encouraging news

I am usually of the opinion that the war in Iraq is going worse than is reported by the media, so it's nice to see some encouraging news every now and then. I'd like to think a more educated populace leads to a more civil society, so this might be a nice sign of some progress.

I, on the other hand, am happy to debate the Israel-Palestine conflict

I'll speak in rash and general terms, since I can't claim to be an expert at anything. Except possibly sticking my foot in my mouth.

Firstly, if someone could bring to my attention the last time that killing someone in the "war on terror" resulted in there being less terror? Israel has been killing Palestinian terrorists for decades now, so clearly they must be close to getting them all. One of these days. The U.S. has being taking on the terrorists in Iraq for 3 years now, and more of them seem to spring up every time.

Somehow we thought that killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would deal "a severe blow to al-Qaida," yet at the same time were confident that it would lead to more violence. Usually if someone hurts your friend, you hate them more, not less And are more inclined to seek revenge, not less. Why do we insist that killing people is the way to stop people from being killed? Clearly it isn't working too well.

brief notes

better short than never...

in today's papers, slate points out a couple things that have me scratching my head, even before 10am:

1. "The Journal notes that 52 senators endorsed a (failed) move to increase the federal minimum wage. Sixty votes were needed to move it forward. But the 52 votes were, as the WSJ puts it, a "high-water mark in labor's pay-raise campaign and one certain to boost pressure on Republican leaders to permit a House vote on the issue." The minimum—$5.15—isn't indexed to inflation and hasn't changed a penny since 1997."

i thought 50 was a majority in the senate, and 60 votes were needed to break a filibuster. does that mean the republicans filibustered the minimum wage hike? i'd love to see a comparison between dem and rep filibusters since 2000, especially NOT including judicial nominations.

2. An Israeli missile strike in Gaza missed its target and killed a pregnant woman. Fourteen civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes over the past week, including three children Tuesday.

it's a MISSILE! how accurate are those things? and anyway, they're firing missiles into civilian areas, and they're surprised when they miss their targets? when you're firing at a car that's 60 feet away from, say, a children's hospital, and you miss even only 1% of the time, how is that acceptable? just walk up to the folks and shoot 'em like civilized people.

democracy

"We do not seek to publish policy papers; we’ll leave the important details on budget line items and dollar figures to others. Rather, we seek breakthrough thinking on the concepts and approaches that respond to the central transformations of our time: the breakdown of the ladder of upward mobility; the promise and problems of an information-based, globalized economy; new national security threats which cross old boundaries and defy old assumptions from jihadist terrorism and nuclear proliferation to climate change, pandemics, and poverty; and a society where people work and live in new and different ways.

"Progressives have been at their best when we are both rigorous in looking at the world as it is and vigorous in introducing creative approaches to remake the world as we believe it should be. Democracy is not interested in either reiterating the conventional wisdom or maintaining unity around outdated orthodoxies. We see our role as upsetting tired assumptions, moving past outdated and obsolete divisions, and stretching the envelope of what is accepted by and of progressives. "

-Democracy.

This journal (Democracy: A Journal of Ideas) came out just recently. It's available online for FREE with registration--though, if you like the content, I strongly encourage you to buy a (cheap!) print subscription.

Let's see what happens now.

the central government is not relevant

A memo from Zalmay Khalilzad, American ambassador to Iraq, to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice: "Snapshots from the Office: Public Affairs Staff Show Strains of Social Discord." Slate's Today's Papers flags this as today's "must-read," and I agree.

***

"...[E]ven upscale neighborhoods... have visibly deteriorated."

"...[A] Sunni [employee] said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling them to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men).... A female in the [Public Affairs Section] cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May.... People who wear jeans in public have come under attack from what staff members describe as Wahabis and Sadrists."

"An Arab newspaper editor [said] he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals..."

In a country where many people get "one hour of power for every six without," a "staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day."

"In April, employees began reporting changes in demeanor of guards at green zone checkpoints. They seem to be more militia-like... guards held [an employee's] embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by "Embassy" as she entered. Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people... We cannot call employees in on weekends or holidays without blowing their 'cover.'"

"One colleague told us he feels 'defeated' by the circumstances... Another employee tells us that life outside the Green Zone has become 'emotionally draining.' He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral 'every evening.'"

"The central government... is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust their neighbors."

short stories

i have a weakness for well-crafted short stories. they're not supposed to be like little novels. short stories are slices of life. like when you slice an apple, from top to bottom. in some slices, something happens: you hit a seed, you cut the core in half. in most, though, you just get sweet apple and nothing else.

presently, i'm in love with amy hempel.

most of hempel's books are out of print. she just released a book of collected stories containing everything she's published so far. i can't help but share it with other people. maybe you'll love it as much as i do; probably you won't. but you should read it all the same. one of her stories starts with this line: "The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me." that story, "the harvest," is seven pages long and was originally published in her book "at the gates of the animal kingdom." this is a part of it.

***

As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

The accident happened at sunset, so that is when I felt this way the most. The man I had met the week before was driving me to dinner when it happened. The place was at the beach, a beach on a bay that you can look across and see the city lights, a place where you can see everything without having to listen to any of it.

A long time later I went to that beach myself. I drove the car. It was the first good beach day; I wore shorts.

At the edge of the sand I unwound the elastic bandage and waded into the surf. A boy in a wet suit looked at my leg. He asked me if a shark had done it; there were sightings of great whites along that part of the coast.

I said that, yes, a shark had done it.

"And you're going back in?" the boy asked.

I said, "And I'm going back in."

jefferson redux

House Democrats voted on Thursday night to strip a Louisiana congressman [William Jefferson] of a key committee position [until his case is resolved] as they tried to avoid any taint of scandal in a year when they want to ride accusations of Republican corruption to election victories.

Ms. Pelosi sought to draw a line between Republican scandals and what she called "individual mistakes." [She said,] "If we have any of that in our caucus, we will deal with them. That is quite different from the Republican caucus. The entire Republican caucus condoned, enabled and benefited from the culture of corruption, and that is what I will continue to rail against."

***

Damn right, Nancy P. Way to take my very good advice.

Big surprise

The CIA's plan to support Somali warlords has backfired? Surely no one saw this coming, after a long history of hugely successful campaigns of meddling in foreign governments.

"We've strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were worried most about," said Mr. Prendergast, who worked on Africa policy at the National Security Council and State Department during the Clinton administration.

Perhaps I have a biased memory, but this seems to be the standard result whenever the United States involves itself in foreign affairs recently.

I can recall, quite some time ago, having a heated discussion with a couple of knowledgeable and progressive history professors on the merits of keeping troops in Iraq. I don't remember the date, but it wasn't too long after the "Mission Accomplished" blow-up. Anyhow, these professors told me that no good could possibly come from keeping soldiers over there. This went against what any sane person thought at the time (and what most members of Congress still seem to think). If we took our troops out, all hell would break loose! There would be suicide bombers, chaos, and civil war.

Firstly, why no one thought of this before we invaded still perplexes me. Secondly, that's exactly what seems to have happened even with U.S. soldiers there, with the added benefits of more hostility toward the U.S., the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops, and the U.S. spending tons of money we don't have.

But anyway, why are we still there? Is it because we're keeping things nice and orderly? Clearly not. Because if we don't have easily accessible troops there to attack, the evil people might come over here to do it? I guess that might make sense. Are we scared that if we pull out, the evil people will declare victory? Probably. But I'm not sure how much sense that makes. The stated reason for attacking Iraq is the war on terror. What better way to show how vindictive and crazy we can get if attacked than by invading a country, destroying its government, reducing it to rubble, and then declaring victory and leaving?

We can make an announcement along the following lines (I am not a speech-writer, so I imagine the final draft would be a bit smoother, but you get the idea):

Dear World,

A while ago someone attacked us. We did not like it. In response, we attacked pretty much anyone we thought we could get away with attacking. We may have fixed some things, we may have screwed some things up, but who really cares? Anyway, we're done for now. We're going to take our troops and go home, from everywhere. We won't try to fix any problems any more. We'll even get the CIA to stop meddling in your affairs. We're sorry if we screwed anything up, we really didn't mean to, we were only trying to help. But anyway, we're done. Please don't bother us, we should really be left alone for a little while. If you do bother us, we'll probably go a little crazy, leave your country in shambles and claim that we fixed it, so it's really better for everyone if we go our separate ways at this point. Take care.

Sincerely, United States.

jefferson

Summary:
Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) has been under FBI investigation for bribery related to preferential contracts for high-tech services in Africa. (It should be mentioned that, as part of this investigation, the FBI maintains that it has captured Jefferson on tape accepting a $100,000 bribe; they also assert that $90,000 of this money was found in Jefferson's home freezer.) The FBI searched his home (with a warrant), and at that time Jefferson was seen by a Justice Department agent to be trying to hide documents in violation of the subpoena. His office was raided on May 20, 2006 by the FBI, who had obtained a warrant from a real, live judge. This was the first time a sitting Congressman had had his office searched in the history of Congress. The FBI took some documents, copied his computer's hard drive, and refused to allow the Sergeant-at-Arms into the office during the search.

Jefferson himself "responded" to the raid by calling a news conference, where he made it clear he would discuss everything except the case itself: "I do want to say... that there are two sides to every story. There are certainly two sides to this story. There will be an appropriate time and forum when that can be explained and explicated. But this is not the time, this is not the forum, and operating on advice of counsel, I will not get into facts." Of course, he did not refrain from commenting on the raid in his office ("an outrageous intrusion").

Both Democrats and Republicans were furious, calling the raid an abuse of the Executive branch and a breach of separation of powers. Their justification is the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution, which states that "[Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." Constitutional scholars are divided on whether an FBI (executive branch) raid on a representative's office is actually in violation of the Constitution. The WP's analysis maintains that the breach was in the spirit, rather than in the letter, of the law: "The issue could turn on whether a court finds that the items seized from Jefferson's office were related to such protected legislative activities as writing, researching and voting on bills. Other things could be fair game for the prosecution."

In response to the raid, Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a joint statement: "Noting that 'no person is above the law, neither the one being investigated nor those conducting the investigation,' Hastert and Pelosi asserted that the Justice Department must cease reviewing the documents and ensure that their contents are not divulged. Once the papers are returned, 'Congressman Jefferson can and should fully cooperate with the Justice Department's efforts, consistent with his constitutional rights.'" In response, President Bush ordered the documents sealed for 45 days, ostensibly to give everyone a chance to chill out.

The Senate, meanwhile, has had a decidedly cooler-headed reaction to the news. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) "weighed in... saying that he was 'okay' with the search and saw no constitutional problems with it."

***

First of all, the Democrats missed a huge opportunity to cement themselves as the real party of morality with the disillusioned centrist voters in a congressional election year. The appropriate reaction from Pelosi, while Republicans were scurrying around in a huff, would have been: "Look, we don't care what party this guy is in; if you take bribes, if you are morally corrupt, if you abuse your office, entrusted to you by the American people, for personal financial gain, then you WILL be found out, you WILL be investigated, and you WILL face the consequences. We stand by Jefferson until he is found guilty, as we should with all those in the justice system, but at the same time we understand that EVERYONE has an obligation to comply fully with the law, and we encourage Jefferson to do so as well."

Instead, we got some sniveling, unintelligible whine about separation of powers because, what, a guy got his office searched? For taking a bribe? When his own people are suffering??? Instead, who got the good moral press? BILL FUCKING FRIST, who is very likely going to be the next Republican Presidential candidate.

I understand, especially in this environment, the need to be particularly cautious about the Executive branch's over-reaching. And, to be honest, I'm plenty ticked that the FBI didn't raid DeLay's office, or Duke Cunningham's, or Scooter Libby's. Then again, none of those guys were dumb enough to be caught on tape, and then to have evidence of that interaction turn up in a search of their house, and on top of that to get caught pilfering documents out of the house, against orders, during a warranted search. And don't even get me started on lawmakers making a fuss about a perfectly legal search - approved by the courts and all - when we're dealing with flagrant violations of privacy in warantless wiretapping and data-mining of domestic phone calls.

The reaction from the Democrats effectively neutralizes, in the minds of most people (who don't, for instance, know what the Speech or Debate clause is or why it would at all matter), the moral high-ground that the Republicans were so hell-bent on conceding with scandal after scandal. Government is a corrupt place, and a Democrat was bound to go under sooner or later. But the party is judged more on their reaction than on the behavior of an errant representative. How can they say, now, that it's the Republicans who are making a mess of the government--when the Democrats have loudly supported their own right to immunity from legal searches? When a condemnation of obvious wrongdoing isn't immediately issued?

This must seem like a trivial issue, but it's just one more example, in a long, long list, of the Democratic party really not having its shit together. Every single time they've had the upper hand, every single opportunity to get back on top, they just fuck it up. I swear it gets harder and harder to be a member of this party.