George Monbiot: This Bastardised Libertarianism Makes “Freedom” an Instrument of Oppression is another gem I found on Truth Out. Monbiot quotes author Isaiah Berlin, as follows:

As Berlin noted: “No man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. ‘Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows’.” So, he argued, some people’s freedom must sometimes be curtailed “to secure the freedom of others”.

I have had many philosophical discussions  with libertarians over the years.  I wonder if this article would have made any difference.    Monbiot apparently had good luck with it in a debate.

Yet when I asked her a simple question – “do you accept that some people’s freedoms intrude upon other people’s freedoms?” – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen.

He describes the problem with modern day libertarians like Ron Paul:

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people.

This is how I finally came to realize, when I was a sophomore in college, the flaws in Ayn Rand’s books and in her philosophy.  I learned some truths about the “weaker people” who were the victims of Ayn Rand’s exploiting hero types.  Many of these “weaker people” were born into circumstances that prevented them from even realizing that there were alternatives to their current situations.  There were examples of some extraordinary people among them who found a way to a better life, but the odds were just stacked against the people who didn’t even know their was a way out to be found.  Some of the exploiters were not just innocent partakers of the advantages of their own circumstances.  Many used government policy to prevent the “weaker people” from ever discovering what was being done to them and by whom.

What the 1% so fear about Elizabeth Warren is that her research, her books, and her lectures reveal the ugly truth of how the exploiters keep the 99% down.  See the video of Warren’s explanation at The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class.

The book review McJournalism: The Unbearable Lightness of Thomas Friedman comes from the Truth Out web site.

The fact that this three-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s writing qualifies as serious, award-winning journalism and punditry is why Belén Fernandez latest book, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work is such an important read.

Fernandez writes that the point of her book “is to demonstrate the defectiveness in form and in substance of [Friedman’s] disjointed discourse, and in doing so offer a testament to the degenerate state of the mainstream media in the United States.”

I cannot believe that I have stumbled across a reviewer and an author that hold Thomas Friedman in the same low regard as I do.

I like the description of the book on its web page at The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work.

Factual errors, ham-fisted analysis, and contradictory assertions—compounded by a penchant for mixed metaphors and name-dropping—distinguish the work of Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman.

When I first heard Thomas Friedman being interviewed on the Charlie Rose show, I mistakenly thought he actually knew something about the Middle East. His prescriptions for the Middle East turned out to be nothing but baloney. Then he started touting his insights into the outsourcing of jobs from the United States. I recognized these “new” ideas that he was breathlessly touting to be something I had been observing and commenting on for more than 30 years from my perch in the high tech world. Thomas Friedman certainly holds himself in high regard. I am glad to see that there are many others who are not so easily fooled.

Just to show that Oregon has some really good politicians such as Representative Peter DeFazio, I point you to the commentary, Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio Introduce Financial Transactions Tax Proposal.

The Harkin-DeFazio proposal calls for the implementation of a modest 0.03 percent financial transactions tax (FTT) on the trading of stocks, futures, bonds, and credit default swaps. This would have a minimal effect on individual 401(k) or mutual funds, however, it would impose substantial costs on those who are engaged in short-term trading strategies that can lead to disruptions in markets, such as last spring’s flash crash. This tax would have no effect on ATM withdrawals, short term revolving loans, or other everyday financial transactions.

Of course, the fact that the FTT is a darn good idea, would be enough reason to mention it even if it had not been proposed by Harkin and DeFazio.

Dean Baker comments on the Ryan-Widen Medicare plan in the article The Cowardly Senator Wyden.

Years ago members of the elite showed their courage by leading troops into battle. They risked their own lives for the greater good. (Never mind that the wars being fought often did not serve anything resembling the “greater good.”)

Things are different today. In the land of the 1 percent, the way you show your courage is by demonstrating your willingness to beat up on the elderly. That gets you bucket loads of campaign contributions, high praise from the Washington Post in both its news and opinion pages, and could even get you named Person of the Year by TIME.

Last week, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon stood up to do the big kick. He decided to join ranks with Representative Paul Ryan on a proposal to replace Medicare with a voucher-type system. The claim was that with increased competition, we will be able to lower costs.

Using competition to lower costs; that seems like such a great idea! If only someone had thought of this sooner.

Of course this has been thought of sooner and tried again and again. Remember Medicare Plus Choice in the 90s? How about Medicare Advantage, the more recent incarnation of the program which still exists? In both cases, analyses from the Congressional Budget Office and others have consistently found that they raise costs. And we have been experimenting with competition between insurers in the private sector for decades, and it has not succeeded in holding down costs.

But in Washington, just because something has failed repeatedly is no reason not to do it again; especially if it protects the interests of the 1 percent.

You cannot use enough sarcasm to describe Ron Wyden’s turn toward the dark side again.

Here are some previous posts on this plan – Ryan-Wyden Medicare Plan Like A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing and The Bipartisan Political Alliance That Will Turn The Fight Over Medicare On Its Head.

The link in Baker’s quote takes you to his post Time Magazine Decides to Throw Numbers to the Wind to Promote Representative Ryan.

Every now and then it is nice to laugh a little.

This interview apparently took place before our troops actually left Iraq.  Nonetheless, it holds up pretty well in the face of the completion of the withdrawal.

