Five years ago today, 19 al Qaeda operatives, with the help of an unknown number of accomplices, hijacked four planes to use them as guided missiles. Two of the planes struck the World Trade Center towers, which were a peculiar obsession for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; another struck the Pentagon, the most obvious symbol of the U.S. military; and the fourth was brought down when passengers staged a counterattack on the hijackers.
The question we must ask ourselves on this fifth anniversary is, are we safer as a result of the policies implemented by the Bush Administration? (By "we," I refer to the entire world, not just the United States.) I would argue that we are not.
Read more...Five years after the attack, Osama bin Laden remains at large, chiefly because the Bush Administration has diverted its attention from the hunt. President Bush has publicly stated that he considers bringing bin Laden to justice to be a low priority. The CIA task force in charge of finding bin Laden has been disbanded. The U.S. military focus in Afghanistan was shifted to Iraq, beginning in early 2002, only a few weeks after the U.S. invaded and toppled the Taliban regime. Almost five years in, NATO casualties in Afghanistan show no sign of slowing.
Indeed, the Taliban are in control of an increasing portion of the Afghan countryside, and are operating freely, conducting raids in the capital, Kabul, at will. The U.S.'s hand-picked government, led by President Hamid Karzai, has limited real-world authority, in part because it has been unable to provide for many of the basic necessities of life and commerce — particularly basic security. The government of Pakistan has signed a truce with Islamic militants in the border province of Waziristan, with the apparent effect of allowing Taliban and al Qaeda operatives shelter in Pakistan and free passage into and out of Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led war in Iraq has been a disaster for world security. Where once there was a brutal dictator who kept al Qaeda and other militant Islamists out of Iraq, now there is chaos, with a large safe haven for terrorists. Toppling Saddam Hussein did not improve the situation in Iraq, from the point of view of the Iraqi people, from the point of view of American interests, or from the point of view of moderate Muslims around the world. President Bush handed bin Laden the best recruiting tool he could have hoped for, plus a safe haven and an unparalleled live-fire training ground to create an army of militants dedicated to inflicting death and destruction on America for many years to come.
President Bush says that the struggle against international terrorism will be a "long war," carrying on for decades, and yet he fails to see the long-term implications of the missteps he and his administration continue to make in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere. We will never defeat al Qaeda militarily, just as Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah with guns and bombs. We must win the hearts and minds of the Middle East, and most especially the next generation of potential terrorist recruits. We must find a way to change the widespread perception that the United States is dedicated to the destruction of Islam, and we can't do that with guns and bombs. We are trying to douse the flames of militant Islamism with gasoline.
What we should have done differently in the last five years is crystal clear: we should have committed the military and intelligence resources necessary to secure Afghanistan and put the Taliban out of action permanently, and to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. (Repeatedly taking out "al Qaeda's #3 man" means little when #1 and #2 slip through your fingers.) We should also have committed the resources necessary to rebuild Afghanistan, to give a greater sense of legitimacy to the new government there. We should have left Saddam Hussein trapped in a very small box in Iraq, confident that his day of reckoning would come soon enough, but we should not have invaded Iraq. Given that we did invade Iraq, we should have committed the resources necessary to secure the country, rather than shrugging off the mayhem that ensued immediately after the invasion and that continues to this day.
The much tougher question, of course, is what should we do now, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The hunt for bin Laden is far more difficult than it would have been in 2001. The Taliban is on the ascendant, as is the insurgency in Iraq. Both situations are sure to get worse before they get even a little bit better. The first step to victory, though, must be to admit the enormous mistakes we have made and commit to changing course.
Technorati tags: 9/11, 9 11, Politics, Iraq War, Afghanistan, Taliban, al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five Years Later
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Greetings from Black Rock City!
I'm currently sitting in a town of over 35,000 people. This town didn't exist two weeks ago, and it won't exist two weeks from now. It's called Black Rock City, and it's the home of Burning Man. Conditions here aren't really very suitable for posting, but I'm getting some pictures that I will try to post when I get home in a few days. Until then, may the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless and keep you safe from harm.
Technorati tags: Burning Man, Black Rock City
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Rewriting the Vietnam War
One of the many disturbing themes emanating from the neoconservative cabal in Washington is the idea that we could have — and should have — won the Vietnam War if only we hadn't lost our nerve. The views these people express about Vietnam shine considerable light on their approach to Iraq, and the parallels are much more than superficial.
Read more...C–SPAN is running an American Perspectives segment from 2006-06-23, featuring Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Rush Limbaugh, and some of the cast and crew of the television series 24, discussing the image of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts in light of the fictional Jack Bauer. Secretary Chertoff slid in this quote amid praise for the steadfastness of the real people working to prevent terrorist attacks:The fact of the matter is, American history shows we cannot be defeated in a fight unless we lose our nerve or we lose our will. We have only lost those conflicts where we have withdrawn from the field of battle before we prevailed.
In the Vietnam War, the U.S. military withdrew from South Vietnam without having driven the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong guerrillas back across the 17th parallel. The question is, could the United States have prevailed militarily if we had remained in Vietnam? My answer, and the clear answer of the American public, was that the Vietnam War was not only not worth the sacrifice, but it was unwinnable.
The Vietnam War was manifestly not worth the sacrifice, because the doomsday predictions about what would happen if we allowed South Vietnam to fall were completely off the mark. The toppling of that domino did not lead to the sweeping spread of communist revolution around the world. Three decades on, the United States is seeing the advantages of reestablishing trade with Vietnam, even though it is nominally still communist (rather like China). That still leaves the question of what it would have taken to defeat the communist forces of the North Vietnamese army. We had already bombed North Vietnam extensively, with no discernible effect on their determination to press the fight. The Tet Offensive largely removed the Viet Cong as a major factor, but the North Vietnamese army was still in play. In the meantime, the South Vietnamese government and army were in substantial disarray, and utterly unable to stand up as U.S. forces stood down.
Should we have sent in hundreds of thousands of troops for an infantry march all the way to Hanoi? How many American soldiers would have been lost in such an exercise? How many Vietnamese soldiers and civilians? And to what purpose? Should we have reunited Vietnam under the flag of the south? I don't think that China would have taken that lying down; despite the historic hatred between China and Vietnam, the PRC strongly supported North Vietnam. What if we had just pushed the North Vietnamese back north of the 17th parallel? We would have had to remain indefinitely to hold the border.
In Vietnam, the United States didn't lose its nerve, it woke up and realized that it was squandering its blood and treasure on a fool's errand. Likewise, the United States will not prevail in Iraq simply by determinedly standing our ground until the bad guys give up. To defeat the insurgency, we need better intelligence, in both senses of the word: we need more knowledge of the enemy, and we need better planning. We can't bomb them into submission, any more than Israel was able to bomb Hezbollah into oblivion. The battle in Iraq, much like the battle in Vietnam, is first and foremost a matter of hearts and minds. If the people over there support what we are doing, we will succeed; if the broad middle opposes us or is apathetic, we are doomed to failure. Most of all, if we succumb to the temptation to refight the last war, to show that withdrawing from Vietnam was a mere lapse of judgment, we will find the desert of Iraq no more hospitable than the jungles of Vietnam.
Technorati tags: Iraq War, Vietnam War, Michael Chertoff, Neoconservatives, Politics
Intelligent Design and the Lotto
The so-called "Intelligent Design hypothesis" holds as its central premise that it is impossible for life as we know it to have arisen by random chance; therefore, some intelligent force (i.e., God) must have guided creation. That argument is hogwash, as can easily be demonstrated by analogy to the California Super Lotto.
