Greens half-drink libertarian Kool-Aid on fiat money

The Green Party's version of "abolish the Fed" is better at start than many L/libertarian nutters' babblings about fiat money. Actually, no, that was pretty much a head fake. 

It quickly goes off into the ditch, starting with the fact that it IS in the same neighborhood of a babbling about fiat money, just without using that term, and without taking the "logical" next step into goldbuggery.

There is no such thing as "debt free money." This is to confuse money with the federal budget.

Second, what's to stop the Treasury from "printing like crazy," just as the Fed eventually does? What's to stop the Treasury from doing quantitative easing?

Third, if you believe Congress can step in and directly control the money? Do you want the same wingnuts who hold the government hostage over debt ceiling limits to do that as well? Oy.

Fourth, if you really are rejecting fiat money? Gold has no intrinsic value. Are you going to back the greenback with oil before the fracking runs out? The uranium that has intrinsic nuclear weapons value, but those are really the fiat currency version of weaponry. (We hope.) And a side note for any L/libertarians reading? "Fiat money" is not necessarily by government fiat; and when Andy Jackson killed the Second Bank of the US, his "pet banks" did not have 100 percent specie or bullion backing for their banknotes, contra a nutter claim on this Reddit post. (Shock me.)

The only think that could have made this more whackadoodle was to fuse this "debt free money" with the "print all you want" of Modern Monetary Theory and then try to reconcile the two.

Seriously, I remember in 2009, during the Great Recession, protesting in front of the Dallas Fed. I firmly distanced myself from a couple of L/libertarians; the most vocal was a Paul-tard. (Ron, not Rand, who hadn't gotten that much airplay yet.)

That all said, when you do teh Google (or teh DuckDuck) on "debt-free money," you'll get a variety of definitions of just what it is and how it's supposed to work. This site says it could include non-government currency, which does exist already for trading within certain local networks but has no value outside that community. Given that "this site" is New Agey, that would fit the modern Green Party well.

More charitably, the GP statement may be thinking of "social credit." If so? First, the piece doesn't spell it out. Second, per the link, social credit is no panacea. It has a quasi-idealistic view of how a modern economy should work. Second, at least in the US, it's been pushed to a fair degree by L/libertarians.

My thoughts on the withdrawal from Afghanistan

A good starting point is last Friday's "Roaming Charges" scattershooting column by Counterpunch's Jeff St. Clair. A few takeaways.

First, for L/libertarians now fellating Ron Paul? St. Clair reminds us that Paul voted FOR the Authorization to Use Military Force. Oops!

Second, for the Berners, while he opposed invading Iraq from the start, he supported invading Afghanistan from the start.

Third, we're reminded that the late drunken Snitchens, aka Christopher Hitchens, enthusiastically supported both wars from the start.

Now, me.

I supported the invasion at the start. But not with huge enthusiasm, and with caveats, the second of which I publicly spoke about in a newspaper column.

Had I known at the time about the Taliban willing to (allegedly, but hold that thought) talk about expelling al-Qaeda, and maybe even handing over Osama bin Laden, I wouldn't have supported the war.

OK, more on the "hold that thought." We now know that the Taliban was ... "talking turkey." We still don't know how sincere they were, what details they had attached to an expulsion, let alone a handover, and whether those details were unacceptable not only to the Bill Clinton-Democratic foreign policy establishment, let alone the more neocon Bush-Republican foreign policy establishment, but to people outside the foreign policy establishment box, as I was just starting to become at that time. There might have been real and legitimate sticking points. Or, the Taliban might have been stalling. I am not saying either WAS the case; I am saying either COULD HAVE BEEN the case. I've called out Howie Hawkins, Margaret Flowers and the late Kevin Zeese for playing twosiderism with Xi Jinping; we don't need twosiderism with the Taliban, either. (That said, the Taliban offered a deal again after the war started. Part of that was an amnesty request for then; in our hubris, we said no. That piece also makes the no-brainer observation that we could have left after nailing bin Laden's hide to the wall.)

Update: Here's another good big picture timeline of US involvement. That said, from all we know from stuff like this, Counterpunch's claim, via an Afghan informant, that the Taliban was ready to hand over bin Laden pre-9/11, with few strings attached, seems ... uh, not likely. And, Mohabbit may have had some axes to grind. In addition, the interview was by Alex Cockburn, who may have been committing one of the two sins that led me to de-blogroll Counterpunch for a number of years. That sin? It's the same as today's allegedly outside the box stenos like Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté — a reflexive anti-Americanism that engages in twosiderism and says that everything the bipartisan foreign policy establishment gets wrong must therefore be right. (Xi Jinping and the Uyghurs is today's obvious example, whether seemingly a sincere belief from the likes of Aaron, or presumable grift/PR flak from the likes of Max.) 

Sidebar: Alex's other sin was, IMO, pushing the envelope of anti-Zionism into antisemitism. Now, my knowledge of how much and how readily the cudgel of conflating these two is used by Zionists has grown a lot since then. But .... within leftism and left-liberalism, other people raised an eyebrow at times about him.

Second, had I known at the time what eventually became evident, that even as the Afghanistan invasion was being launched, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld planned a "pivot" to Iraq, which meant scraping up a thin global coalition of troops plus not always reliable Afghan allies to supplement the thin American troops that wouldn't be augmented, I wouldn't have supported the war.

Per what St. Clair says much later in the piece, any idiot is capable of knowing that the vaunted "boots on the ground" are needed for actual occupation; bombs don't occupy anything. And, under "lessons not learned from Vietnam," the U.S. military still over-values bombing. 

A second good read is from John Pilger, who reminds us that we're reaping what we sowed with our coup in the late 1970s after the overthrow of King Zahir Shah. Behind the US-backed coup? Zbigniew Brzezinski, the biggest Darth Vader of US foreign policy this side of Kissinger. More here on Carter-era meddling, and picking the wrong side when we did. And, more yet on how Carter also intervened in an inter-Yemen war when there were two of them, also prompted in part by Zbig. (Blue Anon leaders like Josh Marshall don't want to go back this far.)

