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Can’t embed it, but it’s well worth listening to Jeffrey Sachs ask the Bloomberg kiddies “Do we really have to have our own Egypt, right here in the U.S.?” (h/t Washington Monthly, via commentor Oscarbob)
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Which leaves only the homely consolations of bad music and worse animation:
Beyond good and evil
I just talked to a friend who is high up at a big New York bank about my take on the deficit, asking:
Is it accurate so say that (leaving out Medicare/Medicaid and the cost of private insurance, all of which are time bombs) that the logical thing to do with the economy is keep spending/running deficits ’til we’re really out of the recession, then jack up taxe rates on the wealthy and cut spending to bring the deficit down?
He said that, yes, he agreed and that many or most in finance would though with varying degrees of concern about excessive borrowing possibly causing a spike in interest rates and inflation.
This is not an issue that should be discussed in moral terms, but in pragmatic ones. If someone argues that the current deficit is catastrophic, that person should make an argument as to how it is, and not just claim that belt-tightening is inherently moral.
Pundits like to phrase things in terms of morality for a variety of reasons. Movement conservatives, especially Straussians, think it’s the right language to reason with/propagandize the Bieber-fearing proles. Some intellectually-inclined conservatives believe that everything should be argued morally rather than pragmatically/empirically, because that’s how Burke and Oakeshott and Jeebus did things. Villagers like moral arguments because they’re both simple and safe. Condemning a president for getting a blowjob is lot easier than combing through budget reports and you’ll never take any heat for it either.
The run-up to the war in Iraq was phrased in moral terms too. It was all about having the Churchillian resolve to fight evil and spread freedom, not about the pragmatic real-world problems that arise from creating anarchy in a large country with a history of ethnic strife. And so it is with we are all Georgians, Iranians, Egyptians, Algerians. It doesn’t matter whether anything we do helps the situations, what matters is that we’re on the right-side morally, in our minds, which are places that are infinitely more important than the world of other human beings.
I don’t deny that moralists can make certain arguments much better than a pragmatist (like me) can. Moral conviction against torture and for gay marriage is probably more convincing than “it doesn’t work anyway” and “why not?”.
A lot of issues just don’t come down to good versus evil, though, a lot come down to the numbers adding up, or a realistic plan, or an economic theory that is supported by historical evidence. Sure, we should get angry and self-righteous about the fact that we are ruled by sociopaths, but if their decisions were less destructive in practice, it wouldn’t be such a big deal that they are sociopaths.
How strange the change from major to minor
“My Funny Valentine” is my favorite song of all time and I don’t know why I’ve never done a thread about it on Valentine’s Day. Although the lyrics are in some way the best part, there isn’t a vocal version I especially like; Chet Baker ruins it by ending minor instead of major and the Ella versions I can find are all annoyingly orchestrated. It’s sung in “Fabulous Baker Boys” (great) and “Talented Mr. Ripley” (meh), by the way. At some point, I hope that at least one of the Mad Men listens to it as he broods over a glass of Canadian Club.
Here’s the ’50s Miles Davis quintet (really quartet here since Coltrane wasn’t allowed to play on the ballads). Is there a version you like especially?
Update. Also too, open thread!
How strange the change from major to minorPost + Comments (124)
South Dakota’s Proposed “It’s Cool to Murder Abortion Providers” Law is Truly Fucked Up.
Further to John’s earlier post on South Dakota’s proposed law, consider this map (via Pleated Jeans), compiled from Census data:
41. South Dakota: highest rate of forcible rape 76.5 per 100,000
There’s that forcible word again.
I followed the links to determine what “forcible” means. I’ve spent fifteen minutes on teh Google thus far, and the answer is, “I don’t fucking know.” The map references census information; the census information provides a link, which sends you to a PDF download, which, in turn, sends you to a dead link about dinosaurs. I searched the FBI’s website and found that there seems to be some dispute about the definition of “forcible rape.” I dug a little deeper and found that dispute relates to whether or not to include men as victims. (They should be.) There seems to be no clarification about the word forcible:
It is well known that the NIBRS definition of Forcible Rape allows for the possibility of a male victim and a female offender, which is not permissible in the Summary system. However, there are additional, albeit subtle, differences in reporting forcible rape between the NIBRS and Summary system as well.
In the Summary system, forcible rape is defined as “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” (Emphasis added) (UCR Handbook [2004], page 19.) In the NIBRS, forcible rape is defined as “The carnal knowledge of a person, forcibly and/or against that person’s will or not forcibly or against the person’s will in instances where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity.” (Emphasis added) (NIBRS Volume 1: Data Collection Guidelines [August 2000], page 33.)
