Assange interview

You can now see Amy Goodman interview Julian Assange here.

For those many Americans who have never actually met a member of the real left, you should listen to Slavoj Žižek. Amid all the joking, it’s clear that he regards liberals as worse than conservatives, because they are trying to prevent the collapse of the system. The (completely ahistorical) belief that Utopia can only emerge from the ashes of the established order seems to be a defining characteristic of extremism of either left or right.

By contrast, Julian Assange seems to have discovered and embraced a principle that transcends any ideology, namely that if people genuinely know what is going on, they will do the right thing. While it is not true for those cynical opportunists who do know what is going on yet continue to do wrong, it probably is true for the overwhelming mass of people of all ideologies. It is also a very ancient principle, enunciated two millennia ago: “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

Of course, others have used the phrase with less noble motives, or perhaps they understood freedom as the ability to inflict death and suffering on a global scale.

Power corrupts…

Rory Carroll, The Guardian:

Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an “assault” on Venezuela’s democracy.

“Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela’s] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that’s a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not.”

Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke on the eve of publishing an open letter (see below) that accuses Venezuela’s authorities of “cruelty” in the case of a jailed judge.

The self-described libertarian socialist says the plight of María Lourdes Afiuni is a “glaring exception” in a time of worldwide cries for freedom. He urges Chávez to release her in “a gesture of clemency” for the sake of justice and human rights.

Hugo Chavez has not done many of the things of which he has been accused. It’s not even clear that Carroll is properly reporting what Chomsky said (See Simon Romero, NYT not known for his leftist leanings, for a materially different take). But he has been in power too long. For his own good, and the good of Venezuela, it’s time for him to step aside. Power corrupts, and too much power corrupts too much.

MN GOP: Bizarre Bedroom Agenda and 7,700 Rich People More Important than Budget or Jobs, So We Shut Down the Government

The story is here.

The 7,700 rich people? The state’s millionaires and billionaires, all of whom already pay less percentage-wise in taxes than the other 99.7% of all Minnesotans.