TCS and pathetic exploitation

While I have some small sympathy for the idea that politics are not appropriate during times of tragedy, the criticism and anger that has emerged due to the chaos in New Orleans emerged for a reason: help took far too long, and was far too paltry for too long. There's a difference between legitimate criticism and political exploitation.

This, for example, is political exploitation. The chaos in New Orleans, according to TCS, can be best alleviated by... gutting EPA standards?

Yes. Apparently, the big issue in New Orleans is not food, or water, but air pollution regulations, which introduce "delay and unnecessary cost in the fuel supply process"; something that, apparently, is going to hurt their ability to "power their trucks, cars, generators, and pumps".

Ok, obviously this is opportunist, because this is so far down the list of things that people need in New Orleans as to be infintesimal. The reason why the tragedy in New Orleans happened was because these people didn't have cars, and thus were unable to comply with the evacuation orders that had not been accompanied by evacuation means. Those with the means left; those who didn't, drowned and starved.

Even were it not patently illogical, however, it would be clearly opportunist to any reader who noticed this:

The pollution justification for the gasoline standards is largely theoretical, and needs to be weighed against the genuine needs of people in a continuing emergency. Indeed, the Hurricane Katrina crisis provides an opportunity to see whether those requirements are genuinely beneficial. If air pollution does not turn out to be a problem during the period when the requirements are lifted, the federal government should reconsider their usefulness.

On the other hand, governments should be wary of interventionist measures intended to keep down prices. Gas price caps, which Hawaii recently adopted, would be a terrible idea, since they create the worst energy problem of all -- shortages. No one will be helped by long lines at gas stations like the ones we saw during the 1970s gas crises. Instead, unadulterated prices remain the best method we know of to allocate supply to demand. To that effect, rather than cap prices, governments should remove taxes that artificially raise gasoline prices until the Gulf Coast's recovery is well under way.

This is so obviously partisan zealotry as to beggar belief; no amount of Bush bashing can even begin to match the tortured logic of opportunism that this assault on environmental regulation and legitimate fuel taxation represents.

More than that, it's offensive: the comment that Katrina "provides an opportunity to see if regulations are genuinely beneficial" is an insult to everybody who died in Katrina and everybody who is working to aid the survivors. It is not an "opportunity", Iain Murray, it's a tragedy.

The ludicrous belief that this situation could or should provide some sort of litmus test for environmental regulation just shows how intellectually bankrupt Tech Central Station is.

Of course, everybody already knew that. Still, it's a reminder for the days and weeks ahead that the left has no monopoly on "politicizing tragedy"...

...and unlike this joker, they have a point.

A Thought

Remember back during the 80's and 90's, when conspiracy theories were rife about FEMA? How it was an organization of enormous hidden power and reach, that was just waiting for the opportunity to declare martial law and use their invisible black helicopters to seize control?

Where the hell is THAT FEMA? New Orleans could sure use them right now. I don't care if there are black helicopters, as long as they're dropping food and water into the Superdome.

(Another question: isn't there anybody with a private helicopter or plane who could do that? It's not like you're going to get shot down, and you'd be a hero.)

(I doubt I have too many wealthy southern readers, but if I do, and you have a helicopter, think about it. The worst that could happen is that you'd get arrested for doing something that would put a halo on your head in the eyes of every American.)

New Orleans has become Baghdad

From a columnist for the Toronto Star:Rosie DiManno.... well, I'll simply quote:

Nature wrought destruction but human beings have brought disgrace.

It is disgraceful that countless people are still stranded five days after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf coastline, flattening communities and knocking a major metropolis on its ear.

It is disgraceful that hundreds of state troopers and National Guard soldiers have been deployed to protect property rather than help people.

It is disgraceful that thousands of hurricane refugees — including the elderly, the infirm, the sick, mothers with babes in arms, children separated from parents — have been essentially abandoned in the Superdome and the convention centre, left to fend for themselves without food or water.

It is disgraceful that not a single relief agency has any presence on the ground as far as those of us who are here can see. No Red Cross, no federal emergency administrators, no medical teams, no shelter officials, no angels of mercy.

That is why, beneath the damp and dank, New Orleans is seething.

That — and not rampant greed — is why there has been so much looting in recent days, to the extent that police and troops have been taken away from critical rescue operations and assigned to watch the inmates, or outcasts, who are being treated like vagrants.

And that's all they do: Watch. Patrolling up and down the main arteries, in their armoured personnel carriers — as if this were Baghdad — automatic weapons hoisted on their shoulders, never stopping to assist fragile citizens in wheelchairs and walkers or mothers with ailing, wailing infants.

I've seen better disaster response efforts for earthquake victims in India and the ethnically cleansed exiles of Kosovo. Even the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay are surely being cared for better than this.

Could it be because the overwhelming majority of these dispossessed are poor and black that their very lives are apparently of less worth than business properties in the French Quarter, deluxe hotels on Canal St., chi-chi mansions in the Garden District, and tourist casinos on the riverfront?

Bolding mine. Along with stories about gunfights between snipers and national guardsmen, this shows just how far America has fallen, and just how badly the Bush administration has mishandled this.

We will hear comparisons to 9/11. They would be wrong. This is worse than 9/11, far worse, because the blame lies not in a shadowy enemy, nor in the hurricane (which was, as has been pointed out, almost a week ago)...but ultimately in the total and complete incompetence of the American president, the deeply politicized Homeland Security agency that he created, and his gutting of FEMA.

We all know that DiManno is right about why this has happened, as well. We all know the reason why Bush and co. don't give a shit, demonstrably don't give a shit. They just can't care about a bunch of poor black people. I'm starting to wonder whether they can. This administration has never given us any reason to believe that they ever could.

I had thought that the Bush administration had sunk as low as it could go. I was wrong. New Orleans is drowning, its poor people starving, and it's steadily sliding into chaos, just like Baghdad.

DiManno quotes a labourer saying the only thing that can be said about this situation:

"I tell you, America has let us down."

Rescue Team

Kos has a measured reaction to the news that the Department of Homeland Security is not allowing Canadian search and rescue personnel into the United States to help in Louisiana.

The report (from a Canadian correspondent:

On tonight's news, CTV (Canadian TV) said that support was offered from Canada. Planes are ready to load with food and medical supplies and a system called "DART" which can provide fresh water and medical supplies is standing by. Department of Homeland Security as well as other U.S. agencies were contacted by the Canadian government requesting permission to provide help. Despite this contact, Canada has not been allowed to fly supplies and personnel to the areas hit by Katrina. So, everything here is grounded. Prime Minister Paul Martin is reportedly trying to speak to President Bush tonight or tomorrow to ask him why the U.S. federal government will not allow aid from Canada into Louisiana and Mississippi. That said, the Canadian Red Cross is reportedly allowed into the area.

Canadian agencies are saying that foreign aid is probably not being permitted into Louisiana and Mississippi because of "mass confusion" at the U.S. federal level in the wake of the storm.

Kos said:

Once the hard-hit region is back on its feet, there better be a full accounting of the preparation and response to this catastrophe.

Too measured. Too mild. The proper response, Markos, is this:

Every life that could have been saved by the DART team, that isn't, is on the head of the Department of Homeland Security and its "commander in chief". Every single one. "Mass confusion" is no excuse, they should have had the arrangements ready beforehand.

As I said earlier, one cannot blame a man for the act of nature. One can, however, demand responsibility of those who did not take the precautions necessary.

We can.

We must.

Rich on Threats

While I liked this Frank Rich Piece on Iraq, particularly the uselessness of "triangulation" strategies, my favorite paragraph was by far this:

But don't expect any of Mr. Feingold's peers to join him or Mr. Hagel in fashioning an exit strategy that might work. If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

This gets back to what I was mentioning earlier- the necessity of policy based on thought, not polling and positioning.

(Both are important, of course, but not this much.)

Even a moment's thought not conditioned by these two factors would lead one to realize that attacking video games is a sideshow at best, and extraordinarily unlikely to lead to any electoral breakthrough. It's transparently positioning, even to the layman, and will only succeed in alienating younger twentysomething voters (who are, unlike children and teenagers, the typical "gamer") without currying much favour with parents. It speaks to the lack of coherence in Democratic politics, and it's that lack of coherence that's killing them.

"When I think about you..."

Been reading the comment thread in this Kevin Drum post. Does anybody else think that the "Bell Curve" defenders touch themselves when reading the Alpha/Beta/Gamma/Delta/Epsilon stuff in "Brave New World"?

Or is it just me?

(The "debate" wouldn't be nearly so offensive were the public policy advocacy anything but Apartheid.)

My hopes and wishes to those caught in the hurricane...

Especially those who remained behind.

Why is it, however, that I'm hearing that people are being sheltered in the city not because they cannot leave, but because they are "too poor"? How is that even possible?

Why on earth didn't the wealthiest country in the world assist them in getting the hell out? Have they never heard of buses? Hell, what about military transports? It's not like the national guard grunts are actually in NA.

When this is over, hopefully soon, this will require answers. The hurricane is a work of nature, but the reaction is the province of the government... and the government let these people down.

Who Owns Definitions:

Jonah, you have absolutely no right or authority to say:

Here's what I do think. I think Sheehan has absolutely no sense of proportion or responsibility when she calls Bush a terrorist and a murderer or when she ascribes comic-book-villain motives to the administration. I think such rhetoric is appealing to a wide range of groups who practice similar rhetoric including, by the way, International Answer which no self-respecting liberal (as opposed to leftist) should have any association with. If I was being too glib by not spelling that out in my post, I apologize. But, I think Sheehan's PR operation -- including her water-carriers in the liberal press -- should no be surprised that they're attracting a broad Popular Front which includes a lot of disreputable and unpleasent elements. If you leave yourself no room, rhetorically speaking, between yourself and the crazies don't be surprised if the crazies respond to your rhetoric."

Bolding mine. Aside from the "if somebody listens to you, you're responsible for them" twaddle (which is pretty goddamned dangerous, considering who's listened to the National Review over the years), and the ironically simplistic jabs at "comic book-villain motives", Jonah Goldberg does not get to define who is, or is not, a self-respecting LIBERAL.

Sorry, no.

Point of fact, the biggest tipoff that a liberal is actually self respecting is that he or she will decide who they'll listen to, and not define themselves by what their ideological opponents define as "acceptable".

Have I mentioned this before? Sure.

It bears repeating.

Pick a Party, Not a Candidate

Over on Daily Kos, Hunter brings up a valid point... how do you handle candidates who aren't aligned with you on every issue?

Let's suppose I have three candidates to choose from:

* One has a solid pro-choice record, but is dismissive of gay rights.

* One is solid on gay rights, but unnervingly middling on pro-choice statements.

* One is solidly anti-war, and powerfully effective at it. But an unknown, when it comes to privacy and rights issues.

Pick which one I should support. Now.

And God help both you and me if I choose wrong, because I've just fucked a hell of a lot of my fellow citizens, much less world travelers. Big time.

Or should I stay home and not vote at all, because no one candidate meets ALL the very specific tests I have?

Or should I make the best judgment I can based on the best possible common good, and fight like hell for the rest of it once I have someone in office that at least shares the best possible common ground for those debates?

That's all this single-issue, not-single-issue argument is about. That choice, right there, and how to make it. It's not about "disrespecting" people, or "abandoning" people, or "not understanding the severity" of the issue. It's about the fundamental problem with representative democracy: if you're not your own representative, you're by definition going to have to figure out who should be. And it's a brutally imperfect process.

hese purity debates are all fine from an intellectual level, but when it comes to real-world situations I am, at some point during every single election, going to have to sit myself down on my own decidedly imperfect ass and decide on ACTUAL human candidates who will never -- and I mean, absolutely never -- match up with my own personal fifty-point litmus test of Deadly Critical Issues That I Cannot Compromise On. This isn't a damn political fantasy football game. Do we honestly think that these miraculous candidates are actually out there, that agree with you, me, him, her, grandma, grandpa, and the dog all at the same time? On economic issues? Gun control? Gay rights? Affirmative action? Women's rights? Religious freedoms and separations? Educational opportunities for my children?

Critical public health issues?

War?

Well, first, this is why people within parties need to compromise on certain issues, but I think there are two key problems that aren't being addressed here: the point of a party, and the role of political philosophy.

Parties, for one, exist to deal with these problems. When a party has a platform and decent discipline, you can reliably assume that that platform is going to correspond with the laws that that party passes. Individual legislators aren't as important as their collective ability to pass laws, although they can contribute to said platform. The laws are connected to the platform, because the party needs to stick together in order to pass said laws.

Second, this speaks to the necessity of some sort of philosophy or belief system that underlies the party's platform, and the positions of the people who are willing to represent and be represented by that party. The Republicans aren't bad at this, for example, because their (often unstated) governing philosophy is informed by their religiosity, their general pro-business stance, and their hostility to governmental intervention that does not correspond to these two things. Most of their platforms and laws are derived from this.

The Dems, on the other hand, have pretty much eschewed any sort of unified political philosophy, because they have allowed the logical supporting philosophy (a mixture of social democracy and modern liberalism) for their party to be debased. They have responded to that debasement by encouraging it instead of combating it, so you have a hodgepodge of obviously focus-grouped and "strategized" positions, instead of real beliefs.

This is the legacy of the DLC, and the witless fear of McGovern redux.

The resolution to the conundrum placed above, therefore, is simple if you look at it through this lens. Gay rights and abortion rights are related, because both of them are about the right to do with your body whatever you deem fit, whether it's men putting their penises in other men or women controlling their own uterus. Being anti-war (or, at least, anti THIS war) is related to rights, because the kind of xenophobia and authoritarianism that characterizes the handling and genesis of the Iraq war is what provokes the erosion of privacy and other rights, because it's rooted in a fear of the Other within our society (read: Arabic Muslims) and of political positions that are "beyond the pale".

In both cases, denying the one leads to the denial of the other. Candidates that don't understand this, or won't, are dangerous, because they're indicating that their positions are not thought out or based on arguments by people who HAVE thought them out. They're inconsistent and likely to change with the political wind.

The gay/abortion and rights/war issues are also related on the issue of individual rights: the war was an assault on individual citizens' rights to know what their representative government is doing and have substantial input into that process, just as the attacks on gays/abortion is an attack on individuals' control over their own bodies. A defense of both can be (and should be) rooted in liberal democratic political philosophy.

The philosophy, in turn, should inform the party's platform, and the candidates that run under that banner should be expected to be relatively sympathetic and compatible with that platform. That will mean that some of the positions will not be the "popular" ones, but the willingness to advocate is something valued by the people in the first place: witness the success of the Republicans, despite having values that vary wildly from their voters in several key respects.

So if you want to criticize my approach to the issues, or Kos' approach, or Dean's approach, or Kerry's approach, or NARAL's approach, or GLAAD's approach, or the DLC's approach, or whoever -- knock yourself out. Have a ball. That's the whole point -- having those debates is the only way we're going to get anything approaching a workable long-term Democratic infrastructure.

But don't presume that anyone who has a different strategy than you isn't "serious" enough, or "liberal" enough, or whatever-the-hell-else suddenly rises in your throat because a certain partisan dared throw a critical paragraph or two towards your life-defining issue, as opposed to all the other life-defining issues and strategies that you were just fine in criticizing every other day of the week. A meaningful debate can't work that way.

First, the DLC is attacked for completely different reasons; let's not be disingenuous here. Second, the resolution is in rooting the debate in something other than "I like this policy and I'm going to scream at you until you agree"; there needs to be a slightly higher level of debate than you usually see among bloggers. Finally, the reason why candidates are dangerous when they are not "liberal" enough is because they have demonstrated no allegiance to any political philoosophy, and will likely gravitate to the tropes and assumptions contained in conservative political philosophy.

From there, it's only a matter of time until they're Republican-lite.

So sorry, Hunter, but you're off here. The problem here isn't single-issue voters, but a lack of consistency and thought. The former will never go away. The latter, however, can.

A slight misapprehension

Edit: Fixed link. Now my four remaining readers can enjoy it.

The problem, Ezra, is not which strategy on the war "wins elections"... it's that the discussion is couched in the rhetoric and terminology of elections at all. Digby sums it up nicely in saying that the main talking points needs to be: "Who lost Iraq? George W. Bush and the Republican party" and he's right that the American people need to be convinced, but both are missing something:

You can't just say that, you have to believe it.

It has to be justified not by any sort of discussion of politics or optics or polling whatsoever, even if it is: you need to have a completely seperate line of thought that leads to this same conclusion, and if you can't find it, you need to throw it out. It's odd that I'm saying this to Digby, who's made this point as well as anybody, but the politics need to be set aside, because it is the perception of the Democrats as craven opportunists that is the problem here. They need to build up their reputation as being principled, above all else.

(If this were Canada, the situation would be different, of course; there, the opposition is accused of being a little bit TOO zealous about their principles. Triangulation works in that case, but not in the American one.)

