BroadSnark

I've Moved!!!!!

2009-08-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

Please go to the new location at:

www.broadsnark.com

Thanks!
Mel

Conflict Resolution as Core Curriculum

2009-07-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

When I tell people that I am an anarchist, that I imagine a world without hierarchy, they often dismiss me as naive. They cannot imagine how government would function without a dude in charge. They seem to find it even harder to imagine workplaces functioning without hierarchy.

If the skeptics provide any reasons, they generally point out conflicts that we currently resolve through coercion. Two people have a dispute at work, the boss makes a determination and coerces the parties to comply. Two countries have a dispute, and the more powerful country coerces the other.

The essential obstacle to a society based on cooperation is not that people have disputes, it is that we have so few tools to resolve our disputes peacefully. It isn't entirely our fault. And it isn't some malfunctioning human gene. It is that we have no training in dispute resolution or peaceful conflict management.

Amazingly, it is only in the last fifty years that conflict resolution has been brought into schools. And it is only since the 1980s that organizations like Educators for Social Responsibility have been promoting conflict resolution as core curriculum.

Despite the fact that conflict resolution has been shown to increase academic achievement and cooperation and to decrease violence and drop-out rates, too few schools have implemented conflict resolution into their programs.

Imagine if every school child (from kindergarden forward) had problem solving and peaceful conflict resolution as core curriculum. Imagine if it were given the importance of math and language. How much better equipped would we be for our relationships later in life?

It isn't that people are hopelessly unable to resolve conflicts without violence or coersion. It is that we are not learning the skills we need.

Clothing Mandatory, From Burqas to Bandanas

2009-07-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

We have too many damn laws, rules, regulations and customs dictating what people can and cannot wear.

Schools require kids to wear uniforms. Work - from military personnel to the nearly identical suits most desk sitters wear - requires uniforms. Clubs have dress codes. Restaurants have dress codes. Cities and even countries have laws governing what their citizens can and cannot wear in public. Why?

Admittedly, it's easier to pick out a cop if she is wearing a uniform. And you could probably make a case for health issues when it comes to wearing some kind of covering in a restaurant kitchen. But mostly, clothing rules are about social control. We want to be able to identify people. We want to know whether or not they subscribe to the dominant culture's attitudes, prejudices, gender roles, and power structure.

Schools support school uniforms for the same reason the military requires them, because uniforms denote obedience and conformity. Clubs have dress codes to enforce dominance by class and race, from country clubs that require a suit and tie to dive bars like Kokoamos (sued for refusing entry to people with dreadlocks).

Cities also get in on the action. Riviera Beach, Florida is arresting people for baggy pants. Other cities have ordinances against your underwear showing. In New York, you can get arrested for covering your face during a protest. Why? Because minorities wear baggy pants. Because political dissidents cover their faces during protests.

Of course, the most stringent codes and social norms relate to gender. It starts with the first pink or blue onesie someone gives you at the baby shower. For the rest of your life, what you can wear safely in public is determined largely by whether or not you were born with a penis.

School uniforms are uniform only by gender. One school in South Carolina has said a girl will not be able to graduate if she wears pants to her graduation. Prom means wearing a dress for girls or a suit for boys. Transgressors will be denied.

And while most (if not all) laws against cross-dressing have been taken off the books, that doesn't stop harassment. One man is suing the New Orleans police department for threatening to arrest him for wearing a kilt in public. (Note to self: Naked breasts strewn with plastic beads, no problem; wearing traditional and mildly gender-bending Scottish garb, not so much.)

Transgender people cross the gender line and face discrimination at every turn. Most workplaces in the U.S. can legally discriminate against transgendered people, as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act does not protect them. Far worse, at least one transgender person is murdered on average each month of the year. And the murders of transgender people all too often remain unsolved.

Most cisgender women have a little more leeway in the choice between pants and skirts. (Although, Conservative Christian group Focus on the Family just started allowing women to wear pants this year.) But women have to worry about "modesty." Women must walk that fine line between whore and oppressed. Wear too little material on your body and people will say you are asking to be attacked. Wear too much clothing on your body, a burqa for instance, and people will say you are oppressed.

Islam isn't the only religion to dictate dress. Orthodox Jewish women must cover their elbows, knees and head in the name of modesty. Sometimes they wear scarves. Other times they cover up their hair with wigs. Meanwhile, Hasidic Jewish men, in 90 degree Miami heat, dress in wool outfits meant for winter in the Polish ghetto.

Monks and nuns wear robes not very different from a burqa. Certainly, they are equally desexualizing. True, nuns no longer wear the restrictive habits of the middle ages, some even wear no habits at all. The Catholic Church; however, isn't happy about that and is reportedly conducting an investigation into nuns' lapses.

How are any of these regulations legitimate?

The idea that women must dress modestly holds women responsible for mens' behavior, as though men are wild animals who can't be expected to have self control. Assigning clothing by gender is only an attempt to clearly delineate who gets what privilege in society. Forcing minority groups to dress like the majority is just the majority exerting its dominance. And requiring protesters to be identifiable just makes it easier for authorities to find and intimidate them.

During the holocaust, Jews were forced to wear yellow stars and homosexuals forced to wear pink triangles. Slaves in the United States wore tags. Indigenous people in colonial Guatemala wore intricate patterns that told Spaniards what village they came from (clothing used in the civil war of the 80s to identify "subversives"). In Iran today, women are forced to wear headscarves, but Laila Al-Marayati and Semeen Issa, of the Muslim Women's League, remind us that in 1979 veils were prohibited in Iran.

Whether the society is marking people for oppression or forcing them to conform, it all amounts to coercion. And coercion is wrong.

Dominant groups often make claims that their rules are for some higher purpose. French President Sarkozy says the burqa is a symbol of oppression and a barrier which makes women "prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity." He claims that his burqa ban is about the rights of women, despite the fact that many women who wear the burqa say that it is a personal choice.

But does Sarkozy's claim hold up to closer inspection?

Are not burqa wearing French women still French women with all the rights of French women. Isn't it the job of the French government to make sure their citizens know their rights and are able to exercise those rights?

Sarkozy would be more believable if he started a campaign to advise all French women of their rights. According to Amnesty International, France falls far short when it comes to protecting the rights of domestic violence victims. If Sarkozy is so interested in protecting women, wouldn't making sure French women know their rights (and fully funding programs for victims of domestic the violence) be a more appropriate priority?

The burqa ban is not about the rights of women, any more than forcing women to wear skirts at work is about the rights of women. It is about symbolism. The French government does not like the symbolism of a people setting themselves apart. Many feminists do not like the symbolism of the burqa. But if we are going to start banning symbolism, we can't stop just there. How about banning $60,000 French couture dresses - symbol of the criminal disparities in wealth in this world.

There may be some cases where requirements about what people put on their bodies are necessary. But life and death cases are few and far between. Anyone trying to impose their will on others better have much better reasons than the ones they've come up with so far.

Depraved or Deluded?

2009-07-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

What is the essential character of humanity?

I thought about that question as I followed an argument recently. The argument was about why the media covered celebrity deaths, but ignored the millions of children who die from hunger every year.

Does the media neglect reporting on hunger because people don't want to hear it? Or does the media not report on hunger because they avoid subjects that might make their sponsors look bad?

Are we good people being led astray by the powerful? Or are we selfish people just getting what we want?

Both.

And neither.

People are not heartless. More than a quarter of all Americans volunteer in any given year. Charitable giving in the U.S. exceeded $300 billion last year, even with the economic crisis. Millions of us work for nonprofits, prioritizing a meaningful career over one that brings in loads of cash. Everyday people do extraordinary things, like the guy who jumped onto subway tracks to rescue a complete stranger.

So despite the horrible things people do to each other, we can't claim that people are rotten.

But people are not idiots either. We can't blame our failings on programming by the more powerful. The idea that we have no agency is insulting. The inference, when someone says that, is that they are smart enough to find out the truth, but other people aren't. Just because people don't act the way you think they should does not mean that they are sheep.

So despite the pulpit that some powerful people have, we can't claim that people are blameless because they are deceived.

There is no essential character of humanity. We are all capable of all things. We can be as peace loving as Gandhi or as violent as Hitler.

Little Conversations

2009-07-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Little Conversations by Concrete Blonde was something of an anthem for me growing up.

The little conversations
On me are very rough
They leave me all in pieces
You know there's never time enough
Like a book with missing pages
Like a story incomplete
Like a painting left unfinished
It feels like not enough to eat.

I was never able to do small talk. Part of me envied the people who were. The other part of me dismissed it as shallow and pointless. How could people be talking about sitcoms and celebrities when there was tragedy all over the world?

As I've gotten older, having meaningful conversations has become both easier and more difficult. They are easier because I know more now and because I am more open to other points of view. They are harder because the farther I have gotten from home and childhood, the more other points of view I have encountered.

As an adult, serious conversations have a lot more minefields and potential for the kind of conflict that costs. If you offend someone you go to school with, you just stop talking to each other. If you offend someone you work with, you could have a very miserable working experience.

Some subjects, like racism, are particularly difficult to talk about. Attorney General Eric Holder was right, we are cowards when it comes to talking about race. But we have some reason to be wary. Mistrust is high. And if you look on the comments section of any website dealing with race, you will probably see why.

That's where the little conversations come in. Talking about sitcoms and celebrities gives you the chance to build a relationship. Next thing you know you're talking about your family or bitching about your boss. All these little conversations allow you to get to know a person and build some trust.

And any conversation that builds trust, builds bridges, and builds relationships is meaningful.

Obama, Friend or Foe?

2009-06-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

President Obama has been getting his share of criticism lately. And it isn't just coming from Fox News or the crazies who are still searching for his Kenyan birth certificate. Much of the criticism has been coming from his supporters.

The gay community and its allies are furious about the recent brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Particularly infuriating was the inference that gay marriage equates with incest.

Those of us who think that torture should be fully investigated are upset about Obama's unwillingness to pursue the matter. The u-turn he took regarding the release of torture photographs was frustrating to say the least.

Some of the reaction has been nasty. I've seen "f-you Obama" posts. I've read a litany of articles on how the gay community needs to dump Obama and the democrats. One writer even went so far as to wax nostalgic for the Bush administration - at least we knew they were going to screw us.

Then there are Obama's unwavering defenders. When Bill Maher criticized Obama for not pushing hard enough for health care and cutting carbon emissions, he received a barrage of calls from Obama supporters.

In response, Bill Maher said "He's your president, not your boyfriend."

Which reminded me of the part in Sexaholix, where John Leguizamo talks about falling in love with his girlfriend. He fell in love with her because she "calls me on my bullshit, but is sweet about it."

Real support means calling people on their bullshit, not blindly supporting every stupid thing they do.

More importantly, we don't need to chose friend or foe. It doesn't make you a foe if you criticize the president. It doesn't make you a friend if you don't. In fact, Obama needs us to be vocal and pushy. The people who don't want to see his promises fulfilled certainly will be.

We have a tendency to be unhappy with one action and extrapolate that to mean that the person is bad or failing or selling out. Life is not that simple. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out:

In general, how much one criticizes Obama is largely a function of the areas on which one tends to focus. If I had spent the week writing about Iran, I would be largely defending -- and praising -- Obama's very wise restraint, even in the face of bipartisan political pressure, when it comes to interfering in Iran's internal political disputes. His private and public refusal to cheer on all of Israel's policies is also commendable. Conversely, those who focus on gay issues have been understandably furious with the administration, and in the areas of civil liberties, secrecy, and his Justice Department generally, the administration has been nothing short of abysmal.

Finally, I'd like to respond to those people who are unhappy with some of Obama's actions, but feel we haven't given him a chance and so should keep quiet. Or maybe they think he needs to spend his political capital on health care and so can't waste it on prosecuting torturers or following through on promises to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. Or maybe they are just afraid he won't get reelected if he pisses off too many homophobes and torture supporters.

I might accept that criticism was coming too soon if it was simply a matter of not proactively following through on certain promises he made. But this is much more than that. He is actually defending the very policies he claims to be against, from the Defense of Marriage Act to indefinite detention of "suspected" terrorists.

It is not just our right, but our responsibility to point out the hypocrisy and failures of the Obama administration. That doesn't mean we are being too hard on him. It means we believe he can (and should) be who he said he was.

The Significance of 'Blood Relations'

2009-06-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a podcast a bit ago when one of the guests said something about her "blood," meaning her family. Every time I hear people talk about their family or ethnic group as their blood, it makes me cringe.

As someone who was adopted, I can tell you unequivocally that blood does not mean a thing. There are plenty of biological parents out there who have not done anything for their children. There are plenty of lovers out there whose bond is stronger than the bonds they have with their biological family, whether they had lifelong relationships with that family or not.

And truly, it's a bit insensitive to speak in terms that make the relationship between this country's 1.6 million adopted children and their parents seem less connected and less real.

Another thing I find truly offensive about talk of "blood" is where the talk stems from. Using the word blood to refer to relationships started in the middle ages. Talk of blood was talk of inheritance, aristocracy, and hereditary privilege.

As Benedict Anderson points out in Imagined Communities, Europeans believed that a persons stature in life was related to their blood. They brought these ideas of aristocracy and supremacy to all the lands they colonized.

European ideas about blood continue to saturate the minds of people in this country. Many people still believe in the one-drop rule, the blood of an African being so powerful that the tiniest amount makes them black (and inferior).

And talk of blood to denote family is a culturally centric notion of family. Many cultures have defined family as only those connected through the mother. Some trace lineage by the father. In some groups, children belong to everyone.

I know there are people whose only close relationships are biologically related to them. So I can understand how they might believe biology is the source of that bond. But it would be nice if people took a step back and thought about what they are really saying.

Submissive Education

2009-06-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

In one of Maggie Anderson's interviews about the Empowerment Experiment (her effort to buy from black owned businesses for a year), she talks about how hard it is to find black owned businesses. She felt that, black people having been in this country for so long, it shouldn't be so hard to find black entrepreneurs.

Which got me thinking. Maybe it is in part because of being from this country that African Americans entrepreneurs are harder to find. Is our education and socialization system creating workers that obey rather than entrepreneurs that innovate?

When I was a kid, my father had a little office supply business. He used to leave the house every morning to go out and "make" a living. Today, you only hear people talk in terms of "earning" a living.

Education, as William Astore wrote in his article Selling Education, Manufacturing Technocrats, Torturing Souls: The Tyranny of Being Practical, has become about "a better job, higher salary, more marketable skills, and more impressive credentials."

Note the focus on others opinions. Focusing on "marketable skills" means finding out what some employer wants and then learning it. (Convenient for them as they no longer have to provide training before they start making money off of you.) "Impressive credentials" means focusing on looking good to the powers that be, rather than contributing something useful to society.

Interestingly, immigrants are 30% more likely to start a business. Perhaps the type of people who immigrate are naturally more comfortable with risk. Maybe they can't find good work elsewhere. Or maybe, some of these immigrants have not been trained to be compliant workers by our educational system.

Just a thought.

Jewish Racism and the Perils of Assimilation

2009-06-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, a friend of mine told me about an interview she listened to where a Muslim American was talking about integrating into U.S. society. He said that Jews were a model of how a group can overcome the prejudices against them and integrate.

My friend thought it was interesting given the animosity between Jews and Muslims. I thought it was interesting because I don't believe Jews necessarily represent a model of integration that new immigrants should follow.

I thought about that interview after I watched Joseph Dana and Max Blumenthal's appalling video of white supremacist American Jews in Jerusalem. (Warning: This video is offensive in the extreme and not work safe.)

I was shocked when I watched the video, not because I deceived myself into thinking there were no racist Jews. I've certainly met some. I was shocked because the young adults in the video so willingly and brazenly adopted the stereotypes, language, and threats of white supremacists (with the ubiquitous appropriated blackness of American youth to boot).

Had I exhibited this KKK-like behavior, my father would have kicked my ass. It isn't so much because he thought racism was wrong (although he did). It would have been more because of his sense of self. I don't believe he thought of himself as white, at least not completely. Most Jews of his era didn't.

He was born in 1929. He was 29 when the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple was bombed by white separatists. He was 35 when Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were found dead. He may not have been marching with Martin Luther King or identifying with the people who did, but he certainly wasn't identifying with white supremacists either.

So what happened?

The people in that video clearly spent much of their lives in the United States, Somewhere along the way they became white. They embraced the worst aspects of the United States - the racism, the hatred, the violence.

The video was posted on many websites. Granted, many of the websites were focused on Israeli issues, but these kids clearly had many years in the states. People commented on what the video meant about Israel. Almost nobody commented on what the video meant about the United States.

One commenter on the Atlantic did get to the heart of the matter:

This is not really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is about American bigotry, for us Americans to think about and deal with. While these Jews too often move to Israel and contribute to the problems there, it's a fundamentally American problem that needs to be thought about and dealt with by Americans. What about America is making this happen? How is the rubric of classic American racism changing? How do we deal with it differently? What does it mean when a historically marginalized group produces bigots who migrate to the right wing?"

What it means is, they assimilated.

This week a violent anti-semitic and racist walked into the Washington DC holocaust museum and killed an African American security guard. Does anyone believe the shooter cared whether or not he was shooting a Jew or a black person?

So sadly ironic for that act of terrorism to happen the same week as this video of white supremacist Jews shows up on the internet. So sadly ironic for that act of terrorism to happen the same week as responses to that video like this one from 50 cent's website:

where were good all days when hitler ruled the world all theses pig jews should b dead now

That is assimilation we do not need.

Another thing we do not need is low expectations. So many of the comments to the video were along the lines of "that's how drunk kids act" or some such bullshit.

No.

That's how thoughtless, heartless, little monsters act. And if they are old enough to be out at a bar drinking, they are old enough for us to stop calling them kids and start expecting them to act right.

We don't need immigrants to assimilate. We don't need more Americans to identify with the worst aspects of the dominant culture. And we don't need such low expectations for ourselves that we blow these things off. We need immigrants (and native born) to challenge the dominant culture. We need people who challenge the hierarchy, racism, classism, and violence.

White People Lose it Over Buy Black Experiment

2009-06-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

One of the people I follow on twitter linked to this story with the comment that it was racist. The article is about an African American couple in Chicago (John and Maggie Anderson) who have decided to only buy from black owned businesses for one year. It's called the Empowerment Experiment and WOW do some white people have their panties in a bunch over it.

A typical comment goes something like this - If a white person said they were going to buy only from white owned businesses, then it would be racist. So the other way around is racist too.

Bullshit.

Newsflash. Most white people do only buy from white owned businesses. In fact, a whole lot of non-white people buy from only white owned businesses. In fact, even the woman who started the buy black experiment, who lives in a predominantly white suburb, said in her NPR interview "none of my money went to black businesses last year."

I lived in Santa Cruz, California for six years. Santa Cruz residents have a very strong preference for supporting locally owned businesses and keeping money in the Santa Cruz community. Santa Cruz is 90% white.

The number of black owned businesses is so small that the U.S. Census Bureau doesn't even put down a percentage. It just says "S: Suppressed; does not meet publication standards." Hispanic owned firms also get the big "Suppressed." In other words, those "Buy Local" bumper stickers around town may as well say "Buy White."

Does that mean I think people in Santa Cruz are wrong to support local businesses? No. Because, like the couple that decided to buy only from black owned businesses for a year, the intent is to spend money in a way that supports a more just world.

Does that mean there should be no discussion about those kinds of choices? No, because the local store may be owned by the grand puba of the KKK. And a black entrepreneur could be selling products made in a sweatshop.

But those are thoughtful discussions that reasonable people ought to be having. Instead, what we get are comments like this gem over on the Famuan:

Hey bmc if you told 10 white people about this stupid ebony experiment, 10 out of 10 would boycott anything black. weather be shoes of shaq, or golf clubs of tiger, stupid music of kanye. And obviously because of your childish fatherless culture way of thinking your missing the point, by the way because of this story I have boycotted anything black, Look the black community needs to stop acting like thoughtless neanderthals, stop acting childish and at least pretend you have a daddy, As someone has said made a very great valid point.. get off this Hip Hop prison jail metality culture, dont cry about what white people say, and change your so called black communitys flaws

I know I've been around too long to be surprised at this kind of shit, but I can't help it. You'd think people would at least have the sense to be ashamed of their ignorance.

The irony is that addressing what the Anderson's see as a flaw in the black community is exactly what they are trying to do with the Ebony Experiment. As well-off black people who "made it" and left their blighted inner-city neighborhoods behind, they felt they were part of the problem. Their experiment is about seeing if, by spending their money in the black community, they can help those struggling black communities.

They aren't advocating that every black person buy only from black people. In fact, they repeatedly call their commitment "extreme." Their extreme measure is meant, not only to start a conversation, but to collect real data that shows how individuals can make a difference by changing their spending habits

One commenter on the Wall Street Journal said

Right now I buy based on convienence and price. I know nothing of the owner and nor do I really want to concern myself with this issue of his color his politics or his lifestyle.

That's the real problem. If we all just buy based on convenience and price then we support some truly heinous things, all in the name of saving a few minutes or a few bucks. What if that cheap thing was made by children or slaves? What if the company who grew your bananas poisoned its workers? What if that Coca Cola you love so much is only cheap because goons beat labor organizers to death?

What if our not paying attention to who we buy from ensures a large portion of Americans remain in perpetual poverty?

Arrested for Posession....of Condoms

2009-05-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Think twice before you come home with that value pack of condoms. Police from San Francisco to Tel Aviv use condoms as evidence of prostitution.

San Francisco police continue to use condoms as evidence in prostitution cases.

In Tel Aviv, massage parlors are raided by police and, if there are condoms on the premises, they are assumed to be "brothels."

A prostitutes organization in the United Kingdom, where condoms have also been used as evidence, wrote an open letter to the home secretary decrying the practice.

