Josh Marshall offers a standard on-the-one-hand, on-the-other analysis of the question whether Hillary would or should accept an offer of the VP slot on the Democratic ticket: she’d have to wait 8 long years, and be 69 years old, before she could run for Pres. again, and she may have more influence in the Senate; but it would be an unprecedented achievement and a chance to be right at the center of power once more. He concludes she’d be better off in the Senate, where the Democrats are likely to be the majority and she’ll accrue enough seniority to really get things done.
Most people who accept the vice presidency do so either because they believe it will line them up to succeed to the presidency or because it brings them to a level of power and honor their careers held little prospect of bringing them otherwise. But neither applies to Hillary Clinton. She’s already of the stature and standing to run for president. She’s a genuinely historic figure. And she’s already been heavily involved in a successful two term administration.
Remember too that the recent trend for greater vice presidential involvement in key administration decision-making has brought with it a flat requirement that vice presidents be strictly loyal and politically subservient to the president. Quite simply, the vice presidency is beneath Hillary’s stature. It’s not clear to me why Hillary would want to spend four or eight years in a position that I think would actually diminish her stature for the possibility of running for president again almost a decade from now.
As it goes, it’s not an unreasonable analysis. And, as he notes, there is a serious question whether Obama can overcome the bitterness of the campaign to trust her as VP, or even see her as the best choice. But I think there is a way to swing the deal that would work tremendous benefits for both of them and the country.
May 8th, 2008
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General, Politics, News & Current Events |
16 comments
Brooklynite, one of our sometime commenters here, has been working on a great essay on white anti-racism - the work that white people are obligated to do to reduce the impact of racism on society, and the difference between that - being actively anti-racist - and being “non-racist”. He’ll be posting it soon, so keep an eye out. But it has prompted some counter-revolutionary thinking on my part, which has caught me predictable amounts of shit over on his blog. Even so, something that occurs to me off and on about the question of the “obligation to activism” - the idea that we are all morally required to put effort into making the world better for the oppressed - has been triggered by that discussion, as well as by the recent furor in the feminist/person-of-color blogosphere over perceived white indifference to POC issues. I never know quite how to express this thought, or what significance it has given the world we actually do live in, but I’ll try it out here in the hope that no one will notice.
What occurs to me is this: anti-oppression activism of all kinds is a kind of contingent undertaking - a reaction to conditions as they are (and should not be) that seeks to achieve conditions as they are not (but should be). It is in a way Utopian, in that it seeks what in practical terms is unlikely, but more to the point in that it is reactive to conditions that simply should not be allowed to exist and conceivably might not if the world were a better place, or if we succeed in making it one in the future. In other words, action against inequality seeks to put itself out of business - to eliminate the conditions that make it necessary. The fact that it is currently necessary is a failure of those living today to undertake the work of eliminating it. To the extent that each of us has not adopted the anti-racist mindset, racism persists; to the extent that we do successfully spread anti-racism, racism will die, and with it the need for and practice of anti-racism. If this is true, the lack of engagement in activism against oppression may be a sign, in some cases, not of anti-progressive attitudes, but of overly optimistic, and progressive, ones.
May 3rd, 2008
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General, Politics, Culture |
8 comments
A friend of mine, and occasional Lean Left commenter, Angus Johnston, has started a blog focused on US student activism: studentactivism.net. Angus is completing his PhD in History this semester; his dissertation is on the history of student activist groups from the 60s. He is also currently hooked into nationwide student activist groups as they exist today, and has acted in an advisory role for some of them. (He was, you won’t be surprised to hear, more or less the Megaphone Mark of his own campus as an undergrad.) He comes to his subject with considerable experience and academic expertise.
studentactivism.net covers current controversies involving students or colleges, as well as student organizing, activism, and rights issues. Given the high representation of the academic world in the blogosphere, and the increasing politicization of campuses and the educational experience, it’s a valuable resource for anyone interested in what’s happening with campuses today, and the generations of young citizens they are turning out. Check it out!
April 30th, 2008
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General, Politics, Bloggin, School, Culture, Education |
no comments
OK, so Amazon.com offers these “Daily Deals”, right? They pick some item, discount it, and sell a certain number of that item on a given day at the discounted price, until they run out.
Recently they offered a deal on an item that, by coincidence, I had purchased not long before at the regular Amazon price. This annoyed me, because I thought I had been getting a good deal at the regular price (well below MSRP), but they were now selling the same thing for about $20 less than that. I wanted to get in on the really good deal, not just the regular good deal - but of course there was no point in my buying one now, since I already had one.
Then a brilliant plan occurred to me: I could buy one at the discounted price, wait until they had sold out, and then sell it at the regular Amazon price on eBay - thus earning the difference between the sale and regular prices, and essentially reducing my own previously-paid price to equal the sale price, after the fact. But then an even more brilliant plan occurred to me: I could buy a whole bunch of them, wait until the sale was over, sell them on eBay at the regular Amazon price, and earn 20 bucks per unit profit.
So, not to be greedy, I ordered 5 units at a cost of close to $300, and sat down to wait to start shipping them out and earn mass profits. At some point I discovered that I had misremembered my original purchase price; the price differential was actually only $14, not $20, but still, I stood in the way to earn a cool 70 smackers, and that ain’t hay. And at any rate, I knew I had a guaranteed market at that price, since that’s the price they were currently selling for (non-discounted) on Amazon. What could go wrong?
Well, the first thing that went wrong, in fact the moment I clicked the “Buy” button on Amazon, was that I began to feel like a dick. Yes, it’s cool to find deals and it’s the American way to buy and sell schlock merchandise like a bazaar barker in desperate pursuit of the most minimal cash payout, but I realized that I was essentially taking advantage of Amazon’s discount offer to make a profit for myself - and because the discount sale quantity was limited, in doing so I was blocking someone else from getting a good deal who probably only wanted it to enjoy the item for themselves. You can argue that that’s just capitalism at work, but it’s (in a very, very tiny way) one of the ugly things I object to about the way capitalism works - that the constant grinding pursuit of self-interest in every way and form overrides even the most minimal sense of generosity toward others’ welfare. And here I was behaving like an oil company in a nature preserve, just to get 14 fucking dollars out of somebody who wasn’t fast enough to get the discount. So as soon as I had thought about it, I went back to my Amazon account to cancel the order - and found that, in less than 15 minutes, they had already begun processing the order and it couldn’t be canceled. So not only did I feel like a dick, but I couldn’t undickify myself.
So, I sat down again to wait, feeling guilty and wishing I wasn’t in this mess. I began to wonder if I should donate the profits to a charity or something.
Eventually, a big box arrived with 5 identical items in it, all duplicating the one already sitting on my shelf at home. I stashed it away guiltily and didn’t deal with it for a couple of weeks.
Big mistake.
Eventually, I entered 5 identical sale notices on eBay and sat down to wait some more, because it takes a week for the auctions to end. Now, I’m not stupid, right? - before I began this whole adventure I had checked sale prices on eBay and confirmed that they were doing a brisk business in this item, at prices roughly approximating the Amazon non-discounted price. In part because I had only previously sold things on eBay once or twice and didn’t really know the system, in part because I wasn’t sure it would help, I hadn’t specified a minimum sales price on the auctions - but what difference would it make? The going market price was well above my purchase price, so my profits were secure.
After entering my items for sale, I checked a few similar listings just to re-confirm that the market was strong. And then made a sickening discovery.
Somehow, in the intervening couple of weeks between ordering the items and placing them on eBay, the bottom had dropped out of the market for them. eBay sale prices were now running well under the Amazon non-discount price; “Buy It Now” offers at the Amazon price were going totally unclaimed, and some auctions were actually ending below the discounted price that I had paid! And because I hadn’t specified a minimum price, I could potentially lose almost everything I had paid! But I couldn’t do anything about it - if I waited longer, the price would probably just drop further, and I had to get as much of my $300 investment back as I could. So I left the auctions up and hoped I was just seeing a momentary aberration in sales prices.
I forced myself not to monitor the auctions more than once every day or so for the next week, but on the ending day I was mortified: every single auction had ended within a dollar or two of the Amazon discount price that I had already paid, and most of them had ended well below that - in one case almost $10 less! The total combined sales of all items was $25 less than I had paid for them at the discounted price! Luckily, I had specified a $10 flat shipping fee, thinking it would cost less than that, so I had some buffer room, but it wasn’t looking good.
And of course, three of my buyers were from the midwest - not cheap to ship to - and the rest were all from California - as far away as it’s possible to get in the 48 States. And then PayPal took about $2 off the top of each order they processed, and eBay itself charged me more than $3 per order in fees . . .
