Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 888
January 20, 2016
Dark times at the Palin home: Track Palin’s domestic violence arrest report paints a bleak picture
It's shaping up to be quite a week for the Palin clan. Bristol tried to stir up some beef with Ted Cruz on her blog by using the vernacular of "Full House's" Stephanie Tanner. Matriarch Sarah threw down some seriously bonkers word salad, because we actually live in a country in which a) Donald Trump is a Republican presidential frontrunner and b) he somehow believes that having Sarah Palin's endorsement on any subject is a good idea. And then there's eldest son Track, who on Monday was arrested on domestic-violence charges in Wasilla, Alaska. KTVA in Alaska reports that the police were called to an incident at Sarah Palin's home at around 10 p.m., where the 26 year-old Track lives with his parents. According to the police report, there were two phone calls — the first by a woman later identified as Track's girlfriend of one year, Jordan Loewe, who claimed "a male had punched her in the face and that a firearm was involved." The other one was from Track Palin himself, stating that "the female was drunk." The officer's report describes noticing an injury to Palin's eye, that "his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and person," and that he was "uncooperative, belligerent, and evasive with my initial line of questions." The officer eventually ascertained from Palin that "Loewe was his girlfriend and that the disturbance stemmed from Loewe maintaining contact with an ex boyfriend." He said the injury on his face was because Loewe "threw a bow" [elbow] at him. Both Palin and Loewe confirm the two had been arguing, but Loewe claimed that Palin was calling her names, and in an attempt to stop him from "touching her," she told him she'd called the police. She says he "struck her on the left side of her head near her eye with a closed fist" and then Palin then kicked Loewe on the right knee." The report notes "bruising and swelling around her left eye" and "a small red area near her knee." Palin then allegedly took her phone and threw it across the driveway, and then went inside. She says she got her phone and went in, where she found Palin holding a rifle and threatening suicide, saying, "Do you think i'm a p___y? Do you think I won't do it?" Police found an unloaded AR-15 near the scene, and said that Palin denied using it "but stated that they were spread throughout both residences on the property." The report also concludes that Loewe said she'd tried to call 911 several times, but her phone was "likely broken whine was thrown." She was found by officers crying and hiding under a bed. The Associated Press reports, meanwhile, that a breath sample registered Palin's blood alcohol level at 0.189. In Alaska, a blood level of .08 or greater is considered intoxicated. Palin is now charged with "fourth-degree assault, fourth-degree misconduct involving a weapon and interfering with a report of domestic violence." The AP also notes this isn't his first brush with the police -- "In September 2014, [Track] and other Palins were involved in a brawl that broke out at a party in Anchorage. No arrests were made in the melee, and no one wanted to press charges. But according to a police report, Palin had blood around his mouth and his hands. He was belligerent until his mother told him to talk to a police officer." The full police report is a thing of epic insanity. Track Palin is a combat veteran who served in Iraq during his mother's vice presidential campaign in 2008. At the time, a colleague described him to US News as "a good kid and a good soldier and he'd like to remain anonymous." But keeping a low profile can be hard for anyone to do after serving in conflict, and harder still in a family with the last name Palin. In 2010, the Daily Beast reported on the incidence of domestic abuse among veterans, noting, "The majority of studies of treatment-seeking veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or combat-related mental health issues report that at least 50 percent of those veterans commit wife-battering and family violence." And the US Department of Veterans Affairs says that over one fifth of veterans experience some form of substance abuse disorders. Track Palin is not necessarily among those numbers, but it's hard to imagine any of his circumstances — including an unfortunate combination of guns "spread throughout" the home and a high blood alcohol level — being a safe situation for anyone who enters it. And while Track's mother continues to mock "all that hopey, changey stuff," it's impossible to ignore how much hope and change her own family needs right now. 
Ted Cruz is not eligible to run for president: A Harvard Law professor close-reads the Constitution
The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong, then probable but uncertain. But closer examination shows it is surprisingly weak. The constitutional text provides that a president, unlike other elected officials, must be a “natural born citizen.” This language could not mean anyone born a citizen or else the text would have simply stated “born citizen.” The word “natural” is a limiting qualifier that indicates only some persons who are born citizens qualify. Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted, the word “natural” meant something not created by statute, as with natural rights or natural law, which instead were part of the common law. At common law, “natural born” meant someone born within the sovereign territory with one narrow exception. The exception was for children of public officials serving abroad, which does not help Cruz because his parents were not serving the United States when he was born in Canada. The case of John McCain was entirely different because he was born in a U.S. territory (the Panama Canal Zone) and to U.S. parents who were serving the U.S. military. The argument for Cruz rests on some old statutes, namely English statutes enacted before the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes enacted just after. But neither turns out to be persuasive on closer examination. The English statutes extended natural-born status to persons born abroad whose father was any English subject, rather than only a public official. Some argue that the constitutional framers meant to refer to this statutory redefinition of the term “natural born.” But that position contradicts the ordinary meaning that the word “natural” indicates a non-statutory meaning. Moreover, Prof. Mary McManamon offers convincing evidence that the Framers meant the common law meaning. James Madison himself said in 1789 that the U.S. used the place of birth rather than parentage. In any event, Cruz’s father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born (again unlike McCain), so these English statutes do not help Cruz. The U.S. statute in 1790 provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” This has been thought the strongest evidence for Cruz’s position since so many 1790 congressmen had participated in the Constitutional Convention. However, this statute did not say these children were natural-born citizens. It instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural-born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural-born citizens but should be treated as such. Indeed, there would have been no need to pass the statute if they were already understood to be natural-born citizens. Further, when this Act was reconsidered in a few years, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born." Congress adopted this amendment in 1795. The contrary position also has two difficulties. It defines a “natural-born citizen” to mean anyone who Congress has defined to be a citizen at birth; that is, anyone born a citizen. This effectively reads the word “natural” out of “natural born citizen.” It also means Congress can by statute change the constitutional limit on who can run for president, when the whole point of constitutional limits is typically that Congress cannot change them. In short, both textualism and originalism cut strongly against Cruz being a natural-born citizen. Some argue that living theories of constitutional interpretation cut in favor of Cruz, but even living theories start with text and history, and it is not clear why the principle animating the clause would merit a different conclusion in current times. Presumably modern equal protection norms would bar a sexist rule that said children born abroad with one U.S. parent were natural born only if that parent were a man. But that is no argument against the interpretation that persons are natural born citizens only if born in a U.S. territory or to a parent serving the U.S. abroad. The concern at the time was obviously that foreign-born persons might not be as loyal to the U.S. One might think that concerns about disloyalty are odd for persons who have lived in the U.S. as citizens for a long time, but that oddity was also true at the founding. Moreover, no one claims the clause means that naturalized citizens (who may have lived in the U.S. since they were small children) are eligible to run for president, even though they had to do far more to prove their loyalty to the U.S. than someone born abroad who happened to have one U.S. citizen parent. The line between those born in the U.S. versus abroad to U.S. parents certainly seems debatable. But it is no less sensible than the alternative line between those born abroad to U.S. parents versus those have been naturalized citizens for decades. This is one of those issues where general principles (even living ones) do not dictate any particular dividing line, and we need some technical fixed rule. Unfortunately for Ted Cruz, that technical rule does not permit his candidacy. 
The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong, then probable but uncertain. But closer examination shows it is surprisingly weak. The constitutional text provides that a president, unlike other elected officials, must be a “natural born citizen.” This language could not mean anyone born a citizen or else the text would have simply stated “born citizen.” The word “natural” is a limiting qualifier that indicates only some persons who are born citizens qualify. Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted, the word “natural” meant something not created by statute, as with natural rights or natural law, which instead were part of the common law. At common law, “natural born” meant someone born within the sovereign territory with one narrow exception. The exception was for children of public officials serving abroad, which does not help Cruz because his parents were not serving the United States when he was born in Canada. The case of John McCain was entirely different because he was born in a U.S. territory (the Panama Canal Zone) and to U.S. parents who were serving the U.S. military. The argument for Cruz rests on some old statutes, namely English statutes enacted before the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes enacted just after. But neither turns out to be persuasive on closer examination. The English statutes extended natural-born status to persons born abroad whose father was any English subject, rather than only a public official. Some argue that the constitutional framers meant to refer to this statutory redefinition of the term “natural born.” But that position contradicts the ordinary meaning that the word “natural” indicates a non-statutory meaning. Moreover, Prof. Mary McManamon offers convincing evidence that the Framers meant the common law meaning. James Madison himself said in 1789 that the U.S. used the place of birth rather than parentage. In any event, Cruz’s father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born (again unlike McCain), so these English statutes do not help Cruz. The U.S. statute in 1790 provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” This has been thought the strongest evidence for Cruz’s position since so many 1790 congressmen had participated in the Constitutional Convention. However, this statute did not say these children were natural-born citizens. It instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural-born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural-born citizens but should be treated as such. Indeed, there would have been no need to pass the statute if they were already understood to be natural-born citizens. Further, when this Act was reconsidered in a few years, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born." Congress adopted this amendment in 1795. The contrary position also has two difficulties. It defines a “natural-born citizen” to mean anyone who Congress has defined to be a citizen at birth; that is, anyone born a citizen. This effectively reads the word “natural” out of “natural born citizen.” It also means Congress can by statute change the constitutional limit on who can run for president, when the whole point of constitutional limits is typically that Congress cannot change them. In short, both textualism and originalism cut strongly against Cruz being a natural-born citizen. Some argue that living theories of constitutional interpretation cut in favor of Cruz, but even living theories start with text and history, and it is not clear why the principle animating the clause would merit a different conclusion in current times. Presumably modern equal protection norms would bar a sexist rule that said children born abroad with one U.S. parent were natural born only if that parent were a man. But that is no argument against the interpretation that persons are natural born citizens only if born in a U.S. territory or to a parent serving the U.S. abroad. The concern at the time was obviously that foreign-born persons might not be as loyal to the U.S. One might think that concerns about disloyalty are odd for persons who have lived in the U.S. as citizens for a long time, but that oddity was also true at the founding. Moreover, no one claims the clause means that naturalized citizens (who may have lived in the U.S. since they were small children) are eligible to run for president, even though they had to do far more to prove their loyalty to the U.S. than someone born abroad who happened to have one U.S. citizen parent. The line between those born in the U.S. versus abroad to U.S. parents certainly seems debatable. But it is no less sensible than the alternative line between those born abroad to U.S. parents versus those have been naturalized citizens for decades. This is one of those issues where general principles (even living ones) do not dictate any particular dividing line, and we need some technical fixed rule. Unfortunately for Ted Cruz, that technical rule does not permit his candidacy. The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong, then probable but uncertain. But closer examination shows it is surprisingly weak. The constitutional text provides that a president, unlike other elected officials, must be a “natural born citizen.” This language could not mean anyone born a citizen or else the text would have simply stated “born citizen.” The word “natural” is a limiting qualifier that indicates only some persons who are born citizens qualify. Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted, the word “natural” meant something not created by statute, as with natural rights or natural law, which instead were part of the common law. At common law, “natural born” meant someone born within the sovereign territory with one narrow exception. The exception was for children of public officials serving abroad, which does not help Cruz because his parents were not serving the United States when he was born in Canada. The case of John McCain was entirely different because he was born in a U.S. territory (the Panama Canal Zone) and to U.S. parents who were serving the U.S. military. The argument for Cruz rests on some old statutes, namely English statutes enacted before the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes enacted just after. But neither turns out to be persuasive on closer examination. The English statutes extended natural-born status to persons born abroad whose father was any English subject, rather than only a public official. Some argue that the constitutional framers meant to refer to this statutory redefinition of the term “natural born.” But that position contradicts the ordinary meaning that the word “natural” indicates a non-statutory meaning. Moreover, Prof. Mary McManamon offers convincing evidence that the Framers meant the common law meaning. James Madison himself said in 1789 that the U.S. used the place of birth rather than parentage. In any event, Cruz’s father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born (again unlike McCain), so these English statutes do not help Cruz. The U.S. statute in 1790 provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” This has been thought the strongest evidence for Cruz’s position since so many 1790 congressmen had participated in the Constitutional Convention. However, this statute did not say these children were natural-born citizens. It instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural-born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural-born citizens but should be treated as such. Indeed, there would have been no need to pass the statute if they were already understood to be natural-born citizens. Further, when this Act was reconsidered in a few years, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born." Congress adopted this amendment in 1795. The contrary position also has two difficulties. It defines a “natural-born citizen” to mean anyone who Congress has defined to be a citizen at birth; that is, anyone born a citizen. This effectively reads the word “natural” out of “natural born citizen.” It also means Congress can by statute change the constitutional limit on who can run for president, when the whole point of constitutional limits is typically that Congress cannot change them. In short, both textualism and originalism cut strongly against Cruz being a natural-born citizen. Some argue that living theories of constitutional interpretation cut in favor of Cruz, but even living theories start with text and history, and it is not clear why the principle animating the clause would merit a different conclusion in current times. Presumably modern equal protection norms would bar a sexist rule that said children born abroad with one U.S. parent were natural born only if that parent were a man. But that is no argument against the interpretation that persons are natural born citizens only if born in a U.S. territory or to a parent serving the U.S. abroad. The concern at the time was obviously that foreign-born persons might not be as loyal to the U.S. One might think that concerns about disloyalty are odd for persons who have lived in the U.S. as citizens for a long time, but that oddity was also true at the founding. Moreover, no one claims the clause means that naturalized citizens (who may have lived in the U.S. since they were small children) are eligible to run for president, even though they had to do far more to prove their loyalty to the U.S. than someone born abroad who happened to have one U.S. citizen parent. The line between those born in the U.S. versus abroad to U.S. parents certainly seems debatable. But it is no less sensible than the alternative line between those born abroad to U.S. parents versus those have been naturalized citizens for decades. This is one of those issues where general principles (even living ones) do not dictate any particular dividing line, and we need some technical fixed rule. Unfortunately for Ted Cruz, that technical rule does not permit his candidacy.