This comes down to a basic problem, and it's one that liberal blogs are prey to and that I've highlighted before. The discussion about politics needs to end, or at least be put on the back burner. Discussion about Republican politics and political maneuvering is fine, because they're even more opportunistic and that needs to be put out there, but the endless political discussions that you see in the left blogosphere and amongst Dem supporters in general is helping nothing and nobody.

And, yes, among other things, this requires consistency. "Triangulation" is the enemy of consistency, and the end-point of this kind of political gaming.

The other thing it requires? A willingness to stand up for said convictions. 2006 is not the end of the world, and it's clear that this Democratic party is not ready for it, no matter what positions they take. Better to take a stand and lose in 2006 than waffle and strategize and politicize and lose anyway like in 2002 and 2004. At least it would help the party's image in ways that actually matter.

Kerry was the strategist's choice. Kerry lost, largely because of strategists. It's time to put the strategy away, put the strategists away, and say "I advocate this because it's the right thing to do, and if you don't want to vote for me, so be it."

The time for playing the game of politics is over. Be the Loyal Opposition; the politics stem from that.

Legion Declares War on Protestors

The American Legion isn't fond of "disloyalty".

The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu...

...
In his speech, Cadmus declared: "It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction.”

He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies." This might suggest to some, however, that American freedoms are worth dying for but not exercising.

Ah, there's nothing like the whiff of "wrongthink will be punished" you get off stories like that. We aren't allowed to tell people what's going on, because the possibility of terrorists hearing it.

It's disturbing that they'd argue this, because they seem to value the ignorance of the enemy (who would certainly know anyway) over the knowledge of the people themselves. Is the ability of the people to understand and decide on their representatives based on that knowledge so unimportant?

(Protest is, after all, aimed at the people.)

I don't know what rights this Cadmus guy was fighting for, but it certainly wasn't that of protest.

What's truly unfortunate, though, is how many self-proclaimed conservatives and patriots are missing a key part of American democracy: the man is not the office. He's a president, not Caesar.

So Much for the Freedom Argument

It would appear that the Iraqi constitution is going to enshrine Islam "as a main source of legislation, and ban laws that contradict religious teachings".

Lovely. Sharia wins the day.

And why?

Kurds had complained that U.S. diplomats, who have insisted that women and minorities should enjoy equal rights, had conceded ground to the Islamists in order to meet Monday's deadline for passing a draft constitution in the legislature.

So it's official: there is no rationale left for the war in Iraq, except the existence of the war itself. A woman stoned for adultery isn't going care whether or not Saddam throws it.

Sealing the Deal

I have little hope that Scott Randolph, the cause celeb on the right who declared his allegiance to the Republicans, will actually pay attention to this, but I'm going to do him an honor: my first call-and-response blog post in ages. And, no, I'm not going to breathe a word about "chickenhawks".

I actually felt myself become a republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering.

First problem is right here: "partisan bickering" isn't necessarily useless or meaningless. Criticism of wrongdoing isn't right or wrong depending on whether or not a Democrat or Republican said it. Yes, this tends to be the Republican response, and is the first reason why switching doesn't make sense.

Then it happend. The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn’t take it anymore.

Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we’ve all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger.

"Whining"? This is nonsense: the left has no monopoly on such a thing: witness the reaction of the Republicans to Democratic criticism (or "negativity") prior to the Dem's convention, the reaction of the Republicans during the debates, or the reaction of online Republicans to various and sundry imagined slurs. The Republicans whine more, actually.

Besides, characterizing the criticism as "whining" misses the point: not just of the criticism, but of the role of criticism in general. Criticism needs to exist, because it needs to serve as a check on the fantasies and assumptions of the powerful. This is as true now as it ever was, as one of the major threads of said criticism is that this administration has a dangerous tendency of believing its own hype, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. Rank-and-file Republicans aren't that much different: one said that the contentions about the Yellowcake and WMDs were accurate. The former is due to ignorance about the fabricated nature of the evidence: the latter falls into the trap of conflating a minor amount of chemicals of dubious origin with fully-functional nuclear programs, which is precisely what the label is designed to do.

Whether deliberate misrepresentation or honest ignorance, this is the party you're joining, Scott. And this is why criticism is necessary.

Guess what folks….they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts. Anytime your orientation to a new job involves an automatic weapon, you should be smart enough to figure out there’s danger involved. I actually read some people’s comments about many of the soldiers over there being naive….they weren’t expecting to go to war, so, they should be allowed to go home. Wow.

Soldiers know, when they enlist, that it is entirely possible they will be shipped out and never come home. It’s part of the job. The fact that people still walk in to recruiters’ offices and sign that piece of paper make them heroes. To imply that they are simple kids who didn’t know what they were getting into, or even worse, that they died for no reason, or an immoral reason, does a horrible thing. It strips their sacrifice of the honor that it deserves. Even though those folks sitting out there in the Texas fields claim to honor and support the soldiers, they obviously have been blinded by their own selfishness as to the real way to support them.

Scott, you obviously don't get what's going on out there. Everybody knows that the job of a soldier is dangerous. That's precisely why this is important: because even a soldier's life should not be spent meaninglessly, and every measure should be taken to preserve those lives and the lives of those civilians that can be spared.

One of the major threads of criticism of the Republicans is that not only are they not taking every measure to protect the soldiers, but they're actively hurting the soldiers, both by poorly equipping them and by cutting the funding for veterans. Both facts are easily verifiable.

Another is that the lives spent were spent due to the illusions of the Republicans in charge and Republicans in general. Again, this is easily verifiable: they thought that this would be easy, but it's not.

A third is that they are not willing to sacrifice, or ask the American people to sacrifice, so as to aid the war effort. Actual soldiers have complained about this, and it directly affects their safety: a government that had not gone ahead with tax cuts would have had more money for more generous pay and better equipment, which would make individual soldiers safer.

A fourth is that recruiters are lying to prospective soldiers, and hounding them when they aren't lying. A false representation of what's going to happen given to a cadre of unwilling soldiers, is only going to endanger them and ruin the reputation of the armed services. Think about why there isn't a draft, Scott. An all-volunteer army is necessary, and it can't work without the truth.

There are other valid threads: dozens, in fact. They are not "whining", because they point out something that is supposedly of great importance to conservatives: Responsibility. The Republicans, your new friends, are responsible for this war and everything about it. If it is going badly, it is their responsibility. They certainly were quick to take credit.

Because, long story short, we can’t end this war now. That would send the message that those bastardly little terrorists have won. It doesn’t matter if the adminstration told us the desert sand was made of gold, and we are going over there to collect it in little buckets to bring home, the concrete fact that we are at war doesn’t change. We are there, and we have a job to finish. We’ve toppled a regime that was dangerous not only to its own people, but also to the rest of the world. Now, we are there fighting the same terrorists we are fighting in Afghanistan. We’ve given liberty to millions of people, and we’re trying to help create a government, in an area that is very volatile, that will be a bastion of freedom and hope for an entire race of people. I hate the fact that our boys are getting killed over there, and I wish it didn’t have to happen.

The question, Scott, is whether the job can even be finished. This same style of argument was made about Vietnam, and by the Soviets in Afghanistan. It hurts to admit that you cannot achieve your original goals, and even more that an enemy has been successful, but sooner or later it must be done, if it's necessary. You cannot simply throw soldiers into a meat grinder indefinitely- you'll run out of soldiers, aid in training even more deadly terrorists (which is already happening), and eventually endanger America and American interests in other parts of the world.

That America has "given freedom" is also a mistake, one that comes from your apparently not paying attention to the news. The freedom is to live under Islamic law, or to get caught in a civil war that the Republicans were insufficiently prepared for. Go read what the Iraqi blogger Riverbend has to say, among others: the Republicans are likely going to have ended up granting women in Iraq a regime which (sadly) gives them less freedom than they enjoyed under Saddam. This is likely to be enshrined in their constitution- assuming it even survives the (entirely predictable) bid for de facto independence by the Kurds, an independence bid that could end up further destabilizing the entire region. An unstable region is a playground for terrorists.

Again, this is about RESPONSIBILITY, Scott. If you value it, it does you credit, but your adoptive party does not.

But, it is, there’s nothing we can do about it, except for doing everything we can to offer support and hope to the folks fighting over there. Arguing and whining about the reasons we’re there, and the need to come home not only kills morale, but it is a complete waste of time.

No, it's not, for the reasons I just gave. The debate is necessary, and only honors the soldiers, because it shows that we care about why they're there and aren't willing to simply toss them into the grinder. Your support for the soldiers does not have to extend to the politicians. In fact, it should not: without the debate, democracy cannot survive. Without democracy, America is nothing.

I just re-read the above post, and I apologize for the rambling….just needed to vent a little. Here’s a breakdown of the way I see things:

-right or wrong, we’re at war. no amount of yelling will fix that now.
-we have to finish the job. HAVE TO. it may take another 1800 soldiers, but it has to be done
-whether or not we’re there for the right reason, we’ve done something great for that country

...and we've also done something terrible to that country. We owe them, and the soldiers, honesty about it. That's the problem with Bush and your new friends, though: we've recieved precious little in the way of honesty.

And, again, not only is the definition of "finishing the job" vague, but it may be impossible. Sorry to burst your bubble, and I can accept not wanting to believe it, but it may well be impossible.

I never was a big fan of Bush. But, one thing I do believe….he honestly wants to make this country, and this world a better place. Think about it…the war almost cost him the election. If we hadn’t invaded Iraq, he’d have won in a landslide.

Maybe, but maybe not: he has precious little to run on except his reputation as a "strong leader", and that was reinforced by Iraq. The same argument you made about "staying the course" aided him in the election. Again, though... shouldn't he be held responsible for what has happened?

I think it’s just my personality that lead me to this decision. I think the left is too concerned with everyone’s immediate rights and needs, and refuses to sacrifice a bit of comfort and happiness in the present, for something that will make life better for everyone in the future. You can take the environmental stance on that, and I’d have no argument…but I think there enough conservatives concerned with that to make it a moot point.

No, it's not a moot point at all- conservatives have been at the forefront of anti-environmental activity since environmentalism began, whether due to honest disagreement or being utter shills. And as for your broader point, it is simply untrue on a whole host of issues, but the most obvious is the one I mentioned above: tax cuts. The Republicans have created a huge budget deficit, have done it due to their tax cuts, and that deficit is going to create enormous long-term problems. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that Republicans are overly concerned with "life better for everyone in the future"; even on Iraq, it was declared to be an immediate threat by the Republicans, not a long-term one.

Stomping around the middle east is not long-term thinking.

Mostly, I’m just really pissed off. We’re in a crappy situation, and it’s time for all of America to stand together, put on the big boy pants, and get through the next few years.

Scott, a democracy never "stands together". Dictatorships do that. Totalitarian regimes do that. A democracy is loud and obnoxious and argues all the time and has a hell of a time deciding on things. That is why it exists, especially the American variant. America requires a Cindy Sheehan, even if you disagree with her, because that is at the heart of what America IS: the disagreement.

That the Republicans are so eager to stifle that, Scott, makes them more anti-American than the left will ever be. You'll just have to ask yourself what you think America stands for... and, for the love of Lincoln, do some research as to what you're getting yourself into. If you don't love God, Guns and G-rated movies, you may get a nasty surprise.

Afterwards

James Wolcott quotes Immanuel Wallerstein on the war:

"It's over. For the U.S. to win the Iraq war requires three things: defeating the Iraqi resistance; establishing a stable government in Iraq that is friendly to the U.S.; maintaining the support of the American people while the first two are being done. None of these three seem any longer possible. First, the U.S. military itself no longer believes it can defeat the resistance. Secondly, the likelihood that the Iraqi politicians can agree on a constitution is almost nil, and therefore the likelihood of a minimally stable central government is almost nil. Thirdly, the U.S. public is turning against the war because it sees no "light at the end of the tunnel."

"As a result, the Bush regime is in an impossible position. It would like to withdraw in a dignified manner, asserting some semblance of victory. But, if it tries to do this, it will face ferocious anger and deception on the part of the war party at home. And if it does not, it will face ferocious anger on the part of the withdrawal party. It will end up satisfying neither, lose face precipitously, and be remembered in ignominy."

Although Wolcott also agrees with Norman Solomon about the likelihood of prolongued involvement after a fashion, the aims of the war are unlikely to come about...and those aims that do will be counterbalanced by other, unanticipated problems.

Just as nobody focused on what would happen after the war, however, few are examining what will happen "after the peace"... that is, what the United States and the world will be like after the defeat has finally taken place. Vietnam, rightly or wrongly, had a huge effect on the American psyche, one not mitigated by the intensely (and obviously) one-sided conflicts that the US fought between Vietnam and the latest Gulf War. It had an effect not only because of the brutality of the war (and, yes, of some of those who fought it... "support the troops" does stop somewhere, and that place is My Lai), but because American culture is notoriously unforgiving towards failure and exceptionalist at the same time.

I cannot imagine what it will be like when Americans are forced to deal with the fact that their two longest post-WWII conflicts were both failures (Vietnam and GW2), despite the technological superiority the US demonstrated in both conflicts. All I know is that it will be bad. Very bad.

Ratfuckers

Digby seems under the impression that the weak seperation between Republican operatives and "non-partisan" groups shows that they're getting "sloppy".

Consider the fact that the Republicans create a "voting irregularity" front group to counter the charges that they are fixing elections. Fine. I would expect no less. This is what they do.

But, by God, I never thought they'd be dumb enough to use nationally known Republican operatives to do it. Jim Dyke was the communications director for the RNC during the 2004 campaign, ferchistsake. He was all over television. And now six months later he's working with a 501c "non-partisan" group that released a report claiming "Democrat operatives" are stealing elections. Please. Any good GOP sleaze artist knows that you create at least a couple of degrees of separation between the party and the ratfucking. Roger Stone must be shaking his head in disgust. I suppose it's what happens when you lose the hunger for power.

Although Digby's right in a sense, I disagree on the interpretation: this doesn't imply that they're dumb, but that they believe that it doesn't matter...that nobody will care.

They're probably right.

This is really the point where we're seeing consolidation, where they don't have to try so hard because the groundwork has already been long set in place. One can claim "non-partisanship" because the mainstream media is cowed and liberals are voiceless, drowned in the flood of right-wing bullshit (even, if not especially, on the Internet.)

Why waste energy if you don't have to?

Saddest News in America

It's This.

Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

There are also differences between voters who supported Kerry and those who supported Bush: 47 percent of John Kerry’s voters think God created humans as they are now, compared with 67 percent of Bush voters....

...Overall, about two-thirds of Americans want creationism taught along with evolution. Only 37 percent want evolutionism replaced outright.

"Only"? Over one in three Americans don't believe that children should be taught science as well understood and well-founded as the theory of gravitation, and that's "only"?

I shudder to think how the body politic will react when the genome project truly starts bearing fruit, and evolution becomes applied technology as well as abstract science.

Well, That Settles That

Now there can be absolutely no doubt: The Republican party hates the troops, supporting them only to the extent that they're politically useful.

"Swift Boating" a marine corps major freshly back from Iraq because he dares to run against them is a violation of everything they claim to stand for, and proof of what they really stand for. It's analoguous to the apocryphal story of hippies spitting on returning GIs, except it's the party of their own commander in chief.

I wonder how many Marines back in Iraq are reading about this and thinking "These bastards don't deserve my service"?

I'm with Atrios

He's absolutely right Schmidt really is a horrible candidate, as seen by the video over here on CrooksandLiars. Her constant retreats to point-for-point talking points, her easily flustered performance... she clearly didn't expect any kind of serious opposition, and has absolutely no idea how to deal with a "nightmare scenario" candidate like the Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett.

She'll still probably win, thanks to the district she's been dropped in, but I doubt anybody is going to take her seriously, and I'm sure that Hackett will have another kick at the can.

More fun with Tom

I laughed when I went back a little ways and read this other piece from Friedman:

Sadly, those are the virtues we now associate with China, Chinese athletes and Chinese leaders. Talk to U.S. business executives and they'll often comment on how many of China's leaders are engineers, people who can talk to you about numbers, long-term problem-solving and the national interest - not a bunch of lawyers looking for a sound bite to get through the evening news. America's most serious deficit today is a deficit of such leaders in politics and business.

Tom, you wanna know what other great superpower tended to elevate leaders with knowledge of engineering and the like?

The Soviet Union.

They LOVED that stuff.

Despite what you may have read in Dilbert, it takes more than number crunching engineers (and, for that matter, economists) to run and populate a modern nation-state. It takes english majors, philosophers, MBAs, and (gasp, shock!) lawyers. Friedman has fallen into the typical trap of someone who isn't that good with numbers being dazzled by those that are, but there are way, way too many aspects of the human condition that are, if not poorly expressed with numbers, completely impossible to express in numbers.

(That computers are really, really handy for crunching dazzling arrays of numbers and completely hopeless with language doesn't change that, which is the main reason I've never really trusted linear regression analysis as anything but a first quantitative step in understanding ultimately qualitative phenomena.)

