http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/09/civil-liberties-free-zone-in-chicago
COMMENT: SHAUN HARKIN
Rahm Emanuel's clampdown on civil liberties goes beyond his goal of silencing opposition to next May's gathering of the global 1 percent, says Shaun Harkin.
CHICAGO MAYOR Rahm Emanuel wants to set up his own personal police state to accommodate the warmongers and budget-slashers who will attend a conference of the global 1 percent in Chicago in May.
Emanuel is giddy about the "opportunity" to host simultaneous gatherings of the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance and the Group of Eight (G8) club of powerful industrial nations also dominated by the U.S., set for May 19-21. The last time both entities met together was in 1977 in London.
"From a city perspective, this will be an opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country," said Emanuel. "It's an opportunity for the city of Chicago economically, but also a message internationally about why Chicago is a city that's on the move, and if you're thinking of investing, Chicago is a place to invest."
Meanwhile, civil liberties will become a scarce commodity.
In December, Emanuel introduced a package of proposed ordinances, to be voted on by the Chicago City Council, that demand dramatically higher fines for anyone arrested during the summits, more surveillance cameras and the daily closure of city parks and playgrounds until 6 a.m.
The ordinances would also increase minimum fines from $25 to $250 for anyone found "resisting arrest"--and the law is careful to specify that "passively" resisting, such as going limp in classic civil-disobedience style, is also included. Maximum fines would increase from $500 to $1,000, and in some cases to $2,000.
The spineless Chicago City Council--which recently rubberstamped Emanuel's job-busting and social-services-slashing budget with a 50-0 vote--is set to vote on the ordinances on January 18.
The new ordinances would also empower Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to "deputize law enforcement personnel"; make cooperative agreements with a host of state, federal and local law enforcement agencies; and forge agreements with "public or private entities concerning placement, installation, maintenance or use of video, audio telecommunications, or other similar equipment."
This last measure would buttress the city's existing "Big Brother" surveillance network, augmenting more than 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras--the most extensive and integrated system in the nation, according to experts.
Emanuel's proposals are also clearly intended to "neutralize" any number of other potential headaches. For one, Emanuel wants to set up new hurdles for Occupy Chicago, which has plans for a spring mobilization in early April. In the fall, Emanuel ordered mass arrests that successfully thwarted Occupy Chicago's repeated efforts to establish an encampment in a public space.
But Emanuel is also faced with growing protests among teachers, nurses and community activists faced with school closures, and cuts to city mental health services and other programs.
According to the Chicago Reporter, "Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the department is treating the Occupy Chicago protests as a bit of a dry run, and they've considered the way they've dealt with protesters so far to be a success."
From the first announcement that the joint summits would be held in Chicago, there has also been a systematic media campaign to smear social justice protesters as hell-bent on "violence" and "destruction." In particular, the Chicago Sun-Times ran sensational front-page articles featuring burning buildings and confrontational scenes.
Emanuel wants to use a media-generated hysteria to justify the massive security operation and discourage wider participation in the protests.
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SPENDING TENS of millions of dollars on security and feasts for powerful politicians and officials who oversaw the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, or who imposed austerity across the world will be hard for many people to stomach.
This is especially true in a city where the mayor has forced through layoffs of librarians, the closure of desperately needed mental-health clinics and schools, and other cuts to the city's already battered social safety net. And Emanuel is planning for more, with massive concessions demanded from Chicago teachers and transit workers.
But despite the intimidation and demonization, networks of Chicago-based and national activists have been organizing since August to challenge the twin entities of the G8 and NATO, as well as the assault on civil liberties.
Mass protests, a People's Summit and many other events and actions are being planned by students, trade unionists, antiwar organizers, faith-based activists, Occupiers, anti-eviction activists and many others. These groups have joined forces to say no to the NATO/G8 agenda, and to put forward an alternative based on equality, democracy and solidarity.
But as far as Emanuel is concerned, this runs contrary to his own plans to host an event that caters to the interests of the city's corporate elite--and those of his former boss, President Barack Obama, who Emanuel served as White House chief of staff until he left in October 2010 to run for mayor.
