Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

How some view what they do at think tanks.

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Tony Judt just passed after a two year battle with ALS.

Mr. Judt (pronounced Jutt), who was British by birth and education but who taught at American universities for most of his career, began as a specialist in postwar French intellectual history, and for much of his life he embodied the idea of the French-style engaged intellectual.

An impassioned left-wing Zionist as a teenager, he shed his faith in agrarian socialism and Marxism early on and became, as he put it, a “universalist social democrat” with a deep suspicion of left-wing ideologues, identity politics and the emerging role of the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

His developing interest in Europe as a whole, including the states of the former Eastern Bloc, led him to take an active role in the developing Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia; it culminated in “Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945” (2005), a sweeping, richly detailed survey embracing countries from Britain to the Balkans that, in the words of one reviewer, has “the pace of a thriller and the scope of an encyclopedia.”

Mr. Judt was perhaps best known for his essays on politics and current affairs in journals like The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books . . .

“Today I’m regarded outside New York University as a looney tunes leftie self-hating Jewish communist; inside the university I’m regarded as a typical old-fashioned white male liberal elitist,” he told The Guardian of London in January 2010. “I like that. I’m on the edge of both, it makes me feel comfortable.”

He’ll be missed. Here’s a column exploring his last minute race against time to complete his work.

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We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

OK, it was Foxhall Road, not Barstow, the ribbon-like vein leading down to Canal Road, Key Bridge and the Imperial Metroplex. And it was Summer 1985, not the era of the last good Stones albums. For a D.C summer, it was still brutally humid, made crushingly worse by a savage vodka hangover.

Read more…

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Facebook’s much publicized user privacy meltdown is just the lastest example of massive social web services disregarding users’ privacy. Google similarly decided on its own all its users’ private information should by default be visible to any one. Despite the CW that ‘no one expects privacy’ anymore, anti-Facebook sentiment runs white hot. The query ‘how do I remove my Facebook account’ is now among the most popular searches on the web. Expectations of privacy are not quite dead.

Now imagine what happens in other less closely watched situations with all of our information. When it’s more than exposing private messages explaining how one’s spouse is a jerk. You know, involving little things like the 4th Amendment, FISA, etc. Yup, the Feds. (And if the Feds walk all over your privacy, do you really think something like HIPPA stops an insurance company?)

So what gives with Obama’s intransigent disregard of a 2007 law requiring him to appoint members to a privacy panel? The panel’s origins lie back in the dim recess of time when intelligence reform was given at least nominal jaw-jaw. Alas, if the panel was actually set up? McConnell might write an angry letter. And November is coming up. It’s not like intelligence reform, oversight, the 4th Amendment and privacy are important. Just ask Kagan – she has no opinion on them.

Who knew ‘hope and change’ had a sell by date of February 2009?

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Not even crocodile tears. The tea baggers run amuck with the conch and exile Bennett. Mitt’s sermon is ignored. Utah goes ‘Lord of the Flies.’ We didn’t mind Bennett as a person. Gentle, courtly, polite. He always seemed slightly out of place in the Republican Senate Caucus under and after the Warlord.

But he earned his hard core right wing voting record. Worse, many of his jingoistic staffers went on to infect various lobbying organizations, executive positions. Bennett may be gone but *they* remain an intolerant, judgmental Rightist bacillus that infect this town (and prosper) with Boy King trumphant.

Bennett’s never been a social gadfly and part of the D.C. media circle jerk daisy chain. So his personal defenestration will be analyzed in the days ahead in more clinical, facile terms. Permanent Washington will mourn . . . in the press. Everyone is more concerned what it means for their own rear end.

Values Movement activists continue to loathe the libertarian Tea Partiers, Grover’s Wednesdays Meetings, Armey, etc. But expedience requires biting their tongues in public. They draw greater satisfaction at results: the Tea Party suppression of the Warsaw Moderate Uprising. First Snarlin’ Arlen chased out, then Crist. Now Bennett. But mark these words, Dear Readers, the Values Movement are merely sitting on the sidelines. They tell the Stiftung they look forward to putting the motely band of ‘libertarians’ and disaffected ‘Stalinist-Progressive-Democrats’ in their place. And the Rightist Catholics at least remember the 30 Years War.

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Who cares what happens to Newsweek?

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Obama obviously is not behind the Gulf catastrophe. If he were, he would have made a heavily publicized speech emphasizing zero tolerance for corporate incompetence/malfeasance. He would summon Americans to unite in non-partisan cooperation to combat oil spills in their communities, workplaces and churches. New regulations would ensure the disaster will never, ever, ever occur again. Now imagine Obama concludes by invoking the majesty of his office, promising the bad company will pay the full costs of making the people whole.

Events then meander in and out of focus for months. Media chase frantically the meaning of furtive glances exchanged among Senators Snowe, Collins or even Graham. Entire news cycles are devoted to whether any of them uttered a kind word about Obama’s initiative. The president’s political destiny we are told hangs in the balance. Oddly, although they are in the majority, Reid, Boxer (Environmental Committee) and others are minor players, shuffling awkwardly outside the Republican Caucus like high schoolers smitten with their first crushes. Day after day, month after month.

