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Thursday, December 23, 2004
Blood-Soaked Strawman Gee, Tom, I thought you were some kind of expert in foreign affairs. Didn't you know that "tiny minorit(ies) who want to rule [their countries] by force" are prevalent in most of the world, especially in the Middle East? Didn't you know that the governments of Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all take this form? Didn't you know that they have always taken this form? Why did you expect post-Saddam Iraq to be different? Please include your sources. Was it unthinkable that, faced with the prospect of a government dominated by the Shi'ites whom they had brutally oppressed for decades, some Iraqi Sunnis might try everything in their power to derail the process? Do not be fooled into thinking that the Iraqi gunmen in this picture are really defending their country and have no alternative. The Sunni-Baathist minority that ruled Iraq for so many years has been invited, indeed begged, to join in this election and to share in the design and wealth of post-Saddam Iraq.That's very nice, except that no one is saying that, Tom. It's really simple: the insurgents think they can wind up with a better deal by derailing the elections. Is this really the best the nation's most widely read Mideast expert can do, to label the insurgents evil, so that America is good by implicit contrast? As the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum so rightly pointed out to me, "These so-called insurgents in Iraq are the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists of our age." They are a tiny minority who want to rule Iraq by force and rip off its oil wealth for themselves. It's time we called them by their real names.Let me get this straight, Tom. We invade and occupy a sovereign nation, and it's the insurgents who are the colonialists and imperialists? I'm no famous, feted, highly paid expert, like you, Tom, but I think you're just the tiniest bit full of shit. Nobody, and I mean nobody, outside of the insurgents themselves, thinks they're justified in what they're doing. They're killing people. They're evil. Everyone knows this. It's not news. Take your straw man and shove it, Tom. Does the fact that our stated objective is to ensure free and fair elections in Iraq absolve us from everything we've done wrong in Iraq? Does it justify our indiscriminate bombing, our attempts to set up a Chalabi-led kleptocracy, our dissolving the Iraqi Army, and all the other manifestations of short-sightedness, callousness, greed, and brutality Iraq has endured since the invasion? Is that how it works, Tom? Indeed, they haven't even bothered to tell us otherwise. They have counted on the fact that the Bush administration is so hated around the world that any opponents will be seen as having justice on their side. Well, they do not. They are murdering Iraqis every day for the sole purpose of preventing them from exercising that thing so many on the political left and so many Europeans have demanded for the Palestinians: "the right of self-determination."One more time, Tom: the fact that the insurgents are bad does not thereby make us good. Maybe if you get that sentence tattooed backwards on your forehead, it might sink in as you read it every time you have the gall to look at yourself in a mirror. We took it upon ourselves to change the course of Iraqi history. As Colin Powell said, we own what happens there as the result of our actions. World opinion is clearly relevant to us, and it's not critical of our actions because of any regard for the insurgents. It's anti-U.S. because we lied to get the war started, handled it abominably, and in all likelihood made things worse in Iraq and the Mideast. The evil that is the Ba'athist insurgency is a direct result of our actions in Iraq. The blood of those election workers is also on our hands. You are right about one thing, Tom: the vast majority of our soldiers are making noble sacrifices. But they're not the bringing-freedom-to-the-oppressed kind of sacrifices, they're The Charge of the Light Brigade kind. Friday, November 05, 2004
Nothing to See Here, Move Along Over at Ethel the Blog, I found linked this county-by-county list of Florida votes, which includes party registration percentages and calculates the percent of the expected vote for each party by multiplying the total number of votes cast by the percentage of party affiliation. Some of the results are very surprising: County V_Rep V_Dem V_Ttl %Reg_R %Reg_D Tot_Registered Calhoun 3,780 2,116 5,961 11.9% 82.4% 8,350 Hardee 5,047 2,147 7,245 26.7% 63.8% 10,399 Liberty 1,927 1,070 3,021 7.9% 88.3% 4,075 Madison 4,195 4,048 8,306 14.9% 79.5% 11,371 According to this, we're supposed to believe that Calhoun County, that has an 82-12% Democratic voter registration advantage, somehow went for Bush by 64-35%. Perhaps Hardee County, with a 64-27% Democratic majority, preferred Dubya by 70-30%. Or Liberty County, where Democratic voter affiliation is 11 times more common than its Republican counterpart (88-8%), chose Bush by 64-36%. My favorite is Madison County, where voters built a bridge to the Republican party by selecting Bush 51-49%, despite an 80-15% Democratic majority and a population that is 40.3% Black. For about 2 minutes, I imagined posting this and becoming an instant blog superstar. I'd show everyone the obviously bogus numbers from Florida, the results would be nullified, and Kerry would be president. And he'd owe it all to me, ME! Mwahahaha, etc. Just to make sure, and to further highlight the divergence from expected voting behavior, I looked up the 2000 Florida county election results. Each of the four counties I highlighted for looking suspicious had voted for Bush-Cheney in 2000 by significant margins. There goes the Pulitzer. Maybe there's something different about small-county Floridians that causes them to vote for Republican presidential candidates. Or maybe there's something very wrong with these registration and/or voting numbers. Unfortunately, it's probably the latter. Edit: I can't figure out how to make the spaces entered in the post editing window show up in the final post for the election figures. If anyone knows how to do that in Blogger, I'd be much obliged if someone would drop me a note via e-mail or in comments. Thanks. Thursday, November 04, 2004
Now They Fucking Tell Us The soldiers, who belong to two different units, described how Iraqis plundered explosives from unsecured bunkers before driving off in Toyota trucks. These guys were there, they witnessed and lived with this clusterfuck. Day in and day out, they faced the very real prospect of being blown to hell by the bombs, missiles, and explosives they had watched being driven off into the countryside. They cleared their throats and went back to work, and didn't care enough to speak up about it until until 18 months later. No wonder other countries don't want to mess with us. We're crazy. There was a presidential election a little while back where one of the candidates, the guy who started the war and endorsed its strategy, was claiming the other candidate would make America less safe. It was his biggest issue. His incompetent underlings created a situation where we couldn't, or wouldn't, secure a known arms depot containing thousands upon thousands of tons of weapons. In. a. fucking. war. zone. Wait, make that two humongous arms depots. I don't know what to call a military command that fails even to plan to secure known munition dumps during battle except dangerously incompetent and unfit to lead. That LA riots image would have torn right through the heart of Bush's strong leader persona and given Kerry the presidency. It came two days too late. I can't stand it. Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Fighting Fire With Water Eric Alterman says: The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything. There's something cultlike about the devotion of a lot of Bush's admirers, and he encourages it. He does not claim to have any specific skills or expertise; he's a man of negligible achievement who was somehow called to lead. He claims to receive instructions from God's own mouth. He has said that, as president, he feels no obligation to answer for himself to anyone. It often seems that he believes himself to possess some form of divine right. And people go along with it. If he does something wrong, it's not really wrong. If it is, it's not his fault. If he doesn't understand something, it's not important. His manifest failures of thought and speech are never taken for signs of incompetence. His incompetence is never pertinent. He makes no mistakes and regrets nothing. The left is never going to move these people as easily and effectively as George W. Bush does unless we start our own cult and defeat his cult in cult-to-cult combat. Sounds painful and degrading. As an alternative, I suggest we look into mass deprogramming. Save Us From Ourselves! When the confetti and rent clothing have settled and been swept away, the inaction of moderate Republicans will be revealed to be one of the pivotal keys to the 2004 election results. To those of us with keen eyes, their dismay at Bush administration and House leadership has long been evident and widespread. On the wider stage, however, it was never enunciated worth a damn. Dozens of high-ranking military officers are quietly on record as oppposing the Iraq war, the strategy and tactics employed, and/or the number and provisioning of troops assigned to the task. But the American public voted without knowing this. Nearly every economist worth a damn believes that Bush's fiscal policies are a train wreck waiting to happen. Some of them have gently hinted as much in papers and petitions that nobody, least of all themselves, ever bothered to publicize. Aside from (that shrill communist) Paul Krugman, Donald Luskin got more press than the rest of them put together. The American public voted without hearing about this. Hardly anyone with an actual basis for credibility thinks Bush's plan to privatize Social Security is beneficial, much less workable. The word never got out. While the fair and balanced media yammered and dithered without ever stating that 1+1-1 can in no possible universe equal 2, sane Republicans stared at their shoes. The American public voted believing there wasn't much difference between the two candidates. The way election dynamics work is that, when there's a really awful president, people defect from his party in a visible way. John Kerry saying Bush is a disaster is so much electioneering bushwah without at least some visible support from the other party. And we got none. The moderates figured that if it was obvious to them, it had to be positively white-hot to the Democrats and independents, whose high turnout would carry the day and keep them from having to make the difficult decision to tell the truth. But they figured wrong, and Kerry's appeals to facts were swamped by Bush's appeals to base instinct and prejudice, both of which require no external reinforcement. The image that sticks with me is that of John McCain during an interview with Dan Rather at about 7:30 election night. He's clearly gritting his teeth as he repeats the toneless mantra: "I support President Bush," even as he acknowledges, but can't bring himself to voice opposition to, Bush's failed and stupid policies. These people, who sleep in the same bed with the gang that made an art form of repudiating rationality as a political device, bet on the rationality of the American electorate and lost badly. For their trouble, the best they can look forward to is to sullenly go along with the New Nutjob Diktat with their skins intact. I doubt they'll get it. Tuesday, November 02, 2004
It Can't Happen Here While we listened this morning to NPR's recapping of the Ohio and South Dakota voter intimidation rulings, my girlfriend expressed a very keen insight: "what would we think if this was happening in another country? The ruling party has people going to polling places to challenge and intimidate voters. It would be so obvious the election was bogus." A half-second's reflection told me she was absolutely right. For all of the handwringing over the legitimacy of this year's Venezuelan referendum, we never saw partisans of Hugo Chavez openly challenging the elegibility of likely opposition voters. If we had, U.S. neocons would have been screaming for military intervention to remove him from office. If there had been evidence that former Turkish prime minister Tansu Ciller's brother had deliberately attempted to purge Islamists from voter registration rolls, there would have been riots in the streets, and foreign policy wonks worldwide would have been tsk-tsking over Turkey's crooked democracy and the EU would have washed its hands of them. It's an open secret here that high voter turnout favors Democrats generally, and especially in the presidential race. In one sense, it could be said that any Republican presidential victory, given the manifest and continuing preference for their opponents, is somehow illegitimate. However, because voting is not mandatory, the winner is the one who gets more actual votes, case closed. I can accept this without question. Although I loathed them both, I had no problem with Reagan and Bush I taking office; they both won beyond a reasonable suspicion of shenanigans, and I had to shut up and deal. Fair enough. What must foreigners think of our democracy in light of Jeb Bush's attempted purge of eligible black voters? What must they think in light of the Republican recruitment and deployment of poll challengers in Ohio and elsewhere? What must they think of Republican operatives conspicuously writing down license plate numbers of Native Americans in South Dakota? They must think that America's democracy is rigged, that it's a sham. They must think that the side controlling the government is cheating and that the will of the public is being subordinated to that of the rich and the powerful. They must think that the United States of America no longer lives by the principle that everyone is equal and has the right to be counted. They must think that representative government here is dead or dying. Why don't we think that here? Isn't it obvious? The fact that we may get enough votes this time to overcome this creeping anti-democratic cancer absolves us of nothing. If we do not make ourselves heard on this issue, we'll deserve what we get. Saturday, October 30, 2004
Cui bono? Not to sound too much like a conspiracy nut or anything, but, regardless of the direct effect that bin Laden's sudden appearance may have had on the electorate, the tape does give the Bush campaign some desperately-needed breathing room from the explosives story. I'm just sayin', is all. Friday, October 29, 2004
Why Did the IAEA Bother? I know there's an election coming up, and a lot of important things going on, but this post doesn't really address any of it. It's just a dumb question that I can't help asking: Having been worried in the face of the Republican counterspin that the explosives story might lose its legs, I posted below that the connection between the explosives and nuclear proliferation was the best angle to keep the story moving forward. But this morning, I read, from no less than weapons inspections Numero Uno David Kay, that the RDX and HMX are not considered WMDs, and their loss is not a nuclear proliferation issue. Why did the IAEA even bother with the stuff? Why did they single it out of all the other weapons at Al Qaqaa for inspections and seals? It doesn't add up. Tuesday, October 26, 2004
It's the Nukes, Stupid! While I applaud Josh Marshall's tireless exegesis of the timing and shifting explanations of the looted explosives story, I believe the effort misfires on the administration's greatest culpability: this stuff can be used to make nuclear weapons. Anchoring the credibility and relevance of all the administration's talk about WMDs was always the specter of Saddam's bomb. That's why they had Condi and Colin shred their reputations over easily-disproven nuclear connections with aluminum tubes and yellowcake. The uncertainty surrounding Iraqi WMDs became a solid thing in the public mind from which America had to defend itself only when nukes were added to the equation. By our unilateralist approach to the invasion of Iraq, we arrogated to ourselves responsibility for Iraq, and especially for the WMDs or components thereof which (we are told) prompted us to act in the first place. These explosives were a known quantity, in a known location, having been quarantined by the International Atomic Energy Agency back in 1991, and confirmed to persist there not long before the invasion. Administration officials have attempted to obscure the supreme importance of the loss of the explosives by listing all the other munitions the coalition forces have found and destroyed. They have attempted to elide responsibility for oversight of the explosives by claiming they had already been looted by the time we arrived on the scene. Even if that is the case, it is inexcusable. It is an admission that those in charge of the invasion failed in their oversight of a known nuclear component at a time when we had unquestioned air superiority and at least enough intelligence capability to detect the 40 or so trucks that would be required to move the stuff. Any activity going to or from Al Qaqaa should have prompted immediate U.S. air strikes, if the administration was at all doing the job it had told us it needed to do. The fact that the HMX and RDX also happen to be ideally suited for use in guerilla attacks against our soldiers widens the catastrophe of the loss, but it also works to equate the explosives with the more conventional weapons and ordinance which we never had a prayer of entirely neutralizing. But that is not the point. The point is that this stuff was special because it could be used to make nuclear bombs. It was specifically tracked by weapons inspectors because it was special. It was checked on by the invading force because it was special. And, because it was special, there is no excuse why, before, during, or after the invasion, this stuff was left unsupervised for even a minute. If they had time and resources to guard oil installations, that only makes things worse for the administration. The world can survive a minor spike in oil prices and pipelines can be rebuilt. Nuclear explosions are forever, and they're more likely now because of this collossal fuck-up. Once this crucial fact is firmly established in the media, and only then, should we say, "and, by the way, this stuff is probably being used right now to blow the arms, legs, and heads off of the good men and women of the United States armed forces." Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Iran Endorses Bush The head of the security council of Iran, a member of the "Axis of Evil," a massively repressive Islamic fundamentalist state that is widely believed to be pursuing nuclear weapons, a proven sponsor of terrorism, and a nation which several of Bush's most influential neoconservative advisors have advocated invading for the purpose of regime change, has endorsed the candidacy of incumbent Republican George W. Bush for president. Why? Is it because Bush's adventure in Iraq has left us with insufficient forces to pose a realistic threat to the Khameni government? Is it because Bush's mismanagement of Iraq has virtually ensured Iran a much wider sphere of influence in the region without costing the latter so much as the price of a bullet? Is it because Bush's energy policies will ensure that American oil consumption will remain high and contribute to strong worldwide demand for oil? Is it because Bush's hardheaded unilateralism has alienated those countries that might otherwise commit resources to forcing the Iranians to improve their human rights situation? Only the mullahs know for sure. via Pandagon Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Bush: Fundamentalist Iraq Government OK Bush was asked during an interview with the The Associated Press how he would react if Iraqis someday freely voted into power an Islamic fundamentalist government. Bush replied, "I will be disappointed, but democracy is democracy."Sigh. At least he's facing the reality that he doesn't have much choice in the matter. By having presided so long and exerted so much control over Iraq, what happens next is entirely our responsibility. At the same time, Bush cannot afford to be seen by imperialism-wary Arabs appointing a puppet government. And he's desperate to get US troops out of the country as soon as possible, so he isn't going to invest the time or diplomacy required to lay the groundwork for an effective government. Iraqis have essentially a free pass to do anything they like, and Bush can't say a damn thing about it. And whatever they wind up doing, we'll own it. All of the above has got to be obvious to everyone even slightly paying attention to Iraq, even Bush. But for the life of me, I can't figure out why he's saying so out loud. There are an awful lot of things that are already going very wrong in Iraq, but the administration isn't exactly emphasizing them. Instead, our attention is being diverted to Iraq's future, which will be democratic and wonderful. An Islamic fundamentalist government, once "elected," will be nothing remotely approaching a democracy. Inherent in the defenition of such a government is an elevation of some points of view and a delegitimization of others. Pluralism is incompatible with fundamentalism; such a government in Iraq will represent only one of the country's three main subgroups, almost certainly the Shi'a. In the eyes of the government, at least 40% of the population will be seen as heretics at best, infidels at worst. Given such divisions, the only way to maintain order and prevent the country from splitting would be the imposition of brutal repression. Aside from all that, countries whose governments are founded on received truth aren't very good at educating their people, or retaining the educated people they've already got. Islamic fundamentalists have awful records when it comes to the treatment of women. They're not good at economic policy. And such a government in Iraq will inevitably be anti-American. Bush has to know better than to shoot his mouth off on the subject of Iraq's future, and even less can I believe that Bush's handlers picked now as a good time to manage expectations in Iraq downwards. The only remotely plausible explanation I can think of is that this is a ploy to get more international boots on the ground, as France, Germany, Russia, etc. don't want to see another nutjob government in the Middle East, and we can't be counted on to manage anything right anymore. The only problem with that strategy is that any move to commit forces in Iraq would be political suicide for just about every government in the world. What is he up to, then? via The Agonist Friday, October 01, 2004
Googlebomb Opportunity George W. Bush = Elmer Fudd He'll get those wascawy weapons of mass destwuction, too. Or maybe the gun blows up in his face repeatedly, I forget how it ends. Inspiration here. via catch.com by way of Atrios I've Seen His Soul, But I Can't Pronounce His Name I did a double-take last night when I first heard Bush refer to Russian president Putin as "Vladimer" (rhymes with 'Lattimer'). Afterwards, I replayed that portion of the debate, and there it was, unmistakably wrong, twice in a row. Many have put forth the argument that Bush's famous battles with his native tongue amount to simple misstatements, not failures of intellect or evidence of igorance, but that explanation just doesn't work on this one. Maybe that theory explains Bush's announcement that he was trying to "love [Iraq widow Missy Johnson] as best as I can," but not here. Bush is supposedly good friends with the guy--he has to have heard it properly pronounced hundreds of times--and he can't even get his name right. This tells us a couple of things. First off, Karen Hughes miscalculated when she assumed Bush knew how to pronounce the name, and so didn't bother to write it out phonetically for him. Second, maybe they're not such great friends, after all. Third, maybe he's even dumber than commonly believed; everyone knows how to pronounce 'Vladimir.' It's common knowledge. Does Bush know anything not specifically drilled into him by his handlers? More generally, Kerry kicked Bush's butt. His performance put the lie to all the negatives Rove & Co. have been trying to stick him with. Flip-flopper? Weak? Irresolute? Not leadership material? He was as steady as an oak. He hammered Bush and his record again and again with substantive criticisms for which the latter had nothing resembling answers, much less excuses. If there were a war, and you had to pick one of these two to lead it, the choice would be easy. Kerry went on the offensive, and stayed there. Bush couldn't figure out what direction to take with his answers. He hesitated and seemed to lose his train of thought. He seemed to strike out blindly, giving answers to questions that weren't asked. He looked irresolute and anxious and perturbed. Imagine Bush giving orders to a platoon, talking like he did during the debate. It would be a wonder if half of them didn't desert. Kerry was at the other end of the spectrum. He positively oozed leadership. He was forceful without looking fanatical. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and how to go about doing it. And then he did it, not with platitudes and gimmicks, but with substance and force. It's telling that Kerry convincingly won on the only topic where voters had consistently favored Bush. This is by no means a reason to be complacent, only to know that this race is very, very winnable. Thursday, September 30, 2004
Bush Pulling a Gore? I'm watching C-SPAN's replay of the split-screen debate. I just heard Bush give a biig sigh before responding to a very effective Kerry point. Did anyone Tivo the debate? Were there more sighs? Could we stuff this down their throats? Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Incomplete Elections Fine, Says Brooks Just look what happened in El Salvador: Conditions were scarcely better in 1984, when Salvadorans got to vote again. Nearly a fifth of the municipalities were not able to participate in the elections because they were under guerrilla control. The insurgents mined the roads to cut off bus service to 40 percent of the country. Twenty bombs were planted around the town of San Miguel. Once again, people voted with the sound of howitzers in the background.Brooks seems to think the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq would be well served if things turn out as well as they did in El Salvador following their incomplete elections. Would they? By Brooks' own reckoning, 75,000 people died in El Salvador's civil war, most of them after the elections to which he refers. El Salvador's population in 1984 was 4.7 million. If things go as well for Iraq, only 413,718 more people will have to die. If Afghanistan is lucky enough to repeat El Salvador's success, only 464,897 more will die. Of course, El Salvador's fledgling democracy had a little help from its American friends. In the interest of democracy and stability, I'm sure we'd be willing to be as gracious with Afghanistan and Iraq. US officials say that President Bush senior's policies set the stage for peace, turning El Salvador into a democratic success story.And if history continues to repeat itself, each country can look forward to a future government headed by a party founded by the murderous thug responsible for most of the killing in the first place. See? Incomplete elections work just fine. Friday, September 10, 2004
