More rappers, less business leaders

Addressing graduates at Bowie State University, a historically black college in Maryland, First Lady Michelle Obama on Friday said the reason more African-American children don't go to college is because they're lazy:

“Instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper."

Now, I ain't black. I am, in fact, painfully white. That said, I do have access to some facts, courtesy the October 2012 study, “Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress,” as reported by The New York Times:

¶ Among male high school dropouts born between 1975 and 1979, 68 percent of blacks (compared with 28 percent of whites) had been imprisoned at some point by 2009, and 37 percent of blacks (compared with 12 percent of whites) were incarcerated that year. 

¶ By the time they turn 18, one in four black children will have experienced the imprisonment of a parent. 

¶ More young black dropouts are in prison or jail than have paying jobs. Black men are more likely to go to prison than to graduate with a four-year college degree or complete military service.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not at all confident this metaphor works but I'd say it's the mass-incarceration chicken. If kids aren't going to college, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it has less to do with Nas and the Playstation 3 than it does with one or more of their parents being imprisoned, the lack of good job opportunities in America's urban centers, and the absolute shit secondary schools that the urban poor often have no choice to attend.

Curiously, though, it appears the president's wife would rather blame black culture than the institutionalized racism that manifests itself in mass incarceration and an official unemployment rate nearly twice that faced by whites. The notion that black children are too busy basketballin' and hip-hoppin' and shit must poll better.

The more you know

Chris Hedges recently interviewed Julian Assange. Predictably, because it complicates his preferred narrative, he did not ask any tough questions about the sexual assault charges the Wikileaks founder and documented creeper is facing in Sweden ("the Saudi Arabia of feminism."). He did, however, address those very serious charges in a single paragraph that suggested there was nothing to them, Assange's supporters having already carried out the trial that their self-styled freedom fighter is doing his best to avoid.

"[T]here is a well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination against Assange, including mischaracterizations of the sexual misconduct case brought against him by Swedish police. Assange has not formally been charged with a crime. The two women involved have not accused him of rape."

Let's go through this sentence-by-sentence, because there's a lot of bullshit in there.

"[T]here is a well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination against Assange, including mischaracterizations of the sexual misconduct case brought against him by Swedish police."

This is the only time Hedges mentions the allegations against Assange, in the context of discussing a "well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination" against his main man. In the interest of not mischaracterizing the case against Assange, what are the specific allegations against him? Two different women say he sexually abused them; that he engaged in non-consensual sex with them; that he was explicitly told to wear a condom but refused; that, in one case, he had unprotected sex with one of the woman who had insisted he wear a condom while she slept.

Though Hedges is concerned about mischaracterizations of the case, he doesn't note those details himself. Too messy.

"Assange has not formally been charged with a crime."

Hedges, like most Americans, is ignorant of the Swedish legal system. He doesn't know how it works. Assange and his team at Wikileaks are aware of this and have thus included this line -- he hasn't even been charged with anything! -- in their core set of talking points. But it is actually pretty dumb. Why? Because in the Swedish legal system, one is not formally charged with a crime until one is arrested and about to go to trial. Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for "the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings" because Assange skipped out on the final interview that comes before that arrest. The prosecutor in the case says he will be immediately indicted and tried following this next interview, unless he says anything "which [undermines] my present view."

As The Guardian reported in 2010, "Assange himself told friends in London that he was supposed to return to Stockholm for a police interview . . . and that he had decided to stay away." Dude knew what he was doing.

"The two women involved have not accused him of rape."

This is meaningless. What matters is that both of Assange's accusers say that their sexual encounters with him "started out as consensual but turned nonconsensual." There is a word for that, whether the two accusers -- who went to the police for a reason -- used that word themselves. Legally speaking, Assange is wanted on "two counts of sexual molestation, one count of unlawful coercion, and one count of rape."

I too once believed, reflexively, that there was something fishy about the charges against Assange; that they were part of an international campaign to defame him and ruin his organization, perhaps. But then I actually started looking at the case. And then I started wondering why Wikileaks was always going on about how sex-hating Swedish feminists had "redefined rape" to mean something crazy like "non-consensual sex." And then I came to the conclusion that it's actually Assange and the remnants of Wikileaks that are engaged in a serious disinformation campaign.

Bradley Manning is the real hero. Let's talk about Bradley Manning.

The economist

Who but an economist could speak of the downside of funneling money to the world's largest professional killing machine in a way so devoid of humanity?

“Every time someone mentions a defense cut, a member of Congress talks about protecting factory jobs in their district,” he said. "But relative to other government spending, a considerable chunk of the military is spent outside our borders [editor's note: on killing people and stuff]. In that sense, the multiplier is smaller there than in other forms of government spending.”

Maybe Matt Yglesias.

A government big enough to stop Big Pharma...

