The video was hard to watch of the Florida cop and the teenage girl violating curfew. Like Kdog (although probably not as much as Kdog) I have an anti-authoritarian streak and I generally distrust cops. As those charged with preserving the peace, I am 100 percent in support of them and I have great empathy for the jobs and duties they are charged with.

But, I also realize they have a duty to protect the property classes and when push comes to shove, they will follow the orders of those in power. I don't like to see cops at peaceful demonstrations and I feel my safety is at risk when they arrive to demonstrations I have attended.

All that is beside the point. I have been enjoying the discussion with Michael Gass and Patrick. I was clearly in the corner of Michael when the discussion began, but as it progressed it became obvious to me who was the real cop with the most experience, despite my belief that the cop in question in the video was handling the teenage girl too roughly. In the end, Patrick convinced me though, that the cop was responding reasonably in the legal sense of the term. Although Patrick may have been slightly insulting to Michael in his questioning of Michaels credentials, I believe he has done it to protect the image of a police officer. Michaels responses to Patrick's points and rebuttals has appeared to me, however, to be a bit irrational.

But that is just me. So I am just curious what the rest of you all think. Perhaps not the crucial issue of the day in a world of turmoil and on a blog of political discussions. However, a little poll for TL's finest, might just be fun. No offense to Patrick or Michael, since I enjoy both of their perspectives. I am just really curious what everyone else thinks.

Who is the Real Cop?

There is a comfort in capitalism and knowing the motives of its participants. Adam Smith is famous for his metaphor of the invisible hand. He argued that if we all acted in our own best interests, then society's greater interests would be served as well. In capitalism, self-interests are described by the profit motive as each of us seeks to achieve the greatest profit. We have learned since the days of Adam Smith that although the economy works this way, in real life humans are motivated by a wide variety of factors of which self-interests and the profit motive play a small part.

In politics we can see the economic incentives playing out as corporate interests hedge their bets between parties and candidates, so they can receive the greatest benefit. Even if they know a candidate does not fully support the issues that benefit the donor's interests the most, they may still contribute to the candidates campaign so they may benefit from the candidates success in an election. In a strange way, this incentive gives us comfort knowing that corporations can still support candidates with interests that favor the majority and not the market, because they realize the people who vote are not in full support of their profit-driven agenda. Thus, we see the corporations and large donors filling the campaign vaults of the democratic candidates for the 2008 election in full knowledge that after eight years of the Bush administration, there is little chance the American people will choose another term for a Republican administration.

Although far from perfect, in some ways it is better than the alternative. Many people like to point out that economics and capitalism fail to portray the more beneficial aspects of human behavior. Any human that was only motivated by their own self-interest and strictly made decisions based on the profit motive would be institutionalized as a sociopath. Corporations, which legally are treated as individuals, are described as psychologically unstable and a danger to society because of its single-minded devotion to profits over all other motivations. However, human nature also has even a darker side than the profit seeking individual oblivious to the greater interests of humanity.  The profit seeking corporation can be seen as standing in the way of power to these darker forces.

During Eric Prince's testimony to Congress he described himself as not interested in finances and anyone who knew him well could testify to this. Aside from the fact that as a man who comes from big money he never had to worry about finances, we can see that this also reveals a man who represents the darker forces of humanity. Eric Prince has never hedged his bets. He is from a wealthy family tied to other families of wealth who only support radical right wing neoconservative and radical Christian objectives. As an observer of American politics, Prince is not satisfied with the slow shift to the right resulting from corporations hedging their bets while prefering candidates that will put money in their pockets at the expense of the peoples. Prince sees a danger of a populace that will feel disenfranchised and will never be fully immersed in the Radical Christian ideology that sees the world in terms of good and evil.

Under Princes views there can be no hedging. We are in a war with the dark forces of the world represented primarily by the Muslim ideology. Previously, it was a war with the communist forces of Satan, but no matter, Satan frequently shapeshifts and can reveal himself under new guises depending on the times. There is no time to hedge your bets under Princes ideology and we must be prepared to meet the darker forces and battle these forces in the name of Good and fundamentalist Christianity. A military that is at the mercy of congress is a military that will never be fully prepared for this battle. I joked about this being the plot of a great science fiction novel, previously. I am not one to make predictions and I am humble enough to know that random events are much more influential to the forces of history than any other conditions. However, this trend towards the privatization of the military that has created a private military capable of overflowing the majority of governments in the world and that continues to grow, has the necessary ingredients for disastrous results.

There is a realization that we cannot keep funding the Iraqi war or even our bloated military forever. There are rivalries between the branches of the military over the funding of new weapons systems as well as the role each branch will play in the future battlefields across the board. We have heard concerns over the growing influence of radical Christians at focal positions in the Air Force and the Army. As these rivalries grew, it became obvious to some that the military needed restructuring. This restructuring has be done by neocons over the past eight years and has left the military power in new private hands with an ideology that is not represented by the majority of Americans.

Some may want to point out the forces on the left that have contributed strictly to liberal and democratic candidates such as Unions or Moveon.org. I concede that these forces used to be a counter force to the forces on the right devoting their financial contributions strictly to right-wing and republican candidates. But, these powers on the right now have there own military that should bring cause for concern to all. Can you imagine if a similar force was funded and led by the left.  What ff George Soros started his own security firm and began to get contracts under the next Clinton Administration? What would the right wing be saying and how long would it be before he was tied to terrorism and the war broke out between Blackwater and Soros firm [See, it is a great plot]? A more likely scenario will be a General on the battle field voicing the concern that Blackwater has made American soldiers larger targets for insurgents. This General might also feel slighted by his diminsished pay compared to Blackwater employees. A back alley war between Blackwater and American forces might result through the withholding of intelligence, funding of insurgents, negligence of duty, etc. Then it is only a matter of time before this war spreads home.

Obviously, my imagination is too active and this is likely to play out over a longer period of time for us to notice this drift toward Tyranny in America we are presently in. But, as unsettling as many of the impacts of the Bush administration has been on Democracy in the US, the privatization of military services is the most concerning and should be the red flag to us all that the empire will soon turn its violent hand against the citizens on the mainland as these armies increasingly come rushing to aide in disaster relief and urban unrest that is likely to increase over the coming years. I think I might prefer the profit-motive to these darker forces on the horizon.

Cross-posted in Orange.

A few accurate and a great many inaccurate things have been said about Barack Obama's advovacy of a "new kind of politics."  Especially amongst the media, this has been treated as "why can't we all get along" vapidity, a bland notion that people shouldn't be mean to each other.

The truth is that what he is advocating is far more subversive and dangerous to the status quo.  

Insight into just how Obama intends to transform our politics and policy comes from Thomas S. (T.S.) Kuhn's seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Ideas for a best-selling science fiction novel

When I was in graduate school pursuing a PhD in Economics, I was assigned to teach an Introductory Economics course for my assistantship requirements. I assigned my students twice-weekly readings of Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times editorial page. Of course, his column were political and I risked being accused of endorsing a Liberal agenda and swaying young minds, but Krugman was also an economist and his columns often gave a political perspective from an economic point of view. I was careful to focus in on the economic aspects of his columns and left the political portion open to discussion without criticizing or endorsing his opinions.

Upon leaving graduate school, the New York times began offering a paid service called Timeselect and Krugman's column was temporarily beyond my reach. I was ecstatic to learn the Timeselect was being cancelled a week ago and I could access Krugman's column and blog once more at the New York Times online page.

Krugman has a new book coming out with the same title as his blog "The Conscious of a Liberal." In the Introduction to his Blog, Krugman describes the growing inequities of income in the US. There is little doubt that the current disparities in income between the haves and the have-nots in our society - as well as around the globe - is troubling, to say the least. But Krugman appears to endorse a view that the recent trend, beginning with the Reagan administration, is a return to the previous days in America described as the Gilded age when robber barrens controlled the wealth of industry and had vast influence over political discourse in the US. Under this view, the depression era and post-war build-up of Government infrastructure supporting liberal agendas created an aberration in US history where wealth was distributed more equitably among the members of out society. This was the result of investment in public education, liberal legislation supporting unions and working families, and many other government programs and initiatives. Generally, I am in support of this view - but I also think it only tells part of the story leading to the solution of returning to more government run programs.

While income was distributed more evenly in American society during the great achievements of the post war liberal era, there was also a continuing migration from rural areas to urban and suburban areas as many Americans left income poor, yet self-reliant, households in rural America. This left vast rural areas in the control of large agricultural conglomerates with no ties to the people in these previously resilient communities.

These thriving rural communities may have been populated by households that were described as low income, but as my Grandma said of life on the farm, "We didn't have no money, but we were never hungry." The economies in these rural areas were kept aloft through the informal economy that could not be described with income. It can be better illuminated in the oownership records with many small farms owned by individuals with little income, still living pleasant and comfortable lives through their interconnected relationships and economic transactions with the community that were not pecuniary in nature. These transactions can be described as bartering, work-sharing, cooperatives, gifts and neighborliness. What makes the inequality in America today much more daunting than the inequality of the past is the reliance upon income over relationships amongst our neighbors.

