CommonPrejudice

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That..

Remember  that self-congratulatory attitude many Americans were not shy in hiding after the election of a black man as president. Anyone can be president they claimed.

Anyone? Really? An open homosexual? An atheist? A - Allah forbid - Muslim?

Obviously that was not a serious appraisal of the political reality in that country. In fact Obama's election has demonstrated far less about their society than many Americans think it has.

At TPM yesterday Josh Marshall defended Florida judge Elijah Williams, who is running in a primary challenge next Tuesday, against charges that he is Muslim due to his ‘Muslim-sounding’ name (Elijah is actually a name with Christian roots, if that matters).

Democrats regularly defend Obama against the attacks of the nearly 20% of the population who believe Obama is secretly a Muslim.

As Bob Somerby at Daily Howler has been frequently arguing as of late, dropping the “R-bomb” in a political debate is often not productive and eventually can result in the diminishing of the significance of the term itself, rendering it useless. But in this case I don’t think it can be avoided. You see, calling someone a Muslim is a charge that must be defended.

Of course most on the left, as they are defending Obama or someone like Williams against such claims, don’t think that there is anything wrong with being a Muslim. It's simply about being truthful.

But reacting so defensively and not focusing on the much more important question of, Who the hell cares what religion the person is?, the liberals in the U.S. have already allowed the racists in American society to set the parameters of the debate by implicitly (though unconsciously) agreeing that it’s not OK if the person were a Muslim.

It still matters a great deal in American society what a person’s race and what a person’s religion are. Some might call that a racist society.

WikiLeaks and Political Tribalism

Ok we're back once more.

To get rolling again, I'm going to talk a little about the WikiLeaks controversy. 

Yesterday Greenwald posted about his discussion with the Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll, titling it “Fact-free accusations about WikiLeaks.” It was this comment by Carroll that raised his ire.

Julian Assanage -- you know, molesting charges aside -- is a criminal.  He broke the law.  He is, you know, a murderer of American and Afghani people.  His carelessness has killed people.  Even besides that, he broke U.S. law. …

There are two issues here. One, is WikiLeaks, and by extension its head Julian Assanage, guilty of “breaking the law?” And two, to what degree is WikiLeaks culpable for endangering innocent Afghanis?  (Carroll’s silly and hyperbolic contention that Assanage is a murderer not withstanding. Further I am not overly concerned about American soldiers, they are there in war, representing a foreign invader, they know the risks).

First, let’s consider the ‘law-breaking charge. Greenwald replies:

 It is, of course, illegal for those with an affirmative duty to safeguard secrets (such as government and military employees) to leak certain categories of classified information, but it is generally not illegal for non-governmental third parties -- such as media outlets or private citizens -- to publish that information… To simply assert that WikiLeaks or Assanage clearly broke the law by publishing classified information -- despite the fact that they are not government employees -- is to exhibit a monumental ignorance of the subject matter on which one is opining.

I agree. Clearly a media organization like WikiLeaks is not bound to withhold state secrets that they themselves did not acquire through illegal means. But more to the point. This is an American law. Neither the WikiLeaks organization nor Assanage are American in any respect. How could this law apply to them? As Greenwald states:

That authority-revering mindset is disturbing enough when it's applied to American citizens (such as those on the Right who called for the prosecution of The New York Times for revealing the illegal NSA program), but when it's extended to the entire world -- anyone who defies the Pentagon is a criminal -- it's warped beyond belief.

One argument against this position appears in the comment section:

The US has several extraterritorial laws where we try to force anybody who does business in the US to comply with, for example, our embargo against Cuba - most notoriously against an American hotel chain which provided rooms to the Cuban delegation at some conference in a South American city. Also, we charge foreign nationals with violations of our drug laws even though they have never been to the US. Why wouldn't these people think that we could charge Assanage with a crime under American law even though he's never been in the US.

To put it simply, why should a non-American organization WikiLeaks care about the U.S. law? The commentator does admit that the U.S. government, due to the reasons cited above, would probably have to “trump something up” in order to pursue charges, but really that is not the point.  I believe in international law, and when those laws broken then I do feel that those responsible are guilty of “breaking the law.” But the mindset of some Americans to label WikiLeaks criminals based on their (false) claims that the organization violated American laws is nothing more than ethnocentrism. Imagine the reaction of these same Americans if the situation was reversed. Of course any American reaction would be extreme if the case were a situation where an American was arrested in another country because they violated international law. But can you fathom to what level it would be if, say, Canada decided to arrest an American in another country for a violation of its hate-crime legislation, even if the American had never been to Canada. Imagine (the justified) outrage.

But the capacity to see a situation like this from the opposite perspective simply does not exist for the vast majority of American political commentators.

This all said, I am not in complete agreement with Greenwald regarding  Carroll’s other complaint. Now labeling Assanage is a murderer is just needlessly inflammatory and inaccurate. It’s hard to appreciate the larger issue with such schoolyard rhetoric. In defense of his position Greenwald notes the following:

Even the Pentagon admits that there is no evidence whatsoever to support Carroll's factual claims.  From The Washington Post, August 11:  "'We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents,'

Carroll responds in the comment section with a link to a Newsweek article. Greenwald cites this article as actual proof of his own position, and technically he is correct. As he notes, “the article explicitly states:  ‘it is unknown whether any of the men were indeed named in the WikiLeaks documents.’”

But is whether direct evidence exists proving Afghanis were killed due to WikiLeaks releasing the documents really the point? Perhaps it is to both Greenwald and Carroll, but isn’t the larger issue whether the release of documents containing the names of anti-Taliban civilian Afghanis put those Afghanis in grave danger? Shouldn’t WikiLeaks be judged on those grounds? From the same Newsweek article:

A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

Is there any doubt that the failure to redact the names of these Afghanis who collaborated with the Americans puts them at great risk? I think not. This is Greenwald’s misleading response:

There is not a shred of evidence that any act WikiLeaks has undertaken -- including the release of the last batch of Afghan war documents -- "has killed people."  To say that Assanage is "a murderer of American and Afghani people" is so far removed from reality, exhibits such an irresponsible detachment from the truth, that it's hard to express in words. ..

Whether it is his intention, due to phrases like “so far removed from reality” and “irresponsible detachment from the truth” he is certainly implying that the WikiLeaks release of documents was of little risk  to the Afghani people (granted he has previously said that WikiLeaks could have been more careful with the release of names but one certainly doesn’t get that impression from his incendiary tone here). 

A reasonable suggestion comes in the comment section:

 WikiLeaks could have substituted in ALL cases names with some other nomenclature representing the party being addressed. Ex, instead of saying Steve Smith, Wikileaks could have used the term "SOURCE 01" in every instance that the name, "Steve Smith" appeared and kept an offline table tracing all terms to actual names

And this is how it is dealt with by another commentator:

Apparently, wikileaks did screen some of the documents and apparently they asked for the assistance of the US government (we are talking about a massive amount of documents and WikiLeaks hasn't the staff to properly vet every single one of them) and were turned down. If it's not important to the US government, why should it be important to wikileaks?

Two points. First, if it is a question or life or death, and this clearly could be, then lack of staff or time is hardly an excuse to proceed. You make the time or get the people or do it bit by bit until it is ensured that innocents are protected. Secondly, the argument that the US government really isn’t concerned about the lives of Afghanis has no place in this argument. Most in government probably don’t. The number of dead innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lack of punishment for those responsible strongly attest to that. But can that be used as argument in favor of the what Wikileaks did?

Is it reasonable to cite Saudi Arabia’s persecution of Christianity as a justification for not allowing the Muslim community centre to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero? Obviously no in both cases.

But, to be clear, what I’m saying is not an argument against what WikiLeaks does. I fully support its goals and purpose. It’s beyond necessary in a world where an imperialist self-righteous and unbelievably secretive government is conducting military activities throughout the globe. But WikiLeaks erred here, seriously, and should take it amongst themselves to punish the person responsible (even if it is Assanage) and ensure it doesn’t happen again. 

Really the only coherent justification for releasing names of the Afghanis in the WikiLeaks documents is that if these Afghanis cooperated with Americans then it’s fine that the Taliban kills them. While I am very much against the Americans - and Canadian and other coalition forces being in Afghanistan, I sure don’t want to argue that.

Essentially this once again comes down to the prevailing tendency in virtually all political debate nowadays, that of 'tribalism.' Because we support WikiLeaks and recognize the vital need for such an organization then anything they do is fine… after all they are on our team. While it is generally the right nowadays who use this perspective in its most illogical and extreme form it is certainly very commonly utilized by those of all political stripes. For the most part we are incapable of seeing an issue for what it is, we have to support “our team.”

Is it OK to yell movie in a crowded firehouse?

uh...I mean fire in crowded moviehouse. (and yes I'm stealing that line from Steve Martin). In other words should there be limits to free speech?

The other day Greenwald gave a partial defense of the US Supreme Court's controversial ruling regarding allowing corporations to spend freely on political candidates due to First Amendment concerns.

