"Pete Seeger was a great American because he dared to be thought otherwise"

The quote is from Charlie Pierce's eloquent obit.

... Seeger spent his life in the most honorable way possible -- he tried to teach America about itself. First, he helped teach it about itself through all the music it had forgotten, a darker and more fascinating place than the America that was selling itself Brylcreem on the TV...
...

Then he tried to teach it by his example, by being a gentle presence in the issues of the day, from Civil Rights to Vietnam to nuclear power to environmentalism, to adventurism in Central America, to the Occupy movement... And he did it with a smile...

Good comments; a reminder of Seeger's involvement with the GI coffeehouse movement was followed by another commenter noting a revival since W. Bush's wars. Which got Pierce looking into it, and finding this.

Roy Edroso on Seeger the musician.

He was a lefty Brahmin who took up hill country music, and that mix could have and maybe should have been ridiculous, like a Puritan trying to swing. But it isn't, in him; Seeger felt the music... His singing was like John Carradine playing Casy in The Grapes of Wrath -- a performance, a bit stagey, but absolutely shot through with the true feeling of a time and a people. And with something timeless, too, that can still speak to us.

Digby, remembering some Seeger testimony before HUAC. And here: "How the private sphere coalesced with the public sector to destroy lives with the anti-communist blacklist." The latter links to Corey Robin, on the First Amendment stance Seeger took with HUAC—

While invoking the Fifth was not without its perils—most important, it could put someone on the blacklist... it had the advantage of keeping one out of jail. But the cost of the 5th was clear: though you could refuse to testify about yourself, you could not refuse to testify about others.

So Seeger invoked the First Amendment instead. A far riskier legal position—the Court had already held, in the case of the Hollywood Ten, that the First Amendment did not protect men and women who refused to testify before HUAC—it was the more principled stance. As Seeger explained later, "The Fifth means they can't ask me, the First means they can't ask anybody." And he paid for it. Cited for contempt of Congress, he was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to a year in prison. Eventually the sentence got overturned.

At Seeger's 90th birthday, Springsteen's words were perfect.

And Woody's "That side was made for you and me": as moving as ever.

Big Boss' Big Week

Monday morning Clever Sister heard this on NPR: "Christie 'Heartbroken' Circle Of Trust' Was Violated." What really caught her attention was Steve Innskeep's lede—

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave an epic press conference yesterday. It went on for almost two hours, almost as long as the traffic jams that prompted him to meet with the press in the first place.

"... almost as long"? When this was four days, of emergency vehicles unable to pass, children unable to get to school?

Media and pundits just can't quit him, as Steve M. has been following. And it's not only Republican operatives eager to pretend Christie is "a moderate."

This would explain the infatuation, as Chris Hedges puts it—

Christie is the caricature of a Third World despot. He has a vicious temper, a propensity to bully and belittle those weaker than himself, an insatiable thirst for revenge against real or perceived enemies, and little respect for the law and, as recent events have made clear, for the truth. He is gripped by a bottomless hedonism that includes a demand for private jets, huge entourages, exclusive hotels and lavish meals. Wall Street and the security and surveillance apparatus want a real son of a bitch in power, someone with the moral compass of Al Capone, in order to ruthlessly silence and crush those of us who are working to overthrow the corporate state. They have had enough of what they perceive to be Barack Obama's softness. Christie fits the profile and he is drooling for the opportunity.
...

Wall Street was unable to mask Mitt Romney's cloying sense of entitlement and elitism, along with his Mr. Rogers blandness. But Wall Street sees in the profane, union-busting New Jersey governor the perfect Trojan horse for unfettered corporate power. Christie, eyeing a bid for the presidency in the 2016 election, has been promised massive financial backing by the Koch brothers; hedge fund titans such as Stanley Druckenmiller, Kenneth C. Griffin, Daniel S. Loeb, Paul E. Singer, Paul Tudor Jones II and David Tepper; financiers such as Charles Schwab and Stephen A. Schwarzman; real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman; former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso; former AIG head Maurice "Hank" Greenberg; former Morgan Stanley CEO John J. Mack; former GE Chairman Jack Welch; and Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone. David Koch has called Christie "a true political hero" and said he is "inspired by this man." Rupert Murdoch, whose ethics seem to align with Christie's, is similarly besotted with the governor.

