By Peter Henne
I waited until now to post this, because I knew the power of Obama's rhetoric would require some reflection. For what it's worth, his speech commemorating the official end of combat in Iraq was respectful, and appropriate.
The President tried to frame this somewhat-milestone in a somber manner, highlighting the valor of our troops without turning them into a political prop. As a progressive who believes that the use of force is occasionally required, I felt that Obama's realistic assessment of war--the "darkest of human creations," in his words--was not as triumphal as some might like, but was refreshing in a way.
I wish I could say the same of his Republican critics. I really do; it would be nice if honor and respect could prevail in a moment like this. Boehner and McConnell released confused "prebuttals," in which they claimed that Iraq has improved without Obama's help and Obama has always opposed the war; they also repeated the tired refrain about "arbitrary" deadlines. Never mind the 2011 Iraq withdrawal deadline Obama is working towards in a gradual, responsible way was set by Bush. Or that Obama has had a consistent and nuanced position on the war since it began (for a good overview of this, see the timeline Jim Arkedis put together).
And this was preceded by a ridiculous 527 ad that included such laughable attack lines as blaming Obama for failing to catch Osama bin Ladin. It isn't the inaccuracies that annoy me, as right-wing attack ads are rarely very erudite. It is the fact that today we should be reflecting on the sacrifices our troops have made in service of this country, and vowing to support those who have returned, those in Afghanistan, and the 50,000 who remain in Iraq. Instead we get a vapid and unoriginal attack on Obama from GOP "leaders," and a shameless fear-mongering ad.
I should not have expected more of the Right, but I did.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Oval Office Iraq speech
By Creature
I guess I'm in no mood to nitpick, to fight. I thought the president's speech tonight was strong. He must be given credit for removing 90K plus troops. If president McCain was in there, I doubt the withdrawal would have happened at all. I can even overlook his kid-glove approach with Bush. Like I said, I'm in no mood to fight.
I guess I'm in no mood to nitpick, to fight. I thought the president's speech tonight was strong. He must be given credit for removing 90K plus troops. If president McCain was in there, I doubt the withdrawal would have happened at all. I can even overlook his kid-glove approach with Bush. Like I said, I'm in no mood to fight.
Enough with Glenn Beck
Guest post by T.W. Wilson
Ed. note: The pseudonymous Mr. Wilson, I assure you, knows a lot about politics, having been on the inside himself, but is new to political blogging, and I encourage you to check out his blog, Lippmann's Ghost, mostly but not exclusively on U.S. politics. This is the first of what I hope will be many guest posts for us. It just makes sense to start with a rather direct piece on the greatest American ever, Glenn Beck. -- MJWS
*****
Glenn Beck is an idiot. Anyone who doesn't think Glenn Beck is an idiot is an idiot. Despite this, we continue to respond to the boob as if he deserves respect in the great national conversation that is politics in America.When we learned that a federal government official was quick to demand Shirley Sherrod's resignation before all the facts were known because he feared hearing the story shouted by Beck on his nightly rant, I could only shake my head.
When we begin to modify our words and deeds because we are afraid of how a liar and a fool might represent them in the public space, something is seriously wrong.
Certainly we need to counter lies when they are told, correct putative facts when they are wrong, and challenge ideologies when they are destructive. Let us never shy away from this responsibility. But let us not waste our time in this effort unless the things we challenge are having a significant impact on public policy debate and the decision making processes of our leaders.
Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schulz, and Chris Matthews, and many more, do yoeman's service in presenting an articulate and well-argued progressive perspective. I am becoming weary, however, of their obsession with Beck and his ilk.
See the first sentence above: Anyone who doesn't think Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Hannity are idiots is an idiot. And further, anyone who believes their nonsense probably travelled in that goofy orbit long before Fox News was a glimmer in Rupert Murdoch's eye. In other words, they are not changing anything and, typically, responding to them doesn't change anything.
I'm not saying, to be clear, that some of their crap doesn't make its way into significant political discourse. I only ask that we be discerning about what is and what is not worthy of our notice.
When we respond to every particle of foolishness, we end up giving them twice the airing they would otherwise get and cut in half the time the rest of us have to discuss, debate and truly understand key issues the way adults need to understand them.
When one sibling is annoying another in the back seat of a car, a parent will sometimes say, "just ignore him, or he'll keep doing it." Okay, maybe Beck won't stop doing what he does if we ignore him, but we'll be forced to think about it a whole lot less, which can't be bad.
Get yer act together, Dems!
I really don't take much stock in Gallup's "generic ballot" polls, not least over the summer (when people aren't paying attention to the news (not that they really do at other times either, but it's worse over the summer), but I can't help but be a little worried by the latest numbers showing Republicans with a 10-point lead, 51 to 41:
There's no discernible trend here. It's been up-and-down all year, with Democrats occasionally taking the lead, and the real concern would be if the gap fails to narrow again and, once the election season begins in earnest after Labor Day, Republicans maintain or expand upon what is a fairly solid lead at present.
So should the results of this latest weekly tracking poll "send a chill down the Democrats' spine," as Taylor Marsh suggests? Well, yes, but not because they're behind, but because what matters here is enthusiasm -- and what this poll shows quite clearly is that Republicans have an enormous lead over both Democrats and independents when it comes to enthusiasm:
I understand why Democrats' enthusiasm is low. Obama has been fairly successful thus far (health care, the stimulus, Wall Street reform, etc.), but he hasn't exactly governed up the lofty expectations of many, and the Democrats in Congress haven't exactly done everything they could have done with two solid majorities and, as usual, aren't exactly a unified force against the Republicans, succumbing to their typical internal conflicts and disagreements -- though, of course, the filibuster has effectively allowed Republicans, who are unified, who have determined to be not a loyal opposition but a party of obstructionism, and who wield what power they have (including the filibuster, which they abuse in terms of historical usage) with a vengeance, to block a good deal of what Obama and the Democrats have wanted to do. (And, too, the media, which regurgitate Republican narratives and talking points without much thought of their own, tend to overblow the situation, leaving Democratic voters with the impression that their party is deeply divided, dysfunctional, and doomed, sapping a good deal of whatever enthusiasm they might have.)
And this is what happens to parties that are in power, even if Democrats have only been in power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue since January '09, hardly much time.
Still, there's really no excuse for the enormity of this enthusiasm gap. I expect Republicans to be ahead, what with the surge of the Tea Party "movement" and all the Republican propaganda that has been unleashed upon the country, much of it based on fear, hatred, and loathing, much of it racist/nativist and directed at the Other, including a certain partially black man in the White House (as well as at Mexicans and anyone who doesn't fit in with the right's fringe ideology), but the increasing extremism of the Republican Party and the conservatives who support it should be generating enthusiasm among Democrats, not depressing it. Sure, Obama has been a bit of a disappointment in some regards, and Democrats in Congress have been somewhat pathetic, but do we really want the party of Sarah Palin to take over? Do Democrats really not get it? Are they so bitter or so stubborn or so stupid that they'd rather let the Republicans win than go to the polls and vote for what is, at worst, the significantly less bad of the two options?
I expect the enthusiasm gap to narrow and for Democrat to lose fewer seats in November than some expect (and as some polls predict). Ultimately, Democrats will do what they have to do, and right now Republicans, driven on by that fear, hatred, and loathing, may very well be maxing out on enthusiasm, with the base deeply enthusiastic even over the summer. History tells us that the party in power will lose seats in the first midterms, and, less than two years into Obama's presidency, we shouldn't expect an exception.
But Republicans are running as a far-right party, with teabaggers triumphant across the land, and this will only come back to bite them as they lose independents and whatever sensible Republicans are left -- assuming, of course, that Democrats don't wither away into electoral oblivion for lack of effort.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Just how crazy is Sharron Angle? (8)
(Welcome, Sun readers. For more on Angle's craziness, click here and scroll down.)
As the Las Vegas Sun's Jon Ralston reports, Angle, the far-right, insurgent Nevada Republican nominee for Senate (running against Harry Reid, of course), proudly declared in '06, when she ran for Congress, that she would have voted against the $62 billion in Katrina relief that Congress approved in September '05.
As the Las Vegas Sun's Jon Ralston reports, Angle, the far-right, insurgent Nevada Republican nominee for Senate (running against Harry Reid, of course), proudly declared in '06, when she ran for Congress, that she would have voted against the $62 billion in Katrina relief that Congress approved in September '05.
Only 11 House members voted against the package, which received broad bipartisan support. Far-right Rep. Mike Pence, whom Angle specifically mentions in her comments, voted for it, as did the Republican leadership, which at the time included Rep. Tom DeLay, hardly a big-government liberal. Sure, Republicans knew it would look bad to vote against relief, and against the victims of one of the worst natural disasters in American history, but at least most of them did the right thing, whatever their motivations.
Angle might have voted for it, too, or been pressured to vote for it, but the fact -- and it's on tape, thankfully, as Angle is whitewashing her past -- is that she came out publicly and determinedly against it.
Now, I'm all for budget sanity, too, but there are times when government has to step in and do what needs to be done, as in the case of historic economic crises and massive hurricanes that cause extraordinary damage to life and property. Just think back to those horrendous images of New Orleans, of so much of the Gulf Coast. You really want to play politics with that? You really want to hold out for offsets, or else?
That says an awful lot about just what sort of a human being Sharron Angle is. She's crazy, as we've known for some time, but evidently she's also cruel, the proponent of a conservative ideology, to the extent that she really understands what she claims to support, that seemingly cares nothing for human suffering, that pushes the failed trickle-down economic polities of the past at the expense of common decency, and that would have let Katrina's victims and homes, not to mention a great American city, rot.
It's good these tapes are out there, because we all, and Nevadans in particular, need to know just what Angle is all about.
Arson at site of Islamic center in Tennessee
We may not know who did this, but I think we know what caused it (and who, ultimately, is behind it):
Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.
Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.
Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.
It's anti-Muslim bigotry, of course, but at this time, with conservatives like Palin and Gingrich screaming about the "Ground Zero mosque" and targeting Muslims as the anti-American Other, as jihadists to a man, woman, and child, is it any wonder we're seeing more of this lately?
(For more, see Greenwald.)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Glenn Beck regrets calling Obama a racist. Maybe.
So Glenn Beck, it seems, regrets calling President Obama a racist last year, regrets saying -- on Fox News, of course -- that the president has a "deep-seated hatred for white people."
"I have a big fat mouth sometimes and I say things," Beck told Chris Wallace on Fox News yesterday.
Yes, that's true, he says "things," and I suppose he deserves a bit of credit for admitting that he said something vicious and stupid. I doubt Rush would ever do that.
But he is genuinely sorry, or just sorry his "big fat mouth" got him in trouble with his advertisers (and with some fellow conservatives), and is he now just saying he's sorry because of that whole "Restoring Honor" nonsense he's pushing? (Besides, he went on to say that Obama's worldview is based on liberation theology, which is a gross misrepresentation of Obama's worldview.)
Not that it matters, because the mouth will keep flapping dishonorably and he'll keep saying vicious and stupid things, about the president and about anything and everything else he doesn't like.
She Walks On Water
Kingmaker, The Power Behind the Throne, The Most Powerful Woman in America, The Second Coming, The Chosen One - these are some of titles being anointed to Sarah "All-Mighty" Palin, The Thrilla from Wasilla in the wake of Joe Miller's apparent upset victory over Lisa Murkowski last Tuesday in the Alaska Republican Primary for Senate.
Murkowski is the incumbent, having been appointed to the seat by her father in 2002. In 2004, when forced to run, she was victorious in the general election. Murkowski is considered a 'moderate' Republican. Other than the fact she is pro-choice and pro-stem cell, there is nothing moderate about Murkowski. She is given this label just because compared to most of the whackos in the GOP (see Bachmann, Michele and Foxx, Virginia), Lisa M is somewhat sane. Like all the lemmings in the Senate, Murkowski votes for whatever McConnell tells her to vote for. (every now and the, the Chinless One lets Susie or Limpie or Brownie deviate a bit to help with their media image)
The Murkowski family HATES Sarah Palin (chalk up another bonus point for Lisa) - it is the Hatfields and the McCoys. Palin defeated Lisa's father Frank (the one who appointed her) in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Palin of course did not finish the job she was elected to do - resigning 18 months before her term was over to indulge her ego and become the rich white man's wet dream.
Joe Miller is now poised to become the Republican candidate for Senate in Alaska. By any test, Miller makes Murkowski look like Ted Kennedy. Miller is a complete nut job - a Sharron Angle with an X-Y chromosome. He is pro-life with no exceptions, wants to privatize (aka get rid of) Social Security and tows the line on a whole slew of other Teabagger issues. With Alaska being overwhelmingly Republican (considering the state is the biggest recipient of Federal Dollars per capita, that is quite amusing) and Democrats showing the country what spineless wussies they are - the odds are Miller will be the next Senator.But what has made this election so special is the fact that Palin campaigned for Miller and the media has deemed his victory is due to the sprinkling of Palin Fairy Dust.
from Christina Bellantoni at Talking Points Memo (of all places!):
it's her ability to totally change the dynamic of a given race that sets her apart not only from current GOP rivals but even most other politicos in recent memory. Whereas others can provide an incremental push to unknowns and incumbents alike, only Palin has demonstrated the ability to pluck a candidate from virtual obscurity and rocket them to political stardom -- and, often, to an unexpected win.
Lets take a look at the Palin record of plucking from obscurity and sending across the tape - Miller and Nikki Haley in So. Carolina. That is it. Palin has endorsed such other "unknowns" as Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina - who would have won their respective primaries with or without her. Palin also endorsed Rand Paul and Sharron Angle - both won. Did she make a difference - who knows?, she might have - we don't have the luxury of running the election again without Palin dropping her stinking feces in the races. Angle benefitted from the chicken trading of Sue Lowden and Paul already had plenty of media attention - due to the uncanny ability of Teabaggers to generate Nielsen ratings. Palin also endorsed Karen Handel in Georgia (who lost) and Rita Meyer in Wyoming (also a loser). According to the Washington Post, Palin's batting average is .667 - great if you are in the MLB, lousy if you are Palin the Perfect.Palin is only a kingmaker because the media (mainly Fox, but also cable outlets, wire services, papers and other assorted mass media machines run by white men) has chosen her to be some sort of combo of Eva Person, Aimee Semple McPherson and Marilyn Monroe. If Palin looked like Meg Whitman or Virginia Foxx the media wouldn't waste 5 seconds of their time on her - and those magical red slippers would have been transferred to some other Wicked Witch. It doesn't matter that Palin is a complete moron, that she only ever criticizes, that she has yet put forth one coherent idea, that she isn't qualified to clean up dog shit (moose shit yes, dog no), that she is a typical fear-monger filled with hate, and that she is a self-indulgent narcissist who puts herself ahead of everything (including her children and her elected job as governor) - the media follows her around like a bunch of aging teenagers after David Cassidy, Leif Garret or the Bay City Rollers.
There is no way to prove if a Palin endorsement actually helps or hurts. But a Palin seal of approval will generate FREE national media attention - something a Nikki Haley or Joe Miller could never afford or would would never have gotten otherwise. So in that case, having Palin cooties is probably worth it in a GOP primary. There is no doubt she is the most polarizing figure in all of America today. Nobody is lukewarm on Palin - you are either with her or against her. And the people who adore - her brainless descamisados - well they don't just adore her, they worship the ground she walks on as the holiest of holys. I bet many scrounge the garbage for her used napkins. I guarantee not ONE of her followers can name a single accomplishment or idea Palin has (except tax cuts - which doesn't count because every Republican and teabagger is required to put forth tax cuts as the be-all and end-all of ideas). Then again I guess I cannot blame them - she hasn't had an accomplishment. But none of this matters in 2010 American politics - what matters is that Palin is hot to trot and there is a Black man in the Oval Office. All the rest is just tripe.Miller won in Alaska - the Palin playground and Haley won in South Carolina by a huge margin in the runoff. Sarah might not be as "loved" as she once was in the 49th state - but they elected her in 2006. And South Carolina - home of Mark Sanford, Joe Wilson, Jim Demented and Lindsey Graham - that alone speaks volumes about the voters in the Palmetto State. Between the local and national media attention she gets (for no reason other than she makes people like Rush Limbaugh put the viagra back in the vial for a day), there is little doubt that her influence in Alaska during a Republican primary - is still strong. I wonder if we pay Russia the same $7.2 million Seward paid the Czar in 1867 if they will take Palin off our hands - both Palins - Sarah and Todd. They can leave Bristol - I have to see her on Dancing With the Stars.
If Joe Miller pulls this out, he owes Palin. He is now officially The One day the media will wake up and realize they have been following the 21st century version of a snake-oil salesman. Palin is a charlatan - a good looking one, but a charlatan nonetheless. It's actually OK for the media to follow such drivel as Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton - neither of them have any delusions of grandeur of having their fingers on the Nuclear switch or leading a crusade into the Middle East. Propping up the modern day version of Semple-McPherson and Peron is a dangerous MO in a country that worships the stupid.
Glenn Beck, you're no Martin Luther King... not even close
I actually don't have much to say about Glenn Beck's idiotic, insulting "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday.
Everything was just so predictable. How could it not have been? Anyone familiar with Beck and his far-right shtick knew what was coming, and it all came, Sarah Palin included, as expected. We've seen it all before, we've heard it all before, and the only difference was the scale, the backdrop and the size of the crowd, and therein, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic speech, was it so deeply insulting.
