Idiotprogrammer Blog

Category: political rhetoric

  • Cornyn: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”

    Cornyn: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”

    Dear Senator Cornyn,

    Friday, you said on the floor of the US Senate: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”

    To my knowledge, it is not illegal for people to be paid to protest. I know that lobbyists are paid to make their opinion known to you. I know that political organizations provide grants and scholarships for research and opinion pieces. I also know that the overwhelming majority of people who participate in rallies are doing it not primarily for financial reasons but to express their political values. I’m generally fine with that. I know many people who protest without receiving any form of compensation. I also know that political activism is often organized by political groups, which requires some expenses (for signs, etc.) From my limited experience, I know that large donors have deep pockets, while the smaller organizations they support are often run on very little money. And the volunteers they solicit are certainly not paid at all (except through T-shirts and buttons and that sort of thing).

    Referring specifically to the Kavanaugh protests, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of protesters were not paid in any fashion. I have googled around and I have seen no supporting information about this claim (except for a gofundme set up to help defray Ms. Blasey Ford’s expenses — which seems reasonable under the circumstances).

    Yet you feel comfortable making this poisonous claim without evidence.

    Recently, I saw the above  photo which is hilarious/disturbing on so many levels.

    First, the men outnumber the women here! Second, these signs weren’t hand made; somebody paid for the t-shirts, signs and even the bus. Update: The 501(c)(3) “Concerned Women For America” which has a 2 score on Charity Navigator, is funded by the Koch Brothers network including Freedom Partners, the Center To Protect Patient Rights, Tc4 Trust, and DonorsTrust. (Source).

    Personally, I’m more bothered by these polite but well-funded activists  funded by fossil fuel billionaires than the rowdy people who probably had minimal access to this kind of funding.

    I have never voted for you, but it so happens that you and I both graduated from Trinity University (which I was able to attend only because of an academic scholarship).

    In early 2004, after a Republican Administration supported by you launched a needless war in Iraq on the flimsiest of evidence, there was a Trinity alumni event which both you and I attended. It was an event intended to help new alumni to do job networking. Your appearance was added to the agenda at the last minute.

    I’m guessing that at least half of the Trinity alumns attending had no idea that you were coming — much less who you were. Yet I certainly looked forward to the opportunity to shake your hand and express in a minute or so my concerns about what the US was doing in Iraq.

    As you know, some Trinity alumni are politically-minded, but we are generally middle of the road and follow a certain decorum at alumni functions. It was extremely unlikely for anyone to turn it into a protest or shouting match.

    To my dismay, when you showed up at the event (where 100 alumni already were present at), you promptly moved to a part of the house which prevented people from talking to you.  Talking to you was not the MAIN reason I was there, but I kept an eye out for an opportunity to have a minute of your time. This event was for job networking — talking to strangers for 1 or 2 minutes was PRECISELY THE POINT of this event.

    As far as I know, during that event, you talked to NOBODY. You didn’t shake  hands with anyone but the event’s organizer; all you did was come up to the front when you were introduced. 

    At that point, you talked for 4-5 minutes about returning from a trip you had just made to Iraq and what great things the US government was doing there. You talked about how proud we should be of US soldiers in Iraq. At that point, you left.

    Your hasty departure left me speechless. Was the whole point of your visit to lecture Trinity alumni about how great the war effort was?

    Perhaps on that particular day you were feeling unwell, or had personal business to attend to. But  I was always struck by your rushed exit.  You didn’t even make a minimal effort to meet with and talk to people who basically had no axe to grind or message to deliver. Trinity alumni are not necessarily representative of   Texas demographics; to be frank, many are affluent and Republican-leaning. Yet I was a loss to understand why you were so unwilling to talk to any of them. Do you treat your constituents merely as people to lecture at rather than to listen to?

    Personally I’m outraged about the Kavanaugh hearings for a variety of reasons.

    First, on substantive grounds I thought Kavanaugh’s rulings on environmental cases was crazy and dangerous. I was concerned that Kavanaugh was involved in numerous partisan activities that was unbecoming for a judge.

    Second, I think the Senate and White House blocked the releases of a lot of records related to Kavanaugh’s past.

    Third, I thought Kavanaugh’s testimony about the accusations was belligerent and immoderate; some of his answers bordered on the risible.  This is not the desired temperament for a Supreme Court justice.

    Fourth, the way the Senate and White House attacked the accusers was pretty awful. I thought Ms. Swetnick’s claims were very credible. Even if they didn’t implicate Kavanaugh directly, they came from one of many eyewitnesses who say that Mr. Kavanaugh engaged in a considerable amount of drinking and boorish behavior in high school and college. They suggest a pattern of youthful behavior which I found disturbing. I am Kavanaugh’s age and like him attended  an all-boys Jesuit high school  — and yet I never drank. Most of the smart and responsible people I knew at Strake Jesuit in Houston rarely or never drank. As much as I would like to say that people outgrow their excesses of high school and college, I have to wonder whether Mr. Kavanaugh has properly owned up to his past and whether other  judges with less excessive pasts are out there.

