Torture Again

Over at Marshall Art's blog, he has a post concerning the question whether it is ever justifiable for a nation to break its own or international laws in pursuit of self-defense. The last paragraphs reads as follows:

So the real question here is, what do honorable men do when faced with great risk and few options? Do they abide by the law even when doing so will result in the worse consequences? Or do they do what's necessary to preserve life, or as much of it as possible? There's a saying bandied about in the world of martial arts that goes like this: "I'd rather be judged by twelve men, than carried in a box by six." This has to do with the use of lethal force when confronted on the street and whether it is better to risk one's life or the judgement of a court of law. The same dynamic played out for Give 'Em Hell Harry Truman. I have every confidence that the leaders we elect are likely to make such judgements from the same place Truman was when he made his, rather than rashly. Thus, though the life saving actions they take may be on Dan's and the law's list of war crimes, rational men will spare them and pray that such decisions need never be made again. It's a good prayer to pray now.

Serendipitously enough, the following post appears tonight at Crooks and Liars, linking to this article in Forbes magazine (hardly what one could classify as "liberal media"). Part of the story is as follows:

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted. Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee.

I would truly be interested to know if the illegal detention and harsh treatment of American citizens who are doing their jobs trying to make sure our money is not wasted, or used illegally, is ever justified? Since we have started down that very steep, very slippery slope of torturing certain individuals under certain conditions, why not just expand those conditions and those individuals who meet the qualifications for torture? After all, it's OK some of the time, right?

We are all destined for hell.

Saturday Rock Show

While hardly a great band, UFO was certainly one of the hardest working, most dependable bands to emerge in the mid-1970's. Mixing Deep Purple-ish blues-inflected heavy metal with a certain European sensibility - album-tour/album-tour, without end, they featured the extremely gifted young German guitar player Michael Schenker, whose brother Rudolph, is a member of Scorpions. In the video that follows, for their song "Lights Out (in London)", that is Schenker on the flying-V solo. Schenker left for a while to form his own band, but rejoined with his former bandmates in the 1990's, and UFO continues to record and tour. This video is from the late-1970's.

Miroslav Volf and the Scandal of Particularity

I am currently reading (or attempting to read for the third time in three years) Exclusion and Embrace:A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Yale Divinity School theologian Miroslav Volf. Writing out of his experiences as a Croat who suffered with his people at the hands of the Serbs (although there is scant mention of the Croation war against Slovenia, which was waged to regain territories lost to Serbia) and as a former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary during the 1992 LA riots, he seeks to explore (not so much to answer) the issues of human particularity and the recent outbreak of war-making tribalism and the role of Christian faith in perhaps untangling the knot of deadly identity politics. I have to admit that, while there is much depth and erudition, and much to commend - Volf is familiar not just with recent theological scholarship, but recent modernist and postmodernist philosophical thought as well - there are aspects of the book that raise red flags for me.

First, he flirts far too much with the continuing European tendency to dialectical thinking. That is, he raises the inevitable contradictions and conflicts of existence to transcendent categories of reflection. The issue of "culture", of "identity" is too often discussed without reference to the concrete experience of cultures and identity. While such abstraction is often useful as a first movement - it helps to define one's categories and one's perspective - if one stays at the level of abstraction, one ends up saying little with reference to the real lives and struggles of people to make sense of the ambiguities and inevitable conflicts of identity. By reducing the discussion to a question of social agency, rather than social arrangement, he neglects the fact that social agents are formed by social arrangements as much as form them. By emphasizing the priority of a particular reading of the Gospels and Pauline texts, which in their turn prejudice certain readings in the Old Testament, particularly the call narrative of Abraham, rather than the way such readings are interpreted within given communities struggling with these very texts in the light of the struggle with identity and the scandal of particularity we are entering questionable theological territory - the imposition of a particular view of the cross, reconciliation, and human agency without reference to any real particularities that might force questions to these interpretations.

To give Volf his due, he does site specifically feminist critiques of certain soteriological views the give pride of place to self-negation and the independence of the "I" from any cultural and other ties. He nevertheless seeks to transcend these critiques by insisting that the self-negation standing behind reconciliation is one of reciprocity, without deconstructing the very real disparities of power in the relationships between men and women, people of color and the dominant white social structure, and American power and the rest of the world. It is also important to recognize Volf's critique of the religious buttress too often given to violence in the name one's own particularity. To deny this reality - a reality we live with on a day-to-day basis as we read so-called "Christians" rant about death to Muslims and the threat to our way of life posed by those we deem "others" of the wrong religion - is to deny an ever-present scandal to those of us who insist that Christian faith and life entail as acceptance of these very others whose existence is a question to our own confidence and faith.

At the heart of Volf's work, however, is the very real problem of the scandal of particularity in all its varied guises. Our identity is always specific, even if it is plural. We are male or female, Americans or Mexicans or Croations. We are white or black or Hispanic. We are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist. We are father, sister, niece, sister-in-law. We are often several of these at once, although in any specific context, one takes pride of place. Unraveling the Gordian Knot of identity is an important part of making sense of our lives today. While it is early in the work for me, I do believe that Volf's struggle, regardless of its success or failure, is important for us today. As long as it is accompanied by a chastened call on the part of Christians to seek the forgiveness of those whom we have injured by our hubris, blindness, bigotry, and hatred - as long as the first move of reconciliation is ours toward those we have actively sought to exclude; as long as such reconciliation is sought not just in word but in deed as well - then it seems we are far down the road to seeking a new way of being particular in a world that ever more clamors for our adherence to universal ideologies.

Government Oversight and Partisan Witchhunts

Over here at Think Progress is a story on Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) whining about his colleague, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), announcing hearings to investigate whether there was improper use of funds and influence on the part of the White House in Shays' re-election campaign last year. The piece should be read if for no other reason than the video of Shays crying like a baby because a blogger has the audacity to ask him a question. Apparently, only "legitimate" people can ask him a question. . .

The piece is a good springboard for a discussion of the whole issue of government oversight and the current low standing of Congress in the opinion of the American people. Glenn Greenwald has written about this particular issue, most recently here, and I think it is important to repeat his main point - the low favorability ranking of the 110th Congress can only be interpreted as public frustration with a lack of serious investigations and serious counter-weight to the Bush Administration. Indeed, every time the Democrats cave in to Republicans, their numbers tumble.

Yet the argument is still made among what Duncan Black calls Our Very Serious Pundits that the public wants an end to investigations in the name of "getting things accomplished". Of course, when the Democrats actually attempt to "accomplish something", they are criticized for being divisive and not giving the President his due and not working with Republicans. They face the Hobson's Choice of either doing nothing or doing everything and still being criticized, so my won feeling is they should just wave their middle fingers at the lot of Our Very Serious Pundits and the Republican Party they enable and get on with their business. Unfortunately, they have shown neither the spine nor the endurance to face the on-going assault of mindlessness from the chattering classes. Thus our Republic drifts ever closer to ruin. . .

During the 1990's, we were treated to Investigations Without End on President and Mrs. Clinton. Now, many on the left were deeply disappointed with the Clinton Administration, often with good reason. This does not mean, however, that every accusation the right tossed at them was greeted with cheers from the Left and liberals. Indeed, so much time and effort and money was spent in the 1990's to so little result - oral sex in the Oval Office hardly counts as earth-shattering revelations - one wonders how any of those involved back then can show their faces in public without serious, on-going ridicule greeting them. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), who held the chair of the Government Oversight Committee now chaired by Waxman, even investigated, of all things, the Clinton Christmas Card list, not to mention the suicide of Vince Foster (perhaps the most over-investigated tragedy in recent memory), which featured Burton in Ft. Marcy Park with a watermelon. On the scale of "partisan witch hunts", I do believe this falls somewhere further down the scale than possible illegal influence peddling by the White House in a political campaign. Of course, the whole point of investigations is to discover whether criminal laws were violated; the Republicans fail the smell test so often on public corruption that it is little wonder Waxman wants to find out whether or not there were shady dealings in Connecticut last year, especially when certain allegations and known facts seem to point in that general direction.

The public seems to understand very clearly, just as they did during the entire impeachment nonsense, the difference between legitimate government oversight and nonsensical partisan headline grabbing. They seem quite happy that the Democrats are doing some of their job, and only wish they were both more effective and did a bit more follow-through (those still-missing subpoenas would be nice, you know; perhaps a contempt citation or two as well, with some of the Bush Administration frog-walked before committees so they could either take the fifth or answer why they refuse to appear before Congressional Committees).

Among the many reasons why I am frustrated is this - while they have great hearings now and again (Gonzalez' serial fabrications before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as high-talker Schlotzman and the rest of Gonzalez z-list Republican hacks given far too much authority in the Justice Department have been more than mildly entertaining), there is no follow through. It is not enough to call for Gonzalez' resignation. Impeach him. Indict him on contempt of Congress and perjury charges. Do something. Don't wait for these people to hang themselves, because they have enough rope right now to drag everything down. The Democrats are just not playing with all the cards they have in their deck (to continue the gambling analogy from the previous post), and are giving far too much power to those who deserve it least - the Republican minority. I believe their intentions are good - they do not wish to be seen as the bullies; they want to be better than the Republicans were - but they have yielded little in the way of tangible results. My advice (although I know they are not listening) would be to push their agenda as hard and as often as possible until, as British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said of the Germans during the Versailles Conference after the First World War, "the pips squeak".

That would be some oversight.

Venting, I Suppose

First, a list of links that form the background to the following rant:

- Digby, here and here.

- Glenn Greenwald here.

- Fire Dog Lake here andhere.

- Pretty much any recent post by Duncan, but pointing to this one in particular, guest-posted by Thers.

I urge you to at least skim these as they provide sufficient background to what follows.

I have to concede that, on the larger point of the irrelevance of the Democratic majority elected last November, fellow-blogger Democracy Lover was much more right than I was. He was skeptical of any serious change in direction. I kept saying, as November and December faded to January, "Wait and see." At first the signs were hopeful, although I must admit my own confusion in re Congressional approval for the President's "surge". I mean, it was my impression, and that of most of those who voted Democratic, that "changing course" in Iraq meant "hightailing it out of there", not "let's send more bodies in to the meat grinder". Even though he had Republican cover with the Baker/Hamilton report, which has faded from our memories as quickly as was launched in to obscurity, Bush pulled a George Costanza and did the opposite of what should have been in his and our own best interest, by making things worse rather than better.

For all my optimism, I kept having this uneasy feeling that the Democrats just weren't going to do what they could to change policy and maybe straighten out the mess we've been in since January, 2001 (actually, January, 1995, when Congress became not so much a serious law-making body, but the pet money-making cash-cow for Republicans). There have been oversight hearings. And more oversight hearings. Scooter Libby was convicted on multiple counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. "You see? You see?" I would point and exclaim with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas Eve pointing to a moving point of light in the sky and declaring Santa Claus is comin' to town.

Alas and alack, when Congress pissed itself in public by passing the FISA legislation before heading out of town for the month of August, I realized that I had not so much been fooled as allowed myself to be fooled. Now, as we move towards the magical month of September, it seems the Democrats, like all bad poker players, are going to fold before the game begins. To continue the gambling image, Bush has no money, no cards, no benefactor to give him a loan, yet for some reason Democrats continue to fear his reputation as a great poker player, giving up before the ante is even decided upon. In this case, it seems the Democrats are going to give the Administration more time, more money, and more bodies for Iraq - this even before Gen. Petraeus gives his report to Congress (a report, mind you, not written by him or his staff, but written by the White House), and even as the Unites States seems hell-bent on fostering a military coup against Prime Minister Maliki (hope it goes better than the one against Hugo Chavez, eh?). Even as the United States continues to publicly mess itself, the Democrats just can't find the spine to tell this guy, and the Republicans he rode in on, to shove off. They are wedded to failure, it seems, but not just their own; the failure is the entire country's.

Intellectual Dishonesty

Over here at Faith in Public Life, there appears the following comment, posted under the name "Wayne":

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are forms of socially sanctioned lunacy, their fundamental tenents and rituals irrational, archaic and more importantly when it comes to matters of humanity’s long-term survival, mutually incompatible. There are names for people who have beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ ‘’ To cite but one example: ‘’Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?’’ The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.’’

Criticizing a person’s faith is currently taboo in every corner of our culture. On this subject, liberals and conservatives have reached a rare consensus: religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse. Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not.’’

A zippered-lip policy would be fine, a pleasant display of the neighborly tolerance that we consider part of an advanced democracy, if not for the mortal perils inherent in strong religious faith. The terrorists who flew jet planes into the World Trade Center believed in the holiness of their cause. The Christian apocalypticists who are willing to risk a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East for the sake of expediting the second coming of Christ believe in the holiness of their cause. Such fundamentalists are not misinterpreting their religious texts or ideals. They are not defaming or distorting their faith. To the contrary, they are taking their religion seriously, attending to the holy texts on which their faith is built. Unhappily for international community, the Good Books that undergird the world’s major religions are extraordinary anthologies of violence and vengeance, celestial decrees that infidels must die.

In the 21st century when swords have been beaten into megaton bombs, the persistence of ancient, blood-washed theisms that emphasize their singular righteousness and their superiority over competing faiths poses a genuine threat to the future of humanity, if not the biosphere: ‘’We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation,’’ he writes, ‘’because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.’’

I have a particular ire for religious moderates, those who ‘’have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths’’ and who ‘’imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others.’’ Religious moderates are the ones who thwart all efforts to criticize religious literalism. By preaching tolerance, they become intolerant of any rational discussion of religion and ‘’betray faith and reason equally.’’

The human need for a mystical dimension to life like mysticism and other forms of knowledge, can be approached rationally and explored with the tools of modern neuroscience, without recourse to superstition and credulity.

At this time Islam is the reigning threat to humankind. Much like a gruesome, Inquisition-style Christianity of the 13th century only leads us to believe not all cultures are at the same stage of moral development,’’ I couldn’t help but think of Ann Coulter’s morally developed suggestion that we invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert their citizens to Christianity.


I will say this of Faith: it has been the foundation of every religion, every cult, every sect, every religious terrorist organization that desired to gain advocates whose will greatly exceeded their intelligence. When a religion asks that its followers believe all that it declares, and to do so without evidence, it speaks volumes of the intent and meaning of that religion. These churches, temples and mosques, they will keep their followers in the shadows of millennium past. Evolution is still howled as the great enemy of faith. It simply has the greatest following of scientists and evidence. It's not scientifically that any religion has ever tried to debunk Evolution. They brought forth no evidence. They claimed no new discoveries. Their only tactic was to point to tattered and very old scriptues -- to flip through the pages, and read the rancid words, almost as if they were pure gold. Faith does not require investigation, or evidence, or demonstration, or observation, or logical deductions. It simply requires that a person believe, in spite of what evidence may say: it requires that a person blindfolds themselves when demonstration is shown, to use earplugs when anyone speaks of logic, and to turn away at every reason for them to believe what Faith tells them is wrong. Those cults and sects which have utilized violence for the realization of their apocalyptic future -- they required nothing but the willpower and a great deal of Faith.

A little farther down in the comments, is a reference to this piece at Wired Blog, in which the following comments appears under the name "Colin":

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are forms of socially sanctioned lunacy, their fundamental tenents and rituals irrational, archaic and more importantly when it comes to matters of humanity’s long-term survival, mutually incompatible. There are names for people who have beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ ‘’ To cite but one example: ‘’Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?’’ The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.’’

Criticizing a person’s faith is currently taboo in every corner of our culture. On this subject, liberals and conservatives have reached a rare consensus: religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse. Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not.’’

A zippered-lip policy would be fine, a pleasant display of the neighborly tolerance that we consider part of an advanced democracy, if not for the mortal perils inherent in strong religious faith. The terrorists who flew jet planes into the World Trade Center believed in the holiness of their cause. The Christian apocalypticists who are willing to risk a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East for the sake of expediting the second coming of Christ believe in the holiness of their cause. Such fundamentalists are not misinterpreting their religious texts or ideals. They are not defaming or distorting their faith. To the contrary, they are taking their religion seriously, attending to the holy texts on which their faith is built. Unhappily for international community, the Good Books that undergird the world’s major religions are extraordinary anthologies of violence and vengeance, celestial decrees that infidels must die.

In the 21st century when swords have been beaten into megaton bombs, the persistence of ancient, blood-washed theisms that emphasize their singular righteousness and their superiority over competing faiths poses a genuine threat to the future of humanity, if not the biosphere: ‘’We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation,’’ he writes, ‘’because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.’’

I have a particular ire for religious moderates, those who ‘’have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths’’ and who ‘’imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others.’’ Religious moderates are the ones who thwart all efforts to criticize religious literalism. By preaching tolerance, they become intolerant of any rational discussion of religion and ‘’betray faith and reason equally.’’

The human need for a mystical dimension to life like mysticism and other forms of knowledge, can be approached rationally and explored with the tools of modern neuroscience, without recourse to superstition and credulity.

At this time Islam is the reigning threat to humankind. Much like a gruesome, Inquisition-style Christianity of the 13th century only leads us to believe not all cultures are at the same stage of moral development,’’ I couldn’t help but think of Ann Coulter’s morally developed suggestion that we invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert their citizens to Christianity.


I will say this of Faith: it has been the foundation of every religion, every cult, every sect, every religious terrorist organization that desired to gain advocates whose will greatly exceeded their intelligence. When a religion asks that its followers believe all that it declares, and to do so without evidence, it speaks volumes of the intent and meaning of that religion. These churches, temples and mosques, they will keep their followers in the shadows of millennium past. Evolution is still howled as the great enemy of faith. It simply has the greatest following of scientists and evidence. It's not scientifically that any religion has ever tried to debunk Evolution. They brought forth no evidence. They claimed no new discoveries. Their only tactic was to point to tattered and very old scriptues -- to flip through the pages, and read the rancid words, almost as if they were pure gold. Faith does not require investigation, or evidence, or demonstration, or observation, or logical deductions. It simply requires that a person believe, in spite of what evidence may say: it requires that a person blindfolds themselves when demonstration is shown, to use earplugs when anyone speaks of logic, and to turn away at every reason for them to believe what Faith tells them is wrong. Those cults and sects which have utilized violence for the realization of their apocalyptic future -- they required nothing but the willpower and a great deal of Faith.

Notice the, ahem, similarities?

One wonders at the audacity of those who criticize "religion" in the name of intellectual honesty and authenticity and then do things like this, which is technically called "plagiarism" and in the vernacular as "copying". As there is nothing new offered in recent critiques of religion, for all their social and cultural resonance, it seems that those who insist on claiming religion is bad can only continually recycle other people's bad arguments.

One part of "Wayne"'s - or is it "Colin"'s? - comments is also lifted from this 2004 review of Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith, including this snippet:

In the 21st century, Harris says, when swords have been beaten into megaton bombs, the persistence of ancient, blood-washed theisms that emphasize their singular righteousness and their superiority over competing faiths poses a genuine threat to the future of humanity, if not the biosphere: ''We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation,'' he writes, ''because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.''

All one can do is sigh.

Personal Reflections on "Ending the War vs. Supporting the Troops"

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent deconstruction of the nonsensical rhetoric of the mainstream framing of the war/occupation debate, with the Democrats seeking to "end the war", while the Republicans wish only to "support the troops". Having a couple experiences of this kind of false dichotomy (to my mind, most dichotomies are false; this one is actively pernicious to our public discourse, being both logically nonsensical and existentially dishonest), I thought I might share them with you, if for no other reason than to find out if you think this dichotomy is as false as I think it to be.

In February of 2003, I was asked to speak at a "Fourth Day Gathering" of the Northern Illinois Conference Walk to Emmaus. For those not in the know, Walk to Emmaus is spiritual retreat in which participants are moved through personal exploration and various talks on matters United Methodist to a deeper understanding of the specific gifts of United Methodist Christianity. The retreat is three days - from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon - which is why reunions are called "Fourth Day" events.

My own experience of Emmaus came more out of curiosity than anything else. My wife, and many of my friends, had attended, and they all seemed to come away with a favorable impression. I found the atmosphere a bit clubby and chummy, with former Walkers (as they are known) greeting each other with the odd Spanish phrase "De Colores", which is one of the theme songs of an Emmaus Walk. The phrase comes from a Spanish-language revival song written by a former participant who was describing the way he saw the world differently - more brilliantly - after the walk than before. I must admit that, for the most part, I found the walk a nice retreat but hardly earth- or faith-shattering.

At the Fourth Day Dinner, I used "De Colores" as an opening in which I spoke out against the upcoming war in Iraq. Before I did so, I talked with my wife, who would be attending, and asked her opinion. She only said that if I felt moved to do so, then I had to follow where I felt moved to go. Among the things I asserted in my speech, I said that we were being fed lies; that as Christians dedicated to the Prince of Peace, we should oppose the war at every turn; that as those whose eyes no longer had scales, we had an obligation to speak out on what we saw more clearly.

It was a proverbial fart in church, albeit a verbal one. One of those present, a gentleman, accosted me afterward, and was so angered he actually had to step away from me, and I was afraid he might hit me or something. His son was in Kuwait, awaiting the order for invasion. I offered my prayer, and hope that he would be OK. The man was so apoplectic, so out of control, he didn't hear me. He kept ranting about September 11th, about WMDs, etc. The gist, it seems to me, was that I was not supporting his son by demanding an end to the threat of war. I said, as clearly as I could, that I couldn't understand how demanding we stand down before we started any hostilities, which would guarantee his son would not face the threat of combat, was somehow not supporting his son. If he didn't face combat, there would be no threat to his life, etc., etc. He didn't hear me, just kept rattling on about September 11th, and I just left with him ranting at me to "come back and get a dose of his medicine." As it left me with a funny aftertase, I declined.

A week later, at a Community College Forum held at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby, IL, I was confronted by a panel of idiots who all spouted the same tired lines - be it pro- or anti-war - and I found myself confronted by a philosophy professor who insisted that one could not "support the troops" and be against the war, because the troops qua troops were there to engage in combat, so therefore support for the troops meant supporting the war. This was hardly among the more stupid things said that day (a Vietnam veteran rambled about Jane Fonda and the alleged plot of Ho Chi Minh to throw the 1968 Presidential election; I pointed out that Ho had died months before, so this might have been difficult for his to do; he laughed at me and called me naive).

In both instances, I was confronted by the patently false idea that one can only support the troops by supporting a war, the very nature of which was and continues to be a threat to their lives and tests the limits of their mental and professional abilities. The breathtaking stupidity of the entire false contrast between "support the troops" and "end the war" should be clear to anyone who gives it even a moment's thought. Alas, that is far too long for some people (something approaching 30% of Americans, it seems pretty clear), and enough of those thought-challenged individuals reside in Congress and are running for President to continue this debacle four long after any good came from it.

The Limits of Metaphorical Language

I am currently reading Dangerous Words: Talking About God in an Age of Fundamentalism by Gary Eberle, a literature professor at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. While there is much to promote in this book, I think the attempt to resurrect the language of myth and metaphor as positive aspects of our general human tendency toward God-talk is ill-advised and ultimately fatal to any serious attempt at discussing religion. Here's why.

I agree with his general historical discussion of the way "myth" was reduced to "falsehood" over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, as especially English sought to purify itself of equivocity and sought a scientific-like clarity. In the course of doing so, it dismissed "myth" as pre-scientific language that sought to do poorly what science does well. This general approach transcends English, as the German New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann built an entire career out of attempting to demythologize Christianity - strip it of its unscientific pretensions to knowledge - and transform it from metaphysical language to existential language. Bultmann's former colleague, Paul Tillich, and Tillich's new American colleague, Reinhold Niebuhr, continued Bultmann's work here in the US. In the process they accepted uncritically the idea that "myth" is "false", whereas other, demythologized language is "true" or perhaps even "True". In so doing, they muddied their own work, and utterly destroyed the notion that mythic language conveys meaning. It is almost impossible to resurrect the idea of myth as meaningful discourse, because all of us, no matter how hard we try to deny it, accept that it is "false".

Tying "myth" to "metaphor" is usually a way to resurrect mythic language. The problem with metaphor, and not just in this general sense but even in very specific instances such as Sallie McFague's Metaphorical Theology, is that metaphors are inherently circular - words referring to other words that refer to other words, with the implicit notion that we are only drawing and redrawing lines on a conceptual map without referencing anything intersubjective or socially accessible. When taken to a usual extreme, as Eberle does, by saying that all religious language is metaphorical, we end up with two problems. First, we are saying that religious language has no referent; and we say that the specific differences between religions and religious vocabularies are conventions to be dispensed with. The former I find useless; the latter I find condescending.

It is all well and good to speak of "the human religious impulse" and "the human religious phenomena". It is another thing altogether, however, to say that the different human religions are essentially the same, just dressed up in different language. By removing specific difference in this way, we no longer have to go through the painful, wrenching process of actually learning about other religious beliefs, forcing ourselves to question our own in light of the explicit differentness and otherness these religions pose. All we have to say is, "You're doing the same thing I am, only you go about it a little differently." Real dialogue, real understanding is short-circuited by the paternalism of essentialism.

The specifics of Christian God-talk have to be taken on their own terms, not as metaphor, not as myth, but as real human struggles of real human communities to make sense over time of their experience of what they have come to experience as God. It is one thing to insist that, being contingent, fallible, and limited, human language about God is necessarily flawed and imperfect. It is another thing altogether to say that it is metaphorical, mythic, and essentially the same as all other religious language in all other traditions. It isn't, and it is both ignorant and paternalistic to claim it is so.

Fighting For Our Lives

I used to think it was possible to dismiss the right. Then, I thought it was possible to rationally argue against it. Then, I thought it was possible to feel triumphant as it suffered electoral defeat. Now, I believe that even as it suffered a defeat at the polls nine months ago, the right is louder, bolder, and as a consequence, much more dangerous than ever. While I hate dehumanizing metaphors, I believe that the right wing of American politics is like a wounded animal - never more dangerous than when it is injured and feels itself threatened. As we observe the doings in Congress and the Bush Administration, and read the increasingly shrill and nonsensical rantings of the right-wing blogosphere, I do believe that we are in the midst of a struggle for the very heart of America. The real enemy is not Islam. The real enemy is not illegal immigration. The real enemy is a vision of America that is contrary to our history, our Constitution, and the best of what America believes and professes about itself.

There are some, including ER, who remain optimistic about the current state of cultural and civic confusion, I cannot remain sanguine. The possibility always exists that all that we hold dear, all that we cherish about America, will be lost in an orgy of fear, hatred, and nihilism that pulls down around our ears all that has made life in America more than tolerable, but positively wonderful. For all our flaws, I believe that we are the best spot on the map, whether that spot is Syracuse, New York, Peoria, Illinois, Franklin, Virginia, or Santa Barbara California (or even Oklahoma City!). There were several discussion linked yesterday to a site called American Family Security that I found almost impossible to access; both digby and the boys at Sadly!No highlighted a piece that called for the end of American democracy in the name of saving American democracy, or something like that. The general point was quite frightening in its implication, and shows that, when push comes to shove, the right much prefers being led by an incompetent former booze hound than trust the wisdom of the people. This is just one of many instances where those on the right show their true colors; not too long ago I highlighted a piece by Thomas Sowell who seemed to relish the idea of a military coup in the United States.

This is not mere talk. These are direct threats to the very idea of America. That America is an idea, an idea that has to be defended from all sorts of attacks, has been clear to the best minds in our country's history, from Emerson and Whitman in the 19th century to William James, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and Cornell West in our own time. The vision and idea of America the right promotes is one of intolerance, violence against difference, the denial of citizenship and humanity to those who differ, and the abrogation of our Constitution and laws in the name of some kind of purity, be it religious, racial, or cultural that in itself is narrow, stilted, and held by few. The challenge is to counter those who wish to end the American experiment in the name of Christianity, or security against terrorism, or unfettered capitalism, or "the white race", or cultural conformity. The only weapons we have are an openness to reality and a refusal to have our world and reality defined for us by those least qualified to do so. The stakes are far too high to rest upon the notion that America has faced worse times. We may have; precisely because the conflict is largely hidden it is all the more dangerous, and must be met much more publicly than ever before.

The Right-Wing Cult of Masculinity

Like most American males, I struggle with what it means to be "a real man". On most measures, I fail pretty miserably. I don't hunt. I don't fish, although I keep telling myself I would love to. I am unskilled at using any tools whatsoever. I couldn't even pound a nail straight until I was thirty and had to be taught how by . . . my wife. With the sole exception of fathering children - which hardly ranks up there with building a deck or striking down the fearsome six-point buck threatening our home with destruction - I am pretty much the antithesis of the "typical American man". Shoot, I don't even sit around drinking beer and watching sports (can't imagine a bigger waste of time, in fact).

While I have accepted my shortcomings as a man, I still wish I did at least one of those things we all think of when we think of "men" (although "guy" might be a better word). If for no other reason, then at least I could hold my head high and show the world I have accomplished something "manly".

It is when I come across an article like this from Jules Crittenden as critiqued/torn to shreds by TRex at Fire Dog Lake, that I am actually proud of my "unguyness" (to coin a new word). Of course, we have been treated in recent months to the man-crushes of the right, whether it's Mitt Romney's shoulders, or Fred Thompson's . . . whatever (sometimes it is his voice, sometimes it is just his general bearing and demeanor; I guess laziness is the new studliness). It is often a bit disquieting to read and/or hear supposedly straight men going on and on about the masculine qualities of other men as a publicly attractive feature. Coupled with the eruption of fear over Hillary Clinton's breasts that appeared a couple weeks back ("She has cleavage!") it does make one wonder about "true manliness" . . . I want to make it clear this is not a homophobic observation. More an ironic comment on the strange, counter-intuitive ways of the manly-men of the right.

In any event, the social and cultural construction of manliness in America is so flawed, and so disastrous in its consequences, one wonders why so many men, including myself, struggle with it. Whether it's slaughtering animals for no reason (spare me talk of deer overpopulation) or adding a new wing to the American dream that will be sold within four years (on average) or destroying untold braincells through the combined efforts of beer and FOXSports Channel, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to fret. Who wants to be a real man, when this is what it means?

There is enough evidence in the public realm to more than speculate that the cult of real manliness is as much compensation and veiled homoeroticism - not that there is anything wrong with that! - as it is a cultural critique of the "feminization" of the American male. I would much prefer to be feminized if that means I get to read my books and let real men build my new kitchen than I would want to spend valuable time and energy figuring out how to operate a pneumatic nail gun or memorizing baseball statistics. Of course, if the right really does ever take over, there might be manliness re-education camps, and Lord only knows what might happen in such a testosterone-soaked environment. I mean, we do sort of have that kind of thing already.

It's called "prison". We all know what happens there, don't we?

Be Afraid. Be Very, Very Afraid

Does this frighten anyone else as much as it does me? This is like Triumph of the Will meets Mao's Cultural Revolution. I will no longer not take these people seriously.

Music Monday

For ER.



A guy I work with was insanely jealous of your concert trip, and added Kris Kristofferson to the list as making the perfect classic country concert.

They Keep Criticisizing Us And Getting It Wrong

Glenn Greenwald, here and here, and Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo here responded to various critics of lefty blogs, and while the specifics are different, the general tone is the same as it ever was - we lefty bloggers are fact-free spinners, ranting uncontrollably on issues we do not understand. Greenwald makes the best general observation on critics of the blogosphere, in the first (which is the earlier) piece linked to here, in which he says that, to critics of blogs, we are "the new Rush Limbaugh". The comparison is apt in some ways, to the extent that we are the remarkably successful users of a new medium, just as Limbaugh was of talk radio. The similarities, however, end there, and any conscientious reader of blogs, regardless of ideology should understand the most crucial difference - our political commentary, while occasionally heated, sometimes profane, and almost always provocative, is as strong on accuracy and attention to facts as Limbaugh's is on flights of infantile fantasy. The best blogs - to which I link and from which I have learned much of how to do what it is I do - pay attention to links and updates; name names, site sources, respond to comments when possible and/or applicable; admit error and correct misreporting whenever possible. This last point is important. None of us are perfect, and we get things wrong. I have yet to read a blog that spins fantasy in the way right-wing talk radio blabbers do, free of any accountability whatsoever. Because we are an interactive medium (talk radio pretends to be, but is not), we have a responsibility to respond to legitimate criticism and questions of veracity as soon and as often as possible.

Of the three posts linked to above, the most interesting is the one at TPM. That site, which is not a blog but an internet journalism site that is non-partisan in its pursuit of corruption and general public malfeasance, was named by Michael Skube in an op-ed in yesterday's Los Angeles Times as one site that routinely misstates facts, etc., etc., etc. One of Skube's criticisms, which is common among journalists, is that we bloggers aren't journalists - we don't do research, we don't interview people, la-di-da-di-dum. Marshall emailed Skube and asked him if he had read TPM in detail and was aware of its fundamental difference from, say, Atrios or digby. Skube said that he had never read TPM. Marshall then asked why Skube named TPM in his column. Skube replied that he hadn't; it was inserted by an editor. Marshall did not ask Skube (to my knowledge) why he signed off on the column if things were put in the column that did not reflect his own understanding or knowledge or research.

Greenwald's discussions concern criticisms from the "foreign policy community", an on-going discussion that is long overdue, and points out the simple-mindedness, the clubishness, and the narrow range of acceptable debate allowed by the Mandarins of public policy. What I find most fascinating about the original criticism, as well as the dialogue Greenwald engages in, is the assumption on the part of so-called experts, that those who are not card-carrying members of the foreign policy community do not understsand the way real foreign policy analysis works. This is from people who have pretty much destroyed any credibility the United States might have enjoyed before George Bush took over. Before that, they attempted to destroy the Russian economy. Before that, they were caught flat-footed by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. Something tells me there are reasons not to take them too seriously. Greenwald does them the courtesy of responding to questions that are patronizing and should have been met with counter-questions.

Mainstream pundits, "experts", "journalists", and others keep trying to destroy the credibility of the political blogs, and they keep failing. The reason, I believe, is that the rules have changed on those in traditional media, and they don't like it. I am proud to call myself a blogger. The fact that David Frum cited me along with atrios in a column at NRO online a few months back shows that even a little z-level blog like this gets noticed on occasion. We are making a difference, and we need to keep at it.

Enough Already (UPDATED)

I want to post my latest, and perhaps last, comment on Neil's 4simpson's blog, because I am quite sure it will be taken down.

“False teachers”? And you want to spread the love and grace of God. Please. Yours is the most judgmental, small-minded, narrow version of Christianity I have ever come across. Frankly, I want no part of it, your God, or your Jesus. It is quite literally meaningless to me. your God excludes. Mine embraces. Your Jesus denies people. Mine loves. Your church calls “homosexuals” abnormal. Mine loves them and welcomes them as fellow human beings.

There is no gospel here. I have yet to read “Good News”. I have yet to read serious reflection on issues such as racism, poverty, war, injustice. I have yet to read any indication that the Church might exist as more than just a place of refuge from a sinful world. As for my ignorance of college, I will allow that comment to stand on its own - you assume far too much, it seems, based on your own preconceptions.

I have been wanting to reach out, to understand, to listen, to dialogue. All I get is judged, scorned, called names, and treated as if I were dirty. I do believe I shall spare myself further aggravation and avoid this site as much as possible, because there are far too many rules and regulations here for my comfort.

On a closing note, I was just listening to the Casting Crowns song, “Voice of Truth”. The first verse talks about Jesus calling to us to step out of the boat on to the stormy sea, and asks us to consider the possibility of “stepping out of our comfort zone”. This is the challenge that Jesus poses for us - to be not afraid, to trust, and to take that first step. There is the rank smell of fear here - fear of a culture that does not care about your brand of Christianity, fear of other Christians whose very existence is a threat and a challenge, fear of anyone who might be or live or think differently. This is what German theologian Jurgen Moltmann calls “pusillanimous faith”. As a colleague of my wife’s recently stated, it is not true that only Jesus walked on water; with Jesus’ help, Peter did as well. Rather than tell everyone how wrong they are, you might consider listening and opening yourself to the dangers posed by other ways of thinking and living. You might find that God’s grace and Providence extend far beyond the borders of your very limited mind and faith.

I have nothing to add except that I do believe I have learned my lesson. Should this kind of (non)thinking ever take over the Church, call me a heretic and burn me at the stake, because I want no part of it.

UPDATE: For some reason I just went back, and Neil "responded" to this comment. I have to admit being surprised. He claims that he is not afraid, just as Mom2 in a later comment claims there is not a "bad spirit" at the site. Yadda-yadda-yadda.

Now I Remember Why I Don't Read David Broder - The Stupid Gives Me a Headache

It's been a while since I perused Broder's Sunday missives in the Washington Post. Alas and alack, I read last Sunday's and this Sunday's entries in the Hackery Hall of Fame contest, and was greeted with the following. The first is from last week's column, on trade policy:

But as the president acknowledged, the protectionist sentiment he has long opposed appears to be rising in Congress -- and among the Democratic presidential candidates as well.

The House leadership cavalierly denied his request for the kind of "fast-track" negotiating authority that past presidents have enjoyed. That procedure limits Congress to an up-or-down vote on future trade deals, rather than rewriting them in detail.

As if that were not worrisome enough, the Democratic aspirants for president vied last week in their debate in Chicago to see who could be most irresponsible on trade issues.

This is why we can't have a serious, reasonable debate on trade; the field is dominated by a vocabulary that thinks the words "isolationist", "protectionist", and "cavalier" have any substantive meaning in the discussion. That Congress denied Bush fast-track authority is not the "cavalier" act of a "protectionist" Congress, but the reasoned response of Democrats refusing to give Bush any more authority than he should have (of course, they failed when it counted, on the wiretapping business, but that was another post). I am assuming that Broder is using the word "cavalier" in the sense of "not regarding the consequences" rather than tying it to its root as the French word for the English "knight" - with connotations of honor and consideration for others. In the latter sense, the Dems were acting "cavalierly"; in the former, they were not, and Broder's application of the epithet shows he really has no idea what in the world he's talking about.

This week's column is a love song to Mike Huckabee, who took second in the Iowa straw poll last week. By guess and by gosh, that must mean something other than the fact that he spent more money than anyone other than Mitt Romney. Broder sees Huckabee combining the "populism" (really fascism, but for Broder there is no difference) of Patrick Buchanan with the wiliness of Bill Clinton, who turned a second place finish in New Hampshire in to a win, carrying him through the southern primaries and on to the nomination and the Presidency. Of all the Republican candidates, Mike Huckabee comes with the least baggage, the smallest level of psychopathology, and the best antennae for the religious right. I believe that he would be the most formidable Republican candidate to face the Democrats, and could possibly eke out a victory as the Republican Clinton - fuzzy on rhetoric and slightly right of the middle of the road in policy. The major blogs are discussing Rudy and Mitt and Fred, but I do think Broder is on to something considering the possibility of Huckabee as an alternative as the big two and Hollywood Fred destroy one another with their lies, their sociopathy, and their laziness, respectfully. On the other hand, Broder seems to be a bit too fond of Huckabee, and a bit too taken with his second place win in last week's vote-shopping contest in Iowa. While it is possible the Republicans would defy recent history and nominate a formidable candidate, I think our current atmosphere is one in which even the moderately sane Huckabee doesn't stand much of a chance. He'll probably end up the Lamar! candidate of 2008. Broder's hand-holding is hardly a plus for someone wanting to run as an outsider, either.

Words Mean Things

Part of the problem stemming from my "No Truth" post a while back is the use of language. For the most part, I try to keep away from any words or phrases that are freighted with any baggage that might confuse the reader. When I discussed the question of "Truth" in that post, I was being philosophically technical while attempting to be free of pedantry. The result was confusion, misunderstanding, and a lack of clarity based upon my own stupid assumption that I was being clear. I certainly believe it is the case that there are certain statements that reflect certain facts. I also believe it is the case that logic as a form of reasoning arrives at certain conclusions that are irrefutable. Finally, I believe it to be the case that a certain way of living in the world, both as individuals and as groups, that are preferable to other ways of living. What I do not believe is that claiming immutable, infinite, and eternal Truth for these beliefs adds anything substantive to them. It doesn't strengthen my claims, is not an argument in their favor, nor does it contribute to our general conversation on what it means to live together in all our differences.

Standing behind all this is a view of language that recognizes both the contingency and history of language as a bearer of meaning. Words mean things, certainly, but what they mean is always in a state of flux, subject to change through various uses. In the end, the meaning of words comes down to a reference to other words. While it may be uncontroversially correct to point to a pebble in a driveway when asked what the word "rock" means, on another level, this does nothing to define the word "rock", because the word "rock is nothing but certain human beings make, or a mark certain human beings make, whose meanings are multiple. One person may indeed point to a pebble; another may pull out a T Rex album as an answer to the question. Or, one may offer a metaphorical response. All would be correct, but hardly suffice to clear up the confusion aroused by the question, "What is 'rock'?"

I hope this little clarification helps. I believe that words ultimately refer to other words, which refer to other words in their turn. All of them have a history, an etymology that gives us a rough idea of usage and development that is important for grasping the reality the contingency of language, and the impossibility of fixing meaning through language for all time. This more than anything else is my reason for refusing to acknowledge something called "Truth" that inheres in statements, making them normative for all persons, and granted to certain language users and denied to others. Hegel had a quip, "The finite cannot contain the infinite", that sums up my view very nicely. Words do indeed mean things, which is why we should be careful in our word use; we shouldn't look for more than meaning in words, however, because there is no "there" there.