Rundown of a nominee

Check this out. It's the last several tweets from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (isn't it a little creepy when creepy guys like Newt Gingrich use Twitter?).

Never mind the gas chamber and Baptist missionary family stuff. Look at this most recent one:

White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.

White male idiot should shut the fuck up.

Losing to win

Sometimes, to lose is to win.

I say this because I’m secretly hoping that tomorrow, when the California Supreme Court releases its decision on same sex marriage, that we lose.

I know. Shocking for me to say, isn’t it? But it’s true. I hope the court lets Proposition 8 stand.

Go ahead, call me a traitor if you like. Not like that’s never happened before. But I have what I think are some pretty good reasons. Two of them, if you’re looking for details.

First, in the event of an adverse ruling, the same-sex marriage folks in California will do the same thing the Prop 8 people have done – they’ll put a ballot initiative up every year, over and over again, until it wins. And it will win. The river progress is with us on this. It’s only a matter of time. We’d just trade immediate gratification for – in my view – a more secure decision later.

Which brings me to reason No. 2. We’re dealing with some very unstable people here. A significant number of the anti-same-sex marriage crowd is not dealing with a full deck on this or very many other issues.

They sincerely believe that allowing gay men and lesbians to marry would be the end of civilization as we know it. In a way, they’re right – but they’re predicting a decline into depravity and wanton sin, while I’m seeing a more holistic society that fully values every member. Two completely different views that have absolutely nothing in common.

Because they see nothing good ever coming from same-sex marriage, they’re pretty much prepared to do anything they have to in order to prevent that from ever happening.

Anything.

If they lose, it won’t be because their proposition violated the California constitution. It’ll be because liberal activist judges nullified the will of the people. It will piss them off. A lot. It will make them crazier than they already are. Dave Neiwart at Orcinus:

And you can bet that right-wing True Believers across the country are going to be looking for targets to take out their frustration on. As I’ve written recently, they already think this government is not their own, and are moving into opposition to it. They really believe that the continued greatness of America is at stake, and they are the last line of defense against complete moral chaos. If this happens, God will withdraw his blessing from the US, and America will lose everything. They will not let that happen. Passing a gay marriage law in California -- the biggest and most influential state of all -- will be their Harper's Ferry, their Pearl Harbor. After that -- the deluge.

And there are more of them than you think. Not enough to win. But enough to inflict serious damage on this country – already reeling from the moral, legal and economic disaster that was the Bush administration.

And worse yet is the potential damage they could inflict on us. They don’t see us as human, not we gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered folk and not you “normal” folk who support us. We’re the enemy. We’re what’s keeping them from God’s kingdom. And God, that jealous, vengeful and spiteful deity, has no use for us.

We’re expendable.

The country is strong enough to withstand this demagoguery. It would suffer a blow, perhaps even a devastating one that brings us to our knees. But it won’t kill us as a country.

It could kill us as a people, as innocent humans doing nothing more than living our lives as we have a right to do.

So, I hope we lose. We don’t need to be in such a hurry, not at the price we could be forced to pay for victory. California is too big – it’s not Vermont, or New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut or Massachusetts. For the right wing to lose there push those among them already too close to the edge over that lip and into the abyss of complete insanity.

The potential for violence is undeniable. And frankly, I’d rather see us avoid a bloodbath and wait just a little longer. I know I’d feel safer. And I'd feel better about the rest of you, too.

We'll win this one. If not now, later, but it will happen. I'd just like to see us do it with no loss of life.


AWOP Political Contributing Editor

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Progressive globalization

It's nearly the end of another long weekend -- at least for some of you. Me, there are no holidays in the news biz. I'm lucky to have weekends off from the daily grind of the newsroom. So I'll be heading back there tomorrow, where the latest installment of We Love the Troops Day will finally be winding down.

Now don't get me wrong. I certainly support our troops -- where they serve honorably, ethically and morally, as I suspect most are.

But there are, as we've been told, a few "bad apples" in the bunch who stink up the place and cast a really bad pall on everybody else. And that goes for some of the lower ranked troops they command as well.

Ha. You thought I was talking about the non-coms, didncha? I certainly coulda been. We've seen plenty of Article 31 hearings and courts martial -- some of which actually ended in convictions but most of which let the accused off with little more than a slap on the wrist, if anything -- and even a murder trial for a former soldier now convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teenaged girl and killing most of her family.

But nah. I'm much more concerned about the guys who give the orders, who set the tone for the troops who fight and work under them. No, I'm not letting the little guys off either -- a soldier has a duty to question illegal orders. But the real culprits, the ones who never seem to suffer the consequences of their actions, are the officers. The high ranking officers, and their civilian masters.

Take Abu Ghraib, for example. And handful of bad apple soldiers were convicted, and a couple of officers got minor disciplinary actions. Except for the general in command of Abu Ghraib at the time, one Janis Karpinski. You will notice that she is not the typical male general. However, a typical male general -- Geoff Miller, who set the tone at Guantanamo before coming to Abu Ghraib -- was working the interrogations at the notorious prison. But it was Karpinski who got busted.

Miller? The guy who trained soldiers in torture techniques retired a major general. To be fair, Congress delayed his retirement because they thought he wasn't completely truthful with them about torture, but they eventually relented. If GW were still president, he'd probably get a Medal of Freedom. As it was, he did get a Distinguished Service Medal.

Karpinski was forced to retire as a colonel although she told the truth. How convenient to have a woman scapegoat available.

And the civilians. Well, we already know that not even Barack Obama is gonna hold their feet to the fire. He's letting the Dick and Liz show set the tone, and it's working like a charm. Americans are absolutely convinced now that torture is a pretty bad thing, but it's necessary to keep America safe from the evil Muslims. I mean terrorists.

Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood Congressional Democrats are busy doing what they do best -- fuck up the best chance of having an actual liberal government with liberal policies and liberal outcomes that serve the greater good rather than do good for the greater wealth of this country.

And the Republicans. Oh my god, the Republicans. They seem to get more out of sync with the universe every day, while my colleagues fall all over themselves to make sure their every utterance is broadcast to the world as if it were the words of someone who actually understands the world, you know, like, Gandhi or somebody.

And yet ... and yet ... for all the surface sameness we're seeing these first few months of the Obama presidency -- and there is quite a bit -- there's quite a bit different as well. Hell, just having a Democrat in office makes it quite a bit different from the last eight years. And really, do you think Darth Cheney would have come out from whatever dark hole he lives in and put himself all over our televisions if he weren't worried that Obama was gonna fuck up everything he worked so hard for? Hell no, he wouldn't.

But the biggest difference isn't playing out on television. It's not even on the radio or in the newspapers. You see a little of it at some of the Big Blogs, but those places are so infected with the virus of popularity now that they, too, have lost touch with the common ground.

But places like this, well, this is the common ground. I've spent the last several days preparing for A World of Progress' upcoming redesign (oops, Publisher Lady, was I not sposed to mention that yet?), and as part of that I've actually had a look at just about every post on the site, from calls to action to personal stories to hints on making a compost pile to political rants.

And in each and every post I found the same thing -- a yearning to learn, to improve, to help others along this long and difficult path. To progress beyond both the petty and the personal and to redefine the way we look at globalization, heretofore viewed as some nefarious plot for the wealthy to secure their hold on us by both the right and the left.

But that's just the obvious part, carried out by obvious people in pursuit of their obvious enrichment. The real acts of globalization are taking place right here, where an American man living in Mumbai reads a post by a journalist in one of the media capitals of the United States and wants to publish it in an online magazine he writes for published by a woman in the Appalachian Mountains.

That worked out pretty well, so soon the journalist is fully on board, along with an historian with degrees in U.S. and Middle Eastern history, a lesbian on the West Coast, an environmentalist in Texas and a whole bunch of contributors who make A World of Progress one of the most exciting spots on this thing we call Internet.

I knew that, but going through the whole history of the place really made it very, very clear. And I'm not just saying that to curry favor with the boss. The puppy, well, that's another matter altogether.

I like it here so much, in fact, that I'll soon be shutting down my other blogs and posting exclusively here. OK, I'm already posting exclusively here, but soon I'll shut down the other blogs.

But my point, and I do have one, is that it is our leaders who set the tone, who make it clear what's acceptable and not acceptable, who point out the direction we underlings -- no matter how much peer level we actually have -- should be moving.

That's certainly true at dank Iraqi prisons where generals teach torture and walk away with their rank intact. And it's true in places like this where the right people come together at the right time to create something unique and powerful.

Either way, the troops get the message and respond accordingly. The difference plays out across the globe, for better or worse.

But here, unlike at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and who knows how many secret facilities around the world, the good guys win. And when we do, the world benefits.



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Remember 9/11, Cheney style

Sheesh. I go away for a few days and y’all let all hell break loose. Can’t a News Writer catch a little break around here?

But no. I come back to find out that Darth Cheney’s ratings are on the rise? What the????

OK, so it’s still only 37 percent of Americans with a favorable view of the former vice president, who spent the last eight years hidden away in some undisclosed location but whom we now cannot seem to be rid of.

Meanwhile, GW, who never missed a chance to smirk at a camera, is nowhere to be seen. I repeat, WTF? And the Republican Party can’t get its shit together.

The Republican National Committee, which I think is still led by Michael Steele, seems almost irrelevant, while Rush, Newt and Cheney are all over the place calling for Nancy Pelosi’s resignation and claiming that torture is a good thing.

That, of course, is the basis for Cheney’s popularity rising -- he’s attracting the attention of the bloodthirsty on the right, the ones he and GW worked their magic on for eight years, scaring the bejesus out of ‘em so that now they’re absolutely petrified that the pansy-assed liberals in charge are gonna sell us all out to the terrorists.

It’s the same reason that Fox “News” has seen its ratings skyrocket since a liberal black guy became president. That’s pretty damn scary to certain segments of our population.

So anyway, Cheney was out there Thursday using that old tactic that worked so well for so many years for the GOP -- insert “9/11” every 14th or 15th word, just like Rudy Giuliani -- in a speech that could only be called preaching to the converted, the very conservative American Enterprise Institute.

When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.

What that means is that as long as Obama agrees with what we did, he’s on the right track and we’ll support him. But it’s the same old same old if he disagrees -- after all, we all know that the previous administration never ever ever made a mistake. Except I think for boasting about smoking Osama bin Laden out of his cave. Yeah, that didn’t turn out so good.

It's the Cheney battle cry: Remember 9/11! But that's kinda like the Texan battle cry Remember the Alamo, which was also based on a fanciful retelling of the truth.

And the rest of Cheney’s speech is just more of the same, accusing Democrats of “distorting the truth” and therefore being “in no position to lecture anyone about ‘values.’” We prevented attacks and saved lives by torturing people and spying on Americans with illegal wiretaps, we had “universal support back then” because everybody knew what was at stake, blah blah blah.

Well, no. Everybody knew what the Bush administration told them, which, we now know, was a stack of lies. The justification for illegally torturing and spying on people is that “we saved lives,” but that’s not exactly true either, as plenty of other people have pointed out.

But old Darth, he just keeps on going, just like he kept making that non-existent connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda way back when. Kinda like publishing photographs of them using the same gesture side by side.

And we do know this, if nothing else: When somebody keeps repeating the same shit day after day, and my colleagues keep reporting as if it actually means something, then the people who already believe the bullshit have no reason to think and those who might be unsure have no choice to consider that the lies are actually truth.

They are not.

