Another socialist blog

I wasn’t going to dignify this silly Obama-is-a-socialist business with a response, but it so persistent that I’ve changed my mind.  Someone might actually be curious to know whether it’s true.  If you are that curious person, welcome.  And no, it’s not true.

I do happen to know something about socialism.  If you’re reading this blog you already know I call myself a socialist.  You may not know that for 25 years I was a member ofthe Socialist Party USA, the party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, and served multiple terms as National Co-Chair of that organization.  I’ve run for public office as a socialist, and I’ve voted socialist, I’ve had a hand in writing several Socialist Party platforms.

Socialists think that the capitalist economic system is the problem. We describe capitalism as a system in which one class of people owns practically everything, and another (much larger) class of people owns nothing of significance.  The working class provides labor to the owning class, in exchange for wages, and this creates wealth for the owning class.  You hear the name of Karl Marx thrown around a lot lately; it was Marx who theorized that the wages are worth less than whatever the workers produce with their labor, and that this surplus value created by labor is where all profits ultimately come from.  Socialists propose a completely different kind of economy, in which workers and communities own and control the companies that produce things, or at least the biggest companies.

That’s it.  That’s the essence of socialism.

Liberals aren’t socialists, no matter how many times you hear conservatives repeat that they are.  Liberals believe the basic idea of capitalism is sound, but they think capitalism needs some adjustments to avoid being too cruel to the weakest members of society.  So liberals support minimum wage laws, prohibition of child labor, Social Security, the right to form labor unions, various government subsidies for health care, progressive taxation, and public education, to name a few.  Socialists are for all those things too—indeed, most of these were our ideas to begin with—but being for liberal measures like an income tax doesn’t make you a socialist.  Wanting to redistribute wealth from rich to poor doesn’t make you a socialist.  To be a socialist you have to cross the line, and be for social ownership of “the means of production,” to use the stuffy Marxist phrase.

Barack Obama hasn’t crossed that line, and he never will.  There’s a strong argument to be made that he’s not even a proper liberal.  He’s a centrist Democrat and corporations aren’t a bit afraid he’ll rock the boat.  About Obama’s anti-corporate rhetoric, Ralph Nader had this to say:

“You see, that’s all permissible populist rhetoric that the corporations understand and wink at. Look at who gets the corporate money. Six out of seven industries giving money, through PACs and individual executives, etc., are giving more money to the Democrats than to the Republicans.  I mean, John McCain’s having trouble raising money, even now [in May 2008].”Obama’s taking large money from the securities industry, the health insurance industry . . . I’ve gotten used to this ritual where the companies give Democrats this leeway, and say, ‘Well, Obama’s gotta say that stuff, but he’ll come around. There’s no way he’ll touch Nafta or touch the WTO.’”

Conservatives are unconcerned with the differences between liberals and socialists (never mind all the diverse flavors of socialists).  For them, liberalism is enough of a threat that they’re willing to brand everyone who isn’t conservative a bomb-throwing radical.

It’s not enough that we’re waging war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran, now Bush has invaded Syria.

A man at the scene who refused to be identified said there were four helicopters, two of which landed, and eight soldiers came down and started shooting. He said all the people killed were shot on the ground, not from the air.

About one kilometer away, at the one-story family house of Dawoud al-Abdullah, who was killed in the bombing along with his four sons, about 30 women dressed in black were weeping in a small courtyard. They all dismissed allegations that the dead men had links to al-Qaida.

“They were innocent laborers who worked from dusk to dawn,” said Abdullah’s wife, Rima, while sitting on the floor. She said work at the construction site started last week.

The raid illustrates what has been called the new Bush Doctrine, which is simply that the United States reserves the right to cross any international border it pleases in pursuit of anybody we don’t like, and the sovereignty of other nations be damned.

Six voters in two West Virginia counties say that electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democratic to Republican right in front of their eyes.

Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”.

In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.

This is a strange new use of the word “isolated.” I think you meant to say “widespread,” or perhaps “systematic.”

Virginia Matheney, one of those voters, said Friday, “When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain.” Retired factory worker Calvin Thomas of Ripley said he experienced the same problem.

“When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor’s office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude.

“After I finished, my daughter voted. When she pushed Obama, it went to McCain. It happened to her the same way it happened to me,” Thomas said.

So why aren’t all the West Virginia voting machines impounded already, as evidence of a federal crime?

