Category: Philosophy

How the Creators of Bitcoin Blew It, Part LXIX

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The good folks come up with yet another problem with Bitcoin, this one deriving from a complete lack of understanding of hundreds of jurisprudence.

This could mean that if a Bitcoin holder has a claim against them, and makes a purchase or a money transfer with Bitcoin, whoever received the funds may be legally required to return the money, even if the person is many transfers down the chain of custody:

At cryptocurrency and fintech conferences, FT Alphaville often hears Bitcoin enthusiasts make the assertion that Bitcoin is superior to fiat currency because it eliminates debt from the monetary system.

But this, of course, is a fallacy.

Bitcoin may have the potential to create a fully-funded reserve system, but it certainly doesn’t eliminate debt from any system.

At best, Bitcoin’s public ledger records a transfer of digital access rights in the eyes of the clearing network. It does not, however, record or see the terms and conditions of that transfer.

Indeed, as far as the clearing network is concerned all it knows is that a transfer has occurred. Party A’s wallet has been debited while party B’s wallet has been credited.

This is something akin to witnessing a physical coin being passed from one hand to the other. Yet what the process doesn’t do is log the conditionality of the transfer — which is still the subject of private agreement and contract law.

……… [snipped a Soprano’s based loan sharking example]

As far as contract law is concerned, even if Satoshi Dice received the bitcoin in good faith from Soprano’s debtor, Soprano himself (despite his unorthodox shake-down tactics) retains a right to seize his property back. And if they passed it on, he can pursue the next party. And so on. Especially since the bitcoin network makes it so easy to follow the trail due to the public nature of the ledger. Eventually, if the coin ends up with a high-value investor or institutional account whose identity is known to the system a formal claim can be made by means of the judicial system.

It’s these sorts of preceding property claims that the bitcoin system not only fails to eliminate, but arguably empowers by making the paper trail so incredibly transparent. But to what degree is the law really on Tony Soprano’s side when it comes to his claim? (And we’re not referring to his violent retrieval methods, which obviously remain illegal.)

George K Fogg at law firm Perkins Coie has been thinking about the problem of past claims (or liens) on bitcoins for nearly 14 months now.

His conclusion: under the United States’ UCC code (uniform commercial code) as long as bitcoins are treated as general intangibles, no high value investor can be sure that an angry Tony Soprano won’t show up one day to claim that the bitcoins they thought they received in a completely unencumbered manner are actually his. In fact, it’s only if and when Tony Soprano publicly renounces his claim to the underlying bitcoin collateral he is owed that the bitcoins stand a chance of being treated as unencumbered. Until then, a hot potato claim risk exists for every future acquirer of Soprano’s bitcoin.

Indeed, given the high volume of fraud and default in the bitcoin network, chances are most bitcoins have competing claims over them by now. Put another way, there are probably more people with legitimate claims over bitcoins than there are bitcoins. And if they can prove the trail, they can make a legal case for reclamation.

………

The irony of all this for anti-government minded Bitcoin investors is that it’s only by transferring bitcoins into the established financial system that they can be sure to be protected from outstanding Tony Soprano claims on their bitcoin.

As Fogg notes:

My libertarian friends have a belief they have created something that is outside of any statutory governance, and my response is you have created something novel that can help in transferring value across borders but you can’t pretend that the UCC doesn’t exist and because it does exist it affects bitcoin. Bitcoin is governed by the UCC. You can be an ostrich and pretend that it’s not covered by it, or you can address that it is in fact covered by the statute and find a way to solve the problem.

What a surprise.

A security is created by some libertarian idiot who thought that it could be used to leave our society for Galt’s Gulch.

Not so much.

This is not Capitalism, it is Parasitism

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Digby quite clearly demonstrates that remuneration for Wall Street finance types are not an artifact of any capitalist imperative, but instead are out and out looting:

With all the changes that have taken place on Wall Street since the financial crisis hit – the mergers, the new regulations and the lawsuits that continue to take a toll on banks’ bottom lines, not to mention the Federal Reserve’s demands that they continue to prove their health via regular “stress tests” – one thing remains unaltered.

It’s the ritual of the annual bonus check handed out to those lucky folks who have survived the job cuts and who continue to endure the Hobbesian life – nasty, brutish and short – on trading desks and in investment banking groups across Wall Street.

Given the banking industry’s reputation for ruthlessness and its emphasis on the “buyer beware” philosophy, you might expect a difficult environment to be reflected in the size of those bonuses.