The whole Nancy Pelosi thing -- please. What a blatant distraction, but then, some of our fellow citizens have not been known for their ability to see through obfuscation.

And on it goes. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again -- if Nancy Pelosi knew we were torturing people and did nothing, then she is culpable. But now is not the time to be arguing that part of the story. Now we need to get to the bottom of what we did, to understand that what we did was morally, ethically and legally wrong and then to punish first those who actively made it happen. After that, we can get to what member of what committee may or may not have been briefed on waterboarding.

And besides, where Pelosi’s concerned, the GOP has been after her for years. I’m not quite sure why they’re so afraid of her, except that she is a woman and she is right behind Joe Biden -- and before that Cheney himself -- in line for the presidency, but they are absolutely terrified of the California congresswoman.

Meanwhile, Cheney -- who appeared to be salivating on the idea of a fresh terrorist attack on the United States, which could then be blamed on Obama and all thought of that August 2001 daily briefing saying that bin Laden wanted to attack the United States and might use airliners to do it could be done away with forever.

And the Rush-Newt-Cheney cabal keeps pushing the horrible idea of actually imprisoning suspected terrorists -- most of whom are not terrorists -- in the United States and trying them in American courts. And some of them actually have the nerve to say that they don’t want them tried in American courts because then they’d have constitutional rights. Hello? Isn’t that what this country was founded on? But that doesn’t really count if your Muslim, I mean a terrorist, I guess.

Obama, also speaking on Thursday, saw things a different way.

After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era - that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out. Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that - too often - our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us - Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens - fell silent. In other words, we went off course.

On the Guantanamo debate, the president was just as clear.

Now, over the last several weeks, we have seen a return of the politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years. I understand that these problems arouse passions and concerns. They should. We are confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face. But I have no interest in spending our time re-litigating the policies of the last eight years. I want to solve these problems, and I want to solve them together as Americans. And we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue. Listening to the recent debate, I've heard words that are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country.

So, here's the choice: Follow Cheney, and return to the fearful days of the Bush administration, where bogeys are around every corner and your neighbor could be a Muslim, I mean, terrorist.

Or, stick with Obama. Yeah, so he’s going back to the military commissions -- but do you really believe those commissions under Obama would be conducted with the same disregard for the rule of law as they were under Bush-Cheney? Um, no.

All right then. Here’s the deal. Don’t let my colleagues continue to act as if Darth Cheney has anything new to say. Well, yeah, for him it is new since he never said much before, but what he’s saying is the same crap they force-fed us after they failed to protect us on 9/11. Don’t let ‘em do it again.Don’t let my colleagues help them. Challenge them. Often. Loudly.

And never, ever back down. That’s how we win. That’s how we keep the real forces of darkness away.

AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!


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Enough with Nancy Pelosi

My colleagues are at it again, and by that I mean they are salivating over Republican talking points and ignoring the real issues.

This week's diversion, of course, is the dizzying discussion of what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it, as if that actually matters. Whether Pelosi, or any other member of Congress knew or did not know about what the Bush administration was doing in the name of the American people but behind our backs is irrelevant.

What matters is what the Bush administration did and why did they hide it.

The second part of that is easily answered. They hid it because they knew it was wrong. They knew it was torture, and they knew it was wrong. Period. End of story. Despite my beloved colleagues game attempts to convince you otherwise, there is no gray area here. The "ticking bomb" scenario only happens on "24." So let me say this again.

Torture is wrong. The Bush administration tortured people in our names. Torture is wrong. Always.

So please. Let's shut up about what the CIA did or did not tell Nancy Pelosi in 2002. Let's talk about what the United States was doing to detainees in 2002. And 2003. And 2004. All the way up until George W. Bush left office. Maybe longer.

Let's talk about how many of the detainees who underwent torture -- and torture goes far beyond waterboarding -- were actually "terrorists" at all. And how many of them came to hate the United States after their treatment at the hands of U.S. interrogators.

And let's talk about how the vice president's office desperately wanted some connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and it didn't really matter if it was true or not. They only wanted to be able to say they had "intelligence" connecting them. What they didn't say, though, was that the "intelligence" was wrung out of detainees under torture. What would you tell an interrogator if you were waterboarded 83 times in a month? 183 times?

Let's talk about an administration that bent the Constitution to its will and wants it to stay that way so that no one will know the extent to which they undermined the very foundation of this country.

And let's launch an investigation of these things. An independent investigation that can look into everything -- including what Nancy Pelosi knew or didn't know, what she objected to or didn't object to.

But most of all, let's stop this insane game of speculation, coming up with document after document, each one appearing to contradict the one before -- but all of them being a very vague and incomplete record of a shadowy and hidden policy.

Nancy Pelosi isn't the problem here, and yet my colleagues have spent countless hours discussing her, and virtually no hours discussing why there's even a question about her role at all.

It's time to stop. Now.

It's time to stop being afraid, time to own up to what's been done by us and to us.

Time to stop pretending to be a moral giant among nations and actually become one.

Time to say the word "torture" and look it square in the face, to acknowledge that this is what we did.

Until we do, recovery from the disaster of the last eight years will elude us. This point is key. It is the very symbol of the depravity that follows when a nation's leadership believes the law does not apply to them, no matter how "great" that nation believes itself to be.

We must put it behind us. But before we do, we have to take it all in, embrace what we did, as distasteful as that is. Only then can we truly let it go and move on.

To do otherwise is to condemn ourselves to follow this destructive path again.

Enough with the distractions. Nancy Pelosi is not the issue. Nancy Pelosi is just a shiny object the Republicans are dangling in front of our ADHD eyes. And we, my colleagues and I, are jumping after it like a cat after a moth. Even if we catch it, the victory will be insubstantial because we've ignored the real issue.

Torture. That's the real issue -- the only one that matters in this discussion.


AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Stupid is as stupid does

Politico chief political analyst Roger Simon reports that the Republican National Committee is holding a special session next week so they can vote on -- and approve -- a resolution renaming the Democratic Party. After next week, according to the RNC, it will be called the Democrat Socialist Party.

Simon doesn't talk about that, though. His article is about Michael Steele, the black guy the RNC put in charge to make it look like they aren't a bunch of racist assholes but whom they don't give a shit about and regularly kick in the teeth. Steele opposed the special session, which will include passing a couple more idiotic resolutions, and opposes the renaming resolution too, although he does agree that the Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism.”

Referring to the Democrats officially as the Democat Socialist Party "will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans."

Now there's an understatement. And that's really about all that needs to be said about Steele, but Simon goes on for two pages about how the Republicans don't like him and all. If you'd like to see what he said, click here. Or stick around and let's talk about the real issue.

Simon quotes an RNC member saying the Steele "has a tin ear when it comes to the building (i.e., the RNC staff), the RNC and the party,” but don't you really think it's the GOP that has the tin ear when it comes to the American people?

So, they may be winning on the torture debate, for now. But what else? Those teabaggeries went over like the proverbial lead balloons. Their nemesis, Barack Obama, is still polling unwaveringly high, meaning that folks are kinda liking the president with the funny name. They're latest Big Issue is whether Wanda Sykes went too far at the White House Correspondents dinner, about as big an issue for the average American as the price of a loaf of bread in a London food market. And if Darth Cheney running all over the place bitching about Obama wasn't enough, now his little girl Liz is out doing the same, most recently saying the president is siding with terrorists or some such nonsense.

Somehow, I'm not expecting the Other Daughter, the Lesbian One Mary, to follow Liz's footsteps. I think she's got a Cheney grandchild to be worrying about right now.

Meanwhile, the GOP's still sticking to extremist social issues and name-calling as it's big strategy. GW and John Boehner and Tom Delay and all those truly stalwart individuals have been using "Democrat party" when they should be using "Democratic Party" for some time. It's a perjorative thing, you see, that actually got started more than 100 years ago and comes and goes, depending on how little leg the Republicans have to stand on at any given point in time.

This latest swing of its use began during the 2006 midterm elections, which was just about when folks were starting to wake up to Republican bullshit and shift Congress to the Democratic side.

Saying "Democrat party" is a purposely perjorative thing, though, on account of grammar. Democratic Party, you see, is what's called a proper noun. That's the name of the party -- calling it anything else is wrong, and it's intended to be a slight, an insult.

Add that to "socialist," which the Republicans have decided resonates with people outside their base with no evidence showing that to be true, and you got yourself one humdinger of a throwdown.

So here comes the Republican National Committee with its fancy resolution to make it official -- as if one party can officially change the name of the other paraty -- that will actually serve two purposes -- it will insult the Democrats and jab at Michael Steele.

There's just one teensy weensy little problem. Nobody gives a rodent's derriere. And all it does it make the Republicans look exactly like what they've become -- petty, vindictive little dictators with no ideas and no sense of decency.

Well done, gentlemen. I look forward to your resolution next week. When you keep doing stupid things like this, you make it impossible for my colleagues to present you in any kind of decent light. It's just too much of a stretch. Kind of like reporting that the fire department responded to a call about an intoxicated group of men not only threw empty paint cans into their 55-gallon drum fire, but then added not one, but three 20-pound propane cylinders when they ran out of paint cans. There's just no way you can make that look like a good idea.

As Bertrand Russell once said, "Most people would die rather than think. In fact, they do."

Sadly, the Republicans appear headed rapidly in that direction.

But maybe that's for the best. Then we could split the Democratic Party into two and have a real opposition party, with both parties focused on what's good for the American people instead of what's good for their personal fortunes.

You know, that little thing known as "the greater good."


AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Lift the veil

He’s wrong.

Barack Obama is wrong.

The president should step aside and allow the release of photographs detailing the type of treatment detainees received at the hands of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said releasing the photos now could put our troops in greater danger. How? It’s not like al-Qaeda doesn’t already know what we did. Hell, they probably know more about what happened in those dank cells better than any of us do. After all, they were there. We’re still over here, still being kept in the dark by our own government.

The photos that were to be released, before Obama ordered his lawyers to argue more forcefully against it, "are not particularly sensational, especially when compared with the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib," he said.

You remember those photos. Naked men, forced to pile on top of one another in a human pyramid while smiling soldiers stand behind them. A hooded man, with wires attached to his genitals. A hooded man with a military dog snarling in his face. A naked man with a military dog snarling in his face. A naked man with a pair of underwear for a hood. Blood smears on the floor where someone hurt badly was dragged away. A dead man packed in ice with a U.S. soldier smiling and giving a thumbs up sign by his body.

Yes, those were pretty damned “painful images.” The new ones weren’t as bad, Obama tells us, “but they do represent conduct that did not conform with the Army conduct manual.”

Conduct that was AOK under the Bush administration, but banned by Obama. The Americans shown in the photos abusing prisoners have already been dealt with, the president said.

The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them would be to further inflame anti-American opinion, and to put our troops in greater danger.

And that’s where he’s at his most wrong. Those who hold extreme anti-American opinion don’t need any photos to inflame their positions. And our troops are already in great danger.

But most of all, the photos would greatly add to our understanding of the type of conduct that was not only allowed but encouraged by the Bush administration. Carried out “by a small number of individuals?” Maybe. But it wasn’t their idea in the first place.

But Obama’s already let us know he’s not interested in pursuing the real perpetrators of this heinous behavior. Maybe he doesn’t want to listen to the Republicans accuse him of “criminalizing policy decisions,” as if that is even remotely what’s going on.

Criminalizing policy decisions would be seeking to prosecute members of the Bush administration for refusing to participate with the U.N. Human Rights Council. That may be stupid, but it isn’t criminal.