Via BoingBoing:  the EFF has published a step-by-step guide that tells how to find out if your laser printer is secretly watermarking everything you print.

Tracking dots are the secret marks that many popular color laser printers and photocopiers scatter across every document they touch. The marks, almost invisible to the eye, uniquely identify the printer that produced the document, and, as EFF uncovered, can even automatically encode the time and date it was created. Anonymous self-publication and distribution have been, and remain, a vital political communication channel in many countries. A telltale pattern readable by government officials is a tool that oppressive states everywhere would love to have — not to mention the general threat to individual privacy countries more respectful of human rights.

Finally, after attempts to suppress it, an independent report on the security of Sequoia voting machines is out.  The report lists eight ways the AVC Advantage 9.00 voting machine can be subverted, i.e., made to tamper with your vote. If you live in a jurisdiction that uses Sequoia machines, you should take steps immediately to vote absentee, which will secure your vote on a paper ballot.

Executive Summary

I. The AVC Advantage 9.00 is easily “hacked” by the installation of fraudulent firmware. This is done by prying just one ROM chip from its socket and pushing a new one in, or by replacement of the Z80 processor chip. We have demonstrated that this “hack” takes just 7 minutes to perform.

The fraudulent firmware can steal votes during an election, just as its criminal designer programs it to do. The fraud cannot practically be detected. There is no paper audit trail on this machine; all electronic records of the votes are under control of the firmware, which can manipulate them all simultaneously.

II. Without even touching a single AVC Advantage, an attacker can install fraudulent firmware into many AVC Advantage machines by viral propagation through audio-ballot cartridges. The virus can steal the votes of blind voters, can cause AVC Advantages in targeted precincts to fail to operate; or can cause WinEDS software to tally votes inaccurately. (WinEDS is the program, sold by Sequoia, that each County’s Board of Elections uses to add up votes from all the different precincts.)

III. Design flaws in the user interface of the AVC Advantage disenfranchise voters, or violate voter privacy, by causing votes not to be counted, and by allowing pollworkers to commit fraud.

IV. AVC Advantage Results Cartridges can be easily manipulated to change votes, after the polls are closed but before results from different precincts are cumulated together.

V. Sequoia’s sloppy software practices can lead to error and insecurity. Wyle’s Independent Testing Authority (ITA) reports are not rigorous, and are inadequate to detect security vulnerabilities. Programming errors that slip through these processes can miscount votes and permit fraud.

VI. Anomalies noticed by County Clerks in the New Jersey 2008 Presidential Primary were caused by two different programming errors on the part of Sequoia, and had the effect of disenfranchising voters.

VII. The AVC Advantage has been produced in many versions. The fact that one version may have been examined for certification does not give grounds for confidence in the security and accuracy of a different version. New Jersey should not use any version of the AVC Advantage that it has not actually examined with the assistance of skilled computer-security experts.

VIII. The AVC Advantage is too insecure to use in New Jersey. New Jersey should immediately implement the 2005 law passed by the Legislature, requiring an individual voter-verified record of each vote cast, by adopting precinct-count optical-scan voting equipment.

I’ve covered this company’s dangerous products before, under their old name of Diebold. Their reputation was so bad, they chose to rename the company, a la ValuJet, rather than actually fix the cause of their notoriety.

Republican women in California have apparently decided not to take the high road after all.  Their newsletter featured a satirical food stamp with Obama’s face on it.  It also features watermelon, ribs, Kool-Aid and fried chicken. The club president, Diane Fedele, defended the food stamp, saying it was not meant to be racist.

Fedele said the mailer merely parodied the statements Obama made during a debate last summer and wasn’t racist. “If I was racist, I would have looked at it through racist eyes,” she said. “I am not racist, which is why it probably didn’t register.” Club member Kristina Sandoval agreed. “None of us are racists,” she said. The use of watermelon, ribs and fried chicken was innocent, she said. “Everyone eats those foods, it’s not a racial thing.”

We’re not sure how that defense works. Sure she might be a sweet lady, but how oblivious do you have to be to try and say that there was no racial jab behind the choice of food surrounding Obama? I mean, do we need collard greens and maybe a flaming cross before we can really call it racism? Come the fuck on. But yes, more sensitivity please. That’s a good place to start.

This was probably wasted effort by the Republicans.  I’m thinking John McCain pretty much has a lock on the racist vote.

Now that he has the endorsement of former Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell, Barack Obama has heaped praise on the Republican, calling him “a great soldier, a great statesman and a great American….”  Really?  A great American?  Are we talking about the same Colin Powell?

I remember the Colin Powell who lied for George Bush when Bush needed someone to sell his war against Iraq.  Powell knew that what he said in front of the United Nations that day was false.  The honorable thing to do would have been to refuse to lie for his boss.  But he lied anyway, and six hundred thousand people have died as a result.  Colin Powell is not an honorable man, he’s a war criminal who belongs in prison for life without possibility of parole.

Instead it’s looking like Powell will get a job in the Obama adminstration.  Maybe Obama will also continue the Bush administration tradition of handing out medals.

Republican state senator Jim Seymour, of my own home town of Woodbine, Iowa, has been a voice for social conservatives in the state.  What a surprise, then, to learn that he also solicits prostitutes.

Seymour confirmed that in March 2002, he responded to a classified advertisement that police had placed in The Des Moines Register. He met the prostitute decoy in the 3000 block of East Ninth Street, court and police records show.After the $90 in cash was exchanged, he was taken to the city jail and his 1998 Nissan Maxima was impounded, a police report states.

Prostitution is an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

The court records connected to Seymour’s arrest are sealed to the public - possibly because he received a deferred judgment. However, one court record is public: an order stating that his $90 was forfeited to the state.

Seymour said he expects some voters will be upset.

So let’s review: he admits guilt. And somehow, he had enough juice to avoid doing time, indeed, all he apparently lost was the blowjob he paid for.  The state of Iowa colluded in covering up the arrest, which made it possible for Seymour to serve six years in the Iowa Senate, and Seymour is unopposed in the November election.  Yeah, I guess you could count me among the people who are upset.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t consider myself superior to someone who engages the services of a prostitute.  Hell, I don’t consider myself morally superior to the prostitute.  The only reason the arrest is a story, is that Seymour and his Republican colleagues have made political careers promoting their so-called Christian values at the expense of the rest of us.  Seymour has voted against an anti-bullying law because it would have protected gay students, against medically accurate sex education, in favor of defining human embryos as people, and in favor of a constitutional amendment stating that “only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in the State of Iowa.”  That’s right, he’s telling me what’s valid about marriage, this guy who paid for a blowjob.  Seymour is just another in a long line of Republican hypocrites, and their sexual behavior is absolutely a legitimate target because they would like to dictate the sexual behavior of other people.

Lest you think Seymour is isolated in his hypocrisy, take note:  Republican leaders are standing by their man.

Sen. Ron Wieck of Sioux City, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said he would have liked for Seymour to have come forward after his arrest, “but that’s a decision he had to make.”He’s a hardworking senator, and I would hope that the people in his district see him for that side of him and not for the one mistake that he made in his past,” Wieck said.

Stewart Iverson, who was the Republican majority leader at the time of Seymour’s arrest and election, said he believes Seymour can still be an effective leader.

“I think one indiscretion will not affect his ability to think clearly and to make good decisions,” Iverson said. “But I also know the public sometimes is not forgiving and the public is sometimes a little tougher on Republicans than Democrats.”

Maybe the public wouldn’t be so tough on Republicans if Republicans weren’t so self-righteous.

Your luggage is broken into and searched without a warrant, and you aren’t allowed to be there to witness the search.  All part of traveling by air these days, right?  Now it turns out that a TSA inspector has been stealing stuff from passengers’ luggage, and was caught with evidence of $200,000 of stolen property.  He was selling it on eBay.

Thanks to Boing Boing for a pointer to this piece about sham security at the airport.  Jeffrey Goldberg smuggled all sorts of contraband past the TSA screeners, and even used forged boarding passes.  The worst he got was a “secondary screening” that nabbed his Leatherman tool.

On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads Then surely the party of God are they who will be triumphant. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, “That’s a Hezbollah flag.” She said, “Uh-huh.” Not “Uh-huh, I’ve been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley–trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system,” but “Uh-huh, I’m going on break, why are you talking to me?”

Bruce Schneier, whose insights on security I greatly respect, says the purpose of security theater is to make people feel better by creating the illusion of security.  I’ve got my doubts about that.  I think the point is to make us feel as if we’re under siege.  Since September 11th, the government has gone to great lengths to keep us scared to death, because that makes us more willing to accept military adventures abroad and a police state at home.