In a departure from RSI tradition, I'm posting a comment that is strictly about Morehead State University. This is my analysis of the productivity dimension of Morehead State's "Planning for Greatness" Business Plan.
Morehead State University: Better Than No. 1!
Introduction.
The primary goal of the “Planning for Greatness” Business Plan is to make Morehead State University (MSU) the top-ranked regional state university in the South. “The Business Plan was developed as a financial roadmap to guide Morehead State University in its vision to “become the best public regional university in the South . . .” (Business Plan, 4) Given it’s current position as the top-rated by U. S. News & World Report (Business Plan, 3) regional state university in the South, James Madison University (JMU) of Harrisonburg, Virginia has become a benchmark for MSU.
Specifically, the Business Plan makes Morehead State’s University’s achievement of JMU’s standards for graduating students a cornerstone of MSU’s future success. Currently, JMU generates 24.7 graduates for every 100 full-time enrolled students (FTE’s) where MSU only graduates 16.4 students for every 100 FTE (Business Plan, 8). Thus, JMU seems more “productive” than Morehead State in turning entering students into graduates. The Council on Post-Secondary Education in Kentucky has mandated that Morehead State University increase its annual number of graduates from the current 1,055 per year to 1,799 per year in 2020 (6) as part of its effort to dramatically increase the number of college graduates in Kentucky. To lift the number of graduates to the CPE-mandated target, the Business Plan projects that MSU will need to raise the percentage of students we graduate (or raise our Productivity Index or PI) to a level of 22.3 that is close to that of JMU and increase the number of FTE’s from 7,512 to 11,994.
The Question of University Productivity.
However, productivity for a university is not simply a matter of how many students graduate out of the total pool of full-time students, it is a matter of how many students graduate out of that pool in relation to the expenses the university (and state) pays for educating them. In other words, productivity is also a matter of efficiency.
In relation to the issue of efficiency, the statistics included in the Business Plan clearly indicate that Morehead State University employs its available resources more productively than JMU to help students graduate with undergraduate degrees.
There are two considerations that lead to this conclusion.
First, Morehead State University and James Madison University spend almost exactly the same amount of money per graduating student. Expenditures per graduating student at Morehead State are $78565 which is only 1.27% more than expenditures per graduating student at JMU and might be wholly accounted for by reporting error. JMU spends 32.8% more than Morehead State University per FTE on its students but only gets 33.6% more graduates per 100 FTE’s as a result of the expenditure.
Table 1.
MSU James Madison University University
PI
MSU,16.4--James Madison U, 24.7
Funds per FTE
MSU, $12,886--James Madison U $19,164
Funds per graduate
MSU, $78,565--James Madison U $77,575
Difference in funds per graduate
1.27%
*numbers for PI and Funds per FTE derived from Business Plan, 16. “Funds per graduate” derived by dividing Funds per FTE by PI.
Table 1 indicates that MSU and James Madison University are equally productive in graduating students in relation to the resources they expend. However, considerations concerning the backgrounds and qualifications of students make it necessary to conclude that Morehead State University is the overall more productive of the two universities. According to a study of educational needs cited by the business plan , 19 out of the 22 counties in Morehead State’s service region have “more critical educational needs” (Business Plan, 12) than the average American county because of their lack of educational attainment, poverty, unemployment, and other factors. In fact, 12 of the counties in Morehead State’s service region are listed among the 100 poorest counties by median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest-income_counties_in_the_United_States) and Kentucky as a whole ranks 46th among the states in median household income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States).
The Business Plan does not provide information on the educational needs of the region surrounding James Madison University. However, given that Virginia (10th in median household income) is a considerably more prosperous state than Kentucky, it is reasonable to assume that JMU’s immediate region does not have the same high levels of “critical educational needs” as Morehead State’s service region and that students entering JMU have higher scores on standardized tests, more advance placement classes, better overall high school educations, and are generally more prepared for college than students entering Morehead State University. It is noteworthy the SAT scores for students enrolling JMU are in the middle 80% (averaging 1067) (http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06profiles/jamesmad1.htm) while the average entering ACT score for Morehead State students is 21, or about the 60th percentile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Kentucky). Likewise, the Business Plan notes that Morehead State students have a “higher than average number of developmental needs.” (Business Plan, 27)
The relative qualifications of JMU and Morehead State University students are important for considering the “productivity” of a university. Because they are less prepared for college work upon entering MSU, Morehead State students have to make more academic progress to graduate from Morehead State than James Madison students have to make in order to graduate from James Madison University. From the perspective of comparative university analysis, Morehead State University accomplishes considerably more with the $78,565 that it spends for each graduating student than James Madison accomplishes with its $77,575. Because Morehead State brings significantly less qualified students forward to graduation for almost exactly the same cost as James Madison University, Morehead State has to be considered as the more productive university in terms of the outcomes achieved with its resources.
James Madison may be the no. 1 regional state university in the South according to U. S. News & World Report, but Morehead State is a more productive university. In that light, proposals for making Morehead State University more efficient or more productive should not be seen in terms of following James Madison as a role mode. Instead, such proposals should be seen in terms of making Morehead State even more superior to James Madison in terms of “efficiency” and “productivity” than it is now. If anything, James Madison University should be looking to MSU as a model in certain regards.
Conclusion.
None of the considerations on “university productivity” offered here are meant to imply that Morehead State University should not seek to grow to a headcount of 12,000 students, graduate a higher percentage of the students we enroll, or employ our resources even more effectively than we do now. However, it is important to recognize that we are dealing with these issues from a position of considerable strength. Given our limited resources, the poverty of Eastern Kentucky, and the relative under-preparation of our entering students, Morehead State University is highly effective at deploying its resources in ways that make it possible for our students to make progress and graduate. This means that Morehead State academic programs, the General Education curriculum, various student support offices, the financial aid office, admissions, and other offices combine to do very well at helping students make progress in their academic programs and graduate. Indeed, we make more productive use of our resources than the No. 1 university of our type—James Madison University of Virginia.
However, I believe that the above comparison with JMU does imply that Morehead State should be careful in its decisions concerning which aspects of its operations need to be changed “at the margins” and which should be thoroughly overhauled or eliminated. Personally, I believe that the general education program at MSU is a successful program that could benefit from tinkering at the margins but might become less effective if it is completely taken apart and re-organized in an experimental fashion. Whether that is the case or not, the University needs to take some care that it doesn’t make its operations less effective rather than more.
The other important point that arises from the comparison with James Madison University is the importance of increasing Morehead State University’s financial resources. There may ultimately turn out to be intervening variables, but it is very striking James Madison spends 1/3 more than Morehead State per student and graduates about a 1/3 higher percentage of its FTE’s. This indicates that we can dramatically revise our programs, but that Morehead State University not going to be able to achieve our goal of graduating about 22.3% of our FTE’s unless we increase our funding by almost 50% above what we have now. We spend $12,886 per FTE at the present point. We’ll have to increase our spending to a James Madison level of more than $19,000 per student if we want James Madison results.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Todd Mayo, More on Jesus and Founding Fathers
There are serious plagiarism questions about the post below by Todd Mayo. Todd and I have not been able to resolve the issue. As a result, I've decidee to leave the post up along with the criticism of an anonymous commenter and my response.
"Todd Mayo wrote a particularly apt comment on my Jesus and the Founding Fathers post. I'm repringing almost all of it below.
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"-Unkown.
This quote perfectly describes Governor Huckabee. I do not know whether he is unaware that his statement is incorrect of not. What I do know is that the men who lead the United States in its revolution against England, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and put together the Constitution were not Christians by any stretch of the imagination. Merely believing in God does not make a person a Christian. I do consider myself a Christian but one of the tenets of my faith is that all people should have the right to "worship how, where, or what they may."
The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.
Some examples:
Benjamin Franklin: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes." (Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming).
George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127).
John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)
Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.
Finally here is what Roger Williams,Founder of Rhode Island and a devout Baptist wrote:"The Church and State need not be, Williams insisted, inextricably linked: 'A Pagan or Antichristian Pilot may be as skillful to carry the Ship to its desired Port, as any Christian Mariner or Pilot in the World, and may perform that work with as much safety and speed.' 'God requireth not an Uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced in any Civill State,' he declared. Rather, the tares in the field of Christian grain must be left alone; let man hold whatever religious opinions he chooses provided he does not 'actually disturb civil peace."
So there we have it. Over and over again. These people were not hostile to Christianity at all. It is clear that they were hostile to no faith. It is equally clear however that in affairs of state, religion was not to be a consideration and the state was, under no circumstances to interfere with religious observance assuming that observence did not harm others or involve human or animal sacrifices."
What follows is the discussion concerning Todd's post by Anonymous and myself.
Anonymous said...
Actually, I think that it is the height of hubris to copy something from another website, paste it into a blog's comment board, and then, when the blogger thinks it is good, you comment on something you claim to have written. A majority of that post was copied from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm almost word for word. Changing a word here and there does not make it your own. And posting it on a professor's blog makes that hubris even worse.
5:56 PM
7:52 AM
Ric Caric said...
I thought this comment from "Anonymous" belonged here.
"ok, since the great professor needs some help on spotting the plagiarism a few posts down from a Todd Mayo, I'll help.
Todd's comment says:"The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.
"http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm says:"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments."
Todd says:"George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127)."
Site says:"George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence...On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. From: George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX) "
Todd says: John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)"
Site says: John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." From: The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.
Todd says:Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.
Site says:The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration.
Some amazing coincidences there to ignore. Funny how todd has been able to channel this other writer so throughly. Granted there are some word changes, but I would think that a professor wouldn't think that that made it his own work. And then the gloating that he has to be all pious and talk about how stupid it is for someone to do that, WHEN IT'S OBVIOUS HE'S THE ONE WHO DID IT!If you let this slide, then all that stuff you posted about your university and JMU, you can forget it.
8:26 PM
Ric Caric said...
I'm writing to acknowledge the validity of Anonymous' claim that important parts of Todd's post are taken "almost word for word" from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm. What I would like to see happen is for Todd to respond to Anonymous' claim and indicate himself how he developed his formulations. I think it's a very healing thing to be able to deal with these kinds of difficulties when they arise. Until then, I've decided to leave the post up along with the comments from Anonymous and my responses. Until I can see an opening for a more satisfactory resolution, I believe that it's best to just let the whole exchange stand where it is.
"Todd Mayo wrote a particularly apt comment on my Jesus and the Founding Fathers post. I'm repringing almost all of it below.
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"-Unkown.
This quote perfectly describes Governor Huckabee. I do not know whether he is unaware that his statement is incorrect of not. What I do know is that the men who lead the United States in its revolution against England, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and put together the Constitution were not Christians by any stretch of the imagination. Merely believing in God does not make a person a Christian. I do consider myself a Christian but one of the tenets of my faith is that all people should have the right to "worship how, where, or what they may."
The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.
Some examples:
Benjamin Franklin: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes." (Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming).
George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127).
John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)
Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.
Finally here is what Roger Williams,Founder of Rhode Island and a devout Baptist wrote:"The Church and State need not be, Williams insisted, inextricably linked: 'A Pagan or Antichristian Pilot may be as skillful to carry the Ship to its desired Port, as any Christian Mariner or Pilot in the World, and may perform that work with as much safety and speed.' 'God requireth not an Uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced in any Civill State,' he declared. Rather, the tares in the field of Christian grain must be left alone; let man hold whatever religious opinions he chooses provided he does not 'actually disturb civil peace."
So there we have it. Over and over again. These people were not hostile to Christianity at all. It is clear that they were hostile to no faith. It is equally clear however that in affairs of state, religion was not to be a consideration and the state was, under no circumstances to interfere with religious observance assuming that observence did not harm others or involve human or animal sacrifices."
What follows is the discussion concerning Todd's post by Anonymous and myself.
Anonymous said...
Actually, I think that it is the height of hubris to copy something from another website, paste it into a blog's comment board, and then, when the blogger thinks it is good, you comment on something you claim to have written. A majority of that post was copied from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm almost word for word. Changing a word here and there does not make it your own. And posting it on a professor's blog makes that hubris even worse.
5:56 PM
7:52 AM
Ric Caric said...
I thought this comment from "Anonymous" belonged here.
"ok, since the great professor needs some help on spotting the plagiarism a few posts down from a Todd Mayo, I'll help.
Todd's comment says:"The extreme religious right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of their campaign to force their religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians.
"http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm says:"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity. This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments."
Todd says:"George Washington: Never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. On his deathbed, Washington uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. (George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127)."
Site says:"George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence...On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance. From: George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX) "
Todd says: John Adams in his later years wrote, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." (The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw)"
Site says: John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." From: The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.
Todd says:Also, consider in reference to this the 1797 American treaty with (Muslim) Tripoli, declaring that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.
Site says:The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration.
Some amazing coincidences there to ignore. Funny how todd has been able to channel this other writer so throughly. Granted there are some word changes, but I would think that a professor wouldn't think that that made it his own work. And then the gloating that he has to be all pious and talk about how stupid it is for someone to do that, WHEN IT'S OBVIOUS HE'S THE ONE WHO DID IT!If you let this slide, then all that stuff you posted about your university and JMU, you can forget it.
8:26 PM
Ric Caric said...
I'm writing to acknowledge the validity of Anonymous' claim that important parts of Todd's post are taken "almost word for word" from http://dim.com/~randl/founders.htm. What I would like to see happen is for Todd to respond to Anonymous' claim and indicate himself how he developed his formulations. I think it's a very healing thing to be able to deal with these kinds of difficulties when they arise. Until then, I've decided to leave the post up along with the comments from Anonymous and my responses. Until I can see an opening for a more satisfactory resolution, I believe that it's best to just let the whole exchange stand where it is.
Yes, I Have Seen Rain
Tonight, I'm reminded of the lyric from the James Taylor song: "Lord, I've seen fire and I've seen rain." That's because there's a hard, cleansing rain falling in our part of Kentucky. The rain is a thing of beauty in itself. It even smells right if such a phrase can be allowed. But it also improves the appearance of the environment. In a place where much of the beauty of nature lies in the over-abundance of plant life, a hard-cleansing fall rain makes the woodlands and streets even more beautiful by paring down much of the over-growth. When the rain stops, many of the trees will stand out even more because they'll be cluttered with fewer leaves.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Did the Founding Fathers Follow Jesus?
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo gets grumpy with Mike Huckabee because of Huckabee's claim that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen.
But Marshall doesn't go nearly far enough. In fact, it's extremely difficult to imagine Jesus supporting the American Revolution. The British were certainly the leading tyrants of the age, but the Palestine of Jesus' time was occupied by much worse tyrants in the form of the Romans. Did Jesus criticize Roman rule, countenance revolt, or support those who did revolt. Did he value either personal liberty or the liberty of the Jewish people?
The answer is a resounding "no" on all of these counts.
The Revolutionary period in American history began with resistance to the new taxes associated with the Stamp Act--"No Taxation without Representation." To the contrary, Jesus specifically endorsed paying what would have been far more onerous taxes to Rome. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:13-17).
Of course, the British committed other kinds of tyrannical acts besides imposing taxes. They tried to set up elites around royal governors, quartered troops in colonial cities, and killed colonial militiamen at the battles of Lexington and Concord.
However, Jesus counseled against resisting these kinds of tyrannies on several levels. If the colonists considered the British to be enemies as Thomas Paine argued they should in Common Sense, Jesus was emphatic in proclaiming that people should "love their enemies."
Perhaps the British weren't just our enemies. Perhaps they were evil. However, Jesus says to "resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39)
Of course, we could argue that the values of freedom for which the American revolutionaries were fighting were "Christian values."
But not if Christianity has anything to do with Jesus.
What Jesus valued and lived in his own life (at least according to the New Testament) was suffering and especially suffering that led to martyrdom for his sake. That's why he opened the Sermon on the Mount with blessings for "the poor in spirit," "they that mourn," "the meek," and "they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." (Matthew 5:3-6)
From the point of view of Jesus, it's the poor, weak, suffering, and lost who will inherit both the earth and the kingdom of heaven. It's those people who were best suited to follow his own path toward martyrdom.
If Jesus had used the rhetoric of freedom (and there's no record that he did), he would not have meant freedom in terms of protecting liberties, rights, and property or avoiding various kinds of subordination. In other words, Jesus would not have meant the freedom that the colonists fought for during the American Revolution.
Instead, he would have meant the freedom of having nothing left to lose--A "Me and Bobby McGee" kind of freedom.
Let me be clear. I don't mean to criticize the American Revolution here. But Jesus would have been the last person to endorse revolt and revolution of any kind, including the American Revolution.
And Mike Huckabee is kidding himself if he thinks the American Revolution can be associated with either the Christian god or Christianity as a religion.
I've sort of gotten tired of explaining that, no, the Founding Fathers actually weren't all born-agains and bible thumpers. Not hardly. (Probably better to say that the great majority ranged from believers in an entirely impersonal God -- Deists -- to believing Christians who nonetheless viewed popular religious enthusiasm with a polite and paternal disdain.) But presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, himself a Baptist minister, actually told a crowd yesterday that "most" of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were "clergymen."Actually, it turns out that only one signer of the Declaration was a minister.
But Marshall doesn't go nearly far enough. In fact, it's extremely difficult to imagine Jesus supporting the American Revolution. The British were certainly the leading tyrants of the age, but the Palestine of Jesus' time was occupied by much worse tyrants in the form of the Romans. Did Jesus criticize Roman rule, countenance revolt, or support those who did revolt. Did he value either personal liberty or the liberty of the Jewish people?
The answer is a resounding "no" on all of these counts.
The Revolutionary period in American history began with resistance to the new taxes associated with the Stamp Act--"No Taxation without Representation." To the contrary, Jesus specifically endorsed paying what would have been far more onerous taxes to Rome. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:13-17).
Of course, the British committed other kinds of tyrannical acts besides imposing taxes. They tried to set up elites around royal governors, quartered troops in colonial cities, and killed colonial militiamen at the battles of Lexington and Concord.
However, Jesus counseled against resisting these kinds of tyrannies on several levels. If the colonists considered the British to be enemies as Thomas Paine argued they should in Common Sense, Jesus was emphatic in proclaiming that people should "love their enemies."
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse yo, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)Emphatic indeed.
Perhaps the British weren't just our enemies. Perhaps they were evil. However, Jesus says to "resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39)
Of course, we could argue that the values of freedom for which the American revolutionaries were fighting were "Christian values."
But not if Christianity has anything to do with Jesus.
What Jesus valued and lived in his own life (at least according to the New Testament) was suffering and especially suffering that led to martyrdom for his sake. That's why he opened the Sermon on the Mount with blessings for "the poor in spirit," "they that mourn," "the meek," and "they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." (Matthew 5:3-6)
From the point of view of Jesus, it's the poor, weak, suffering, and lost who will inherit both the earth and the kingdom of heaven. It's those people who were best suited to follow his own path toward martyrdom.
If Jesus had used the rhetoric of freedom (and there's no record that he did), he would not have meant freedom in terms of protecting liberties, rights, and property or avoiding various kinds of subordination. In other words, Jesus would not have meant the freedom that the colonists fought for during the American Revolution.
Instead, he would have meant the freedom of having nothing left to lose--A "Me and Bobby McGee" kind of freedom.
Let me be clear. I don't mean to criticize the American Revolution here. But Jesus would have been the last person to endorse revolt and revolution of any kind, including the American Revolution.
And Mike Huckabee is kidding himself if he thinks the American Revolution can be associated with either the Christian god or Christianity as a religion.
Another Chance for the Democrats
I'm getting tired of beating up on the Democratic leadership in relation to Iraq. So, this time, I'll pose the issue in terms of "opportunity." The Bush administration is requesting more money for the wars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year.
And it should be a hard cap as well.
For the Democratic leadership at this point, it's a matter of choosing the way they're going to get pounded. If they pass withdrawal legislation, the Republicans will go after them with every tool in their smearing playbook. If the Democratic leadership doesn't pass withdrawal legislation, they'll be criticized by the progressive wing of the party and discourage Democratic voters more generally. They found that out after the last round of political combat over funding the Iraq War. Democratic voters were tremendously dissatisfied over the failure of the leadership to end the war and registered their disappointment in low approval ratings for Congress.
In the final irony, failure to pass troop withdrawal legislation won't help them with the right-wing either. All Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity would do is switch from the accusations of treason they were making last spring to a big round of gloating over the cowardice and ineffectiveness of the Democratic leadership.
Given that they're going to be hammered no matter what they do, the Democratic leadership should just bite the bullet and refuse to fund anything about the Iraq War except the withdrawal of American forces from their current combat roles.
The White House has reportedly tacked on an additional $46 billion to its upcoming funding request for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total to a breathtaking $196.4 billion for a single budgetary year — and assuming this passes as is, there could even be more supplemental spending bills down the road.This is another opportunity for the Democratic leadership in Congress to push for a withdrawal from Iraq. Given that President Bush vetoed legislation that tied funding to a withdrawal deadline, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should up the ante a little more and cap funding in Iraq to those expenses necessary for winding up current operations and withdrawing troops.
And it should be a hard cap as well.
For the Democratic leadership at this point, it's a matter of choosing the way they're going to get pounded. If they pass withdrawal legislation, the Republicans will go after them with every tool in their smearing playbook. If the Democratic leadership doesn't pass withdrawal legislation, they'll be criticized by the progressive wing of the party and discourage Democratic voters more generally. They found that out after the last round of political combat over funding the Iraq War. Democratic voters were tremendously dissatisfied over the failure of the leadership to end the war and registered their disappointment in low approval ratings for Congress.
In the final irony, failure to pass troop withdrawal legislation won't help them with the right-wing either. All Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity would do is switch from the accusations of treason they were making last spring to a big round of gloating over the cowardice and ineffectiveness of the Democratic leadership.
Given that they're going to be hammered no matter what they do, the Democratic leadership should just bite the bullet and refuse to fund anything about the Iraq War except the withdrawal of American forces from their current combat roles.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Bush Crime Watch--No. 1
There was so much crime news from the Bush administration and it seems like it's going to go on for so long that I'm starting a new series of posts on the Bush crime scene.
1. It appears that the Blackwater security company stole a couple of airplanes from the Iraqi government and refused to give them back. But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki welched on a Super Bowl bet with Blackwater honcho Erik Prince.
2. Former federal prosecutor Bud Mackay claims that an Inspector General's report fromt he Department of Justice is going to recommend that Alberto Gonzales be prosecuted for perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will Bush give a pre-emptive pardon? And would that pardon constitute obstruction of justice as well?
3. According to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, American forces killed 15 civilians and wounded 52 other civilians during a raid on the Sadr City section of Baghdad this morning. There are other reports of American troops targeting any and all fleeing cars, a couple of toddler bodies in the city morgue, and a 14 year-old boy being shot while he was sleeping on the family roof. The spokesperson for the military claimed that they weren't aware of any civilians being harmed.
But shooting up a neighborhood isn't just dumb. It's a crime.
1. It appears that the Blackwater security company stole a couple of airplanes from the Iraqi government and refused to give them back. But I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Perhaps Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki welched on a Super Bowl bet with Blackwater honcho Erik Prince.
2. Former federal prosecutor Bud Mackay claims that an Inspector General's report fromt he Department of Justice is going to recommend that Alberto Gonzales be prosecuted for perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Will Bush give a pre-emptive pardon? And would that pardon constitute obstruction of justice as well?
3. According to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, American forces killed 15 civilians and wounded 52 other civilians during a raid on the Sadr City section of Baghdad this morning. There are other reports of American troops targeting any and all fleeing cars, a couple of toddler bodies in the city morgue, and a 14 year-old boy being shot while he was sleeping on the family roof. The spokesperson for the military claimed that they weren't aware of any civilians being harmed.
But shooting up a neighborhood isn't just dumb. It's a crime.
Doing Nothing About Pakistan
The MSNBC link to the Newsweek story on Pakistan is titled "The World's Most Dangerous Nation." But it's been that way since 2001. Bin Laden is in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda has significant support in the Pakistani intelligence apparatus and tribal regions. Likewise, the Pakistani government of Musharraf/Benazir Bhutto is hanging on by a couple of threads, and Pakistan has real and verifiable nuclear weapons.
All of that makes Pakistan extremely dangerous.
At this point, most liberal bloggers would say that the Bush administration needs to "do something" about Pakistan.
But I think it's better that the Bush people aren't doing much beyond learning Musharraf's name. Given the Bush administration's competence issues, "doing nothing" is probably the best way to "do no harm."
All of that makes Pakistan extremely dangerous.
At this point, most liberal bloggers would say that the Bush administration needs to "do something" about Pakistan.
But I think it's better that the Bush people aren't doing much beyond learning Musharraf's name. Given the Bush administration's competence issues, "doing nothing" is probably the best way to "do no harm."
Gay Dumbledore Enhances Potter Series
Having grown up in an abusive family, I've always been moved by the "paternal" dimension of the Harry Potter series. Protagonist Harry Potter grew up in the abusive household of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon Dursley, but Rowling created a web of paternity around Harry to help him grow up as he gradually came to confront the threat of Voldemort. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was the primary paternal figure but there was also his godfather Sirius Black, teacher Remus Lupin, Arthur Weasley, the images of biological father James Potter's family in the Mirror of Erised, and the patronus figure that came to his aid against dementors. Even the phoenix Fawkes had some key paternal moments although the healing, encouraging baum of phoenix song and phoenix tears could also be seen as an extension of Dumbledore's care.
The collective fathering of Harry Potter came into focus in the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as Dumbledore, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin all (along with Harry's mother) reached from beyond the grave to provide Harry with final instruction, guidance, and encouragement.
Once again, Dumbledore was the key figure, the wisest man despite (or perhaps because of) his limitations and mistakes, the person who helped Harry the most, the one with whom Harry had to reconcile.
But the other father figures were just as necessary even if they were more limited.
It was all that assistance and love that allowed Harry to confront Voldemort and confront him alone when the time came.
Yesterday, J. K. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. I think the revelation of Dumbledore's gayness enhances the whole series. Being gay adds another dimension to the humanity of the Dumbledore character and helps explain his enthusiasm for Gellert Grindelwald and his lack of heterosexual involvement. What adds to the series is that a gay man could take up the burden of providing fatherly guidance for a young boy facing enormous difficulties and be constantly animated by "the greater good" of the boy's welfare.
Much as African-Americans are still associated with stereotypes from slavery, gay people (and especially gay men) are still stereotyped as selfish, immature, inherently pedophilic, and obsessed with sex to the exclusion of everything else. Rowling's Dumbledore certainly had weaknesses, but Rowling portrays Dumbledore's youthful selfishness, ambition, and vanity and his mature errors of judgment as broadly human and shows Dumbledore doing his difficult duty to Harry and the whole wizarding world by taking Harry under his wing.
The fact that he was gay adds a further dimension of humanity to Dumbledore's heroism.
The collective fathering of Harry Potter came into focus in the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as Dumbledore, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin all (along with Harry's mother) reached from beyond the grave to provide Harry with final instruction, guidance, and encouragement.
Once again, Dumbledore was the key figure, the wisest man despite (or perhaps because of) his limitations and mistakes, the person who helped Harry the most, the one with whom Harry had to reconcile.
But the other father figures were just as necessary even if they were more limited.
It was all that assistance and love that allowed Harry to confront Voldemort and confront him alone when the time came.
Yesterday, J. K. Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. I think the revelation of Dumbledore's gayness enhances the whole series. Being gay adds another dimension to the humanity of the Dumbledore character and helps explain his enthusiasm for Gellert Grindelwald and his lack of heterosexual involvement. What adds to the series is that a gay man could take up the burden of providing fatherly guidance for a young boy facing enormous difficulties and be constantly animated by "the greater good" of the boy's welfare.
Much as African-Americans are still associated with stereotypes from slavery, gay people (and especially gay men) are still stereotyped as selfish, immature, inherently pedophilic, and obsessed with sex to the exclusion of everything else. Rowling's Dumbledore certainly had weaknesses, but Rowling portrays Dumbledore's youthful selfishness, ambition, and vanity and his mature errors of judgment as broadly human and shows Dumbledore doing his difficult duty to Harry and the whole wizarding world by taking Harry under his wing.
The fact that he was gay adds a further dimension of humanity to Dumbledore's heroism.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The Worst Season for Conservatives
Perhaps people on the right don't appreciate any of the seasons of the year. If someone like Clarence Thomas could be bitter over graduating from Yale Law School or confirmation to the Supreme Court, surely he could find something to resent about winter, spring, summer, AND fall.
But the bleakest of all the bleak seasons for conservatives must be autumn--the time when the trees put on rainbow coats of leaves. Given that resentment over the diversity of American society is one of the most salient characteristics of conservatism, conservatives must experience the mixture of colors in the autumn trees as peculiarly distressful, embittering, or depressing. Conservatives have long been pained by the increasing visibility of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jewish people, gays, and American Indians in American society, the global character of cities like Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle, and the nearly two hundred languages spoken in the Los Angeles school system. Last year, a lot of conservatives couldn't get over the huge pro-immigration rallies by Mexican immigrants in cities like Los Angeles.
And now there's also the presidential candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for them to worry about as well.
That's why we should be particularly mindful of the mental health of conservatives during the fall season. Just as many people become depressed from the barrenness of the landscape and lack of sunlight during the winter, conservatives might be especially vulnerable to depression as they contemplate the reds, golds, browns, yellows, and remaining greens of the trees around them.
Being conservative while the trees are changing colors must require constant vigilance. It takes a determined conservative to maintain their insistence on sameness, order, and hierarchy in the face of all the temptations created by autumn beauty. In fact, it would be interesting to see if conservatives watch significantly more football on televisions than liberals. If so, it's likely that people on the right are watching more football as a way to avoid contact with the natural world at this particularly "dangerous" time.
Perhaps we should call it "Autumn Avoidance Syndrome," or AAS for short.
There's also something uncomfortably democratic about the autumn for conservatives. From a conservative point of view, fall colors are garish enough on a hillside or along a highway, but it also seems that each tree makes its own claim for attention in a manner that conservatives find offensive. In my town of Morehead, KY in the Daniel Boone National Forest, it's not only the forest that is multi-colored, but individual trees and bushes sometimes have two or three different shades. There's a bush in our yard with poinsetta-red leaves along with faded greens. Along the streets, some trees have green and yellow leaves while others have red leaves on the outer branches and green on the inner. It's very striking. On top of all that, I've seen some individual leaves that combined green and yellow as well. It's like the leaf itself has become multi-racial or transgendered.
Because the philosopher Plato identified democracy as a polis with a multi-colored nature, he would have seen the autumn in the country like the United States as a kind of hyper-democracy of nature. What made Plato a conservative is that he found this kind of variety vulgar and dangerous. Plato didn't even like "Dorian knives" because they could serve several functions and he certainly would not have liked the changing colors of fall leaves. They were an offense against his sense of the existential smallness in both God and human kind.
American conservatives are much the same way. The right feels comforted by the certainty of a god bound by the strictures of Biblical texts and especially like the Old Testament because it makes them feel more snugly enclosed. Just as they thought of the golden calf as an idol (although they did like the gold), conservatives view the liberal god of individual freedom, generosity, and social justice as false and wrong. For the more liberal in politics and spirit, autumn diversity is implied in every season of the natural and the human world. Because conservatives believe that variety means sin and degradation, they take more pleasure out of seeing it destroyed in the flames of hell or forty days and forty nights of rain.
But diversity is not only an external of our outer garments of clothes, friends, and politics, there is a diversity of the soul that is rejected by those on the right. In his Constructive Programme, Mahatma Gandhi spoke of the need for people in India to adapt Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Zorastrian into their own souls whatever their particular beliefs. Much as the autumn trees can be several shades of red, yellow, orange, and green, Gandhi wanted people to identify themselves with other religions just as much as they identified with their own. Contrary to the conservative fundamentalists of all religiouns, Gandhi insisted on a multiplicity of identities in the individual soul as a condition for the democracy and justice.
But here Gandhi makes a demand on American liberals as well. Gandhi not only demands that we value people of other races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations as much as their own, he would insist that liberals identify ourselves with the conservative of spirit as well. Given the intensity of the ideological conflicts in American society this is an especially difficult matter. But I don't see how liberals can avoid it. If we are calling on conservatives to value difference, we have to learn to value conservative "difference" as well. If the liberal at heart would be true to themselves, we would need to incorporate some of the beige hues of American conservatism into our own souls even if we still disagree on the issues of the day.
At the very least, we can extend the hand of generosity and sympathy to our conservative friends as they suffer through their most painful season--autumn.
But the bleakest of all the bleak seasons for conservatives must be autumn--the time when the trees put on rainbow coats of leaves. Given that resentment over the diversity of American society is one of the most salient characteristics of conservatism, conservatives must experience the mixture of colors in the autumn trees as peculiarly distressful, embittering, or depressing. Conservatives have long been pained by the increasing visibility of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jewish people, gays, and American Indians in American society, the global character of cities like Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle, and the nearly two hundred languages spoken in the Los Angeles school system. Last year, a lot of conservatives couldn't get over the huge pro-immigration rallies by Mexican immigrants in cities like Los Angeles.
And now there's also the presidential candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for them to worry about as well.
That's why we should be particularly mindful of the mental health of conservatives during the fall season. Just as many people become depressed from the barrenness of the landscape and lack of sunlight during the winter, conservatives might be especially vulnerable to depression as they contemplate the reds, golds, browns, yellows, and remaining greens of the trees around them.
Being conservative while the trees are changing colors must require constant vigilance. It takes a determined conservative to maintain their insistence on sameness, order, and hierarchy in the face of all the temptations created by autumn beauty. In fact, it would be interesting to see if conservatives watch significantly more football on televisions than liberals. If so, it's likely that people on the right are watching more football as a way to avoid contact with the natural world at this particularly "dangerous" time.
Perhaps we should call it "Autumn Avoidance Syndrome," or AAS for short.
There's also something uncomfortably democratic about the autumn for conservatives. From a conservative point of view, fall colors are garish enough on a hillside or along a highway, but it also seems that each tree makes its own claim for attention in a manner that conservatives find offensive. In my town of Morehead, KY in the Daniel Boone National Forest, it's not only the forest that is multi-colored, but individual trees and bushes sometimes have two or three different shades. There's a bush in our yard with poinsetta-red leaves along with faded greens. Along the streets, some trees have green and yellow leaves while others have red leaves on the outer branches and green on the inner. It's very striking. On top of all that, I've seen some individual leaves that combined green and yellow as well. It's like the leaf itself has become multi-racial or transgendered.
Because the philosopher Plato identified democracy as a polis with a multi-colored nature, he would have seen the autumn in the country like the United States as a kind of hyper-democracy of nature. What made Plato a conservative is that he found this kind of variety vulgar and dangerous. Plato didn't even like "Dorian knives" because they could serve several functions and he certainly would not have liked the changing colors of fall leaves. They were an offense against his sense of the existential smallness in both God and human kind.
American conservatives are much the same way. The right feels comforted by the certainty of a god bound by the strictures of Biblical texts and especially like the Old Testament because it makes them feel more snugly enclosed. Just as they thought of the golden calf as an idol (although they did like the gold), conservatives view the liberal god of individual freedom, generosity, and social justice as false and wrong. For the more liberal in politics and spirit, autumn diversity is implied in every season of the natural and the human world. Because conservatives believe that variety means sin and degradation, they take more pleasure out of seeing it destroyed in the flames of hell or forty days and forty nights of rain.
But diversity is not only an external of our outer garments of clothes, friends, and politics, there is a diversity of the soul that is rejected by those on the right. In his Constructive Programme, Mahatma Gandhi spoke of the need for people in India to adapt Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Zorastrian into their own souls whatever their particular beliefs. Much as the autumn trees can be several shades of red, yellow, orange, and green, Gandhi wanted people to identify themselves with other religions just as much as they identified with their own. Contrary to the conservative fundamentalists of all religiouns, Gandhi insisted on a multiplicity of identities in the individual soul as a condition for the democracy and justice.
But here Gandhi makes a demand on American liberals as well. Gandhi not only demands that we value people of other races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations as much as their own, he would insist that liberals identify ourselves with the conservative of spirit as well. Given the intensity of the ideological conflicts in American society this is an especially difficult matter. But I don't see how liberals can avoid it. If we are calling on conservatives to value difference, we have to learn to value conservative "difference" as well. If the liberal at heart would be true to themselves, we would need to incorporate some of the beige hues of American conservatism into our own souls even if we still disagree on the issues of the day.
At the very least, we can extend the hand of generosity and sympathy to our conservative friends as they suffer through their most painful season--autumn.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Mukasey Lays Down the Key Marker
Let me start out with the obvious. The Bush administration's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey should be rejected by the Senate because he refused to say that waterboarding is torture in his hearings yesterday.
The Senate's duty to reject Mukasey is a very simple matter. Federal statutes, military law, and international treaties which the United States has signed (and which we indeed initiated) all forbid the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique because it constitutes torture. Given that Mukasey is not prepared to enforce such laws, he is not fit to serve as attorney general.
For those who don't know what waterboarding is, here's a definition from DailyKos:
All of these practices are felonies under American law and violations of international law. If Mukasey admitted that waterboarding was torture, he would be admitting that a wide range of American practices are torture and he would be putting everyone associated with those practices from the interrogators on the spot to President George Bush in legal jeopardy.
The problem is that the Bush administration deserves to be in legal jeopardy.
What the Democrats need to do is step up to the political plate and refuse to endorse anyway for Attorney General who does not acknowledge the illegal character of Bush administration interrogation practices.
And the Democrats should do so even if that means not having an Attorney General confirmed through the end of the Bush administration.
The Senate's duty to reject Mukasey is a very simple matter. Federal statutes, military law, and international treaties which the United States has signed (and which we indeed initiated) all forbid the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique because it constitutes torture. Given that Mukasey is not prepared to enforce such laws, he is not fit to serve as attorney general.
For those who don't know what waterboarding is, here's a definition from DailyKos:
Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.
"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.
Why then is Mukasey insisting on not defining waterboarding as torture. It's because the Bush admininistration has been systematically employing waterboarding, extreme sensory deprivation, mock executions, and other torture techniques in its interrogations. They've also been sending accused terrorists to countries where they would be tortured.
All of these practices are felonies under American law and violations of international law. If Mukasey admitted that waterboarding was torture, he would be admitting that a wide range of American practices are torture and he would be putting everyone associated with those practices from the interrogators on the spot to President George Bush in legal jeopardy.
The problem is that the Bush administration deserves to be in legal jeopardy.
What the Democrats need to do is step up to the political plate and refuse to endorse anyway for Attorney General who does not acknowledge the illegal character of Bush administration interrogation practices.
And the Democrats should do so even if that means not having an Attorney General confirmed through the end of the Bush administration.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Deborah Kerr dies
CNN has a story about the death of Deborah Kerr, the British actress who starred in a number of great movies from the 50's and early 60's.
I'm surprised Kerr never won an Oscar and never became "Lady Kerr". She was tremendous in From Here to Eternity and An Affair to Remember. Kerr projected the same nervous rage as Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn (say in My Fair Lady). It was that kind of rage that made the 60's possible and it's hard to miss in the popular culture of the 50's. But Kerr was also able to sublimate that intensity into a kind of luminous effect that lit up the screen despite the fact that she was no great beauty.
The magic of the movies I guess.
Kerr was great when matched up with powerhouse male actors like Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, and Richard Burton because she was just as much a powerhouse as they were, if not more so.
Although there's a lot of great actresses today (and little commentary on that), the only one that I would see as achieving Kerr's kind of effect is Julianne Moore in movies like The End of the Affair.
I'm surprised Kerr never won an Oscar and never became "Lady Kerr". She was tremendous in From Here to Eternity and An Affair to Remember. Kerr projected the same nervous rage as Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn (say in My Fair Lady). It was that kind of rage that made the 60's possible and it's hard to miss in the popular culture of the 50's. But Kerr was also able to sublimate that intensity into a kind of luminous effect that lit up the screen despite the fact that she was no great beauty.
The magic of the movies I guess.
Kerr was great when matched up with powerhouse male actors like Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, and Richard Burton because she was just as much a powerhouse as they were, if not more so.
Although there's a lot of great actresses today (and little commentary on that), the only one that I would see as achieving Kerr's kind of effect is Julianne Moore in movies like The End of the Affair.
Government By Triangulation
Hillary Clinton is not only drawing contributions from business as a whole, she's also the candidate who is getting the most cash from the defense industry.
The inevitable outcome for a Hillary Clinton administration would be a triangulation between business, liberal constituencies, and Democratic political interests. But the situation has changed since Bill Clinton's administration. During the Bill Clinton years, the right-wing was ascendant, business was extremely aggressive, and liberal reformers were on the defensive about social issues and driven away from the table in relation to the economy. In 2008, the right is going to be more of a a nuisance picking away at the Democratic administration than an influence.
At the same time, business is going to be somewhat chastened. The Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave business everything they wanted but expected that business would become a subsidiary of the Republican Party in return. The corporate elite didn't appreciate that. Eight years of right-wing government might also have convinced business that they respect the right even less than they like the labor, the left, and social reformers.
In this light, I believe that both a Hillary Clinton administration and the corporate sector will be disposed to compromise with liberal politicians and their activist constituencies. In fact, figuring out those compromises will be much of the work of the next Democratic administration.
An examination of contributions of $500 or more, using the Huffington Post's Fundrace website, shows that employees of the top five arms makers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics -- gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to Republicans. Senator Clinton took in $52,600, more than half of the total going to all Democrats, and a figure equaling 60 percent of the sum going to the entire GOP field. Her closest competitor for defense industry money is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R.), who raised $32,000.This is both a huge problem and an opportunity for people on the left like myself. If she's elected with corporate support, Hillary Clinton would be eager to solidify that support. And with good reason. As anybody who reads the literature on the power elite like William Domhoff's Who Rules America knows, the corporate sector is by far the most powerful and influential part of American society. Democratic administrations are in a particularly complex situation in relation to big business. Where the Republicans basically want to give business everything they could possibly desire, the Democrats have to weigh the interests of business against core Democratic constituencies like white liberal reformers, environmentalists, labor, feminists, and African-Americans. Business hostility can destroy a Democratic administration and contributed greatly to the failure of the Carter presidency. But the Democrats can't be successful without the enthusiastic support of core liberal constituencies either and they were reminded of that by the Nader candidacy in 2000.
The inevitable outcome for a Hillary Clinton administration would be a triangulation between business, liberal constituencies, and Democratic political interests. But the situation has changed since Bill Clinton's administration. During the Bill Clinton years, the right-wing was ascendant, business was extremely aggressive, and liberal reformers were on the defensive about social issues and driven away from the table in relation to the economy. In 2008, the right is going to be more of a a nuisance picking away at the Democratic administration than an influence.
At the same time, business is going to be somewhat chastened. The Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave business everything they wanted but expected that business would become a subsidiary of the Republican Party in return. The corporate elite didn't appreciate that. Eight years of right-wing government might also have convinced business that they respect the right even less than they like the labor, the left, and social reformers.
In this light, I believe that both a Hillary Clinton administration and the corporate sector will be disposed to compromise with liberal politicians and their activist constituencies. In fact, figuring out those compromises will be much of the work of the next Democratic administration.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Slavery: Legacies and Potential Legacies
Yesterday, Inrock of African-American Political Pundit published the slave narrative of William Moore who had been a slave in Louisiana and Texas before being freed at the end of the Civil War. Here's some excerpts from Moore's account.
I've also references to slaves attacking masters and surviving in reference to the slave narrative of Solomon Northrup, but believe that the defiance of the slaves on William Moore's plantation and their success in curbing a slave owner's violence was quite rare.
Inrock titles the post "Read your History, Read Our History" and I'm at least initially assuming that he's addressing African-Americans and referring to African-American history.
But I'm not sure that the history of William Moore is only African-American history. Certainly, I wouldn't want to deny that African-Americans have a special relation to the history of black people in slavery as their legacy as a people. But shouldn't white Americans view this history as "our legacy" in our own particular ways as well?
I think so.
It goes without saying that whites would identify in complex ways with the slave owner of the story, Tom Waller. Waller was white, occupied a position of slave owner that was monopolized by whites, bought and sold slaves, and mistreated and tortured his slaves in a manner that was peculiar to white slave owners. Waller's monstrous behavior is an important element of the white legacy to those who are descendants of slave owners and those who are descendants of everyone both North and South who enthusiastically supported the slave system.
That legacy can be seen in many areas of American life, including the persistence of many of the racial stereotypes of African-Americans deriving from the slavery period, the constant racial jokes told by whites, and the arbitrary and brutal police behavior toward African-Americans, among other things.
There's tremendous embarrassment, shame, and guilt among whites over the behavior of people like Tom Waller as well.
And that's also an important part of the white legacy from slavery.
But I'd like to suggest another element or possible element in the white legacy of slavery and that's an identification with William Moore and other slaves. It's not the same as the "that could have been me" or "that was my great-great grandmother identification" that can be seen with African-Americans.
But it's still real.
I've taught the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and others several times to white students in Kentucky. Sometimes move toward identification by asking the "what would I have done if that were me" question. Other times and this strikes me as a likely response to William Moore's narrative, there's an identification with the black person suffering from, resisting, and/or escaping slavery as the hero of the story--someone who is admired and liked, someone who the reader has an emotional stake in seeing them succeed.
I think it would be a positive thing if whites could go further in their identifications with the slaves and slave resistance--not just see William Moore, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, or W. E. B. DuBois, MLK, and Malcom X as admirable and heroic figures but view them as persons to be emulated by white people as well as African-Americans and see themselves and many of the good aspects of their own white lives as resulting from the efforts of African-Americans.
In other words, it would be a good thing if whites began to view their own lives as part of the legacy of African-American history.
“We had a purty hard time to make out. Marse Tom didn’t feel called on to feed his hands any too much. I members I had a cravin’ for victuals all the time. My mammy used to say “my belly craves somethin’ and it craves meat.” I’d take lunches to the field hands and they’d say “Lawd God, it ain’t ‘nough to stop the gripe in you belly.” . . .
‘Seems like niggers just got to pray. Half they life am in prayin’. Some nigger take turn ‘bout to watch to see if marse Tom anyways ‘bout, then they circle theyselves on the floor in the cabin and pray. They git to moanin’ low and gentle, “someday someday this yoke gwine be lifted off of our shoulders.” . . .
Marse Tom was a fitty man for meanness. He just about had to beat somebody every day to satisfy his cravin’. He had a big bullwhip and he stake a nigger on the ground and make another nigger hold his head down in the dirt and whip the nigger until the blood run out and red up the ground. We li’l niggers stand round and see it done. Then he tell us, ‘run to the kitchen and get some salt from Jane.’ That my mammy. She was cook. He’d sprinkle salt in the cut, open places, and the skin jerk and quiver and the man slobber and puke. Then his shirt stick to his back for a week or more. . . .
One day I’m down in the hawg pen and hears a loud agony screamin’ up to the house. When I git up close I see Marse Tom got mammy tied to a tree with her clothes pulled down and was layin’ it on her with the bullwhip and the blood am runnin’ down her eyes and off her back. I goes crazy. I say ‘stop Marse Tom and he swings the whip and it don’t reach me real good but it cuts jus’ the same. I sees Miss Mary standin’ in the cookhouse door. I runs round like crazy and sees a big rock and I takes it and throws it and it cotches Marse Tom on the skull and he goes down like a poled ox. . . .
Mammy and me stays hid in the brush then. We see Sam and Billie and they tells us they am fightin’ over us niggers. Then they done told us the niggers ‘clared to Marse Tom there ain’t gwinebeno more beatin’s and we could come and stay in our cabin and they’d see Marse Tom didn’t do nuttin’. And that’s what mammy and me did . . .
I've also references to slaves attacking masters and surviving in reference to the slave narrative of Solomon Northrup, but believe that the defiance of the slaves on William Moore's plantation and their success in curbing a slave owner's violence was quite rare.
Inrock titles the post "Read your History, Read Our History" and I'm at least initially assuming that he's addressing African-Americans and referring to African-American history.
But I'm not sure that the history of William Moore is only African-American history. Certainly, I wouldn't want to deny that African-Americans have a special relation to the history of black people in slavery as their legacy as a people. But shouldn't white Americans view this history as "our legacy" in our own particular ways as well?
I think so.
It goes without saying that whites would identify in complex ways with the slave owner of the story, Tom Waller. Waller was white, occupied a position of slave owner that was monopolized by whites, bought and sold slaves, and mistreated and tortured his slaves in a manner that was peculiar to white slave owners. Waller's monstrous behavior is an important element of the white legacy to those who are descendants of slave owners and those who are descendants of everyone both North and South who enthusiastically supported the slave system.
That legacy can be seen in many areas of American life, including the persistence of many of the racial stereotypes of African-Americans deriving from the slavery period, the constant racial jokes told by whites, and the arbitrary and brutal police behavior toward African-Americans, among other things.
There's tremendous embarrassment, shame, and guilt among whites over the behavior of people like Tom Waller as well.
And that's also an important part of the white legacy from slavery.
But I'd like to suggest another element or possible element in the white legacy of slavery and that's an identification with William Moore and other slaves. It's not the same as the "that could have been me" or "that was my great-great grandmother identification" that can be seen with African-Americans.
But it's still real.
I've taught the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and others several times to white students in Kentucky. Sometimes move toward identification by asking the "what would I have done if that were me" question. Other times and this strikes me as a likely response to William Moore's narrative, there's an identification with the black person suffering from, resisting, and/or escaping slavery as the hero of the story--someone who is admired and liked, someone who the reader has an emotional stake in seeing them succeed.
I think it would be a positive thing if whites could go further in their identifications with the slaves and slave resistance--not just see William Moore, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, or W. E. B. DuBois, MLK, and Malcom X as admirable and heroic figures but view them as persons to be emulated by white people as well as African-Americans and see themselves and many of the good aspects of their own white lives as resulting from the efforts of African-Americans.
In other words, it would be a good thing if whites began to view their own lives as part of the legacy of African-American history.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Boomer Oppression
Probably the most energetic arguments I have with my students are over music. I can't understand why so many of my students have written off the music of their generation and reverted back to the rock n' roll of the 60's and 70's. I especially remember walking down the street and hearing a student play something from "Frampton Comes Alive" and telling me that he played Frampton because today's music "sucks."
To me, all of this means that the sounds of the 60's and 70's, boomer sounds, are putting severe limitations on the musical imagination of the present. It's a kind of artistic oppression that prevents people from believing the ways that their own thinking, attitudes, and experiments are expressed in music.
I listen to classic rock stations and sing along quite badly to the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Steppenwolf, and Hendrix. But it's all nostalgia. Why would anybody under thirty listen to that stuff any more than I listed to Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington when I was 19?
I mention this as a preface to a letter from a professor in Mississippi that was published by Andrew Sullivan. What's interesting is that he views the boomer politics of left/right as having the same constraining effect on contemporary political imaginations. I have lots of doubts about the idea that an Obama presidency would break through the ossified conflicts of the boomer generation, but I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of breaking out of boomer constraints on the political imagination.
To me, all of this means that the sounds of the 60's and 70's, boomer sounds, are putting severe limitations on the musical imagination of the present. It's a kind of artistic oppression that prevents people from believing the ways that their own thinking, attitudes, and experiments are expressed in music.
I listen to classic rock stations and sing along quite badly to the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Steppenwolf, and Hendrix. But it's all nostalgia. Why would anybody under thirty listen to that stuff any more than I listed to Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington when I was 19?
I mention this as a preface to a letter from a professor in Mississippi that was published by Andrew Sullivan. What's interesting is that he views the boomer politics of left/right as having the same constraining effect on contemporary political imaginations. I have lots of doubts about the idea that an Obama presidency would break through the ossified conflicts of the boomer generation, but I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of breaking out of boomer constraints on the political imagination.
I'm a young, newly-minted assistant professor here at a large state school in Mississippi and I've got to say I've had just had an interesting conversation with one of my more conservative students. As far as I can tell he's a pretty 'die hard' Republican. He's really big into state and local politics and is even participating in a big way in a statewide campaign - and not for the first time. He is bright, sophisticated, and probably a future power in state and local politics here in Mississippi.
What surprised me was both his anti-war attitude and, moreover, his positive view of Obama versus Hillary. Though I did not ask, as it was not my place, who he intended to vote for, it seemed clear to me that he recognizes that 2008 is going to be a disaster for the GOP outside of the deep south and that Obama was probably the best the Democrats had to offer in terms of leadership potential. What most impressed him, he said, was that Obama was against the war from the beginning - giving credence to the effectiveness of the 'Obama has superior judgement' meme that is being put out by Obama's campaign.
Andrew, this is a young, white, male conservative, from the deepest of the deep south professing support for an intellectual, African-American liberal from Chicago. Democrats have written these folks off for decades.
A Hillary candidacy would merely continue this tradition and would represent a return to the familiar, divisive politics that has divided the baby-boomers for decades. Reagan and then the '94 election killed the 'old left' in this country. Let's hope 2008 and Obama kills the 'old right' because, like Dick Gephardt and the UAW, movement conservatism has outlived its usefulness. Maybe once both these old boomer ideologies are well and truly discredited something new, from both the left and right, can emerge.
An Obama presidency would be a stake through the heart of the vampire politics bequeathed to this country by the baby-boomers inability to set aside their differences over Vietnam and the cultural changes that shook this country to the core in 60s and 70s. We cannot be rid of their influence soon enough.
Revealing the Obama Cover-Up?
Lynne Cheney revealed on national television today that Dick Cheney is an eighth cousin of Barack Obama. Ms. Cheney had a predictably gushy characterization of the connection.
It must be a real embarrassment for the Obama family to find out that it's related to someone who has committed a wide variety of crimes against humanity, worked relentlessly to substitute an imperial presidency for the basic framework of American government, and was the key figure in the campaign of deception that led to the invasion of Iraq.
That's even more embarrassing than Al Sharpton discovering that he was related to Strom Thurmond.
In fact, being related, even distantly, to Cheney is such an embarrassment that one has to wonder if Obama himself hasn't covering up the connection out of shame.
Maybe Michelle Malkin can investigate.
P. S. And no, I'm not related to Ann Coulter. I'll deny it to my dying day.
"Think about this," Mrs. Cheney said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's."
It must be a real embarrassment for the Obama family to find out that it's related to someone who has committed a wide variety of crimes against humanity, worked relentlessly to substitute an imperial presidency for the basic framework of American government, and was the key figure in the campaign of deception that led to the invasion of Iraq.
That's even more embarrassing than Al Sharpton discovering that he was related to Strom Thurmond.
In fact, being related, even distantly, to Cheney is such an embarrassment that one has to wonder if Obama himself hasn't covering up the connection out of shame.
Maybe Michelle Malkin can investigate.
P. S. And no, I'm not related to Ann Coulter. I'll deny it to my dying day.
How Did That Dinosaur and Her Mate Fit on the Ark?
Paleontologists have recently recovered almost a full skeleton of a plant-eating dinosaur that measured 32 m, or 105 feet, and would have lived in South America 88 million years ago.
Scientists from Argentina and Brazil said the Patagonian dinosaur appears to represent a previously unknown species of Titanosaur because of the unique structure of its neck. They named it Futalognkosaurus dukei after the Mapuche Indian words for "giant" and "chief," and for Duke Energy Argentina, which helped fund the skeleton's excavation.Futalognkosaurus dukei is only one of three giant dinosaur species found in South America.
Patagonia also was home to the other two largest dinosaur skeletons found to date — Argentinosaurus, at around 115 feet long (35 meters long), and Puertasaurus reuili, 115 feet to 131 feet long (35 to 40 meters long).I wonder how two of each species of these big boys and girls fit on the Ark.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Republicans Lose Business, the Wealthy
There's a couple of perceptive articles out on the problems that the Republicans are having with raising money from big business and wealthy individuals this year. For both Daniel Gross and Jeanne Cummings, the problems of the Republicans with business run deeper than the fact that the Democrats now have majorities in Congress. Cummings emphasizes that big business resented the high-handed way that people like Tom DeLay dictated who business lobbies could hire into their leadership.
They also didn't like the shake-downs for bigger campaign contributions that happened every time important legislation came up for a vote in the GOP-led Congress.
The bullying Republican leadership didn't act any better toward their business friends than they treated their Democratic opponents, and business lobbies didn't like it.
Business leadership also had contempt for the incompetence and cronyism of the regulatory bodies they worked with, the free-spending ways of Republicans in Washington, and wanted health care reform the Republicans refused to deliver.
According to Daniel Gross, Republican business leaders are viewing Hillary Clinton rather than any of the Republican contenders as "the establishment candidate" in this election.
It's unfortunate that Gross (who's a terrific business journalist) didn't follow up on the "social moderate" part of the quote from James Robinson. Big business has been far from heroic in its treatment of African-Americans, women, and gay people, but large-scale corporations like Disney have gradually begun to affirm the value of diversity as they've sought to appeal to gay, hispanic, African-American, and urban market niches. This has created a large cultural gulf between business and the diversity-hating religious right and is a major reason why
Likewise:
However, the Democrats might find themselves in a state of permanent triangulation if the Republicans continue reducing themselves to a fringe party of the declining farm belts, the old Confederacy, and all the bitter Clarence Thomas-like guys in the audiences of the radio talk shows and readership of the right-wing blogs.
Republican leaders threatened a freeze-out of business lobbyists who dared hire a Democrat or ignored the names on the leadership’s private hiring tip sheet.
They also didn't like the shake-downs for bigger campaign contributions that happened every time important legislation came up for a vote in the GOP-led Congress.
Pay-to-play became the insider mantra during the Republican reign. But “extortion” was how many CEOs described the annual shakedowns by committee chairmen with jurisdiction over their industries. No group expressed greater relief — privately and publicly — than the business community when the 2002 McCain-Feingold law banning unlimited corporate donations to politicians became law.
The bullying Republican leadership didn't act any better toward their business friends than they treated their Democratic opponents, and business lobbies didn't like it.
Business leadership also had contempt for the incompetence and cronyism of the regulatory bodies they worked with, the free-spending ways of Republicans in Washington, and wanted health care reform the Republicans refused to deliver.
According to Daniel Gross, Republican business leaders are viewing Hillary Clinton rather than any of the Republican contenders as "the establishment candidate" in this election.
As happens every four years during the primary season, Republican business leaders are rallying around the establishment candidate. This time, however, it's a Democrat. Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack, who raised more than $200,000 for W's 2004 campaign, came out for Hillary this spring. James Robinson III, the Atlanta-born banker, former CEO of American Express, and co-founder of RRE Ventures, told me: "I've been a Republican all my life. I believe in fiscal conservatism and being a social moderate." But this Fed-Up CEO now makes the case for Hillary as effectively as James Carville. "It seems to me she's the person who has got the broadest experience. She understands the importance of business development, innovation, and entrepreneurship," he says.
It's unfortunate that Gross (who's a terrific business journalist) didn't follow up on the "social moderate" part of the quote from James Robinson. Big business has been far from heroic in its treatment of African-Americans, women, and gay people, but large-scale corporations like Disney have gradually begun to affirm the value of diversity as they've sought to appeal to gay, hispanic, African-American, and urban market niches. This has created a large cultural gulf between business and the diversity-hating religious right and is a major reason why
voters in the East making between $150,000 and $200,000 favored Democratic
candidates by a 63-37 majority.
Likewise:
Since 2004, the percentage of professionals identifying themselves as Republicans fell from 44 percent to 37 percent, according to a September Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.The movement of various segments of the big business sector toward the Democrats is far from being a comfortable thing for business. Given that the Democratic Party is also the home of the labor movement and anti-business reformers, it's possible to claim that there is neither a "party of big business" in the United States nor a reform party.
However, the Democrats might find themselves in a state of permanent triangulation if the Republicans continue reducing themselves to a fringe party of the declining farm belts, the old Confederacy, and all the bitter Clarence Thomas-like guys in the audiences of the radio talk shows and readership of the right-wing blogs.
A Couple of Blackwater Thoughts
It looks like Blackwater USA is going to be coming home from Iraq over the next few months. I'm not sure that's an altogether welcome prospect though. Why would we want to have a trigger-happy private army in the United States any more than the Iraqis would want to have them in Iraq?
The fact that Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater, is wired into the extreme right of the Republican Party through his family connections with the Michigan Republican Party, Gary Bauer and the Family Research Council, and his sister's connections with the DeVos family (of Amway fame) is also disturbing. The last thing this country needs is for either of the major political parties to be associated with armed private militias and, in my opinion, Blackwater's political allegiances make it a threat, a low-level threat to be sure, to American democracy.
In that light, I would like to see Blackwater USA and other private militias subject to tough investigations, legal restrictions, and potentially to being banned altogether. Given the recent killing of 21 Iraqis by Blackwater employees, Blackwater USA and other private militias should be investigated for crimes against humanity in Iraq. Congress should also take this opportunity to ban American government agencies at either the federal or state agencies from employing private security firms for security functions.
If these kinds of measures do not dry up their revenue streams and force the private security companies to operate on a much smaller scale, Congress should investigate whether they should not be banned altogether.
By Constitutional Amendment if necessary.
The fact that Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater, is wired into the extreme right of the Republican Party through his family connections with the Michigan Republican Party, Gary Bauer and the Family Research Council, and his sister's connections with the DeVos family (of Amway fame) is also disturbing. The last thing this country needs is for either of the major political parties to be associated with armed private militias and, in my opinion, Blackwater's political allegiances make it a threat, a low-level threat to be sure, to American democracy.
In that light, I would like to see Blackwater USA and other private militias subject to tough investigations, legal restrictions, and potentially to being banned altogether. Given the recent killing of 21 Iraqis by Blackwater employees, Blackwater USA and other private militias should be investigated for crimes against humanity in Iraq. Congress should also take this opportunity to ban American government agencies at either the federal or state agencies from employing private security firms for security functions.
If these kinds of measures do not dry up their revenue streams and force the private security companies to operate on a much smaller scale, Congress should investigate whether they should not be banned altogether.
By Constitutional Amendment if necessary.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
How Many Invaluable People Lost?
In the course of a very interesting post on the lack of African-American characters in a sci-fi series entitled Race to Mars, Afro-Spear comments in a heartfelt way about the human loss of the wars in African nations like "Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo, Cote D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda.”
I found this litany of loss painful to even read. The point Afro-Spear made was about the "euro-centric" perspective that people of African descent have nothing to contribute to the progress of mankind and can thus be "left behind" in the striving for new human accomplishments. One could also say that that's why there has been so little regret about the severe loss of African humanity over the last twenty years as well.
But I wonder.
Specifically, I wonder about whether the "euro-centric" or "Anglo-Saxon" imperial perspective that values people of African descent so little is as powerful as Afro-Spear thinks.
Certainly, the imperial perspective has weakened in Europe and even the foremost champions of the Anglo-Saxon imperium on American right aren't very confident that they can continue to bully the American public into supporting a program of (white) American domination.
There's no doubt that the vision of leaving people of African descent behind still has a great deal of cultural power in the United States.
But that's not the only vision.
In fact, there are a variety of cultural perspectives from which African-American perspectives are viewed either as equal to those of whites or as primary in themselves. People tend to underestimate the extent to which the cultural egalitarianism of the multi-cultural ethic has taken hold among American whites. African-American figures like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Sojourner Truth have become standard parts of America's heroic pantheon and African-American figures like Oprah Winfrey are just as much a part of the cultural firmament as their white counterparts.
If not more so.
In the case of Ken Burns' influential films, the experiences and virtues of African-Americans as portrayed as the core of what it means to be American. The valuing of African-Americans in these films is not done in the same terms as the valuing of African-Americans in Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, jazz, or Martin Luther King. But Burns and white multi-culturalists more generally are closer to the African-American view than they are to the cultural and political imperialism that is still defined as the American creed by conservatives.
I don't want to get pollyannish here. Certainly, the gradual mutual assimilation of African and European cultures in the United States does not in any way compensate for the monstrous exploitation of African humanity in this country.
But that mutual assimilation is real and continues to gain strength despite the continued power of the imperialism vision of American conservatives.
And as long as that's the case, the impulse to "leave African-Americans behind" will get weaker rather than stronger.
“How many future African scientific researchers have been killed who would have discovered the cure for HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and Ebola? How many future African doctors and nurses have been killed who would have brought relief to the sick by providing adequate care for their ailments? How many future African agricultural scientists have been killed who would have found a solution to the increasing desertification of the continent and boost food production to feed the people? How many future African political, social and economic scientists have been killed who would have made substantial contributions to the development of the continent’s resources, both material and human, which would benefit not only the continent but all humankind as a whole? How many future African teachers have been killed who would have inspired and managed the educational development of their students to be leaders in the field of science and other disciplines? How many future African astro-scientists have been killed who would have revolutionized space travel and exploration and make it possible to reach the impossible dream?”
I found this litany of loss painful to even read. The point Afro-Spear made was about the "euro-centric" perspective that people of African descent have nothing to contribute to the progress of mankind and can thus be "left behind" in the striving for new human accomplishments. One could also say that that's why there has been so little regret about the severe loss of African humanity over the last twenty years as well.
But I wonder.
Specifically, I wonder about whether the "euro-centric" or "Anglo-Saxon" imperial perspective that values people of African descent so little is as powerful as Afro-Spear thinks.
Certainly, the imperial perspective has weakened in Europe and even the foremost champions of the Anglo-Saxon imperium on American right aren't very confident that they can continue to bully the American public into supporting a program of (white) American domination.
There's no doubt that the vision of leaving people of African descent behind still has a great deal of cultural power in the United States.
But that's not the only vision.
In fact, there are a variety of cultural perspectives from which African-American perspectives are viewed either as equal to those of whites or as primary in themselves. People tend to underestimate the extent to which the cultural egalitarianism of the multi-cultural ethic has taken hold among American whites. African-American figures like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Sojourner Truth have become standard parts of America's heroic pantheon and African-American figures like Oprah Winfrey are just as much a part of the cultural firmament as their white counterparts.
If not more so.
In the case of Ken Burns' influential films, the experiences and virtues of African-Americans as portrayed as the core of what it means to be American. The valuing of African-Americans in these films is not done in the same terms as the valuing of African-Americans in Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, jazz, or Martin Luther King. But Burns and white multi-culturalists more generally are closer to the African-American view than they are to the cultural and political imperialism that is still defined as the American creed by conservatives.
I don't want to get pollyannish here. Certainly, the gradual mutual assimilation of African and European cultures in the United States does not in any way compensate for the monstrous exploitation of African humanity in this country.
But that mutual assimilation is real and continues to gain strength despite the continued power of the imperialism vision of American conservatives.
And as long as that's the case, the impulse to "leave African-Americans behind" will get weaker rather than stronger.
Sunday with Bill Kristol
In this week's Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol takes the opportunity to tell us that everything's right with the world that George Bush made. The war in Iraq is going great, the economy is just super-duper, and all of George Bush's policies are working.
And Clarence Thomas is the happiest guy in the world.
Praise the Lord!
Back in the real world, Clarence Thomas is still a broken guy who drinks deeply from the well of bitterness.
Likewise, the war in Iraq is going almost as badly as ever. The big positive news from the combat zone is that American casualties fell to June 2006 levels last month which would be great if the mission hadn't been failing in 2006 as well. Former Gen. Ricardo Sanchez claims that the surge is a matter of "staving off defeat." But it would be more accurate to say that Petraeus is trying to prevent failure from becoming disaster.
In a sense, that's what William Kristol is trying to do, prevent the current failures of the Bush administration from becoming a disaster for the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
Right now though, I'd have to say that Gen. Petraeus is having more success in staving off disaster in Iraq than William Kristol is having in staving off disaster for the Republicans.
And Clarence Thomas is the happiest guy in the world.
Praise the Lord!
Back in the real world, Clarence Thomas is still a broken guy who drinks deeply from the well of bitterness.
Likewise, the war in Iraq is going almost as badly as ever. The big positive news from the combat zone is that American casualties fell to June 2006 levels last month which would be great if the mission hadn't been failing in 2006 as well. Former Gen. Ricardo Sanchez claims that the surge is a matter of "staving off defeat." But it would be more accurate to say that Petraeus is trying to prevent failure from becoming disaster.
In a sense, that's what William Kristol is trying to do, prevent the current failures of the Bush administration from becoming a disaster for the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
Right now though, I'd have to say that Gen. Petraeus is having more success in staving off disaster in Iraq than William Kristol is having in staving off disaster for the Republicans.
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