End result, after splurging on a bulk purchase of a highly popular item at deep discount, selling into a strong, virtually guaranteed market with demonstrated demand almost $20 above my break-even price point, and paying all associated transaction fees (including the cheapest possible shipping method, even at the risk of not keeping my promises regarding shipping dates, because every other alternative was a disaster): I still felt like a complete dick and I lost $18.81.
Which, paradoxically, had the effect of making me feel a lot less like a dick. Instead of elbowing out others’ discount purchases for my own benefit, I actually wound up subsidizing my buyers’ discounts to the tune of an average of $3.76 below my own purchase price - which would have been a substantial savings for any Amazon customer who had not paid for “free” Prime shipping privileges, and at worst no more than $2 above discount (and as much as $10 below) even for those who had. So I did shift the market from Amazon to eBay, which is not what Amazon wanted, but from the broad perspective the only real loser (in various senses) in this scenario is me. So I’m really a kind of altruist.
Great.
April 7th, 2008
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General, I do too have a life, Economics, Math, Fiasco, How Capitalism Will Ruin You |
6 comments
Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That’s not a very pretty reality of our founding. . . .
Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. . . .
That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.
Wow - pretty radical words. Must have been some sort of angry, hateful, anti-white, black nationalist, racist, fear-mongering, Malcolm X-wannabe who spewed that kind of anti-American garbage.
Oh, wait. It was Condi Rice, unindicted Iraqi Occupation co-conspirator, vestigial Secretary of State, and fever-dream GOP Vice-Presidential possible who claims that the United States suffers from a “birth defect” relating to its treatment of blacks and that that history still matters. So I guess we’re not going to be hearing anything about how “angry”, “hateful”, or “anti-American” she is, because . . . IOKIYA(B)R.
March 28th, 2008
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General, Politics, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race |
13 comments
Peggy Noonan mostly praised Obama’s speech, and largely seemed to understand it, which puts her in a minority of conservative commentators. But she criticizes him, near the end of her article, for . . . wait for it . . . not understanding America. Yes, snotty Reaganite lickspittles who made a profession of courting racists and religious bigots with coded signals, demonizing “welfare queens”, glorifying death squads and Nazi war dead, excusing incompetence and ignorance at every turn, and obsessing over wayward blowjobs, now presume to tell candidates of the working-class party what the real America is all about.
March 21st, 2008
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General, Politics, Church & State, Economics, Culture, News & Current Events, Fiasco, Torture |
9 comments
From a blog thread on time travel paradoxes:
me, i’ve done quite a bit of fantasizing about becoming a mentor to myself at 15. “first of all, DON’T let the keyboard player sell you acid. JUST SAY NO!!”
HAH!
Dude - I can relate.
March 20th, 2008
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General, I do too have a life, Humor |
one comment
I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the “Obama’s Pastor” controversy, because it’s the product of three forms of conservative stupidity that I am glad to be immune to. The first is their deliberate, calculated, and organized distortion of political campaigns with red herring issues and machine-gun assaults of irrelevant attacks whipped up by their noise machine to drown out a substantive discussion of issues on which they cannot compete. The second is their inability to think for themselves and its corollary, their assumption that nobody else is capable of thinking for themselves - hence the bizarre “controversy” over whether Obama was present in the room when somebody else said something that makes white conservatives uncomfortable. (It’s true: a major portion of the noisemaking over individual sentences spoken by Jeremiah Wright and taken out of context by Obama’s critics is the question not whether Obama agrees with them, but whether he was present when they were spoken. Somebody should ask these clowns if they are so weak-minded that they are incapable of hearing anything and not believing it - and if not, why they assume that black people must be.) The third is the inherent inability even to acknowledge race and racial history as an issue in America - the drooling stupidity that allows conservative whites to imagine that the Confederate flag is not a symbol of race hatred, but that black anger over discrimination is. Like so much of conservative discourse, this nonsensical “controversy” simply fails to rise to the level that would deserve to be taken seriously; as with conservatism in general, giving it no credence is the safest and most efficient way to deal with the mess it presents.
But the speech that Obama planned on the subject was interesting to me - interesting as a phenomenon. It occurs to me that this election has now seen two “Kennedy moments” - defining speeches in which a candidate has been forced, by others’ bigotry, to confront their own outsider status and challenge America to expand its notion of community membership and our range of shared values. Kennedy did it with panache over the question of Catholicism, and this year Romney did a decent job in the same vein regarding Mormonism. Obama faces a larger challenge on the question of race. Race and sex are the fundamental lines of discrimination written into the Constitution itself; race especially was the ground of the most vicious and tenacious divisions of American society, the one that defined and shaped the country as no other, and laid the groundwork on which the lives of all Americans are lived today.
