, and spiritual fortification." <br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-80695626300766026682013-05-01T22:12:00.000-04:002013-05-02T03:40:47.172-04:00mayday!<br />
From <i>NYTimes</i> comes<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich
perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or
poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better
grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer
students; they also have higher rates of participation in
extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher
graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.</blockquote>
And,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Meanwhile, not only are the children of the rich doing better in school
than even the children of the middle class, but the changing economy
means that school success is increasingly necessary to future economic
success, a worrisome mutual reinforcement of trends that is making our
society more socially and economically immobile.</blockquote>
<br />
Read all about it <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?smid=tw-share">here</a>. <br />
<br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-79346873484174110222013-03-21T01:05:00.001-04:002013-03-22T19:50:00.502-04:00fucking animals<br />
Over at <a href="http://lhote.blogspot.com/2013/03/wheres-all-hippie-punching.html">L'H<span style="color: #191714; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-themecolor: background1; mso-themeshade: 26;">ô</span>te</a><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--> we are reminded of the<i> </i><i>brute</i> realities leading up to the 2003 Iraqi War. Not the marginalization and trivialization of dissent but something even more hideous. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You know, I'm reading all of the Iraq mea culpas, some good, some bad.
But they are all systematically ignoring one of the most obvious and
salient aspects of the run up to the war: the incredible power of
personal resentment against antiwar people, or what antiwar people were
perceived to be. As someone who was involved in day-to-day antiwar
activism at the time, the visceral hatred of those opposing the war, and
particularly the activists, was impossible to miss. It wasn't
opposition. It wasn't disagreement. It was pure, irrational hatred,
frequently devolving into accusations of antiwar activists being
effectively part of the enemy. Yet for as visible and important as this
distaste was for the debate, it's missing from the postmortems. Why?</blockquote>
And if you're wondering if any of the hatred has abated just ask yourself if you remember any person in more recent times ever voicing absolute disgust, displaying direct anger even, as a reaction to the words "Occupy Wall Street." Or if you know of anyone who still displays an ever-so-thinly-disguised loathing for even a mention of supporting or organizing some obscure "lefty" activist cause, whether it be to Breakup The Banks, or to <strike>dissent with</strike> argue for a vote against the two-party system, or to End The War. Its still out there. People haven't gotten over it. <br />
<br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-58311371792643993472013-03-16T00:27:00.000-04:002013-03-16T00:27:51.427-04:00the corporatist mystique<br />
<a href="http://ww.alternet.org/labor/lean-all-you-want-if-you-want-better-job-unionize-what-ceos-facebook-and-yahoo-wont-tell-you?page=0%2C1&paging=off">"'Lean In' All You Want -- But If You Want a Better Job, Unionize! (What The CEOs Of Facebook and Yahoo! Won't Tell You)" </a><br />
<br />
<br />
And that's why you <i>can't </i>have it all!<br />
<br />
pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-69954766715670910382013-02-26T01:54:00.000-05:002013-02-26T01:57:06.649-05:00bear the burden<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ypQqVZAmbH8" width="420"></iframe><br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-3744678806927808362013-02-02T03:36:00.000-05:002013-02-02T13:29:14.344-05:00ready to smile<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: .5in;">
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The next time you think all the shiny happiness around you was just an outright conspiracy, consider <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112204/pret-manger-when-corporations-enforce-happiness#">this</a> from Timothy Noah, writing in <i>The New Republic</i>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Pret A Manger—a London-based chain that has spread over the past decade
to the East Coast and Chicago—is at the cutting edge of what the
Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls "emotional labor." Emotional
because the worker doesn't create or even necessarily sell a product or
service so much as make the customer experience a positive feeling.
Labor because, as Hochschild wrote in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Managed-Heart-Commercialization-Anniversary/dp/0520239334"><i>The Managed Heart</i></a>
(1983), the worker must "induce or suppress [his or her own] feeling"
to achieve the desired effect in others. Creepy as it sounds, emotional
labor is a growing presence in this economy, coming soon to a fast-food
outlet near you....</blockquote>
<br />
Such "enforced happiness" is hardly surprising - nor even new - especially in our neoliberal Age of Self-Management, as Noah concedes. But it is increasing. <i>Quell surprise!</i> And at Pret A Manger, it all goes down by the rather ordinary means of training programs and company surveillance: employees know that a "mystery shopper" will enter the store once a week to observe them and, of course, reward or penalize appropriately on the quality of the service received thus effectively turning workers into onsite "enthusiasm cops." Pret workers are thus expected to learn what the company
calls "<a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uouNCU_3a5YJ:www.pret.com/us/jobs/pret_behaviors.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">Pret Behaviours</a>" which include not just efficiency and courtesy but "presence" and a "sense of fun."<br />
<br />
The term "affective labor" is usually applied to various low-wage service sector jobs. But as a management technique it seems especially well-suited for "middle-class" clientele, like at Starbucks, a cheap French sounding fast food chain, or some other "lower cost-version" of what The Well-To-Do enjoy. <br />
<br />
Perhaps just as disturbing, as Noah slips in laconically as an aside: "The emotional economy is among other things, terrible news for men, who (unlike women)
are not taught from birth how to make other people happy. Perhaps that
explains why men are losing ground in the service economy." What? And "terrible news for men?" Has Noah here been taken in by the <a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.1/philip_cohen_hanna_rosin_end_men_liza_mundy_sex_gender_equality_feminism.php">"post-feminist rallying cry"</a> of Hanna Rosin? <br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-72139249662305174362013-01-12T14:48:00.000-05:002013-01-13T22:05:25.275-05:00escaping to higher ground<br />
From <i>The Guardian</i>, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Future generations of Americans can expect to spend 25 days a year sweltering in temperatures above 100<span style="color: #191714; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-themecolor: background1; mso-themeshade: 26;">°</span>F (38C), with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change">climate change</a> on course to turn the country into a hotter, drier, and more disaster-prone place.</blockquote>
The <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/11/climate-change-america-hotter-drier-disaster">article</a> cites a report done by the National Climate Assessment, (NCA) which is considered to be "the most ambitious scientific exercise ever undertaken to
catalog the real-time effects of climate change, and predict possible
outcomes in the future." And, as you can probably imagine, it cites some pretty alarming statistics: <br />
<ul>
<li>2012 was "by far" the warmest year on record, an "off the charts increase" from previous records.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Average US temperatures have increased about %1.5<span style="color: #191714; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-themecolor: background1; mso-themeshade: 26;">°</span> F since 1895. More than 80% of that increase has occurred since 1980. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>There are little, if any, geographical distinctions. "No place in America ha(s) gone untouched by climate change. Nowhere would
be entirely immune from the effects of future climate change."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>And finally, quoting directly from the NCA study: "Beyond the next few decades, the amount of climate change will still
largely be determined by the choices society makes about emissions.
