Punting the Pundits

In an astonishing observation, Rep. Paul Ryan recently declared: “Washington has not been honest with you.”

Gosh, Paul, that possibility never occurred to us!

What makes the Wisconsin lawmaker’s observation astonishing is the fact that he is Washington – a seven-term Republican insider, House budget chairman, and author of the GOP’s ideologically contrived budget-whacking plan that kills America’s enormously popular Medicare program.

But Ryan didn’t mean to point his finger at himself. No, no. He meant those dastardly Democrats who’ve dared to tell the public about his proposal to replace Medicare with a privatized voucher scheme. Understandably, the public is now angry with Ryan and his Republican cohorts. Hence, he is scurrying around in a shamefully dishonest PR campaign to accuse the Democrats of – what else? – dishonesty. Ryan’s plan, he asserts, would give seniors “the same kind of (health insurance) system members of Congress enjoy today.”

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Gridlocking the Lives of the Jobless

Welcome to the miserable world of no-way-out politics.

The economy needs another jolt, but Congress is in gridlock. Democrats, or most of them, realize that their political futures and the well-being of millions of households hang on whether unemployment can be brought down. Yet Republicans have the capacity to block even the smallest steps forward.

Here’s what the Democrats’ agony looks like from the inside. Last Thursday, Senate Democrats devoted their weekly policy lunch to a simple question: What proposals to spur job creation have any chance of passing Congress, given Republican control of the House and the effective veto power the GOP has in a Senate where a simple majority no longer rules?

Chris Hedges: No Justice in Kafka’s America

In Franz Kafka’s short story “Before the Law” a tireless supplicant spends his life praying for admittance into the courts of justice. He sits outside the law court for days, months and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted. He sacrifices everything he owns to sway or bribe the stern doorkeeper. He ages, grows feeble and finally childish. He is told as he nears death that the entrance was constructed solely for him and it will now be closed.

Justice has become as unattainable for Muslim activists in the United States as it was for Kafka’s frustrated petitioner. The draconian legal mechanisms that condemn Muslim Americans who speak out publicly about the outrages we commit in the Middle East have left many, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, wasting away in supermax prisons. These citizens posed no security threat. But they dared to speak a truth about the sordid conduct of our nation that the state found unpalatable. And in the bipartisan war on terror, waged by Republicans and Democrats, this ugly truth in America is branded seditious.

Amanda Marcotte: “Shoot the Slut:” The 21st Century Backlash Is All About Sex

As Susan Faludi demonstrated in “Backlash,” attitudes about gender and sexuality tend to be cyclical.  Women’s success in the workplace, especially, has a tendency to create anti-feminist backlashes.  As Faludi documented, the 80s backlash in response to the normalization of professional work for women took shape in demands that women embrace more feminine-submissive behaviors and fashions, the idolizing of housewives as perfect women, and attacks on reproductive rights.

Despite the previous anti-feminist administration, the past couple of decades have been good for women: education levels rose to meet and exceed men’s, women’s leadership became more normalized from Condie Rice to Hillary Clinton, and the public debate over sexual harassment in the 90s was won by feminists (though social disapproval of it remains no more than an inch deep).  Even the existence of the feminist blogosphere can be counted as a major triumph.  The tendency of news magazines to periodically declare feminism “dead” can’t withstand the overwhelming online evidence that feminism is very much alive.

Peter Rothberg: Barbie’s Rainforest Destruction Habit Revealed

In less than three days, close to one million people have viewed an online spoof video featuring the moment Ken discovers, to his horror, that Barbie is involved in rainforest destruction, and almost 200,000 e-mailers have swamped Mattel’s offices complaining about the company’s use of packaging products from Indonesian rain forests.

Indonesia has one of the fastest rates of forest destruction in the world. The Indonesian government estimates that more than one million hectares of rainforests are being cleared every year, so time is not on our side.

The campaign is being led by Greenpeace International after the organization’s investigators used forensic testing, “in country” investigation, mapping data and the tracing of company certificates to reveal that Barbie’s packaging is being produced by Asia Pulp and Paper, Indonesia’s most notorious rainforest destroyer.