According to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, arresting women for carrying condoms is prevalent in the Philappines as well.

In a moment of sanity, and in an effort to control the spread of HIV, the Chinese government recently decided to end the practice of using condoms as evidence of prostitution.

Presumably the anti-prostitution police are taking action based on their supposed concern for prostitutes, or at least for public health. So explain to me why they do something that makes prostitutes less likely to use condoms? Stupidity? Hypocrisy? Worse?

* Thanks to Audacia Ray and Stacy Swimme who brought this up at their session on Sex Work in the Time of Obama at Sex 2.0 this weekend.

Vibrators and Test Tube Babies Destroy the World

2009-04-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

This morning my fax machine spit out a flier from the Utah based group America Forever. The title was, ironically, Do Not Be Ignorant! The purpose of the flier is to stop the "homosexual movement" from enacting hate crime legislation, which they refer to as "a crime of the century against children."

Apparently, homosexuals (whose "Homosexual Declaration of War" was read to congress back in 1987) are trying to convert all children to "unnatural" homosexuality. Once we've all been converted, only test tube babies will be born. Those test tube children are going to take over the country and "stifle free speech and religious freedom."

I'm fairly certain this group is affiliated with the one the Dead Milkmen told us about, ya know those queers working with the aliens to poison the soil

The most interesting part of the whole fax is how upset these people are about "unnatural" stimulation of any kind. They claim that homosexuality should be in the "same class as hookers (and) pornography since this sexual conduct uses toys of stimulation to fulfil nature's sexual desires in an unnatural way."

I know people think vibrators and dildos are embarrassing. I had no idea people think they are a source of evil. Kind of makes you want to do a humanitarian vibrator drop over the state of Utah. Somebody needs to help those poor women.

Who is with me?

The Other Torture Memos: Secrets and Complicity in Guatemala

2009-04-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration's repugnant torture instructions were not the only declassified documents to come to light recently.

The National Security Archive has been posting formerly classified documents related to Guatemala's dirty war of the 1980s. The documents show that the United State's government was well aware of the kidnappings, murder, and torture of political dissidents in Guatemala.

The dirty war in Guatemala lasted 36 years. Two hundred thousand Guatemalans were killed or disappeared. More than one million Guatemalans were displaced. Hundreds of villages were wiped off the map.

Guatemalan officials denied that these atrocities occurred and many still deny them to this day. General Otto Pérez Molina, who has been linked to massacres and executions, continued his denials during his recent presidential campaign.

Pérez Molina isn't the only Guatemalan who remains unconfronted by the law. Most of those responsible for the human rights abuses and genocidal war have suffered no consequences for their actions.

Why did we keep them secret for so long?

If I knew about a crime and did not report what I knew to authorities, I would be an accessory. That same rule should apply to governments as well.

Heritage Indignant that Obama Enforces the Law

2009-04-23T06:30:00.001-07:00

I received an amusing email from the Heritage Foundation the other day. (Yes, I'm on their list. I'm keeping an eye on them.)

The email was about President Obama's recent call for $100 million in administrative cuts to federal programs. The Heritage Foundation pointed out that it is a bit disingenuous to call for massive stimulus spending to get the economy back on track and to simultaneously call for cuts somewhere else. The email says,

The Department of Veterans Affairs canceled or delayed 26 conferences (lost jobs for the airline, rental car, food service, and hotel industries). The Education Department is no longer allowing employees to have both laptop and desktop computers (lost jobs for retail and technology manufacturing companies. The Agriculture Department is terminating leases and doing more to verify the income of recipients of farm subsidies (lost jobs for agriculture). And the Department of Homeland Security is going to start buying its office supplies in bulk(lost jobs for Office Depot).

I must grudgingly admit they have a small point about the conferences and computers and office supplies. If the goal is to get that rampant consumerism going again, you'd think the cuts could wait a bit.

But that's not what I want to talk about here. What I want to bring your attention to is that blurb about the agriculture department "doing more to verify the income of recipients of farm subsidies." That isn't just a random cut to spending. It is asking the ag department to enforce the law.

A little background - We taxpayers spend tens of billions of dollars each year in farm subsidies. These subsidies aren't going to help small family farmers. The top ten percent of recipients receive the vast majority of that money. Aside from the general atrociousness of redistributing wealth from your average taxpayer to agribusiness, the subsidy programs are prone to all sorts of abuse.

According to a report by Cato, the GAO estimated that up to half a billion dollars of our money is received by people who shouldn't be getting it. So now Obama wants to enforce the law. You would think that enforcing the law would be something we could all agree on.

You would think.

Carnival of the Liberals Time

2009-04-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

Carnival of the Liberals just came out. This issue is hosted by Johnny Pez. I particularly enjoyed American Nihilist's...uh...encouragement of Joe Scarborough. And the Barefoot Badger's story got me wondering why the hell we are saving the car companies anyway.

American Violet Shows the Violence and Racism of the Drug War

2009-04-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Based on the true story of Regina Kelly, American Violet portrays the violence, racism, and institutionalized injustices perpetrated by drug warriors.

African American communities in a small Texas town were being terrorized by a drug task force led by the local district attorney. Texas law allowed for people to be indicted based on the word of one confidential informant. Those indicted were picked up in drug sweeps and were pressured to plead guilty.

Dee Roberts (the character based on Regina Kelly) was one of those picked up. Innocent, she refused to plead. She became the lead plaintiff in an ACLU racial bias case against the district attorney and others.

The film is compelling in its own right. More importantly, it conveys the violence, racism, injustice, and institutional bias of our justice system. It does it with accuracy and without getting preachy.

It shows how poor African Americans are easy targets for a monstrous bureaucracy with perverse incentives to keep arrests high. It shows the violence of the drug war, not the violence of cartels and gangs that we normally see in the media, but the everyday violence police perpetrate on communities.

The drug war doesn't just take the freedom of those convicted. Poor people who are forced to plead guilty become felons who cannot find jobs, cannot receive public assistance, cannot live in public housing, and cannot vote. Children lose their parents. Communities are torn apart.

American Violet is a film everyone needs to see.

Homeland Security's Power on US Mexico Border Challenged

2009-04-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

* Update Below

You have undoubtedly heard about the border fence being built on the U.S. Mexico border. You may not have heard what is being done in order to get it built.

When congress enacted the the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, they gave the head of Homeland Security absolute and unreviewable authority to violate any state or local laws in order to get the border fence up.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.

Just to be clear, the head of Homeland Security gets to define what the law means. She can do whatever she wants. Her decisions cannot be challenged by a court unless the challenge is directly related to a violation of the constitution.

In this case, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, decided that his mandate was to do whatever was necessary to build the fence and maintain the fence. Expanding his mandate from building to maintaining means this power goes on into perpetuity. He refused to state what laws he was violating (simply that he was violating a bunch) and never clarified how far this legal no mans land extended.

The federal government was sued by the County of El Paso, Frontera Audubon Society and others. Lower courts ordered that the government did have the authority to wave all local laws in carrying out the instructions of congress - problems with water services or endangered species be damned.

There are many who don't give a hoot whether or not U.S. citizens have their property taken away or get caught on the wrong side of the fence. And there are many who don't care whether those citizens can receive water and other basic services or whether or not endangered species die. But even those people should surely be concerned if congress can give one person or agency carte blanche to ignore whatever laws they see fit, at their discretion, with no check on their power.

This unprecedented infringement on private, local government, and state rights is coming before the Supreme Court for review tomorrow. The petitioners argue that judicial review should be a requirement. Let's hope they hear it.

For links to all the relevant documents in the case, check out Turtle Talk.

* The Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case. Looks like Homeland Security can do whatever it wants.

Should Drug Users Lose Their Right to Vote?

2009-04-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

More than five million Americans could not vote in the last election because they were convicted of a felony. Only two states allow felons to vote. In many states, former felons are barred permanently from voting. In others, felons can get their voting rights back, but the process is so arduous that few do.

I doubt many people are losing sleep over whether Charles Manson can vote. I'm guessing many people would approve of the idea that criminals lose their rights as citizens after acting against the citizenry. But we aren't talking about Charles Manson here. More than half of federal prisoners are in prison for drug crimes.

Let's take a state like California. California has the nations largest prison population and an overcrowding problem so bad that federal judges have ordered the prison population decreased. While Prop 36 has caused a decrease in the percentage of prisoners incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses, they still constitute more than 20% of the prison population in California.

Recent polling shows that more than 50% of California voters are in favor of marijuana legalization. A vote would be close. All those people barred from voting, the very people who lost their freedom and civil rights due to drug prohibition, could tip the scales.

Drug laws have been broken at least once by 40% of Americans. If that many people are breaking the law, there is something wrong with the law. Would we strip 40% of Americans of their voting rights? What kind of democracy is that?

Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced a House bill intended to restore voting rights to all ex felons within thirty days of being released from prison. The bill is languishing in committee right now. If your representative is on the House Committee on the Judiciary, call and tell them you want to see that bill move.

Individual Effort vs? Collective Action

2009-04-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan wrote in a recent blog post that conservativism needs to "recover its core sense of itself as the movement that values...individual effort over collective action." The Washington Post also snubbed the idea of collective action when it described how Obama "yields to 'collective action'" by the G20. So what is collective action? Is it really a bad thing? Why are conservatives so against it? Are individual effort and collective action mutually exclusive?

Collective action is people working together to do things they cannot do alone. It is organizing to build infrastructure. It's pooling resources to help farmers in a drought or hurricane victims after a storm. It is the march of the military and the march on Washington. It is the Chamber of Commerce and the slimiest group of lobbyists. It can be a lynching or a sit in. It isn't inherently good or bad. Collective action is neutral.

What Sullivan seems to be saying is that collective action protects the unworthy, the lazy, the moochers. That idea rests on an assumption that defies logic, that individual effort and collective action are mutually exclusive. Collective action requires individual effort. Anyone who has ever tried to do anything collectively can confirm that it's a lot more work than going it alone.

In fact, collective action often protects individual effort. A farmer can work all year tilling fields and that individual effort may be for nothing if a drought comes and there is no collective action to help. An employee may give 80 hours a week of amazingly productive work to an employer and have nothing to show for it because of their manager's personal prejudices. We are at the mercy of powerful forces throughout our lives - nature and human nature. Collective action can help to ensure that all our work is not wasted because of some whim beyond our control.

In the conservative worldview personal responsibility became code for black and brown people taking advantage of you. Selfishness is a given. The ideal is a cowboy (always a man) out on his own - no family, no community to restrict his selfish desires. Conservatives resent having to show consideration for other people. If anyone is in need, according to this worldview, it must be their own fault.

To be fair, Sullivan expressly says that he is not talking about "welfare queens," although he shouldn't be surprised that people assumed he was. And he is not attacking a basic social safety net. In fact he defends it. For him, "it's about those who contribute their labor to produce something of value, and those who primarily rely on government, directly and indirectly, to get them through their lives." The moochers he cites include corporate welfare recipients and teachers unions.

I'm all for getting rid of corporate welfare, but is the problem too much collective action or not enough? Where are the citizens collectively screaming from the rooftops when they hear about Archer Daniels Midland getting billions in tax dollars. Where are the citizens screaming from the rooftops when a bad teacher continues to teach. Better yet, where are they when good teachers are fired for political reasons or when horrible administration makes good teachers quit.

It is not collective action that is to blame for corporate welfare and lobbyists and obstructionist unions. It is abuse of power on the part of a few and a lack of collective action on the part of the many. What Sullivan should be asking himself is how the very conservative values that Sullivan is pining for are part of the problem.

Democracy is collective action.

Portugal Proves that Decriminalization Does Not Increase Drug Problems

2009-04-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

In 2001, Portugal decriminalized drug use. Much like in the U.S., the naysayers claimed that decriminalization would lead to increased drug use and drug tourism. Glenn Greenwald went to Portugal to find out if the dire predictions were true. They weren't.

Portugal in the 1990s was experiencing an increase in drug abuse and related problems. A commission was convened to decide what to do about it. Drug legalization was taken off the table because international treaties force countries to keep drugs illegal. Barring legalization, the commission was tasked with looking at the evidence and making a rational decision. The commission decided that the best way to get the drug problem under control was decriminalization.

They had identified two obstacles that decriminalization would help them to overcome. The first was that criminalization made people hesitant to go to the state for help with their drug problem. Fear of jail, a criminal record, or simple stigma kept people away. By removing those obstacles, they reasoned, people would be more willing to get help.

Additionally, they were pouring money into the criminal justice system to prosecute drug users. Portugal, as one of the poorest European countries, didn't have money to waste. Decriminalization freed up resources to be used for treatment and education instead of for the criminal justice system.

As Greenwald pointed out in his conference at the Cato Institute on Friday, supporters of prohibition use scare tactics to justify their position. They will grudgingly acknowledge that our efforts have not resulted in less drug abuse or related problems, but they always claim that legalization or decriminalization would make matters worse. For Greenwald, the central question is "is this assumption accurate."

All the evidence from Portugal shows that it is not. According to his report Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies, drug use in the 13 - 15 year old and 16 - 18 year old groups has decreased for most drugs. Newly reported HIV and AIDS cases related to drug use have declined. Drug related deaths have declined. In fact, "in virtually every category of any significance, Portugal, since decriminalization, has outperformed the vast majority of other states that continue to adhere to a criminalization regime."

Greenwald sent a draft of his report to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy asking why, given higher drug use here than in Portugal, we continue to pursue criminalization. They didn't respond.

How Do We Get Good Governance?

2009-04-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

Suddenly I'm being bombarded with talk of good and bad governance.

The Stiglitz Commission blames, among other things, bad corporate governance for the economic disaster we are in. Madeleine Bunting credits good governance with Singapore's economic turnaround since the 1950s. My weekend movie, Life After the Fall, showed how a total lack of governance turned Iraqis from hopeful to dejected in just four years.

All of which got me thinking about what good governance is.

Systems for

making decisions about issues that effect the group
resolving disputes
coordinating projects that no person can do on their own (highways, bridges...)
preventing one person's greed and selfishness from sabotaging the lives of everyone else
enforcing consequences for actions that adversely effect others
responding to emergencies
keeping people safe

I think few people would disagree that we need those things, although many would disagree about what each of those things involves. Keeping people safe could be anything from an army to helmet laws - and you'll find people in favor and against both of those things.

But I don't want to argue about those definitions right now. That's the purpose of having a system that allows for group decision-making. What I want to ask is how do we get good governance?

Elections certainly don't lead to good governance. Elections in Iraq didn't do anything to stop the violence or get the electricity working. The election of Dubya certainly didn't lead to good governance. Any post Katrina New Orleans resident will attest to that. In fact, if having elections leads people to believe that voting once every few years is all that is required of them, elections may leave us worse off. Everyone just pushes the button on their local Diebold machine and then goes home to bitch about what the politicians they voted for are doing.

The corporations that led us into this financial disaster also have a farcical version of democracy. They talk about responding to shareholders the same way politicians talk about responding to constituents. And shareholders have abdicated their responsibilities even more than citizens have. How many of us own mutual funds and don't know what they are invested in, much less how our fund manager is voting at shareholder meetings.

This lack of participation by most of us suits the politicians and CEOs just fine. Quarterly reports, legislation, contracts, and financials are purposely confusing, unclear, complicated, and absurdly long. Combine that with working too many hours and the sad state of our media and most of us just give up trying to figure things out.

So what would I like to see? We could start with

A compensation system that enables people to work less so they have more time to participate in governance
A universal unwillingness to give money or votes to anything not understood
Accepting representative governance as a fallback position, a necessary evil sometimes, but not the be all and end all

Anyone else?

The Bailout: Sacrificing Justice for Temporary Stability

2009-03-26T08:09:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about justice lately. Specifically, I've been thinking about how often people try to convince those seeking justice to set aside that desire. I've been thinking about how often we are told that holding people responsible for their actions would cause more suffering.

The economic disaster is a perfect example. Billions of dollars are being lost into the ether as we bail out the scoundrels who got us into this mess. We are told the vacuuming up of our present and future resources is necessary in order to mitigate short-term suffering and instability.

People are less and less inclined to believe bailout justifications, in large part because we see that those responsible are not suffering any consequences for their actions. After reading Matt Taibbi's recent article, it's hard not to believe that the bailout is just a scam to transfer our resources into the grubby hands of Goldman Sachs and friends. So long as our government shows no signs of bringing the people who caused this mess to justice, our distrust will grow.

Let's take this out of a financial context for a minute. This past weekend I watched The Reckoning. The film is about efforts to get the International Criminal Court (ICC) up and running. The film highlighted the situations in Uganda and Sudan, but it could easily apply to hundreds of other situations in the world. Whenever the leaders responsible for genocide, rape, and crimes against humanity faced prosecution; they used the threat of more suffering to defend themselves.

In Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) went on a campaign to convince Ugandans that the ICC warrants for LRA leaders' arrests were an obstacle to the peace process. (Never mind that there was no peace process before the warrants.) The LRA presented the people a choice between peace and justice. When a warrant was issued for the president of Sudan for human rights violations, he retaliated by kicking out humanitarian organizations and putting millions of Sudanese without the assistance they desperately need.

The case of Sudan is clear. There are people who will suffer in the short term because of the warrant issued. It's possible that the other cases, including our financial disaster, also present a choice between mitigating short term suffering and pursuing justice. But if we keep sacrificing justice for short term needs, won't we just ensure that we will keep dealing with the same problems over and over? If people without morals see that they can get away with abusing their power, why would they ever stop?

One final observation. When I was in Guatemala I was struck by how defeated the people seemed. Nobody believed in the system. Time and again powerful people got away with outrageous crimes. Military leaders responsible for mass atrocities don't just walk free, but run for president. Former presidents who absconded with the people's money live like royalty in other countries. The more people see impunity, the more hopeless the situation seems. The more hopeless the situation seems, the less agency they feel. The less they participate in political life, the more power the abusers have. It is a downward spiral and we can't afford to allow that to happen to us.

Justice is not an obstacle to stability and peace, it is a prerequisite. People who don't want to face justice are using our fear - fear of violence, fear of starvation, fear of financial collapse - but it is by caving in that we assure all of those things will go on forever.

How Are We A Christian Nation?

2009-03-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

People may dispute that the United States is a "Christian nation," but nobody disputes that the majority of the people living here identify as Christian. When Columbus stumbled upon the Americas, there weren't any Christians here. So how did it happen that the most common religion in the country became Christianity?

On the west coast of what is now the United States, Spanish priests set up a string of missions. Natives were forcefully converted and used as slave labor. On the east coast, the Puritans had far less luck converting natives. Devastating European diseases, a constant influx of new Christians from Europe, and violent competition for land soon made the non-Christian, native populations tiny and powerless.

It wasn't just Europeans that wanted to come here. Asian immigrants also came in huge numbers to work on railroads, mining, and lumber. In 1852, about 10% of the population of California was of Chinese descent. The Chinese population decreased exponentially after California residents pushed for our first anti-immigrant law, The Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese were barred from coming here and ineligible to become citizens until the 1940s. Had it not been for that, we would have many more Taoists, Buddhists, and Confucians in our midst.

Jews were also a target of immigration laws. The Immigration Act of 1891 aimed to stem the tide of Russian and Eastern European Jews that had been coming to the U.S. in large numbers. The House of Representatives also tried to require literacy tests for any immigrants, mostly to restrict access to undereducated, Yiddish speaking Jews from Europe. Even when Jews were dying by the millions during World War II, the U.S. continued to block Jewish immigrants.

Until 1965, when President Johnson signed into law sweeping immigration reform, our immigration laws were intended to keep the United States as white and Christian as possible. If we are a nation of mostly Christians, it is because of systematic discrimination supported by the very un-Christian, Christians who designed U.S. laws.

U.S. Government Kidnapped Japanese Latin Americans

2009-03-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

During World War II, the United States government rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and put them in camps. Hopefully, this is not news to you. What you may not know is that some of the people imprisoned were actually residents of Latin American countries.

Apparently, someone in our government had the idea of trading these Latin Americans of Japanese descent in prisoner exchanges. According to the Campaign for Justice, 2,264 people were kidnapped from various countries in Latin America, forcibly taken to the United States, stripped of their passports, and imprisoned (with no legal recourse).

Some of these kidnapped Latin Americans were traded. Others were deported after the war. Since many of the Latin American countries refused to take them back, many were deported to Japan - a country devastated by war.

Despite the fact that they were brought to the U.S. against their will, these prisoners were treated as illegal entrants. So when Japanese Americans received compensation for what they went through, Latin Americans of Japanese descent were ineligible.

There are currently two bills making their way through congress (H.R. 42 and S. 69) which call for an investigation into this truly repugnant time in U.S. history. I'll be following this one.

Time for a Maximum Wage

2009-03-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

We've been having the wrong argument.

Liberals have been arguing that we should tax the rich more (as we used to). Conservatives say that taxes (any taxes) retard growth and remove incentives.

I say they are both wrong.

The conservative argument is based on the idea that only the possibility of obscene amounts of money is an incentive for work and creativity. Bull. Ask most nonprofit employees, nuns, or fire fighters if their primary incentive is cash.

What if the entire world worked on the principle of politicians, Wall Street brokers, and CEOs? We would be screwed. As far as I'm concerned, if owning a gold plated yacht is the only thing that motivates you, you need to do some serious soul searching.

Meanwhile the liberals operate from an equally objectionable principle. Suggesting that we just increase taxes on the rich requires an acceptance of the glaring income inequality behind all this mess.

The Tax Justice Network has a fascinating and disturbing quote from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers:

If the income distribution in the United States were the same today as it was in 1979, the bottom 80 percent of the population would have about $670 billion more, or about $8,000 per family. And the top one percent would have about $670 billion less, or about $500,000 per family.

$8,000 per family! How much more comfortable would your life be with an extra $8,000 a year?

Does anyone really need to make $54 million a year? How can we accept a society where some Wall Street schmuck makes $54 million while your average teaching assistant makes $22,820? The person who grows your food is lucky to bring in $22,640. The person who serves your food makes $16,700. The person who takes care of your child brings in $19,670.

We need to close that gap.

I'm not suggesting that we give everyone the same amount of income. People should receive extra compensation for long years of education, for extra responsibility, for doing the kinds of jobs that other people don't want to do, and for doing the kinds of jobs most essential to our survival. And people should receive compensation for outstanding efforts. But that doesn't mean that the difference has to be as vast as it is.

Greedy Whiners and Misleading Statistics

2009-03-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

The March 7th issue of the National Journal asks the question:

President Obama has announced plans to raise income taxes on the wealthy and curb various tax breaks for upper-income Americans. What percentage of income taxes is now being paid by this group, compared with 1986?

According to them, the percentage of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent of earners jumped from 25.75% to 39.4%. The percentage of income taxes paid by the top 25 percent jumped from 76% to 86%. When you put it like that, it sounds like the rich have had some serious tax hikes in the last couple decades.

Before you start sending sympathy cards to Donald Trump, let's take a look at those figures a little more closely.

Tax is a percentage of your income. More income means more tax. And the richest Americans have been taking a larger slice of the income pie. In 1986, the richest one percent earned only 11% of all income. By 2005 they were earning 21% of all income. The top 25% went from collecting 59% of all income to collecting 67.5% of all income.

Let's break that down into numbers that a person like me can wrap their heads around. Let's say that America consisted of 100 people and the gross income pie was 1 million dollars for both years. What would that have looked like in 1986 and 2005?

In 1986

1 person would have earned $110,000 for the year
24 people would have received about $20,000 each
75 people would have received about $5,466.67 each

In 2005

1 person would have earned $210,000 for the year
24 people would have received about $19,375 each
75 people would have received about $4,333.33 each

In this (admittedly over-simplified) example, in 1986 one person lived well on $110,000 a year while 75 people scraped by on $5,466.67. By 2005, that one wealthy person nearly doubled their income by skimming a little off the top of those who could least afford it.

Why Are We Afraid of Mobs?

2009-03-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

There is a fascinating article in the February 28th issue of The Economist. The article describes a research project by Lancaster university social psychologist Mark Levine.

Levine is trying to understand how a crowd may effect whether or not situations become violent. His research has shown that larger crowds actually may decrease the chance of violence. Apparently, the larger the crowd, the more people may intervene to keep the peace.

The article goes on to say

His work could have practical consequences, since police generally aim to break crowds up. If he is right, that approach may unintentionally lead to more fights. It sounds counter-intuitive, but many of the best ideas are.

But is it "counter-intuitive"? Why do we assume that more people means more danger? And why do we assume that the police tactics are meant to decrease violence?

The real issue here is control. When police break up a large group of people it is not about preventing violence, it is about crowd control. Police methods for crowd control are often incredibly violent.

The worst atrocities are not those committed by unruly crowds, but those committed by organized, authoritarian structures. Nazis did what they did under the full force and protection of the law and of German authority, not in a disorganized frenzy.

According to the etymology dictionary, the word mob is "slang shortening of mobile, mobility 'common people, populace, rabble.'" One of the meanings for mob is still just a group of people, but we most often use it to mean a group that is out of control or violent - a product of certain people associating all of us "common people" with scary chaos.

So who do you trust, your fellow rabble or the people who want to control you?

Would Legalizing Drugs Increase Drug Use?

2009-02-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

One of the main arguments used by supporters of drug prohibition is that legalizing drugs would increase drug use. Is that really a logical conclusion? Is there any evidence to support it?

To those who make that argument I ask - if drug use were legal, would you start doing drugs? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the answer is no. In which case, these people believe that, while they have the mental faculties to see that drug use has other negative consequences besides the threat of prison, a large portion of the rest of us do not. It's a little insulting. Do we really think that someone who hits the gym every morning and drinks wheat grass is going to turn around and start shooting up heroin because it is legal?

Of course the flip side of that argument is that the illegality of drugs prevents people from using them. Let's take marijuana. About 40% of all adults have smoked marijuana at least once in their lives. If marijuana's illegality is keeping people from smoking it, how many people are we talking about? Do prohibition supporters think another 30% of the population would smoke pot if it were legal? If 70% of the population wants to do something, something that causes no direct physical harm to others, why is a minority being allowed to dictate what we put in our bodies?

Occasionally, supporters of drug prohibition will provide examples that they say prove that legality would increase drug use. According to the Department of Justice, "Legalization has been tried before—and failed miserably. Alaska’s experiment with Legalization in the 1970s led to the state’s teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other youths nationally. This led Alaska’s residents to vote to re-criminalize marijuana in 1990."

The DOJ, however, does not back up the assertion on their website with evidence. On the other hand, in a report by the Cato Institute titled Thinking About Drug Legalization, James Ostrowski sites statistics for Alaska that show just the opposite. In fact, Alaska may have had less teen drug use that other states. And while the DOJ asserts that The Netherlands drug policy has tripled heroin addiction levels, studies show that The Netherlands has a lower rate of drug use than the United States.

I recently attended a drug policy conference. One of the speakers, Vanda Felbab-Brown, asserted that legalization would increase drug use. The example she presented was the high rates of addiction in China when opiates were legal there.

One estimate of Chinese opium smoking in 1890 (in Jonathan D. Spence's book Chinese Roundabout) puts the rate of use at about 10% of the population, with 3 to 5% excessively smoking. According to the National Institute on Drug Policy, heroin use in the United States is only about 1.5%. But are we really comparing like things here?

In China, opium use was not just culturally acceptable, but in some cases promoted by local and colonial governments. In contrast, heroin may be one of the least socially acceptable drugs in the United States today. Growing up I knew many people who would happily snort cocaine, but would not do heroin as that was reserved for "junkies." If we compare opium use in China to a more socially acceptable drug like marijuana, then 10% is exactly the same figure for adults who have used marijuana in the last month.

Drug prohibition in the United States is nearly 100 years old. The drug war has been actively fought since the Nixon presidency. It isn't working. The main argument for continuing drug prohibition just doesn't hold water.

What's Curious About Benjamin Button is Who Takes Care of Him

2009-02-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Button lived free and died young, very young. Here I am less interested in the young than in the free. He worked out on the ocean, traveling from port to port. Later, he hopped on a motorcycle and traveled the world.

The movie makes a point of showing that it is not money that prevents people from being able to do that. Button leaves Daisy all of his money before he takes off on his bike. What the movie does not look at is how an individual is able to pursue their interests so freely when the world is full of people (young and old) requiring care.

As a child, Benjamin's father walked away from his responsibility to his son. It was a woman who took him in and brought him up. When Benjamin had his own child, he left that child to another woman (the child's mother) to be cared for. When Benjamin ages, it is Daisy who takes care of him until his death. When Daisy dies in the hospital, it is her daughter and a female nurse that take care of her until her death.

Art imitates life.

Somewhere between 59% and 75% of all family caregivers are women. Even where men are providing family care, it is generally for less time than women. And the women who provide this care often have to juggle work with caring for children and aging parents.

Rich women have the option of pawning off this responsibility to poorer women, women like Queenie. Not only did Queenie take care of Benjamin, she took care of a house full of elderly people. Many of those people never had so much as a visit from their families. Rich women have options for taking care of their children as well. They can hire a nanny or fly in an Au Pair. They can afford expensive daycare.

And while the cost of daycare for a child or the cost of a home health care worker for an aging parent is astronomical, the workers themselves don't make a living wage. The average nanny or daycare worker makes about $24,000 a year. The median wage of a home health care worker is $9.62 an hour and nearly half are far enough below the poverty line to be eligible for medicaid. Even worse, home health care workers are exempt from basic wage and overtime laws.

I wonder who is taking care of poor people's children and elderly while they take care of everyone else?

The Immorality of Having Children

2009-02-14T05:23:00.000-08:00

I received two emails this morning that really got me going. The first was from Planned Parenthood letting me know that it is National Condom Week. The second was from Alternet and contained a posting by Vanessa Richmond called Is Breeding a Sin?.

Nadya Suleman has received a shitstorm of criticism for using fertility treatments to have 14 children with no visible means of financial support. Richmond's article infers that it is wrong to criticize Nadya and applaud Brangelina for having a similar-sized litter. For Richmond, the only difference between the two cases is the amount of money they have.

While I see her point, nobody can possibly believe that the ability to support your children shouldn't be a factor in whether or not you have them. More importantly, not only is there a very big difference between 14 children and 6, much of the Brangelina crew is adopted. And that makes a huge difference.

Any public discussions about breeding in our country always revolve around the abortion controversy. The discussions never focus on the amount of children who are neglected, abused, and lost in the system. In fact, a common argument from anti-choice people is that all these unwanted children will be adopted into loving homes. Even John McCain said it in one of the presidential debates.

At least McCain had an adopted child when he said it, which is more than I can say for most anti-choice people I've encountered. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were nearly half a million kids in foster care as of September 30, 2007. And, according to a study by Mary I. Benedict and Susan Zuravin, kids who live in group homes are 10 times more likely to be physically abused and 28 times more likely to be sexually abused than kids in the general population.

But at least those kids have a roof over their heads and food on the table. According to World Vision, every day "nearly 25,000 children under age 5 will die from preventable or treatable causes". Basic nutrition, re-hydration therapy, immunizations, and antibiotics could save most of them.

If there was a starving baby on the threshold of your house, would you step over it on your way inside to go get knocked up? If you had been thinking about having a baby and that starving child showed up on your doorstep, would you take that baby in? If you could only afford one child, would you forgo having "your own" in order to take care of that baby?

I think a decent person would take that child in, even if it meant not having a biological child. And I think people who have children make that choice every time they bring a child into the world. They are choosing to give their love, and their resources, to a new creation rather than giving them to people already on this earth who desperately need it.

What is the only reason people can possibly offer as to why they insist on bringing more people into the world, a world where so many here are not being taken care of? Biology. As someone who was adopted, I find that repugnant. Implied is that my parents (and the parents of millions of adopted children) loved their children less. It's insulting.

Given the amount of children suffering and dying in the world, having children should be controversial. People who selfishly bring children into the world without thought to whether or not they can provide for them, nurture them, and raise them to be productive members of society are immoral. People who encourage people to have children they are not prepared to take care of (anti-choice activists and the pope included) are immoral. People who want only "their own" child and close their eyes to the suffering of other children are immoral.

It's time we started acknowledging that we all have a stake in the health and well-being of others. A child neglected or abused today becomes the mess that society has to deal with tomorrow. This is not a personal issue only. It is a social issue.

So the next time someone you know gets pregnant, don't just provide a knee-jerk congratulations. The next time some anti-choice person goes marching around with pictures of a fetus, make them stare at a photo of a starving child for a while. The next time some religious zealot says birth control is evil, read this story about a man who beat his toddler to death on the side of a road and tell me that man shouldn't have used birth control.

So yes. Sometimes breeding is a sin.

Freedom to Marry Week: Whose Marriage does the Church Approve?

2009-02-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

Most of the objection to gay marriage comes from religious people. As I've mentioned before, regular church attendance is the most telling factor when looking at who will be for or against gay marriage.

These people believe that marriage is a union before god. So if marriage is a joining of two people before god, do all gods count? If you are a christian, do you accept a marriage before Allah? Do you accept a marriage before the Buddha? Do you accept a pagan marriage? Do you accept a marriage between two people who don't believe in god at all?

If I were to start a religion (let's call it snarkism) whose main tenet was that only people of the same sex should get married, would that be an acceptable marriage before god? Even if it was christian in every other sense of the word?

Let's get real here. The objections to gay marriage come largely from people who think they can impose their particular idea of morality on the rest of us. And it doesn't matter if they get that morality from their religion or they use their religion as a shield for their prejudices. Enough already.

The Wrestler: Selling Sex and Violence

2009-02-09T16:36:00.000-08:00

Randy "the Ram" Robinson sells his body for a living. He is a wrestler. For decades he has been going out into a ring and punishing himself and others for public entertainment.

He is old and broken. He's living on pain medication and steroids. He's been punched, kicked, and (in a more gruesome scene) stapled. But even though he has no money, lives in a trailer, and is long past his prime, within his world he receives respect from his fellow wrestlers and admiration from his fans. He's a legend.

Cassidy also sells her body for a living. She is a stripper. She has also, presumably, been earning money that way for a long time. She is older than your average stripper, but not broken. Yet Cassidy does not get respect or admiration. She is looked down upon. She is dismissed by many of the patrons in her strip club. Even Randy, who treats her decently, seems surprised that she looks "clean" in her street clothes.

It isn't as though Randy wasn't also selling sex. He has coked up sex in a public bathroom with some girl who remembered his hot poster on her brother's wall. He does all the things a stripper would do to keep up appearances. He works out. He bleaches his hair. He hits the tanning bed and shaves all his body hair off.

Strippers and other sex workers are seen as beneath other people, even by (perhaps especially by) supposedly feminist women. I went out with some women from my work the other day. They were relating a story about how they had some drinks with a couple the night before. The husband was an attorney for the Department of Justice. The wife was a stripper.

One of my coworkers seemed quite proud of herself for treating stripping as though it was just another occupation - at least to the stripper's face. She didn't believe that the couple was really husband and wife, because she didn't believe an attorney with the DOJ would be married to a stripper.

The implication is that a stripper is "below" a DOJ attorney in our societal hierarchy. It's a pretty outrageous statement when you think about it. We recently learned that members of the justice department wrote memos justifying torture.

And we know that the justice department illegally fired attorneys for their political affiliation. Yet I am supposed to believe that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a man who had to resign due to criminal allegations, is somehow "above" a stripper?

There is a hilarious line in one of Chris Rock's stand-ups about a father's job being to keep his daughter off the pole. Is stripping really the worst thing that could happen to someone? Would you rather have your daughter writing memos condoning torture? Would you rather have your daughter beaten up every night in a ring?

Why is the way Randy "the Ram" sold himself more acceptable? Why is selling violence (with a little sex on the side) more respectable than selling sex? Why is sex dirtier than violence?

Remembering vs. Forgetting

2009-02-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

What’s more important, revenge for your ancestors or peace for your children?

When there is tragedy, be it personal or social, there is a tension between the need to remember and the need to let go. At best, we want to remember so that we can avoid future tragedies, so that we do not make the same mistakes over and over.

But remembering does not guarantee that the same mistakes are not made. I've heard "never again" used to justify the Israeli government's "self defense" and as a rallying cry for human rights activists fighting against those same actions.

At worst, people remember out of anger. They remember because they want revenge, although they would almost certainly couch that revenge in terms of wanting justice. Revenge is an understandable emotion, especially if you have suffered greatly at the hands of another.

Forgetting doesn't work out so great either, especially if not everyone forgets. When we invaded Iraq, the Muslim world had visions of crusades and colonialism. They have been invaded by western christians many times. The western christians seem to have forgotten.

But the remembering that comes with violence and anger condemns future generations to the same fate. Retribution will never bring peace. What if letting go would ensure that future generations would not have to suffer the same fate? Isn't that worth the price?

Feminism and Work: Where Things Went Wrong

2009-02-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

The 1950s ideal was a nuclear family where the father worked, the mother stayed home to take care of the kids, and everything looked like Leave it to Beaver. Many people still hold onto that ideal and there may even be people who live it and love it.

For others that ideal was anything but idyllic. Women who craved intellectual pursuits felt stunted. Those who worked, out of desire or necessity, were relegated to the least interesting jobs at half the pay. Women were dependent on men and sometimes financially trapped in abusive situations.

But women's lack of opportunities for employment, financial freedom, intellectual stimulation, and positions of prestige were not the only problem with that system. And in their zeal to correct the injustices that women were experiencing, many feminists do not appear to have taken the time to examine the bigger picture.

The system was flawed in fundamental ways for men as well. Men were expected to be providers. They were valued for their purchasing power alone. They were, and often still are, treated like automatons with no ability to fulfill emotional needs.

Having worked for many years for divorce attorneys, I saw first hand how these societal roles played out in the worst situations. Yes, I saw women who gave twenty years of their lives to husband and family and then got dumped for a younger woman. And I saw deadbeat dads who refused to pay child support and flitted around the world living like kings while their ex wives waited tables to pay the rent.

I also saw cases where men were assumed to be of little value in child rearing and where the wife received preferential treatment in deciding where the kids would live. And I saw many wives keep children away from their fathers out of spite.

But the problem was more fundamental than how people were stunted by the gender rolls they were playing. What women should have been doing is questioning the hierarchy that we are all serving. They should have been questioning the assumption that only paid work is deserving of admiration. They should have been questioning how much of ourselves we are giving to our employers and how much is left over for ourselves.

A middle class family could once support itself on the wages of one decently paid man. Now most families have two wage earners and struggle. That isn't news to anyone. Rarely, however, do I hear that issue couched in terms of how many family hours we are giving to someone else. If a family used to give 40 hours a week to the company and is now giving 80, 100, or more, we went terribly wrong somewhere.

In fairness, we should have split that working week with men. We could have had some of that intellectual stimulation and income, and they could have become more a part of the emotional lives of their children and the civic lives of their communities. Even more importantly, we would not be relying on poor women to clean the homes and take care of the children of the more privileged.

The people who have benefited the most from the gender wars are our employers. They have been able to get more and more out of us and we have received less and less in return. It's time we stopped battling each other and started working together to bring that family work contribution back down to forty hours.

Then men and women can go back to fighting over who is going to do the dishes.

Religion, Education, and the Desire for Superiority

2009-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about superiority and how many of our social problems and political paralysis stem from a seemingly universal need to feel superior.

James Baldwin* wrote that when he heard people talk about equality he always wondered, equal to what. People don't want to be equal. They want to be superior. And we humans have invented all sorts of way to feel superior.

Throughout the colonized world, we inherited European ideas of the superiority of one race over another. In the Republic of Congo, it is height that makes Bantu feel superior. Superiority of gender is ubiquitous. And lets not forget classism. The U.S. may like to pretend that we are a classless society, but in a classless society one would not be judged on the car they drive, how big their McMansion is, or which designer's name is written on their ass

The current financial crisis may cure us of some of our obsession with labels, bling, and the "real housewives" of the obnoxiously rich. And discrimination based on some accidents of birth is slowly becoming less socially acceptable, but other illusions of superiority stubbornly persist.

The antagonism between the "liberal elite" and the religious right is all about feelings of superiority on both sides. And the defensiveness of our discourse has everything to do with the implicit claims that, whichever side you are on, the other side considers you inferior in fundamental ways.

"Liberal elites" think they are better educated, more worldly, less racist, and more humane. After all, we have diversity. We have degrees. We speak other languages. Some don't even eat meat. We are tolerant (of homosexuals, freaks, and premarital sex...evangelicals and conservatives, not so much).

"Heartland" people believe they are more hardworking, down to earth, family-oriented, self-sacrificing, god-fearing, and humane. After all, they join the military and lay their lives on the line for their country. They give their time and money to their church. They don't go to the government for handouts. They take care of themselves, their families, and each other.

Our views of each other are the exact converse of all the things we think make us special. If we "elitists" think we are superior for our degrees and our diversity and our worldliness, we look down on those people in the "fly over states" as being backwards, uneducated, and ignorant.

Case in point, while I was at the University of California Santa Cruz, one of my teachers referred to conservatives in the middle of the country as people with the "bubba syndrome." Mind you, this was a Latin American Latino Studies program. If anyone had suggested that any homophobic, anti-abortion, Latin Americans were "bubbas" (or the Spanish equivalent) a shitstorm would surely have ensued.

Meanwhile, what Sarah Palin refers to as the "real America" looks down on us coastal people as being pretentious, lazy, criminal, immoral, and selfish. Most of all, they point out, we look down on them. In fact, Republican House candidate Robin Hayes said that "liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God."

Steve J. Sterns wrote a book called Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru. The book is about Sendero Luminoso (the Maoist guerrilla group that terrorized Peru for years and is now, reportedly, in the midst of a resurgence). In the book, he describes the rift in Peruvian society, saying:

They also believed that ‘superior’ persons were marked by their benevolence toward inferior classes (a benevolence that liberals attributed to education and conservatives to religion).

Isn't that a perfect description of the rift in our society as well? Conservatives believe that their religion makes them morally superior, while liberals believe it is their education that makes them morally superior. Conservatives give money to their church. Liberals give money to Amnesty International. Each thinks their choices are superior.

I'm not naive enough to believe that people will ever be rid of their desire to feel superior, but it would be nice if we challenged people more. The next time that some twenty-five year old snot implies that their degree confers wisdom, remind them that George Bush has an ivy league degree and it didn't do him much good. And the next time someone implies that religion is the only source of morality, remind them that some of our greatest moral philosophers - from John Stuart Mill to Albert Camus - were atheists.

And lets not forget that the more strongly we feel superior to another group of people, the more we need them in order to define who we are. An educated person can only feel superior when there are other, less educated, people. A churchgoer can only feel superior when there are non-churchgoers to compare themselves to.

And now, for your amusement, is a concise description of our differences from Dave Barry.

____________

* I can't for the life of me remember which essay this was in, so if anyone could help me out with that I would be eternally grateful.

Religion and Politics: Making Peace with Obama's Peacemaking

2009-01-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

I knew I was going to vote for Barack Obama as soon as I saw his 2006 Call to Renewal speech (video below).

I am one of those secularists he spoke of who "dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant." I cringe at the mention of god in speeches and roll my eyes when athletes thank god for a touchdown. So for a politician to speak positively about religion and make me want to vote for him is astounding.