Friendman on Hatemongering

Tommy::

I would compile it in a nondiscriminatory way. I want the names of the Jewish settler extremists who wrote 'Muhammad Is a Pig' on buildings in Gaza right up there with Sheik Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, a Saudi who is imam of Islam's holy mosque in Mecca. According to the Memri translation service, the imam was barred from Canada following 'a report about his sermons by Memri that included Al-Sudayyis calling Jews 'the scum of the earth' and 'monkeys and pigs' who should be 'annihilated.' Other enemies of Islam were referred to by Sheik Al-Sudayyis as 'worshipers of the cross' and 'idol-worshiping Hindus' who must be fought.'

Ok, we have a token Jewish extremist there, but is Friedman seriously trying to argue that the only hate merchants out there are Muslims and that one Jewish guy? Couldn't he find an example a little closer to home? Like, for example, the RaHoWa crowd that hasn't exactly gone anywhere?

(Remember when people actually paid attention to the home-grown christian racist extremists?)

More disturbing is this:

We also need to spotlight the "excuse makers," the former State Department spokesman James Rubin said. After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism," Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them."

Friedman plays the typical game of confusing "agree" with "understand". Understanding motivations has nothing to do with agreeing with them, else every homicide detective would be forced to sympathize with the criminals.

(Oddly enough, this used to be one of the main reasons Americans had trouble doing business in Japan. American english blurs the line between "agree" and "understand". Japanese doesn't. Japanese would say "they understood" and Americans would take it as "agree". Hijinks ensued.)

Even so, this (like so much of the rhetoric about the War-Formerly-Known-As-GWOT) smacks of attacking WrongThink. Just as one can understand and even sympathize with the alienation and frustration of a kid sucked into the trap of bullshit neo-nazism, yet loathe the actual doctrine, one can understand and sympathize with someone driven to anti-American extremism while still condemning and attacking the doctrine to which he adheres to. The axiom "hate the sin, not the sinner" is too simplistic, but it fits, and underscores a broader truth that isn't limited to Christianity: Understanding is a strength, not a weakness.

(Besides, since when has ignorance been a useful tactic in war? )

Barefoot and Pregnant

Birth Control Harms Women - Santorum Exposed: The BlogSantorum sez that birth control is bad, not only because "it doesn't work" (it does) or that it "harms women" (being constantly in the state in the title doesn't), but because "sex outside of marriage...shouldn't be tolerated".

"Tolerated"?

TOLERATED??

Matthew, take a good long look, because this is what that social-conservative posturing you advocate will require. Taking a position one step away from "I wouldn't advocate stoning women in my government role, but personally, I think stoning the non-chaste is an excellent idea."

Me, I'm just going to tell Santorum that his party's jihad against women having and enjoying sex is flat out wrong, regardless of whether or not people frightened of their own instincts support them.

Marginal

Someone needs to explain to Matthew Yglesias that the old axiom (I'm full of 'em lately) "A society is judged by how it treats its most marginal members" applies not only to the fourth amendment, but to the first. He's bought into the "we must doooo something about all that hideous filthy porn on the Interweb! Won't somebody please think of the children" line. Why? strategy.

Well, this all strikes me as a bit silly. But if you think -- and I do -- that Democrats would benefit from adopting a more socially conservative posture, this is a much better way of doing it than making concessions on serious, substantive issues like reproductive rights.

For the last time. It's taking a principled stand on the small stuff, the seemingly unimportant stuff, the seemingly marginal stuff, that makes all the difference. It's what establishes your credibility, and gives you a reputation for consistency. All this will do is further cement the Democrats' reputation as being unprincipled opportunists, because everybody and his dog will figure out quickly that this is merely a ploy.

(How could they not? That's precisely what Yglesias is saying! What on earth is he thinking? Even if it were to be implemented, this strategy is the sort of thing you say in internal, sensitive memos, not on a bloody website!)

This is one of the reasons I can't get behind Hillary, other than the fact that she can't win and is a Republican's wet dream.

It's the anti-video game stuff.

Not only is it ludicrous, not only is it clearly opportunist, but it displays precisely the contempt for freedom of expression that Yglesias just did. It suggests that any issue of principled liberalism that doesn't test well in focus groups or come from a strategist's mouth is going to be ignored. Which sounds good, politically, except that once you start down the social conservative road, they're going to expect you to bend on the "big stuff" too, because they're ideologically principled enough to spot the connection between the two, and the Republicans are bright enough to turn any inconsistencies into bales and bales of political fodder.

Besides, is Hillary aware of just how many copies GTA sold? Some parents may be swayed by her anti-game stance, but not a single one of the adults that bought GTA, or any remotely violent game, are going to vote for her, any more than moviegoers would vote for her were she saying that movies needed to be censored.

Matthew, Hillary: it's a losing game. Be smart, and don't play it.

No Matter What You Say...

Someone's probably already said it. David Sirota tore a strip out of the DLC, and it's a great read.

Oh, and by the by, that last story? Hat-tip to Atrios.

Big Dreams

There's a cliche you've all heard before: fortune favors the bold. It's not quite true, as the bold can end up a smoking crater in the wrong situation, but it holds some truth, at least in politics. Big Ideas get people interested, as does the willingness to act boldly and confidently in your beliefs and ideas. Combine the two (bold support of a Big Idea), and it has to be appallingly bad in order to lose support.

(That's the Bush administration in a nutshell: Big Ideas, expressed boldly, that are so badly thought out that they end up alienating even the most frightened of Security Moms. Pity that the people who end up cratering aren't the Idea men.)

Rick Perlstein, when speaking to the crypto-DINO DLC, argued that social security is one of those Big Ideas (he calls them Superjumbos, but the name doesn't matter), and that nationalized health insurance could be another one. He shows how frightened the Republicans were of Clinton's health care bill going through, because it would cement the Dem's "defenders of the middle class against the depradations of robber barons" trope.

The Republicans know that the only way they can credibly present themselves as "populist" is if they can paint the Democrats as supporting an atheistic and immoral "cultural elite" while simultaneously blurring the lines between the parties on economic issues. Health care would redraw that line, and the Republicans don't want that to happen. Since there's only two viable parties, it stands to reason that anything that the Republicans are politically worried about is probably good for the Dems.

Considering the Republicans nowadays, it's probably good policy too.

The biggest problem that Perlstein has is that he was speaking to the, um, Democratic Leadership Council. National health care is not really part of their platform, which appears to be trying to out-Republican the Republicans and take shots at their own party members. They're the champions of the nice-sounding but utterly bankrupt "socially progressive and fiscally conservative" perspective--usually civil libertarians who forget that taxes pay for things--and are not going to get behind this.

It's a Big Idea, but the DLC isn't the home of Big Ideas, it's the home of "triangulating" small thinkers who wouldn't know "bold" if it kicked them in the teeth. They would scream "EXTREMIST" if they actually did recognize someone being bold. That is why they can't stop losing.

(Is it hypocritical to take shots at them for taking shots at others? Perhaps, but there's a distinction between punishing boldness and identifying "centrists" who attack those who don't support pathetically obvious weakness.)

Edit: Perlstein, in comments, said that the speech wasn't made to the DLC, but to "powerful Democrats". My apologies to Perlstein, if not the DLC. Their presence and their attitude remains the key reason why the health care system Perlstein is advocating is unlikely at best.

Kos: It's Roberts

According to Kos, Bush's SC nominee is John G. Roberts Jr..

According to his comment section, he's red meat for the social conservatives. He hates Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, labour laws, and 12 year old girls eating fries on the subway(?!)

According to common sense, he's worth of a filibuster if anybody is.

According to Demosthenes, he's a test of courage. If the Dems don't act, they're invertebrates.

Reconsider?

From the blog of alienated Canadian Liberal, Warren Kinsella:

The money shot, as Hollywood would call it: do those of us on the Left, whatever that is these days, need to reconsider our position on Iraq? Is it possible that Bush and Blair have been, in some way, right about their 'war on terror'? As you survey this morning's papers, and if you are being honest with yourself, you have to at least reflect on that question. I know that I have.

First: The term "money shot" tends to be of an, ahem, San Fernando Valley term. Hollywood has precious few of those.

Second: good grief, why? Although I agree that this is not likely to be directly due to Iraq, a country only has so many resources, especially intelligence resources, and Iraq has sapped those away. Considering the structure of Al Qaeda nowadays, this was very likely to have been the work of one or a few relatively loosely connected cells (if it was the work of an Al Qaeda related group at all), which reinforces the idea that the way to deal with terrorism isn't state-on-state military action but policing and intelligence work.

And I'm not even going to get into the whole "Bush as Al Qaeda's recruitment gift from Allah" problem.

If we get news that these bombers were, say, Syrian agents than things might be different. In the meantime, however, this doesn't invalidate the critique of the right's methods, it reinforces it.

Flypaper theory (among other things)

The flypaper theory is dead and buried. The idea that going to war in Iraq would prevent attacks in the west is going to hold precious little currency now. This is important: it isn't stated much, but this is a fundamental justification for the Iraq war as a component of the WoT.

Also, the CIA/NSA/MI:5/MI:6 agencies are going to endure serious criticism and critiques. Make no mistake: if the Americans had an inkling, the Brits would have known, and thus there's no doubt that the Americans didn't know either. This was an intelligence failure and a big one, and it was under the watch of Bush and Blair's intel services. I would not be surprised if the attacks are levelled at those within the agencies who aren't "playing ball"- certainly that's the way it's worked to date- but then again, this is different than the 9/11 or Iraq failures, as it speaks to a core foreign policy goal of the Bush administration and Blair government.

Blair's going to be a target too- not only because it was his watch, but because there's going to be an undercurrent of belief that this has to do with the U.K.'s visible and open support of the U.S. A weak PM is going to be much, much weaker, unless a "rally 'round the flag" effect builds him up. I've never got the impression the UK worked that way- a PM isn't a president.

Not sure whether the UK is going to start having domestic turbulence. A LOT depends on how official Britain handles this, and it looks like they're try to prevent anti-Islamic reprisals (and, in turn, "defensive" acts by frightened British Muslims.) The calm public reaction would seem to imply otherwise as well.

Finally, my support and sympathy to those affected by the bombings and Londoners in general. I hadn't mentioned that before, but rest assured of it.

More than 30 die in London blasts

As the BBB said, there were a series of attacks on the London Underground this morning (as well as a double-decker bus). No confirmed perpetrator yet, but the press conference officials weren't talking about that either, asking questions to be restricted to the relief efforts.

The attacks, however, do fit the Al Qaeda-associated organization profile: early morning, coordinated, aimed at a well-known symbol of a country involved in the Middle East. (I may be wrong about the early morning thing, considering the Cole bombing.)

They said that it was sad but unsurprising- they had drilled for this, and thus were able to quickly act to aid the victims.

One organization called "the Secret Organisation Group of Al-Qa’ida of Jihad Organisation in Europe" on the Al Qal'ah (The Fortress) website has claimed resposibility after the fact. Could be true, could be a distraction, could be nonsense. Since Al Qaeda didn't take credit for 9/11, I'm not convinced yet.

Good Advice

From Atrios:

I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately, and I have some advice for new bloggers: do it anonymously, at first at least.

There's a distinction between private/public figure which isn't always perfectly clear, but it's something that the internet totally destroys. If you write something on the internet, it's public. A big blog links to it, suddenly you go from 50 hits per day to 5000 in one day. 5 hours later, CNN puts it on their "inside the blogs" segment, and suddenly you've gone national to a non-blog reading audience who are perhaps unaware of conventions of blogging.

I think that until you blog for awhile it's hard to quite get a handle on how much you want to be public versus being private, and how easily blogging and the internet and the media can tear down that wall in a way you never expected.

I'm not saying that everyone should blog anonymously forever, but until you get a better idea of how it fits into your life, I really suggest starting out that way.

I only disagree with this latter contention. I'm personally of the opinion that anonymity (or pseudonymity) is a basic prerequisite for a lot of progressive bloggers.

Why?

Any blogger runs the risk of having his name, identity, and location "outed", but the risk seems to be higher for progressives, considering the attitude and actions of both real Freepers and Low-Grade Freepers (LGFers, natch) towards those who disagree with them. Rare's the time you're going to see even the most enthusiastic leftie seriously threatening the lives of the opposition, but as David Neiwert has rather exhaustively demonstrated, the same is not true on the right.

At the moment, nothing truly nasty has happened to a progressive blogger, but the Internet also has a tendency to archive what you say, and one never knows what tomorrow may bring.

Without the possibility of pseudonymity, there is no privacy. Without privacy, free speech is impossible: fear will eradicate it.

Brad DeLong's Grasping for the Democratic Peace Theory

Brad DeLong has asked a question that many people grapple with nowadays: why is it that war seems so rare nowadays?

Now, of course, that has to be qualified.

Before I read any more "realists" writing about a Chinese-American cold (or hot) war in Asia, I want them to come up with an explanation of why the War of 1812 was the last Anglo-American war. Why not 54'40" or fight? The claim that "wars are almost never worth the costs, and yet states keep on fighting them" doesn't seem to apply to relationships between some states since 1850 or so.

The "realist" school has absolutely no clue as to why there has been no Franco-British or Anglo-American war in 190 years, no Mexican-American war in 85, and no Franco-German war in 60. The language of administration in Strasbourg is simply not something that people are willing to kill or die for these days. Which kinds of states study war (against each other at least) no more? And why not? Those are, I think, the most interesting questions in the academic study of international affairs.

Generally, realists respond simply with "democracies don't fight one another, and we don't know why, but neo-liberals don't know why either". Most of the liberal arguments in favour of their position (that war is irrational, that people generally are rational, and will restrain their leaders from war if given a mechanism) doesn't make sense if you consider that democracies are perfectly willing to war against non-democracies, and that leaders do tend to reap substantial popularity and elites substantial wealth from the enterprise.

(DeLong contends that warfare used to be less costly but now is more so. He cites 1850 as the date when it changed. That's erroneous- Japan profited tremendously from the Sino-Japanese war, the United States seemed to profit quite well from the first Iraq war, and there were certainly enough "dirty little wars" during the Cold War that somebody was profiting from them. Systemic warfare is useless because of nuclear weapons, but that's only one kind.)

It also runs into a significant and substantial problem, which is defining what, precisely, a "democracy" is. Define it too narrowly and you have too small a sample set to mean anything; define it too broadly and the rule is violated. More important is the passage of time: today's democracies may become tomorrow's authoritarian regimes, and the unpredictability of these changes forces democracies to arm themselves against possibilities.

There is a possible answer, though. Why don't democracies fight democracies? They have an army, and there are benefits to reap from warfare. I believe the answer is identity- citizens of democracies derive a measure of superiority from being such, and that shared identity helps mitigate conflicts between them, as long as there are non-democracies around. A democracy need not engage in war against another democracy if the benefits of war can be gained from attacking an authoritarian regime, which can be used to reaffirm the superiority of the citizenry through the simple rhetoric of "liberation". This is the core critique of the newest Gulf War- that it was used to make America feel better about itself; and solves the question. Democracies fight non-democracies.

The remaining problem, though, is this: what happens when there are no non-democracies left?

Ok, that tears it.

After seeing my site become unreadable once again with Firefox, I'm switching templates. Links and such to follow, including a switch to Haloscan if the base comment system is unacceptable. Yes, it's still black.

Enjoy.

Happy Independence Day

To celebrate, Kevin Drum has sparked a very interesting debate over quality of life issues in the U.S. vs. Europe, where less time and energy are spent on work and more is spent on leisure time. The debate is over whether or not emphasizing work leads to a better society- the contribution that entrepreneurs and innovators make is often accompanied by absolutely insane working hours (to the rest of us), yet overworking people doesn't seem to be the most efficient way of handling work, as the lower per-hour productivity figures of Americans vs. the Scandinavians (and others) implies.

Thing is, I don't think this is really an exclusive debate. Entrepreneurship and innovasion are often the product of free time- assuming that you aren't spending all your time doing nothing productive at all, there's a pretty intuitive connection between hobbies and innovation that should be obvious to anybody who knows someone who has turned a hobby into a profession. Heck, anybody who uses Mozilla or Linux and the like benefits enormously- the whole Open Source scheme is pretty much built around people using their free time.

(Or, well, blogging.)

In economic terms, there are often significant (and unpredictable) positive externalities to leisure time, and the opportunity cost of giving it up can be much higher than it seems at first. Squeezing that last ounce of energy out of employees may be good for Wal-Mart, but it isn't necessarily good for the economy as a whole, and certainly not for society.

So, enjoy your day off, those Americans who can; remember that you are greater than your job description. (And happy belated Canada Day to Canadians, and congratulations on a sane SSM policy.)

Rattle

I think nothing exemplifies how desperately cheesy this WSJ editorial is than this paragraph:

More disturbing, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is handing over millions of federal dollars and the keys to that building to some of the very same people who consider the post-9/11 provisions of the Patriot Act more dangerous than the terrorists that they were enacted to apprehend--people whose inflammatory claims of a deliberate torture policy at Guantanamo Bay are undermining this country's efforts to foster freedom elsewhere in the world.