By mid-May, the 2012 presidential election will be in full swing, and Democrats are hoping that Obama's prospects for reelection will be enhanced by playing a central role in the summits. According to an anonymous administration official, the NATO/G8 meetings offer Obama "with the opportunity to continue his leadership of our most important security alliance, to fulfill commitments made by allied leaders in Lisbon in November 2010, and to sustain our joint work to revitalize NATO to prepare it to effectively meet challenges of the 21st century."
The White House thus hopes to use the Chicago summit to reassert the global role of the U.S. in both economic and military terms.
Officials will tout what they consider the Obama administration's foreign policy achievements, including support for regime change in Libya and ending the war in Iraq. Economically, the summit presents the U.S. with a bully pulpit to lecture Europe on how to avoid an imposion of the eurozone economy that would drag down the world economy.
Pivotal, too, for the U.S. is the exclusion of China--the clear rival to the U.S. in coming decades, economically and politically--from both bodies.
Though there are fears that its economic growth will slow in the next couple of years, China now has more billionaires than any other country except the U.S., along with $2 trillion in foreign assets--while the U.S. has $2.5 trillion in net debts. China is the world's leading manufacturer and looks set to become the world's primary importer by 2014--a massive turnaround from 2000 when U.S. imports were six times China's, according to the Economist.
China's growth, the economic crisis and the quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan have combined to exacerbate the sense of anxiety among U.S. policymakers and the broader public about "American decline." A Pew Global Attitudes Survey captures this statistically: when asked which country is the world's leading economic power, 43 percent of Americans answered China, while only 38 percent believe the U.S. is still number one.
So what could be better for the U.S. and President Obama than a global platform staged in Chicago to present their message about what needs to be done.
But here's what they don't say: The global 1 percent have become even richer in recent years, and they want to stop anything that might disrupt the growth of their staggering vast wealth. So elite will gather to justify austerity for the purpose of stabilizing world capitalism, defend the concentration of wealth and power among the tiny few--and pay lip service to reducing hunger, climate change and inequality.
Writing from Kabul in Afghanistan, veteran peace campaigner Kathy Kelly captured the disconnect between those who embrace the G8 and NATO and those who feel the brunt of its dictates:
Hillary Clinton, President Obama, former war-hawk representative Emanuel and other undisputed militarists in government seem to see Chicago as a city obsessed with power, a city determined above all to be tough and strong. Carl Sandburg famously depicted Chicago as the city of big shoulders, and it often seems too easy for political leaders and generals to confuse the strength involved in shouldering shared burdens with the very different kind of "toughness" that drives a fist or a nightstick.
NATO/G8 summits have been met with protests wherever they have been held. In 2001, at the height of the global justice movement, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Genoa, Italy, to show their opposition to G8 policies. With this in mind, Chicago's mayor is ready to go to any length to protect the architects of war and global inequality.
But his efforts aren't going unnoticed. John Kass, a conservative Chicago Tribunecolumnist, criticized Emanuel's "ruthless amassing of new powers" by comparing him to a Roman dictator:
[T]here seems to be a new, imperial Rahm on the horizon: Emperor Rahmulus. Rahmulus wants more power over police, so that his police chief may immediately deputize members of other law enforcement agencies should Rahmulus decree. This means he might be able to deputize the Melrose Park cops--perhaps even the Melrose Park Fire Department--if he feels the need.
And he wants more control over contracts, transforming the already-neutered Chicago City Council from eunuchs to ghosts. "I'm doing what is appropriate for a unique event with a unique attention to the city," Emanuel told reporters last week. "We'll do it to make sure we have an orderly process. This is not a big deal. This is a one-time event...This is temporary, and this is just for this conference."
Oh, sure. It's just temporary. The last guy who said new powers were only temporary was Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars saga...
In fact, Emanuel's dispatch of the City Council is only a means to an end, says Kass:
The mayor will have sweeping contract powers to take care of this one and that one because he feels like it, with little if any legislative oversight. And that befits a political system where "democracy" is largely symbolic, as it was in Albania for most of the last century.