    Fifth, I was really disturbed by the way  Senate Republicans released sensitive sexual history information of Ms. Swetnick, a witness who made a very serious claim about Kavanaugh’s behavior in high school. The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic violence condemned this practice: 

    We are appalled and outraged that the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has released a statement about comments of a sexual nature allegedly made by Julie Swetnick. Such a statement is unacceptable in all events, but particularly because it attempts to smear someone who has not had the opportunity to be interviewed by the FBI. The release of this statement violates the intent of the Rape Shield Rule drafted by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 and voted into law by Congress in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994. This federal rule is meant to safeguard the victim against the invasion of privacy, potential embarrassment and sexual stereotyping that is associated with public disclosure of intimate sexual details and the infusion of sexual innuendo into the factfinding process. The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted this statement on its website, in violation of the spirit of its own Rule.

    In a sworn statement, Ms. Swetnick states she was sexually assaulted. Yet to date, she has not been interviewed by the FBI. Nevertheless, Senate leadership has engaged in a no-holds-barred personal attack on her. It is not unusual for a survivor to describe an experience of sexual violence in ways that do not reveal the full reality of the experience or to try and normalize the experience. However, even aside from these very common reactions, it is unthinkable that the Senate Judiciary Committee would have released this statement publicly and attacked her in this way.

    I have written you in the past about climate change and health care and possibly other issues. In general, your position have upheld corporate interests and showed a lack of concern for the underclass.

    Perhaps you have been listening to the wrong kinds of people.

    Robert Nagle is a Houston writer and blogger who dreams one day of being paid to protest — or  being paid in general.  He runs the ebook press, Personville Press. 

    Update 1. Washington Post debunks the nation perpetrated by Trump and others that Soros is bankrolling Kavanaugh protesters. 

  • Let’s Not Demonize Hilary

    I am proud to say that I voted for Hillary Clinton — a principled woman who had to put up with a lot for over 25 years of her public life. I know people are going to nitpick about what a flawed candidate she was — that’s only natural. But she is what she is. And she had lots of positive qualities that would have made her a thoughtful and effective world leader — it is no wonder that Obama implied that she was better qualified to be president than he was. Today’s executive branch needs someone who knows the details of each policy — who is willing to compromise and be cautious in her judgments. Hilary Clinton didn’t regard the US presidency as just a game on a reality show which needed to be won at any cost; she understood that behind policy decisions there were human lives at stake. To pick one example which sticks in my gullet. Trump has been promising the people in Appalachian coal mine country that under a Trump administration, coal mining will come back. But that’s just a campaign line. Coal mining isn’t a competitive industry any more — and will probably never be even if Trump eliminates all the EPA regulations. In contrast, Hilary Clinton committed to $30 billion in economic assistance to that region to make the transition away from coal. Clinton was attacked for doing this, but this was an attempt to solve a social problem; over the next few years, this money would have come in handy for them…

    For those who say Trump’s victory is just an example of the pendulum swinging to the other side, please remember, almost every single newspaper in the country (even conservative ones) refused to endorse Trump, every single past president (and every single past GOP presidential nominees) refused to endorse Trump. Even the Catholic pope hinted that he objected to Trump’s policies. Here was a case where most national polls were off by a wide margin, most prediction markets were off too. Clinton’s campaign was much better funded, much better disciplined and had a better “ground game,” (even though ultimately it did not deliver the goods). Despite these things, Trump prevailed. Except at the presidential level, this was NOT an example of anti-incumbency; this was NOT an example of people wanting a stronger defense (Clinton’s foreign policy credentials were strong). There was some vague sense of economic malaise (although America’s economic health has not been particularly bad recently). Trump’s policy proposals were vague, sometimes ill-informed and sometimes just sloganeering. Most of the time it just involved imposing tariffs and forcing allies to pay for things. He contradicted himself multiple times on the campaign trail and lashed out regularly at political opponents. Do I even have to mention the bankruptcies? the sexual accusations? His demonization of the press and his tendency to sue everybody? Trump University? I know, I am telling you nothing new. But we need to understand that this is NOT an example of normal democracy; it is a sign that political norms are changing; it is an age where “mean tweets” is the new normal.

    David Remnick writes,
    All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering.
     
    In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.” 

  • Only Chumps with a Rump vote for Trump (Poem)

    Only Chumps with a Rump vote for Trump.
    He will pump this country into a slump.
    Don’t make me a grump.
    Don’t be a lump.
    If you thump for Trump,
    You might as well jump into a dump!

    Let’s get over this mad callithump
    and dump this Trump.
    He’s no Forrest Gump.
    He’s just a mean-spirited clump
    of hypocrisy and plump
    who will gladly gazump
    any voters not paying attention.
    We don’t need a chump to pump
    our brains with harrumps.
    Let’s not flump into a sump of disdain
    Or treat every non-beauty-queen as a frump
    Or be the guy who’s always yelling at the ump.
    A little bit of determination
    is all one needs to get over this hump called Trump.
    Decades later, books will recall the time
    that democracy survived a slight bump
    and the towering tree of haughtiness
    was quickly leveled to a stump.

     

    (By Robert Nagle,  ex-mugwump, with the help of several online rhyming dictionaries! )

  • The flaw of libertarian economics

    The flaw of libertarian economics is that it overlooks or discounts the predatory aspects of power. You can say that we should get government off our backs or that taxation is an unjust burden or that the free market provides an optimal creation of wealth. But without oversight or interference, more powerful businesses can easily  avoid compliance with contracts and avoid compensating  people who have been harmed by their behaviour. Libertarians refer to the court system as correcting major injustices and disparities between parties, but it ignores the fact that justice is often very slow and  many  victims  are  rewarded  only after considerable waiting (and suffering). A few months ago I complained  that it took the multi-billion dollar company  Comcast more than four months to refund me $20 which it already admitted that it owed me. Comcast, like many Fortune 500 companies,  has the legal infrastructure to fend off legal claims about such malfeasance, allowing it to nickel and dime the American consumer to death with impunity.  A  well-crafted regulation, if applied uniformly with adequate phase-in time, can be easy and  inexpensive for companies to implement; it can also correct injustices promptly  and minimize drawn out court battles  between parties with  unequal power.  I understand that unchecked public agencies can sometimes handicap legitimate business activity without good reason, but at least they are accountable to public pressure.

    The laissez faire policies advocated by libertarians   enable the private exploitation of public resources with the potential to cause pernicious  effects. Libertarians often paint the struggle as government agents encroaching on the house and property rights of an individual, but the more common scenario is a giant company whose injuries to others avoid  public scrutiny by virtue of its economic might, with government  agents (woefully outmatched and underfunded) unable to figure out if the company has done anything wrong.

    Mexican poet Octavio Paz once wrote that capitalism is efficient at creating wealth but wretched at  assigning it a purpose.  Wealth creation for its own sake is not really a public good  if citizens fear for their safety and economic well-being and  if investment in “social capital” and public resources is minimal. It is not enough for Chevron to pay to build a public park or Walmart to  support food kitchens. There needs to be an entity committed to managing this “social capital” at all times regardless of whether it helps a company’s bottom line at a particular moment.  This entity needs to be accountable to all Americans and needs to have an organizational framework dedicated to treating all people equally and fairly. This entity is called a government.

    Related: see my piece on libertarianism and the health care system (which touches upon a lot of general issues about how to measure libertarianism as a philosophy) and an excellent book  which argues for “soft paternalism”: Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (See the Nudges blog).

    Postscript: Here’s an interesting question to pose to libertarians: “do private  contracts always take precedence over liberties?”    Can a prostitute sell her obedience for a price?  Can an intern enter a contractual arrangement where he or she receives no compensation but has to follow the contract’s obligations?  If I bought a piece of property with the intent to exploit its mineral rights, are those mineral rights unrestricted and perpetual regardless of what any later government decides and regardless of  any later safety findings?  Libertarians believe that the ability to make contracts is a sign of liberty, but at some point, this contract can threaten the liberty of  one of the parties (or even a third party, as with the case of environmental harms). By their philosophy, the  liberty claims can be pursued only  after the damage or taking has taken place, making redress impossible for the aggrieved party.  You can’t on the one hand grant one party the right to damage another’s life or liberty and at the same time admit that it is impossible for the damaged party to seek redress. That is tantamount to admitting that one party has the absolute right to deprive the party of liberty. The success of the free libertarian state depends on the ability for weaker parties to receive protection from stronger parties. But if you admit that no such protection exists, you are admitting that liberty no longer is an absolute right in your system.

     

  • Two nastygrams about climate change

    I often get irate about climate change, and here are 2 emails I have sent about climate change.  They are not so much analytical but contemptuous in tone. Why? Frankly, because I think shaming is the only acceptable response. Certainly it would be possible to give a point-by-point response to Mr. Morano’s jabberings, but that would be essentially conceding that a paid disinformer has the right to waste my time. (Skeptical science can easily answer all of Morano’s pseudo-arguments).

    The funny thing is an unsuspecting person who heard the CNN debate would no doubt assume that the energy guy “won’” the debate.  Even a reasonably educated person might reach this conclusion. It is really easy to throw out what seems to be arguments and then keep repeating them and out-talking the opposition. (Romney basically did the same thing in the first  debate and basically “won the debate.”) But Morano’s Gish Gallop doesn’t really amount to anything. (Nye’s opposition was pweak – he is an effective advocate for science, but this is not one of his finer moments – though the format of the CNN debate practically guaranteed that rationality would lose).

    Despite the near consensus on climate change, it’s interesting to note how often popular media (both in print and online) seems to cast doubt on the consensus. Readers and viewers may not realize how news is manufactured, but media sources receive oodles of press releases from lobbying groups and “experts” who are available to speak on a topic. These are not really the most qualified people on a given topic, just the people most available and eager to speak.  It’s a lot easier to throw together  a pro-and-con debate than to try to delineate what conclusions and observations are made with a high degree of confidence. Major media is more worried about selling commercial air time than dispassionately discussing the issues. Sure, they want qualified journalists to do their job…but only if it doesn’t threaten their bottom line. 

    These are examples of “futile” letters.  They don’t really accomplish anything except blow off steam. Why do it then?  Partly it is to suggest that actions have consequences and that a person like me can’t stand idly by and watch. Oddly, I used to write politicians fairly often..until I realized that they didn’t  read their email. Most of my representatives are right-wing pro-Bush and pro-oil, and it appeared unlikely that they would budge on most issues. John Culberson or John Cornyn will never support climate change legislation no matter how many people write them. It seems more effective just to ignore them and support credible opposition.

    To: Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Sheriff, Harris County

    I am pretty shocked that Harris County has imprisoned some climate change activists who are now on hunger strike.

    The cause they are fighting against (the XL pipeline) is just, and it reflects very badly on the Houston/Harris County justice system to have them arrested.

    Furthermore, I am shocked that you feed your prisoners in Harris County jail baloney sandwiches and no vegetables. That is despicable. By what basis do you have the right to deprive ANY prisoner reasonably nutritious food?

    This incident calls attention to an environmental injustice; it only puts you in the spotlight for causing  these  deplorable conditions.

    Finally, if you would like to enforce justice in Houston, why don’t you ever take any action to enforce the $18 billion judgment against Chevron. (which the US Supreme Court recently reaffirmed last year ).

    I realize that the Ecuador lawsuit is a civil lawsuit — and seemingly unrelated to the actions of the hunger strikers–, but this judgment and the attempt to collect this judgment has been derailed by the US legal system. Oil companies like Chevron are scofflaws who are using the US legal system to squirrel out of the most significant environmental case in world history. Chevron’s  world headquarters is  in Houston; the plaintiffs  badly need the court and law enforcement system in Houston to intervene,  but you have failed to do so.

    This disparity between your county’s failure to help the Ecuadorians  collect their judgment against the Chevron and your overzealousness in punishing practioners of civil disobedience against Valero is shocking.

    You should be ashamed of yourselves. You are clearly not on the side of justice, but simply on the side of the rich and powerful…who by the way are slowly destroying the climate for future generations. 

    *********************************************************

    To: CNN

    I am writing about the bad coverage you gave on climate change last night. In Piers Morgan you featured Bill Nye and Marc Morano having  a "debate" about climate change. I realize that this is a forum for people to express opinions, but I know a bit about climate change and I know the background of Marc Morano, and so I can’t help but wondering why you allowed a confirmed paid disinformer like Morano to appear on the show and in fact to dominate the discussion.

    I realize that you are not endorsing the positions of your guests, but I would assume that inviting a guest to speak on your show implies that you think this person’s opinions are interesting and respectable and intellectually honest. But even a little fact checking would reveal how false and frankly dishonest Morano’s statements on your show are.

    This tendency of Morano’s is well-known, so I hold your network responsible for inviting him on your show. Up until now I have watched CNN occasionally and check the website daily. I have even defended CNN to my friends on occasion. But now it seems CNN is not interested in hosting honest and fair discussions, merely in stoking controversy. That puts you on the level of Glenn Beck and even on the level of Romans who fed Christians to lions in the coliseum. That would boost ratings too, wouldn’t it?

    I realize that some of your reporters and TV analysts do a good job overall (and by the way Bill Nye is a decent reasonable contributor), but if your quality control allows you to invite irrational scoundrels like Morano on the air, I’m afraid that I will have to stop watching your shows and visiting your website. Why should I patronize a media website which engages in such deplorable practices?

    I have watched CNN for 20+ years. I have seen lots of things that I have disagreed with. But in my entire time watching CNN, I have never found a segment so unfair/biased and shallow as what I saw on Piers Morgan last night. For this reason, I have decided to stop watching CNN altogether and visiting your site. That segment you aired is beyond contempt.

    You should be ashamed of yourselves for airing it.