The Wider World

2003-03-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Letter to A Child I Haven't Met Yet

To my child:

It will be years before you read this. The fact is that you're not born yet, maybe not even conceived. I don't know when we will get the call from your birthmother asking about what kind of people we are so, waiting, I imagine what kind of person you will be.

And I wonder what kind of world it is into which you will be born and raised. As I write this, our country wobbles on the edge of an unjust war, our economy is a wreck and the freedoms that I and all the adults who will know and love you were raised to expect are being eroded. By the time you read this, the very water you drink could be sold to you by a company far away that cares only about profit. I try to be hopeful about the future, but right now I'm fearful.

I understand now how some folks can want to not bring a child into a world plagued by war, but I can't share their feelings. To be honest, your mother and I need you. There is something basic in people that hopes for a better future, and you are, or will be, the embodiment of that for us. The knowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq this morning who represent that same hope for their parents, yet who are sick for lack of medicine or in grave danger of being killed when this invasion starts, keeps me awake at night.

By the time you read this letter, all this will be either ancient history or part of your current reality. You will have your own set of issues as you become conscious of the world around you, and with luck, we will have raised you to be a questioning, thinking person, capable of getting past the fog of dubious news and opinion with which we are bombarded every day. No matter what I say as I get older and crankier, hold on to your dreams and what you know to be right and never, ever let anyone tell you to shut up and sit down.

Love,

Dad

2003-02-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

First-of-the-week roundup...

Let's make note of the really stupid shit first. You may have heard by now about the flap concerning Rabbi Michael Lerner not being allowed to speak at the anti-war rallies over the weekend. International ANSWER, one of the main organizers for the rallies, apparently nixed Rabbi Lerner's podium appearance, either because 1) they're raving anti-Zionists or 2) because the coalition in charge of organizing the events had agreed to exclude anyone who spoke against one of the affiliated groups.

You know what? A pox on all of them. This idiocy has cast an enormous pall over an unprecidented show of unity between left factions. If I could I would ban discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue from all leftist interaction. It's a tar baby. Both sides have legitimate claims and grievances, and both sides have done horrible things in the name of those claims and grievances. It's sapping our strength.

All that being said, the world made a loud noise for peace this weekend. This is from Alternet:

But on Saturday, Feb. 15, I emerged from the largest demonstration I've ever attended in Dallas with more hope than ever before that our situation will improve. It wasn't just that 5,000 or so people from one of the most right-wing regions of the world, the former home of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the fictional J.R. Ewing and many others who represent cold-hearted, selfish economic and political policies, had braved the wind and cold and threats and everything else to make a statement to Bush Inc. that a blood-for-oil-personal-revenge-world-domination-military-boost war against economic-sanctions-wracked Iraq was unacceptable.

It was the wide array of people from all walks of life – high school students showing they cared about more than their own problems, soccer moms protesting for the first time, retired school teachers, professionals in suits, war veterans, parents who also brought their young children – that gave me the most hope.

Sadly, we were also treated to the spectacle of a crowd in a Chicago nightclub trampling 21 of their own to death after someone released pepper spray inside the building. Can anyone doubt that the Bush administration's level orange alert bullshit played a major role in the hysteria?

Feh. If anyone needs me, tell them I'm being sized for my Sparky the Wonder Penguin thong...

2003-02-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

To everyone around the world who has gathered, marched, chanted, spoken, shouted or sang today in opposition to war with Iraq, whether it be in a crowd of hundreds of thousands in a major city square or a crowd of 5 on a small-town street corner...

Thank you.

They're starting to arrest protesters in New York. Be careful.

2003-02-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

So...is anyone really counting the votes?

Malloy interviewed Bev Harris on the show yesterday. Ms Harris is leading an investigation into Georgia's new touch-screen voting machines, and the questions raised so far about the security of the software used to tabulate the votes is approaching the "damning" level.

In early February, 2003, programmers for Diebold Election Systems admitted that they had been parking highly sensitive company files on an unprotected web site, a serious security mistake by anyone's reckoning.