So we'll have heads of state gathering in Chicago to nibble hors d'oeuvres with Rahm's business friends, and they'll make contacts and deals and more business. Taxpayers will pick up much of the cost. The suits will praise President Barack Obama's Chicago. And if history is our guide, then young protesters will be dragged away, their heads bouncing along the curbs.
Kass' assessment is on the money. In fact, Emanuel has acknowledged [1] that he has no intention of making "temporary" any of the measures designed to clamp down on civil liberties.
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TO FUND the massive security operation, Emanuel was handed a $54.6 million grant by his friends in the federal government. The mayor's office won't say how much it wants to raise in addition to this federal funding, or how it will spend any contributions, but it has tapped seasoned corporate networkers, including former Sara Lee Corp. CEO John Bryan, to lead the effort.
Within corporate and political circles, Emanuel's fundraising skills are seen as legendary.According to reporter Shia Kapos [2]:
Before he headed out of town for the holidays, Mayor Rahm Emanuel tied up a loose end of business. He secured a $2 million sponsorship donation for the upcoming NATO and G8 summits, which will land in Chicago in mid-May. Add that to the $50 million or so already in the bank.
Yep, the latest infusion should put to rest any question of whether businesses want their names attached to an event that draws protests. Christie Hefner, the former Playboy Enterprises Inc. CEO who now serves as executive chairman of Tucson, Ariz.-based Canyon Ranch Enterprises Inc., said as much at a recent Executives' Club of Chicago meeting.
The media's collaboration in the whole spectacle of trumpeting the summit while demonizing protesters shouldn't come as a surprise--especially at the Sun-Times, whose board has a longstanding relationship with the city's new boss. According toCrain's Chicago Business reporter Greg Hinz [3]:
At least eight of the 12 board members of the new company [that owns theSun-Times], Wrapports LLC, have donated to Mr. Emanuel's campaign fund in the past year, collectively plunking down $241,000 that I found in a quick survey of Board of Elections disclosures. Included: $25,000 from the Sun-Times' new chairman, Michael Ferro Jr., and $105,000 from Mr. Emanuel's frequent visitor at City Hall, Grosvenor Capital Management L.P. chief Michael Sacks.
City officials have made organizing extremely difficult by stalling on repeated attempts to discuss march and rally permits. However, NATO/G8 activists have joined with Occupy Chicago to "Occupy City Hall" and other actions to demand the right to protest and other basic civil liberties.
Persistence is paying off. The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda [4] celebrated a victory when City Hall was forced to backtrack on denying permits for Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. MB Real Estate, the company managing Daley Plaza for the city, had earlier announced it would not be issuing any permits during May 15-22, but more recently, the city's Public Building Commission wrote to the American Civil Liberties Union to say that "Daley Plaza will be open to public assembly and public activity" during the summits.
In the coming weeks and months, the struggle to defend the right to assemble and protest will be crucial. In the next week, for example, Chicago unions, religious groups, Occupy activists and students will be spearheading a campaign to get Chicago aldermen to vote against Emanuel's proposed ordinances when they come to a vote in the City Council on January 18.
We should do everything we can to mobilize those from near and far who want to show the representatives of the global 1 percent that they and their policies are not welcome in Chicago--or anywhere.
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Published by the International Socialist Organization.
Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [5] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.
[1] http://www.suntimes.com/9793714-417/rahm-emanuel-on-duration-of-nato-g8-rules-i-made-a-mistake-real-simple-ok.html
[2] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20111217/ISSUE01/312179973/no-question-biz-backs-nato-g8-summits-here
[3] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20111222/BLOGS02/111229926/rahm-has-deep-financial-ties-to-new-sun-times-owners
[4] http://cang8.wordpress.com/
[5] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
'The Lacanian Real' converted into Persian
http://www.ibna.ir/vdcayin6y49nuy1.tgk4.html
Slavoj Zizek's "The Lacanian Real: Television" is converted into Persian by Mahdi Salimi. According to Zizek, television vacates us of meaning and even disarms us of the ability to weep or laugh.
