Author: Jonathan Schwarz

Amir Taheri, the Iranian royalist who brought us the tale of Tehran’s plan to make Jewish Iranians wear special yellow badges, turns out to have made up other things too…things which Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen repeat as real. I’ve stuck the details over at Mother Jones.

It’s this kind of bald-faced lying that makes me respect Taheri. Even the most egregious propagandists usually can’t bring themselves to fabricate things out of whole cloth. Instead, they’ll misrepresent what people actually did say, or cite facts selectively. It’s just how our monkey brains work.

This often leads monkey-brained hacks to behave in preposterous ways, as they go to incredible lengths to consciously mislead people while not exactly “lying” (see a funny recent example here). I always look at their exertions and want to ask: since you clearly have no moral scruples, why not just make things up?

But clearly this is something we will never have to wonder about Taheri. And he is the bigger man for it.

What is the problem with friendly dictators? During a discussion on Fox this week about Musharraf, William Kristol explained:

KRISTOL: They are sending Deputy Secretary Negroponte over there earlier this weekend. This is the Marcos moment, I think, where we tell our ally, the friendly and decent dictator, that his time has passed.

The problem with these friendly dictators is they end up wanting to hang on, they like being dictators beyond when it is in their country’s national interest, and beyond when it is in our interest.

I think this actually manageable. I do think Musharraf is going to have to go.

This is why we need experts like William Kristol. Unsophisticated people might think the problem with friendly dictators is the “dictator” part. In particular, individuals whose testicles the friendly dictators have hooked up to electrodes often focus on this to the exclusion of what actually matters, which is whether or not the dictators are effectively serving the needs of William Kristol and his friends.

Then there’s the dictators themselves. They often are concerned with the way the lifespan of ex-dictators tends to be short. What they don’t understand is that they should be happy to die if that’s convenient for their employer, the United States. Just as William Kristol doesn’t worry about what happens to his maids after they’ve outlived their usefulness, why should he worry about his dictators?

Consumers Union has created another funny video with a song by the Austin Lounge Lizards. This time it’s about America’s hilarious lack of food and product safety inspections. You can watch it, and get involved in the Consumers Union campaign on inspections, here.

If you enjoyed that, be sure to watch this previous video, from their prescription drug campaign in 2005. I would like to meet the woman who does the voiceover at the end, and sing her a tender song.

Here’s Hillary Clinton in the debate last night, responding to Obama’s proposal to raise the payroll cap for Social Security:

CLINTON: I do not want to fix the problems of Social Security on the backs of middle class families and seniors. If you lift the cap completely, that is a $1 trillion tax increase.

This is why my strategy is to hate all leaders, at all times, in all circumstances.

First, Obama uses right-wing talking points to tell us how we must be VERY VERY WORRIED about Social Security, so he can portray himself as a BOLD TRUTH TELLER.

Then, Clinton uses right-wing talking points to attack him for proposing a MASSIVE TAX INCREASE so she can portray herself as NOT A DIRTY TAX-RAISING LIBERAL.

In reality, there’s no reason to fret about Social Security or change it at all now. Obama is trying to scare us by thinking there is.

But if we have to change things in the future, the changes necessary would be minor. Clinton is trying to scare us by throwing around huge numbers most people don’t understand. The $1 trillion tax increase she’s talking about would be over 75 years, during which time the U.S. GDP is projected to be $600 trillion. It would also only affect the best-off people in America. (Moreover, Clinton’s numbers are wrong; eliminating the payroll cap would be more like a $4 trillion tax increase, depending on how you measure it. I suspect she lowballed it in order to make her fearmongering more credible.)

So hand in hand, Obama and Clinton each endorse one-half of the right-wing story, adding up to one gruesome whole. Here’s Sean Hannity, speaking to you during the recession of 2012:

HANNITY: How can you criticize Republican proposals to privatize Social Security, when even Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agree we should be VERY VERY WORRIED and that the only alternative to privatization is a MASSIVE TAX INCREASE?

AND: This is yet another example of the Iron Law of Institutions.

(Thanks to Dean Baker for help with the specific numbers.)

If you’re in the Washington, D.C. area, you might want to check out Robert Parry, one of the greatest investigative reporters in the United States, speaking about his new book Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush this Saturday in Arlington, Virginia:

Robert Parry, author of Neck Deep
Saturday, November 17th, 4 p.m.
Busboys and Poets
4251 South Campbell Avenue
Shirlington Village, Arlington, VA
(off I-395 at the Glebe Road-Shirlington exit)

Note this is not the Busboys and Poets store actually in Washington. More information, including directions, is available on the Busboys and Poets site.

Even if you’re not in Washington, check out Parry’s new article, “How False Narratives Work”, for background on some genuinely shocking Republican/media lies that almost no one knows about. It involves Scooter Libby before he got famous.