Newsweek on Olivier Besancenot and France's New Anti-Capitlalist Party

Surprising to see this in Newsweek. I suppose its a sign of changing times that this sort of thing gets coverage in our domestic media.

"Anywhere but France, the cartoonish spokesman of the Communist Revolutionary League, a Trotskyite political party, would be relegated to the fringe. But in France, Besancenot, a postman in his day job, is a star. And as storm clouds gather, he has become the country's most influential opposition figure. Besancenot has achieved a 60 percent popularity rating, with 45 percent of those polled saying they want to see him have more influence in the future, ahead of mainstream leaders like the centrist François Bayrou (44 percent) and new Socialist leader Martine Aubry (42 percent). Among Socialist sympathizers, 62 percent want him to have more influence in French politics, ahead of many other figures, including the Socialists' own heavyweights. Perhaps even more extraordinarily, in a December poll—for the fourth month in a row—he was deemed the "best opponent" to face center-right French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which is no less than a humiliation for the Socialist Party."

Read the full article here.

Of course, there is some typical aloof American ignorance running through the piece: all of the developments in French politics are mentioned as though the reader would otherwise have no interest or knowledge of what's happened there for the past 50 years, there is the typical American "the French are so far Left of everyone else!" blathering (which, incidentally is not really very accurate: Gaullists had a strangle-hold over almost all of postwar French parliamentary politics and the French electoral Left, at least, has been in consistent decline and disarray since the collapse of main Left party, the PCF, in the 80s... and the persistent inability of the centrist Parti Socialiste to win elections (aside from Mitterrand's brief stint as premier) doesn't support the American stereotype either). Also... "cartoonish"? Besancenot is the most attractive man in French politics!

The article makes plenty of attempts to 'distance' itself and 'leave outs', presumably, in order to forestall right-wing accusations that Newsweek is 'soft on communists' (although Newsweek did recently run a sensationalist headline claiming 'we're all socialists now'). As a consequence of the tone of much of the piece, the reader gets the feeling that Besanceno is being quasi-caricatured in a way that seems to suggest that his relative 'fame' must be yet another reason to think less of the French (e.g. "anywhere BUT France, Besancenot would be relegated to the fringe"... which is spectacularly provincial and manifestly false).

Nonetheless, the coverage is not entirely unflattering for Besancenot or for the French far-Left writ large. The thought that Newsweek would consider giving that sort of air-time to an anti-capitalist political figure would be unfathomable in a purely American context. For all of the vitriol that the US media-industry spews at Hugo Chavez for being so high-profile and flamboyant a leader... these same media outlets virtually require, as a condition for airtime, that a political movement have a confident, 'fresh' TV-friendly leader/spokesperson around whom they can frame the entire movement. I suppose that's what it takes to get pages of Newsweek talking about far-Left politics in France.

Many leftists in the States have been closely watching the newly-founded "Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste" with excitement, and in this respect I am no exception. It will be interesting to see what comes of this development. Similar things are happening in Germany with the rise of Die Linke, and the last I checked, the SPD was only edging out Die Linke by 5-10% of the vote. Political realignments are clearly accompanying some of the structural changes occurring in the way the global economy is functioning.

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"Bloggers and Unions Join Forces to Push Dems Left"

From the NYTimes:

Organizers of the new group, called Accountability Now, said their intention was to enable Mr. Obama to seek more liberal policies without fear of losing support from the more conservative members of his party serving in Congress. But they did not rule out occasional friction with Mr. Obama, as well.

“We’re going to be about targeting incumbents to make space for Obama to be more progressive,” said Glenn Greenwald, a blogger on the online magazine Salon who is part of the effort.

Unsurprisingly, this new PAC "Accountability Now" has grown out of the efforts of Moveon.org, DailyKos and SEIU. The logic of their intervention seems to be this: if money and energy is invested in 'progressive' challenges to centrist Democratic-incumbents in primary elections, then more 'progressive' Democrats will hold office. As this goal nears completion, Obama will have "more space" to operate in so that he can assertively follow the 'progressive' policies he would, in the absence of intra-party centrist opposition, be pursuing right now. In other words:

"By empowering the grassroots, Accountability Now will help create the political space needed to enable President Obama to make good on the many progressive policies he campaigned on - such as getting out of Iraq, ensuring access to affordable health care for every man, woman and child, restoring our constitutional liberties and ending torture.”

First of all, the contention that Obama campaigned on "getting out of Iraq" and "universal health care" is false. His Iraq redeployment plan (which keeps at least 50,000 troops in Iraq) was virtually indistinguishable from McCain's and we mustn't forget that Obama has pledged to escalate the war in Afghanistan and has already begun a fresh wave of bombings in Pakistan. Furthermore, Obama's 'health plan' is light years away from the kind of reform we need, that is to say, it is far from anything like Single-Payer. Rather, his plan strengthens the for-profit catastrophe we have now by injecting public dollars into private insurance corporations rather than doing away with for-profit insurance altogether.

Thus we see right off the bat that Accountability Now assumes as a founding premise of its mission that Obama is 'truly a progressive at heart' and that the only thing preventing his 'progressive' inner nature from coming to fruition is obstruction from his own party's establishment.

Such a development is, in some minimal sense, a welcomed alternative to Right-wing pressure groups like the Club for Growth and the Democratic Leadership Council. Nonetheless, there are several fundamental difficulties with this strategy.

1.The idea that Obama has underlying 'progressive' propensities is disconfirmed by all of the available evidence. From his policy proposals as in the Democratic primaries, to his voting record, to his public statements, to his speeches, to his advisers, to his campaign contributors, to his choices for cabinet posts, Obama has consistently proven himself to be a mainstream Democrat. Objectively, we have literally no reason to believe that the 'underlying progressive' thesis is true. But more importantly, the entire strategy of banking on an elected official's "conscience" or "inner political tendencies" is preposterous. History is littered with examples of center-Left candidacies promising robust Left reform who, despite their 'progressive' credentials, were part and parcel to the enactment of swaths of neoliberal/conservative policies (for example, see Nelson Mandela, Lula di Sivla, Tony Blair and the entire record of the center-Left Prodi government in Italy during the 90s).

2. The idea that Accountability Now "hasn't ruled out friction with Obama" is laughable. In what universe would 'ruling it out' be a real possibility?! It's almost as though maintaining critical distance from the President is something to be avoided if possible; a strategy of last resort. But how else does AN suppose that the strategy (itself rather suspect) of 'pushing the Democrats Leftward" is to be accomplished? By asking Obama nicely and bringing him a few more 'progressive' congressional members? Furthermore, how do they plan on creating such last-resort friction? By challenging congressional seats held by 'centrists' and replacing them with 'progressives' in the mold of businessman Ned Lamont?

3. Electioneering within the Democratic Party is a hopeless way to push them Left. This is why: consider the 'progressives' already in the party and the role they play within the current apparatus. Take the Progressive Caucus, for example. They are largely marginalized, have little voice, and have virtually no effect on the big descisions about who to nominate for President, etc. More often than not (check their voting records if you don't believe me) they cave into mainstream party opinion or are whipped into line. Are they critical? Hardly. When have you heard Maxine Waters or John Conyers publicly deriding Obama's opposition to single-payer? Obama and the mainstream Democratic establishment spend more time paying attention to whether the Republicans are happy than they do considering the 'progressive' elements in their own party. The most infamous example is Kucinich, who ran in 2004 as an anti-war, single-payer candidate.... only to give a wholly uncritcial endorsement of pro-war anti-healthcare John Kerry months later. The bottom-line is that any effective 'pressure group' intent on pushing the Democrats Leftward must keep independence from the party apparatus. Accountability Now basically has it written into their mission statement that they are going to vote Democrat come hell or high water. They haven't threatened the Democratic Party writ-large with losing votes. On the contrary, these groups (DailyKos, Moveon.org, etc) are militantly, dogmatically opposed to third party challenges from the Left. That is to say, they are vehemently against any serious attempt to threaten to take votes from the Democrats. How much pressure can they reasonably hope to put on the Democrats if they've tatooed on their foreheads at the onset "I WILL ALWAYS VOTE DEMOCRAT"?

4. Getting people elected should not be the primary mode of pressuring the Democrats. Now I don't mean to say that electing more 'progressive' candidates has no effect. Instead I'm arguing that, absent any extra-electoral organizing and mobilization, such elections mean very little. The Civil Rights Act did not pass simply by means of an electoral strategy aimed at 'getting the right people elected'. It was a broad-based, extra-electoral social movement that altered the landscape of possible political change and made the passage of the legal reforms in the Act a pressing demand upon those in power. We will never see single-payer in this country as the result of a campaign intent merely to elect 'the right people'.

This is an old strategy. Michael Harrington and the group surrounding Democratic Socialists of America and magazines like "Dissent" have held views of this nature for decades. (Incidentally, I dont know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if red-baiting accounts for the absence of DSA's public presence in this effort...) But it seems to me that if the strategy is the "pressure group" model, then the best way to proceed would be to play one's cards closer to the chest and create a legitimate threat to limit votes and dollars going to the Democratic Party. Moreover there must be critical space and independence from the Party apparatus for any such strategy to succeed.

It continually amazes me the lengths liberals will go to preserve their fantastical apotheosis of Obama. How many times will his actions betray their projections for them to wake up? I'm fine with commending the 'good' things that Obama has done and plans to do, especially when we understand 'good' relative to what a moronic reactionary like John McCain would be doing right now. Nonetheless, any cap or foreclosure of critical scrutiny of Obama is nothing other than a conservative suppression of attempts to think beyond the prescribed limits of 'what is possible' or 'politically feasible'. Despite recent developments, it seems like self-proclaimed 'progressives' should be among the first to champion this belief.

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El Salvador's Growing Leftist Movement

Exciting story from NPR.

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Obama on education and "responsibility"

Dana Goldstein, education guru of TAPPED, is impressed with something Obama said tonight about education, namely that all Americans should committ to one year of post-secondary education as part of a patriotic duty. He also said dropping out of high school is not only failing oneself, but failing one's country. Here's Obama:

It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

And here's Goldstein:

This is an historic statement on the centrality of education to the American economy, and indeed, to the American character. A lot will be said about the meaning of such a statement coming from the first black president. But this is really broader than that; a full embracing, after the know-nothing Bush years, of intellectual engagement.

I'm not so convinced. Is it refreshing to have our president value education? Absolutely. But I'm really not going to call it "radical" to suggest that Americans' failure to educate themselves is about not understanding how important it is to their own or to the nation's well being. This is about money. I know a few people who dropped out of high school to start working. I know a lot of people who can't finish college because of financial reasons. Hearing from a president that this is bad for them and the country doesn't pay bills and tuition. It's more insulting than helpful or "radical." It's no different than telling someone they're irresponsible to not have health insurance. Well no shit? Why don't they get us some then...

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On the Street: "We're moving in with my parents"

That's what a married, late-20s coworker of mine told me today. The reason? She and her husband have some hospital bills they have to pay off and they can't do it while they pay rent. And yeah, she gets full benefits through our employer, which includes relatively good health insurance.

Also...I hear there was some kind of important speech tonight? I'm glad healthcare is back on the docket, but just what does he mean when he says healthcare reform? He doesn't give us the faintest idea, and it really worries me they'll pass a few minor bills off as the first-year healthcare reform they promised.

p.s. I'm convinced that Bobby Jindal couldn't speak more obnoxiously if he tried. So.Condescending.And.Insincere. And is it just me, or does volcano monitoring sound like a fairly worthy investment?

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Against balanced budgets

"Think how many times you have heard conservative politicians say that since businesses and households have to balance their budgets, government should do the same. But individuals and businesses separate out their current expenses from their capital outlays; people don’t define themselves as running a deficit this year because they bought a new house for $200,000. No, they finance capital expenditures like houses, new kitchens, and automobiles by borrowing, and they count themselves as living within their means as long as they have income to cover all their expenses including interest payments." - Fred Block (UC Davis sociologist) in Dissent

Obama has vowed recently to halve the deficit. Now this isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds: it depends on whether steps taken to accomplish this are sensitive to both 1) whether such steps take into consideration fixing current economic conditions and 2) whether such steps would lay the groundwork for extending the increases in spending indefinitely. As Block points out, we are already hearing Republicans blathering about how we are 'deferring the cost of this stimulus to our grandchildren' blah blah, etc. But its important to note that this sort of blathering is about 4% true. If the current attittudes and policies toward taxation remain unchanged then it is true that any ambitious spending regimen will be threatened in the long term unless changes are made. This does not meant that the government needs to 'balance its budgets' at some point in the future. However it does mean, at least, that budgets must be restructured in order to put spending initiatives on firmer political ground so that deficit-hawks and other 'free market' zealots will have a much harder time assaulting the social spending when/if economic conditions improve.

