Mission Accomplished, Redux (One Million Body Bags Edition)
Do you know when this godforsaken mission will finally constitute a non-Orwellian ’success’, when yours truly will be able to “turn the page“, Mr. President (and Mr. Baker)?
When Andy comes home*.
And when the one million-plus Iraqi victims of W’s absurdly lethal Middle East adventure are able to fully reap the benefits of freedom’s march. Go on, try to spin that stale bullshit sandwich into saffron with a smile. I double dog dare ya.
Oh, and with all due (dis)respect to Sheryl Gay Stolberg and the rest of the Village idiots, what Liliana Segura said:
If you think the most important part of Obama’s Iraq speech is what he did or didn’t say to Bush, you are seriously missing the point.
Seriously.
*I know: no politicizing, Andy – in my defense, this is less a political and more an emotional statement. Hopefully your forgiveness and understanding will extend from beyond the grave.
Sphere: Related ContentJesse Jackson Shows Glenn Beck How It’s Done
With the 24/7 cable channels and national dailies (seriously, WaPo?) uniformly transfixed by Beckapalooza (ZOMG THOUSANDS OF ANGRY WHITE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON!!1), one wonders if anybody will bother giving this timely, infinitely more relevant event any serious optics:
The chants of thousands of people demanding jobs filled the air downtown as UAW President Bob King and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
led the crowd to Grand Circus Park.
The UAW and Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition announced the Rebuild America: Jobs Justice Peace kickoff today at the downtown park.
Jackson said the focus of the initiative is to ensure policy makers put people first when making decisions. The initiative calls for a moratorium on home foreclosures, a push for job creation and for ending armed conflicts overseas.
“Detroit and Michigan are ground zero of the urban crisis,” Jackson said. “It’s time to enact real change for working families and all America.”
About 30 percent of Detroit is unemployed, Jackson said. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., also said Detroit was chosen as the kickoff site for the campaign because it is at the heart of the nation’s economic fight.
“This is the epicenter
[...]
Today’s march was held as a way of celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s delivering his “I have a dream” speech in Detroit on Aug. 28, 1963 before reciting it in Washington D.C.
Memo to Glenn Beck (and corporate media): This is what a REAL Civil Rights march/rally looks like.
Related: David Neiwert with a great comparison chart of Martin Luther King Jr and Glenn Beck. Also be sure to check out the Rebuild America: Jobs Justice Peace site — especially ‘Why We March’:
No group has suffered more from America’s economic meltdown than working men and women. The auto industry was decimated and workers paid the price. Urban America is in crisis and teachers, transportation workers, and all who do the hands-on work that make our cities run are the first to feel the effects of budget cuts. Unemployment continues at around 9.8%. Detroit is ground zero of this national crisis with an unemployment rate that is far higher. From December 2007 to June 2009, auto assembly and parts production accounted for 325,000 lost jobs. The auto industry has gone from a high of 1.5 million workers to 400,000 today.In Appalachia and the Gulf, years of unenforced regulation, driven by corporate greed and government complicity, have led to needless deaths and destruction in the coal and oil fields. Our national infrastructure is crumbling–industry, education, transportation, environment–while millions of talented workers stand by, ready to stem the tide.
Poverty is on the rise. Home and church foreclosures continue to mount and student loan defaults are increasing. Our cities are under siege. Public transportation services are cut, workers laid off, but fares go up. Teachers are laid off and programs are cut as education budgets are slashed. Public housing faces cuts and we experience reverse redlining in our neighborhoods. We bailed out the predators–banks got money at 0%–while we made loans to the auto industry.
We need a plan for recovery. We need economic reconstruction. We need urban policy geared toward reindustrialization. We need fair trade policies that will even the playing field for American companies and workers and, as more and more people face greater economic need, it’s time to revive the War on Poverty.
[...]
It’s time to enact real change for working families and all America. It’s time to reverse the policies that have resulted in jobs and investment flowing out of the country, creating economic hardship for millions of Americans. It’s time to Rebuild America with Jobs, Justice and Peace.
In solidarity.