Well, not so fast. This is Wall Street, after all.

True, Wall Street’s profits aren’t what they used to be. Pretax profits fell 4.2% in 2014 to $16 billion, according to New York’s office of the state comptroller. If you think that sounds like a relatively modest decline, consider that 2014 profits were 33% below 2012 levels, and a whopping 74% below 2009, when Wall Street posted record results as markets zoomed back to life after the crisis and banks profited from ultra-low asset values and interest rates.

But, reflecting the new clout of banks and bankers, bonus payments didn’t dip in response to this decline. Instead, they rose. In fact, it’s the second year in a row that a decline in profitability has been accompanied by a gain in the size of bonus checks. In 2013, to be sure, the contrast was more marked: a 30.1% decline in profitability, and a 15% increase in bonus payments. This year’s gains are more modest: the New York State comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, announced the average bonus would edge up only 2%.

Of course, here’s where the fun and games start on Wall Street. Bonuses don’t come out of a bank’s profits, but out of its revenues. It’s only folks like you and I – and, one would hope, at least some of the investors – who might want to take a look at these numbers and tie them to profits. Because what good is it rewarding employees for bringing revenue through the door if it isn’t profitable revenue?

This year, bonus payouts will amount to a whopping 170% of the profits reported by New York stock exchange member firms – profits that continue to be eroded by legal settlements and regulatory expenses. Back in 2009, that figure was slightly more than 36% of profits, and it has crept steadily higher.

The people working on Wall Street think that they are Galtian superman sitting astride the economy.

They are not.  They are parasites, sucking the marrow from our economy.

In the words of Ayn Rand, these would be moochers and looters, not producers.

H/t to Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo, whose post you should read if you are a Chronicles of Riddick fan.

String Theory Taken to Its Logical Conclusion

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Proponents of the controversial theory have taken to arguing that their theory is so elegant that it should require no experimental verification:

This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical. We disagree. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued: a theory must be falsifiable to be scientific.

I agree wholeheartedly.

BTW, that sound you hear is Richard Feynman spinning in his grave.

Chief among the ‘elegance will suffice’ advocates are some string theorists. Because string theory is supposedly the ‘only game in town’ capable of unifying the four fundamental forces, they believe that it must contain a grain of truth even though it relies on extra dimensions that we can never observe. Some cosmologists, too, are seeking to abandon experimental verification of grand hypotheses that invoke imperceptible domains such as the kaleidoscopic multiverse (comprising myriad universes), the ‘many worlds’ version of quantum reality (in which observations spawn parallel branches of reality) and pre-Big Bang concepts.

 These unprovable hypotheses are quite different from those that relate directly to the real world and that are testable through observations — such as the standard model of particle physics and the existence of dark matter and dark energy. As we see it, theoretical physics risks becoming a no-man’s-land between mathematics, physics and philosophy that does not truly meet the requirements of any.

My knowledge of string theory is minimal, coming from my (PhD in physics) brother who mocks it for its lack ability to make meaningful predictions. (There’s also the representation in pop culture in Big Bang Theory, but I do not take my lead from such)

On the other hand, I know bullsh%$ when I hear it, and the idea that an unprovable theory should be accepted on the basis of its aesthetics is definitely bovine scatology.

This is an indictment of those string theorists who are calling for its acceptance on pure faith, but it is more than that: It is a searing indictment of string theory by those who are its greatest proponents.

H/T DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Deep Thought

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I was thinking that the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, was the oldest doctor, was the oldest actor to play The Doctor, (Do we capitalize the “The”?) and then I realized that John Hurt, at age 73, as [T]the Doctor, albeit a Doctor who never had a bit on the series.

So, is Peter Capaldi the oldest actor to play [T]the Doctor, or is it John Hurt, who played [T}the Doctor who did (or didn’t) destroy Gallifrey?

I’m curious here, but I figure that I am stirring up a sh%$ storm, but I am alcohol loading for the new year, so I do not care.

And Just to Prove that there is No Event that Uber Won’t Use an Excuse for Price Gouging………

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The internet based limo service jacked up its rates in Sydney in response to the hostage crisis there:

Uber briefly charged its users in downtown Sydney a minimum $100 to escape an armed hostage crisis, a result of automatic surge pricing meant to get more drivers online.

An executive in the city’s Central Business District (CBD) sent Mashable screenshots of the Uber app that showed the company was charging up to four-times the normal rate because “demand is off the charts.”

“I have never, ever seen it at four-times [the normal rate] and I’m a 1% top Uber user,” said Matthew Leung, the user in contact with Mashable. “I understand the way the business works — higher the demand, higher the charge — but four-times at $100 minimum is ridiculous. Almost price gouging at its worst.”

Another customer shared a screenshot of their “wack” fare estimate that showed a trip from an area just blocks from the siege to the airport would cost $145-185. That journey would normally cost less than $100, according to Uber’s website. “This is price surging,” he wrote in a comment to Mashable.

After Mashable published a story on the price hikes, the company reversed course and announced that all riders in the area would be free, and that anybody who had been charged the higher amount would be refunded.

I can hear Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, saying, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.”

Seriously,  Uber, and its Ayn Rand worshiping CEO are simply too evil to trust with your money.

F%$# the South

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Michael Tomansky, writing for The Daily Beast, suggests that the Democrats are wasting resources trying to win in the South:

I don’t remember a much sadder sight in domestic politics in my lifetime than that of Mary Landrieu schlumpfing around these last few weeks trying to save a Senate seat that was obviously lost. It was like witnessing the last two weeks of the life of a blind and toothless dog you knew the vet was just itching to destroy. I know that sounds mean about her, but I don’t intend it that way. She did what she could and had, as far as I know, an honorable career. I do, however, intend it to sound mean about the reactionary, prejudice-infested place she comes from. A toothless dog is a figure of sympathy. A vet who takes pleasure in gassing it is not.

And that is what Louisiana, and almost the entire South, has become. The victims of the particular form of euthanasia it enforces with such glee are tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, the crucial secular values on which this country was founded… I could keep this list going. But I think you get the idea. Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment. A fact made even sadder because on the whole they’re such nice people! (I truly mean that.)

With Landrieu’s departure, the Democrats will have no more senators from the Deep South, and I say good. Forget about it. Forget about the whole fetid place. Write it off. Let the GOP have it and run it and turn it into Free-Market Jesus Paradise. The Democrats don’t need it anyway.

Actually, that’s not quite true. They need Florida, arguably, at least in Electoral College terms. Although they don’t even really quite need it—what happened in 2012 was representative: Barack Obama didn’t need Florida, but its 29 electoral votes provided a nice layer of icing on the cake, bumping him up to a gaudy 332 EVs, and besides, it’s nice to be able to say you won such a big state. But Florida is kind of an outlier, because culturally, only the northern half of Florida is Dixie. Ditto Virginia, but in reverse; culturally, northern Virginia is Yankee land (but with gun shops).

………

 But it’s not just a question of numbers. The main point is this: Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats. As Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen recently told my colleague Ben Jacobs, the Democratic Party cannot (and I’d say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores: “It’s come to pass, and really a lot of white Southerners vote on gays and guns and God, and we’re not going to ever be too good on gays and guns and God.”

Charlie Pierce disagrees strongly:

I sympathize with Mike. I truly do. But I still will stand with Governor Dean and the 50-state strategy, at least applied judiciously. To me, the key to the problem is to break the stranglehold of the Washington-based consultant class over what candidates will be run in what places. It wasn’t the Beltway crowd who found Jon Tester in Montana, or Jim Webb in Virginia. The national party should be involved in these races only as a means by which money can be shrewdly spread around, and as a means of employing some sense of party discipline. No, Mr. Breaux, we won’t be following your easily rented ass any more. We will find progressive populists, white or black, and we will run them and support them, and maybe the first five tries won’t work but, sooner or later, there will be a breakthrough, and it will not be led by the next Bill Clinton and the next DLC.

For example, Bernie Sanders is drawing big crowds in South Carolina and in Mississippi. He wouldn’t come close to winning anything in either of those states, but there is a working-class audience there that is interested in listening to him, and that is worth respecting in our politics. There always has been a kind of working-class populism in the South, and it always came to grief over race. But it’s 2014, and forging an actual alliance of working people, black and white, in the places that need it the most, is a worthwhile effort whether it fails initially or not. To abandon the people trying to forge that alliance — and, therefore, to abandon the people on whose behalf that alliance is being forged — would be political malpractice of the highest order. It would be an odd kind of confirmation of Willard Romney’s first bumbling attempts to run away from himself on health care, whereby G.I. Luvmoney averred that what worked in Massachusetts would not work in Mississippi, as though Those People were expendable because the Mississippi Republicans would have them die by the side of the road. Sometimes, the fight alone is enough.

The problem is much like the supporters of Julian Schwinger’s and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga’s competing theories of quantum electrodynamics.

They are actually saying the same thing, but they are talking past each other and arguing about notation.*

Neither one of them is actually suggesting that we not run candidates.

They are both asserting that the current campaign for seats in the south is being done by compromising Democratic Party values, and neither of them are suggesting that candidates not be run.

In order to support the clearly doomed campaigns of Landrieu in Louisiana and Pryor in Arkansas, Obama held off on an executive order to help illegal immigrants.

Over the past 6 years, Obama has engaged in the most aggressive deportation policies in our nation’s history in an attempt to support southern candidates.

It’s been bad policy and bad politics.

*I am making no claims here to my having anywhere near the intellectual heft of the man who resolved this dispute, Richard Feynman. He is way out of my league.

Not What I Would Expect from the Koch Suckers at the Cato Institute

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Considering their background, that of an Ayn Rand inspired think tank, I would think that their attitude toward IP, copyright and patents, would be one of absolute support, but here is an article where describes our current regime as regressive rent seeking:

………

All three of these critical national problems derive from the same source. We often talk about the last third of a century as an era of deregulation and the expansions of markets. And in certain areas that is certainly true. But the most important market rigidities that have been eliminated have been those that protected those from the middle class on down. In fact, the great paradox of the last third of a century is that we have actually had an explosion of regulation in this “supposedly deregulatory” era — but regulation that has the effect of redistributing, sometimes dramatically, upward.

A few examples will suffice to make the point. Intellectual property protections, especially patents and copyright, have been expanded dramatically over this period, both in time (through patent and copyright extensions for existing IP) and across space (by using trade agreements to push American IP principles into foreign law). While there is an argument that this expansion has actually reduced innovation, there is no doubt that it has allowed existing firms to use the force of law (rather than the market) to enrich themselves by reaching further into the pockets of consumers.

………

The article is actually fairly tepid in its conclusions, but considering that this is coming from the Cato institute, it does indicatge that the push-back against the American model of over aggressive IP protections is becoming more broadly accepted across the ideological spectrum.

Way to Go, Francis

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Pope Francis has demoted right wing Cardinal Raymond Burke yet again:

In a move that reflects the loosening posture of the Vatican on major social issues, conservative U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke was removed by Pope Francis from yet another top post.

Burke, who has long been vocal about denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, was dismissed as head of the Holy See’s highest court and given the post of Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a largely ceremonial job overseeing charity to seniors.

At 66, Burke is considered young by church hierarchy standards. The dismissal is a set-back to his Vatican career as well as a clear message from Pope Francis to those not hewing to his progressive view of the Catholic Church.

The move was expected by Vatican-watchers given that Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis, had openly criticized Francis’ less doctrinaire approach to the faith. Last year, Francis had removed Burke from the Congregation for Bishops, a group tasked with the appointment of new bishops worldwide.

In addition that Burke was playing partisan politics in the United States, which created a long term risk for what is arguably the richest community in Catholicism, Burke was also ignoring the basic structure of the Church.

I may not know the finer points of canon law, and quite honestly I have no desire to, being a Jew, but I do the middle ages on weekends as a hobby, and so I do have a decent understanding of a feudal system of government.

Basically, a Bishop is like a Count, a Cardinal is more like a Duke (Technically called. “Princes of the Church”), and the Pope is the Monarch in charge.

The important bit about this is that Bishops and Cardinals are in fealty to the Pope, and calling out the guy in charge in public is frowned upon in such a system.

Raymond Burke should consider himself lucky.

A few hundred years ago, (or in any case, certainly before the Magna Carta was signed) if a Count or a Duke acted this way, it would keep the headsman gainfully employed.

What the Hairy One* Said

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My older brother, Sasquatch Stephen, makes a very good point about the tactics of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), which is that while they are a bunch of evil mother f%$#ers who will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, their tactics viewed in isolation are in fact both laudable and effective:

In the well duh category, the Huffington Post recently posted an article entitled Democrats Create An ALEC-Killer.

 Gee, often I have heard the cries about these dark, underhanded, suspicious tactics of this group.

 And what are these tactics, why the Republicans have organized a right-wing group to push for its policies at the state level, providing political discipline, they create draft statutes, coordinate activities, and support people who agree with them across the spectrum. And all this has worked for them very well over the last decade.

 You know, this is called activism. I once tried to point this out at a MoveOn meeting I was stupid enough to attend. The reception to that comment wasn’t good.

 Sure it’s financed by the right’s most fanatical and finanically interested participants, and you expected different?

(emphasis mine)

The reaction at the MoveOn meeting is not surprising.

MoveOn has always been more about giving comfortable people the impression that they are doing something  than it is about actually getting sh%$ done.

*I have it on good authority that he once frightened a Chinese village that described him as a “Hairy Giant.”

Wonkett Nails It

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Democrats Have Great Exciting New Idea: Being Democrats:

Here’s an idea that’s so crazy, it just might work! After the thorough ass-kicking the Democratic Party suffered on Election Day, some Democrats are considering the possibility that maybe running “Democratic” candidates who are embarrassed to be Democrats is not the best way to appeal to the Democratic Party. Crazy, huh? With candidates refusing to support Obamacare, refusing to support Democratic policies, refusing to even say “Hell, yes, I voted for Barack Obama because I am a Democrat, DUH,” the new minority is thinking maybe it’s time to get back to being Democrats.

According to Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to the soon-to-be-ex Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the new plan for 2016 is to maybe — maybe — run Democratic candidates on a Democratic platform.

Your mouth to God’s year, Faiz.

Cowardice is bad politics.

I Want My Howard Dean!!!

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What Atrios says:

One thing that I think people tend to forget is that Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy wasn’t simply about fighting everywhere, it was about shoveling money out of DC before the vultures there could get their hands on it. It was about the idea that people who run campaigns out of Washington don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but that as long as the money was sitting there, candidates didn’t have much choice but to deal with them.

In case you doubt the wisdom of his words, note what some anonymous Democratic Party functionary asshat said about all this:

“This is a tsunami. Heads will roll at 1600. And if they don’t, shame,” the insider said, adding: “The president has 60 days to clean house, regrow his spine, and lay out an aggressive, centrist agenda. If he fails at any of those, he might as well just start writing his memoir.”

Note that in the same article, there is someone who gets it:

“Democratic operatives who refuse to acknowledge this is the White House’s fault are out of their f—— minds,” the operative said. “These operatives who don’t understand that the White House fucked up are the same hacks who overcharge House and Senate candidates for shitty consulting work and help lose elections year after year.”

The operative also said Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hurt the party by delaying ambitious action on immigration and other hot-button issues to protect incumbent senators in southern states.

“It also doesn’t help that Dems completely broke their promise to enact immigration reform. Reid’s strategy of ‘no big bills’ this year that could protect [Arkansas Sen. Mark] Pryor, [North Carolina Sen. Kay] Hagan, and [Louisiana Sen. Mary] Landrieu obviously backfired,” the operative said. “They lost anyway, and we pissed off our base at the same time.”

Let me make a note here:  Were the Democratic Party to adopt a “F%#@ the South strategy”, much in the same way that Republicans have adopted a “F%$# New York City & Hollywood & San Francisco & Boston & non white Americans”, there really wound not be a down side.

Over the past 40 years, the Democratic Party has devoted increasing resources to keep its foothold in the white South, and that is simply not going to happen.

The dynamic that LBJ said over 50 years ago, “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.“

We as a nation are not going to change this dynamic until we as a nation stop pandering to it.

Thank You Chelsea Handler

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Comedienne Chelsea Handler posted a parody of Putin’s shirtless horseback photo to Instagram, and was justifiably pissed off when they took the image down, (NSFW pic at link) and has dumped Instagram for Twitter in response.

I understand, and I agree with her basic point, but this is not why I am thanking her.

I am thanking her for showing us her breasts.

I believe that a woman voluntarily, and proudly, showing her breasts is an independent good. (No, I have not seen the stolen photographs of Jennifer Lawrence, etc., and I find the involuntary posting of these sorts of pics to be an unconscionable violation of privacy)

I consider it to be a very public gift, and so I am writing this note to thank her.

Quote of the Day

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“I didn’t exchange any bodily fluids with anyone, so I’m not worried about it,” he said. “I’m much more likely to be mistakenly killed by a police officer in this country than to be killed by Ebola, even if you were in the same bridal shop.”