The very next week officials from the state of Georgia admitted that a program "patch" was administered to over 22,000 unauditable touch-screen voting machines in Georgia. This took place shortly before the November 2002 election.

A single, certified, and carefully examined version of the actual vote-counting program is allowed on the voting machines.

However, when a program is "patched," new code is inserted into the existing program, usually correcting a fault, or sometimes adding a feature. If a patch is to be applied to the actual vote-counting program, it must be certified to make sure no errors or unauthorized changes are introduced. But no one bothered to certify this patch.

Much more here.

2003-02-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

Kevin at Lean Left brings this up concerning "Total Information Awareness" - Conferees in Congress Bar Using a Pentagon Project on Americans. NYTimes requres login, etc etc. An excerpt:

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who co-sponsored the Wyden amendment, said: "Protecting Americans' civil liberties while at the same time winning the war against terrorism has got to be top priority for the United States. Congressional oversight of this program will be a must as we proceed in the war against terror. The acceptance of this amendment sends a signal that Congress won't sit on its hands as the TIA program moves forward."

We can certainly hope that they'll continue to do more than just not sit on their hands. Score one for the good guys, at any rate.

2003-02-12T06:06:00.000-08:00

It's the DU Poets Against the War Poetry Slam!

Drop by if you get a chance. Wear a beret, speak out.

2003-02-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

Tales of Republican Slime - Episode Two and a Half

I've now made several unsuccessful efforts to download Patriot Act II, aka the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003". The pda seems to be corrupted and is the size of War and Peace.

No matter. I called the offices of Zell Miller, Saxby Chambliss and Denise Majette yesterday to find out the positions my elected representatives mean to take on this bill, and no one seemed to know what I was talking about. That seems odd, especially given that several provisions have already been put before the Senate.

Make no mistake, friends - the Republicans mean to complete the remaking of the US into a police state. From the infowars site:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration’s “enemy combatant” definition to all American citizens who “may” have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is “any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.”) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn’t broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person “had inferred from conduct” that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the “enemy combatant” terrorist designation.

Call your Representative now.

2003-02-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

Tales of Republican Slime - Episode Two

By now you've doubtless heard mention of Patriot Act II. I'm waiting for the pdf of the whole damn thing to download from Public Integrity, then we'll add whatever weight we can to the commentary on this thing.

2003-02-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

Tales of Republican Slime - Episode One

From the Augusta Chronicle - Cheeks intervenes for convict

Don Cheeks was one of three Georgia Senate Democrats who, following Sonny Perdue's election as Governor last November, couldn't fall over themselves fast enough to switch to the GOP. Now Cheeks has gone to bat for a convicted child molester.

Two weeks after Gov. Sonny Perdue unveiled ethics legislation that would prohibit lawmakers from lobbying on behalf of convicts, Sen. Don Cheeks intervened with local prosecutors on behalf of an Evans man who pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a child.

Mr. Cheeks, R-Augusta, called a probation officer to ask why Bobby Clark Brassell Jr. had to register as a sex offender. Two days later, District Attorney Danny Craig agreed that Mr. Brassell didn't have to register.

Family values at its best. One wonders if Guv Sonny will turn a blind eye to the ethics violation as partial payment for Cheeks' having turned over the state Senate against the will of Georgia voters

2002-12-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

Shining lights in dark places: In the wake of Trent Lott's disgusting advocacy of racial segregation, Kevin and I chatted at some length last night about the relative values of having racists out in the open where they can be challenged (my position) or confined to their own dank hole in the wider culture where they can't spread their hatred (Kevin's position). Since it was late, we decided to make a blog exchange out of the ongoing discussion.

This is the first installment of that exchange - Kevin will post his reply later at Lean Left, and we'll continue in that vein. Since Lean Left is set up to allow comments, I would invite anyone interested to contribute your thoughts there.

***

Kevin,

Just to recap my position from last night - as long as racism exists as an integral part of our world (and I don't see it becoming anything other than an integral part in our lifetimes), I think it's best to have it be out in the open. When racial bigotry crawls out into the sunlight, it can be examined and understood for what it is. No matter what form it takes - a faceless cop beating a handcuffed black kid or a public statement by the presumptive Senate Majority Leader - if we can see it, we can understand it and fight it.

Given half a chance, white America will quickly convince itself that racism is a thing of the past, something we dealt with in the sixties. People who have nothing but good will in their hearts do this; I've done this. We want to believe that it's behind us, and parts of it are. Lunch counters and schools are desegregated now. The Secretary of State is a black man, an unimaginable thing in 1948 when Strom Thurmond ran for the presidency as a Dixiecrat.

Yet there are de facto representations of racism throughout our society. Here in Atlanta, you have to look no further than the public schools. During desegregation, white flight moved a great deal of the tax base from the city to the suburbs, so that while schools are racially mixed, there is an effective separate-but-equal difference between crumbling city schools and the gleaming, well-funded campuses in Gwinnett and Forsyth Counties. This is not entirely accidental, and when you hear people lament about what's happened to places like Grady High School in recent years, it's usually codespeak for "we told you this would happen if you let them in".

Public transit as well - this metro area of 4.5 million people has inadequate rail service in large part because suburban counties like Cobb have fought every attempt to expand the system on the specious grounds that "train stations breed crime". It's gauche now to say in polite company, but the fear is that expansion of the rail lines will enable inner-city black folks to travel to white bedroom communities like Marietta and bring with them whatever mayhem black folks are imagined to bring in the fearful white imagination.

These things aren't commonly understood as manifestations of racism, yet racial prejudice remains the 800-lb. elephant in the corner of the American living room. We will have to address it eventually and openly, and we'll have to begin by dragging the moldiest parts out into the air.

Peace,
John

2002-11-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

Oops.

Ok, they didn't vote yesterday. Call your senators anyway.

In other news...remember that whole Afghanistan thing? David Corn, writing in Alternet, does:

In a recent piece for the London Sunday Telegraph, Christina Lamb assessed U.S. and Western assistance to Afghanistan. On the streets of Kabul, she found a woman named Nadina who had walked five hours from her village to bring her son, Gulajan, to a hospital after he had fallen into a coma in his local hospital when it ran out of food. Three-year-old Gulajan weighed 13 pounds.

"Life is no different in our village than before," Nadina told Lamb. "We have no food because of the drought. We hoped the foreigners would come, but no one has. We don't know why."

Lamb then noted: "It is a question many Afghans are asking .... U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised never to forget Afghanistan .... Yet for all their promises, children are dying on the operating table for want of a $4,000 generator .... 'We're fed up with foreigners coming here to look but doing nothing,' said Omar Najibullah, the hospital's administrator. 'Children are dying here every day that we could prevent if we just had a generator and some basic medicine.'"

Dan Perkins, aka Tom Tomorrow, remembers it too.

It's been a long time, at least in terms of dog years and American memories, but some of you may recall a little overseas adventure which has subsequently been re-christened, so to speak, the war for the liberation of Afghanistan.

Turns out--get this--the war hasn't been such an unambiguous success after all. In fact, a lot of things that crazed left-wing peaceniks warned about at the time are coming to pass.

Did anyone - anyone - really think we were actually going to do anything to help poor Afghanis?

2002-11-18T05:13:00.000-08:00

The Senate is voting today on the Homeland Security bill. Call your senators and tell them to vote no to giving John Poindexter too much information about your life, tell them to vote no to letting drug companies that injected our children with unsafe levels of mercury off scot free.

2002-11-14T04:44:00.000-08:00

The Orwellian hits just keep on coming...

Why does it take William Safire of all people to point out the fact that the GOP is moving quickly to take away our few remaining rights?

If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you — passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance — and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.

Do we understand this? The House passed the Homeland Security Act yesterday - now it heads to the Senate where it will be decided if John Poindexter will be given the authority to know every damned thing about your life.

John Poindexter - remember him? The wunderkind behind Iran-Contra. Convicted of lying to Congress, then sent on his merry way as a free man on appeal. Head of the Information Awareness Office at the Pentagon. That's the face of Big Brother now.