Read more...The winning numbers for the 2006-08-12 drawing were, according to the California Lottery website, 10 12 34 37 47 (8 mega). To win the jackpot, you must match all five regular numbers and the mega number. The odds of doing so are 1 in 41,416,353. If you played the same set of numbers every drawing, you would have a 50-50 chance of winning some time in the next 276,000 years. It is thus "virtually impossible" (or perhaps even "inconceivable") for those six numbers to have arisen by random chance; there "must" have been an intelligent guiding hand choosing those specific numbers. In fact, the odds of winning even once in a human lifetime are vanishingly small, so if you win it must be because you made the proper sacrifice to a golden calf, or because you let the Zodiac guide your selection, or because Rod Serling planted the enchanted fortune cookie machine at your dinner table, or simply because the Flying Spaghetti Monster smiled down upon you.
The flaw is that you are looking in isolation at the odds that you will win. The missing piece of the puzzle is that millions of people play the lottery, and so the odds are quite good that someone will — by utter random chance — choose the winning numbers. Perhaps not on this drawing, perhaps not on the next one, but it is only a matter of time. Likewise, the odds that a few carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms would randomly group together to form DNA is infinitesimal for a single instance. However, how many sets of numbers did the universe play before it hit the winning combination? Also, life begets life: once you have living organisms, the process ceases to be completely random. Organic molecules tend to lead to the formation of other organic molecules. Given an entire planet's worth of raw materials, plus a couple billion years, the odds that life evolved without the guiding hand of a supernatural intelligence begin to look much different.
I won't pretend that I have disproved the existence of an intelligent Creator; that task is intrinsically impossible, because any contrary evidence could simply have been planted by a deity with a strange sense of humor. However, "Intelligent Design" is not science, and has no scientific foundation whatsoever. It is simply religious dogma dressed up with the superficial trappings of scientific language. At its root, the existence or non-existence of God is purely a matter of faith.
Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Creationism, Lotto
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Ramesh Ponnuru on the Colbert Report
Stephen Colbert's guest last night, 2006-08-14, was National Review columnist and author of the book The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, Ramesh Ponnuru. Even though Ponnuru clearly watches The Colbert Report regularly, he didn't seem to grasp the ridicule to which Stephen subjected him.
Read more...Stephen Colbert: My guest tonight is a National Review columnist who calls the Democrats "the Party of Death"; I assume he's been reading the voter rolls in Chicago. Please welcome Ramesh Ponnuru! [applause] Ramesh, thanks for comin' on.
Ann Coulter has about as much credibility as Geraldo Rivera or Britney Spears. Enough said.
Ramesh Ponnuru: Thanks. I saw what happened to Joe Lieberman when he didn't take your invitation, so....
Colbert: Are you running for something? (No.) Because, if you were, you've got a catchy little slogan here: The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life. I'm 100% behind you here. Democrats are the Party of Death. You know, I think they're behind [Ned] Lamont, right — so are the al Qaeda. (That's what I hear.) Vice President Cheney said al Qaeda supports Lamont. (I did hear that.) Well, good; I thought I might've been crazy. You got a great blurb on the cover from Ann Coulter; that's some credibility right there. Now, tell me why the Democrats are the Party of Death.Ponnuru: Well, one of the stories I tell in the book is how the Democrats started out as the relatively "pro-life, anti-abortion" party, and then became nearly monolithically "pro-choice," and they stopped being the majority in this country at the same time.
Blowing things up and killing and torturing civilians and ignoring the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the poor, sick elderly — now that's what I call "a culture of life."
Colbert: Now, when you say abortion, you're not using that in a comedic way, right? You're using it very seriously. (Right. Yes.) Because I want to make sure we don't make any abortion jokes tonight, because — it's a funny word, I understand that, like guacamole — but you are being serious right now. (Right.) You're being serious? Okay, good.
Now, you make a good point: the Democrats are the Party of Death. Please explain to my audience — I have to explain to them all the time the Democrats are the Party of Death — explain to them how raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, and pulling out of Iraq makes them the Party of Death, 'cause I've shouted myself hoarse about that to these people.Ponnuru: I know you have. Well, first I need to explain that not all Democrats are part of the Party of Death, and some Republicans are part of the Party of Death. I'm using that phrase really to refer to all the forces in our politics and culture —
"Some members of his family," yes, that would be his wife and his son and namesake, for starters, specifically the two people best qualified to speculate what Reagan's position on the issue would be if he were alive today. Sometimes, Mommy really does know best.
Colbert: Does it say some Republicans on this? No, it doesn't: it just says "The Democrats, the Media, the Courts" — just probably ran out of ink at some point.
Ponnuru: There's a lot about the Democrats, a lot about the media, and a lot about the courts in the book.
Colbert: Now, why do you think some people troop out Reagan's name for things like stem-cell research, which I assume you're opposed to. (I'm opposed to some kinds of stem-cell research, sure.) Are you opposed to embryonic stem-cell research?
Ponnuru: If it involves killing a human embryo, yes.
Colbert: So why do you think people troop out Ronald Reagan's name to try to get that passed?
Ponnuru: Well, because there are some members of his family who support it — of course, some members don't — and they're just trying to establish this as something conservatives and Republicans can support, you know, by using a dead man. [arches his eyebrows]Colbert: What if they — I would say the only reason I would support cloning and embryonic stem-cell research, is if we could clone Ronald Reagan, and then if we could just get him back, and then just end it right there, that would be great.
Well, there are just a couple of little problems there, Mr. Ponnuru. Apparently you've never bothered to even skim through the actual Roe v. Wade decision. It says, in relevant part, with emphasis added:
Ponnuru: Well, you wouldn't be able to debate yourself any more, either, though.
Colbert: You know what, I could get a couple more of me; that'd be pretty good. Now, you're against activist judges, correct? (Yes.) I am, too. Tell me, what is your argument? Why do you think that they're part of the problem? You say the courts; how are the courts part of the problem?
Ponnuru: Well, I mean, the Supreme Court imposed on this country a policy of abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy, for essentially any reason. That is a policy that — certainly when put in those terms — only about 10% of the American public supports. That is the #1 reason why this has become such a divisive issue for the last 35 years in this country. Other countries that don't have judges imposing pro-abortion policies, haven't had anything near this amount of strife over the issue.(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.
That's nothing remotely close to "a policy of abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy, for essentially any reason." I'm not quibbling over jots and tiddles here, either. The Supreme Court imposed a policy of abortion on demand prior to fetal viability for essentially any reason. In practice, viability means roughly the end of the second trimester, after which time states may completely outlaw all elective abortions, so long as they allow a reasonable exception for the health of the mother.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.
The point about other countries where the courts have imposed pro-abortion policies against the will of the people is also worthy of examination. Take, for a clear example, the Republic of Ireland. In the early 1990's, a court — and a foreign court at that, the European Court of Human Rights — struck down Ireland's absolute prohibition against all abortions, even when the mother's life is in immediate danger due to the pregnancy, struck down the prohibition about disseminating information about legal abortion services available elsewhere in the E.U., and struck down the prohibition against travelling outside the Republic for the purpose of obtaining an abortion. The ECHR acted after cases in which, for example, a young woman and her parents were criminally prosecuted for leaving Ireland to obtain a legal abortion. True, the ECHR's ruling was not automatically binding upon Ireland; it was necessary to amend the Irish constitution. However, the amendments were pushed through mostly by the weight of the ECHR decision, against the weight of a population that is, nominally at least, 90% Roman Catholic. There was a great deal of hemming and hawing, and tut-tutting by the church, but the amendments were ratified by a popular referendum (also legalizing divorce for the first time in the Republic of Ireland) and there was far less civil strife over the issue than we see in the United States; indeed, there was less strife after the court's decision than before it. The Roe v. Wade decision didn't sow strife because it decided the issue, it sowed strife because it decided the issue clumsily.Colbert: How do they do it differently? How could this be handled differently?