While I disagree with his perspective, Greenwald's arguments are why I respect him as a writer and blogger. He doesn't take sides blindly based on his ideology but rather considers the facts and logical consistency of the arguments before adopting a position. It is a gross understatement to say that mainstream media could learn a great deal from his approach.

The issue of free speech in a democracy is a complicated one for me. While obviously I am strong  supporter of free speech I'm not the absolutist Americans like Greenwald and Kevin Drum are. Greenwald believes that to disagree with the Court's decision you have to focus on "outcomes" rather than the law itself. That position does have merit, however I think he is missing the forest for the trees.

I do agree with his point on a micro level yet in a sense every law (or constitutional provision) is about an outcome. What could possible be the reason the Americans have a first amendment if not the effect not having it would have on its democracy? Now I understand that this in not what Greenwald means when he talks about "outcomes." He means that it isn't logical to disagree with a law because you are upset with a specific outcome, citing the Bush dead enders' support  of torture and illegal wiretapping in order to protect against the greater evil (to those dead-enders) of potential terrorist attacks.

But if the first amendment raison d'etre was to protect democracy, then the amendment itself becomes pointless if there is no democracy to protect. And simply put, I contend that unlimited corporate spending on elections is fundamentally incompatible with a democracy, making any defense of free speech/first amendment in justifying the court's decision mute.

Here's an analogy. Your democracy is your house. Free speech is your roof. A functioning and fair political and electoral process bereft of thoroughly unchecked corporate influence are the walls and the foundation of the house. Sure you need a roof to have a house. But if you only have a roof and no walls or foundation, you don't have a house. (I, of course, understand, that ship has probably already sailed, but unlike Greenwald, I believe things can always get worse)

With Greenwald being a lawyer he is obviously more equipped to deal with the legal ramifications such a position would entail. That said, I do believe that it could be made consistent in a legal and constitutional sense if corporations are not simply treated equally to humans in terms of free speech, especially if the harm to the democracy itself outweighs any free speech issue when considering free speech rights for "non-human" entities such as corporations.

Idiocy vs Corruption

Here's a good article about ACORN.

When looking at issues like this it really becomes difficult to say whether someone like Senator Darrell Issa is a knuckle dragging moron or a cynical and corrupt charlatan. Bill Russell, circa 1980, may have said, "Actually Brent it's a combination of both."

However, given the following, I'd lean more towards the dim witted perspective.

...It (Issa's Defund ACORN Act) hoists right-wingers on their own corporate petards. When passing the Defund ACORN Act, proponents asserted that while it focused on the poor people's group, Congress intended a broad implementation that would cut off federal funding for "any organization" that has been charged by authorities with breaking federal election laws, lobbying-disclosure laws, or campaign-finance laws, or with filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal agency.

Hello! ACORN has not been so charged, but guess who has? A who's who of fat-cat war contractors, that's who!

On the day he voted to defund the little community group, Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns sanctimoniously declared, "Somebody has to go after ACORN." How courageous, senator, but what about the big criminals?

Jeremy Scahill, the excellent investigative reporter, notes that Blackwater (such a notoriously bad corporate player that it has recently changed its name and ousted its CEO to try to buff up its image) has taken more than $1 billion in federal contracts and continues to receive more contracts despite being charged with fraud, tax evasion, arms smuggling, and manslaughter. Just one of Blackwater's contracts that is now under investigation totals $55 million. That is $2 million more than the total federal dollars allotted to ACORN in the past 15 years....

Well, it's not like Blackwater killed anyone....Oh, wait I guess they have, haven't they.

Too Funny

Sane People: "Just how stupid can Biggovernment.com get?

Biggovernment.com: "We're not sure. What's the highest score?"

Andrew Breitbart via Media Matters.

Progressive intellectuals inspired and fed the ideology of Nazis and the Klan.

Is a Jewish Progressive any different than a Jewish Nazi? If so, how?

Is a black Progressive any different than a black Klansman? If so, how?

If those questions strike you as painful, they should. This topic demands some tough questions.

There are two ways to deal with this type of babble. First the most logical way.

But for those who want a more nuanced response, you can see this David Neiwert post from two years back where Neiwert demonstrates he's a braver man than most of us as he painstakingly tackles the Goldberg/Beck/Breitbart bunk.

Northern Wingnut

As I enjoy some time in my native land it is always nice to see that there's plenty of flat earthers here too.

This is from respected scientist ...  climate researcher ... columnist ... hack  Lorne Gunter.

In a move that stretched credibility to the breaking point, some environmentalists tried to score points for their climate-disaster theory by blaming the deadly waves on global warming. Most insisted later that they had merely meant that the destruction had been made worse because global warming had killed off protective forests and marshes along the shorelines of the 14 countries affected. But at least initially, a few got so caught up in their belief that man-made warming was threatening the planet that they claimed the tsunamis were caused by carbon emissions before thinking through whether that was even possible.