2002-11-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

From Alternet via Lean Left: Bechtel Strikes Back at Bolivia

Sometime in the next few weeks, behind closed doors at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., panelists in a secret trade court will decide if the people of South America's poorest country will have to pay $25 million to one of the world's most wealthy corporations.

The essential point of the case is this - Bechtel took over the public water system in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba in 2000 and quickly raised rates by as much as 200 percent. The folks there naturally revolted, and Bechtel was forced out.

Now, one of the world's wealthiest corporations wants $25 million from one of the world's poorest nations, under the umbrella of "free trade" and in the name of "recovering costs".

We've seen this kind of insanity before, notably when Metalclad sued Mexico because the state of San Luis Potosi had, through the democratic process, denied the company a building permit for a toxic waste facility. What we have to understand is that NAFTA and similar trade agreements are being used to entirely overturn democratic rule throughout the western hemisphere.

Also of note for the future is the commodification of water. We're headed toward some very bad things, indeed.

2002-11-11T05:01:00.000-08:00

To whatever extent today is marked here in the US, it will be as a memorial to American war dead - and, obnoxiously, as an occasion to wave more flags and celebrate militarism. Happy Veteran's Day.

Of course, it goes largely without saying that most of my compatriots don't make the connection between 11/11 and a railroad car in Compiègne. Would that they did. Aspects of the Great War sometimes make useful correctives to war fever such as our politicians, especially after last Tuesday's little lurch to fascism, occasionally feel.

A few links, then, for Armistice Day.

Firstworldwar.com

Trenches on the Web

First World War Poetry

Dulce et Decorum Est

2002-11-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

Update: The DLC Response

There's no need for panic or despair among Democrats today, but there is an urgent need for Democrats to return to the task that occupied them during much of the 1990s: creating a message and agenda based on broad values and policy goals rather than government programs, one that is aimed at building new majorities rather than tending to old coalitions, and one that promotes reform, growth, international and domestic leadership, and opportunity, responsibility and community.

Complete idiots. Utterly clueless maroons. From the "old coalition", a big go to hell to the Vichy Dems.

2002-11-06T04:59:00.000-08:00

Bring me the head of Al From on a plate.

Want to understand the disaster that happened last night? Look no further than the "New Democrats", because it is the Third Way - devoid of ideas and beliefs, fond of splitting hairs and screwing the poor - that has brought us to this pass.

Understand this - a Democrat can spend his entire time in office agreeing with George W. Bush, voting for tax cuts and supporting war resolutions, strenuously avoiding anything that could be called "liberal"...AND LOSE ANYWAY. Why? Because DLC policy alienates the Democratic base and because centrist Republicans, given the choice between a Republican and Republican-lite, will vote for the Republican.

Let's be done with this mythology that only centrists can win. Centrists got their asses handed to them yesterday, and it's no one's fault but theirs and their leadership's.

2002-11-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

Three things I'd like to see when the dust settles...

Denise Majette reaching out to the South DeKalb voters she dissed during the primary and explaining how she's going to live up to Cynthia McKinney's progressive legacy in this district.

Terry McAuliffe reaching out to party progressives and explaining how the party will start to live up to Paul Wellstone's progressive legacy.

Huge victory or crushing defeat, I want to see some strong opposition to BushCo policies emerge, and emerge quickly.

I've taken my share of heat for being critical of the Democratic leadership, but the fact is that they're the ones we have to count upon to turn back the right wing. What would be the point of criticizing Republicans all the livelong day when they're only doing what we expect them to do? Particularly if the Dems win big today - and they/we just might - then there needs to be some serious infusion of spine. Immediately, I mean. Not after the 2004 elections, not once we've waited for Enron to become a non-issue, but immediately.

2002-11-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

GO VOTE.

I just got home from voting, #31 in my precinct. Georgia has new touch screen voting which, I'm happy to say, is easy to use. How the votes get recorded and counted, of course, will be a continuing concern. Something to watch closely here as in Florida and elsewhere.

2002-11-04T04:50:00.000-08:00

So, here we are.