Nor, per one tweet of a Friday thread of mine about this issue, do we need conspiracy theories.

That said, I don't buy St. Clair's insinuation that Pat Tillman might have been fragged rather than accidentally killed by friendly fire, even though establishmentarian Tweety Bird Chris Matthews was among people to raise it.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 20, 2021

First, for my thoughts on conspiracy theories vs. actual conspiracies in general, go here.

Second, in general, one factor on conspiracy theories vs. actual conspiracies is a, roughly, 20-year lifespan for evidence. If actual evidence supporting a theory doesn't pop up within 20 years, it almost certainly never will, and we can increase our assuredness that it is a conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy.

Take the late 1970s House Select Committee on  Assassinations. It found no major new evidence about JFK, RFK or MLK assassinations, and certainly nothing that would support actual conspiracy.

With that in mind, we're approaching the 20-year mark on Pat Tillman. I've seen nothing new to convince me, or even come close to convincing me, he was fragged. If he had been, surely somebody would have leaked a discussion by now.

His planned meeting with Noam Chomsky? Maybe known to a few military friends, but almost certainly NOT to high brass. And, in any case, we don't know exactly what Tillman planned to talk about.

How close the range was when he was shot? Well, even in modern war, sadly, the "fog of war" is real. 

==

Back to St. Clair, and other things.

Jeff wonders, of the many Afghan interpreters we're trying to fly out, how many participated in translations of torture sessions. To further his thought, how many deliberately misinterpreted them, just like some of our informants who were settling old grudges?

Didn't the neocons "own themselves" on this war 40 years ago?

If the Mujahideen were the “moral equivalent of the founding fathers” of Afghanistan, as some in the Reagan years proclaimed, then the Taliban must be the Afghan version of the Federalist Society, intent on enforcing an originalist interpretation of Sharia Law. The Taliban session at the next CPAC will be must-see streaming.

Yes.

St. Clair mentions Ted Rall. His infamous "sap and sucker" cartoon, with words like that on the white crosses of a U.S. military cemetery, looks even more disgusting with nearly 20 years of hindsight. AFAIK, Rall never discussed the economic necessity that drove many people into military enlistment in our all-volunteer army, despite being an alleged leftist-leaner of some sort.

==

Biden did fuck up the Afghanistan withdrawal, starting from the premise that he should have known Trump's original withdrawal timetable and plan had no actual plan. Nonetheless, we needed to withdraw and it was right. Why doesn't the MSM interview people like me, Popular Info asks. Besides, we knew a whole decade ago how corrupt Afghan officialdom was, Mondoweiss reports.

==

Beyond rejecting Pat Tillman conspiracy theories, I also reject those by Craig Unger, Michael Moore et al that Afghanistan was "all about the oil," or "oil pipelines," or whatever. Yes, US goverments and US and multinational companies had held talks about pipelines — and even more, discussed possible mining for heavy metals — in years before the invasion, but the relative lack of troops, even in the early days, puts the kibosh to that idea being serious as well. And, since the invasion, other ways to move oil from Central Asia have been developed. Besides, on the pipeline issue, Afghanistan's largely mountainous terrain says that's not realistic, not for major pipelines.

Yeah, the idea sounded tempting about 2003 or so. That's why Moore's problematic movie was such a hit with the people who are today's #BlueAnon. But, while Moore is a great polemicist, and a great auteur, he's not always so great with command of facts.

Michael Tracey, Ron Paul-tard (updated)

I'd had a fair amount of this information buried at the bottom of my Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid piece.

It needed its own post, per the header, and now it's getting it.

So, just what is the background of Michael Tracey, Tulsi Gabbard fellator and unofficial campaign press secretary?

Even before the Tulsi Gabbard presidential campaign announcement, he'd been writing some hacktacular crap. It only got worse since then. He lost two reputational star levels with me, not just one.

And, until I hit teh Google, I forgot Tracey's own #FakeNews claim that Maxine Waters pushed him. I couldn't have forgotten, because I did not know until this teh Google, that Tracey wrote extensively for paleocon outfit The American Conservative. That includes repeating conservative BS that the IRS targeted conservative political shops. Both there, and before that at Reason, he wrote several bromance articles about Ron Paul, never talking about his racism or his Religious Right stances that undercut his claims to really being a libertarian. (And, yes, Michael, they're bromance pieces.)

The Paul bromance, assuming the heart of yearning for it still beats — and I have no reason to believe it does not — explains a lot about Tracey running Gabbard up the flagpole and saluting her. I wonder if, in a lower grade way, Tracey doesn't support sort of Caitlin Johnstone-type red-brown or red-black alliance. If not seeing his Uranus rising in the House of Caity, then compare him to a younger Justin Raimondo. (I hadn't looked up his address in years; he comes off more than ever as a self-hating gay if he can't even support traditional libertarian ideas for legal positive protection of gay rights as needed.) More evidence the Paul bromance might be a thing? Tracey took to Real Clear Politics to whine about the DNC not yet qualifying Gabbard for the next debate. That link is also slightly conspiracy thinking. This tweet, about another candidate, is even more so.

Jay Inslee passed the 130,000 donor mark on Monday. Today he drops out. Seems a little sketchy

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 22, 2019

And, no, this isn't an "occasional thing." Tracy was writing for Reason before the Occupy movement started. He wrote nearly 30 pieces for TAC over five years. Which then leads me to wonder: Was The Young Turks that dumb to hire him? That lazy on vetting him? Did he do some good spinning? Many Redditors had the same questions at the time Cenk let him go.