"I want our government to be big enough so that it can successfully stop Big Pharma from selling us drugs at five times the price as other countries," writes liberal commentator Thom Hartmann.

While I'm no fan of removing state checks on corporate privilege, this is a strange argument for a liberal to make as overpriced drugs are a clear result of the state -- big government -- granting corporate privilege. As center-left economist Dean Baker pointed out in his book, The End of Loser Liberalism, Americans currently spend around $300 billion a year on prescription drugs. Without state-granted monopolies in the form of drug patents, which bar competitors to Big Pharma from producing generics, that number would be closer to $30 billion.

Is Lockheed Martin funding 'drone outrage'?

Outrage over the unilateral, arbitrary killing of people from Pakistan to Yemen with unmanned US military aircraft – drones – is growing beyond just the regions being bombed and the offices of CODEPINK. It's even sneaking its way into the US Senate, if only for a hearing. Though opposition to remote-controlled killing may not be mainstream, now it's at least being acknowledged. But is this outrage being bankrolled by the military-industrial complex?

That's what one military expert who has never served in a military is suggesting. On Twitter, the armchair warrior who goes by the name “The War Nerd” posted that he keeps “having this feeling that a big part of the drone outrage is funded by Lockheed Martin.” It was a bold claim, backed by the argument that “Defense [sic] is all about $” and a fighter jet costs a lot more than a drone. The post was subsequently shared by a number of left-wing journalists, primarily his colleagues at the Not Safe for Work (NSFW) Corporation, an outlet that is essentially Playboy without the pictures.

But is it true? Well, if Lockheed Martin is fueling outrage over drones, as some on the left are now suggesting, it is going about it in a most curious way. Indeed, it almost appears as if the the world's largest military contractor is funding support for drones, aware that while they might sell for less than a jet, that only means the government can buy more of them.

For instance, consider: The chairman of the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, which exists to “[s]upport policies and budgets” that promote the increased use of drones, is California Republican Buck McKeon, who also chairs the House Armed Services Committee. McKeon's top campaign contributor? Yeah, it's Lockheed Martin. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who co-chairs the caucus – stacked with dozens of the best friends the military-industrial complex ever had – also gets cash from Lockheed Martin. In fact, the Bethesda, Maryland-based company gives more money to congressional drone advocates from border states (that is, the politically more important ones) than any of its competitors.

Another way Lockheed Martin is financing opposition to President Barack Obama's drone wars in perplexingly bizarre ways is by funding a favorable PBS documentary on the “Rise of Drones.” And by ramping up its own production of unmanned aircraft and buying out its drone-manufacturing competitors. And by building planes that carry drones. And by building the “video-game-like interface” that helps drone operators pilot Lockheed Martin's drones.

It is all very strange, isn't it? Why would a firm that manufactures drones and drone-supporting congressmen and drone-carrying planes and drone-flying computers be funding opposition to its products? It just doesn't make sense. It's kind of stupid, really. It's really stupid.

Say what you will about America's merchants of death, the folks running Lockheed Martin have been pretty adept at making money. Last year, the company had revenues of over $47 billion, more than 80 percent of which came from the US government. They would not, it seems, be dumb enough to bankroll a campaign against a technology they tell their investors is one of their key “growth opportunities.” The simple answer to why Lockheed Martin would be funding outrage over drones is: Um, it wouldn't be. It's not. Wait, do I smell booze on your breath?

And that raises its own question: If Lockheed Martin is clearly not behind drone outrage, who is funding the shoot-from-the-gut conspiracy that said outrage over drones is being driven by something other than dead bodies? Corporate America, actually. Mr. Nerd, as a staff writer for NSFW, is paid for by way of a generous grant from executives at the online shoe store Zappos, a subsidiary of sweatshop titan Amazon.com. And his colleagues are just as divisively conspiratorial, it turns out, with one positing that the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” was a CIA plot to turn Americans against Muslims, a theory that similarly furthered the right-wing agenda by dividing the left – or at least seeking to – and furthered the gross, right-wing-approved narrative that there was something inherently fishy about Muslims building a place of worship in Manhattan.

Conspiracy theories have been crafted out of less.

Obama condemns indefinite detention (and himself)

US President Barack Obama today condemned the Guantanamo Bay prison camp run by US President Barack Obama, channeling the moral outrage last heard on the 2008 campaign trail.

"The idea that we would still detain forever a group of individuals that have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, that is contrary to our interests and it has to stop,” the president said during a press conference at the White House.

The rhetoric was bold and progressive. The reality? At least half of 166 never-tried, never-convicted prisoners that reside at Guantanamo Bay are engaged in a hunger strike that is making the president look bad. And so the man with a kill list who is ultimately responsible for them being there – and who's initial plan for closing the prison was simply moving it to Illinois – had to act as if he was deeply troubled by his poor human rights record, like an oil executive shedding tears for Mother Earth after a big spill.

What Obama is banking on is the fact that most people (including his base) aren't terribly detail oriented. The tale liberal Democrats tell themselves, and which the liberal media tells the rest of us, is that the fight over Guantanamo Bay is Obama and a bunch of ACLU lawyers on one side, the forces of fear-mongering, reactionary insanity on the other. The president, it is to be understood, is facing irrational hostility from the Chicken Littles of the right and would like to the do the right thing -- of course he would -- but, you know: Republicans.

That narrative, unfortunately, is false. The true story, obfuscated by the president's occasional condemnations of his own human rights record, is that Obama himself signed an executive order creating "a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay." Rather than repudiate the notion of “detain[ing] forever a group of individuals that have not been tried,” Obama (through a task force he commissioned) determined that 48 of the prison camp's detainees were “too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution.” The evidence against those men would not be admissible even by the weakened standards of a military court – that is, it was probably gained through torture – but rather than release them, as if they were persons endowed with certain inalienable rights, the Obama administration would prefer to lock them away until they die.

The president has even refused to release dozens of Yemeni citizens who have been cleared of all wrongdoing. Obama also signed (and his lawyers later defended in court) a bill that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens. And let's not forget that kill list, which is based on the idea that it's alright for the president to act as judge, jury and executioner, so long as the unilateral justice is being delivered abroad. So when the president of the United States righteously condemns the idea of imprisoning someone forever without charge or trial, it's important to remember the truth about his record. It's important to remember he is lying.

Winding up

Last week, I noted this quote from Josh Marshall, editor of the liberal Talking Points Memo:

"Basically everything Barack Obama has done since coming into office has been to unwind the thicket of commitments, practices and open wars begun under George W. Bush." 

Now here's Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, speaking at a forum on US foreign policy over the weekend:

“You're thinking we're winding down. You think we're out of Iraq? Maybe boots and uniforms we might be, but we're probably 30,000-plus strong contractors. You think we're downsizing in Afghanistan? We are. Military. We're still 100,000-strong contractors."

In other words, basically everything Barack Obama has done since coming into office has been to wind up (and institutionalize) the for-profit thicket of commitments, practices and open wars begun under George W. Bush.

I wrote something

The George W. Bush Presidential Library opens this week in Dallas, Texas, so I decided to note a few facts -- like a million deaths in Iraq, for example -- that you won't find inside of it. Go read what I wrote, you.

Basically

I came across this quote today from Josh Marshall, editor of the liberal Talking Points Memo, while doing some research for a column. It's a good one.

"Basically everything Barack Obama has done since coming into office has been to unwind the thicket of commitments, practices and open wars begun under George W. Bush."

Smart take, career wise. But I bet the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Guantanamo Bay have a different one.

Tax Day

“The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.” 

-- Gore Vidal

Otha fish

It ain't easy

Be a hero

Strange times

Life is hard and full of sadness so why not say "fuck it" and dance?

The war on drugs: unhooded

"You've got African-Americans, you've got Hispanics, you've got a bag full of money. Does that tell you–a light bulb doesn't go off in your head and say, 'This is a drug deal?'" 

-- Assistant United States Attorney Sam L. Ponder of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio

The enabling opposition

My latest column for Al Jazeera addresses progressive Democrats and their faux-opposition to murder by drone. Check it out, kid.

Cop / Killer

"The 21st century police officer should be a person who is aggressive, ever vigilant and possessing exquisite empty hand skills, while being a highly trained good-hearted killer with people skills." 

-- "Why cops should be dangerous," Lt. Dan Marcou

Marcou is a retired cop from Wisconsin. He's also an author. Indeed, his "second novel, S.W.A.T. Blue Knights in Black Armor has been acclaimed for its depiction of police as they really are, modern knights." As they really are.

The Hollywood Stars

Tom Tancredo and me

Back when I was a confused 22-year-old, I tried to be a straight, just-the-facts-ma'am reporter, covering Congress for public radio stations across the US. I quickly learned that I hated it, in part because I had to interview people like former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo and pretend that I didn't find him to be a terribly pretentious fascist for wrapping his xenophobia in concern for the survival of Western Civilization (and then have to argue afterwards with my editor over whether we could refer to his hard-line anti-immigrant platform as "hard-line").

Now a confused 28-year-old, I have escaped Hollywood for Ugly People and now just work in regular Hollywood, which unlike the nation's capital is at least superficially attractive. And yet, I still can't escape Tom Tancredo. Earlier this week, I had to reach out to him for a possible segment on immigration. He was unable to attend, but his response did reduce my distaste for him by 0.00001 percent:

And now I wait.

[The context: Tancredo promised to smoke a "marijuana cigarette" if Colorado legalized pot.]

You know what