If you're of age and registered, go vote tomorrow. (Exceptions can be made for conservatives who just can't be bothered or who can't afford the risk of being called for jury duty...) If you're an American citizen 18 or older, you really do have a duty to participate insofar as you are able under our system.

Obviously, and especially for those of us on the left, it doesn't end with your vote. In fact, the most significant battles are on hold until Wednesday morning. Campaign finance reform - serious debate over which we're not going to hear again in Washington for many moons, I'm sure - is one of those. There are many others, all policy and vision stuff a lot of folks seriously try to avoid during election cycles.

There are a lot of discussions we need to be having but won't have at least until after the dust has settled from this election. So vote on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, start a discussion with a coworker about whatever floats your boat. Get some ideas out there. Don't let election fatigue put you on the couch for the next two years.

2002-10-29T07:32:00.000-08:00

Memo to the Peace Movement

Andrew M. Manis makes an oft-heard case here, that anti-war protesters are alienating middle America through "strategic naivete" - remaining open to charges of anti-patriotism or "blaming America first" - and he does have a point here. Those of us on the left cannot continue to speak only to ourselves if we genuinely want to take our goals forward.

One problem with his analysis, though, stems from the protesters' strength - their general youth. This is neither to deny that all leftist protesters were/are young (they're obviously not) nor to deny that youth can't bring off a successfuly protest (they obviously can). But just underneath Manis' mention of flag-burning and Christianity, I can hear a white-gloved shudder of distaste for the alternative kids and those who follow "fringe" religious practices, both of whom, in my experience, can be counted on to show up most often and shout the loudest at a protest.

Would it be a good idea to present a respectable face of patriotic dissent to those in flyover country from protests like last Saturday's? Sure. It's already happening, been happening. If the faces - and the tattoos and the piercings and the rainbow hair - of those who are out there now trouble those who would as soon not be seen associating with counter-culture (is there such a thing any more?) folks, then let those who are troubled get off their butts more often and come out to rallies and protests with their flags and their crosses.

2002-10-28T07:49:00.000-08:00

From FAIR via TMW: What a Difference Four Years Makes

This is sharp stuff - quote comparisons from 1998 and 2002 that show how, four years ago, UN weapons inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq by the UN itself...and how that withdrawal is being reported now as the inspectors having been kicked out by Saddam Hussein.

The United Nations once again has ordered its weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Today's evacuation follows a new warning from chief weapons inspector Richard Butler accusing Iraq of once again failing to cooperate with the inspectors. The United States and Britain repeatedly have warned that Iraq's failure to cooperate with the inspectors could lead to air strikes.

--Bob Edwards, NPR, 12/16/98

If he has secret weapons, he's had four years since he kicked out the inspectors to hide all of them.

--Daniel Schorr, NPR, 8/3/02

It's good to remember history and how words are used every day to sway public opinion.

2002-10-28T05:05:00.000-08:00

From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: Wellstone was a man of the people

It's only been this morning that I've become a little less numb. I've never even been to Minnesota, much less had the opportunity to vote for Paul Wellstone, but he represented me as a progressive just as surely as my own Senators do not.

Common Dreams puts it well, invoking Joe Hill - Mourn and Organize. The challenge now, as progressives, citizens, and as a nation, is to live up to the standard Senator Wellstone set.

2002-10-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

Speechless.

We've lost the best of us. Godspeed, Senator.

***

2002-10-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

From Alternet, via Lean Left: Do Corporations Rule the Schools?

Yup, and they're running the curriculum, too.

***

From the "Well, DUH!" department - Democrats say Bush hostile toward environment

WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - The Bush administration took office in 2001 with a "predetermined hostility" toward federal rules that protect the nation's air, land and water, according to a report released on Thursday by Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

I suppose it would be uncharitable of me to be anything but elated that our friends at the DLC are finally realizing that George W. Bush isn't exactly a treehugger. So let's see some action, folks. Let's find a way to fund alternative energy research. Because everything is tied together, let's go back and look at NAFTA again and do something about these goddamned multinationals that keep uprooting our jobs and taking them to Mexico and China, where they can be "competitive" by not having to worry about paying decent wages, dealing with unions...or obeying local environmental laws.