And, I wonder if Tracey has ever thought of modifying his "anti-Semitism isn't THAT bad" comments after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. As for him citing Alec Cockburn as support? I stopped reading Counterpunch for years in part because I thought Alec sometimes pushed the envelope on anti-Zionism hard enough to put a toe or two across the line of anti-Semitism. In any case, it was arguably dumb at the time and certainly is now. It comes off as of a piece with his Tulsi comments, though; that he's the one true person to see left-liberal reality correctly.

Speaking of Michael's seeming fellow travelers? Caity Johnstone's also got the hots for Tulsi. Reason No. 5 is wrong, per what I've read about the reasons behind the DNC split. Besides, things like superdelegates have been around, and have been a problem, for 40 years. And, it took Tulsi three-plus to complain? She also takes a selective look at Tulsi's foreign policy (i.e., not a word about India or about refugees).

However, there's just one BIG problem.

As I tweeted Tracey my original Kool-Aid piece repeatedly, Gabbard favors drones, favors torture, has passed on lies that Palestinians uses human shields and said that if AIPAC had asked her, she would have spoken to their conference, as well as accepting defense contractor campaign money. That was even before she voted FOR AIPAC, mentioned in my piece of a couple of weeks about about the cult of the #TulsiTwerkers.

She's not a paleocon by any means. Not even close. Especially when you add in the Islamophobia that's connected to her Hindutva peddling. She's a neocon as much as anything, on much of foreign policy — just one who doesn't want to expend American military lives on the neocon project in general and otherwise draws the circle fairly narrowly.

What I can't figure is, is this a case of Tracey being that self-deluding, or is it more a case of him willingly peddling the Kool-Aid for whatever reasons. And I don't even want to risk warping my mind on why Caity's bromancing her.

Greenwald doesn't seem to be a Kool-Aid drinker as much as a fence-straddler, or at least he seemed that way when she first announced. But, his tweets were ... not altogether sound, is the best way I can explain it. (Note: More and more left-liberals and leftists who take a serious look at both economic and social injustice have over the past year or two taken a more serious look at Glenn, and found him more and more wanting.)

I'm kind of surprised Justin Raimondo wasn't puffing her before he died. She did get guest column space on Antiwar.com, though.

Oh, and earlier this month, new shit hit the fan. That would be Hindutva fellow-traveling Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi suspending the Indian constitution and constitution-based agreements for and with Kashmir, cutting off electronic communication access from Kashmir to the outside as much as possible, and essentially putting it under martial law.

The reality of Kashmir as a "giant prison camp" and how India (led by the BJP, but with Congress and allies in acquiescence) got to this point is explained in detail by Arundhati Roy.

That's the subject of this tweet:

Why don't you ask Chomsky if Tulsi Gabbard is an apologist for Modi in the light of Kashmir? Why don't you talk about that yourself, for that matter, Michael Tracey? https://t.co/uUkXHlut5N

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 23, 2019

===
I had told readers to stand by for further news related to this, by early October. And, we're here.

And that additional news? I'll tell what I can, and you fill in the blanks, on me mentioning my side of an email exchange. (I don't feel it's fair to release another person's emails unless it's about a matter already public.) Any

Anyway? I submitted an edited version of this to Ken Silverstein with the hope (and later, more hope) it would run in Washington Babylon. And, we're two months on, and it hasn't.

That hope was of two parts. One was having Ken run something else of mine, as he has run one or two other pieces.

The other was getting the information about Tracey's background — and bank-shotting off that to Gabbard's background — to a wider audience than my site. That was my primary hope, even as other alleged outside the box journos show themselves to actually be stenos on things like Gabbard and Trump's Ukraine missteps.

I have used a couple of Ken's tweets, or links he's posted on Book of Face, as a Twitter cudgel, but it's not quite the same.

I don't know why, and even if I did, I couldn't tell you on here. But, Twitter is public, and Andrew Stewart, who is Ken's managing editor or something, didn't like this version. He especially doesn't like the "Paul-tard" part. (Stew comes off as about as puzzling as Justin Raimondo, about whose political incomprehensibility I blogged when he died.)

Note 2: I think Matt Taibbi may be moving halfway into Tracey range as an uncritical Gabbard steno. And, I'm thinking I may write specifically about that, and some other alleged outside-the-box journos who peddle at least parts of the Tulsi Kool-Aid.

Note 3: Per someone pointing this out on Twitter, I was so focused on the Ron Paul stories on Am Con that I didn't notice Mikey was enough of either an idiot or an ass kisser to call Booger Ted Cruz "charming" in 2014.

Quick hot takes on Justin Amash

As trending on Twitter, a month after leaving the House Freedom Caucus, Michigan Congresscritter Justin Amash is leaving the GOP.

I didn't understand a month ago why he left the Freedom Fries world, since he helped found the caucus. If you're principled, fight for the principles and force them to vote you out.

I feel somewhat the same about this, as many people are connecting the move to him getting a primary opponent. The Trump butt-kissers are playing up Peter Meijer as an Iraq veteran; he was only there for a year or so, and he later went to A-stan for two years with an NGO. But Republicans generally hate NGOs, so can't talk about it. And, he may be, because of this, less wingnut than many Republicans like. He is connected to "Never Trumper" types like George Schultz

And, in case the name is very familiar, if you're a Michigander, or kind of familiar otherwise in other Great Lakes states? Yep, he's NOT a regular Joe; he's an heir of the Meijer store family, worth nearly $10 billion.

Anyway, back to Amash.

Will he still run for Congress? 50-50 odds right now, I say, if that. He stood no chance winning a GOP primary against Meijer, with his money, his veteran status and his family name recognition. For the unfamiliar, Amash's district is centered on Grand Rapids, which is where the Meijers are from.

If so, as an independent or a Libertarian? 50-50 on each way. I think Amash's powers of incumbency won't help him a lot in a Libertarian or indy general election run, though.