Lower emissions mean less future warming and less severe impacts. Higher
emissions would mean more warming and more severe impacts." </li>
</ul>
Though the article is not especially focused on any particular political dimension, it does mention that the NCA was created with the intent "to guide federal, state and city governments in America in making long-term plans," while adding, the course taken so far by President Obama regarding <a href="http://www.enviropedia.org.uk/Ozone_Depletion/CFCs.php">CFCs</a> has, quoting from the report, "not been close to sufficient."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/11/new-york-times-dismantles-environment-desk">And Hear! Hear! The news coming from <i>NY TImes</i> is especially disconcerting. </a> pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-3167883457168433782012-12-15T03:45:00.000-05:002013-08-10T21:23:35.910-04:00sound the alarm<br />
One thing I've noticed from arguing absolutely blue in the face with really intelligent and well-informed middle-class liberals is their pretension to reasonableness and rationality. Of course, they also pathologically load their arguments with non sequiturs, hyperbole, and, (who can forget?,) all those oh-so-hushed tones of moral outrage. But, even at their best, you know, even when they follow arguments to their logical conclusion, and they do all the requisite "fact checking," they always end up clinging to the "incremental" securities and sensibilities of their "pragmatic" and "progressive" (read: craven and pompous) politics. <i>And that's a fucking problem! </i><br />
<br />
So even when you call them out on the flabby presumption they categorically make when arguing in the spirit of lesser-evilism and Compromise that the country is at least on the better track 'cuz the Democrats are winning elections and stuff, and that <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-spox-day-gun-debate-article-1.1220406">it will take time</a>, they will never accept how intellectually and morally bankrupt that presumption - as well as the ostensibly acceptable options their phony Realpolitick has dictated for you - truly is. The world is not headed in the right direction! But they'll never get around to sounding that fucking alarm! They have their elections, their Congress people, their micro-politics, their petitions, and their alibi, i.e., those evil, obstructionist Republicans, and so they'll easily forgo more structural and comprehensive political criticisms. They will absolutely never think to use political language to reshape context; they'll never consider tapping into the hopes, dreams, and fears of ordinary people, much less indict the minimalist framework charted out for them by the bipartisan lock on political discourse. They'll never understand how urgent it is that we shed the banality of DC bubble-talk to fight for ideals that have been lost. And so, they'll never really win 'cuz they'll never really risk losing. <br />
<br />
I've been thumbing the pages of my <i>Eichmann in Jerusalem</i> lately, and always come back to the usual passages of "thoughtlessness," "lack of imagination," or where Arendt described those who "commit (their) crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for (them) to know or to feel that (they) are doing wrong." (Penguin paperback, Revised and Enlarged Edition, p. 276) All of which makes me wonder: so much lesser evilism = compromise with evil = the banality of evil albeit in a newer form?<br />
<br />
This passage from <a href="http://lhote.blogspot.com/2012/12/solidarity-forever.html">L'H<span style="color: #191714; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-themecolor: background1; mso-themeshade: 26;">ô</span>te</a>, says alot of what I've been thinking: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nowadays I'm as likely to evaluate people based on their language as
anything else: what percentage of their statements of principle come
before the word "but"? "I don't like drone strikes, but..." "I don't
like that Obama put social security and Medicare in play, but..." "I
don't like that the administration has been aggressively going after
medical marijuana dispensaries, but..." Last night, when I reflected on
the people I've been fighting with, it occurred to me that I couldn't
recall the last time they expressed a moral principle that wasn't just a
setup for an argument for why it had to be violated. Yes, I know, it's
an imperfect world. But at some point, if you want to claim a principle,
you actually have to stand for it itself, and not use it as a chip to
be traded on, to be given away. Surely the fact that everyone must
sometimes compromise is not an argument that every compromise is
principled, or benevolent, or fair. I have asked my various antagonists
many times, and in as specific and frank a way as I know how: where is
the limit? What is the boundary beyond which you will not compromise?
I've never received any answers.<br />
<br />
Married to the notion that you must compromise your beliefs in the
pursuit of partisan politics or else be worthless is the proud
acknowledgment that partisan politics will likely bring you little
anyway. The furor with which people argue that politics happens only
within the boundaries of Democrats and Republicans is, somehow, married
to an admission that we cannot achieve truly moral ends with those
means. So what you end up with is a perfect lockbox of acknowledged
impotence and aggressive enforcement of same. This stance has the virtue
of an impregnable defense. Unlike the activism vs. partisan politics
debates of my youth-- I always tried to do both-- the debate is now not
between people arguing how best to improve the world. The argument is
rather against those who have walled off every avenue to effect that
improvement. As I said, that's an easily defended opinion, because the
cynicism of "it cannot be done" speaks volumes in an age defined by
reflexive retreat to the presumption of failure. The problem is that
people are suffering, are dying, and they don't have the luxury of a
showy disbelief in the ability to create positive change.<br />
<br />
Only the comfortable could insist that there are no politics but
partisan politics while they simultaneously acknowledge that partisan
politics will not stem our violence or our cruelty. Only those who have
never suffered could assert that impotence with pedantry and with pride.</blockquote>
pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-437865265164906742012-11-05T15:43:00.004-05:002013-01-12T14:48:59.275-05:00<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZyiVsaUg_uabldtrNjnx-nPtNe6Ys-XWCx2h74HApTz4vQbkJ7EtvnfyaGnfIy5U7QS2ER6VeuEndGda7yx4rfgtjyYogM6Ji1ewRGsSiFfYzL2fXwks3dAt1MEGOv29d_Uuo6B8fm_I/s1600/bobobobo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZyiVsaUg_uabldtrNjnx-nPtNe6Ys-XWCx2h74HApTz4vQbkJ7EtvnfyaGnfIy5U7QS2ER6VeuEndGda7yx4rfgtjyYogM6Ji1ewRGsSiFfYzL2fXwks3dAt1MEGOv29d_Uuo6B8fm_I/s400/bobobobo.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
After a few hours, during the first night the lights went out, it became increasingly difficult - impossible even - to stay indoors huddled around candles, eating dried guava. So minus a flashlight I ventured out my front door, and walked slowly down my block to the corner in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/51109884@N06/8145608242/sizes/c/in/photostream/">utter darkness</a>. At the risk of resorting to the most available cliche, the experience was, at least for me, nothing short of apocalyptic. Not only were the streets pitch black. The wind continued to howl. The rain gently fell. And it was incredibly silent. There were a few other stragglers out, a number of them with cameras on top of tripods, aided only by the flashing red lights of cop cars that occasionally passed. Knowing, of course, how words fail to describe the experience of the fallout from Hurricane Sandra, at least as I humbly experienced it, (i.e., no loss,) its easy to understand why someone would be brave enough to go out taking pictures in the darkness. I just had to go out and experience it for myself. What I remember most vividly that first night was seeing shopkeepers on guard in my West Village neighborhood from behind their shop windows looking out for looters. As they silently watched me walk down the middle of Bleeker Street I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time: that it was ok to love my city again. It was jolted back, helplessly, to some primitive makeshift of humanity. I swelled with tears. I also knew I couldn't leave by going uptown to stay with friends where city lights blazed on in full, albeit normal, glory. I didn't want to lose or let go of the fear. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG0-BR45se6Gn6S_3o5cRjVnp5zg3PZfb6wQEKOUwoaWD_iVMlyg1cCqDuTV6g4Mz1unr1R_Cigiwgyfb8SaitJvgZHyjZiLYQgYLZYNDar7w9QBADLsJNNY7G6iYacCx2Ba9r-jvm3qM/s1600/blackout+nyc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG0-BR45se6Gn6S_3o5cRjVnp5zg3PZfb6wQEKOUwoaWD_iVMlyg1cCqDuTV6g4Mz1unr1R_Cigiwgyfb8SaitJvgZHyjZiLYQgYLZYNDar7w9QBADLsJNNY7G6iYacCx2Ba9r-jvm3qM/s400/blackout+nyc.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