IBNA: This book is a complete translation of a seminar by Slavoj Zizek on television made in 1987 in New York.
Referring to the Zizek's rereading of Jacques Lacan (French philosopher, physician and psychoanalyst), he said: "Despite its brevity, this text offers a very good idea of different stages of Lacan's thought. For instance, the text familiarizes the reader with the concept of 'The Real' in three phases of Lacan's thought. Besides, Zizek's keen view of everyday reality through popular phenomenon of television once again proves his loyalty to Slovenian School of psychoanalysis."
Salimi continued: "Followers of Slovenian School make political readings of psychoanalysis and meantime draw on everyday phenomena for illustrating their opinions. Following this strategy Zizek probes into political and philosophical aspects of Lacan's theory of psychoanalysis and comes up with a radical political reading of Lacan. For doing so he also cites Jacques-Alain Miller's reading of Lacan."
He went on to say that this Slovenian theoretician always finds an appropriate thought model for describing phenomena; in fact, the models are exploited out of the phenomena under survey.
Salimi continued: "Zizek has a good theoretical background and never takes the meanest aspects of everyday life for granted. I mean that although he sometimes is trapped into populism and simplicity, his clear thought system and strategies make him an outstanding and autonomous critic."
For instance, he added, he illustrates his ideas of The Real with an example from the television. It usually broadcasts short comedies that are immediately followed with a laugher sound.
Zizek states that even in Greek tragedies there was a chorus in charge of the comic or tragic effect. In Zizek's opinion, by doing so sometimes the television frees us of the charge of laughing or crying and actually empties us of all meanings – the meanings that we could have extracted from the scenes by ourselves.
This act means infusion of ideas upon the audiences and by doing so, the television is attempting to omit the great Other.
In fact Zizek's main goal in this speech is not to illustrate Lacan's ideas with the phenomenon of television, but rather to defamiliarize a well-known and popular phenomenon known as television.
The first issue of "The Lacanian Other" is published in 1150 copies and 94 pages by Roshd Amouzesh.
Id: 126444
Topic url: http://www.ibna.ir/vdcayin6y49nuy1.tgk4.html
Iran Book News Agency (IBNA)
http://www.ibna.ir
Slavoj Zizek's "The Lacanian Real: Television" is converted into Persian by Mahdi Salimi. According to Zizek, television vacates us of meaning and even disarms us of the ability to weep or laugh.
IBNA: This book is a complete translation of a seminar by Slavoj Zizek on television made in 1987 in New York.
Referring to the Zizek's rereading of Jacques Lacan (French philosopher, physician and psychoanalyst), he said: "Despite its brevity, this text offers a very good idea of different stages of Lacan's thought. For instance, the text familiarizes the reader with the concept of 'The Real' in three phases of Lacan's thought. Besides, Zizek's keen view of everyday reality through popular phenomenon of television once again proves his loyalty to Slovenian School of psychoanalysis."
Salimi continued: "Followers of Slovenian School make political readings of psychoanalysis and meantime draw on everyday phenomena for illustrating their opinions. Following this strategy Zizek probes into political and philosophical aspects of Lacan's theory of psychoanalysis and comes up with a radical political reading of Lacan. For doing so he also cites Jacques-Alain Miller's reading of Lacan."
He went on to say that this Slovenian theoretician always finds an appropriate thought model for describing phenomena; in fact, the models are exploited out of the phenomena under survey.
Salimi continued: "Zizek has a good theoretical background and never takes the meanest aspects of everyday life for granted. I mean that although he sometimes is trapped into populism and simplicity, his clear thought system and strategies make him an outstanding and autonomous critic."
For instance, he added, he illustrates his ideas of The Real with an example from the television. It usually broadcasts short comedies that are immediately followed with a laugher sound.
