They really should DeLay that decision.
National politics.
Ouch. Sorry. Bad Pun.
If this is the same Tom Swift that used to participate on the state politics list, he was quite adept at raising my hackles. His red baiting reminds me way too much of my high school experiences…
However, (hat tip to Bogus Gold) I am glad to see Republicans demanding that their elected representatives take the high road rather than relax their ethical standards.
Shoot the Messenger?
Society? Politics? Philosophy? I dunno…
If you don’t want to subject yourself to “leftist spin”, you can just go straight to the Free Republic site and assess it for yourself.
I’m not even sure what to say about this…
This is the truth of war. If people don’t know what war is, if they only see reports regarding the glamour and nobility of it, if people don’t understand that horrors are unavoidable, then the only reason to oppose war is that because soldiers might die.
When your military claims a kill ration of 1:100 to 1:1000 and all the soldiers are volunteer, the deaths of those soldiers seems rare enough and noble enough that it doesn’t weigh that heavily against the reasons put forth to fight the war.
Oil for Bombers
National politics.
Stifling sanctions were maintained against Iraq for a decade. These sanctions were put in place mainly to weaken or punish the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the rich and powerful are generally far less affected by this sort of thing as the poorer masses of the nation which is why many of us were against the sanctions.
The UN decided to run a “Oil for Food” program. Basically, the idea was that Iraq could sell some oil if the money from that oil was used only for basic needs like food. Very humanitarian.
The sort of program that ends up being abused by the corrupt pretty much every time. Haven’t decades of dictators in Africa siphoning aid funds that should go to feed their people taught us anything?
In short, the people of Iraq still starved, people like me still opposed the sanctions, some folks running the program got very rich as did Saddam Hussein, the man who the sanctions were their to punish.
According to this article, he was able to siphon over $21 billion in illegal revenue… So we starved the country but continued to make its leader rich. (By “we” I mean everyone who let this situation exist. Primarily, the UN, the United States, Britain, France, and Russia)
Oh, but here’s the kicker. What did he do with that money?
Of all the claims made about Iraq as we were trying to implicate him in “the war against terrorism”, one of the few that were unequivocally true was that he was paying $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Not that this in any way tied him to 9/11, but it was certainly a support of terrorist tactics.
So, where was he getting this money to pay for these attacks? From the money he was getting from bribes related to the oil for food program. Just one more way in which the sanctions situation was all messed up.
Suicide bombing against military targets is as acceptable as any other military practice. Suicide bombing against civilian targets is as abhorrent as any other attack against civilian targets. The fact that the attacker dies in the attack doesn’t change the ethics of the attack at all.
I am highly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. I think they got screwed. I think those who were chased out of Israel should be able to return to their lands (especially in the case where those lands are still abandoned) or, if return is absolutely not possible, be fairly compensated for their loss. I think Israel should be forced to comply with various UN resolutions such as withdrawing from “occupied” territory and withdrawing from the settlements. I think Israel should stop using missiles in populated areas and stop shooting kids.
I understand that a kid growing up in a refugee camp, seeing family and friends killed by Israeli military and US supplied weaponry might see very little hope. I can see how they might be persuaded to strap on a bomb and blow up a coffee shop or bus. I can understand how this happens.
I don’t think it is right. I don’t think anyone has the right to kill someone unless they are preventing the imminent demise of themselves or someone else. If a country is attacking you, you have a right to kill their soldiers in combat (those soldiers, by fighting, accept that you might kill them). You do not have a right to kill non-combatants. You don’t even have a right to kill soldiers who have dropped their weapons. Suicide bombing against civilian targets is morally indefensible.
And yes, although it pisses people off, I still say that I understand why it happens. Just like I understand why a Marine shoots an unarmed wounded man. Just like I understand why a police officer may get used to using too much force against people who fit a “profile”. Just like I understand why a bunch of soldiers might think it is OK to degrade their prisoners. I don’t think that any of these things are acceptable, but they all derive from putting people in situations people shouldn’t have to be in. All these circumstances are putting people in hells created by people.
We humans do well when our hells are created by the environment. We band together, we support the weak, we do extraordinary things to help people we don’t know. But when our hells are created by other people, we tend to react poorly on all sides. The oppressors, the oppressed, and the witnesses all suffer, and all make mistakes and may do horrible things in reaction to that suffering.
Don’t Forget Sudan!
International Politics
Another link I’d set aside to post about at some point was This BBC report about ’70,000 Darfur dead’ since March. That was in Mid October.
The trouble I’ve been having is what can we do about this situation? The UN is apparently impotent or uninterested. I’m a bit hesitant to say the US Calvary should go riding in as I’d like to see less of us invading other countries, not more.
But, one ethnic group is basically wiping out another ethnic group. Perhaps not with the same cold efficiency of the Nazis, but certainly with a similar degree of ruthlessness. The Sudanese government, if not directly involved, is certainly turning a blind eye to the atrocities.