But my anger and contempt for this beloved city would shortly return. As I write, (now after a full day and a half of having electricity restored,) there are still <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227307/Hurricane-Sandy-Misery-2-5-million-STILL-power-days-lawlessness-fear-over.html">countless others</a> in the Rockaways and Staten Island who not only <i>still</i> lack power but are having to endure hunger, looting, cold, and probably worse. There have been some informal reports via email and Facebook attesting that various forms of aid is <i>finally</i> arriving, (after nearly a goddamn fucking week!,) including The National Guard, FEMA, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/04/occupy_sandy_hurricane_relief_being_led_by_occupy_wall_street.html">Occupy Sandy</a> & a legion of other charitable souls. But I am still astounded at the lack of outrage - especially during the homestretch of a Presidential race - over the delay! "When are we gonna get some f%@#ing help?" as one resident from the Rockaways put it to the Mayor. Or as another <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/05/us-storm-sandy-rockaways-idUSBRE8A403D20121105">more mainstream source</a> explained more generally of the Rockaways: <span id="articleText">"Residents said they had not heard from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, nor have they seen a single
representative of the Red Cross or the city." And so, </span>the public infrastructure would fail
us once again - this time only more flagrantly. Is <a href="http://gothamist.com/2012/11/04/pepsico_and_walmart_are_donating_do.php">this</a> only a more banal occasion of Disaster Capitalism? A
"mini-Katrina," as one local representative <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121030/new-dorp/hurricane-sandy-called-mini-katrina-staten-island-south-brooklyn">put it</a>. According to <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/11/devastation_and.php">another assessment</a>: "The crisis in the Rockaways remains severe, and it's looking less and
less like a natural disaster and more and more like a failure of the
state."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
While it was clear from the first night after Sandy hit that NYPD would never be far from sight, as it drove by in cars or idly stood by on street corners, Herr Kelly and Moneybag$ Bloomberger couldn't seem to muster the forces to even start directing traffic in any coordinated sense with red flairs and those yellow reflecting jackets.... until Thursday!People were starting to grow impatient but they still remained remarkably calm. But how long would it last? <br />
<br />
Price gouging by local merchants was pretty rampant, whether it be with batteries, egg sandwiches, or cauliflower. A few were nice enough to allow me to charge my cell whenever I had the energy to schlep to midtown for bananas, pasta, and drink. I repaid the favor with a purchase and change. Something similar has been said of a particular Chase Bank branch as well of the W Hotel on Union Square. Wholefoods was also nice enough, at least on one afternoon, to give away free apples and pears outside their store on 23 St., thus attracting a small mob of some odd thirty people. Of course, there were far more hideous sights, like two elderly people one afternoon going through a garbage can, one drinking the remains from Johnny Walker Red, as a young woman jogged by with complete utter fucking indifference. <a href="http://evgrieve.com/2012/11/people-are-dumpster-diving-for-food-in.html">Dumpster Diving</a> has been reported as well. I also remember seeing an old woman with a bloody nose being helped into a chair on a Chelsea street corner after having fallen in the dark in a bodega; as well as watching an uppity young couple with a small child walk being led out of their building in the morning by their ingratiating doorman who went about hailing a cab for them as they ambled in utter oblivion of their neighbors who gathered in the building's lobby.<br />
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What is it that makes people avert the eyes of others? What is it that makes us avert a glimpse of darkness? Are we still capable of surprise? More specifically, what would New Yorkers take away from this experience ultimately? Perhaps an interest in Climate Change? Perhaps no longer a denial of the importance of both environmental politics and public infrastructure? Of how powerless we are? Maybe we'll have a greater awareness of each other even? <br />
<br />
Despite the shitheads and moments of despair there was also occasional romance in the air. Friends and neighbors ventured out into the night with flashlights and their survival instincts to gather intimately in bars & restaurants that were illuminated only by candleight and their imaginations. I happened to catch Francois Moutin, Anne Sila, and Lew Soloff @ Bar 55 for some of the best unplugged jazz I've ever heard. I also happened to come across a makeshift Halloween parade consisting of over a hundred people with marching band. As you can imagine, it drew the attention of NYPD in no uncertain terms. The ballsiest move by zombies and ghosts I've seen yet!<br />
<br />
So the lights are back on! Warm showers too! And the election is tomorrow! And if there is anything that could get this city & country back to business, back to normality, if not a good marathon, its a good election! Go Jill Stein! <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
See Nick Sherman's <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/sets/72157631905121276/">photo stream</a> on Flickr.<br />
<br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-74691376884312995962012-10-18T00:42:00.000-04:002012-10-25T22:45:07.373-04:00shorter presidential debates...and just as tedious<br />
<br />
The business and power of the state take place <i>not</i> in representational assemblies - and certainly <i>not</i>
in the vapid spectacles of partisan pandering - but in the deeper and
more encompassing structures of state bureaucracies, (i.e., public <i>and</i> private,) which imbricate one another - and dictate the conditions of who you vote for and how you live your little life. <br />
<br />
The exercise of this kind of power is not even acknowledged because on a very fundamental level it presents no overt conflict to behold. Just like in a magnetic field which alters the motion and positions of objects susceptible to magnetism, powerful forces dominate from the periphery, from unseen or unknown coordinates, by simply structuring the very parameters of the field of operations as well as the rules of engagement and the possibilities for direction and movement. Of course, albeit these powers easily do away with <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/ittlist/entry/14047/green_party_candidates_arrested_for_trying_to_enter_presidential_debate/">more <strike>unpredictable</strike> irritating factors</a> from appearing altogether, conflict still appears - if one chooses to call it that - but only within the acceptable confines of engagement. Contests, like official Debates, are thus dramatized to heighten differences, and hide unspoken accords and presumptions. "Coke vs Pepsi," for example, effectively distracts you from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/04/third-party-us-presidential-debate-deceit?dailypaul">how similar their ingredients are</a>. And elections are staged precisely to feed you bullshit & make you stupid by inflating and twisting your mind while garnering the halo of legitimacy. <br />
<br />
Of course, to avoid boredom most of us end up drinking some form of kool-aid anyway. Moreover, our suspension of disbelief enables us to exaggerate the differences between the actors, and take sides. We even try to push and pull in some directions against or at the expense of others. We even sometimes even place bets or look to influence the field in some banal, trivial way. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/oct/election-2012-vote-makes-difference#custom/a0/s0/r0/e0/l0">But we can't.</a> Those few however who <i>are</i> capable of coordinating the field given their <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121406045.html">institutional positioning</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/koch-brothers-network_n_1560596.html">financial clou</a>t don't like being bored either - and so they do some bidding bidding of their own. And so it goes.<br />
<br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-43902420808498301862012-09-26T22:37:00.002-04:002013-03-22T13:15:16.790-04:00when Hope & Change become We'll Take Anything We Can Get<br />