It is always useful to hear a different point of view from what we are used to, particularly when it brings out facts of which you might have been unaware.

Thanks again to Hassan Moradi for the pointer to this interview.

McClatchy has published the article GOP rejects Senate deal on payroll tax.

The fate of the two-month Social Security tax break extension suddenly became uncertain Sunday as House Speaker John Boehner said he and most Republicans were opposed to the plan.
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It was thought that Republicans would support the temporary fixes, particularly since they included a GOP provision to speed up consideration of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Obama administration had sought to delay a decision on the pipeline, which environmental groups oppose, until 2013. The Senate voted 89 to 10 for the bill.

It is mind boggling to contemplate the possibility that Republicans, in their recalcitrance, will finally take the action that Obama promised, but did not have the guts to carry out.

See the previous posts Keystone XL Is Back On the Table–For Now and Myth That Keystone XL Creates Jobs.

If the Keystone pipeline is such a good idea, then you would think that after careful consideration, the Congress could vote on this as a separate bill.  The fact that it has to be snuck into legislation that Obama is afraid to veto shows how bad an idea this pipeline is.

The Nation Of Change has the article Keystone XL Is Back On the Table–For Now.

Obama said at a press conference this month that “Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut, I will reject.” That clearly was an empty threat, since he plans to sign this bill on Monday when the House will presumably approve it.

Nevertheless the Republicans forced the following section into the bill that is about to be passed.

Within 60 days, the President, acting through the Secretary of State, is required to grant a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline project application unless he determines the pipeline would not serve the national interest. Any permit issued shall require the reconsideration of routing the pipeline within the State of Nebraska. Any permit granted is deemed to satisfy all the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and any modification required by the Secretary to the construction mitigation and reclamation plan shall not require supplementation of the final environmental impact statement.

Why the mention of the state of Nebraska with respect to this environmentally sound project that will create thousands of jobs?  The Republican Governor of Nebraska “doesn’t want no stinkin’ pipeline running through his state” if he were to use words like those of the bandits in the  movie “Blazing Saddles”.

The Politico story Keystone XL Pipeline vote getting pre-spun, quotes Representatives Waxman and Markey.

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told POLITICO that even if President Barack Obama signed a law requiring him to make a decision on permitting the 1,700-mile pipeline within 60 days, they think he’d still end up rejecting it.

We expect the president to still reject the commencement of the construction of the pipeline until there is a full completion of an environmental review,” added Markey, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “The 60-day deadline should not lead to the White House approving the actual construction to begin.”

Markey also argued that the GOP couldn’t claim a win if Keystone made it in. “What are they getting?” he asked.

Both Democrats also said they were not in the thick of the negotiations, though Waxman, holding his BlackBerry up, joked at one point, “The White House has just sent me an email saying, ‘Don’t worry.’”

The faux naivete displayed by Waxman and Markey does a disservice to them. They may be the only people in the world who pretend to believe that Obama will carry through on his promise.  Even if he does not deliver on his promise to reject the bill, they still hold out hope that the President will deliver sometime down the road.

When you compromise with bribe takers and legislators with conflicts of interest (see Myth That Keystone XL Creates Jobs), you cannot come away with your principles intact.

The Los Angeles Times has the interesting article Autism hidden in plain sight.  I’ll quote one of the cases described in the article.

Karl Wittig, a retired engineer from New York, had always questioned why so few social skills came naturally to him.

A diary his mother kept in the 1950s suggests he was not an ordinary child.

“This last few weeks, he doesn’t pile the blocks anymore,” she wrote when he was 2. “He likes to put one next to the other, making a big row of 48.”

Two years later, he talked nonstop about wires, switches, light bulbs and Thomas Edison.

Wittig went on to earn undergraduate and master’s degrees from Cornell University and New York University in physics, electrical engineering and computer science. In the research laboratories where he worked, he felt he fit in.

“I went into a field full of eccentric people,” Witting recalled. “I was just another eccentric person.”

Wittig said he eventually figured out how to behave in social situations — to refrain from correcting other people’s mistakes, flaunting his math abilities or rambling on about his own interests. He married a former nun 18 years his senior. She died of cancer after two decades together. Wittig described the marriage as happy.

Still, he wanted to understand what made him different. So at age 44, he brought his mother’s diary to a psychiatrist, who evaluated him and concluded he had Asperger’s disorder, a mild form of autism.

“I had been waiting for an explanation for these issues my entire life,” recalled Wittig, now 55, who lives alone in the apartment he once shared with his wife. “Finally, here it was.”

Recognize anybody you know?

The Nation Of Change has the story Myth That Keystone XL Creates Jobs Perpetuated by Oil Lobby, Parroted by Congress’s Oil Recipients.

An oil contractor hired by the State Department reported it would create between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary jobs, while an independent study by Cornell University found it would create only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs. Once the costs of the increased pollution and risk of oil spills is factored in, Cornell found, the jobs impact is likely to be negative.
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Pipeline supporters Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Judy Biggert (R-IL), and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) even own TransCanada stock.

I am shocked to find out that Republican leaders in Congress who stand to directly benefit from the pipeline are lying to me. Shocked, I tell you!

We should require members of Congress to reveal their financial interests in all legislation they are either proposing, blocking, or voting on.  Misleading the public on their self-interest should be punishable by jail time.