Zizek states that even in Greek tragedies there was a chorus in charge of the comic or tragic effect. In Zizek's opinion, by doing so sometimes the television frees us of the charge of laughing or crying and actually empties us of all meanings – the meanings that we could have extracted from the scenes by ourselves.
This act means infusion of ideas upon the audiences and by doing so, the television is attempting to omit the great Other.
In fact Zizek's main goal in this speech is not to illustrate Lacan's ideas with the phenomenon of television, but rather to defamiliarize a well-known and popular phenomenon known as television.
The first issue of "The Lacanian Other" is published in 1150 copies and 94 pages by Roshd Amouzesh.
Id: 126444
Topic url: http://www.ibna.ir/vdcayin6y49nuy1.tgk4.html
Iran Book News Agency (IBNA)
http://www.ibna.ir
Rick Santorum Protects the Freedom of Con-Men
By Charles P. Pierce
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rick-santorum-freedom-6633251
Rick Santorum, papist nutter and GOP It Boy of the moment, is well and truly energized by his recently demonstrated ability to get 25,000-odd Iowans to show up and write his name on a piece of paper. The way you know this is because his stump answers are no longer stumps. They are fully blossomed trees, ripe with pious arrogance, vicious social policies camouflaged with luxurious rhetorical foliage within which the bullshit birds sing their sweet songs of "dependency" and "freedom," and low-hanging hypocrisy just so ever-ripe for the picking. No kidding. The crazy is in full flower in this one.
Begin simply with the place last night's even took place. It was an assisted-care facility/nursing home run by Rockingham County here in the southern part of New Hampshire. It has disabled residents on Medicaid and it has 200 people in its nursing-home section, almost all of whom are on Medicare. It is a government-run facility, and a very well-regarded one, which is impossible because, as we all know, the government has no business interfering with the health-care "market." The facts about this facility will become important later on. Stay with us.
You can also tell he's energized because he's back to being the legendary dick he's always been reputed to be by those who knew him best in Washington. A kid from Haverhill, Mass., got up to ask a question, and Santorum hung him out to dry for the benefit of his assembled fans from New Hampshire. While discussing President Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which the president made because the congressional Republicans refused to give his nominees a hearing, because the congressional Republicans don't want the NLRB — a fully legitimate agency of the federal government — to work, the grandson of a coal miner sneered, "I'm suurrrre they'll be soooo friendly and hospitable to American business." His entire pitch now is an extended nyah-nyah in the general direction of whatever White House exists at the moment in his imagination.
"You can't be trusted with freedom."
"He believes you are incapable of freedom."
"The president believes you need him. He'll solve all your problems. Remember all those people at the rallies in 2008? People would say, 'Oh, Mr. President, I know you'll help me with this.' He convinced Americans that they needed to believe in a president. You want a president who believes in you."
(I use italics because there is no "Seventh Grade Sarcasm" function on this computer. Sorry.)
You can also tell he's energized because he's not at all shy about taking his more outre views out for a walk. Take Iran, for a moment. Did you know that the Iranians are building their nuclear weapons in Qom? (Santorum couches a lot of his answers this way, in the manner of a middle-school civics teacher who's read Time twice this month.) Do you know why? Well, he's going to tell you. Qom is a holy city to the Shi'a population of Iran. (The return of the 12th Imam is mixed up in this somewhere, too. Listening to Santorum on Iran is like accidentally tuning in one of those ancient astronaut documentaries on the History Channel.) "It is a very important town dealing with the end times for Shi'a Islam," he says.
In other words, Rick Santorum believes that the current Iranian regime is building a nuclear weapon not merely as leverage for power in that region and the world, and not merely to defend itself, and not merely, as he himself says, "to protect itself from retaliation while it engages in acts of terrorism." He believes it is building a bomb, and is more than likely to use it, in order to bring on the end times and the return of the 12th Imam.
(And you are not incorrect in wondering at this point how he feels about those millions of evangelical Christians over here who encourage belligerence on the part of Israel because of their desire to see the big show open on the plains of Megiddo, starring the famous Disemboweling Christ, action hero of the Left Behind novels. Rather not have those folks influencing nuclear policy myself.)