What good is Barack Obama if he is indeed another <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLJIfRUBkU&feature=relmfu">inside man</a> for the corporate plutocracy? What good is winning the election if all that Hope and Changey stuff was frankly bullshit? More importantly, what are the deeper implications of Hope and Change transmogrifying into We'll Take Anything We Can Get? <br />
<br />
Despite campaigning in 2008, <i>and now in 2012 it appears, </i>as an "outsider," who <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/09/20/obama_you_cant_change_washington_from_the_inside.html">tells</a> millions "you can't change Washington from the inside," Obama has governed from the Oval Office as The Consummate Insider. (All of which prompted a <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-6-2012/hope-and-change-2---barack-obama--it-could-have-been-worse">very funny segment</a> from <i>The Daily Show</i>.) But what really gets my goat going is when liberals shoot back with the predictable excuse, "he had no choice because of those stupid, evil republicans!," as if they <i>know</i> that Obama, somewhere deep-down in his soul, is really a progressive, and <i>not </i>a soulless neoliberal apparatchik. Yet do they have any EVIDENCE, (besides that secret plot he's got going against Rahm Emanuel & the banksters,) that Obama <i>would</i> govern as a liberal-progressive, you know, if it wasnt for all that realpolitick jazz? Do they have EVIDENCE that Obama is not the blue-dog he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01bai.html?_r=3&ref=politics&">says</a> he is? Any EVIDENCE that he plans - or even hopes - to replenish Social Security and Medicare after they're cut, or bring back labor unions after they get decimated, or bring back <i>Habeas Corpus</i>, or Keynesian economics, or undo climate change, or give back to citizens the civil liberties he <i>and the Republicans</i> have taken away, you know, once he has <i>enough</i> power to do so? <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most important accomplishment of Obama's Presidency, (besides extending Bush's Patriot Act; voting for FISA; extending Bush tax-cuts; taking upon himself the sole authority to kidnap or kill any American citizen without due process; appealing a court ruling on NDAA; using drones to kill innocent Muslims without being transparent about it, and approving the use of drones over domestic air-space for commercial and state purposes; failing in Copenhagen; kissing the ass of Wall St. bankers; cracking down on unions and working people; presiding over greater gaps of inequality than his predecessor; undermining attempts to better <a href="http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/mlk-national/e-pluribus...separation-deepening-double-segregation-for-more-students">integrate public schools</a>; invading foreign countries illegally despite being a Constitutional lawyer; buying into the Austerity racket and <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sanders-worried-about-grand-bargain-l">sending signals</a> that, like his Republican partners in crime, will actually <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-social-security-medicare-andor-medicaid.html">cut</a> Social Security & Medicare; and moving the party to the right of <i>both</i> Reagan and Nixon) has been to pour cold water on his supporters, aka his "base," while simultaneously convince them that he, really deep-down in his soul, is a pwogwessive... whatever his accomplishments, whatever he says. <br />
<br />
LIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESO
STUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESOSTUPIDLIBERALSARESO<br />
<br />
What makes all this so alarming is that its not just "the lesser evil" his supporters will be voting for; they'll
also be voting for, what Glen Ford <a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil">calls</a>, "the more effective evil"
given their perfect alibi: <i>those evil, stupid Republicans</i>. As Paul Street <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/elephants-or-donkeys-does-it-matter-by-paul-street">writes</a>, "I have been asking Obama-mad campus town liberals to tell me if there was any particular line in the sand Obama could cross where they would withdraw support for him. The question has been consistently met with silence except for one who told me they would cease to back Obama 'if he joined the Republican party.'" <br />
<br />
Obama seems like a great guy. He also has a beautiful family. But judging from his acts and deeds as an elected public official, qua POTUS, his priorities are nothing less than fucked up. He'll fight for Bush policies but not for the CTU - nor even campaign for public sector workers in Wisconsin <i>against</i> a Republican Governor! He'll stay silent when it comes to the gun-laws but not when it comes to ridiculing "the professional left." He'll sit by as poverty grows while find the time to coddle the rich. <i>The real proof is that Obama refuses to go out into the land to rally the people on these issues, (you know, that put-pressure-on-Congress thing,) but he will go out to the swing states during election time when he needs their votes. Such a great speaker, apparently an inspirational figure too, yet such an insider!</i> Thus, to build from what Charles Ferguson, (despite intending to vote for Obama,) <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/24/why-2012-election-will-be-another-inside-job">wrote </a>a few days ago: the fact of the matter is that the more the two electoral candidates pretend to be (are?) at each others' throats, the more similar they are in reality because being at each others throats requires access to big money, and thus enslaving yourself to the framework of corporate power. It doesn't matter what either of them say or what either of them say otherwise.<br />
<br />
Thus my quest has now become to radically disillusion "the left" and their
"centrist" collaborators of elections because elections, at least as
they are practiced within the United States these days, not only make
the electorate more stupid - they also have the brume of legitimacy
about them. I used to think to look forward to elections because at
least they got ordinary people, you know, the demos, talking about
politics - or at least what passed for politics. I still look forward to
these engagements. But I also know that every two years the lowest
common denominators get pumped up and paraded, and the historical records
conveniently evaporate into the ether, while the race to the bottom stays on course. I also am reminded how important it is to know that the elections are a sham because the difference between an F+ and an F-
just ain't gonna cut it. Actually, the difference between the two
parties these days, to rephrase it, looks like the difference between
someone putting a gun to you & your family's head, saying "Don't
worry, I know what I'm doing!," and another person leading you and your
family down a long dark alley, saying Don't worry, I know what I'm
doing!" I'll leave it up to you to figure out who is who. But be
prepared for tedious, exhausting debates because whether or not you
live in a red state or a blue state, you'll have to endure inane charts
and memes, & do plenty of "fact checking."<br />
<br />
On the really important issues that are defining and dictating how people live their lives, and what their futures entail, (the domination of corporate and financial power, increasing police power & militarism, the cracking down on unions; the withering away of social safety nets as well as Social Security and Medicare, growing gaps of inequality, and, of course, climate change,) the difference between these two parties <i>ain't worth squat</i>. That one may be intent on only picking up the pace as we fly of the cliff may be true; but that an opposition is either incapable or unwilling to stop us from hitting the ground seems also true. None of this is all that new. But we are getting closer to making it a whole lot worse. <br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-19119220870561317982012-09-07T15:42:00.001-04:002012-09-23T20:32:09.166-04:00Obama as "the more effective evil"<br />
Criticism matters if only to correct the record - and that's just what Glen Ford achieves for the most part as Michael Eric Dyson, the new Obama apparatchik <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/michael-eric-dyson-hire-by-msnbc-deepens-black-ire-over-al-sharpton-show.html">at MSNBC</a>, makes an ass of himself on this morning's <i>Democracy Now</i>! (The debate starts at about the 16:30 mark.) <br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="200" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2012/9/7/effective_evil_or_progressives_best_hope" width="360"></iframe><br />
<br />
