Schools, school reform

I've been away from this blog. All none of you readers may have noticed that. I'm not going to bother giving excuses or making pithy comments about it here; just wanted to note this interesting link/conversation:

A *MUST* listen-to for people concerned with education, schools, school reform. Discussion of the movie Waiting for Superman, Harlem Childrens' Zone, Promise Schools, and charter schools and more. (Apparently only 1 in 5 charter schools "succeed", and programs like the Harlem Childrens' Zone have endowments greater th...an some colleges...) This convo starts around 9:20.
http://www.theroot.com/http://www.theroot.com/multimedia/confab-oct-1-2010

One excerpt: "If you look at the top ten countries in math, science and reading scores, all of them have teaching forces that are unionized. If unions are the problem, these all should be dropping down..."

J-Friend ASP points out "And some or our worst performing US states are the least unionized..."

J-Friend AL amplifies: "I read a great Diane Ravitch critique of the film recently, too. Ah, here it is: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/"

She also "Really want to read the Paul Tough book about the HCZ - I like his writing on education a lot."

Starving during surplus; surplus of starving

Another bit here reinforcing the importance poverty/lack of socio-economic power in causing hunger and malnutrition (a topic J recently got in an extended discussion with J-friend NP; to be re-posted here eventually).

Quoting Ms. Nierenberg of the WorldWatch Institute,

One of the most interesting things Thurow explained was how the success of African farmers became their failure-in 2001, the Ethiopian harvest was the best most farmers had ever seen. They had record yields and had more food than ever to feed their families, as well as to bring to market. But that surplus caused prices to collapse more than 80 percent. Farmers couldn’t pay their debts and they cut back their expenses the next season-they planted less, they used less inputs like fertilizers and hybrid seeds, and planted just enough to (hopefully) feed their families. When the famine hit hard in2002-2003 , the same farmers, write Thurow and Kilman, who had carried their surplus grain to market the season before, were now carrying their malnourished and starving children to food aid centers. And at the same time, Ethiopian grain traders had warehouses packed to the ceiling with surplus food because foreign aid agencies were buying foreign-mostly U.S. grain-instead of from local suppliers. As a result, while millions of people in Ethiopia went hungry, more than 300,000 tonnes of grain rotted either in fields or in storage.

This is rather similar to a story that was formational in the J-career related to food issues, from a 2002 NYT story, Poor in India Starve as Surplus Wheat Rots (original article is here, but I wanted to make sure readers weren't blocked by a possible NYT subscription wall). Not to pick another debate with NP, but these articles reinforce the pivotal role of poverty/lack of political power in hunger, as in both cases, there are surpluses that are going to waste rather than feeding people (although the details seem reversed, with farmers getting high, possibly inflated prices in one circumstance but underpaid in another, although J highly suspects that the farmers benefitting in India in 2002 were primarily large farmers). Fortification or yield increases or self-generation of pesticides (through genetic modification or other means) would none of them address the problems of hunger confronting the millions of people in these cases, because neither production nor nutrient content were the problem. (The argument with NP to be reprinted here revolved somewhat over Golden Rice (yes, again); one of his points was the fact that it might not solve "the" problem is not a reason it can't solve "a" problem; we'll leave it here by saying that is at least plausibly true, even if I think it to not be the case in the overwhelming majority of the time that genetic modification can solve hunger problems when market/governance problems are at root in the examples given, so even granting his point it appears like it may not be generally applicable solution, beyond potential safety and health problems J sees with GMOs... BID (but i digress)). One certainly can't make the point that production could have a secondary positive effect by lowering food prices in the Ethiopia case as in that case, low food prices (and a reliance on agricultural sales rather than self-sufficiency) contributed to hunger via farmer poverty; in the Indian case it appeared that the government was controlling the distribution of surpluses based on international and domestic political pressures, so price and supply themselves weren't necessarily prime factors there either.

BONUS J
Great quote from J-friend JCR, in response to a quote from another J-friend (""Americans are a stupid people by and large--we pretty much believe whatever we’re told.” -- Det. Norris, Baltimore PD, "The Wire"):

We have a very long history of mistrusting the government and believing in the importance of the individual over the community. We're steeped in it, and we don't often question it. This fundamental attitude is easy to manipulate, so that health care for everyone is bad (because you need more government investment to do it), while tax cuts for the rich are good (on the assumption that someone who is rich got that way by individual merit).

We're no lazier or dumber than the rest of the world, but our basic beliefs don't serve us as well as they could.

For the record, JCR partly credits this blog post by Frank Schaeffer for what he calls a not "completely original" sentiment. (Of course he's right; "There's nothing new under the sun", but then again, genius is, in a way, saying what others have thought but perhaps did not realize: "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.")

Frank Ricci: Firefighter, Successful Supreme Court Litigant... Serial Suer?

Dahlia Lithwick writes at Slate about Frank Ricci's penchant for filing suits over jobs. In what might be irrelevant background, a pattern of sour grapes, or a person "repeatedly victimized by a cruel cadre of employers, first for his dyslexia, then again for his role as a whistle-blower, and then a third time for just being white," the recent victor along with the others of Ricci v. DeStefano also just might be "a serial plaintiff—one who reacts to professional slights and setbacks by filing suit, threatening to file suit, and more or less complaining his way up the chain of command." Ricci, who will testify during Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, is, as Lithwick says, thus "not the typical GOP heartthrob." The GOP's stance on discrimination lawsuits seems to be along the lines of J-Friend Dan's philosophy of complaining. As he once said: "I don't believe in complaining about things you can't do anything about. On the other hand, I don't really believe in complaining about all the other stuff either." Switch "complaining" with "lawsuits" and you have the Republican philosophy, or its seeming one, regarding lawsuits for rights infringements (see their repeated attacks on tort lawyers and all that rigmarole).

Lithwick's piece is little more than a trifle, though it certainly paints Ricci in a different light (whether or not that's a fair different light is a different conversation) and makes one wonder why this wasn't brought up before now? Surely, this wasn't just discovered. And like I say, it might be irrelevant, but it could've been a choice part of the discourse anyway, considering how much the focus was on "being fair" to Ricci and his colleagues, who "earned" their promotions based on the standards given, regardless of whether the standards were the best ones to evaluate people with or were discriminatory as such Title VII was heretofore determined.

New Haven's Firefighters: Race, White firefighters, and civil rights, Part the Nth

A really fantastic piece, or seemingly from my quick readthrough, by Richard Thompson Ford again, Stanford scholar and previously linked-to commentator on the "New Haven Firefighter Case" of Ricci v. DeStefano.

Ford analyzes how the SCOTUS' finding for the white firefighters (and one Hispanic firefighter) in this promotion case overturns years of civil rights precedent, while going with more recent precedents of treating any attempt at addressing civil rights as creating their own racial (or sexual, in the case of homosexuality) preferences, "reverse discrimination" or "special privileges."

There are two interesting points here (well, many more than that, but two I will make right now.) One is that recent discussions with various J-friends have, unhappily, split pretty clearly along racial lines (though not with any racial overtext, that is, whether or not people agreed or disagreed with the SCOTUS decision fell quite racially within my very small subsample of my friends). BUT, the point of contention seemed to (mainly) fall into "Ricci et al. deserved to win because they played by the rules," that is, the test happened, and taking back what they'd "earned" by going along with the test as written would not be fair, regardless of the errors, biases, whatever of the test. (The "compromise" position found between J-fave D and J was that they were deserving of some recompense for the efforts they put into preparing for the test, even if they were not owed a promotion.) Essentially, as I discussed with J-Mom, it seemed to be a focus on the individual, individualism, and the rights of the individual not to be "harmed" for the good of the whole, or good of another group at least. (This is not at all how the J-friends phrased it, but my interpretation of their objections to my points of view). J-friend Sean felt that institutional racism was real, but of a lessor magnitude than perhaps I may think it was, a lessor magnitude than discrimination from poverty (which is hard, if not impossible, to parse, but suffice it to say I think institutional racism is a profound and not terribly diminished problem, something D seems to agree with to some degree.) Indeed, Sean argued (if I am restating it correctly) that essentially positive preferences for any group are essentially the same, such that discrimination "for" blacks was as bad as discrimination against them (and you can replace "black" with white or Hispanic or what have you here).

Thompson argues that this places many, many programs to address racial programs at risk, as in the end, they all hinge on treating one group differently than another or end up displacing some people who would otherwise have received a job, promotion, or college acceptance. (He uses the example of the 10% programs, where, for example, Texas admits the top 10% of students in their high school class, a supposedly "race-neutral" way of achieving the end of diversity and representation of minorities. As has been pointed out by others, this only works because Texas schools are segregated, thus, you get diverse representation because the top 10% of the class at predominantly black or Latino schools is itself predominantly black, so minorities get represented essentially because they are not integrated (or have lower relative average scores where they are more integrated). As Thompson says:

The university now admits any student in the top 10 percent of his or her public high-school class, and because so many of the public schools in Texas are racially segregated, this guarantees a racially diverse student body. Opponents of race-conscious affirmative action have pointed to this policy as an example of a viable, race-neutral alternative. But no one denies that the motivation for dropping the traditional admissions criteria in favor of the 10 percent plan is to achieve a better racial mix. Extending the logic of Ricci, this looks like impermissible race discrimination against the students who would have been admitted under the old criteria, just as dropping the firefighter promotion exam was impermissible race discrimination against the white firefighters who would have been promoted.

I think this poses a challenge to those who agree with the Ricci decision, unless they hold the very narrow stance that it is only because the test already happened that it was unfair discrimination. As Thompson points out, how would the case be (legally) different if, before the test, the city chose to use one test that they knew from previous data would tend to favor a more diverse mix (i.e. less whites and more minorities) rather than a test that would favor more whites. The intent there is almost exactly the same as throwing out the results for, as some of my friends posed it, "having too many white people". So if Ricci is unfairly discriminating against whites, using a test that you know would admit more minorities also should be, to be logically consistent.

The second point, which you may have forgotten I even supposedly had at this point, is that Ford reiterates that Ricci is a change in the status quo. As J-Mom AND the article by Bazelon I've prattled about here for the past week pointed out, the previous standard for a "discriminatory" test was just that the results were discriminatory. Governments typically used an "80% rule":

Title VII requires employers not just to inspect their hearts and not find any discriminatory intent, but to consider the racial impact of things like tests. And the EEOC, in interpreting this requirement, has given clear guidance about what impact counts as suspect:

"A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact, while a greater than four-fifths rate will generally not be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact."

The rates at which blacks and Hispanics passed the New Haven tests were well below 80% of the rate at which whites passed. That means that those tests were presumptively in violation of the law. (from Obsidian Wings)

Thus, the Court set aside the typical way things were done, where (as I have pointed out to J-friends), a test that has that much racial disparity is presumptively discriminatory, which seems to me a fine first pass at such things in a world of institutional discrimination, which I see as a very large on-going problem, contra J-friend EssEee.

As to the earlier point over the "fairness" to the individual, two other interesting bits:

Obsidian Wings: I have read many professions of outrage about this decision, but most of them focus on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that Frank Ricci didn't get his promotion, rather than what the law requires. This puzzled me.

And Walter Dellinger:

Given that no one had been promoted and no one had been denied promotion, it's very hard to see how the firefighters who brought suit were able to establish the very first element of a Title VII action: the existence of an "adverse employment action." In addition to satisfying the statute, it would have been far better for the process to judge New Haven actions after promotion decisions were actually made using whatever new standards the city chose to adopt. Completing the process would have shed light on the question of whether there were in fact equally good (or perhaps, better) criteria for determining promotions, and with far less racial disproportion... Which takes us to the fact that Justice Kennedy's opinion relies in part on a logically flawed, categorical error. He writes: "If an employer cannot rescore a test based on the candidates' race [citing the Title VII provision], then it follows a fortiori that it may not take the greater step of discarding the test altogether to achieve a more desirable racial distribution of promotion-eligible candidates..." This is wrong. There is a very powerful difference between setting aside the results of a test based on what you learn from general racial statistics about those who took the test, on the one hand, and adjusting individual test scores on the basis of race, on the other... Using race to identify a problem has never before been considered problematic. It is what necessarily happens before institutions adopt the most widely accepted race-neutral actions, like using admissions criteria for every applicant that have less of a racial impact (for example, accepting students in the top 10 percent of their high-school class, which, in states like Texas, would produce a racially diverse student body). Contrary to Kennedy's assertion, deciding not to use test results should be far less problematic than "rescoring based on race." ...Here, all New Haven did was set aside the results of a test. It seems to me that test would have been very hard to defend, given the other questionable employment rules that surrounded it. New Haven counts the multiple-choice test as 60 percent of what determines promotion. That places twice the weight on test-taking as the median for firefighter promotions around the country. How can that unusually great a weight be justified? Kennedy says only that it was insisted upon by the union. Yep. That was two decades ago, when the union was dominated by the white firefighters. That so great a weight should necessarily be given to a multiple-choice test used to pick leaders out of a group of qualified firefighters is hard to see.

Going back to Ford to wrap up, he asks:

And why stop there? Even recruitment efforts aimed at underrepresented minorities are designed to increase the representation of those groups in work forces and entering classes with a limited number of openings. If these outreach efforts are successful, some minorities will necessarily displace some whites who would otherwise have been hired or admitted. Are those efforts discriminatory, too?

Among other things, I see this case as reflecting a problem of where many want us to be, especially in white America, and where we actually are (or at least how we perceive it in black America, to speak in broad generalities). If you think racism is a significant and real, persistent still-present problem, interventions of a certain size, from affirmative action to throwing out the New Haven test (which depending on how you look at it, was unfair to those who would have been promoted based on how the test was set up before hand by taking away what they'd earned, or would have been permissible because it threw out results based on the heretofore legally correct presumption that such skewed results were de facto racist) seem reasonable. If you think, know, or wish that racism has receded to the point where a lot less aggressive, race-blind, and minor intervention is all that's needed, it seems understandable to take it from Ricci's side.

Argh. Ok, I have a headache now (unrelated to the post, I think). Até...

Once again, Ruth Bader Ginsberg proves to be the Voice of the J Continuum

God love her. Though I still can't see how RBG and Scalia are supposedly personal friends; I guess they don't let politics get in the way, which in a way is admirable, and another way, kind of... blergh. I guess it's mostly admirable, but it's weird to me: "You have a fundamentally different view of justice, rights, appropriate behavior, and the roll of state than I do, to the point that where I see oppression, you see correctness, where I see sound reasoning you see soft-headedness, and where you see correctness, I see incorrect or wistful interpretation, and continuing of an oppressive system." I guess it's good -- and much needed -- to have friendship across political lines, but when it's someone like Scalia... It'd just be weird hanging with someone who not only differs with you on, say, whether or not the state should put people to death and what constitutes torture, but has and has used his position (quite correctly) to advance his views. (Like I say, it's of course correct for Scalia to do so, it just adds a creepy element to political disagreements, when you each have the power to make your stance part of the "correct" interpretation of the laws of the land.)

Anyway, Emily Bazelon returns to my good graces with this in her recent post on the recent Ricci decision:

Why all the competitive storytelling? The Supreme Court's ruling today will apply whenever cities try to base promotions (or, by extension, hirings) on a procedure that turns out to eliminate most or all of the minority candidates. This is called disparate impact, and Congress wrote it into Title VII in 1991. New Haven's test for promoting firefighters had such a disparate impact—that's one thing all the justices do agree on. The question is, What happens next? Can the city say, hey, we think there's another better way to make these promotions that won't leave us with a fire department led only or mostly by white people; now let us go figure that out? Until today, the answer seemed to be yes. Now the answer is clearly no. If a city in this position sees a disparate impact problem coming toward it like a right, it can only step out of the way if it has, as Linda explains, a "strong basis in evidence" for thinking that the test can't be defended—in other words, that the test it used is more job-related, and a better measure of performances, than the other measures of assessment it didn't use.

The city can't throw out its test even though the results allow for the promotions of no black firefighters because it would be making such a decision based on race or, as Kennedy writes, because "the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white." He is treating the decision to throw out the test and start over as an absolute racial preference. Here is where the bad facts come in: Frank Ricci and the other white (and one Hispanic) firefighters who sued did what they were supposed to do. They studied for the test the city offered, and they scored the highest. But they didn't get the promotions they felt entitled to because no black firefighters scored as well. Justice Ginsburg points out that Ricci and his fellow plaintiffs "had no vested right to promotion." She's right. But to the majority, that doesn't really matter, because the majority focuses only on this test and this round of promotions in New Haven. And when you frame the case that way, Frank Ricci and his dashed hopes take up the whole screen. At which point, you think about justice for them and only them.

Ginsburg widens the lens. She goes back to the early 1970s, when African-Americans and Hispanics made up 30 percent of New Haven's population and only 3.6 of the city's 502 firefighters. This is when the black firefighters in New Haven started suing. Their efforts yielded much better representation among the rank-and-file in the department. But as Ginsburg says, not among the fire department's leadership: "The senior officer ranks (captain and higher) are nine percent African-American and nine percent Hispanic. Only one of the Departments' 21 fire captains is African American." (More from me about the history of New Haven's fire department here.) New Haven threw out the test results because it was trying to rectify that imbalance. To Ginsburg, this should surely be permissible—a city trying voluntarily to comply with Congress' 1991 mandate to address disparate impact.

And then, Ginsburg points out, the majority raises the bar for what New Haven must show to justify throwing out these test results. Kennedy dismisses as "stray facts" in the record the doubts raised about how the test was weighted—60 percent written, 40 percent oral—and the city's proposal to replace the test with an assessment center, which are designed to evaluate the particular skills needed for a job. But Ginsburg sees that the 60-40 weighting simply reflects the demands of the union—the same union that filed its own suit against the city in support of Frank Ricci. And she sees the merit of the assessment centers as an alternative measure. "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least," she writes. "Successful fire officers, the City's description of the position makes clear, must have the '[a]bility to lead personnel effectively, maintain discipline, promote harmony, exercise sound judgment, and cooperate with other officials.' These qualities are not well measured by written tests." No wonder, in Ginsburg's view, a 1996 study found that two-thirds of the cities surveyed were using assessment centers in making promotion decisions.

They make a good point that I've been (inadvertently) dancing around with my fellow discussants in other fora: the (reasonable) sympathy evinced for Ricci and his fellow white (and one hispanic) firefighters in this case is in conflict with the institutional history and less acute but nonetheless real plight of black firefighters in New Haven. And I would differ with my friend EssEee (Sean) who sees institutional racism as less of a problem than institutional discrimination against poverty; I guess part of my counterexample would be the various problems women have with equality of management positions, salary, and promotion (see i.e. Lilly Ledbetter), where the problems of disparity and inequality for women is, if not completely distinct from poverty, relatively so.

More on Ricci v. DeStefano from another forum

J-Friend EssEee said:

Jumping in late here... Has it been demonstrated in any valid way that the test was, in fact, flawed. Or is it merely a case of the results pointing to the possibility of a flawed test?
From my limited knowledge, it appears that the city said "This is the criteria used to determine promotions." and when the results came back and too many people of ... Read Morethe "wrong" race met the criteria, the criteria were changed. Without demonstration that the original criteria were flawed, it seems to be flagrantly a matter of discrimination.

J responds:
(as often happens, I don't get to my point until I ramble through a lot of "thinking out loud." As I occasionally do, I'm reposting the conclusion at the top because I think it contains a brief summary of all the words I wander through to get there. So feel free to read the whole thing, but here's the gist:)
So I argue: can one have a test that discriminates along race but is not itself discrimination or resulting from the structures of racism? I think this is unlikely. And if it is possible to use an alternative but equally or more valid test of ability that doesn't divide along race, how does that compare to the original? If the original is fair does that make the alternative "hyper-fair"? Or if the alternative is equally or more valid, does that mean the original is discriminatory? I think this is an important question to ask. Some argue that looking at the result they got in terms of race and saying you will re-test is discriminatory in itself. I argue that looking at the result and not re-assessing the evaluation to see if there's a better way to do it is racist, because if there's a better way to do it that doesn't end up segregating racially, that seems to de facto mean the original way is flawed. I mean, they can't both be true, can they? If one test yields more racially balanced results, and is a reasonable test of ability, but another test yields racially segregatory results, can this other test also be considered a reasonable test? How can two reasonable tests give different results? And if two reasonable tests do give different results but one favors racial equality, is it racist to demand that test be used (or at least such industry-common alternatives tried)? How do we analyze a situation like this (which seems likely to be what would happen)?

I will say that I'm somewhat rather swayed that those who prepped for the test extensively are owed some kind of recompense, because institutional racism is not their fault, but I don't know that they're owed a promotion. (And if I were ruling the world, the way they'd get recompense would likely be cuts in everyone's salary to pay for a proportional compensation for them, since it is everyone's responsibility in society to agitate for racial equality, though of course in real life, this would just make everyone hate everyone... though that seems to be likely in this case anyway.)

Well I'd challenge you on that EssEee, though I'm fairly sure you'll still disagree. The criteria for discrimination is "disparate impacts", that is, if different races are affected differently, there's a prima facie reason (to my understanding) for assuming discrimination. This was instituted such that people couldn't (consciously or unconsciously) ... Read Morediscriminate after Jim Crow was struck down by trying to tailor tests towards one race. It seems fairly clear, in this case, it *was* tailored towards whites, completely inadvertently, given that it tested (seemingly) esoteric knowledge of the characteristics of fire over practical experience, and the whites were MUCH more likely to be nth generation firefighters, and therefore to possess (or have easy access to) such knowledge.

To me the question I suppose is what do you count as discrimination? The biggest problem this day & age is institutional racism, imho, which is racism inherent in the structures of the society we've built today. You don't have 300+ years of de jure racism without a lot of de facto racism becoming part of the culture and its institutions. To me, there's a good argument for looking at all institutions critically from the standpoint of race & sex, because they were founded on assumptions of inequality, and getting rid of the *rules* of inequality doesn't ... Read Morechange that the institution was founded in it and therefore is likely to have understructures of power favoring one race or sex. In any case, the argument is that if a test affects one race completely differently than another (as seems the case here), it's likely there's a discriminatory factor. After all, there are 3 Occam's Razor type conclusions to be drawn: 1) The white firefighters are inherently more qualified (as measured by the test); 2) they worked harder as a group than Latinos and Blacks; 3) the test (likely unintentionally) exploited factors that aligned racially. The fourth, that it's random chance, seems unlikely given the numbers.

And one has to admit, I think, it's quite possible that the test did discriminate based on racially-aligned factors that are non-obvious . (I guess one of a more libertarian ilk might argue that's tough crap, that society is only responsible for intentional racism and inadvertently racially-aligned factors are not germane, but I could go on for two... Read More pages on why I think that's completely faulty reasoning.)
I guess I'd pose a couple questions on this basis: 1) Is it possible for the city to want to redo the test, purely based on race, because the test *in its results* seemingly discriminated? Aren't results that break too-neatly on racial lines automatically suspect, whatever the cause? In effect, is wanting to redo it simply because not too many of the "wrong" race met the criteria but because only ONE of the non-white races qualified? After all, that's the issue -it's not that the wrong people won, it's that one race all but COMPLETELY dominated promotions. 2) If it is automatically racist to want to redo it just because the test broke down (I would bet) non-randomly along the lines of race? (That is, I bet the chances of getting these results at random from a fair test is very low, so one must assume systematically lower qualifications among the blacks and hispanics or assume the test is inherently unfair.) If this is true, that it is racist to redo the test simply because a not representative enough x-section was promoted, in otherwise, racism can happen in advancement of a fair goal (equality in promotion), then it seems to me it must be equally true that it is inadvertent racism to presume a test is fair and that blacks and hispanics were systematically under-qualified. That is, if it's racist in the pursuit of diversity to re-do a test that, unintentionally or not, strictly divivded on racial lines, then to me it is equally (if not more) tenable to argue that a test that strictly divides along racial lines is de facto racist, unless it can be shown that there's not a different, equally or more valid way to conduct the test that does not break down on racial lines.

In the end, that is my understanding from Richard Thompson Ford of the law -- if there is a way to do it that does not break down racially that is equally or more valid, then it is discriminatory to use the method that does break down along racial lines, even if unintentionally. To me, there are two burdens of proof, a different one for each side: for those who want to redo the test, that the test is unfair in some way; for those that want to follow the results, to prove that the reason it broke down racial lines is skill-related. If both sides fail to prove their contention, I'd argue that the compelling interest of society in having its services reflect its own diversity carries the day. All this is to say, I would (I have to admit, at least now that I've considered all the factors) have to say it would be equally racist if only blacks passed and the test wasn't reconsidered. I mean, think of that -- would you assume the test was fair if only blacks and hispanics succeeded in promotions and only one, or no, white people succeeded? I would think that's suspicious on its face as well.

In the end, I think it is simply wishful thinking to equate "discriminating" in order to achieve racial balance the same as doing so to achieve segregation. One cannot correct a society that was biased along color lines through a color blind approach. You cannot expect all social starting points to be equal while Jim Crow (legal segregation) is still within easily living memory. MLK, often quoted for his "dream" of all living in harmony, did not seem to believe this would be achieved through colorblindness:

Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.
o Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 109

Can it be this "debt of justice" can be paid simply by ignoring race? That doesn't sound like in any way paying a debt to me. He further said:

If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.
o from a 1968 Playboy magazine interview

This is certainly an "argument from authority," but I use it because MLK is so often used to argue for a race-blind society. Can anyone doubt from those two quotes alone that he meant for an equal society to come about by not challenging any institution that has, say, a 30% black population but not 30% blacks at all levels? That he would say the solution to that is not action and re-examination of the method of determining it, but simply, I don't know, hard work and better luck next time?

have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

So I argue: can one have a test that discriminates along race but is not itself discrimination or resulting from the structures of racism? I think this is unlikely. And if it is possible to use an alternative but equally or more valid test of ability that doesn't divide along race, how does that compare to the original? If the original is fair does that make the alternative "hyper-fair"? Or if the alternative is equally or more valid, does that mean the original is discriminatory? I think this is an important question to ask. Some argue that looking at the result they got in terms of race and saying you will re-test is discriminatory in itself. I argue that looking at the result and not re-assessing the evaluation to see if there's a better way to do it is racist, because if there's a better way to do it that doesn't end up segregating racially, that seems to de facto mean the original way is flawed. I mean, they can't both be true, can they? If one test yields more racially balanced results, and is a reasonable test of ability, but another test yields racially segregatory results, can this other test also be considered a reasonable test? How can two reasonable tests give different results? And if two reasonable tests do give different results but one favors racial equality, is it racist to demand that test be used (or at least such industry-common alternatives tried)? How do we analyze a situation like this (which seems likely to be what would happen)?

I will say that I'm somewhat rather swayed that those who prepped for the test extensively are owed some kind of recompense, because institutional racism is not their fault, but I don't know that they're owed a promotion. (And if I were ruling the world, the way they'd get recompense would likely be cuts in everyone's salary to pay for a proportional compensation for them, since it is everyone's responsibility in society to agitate for racial equality, though of course in real life, this would just make everyone hate everyone... though that seems to be likely in this case anyway.)

Great, reflective post on race by Daktari

You will go read it. Yes, you will.

New Rule/Explanation for the use of the word "Nigger"

In case I haven't discussed it before, the J Continuum's feeling on the use of the word "nigger" is that it is clearly unacceptable and undesirable for it to be used as an epithet, but that it is also marginally insane and the worst kind political correctness to believe that one can't use the word when, you know, referring to the word. While this might be overextending an analogy, it to me is in the same genre if different order of magnitude as equating mentioning the word "Holocaust" and actually conducting a systematized killing of Jews. Don't call someone a nigger; but when we adults are talking about it, seriously, can we stop saying "The N word"?

Anyway, there has been in recent years (or decades, rather) a sort of push-back on, "How come blacks can use it talk about each other but it's verboten for everyone else?" Leaving aside the fact that I don't think blacks should use it to refer to each other endearingly as a general rule (this being my least favorite part about the mostly-otherwise-brilliant animated version of The Boondocks) it nonetheless is different when "we" use it rather than white people or others using it pejoratively. On Feministe recently, this post by J-fave PhysioProf briefly discusses this point in a pretty enlightened way, though two posts, here, and here make the excellent points. The first, from "Holly", ends with

Of course, I don’t think it’s that most people don’t get it. At this point they do — they just don’t like black folks being allowed to do something that they can’t.

Lauren's, the latter, references this excellent post by Ta-Nehisi Coates (I have no idea who this nigger* is), in which he says

never thought that because Toby Keith made a record called White Trash With Money, that somehow gave me the right to address random white people in the fashion. I never thought the fact that there was a magazine called Heeb gave me the right to address my Jewish buddies as such. More to the point--I never wanted to. So this is what I don't understand--What's the big beef? Why is that in "Blackworld" the normal laws of human interaction somehow don't apply? I don't get white people who have a hard time with this--you call your mother "Mom," I call her Ms. Phillips--same deal here. Nigger means one thing when used amongst a group of people with similar experiences, and something else when used by people outside of that experience. Nigger when used by black people, is a lovely, lovely thing. I will believe that till the end of my days. It can be beautifully ominous ("Nigger, what?") and just plain beautiful ("Ta-Nehisi, that's my nigger").

Just my $0.02 -- though I don't quite believe the use of the word nigger is a "lovely, lovely thing." It can be said to be amusing versatile at times, like the word "Fuck," though. (I know that's a lame conclusion, but I have work to be doing.)


*I do also, incidentally, think using the words "nigger" or "nigga" ironically or in jest is fine between two people who understand each other. For example, my friends often wonder if they can even say it in front of me in that way, even though we say all sorts of terrible things about other people and groups, expressly because we know each other well enough to understand it's not meant. On the other hand, it does seem to be a still much-charged word in my circles; I can't help but to feel that this is in no small part due to the fact that I am perhaps the only close black friend of many of my friends, or at least, one of the few. I can understand here extra hesitation, and identify with it (I don't usually use the word even in jest around my white friends, or indeed, around anyone usually). What I think is the case is that the de facto segregation that has led to many of my fellow suburban-raised friends having only one or a few black friends puts too fine a point on the wages of US' history to make joking about something like that comfortable. If you're curious as to why/how it may be different, in some opinions, in regards to Italians, Irish, Jews, and other historically discriminated-against classes, see Karen Brodkin's How Jews Became White Folks. Scanning Amazon, there appear to be a number of valid criticisms against it, but I found the chapter I read for a class at least to be a revelatory socio-political analysis of US racial politics, at least for one not already immersed in the literature of that field.

B & J: Conclusion... Or IS it?

Becky commented on the most recent post in the debate.

Comments and response to follow -- but I think we've gotten to the meat of our disagreement and somewhat understand each other's points (I have to say, I don't feel like she completely got mine, but that's what this "Conclusion" is for -- and of course, if she feels like I didn't get hers, it's not really the Conclusion...)

>>I think that even though we agree on nearly every issue, the difference between us is that I believe changing in small ways for the good (e.g., cutting carbon emissions, even if we don't end up cutting enough to advert what is probably certain disaster) is worth doing, rather than doing nothing. So, I'm actually very much for incremental change that helps some people, rather than nothing or more active degradation of the world, etc.<<
I feel rather sure you're not trying to imply that I'm doing nothing, or believe in doing nothing, but that is the implication of how you phrase this. Be that as it may; incremental changes are great! Yay incremental changes! But my question is: do they work? Can they avert disaster? I view this as a scientific question, prone to analysis and evidence. I personally feel that the evidence in this case says "No." However, I don't advise doing nothing -- to the contrary! -- I advise doing more. We, all of us, should be spending more time trying to figure out what and how we can do more to change the political infrastructure around us. Dorian Warren, professor of political science at Columbia and whom I heard speak at the New Left Forum last week, assessed it thus: we spend too much time worrying about the person of the presidency/elective office and not enough on the infrastructure that constrains them. Obama, whether he wanted to or not, cannot go outside of certain constraints and still succeed (Dorian's example was the fact that to be an elected black senator in Illinois, you *have* to be a member of a black church in order to gain the aid of some institution with levers to pull within the political machine -- other ways to access the political machine are largely closed to you. And in Dorian, an African-American, and my opinion, it's simply a fact that many if not most black churches are going to have Rev. Wright-like rhetoric at some point. African American church rhetoric is simply not acceptable to mainstream America.) Anyway, Obama seems to have potentially leapt past this issue for now, but it remains to be seen what happens when he has to make his (admittedly eloquent, moving, and inspired) pitch on getting past race to loads of skeptical centrists and conservatives. ANYWAY, the same machine politics constrain Obama's choices in poverty, GCC, etc. -- so voting for him is inherently unlikely to accomplish the larger goals because it does nothing to change the political infrastructure of the United States.

I'm babbling again, but the basic point is this: a) as I've said, I don't believe the necessary changes are possible given the two-party system; b) there is, practically speaking, zero chance any national Democrat -- or Republican -- will actively help to break the two-party system (and if there were, we should vote for them) and reform into a better system; c) if a and b are true, then it is absolutely necessary that effort on incremental change go, for the large part, towards changing the two-party system!!!, which d) of necessity means *not* supporting Democrats who seem unlikely to do this, which means not supporting most of them.

I hardly think it's hopeless! I think staying within the two parties is hopeless, BUT I do believe it's possible for us, yes, incrementally to get out of this system by taking votes away from Democrats who do not go outside the normal box profoundly. The fact that *others* (including, perhaps, Becky) think that such a change is impossible, or that it would be impossible to do this through the strategy proposed, does NOT mean I advocate doing nothing or disparage incremental change. But history does show us, I believe, that the majority of important changes are drastic, not incremental, and accomplished (in democratic cases) not through presidencies, but through movements and after disasters (and as I've said, if you have a strong movement, the president seems almost irrelevant, i.e. Nixon on civil rights).

>>The only other point I must make is that we are both somewhat on the fringe of American politics and many of the policies we see as requisite are not passed by Dems or Reps because they do not reflect US public opinion.<<
That's the thing! Look at the polls! We are *not* on the fringe. Well, in the specifics perhaps we are. But broadly -- poll after poll after poll shows that people want more action on poverty, GCC, education and less spending on the defense budget. They also say they'd be willing to pay higher taxes for it -- it's the lobbyists, after all, who are most hyped on tax cuts, that's not what the average voter lists first on their list of priorities. The average person in US cares much MORE that their taxes are spent wisely (a difficult thing to do and to convince people you're doing, true) than about lessening taxes. For one example article on American priorities, see this. so I must again emphasize -- the problem is not rooted only or even primarily in the will of the American people, their priorities, or who has the presidency -- it's the system that creates a public that is commonly ignored. (Not to forget -- many, many Americans don't vote -- isn't it possible, just *possible* that a candidate who *really* seemed different would attract these predominately poor and minority voters? Isn't it likely that a politician who *would* have stood up in the scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 would do more to singly effect change in the US than several democratic presidents?)

What we are on the "fringe" of would be religious beliefs and civil rights, generally -- gays, guns and abortion as they say. Important issues, but also issues likely best addressed outside of a two party system.

>>I think you may be right about the current war funding, but when I hear people talk about it, I get the feeling that if Congress did step in and decrease funding in any way for the troops, they would lose all hope of re-election, which as politicians they certain don't want.<<
Considering that a) anecdotal evidence is unreliable and b) people quite certainly wanted more than the Democrats delivered (re-authorizing FISA for fuck's sake?), I don't find this convincing. Besides which, we can hardly admire Obama for his boldness in taking on the race discourse in a challenging way but condone him or his colleagues lacking exactly this boldness, innovation, or honesty on the war. And I really, truly don't believe that no one is clever enough to construct a way to change war funding that could be played as *directly beneficial* to the troops. The fact that the Republicans would gnash teeth and wrench hair no matter what just means that one may as well do *something real* rather than pitiful tokenism, which defintively ALSO makes people lose confidence in Congress.

>>this discussion. My basic point is that I don't see Nader as doing anything to truly help the cause of having alternatives to the two major parties, and perhaps he could do a lot more as a senator (had he been one in 2000, he could have stopped the coronation, like you said)<<
Well, for one thing, one of his points is that Congresspeople have a, what, 98% re-election rate? It's almost impossible to break in until someone dies. And even then, you need support from the Rahm Emmanuels of the Democratic elite, who, for example, seem to have encouraged supporting Dennis Kucinich's opponent in the Cleveland Democratic Primaries as punishment for Kucinich defying their desires to drop impeachment bills. This is not just notable because it was a punishment for DK; it would've been at least a mild punishment for the Dems themselves by losing the 12 years seniority DK had. 12 years is no Conyers, it's true, but if I recall the House puts some weight on seniority, and a freshman Congressperson from an incumbent district does indicate some loss of aggregate power. Nader, even if he had the temperament or charisma to run for Congress (which I will readily admit he doesn't, nor for president) would likely not make it past the gatekeepers.

>>or running for something other than President every four years.
Well, I could agree with you here, but the point of my strategy is not actually Nader, though he does make my strategy more tolerable. My historical-analysis based strategy is to avoid the "necessary" socioecological disaster that will bring about change by causing an electoral break large enough to shift the US political system. I'm fine with doing this incrementally -- and to me, part of this incremental fight is cashing out of the Democratic party (until and unless some candidate runs that I *substantively agree with at least in part on issues of empire, not just traditional issues* -- Obama's threatened bombing of Pakistan or Iran represent quite unacceptable variations from this to me, among others). I enjoy Nader because I can vote *for* him; I could take the tactic of some friends and very knowledgeable colleagues and write-in someone else, anyone else. I could take the implicit tactic of the poor here in the US and the explicit tactic of the poor and their supporters and liberals in many other countries and purposefully not vote at all, in protest. I prefer, though, to stand for something rather than just against.

I may consider voting for Obama this year, since, as I said, to my thinking failing is still failing, whether or not you tried half-assedly. I don't think presidential elections are the road to important change (for what it's worth, Dorian Warren, a bona fide political scientists, seemed to back this up in his analysis). Given that attitude, voting for O for the symbolic value of a black president and to appease my Dem friends is relatively low-cost as an individual act. But just as I have spent a *lot* of time considering Obama (if not as much as I should've I suppose), I would ask that my friends and colleagues at arms spend some time researching the history, evidence, arguments that compose my views. One quite certainly doesn't have to be a political scientist to achieve political savvy -- but one does have to study, just as one would study a science. And I guarantee you, historical analysis can be done by college-educated non-political scientists -- and even non-college-educated non-scientists! I really want to be clear that I mean this earnestly: supporters of incremental change, of ANY change, really need to make an effort to do this, BUT those of us with jobs in the "sitting-and-thinking" sector have, I think, a special obligation to do so. Avoiding this obligation to be informed and versed in history and politics is, I think, to block the very change we wish to be in the world. (I'm not accusing you of doing this, Becky -- of avoiding obligation; this is general soap-boxing writ large, especially brought out by some recent conversations I've had here at UM.) --J

The J-Haiku (Jaiku?)

This web-widget makes haikus out of your blog. Most of the one's it's made for J are nonsense; we like this one though:

dasani please yes
the dasani made of tap
water that is rape

god, I couldn't love that more.

Haikus are well and good. But don't forget to keep reading the continuing political debate with J-friend Becky, though.

Becky, Nader, Politics, and I should soooooooooo be in bed

A hasty posting for you.

Further debates with J-friend Becky on the presidential election, electoral politics, and history.

It's late (or early). Read. J go sleep.

>>I concede that every US president, Democrat or Republican, has continued the imperialist trend. I do not disagree that all have done a lot to cause harm across the world.<<
This is a bit of an understatement. And as I said, and you didn't address, as much or more of this was under the Dems as the Reps. And it's not just "harm"; it's thousands, if not millions, of deaths at the hands of our military or our proxies. This is hardly something to be brushed past.

>>I certainly agree that the Dems in Congress often seem to be spineless creeps who can't vote against anything, but I also must recognize that even if they had all moved to stop the Prez at any stage, they did/do not have the votes to override a veto.<<
True, but it's a non sequitir to maintain that they should therefore pass bills that are likely to be signed by the President because they give him everything he wants. The fact that he can veto bills, but that Congress controls spending, should make a Democratic-controlled Congress highly effective actually, being that they can cut off funding for any number of things -- it doesn't have to be funding for troops directly that they cut off. Or they could even be clever and transfer huge sums from the "emergency" bills put at the Admin's discretion and then spend it on the VA or research programs for the wounded vets. The fact that they can't override a veto doesn't mean that they're powerless, but that's how they seem to interpret it.

>>I do hold it against them that they voted for the Iraq war and the PATRIOT Act, but at least some of them didn't and some of them are now trying to do damage control on these issues and others.<<
Not to the extent that they've taken any political risks on it. You realize that the US public is more progresive on the war than the US Dem-controlled Congress? Surely, there's a better way to use that than to play out the clock and damage control until the elections. They've done precious little of substance to stop PATRIOT from continuing -- i.e. they renewed the warrantless wiretapping in FISA before they recessed last time! That was purely unacceptable and indefensible -- yet they've done it.

>>I'd like to note that there are few issues that the Democrats so shiningly do differ from Republicans on. Most obvious first: One is equal rights for all Americans, including homosexuals.<<
While this might actually appear blindingly obvious, I'd argue that as a party they're ineffective at the national level, and at the local level there are conservative libertarians who are just as fine with homosexual rights as liberals (with a variety of differences that vary from important to mundane, true). But a Dem congress that gives lipservice to gay rights but does little isn't particularly helpful. And as hateful as Scalia is, he did join the majority in striking down the anti-sodomy laws of (Texas?) last year.

>>Another is abortion rights (which may matter more to me, as a female, than you).<<
That's a bit condescending. It does matter to me as a progressive and a believer in women's right to control their own body. Of course, one must weigh various aspects here. Clarence Thomas, a reliable vote against women's rights if there ever was one, was appointed under a 57-43 Dem majority Senate, with 11 Dems voting to confirm (and the Dem-controlled committee not willing to stop his nomination from going to the floor despite the huge Anita Hill sexual harassment allegation, and being one of the few, if not only, Supreme Court nominees to have been not endorsed as "Qualified" by the American Bar Association). 2 Republicans, of of the 43, also voted against him.

>>A third is actually doing something about GCC.<<
Again, it depends on your perspective. I would maintain that given the fact the latest science alleges we have to make drastic changes in the next 5-10 years, and that the probability of drastic changes under an Administration of Dem or Rep. is approximately zero (and one must give McCain credit as being occassionally sensible about Global Climate Change), it seems to me that failing to stop a catastrophe through half-measures is not meaningfully discernible in outcome from failing through complete inaction. I'm willing to debate this point -- but that's my problem. Dem supporters never positively assert how we'll get from here to there under the "we've got to support person X" plan. And almost all agree that Obama is possibly the best Dem of a generation to get a chance at the presidency; yet he quite simply is not proposing the necessary measures to avoid catastrophe. (Not to mention that he has: said he's open to the possibility of bombing Iran, and Pakistan; said he's not for gay marriage but perhaps civil unions during his Senate election campaign where *he could not have lost if he wanted to against Alan Keyes* -- and if a politician can't speak for full-throated gay rights then, when running against someone polling like 4% of the vote, frankly, fuck them.) It may be "better" to fail through half-measures, but there really is a relatively firm estimate of what we absolutely need to go below in order to avoid a qualitatively different worsening of GCC; not reaching it is not reaching it, despite "good intentions." I frankly see no possible way to address this under a two-party system. Zero way.

>>A fourth is health care and a fifth is cutting taxes for the wealthy vs. giving services to the poor (you're likely to throw Welfare Reform in my face, right now, but if I remember correctly, most Dems were against it and the bill that passed came out of a Republican-majority Congress).<<
Well, health care seems likely to improve in the near future, but that remains to be seen (though it is true it is a primarily Dem issue, but again, if the results aren't seen on the ground, then clearly it's a waste). Cutting taxes/services etc etc they are quantitatively different, but not shiningly -- the poorest of Americans do pretty poorly under both parties. Granted that the poorest are the ones actually suffering and dying -- poverty has nominally decreased, but the "poverty line" is a ridiculous one so one needs to dig for the numbers, but they don't much change (I think) -- then the fact that those who are just getting by get by better or worse is far less important to me that the eventual addressing of the poorest. Welfare Reform was indeed passed in a Rep-controlled Congress, though it looks to me like more Senate Dems voted for it than against it, though "only" 15% of the House Dems did. (I would also point to the sad spectacle of disenfranchisement seen in Fahrenheit 9/11 when all that was needed as one senator to support the House procedures to stop the coronation of Bush and properly investigate, and not one of either party came forward.)

>>sanctions must be preferable to bombing the s*&t out of a country (or two) and then occupying it<<
I would tend to agree, but again, I feel things must be judged by results. Estimates imply something near 1/2 million child deaths due to the sanctions under conservative estimates; that would put total "excess" deaths likely in the 500 or 600,000 - 1,000,000 area (with some estimates around 1.5 million). While this is similar to the estimated "excess" deaths in Iraq right now, and Iraq's suffered huge infrastructure losses as well as life, the direct casualties are at least comparable -- something beyond unacceptable in my book for sanctions, which were about pride and exerting power, for which a million Iraqis had to die. The fact that bombs were not involved does somewhat little to move me.

>>I agree that it would be nice to have a leader who is not involved in any of the deplorable actions that our nation has undertaken in the last 100 years and one who is actually interested in solving some of the real problems in America today. However, I don't think Nadar is the guy to do it.<<
Well, I think Katha does make some fundamental errors, but I can see her points. (No one has any proof it is "vanity" -- that would require seeing inside his head -- and like I said, from all reports, he is just stubborn as a mother-fucker. Impugning his motives does little to advance the debate and expresses instead an understandable frustration. But it is a needless ad hominem.) There's a reason to documentary about was called "An Unreasonable Man." And of course, his net effects on electoral politics could be debated, since he has started several ground-based groups, Public Citizen chief among them, that have taken on some of these issues that he doesn't.

But in the end this is distracting from the point. He was and is right not to campaign in primaries with Kucinich because, as I've written in my blog before, Kucinich serves in the long-term to marginalize the left-prog arm of the Democrats. He gets their/our support, and then invariably throws his full support to the Dem. nominee without even publicly asking for concessions for the few delegates he gathers every 4 years. I love DK's policies and the voice he brings to primaries, but I've realized he's utterly ineffective -- moreso, actively damaging -- to progressive causes when he goes with the Dems, no matter who they support.

Which brings me to the last bits: one, I still have yet to see from anyone, including you, how voting for the Dems works to form any kind of long-term change. As I may have said, my analysis of history is that things change dramatically either a) after disaster or b) after a powerful ground movement takes off or c) both. The critiques of Nader on ground movements both hit and miss -- he, after all, didn't leave the Greens so much as they left him, and then worked hard on imploding; he became the Independent Party candidate, the party that brought for example Ventura to Minnesota (I may not've really agreed with "The Body", but he was different, I'll give him that). So Nader worked with and within parties -- but as the Greens have now realized, running *no* national candidate actually hurts their local efforts for a variety of reasons I won't go into here (not to mention their fucked up decision to run a candidate who more or less encouraged people to vote for someone else in 2004 and ended up looking like ineffectual fools). So Nader should be building, but it's not as if he hasn't tried recently, only to be rebuffed by people whose strategies were worse than his.

In any case, a ground-based movement on issues is not an apparent goal of the Dems -- indeed, I could name you 50 examples of them quashing real grassroots participation in the party. The Dems are active opponents of changing the status quo. One can debate about individuals, but stated plainly, as an institution the Dems will naturally block electoral reform (they just want to, *and have*, preferred re-rigging the system in their favor) just as much as Reps, and they will continue to ignore the base, blunting grassroots movements. Now, I am willing to listen to historically-grounded theories as to how supporting the Dems will get us past the impasses of the status quo, but it rather seems to me that supporters of the Dems are NOT thinking strategically, because they have never enunciated to me a plan of how this achieves long-term change, such that we don't keep killing foreigners and continue to dawdle about GCC. Nader may not be the answer (I don't support him so much because he's "the" answer but because I don't believe that one should vote for the Dems regardless of whether they end up supporting the policies they were elected to support, and I believe we need 3rd parties). Voting for Nader may not be the way to bring in 3rd parties. But, I think it's a start. Feel free to disagree -- but arguments with facts, evidence, and analysis are important parts of strategies, and I don't see it from Dem supporters. After all, is there *any* case you can imagine not voting for the Dem? If the answer is "probably not, barring something ridiculous and unforeseen" then voting is not an exercise in democracy because there is no real choice -- and Dems will use that to continue to not respond to the progressives, to "support" but not enact policies they were elected to support, until gays and lesbians still don't have equal rights, the environment is crap, and the other countries have enough of our shit and overrun us.

I really think that a widespread, and possibly, if unfortunately, violent global revolt against us is going to happen in the end anyway; I'druther try and change things for the better before then (and maybe even avoid it).

Debating Nader with J-Friend Becky

J-Friend Becky posted comments on the post about Nader's presidential bid and Tim Noah of Slate being "nice" about it. Despite the absolute need I have to be doing work, we're going to go through this a bit.

I agree that the two-party system does not serve US citizens’ (or the world’s) best interest. But, I still feel strongly that the two parties are NOT the same. If you want to be stuck in the ‘20s through ‘60s, that’s fine, but since Nixon, the Democratic presidents have led to more peace (think Carter - Israel and Egypt, Clinton – Israel and Jordan (and nearly Palestine)) and considerably less warfare (must I point out Bush – Iraq and Afghanistan??) than the Republican ones.

Who with the what now? Let's review: The Continuum has frequently linked to evidence that Democrats have caused more death than Republicans in the White House, and have not necessarily been better on "peace". To start with a less-than-war transgression, FDR was, perhaps, equivocal on allowing Jewish refugees to enter the US pre-WWII, for a variety of sensible political reasons, including threats of Congress to decrease quotas rather than increase. Understandable, yes, but also not necessarily admirable -- the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that he basically continued the policies of his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. The even-handed-seeming judgment of the USHMM:

A balanced assessment of Roosevelt's policies with regard to Jewish refugees and the Holocaust must also take into account the overall historical context. Roosevelt was preoccupied by severe economic depression and war, and aware of isolationist, antisemitic, and xenophobic sentiments in Congress and among the American public. His own government bureaucracy was, on balance, an impediment to immigration on any large scale; this opposition reflected general popular sentiment. Though Roosevelt had real sympathies for the Jews and for others subject to Axis-sponsored murder and terror, his involvement in refugee issues and rescue efforts remained low. This reluctance to take political risks in refugee policy contrasts sharply with his boldness as a politician and leader in other spheres.

Building on this of course is the debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a notorious argument I won't fully engage here other than to say that the military necessity argument is still open to debate, the necessity of bombing Nagasaki questionable as well even accepting the necessity argument, the choice of civilian targets questionable as well, and of course, lastly, even assuming casualties from a ground operation, one must admit that this assumes it's better to kill their civilians (~220,000 deaths from the bombings within the following three months) than engage our military. All reasonable assumptions from the point of view of American Empire and jingoism and the rationale of the times (though it's not as if there weren't voices of opposition at the time including Gen. Eisenhower ("I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives"), General MacArthur (the highest-ranking officer in the Pacific Theater), Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), General Carl Spaatz (commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet) (from Wikipedia, see also this site). Eisenhower, the next president after Truman, was Republican (and coiner of the phrase and warnings against the military-industrial complex), while Truman & FDR were Democrats. (There's also the debate on whether fire bombing was a valid tactic or war crime; one can easily say that the Germans did horrible things, which they did, but typically we don't accept horrific actions by those we hold in low moral regard as the high ground to start from.)

Going from this, there's Truman and the Korean War including the proposed use of nuclear weapons, and Truman bypassing a Declaration of War by Congress -- a precedent used to poor effect by our current president, though Truman was not the first to set it.

I could continue on, tiresomely, but, also tiresomely, B offers little evidence to back up her assertion.

Briefly: FDR & Carter: Carter had the foresight to let Iran's Shah seek medical treatment in the US, against the advice of the staff of his own Embassy in Iran -- helping to precipitate and the hostage crisis that most hurt his own career; support for the brutal dictator/crime family, the Somozas, in Nicaragua (this latter is an analysis of Carter's true colors from one of the most prominent US academic researchers of Latin American politics, James Petras); the Somozas were almost literally the Hitlers of Nicaragua, backed by US presidents, Democratic & Republican, and rose to power with FDR's practical blessing after assassinating his opponent Sandino; numerous Latin American interventions on this page, including also the School of the Americas, i.e. school for Latin American dictators to make friends with military strong-arm tactics backed by the US and to go back to become dictators of their countries supported by the US, founded under Truman; a number of horrible things done under Kennedy and Johnson, not just in Latin America but also in the happy funtime place known as the Vietnam War (continued by Nixon & Ford, but started by Kennedy & Johnson), also the Bay of Pigs, Papa Doc's Haiti, and almost WWWIII under Kennedy & Johnson; El Salvadorean Death Squads forming, undercutting UN conferences on racism and technology transfer, helping restore the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia after the Vietnamese had kicked them out, sponsoring genocide in Indonesia by selling them weapons while they wiped native peoples out, and loads of other fun times under Carter, the Sanctions of Iraq under Clinton that a) didn't weaken Saddam and b) led to the deaths of thousands of children -- not his fault, one says? But the policy was obviously not weakening him by the time Clinton left office, and many had died, yet he continued to support it -- he bears responsibility for not stopping a failed policy that also hurt people; and more.

That's a lot of babbling for one day. We'll take on some more points some other time. Suffice it to say, I think the Dems are responsible for a massive amount of war, death, imperialism, and destruction and that simply has not been rebutted with evidence. The fact that the Republicans were also bad isn't enough, and the death tolls under Dems are, I think, higher (though of course it all depends on how -- and who -- you count). I rather think it's naive to think any given Dem is going to change this horrifying trend of imperialism and massive disregard for the residents of other countries, and to me, to suborn or support anyone who is wrapped up in this endeavor -- especially those most deeply wrapped in it (which doesn't yet include Obama but would include both Clintons) is a moral compromise to be made only with the most extreme caution and reluctance. Support for the Democrats is support for death abroad, just as surely as it is for the Republicans. And never forget -- Democratic Congresses have repeatedly failed to stop preventable wars and conflicts, or even give token resistance -- cf. the IRAQ WAR. The resolution giving Bush the questionable power to do what he's doing now probably could've been stopped by Dems if they hadn't nearly-all voted for it; same with the PATRIOT ACT, and Jesus Christ, elected in 2006 on a wave of "we want change; we want out," what the FUCK-ALL are they waiting for and what have they done? They've back down on pretty much every fight. Picking your fights is one thing; throwing them is another.

Why, MSM, that's the nicest thing you've ever said!

Timothy Noah of Slate.com writes Lay off Ralph Nader in yesterday's Slate. In what is likely to be the nicest MainStream Media article about him for the next decade or so, Noah acknowledges that while he doesn't believe there are no pertinent differences between the two parties, he does believe that Nader believes it (and thus the talk about ego trips and vanity in terms of his presidential bids are a bit off). I agree with Noah, and I'm glad someone else has said it.

There are two things I don't think people understand about Nader (that I'm presuming I do):
a) if you do believe there isn't an important difference as I mostly do and he almost certainly does, then it isn't egomaniacal to keep running; it is more like Rudyard Kipling's poem "If": "If you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you... [you'll be a man, my son]." I guess I'm sensitive to this charge because I've been on the business end of it a couple times, just for believing in what I believed in despite the opinions of others around me. While it does take a certain amount of ego to believe you're right despite many, many detractors, it isn't about your ego. Egomania and vanity are about loving yourself excessively -- this is too often confused, I feel, with the passion and genuine belief and conviction in ideals that we praise in legend and song but seem to punish in real life.
b) If you believe in the evils of American Empire, including numerous deaths abroad (i.e., one million Vietnamese soldiers and 2-5 million civilian casualties compared to 60,000 US dead, courtesy largely of JFK and LBJ -- as I've said and presented evidence for before, Democrats have caused an equal or greater number of deaths from imperial ambitions in the past decades as have Republicans), and you believe the science on the environment (especially Global Warming), it is morally unconscionable to continue or compromise with the program of empire that has killed so many for less-than-noble reasons, and simply unwise and not in anyone's best interest to compromise on the environment, which simply put will not compromise with us -- we'll do what's right, in time, or we won't, and we'll make it worse for everyone. Of course, in case of increased environmental degradation the rich will still survive -- it's the poor who will suffer.

So Noah doesn't believe in Nader's uncompromising stance because it is simply not a politically realistic one. The question that I think is more pertinent though is, are politically realistic stances enough to stave off environmental and imperial catastrophe? I think the answer is no...

Side note: I had an extensive argument, well, with numerous people over this, but memorably with J-colleague EON. EON called my views that under a Dem OR Republican, environmental disaster seemed unavoidable and deaths from imperial efforts would continue practically unabated cynical. She also viewed as cynical (but didn't disagree with) my observation that the poorest and most discriminated-against Americans are among the groups who, for the most part, don't vote, likely because of the realistic analysis that the poorest's fortunes have changed little under whichever party. Both parties target the middle-class, with the poorest rarely seeing substantive help. Her response was whether I thought the comparatively small number of middle-class people who would be helped in a marginally better Democratic administration were unimportant -- I replied that they weren't unimportant, just not more important or even as important as the larger number of people who don't see material changes in their welfare under either party. I.e., the fore-mentioned poor and foreign nationals who, for example, starve to death under Democrat-imposed sanctions that do nothing to weaken their dictator. She continuously challenged my interpretation of history (i.e. that any President will do what they have to in order to stay in office, i.e. FDR & the New Deal occurring only with the genuine threat of rebellion by the poor and socialist upsurges in the 20s and 30s, and that political movements were more powerful, important, and largely independent of party, i.e. Nixon and Ford's civil rights work that they were forced to do and their arguably much better record on civil rights than JFK, etc.), without offering a competing interpretation. So, the question is, as I asked my dad the other day, why is it cynical to believe that the "Best of Two Evils/Obama's Not Evil" Plan will not work, and that the only morally and environmentally correct choice is to generate an alternative system -- that no two-party system is ever going to stave off environmental collapse or empire? I believe breaking the US' two-party system is doable, and real change within it is not. *I'm* cynical because I believe your method will fail but *my* approach that *you* don't believe in has a chance? What kind of weirdworld logic is that?

Hard energy -- Realities and opportunities for our energy future

Take some time to read some brilliance and clarity about energy and sustainability.

Some friends have been sending around this:

Toward a Sustainable Future
By Leopold Center Distinguished Fellow Fred Kirschenmann
Fall 2006 Vol. 18 No. 3
Managing with less energy

A low-energy policy allows for a wide choice of lifestyles and cultures. If, on the other hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether labeled capitalist or socialist. — Ivan Illich

Energy is on everyone’s mind and most of our attention is focused on developing alternative energy supplies to replace fossil fuels. This evolution in our thinking is driven by several factors: the recognition that the era of “easy oil” is over; our uneasiness about the political instability in the Middle East where most of the remaining oil reserves exist; and, of course, short-term investment opportunities in alternative energy development.

But three critical elements often are overlooked. First, all sources of alternative energy are much less energy efficient than our previous sources of oil and natural gas. Second, future energy use must produce far less greenhouse gases if we want to avoid major climate changes. And third, energy conservation and a more energy-conscious lifestyle must be part of our future. These are important factors that need to be integrated into energy policy if we want a sustainable future.

Energy efficiency ratios are seldom given full consideration in how we calculate our energy future. In media reports, alternative energy issues usually are framed in terms of switching to “renewable” energy and “weaning ourselves from Mideast oil.” The implication is that we simply need to change from oil and natural gas to ethanol, or use nuclear, solar or wind energy and life can go on pretty much as usual. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Days of cheap energy are gone
Peak Oil author Richard Heinberg, and Marty Bender who worked in this area at the Land Institute, point out that the days of “cheap energy” are over. In the 1940s when oil and natural gas reached peak discovery levels in the United States, we were getting 100 kilocalories of energy for every kilocalorie expended to extract the oil and natural gas. By the 1970s when we hit peak oil production, the efficiency ratio had dropped to 23 to 1. Today the efficiency ratio is somewhere between 8 and 11 to 1.

This drop in energy efficiency is largely responsible for short-term investments in alternative supplies. To mine the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, energy can be extracted at a ratio of 8 to 1, which makes economic sense compared to other energy sources. However, an industrial economy driven by cheap energy – and this would include modern agriculture – will likely undergo significant changes in the future.

It cannot be ‘business-as-usual’
A second consideration that must be an essential part of any energy policy is the need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases. The economic and environmental cost of continuing this “business-as-usual” approach will soon be felt throughout the world. As the polar ice caps melt, sea levels will rise, putting major land masses (now occupied by humans) under water. More unstable climates and more severe weather events will make it increasingly difficult to maintain highly specialized monoculture cropping systems. The loss of biodiversity stemming from these severe weather alterations will reduce the resilience of local ecosystems, making it more difficult, if not impossible, for these systems to be self-regulating and self-renewing.

These emerging energy costs – both economic and ecological – will require that we fundamentally rethink our human economies and the consumptive lifestyles we seem to have taken for granted.

Perhaps one of the greatest fears that makes us reluctant to consider the kind of low-energy lifestyle essential to a sustainable future is that we have been indoctrinated to believe that consuming less energy inevitably means a lower quality of life. Several decades ago theologian and philosopher Ivan Illich suggested that a low-energy lifestyle, in fact, would result in a richer lifestyle because of the need for more human and social capital.

Illich argued that societies that opted for a low-energy lifestyle encouraged more diversity and culture, stimulating the development of more supportive communities, which would increase the quality of life. On the other hand, societies that opted for a high-energy lifestyle would inevitably lose individual freedoms due to the concentration of power in a technocracy that produced the needed energy. He argued that tools developed for “conviviality” would consequently produce a higher quality of life than tools developed for high energy consumption.

Today as we already witness the erosion of our rights and democratic freedoms, and see struggles intensify over rising energy costs, we might want to take a fresh look at Illich’s proposal.

Fred Kirschenmann

More from Ivan Illich is here, and podcasts from a colleague of Illich, Sajay Samuel, are here and here. (Links care of J-friend D. Bavington).

It's 3 o'clock: do YOU know where your Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six US Great Lakes Areas of Concern Report is?

Alert public-health involved J-friend NSH sends news of a seemingly suppressed government report finding major health problems in cities and for vulnerable populations due in some large part to industrial pollutants.

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.

Why suppressed? Well,

Canadian biologist Michael Gilbertson, a former IJC staffer and another of the three peer reviewers, told the Center that the study has been suppressed because it suggests that vulnerable populations have been harmed by industrial pollutants. “It’s not good because it’s inconvenient,” Gilbertson said. “The whole problem with all this kind of work is wrapped up in that word ‘injury.’ If you have injury, that implies liability. Liability, of course, implies damages, legal processes, and costs of remedial action. The governments, frankly, in [the US & Canada] are so heavily aligned with, particularly, the chemical industry, that the word amongst the bureaucracies is that they really do not want any evidence of effect or injury to be allowed out there.”

The IJC requested the study in 2001. Researchers selected by the ATSDR not only reviewed data from hazardous waste sites, toxic releases, and discharges of pollutants but also, for the first time, mapped the locations of schools, hospitals, and other facilities to assess the proximity of vulnerable populations to the sources of environmental contaminants.

All this is particularly disturbing and also of the moment due to the recent discovery in Michigan of unprecedented* dioxin levels downstream from the home of Dow Chemicals.

Read more about the report at the Center for Public Integrity here.


*From a Detroit News article by Francis X. Donnelly, "Saginaw River dioxin find spreads fear", Friday, November 23, 2007:

"State action is triggered by readings of 90 parts per trillion; federal action is triggered at 1,000 parts per trillion, a level Dow insists is more reasonable. Still, widespread water sampling in recent years has found spots that far exceed even federal standards. Before last week, the heaviest dose of dioxin found in the Saginaw River was 32,000 parts per trillion. The heaviest in the Tittabawassee was 87,000 parts per trillion. The amount discovered last week near Wickes Park in the Saginaw River was 1.6 million parts per trillion. "

Today's Best Thing Ever: Fun with Atheists and Fag-Haters

Overheard in the pretend virtual café where all the J-friends congregate together, from J-friend SYYS:

Maybe what I like about atheists is that, proportionally speaking, their beliefs are just as shocking as those of the faithful. I wouldn't be surprised if an equal number of believers and atheists would say that God is (or should be), in essence, them, but with virtually limitless power. The temptation to not challenge oneself is rampant on either side. For example, when I see people picketing with signs that say "God hates fags" I have this temptation to run over and say, "Isn't it incredible how you and God just happen to agree on EVERYTHING? That's such an amazing coincidence!" I feel like my beliefs are being challenged in a meaningful way by christians and atheists alike, and it's so rare for atheists to feel like their beliefs are being challenged in a meaningful way. Everyone deserves to have their beliefs challenged, right? It's the best! wunderbar!

Though I have to say, I think atheists have their beliefs challenged all the time, but only in that tiresome abstract way of politicians "WE'RE ALL CHRISTIAN HERE, RIGHT?" pandering. I think they/we are challenged less often in our day-to-day lives.

It inexplicably reminds me of a quote I can't find a source for -- from a review of the move "Contact" based on a book by Carl Sagan and starring Jodie Foster. This world body asks Foster why she should represent Earth to aliens, since 75% of the world believes in some kind of God and she doesn't. The reviewer summarized this as: "Inexplicably, all the world's religions got together and got over their differences in order to annoy Jodie Foster."

That's all.