Palin: The Conservative View

Daniel Larison, "A World of Hurt There"

If there is another thing that we’re learning from her record it is that she doesn’t respond at all well to criticism, and she has made such a habit of shielding herself from it or ignoring that I suspect she has not learned how to deflect or refute it, which compels her to keep repeating whatever tried and true lines she thinks might be remotely relevant to the question. It cannot help when she is put on network television after being shielded from any and all contact with the media and asked about subjects she hasn’t practiced talking about very much, and it cannot help her that she probably was told early on that she knew nothing and she became aware that her handlers believed that she knew nothing. Still, it seems clear to me that her flubbed interviews were not accidental, but were bound to happen when a politician elevated mainly through the “gut-level connection” had to say something coherent about the pressing issues of the day. Palin’s political style is the logical extreme of the Bushian folksiness-trumps-expertise and McCainesque “authenticity”-trumps-policy approaches. She is a natural product of mass democracy’s ongoing pursuit of charismatic mediocrity, in which voters not only seek someone with whom they can identify but also actively discourage politicians’ cultivation of expertise. Expertise grates against their egalitarianism, and so they try to avoid it in their political leaders.

The Punch Line #1

Mark Steel, "Labour and a bout of mutual loathing"

Never again, the idea went, would the party go into an election with ideas that were clearly a minority view in the country. Yet every possible contender for leader still backs the Iraq war, and no one who opposed it from the start will be allowed near the contest. Or to put it another way, the 11 years of New Labour government were summed up by the cricket commentary on Test Match Special. A commentator was complaining about the rigorous security at the ground, as it had taken 45 minutes to get in.

Then suddenly up popped the voice of Geoff Boycott, saying "You've Tony Blair to thank for that." "I'm sorry," said the first commentator. "He was told," said Geoffrey, "that if he went around causing wars there'd be an increased risk of terrorism, but he took no notice, he thought he knew best." You could feel the BBC governors shrieking, "Shut him up – tell him he couldn't play fast bowling or something," but Geoffrey was adamant.

So there we are – back in 1997 none of us, not the most cynical, realised that a New Labour government would end up being chastised for being too pro-war and pro-America, on Test Match Special by Geoffrey bloody Boycott. No wonder they're shafted.

It's Getting Harder Not To Notice

E.J. Dionne Jr., "Capitalism's Reality Check"

The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.

Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.

You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn't matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to "grow the pie" is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is "protectionism.

That Oil Thing

Michael T. Klare, "The oil price villain? Bush".

... the Bush administration's greatest contribution to rising oil prices is its steady stream of threats to attack Iran, if it does not back down on the nuclear issue. The Iranians have made it plain that they would retaliate by attempting to block the flow of Gulf oil and otherwise cause turmoil in the energy market. Most analysts assume, therefore, that an encounter will produce a global oil shortage and prices well over $200 per barrel. It is not surprising, then, that every threat by Bush/Cheney (or their counterparts in Israel) has triggered a sharp rise in prices. This is where speculators enter the picture. Believing that a U.S.-Iranian clash is at least 50 per cent likely, some investors are buying futures in oil at $140, $150 or more per barrel, thinking they'll make a killing if there's an attack and prices zoom past $200.

It follows, then, that while the hike in prices is due largely to ever-increasing demand chasing insufficiently expanding supply, the Bush administration's energy policies have greatly intensified the problem. By seeking to preserve an oil-based energy system at any cost, and by adding to the "fear factor" in international speculation through its bungled invasion of Iraq and bellicose statements on Iran, it has made a bad problem much worse ....

.... And if this administration truly wanted to spare Americans further pain at the pump, there is one thing it could do that would have an immediate effect: declare that military force is not an acceptable option in the struggle with Iran. Such a declaration would take the wind out of the sails of speculators and set the course for a drop in prices.

Detroit: An American Crisis

Lawrence Porter and Naomi Spencer. "Social crisis in Detroit: A special report"

• Part 1: The spiraling cost of food" (June 20, 2008)


• Part 2: The impact of gas prices" (June 21, 2008)


• Part 3: Collapse of an American city" (June 23, 2008)

Detroit, historically known as the auto capital of the world, has been transformed into the biggest poor city in America, according to the US Census Bureau, with an official poverty rate of 31.4 percent. Detroit has earned this designation several times over the past 30 years as the auto industry destroyed tens of thousands of decent paying jobs.

This once booming city of 2 million has lost more than half of its population, now standing at 900,000, with the exodus accelerating yearly. In some areas only the poorest people remain and the tax and employment bases have collapsed. As a result of the decline, Detroit has the highest high school dropout rate of any big city in the country—over 50 percent. It also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the US and is listed among the top 10 cities in home foreclosures. The city also has recently been determined to have the highest rate of families needing food assistance.

• • •

Jada Browning, an out-of-work waitress and mother of three, told the WSWS, “It’s crazy. You either walk or put money in your car so that you can get a job.” She said that food prices were so high, utility bills just had to wait, and gas was too expensive for her to purchase a full tank for her van. “I haven’t been able to fill it up in so long I couldn’t tell you anymore,” she said. “You know, I’m scrounging for $20-$30, and that is just enough to pick my son up from school and go put in a couple of [job] applications. It is just hard.”

Substantial sections of Detroit’s population do not even have vehicles and must find other means of transportation. In fact, according to the US Census Bureau, 21.9 percent of households—more than one in five—do not possess a car. This places an enormous constraint on quality of life for residents who must travel across the sprawling metro area for work, food, school, and other basic obligations.

Detroit is the most expensive city to own and operate a car, according to Runzheimer International, a management-consulting company based in Wisconsin that specializes in employee reimbursement costs. Detroiters pay an average $5,894 for auto insurance alone each year. In all, operating expenses such as gas, tires, oil, maintenance and ownership costs such as insurance total $11,844 for city residents. Having a car is a major expense that is out of the question for many.

• • •

The decimation of auto industry compensation—the standard-setter for pay scale and benefits in many other sectors of industry, as well as the driver of the economy in the region—combined with cuts to public assistance programs have truly devastated working class living standards.

As the cost of living spirals, thousands of families now face a tremendous financial conundrum.

Poverty is pervasive in Detroit. In 2006, according to the federal Census Bureau, median household income in the city was $29,500. This figure is nearly $20,000 less than the median household income nationwide. Per capita income for the city was only $14,700 in 2006.

Such a low income cannot support a mortgage, a family’s basic food and transportation needs, childcare costs and other expenses. As a result, thousands of families turn to emergency government assistance and charity.

Statewide, more than 1.25 million people now receive federal food assistance through the Food Stamp program—a record number and yet still far from the number of people who qualify for aid.

The Economy of Hunger

Mary Dejevsky, "There's no reason why the world should go hungry"

Overall, the assumption that a richer and more populous world will not be able to feed itself needs more critical examination than it is getting. Take the past: India and famine were once synonymous; that is no longer so. Take the present and the distorting demand for rice in Africa: the development of strains resistant to drought and salinity is well advanced, without resort to controversial genetically modified varieties. But the most effective remedy would be peace. Then take future concerns about farmland: huge acreages in Russia, Ukraine and parts of Central Asia are currently unfarmed, or farmed only inefficiently. As this land is bought up by investors and farmers – as is quietly happening – supply will surely rise to meet demand.

For all these reasons, I wonder whether the world is really running short of food. Or is it rather in thrall to a fevered market in which speculators gamble on stratospheric long-term price rises and so drive up prices today? When I press the button on my next online grocery order, I will think less about whether 1.3 billion Chinese are better nourished and more about whether a futures market in staple food crops belongs in a civilised world.

So Much For the Ticking Time-Bomb Scenario

Scott Shane, "Inside a 9/11 Mastermind's Interrogation"

The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a C.I.A. offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called "knuckledraggers."

Mr. Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mr. Mohammed that astonished his fellow C.I.A. officers.

A canny opponent, Mr. Mohammed mixed disinformation and braggadocio with details of plots, past and planned. Eventually, he grew loquacious. "They'd have long talks about religion," comparing notes on Islam and Mr. Martinez's Catholicism, one C.I.A. officer recalled. And, the officer added, there was one other detail no one could have predicted: "He wrote poems to Deuce's wife."

Mr. Martinez, who by then had interrogated at least three other high-level prisoners, would bring Mr. Mohammed snacks, usually dates. He would listen to Mr. Mohammed's despair over the likelihood that he would never see his children again and to his catalog of complaints about his accommodations.

"He wanted a view," the C.I.A. officer recalled.

The story of Mr. Martinez's role in the C.I.A.'s interrogation program, including his contribution to the first capture of a major figure in Al Qaeda, provides the closest look to date beneath the blanket of secrecy that hides the program from terrorists and from critics who accuse the agency of torture.

Beyond the interrogator's successes, this account includes new details on the campaign against Al Qaeda, including the text message that led to Mr. Mohammed's capture, the reason the C.I.A. believed his claim that he was the murderer of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the separate teams at the C.I.A.'s secret prisons of those who meted out the agony and those who asked the questions.

In the Hollywood cliché of Fox's "24," a torturer shouts questions at a bound terrorist while inflicting excruciating pain. The C.I.A. program worked differently. A paramilitary team put on the pressure, using cold temperatures, sleeplessness, pain and fear to force a prisoner to talk. When the prisoner signaled assent, the tormenters stepped aside. After a break that could be a day or even longer, Mr. Martinez or another interrogator took up the questioning.

Mr. Martinez's success at building a rapport with the most ruthless of terrorists goes to the heart of the interrogation debate. Did it suggest that traditional methods alone might have obtained the same information or more? Or did Mr. Mohammed talk so expansively because he feared more of the brutal treatment he had already endured?