Bush's Service - The Big Picture The paperwork released by CBS on Wednesday have generated a lot of controversy. Are they real or forged? If they're real, then what do they mean? What new information is contained in them? However, the bit that's getting the most attention, and which is potentially most damaging to Bush, is something that was already undisputed public knowledge: He failed to report for his physical examination, and, in doing so, disobeyed the order of a superior officer. When you're required to get a flight certification physical in the Texas National Guard, your superior officer doesn't ask you politely to go see the nice doctor, if you've got time. No, as in all things military, they order you to do what they want you to do. You do it at the time and in the manner specified, or it's your ass. The debate over the documents' authenticity could keep up until well past the election, but the fact remains that Bush committed the military equivalent of a felony, and, if standard procedure had been followed, would have been court-martialled and punished. This would be no less true if John Kerry had forged the CBS documents himself. Instead of the whole smokescreen of speculation about the documents' provenance, it'd be nice to see the press going after the big issue: did Bush commit a crime, and, if so, why wasn't he punished for it? The answer to the first question, at least, seems easy enough to find. Thursday, September 09, 2004
White House Prefers Reaction to Preemption Over at First Draft, Holden's gaggle obsession brings to light a little exchange, in which Scott McClellan explains why the president supports the renewal of the assault weapons ban without actually, uh, supporting it. Q The assault weapons ban expires in just a few days. Can you list for us the many things the President might be doing to encourage Congress to send him the bill that he said he would sign? (Emphasis added) In addition to saying that, although the assault weapons ban is irrelevant to the president's strategy to reduce gun violence, he supports it anyway, McClellan also announced a huge shift in White House philosophy: preemption is not the best way to deal with potential violence; punishing those who commit violent acts after the fact is. Maybe the administration learned something from the disaster in Iraq, in which WMD program-related activities were held up as sufficient justification for our full-scale invasion of the country. If so, the change would go a long way toward explaining our actions with regard to WMDs in North Korea and Iran. On the other hand, it could just be a cynincal abandonment of principle for the benefit of the gun lobby. Friday, September 03, 2004
Bush By the Numbers Here's a great numerical rundown of the Bush administration by Graydon Carter. Some tidbits: 14 Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.There's tons more, go check it out. via Metafilter Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Dick. (live) He looks good. Moves well, good color, fwiw. Here comes the edwards blow. Matthew got it. Big Media Insider Matt. Roosevelt twice in two speeches. Hmm. I totally fricking rock. Public schools. they are a key to see that every child yadda yadda. Nothing on the charters, the vouchers, religious schools (the one area in which faith-based enterprises has done some considerable good), nothing. The Bush tax cuts are working. Nothing on the defecit. Health care, George is working on it. Right. And tort reform is going to get it all solved. How much money are we talking about, here? Hasn't anyone added up the numbers and said even complete tort reform wouldn't make a meaningful dent in medical expenses? Did I mention I had a new granddaughter? 9/11 - "We are in a war we did not start." You're talking about Iraq? You can't be serious. The terrorists never had the slightest inkling that we'd lose the will to defend ourselves, Dick. They were hoping we'd tear ourselves apart in the process. That's the whole point. I figured you'd know that. "Gathering threat," one that merited full-scale war but had no capabilities. One wonders what Libya was paid for its cooperation. Yes, he shut down the network that supplied nuclear stuffs to Iran and Libya. But he didn't know it was there in the first place. And he should have. Oh, yes, the <$1billion that somehow got spent (out of $18 b allocated), on rebuilding the schools and the roads. Somehow, everyone over there says it's worse off than before we got there. Why would the repubs consider this the most important election in our history? Projection again? V. polite applause re: Kerry's service. Ok, here we go: Kerry made the wrong calls on national security. Would support military action only via UN sanction. In the 1980s he opposed Reagan's defense initiatives. In 1991, he opposed Gulf War I. Post 9/11, he talked about leading a more sensitive war on terror (like he didn't say the same thing). Kerry declared he'd forcefully defend America after it had been attacked. Wasn't that exactly what GWB did? He even went overboard about it. Nobody's got anything good to say about either Afghanistan or Iraq these days. Sheesh. The $87B again. LOL, they're chanting "flip-flop." Joy. Maybe it really is all they've got. He's calling out Kerry for neglecting American troops and their families? That's pretty rich. A senator can be wrong for 20 years without consequence to the nation. But a president always casts the deciding vote. Hmm... So, when things are wrong, it's the president's fault, then? That's right, keep beating on the flip-flop. You all look childish. A man with a heart for the weak, vulnerable, and afflicted, who apparently likes them so much he wants to increase their numbers. W's a man who calls evil by its name. It's Lester. Uh, no. You're not going to win Massachusetts, even if they do have some very dumb cops in the Boston area. Also, Bush wakes up early because he's a saint. Thank you. Goodnight. On Flip-Flopping I'm watching Romney speak, and he's really hammering the flip-flop thing, even though it is not a very effective attack. Each of their successive attack narratives is being shot down right after it leaves the gate. This is the only thing they've got, and it doesn't really move people. Bush has a delectable smorgasbord of policy reversals in his record, and on some very important issues. The Kerry campaign just can't be too stupid to take advantage of this. They just can't. The republicans are not where they want to be at this stage of the campaign. Sure, they're probably holding onto a couple of bullets for the end, but they must have been hoping to be convincingly saddling Kerry with three or four negatives by this point. If the only one they can come up with doesn't move the polls, they're having trouble. Counterspin Central: Like a Chiropractor for Your Brain Hesiod's back (for now, at least), and has posted a helpful translation of the Gropinator's 'you know you're a republican when' schtick. He also dropped this tiny little bomb about where Hastert's latest Soros slur came from. Who's an Economic Girly Man? Someone who doesn't believe in our invincible economy, that's who. Aired March 20, 2001 - 7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Da Goils "We love you [Grandma], but you're not very hip." Barbara's much better spoken. They're dying. Just dying. Oh well. Mom's up soon. Rod Paige Speech No one applauded at (roughly) "I was at college when Brown vs. Board happened." A democratic convention would have given a standing ovation. I'm just sayin', is all. Oh, and John Kerry is not a "Johnny come lately," I'm pretty sure. I can't figure out why they put him up there in the first place. It's not like he has any credibility. Apples and Oranges The Congressman's votes against gay rights no more made his private, consensual sexual life a legitimate public issue than Bill Clinton's pro-feminist issues stances made his tomcatting a legitimate public issue. Mark Kleiman believes that Ed Schrock's gay private life isn't "a legitimate public issue." Normally, I'd wholeheartedly agree, but given Schrock's stridently anti-gay voting record, I'm not so sure. I can look past a politician who misrepresents himself, especially if he's hiding the fact that he is a member of a unjustly discriminated-against minority. However, when, perhaps to cover himself, he's advocating discrimination against that same minority, it becomes reprehensible. If Schrock was saying that one's consensual sexual conduct should be legally relevant (to be fair, I cannot find anything where he explicitly does), I don't see how his own can or should be somehow priveleged. And, if Schrock was making the gay sex in Virginia before June 2003, he was breaking the law, which certainly merits public scrutiny. By the way, I am unable to figure out how "tomcatting" and feminism are directly opposed to one another in the same way as are "gay" and "anti-gay." Bill's affair(s) did not constitute discrimination against women or their interests. There is nothing intrinsically inconsistent about a feminist philanderer. Monday, August 30, 2004
Real Time News Wow. Just got word directly from the mouth of Kos--what an inversion of the entire blogging/internet paradigm--that Virginia Congressman Ed Schrock--Pat Robertson's congressman--is resigning effectively immediately. One can only presume that this action was precipitated by blogger Michael of Blogactive. First congressman brought down by a blogger. A red letter day! The Tank I finally made it to Blogger Ground Zero, at least outside of the convention. It's not much of a place, but it's somehow commensurate to the capital investment required to put a blog together. And, as soon as I walked in, I got to see Kos, and to meet Atrios. If nothing else happens tonight, this counts as a success. It's quite a heady atmosphere. I'll try to put something intelligent together worthy of the presence of such a brain trust. The better posts will go to The American Street, while the personal-type stuff will go here. Shorter Katherine Q. Seelye: "John McCain and Rudy Giuliani will give speeches in praise of President Bush at Madison Square Garden tonight as the first part of a quid pro quo that each of them believes will enhance his standing with the GOP and his chances to be the party's nominee in 2008. Neither man has any integrity whatsoever, and no one should believe a word they say." Saturday, August 28, 2004
Shorter David Brooks: "Mark Souder (R-IN) is a human being and a Republican. In fact, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, the Republican party is wholly comprised of human beings, amongst whom past divisions are now yielding to concerns about, and opposition to, their own policies." Slightly longer: Then in 1994, he ran for Congress himself, and in that great Republican year, won. He immediately behaved in ways that defy the stereotypes. He's worked with members of the Black Caucus to steer federal scholarship money to urban kids. He voted against three articles of Bill Clinton's impeachment - he thought Clinton's behavior was immoral but not impeachable. He was one of the House Republican leaders of an unsuccessful coup against Newt Gingrich. Actually, Souder did think Clinton should be impeached. He voted yes on the third of four impeachment articles, that Clinton had obstructed justice (it passed). The fact is, the Republican Party is less riven into ideological camps than it used to be, and the issues that used to divide it, like abortion, are less salient. Now fundamentalists, moderates, libertarians and old-fashioned Main Street types all express the same sort of concerns: about the need to win the war and anxiety that we're not fighting it properly; about the need to restore fiscal discipline and the anxiety about egregious Republican pork-barrel spending. Across the party, there is a great deal of admiration for Bush's core instincts, but a belief that his administration has not performed that well. Republicans are more united these days, unlike the bad old days when they fought tooth-and-nail over a woman's right to choose. All they fight about now is their own overspending habits and inability to get anything right in Iraq. Souder's in the thick of it, this year voting with only 46 other House members, including Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and Katherine Harris, 100% in support of President Bush. Our eternal gratitude is due to Mr. Brooks for another in a long line of content-free, yet still misleading, columns. Friday, August 27, 2004
Not Qualified for the Job There's a lot of interesting stuff in this NYT interview with Bush, stuff like he didn't know anything about a White House report concluding that greenhouse gasses, including CO2, are the only likely explanation for recent global warming patterns, that he might have "miscalculated" when it came to conditions in Iraq, that Kerry had been truthful about his record in Vietnam, etc., etc. There's a lot of meat for our side in the interview. But what caused the bottom to drop out from under my jaw was this: Mr. Bush also took issue with Mr. Kerry's argument, in an interview at the end of May with The New York Times, that the Bush administration's focus on Iraq had given North Korea the opportunity to significantly expand its nuclear capability. Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, he opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons. The guy who killed almost 1,000 of his fellow citizens and tens of thousands of Iraqis, who shredded decades' worth of diplomatic capital, and who got us into a quagmire that could well sap our strength for years to come, for the express purpose of removing from power a dictator he erroneously claimed to have weapons of mass destruction and the desire to distribute them to terrorists, "opened his palms and shrugged" at the prospect of a dictator of a country with which we are technically in a state of conflict who actually has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, and who has distributed nuclear weapons technology to at least one known terrorist. (whew!) He's like "regular folks," who don't have the first idea what to do about North Korea, all right. Thing is, it's his fucking job to deal with the biggest threat in the world. That's why we have a president. We need a leader, or at the very least, someone who takes this kind of thing seriously. And, George, you're on record giving timelines to a dictator. That's how we got into Iraq, remember? Or are you admitting the whole "let weapons inspectors in or else" thing was bullshit and you were going to invade no matter what? Did you lie to us, George? This needs to be in a Kerry ad, stat. Friday, August 20, 2004
What If According to this story in the LA Times, the CIA is preparing a report on what WMD capabilities Iraq might have had in 2008 if we had not invaded. Some folks thought Saddam already had lots of chemical and biological weapons, in quantity and weaponized, and had been six months away from having nuclear weapons back in 1998. If he already had every kind of WMD imaginable, what would be so special about 2008? Was it that he would finally have enough that he could part with some of them to give to terrorists? Or do we assume that we knew he didn't have any WMDs in the first place, but that he intended to get them in the near future? In that case, invading Iraq to prevent it from acquiring them could be construed as a good idea, except for the fact that it would mean that virtually all of the Bush administration's statements on the subject before the war were brazen, willful lies and grounds for immediate, unanimous impeachment. via Kevin Drum Self-Reliance is Slavery Up on Noam Scheiber's blog, Scheiber substitute Josh Benson has a review of Tom Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas?, which attempts to answer the question of why so many economically disadvantaged whites in rural America vote for politicians who don't address their economic concerns. In the course of the review, Benson brings up a very interesting question he says Frank "barely addresses" in the book: "How do these white, working-class Kansans process the economic implications of their vote?" He offers four possible perspectives they might be approaching this question from. They're all worth thinking about, but it's the first one that got my attention: 1: The cultural and economic appeal of the Republicans is one-and-the-same. The same religious ideas that sanctify unborn life also sanctify individualism, hard work, and personal responsibility, the tenets of Republican economic thinking. Society works best when communities and neighbors look after one another--not the federal government. Be disciplined and pious, and God will provide. In this worldview, the Democrats have got just about everything wrong. Instead of relying on the government for assistance, people should rely on themselves. If things get really out of hand, your community will step up to help, presumably with the aid of (some of) the resources they're no longer giving to the government for this purpose. If your kid gets leukemia, the town can hold bake sales, car washes, and solicit donations to help you out. Appeals like this draw communities closer together, and give everyone concerned something to feel good about. There's a problem, though: having your community be your safety net makes you less independent and self-reliant. Federal programs are by definition impersonal. They have to be designed to help everyone who needs it equally. It's the law. If you meet the criteria, you can fill in the forms, get the help, and go about your business. Communities, on the other hand, are free to excercise goodwill at their discretion. If community leaders don't like you, they're under no obligation to help you when you need it. To enjoy the security that collective mutual aid, one is obliged to submit himself personally to the whims and judgements of others. Such an arrangement would give enormous power to those disposed to mold and enforce local norms. As everyone can easily envision needing help at some point in the future, it would become essential to win the approval of community leaders. A culture of conformity would quickly follow. Cultures of conformity repress minorities, stifle new ideas, and engender xenophobia. While they're good at engendering and perpetuating political power, they're not good for much else. The whole "self-reliance" thing isn't about people not wanting to be led, it's about people wanting leaders who are like themselves. That's why so many people who claim to hate any and all government power feel perfectly comfortable with George W. "Government Spending" Bush. For people like this, there's nothing more natural than the blind leading the blind. Thursday, August 12, 2004
Rich People Have Accountants Picking up where Kevin Drum left off... Seniors would sure be pissed off about this. And who can blame them? All their lives their income was reduced by the amount of income tax they paid, and now that they're retired this reduced amount of money is suddenly subject to a brand new sales tax. Talk about your double taxation! ...it applies to everyone with money, not just seniors. The rich are going to take a historical view of their money, even if they didn't earn it themselves. The very idea of double taxation makes their blood boil. Many of them remember every tax as if it were a public slap in the face. Every $1 million in the bank (stocks, bonds, houses, etc.) will effectively turn into $700,000. I don't see the rich going for it, somehow. In the medium term, it might just wind up being a partially Good Thing: ultimately it amounts to a universal 30% estate tax. Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Edwards' Speech I've been following the Democratic Convention mostly via NPR. Without video, even the Clinton speech, powerful as it was, sounded somewhat perfunctory and businesslike. I turned the television on tonight, though. As Edwards took the stage, something immediately struck me: the crowd is pumped up. They're nearly manic. There is absolutely no division in the room. They love Edwards and they love his wife. This crowd believes, fully, passionately, deeply, in getting Kerry/Edwards into office. Not one of them has any doubt that Kerry is a better choice, on every issue. They don't need to be convinced by a speech; they know they're making the right choice. That's what it looked like to me on CBS, anyway. But Edwards makes the speech anyway, and he completely kills. "We don't just want people to get by, we want people to get ahead." "We're going to say no to any American working full-time and living in poverty. Not in our America." Wow. He spends several minutes talking about making sure veterans get good care. He talks about the human element of low incomes instead of the figures. He understands that not everyone is born, as he was, really smart and to a loving family. He understands that the nation will be better with fewer poor people, even if the government (gasp!) has to take a role He's getting just as big a cheer going out as he had coming in. He crushed it. It's starting to look like we have a lot of rock stars in the Democratic party. Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Bam! Digby's got, like, this move where he waits a little while, and then he pushes like 26 buttons all in the right order, and then he does a double-multiple combo that just knocks you flat on your ass. Thursday, July 22, 2004
I have a theory... ...why Sandy Berger was snagging documents from the National Archives. He's writing a book. Or was. Thursday, July 01, 2004
Republicans and the Common Good Via Josh Marshall, is this BizReport coverage of U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue's June 30 speech to the Commonwealth Club of California. Donohue acknowledged the pain for people who have lost jobs to offshoring - an estimated 250,000 a year, according to government estimates. But pockets of unemployment shouldn't lead to "anecdotal politics and policies," he said, and people affected by offshoring should "stop whining." Following the recent shitstorm over Hillary Clinton's telling a group of wealthy supporters, "We're going to take [tax cuts] away from you on behalf of the common good," this is really too much. When the rich lose a few percent of their already more than adequate incomes, republicans howl and piss and moan and make an unholy racket, as if to say, "Fuck the common good! I got mine, and I'm keeping it!" But when an outsourced worker loses his job, his house, his aspirations, and his dignity, he's supposed to "stop whining" and suck it up. Some other American will benefit, so it's all to the good. The hypocrisy of this double standard, coming as it does from people who inveigh tirelessly against the minimum wage, who spend next to nothing on worker training, and are generally opposed on principle to any and every social safety net that doesn't come out of the barrel of a crucifix, is staggering. Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Key to Beating the Republicans Is in this post over at Hullabaloo. It's a genius post, in keeping with Digby's general high level of kickitude. It includes this: They believe they've just been sitting around being polite and restrained and out of the blue the left has come out swinging. [Emphasis mine] That's it in a nutshell, their weakness. It's been there all this time, and we've ignored it. The tiniest pinprick against their bluster will put them on the defensive, if it casts them in a light they're not capable of comprehending. And they have no idea where we're coming from. Tuesday, June 29, 2004
This Isn't Kevindrumwatch, I Swear Finally, the last half hour of [Fahrenheit 9/11] includes a piece of street theater in which Moore accosts congressmen on Capitol Hill and asks if they'll try to get their sons and daughters to enlist in the military. It's a brutally unfair question, but one that echoes a standard debating point of Hitchens and others: "Would you prefer that Saddam Hussein was still in power?" It's a question that's unanswerable in 10 words or less, and about as meaningful as Moore's ambush interviews with congressmen. There's a problem in that paragraph. Can anyone tell me what it is? Take 15 seconds and read it again. Anyone? The problem with the paragraph is this clause: "It's a brutally unfair question." It's problematic because it is the opposite of the truth. The question isn't "brutally unfair." It's not even maternally-caressing-ly unfair. It is perfectly fair. These guys voted to send thousands of our young men and women into harm's way. These guys voted to kill a whole mess of Iraqis. These guys voted to blow over 100 billion dollars in the interest of doing so. It would seem to me that if you vote for those kinds of things, you'd better mean it. In one sense, saying the goal was worth risking your child's life, being willing to make a sacrifice, the same sacrifice that countless families here and in Iraq are making, would be an appropriate statement of such. We have a professional, volunteer army. You can choose not to join. That's how the system works. Congressmen's sons are, well, fortunate. Most of them have better choices available to them than to make a career in the armed forces. They go to college and to graduate school, they get jobs, and their family name opens a lot of doors for them. For a congressman to say that his son or daughter should be put into the Middle Eastern meatgrinder when there are better choices available would be stupid. There's actually an easy and correct answer to this question: "Yes I would. I believe in this war. It's vitally important that we win, and we need every soldier we can get to make sure we do. I can't force my son to join, but I wouldn't stand in his way. In fact, I'd salute him." Boom. End of question. The difficulty these congressmen are having answering Moore's question stems from the fact that they no longer mean it (that is, if they ever did). Most of them let themselves be talked into supporting the war, and it isn't turning out anything like they thought it would. They don't have the courage of their convictions, and are forcing it onto the military and their families, to say nothing of the nation of Iraq. To top it off, they should have known better. The 'evidence' offered up in support of invasion was sketchy. The rationales behind it shifted constantly. No one could get a single straight answer from the Executive Branch about anything having to do with Iraq. The entire freaking rest of the world thought it was a Really Dumb Idea. But they voted for it anyway. And when we're done, Iraq will still be a mess, and we'll have paid dearly in blood for it. They didn't take their jobs seriously enough, and Moore is calling their (and our) attention to it. It's about time somebody did. Monday, June 28, 2004
The First Rule of Realpolitik Is that you don't talk about realpolitik. In a nutshell, this is the great irony of the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq war. Conceived as a means of finally putting to rest "Vietnam Syndrome," it now looks as though it's going to cement it in place for another few decades. Kevin, buddy, pal. Not even in jest do you say that the Iraq debacle was worth the murderous sleaze. There are crimes here that cry out for punishment, if only so we can, as a nation, show our face in the international community. If the ultimate result of the Iraq Adventure is a mindful American quiescence, the connection to the invasion of Iraq should be mentioned in a properly mortified tone. Kevin, you fight the good fight, and I don't consider a day complete that doesn't see a visit to your blog, but this is too much. Monday, June 14, 2004
So Much for Nation Building The Agonist points to a fascinating Overseas Security Advisory Council article, entitled "UK Holds Indirect Talks with Taliban." LAHORE: The UK has started holding indirect talks with the Taliban to seek an "honourable" exit from Afghanistan, MMA [Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal - the six-party alliance that runs Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province] secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who is mediating between the two, told Dawn by phone here on Sunday. If we're looking to bug out of Afghanistan, why are we negotiating with the Taliban? Did we do such a bad job of rebuilding the country and setting up the Karzai government that we have to ask the Taliban's permission to leave? It appears that the Bush administration believes that as soon as we drop the strings, our puppet government will cease to be and Mullah Omar's goons will march in and take over. And we have to make nice with them so they won't make the transition worse than it has to be. If I recall correctly, we killed an awful lot of them en route to driving them from power in the first place. I can't begin to imagine why they'd want to help us when we approach them from such a craven position. If this is true, then, with the exception of the capture of Saddam, the Bush administration is batting a perfect .000 in the War on Terror. I've long thought we were going to let Karzai's government fail. I never imagined we'd have to ask the Taliban's permission to do so. I don't remember having seen anything about it before, but the OSAC appears to be very much legit. Friday, June 11, 2004
No Excuses for Bigotry Kevin Drum has some comments on why Reagan's states' rights comment at his 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi might not have been quite as bad as we thought: REAGAN AND PHILADELPHIA....Ronald Reagan's record on civil rights was pretty abysmal, but I'd like to suggest that he might be getting a (slightly) bum rap on one particular subject: his speech at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980. First, here's the background. As Kevin notes, there's "not much excuse." Except there is a bit of one. But let's fast forward exactly eight years to August 4, 1988. Guess who's talking at the Neshoba County Fair? Here's the New York Times account: Reagan went to the scene of an atrocity against civil rights, and said, basically, that he symphathized with those who did the crime. Dukakis merits being placed in the same box as Ron because he spoke at the same place? As he was attempting to win the votes of those in attendance, he chose not to beat the crowd up for what had happened there. By Kevin's logic, there was something morally wrong with Dukakis' attempt to earn the votes of the whites in Neshoba county. The difference between what Reagan and Dukakis did is stark and vast. Imagine this scenario taking place in Germany in the 1950's. One politician stands at a podium and uses phrases that tacitly, but unmistakably, indicate his agreement with Nazism. Several years later at the same place, another politican gives a speech in which he doesn't bring up the Holocaust. Is there the tiniest shred of equivalence between the two politicians' actions? No. Finally, no matter what Dukakis did in 1988, even if he had donned full KKK garb and lynched a black man at the fair, it has absolutely no bearing on the appropriateness or morality of what Reagan said in 1980. Goodbye, Hesiod Thank you for all of your hard work and unwavering conviction. I trust you will find the right outlet for your prodigious energy. You truly made a difference. Monday, June 07, 2004
Jesus Backflipping Christ Now he tells us: The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday. Have the neocons been living in a cave in a vacuum in another dimension? The continuing, unbearable, dehumanizing living conditions of the Palestinians gave rise to suicide bombers and galvanized Muslim opinion against Israel and her sponsor. So we backed the party in Israel that has done the most to further humiliate and oppress them. Then, all on our own, we launch an invasion of a country whose regime, whatever its faults, had actively worked against radical Islam, and which we already had by the throat. We took far too few steps to foster goodwill towards our policy here, abroad, or in Iraq. Besides the civilian casualties that inevitably accompany military action, because we didn't bother to properly research the situation on the ground, thousands more were killed and wounded. When we bungled, such as in our decisions not to protect the Iraqi national library or to disband the Iraqi army, we shrugged off our culpability for, and the seriousness of, the consequences and blamed the victims. We knew the problem was Islamic extremism. 9/11 was a flaming bag of dogshit left on America's front door, as were the Cole bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, and the first WTC bombing in 1993. Maybe some attempt on our part to signal that we were not the enemy of Islam might have been appropriate. There is no way to know at this point. Attacking known terrorists, as we failed to do properly in Afghanistan, is always good policy. But it's obvious that the absolute worst kind of response on our part was to inflame opinion among the Muslim rank-and-file, a result virtually guaranteed by our actions towards Israel and in Iraq. That we have gained nothing but near-universal ill will in exchange for the thousands of casualties and billions of dollars spent in this endeavor is stupefying. That our leaders claim they didn't see any of this coming is unpardonable. via Digby, who wields the flaming sword of righteousness. Saturday, June 05, 2004
Soros Demonization Ramps Up I'm just adding my bit to the chorus of disgust resulting from Tony Blankley's remarks about George Soros on Fox's Hannity and Colmes June 3. Among other things ("He is a self-admitted atheist, he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust," critique of which I will leave to my esteemed colleagues among the non-bigots), Blankley accused Soros of "plundering the world's currencies," and "caus[ing] the Southeast Asian financial crisis in '97." I addressed another instance of this slander back in February, to the effect that Soros didn't plunder anything. He saw big, pre-existing imbalances in currency markets and profited from them. In doing so, it is quite likely that he prevented worse damage to the international financial system by popping currency bubbles before they could do more damage. The real scumbaggery in Blankley's defamation comes from his standards of convenience when it comes to a democrat as opposed to a republican. "He's buying influence all over the world. He's a robber baron, he's a pirate capitalist, and he's a reckless man." What sort of restraint would Blankley advocate Soros to have used? What's a capitalist to do when he sees an extraordinary opportunity to make money? Was he to stop himself, and say to those involved in the situation, "uh...gents, I believe the British Pound is tremendously overvalued. If I weren't such a nice guy, I could have taken the shirts right off your backs. Just thought you should know." They'd have laughed in his face. The Bank of England felt it was justified in keeping the exchange rate far above the point at which it would have otherwise been. For Soros to have held himself back from legal means to make money is precisely the opposite of capitalism. Pursuit of self-interest in the form of wealth is what capitalism is all about. If Blankley is advocating that there should have been legal restrictions on Soros's ability to make his currency bets, then he's an apostate of the first order to conservative dogma. He clearly doesn't believe this principle should hold universally, but just for those with politics that differ from his own. He is a rank hypocrite. Update: Non-bigot Max Sawicky takes out the trash. It's one of those days when the piddling liberal generalist (me) addresses the economic aspects and the distinguished liberal economist addresses everything else. Go figure. See also Kevin Drum's comments. Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Wow An e-mail from the [Bush] campaign's Pennsylvania office, obtained by The Associated Press, urges churchgoers to help organize "Friendly Congregations" where supporters can meet regularly to sign up voters and spread the Bush word. Ok, so screw the whole idea that collapsing the wall between church and state is to help people. It's to give congregations financial incentives to support one political party. via Atrios Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Just a stupid observation Is it typical, even among Arabs, for smugglers to hire musicians and bring their women (one in a western-styple wedding dress) and children to the middle of nowhere for a three-day party? Smugglers live their lives on the run. Their income and survival depend on their ability to evade detection. Smugglers have to be some of the most paranoid people on the planet. But we're to believe that a bunch of smugglers did not only all of the above, but fired their guns into the air in a war zone in which the enemy has uncontested air superiority and incredible satellite surveillance technology. It doesn't even pass the sepulchral-rattle test. Besides, the moral status of an Iraqi smuggler is, at worst, ambiguous. While Saddam was in power, the smuggler was transgressing against the law of an illegitimate, brutal tyrant. The Americans have yet to provide a functional government, to say nothing of a coherent set of laws, so smuggling is meaningless both morally and legally. In a country where the occupying authority funnels billions of dollars to Halliburton, and the country is hopelessly disrupted, smuggling might even be a positive good. A man can feed his family, and people are able to get the goods they want at prices they can afford. Sounds like an economist's wet dream. Thursday, May 20, 2004
Chalabi Raid a Fraud I'm going out on a limb and calling it now. They had him, but they didn't arrest him. Hmm...red flag, red flag...oh, here: A spokesman for the American occupation authorities said today that the Coalition Provisional Authority and its top official, L. Paul Bremer III, were not involved in the raids, and he referred all questions to the Iraqi police, which, the spokesman said, had planned and conducted the operations. There is absolutely no way the Iraqi "police" would move against Chalabi without explicit orders from the U.S. Supposedly, Chalabi has had the full run of Saddam's intelligence files. I'm sure he's covered his ass in triplicate. Any real examination of his doings would expose an awful lot of things that the Bush administration never wants to see the light of day. Never going to happen. This can only mean that they're going after Sadr sooner rather than later. His removal will create a huge power vaccuum among Iraqi Shi'ites. If enough Iraqis are convinced by this ruse, Chalabi will be in a position to emerge as a leader among the Shi'a, or so the thinking goes. I'll believe it when I see it. My guess is that Sistani nips this one definitively in the bud. Edit: Dumb title mistake fixed. Monday, May 17, 2004
The Charming Americans Just stop it. At the Camp War Horse detention centre in Baguba, north of Baghdad, it is a surreal scene: US soldiers handing out cash to freed prisoners along with a note saying "You have not been mistreated." Are the Iraqis this stupid? Are we this stupid to interpret this as remotely appropriate? One of the biggest industries in America is to punitively sue one's fellow citizens for real or perceived infliction of pain. Played just right, a twisted wrist could make a man a millionaire. For Iraqis who were tortured, on the other hand, a few bucks and an invitation to auto-hypnosis are enough to make them whole again. Let's get this straight: if there were a case where an American was subject to lurid, recorded, deliberate, malicious, gleeful sexual humiliation, it would be front-page news for weeks. Abner Louima. In all likelihood, there are hundreds of Iraqis (and ? knows how many Afghanis) who have suffered through this. Was the beating and real and simulated rape of all these Iraqis even effective? American soldiers are dying and being grievously wounded in their thousands. Did the (ugh) interrogations head off a significant number of additional attacks? How hard do we have to lean on this country to liberate it? via The Agonist Returnable Goods Avedon wonders why the RIAA would be crying foul over an almost-10% increase in sales, while enjoying increased efficiency in the form of fewer returns to boot. At the end of the day, they wind up with more money--a lot more money. The reason they're unhappy is that they are paid for shipped units. The 'float' of time before unsold goods are returned and credited is money in the publisher's pocket. A degree of inefficiency can make your company look larger on paper as well, because the 'shipped units' are counted as revenue. The move to more efficient sales will earn record companies more money, but the transition will be painful. Monday, May 10, 2004
Thursday, May 06, 2004
A Moment on the Road to Baghdad? In trying to get a handle on Bush's response to the revelations of US torture of Iraqi prisoners, I am reminded of an meeting reported shortly after he took office, in which Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar tried to convey the gravity of the situation facing Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories. On April 24th, the eve of the visit, Bandar received a private briefing from one of the President's senior officials: Bush, he was told, was unaware of what was happening in the streets of the West Bank or Gaza. "This guy doesn't watch TV - he just doesn't know this stuff," the official said, adding that Bush's aides, many of whom were staunchly pro-Israel, shielded him. Bandar was in a hotel in Houston preparing Abdullah for his meeting with Bush the next morning. Bandar wanted Bush to see what Arabs saw daily on Al Jazeera, hoping that it would open his eyes, and so his aides were trying to get photographs. Eventually, they were able to find some, mostly pictures of dead Palestinian children - a five-year-old with a bullet wound to his head, a child cut in half. He did not want to show the most gruesome; the purpose was not to make Bush sick. Although seeing the human costs of decisions he would be making didn't make a lasting impression on Bush, it did make one. There hadn't been a single note of contrition from the Bush administration regarding its actions before or during the Iraq war before yesterday. Bush has seen the pictures, and all of a sudden the situation in Iraq is real to him. Before now, Bush's handlers had been able to keep him isolated from the details on the ground. I'm starting to think that the ban on images of the coffins of our soldiers is as much or more to keep the president in the dark as it is for the rest of us. 700 dead, that's just a number, it's abstract, but a coffin represents a real, dead human being. The question is, then, is the cat really out of the bag for good, or will Bush decide it's too bright, too stark, too cold out here in the real world and return to the warm, dark comfort of his bubble? Update:Upon further reflection, it's quite possible that Bush's reactions to the two episodes above did not come about because he actually cared about the pain and degradation he saw in the photographs. No, he went soft because the whole world knows he saw them. As long as there is the tiniest shred of a fig leaf to hide behind, he'll do so, but he can't let stand incontrovertable evidence that he's heartless, er, "uncompassionate." Maybe he does care what we think. No wonder he so cheerfully tells anyone who will listen that he has no direct contact with the news. Update 2: Dwight Meredith much more eloquently and thoroughly notes the same grim possibility: The final possibility is by far the most troubling. Perhaps Rumsfeld informed the President of the abuse in terms that made clear that Americans had subjected Iraqis to vile torture but the President was not concerned and took no action because he was not told that pictures existed that would make the abuse both public and indisputable. I'd like to stress that Dwight only mentions this as one of four possible explanations for the recent string of events, the others being reporter error, source error, or Rumsfeld error. Although he leaves the question open, the circumstantial evidence he assembles is pretty deep. |