Evict Bush!

Saturday, July 05, 2003  

Natural Selection In Action

Overwhelming violence rarely solves problems in living systems. Violence can certainly change things, alter the landscape, etc. But it doesn't tend to solve the problems that it was intended to solve, instead it creates a tangential problem space. It could be argued that, of course, it could solve problems correctly given sufficient information about where to apply it. But human beings are so notoriously lacking in the 'sufficient information' department that this allegation must be relegated to the realm of fairy tale for now.

We could consider the problem of disinfecting hospitals. For many years, hospitals lead the charge in buying ever stronger antibacterial potions with which to scrub Every Available Surface. As an end result, they became home to such virulent infectious agents that a primary danger to recovering surgical patients was secondary infection acquired at the hospital. The overuse of antibiotics has followed a similar trajectory. (This article covers it pretty well, though the author is a little light on his evolutionary theory.)

Or, we could look at agricultural pesticides. The unintended result of their mass application is pesticide resistant pests. Yeah, lots of insects, fungi, etc. die. But some will live, will become the dominant strain, and will take over the space left by their recently vanquished brethren. Living things of all kinds have been engaging in this kind of temporary one-upmanship for millions of years, very rarely with any clear, long-term advantage.

But the way it works is that varied populations of living organisms usually have some number of members capable of surviving more extreme circumstances. Under normal conditions, these individuals might not be the healthiest, the most fit, or even the most favored among their species. But we're talking about survival, after all. Wipe the rest out, the few who can survive will move in and take over.

And we've been seeing this in the extreme, in the macro, over in the Middle East for well over a hundred years now. After successive waves of colonization, puppet governments, the gradual accumulation of power in the hands of the ever more ruthless, survival doesn't always accrue to the best elements. When it comes to politics, to the actions of nations as a whole, it becomes dangerous bordering on suicidal to be gentle and civil.

This was proved by Rachel Corrie. Her mother made this statement on Mother's Day, in part:

...The International Solidarity Movement, the group with which Rachel worked, "was founded to provide the Palestinian people with a resource, international protection and a voice with which to resist nonviolently, an overwhelming military occupation force. ...Friday, approximately twenty military vehicles surrounded the ISM media office, seized ISM computers and video equipment, pillaged files and photos, broke equipment and damaged office space. ...The Associated Press states, "Under Israel's new rules, foreigners entering Gaza must sign a document in which they agree not to enter military areas along the Israeli-Egyptian border and 'other areas of combat' and in which they absolve Israel of all responsibility in the case of their injury or death." While the new regulations appear aimed at the ISM, the Associated Press states, "the regulations appear also to give the military considerable discretion in keeping away other foreign nationals--journalists, aid workers, and those trying to monitor the fighting between the Israelis and Palestinians." ..."

The 2002 death of a UN aid worker, and the shootings of others who followed the ideals of nonviolent resistance effectively neutralize the voice of restraint in Palestinian society. Every bit as much as the attack of 9-11 neutralized the voice of restraint and moderation in America.

The Israelis act out of a desire to be safe. Wounded America lashes out furiously around the world to achieve a state of safety. Indeed, every group or government that enacts a reign of blood and terror does so to try and make things better, to become safer. They frequently succeed in changing the circumstances under which they operate, of getting rid of some enemies. But their original goal remains tantalizingly out of reach.

In complex living systems, harsher attacks generate more strenuous defense. In the microcosm of the individual, they push us towards the least civilized, and most cunning parts of our psyche. It happens because living things want to continue living, and will attempt to destroy what threatens them if they cannot escape it. It can be forgotten that the mirror of that desire lives in our opponents.

We live together today in a knotty web of causality and responsibility. It's too easy to underestimate the strength of the survival instinct in others, to perilously ignore the resourcefulness of the human animal under threat. Far too easy to forget the things that tie us all to each other. Today, a target can be removed. Tomorrow, a wilier one will take its place. A battle can be won, but the war...

Essential Reading

Billmon put up a 4th of July post on the price of patriotism that's worth your while.

Electrolite talks about the duties of the justice system, and points us to Sisyphus' rant on what it means to live in the home of the brave.

Magpie wants us to go read Molly Ivins' patriotic commentary.

From the Political State Report, I find that my home state of Washington has recently joined California in getting the finger from the FERC.

The Mad Prophet has two posts in succession about the latest Coulter idiocy, and then pointed out the Anarchist's Wedding Guide - 11 Reasons Not To Go Through With It. This article is one which, if you're a guy dating a girl, you shouldn't even think about sending her. Untoward things might be Read Into It. But with an opening like "Besides costing enough to feed a village in Madagascar...", how could it not be fun?