Abusing prisoners -- especially when you already know that many of your prisoners may not be “terrorists” at all, but farmers and cab drivers teachers who pissed off somebody who then fingered them to the U.S. military as al-Qaeda members –- is criminal.

We need to see what they did, how they treated human beings. We’re not even talking about “high value detainees” who were tortured. That’s a different matter, and we need to see and hear about that too.

And the president needs to stop perpetuating the myth that it was just a few "bad apples" who foisted this barbaric behavior on the American psyche. It wasn't. It came from the top. And if that's not obvious by now -- with Darth Cheney and his little girl Liz all over the airwaves talking about how great it was what we did -- then we are a far more deluded people than I thought.

As long as we keep these things secret, the American people can go on pretending nothing really bad happened to these detainees and that they all deserved it anyway.

No human being deserves to be treated this way, and what happened to them was horrible. All of them, not just the ones who were waterboarded.

It was wrong, what happened to them. And it’s wrong for Barack Obama to keep it from us.


AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

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Now spinnin' tunes at Radio AWOP

Hey AWOPpers ... Guess who's the guest DJ at Radio AWOP this week? No, not Casey Kasem. Sheesh. And not Ryan Seacrest either.

ME! Yes, your friendly neighborhood political contributing editor is contributing to the Radio AWOP line-up this week. If you've never checked it out, now's the time. It's a short set of some of my favorite tunes -- some you've maybe heard before, and some you've maybe not.

But don't just check it out because some crazy politico suggested it. Seriously -- it's some good tunes every week. Just click on the AWOP Radio tab on the main page and crank it up!




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Morally Exceptional

When last we discussed torture, we were talking about a survey that showed 75 percent of the respondents endorsing the use of torture in some situations. I find it utterly appalling that anyone would endorse torture under any circumstances, and I'm pleased to note, so do the people I consider friends.

But there's a group of people on both the right and left -- who would generally oppose torture -- who have bought the bullshit "ticking bomb" scenario. That's one where something Really Bad is about to happen and Many People Will Be Killed, and you have in custody The One Guy Who Can Tell You Where The Bomb Is and he's not talking. The question, of course, is, "Do you torture him?"

There are several variants of that ticking bomb scenario, including that most ingenious of variants, the one where you harken back to September 11, 2001, invoke the people killed that day and their children, who had to be told that mommy and daddy wouldn't be coming home. In that variant, the only answer, of course, is "Hell yes" I'd torture to stop that from happening.

That, too, is bullshit, mainly because if we'd only had, say, a competent government that was really interested in national security instead of justifying an invasion of Iraq, 9/11 might have been prevented -- without torture.

See, here's the thing. If you're really gonna portray yourself as a moral or an ethical individual, you don't justify torture. Period. That may mean, theoretically or perhaps even realistically, making the hardest decision you'll ever have to make in your life. But you don't torture living creatures. Not bees, not mice, not cats, not monkeys, not human beings.

It's interesting, though, as that survey showed, that the more "morally right" one considers oneself, the more one is likely to endorse torture. There's a group of people out there -- a sizable group -- that believes it has a lock on morality, that they -- and only they -- know the difference between right and wrong. And yet, when we look at what they actually say, it's not so clearly black and white.

Torture is bad, they say, except ...

Discrimination is wrong, they say, except ...

Bombing civilian sites is wrong, they say, except ...

Brutal dictators are wrong, they say, except ...

Taking a disputed election to the Supreme Court is wrong, they say, except ...

>There's just an awful lot of exceptions, dontcha think? And if the exceptions really do delineate some clear differences, then the exceptions have a purpose. But these exceptions are much more arbitrary. In fact, it'd be perfectly reasonable to finish off each of those sentences up there with "when we do it."

Likening the president of the United States to Hitler is wrong, except when we do it.

Now, before you get all apoplectic on me, please go reread my second sentence, the one that starts "But there's a group of people on both the right and left ... " Actually, that's all you need to read. Just wanted to make sure you remembered the "both the right and left" part, because this next part doesn't fall in that category.

Along with those who can find ways to justify torture, there are others who can find ways to justify murder. Or at least justify fantasizing about it. Take one David Feherty, a CBS golf analyst who apparently lives "about a par 5 away" from GW in that formerly all white Dallas enclave, Preston Hollow.

Feherty, the golf analyst, says he generally hates his neighbors, apparently on principle, especially "the ones that want to talk to me who aren’t doctors or gun dealers or who don’t have their own airplanes."

Oh, or GW.

But here's the point I'm getting to. Feherty, the golf analyst, was asked to write about his new neighbors in D magazine, which I think is something about Dallas, only where most cities have magazines named after the city, Dallas apparently thought just "D" was enough. I have no idea what Detroit and Denver think of that.

Now, apparently, we're all very late getting this news, since the story was published on D's Web site in March for the April issue. I guess nobody of any import actually reads D, but hey. GW probably does.

But anyway, Feherty, the golf analyst, writes about how history is gonna absolve GW of all the crimes he committed and all. He was just "dealt a rotten hand," he says. And then he says this:

From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.

I'm guessing the speaking fees for Feherty, the golf analyst, just went up considerably in certain circles, and I'm betting he'll be talking a lot about free speech too. Because, you know, the first amendment guarantees his right to be a fucking idiot in print.

Now, while cracking what I'd be willing to bet Feherty, the golf analyst, will say is a joke -- because that's what the right does when one of them says something so completely moronic that there's no reasonable explanation for it -- he's also displaying the very same arrogance of those folks who justify torture, except he's actually talking about murder. Murder of people he doesn't like. And the number one person he doesn't like? Apparently Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House.