Americans have always been able to make themselves feel good about themselves by invoking both religiosity and religious freedom, but they have invested to an even greater degree in defining and maintaining racial divisions. In some ways, Kennedy and Romney were fighting a downhill battle; it required little more for either of them than to express teary-eyed religious fervor and promise not to go overboard with it. Obama is unquestionably struggling uphill; he cannot claim community with other groups by invoking his devotion to his own, as Kennedy and Romney could, and he cannot erase their bigotry by any degree of non-threatening rhetoric or promises not to challenge their complacency (which is just as well, because that’s not what he’s about). Even so, a speech on race is an opportunity to bring race to the forefront of the discussion in a serious way, and potentially to cut through the winking code-words and denials and evasions that invariably smothered any approach to the subject heretofore. It was an unique enough opportunity, also, that it just might have had a chance to make whites shut up and listen for a change, and maybe shift the grounds of discussion just a bit. I was interested to see what Obama would do with it.
(More after the break)
March 18th, 2008
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General, Politics, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Read Your Bible, Race |
23 comments
The principal writers of The Wire, the HBO drama about the Baltimore underworld, have published a public call for civil disobedience in non-violent drug crime prosecutions:
[The drug] war grinds on, flooding our prisons, devouring resources, turning city neighborhoods into free-fire zones. To what end? State and federal prisons are packed with victims of the drug conflict. A new report by the Pew Center shows that 1 of every 100 adults in the U.S. — and 1 in 15 black men over 18 — is currently incarcerated. That’s the world’s highest rate of imprisonment.
The drug war has ravaged law enforcement too. In cities where police agencies commit the most resources to arresting their way out of their drug problems, the arrest rates for violent crime — murder, rape, aggravated assault — have declined. In Baltimore, where we set The Wire, drug arrests have skyrocketed over the past three decades, yet in that same span, arrest rates for murder have gone from 80% and 90% to half that. Lost in an unwinnable drug war, a new generation of law officers is no longer capable of investigating crime properly, having learned only to make court pay by grabbing cheap, meaningless drug arrests off the nearest corner.
What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we’ve been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain. . . .
[W]e offer a small idea that is, perhaps, no small idea. It will not solve the drug problem, nor will it heal all civic wounds. It does not yet address questions of how the resources spent warring with our poor over drug use might be better spent on treatment or education or job training, or anything else that might begin to restore those places in America where the only economic engine remaining is the illegal drug economy. It doesn’t resolve the myriad complexities that a retreat from war to sanity will require. All it does is open a range of intricate, paradoxical issues. But this is what we can do — and what we will do.
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
“Jury nullification” has often been urged as a strategy against perceived government abuses, particularly in the case of drug crimes. (It is also a favorite mythology of the delusional far-right militia types, which hardly makes it more attractive.) I have written about my own flirtation with that path, under similar circumstances. But in this case they are advocating it not merely as a protest against unjust laws, but as a strategy to get those laws overturned by making them unenforceable.
It would be remarkable if they could recruit enough people to make an observable difference in these cases. What is also remarkable is that this article appeared in Time magazine - once the bastion of toe-the-line traditionalism. It’s interesting, too, that the staff of a popular TV show would take such a stand publicly - advocating for civil disobedience on a controversial issue involving widely-despised behavior, and linking their stance, indirectly at least, to the content of their show. Simply by countenancing such statements, both Time and HBO signal that this stance - open recruitment to contempt for the law - has come within the bounds of acceptable opinion. (This isn’t the first time network TV has taken such risks. The coded anti-Vietnam-war ethos of M*A*S*H, and the somewhat tame feminism of Maude and One Day at a Time were controversial in their day, and also reflected the personal opinions of their stars or producers. But they didn’t advocate civil disobedience.)
I wonder if these could be signs of a turning tide in the “War on Drugs”.