It was the reasonableness of his speech that impressed me.

The majority of Americans, Obama pointed out, are religious. Ninety percent of Americans believe in god. Morality, for many Americans, has a religious basis. And as "law is by definition a codification of our morality," he argues that it would be impossible for a religious person to completely leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.

And while I am wary about anyone who suggests even the slightest opening for religious morality in the public square, I was comforted by Obama's statement that he does "not believe religious people have a monopoly on morality." That may seem like an obvious thing, but it is a hard fought point with many religious people.

I believe strongly in democracy, as frustrating as it can be when you are in the minority. I agree with Obama that democracy requires dialogue. Democracy requires that people with wildly divergent views find common ground and Obama outlines a blueprint for finding that ground. Confront the differences head on. "Speak to people where they are at." Do not concede difficult territory to "those with the most insular views."

He tells secularists to stop avoiding religion and to respect that many people's morality has a basis in their religious beliefs. To the other side he says that “democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion specific values…it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason," that they "can’t simply evoke god's will.”

I was convinced. Here was a man who might actually believe in real democracy and who might have the ability to bridge some of those divides that paralyze our politics. He even made a rational case for why people are drawn to religion. He spoke of the desire for a "sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives." He spoke of religion as a source of hope. Hope is something even godless liberals seemed to have been looking for. We certainly voted for it.

I was convinced. But it is one thing to hear these ideas in a speech. It is quite another to see it in practice.

I saw not one, but three different christian clergy during the inauguration festivities. I hated the idea that our political changing of leadership came with such a strong christian component. For all Obama's talk in his 2006 speech about America no longer being just a christian nation, when it came down to it, he chose christ-times-three.

Most troubling was his pick of Rick Warren, a man who compared homosexuality to incest. I was incensed, especially coming off of the Prop 8 fiasco in California, a fiasco Rick Warren was on the wrong side of. But we should not have been surprised to find Warren there. After all, Obama mentions him as a friend back in his 2006 speech. Obama (ostensibly) disagrees with Warren on many issues, but he feels he has found an evangelical leader with whom he has some common ground.

So how much should we tolerate the intolerant? Can we take civility too far? If Obama is able to start a dialogue with the religious right, is it worth elevating someone with many deplorable views into such a prominent position? If that dialogue makes it so that evangelicals don't just automatically vote for whatever republican says they are anti-abortion and anti-homosexual, is it worth it?

Will dialogue moderate extremest views? When Obama says that he is going to talk to foreign leaders without preconditions I applaud his move towards diplomacy. Some of those leaders base their governance on Islamic law, kill homosexuals, and deny the holocaust. Yet, I sincerely believe that diplomacy is the best course of action.

When the Bush administration refused to talk to those leaders, because they did not want to give them credibility, I denigrated them as ideologues. But why is it so much easier for me to understand elevating Ahmedenajad than Rick Warren? Granted, Ahmedenajad was not asked to speak at the inauguration, but what if a grand gesture was the only thing that might have opened the door?

Perhaps the beginning of an answer can be found in how the three clergy responded to Obama's invitation. Openly gay episcopalian Gene Robinson was very careful not to make a christian prayer, using phrases like "every religions god." And he took his time to speak about poverty, disease, and discrimination against "refugees, immigrants, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people."

Reverend Joseph Lowery also used his time to talk about social justice, saying “deliver us from the exploitation of the poor…and from favoritism toward the rich.” Lowery used language that was significantly more christian in tenor. Although ending with some humor helped, being at a political function where millions of people are calling out amen is uncomfortable for me to say the least. Still, he did make an effort to talk about “inclusion not exclusion” and referenced “our churches, our temples, our mosques.” He acknowledged those of other faiths, if not those of no faith.

But it was Rick Warren whose invitation caused the most controversy and it is evangelicals who always seem to be shoving their religious beliefs down my throat. So I was most curious to see what Warren would say. In the beginning, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. He used his time to mark the historic occasion of electing the first African American president.

He asked for Obama to have wisdom, courage, and compassion. He called for respect for "all the earth" and for a "peaceful planet." He even expressed that Americans are "united not by race, religion, or blood, but by our commitment to freedom and justice for all."

Yet although Warren prayed for all of us to have humility, he showed us the ultimate arrogance by bringing jesus into our presidential inauguration and then reciting the lord's prayer. This was disrespect, not just to nonbelievers, but to people of every other belief system.

I'm struggling to reconcile my philosophical beliefs in democracy and diplomacy with my intense feelings about the unjust and insulting views and manners of many believers. But I voted for Obama based on his ability to reason, to find common ground, to lead democratically, and to show all people respect - even those people who I don't think deserve it.

This does not mean that I will blindly accept what Obama does. I'm still pissed about the lord's prayer being recited and I will write letters and articles and scream from the rooftops when these things happen. I will fight that much harder for the rights of the GLBT community. I will fight that much harder for us nonbelievers to be shown some respect. I will fight that much harder for the arts and humanities, and other sources of non-religious morality, to be prioritized for a change.

But I'm also going to try and develop a little thicker skin and to respect the diplomatic efforts Obama is making. While the clergy did not mention us nonbelievers, Obama did. And as a man who was raised by a "secular humanist," I believe that he respects us.

Obama ended his speech in 1996 by recounting an incident. A doctor with strong feelings against abortion wrote to him to express his disappointment that Obama's website called all those against abortion extremists. Obama struck the doctor as being better than that. He gave Obama credit for being a just and fair minded person, despite this evidence to the contrary. Obama was impressed by the man's letter. He changed his website. He tries to "extend the same presumption of good faith to others."

Obama is extending that presumption of good faith to people like Rick Warren and, as much as I hate it, I guess I'm willing to see where it goes.

Call to Renewal Speech, Part 1 of 5

Call to Renewal Speech, Part 2 of 5

Call to Renewal Speech, Part 3 of 5

Call to Renewal Speech, Part 4 of 5

Call to Renewal Speech, Part 5 of 5

Inaugural Speech of Gene Robinson

Inaugural Speech of Joseph Lowery

Inaugural Speech of Rick Warren

Inaugural Speech of Barack Obama

Obama, Bring Back the New Deal Arts Projects

2009-01-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

Art isn't usually the first thing on the agenda in a crisis. It isn't fundamental to basic survival. But art is fundamental to addressing many of the issues that have gotten us into this mess in the first place.

In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration started several federal programs which provided funding for artists. On the most basic level, the programs put artists like Jacob Lawrence to work. It also promoted United States art and culture, chronicled life in different parts of the country, and sometimes sponsored projects which tackled difficult social issues.

Seventy years later, public buildings throughout the United States are covered with murals steeped in history. Archives are filled with photographs of American life taken by New Deal artists. Museums hold paintings reminding us of the struggles that took place in securing the basic safety net that we take for granted today.

Perhaps this legacy doesn't seem important to you, but hasn't one of the main themes of this election been breaking down the divides between red state and blue state? Haven't we been talking about the lack of understanding between different groups in the United States? Haven't we been talking about the lack of understanding between us and the rest of the world?

Art teaches us about other people by enabling us to see the world through someone else's eyes. Art appeals to the heart as well as the head and for that reason has the ability to transcend boundaries, to represent, to connect, and to mobilize. A Diego Rivera mural, a Bob Marley song, or an Almodovar movie help us to understand the worlds the artists are living in. They help us to create a dialogue. And in a world where so many problems require coordinated effort - poverty, environmental degradation, war - we need dialogue more than ever.

A new federal arts project would put American artists to work. It could document the road we have traveled to get here and the historic time we are in. Projects could show our common histories and values and help us visualize a new and better American identity for the future. It could help us share that vision with each other and with the rest of the world.

Revolutionary Road and the American Dream/Nightmare

2009-01-11T08:59:00.001-08:00

If you haven't yet seen revolutionary road, go. It's a phenomenal movie.

Spoiler Alert!!

The movie follows a couple (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) who are falling into the suburban abyss - house, car, two kids, job he hates, housework all day for her. For a moment, it looks like they are going to break away and do something extraordinary. For a moment it looks like they might question the rules and be "unrealistic."

They plan to take off to Paris where she will get a job and he will figure out what he wants to do with his life. Their friends and neighbors are shocked. They want to see them fail. People who are too afraid to try something new, who are willing to live miserable, fearful lives always want to see you fail. You escaping is an indictment of their life.

The plan falls apart. They do not go to Paris. The hope and joy they had for a few brief moments dissipates. It dissipates, in part, because Kate Winslet gets knocked up (more on that later). The bigger reason that it dissipates is the dual trap of fear and success.

Leonardo's character is offered a promotion. He is offered more money and more prestige. He's offered a version of success that is socially acceptable, that meets the expectations his father had for him. His ego gets in the way. He is not strong enough to pursue what would make him happy, rather than admired.

I know so many people who complain about their lives. Yet, year in and year out, they continue living a life they hate in large part because they have been seduced by the money, prestige and admiration their position provides.

Is it really better to be a miserable lawyer or CEO or director of widgets? What if you could be a happier (if poorer and less envied) writer, bartender, or carpenter?

The other part of the equation is fear. It's scary to not follow all the rules. If you set out on a path not trodden by a million others, you are likely to fall down a few times. My favorite character in the movie is the (supposedly) mentally ill son of the neighbor. He is considered crazy because he refuses to play the game, because he tells the brutal truth. He is the movie's bullshit detector. He calls Leonardo out for being scared. "The hopeless emptiness is comfy," he says.

In the end, Leonardo gives up pursuing joy and resigns himself to the socially acceptable life. Kate Winslet succumbs to despair. She gives herself an abortion. She bleeds out and dies.

What is interesting about how the movie handles the abortion issue is that it does not explicitly talk about the illegality of it (although it is implied), nor does it talk about religion. The movie directly confronts only the idea that a woman who would want an abortion (or simply wouldn't want a child) is damaged, selfish, unloving, hateful, difficult, unmotherly, evil...

Leonardo may be miserable, but he has perks. He has the prestige of his job. He has the girl he is screwing on the side. He has his ways of getting off. Kate stays in the house all day cleaning. Sex last two seconds. Even when she has an affair, she gets no sexual satisfaction. She never gets to experience any joy. She's thwarted at every turn. And if she tries to break out, to live, she has to deal with the guilt of having internalized the labels of damaged, selfish, unloving, hateful, difficult, unmotherly, evil...

The movie ends with the couples neighbors in denial. One neighbor simply decides to never speak of them again. The other rewrite history in her own mind and claims that they were always difficult people.

I wonder if there are people out there who are really happy with their unquestioned, safe, suburban lives. I hope so. There are so many people out there living that way.

Confidence in our Financial System is Not What We Need

2008-12-30T10:39:00.001-08:00

The recession and gazillion dollar bailouts have provoked a whole slew of articles about the loss of confidence in our financial system.

Frank Rich says that the "wholesale loss of confidence is a catastrophe that not even the new president’s most costly New Deal can set right." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in his October 14th statement justifying the bailout that "there is a lack of confidence in our financial system – a lack of confidence that must be conquered because it poses an enormous threat to our economy."

The Bernie Madoff scandal has now set off a whole new slew of articles about the lack of confidence in Wall Street - articles like Bernie Madoff, Confidence Destroyer and Madoff Scam Saps Confidence in Wall Street. But nobody seems to be questioning the underlying premise that we should have confidence in these people. Isn't too much confidence exactly what got us into this mess?

When I began my current employment, I dutifully filled out my 401k investment form. I glanced at the prospectuses for the funds I chose, but I didn't know the companies that I was investing in. I never met the person who was responsible for investing my funds. I don't read and investigate the claims of the companies in which my money is invested. I don't know how they treat their employees or if they are dumping mercury in a lake somewhere. How many of us know?

Should we be handing over our money to people we don't know to invest in organizations we know nothing about? Should we trust fallible humans with the power and temptation of dealing with billions of dollars? Power corrupts. Nobody is immune. And money buys a lot of power.

What I'm really saying is, shouldn't we have seen this coming? Is it confidence that we need to cultivate or some healthy skepticism?

Terrorists are Criminals, Not Soldiers

2008-12-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

Terrorism is not new. It did not begin with the twin towers falling. It did not begin with the Oklahoma City bombing. It did not begin with car bombs in Israel. It did not begin with hangings and church fires in the south. But all of these things were terrible, violent, and reprehensible acts of terror.

Wouldn't it make sense, given humanity's long history of dealing with terror, to study the cases where terror, if not ended, at least subsided?

In 1963, members of the klu klux klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four little girls. This was not the first time the kkk had perpetrated acts of terror. They have over the years been responsible for many bombings, hangings, kidnappings and deaths.

If we are to use the logic provided to us by President Bush when he wanted to invade Afghanistan or by Israel when they respond to terrorist attacks by bombing, then we would have expected the United States to fly a bombing mission over Birmingham in 1963. We would have expected that, after they bombed the innocent civilians of Birmingham, they would have blamed the kkk for hiding amongst civilians

But we did not do that. We did not do that, because terrorists are not soldiers. We did not do that because it is the soldiers responsibility to protect civilians, not harm them. We did not do that because many people live in Birmingham who are not terrorists and the idea that they harbored terrorists by having the pure dumb luck of being a Birmingham resident is ridiculous.

What the United States did do, far too slowly and painfully, is investigate the crimes of the kkk. We sent undercover operatives to infiltrate their organizations. We paid off inside informants. We treated terrorists like the criminals they are. (I know many of them walked free for many years and I don't make light of that travesty, but my point is that the terror began to ease without a war against the entire town.)

Violence is always tragic. War is always tragic. But it is so much more tragic when it is painfully clear that it can never bring the security and peace that most people want. Even if you are not a pacifist, the cold hard fact remains that responding to terrorists with war is irrational and effective only in creating more enemies.

Krispy Creme and Plastic Surgery Save the World

2008-12-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

If you have not yet heard, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon may have just solved our energy crisis.

According to this report from Fox/Faux news, Dr. Craig Alan Bittner "claimed on a Web site that he created 'lipodiesel' from his patients' fat and used it to power his Ford SUV and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator."

Brilliant.

We may not have much fossil fuel left in the United States, but our fat deposits are legendary. We could power the country for decades. I may even start a business. We could hire people to sit around and eat Krispy Cremes until they reach the proper mass and then suck it all out and sell it for fuel.

You know what the best part of the story is? "California law apparently forbids the use of human medical waste to power vehicles."

Pope a Dope

2008-12-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

Today, in his Christmas address, the pope asked for people to work together to solve our problems "in a spirit of authentic solidarity."

I thought about using this post to rant about someone who would call for authentic solidarity out of one side of his mouth while vilifying large swaths of humanity by talking about the evil dangers of homosexuality out of the other.

I thought about marveling at the shear audacity of someone who can add the accumulation of wealth to the deadly sins that will take you straight to hell, all the while sitting in the midst of thousands of years of accumulated riches.

I thought about a little diatribe on how many human beings have died of aids because they won't use a condom, as the pope thinks birth control is a sin. Or perhaps on how many women have died because of back alley abortions or because a doctor in Nicaragua suspected a miscarriage might have been an abortion and didn't want to risk prison.

I thought about recounting the history of Catholicism in the world. I thought about the crusades, the inquisition, forcible conversions, decimation of indigenous culture, appeasement of nazis, priests abusing children and concealment of their crimes...

But then I thought, who gives a damn what the pope thinks? The pope looks like what he is, a decrepit relic.

Catholicism is on the decline all over. In the United States, Catholic numbers have held somewhat steady due to an influx of immigrants from places like Mexico, but native-born Americans are dropping the religion. And with anti-immigrant hysteria and a declining economy keeping immigrants away, that number is bound to decline further.

Spain, once a bastion of Catholicism, is going the way of the rest of Europe and leaving the church behind. Latin America has been hemorrhaging Catholics. The number of nuns and monks in the world is on decline. The number of Catholic priests is on decline. And Catholic school enrollment is down. The drop-off in the United States has been precipitous, causing all sorts of ogeda in the conservative community. In fact, according to the Vatican themselves, Islam has now overtaken Catholicism as the worlds most practiced religion.

So who really cares what the pope thinks. Not even practicing Catholics pay much attention his dictates anymore.

Oh Great, Another Protest

2008-12-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Tis the season of protests here in DC.

In the last week I have seen a Code Pink shoe display at the Whitehouse gate, a dancing man wearing a paper mache George Bush head, and a pathetically small gathering of women marching for sex workers rights. In addition to which, at least two groups of drum wielding protesters have marched by my office building.

So what the hell do these people think they are accomplishing? I hate to be the one to break it to them, but protests don't do a thing. Millions of people around the world streamed out into the streets before the Iraq war and it didn't do a damn bit of good. Seattle protesters got themselves in the news and even managed to shut down a meeting, but the WTO is still here, the World Bank and IMF are still doing the same crap, and we all just mortgaged the rest of our lives to pay off a bunch of international bankers.

Much of this protest delusion comes from the notion that it was protesters that ended the war in Vietnam. United States participation in Vietnam went on for more than a decade, despite all the protesters. And it wasn't a bunch of marginalized kids marching that made your average Joe fed up with the war. It was seeing body bags come in by the thousands. It was learning about the lies the government was telling. It was seeing My Lai photos plastered all over the paper. In short, it was journalists who risked their lives telling the truth about what was going on, not a bunch of burnt hippies in moccasin boots.

I'm not saying that it is impossible for a large movement of people to force powerful interests to change their tune, but it is rare and requires strategy. The other day I received an email about arranging a general strike across the whole country. Nowhere in the email does it mention what we would be striking for. Where is the focus? Where is the strategy? How are you going to accomplish something if you don't even know what you are trying to accomplish?

The email I received says that Gandhi showed us how it could be done. Gandhi did show us how it could be done. Gandhi did not dress up in paper mache heads or turtle costumes. He didn't gather together disparate small groups all asking for different things. He didn't conduct protests just to pat himself on the back or meet and greet with like-minded people. Gandhi had a plan.

Gandhi's most famous protest was marching to the ocean to make salt. Gandhi wanted India out from under British colonial rule and knew he needed to show the world the injustice of British rule. The British imposed a salt tax, which gave them a monopoly on salt. Gandhi's march to make salt fulfilled a real need, highlighted the injustice of British laws, and showed the strength of his movement.

Gandhi was thrown in jail for starting these protests. His treatment by authorities, and the support for his cause, started a domino effect and protests broke out in other areas of the country. That was all part of his plan, as was the media coverage that he cultivated beforehand. He did not just throw something together at the last minute. Today, people just show up at the National Mall on a Sunday afternoon for protests that resemble support groups.

Your average person sees someone dressed as a stuffed animal or with F&#$ the Gap painted on their bare ass and just discounts everything the group is trying to say. Worse, some of my fellow anarchists seem to think that if you destroy everything now, something better will miraculously spring up in its place. Violence is a sure way to turn people off from what you are trying to say.

So please, don't send me any more calls to protest. Send me a plan. Invite me to a strategy meeting. Let's pick a realizable goal, identify the obstacles, figure out whose support is needed, and devise a cleverly effective way of pounding away at it until we get somewhere. And if you try to make me wear some ridiculous costume, we're through.

Obama Bursts Black v. Gay Narrative

2008-12-20T17:25:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama picked Rick Warren to speak at the inauguration. When I heard it, I was appalled. And what rational, compassionate person wouldn't be pissed that a man who compared homosexuality to pedophilia and incest was chosen for this honor. Take a gander at Rachel Maddow's take on the issue:

But while I am still pissed about the choice, I do find one thing rather interesting. Just a short while ago, I found myself writing a post to try and dispel the myth that African Americans were to blame for the passage of Proposition 8 in California. And I still keep hearing people blab about how African Americans are more homophobic than white people.

So isn't it ironic that it is the black religious leader at the inauguration who supports gay rights and the white guy (from the oh-so-liberal left coast) who is the homophobe?

The benediction is being given by The Reverend Dr Joseph E Lowery. Not only is the Reverend a respected civil rights leader who has come out in support of gay rights, he has also been supportive of the leftest of the lefty causes (like showing up to lead prayers for Camp Casey peace activists).

Watch him speak at Coretta Scott King's funeral. Watch the crowd go crazy when he says that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Note how he points out King being against homophobia.

Can people finally shut up now about how black people are so homophobic?!

Thanks to dmac and Pam's House Blend for bringing this story some coverage.

Honesty or Congeniality?

2008-12-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

I'm not always a very nice person.

It isn't that I go out of my way to hurt or offend people. It isn't that I'm completely oblivious to how people are going to take things that I say. It's just that I have an overwhelming, internal compulsion to say what I really think. I also have a very hard time pretending to feel or think something that I don't.

Sometimes this honesty compulsion comes out in small things. Gift giving is a perfect example. I think obligatory gift giving is stupid and irrational. I know I'm supposed to act pleased in order not to offend people, but I just can't do it. Perhaps it is small minded of me to deny a person whatever benevolent feelings they get from gift giving, but why keep it a secret that I resent being saddled with some slave labor-made piece of landfill?

Being honest is bound to lose you some friends along the way, but being phony ensures that the friends you have will be superficial. And in the end, superficiality and dishonesty will erode any relationship.

While being honest can appear to cause more conflict and hard feelings at first, over time it actually causes far less. This is in no small part because, when you don't explain what you really think, the people around you are sure to make (often negative) assumptions about your motivations.

Work is the most difficult place to be honest. Many have blamed Dubya's disastrous presidency in large part on a staff full of "yes men". But how many of us are really honest with our bosses, especially if it would cost us our current and potential jobs?

If I had a dollar for every time one of my bosses wasted time making grand plans that they themselves would undoubtedly be the biggest obstacle to fulfilling, I'd be on a beach in Jamaica right now. But you're not going to keep your job for long if you tell your boss they are an impediment to getting things accomplished.

