Geneva and Reciprocity
Feldman's deeper argument - and the superb essay is well worth re-reading - is that the administration made a simple decision after 9/11 to change for ever the way the U.S. wages war. Since the enemy was now beneath civilized standards, the argument was that we should be prepared to match them in depravity, if "military necessity" required it. The Jacksonian logic was one of reciprocity. But the point of the Geneva Conventions was far more than reciprocity. It was to lay out clear, universal moral standards for civilized countries to pursue; and, like all such international agreements, gained force and power by the cumulation of adherence. For the most powerful actor on the world stage to formally renounce or marginalize the code of Geneva might have made short term sense in pursuing the evil men of al Qaeda (although the purported benefits have yet to be shown). But in the medium and long term, all it has done is to soil the U.S.'s reputation as a beacon for human rights and undermined the war itself, especially its broader pro-democracy aspects. It has also made the cumulative force of Geneva far weaker. The next time a U.S. soldier is captured and tortured, we will have very little credibility in complaining. Why could we not have said: "This is a war. We will fight it as we always have done - with vigor but humaneness toward prisoners. Just because they are scum doesn't mean we have to copy them. We will provide them with our own military documentation and treat them like Geneva inmates. We will only release them when bin Laden declares an unconditional surrender." If we'd done that, we would have maintained the vital structure of Geneva, we would have avoided the blights of Guantanamo and Bagram and Tikrit and Basra and Abu Ghraib. We would have far more moral force in our legitimate, vital campaign for democratization in the Middle East and beyond. Now it is too late. You only get one shot at maintaining Geneva. And we blew it. Reversing course now would subject too many soldiers and commanders and CIA interrogators and administrtoion officials to legal perils. So Bush will hang in there. It remains one very important reason why we should have fired him last November.
Great Story for Torture Fans!
Hey torture apologists, here's a story you'll eat right up!
Man tortured into admitting killing his wife. He is then imprisoned until, 11 years later, his wife is located, alive and well. His torturer, under investigation for the arrest, scrawled his defense on a tombstone in his own blood before hanging himself in a graveyard!
News of the Weird material, for sure. Doesn't say where the wife was for the last decade.
A Note About the Arthur Andersen Conviction Overturn
Just a passing thought that I had as I skimmed the story on Enron-accountant turned non-existent company Arthur Andersen: I wondered if lefty bloggers were up in arms over the court being soft on corporate crimes. Lefties are, of course, very clear in their feelings about white collar crime and Enron-related stuff in particular.
So I punched it into Technorati, and found nary a hint of brewing violence against judges, no comparisons (okay, I didn't look at all 1,000+ hits) to the Klan or the Holocaust. No sharply worded condemnations about a coming day of accountability for activist judges. Nothing like that at all.
Interesting, isn't it?
Bush Calls For End of Genetic Certainty in Human Breeding
QUESTION: Thank you, sir.That's some 400,000 "extra embryos" that are currently sitting in deep freeze. Bush wants each and every one of 'em popped into some woman somewhere and given birth to.Last week, you made clear that you don't think there's any such thing as a spare embryo.
Given that position, what is your view of fertility treatments that routinely create more embryos that never result in full-term pregnancies? And what do you believe should be done with those embryos that never do become pregnancies or result in the birth of a child?
BUSH: As you know, I also had an event here at the White House with little babies that had been born as a result of the embryos that had been frozen -- they're called snowflakes -- indicating there was an alternative to destruction of life.
Nothing like 100% would result in a healthy child, but let's play "BushWorld What If", shall we?
Given that most IVF treatments produce a number of extra embryos that are "siblings", how do we regulate this burgeoning industry to ensure that these 400,000 kids don't start unwittingly popping out inbred offspring in the next two to three decades?
I find adoption of embroys really, really creepy. Regular adoption already creates these sorts of situations every now and again, but with embryo adoption, especially on the scale that Bush wants it... ew. There goes the neighborhood.
Note to Out of Towners
For those who may driving into Atlanta right this very minute to climb a crane in Buckhead, please note that you will be mocked roundly online and possibly shot by angry commuters.
FYI.
TrackBack Works Again
You can shoot trackback pings to my posts again, should you so desire. Big thanks to Josiah and the ATLBlogs team who worked the problem out over the holiday weekend.
And I should probably add that they do this all for free. Thanks guys, I know I'm thrilled to be an ATLBlogger.
Because I said I would
If you're wondering how useless our elected officials are, here's Sen. Saxby Chambliss' reply to my query about his vote against funding for body armor for our troops:
Thank you for contacting me regarding further protectionFrom here on out, it's phone calling all the way, bastards.
and equipment for our troops abroad. It is good to hear from you.On October 8, 2004, the Ronald W. Reagan Defense
Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2005 was signed into Public
Law (P.L. 108-375) by the President. The bill authorizes funding
for the Department of Defense and the national security programs
of the Department of Energy. This law authorizes the use of
funding needed to purchase equipment for our troops and weapons
systems so that our military can successfully fight and protect our
nation.
Georgia plays a major role in the national security of the
United States with not only the military servicemen and women
from our state, but the important military bases that are located
here. The Defense Authorization Act of 2005 provides numerous
benefits to the entire military force fighting overseas. Our nation's
servicemen and women represent the best our country has to offer,
and they must receive the proper benefits and equipment to provide
for their safety. As a member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee and the Subcommittee on Personnel, I will continue to
help secure these important benefits and funding for our troops.
Again, I appreciate hearing from you on this important
issue. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to let
me know.Sincerely,
Saxby Chambliss
United States Senate
Everybody's a Critic
Controversial painting removed from Controversy show.
Just some text for handy mocking purposes:
But Michael Friedman, a long-time member of the Broward Art Guild and a disabled Navy veteran, said Phillips’ piece “went too far.” He called Mary Becht, director of the county’s Cultural Affairs Division, to complain about it.I think the work would be less impactful if Bush were seated, don't you think? If he were being 'orally penetrated', for instance, it would be hard to see his face.“I think it’s really vile,” Friedman said.
He said his objections to the piece “had nothing to do with it being critical of Bush.”
“It has to do with it depicting sodomy in a public place,” Friedman said. “I thought that was very poor taste.”
Friedman was also concerned that children who take art classes at the guild could be exposed to the painting. When he made the complaint, he said he didn’t know that the guild’s executive director had scheduled the “Controversy” show at a time when no children’s classes are scheduled at the guild.
Friedman added that he also objected to the painting’s depiction of a U.S. president being anally penetrated.
“I would object [to such a depiction] of any sitting president,” Friedman said.
What We Know
On the day after Memorial Day, in a time of war, it is only fitting that we should continue to honor our troops by ensuring that our nation asks them to commit to the sacrifice of bloodshed only for the most honorable reasons.
There is ample reason to believe that the war in Iraq does not rest on those foundations, and that the politician who acts as the head of our military decided from the outset of his presidency that we would have war with Iraq, with or without cause.
This is what we know:
On Thursday, February 1, 2001, the newly elected President held his first meeting of the National Security Council. Then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill provided the following document to journalist Ron Suskind for the book The Price of Loyalty:
The document outlines the agenda for the NSC meeting, which happened to be on Gulf Policy. The outline repeatedly addresses Iraq by name in the "secret attachments", including one called "Political-Military Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq Crisis (interagency working paper) - SECRET", as well as a CIA briefing on Iraq as part of the program to review "state of play" and determine "how to proceed."
9/11 happened seven months later.
According to an April 4, 2003 article in England's Guardian newspaper, former British Ambassador to the United States Christopher Meyer recounted that Tony Blair had to push the President in the days following 9/11 to stay focused on al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to Meyer, "Tony Blair's view was, 'Whatever you're going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand'."
On April 4, 2004, England's The Observer newspaper added more information.
President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.It's important to bear in mind that this information was initially reported two years ago, and then again one year ago. In other words, this isn't new, it's just that the Downing Street Memo, coming up shortly, adds a degree of context that seems confirming.According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.
There's one other item I want to point out in The Observer piece. It involves former British International Development Secretary, Clare Short, portions of whose diary were published in a lengthy interview with Ambassador Meyer.
This reveals how, during the summer of 2002, when Blair and his closest advisers were mounting an intense diplomatic campaign to persuade Bush to agree to seek United Nations support over Iraq, and promising British support for military action in return, Blair apparently concealed his actions from his Cabinet.Notice the date, July 26, 2002.For example, on 26 July Short wrote that she had raised her 'simmering worry about Iraq' in a meeting with Blair, asking him for a debate on Iraq in the next Cabinet meeting - the last before the summer recess. However, the diary went on, Blair replied that this was unnecessary because 'it would get hyped ... He said nothing [was] decided, and wouldn't be over summer.'
In fact, that week Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, was in Washington, meeting both Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in order to press Blair's terms for military support, and Blair himself had written a personal memorandum to the President in which he set them out. Vanity Fair quotes a senior American official from Vice-President Dick Cheney's office who says he read the transcript of a telephone call between Blair and Bush a few days later.
'The way it read was that, come what may, Saddam was going to go; they said they were going forward, they were going to take out the regime, and they were doing the right thing. Blair did not need any convincing. There was no, "Come on, Tony, we've got to get you on board". I remember reading it and then thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year".'
The Sunday Times has a text of the Downing Street Memo, dated 23 July 2002. Here's an excerpt:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.Pretty specific stuff, but the bottom line is that by July 23, 2002, America's closest ally had determined that the United States would engage in an invasion of Iraq and that Blair had told Bush as early as September 2001 that Britain would back such an invasion as long as Afghanistan was targeted first. But Blair was telling his own cabinet that nothing had yet been decided, while Bush barnstormed the United States to scare up support for a war he'd been planning since taking office.CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
What we have are some events on a 2-year effort that resulted in the invasion of a country that definitely posed no threat to our own.
Is this how America conducts itself, or should we demand more integrity from our leaders, especially when the choices involve sending America's young people to war?
May 30, 2005
One more, then I'm done until I'm all the way 29
I promise...
Congressman John Conyers has put out a call for 100,000 citizens to sign the letter that he and 88 other congressmembers sent to the White House regarding the Downing Street Memo. Click the link to go sign. (Thanks to BradBlog)
If you don't feel fully informed about the Downing Street Memo and what it means, you're not alone. Juan Cole says in Salon.com that the full gravity of Bush's offense has not yet sunk in for the American people. I have a feeling that it's about to.
Cernig, always on top of the issues (I just ramble about philosophy, really) has late-breaking shenanigans news here.
3:26am, Monday, May 30. No more blogging until Tuesday--I have a birthday to enjoy!
May 31 Update: Changed "Sen. John Conyers" to the more appropriate "Congressman John Conyers". The Simianbrain Legal Department informs me that I am not authorized to promote the Congressman from his current position, however much I may appreciate his work.
Big Brass Alliance
Please note the gigantic not-quite-color-matched logo under the banner: The Big Brass Alliance is taking off.
As of this posting, Technorati lists more than 300 references to it. Nice!
The brainchild of Shakespeare's Sister and Pam of the House Blend, BBA is rapidly expanding to include literally hundreds of blogs and bloggers who feel that the revelations in the Downing Street Memo warrant serious congressional review to determine if federal laws were broken in the creation of the Iraq conflict.
BBA exists to support the work of After Downing Street, an organization that is forcefully pushing this idea on our elected leaders.
I want to give a solid thanks to Shakespeare's Sister for kicking this off. Our nation is nothing if people are not actively engaged in the process of governance, and we've let the politicians run things for long enough. It's time for the Republic to work as it should again, and that will only happen when we concerned citizens make it clear to the people in Washington that we're watching everything they do, and that we will organize and hold them accountable.
Slate Highlights American Interrogation Tactics
It's Memorial Day, and while we must take advantage of the holiday to consider the enormous sacrifices and heroism of America's soldiers past and present and the gift of freedom they have left and continue to defend, we might also take some time to make ourselves more informed citizens.
Slate has produced an excellent interactive program on the interrogation techniques employed by our armed forces and intelligence services during the Bush administration, the executive branch's legal reasoning devising exceptions to international law, and the military reports exposing often heinous practices.
In America, the military is under the control of a civilian command, headed by the President in his role as Commander in Chief. The President, in turn, answers to the people of the United States, who in theory hold all the power. If we are uninformed as citizens, our system can't work.
Men and women in uniform have fought and died to defend our nation for nearly 230 years, and we arrive at a day where most of us don't even vote. In many ways, this is just as well because most citizens have little knowledge of laws that are pending or the process by which policies are created.
I can't think of a better way to honor the defenders of our liberty than by taking some time today to actually study an issue and become an informed citizen on a topic with enormous consequences for America and the world.
It's also my 29th birthday, and every so often my birthday coincides with the national observance of the holiday. So enjoy my birthday, everyone. If you want to thank me for your not having to go to work on this auspicious occasion, leave it in comments. That's a joke.
If you are lucky enough to know and love a veteran or service member, make sure to let them know how much you appreciate their work and the proud legacy of the United States Armed Forces. Make yourself the kind of informed citizen who will defend that legacy against the civilian leadership whenever it is threatened.
May 29, 2005
French Vote "Non"
Which is another way of saying, "A charter for limited government can be condensed to considerably less than 448 articles." (see: Constitution of the United States)
Oh, and lots of blah-blah about European unity and so forth, but here's a clue: it'll survive, and the constitution will end up better for the criticism.
Or, it won't, and Europe will get back to doing what it does best: waging war against itself. That 60 year break was probably nice, but the 21st century isn't shaping up to be much different than the 20th century.
May 28, 2005
Why does the Right hate American values?
Dean's World carries a piece called "Journalistic Sickness" that typifies the Right's disinterest in American values. Dean writes:
Prison abuses happen in every country, in every prison system. Worse things than Abu Ghraib happen every day in American prisons full of all-American criminals, and way worse happens every day in prisons in places like Saudi Arabia or Syria (and certainly did in Saddam's Iraq)--and by the way, pointing all that out is not about "excusing" anything, it's about perspective and making moral distinctions.Do you follow this line of thinking? Because we don't yet treat prisoners as brutally as Saudi Arabia or Syria, we have nothing to make excuses for.
Harkonnendog has presented similar arguments here on Simianbrain, effectively, "The result of being the moral compass of the world was 9/11, so there's nothing wrong with ditching that kind of leadership."
I don't know who raised these folks, but I was raised by an officer in the United States Army who volunteered for Vietnam and served two tours in-country. My father displayed a purple heart and other medals on the wall, and my brother followed in his footsteps and currently serves in the Army National Guard.
I was raised to believe that America is better than dictatorships like Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Saddam's Iraq, and not in a way that requires intellectuals to make "moral distinctions" to arrive at that conclusion. If that's where the right is taking America, to a place where we get to weigh the relative brutalities of foreign hell holes versus the ones that we ourselves build in order to determine whether we're better or worse, I have this to say: We're worse than we were before, jackasses.
People who call themselves "Americans" but don't believe that America should stand for anything will leave us with a nation that doesn't. Pay attention, people. Every time they mock reports of torture, desecration, or the murder of detainees who've never been charged with or convicted of a crime they are mocking the idea that America is something different, better, and more hopeful than any other nation in the world.
If we're just like them, but maybe a little better when we feel like it, what's the point of fighting this war anyway?
2008: Senator v. Senator
It's axiomatic in modern American politics that senators can't be elected president. They've spent their careers forging compromises and building consensus, they've cast a hundred thousand votes of which two or three can be painted by skillful operatives as anti-whatever...
JFK was the last President to rise from the ranks of the Senate to take the White House.
So what to make of the anticipated field for the 2008 Presidential election? Off the top of my head, here are the most commonly cited names for the big show:
- Frist
- Brownback
- Allen
- Clinton
- McCain
- Feingold
- Guiliani
2008 will be unique, at least in my lifetime, in another way as well. I was born the year that Jimmy Carter was elected, but aside from that every election has involved either an incumbent facing re-election or a vice president running to succeed the president he served.
I like it when politics feels unprecedented, and for me, 2008 already does.
May 27, 2005
I guess her ex-boyfriend's too poor to sue
Here's a reason to Yahoo. Or not.
Priorities=Screwed Up (Sensing a theme?)
If you've been considering gastric bypass surgery, don't. Just don't.
One new study [on all forms of bariatric surgery] reported that almost one in 5 patients had complications after surgery. For one in 20 patients, the complications were serious, including heart attacks and strokes. Another recent study said the mortality rate for the most common type of bariatric surgery, gastric bypass, was one in 200 - a rate higher than for coronary angioplasty, which opens blocked heart vessels...[For clarity, there is a snipping of a number of paragraphs here, and the following sentence appears to refer to the same data as the preceeding sentence quoted, but with more detail.] A study in The Journal of the American Medical Association in October said the death rate was one in 200 within 30 days after a gastric bypass.I would imagine that the mortality rate from obesity is nowhere near .5% in a 30 day period. How is this surgery even legal?
This page has some reaction following the recent study showing that obesity is less of a mortality risk than previously thought, and concludes with these statistics:
- Being obese, or having a BMI of 30 or greater, was associated with 111,909 excess deaths.
- Being underweight, or having a BMI less than 18.5, was associated with 33,746 excess deaths.
- Being overweight, or having a BMI of more than 25 but less than 30, was not associated with any excess mortality.
I don't think there's any way that this amounts to a 30-day mortality from obesity of .5%. Gastric bypass surgery, if these numbers are to believed, is far more likely to result in you being dead in the 30 days following than the same 30-day period if you didn't have the surgery. Additionally, there are other serious health complications occuring in approximately 5% of bariatric surgery patients, and less serious health problems in a whopping 20%.
This is butchery.
Important Call to Arms
A large collection of groups calling themselves After Downing Street has presented the House of Representatives with a formal Resolution of Inquiry request to force an investigation into whether the President knowingly provided false information to Congress and the public in the run up and early days of the Iraq invasion.
Shakespeare's Sister has more, including a way to get in on this action if you're so inclined.
This is a message that needs to be spread around, hint hint.
That Old Arab Helen Thomas Skewers Scott McClellan
Wow, check this out:
HELEN THOMAS: The other day — in fact, this week, you said that we, the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history —Thanks ModFab. It's so rare these days to see journalists pinning the powerful with their own lies.MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are — that’s where we currently —
HELEN THOMAS: — in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you’re taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected governments in Iraq and —
HELEN THOMAS: Were we invited into Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today —
HELEN THOMAS: You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I’m talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments —
HELEN THOMAS: I’m talking about today, too.
MR. McCLELLAN: — and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future.
HELEN THOMAS: Did we invade those countries?
MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.
I love that South Carolina law still references "buggery"
Not for the squeamish, but as GayOrbit.net says, "Must be all that gay marriage stuff".
Ellsworth AFB to Close; Besen Cites Thune As Reason
Wayne Besen pulls no punches when it comes to analyzing the BRAC list's inclusion of Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota for closure. John Thune is why, says Besen.
Noting that Bill Frist's Tennessee and Harry Reid's Nevada will both add nearly 2,000 jobs as a result of the BRAC list, Besen pointedly asks whether Sen. John Thune overstated the case when he said that he had the President's ear and that would keep the base open during his race to unseat former Sen. Tom Daschle. South Dakotans trusted him, and now they lose 4,000 jobs that the freshman Senator said he could jawbone into perpetuity.
Nice work, Sen. Thune.
Irony Abounds
Turns out Mom was sorta right. There are reports out now that Viagra and Cialis might make you go blind.
Still More Signs Of Our Screwed Up Priorities
...a thoughtful Pakistani scholar now teaching at Boston University, remarked to me: "When people like myself say American values must be emulated and America is a bastion of freedom, we get Guantánamo Bay thrown in our faces. When we talk about the America of Jefferson and Hamilton, people back home say to us: 'That is not the America we are dealing with. We are dealing with the America of imprisonment without trial.' "Sadly, it's way too late for that. We'd end up with a few bad guys roaming and the Guantanamo-fueled engine of recruitment, but Friedman's still exactly right. We can't win the war on terrorism by abandoning our place as a moral force in the world. We've already given that up. Now, we not only have a generational struggle against Islamic-fascist terrorism, but a generational struggle against the world's perception of what will be George Bush's legacy: extra-legal detentions, torture, and wars founded only on his desire to wage them.Guantánamo Bay is becoming the anti-Statue of Liberty. If we have a case to be made against any of the 500 or so inmates still in Guantánamo, then it is high time we put them on trial, convict as many possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country. Sure, a few may come back to haunt us. But at least they won't be able to take advantage of Guantánamo as an engine of recruitment to enlist thousands more. I would rather have a few more bad guys roaming the world than a whole new generation.
May 26, 2005
The Problem with Liberal Hawks
Matt Yglesias writes on the media problems facing liberal hawks, of which I consider myself one. He notes that
Politics and policy aside, I think those of us who'd classify ourselves as being among the more "hawkish" brand of liberals have a media strategy problem. Roughly speaking, a lot of Democratic voters don't like us very much.Well, there's that. Nice of him not to couch the problem in flowery language.
What we need to do is convince more liberals that they should like us. That means spending more time trying to convince liberals of the merits of our views, and less time re-enforcing the impression that we're just opportunists searching for votes out there in some ill-defined center. Give the people a convincing argument for a plausible hawkish policy (Kosovo, for example) and plenty of liberals will come along for the party.I think he fails to note that the perception of competence in the Commander in Chief is extremely important. I'm a liberal hawk who opposed the Iraq invasion because, deep down, I didn't trust Bush's leadership. I still don't, and I'm still skeptical that Iraq will be a model of socially open democracy in three years. Hopeful? Yes, but I live in the real world, and I carry the burden of real-world concerns with me every day.
I think there are fantastic reasons to be hawkish, but only when we tell the truth up front and only when we really intend to win.
Atrios takes some nearly incoherent swipes at liberal hawks, going ballistic for some of them supporting the Iraq war, says that pandering to the center is great, and concludes by saying, "So, liberal hawks, it's your mess - figure out how to clean it up..."
I'd love the chance. How about we put the bickering aside and focus on winning back the congress in '06 and the White House in '08? Seems like that would be more productive than a pissing match between the war and anti-war wings of the left, don't you think?
What's with NC Baptists these days?
This is what happens when your denomination spends 20 years purging progressives: Pastor removes "Flush the Koran" sign from church. But he had to pray on it first.
This follows the Waynesville, NC pastor who ejected Democrats from his church and then resigned when the liberal media suggested that might not be a very Christian approach to pastoral care.
If stupid is as stupid does, what exactly are we to conclude about Baptists in North Carolina?
Signs of our Screwed Up Times
And when I look at the evangelical community, I see a community in the midst of a transformation - branching out beyond the traditional issues of abortion and gay marriage, and getting more involved in programs to help the needy.Since when is helping the needy not a traditional Christian issue? Further evidence of how out of whack American priorities are.
An End to Re-Redistricting?
Not likely, but The Carpetbagger has a write up of a bill being pushed by Tennessee's John Tanner, a conservative Democrat in the House. It would create nationwide standards for non-partisan redistricting commissions in each state, which would have the amazing effect (no, really) of making congressional races competitive again.
The parties in each state have gerrymandered the hell out of the CDs whenever they've taken hold of the state house, and for the last few years the GOP has broken with tradition and pushed through mid-decade gerrymanders... I mean, redistricting maps, in several states (including Georgia).
The point is to consolidate power, and this comes at the expense of our democracy. Complete wankers end up in congress just because the local party establishment will fund them, and innovators are locked out of the system.
Kevin Drum says, "this is something the entire Democratic caucus ought to get behind in order to position themselves as the party of integrity and reform. This is a national issue, and the only way to handle it is on a national basis." He's exactly right. The commentor on his site who says, "Trimming the power of the majority when in the minority doesn't sound like integrity to me- if it was worth doing, it would have been done when the Dems controlled the Presidency and both houses," fails to recognize how limited Democrat control seems in light of current GOP excesses. The Dems did not initiate mid-decade redistricting, that was a GOP tool to shore up a shaky congressional majority.
Drum, Carpetbagger, and myself all note that Tanner's legislation is destined for oblivion, but if the Dems can ever gain the majority again, it would be a nice way to kick off a new era of reform, bipartisanship, and de-polarization in America.
Mockery is Patriotic!
Courtesy of The Sardonic Sideshow, a blogger after my own heart.
Slowly getting back in the swing of things
Ah, the return home. I wasn't actually ready to come home, but I also didn't want to stay in New Orleans another day, so I called in to work yesterday (hey, it's my vacation time, I'll spend it if I want to spend it) and spent the day working on the Parents and Friends of Ex-Straights website. It is much improved, visually and content wise.
While that site is satirical, Salon's feature for today is on people who identify as asexual (you'll have to watch an ad if you're not a subscriber) and have begun to claim it as an orientation. There is apparently some research to suggest that a small percentage of people may basically lack what the rest of us consider a sex drive or a sexual being.
The PFOXS website that I'm building is a parody of pfox.org, the Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, and there's a section in the Salon piece that particularly ties in with the sorts of things I'm trying to get at when I parody it.
The main concern among experts is not a debate over nature vs. nurture, however. Rather, it's the fear that those whose latent sexuality could be nurtured will chalk their asexuality up to "nature," and leave it at that. "If someone says, 'I'm fine the way I am and you have to leave me alone,' you have to respect that, even if there's a possibility that someday they could experience sexuality," says Seattle- and New York-based clinical psychologist and sex therapist Joy Davidson, author of "Fearless Sex." However, she says, "To lump everyone who says, 'I don't feel attraction,' into one easily normalizable category seems to me to be premature at best and irresponsible at worst."Making no determination at all on the issue of asexual humans, I find these statements very similar to the sort of thing that the ex-gay movement pushes about gay teens."On the one hand, we are validating those people who may be hard-wired not to have attraction to others," says Dennis Sugrue, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School and co-author of "Sex Matters for Women. "But the danger is that in doing so we may create a safe haven for some other folks with issues that could be addressed. We could discourage or prevent them from seeking help that could make a difference."
The PFOX (ex-gay--the acronyms can get confusing, and I know a lot of folks aren't really up on the politics of the ex-gay movement, so I'll try to add a bit of clarity as I lead you through this) faq contains a section on why teenagers should have access to 'sexual reorientation material' where they say, "Teenagers’ same sex attractions do not automatically mean that they are homosexual. Many teens go through temporary episodes of idealization of same sex peers and should not be urged to prematurely label themselves as homosexual."
Funny how the word "premature" comes up whenever anyone expresses a sexual inclination that deviates from expected norms. Gay teens shouldn't "label" themselves gay because, according to PFOX, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who do not and never really have felt sexual attractions shouldn't go labeling themselves as "asexual" because, according to some of the people interviewed in the Salon piece, they probably haven't met the right person or adequately recovered from some earlier trauma.
Here's a modest suggestion: how about we declare a truce in the sex wars and decide to affirm people for who they are? You're gay but unhappy and want to look into therapies that might awaken your inner heterosexual? Go forth and prosper, my friend. You're gay and it causes you no problems at all? Enjoy, and may you continue to find love and joy. You're straight and can't get a date? Things'll get better, don't worry about it. You're happily married and raising a beautiful family? Excellent. You have no interest in sex and you're fine with that? Right on. I hope I never start crushing out on you, but even if I do, my heartbreak is really my problem, isn't it?
All these permutations are so very human, and all the condemnation, speculation, and refutation is, too. But why are we spending such a huge amount of energy and time worrying about how other people live?
And for the record, whatever PFOX may say, its therapies are rooted in disapproval and distaste. Its therapies are not open to heterosexuals seeking to reorient their sexual desires, so one can only conclude that homosexuality, to PFOX, is innately unacceptable. This is ridiculous, and by not being willing to affirm actual homosexuals, they set the stage for failure. Sexual orientation is not a disease. It is the human condition.
If you're interested in reading more on the politics of the ex-gay movement, Ex-Gay Watch has news and analysis as well as a good amount of background, and once again I'll pimp my PFOXS website, which is gradually turning into a resource masquerading as a joke. (Discordianism, anyone?)
May 21, 2005
Gone Fishin'
Alright, here it is: my confession to suffering terminal burnout in all major areas of my life.
I'm off to New Orleans for a few days, and hopefully none of my traveling companions have packed a lap top. I want to avoid news and blogging entirely.
I've never been to New Orleans, but I look forward to lots of hiking around ancient neighborhoods. I even ordered a new pair of hiking shoes for the occasion, but they haven't arrived yet. I'll muddle through somehow, I'm sure.
I'll be back to Atlanta Tuesday evening, and I chose to hand the keys over to no one. This post is more or less my shuttering of the establishment and hanging a "Gone Fishin'" sign on the door.
See you next week.
May 19, 2005
Winning Hearts and Minds through Mock Executions
It just gets better and better. But we're very gentle to Korans, really.
Pozen Ditches Private Accounts
Architect of Bush's Social Security plan says no on private accounts. I mean personal accounts. I mean personal property accounts. I mean constitutional accounts... er, nuclear accounts? WMD accounts?
Whatever they are this week, Pozen says no.
Blame the Messenger?
Let's blame the real offenders, shall we?
Now, it is possible that no interrogator at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed pages of the Koran down the toilet, as the now-retracted Newsweek story reported -- although several former Guantanamo detainees have alleged just that. It is also possible that Newsweek reporters relied too much on an uncertain source, or that the magazine confused the story with (confirmed) reports that prisoners themselves used Korans to block toilets as a form of protest.Click the link for the examples.
But surely the larger point is not the story itself but that it was so eminently plausible, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and everywhere else. And it was plausible precisely because interrogation techniques designed to be offensive to Muslims were used in Iraq and Guantanamo, as administration and military officials have also confirmed. For example:
Bad News from Iraq: Right Wing Analysis Edition
In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.The Generals are also pulling back from the idea that we can draw down our troops starting next year. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."
I guess he hates America, because whenever people on the left have said that we'll be in Iraq for years, we're told that we're being alarmist and helping the enemy. More anti-American sentiment from the military:
"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."I don't know why our commanders in the field hate America so much. Everybody knows that the key to winning a war is to keep saying you're winning a war. He seems to have his doubts, thus, he must hate America very, very much.
And here, he talks about his growing love of anti-American, anti-Iraqi insurgents:
He said recent polls conducted by Baghdad University had shown confidence flagging sharply, to 45 percent, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the election. "For the insurgency to be successful, people have to believe the government can't survive," he said. "When you're in the middle of a conflict, you're trying to find pillars of strength to lean on."Check this out: he cites statistics showing that public confidence in the Iraqi government has dropped steeply, then says the key to the insurgency is to convince people that the government can't last. So he's talking down the Iraqi government while saying that talking down the Iraqi government is vital the success of insurgents. Nice.
On Operation Matador:
American officers said that 125 insurgents had been killed, with the loss of about 14 Americans, but acknowledged that lack of sufficient troops may have helped many insurgents to flee across the border or back into the interior of Iraq. The border offensive was wrapped up over the weekend, with an air of disappointment that some of wider goals had not been achieved - possibly including the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Islamic militant who is the American forces' most-wanted man in Iraq.I guess they missed, or chose to ignore, the memo that said that Matador was a huge success, a turning point, that they'd broken the back of the insurgency (ok, I didn't actually see that last one said about Matador).
I don't know why our Generals and field commanders hate our freedom, kids. But I think a swift court marshall would take care of these liberal rabble rousers. Then we can replace them with Bush-approved syncophants who, like Stalin's and Hussein's advisors, will never admit that anything is less than perfect.
UpdateFunny, Yglesias took a similar approach, but fell short of suggesting a court marshall. He probably hates our freedom, too.
May 18, 2005
Finally, some parity in the ex-orientation movement
Parents and Friends of Ex-Straights and Straights.
American Puppets Complain
Damn that Newsweek. Clearly the only answer to pacify those who seek justice is to end our free press. Like Pakistanis and Afghanis, Americans don't particularly care to hear of the crimes that are being committed in our names.
The Founding Fathers would kick us all out of their nation.
May 17, 2005
Interesting Read on Evangelism and the GOP
While it initially began in the early 1980’s, for the past several years there has been an increasing concern in America that the term evangelical has become synonymous with being a Republican. I’ve tried to understand why some people have formed this impression. I’ve listened to their worries and given serious thought to how they could have developed this misperception. I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason many people believe that being a conservative Christian means marching in lockstep with the GOP is that many conservative Christians march in lockstep with the GOP.The whole essay is a good read.
Dusting Iraq
Operation Matador is ended, and now there are reports of clashes in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city.
Is our strategy to sit inside the Green Zone except for a quarterly sweep of bits and pieces of Iraq? The public gets headlines like, "125 Insurgents Killed" or "Marines Make Headway in Rebel Sweep", maybe they even capture some people of value, and then everybody drives really fast back to the fortified enclosure where the occupation is conducted.
Is this how we'll beat the insurgency?
I find this unbelievably sad
These statistics always give me pause, mostly because I have no idea where they find these women, but they're apparently from a segment of the population known as "heterosexuals":
Central to her thesis is the fact that women do not routinely have orgasms during sexual intercourse.Gentlemen, on behalf of the straight women of America, I must insist that you familiarize yourself with the little lump of nerve endings called the 'clitoris', and that you pay it some attention each and every time you engage in sexual relations with a female partner.She analyzed 32 studies, conducted over 74 years, of the frequency of female orgasm during intercourse.
When intercourse was "unassisted," that is not accompanied by stimulation of the clitoris, just a quarter of the women studied experienced orgasms often or very often during intercourse, she found.
Five to 10 percent never had orgasms.
I honestly have no idea why women have sex if they're not having orgasms. What's the appeal? There's a fine line between being giving to your partner and being had, ladies. Demand that your own pleasure be a prerequisite in a sexual relationship.
What the Right would like to do to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff
Ironic, isn't it?
May 16, 2005
Opium Production in Afghanistan Up
What makes anyone think that while there is demand for heroin, significant progress can be made against the supply of heroin? Afghanistan is back to providing 90% of the world's smack. Institutional corruption is rampant. As always, it's just economics.
This Story is Great
Straight athlete attends his senior prom with a long-time buddy who is gay on the condition that he, the straight guy, can go in drag.
The school removed him from the prom and had him cited for disorderly conduct after a bit of dirty dancing. He's fighting his $250 fine, and plans to sue the high school for violating his first amendment rights.
This guy sounds like a lot of fun: "[Victor] Anderson [the gay half of the duo] said [Kerry] Lofy [the straight, drag-wearing half] has a reputation for doing the outrageous. Last year, Lofy went to prom in a tuxedo made of duct tape. At last winter's Snow Ball, he arrived in a rented snowman's outfit."
Don't worry, you'll be at college soon. It's a slightly more forgiving environment, and it sounds like you've milked high school for all it's got.
Cultural Barriers to Ending the Marburg Outbreak
Kirkrrt has been banging the drum about the Marburg virus outbreak in Angola since it began a month or two back. Presently, it seems to be spreading to previously unaffected communities, but earlier in the outbreak a number of cultural factors have played into furthering the disease, namely the washing of corpses and local distrust of international medical teams.
There are additional problems with attempts to vaccinate against polio in Muslim countries, where religious leaders claimed that the vaccination plan was an attempt by western doctors to cause infertility amongst Muslims. One predictable result of the distrust: Indonesia is experiencing the beginnings of a polio outbreak that so far has crippled a handful of children.
I would wager that these medical issues are as important as the War against Terror, and need to be included in the "hearts and minds" campaign being waged not just in the Muslim world, but throughout the developing world. The United States got very lucky in the SARS outbreak that crippled parts of China, but with Avian Flu being only the most famous of the potential outbreaks brewing in the world, we need to do much, much more to advance a basic understanding of public health fundamentals.
Long Overdue Steps Towards Equality
Fourteen years after the United States went to war to liberate the tiny Gulf nation, Kuwait has finally given women the right to vote.
Oh thank God
Out of state wine shipping bans are unconstitutional.
Party at my house!
May 15, 2005
Alleged Spousal Rapist Won't Continue To Serve on FDA Reproductive Health Panel
Says ex-wife's allegations "do not reveal all of the information and therefore they're incomplete and not true". No word play there.
Interestingly, the Lexington Herald-Leader article says, "A controversial Lexington physician said yesterday he does not expect to be appointed to a third term..." which is not the same as "he is stepping down".
More word play: "I will no longer be on the advisory committee after June 30," Hager said. He indicated the decision was made before the allegations surfaced.
Was it Hager who made the decision? Sounds like, as Pam suggests, someone in the administration told him that his services would no longer be needed. I'm sure that a guy in Hager's position didn't actually need to be told that "the decision was made before we had to ask you whether it was true that you spent seven years raping your wife."
The fact that an administration that retains torturers of all sorts has cut this particular one loose tells me that he didn't have the necessary plausible deniability. After all, Condi and Don can always pass the buck downward, but what's Hager going to claim? Some other guy did it?
Anyway, that was strangely easy. I wonder what other skeletons turned up when the administration started pressing Hager. Hookers? Out of wedlock children? Sleeping with patients? Hey, come on, yellow journalism is fun. The guy's already out of a job, what am I possibly going to cost him by asking these completely damaging and unfounded questions? Gay lovers? Pedophilia? Beastiality?
Come on, I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship. Scandalize me, please!
Wizzer Pizzer at 7 Stages Theater, Atlanta
Last night I took my girlfriend to a performance of the world premiere run of Amy Wheeler's new play Wizzer Pizzer at Atlanta's 7 Stages theater. As a matter of full disclosure, I should note that I know a few of the people involved in the production of Wizzer Pizzer and do some work with a literary collective which will be using the 7 Stages space for a series of events over the course of the next year or so. Of course, Curt Holman, who reviewed the show for Creative Loafing, probably also knows people involved in the production and at the theater.
Wizzer Pizzer is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz through the story of a drag queen who's fed up with hir life and being gay. Following a disasterous drag routine of Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", Kevin sees a TV program promoting Christian reparative therapy to make gays "ex-gay", and heads off for the Over the Rainbow clinic.
There's a lot of humor, gender play, and sexual chemistry at the clinic, but one of my favorite bits was a short walk-on by Jesus Christ who performs a stand-up comedy routine that enrages the ex-gay married couple running the Over the Rainbow program. While Jesus and Steve argue, Kevin pleads for peace by saying, "That's not very Christian; what happened to love your neighbor?" Jesus shoots back, "Yes, 'love your neighbor as you love yourself'. But what if you hate yourself? If you hate yourself, your neighbor is out of luck."
I found the opening of the play slightly choppy, as there's lots going on and I don't see plays that often. It's probably a matter of being used to films and unaccustomed to seeing live scenes that would be cut to different locations in a film. Inside the bar and outside the bar, for instance, are just different places on the stage in live theater.
That being said, I found Wizzer Pizzer entirely charming, if a bit disjointed in places. Holman, in what is largely a favorable review, says that the play falls apart a little bit in act two, but I felt that it really came into its own in act two as the dreamlike elements became more profound. I recommend seeing it, and keeping an eye on 7 Stages in general. Its production of David Mamet's Boston Marriage a couple of months back was nothing short of brilliant, and my guess is that playwright Wheeler will polish her script a bit for subsequent runs. If Wizzer Pizzer comes to your town, check it out.
One thing that was especially exciting about the play for me was the confluence of homosexuality and Christianity. I've written a number of times about the disregard that gays and lesbians of faith tend to feel from the politically charged religion that is so prevalent today, but lately I'm seeing a lot of fighting back against that. From Amy Ray's 'Let it Ring' on her new album Prom to a bit of dialogue in Showtime's "The L Word" a few weeks back ("What will you tell your maker when you get to the Pearly Gates?" asks a character's dying father. "I'll tell him that I'm your child and I'm proud," she replies. The dyke bar where I was watching it erupted in applause) I'm seeing a lot more energy put into our faith and claiming it once and for all.
In a way, it's sort of like we're asking straight Christians who oppose equal treatment of gays and lesbians, "Why do you hate God's creation?" It's healthy, satisfying to see, and long overdue.
Heroes and Villians of 20th Century Politics
The UPC Gravitational Pull Up is here:
"Who are your favorite political heroes and villains of the 20th century?"
My political hero of the 20th century is Theodore Roosevelt. A Republican, he was perhaps the last great conservative. He came from wealth but fought corruption and favoritism in public life. He broke with the American tradition of isolationism, worked to ensure fair labor practices, and won acclaim as the "trust buster", breaking up railroad monopolies and pushing other reforms that made America more free and gave people more opportunities. He won friendships around the world not through coddling but with effective carrot-and-stick measures. He was a gentleman, a friend of working Americans, and an extremely colorful figure who beautifully illustrated our great nation at the dawn of what was to become the American Century.
For villians, Joseph Stalin will always top my list of the 20th century's greatest criminals. Stalin is responsible for tens of millions of Soviet deaths through various means. He forced farmers onto state farms and saw agricultural output drop by a quarter, leading to famine. He purged his officer corps prior to WWII and then went catatonic when Hitler invaded an unprepared Russia. He was a strict authoritarian who turned the Soviet Union and satellite countries into a special kind of hell, and the fact that some Russians continue to venerate the memory of this monster speaks volumes about the kind of distorted world that he forced them to live in.
In a century with no shortage of truly evil political leaders (Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, the Duvaliers in Haiti, to name but a few), Stalin stands out not only for his ruthless, senseless pursuit of violence, but for the legacy he wrought in the world. Stalin's leadership defined the world's foreign policy for half a century. The Cold War, always threatening to become a nuclear conflagration, raged for half a century in reaction to the dysfunctional political system that Stalin put in place. The Iron Curtain drawn across central Europe retarded the economic and social health of dozens of nations, and the imperialist tendencies of the future Soviet Union were a direct cause of America's current occupation of Afghanistan. May we never, ever, see another leader like him.
Why We Are Fighting About Judges
In today's Times, Frank Rich asks, "How Gay Is the Right?"
"[I]t isn't entirely progress that we now have a wider war on gay people, thinly disguised as a debate over the filibuster, cloaked in religion, and counting among its shock troops politicians as utterly bereft of moral bearings as [recently outed, vitriolically anti-gay Spokane mayor] James West."
This is what the judicial nominee battle is about to the right: A bunch of adulterers and divorcees got together to pass the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. (Thomas, the government database, appears to be down, so here is the text of the House bill that eventually became DOMA. I don't know whether the Senate bill was identical or whether there were changes made to this one-pager in conference committee.)
DOMA singles out one category of people and legalizes discrimination against them. DOMA doesn't merely affirm the historically respected notion that states create their own marriage laws. It signifies one category of married people whose fundamental right to determine their own families may be denied at the discretion of the states.
A Constitutional law along these lines would simply state that the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution has never applied to marriage, and still doesn't. By singling out one category of person for discrimination, the law surpasses the boundaries of the United States Constitution.
The Courts, at least since Brown in 1954 (*) have not looked kindly on legal arrangements that presuppose and reinforce the inferiority of one group to the majority. From Brown:
To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone...The arguments put forth by defenders of discriminatory marriage laws have little bearing on the state of marriage in America. Procreation is not a precondition for marriages, and has been stated elsewhere thousands of times, the elderly (heterosexual), the infertile (heterosexual), and those (heterosexuals) who simply don't wish to become parents may get married, while same-sex couples who may be engaged in raising children together are denied any substantial marriage equality in all but three states (Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut). In all fifty states, same sex couples are denied equal consideration in federal matters such as jointly filing taxes, survivor benefits, and so forth.Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system. (Opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren)
In Turner v. Safley, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor issued the majority opinion on the Missouri prison system's decision to allow inmate marriages only when approved by the Superintendent of the Prison. She wrote:
It is settled that a prison inmate "retains those [constitutional] rights that are not inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system." The right to marry, like many other rights, is subject to substantial restrictions as a result of incarceration. Many important attributes of marriage remain, however, after taking into account the limitations imposed by prison life. First, inmate marriages, like others, are expressions of emotional support and public commitment. These elements are an important and significant aspect of the marital relationship. In addition, many religions recognize marriage as having spiritual significance; for some inmates and their spouses, therefore, the commitment of marriage may be an exercise of religious faith as well as an expression of personal dedication. Third, most inmates eventually will be released by parole or commutation, and therefore most inmate marriages are formed in the expectation that they ultimately will be fully consummated. Finally, marital status often is a precondition to the receipt of government benefits (e. g., Social Security benefits), property rights (e. g., tenancy by the entirety, inheritance rights), and other, less tangible benefits (e. g., legitimation of children born out of wedlock). These incidents of marriage, like the religious and personal aspects of the marriage commitment, are unaffected by the fact of confinement or the pursuit of legitimate corrections goals.Convicted murderers have more Constitutionally protected rights to self-determination than I, or any other homosexual in America, have. The Court views marriage as a stabilizing influence, both for the inmate and for his or her spouse, and as such the Court recognized the inalienable nature of the right to wed.Taken together, we conclude that these remaining elements are sufficient to form a constitutionally protected marital relationship in the prison context.... [emphasis mine]
Loving v. Virginia (1967) provides more insight into marriage as a fundamental right:
These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.So back to the issue at hand: DOMA and the right's terror that a case on the merits of DOMA will go before the Supreme Court. The Defense of Marriage Act is almost certainly a violation of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection and due process ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."). For whatever reason, the right has chosen to champion a law that even they believe is unconstitutional (so much for strict constructionism) and destined to be thrown out, and to protect the adulterers' and divorcees' cherished notions of the sanctity of marriage, they have created the extremely divisive slur "activist judge" to attempt to discredit any ruling that upholds constitutional guarantees for equal protection for gay people.Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
The courts will eventually come to the conclusion that the repeatedly expressed desire to wed by adults engaged in lawful intimate relations cannot be rationally denied, at least in federal law (the fed does not write marriage statutes for states, of course). Those who would prefer to see these decisions reached by federal and state legislatures should begin lobbying for them to do their jobs quickly, because the current situation is untenable in the long term. The right understands this, so they fight to do away with an independent judiciary that might bar their deeply cherished bias.
I am an American. I demand that my nation live up to the founding documents that have guided us for more than two centuries. I demand equal treatment under the law for myself and the person who I can only properly call my "girlfriend" in today's legal climate. I demand that this bias be exorcised from our laws, and that the blessings of liberty and equality under the law be opened to all Americans.
May 14, 2005
Education and the Military
Great essay at AEI by Eliot Cohen on the military's steps towards drawing down its own education infrastructure.
If the advanced education of our soldiers, both instruction in warfare and in other areas falters, Donald Rumsfeld's legacy will be one of complete devestation inflicted on our military.
We are fortunate to live in an era of "gentlemen soldiers" (I can't think of a gender-neutral way to phrase that, but please consider it gender-neutral for the sake of this discussion) and have a military that rewards intellectually competent people with leadership roles. We have the most technologically advanced military in human history, largely because the Pentagon operates a number of in-house R&D programs within the services.
Those are the areas that would suffer from a long term posture that de-emphasizes advanced education in the military. Trimming costs is an admirable goal, but for the military, being smart with money includes retaining and supporting smart soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. We may forever have the biggest bombs and swiftest vehicles, but if our enemies out-think our soldiers on the ground, the battle is lost.
May 13, 2005
A Great Leap Forward in Activism
Whatever side of the filibuster debate you're on, this is a very interesting approach to activism.
People for the American Way is asking interested parties to sign up to receive a one-time only cell phone text message when Sen. Frist goes nuclear, as appears likely to happy by the end of the month.
This seems to me to be a real breakthrough in converting online activism into real-world action. There's a barrier between seeing a number on your computer screen (or television) and actually putting it into your phone and making the call. But when the activist message is delivered directly to your phone, and you only need essentially hit "Call Back" to make the leap to action, I suspect the response rate will be enormous.
If I had to guess, I'd say that far fewer than 10% of those who read activist-oriented websites actually pick up the phone or write a letter for any given call-to-arms. Probably fewer than 5%. There's just this psychological issue of portability. When I want to address an issue with my elected representatives, I send them e-mail, because it's the same medium in which I recieved the information that pissed me off.
Why not call? I'd have to do three or four things that are extremely minor, but which are outside of the flow of what I'm doing in that moment: Get up, grab my cell, put my earpiece in, check for reception, change rooms if I'm not getting good reception, etc. Whatever the reality of the situation is, it feels easier for me to simply open a new tab in Firefox, open up my Webmail, and fire away through e-mail.
People for the American Way may have just raised the bar on participatory citizen lobbying. My guess would be that if this goes out alright, the senate switchboard will drown under the weight of the response for a day or so.
It's a very exciting approach, very innovative. I signed up, and look forward to seeing how it comes out.
May 12, 2005
History, as told by Uncle Pat Buchanan
This is simply not to be missed.
- Britain lost WWII.
- Western Civilization lost WWII.
- France and Britian initiated the worst of WWII by declaring war on Germany after it invaded Poland. (Did you forget Poland? Silly reader.)
- Pat Buchanan apparently doesn't know where Poland and the other nations east of the Elbe have gotten to, saying they were lost. (He, apparently, forgot Poland.)
- Germany didn't need to be liberated, because Hitler was elected by the German people.
- WWII was not worth it.
Black is White. Up is Down.
Pat Buchanan doesn't think it was worth it to go after Hitler.
[this space originally left blank to demonstrate my complete bafflement]
There is some sanity in the article though:
Former Mayor Ed Koch offered this blunt rebuttal: "I believe that no decent human being should ever sit down at the same table with Pat Buchanan and I am shocked that otherwise responsible, respectable citizens share platforms with him on Sunday shows."Tell it, Ed. Tell it.
Is Every Bush Appointee a Perv?
Dr. David Hager, anti-abortion zealot and member of President Bush's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health, just may have spent the last seven years of his former marriage nonconsensually sodomozing his wife. (link)
Atrios has Hager's work number, if you have any "What would Jesus do?" type questions about forced sodomy. There's analysis on Hager's role in emergency contraception laws at Shakespeare's Sister.
Wow. Perhaps the President could see to it that John Bolton never gets a chance to sit in the lobby with the good Doctor. We'd hate for Ambassador Group Sex Guy to get any ideas from Dr. Forcible Anal Entry.
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Nuclear Option
Salon has a good (if partisan--I mentioned that it's Salon, right?) primer on the Nuclear Option. It's worth the ad you'll have to watch if you're not a subscriber.
From Abe Fortas to Richard Paez to how the former majority felt about the filibuster back in the day, it's chock full of relevant recent and ancient history. Here's Salon on the Republican approach to Bush's 95% judicial confirmation rate:
But the Republicans say those are the wrong numbers to consider, that one should consider the confirmation rate only for the judges that Bush has nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals...Clearly an issue calling out for the brave Senators of the GOP to sow the Earth with salt over. But they're insistent. Like a spoiled child, George W. Bush who won only 51% of vote and the smallest electoral margin for an incumbent in the modern era, must have 100% of what he wants, every time.So let's look at those numbers. Bush has nominated 52 judges to appellate courts, and the Senate has confirmed 35 of them. (Democrats used the filibuster or the threat of filibuster to block 10, and seven other nominations were returned to the White House for other reasons.) How does that compare with, say, Clinton's record? It's almost identical... Overall, the Congressional Research Service says that Clinton went 65 for 91 on nominees to appellate courts -- a .714 batting average that's not a whole lot different from Bush's .673.
Okay, it's true. This isn't really about George Bush. It's about Bill Frist, the Religious Right, and 2008.
The Nuclear Option is what happens when people put personal ambition above public policy. That's pretty much the definition of Republican governance in America, and indeed, Frist has the backing of the GOP establishment, base, and the mouthpieces of the party. Let's hope that deep down, the Republicans are recognizing that they can't restrain themselves and are actually doing this to provide a way for Democrats to stall out Bush's second term agenda by preventing most legislation from coming to a vote. I don't think that most of them, especially those who are seeking reelection next year, are eager to fight campaigns on the virtues of eliminating Social Security as a defined benefit program, and while the deficit did fall slightly when we all sent in our tax payments prior to April 15, fiscal conservatives may well be eager to halt the spending spree that is GOP finance.
The question is, can you count on the Democratic caucus in the Senate to stay united in the face of the right wing noise machine and hold up the show? My guess would be no, but I'm eager for Harry Reid and Co. to prove me wrong.
May 11, 2005
Is John Bolton a Swinger?
Dear John,
All that stuff I've said about you over the last couple of months--scrap it. I had no idea that you were a perv, too! Dude, I totally support you going to the UN. When he's in New York, you could have Antonin Scalia come over and practice some, uh, "multilateral diplomacy", if you get my meaning. All those foxy Euro UN chicks are just dying for a moustache ride, I tell you what.
I'm sure you'll do a great job representing America, Mr. Swinger Group Sex Guy!
They Hate it When You Call Something What It Is
Found via Eschaton, an account of Conservative talking head Michael Medved going apeshit on a radio show guest who used the word "privatization".
So anyway, Medved is like, and this is a paraphrase, "you are a liar, you are a liar, President Bush's plan would not privatize Social Security."The story gets worse, or funnier, depending on your party affiliation, from there.So, I read this quote from George W. Bush as reported by ABC News on October 30, 2002: "What privatization does is allows the individual worker - his or her choice - to set aside money in a managed account with parameters in the marketplace."
Instant Messages Warned of 9/11 Attacks?
This is an odd story that may or may not be anything. Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports
Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.The CEO of the company said
"I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don't know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don't know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made," said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.Very strange. Don't know if this goes anywhere, and if it does, I don't know if we'll hear about it until a bunch of documents are declassified sometime in the 2050s or so.
The Death of Blogging
No, not the Huffington Post.
Drug Companies Say Promising New Therapies Could Treat 'Deeply Held Personal Beliefs'
Yes people, it's a joke. Sheesh, calm down.
Happy Birthday
The proprietess of Shakespeare's Sister turns a sprightly 31 today. Stop by and wish a great blogger a great birthday.
Playing Politics
"More often than not we [Department of Homeland Security] were the least inclined to raise it [America's terrorist threat level]," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"Oh, and on March 7, 2003 George Bush was "praying for peace" (that one pissed me off badly at the time) even though he had decided by July 2002 that regime change through military force was the course of action that the United States would take.
Your President, playing politics with anything and everything.
May 10, 2005
Watch Out for Your Wallet: United Ends Pension Plans
In a long-sought cost cutting move designed to pull the company out of bankruptcy, United Airlines has been allowed by a judge to end its defined benefit pension funds and replace them with defined contribution plans such as the 401(k).
Other airlines are expected to follow suit, with Atlanta-based Delta Airlines on deck to bail on its employees. Oh, and taxpayers.
Here's the raw deal for American taxpayers: The federal government has an insurance agency called the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation which is designed to ensure that retirees and employees of bankrupt companies aren't left high and dry. In other words, United's domestic ridership now gets to foot the bill for United's employee's pensions, which United had underfunded by some $9.8 billion.
United's retirees will see a benefit cut of about 1/3 when the federal agency takes over, because the federal program has limits. I don't know what impact every other airline dumping its pension responsibilities on taxpayers will mean for retirees of the companies. I would assume further reduced benefits.
What I do know is that this points to glaring regulatory and oversight problems. United simply failed to back up $9.8 billion in debts which the taxpayers of America now get to pay. Will Congress do anything to address this issue? Not freaking likely.
I previously addressed United's pension boondoggle here and here.
I guess the Swiss are stupid or something.
Maybe they just missed a memo.
A Swiss ski resort is wrapping part of glacier in a reflective blanket to slow summer ice melt.
In good years, these days anyway, the Alpine glaciers lose about 1% of their mass each year, but hot summers accelerate the loss. This is a global problem, and one not likely to be solved before the northern ice fields on planet earth are effectively gone within the next century or so.
My recommendation would be for the Swiss to get in touch with the White House. If the owners of the ski resort are as stupid as American journalists, they can expect to be lulled into complacency with reassurances that there is no consensus on global warming. Just because they're staring the effects of it in the face, that's no reason to be alarmist. Prissy Swiss...
May 9, 2005
Security Flaw in Firefox
They're on it, but take whatever precautions you deem necessary.
Firefox manufacturer Mozilla is unaware of active exploits of these flaws, but one "proof of concept" has been reported. New security update due soon.
And still I say, if you're not using Firefox, what the hell is wrong with you?
Things I learned online today
When reading the sentence, "Uranus has 27 moons", I can't help but think, "It doesn't look that big."
Important Read
Andrew Sullivan has a snippet on Europe's growing problem with internal Muslim radicals, written by Bruce Bawer. Bawer is the author of Tolerating Intolerance: The Challenge of Fundamentalist Islam in Western Europe, which I've referenced here more than once.
The American left needs to take these issues very, very seriously. Just as we rage against fundamentalists in our own country, we must call for tolerant nations to end the influence and power of religious radicals in their midst. The left, much more than the right, understands that the United States needs Europe and the influence of secular humanism and toleration that Europe has embraced. It is under threat in Europe from the influence of home-grown radical Islam, brought by 'guest workers' who have never been effectively integrated into their host societies.
If Europe stopped being an influence for toleration and diversity, America's moves in those directions would stop. These issues need greater play in the American press and in American conversations about our own future. The murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh are only the beginning. Fundamentalism has established a beach head in Europe and is in the process of doing the same here. The names of the religions are different, but their ideals are strikingly similar, illiberal, and dangerous.
May 8, 2005
Josh on Social Security
Josh Marshall kindly took a minute out from his honeymoon to post this, an excellent overview of President Bush's "progressive" approach to ending Social Security. Money quote:
Now, not every thing we want is possible in this world. And perhaps at some point some level of cuts will be necessary. But, as I said, I think they are what most folks want to avoid rather than being the goal, as seems to be the case for President Bush.Whenever a Conservative says that cuts to things that benefit the middle class are a necessity for "solvency", ask them whether the tax cuts for the rich are on the table to pay for the difference. Go ahead. Bush has handed away trillions in tax cuts that primarily benefit the richest, who probably didn't need a couple of hundred thousand extra a year anyway, and now wants to cut middle class benefits by more than a quarter from the most successful social program in our nation's history. Go ahead. Ask them why they hate working Americans.
American Isolation Watch: Reaching Out To the Baltic States
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are collectively the "baltic states", three tiny nations wedged between Poland, Belarus, Russia, and the Baltic Sea.
All three countries possess distinct cultures and their histories reflect the stories of the great powers of Europe, especially Russia.
That being said, does Bush feel that these nascent powers will be sufficient replacements for Britain as America's only friend when Tony Blair is forced from 10 Downing Street?
With all due respect to the Baltic Nations, we're kind of scraping towards the middle of the barrell here, aren't we?
May 7, 2005
Give Me a Break
David Brooks, you're such an ass sometimes.
Over the past few weeks, the president has called their bluff. By embracing the progressive indexing of Social Security benefits, the president has asked us to make a shared sacrifice for the common good. He's asking middle- and upper-class folks to accept benefit cuts so there will be money for the people who are really facing poverty.Yes, the President has suggested getting rid of Social Security as a useful income floor for the middle class so that in a generation, charming pundits like Brooks can assert that, in the name of deficit reduction or some other noble end, what remains of Social Security be destroyed. And who would argue? The always organized and mobilized working poor of America? Sure, they've had such success pushing their agenda thus far. The middle class certainly won't jump in to preserve benefits for the poor, especially when arguments are made that to pay for the poor, taxes--on the middle class--will have to rise. Will the rich step in and offer to pay more to preserve the integrity of our social welfare net? Oh yeah, I'm sure they'll rally at the Lincoln Memorial for the latter day social justice movement.He has asked us to redistribute money down the income scale. Why should programs for children and families be strangled so Donald Trump can get bigger benefit checks?
Brooks is an ass. He knows the meaning of what Bush is proposing and he's willingly providing cover for an idea that would end Social Security.
UPC: Local Political Involvement
This week's UPC Gravitational Pull Up asks:
Do you think that your local community (your town, city, county) is appropriately informed about politics and government, or is not?I'm going to say 'no', but then I'm a politics wonk. I can offer a friend a hugely surface opinion about Georgia's redistricting, which I know only a little about (I've seen the maps, I've talked to politicos about how they'll impact, that's pretty much it), and the friend will say, "Redistricting? What?"
But we're Americans. One of our liberties is to elect representatives and forget the whole thing for two years. It's not a good system, but it's our system, and when it comes time to do the voting, people like me become somewhat more powerful within a circle of people I know. I am viewed as having informed opinions, which is crazy, of course, but I guess compared to others maybe a hazy familiarity with the issues facing Georgia and Atlanta is the equivalent of a Ph.D.
Anyway, it's a representative democracy and you get the government you ask for. So our state GOP has traded transparency away for the promise of greater development and sacrificed the ability of many to vote to fend off the unlikely prospect of widespread voter fraud (would that explain the state GOP's elevation to all levers of power? Hmmm...). Your government at work. Brought to you by the pulpits of Georgia.
The Market as a Threat to Democracy?
Author Gunter Grass thinks so. As a German WWII veteran, he marks May 8, Liberation Day, with a modest treatise on the threats facing Germany's democratic future. He ranks the marketplace, and a political system impotent to protect people from the excesses of the capitalist system, as Public Enemy #1. Well worth reading.
May 6, 2005
Microsoft Reboots
Shakes has the full text. Money quote from CEO Steve Balmer:
After looking at the question from all sides, I’ve concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda. Since our beginning nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft has had a strong business interest in recruiting and retaining the best and brightest and most diverse workforce possible. I’m proud of Microsoft’s commitment to non-discrimination in our internal policies and benefits, but our policies can’t cover the range of housing, education, financial and similar services that our people and their partners and families need. Therefore, it’s appropriate for the company to support legislation that will promote and protect diversity in the workplace.Duh. Oh, sorry, I'm supposed to be magnanimous.
Pam slapped on some latex to take the pulse of the Freepers at Big Brass Blog. Few things are as funny as conservatives talking amongst themselves.
Educators Really Do Hate Our Troops
And our troops' kids. What were they thinking? I certainly hope the kid was using profanity while an overzealous teacher, obsessed with maintaining rules regardless of the cost, tried to get him to hang up on his mother in Iraq. We don't want to be raising sheep in this country, we want to be raising adults.
Go here to let the school administration know that you support our troops and their kids.
Aw, skip it. Hark has a press release from the school in comments. It seems to have been slightly different than the report indicated.
Frist to Shut Senate Down This Month
Okay, I'm starting to feel like the girl who cried wolf, but Bill Frist's chief of staff is apparently saying that the Senate Majority Leader will pull the trigger on the nuclear option by the end of the month and as soon as next week.
There's no government like less government. Shut 'er down.
Finally, Some Good Economic News
Hiring up, budged deficit falling. Hope it lasts.
British Elections
Since I love elections, I kind of got into the BBC's "desktop election scorecard" app that auto-refreshed every few minutes.
Anyway, as you probably know, Tony Blair's Labour has won a bare majority with just 37% of the vote, and while the victory is the first time Labour has won three consecutive elections in the post-war era, it seems unlikely that Blair will remain Prime Minister for too terribly long.
Sullivan, who is actually British, has more and is vastly more informed on these topics (and most topics, honestly) than I. Kenny Baer, subbing at TPM, is also something of a UK expert and has excellent analysis, including the shameful news that George Galloway has won a seat in the new Parliament after being expelled from Labour in 2003. As Kenny explains, "Galloway is not just anti-war and anti-American, he is pro-Saddam."
Imagine David Duke winning a seat in the House of Representatives. Galloway's campaign featured apologies for radical Islam and attacks on his opponent's Jewish ancestry. Galloway isn't a leftist, he's a fascist who idealizes totalitarian regimes. He's an illiberal.
I'm sure much ink will be spilled in coming days about Blair's weakness and George Bush. I look forward to all of it. Especially watch for Slate to feature always-exceptional writing from Christopher Hitchens on the elections.
Cernig is a big booster for Gordon Brown, Blair's heir-apparent, and will likely have illuminating ruminations at NewsHog. Sadly, Scotland will be getting him back soon, but through the miracle of the internets we'll still get his insightful and inciting commentary.
May 5, 2005
Hack Dies
Col. David Hackworth, legendary field commander and outspoken Pentagon critic, dead at 74.
Nice work if you can get it...
Need a few million in pocket change? Reconstruct Iraq. Apparently, we're just handing out millions, no questions asked.
Your tax dollars.
Scientists Mobilize to Fight for Science
Scientists and educators are mobilizing to fight Kansas' attempt to dump science education in favor of ideologically based "intelligent design".
Is there any field that is immune to the demands of the right wing political correctness police?
Oh, and here's a good reason to be teaching real science: to figure out exactly what the hell is going on in the brain.
How Many Casualties are Too Many Casualties?
As we move to the end of an extremely bloody week in Iraq--nearly 200 killed since the incomplete but formal government was announced last Thursday--there are some questions I would like to see discussed in our culture.
Simianbrain readers know that I consider the concept of preemptive war to be a can of worms best left unopened. My feelings would likely be different if Saddam's Iraq had been chock full of WMD as we were told prior to the invasion. I also thought he had them.
Which brings me to the questions that have been racing through my head. The first is a hypothetical scenario, which thankfully didn't play out but which lost me considerable sleep in March and April of 2003.
We were told that there was a metaphorically colored line around Baghdad (red, green, black? I don't remember) that demarcated the area that the regime was likely to gas. Once American troops crossed this line, they would be expected to find every bastion of chemical weapons and disable them before the regime could launch such a lethal attack on our troops and its own people.
It turned out to be bunk, of course, but Baghdad is home to some five million people. The civilian casualties from such an attack could easily have surpassed a million or even two. The military could have anticipated several thousand US troops injured or killed by incorrectly used NBC gear.
Question 1: If you are a politician contemplating war, is this an acceptable casualty figure?
This, to me, is the preeminent argument for the case that Bush lied to the public rather than had bad intelligence. Reports out of Britain this week essentially confirm it. Minutes from a July 2002 meeting record the following flow of ideas:
“If the political context were right, people would support regime change,” said Blair. He added that the key issues were “whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan space to work”.Saddam, of course, didn't refuse to allow inspectors in, and inspectors only left when Bush gave his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam and his sons in March 2003.The political strategy proved to be arguing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed such a threat that military action had to be taken. However, at the July meeting Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said the case for war was “thin” as “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran”.
Straw suggested they should “work up” an ultimatum about weapons inspectors that would “help with the legal justification”. Blair is recorded as saying that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors”.
So the hypothetical scenario laid out above was always false, but the American public was deliberately mislead to conceal the fact that there was little to no danger of WMD being deployed against our troops and Iraqi civilians. I'd still like for this to be discussed.
Here are your choices: diplomacy leaves a small chance that WMD (and take nukes off the table, as no one credible believed that Hussein had functional, deployable nuclear weapons in 2002 or 2003) could be transferred to other hostile states or to terrorists (either directly or through those other hostile states). Option 2, invasion, leaves open a significant probability that at least 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians and several thousand US troops could die in a regime-initiated chemical weapon attack on Baghdad.
You, the politician considering whether to take America to war, how many lives are you willing to pay to be demonstrably right about Iraq's WMD capability?
The second scenario involves an extended occupation with a violent insurgency. How many civilians, police officers, and guardsmen are acceptable as casualty figures for the occupation to remain a positive development?
The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University conducted a study in-country last fall that found that 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of the war and occupation. Also,
Using what they described as the best sampling methods that could be applied under the circumstances, they found that Iraqis were 2.5 times more likely to die in the 17 months following the invasion than in the 14 months before it.This scenario is much harder to game play because I believe strongly in the axiom that once you're there, you've got to win. On some level, if 24 million of the 25 million Iraqis in Iraq were killed, but the remaining million had a free, thriving society that bolstered liberty and human rights in the region, it would be victory. A Pyrrhic victory, but victory nonetheless.Before the invasion, the most common causes of death in Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and chronic diseases. Afterward, violent death was far ahead of all other causes.
The risk of violent death was 58 times higher than before the war, the researchers reported.
I strongly doubt, however, that you could find a single Iraqi citizen or ex-pat who would agree with me.
So for you game players out there, how many Iraqi civilians can die under US occupation before we begin feeling squeamish? 200,000? 500,000? 1,000,000? 10,000,000?
Is there a body count that is sufficient to make you say, "Wow, we really didn't do those folks any favors"? Is this even a valid way to look at the situation on the ground?
May 4, 2005
More on the Right's Obsession with Poetry
Sheesh, as if published right wing rants about poetry weren't enough, now we've got David Horowitz's fantastically whimsical Discover the Network site taking on the art form.
Well, the upside is added publicity. The Welfare Poets will be celebrating the release of Rhymes for Treason. If you're in New York, check it out.
It shouldn't surprise me that Republicans are out of step with what's happening in the arts, nor should it come as a shock that they want to silence all voices that disagree with their viewpoints. In truth, for performance poetry to have reached a point in our culture where it can even be controversial is a testament to the form's growth, but as I read Plaut's complaining, I can't get the word 'knucklehead' out of my mind.
Here We Go
Two Democrats are now being drawn into the lobbyist fiasco that is the Jack Abramoff scandal. They are James E. Clyburn (SC) and Bennie Thompson (MS), if you're wondering. Which you probably weren't. And it really doesn't matter who they are for the purposes of this post. It just matters that the Ethics Committee is back in action and Democrats are being scrutinized as well as Republicans.
As Fester noted on the Unpaid Punditry page,
we could be seeing a shutdown of effective legislation. My liberal collegues at UnPaid Punditry Corps are looking forward to a Senate shutdown over the nuclear option. I could very easily see the House engage in an ethics shutdown clown show as well.It's getting to be ugly up there, and in my experience, the uglier things are in Washington, the less that gets done. Sounds great to me.
It's very similar to the notion that you can't do reconstruction while open combat rages. The GOP wants to build an America where those who inherit wealth are exempt from funding the society they benefit from, and those who work for a living pay for the cops, sanitation, legal system, military, and basic services that allow the aristocracy to live comfortably here. Anything that prevents this scenario from happening is good government, in my opinion. When it comes to ethics wars in Congress, I say, "Bring 'em on".
I'll sacrifice a few politicians for American values anyday. Especially when the party in power is working so hard to sacrifice American values.
May 3, 2005
Zakaria on China
I believe that the rise of China in particular and Asian in general is the economic and political story of the new century. Fareed Zakaria provides this excellent long piece giving an overview of China's amazing growth (9% annual growth for the last quarter century, 300 million Chinese citizens lifted out of poverty) and the likely path of US-China relations in the medium to long term.
The suggestion he zeroes in on, and which I would like to second, is for America to return to fiscally responsible policies. Zakaria says
For the American government, the free ride may be coming to an end. It has run irresponsible fiscal policies, knowing that foreign governments and people would provide it with unlimited credit. But that credit comes at a price. When China holds huge reserves of dollars, it also holds the power to damage the American economy. To do so would certainly hurt China as much or more than it would America, but surely it would be better if U.S. policy were less vulnerable to such possibilities. Fiscal responsibility at home means greater freedom of action abroad.Our current policies--foreign policy, economic, and social--are weakening our position in the world. We are only living in a unipolar world for a short time longer. China is rising to assert itself, and a globe full of developing economies are warming to the tiger on the horizon.
Leading Indicator?
Wonkette has her eye on a troubling indicator of America's uncertain economic performance, the Bush Twins Unemploment Index (helpful table included). Wonkette notes, "if your dad is the most powerful man in the world and you still can't get a job, even though you graduated from prestigious universities eleven months ago, well, something is definitely wrong with the economy."
May 2, 2005
Fester on the Invasion
Check out Fester's scholarly dissection of the Administration's rationale(s) for war at the Unpaid Punditry Corps. His assessments continue in the comments section there, and are well worth reading.
We seem to be in an early phase of history being rewritten by the right. Yes, there were voices calling for the remaking of the Middle East through military means, but the Administration didn't embrace this view. According to Feith and Wolfowitz, as quoted by Fester, democratizing Iraq was not sufficient reason to launch a war.
I don't necessarily share this viewpoint, but Bush certainly isn't a leader who could convince America to take on such a radical foreign policy. Harkonnendog, in comments, insists that remaking the Middle East was one of the top reasons for going to war, but Bush didn't warn us about a lack of democracy in Iraq. He warned us of a grave threat to the United States.
Conservatives Toast DeLay
"We want to make it clear that we don't leave our wounded lying on the battlefield," says the Free Congress Foundation's Paul Weyrich. Really says it all, doesn't it?
Hitch on Blair
After reading Christopher Hitchens' piece on Tony Blair, I'd vote for him for President of the United States.
Once you read Hitch's take on Blair's authentic battles against dictatorship and tyranny in the world, drop by Kevin Drum's place for a discussion of when Bush latched on to "spreading democracy" as a rationale for war. Three weeks before we invaded, of course.
Krugman on Social Security
Mr. Bush comes to bury Social Security, not to save it says Paul Krugman. Conservative George Will said something similar on the ABC chat show on Sunday morning, remarking that the point of this is to disentangle the middle class entitlement from the lower-income entitlement, thus destroying political support for the new welfare-styled Social Security.
I've created a variety of investments for myself in the year and a half that I've had a corporate job that afforded me an income to do so. One of them is a savings account with a less than 2% return that gets very little loving from me compared to the potentially higher-return money market accounts and investment accounts.
If the fed mandates that my Social Security contribution be put into the markets (and given the cuts that they will implement to traditional social security, calling it a 'voluntary' change is absurd), my safe, secure, and reliable savings account will be getting a lot more money every month.
It won't grow fast and it won't grow a lot, but I can't lose that money. The markets can do whatever they want, CEOs can lie, cheat, and steal, and it'll be there. No one can make that guarantee for invested funds.
Supporting Our Troops
A friend in Iraq sends this list of things that would make life easier for them. I can't say whether these needs are consistent across the country or not, but if you're putting together a package for friends deployed, here's what one Marine requested:
- SoapIf you don't directly know someone deployed, this page has lots of options for organizations that send care packages if you want to support their work.- Shampoo
- Razors
- Toothpaste
- Shower shoes (sandals)
- Baby wipes (non-alcohol) w/ aloe
- Facial cleansing clothes or wipes (most of the guys like Clearasil or
strydex)- Old magazines to read (there lighter than books and you can pack more
of them in a box), most guys like anything sports, nascar, maxim type magazines, menÂ’s health, backpacking, and anything that a 18 to 24 year old would read.- Camping type pillows (inflatable or self inflating)
- Mattress covers for a twin mattress or a foam cover ( the mattress really
suck over here, all springs, boy you can feel them)- Face cloth towels or small hand towels (green, tan, or light brown)
- Coffee creamers, small packets of splenda, small packets of coffee creamers
that are flavored- CDs, music or movies ( they watch movies all the time and are sick of
the hajji bootleg movies)- Boxer shorts, green or brown t-shirts.
- Brown light hiking cool-max socks
- Any micro-wave able food
- Hard candy or candy that does not melt or ruin from travel, the stuff
in the round metal tins usually make it.- Drink mugs or cups, the same big plastics mugs that you get for long
rides (40oz) with covers and a straw hole.- Sheets for a double bed or a light summer blanket (tan or light brown)
That is all I can think of but what we really need is stuff to workout with. Jump
ropes, the powerblock dumbbells(are the best thing check their website), straight bars, curl bars, weights, a workout bench that can incline & decline, any workout equipment will do, and I mean anything, like boxing gloves, punching bags, speed
bags, medicine bags, anything. We donÂ’t have much over here except a crappy gym
that you have to wait in line to use. Keep in mind they would have to break everything
down into 75 pound boxes and ship it over here.
"An odd point of view to say the least."
UNCoRRELATED
Typing loudly from Atlanta, GA, since 2003.
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