Notice how neither the validity of the claims nor the quality of the "efforts" is discussed... in fact, it's treated as nothing less than irrelevant. It's not that it's wrong, it's that it "hurts the efforts" and dares to claim that the Patriot act could be dangerous, despite the fact that provoking a state overreaction is one of the key tools of terrorists, and almost certainly a key goal of Al-Qaeda.

It should be flabbergasting that one of the leading conservative voices in the United States is espousing a point of view that the country's founders would consider odious. It's not. I had almost stopped believing that neo-conservatism is really about denying the importance of the truth in the face of fictions useful for social control... but how else, honestly, can you describe it? It's all that Instapundit says these days, and Jeff Jarvis certainly doesn't care about the dangers of this position, or he wouldn't have linked to the story without at least a passing mention of the issues involved.

Now that the War on Terrorism isn't really that anymore, but some nebulous "war for freedom" (or whatever rubbish the Bush White House is tossing around these days), there is no reason to believe that the current conflict will end, or that it was even intended to end in the first place. Endless conflict, endless control, and the death of the freedom to disagree and to even proclaim the truth in America.

If you listen closely, you can hear the death rattle of the American dream.

Same old, Same old.

It's no surprise whatsoever that Glenn Reynolds is blaming the CBC for teenager 'hating America'. Calling for censorship and attacking a free press (no matter where it is) because it actually reports when the American government does bad things is normal for him. It's what he does.

It's also no surprise that he's drawing on a study by the Frasier institute with what appears to be incredibly weak methodology too; that they choose not to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate reporting and just rail against "negativity" is par for the course, as they singlehandedly justify every negative stereotype about rightist tendentiousness. It's what they do.

In fact, the only thing that surprises me is how much wingers seem to get away, considering they expend so little effort.

SC on medical marijuana

This is a pity:

Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state medical marijuana laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug's use to treat various illnesses.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

...Stevens said there are other legal options for patients, "but perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these respondents may one day be heard in the halls of Congress."

Needless to say, this is politically naive (or deliberately obscurant); the judges know full well that nobody in congress is going to back this cause, as they would be terrified of the political opposition. That's precisely the reason why the states were dealing with the issue in the first place- cultures differ enough between the states that what is appropriate for one on this issue may not be appropriate for another. Yes, there are massive generational differences on this issue, but it's not enough to change the rules anytime soon.

While I'm not exactly a 10th amendment fanatic, Sandra Day O'Connor had a point when she said "The states' core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens".

This does raise a good question, though: considering that Canada is developing a reputation for being fairly relaxed on this issue, I wonder if this is going to prompt a migration northward. British Columbia's climate may not be as nice as California's, but it sure beats jail.

Followup to Last Post

Well, it would appear that the Liberals stayed alive, 153-152. Couldn't be closer.

What's truly striking in the wake of this vote, however, is the reaction. One of the things that seem to seperate Canadian and American opponents to the current regime is that the former is perfectly willing to break up the country over it. There is an unsettling trend in the Canadian right to threaten to break up the country because their ideas are unpopular with the majority outside of a few western provinces: specifically the province of Alberta.

It might be more political economic than anything else, considering that Alberta is essentially a petro-state. Provinces already have a lot of power in Canada, though, and it seems to be little more than a direct assault on representation by population. Considering how close Stephen Harper's Conservatives are to the Republicans, this may not be accidental, but Canada is not the United States.

(Actually, there's a question. I'll assume that it isn't treason in Canada to advocate the seperation of a province, otherwise there'd be a lot of Quebeckers in jail right now. Is it so in the United States? If, say, a bunch of Californians with real power said they wanted to leave the Union and worked to have it happen, are they just activists, or traitors?)

Boring?

I never thought I'd be saying this, but Canadian politics appears to be a hell of a lot more interesting than American politics right now.

Look at what's going on up in Canada. You've got a government embroiled in a massive scandal, on the verge of defeat, defending its fragile minority government through legislative trickery that nobody had ever heard of 6 months ago. You've got a massive about-face on the federal budget, where 4 billion in tax cuts are turned into 4 billion in social spending, thanks to a deal between the ruling Liberals and the small (yet possibly decisive) social democratic NDP. That deal left the Liberals still a few seats behind...

...and then the most high-profile member of the Conservative party aside from its leader, Belinda Stronach, switches to the Liberals, giving them a critical boost that may keep their government together...

...if one of two independents, (one's a disaffected Liberal and the other's a former Conservative who lost the nomination and won the riding anyway and is suffering from cancer) goes along with it.

And the best part? Up until the announcement, Stronach was not only widely credited for being responsible for the creation of the party she left, she left her Conservative boyfriend, Peter Mackay, at the same time. He didn't even know what was coming.

(He used to be the leader of the Progressive Conservative party. He sacrificed it to join it to the larger, but far more right-wing, Reform party under the "Conservative" banner. He and Stronach were the best known couple in Ottawa.)

Oh, and the whole thing happened because the current leader of the Conservatives, Stephen Harper, is making deals with Quebecois seperatists to try to become prime minister, despite the boost that it gives to people that, were Canada like the United States, would probably be branded traitors.

Fun stuff, huh?

Newsweek

I hope it's as apparent to readers as it is to me that the flap over Newsweek is all about censorship and intimidation.

It's an attempt to discredit Bush's opponents, and also to further leverage the "tit-for-tat" technique of equating right-wing nonsense with the honest truth. Open support for White House talking points has always run into the issue of, well, their factuality, and the knowledge that sooner or later the truth will come out. The "balancing" game helps with that, but sooner or later people will notice that one side is getting all the flack, and the other isn't, and begin to make up their own minds.

If it can be reversed, however, then the admissions of fault on one side can be matched up against the hardheaded repetition of the other, and the conclusion will be that the latter must be correct. On individual issues, all it takes is one small mistake to open up a crack in credibility and the whole thing dies. That's what Newsweek provided, even though it's well known that torture techniques involving the desecration of the Koran take place. Torture will continue, but reportage of it is enormously weakened in the United States, because the media will be terrified of being burned again.

(Sure, Bush's arguments may not be credible, but a growing variation on the old Microsoft truism is in play: nobody gets fired for buying Bush.)

What's truly worrisome is the allegations that people died due to Newsweek's reportage. I'm smelling "more in sorrow than in anger" censorship here, a new and improved "loose lips sink ships" aimed at Wrongspeak. Every reporter who finds out how brutal the treatment of prisoners has become will be hounded by those saying that he could kill people. Some of those people will be editors. Others will be shareholders. Others will be winger bloggers, who won't care whether or not it's true or not if it contradicts the party line.

We all know where this is headed, including those who are backing Bush. I guess the question is whether it's really worth it. The question I'd ask of instapundit et al is this: What happens when it's the "libertarians" in the firing line?

"At first they came for the liberals..."

Edit: On the other hand, it's odd to see a putatively liberal Canadian like Warren Kinsella torpedo his credibility like this:

This is appalling. Not only they did they "get it wrong," they actually contributed to DEATHS of people around the globe. This is one of those rare instances where the Muslim community, and the U.S. military, have a shared interest in putting behind bars any of the journalists and editors associated with this extraordinary libel. But, thanks to the absurdities of the First Amendment, that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Needless to say, I imagine that most Canadian liberals are a little more sensible than this. Hate speech is one thing, but this is quite another. What is Kinsella thinking?

The Memo

It's funny... the "memogate" name was hoovered up for the attack on CBS, when it really should have applied to this memo, which shows that the decision to go into Iraq happened in 2002, and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

James Wolcott called it "devestating" and Media Matters has complained about how incredibly little attention its getting from the media. I imagine that most people believe that it's because they don't want to ruffle Administration feathers. Personally, I have a different take, which is that it's not being reported because, well, it's not really seen as news.

After all, at this point, pretty much everybody who is knowledgable and honest about the whole thing knows that Bush made the decision in early 2002. They also know that the Bush administration will rearrange their interpretation of reality for conveniences' sake. The majority of the American people know it (and the minority still probably believe Iraq was tied with 9/11), the media knows it, the Dems know it, the Repubs know it, and certainly everybody outside the United States knows it. It's just that nobody speaks up about it, because it's "ancient history" and the same old talking points will get trotted out on Fox.

(Of course, conservative media will gnaw away at anything indefinitely if it will benefit the cause, but the SCLM ain't that.)

This is, of course, exactly what the administration was shooting for. Hold off long enough that the media's quest for novelty pushes it on. It worked! Fancy that.

First they came for my comics...

Ed Kilgore on Censorship::

What, other than agitating the air about it, are some of us Democrats actually talking about doing, if it's not censorship? First, as already suggested, we think it's helpful to take the complaints of parents seriously enough to study the problem seriously. Second, we think entertainment corporations, and anyone who directly markets products to children, should admit some social responsibility, and work with public officials to (a) develop, to the maximum extent possible, parental information and control mechanisms, like a unified rating system for television shows, video games, and movies, and like technologies that are more effective and user-friendly than the V-Chip; (b) create a "zone of protection" for really young kids by eschewing direct and indirect (i.e., television and internet) marketing techniques aimed at children too young to distinguish truth from hype and crap; and (c) provide some transparency about the most egregious of those marketing techniques, such as the practice of hiring "alpha kids" to wear brand name products to influence their peers.

And if cooperative efforts to secure voluntary measures [from media corporations] don't work, then we can talk regulation--just like we do with other corporations--if necessary.

Um, no, Ed, we can't. That's censorship. That's the whole point. Regulation of targeting kids with the "alpha kids" tactic is fine, and advertising awareness education in school is fine. I would actually prefer it to trying to censor advertising to kids, because I think the kids are smarter than they're often given credit for, and they can learn that advertising is misleading. It may not work if they're too young, though.

That's not what this is really about, though, when people advocating censorship are talking about how bad culture is. It is about censorship, period. Whether it's by government or by private companies doesn't matter; these "voluntary" schemes are rarely anything but the industry forestalling inevitable regulation.

They are be just as damaging, too: witness the Comics Code's decades-long evisceration of the medium in the United States.

My real problem with all these arguments is that too much of the time it's misleading. Attacking Max Hardcore and his ilk is inevitably a proxy for attacking all erotica, just as attacking GTA is inevitably a proxy for attacking any sort of violence in video and computer games, just as attacking Bill Gaines' horror comics was a way of attacking any sort of controversial subject matter in comics. You go after whatever is most disturbing because that's what provides the shock, and then you enact policy that gets what you really want.

"Voluntary ratings systems" are only the first step: and all that they really need to do is simultaneously lobby for strict enforcement and then lobby corporations (like Wal-Mart, which is famously protective of its "family" image) to "keep that filth out", and you've got de-facto economic censorship. It's already happening with movies to a certain extent (seen an NC-17 movie recently?) and it'll only get worse if this continues.

Do liberals (or even New Democrats) really want to get in bed with this?

hat tip to Digby. Might as well set my homepage to Hullabaloo nowadays.

Digby and Religious extremism

There is, really, not much to add to this piece by Digby and one of his commenters on the totalitarian bent of far too many elements of American society right now. He points out that all of the remaining bulwarks against the dominance of right-wing memes are under attack right now:

-academe is being attacked for being insufficiently willing to allow the kind of Republican drone "academics" that infest think-tanks within its halls;
-the judiciary is being attacked for placing the law over the Commandments;
-and the cultural industry is being attacked for daring to not marginalize those who disagree with the right's consensus on acceptable discourse (witness Michael Moore and, yes, Grand Theft Auto, which is actually an example of the same kind of dark, ironic humor which drives the religious right NUTS.)

The only omission I noticed was that he didn't elaborate on this statement by the commenter:

let's forget that their path is toward a new form of totalitarianism harnessing religion as the Nazis harnessed nationalism

It's this that, I think, is the main reason why a lot of the arguments about the United States going "fascist" or not are a little off-base. Whether the link is valid or not, fascism is associated with overwhelming and irrational ethnic nationalism. While the "overwhelming and irrational" part is there, I don't buy that the totalitarian bent in the American right has that much to do with ethnic nationalism. It's there, certainly, but Thomas Frank was right in pointing out that you can have the one without the other. While Kansas is very much anti-racist, it still embraced all the right-wing arguments that characterize the modern religious right in the United States.

If anything, however, the theocratic variant is much more dangerous. The problem with fascism as a system is that it needs to see some sort of results in order to sustain itself. You can only legitimately claim that your race is superior as long as it demonstrates superiority. As soon as that demonstrated superiority is gone, the system is doomed.

Theocratic totalitarianism, however, doesn't suffer from this problem. The rewards aren't supposed to be seen in "this life", and thus visible results don't matter. If there are economic, environmental or political repercussions, they can be waved away with the promise of infinitely better results in the afterlife. The results don't have to accrue to the entire society, either; rearranging society to be more "godlike" may only spiritually benefit the rearranger and his religious allies, but that's a good enough reason to do it, so it is done.

Heck, look at the Rapture- a significant part of the dogma embraced by much of the religious right is that they don't even have to wait until death to escape any negative side effects of their "Godding" of society!

This is, of course, somewhat reminiscent of the ideology of the theocratic Muslims referred to as "Islamists". It's a term I've never fully accepted, as it limits the political bent to that specific religion, and I'm seeing that skepticism justified by what's been going on. The biggest difference appears to be the promise of earthly prosperity in Islamism... they argue that adoption of their religious laws will lead to a better society *right now*, whereas that claim in the US (where it exists) is much more muted.

In any case, go read Digby's piece.

More Delicious Neo-Con Treats

Wondering about what's propelling that pesky insurgency in Iraq? Greg Palast has the answer. Apparently one of the big goals of the neoconservatives in Iraq was neither to make big bucks off the oil, nor to "liberate humanitarianism". Nope, it was to:

The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas

Sadly, the insurgents put the "kibosh" on this deal, as they were able to elicit mass support by claiming that:

"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing your country, you're losing your resources to a bunch of wealthy billionaires who want to take you over and make your life miserable,'" said Mr Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.
"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, built on the premise that privatisation is coming."

Fortunately for OPEC, the oil industry appeared to be somewhat unhappy about the idea of crashing oil prices, so the new plan is to let the Iraqis nationalize the industry. Unfortunately for everybody in Iraq, the damage was already done.

(Thanks to Juan Cole for pointing this out on Friday, and for authoritatively showing that the entire idea was rubbish to begin with. To me, it's reminiscent of Perle's crackpot plan to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan by setting up loudspeakers blaring pro-American propaganda. I wouldn't dislike the people running the world so much if they weren't so, well, stupid.)

Lies, Damned Lies, and the Bush Administration

(Hat Tip: Hunter at Daily Kos.)

Well, well, well. It would appear that the old "everybody agreed on such-and-such an intelligence issue" gambit ain't going to work anymore, at least not for the Bush administration.

Such an argument requires that information-sharing is going on, so that countries can vet their intelligence against each other. Even if no sharing is going on, at least that's something that can be trusted to be honest, and states can act with the full knowledge that while there may be knowledge being hidden, at least they know where they stand. You can't have both: you can't both hide your information and gain other's trust by sharing it.

Unless, of course, you're the current Executive. In which case, you LIE.

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.

Ok, if one wants to split hairs, one could say that this "cover up" isn't technically a lie of commission, but of omission. It doesn't matter one whit, because this isn't about North Korea. What it IS is the United States no longer being a trustworthy intelligence-sharing and -gathering partner, because its allies can no longer trust it to not lie to cover up a key strategic ally.

It throws one of the underlying concepts of the entire intelligence community into doubt. Without honesty in the sharing of intelligence, every ally of the U.S. must ask itself whether the United States is "playing" them to isolate a foe or protect an ally. They'll ask that question, and the answer will be "we can't take that chance". They won't trust the U.S., and (therefore) the U.S. won't be able to trust them, because the Americans must realize that nobody likes to play the sucker. The United States has just lost all credibility in Asia, and I doubt it'll return any time soon.

Considering that the core of the War on Terrorism is and MUST BE intelligence gathering and sharing, this literally couldn't be a more foolish act.

I've said it before, I'll say it again... somewhere in Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden is laughing his ass off.

Wolfowitz's World

Ok, the nomination of John Bolton for the UN ambassador job was one thing. That was a clear and understandable "fuck you" to the world community. It was disturbing and incredibly shortsighted, but in keeping with the predominant interpretation of the Bush administration's--and its backers--attitudes towards the body and multilateralism in general. It also drew a line in the sand for the Europeans, but there's nothing new there.

That said, Wolfowitz as head of the world bank?

What possible reason could there be for that choice? Anti-Europeanism isn't worth it. He hasn't demonstrated any significant knowledge or skills that would lend themselves to the job, notwithstanding the Economist's piffle about Wolfowitz somehow leveraging the (overrated) "Revolution in Military Affairs" to radically alter the World Bank. He has extraordinarily damaged credibility after the WMD fiasco. The developing world will cry foul, and the NGOs will become even more alienated from the US than now, defying the logical belief that that was no longer even possible.

The whole situation becomes more and more bizarre by the day.

anti-intellectualism

Someday, I'm going to understand why seemingly intelligent people enjoy taking shots at those who actually bother to think about the world around them (in other words, "intellectuals").

But not today.