I used to think the difference between the GOP and the Democrats was like the difference between Coke and Pepsi. And there was a difference: one tasted better and was, at least we we were told, less filling. It was pretty much a difference without a distinction between two corrupt, failed, oligarchical parties. The evil of two lessers, in other words. More recently, I had to come to think of the difference between the two parties as kind of like the difference between two corporate-militarist-plutocratic Orwellian factions with different branding strategies: one cast somewhere in between a Benetton advertisement and the dust-covered box set of <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/will-and-grace-060525/">Will & Grace</a> in your closet - and the other, far more politically incorrect, juvenile, and downright depraved in its antics. Now I think the difference is probably more akin to that existing between a calmer, more rational, and deceptively more "inclusive" Republican party, aka <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7YVZXnwdk">Ford's "more effective evil,"</a> which has not just moved to the right of both <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/obama-nixon/">Nixon</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/who-is-more-conservative_b_638947.html">Reagan</a> but every once and a while poses and parades itself <i>as</i> a "Democratic Party" to muster <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/09/06/obamas_convention_charade/">appeal</a> from <strike>unsuspecting</strike> sycophantic <i>soi disant</i> pwogwessives and their "centrist" collaborators - and, a party that is simply far more politically incorrect, radical, depraved, and more <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/how-the-apocalyptic-gop-is-dragging-us-into-a-civil-war-20110907">apocalyptic</a> in its antics. A more strategically "effective evil" does <i>not</i> mean a greater one in absolute terms just a less extreme, more compromised, stealthier one. Both still fail but there is a difference.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* UPDATE 9/9/12*<br />
<br />
Watch Glen Ford address the issue again with Paul Jay on <i>The Real News</i>.<br />
<br />
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<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-4434997728514082592012-08-31T18:39:00.000-04:002012-09-23T22:28:09.196-04:00go ahead, make my day<br />
<a href="http://www.correntewire.com/anyone_else_feeling_like_the_fix_is_in">Corrente</a> writes, <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Maybe it's me, but last night's convention/sideshow convinced me that
this whole process of electing a president is nothing but a sham,
something for the rubes to chatter about while the real action is going
on in an entirely different tent. </blockquote>
Actually its not you - and you're not the only one. But what makes this time different?<br />
<br />
People have suspected these things for a long time. The problem is that they know the show is fake but still fool themselves by thinking they've spotted the real distinction, the real importance, between what is real and what is not. Reality is multi-layered. Offstage creeps onstage. One convention is present in another while the same issues are absent from both. And as long as Americans continue their fickle love-affair with reality they'll always have something to seize upon, size up, and dispose of no matter how contrived. Reality requires an effort of the imagination. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-32198412864987326062012-08-13T19:39:00.000-04:002012-08-17T13:00:26.042-04:00Paul Ryan's Ordo Praedicatorum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8EosOoM7flFj1OKA5iG9_eKeOupfyglB1K3no2p1XD1zrkIA_6FiocwWMRDfewgQAKscxP3S2qb38n58yvQHLItHfvOXwWHKGu-UCCmxbNS4kT90_y2pOlNXW6CELupVW2Mp26LCXN_Y/s1600/great_white_hope_rect-460x307.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8EosOoM7flFj1OKA5iG9_eKeOupfyglB1K3no2p1XD1zrkIA_6FiocwWMRDfewgQAKscxP3S2qb38n58yvQHLItHfvOXwWHKGu-UCCmxbNS4kT90_y2pOlNXW6CELupVW2Mp26LCXN_Y/s320/great_white_hope_rect-460x307.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Libertarian ideology seems to be quite the rage these days. No longer the nomenclature of right-wing economists and nerds that it was in previous decades it has gained considerable visibility and acceptance - despite its failures, despite <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkLDdQ3HORo">Alan Greenspan</a>. Ron Paul's attempts for the Presidency, for instance, though not exactly successful, have increased their following with each consecutive run, while, more tellingly, his libertarian son, <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/78364/rand-paul-ayn-rand">Rand Paul</a>, was elected Senator of Kentucky in 2010. Also, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77633.html">a movie </a>based on Ayn Rand's <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> was released last year, and, just this last June, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77834.html">the first Ayn Rand Summit </a>was held in DC and attended by John Stossel, Allen West, Grover Norquist, and President candidate, Gary Johnson. The Libertarian Party itself <a href="http://www.lp.org/introduction/americas-third-largest-party">boasts </a>having become the third-largest political party in the US. And considering the more substantial extent to which neo-liberal "free market" policies and talking-points have been adopted across the board, by both <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/neoliberalism-and-bottom-line-morality-by-edward-herman">Democrats</a> and Republicans, should any of this
be much of a surprise?<br />
<br />
Another self-proclaimed Randian, Paul Ryan - who in 2009 admitted, "the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, it would be Ayn Rand" - has now been tapped to share the GOP ticket. Ryan has not only reportedly <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/how-tell-paul-ryan-wants-be-veep-hes-rejected-his-former-idol-ayn-rand/51605/">said </a>as far back as 1999 that the books he most often reads are "the Bible, Friedrich von Hayek's <i>The Road to Serfdom</i>, and Ayn Rand's <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>," but also confessed his proselytizing efforts to <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/002/339ooaxm.asp"><i>The Weekly Standard</i></a> in 2003: "I give out <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well... I try to make my interns read it." Yet some libertarians are complaining.<i> </i>Though <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/paul-ryan-gets-free-markets/">some</a> see in Ryan a man of ideological credibility who can balance out the Republican ticket, <a href="http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/dont-confuse-paul-ryan-with-ron-paul.html">others</a> are crying he's a phony - a big-government conservative even. Indeed, as lots of the commentary has already pointed out this past weekend, Ryan's record suggests that he is <i>both</i> for economic "austerity" (the gradual privatization of social security, deep cuts to spending, and "a balanced budget") as well as for "big government" (government bailouts, TARP, Ethanol subsidies, unemployment extensions, the Patriot Act and other federal intrusions, Constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage as well to criminalize flag burning, and many proposed measures to restrict the reproductive freedom of women.) <br />
<br />
That Ryan even started dialing back his Randian cred a few months ago, evoking Thomas Aquinas, may only cause libertarian voters to harden their convictions, and maybe vote for Gary Johnson. Who knows? But I wonder: what in the world can be more utterly glibertarian than to balance out neo-liberal Austrian economics with an "epistemological" turn *cough* to a 13th century Dominican Catholic priest? (See this <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/08/paul_ryan_thomas_aquinas_ayn_rand.php">take down of neo-liberal Aquinian grandstanding</a>.) And what can be more harmful to the GOP in November than this rift between free-market contractarians who find inspiration in the atheism of Rand's "objectivism," and conservative God fearing Christians? Thus, in <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/11/158620127/transcript-romney-names-ryan-as-running-mate">Romney's words</a>, "Paul is in public life for all the right reasons — not to advance his
personal ambitions but to advance the ideals of freedom and justice; and
to increase opportunity and prosperity to people of every class and
faith, every age and ethnic background. A faithful Catholic, Paul
believes in the worth and dignity of every human life." Well, well...<br />
<br />
Ryan's move away from <a href="http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/04/27/ayn-rand-resurgence">Rand</a> signals the electoral liabilities of associating with her, which Ryan and the rest of today's politerati obviously recognize. Democrats will thus likely try to tag Ryan to her Social Darwinist pretensions - but not so much because she was a free-market libertarian but because she was an ideological hack with as much intellectual depth as a nine-year old. Unfortunately, as Democrats look to exploit <i>that</i> particular angle, the failed economic policies of neoliberalism, and the growing gap between "producers" and "moochers," as Rand put it, will get the obligatory free pass. <br />