There you go again! If your fact-checking is this sloppy, why on earth would I bother to read your book? The Supreme Court has never held an absolute and unlimited right to abortion.
Ponnuru: Well, in every European country, for example, there are some time limits. In many countries — even Scandinavian countries that we tend to think of as very liberal — it's much harder legally to get an abortion after, say, the 12th week of pregnancy. In this country, thanks to the Supreme Court, it's an absolute and unlimited right, all through the third trimester.Colbert: The judges are making this decision, and not the legislatures, not the duly elected people. Doesn't that upset you?
That's an absurd argument to put in such black-and-white terms. Fundamental rights must never be left to the whim of the majority, they must be protected by the courts against the majority's efforts to undermine them. That's why the Supreme Court in 1954 substituted its judgment for the duly elected representatives who passed the Jim Crow laws, for just one obvious example.
Ponnuru: I think we would have a healthier politics in general if these decisions were put back into the democratic arena. The outcomes wouldn't be completely the ones that I would favor, but everybody would have a say, it wouldn't just be the judges arrogantly, you know, on the basis of nothing in the actual Constitution, substituting their judgment for the people's.Colbert: Yeah, I think whenever possible we should have the legislature make the decisions and not the judges — except in cases like Oregon and their Right to Death statute, which the Supreme Court held up, and that's a case in which I think that neither of them should be listened to.
Ramesh Ponnuru is a sloppy, lazy fool who got batted around by Stephen Colbert like a sock full of catnip in the paws of a crazed, half-deaf tabby cat.
Well, now you've called the Democrats, the media, the courts, "the Party of Death," what's next? How do you ramp it up from here?
Ponnuru: I might do something on cannibalism next time.
Colbert: Cannibalism? Okay. The party that eats its children.
Ponnuru: Well, stem-cell research, there's a little tie-in.
Colbert: Please come back with that next book, I appreciate it. Ramesh Ponnuru; we'll be right back.
Technorati tags: Stephen Colbert, Colbert Report, Ramesh Ponnuru, Party of Death, Politics, Abortion, Stem-Cell Research
Jon Stewart on the Colbert Report
A few days ago on Faux FOX News The O'FrankenReilly Factor, comedian circus master journalist Geraldo Rivera made some disparaging remarks about Comedy Central, and specifically about The Daily Show and The Colbért Réport. The parentheticals are host Bill Oh'Really; the rest of the quote is Geraldo Rivera.
Comedy Central is now a big hit — Stewart and that Colbert guy (They do okay.) I mean, relatively, relative (They do okay.) They make a living putting on video of old ladies slipping on ice and people laughing. That's their life. That's their life. They exist in a small little place where they count for nothing. — Geraldo Rivera, 2006-08-02Last Thursday, Stephen Colbert made a special appearance on The Daily Show to demand that Jon Stewart apologize to Geraldo. Last night, Stewart showed up on The Colbert Report.
Read more...
Stephen Colbert [on last Thursday's 2006-08-10 Daily Show]: What are you trying to imply, Jon? That O’Reilly and Geraldo are narcissists enthralled in their own overblown egos, projecting their own petty insecurities onto the world around them, inventing false enemies for the sole purpose of bolstering their sense of self-importance, itty-bitty Nixons minus the relevance or a hint of vision?It's nice to see that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can handle a little constructive criticism from their friends and fellow fake journalists Geraldo Rivera and Bill O'Reilly, and respond appropriately. FOX News is "a tale, told by idiots, full of sound and fury"; unfortunately, it signifies quite a lot.
John Stewart: [Colbert spelled Jon with an H as a dig at Stewart.] Stephen, I don't see why I have to apologize to Geraldo. It doesn't —
Stepan Coldbear: Jon. [long pause, setting up a soap-opera-style shot of Jon Stewart over Stephen Colbert's shoulder, both looking in the direction of the camera] Jon, why are you closing yourself off from Geraldo? He came to unlock the vault of your heart, and when he opened it, it was empty. An empty vault! And he had a camera crew — it was very embarrassing.
Jon: I really don't understand why —
Stephen: Well, maybe if you walked a mile in his shoes.
Jon: What, by fighting Danny Bonaduce for charity, or (No, Jon.) giving away troop movements (No, Jon.) in Iraq? I mean, I don't know —
Stephen: No, Jon: by walking a mile in his mustache. [places fake mustache on Jon's upper lip] ... Now do you understand? Now will you apologize?
Jon: Sh-sure. Uh, hey Geraldo! [in a flat tone of voice, gradually trailing off] I'm really sorry about the whole thing and ...
Stephen: Whew! Great! I'm glad you did that; I was afraid this was gonna be a "thing" between us. (No!) Okay, let's take you off the ["Called Out" dry-erase marker] board. Uh ... I do not have an eraser. You know what: hold on. [tears fake mustache off Jon Stewart's face, erases Jon's name with it, and then replaces it on Jon's face] Now, I know you're gonna want to get back to your monkey, so thanks for stopping by, Jon.
Jon: Thank you very much, Stephen. I appreciate it.
Stephen: Jon Stewart, everybody — a big man!
Technorati tags: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Geraldo Rivera, Bill O'Reilly, Colbert Report, Called Out, Politics, FOX News, Comedy Central Read More......
Monday, August 14, 2006
The newest Internet country code
As I write this, it's Monday evening in California, but it's already the wee hours of Tuesday morning in Finland, where the Åland Islands will soon be waking up to their newly activated ccTLD of .ax.
The Åland Islands are an autonomous province of Finland, but they are located just off the coast of Sweden, and Swedish is the official language of the provincial government. Until now, the Åland Islands have been allocated domains under the .aland.fi subdomain.
Just a little geek trivia for a Monday evening....
P.S. No word yet on ccTLD's for Serbia and Montenegro. ".rs" is a possibility for Serbia, but Montenegro is a thornier problem: I'm betting on ".cq".
UPDATE: a reader reports that ".me" has been selected for Montenegro, although there has not yet been an official announcement. Look for domains like "find.me" to begin popping up soon.
Technorati tags: Aland Islands, Åland Islands, Finland, ccTLD
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Condi on MtP
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the featured interview on today's NBC News Meet the Press. Host Tim Russert questioned Condi about the situation in Lebanon and the broader situation in the Middle East. To her credit, Condi pronounced Hezbollah better than most Americans. However, she echoed the administration's bizarre fantasies of the situation.
Read more...Tim Russert: Can there be any peace until the Hezbollah militia is destroyed?
Everyone in Lebanon except Hezbollah agrees — that's a little like saying "everyone in Utah except the Mormons." Certainly the Lebanese government sees the necessity to have control of the de facto Lebanese armed forces in the hands of the government, but the people on the streets so far strongly support Hezbollah and its military campaign. Russert goes on a bit later to quote polls cited by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, showing that 87% of the Lebanese people, including 80% of Lebanese Christians, support Hezbollah against Israel.
Condoleezza Rice: Well, the one thing that all Lebanese agree with — perhaps all but Hezbollah — is that it cannot have the situation again that obtained when Hezbollah crossed the Blue Line, a kind of state-within-a-state, attacked Israel, abducted soldiers, and really plunged the entire country into war without even the knowledge — let alone the consent, not even the knowledge — of the Lebanese government. If you talk to the Lebanese, they're very focused on extending the authority of the Lebanese government throughout the country, of being able to bring Lebanese forces throughout the country, and making certain that any arms are going to be in the hands of just [only] the Lebanese government.Russert: Do you believe Israel has shown the proper restraint?
