Given that we spent almost a week enjoying music from Mali, I figure I ought to say something about the Bamako hotel attack that took place just one week after the attacks in Paris. There are a few things that are worth noting. Note is that this was a terrorist attack. It was apparently carried out by Al-Mourabitoun and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. There were at least 19 people murdered. But I guess we don’t really care because most Americans don’t even know where Mali is, and the people there are used to being killed or don’t value life like we do or something.

Maybe it is that it is an attack by people who don’t look like us on people who don’t look like us. (In fact, that’s not true: it was an expensive hotel and over half of the victims were “white” — but only one was American, Anita Datar — working on family planning and HIV.) According to a BBC report, Mali has been under attack for the last three years — a situation that has been made much worse by the destabilization of Libya. It’s interesting to me especially, because the United States acts so much like Don Quixote. We throw ourselves into situations, make them worse, and then ride off thinking that we have done good. Of course, Don Quixote is insane. And the US is supposedly the most civilized of countries with by far the biggest military in the world.

The four or five gunmen who stormed the hotel were yelling “Allāhu Akbar” (“Allah is great”). So I guess that means Sam Harris was right. This is all about religion. It isn’t a question of a decades long separatist conflict with rebels in north Mali and west Niger. And before the Harrisistas start complaining that The Profit doesn’t say it is only Islam that is to blame, let’s be clear: I don’t think there has ever been a war in which most of the people didn’t feel God was on their side. In the Battle of Lena, both side thought Odin was on their side. Here’s a bit of history for you all: none of it was actually about Odin.

This attack took place on 20 November 2015. I looked back a year after the Paris attacks. So let’s look back at 20 November 2014 from the Global Terrorism Database. There were at least 105 fatalities from 39 attacks. And this isn’t taking into account all the people fighting against them, not to mention our own bombing and drone campaigns. I am almost to the point where I want to throw up my hands and just repeat, over and over, “They raped our queen, so we raped their city, and we were right!”

Of course, I fear that most people on all sides of these conflicts would respond the opposite from the way I intend. They would say, “Right on!” I’ve been more than clear over the years that I am not a pacifist. But it is clear that there are ways to make the world better and ways to make the world worse. We all know that the Iraq War destabilized the Middle East and made the world worse. Less known is that after almost 15 years of war, the Taliban have a tighter grip on Afghanistan than when we started. Well played, comrades; well played!

Meanwhile, death is everywhere — random and brutal. And our response here in the US is, “Not our fault! Close the borders! Hide under the bed! Oh, and keep up that drone program, because it’s working so very well!” Meanwhile, the people of Mali get on with their lives. They do not have the luxury to pretend that the world will be safe if only they close their borders.

You know me: Not a Real Man™. In general, I think men who act macho and belligerent are hiding something. They have very small penises or are awful in bed or are gay but too cowardly to admit it. Something. Regardless, it’s all about being terrified. So I’m not at all surprised that the political party of the macho man, the Republicans, should show its true colors and quake at the idea that terrorists kill people. I’m sure they are looking for women to walk in front of them so they lessen the impact of any bomb blast. If they are kidnapped, they won’t need to be tortured to yell, “Do it to Julia!”

It seems to me that the Paris bombings are a bigger media event here than they are there. We really are a nation of cowards. It takes almost nothing to set us off. This is why, with less than 5% of the world’s population, we spend just short of half of all the money on weapons. It’s why Bush’s line was so effective, “Fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here.” We just want to hide from the threats of the world. And that’s because we have to face such minor threats here. It’s also because we have one political party with an ideology so repugnant to the vast majority of people, the only way it can get power is by fear mongering.

I’ve always consider myself a coward. Yet I have often times gone into very dangerous situations and locations — alone. It’s not because I’m foolhardy. I just trust that (1) threats are usually overblown; and (2) I can usually handle situations. Given what I see among so many American men, I can’t consider myself a coward in an absolute sense — just relative to what I think true bravery would be. So I don’t know what that makes people who are afraid to live near a methadone clinic or a prison or a Syrian refugee family. We need a new word, but I’m afraid it is one that I would ban from this site on stylistic grounds.