<br />
But even by their own "small government" standards libertarian ideas are a failure: they simply don't work. On one level, the I-got-mine-now-fuck-off school of thought creates economic and political counter-movements, to borrow a phrase from Karl Polanyi, which are antithetical to it. But in an even more obvious respect, any "small government" exponent running for office in "big government" by default <i>cannot</i> govern on such principles because <i>big capital</i> will always be there to make sure that the corporate mega-state - and its spending sprees and dysfunctions - will remain in place. Thus, the Paul Ryans and the <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/238831/gary-johnson-rand-paul-betrayed-his-fathers-principles">Rand Pauls</a> of the world who sit in political office will always be <a href="http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/11/13232707-paul-ryan-deficit-cutter-here-are-his-votes-on-the-wall-street-bailout-bush-tax-cuts-and-iraq-war?lite">compromised</a>, and always fall short of their libertarian spiel. Big capital and its spokesmen will never acknowledge that the effort to "bring back effective and responsible government" actually requires a call to resist this very collusion between big government and big capital.<br />
<br />
Big capital will also always be there to remind us time and time again, whether through the mouth of Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, or petty bureaucrat, that
the functioning of a successful economy requires transforming political
categories and expectations into economic ones. These reminders translate into generating more cost cutting measures and bigger profits. They also make even those who are most well-meaning view the country's problems through the language and schemes of short-term practical payoffs and "market" discourse. The long-term political effects of such incessant zero-sum economizing only preclude the chances that any political alternative to the neo-liberal <i>cul de sac</i> we find ourselves in might ever get off the ground and be worth fighting for. (I mean, who wants to fight a <strike>losing</strike> impractical battle these days when, to recall Margaret Thatcher's words, "there is no alternative"?) <br />
<br />
Big capital also doesn't need the ideological purity of Ron Paul
or Gary Johnson to do its bidding because its already the biggest show in town. By occupying the electoral margins such libertarian figures enable "free market" rationalities to operate as business-as-usual, more informally, more impersonally, and more inevitably. Their mere presence also makes it easier for Paul Ryan to try to back away from his Randian schtick just as he moves into November's spotlight. pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-70768482046380335712012-07-04T10:45:00.000-04:002012-07-05T13:21:23.918-04:00war. what is it good for.<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" class="vzaar-video-player" frameborder="0" height="360" id="vzvd-966044" name="vzvd-966044" src="http://view.vzaar.com/966044/player" title="vzaar video player" type="text/html" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
If you ever watched public television in the NY-Metropolitan area in the late 1980s, as I did as a high school student, you may remember <i>Bookmark</i>, a weekly talk-show which invited authors to talk about their books, and was hosted by a younger Lewis Lapham. This particular episode includes Paul Fussell, author of <i>Wartime</i>, (1989) and crimson vested, Studs Turkel. pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-5391326597843046082012-05-20T11:51:00.001-04:002012-07-05T13:24:15.522-04:00road not travelled by progressives<br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">From <i>(Notes on) Politics, Theory,
and Photography</i>, 5/19/12, comes </span><a href="http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">this</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">
reminder:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Let's
see now, the government funds lots of basic research that leads to massive
technological advance; let's call it the Internet. And a bunch of guys make
oodles of dollars exploiting the technology for commercial gain. And then those
same guys turn around and spend oodles of dollars on groups that </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/05/19/153002892/with-eye-on-future-billionaire-investor-bets-on-paul?sc=fb&cc=fp"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">spout libertarian nonsense</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> about how
"government regulation stifles innovation and, without innovation, there
is no economic growth." </span><a href="http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/search?q=bullshit"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Bullshit</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">And
let’s not also forget, in addition to the public subsidies handed out to whole
industries also the massive expenditures for the building and coordinating of
the interstate highway system, a la "the grid," as well as subsidies for public
health, sanitation, and transportation systems. </span><a href="http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/99julaug/hoover.cfm"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">The Hoover Dam</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> is just one example. And who can
forget all those salaried uniform personnel to collect tolls and police the
whole thing? I cant imagine war efforts either, like The Manhattan Project,
without state involvement. Nor </span><a href="http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/2007/prn200719.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">nuclear power</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">. Jeff Madrick has written on these
issues; his </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Government-Public-Square/dp/0691123314"><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">The Case For Big Government</span></i></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">, (2009) convincingly
argues that since public goods, like the aforementioned, benefit society
overall more than any individual or business, public investments as well
planning and regulation would simply not have been adequately undertaken by
private firms. But even before I had come across Madrick's book, I had a good inkling to what libertarians were up to: despite their occasional Social-Darwinian pretensions and underneath their arguments for free-markets, <i>sotto voce</i>, is the concern for law and order. Turning civil society into an outdoor mall or gambling casino well-patrolled by security guards and surveillance cameras is their little ideological trade. They deny the very entity they are bed with: the state. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> <br />
And yet, as much as I surely prefer large scale "social-democracy" with strong
unions and active, albeit legitimate, economic involvement by the state, (including, of course, imposing very
high taxes on the rich,) to large-scale </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noam-chomsky/plutonomy-and-the-precari_b_1499246.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">plutonomy</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> with gated communities and a decimated
social and cultural landscape, I can’t help flinching whenever I hear
progressives hope for rebuilding the big benevolent nanny-state. Large scale
bureaucracies and centralized political power, whether acknowledged or not, are
still inherently undemocratic both in design and orientation. The complex
regulatory decision-making mechanisms devised through the administrative
mega-state, like it or not, devalue democratic participation at the local level.<br />
<br />
Historically, progressive reforms have been more successful along the
institutional axes of arranging and defining the scope of the <i>power of the
state to act</i> than along a participatory axis of facilitating the
exercise of democratic power.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=104250834181768408#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">[1]</span></span></span></a>
This legacy is particularly striking given the broad sweep of social and
educative initiatives that Progressives sought. Indeed as it turned out, the
populist rhetoric to bust Wall St. and flout its indentured political parties
and actors, though appropriated from earlier protest movements in the south, and animated by ethical-religious language as well as various Constitutional
arguments, helped transform localist regimes of courts and parties into a more