Pandagon finds some exceptionally stupid French bashing. You could be tempted to ask if there were any other kind, but I wasn't kidding about the 'exceptional' part. Also, Jesse takes us on a quick tour of tax cut rationalizations.

Dave Pollard talks about the landmine treaty, and profiles three businesses that put people before profit.

Further thoughts on Leadership

After presenting an argument about why I think George W Bush is not a true leader, it seems appropriate to give some examples of what I look for in a leader. This week, Allen Brill of the Right Christians has had a wonderful series of essays discussing Harry Truman (start here and work your way back up). Going into the 1948 elections, Harry Truman made a decision to integrate the armed services when the majority of the country was against it. As Allen shows, no one believed that Truman could survive the fallout, but Truman believed it was an issue that was worth losing the election over.

Allen then asks us to consider our present slate of Democratic candidates and to say how our particular favorite measures up to Truman's example. Do take time to consider this question and add your thoughts to this conversation. Even though I haven't yet settled on my own choice (not surprising since as Stephen at the Barricades noted, I'm a Dead Dog Democrat), I thought it was well worth considering. When I think of that type of optimistic, humanistic and courageous leadership, Paul Wellstone comes to mind.

Some might ask, well, doesn't Bush also make decisions that are unpopular? Why judge him differently? The difference in my mind comes in how the decisions are made and to what purpose. Both Truman and Wellstone were very open to hearing all comers and then making up their minds on what they thought was right. Bush, on the other hand, only listens to his own cronies. The purpose of both Truman and Wellstone was to build a more inclusive, fairer society. Bush, on the other hand, supports policies that creates winners (his friends) and losers (everyone else). Instead of deciding after gathering evidence, Bush's style is to pick the policy that advances his overall goal and then search for evidence that backs the decision. His vision for our country and our world is ultimately bleak and selfish.

Another example of real leadership is seen in Aung San Suu Kyi. Today on NPR, Scott Simon used his essay to talk about her and what the world has pieced together after the generals took her into custody a little over a month ago. It's been a horrible month for her and her supporters. She has been held in Mynamar's most notorious prison until just recently, and was only moved after UN special envoy Razali Ismail expressed deep concern over her detainment. Just this week, a couple of her supporters who had escaped to Thailand, gave evidence about the attack on her convoy leading to her imprisonment. The military government encouraged the mob and then took her into custody because, they claimed, Aung San Suu Kyi was inciting unrest.

When looking for courage, I often reflect on the example of Aung San Suu Kyi. I hope she also finds solace from her words which have inspired so many to face fear and yet carry on.

Brave people are not those who don't know fear, who are afraid but who carry on in spite of their fear. They don't say that they're not afraid, they are afraid but still, they're committed enough to carry on with their work, in spite of their fear.

When Nelson Mandela was finally freed after decades of imprisonment, there were reports of how his dignity and kindness led to his guards to grow to love him and so they found ways to care for him through that period. I sincerely hope that Aung San Suu Kyi also finds guards that will be a source of human kindness while she waits. Her safety lies in the international community who will not let her be forgotten.

If you care about this issue, please visit Amnesty International to help with their efforts to keep the pressure on the Mynamar government.

Bush, the unlucky?

Gee, all the time I've complained about Bush's lucky streak* during the last few years, it turns out that as usual with a compulsive gambler, his luck is going sour.

Outside economists overwhelmingly agree that the hiring slump, which is the worst in 20 years and the longest since before World War II, is not chiefly Mr. Bush's fault.

"He was unlucky," said John H. Makin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "And I would say I don't think the bubble was the fault of Democrats. People got overexcited. It just started to unravel in the fall of 2000."

And here all the time, I thought we were the unlucky ones having such a dorkus in the White House during these turbulent times.

* Bush's luckiest day: having 9/11 happen on his watch. America's unluckiest day: having 9/11 happen on Bush's watch.

Community Meeting with Jay Inslee
Q&A Continued - As best I could scribble down

Note: For the sake of clarity, these statements are mostly being relayed in the first person. They are not exact quotes, as the staff requested that there be no recordings, and the audience questions have been significantly shortened (everybody was far more eloquent). That noted, I've done my best to make this accurate to the spirit of what was said.

Q: What can be done about pharmaceutical advertisements?

A: We can make sure that they're accurate. I haven't supported barring generic advertising out of respect for the First Amendment. Also, when drug companies create a relationship with a doctor, offering trips, or promotional packages, and patients come in with a problem, the doctor may prescribe that company's drug even when others may be better. Patients should not be denied information about other medication.

Q: How can our security be improved?

A: Police or military action should be designed to respond to modern threats instead of Cold War issues. We need to fix transportation and port security. Our intelligence system is inadequate. We don't have enough human intelligence in the field, we're too enamoured of electronic measures.

Also, we need to reduce the desire of people to kill us. A primary concern is to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two things need to happen: 1) Palestinian moderates need to confront the minority who will not accept Hebrew people in their region & push for contiguous Palestinian state. 2) Israeli moderates need to confront the minority who want to extend the Israeli state into the West Bank.

Q: Audience member made a statement about not being able to have unprincipled aggression without respect for others, expressed opposition to the way the Iraq war had been handled.

A: Congressman Inslee stated that he had opposed the war with Iraq. [At this point, and recall that the average age in the room was approx. 60, there was one of many points of spontaneous applause. This was also the only point during the meeting when the congressman was booed, and it came from only one (very noisy) person. The significant majority pretty much just clapped harder.]

I have concerns that one of three situations existed during the debate: 1) Intelligence failed, 2) intelligence was not conveyed to the White House, or 3) the White House did not convey intelligence to the public. It's impontant to the future of democracy to have a non-partisan public investigation.

[I'm including here an 'orphaned' quote from later in the session that relates to the topic of the previous exchange. I don't seem to have written down the question that it was a response to.] ...Quite a number of intelligence services likely told the president that Hussein was not cooperating with Al Qaida. I suspect that information was withheld.

Q: I'm concerned that we need to investigate the ownership of electronic voting, as some of these companies are part owned by Saudi Arabian investors. What are we doing to implement a paper trail?

A: We're very concerned about this issue, and we're looking right now at supporting a bill with congressman Rush to require a paper trail in all electronic voting systems. Additionally, I'm also looking into another bill the congressman is sponsoring, the Apollo Energy Program which will reduce our country's emissions and create jobs.

And that's all for now. Tune in next time, for more democracy in action.

Why Bush Is Not a Good Leader

One of the more mysterious things to me about Bush is why anyone would think he is a good leader. Why is there so much confusion about what leadership is? For the past few decades, people believe that those who exemplify success on the free market are our heros: leaders like Ken Lay or Al Dunlap. Today warriors are also shown to be leaders as witnessed by the types of movies and TV shows that become blockbusters. Who are the heroes of our days? What type of person do kids want to grow up to be? One thing is clear: more and more people want to be rich and famous. Because of this, the warrior kings, the CEOs, and those made wealthy by their fame are now what many people expect to see in a leader. They are honored for their willingness to break eggs to impose their will on their domain. Yes, many people see confident and decisive people as leaders.

So what about George W. Bush? He certainly drapes himself in the robes of the bold, risk-taking and strong leader that is glorified by today's culture. And even though he has had very little real business success himself, he affects the confidence and demeanor of a strong CEO. His facade allows him to present himself as a warrior king. So despite the fact that he shirked his responsibilities during the Vietnam war, he struts around like a bantam cock and spouts off threats like "Bring them on" to show the world what a pugulist he is. Billmon notes:

...people still seem to think he's a "strong leader" -- which politically seems more important than being a "competent leader," or even a "sentient leader."

With George W. Bush puffing himself up as the toughest man in the universe, I found myself shaking my head once again. Why would anyone think he is a leader?

Reviewing some leadership training material at work today, I was struck by the list of Derailment Inhibitors listed, because it is pretty clear that Bush would have had a very hard time being promoted at my company.

Personal inhibitors

1. Reluctant Learner
o Unable or unwilling to adapt to change; inflexible.

2. Lacking self-awareness
o Lacks self-insight and self-knowledge
o Fails to seek or respond to personal feedback, sees even constructive feedback as threatening.
o Unaware of one's impact on others; lacks empathy -- the ability to read people's reaction and see their perspective

Interpersonal inhibitors

1. Interpersonal blunders
o Abrasive, intimidating/bullying style - leaves a trail of bruised people
o Caustic, sarcastic, belittling tenor to conversation
o Overly ambitious; seen as self-promoting

2. Overdependence
o Over-reliance on the sponsorship of powerful others - not seen as independent

3. Lack of follow-through/untrustworthy
o Betrayal of trust
o Failing to keep promises/commitments
o Saying one thing and doing another

Update: Personally, my favorite leader these days is Aung San Suu Kyi. She exemplifies courage and vision and is a tremendous example to follow. What more can you ask of a leader?

Essential Reading

To The Barricades talks about the next wave of veterans with PTSD.

Back to Iraq highlights our Dear Leader taunting the Iraqis to bring it on at a press conference, and points out that our tax cuts to millionaires come at the direct cost of a dangerously underfunded public safety infrastructure.

Ampersand has a good blog roundup of his own.

Follow Me Here on libel protection for bloggers and speaking in quotes.

Brian Linse on the recents Republican bigot eruptions.

MyDD talks about Dean & payroll taxes.

CalPundit on Condoleeza Rice's praise of Clinton, Italy's prime minister passing legislation to exonerate himself, and universal healthcare.

Mark Kleiman has more on Lawrence vs. Texas.

Lisa of the no-working-permalinks plays language crank geek. Scroll to Sunday, June 22.

Ekr at Educated Guesswork applies economic multiple personality disorder to CD pricing, and then a ridiculous amount of math to affirmative action as the Supremes have approved it.

Electrolite talks about the insanity of California prisons, and finds that another senior Democrat has had the backbone to be publicly outraged by Bush's remarks inviting attacks on our troops in Iraq.

Making Light on vanity press publishing scams.

Wampum comments on a recent Dean faux pas, and our late lamented economy.

Pandagon mocks the Virgin Ben, and talks about the Bush administration's decision to suspend military aid to countries that signed on to the International Criminal Court. Which reminds me...

...of a godawful, but genuine, statement made by a member of way too many Republican mailing lists, and regular Fox News watcher. Thank god it was a phone conversation, so that my look of shock and horror went unseen. While talking about how horrible it was that the US was losing its sovereignty to the UN, the ICC, and any form of multilateralism in general, said of the UN general assembly, 'half of them can't read, how can they even think?' I just can't think of anything to say to that, so on that disturbing note, I'll be seeing y'all tomorrow.

Community Meeting with Jay Inslee

Over the weekend, I mentioned the community meeting that my district's congressman held, and promised to write about it. Well, I took several pages of notes, and if I wait until I have time to sit down and type up the whole thing in one go, it just won't get done. So, I'll post it as a series of installments.

In the highly unlikely event that you, dear reader, were there, note that I'm not going to be putting all of the Q&A in sequence, and that there are few direct quotes. Inslee's staff asked that the session not be tape recorded, to ensure that everyone in attendance felt comfortable about speaking.

As background, for those of you who don't live in Washington state's 1st congressional district, Jay Inslee is quite progressive. Though he did not get to speak (in a shocking display of bad time management by the organizers), he attended the February 15th peace rally in downtown Seattle. He favors environmental protections, alternative energy, reproductive choice, government funded healthcare, unemployment protection and retraining, opposed the FCC media consolidation ruling, and holds a liberal position on many other issues discussed daily here, and at neighboring blogs.

At the 2002 midterm election, he re-won this district with over 70% of the vote.

To start, there were well over 100 people in attendance, and more filtered in throughout the beginning. The average age was probably 60, though that may be lowballing things a bit. And I note this not only to give you a better image of the occasion, but to challenge the idea that liberalism is something that's inevitably grown out of.

The congressman suggested that we be polite to each other if we disagreed, but stated that we were welcome to boo him, as a public servant. That only happened once (and it was only one person), and I'll get to it, but with that exception, Inslee got a very warm reception. His statements in support of progressive/liberal ideals were greeted with frequent applause and general enthusiasm.

We began the event with the pledge of allegiance, and a round of applause for all the veterans in the audience, who were encouraged to stand up. And briefly, we were offered some good news: they're very close to getting approval for 150-200 additional screeners at Sea-Tac airport, and working on better port security.

He spoke to us briefly about the national debt, and how it constituted a tax increase on every citizen. A figure that stood at approximately $4,000 per head would have covered this year's payments, and by 2008, the amount will rise to over $6,000 for each and every one of us. As he noted, this money buys no federal services.

Then he lightly touched on a topic that would come up several times, Medicare. Inslee stated that due to low funding for the program, only 50% of WA state doctors will even take it. He says they just don't get paid enough for their services.

Q&A - As best I could scribble down

Q: Why did congress pass such a tremendous tax cut if they're aware of this debt?

A: The country was just digging out of debt in 2000. Increased defense expenditures, recession, and tax cuts worsened it. Two of these conditions are temporary. But the tax cuts, which represent a transfer of taxation from me to my children, with be with us much longer. Republicans are trying to starve Medicare, Headstart, and many other federal programs which they don't believe in. Also, these are the budget projections from the president's office, and not from the Democrats.

Q: As a manager, I just had to ship off my entire team's jobs to India. Why are we giving tax breaks to corporations that are exporting jobs, even as we lose the taxes on those wages, and not making worker retraining available?

A: Well, it is a global marketplace now. But unfair tax law allows corporations to get a post office box overseas and not pay tax. The minority party is working on this. And we need to start looking at retraining as a lifetime process, to allow people to keep up with technology. It should be as easy to get an education at 48 as it is at 12.

Statement: The congressman was thanked for working with a constituent who, without additional counsel, was able to get 27 years worth of arrears from Social Security for her ailing, 90 year old mother.

Q: How can drug companies be provented from taking advantage of the prescription drug benefit?

A: The prescription drug benefit bill that passed in the House at 3am is a benefit for the drug companies. There are enormous gaps in coverage, no cost containment mechanisms, and the bill makes it illegal for the US government to negotiate a better price with drug companies. In 10 years, it would effectively do away with Medicare, replacing a guaranteed lifetime benefit with guaranteed lifetime premiums. The bill in the Senate is more reasonable, closer to simply adding a drug benefit. But I do believe that we need to maintain a profit incentive for new drug development.

Q: In the upcoming presidential election, is there a plan for elected officials and party leaders to work together to counter the president's message?

A: I get that question a lot. But I'm here as a representative today, and not as a Democrat. We'll have to talk about campaign strategies at another time.

That's all for today, folks. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the next riveting installment of your political process in action.

Vote With Your Wallet

In what's going to become a regular feature here, I'll be encouraging readers to support causes that advance a progressive agenda. Even if your contribution is small, it makes a difference, because it demonstrates support for issues that matter. An organization with 100,000 members is in a far better bargaining position with legislators than one with only a couple thousand.

Earth Justice is "an independent, nonprofit, public interest environmental law firm that represents hundreds of clients in more than 275 active cases around the country." Their website draws attention to an article about how the Bush administration has ignored overwhelming public comment on environmental issues.

But in a recent mailer they point out that the administration is also undermining environmental legislation passively, by simply failing to adequately defend environmental laws in court when attacked by industry. Look at the urgent cases they're fighting to enforce what's left of federal protections for our land, air, and water, and think about sending them whatever you can.

Our votes didn't count in 2000, our comments and concerns didn't count at all after that. But that doesn't mean we can't make a difference for the environment. It's down to money and the courts now, and if each of us chips in a little, we can still win this. After all, now that corporations and wealthy citizens are bailing on their financial responibilities, it's a lot of 'little people' like us who now make up the bulk of our government's budget. And that's a lot of weight to throw around.

Conversation Fragment

"But I'm an engineer. I like to poke at things to find out how they work."

"Well I'm a biologist. I know that if you poke at things long enough, they'll bite you."

Old News That Isn't
or, How to Have More Fun With Your Browser

Seeing the Forest pointed out a posting over at TBogg on insider trading at the American Enterprise Institute, or AEI. And after reading that, I went back and clicked on the link to Media Transparency's AEI page, and found the following headline on the sidebar:

New York Daily News
Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Lay Drops Out of Think Tank

Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has quietly stepped down from a think tank (AEI) board on which he served with Vice President Cheney, the Daily News has learned.

The link goes to a page that no longer exists, and in looking for additional information, I came across this collection of Enrongate stories. Here's a Washington Post headline and excerpt from that page, with a great story about one of the Bush 2000 campaign's finest political consultants:

Bush 2000 Adviser Ralph Reed Offered To Use Clout to Help Enron

[WP, By JOE STEPHENS, 02/17/02]

"For a $380,000 fee, the conservative political strategist proposed a broad lobbying strategy that included using major campaign contributors, conservative talk shows and nonprofits to press Congress for favorable legislation. Reed said he could place letters from community leaders in the opinion pages of major newspapers, producing clips that Reed would "blast fax" to Capitol Hill."

In other words, the standard Mighty Wurlitzer campaign. On behalf of corporate executives in the process of stealing billions of dollars from the public. The article goes on to tell us a little more about Ralph Reed, and his corporate consulting tactics, emphasis mine:

...Reed, head of the Atlanta-based consulting firm Century Strategies, is the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and current chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

...The seven-page memo to Enron illustrates for the first time how Reed pitches his services to major corporations and how he draws on alliances he forged during ideological battles fought alongside conservative religious leaders. It also shows how political consultants have increasingly brought tactics once seen only in campaigns into the legislative arena.

...Reed asked Enron to pay his firm $25,000 to generate letters to the editors of newspapers, each signed by a prominent figure. "These op-eds and letters are then blast faxed to elected officials, opinion leaders and civic activists for use in their own letters and public statements." He said his firm had recently "placed" opinion pieces in The Washington Post and the New York Times.

A $79,500 telemarketing campaign would have cold-called citizens and offered to immediately patch them through to Congress. ..."For one recent client, we generated more calls to a U.S. Senate office than had been received since impeachment" of President Bill Clinton, he wrote. "The result was a major victory for the client."

Finally, Reed said he had enjoyed "great success" in using conservative news-talk programs to spread his clients' message to "faith-based activists."...

And Reed is in pretty tight with those faith-based activists, with this 1999 Human Life Review article discussing the possibility of a constitutional anti-abortion amendment referring to Reed as one of the Christian right's Big Three:

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Ralph Reed say they are staring those facts in the eye. They are for Bush: who is not Reagan, granted. But several points (which the Christian right's Big Three don't make explicitly) arise here:

(1) Nobody also is Reagan, who (2) isn't running anyway, in addition to which (3) St. Ron himself never worked particularly hard to achieve a human-life amendment and further (4), on the appointment of pro-life judges, had a mixed record, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy being cases in point.

O put not your trust in princes, somebody said. Ah, what about Bush, then? Can he be trusted? The Big Three believe so....

But this Bush character of whom the article speaks so hopefully before the 2000 election, what exactly had he been up to at the time that made him so exceptionally trustworthy? (Courtesy LinkThing)

President Bush as Texas governor personally pushed Enron Corp.'s business interests with the Uzbekistan ambassador and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, according to correspondence made public Friday.

Former Enron Chairman Ken Lay in June 1999 also asked Bush to meet with the prime minister of Romania to press Enron's business ventures there, but Bush had just launched his presidential campaign travels.

..."Enron has established an office in Tashkent and we are negotiating a $2 billion joint venture with Neftegas of Uzbekistan," Lay said. "This project can bring significant economic opportunities to Texas as well as Uzbekistan."

Bush's calendar for April 8, 1997, shows he met with the ambassador for half an hour in the governor's office in the Texas Capitol.

Enron pulled out of its proposed deal with Uzbekistan in 1998, partly because of political unrest in neighboring Afghanistan. ...

You remember Uzbekistan, right? Coalition of the Willing, known for silencing dissidents and boiling prisoners, and a recently added Middle Eastern imperial outpost.

Dizzy now. I feel a powerful urge to stand with hand on heart while listening to Lee Greenwood, and then, I think I would like to see someone get body slammed while drinking myself into oblivion. But I'll feel bad about it, so I may follow up with a chaser of the 700 Club, where another member of the Big Three and longtime Friend of Bush can cleanse my mind of all these terribly impolite thoughts about Dear Leader.

Bonus Links:

AEI 1996 roundtable discussions on political strategy, starring; Karlyn H. Bowman, Lynne V. Cheney, Irving Kristol, Michael Barone, Gary Bauer, Robert P. Casey, Michael Farris, Christopher Hitchens, Frank Luntz, and Grover Norquist.

AEI commentary on why evangelical christians support Israel.

Karl Rove's incestuous political circle.

Oregon News

A while back, I attended the New Progressive Network's Saying Something event in Portland. It's taken some time to get back to this subject, but tonight I finally posted something about it at the Political State Report. This is a really exciting organization and they've got some great ideas that can be picked up by progressives in other states. Along with building up the institutional infrastructure like the Commonweal Institute and Podesta's American Majority Institute, taking our message to regular people is key. Finding ways to talk to your family, friends, neighbors and coworkers is what will allow progressives to spread their message despite the fact that our mass media is so bad.

One thing I noticed when I got on to PolState today is that Emma Goldberg of Notes on the Atrocities is also going to be an Oregon reporter for PolState. (Yes! Oregon needs more stories!) Emma has an Oregon blog as well, where she writes up her thoughts on Oregon topics. And I love her mission statement: One eye on Bill Sizemore, one eye on Salem, and one eye on my beer.

(Oh no, another blog to add to my must visit list! sigh. Someday I'll just have to figure out how to get by on 2 hours of sleep. Or read faster. Or stop working. Or ....)

Movie Recommendation

I'd like to urge you all to go see Winged Migration coming to a theatre near to you soon. It is an incredible thing of beauty. I received the following via my Oregon Birders OnLine email list yesterday:

Winged Migration has garnered enthusiastic reviews since its April release, and has been showing in theaters around the country. The New York Times critic Stephen Holden praises its "breathtaking cinematography" which "transports you to an exalted realm."

The film explores the mystery of birds in flight, following many species of birds on their annual migrations-- some flying more than 10,000 miles between the Arctic and the tropics. It covers locations ranging from the Eiffel Tower and Monument Valley to the Amazon.

More than 450 people were involved in following the birds through 40 countries and seven continents. Airplanes, gliders, helicopters and balloons were used, all with specially designed cameras, to allow cinematographers to film alongside, above, below and in front of their subjects.

The main sounds come from the musical accompaniment, along with the cries of birds. The only words are brief explanations, spoken by the director.

The result is, according to New York Times critic Stephen Holden, "such an intense vicarious experience of being a flapping airborne creature with the wind in its ears that you leave the theater feeling like an honorary member of another species."

Having seen it, I can say, yes, you really do feel like you are flying with the birds. It was an awesome experience.

Essential Reading

Max speaks on the proposed prescription drug benefit.

PeaceTreeFarm on Dean's declaration and Brett Bursey's arrest.

Eschaton: start here, read down.

Al-Muhajabah highlights the growing willingness of women in Saudi Arabia to speak out for their rights.

Sisyphus points out the high school student body that doesn't want Bush to speak at their commencement, and ran through some news tidbits that you may have missed yesterday.

Ampersand marks the passing of Katherine Hepburn and shows us a t-shirt for American travelers: the international apology shirt.

Talk Left on Bill Frist's backing of a anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, the innocence project in Alabama, and the disheartening news that Ralph Nader wants to run again. Ralph, for love of god, stay at the office, and stick to inveighing against corporate malfeasance from there.

Billmon has mixed feelings about Dean, but is impressed by his fundraising. Also, he writes about the death of one of our best and brightest, and I think he speaks for many when he says that Lance Cpl. MacDonald was "fed into the meatgrinder of a pointless, unnecessary war by men who were quite literally not fit to lick his combat boots." Read the comments, and read this.

Edit: addendum removed.

Reincarnation of a Very Bad Idea

Jeanne over at Body and Soul alerts us to the fact that the Bush administration would like to see a strong international peacekeeping force trained and directed by the US government. As she goes on to point out, there are a lot of places in the world that could use some peacekeeping, or perhaps more accurately, peacerestoring.

But the US government via the auspices of the Defense Department has already tried training foreign troops to 'keep the peace' in their countries. And that effort was formerly known as the School of the Americas, since renamed as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). Here's the introduction from the School of the Americas Watch, links mine:

The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. ...

This is a brief sampling from their 2002 Graduates in the News page, links mine:

...SOA graduate Colonel Jorge Plazas Acevedo is being tried by the Prosecutor General of Colombia for the 1998 kidnapping and murder of Jewish business leader Benjamin Khoudari. ...SOA graduate Commander Mauricio Llorente Chavez was indicted by the Prosecutor General for complicity in a massacre that took place in Tibu, July 1999. ...SOA graduate Byron Lima Estrada is currently on trial for the brutal 1998 assassination of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi. ...The year 2000 brought genocide cases against two former Guatemalan dictators trained at the SOA. In March, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Nobel Peace Prize winner, filed suit in a Spanish court against SOA graduate General Efrain Rios Montt, who took power through a coup and governed Guatemala at the height of a counter-insurgency campaign that wiped hundreds of Mayan villages off the map, left thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands into refuge or exile. ...Last year the Bolivian government sold the public water system of Cochamba to a private corporation, resulting in skyrocketing water rates for the people of Bolivia. As thousands took to the streets, Bolivian president and former military dictator, SOA graduate Hugo Banzer sent out the armed forces to attack civilians. ...SOA honors graduate General Nicolas Hermoza Rios is currently serving time in a Peruvian prison, after pleading guilty to taking $14 million in arms deal gains. Hermoza is also under fire for allegedly taking protection money from Peruvian drug lords, whom the Peruvian military, along with military aid from the U.S., claimed to be fighting....

Additionally, the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela against elected President Hugo Chavez was backed by SOA trained generals, at least one of whom was refused entry into the US in a Bush administration bid to distance themselves from the failed takeover. This 2001 Guardian article has a more general perspective, emphasis mine:

...In 1993, the United Nations truth commission on El Salvador named the army officers who had committed the worst atrocities of the civil war. Two-thirds of them had been trained at the School of the Americas. Among them were Roberto D'Aubuisson, the leader of El Salvador's death squads; the men who killed Archbishop Oscar Romero; and 19 of the 26 soldiers who murdered the Jesuit priests in 1989. In Chile, the school's graduates ran both Augusto Pinochet's secret police and his three principal concentration camps. One of them helped to murder Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington DC in 1976.

...All this, the school's defenders insist, is ancient history. But SOA graduates are also involved in the dirty war now being waged, with US support, in Colombia. In 1999 the US State Department's report on human rights named two SOA graduates as the murderers of the peace commissioner, Alex Lopera. Last year, Human Rights Watch revealed that seven former pupils are running paramilitary groups there and have commissioned kidnappings, disappearances, murders and massacres. In February this year an SOA graduate in Colombia was convicted of complicity in the torture and killing of 30 peasants by paramilitaries. The school is now drawing more of its students from Colombia than from any other country. ...

You may also be interested in this alumni listing, and to note the BBC's brief comments on the closing, reopening, and renaming of the SOA:

A controversial US military school accused of being a training ground for dictators, torturers and assassins has closed its doors.

...But the closure is only temporary. The school will re-open next month with a new name and a new curriculum, which will include peacekeeping and disaster relief. ...

And I guess what I'm trying to say here is this: Perhaps the possibility should be considered that the US Department of Defense should not be the first choice institution for training a multinational peacekeeping force. But maybe it's just me.

Holy Heck!

Dennis Kucinich (and I guess I should have noticed this earlier) actually has an opinion on water rights and privatization. Ye gods and little fishes. I have to love a candidate that even knows this is an issue, shows he's thinking ahead.

It's moderately less noteworthy (but only slightly so) that he's willing to tell the truth about the drug war. I'm interested in this topic on a personal level because while I've passed the point where I have any interest in partaking, I deeply resent the fact that we think nothing of spending money on prisons while my school has to struggle for funding. There are a lot of good general arguments to be made on the basis of erosion of civil liberties, and the sheer insanity of victimless crimes, but anything that hurts education spending is just standing on my last nerve right now.

Kucinich is even willing to be attached to that uber-elitist concern, worker's rights. He appears to know what inflation means, too. And not just because it shrinks the absolute value of your investment portfolio:

...Congress has not passed an increase in the $5.15 minimum wage even though the inflation adjusted minimum wage is 21% lower today than in 1979. ...

These are issues that in the 2000 election, only Nader was willing to touch. If these issues, or any of the others that Kucinich is talking about are important to you, and you don't feel like they're being adequately addressed elsewhere, help him get heard. Even if he doesn't win the nomination, you will have supported reintroducing 'third rail' topics to our public debate.

Essential Reading

Dwight Meredith agrees with Charles Krauthammer on energy policy. Which is disturbing and encouraging all at once, though by now, the benefits of not being dependent on OPEC must be clear to everyone. However, I'd like to note my strenuous disagreement to the idea that drilling in ANWR represents a sensible part of a long term solution.

Seeing the Forest with the goods on the concentration of wealth in America.

Shadow of the Hegemon takes people to task for being hoodwinked by the phrase "nobody in their right mind," as it applied to the belief that Hussein's Iraq indeed had no weapons.

Brooke Biggs on how intellectual consistency in politics is a loser's game, cops are getting let off with a slap for rape in San Bernardino, and why she's having a hard time feeling depressed.

Unknown News on the military attack on Qaim which occurred as US troops were firing at a convoy at the Syrian border, the $6,000 fine levied on a business for not reporting a customer question about the origin of a product, and points to stories on federal officials using the RAVE act to shut down a political fundraiser.

Over at This Modern World, our attention is drawn to some slyly titled letters to the editor and the evangelical assertion that Islam itself is a WMD, also, a link to the video of President Bush doing nothing when he first received the news of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Skippy tells us that charges against anti-war activists in San Francisco have been dropped. Apparently, there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute them, so like, yay.

Go check out Zizka's June issue where he talks (among other things) about the ways that New Democrats weaken the Democratic party.

TBogg points out that instead of engaging in whatever sinful, prurient, or simply pointless, activity we occupied ourselves with this weekend, we could have been attending an abstinence convention. In Las Vegas. Also, in something that I was sure he was just making up, but turned out not to have been, the Bush reelection effort will be partly relying on the heinously unfunny Dennis Miller. Irony... slowly... asphyxiating...