Today, I checked the web log of a new subscriber, shygirlLuv, and found that she has quite a bit of information on the subject as well as some addresses to write requesting help for the Sudanese.
While I’m not convinced that the Sudanese government will respond to direct appeals – after all, they militias committing these crimes are pro-government, it is a place to start.
Unfortunately, I don’t think a global shunning as was used on South Africa to end apartheid is really the answer – South Africa had a great deal of wealth coming in from exports AND while many people died under apartheid, the time it would take to have an impact in this situation would have too great of a human toll.
The two most immediate things I can see to help are:
* Donate money to an aid organization to help the people in the refugee camps. I do not yet have any recommendations as to who the best options are.
* Write letters to the UN to appeal that they, at a minimum, support the AU with sufficient assistance to protect the refugee camps in Chad which come under attack by Sudanese militias. I do not yet have the best addresses to write.
If anyone has addresses or recommendations, please post them.
What The Fuck?
Society
Web based interface to “hunt” animals on a ranch in Texas. Watch your screen, click the button, kill something. This just feels off to me.
He’s dead now!
War
When the first gulf war started, I was at a cabin with my girlfriend. We returned to the regular world and learned that the war had started and finished while we were gone (it was reported as being the 60 hour war).
For whatever reasons, I wrote this song. It isn’t a great song, but here are the lyrics (sung in a rough Leonard Cohen style):
I was walking last evening,
Through a woods and a meadow.
I came upon a dream.The crickets, they were chirping.
The stars, they were shining.
An owl, she softly winged by.Every thing was tranquil,
There was beauty and silence
Peace all across the land.This morning I awoke,
Saw the news in the paper.
We’ve won the war is what I read.As I was walking last evening
The bombs they were falling.
A newborn baby, she bled!Wars we wage
Far across the water
But no one truly says whyWhat did they die for?
Why did we kill them?
Have we saved the world now?Did they die for ideals?
Or did their blood flow for oil?
In the end, they still are dead!Every thing is tranquil
There is hideous silence
Death strewn across the land.Ashes to ashes
And Dust to dust
Only Death is victorious.Tonight I’ll go walking
Through the woods and the meadow
But I, I have lost my dream.
What does this have to do with a young man executing an unarmed wounded man in a Mosque in Falluja?
In the fifth verse, I mention a baby dying. I hadn’t seen any reports that civilians had died. I had no way of proving that a baby girl was killed.
But I knew it was true. You can’t bomb areas with civilians without having some “collateral damage”. Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima have all taught us this. We don’t have battlefields, we have cities. Modern warfare is an impersonal horror that inflicts nearly as much damage on the people stuck near it as the people choosing to fight it.
Similarly, when a war is started, we will have war crimes. When that war is against a people who look different, fight different, and have a different culture, those war crimes will be more widespread.
You take a bunch of teenagers, train them to be tough as nails, and then send them into hell. What the fuck do you expect? Some of them are going to react poorly. That marine probably wasn’t an evil person. He was a person who spent too much time in the midst of an insane situation. Being in a place where you have to shoot people and you will be shot at is an insane and hellish situation. He was just one of the ones who lost it on camera.
This guy cracked and did something unacceptable. He will suffer the consequences of that action.
But when we sent him and 150,000 other troops into that country, we made the choice that this sort of thing was going to happen. When we “won” the war but failed to provide stability, we ensured that these soldiers would be stuck in degenerating chaos, and we guaranteed that this sort of thing will happen a number of times. Dozens? Hundreds? I don’t know, but I know that this is not a “once only” sort of thing.
Things are bad over there. You can hear it in the comments of soldiers who have gotten to the point where they can’t trust any locals.
More war crimes will be committed. Atrocities will be committed. While I can not prove it, I know it to be true.
I’ll make you one more guarantee. Some of these soldiers are going to come home messed up. Even for the ones that followed all the rules, some of them are going to carry nasty psychological scars. Some of them that would have led normal productive lives are going to end up being the grizzled guy sleeping on the street drinking Robitussin.
Hopefully it won’t be as bad as post Vietnam because hopefully we anti-war folks won’t make their return home hellish as well. I can’t imagine finally making it home after being in hell and being received by a wall of hate. But some of them are still going to be a bit too messed up to function well in society.
I do have a theory for how we as a society should approach that:
We have boot camp/basic training which teaches a normal person how to be a soldier. We have refined and developed the psychology of this training so that it is very effective at making a person more capable of dealing with combat.
We do not have a dress shoe camp/basic training to teach that soldier how to become a citizen again. Not every soldier would need it. Some people can maintain that duality. However, many can’t. Doesn’t a society owe that much to its soldiers? Shouldn’t we give them the help they need to rejoin society once they are done?