Yes it's all about "scoring points" for our side. This attitude - equating arguing issues and defending ideology with winning a competition is pervasive in our political discourse. It's why now you have folks like John Cole raging against those who call out Obama for, you know, doing bad things. As Greenwald continually documents, there are many American liberals justifying such Obama positions as holding terrorism suspects indefinitely without charging them or continuing and expanding Bush's policies of government secrecy and lawlessness simply because Obama is on their side (note: what I am saying has nothing to do with actually voting for the so-called lesser evil. That is a justifiable position, though that issue itself for those who feel they are not represented in the current political realm is a complex one)  The overwhelming tendency to treat politics as a game and support and defend your team at all costs, especially for progressives, simply enables the status quo to continue and removes from consideration what really this is allabout, that is, our values and morals along with careful consideration of the facts that are known.

But this is exactly how shallow and simple people like Lorne Gunter approach the issue of climate change. It is the other side trying to "score points," to win the game and to take power (the conspiracy theories flat-earthers come up to with to describe climate change activists' and scientists' motivation in delineating the vast dangers of global climate change are, to say the least, colorful). It is politics as a sport - or better put in the American superficial culture- an episode of American Idol. And it is why that stunning level of ignorance and close-mindedness pervades political debate not only among the masses, but even more so in the media. 

Of course I am no scientist but I try to listen people who have the experience and knowledge of the subject they are dealing with when I form my opinions. I'll research the topic to the best of my ability and while never accepting conventional wisdom as gospel I will most certainly avoid being a contrarian for contraian sake. And I don't play for any "team." To me this seems like the obvious sensible approach, and I believe few would deny that. But you'd never guess that by listening to our media or the average person defend their bias and prejudice.

On this specific question of the relationship between global warming and tsunamis and earthquakes there is clearly much we don't understand. But equally clearly there does seem to be a relationship:

..."Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system," Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.

"In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change."

The vulcanologists, seismologists, glaciologists, climatologists and landslide experts at the meeting have looked to the past to try to predict future changes, particularly to climate upheaval at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago.

"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," said McGuire, who organized the three-day conference.

David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference....

Gunter's column is titled "Blaming earthquake on CO2 shows idiocy in many quarters." Yes...yes it does...especially from those who have no idea what they are talking about yet somehow are actually paid to write about issues that are obviously beyond their grasp. I kinda like Stewie's suggestion for Gunter:

Doing George Will A Favour

At some point in the future I would really like to do a lengthy post on the preponderance of strawmen utilized in newspapers and blogs as those who have little of real value to use try and defend their bias and ideology.

In the meantime I thought I'd do George Will a favour.

(For this post we will pretend that I am an American liberal)

In a developed and enlightened country government should control such segments of society as health care because the vast majority of the incompetent population need to be supervised at almost all times by 'big brother.' Further we all know the torturous burden of having to choose and think for yourselves. This is another reason government must control health care (and of course "controlling" health care means denying any opportunity to, say, choose, your doctor - just like Canada and France, right). This is my position.

There you go, George. Now you have someone who actually argues this.

....The essence of contemporary liberalism is the illiberal conviction that Americans, in their comprehensive incompetence, need minute supervision by government, which liberals believe exists to spare citizens the torture of thinking and choosing...

You're welcome. Always happy to do a solid for a wingnut.

The Golden Rule

That is, they who have the gold make the rules...

Clearly the problem with the United States electoral system is that there isn't enough corporate money involved. Well, that will be thing of the past after this ruling by the US Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court threw out a 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of big business and unions on elections Thursday, ruling that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress. The decision could drastically alter who gives and gets hundreds of millions of dollars in this year's crucial midterm elections...

This argument that money spent equals free speech in a democratic system has always seemed highly dubious to me. This obviously means that the more money you have the 'freer' you are to influence society. Thus those who single-mindedly pursue and succeed in self-enrichment become the power brokers in not only the economic realm but socially and politically as well, the antithesis of a democracy. The idea that that these rights should be extended to the already enormously powerful (non-human) corporations simply and inevitably turns the society into a corporatocracy.

And what could this mean? Well I don't mean to keep harping on that pesky climate change issue but allowing the very same corporations who have virtually destroyed the planet in their pursuit of profit to spend millions on dollars supporting candidates like the mentally challenged James Inhofe so that the corporations may continue to do the same while humanity faces its greatest threat seems to me to a clear harbinger of our demise. (hate to go all Cassandra like that...though of course we all know Cassandra was right and I probably will be too).

Dumb Americans

Greenwald links to this Digby post containing following statement by Scott Brown, winner in Massachusetts yesterday:

"Our tax dollars should go to weapons to defeat [terrorists] not lawyers to defend them."

I could highlight the absurdity of this statement by noting how insanely high the US military budget is compared to the rest of the world, or by discussing how (of course) US tax dollars are not wasted on terrorists and how the country tortures and imprisons people who haven't even been charged with a crime, but I think my man Peter sums it up best.

Honestly when a country that holds so much power in the world is comprised of such corrupt and dumb political leaders, shallow and dumb media and misinformed and dumb electorate it's very easy to be very pessimistic about the grave problems humanity will face in the next decade or so. As a Canadian I sometimes laugh at the Americans floundering about ineptly in their struggle to reform their pathetic health care system. Nevertheless, we as a planet are on the cusp of facing unimaginable challenges as climate change continues unabated. Without enormous contributions by the leading polluter of our times, the United States, I believe all is lost. If a so-called liberal state like Massachusetts can elect a nutjob like Brown, then I fear the game is well over.

Two Sets of Rules

LA Times

A federal judge in Washington on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in an incident that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and sparked an outcry over the military's use of private contractors.

The judge did not rule on the substance of the charges against the security guards, but instead decided that prosecutors had wrongly relied on what the guards told State Department investigators shortly after the incident. As government contractors, the Blackwater employees were required to speak to an investigator after a shooting.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said that the use of these statements -- which were given with a promise of immunity -- violated the defendants' rights against compelled self-incrimination...

I was under the impression that if the Obama administration were worried about securing convictions of those who committed criminal acts in wartime they would just hold the suspects indefinitely without a trial anyways. Oh, wait I'm sorry. That only applies to brown foreign people.

The Dumbest Man Alive

Billions of dollars in corporate and banking giveaways... Communist!!!!

(via Digby)

"I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up."

It is a wonder Ted Nugent can tie his own shoes...

Huh? what? a post? ... really?

I think I'll try turning this thing on again.

I believe they are actually interesting times in the blogosphere, especially on the left side. Now it's a Democratic president  red herrings, strawmen, ad hominem attacks, and impassioned appeals to 'loyalty' and to the wisdom of a "great man" are commonplace among blogs that should be striving to do much better (Yeah I'm looking at you John Cole).

It's alarming, if not surprising, that so many in the United States that call themselves 'progressive' resort to naked and manipulative appeals to emotion, high school name calling and cliquish snickering, and blind obedience to their "leader" now a (right of center) Democrat is in the White House. Now that the extreme malfeasance of the bushies has mercifully come to end - an era where only the truly immoral or stupid could support that man-child - it's become a lot easier to see separate the thinkers from the hacks. And it seems that there are more hacks than I had realized.

So yeah, it's a good time to get back into it. And I hope to develop some of these themes if I actually do make a commitment to regularly posting again, especially as they relate to bias and the so-called voting for the lesser evil.

To start with, here's a little "Hear Hear" (or two) from our man Greenwald.

Hear, all ye good people, damn well hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!"

From last week:

... That said, I've been fairly repulsed by the 2003-like swarming, bullying efforts of the President's loyal supporters (both in the White House and from Beltway journalists and their partially cloned liberal bloggers) not merely to dispute, but to demonize and personally discredit, the bill's progressive critics as insane, crazy, childish, idiotic and drugged-out, Naderite, purist liars who -- we now learn today -- are the equivalent of "global warming denialists."  Whatever else is true, progressive opponents of the Senate bill (virtually all of whom offer strategic arguments for improving it, not for preserving the status quo), have been making well-informed and substantive critiques.  I don't want to overstate this:  there has been some very responsible and informative debate among these various factions, the insults have flown in both directions, and it's understandable that passions run high on an issue of this significance among adversaries, particularly as the process mercifully draws to a close.  Still, it seems clear that campaigns by White House loyalists in government and the media to destroy the personal credibility and malign the character of the President's critics -- and to depict "the Left" as shrill, unSerious losers -- obviously aren't confined to the Bush years or to Bush supporters.

And from today (good god why does this still have to be said?)

When it comes to Terrorism, discussions of motive have been declared more or less taboo from the start because of the dishonest equation of motive discussions with justification -- as though understanding the reasons why X happens is to posit that X is legitimate and justifiable.  Causation simply is; it has nothing to do with issues of morality, blame, or justification.  Yet all that is generally permitted to be said in such situations is that Terrorists try to harm us because they're Evil, and we (of course) are not, and that's generally the end of the discussion.

Happy New Year