The ultimate example of this is Big Chicken — or as I like to think of him, “Governor Shouts a Lot,” Chris Christie. He made the bold statement last week that we shouldn’t let Syrian orphans under five years old in. It’s not clear that he is actually afraid of them. He said, “But you know, they have no family here. How are we going to care for these folks?” Yeah, how would we ever be able to care for children? We just have no experience with that!

After the attacks in Paris, people opened their homes to strangers. The French government is not halting Syrian refugees from entering the country. But here, well, we can’t do that. It’s nice to be humane and all. But when you are vewy vewy afwaid, you just can’t allow it. I’ve been saying this about police for years: if they can’t stop killing unarmed people because they were afraid they might get a paper cut, can we at least cut the crap about them being brave?

The same thing goes for the Republicans (and frankly, a sad number of Democrats too): these men are something far below cowards. If Dante’s Inferno is real, they will spend eternity fleeing in terror from dandelion spores. But unfortunately, in this world, these men have power. And Walter’s assurance to Donny is not appropriate. These guys are going to hurt the whole world unless we fight back. Then they’ll run for their guns and a line of women to hide behind.

It seems to me that I read Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia several years ago. But regardless, someone has gone and put the audio book of it on YouTube. I’m sure it won’t stay there long — it’s clear copyright infringement, even though 99% of the money that will ever be made on the book has been made (but you know how corporations think: 1% is 1%). But I started listening to it while cooking. It’s kind of funny hearing Taibbi’s rather foul mouthed prose being delivered by the highly respectable Patrick Egan. But it works surprisingly well. And it is a good reminder of just how engaging a writer Taibbi is. Really, in his way, he’s as good as Thomas Frank.

The book is five years old. Yet it could have been released this month. The only thing is that he focuses on the term “Tea Party” more than is normal anymore. But the same people and groups are out there. And certainly I still use the term. If I had been writing in the 1960s, I would have talked about the “Birchers.” Today, it is the “Tea Party” — just ask Claire Conner. But that style of writing has fallen a bit out of fashion. But everything Taibbi talks about in the book is still going on — even down to the details. The conservatives are still fighting the same lost battles.

One thing that Taibbi notes (as have I) is that the Tea Party isn’t exactly wrong in its anger. But just as Thomas Frank has documented so well, they express their anger in a way that helps the very people they are supposedly angry at. And he mentioned something that I know from my own personal experience. Supposedly liberal regulations that harm small business people come at us almost exclusively from the state and local government. It is not the federal government that is keeping the small business person down.

Yet the Tea Party types are laser focused on the federal government. And they are the ones who are forever telling us that local control is better than federal control. Obviously, like everything else about the Tea Party and the Republican base, they think this because they have been taught to believe it. The vast majority of these people have no actual experience being in business. They just “know” this stuff because people who have spent their whole lives either in politics or in big business have told them so. But it is interesting to consider why this is the Republican dogma, especially when you consider that “local control” and “states’ rights” have always been dog-whistles for the racism that the Republican Party was founded to oppose.

I think I know the real reason. Clearly, the base is highly bigoted and the modern Republican Party would not be against slavery if it were still a political issue. But for the elites using the issue, it is all about taxes. As I’ve discussed before, state and local taxes combined are actually regressive. At the federal level, there are two kinds of taxes: the payroll and income taxes. The payroll tax is unbelievably regressive. Because it is seen as an insurance policy rather than a tax, the super rich pay virtually nothing at all, while I (grossing less than $30,000 per year) pay 15.3% of my money. And to add insult to injury, the Republicans constantly remind me that they won’t be able to afford to pay me my insurance when I am due to receive it.

So all the taxes other than the federal income tax are regressive. The federal income tax is only major tax that is modestly progressive. And so the rich want to vilify the federal government because they want to get rid of this one progressive tax. The Republican base has been good enough to go along with this plan, even though it isn’t the federal government that is going to bother them or tax them excessively. It is the state and local government. And the anti-government types are loudly screaming for the kind of government that is most intrusive.

The Paris attacks continue to really bother me. Violence, I understand. It happens all the time. But I keep feeling paralyzed regarding the response to it. A small group of extremists carry out a terrorist operation — killing themselves in the process. And suddenly it is clash of the civilizations? Especially here in the US, it seems that conservatives want to use this as a second chance to fight the Iraq War. This time it will be different!

I’ll admit: I don’t know what to do. The situation in Iraq and Syria is bad. But that was true before the Paris attacks. I get that the French government used it as an excuse to step up its minor bombing campaign. I think that’s probably the wrong thing to do. I think building a coalition is probably better. But it is all understandable. What isn’t understandable is all the conservatives in this country who shockingly claim that we need to start bombing ISIS. When countered with the fact that we have been bombing them hard — many thousands of missions — then the conservatives change the subject to something that Obama isn’t doing. He isn’t giving the Kurds enough support; he isn’t backing the right groups; he isn’t dropping nuclear weapons. Whatever.

Tuesday morning, I watched a new documentary by Max Blumenthal and James Kleinfeld, Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie (I am not Charlie). It looks at the rise of Islamophobia following the Charlie Hebdo massacre. What really struck me was how the French fascists have embraced the Jews but are using the Muslims in exactly the same way that fascists traditionally used Jews in the last century. And a few people note that it is all simply because it is useful to their imperialistic aims. As soon as the Jews are not useful to the fascists, I’m sure the Jews will find themselves in the same category as the Muslims, blacks, and Gypsies.

But what’s really amazing to me is the way that almost no one learns anything. Sure, most people have learned that it is wrong to hate Jews. Yet these same people did not learn to avoid treating Jews as a monolithic group. And they did not learn to avoid applying the same vile logic to a new minority groups. And here in America, it seems we will never learn that we can’t bomb our way to peace. Not that I’m surprised. The entire conservative approach to policy is to look for an excuse to do what they want to do anyway.

I’m sure that to some extent, I fall into the liberal trap of thinking that there are reasonable solutions to the problems of belligerent groups. But I’m not suggesting that anyone just roll over. We in the advanced economies have the advantage of great resources — especially in terms of knowledge and time. So why is it that we seem to be doing exactly what ISIS wants us to do? Why is it we act like third grade boys who can’t wait until tomorrow to answer a challenge properly because we think we’ll look like wimps if we don’t act without consideration.

The monthly jobs report came out last Friday and it was pretty good. Dean Baker wrote, October Jobs Growth Pushes Unemployment Rate Down to 5.0 Percent. And you know what that means: the inflation is coming! Because, as we all learned in Econ 101, 5% unemployment is full employment. Of course, that actually means nothing. But that doesn’t mean that the Federal Reserve isn’t going to step in and slow the economy to stop even the possibility of inflation.

The unemployment rate may be down, but that doesn’t actually mean that much. As Baker noted, “The labor force participation rate is actually down 0.4 percentage points from its year-ago level.” The employment to population ratio of people between the ages of 25 and 54 was 80.0% in January of 2008. Today, it is 77.2%. So we have a low unemployment rate because lots of people in the prime working age range are simply not trying to find jobs because they aren’t readily available.

But what does that matter?! The Federal Reserve wants to increase interest rates because rich people think they might lose a little money due to inflation. So what is inflation currently? The core inflation rate right now is 1.89%. It has been almost three years since inflation has been above 2% — and then just for a single month. You have to go back a year further to find inflation above 2% for several months. How high? It peaked at 2.31%. And then you have to go back to November 2008 to be above 2% again.

They reason I bring this all up is because the Fed’s inflation target is supposed to be 2%. But it sure doesn’t look like that. It looks like the Fed has a 2% inflation ceiling. If we had a 2% inflation target, we would think years of less than 2% inflation would be followed by years of more than 2% inflation. But that’s not the way the Fed works, apparently.

Dean Baker’s conclusion is pretty much what any person in the normal economy would think, “In short, this is a much more positive report than we saw in the prior two months. However, there is much in the report that indicates there is a still a large amount of slack in the labor market.” In other words: there is no fear of inflation. Workers aren’t making more money. And the power elite think we need to stop this from happening out of fear that modest inflation might happen.