***

Speaking of our friends the free-range capitalists, Maytag has announced that they're laying off 1,600 folks in Illinois and moving those refrigerator assembly jobs south of the border. Is anyone paying attention to what's happening here? These companies are in the process of ripping the rug out from under the working and lower middle classes in the US, and the CEOs (when they're not caught cooking the books) and the big investors are the ones who reap the rewards. The War on ~~Civil Rights~~ Terror may be a moot point after a while - if we're all working short shifts at McDonalds and working temp jobs in the meantime just to make ends meet, no one is going to have the energy or time to exercise their First Amendment rights. And the people stuck working those jobs in developing nations will continue to get sick, will continue to be forced to work 16- and 20-hour days for pittances.

***

Finally, to those headed to DC this weekend for the protest or to local protests - thank you and be safe. Wish I could be there. Make some noise for me, would ya?

2002-10-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

From CNN - No easy sentence: Peace protesters do time with hardened cons

CORDELE, Georgia (AP) -- For years, peace protesters arrested for trespassing at Fort Benning were allowed to serve their sentences at minimum-security federal institutions closer to their homes, where they could kiss relatives and hold babies in visiting rooms.

Not anymore.

Some protesters -- including a priest and a grandmother-to-be -- were sentenced earlier this year to serve their six-month sentences alongside thieves and drug addicts behind razor wire in a rural Georgia jail.

"The only thing I can come up with is that they are getting mean," the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the protest group School of the Americas Watch, said of Bureau of Prison officials.

Go read the rest of it. I'll refrain from commenting on jailing elderly protesters with general population convicts.

2002-10-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Posted today at DU:

When do you say 'enough'?

Someone wrote yesterday that the Democratic leadership seems to have decided that they can't "budget any more political capital" to fighting Bush's war resolution in Congress. So it seems, indeed - although we'll see tonight what's what, I don't see the Dems who are already on the bandwagon suddenly jumping off.

Make no mistake - if the resolution passes, we're going to war. One does not hand a Republican administration a free pass to go to war, especially in difficult economic times, especially after the buildup has already started, and have any realistic expectation of a continued (if relative) peace.

Someone else has written that our representatives have to know they they'll have our backing if they oppose a war. By all accounts, calls to their offices have been, overwhelmingly, against invading Iraq unilaterally. The NION protests and others against going to war have been met, if at all, by pro-war demonstrations that have drawn a tiny fraction of those on the side of peace. People who drove by the NION protest in Atlanta and who consciously engaged us at all - as we shouted "This is what democracy looks like!" - were overwhelmingly in favor of what we were saying. We have made our wishes known. We have made our support known.

And yet, it's an election year. And nothing wins the support of the people like telling them that they're in danger and that the other guy won't do anything about it. Hermann Goering knew this.

There is indeed a great deal at stake in this election. Lest anyone decide, in the new DU way of understanding these things, that I am a freeper or a Rovian mole because I'm so angry with certain Democrats in DC that I can't see straight, I'm voting Democratic this year. I trust others to make up their own minds - my friends here tend to keep their own counsel.

And it does matter how we vote, just not as much as we like to believe that it does. No matter the intentions of the Founders (idealistic children of the Enlightenment that a few of them were), we've lived, not in a democracy, but on the collapsible set of a democracy at least since George Kennan wrote, in 1948, that the US must turn away from "unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization" in order to secure US hegemony over those who, understandably, resent our hogging the planet's wealth and resources.

Armstead wrote last night of the ritualized debates and processes broadcast from Capitol Hill on C-SPAN, and asked what the point was. I found this in the March 2002 issue of Harper's, by Lewis Lapham, speaking not of Senate debates but really of our experience of citizenship:

Understood as a religious instead of a secular form of communication, the ritual makes liturgical sense. The President first ascends to the pulpit in the persona of a grim but righteous prophet, setting before the congregation a fiery vision of Hell, and then, in the bright sunlight on the steps of the church, he appears as the amiable vicar bidding his flock a kindly and reassuring farewell. Between the sermon and the benediction, a choir of media voices sings hymns of thanksgiving and anthems of praise, and men in uniform pass the collection plate.

So when is it enough? Electorally, maybe never. We're occasionally allowed a rabblerouser like McKinney or Kucinich, someone who genuinely believes in the promise of democracy, but neither they, nor we, are ever going to get to talk directly to the man behind the curtain via the ballot box - or, at the very least, not without the kind of sweeping changes to election law (ditch the Electoral College, instant runoff, deep-running campaign finance reform or publically financed campaigns) that I don't expect to see in my lifetime.

We do have to vote. It's our birthright, one that a lot of people have died to secure. Vote. But don't imagine that it stops there, or that you're speaking directly to power when you do.

2002-09-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

The October, 2002 issue of Harper's has a damning review of Dick Cheney's Defense Planning Guidance document in all the forms it's taken since the early nineties. These lay out, in detail that should thoroughly frighten anyone who thinks that our government is not terribly broken, exactly what happened to the peace (and attending dividend) that should have followed the fall of the Soviet Union.

With the Soviet Union gone, the United States had a choice. It could capitalize on the euphoria of the moment by nurturing cooperative relations and developing multilateral structures to help guide the global realignment then taking place; or it could consolidate its power and pursue a strategy of unilateralism and global dominance. It chose the latter course.

We should be clear on this. With the end of the Cold War, the leadership of this country had an almost unheard-of opportunity to advance the cause of peace worldwide. It did not take that opportunity (a) because the boys at the Pentagon couldn't bear to contemplate having fewer toys with which to play, and (b) because Bush pére could not resist the temptation to set the U.S. on an imperial course.

George W. Bush and those who handle him have, of course, moved as rapidly as events allowed to further the goals of American unilateralism and global military dominance. Of course, this is couched in the language of defense following 9/11/01, but that usage has been in place since after the Civil War. There is nothing defensive about the current administration's doctrine of preemptive strikes.

This country once rejected "unwarned" attacks such as Pearl Harbor as barbarous and unworthy of a civilized nation. Today many cheer the prospect of conducting sneak attacks - potentially with nuclear weapons - on piddling powers run by tin-pot despots.

2002-09-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

War + Terror

A Palestinian blows up a bus, killing 15 Israelis. An Israeli F-16 pilot bombs a crowded neighborhood, killing 15 Palestinians. An American B-52 pilot drops bombs that he knows will kill both al-Qaeda soldiers and Afghan civilians. The question the media is missing: Are the bomber pilots terrorists, too?

From Adbusters - go add your thoughts.

***

The point has been made to me several times recently that, given all the concern over this adminstration's saber-rattling of late, we should still keep issues like the economy and free trade in the public eye. In that light, I'm starting a series here on the issues surrounding globalization and corporate control of what used to be the public sphere as soon as I can gather some of the available information. These are issues that have huge impact on our lives, but the facts are not always easily accessible. The more we can do to distill and disseminate, the greater impact we can have in the other direction.

2002-09-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

From Sojourners:

The reality is that history-making nonviolent resistance is not usually undertaken as an act of moral display; it does not typically begin by putting flowers in gun barrels and it does not end when protesters disperse to go home. It involves the use of a panoply of forceful sanctions—strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, disrupting the functions of government, even nonviolent sabotage—in accordance with a strategy for undermining an oppressor's pillars of support. It is not about making a point, it's about taking power.

The emphasis on the last sentence is mine, and it's a crucial point. Nonviolent resistance to any tyranny is useless if it consists only of gestures and marches.

2002-09-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

Again and again, Aaron McGruder gets it right. Can we clone this guy?

***

How to create a monster: Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Source

Surprised? Don't be. U.S. foreign policy is reactive, and has been for generations. We sent Saddam the basic materials of germ warfare when he was fighting Iran, our enemy at the time. The problem is that when you fight wars by proxy like this, you very often wind up creating even bigger problems down the road. There will be more Iraqs long after Saddam is dead.

2002-09-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

News item, a few days old: McKinney blames defeats on D-E-M-S.

If you know me from DU, you probably know that I'm a strong supporter (and constituent) of Cynthia McKinney and that I'm a Democrat who has voted twice for Ralph Nader. I mention this second part because there's also been word that the Greens are trying to draft McKinney for a presidential run in 2004. So having McKinney run for the White House next time around should be a dream for me, right?

It's not, in fact, in large part because I'm desperately trying to talk myself into playing nice with my party through 2004 in the name of getting Shrub out of office. This hasn't been easy, and wasn't made any easier by watching the state Democrats abandon one of the few nationally known elected Dems for whom I had any respect. A very large part of me would love to see her make a third-party effort.

But what I would love more is to be able to vote for someone like John Kerry for president in 2004 - and at the same time, put McKinney back in her seat as a Democrat. Why the House again and why as a Dem? I think she can do the most good and be the greatest thorn in the sides of the powers that be as the representative of this district - and I dearly want the Democratic leadership to have to deal with her as one of their own.

Of course, this is all subject to revision. I haven't even decided whether or not I'm going to vote for Denise Majette in November, and the rest of the party has two years in which to either convince me that they're truly on the side of the people and not the multinationals or finish pissing me off. On that hinges the question of whether I remain a Dem or fully work to help build either the Greens or another alternative. Hell, I'm only one vote, but that's all I have.

2002-09-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

From the NYT via Tom Tomorrow:

Intelligence officials, responding to repeated complaints from Senate Democrats, said today that they were working on the authoritative document. The last such thorough assessment on Iraq's clandestine weapons was produced about two years ago, Senate and administration officials said today.

The whole reason we're being told we have to go to war against Iraq right this very instant and without further delay is that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Now comes the happy news that we haven't really looked in any comprehensive way to see what he has since - big shocker here - George W. Bush took office. The plain fact is that we don't know. We're preparing to go to war for reasons that are the political equivalent of meringue.

So why now? Can anyone seriously doubt that this is about the midterm elections?

2002-09-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

Things to read: Standing Up for Dissent, John Nichols. Wall Street's Mascot, Molly Ivins.

Some things to take back from the right wing: the Bill of Rights; the word "patriot"; the future.

What to give them in return: souls.

I'm told by my friend at work (I was right, by the way - all day long yesterday, pictures of people jumping from the World Trade Towers on his desktop) that I'm only potentially a patriot. This, evidently, because I lack the bloodlust necessary for the title. Or maybe because I have this dangerous idea that dissent is the duty of a patriot, even in war. Or in not-quite-war. Or in whatever state we've been in for the last year.

I'm worried that we're coming apart at the seams, but I have to remember that most folks in America are not behind this new adventure in Iraq. It's a question of being heard - hell, it's a question first of not accepting the inevitability of whatever Donald Rumsfeld decides to do.

Senate and House Democrats have another opportunity to stand up to the anti-democratic forces that are ruining the nation and that are threatening the world. Call them. Annoy the hell out of them. Tell them to get a grip, stand up, and be counted.

2002-09-11T05:03:00.000-07:00

A year ago this morning, I sat glued to the television, watching the world change. You probably did something similar.

I talked to my friend Kevin last night about 9/11/01 and how progressives can talk about what happened in real ways while giving respect to those who died that day. The terrorist attacks were an inescapably political act - not justifiable, as the taking of innocent life is never justifiable, but political nonetheless. And while I still don't believe that they had definite knowledge before the fact, the Bush administration and many of its supporters have indeed made political and economic gains by capitalizing on both the fear and the grief of a nation. That's a point that needs to be made.

So, as the 9/11 remembrance porn reaches a crescendo today (my friend in the cube next to me at work will likely spend much of the day looking up pictures from the attack and getting himself worked into a frenzy of conservative anger at the existence of Islam), I plan to mark 9/11/02 in a quieter way - by considering the humanity of the people who died a year ago and the humanity of the people around the globe whose desperation and dying won't be televised.