That, of course, is where power intersects with honesty. It's one thing to be honest with someone who might stop being friends with you. It's another to be honest with someone who can fire you.

As Dave Chappelle so brilliantly showed in his skit "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong", honesty comes at a price. But what is the price of not being honest? What's the cost of going along to get along? Is there a problem that can be solved without a willingness to risk the offense, conflict, and discomfort that comes from honesty?

What would happen if we all suddenly refused to be phony?

Hillary Gets a Bailout Too?

2008-12-05T23:17:00.001-08:00

This week, the Obama campaign (Joe Biden specifically) sent me an email asking that I give $100 or more to help Hillary Clinton pay off her primary debt.

Are they f'ing kidding me? Let me try to wrap my head around this one.

From the years 2000 - 2006 the Clintons earned $109 million

Hillary Clinton raised $229.4 million for her presidential campaign.

Hillary "loaned" her campaign $11 - 13 million so that she could string out her electorally impossible challenge against Barack Obama

About $5.3 million of the money the Clinton campaign owes is to pay slimy Mark Penn who ran her campaign into the ground and is also a lobbyist for people like the government of Colombia.

Barack Obama's campaign has a $30 million surplus

Oh yeah, and

We are in a major recession

Employers cut 533,000 jobs LAST MONTH

31.5 million Americans now need to be on food stamps

10% of US homeowners are in arrears or in foreclosure

So first I'm informed that billions of our tax dollars are going to pay for the greed fest of a bunch of uber-wealthy Wall Street billionaires who liked to play mortgage craps.

Then they want us to swallow paying billions more to bail out car company executives who couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag and who continued to make gas guzzling SUVs even though we were undoubtedly headed for an oil crisis.

Now I'm supposed to take some of what's left of my pathetic non-profit administrator salary to pay off some lobbyists so the Clinton's don't suffer a setback on their way to billionaires row?

Sometimes, I swear, I think my head is just going to explode.

Clinton as Secretary of State, a Disappointing Choice

2008-12-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

It is now official. Hillary Clinton is Obama's pick for secretary of state. I am really bummed.

During the primaries, Obama consistently said that Clinton showed bad judgment in the biggest foreign policy decision of her career, Iraq. Was he just being a slimy politician, saying what he thought would play, even though he didn't believe it? Or does he truly believe that Hillary Clinton has poor judgment, but he is appointing her anyway because he thinks it will keep the party together. I'm not sure which scenario is more disappointing.

I'm particularly disappointed for what this means for Israel policy. Clinton has consistently come out on the side of the uber-Zionists, even when faced with massive evidence of human rights abuses and violations of international law by the Israeli government. Check out this report on the Lebanon war and Hillary's speech at the end.

That speech was during her senate race in New York. Her democratic opponent was Jonathan Tasini. He is a Jew who lived in Israel and has seen first hand the situation on the ground. When he asserted that Israel had violated international law, Clinton spokespeople said his comments were "beyond the pale." Tasini responded to them with a letter calling Clinton out for her irresponsible policies. I should note that human rights organizations agree with Tasini and that a 2007 Human Rights Watch report found that:

Israel’s indiscriminate airstrikes, not Hezbollah’s shielding as claimed by Israeli officials, caused most of the approximately 900 civilian deaths in Lebanon during the July-August 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli Palestinian conflict is a vitally important focus for any secretary of state. It isn't just the conflict itself, but the backlash when we are seen as taking Israel's side no matter what they do. World opinion polls consistently rate Israel as having a mostly negative effect on the world. We cannot dismiss this as pure anti-semitism. There are very legitimate criticisms to be made against Israeli government policies. When Bishop Desmond Tutu is comparing your policies to apartheid in South Africa, it's time to listen.

The fact that the U.S. so rabidly defends Israel, including consistently using our UN security council veto to block resolutions related to Israeli crimes, is a major sticking point in any effort to improve our moral standing in the world. How do we turn over a new diplomatic leaf with an old, compromised hoe.

Christmas is Evil

2008-11-28T14:18:00.001-08:00

The Christmas season has officially begun. I know this, because a Walmart employee was trampled to death today (Black Friday) by a mob of Christmas shoppers. Happy birthday Jesus.

People say Christmas is a time to spend with family. Why do you need an excuse to get together with your family? If you love them so much, shouldn't you want to be with them more than once a year? And what about the large proportion of us who don't want to spend time with family, people for whom holiday celebrations are a cruel form of torture?

People say gift giving is a form of appreciation. First of all, that is a bunch of garbage. Most gift giving is a series of obligatory grab bags and "they got me something, so.." If you want to show appreciation, why only once a year? And are we so incapable of meaningful human interaction that the only thing we can come up with is putting yourself in debt to give your niece a GAP gift certificate?

People say this is the season of peace and good will. Considering the shopper death march of today, I shouldn't even have to address this one. Anyone who has ever been near a mall at Christmas knows that people are full of everything but peace and goodwill. And going into a spending frenzy or throwing tinsel on a dead tree is not going to bring peace to the earth. Ask how many of those peace and good will Christmas celebrators are also against war.

The people who claim they are celebrating Christmas for religious reasons may be the most delusional of all. Do you really think Jesus would have wanted his birthday to be about stocking up on video games at Walmart? If this was really about celebrating Jesus, people would be giving away their extraneous stuff and figuring out how to live simply and righteously.

My personal favorite may be the tradition excuse. How many stupid things are done in the name of tradition? Traditions can and should change. Killing trees and heaping a lot of crap onto landfills is not going to make our lives any better. Come January 1st you are just going to be hung over, in debt, and not on speaking terms with several relatives.

Bah humbug.

Prop 8: Direct Your Anger Where it Belongs

2008-11-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

Immediately after Proposition 8 passed, the blame game began. And while it is perfectly legitimate to try and understand who voted for it and why, it is perfectly counterproductive to vilify those individuals and give them up for lost.

The blame in this case has been, by many, placed squarely on the shoulders of the black community, a larger percentage of whom voted for the measure than any of the other groups in California that people keep track of.

One of the first discussions I heard on the subject was on the Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow had Princeton professor Melissa Harris Lacewell on to talk about why so many African-Americans voted for Prop 8.

To their credit, both Maddow and Lacewell point out that the vast majority of people who supported Prop 8 were white. Lacewell argues that the people against Prop 8 never made effective arguments to the black community. Watch it and see if you can spot the glaring hole in their discussion.

Where is mention of the people who are both gay and black? Where are their voices in all of this? Where is someone like greling supposed to turn when confronted with hate from all directions?

I had been eagerly awaiting a response from my new favorite blogger, Monica Roberts at TransGriot. She was insightful as usual. In addition to pointing out the glaring lack of attention paid to the African American community during the campaign, she brings up the much larger issue of how invisible black GLBT people are within the GLBT rights movement.

It seems the GLBT rights movement has some of the same frustrating problems that steered me away from the feminist movement and frustrates the hell out of me working in nonprofits. Everyone talks about being "inclusive." At best that usually means "consulting" with a few supposedly representative minorities. Until people from all backgrounds - racial, ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, whatever - are core voices in these movements and organizations, they will never succeed.

Perhaps more importantly, as Monica so wisely pointed out, the blame game is part and parcel of the usual divide and conquer strategy. When women, African Americans, Latinos, GLBT, and all the rest of the people who have been screwed to varying degrees by the current hierarchy get together - we can accomplish something. The only reason people like Dick Cheney still have power is that they have kept us mistrusting and fighting each other instead of them. Time to tell them to F-off with that strategy.

And here's something interesting. A study of public opinion actually found that black Americans were more likely to support job protections for homosexuals than white Americans. So why is the black community supportive of job protections, but not marriage equality? The same reason the white community doesn't support gay marriage - religion.

Another fascinating study (thanks for that Monica) is Say it Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud. In it, when GLBT respondents were asked about their experiences with black heterosexuals in four areas - families, friends, black heterosexual organizations, and religious institutions - only religious institutions showed more negative than positive or equal experiences.

Rather than create divisions between Americans or schizophrenia in those people who don't neatly fit into some arbitrary groups, lets focus on the real problem. The movement for Proposition 8 was led by religious organizations. The support of Prop 8 in communities, black and white, always had religious justification. Just check out the commentary to this article on Black Voices. The problem is religiously based intolerance.

Now anyone who knows me knows how I feel about religion. I find it hard to belief that religion ever does anyone any good. But I grudgingly admit that religious organizations were crucial in the civil rights movement and in bringing support and services to poor communities.

People should never forget that the same bible that Martin Luther King took his strength from was also used to justify slavery. Conversely, Martin Luther King took a bible that had been used to justify slavery and turned it around to compel people to do the right thing. If that kind of change in attitude is possible, then so is a change in attitude towards GLBT rights. Now, play this video of Wanda Sykes, get riled up, and do something.

Disastrous Political Interference by the Catholic Church

2008-11-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

You would think 1,000 years of intolerant rule would be enough, but the Catholic church continues to interfere in matters of state all around the world.

It has come out that it was the Archbishop in San Francisco who requested and received help from the Mormon church to pass California's Proposition 8 (defining marriage as between a man and a woman). The Mormon church then sent a call out to its members to raise money and donate time to make sure the measure passed.

In Nicaragua, it was a Catholic church led movement that enacted a complete ban on all abortions. The ban, a violation of international law, imposes harsh criminal penalties on doctors who perform abortions and has made the medical community afraid to treat women who have miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. Within a year, the ban had cost at least 80 women their lives.

The Catholic church tells people who to vote for. They rarely say outright the candidate by name, as that will get them into some hot water. However, they tell their followers to vote based on one issue and one issue only - abortion. If Hitler were against abortion, and his opponent for it, they would say vote for Hitler.

The fact that our current anti-abortion president is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands in war doesn't matter. Whether or not the next leader's policies will help save some of the tens of thousands who die every day of starvation doesn't matter.

The Catholic church has almost always been on the wrong side of human rights - from the inquisition to appeasement of Hitler to the continuous subjugation of women. And they - the people who brought us an epidemic of horrific and concealed sex abuse - want to dictate the morals of our governments?

How dare they.

A Thank You Letter to President George W. Bush

2008-11-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Dubya,

You've probably been feeling underappreciated lately, with that 71% disapproval rating and all, so I wanted to take a moment to send you a little thank you note.

I thought trickle down economics and neoliberalism were here to stay, but your brilliantly mismanaged collapse of our economy has those formerly sacrosanct concepts gasping for air.

I thought the Christian Coalition and other "family values" groups would hold us hostage forever with their close-minded, self-righteous morality, but your example of how wrong an evangelical can be has opened many eyes.

I thought poverty in America would remain a subject hidden forever from public discourse, but your criminal negligence after Katrina left it stranded on New Orleans rooftops for all the world to see and talk about.

I thought no democrat could win against a war hero who accused them of socialism, terrorism, elitism, or (the most heinous) non-christianism, but association with your failures was to a candidate what communist party membership was to an actor in the McCarthy era.

I thought a black president was an impossible dream, but you shrewdly made people hate you so much that their prejudices seemed insignificant.

So thank you, Dubya. We have paid a heavy price in suffering and lives lost, but today's possibilities would not have been possible without your incompetence.

Sincerely,
Mel

Obama is Going to Win Florida and Here is Why

2008-11-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

Whenever anyone talks about Florida, they always make it seem as though winning Florida hinges on the votes in South Florida. But Florida is a big state and who wins or loses depends on more than just a handful of Cubans and Jews in South Florida.

In fact, South Florida is in the bag. It always votes democratic, despite the heavily Republican Cuban vote. In the 2004 presidential election Miami-Dade County favored Kerry over Bush 409,732 to 361,095. Broward County, where Ft. Lauderdale sits, was even more democratic with 453,873 voting for Kerry and only 244,674 for Bush.

In the 2000 Presidential Election Gore received 39,275 more Miami-Dade County votes than Bush. And Gore received a whopping 209,801 more votes than Bush in Broward County. That's about 69% of the vote. If it were up to Dade and Broward Counties, Florida would have gone democratic in both of the last presidential elections.

I would expect to see those democratic number rise even higher this election. George W. Bush's disastrous presidency will certainly push the votes in that direction, but so will demographic and generational changes. Look for an increase in votes from the citizen children of non-citizen immigrants who arrived from the Caribbean (particularly Haiti) beginning in the 1950s. Their children can vote, and I'm guessing they will.

Further, the Republicans' main voters in South Florida are an aging group of white Cubans. Their children may still be Republicans, but their ideological dedication isn't nearly as strong. What's more, later arrivals (many of whom are Afro-Cuban and have more ambivalent feelings about the Cuban government) may have a more open mind.

Regardless of how much Obama wins by in South Florida, it is northern Florida where the race will be won. It is northern Florida, which more closely resembles Georgia, that usually votes Republican in national elections. Duval County (Jacksonville) favored Bush in each of the last two elections. In 2000 it was 152,098 to 107,864 and in 2004 it was 220,190 to 158,610.

Duval County is about 30% African American, but only 60% of of African American voters in Duval showed up in 2004. A significant increase in black voting in Duval could turn the county democratic. If northern Florida counties turn democratic, and I believe some of them will, Barack Obama wins the state comfortably.

Another northern and Central Florida trend to keep an eyeball on is the influx of Puerto Ricans to the area. While the Puerto Rican community in the Orlando area has been growing for some time, it is only recently that they have been moving to places like Sarasota. Puerto Ricans tend to vote democratic.

McCain's campaign seems to have assumed that they would continue to pull in the Central and Northern Florida counties that have traditionally gone Republican. Or maybe, as Adam Nagourney reports in the New York Times article While McCain Looked Away, Florida Shifted, they believed that "Mr. Obama, as an African-American, would have trouble winning support from two of the state’s key constituencies: Hispanics and Jews."

If his report is true, it is delightful. Republicans have been trying to convince us that we hate each other and that we do not have common interests for so long that they actually started to believe their own hype. Once again, they counted on racism to help them win an election. But this time it is going to backfire in a huge way. Sweet.

Why Can't McCain Make His Accusations of Socialism Stick?

2008-10-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

Historically, if a politician, particularly a Democrat, dared to bring up the subject of inequality, they were branded as a Marxist or accused of trying to start class warfare. McCain and Palin have been reviving this tactic with gusto and are now trying to make it sound like tax cuts for the middle class are an "un-American" redistribution of wealth.

In the past, Republicans calling Democrats elitist or accusing them of socialism was effective. This time around, it isn't working. Why?

Economic Crisis - The most obvious answer is the economic crisis. It is blatantly obvious that the Republican sacred cows of greed, deregulation, and lowering taxes for the rich have caused an economic disaster. Even Alan Greenspan has (partially) admitted the error of his ways.

Anti-Corporatism - Feelings against large corporations have been growing for a long time. Growing up in the 80s, I watched massive layoffs of people who thought they had lifetime jobs. I saw the Reagan administration union busting. I watched savings and loan scandals and saw my father's small business be destroyed by Office Depot. I saw all of this in the midst of a cocaine and yacht-filled orgy of greed. Many of my generation learned not to expect much of employers. We refused to dedicate our lives to a company, preferring to make fun of work in movies like Office Space. From anti-Walmart films to protests against the WTO in Seattle, we have built up a deep distrust of "big business."

Generational Divide - The Cold War was the defining theme of my parents generation, but it is barely a blip for me. I am thirty-five years old and the only thing I know about the Cold War from personal experience is that a wall came down in Germany when I was a kid and that Reagan used communism as an excuse to fight illegal wars in many of my friends home countries. McCarthy is long dead. The Berlin wall has been down for almost twenty years. Cries of "socialist" don't mean much to anyone under the age of 40.

The truth is that it is Republicans who have been the primary class warriors. They're the ones who are always advocating policies that benefit only the wealthiest class while getting less wealthy people to vote for them by branding anyone intellectual as a coastal "elite."

I think we are all really tired of people with more houses than I have shoes telling us that letting them get richer, and bailing them out when they screw up, is necessary, but that doing something about the more than a million homes now in foreclosure is "socialism."

If McCain Loses, Does the Southern Strategy Finally RIP?

2008-10-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Republicans have consistently and explicitly used racism as a political strategy. Sadly, their tactics have all too often worked. They are trying it again this election, but this time it seems to be failing. If it fails, especially if it fails big, does the Southern strategy finally die forever?

Racism in Republican Campaigns

In my lifetime, I have come to know the Republican Party as the party of white people; specifically, old, white, Protestant, men. The Republican Party has encouraged this perception and still managed to win quite a few elections.

When Nixon talked about "states rights" in the south, what he really meant was that the federal government shouldn't make Southerners integrate. When Ronald Reagan began his run for the presidency talking about states rights in Mississippi, in the very county where three civil right activists were infamously murdered, he was sending a very strong message.

When George H.W. Bush used images of a black felon who committed horrible crimes (Willie Horton) in his race against Michael Dukakis, he conjured up images of the scary black man to win an election. And when George W. Bush's campaign flyered the South insinuating that John McCain had an illegitimate black baby, Bush rode racism all the way to the Republican nomination.

Republicans Moment of Demographic Realization

Bill Clinton's popularity and success depended in large part upon the votes of women, Latinos, African-Americans, and young people. It took Republicans a while to catch on, but some time during Bill Clinton's presidency they realized that demographics were against them. In fact, in just thirty-four years, white people will no longer be the majority of the U.S. population.

In 2000, the Republican National Convention looked like Sunday in Harlem (literally, the 2000 convention featured a black gospel choir). Republicans started trying to appeal to black voters and to court Latino voters (particularly Christian conservative blacks and Latinos). Prominent Republicans were even apologizing for their use of the Southern strategy.

McCain's New Southern Strategy

This time around, Republicans seem to have conceded the black vote and nearly conceded the Latino one. The possibility of the first African-American president is as exciting as the Bush administration's response to Katrina was infuriating to black voters. Their support of Barack Obama is strong. Latinos are angry at the anti-immigration Republican vitriol that has often turned just plain anti-Latino, and especially anti-Mexican. The GOP is losing them as well.

This leaves John McCain with only one way of winning. He has to make sure he appeals to the most base conservatives of the Republican Party (no that's not a typo) and bring them out in force. He must make sure every fearful, racist shows up at the polls to vote against the black guy with the funny name. He needs women to show up for the Republicans, as white men alone won't get them a win. Republicans thought they covered their bases by choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate. She is certainly appealing to anti-abortion zealots, Christian conservatives, racists, and aging cold warriors. Just check out some fan videos.

The Southern Strategy Backlash

Of course in trying to appeal to the fringe elements of the Republican Party, the party was bound to lose some of the moderates. They are betting on the fact that there are enough fanatics and racists out there (men and women) to bring the election home for them. But the gamble doesn't appear to be working.

Moderate Republicans and true conservatives are abandoning ship. Colin Powell just came out in support of Barack Obama, specifically citing the tone of his campaign and his choice of Sarah Palin. William F. Buckley's son, conservative columnist and writer Christopher, also came out in support of Obama citing the same reasons. A friends father, who hasn't voted for a Democrat since the seventies, is voting for Obama in large part because of the Palin choice.

In fact, it seems that the Southern strategy may be pushing the numbers in Obama's favor in some battleground states like Florida and Virginia. Polls there have shown Obama's numbers jump since McCain has gone increasingly negative, trying to paint Obama as an outsider, un-American, and suspicious.

The End of the Southern Strategy

I've spoken to a lot of people who worry about the ugliness of the campaign. They are afraid that appealing to racism will work yet again and wonder what happens then. A better question is, what if it doesn't work? What if it fails so spectacularly that no Republican politician running for national office will ever believe that he can win using those tactics?

A rout this election will not only give democrats a win, it will give fiscal conservatives and Libertarian Republicans an opportunity to end the days of the Southern strategy. It will give them an opening to end the stranglehold social conservatives and neo-conservatives have on their party. Let's hope they take it.

Redefining Success in a Post Bling World

2008-10-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

It seems like I am not the only one who has had it with greed, selfishness and decadence.

Richard Fuld, the former CEO of the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers (a CEO who made $300 million dollars since 2000) was punched in the face at the company gym. (Man, that must have felt good.) Americans are up in arms about the $440,000 retreat taken by AIG executives right after we bailed them out with our tax money. And we sent thousands of emails to try and stop the bailout to begin with, mostly because we didn't want to help a bunch of overpaid, greedy, schmucks keep their millions.

So the million dollar question is - Will it stick? Is this a momentary hiccup or is something more substantial happening here? And if it is something more substantial, what does America look like if we're not all aiming for boundless riches? Will The Apprentice get cancelled? Will the Sex and the City women start wearing Converse? Will the $10 million stable full of thoroughbreds in this year's Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog go unpurchased? God I hope so.

What if the United States wasn't like an overgrown middle school? What if nobody cared whose name was sewn on the ass of your jeans or what car you drive (or if you drive one at all)? What if, given the choice between a new flatscreen and more time with the kids, everyone chose the latter? What if we redefined our idea of success?

Up until now, success for most people seemed to be based on how much stuff they had or what they could get. Success meant career "advancement," a mcmansion in the suburbs, designer clothes, the right car, resort vacations, and lots of toys (adult and child-sized). We filled our lives with things, hoping each new thing would be the one that finally made us feel good about ourselves. Success was measured by how far "above" other people one progressed, because success entailed an illusion of superiority.

Now what if we judged success differently. What if the most successful people were the ones who were truly happy? What if our jobs supported our lives instead of our lives supporting our jobs? What if we admired people who had the most time to spend with the people they loved? What if we congratulated the people who left work on time and not the ones who stay at the office until midnight? What if we just shook our heads and chuckled at people who spent all their time trying to keep up with Joneses? What if their were no Joneses to keep up with?

Financially, things are going to get tougher for a lot of people and attitudes are likely to change out of necessity. Perhaps this is just the kick in the pants we need. Perhaps we'll start buying less, conserving more, fixing things, and rethinking our priorities. Perhaps we can build a culture where it is the greedy who are pariahs and not the poor.

Against The Rich

2008-10-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

I am so tired of rich people. I'm tired of people who admire rich people. I'm tired of people who aspire to be rich people. I'm tired of Paris Hilton and MTV Cribs. I'm tired of televised yacht tours. I'm tired of walking by empty beach-side mansions that are only occupied one month per year while thousands of homeless don't have shit. I'm tired of hummers and beemers, of six hundred dollar purses and thousand dollar shoes. I'm tired of the shallow, materialistic, empty, selfish, and greedy culture that underpins it all.

Most of all, I'm tired of the people whose desire for money goes beyond what they can get for it. The worst are those who just want money to have it. They want as much of it as possible. And they don't give a damn who they step on in the process of getting and keeping it. And don't kid yourself into thinking that it is possible to acquire that much wealth without being ruthless. Acquiring that much wealth is in itself ruthless.

What is wealth really? It is a representation of natural and human resources. It is the value of commodities plus the value of labor. What gives anyone the right to hoard that much of the natural resources and labor in the world? And why do we accept it? We are all getting raped in every orifice and yet, instead of raising hell, we just go to the corner store to buy a lotto ticket in the hope that we can be one of those rich people. It isn't going to happen.

Goldman Sachs is one of the firms whose speculation and greed has caused this supposed meltdown of our financial system. Of course, it is former Goldman Sachs CEO and current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who is telling us the sky is falling, but lets pretend it is for a moment. Not only are the Goldman Sachs of the world costing each of us more than $2,000 with this ridiculous bailout, they are also one of the major oil speculators that has been driving the price of gasoline sky high. Goldman Sachs executives have been pulling in $50 million a year. Why are they coming to us for $2,000 a piece? Why aren't they taking the $54.3 million Lloyd Blankfein made in 2006?

No one needs to make 50 million dollars a year. And making 50 million dollars a year isn't good for anyone. It means hoarding resources that could be better used by others, at best. At worst it involves crushing other human beings. It creates extremes of wealth and poverty that aren't good for the people at either end of the spectrum. The poor are dehumanized by their desperation and the rich are dehumanized by their inability to empathise or relate to real life.

This country is full of addicts. The bastards we are bailing out with our tax money are addicted to cash. They don't need us to provide another fix for them. They need a twelve step program. They need some tough love. Cut them off. Let them hit rock bottom. Let them lose their mansions and yachts and trophy wives. Put them to work tarring driveways or cleaning airport bathrooms for minimum wage.

American Anti-Government Sentiment and False Choices

2008-09-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

I work with many Europeans and Canadians who follow U.S. politics, particularly this election, and are positively flummoxed by the kind of anti-government rhetoric that we hear from conservatives.

Case in point - one of my co-workers from the the United Kingdom came into my office, flabbergasted by a quote he read by Ronald Reagan. The quote was "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." From his perspective, this is an insane statement. He is thinking of government in terms of what it does. He is thinking of education, health care, roads, laws and protection for the most vulnerable. He is thinking of governance.

But that, oft cited, Reagan quote is only the beginning of what he said. The rest of that quote from his 1981 inaugural address is:

From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself,then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

Far be it for me to agree with Ronald Reagan on anything, but the man had a point. And it is a point that resonates with many, perhaps most, Americans. The majority of us are escapees from bad governments. Quakers and Puritans came escaping religious prosecution by their governments. Mexicans came fleeing from the Mexican Revolution and the parade of bad governments that came with it. German Jews fled the Third Reich and Soviet Jews fled Stalin. Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Argentinians, and Chileans fled the dirty wars. Haitians fled Papa Doc and Baby Doc.

More than a few of these people fled as disillusioned former supporters. Some Cuban refugees had been supporters of Castro and the Communist party, but were disillusioned by the poverty and political persecution that came later. Jews fleeing Russia were often former supporters of the revolution who came to find out that a dictatorship of the proletariat was worse than the aristocracy had been.

And then there are the people who found themselves under the rule of the United States government against their will. For Native Americans and African Americans, the United States government has historically been the mechanism by which they were oppressed, not an institution that protected them from harm. All of which is to say that we Americans come by our suspicion of government, and government power, honestly.

The problem with conservative rhetoric isn't that it creates suspicion where there is no cause for it. There is plenty of cause for suspicion. If the conservatives truly wanted to limit the power of government representatives, I might actually support them. The problem with conservatives (and with anyone else who obtains power) is that they never limit their own power, once they have it. What we have ended up with is the worst possible outcome - a group of "representatives" abusing their enormous power and privilege, without even a modicum of the governance we need.

Americans don't want their lives to be dictated to them. Conservatives have laid out the choice as being between a powerful government that takes your money and tells you what do, and a (theoretically) small government that tells you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Those are false choices, and not just because conservatives have consistently enlarged government.

The other choice is a real democracy, a direct democracy, one in which we all decide for ourselves how our money is spent, and one which understands that it is possible to have governance without relinquishing our power to people who will only abuse it. It requires us to actually invest ourselves in learning about and trying to solve the problems we face. It requires a commitment to work with and try to understand people who think differently. It requires people to do more than (maybe) vote once a year in an election between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Does McCain Want to Replace FEMA with Fedex?

2008-09-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

After the appearances of McCain and Obama at the recent forum on service at Columbia University, most of the pundits were saying that there was not "a lot of contrast between these two candidates” (MSNBC) - or something to that effect. Not one person mentioned McCain's comments about the private sector.

When talking about service programs, McCain took great pains to “emphasize...it doesn’t always have to be run by the government" and then he laid out his philosophy. “My philosophy is, lets not have government do things that the private sector can do or other organizations can do. That’s just my theory of government.”

Let's break that statement down a little. Is there anything that the private sector couldn't theoretically do? The Bush administration certainly doesn't think so. They've been desperately trying to privatize social security. They're giving billions of our tax money in no-bid contracts to well-connected private companies in Iraq. Intelligence is now largely in the hands of private contractors.

In fact, private contracts in general have exploded under the Bush administration and now account for 40 cents of every discretionary dollar in the federal budget. Think about that for a second. Your hard earned money is being taxed and then given to huge private companies. And I'm not talking about thousands of dollars, or millions. They are receiving billions. And what have those companies done with your money?

Blackwater "private security" was kicked out of Iraq after murdering civilians. STIS was given 320 million dollars for building an Iraqi power plant that was never built. Bricks of money were sent to Iraq and just disappeared into the ether. If you want to get really depressed, read Matt Taibbi's article, The Great Iraq Swindle.

To the Reaganites (and as often as they mention Reagan it appears all Republicans are Reaganites) "government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them." To these people, government is always bad, or at least worse than the alternatives. Apparently, they believe that the minute a person steps over the threshold of a government building to take a job, they are immediately evil. It's the Invasion of the Body Snatchers theory of government. (Although that would explain a lot about Cheney.)

Republicans have been telling us that government is evil and inept since I was in diapers, and they have been doing a damn good job of proving their point. Perhaps the best example of this was during hurricane Katrina. FEMA was in shambles after the Bush administration was through gutting it, privatizing it, and appointing political fundraisers to head it.

When McCain was asked about the government's role in disasters, like Katrina, he admitted that “the role of government obviously is the primary role," but then he went on to say that "I don’t think frankly if Fedex or Target or any of these organizations had been in charge we wouldn't have had a truck full of ice ending up in Maine."

Would Fedex have done a better job than FEMA? They certainly couldn't have done worse, but it is not because people who work for a private company are inherently better and more capable. It is because Fedex would never hire a CEO for disaster relief who had done nothing but run a horse track.

I understand peoples frustration with taxes, government, and bureaucracy. When I see the salaries of Halliburton executives, knowing that my tax money is paying that salary, it makes my skin crawl. But rather than just take the Republican bait about all government being bad and all taxes being evil, we need to start having sensible conversations about what government is and should be.

Of course, if we look at many on the left, their feelings about the private sector are a mirror of Republicans feelings about government. As much as I hate the Walmart-inization of everything, not everyone who works for Walmart is automatically evil. And a new government agency for every problem isn't the solution either, Democrats.

Is it that government corrupts or that power corrupts? Is there any organization that would be impervious to greed? Is the problem that we rely too much on "representatives" rather than direct democracy? I'd love to have a real conversation about that, rather than what passes for a conversation in our system, which goes like this:

Republican: They are just a tax and spend democrats.
Democrat: Republicans don't care about you.

End.

Obama, The Military, and the Dreaded P Word

2008-09-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

During the recent community service forum at Columbia University, Obama said the ROTC should be invited back to Columbia and other college campuses who don't currently allow them. He said that he recognized the "differences in terms of military policy," but felt it was a mistake that "young people here at Columbia or anywhere at any university aren’t offered the choice, the option, of participating in military service."

Now it so happens that I agree with Obama, if only because I don't feel I have the right to impose my morals on others. But by copping out with a weak statement about "differences in terms of military policy" he avoided talking about some issues that we really need to be talking about.

First of all there is the dreaded P word. No, I'm not talking about Palin...or Pig...or Pussy. I'm talking about Pacifist. Now I don't expect any politician to be one (god forbid), but it's like they can't even say the word. We revere Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and yet being a pacifist is seen as naive and weak. If a presidential candidate uttered the word, would their candidacy immediately go down in flames?

Perhaps even more importantly, military service is not just about sacrificing and laying yourself on the line for others. It is about taking other peoples lives. It involves joining an institution that expects its members to follow orders, even when those orders turn out to be disastrous. Willingness to serve in the military isn't just about willingness to sacrifice, it is about trust in the people who are going to be asking for your sacrifice.

In my father's generation (he was born in 1929), military service was far more common. World War II was heinous, as all wars are, but soldiers felt honored and honorable when they returned. They felt they were fighting the good fight. People trusted that their government was sending them where they needed to go.

Many Vietnam-era conservatives will tell you that it was lack of support by traitorous hippies that made Vietnam different. (Ironically, the same conservatives who scoff at distrust of the military will swear that government is incapable of doing anything right when it comes to anything else.) But the truth is that any lack of support from the American people was well deserved by a government that lied to us repeatedly (and continues to do so).

Obama speaks often about taking us past the old battles of the baby boomer generation. He talks about revitalizing a culture of service (military and otherwise). He talks about restoring faith in government. If he really wants to do those things, he can't avoid discussing the issues at the root of our distrust, and apathy, and unresolved anger.

Why We Can't Talk About Immigration

2008-09-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend received a forwarded email from his mother some time ago. The title of the email was "In Just One Year" and it arrived with the comment "So, I thought this was interesting..." The email paints immigrants as criminals and parasites (responses to those accusations can be found in my previous post). Both of her sons were livid when they received it. I can't imagine that she would have sent the email to her sons had she realized how angry they would be. So what is the disconnect here?

A Short History of Immigration Policy in the United States

Americans have a short historical memory, especially when it comes to immigration policy. We haven't always had laws against immigration, although I'm sure many Native Americans wish they had thought of it. In fact, the first immigration law wasn't passed until 1882. Until then, anyone who wanted to immigrate could do so. (I should note that the naturalization laws of 1790 and 1795 restricted citizenship to white people.)

The late 1800s were tumultuous. There was a long depression from 1873 through 1896 and several outright panics. In California, the gold rush was long over and the merchants and railroad barons who had benefited the most were sitting on huge fortunes. The major national railroads were completed and the laborers who had built the railroads (and often died doing it) were no longer needed. Many of those laborers were Chinese.

A worker movement was developing in the face of the tough economic times and the movement took a decidedly ugly, racist turn. (Click here to see a poster from that period telling workers that they should boycott all Chinese businesses or businesses who hired Chinese labor and here for a cartoon demonstrating anti-Chinese sentiment.) Eventually, after much pressure from Californians and considerable violence against Chinese people, the nation passed its very first immigration law. It is known as the Chinese Exclusion Act and it was intended to do just that, exclude people based on their national origin.

As the years went on, further court cases and immigration laws reflected the racism accepted in the United States at the time. Until 1965, when the Johnson administration revamped our immigration laws, they were based on trying to keep the nation as white (ie. Western European) as possible.

The Anti-Immigration Movement is Still Racist

While the target of the anti-immigration movement is now more Mexican than Chinese, the underlying racism remains. If you want proof of the racism in today's anti-immigration movement, just look at the email that kicked off this reply. One of the sources used by the author was the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

FAIR was founded by John Tanton, a man who has said that the fight against immigration is a fight to keep white control. Tanton also founded The Center for Immigration Studies, another source used by the author. See this enlightening (and disturbing) article about the connections between white supremacists and anti-immigration groups for more information.

Tom Tancredo is another source from the emails. Tancredo was called an "idiot" by the (conservative) National Review and voted one of the 10 worst congressmen by the (not so conservative) Rolling Stone. Although the grandson of Italian immigrants, he wants to stop even legal immigration. He also took a bit of heat for accusing the Catholic Pope of trying to increase membership in the Catholic church by encouraging immigration and for referring to Miami as a "third world country."

And while it takes all of five minutes to discover that the above sources are (at minimum) linked to some very nasty hate groups, the mainstream news regularly calls on them to comment. They never ask on air about their qualifications, sources, or methodology. They never explain to the audience who they are or what their philosophy is. So if some people believe these statistics to be true and remain blissfully unaware of the reaction they might get when spreading them, it is somewhat understandable.

But while many non-Latinos may believe the "experts" provided by the media, Latinos personal experiences with racism in this country leave them skeptical of even the more mild arguments for changing our immigration policies. This is not just a matter of hurt feelings. According to 2007 FBI statistics, hate crimes against Latinos rose 35% between 2003 and 2007. Not all of the victims survive, including 25 year old Luis Ramirez who was beaten to death by several teenagers.

Beginning a Conversation About Immigration

After a bit of research, I was able to find the original post of the article "In Just One Year." It was written by an ultra-conservative woman named Carolyn Hileman and published on the American Conservative Daily. Google Carolyn Hileman and one of the links you will find is a site called "Mexicans Go Home."

I hate to add to the click rate on that trash site, but it's one of the most disgusting examples of the hateful, anti-Mexican core of the anti-immigration movement. I felt like I had to expose it. In one post, the site has a Mexican flag where the eagle and serpent have been replaced by a pile of shit. Across the flag it says "Mexico, Land of Shit and Druglords"

We need to be able to speak about immigration, but we won't be able to do it until the hateful fringe elements stop being treated like legitimate sources for non-biased information. People have to stop spreading information without first identifying who it came from (or at least identifying that it may not be true) and we can't allow our media to do it either.

Immigrant Scapegoats: Part 3 of Response to “In Just One Year”

2008-08-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

The email I have been responding to in my last couple posts blames immigrants for "bankrupting us." The email then goes on to cite a litany of statistics used to perpetuate two of the biggest myths promulgated by anti-immigrant groups.

Myth #1 - Immigrants are Dangerous Criminals

Anti-immigration groups like to paint immigrants as dangerous criminals. They know that most people's basic human decency would not allow other human beings to be treated the way they propose immigrants be treated. Most of us don't feel much compassion for rapists and murderers, so they try to insinuate that immigrants are rapists and murderers.

The first article the author cites is titled "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants in the United States." First ask yourself - is that even possible? According to FBI crime statistics, there were 80,414 reported rapes and attempted rapes nationwide in the year 2006. There were 15,854 reported murders nationwide. That is a total of 96,268 rapes and murders in one year in the United States.

I could not locate any good, recent statistics on incidents of child molestation in the United States, but the last U.S. Children's Bureau estimates for the number of children molested in 1993 was 217,700. In short, we don’t even reach 1 million murders, rapes, and molestations for the entire country in a year. Perhaps the person who wrote the article was guesstimating crimes from the beginning of time until doomsday?

The next claim is that “illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens (and that) their children are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.” The source for this information is Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation (speaking on Lou Dobbs). Rector does not say how he obtained that figure, nor does anyone ask him.

In fact, a study performed by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that U.S. born men have crime rates two and a half to ten times higher than immigrant men. They also found that cities with higher proportions of immigrants have seen crime rates fall faster than cities with less immigrants.

Follow a link from the “In Just One Year” email and it will take you to another Lou Dobbs transcript where CNN correspondent Christine Romans says that “30 percent of federal prisoners are not U.S. citizens” and that “taxpayers spend more than $3 million every day to house non-U.S. citizens.” It is true that there are non-U.S. citizens in prison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were 1,595,034 people in federal and state prison as of June 30, 2007. Of those, 96,703 (or about 6%) were not U.S. citizens.

Not surprisingly, Lou Dobbs correspondent does not ask why the non-U.S. citizens are in prison. A large portion are in prison for crossing the border and for no other reason. Immigration related prosecutions have risen substantially since a 1996 law authorizing increased INS hiring, as has the amount of time each immigration offender has had to stay in prison. I can’t find evidence to back up the claim that it costs us $3 million every day to house non-U.S. citizens, but sending someone who crossed the border to prison for 20 months is bound to have a cost.

Finally, the author tries to connect immigrants crossing the southern border with terrorists, saying that “as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries” crossed the border in 2005. The source is a Homeland Security report which does not say “Terrorist Countries” but “special interest countries.” And while it is certainly possible that a terrorist could come into the country illegally via the southern border, it is also true that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers had visas and were processed by U.S. immigration.

Myth #2 - Immigrants are a Drain on the Economy

When not made out to be violent criminals, immigrants are painted as parasites here to live off the hard work of U.S. citizens.

The email titled "In Just One Year" claims that "$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments." The link they provide leads to an article by FAIR. However, the article doesn't claim that money is being spent to provide services to illegal aliens, but to legal immigrants. The article lists the benefits available to legal immigrants as "school lunch and breakfast programs, immunizations, emergency medical services, and disaster relief."

So even if we believe the statistics in this article (and I do not), what these people are saying is that they want to deny school lunches to children of legal immigrants. They don't think legal immigrants should be immunized against diseases. And they want to let legal immigrants die rather than receive emergency medical care? How heartless does a person have to be to deny nutrition to a child because their parent is an immigrant? What kind of person would let another human being die in an emergency room because they weren't born here? And finally, even if you are completely heartless, how stupid is it to have un-immunized people living in the country, increasing all of our risk for disease?

Immigrants here without documents are not eligible for welfare programs like food stamps. And while it is true that there are costs associated with education, health care, roads, etc; an in depth study by the CATO Institute shows that immigrants (legal and illegal) pay significantly more in taxes than they receive in services. It is also important to remember that the vast majority of immigrants (80% according to the U.S. Census Bureau) are between 18 and 64. That means the majority had any schooling paid for by their home country and are too young to be participating in the most costly welfare programs, those meant for the elderly.

Next the author says that "illegal aliens sent home $45 billion in remittances back to their countries of origin." The source for this information is dubious to say the least, but the figure could conceivably be correct. According to the World Bank, recorded remittances to developing countries totaled $251 billion in 2007. That figure is for the entire world. I might note that the top two receiving countries are actually India and China, not Mexico. And that, in fact, remittances to Mexico have been decreasing in recent years.

The implication is that this money should be staying within our borders. Does that mean that, conversely, U.S. citizens should not be benefiting from the human and natural resources of other countries? You'd be hard pressed to find something that you own that does not contain raw materials from another country or was not made by workers in another country. Those $5 T-Shirts you get from Walmart come courtesy of garment workers making pennies somewhere overseas. Are you ready to give up oil? To start paying the true price for your food and toys?

And what about U.S. companies working overseas. U.S. companies are operating around the globe and making enormous profits which they then bring back to the United States. Many extract natural resources, use the cheap labor, and take advantage of weak protections for workers. Dole was using banned pesticides in Guatemala which caused Guatemalan workers to become sterile. Coca Cola workers in Colombia were killed when they tried to unionize.

And to this day in Bhopal, where 5,000 people were killed and babies are still being born with birth defects twenty years later, the U.S. company behind the chemical disaster is yet to be held responsible. And that one company, Dow, grossed $49 billion in 2007 - well over the total amount of remittances claimed by the author. Yet if one of these Guatemalans or Colombians or Indians wants to come to the United States and send a little money back home, anti-immigrant hysterics ensue.

Finally, the author of "In Just One Year" claims that "$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens." This statistic comes from Lou Dobbs himself who claimed the statistic came from "the most authoritative and recent study." Unfortunately, he doesn't actually name the study, making this claim impossible to verify. And although many other anti-immigrant groups on the internet cite this figure, none of them provide information about the actual research.

The truth is that it is almost impossible to know whether or not immigrants are keeping wages down and, if so, by how much. See this Washington Post article for a good summary. Many people who hire immigrant farmworkers or construction workers claim that only immigrants even apply for the jobs. Is it conceivable that, if you paid strawberry pickers $30 an hour, other people would apply? Sure. But how many strawberries do you think you could afford to buy if that's what they made?

Personally, I think the minimum wage should be much higher than it is and that everyone (immigrant or no) should receive enough to live human. But the idea that we can obtain that goal by shutting our doors to new labor is naive. Our wages have stagnated because most businesses can relocate if they feel they can get cheaper labor elsewhere and because businesses are more interested in making money for their CEOs and stockholders than in treating their workers decently.

Besides, you have to look at why people are coming to work here to begin with. Since NAFTA, small farmers in Mexico have been losing their farms. Mexico, the birthplace of corn, is now importing corn from agribusiness in the United States. When these farmers lose their land, they often end up here, as farmworkers. Rather than demonizing these people, we need to recognize that the same trade deals that hurt people in the United States, also hurt people elsewhere. Many small farmers in the United States are beginning to recognize that fact, visiting with farmers in other parts of the world, and doing what they can to support better policies.

