As I've tried to describe in previous essays on torture, it seems pretty clear that torture is essentially a deprivation of rights--what organisms need to function and survive. That it's not well recognized is evidenced by the fact that deprivator--i.e. the agent of deprivation--isn't even listed as a word in common English dictionaries. Deprivation might as well be a force of nature, like inundation or circulation, not subject to human direction or intervention. And that, no doubt suits the deprivators just fine. Agency without responsibility is always attractive, especially when the results are negative.

Monopolies are bad. Monopolistic enterprise is self-destructive, but corporations have figured out how to achieve immortality. They just declare bankruptcy from time to time, leave all their obligations behind and go merrily on their way.

For clarification of the issue, The Daily Show is incomparable.

I don't, typically, hog the front page with blog posts. However, Gregg prompts me to make an exception and use the tools that will provide exposure of his posturing for the longest period of time.

That’s a lot of allusion to fit in one title, but it’s all necessary to be included. “The disappeared,” of course, refers directly to the practice in some parts of the Americas to simply take inconvenient people out of circulation by spiriting them away without an explanation to anyone–public officials, friends, colleagues or family members. But, while some people have been concerned that the provisions for long-term detention in the Patriot Act might be a harbinger of people being similarly disappeared in the U.S., what I want to focus on is the long-term and on-going effort to downgrade and dilute the singular entity our constitutional government is designed to protect, the person.

“American” is, primarily, a geographic designation. It does not differentiate between citizen, native, resident or temporary visitor. Indeed, the Constitution obligates the United States’ agents of government to serve all persons within its jurisdiction–i.e. where the law applies–equally. Indeed, whether that means that the Constitution follows the flag when our agents of government are active in foreign lands is a matter of current judicial dispute. In this context, the central and southern continents may not have the explicit reference in their laws and traditions to the singular importance of the person. But, that public officials have perceived themselves challenged by apparently inoffensive individuals and “disappeared” them, is evidence of the significance of the person.

Economists are a peculiar lot as social science goes. Perhaps because their subjects actually handle material things, economists have decided that the trade and exchange of goods and services is only economic, if they can count it. Moreover, because keeping track of money is easy, economists have further simplified their field of inquiry by restricting their analysis to transactions mediated by money.

If money doesn't change hands, an exchange doesn't count. Which, in economist speak, means that the economy of a particular region or population is "undeveloped." From which it seems fair to conclude that the primary objective of "economic development," at least from the economist's perspective, is to remedy a stumbling block and facilitate their ability to count and account for what's going on. Whether people are actually better off using money than when they're engaged in subsistence farming is beside the point. It does, perhaps, explain why the evidence suggests that they're not.

What follows is an explanation of how the transfer of the American people's assets into the pockets of a few is carried out--what I have taken to calling "Deprivation Under Cover of Law", for the simple reason that it's all legal.

As someone who tried to rally Florida voters behind Michael Dukakis in 1988, I was already able to claim, when 1992 rolled around, to have "been there and done that."

I had good reason by '88 to be done with Reagan/Bush, having seen, first hand, how "revenue sharing," which Republicans routinely decried, was being used by those self-same Republicans to bribe the electorate when election time rolled around. That's right. Grants for wastewater treatment plants we'd been planning and waiting for for years (to serve all the people who were moving South to where it's cheaper to survive and not risk freezing to death) had been held up to use as a bribe.

We were supposed to be grateful that Washington was giving us some of our money back. And I resented that.

Dukakis came and went in '88. Or rather, he never did show up in our part of the state of Florida. His campaign organization wouldn't even let us put a generic "Vote Democratic" jingle on the radio to get out the vote.

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam

Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

I am going to go out on a limb here and opine that Charlie Cook, political pundit and "indispensable" columnist for the National Journal would not want to be living on the range. And not just because his name is Cook and the joke is stale. No, Charlie Cook is definitely into delivering discouraging words. In the January 30 th version, he hangs his report on President Obama giving himself the modest grade of B+ for his first year in office.

Since I don't much like people putting words in my mouth, I normally avoid doing it to others. On the other hand, given the GOP commitment to

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

it's very likely that the theme team of Boehner and Cantor were after being done to; that the point of their missive to the White House was just to trade insults. But, their forgetting that to assume is to "Make an Ass of U and Me" was an unusual error, given that the GOP is known for being particularly adept at word games.

This is making me feel as if I'm inventing a new game: "How many clichés can you use to define a conservative?"

Aside from making asses of u and me, Boehner and Cantor's missive is based on premises that are factually false:

1) that the President develops legislation,

2) that starting over does not involve going backwards,

3) that the American people's choice in 2008 was unclear.

This would explain why they sent out the following. Perhaps they also assumed it would not be read.

Deprivation of rights under color of law is a well-recognized, if not frequently prosecuted crime. Indeed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a comprehensive explanation and some interesting statistical data, including a list of the most common categories in which these crimes occur:

• excessive force;

• sexual assaults;

• false arrest and fabrication of evidence;

• deprivation of property; and

• failure to keep from harm.

However, that's not the topic I want to address today. I want to focus on what I call "deprivation of rights under cover of law." But, first it seems important to consider what "deprivation" means.

Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, wrote on the White House blog that

Let's be clear: Sen. Shelby is preventing qualified nominees who will help protect the American people from being confirmed. He’s not alone, though. This is just the latest example of this kind opposition for opposition’s sake that the President talked about earlier this week.

Which is accurate, as far as it goes, but really just a symptom of a bigger problem.

VISA, the credit card company has a new self-promotional campaign on the net, in print and on TV. Being technically quite advanced, the verbiage on the web site explaining what's up can't just be copied and pasted. So, please bear with the transcription, in case I err.

On second thought, there's probably too much verbiage to go above the fold, so let me just point out that my attention was first caught by the back cover of National Journal (Senator-elect Scott Brown is on the front) where some school teacher in Mecca, California is promoting "financial responsibility" by pointing to greenbacks pinned up on the wall. More apt than the engineers of this campaign probably intended.

What they intended seems pretty well encapsulated in the Introduction of the Currency of Progress Campaign:

Visa is celebrating how the power of digital currency is transforming lives with a new advertising campaign--Currency of Progress.

In a previous diary I called attention to the fact that our (the American people's) generosity, dispensed via low interest loans from the Commerce Department's Fisheries Program, had been repaid by the Shafmaster enterprises by polluting the waters of Great Bay. That is, to recap, Jonathan S. Shafmaster, either in his own name or as Lordco Pier Associates, had collected, over a period of six years, at least nine million dollars in low interest loans from the U.S. Department of Commerce and yet couldn't manage to keep from fouling the Bay.

I'm sure that there's an entirely logical explanation, but, whatever it is, you'd think that the beneficiaries of Uncle Sam's munificence would, out of simple gratitude, do their best to comply with all environmental rules and regulations. But, you'd be wrong.

While the following is a re-post of a comment I left on DailyKos, I first want to make the observation that the school lunch programs, which feed the children of poor people for free, provide a constant object of antagonism for people who prefer to think that poverty is tangible evidence that some people are just naturally inferior. Instead of concluding, from the evidence of the off-spring of poor people achieving significant academic and athletic success, that these are the consequences of being well fed, some people prefer to write off such achievements to preferential treatment (affirmative action) and free lunches rewarding laziness. That Senators Landrieu, DeMint and Graham have used such verbiage in connection with providing adequate health care and medical services is not co-incidental. They all subscribe to the belief that ALL social benefits have to be deserved. After all, if you can't condition rewards/bribes on "good" behavior, how do you exercise control? Government BY the people--i.e. popular government--is a nightmare and fills them with fear.

For the longest time, I was sure conservatives were intent on creating the nanny state. I was wrong. Somehow I missed that the yearning has been for Papa all along. Perhaps my eyes were opened by the newly elected Senator Scott Brown, whose life's ambition is to prove he can be a better father than his dad and, presumably, his step dad.