March 6th, 2008
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General, Politics, Legal Issues, Culture, News & Current Events |
5 comments
The news has been reporting for the last day or so on the plight of young Harry Windsor, Prince of Whateverthefuck and one of the few members of the British royal family who doesn’t turn your stomach merely by existing [oops - yes he is]. Bowing to his family’s destiny, Harry joined the Army, but it was made clear that his royal arse was much too precious ever to be exposed to combat. Legitimately, also, there were fears that the knowledge of his presence in a combat theater would subject his unit mates to increased danger as enemies from around the globe fell over each other to take the most exalted scalp since Mountbatten’s. The issue was especially poignant given the British Army’s long and less-than-exalted history in Afghanistan.
To his credit, he complained of being kept back, going so far as to threaten to resign his comission if he wasn’t allowed to play a full role. He was eventually shipped over - spending most of his time in a behind-the-lines role, but also going on patrols with his air-cav unit. The British press were briefed on his participation, under “embargo” conditions (they agree not to publish the information until given permission, in return for being informed). For less than three months, Harry was in the combat theater, if not exactly in frequent combat, and things were going OK.
Yesterday, Matt Drudge revealed these facts, and within 24 hours Harry was homeward-bound. It seems likely that Drudge was not subject to the embargo - that is, he did not personally agree to its terms - but likely got a leak and chose to publish the information anyway. That he was, in actual effect, working to get a prince of the British royal succession, and soldiers of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, killed, was apparently not a reason in his mind not to do so.
February 29th, 2008
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General, Politics, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Fiasco |
37 comments
I’ve been ambivalent as between Hillary and Obama - each has great strengths and also some flaws or weaknesses. But Obama impresses me more and more as a man whose principles are more than window-dressing, and sorely needed. Today, he proved it beyond question:
An Open Letter to LGBT Americans
I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.
Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.
The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.
We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia– that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention. I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached.
Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary.
Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.
Barack Obama
It rankles a little that he still finds it necessary to equivocate on this “civil union” nonsense, but it’s important to remember that that was the progressive position on gay rights just a few years ago. No one in high office, in the history of this nation, has made so forthright and so morally upright a statement in favor of full and uncompromising equality - certainly none with the Presidency in their grasp, still less on the very issue that the haters and bigots had used to put one of their own into the Presidency at the very time it was said. He didn’t have to say it - he could have coasted into office while keeping this issue on the back burner - but he chose to stand up in a way that was so badly needed, and will cause such a vicious backlash, and that he could have so easily avoided.
Aside from simply being right on an important issue, Obama today showed remarkable moral depth. It was inspiring - in a way that has nothing to do with rhetoric or visionary exhortation, but with true moral courage and the dedication to govern his life and work by his ideals. It is impossible not to admire this.
February 28th, 2008
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General, Politics, Legal Issues, Church & State, Religion, Culture, News & Current Events |
72 comments
The wingnut brigade is falling over itself today because Michelle Obama is proud of her country. They think it’s a bad thing. Specifically, Obama said:
[F]or the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I’ve seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it’s made me proud.
They can’t stand the implication that she hasn’t had much to feel proud of in the past. Naturally they think that’s her fault, and naturally they’re ginning up their slavering noise machine, complete with screaming Drudge headlines and oleaginous crap from repulsive loons like John Podhoretz and Michelle Malkin.
But, really, what is questionable, or even surprising, about such a sentiment? What decent American hasn’t been frustrated and disappointed by the country’s many inequities, its many failures to make good on its own promise, and the repeated disasters engendered by lack of decency among its leadership? Who hasn’t been hungry for the chance to claim the birthright of true equality, true freedom, and political and material largesse that America portends, without making excuses or sweeping historical travesties and abuses under the rug? And for black Americans especially, who but a fool would imagine that the American dream and promise has been anything but a mockery of partial fulfillment and cynical denial? If you have any decency or sympathy at all, how can you not feel unsatisfied with America’s halting and incomplete fulfillment of its promise?
[more after the jump]
February 19th, 2008
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General, Politics, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race |
23 comments
The Washington Post - once a crown jewel of the newspaper profession - has been slowly descending into sheer hackery. This is only more of the same:
About 44 percent of Michigan Democrats voted against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) yesterday in the party’s primary, with the vast majority of that group marking “uncommitted” on ballots that did not include any other major candidates. . . .
With 89 percent counted, Clinton captured 56 percent of the vote. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) placed third with about 4 percent, behind 39 percent for “uncommitted.”