The discrepancy exists with the and/or wording of the NIBRS definition. Literal interpretations of the definitions indicate that Summary agencies should ensure that both circumstances should be met before classifying an offense as a Forcible Rape and NIBRS agencies need only one circumstance to meet the classification. However, the national Program staff do not discern a substantive difference between the two definitions outside of gender; the change in language reflects a clarification of the intent of the collection of this offense rather than a modification. There is not a substantive difference between the Summary and NIBRS definitions on this particular point, i.e., in either system, the carnal knowledge is obtained forcibly and/or against the respective victim’s will.
The FBI requests that all law enforcement agencies, whether the agencies submit data via the Summary system or the NIBRS, report forcible rapes as appropriate.
In any event, I don’t know how “forcible rape” is defined and I haven’t done much investigation on the methodology of the map, but my gut reaction is that South Dakota’s rapiness combined with South Dakota’s high prevalence of binge drinking, combined with the fact that this law is even being considered means that women may need to get the hell out of that state.
What the fuck is going on in this country right now? It’s getting to the point where women should just sign up to be raped when they’re, say, 18, since it seems the Assholes on the Right don’t give a crap about a woman’s right to choose what goes in and pops out of her body.
Call it the “female draft.”
If we protest, just ignore us. Deep down, we really want to be drafted.
[I would have liked to spend more time researching these links, but I’ve got a ton of antitrust law to dump into my brain this evening, so maybe some of you fine folks could take over my little research project. There’s a donut in it for you, if you figure out what the hell “forcible rape” is. ABLxx]
[cross-posted (sorta) here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Forced-Birth Militants
Reporting on the homey domestic front of the War Against Women, the NYTimes discovers “Sabotage of Birth Control“:
Men who abuse women physically and emotionally may also sabotage their partners’ birth control, pressuring them to become pregnant against their will, new reports suggest.
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Several small studies have described this kind of coercion among low-income teenagers and young adults with a history of violence by intimate partners. Now, a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex.
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The hot line’s report did not include a comparison group and did not gather information about the participants, who were questioned anonymously; nor was it published in a peer-reviewed journal. It was based on answers to four questions posed to 3,169 women around the country who contacted the domestic violence hot line between Aug. 16 and Sept. 26, 2010, who were not in immediate danger and who agreed to participate. About 6,800 callers refused to answer the questions.
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Of those who did respond, about a quarter said yes to one or more of these three questions: “Has your partner or ex ever told you not to use any birth control?” “Has your partner or ex-partner ever tried to force or pressure you to become pregnant?” “Has your partner or ex ever made you have sex without a condom so that you would get pregnant?”
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One in six answered yes to the question “Has your partner or ex-partner ever taken off the condom during sex so that you would get pregnant?”
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The questions were devised by Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, whose earlier papers on reproductive coercion prompted interest in the subject.
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“It’s really important to recognize reproductive coercion as another mechanism for control in an unhealthy relationship,” Dr. Miller said.
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Dr. Miller’s paper, published last year in the journal Contraception, reported that at five family planning clinics in Northern California, one-third of 683 female patients whose partners were physically abusive said the men had also pressured them to become pregnant or had sabotaged their birth control. Of 191 women who reported birth control sabotage, 79 percent also reported physical abuse, the study found…
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Ms. James, of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, said that despite the new attention to reproductive coercion, she doubted it was a new phenomenon.
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“I just think not enough people have been asking the question,” she said.
What’s the difference between the ignorant low-class thugs using forced pregnancy as a brutalizing tactic as effective as a fist to the face, and the pious legislators promoting “heartbeat laws” and telling hospitals to let women with ectopic pregnancies bleed to death? Just that the legislators don’t run even the slightest risk of going to jail when their victims die.
More on fiscal austerity and Iraq
So Digby noticed the Iraq/fiscal austerity parallels 7 months ago (h/t Elia). At any rate, it is quite striking. Here’s Orrin Hatch (h/t AK):
Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, accused Obama of surrendering on the budget like Chamberlain surrendered Czechoslovakia to Germany.
“The United States is demanding a Churchill on the issue of deficits and debt, but the administration has delivered us a Chamberlain,” Hatch said on the floor Monday, in a clear reference to Chamberlain’s foreign policy of “appeasement.”
I want to be clear, budgetary problems are complicated, just as Iraq is. I do not support running huge budget deficits forever, just as I did not support Saddam Hussein. However, I do not support spending cuts in the middle of the worst recession in 70 years, just as I did not support an ill-planned unilateral invasion of Iraq. And whenever someone starts talking about Chamberlain and Churchill in the context of some situation that bears no resemblance to the appeasement of Nazi Germany, I reach for my revolver.
Pravda on the Potomac makes a funny…
The lead in this news item over at Pravda DC (caution Politico link) makes an unintentional funny:
In a shocking finding, more than half of GOP primary voters believe President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, according to a new poll.
It is hard to decide what is more shocking: that half of Republicans believe the lies they are constantly told or that anybody–let alone a self-described “news” organization–would find it shocking.
Facts, reality, science, math, history, logic–none of that stuff has any meaning for these proudly ignorant voters and to seek their support the crazier the story the better.
Take this as an open thread.
Cheers