DC Larson: You are how you vote

DC Larson: You are how you vote

You must read this, and now. It is an encapsulation of how I feel, and why I felt let down in myself when I voted for Obama yesterday.

My sister, and others, tell me that you can't live in Fantasy-Land, you have to live in reality. And my belief in the unreality of the change Obama brings is interpreted as cynicism -- when I view it is optimism of a rather different sort. As Larson points out, by the standards of political realism, those who wished to stop slavery had no hope, and for a long time, no candidate. Larson says

...if in your heart you feel your true beliefs are at great variance with Obama's record and apparent sympathies, then I would submit that you have a moral duty to express yourself honestly, by voting for an alternative candidate who better reflects your opinions.

In that way, political cultures change. Causes like ending slavery, womens's suffrage, the trade unionist movement, and racial civil rights all began in the streets and with political outsiders. Who today would argue that persons advocating those interests should have ignored principle and accepted contrary conventional political realities?

During a 1924 debate on the death penalty, opponent Clarence Darrow noted the many torturous forms of punishment once common. "Gradually, the world has been lopping off these punishments," he said. "...[T]he only way we got rid of these laws was because juries were too humane to obey the courts."

Just so, electoral progress in the public interest begins with appropriately-voting citizens.

Now, I don't expect my friends to agree with me. But as I see their point, I wish they would see mine as something other than "fantasy land" or wistful thinking or waiting for perfection or engaging in an absolutism of progressive politics. If indeed was must be audacious, as Obama says, should I not be audacious enough to hope that a candidate in line with my beliefs should have a chance some day? That someone like Nader or Kucinich, with whom I have disagreements but of a radically lesser extent than with the people who actually lead us would have a chance? Is that naive? Or is it hopeful? Who gets to decide when I'm following Obama's message of hope and when I am being too silly, too demanding, too audacious for change?

I can be happy for what today represents, but I guess it's hard for me because I feel lonely in my feeling of what was also lost for me personally in my vote. I believe in what Larson is saying, and I can be happy for symbolism if others would take the time to accept and respond to Larson's and other's point other than dismissing it is, essentially, hogwash or extremism. I go out of my way not to dismiss the legitimate reasons for voting for Obama, maybe I don't succeed and I sound too dismissive. But simply being called cynical or starry-eyed is not a very satisfying or encouraging response. When I say what I say about Obama, people don't talk to me about (with one exception -- Go D!) going forward together to get to changes I see, they talk about accepting what is today. They talk about how much worse McCain would be. That's all well and good, but you know what? I will be inspired and hopeful despite my feelings on the somewhat futility of symbolism if people who disagree with me, rather than expressing bewildering bemusement, tell me how we can work with and on Obama to not simply slow down things going wrong, or have a moderate agenda, but rather when they tell me they will work with me to accomplish our wildest dreams, to push for a world where our "progressive" candidate is not menacing Pakistan and backing free trade rather than fair trade. When we say we will work together to make hunger a bigger issue than terrorism, while millions of children die each year from hunger in a world with surplus food while thousands of people die from the no less, but no more tragic incidences of terrorism.

I thank D for that, for being pumped about it, and trying to keep me pumped about it -- for, essentially, making the positive case on meeting our ideals. But as far as I can tell, she's the only one so far, the only one who doesn't say "But look who we have now!" or "Be real!" or "You can't achieve perfection!" or simply ignore or shrug off the history even our most "liberal" presidents have of ending up unindicted war criminals (like Carter helping Indonesia wipe out a bunch of its indigenous population).

I, myself, am going to have the audacity to hope for perfection. And as my many accomplished friends know, you don't get to "good" or "very good" by shooting for them; you get to be great by shooting for awesome, and get to awesome by shooting for the stars. I believe that, "Yes, we can!" reach the stars. If I can believe you're with me, then I can believe in the triumph of today.

Welcome to your aspiring fascist state

I hadn't realized that Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, Nicole Salazar, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, along with many other journalists, were arrested at the Republican National Convention, despite being credentialed reporters (reporting a nominally "unlawful assembly" -- aka the RNC protests).

This is similar to what happened four years ago at the conventions, with many being baselessly arrested only to have their arrests overturned, and in some cases paying damages to arrested protesters and journalists for the overzealous and repressive police actions.

This also happened at the Miami anti-WTO protest that took place years ago -- 2002 I think -- that faced a near-media blackout, despite a number of people being beaten and arrested by the police, and a number of protesters outside the meetings, and actually there might still be extant lawsuits from the case, as several protesters were quite severely beaten.

Alas.

In other (old) news: J-Reason #76 Why Proportional Election of Legislators is a Good Idea: Listening to the December 20, 2007 podcast of Democracy Now!, John Conyers argues Ray McGovern on why impeachment is impractical. I agree with Conyers that it is (politically) utterly impractical -- but I also agree with McGovern that the Constitution is declarative in the pertinent section. That is, the Constitution states: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." That is, it's a command, not a request. It's at least a reasonable common-sense interpretation to say that impeachment is not meant to be done when convenient, but rather that it is a responsibility the same as any other for Congress. This indicates why multiple parties might be better in that the electoral politics changes: one party's loss is not immediately the gain of one other opponent, and thus the coalitions formed between left/center left/moderates/whatever are usually more fluid. That is, while it makes no political sense for the Dems to even whisper impeachment these days, with multiple parties, the risk would be spread and the possibility of a coalition to do it possibly greater (though also, perhaps, more complicated and not in any way a fait accompli).

One might wonder why I still give a shit -- they're almost out of office and it certainly would be bad politics to push for impeachment. But, I feel that leaving those who I think (and many others think) have committed grave crimes in office for expediency's sake is itself a crime against the Constitution, and sets (or rather, continues) a very, very bad precedent for all other presidents.

Basically, it's going to be (for I have no doubt impeachment will not be broached, and, as I said, I sympathize and can agree with this to a large extent) the Constitutional equivalent of screaming "Put it anywhere you want". this past decade will scream to future Americans, especially future presidents, that there are no holds barred in fucking the Constitution, because if you can do what these guys did and get away with it after a senseless show-impeachment like Clinton had (for perjury committed by lying about his sex life in the process of an investigation of something that didn't even turn out to be criminal), there's not much left to do but turn the Constitution into Monica's dress in a direct and literal way.

Radically Elementary Wisdom on Education

From that hotbed of insane communist pinko-socialism, Britain, comes this idea: spend more per student on kids in poor public schools than on kids in better public schools.

It's just crazy enough to work -- and to never, ever get tried, broached, or seriously considered in the way the linked Slate article implies happened in Britain, here at home. (And yet more evidence that our Democrats are what would be considered "Center Right" politicians in almost everywhere in the world but here, leaving us without what would be a more universally understood "Leftist" politics.)

Oi!

Am I on to something?

A thought just occurred to me, and I wanted to get it down quick before I went back to studying. I've been reading about a specific kind of nonparametric statistical testing, resampling, which led me to thinking about false positive and false negatives (Type I & II errors), which *somehow* made me think of food allergies (somehow I ended up at the Wiki for phenylketonuria, don't know how that one happened), and reminded me of hearing Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food recently. Any road, I feel like I can't've been the first person to think of this, but there's been much talk of growing rates of food allergies and other maladies, and various possible factors, like growing up in too-antiseptic environs and pesticides and such. Which may indeed have a part in it; but it reminds me of Pollan's simple admonition on how stay healthy, "Eat whole food, not a lot, mainly fruits and vegetables." Part of this -- the whole foods part -- is not a product placement, but rather advice to avoid processed foods (which he talks about in Omnivore's Dilemma, and possibly IDoF as well). Processed foods, besides having extra fat and salt to make up for the taste-reduction resulting from processing perfectly good food into O-shapes and for shelf life, also many times include label ingredients (Now with Vitamin C! And retsin! And Omega-3-fatty acids!!!!) that reflect today's understanding of the nutrients we need (and aren't getting). Pollan's point in respect to this was what he calls "Nutritionism" -- the idea of food as medicine, to deliver specific benefits. The problem is that we really don't understand food -- wild admixtures of chemicals they are -- and exactly how these nutrients work together. Turns out a lot of them (nutrients) don't work in their isolated forms -- or at least work better when they're in their original "delivery good," i.e. a fruit or a fish. That is, omega-3 in, say, yogurt, doesn't seem to work the same or nearly as well as omega-3 in, say, the fish it came from.

Perhaps besides from lowering their efficacy, all this separating out and dosing of processed foods with exotic and/or heavily re-processed and purified nutrient isolates, as well as all the derived flavor/color/etc. isolates, is part of the problem. That is, as part of its whole, original food given potential allergens wouldn't be recognized as such, but isolating and re-introducing them into different food contexts decreases the body's adaptive mechanisms of recognizing appropriate and not-appropriate antigens? (Or simply, perhaps, the number of spices and veggies that we're not eating as much and instead are getting in processed or nutrionized extract forms are undermining various and many yet-to-be-understood detox pathways? Cf. aflatoxin and apiaceous vegetables?)

I may be off base, or maybe onto something I'm not enunciating well. Or maybe I'm crazy like a fox... in any case, gotta go.

If She Can See Farther Than Others... Daktari on Palin

If Daktari can see farther than others, it's because she's sharp like woah.

Go read Daktari's blog. There've been a series of sharp and probing posts recently that I really haven't had the time to fully process and react to. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't go read her excellent summary post of VP Nominee and Republican Wackaloon Sarah Palin. Daktari's rounded up a good number of links and primary/secondary sources about Palin's abject horribleness by any progressive feminist standard.

Apparently Daktari will not be part of Samantha Bee's Love Pitas for Palin, the gynecologically-inclined issue* voters, those women voting not with The Big Head, but The Little Hood.
----

*Apparently that issue is: "Does someone on the ticket have a vagina?", not "Does the Party/Ticket/Nominee represent anything I believe in?" Substantive issues, it seems, are NOT for pussies.

Hah! I slay me.

But seriously: even J-Fave Slate's Today's Papers jumps on the pre-determined narrative bandwagon, saying that

"Choosing Palin undercuts the argument that Barack Obama is too inexperienced, raising questions about John McCain's age and judgment. But it could pay off: Palin—an NRA member and staunch pro-lifer—is energizing evangelicals and tempting Hillary Clinton voters to defect."

If one bothers to read the linked WaPo article, a paragraph worthy of note (more than halfway through the article, natch) reads

"Interviews with women who supported Clinton suggested that the fact that McCain picked someone as conservative as Palin will be reluctant to vote for McCain, even for those who have been flirting for months with the idea of defecting to the GOP ticket"

only then followed by a quote from one Clinton supporter who has decided to defect. It could be a real phenomenon, but they don't know -- Slate, and to a lesser extent, the WaPo here are making up the narrative before the facts. Not new for The News, but nonetheless, egregious. Objective media my left ass cheek.

I tend to agree with those that charge McCain with thinking Women Candidates Are Interchangeable, though of course as with any modern "identity politics" argument, somehow those who see sexism in the events of the day are themselves charged with misunderstanding feminism.

Better double-bag it. You don't know where that vote's been.

True story (metaphorically speaking), from another brilliant comic from xkcd's Randall Monroe. (Click for larger version.)

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

Big Brother is Watching, Listening, and Reading... for Bootlegged Britney

In a potentially light-weight return to blogging, I would like to call your attention to this Slate article about AT&T's apparent desire to start monitoring all their electronic traffic from their customers for illegal content.

In what may end up being nothing or may end up being, as author Prof. Wu calls it, the beginning of a privately-run police state (though likely without a young Red Forman heading Detroit crime syndicates under the table for OCP). He rightly points out:

No one knows exactly what AT&T is proposing to build. But if the company means what it says, we're looking at the beginnings of a private police state. That may sound like hyperbole, but what else do you call a system designed to monitor millions of people's Internet consumption? That's not just Orwellian; that's Orwell.

This may be nothing, as I think Wu's right that it would be corporate disaster for AT&T: "AT&T's new strategy reverses that position and exposes it to so much potential liability that adopting it would arguably violate AT&T's fiduciary duty to its shareholders." But as the sole poster as of 10 minutes ago points out, AT&T was known as The Death Star among telecom peeps in-the-know in the old days. "Mandycat" goes on to point out: "They persistently and diligently bought up well-run and profitable companies like NCR and proceeded to destroy them. They even took the extra precaution of changing NCR's century-old name to something idiotic like "GIS" just in case there was any residual goodwill left intact. It was like a sickness."

Hmm... a plausible explanation has popped up here, claiming that perhaps this is just a pretext for remaking the internet hierarchically so that they can indeed get around network neutrality and discriminate service quality between high-payers and average joes and joanns (guess who gets higher quality). Seaturnip says: "I don't think AT&T at all wants to analyze HTTP connections for pictures, as you suggest. That would indeed be horrendously inefficient. They are probably mainly interested in stopping bandwidth-guzzling movie piracy via peer-to-peer protocols such as BitTorrent."

What say you, oh people of the internet? Is the idea that AT&T will go through with what it announced last week, that "it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws" indeed, as Wu says, "[A] prospect ...too totalitarian for my tastes"? One would think, but of course, I would've said not too long ago that a different prospect would be too totalitarian for most Americans' taste: "AT&T [is] already accused of spying on our telephone calls."

J. Edgar Hoover, eat your heart out.

(ps: what the hell is "eat your heart out" supposed to actually MEAN, anyway?)

Barack Obama -- Meh.

I had a recent conversation with a new friend that in part focused on Barack Obama and whether he really does represent a new kind of politics and/or a step in the right direction.

Being a bit of a radical malcontent, but with strong pragmatist and idealist roots, I conceded that he might be "the real deal" in that he might mean what he says about new politics and blahedy blah. Certainly, a number of my very astute friends believes he's on the level. I, personally, have my doubts, which I have had some trouble enunciating. I also haven't done extensive research on the man yet, so I can't completely rule him out.

In terms of superficial research, however, I seem to recall that he did say he wouldn't rule out bombing Iran, and also that he did rule out supporting gay marriage. It is my impression -- possibly an incorrect one -- that he was somewhat more bullish on gay marriage until Clinton & others advised him to scale it back a bit, and that he took the more "nuanced" stand of being for civil unions. My chief problems with these two positions he took during his Senate campaign run is that: HE WAS RUNNING AGAINST ALAN KEYES!!!! Alan Keyes couldn't have won that election with the help of God Itself. It seems to me that if you can't stake out controversial views in a no-lose election, then you're just not the person for the job as far as I'm concerned.

Slightly, but only slightly, less superficial research, (that is, Wikipedia without my verifying info in the primary sources listed) gives me similar impressions as my previous ones. If anything, they're slightly sourer. My friend CN feels that, though he disagrees with Obama on a number of issues, from reading his books, CN feels like Obama really is thinking them through and weighing them, and has principled, logical reasons for his stances. I'll have to read it, too, but I have my doubts. My thing is, as a news junkie, I feel like I have an above-average bead on what's going on (though perhaps that's just ego on my part). And Obama's positions do not, in my mind, follow logically from his stated beliefs.

Example A: He talks about bombing Iran and Pakistan if necessary, and the dangers posed to us by a nuclear Iran. Uncontroversial, right? Um, well... if you consider that there's no reasonable explanation for why Iran would attack Israel or the US with nuclear weapons, the idea of starting what would be a bloody and costly conflict against them seems, well, stupid. What do I mean? Simply that: Iranian dictators and religious mullahs are no more completely insane shit-for-brains idiots than the leaders of Soviet Russia, present day Pakistan, or India. Mutually assured destruction (charmingly acronymed MAD) worked and works in those examples -- despite some possibly close calls, neither Russia nor the US launched any nuclear weapons at each other during the Cold War, despite various batshit crazy members in each's government. A more recent example is the acquirement of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and India. A number of commentators within and outside of both countries said, essentially, that this was it, MAD wasn't going to work, because what foreigners didn't appreciate is the sheer amount of enmity between the countries, and that MAD be damned, someone was going to say "Fuck it," and start a nuclear conflagration. While that certainly's still theoretically possible, no one's talking about it right now. Why? MAD *did* work.

The Mullahs & Ahmedinejad are similarly not so batshit crazy as to sign their own death warrants with an attack on the US or Israel. Dangerous rhetoric or not, dictators may be reprehensible, but most of them are somewhat savvy in the ways of keeping power, and know that a) if they bomb the US or Israel or Europe, their country, and likely they themselves, are ash; b) if they explicitly threaten to bomb US or Israel, their country is ash; c) if they give nuclear material to terrorists in order that the terrorists bomb the US, Israel, or Europe, their country and ass are still very much grass. From Afghanistan and Iraq, it's perfectly obvious to anyone to see that the US wouldn't wait for the ocular proof to retaliate, and even the whiff of a hint of an allusion that terrorists got nuclear material from Iran would mean, in a word, DEATH for them. (Besides which, some analysts think loose nukes and US & Russian attack readiness are the biggest threats.)

Obama does get into further nuance, but it seems to me that it's hard to imagine a realistic scenario where bombing Iran makes sense. He talks about a nuclear "domino theory" in the region if Iran gets nukes, but bombing Iran would only be worse. In fact, the single BIGGEST thing he could talk about to make us safe is to go back to nuclear disarmament instead of nonproliferation. The difference is, in the prior, ALL countries -- US included -- agree to continuously destroy and decommission their nuclear stocks. If the US, the 800-lb gorilla in our story, agreed to reduce nuclear stocks, other countries (such as Russia) would be able to realistically consider reducing theirs as well. Instead is making sure our nukes are still ready to fly and making new ones from time to time. The LATTER approach, today's nonproliferation focus, simply says "We don't want any more countries to have nukes. Those of you that do, though, um... for shame! But, we won't do anything, you're too dangerous now." Nonproliferation basically tells a country that the only way to be able to defend yourself from US attack & intervention is to finally GET nukes, because once you get them, you're an irrevocable member of the club. Smoke 'em if you got 'em... Not to mention, the hypocrisy of Israel's open secret of their nukes, which are technically treaty and UN violations as grave as it is when "bad countries" do it. What's it called when you have one standard for yourself and friends and another for other people?

Sigh. That wasn't supposed to be so long. My work break's about up. My other examples were going to be Palestine -- where Obama says no one's suffered like the Palestinians, but that when Israel is threatened, we will always stand with Israel, and that Palestinians need to recognize Israel's right to exist -- with no similar demands made that Israel not threaten Palestine or that Israel formally recognize a Palestinian state's right to exist (they've never formally done that as far as I know). 3 times as many Palestinian civilians have died as Israelis; who's the aggressor now? The nuclear power, or the poorest would-be state in the world? And lastly on gay marriage, his retreat to civil unions. My argument is not that these aren't politically wise moves, but rather than if he's running "a new kind of politics," then he should be aware of and promote disarmament instead of nonproliferation or threatening rogue states; he should stand behind tough love for both Palestine AND Israel, rather than just demands of the former and sympathy for the latter; and he should at least admit that civil unions is an intellectually indefensible compromise on gay marriage. "But maybe he really believes marriage is a religious rite and not an actual right?" you say? Well, last I checked a) a number or religions, including individuals and sects within Christianity and Judaism, allow and will perform gay ceremonies, and b) religious freedom was a national right. So if it's a religious issue, and some religions allow it, how does allowing states to ban it represent an intellectually honest path to civil unions, which would be distinct from marriage legally at least in name? And if it's only in name, then isn't that a shell game?

Again -- his positions are reasonable. Civil unions are a famous example of Bill Clintonian triangulation. Keeping the idea of bombing Iran alive is a genuflection to the idea of looking like a tough guy for prez. Being careful not to even fairly criticize Israel -- a necessity for any American pol. But NEW? Hardly. Bill Clinton called his New Kind the 3rd Way. Bush called his Original New Kind compassionate conservatism. Obama calling his New Kind of Politics the New Kind of Politics doesn't make it true this time, either.

Every Freakish Ovum Is Sacred

Today's Human Nature in Slate talks more about "Interspecies embryos", where apparently human's & (other) animal's genetic material are mixed. I'm not sure what exactly the scientific upshot of this is, but I'm willing to believe it could lead to all sorts of potential exciting discoveries.

But it's still creepy. At least petri-dish bestiality isn't likely to be any good for a disturbing new porn site.

But creepy as it is to me, that PALES in comparison to what Saletan says the Catholic Church in England and Wales has announced:

Bishops' testimony: 1) "Interspecies embryos" should be treated like human embryos. 2) "At very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings." 3) "It should not be a crime to transfer them … to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where a human ovum has been used to create them. Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so."

gah Gah GAH!!!! That is an amazing ascending order of craziness. Ok, sure, treat a chimera embryo as human, that's just extending the Catholic pro-life absolutism a little farther... ok, if it has a "preponderance" of human genes, we're now going to go ahead and, I don't know, assume God has ensouled it so it's an embryonic human being which in the pro-life stance has the same rights as a post-embryonic human -- i.e. developed, birthed, breathing, differentiated, extremely multicellular human being, ok, gettin' crazy now... So, are you done? what What WHAT? It shouldn't be a crime to try to gestate the damn thing? I guess the only consolation is what I expect would be the extremely low chances of bringing an interspecies ovum to term. Species that can't interbreed often end up having problems way before birth -- though many of those involve blocking fertilization of the ovum in the first place, so I don't know. ANY CASE, here're my questions: Has any woman actually said, "Please, can you put my cow baby back in my womb now? We're naming her Marilyn Mooooonroe." And, if not, is the Catholic Church really pressing them to do so? ("Really, in this case, think of your cloven-hooved baby as a blessing from God!")

(It does appear that scientists don't expect to use human eggs, but rather animal eggs with human genetic material, but the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales seem to have said "preponderance of human genes" or something of that sort. I think the Cadbury Cow Egg filled with Creamy Human DNA would be even less likely to successfully implant in a human womb, but whatever -- we have, or at least I have, NO IDEA what this would do to the woman in question or what the embryo's development would be like. If, by some extremely small chance, implantation and gestation were to actually get under way, my guess: bad. It really would be horrific if the Bishops of England and Wales were encouraging some of their flock to go through a possibly dangerous and patently ludicrous attempt to bear an experimental chimera just to save one of God's microscopic children. Do we really need some more extra-special complicated ethical questions? Did the Bishops of England and Wales just get bored? I have a movie to suggest, if so.)

Virginity Fraud???

File under Useless Things You Probably Wish I Hadn't Told You. William Saletan of Slate.com in his Human Nature column today highlights the growing Re-hymenation industry:

Business is booming in "revirgination," i.e., hymen reattachment. Cost: $2,000 to $5,000. Unmarried immigrant women are getting it to avoid family disgrace by hiding the fact that they've lost their virginity. Married women are getting it (along with vagina-tightening surgery) to thrill husbands on their anniversaries. Objection from the left: It's female genital mutilation. Objection from the right: It's virginity fraud.

I think this calls for a Patented J-AHHHHHH.

AHHHHHHH.

As far as I can tell, there's no free way to get to the Wall Street Journal article on-line without subscribing (i.e. in this case, paying). Using the magical power of being a grad student I got to the article.

Take it from me and J-Friend Lindsay, under no account should you get to the article.

Here's a preview that the sane among you should take as warning enough:

It's the ultimate gift for the man who has everything," says Ms. Yarborough, 40 years old, a medical assistant from San Antonio.

Gynecologists are marketing hymenoplasty in magazines, local newspapers and online. They report business is booming.

Religious groups that value abstinence until marriage say hymen repair is a deception. (Their frickin' problem with hymenoplasty is HONESTY? Not, i.e., the fact that "Some feminists liken hymenoplasty to female genital mutilation." Gee, who knew religious groups weren't tapped into deconstructionist post-modern feminism? --ed.)

"Revirgination" costs as little as $1,800 at Ridgewood Health and Beauty Center, a spa and cosmetic-surgery center in the New York City borough of Queens. To promote the procedure, the center's owner, Cuban-born Esmeralda Vanegas, has given away hymenoplasties on a Spanish-language radio station.

"Losing your virginity is like losing a member of your family," Ms. Vanegas says. "We can make it seem like nothing ever happened."

"I thought it would add that extra sparkle to our marriage," says the woman.

Ok, so maybe those don't appear so bad. But I warn you: we didn't get to the part about how "midwives used to disguise a broken hymen with a needle and thread, sometimes using membrane material from goats and other animals."

Need I say more? GOAT HYMEN.

This sounds almost like a cautionary tale against pre-marital sex by itself. "'Don't give yourself to your man until you are married, or else the GOAT HYMEN will get you,' my old Aunt Baruska warned me before we came to the New World, fire in her eyes, as animals whickered and whinnied and stirred in the night."

So, my readers, go forth and sin no more, else this Old World Terror come claim you late in the night.






P.S. Is anyone else reminded of the Sneetches?

“My friends”, he announced in a voice clear and clean, “My name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean. And I’ve heard of Your troubles. I’ve heard you’re unhappy. But I can fix that I’m the Fix-It-Up Chappie. I’ve come here to help you. I have what you need. And my prices are low. And I work with great speed. And my work is one hundred per cent guaranteed!”

Perhaps that's Dr. Sylvester McMonkey McBean?

On reflection, probably not a name that would inspire hymenoplastic-trust.



Ok.

I'm done now.



P.P.S. Someday real blogging will resume. Really. Honestly.

Some day.