News for July 2

He’s Good Enough, Smart Enough and Doggone It, People Like Him

Points to those who remember which Al Franken character from whom I’ve paraphrased the title of today’s News & Analysis. Rather, I should say the character created by Sen.-elect Al Franken. Yes, the comedian, former Saturday Night Live star and writer and radio commentator can add politician to his resume. On Tuesday the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered that Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s Senate race. Liberal political writers greeted Franken’s victory with speculation about how Franken will make the shift from pundit to politico, and what his addition means for the power of Senate Democrats. Links include:

FiveThirtyEight |  “I realize that in the era of reality TV, where non-professionals can become television celebrities, maybe celebrities who are political amateurs are just as entitled as anyone to serve in elected office. But I’d much rather have a person who worked her way up through the state legislature and the House run and win a Senate seat, than Al Franken. Oh, and the use of the feminine pronoun in that last sentence was not random: You’ll note that when we talk about celebrity politicians we are almost invariably talking about men.”

The Daily Beast |  “Is there any precedent for a person as cool as Franken becoming a U.S. senator? OK, he looks like a nerd, and he worked like hell not only to educate himself on the issues but to take the entire crazy process of running for office as seriously as is humanly possible. But face it, he was a genuinely funny comedian, and this has never happened before.”

Tapped |  “While there will be plenty of hand-ringing over how Republicans have hurt the state by drawing out a race Minnesotans wanted to be over long ago, nothing has been irreparably damaged by this extended vacancy. It isn’t like Gov. Sanford disappearing for a few days. Executives really do run things. Senators don’t. While it’s unfortunate that senior Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office has had to pick up the slack, the Democrats in the Senate haven’t lost any roll call result through the absence of a Franken vote.”

Political Animal |  “To be sure, Democrats on the Hill are no doubt thrilled to add another member to their caucus. And a 60-vote majority is the largest caucus either party has had in 35 years. Not bad for a party that had 45 senators just a couple of Congresses ago. That said, while this is an impressive milestone for the Democratic Party, it’s hardly a breakthrough that will produce problem-free governing.”

MoJo Blogs |  “The corruption of the filibuster into a routine requirement for 60 votes in the Senate (an arguably unconstitutional evolution, IMHO) combined with the continuing presence of half a dozen non-liberals in the Democratic caucus combined with an almost iron self-discipline within the Republican caucus — well, all that combined means that liberals now have the illusion of control of Congress but not the reality.  In a way, it’s almost the worst of all possible worlds.  Dem vs. Dem is now practically the only narrative that anyone will pay attention to, and since unanimous agreement is the only way for that narrative to play out well, this means it’s almost always going to play out badly.”

• Related link: Inhofe: No Disrespect, But Franken’s a ‘Clown’  |  ThinkProgress

Stand by Me — in Persian and English  |  Alas, a Blog

Every young person I see I wonder, What were you doing three weeks ago? Who were you then? I look for signs of subversion. A girl wears a green headscarf. A kid shifts gears in his Kia Pride with an arm encased in a green cast. What does it mean? Together, in a crowd, the color green added up to something. Alone, spread apart and without context, they are just moments of coincidence.

…

Khoobe, khoobe, bezar begand. Harchi bishtar, baytar. Good, good, let them say it. The more the better. Hamintor khatra siatar mikonand. They’ll only darken the line separating the people from the government. We sit and plot, kitchen revolutionaries at work. It is late and the drink is loosening our tongues. What we need is leadership. What about Mousavi? Poor Mousavi, all alone…If only Khomeini were still around, he would have put all of these guys in their places!, this last bit said by someone who has never accepted the Revolution. At 10 the neighbors start up, Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar! We keep drinking, pressing our hands flat against the table and wondering if maybe they’re letting us thrash around for a few weeks even as the screws tighten…

Still…I’ve written elsewhere that none of this was supposed to happen. It remains true. It is the people, the mellat, that has taken on the most creative and unexpected role in this drama. Their scenario remains the least predictable, and therefore most hopeful, of all of the actors, foreign or Iranian. Iran’s conspirators clearly did not expect the population to show up in such defiant numbers after June 12 and the truth be told, neither did many of us…

Ampersand at Alas, a Blog also recommends a piece by George Friedman at Stratfor Global Intelligence analyzing the elections and ensuing violence. Friedman writes:

The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.

The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad’s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.

The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges — and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting. The Iranian president’s populism suits the interests of clerics who oppose Rafsanjani; Ahmadinejad is their battering ram. But as Ahmadinejad increases his power, he could turn on his patrons very quickly. In short, the political situation in Iran is extremely volatile, just not for the reason that the media portrayed.

Honduras: The Original Banana Republic  |  GOOD Magazine

GOOD provides a link on the history of Honduras from the Sustainable Foods blog. The U.S. appetite for the Latin American country’s bananas, the article says, created the mechanism that controlled its government during the early years of the 20th century:

Via RandomNonviolence, it’s worth noting that graduates of the School of the Americas are responsible for the weekend coup in Honduras.

While you may want to go to Chavez Code (via Xcroc) for breaking news, I think it’s worth remembering that in Honduras’ bloody, recent history, a direct line can be drawn from banana monoculture, extreme economic inequality and overweening corporate power to torture and political repression. And perhaps more to the point, these tragedies spring from an unstated belief in the right of businesses to profit at the expense of all else, to privatize productivity gains and impose costs and losses on the public.

Also, for those who want to know more about Honduras, check out MoJo Blogs for a quick postcard history and present snapshot of Honduras’ relationship with the U.S., and New American Media for two perspectives — from Tegulcigalpa and Tennessee — on the coup.

Liberté, Égalité, Paternalisme  |  Julian Sanchez

If the premise is that women who wear the burqa are being robbed of their agency and dignity—and that even those who protest that they wish to wear it are victims false consciousness—how is the ban supposed to be enforced? By fining or detaining or otherwise harassing the very women who, on this theory, are the most oppressed? By barring them access to public places, government buildings, maybe even courts and police stations? I suppose you could direct the penalties toward their male relations, but that hardly seems like a good way to reinforce the concept of the equal agency of women.

• Related link: Sarkozy: ‘Eliminate the Burqa’  |  The Czech

Ayn Rand: Don’t Call It a Comeback  |  Salon: How the World Works

To those of us who proudly consider ourselves non-Objectivist heathens, the events of the last two years would seem to be a mighty refutation of some of the core elements of Ayn Randian philosophy — at least as applied to economics. We let the John Galts of Wall Street — the Jimmy Caynes and Sanford Weills and John Thains and Angelo Mozilos — do as they pleased, and they broke the economy. Government listened to those who declared that the pursuit of pure profit should be the ultimate arbiter of the organization of financial markets, and we ended up finding ourselves in the deepest economic contraction of our lifetimes. For anyone with the eyes to see, we were given compelling evidence that greed is not good, and that the single-minded pursuit of making money can be incredibly destructive to the fabric of society.

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Even Alan Greenspan, a self-avowed disciple of Ayn Rand and true believer in the wisdom of markets, was willing to fess up and tell Congress he “made a mistake.” By any objective consideration, right now, today, the reputation of the businessman standing alone and tall as the hero of a productive society is at its lowest point in at least 40 years.

Which is why my eyes just about popped out of my head when I received an e-mail from FSB Associates a few hours ago, telling me that “now is finally the time to read [Atlas Shrugged].”