Still reviving old topics that got buried while I was watching the elections.
When I see Christian Americans, I see two broad types. I see those who believe that Christianity is about the the teachings of Christ, and I see those who pay far more attention to the old testament than what Jesus taught. Thankfully, the vast majority of them are the former.
When I speak of “fundamentalist Christians” or “old testament Christians”, I am referring to the latter. I used to use the phrase “right wing Christian” until I considered two things : It falsely gropus in followers of Christ with right wing political leanings, and it doesn’t include the Democrat Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps who is one of the most hateful and vitrolic Old Testament types out there. His web site literally calls for all nations to immediately pass and enforce laws that make sodomy a capital crime.
I have recently read various opinions that the term “fundamentalist Christians” is bigoted. For those who feel that way, what would be a better way to refer to those who preach the most hateful parts of the old testament while pretty much ignoring new testament?
I think we, as a society, have generally decided that the rules of the old testament are not right for us (thank God!).
For example, consider Congressman McDermott’s remarks as they appear in the Congressional Record for 2-25-2004 regarding Bush’s attempts to define marriage.
CODIFYING “BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES” OF MARRIAGE -
(House of Representatives – February 25, 2004)
[Page: H596]
[file from frwebgate.access.gpo.gov](Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
MR. McDERMOTT:
“Mr. Speaker, the President’s presidential prayer team is urging us to ‘pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles.’
With that in mind, I thought I would remind the body of the biblical principles they are talking about.
Marriage shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. That is from Genesis 29:17-28.
Secondly, marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. That is II Samuel 5:13 and II Chronicles 11:21.
A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. That is Deuteronomy 22:13.
Marriage of a believer and a nonbeliever shall be forbidden. That is Genesis 24:3.
Finally, it says that since there is no law that can change things, divorce is not possible, and finally, if a married man dies, his brother has to marry his sister-in-law. Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 2:55-10″
It is hard to imagine all those rules codified into law. Granted, the multiple wives thing sounded kinda cool until I considered how hard it is to make a simple two person relationship work well… (badaboom)
Don’t get me wrong – Much of the Old Testament was a true step forward during the time it was the most up to date aspect of “the book”. For example “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” sounds pretty brutal until one considers that it was tempering the previous behavior of “You take my eye, and I’ll kill you and all your male relatives and rape your daughters and wives”. An eye for an eye was damn progressive.
Of course, later on, Jesus came along and said “OK, maybe we’re ready to take another step and learn to turn the other cheek”. We’re still working on that one. Actually, it often seems like we’re still working on “an eye for an eye”…
But, anyway, the Old Testament is interesting as a foundation and a record, but it seems like anything preached by Jesus should supercede it – at least for those who following that particular prophet.
Is this an unreasonable thought?
So, anyway, if I shouldn’t call these people fundamentalists, how should I refer to them to distinguish them from any other Christians?
Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neo-con utopia: This is an obviously biased article that analyzes what has gone wrong in Iraq. The basic premise is that the problem was not that we didn’t have a plan for reconstruction. The problem is that we did have a plan, and that plan failed miserably.
It is a long read, but necessary for those who believe that the Project For the New American Century and the Neoconservatives had anything to do with the war in Iraq and wish to understand the dynamics. It is also a necessary read for those who would seek to persuade people that the Neocons and PNAC mostly exist in the fevered imagination of lefty wingnuts like me.
Is it better to lump all my posts into one like this or do a seperate post for each topic?
False Campaign Ads
Society
Truth and Non-Truth. An increasingly prominent theme for me is that lies destroy Democracy. For a public vote to have meaning, the public has to have an accurate picture of what their representatives are doing and what the situation in the world is. More and more, it seems obvious that that clear picture simply isn’t there – we have each found our own sources and built what we feel is the most accurate picture, but the fact that our pictures are so different seems to imply that this is failing.
So, maybe we ought to make lying during campaigns illegal (or lying in general?). I’ll admit, I do believe that deliberately deceiving someone should be considered fraud and be actionable with civil and/or criminal penalties.
Fact Check has a special report exposing some problems with my opinion.
I want to talk more about truth and perspective. I want to hear more discussion. Is this a problem? What should we do about it?
Can someone explain THIS to me?:
“The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved,” Ashcroft wrote in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush.
Out of context maybe? I don’t get it.
I fundamentally believe that a major part of the problems that our country is facing is due to the “infotainment” media. The right says it is left biased, the left says it is right biased. I say it is profit biased. Large corporations are, in part due to legal requirements, concerned more with the bottom line than with reporting the truth.
This dynamic causes a great deal more harm when corporations consolidate many media channels over many markets. There is not a lot of money in true investigative reporting – a lot of dead leads must be followed before you hit pay dirt – far easier to report fluff and hype it. Nationally owned media must be concerned about getting nationally owned advertisers. These advertisers are much more likely to be put off by aggressive investigation and reporting – they aren’t going to want to put their products on a channel that is known for bringing controversy to light.