Corporations and capital are not constrained by national boundaries. Until we recognize that fact, we will never have a chance at better standards of living for workers.

To be continued...

Who is to Blame for Rising Gas Prices? Part 2 of Response to "In Just One Year"

2008-07-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

There is an email circulating around the internet titled "In Just One Year." In it the author states that, when democrats took office in 2006, the price of gasoline was $2.19 a gallon. The implication is that the democrats caused the price of gas to go up.

Anyone who has to fill up a gas tank knows that the price of gasoline has gone up, but it has been going up since long before the democrats took control of congress. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a handy chart showing the rise in gas prices since 1998. (You may have to scroll down a bit on the page.) Note that the average price of gasoline in 1996 was actually around $2.80, not $2.19 as the author of the email claims.

Demand for Oil is Growing, But Supply is Limited and Precarious

The U.S. uses more than 20 million barrels of oil per day, the majority of which is imported (see this handy CIA factbook chart). The next highest consumer is the European union. While we have 40% less population than the EU we use 30% more oil. China and India use only a fraction of what we do (7 million and 2.5 million barrels respectively), but their use has been increasing steadily. China's oil needs are growing by 4% a year, fueling oil speculation and even Chinese bids for U.S. oil companies (see this article from NPR).

No one knows for sure how much oil there is left or how long our supply can meet the growing demand. According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), there were 1,204,182 million barrels of oil reserves as of the end of 2007. But OPEC figures are not audited and, although oil is being taken out of the ground, the reserve estimates remain the same year after year. Moreover, estimates don't necessarily differentiate between oil that can be extracted using present technology, at a reasonable cost, and oil which may be too expensive or difficult to extract.

Whether or not the OPEC figure is correct, we have always known that the supply of oil is finite. This shouldn't come as a great shock to anyone. The Federal Trade Commission started warning us in 1923 that the supply of U.S. oil was being rapidly depleted. In 1943, former Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes published an article titled "We're running out of Oil!" And in 1956, a geoscientist by the name of Marion King Hubbert calculated that the United States would reach peak oil sometime between the late 1960s or early 1970s. His prediction proved true. U.S. oil production did peak in the 1970s and has been declining steadily (see this chart from The Heritage Foundation). Scientists have been using Hubbert's Curve to predict peak oil worldwide. According to the curve, we are reaching worldwide peak oil right about now.

While no one can yet say with certainty whether or not we have hit peak oil, there are a few things we do know for certain. Oil discoveries have been decreasing steadily since the 1960s. See this handy graph published on The Oil Drum for a visual. We also know that oil production has been stagnant since 2005. Many blame the stagnation on the fact that several of the largest oil fields seem to be in decline. Another reason is lack of refinery capacity. We haven't built a new oil refinery in the United States since 1976. And while refiners have been able to squeeze more and more production out of current facilities, they are running near maximum capacity. (See this article from MSNBC)

Then there are the problems of extraction. Much of the oil that is left is more difficult to extract and produce. It may surprise some of you to know that Canada is our top supplier of crude (see figures on crude imports from the Energy Information Administration). Unfortunately, the biggest reservoir of oil in Canada is in the form of "heavy crude" which is a sandy, sludgy mess that is costlier to extract than lighter versions. (Wired Magazine has an interesting article about it here.) While companies have been able to improve extraction techniques, higher costs to produce will undoubtedly mean higher costs to use.

Transportation shortages and shutdowns have been a problem as well. In 2004, the New York Times ran an article about the shortage of oil tankers and the higher fees companies are having to pay to move their oil around the world. There have also been pipeline problems. In 2006, congress held hearings about a major shutdown of the Alaska Pipeline (a shutdown which led to a spike in gas prices). While the Alaskan shutdown seems to have been human error, other shutdowns have been deliberate. The blowing up of an Iraqi pipeline sent prices upward in March, see article here. Another pipeline attack in Nigeria just occurred this month. On top of which, acts of nature can cause shutdowns and send prices soaring. Gas prices shot up after Katrina, which damaged several refineries. Even less severe storms, like the recent Dolly, will cause production to drop.

Oil is Big Business and Highly Speculative

Profits in the oil business are enormous. Three of the top five Fortune 500 companies of 2008 are oil companies

1. Wal-Mart
2. Exxon Mobil
3. Chevron
4. General Motors
5. ConocoPhillips

In 2007, Exxon made $40.61 billion net profit. To put that in perspective for you, that is double the 2007 budget for the U.S. Department of Energy and about 60% of the U.S. Department of Education budget for the year (sans loans). And lest you think all that profit is going right back into exploration and infrastructure, let me assure you that the employees of these companies are doing just fine. Lee Raymond received $48.5 million the year before he retired from Exxon. And while pensions for most of us shlubs are becoming a quaint thing of ancient history, Raymond was eligible for a pension valued at $98.4 million.

Incredibly, that's not even where the real money is. If you want the fattest CEO salary, it is all about working for a global investment firm like Goldman Sachs. Four of the 25 most highly paid male executives work for Goldman Sachs Group, each bringing in $40 to $50 million in 2006. Goldman Sachs just so happens to be heavily invested in energy markets. Many believe that the kind of speculative investing that Goldman Sachs does is actually what is causing the bulk of the rise in energy costs. F. William Engdahl blames as much as 60% of the rise in oil prices to speculators. You can read his article, which has a detailed explanation of the oil market here.

Oil was always a crap shoot investment. If you drilled and came up with nothing, you were out a huge chunk of change. The speculation centered on whether or not you would find oil. In 1983, a futures market for oil opened up. Now speculators were guessing, not on whether or not oil would be found, but on how much the price of a barrel of oil was going to be. A firm like Goldman Sachs can buy a future guaranteeing them a set price and, if the price of oil goes up, they get to buy it at the promised cheaper price and resell the paper at a huge profit.

Not surprisingly, Goldman Sachs keeps on predicting higher crude prices. Of course, the higher prices they predict, the more investors run to buy. The more investors run to buy, the higher our gas prices go. While there has been some (barely discernible) talk in congress about ending this speculative frenzy, so far they have done nothing.

The Effect of War on Oil and of Oil on War

Oil prices and availability have always been effected by war. In 1899, they shot up during the Boer War in South Africa and in 1905 because of the Russo Japanese war. German destruction of U.S. oil tankers during World War I led to the complete banning of any pleasure driving in England and to the appointment of the first energy czar in the U.S. World War II saw strict oil rationing, even in the then oil rich United States. Quite simply, war uses a lot of oil. In fact, the U.S. military is the largest oil consumer in the world.

In the case of our current war, the oil factor is even more acute. Our war is being fought on top of the fourth largest oil reserve in the world. The war shut down oil production in Iraq and it still has not recovered. Of course, there are many people who believe oil was a factor (if not the factor) driving the war to begin with. I won't go into the arguments here, as the case has been laid out in many places. I'll just point you towards a few articles.

A Crude Case For War? - A Washington Post article outlining the present theories.

It's the Oil, Stupid - An article by Noam Chomsky

Why the "9/11 Truth" movement makes the "Left Behind" sci-fi series read like Shakespeare - A hilarious article by Matt Taibbi making fun of 9/11 truthers (those people who think Bush and Cheney planned the 9/11 attacks.)

Regardless of whether or not you think the Iraq war is about oil, what is indisputable is that military superiority depends on oil. In World War I, it was oil powered tanks and trucks that defeated the Germans (who still relied on the railroads to transport their troops). In World War II, Rommel's defeat in North Africa was due in large part to lack of oil, as was Germany's defeat in Russia. And it was the successful bombing campaigns against Germany's synthetic fuel industry that helped ensure their defeat at the Battle of the Bulge.

In short, the nation with the largest and most secure oil supply has the advantage. Given that fact, not to mention our dependence on oil for everything from food production to home heating, wouldn't it be absurd for a U.S. leader not to take oil into consideration when making decisions about war?

So Why is the Price of Gas so High and Who is to Blame?

The essential problem is basic supply and demand. The supply is only getting smaller and the demand is only getting bigger. The volatile political situation in the areas where much of the oil is located doesn't help. Neither does the greedfest fueled by Wall Street speculators. The fact that the value of the U.S. dollar has been steadily declining isn't making things any easier. Our insatiable appetite for energy wasting McMansions and gas guzzling SUVs isn't helping much either. And factoring in the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels isn't likely to make things any cheaper.

Ultimately, we all have to take some of the blame. In 1973, Nixon delivered the first presidential address on energy and called for an Apollo type program for energy independence. James Schlesinger, who worked in the Carter administration, tried to come up with a plan to wean us off oil and promote conservation, but we didn't listen. Instead of learning lessons from the gas crises of the 1970s, we continued to operate for 35 years as though oil would last forever. Even as recently as 2006, our government was cutting funding for research into renewable energy. We could blame the various administrations (democrat and republican) for this fiasco, but most of us weren't exactly clamoring for more responsible policies.

Reference

Yergin, Daniel. 1991. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power. New York: Free Press.

Who is to Blame for the Bad Economy? Part 1 of Response to "In Just One Year"

2008-07-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

There is an anonymous email circulating on the internet called "In Just One Year." It's a lengthy email and makes a lot of claims, most of which try to blame our bad economy on democrats or immigrants.

Part 1 of the email claims that, since the democrats took control of Congress in 2006, consumer confidence and equity values are down, the price of gasoline and the unemployment rate are up, and 1% of American homes are in foreclosure. The implication is that democrats caused all these things to happen.

Before I respond to the specific claims I think a couple things should be said.

Anonymous emails should arouse suspicion. We don't know who the author is or what their agenda is and we have no opportunity to investigate or question them.

Just because things happen at the same time, does not mean there is a causal relationship. George W. Bush assumed office in 2001. In less than one year, terrorists attacked the United States. That doesn't mean George Bush's election caused a terrorist attack.

Part I of the email I am responding to does not provide sources for the statistics cited, nor does it provide the dates that the author is comparing. That means it is impossible to verify the actual figures.

Now lets get to the specific claims in the email.

Consumer Confidence Drop

The Consumer Confidence Survey is published monthly by The Conference Board. For a good explanation of how it works, you can check out the entry on Wikipedia. The author of the email I am responding to claims that consumer confidence was at a 2 1/2 year high and then plummeted after democrats took office.

They do not say what specific policies they think caused the decline in consumer confidence. With barely a majority - certainly not enough of a majority to override presidential vetoes on major, partisan economic issues - the democratic congress hasn't done much good or bad. Presumably, the author wants us to believe that the democratic politicians mere presence in Washington caused the economy to collapse.

There are many charts and graphs showing consumer confidence over time and most of them show the same basic thing. Consumer confidence dropped precipitously in 2001. There have been some increases since, but we have never returned to our pre-2001 levels.

A graph from ABC News and the Washington Post, which you can see here, shows consumer confidence throughout Bush's presidency. The chart shows that the decline in consumer confidence corresponds with Bush's presidency, but it does not prove that Bush's presidency caused the decline. I think most reasonable, logical people could agree that the turning point in consumer confidence was the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Many people (including me) believe that poor governance and leadership since 2001 (by the president and congress) has exacerbated our economic problems, but the authors insinuation that democrats have caused the decline in consumer confidence is demonstrably false.

Equity Value Decline and Home Foreclosures

The email references two different declines in equity value, a decline in the value of investments and a decline in the value of homes. Let's begin with the decline in investment equity. Investment equity generally refers to the stock market.Without knowing what dates the author is referring to, it is impossible to confirm that a stock market loss occurred, but let's assume that there was a loss.

The stock market is volatile and risky. It fluctuates wildly and always has. The fluctuations are often random and illogical. The largest one day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average happened in 1987 (during a republican administration). Economists still haven't nailed down the cause of the 87' crash. For a list of possible culprits and an idea of how difficult it is to assign blame for these things, see this article from the History News Network. All of which is to say that there is no way the author of that email can assign blame to congress or anyone else.

In order to understand the decline in home equity, you must first understand the housing bubble. There is a great article in the Washington Post which follows the trajectory of all the housing market changes leading up to our current situation. In 1970 (during the Nixon administration) the government decided to buy mortgages from small savings and loans and sell them as bundled investments (bonds). This increased the amount of capital available for home loans, but also increased the amount of risk and speculation around the loans.

In the 1980s, Wall Street came up with all sorts of clever and complicated ways to slice and dice these mortgage investments so that they could make larger and larger profits. Since the rules changed there have been several boom and bust cycles for the stock market - highs followed by the 1987 crash, the dot.com boom followed by the dot.com bust, and September 11th. All of these booms and busts caused reactions in the housing market.

After September 11th, the Bush administration pushed through tax cuts and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates. Low interest rates and more cash encouraged even more building, particularly in boom areas like California and Florida. Where did that leave us? We've had 30 - 40 years of rapidly increasing capital available for home loans, sold to investors using absurdly complicated value formulas. We have a post attack precarious economy, rising fuel prices, home builders on a spree, and stagnant or decreasing income for your average person.

The builders had to find people to buy all the homes they were building. Because many people could not qualify for traditional loans (because of bad credit or low income), they were provided with "subprime" loans. These people paid higher interest. Often their mortgage rate would rise over time or they would have large balloon payments. (I should note that a significant lowering of mortgage standards began under the Clinton administration and you can read about it here.)

Inevitably, when balloon payments came due and monthly mortgage prices were set to go up, people began to default on their loans. Anyone paying attention could have predicted that this housing boom couldn't last forever. In fact, people had been predicting this balloon to pop since way before the dems took over congress. You can check out another Business Week article predicting a drop from back in 2005.

Unemployment Rate Increase

Another accusation made in the email is that the unemployment rate has risen since the dems took office. Again, the author did not provide comparison dates. And again I think it would be prudent to look at a longer period of time.

The unemployment rate is tracked by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. They calculate the rate based on monthly interviews they perform. A chart showing the rates from 1970 to present can be seen here. As you can see from the chart, our highest unemployment rates were actually during the Reagan administration - 9.7% in 1982. By the end of Reagan's second term, it had dropped to 5.3% (just about where it is right now). It rose again somewhat at the end of Bush Srs. term and the beginning of Clinton's. By the end of Clinton's term, it was the lowest it had been in the years shown on the chart. The highest unemployment since Bush took office was in 2003 (when the republicans still had control of congress). In short, trying to blame a slight increase in unemployment on the democratic congress is absurd.

The final issue raised in part I of the email is rising gas prices. Since this is the area I believe has the most significance, and since this post is already a bit lengthy, I'm going to respond to that in a separate post.

To be continued...

Would You Rather Have Balls or Heart?

2008-06-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

Since I used my last post to rant against feminists, I think I'll use this post to target something decidedly more masculine. I'd like to talk about balls for a moment.

How tough are balls really?

Having balls (or cojones in Spanish) is equated with being tough, strong, and fearless. The irony is that balls aren't tough at all. They are actually one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body. The first thing a girl learns when she is growing up is to kick a guy in the balls if she gets attacked. Balls are so fragile, boys had to invent special apparatuses to protect their balls while they are out playing games. A bit of cold air or water and balls just shrink up and hide away.

We respect people with balls. Conversely, people without balls are weak, unworthy of respect, pussies. But whereas balls are constantly in need of protection from the tiniest threat, a pussy can withstand to be ripped in half by a 10 pound kid and then bounce right back. Try that with some balls. It goes without saying that our ideas of balls being tough and pussies being weak are all about our ideas of men and women. Although I might also point out that being a dick is not considered a complement. Dick's are heartless, inconsiderate, and mean (insert Dick Cheney joke here).

The Meaning of Heart

When we say someone has balls, we put a veneer of toughness over something ridiculously vulnerable, but what about when we say someone has heart? The heart comes encased in a protective cage of bone that takes incredible force to break through. It is pliable and precise, yet strong enough to power an entire body. A heart is essential for life. Everyone has a heart.

Asking someone to have a heart is asking them to be compassionate, empathetic, and sensitive. Yet having heart is not weak. When a basketball player plays with heart, it means he is emotionally as well as physically tough. The player with heart is not respected for the fearless bravado of someone with balls. The player with heart is respected for strength, skill, intelligence, dedication, and teamwork.

Of course there are negative expressions associated with the heart, being a "bleeding heart liberal" for example. But even that expression just reinforces the strength and importance of the heart. It isn't a healthy heart that's a problem. It's a malfunctioning, bleeding heart. In the grand scheme of things, do you want to be gawked at as someone who has the balls to dive at something thoughtlessly and recklessly in order to camouflage inherent weakness. Or would you rather be someone who has the quieter, essential, steady, life-affirming strength of a heart?

Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Feminism

2008-06-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton has often been called divisive. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the effect her presidential candidacy had on women. Conflicts bubbling under the surface for years came gushing out in a torrent of articles, blogs, and commentary.

The Reasons Women Gave for Voting for Hillary

I've never spoken to a female Hillary supporter who didn't say that Hillary's gender was one of their primary reasons for voting for her. This was generally followed by some excuses for her vote on the war and a sad attempt to convince me that her repugnant behavior should be forgiven because she is a woman and she "had to" behave that way or risk being seen as too soft.

Experience was the other top reason provided for a Hillary vote. Whenever I dared to suggest that being first lady should not automatically count for experience, people were up in arms about it. Surely these people don't think Laura Bush is now qualified to be president? I also heard all about how Hillary fought for health care, but nothing about what a horrible failure her fight was or how undemocratically she behaved in the process.

Another, often unstated reason, was sympathy. It seemed like every time some pig would make nasty comments about Clinton, she would get a bump in the polls. I recall one debate when Hillary spoke about the tough times she has survived, and everyone just knew she was talking about her cheating spouse and all the mean boys who made fun of her legs. The more of a victim she was, the more women rallied to her defense.

The Old Guard Feminist Defense of Hillary

Then there was the official feminist response to Hillary's candidacy. The National Organization for Women endorsed her, saying "she has a long history of support for women's empowerment, and her public record is a testimony to her leadership on issues important to women in the U.S. and around the globe." Funny, I thought ending violence was important to women around the globe. I mean, right on the NOW website is a link to their campaign to end violence against women, yet the fact that their candidate had supported violence against men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran (a country whose people she she wanted to "obliterate" completely) didn't seem bother them at all.

The NOW endorsement came while Hillary was still the front-runner. Later her candidacy began to falter. She didn't just swoop in and skate through the nominating process. She, her husband, and her supporters started alienating African Americans with their hints about Obama's drug use and comparisons to Jesse Jackson. Her campaign, unprepared for a real competition, began to fight amongst themselves. The candidate who ran as the person who would fix our economy buried herself under a mountain of debt. Obama's campaign picked up steam and feminists began crying foul.

First came Gloria Steinem's article in the New York Times titled Women are Never Front-Runners. Conveniently forgetting that Clinton had been the front-runner just a few short months before, Steinem claimed that, had Barack Obama been a woman, he would never have been elected to the senate much less become a presidential candidate with a shot to win. Steinem claimed that gender is "the most restrictive force in American life." And while she said she was "not advocating a competition for who has it toughest" she claimed that black men receiving the right to vote before women demonstrates that gender is more restrictive. (She apparently never heard of poll taxes, and lynchings, and a little something called The Voting Rights Act.)

Then along came Geraldine Ferraro, completing the job that Steinem had started. While Steinem claimed merely that race was less restrictive than gender, Ferraro claimed that Obama's race actually helped him, saying “if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” When people were understandably outraged by her cluelessness, she started calling Obama sexist and said she was thinking about voting for McCain. And she wasn't the only one making that threat. There were countless other articles about the sexism that hurt Hillary's campaign and the angry women who were going to vote for McCain because of it.

Progressive Feminists Weigh in on Hillary

Just when I was about to lose all faith in my gender, more rational minds began to weigh in on the controversy. Kimberle Crenshaw and Eve Ensler published an article on the Huffington Post called Feminist Ultimatums: Not in Our Name in which they criticize the feminists who turned the "undeniable misogyny of the media into an imperative to vote for Clinton" and blast the women who try to pit sexism against racism, doing no service to the fight against either.

Alice Walker also weighed in with Lest We Forget: An open letter to my sisters who are brave. In her letter, Walker takes a more personal approach. She describes her childhood when white children (male and female) rode off to go to a school she was not allowed to attend. In Walker's experience "white women have copied, all too often, the behavior of their fathers and their brothers."

Barbara Ehrenreich, for her part, gives a scathing critique of Hillary's behavior in her article Hillary Revealed That Women Can Be Nasty, Deceptive Candidates Too. Her article criticizes Hillary's race baiting, hawkishness, exaggerations of foreign policy experience, and statements inferring that McCain was a better candidate than Obama. Ehrenreich writes that "Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way -- by demonstrating female moral inferiority."

Clinton v. Obama Supporters Generational and Philosophical Differences

Clinton had strong support among older women. My mother, who voted for Clinton, genuinely seems to believe that men and women are so inherently different that a woman will rule differently just because she is a woman. (I think she might have missed the Margaret Thatcher years.) Other women, the ones who said she had to compromise herself to get ahead, were often women who were also "climbing the ladder" and perhaps had made a few shameful compromises along the way.

Younger women I spoke to, even ones who had initially been somewhat supportive of Clinton, were eventually appalled at her behavior. Many were still angry about her vote for the Iraq war. I for one was furious about her staunch support of Israel during the war with Lebanon. As the campaign progressed and she began her fear-inducing 3:00 a.m. phone call commercials the disgust grew.

Older women often claimed that younger women did not understand the struggles they went through. They believed we were not voting for Clinton because we took for granted all the things our predecessors struggled for. Perhaps I do take for granted the opportunities I have, but I have a fundamental philosophical difference with these women. They want to see more women rulers. I want a world without rulers. Power corrupts and I won't make excuses for the corrupted regardless of which gender they are. Obama was less corrupted (for now) and therefore received my vote.

Is the Term Feminism Still Useful?

After the election, Linda Hirshman wrote an article in the Washington Post called Looking to the Future, Feminism Has to Focus. The gist of her article is that women are half the population, but the "movement" hasn't brought us together because we are split off into different groups by "race, class, and age." For her, adding concerns about racism, war, environmentalism, or prison issues into the mix have just distracted the "movement" from addressing what she feels are the real feminist issues.

Where Hirshman sees a lack of focus for a "movement" that isn't moving, I see the inherent problem with the term feminism. What the hell does it even mean? Are you a second wave feminist? A third wave feminist? An anti-racist, post modern, anarcho, enviro feminist? Women like Hirshman want feminism to be a nice neat category containing the issues meaningful to some middle class, white women - women who want success on the terms already defined by men and within the current systems we have.

Meanwhile, women like Kimberle Crenshaw and Eve Ensler "see feminism as something other than a 'me too' bid for power (and) not separate from the struggle against violence, war, racism and economic injustice." If feminism means so many things to so many people, if it is a term that requires a page of qualifiers in front of it, what's the point? Can't we all just explain what it is that we believe? Is arguing over semantics or creating largely artificial divisions and separation really going to get us anywhere? By pitting men and against women, black against white, etc., aren't we just buying into the very mechanisms used to perpetuate the injustices we are supposed to be against?

Is Education Overrated?

2008-06-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, John McCain opposed a bill requiring equal pay for women. He received a maelstrom of blogosphere criticism for his assertion that what women needed was "education and training." Let's, for the moment, set aside the fact that we were talking about women with equal education and training. Was what John McCain said really so different from the same tired lines we always hear about education?

Education as a panacea

Both Barack Obama and John McCain's websites highlight our failing educational systems. McCain focuses on public schools "cultural problems" and lack of choice. (Read: Fearful parents should be able to remove their children from schools filled with the other.) Obama wants to provide funding, improve teacher pay and make a college education affordable for everyone.

Regardless of whose position you most agree with (and I admit that I agree with Obama's), the implication remains the same. Without education, children will fail in life. They will not be able to get good jobs. They will be poor. They will always struggle. And all of this joblessness, poverty, and struggle will be the result of their poor education. You will be hard pressed to find anyone who will disagree with that statement. No one seems to question it at all.

What do we mean when we say education?

About a year ago, I was on a mini-tour outside of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. My boyfriend and I were on our way to some natural hot springs called Las Fuentes Georginas. Sharing the van with us were two other tourists, one woman from DC and one from Australia. As we drove the winding road to the hot springs, passing Mayan farmers working their fields, the Australian commented on the impressiveness of their mountainside agriculture. The American quickly responded that the Peace Corp had come in and shown them how to do everything.

Now, for those of you who do not know, indigenous people of the Americas have always been some of the most gifted agriculturalists in the world. Their efforts over centuries have brought an incredible array of foods that the world relies on to survive, most importantly corn and potatoes. In fact, recent scholarship has focused on how to undo some of the western agricultural practices imposed on indigenous people by our so-called experts and on learning about their much more sustainable traditional ones.

The point of my story being that the American could not conceive that someone without a formal education could know something. It was easier for her to believe that a twenty-something Peace Corp volunteer would know more than a 40 year old farmer who had centuries of knowledge passed down to him or her.

When we say education, we mean formal education. We mean education that comes with a piece of paper. We mean that someone who has already been certified as worthy confers on us this same worthiness. We can then show this paper to the world and say, you see, I deserve to make a decent living.

Is formal education just stratification?

For employers, the formal education system is, at best, a shortcut. Presumably, that piece of paper evidences a certain level of knowledge and ability that the employer can rely on. But since not everyone has the opportunity to get that piece of paper, it also acts as a barrier and as a means of conferring status from one generation to the next. If you are wealthy and one of your parents went to college, you are far more likely to go yourself.

Employers are not necessarily conscious of the prejudicial filtering effect of this system. Every nonprofit I have worked for has been chagrined at the lack of diversity in their offices. They often set up diversity committees to figure out what is going wrong. They think of elaborate ways to recruit a more diverse staff.

The reason non-profits are not diverse (ethnically or economically) is simple. Minorities are disproportionately poor. They have less opportunity to go to college. Since nonprofits require a bachelors to sweep the floor, they filter out good people who had less opportunities in life. (On top of which, the main entry point to the world of nonprofits and government is through unpaid internships, which no poor person can afford to take.)

What is societies responsibility to business and vice versa?

There was a time when business was required to provide training to their employees. Then, at least, if an employer was going to make money from your labor, they had to provide you the skills to do it. Today, we are expected to obtain the skills ourselves. Employers want society to provide education. They want their employees to have previous experience. For-profits don't want to waste a penny of their bottom line on training. Non-profits use the excuse of few resources.

In fact, university education itself has changed. It is no longer about a liberal arts education. It isn't about pondering the meaning of existence or critical thinking about the issues of the day. It has become, more and more, about simply providing the skills that businesses are looking for. If our entire education system revolves around what business wants, is it any wonder that business has taken over our political and personal lives as well?

Does an "uneducated" person deserve their fate?

When we were kids, my father used to tell my sister that, if she didn't improve in school and go to college, she would end up flipping burgers in Wags Restaurant. (Wags was a lot like Denny's, if you're not familiar.) This was said with absolute certainty, without any doubt as to whether or not this most terrible fate would be deserved (or if it was a terrible fate at all).

When I was in high school, a classmate of mine was stabbed to death. During the trial, the defense brought up his poor performance in school as evidence of his inherent badness. The logic went that, if he performed poorly in school, he must be one of those bad kids. If he was one of those bad kids, he must have done everything that the defense said he did. They bought it and the murderer got off.

Whenever we hear about a farmworker making pennies and living in a cardboard box, or an inner city youth who can't find a job, or an Appalachian former coal miner barely surviving, our response is that they need eduction. The implication is twofold. Without a formal education, it is acceptable that someone can't even make enough to feed their family, regardless of how hard they work. And without a formal education, a person doesn't have the ability, knowledge or skills to contribute to society in a way that deserves decent compensation.

What role should education play in our lives?

I'm not suggesting we all embrace illiteracy and ignorance. I'm saying that knowledge from a professor duly authorized by the university system is not the only kind of knowledge there is. Not only people with graduate degrees deserve to live humanly.

Perhaps we need to start questioning the motives of people for whom formal education is their answer to everything. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves how much our idea of education should revolve around certification of the skills some well-paying businesses want and more around how to produce a just society in which everyone can participate.

Drug Policy Changes and the 2008 Presidential Election

2008-06-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

Looks like it's going to be Obama vs. McCain in the general election. One has freely admitted former drug use. The other's wife is a recovering addict. Back when Bill Clinton was running for office, his non-inhaled pot smoke caused an uproar. This time the controversy surrounding Barack Obama is that he may not have done as many drugs as he seemed to indicate in his autobiography. Does this mean the change voters have been clamoring for may extend to drug policy?

Drug Policy and Past Presidents

I was born in 1973, just a couple years after Richard Nixon kicked off his war on drugs. I grew up in South Florida where the uber-wealthy did lines on their yachts with impunity, while crack houses in Liberty City were raided on the five o'clock news for everyone to see the dark face of the drug problem. In those years, the drug war was the political issue. Anyone who needed a bogeyman, from Hollywood to the Whitehouse, just pulled out the archetypal evil drug dealer.

Every successive president tried to outdo the last in a violent, futile hypocrisy-fest. Ronald Reagan escalated the drug war, while at the same time illegally supporting the Contras in Nicaragua (many of whom were, according to congressional testimony, known to be involved in the drug trade). Then there was his successor, George Bush, with his now debunked claim about buying crack in front of the Whitehouse. And Bill Clinton who went out of his way to prove how tough on crime (ie. not a bleeding heart liberal) he was by presiding over an administration which saw the U.S. prison population grow by leaps and bounds - in large part due to drug laws.

Obama and McCain on Foreign Drug Policy

The basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy related to drugs have been:

Push to ensure other countries make illegal the substances we want illegal
Push for harsh penalties for violating drug laws
Provide money, weapons, and logistical support for police and (more often) military
Eliminate the "source" of drugs using crop eradication

Not only have these policies been ineffectual, they have side effects. Eradication programs have killed food crops, displaced rural communities, damaged ecosystems, caused health problems, and exacerbated international conflicts. And, as drugs and democracy in Latin America so clearly shows, our support for military solutions within countries (solutions that would be illegal in our own country) have contributed to violence, human rights violations, and the weakening of civil institutions.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that either a McCain or Obama presidency would change our foreign policy regarding drugs. Neither have challenged the basic tenets of our policy. Both McCain and Obama have come out in support of the Merida Initiative (increasing counter-narcotic support to the Mexican government). They have also supported Plan Colombia.

McCain, for his part, said in a speech to The Florida Association of Broadcasters that "our security priority in this hemisphere is to ensure that terrorists, their enablers and their business partners, including narcotraffickers, have nowhere to hide." Obama, when questioned at a foreign policy event I attended about how to handle opium growing in Afghanistan, said that we need to look at bringing in agricultural experts. While his looking at the root of the problem (the need to make a living) and not resorting to a knee-jerk military response is laudable, crop substitution programs have been tried and failed.

Obama and McCain on Domestic Drug Policy

On the domestic front, things are somewhat more hopeful. There seems to finally be some recognition that our policies have failed. The two main areas of movement are:

Medical Marijuana and Marijuana Decriminalization
Alternatives to Incarceration of Drug Offenders

McCain opposes decriminalization of marijuana. Obama has, in the past, come out in favor of marijuana decriminalization, but he recently did some very disappointing backpedaling. Both McCain and Obama have stated in the past that they would respect state's rights and end the federal raids on state medical marijuana patients. It is McCain who has backpedaled some on that issue, but Obama still says that arresting medical marijuana patients and raids are not a good use of federal resources.

Both McCain and Obama have advocated alternatives to prison for first time users. In fact, the only place you will see drug issues listed on Obama's website is under the civil rights section. There he advocates rehabilitation through ex-offender programs (including substance abuse treatment), elimination of sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, and the expanded use of drug courts (which even the U.S. Department of Justice admits reduces recidivism).

Questions for Obama and McCain

While there appears to be some improvement on domestic policy, we still have a long way to go. Here are a few questions about drug policy I would like to see asked of the candidates in a debate:

Would you agree that a law is a rule we as a society agree to live by? If nearly half the population is breaking a law, wouldn't a reasonable conclusion be that the law may not be appropriate or just? In 2005, the Department of Justice reported that 46%, or nearly half, of all adults surveyed had used illicit drugs in their lifetime. Would you send half the population to prison?

Senator Obama, you have in the past said that you supported marijuana decriminalization. Recently, your campaign stated that this was a misunderstanding of the term decriminalization - which means to remove criminal penalties. Are we to take it that you support criminal penalties, including jail time, for possession of small amounts of marijuana. If so, please explain why, aside from its current illegality, it is a good idea to send people to prison for marijuana possession.

Both of you have supported continuing Plan Colombia and ratcheting up support for similar programs in Mexico. Does this include support for eradication programs, which have been shown to have disastrous effects on food production, caused environmental destruction, had negative health effects on populations, and caused potentially explosive border disputes with neighboring countries? And does it take into consideration the fact that it was a supposedly successful eradication campaign in Mexico in the 1970s that actually pushed drug production into Colombia in the first place - the well documented balloon effect.

If a business has been cheated or stolen from, they generally have options as to how to address that problem. They can call the police. They can sue in civil court. They can go to the newspapers. If a drug business has a similar problem they have only one option, violence. Wouldn't it follow, that by opening up other options, by legalizing drugs, we might be able to curb the violence plaguing places like Mexico and Colombia? Senator Obama, in a recent speech to the Cuban American National Foundation you criticized sticking to "tired blueprints on drugs and trade, on democracy and development." Aren't our current tactics in the drug war the most tired blueprints of them all?

Now I don't expect the candidates to have an epiphany, but I do think there is a chance in this election that we might get some thoughtful answers for a change. Perhaps this is a public discussion we are finally ready to have.

Picking a President: The Argument Against Experience

2008-05-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

My mother waffled back and forth between Clinton and Obama. She ultimately went for Clinton because, she said:

She has more experience
She doesn't have a penis

The second one isn't a direct quote, but it is the gist of her argument. I'll save my comments on the all-too-prevalent lack o'penis argument for another post. For this post, lets just focus on the experience argument.

The two burning questions are:

What constitutes a wide breadth of experience
And does size matter (sorry, couldn't help myself)

Clinton's Experience Claims

In the democratic primary, Clinton sold herself as being more experienced and many people (including most of the pundits) seem to have bought it. A few, like Alissa Warters and Scott Kaufman on History News Network, did question the validity of Clinton's claims. But even when democrats were up in arms about Hillary's suggestion that she and McCain had experience and Obama had only a speech, people rarely challenged her.

These days, Clinton is still using her ready on day one argument to try and sway superdelegates. But they would be crazy to pick her based on experience. Is she really going to try and run against McCain based on experience? He's got all the traditional pre-presidential creds.

War hero - check
Bazillion years senate experience - check
Life as a white male people want to have a beer with - check

Judging by what looks to be the outcome of the democratic primary, it appears Clinton's experience argument swayed some older voters like my mom, but didn't do much for the rest of us.

Now comes the real test. Did the experience argument not sway because people don't think experience matters or because of the gaping holes in Clinton's experience claims?

So far, Obama has chosen to counter the experience argument by pointing out that people with a lifetime of experience (like Dick Cheney) are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place. Obama claims it is not Washington experience, but life experience that matters. Even more important, he says, is having good judgment.

Experience, Not so Great After All

Obama's claims have been effective, but they don't explicitly challenge the whole idea of experience being mostly positive and sometimes neutral. I'd like to make a clear argument for the opposite. Often experience is a negative.

It's not a given that people learn from their mistakes. Experience does not always mean wisdom. Sometimes, experience so corrupts a person that any value gained from having seen the mechanisms by which things work is far outweighed by the myopia and emotional baggage that comes with that experience.

Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of someone experience has not been kind to. Her lifetime of experience told her that a president needed to be seen as tough, as able to be Commander in Chief. She spent her political career trying to look tough and ended up running for president at a moment when we were all tired of cowboys (or cowgirls) who want to "obliterate" Iran.

McCain has been corrupted by his experience as well. His experience showed him that, unless he sucked up to Bush and to the right wing of his party, he would lose his bid for the presidency in another barrage of nasty attacks and innuendo like the Rove assault in South Carolina in 2000.

Bill Clinton has been a walking argument against experience. The saxophone playing, smooth as silk, empathizer-in-chief turned into a sad, petty, race-baiting, fact-fudging shell of his former self. (O.k., we all knew about the fact-fudging, but he was so much smoother about it before.)

Getting through life without becoming jaded and compromised by your experience is a difficult thing to do. That is especially true for people in power. Many people see Clinton (and increasingly McCain) as being too compromised. Obama, on the other hand, is right on the precipice. He has enough experience to run an incredible campaign organization, but not so much experience that he seems completely tainted - yet.

Of course, nobody knows how long Obama will be able to keep that mojo going. He too will likely be corrupted by experience some day. Lets hope it takes a few more years.

The Myth of the Latino Vote

2008-05-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

It seems like pundits do almost nothing but slice and dice the electorate into what they wish were neatly organized and predictable groups - white voters, black voters, old voters, young voters, men, women, extra terrestrials...

I didn't think I could be more disgusted with the whole process until Richard Wolffe showed up on MSNBC talking about how Obama needed to court the Latino vote in Florida. Wolffe suggested that Obama was going to have to go down to Florida "speak their language" and "eat tacos." Eat tacos!!! Argh!!! His statement is ignorant and offensive on so many levels I hardly know where to begin.

Not all "Latinos" eat tacos. I challenge Mr. Wolffe to head over to the Cuban restaurant Puerto Sagua on Miami beach and try to find a taco on the menu.

Not all people from Latin America speak Spanish. There are hundreds of indigenous languages still spoken and some immigrants from Latin America have never spoken Spanish. That doesn't even begin to look at Portuguese, French and various creoles. Even Latinos in the U.S. whose families speak Spanish often don't speak Spanish themselves.

In fact, growing up in South Florida, the majority of my friends barely spoke enough Spanish to converse with their abuelas. As media executives Jeff Valdez and Jose Cancela explain in an interview with Hispanic Magazine, the vast majority of Latinos speak English and only about a quarter are considered "Spanish dominant" - and that's coming from the people trying to sell Spanish language ad space.

The idea of Latinos or Hispanics as a group is a creation of statisticians and advertising executives. If you don't believe me, check out Arlene Dávila's book Latinos Inc. In short, advertising executives convinced advertisers that there was this huge group of "Latinos" out there who all shared the same characteristics and could be advertised to as a group, on Spanish language television of course.

The truth is that a wealthy, white, educated, fervently anti-communist, Cuban revolution-era exile in Miami doesn't have the same political interests as a migrant laborer from Mexico picking strawberries in Watsonville, California.

A Spanish, African, and Taino descended Puerto Rican musician who splits her time between New York and the island does not have the same political interests as a Californio politician whose Spanish descended ancestors have been living on the same land since the 1700s.

"Latinos" covers every conceivable background, history, economic status, and educational level. Trying to figure out how Latinos are going to vote based on the fact that they come from some place in the non-anglo dominated Americas is absurd.

A Cuban friend of mine once told me that she was a Republican because John F. Kennedy screwed up the Bay of Pigs and Cubans have never forgotten that betrayal. Some Mexican Catholics, on the other hand, are known for having pictures of JFK prominently displayed in their homes right next to Jesus and the pope. Are you trying to tell me they are going to vote the same?

What if the Superdelegates Decide the Election?

2008-05-13T19:04:00.001-07:00

Hillary Clinton isn't going anywhere. She is committed to continuing, knowing full well that she will not have as many elected delegates as Obama has. It appears that she is going to try and convince the superdelegates that she is more electable and that they should therefore overrule us.

The pundits are trying to guess what will happen if the superdelegates chose to ignore our wishes. Some have said that democrats will come together and support whichever candidate they put forward. I believe that would be true if it seemed that the candidate won fairly. If the superdelegates decide the election in favor of someone who received less votes and less elected delegates, I for one will not be able to support the democratic party. How can you support a party that doesn't actually believe in democracy?

Republicans always accuse democrats of being elitist. If superdelegates decide our election, the democratic party will prove them right. What could be more elitist than a group of powerful superdelegates deciding that we the people are too stupid to chose the right candidate?

Some time during the Clinton years I became so fed up with the democrats move to the right that I registered as an independent. I re-registered as a democrat to vote for Barack Obama. But I warn you democrats, my support is tentative and conditional. I support you as long as you show some vision, some backbone, and some belief in real democracy. If you give up on us, I for one will give up on you. I doubt that I am alone.

My prediction - If Hillary appears to have stolen the election with a backroom superdelegate deal, many of the young, excited new voters will stay home and be turned away from politics for a long time to come. The number of registered independents will continue to grow while the democratic and republican parties will become more and more mummified.

Anyone know whose running in the Libertarian party?

Obama's So Called Jewish Problem

2008-05-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Increasingly, pundits are talking about Obama's supposed Jewish problem. This "problem" stems from his unproven "support" for Israel and, after the Revernd Wright broo-ha-ha, his tenuous association-by-association with Nation of Islam leader and gasbag Louis Farrakhan. Recently, McCain has also been hinting that Hamas and Obama are BFF.

The strategy of republicans, and the increasingly republicanesque Ms. Clinton, is to shave off as many voters as possible by appealing to irrational fears and selfish desires. They think playing up the association with Reverend Wright, pointing out that Obama once expressed some human compassion for Palestinians, and trying to associate him with Hamas will peel off enough Jewish votes to bring them wins. In the republican case, and since Jews make up less than 2% of the population, I can only imagine that they are aiming for Florida.

Lets break this one down a bit shall we. The assumptions being made are:

All Jews fundamental issue is Israel. Israel is a litmus test that a candidate must pass in order to get our vote - I'm sorry to break it to you all, but Jewish people actually do care about the economy and the environment and the war in Iraq.

"Support" for Israel means blind approval of any action the corruption-scandalized Israeli government feels like taking - While it is true that criticism of the Israeli government is taboo in the United States, rational people understand that no government is immune from making mistakes. We Jews have our fair share of irrationals, like anyone else, but most of us know that the Israeli government has made many mistakes and that every criticism is not an attack on Jewish people. In fact, many of us would like to see more criticism of the Israeli government. None of which is to say that Obama has actually criticized the Israeli government - which, I personally wish he would.

Polls show that fewer Jews are supporting the democratic candidates this time around and pundits claim that has to do with a perception that republicans are stronger on Israel - I've only known one (admitted) Jewish republican in my life and he said he became a republican because he thought, as a token Jew, he would get farther politically. Now I'm not going to say that all Jews who vote republican are despicable panderers (although I might think it), but there are certainly other reasons why the republican party has been able to siphon off a bit more of the Jewish vote. My personal guess is that the majority of those republican voting jews are old, male, white, wealthy and hawkish about a lot more than Israel. In other words, they are the republican demographic and are as likely to be voting based on the desire to pay less taxes on their wealth or make money on their Haliburton stock as on Israel.

Jews and Israel are not one inseparable entity. It's frankly insulting to speak as though we are. And while we are at it, how about having a Jewish pundit besides Kristol or Dershowitz or some other conservative uber-zionist? How about having a real debate for a change. Bring on Amy Goodman or Norman Finkelstein once in a while.