As Block puts it: "one essential issue has yet to be engaged or discussed: changing budget procedures to facilitate a long-term increase in government investment spending." 'Balanced budgets' are the reason "why we have a $2.2 trillion backlog of needed repairs to our decaying infrastructure...why our vital research and development machinery is generating fierce battles between different interest groups fighting for a piece of a shrinking pie....why our education system... is increasingly threadbare, dysfunctional, and ineffective in facilitating upward mobility." Glaringly omitted here is "this is (one reason) why we have decaying public health insurance programs (medicaid, medicare) and the worst health insurance system among all Western capitlaist nations because public money is not spent guaranteeing universal access".

Block proposes creating two different Federal budgets: a 'current account' and a 'capital account', where the 'current' acct would be kept in balance (except during reccession) and the 'capital' acct would be financed by borrowing. I'm not sure whether this is a good idea or not, but such a plan's raison d'etre (facilitaing large spending initiatives) is far more attractive than that of deficit-hawking (i.e. strangling the ability of the government to spend).

Concretely, Block proposes the following:

"First, the Obama Administration needs to begin right away developing plans for big ticket infrastructure projects to assure that they will be “shovel ready” over the next three to five years. Now is the time to map out, prioritize, and secure public support for multi-year projects of building high-speed rail lines, modernizing mass transit systems, and facilitating the replacement of coal and oil with green energy. Second, there needs to be an “all hands on deck” offensive to persuade the public of the urgency of this budgetary reform."

While Block's criticism of the current stimulus is (correctly, in my view) that it 'doesn't go far enough', perhaps the same should be said of his propsoals. Nonetheless, the general trajectory of his plan sounds infinitely more attractive than what the Administration seems currently interested in doing. Both parties typically cannot restrict themselves from gushing over the virtues of 'balanced budgets' as though they were glorious ends in themselves. Block is wrong to say 'conservatives' are the only ones pushing them, unless he meant to include a large amount of Democrats under the designation 'conservative' (a move I wouldn't resist in the least).

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Perry Anderson on Italy

Wonderful piece on Italy by Perry Anderson in the newest LRB. As usual, the analysis is historically informed, politically sharp and erudite.

Haven't read yet, but Eric Hobsbawm has a piece in the new LRB as well.

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Peter Dews quote.

"For while there has often been a de facto alliance between the intellectual Left (in the US) and recent French theory, with post-structuralism providing tools of analysis which have been widely applied, there has sometimes been little attempt to think through the ultimate compatibility of progressive political commitments with either the dissolution of the subject, or a totalizing suspicion of the concept of truth." - Peter Dews, from Logics of Disentegration , Verso (1987)

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"I could gone to a major university for a year. Instead, I went to the hospital for two days."

Are you in your twenties? Know anyone who is? Feel like tearing your hair out and spending the day fuming about the horrors of our capitalist health care system? Cool, read this.

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Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post prints racist cartoon

Disgusting.

Editor-in-chief Col Allan recently defended the cartoon with the following statement:

"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."

It broadly mocks Washington's efforts? By comparing the President to a dead monkey? What the fuck?

I found the tone of Sharpton's comment unhelpful:

"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

Why all of the tip-toeing? I don't think there's any reason to use all of this "is it not a reach to wonder" language. The cartoon is brutally clear: the bullet-riddled monkey is supposed to represent Obama. Short of putting a nametag on the corpse of the animal, I'm not sure how much more clear it could be. The Editor-in-chief openly admits this ('the cartoon broadly mocks Washington's stimulus efforts').

This wasn't a 'mistake' that some editor made. This wasn't a 'slip-up' that someone should apologize for. This is a warning shot, so to speak. This is pushing the limits at the same time that it is a disgusting attempt to seize the worst sort of publicity. Tip-toeing, giving the NYPost the benefit of the doubt (they hardly deserve it at this point) and insinuating that perhaps the cartoon might not be racist is preposterous. Worse yet, it plays into the NYPost's stupid game. I don't care what the cartoonist thought he was doing, nor do I care what the intentions of the editors were (stated or otherwise). The cartoon speaks for itself... and the punchline is the that a dead monkey shot by white police officers is Obama. I'm not the one to ask about what the best tactics are (boycott, protest, demanding public apologies, etc). But its beyond me why the NYPost deserves anything except straight-forward, totally uncompromising condemnation.