—Peter Pattakos, who is suitably unconcerned by the fact that he spent 2 hours in a bridal shop while Ebola Nurse Amber Joy Vinson was there.

This is such a nice counterpoint to the freakout from the numerous politicians.

The Universal Nature of Humanity*

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I can think of nothing that unites us more than the fact that even the Dalai Lama is pissed off about telemarketers:

Tibet’s spiritual leader has delivered an extraordinary rant about the things that do his head in.

The Dalai Lama’s rare display of belligerent human frailty occurred in London, during an acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize for ‘affirming life’s spiritual dimension’.

He said: “I am not a special person. I spend my days mostly in quiet contemplation.

“It is during these moments, when I am tantalisingly close to nirvana, that the phone always rings.

“‘Hello,’ says the voice on the line, ‘can I speak to Mr D Lama?’

“‘He’s not in,’ I always reply, because it is fine to lie in these situations, ‘and if he was he wouldn’t be interested.’

“Then they go, ‘surely he’d be interested on saving 25% on his monthly heating bills with double glazing’. For Zen’s sake!

Now, everyone link hands, and start singing, All we are saying, is telemarketers suck.

*Yes. I know. It’s a parody site, and this is fake news, but it really should be real.  After all, who amongst us does not hate phone sales calls?

What Salman Rushdie Said

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He makes a very interesting point, that whether a person’s ideology stems from the Bible, the Christian Bible, the Koran, Mai’s Little Red Book, Das Kapital, or Mein Kampf, no one’s idea should be free from criticism:

Salman Rushdie has attacked the “hate-filled religious rhetoric” that “persuades hundreds, perhaps thousands of British Muslims to join the decapitating barbarians of Isis”, describing it as “the most dangerous new weapon in the world today”.

Speaking at the award of the PEN/Pinter prize, Rushdie said he dislikes the word Islamophobia “greatly”. But it is right, the author argued, to “feel phobia” towards the oppression of the people of Afghanistan by the Taliban, towards the oppression of Iranians by the ayatollahs, and towards the death of people in Iraq today. “What is being killed in Iraq is not just human beings, but a whole culture. To feel aversion towards such a force is not bigotry. It is the only possible response to the horror of events.

“If I don’t like your ideas,” Rushdie continued, “it must be acceptable for me to say so, just as it is acceptable for you to say that you don’t like mine. Ideas cannot be ringfenced just because they claim to have this or that fictional sky god on their side.”

………

The language of religion, said Rushdie, “has been horribly mangled in our time”, by Christian extremists in America and by Hindu extremists in India, “but the overwhelming weight of the problem lies in the world of Islam, and much of it has its roots in the ideological language of blood and war emanating from the Salafist movement within Islam, globally backed by Saudi Arabia”.

In a world where we have all “became too frightened of religion in general, and one particular religion in particular – religion redefined as the capacity of religionists to commit earthly violence in the name of their unearthly sky god” – religious extremists are the enemy of modernity, said Rushdie.

“Modernity with its language of liberty, for women as well as men, with its insistence on legitimacy in government rather than tyranny, and with its strong inclination towards secularism and away from religion” is being targeted “by the deformed medievalist language of fanaticism, backed up by modern weaponry”.

It’s nice that he is calling out the House of Saud too.

It’s Already Happened

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Howie Klein at Down with Tyranny observes that the Democratic Party establishment is targeting liberals, with both the DCCC and the DSCC systematically supporting conservative Dems over liberal ones, even when the numbers point toward the liberals being a more competitive candidates.

It’s clear, for example, that DCCC chairman Steve Israel feels that is more important to rebuild the Blue Dog Caucus than it is to win control of the Congress.

He then wonders the establishment would target a liberal presidential candidate and support a less electable corporate Democrat:

Which suggests an interesting thought. If a truly hard-core progressive — an Elizabeth Warren or Zephyr Teachout, say — were the party’s strongest presidential candidate, would corporate Democrats choose a lesser candidate anyway, one with a greater chance of losing, just to keep the White House in the hands of someone’s One-Percent candidate? Again, your call, but we may see that tested fairly soon.

 He’s actually wrong about this.  It already happened ……… In 1973, and not only did the party establishment not support the Liberal nominee, George McGovern, and they actively sabotaged his campaign, and tacitly supported Richard “The Human Stain” Nixon.

The corporatist wing of the Democratic Party will fight for its power within the party even at the expense of the power of the party.