If he doesn't run for Congress? 75-25 against him running for the LP presidential nomination. He's a Ron Paul-tard type fake Libertarian (how Paul ever got the nomination, I don't know) who's anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and anti gay-rights in general in many ways. Indeed, his Wiki bio notes his connection to Ron Paul's brother. I know that LPers, from what I've read on places like Independent Political Report, has a wing that's tired of ex-Republican candidates. I don't know if it has a wing that is tired of candidates who really should run as the Constitution Party's nominee, since the Constitution Party really is the Religious Right party for religious wingnuts who think the GOP doesn't cut the mustard. That said, the Constitution Party is in the middle of a big implosion right now.

Per people like the old Village Voice pro-lifer columnist Nat Hentoff, a halfway logically coherent libertarian pro-life argument can be made on liberty interests, but no such argument can be made, period, for being against the gay.

If he DOES run for prez as a Libertarian, seeking its nomination, per all of the above, I suspect arms will be less open for him than for Paul, Bob Barr, and Gary Johnson.

Speaking of all of the above, I don't know about Peter Meijer individually, but according to Wiki, the Meijer chain scores pretty well on LGBT rights with advocacy groups. More conservative GOPers, whether Trump Train riders or never Trumpers, may have some hard swallowing to do.

Finally? Amash and Trump are almost two peas in a pod on preening and bombastic. Take this announcement. Amash didn't have to announce this on the Fourth. If it's related to Meijer's announcement, he could have made his statement either earlier, on the 3rd, or else related.

But, no, I've no doubt he deliberately chose the Fourth cuz Merika and "freedom."

That said, he's more interesting than you think, per this New Republic longform.

If he moved his 20-week divider on abortion to 24 weeks, and allowed for a few exceptions after that, that's where I'm at. But, given that Amash considers himself "100 percent pro life," I'm sure that's not where he's at. Rather, it may be an attempt to say this is the best that government regulation can do, within a libertarian stance, on this issue. And, I'm not sure why the author didn't just call Amash 100 percent pro-life, just like one-time-Libertarian Republican Ron Paul and Fauxbertarian son Rand. It's almost as if ... per Carl Beier ... Steigerwald is a left-coopting libertarian.

Also contra Steigerwald, as Ron Paul illustrates, racism in the Libertarian Party ain't anything new. And, son Rand is illustrating it right now vis-a-vis Ilhan Omar. It's also interesting that Steigerwald talks about L/libertarian purity tests when she's written for Antiwar, founded by a purity tester; Reason, not a purity test place; American Conservative, not totally libertarian and definitely having problems with racists; and The Federalist, not libertarian at all, at bottom line.

She also writes for "Center for a Stateless Society," which bills itself as left-market anarchist. I've long rejected anarchism, and accept the label of "libertarian socialist" only when "libertarian" is used with its European-style meaning.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this piece, while interesting, is also a PR pitch, even if Amash right now is running for Congress only.

A real #libertarian enters the Prez race in Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson in his 2012 presidential run. AP file photto.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has announced he will repeat his 2012 Libertarian Party run for president.

Unlike Rand Paul or daddy Ron, who are more Christian rightists than anything else, covered with a selective dollop of anti-Federal Reserve goldbug thoughts, Gary Johnson's the real deal.

The first newspaper where I was an editor, a weekly, was in New Mexico, when he was governor. He is a straight shooter, too.

He vetoed a bill the NM Lege passed that, in its original form, had been pushed for by his wife. The original core of the bill hadn't changed that much, but, it had been "Christmas treed" enough, among other things, that he couldn't support it.

He's less of a warhawk than Bernie Sanders, let alone Hillary Clinton, on the Democratic side, too.

He's even more honest and realistic than either of them, or the Paul family, about the War on Drugs, too.

That said, I get that Faux News is necessary for some publicity, but it hates real libertarians.

And, he's real enough to pal around with the libertards at places like Reason.

Per his Wiki page, he loves school vouchers, wants to make Medicare a block grant for states, and while not as much a goldbug as the Pauls, wants to abolish the Fed. At the same time, he, as a true libertarian, is pro-choice and pro-gay rights, including gay marriage, and has been for years. And, as Joe Monahan notes, he has a reputation of never running a negative political ad.

And, that leads to my poll at right.

My personal thought is that I would at least consider voting for Johnson over Clinton if I had no Green Party option, yes. It's not likely, because even the Pauls haven't talked about making Medicare, in addition to Medicaid, and possibly even Social Security, a state-run block grant program. If he were just half as nutbar fiscally as he's actually shown, I'd consider it more.

Update, per comments:

That said, per Brains' first comment, I'd missed Johnson on the burqa. I agree that's anti-free speech, which is weird in general for a libertarian, especially given the religious connections. (Given what I know about Johnson, and how he has laughed at the idea of "anchor babies," I don't think it's racist, though.) Have to disagree with the second portion of that blog. I said so on there, and that the author was taking Johnson's email comment out of context. He disagrees, but I stand by that.

I think his view of free speech, per his blog, means that he sincerely thinks calling something "offensive" is anti-free speech. That's of course utter nonsense, as I also said on the link Brains provided. Mr. Saturn ignored that, leaving me to think he truly drinks that portion of the Libertarian Kool-Aid.

It's no skin off my back within Libertarian Party circles. I'm not one and never will be, and also love to see Libertarians, as well as tea partiers, devour their own in ways that belie how Democrats, let alone real liberals, allegedly do.

But, when a person like that  tries to impose his definition of free speech outside that circle? Nope. I call Wittgensteinian bullshit on a made-up language game.

Anyway, the header was comparing Johnson to the Pauls. There may be candidates even more Libertarian than him. We may even, once again (please? please?) get a Libertarian presidential candidate who doesn't even have a driver's license.

Rand Paul thinks putting a squirrel on your head makes you presidential

Rand Paul and his pet hairpiece, Squirrel!
Apologies to Cal Worthington and his pet Spot.

Kentucky's very junior US Senator also thinks if the Republican Party would just embrace libertarianism, it might help the party, and help him get elected president.

They're about equally credible, right? So, the Snooze just got the wrong headline, and I'm helping out.

Of course, Paul's "libertarianism" doesn't extend to reproductive choice. It doesn't extend to religious freedom, including freedom from religion for we secularists, given that he's accused President Obama of a "war on  Christianity." (In reality, since Obama has actually expanded Shrub's office of faith-based initiatives, if it's a war, he's already surrendered.) Nor does it extend to people of color, of course, since those nasty civil rights bills conflict with Paul's ideas of pure, Randian libertarianism.

Try getting a better squirrel, Rand. Maybe that will work. Just don't go to New Hampshire during squirrel-hunting season.

I've said it before and I'll say it again — there's only been one true libertarian elected from the GOP in the last 20 years. It's not Rand Paul. It's not Ron Paul. It's former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who neither wears a squirrel on his head nor publishes racialist newsletters.

Seriously, dude. Doesn't your $174K per year, plus any self-licensing optometry work you still do, buy a better squirrel? Maybe not. Look at Donald Trump.

"Alex, I'll take 'Republican presidential candidates with bad hair' for $1,000, please!"

Are we seeing the end of a Fourth Great Awakening?

Per discussion with friends on Facebook, over the book "The Rocks Don't Lie," I'd say the answer is yes. (Partial review of the book below, followed by a jump into discussion.)



The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood by David R. Montgomery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A genial refutation of young-earth creationism

Montgomery generally keeps this story about how the earth's geology refutes any version of a literal Noahic flood light on detailed scientific language. And, it is written as a story.

He takes the reader to various geological formations in the world thatr have been key to the development of geology as a science, while narrating how key figures from geology's history have studied and analyzed such formations. At the same time, he narrates the history of Christian theological thought on literal vs non-literal biblical interpretation in general, and specifically on the Noahic flood. He intertwines the two in discussing how different strands of Christian thought reacted to these scientific findings.

Basically, by the end of the 19th century, a literal or semi-literal young-earth creationism (if not 10,000 years or less, certainly no more than 100,000 years) had fallen out of favor with the great majority of theologians in most of the Western world.

With the exception of the United States.

Montgomery puts YEC developments in the historic context of:
1. Anti-evolutionism and the Scopes trial of the 1920s and
2. Anti-communism and the Cold War, etc., of the late 1940s and beyond.

As talk of "culture wars" continues, and as Montgomery stretches YEC roots back to the Second Great Awakening, this is good to remember.

And now, to tie this to a "Fourth Great Awakening."

First, unlike the First Great Awakening. the Second Great Awakening, or the Third Great Awakening, this "Fourth Great Awakening" has a much more political component.

To explain, for people not very familiar with the history of Christianity in America:

The First Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, and others, attempting to revitalize the Puritan Calivinist beliefs of New England and the Middle Atlantic colonies in the first half of the 1700s. It was also was intertwined with the growth of Methodism and Baptist denominations. The Second started to battle deism and skepticism, and at its tail end, was connected to the start of sects such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism. The Third was connected with the late 19th century Social Gospel and reform movements such as the temperance issue.

The First one may have had some connection to the American Revolution; Wiki's entry claims that, but I think it overstates the case. The Second spawned the short-lived Anti-Masonic Party, but was not directly connected to abolitionism. The Third  (I partially accept there was one, but definite more narrowly in time than Wiki) had a bit of a political angle, more in the "Social Gospel" of mainline Protestantism, though, than in the rising Holiness Movement. was a bit more political, but not extremely so.

I also accept the idea of a Fourth Great Awakening, but while I disagree with Wiki that its timeframe for the Third is too long, I think it's too short for the Fourth.

The Fourth relates to the rise of literalism in biblical interpretation and much more. It's definitely the most anti-intellectual of the Great Awakenings.

Evidence for one starting includes that the National Council of Churches "peaked" in the late 50s/early 60s, mainline Protestantism had clergy/laity separating more at that time, and fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism grew rapidly.

That said, previous "Great Awakenings" shot their Roman candle in 35-45 years, really. (Which is part of why I think Wiki is too long on the Third and too short on the Fourth.)  So ... W's two elections aside, is the Third Awakening pretty much dying? And, does that in part explain some of the vitriol? Angry death spasms?

We're at about the right time frame. Each previous Great Awakening died differently.

The First petered out, as much as anything. The fervor of the Second got a nurture in sects such as Mormonism, Adventism, etc., that got new life in the Third, which also faced American industrialization.

The Fourth had a start, if you will, and was almost stillborn, in the Scopes trial. Not all conservative Christians were young-earth creationists, and so, while they may not have been fully reconciled to Darwinian ideas about evolution, many probably could have halfway accepted a "tamer" version of evolution if combined with old-earth creationism.

But, the Second Red Scare ( the first being after World War I) changed everything. But not by itself. The Civil Rights Movement added a "second stage" to this rocket. (Although black megachurches have grown recently, the Fourth Great Awakening is much more a white Christian phenomenon.)

Because the Fourth Great Awakening tied with this, not just the Second Red Square, it naturally became more political. Non-Catholic parochial schools, battles over school prayer, tax exemptions and more, as well as political appeals, both open and coded, by both Democrats and Republicans, became part of this.

But, now, has it shot its bolt?

It may have. One sign? Per a new Wall Street Journal poll, almost 70 percent of Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade. Gay relationships, if not gay marriage, are also getting more support among centrist Americans.

That said, as I noted, the First Great Awakening pretty much faded out. The Second created the "burned over district," but eventually died down smoothly enough. The Third definitely faded out, after the passage of Prohibition and the fading of political Progressivism.

I don't think the Fourth will end the same way. To riff on T.S. Eliot, if it doesn't end with a bang instead of a whimper, its demise will be more emotionally violent. And, because it's more political, that emotionally violent denouement, which I believe we're seeing now, will have political fallout which none of us can probably fully see at this time.

That depends in part on how much the Democratic party tries to stay progressive on social issues while remaining conservative on financial ones, and even more if some conservative Christian laity become disgusted with a Republican party that panders even more to the rich.

Could we see the Constitution party, which is the closest thing the US has to a Religious Right party, move more fully that way?

It wouldn't surprise me. If a Ron Paul type were to temper his financial libertarianism with a heavier dollop of William Jennings Bryan type populism, that person could indeed lead such a "movement."

If we had parliamentary government, this would be a no-brainer. That said, countries like France, which has a modified presidential-parliamentary hybrid, but more power with the president than the leader of parliament, have multiparty government. The problem here in the US is, of course, the Electoral College system. One could have a spectrum of parties in Congress without it, and lesser parties focusing on Congressional elections.

Dear #RonPaul and #Paultard #goldbugs — what is #fiatmoney?

Ron Paul, looking about as clueless as his

self-deluded followers./Photo via Wikipedia.

The answer, the real answer and not your made-up answer, as to what currently constitutes fiat money in the United States, is what I’m going to give you right now as part of calling you out on both your hypocrisy but also your shallow thinking.

In today’s United States, fiat money is not just the Federal Reserve Notes you profess to hate. It’s also bank checks, credit cards and debit cards. And that’s not just because they’re dependent on fiat money or a fractional banking system.

Even if they were based on the gold standard, or gold and silver, because those three — bank checks, credit cards and debit cards — are not immediately payable in specie, they’re also fiat money.

Period. End of story.

Therefore, Rep. Paul and Paultard groupies, you should, if you’re logical not only want to destroy the Federal Reserve System, you should also want to destroy the entire banking system of the United States, the entirety of Internet commerce, and a significant fraction of “meatspace” commerce. I know you don’t, because, Rep. Paul, you’ve gotten online “money bombs” for years.

That said, let’s go to point No. 2, where you’re guilty more of shallow thinking rather than hypocrisy.

And, that is in the issue of non-fiat money.

Gold has very little intrinsic value. It’s only given a largely speculative value on things like commodities exchanges because of human greed. Its fellow precious metal, silver, has much more intrinsic value.

That said, other substances, some of them compounds, some of them elements, have far, far more intrinsic value than gold

So, Rep. Paul and Paultards, if you really want to end fiat money, instead of being goldbugs based on non-rational greed, here’s what you should propose as currency/monetary standards instead:

1. Petroleum. The American economy of the last 120 years would be dead and unrecognizable without it. Beyond the automobile and the airplane, don’t forget plastics, fertilizers and much more. Of course, if you think “fiat money” has wrecked the United States, that would be nothing compared to a monetary system under the control of OPEC.

2. Uranium. Without it, and even more the transmutation of U-238 into Pt-239, we couldn’t have been warmongers par excellence for the last 55-60 years. The US has a fair amount of uranium. Of course, unless you want a radioactive Fort Knox, where do you store it?

3. Lead. See “uranium” and extend further back in time US warmongering and imperialism.

4. Silicon. Without it, there’s no computer revolution, no Internet revolution, etc.

5. Lithium. Without it, we’re not going to have a green revolution in terms of rechargeable batteries, etc.

I could cite several more examples, but, if you want a monetary standard for non-fiat money to be relevant to the economy, these and other substances are far more relevant than gold.

Oh, and try reading some history, too. China was using paper money 1,000 years ago, when Europe was in the Dark Ages.

Or combine history with philosophy. You might, just might, realize that money itself is a “fiat” replacement for barter.

More #GlennGreenwald is not a liberal, I think

He has a decent article on the first presidential debate. He says that while many people decry the alleged lack of bipartisanship in America, that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama agree on many things.
Fair enough, and true enough.

However, all the top items of those "many things" that he goes on to list is a foreign policy or civil liberties issue. He does mention Wall Street issues of bankster coziness, health care reform and free trade as non-civil liberties issues where they are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, without mentioning his own stsances.

Their similar policies on neoliberal-to-conservative lack of financial institution policing and regulation (which the libertarian Greenwald might like), their similar policies on energy and environmental issues, their similar stances on cozying up to Wall Street for campaign money do get attention lower down, but, that doesn't convince me.

Glenn has written favorably about the Occupy movement in the past, but, the focus has generally been more on the banksters breaking the rule of law than on income inequality. As for free trade issues, I Googled that phrase plus his name, and didn't get any hits to actual columns he wrote.

I still say Greenwald is as much if not more libertarian than true liberal, and a bit peculiar of one at that. He touted Ron Paul as a good presidential candidate long after it was clear he not only had no traction in the GOP but would not seek the Libertarian Party nod. He didn't tout then-presumative Green nominee Jill Stein at the same time.

And, on the "peculiar libertarian" side, Glenn also at the same time didn't tout Gary Johnson, who already way back then had hinted he WOULD seek the Libertarian nod. And, under that rubric, I don't recall that Greenwald's been that denunciatory of Paul's racist past (and probable racist present). Nor has he ever, to the best of my knowledge, "called out" Paul for being a goldbug fiat-money-fearing nutbar.

#RonPaul Fed audit bill doesn't go far enough

Oh, Ron Paul's bill — now overwhelmingly approved in the House — calling for a regular, extensive audit of the Federal Reserve is nice enough, I suppose. (And this is likely the last time I agree with  Paul on anything.)

But, as the Geithner/Barclays/Libor fiasco at the New York Federal Reserve shows, auditing only "The" Fed, and not the regional Feds, or at least the NY Fed with its special oversight of Wall Street, isn't good enough.

How many people realize that the 12 regional Feds are almost totally private entities, yet have major powers themselves? From Wikipedia's entry on the Federal Reserve System:

The Federal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market CommitteeFederal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils. ...  The Federal Reserve System has both private and public components, and was designed to serve the interests of both the general public and private bankers. The result is a structure that is considered unique among central banks.

And, there's the problem.

Now, unlike Paul,  and many of his goldbug wingnut followers, I don't want to abolish the Fed, not in the sense of getting rid of a central bank entirely. That's even more retrograde than the gold standard.

I do, though, want to reform the current Fed.

We don't need to have 2/3 of the board of each regional Fed nominated by private banks, with half of those,  or 1/3 total directly controlled by them and the other half (1/3 total) allegedly representing "the public." Really, this means banks control 2/3 of the nine board members.

Instead, give one of those three votes to credit unions, one to savings and loans, and maybe one to pension funds. That's just for starters.

There's much more that's needed. I'm not sure that we don't even need to have a fully nationalized central bank like the European Central Bank. Because, here's the ultimate problem with the regional Feds:

The Federal Reserve Banks have an intermediate legal status, with some features of private corporations and some features of public federal agencies. The United States has an interest in the Federal Reserve Banks as tax-exempt federally-created instrumentalities whose profits belong to the federal government, but this interest is not proprietary. In Lewis v. United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that: "The Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA [the Federal Tort Claims Act], but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations."

Further details partially qualify that, but, there you go ... for all intents and purposes, the regional Feds are primarily private entities.

I do know that we ought to have the Fed chairman term-limited. Yes, Bill Clinton was gullible enough, and neoliberal enough, to keep appointing Alan Greenspan. But, assuming it was neoliberalism as the primary culprit, term limits would have nipped that in the bud.

Now, if we can't "reform" the Fed, then I say —replace it! But don't abolish it and replace it with nothing.

A #RonPaul-tard hits the op-eds of the NYT

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine, and has an obvious bromance with Ron Paul, as this New York Times guest piece shows. If not that, this "sue the GOP?" piece at Reason clearly shows taht.


Dear Mr. Doherty:


I am not a libertarian, BUT, I can set you straighter than you are now.


1. Gary Johnson is more of a libertarian than Ron Paul ever has been.


2. In case you missed it, Paul, like Ayn Rand, is hypocritical enough to now get Social Security. (And, in the past, and I believe today, Social Security had conscientious "opt-out" grounds, so don't give me the "he paid into it" bull.)


3. A certain percentage of libertarians are OK with national health care, even a single-payer system, viewing it as "legitimate" within libertarian mores. Why don't you ever discuss that?


4. Speaking of lawsuits, isn't it hypocritical for libertarian types to lead the big-biz push against lawsuit abuse under the guise of "tort reform" even as you appear to support the Paul suit, and lawsuits would be the only way of keeping biz in check in your libertarian dream world?

#GaryJohnson ... the real Libertarian, #RonPaul and 2012

The *real* Libertarian, the former New Mexico governor not Ron Paul, has gotten the Libertarian Party presidential nod.

First, per a link inside this Daily Beast overview of what he could do in the race, I love how the WSJ disses his "outside the mainstream" views on gay marriage and legal marijuana, when they're both majoritarian (were I not voting Green, he'd likely be ahead of Dear Leader as my second choice).

Second, it's true that he walks the libertarian walk in a way Ron Paul doesn't. Above all, having been an executive, he had no problem pulling the veto trigger. Paul, of course, has brought bacon a-plenty home to his Congressional district, then offered the same excuse as Ayn Rand did with Social Security.

How "pure" is he? He vetoed a bill passed by the N.M. legislature that, in its initial form, had been pushed by his own wife. Still vetoed it; said it had been changed too much.

Third, he is a social libertarian to a degree far beyond Paul. He doesn't "favor" gay marriage because he doesn't favor the state regulating marriage at all.

That said, he's no Jill Stein.  He still stand well behind her in my affections. He's got "issues" as well as issues.

He was strongly pro-voucher for public schools, built multiple private prisons (including one in Hobbs when I lived there), is big on privatization in general, and, while not anti-environmental, isn't strong on it; Wiki lists his full political positions (which, unlike most politicians, don't change).

#RonPaul, libertarian nepotist

Do Members of Congress benefit from their service? You bet, when they pay themselves various fees, or put plenty of family on the payroll, like Ron Paul does.

Melanie Sloan of CREW, though, overdoes it with concern-trolling:

“If donors really understood where their money is going, I think they would be aghast.” 

If you mean ma-and-pa donors, well, yes, I'll agree there. But, if you mean big donors, nahhh ... they expect it.

And, at least with the cult-like followers of Paul, even ma-and-pa donors will rationalize this stuff.

Sidebar: Whether Republican or Democrat, note how many of the Congressmen in the story are from Texas.

#SteveJobs is still dead, but #Apple ...

Brainwashing Apple marketing is alive and well! Giving people an old iPad 2, telling them it's the new one, and they believe you was a great prank. I could probably put a rattlesnake's rattle inside an iPhone, claim it was some new Siri feature, and at least a few would believe me.

 I can't wait for the resurrection of Apple TV. Apple will "lock" how you can change your remote control settings and tell you it's for your own good.

And, on threads on blog stories like this, some Appleholics start reminding me of Paulistsas, Ron Paul-istas, that is. Some Apple users simply refuse to admit the company is punking them, not the Gizmodo or other tech blogger folks.

Maine GOP primary takeaways

Here's the top items from the Maine GOP caucuses to note.

1. Give up the fantasy, Paul-tards. If the libertarian grandpa can't win a 1-on-1 caucus state that he targeted, the dreams of a 1-on-1 win in the upcoming Virginia primary are a pipe dream.

2. Romney's relatively poor showing underlines continued lack of GOP enthusiasm.

3. Turnout will likely continue to be a GOP problem.

Color me skeptical on Romney win in Nevada

Everybody is talking about how big the win was for Romney, but getting only 42 percent of the vote in a state that trails only Utah and Idaho in percentage of Mormon population, especially given his years in neighboring Utah, and this was NOT a "big" victory. That said, a few other things show up:

1. The non-Mormon part of the Nevada GOP is pretty libertarian; the fact that Paul couldn't crack 20 percent shows (yes, Paul-tards) that he has a ceiling that's not all that high.

2. The fact that Gingrich got more than 25 percent in a four-person race with a dysfunctional state organization shows that Romney and the GOP establishment count him out at their peril.

Ron Paul tries to fudge on abortion

It sounds like the good doctor is perfectly OK with a "morning after injection" of estrogen for rape victims, while at the same time, with his "honest rape" comment, claiming many such women wanting to take him up on his pro-choice offer might lie about the reason why.

Hey, Paul-tards, your straight shooter is a panderer. Deal with it.

Paul vs. Romney - mano a mano

Barring a last-minute court ruling, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul could be the only two GOP candidates in teh Virginia primary. That said, the idea that movement conservatives will unite around Paul to defeat Romnney sounds laughable. But, it could be funny to se the two battle it out.

Actually, the "tell" would be how low the GOP turnout is this year.

Bachmann-Perry Overblown

OK, it actually is a surprise that Michele Bachmann dropped out of the GOP race. I didn't think she had that much brains, or humility. Weirder yet is the Palinistas telling her to drop out, so as to unite social conservatives.

More on how others, from James Dobson on, are looking for the anti-Romney, here.

Semi-surprised she'd endorse Ron Paul instead of Rick Santorum. See, while Paul is a small-government type, AND, he's pro-life, and he's not as pro-legalization on drugs as Paul-tards make him out to be, his social conservativism ends entirely at water's edge. To riff on Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul is NOT in "the Amen corner" of American Protestant millennialists writing blank checks to Israel.

Santorum and Rick Perry both are. After New Hampshire, the GOP heads south, so Perry still has a limping chance. Both have better chances than Paul, long-term. That said, it would be fun to see him bolt the party again, and this time square off against Gary Johnson for the Libertarian nod. Both are libertarian nutbars, but with nuanced differences, including that Johnson's not so anti-Fed nor such a goldbug, nor a fellator of Austrian school economics in general.

Back to the GOP, though. Will Paul struggle in New Hampshire? Will he then fall flat in South Carolina? And, can Santorum "do Southern"? Can Newt win in S.C. himself? Or will he rather, as Mother Jones hinted, try to blow up the GOP as a last act of petulance? Stay tuned.

That includes you, Doug Christie, Mitch Daniels, et al.

But Kevin Drum probably has it right By Super Tuesday, it could well be just Romney and Santorum, with the Mittster coming near to locking up the nomination on that primary date or even going over the top.

Greenwald gets clear-eyed yet myopic on #RonPaul

Yes, Glenn, Ron Paul has pointed out civil liberties issues and other problems that cut across Democratic/Republican lines. But, in your column condemning horse-race narratives and other mainstream media coverage of politics, by calling Ron Paul the only "major presidential candidate in either party" on these issues, or whatever, or quoting Conor Friesdorf about Paul being the only "major" candidate aren't you playing into the MSM and GOP-intraparty efforts to "anoint" people yourself? I'd say yes on the MSM side by talking about "either party" without immediately noting that third parties are different indeed on this issue; I'd say both MSM and GOP on who's "major" within GOP candidates and by whose definition. That's especially true in light of two things.

1. You only mentioned Gary Johnson as an afterthought, in noting he's becoming a libertarian. You fail to describe his campaign in any depth beyond offering a link to a previous post, not noting he's more sensible in some ways than Paul, but even more radical in line of GOP orthodoxy than Paul is.

2. You don't mention the Green Party, either as a party or Dr. Jill Stein or any other announced presidential candidates, and civil liberties issues, at all.

You know better, Glenn. From starting by referencing just two parties, to only posting video clips of Paul, and not Johnson, Stein or others, this gave the impression that, "Gee, if Paul weren't such a racist, I'd support him over other candidates fighting for civil liberties." At the least, it gives the impression that you'd support an economic libertarian over a Green- or socialist-type candidate if the civil liberties issues are equal.

Sorry, Glenn, but this is a big fail. Especially given your sexual orientation status and Paul's iffiness there, you of all people should recognize how selective his civil liberties ideas really are. More here on Paul's anti-gay stance from those infamous newsletters of his past.

(Of course, your pinning of hopes on billionaire independent candidates, rather than third parties, to try to reform the current two-party duopoly, says some things, too. The link is from an Out magazine profile of Greenwald.)

Unfortunately, Ross Douthat falls into the same trap, thinking that Paul is the only candidate crying out about some of these issues. And so does Robert Wright, who may think this isn't a "nonzero" of Paul vs. others

On Greenwald, this is why I really like him 70-80 percent of the time, like him 10-15 percent of the time, but somewhere around 15 percent of the time, sometimes more (such as his refusal to tout any civil liberties organizations besides ACLU, which is problematic given ACLU's current rulership) he's just a "cropper."

This is probably why, since My Yahoo doesn't support Salon's feed of Greenwald, I kind of miss seeing what he was writing on a regular basis, but not hugely.

Visit this blog post, also in comments below, about the Out profile I linked above. The author says, overall rightfully, that Greenwald doth protest too much, and shows how Glenn is ultimately a full-blown libertarian still. True progressives should realize he'll never give the time of day to Greens or Socialists. And, the fact that he still has half a political man-crush on Paul shouldn't be surprising.

I'll probably remove him from my blog roll soon. There's other reasons, including one big one.

Basically, for Glenn, civil liberties defense begins and ends with the ACLU. He refuses to tout other organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights. And, he's never written about the Romero/Strosser "coup" in the ACLU a few years back, well documented by Wendy Kaminer and blogged about by me. It's enough to make me wonder if he doesn't get consulting fees or something from the ACLU when he flies back from Brazil.

And, no, I don't expect him to talk about left-of-center third parties, like Greens or Socialists, in the near future.