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Reaping the fruits of "reaching across the aisle"

"SO WHY does the stimulus legislation contain so many half-measures? After all, Obama's inauguration four weeks ago was celebrated by huge numbers of people, and his popularity remains high.

For one thing, the Republicans presented a virtually united front against the stimulus bill, and the mainstream media reported their every slander of the proposal without hesitation. "One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years," wrote columnist Paul Krugman.

But no. The GOP trotted out every tired complaint about "big government" and wasteful spending--this from a party that ran up a staggering government debt over eight years of George W. Bush, thanks to the astronomical sums wasted on the Pentagon war machine.

Still, the Republicans shouldn't have been able to gain the upper hand in this debate. They did because of the new Obama administration's insistence on cooperating with the GOP in the spirit of "bipartisanship."

For at least the first several weeks after Obama's inauguration, while the White House was talking about how much it valued their input, the Republicans were able to define the stimulus legislation on their terms. That meant depicting it as stuffed with "waste" and "political pork" to reward Democratic "interest groups"--rather than a collection of measures that could create jobs and bolster working people's living standards."

-From the ISO's excellent breakdown of the Obama Stimulus Plan.

The NYTimes has a nice breakdown here. And here.

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Phil Bredesen as Heatlhcare Czar?

Yep. That's what I've heard anyway: he could be on the shortlist for the job.

No, I'm not joking. The Obama Administration is considering appointing the man who, as governor of Tennessee, took a chainsaw to TennCare and made savage cuts to medicaid, leaving hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans suddenly without any access to medical care. In fact, as Ezra Klein notes, Bredesen overemphasized cuts so much so that he actually had money leftover the following year to restore coverage for a small percentage of those who had been previously stripped of access to medical care. Politico reports that during that same period Bredesen received $150,000 from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to renovate his Governor's Mansion. Now that's change we can believe in. I wonder if Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich are next in line after Bredesen.

It's probably also worth mentioning that Bredesen made his fortune as a private health-insurance industry entrepreneur. That such a person could even be mentioned in the same sentence as 'reformist' or 'progressive' (or whatever liberal Democratic activists are calling themselves this week) is preposterous. I'm sure that the DLC applauds his tenure as governor for its 'moderation', 'bipartisan spirit' and willingness to promote 'pro-growth' policies and balanced budgets.

There is also indication, according to BAR, that the slimy right-wing fraud, Harold Ford Jr., could be up for some cabinet appointment as well. (My most memorable recollection of Ford dates back to his 2006 bid for the Senate when he debated Bob Corker in Nashville and stood up from his seat to scream at Corker, yelling 'you haven't cut anywhere near as many taxes as if I have!'... what transpired for the next 10 minutes was a pathetic pissing match between Corker and Ford over who loved tax cuts more).

In Tennessee, apparently, they don't throw away their garbage... they elect it to state-wide office.

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You don't think she's a terrorist sympathizer? Then YOU must be a terrorist sympathizer!

At Feministing, Samhita wrote a fairly emotional (which is to say, not entirely fact-based or scientific) post about her unease with the NY Times even referencing the idea that M.I.A. might be a terrorist sympathizer...of course, it didn't take long before a commenter suggested Samhita herself is a terrorist sympathizer (not just for the Tamil Tigers, but the PKK as well).

The accusation is absurd and such a threat to reasonable dialogue, and well, kind of a threat to Samhita as well, as she rightly points out in the thread.

But look, here's the thing: This conversation has repurcussions far beyond the details of the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan Civil war and M.I.A. The fact that we in the West feel the need to identify who is right and who is wrong in international conflicts, and then if we decide someone is wrong, completely disengage from their politics, is a serious problem.

If we can't, in a feminist space no less, distinguish between the tactics of a group and their cause, or between people who can humanize those involved in a cause, even if their tactics may be violent, and those who approve of violence against innocent people, then seriously, how can we ever have reasonable transnational discussions?

There's just a certain degree of rationality that has to be involved in order for conversations to not be complete failures, and if it includes deeming anyone who shows any interest in understanding the political goals of even the most vicious looking groups a "terrorist sympathizer," it's a failure.

For the record, here's M.I.A. herself distinguishing between the cause of the Tamil people and the tactics of the Tamil Tigers, and pointing out the danger of conflating the two and neglecting the interests of both.