The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong, then probable but uncertain. But closer examination shows it is surprisingly weak. The constitutional text provides that a president, unlike other elected officials, must be a “natural born citizen.” This language could not mean anyone born a citizen or else the text would have simply stated “born citizen.” The word “natural” is a limiting qualifier that indicates only some persons who are born citizens qualify. Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted, the word “natural” meant something not created by statute, as with natural rights or natural law, which instead were part of the common law. At common law, “natural born” meant someone born within the sovereign territory with one narrow exception. The exception was for children of public officials serving abroad, which does not help Cruz because his parents were not serving the United States when he was born in Canada. The case of John McCain was entirely different because he was born in a U.S. territory (the Panama Canal Zone) and to U.S. parents who were serving the U.S. military. The argument for Cruz rests on some old statutes, namely English statutes enacted before the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes enacted just after. But neither turns out to be persuasive on closer examination. The English statutes extended natural-born status to persons born abroad whose father was any English subject, rather than only a public official. Some argue that the constitutional framers meant to refer to this statutory redefinition of the term “natural born.” But that position contradicts the ordinary meaning that the word “natural” indicates a non-statutory meaning. Moreover, Prof. Mary McManamon offers convincing evidence that the Framers meant the common law meaning. James Madison himself said in 1789 that the U.S. used the place of birth rather than parentage. In any event, Cruz’s father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born (again unlike McCain), so these English statutes do not help Cruz. The U.S. statute in 1790 provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” This has been thought the strongest evidence for Cruz’s position since so many 1790 congressmen had participated in the Constitutional Convention. However, this statute did not say these children were natural-born citizens. It instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural-born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural-born citizens but should be treated as such. Indeed, there would have been no need to pass the statute if they were already understood to be natural-born citizens. Further, when this Act was reconsidered in a few years, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born." Congress adopted this amendment in 1795. The contrary position also has two difficulties. It defines a “natural-born citizen” to mean anyone who Congress has defined to be a citizen at birth; that is, anyone born a citizen. This effectively reads the word “natural” out of “natural born citizen.” It also means Congress can by statute change the constitutional limit on who can run for president, when the whole point of constitutional limits is typically that Congress cannot change them. In short, both textualism and originalism cut strongly against Cruz being a natural-born citizen. Some argue that living theories of constitutional interpretation cut in favor of Cruz, but even living theories start with text and history, and it is not clear why the principle animating the clause would merit a different conclusion in current times. Presumably modern equal protection norms would bar a sexist rule that said children born abroad with one U.S. parent were natural born only if that parent were a man. But that is no argument against the interpretation that persons are natural born citizens only if born in a U.S. territory or to a parent serving the U.S. abroad. The concern at the time was obviously that foreign-born persons might not be as loyal to the U.S. One might think that concerns about disloyalty are odd for persons who have lived in the U.S. as citizens for a long time, but that oddity was also true at the founding. Moreover, no one claims the clause means that naturalized citizens (who may have lived in the U.S. since they were small children) are eligible to run for president, even though they had to do far more to prove their loyalty to the U.S. than someone born abroad who happened to have one U.S. citizen parent. The line between those born in the U.S. versus abroad to U.S. parents certainly seems debatable. But it is no less sensible than the alternative line between those born abroad to U.S. parents versus those have been naturalized citizens for decades. This is one of those issues where general principles (even living ones) do not dictate any particular dividing line, and we need some technical fixed rule. Unfortunately for Ted Cruz, that technical rule does not permit his candidacy. The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong, then probable but uncertain. But closer examination shows it is surprisingly weak. The constitutional text provides that a president, unlike other elected officials, must be a “natural born citizen.” This language could not mean anyone born a citizen or else the text would have simply stated “born citizen.” The word “natural” is a limiting qualifier that indicates only some persons who are born citizens qualify. Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted, the word “natural” meant something not created by statute, as with natural rights or natural law, which instead were part of the common law. At common law, “natural born” meant someone born within the sovereign territory with one narrow exception. The exception was for children of public officials serving abroad, which does not help Cruz because his parents were not serving the United States when he was born in Canada. The case of John McCain was entirely different because he was born in a U.S. territory (the Panama Canal Zone) and to U.S. parents who were serving the U.S. military. The argument for Cruz rests on some old statutes, namely English statutes enacted before the U.S. Constitution and U.S. statutes enacted just after. But neither turns out to be persuasive on closer examination. The English statutes extended natural-born status to persons born abroad whose father was any English subject, rather than only a public official. Some argue that the constitutional framers meant to refer to this statutory redefinition of the term “natural born.” But that position contradicts the ordinary meaning that the word “natural” indicates a non-statutory meaning. Moreover, Prof. Mary McManamon offers convincing evidence that the Framers meant the common law meaning. James Madison himself said in 1789 that the U.S. used the place of birth rather than parentage. In any event, Cruz’s father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born (again unlike McCain), so these English statutes do not help Cruz. The U.S. statute in 1790 provided that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” This has been thought the strongest evidence for Cruz’s position since so many 1790 congressmen had participated in the Constitutional Convention. However, this statute did not say these children were natural-born citizens. It instead carefully said they “shall be considered as” natural-born citizens, suggesting that Congress thought they were not natural-born citizens but should be treated as such. Indeed, there would have been no need to pass the statute if they were already understood to be natural-born citizens. Further, when this Act was reconsidered in a few years, Madison himself pointed out that Congress only had constitutional authority to naturalize aliens, not U.S. citizens, and reported a bill that amended the statute to eliminate the words “natural born” and simply state that “the children of citizens of the United States” born abroad “shall be considered as citizens.” This indicates that Madison’s view was that children born abroad of U.S. citizens were naturally aliens, rather than natural born citizens, and thus could be naturalized by Congressional statute but should not be called “natural born." Congress adopted this amendment in 1795. The contrary position also has two difficulties. It defines a “natural-born citizen” to mean anyone who Congress has defined to be a citizen at birth; that is, anyone born a citizen. This effectively reads the word “natural” out of “natural born citizen.” It also means Congress can by statute change the constitutional limit on who can run for president, when the whole point of constitutional limits is typically that Congress cannot change them. In short, both textualism and originalism cut strongly against Cruz being a natural-born citizen. Some argue that living theories of constitutional interpretation cut in favor of Cruz, but even living theories start with text and history, and it is not clear why the principle animating the clause would merit a different conclusion in current times. Presumably modern equal protection norms would bar a sexist rule that said children born abroad with one U.S. parent were natural born only if that parent were a man. But that is no argument against the interpretation that persons are natural born citizens only if born in a U.S. territory or to a parent serving the U.S. abroad. The concern at the time was obviously that foreign-born persons might not be as loyal to the U.S. One might think that concerns about disloyalty are odd for persons who have lived in the U.S. as citizens for a long time, but that oddity was also true at the founding. Moreover, no one claims the clause means that naturalized citizens (who may have lived in the U.S. since they were small children) are eligible to run for president, even though they had to do far more to prove their loyalty to the U.S. than someone born abroad who happened to have one U.S. citizen parent. The line between those born in the U.S. versus abroad to U.S. parents certainly seems debatable. But it is no less sensible than the alternative line between those born abroad to U.S. parents versus those have been naturalized citizens for decades. This is one of those issues where general principles (even living ones) do not dictate any particular dividing line, and we need some technical fixed rule. Unfortunately for Ted Cruz, that technical rule does not permit his candidacy.
Donald Trump is actually talking sense: He may be wrong about everything else, but he’s right about China
Last week's sixth Republican debate featured the usual lies, misstatements and misrepresentations on subjects ranging from basic science to the imaginary plot by the Supreme Court to confiscate your guns. But we actually heard the truth on one subject, and believe it or not, it came from Donald Trump: The United States needs to enact tariffs to protect our jobs and our economy. During an exchange with his Republican rivals, Donald Trump said, “You can't deal with China without [a] tariff. They do it to us. We don't do it. It's not fair trade.” Even the right-wing moderators quickly tried to dispute the Donald, but on this one point, he happens to be exactly right. Our businesses will never compete with state-backed businesses in other countries if we don't impose a tariff on the products that they ship to our shores. Our workers will never stand a chance against the slave-wage laborers in developing nations. That's exactly why our founding fathers implemented tariffs at the birth of our nation, and those tariffs helped American manufacturers become the envy of the world for the next two centuries. In fact, our founders believed so strongly that American manufacturers were vital to the success of our young nation, that our first President, George Washington, refused to be inaugurated in a suit that wasn't made by American workers. On April 14, 1789, George Washington was out walking through the fields at Mount Vernon, his home in Virginia, when Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, showed up on horseback. Thomson had a letter for Washington from the president pro tempore of the new, constitutionally created United States Senate, telling Washington that he’d just been elected president and the inauguration was set for April 30 in the nation’s capital, New York City. This created two problems for Washington. The first was saying goodbye to his 82-year-old mother, which the 57-year-old Washington did that night. She gave him her blessing and told him it was the last time he’d see her alive, as she was gravely ill. Indeed, she died before he returned from New York. The second problem was finding a suit of clothes made in America. For that he sent a courier to his old friend and fellow general from the American Revolutionary War, Henry Knox. Washington couldn’t find a suit made in America because in the years prior to the American Revolution, the British East India Company (whose tea was thrown into Boston Harbor by outraged colonists after the Tea Act of 1773 gave the world’s largest transnational corporation a giant tax break) controlled the manufacture and the transportation of a whole range of goods, including fine clothing. Cotton and wool could be grown and sheared in the colonies, but it had to be sent to England to be turned into clothes. This was a routine policy for England, and it is why until India achieved its independence in 1947 Mahatma Gandhi (who was assassinated a year later) sat with his spinning wheel for his lectures and spun daily in his own home. It was, like his Salt March, a protest against the colonial practices of England and an entreaty to his fellow Indians to make their own clothes to gain independence from British companies and institutions. Fortunately for George Washington, an American clothing company had been established on April 28, 1783, in Hartford, Connecticut, by a man named Daniel Hinsdale, and it produced high-quality woolen and cotton clothing as well as items made from imported silk. It was to Hinsdale’s company that Knox turned, and he helped Washington get—in time for his inauguration two weeks later—a nice, but not excessively elegant, brown American-made suit. (He wore British black later for the celebrations and the most famous painting.) When Washington became president in 1789, most of America’s personal and industrial products of any significance were manufactured in England or in its colonies. Washington asked his first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, what could be done about that, and Hamilton came up with an 11-point plan to foster American manufacturing, which he presented to Congress in 1791. By 1793 most of its points had either been made into law by Congress or formulated into policy by either President Washington or the various states, which put the country on a path of developing its industrial base and generating the largest source of federal revenue for more than 100 years. First among his 11-points were the “duties on foreign articles"—aka tariffs—which he said should be imposed to protect American manufacturers. Hamilton's decision to list duties as the first point in his plan makes clear his views on their importance. Without tariffs to protect American goods and services, Hamilton's vision would not have been such a success. His strategic proposals built the greatest industrial powerhouse the world had ever seen and, after more than 200 successful years, were abandoned only during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton (and remain abandoned to this day). And, the Trans Pacific Partnership will be the final nail in the coffin of Alexander Hamilton's plan. Donald Trump may be wrong on just about everything, but he's absolutely right about tariffs. Whether that's because of his incredible business sense or simple a proverbial stopped clock, I'll let you decide. --------- For those who would like to know more about our history, and for the Republican Presidential candidates who continue to deify the founding fathers as often as they misquote them, here is Hamilton's 11-point plan on American Manufacturing. Alexander Hamilton’s 11-point Plan for “American Manufactures” A full view having now been taken of the inducements to the promotion of manufactures in the United States, accompanied with an examination of the principal objections which are commonly urged in opposition, it is proper, in the next place, to consider the means by which it may be effected.… In order to a better judgment of the means proper to be resorted to by the United States, it will be of use to advert to those which have been employed with success in other countries. The principal of these are— I. Protecting duties—or duties on those foreign articles which are the rivals of the domestic ones intended to be encouraged. Duties of this nature evidently amount to a virtual bounty on the domestic fabrics, since by enhancing the charges on foreign articles, they enable the national manufacturers to undersell all their foreign competitors.…[I]t has the additional recommendation of being a resource of revenue. Indeed, all the duties imposed on imported articles, though with an exclusive view to revenue, have the effect in contemplation; and, except where they fill on raw materials, wear a beneficent aspect towards the manufacturers of the country. II. Prohibitions of rival articles, or duties equivalent to prohibitions. This is another and an efficacious mean of encouraging national manufactures;…Of duties equivalent to prohibitions, there are examples in the laws of the United States…but they are not numerous.…[I]t might almost be said, by the principles of distributive justice; certainly by the duty of endeavoring to secure to their own citizens a reciprocity of advantages. III. Prohibitions of the exportation of the materials of manufactures. The desire of securing a cheap and plentiful supply for the national workmen, and, where the article is either peculiar to the country, or of peculiar quality there, the jealousy of enabling foreign workmen to rival those of the nation with its own materials, are the leading motives to this species of regulation.…It is seen at once, that its immediate operation is to abridge the demand and keep down the price of the produce of some other branch of industry, generally speaking, of agriculture, to the prejudice of those who carry it on; and though if it be really essential to the prosperity of any very important national manufacture, it may happen that those who are injured in the first instance, may be eventually indemnified, by the superior steadiness of an extensive domestic market depending on that prosperity: yet in a matter, in which there is so much room for nice and difficult combinations, in which such opposite considerations combat each other, prudence seems to dictate, that the expedient in question ought to be indulged with a sparing hand. IV. Pecuniary bounties. This has been found one of the most efficacious means of encouraging manufactures, and it is in some views the best; though it has not yet been practised upon by the government of the United States, (unless the allowance on the exportion of dried and pickled fish and salted meat, could be considered as a bounty,) and though it is less favoured by public opinion than some other modes, its advantages are these: It is a species of encouragement more positive and direct than any other, and for that very reason, has a more immediate tendency to stimulate and uphold new enterprises, increasing the chances of profit, and diminishing the risks of loss, in the first attempts. It avoids the inconvenience of a temporary augmentation of price, which is incident to some other modes, or it produces it to a less degree; either by making no addition to the charges on the rival foreign article, as in the case of protecting duties, or by making a smaller addition. The first happens when the fund for the bounty is derived from a different object (which may or may not increase the price of some other article, according to the nature of that object); the second when the fund is derived from the same or a similar object of foreign manufacture. One per cent. duty on the foreign article converted into a bounty on the domestic, will have an equal effect with a duty of two per cent. exclusive of such bounty; and the price of the foreign commodity is liable to be raised, in the one case, in the proportion of one per cent; in the other, in that of two per cent. Indeed, the bounty, when drawn from another source, is calculated to promote a reduction of price; because, without laying any new charge on the foreign article, it serves to introduce a competition with it, and to increase the total quantity of the article in the market. Bounties have not, like high protecting duties, a tendency to produce scarcity.… 4. Bounties are sometimes not only the best, but the only proper expedient, for uniting the encouragement of a new object.… The true way to conciliate these two interests, is to lay a duty on foreign manufactures, of the material, the growth of which is desired to be encouraged, and to apply the produce of that duty by way of bounty, either upon the production of the material itself, or upon its manufacture at home, or upon both.… [P]ecuniary bounties are in most cases indispensable to the introduction of a new branch.…Bounties are especially essential, in regard to articles, upon which those foreigners who have been accustomed to supply a country, are in the practice of granting them. The continuance of bounties on manufactures long established, must almost always be of questionable policy; because a presumption would arise in every such case, that there were natural and inherent impediments to success But in new undertakings, they are as justifiable, as they are oftentimes necessary.… V. Premiums. These are of a nature allied to bounties, though distinguishable from them in some important features. Bounties are applicable to the whole quantity of an article produced or manufactured, or exported, and involve a correspondent expense—Premiums serve to reward some particular excellence or superiority, some extraordinary exertion or skill, and are dispensed only in a small number of cases. But their effect is to stimulate general effort.… VI. The exemption of the [raw] materials of manufactures from duty. The policy of that exemption, as a general rule, particularly in reference to new establishments, is obvious.…Of a nature, bearing some affinity to that policy, is the regulation which exempts from duty the tools and implements, as well as the books, clothes, and household furniture of foreign artists, who come to reside in the United States; an advantage already secured to them by the laws of the Union, and which it is, in every view, proper to continue. VII. Drawbacks of the duties which are imposed on the materials of manufactures.… [S]uch drawbacks are familiar in countries which systematically pursue the business of manufactures; which furnishes an argument for the observance of a similar policy in the United States; and the idea has been adopted by the laws of the Union, in the instances of salt and molasses. It is believed that it will be found advantageous to extend it to some other articles. VIII. The encouragement of new intentions and discoveries, at home, and of the introduction into the United States of such as may have been made in other countries; particularly, those which relate to machinery. This is among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids which can be given to manufactures. The usual means of that encouragement are pecuniary rewards, and, for a time, exclusive privileges. The first must be employed, according to the occasion, and the utility of the invention, or discovery. For the last, so far as respects “authors and inventors,” provision has been made by law.… It is customary with manufacturing nations to prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines, which they have either invented or improved.…As far as prohibitions tend to prevent foreign competitors from deriving the benefit of the improvements made at home, they tend to increase the advantages of those by whom they may have been introduced; and operate as an encouragement to exertion. IX. Judicious regulations for the inspection of manufactured commodities. This is not among the least important of the means by which the prosperity of manufactures may be promoted. It is, indeed, in many cases one of the most essential. Contributing to prevent frauds upon consumers at home, and exporters to foreign countries—to improve the quality and preserve the character of the national manufactures… X. The facilitating of pecuniary remittances from place to place—[well-regulated banking] Is a point of considerable moment to trade in general, and to manufactures in particular; by rendering more easy the purchase of raw materials and provisions, and the payment for manufactured supplies. A general circulation of bank paper, which is to be expected from the institution lately established, will be a most valuable mean to this end. XI. The facilitating of the transportation of commodities. [transportation infrastructure] Improvements favouring this object intimately concern all the domestic interests of a community; but they may without impropriety be mentioned as having an important relation to manufactures. There is perhaps scarcely any thing, which has been better calculated to assist the manufacturers of Great Britain, than the meliorations of the public roads of that kingdom, and the great progress which has been of late made in opening canals. Of the former, the United States stand much in need… These examples, it is to be hoped, will stimulate the exertions of the government and citizens of every state. There can certainly be no object, more worthy of the cares of the local administrations; and it were to be wished, that there was no doubt of the power of the national government to lend its direct aid, on a comprehensive plan. This is one of those improvements, which could be prosecuted with more efficacy by the whole, than by any part or parts of the Union.… The following remarks are sufficiently judicious and pertinent to deserve a literal quotation: “Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of a country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighborhood of a town. They are upon that account, the greatest of all improvements.”… It may confidently be affirmed, that there is scarcely any thing, which has been devised, better calculated to excite a general spirit of improvement, than the institutions of this nature. The are truly invaluable. In countries where there is great private wealth, much may be effected by the voluntary contributions of patriotic individuals; but in a community situated like that of the United States, the public purse must supply the deficiency of private resource. In what can it be so useful as in prompting and improving the efforts of industry? All which is humbly submitted.