In effect, although this postwar liberal era can be seen as a panacea through many lenses - the result of large government projects and initiatives - the liberal policies also contributed (and continue to contribute) to the loss of our rural communities and economies to the economic incentives of greater profits through the capture of economic transactions that previously were not part of the formal economy. Today we see the same trends in privatization in security, warfare, disaster relief and education. A closer look at Krugman's analysis might reveal a coup whereby liberal policies built up large government infrastructures through tax payer dollars enticing waves of Americans from rural areas to abandoned their communities and self-reliant lifestyles for the income supported lives of our modern era. Now the government (which is vastly subservient to corporate agendas) has began the process of selling (giving away) this infrastructure to the wealthy few - leaving in place a huge and much more chilling corporate/military infrastructure designed to serve the money interests while leaving citizens without income, property or the means to sustain themselves.

All of this leads to the current situation with the Eric Prince lead Blackwater along with other security firms. Imagine a future where the Generals are competing with CEO's for government funds. We may be witnessing the onset of the second civil war if congress begins the process of reducing these private mercenary companies. Eric Prince and his family have given vast sums of money to Republican campaigns with radical Christian and nonconservative agendas. He has given zero dollars to democrats. He is in control of the worlds largest private military and is being questioned by a democratic congress. It has the makings of a great Science fiction novel at the very least.

LIFE was his sentence, life is what he got back

by Kirsten D. Levingston

Cross-posted in Orange

Game on, folks.

While there's been some discussion about his nukes stand in the speech today, what's significant is that Barack Obama directed his fire directly at Hillary Clinton today.  

In very stark terms.  Drawing contrasts.

And he's not taking just her on.  He's taking the entire way of thinking that she represents on.

Details below.

The NY Daily News has this story about a woman who was arrested in a Phoenix airport and then later was found dead in the holding cell (more coverage is found here).

So, how could this happen?

It's October, so the baseball playoffs are here.  Not too many people seem to be caring too loudly about thousands of Buddhist monks being slaughtered in Burma or about the latest pro-torture, accepting-and-living-in-the-Rethuglican-frame-while-making-it-your-very-own idiocy to be emitted from the mouth of a Democratic politician, or about Rudy Cue Ball (a) passing up debating at a traditionally black college in favor of going to a fundraiser with Bo Derek (NB - it's a nice YouTube and, um, Judi, you might soon find Rudy's changing his number...) or (b) following up that by going to a cheesesteak place in Philly (no fundraising involved) where the founder's descendant-in-charge has made himself an anti-immigrant spectacle (starting with English-only ordering).  Or even the still-undead Pat Buchanan explaining why, exactly, it's a better idea for Republicans to do fundraisers with whitey than to visit the black college debate.  Hint:  they know there is no black vote for Republicans, so they follow the money.  And, let's not care about Pelosi showing that, yes, her spine is indeed made from Jell-o. Imagine, not passing any appropriation that won't garner 60 Senate votes.  You know, you could guarantee 60 votes in a hurry by x-ing out those reluctant senators' earmarks.  But that might be, um, mean.

There's a fascinating and disturbing profile of Sonia Pierre, the head of the Movement for Dominico-Haitian Women in Saturday's New York Times. Fascinating for the hard work that she has put in trying to fight racism in the Dominican Republic, disturbing for the depth of racism in that country.

Baby Doc obviously needs a new pair of shoes:

I went to see Evo Morales speak at The Great Hall at Cooper Union Monday night. He spoke for approximately an hour and a half and was humble, humorous and engaging. Some of the better points he made:

Will LIFE imitate art or tell it like it is?

by Kirsten D. Levingston

What happens when a cop is wrongly convicted of murder, serves a dozen years in prison, is freed by DNA, and returns to the very department responsible for the miscarriage of justice against him?  We'll find out this Wednesday at 10p. when NBC premieres its new crime drama, LIFE.  

The show's protagonist is LAPD police officer Charlie Crews, convicted of a triple murder he claims he did not commit.  Sentenced to a life term at a maximum security prison Crews loses his job, family, and friends before a DNA test proves his innocence.  

How does LIFE's compelling narrative stack up to the reality of today's justice system?  While art imitates life in some surprising ways, there are some differences that deserve our attention.