Isaiah 11:6 tells us:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
The leopard will lie down with the goat,
The calf and the lion and the yearling together;
And a little child will lead them.

That time has come my friends. Jennifer O’Connell has posted an email sent from R— (Do you feel like you are in the middle of a 19th century novel?) to Hasbro, the toy and game company. (I assume R— is O’Connell’s daughter, but I don’t know.) She sent the following email to the company regarding their game Guess Who?

I hope that this email causes Hasbro to change their game design. However, their initial response was not good. They said:

This doesn’t answer the question at all. I can see where they might only put mustaches on men. But there is no reason they couldn’t have 12 men and 12 women characters.

I encourage everyone to write to Hasbro at askhasbro@hasbro.co.uk or most likely askhasbro@hasbro.com, but I can’t find a direct email address—they want me to create an account, the bastards! If you do, tell them you’d like to see 12 or even 13 female characters in Guess Who? (because there are more women in the world than men).

Regardless, I have confidence that R— has it well in hand.

We need a bigger social safety net. Yesterday, Paul Krugman pointed this out by noting our modern economy where everyone is just supposed to get used to the fact that you will have a new job every three years and that insecurity is now normal so get over it. This kind of dynamism requires some kind of bedrock that we can all hold onto. And the only such bedrock comes from the welfare state.

I have a problem with the “new job every three years” idea, even though that has been my life. All this new economic dynamism has mostly been on the part of workers, not companies. It would be one thing if companies only lasted three years. But what happens is that companies that last 100 years no longer show any loyalty to their workers. (Even while they complain that workers don’t show enough loyalty to these companies.)

What has really happened in the modern world is that the government long ago declared open season on unions and all manner of other worker rights. So now workers are in the position of beggars, hoping that some company will take pity on them and employ them for a few years.

Of course, the people who want to destroy the social safety net are the same people who want to eliminate worker rights. I was amused earlier in the year when some conservative MP claimed that everyone should start their own businesses. This is absurd, of course. If that happened, there would be no businesses, just 7 billion private contractors. But what’s interesting in this context is that such a claim implies that people who complain about lack of work should just be able to start their own businesses. “Just take out a loan from your parents!”

I think we are past the point where we can reasonably claim that the right in this country (or just about any other) is an honest broker. They hate the poor. They think the poor are morally deficient. They would prefer that the poor just die off, but as long as they are powerless and hidden, fine.

Krugman is right of course: now more than ever, we need the social safety net. If companies are going to follow the Gordon Gekko model that profits are all and they owe nothing to society, the government needs to take over. But as long as these business owners have the power that goes along with their profits, they will fight hard to impoverish workers outside their business environment. The smaller the safety net, the more pliant the workers will be.

Eventually, this all ends in a feudal state, of course. So while we still have a democracy, we must fight to empower workers. And that means expanding the welfare state, not just protecting it.

There was an amusing bit on Real Time last Friday. The panel was talking about Romney’s recent conference call and how the adults in the Republican Party needed to take control. Maher said that one way they could do that was to stop all this nonsense about Benghazi. Given that Real Time is at base a comedy show, it is not surprising what happened next. The two “reasonable” Republicans, David Frum and Ana Navarro, got apoplectic. “But there is a cover-up!”

This is the problem with all of the talk about the Republican Party reforming itself. The Republican elite didn’t get into power by accident. The difference between the extremists and the moderates is the way that they talk about issues, not where they actually stand on issues. Like the rank and file members of the party, moderates are authoritarian followers. As much as I look for reasons to explain the conservative worldview, nothing fits better than John Dean’s authoritarian theory.

This gets to the heart of what is so frustrating about talking to Republicans. Most of the time they are incredibly reasonable. Yet in the heat of an election or on an issue that Fox News is pushing (e.g. Benghazi), they lose all perspective. This explains why they look back so fondly on Bill Clinton and how they will gush with praise over Obama in 8 years. These people are easily led by demagoguery.

The reason the most vile Republicans rise to the top is that they best pose the issues in a way that the conservative authoritarian followers can accept. The question is never do you want to protect everyone from potential global warming; it is: do you want to destroy the economy or believe in a liberal conspiracy theory? It is never how do we best help the poor; it is: do you want your hard earned money going to a bunch of loafers? It is never what is the proper role of government surveillance; it is do you want another 9/11?

When I talk to conservatives their answers are normally nuanced. But they can’t help jumping for the sloganeering of the party elites. And this is as true of the public “moderates” as it is for the rest. Both Frum and Navarro said reasonable things about non-partisan issues. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. In fact, it makes them more dangerous. They clearly have the capacity to see the complexity of the world but they choose to (following Stephen Colbert) let their guts lead them.

And this is why the Republican Party will not reform itself anytime soon. For all the reasonable talk from the moderates, they are as easy to get worked up in a froth as the rest of their party. The froth production masters are the crazies. When David Frum manages to not get excited by things like the Benghazi scandal, then the party will change.

Afterword

Read John Dean’s excellent Conservatives Without Conscience.

And look! Candy:

People don’t like movies as much as they like games. At least, that’s what I learned today at a matinee of Lincoln filled with old people. Most of them just go to see how many actors they can name. The people sitting next to me only got two names right: Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones. That’s not quite correct, though: it wasn’t that they only got two names right; they only got two names at all.

For example, every time Joseph Gordon-Levitt was on screen as Lincoln’s eldest, one would say things like, “Isn’t that the guy from…” And then he would trail off, allowing the other to say, “Yeah, he’s the guy…” I wanted to scream, “He’s the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun you idiots, now shut up!” But I feared this would cause them to ask me questions for the rest of the picture.

But for these people and so many more like them, let me clarify. Lincoln was played by the guy from My Left Foot. Mary Lincoln was played by the Flying Nun. Secretary of State Seward was played by the creepy pedophile in Dolores Claiborne, but he’s been in almost every movie you people have seen in the last 20 years. Sol Star from Deadwood and the prison guard from Minority Report played two of Republican operatives. And yes, Mark Twain (Or Deep Throat, take your pick!) played the leader of the conservative Republicans and U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard played Thaddeus Stevens.

Now if I happen to go see Lincoln again, will you all shut the fuck up?!

Behold: the principled conservatives! Behold how they stand up to powerful interests in the name of free markets and free minds! Behold how they fold like a cheap card table the moment those powerful interests open their mouths!

The House Republican Study Committee released a report on Friday calling for reform of our nation’s intellectual property laws. It presented four very good policy prescriptions. First, statutory damages reform. This would stop the ridiculous practice of granting awards before judgement is made—of up to $150,000 per “infringement.” According to Statutory Damages in Copyright Law: A Remedy in Need of Reform (PDF), the courts have interpreted “willful” infringers in a most liberal way (i.e. in a way that helps corporations and screws everyone else).

Second, the House Republican Study Committee suggested that we expand fair use. Third, they say we should punish false copyright claims. This would curtail the tactic of large companies destroying smaller companies with illegitimate copyright lawsuits. And fourth, they suggest that we limit copyright times.

Anyone who regularly reads me will know that I think these are all very good ideas. I don’t think they are nearly enough, but they are movement in the right direction. So let’s hear it for the House Republican Study Committee!

Or not.

The report had been out less than one day when it was pulled. Paul S. Teller, the House Republican Study Committee director, sent out a memo claiming that the report went out without “adequate review.” What’s more, “Copyright reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand.” What do you think those viewpoints might be? Perhaps the viewpoints of corporate copyright holders who cut big checks to House Republicans? (I’m not suggesting that this isn’t also a huge problem with the Democrats.)

This isn’t a bill. This is just a brief. It’s just information. But the corporate overloads can’t even allow us to talk about such things. Because if we don’t talk about it; we can’t do anything about it. And we really must do something about it, or we will be extending copyright further every few years to stop Micky Mouse from falling into that nasty world called Public Domain. Public baaad! Corporate profits gooood!

The Young Turks reports that the leftist economies of Latin America are growing:

I really like Michael Hastings. Like most people, I learned about him when he published his explosive The Runaway General in Rolling Stone. I didn’t give the article itself that much thought. A reporter had a good scoop. It was the reaction to the article that made me take notice of him. It seemed you couldn’t turn the page of a magazine without being confronted with another journalist explaining why Hastings’ article was a bad thing. Never again would the disgraced Stanley McChrystal trust him.

My opinion of Hastings went even higher when he appeared on Up with Chris Hayes in August and dismantled Josh Barro’s fascist argument against Julian Assange. Even more than Jeremy Scahill, Hastings seems determined to get at the truth regardless (or perhaps because) of powerful interests.

Earlier this week, Hastings wrote an article for BuzzFeed, The Sins Of General David Petraeus. He doesn’t talk much about the sex scandal. In fact, he writes, “For the record: Who really cares whom P4 is sleeping with? The idea that the FBI was investigating his sex life says more about the FBI and our absurd surveillance and national security state than it does about King David’s morality.” Overall, he is understanding of both Petraeus’ and Broadwell’s dalliances.

The problem is not Petraeus’ affair with Broadwell; it is Petraeus’ affair with the media. Hastings then goes through the last ten years of his career and shows that it has been a sham. He managed to trick the Washington establishment into thinking that the Surge in Iraq was successful and then managed to get the Obama administration to repeat the Surge in Afghanistan—with tragic results. All while the media cheered along.

Of course, just as after the Rolling Stone article, there were journalists who had to snipe. Dylan Byers at Politico wrote a hatchet piece. It is particularly offensive because it tries to psychoanalyze Hastings. Hastings lost his girlfriend in Iraq? He went after someone who worked at Little, Brown because they decided not to publish his book? Hastings considers himself a Gonzo journalist? What any of this has to do with anything is unclear.

A commenter, Tr Randolph, wrote what I thought was a very good reply to this bit of journalistic nonsense:

Other commenters focused on one bit of Byers article that is worth repeating here:

This is exactly the argument we heard against the Rolling Stone article: you shouldn’t tell the truth about powerful people! If you do, you will lose access. And if you lose access, you won’t be able to… Continue to not tell the truth about them?

Afterword

This is a great bit of TV with Hastings at his best:

I got a free copy of Funny Times sent to me. It’s not bad. It’s clearly geared toward an older audience, but it definitely has its moments. Like this cartoon: