As with the Gates incident, there are two stories here, and the media are picking up on only one. Everyone’s asking: why didn’t this police officer know who Bob Dylan was? Nobody’s asking: regardless of whether he was Bob Dylan or Bob the Builder, what right did this police officer have to demand his papers and force him into her car when there was no evidence of his having violated any law?
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All Of This Has Happened Before …
We might see a big-screen Galactica – one set in the continuity of the original rather than the reimagined series. Details here.
There’s supposed to be more details here but the site seems to be down at the moment.
Turf Wars
On this whole debate as to whether the townhall protests represent genuine grassroots activism or mere “astroturf” coordinated from above, Julian Sanchez has an eminently sensible comment (CHT Jesse Walker):
Any “astroturf” campaign on the modern media landscape is going to require actually ginning up some broad-based activism if it’s going to be effective. And any genuinely spontaneous, bottom-up action that seems even moderately interesting and resonant with national issues is going to find a whole lot of political professionals eager to promote, guide, replicate, or co-opt it.
Similar remarks apply, of course, to the tea parties.
Weather Underground
Okay, this is admittedly random, but I love the way this guy says “details.”
Why You Should Stop Worrying and Love Government-Run Health Care
Our President Incarnate explains:
People say, well, how can a private company compete against the government? And my answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining – meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do – then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.
Well then, that should reassure the skeptics.
Gn?sis Tou Homoiou T?i Homoi?i
Direct Action: An Ethnography, anarchist scholar David Graeber’s long-awaited 600-page sociological/anthropological study of the anti-globalisation protest movement, is now available from AK Press.
He says it’ll also be available from Amazon in a couple of days.