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Benicio del Toro on Playing Che Guevara

Watch the Guardian video interview here.

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Peanuts and Profits

(Via Socialistworker.org) The recent salmonella outbreak caused by contaminated peanut products, it turns out, was "let loose" on the population in a naked attempt to keep profits flowing for the Peanut Corporation of America. The recent outbreak, which resulted in one of the largest food recalls in history, was responsible for 600 illnesses and 9 deaths across the US.

Stewart Parnell, the owner of the company, has a history of evading health inspections and knowingly sending contaminated food products out into the market. According to the socialistworker.org piece:

Parnell complained in e-mails that salmonella tests were costing him business, ordered a plant manager to ship products once identified as contaminated, and pleaded with health inspectors to let his employees "turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money."

Other internal memos sent by Parnell complain that Salmonella testing and inspections are "costing the company huge $$$$". Apparently, Parnell discontinued relations with one inspecting company because they found "too many cases" of Salmonella. Other reports indicate that "inspectors found roaches, mold and a leaking roof" at the Blakely, GA plant now believed to be the source of the contaminations.

What's astonishing is that Parnell is not facing any legal ramifications for this. He didn't face any charges or fines the last 3 times his company was involved in contaminating food products (toxic mold in some cases, dangerous pesticides in others). In fact, he "was recommended to serve on the U.S. Agriculture Department's Peanut Standards Board." That's right.

Recently he has refused to testify in Congressional hearings about the outbreak, opting to take the Fifth. As of the 13th, his company has filed for Bankruptcy (chapter 7). It is unclear whether this will have an effect on the ability of civil lawsuits to extract compensation from the company for knowingly selling contaminated peanut products.

Meanwhile, foodbanks are throwing out tons of products containing peanut butter -at a time when foodbanks are becoming more crucial to enabling people facing hard times to eat. If this world was just, Parnell and his cronies would be forced to eat all of the food that these foodbanks are being forced to throw away while at the same time being required to compensate these foodbanks so that the necessary purchases can be made in order to replace their stock.

This whole situation is atrocious. This is a case of naked capitalist greed costing people their lives and maligning the heatlh of hurdreds more. Not to mention, this crisis will have calamitous effects for the (likely) thousands of workers employed by the company. At present, the company is liquidating all of its assets in order to pay off creditors, but is there any serious problem with the machinery and the production of peanut products such that the factory should no longer exist? The whole "everything is instrumental to producing profits" game is so wasteful: if there is machinery there that can be rehabbed and fixed, if there is a need for peanut products, if the workers there want to keep their jobs... why shut the factory down? Of course, the reason (within the explanatory logic of capitalist production) is clear... but it seems so ridiculous in many ways that a productive effort like this should just collapse, leaving creditors and investors taken care of while everyone else is shit out of luck.

Clearly, the answer must be that the 'free market' would have efficiently prohibited such events from happening, and Big Government has contaminated the mind of the heroic entrepreneur (Parnell) such that he acted against the imaginary hand of His Holiness Milton Friedman and consequently did bad things that simply betray the triumphant ethos of capitalism.

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Reminder: Cars kill people.

According to an article in today's RedEye (an outlet of the Chicago Tribune), there were fifty-six pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in Chicago in 2008. As the article points out, there are a LOT of pedestrians in this city. Chicago was named the 4th most walkable city in America by the organization Walk Score, and I can vouch for the awesome walkability of my own neighborhood.

But even at the small intersection I have to cross to reach the El, or the Asian groceries nearby, motorists don't give a damn about pedestrian safety or the right of way. When pedestrians get their long-awaited walk signal, cars taking left and right turns hover like panting dogs, waiting for you to cross, inching closer and closer to your fragile human body with their giant steel-framed monster. And those are the nice people. Many motorists decide to take their chances, and dash out for a screeching left turn before you've taken three steps.

And don't get me started about the Garfield Red Line, where commuters determined to catch the next bus have to cross literally six lanes of expressway-bound traffic.

Yeah. So it's not difficult to imagine people getting killed. As the Department of Transportation spokesman said, "The most difficult part of this is changing driver behavior."

The article is informative and lays out several ways the city is working on reducing pedestrian deaths. Check out the particularly sneaky move in which undercover police officers, posing as pedestrians, pulled over and issued warnings to motorists who failed to yield to them. I would have paid money to see that shit.

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