The only strategy that can defeat ISIS is one no Republican would ever embrace
How can we stop the Islamic State? Imagine yourself shaken awake, rushed off to a strategy meeting with your presidential candidate of choice, and told: “Come up with a plan for me to do something about ISIS!” What would you say? What Hasn't Worked You'd need to start with a persuasive review of what hasn't worked over the past 14-plus years. American actions against terrorism -- the Islamic State being just the latest flavor -- have flopped on a remarkable scale, yet remain remarkably attractive to our present crew of candidates. (Bernie Sanders might be the only exception, though he supports forming yet another coalition to defeat ISIS.) Why are the failed options still so attractive? In part, because bombing and drones are believed by the majority of Americans to be surgical procedures that kill lots of bad guys, not too many innocents, and no Americans at all. As Washington regularly imagines it, once air power is in play, someone else'sboots will eventually hit the ground (after the U.S. military provides the necessary training and weapons). A handful of Special Forces troops, boots-sorta-on-the-ground, will also help turn the tide. By carrot or stick, Washington will collect and hold together some now-you-see-it, now-you-don't “coalition” of “allies” to aid and abet the task at hand. And success will be ours, even though versions of this formula have fallen flat time and again in the Greater Middle East. Since the June 2014 start of Operation Inherent Resolve against the Islamic State, the U.S. and its coalition partners have flown 9,041 sorties, 5,959 in Iraq and 3,082 in Syria. More are launched every day. The U.S. claims it has killed between 10,000 and 25,000 Islamic State fighters, quite a spread, but still, if accurate (which is doubtful), at best only a couple of bad guys per bombing run. Not particularly efficient on the face of it, but -- as Obama administration officials often emphasize -- this is a “long war.” The CIAestimates that the Islamic State had perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 fighters under arms in 2014. So somewhere between a third of them and all of them should now be gone. Evidently not, since recent estimates of Islamic State militants remain in that 20,000 to 30,000 range as 2016 begins. How about the capture of cities then? Well, the U.S. and its partners have already gone a few rounds when it comes to taking cities. After all, U.S. troops claimed Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s al-Anbar Province, in 2003, only to see the American-trained Iraqi army lose it to ISIS in May 2015, and U.S-trained Iraqi special operations troops backed by U.S. air power retake it (inalmost completely destroyed condition) as 2015 ended. As one pundit put it, the destruction and the cost of rebuilding make Ramadi “a victory in the worst possible sense.” Yet the battle cry in Washington and Baghdad remains “On to Mosul!” Similar “successes” have regularly been invoked when it came to ridding the world of evil tyrants, whether Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, only to see years of blowback follow. Same for terrorist masterminds, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, as well as minor-minds (Jihadi John in Syria), only to see others pop up and terror outfits spread. The sum of all this activity, 14-plus years of it, has been ever more failed states and ungoverned spaces. If your candidate needs a what-hasn’t-worked summary statement, it’s simple: everything. How Dangerous Is Islamic Terrorism for Americans? To any argument you make to your preferred presidential candidate about what did not “work,” you need to add a sober assessment of the real impact of terrorism on the United States in order to ask the question: Why exactly are we engaged in this war on this scale? Hard as it is to persuade a constantly re-terrorized American public of the actual situation we face, there have been only 38 Americans killed in the U.S. by Islamic terrorists, lone wolves, or whacked-out individuals professing allegiance to Islamic extremism, or ISIS, or al-Qaeda, since 9/11. Argue about the number if you want. In fact, double or triple it and it still adds up to a tragic but undeniable drop in the bucket. To gain some perspective, pick your favorite comparison: number of Americans killed since 9/11 by guns (more than 400,000) or by drunk drivers in 2012 alone (more than 10,000). And spare us the tired trope about how security measures at our airports and elsewhere have saved us from who knows how many attacks. A recent test by the Department of Homeland's own Inspector General's Office showed that95% of contraband, including weapons and explosives, got through airport screening without being detected. Could it be that there just aren’t as many bad guys out there aiming to take down our country as candidates on the campaign trail would like to imagine? Or take a look at the National Security Agency’s Fourth Amendment-smothering blanket surveillance. How'd that do against the Boston bombing or the attacks in San Bernardino? There’s no evidence it has ever uncovered a real terror plot against this country. Islamic terrorism in the United States is less a serious danger than a carefully curated fear. Introduce Your Candidate to the Real World You should have your candidate's attention by now. Time to remind him or her that Washington’s war on terror strategy has already sent at least $1.6 trillion down the drain, left thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Muslims dead. Along the way we lost precious freedoms to the ever-expanding national security state. So start advising your candidate that a proper response to the Islamic State has to be proportional to the real threat. After all, we have fire departments always on call, but they don't ride around spraying water on homes 24/7 out of “an abundance of caution.” We Have to Do Something So here's what you might suggest that your candidate do, because you know that s/he will demand to “do something.” Start by suggesting that, as a society, we take a deep look at ourselves, our leaders, and our media, and stop fanning everyone's flames. It’s time, among other things, to stop harassing and discriminating against our own Muslim population, only to stand by slack-jawed as a few of them become radicalized, and Washington then blames Twitter. As president, you need to opt out of all this, and dissuade others from buying into it. As for the Islamic State itself, it can’t survive, never mind fight, without funds. So candidate, it’s time to man/woman up, and go after the real sources of funding. As long as the U.S. insists on flying air attack sorties (and your candidate may unfortunately need to do so to cover his/her right flank), direct them far more intensely than at present against one of ISIS's main sources of cash: oil exports. Blow up trucks moving oil. Blow up wellheads in ISIS-dominated areas. Finding targets is not hard. The Russians released reconnaissance photos showing what they claimed were 12,000 trucks loaded with smuggled oil, backed up near the Turkish border. But remind your candidate that this would not be an expansion of the air war or a shifting from one bombing campaign to a new one. It would be a short-term move, with a defined end point of shutting down the flow of oil. It would only be one part of a far larger effort to shut down ISIS’s sources of funds. Next, use whatever diplomatic and economic pressure is available to make it clear to whomever in Turkey that it’s time to stop facilitating the flow of that ISIS oil onto the black market. Then wield that same diplomatic and economic pressure to force buyers to stop purchasing it. Some reports suggest that Israel, cut off from most Arab sources of oil, has become a major buyer of ISIS’s supplies. If so, step on some allied toes. C'mon, someone is buying all that black-market black gold. The same should go for Turkey’s behavior toward ISIS. That would extend from its determination to fight Kurdish forces fighting ISIS to the way it’s allowed jihadis to enter Syria through its territory to the way it's funneledarms to various extreme Islamic groups in that country. Engage Turkey's fellow NATO members. Let them do some of the heavy lifting. They have a dog in this fight, too. And speaking of stepping on allied toes, make it clear to the Saudis and other Sunni Persian Gulf states that they must stop sending money to ISIS. Yes, we’re told that this flow of “donations” comes from private citizens, not the Saudi government or those of its neighbors. Even so, they should be capable of exerting pressure to close the valve. Forget a “no-fly zone” over northern Syria -- another fruitless “solution” to the problem of the Islamic State that various presidential candidates are now plugging -- and use the international banking system to create a no-flow zone. You may not be able to stop every buck from reaching ISIS, but most of it will do in a situation where every dollar counts. Your candidate will obviously then ask you, “What else? There must be more we can do, mustn’t there?” To this, your answer should be blunt: Get out. Land the planes, ground the drones, and withdraw. Pull out the boots, the trainers, the American combatants and near combatants (whatever the euphemism of the moment for them may be). Anybody who has ever listened to a country and western song knows that there’s always a time to step away from the table and cut your losses. Throwing more money (lives, global prestige...) into the pot won’t alter the cards you're holding. All you’re doing is postponing the inevitable at great cost. In the end, there is nothing the United States can do about the processes now underway in the Middle East except stand on the beach trying to push back the waves. This is history talking to us. That Darn History Thing Sometimes things change visibly at a specific moment: December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, or the morning of September 11, 2001. Sometimes the change is harder to pinpoint, like the start of the social upheaval that, in the U.S., came to be known as “the Sixties.”
In the Middle East after World War I, representatives of the victorious British and French drew up national boundaries without regard for ethnic, sectarian, religious, tribal, resource, or other realities. Their goal was to divvy up the defeated Ottoman Empire. Later, as their imperial systems collapsed, Washington moved in (though rejecting outright colonies for empire by proxy). Secular dictatorships were imposed on the region and supported by the West past their due dates. Any urge toward popular self-government was undermined or destroyed, as with the coup against elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or the way the Obama administrationmanipulated the Arab Spring in Egypt, leading to the displacement of a democratically chosen government by a military coup in 2013.
In this larger context, the Islamic State is only a symptom, not the disease. Washington’s problem has been its desire to preserve a collapsing nation-state system at the heart of the Middle East. The Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq certainly sped up the process in a particularly disastrous fashion. Twelve years later, there can’t be any question that the tide has turned in the Middle East -- forever.
It’s time for the U.S. to stand back and let local actors deal with the present situation. ISIS’s threat to us is actually minimal. Its threat to those in the region is another matter entirely. Without Washington further roiling the situation, it’s a movement whose limits will quickly enough become apparent.
The war with ISIS is, in fact, a struggle of ideas, anti-western and anti-imperialist, suffused with religious feeling. You can’t bomb an idea or a religion away. Whatever Washington may want, much of the Middle East is heading toward non-secular governments, and toward the destruction of the monarchies and the military thugs still trying to preserve updated versions of the post-World War I system. In the process, borders, already dissolving, will sooner or later be redrawn in ways that reflect how people on the ground actually see themselves.
There is little use in questioning whether this is the right or wrong thing because there is little Washington can do to stop it. However, as we should have learned in these last 14 years, there is much it can do to make things far worse than they ever needed to be. The grim question today is simply how long this painful process takes and how high a cost it extracts. To take former President George W. Bush's phrase and twist it a bit, you're either with the flow of history or against it. Fear Itself Initially, Washington’s military withdrawal from the heart of the Middle East will undoubtedly further upset the current precarious balances of power in the region. New vacuums will develop and unsavory characters will rush in. But the U.S. has a long history of either working pragmatically with less than charming figures (think: the Shah of Iran, Anwar Sadat, or Saddam Hussein before he became an enemy) or isolating them. Iran, currently the up-and-coming power in the area absent the United States, will no doubt benefit, but its reentry into the global system is equally inevitable. And the oil will keep flowing; it has to. The countries of the Middle East have only one mighty export and need to import nearly everything else. You can’t eat oil, so you must sell it, and a large percentage of that oil is already sold to the highest bidder on world markets. It’s true that, even in the wake of an American withdrawal, the Islamic State might still try to launch Paris-style attacks or encourage San Bernardino-style rampages because, from a recruitment and propaganda point of view, it’s advantageous to have the U.S. and the former colonial powers as your number one enemies. This was something Osama bin Laden realized early on vis-à-vis Washington. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in drawing the U.S. deeply into the quagmire and tricking Washington into doing much of his work for him. But the dangers of such attacks remain limited and can be lived with. As a nation, we survived World War II, decades of potential nuclear annihilation, and scores of threats larger than ISIS. It’s disingenuous to believe terrorism is a greater threat to our survival. And here’s a simple reality to explain to your candidate: we can't defend everything, not without losing everything in the process. We can try to lock down airports and federal buildings, but there is no way, nor should there be, to secure every San Bernardino holiday party, every school, and every bus stop. We should, in fact, be ashamed to be such a fear-based society here in the home of the brave. Today, sadly enough, the most salient example of American exceptionalism is being the world's most scared country. Only in that sense could it be said that the terrorists are “winning” in America. At this point, your candidate will undoubtedly say: “Wait! Won't these ideas be hard to sell to the American people? Won't our allies object?” And the reply to that, at least for a candidate not convinced that more of the same is the only way to go, might be: “After more than 14 years of the wrong answers and the disasters that followed, do you have anything better to suggest?”
