Ezra Klein suggests ultimate Lex Dexter meltdown upon us

Gah! Oof! (from le Washington Post):

As you'd probably expect, the Senate Finance Committee is moving toward dropping coverage of end-of-life counseling from its bill entirely. Luckily, the committee's ranking member, Chuck Grassley, has some advice for those who are confused about such things as "living wills" and "advance directives" and "full and aggressive treatment."

I think the best thing to do is if you want people to think about the end of life, number one, Jesus Christ is the place to start, and after that, in the physical life, as opposed to your eternal life, it ought to be done within the family and considered a religious and ethical issue and not something that politicians deal with.

Another, way more telling town hall interview

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quoth Krugman:

What I think is going on here, at least partly, is that the peddlers of anti-progressive lies are managing to convince a certain kind of American — white, socially conservative, etc. — that the hate-mongers are people like them; and, even more important, that progressives are Those People, people not like them.

Obama’s skin color makes this easy; but the Clintons faced the same kind of thing. Why? Well, the old line about Clinton being the first black president gets at something: even if Bill Clinton had a regular skin and name, he was obviously comfortable with people who didn’t, which made him one of Them.

And anti-intellectualism is also part of it.

In any case, it’s scary: you’ve got a good segment of the American population that is completely impervious to any kind of evidence, any rational argument. I mean, who collects statistics? People in black helicopters!

Chuck Grassley separates self, chain

from l'Huffpo:

One of the three Republican senators working on a bipartisan health care bill perpetuated a particularly outrageous untruth about the legislation on Wednesday. Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma." "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Let's.Take.This.Opportunity.To.Abandon.The."Bipartisanship."Bullshit.

Chris Matthews Interviews the Health Care Gun Guy, Lex Goes Off the Chain

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I should let this must-see speak for itself, but first, one anthropological observation (AO) and one non-anthropological one (NAO).

1. AO: Notice how the Health Care Gun Guy seems to think he has acquitted himself well. That, my friends, is the most important thing about this back-and-forth, and I would love to hear your thoughts on Health Care Gun Guy's worldview. It speaks to how the Tea Party episteme is immune from most progressives' idea of the "facts." By extension, it calls into crisis the efficacy and/or coherence of whatever semblance of "civil society" and/or deliberative, public, political discourse these Town Halls are meant to constitute. Tea Parties are all about "Liberty," but weirdly, they are also impervious to the basic democratic processes that progressives and moderates think of as being boring, sure, but also sacred. (In short, the emergent conservatism/political theater/Angry Old Man Draped in Historic Garb aesthetic is a way bigger threat to the "incomplete project" of modernity than postmodernism ever was. Remember the definition of fascism as the "aestheticization of politics." Fascism is, after all, always available (if not appetizing) for disgruntled non-majorities in liberal democracies. )
   
2. NAO: I am frightened for the safety of the President, and even more fearful about a certain right-wing tendency's overall effect on our society. If this is the sort of generalized anxiety that comes out of the woodwork when we are merely trying to pass a limp-ish public healthcare option...what's the Cap and Trade debate going to look like? Are people going to move away from the 'BHO is not a citizen, BHO is a Muslim' meme, into "BHO is selling our planet to space aliens who will give us daily rectal exams and make us wear veils and shawls?" This would be funny if it weren't the most un-fucking-funny fucking thing I can fucking think fucking of.
   

Fun with Straw...

Over the weekend on ABC's This Week, after being pressed by Staphy about the lack of any mention of the phrase, NOOOT propped up this beauty:

You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in -- in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.

So, what other public policy decisions should be determined by this test?

Can you prop up a bigger Strawthing?

I mean there are clearly people in America who believe in __(Blank)___...so we can't ___(Blank)___

We can't lower the drinking age, because I mean there are clearly people in America who believe in infant alcohol use.

any others come to mind?

Re: the Unemployment "good news."

From Doug Henwood, a most trusted reporter on the US economy, whose weekly radio program and whose Left Business Observer are tent-poles buttressing my shoddy, B- theory-tarp.

While the unemployment rate fell by 0.1 point to 9.4%, the first decline since April 2008, it looks like a lot of people have given up the job search as hopeless, meaning they’re no longer counted as officially unemployed. And the ranks of the unemployed are increasingly dominated by people who’ve been jobless for half a year or more—people whose prospects for re-employment in the future are usually quite damaged by these long spells outside the labor force.

So while there are some signs that the recession is drawing to a close—an impression confirmed by the drop in first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week—the job market is still awful, and the recovery that’s likely to follow the end of the recession sometime later this year will almost certainly be very weak and not very joyful. The U.S. economy has some serious structural problems that aren’t even being discussed, much less addressed.

But I guess it's hard to find time to discuss "serious structural problems" amidst all of this latent xenophobe-qua-deficit-hawk Tea Partying? Between this and the Diana from OR vid [see below]. I feel like our political culture has less depth than, say, an average NFL Films presentation from the late 1960s.

SEIU Receives Threatening Phone Call from Diana from OR

This is what I mean when I say "creepy."

Anyone know a Diana?

from Kos,

Hello, my name is Diana and I'm calling from Oregon.

I just wanted to let the SEIU know that America is watching the thug tactics that you folks are using at health care meetings and various other public places, and the absolutely thuggish violent tactics that your group is using.

I suggest you tell your people to calm down, act like American citizens and stop trying to repress people's First Amendment rights. That, or you all are gonna' come up against the Second Amendment.

Stop the violence.

apparently the SEIU is receiving nasty calls...Not to get psycomalogical but sounds like somebody is projecting. Most of the mob behavior is coming from the nuts.

I have to get to one of these meetings, sounds like a ball...

Blog Before the Aftrn Walk, Blog Before Hardball

Short (sized-'Large') American Apparel short-shorts, Cinci Reds Jersey, white ankle socks.
Bob Dylan Christmas Album on the Way
Oh, Jesus. The worst part is that I could imagine liking this -- like, there's a 12% chance I might like this, even. I need to keep myself out of the way of this release.

Fake turkey sandwich on the bakery dept.'s sourdough from yesterday.
Pukekos: Black Eyes
This Is Dancefloor Numerology: Tim Hecker and Fennesz Album Pack
Black Eyes being an always-intriguing latter-day Dischord group, and Pukekos being the best extant mp3-blog-chronicler of a certain tendency in our coastal lives after hardcore, over emo; Hecker and Fennesz representing the most promising of the laptop-shoegaze-minimalism genre that I'm trying to crack open. Do you all like this latter kind of music?

If only the above were my own, actual kitchenette.
Why The Misfits Are The Most Mythic Of All New Jersey Artists
Don't forget the Music Blogs (like Pship!)!!! Don't forget the rock-write, children.

We The People Stimulus Package

I am particularly interested in those individuals who decide it's time to put on the historical garb. This is about as close to a set of Tea Party 'first principles' as I've so far found.

"If you decide to do nothing again, then buy a gun. You'll need it."

Memo to WOBS -- Will You Join the Tea Party Express?!?

I'm in.

Another Post About Aerosmith and the Black Crowes

In a sweeping, communist-er than thou tirade against the four of five Anglo-American 'left' journals with readerships greater than 200, The Commune arrives upon that beloved OG tackling dummy, John Bellamy Foster, and spews forth fire:

To borrow a catch phrase from Nick Cohen: what’s left of the left? Not much it seems once we plunge into the depths of the other journals floating about out there. A glance across to the U.S. publication, the Monthly Review, might indicate that we are looking at the journal of New Maoist thought – and that would be the Mao of the Great Leap Forward, rather than the Mao of the Cultural Revolution. The entire issue for July to August 2009 is devoted to agriculture, “food sovereignty,” land reform and, or course, the relevance of climate change to all these matters. The May 2009 issue even has a favourable review of a book of Mao’s poetry. It seems that under John Bellamy Foster’s editorship (author of the fraudulent “Marx and Ecology”) the Monthly Review is becoming entirely devoted to slightly left of liberal North American thought: climate change, anti-Zionism, anti-war. Anything, it seems, than engagement with the working class, the labour movement and the promotion of communist ideas.

I know what yr thinking, and yr right! Why accuse a man and his (marxist) organ, of Maoism, when the far more damning charge is that of irrelevance? Probably because you're a self-identifying communist raging against the non-revelation that actually existing 'marxism' in this Northern hemisphere is largely, lamentably, of an academic sort.

'Thing is - and I'm saying this as somebody with a New Left Review chest tattoo, mind you - MRZINE is probably the most accessible, least Trot-y, closest thing to left-of-liberal one-stop-shopping for international news that we have here in Amorica. And notwithstanding some recent grossness re: overly 'hard left' Iran-boosting, le MR usually manages to stay on this side or the reality/ir-reality divide, and even eschews the lengthy Plekhanov references/hammer+sickle porn that alienates so many of us pomo-petit-lumpens -- let alone, y'know, actual humans with non-blog jobs.
Yep, even accessible, less-than-parochial marxist clearing-houses like MRZINE are rarely accessed by exactly the folks parochial marxists wish were accessing 'em {-- and that sucks big phlegm-sodas outta cat-sacks, don't get me wrong.} But at l'end of le day, even less accessible* is the cliquish ur-theory that'd cast Foster's eco-marxist imaginings as not just 'wrong,' 'dumb,' or 'ill-conceived,' but instead as "fraudulent."

[* Yeah, yeah, and, uh, least accessible is my writing style, sure. But do you see me fronting any worker-councils, foaming beatitudes, or spewing forth any other such vanguardist-froth? No you don't, Jack/Jill. No you goddamn don't. And shame on me for that. But I gotta go watch Dynasty, see?]

Nobody Loves the Federal Reserve

Nobody loves the Fed, and why would they? But shite, shucks, I cannot say I fear le Fed so much as I fear, say, the CIA.

Turns out, I'm out of step with our great nation on this one. Or at least, so says Gallup:

In 2003, the slight majority of Americans, 53%, said the Federal Reserve was doing an excellent or good job and 5% called it poor. Today, 30% of Americans praise the job the Fed is doing, while nearly as many, 22%, call it poor. While this ratings downturn coincides with a substantial drop in consumer confidence toward the U.S. economy over the same period, it is unclear how much of the Fed's image decline is due to the general decline in the country's economic climate, as opposed to specific perceptions about the agency's performance in carrying out its monetary responsibilities and possibly its role in the crisis surrounding U.S. financial markets. The Fed's low excellent/good rating may also reflect the higher-than-average percentage of Americans having "no opinion" about this arm of the government, relative to the other agencies rated.

1. So anyway: which government agency and/or department do y'all disapprove of the most?!?
   
2. And more importantly, do you foresee a continued Kucinich-Paul nexus mingling with the usual white supremacists and gunfucks to strike up/consummate/re-debut a truly 21st Century monetarist paranoia?!?
   

EFCA w/o Card check is like (blank) without (blank)

according to politiBLo:

Despite the backing of President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, plus a multimillion-dollar union advertising blitz, Senate leaders can’t muster the 60 votes they need to avoid a GOP filibuster on labor’s top priority: the Employee Free Choice Act.

So a group of Senate Democrats is reportedly considering dropping the bill’s controversial “card check” provision to break the legislative impasse. That will help, but other formidable obstacles lie in the path of long-overdue changes in U.S. labor law.

So what is EFCA without card check?

its like herb without THC
its like coffee without caffeine
its like freedom without forty acres and a mule

(reasonable and non-comical discussions about the actual ramifications of or the remaining provisions of the bill are welcome as well)

well, thank god andy stern is on top of this development....

"Unions OK drop of 'card check' in bill "Union leaders present at the talks have included AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern and Communications Workers of America president Larry Cohen.

A compromise would allow unions to get a vote on something that can pass and achieve some goals.

Without better protection from employer anti-union campaigns unions will not gain anything. It is hard to see how EFCA w/o card check still moves that ball...

Remember L'OG?

C'est mort? I dunno.

Fraad Wolff is....wait for it.....Right Again

At this point, the only thing annoying'er than MJ elegies're snobbish, lazy expressions of outrage re: the MJ coverage. But that doesn't change the fact that some way more serious shite is afoot then MJ's being dead -- even if, like MFW below, you think that MJ has become a symptom of the national anxiety re: the clearly worsening economy:

In these times our cable news system truly becomes irrelevant all the time. I will not pretend to know or understand exactly why Michael Jackson suddenly means so much for so many. I don't doubt the feelings are real and intense. I haven't the faintest idea why and how Jackson became the symbolic icon for national grief. But I do know that many missed a few very, very real news stories over the last two weeks.

The "green shoots" theory about imminent or arrived economic recovery has withered under the pounding rain of actual data. Last Thursday we learned that wages are completely stagnant, hours worked have fallen and 467,000 net jobs were lost in June 2009. Since December 2007 approximately 7 million Americans have lost their jobs and the total number of jobless Americans is just under 15million. Four and half million Americans have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks. Male unemployment is officially at 10%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics broad unemployment measure U-6 includes marginally attached workers and involuntary part-time workers. The June measure of U-6 unemployment stands at 16.5%. The average American work week declined to 33 hours in June. This is the lowest number recorded in the 45 year history of the measure. It is fair to think of the falling number of hours worked as another form of unemployment impacting millions. Perhaps this is part of the reason millions are interesting in grieving?

Hi, I'm Lex, and I'm an Enema Addict; or, New Moves

It's amazing how love and happiness can throw off my habitus, my swagger and my wannabe Slint-y, stop/start-y dynamics of irony/earnestness. This week I find myself filled with the kind of happiness I've forever associated with happy people - all sincerity and good cheer, y'know? But nonetheless, yesterday I forged a new path back to my old catholic-leninist cavern. Guess what? I found it bedecked, as always, in my same old, douche-y and definitive swirl of interpallative echoes: Who Do You Think You Are? [henceforth WDYTYA]/How, Then, Shall We Live?/What Is To Be Done?

How the hell are happy people supposed to live? To think? To dress? Who do they think they are, and how do they sleep? What sort of lexicon changes, tonal shifts and assorted other New Moves, accompany this transition into 'Bliss,' 'Innocents Abroad,' and a whole bunch of other Chisel references...

As I tried to tell a roomful of unionists a coupla weekends ago, WDYTYA? is a necessary, generative, and constitutive strategic question for social movements, families and all sorts of other collectives. But WDYTYA? amounts to little more than a moralistic enema kit when we pose it in self-centered terms. As with political philosophies, my self-understanding is at its most insidious when it is subject-centered (i.e., starting from me and my internal monologue, rather than the relays, relations and the reasons for relating from which my monologue and sense of 'me' should ultimately spring.)

It's an insult to love and happiness, receiving these latter two social materials in self-ish terms. These days I feel a sense of intimacy/embededness/security/assuredness I'd given up on years ago, but even that miracle - and even the triumph of 'Two-Beer Lex' over harder-partying days of old - doesn't guarantee a life without hangovers.

Maybe I can't control that part [- hell, maybe all this inward-facing horseshit is part and parcel of the vagaries of catholic school/graduate school/reading too much/thinking too much/ life on the losing side of medium-term political history. - ed] But, to the extent that an ideology of personal responsibility applies [it rarely does! - ed], I should probably accept the fact that most of these behaviors are part and parcel of a life-path I've chosen for myself...Shucks, though, here's my counter-mantra:

I may never totally vanquish these intermittent emo-bursts, but at least I can let them pass without confusing them with referenda on my character (pfft!), or without confusing my character (pfft!) with my life's work.

Doing right by people I love - and doing right by people I don't even know - is probably as close to a worthy undertaking as is to be found, non? It's also an assured ticket out of navel-gazing, moralizing, enamizing,who do I think I am?'-ing.

At some point, any good socialist, and anybody who's ever felt really loved, recognizes that relations of production, and/or relationships-en-generale, are the privileged venues for building a life worth living, an identity worth articulating or, even, a self worth 'finding' (c.f., Teenage Fanclub, 'Your Love is the Place Where I Come From.') I've been writing against the popular-therapeutic concept of 'self' since I was 21 (See the Spring 2001 issue of Southern Anthropologist, par example), and've sought to inoculate my-self with the widest swath of social-psycho-theoretical tinctures on display since long before then. But there still may be no exit, ultimately, from intermittent bouts of self-ishness that, among other things, define a certain strand of post-Old Testament modernity, and reign over these United States with all the self-evidence and goes-without-saying-ness of gun-related deaths and anti-intellectualism.

Either way, blaming my-self further elevates self, soul, essence, and personhood over the solidarity, love, material-being-in-the-world, and public/intimate socialities to which I long ago pledged my oath and faith. That's just dumb. And that's why today is the first day of the second part of the first day of the rest of my life. That's why I'm working out with some New Moves.

Arlen Specter at Employee Free Choice rally part 2

Shit, if you're still living with the OG in our "Mob Rules" period [Dio=solid citizen, Tony Iommi (still) =Lex]-- well then, maybe you've got the patience to stick around for six minutes of a poignant, EFCA-related stump showdown that makes me glad I'm not Arlen Specter.

I believe that we can all agree that when the revolution does come, these two will be first against the wall

Greetings from the Nuclear Burn Zone