Letters to my Editor (Pt 2)

Another letter that kind of needs nothing but itself:

My US flag now flies upside down as a protest of unacceptable, unconstitutional injustice when representatives did not represent the people they were supposed to represent.

I kind of love the people who write to my paper.

Dear Mr. Douthat,

You write,

I find it hard to believe that you’d be seeing this level of right-of-center enthusiasm if Obama had postponed cap-and-trade, avoided taking over GM, compromised more significantly on the stimulus, and taken the incremental route to health insurance expansion that Reihan Salam discusses here.

Really? Are you sure, Mr. Douthat? Because considering the amount of "Obama is gleefully bringing us to the end of the world!1!11!!1!!" expressed in some corners of the cable news channels and in the blogosphere, and how that has continually happened since the man first began making real headway in the polls en route to becoming president, I call bullshite on this. I'm not going to say that all of the right-of-center enthusiasm is due to race; I think a lot of it is due to fear of The Other - the same thing that made John Kennedy a suspicious figure in 1960.

In other words, what is energizing the Right and the Far Far On the Fringes Right isn't the fact that Obama is a liberal. It is that they perceive him to be an Ultra Liberal, one step behind being a socialist, Marxist, atheist; the truth of the matter is that Obama is left-of-center, but far more interested in reaching centrist solutions than he is in making the world in his Liberal image. The man is a compromiser. That is the reason the single payer proponents didn't even get a seat at the table when the healthcare discussion began. That is the reason he has tried to woo people like Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe. That is the reason he chose to simply bail out the banks, instead of using their teetering as the reason to break them into smaller entities; or initializing a government take over as liberaler economists like Simon Johnson (formerly of the IMF and current blogger at The Baseline Scenario) said was the only solution not guaranteed to fail (he later admitted his error on This American Life, after being called on it by one Adam Davidson). This could just be a crafty political move; but in truth, I think Obama hangs by the adage that the best solution is the one that leaves everyone at the table a bit grouchy.

So, what is energizing the Right isn't Obama, but the specter of an Obama that doesn't truly exist. For a long time now, I've pretty much thought that since Obama is going to be seen as Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal by swaths of those on the right and those who just don't like him very much (unless the reason for not liking him lies in the fact that he isn't, actually, Liberaller than the Liberalist Liberal), he should have just gone hog wild and been that liberal hero of which the left has often dreamt. But that just isn't who he is; or, at the very least, it isn't how he has chosen to govern. And really, Mr. Douthat, if you think that Obama's liberalish impulses are what is causing the huge upswell on the Right, how do you explain this:

What’s really killing the Democrats, and what’s likely to hurt them the most come next November, is the growing enthusiasm gap — and its implications for candidate recruitment, fundraising, turnout, and all the rest.

If Obama really was the liberal candidate the left had dreamed of and the Right is using as a boogeyman, then there would be no enthusiasm gap. The progressive base would be just as enthusiastic about getting out the vote as the right is now. The problem is, again, that Obama just isn't that guy. He was never that guy. He is a capable guy; an inspiring guy; a guy who has acted as a change agent just by being elected, due to his heritage. I'll bet dollars to donuts he's going to be a great president. But he isn't the liberal's dream. And so, the liberal, knowing this, isn't too excited. The progressive isn't going to get comprehensive banking reform; isn't going to get a Public Option; isn't going to get a dismantling of a broken healthcare system; isn't going to get supports for the middle class; isn't going to get a bill that doesn't start out already compromised; is upset by the Stupack-Pitts Amendment; and is pissed that Don't Ask, Don't Tell still has not been repealed.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal or isn't liberal enough - though I would definitely prefer if the man were to enact policies that were inherently more liberal, myself. It is how the world perceived him, and how part of that world perceives him still.

Obama's problem isn't that he is too liberal and if he'd only moved incrementally, he wouldn't have a backlash. It is that people like Sarah Palin are the idols of the Right; and their prescriptions tend to be, "Do nothing. Wait. Repeat".

Obama's problem is that the only people who seem to be riding high right now are those in banking, when the conventional wisdom is that banking is what brought the world to its economic knees, when banks are still foreclosing on houses and turning ordinary people out into the streets.

Mr. Douthat, you say,

I think it would behoove liberals to give serious consideration to the more direct explanation — namely, that some of the anti-Obama backlash has to do with Americans discovering, after an enormous Democratic sweep, that they preferred liberalism much more in theory than in practice.

I say, helping maintain the status quo, in terms of the banks especially, isn't a particularly liberal philosophy. You say some of the anti-Obama backlash is due to people figuring out they don't really like liberalism. I say the anti-Obama backlash is because the guy didn't turn out to be the messiah. I say, the anti-Obama backlash is because ordinary people still don't feel as if their interests are being served, and yet they see bankers walking away with million dollar bonuses. And what they see is the status quo in politics, the status quo on Wall Street, and the status quo in the big firms where the hot shots make the money. And the only people who are not reaching that status quo is what they see as the ordinary citizen.

Democrats were swept into Congress as much because they weren't Republicans as because they were Democrats. Democrats had to prove, and prove quickly, they were different than the Republicans, that they weren't beholden to the same moneyed interests, that they could make a difference and that they would make a difference for the average citizen. Democrats are, I'm sad to say, failing that test. More than not liking big proposals, I'm willing to wager the ordinary American citizen doesn't like big proposals that dawdle in the halls of Congress, not getting passed and then becoming progressively worse until they pass with absolutely no one happy, or just fade away.