Robert Reich: The Bernie skeptics are wrong — here are 6 reasons why
1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.” Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.) 2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.” If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged. 3. “America would never elect a socialist.” P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. 4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.” This is a duplicitous argument. Studies show that a single-payer system would be far cheaper than our current system, which relies on private for-profit health insurers, because a single-payer system wouldn’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance. 5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.” Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it. 6. “He’s too old.” Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison’s and Crohn’s diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.” Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.) 2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.” If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged. 3. “America would never elect a socialist.” P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. 4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.” This is a duplicitous argument. Studies show that a single-payer system would be far cheaper than our current system, which relies on private for-profit health insurers, because a single-payer system wouldn’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance. 5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.” Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it. 6. “He’s too old.” Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison’s and Crohn’s diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.” Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.) 2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.” If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged. 3. “America would never elect a socialist.” P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. 4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.” This is a duplicitous argument. Studies show that a single-payer system would be far cheaper than our current system, which relies on private for-profit health insurers, because a single-payer system wouldn’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance. 5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.” Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it. 6. “He’s too old.” Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison’s and Crohn’s diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.” Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.) 2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.” If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged. 3. “America would never elect a socialist.” P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. 4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.” This is a duplicitous argument. Studies show that a single-payer system would be far cheaper than our current system, which relies on private for-profit health insurers, because a single-payer system wouldn’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance. 5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.” Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it. 6. “He’s too old.” Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison’s and Crohn’s diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.
Michael Moore: Dear President Obama, please visit Flint
Dear President Obama, I am writing this to you from the place where I was born—Flint, Michigan. Please consider this personal appeal from me and the 102,000 citizens of the city of Flint who have been poisoned, not by mistake or a natural disaster, but by a governor and his administration who, to cut costs, took over the city of Flint from its duly elected leaders, unhooked the city from its fresh water supply of Lake Huron, and then made the people drink toxic water from the Flint River. This was nearly two years ago. This week it was revealed that at least 10 people in Flint have been killed by these premeditated actions of the governor of Michigan. This governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the democratic election of this mostly African-American city—where 41% of the people live below the official poverty line—and replaced the elected mayor and city council with a crony who was instructed to take all his orders from the governor's office. One of those orders from the state of Michigan went something like this: It costs too much money to supply Flint with clean drinking water from Lake Huron (the third largest body of fresh water in the world). We can save a lot of money doing this differently. So unhook the city from that source and let them drink the water known as General Motors' Sewer: the Flint River. And, lo and behold, the governor was right. It was a lot cheaper! Fifteen million dollars cheaper! And for saving all that money, it is now estimated that to repair the damaged water system in Flint will cost at least $1.5 billion. Someone had suggested to the governor, before he did this, that the river contained many toxins. He ignored that. One of his own people said maybe they should add a safe-to-drink "corrosive protector" to the water so that the toxins wouldn't leach the lead off the aging water pipe infrastructure and into the drinking water. How much will that cost? asked the governor's office. Just $100 a day for only three months, the governor was told. Oh, $100 a day That's too much, came the reply from the governor. Don't worry about the lead. Lead is a seasonal thing, he would later explain to the public. Heck, there's lead in everything! Just let them drink the river water. This is a city full of poor, black people, a city where half the population (including myself) found a way to escape the misery and the madness. (The crime rate is so bad, we've led the country in murders for most years. Just to get an idea of what that means, if NYC had the same murder rate as Flint last year, over 4,000 New Yorkers would have been killed, instead of the 340 who actually were.) Mr. President, we need your help, today. 100,000 people have no water to drink, cook with or bathe in. My city has been pummeled by General Motors, Wall Street and the state and federal governments. It's no surprise that the Republicans who control our state capitol in Michigan didn't have to worry about any pushback from the residents of Flint because, to them, that's just a bunch of eviscerated black people who have absolutely no power, don't vote for them anyway, and have no means to fight back. And now, after every single child in Flint has been poisoned with lead that the state knew a year ago was in that water, we learn that the governor's office sought to cover it up, hiding it not just from the African Americans they secretly fear and despise, but also from you and the federal government! As if things couldn't get any worse, we received news this week that 87 people have Legionnaires Disease. Ten Flint residents have been killed by this disease, which is caused by tainted water. Not by gun violence, not in Afghanistan, but by an act of racism and violence perpetrated by the—I'm sorry to say—white, Republican governor of Michigan who knew months ago that the water was toxic. All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this outbreak. In an average year, Flint already had an astounding eight cases (though rarely a death) of people contracting Legionnaires Disease. Since the citizens of Flint were forced to use the water from the Flint River, there have been 87 cases of Legionnaires Disease and 10 deaths! And the number is expected to rise. President Obama, the people of Flint are crying out to you for help. Our Congressman, Dan Kildee, has called the federal government for assistance. But he's been told it's a "state" issue and that the state of Michigan has to be the one asking the feds for the help. The state is the one that caused this! That's like asking the fox if he could repair the chicken coop. Mr. President, we need your help, today! 100,000 people have no water to drink, cook with or bathe in. This week, you are coming to Michigan to attend the Detroit Auto Show. We implore you to come to Flint, less than an hour's drive north of Detroit. Do not ignore this tragedy taking place daily. This may be Gov. Snyder's Katrina, but it will become your Bush-Flying-Over-New Orleans moment if you come to Michigan and then just fly away. I know you don't want that image of flying over us as you fake-sad look down on Flint just as Bush did in that never-to-be-forgotten photo-op over New Orleans. I know you are going to come to the rescue here in Flint. I can't imagine any other scenario. We need: The CDC here at once to assess all of the disease and damage that has been forced upon the people of Flint. FEMA has to supply large water containers in every home in Flint, and they must be filled by water trucks until the new infrastructure is resolved. The EPA must take over matters from the state (can the governor be removed and replaced like he did to the mayor of Flint?). Immediately. You must send in the Army Corps of Engineers to build that new water infrastructure. Otherwise, you might as well just evacuate all the people from Flint and move them to a white city that has clean drinking water, where this would never happen. President Obama, I'm counting on you to give us a response. Can we expect to see you in Flint, in the next few days? Yours, Michael Moore Filmmaker and Flint native
Dear President Obama, I am writing this to you from the place where I was born—Flint, Michigan. Please consider this personal appeal from me and the 102,000 citizens of the city of Flint who have been poisoned, not by mistake or a natural disaster, but by a governor and his administration who, to cut costs, took over the city of Flint from its duly elected leaders, unhooked the city from its fresh water supply of Lake Huron, and then made the people drink toxic water from the Flint River. This was nearly two years ago. This week it was revealed that at least 10 people in Flint have been killed by these premeditated actions of the governor of Michigan. This governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the democratic election of this mostly African-American city—where 41% of the people live below the official poverty line—and replaced the elected mayor and city council with a crony who was instructed to take all his orders from the governor's office. One of those orders from the state of Michigan went something like this: It costs too much money to supply Flint with clean drinking water from Lake Huron (the third largest body of fresh water in the world). We can save a lot of money doing this differently. So unhook the city from that source and let them drink the water known as General Motors' Sewer: the Flint River. And, lo and behold, the governor was right. It was a lot cheaper! Fifteen million dollars cheaper! And for saving all that money, it is now estimated that to repair the damaged water system in Flint will cost at least $1.5 billion. Someone had suggested to the governor, before he did this, that the river contained many toxins. He ignored that. One of his own people said maybe they should add a safe-to-drink "corrosive protector" to the water so that the toxins wouldn't leach the lead off the aging water pipe infrastructure and into the drinking water. How much will that cost? asked the governor's office. Just $100 a day for only three months, the governor was told. Oh, $100 a day That's too much, came the reply from the governor. Don't worry about the lead. Lead is a seasonal thing, he would later explain to the public. Heck, there's lead in everything! Just let them drink the river water. This is a city full of poor, black people, a city where half the population (including myself) found a way to escape the misery and the madness. (The crime rate is so bad, we've led the country in murders for most years. Just to get an idea of what that means, if NYC had the same murder rate as Flint last year, over 4,000 New Yorkers would have been killed, instead of the 340 who actually were.) Mr. President, we need your help, today. 100,000 people have no water to drink, cook with or bathe in. My city has been pummeled by General Motors, Wall Street and the state and federal governments. It's no surprise that the Republicans who control our state capitol in Michigan didn't have to worry about any pushback from the residents of Flint because, to them, that's just a bunch of eviscerated black people who have absolutely no power, don't vote for them anyway, and have no means to fight back. And now, after every single child in Flint has been poisoned with lead that the state knew a year ago was in that water, we learn that the governor's office sought to cover it up, hiding it not just from the African Americans they secretly fear and despise, but also from you and the federal government! As if things couldn't get any worse, we received news this week that 87 people have Legionnaires Disease. Ten Flint residents have been killed by this disease, which is caused by tainted water. Not by gun violence, not in Afghanistan, but by an act of racism and violence perpetrated by the—I'm sorry to say—white, Republican governor of Michigan who knew months ago that the water was toxic. All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this outbreak. In an average year, Flint already had an astounding eight cases (though rarely a death) of people contracting Legionnaires Disease. Since the citizens of Flint were forced to use the water from the Flint River, there have been 87 cases of Legionnaires Disease and 10 deaths! And the number is expected to rise. President Obama, the people of Flint are crying out to you for help. Our Congressman, Dan Kildee, has called the federal government for assistance. But he's been told it's a "state" issue and that the state of Michigan has to be the one asking the feds for the help. The state is the one that caused this! That's like asking the fox if he could repair the chicken coop. Mr. President, we need your help, today! 100,000 people have no water to drink, cook with or bathe in. This week, you are coming to Michigan to attend the Detroit Auto Show. We implore you to come to Flint, less than an hour's drive north of Detroit. Do not ignore this tragedy taking place daily. This may be Gov. Snyder's Katrina, but it will become your Bush-Flying-Over-New Orleans moment if you come to Michigan and then just fly away. I know you don't want that image of flying over us as you fake-sad look down on Flint just as Bush did in that never-to-be-forgotten photo-op over New Orleans. I know you are going to come to the rescue here in Flint. I can't imagine any other scenario. We need: The CDC here at once to assess all of the disease and damage that has been forced upon the people of Flint. FEMA has to supply large water containers in every home in Flint, and they must be filled by water trucks until the new infrastructure is resolved. The EPA must take over matters from the state (can the governor be removed and replaced like he did to the mayor of Flint?). Immediately. You must send in the Army Corps of Engineers to build that new water infrastructure. Otherwise, you might as well just evacuate all the people from Flint and move them to a white city that has clean drinking water, where this would never happen. President Obama, I'm counting on you to give us a response. Can we expect to see you in Flint, in the next few days? Yours, Michael Moore Filmmaker and Flint native