Christie is pitched to the public, as was George W. Bush, as a regular guy, someone who speaks bluntly and candidly, someone you would want to have a beer with. But this is public relations crap. He is and has long been a hatchet man for corporate firms and big banks. He began his career as a corporate lobbyist in Trenton, N.J., working for clients such as the Securities Industry Association. He has done their bidding ever since. His wife, Mary Pat Christie, is a bond trader who has worked at JPMorgan Chase, Fleet Securities and Cantor Fitzgerald and is currently a managing director at Angelo Gordon, an investment firm in New York.
...

Christie's large public entourage always includes a videographer who captures the governor’s frequent public humiliation of those—public school teachers are his favorite targets for ridicule—who have the audacity to question his judgment. These exchanges are immediately edited and uploaded to YouTube. There are now more than 600.

And so on.

David E. posts some of the teacher-bullying videos.

More from Steve M. about possible motives for punishing Ft. Lee; on the 13th

... I'd like to see a lot more attention paid to the theory of Bridgegate outlined by Steve Kornacki on MSNBC over the weekend: that it was an attempt to put a scare into Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich as he struggled to finalize funding for part of a billion-dollar development in his town under the George Washington Bridge -- a development for which an easy commute to Manhattan via the bridge is a principal selling point. Watch the segment, read the follow-up at Talking Points Memo, and see if it doesn't make sense. (Yes, I think it makes more sense than the Rachel Maddow theory that the traffic tie-up targeted the majority leader of the state senate, a Fort Lee resident, because of a dispute over judicial appointments: why would the emails on this subject say nasty things about he "little Serbian" -- Mayor Sokolich is of Croatian descent -- if he weren't the target?)

There's plenty to be investigated, and Steve M. added this yesterday—

On MSNBC this morning, Steve Kornacki reported on allegations by Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer that the Christie administration withheld Sandy relief fund for her city -- 80% of which was flooded by the hurricane -- because the city was reluctant to approve a redevelopment project in a form that helped Christie allies...
...

Kornacki's previous -- and, to me, highly persuasive -- scoop was the linking of the Fort Lee lane closures on the George Washington Bridge to another redevelopment project, in Fort Lee, which was struggling to get funding at the time of the closures, and which was premised in part on the selling point that Fort Lee offers easy access to New York City through the very bridge lanes that were closed.

As an Italian-American, I sometimes think it's simple-minded to compare every shady Italian guy to Vito Corleone or Tony Soprano. In this case, though, I give my blessing. The Christie mob clearly feels it has total control over New Jersey redevelopment -- you don't do it in a way that crosses the Christie mob's interests. You recognize that the Christie mob makes your redevelopment possible, and when the Christie mob asks for something in return, you owe. And woe to you if you don't pay up -- whether it's an endorsement for Christie's reelection or preferential treatment for Christie's pals.

In another context, TBogg says about the newest Southern congressional candidate/rape expert—

So let us extend our heartfelt congratulations to the GOP on another fine recruiting season. Dick Black looks like he is a keeper and even though he will cause conservatives excruciating pain and shame and embarrassment as he is thrust into the national media limelight over and over again, they should keep in mind that it will all be over soon and they should probably just lie back and enjoy it in the meantime.

If only because their body politic lacks the ability to shut these kind of things down.

A good one. But there's not so much to laugh at when our entire body politic lacks the ability to shut down all kinds of things in need of shutting down.

Of the Christie story, at best the mockery of him on national TV by his idol may be a bit wounding

.

Trust

Surely we can trust them.

Some aging "terrorists" recently came forward to remind us of some earlier abuses of authority.

The speech today.

Weirdly enough, the speech happened to be delivered on the anniversary of "Beware the Military Industrial Complex." So Digby observed; part of her take on today's speech

... the president and others' insistence that Snowden is a traitor while simultaneously patting themselves on the back for reforming, changing, investigating, extolling and criticizing the secret surveillance state based entirely on his revelations is now beyond fatuous. There was no mechanism in place aside from the one he chose, obviously, and it's exactly the reason we have freedom of the press in this country in the first place. It is time for these powerful government officials to grow up and recognize that the mere fact that they are making changes proves that he is a whistleblower and at least allow him to obtain long term legal asylum in a foreign country. We are strong enough to allow our faults to be exposed without persecuting those who expose them. In fact, doing that is downright unAmerican.

More Freedom

West Virginia news, via Tengrain—

Water-relief tankers filled from Charleston water system — you read that right. The tanker trucks allegedly delivering fresh, safe water to the 300,000 parched residents of the chemical spell Libertarian Paradise of West Virginia, was filling the tanker trucks with the contaminated water.

...

Freedom Industries files for bankruptcy, owes $2.4 million to IRS — Surely it is a coincidence that Freedom Industries would enter bankruptcy protection just now, before all the class action and other law suits could be filed for poisoning the water of 300,000 people through negligence?

"The filing also puts a hold on all of the lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. Since the leak last week, about a mile and a half upriver from West Virginia Water American’s plant in Charleston, about 25 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom Industries in Kanawha Circuit Court. The company also faces a federal lawsuit."

Couldn't Happen To A More Deserving Guy

This.

Best taken with digby's reminder of how nominal Democrats joined in to swoon along with the Establishment crush on the guy. Digby quotes this, from just a few months ago—

The checks are flying into the Republican governor's war chest from all sorts of unlikely places — the hedge fund run by liberal billionaire George Soros, for example, and the politically progressive halls of the University of California, Berkeley.

The nascent support from Democratic donors is an early sign of Christie’s fundraising prowess in a potential run for the White House in 2016, experts and Democratic donors said, and dovetails with recent polls showing him gaining popularity nationally among Democrats and independents.

...

"While I do not agree with his stance on every issue, he is one of the best political leaders I have talked to in a long time," said Ken Rosen, a UC-Berkeley professor who cut a $3,800 check to Christie after chatting with him at two events. "He is willing to take on tough issues such as pension reform, education reform, mental-health issues, even if his views are not politically correct."

Tough enough to bully and physically intimidate school teachers.

It Never Ends

"Terri Schaivo Redux," says Charles Pierce. A story he knows too well, having observed the earlier one first-hand.

Comparing the right's exploitation of Schaivo with this new, horrifying family tragedy, Pierce says that—

In the end, the dangerous combination of fundamentalist rage and raw political opportunism got so bad that it blew up on the Republicans, and it had a lot to do with their losing the congress in 2006.

And yet, remember, nothing is ever finished with these people. Now comes the tragic case of Marlise Munoz, a young Texas woman who collapsed while pregnant, and whose family has pleaded that she be allowed to pass. However, even though Munoz is dead, according to Texas law, she must be maintained as an incubator for the fetus inside her for as long as that may be necessary. They aren't even sure whether the drugs that were given to Munoz in an attempt to revive her may have damaged the fetus itself. She is being kept alive as a receptacle, nothing more. It is grotesque, and it is the law.

The surface difference between then and now is that the far right has largely resisted the urge to fly into total barking hysteria. That could be because the beating they took over the shutdown has given them a temporary modicum of impulse control, but the more likely explanation is that there's just no need for the circus to come to town. Republicans across the country have succeeded in systematically gutting abortion rights. The circus is already here. The circus is the law.

Let Freedom Spill Forth

Sleazy operators calling themselves "Freedom Industries"? What could go wrong?

Freedom, indeed: from regulation, or responsibility.

Grist For The Narrative Mill

It follows that November's fifty-year assassination anniversary would lead to another fifty-year mark: the anniversary today of LBJ's "War on Poverty" speech.

Despite all right-wing success in undermining it, cue media conclusions that the "war" was a failure and government can't address poverty.

On another media front: Robert Gates.

It was trustingly bipartisan of Obama to retain a long-time Bush family operative. On the other hand, I don't look forward to how this will feed the "failed presidency" narrative.

Newly Arrived (Evolved, Or Not)

Charles Pierce—

The world, at the age of 4.5 billion years, more or less, and increasingly depending on whether you're a Republican or not, has spun merrily around the sun one more time, and all of us are still here. We survive, but it's an open question whether or not we evolve.

It's not just the newly quantified stupid inherent in one half of our political system that bothers me, although knowing that an ever-increasing slice of one of our two political parties adheres to the biological principles of 1838 is worrisome. (What, for example, are they teaching their children? What will their children teach their own children? And on and on until half the country is painting in caves again.) It's that it's always been my conclusion that human evolution -- political, cultural, and social -- is tied to the impulse toward cooperation, or, in the case of our politics, the inclination toward commonwealth.

As David Ehrenstein says, "the facts are still being disputed by morons." Ergo, they are fans of.

Of course people fall for the hokiness; of course the wingnut family has political ambitions.

But are these scripted hillbillies themselves real or fake? The overly good teeth are the tip-off.