That's mostly a diplomatic non-answer, but the core point is that Russert did not ask her "to judge each and every Israeli operation." Condi was using a form of spin called a "straw man."
Condi: I'm not going to try to judge each and every Israeli operation; I do know that Israel has the right to defend itself.Russert: Many have suggested that the way to bring a permanent resolution to this crisis is to peel off Syria from Iran — Syria, a secular Sunni country; Iran, a Shi'ite country — and the way to do that is to talk directly to Syria. Richard Armitage, who was the top deputy to your predecessor Colin Powell at the State Department, said this — and he was the last senior official from the U.S. to talk to the government of Syria in 2004 — he said he "completely disagreed" with Secretary Rice's description of the conflict as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." He said, "The administration has an irrational fear that talking is a sign of weakness. It is the best way of gathering information and influencing events." Why not go to Syria and talk directly to the Syrians?
It is absolute lunacy to suggest that it is possible to create a stable Lebanon without making Syria a part of the equation, because Syria has been — as Secretary Rice points out — a part of the equation of the instability of Lebanon. Syria must be part of stabilizing Lebanon; most particularly, Syria must refrain from destabilizing Lebanon. Do we really expect Syria to refrain from destabilizing Lebanon just because we wag our finger at them from afar?
Condi: Well, it's ironic: Richard Armitage was actually the last [senior] U.S. administration official to go to Damascus, [and he told them], "You know, it's about to be a new day, the President had just been re-elected, it's really time for Syria to make a strategic choice. ... The problem isn't talking to Syria, the problem is that Syria doesn't act when people talk to them. ... To talk to Syria about Lebanon is a very interesting strategy, since we've spent a lot of time and energy trying to get Syria out of Lebanon — they occupied Lebanon for the last 30 years — and I think to suggest that somehow Syria is a part of the equation for a stable Lebanon, after they occupied the country for 30 years, after they created the conditions that permitted Hezbollah to become a state-within-a-state, after they have repeatedly intimidated and perhaps even contributed to the assassination of Lebanese officials — it's a rather odd strategy to say that Syria is somehow going to be a part of stabilizing Lebanon. [Condi also pointed out that the U.S. does talk to Syria, we have an embassy and a chargé d'affaires, although we withdrew our ambassador when Syria refused to cooperate with an international investigation into the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.]
Russert also referred to a quote from President Bush: "This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic. Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region." At that, Condi threw in the canard about the Chinese characters, crisis = danger + opportunity; surely there is someone at the State Department who actually speaks Chinese, who could disabuse the Secretary of such embarrassing 傻的外国人 foolishness. You might as well say that the English word do is composed of the words danger and opportunity, since it contains the first character of each.
Technorati tags: Condoleezza Rice, Meet the Press, Tim Russert, Condi, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Middle East, Politics, Diplomacy, Crisis-Danger-Opportunity
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Ned Lamont on the Colbert Report
Monday's Colbert Réport featured an interview with Connecticut Senatorial candidate Ned Lamont. Lamont is challenging incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman for the Democratic nomination, primarily on the issue that Lieberman's position on the Iraq war has been consistently ass-backwards. CrooksAndLiars has the video; here's the text of interview:
Read more...Stephen Colbert: My guest tonight is a Democratic Connecticut Senate hopeful who says Joe Lieberman is in bed with the President. I say they're in a ménage-à-trois with America. Please welcome Ned Lamont. [applause] Mr. Lamont, thanks for coming on — brave man.
Ned Lamont: Delighted to be here.
Colbert: We invited Senator Lieberman, he declined. You've got that on him. All right: have you come on to announce that you are dropping out? You're only up by 4 points in the polls.
Lamont: I've come to announce that we're going on strong. We need your help, every step of the way, between now and August 8th.
Colbert: I'm not sure if I can give you my help, sir: you just got the endorsement of the New York Times [reg. req'd]. Okay? You know that they're destroying America, you know that newspaper is destroying America, correct?
Lamont: It was a well-written, articulate analysis of the issues, and I think they came to the proper conclusion. (Really?) What do you think?
Colbert: I don't know; I just met you, sir. Let's find out. What have you got against Joe Lieberman? He's my kind of Democrat. [laughter] What's your beef with him? You're a Democrat, he's a Democrat, he's a mandarin of the Senate — why are you takin' him down?
Lamont: I think George Bush is driving this country into a ditch, and if Joe Lieberman won't challenge him, I will. I think it's time for the Democrats to stand up and pose a real alternative. [cheers] Yes.
Colbert: Oh, they're just cheering for my comeback. But Joe Lieberman has friends in high places — the President, the Republicans — I mean, he gets along with those people. You're gonna be a junior Senator when you get in there, you're not gonna have the same tug that he does — I mean, the President kissed him. Can we have that footage up there? [2005-02-02, Bush State of the Union speech, Bush kisses Lieberman on the cheek] You think the President's gonna kiss you, sir?
Lamont: I prefer a respectful handshake, I should say, but —
Colbert: I mean, obviously, the first date, just a handshake, but after a couple of years?
Lamont: We'll see where we evolve from there, if that's what you're suggesting.
Colbert: All right, so you're open to the idea?
Lamont: I'm open to the idea we need to get some people down to Washington, D.C., who will stand up to this President, say it's time to start bringing our troops home from Iraq, and give the people of Iraq the opportunity to solve this for themselves.
Colbert: So, your campaign slogan is "Cut and Run"? You're a cut-and-runner? That sounds like cutting and running.
Lamont: I think what we're doing right now is a failure of a policy. I think the situation is getting worse every month. You have 3,000 dead a month, right now, over in Iraq. I think we've gotta change course. That's our best hope for success in Iraq.
Colbert: But what do we do? What do we do with the troops? We can't leave right now. I mean, it's our — you know, things may not be going as well as we'd hoped — we're on the road toward victory, but we can't get out now. Then we've lost. If we get out now, we've lost; will you agree there?
Lamont: No, I think our best hope for success, which is a stable Iraq, is for us to start bringing our troops home and have the Iraqis step up and take responsibility for their own destiny. We'll be there for political support, we'll be there for humanitarian support and reconstruction, but only the Iraqis can solve this. We can't do it for them at the barrel of a gun.
Colbert: Okay. Word on the street is that you're running against Joe Lieberman by running against the President. You're connecting these two people in people's minds, correct? You think Lieberman gets along with the President too well.
Lamont: I think he enables this President. I think it's a President that's taken this country way off of its historical course.
Colbert: Should we hinder the President? It's a time of war right now, he's the commander-in-chief. Shouldn't we just stand behind him, unquestioningly?
Lamont: No, not when he's wrong. When he's wrong, I think it's our duty to stand up, and I think it was Joe Lieberman who chastised guys like Jack Murtha, who said "stay the course" is not a winning strategy; Senator Lieberman said, "You're undermining the credibility of the President." I think it's our obligation to stand up as citizens.
Colbert: Now, why do you think Bush... In a time of war, is that really the time to be asking whether we should be at war?
Lamont: We've been over there 3½ years, we've been over there in Iraq almost longer than our troops were in World War II.
Colbert: Once it's over, we can ask whether we should leave.
Lamont: At the pace we're going, we're gonna be there for an awful long time. I think the best hope for us is to start bringing those troops home. We've gotta start asking those questions now. Look, we got into this mess not because we asked too many questions but because we asked too few. And now is the time to start asking those questions.
Colbert: All right, but Lieberman's a Democrat, you must agree on a lot of things, right? He's pro-choice, he's for taxing and spending like other Democrats — anything else besides the war you're battling over here? If the war ends, if between now and the election — which is 8 days from now, correct? — we could turn the corner in Iraq between now and the 8th, and then where would you be left, what's your campaign based on other than opposition to the war?
Lamont: Well, I think the war was the defining issue, it says a lot about what type of a country we are, what our priorities are. Here we are, spending $250,000,000.00 a day in Iraq and we're not investing in universal health care for all Americans, we're not investing in clean energy, we're not investing in great schools. People I'm talking to want us to start taking care of America and start investing in America again. From Joe Lieberman, all they hear is all Iraq all the time. He's been wrong on that issue from the very beginning.
Colbert: Now, are you — who's a greater friend of the state of Israel? You or Joe Lieberman? Is there a greater friend of the state of Israel than you?
Lamont: I believe the Senator and I are both committed to Israel's security and well-being, so I think Israel — that's part of our bipartisan tradition in this country. It goes back a long time, and that's not going to change. (So, no difference there between the two of you?) No great difference, no, sir. I will say, though, when it comes to Israel, the invasion of Iraq has done nothing for Israel's security. It's emboldened Iran, and a bolder Iran makes Israel even more vulnerable. I think we took our eye off the ball when the United States should have played its historical rôle as a peacekeeper, and that's one of the reasons we have the troubles in Israel we have today.
Colbert: But we got Qadhafi (معمر القذافي) to stand down. You'll give me that, right? (I will give you that.) Okay, fantastic. (That gives you an idea of what the power — ) So, you give that to Lieberman, too?
Lamont: I give that to the power of diplomacy. It gives you an idea, if even Qadhafi can be turned around, look at what we might be able to do with Iran and other parts of the country [sic] if we engage them in constructive diplomacy.
Colbert: What got you into the race? Did you look at the war and what was happening there, and say, someone has to stand up against Lieberman because he's not fighting the President hard enough? Was it the war that motivated you mostly?
Lamont: The war was very important, but just fundamentally, I think the President's taken the country in the wrong direction. I look at $9,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, I look at Dick Cheney's energy bill with billions of dollars of subsidies for the oil producers, I look at 63 lobbyists for every single Congressman in Washington, D.C. — I think we are way off our moorings, and it's time for people to go down to Washington, D.C., and say so.
Colbert: Sir, you're rich, and best of all, you didn't have to work for all of it — why aren't you a Republican?
Lamont: I've been a Democrat all my life. When I turned 18, we had a guy named Richard Nixon who was our President, and we had a war going on in Viet Nam, and I just think the Democratic Party is a lot more progressive and a lot more entrepreneurial. I'm a guy that started up a business from scratch, and I think if you're an entrepreneur in business, you're more likely to be a progressive and a Democrat when it comes to your political.
Colbert: All right, thank you for coming on, sir. Senator Lieberman, the ball's in your court.
Coming soon: my analysis and commentary on the American Bar Association task force report on Presidential signing statements. The report, issued last Monday (2006-07-25) hasn't gotten nearly enough media attention.
Technorati tags: Colbert Report, Ned Lamont, CT-Sen, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Rumsfeld's Bunker
In the roundtable segment on today's ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Fareed Zakaria had this to say about U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
If I were a Democrat, I would make up a campaign commercial almost entirely of Donald Rumsfeld's press conferences, because the man is looking — I mean, it's not just that he looks like a bad Secretary of [Defense], he seems literally in a parallel universe, and slightly deranged as a result. If you listen to what he said last week about Iraq, he is living in a different world, not a different country.The disconnect between the entire Bush administration and the reality of the world we live in is becoming steadily more apparent.
The This Week web site also has an additional video segment as the roundtable conversation continued in the green room. Click on the link for "Video ⇒ The Green Room: Rummy's Bunker."
Technorati tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Fareed Zakaria, ABC News, This Week, George Stephanopoulos, Roundtable, Iraq War, Democrats Read More......
Credit union scam
I got a spam today containing the popular scam about the credit union "satisfaction survey," where they ask you a few questions (Are you familiar with the services your credit union provides, how satisfied are you with your credit union, what is your PIN on your ATM card, where do you keep your valuable jewelry, when are you next going on vacation — that sort of thing) with the promise of a $50 reward as a thank-you for participating in the survey. I hope that you already know this, but just in case, think about what you're being asked to divulge, and ask yourself if the offer really sounds too good to be true. Fifty bucks for answering fewer than a dozen survey questions? Are you kidding?
What distresses me most, though, is that I got a copy of this scam back on July 2 [a.k.a. 2006-07-02] and reported it to the abuse desk of the ISP where the phony web site is hosted. Almost a month later, I get another spam with the exact same phony web site, and I find that the ISP has not yet shut down the scammers. I'd call that "accessory to wire fraud," personally, but I'm not a lawyer. All I can tell you for certain is that evrocom.net is not a responsible netizen, leaving a criminally fraudulent web site operating 27 days after being notified. At least saglac.qc.ca — the host of the redirected phony web site in early July — gets some credit, because the site on Evrocom now redirects to a different server in Québec, cadre.qc.ca. Evrocom gets a special public raspberry [plllllt!!] for letting the spammers and the scammers have free rein on their systems.
Technorati tags: Spam, Scam, Credit Union Survey, Evrocom
Friday, July 28, 2006
Credit card scam
No, I'm not talking about the spam in your e-mail inbox. This scam is (apparently) 100% legal. One of my credit cards was bought out by a different bank last year. In the transition, I didn't notice that they inserted an opt-out "rewards program" with a fee of $29/year. By "opt-out," I mean that if you do nothing, you are signed up. The "rewards program" offers such things as an electronic Sudoku puzzle, a radio-controlled toy car, and a flashlight that never needs batteries. All are "free" — plus $9.97 shipping and handling. Never mind that the flashlight is $13, the radio-controlled car is maybe $10 to $20, and the Sudoku game I've seen for $9.95. We're not exactly talking eye-popping values here.
I want to underscore that I never signed anything, never verbally agreed to anything, never asked for this "rewards program," and didn't even know I was "enrolled" until I got the bill. All I did was not cancel a program I didn't even know I was enrolled in. Luckily, I did check the charges on my statement, and the customer service rep agreed to take the $29 off my account. But it still demonstrates that the price of easy credit is eternal vigilance.
Technorati tags: Credit Card, Rewards Program, Scam
Ellis Act Eviction Protest
California's Ellis Act allows a landlord to "go out of business" (out of the rental housing business) and thereby evict all of the tenants of a building. It is clearly necessary to allow some mechanism for a landlord to go out of business — the state can't compel you to continue operating a business at a loss — but the Ellis Act is often abused by real estate speculators. With no intention of operating the business, they buy a functioning rental property, evict the tenants, and then sell off the apartments as condos (subject to strict limitations) or as TIC units (with far fewer limits). In the corporate world, "raiders" will buy a company and sell off the parts of its business for more than the intact company is worth. The same principle applies with Ellis Act evictions, except that ordinary people are kicked out of their homes in the process.
I attended a protest yesterday, focusing specifically on one Ellis Act case, but also addressing the broader issue of squeezing more low- and middle-income renters out of the city of San Francisco.
Read more... 1530 McAllister Street is a 7-unit apartment building. The current tenants include an 89-year-old (a tenant for 30 years), a 68-year-old (over 25 years in the building), a family with two young children, and another family with a child who just turned 3 weeks old yesterday. None of the tenants has given the landlord any just cause to evict, except for the Ellis Act. Several of the tenants will probably have to relocate outside the city, because affordable housing in San Francisco is difficult to find — even by our city's alarmingly loose definition of "affordable."