Sphere: Related ContentSo What If Park51 WERE a Mosque?
Over at the indispensable Religion Dispatches, Aisha Ghani critiques what she contends is a disturbing tactic of certain liberals/progressives defending the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque’:
In the past weeks, we have seen how liberal defenders have responded to the ‘fear and trembling’ that the mere idea of a mosque induces, through a series of disavowals. Instead of challenging the racist assumptions that buttress such rhetoric, many liberals have decided to offer ‘clarifications.’ Time and again, the public is being reminded of the fact that Park51 is not in fact a mosque but an Islamic community center that promotes ‘interfaith’ dialogue.
[...]
In all of this, it is clear that the kindergarten logic of “hear no evil, see no evil” is being utilized in order to sway public opinion in favor of the Center, but while the success of these maneuvers remains to be seen, its damage is immediately apparent. The message being sent is loud and clear: if Park51 ‘sounds’ nothing like mosque, claims to ‘be’ nothing like a mosque, and, ‘looks’ nothing like a mosque, then, and only then, does it emerge a defensible endeavor within the United States.
[...]
As a Muslim, I take no pleasure in stating that I see no part of myself in what the Park51 initiative has become. The precise public identity that has enabled it to emerge a defensible endeavor in liberal discourse, has also had the damaging effect of alienating many Muslims—particularly those of us who do not wish to describe our relationship to Islam through language that seeks to ‘moderate’ not simply words, but the very conditions of our existence. To accept this insidious terminology would be tantamount to reinforcing the spurious claim that Islam, as it stands on its own—‘un-moderated’—is always already problematic.
IOW, get over your goddamn Sensible™ squick about calling fucking bigoted asshats ‘fucking bigoted asshats’, or else this sort of xenophobic mass hysteria over Islam is going to continue to consume the nation. It is not a crime to be Muslim in America (yet). And it’s sure as shit not racist to call racists ‘racist’, no matter what Andrew fucking Breitbart and Co. would like us to believe.
But it damn sure IS dangerous to allow nativist paranoia over the amorphous Islamic Other to reign unfettered [insert Godwin violation here].
Related: One wonders if Howard Dean has ever bothered to consider the *ahem* feelings of Americans like Abdur’Rauf Campos-Marquetti?
Update: Allison Kilkenny:
Defenders of the Park 51 protesters claim that not all of their members are racist. Of course not. In any bigoted movement, I’m sure you can find at least a handful of individuals who really believe what they’re doing will protect the motherland, and they don’t have anything personally against _____, but maybe if ______ just tried a little harder to assimilate, this wouldn’t be a problem at all. And then there are the people protesting ______ because their granddaddy hated _____, and their daddy hated ____, and now they’ve taken taken up the mantle of hating _____ because it’s something of a family tradition, but they would never hurt a _____, or anything, and to tell you the truth, they once worked a job with a _____, and he was a nice enough guy.
But the occasional non-racist within a racist movement doesn’t excuse the larger body. The right’s hatred has become so conflated and muddled that it’s difficult to figure out who they hate the most. Is it liberals? Hispanics? Teh Gayz? Blacks? Muslims? Atheists? Feminists? Their hatred runs deep and broad, and it’s why I tend to label it as a hatred for otherness - anything that doesn’t fit into the white, Christian model.
THIS is how you do it.
Sphere: Related Content
(Long) Guns and Butter, Meet Fox News North
Over at his humble pad, Progressive Bloggers head honcho Scott Tribe warns NDP leader Jack Layton that his party may face electoral consequences if his maddeningly milquetoast stance on Canada’s Long Gun Registry leads to its repeal:
Rather then whining in the papers that the voters who support keeping the long-gun registry should not be blaming the NDP if the registry gets killed, Jack should stop being naive and realize the Harper government is playing the NDP for suckers. The NDP has always claimed it is the party that stands up the most against the Harper agenda in the House of Commons; well, here’s it’s chance to really walk the walk – a chance to make a difference, rather then a symbolic vote or putting forth a symbolic motion/amendment against.