As the story notes, the DNC voted not to seat the Michigan electors, in response to Michigan’s moving its primary date ahead of other states in the traditional schedule. As a result, most of the Dem candidates did not bother to put their names on the ballot there, so many voters had no way to vote for their preferred candidate. The ballot includes a line for “Uncommitted”, and many voters chose that either because they had no other candidate or as a protest vote against Hillary.
Given these distortions, the outcome isn’t that meaningful. But there was a vote, and it was overwhelmingly for Hillary. So what did the Post have to say about it?
“44 Percent Vote Against Clinton”
Now, this is not just an obvious example of putting the worst possible spin on things - it isn’t even reasonably representative of what happened in political terms. Their 44% includes all the “Uncommitted” votes and any vote for any other candidate, write-in or otherwise - that is, everyone who didn’t vote for Clinton. But of course that means that 56% of the voters did vote for Clinton (as they do in fact report - in the last paragraph). This is a landslide by most reckonings. It’s hard to tell whether this represents her real level of support there, since it is distorted both by the fact that she was the only competitive candidate on the ballot (which would likely increase her support) and by the fact that her enemies were pushing the “Uncommitted” line as a way of hurting her (tending to reduce her total). But the fact remains that well over half the voters in the state voted for Hillary when they had other options on the ballot.
There are plenty of ways they could have expressed this:
“56% Vote in Favor of Clinton”
“56% Vote Against All Democrats Other Than Clinton”
“Over 90% of Voters With a Preference Chose Clinton”
“Hillary Fans Swamp Naysayers 3:2″
“96% Vote Against Kucinich”
But the Post deliberately put it in terms that reflected negatively on Clinton even when she overwhelmingly won the (admittedly pointless) race. They went as far as they could to find the most negative spin they could put on it, even to the point of absurdity (”Well Under Half of Voters Oppose Landslide Winner!”). And this is what still passes for a liberal paper.
January 16th, 2008
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General, Politics, Media, News & Current Events |
8 comments
Mitt Romney is on record defending his membership in an (until recently) officially racist religion by citing his family’s personal experience in combatting racism:
These American values, this great moral heritage, is shared and lived in my religion as it is in yours. I was taught in my home to honor God and love my neighbor. I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.
Except that David Bernstein, in The Boston Phoenix, documents the impossibility of that claim.
December 20th, 2007
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General, Politics, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race |
2 comments
Huckabee just can’t win for losing. In addition to the understandable criticism of his insane right-wing politics and values, he’s getting tagged for the smarmy dog-whistle content of his ads. In particular, his recent Christmas ad, informing our 1/4 non-Christian nation that “at this time of year . . . what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ”, has been criticized for including a huge glowing white cross hovering over Huckabee’s shoulder and slowly gliding behind his head (!) as he speaks.
The strangest thing is that his campaign seems to be lying about how it got there, pedaling peddling [oy!] a story to USA Today (repeated without the slightest critical inquiry by the credulous Byron York at NRO) that the whole thing was an unplanned coincidence resulting from a national-campaign ad shoot so casual there wasn’t even a script. Not only is the story absurd on its face, it’s actually physically impossible.
December 19th, 2007
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General, Politics, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Media, News & Current Events |
17 comments
Mike Huckabee is catching more-than-deserved flak for his history of Medieval remarks about gays, women, AIDS, and the usual range of winger obsessions. Today, his oppo research director - Lean Left protege Joe Carter, of Evangelical Outpost - tried to “clarify” Huckabee’s position on . . . (wait for it) . . . homosexuality and necrophilia. Because, when you’re Mike Huckabee, you need a position on homosexuality and necrophilia. And when you’re Joe Carter, you’re ready to provide one.
Wingery aside, Joe is a great blogger. But running a campaign for the Presidency is a whole different ballgame - and, as usual, Huckabee’s simply not warmed up. Joe and Huckabee are both discovering that the world outside their evangelical echo chamber is populated by people who expect you to have reasons for the things you say, and who tend to notice when you’re crazy. The results weren’t pretty.
December 18th, 2007
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General, Politics, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Privacy, Media, News & Current Events |
5 comments
George W. Bush has demolished all Presidential records for stupidity, vapidity, contempt for facts, and sheer lack of intellectual engagement with the world. He has also scaled new heights in preening religious posturing, religious sectarianism, and scarily delusional religious triumphalism in an official capacity. It’s hard not to think those two phenomena are related (as they are overtly in such specific instances as Bush’s denial of global warming, embrace of creationism, opposition to stem cell research and abortion, and the like).
