Conservatives Gone Wild: Three Cheers, We Lost
If you want to get some idea of just how lost some of the folks on the right are these days, catch this from Red State:
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Friday, October 2nd at 11:29AM EDT
Hahahahaha.
I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone.
I thought if we whored ourselves out to our enemies, great things would happen.
Apparently not.
So Obama’s pimped us to every two bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him.
So much for improving America’s standing in the world, Barry O.
Maybe now perhaps we can hope he will mature a bit on the issues of foreign affairs. But I doubt it.
BTW, Dear Barack Obama, you are no Billy Mays.
Let’s leave aside the fact that a major American city lost a bid today for the Olympics, which would have meant jobs and publicity for the Windy City. Let’s leave aside the disgusting comment about “pimping.” Let’s concentrate on the line, “So much for improving America’s Standing in the World.” What does this claim amount to? If we don’t win every time, then we shouldn’t bother talking to other nations and peoples, or placing ourselves on the world stage (unless we are #1). This is what one would expect from those who don’t understand that “improving our image” involves a willingness to engage, and engagement doesn’t always mean winning. It means “losing” at times. (Should our athletes not participate in the Olympics because they might lose?) This is how decent peoples and countries behave. And in the long run, it builds respect and allies, as opposed to vassal sates.
Erickson and many of his fellow (right-wing) conservatives are like the whiny kids in the school yards who take their marbles home when they can’t get their way. And then decide to stay home because they might lose. And cheer (from home) when others lose.
Obama took a chance. He didn’t succeed. Good for him. Meanwhile, you guys on the right, keep up your good work mocking the president for trying to bring the Olympics to the U.S. We know what you really care about: bringing Obama down, even if we lose because of it. But I am betting that the American people can tell the difference between self-destructive xenophobia and patriotism.
Ted Kennedy and Obama
The piece below was written long before we knew the outcome of the presidential election. The fear that I expressed in the last line proved unfounded. And it did so in large measure because of legislation that Ted Kennedy helped enact during his years in the Senate, which helped make us a more tolerant people.
….
“The President, the Senator, and the Candidate”
(May 21, 2008) Today, as the severity of Senator Kennedy’s condition became more apparent, I found myself, once again, back in seventh grade. I am in a large hall, waiting in line. I am not sure what the line is for, and for some reason the line can’t seem to form properly. We seem to be waiting to go into an auditorium. Words are migrating from student to student. It is November 22nd, 1963. The President has been shot. Next to me stands a sweet looking young girl. Shoulder length dirty blond hair. Delicate features. And she says, “I hope that he dies.” This was the President who had taken us through the Cuban Missile Crisis, who spoke of civil rights, and who had two young children. And she wanted him dead. Her hatred was palpable and irrational. In retrospect, given the times, I have always wondered whether her enmity was due to the fact that he was a Catholic, and one who supported civil rights.
At 12 years old, I couldn’t fathom what I was hearing. I was struck dumb. I simply couldn’t respond. I just stared at her and turned away. Now, of course, I know that it was not her wish, but her parents’ or some relative’s wish. But over the years this fact has only intensified the shock. Everyone says that they remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy was shot. I remember. But I also recall a young girl who believed that she wanted to see him dead.
Before I became fully aware of the deep divisions in the country over civil rights, Vietnam, or “values,” I knew that if this young president could create such hostility, something was terribly wrong. And so it was. I suppose that this was my introduction to the 1960’s. Every now and again this scene reappears. Sometimes it arises for no apparent reason. Sometimes it arises at appropriate moments, like today, when we have learned that Senator Kennedy is gravely ill.
I have disagreed with the Kennedys. But I remember supporting Bobby. And of course I remember him being shot. I also remember Teddy trying so very hard, over four long decades, to do the right thing (as he saw it) for the underprivileged and marginalized. I recently cheered as The Lion of the Senate passed the torch to Obama. He was aging. Now that he had found someone he trusted to carry on the Kennedy legacy, there was an arc from 1963 to 2008, an arc that the last eight years of Bush, Rove, Cheney, et al, seemed to have made impossible. But as I have watched the returns from certain states, such as Kentucky this evening, I return to that space in 1963, and I am afraid. I fear for Senator Obama. And I fear that as a nation we will fail to do the right thing because we are still too afraid of those who are “not like us.”
