Bybee/Torturer

So Jay Bybee, torture memo signer, is really just a swell guy, not ideological at all, say his pals on this NPR piece. He shies away from controversy, so he passed John Woo’s “legal” reasoning for torture because he didn’t want to create any waves. Aw, isn’t tat tweet! Big baby Bybee. I bet he has pictures of his loved ones in his office, too. I wonder if he glanced their way when he decided not to upset the authoritarians who were his boss. Wouldn’t want to stand up for democracy and decency and humanity, good gravy no! No, by all means, let’s use torture, the tool of dictators, and fuck everything America stands for. Another gutless bureaucrat on the road to hell, which as ever is paved with the “banality of evil.” Amazingly, this criminal is now a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

IRA the AIG?

Not that I would condone such poor sportsmanship, of course, but why don't we all go over to 70 Pine St, that lovely Art Deco skyscraper that's still the HQ of AIG, and kneecap some of the suits when they come out this evening on their way to the helipad? Here's your bonus, motherfuckers.

Could there have been a worse choice?

The unelected governor, who used to have a progressive history, has foisted a protégée of that maggot-on-democracy Al D’Amato to the US Senate. Kristen Gillibrand got her start in politics with D’Amato, who was right up there on stage with her when Paterson made the announcement. But I’m sure she started earlier than that, since her father, Douglas Rutnik, is a veteran fixer and lobbyist who’s been bleeding the taxpayers dry for decades now. He was in tight with George “It’s good to be the governor” Pataki, who ended his tenure so much wealthier then when he started. Daddy Rut now shacks up with Pataki’s brains, Zenia Mucha, a nasty piece of work whose contempt for truth -- which is, after all, the fount of democracy -- presumably does wonders for her job as Exec VP of Corporate Lying at Walt Disney. But it gets dirtier: Rutnik was the protégée of Rastus Corning, the mayor of Albany for 40 years, considered one of the most corrupt figures in state history; Rutnik’s mother-in- law was Polly Noonan, a legendary figure in the morass of Albany’s corruption, and Corning's presumed mistress.

What a pedigree! Don't let the sins of the father stain the child, you say? Why not, unless she renouces it loudly and clearly? Because if you can't hear the scumsuckers sharpening their knives in anticipation of the boodle the unelected little hack is going to steer to them, then you're deaf as well as blind.

God god, can we bring back the up-tight prig of whoremonger already?

Eight years of making it worse

Worth quoting in detail, with the whole article here: William Dalrymple, NYRB 2/12/09

"The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The situation here could hardly be more grim. The Taliban have reorganized, advanced out of their borderland safe havens, and are now massing at the gates of Kabul, threatening to surround and throttle the capital, much as the US-backed Mujahideen once did to the Soviet-installed regime in the late Eighties. Like the rerun of an old movie, all journeys out of the Afghan capital are once again confined to tanks, armored cars, and helicopters. Members of the Taliban already control over 70 percent of the country, up from just over 50 percent in November 2007, where they collect taxes, enforce Sharia law, and dispense their usual rough justice; but they do succeed, to some extent, in containing the wave of crime and corruption that has marked Hamid Karzai's rule. This has become one of the principal reasons for their growing popularity, and every month their sphere of influence increases.

The blowback from the Afghan conflict in Pakistan is more serious still. In less than eight months, Asif Ali Zardari's new government has effectively lost control of much of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the Taliban's Pakistani counterparts, a loose confederation of nationalists, Islamists, and angry Pashtun tribesmen under the nominal command of Baitullah Mehsud. Few had very high expectations of Zardari, the notoriously corrupt playboy widower of Benazir Bhutto. Nevertheless, the speed of the collapse that has taken place under his watch has amazed almost all observers."

I’m always struck how our cultural narratives are formed. Obama creates a “team of rivals” just like Lincoln, and “everybody” rushes to read PBS’s favorite pop-historian D.K. Goodwin’s book. Meme signed sealed and delivered. Except Lincoln wasn’t much different from most19th century Presidents, who made up their cabinets with bigwigs from their party, including those they’d run against for their party’s nomination. In Lincoln’s case, and this is the part of the story that has been lost in the endless repetition of “team of rivals,” his cabinet turned out to be barely functional; half way through his first term, Lincoln described his team as being “on the brink of destruction”; and three of the four “rivals” were gone by the end of that first term. Is this the model Obama really wants to follow?

We seem to favor baby history, baby talk, baby religion. I listened closely to “Pastor Rick” Warren and heard his version of an easy-listening Christianity, an embarrassment to theology. Lincoln, like most 19th century Presidents of our secular republic, didn’t have a cleric bless him at his inaugural. Warren’s for keeping gays and lesbians second-class citizens, so I’m not sure what he was doing up there, anyway, besides obstructing the struggle for human dignity.

Then I listened to John Williams’ specially-commissioned piece of hackwork. Whose idea was it to get this Tinseltown cliché-monger to write an inaugural tune? And why did he have to travesty the classic Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”? Aaron Copland turned that beautiful song into a sweet music, Williams made it another bad movie score. The real musicians who performed Williams’ cheap variations should have tossed out his faxed-in sheets and played Copland. What a profound misreading of Shaker ideals Williams gave us!

Since I shut the media off about two thirds through what I thought was a lackluster speech by Obama, I missed the inaugural poem, which I hear was sub-Whitmanesque. (I’ve read it since, but like most contemporary poems, it looks dead on the page.)

Just about an hour before we can all flush Bush/Cheney down the toilet of history. The bastards are getting away with it, of course, but this flushing away of the shit-stain is the best we can do here in the united states of symbols.

One of my neighbors, who isn’t from around here, hopes that Obama has a magic wand. I heard an oldster on the radio say, “If Obama fails, America fails.” Sigh. After more than two centuries, you’d think we’d be a mature democracy by now. Millions in DC are ready to party, which is nice, but the Chamber of Commerce has its eyes on the prize. They’ve drawn the line on Employee Free Choice, one of the best ways of shoring up the middle class, and are ready to fight to the death for plutocracy.

So what I want to know is: are you ready to put your muscle where your hope is?

As hollow as an airplane floating in a river

Unhappy the country without heroes, says a character in Brecht's Life of Galileo, and then Galileo says, no, unhappy the country that needs heroes.

What’s the opposite of a miracle? Real life? The tabloid-ization of everything means that yesterday’s ditching is getting its full fifteen, to the max. In a month, hardly anyone will remember it, and that’s a good thing, since there aren’t any bodies to fetishize for weeks. The grief counseling industry is left without anything to do, and that’s the kind of economic slowdown I can get behind. WNYC’s Brian Lehrer just referred to the pilot as a “hero for the ages.” Really? What about all the other pilots who aren’t as lucky? Does it follow that they are at fault? The pilot made a perfect water landing, a bravura job to be sure, but that’s his job, isn’t it? So how come professionalism isn’t recognized as such anymore? Already, the “first responders” are getting their rewards from the Imperial Mayor. It all feels so tinny and flimsy, but if you want even more baby food, stay tuned for the book and then the movie of the week.