Mike Huckabee is giving Bush a run for the title on the religious front, claiming his religion “defines” both him himself and his approach to his official duties, touting his status as an ordained minister as part of his qualifications for the Presidency, declaring categorically that no Muslim would be appointed to his Cabinet [that was Romney; my apologies], and boasting (falsely) in a Republican candidates’ debate that he holds a degree in theology. (He does not, but it’s striking that he would bring it up as part of his qualification for office.)
This is bad enough, but it’s also becoming apparent that Huckabee is somewhat strikingly . . . um . . . fact-challenged, too.
December 16th, 2007
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General, Politics, Church & State, Religion, Culture, Education, Media, News & Current Events |
20 comments
Glenn Reynolds on the Omaha Mall shooting:
it’s worth noting — since apparently most of the media reports haven’t — that this was another mass shooting in a “gun-free” zone. It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free.There’s even an academic literature on mass shootings and concealed-gun carriage.
Perhaps we need legislation. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.
I keep wondering why so many of those who take this view of small arms are ready to start a war to defend precisely the opposite view of nuclear weapons. Surely atom bombs don’t kill people, right? People kill people. A nuclear-armed Persian Gulf is a polite Persian Gulf. After all, once they impose gun control on Iran, they’ll be here next.
Further on the issue of consistency, if Reynolds supports lawsuits against places that ban guns, owing to their effect on the availability of guns for OK Corral-style shootouts in the crowded aisles of suburban shopping malls (which he thinks are a good thing), shouldn’t he also support New-York-City-style lawsuits against gun manufacturers who flood the market with cheap weapons aimed at the criminal crowd, owing to their effect on the availability of guns for people who use them for crimes? After all, if the issue is that the availability of guns has an effect on the balance of power between criminals and other citizens, both sides of that equation are equally contributory, and presumably those who supply guns to the wrong side are at least as much at fault as those who prohibit them to the right side. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.
I’m sure the Instapundit will be quick to adopt a consistent position on both these issues.
UPDATE: (fixed some formatting errors and typos)
As one commenter noted, Reynolds has responded on his blog. Sadly, all he has managed to do is undermine his own reputation for critical thinking ability.
(1) We don’t allow felons or the mentally ill to carry guns. Iran seems to fit in to this category.
I’ve already responded to a version of this claim in the comments, but I’m surprised to see it from Reynolds. It’s obvious nonsense. For one thing, nations aren’t subject to mental illness. For another, Iran’s leaders don’t seem to be in the least bit irrational, though certainly repressive. (And on the plus side, they’ve invaded fewer countries than George Bush, and likely killed fewer people.) But most important of all, the logic of his own argument has nothing to do with sanity or its lack. His argument against gun control is that it is not successful in preventing felons and the mentally ill from obtaining gus, and that is his reason for advocating wider availability of guns for all; that only serves to strengthen my point. He claims that wider distribution of guns will allow for more aggressive response in cases of violence (what’s better than one person shooting into a crowd in a shopping mall, if you’re Glenn Reynolds? - everyone in the crowd shooting at each other!); obviously that would also be the case regarding nuclear weapons, and so, if his argument makes any sense, he ought to advocate it in that scenario as well. I’m glad he (implicitly) agrees that it would be unthinkable to encourage unregulated distribution of nuclear weapons, but there is no distinction between the logic of my argument for doing so and the logic of his argument for doing the same thing with small arms. I’m glad he also (implicitly) agrees with the rest of the sane world regarding gun control, but it’s disappointing that he doesn’t realize that he agrees. I hope this helps.
(2) Suits against gun manufacturers are an attempt by government officials to circumvent the political process, using tort law to do what they can’t do via legislation because the voters oppose it. I don’t think that applies to my example at all.
How could it not apply? First, the reason for the lawsuits is irrelevant. If the case is actionable - and it certainly should be - the tortfeasors (i.e., irresponsible and murderous gun makers) ought to be held accountable. There’s no right to commit torts against the body politic and then be immune to answering for your actions merely because the civil penalty is brought in a court and not in an election. (The courts are one of the branches of governmental authority. They exist for a reason.) Second, civil authorities are well within their rights to use court actions to enforce public policy - they do it all the time. Distributing guns irresponsibly is as much a public health threat as distributing tainted food or leaded paint, and the government is right to do something about it. Finally, how are ideologically-motivated lawsuits (no doubt ginned up by the same bunch of paid political activists and subsidized plaintiffs as are behind the current Supreme Court gun-rights suit) against what Reynolds himself has noted, on his blog, are “places of public accomodation”, in order to force them to increase the number of guns used in every shooting incident, any less an attempt to create policy through the courts and not the ballot box than are lawsuits aimed at limiting the number of guns used in such incidents? It seems that, for Reynolds, “I don’t think that applies . . .” really means “I realize that refutes . . .”.
