Following Up on the "Debate"

Ok, a post the way it's supposed to be: short (sort of).

First: Even though Jon Stewart does it daily, this time he really really really has put the nail in Fox News' coffin (my favorite yet).

Second: A perfect example of what Eric Alterman calls "working the refs," the way the institutionalized infrastructure of the Right can steer public discourse, even intimidate and coerce public figures by repeatedly calling "Liberal Media" fouls like a bunch of hyper-sensitive, overly histrionic, self-perceived martyrs. Notice the inconsistencies of these two facts:

1. Shirly Sherrod hastily abandoned by White House before they could even substantiate the evidence against her (Not that surprising seeing that the W.H. is good at not needing to provide evidence or to prove anything with regards to civil rights and the "War on Terror" in general).

2. Alan Simpson of the Deficit Commission----read: Bipartisan front committee for cutting Social Security----again disparaged those of whom he is ostensibly trying to help, Social Security recipients. Saying to the Older Women's League (of all groups)

that Social Security is "like a milk cow with 310 million tits...If you have some better suggestions about how to stabilize Social Security instead of just babbling into the vapors, let me know...Call me when you get honest work."

Keep in mind that he's already called Social Security recipients "lesser people." So, of course it makes perfect sense keeping this guy on the Deficit Commission, a group that is all but bragging about its intention to cut Social Security benefits and raise the retirement age, even though it is completely unnecessary. If you have any doubts about this, then you should really see this interview with economist Dean Baker.

Again, we see the true intentions of the Obama administration and its callow, uncourageous, obeisance to the forces of the Right. However, by keeping Simpson, I'm not sure Obama really is bowing to these forces so much as getting a desired result: reduced benefits, and longer working lives for "the least among us."

The Democrats and the administration have ceded----no squandered----an opportunity to change Washington (what all those enthusiastic voters voted for 18 months ago) and have instead sided with the culprits in our economic catastrophe, those who "frankly own the place," which will allow the Republicans to hypocritically utilize the faux economic populist, overtly racist wedge strategy straight to the bank (probably literally in some cases). This striking double standard, ignominiously firing Sherrod, and yet keeping Simpson in place (know your priorities) is just another illustrious example of the administration cynically "capitulating" to the Right-Wing media infrastructure.

And for those of you who are still not yet adequately deferential to the president, and have criticism for/of him, you must remember that you will be disregarded as simply being "the professional left," those who "ought to be drug tested" because you won't "be satisfied...[until] we have Canadian health care...we've eliminated the Pentagon," and "Dennis Kucinich...[is]president."

Lastly, I recently made an argument that frankly wasn't all that original, but nonetheless true (I think there's a version of it here):

(1) The Republicans are using xenophobic/ethnic/ religious racism as a new wedge issue to propel themselves to power during this coming election season in lieu of reasonable policies to address the economic suffering of millions of Americans, which is the foundation and impetus for all of this deliberately stirred up anti-Muslim nativism.

(2) That tactic is extremely insidious, pernicious, and dangerous because the majority of Americans that are insisting that to build an Islamic community center near "Ground Zero" is "insensitive" are (a) disregarding the fact that many Muslims died during the attacks too, and (b) are accepting the implicitly racist premise that the entire religion of Islam is synonymous with the handful of terrorists that perpetrated the attacks. This seemingly reasonable concern over "sensitivity" gives cover to the dangerous forces that seek to intimidate, harass, maybe even persecute American Muslims.

(3) That this latent racism is also what allows for the collective punishment, the blithe, often sanctimonious disregard for those innocents we kill overseas in Muslim countries, the "collateral damage" in our self-proclaimed, self-reinforcing, self-justified "War on Terror."

(4) That if we don't acknowledge this point in the supposed "debate" over the mosque, we are allowing not just "entire peoples to continue being the playthings of irrational, often hateful domestic politics," but we are also continuing to be complicit in the racism that makes our imperialist-driven foreign policy possible in the first place. If the moral arguments against this kind of militaristic imperialism aren't enough, consider the practical and economic reasons for its opposition.

And so we have this story:

A New York City taxi driver was stabbed multiple times Tuesday after a drunken passenger determined he is a Muslim. The victim, Ahmed Sharif, was slashed across his face, neck and hands. Sharif says the suspect, Michael Enright, had asked him several questions about his religion, including whether he’s a Muslim and observing Ramadan.

Note that the alleged assailant, Michael Enright, is a film student who was embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. What does this mean?

No one knows exactly, but it sure does tell us that this mosque story is more than just a First Amendment issue, or a story about the "insensitivity" of the Muslim community. I don't care if it's the majority of the American people who feel "hurt" by the proposed community center; they must be challenged.