integrated national state. Progressives certainly succeeded in winning suffrage for women as well as greater bargaining power for labor unions. More generally, intervention by state power on behalf of those disadvantaged by the market forces of advanced capitalism became to be seen as legitimate. Millions were given new opportunities. And though Progressives did not root out political corruption one of their most important their successes included
higher standards and expectations about government at every level. Nonetheless their failure to attract and maintain a more direct democratic politics, (though the social
movements of the 1960s and 70s are important exceptions,) seems these days only to
be undoing the state whose construction Progressives began. Today, the national
state not only happens to be lost to international regimes and kingpins but is also
accompanied by an electorate that is <i>en masse</i> methodically manipulated,
lied to, trivialized, and exploited. Democratic institutions exist only as a
set of creaking procedures, services, and regulations, which can serve law-abiding
subjects as well as actors intent on utilizing them for selfish ends. And the
democratic principles which these regimes seldom pay lip-service to, to
recall's Nietzsche's description, have indeed become lies that creep out from
the state's mouth. <br />
<br />
Though Corey Robin claims </span><a href="http://coreyrobin.com/2012/01/03/ron-paul-has-two-problems-one-is-his-the-other-is-ours/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">that</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> "the path forward for the left
lies in the alliance between active social movements on the ground and a strong
national state," I suspect it would be dangerously facile to pave over the relationship
between "a strong national state" and a democratic political culture.
A regime which promotes the general welfare while protecting individuals and
minority populations by securing the right kinds of conditions and
opportunities is obviously commendable... and, as far as that brief formulation
goes, is frankly ideal. A progressive political state can conceivably guarantee
civil rights and workplace safety, as well as enforce the rule of law and
uphold principles of fairness and equality; it can also presumably educate
citizens into viewing their personal lives in terms of collective goods and the
general welfare of society. In these respects, freedom is <i>not</i> negative,
as the libertarian gang would have us believe but dependent on institutional
and ethical collaborators. But I still remain skeptical whether attempts to pursue
and accomplish any of these things through more policy and more state without a participatory
ethic at the local level is possible - if desirable. Any effort to <s>"regulate"</s> radically
dismantle the interlocking configurations of state and economic power requires,
(as impossible as it sounds,) <i>sustained</i> popular political action from the bottom up - warts
and all.<br />
<br />
A passage from Tocqueville comes to mind: "democratic peoples often hate
the repositories of central power but they love the power itself." These
words could very well apply to libertarians - can they also apply to progressives?
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=104250834181768408#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> Eileen L.
McDonagh, “Race, Class, and Gender in the Progressive Era,” in <i>Progressivism
and the New Democracy</i>, 1999 (edited by Sidney M. Milkis and Jerome M. Mileur.) </span></div>
</div>
</div>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-40232632224781720582012-04-10T12:09:00.000-04:002012-04-10T12:09:36.112-04:00talking about unions<embed allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="diavlogid=9453&file=http://bloggingheads.tv/playlist.php/9453/00:00/49:42&config=http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/files/2012/offsite_config.xml&topics=false" height="288" id="bhtv9453" name="bhtv9453" src="http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/players/player_v5.2-licensed.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="380"></embed>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-14225052579383197582012-03-26T09:16:00.003-04:002012-09-23T20:31:24.724-04:00funny me, funny you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RUudRHsQNLUYN7EN0GMkqwV-7D4r_e02mXKg_001pgn4qszFyYjQaG2vCFOW1XKvUqDH93xAjc7bBGAZx0ckBIOtPteXWUsq2De2eMAHnI1ASImV98-vKm9ZG2c68Vr86uCA2pJJPQA/s1600/TMW2012-03-14colorKOS.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="593" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RUudRHsQNLUYN7EN0GMkqwV-7D4r_e02mXKg_001pgn4qszFyYjQaG2vCFOW1XKvUqDH93xAjc7bBGAZx0ckBIOtPteXWUsq2De2eMAHnI1ASImV98-vKm9ZG2c68Vr86uCA2pJJPQA/s640/TMW2012-03-14colorKOS.png" width="640" /></a></div>
And <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/andrew-sullivan-and-glenn-greenwald-clash-over-military-killing-us-citizens-overseas-on-maher-panel/">watch</a> Glenn Greenwald take on Andrew Sullivan on this same exact issue.pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-5242173421254281882012-03-19T11:55:00.000-04:002012-03-19T11:55:59.537-04:00there are war criminals...and then there are war criminalsFrom Henry Farrell at<i> Crooked Timber</i>, we get <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2012/03/13/cheney-and-manning-a-modest-proposal/">some perspective</a> on both.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">On the one side of the balance sheet, we have Richard B. Cheney. This gentleman, now in private life, is a self-admitted and unrepentant perpetrator of war crimes – specifically, of ordering the torture of Al Qaeda detainees. Along with other senior members of the Bush regime, he is also guilty of the outsourcing of even viler forms of torture through the extraordinary rendition of individuals to regimes notorious for torturing prisoners (including the dispatch of Maher Arar, who was entirely innocent, to the torturers of Syria). The Obama administration has shown no enthusiasm whatsoever for prosecuting Cheney, or other Bush senior officials, for their crimes. While Obama has effectively admitted that they were torturers, he has indicated, both through public statements and continued inaction, that he would prefer to let bygones be bygones.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">On the other, we have Bradley Manning. He appears to be a confused individual – but his initial motivation for leaking information, if the transcripts are correct, were perfectly clear. He was appalled at what he saw as major abuses of authority by the US, including incidents that he witnessed directly in Iraq. There is no evidence that his leaking of information has caused anything worse than embarrassment for the US. Yet he is being pursued by the Obama administration with the vengefulness of Greek Furies. While Manning was being kept in solitary confinement, and treated in an inhuman fashion, Richard Cheney was enjoying the manifold pleasures of a well-compensated private life, being subjected to no more than the occasional impertinent question on a Sunday talk show, and the inconveniences of being unable to travel to jurisdictions where he might be arrested.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">It would appear then that the administration is rather more prepared to let bygones be bygones in some cases than in others. High officials, who ordered that torture be carried out and dragged the US into international disrepute, are given an <i>ex post</i> carte blanche for their crimes, while a low-ranking soldier who is at most guilty of leaking minor secrets at the lowest levels of classification, is treated inhumanely and likely, should he be convicted, to face life imprisonment.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"></blockquote>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-39592062468134862232012-02-11T01:30:00.001-05:002012-02-22T01:04:13.636-05:00jaron lanier discusses why social media is ruining your life and what you can do about it<embed allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="diavlogid=8903&file=http://bloggingheads.tv/playlist.php/8903/00:00/52:16&config=http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/files/2012/offsite_config.xml&topics=false" height="288" id="bhtv8903" name="bhtv8903" src="http://static.bloggingheads.tv/ramon/_live/players/player_v5.2-licensed.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="390"></embed>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-40506314478077097242012-02-01T13:09:00.000-05:002012-02-01T13:09:05.172-05:00lessig and hedges talk it outbrought to us by <a href="http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/02/01/nyregion/100000001315830/growing-a-think-tank.html">the fine people of Occupy Wall St. Think Tank</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="280" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WLFPN-XFGk0" width="460"></iframe>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-82317603945226764392012-01-18T06:28:00.005-05:002012-09-23T20:34:08.459-04:00Moyers with Hacker and Pierson<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/35036408?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/35036408">Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user9013478">BillMoyers.com</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Hacker and Pierson argue in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588698"><i>Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class</i></a> (2010) that the widening gap of inequality in the US, (<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>the rich are getting fabulously richer while the rest of Americans are basically holding steady or worse,<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">” p.20</span>) has not primarily been due to changes in technology, education, and economics, or what is casually referred to as <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>globalization,<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">”</span> but changes in the American <i>political </i>realm. Not only are the growing rates of inequality in the US evidently foreign to other advanced countries which are also indebted to the globalized economy, say Hacker and Pierson, these inequalities are the product of a sustained assault on the American middle-class by business organizations and industry lobbies on myriad labor groups, social programs, and economic and progressive tax policies. The <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>sustained hyperconcentration<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">”</span> of wealth found in the US these days has been made possible by the coordinated efforts and planning of <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>trickle-up economics<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">”</span> dating back to the 1970s. And, <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>alas,<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">” </span>they remind us, <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>the evidence is overwhelming that upward social mobility has not increased at the same time that inequality has skyrocketed<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">,” (pp. 28-29) </span>and actually lag behind rates of mobility now found in Canada, Germany, Australia, France, Finland, Spain, Norway, and Sweden. <br />
<br />
The important point made by Hacker and Pierson is that politics is not a trivial sideshow for cable tv but the battlefront where class warfare gets conducted by other means. Thus what their book attempts to do is repoliticize economic realities. <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>Governments <i>do</i> redistribute what people earn.. But government policies also shape what people earn in the first place, as well as many other fundamental economic decisions that consumers, businesses, and workers make. Practically every aspect of labor and financial markets is shaped by government policy...Even the word 'redistribution' is symptomatic of the pervasive distortions in contemporary discussion. It suggests the refashioning of a natural order by meddling politicians, a departure from market rewards. But the treatment of the market as some pre-political state of nature is a fiction. Politicians are there at the creation, shaping that 'natural' order and what the market rewards. Beginning in the 1970s, they helped shape it so more and more of the rewards would go to the top.<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">” (pp.55-56)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
So not only did powerful business and employer lobbies work together to achieve shared goals. They did so by generating mass political campaigns, and spreading large sums of cash throughout <i>both</i> political parties. When the cost of political advertising began to skyrocket in the 1970s the increasing hunger for cash gave the political parties good reason to listen to those with deep pockets. <span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>The newly mobilized business groups understood that Democrats and Republicans could play distinct but complementary roles<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">” (p.121).</span> Business PACS could provide mixed donations to both parties - and even hedge their bets by spending on candidates competing in the same race. Eventually, both parties earned their business cred. They ostensibly embraced free markets as well as the cutting of social welfare programs. National economic policies became the consequence of a new kind of politics. And in the long run, those organizations that had once provided leverage to workers and middle-class Americans simply lost their clout. <br />
<br />
Hacker and Pierson close by affirming their hope in politics nonetheless. Though the battle may last decades, they suggest, the American political system can perhaps be made responsive once again to sustained democratic engagement and the hopes of the American middle-class. Yet given the neoliberal globalization of markets which Hacker and Pierson reference, I wonder whether the political realm they appeal to still has the autonomy to actually become once again the arena of political change. Let's remember its not just the organized infrastructure of labor unions and lobbies <i>as well as the Democratic party</i> that have been compromised perhaps beyond repair. The American political infrastructure itself has undergone deep structural changes. And, perhaps most significantly, so has the political culture of the American public. Thus, are political <i>and economic</i> reforms still possible within the US given these historical conditions and the global regimes they are embedded within? And if reforms are possible, can Americans reasonably hope they will result from what Hacker and Pierson call, "the quiet heroism of sustained renewal" of traditional political forms, i.e., electoral politics and democratic organization? Should we refer back to the successes of the New Deal, and to Walter Lippmann's advice that democracy lift itself up by its own bootstraps, given the realities of the contemporary age? More broadly, I continue to wonder whether Americans are in the midst of a new political founding? Perhaps entering into a new age of techno-feudalism?pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-91750676745025439862011-11-17T02:26:00.002-05:002012-09-23T20:35:48.281-04:00ny's finest...just obeying orders<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mhQCpXM-Sm4?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104250834181768408.post-57449492071266460992011-11-12T23:18:00.015-05:002011-12-02T17:50:32.663-05:00the occupation movement heckles michelle bachmann <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="280" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wGVts6abdpY?rel=0" width="520"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Occupiers cannot simply continue twinkling at electoral politics and the concentration of political and economic power, and this video suggests they are starting realize it... I think. I also wonder whether they'll be willing to heckle Democrats as well. Because even if the Occupation does not endorse candidates, preferring to <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>stay out of politics,<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">”</span> it should still plan on clarifying and coordinating its <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“</span>autonomous<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">”</span> position in regard to the two-party system itself, its candidates, and schemes, especially in light of the onslaught of campaign rhetoric, (<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“</span>the lesser of two evils,<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">”</span>) eventually on its way. 'Cuz, you know, power kinda works that way.<br />
<br />
UPDATE: 11/22/2011<br />
<br />
Watch here Obama spin the wheels of co-optation when speaking to an audience in New Hampshire, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“</span>including<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">“</span>the ones who were chanting at me, you're the reason I ran for office in the first place.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">”</span> Still no 3rd party people? <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="140" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dNH3TRENKVQ?rel=0" width="235"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
though Rahm seemed far more perturbed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="v=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcchicago.com%2Fi%2Fembed_new%2F%3Fcid%3D134302203%26path=${encodedPath}" height="140" src="http://media.nbcchicago.com/designvideo/embeddedPlayer.swf" width="235"></embed>pietrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00866486751985547096noreply@blogger.com0