“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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New York Times: Dying In, Rising Up
The protesters who lay down in the streets by the thousands across New York City this week, memorializing Eric Garner and calling for policing reform, showed a vivid grasp of symbolism and, despite seething anger, a commitment to peaceable dissent that lent credibility and potency to their demands. [..]
There were those seeking to provoke violence, like the group that attacked police officers on the Brooklyn Bridge, one of them a college teacher who was accused of trying to toss a garbage can at officers and was toting, police say, three claw hammers and a ski mask. They do not represent the vast majority of protesters, or their peaceful spirit.
And then there is the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, whose extremism has been no less abhorrent for being rhetorical. He has tried to recast the Garner tragedy as a story of police victimhood, spreading a false narrative that city leaders disrespect all cops, to the point of urging fellow officers to sign a petition demanding that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito stay away from their funerals should they be killed on duty.
Paul Krugmsn: Putin’s Bubble Bursts
If you’re the type who finds macho posturing impressive, Vladimir Putin is your kind of guy. Sure enough, many American conservatives seem to have an embarrassing crush on the swaggering strongman. “That is what you call a leader,” enthused Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, after Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine without debate or deliberation.
But Mr. Putin never had the resources to back his swagger. Russia has an economy roughly the same size as Brazil’s. And, as we’re now seeing, it’s highly vulnerable to financial crisis – a vulnerability that has a lot to do with the nature of the Putin regime. [..]
But Russia’s difficulties are disproportionate to the size of the shock: While oil has indeed plunged, the ruble has plunged even more, and the damage to the Russian economy reaches far beyond the oil sector. Why?
The details shocked. Shackled prisoners were treated like cattle, watched by their CIA interrogators. Testimony from one observer stated that men blindfolded and tied “were made to run down a steep hill, at the bottom of which were three throws of concertina barbed wire. The first row would hit them across the knees and they would plunge head first into the second and third rows of wire”.
This wasn’t CIA torture after the September 11 attacks, exposed in detail in a recent Senate report, but the Phoenix programme, instituted by the CIA and US, Australian and South Vietnamese militaries in Vietnam between 1965 and 1972 to “neutralise” the Vietcong. The result was more than 60,000 people tortured and killed. No senior politicians, generals or decision-makers were prosecuted for these crimes. A culture of immunity, despite occasional media and public outrage, thrived across the US. [..]
The ability of the state to retroactively justify illegal behavior when caught is a feature of every nation on earth, not just the US. But demanding other countries abide by international law, when western nations so blatantly ignore it, is the height of hypocrisy. The shocking details in the US Senate report demand accountability but there’s little public appetite for it.
Retired Navy JAG John Hutson warned in 2008 against trials for post 9/11 crimes because “people would lawyer up”, a tacit admission that the legal system is gamed by the wealthy and powerful to escape justice. There’s hardly a more illustrative example of the modern state’s failure.
Marcy Wheeler: Sony hackers’ real crime: Why it’s not an assault on speech – but something worse
“The Interview” could still be released online. What’s really under attack is not speech, but property. Here’s why
Yesterday, Sony Pictures pulled its movie “The Interview” from release on Christmas Day. The movie, which depicts two journalists attempting to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, has been identified as the motive behind a devastating hack of Sony Pictures. That’s partly because, in July, North Korea complained to the U.N., calling the film an “undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war.” Then, hackers threatened “the world will be full of fear” if the movie premiered on Dec. 25, which led first the movie chains and then Sony itself to pull the release. [..]
If the issue is airing the views in the film – and defying the threats of the hackers – such a release would accomplish the goal.
But there’s another issue that seems far more central to this hack than speech: property.
Even before Sony mentioned its filmmakers’ free speech rights, for example, it mentioned the assault on its property rights. “Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material.” And while free release of its movie would assert its right to free speech, it would result in further financial losses, on top of the other movies (such as “Annie” and “Fury”) released on piracy sites after the hack.
Joe Conason: The right’s absurd Cuba outrage: Why Obama’s critics are on the wrong side of history
Listen carefully to the Republican leaders and presidential hopefuls roaring with outrage over President Barack Obama’s courageous decision to normalize relations with Cuba; listen very carefully, because no matter how long or how closely you listen to them, there is one thing you will surely never hear.
You will never hear a new idea – or any idea – about bringing liberty, democracy and prosperity to the suffering Cuban people.
Instead, the furious denunciations of the president’s initiative from his adversaries reveal only an intellectual void on Capitol Hill, where the imperatives remain partisan and cynical. Everyone paying attention has known for decades that the frozen relationship between the United States and Cuba has accomplished nothing – except possibly the prolongation of the Castro regime, which has long considered the embargo a plausible excuse for its own economic failures and viewed the United States as a politically convenient enemy.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: Hillary’s Choice: ‘Anti-Gridlock’ or ‘Anti-Wall Street’?
We’re told that Hillary Clinton is spurning something her advisors call the “anti-Wall Street” movement and will run instead on a platform of “working across the aisle” with Republicans. Her camp is suggesting, without much evidence and against the lessons of recent history, that she will be more effective at this endeavor than her predecessor. And now they’re using that claim to fight against the Democratic Party’s rising populist wing.
Is Hillary Clinton about to repeat Barack Obama’s biggest mistake?
In the first two years of his presidency Obama spoke of compromise, protected Wall Street, and resisted the populist wing of his own party. Democrats lost the House of Representatives, but Obama kept offering “Grand Bargains.” The GOP rejected most of his overtures, even the Social Security benefit cuts they had long championed, and didn’t hesitate to use them against Democrats on the campaign trail.
By selling himself as someone who could get things done with Republicans, Obama gave them the power to make him a success or failure. Unsurprisingly, they chose the latter option. Is Hillary Clinton about to make the same mistake — and will voters buy it if she does?
When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops. Between September and December, 11,000 American volunteers gave up the fight and returned to their families. General Washington could foresee the destiny of a rebellion without an army if the rest of his men returned home when their service contracts expired on December 31. He knew that without an upswing in morale and a significant victory, the American Revolution would come to a swift and humiliating end.
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