Soapboxing

Well this is the last week of school. I'm uneasy about it. Awesomes: graduating, being finished. Un-Awesomes: what next, where and how, and unsettlement. And evals. I hate unsettlement (sorry to pull a Dobelieu but it's an apt description). I myself have really enjoyed this last semester (much more so than fall), and gotten in some great classes that once or twice more around will become outstanding classes. But not my best work this semester, I feel. Definitely not. But I learned the most, worked the most, so, eh. Whatevs.
Hard however lately in classes to not get on my soapbox. Modern Europe a little difficult w/ McCarthy, and the obvious parallels to Communism and containment, and then Algieria and the FLN and, well, what some people knew years ago. Fun with McCarthy when Repub party is going off the rails. But lately to be frank, it was beyond what even I could have imagined. I was down with getting the Taliban out, knew the historical context, the Afghanistan mess. Cool with that. But Iraq from the beginning I knew just smelled rotten. Never for a moment doubted it was all bullshit. Knew it was being justified by 9-11 though it had nothing to do with it. I'm not unsympathetic - Saddam was a pretty horrible guy, even considering the "long, lamentable catalogue of human crime." [H/t: Sir Winston] Really, you know, it's hard to disagree with the sentiment that 'the world is better off without him.' But everything about the way it was handled was so blasè, so offensively naive and fully-assed (twice as worse as "half-assed"), justified with such BULLSHIT - you don't get to use that justification when you pooch it so badly. And what is coming out now about torture is just really stunning. I am not surprised - I was flying back from Rome when the torture scandal broke - I bought The Economist with the breaking story at Da Vinci. I knew it then. But I never believed I was actually right - there are some very evil people in the world, and they are banal indeed.

Rush the Clown, Racism, and McCarthyism

While I was out runnings errands yesterday, I decided to listen to Rush the Clown for a few minutes. (My own version of self-flagellation/sadomasochism.)
Did you know that the current financial meltdown on Wall Street was caused by RACISM? I know, I didn't know that either!! Thank heavens we have Rush the Clown to edify all of us. See if you can follow the logic (which I gleaned from the three minutes that I could tolerate listening to his bullshit):

The reason the financial markets are collapsing, I think it is commonly agreed, is b/c of the significant volume of "toxic" debt banks are holding, the result of lending institutions granting loans to anybody and everybody with "Bad Credit? No Credit? No job? NO PROBLEM! Come down and we'll fix you up!" Lending institutions extended loans to highly risky borrowers. Their intent, as far as I understand, was to utilize these loans to help people get into houses or cars or tap into equity, for which they were charged higher-than-average interest rates and fees (again, b/c the borrowers with marginal credit could not secure them otherwise).
So far, so good, right? The lenders then made money on the higher interest rates and fees, until the housing markets collapsed, the amount of money borrowed exceeded the value of the house or car, borrowers defaulted on payments, and then the lenders held the assets/security (the house or the car), which weighed down their bottom line and available capital. This became the "toxic" debt. Right?

Enter Rush the Clown: the reasons banks and lending institutions made these risky loans to borrowers was b/c of racism. Seriously, I swear that's what he said. His logic: the only reason banks made these loans was b/c they feared the implications (perhaps class- or race-action lawsuits) against them for denying loans to "minorities" who weren't able to get the same loans as whites. So they made all these risky loans that drove some to bankruptcy, others to the brink of collapse, others to be absorbed by larger banks b/c blacks made them do it. Blacks played the "race" card to secure the loans. Banks made risky loans not to profit from the higher interest rates, not to profit from the higher fees, not to make oodles and oodles of money, but to avoid being thought of as racists. Blacks got risky loans b/c they were black, not b/c banks, now deregulated, with little oversight and with new book-keeping practices probably derived from ENRON, were trying to make a buck.

Now of course, this is total bullshit. The NYTimes has a great map and article HERE and HERE. A brief look shows the vast majority of property-value collapses comes from southwestern California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona. Yes, there are a lot in Michigan, and the Detroit area. But race doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. People's ambitions for "bigger, better, nicer" got the best of them, they found predatory lenders ready to help enable them, and now WE are all left holding the bag (a bag which my guess is will eventually cost us over $1 trillion, maybe 1/3 of which may ultimately be recouped).

THEN, later that night, b/c it was a Friday and I didn't have to write a lecture for the next day, I finally watched Good Night, and Good Luck. 1. OUTSTANDING MOVIE. 2. It made me so painfully said to compare Murrow and his vigorous defense of American rights and civil liberties in the face of McCarthy's hysterical witch-hunt to today's supine, lazy, LAME media that allows politicians to lie without consequence, to stealthily stoke class- and racial-anxities at will, and to let the "Truth" become a casualty of the "Story."
And I realized the perfect description for O'Reilly and Rush the Clowns is simply that: they are McCarthyists. They use fear, intimidation, hysteria, innuendo and slander to shout down any criticism, or even any possibility of criticism.

We need, DESPERATELY, a Joe Welch. (Welch was the Army attorney during the infamous Army-McCarthy hearings who stood up to McCarthy with the famous, angry denunciation, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" You can hear the whole exchange HERE (and it's definitely worth listening to).