Not Barack Obama, because that would bring the Secret Service on his ass, and besides, Obama is black and Feherty, the golf analyst, probably didn't want to have to go through the "that's a racist thing to say" bullshit. Now, I don't know if Feherty, the golf analyst, is racist, anymore than I know if he is misogynist since he happened to name the first woman to ever be third in line to the presidency as the one who will take the two bullets. It is true that an awful lot of folks on the right are scared to death of the black guy in the White House, and just hate like hell that a woman has finally settled into her place in the House.

But the truth is, Feherty, the golf analyst, didn't make his statement out of some racist place, or some misogynist place. Instead, it's about his complete conviction that he and others like him -- and no one else -- know the score around here. The rest of us shoot bogeys, literally and figuratively.

But it also does something else. It attempts to taint all U.S. soldiers with his ugly disease. Richard Smith, a veteran who writes for had something to say about that:

Evidently, Feherty believes that we are mindless machines of death, who would without hesitation accept a loaded weapon from a stranger in civilian society, and then use that weapon to assassinate political leaders of the country we have sworn to defend. ... Feherty, who to my knowledge has never served his country or ours in uniform, makes the assumption that he knows Soldiers and Veterans, and that 'any U.S. soldier' has such hatred for (again) the political leaders of the country we have sworn to defend, that we could not be professional enough to help ourselves from committing murder on the spot. What Mr. Feherty might not understand is that there are few Americans who have been as loyal to Veterans and Soldiers as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. If I found myself in that proverbial elevator, the first thing I would do is thank them both profusely.

Honestly, that little statement of golf analyst Feherty was kinda outta the blue. Was it really necessary in an article about having the former president become his neighbor to insult soldiers and let us know that he wouldn't mind seeing the top two Democrats in Congress dead?

And sure, he has the right to say whatever he wants. But it's kinda interesting ... here, I'll let Mustang Bobby from Bark Bark Woof Woof say it:

The point is that the people who complain the most about their restrictions of free speech rights are the ones who both abuse the right and have no compunction about restricting it for other people. They also don't get the basic concept of taking responsibility for your own actions. The right of free speech includes the responsibility for using the judgment to know when to not say something that might come back and bite you in the ass. A mature and responsible person would know that and not blame the consequences on someone else.

There's more to the right of freedom of speech than just saying something.

And more than stamping the ground and screaming "I'm right, I know I'm right."

And that's the real thing about morality, see. It's consistent. People aren't arbitrarily dropped into groups of "good" people (not to be tortured) or "bad" people (can be discriminated against). That way of thinking is, well, it's medieval. And it has no place in the 21st Century.

So, for those of you who agree with Feherty, the golf analyst, say whatever you want. But do us a big favor and step out of the way.

After all, if you're not for us, you're against us. And you get to decide -- the moral path, or the one with all the exception clauses?


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Mirror, mirror

Remember when the president introduced his budget, and the Republicans got all high and mighty and decided they were going to introduce a budget too, so they came out and held up an 18-page booklet with no numbers or specific plans in it?

Yeah, I'm thinking that's about to happen again.

See, Obama on Wednesday let it be known that he was cutting $17 billion out of the budget that Congress has actually already passed. And just like they did a couple of weeks ago when he told his Cabinet secretaries to come up with $100 million in cuts, the Republicans all came out like banshees screeching that the cuts aren't enough.

No "good start," no "that's what I'm talkin' about" from the party of budget slashing, at least when they're in the minority. Just the usual NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO from the party of no.

Over the next couple of weeks, you'll have a chance to see what real budget cuts look like,

said House Minority Leader John Boehner -- the same House Minority Leader John Boehner who waved the little GOP budget thing around like it actually meant something. I think he said something similar then.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think if Barack Obama came out and announced he was giving a $100,000 tax credit to any self-employed individual who bought a gas-guzzling, oversized vehicle that weighs more than three tons fully loaded, the GOP would scream bloody murder.

Nothing is good enough for these guys. They seem to not understand that it's gonna take a while to undo the damage they and their boy president did to our economy. They seem to have forgotten that Obama said he had his people going through the budget line by line, and it's a big damn budget. It's not all gonna get changed at once. And having Republicans go through the budget with a red pen makes about as much sense as, oh, I don't know -- maybe putting the former judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association in charge of FEMA.

Of course, some Republicans are starting to get it -- maybe. In what can only be a very bizarre turn of events, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-North Carolina -- who was only a few weeks ago leading one of Dick Armey's teabagging parties, stirring up the ill-informed by telling them of the outrageous tax burden they're forced to toil under because of Barack Obama.

But now, a mere three weeks later, McHenry is singing a different tune, telling Time magazine

Marginal tax rates are the lowest they've been in generations, and all we can talk about is tax cuts. The people's desires have changed, but we're still stuck in our old issue set.

And that's the truth. Tax rates are lower now than they were when Saint Ronnie was president. And they have been. Since Clinton.

But it's very strange to come out of the mouth of McHenry, an extremist conservative. I'm sure the Ayatollah Limbaugh will have something to say about it.

Maybe it was just an unguarded moment, or perhaps McHenry was suddenly overcome by the spirit of American democracy at its finest and had no choice but to tell the truth. And it's a truth that means the Republican party needs to be redesigning itself soon before some other party picks up the remnants of sanity the GOP has left in the ditches of its road to ruin and becomes a true opposition party.

But there's old Darth Cheney, saying it would be a mistake for Republicans to "moderate," because we all know that extremism is the best way to unite people.

You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, 'Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'

Actually, Darth, the way you win is to start acting sane. The way you win is to act like you give a rat's ass about somebody other than yourself and your rich buds. The way you win is to stop wrapping yourself in an American flag and get your hands dirty with the real work to be done around here -- reinventing the country you nearly destroyed.

See, this isn't the land of soak 'em dry and get away while the gettin's good anymore. That's what November 4, 2008, meant. It meant a significant shift away from the era of trying to drown government in the bathtub so that the already rich can get even richer. It meant realizing that the playing field isn't level in this country, and never has been. It meant that a majority of voting Americans wanted to take steps to change what 30 years of conservative misrule had wrought.

Old Darth was right about one thing, though.

Some of the older folks who’ve been around a long time — like yours truly — need to move on and make room for that young talent that’s coming along,

he said. Too bad he doesn't realize that the ideas and attitude of those older folks need to move on too.

I suspect, though, that'll happen anyway. It's just that it's a lot harder when you don't do it willingly. And when you don't do it at all, well, progress doesn't stop if you do. Darth and the others, they stand a pretty good chance of being remembered, if they're remembered at all, as the folks who tried to remake America in their own image -- dark and secretive, bullying and abrasive. It almost worked.

We have a very long way to go to correct the errors of the past 30 years. And Obama isn't going to correct them all. Some of them, in fact, he's going to perpetuate. But he's not likely to send us spiraling back down that potholed path.

We may not know precisely where we're headed now -- but we know where we've been, and what a hellish, painful place that was. And we've got some pretty good ideas about where we need to be.

It'd just be so much easier if this shrill shell of a party would either remake itself for the 21st century, or get out of the way for a party that's ready for the future.

Either way, this Republican Party needs to stop peering into that magic mirror they got from all the closeted gay Republicans on their staffs and find one that'll give 'em a true reflection of what they've become.

Nah. I'm not holding my breath. Even accurate reflections can't sway the delusional.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all

Celebrate

I hardly know where to begin. First, happy Cinco de Mayo, a day for all good gringos to head to the nearest Tex-Mex joint, eat up some half-assed burritos and swallow down gallons of what passes for tequila in the states. I tell you this because it's really annoying how many days Americans usurp and turn from their original purposes into a day to get stinkin' drunk.

Can't we do that any day? Do we really have to hijack other people's holidays to do that? I'll bet you don't even know what Cinco de Mayo is about, and no, it's not Mexican Independence Day (that's September 16). And I'm certainly not going to tell you. Look it up. I mean, it'd be a little different if you actually used the day to learn a little something about the culture you're using to justify your binge. So humor me. Go find out what Cinco de Mayo actually is, and then carry on with your bad self.

Next month is Gay Pride Month, or you could add all the LBTQ stuff if you prefer (that's lesbian, bi, trans and queer for the hopelessly heterosexual). There'll be marches and parades and film festivals and poetry readings and all manner of stuff celebrating the Q. The hopelessly heterosexual will avoid any and all of those activities.

Maybe that's our mistake -- maybe if we just had a day, you know, like, Gay Day, then all the hopelessly heterosexual would rush out to brunch and consume mass quantities of mimosas. Or dance the night away at a gay club while sniffing amyl nitrate or some other delicious mind altering substance. They could even take in a lesbian softball game and then go drink beer with the team afterward.

Ah, who'm I kidding? That'll never happen. Because on St. Patrick's Day or OktoberFest or Cinco de Mayo, the gringos aren't askeered of having some of that Irish or German or Mexican wear off on 'em (well, maybe the Mexican a little bit). But they're scared shitless of getting near the Queer. And honestly, I have no idea why. It's not like we'll beat 'em up, tie 'em to a fence post and leave them there to die or anything. If anybody has a right to be scared, I'd think it's us.

Speaking of the hopelessly heterosexual, big ole brave good ole boys are very much afraid of us. For example, the Republicans' quintessential everyman, Joe Wurlzebacher, aka Joe the Unlicensed Plumber and Joe the Uninformed Foreign Correspondent, is terrified of us. I was gonna break down this quote into pieces for you, but I just don't see how. You need to see it as it exists. It's Joe, answering a question from Christianity Today about what he thinks about same-sex marriage laws.

At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary — it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do — what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to know that it's OK with Joe for me to do my thing. But there are a couple of things dreadfully wrong with this comment. Let's start with this "people don't understand the dictionary" thing.

Y'know, I don't even think I can say anything rational about that. I think he's saying that because we're called queer (and who gave us that name, by the way?) and because the dictionary defines queer as "strange and unusual" then that's not a slur? I'm sorry, I can't even make sense of my own interpretation of it.

Next, of course, is the bullshit about "God" being all explicit about "what man and woman are for." I mean, even if you believe that there is a god, at no point in the religious writings of Christians does "god" say anything about that. It's all what the various people say. So, Joe obviously has some of the same reading comprehension problems others of his kind have.

But then we get to my favorite part. "I've had some friends that are actually homosexual," he says. An audible gasp is heard. "They know," he says, "where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children."

RadicalRuss at Pam's House Blend notes what a coincidence that is because he would never let Joe near his kids either. I agree, but more importantly, I'd have to say that Joe also doesn't know what a friend is. Because there's not a damn soul in the world that I would call my friend in one breath and then turn around and say I'd never let 'em near my kids in the next.

Really, though, I had no idea Joe was all into this god stuff. He says that he really likes Sarah Palin a lot, but he's not sure if God's leading her to lead the Republican Party. Maybe their gods aren't on speaking terms, though, since she signed on just today to one of the Look We're a Different Kind of Republican groups, the one with Little Bobby Jindal, I think. It's pretty funny, really, because just a few hours before that announcement, the Ayatollah Limbaugh had gone on a tirade about the group because he thought they dissed his girl.

Maybe Joe learned about the god stuff while he was a foreign correspondent. I know he just went to Gaza, but I'm sure he spoke to some American soldiers before he went over, you know, just to get a feel for the whole war thing. Maybe he talked to Lt. Col. Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, who told a bunch of U.S. servicemembers that as Christians, their job is to “hunt people for Jesus” much like "the Special Forces guys ... hunt men." There was also something about bibles in Pashtun and Dari, the chief languages spoken in Afghanistan, but the military says they took all the bibles away because distributing them would be against "General Order No. 1," which apparently prohibits proselytizing.

No word on whether Joe got his medieval attitudes about gay people from the military, but he coulda gotten that from one of the most backwards senators in Washington, James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe still believes the old canard that having gay soldiers in the trenches messes with morale, apparently more than being forced to lie to keep your job in the military. Allowing openly gay soldiers and sailors and seamen and airmen would "affect the military ranks," he said. Probably totally jumble up the generals and corporals and lieutenants and such.

Despite polls showing a majority of Americans disagreeing with his position -- and those numbers rising -- Inhofe said that most Americans agree with him. Now, if he'd said that most Americans agree with him on the gay marriage thing, then he woulda been right. The latest CNN poll shows that number 54-44 opposed, but here's the kicker -- if you go down the age groups, by the time you get to the 18-34 group, that "support" number, which started at 24 percent with the 65 and over group, rises to 58 percent.

So here's what's gonna happen. James Inhofe and Joe Wurlzebacher are on the losing side of history. So is Sarah Palin and the GOP's Supreme Leader. Their supporters are dwindling. They'll keep dwindling, especially if the GOP can't get a clue that its archaic social ideas are just that -- archaic and outmoded. It's way past time to abandon them.

If they don't, then the Republican Party will be replaced, as it should be, by a better conservative party, one that doesn't demand that its "god" be bowed down before by the entire populace.

Right now, the only intelligent debate on the issues that really matter to this country are taking place within the Democratic Party. And it's just wrong when you have to be your own loyal opposition. It's doubly wrong with my colleagues insist on pretending that the Republicans are still relevant, thus depriving us of the real debate between the business end of the Democratic Party -- which thinks the banking systems and all the other failed systems can be fixed -- and the progressives -- who think that it's way too late for that, and besides, even if they could be fixed, they won't be sufficient to deal with the coming changes.

See, the Republicans (and a few pretend Democrats) can't even admit that the world is changing, but it is, on every level. I've given up on them too, on the idea that they'll ever get it.

But as long as my illustrious colleagues keep parading these throwbacks to an uglier time across our field of vision, we'll keep stumbling -- moving forward, progressing, but stumbling over idiocies and stupidities that are wholly unnecessary.

But there will come a time when the Joe Wurlzebachers and the James Inhofes will not be treated as if they have something important to say, when their bigotry and closed-mindedness are not held up as just another point of view.

And when that happens, you'll all head out to the park for the big Gay Celebration without knowing why we have it in June, when the streets are hot and steamy and it's more than just the weather.

But you could look that up too. Find out how a drag queen and her purse, a butch dyke in handcuffs, homeless gay kids, regular old gay folk just trying to be themselves and even an anti-war folk singer made the last summer of the '60s a time to remember.

News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all

Morality play

Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?

That's the question the Pew Research Center asked 742 Americans recently. They found that group almost evenly split -- 49 percent saying often or sometimes, and 47 percent saying rarely or never.

Actually, let me change that. They found that group overwhelmingly endorsed torturing suspected terrorists. Only 25 percent said torture could never be justified.

Most media outlets who reported this survey did so to point out that people who attend religious services on at least a weekly basis were more likely to endorse torture than those who rarely or never went to services. My colleagues pointed out that of the very religious, 54 percent said that torture was often or sometimes justified, while among the miscreants who don't attend services, only 42 percent said torture was often or sometimes justified.

But what I find much more interesting is that the 25 percent number holds almost across the board -- 25 percent of those who attend services at least weekly, 23 percent of those who attend services monthly or several days a year and 26 percent of those who rarely or never attend services think that torture is unjustifiable.

Which means that roughly three-quarters, across the board, can find a justification for waterboarding, or forcing someone to stand for hours with their hand held above their head, or sticking someone's head in a box with insects and telling him or her they're poisonous, or a whole list of really atrocious actions.

75 percent.

So, while it is interesting to note that the religious amongst us, who generally love telling the world how caring they are, are generally more bloodthirsty than their non-religious counterparts. But when it comes down to it, we're a nasty, cruel lot, we Americans.

Of course, nearly 65 percent of us back the death penalty too, another barbaric custom that would seem to sit so well with the religious. And, once again, 27 percent -- according to a 2008 Gallup poll -- see the death penalty as morally wrong.

Interestingly, another Gallup poll, this one taken in 2007, showed that more than 80 percent of Americans think that morality in America is getting worse, with 44 percent describing the moral state of the country as already poor. Care to guess what they think is the cause of all this lack of morality?

Me, I'm thinking that our priorities are a tad screwed, that we're missing the mark on what's moral and what's not, that we've abdicated our, if you'll excuse my use of the term, god-given ability to think for ourselves and handed it over to men and women who are more interested in their own elevation than in our salvation.

We've fallen prey to our baser "instincts," if you can call it that. I think it's just the easiest thing to do. If you don't like it, if you fear it, if you don't understand it, make it "other." Make it so different that you no longer need to see it as anything worthy of your compassion.

Then kill it. That way it won't bother you anymore and you can go right on with your narrow-minded self. And we have plenty of political and religious leaders more than ready to encourage us down that dark and risky pathway.

So, when you see this new administration gauging the political winds on things like investigating the torture regime, let alone prosecuting it, here's why.

When only 25 percent of us think that torture is morally wrong, there's just not much there to counter the rest of the Romans with their thumbs down before they even know the story on the guy to be tortured.

Bloodthirst. Revenge.

That just doesn't sound very spiritual to me. Or moral.

I'd always thought that it we humans were supposed to be moving in a more positive direction. You know, away from the sadistic practices of folks like, oh, Vlad the Impaler and Augusto Pinochet and Pol Pot.

I always thought America was better than that.

What was I thinking?


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all