Finally, when Everyone knows Obama is doomed, Rahm cobbles together the absolute lowest common denominator vehicle and christens it ‘real reform’. In this case, the White House then pokes their wandering Democratic congressional majority to charge vigorously the microphone stand (Schumer needing no encouragement) Their excitement? An initiative which actually *pays* the bad actor — BP — for any inconvenience. In the hopes of winning Corker’s vote, Obama agrees to federalize efforts to regulate cooperation at the community level, in workplaces and at churches. In fact, every suggestion made by Snowe, Collins, Voinovich, Graham, Corker (and all the rest) are adopted in ‘bi-partisanship’.

All still vote against Obama. The Word Doctors provide them talking points, emphasizing Obama refused fair compensation to industry workforce for sleepless nights and trauma. Across talk radio Obama is blasted for his Leftist intransigence against additional tax credits. Rush trumpets the reasonableness of DeMint’s position that Obama must behead a mannequin of Hugo Chavez in primetime.

Faced with such a resounding ‘triumph’ Democrats do the talk show rounds cheerfully explaining that once the American people understood this accomplishment, everyone’s approval ratings will rise. Most write farewell cards to Harry Reid. Olbermann provides the sorbet with at least *2* ‘Special Comments’ celebrating Obama’s firm and unwaivering leadership. He makes the point that his family vacationed at a beach once. With voice quivering in outage recalling these treasured memories, Olbermann defiantly asks of McConnell, ‘How dare you, sir? How dare you?’

Republicans just continue their totalitarianism two-step in public while privately drawing grim satisfaction that their government-by-the-minority bluff remains intact. Again.

Dear Reader, that’s how we know Obama wasn’t involved.

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Exhaustion describes the excruciating conclusion to the tragi-comical effort to ‘reform health care.’ All major participants are delegitimized after a year of incompetence, meandering and the darkest political ids unleashed. Poor progressives sat huddled around the ladders in the mud, and at every whistle call scrambled up, charging only to fall without reaching the first coils of barbed wire. ‘Wiser’ minds counseled attrition. A last desperate Kaiserschlach Rightist AgitProp campaign seemed to sweep all aside by early 2010. Arguably, a last minute arrival of inexperienced American doughboys a more competent White House operation turned the optics tide.

The defeated can’t believe the turn of events. Someone betrayed. And so it goes. Already Democrats are crowing joyously about a Senate bill they loathed a month ago. We have, they say, a signed historic armistice piece of legislation. It’s an imperfect peace first step. Out-of-control insurance companies are barely scratched.

Still, a defeat is a defeat – even if the victor is as depleted. How far can an analogy go? One wonders what a Weimar Berlin post-vote South Carolina might look like. General social upheaval is out. There’d be no Reds and Nationalists clashing outside an Applebees, of course. There’s not enough diversity even on the college campuses. Which means dispirited decadence might seek a different outlet – a DeMint hunkered down in a Target office furniture aisle, gulping true American vintages from the cartons, tie askew. Droning on about ‘repeal’ and demanding unanimous consent while a bored teenaged employee restocks No. 2 pencils, pining for closing time.

Wellpoint et al. have reason to sigh with relief. Sure they ‘lost’ in the blathersphere ™. But they and smart observers know the industry took the absolute best shot that a generational reform impulse could throw. And still they stand awash in unjust profits now and for the foreseeable future.

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We’ve been meaning to write about this for a week or so. DHS is asking the public for help. Readers here might be especially helpful to them.

DHS is asking anyone, individual, company or other organization, to submit ideas on how DHS can best start and sustain a public conversation about cybersecurity. The deadline is April 30th. Literally, anyone who has a sense of communications and the current zeitgeist is potentially a winner – more so than the self-focused Uber geeks. Here are the details.

As we develop strategies and messages that will resonate with various groups, we want the benefit of your ideas on how you would get the word out to your colleagues, or your friends, or your parents and children . . . This competition will gather and share publicly the best, most creative ideas for making the public more cyber secure, cyber smart, and cyber assured.

Readers here are keen observers of the public-government dynamic and dialogue. Who knows? Maybe DHS really does need you. Just remember to send the proposal in Word format.

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We’ve left the Imperial City on a Movement Mission to the very heart of the Fox Nation. A place with strip malls the size of Rhode Island and iPhone apps to match caliber with target. One vast flat Fox 3-D simulacrum. So far, we’ve managed to escape detection ala Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the Kaufman re-make) – you know, the Donald Sutherland point and scream.

It’s not just geography. We’re getting Everclear proof distillation of ethos because of the institutions involved. Pure shots with no chaser. We’ve been wheels down only a few hours and already a conversation partner casually offered ‘Obama is a traitor.’

We’ll make an effort to compartmentalize this Westworld trip and get back to regular posting this week. Thanks for everyone’s patience.

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