The Tea Party movement: deluded and inspired by billionaires

The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.

An Astroturf campaign is a fake grassroots movement: it purports to be a spontaneous uprising of concerned citizens, but in reality it is founded and funded by elite interests. Some Astroturf campaigns have no grassroots component at all. Others catalyse and direct real mobilisations. The Tea Party belongs in the second category. It is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting. We now have powerful evidence that the movement was established and has been guided with the help of money from billionaires and big business.

Much of this money, as well as much of the strategy and staffing, were provided by two brothers who run what they call "the biggest company you've never heard of".

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Wikileaks

Regarding Wikileaks - I find it curiously-revealing that one side of the debate is focused on denouncing the distasteful actions (or lack thereof, in the case of protecting detainees from torture at the hands of their Iraqi jailers) chronicled in the reports, whereas the "other side" is desperately denouncing the act of releasing the information itself.

I learned from the Armenian Shark that you can't 'unring' the bell - so might it not be more effective in a democratic and free-thinking society to ensure to the best of our abilities that, in the future, either the kind of damaging information revealed by Wikileaks isn't recorded so it can't be leaked in the first place (ignorance is bliss), or, more realistically, that our policy makers institute directives that compel the best possible behavior from our government representatives abroad, and that we actually hold ourselves accountable for following those directives and conducting ourselves according to the highest standards of enlightened liberalism? I mean, it's downright embarrassing to see former State Dept. advisers whining that Julian Assange should be declared an "enemy combatant." Apparently it's lost on them that this kind of extra-judicial, imperial hubris is what got us into this mess in the first place. Just compare:

"The government views the allegations very seriously," - Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen

vs.

"Here are some of the things the U.S. could do: Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them." - Christian Whiton

Seriously?

The USA does not need an Official Secrets Act. Our government just needs to do the best it can, at home and abroad, to implement policies that are in the long-term national interest, which don't jeopardize our international standing and the legitimacy we supposedly enjoy as a bastion of democracy, unique in the world thanks to our American exceptionalism.

As Stephen M. Walt writes in the respected journal Foreign Affairs: "Realist that I am, I believe that human beings are more likely to misbehave if they think they can shield what they are doing from public view. For that reason, I also believe that democratic societies are more likely to adopt better policies when information is plentiful and when government officials cannot determine which facts are available to the public and which are not. Because its primary function is to make more information available on issues that concern us all, I therefore conclude that what Wikileaks is doing is on balance a good thing."

To Mr. Tomaso Zirbel

Tomaso, I believe you know more or less how I've come to feel about your case, but, after reading your recent commentary, one thing I want to emphasize for our readers - who might not have as sophisticated an understanding as you do of the two cases you cite - it's really CONI that appears to be capable of dubious action (in the case of Di Luca) whereas USADA continues to toe a consistently-hard line (and it sounds like Merritt won't be able to defend his Olympic titles - though I don't agree that the IOC holds any "moral high ground" - they're as corrupt as they come). And I doubt that USADA, had it been party to Di Luca's case, would ever have consented to such a radical reduction in his suspension - when the rider himself goes to great lengths to point out that his cooperation was completely devoid of any significant assistance in identifying other riders using doping products to unfairly earn hundreds of thousands of euros per year.

“I gave no names,” said Di Luca. “I did it for (the good of) cycling, not to point the finger at any cyclists."

No doubt that your cycling career was destroyed at its zenith by a case of inadvertent ingestion of DHEA, and you are paying the price in the form of a full two year ban (how many tens of thousands of dollars would it have cost you to post-up the experts and legal guidance necessary to prove your innocence and obtain a reduction in your ban? $150,000? A quarter of a million dollars? That works out to more per month in legal and scientific expert fees than most guys earn in two years in the US domestic peloton).

But I don't think that USADA is the villain here - they seem to be reasonably consistent in applying what seems more and more to be unfair penalties against those who've accidentally ingested "banned" products like DHEA. (It also bears mentioning that DHEA doesn't work, as you well know, and there IS a radical difference b/w what one can infer about an athlete's motivation when he's been "caught" w/ DHEA vs. EPO - apples and oranges...)

It seems to be the Italian anti-doping system that which is, at least on the surface, unreasonably lenient in allowing an admitted doper like Di Luca to escape the full sanction despite not providing truly significant assistance in the form of fingering his colleagues in the peloton (spitting in the proverbial soup, he'd call it).

Were he holder of a US license, I suspect Di Luca would be sitting out more than two years, whereas if you were Italian, perhaps a case would never have been brought against Tomaso Zirbel.

No one is perfect, and certainly no agency is above reproach in the fight against doping in sport. But for the most part, USADA seems to me to try to apply consistent sanctions to ensure that there is some measure of fairness - even if that fairness takes the form of still-significant sanctions for all athletes (or most athletes) convicted of inadvertent doping violations...

Keep your chin up and keep trying to stay productive during your sanction, invest that $$$ that you saved by declining to arbitrate your case and come back for a few more years once you're cleared. There's no reason to think you'll have lost the class that took you almost as far as a medal in the elite World ITT. I know it en vogue to be jaded and cynical once you've been banned, but it's crazy to think that even two years away from the sport will succeed in erasing a love of cycling from your DNA.

Good luck!

Rui Costa Temporarily Rehabilitated

I just saw that Bike Pure "reinstated" Caisse d'Epargne's Rui Costa, so to speak, providing an explanation of their rational for doing so on the same website from which they axed the accused-doper.

Now I fully realize that the doping-centric internet forums like Cyclingnews.com's Clinic are staffed by a jaded and cynical group, but I personally find it refreshing that Bike Pure - a well-intentioned and honorably-led organization - sees value in re-evaluating its initial reaction to erase Costa from its membership rolls.

As Bike Pure works to establish and maintain both legitimacy and relevancy while shaping public opinion related to anti-doping and cycling, this kind of humility and perspicacity is worthy of note.

PLACES VINO ATTACKS

Another installment in the ongoing series:

'PLACES VINO ATTACKS'

In This Episode: VINO Attacks at CAS/His $$accountant's$$ office

CAS finds that UCI's Vinokourov fine is not valid - Kazakh will not have to pay year's salary for 2007 positive

"Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) will not have to pay a fine equivalent to his then annual salary of €1.2 million as a result of his positive test for a blood transfusion at the 2007 Tour de France. According to El Pais, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found against the International Cycling Union (UCI) and in favour of Vinokourov at a hearing in Lausanne on August 31..." MORE

COMMENTS: No Commentary Required, though one can imagine that CAS saw the image of VINO attacking underwater and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

NEVERTHELESS, How it is that VINO is VINO and all others are pretenders, using the case of Danilo "Wannabe Killer" Di Luca as an example:

Di Luca (who gave himself the nickname " The Killer from Spoltore")

"...It is Di Luca's second doping suspension after he was already banned for three months in 2007 for being linked to the Oil for Drugs affair. CONI also announced that his initial fine of 280,000 Euro was being reduced to 106,400 Euro."

VS.

VINO (Алексaндр Николаевич Винокуров holds the rank of Colonel in the Kazakh Army - Қазақстанның Қарулы күштері Qazaqstannyñ Qarūly küshteri)

"...El Pais reports that the court found no legal basis for the UCI to fine Vinokourov a year’s salary. Ahead of the 2007 Tour de France, the UCI requested riders to sign a declaration entitled “Riders’ commitment to a new cycling,” which stated that the riders who incurred doping suspensions of two years and upwards would be liable to pay a year’s salary as a contribution to the UCI’s anti-doping programme."

COMMENTS:  In case you don't get it, while Di Luca obviously has some value and celebrity in order to secure a reduction in his fine, to be VINO is to not be fined, and in fact, I expect that shortly the UCI will offer to pay VINO the amount it originally requested of him, in hopes that he won't attack Pat McQuaid in a more literal sense.

Lastly, during the 2007 Tour VINO was tragically misquoted:

"I am happy with my performance, I am finding my legs again. Now I want to attack in the Pyrénées."

should actually have read:

"I am happy with my performance, I am finding my legs again. Now I want to attack the Pyrénées."

Alessandro Petacchi

Ale-Jet won't be attending the 2011 Tour de France route presentation. OK. That's understandable given the witch-hunt-like environment that's enveloped professional cycling and is making it impossible for riders even casually suggested to potentially be possibly connected to a situation tangentially related to doping to move about publicly without being subjected to sometimes-humiliating treatment at the hands of the "authorities" AND the fans. It's a shame, nevertheless, and is a discouraging example of how stakeholders in cycling have become experts at cutting off their noses to spite their own faces.

The idea that there can't be a middle ground between the kind of unquestioning support and blind loyalty demanded by an accused-doper like Lance Armstrong, and the savage abuse that is still heaped upon a convicted-doper like Riccardo Ricco is downright silly. When did professional cycling become an environment in which it was believed that corruption could not - would not - exist in a similar proportion to that which is found in business, politics, or even other sports? How is it that seemingly otherwise-rational, university-educated, wealthy, sophisticated fans lose all perspective when it comes to doping in cycling and take such great personal offense when it's revealed that the athlete who they idolized, lionized, dreamt about and even imitated (by shelling-out $200USD for a pair of team-issue bibs, jersey, gloves, socks and cotton cap) is doping in an effort to ride faster, often in the hope of making more money?

Of course it's disappointing, annoying, offensive, even, when our heroes are revealed to be mere mortal men, with the same little foibles as the rest of us. And yes, we're right to react with anger and cynicism when another positive anti-doping control is announced (or two, in the case of the Costa Brothers). And of course doping in sport must be fought aggressively. But who's to tell me that I can't celebrate Alessandro Petacchi as a rider and respect his palmares, even as I lament the possibility that his career may be terminated as a result of his own greed, stupidity, foolishness, etc.?