I saw a graffito [singular of graffiti] in Berkeley about 15 years ago that said, "Affordable housing is a right; a landlord's profit is not." It shouldn't surprise you to learn that various specifically Maoist slogans appeared alongside. A landlord does have a right to make a profit, but that right must be balanced against the tenants' right to home security. Indeed, there are many jurisdictions — most of them well to the right of Chairman Mao — in which a tenant's right to his or her home is recognized on a comparable basis to a homeowner's right. Home ownership is a part of "the American dream," but for about three quarters of the citizens of San Francisco, buying a home falls into the category of "when I win the Lotto."
The specifics of 1530 McAllister also highlight the abusive, speculative nature of many Ellis Act evictions. One of the buyers of the property, Elba Borgen, has already "gone out of business" four separate times, kicking out responsible tenants each time in order to turn a fast profit from converting the building into TICs. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to make your living by repeatedly going out of business. Real estate experts estimate that an empty building is worth 20% more than an occupied building, just by virtue of being rid of those pesky tenants.
Yesterday's protest featured about two dozen people, including union members, seniors, students, and even a couple of people who got off the bus to join the rally. No one thought to bring a megaphone, but we shouted our slogans, sang a few songs, and waved our signs at passing traffic, a good many of whom honked in support of our cause. There was some media coverage, even apart from The Third Path: KTVU channel 2, The San Francisco Examiner, The Bay Times, and The San Francisco Sentinel all had reporters present. The biggest media draw was San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, in whose district 1530 McAllister is located. Other players included Joe O'Donoghue, head of the Residential Builders Association, Raquel Fox from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, perennial activist Tommy Avicolli-Mecca, the San Francisco Tenants Union. The only disturbance in the protest was a drunk homeless man who kept shouting non sequiturs, apparently in the hope that someone would bribe him to leave. Also in attendance was a woman who was Ellis Act evicted last year by Elba Borgen, the very same real estate speculator.
The core of the message is that any tenant in California could be driven from your home, no matter your circumstances, if a real estate speculator is greedy enough, heartless enough, and amoral enough to set his or her sights on your building. We need to do something to curtail Ellis Act abuses.
Technorati tags: Ellis Act, Eviction, Protest, California, San Francisco, 1530 McAllister, Elba Borgen, Ross Mirkarimi, Tenants' Rights, TIC
Monday, July 24, 2006
McCain on the Daily Show again
Senator John McCain (R–AZ) was the guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart again tonight, discussing the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, immigration, and other topical issues. Here is what they had to say:
Read more...Jon Stewart: I want to ask you this — it's a serious question: President Bush has been very clear that, through his leadership he has made the world safer. I believe he said that exact sentence. My question to you is simply this: how much safer can the world afford to have him make us?
I also have the transcript of their April 5, 2006, interview, and the transcript of their April 24, 2007 interview.
John McCain: Before I call in my two attorneys.... That was a previous show, when the Straight Talk Express was going some place — anyway, before I respond to that, did I hear, did you hear, that our political futures are together?
Stewart: McCain–Stewart? That's true.
McCain: I can't lose.
Stewart: Yes, you can.
McCain: Well, we've sewn up the vegetarian, libertarian ...
Stewart: Don't dodge the question. Come back, come back.
McCain: ... fascist, (What?!) Yeah, the fascist.
Stewart: How do you get my demographics? (Surveillance.) George W. Bush (Here we go!) — is he — you know these guys. Dick Cheney said about a year ago the insurgency is in its last throes, and then about a month or two ago he was given a chance to take that back and he said [imitates The Penguin from Batman] "I stick by it." So, he sticks by it. Is he, I mean, is he an idiot? Why would he say, "I stick by it"?
McCain: Should I tell you when I stop beating my wife?
Stewart: No, no! Help me appreciate what I'm not seeing in the subtleties, the nuance of their leadership.
McCain: A lot of mistakes have been made in Iraq. (Do they know that?) I think so. (You do think so? They just won't publicly say it.) I think they know that things are very tough. They're very tough, very difficult, mistakes have been made, but I think the stakes are still such that we need to win, and I know — we had a debate in the Senate a few weeks ago, to decide whether to withdraw and set a time for withdrawal, or to see if we can't carry this thing off. It's a near thing. It's very tough. I know this is a comedy show, but ...
Stewart: No, no, no, I'm happy to talk about it. (It's a tough slog.) When they say stay the course, what does that mean?
McCain: It means a government that functions, it means economic improvement, it means an Iraqi military and police that can take over the responsibility — I know it's tough, it's frustrating ...
Stewart: Here's what I don't get: the President has said previously we would never give another country a veto over our security. But when he says things like, "When Iraq stands up, we'll stand down," doesn't that give all of our power over to a government that (a) doesn't even really seem to like us a whole lot, and (b) its country doesn't seem to like it a whole lot? I mean, isn't he giving away, by saying, "Oh, when they stand up, we'll stand down" — shouldn't he say, "You're standing up on this day, and we're standing down"?
McCain: I think what he's saying is that we have to have Iraqi military and police that are capable of enforcing the law and order and suppressing this insurgency. It's an insurgency now. Insurgencies are very tough, and it also is a rise in sectarian violence, but if we fail, if we fail (I get that part.) — you get that part. That part of it is what's concerning me.
Stewart: But the idea is still, democracy, as it flowers, will then create a safe haven for, I guess, Jesus to come back — I don't really know what his plan is. I don't know what he's thinking, quite frankly. But my thought is —
McCain: I don't always, but I don't think it's that.
Stewart: Thank you. That actually, I gotta tell ya, that makes me feel a little better. But it does strike me as, you know, they don't have the credibility any more that their judgment in the situation is correct, so I keep wondering, why do they keep saying to us, "And this keeps showing why you need to keep us in power" and consolidating all the government's power into an Executive Branch that's made nothing but mistakes?
McCain: I think the President has stated on several occasions, some pretty good speeches, the fact that we have made mistakes, that, if we had it to do over again, we'd do a lot of things differently, and I think he has tried to emphasize this is very tough, very, very tough (You believe he has learned somewhat?) — I think he has learned, I do, and again, what's at stake here is really incredible.
Stewart: Listen, I know it breaks your heart. I know you're very sad about it and very tenacious, and I do respect that, and I know you're trying to be delicate and obviously loyalty means a great deal to you. Thank God, obviously, I don't have that issue, so I can say, "These guys seem like fucking idiots to me!" We're gonna come back and talk a little bit more about other things....
Stewart: We're talking with Senator John McCain (His running mate) — my running mate.
McCain: I think Secretary of Education would be a nice post, don't you? Think of the things the children would learn.
Stewart: You know what? That's what YouTube is for. (Tubes, tubes!) Tubes. Senator [Ted] Stevens (R–AK) — he is in charge of the Commerce Committee. Obviously net neutrality is a big issue in front of the Senate. He is regulating the Internet, and he was very explicit that the Internet is not a dump truck, but in fact a series of tubes.
McCain: And I saw also this program, how long it took to get through those tubes.
Stewart: It's tough. Especially when you're passing, let's say (they're clogged) — horses or things like that. (Naked dolls and poker chips, like you had.) When you listen to your colleagues, your esteemed colleagues, and I know that the talk on the Senate is Robert's Rules of Order and everybody says, "my distinguished colleague from..." (the distinguished gentleman or gentlewoman from..., yes) Do you ever think to yourself, where are these people from? You know, privately, can you pull Senator Stevens aside and go, "It's not really literally tubes"?
McCain: I wouldn't want to disillusion him.
Stewart: That may be the greatest answer I've heard on this. Are you reaching a frustration point in Washington? Have you gotten to the point where — have you lost your will to....
McCain: No, there's a great deal that we can do and must do, and one of 'em is this immigration reform. I know that you've discussed it in the past. By the way, our reporter in Beirut, the fly-fishing jacket was very nice. (You notice, it's the same one many of our other reporters wear.) Well, you know, it gets a little warm with those real flak jackets on, but anyway.... (You know how hot it gets in Beirut this time of year.) We've gotta fix immigration, it's broken, our borders are broken, but we have to fix it in a comprehensive fashion.
Stewart: Do you trust in the Congressional body's ability to do any work at this point, or is it so polluted and toxic right now that there needs to be some kind of filtering and cleaning before anything's really going to get done?
McCain: First of all, I appreciate the President's leadership on this issue. He's right, and that's because we agree, obviously. (So that's one. Okay.) But no, the President's been excellent on this issue. We need to sit down and talk it out, Republicans and Democrats, we need to raise the level of debate, we've gotta stop accusing each other of being disloyal — I'm serious. (No, I appreciate that.) We've gotta have a respectful debate and dialogue on this issue.
Stewart: I believe we will see that happen — when there's peace in the Middle East. All right.
McCain: There's 500 years per inch. [referring to a sketch earlier in the show about the "road map for peace"]
Stewart: I appreciate your coming by. Senator John McCain!
Technorati tags: Daily Show, Jon Stewart, John McCain, transcript, Iraq, Bush, politics, net neutrality
Friday, July 21, 2006
Colbert Report NAACP interview
Stephen Colbert had a brief satellite interview on Thursday's Colbert Réport with Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, talking about President Bush's address to the NAACP national convention, his first NAACP speech in 5½ years as President.
Julian Bond has an impressive record, going back to his student activist organizing days in the early 1960's. In 1965, he was elected to the Georgia state legislature, but was unseated because he was opposed to the Viet Nam War. He then ran again for the seat he himself had vacated, won the second election, and again was not allowed to serve, so he ran yet again, won the third election, and won a unanimous verdict of the U.S. Supreme Court that he could not be blocked from taking office because of his opposition to a particular government policy.
Here's a portion of the interview:
Read more...Julian Bond: Well, first of all, let me say we're glad he came. He has been President all these years, we've invited him every year, he's not come, he's always said that he had scheduling conflicts, and sure enough, he has been scheduling conflicts.
Stephen Colbert: Pinpoint — [Bush's NAACP] speech was obviously an unqualified success...
Bond: Well, it was not quite an unqualified success. Make no mistake: we're happy he came, we're glad to see him, we received him respectfully, but we wanted him to talk more about our issues. It was as if you go to a carpenters convention, you want to talk about carpentry, you don't want to talk about plumbing. We wanted to hear about judicial appointments, we wanted to hear about affirmative action, and we wanted to hear about the war.
Colbert: But what does that have to do with plumbing? (Not much.) At what point in the speech did you say to yourself, "Yes, now I'm a Republican."?
Bond: President began by saying, "I guess you [the NAACP audience] are saying, 'What took you so long?'" I thought, gee, that's endearing, a little self-deprecating humor, we sort of like people who can laugh at themselves, but I frankly was disappointed in the rest of the speech.
Colbert: I believe the part of the speech you liked was his first sentence. (Yes, that's exactly right.) And you were disappointed by the rest of the it, you say? (Yes.) So you liked about the same percentage of the speech as the same percentage of black people support the President?
Bond: Exactly, so I think I was faced with the hard reality of low expectations.
I liked the clip of Bush's NAACP speech The Daily Show used: Bush looked genuinely surprised that the NAACP expressed such enthusiastic distrust for the Republican leadership. Julian Bond was too young when he was nominated as Vice President in 1968, but he would be head, shoulders, torso, knees, and ankles above what we have in the White House now.Technorati tags: NAACP, Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert, Julian Bond, Bush, Politics
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
John Dean on the Daily Show
John Dean, who was White House Counsel to Richard Nixon — in essence, he was Nixon's Harriet Miers — has written a second book harshly critical of the Bush Administration and the alleged conservatives who have fueled the political machine that brought us here. His first book, aptly and directly titled Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, made the case that the secrecy and hidden agendas of the Bush-43 White House go far beyond anything Nixon did, both in their brazenness and in the seriousness of their ramifications. Dean has now written a second book, spawned by a conversation he had with conservative icon Barry Goldwater before his death, entitled Conservatives without Conscience. Tuesday, Dean was the featured guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; here is a transcript of their conversation.
Read more...Jon Stewart: Nice to see you. How are you?
Technorati tags: John Dean, Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Conservatives without Conscience, Worse than Watergate, Politics, Bush, Authoritarianism, Fascism, Stalinism, Communism, Transcript
John Dean: Terrific, Jon.
Stewart: The book is called Conservatives without Conscience, on the heels of your other book, Worse than Watergate; I ask you this: what are you driving at? What is your subtle implication here? What is the purpose of Conservatives without Conscience?
Dean: This actually emanated from a conversation back in 1994 with the late Senator Goldwater, where he and I were trying to figure out where in the hell conservatives are going, and he passed away before he had a chance to really be involved in the total project, but I didn't drop it, and I think I found the answers, and that book reports them.
Stewart: Do you consider yourself, if you were to classify yourself in that manner, a "Goldwater conservative"?
Dean: I do. On most issues, I still find myself a Goldwater conservative, which now puts me somewhere left of center.
Stewart: So a "Goldwater conservative" is now a liberal to some extent. This book, though, is almost a scientific approach to where, in some respects, conservatism is going. Talk about that aspect of it.
Dean: Jon, I found — I went down a lot of alleys where I didn't find anything, but I did find a body of academic material that really has never been shared with the general public, the voters, and what have you. It's studies that started after World War II about authoritarian personalities. Why did the people of Italy and Germany follow Mussolini and Hitler? That's where it started — could it ever happen here? Well, the unfortunate —
Stewart: If it does, you will call me?
Dean: I'm trying to give you —
Stewart: I have a bag packed, but I just want to have a couple of days.
Dean: Unfortunately, it could happen here, and it hasn't happened here — we don't typically talk about authoritarianism in democracy — but indeed there is an authoritarian strain that has gotten into the conservative movement. It's sort of a reversion —
Stewart: Isn't the point of those — and I was a psychology major in college, so I've had at least two hours of training in this — wasn't the point of all those experiments where they showed that people would give an electric jolt to strangers just because a guy in a white coat told them to, wasn't the idea based on that we are all closer to falling under the spell of authority than we think, even regular people? Is it fair to say it's a conservative trait, or is it fair to say it's in some ways a human trait?
Dean: In dealing with that, in the Milgram experiments, where he brought people in off the street, and indeed found that he could get them to administer high voltage — what they thought was high voltage, and it wasn't. I deal with that to show how people can set their conscience aside. In other words, how do people go into the CIA every day and carry out some of the orders for torture? How do people go into NSA and turn that incredible apparatus against Americans? This is a typical Milgram situation. I actually go beyond that to find the nature of the authoritarian personality that will follow a leader who is an authoritarian.
Stewart: Do you believe that the conservative movement has been overtaken by — I mean, authoritarianism is another word, I guess, for fascism — or do you think it's a weird confluence of events: an attack on American soil, a government that is unchecked by an oppositional party, in some respects —
Dean: First of all, it's proto-fascism. We're not there yet.
Stewart: We'll get there! You just gotta believe, John! You just gotta believe.
Dean: I'm hoping not, so that's why I try —
Stewart: I think I have faith in the resiliency of this country, that these guys are not the worst we've seen, or maybe even if they are, we're a reasonable enough place that the damage that they do will be repaired.
Dean: I think when people know and understand what's going on — and that's the reason someone like myself does this, is to try to take people where they can't, where they haven't been, and I found this body of material that I really felt needed to be shared. It was an epiphany for me, it answered questions I could not answer. I'm somebody who's been connected in varying degrees of proximity with the conservative movement, really almost since its inception in the modern movement. I didn't understand where it was going and wanted the answers, and I believe I found them.
Stewart: Do you believe it's a conscious effort on their part? You say "without conscience"; that almost suggests that they are willfully ignoring the humanity of people. I sense that with this government, it's not that, it's more, "We have convinced ourselves of the certainty and rightness of this position, and we will not deviate from that, even if everything within our five senses tells us that everything we've done is wrong." But my point is, it's not evil in the sense of "without conscience," it's ignorant in the sense of "I did that?" — that kind of thing.
Dean: Absence of conscience doesn't necessarily mean evil, it means the ability to set aside what's right and wrong. When a Vice President goes to the Congress to lobby for torture, when the President threatens to veto a bill —
Stewart: Now, Cheney I'll go with as evil. I'll go with him as evil. Let me ask you this: on the left, couldn't they argue that, if you look at the 20th century, the two largest authoritarian issues were communism, which was considered the authoritarianism of the left, and Stalinism, and fascism on the right — isn't it a strain in both ideologies?
Dean: No question. You can have it in — where we've never had it is here in America. What's troubling is that conservatives — not all conservatives, by any stretch of the imagination —
Stewart: Just the guys on the cover.
Dean: The guys on the cover and a few inside.
Stewart: Well, it's a really very interesting, and much more scientific, I think, than your other books have been, and I appreciate your coming on and talking about the whole thing. John Dean, Conservatives without Conscience.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Flag Desecration
Last week, the United States Senate missed by only one vote passing a proposed Constitutional amendment to authorize Congress to outlaw "physical desecration" of the United States flag. Many people have referred to this as the "flag-burning" amendment, but in fact it does not even mention burning. It would be left to Congress to determine what acts constitute "desecration" of the flag.
Read more...The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.
One of my Senators here in California, Dianne Feinstein, not only voted in favor of this odious bit of political showboating, she signed on as principal Democratic co-sponsor. She signed on because Senator Dianne Feinstein hates our freedom.Mr. President, I rise as the main Democratic sponsor of this amendment. I have given this a lot of thought for a long time. I believe what we have before us is language that is essentially content neutral. It is on conduct — not speech. ... [T]here is no idea or thought expressed by the burning of the American flag that cannot be expressed equally well in another manner. While I might disagree with those who protest, I defend their right to do so. ... As President Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed the first Flag Day in 1916, said:
Utter hogwash! The First Amendment guarantees "freedom of speech, [and] of the press," but it protects all forms of expression, most especially political expression. There can be no shadow of a doubt that desecration of the flag is political expression, every bit as much as standing in the public square speaking on the issues of the day. There can also be no doubt that — precisely because of its offensiveness — burning the flag makes a point that cannot be expressed in any other way. The quote from President Wilson is a good one, but not for the purpose Senator Feinstein used it. The flag is an emblem which has no other character than that which we give it. Are we going to give the flag the character of freedom, of open and vigorous debate and dissent, or are we going to give it the character of enforced conformity, of marching in lock-step with all the others who are patriotic not out of choice or free will but out of fear of the government?This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. ... Though silent, it speaks to us — speaks to us of the past, of the men and women who went before us, and of the records they wrote upon it.
I love my country, and I love our flag, but I have the perspective to see that the flag is no more than a symbol. Some of my friends talk about how their fathers and grandfathers fought and sometimes died for the flag; if indeed they did, then they fought in vain. The flag is only a piece of cloth; it is precious only because it represents liberty. If we slash away at our liberties, then what point is there in having a symbol for them? Those who fight and die for our liberties deserve our respect; those who fight and die for a mere piece of cloth deserve our scorn.
Beyond that, of course, is the simple question, What makes this an urgent issue? [Or, if you prefer, Where's the fire?] There were a whopping four reported incidents of flag desecration in 2005. Last week in Brooklyn, New York, vandals burned the flags flying on several homes along one street, but that was a crime of vandalism and arson. Your right to freedom of political expression does not extend to burning someone else's flag, any more than it extends to spray-painting your slogan on someone else's wall. We don't need a flag "protection" amendment to prosecute such miscreants.
There are also one or two things the Congress might have turned its attention to — urgently pressing issues like boys kissing, pork-barrel "Homeland Security" projects, proclaiming National Broccoli and Cauliflower Appreciation Day, the war in Iraq, out-of-control deficit spending, even worse out-of-control trade deficits, stealing from the poor to give to the rich, global warming, FEMA, first-responder preparedness, and literally thousands of other issues that have far more impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.
Make no mistake: the only reason this issue was raised was to provide politicians an opportunity to desecrate the flag in the most vile and despicable possible fashion: by lowering the flag to the status of a mere prop in the gutter of political demagoguery. The 66 Senators who voted for the amendment desecrated not only the flag, they desecrated the Constitution.
Look at it this way — suppose we rephrase the proposed amendment just a little bit:
You will treat this symbol of freedom with respect and reverence, or else we will throw your ass in jail!My wording strips away the veneer of respectability, but it is not one iota more hypocritical than the Congress' wording.
Technorati tags: Flag Desecration Amendment, Flag Burning, Constitution, Dianne Feinstein, politics Read More......
Monday, July 03, 2006
Montenegro's Country Code
Montenegro in Montenegrin is "Crna Gora"; however, .CR, .CN, .CA, .CG, and .CO are all already in use. Similarly for "Montenegro," .MO, .MN, .MT, .MG, and .MR are already in use. That just leaves one possibility: .ME! I suggest to the government of Montenegro that they lay claim to .ME, which will also open up a whole new possibility for "vanity" domain names, such as www.JohnSmith.me or www.HaywoodJablo.me....
Technorati tags: Montenegro, Crna Gora, Independence, Country Code, ccTLD
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Rat-Pack Rat Pack-Rat
An interesting, but somewhat obscure, news item from Petaluma, California, just north of San Francisco: Roger Dier was cited for misdemeanor animal cruelty for keeping more than 1,000 pet rats in his one-bedroom house. Dier has had previous brushes with the law, though, including prison for armed robbery. More notably, in 1963 Dier's home in southern California was the hideout for Barry Keenan, Joe Amsler, and John Irwin — the kidnapers of Frank Sinatra, Jr., in the saga that became the movie Stealing Sinatra. I thus think it appropriate we dub Roger Dier "The Rat-Pack Rat Pack-Rat."
There's more to the story, of course. Animal services officials in Petaluma euthanized the majority of the rats, noting that many were missing eyeballs, had teeth growing into the opposite jaw, had huge abscesses and open wounds, or were starving. Beyond that, the adult rats were almost completely unsocialized, and thus not suitable pets. The sad truth is that euthanizing these creatures was the kindest action possible.
Nevertheless, rat lovers who had been organizing an adoption effort for the animals were furious. I had rats (the variety known as "hooters" — because of the noise they make, not any anatomical attribute) as pets when I was a child, and they were delightful, other than the smell if you didn't change the litter six times a day. However, I would not dream of taking on one of these rats in the condition they were in. The city of Petaluma did the right thing in rescuing as many of the younger rats as possible, but also in euthanizing the adults.
Technorati tags: Rat Pack, Rats, Petaluma
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Film Festival
The Frameline30 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival has begun! That means, among other things, that posts here on The Third Path will continue to be sparse for the next week and a half as I devote most of my energy to my festival blog, Film Queen Reviews. See you in a few days....
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