But he doesn't really reach full bloom until he's talking about ethics, and decency, and "living a moral life." It is here where his sanctimony, his hypocrisy, and his carefully refined dickitude truly burst forth in interesting ways. He was asked last night about the recent revelations of "insider trading" among members of Congress. He began his answer carefully, parsing the legitimate difference between actual insider trading of the kind that takes place on Wall Street, and the kind of thing in Congress most recently exposed by 60 Minutes in which members of the Congress trade on information concerning pending laws that might effect certain industries.
Forgive me for a moment if I now bring out the tin drum again and point out that, as one of Jack Abramoff's primary rentboys in the Senate, Santorum is well qualified to make this Jesuitical distinction. But then he goes on to make a learned simpleton's disquisition on why we have of laws in our society, and we move deeply into the upper branches, the lush green canopy, that overarches his entire purpose in public life, at least as he sees it.
"The point is, this is something we shouldn't even have to have a law for," he says. "People should behave ethically. When people don't behave as they should, we gotta pass laws. Now we have a law, and it has to be enforced, and that means someone has to hire staff to enforce it, and these are people that you pay for, and all because people don't live decent moral lives like they should. If people don't live good decent moral lives, government is going to get bigger."
(As with so many things, Mr. Madison said it better: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary.")
Let us unpack this, shall we? First we have the mournful condemnation of the various members of Congress who did these dastardly but altogether legal deeds, which is very rich coming from a guy — tin-drum alert — whose brief on behalf of one of the greatest scams in the history of the Republic included:
Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican--a senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated. After Santorum settles on a candidate, the lobbyists present make sure it is known whom the Republican leadership favors. "The underlying theme was [to] place Republicans in key positions on K Street. Everybody taking part was a Republican and understood that that was the purpose of what we were doing," says Rod Chandler, a retired congressman and lobbyist who has participated in the Santorum meetings. "It's been a very successful effort."
His efforts on behalf of the K Street Project, which eventually redounded to the great benefit of Abramoff, landed Santorum on a watchdog group's list of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress in 2006. And thus did Rick Santorum enable people to avoid living decent moral lives and, by his own logic, thus is Rick Santorum a primary architect of big government in this regard. Ron Paul Is Right!!!!
Even Santorum's unremarkable contention that, if it weren't for criminals, we wouldn't need laws, is wholly reminiscent of the preacher caught out behind the barn with a sheep. Like every other Republican candidate, Santorum favors repeal of the Dodd-Frank law, which was passed as a rather pale attempt to rein in the excesses of the financial industries. He calls it "job-killing." Just last night, he announced his support for a lawsuit contemplated by the Senate Republican leadership to fight President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another appointment held up by those same Republicans because they do not approve of a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the president. Santorum doesn't like that law, either. Last night, he made quite a show of not remembering the name of the CFPB.
But, wait. Don't we need this law? Don't we need a law because a bunch of Wall Street pirates declined to live "good, decent moral lives" as they were stealing most of the national economy and wrecking what was left? Don't we need a law because those people, declining to live good, decent, moral lives, looted pensions, cheated people on mortgages, and left one poor county in Alabama in hopeless debt from now until the 12th Imam really does come back? Aren't the people behind credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations and all the rest of the vehicles of exotic economic pillage the real reason why government had to expand its power in this area? Here, alas, possibly with the sound of Jack Abramoff's voice echoing softly in his ear, Rick Santorum wants people to live "good, decent moral lives" and, yet, if they don't, well, that's just the way it goes.
Let us all be free again to be swindled the same way.
Rick Santorum is yet another example of a conservative to whom "freedom" means protecting the free speech rights of con-men. That's how he managed, during his demi-victory speech in Iowa, to compare much of the social safety net to the actual fascism his grandfather fled Italy to avoid. He treats caveat emptor as a basic principle of human freedom. Toward the end of the evening, he got into a long wrangle about health-care and announced his support for "the Ryan plan," the Medicare phase-out designed by zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan. Remember now where he said it — in a well-regarded government-run nursing home containing 200 patients, all of whom depend on Medicare for one reason or another. Rick Santorum believes that these people are not free. If they were, they'd get up tomorrow morning and shop for the best deal they could find on an open market, which naturally would be run by people in the insurance industry who are living good, decent moral lives, especially in their business practices. It was about here where I fell out of the tree.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rick-santorum-freedom-6633251
Rick Santorum, papist nutter and GOP It Boy of the moment, is well and truly energized by his recently demonstrated ability to get 25,000-odd Iowans to show up and write his name on a piece of paper. The way you know this is because his stump answers are no longer stumps. They are fully blossomed trees, ripe with pious arrogance, vicious social policies camouflaged with luxurious rhetorical foliage within which the bullshit birds sing their sweet songs of "dependency" and "freedom," and low-hanging hypocrisy just so ever-ripe for the picking. No kidding. The crazy is in full flower in this one.
Begin simply with the place last night's even took place. It was an assisted-care facility/nursing home run by Rockingham County here in the southern part of New Hampshire. It has disabled residents on Medicaid and it has 200 people in its nursing-home section, almost all of whom are on Medicare. It is a government-run facility, and a very well-regarded one, which is impossible because, as we all know, the government has no business interfering with the health-care "market." The facts about this facility will become important later on. Stay with us.
You can also tell he's energized because he's back to being the legendary dick he's always been reputed to be by those who knew him best in Washington. A kid from Haverhill, Mass., got up to ask a question, and Santorum hung him out to dry for the benefit of his assembled fans from New Hampshire. While discussing President Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which the president made because the congressional Republicans refused to give his nominees a hearing, because the congressional Republicans don't want the NLRB — a fully legitimate agency of the federal government — to work, the grandson of a coal miner sneered, "I'm suurrrre they'll be soooo friendly and hospitable to American business." His entire pitch now is an extended nyah-nyah in the general direction of whatever White House exists at the moment in his imagination.
"You can't be trusted with freedom."
"He believes you are incapable of freedom."
"The president believes you need him. He'll solve all your problems. Remember all those people at the rallies in 2008? People would say, 'Oh, Mr. President, I know you'll help me with this.' He convinced Americans that they needed to believe in a president. You want a president who believes in you."
(I use italics because there is no "Seventh Grade Sarcasm" function on this computer. Sorry.)
You can also tell he's energized because he's not at all shy about taking his more outre views out for a walk. Take Iran, for a moment. Did you know that the Iranians are building their nuclear weapons in Qom? (Santorum couches a lot of his answers this way, in the manner of a middle-school civics teacher who's read Time twice this month.) Do you know why? Well, he's going to tell you. Qom is a holy city to the Shi'a population of Iran. (The return of the 12th Imam is mixed up in this somewhere, too. Listening to Santorum on Iran is like accidentally tuning in one of those ancient astronaut documentaries on the History Channel.) "It is a very important town dealing with the end times for Shi'a Islam," he says.
In other words, Rick Santorum believes that the current Iranian regime is building a nuclear weapon not merely as leverage for power in that region and the world, and not merely to defend itself, and not merely, as he himself says, "to protect itself from retaliation while it engages in acts of terrorism." He believes it is building a bomb, and is more than likely to use it, in order to bring on the end times and the return of the 12th Imam.
(And you are not incorrect in wondering at this point how he feels about those millions of evangelical Christians over here who encourage belligerence on the part of Israel because of their desire to see the big show open on the plains of Megiddo, starring the famous Disemboweling Christ, action hero of the Left Behind novels. Rather not have those folks influencing nuclear policy myself.)
But he doesn't really reach full bloom until he's talking about ethics, and decency, and "living a moral life." It is here where his sanctimony, his hypocrisy, and his carefully refined dickitude truly burst forth in interesting ways. He was asked last night about the recent revelations of "insider trading" among members of Congress. He began his answer carefully, parsing the legitimate difference between actual insider trading of the kind that takes place on Wall Street, and the kind of thing in Congress most recently exposed by 60 Minutes in which members of the Congress trade on information concerning pending laws that might effect certain industries.
Forgive me for a moment if I now bring out the tin drum again and point out that, as one of Jack Abramoff's primary rentboys in the Senate, Santorum is well qualified to make this Jesuitical distinction. But then he goes on to make a learned simpleton's disquisition on why we have of laws in our society, and we move deeply into the upper branches, the lush green canopy, that overarches his entire purpose in public life, at least as he sees it.
"The point is, this is something we shouldn't even have to have a law for," he says. "People should behave ethically. When people don't behave as they should, we gotta pass laws. Now we have a law, and it has to be enforced, and that means someone has to hire staff to enforce it, and these are people that you pay for, and all because people don't live decent moral lives like they should. If people don't live good decent moral lives, government is going to get bigger."
(As with so many things, Mr. Madison said it better: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary.")
Let us unpack this, shall we? First we have the mournful condemnation of the various members of Congress who did these dastardly but altogether legal deeds, which is very rich coming from a guy — tin-drum alert — whose brief on behalf of one of the greatest scams in the history of the Republic included:
Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican--a senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated. After Santorum settles on a candidate, the lobbyists present make sure it is known whom the Republican leadership favors. "The underlying theme was [to] place Republicans in key positions on K Street. Everybody taking part was a Republican and understood that that was the purpose of what we were doing," says Rod Chandler, a retired congressman and lobbyist who has participated in the Santorum meetings. "It's been a very successful effort."
His efforts on behalf of the K Street Project, which eventually redounded to the great benefit of Abramoff, landed Santorum on a watchdog group's list of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress in 2006. And thus did Rick Santorum enable people to avoid living decent moral lives and, by his own logic, thus is Rick Santorum a primary architect of big government in this regard. Ron Paul Is Right!!!!
Even Santorum's unremarkable contention that, if it weren't for criminals, we wouldn't need laws, is wholly reminiscent of the preacher caught out behind the barn with a sheep. Like every other Republican candidate, Santorum favors repeal of the Dodd-Frank law, which was passed as a rather pale attempt to rein in the excesses of the financial industries. He calls it "job-killing." Just last night, he announced his support for a lawsuit contemplated by the Senate Republican leadership to fight President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another appointment held up by those same Republicans because they do not approve of a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the president. Santorum doesn't like that law, either. Last night, he made quite a show of not remembering the name of the CFPB.
But, wait. Don't we need this law? Don't we need a law because a bunch of Wall Street pirates declined to live "good, decent moral lives" as they were stealing most of the national economy and wrecking what was left? Don't we need a law because those people, declining to live good, decent, moral lives, looted pensions, cheated people on mortgages, and left one poor county in Alabama in hopeless debt from now until the 12th Imam really does come back? Aren't the people behind credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations and all the rest of the vehicles of exotic economic pillage the real reason why government had to expand its power in this area? Here, alas, possibly with the sound of Jack Abramoff's voice echoing softly in his ear, Rick Santorum wants people to live "good, decent moral lives" and, yet, if they don't, well, that's just the way it goes.
Let us all be free again to be swindled the same way.
Rick Santorum is yet another example of a conservative to whom "freedom" means protecting the free speech rights of con-men. That's how he managed, during his demi-victory speech in Iowa, to compare much of the social safety net to the actual fascism his grandfather fled Italy to avoid. He treats caveat emptor as a basic principle of human freedom. Toward the end of the evening, he got into a long wrangle about health-care and announced his support for "the Ryan plan," the Medicare phase-out designed by zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan. Remember now where he said it — in a well-regarded government-run nursing home containing 200 patients, all of whom depend on Medicare for one reason or another. Rick Santorum believes that these people are not free. If they were, they'd get up tomorrow morning and shop for the best deal they could find on an open market, which naturally would be run by people in the insurance industry who are living good, decent moral lives, especially in their business practices. It was about here where I fell out of the tree.
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