As for electoral considerations, and if those are also what’s in play here over principles, the NDP should remember that for every rural riding the NDP fears it may lose because of that member voting to keep the gun registry, it’s going to be pummelled in its urban ridings and in its lone Quebec riding as failing to keep the registry. Rest assured that the Liberals will be reinforcing that message in every NDP held riding in Urban Canada and in Outremont, if the NDP fail to stop Bill C-391 from passing.
With respect to Tribe and others, I just don’t see this as much of a game-changing, hot-button issue outside of Quebec and rural Canada. In Ontario (and, it should be noted Quebec), the economy is going to loom large in any future Federal campaign, as the rapid Northern expansion of the rust belt continues to drastically affect employment and living standards across the region.
Focusing on Harper and the general public’s fear of what he may do with a majority parliament is still a winning campaign strategy for the Liberal Party of Canada. No matter what, urban (and Eastern) Canadians really, really doesn’t trust that sonofabitch. And rightfully so.
With all that said, one wonders how the Foxification of Sun Meida [sic] will affect campaign coverage – who will drive the narrative of any upcoming campaign? Will Harper hold off on dropping the writ until the CRTC acquiesces to PMO pressure and allows the Sun TV licence to go forward?
Progressives should be very much concerned about the possible effect of what is, essentially, a defacto arm of the PMO having such a deep stake in the Canadian media landscape. Anyone within the Canadian progressosphere who gives even an inch to David Akin (to say nothing of Brian ‘Kneepads’ Lilley) should, IMO, hand in their VLWC cards post haste. That dubious pair now works for the Devil himself , having eagerly sold their journalistic credibility for 30 quarters and a pound of moose flesh cooked Blue rare in the kitchen of 24 Sussex.
Bottom line: don’t tell me that issues of real importance like gun safety (or, for that matter, the economy) will be on the table come election time. Instead, be prepared for Ezra Levant to try and beat the left into bemused submission with an endless barrage of hyperventilating wingnut minutia.
And don’t be surprised to see the so-called “mainstream” (or, as Kory Teneycke, channelling the Thrilla from Wasilla, would call it, “lamestream”) press follow his lead.
Sphere: Related ContentHey, Over on the Left — A REAL Racist!!11
Ok, so, you’re an angry Islamaphobe in petulant denial over the angry Islamophobia fuelling the “debate” [sic] over the ZOMG Ground Zero Mosque!!1one What do you do when a video clearly showing the ugly, latent racism behind organized anti-Cordoba opposition goes viral?
Weak-ass wingnut tu quoque courtesy the weak-ass wingnuts at the Weekly Standard to the rescue!
At Sunday’s Ground Zero mosque protest, I spoke to one man who had been with the counter-protesters, Joey “Boots” Bassolino, immediately after the police pulled him out from the crowd. What happened, I asked? “There was a guy standing up, a Pakistani guy, who had identified himself as a Pakistani, and he said: ‘We’re not going to sit there and back these Zionist Jews,’” Bassolino recounted, still clearly a little shaken up.
“And I’m like, whoa, wait a minute. What’s up with the racism? And they’re like, ‘what’s racist about that?’” The guy behind Bassolino yelled “f*** you,” reached forward, grabbing his camera and hitting it. “So I kicked him in the shin,” Bassolino said. Bassolino, a disabled U.S. army veteran, claims that he’s an “objective” observer and was in the group of counter-protesters to “document what was going on.”
“These are people that are supposedly protesting racism, yet you get people standing up there on a soap box yelling about ‘Zionist Jews.’ What the hell is that? That’s racism to me, man,” Bassolino explained to me.
See, “Boots” (whose purported objectivity strikes me as wholly Breitbartian in its stench of disingenuity) knows what teh REAL racists look like, ie, swarthy Pakis(tanis) daring to drop the “Z” bomb (and touch the sweet camera equipment mommy bought you for Christmas). Mmmm, I love the smell of manufactured outrage coated in fragrantly clueless bullshit in the morning (also, sweet shin music = teh lolz). Anyway, “Boots”, since you’re a connoisseur, you wanna see some undeniable anti-Jewish racism in action?
Check the the bigots who claim real estate on your side of the debate, cuddles:
Mark Williams, former Tea Party Express spokesman and current leader of the tea party support group Citizens for Constitutional Liberty is back with another blog post that’s sure to cause at least some eyebrows to raise. Williams, you’ll recall, has a habit of using his blog to get himself into trouble over posts widely seen as bigoted and/or blatantly inciting the worst in the conservative movement. Today he’s up with a new post calling [Jewish] New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and [Jewish] Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer “Judenrats” for publicly supporting the proposed Cordoba House project in Lower Manhattan.
“Politically correct Judenrats like New York Mayor Michael Boomberg and Scott Stringer (Manhattan Borough President) and domestic enemies who are supporting the mosque – with open ties to Islamic Terrorist organizations and supporting states are doing nothing more than erecting a giant middle finger to be trust at the victims of 911… which includes all of civilized Mankind,” Williams writes.
It’s unclear exactly what Williams means by the term “Judenrats,” but as you can see from the context, it’s highly unlikely he’s using the word as a term of endearment.
And, just in case you are wondering what exactly Williams (who, btw, is not at all Jewish — at all) meant by “Judenrats”, he later clarified his apparently muddy contention with TPM:
Judenrat is essentially the same as Sonderkommando. It is a degrogatory term for the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. Judenrats were Jews who turned in people like Anne Frank and the Sonderkommando were Jews in the Camps who led other Jews into the “showers”.
Bloomberg and Stringer are exactly that, selling out not just Jews but all Civilized Mankind to the 21 Century Nazi ideology of Radical Islam as represented by Ground Zero Mosque.
Read a book.
Of course, those of us who have, in fact, read books (or at least watched Schindler’s List) know that ‘Judenrat’ were, as per Wikipedia, ”administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union,” not dirty rat-fink Uncle Herschels playing footsie with the Islamo-SS, as Williams seems to have erroneously gleaned from the extensive WWII historical archive that apparently resides betwixt his hairy buttcheeks (in the original German, no less).
Moats. Planks. Judenrats. Clueless, Godwin-baiting teabagger bigotry.
Hey, just don’t call it racism — again, that’s a term of derision solely reserved for *ahem* THOSE people.
Update: via Thers, some background on anti-racism expert Joey “Boots” Bassolino:
Joey Boots is a super fan and frequent caller to the Howard Stern Show. Joey`s first appearance on the show was during the Porno-ween contest where he won a chance to have sex with porn star Leanna Heart. Another great appearance was when he let Hi-Pitch Eric rub Icy-Hot on his balls in order to win a free trip to Hong Kong. But none of this compares to Joey`s most memorable appearance on the show. It happened after his on air revelation that he was gay. The announcement led to so much speculation about the truth of his claim that Joey tried to prove that he was gay by tongue kissing a male gay porn star. This antic caused a huge outburst as they endlessly made out and grabbed each others privates. Joey is also a disabled vet who has been through multiple stints in rehab as he tries to fight off his scars of war.
So. What’s the over-under on when (not if) ”Boots” gets a Breitbart column?
Sphere: Related ContentHow Not To Prove Your Lack of Bigotry, By Franklin Graham
Memo to Outer Wingnuttia: If you’re gonna collectively whinge about the ZOMG Ground Zero Mosque!!1one imam comparing Park51 opposition to the persecution of Jews over the years, perhaps y’all should refrain from big-upping asstastically bigoted bullshit like this classy nugget from proud Islamophobe Franklin Graham:
“I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name,” Graham told CNN’s John King in a televised interview that aired Thursday night.
“Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said,” Graham continued, adding that “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.”
This kind of rhetoric has a strange historical antecedent in Jewish history. In the 1400s, in Spain, a movement arose that questioned the sincerity of those Jews who had previously converted to Catholicism. The profession of faith by these converts was not enough for many authorities — they believed these ostensible Catholics still possessed the seed of Judaism, as it were, and they established the Inquisition to root out these false Christians. I’m not, of course, equating the current burst of Islamophobia in the U.S. to the Inquisition, absolutely not. But I am noting how disturbing it is to see Barack Obama’s profession of faith questioned in such a crude and mistrustful way.