These are hip-shot comments and have been stated better many times by many people, but I do believe that if we want a healthier country we need a better media. I believe the media of the early 1900s (which was still heavily criticized) was far better than that we have today, and I believe that was partially due to less consolidation.
In that light, a post from the Minnesota Politics Announcement list (mn-politics-announce@yahoogroups.com):
A “must attend” event is coming: If you’re concerned about media concentration.FCC COMMISSIONERS COPPS AND ADELSTEIN ANNOUNCE MEDIA CONCENTRATION FORUM IN ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
Thursday, December 9th, 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Sundin Music Hall, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN
If you have ever bitched about the media and live in the twin cities area, consider attending.
“Everyone may be entitled to his own opinion but everyone is not entitled to his own truth.”
Democracy can not function without the people having a clear idea of what is truly happening. This last election was in many ways a vote between two perspectives of what the truth is. That this dichotomy exists and is so wide spread is an indictment of our media.
Somewhere down deep, I wonder if tax shouldn’t be solely based on property held, but I keep coming up with problems on that theory.
However, this posting about Flat Tax from Andrew Sullivan’s web log looks pretty good to me:
1) It would truly be simple. Most versions of the flat tax call for the elimination of all deductions except for personal exemptions based on the number of family members. There would be no calculation of mortgage interest, property taxes, health costs, etc. Taxpayers would simply determine their earned income, subtract their personal exemptions, and pay a tax on the balance.2) It would ultimately be progressive. While the tax rate would be flat, the effective rate paid would be progressive with income. Most flat tax proposals provide for an exemption of $7,500 per family member, or $30,000 for a family of four. A family of 4 with an income of $30,000 would pay no taxes for an effective tax rate of 0%. Assuming a 17% flat tax rate, a family of 4 with an income of $50,000 would pay a tax of $3,400 ($50,000 – $30,000 = $20,000) for an effective rate of 6.8%; that same family with an income of $100,000 would pay a tax of $11,900 for a rate of 11.9%; and if their income were $1,000,000, they would pay $164,900 for a rate of 16.49%.
Opponents should give up complexity and lack of progressiveness as reasons not to have a flat tax. They’ll still be able to make opposing arguments such as “I want my mortgage deduction;” rich people should pay more than 17%; and we should always tax people more rather than reduce government spending.
There’s one other reason for a flat tax with no deductions. Congress loves to tamper endlessly with the tax code. Lobbyists and PACS are forced to wine, dine, and donate to protect their industries, or carve out exceptions that apply only to their clients. Tampering generates millions in the way of campaign contributions. A tamper-proof, flat personal and business income tax would eliminate at least a third of the influence peddling that makes Congress seem so sleazy.” More feedback on the smartest Letters Page on the web.
Simpler systems allow less corruption, the poor are greatly relieved from the tax burden, and the overhead of the tax system is greatly reduced. Not bad.
More To See
Entertainment.
I came across this site on the web. It seems like it is generally a treasure hunting story told from the point of a number of characters in a web log style format. It looks like you can read the story from any character’s point of view. For example, look at this and this and this.
However, I’m not positive as I can’t spend the time really digging in to it right now.
Y’know, I’ve recommended a lot of Joshua Norton’s articles recently.
Here’s another good one – a list of things that aren’t going to do anyone any good right now:
Click the link to see the reasoning. Especially #6 and #7.
Were the Founding Fathers Wrong about Foreign Affairs?
An interesting article to read. Do I think America should never get involved in anything beyond its borders? No. Do I think that America gets far too involved with far too many things beyond its bordres? Yes.
The first and foremost of these, I believe, is the Israel/Palestine conflict. Israel, being in the position of greater power, needs to extend an olive branch to the Palestinian people and establish peace. The United States to needs to stop sheltering Israel from their responsibilities to abide by international and humanitarian law.
With Arafat having just passed away, now may be a perfect time. Both for peace between Israel and its neighbors as well as for the United States to withdraw from the entanglements in the conflicts.
And here’s a little something extra for those who don’t really give a damn about politics but managed to stick with me through the past few months.
16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN,
by Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
eww
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and will never achieve its full potential, that one word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
*heh*
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife!
ok, I don’t agree with this one, but one does need to be cautious.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
amen
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
damn straight. i wonder how much time, money, and energy has been lost in just trying to keep track of hte stupid thing. not to mention the screwed up biorythms.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
well, unless of course she tells you that she is pregnant.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
amen.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age,gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep downinside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
i’m not sure this is true
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
hell yes! this is the one that prompted me to save this list
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine.. They start out as grapes, and it’s up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
*koff* whatever.
FINAL THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2030, there should be a large elderly populationwith perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.
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