Matt Yglesias wrote a very good rundown of what everyone should know, We Could Have an Economic Boom This Winter — If the Fed Doesn’t Screw It Up. That’s the thing that is so horrible about the Federal Reserve. It is an institution by, for, and of the power elite. It is supposed to have a dual mandate: keep inflation low and employment high. But it never much frets about employment. For the last five years, it has been looking for any excuse to raise interest rates. It isn’t the case that the Fed is monitoring the economy and deciding what to do. It wants to raise interest rates and it is simply looking for an excuse to do it.

Chad Stone, the chief economist at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities tweeted out what should be obvious, “Three more months of jobs reports like today’s and maybe the Fed should start considering the possibility of raising rates.” That would be the reasonable thing. But instead, the Fed acts like an AA member standing at a free bar, “Gimme an excuse!”

In addition to suppressing workers’ wages and keeping millions of others out of work, the Fed could be setting the stage for a Republican president in 2017. Sure, there is some risk of a moderate rise in inflation if the Fed doesn’t raise interest rates. But there is a far bigger risk that it will tank the economy if it does. But that latter possibility doesn’t much concern the Fed, because it isn’t likely to hurt them or anyone they know.

I can’t even remember how many responses I’ve read to Kevin Drum’s weak argument, Liberals Should Knock Off the Mockery Over Calls to Limit Syrian Refugees. I really don’t care. I am with Martin Longman in thinking that Republicans who claim to be such strong jerks are really wimps who “become incontinent every time they think of a Muslim terrorist.” But really, it is this kind of stuff that has me depressed this week. Can’t the whole country have its entirely predictable freak out without it being considered news? Oh my God: Republicans want to increase our military presence in the Middle East! That’s right up there with: crossing guard used to keep schoolchildren safe at busy intersection.

So I was really pleased when I read Talking Points Memo yesterday, Bobby Jindal Drops Out of 2016 Republican Race. He said, “This is not my time.” And I understand: this too is on par with the crossing guard story. But at least I haven’t read it fifty times this week. And it is nice to see more people drop out of the Republican nominating contest. It’s not because I think it will make it more serious. Jindal is no more crazy than the rest of them. But getting down to a reasonable number of candidates is a good thing.

No one is surprised, of course. In fact, FARK’s headline was, Bobby Jindal Was Running for President? But it is much more than that. Back in January, The Onion published, Bobby Jindal Not Sure He Willing to Put Family Through 2-Month Presidential Campaign. They only got the timing wrong. Jindal stayed in the race for almost five months! But they were quite right that he wasn’t going to come anywhere near to the actual Iowa Caucus:

To be honest, I’m not sure what Jindal did with the extra couple of months. And I’m not too sure of what any of them are doing. I would think they would be in Iowa and New Hampshire just going door to door. It seems to me that politicians have gotten really lazy. If they aren’t talking to big crowds or on the television, they don’t seem to care. If the debates (at least on the Republican side) are what passes for campaigns, then we are in serious trouble. Because the candidates are at their worst under those circumstances. I dread seeing them all pounding their chests about Paris at the next debate.

As for why Jindal has dropped out and why he was never going to be the Republican nominee, I think I have the answer. It’s something like the uncanny valley in robotics. The idea is that we like robots that don’t look like us; they are cute or charming. And we are fine with robots that look just like us. But robots that look almost like us give us the creeps. In Jindal’s case, he wasn’t dark enough to make Republicans feel good about how non-racist they are. Just the same, he was way too dark to be white. So he was in the uncanny valley where his skin color and cultural background didn’t help him.

I know this probably sounds like I’m joking, but I am most certainly not. If Bobby Jindal looked more like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio — men who are quite literally LINOs: Latino In Name Only — then he might have had a chance. He would have done even better if he were African American, where all Republicans demand is that the candidate tell them that they are right to hate all “those kind” of black people. But a Hindu turned Catholic who was governor of a state with lots of French names? He’s more Secretary of Labor material.

Anyway, it’s great news; now he can spend every weekend with his kids.