Juan Cole nails it:
Those Americans who insist on seeing Obama as a Muslim are ‘othering’ him, and probably are using religion as a proxy for race. Since the Civil Rights movement, it has been unacceptable in the United States for a public figure to engage openly in racist discourse, as shock jocks Dr. Laura and Don Imus discovered. But apparently it is still all right to be a religious bigot, so Islam is being scapegoated by the Republican Party, as its ability openly to play on racial fears is being increasingly constrained.
Seriously.
Sphere: Related ContentHoward Dean: Why I Back Separate Yet Equal 2.0
Howard Dean seems to be under the mistaken impression that repeatedly shoveling the same bullshit will somehow make it smell sweeter:
My argument is simple. This center may be intended as a bridge or a healing gesture but it will not be perceived that way unless a dialogue with a real attempt to understand each other happens. That means the builders have to be willing to go beyond what is their right and be willing to talk about feelings whether the feelings are “justified” or not. No doubt the Republic will survive if this center is built on its current site or not. But I think this is a missed opportunity to try to have an open discussion about why this is a big deal, because it is a big deal to a lot of Americans who are not just right-wing politicians pushing the hate button again. I think those people need to be heard respectfully, whether they are right or whether they are wrong.
Yes, Gov. Dean, your argument is indeed ’simple’: despite your throwaway acknowledgment that, yes, Virginia, there are indeed Muslims who died at Ground Zero, the very act of being a Muslim-American is still something that is inherently offensive. Suppose we should be grateful that you weren’t alive during the Civil Rights era, lamenting over the lack of respect for the poor fee-fees of Southern whites (whether they were right or whether they were wrong) as they railed against the fifth-columnistic communist encroachment of Dr. King and the rest of his negro agitators.
Separate yet equal = feel-good compromise, natch.
Most importantly, it’s all-too telling that the ‘feelings’ Dean believes should be acknowledged and respected are those of Sarah Palin’s ‘Real’ (read: paranoid white Christian) Americans. In one fell swoop, a former progressive Democratic presidential candidate has blithely disenfranchised an entire ethnic cohort, one that, it should be noted, has faced an unrelenting barrage of demonization and xenophobic hysteria from the US political establishment, media and general public ever since the Twin Towers fell.
Golf fucking claps.
On that note, I can’t think of a better segue into Tim Wise’s recent DKos diary on liberal-left racism (h/t Jenn Pozner). Who ever would have guessed that Howard fucking Dean would ever become its poster child?
Sphere: Related Content
Too Little, Too Late
I would like to sign up for Richard Kim’s newsletter:
Maybe it’s the establishment that’s so busy lecturing the masses on the Constitution and Islam that should be sent back to class instead. Lesson one: the hysteria over the “Ground Zero mosque” did not happen in a vacuum. Lesson two: when you permit and foment the indiscriminate dehumanization of Muslims in the name of 9/11, it is not one bit surprising that the public would view lower Manhattan as the frontline of a global religious war. Lesson three: the reason you don’t have any power now–when you’ve decided that enough is enough–is that for so many years, you cheered the bullies on. It is not enough to demonstrate occasional courage. In order to regain your authority and honor, you have to show up to more than just one fight.
IOW, just because, say, Peter Beinart is now, as Glennzilla put it, ”expediting his ongoing transformation from TNR Seriousness Guardian into shrill liberal blogger,” that doesn’t magically erase the many, many years he spent playing the role of usefully-idiotic liberal hawk foil.
So, with all due respect to the Serious™ handwringers at the Washington Post, cry me a goddamn oil-satured river in Michigan. You only have yourselves to blame for handing the likes of Pam Geller a big-ass goddamn fucking megaphone — and for your subsequent inability to yank it back out of her well-manicured paws.
Sphere: Related ContentHoward Dean: Major League @sshole.
First Harry rolls over on the Ground Zero Mosque 9/11 Mosque Cordoba House Park51 Cultural Center, now…Howard?
Really?
Yes, really:
It’s predictable that morally depraved right wing zealots and opportunists like Palin and Gingrich would attempt to exploit America’s ignorance of its own history, exacerbate anti-Muslim intolerance and risk further religious wars. It’s predictable they would then use that as a wedge to split Democrats and Americans everywhere into those who actually believe in religious freedom and those who only pretend or don’t get it.
But it is disheartening to find that so many prominent Democrats fall for this evil gimmick and then wonder why their once loyal supporters hold them in such contempt and are ready to abandon them and start over.
Happy Ramadan from the Democratic Party, Ground Zero for craven fucking cowardice.
Update: Howard Dean, writing for HuffPo this past July:
The fact is that the Democrats won the election in 2008. The Republicans refuse to do anything for the country except say “no”. That means we have to work hard and do what we believe is right. And we have to stop apologizing for it. We have to stand up for what we believe in and stop trying to make deals with people who cannot be trusted to make deals for the good of our country. … Conviction politics works.
Irony. Is. Fucking. DEAD.
Image: studio08denver, flickr
Sphere: Related ContentDr. Laura Exits The Radio Booth (But Not Without a Whinge)
Quothe soon-to-be-consigned-to-the-slagheap-of-history (or a prime time slot on Fox News) talk radio misanthrope Laura “Nigger Nigger Nigger” Schlessinger:
“I want my 1st Amendment rights back, which I can’t have on radio without the threat of attack on my advertisers and stations… .”
Hmm. Didn’t realize the government had been challenging her God-given right to be a complete and utter douchebag over the public airwaves. That’s not cool, man.
Oh, wait, my bad – Dr. [sic] Laura seems to be under the impression that the 1st Amendment should insulate her from criticism or consequence (and, conversely, doesn’t protect the rights of private individuals who choose to criticize and lobby against her once-lucrative brand of bile-inducing bigotry).
How absolutely precious. Well, once she’s no longer projecting her own self-loathing onto the general public for shits and giggles, Dr. [sic] Laura will have ample time to brush up on her constitutional scholarship. And drop n-bombs to her cold, shrivelled, callous little heart’s delight.
Godspeed.
Update: Steve M notes that Dr. [sic] Laura’s novel constitutional interpretation places her in distinguished company.
Sphere: Related ContentAnd Another Thing… (Craven DINO Cowards Edition)
Once again re: Ground Zero Mosque 9/11 Mosque Cordoba House Park51 Cultural Center, DINO Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can pucker up and smooch my hairy black ass:
The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else.
Sargent @ The Plumline underscores the bottom line:
The second most powerful Democrat in the country is not willing to support the President in his efforts to defend the right of Muslims to build a cultural center on private property, if the site in question is in the vicinity of Ground Zero.
Also, what Attaturk said:
By the way Harry, I imagine you were up front in making sure the Mormon Church didn’t build some sort of Memorial at the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, because that would be, y’know, offensive to the memories of the victims for the same reasons?
Oh, right, you were too busy peeing your pants.
Facepalm: it’s what’s for dinner in DC.
Update: Speaking of facepalm, Weigel:
There are a few things more pathetic than a Senate majority leader weighing in on an issue he would have power to affect if he repealed a law he helped pass. Hold on, I’ll think of them.
Worst. Senate majority leader. EVA.
Sphere: Related ContentChris Christie’s Cynical Commentator Catnip
NJ Gov. Chris Christie re: Groud Zero Mosque 9/11 Mosque Cordoba House Park51 Cultural Center:
We have to bring people together. And what offends me the most about all this, is that it’s being used as a political football by both parties. And what disturbs me about the president’s remarks is that he is now using it as a political football as well. I think the president of the United State should rise above that. And should not be using this as a political football, and I don’t believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them… it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now, the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it.
This is just a bid for Christie to get more soft-focus stories about the Big Guy Who Calls ‘em Like He Sees ‘Em. It’s a bid that makes him sound, frankly, like a hack.
The remarks from Christie, who took office in January, were a striking departure from major GOP players like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who have been adamantly opposed to the construction of the proposed Islamic mosque and cultural center two blocks north of the northern perimeter of ground zero — putting them at odds with people like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and, to a lesser degree, President Barack Obama.[...]It’s a stunning departure from the national party line, delivered best by National Republican Senatorial Committee head Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) who said on “Fox News Sunday” that Obama’s comments defending freedom of religion in the case of the mosque show he is “disconnected” from voters around the country, and that it was the wrong place for a mosque to exist.[...]“Chris Christie is going places,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who has worked in New Jersey. “Being folksy on the national moment’s emotional issue with a strident, nonpartisan populism makes him the independents’ politician of the day.”
No one, except for Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, is openly worried about anti-Muslim prejudice being openly practiced, sanctioned, and endorsed by people running for and in high office. Tonally, this one guy seems to get this issue just right… .
Mission accomplished, Gov. Maverick Christie. Expect more gush in the coming days from the usual suspects (IOW, prepare to see a thrill run up Tweety’s leg tonight).
Sphere: Related ContentTrickle Down Politics
For years the Republicans have been preaching small governmnet. They try to paint the contrast that you are either a small government republican, or a tax and spend democrat, however this is and always will be a straw man argument. But there is a deeper problem with the small government philosphy. The fact is, that political theory for the most part trickles down. The reason for this is that for the most part, the most prolific (or atleast well known) political thinkers on both sides of the aisle exist on the national level. While I am sure there are many people with great ideas in individual counties here and there, it is rare that nationwide movements originate from the office of a county commissioner. At best now and then one of their ideas makes it into a national publication, and a ‘national’ thinker then claims it as his or her own when they implement it.
The problem with this is that not all ideas can be scaled down. When house and senate republicans talk about small government, they are talking about small federal government, an idea that goes well in conjunction with states rights. The idea behind this is that state and local governments can manage themselves more efficiently than the federal government, resulting in less spending. In theory, it is not the worst idea ever, one that I may disagree with, but I can at least recognize it’s intellectual merits.
The problem is, that the idea of small government has trickled down to small government. Basically, the federal (SGers) have passed responsibility down to the state SGers who pass it down to the municipal SGers who effectively say, government is bad, lets keep it small and not do anything. This view then gets bounced back up, and what was atleast a semi decent theory of using small scale government has been twisted and perverted into all government is bad.
Take for example North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. This was a city that had been pumelled by job losses in the manufacturing sector. Their one remaining large employer in town was the headquarter of Lowe’s, the big hardware store chain. Lowe’s went to the Wilkes County Commissioners, and said that they wanted to stay in Wilke’s, but needed the quality of education to be improved. If the county would build new highschools, Lowe’s would provide the modern tech such as computers. The Republican dominated (all 5) county comission agreed, but then when the time to vote on it came, decided to make it a referendum issue. Then the issue changed from building new schools to sustain the needs of the area’s largest employer to a ’subsidy for Lowe’s’. The referendum failed, and Lowe’s moved, taking literally thousands of jobs with it.
Now I not a small government guy for a lot of issues, I strongly believe that the federal government is responsible for issues like civil rights, education, not to mention nationwide industrial programs. However this was the exact situation that should have illuminated the benefits of the small government model. A local county was knew what kind of infrastructure (schools no less) was needed for a local employer to be able to maintain operations, the county commission makes a deal with the employer to help with the project, the county takes out a bond for it, the project gets done, and everyone wins. Instead, a perversion of small government stopped this from happening, and effectively doomed the city’s economy and left a lot of people hurting, not to mention a dramatic drop in tax revenue, all because people did not want to pay any more taxes so they could build new schools.
Sphere: Related ContentInsanity Reigns
The current 14th amendment debate is driving me bonkers. I have gotten within an inch of throwing my remote at right wing talking heads on the TV. I have resisted this urge, at least for now. While some, such as Senator Graham, are saying that it simply a call to “amend” it, making any case where someone is refused citizenship despite being born in this great land is a removal of this fundamental right. I understand the anger and fear of illegal immigration. But the going after the 14th amendment is both morally and practically crazy. Many countries in Europe do not give birthright citizenship and that has led to disaster and the rise of Islamic extremism in France. Now this is a pretty big claim, but I plan on proving it.
In post WWII France, the male population was decimated. Their were not enough men to provide the labor force to fuel the Marshall Plan, so the Republic created a guest worker program, allowing for a huge influx of foreign workers. Now like most immigrants, these workers moved into the same neighborhoods, giving them a place where they could be together. Eventually many brought their wives and started families. Now these guest workers did not get to vote, so these neighborhoods turned pretty crummy because they had no real political representation. Social services like schools were well below national averages.
European citizenship policies were (and to this day, in many cases still are) draconian compared to those of the US. This is because unlike the US where the national identity is based on a shared intellectual paradigm and acceptance of the constitution, European nations have national identities based on race. The very names of the nations convey such racial identities. Italy is composed of Italians, Germany is composed of Germans, France is composed of French, etc. This means that even if you do acquire citizenship in such a country, it will take generations of melting your genetics in to the society before your progeny are recognized as true countrymen of that nation.
This racially based national mentality meant that you do not become a citizen of most nations by merit of being born there, Even if your parents are there legally, you do not necessarily earn citizenship unless your parents were citizens themselves (as opposed to being guest workers). The result of this was literally generations of people who were born and raised in France that are not French citizens. There are people who’s great grandparents came to France on the guest worker program who still do not have the right to vote. Due to a continued lack of representations, these ghettos continued to degenerate. There is no a significant population of young Muslim men who have been excluded from the benefits of western society, and understandably have become extremely angry over this. This has created an environment that is combustible. We have seen multiple cases of mass riots in France that engulf the suburbs and emergency workers need police escorts when being deployed to certain neighborhoods. More worryingly, it has created an environment of anger that the most radical branches of Islam are trying to exploit and recruit out from. Now, to be fair, France has been working to create paths for citizenship for these people, making it a simple process to claim their citizenship, but many do not have the level of basic education and understanding of civic infrastructure required to navigate the bureaucracy to take advantage of this resulted in relatively few people taking advantage of this. It is too little too late. France will be suffering from the effects of their immigration narrow mindedness for the next several generations.
Many of my friends often worry about the radicalization of Islam within Europe and fear that those practices are coming to north America. I do not have that fear because the radicalization of European Islam is rooted in a social disjunction between immigrants and society. Simply put, many “immigrants” do not feel they have a stake in society even after residing there for generations. The US (and Canada for that matter) embrace new immigrants and while many struggle upon arrival, they feel that they have a stake in the country both financially and politically.
I want to be clear, I am not saying that if the 14th amendment gets repealed the US will be flooded with the Mexican Al Quaeda tomorrow. What I am saying is that repealing the 14th will create a second class of citizens in the United States. If one’s parents are in the country illegal, than they will not be citizens here. Entire areas of cities will be populated by people who do not have American citizenship, and have no future of American citizenship for their children, They will have any chance of a future stake in American society. Within such an environment, crime and political extremism (aka violent extremism) will thrive. Now I can say with absolute certainty it will not be Islamic extremism that would take root. Anyone that says that is paranoid, stupid, crazy, and racist. However, it is not unimaginable that a branch of Mexican organized used a political philosophy to recruit the disenfranchised, similar to the FARC and right wing paramilitary involvement with the cocaine trade. It is these fears that makes me see the idea of rejecting the 14th amendment having the potential to be worse than any other policy idea that has been put forward by members of the political mainstream in my life.
Even if you do not recognize the above argument, we must not reject the 14th amendment. This is a nation of immigrants, a nation where almost all of our ancestors came from somewhere else. Our forefathers came here as refugees fleeing religious and political persecution, leaving behind starvation, and many were brought here as slaves. We are Irish-Americans, African Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, and yes, Mexican-Americans. In one way or another, we are all descended of the world’s rejects, and look at what we have accomplished. Unlike many nations we do not share a common racial history. What we share as Americans is that we were born here. The fundamental ideas of the United States are so great that anyone who is born in the great land is an American citizen, free from any crimes or sins of their parents, blessed with one of the greatest sets rights in history; those afforded to us by the Constitution of the United States of America.
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