Cheney’s Torture Dance
August 26, 2009. It would be nice to believe that sometimes an old dog can be taught new tricks. Definitely not the case with Dick. Now that the CIA report has made it clear just how immoral the so-called enhanced interrogations techniques were, all Dick can do is repeat his claim that we got results. Two obvious points: 1) Experts dispute this claim. Other methods are more productive. 2) The international agreements against torture don’t say, “Well, if you think it will get results, go ahead and torture.” They say, “Torture is immoral and unacceptable. Don’t do it!”
We tried enemy combatants in WWII as war criminals for some of the same acts that have recently been committed in our name.
Since old dogs like Dick Cheney can’t be taught new tricks, I thought it worth bringing back two posts from last spring.
….
Harsh Techniques (torture) to be used to Combat Swine Flu
April 26, 2009. The United States declared a public health emergency today. Although it appears that no one has died or become seriously ill in the U.S. from a new strain of the swine flu, health officials are taking no chances. All of the traditional measures to combat epidemics have been set in motion. Funds will be made available for anti-viral drugs, and time-tested and effective methods for tracking and preventing the spread of disease will be utilized. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is reassuring the public, citing its decades of experience in handling epidemics and its recent preparation for pandemics.
However, former Vice President Cheney, through a spokesman, is calling on the CDC to avoid thinking within the box in deciding on measures to halt this attack on our nation. “We can’t afford not to act with every means available to us,” said his spokesman. Inside the CDC there is mounting pressure to consult with agents from the CIA to examine how harsh interrogation techniques might be of service. With fear mounting and pressure growing, expert legal advice is being sought in order to provide the proper “legal cover” for actions that international agreements have outlawed as torture.
“Look,” said a representative from the former VP’s office, “you gotta do what you gotta do. There are swine out there who, or I should say, that are dangerous. We need to know what, where, and when.” The plan seems to be to find the pigs that are harboring the terrorist virus, and apply harsh techniques, torture if you will, in order force them to provide operational intelligence.
There has been some concern that the swine won’t talk. But everyone should know that swine are among the most intelligent animals, according to experts in covert intelligence. A spokesperson for the CDC insists that with proper guidance, waterboarding a pig is possible, and it will get the animal to talk, and talk fast. (He then handed this reporter a copy of Animal Farm.)
Questioned about violating the rights of these animals, a Cheney spokesman said, “What’s the difference? Whether it’s a human animal or an animal animal. If it attacks you, or if you believe that it might possibly attack, you go after it.” There was little response to a question directed to Cheney himself (as he was walking his dog) by one reporter, “What about all of the innocent pigs, for example, the three little ones, that were just minding their business, trying to build lives for themselves?” Cheney did say that if we could apply harsh techniques to the virus itself, we would. But since we don’t have the technical means to do so, as many of the swine as possible gotta be boarded.
Asked to comment, The White House declined, claiming that as an inanimate object it had little to say. Although a spokesman for the President did say that if the tactics were forward-looking enough, and did not constitute a threat to his domestic agenda, he might be able to get his team behind the CDC. In any case, no CDC employee will be prosecuted for actions deemed acceptable by agency lawyers.
A spokesperson for the Humane Society claimed to be too upset to return this reporter’s call.
….
Cheney and Torture (or how the ex-VP fails Ethics 101)
April 21, 2009
The New York Times reports the following comments by Cheney in reaction to Obama’s release of the Bush administration memos defending acts of torture:
As the debate escalated, Mr. Cheney weighed in, saying that if the country is to judge the methods used in the interrogations, it should have information about what was obtained from the tough tactics.
“I find it a little bit disturbing” that “they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Mr. Cheney said on Fox News. “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity.” ”Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations,” April 20, 2009,
Leaving aside the fact that experts in the field have consistently challenged the utility of torture, leaving aside the fact that we could have gotten more information through alternative methods of interrogation, and leaving aside the fact that by torturing prisoners we increase the chances that our own soldiers will be tortured, what Cheney’s comments reveal is the poverty of the ethical imagination of the Bush administration.
Yes, there are good arguments to be made for taking into consideration consequences in judging whether acts are ethical. There is a whole philosophical tradition built around this notion, Utilitarianism. However, the idea that we can justify torture based on “the success” of the method, which presumably means the successful gathering of intelligence, is precisely what every declaration of human rights, including the Geneva Convention, repudiates. (As does every form of sophisticated Utilitarianism.)
Imagine if I said, let’s rape prisoners in order to get the information that we need. No decent human being would tolerate this as a legitimate means of gathering information. Rape is a basic violation of the dignity and integrity of another human being. It’s horrific to think that governments might write legal briefs defending rape on the grounds that it produced information that they needed. Yet, how different is torture from rape? It too is a basic violation of the dignity and integrity of another human being. If one thinks about what the act of torture does to another human being (and what it does to the torturer), it can be viewed as a form of rape, just as rape can be understood as a form of torture. Nevertheless, the Bush administration’s lawyers wrote legal opinions defending acts that time and again have been labeled torture.
So, here is my suggestion in response to Cheney. When he says, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity,” replace the last part of the sentence, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of raping human beings.” Now, tell me whether anyone who is even moderately ethical, or anyone who wants to defend the ideals for which this country stands, would be willing to utter such a sentence? But this is in fact a sentence that follows from Cheney’s crude consequentialism.
Cheney is a clever but hopelessly thoughtless man, who was part of a thoughtless administration. He still doesn’t understand how much damage he did to this country in his efforts to protect us. (And let’s not forget, his methods aren’t even good ones in terms of protecting the country.)
….
UPDATE, April 22, 2009: Former FBI supervisory agent discusses recent claims about the effectiveness of torture.
“My Tortured Decision” (excerpt)
By ALI SOUFAN, April 22, 2009, The New York Times
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence….
Socialism is not the Issue: Don’t let them fool us again
There is a cottage industry in the making: “Obama the socialist” paraphernalia. One of the striking features of this industry is the confusion that stands behind it. As revealed in pictures above, some people don’t know the difference between National Socialism (fascism, Nazis; image one above: Nazi Brown Shirt/Obama) and Communism (sometimes called socialism; image two: Lenin/Obama). The two groups hated each other and fought bloody wars. Yet, for some, hey, a socialist is a socialist. And they want to make you believe that Obama is one, which will help to kill health care reform, for the fifth or sixth time in U.S. history.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three, four and five times, hand me the clown suit.
If one were to believe Fox News, the fear of socialism is running rampant in the Land. Folks who regularly depend on government sponsored hearth care, for example, the Medicare program and the Department of Veterans Affairs, or who will someday depend on them, appear to feel no compunction about attacking the public option in Obama’s health care plan. For some reason, it is socialism, but Medicare and Social Security are not. Of course, these are not the only individuals attacking Obama. There are radical free marketers who in principle just hate the idea of the government getting involved in anything. They would even kill Social Security. (I wonder how many of them don’t have health care or are in danger of losing theirs.) After all, if the government gets involved, it will undermine the private insurance companies, and with this undermining the fall of capitalism and America can’t be far behind.
What is the main argument against a government sponsored alternative: the government, which can’t seem to do anything right, will undermine well-run insurance companies, because a government sponsored option will be non-profit. The counterargument: if we don’t have good non-profit competition, the price of insurance will continue to skyrocket and help bankrupt the country.
There is a lot of fear in insurance land. We seem to have here companies that are afraid to compete with a government run program. I wonder why. Fear that their bloated profits might shrink? Fear that they will be put out of business?
But the magic of the market should be able to find a place for private companies, even with a government sponsored alternative. Does every vet choose the services of the Veterans Administration over private health care? Surely not. If the private insurance companies have good products to market, they will find patients, even with a public option available. The public option that Obama is recommending is not going to be so attractive that it will drive out of the market well-run and reasonably priced private insurance. But if the insurance companies don’t provide good service at reasonably prices, it should be their problem, not ours.
To return to socialism. The funny thing about this debate is that few young people have any idea about the dangers of socialism. That’s because they have grown up in a world in which there aren’t any dangers from socialism, at least not in the way in which the over 50 set remember. And those who seem to be most concerned (look at the crowds at some of the town halls), appear to be those currently benefiting from Social Security and Medicare or those who will be benefiting within a decade or two. This form of “socialism” is quite fine and dandy. (Just try to find a Republican member of the Senate who wants to do away with these programs.)
The danger for the young is not socialism; it is a capitalism that is malfunctioning and cannot compete. One way to hamstring the American system is by perpetuating the endlessly wasteful health care system that we now have. Many in big industry recognize this. The question is rather simple for them: how do we compete against countries whose overhead for manufactured goods is markedly less than ours because their health care expenses eat less of the pie?
If we let fears from another era get the best of us now, we will have no one to blame but ourselves and (some special interests) for a declining standard of living in the years to come.
Lauro Nyro, Singer-Songwriter
Some readers have wondered why I have not been writing and posting new pieces on politics. I have taken something of a “sabbatical” this summer as I finish a book on the topics of self-determination and cosmopolitanism. I expect blogging fever to return before August is out.
In the meantime I have been posting a few clips that might be of interest to readers of UP@NIGHT. Last week I wrote about the work of the singer-songwriter Kenny Rankin, and I mentioned Laura Nyro’s influence on him. Having done so, I realized that readers under 50 may never have heard of Nyro, even though her songs have been covered by many others. I found Kenny Rankin’s work to be uneven, and the same is true for Nyro, but when she hit it, she really hit it.
There aren’t very many videos of her around. The two below leave much to be desired in terms of audio quality, but given where the country is right now, her “Save the Country” seems an appropriate pick. Her “Poverty Train” can be found about a minute and fifteen seconds into the second clip. (She was only 19 years old when she sung “Poverty Train” at the Monterey Festival, one of her first major live performances.) If you haven’t heard this Bronx original, by all means take a few minutes and check out the clips. (Here is the link to her Wikipedia bio: Laura Nyro.)
“Save the Country”
“Poverty Train”
Kenny Rankin, Singer-Songwriter
I just learned this evening that Kenny Rankin, singer-songwriter, died early in June. He was a unique talent. I first heard him in my teens on his first album, Mind Dusters, singing the songs in the two videos below. If you have never listened to him, the videos are worth watching. Below the video is most of the current entry on Rankin from Wikipedia. (I never thought my musical tastes would have anything in common with Johnny Carson’s, but one never knows.) He was no Bob Dylan or Miles Davis, but he never tried to be. I liked him best when it was just him and his guitar…..his voice, as always, uncannily sweet and heartfelt.
Three facts about Kenny’s life that I just discovered: he played guitar on Dylan’s “Bringing It All Back Home” album, often opened for George Carlin, and Laura Nyro was a tremendous influence on him (as she was on others, including Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan). According to the L.A. Times:
One of his major influences was Laura Nyro, the late songwriter who wrote “Wedding Bell Blues” and “Stoned Soul Picnic,” whom he met in Greenwich Village in 1960. [Unlikely it would have been 1960, as opposed to the 1960s, since Nyro was 12 and 13 in 1960-- M.A.]
“She profoundly changed my musical life and affected it to this day, more than anyone or anything else,” Rankin told the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto in 2007. “She was deep, dark and light, the spectrum of passion.”
Mind Dusters (jacket)
….
“Peaceful”
In the mornin fun when no one will be drinkin anymore wine,
I wake the Sun up by givin him a fresh share
full of the wind cup
And I won’t be found in the shadows hiding,
Sorrow
I can wait for fate to bring around to me,
Any part of my tomorrow….tomorrow
(chorus):
Cause it’s oh…oh so peaceful here
No one bendin over my shoulder
Nobody breathin in my ear.
Oh uh oh… it’s oh so peaceful here
In the evening shadows are callin me
And the dew settles in my mind
And I think of friends in the yesterday
When my plans were giggled in rhyme
I had a son while on the run
And his love brought a tear to my eye
And maybe some day he might say
That I’m a pretty nice guy…Oh Oh my
Oh.Oh My
(repeat chorus)
And it’s:…etc.
end: It’s (oh so peaceful ) (3 times) here
….
“Dolphin”
….
From Wikipedia:
Rankin was raised in New York and was introduced to music by his mother, who sang at home and for friends. Early in his career he worked as a singer-songwriter, and developed a considerable following during the 70s with a steady flow of albums, three of which broke into the Top 100 of the Billboard Album Chart. His liking for jazz was evident from an early age, but the times were such that in order to survive his career had to take a more pop-oriented course. By the 90s, however, he was able to angle his repertoire to accommodate his own musical preferences and to please a new audience while still keeping faith with the faithful. Rankin’s warm singing style and his soft, nylon-stringed guitar sound might suggest an artist more attuned to the supper-club circuit than the jazz arena, but his work contains many touches that appeal to the jazz audience.
Rankin appeared on The Tonight Show more than twenty times. Host Johnny Carson was so impressed by him that he wrote the liner notes to Rankin’s 1967 debut album Mind Dusters, which featured the single “Peaceful.” Helen Reddy would reach #2 Adult Contemporary and #12 Pop in 1973 with a cover of it, released as her follow-up single to “I Am Woman”. Georgie Fame also had a hit with this song in 1969, his only songwriting credit to hit the British charts reaching number sixteen and spending 9 weeks on the chart.[1]
Rankin’s accompanists from time to time included Alan Broadbent, Mike Wofford and Bill Watrous, and on such occasions the mood slips easily into a jazz groove. His compositions have been performed by artists such as Mel Tormé and Carmen McRae, while Stan Getz said of him that he was “a horn with a heartbeat”. Rankin was deeply interested in Brazilian music and his Here In My Heart, on which he used jazz guests including Michael Brecker and Ernie Watts, was recorded mostly in Rio De Janeiro. More contemporary songs were given an airing following his move to Verve Records, including the Beatles’ “I’ve Just Seen A Face” and Leon Russell’s “A Song For You.”
Rankin’s own unique gift for reworking classic songs such as The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” which he recorded for his Silver Morning album, so impressed Paul McCartney that he asked Rankin to perform his interpretation of the song when McCartney and John Lennon were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Rankin died in Los Angeles from lung cancer on June 7, 2009. He was 67 years old.[2] Alternate source, The Los Angeles Times’ obituary, says Rankin was 69.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Rankin
The Word – Neutral Man’s Burden | July 16, 2009 | ColbertNation.com
I had been planning to write a blog on the bogus ways that the notion of “impartiality” has been used in the hearings for Judge Sotomayor. I still plan to, even though Colbert and his writers have hit one out of the park on the rather implausible notion of “neutrality” that has been bandied about by Republican senators and pundits.
“Sour” Video Suggests that Species is Worth Saving
There are a lot of reasons to be embarrassed about being a member of the human species. Take the way that the “leadership” in Iran is currently behaving. But then there are reminders of just why the species is worth saving. Today’s reminder is brought to you by the Japanese group “Sour.” Enjoy.
(Those in the video are fans of “Sour.” The creation of a world wide culture does indeed appear to be accelerating, not one that necessarily replaces other cultures, but exists as a new “intracultural “space.”)
A nod to Andrew Sullivan for finding this music video.
Senator Elect Al Franken, A Man Who Has His Priorities Right
Nice to know that the new senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, has his priorities right.
Iran: Sites for the Most Recent Information
June, 20, 2009. “The Daily Dish” (and other sites)
The uprising in Iran is one of the most important and compelling stories of the new millennium. How events unfold in Iran will be crucial to the region, but they will also tell us something about how future resistance against authoritarian regimes can be organized.
The MSM is having difficulty keeping up with events for the some of the same reasons that the Iranian autocrats are finding it difficult to shut down the protests and close off Iran to the world, namely, new technologies. Posted below are links to sites that should be helpful in keeping up-to-date.
The Daily Dish-Andrew Sullivan (the site that is the most comprehensive)
Iran Up-Dates (Video): Live Blogging the Uprising, Huffington Post
….
PM, June 20, 2009, President Obama’s statement:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
….
Obama has been criticized for not saying enough. Wrong! He has played this absolutely correctly. We don’t need to give Iranian autocrats any more “reasons” to blame foreign interference. Obama could not have prevented the violence by taking sides. He could have only weakened the oppostion’s hand. We all know where Obama, the community organizer, stands on this one. There will be time for tough talk.