December 7th, 2007
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General, Politics, Legal Issues, Culture, News & Current Events |
84 comments
Peter Beinart has an interesting observation to make, but I think he’s got the wrong explanation for it.
He notes Americans’ perverse indifference to history (or indeed, as he doesn’t say, to any intellectual engagement with difficult problems at all), then claims that Barack Obama is trailing because the crucial demonstration of difference between him and Hillary occurred 5 years ago, which is simply too far away for most Americans to remember.
[Obama] denounced the Iraq war and Hillary Clinton voted for it. In other words, on what many Democrats consider the biggest issue of their adult lives, he was right and she was wrong.
Yet he’s getting virtually no credit for it. . . .
How is this possible? Part of it is that Clinton has moved steadily and skillfully toward where most Democrats are. She now regularly pledges that if President Bush doesn’t end the war, she will. Critics say she’s fudging — that asterisks in her plan would keep combat troops in Iraq as far as the eye can see. But most Democratic voters don’t seem to care. From what they can tell, there’s no difference between Clinton and her opponents. As of today, she’s as antiwar as anyone else.
That’s why the 2002 vote is so important. If the debate is about Iraq today, Obama looks like he’s splitting hairs. But if he can get Democrats to focus on 2002, he has a clean shot. So he keeps bringing it up, saying his original opposition to the war proves he has the judgment to be president and that (by implication) Clinton does not.
And that’s where Obama runs smack into America’s strange indifference to the past. Recent American history is littered with candidates who were right about war and weren’t rewarded at election time. In 1972, when most Americans considered Vietnam a mistake, they still overwhelmingly rejected George McGovern, an early war critic, in favor of Richard Nixon, an early supporter. In 1992, they spurned George H.W. Bush, who had recently presided over a stunning victory in the Persian Gulf War, in favor of Bill Clinton, who famously said he would have backed the war if the congressional vote had been close but that he agreed with the arguments against it. (On Election Day, only 10 percent of American voters told pollsters that they even considered foreign policy a major issue.) And in 2004, Iowa Democrats chose John Kerry, who, like Hillary Clinton, had voted for the war, over Howard Dean, who, like Obama, had denounced it. Dean’s opposition initially propelled him to the front of the pack. But in the homestretch, when Kerry co-opted Dean’s antiwar and anti-Bush message and voted against $87 billion in war funding, Democrats forgave and forgot. . . .
In a sense, Obama should be flattered. On foreign policy, Clinton is not the same person she was five years ago. Much of what she says about the Middle East these days represents a tacit acknowledgment that she was wrong and he was right. Unfortunately, in our amnesiac country, you don’t get elected president by saying, “I told you so.”
I think he’s putting too much weight on a pet theory about history, as if that were a cause and not a symptom. I think the real issue is that Americans are hugely swayed by appearance and rhetoric, and simply refuse to analyze carefully or take details seriously, in any respect, not merely in regard of history.
One of my great frustrations with politics (among many others) is the ease with which people accept empty rhetoric and obvious lies as evidence of candidates’ worth. Beinart points out that Hillary skated on her support of the war simply by saying that she changed her mind. Nobody believes she really underwent a change of position; she just found it convenient to say something different, so she did, and everyone accepts that. But Hillary is light years from being the worst offender. Virtually nothing whatsoever that comes out of Bush’s mouth is true, or even intended to be true: it has no consequence. Others do the same. No one is held to their word. No lie, failure, or mere bad judgment matters, because all you have to do the next time is say you’ll do things differently; your actual actions mean nothing against your words and posturing. The rhetoric alone is enough to satisfy the public.
The real problem is not that people don’t remember what came before, or what politicans say or do. It’s that they just don’t care enough to let it affect their behavior - or even their votes. Until we start acting as if facts matter, we’ll be stuck with generations of politicians to whom facts don’t even exist. And we’ve seen where that leads.
November 28th, 2007
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General, Politics, Culture, News & Current Events |
12 comments
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