But really, Obama's real problem, the real reason there is an enthusiasm gap, is because it is frickin' hard to govern. Especially when the other side won't play. And so, it is infinitely easier to work up enthusiasm when your side is out of power - because you don't have to make compromises and can tell tales about how much better your side would be handling things without having to offer proof. Meanwhile, the other side is stuck actively making and eating the head cheese. Which, honestly, is much, much harder to be happy about.

Chris Matthews Gets It Half Right

Well, maybe a quarter right.

First, I have to say that MSNBC's new feature on their websites to shorten video segments is brilliant. I love it (transcript below):

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CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know what, I'll tell you something, and we'll get to this over time. It came up in the Hillary campaign. And that is this: women in the workplace have to have what's called a professional manner. Men have a little more history in the workplace, in certain work places, and they have a little more, uh, range in the way they presents themselves. Women are expected to perform professionally. An attorney, a doctor, you want to see a game face to some extent, right? And now, when they get into politics, they're-they're expected to do a lot of grabbing and holding and baby kissing, and a lot of it, sort of - intimate exchanges with total strangers. An availability for intimate exchanges. Like, come up to me, grab me, you know what I mean? And if you show any kind of, uh, guardedness or what you call in the workplace professionalism, you're cold... ...So, what we're finding out now is it's harder!

Okay, so I'm not the world's biggest Chris Matthews fan. Scratch that. I strongly dislike Chris Matthews. I think the man is, simply put, an ass. Or, a jackass.

Which is why my first impulse upon hearing this was to say (to myself, while I was alone in my car), "REally, Chris? Women in politics are maligned for maintaining the professionalism they need to acquire in order to succeed and progress in a number of business environments? Who'd have thunk?!" The second was, "We're finding that out NOW?! You f***ing JACKASS!"

The "finding out now" part is where Matthews was downgraded from getting it half right to getting it a quarter right. Because, seriously, those of us in the know have known this for years. Hell, I'm 24 and I've known that for at least half of my life.

This whole post, actually, could be about how this remark may be Matthews obliquely offering contrition over his continually stated negative opinion about Hillary Clinton in during the 2008 presidential race, his remarks about how she was "cold", how she was "sharp", etc. And that would turn into a post about how much I ha... strongly dislike Chris Matthews. Especially when I get to the part where he's talking to Rachel Maddow as if this is some grand revelation he's letter her on, when I'm pretty sure this ain't news to her.

But instead, I'm going to talk about where Matthews got it right, and where he got it wrong.

He's right. He's absolutely right that women have to perform in a certain way, act in a certain way, in the work environment - especially certain types of work environments - in order to get ahead.

He's wrong if he thinks that is the only negative women face. If a woman isn't cold, then she is ineffective - in the workplace, and I'll bet on the campaign trail. Lest we forget the reaction Secretary of State Clinton arose from varied political corners when she had the audacity to tear up in New Hampshire. Some (Andrew Sullivan) called it a calculated, crass effort to gain voter sympathy. And anti-feminist to boot. Some asked if we wanted a woman who cried dealing with our enemies. There is very few ways women can win without being critiqued for how they express (or don't) their femininity.

What Matthews is also wrong about is why (white) men are allowed more expression in the workplace. It isn't because they have been there longer; it is because they are automatically seen as competent. Women (and let's face it, minorities of any stripe) have to prove they are competent. Them's the facts, Jack.

I'll give Matthews credit where credit is due: he's teetering on the edge of a rather big revelation, namely that there is actually sexism in the world and it affects women in politics - just like it affects women everywhere else. I'll give Matthews that credit because I actually think he's made a fairly large step. When he says, "we're finding out", I think he means "I'm finding out". Unless he thinks a lot of his brethren are on the cusp of this realization as well. I hope so.

Letters To My Editor: No One Deserves A Trial Edition

So, I'm going to write about a letter to my paper's editor, and you're going to have to take in on faith I'm not making it up because in order to pull it on-line you need a user name and password. And I'm pretty sure you have to subscribe, so... Here's the letter, entitled Terrorists Don't Deserve U.S. Justice:

How does U.S. government figure the Christmas bombing attempt on Northwest Flight 259 was a failure? It accomplished what al-Qaida wanted. Whether it brought down the plane, Americans will spend millions to put the would-be bomber on trial.

He, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and those wackos in Gitmo do not deserve American justice. They should be executed as soon as the plane lands. We could use the money on more important things.

First, some minor grammatical grievances. This sentence:

Whether it brought down the plane, Americans will spend millions to put the would-be bomber on trial

makes very little sense.

It could read:

Although it did not succeed in bringing down the plane, Americans will spend millions to put the would-be bomber on trial.

An added sentence about how one of al-Qaeda's stated goals is to bleed America dry would have really improved the sentiment.

But the real problem, aside from the fact that the letter writer seems to be cribbing off of Bill O'Reilly without giving O'Reilly his proper due, lies in the philosophical assertion of the letter, that being:

He, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and those wackos in Gitmo do not deserve American justice.

I'll let Keith Olbermann - because I am into giving props when props are due - take the reins about one of the real problems with this argument (relevant part transcribed below):

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KEITH OLBERMANN (SPEAKING AS BILL O'REILLY): "Simply put, al-Qaeda thugs have no rights, none. They should be killed on the spot. And they are being killed by the drones. So if they're captured, they should undergo harsh interrogation and be placed in military prisons."