January 19, 2016
Celebrity deaths and the “problematic fave”: Enough with the moral tug-of-war between “hero” and “villain” legacies
My feelings about the past week of grieving celebrities and bickering with fellow social-justice-warrior-y types about how to grieve over celebrities were summed up pretty well by a tweet from one of my Twitter friends: “A quick Google and a thorough check of Your Fave Is Problematic indicate that it's safe to publicly mourn Alan Rickman.” Of course I’m glad Alan Rickman was, as well as an amazing actor, by all accounts a pretty amazing human being. There’s nothing wrong with being a fan both of an artist’s work and of an artist as a person, the causes they support and the impact they have on the people around them. Likewise, I absolutely agree that while “speaking ill of the dead” should be kept to a minimum, that when a famous person has a checkered legacy it’s important not to sweep their misdeeds under the rug when they die--to do so is disrespectful to the people they’ve wronged and has been a favorite tool of those who use grief to manipulate our understanding of history. But treating a legacy as something to be weighed on a binary scale--as though you have to add up all of a person’s sins and, if they surpass a certain threshold, they’re instantly moved from the category of “hero” to “villain”--doesn’t help anybody. Take David Bowie. Although I didn’t connect to his music the way many of my peers did, it’s impossible to listen to his music and not hear his genius. And it wasn’t just his talent people fell in love with, but what he stood for--that his public image and his music carved out a space for queer sexuality and unconventional performance of gender, that his bold, no-shits-given stage presence, his absolute unshakeable confidence and comfort in whatever bizarre identity he was wearing at the time gave other people the courage to feel comfortable in their own skin. And then there’s the fact that one of those personae was a committed Nazi who collected Nazi paraphernalia and praised Hitler. And then there’s the fact that, whatever persona he was in, he fucked a lot of groupies when he was a younger man, including underage groupies, including a girl named Lori Mattix at the age of 15. The thing that makes both of these stories uncomfortable is that they’re not really “sins” or “gaffes” or “peccadilloes” that stand at odds with the rest of the narrative of Bowie’s life. They’re entirely consonant with what people loved about him, or at least people at the time thought they were. The same caution-to-the-wind total commitment to becoming an outré boundary-crossing character--the same utter defiance of social convention--that created Ziggy Stardust created the Thin White Duke. And in the 1970s, the “baby groupie” scene, complete with its own circle of starlets followed around by their own dedicated magazines, was tied into the sexual revolution as a whole.In the early 1970s you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who expressed what we now think of as a mainstream view of sexuality--sex-positive but consent-centric, fervently in favor of breaking boundaries but at the same time acutely aware of power dynamics. In other words--and I speak from experience as someone who gets unpleasant feelings of culture shock reading about the era--there was a tacit assumption that if you thought having sex with underage teenagers was unethical or immoral or gross, you were probably also grossed out by gay sex and polyamory and kink and you were probably a churchgoing middle-aged “square.” Being pro-“sexual liberation” at the outset implied not caring all that much about age of consent. It took a while to develop the language to talk about sex and consent without bringing back the context of “traditional” Christian morality--and, indeed, the end of the 1970s as an era was marked by the fracturing of radical left social movements along that line, with the move to expel NAMBLA from the first gay march on Washington in 1979, the “feminist sex wars” of the early 1980s, etc. Make no mistake about it: I firmly believe consent is vital in sexual relationships--in all relationships--and an adult having sex with an underage person is, at best, reckless and dangerous and irresponsible, at worst rape. I don’t think that’s a matter of aesthetic preference, of “changing with the times,” I believe we genuinely know better than our forebears because of hard-won experience from listening to the stories of people who’ve been badly hurt by relationships where their partners had vastly more power than they did. But David Bowie clearly didn’t think of his relationship with Mattix as rape. Mattix didn’t either. Mattix still doesn’t, and it feels wrong to demand we label her as such against her will even as it feels hypocritical to let Bowie off the hook while condemning modern-day musicians for doing much less. There’s your uncomfortable truth: It’s very hard to imagine a David Bowie who would’ve said no to a 15-year-old groupie in 1975 who’d still be David Bowie. To him, in the ethical world he lived in at the time, saying “yes” to the sexual revolution meant saying “yes” to all of it, even though to us, his successors, sexual freedom and reckless disregard for consent are miles apart. Just like, on some level, the give-no-fucks candor with which Bowie put MTV on blast for not airing black artists in 1983 is rooted the same give-no-fucks brazenness with which he spent 1976 play-acting a white supremacist. Yes, he regretted it later and said so many times. Yes, he was in the grip of cocaine addiction when he came up with the Thin White Duke character and improvised lines like “Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” Yes, white privilege can be so blinding that he isn’t the only one who’s managed to become enamored of the shiny veneer of Nazi chic without thinking overmuch about the actual content of Nazi ideology. No, I’m not defending what he did. Turning a government that murdered millions of people into a fashion statement is grotesque and I wish he hadn’t done it. And yet, again, it’s hard to imagine a Bowie, having had the idea for the Thin White Duke, choosing to reject it as tasteless and offensive and still being David Bowie. Take an example of someone who’s still alive--take the gratuitous roasting Mel Gibson got at the Golden Globes from Ricky Gervais. Yes, Gibson’s scary public meltdowns and odious racist views are old news, largely because he’s been kept out of the spotlight against his will by the public refusing to accept him back. Nothing about the passage of time particularly makes me inclined to forgive him for abusing his girlfriend or getting caught spewing anti-Semitism in public after making a pretty damn anti-Semitic movie. But as a die-hard Mad Max fan who’s passionately in love with critical darling “Mad Max: Fury Road” I have to say--there’d be no “Fury Road” without the past Mad Max films, and there’d be no Mad Max franchise without Mel Gibson. If George Miller and the producers of the Golden Globes wanted Mel Gibson there to present “Fury Road” then they had every right to have him there. After all, the original “Mad Max” film with its shoestring budget and no-name cast launched Gibson’s career just as he carried the movie--the success of the film and the actor can’t be separated. There’s a story that the then-unknown Gibson came in to audition for the film after having been in a drunken bar brawl the night before, and Miller cast him on the strength of his authentically battered and bloodied features. Whether or not that’s the case, the self-loathing toxic masculinity roiling inside of Max Rockatansky has always, to me, felt linked to Mel Gibson’s real-life persona. I don’t pretend to be able to diagnose everything that’s gone on with Mel Gibson over the years any more than any other gawking bystander—but from being raised by a hardcore fundamentalist Catholic/conspiracy theorist/”Jeopardy!” champion to struggling with the explosive combination of bipolar disorder and alcoholism, the impression I’ve always gotten from him is a mask of movie-star good looks covering up a deeply, deeply fucked-up dude. That’s what’s made his most famous film roles work, that constant hint of unhinged mania behind his eyes, from playing Fletcher Christian to the titular “lethal weapon” psycho cop Martin Riggs in “Lethal Weapon” to, yes, Mad Max. Is it theoretically possible that someone without Gibson’s particular personal problems could’ve met George Miller in 1977 and still given the performance that made the film work? Sure, I guess. Tom Hardy deserves credit for doing a ton of method acting to re-create the Mad Max character while generally being a pretty swell guy in real life. But that isn’t what happened. And in the case of Mad Max in particular, one of those rare lightning-in-a-bottle cases where a movie with a budget of $350,000 becomes a breakout hit and a historic film franchise, it’s hard to imagine any of it happening any other way. So yes, in a way I am saying that if you’re a fan of the awesome feminist triumph that is 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” then you owe something to the horrific abusive racist bigot Mel Gibson. You don’t have to like him or “forgive” him, but if he hadn’t been there--and I’m not just arguing in terms of acting talent but in terms of all his deep and wide-ranging flaws--then a great work of art might not exist. You stumble across cases like this all the time in the arts. Modern theater wouldn’t exist without the “angry young men” movement of the 1950s and '60s, which wouldn’t exist without John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger,” which itself wouldn’t exist if Osborne weren’t the kind of man with so much anger and so little filter that he was viciously abusive to his estranged daughter. Or take one of my favorite films that I’ve only ever seen once--the film adaptation of “Death and the Maiden,” which is one of the most complex and sensitive portraits of sexual assault from the perspective of both victim and assailant I’ve ever seen. I was about to recommend it to a friend until I looked at the IMDB page and saw the director, the man who had such a deeply personal perspective on long-buried guilt over long-ago sin: Roman Polanski. It’s not just like that in the arts. If you’re a fan of “Hamilton” then you know that Alexander Hamilton was, on a certain level, a selfish narcissist consumed by ambition, and his rival Thomas Jefferson a sheltered dilettante defined by his hypocrisy--and both men’s accomplishments were not in spite of but to some degree because of those flaws. Someone who was less of an obsessive control freak wouldn’t have written the Federalist Papers, just as someone who was less of a detached idealist wouldn’t have written the Declaration of Independence. Or, to take a more contemporary example, Ted Kennedy spent his life fighting for the less fortunate and the underprivileged, including and especially women. Ted Kennedy killed a woman in 1969 in a stupid drunken accident and escaped consequences for it because of his name and his stature. After he died--40 years after the death of Mary Jo Kopechne--some commentators connected the two, speculating he was driven partly by guilt. I can’t imagine that no connection existed, but does the horrific crime taint the lifetime of service, or the lifetime of service redeem the horrific crime? Or both? Or neither? It strikes me that these questions matter most when a person is alive, when you’re deciding whether to elect someone to office or give them an award or pay them money. I know that the biggest reason I’ve never watched “Death and the Maiden” again is not wanting to funnel revenue toward someone I consider a fugitive from justice. But I’d like to think after death is when we can get the whole picture of a life and see life as more complex than just adding up a list of merits and flaws and seeing which side of the ledger wins.
Debunking the case against Sanders: Bernie’s liberal critics, like Jonathan Chait, resort to fatalism and blind trust in the status quo
Argumentum ad nauseam refers to the logical fallacy that an argument is correct by virtue of it constantly being repeated. Argumentum ad hominem is the fallacy that a point is wrong because of personal critiques of the person making it. A new logical fallacy should be added to the list: Argumentum ad centrum, or the flawed claim that an assertion is accurate because it is from the ideological center. The argumentum ad centrum is increasingly popular in politics today, as working-class people all around the world become more and more frustrated with the status quo. The rapid rise of left-wing alternatives to an increasingly right-wing political modus operandi — with Bernie Sanders in the U.S., Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K., Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece and more — has apologists for power on the ropes, desperately clutching for any argument that can beat back the dissent and discontent. Nowhere is this more evident than in the incessant liberal attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose unexpected presidential campaign has, in mere months, taken U.S. politics by storm. Columnist Jonathan Chait lobbed a series of argumenta ad centrum at the Vermont senator in "The Case Against Bernie Sanders." The article, published this week in New York magazine, went viral with tens of thousands of shares. The crux of Chait's argument is that Sanders is too extreme of a candidate, and that U.S. politics is too far to the right, for him to get anything done. It is not until the final paragraph of his piece that Chait, an unabashed Clinton aficionado, makes it clear that he does not endorse "Sanders's policy vision." Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, his points perilously teeter-totter back and forth between vapid political tea-leaf reading and baseless condemnation. "What the next president won't accomplish is to increase taxes, expand social programs, or do anything to reduce inequality, given the House Republicans' fanatically pro-inequality positions across the board," Chait argues. "The next Democratic presidential term will be mostly defensive, a bulwark against the enactment of the radical Ryan plan. What little progress liberals can expect will be concentrated in the non-Sanders realm." In other words, Chait is essentially telling the American left to simply give up, because the cards are stacked in the interest of power. His entire article is a defense of fatalism and political resignation, covered with a thin veneer of liberal analysis. "It seems bizarre for Democrats to risk losing the presidency by embracing a politically radical doctrine that stands zero chance of enactment even if they win," Chait adds. One could imagine similar pieces written in the early 19th century, with respectable pundits haughtily chiding abolitionists for being too extreme and unrealistic, insisting that slavery is reforming and getting progressively less brutal; or in the late 19th century, with popular columnists chastising suffragists for taking such clearly outlandish and utopian positions. Chait further confirmed these suspicions in a tweet, writing, "Even if you agree with Sanders' ideas, which I don't, they're badly mismatched with the powers he would have." The New York magazine columnist's piece is, in essence, an extended argument from the center. In painting Sanders' candidacy as a dangerous and extreme political gamble, Chait tries to graft a superficially attractive sheen onto the asinine axiom that the truth necessarily lies somewhere in the middle. We have all heard the argument before: The truth lies not on the right or the left, but rather safely in the middle. It has become increasingly popular in U.S. politics, as the Republican Party has veered into the far right, and the Democratic Party has retreated to the center, since the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. The Week's Ryan Cooper has described Chait as a "squishy moderate." Chait has openly called himself a "liberal hawk," and was one of the loudest liberal cheerleaders for the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. Chait has constantly shielded President Obama from the many, many substantive left-wing critiques. If he has a relationship with power, it is one of deference, not dissent. Cooper observed that "Chait and his cohorts on the center-left seem a lot less interested in drilling down into [deep political questions] than in policing the left boundary of acceptable politics." In this sense, Chait's politics are by no means unique. Rather, his piece and the arguments it puts forward can be seen as a case study of how many establishment liberals have reacted to the rise of a new left. What Chait and fellow pundits fail to acknowledge, nevertheless, is that Sanders' supposedly extreme policies are in fact supported by a majority of Americans. For many years, most Americans have expressed support for universal healthcare. The constant military interventions and wars called for by hawks like Hillary Clinton are wildly unpopular. And the vast preponderance of Americans dislike Wall Street, and have little faith in a political system they see as subservient to it. According to the 2014 General Social Survey, an exhaustive study based on data collected over a 42-year period, just 15 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in banks and financial institutions, down from 42 percent in 1977. Eighteen percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in major corporations, down from 31 percent in 1984. And only 5 percent have a great deal of confidence in Congress, a record low. Chait's arguments will not fare well with this American public, a populace that has little faith in the institutions onto which he falls back for support. Distrust of the grassroots All of this begs the question: If Sanders' views are supposedly so absurd, then why are they increasingly popular? The odds are certainly not in the self-professed democratic socialist's favor. Sanders refuses to take money from corporations, immediately making it an uphill battle for him in a field awash with corporate cash. In the meantime, Sanders continues to break records with millions in donations from working-class Americans. Moreover, leading media outlets have consistently failed to give Sanders proportionate coverage — devoting exponentially more time to far-right Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. And yet, despite the adversity, Sanders' message is clearly resonating with people. Chait concedes that "Sanders is earnest and widely liked." He also admits that Sanders "has tugged the terms of the political debate leftward in a way both moderates and left-wingers could appreciate," at a time in which the Democratic Party has been moving further and further to the right. And he acknowledges that "Sanders’s rapid rise, in both early states and national polling, has made him a plausible threat to defeat Hillary Clinton." His response is to flatly insist that "we" should not support Sanders "as the actual Democratic nominee for president." When Chait says "we," one cannot help but wonder about whom he is referring to. Chait purports to speak for the American left, but he readily recognizes that Sanders is very popular among left-wing Americans — and only increasingly more so. Poll after poll shows Sanders beating Clinton in the critical first two primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. And among young voters in particular, Sanders is even more popular than Clinton. At the heart of Chait's argument is a deep suspicion of popular movements. "Sanders offers the left-wing version of a hoary political fantasy: that a more pure candidate can rally the People into a righteous uprising that would unsettle the conventional laws of politics," he boldly wrote. "Sanders's version involves the mobilization of a mass grassroots volunteer army that can depose the special interests," Chait snarkily added, exuding disdain for the masses. "The People" should simply give in to the conventional laws of politics and settle for the inevitable victory of the Clinton dynasty, we are told. So much for democracy. Like many liberal pundits, Chait makes no effort to address the import of social movements. His argument is fundamentally anti-populist, in the sense that average people have virtually no say in how politics works. Meanwhile, social movements are on the rise throughout the U.S. Black Lives Matter has established itself as the new civil rights movement. The environmental justice movement is making huge strides. And the movement for Palestinian human rights is growing more and more every year. Instead of seeing Sanders as an important figure in a revival of '60s-era progressive grassroots movements that could push all of U.S. politics to the left, Chait implores us to give up and accept political inevitability. One gets the strong impression that Chait actually fears the rise of Sanders, and what it could mean for the continuation of the status quo. He is by no means alone in his views. Rather, Chait represents the centrist or even right wing of the Democratic Party -- those sterile liberals who disguise defense of the status quo as the politics of pragmatism. Defense of the status quo "Nobody works harder at being wrong than Jonathan Chait," Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi quipped on Twitter. Few American journalists are as familiar with Wall Street's seemingly endless corruption and nefarious machinations as Taibbi. Chait's politics of pragmatism leads him to attack Sanders on a variety of fronts — healthcare, Wall Street and minimum wage. "Sanders has grudgingly credited what he calls 'the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act,'" Chait wrote, criticizing Sanders' "exceedingly stingy assessment." Here we see Chait fabricating critiques out of whole cloth. In reality, Sanders made it absolutely clear in the fourth presidential debate that he helped draft the ACA -- even while criticizing it. Senator Sanders wants to move beyond Obamacare and "finally provide in this country healthcare for every man, woman and child as a right." Chait is telling Americans they should simply give up before the fight even begins, because they are up against huge odds. Like many liberal defenders of Obamacare, Chait also treats healthcare and health insurance as if they are synonymous. They certainly are not. Obamcare has done little to stop corporations from charging out-of-control premiums. Perhaps this is no surprise, given how corporations helped write Obamacare — which was based on legislation first proposed by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney. Health insurance corporations are still making exorbitant amounts of money exploiting sick Americans. The skyrocketing prices have led many Americans to simply pay fines instead. Sanders wants a solution once and for all to the country's broken, corrupt and inhumane private healthcare system, and he is proposing universal healthcare, a solution that virtually all of the industrialized world has adopted. Chait also criticized Sanders for calling for a breakup of the big banks. He insists big "banks are actually breaking themselves up" under government penalties, and further regulation is unnecessary. His argument reminds one of the right, which insists that Wall Street does not need harsher regulation, because it is already supposedly stifled enough. This is not surprising, considering Chait is a fan of capitalism who lamented that "there is a long, grim history of left-wing movements being hijacked by their most radical elements," and blasted the Occupy Wall Street movement for being "filled with Marxist drivel." It is fascinating to hear liberals peddle arguments that sound like they were lifted from Fox News. Consonant with these views is Chait's subsequent insistence that Sanders' defense of a $15 minimum wage is too high. He acknowledges that economics research shows raising the minimum wage does not have a noticeably large impact on unemployment, but claims $15 is so high it may anger employers. What about workers? MIT's Living Wage Calculator estimates that a living wage for an adult with a child would need to be $26.19 in New York state, $25.26 in California, $23.51 in Colorado, $21.06 in Texas or $18.67 in Kentucky. All are well above $15. The notion, latent in Chait's argument, that things will simply continue to get better by virtue of inertia (argumentum ad inertia?) continues in his discussion of the 2008 financial crisis. Chait credits the Obama administration for the fact that unemployment has decreased and median household income has increased since the crash. Both metrics are indeed approaching pre-crisis levels. But Chait fails to acknowledge that the pre-recession economy was far from ideal. Being poor, getting robbed by Wall Street's financial chicanery, and then getting your money back does not change the fact that you were poor in the first place. Again, this argumentum ad centrum is predicated on the notion that things are good if they return to the status quo. Before the Great Recession, economic inequality was still gargantuan — and has only increased since then. Poverty and hunger were widespread. In 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 13 percent of Americans lived in poverty, including 25 percent of black Americans, 25 percent of Native Americans and 21 percent of Latinos. Millions of American struggled. Returning to the way things were is not enough for most Americans. Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer and richer. The richest 0.1 percent of Americans own as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. How are Chait and his ideological confrères going to deal with this problem? Obama sure didn't. Besides, even with things back to pre-recession levels, they are only temporary. What Chait also conveniently failed to mention is that economists are constantly warning we may be on the eve of a new crisis. Punching left "The despairing vision he paints of contemporary America is oversimplified," Chait wrote of Sanders. Centrist critics like Chait are wont to claim that the left's criticisms of society are "facile" and "oversimplified." This is a popular response to left critiques -- a common deflection. The world is a complex place, so, naturally, nothing is completely simple. Like many liberals criticizing politicians like Sanders, Corbyn or others today, Chait insists leftists are economistic, lambasting them for focusing too much on inequality and exploitation. It is never surprising to see these arguments coming from people who express their political opinions for a living. Countless liberal columnists, with Ivy League degrees framed in their expensive condos, positively bristle at the puerile "Bernie Bros" and "Corbynistas" stressing the importance of class, and yet are bewildered when these arguments prove to be incredibly popular among actual working-class Americans. Sanders represents a new era of left-wing politics in the U.S., and centrists like Chait cannot wrap their heads around it. It challenges the chokehold they have maintained on American politics for decades. One of the favorite pastimes of these centrists is punching left. Chait's attack on Sanders is just one among many. The soi-disant "liberal hawk" has constantly blasted the anti-war left, and penned multiple pieces condemning environmentalist socialist Naomi Klein, defending capitalism from her critiques. "It is not the right but the center-left that provides the main target of Klein's polemic," Chait lamented in one of such pieces. We see the echoes of Chait's ideology here. Any leftist who challenges Democratic Party orthodoxy is a traitor, and must be thrown to the wolves. Clinton, like Chait, constantly rails against Republicans in the presidential debates, in order to draw attention away from left-wing critiques. When Sanders calls her out on some of her objectively right-wing policies, she calls for unity against Republicans. The ultimate irony in all of this is I am not even a big fan of Sanders. Jeremy Corbyn is a democratic socialist; Bernie Sanders is a European-style social democrat. But, in the context of the 21st-century U.S. — which, for a variety of historical reasons, has long been significantly to the right of Europe — a social Democrat running for president does seem quite revolutionary. I am very critical of Sanders' foreign policy in particular, which leaves a lot to be desired. He opposed the catastrophic Iraq War, but supported the disastrous war in Afghanistan, and Obama's prolongation of it. He criticizes U.S. regime change policies, but backed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. He speaks of the importance of acting on behalf of human rights, but firmly defended Israel's brutal war on Gaza, which left more than 2,250 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians, according to the U.N. In short, Sanders is not a hawk, but he is not anti-war either. This said, given how much both hegemonic parties in the U.S. love war, Sanders is almost as anti-war as it gets. And he is of course nowhere near as bellicose as Hillary. Longtime progressive activist Ralph Nader recently joked in an interview on the Empire Files that Clinton "has never met a war she didn't like." Despite my strong criticisms of Sanders, nonetheless, I constantly find myself having to defend him from the vacuous liberal attacks on him -- and on the left overall. These centrist pundits maintain ties to power. Chait embodies precisely the liberal establishment that Sanders rails against. And he has benefited well from the system. He appears to be unable to entertain the notion that most Americans, who have been exploited by it, are sick and tired and demand something new. Centrist liberals cannot grapple with the fact that the American people are tired of the Clinton dynasty and its strident neoliberalism, bankrupt center-right politics and seemingly infinite capacity for corruption. They can't wrap their heads around the fact that left-wing Americans are tired of the "liberal hawks," with their cozy relationships with Wall Street and their fetishization of U.S. power. They want something new. As imperfect as he is, Sanders represents that. Chait's piece is just the beginning. Expect more and more articles with similar centrist talking points, as Sanders' popularity increases throughout the U.S. After all, defending the status quo is a profitable enterprise.
“The Revenant” takes the lead: Repeat Oscars for Iñárritu’s spectacular vision would make history — and shouldn’t let the academy off the hook
A surprising front-runner is emerging in this year’s Oscar race. After Vulture’s Kyle Buchanan crowned “Spotlight”—Tom McCarthy’s meticulously fact-based drama about the Catholic sex abuse scandals—the presumptive winner back in September, it’s been treated as a shoo-in all year. The same was true last year, when Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” looked like it would sweep the awards—that is, until “Birdman” took the Producers and Directors Guild Awards late in the season, en route to a best picture win. This year, another Alejandro G. Iñárritu film might be mounting its own last-minute push. After racking up 12 Oscar nominations—including best picture, best director (Iñárritu), best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), best supporting actor (Tom Hardy), best cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), and best editing (Stephen Mirrione)—“The Revenant” seems poised to be the Mexican director’s second champ in a row. Although Vegas bookies still favor “Spotlight” (with 4-5 odds) and the New York Post argued the “The Revenant” is still a long shot, the numbers are on Iñárritu’s side. The film with the most nominations usually wins picture. Last year, “Birdman” led with nine noms. There are a litany of other reasons to think it can win: “The Revenant” currently leads the pack on Gold Derby, the most-trusted Oscar predictions site on the Web. All but one of the site’s editors is predicting a victory for “The Revenant,” the same margin that’s forecasting another win for Iñárritu. That’s important, because the best director is usually responsible for helming best picture. Since 2005, the two categories have matched up seven times, and recent history leans toward Iñárritu over Tom McCarthy: Best director wins are more about flashy technical theatrics (“Life of Pi”), rather than more subtle work. This is likely why the academy favored Iñárritu last year over Richard Linklater for “Boyhood.” Editing 12 years into a seamless whole was certainly a remarkable feat, but it doesn’t have the same gasp factor as the one-shot stunt in “Birdman.” The lack of showy artifice in “Spotlight” is exactly what makes it great: The film never loses sight of telling a complicated story as simply as possible. It’s also why “Spotlight” might lose. In addition, Michael Keaton’s snub shows the Oscar just might not be that into “Spotlight.” After he lost to Eddie Redmayne last year for “The Theory of Everything,” a probable nom for Keaton was seen as the makeup gesture the Oscars are known for: ignore someone for a more deserving performance, reward them later (see: Denzel Washington, who won for “Training Day” instead of “Malcolm X”). While Mark Ruffalo was nominated, Tom Hardy was boosted in Keaton’s place. While “Spotlight” will likely battle for any awards it does happen to win (it’s only a lock for best original screenplay), “The Revenant” stands to mount a mini-sweep: It’s looking a likely winner for best picture, actor, director, and cinematography and could surprise in production design and editing. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the front-runner in both categories, but the best editing winners often points to the eventual picture champ. Thus, “The Revenant” could take home as many as six awards; if “Spotlight” pulls off a best picture victory, it’ll boast three—at the very most. But as the Post’s Lou Lumenick points out, “The Revenant” has a number of obstacles to overcome on its path to Oscar glory: Although its Golden Globe win would seem to set “The Revenant” up for victory, the two groups diverge just as often as they agree. Since 2005, five best picture winners have won either the Globe for best drama or best musical or comedy. On top of that, no director has ever crowned two best pictures in a row, and only two (John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz) helmers have earned back-to-back trophies. All of this, however, is just sound and fury—because Iñárritu was the only person of color nominated in the major non-writing categories for the second year in a row. This year, actors Michael B. Jordan (“Creed"), Samuel L. Jackson (“The Hateful Eight”), Will Smith (“Concussion”) and Idris Elba (“Beasts of No Nation”) were all snubbed during Tuesday’s announcements. This was despite the fact that Elba was both nommed at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors, Michael B. Jordan won best actor from the National Society of Film Critics, and Smith nabbed a Globe bid. This was a fact that Twitter users took note of when last week’s Oscar nominations were announced—#OscarsSoWhite became a national trending topic yet again. In response to the continued controversy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said that she was “heartbroken and frustrated,” while actress Jada Pinkett Smith and director Spike Lee have vowed not to attend this year’s ceremony. “Selma” star David Oyelowo was even more damning. “I am an academy member and it doesn’t reflect me, and it doesn’t reflect this nation,” he said in a recent speech. Iñárritu should be pretty used to repping diversity at the Oscars by now. Last year, when the Oscars’ acting pool was all-white for the first time since 1998, his fellow “Birdman” screenwriters—including Armando Bo and Nicolás Giacobone—were the only other people of color included in the top categories. Those names were a refreshing addition to a disgustingly whitewashed group, but the Oscars remain clueless about how to deal with the very little diversity its nomination pool boasts. While presenting the best director trophy to Iñárritu last year, Sean Penn quipped, “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?” He later refused to apologize. What concerns me about Iñárritu’s potential win isn’t that he doesn’t deserve the honor (although I’d really like to see George Miller recognized for his nearly three-decade quest to bring “Mad Max: Fury Road” to the screen). Instead, I’m worried that anointing Iñárritu gives the Oscars a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for continuing to ignore artists of color and a pass on actually learning any lessons from the ongoing #OscarsSoWhite controversy. After all, you can practically hear them murmuring, we can’t be racist, right? A Mexican director won two years in a row! Iñárritu is quickly becoming the Oscars’ token friend of color. Before you dismiss this as hopelessly cynical — or suggest that I’m arguing Iñárritu is a diversity pick, which I'm not — it's worth remembering that the Grammys have playing a similar game for years. Whereas artists like Beyoncé and Kanye West are routinely snubbed for the evening’s top awards—Knowles in 2015 for her self-titled smash and Yeezy in 2011 for “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”—they’re given consolation prizes instead. These include “lesser” awards like best rap or urban/contemporary album, a category introduced in 2013. Its first recipient was Frank Ocean, who should have won it all for “Channel Orange.” In true Grammys fashion, best album instead went to Mumford and Sons, your mom’s favorite folk-rock band. Because people of color are thrown something, it means that voting bodies can ignore the many other ways their choices aren’t inclusive. Last year, the academy attempted to make up for snubbing “Selma” in the best director and best actor categories (Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo were respectively bumped) by giving John Legend and Common an Oscar for “Glory,” the song that appears in the film’s closing credits. This year, The Weeknd’s “Earned It” (from “Fifty Shades of Grey”) is considered a long shot in the best original song category, and the group snubbed “See You Again,” Wiz Khalifa’s massively popular tune from “Furious 7.” Without a viable contender in any other category, Alejandro G. Iñárritu may be the Oscars’ last hope. So whether or not you’re surprised to hear his name called on Oscar night—instead of George Miller's or Tom McCarthy's—you shouldn’t be shocked when the nomination pool is all white again next year. Iñárritu might be on the verge of making history, but the Academy Awards appear doomed to repeat their own.
“Sex does not sell in Silicon Valley”: Why venture capitalists don’t want to touch sex start-ups
Online porn is staggeringly popular. According to PornHub’s analytics team, 4,392,486,580 hours of porn were watched on the site in 2015. Over 87 billion videos were viewed during the 21.2 billion visits it received last year. That’s 12 videos viewed per person on Earth, they note. People love sex—or at least they love watching it. So it makes sense that many would-be entrepreneurs have taken the record level of Internet interest in it as an indication that it's a good time to go into the business. But before you quit your day job, you should know that surviving the world of sex tech is not nearly as easy as it sounds. Just about any new business requires a web presence to survive and access to the usual tools of business. But those who deal in adult content have been hit with a storm of unexpected hurdles. Web servers won’t host their content. Credit card operators won’t work with them for fear of chargebacks (“No honey, of course I didn’t rent Backdoor Sluts! I’ll give them a call”). Alternative methods of payment, such as PayPal, are off limits too. Banks refuse to provide these entrepreneurs with business bank accounts and companies like MailChimp, which manage membership emails, refuse to service any business based in porn. Crowdfunding is one way to get funding, but not one that tends to work out. Cindy Gallop, founder of Make Love Not Porn, a company that helps highlight the differences between sex in porn and sex in real life, says of the crowdfunding platforms that do allow adult content, certain forms seem more welcome than others. Wanna sell sex toys? Sure. Videos of people having sex? Not so much. “The biggest problem is that successful crowdfunding requires a very large amount of people willing to very publicly rally around something," Gallop told AlterNet. "And to very publicly spread the word and invite other people into it. People publicly rally around a piece of hardware, video game or movie concept. They will not publicly, in large numbers, rally around anything to do with sex.” That means those working in the world of adult content are left with few options. Venture capitalists are the usual sources to turn to for funding, but as Gallop explains, they tend to get uncomfortable when it comes to matters of sex. “There are too many stakeholders,” she says. Gallop explains the main obstacle that presents itself with this group is what she calls “the fear of what other people will think.” That phenomenon has a tendency to pop up around porn. Gallop told us about one investor who, while a fan of her work, was hesitant to get involved. “At the end of the day, it’s not what I think,” he said. “It’s about what every other partner in my firm will think and what every investor in our fund will think.” ESG (environmental, social and governance) investments have become hugely popular areas of interest in terms of both sustainability and ethics in investing. Often, these areas fall under the umbrella of socially responsible investing. Sex, no matter how enlightened or progressive the business might be, rarely makes it into this camp. Areas associated with activities that could be considered unethical or immoral, like gambling, tobacco and porn are called "sinful investments" (although you don't see investors hesitating to associate with huge casinos). And a lot of firms have "sin clauses" in their contracts that prevent them from even going there. But it’s possible that certain depictions of sex might not deserve the sinful label they’re so often assigned. “What we’re trying to do with Make Love Not Porn, what we’re tackling is what lies at the heart of so many societal ills and evils,” says Gallop. “Shame and embarrassment about sex is what lies at the heart of rape culture, sexual abuse, sexual violence, sex trafficking," Gallop continues. "I’m all about going right to the root cause. Drill down and go way beyond what the apparent issue is and find out what's really causing it. When we take the shame and embarrassment out of sex, we solve so many things that make human lives enormously unhappy. It’s a very difficult task to get people to understand that.” Those involved in the largely testosterone-driven teams in investment hotspots like Silicon Valley might want to think about the PR perks involved in joining that conversation. Unfortunately, as journalist Alex Mayyasi points out, the place is full of prudes. “Sex does not sell in Silicon Valley,” he writes. But while sex may not sell, sexual harassment is hugely prevalent. Some 60 percent of women in Silicon Valley say they have experienced sexual harassment, according to one report. Funding for Gallop’s vision will most likely come in the form of private wealth. But even that path can be fraught. Chance Collins, president of SlotSeduction, a platform that allows registered players to play slots with "sexy girls" and use their winnings to download exclusive videos, photos and wallpaper, told AlterNet via email, “Almost everyone you first approach will have an incorrect vision of what you are trying to build. Most of the people I first went to for investment wanted a company with a lot of pretty girls around for them to get to know… They either want to put the minimum investment in to gain ‘access’ or they are scared to associate with the adult industry.” Gallop suggests we look at Make Love Not Porn not as a sex site, but a social sharing platform. Think about the enormous success other social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram have experienced. If people enjoy frequenting these sites as much as they like watching porn, merging the two ideas might make some sense. It's like keeping tabs on that kid you went to high school with, but in a much more entertaining way. And who knows, seeing more authentic forms of sex might end up doing us some good. People are starting to flood into other investment areas once considered sinful, like cannabis and bitcoin. As Gallop explains, that money allows those people to fund lobbyists, bring about regulation change, start public education initiatives, foundations and more. “We need those in sex tech, because we need a different legal definition of adult content,” she insists “At Make Love Not Porn, we are adult content that has a social benefit, adult content that is utterly transparent, ethical, legal, honest within every possible way. And yet, there's a clause in every single term of service across every single piece of infrastructure we want to use, blocks us from it.” Carrie Weisman is an AlterNet staff writer who focuses on sex, relationships and culture. Got tips, ideas or a first-person story? Email her. 