As C&L's David Neiwert put it, the rally was "just a long-winded and boring sermon," and overwhelmingly, predictably "white":
It was essentially Beck's call for a return to the religious life in America -- which was why he assembled 240 representatives of various churches in the crowd and dubbed them his "new Black Robe Regiment". This part was particularly creepy, since it came with an admonition that religious leaders needed to focus on "fundamental values" -- as defined by Glenn Beck, of course.
This means, naturally, that the "social justice" for which Martin Luther King fought -- and which Glenn Beck has vigorously condemned -- would not be part of those fundamental values.
As predicted, the whole show was a hoax -- a civil rights rally for easily frightened white people.
Yes, that's exactly right, from what I could tell, from my perch here in Canada, where we don't have a Glenn Beck and where social justice is built into who we are as a nation, where it defines us as a people despite our own conservatives who seek to undermine it. I was insulted as a human being who admires King and what he stood for, and I was insulted as one who has spent a lot of time in, and who loves, America, but, thankfully, I am somewhat detached from the madness of Glenn Beck, if only because there is a national border, however undefended, between us.
And yet I remain focused on what I and others have referred to as the American right's descent into madness, one of the defining political developments of our time, perhaps the defining political development of the decline and fall of the American Empire.
Here's the NYT's Bob Herbert: "America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure." Yes it is and yes he is. More:
Beck is a provocateur who likes to play with matches in the tinderbox of racial and ethnic confrontation. He seems oblivious to the real danger of his execrable behavior. He famously described President Obama as a man "who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
He is an integral part of the vicious effort by the Tea Party and other elements of the right wing to portray Mr. Obama as somehow alien, a strange figure who is separate and apart from -- outside of -- ordinary American life.
*****
Facts and reality mean nothing to Beck. And there is no road too low for him to slither upon.
And yet he will undoubtedly remain, for the foreseeable future, a leading figure on the right, the articulator of an ascendant strain of conservatism that, along with the anti-tax, pro-business libertarianism of old, has taken hold of the Republican Party and that is widely popular in non-establishment conservative circles, that is, with the Tea Party "movement" and the Republican base.
When King spoke, on August 28, 1963, it was not about himself, and not really even about his own "dream," but about something so much larger than that, the promise that America held as a nation, the promise of white and black, and everyone else, coming together in common purpose to make the future a better place, a fairer place, a more socially just place. It was an historic speech, and it remains today one of the finest moments of American history.
When Beck spoke yesterday, on August 28, 2010, it was all about himself, about his vision, about remaking America in his own image. What I noted -- and, again, this was so predictable -- was the enormous egotism of it all. Who is Glenn Beck to speak at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day King gave his historic speech there? An arrogant, self-satisfied blowhard teeming with conspiracy theories and a self-interested ideology of fear, hatred, and loathing.
America is still a great and beautiful country in many ways, as King understood, but Beck's "America," as we heard yesterday and as we hear day after day from him and those like him, is an ugly distortion of that reality. What it seeks to restore is the ugliness of America's past, the divisions that threatened to tear America apart, the ignorance and closed-mindedness that are enemies to genuine progress, to genuine liberty.
We can ignore Beck if we like, at our risk, given his popularity, but what we really need to do is to articulate as forcefully as we can King's vision of America as a land of freedom and opportunity for all, as a land that is fair and just and inclusive. This is the vision that then-candidate Barack Obama articulated so brilliantly in his speech in Philadelphia in March 2008. American history has been the story of the quest for that more perfect union envisioned by the Founders. The American Empire may or may not be in irreversible decline, but to me that quest is still a noble one, and one that ought to guide American politics now.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The spy who came in from the cold, became a best-selling author, and spoke out against the evils of his time
John Le Carre, author of dozens of cloak-and-dagger thrillers, told the Sunday Telegraph's Seven magazine that the British intelligence agencies for whom he worked in the 1950s and 1960s -- MI5 and MI6 -- carried out numerous assassinations in the name of fighting the Cold War.
"Certainly we did some very bad things," he said. "We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations. Although I was never involved."
But of course we were never as bad as they were:
Le Carre argued that the operations carried out by Western intelligence agencies were a far cry from the "unaccountable" killings by their Soviet Bloc adversaries.
"Even when quite ruthless operations are being contemplated ... the process of democratic consultation was still relatively intact and decent humanitarian instincts came into play," he said. "Totalitarian states killed with impunity and no one was held accountable. That didn't happen in the West."
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Not only did we win, but we played nicer. We're awesome.
(Actually, I like Le Carré a great deal. I've read almost all of his novels, all of them up to the last few. While I prefer the realist Le Carré of the Cold War to the moralist Le Carré of recent years -- and it's that moralism, wrapped up in righteous outrage, that has turned me off his recent work -- I admire him for speaking out with indignation against the excesses and abuses of the West, not least with respect to Africa, as well as against the madness of recent U.S. foreign and military policy, notably the Iraq War. When he speaks, it seems to me, he ought to be taken seriously.)
Tell me lies
By Mustang Bobby.
It's ironic that in an age where we can get instant information -- the Encyclopaedia Britannica on your cell phone -- and yet a large number of Americans haven't got a clue and are perfectly willing to believe something that is demonstrably false. It's not just things like whether or not President Obama was born in Hawai'i or whether or not he's a Christian, or whether or not it was his administration that pushed through the bank bailout and TARP (it was the Bush administration on both counts), or just simple stuff like the world is round. It's the willful ignorance of people who, when faced with the facts, choose to listen to the lies.
We are all creatures of habit. People choose what they want to believe if it fits into their little jigsaw puzzle of a mind; new information that doesn't meet with the pattern is disturbing and disorienting. We want a simple explanation for the randomness and complexity of life. It explains religion, superstition, and reality TV. Paradoxically, the people who don't do a lot of deep thinking are prone to believe complex theories of conspiracy and control by "others"; mysterious forces beyond our control that manipulate us from beyond, be it a magical superbeing in the clouds or a man in a glass booth who makes the noises coming out of a box on the table.
We find comfort in being able to say that we can't control the things we really can. And it makes our lives that much easier when we can believe the lies rather than deal with the facts.
It's ironic that in an age where we can get instant information -- the Encyclopaedia Britannica on your cell phone -- and yet a large number of Americans haven't got a clue and are perfectly willing to believe something that is demonstrably false. It's not just things like whether or not President Obama was born in Hawai'i or whether or not he's a Christian, or whether or not it was his administration that pushed through the bank bailout and TARP (it was the Bush administration on both counts), or just simple stuff like the world is round. It's the willful ignorance of people who, when faced with the facts, choose to listen to the lies.
It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or aren’t sure from which country the United States gained its independence?
But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.
We are all creatures of habit. People choose what they want to believe if it fits into their little jigsaw puzzle of a mind; new information that doesn't meet with the pattern is disturbing and disorienting. We want a simple explanation for the randomness and complexity of life. It explains religion, superstition, and reality TV. Paradoxically, the people who don't do a lot of deep thinking are prone to believe complex theories of conspiracy and control by "others"; mysterious forces beyond our control that manipulate us from beyond, be it a magical superbeing in the clouds or a man in a glass booth who makes the noises coming out of a box on the table.
We find comfort in being able to say that we can't control the things we really can. And it makes our lives that much easier when we can believe the lies rather than deal with the facts.
Friday, August 27, 2010
South Korea Pageant
South Korea Pageant
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A beautiful girl
A beautiful girl
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My sister
My sister
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Female university students ~18+
Female university students ~18+
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White + Black ~ brother needs your help
White + Black ~ brother needs your help
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"Sharia" and American secularism
by Peter Henne
It's not often that academic issues like the relationship between Islamic thought and contemporary politics become relevant. So I was excited to see the Washington Post's story on the nature of sharia. This is connected to the Park51 debate, although the question of whether Muslims must follow sharia like an instruction book--and what this means for American society--periodically arises. The last time was an op-ed by Edward Luttwak claiming President Obama is a Muslim under Islamic law, and that all Muslims will be compelled to oppose him as an apostate.
The story includes blurbs by several experts--including Gallup's Dalia Mogahed--dispelling myths about sharia's totalizing influence over Muslims. And they are right; anyone who has spent even a semester studying Islam will have learned that sharia is not a fixed set of laws, but a set of principles drawn from diverse sources and about which there is much disagreement. Moreover, even if sharia does contain guidelines for Muslims, this does not mean all Muslims will follow it in their daily lives; Muslims are no more likely than Christians to check with their Scriptures before making a decision. This was covered well in the responses to Luttwak's piece.
The renowned Islamic scholar Olivier Roy--in his classic The Failure of Political Islam--describes sharia as characterized by both autonomy and incompleteness. That is, it exists independently of power structures but is constantly contested. The specific application of sharia in any context is based on contingent political, economic and societal factors, not any inherent aspect of Islam. Saying that sharia will lead Muslims in America to literally follow all aspects of their religious writings would be the same as arguing that medieval Catholic Canon Law not only represents all of Christianity, but drives the behavior of contemporary Catholics.
Of course, this does not address the question of what the effects may be of the infusion of Muslim values--whatever form they take--into American politics and civil society. This is a question that is worth pondering; we just need to ponder over the right facts.
It's not often that academic issues like the relationship between Islamic thought and contemporary politics become relevant. So I was excited to see the Washington Post's story on the nature of sharia. This is connected to the Park51 debate, although the question of whether Muslims must follow sharia like an instruction book--and what this means for American society--periodically arises. The last time was an op-ed by Edward Luttwak claiming President Obama is a Muslim under Islamic law, and that all Muslims will be compelled to oppose him as an apostate.
The story includes blurbs by several experts--including Gallup's Dalia Mogahed--dispelling myths about sharia's totalizing influence over Muslims. And they are right; anyone who has spent even a semester studying Islam will have learned that sharia is not a fixed set of laws, but a set of principles drawn from diverse sources and about which there is much disagreement. Moreover, even if sharia does contain guidelines for Muslims, this does not mean all Muslims will follow it in their daily lives; Muslims are no more likely than Christians to check with their Scriptures before making a decision. This was covered well in the responses to Luttwak's piece.
The renowned Islamic scholar Olivier Roy--in his classic The Failure of Political Islam--describes sharia as characterized by both autonomy and incompleteness. That is, it exists independently of power structures but is constantly contested. The specific application of sharia in any context is based on contingent political, economic and societal factors, not any inherent aspect of Islam. Saying that sharia will lead Muslims in America to literally follow all aspects of their religious writings would be the same as arguing that medieval Catholic Canon Law not only represents all of Christianity, but drives the behavior of contemporary Catholics.
Of course, this does not address the question of what the effects may be of the infusion of Muslim values--whatever form they take--into American politics and civil society. This is a question that is worth pondering; we just need to ponder over the right facts.
Season of the Witch
By Capt. Fogg
Will the process that's been so noticeable since Nixon's retreat result in civil war, or will the collapse of government be as invisible as a black hole in the midst of the raging litigation now being planned by the Republicans to mark their return to power? The legal assault on Bill Clinton, that was retribution for the legal actions taken against felonious Richard Nixon and his corrupt administration, was notable for its attempted parity.
Charge for charge, and almost word for word, the Gingrich gang and its Starr inquisitor attempted to make charges of propositioning a woman payed handsomely to make them, and having asked his secretary not to tell his wife into impeachable treason. That the Democrats have again usurped their perceived mandate of heaven and taken control ( sort of) once again, plans are already being made to cripple Barack Obama as they did Clinton, come November 8th and never mind that Obama seems faithful to his wife -- it doesn't matter.
There are no angels in this dogfight, but the Republicans have an undeniable record of unrestrained, immoderate and rabidly vicious assault on all fronts when they're defeated and more so when that defeat is so clearly merited. They don't like rules except when the rules protect them. They love secrecy but decry it in others. They don't like taking responsibility for their failures, but find fault with anything and everything in their opposition and they don't give a damn if they're right or wrong as long as they gain power.
The November elections are only two months away, but the pyre is already under construction waiting only for the witch hunt to begin. It doesn't matter what Obama does or whether he succeeds or fails. I doesn't matter if he picks up every stitch, it's still going to be the season of the witch.
(Cross posted from Human Voices)
Will the process that's been so noticeable since Nixon's retreat result in civil war, or will the collapse of government be as invisible as a black hole in the midst of the raging litigation now being planned by the Republicans to mark their return to power? The legal assault on Bill Clinton, that was retribution for the legal actions taken against felonious Richard Nixon and his corrupt administration, was notable for its attempted parity.
Charge for charge, and almost word for word, the Gingrich gang and its Starr inquisitor attempted to make charges of propositioning a woman payed handsomely to make them, and having asked his secretary not to tell his wife into impeachable treason. That the Democrats have again usurped their perceived mandate of heaven and taken control ( sort of) once again, plans are already being made to cripple Barack Obama as they did Clinton, come November 8th and never mind that Obama seems faithful to his wife -- it doesn't matter.
" Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) – are quietly gearing up for a possible season of subpoenas not seen since the Clinton wars of the late 1990s,"says Politico today.
"How acrimonious things get really depend on how willing the administration is in accepting our findings [and] responding to our questions,” adds Kurt Bardella, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who refers to his boss as “Questioner-in-Chief.’"I'm assuming Obama won't readily accede to the inevitably trumped up and specious charges, but you never know, judging from his restraint in bringing up the GOP's singular failures, gross misrepresentations, war crimes and constitutional infractions, but acrimonious? That's as close to real humor as a Republican has ever come.
There are no angels in this dogfight, but the Republicans have an undeniable record of unrestrained, immoderate and rabidly vicious assault on all fronts when they're defeated and more so when that defeat is so clearly merited. They don't like rules except when the rules protect them. They love secrecy but decry it in others. They don't like taking responsibility for their failures, but find fault with anything and everything in their opposition and they don't give a damn if they're right or wrong as long as they gain power.
The November elections are only two months away, but the pyre is already under construction waiting only for the witch hunt to begin. It doesn't matter what Obama does or whether he succeeds or fails. I doesn't matter if he picks up every stitch, it's still going to be the season of the witch.
(Cross posted from Human Voices)
Craziest Republican of the Day: John Fleming
Yes, let's give the award today to the congressman from Louisiana, for taking us right back to the Crusades:
We are either going to go down the socialist road and become like western Europe and create, I guess really a godless society, an atheist society. Or we're going to continue down the other pathway where we believe in freedom of speech, individual liberties and that we remain a Christian nation. So we're going to have to win that battle, we're going to have to solve that argument before we can once again reach across and work together on things.
Where -- oh where -- to begin? Well, let's just make a few points, however obvious:
1) Western Europe is more "socialist" than the U.S., yes, but much of it, these days, is run by conservatives: Cameron in the U.K., Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France. Last time I checked, Europe is still capitalist, with major corporations that dominate the world and a dynamic continental economy that is doing better the U.S.
1) Western Europe is more "socialist" than the U.S., yes, but much of it, these days, is run by conservatives: Cameron in the U.K., Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France. Last time I checked, Europe is still capitalist, with major corporations that dominate the world and a dynamic continental economy that is doing better the U.S.
2) Western Europe may be less religious than the U.S., but it's hardly atheist. Last time I checked, countries like Italy and Spain are deeply Christian.
3) Obviously, Fleming is expressing a black-white worldview that is wholly without nuance (and wrong). But, even if he's right that the two options are Christianity and atheism -- they're not, but let's play along -- how is it that Christianity promotes freedom and liberty while atheism does not? If anything, the reverse is true. While this is a generalization, I admit, Christianity has long been the enemy of freedom and liberty, as is it today with the theocratic fundamentalist Christianity that is so politically powerful in the U.S. If you really want to be free, do away with Christianity (and religion generally). Actually, just oppose the sort of Christianity Fleming seems to want to govern American society, a Christianity that seeks to impose a moral code that is decidedly against freedom, including the freedom not to be that sort of Christian and to believe in other gods, or none at all. The alternative to such Christianity is not necessarily atheism, which can, I admit, be absolutist, but the removal of religion from the public sphere and the freedom to believe what we want to believe in private.
4) Like so many on the right, Fleming doesn't know the Constitution, or what America is all about, or at least distorts it to suit his theocratic agenda. Is America a Christian nation? In terms of sheer numbers, Christianity may be the largest religion in the U.S., but no, it isn't. Last time I checked, the Constitution, that document of which conservatives are supposedly so enamored, what with all their high-falutin' talk about the original intent of the Framers, does not establish a state religion and does not endorse one religion over any other. Isn't that supposedly what America is all about, founded in direct contrast to Europe, the Old World, where countries, as well as sub-national states, imposed state religions on oppressed peoples, usually some form of Christianity or other, and a long and bloody history driven largely by religious belief and religious hatred had dominated the entire continent, pushing so many to find freedom in the New World across the ocean?
5) It is not just incredibly ignorant but disturbingly dangerous to paint American politics as the battlefield of a civilizational clash, whether between Christians and Muslims or between Christians and atheists. It is a gross misrepresentation, of course, but also an invitation to extremism and possibly violence. We have seen, many times, how the far-right fringe, now increasingly the conservative mainstream, responds when incited like this, and it can get ugly. Those like Fleming who push this sort of propaganda are largely responsible for it -- and must be held accountable.
Quote of the Day
By Creature
"Saturday night, when the event is done, the Lincoln Memorial will still be the place where King gave one of the most memorable speeches of the 20th century. People who came to the rally in search of answers will still be looking. And Glenn Beck will still be a legend in his own mind." -- Eugene Robinson, in a must-read piece, on Glenn Beck's "all about me" rally in D.C. tomorrow.
"Saturday night, when the event is done, the Lincoln Memorial will still be the place where King gave one of the most memorable speeches of the 20th century. People who came to the rally in search of answers will still be looking. And Glenn Beck will still be a legend in his own mind." -- Eugene Robinson, in a must-read piece, on Glenn Beck's "all about me" rally in D.C. tomorrow.
CDLily.Carter.-.Amateur.Creampies.2
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Barbie Styles - A Party Blonde Slut
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Alice Wonderbang - Good Girlfriends!
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Kate and Kostya
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
Targeting Muslims, inciting violence
Conservative fearmongers and hatemongers, including Newt and Sarah and all you Fox News propagandists, this, along with other such incidents, is at your feet:
In the latest in a spate of anti-Muslim incidents over the last two days, an intoxicated man entered a mosque in Queens on Wednesday evening and proceeded to urinate on prayer rugs, New York police officials said.
The man, identified as Omar Rivera, reportedly shouted anti-Muslim epithets and called worshippers who had gathered for evening prayer "terrorists." One witness told the New York Post the man was "very clearly intoxicated" and had a beer bottle in his hand at the time.
"He stuck up his middle finger and cursed at everyone," Mustapha Sadouki, who was at the mosque at the time, said. "He calls us terrorists, yet he comes into our mosque and terrorizes other people."
Big Brother's keeper
By Capt. Fogg
Tiger Woods named his Yacht "Privacy." It's obvious why he was seeking it, but we assume incorrectly that we have any right to privacy in these days of The Patriot Act and the mass marketing of fear.
Monitoring our phone calls, reading our e-mails -- that's old hat. Forcing us to produce birth certificates and citizenship papers for any cop who decides your car is weaving even if your ancestors have lived in Arizona for 15,000 years -- coming soon to a Confederate state near you.
But wait, there's more.
Law Enforcement agencies are now adding vans equipped with side scan x-ray units that can inspect the contents of your car as well as the contents of your jockey shorts if you're walking down the sidewalk. Probable cause, my ass -- and yours.
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go according to Time magazine. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- the one Fox insists is so Liberaliberaliberal -- tells us we don't have a right to privacy if our cars are parked in our driveways. Search warrant? Don't make me laugh; they don't have to show you no stinking search warrant, at least not in the nine Western states under its jurisdiction, not to install the device or to use it to see who you visit or even how fast you drive . We have no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking our movements even if we pay cash at the gas station and at toll booths and don't use a cell phone. We're fools if we do.
Sound like a libertarian, don't I? I'm not and I'm not because I am not blaming this on a straw man government, I'm blaming it on you. I'm blaming it on us. We voted for the people who are doing this, we supported the Patriot act, we wallow in the fear mongering the retailing of idiot rage that "justified" it. We fall for their distractions, their distortions and we bark and growl like Pavlov's dogs. When they push our buttons, we push their buttons on the voting machines.
Sure, the Ninth Circuit is liberaliberaliberal, when they insist you can't use your religious beliefs to stop people from marrying, but they're not are they? They're not when they argue that your home is their castle as is your car, your mailbox and your telephone, and by pretending we're conservative we vote for the people who appoint them to take our freedom and make us thank them for their trouble.
Tiger Woods named his Yacht "Privacy." It's obvious why he was seeking it, but we assume incorrectly that we have any right to privacy in these days of The Patriot Act and the mass marketing of fear.
Monitoring our phone calls, reading our e-mails -- that's old hat. Forcing us to produce birth certificates and citizenship papers for any cop who decides your car is weaving even if your ancestors have lived in Arizona for 15,000 years -- coming soon to a Confederate state near you.
But wait, there's more.
Law Enforcement agencies are now adding vans equipped with side scan x-ray units that can inspect the contents of your car as well as the contents of your jockey shorts if you're walking down the sidewalk. Probable cause, my ass -- and yours.
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go according to Time magazine. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- the one Fox insists is so Liberaliberaliberal -- tells us we don't have a right to privacy if our cars are parked in our driveways. Search warrant? Don't make me laugh; they don't have to show you no stinking search warrant, at least not in the nine Western states under its jurisdiction, not to install the device or to use it to see who you visit or even how fast you drive . We have no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking our movements even if we pay cash at the gas station and at toll booths and don't use a cell phone. We're fools if we do.
Sound like a libertarian, don't I? I'm not and I'm not because I am not blaming this on a straw man government, I'm blaming it on you. I'm blaming it on us. We voted for the people who are doing this, we supported the Patriot act, we wallow in the fear mongering the retailing of idiot rage that "justified" it. We fall for their distractions, their distortions and we bark and growl like Pavlov's dogs. When they push our buttons, we push their buttons on the voting machines.
Sure, the Ninth Circuit is liberaliberaliberal, when they insist you can't use your religious beliefs to stop people from marrying, but they're not are they? They're not when they argue that your home is their castle as is your car, your mailbox and your telephone, and by pretending we're conservative we vote for the people who appoint them to take our freedom and make us thank them for their trouble.
Democracy denied: David Broder, John McCain, and the delusional politics of difference-splitting centrism
It takes a certain kind of masochism to get through the smug, centrism-über-alles drivel David Broder churns out at the WaPo column after unbearable column, and it takes that masochism to the nth degree actually to like it.
And yet sometimes, you just can't look away, which is what happened to me when I read the typically Broderish headline to his latest, published today, "John McCain, your country is calling."
Is it? Someone tell the country. It might not be amused.
Is it? Someone tell the country. It might not be amused.
In this column, as so often previously, in print and on TV, Broder celebrates what he sees as McCain's admirable above-the-frayness, his unique statesmanship at a time and in a place where, apparently, such statesmanship is sorely lacking. In other words, he props up the McCain-as-maverick myth that McCain himself cultivated so carefully, a myth has occasionally matched reality, as when McCain has broken the orthodox Republican line to work with Democrats (as on campaign finance reform, way back when) or to challenge Republican orthodoxy itself (as when he ran against Dubya in '00, doing remarkably well until the establishment crushed him, he lost, pouted for a couple of years, flirting with the Democrats, and then came running home to mama, embracing Dubya in '04 and never really looking back).
"I did not begrudge him the $20 million he spent to win Tuesday's primary, or whatever amount it was," Broder writes. "Nor was I bothered by the doctrinal compromises the senator made to convince Arizona voters that he was, in fact, a conservative." No, Dean Broder? Not bothered at all that this one-time quasi-independent mavericky pseudo-statesman and ardent and bipartisan proponent of removing the cancer of money from politics, scared of losing to the red-meat conservative J.D. Hayworth, basically blew the lid off the bank and ran as far to the right as he could, joining the ideological fringe that is now the mainstream of the Republican Party, as when he turned his back on immigration reform and a sensible approach to the issue of undocumented immigration by pandering to the nativist, racist GOP base in a state, Arizona, that has passed draconian anti-immigrant legislation? Really? McCain didn't "respond forcefully" to Hayworth's challenge, he just signed on to the current far-right Republican line. (Back in Spring '08, by the way, in a column slamming Hillary and Obama and calling their primary contest "The Democrats' Worst Nightmare," Broder praised McCain as "the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest." He was wrong then and he's even more wrong now.)
McCain was never really the maverick he claimed to be and that the establishment media, of which Broder is a beacon, reported ad nauseam that he was. He was always a solid conservative and loyal Republican, save for that brief post-2000 flirtation, feelings hurt after the Bushies played dirty and smeared him without mercy, with the Democrats. Sure, he could have run with Kerry in '04, and perhaps he should have, but, with an eye on '08, he didn't, remaining comfortably ensconced where politically he had always been. And, sure, the right has long looked upon him with suspicion, neocon crushes excepted, and there wasn't much enthusiasm for him in '08 until he picked Palin, to his eternal discredit (and let us not forget that Broder has a mad crush on Palin), but that doesn't mean he's the sort of leader America needs or even much of a leader at all.
"The last thing the Senate needs is a loudmouth ex-radio talk show host like Hayworth. What it does need badly is adult leadership, and it's now incumbent on McCain to demonstrate that he is prepared to fulfill this role for both his party and his country." I agree with Broder that the Senate doesn't need Hayworth, who is, admittedly, far worse than McCain has ever been, but McCain has shown no willingness to be a leader with Obama in the White House, despite initial post-election suggestions that he might just fill that role.
"That reputation [for independence] is his ticket to influence, and a precious gift he can bestow on others, Republican or Democrat, who are willing to join him as a dysfunctional Senate prepares to struggle with a challenging agenda both domestic and foreign." Yes, but he has effectively destroyed that reputation with a sordid, fear-based campaign just to win the Republican nomination in Arizona, and it just doesn't seem that much influence remains. Sure, Democrats would love his vote, and it would be great if he could pull over the likes of Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins, three Senate Republicans who aren't quite as extreme as the rest, to vote with Obama on key issues, but he's had that opportunity already and he didn't take it. Where was he on health-care reform? Or climate change? Or immigration? Just because he's beaten Hayworth and will likely win re-election in November, does that now free him, as Broder suggests, to return to what he supposedly once was? Even if he really was once that, and even if he had the desire to lead, he'd likely be an ineffectual leader without many, if any, followers. He may once have commanded influence, and millions may have voted for him, but you're living in a past that never was if you think the future is McCain's to rule.
Broder, as usual, is wallowing in delusion, promoting a Beltway worldview of triumphant centrism that hardly resonates anywhere in America, however much Americans themselves may express frustration with the way Washington works. "One of the conspicuous failings in the past few years has been the absence of a second party making principled decisions on when to support and when to oppose the president. McCain has the best opportunity -- and the best credentials -- to restore this." No, what has happened is that one half of America's two-party system is descending ever further into madness. Even Capitol Hill Republicans, a bit more sane than the conservative base, have chosen the path of all-out opposition and obstructionism to anything and everything Democrats, with control of the White House and solid majorities in both houses of Congress, want to do. Against this, perhaps the dominant political development of our time, McCain would hve no chance of success even if he wanted to break free.
One big problem, though, is that Broder is not alone. He is not so much an independent thinker as the voice of a specifically inside-the-Beltway approach to politics. Unlike, say, the various pro-Republican mouthpieces at Fox News or The Wall Street Journal, Broder doesn't really stand for anything concrete, nor does he have a distinct policy agenda. What he and many of his Beltway brethren promote instead is the politics of difference-splitting. This is what their centrism is all about. In this case, one assumes, Obama would lead the left, McCain would lead the right, and the synthesis of this friendly thesis-antithesis would be the desired outcome, one that fed up Americans would celebrate. Of course, this too is utterly delusional. Washington doesn't work that way, or at least not anymore, and, in a world in which Republicans are trying to block everything they can and in which you need a supermajority in the Senate to get anything done, any such constructive "mutual respect" between Obama and McCain, assuming McCain is interested in working constructively with Democrats (we know Obama is more than willing to work constructively with Republicans, as he keeps showing even as he snubs his own liberal-progressive base), would likely go nowhere.
And, too, what of this very dynamic? Is the center between Obama and McCain really what Americans want and what would be best for the country? Given how far conservatives have successfully moved the American political spectrum to the right over the past few decades, this "center," as the Broder-oriented media see it, is already pretty far to the right. It's more of a center-right that leans Republican and tilts further to the right with additional conservative manipulation of the establishment media. Would the Broder approach have brought us health-care reform? Surely not, because McCain, along with Graham, Snowe, and Collins, were all against it, towing the GOP party line. Let us not forget, though Broder seems not to care, that Obama won the White House decisively against McCain and that Democrats have relatively enormous majorities in both the Senate and the House. Isn't that the true reflection, or as true as can be in a democracy governed by money, media, and corporate special interests, of the popular will, and shouldn't Democrats be able to govern effectively without having to secure 60 votes in the Senate? Why should they have to pander to McCain, why should they even need McCain, as Broder suggests, given the overwhelming electoral results of '06 and '08?
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