KEITH OLBERMANN (SPEAKING AS HIMSELF): Okay, were you planning to still put them in the military prisons after you kill them on the spot, or do you need to rephrase your plan? Seriously, Bill, we need to walk you through the idea of why we have trials? Ultimately, why we ask questions first and shoot later? It's not about rights, it's not about who's a thug, it's not about how much sadistic joy you and the sickos like you from the thought of "harsh interrogation". It's so we get the right guy. Mankind figured this out thousands of years ago, and we replaced that old method of "kill them then ask them if they're guilty" because the dead men proved to be mediocre at answering questions! And then it also turned out that often we were killing the wrong guys which is inconvenient! Especially for them!

But, aside from the inconvenient aspect of killing the innocent, there is a not so insignificant fact that applying an impartial judicial system is one of those key things that sets us apart from those who wish to terrorize us. Applying our rule of law to those who would indiscriminately kill, allowing for the fact that our values system is strong enough and significant enough and, perhaps most importantly, sacred enough to try and convict those who are guilty, and try and set free those who are found not guilty.

Because even though Olbermann is right that it isn't wholly about rights, it is at least somewhat about rights. Because the judicial system isn't set up for the government to reign supreme. It has been set up in favor of the defendant. Because the guilty aren't the only ones accused; but also because the guilty have the fundamental right of due process as well. Partly, that is to protect the innocent, because if the guilty are not worthy of trial by jury then the whole process by which we decide who is indeed innocent gets a bit truncated. And then we circle back to a lot of the wrong people dying, which - again - is inconvenient.

Perhaps my Letter Writer means only al-Qaeda terrorists don't deserve American justice. Perhaps those others who break the law are still subject to the rule of law, as long as they aren't Islamic extremists. That may be where his line is drawn. But that doesn't mean that's where everyone's line is drawn. Maybe someone else's line for which crimes deserve a fair trial is less broad than "everyone who isn't engaged in terrorism for the benefit of al-Qaeda"; maybe someone else's line encompasses those who drive while texting, or who kill anyone for any reason. And that's really why denying the American system of justice to one group you personally don't like, even if it saves a bundle of cash, is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard - because it rests predominately on the idea that everyone else will agree that this subset of criminal is the subset that does not deserve to go through due process and be subject to Amendments 5 through 8.

Let's take in that number for a sec, shall we? Our Founders felt that the whole criminal and civil trial thing was so important, they chose to utilize four whole amendments out of the original ten to explicitly setting down rules for how trials should be set up. Four. It is inconceivable to me that those who purport to love our country so much they want to kill anyone on our soil immediately who allegedly engaged in an act of terrorism could so willfully ignore the very words of our Constitution. For all the talk about how actually trying these people plays into the terrorists' hands, those same people do little to engage with the notion that ignoring those parts of our society that makes it our society because we're scared or angry or vengeful does more harm than it does good. Because it fundamentally alters our society, and not for the better. Because it ignores that the justice system isn't there to exonerate the innocent. It is there to provide rights to the guilty.

Double Standards, And Their Absence

I'm not going to go into Senator Harry Reid's comments regarding the electability of then-Senator Barack Obama. But what I am going to talk about is the "double standard" talk emanating from some members of the GOP.

There is no damned double standard. Why? Well, for one, in order for it to truly be a double standard, the parties would have to be on equal footing. Guess what? They're not.

There is a long-standing tradition within the GOP to use dog-whistles, in their ads and in their robocalls. Like the Willie Horton ad, used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Like the poll calls in 2000 asking South Carolina voters if they would be less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child, based partially on the fact McCain and his wife had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Ronald Reagan used the specter of the "welfare queen" in order to win the support of white America.

Then there is this: the person Harry Reid is being most compared to on an individual level within the GOP camp is Trent Lott. Lott, who said that had Strom Thurman been elected president, the country would be in a better place, that we wouldn't have all the problems we have now. Some nice remarks for an elder statesman's birthday? Perhaps. But the question becomes, better for whom? For the African-Americans who were left out of Thurman's America? No. It would not be better for them at all.

And that's what it comes down to - policy decisions and reaching out to a minority community. I'm not going to say that the Dems don't house racists. I'm not going to say that the GOP is totally bad on issues of race and the Dems are totally wonderful. What I am going to say is that the GOP has continually made a home for itself in the high places, and have perpetually attacked policies that are designed to help minorities in our nation. Sometimes, out of a sense of political theory, but just as often it seems that it happens out of bad faith.

So, they don't get the benefit of the doubt when one of their members runs his mouth. So, they don't get the cushion that comes with having an amiable history with the community in question. So, they get hammered harder because there is no trust there. There is no sense that these guys are trying to do right, that they've stumbled and fallen because they're idiots and not because they just don't care.

That's why there is no double standard. Because, in general, the GOP and the Democratic Party start from two entirely different ledges. And to wipe that clean in an effort to win some scant political support is from the preschool pool of political wisdom.

What I'm Watching Right Now

This scene:



This is one of my favorite scenes of any movie, ever.

Defining An Action of Evil

Four days ago, my friend linked an article, with the comment, "David Brooks at his best". It was David Brooks' column The Rush to Therapy, part of which said,

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.

There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.

Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

And I was unsettled and mulling over the specific, but unarticulated, contrary notion that David Brooks was, actually, very wrong. Luckily for me, I've got Jonathan Turley on the same page. While on The Rachel Maddow Show on November 12, Turley said this:

There are plenty of people who act out of rage. If you take away a few of the aspects of this case, you would have a typical disgruntled worker shooting. We have, with these shootings all over the country, where people are disturbed, disgruntled, and isolated, and they come in and they shoot people in their work place. Now, some of them are perfectly unhinged and they will latch onto religious views or political views, but what they're really acting out of is mental illness.

That doesn't deny any action of evil. What it does do is say, "Your war narrative may not be the most salient point. It is just the most convenient one, and the one that will let you sleep most soundly tonight." What it does say is, "Evil does not lurk only in the hearts of men we see as not like ourselves. It can be in any one of us, and so none of us are truly safe." What it does say is, "Religious convictions may not be the ignition of this deadly passion. It may just be the vehicle this particular person chose to take".

What bothers me about David Brooks' article is that assertion the politically and morally immature nation is the nation that stops before stomping in like gangbusters and making assertions and assumptions without gathering all of the facts. For my money, it is the nation that has matured in both its political and moral arenas that disallows the presumption of one metanarrative over the perhaps more on point micronarratives.

What also bothers me about Brooks' piece is how these discussions of how the metanarratives impact how violence is dispersed are only prevalent when the provocateur is someone other than a white, Christian man. When the perpetrator is a white, Christian man, the assumption is that this case is an isolated incident that has no greater baring on society. That this person is a sport, that his actions have nothing to do with our own metanarratives. We can still see those acts of violence as actions of evil just fine. And by seeing them as actions of evil, we manage to separate them from our person.

As the Historiann notes,

it’s only the occasional story in the print media or on the radio that will note how very much like other American mass-murderers Hasan truly is: a native-born American man, aged 13-60, who has difficult relationships with peers and co-workers, and especially with women. (Not coincidentally, a lot of these killers are strongly invested in traditional gender hierarchies and see themselves as at odds with modern American women, who think they can make their own decisions about whom they’ll date or spend time with.)

I'm all for examining how systemic beliefs parlay into actions, violent or otherwise. I'm all for examining how those systemic beliefs and images and messages influence how we as a people react to actions, violent or otherwise. I'm a big believer in systemic influences, both positive and negative. And yet, we can't lose sight of the individual either, and how the individual's own maladies (or lack thereof) influence how much that message takes hold, and how it is expelled upon the world.

The thing David Brooks seems to be missing is that the idea we should hold off on saying, "Islamic extremist!" in this case isn't simply (or even) to stop the swells of people in Middle America from going on murderous rampages of their own. It is an effort to better ourselves, to look beyond our minute fairy tale beliefs in good and evil and how that good and evil is displayed, and search for deeper and more concrete answers. It is an effort to elevate ourselves, both as individuals and as a society, beyond the prejudices that say "if someone has a funny name and dark skin and reads out of a different book than mine, that book must be the source of the problem". It is in an effort to become a more politically and morally mature nation, a nation that does not see every act of violence perpetrated by someone in the category of Other as stemming from reasons wholly separate from acts of violence perpetrated by someone not in that category. That we can work to reasonably suss out where the act of violence stems from, understand what could have been possible catalysts, recognize those catalysts, and still understand the actions as being evil and the actor of creating evil. Because an action borne out of social maladjustment can exist within the possibility of evil just as much as an action borne out of religious extremism can. To deny that, to deny the want to assess alternate possibilities under the cry of it being a denial of evil is, I think, in itself an act of an immature nation.

Gaining Rights

So, the run down for minorities gaining the rights the majority enjoys seems to be this:

Exist.

Find some people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Hopefully, this will end with some of those people deciding that you're right, and you do have the right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Some of these people will now become allies.

You and your allies find some more people, and justify your right to exist with the same rights as the majority.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The whole premise is based upon needing to demonstrate why you should be allowed to be something more than a second-class citizen, until the good people of the majority grow comfortable enough with you to grant you the rights denied to your predecessors.

The whole premise is based upon making it clear to those around you that you deserve to have access to the same rights and liberties as those who have never had to justify their existence in this kind of instance.

Or, in other words, the minority has to prove that its members are just as good, as human, as full of citizeny goodness as the majority.

Here's my problem with this whole deal. Chances are, large swaths of the majority have had to go through this song and dance themselves. There is only a small sliver of the population who has never had to justify themselves in the "I'm as good as you" way. And yet, we all just keep on dancing.

Here's my other problem with the whole deal. The problem with democracies is that the democratic process does not translate into justice, or equality, or the pursuit of happiness. All it means is that the majority gets their way; and the majority can be, at times, a bunch of assholes. Even when whole huge swaths of said majority also belong to any number of minority groups as well. I love my democratically elected republic government, and I would not trade it for any other form. But a pure democracy (or democratic republic) isn't the sole basis for the just or free society. For that, there need to be safe-guards.

I don't truly know how to articulate it; but luckily, someone else did (in talking about women's rights):

Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they're just privileges. And privileges can be taken away.

Those who don't have to rationally discuss whether or not they should have the right to wed are privileged. That privilege will probably never be taken away. And yet, it isn't a right. Because what those for marriage equality want aren't special rights, but rights to the same damn thing. And the thing standing in their way isn't anything more or less than other people's prejudices. Those prejudices aren't based in justice, aren't based in the philosophy of the American way. They are based in the undemocratic, anti-justice stance that just because this privilege of mine has rarely been challenged or questioned and is simply accepted as matter-of-fact that I have an intrinsic right to decide whether or not you get the same consideration.

That isn't to say that we shouldn't fight injustices by trying to convince other people that our path is the best. But it is to say this: democracy and justice don't just go hand in hand. Sometimes, the democratic process is used to deny justice to groups of people. Sometimes our judicial system does the same thing. But often in American history, it isn't the will of the majority that pushes forward the cause of justice, of equality, of a more perfect union. It is the actions of the few. They are the actions of presidents, of courts, of those who push the unwilling masses forward - because the balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority is a tenuous one, and one that must be guarded jealously.

Saturday Sesame Street

This morning's Saturday Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter "S", as in Sociological Images, because that's where I found it:


I'll admit, it made me tear up a little bit.

Dear Conservatives,

I was going to start this off with "in all likelihood", but no. A stronger statement is needed.

Thomas Paine would not be your ally. Not now, and very probably not ever.

Paine was a radical liberal. Paine was a fan of the progressive tax. Paine was a (strong) critic of religion, and especially of Christianity. Paine was a Deist, just like George Washington. Paine was a proponent of a guaranteed minimum wage. Paine was a believer in the redistribution of wealth - as well as an old age pension.

And, he was a fan of the French.

Please, for the love of my sanity, find another Founding Father. One who wasn't quite so prolific in publishing oppositional writing to your views.

"The Next Culture War"

Maybe it's just because I'm a stingy Yankee, but David Brooks' column "The Next Culture War" makes sense to me. Now, I don't have the enmity toward Brooks some other feminists have, mostly because I don't care about him and rarely read his column. I know he said some stupid things about feminists' dislike of then-governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin; but plenty of other people said stupid shit about feminists' dislike of Sarah Palin - and about Sarah Palin herself - so that's not the biggest news ever. A reason to not read him on gender issues, possibly.

What I love about this particular column is this paragraph:

It will have to take on what you might call the lobbyist ethos — the righteous conviction held by everybody from AARP to the agribusinesses that their groups are entitled to every possible appropriation, regardless of the larger public cost. It will have to take on the self-indulgent popular demand for low taxes and high spending.

There are other good ones. I just happen to like this one a lot. Mostly because commercial farm subsidies piss me off.

Guns & Freedom

...for most gun advocates, this is fundamentally about freedom...

I've had a couple of margaritas, so be prepared for what I'm about to write to make not a lick of sense (for instance, writing "write" there was a bit of a mental block - was it really "right" or "write"? This is the sort of thing I'm warning against).

With that caveat in mind, my oft-quoted friend (who blogs at Triangulations) is someone I like having around, because he makes me think. There are other reasons I like him as well. But. He makes me ponder and reassess. He makes me reevaluate. He makes me think about political things when I'm in the middle of enjoying a delicious Mexican dinner and drinks. And at the end of it, I generally think I'm still in the right. But I - generally - have a stronger argument for it.

Here's my problem with the "for most gun advocates, this is fundamentally about freedom" line of reasoning: it ignores the gun's very function. It's very raison d'etre. Guns are, at their most basic, a thing of violence. They are an object of death and destruction. They aren't built for freedom's purpose. They can be utilized in defense of freedom, to obtain freedom, but they aren't pure symbols of freedom. Their use is - at times - instrumental in preserving freedom. But at their very core, they are produced not to be a symbol of freedom but a means of decimation. They used to be almost fundamental in obtaining food; Lewis and Clark would have been lost without guns by their side. Guns are still heralded as necessary for protection. Guns are still protected under the 2nd Amendment.

But. But a gun is no more a symbol of freedom than a bomb is. The gun can be a weapon of oppression. The gun can be used as a weapon of a totalitarian government. The gun can be the tool of a crazed person who seeks to kill a democratically elected leader. The gun is a thing we imbue with the principles of freedom because it was essential to our own revolution more than 2 centuries ago. That doesn't mean it is a thing of inherent freedom.

For those who can't tell the difference, who are offended that their own entirely legal gun carrying ways distribute the wrong message when they carry those guns near a president, especially a president who's election has meant more gun owners and more death threats, it is their privilege which blinds them to the fact that for too long a time, even in America, the gun was not a weapon of freedom but the tool of oppression. Guns are the weapon of the killers of Emmett Till as surely as they were the weapons of Alexander Hamilton. And unlike words, guns can kill with an immediacy. Which is, ironically, also represented by Alexander Hamilton.

This is the difference between the right and the responsibility of a thing. Guns, as a destructive a force as they've been built to be, have been a right of the American public for as long as there has been an America and are seen (possibly rightly) as a tool for maintaining American citizens' freedom from oppression. The responsibility of gun ownership is in recognizing where the gun's user's cries of freedom are drowned out by its oppressive past where it has been used to kill or intimidate American citizens, some of whom where president.

Because the gun is merely a conduit of freedom, not truly representative of freedom itself.

I Have A Secret

I'm kind of in love with the First Family. I love how the president is going off to town hall type meetings and meeting with people, even going to places and meeting people who didn't vote for him. I love Michelle Obama going around to D.C. public schools and talking about her own high school experience. I love President Obama utilizing his army of supporters in order to garner more support for his legislation. I love his somewhat understated wit. I love his constant speeches, even though I do worry about the whole "over saturated" aspect of the whole thing. And I absolutely adore that there is going to be an organic White House garden on the South Lawn with 55 different kinds of vegetables, and even some bee hives for honey. And unlike Jimmy Carter donning a sweater in order to convey to the American people that it might be in all of our best interests to get a little colder during the winter months instead of spending money on fuel, the Obamas actually make caring look cool. And that's what we need; yes, we need solutions to the complex problems of the day. But having people who are earnestly, actively out there, trying to make the world better and doing it themselves? People who are gardening and talking and generally engaged and intelligent? That is beyond awesome. 

Nonreligious Block Growing

I'm kind of excited about this news story, not because I dislike religion but because I'm for anything that makes not being religious less suspect:

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Also:

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

The Highs and Lows of Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann has a lot of highs and a lot (like, a lot) of lows as well. These two are really just from last night's broadcast, because I was particularly struck by them as I drove into work this morning. First, Olbermann talks about the part contraceptives play in President Obama's budget:

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The relevant part for me being:

And yes, all ye puritans among us, America will pay for contraceptives. Taxpayer dollars for evil condoms and horrible birth control pills. Contraceptives that states already have the option of providing for low-income fornicators. Fornication that would otherwise lead to untold, unwanted pregnancies, unwanted babies, unwanted abortions, unwanted drains on families, unwanted drains on, yes, the national economy. The congressional budget office estimates that $200 million saved in 5 years thanks to, yup, contraceptives and family planning.

I kind of feel like he should have been talking to Chris Matthews about how the government helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies (and diseases) is so completely different than a government working to "regulate the amount of kids people might be in the mood for".

And yet, on the top of this rather concise illustration for why contraceptives aren't completely out of place in a government concerned about budgetary issues and the quality of life for its citizens, Olbermann was just off the friggin' wall with this:

[Limbaugh] apologizes - or analogizes - the 'I want Obama to fail' to rooting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl, except - and you would think that a self-professed football expert would know - that the Steelers' coach and the Steelers' owner campaigned for Obama and they did so to such an extent that the second person the team owner, who was a Republican, thanked after they won the Super Bowl was Barack Obama. Does this suggest that this internecine battle is rattling Limbaugh to some degree?

This insane ramblings interrupt a segment of Chris Hayes:

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This sort of eyerollingly ridiculous explanation of a pretty simplistic analogy is one of the things that makes Keith Olbermann seem unhinged. Instead of recognizing the analogy for what it is, rooting for the winner instead of the loser, Olbermann makes it about which football team supported which candidate.

Chris Hayes Is A Dork

I love the guy, and look forward to his editorials in The Nation with glee, but he is also totally a dork:

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I actually think his dorkatude works to his advantage. It may just be that he fails to use contractions when he says, "I am obviously being sarcastic". It may have been more annoying had he'd said "I'm obviously being sarcastic", but the combination of that statement when it was indeed obvious and the lack of contraction really makes it.

Now, onto more important things; I'm starting to believe that what Chris Hayes says is correct, that many of the Republicans who have reached the upper echelons of their party's leadership have decided that the best way to win back some power in America would be to stymie Democratic attempts to fix America. If they obstruct many pieces of legislation, or, you know, the sitting of a senator, then they are playing on the hopes that it fails and that they can point out its failure in 2010 or 2012 without mentioning the part their obstruction could have potentially played in that failure. I have no doubt that Norm Coleman really wants to be Minnesota's senator. But really, at a certain point in time it is more than appropriate to throw in the old towel; and this, along with Republicans voting against the stimulus bill and then bragging about all the goodies they got in it, along with continued Republican lies about organizations like ACORN and what was actually in that stimulus bill, makes me a might bit suspicious.

The game many Republicans are now playing seems directly related to the game they play in regard to national security. I live in a blue state - not a blue dog state, just a true blue one. Our Republicans are for things like gun control laws and abortion rights (not that we have any more on the national scene), that's how blue we are. And even I have heard and seen plenty of talk about how Bush kept us safe for 8 years, because after 9/11 there hadn't been another terrorist attack. The problem with that is two-fold; it is trying to prove a negative in that it is trying to create a correlation between the policies that have ostensibly proven to create more terrorists with the fact that we have not had a terrorist attack, and it is playing the numbers game. There is no way to keep America perfectly safe, especially now that we've (we've) destabilized a nation in an already tumultuous region and tortured people; we can keep America fairly safe, even very safe. But what the Bush administration and those who have fixed upon their talking points have done is to ensure a climate where any hint of terrorism under Obama equals a fail for him, even if those engaged in terrorism had turned to terrorism because of Bush era policies. And that is as intellectually disingenuous as it is politically savvy. 

A less politically savvy aspect of this "My country when it thinks I'm right, but I hope it fails when it thinks I'm wrong" are things like Sean Hannity's poll asking what kind of rebellion his followers would prefer against the country, and Rush Limbaugh hoping out loud and often that President Obama fails; but the presence of such ideas in the overall dialogue lends credence to the thought that the other obstructionist stuff may be less based on principles and more on politics. It doesn't prove anything, but it sure does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But back to Chris Hayes. Chris makes a point that "the town remains wired for Republicans. It still listens to Republican talking points. We saw this in the stimulus and when you had all these Republicans on the cable networks talking all the time about, you know, their objection to this part of the stimulus. That still permeates the institutional structure of elite consensus opinion in Washington despite the massive change in public opinion about how people feel about conservative ideas and the Republican party. The smaller, kind of insular, beltway establishment still is far more willing to cut Republicans slack than actual voters at large are." This is an echo, though less tinfoil hat extreme, of someone I thought was just insane on Bill Moyers' The Journal on February 6th. Says Glenn Greenwald:

I think it raises an interesting dilemma. Which is, if you look at what the media were saying about Obama favorably, both around the time of his election and subsequent as well, they kept insisting that he could continue Bush's counterterrorism policies that were so controversial.

They were praising him for leaving in place all sorts of Bush officials that the media wants to see is continuity, that he's not threatening to their way of life and to their establishment, for the reason that we talked about before. That's how he wins praise from them, is by showing that he isn't going to change things fundamentally, and therefore, isn't a threat to their system.

At the same time, as Jay said, what he needs to do more than anything to fulfill the commitments that he made, is demonstrate that he's a true change agent. And I think these objectives are very much in conflict, because the more he threatens the Washington system, I think the more hostility the press will feel towards him, and therefore, project to the public about him. And that, too, can undermine his political popularity.

And while Nancy Pelosi may have schooled Rachel Maddow about how effective the Republicans dominating the talking points during the stimulus debate was, I think at some point the dominance will affect American perception of the presidency and the legitimacy of the Democratic rule and liberalism in general. Liberal is already a damned dirty word, and I would like that to change. But as long as the Republicans can play keep away without being seriously called on it, that isn't likely to.

Michele Bachmann Is Why We Need To Elect More Republicans

No, seriously; that title isn't MST3000 material. I think Michele Bachmann is why we need more Republicans in Congress. Just listen to her crazy ramblings:

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A good democracy has more than one party, and at the moment the Republicans left - especially in the House - are tending toward the unhinged side with Michele Bachmann being the head of them all. And while that leads to fun Chris Hayes, I really think that bipartisan efforts and better legislation in general could come about if there were more moderate Republicans in the mix. I can't help but feel like maybe we (collective we, because I don't live there) shouldn't have voted Chris Shays out of representing Connecticut's 4th district.

Redefining Black Masculinity: "Barack & Curtis"

Got ten minutes? Good; watch this documentary about Barack Obama and 50 Cent, and what each says about black masculinity:


What I find interesting about the video is the conflict of not only the two shoots of manhood that are symbolized in these two different men, but the two narratives of the nature of 50 Cent's manhood - and how those two narratives are both in some ways contradictory and at the same time are also complementary.

Writer/educator Matt Birkhold says,

"We as white men who very seldom have any real relationships with anybody who's not white, particularly black men, right, believe that black men are what we see in movies. We believe that black men are 50 Cent. 50 Cent is a man who controls people by fear. This is the man we are all supposed to be afraid of. 50 Cent will come up in here and shoot all of us, talk all the valuables in the house, um, take whatever money we have on us, credit cards, cell phones, all of that, right? This is how 50 Cent makes his living.

Black gangster masculinity does the work of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism. All it requires, in order for you to be promised that you'll get rich, is that you're willing to verbally commit black-on-black murder, control black female bodies, all in the name of getting paid. The black gangster masculine figure employs the exact same logic as the people who started the slave trade."

Historian Jelani Cobb's narrative places the employment of this figure of black masculinity upon the white supremacist first and foremost, saying:

"I think 50 Cent represents a brand of black masculinity that dates back to the old post-slavery era. During the slavery era, you have the stereotypes of black men that we were happy-go-lucky, mostly lazy, individuals who really needed the benign tutelage of the slave institution. After slavery, in order to justify the physical violence that would be required to prevent us from exercising our rights, that stereotype changed into the lawless, dangerous buck. That was the idea that was placed on black men. It was almost like a template that they shaded in and said, 'This is what black men will be now'."

I think both are correct; Cobb is right to point out that the first imagining of the violent and untamable black man was the creation of the white man, of white men like the ones present in To Kill A Mockingbird, the ones who cynically fell upon "the assumption, the evil assumption, that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women". Cobb is right that this template was first employed - and continues to be employed - as a way of maintaining white privilege and status in society, as a method of making it clear in the minds of the citizenry that African-Americans were simply undeserving of being thought of as or treated as equal to whites. Also, as an aside, it was unnerving to me and slightly horrifying that many in my college Major Authors: Mark Twain class didn't know how the stereotype of African-Americans had shifted when we were discussing Pudd'nhead Wilson. That template is present in Birkhold's own argument, when he presents the idea that most of our popular image of black masculinity comes from the media that continues to facilitate that image.

But I also believe that Birkhold has something when he points out that the template of black masculinity that was fostered upon African-Americans after the end of slavery has also become a reflection of the white patriarchal culture that uses it to maintain its own privilege. That the hypermasculinity does create an environment of violence against women and encourages seeing women as objects to be used. Because black masculinity has become associated with "how many women you have". In that way, the oppressed pull from the tactics of the oppressor to create a hierarchy within the oppressed community.

Which is why the most intriguing point for me on the piece doesn't have much to do with black masculinity and how Barack Obama changes the perception of black masculinity for men, how he "is exploding the very facile and simple notions we have of what it means to be a black man in this society. Whose intellect is one of the foremost things that you notice about him, who is the antithesis of the angry, out of control negro", but instead of what Barack Obama's emergence means for black women. Esther Armah contends,

"The beauty of the presence and emergence of Barack Obama isn't Barack Obama. It's Michelle Obama. Because in Michelle, for black women there was an affirmation of, their strength could still find them a great guy."

And while I found the whole of Barack & Curtis to be incredibly thought-provoking and interesting and well worth watching several times to get the quotes right, I want to see that documentary, about what Barack Obama means for how black women see themselves and how their perception of how their community sees them may change. How Michelle, and Barack's attraction to her and love for her and dependence upon her - and her attraction to him and love for him and dependence upon him - could change the pervasive notion of how this specific community and the greater society imagines male-female relationships. How Barack Obama's obvious respect for his wife may translate into less women like Michelle being considered bitches, or angry. That would be another documentary I'd be interested in seeing.

Can We Talk? I Don't Know.

This week's My Turn in Newsweek is a piece called "Less Shouting, More Talking", a sentiment that I am at most ambivalent about because while I love talking, shouting has its place as well. What makes me more ambivalent about the idea is what its author, Richard Mouw, wants to talk about. He wants to talk about sexuality; he wants to bring the different sides of the gay marriage debate to the table, and converse about it. The issue for me, though, is that it seems like it is going to be a disingenuous argument from the start - potentially from both sides. Talking it over would signify hope for the potential of a greater understanding, possibly some common ground in regard to the issue. I doubt for many of the people Mouw walked by on the way to the polls "carrying signs" that "mostly say 'Hooray for our side" the potential would ever be even there, let alone brought to fruition. And that stems from something rather simple, something Mouw erroneously - possibly ignorantly - states in the very beginning:

"I voted for the ban. As an evangelical, I subscribe to the "traditional" definition of marriage, and I do not want to see the definition changed. Does that mean I want to impose my personal convictions on the broader population? No."

But, in reality, that is exactly what a vote for Prop. 8 meant. It meant that not only did Mouw decide that gay marriage was wrong for him, but that it was wrong for everyone else in the state of California as well. And in reality, this imposition of personal convictions on the broader population is what a no vote meant as well - that the voter not only decided that s/he personally thought that gay marriage was a pretty okay thing, but that the entire population of California should have to recognize it as a legal reality. Hell, when I voted for Barack Obama, I was voting to impose my personal conviction on the broader population as well; I was voting for Obama because I believed in him and his ideas, and also because I didn't want to be imposed upon by the other guy (or more accurately, the other guy's VP... ...who won't go away!). The only way Mouw would not have been imposing his personal convictions on the broader population is if he chose not to vote at all on the proposition. Going to the table with that disingenuous reality married with the possibly authentic belief that false reality was in fact true is no way to start any kind of true discussion. Because there is no way to argue against such a falsehood.

One of the problems for me in the arguments presented by the religious right for the fear that they are being or will be marginalized is that this concern seems to ignore what has been fostered upon those who have been oppressed in the past and those who still make up a marginalized group. I don't know if their fear of marginalization stems from the lurking idea that they have done something wrong, that the privilege they exhibit in their interactions with the world - or rather, certain segments of the world - could very well become inverted with themselves on the bottom of a new hierarchy they recognize as profoundly unjust and shaming. I don't know if they don't recognize the similarities between what they fear and what they perpetuate, and their worries stem from a different source of martyrdom entirely. What I do know is this: the whole thing makes me see red. Like this sentiment:

"For many of us, 'normalizing' same-sex marriage comes down to deep concerns about the raising of our children and grandchildren. What will they be taught about sexual and family values in our schools? How will they be affected by the ways the entertainment media portray people with our kinds of views?"

Does Mouw not recognize that the gay community is living and has lived with the reality of those fears for decades? Does Mouw not recognize that gay youths and children of homosexual parents are being affected - and have been affected - by what they are taught regarding sexual and family values in our schools? Does Mouw not recognize that gays and children of homosexual parents are being affected by the ways the entertainment media portray them and their loved ones? If he doesn't, he is being willfully blind.

The thing about Richard Mouw's article that makes me see red more than any of the lunatic rantings found on my newspaper's opinion page is this: Mouw seems authentically calm, and hurt and interested in a discussion. But that doesn't make him any less immobile than someone like Michelle Malkin or Rush Limbough. He just puts a kinder, sweeter, more literate grandfatherly face on the debate. When he asks, "What is it about people like me that frightens you so much?", I want to ask him why I shouldn't be. Why my gay friends shouldn't be. The fact is that gays are a marginalized group, and people like Mouw - and heck, Mouw himself - are part of why they are marginalized. Why shouldn't a marginalized group, when faced with someone who supports their continued marginalization, be frightened? Why shouldn't they be angry? It doesn't matter that Richard Mouw is an evangelical Christian who believes in racial justice and gender equality and peacemaking and caring for the environment. Well, it does, but not here. Here and now, there's this. In terms of rights for gays, Mouw is still in a position of power and he is working to maintain that position. He is working for his religious belief to be the rule governing all. That is why I fear people like him. Because he can be sweet and kindly and he can fight for gender equality and the environment, but at the end of the day he is still a man who sees nothing wrong with continuing an inequality that - even if he does not condone it, even if he does not consider it, even if he has never even thought it - contributes to not only the marginalization a group of people but systemic violence toward that group of people.

Mouw "refuse[s] to go to the margins". What he doesn't recognize is that he and those who take the same sort of position he has taken have relegated a whole host of others to those margins. And I have very little tolerance for that. What he doesn't recognize is that positioning himself as someone who could one day become potentially marginalized is actually rather insulting - at least to me, as someone who has been marginalized and ostracized by those with his religious beliefs. It is insulting to be presented this potential world where his children and grandchildren may not be portrayed in a flattering light, where the beliefs he considers essential to family values are not included in the school curriculum, when I live in the real world where my loved ones and people of my belief (or lack of it) are not portrayed in a flattering light, and where a book about two daddy penguins starts an uproar. I don't know if it is possible for Mouw to recognize that, to recognize how what he fears is reality for too many. What I do believe is this: until that is recognized, any national conversation with any hope of succeeding is probably an unrealistic expectation.

The Day The Music Died

50 years ago today, the plane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa. It has come to be known as The Day The Music Died. Although he only recorded for a year and a half, Buddy Holly recorded so many songs that his record company was able to release new songs up to 10 years after his death - something I find amazing for the short span of time he was actually in the public eye. So here's some Buddy Holly for your February 3rd morning: