Beautiful Horizons

The Super Rich

Business journalist Chrystia Freeland has a very good piece in the latest Atlantic on the unreality of the world inhabited by the Super-Rich, who are sucking up the lion's share of increases in wealth at the expense of the much-vaunted and lately lamented "middle class."  Worth a read as part of ongoing conversations about wealth distribution, taxation, the unraveling of rational social constraints on plutocrats, deficit hysterics/hypocrisy and increasing economic  destabilization.

The unbearable lightness of "fiscal conservatives"

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad:

"Extend All Tax Cuts, Time to Get 'Serious' About Deficit."

Via Atrios

Out of sadness, more than anger

This is just...how can I say it?  F...ing NUTS! 

The President hasn't reached out enough in a spirit of bi-partisanship?  Earth to Oval Office: Grow a pair!

 

A Little Spine, Please!

    I'm more than willing to do whatever I can to help the Democrats stave off the rising tide of Republican Tea Party Radicalism.  Just one concerned citizen here, but I'll do what I can.  I intend to donate money, walk precincts, do some phone banking, and continue to register voters.  But when I read of the growing number of Democrats requesting Speaker Pelosi to give in to extending tax breaks to the wealthy, it really starts to make the blood boil.  WTF?!!

    Some lessons seem harder to learn.  

    

"Protests, Rhetoric Feed Jihadist's Fire" - WSJ headline

Useful fools for the bin Ladenists, cited in today's Wall Street Journal, no less:

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites...

Controversy over the community center, which will contain a mosque and other facilities, has helped fan anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. far from Lower Manhattan in recent weeks.

Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.

"We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup," with the Islamic-center controversy, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners who monitors jihadist websites.

Critics of the proposed Islamic center said their right to speak out shouldn't be influenced by the possibility of jihadist threats. "We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an e-mail Sunday.

So the egregious Mr. Gingrich has named American muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with violent extremists or the 9/11 attacks "our enemies."  Good work, Newt! Out of respect for the sensitivities of our readers, I won't use the only descriptive words for this creature that reach far enough into the gutter to brand Mr. Gingrich appropriately and where he lies. 

Yeah, I guess I'm harping on this controversy, but nothing has struck me as such a perfect storm of nothingness - in terms of any substantive issue - combined with an aggressively ignorant, and even vicious, mean-streak, courtesy of cold, calculating demagogues of the Right.  Not to mention the cowardice of too many politicians who should know better.  I try not to use the term "Un-American" because it's so easily and often misused, but if it ever had any meaning - in the sense of a willful departure from the values of the Bill of Rights - it surely applies to the likes of Gingrich and Co.

What I Did During Lunch Today

I borrowed Mercia's still camera, which can also shoot video and walked from the northeast edge of the World Trade Center site to the proposed Park51 location.

While I'm a pretty good photographer/videographer, I am not Max Ophuls and was in a bit of a hurry and apologize for the shakiness of the video.

Nevertheless, I think it shows to anyone who doesn't know the area, that calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque" is demonstrably false. I pass by the oldest Roman Catholic Church in New York, a strip joint a couple of bars and a construction site.

I want to call special attention to the first few seconds of the video. After the start of the video, you'll note a position establishing the WTC location and then a short about 90 degree pan. At the end of the pan before I start walking, you'll see two men, one in a dark shirt and another in a light shirt. They are there every day along with others trying to sell picture books about the attacks of September 11, 2001. No one speaks of denying them their first amendment right to sell the books, thus making a buck off of a tragedy. Now there's a direction for someone's outrage, but there's no political upside to it, is there Newt, Sarah, Rick, Rudy, Harry, and Carl?

Some good discussion at Marc Cooper's site. Here's the video: