Secularism vs. Clericalism?

Some years ago, German Reformed theologian Jurgen Moltmann published a series of essays on the role of faith in public life entitled God for a Secular Society. Moltmann is no lightweight. His A Theology of Hope inaugurated an entire new way of doing theology by living the faith; Moltmann was inspired by utopian Marxist Ernst Bloch to re-envision theology and the Church as a source of hope, a place where, to quote Jesus from the Gospels, a new thing is being done. He is given credit with starting a movement called political theology in Europe; those who followed in other parts of the world were more directly beholden to Marx on the one hand and actual ministerial practice on the other, and created the liberation theologies that upset the current pope so much he actually excommunicated one of its practitioners, Leonoardo Boff. Moltmann has written numerous weighty tomes on the doctrine of creation, the Trinity, the Church, and eschatology.

I realized the old theological paradigm in the United States - await with baited breath the latest German book because the Germans invented serious scholarship - was dead when I read the first essay in which Moltmann, in arguing for the continued relevance of the Church and its discourse in a secular society uses the Federal Theologians of the 18th century as his discussion point. The Federal Theologians were a group of Swiss Reformed theologians attempting to work out an alternative to the more hierarchical understanding of the Trinity and Providence that was prevalent in more authoritarian parts of Europe. Writing from more democratic Switzerland, the country that invented federalism, they attempted the first real democratic rendering of Christian theology. It is a fascinating historical period, and many of the theologians in question made important advancements in how we can describe the ineffable in a way that is not necessarily compatible with monarchy.

This in no way means they are at all relevant for our lives today. While I find reading theology and philosophy relaxing, invigorating, and even occasionally aggravating, I have ceased to believe that we need to rehash the same debates Karl Barth had with the Liberals, whether Bonhoeffer or Harnack were more representative of the best of German Lutheran theology, or the possible relevance of Hegelian ontology versus Kantian epistemology in constructing theological arguments. These are not just sterile; they ignore the fact that theology is supposed to come out of the lebenswelt - that wonderful Heideggerian term that refers to our particularity, our here and now.

Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall seemed to agree, and published a 3-volume work on "Christian Faith in North America" that tried to do just what I felt needed to be done. He wrote one of the great theological works of the early 1970's. Of course, he wrote it in the mid-1990's, thus rendering him as irrelevant as Moltmann.

With the exception of N. T. Wright, there are no serious theologians that jump up and say, "Hey!". We are starved for serious thought. We need a new way of taking Christian ideas and making them speak to our age.

We do not need the evolving position of Pope Benedict XVI (former Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) put forth most clearly in a Philippine newspaper by Fr. Roy Cimagala (and reprinted here at Faith in Public Life.org), which posits something called "secularism" as one pole of unacceptable social thought, and "clericalism" as another pole. My problems with this evoloving position are many (not the least its Aristotelian "mean between two extremes" approach to ethical thought that creates a fake neutral position between two equally fake ethical extremes), but I find the understandings of "secularism" to be insulting, and of "clericalism" to be disingenuous at best.

The Pope has spoken often against "secularism", and Fr. Cimagala is express in his understanding that secularism, being unGodly by definition, is therefore amoral at least, if not immoral (since God is the standard for morality, and if God is absent from secularism, therefore . . .; is it any wonder I detest the simplistic use of logic? You create false universals, posit an equally fake particular, and that leads you to a fake conclusion). Of course, secular social thought is far from immoral; John Stuart Mill, Richard Rorty, W. E. B. DuBois, Bertrand Russell, and Isaiah Berlin (to name some both of my favorites and the more important non-religious moral philosophers) are all concerned with ethical conduct and a just social order. None of them were particularly friendly toward religion, with Russell even writing abook called Why I am not a Christian. To argue, as Cimagala does, that "secularism" is subjectivism writ large, is simple ignorance.

On the other hand, to claim that "clericalism" - the idea that God should take sides in political disputes - is inherently wrong is at best disingenuous. First, there is an irreducible political core to the Christian faith. Second, as James Cone, Gustavo Guteirrez, Josiah Young and other liberation theologians have argued, God does indeed take sides. He sides with life - real human life, not necessarily feti - over and against all those forces that would bring death and dehumanization. The previouos Pope made many of the same arguments, which has always made me wonder why he and Ratzinger were so hostile to their South American and Central American Catholic brethren who were arguing much the same thing, just using different words. I suppose there is an element of truth, and one I have argued and still maintain, that those with whom we dispute are still children of God, in need of love and foregiveness. That truth should in no way prevent us from saying what needs to be said, and doing what needs to be done. Jesus loved Jerusalem, he wept over Jerusalem. He also pronounced a sentence upon it for its refusal to act as God wanted it to act, and paid a staggering price for that verdict.

The "secularism versus clericalism" paradigm that is evolving in Roman Catholic circles is no more real or relevant than Jurgen Moltmann's discussion of 18th century Swiss theologians or Douglas John Hall's embrace of Paul Tillich for the 1990's. We still must wait for serious theology to adress where we are, and more important, what we are to do.

Dangerous . . . or Irrelevant?

The much-heralded "Listening Tour", which followed the even-more heralded release of the ISG report, is over, and Bush seems determined to send more troops to Iraq. The numbers floated range from 15,000 to 50,000, depending upon the source, but the common thread seems to quote at least 20,000, with 15,000 of those destined for Baghdad alone, doubling our present force in the Iraqi capital. While the press has put the stories out there, it seems only the left end of the Internet is discussing the context within which such ideas are floated. A typical example is this piece at Think Progress.org, where Bush's earlier claim that he would take the advice of his generals in the field is now, in Ron Ziegler's wonderful turn of phrase, "no lon ger operative". Ignoring the unanimous advice of his generals, including the Army Chief of Staff who has said publicly that Iraq is "breaking" the United States Army, Bush seems bound and determined to do the exact opposite of what he should do if he were actually listening - to Baker-Hamilton, to his military advisors, or to the American people as expressed in the recent election. We are confronted with a potentially dangerous situation, a Constiitutional crisis of epic proportions, should current active-duty military brass refuse to follow direct orders from the Commander-in-Chief and not agree to his orders for more troops to the Mesopotamian abbatoir.

Of course, the generals will most likely suck it up and send the men and women over there. Or they will retire - as many have done - in disgust over the way the Administration is treating the military, and go public with their criticisms. Or they may choose a middle ground, operating within bureaucratic circles to delay or cirumvent as much as possible the carrying out of the orders without actually disobeying them (although this might constitute a crisis-in-hiding). The point is, or perhaps should be, that the President is doing what he expressly said he would not do, and going againt the wishes of the American people as well. Bound and determined to be correct no matter how many people have to die, Bush is presenting us with a very dangerous situation, and our choices as how to respond are not helped by a media that continues to operate under the illusion that Bush matters.

We could get very afraid. We could also, on the other hand, see this as an opportunity to do to Bush what the Republicans wanted to do to Bill CLinton but never could because he was smarter than all of them (including the collective wisdom of the oh-so-wise, Inside-the-Beltway pundit class)- make the President irrelevant to the forging of policy in the United States. A man entering the White House determined to reassert the Imperial Presidency could end it returning the office to its status as cipher that it held throughout much of American history (name an accomplishment of President Banjamin Harrison). Should Bush continue on his reckless course, threatening the deterioration of our military capabilities, the proper balance between the civilian command structure and the uniformed services, the Bill of Rights and American law enforcement in the name of the non-existent War on Terror, we may see the effective end of the Bush Administration come January as the Democratic Party takes control of Congress (despite the media vultures hanging over Tim Johnson's sickbed; Cokie Roberts was almost breathless yesterday in her determination to find trouble for the Democratic Senate). Without actually removing him from office, by asserting its prerogatives over the purse and oversight, Congress could render Bush completely irrelevant to the formation of policy.

I am not suggesting that Bush is not dangerous to our Constitutional balance of power, civilian control of the military, or our civil liberties. On the contrary, he and his Administration are the most reckless, criminal bunch of hooligans to ever waltz through the corridors of power. Rather than react with panic however, a little judicious assertion of proper power on the part of Congress could start the return the balance where it belongs. Rather than talk impeachment, although it certainly seems warranted, perhaps the Democratic Congress will discover that it has no need to remove Bush to render him no longer President.

Nostalgia, Memory, and Christmas (More personal, although a bit political)

I have hesitated to write about the whole phony "War on Christmas" because I earlier made an unwarranted, unethical personal attack on someone who firmly believes such is actually taking place. I didn't want to visit a place that reminded me that I was capable of being as shallow and nasty as the right. I also didn't want to get into an "argument" over this nonsense because, to put it bluntly, it is a bit like arguing with Holocaust Deniers. You don't argue with them; you ignore them. I feel the same way about those who carry on about the War on Christmas. It simply isn't true, and no amount of arguing will convince anyone who refuses to be convinced. When an ideological article of faith becomes "true", it is impervious to factual argument - free markets are the answer to all our ills, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, George Bush is a great President, liberal secularists are waging a War on Christmas. All of them are demonstrably false and easily refuted. All of them, however are also still discussed as if they had some inherent truth value.

Having said all that, it is hard to ignore the fact is is less than a week before Christmas, except maybe for the fact that, after an earlier batch of winter weather, we hear in the northern prairie are enjoying late-October/early-November weather. The daylight lasts about 4 hours, the kids are getting restless and eager, and my wife is dreading this weekend, with 5 services between Saturday evening at 6 pm and Sunday night at 11 pm. And, as always, there are still presents and cards to buy, wrapping to get done, meal planning, and the inevitable head slap as something gets missed.

I have great memories of Christmas from my childhood. The youngest of five children, my earliest Christmas memories are of a huge, out-of-control day with lots of noise and things going on. I have a picture from one of those Christmas mornings. It must have been 1967, because I was about 2 years old. My mother must have taken the photograph, because my father's leg is visible (but that's about all). The five of us are spread across the floor of the living room and one can almost hear the cacophony of the room.

Some other Christmas memories include the year my oldest sister was freshman, or perhaps sophomore in college. There is nearly eleven years difference in our ages, so while she was enjoying wild times in care-free early adulthood, I was in third or fourth grade. This was the last year of "Santa", and I was up at 5 am to get my stocking (my parents had gone to bed about an hour before). I immediately went in to my sisters' bedroom (my two oldest sisters shared a bedroom, and this was the last year my older sister was home for Christmas for several years) to open my stocking. My sister was all smiles and "oohed" and "aahed" over everything. She had returned from a party about the same time my parents had gone to bed, yet she indulged me in my childhood Christmas joy.

I remember many evenings spent sitting in our living room, listening to RCA records released through the old Grants' store chain - Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet will always be linked with Christmas in my mind. Incidentally, if anyone knows where CD copies of those old records are available, let me know; there is a recording of Johnny Cash singing "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" and the Andre Kostelanitz Orchestra performing "Angels we Have Heard on High" that still takes my breath away. Christmas Eve service, carol singing, my father reading the Christmas story from Luke from his old KJV Bible, the huge trees in the bay window - all of it reminds me of Christmas and good, warm feelings.

I also remember horrible fights over tree decorating and putting the lights on; one year my mother threatened me with a yardstick and my sister broke in to hysterics. My brother and I have always had a difficult relationship - it is difficult to define the source, and many of the details are either irrelevant or too horrible to go into any detail - and one year he sucker-punched me so hard I spent ten minutes in a heap on the floor. There were the years money was tight and presents were scarce. Of course, the worst was the year the Jehovah's Witness came to our house, with six of us spread across the living room (my oldest sister was married and enjoying Christmas with her family), and the woman had brought her daughter along. The child's eyes goggled, and my mother only made things worse by trying to foist a gift upon her, insulting the woman and her beliefs.

So, yes, I suffer from Christmas nostalgia as much as anyone, emphasizing the good and ignoring the bad. Yet the bad memories are as much a part of my Christmases past as the good ones, and part and parcel of what "Christmas" means to me. I sometimes think, in contemplating the whole "War on Christmas" thing, that too may suffer from some kind of nostalgia bereft of real memory to leaven the rose-colored, snow-filled glasses of those who would insist that Christmas be observed in only one way, preferably the way they remember from childhood. This is a danger because it prevvents us from thinking clearly and honestly about what the holiday is and how we should celebrate it. We must not separate Christmas from memory, nor indeed any of our life from memory, because it threatens our equilibrium. It would be nice if all Christmases included big snows, laughter, gaggles of children enjoying little but fun and excitement, and quiet moments of contemplation of the birth of the Christ child. They don't and to pretened they either have or should to be real is to engage in nostalgia, which is a servant of ideology (the idea is not original with me; I stole it from Christopher Lasch). Once we start insisting that reality conform to our preconceptions rather than that we follow the ebb and flow of real events, even those difficult to contemplate or integrate into our lives, we are entering the fantasy realm of ideology.

None of this means that I am either joyless or not planning to have a wonderful Christmas with my two small children. I still enjoy listening to Christmas music, although I no longer listen to Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet; my speed is more classical and even baroque Christmas music, including great choral peices by Bach. I still am eager to peek in my stocking (my wife and I exchange stockings), but I usually wait a bit later to awaken than I did thirty years ago. Although we have toned down the decorations this year, and have also seriously toned down the whole Santa thing - this is a parsonage after all, and there is a reason the day is called Christmas - we still try to keep a festive house and exchange gifts, even ones with "Santa" on the tag. I refuse to buy into the current, near-insane commercial stampede that is the "Holiday Season", an affront to the real meaning of the day, and prefer quiet to noise. If that makes me a "threat" to Christmas, so be it.

Holding Them in Contempt

One is tempted to wonder why the main stream press is so clueless concerning liberal and lefty bloggers' attitude towards the Bush Administration. They seem to assume, without any concern for the reality surrounding them (not least the recent election), that the Executive is entitled to deference simply because it is the Executive. They thus treat the words and actions of the President and his officials as worhty of comment and consideration whether or not any one in the country gives a fig. The disconnect between the press and the public was once, during the impeachment of President Clinton, a matter of some commentary among the press, although then it tended to come down to how little the public understood the weight of the mattes under consideration. Rather than think that, perhaps, the public was wiser than their media and Congressional representatives, they held the public in contempt for their support for President Clinton and disdain for the Congressional Republican witchhunt.

Fast forward eight years and the disconnect between press and administration on one side and the public on the other is not even noted. Indeed, the press doesn't even bother to note, except in passing, the polls that show the public does not support the President, the Republican Party, or the President's latest trial balloon of increasing troop strength in Iraq. They just report and report and report, and we just shake our heads in disgust. As an example, I heard Cokie Roberts on NPR this morning (why in the world is this vaccuous woman wasting electricity?) and she is the perfect example of the empty-headed, small-minded Washington press corps. Her "analysis" was lacking substance, understanding, or even consideration of policy and the impact of public policy. It sounded much more like a gossip columnist in some monarchy, discussing who is in favor, who is out of favor, and how dare the Democrats actually assume they can govern when the wise ones of Washington have declared them incapable of doing so. It was nonsensical and devoid of any appreciation for what is happening in the nation; it was inside-the-beltway crap at its worst.

I believe what Scarecrow at Fire Dog Lake said about the Administration in this piece applies to the main stream press as well:

[They do] not beieve in America. They don't accept the principle that the authority of government flows from the consent of the people. They don't believe in America's core ideas of democracy, or the rule of law, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, individual human dignity, or such quaint notions as pursuing negotiations instead of war.

These are the reasons I hold the vast majority of the main stream press in contempt. They reflect the worst of the Administration and its habits of malignity. They do so because they are reflexive in their insistence that the President and the Administration deserve some amount of deference and respect, rather than the strange democratic idea that support and respect flow both ways; since the President does not respect the wishes of the people, why should we accord any deference to him or his policies, especially those that go against the express wishes of the American people? The press are as bad as the government they cover.

Congrats to Me and You

If you, like me, have a blog, you are Time magazine's Person of the Year. If you upload to YouTube, you are Person of the Year. If you comment on what you read on the internet, you are Person of the Year. We have already become a force to be reckoned with in politics, and are making changes in society as well. We aren't just kids swapping rumors at MySpace, or the one-handed porn-surfers. We are the Person of the Year. I think we all deserve a pat on the collective back.

Bizarro World Gets Even Moreso

It is just shy of six weeks since a national referendum left a spanked Republican Party sstanding on the sidelines, with even president Bush admitting the Party had received a "thumpin'". The top issue, of course, was the current occupation of Iraq. Between the election and now, there has been much discussion of what the results of the election would mean for an administration institutionally incapable of accepting criticism. Also, there was the much heralded Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, released with much adulation from Dean Broder and other Washington sycophants, that offered not so much a solution as an opportunity, at least, to think honestly about the mess we have made. There are no real solutions offered, because the ISG could honestly admit that, in fact, there are no solutions left. No matter what the United States decides to do, the situation is what it is.

In a world where elected leaders acted on the behalf of the elctorate, a consensus would be firming up as to how best to extricate oursleves from Iraq as quickly as possible. In a world where politicians were held to account for their words, Joe Lieberman would be trying to explain how he can justify his statement that no one wants to end our occupation more than he does. In a world where there was a press that was not under the thumb of a now-descredited Republican Party, no one would listen to John McCain.

Instead, even as most Americans want us out, the sooner the better, from Iraq, the President, with rhetorical backing from John McCain and Joe Lieberman (name anyone else who is saying it, please) want to actually increase our troop levels by 20,000. Of course, where these troops are to come from, no one is saying, because no one knows. What we are going to do with these troops no one knows, because there is no real policy in the White House. Perhaps there is some magical belief that, by putting more American soldiers and Marines in Iraq, the Iraqis will be intimidated into ending their civil war. No one, at least in the mainstream press, has asked an even more fundamental question: Why, in the face of a national decision to end the war symbolized by the election, and national opinion dead-set against any move to prolong this occupation any more than possible, is the President even floating the idea of an increase in troop strength? Above and beyond the pracitcalities of the matter, why is no one saying what should be obvious - there is no support except among a few die-hards, for such a move?

The President won't listen to his generals. He won't listen to the elctorate. He won't listen to the bipartisan philosopher-kings of the ISG. He won't listen to Congress. There is something almost pathologically sad yet very dangerous going on here, as if he thinks that by defying public opinion and collective wisdom, he can snatch his now crumpled and scorched chestnuts from the Iraqi flames. Of course, it means more death and destruction, but these broken eggs will make the fine omelet of a legacy for President Bush as Wiser than Everyone.

Is it Janueary 2009 yet?

God mend thine every flaw

I have to give a hat tip to Duncan for this, as he quotes the final stanza of "America the Beautiful" in this post linking a short post from Matthew Yglesias. It got me thinking about "patriotic hymns".

I am not a fan of them. I do not think they have a place in church. Too often they are sung, on or around the fourth of July, not in praise of God (as should be the case in church), but in praise of America. Ditto "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (what an awful title, that). The church is not American, it is only in America, a distinction it is necessary to keep in mind if we are not to lose our identity as the Church of Jesus Christ.

Yet, the last stanza of "America the Beautiful" is a powerful prayer - America! America!/God mend thine every flaw/Confirm thy good in brotherhood/Thy liberty in law - that America actually achieve its lofty goals and aspirations. While I do not like the word "brotherhood", either, it is a plea for solidarity, for a national identity that transcends our more communal loyalties. It is also a plea for true freedom and justice, not through the absence of law, but through the legal recognition of them as part and parcel of what it means to be American.

It is also a wonderful protest against the mindless affirmation of all things American that too often occurs in churches. Years ago I saw a horrid children's sermon (in a United Methodist Church, no less) involving the American flag and how it was our Christian duty to protect it. I wanted to take my lighter our of my pocket and light up right there. Anyway, this last bit shows us that, even in the midst of loving our land, there is a recognition that we have not arrived at the goal, we are still running the race for social and racial justice, for freedom and justice under the law, and that we earnestly pray for Divine Providence to fill the cracks and erase the blemishes from our national life. In other words, it is an honest prayer for forgiveness, guidance, and hopefulness in the face of our many flaws.

There are many on the right who honestly believe that criticism of the United States, in whatever form, is unpatriotic. It displays a lack of faith in our leaders, a lack of trust i n our institutions, and a lack of appreciation for the many benefits we share as citizens of this great Republic. I have always felt that, in fact, criticism is the highest praise a person can give. I love America. I think we have constructed, through turmoil and Civil War, social protest and labor wars, court battles and social upheaval, a great nation. Our aspirations are among the loftiest in human history. Our energy is boundless. Our belief in new possibilities is breathtaking. Our race relations are abysmal. Our wealth gap is a scandal. Our current national leadership are a bunch of suparannuated frat boys who need to be bounced off campus as soon as possible. Our laws are being twisted to give more and more arbitrary power to the state, including most recently the revocation of the Great Writ.

We have far to go to become who we could be. We are an ongoing experiment, as Abraham Lincoln, the last great Republican President said. I think it only right for me to admit that, when it comes time to sing it in church, I will agree wholeheartedly with the decision, as long as we sing with gusto the last line of the last verse, and we include those words in our daily prayers.

European Wingnuttery

I will admit to being a Europhile. I love all things peninsular - French cuisine, German philosophy, Italian politics, Swedish . . . health care. Don't even get me started with Britain. In fact, as summer turned into fall and the elections approached, I discussed with my wife the serious possibility of emigrating if the Republicans retained control of Congress this election cycle; I hated to think about it, but I wanted to abandon the nuthouse before the lunatics who were running teh asylum put my name on one of their lists. For several months now, I have visited two sites (Contra Capa and Cristy's, linked to the right) from Portugal. I have enjoyed getting to know someone my own age who lives in a very different society, yet with whom there seems to be an abundance of similarities (she like Marillion!).

In my visit today, I came across this post highlighting comments on a survey of gay support for abortion rights (there is a vigorous debate going on right now in Catholic Portugal over both abortion and gay rights). What struck me most was the fact that, here isn Europe, so often portrayed as superior to America in its political sophistication, was something that could have been written by James Dobson. I suppose nutty ideas know no borders, but it was sad to see an American franchise suddenly sprout in what I had thought was the unfriendly soil of the Iberian Peninsula. Next thing you know, they'll have McDonalds and Starbucks . . . oh, wait . . .

Note: The blog is in Portuguese, but at the bottom of the side bar, just click the "Babelfish" icon, and a very rough, semantic translation will open in a separate window. Give Cristina "um beijos" and tell her I sent you.

Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away

Thanks to Think Progress.org, we have this report that the outgoing majority leader, John Boehner, apparently has either not read the 911 Commission Report, doesn't understand the concept that one cannot do two contradictory things (or that, if choices are offered, making a choice means excluding others), or is simply acting like a petulant child, trying to make Pelosi out a lying, promise-breaking, San-Francisco-values demonstrating liberal. My actual preference is for all three.

Why is it anything these people say is reported?

Why I Like Al Sharpton

Note: The following post contains language that might be offensive to some readers. Please understand the context in which a certain word is used before you take me to task for using it.

In 2004, in the Democratic primary in IL, I was one of only three or four people in my county, a rural, heavily Republican area, to vote for Sharpton. I did it partly because I did not like the front-runner, Joh Kerry. I thought he was a weak candidate, as he turned out to be. I also did it because, of all the candidates then in the race, only Sharpton had spent a lifetime fighting for justice the only way it can be done. One case at a time, one incident at a time, bringing to bear all his personality and media-savvy when an African-American was wronged.

I find the usual portrait of Sharpton to be a fascinating study of the unreflective racism that still ahunts so many of our institutions, including the press. Sharpton is typical of that one black man in a community who refuses to lie down to white authority. In the past such persons were called uppity niggers. Today, they are called ambulance-chasing, self-promoting, media-whores. Sharpton refuses to concede there is only one road to racial justice in this country, a steady "drip-drip-drip" pf non-violent non-cooperation, complete with wide-eyed white kids with the best intentions in the world holding hands and singing "We Shall Overcome". They are the real leaders, of course, not an uppity, I mean an ambulance chasing media whore like Sharpton. Sharpton is a combination of an old-style urban ward-heeler, an old style African-American preacher/community leader, and a very knowledgeable manipulator of public imagery and consciousness. What angers whites more than anything else is, unlike white America's favorite civil rights leader, Sharpton has built in NYC an organizaiton that gets results.

In the movie The Cotton Club, Laurence Fishburne plays Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson. Johnson is accosted by the white overseer of the backstage area of the Cotton Club while he is trying to arrange a date with a dancer. When he is grabbed and asked what he is doing, he turns and says, "I am trying to talk to my friend Wilona. Who are you and what do you think you are doing?" The oversser grabs Johnson and calls him an uppity nigger, and prepares to beat his ass soundly. Two of Johnson's cohorts grab the man and drag him to the men's room where they shove his head into a commode, which Johnson proceeds to flush, saying, "This uppity nigger is buying you a drink." That is Sharpton; that is why the white American establishment hates him so much - he gives them a collective swirly time after time, and no matter what they try to do, he keeps dragging them, kicking and screaming and swearing, into the bathroom.

In his book, A Dream or a Nightmare? Malcolm, Martin, and America, James Cone shows that, rather than offering opposing ways of fighting white supremacy, King and Malcolm X were in fact complementary to one another, and that both were correct and incorrect in the ways they chose to fight. Sharpton has taken that lesson to heart, and refuses to concede that there is only one way to beat a system that is structured to defeat him at every turn, because by so conceding, one already admits the game is fixed. He plays, and wins by his own rules.

Sharpton is indeed a "controversial" figure, but that is because he shows us, again and again and again, the worst of who we are as America, and forces us to deal with it. He drags in to the light all the filth and stink of our racism and makes us confront it. That is why we hate him so. He is a threat to our sense of ourselves as good, honest, hard-working, tax-paying, rules-playing, racially-sensitive enlightened individuals. He knows the seedy underbelly of America, because as one of its victims, that is what he has been exposed to. God bless him, and all the uppity niggers out there who buy us drinks time and time again, dragging us into the bathroom to teach us a lesson.

Thinking Outside the Racial Box

Note: This is prompted by this post here.

Last week I wrote this about my intellectual development, and what I had been taught, at a remove, by Franz Fanon and James Cone, about the possibilities of thinking differently; about thinking from another perspective, another history, another social station. That is all well and good from an intellectual standpoint - a bit remote, but nonetheless crucial - but I want to give an example of what that means in life. After all, I should be able to show that I can actually think differently than would be expected from my background, my social class, my education, and my racial and ethnic heritage.

My turtle-loving neighbors to the north would want us to believe, in the post linked above in the italics, that, by reporting the fact of racism, CNN is somehow responsible for it. While I am hardly one to trust any news outlet, and am grateful for any skepticism any one, left, right, or center, employs when encountering a news report, this is something that strains credulity. CNN is not promoting a racial divide; it was reporting that Americans feel there is in fact a racial divide, and are aware of those who hold bigoted views.

So much for the first part, some general comments.

In the comments section of the post, I noted that recetnly attorneys representing the Dallas, TX school board argued for separate-but-equal school systems, based on the claim that funding for these separate school systems would remain the same. Apart from the obvious questions, including whether or not this attorney had heard of this little court case known as Brown, et. al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka, KS, this case prompted me to state that the school district did not make this argument because it is liberal (Dallas, TX?) CNN, with Ted Turner and his fellow jet-setting cosmopolite George Soros setting the agenda, did not force the attorney to make this stupid (that word is popping up a lot lately) argument. The argument was made because the school district believes that racial segregation is preferable to the the hard work of integration - and all the risks that entails, socially, culturally, and economically. In other words, the current status quo is preferable. By arguing in favor of segregation, the school board is, by definition, RACIST.

Similarly, three young black men were followed by a police squad car after they left a New York club. They were followed for a block and a half. Details are sketchy, but the police opened fire on the three young men, who were (as far as I know) unarmed. One of those men is dead. Now consider this act from the perspective of an African-American. There is the whole history of near-genocidal violence against Americans of African descent - cultural destruction, rape, enforced religious conversion, the denial of even the most basic status as a human being (put most succinctly by Chief Justice of the United States in his horrendous Dred Scott decision: "No Negro has any rights which a white man is entitled to respect."). After "emancipation", the granting of "full citizenship", of "voting rights", of "equality before the law" came the imposition of legal segregation, enforced peonage, the terrorism of the Night Rider, the burning cross, the legal revocation of the right to vote, of access to education, of the status as an equal human being worthy of respect and having dignity simply because that person was, period (I am speaking of the social practice common in the south of whites referring to blacks as "boy", "girl", or perhaps "Uncle", or "Aunt", as in Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemimah).

Of course, the context to best understand what happened on that dark New York City street most clearly is the lynching. How many hundreds, or even thousands, of African-American men, women, boys, and girls, were tortured and murdered by cheering crowds who photographed themselves around the corpse? Since such murder was common, and unpunishable by law - quite often performed by the very people who were sworn to uphold the law (police, judges) - how should we expect the NYC African-American community to react? Does the passage of a few laws here and there wipe out the communal memory of racial violence and hatred; of the shackle and whip, the hangman's noose and the burning brand?

More to the point, why should any American, black or white, take seriously our government's commitment to equality when attorneys for municipalities make arguments as morally specious as the one offered by attorneys for the Dallas school district? Why should African-Americans trust any white person who claims to be one of good faith? How effective have those earnest, starry-eyed whites been in fighting off those who would enforce our national code of racial intolerance and white supremacy at the cost of thousands of lives? How many young black men have to die at the hands of police officers who claim they felt threatened? How many African-Americans have to suffer the indignities, large and small, heaped upon them by a society so entrenched in racism, so steeped in white supremacy, that advocates for racial justice are derided as ambulance chasing race-baiters, while the killers of black boys and girls and men and women are heralded as heroes? How long until someone says "ENOUGH!"?

I suppose, however, that as a liberal, I am just fanning those old racial flames. As Billy Joel sang, though, we didn't start the fire.

The Depths of Presidential . . . Stupidity Doesn't Even begin to Cover It (Updated with Correction)

Two things about the President's little news conference this afternoon. First, in his introductory remarks, he said that Iraq was a "war we now find ourselves in."

Uh. Huh? What?

You mean we didn't go through several months of discussion of mushrooms clouds and uranium cake and steel tubes and mobile biological weapons plants; we didn't go through the logistical task of staging 150,00 troops, with inadequate armor and supplies, and no plan for control in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Sadaam Hussein, with all its "messy" looting? You mean the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense didn't set up their own intelligence office in the Pentagon because they didn't like the intel coming from the CIA that consistently said Iraq had not reconstituted its weapons program? You mean we didn't have shock and awe that was mostly stop and yawn? We just happened to "find ourselves" occupying a country we invaded without reason, without pretext, without cause, without threat, and apparently without a clue?

Of all the abysmally stupid things Bush has said, this goes beyond stupid. This is almost criminally horrid. Does Bush actually refuse to accept responsibility for the irretrievable mess we now find ourselves in? Does he believe it is something that has just happened, that events are unconnected to one another, that responsibility and blame and culpability have no place in this world he has created in his mind?

Also, from the Q&A according to an AP report here, Bush had this to say about the Iraq Study Group:

"I thought it was interesting the Republicans and Democrats could work in cocnert to help achieve an objective," Bush said.

Like they were kids at camp given a goal to meet, and had done so without bringing down the cabin.

I know the President is claiming he is on a "Listening Tour", but perhaps he should be on a "Clue Tour", because he sure needs to find one.

January 20, 2009 is so far away.

UPDATE:I have changed the first paragraph to reflect a partial transcript of this line I found here. Thank you so much, Joshua Micah Marshall.

Pinochet, Kirkpatrick, and the WaPo: Three of a Perfect Pair (With Update & Link)

I thought I had said all I wanted to say, or all that needed to be said, about the recent deaths within days of one another of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Augusto Pinochet. One languishes in the obscurity of right-wing intellectual iconography, the other awaits entry to the dictator room in hell, and neither are grieved over except among Americans of a decidedly right-leaning political bent. Glenn Greenwald has a wonderful (as usual) dissection of a Washington Post editorial that heaps accolades upon the dead dictator, placing it into a context that makes it less surprising than it might otherwise be. As the right has defended numerous Cold War dictators - with the "intellectual" backing of Kirkpatrick - and even now defends the Bush Administration's (admittedly mild in comparison) edging towards authoritarianism, it is no wonder that numerous American right-wingers mourn the passing of one whom they could call their own.

What makes it all the more interesting is that, in Chile, you know, the country Pinochet ruled for seventeen years, when news reached the street that Pinochet had shuffled off this mortal coil, there was celebration in the streets. There were, as the media duly reported, apparently under the rubric that there actually are two sides to any story, a small group of former supporters (I say former because you can't support someone who's dead) who gathered to publicly mourn, but their numbers were small and their presence insignificant. Indeed, the celebrations were initially described as riots in the press, because North Americans don't know what it's like to have a chance to give the final finger to one who held you under his thumb for so long. We would rather remind the Chilean people, who apparently are too carried away with the joy of freedom, that they have the most stable, most economically vigorous nation in South America as a result of Pinochet. The hubris of the American press knows no apparent bounds, as we lecture the ungrateful Chileans on what they should be thankful for. After all, through the CIA and Kissinger, we gave them seventeen years of capitalist heaven when they could have been saddled with the horrors of Democratic Socialism under Salvador Allende, one of the first of thousands of victims of Pinochet's rule.

There is a moral equivalence (if I can use the word "moral" in this context) between the Post's school-marmish lecturing and Kirkpatrick's turgid prose praising dictatorship. What, after all, is wrong with authoritarianism, since it leaves traditional elites in charge and does not threaten the social contract? So what if people are oppressed, jailed, disappeared, or killed? So what if the masses are left in poverty, while elites sate themselves at the public well? Democracy is a messy business, and people may make decisions that harm our, I mean their own, interests, after all. These same "arguments" are still trotted out by some on the right who want to replace the current elected government in Iraq because it has made decisions counter to American interests, or who are angry with the Palestinians for electing Hamas to leadership positions, or who are angry with Lebanon for electing members of Hezbollah to the parliament. It would be som much better if these people acted in our, I mean their own, interests and elected people to please America. People like Pinochet.

I wish I could find a link to this, but I remember a story that emerged a year or so after Pinochet left power and Chile began to emerge from its long, national nightmare. A former prisoner told a story about being flown in a helicopter over the Pacific Ocean. There were other prisoners with him. As he watched, the side hatch of the helicopter was opened, and an interrogator began to question the prisoners. When the first man either refused to answer the questions, or gavea answers the interrogators didn't like, he was summarily pushed out the open hatch. The helicopter was miles from land and close to a thousand feet above the ocean. This is what Pinochet did. This is what Kirkpatrick defended. This is what the Post dismisses in its editorial heaping praise upon the bloated corpse of a self-made President.

The moral vacuousness of such a view is stunning. The ability to rationalize horror is breathtaking. Is it any wonder the right is held in such contempt?

UPDATE: Apparently, Glenn was as angered as I was, judging by this post. The decline of any moral sensibility at all among our "elites" is truly a breathtaking thing to behold. While I know it is wrong, I will say it once again. I do solemnly hope Augusto Pinochet is burning in hell.

Short Take

So now Bush's numbers are at 31%. All those America-hating Americans!

Is he a Terrorist?

If you've not heard the news, a resident of Rockford, IL was arrested last week for plotting a grenade attack on a local mall. When I first heard it, I scoffed. When my turtle loving neighbors to the north blogged about it, I said that I refused to believe it. Yesterday's Rockford Resgister-Star contained the sworn affadavit that led to the charges against Derrick Shareef, and I have to say I am much less skeptical than I was, at least concerning whether or not he was planning to attack the CherryVale Mall.

My initial reaction upon reading the affadavit, printed in full and unedited, was completely emotional. When Shareef spoke about the possibilties for added shrapnel by putting grenades in garbage cans, all I could picture was my wife and kids standing by those garbage cans. We shop there frequently. I was horrified at the thought of an indiscirminate attack that would lead to the injury or death of my wife and/or children.

Along with specific plans to attack the mall, Shareef also made comments that, during the Israeli war against Hezbollah this past summer, he had urges to attack worshipers at a DeKalb, IL synagogue as they entered for Friday night services. He also expressed a desire to attack the DeKalb County courthouse, including killing guards and judges. Clearly, here is an individual so twisted by rage that violence becomes an outlet; he wants to strike out at others, and injuring or killing them means very little to him.

Under the law, planning a mass attack like the one Shareef planned us an act of terrorism. Does that make Shareef a terrorist? In what sense is he qualitatively different from members of Al Qaeda? I am not sure I am qualified to answer, and I have to admit there is still that conflict within me due to my own visceral anger at someone who would injure or kill strangers, including my family. I will say this, however. Had Shareef purchased a gun and entered the mall, shooting indiscirminately, and this been twenty years ago, we would not have considered the word "terrorist". Mass murderer, perhaps. "Sick, deranged individual going on killing spree" would probably have been the headline, rather than "We Were the Target". While I do not know whether Shareef is a terrorist, I do know he is an unwell man; his violent urges and impulses, his desire to harm others for no reason other than perceived grievances against himself, should prompt any thinking person to insist he he put somehwere where we are safe from him for a long time to come. I do not know whether or not he is a terrorist.

May he Burn in Hell, With an Empty Seat Next to Him for Henry Kissinger

Augusto Pinochet has escaped earthly justice, breathing his last a free man, indicted in Spain yet unconvicted of the numerous crimes against Chile and foreigners, including a car bombing in Washington, part of the Condor operations he and Alberto Stressner of Paraguay concocted to strike out at South American ex-pats working against tyranny. I hope that, rather than a tunnel of light with his loved ones beckoning him on, he saw only a tunnel of darkness, filled with the screams of his victims. I know he was as much a child of God as I am, and as worthy of love and forgiveness, but I will succumb to a more base, crass emotionalism and wish him a roasty toasty time in hell. I pray for that part of me that would wish that upon anyone. I will also pray because I will not pray for him.

Focus on the Disease

Thanks to Crooks & Liars, I found the site, now linked to the right, Right Wing Watch, a service of People for the American Way. I have to say I am not a fan of PAW for a variety of reasons, not the least its intellectual shallowness (now who sounds like an elitist?). The site, though, is a wealth of information, including this on efforts by Focus on the Family (FoF) to kill increased funding for AIDS treatment and prevention on the continent of Africa. The reasons are petty, and simply put - the pet project of the right, abstinence-only education is not funded. While FoF have a point, abstinence is the only sure prevention for HIV, there has been no study to show it as an effective education tool.

The increase is modest, but at a time of severe budgetary constraints welcome, yet FoF is refusing to budge. I wish, for just one moment, a thoughtful person would ask them a question concerning the compassion we all should have for a continent quite literally losing a generation to the ravages of HIV and AIDS. For an organization that advertises its adherence to the faith of Jesus Christ to insist that nothing be done if its own projects are not supported undercuts any claim the group may have to the name "Christian". I am, to put it mildly, sick unto death of this nonsense, and keep praying for the day James Dobson and his group fold their tents and go away.

Blame Anyone but The Perpetrator of the Crime

I have been reading more and more of this, and more and more commentary upon it, recently; it seems the right has decided that the problem in Iraq is . . . the Iraqi people! There was more than some of that in the Cal Thomas piece I quoted below, and over at Alternet.org, Joshua Holland has this piece quoting a George Will column that sums up the new blame-shift. As Holland points out, this view is neither new nor typically American. It has long been the conceit of colonial powers that they are offering the great gift of civilization to those who are bereft of true enlightenment. How ungrateful of these lesser breeds without the law to refuse to acknowledge not just the soveriegnty but the supremacy of their betters?

The rhetoric of democratization (a horrible neo-logism that carries baggage that undercuts the ideal it claims to support) should have been a warning to anyone who heard it that we were engaged in a task destined for failure. One does not "democratize" a country, especially through force of arms. Political form follows history, tradition, accident and contingency, and a whole host of other factors that create a calculus dooming imposition to dismal defeat. This is not to say that democracy is not preferable to other forms of governance; nor am I saying that those forces in authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that work towards democratization, often at great personal risk and cost, are illegitimate. I am saying that imposing a foreign form of governance upon other people distorts their whole political outlook. In other words, if democracy is to come to Iraq, or Saudi Arabia, or Myanmar, it has to be an Iraqi form of democracy, a Saudi form of democracy, a Burmese form of democracy, flowing from their own struggle, their own social history, and the social and civil infrastructure that exists in these societies.

Arthur Silber has written long and often on the concept of American exceptionalism, and his pieces bear thinking through. The roots of this notion, expressed best in recent history by Ronald Reagan's acceptance speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention in a speech now known as "The Shining City on a Hill", quoting from a speech given by Governor John Winthrop just before he landed at the Plymouth Bay Colony in the 1620's, lie deep in the American psyche, and are not easily dislodged. It is often spoken of in non-religious terms by those who insist that "America is the greast country in the world," while ther reasons for this greatness usually devolve to questions of economic, military, or social power. We delude ourselves when we think we are somehow immune to the forces of history.

As Iraq descends further into civil war, and as the American people clamor for our troops to leave sooner rather than later (despite the wisdom of our Washington-based elders), there has been an attempt to find a scapegoat for the "situation". For those who have supported this war since before it began, the easiest culprits are the lazy, shiftless, ungrateful, maniacal Iraqis, who would rather kill one another than toss flowers at American troops and bureaucrats who freed them from the horrors of a latter-day Adolf Hitler. This ignores the fact that, again as Holland points out, Iraq was a stable, indeed flourishing secular society prior to the 1991 Gulf War, and an at least stable one until the American invasion. When Paul Bremer de-Baathified the Iraqi government and idsbanded Sadaam's army, he essentially stripped the social and civil infrastucture of Iraq of those who had both the understanding and the competence to run the country. We Americans make a fetish of disliking bureacracy, but the oldest civilizations, China, Egypt, and Sumer, thrived precisely because they developed a civil infrastructure that maintained socio-economic order even in the face of myriad political crises. While Egyptian and Sumerian greatness has waned, China is still going strong, four thousand years after unifying under the Ch'in Dynasty. we may call their form of government communist, but in fact there is a reasonable argument to be made that it is a modern extension of the Chinese genius for maintaining civil order on a grand scale.

The worst thing, of course, is totally ignoring the truth that the only ones to blame for the situation in Iraq are us. We invaded a country that had neither the military capability nor the political willingness to threaten us; we stripped it not only of its top leadership, but of all those functionaries necessary to keeping a modern state humming along. We removed the army and police from authority, creating a vacuum that has yet to be filled in a way that is acceptable to all Iraqis. There is no way social and civil order can be restored in Iraq in a short enough amount of time to rescue George W. Bush's legacy as the breaker of the Iraqi nation. There are no military solutions. There are no short-term political solutions. There is only the grief that should come from knowing that all of us, whether we supported the war or not, are complicit in the destruction of a highly urbanized, cosmopolitan society for no reason whatsoever. The finger of blame points at us; the only thing worse is that, by denying it so vehemently for so long, things have descended to a point that matters are beyond anyone's capacity to control or influence.

Longer Musical Interlude and Promo

I have to admit that when I first heard Tool I thought I was listening to just another angst-ridden, post-Seatle flash-in-the-pan. Even though I thought their videos were extraordinarily creepy and sometimes difficult to watch, like looking at something through lenses that distort all proportion and leave one unable to see clearly, I was still unconvinced.

The summer of 2001 I went on a discovery for new music. I had found, or refound, several bands that I enjoyed, but was still restless. In the fall, Tool released Lateralus, and with more than a bit of trepidation, after talking with several people who knew the band well, I went out and bought it. I had an afternoon alone in the house, so I got my first lesson at high volume. Needless to say, I was hooked. Here was a band that made up for a lack of technical skill - no shredding - with serious song writing ability. What really blew me away was the intelligence of the lyrics. This wasn't the mindless rage of punk, or the shallow nihilism of black metal, but songs that were relentless, forcing a person to think. If you wanted to. The music, without lyrics, stands on its own as some of the most powerful I have ever heard.

In a post on my previous blog here I wrote that I hope some day James Maynard Keenan is made poet laureate of the United States. I was not then and am not now in repeating it being facetious. Just listen to the lyrics of "The Grudge" or "Lateralus", or the song I just can't get out of my head, "Vicarious". Consider this - how many song writers in rock are intelligent enough to know the word exists, and use it as a song title, in a furious cultural commentary? I was discussing the band and its music with some older folks this previous March, and someone asked, in reference to the song "The Grudge", how many sixteen-year old moshers and fist-pumpers at a Tool show would get the reference to Saturn in the song (the Titan, not the planet). My answer was, probably not many. That is hardly the point, to me. The real point is that it is a joy there is music that complex out there that it can operate at so many levels simultaneously. I can sit an think about the words I am listening to; I can go the United Center and scream my head off while my head is blown apart by the sheer sonic power of the band's musical ferocity. There is nothing incogruous to it. It is a real joy.

Even if it is a dark joy.

Again, not for everyone, especially if you don't like songs with "fuck" in them, or songs about fisting, or about transvestites. Or songs that can only be understood completely when listened to at high volume. That is my suggestion. Crank it to twelve.

Thinking in Place and Time

While I would normally take Democracy Lover's adivce and not address his comments in a separate post, his comments brought up something that I feel important to address at some length.

Some time in the past month, I wrote of the impact Isaiah Berlin's essay collection, The Crooked timber of Humanity has played in the development of my intellectual life, but I was prepared for what Berlin said by reading others before him. If Berlin's ideas were the seeds, the ones who tilled the soil and planted the seed were James Cone and Franz Fanon. From them I learned how to think from a different place, from a different reality set or gestalt (when I later read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I was immediately struck by the similarity, in a different context, of approach). It was Cone I read first, and his A Black Theology of Liberation showed me the possibilties inherent in a whole different way of udnerstsanding. It was from his book God of the Oppressed that I learned there is no "Truth" (another idea I simply confirmed when reading Richard Rorty), just different ways of coming to terms with the worl in which we live. There is no such thing as "History", just the varied and variegated histories we all accept as part and parcel of how we have come to be.

Two years after reading Cone, I came to Fanon's classic The Wretched of the Earth (if you don't have time to read all of it, try Hannah Arendt's deeply flawed but still important review essay "On Violence", which is available as part of her collection Crises of the Republic and as a stand-alone, thin, single volume essay; by trying to place Fanon's work within a larger context of theorists of violence such as Georges Sorel and Bakunin, Arendt misses the point entirely). While I have certain concerns (especially with Jean-Paul Sartre's Stalinesque "Introduction"; Sartre's ideological love affiar with totalitarianism is as unattractive as his wall-eyed stare from most photographs), Fanon's relentless ferocity, his passionate insistence that France pay attention to Algeria for its own sake, and that the Algerian situation was a subset of a much larger phenomenon of the assertion of power by the previously powerless can be exhausting and exhilirating simultaneously. One of the points to which Fanon returns again and again is that much of the rhetoric of violence used by the Algerian resistance is only giving voice to the non-spoken but very real policies of the French occupiers. In other words, they make explicit what is implicit, and inherently implicit, in colonialism, but they turn it around and use it as a weapon to fight those who are oppressing them.

Cone said something similar in his discussion of the rhetoric of violence coming from the Black Power movement in the United States. After 300 years of forced immigration, slavery, and the denial of the rights of citizenship and even personhood to blacks in America, for white people to turn on blacks and insist they embrace non-violence is not only hypocritical, it shows the fundamental fear the white majority has of the minorities in their midst, and the subconscious recognition of their own complicity on a national scale in the continued oppression of Americans of African descent.

This whole notion of seeing the world through other eyes was nascent, then. I didn't flesh it out thoroughly, or think through the consequences, until I read Berlin. Berlin put flesh on the bones of Fanon and Cone. Ideas are no univocal (they do not mean the same things to all people in all times and all places), but are part and parcel of the whole existence of those who use them. Even those who use them may have slightly different shades of meaning, emphasizing one thing here, another there. The point is, we cannot take such things as "freedom", "justice", "love", "equality" or whatever it may be, and find meaning for all time through some kind of Socratic discussion. It just won't work, because ideas are not things, but the products of people living out their lives, puzzling out their lives, and trying to make sense of them. We have to eradicate the whole notion that "freedom" exists independent of people who are free, or who are struggling to be free as they define it. We have to eradicate the idea that "love" exists apart from actual loving relationships. Since Plato, and especially since Hegel, we have this absurd notion that ideas exist independently of the minds that think them.

To say, then, that it makes no difference if one is a faithful Christian or a concerned secularist misses the point that we are speaking of individual lives, lived in a context and history of their own interaction with others, their upbringing, their education, etc. We have to surrender the notion that there is one right way to be human, and instead celebrate all the different ways there are actually human beings, even in all the contradictions and inevitable conflicts that result from these differences.

I tend to think of this way of thinking as an intellectual equivalent of a basic idea of physics, that no two particles can exist within the same space and time. Two human beings, no matter how close in whatever ways one may measure such things, do not exist within the same frame of reference and all that makes them who they are as unique individuals separates them in space and time, creating differences. Sometimes these differences are small. Sometimes they are enormous, even insurmountable. That does not make the differences bad. They just are.

Ideas, then, are not interchangeable, even closely related ideas. A faithful Hindu exists within a totally different frame of reference from a faithful Christian. there is nothing bad about being a faithful Hindu; I can certianly imagine myself as one. That option is not possible, however, not because of an intellectual decision on my part, but because there are a whole host of things - family history, education, life experiences - that would prevent me from making that choice for myself. I do not think it a evil choice; it just is not one I can make.

On the other hand, at one time I considered myself an agnostic with vague ethical notions. I realized, however, that there was an intellectual - and even more important a moral - dishonesty to my position because I was, without really being aware of what I was doing, hauling all sorts of baggage from my religious upbringing into my now-secular way of living, including a decisively, ahem, evangelical, proselytizing way of being. That is to say, I was quite insistent that the only way was my way, etc. When I returned to the church and began my intellectual and spiritual explorations there, I left all that behind. As a committed Christian, I no longer believe there is such a thing as "Truth"; as a committed Christian I no longer believe there is only one acceptable way of living a fully human life, although I would stake my life on the Christian way of living a fully human life. I am comfortable with contingency and error and the possibility that, as Lincoln said, "Two people may disagree on something, and they may both be right."

In Memoriam

Jean Kirkpatrick is dead. Appointed to be United Nations amabssador by Roanld Reagan, her appointment was heralded by the Washington media as evidence of Reagan's bipartisanship because, up until the 1980 election cycle, Kirkpatrick had been part of the Democratic Party intelligentsia. She earned the plaudits of conservatives everywhere for a speech, later essay, on the difference between totalitarian and authoritarian states that could be and was used to justify American support for all sorts of horrid political creatures, including Ferdinand Marcos, the Duvaliers in Haiti, the Somoza crime family in Nicaragua, and the Shah of Iran.

Even as an ignorant and naive but earnest follower of national affairs in the early 1980's, I never quite understood the whole "bipartisan" idea. I also thought Kirkpatrick's diplomatic hair-splitting was a rationalization for the abuses of American power rather than a real distinction. After all, those oppressed by authoritarians are no less oppressed than those oppressed by totalitarians, and the latter are so few and far between - and one could hardly imagine a successful totalitarian, despite Orwell - as to be speaking about something unreal.

When I was an undergraduate, I came across a study Kirkpatrick conducted on the differences between the delegates to the 1968 Chicago National Democratic Convention and the 1972 Miami convention. More than any of the details of the study (and it was this study that Kirkpatrick often cited as the beginning of her disaffection with the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy) what I remembered most was the abject horror on the part of Kirkpatrick and her co-authors that non-white, non-urban ethnics, women, and others would insist on a seat at the political table. The convention, the first under the rules arrived at by the intra-Party McGovern commission after the 1968 disaster, was a harbinger of the future in much the same way 1964 was a harbinger for the Republicans of 1980. McGovern was right at the wrong time, because he was insistent on shifting the balance of power in the party to representatives of the actual constituency of the Party, rather than to urban machine bosses and state party chairs. With the suburban boom and the dispersion of centers of gravity within the Democratic Party among a variety of constituencies (the so-called "special interests" that were only human beings doing what human beings do), McGovern wanted a Party that actually reflected the way the country had changed. When Kirkpatrick, like her fearless leader, claimed the Democratic Party had changed while she had stayed the same, I realized she was correct. I also believe that it had changed for the better, and that such change was and is necessary. Again, McGovern was a horrid candidate, and the wrong person at the wrong time for the Democratic Party. At the same time, he was right in the long run, and Kirkpatrick, and the co-authors of her study, were not so much wrong (it was only a glance at the actual make-up of the delegations) as they were horrified at the possibilities of these great masses of lesser breeds without the law actually controlling the Democratic party.

Kirkpatrick's legacy is almost non-existent, except for a horrendous justification for American foreign policy horrors. I think the fact that the her distinction itself has not survived, any more than have the actual dictators themselves, is wonderful testimony to her intellectual acumen. May she rest in peace.

Imperial Pageantry and democratic Revolutions

As a kind of follow-up to yesterday's post on whether or not elections matter, I want to take a moment to talk about the "culture" of official Washington, which includes all sorts of journalistic types who should, out of deference to their professional credentials, be a bit more skeptical about those with whom they share space in teh former swamp on the Potomac. As guides, I have consulted Glenn Greenwald, Digby, and Paul Kagan (h/t Digby & Greenpagan). One of Greenwald's themes has been the absolute intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the pundit and journalists who have been cheerleaders for our current morass, and the stubborn refusal on their part to acknowledge error or the rightness of those whom they have previously despised and ridiculed. In this particular post, he discusses the irrelevance of the Baker-Hamilton ISG report, as it is clear the President will ignore it anyway. Paul Kagan, in his column, gives a short list of just a few of those who have been consistently correct. Digby discusses, through a long citation from a 1998 article by Washington Post columnist (and wife of former editor Ben Bradlee) Sally Quinn, the utter vacuousness and pettiness of Washington officialdom (typified by the now-famous quote of David Broder that Clinton "trashed" Washington).

All of this is by way of background. Also by way of background is a book by John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards, in which the author discusses Washington officialdom in terms of the coutriers of the ancien regime. Governed by strict rules of etiquette and an understanding of hierarchy and the roles and functions they were assigned, the courtiers played a game in which the goal was to approach power as close as possible. Not to influence it, not to share it - just to bask in its proximity. Imperial Washington - one could hardly call it anything else, at least since the end of the Second World War - is no less prone to this kind of nonsense than was Imperial Paris and Versailles.

Part of the nonsense chronicled by the above authors is the desire for civility and correctness on the part of officialdom. Since the beginning of the Cold War, when Truman appealed to former isolationist Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan to support arms and money for the Greek and Turkish government against communist insurgents, both parties have played this game. Debate in an Empire impedes progress of Imperial designs. Disagreement and discussion are signs of weakness - weakness of will, weakness of purpose - and Democrats no less than Republicans have been prone to this undemocratic impulse. What else explains Robert McNamara and his pernicious influence at the Department of Defense but a desire, not for governance, but technical, managerial competence? These are all well and good in their proper place; government is not a business, and anyone who argues that it should be run like one knows nothing about governance.

This desire for techonocratic competence, for a passionless, "rational" approach to public policy has sapped our democratic impulse. In the face of one democratic uprising, during the Vietnam War, the Establishment fought back, shunting aside the Democratic Party for a Republican Party increasingly conservative and belligerent, aiming to uphold American imperial power. Now, with Iraq, the imperial infrastructure and its adherents are shown to be hollow, their power chimerical (remember Rove's "math"?), and their shrill insistence on a bi-partisan solution (the ISG report) irrelevant to a President so out of touch with our current situation and impervious to shame that he can crack a sophomoric joke at a news conference over a situation that cost 33 lives of American service personnel in one week. These 33 men and women were in a position to die because of his orders, his policy, and his continued unwillingness to change, and he belittles their sacrifice with a joke and a chuckle.

This past election was not a triumph, or not just a triumph, for the Democratic Party (and when will the media start talking about the Democratic Revolution?) but for small "d" democracy. We the people have found our voice, and are speaking loud and long and consistently, being the spine and even marrow if necessary to our new elected leaders. The increasing irrelevance of the governing class, including the Washington Press Corps is a good sign that our democracy is not dead, and may have some life left yet. Democracy is more than elections, our republic is more than a flag. We are finding our voice, changing the way political affairs are practiced and discussed, and unafraid of challenging the status quo that for too long has limited debate in the name of civility and bipartisanship, and shut out the people in order that unelected official could make policy unimpeded by the great mass. There is potential - potential, mind you, not yet realized - for this election, and its underpinnings, and the object lesson of the ISG and its reception both in officialdom and by the White House for there to be nothing less than a fundamental change in the way America is governed. I sm talking now, of course, about a revolution, a real revolution, one without guns and death, but a revolution nonetheless. Let us work for the day we no longer have to read David Broder to understand Washington, or listen to Cokie Roberts flap her lips anywhere. Let us continue to work to throw the courtiers out on their colective asses, and forge ahead with our own views, our own wisdom, and our own arguments, as uncivil and as partisan as they can get.

What Does it Mean to REALLY be a Christian?

Last night I attended a Bible Study at our church, and part of the discussion focussed on the issue of "call". That term has a very specific meaning, coming from the Bible - it refers to God calling individuals to perform certain tasks and functions. As someone who has wrestled much of his adult life with this question - What is God calling me to do? - I can say that it has intense personal emotional, psychological, and spiritual tension in it. The struggle itself can take an enormous toll on a person. Something I have believed since I was a young man, too young to really know what I actually believed about anything, and something that has only been reinforced by learning and experience, is my firm belief that God calls all of us. Even if we aren't Christian. If God calls a person to live the life of a casual agnostic - so be it. If God calls a person to be a devout Hindu - so be it.

In the midst of the discussion, I spoke up and referred to my own experience, which has included wrestling with whether or not to enter the ordained ministry (thankfully for whatever church I may have been appointed to, I realized that was not my calling). I said that, while questioning, and refusing to acknowledge, and running away, and standing in awe, and questioning some more are all valid responses, there comes a point where we need to stop the chatter - in our heads and in prayer - and get on with the business to which God has called us. I specifically referred to the story of Moses encounter with the LORD in the burning bush. In that story, after trying to turn the LORD's call away, and after claiming all sorts of faults that would interfere with fulfilling his call, Moses challenges the LORD for a sign. essentially, he is asking God for credentials, for proof to give to the Hebrews living in Egypt that the god Moses will claim to represent to them is in fact the LORD of their ancestors. The answer the LORD gives is this: Here's your sign, Moses. Bring the people back to this mountain, and I'll tell you what to do next. In other words, stop dithering and looking for excuses and ways to weasel out of this. I have a job for you. Get to work.

That particular passage has always had special meaning for me, because, first, the only guarantee is Divine Presence. While, implicitly from this story perhaps there is also the guarantee of success, in truth that particular bit is more a narrative and theological device than any kind of retroactive promise that we shall succeed at what we are sent forth to do. Unless I missed something somewhere, history isn't over yet, and even temporary success can lead to long-term waffling or even failure. The point of the story, for me, has always been this - being called by God is not about sitting around trying to figure out all the details beforehand, making sure all ducks are lined up, all "i"'s dotted and "t"'s crossed, contracts and pre-nupts signed and vetted to ensure smooth sailing. No, like the apostles sent out by jesus during his lifetime, we go out with nothing on our backs, no promises of success, no money in our wallets, no cars, no cell phones, no blackberries, nothing but trust that God will be with us. Not that God will guarantee our success, not that God will give us a Lexus, not that God will have people falling all over each other to hear each and every syllable and sigh that falls from our lips. There isn't even a guarantee we won't be hindered by sickness and even death. All we have is this assignment, as it were, from God. We are to go out and do it as hard as we can, to the best of our ability. Period, end of story.

That is the Christian life to me. No guarantees. No divine insurance policy. No deus ex machina to pull our chestnuts from whatever fire we may find ourselves in. We are to go out and work and do and, most of all, live. Before and after and in-between all that we can say or think about it, God calls all of us to live our lives to the best of our ability. We are to live humbly, as the prophet Micah says. We are to live lovingly. We are never to presume to have all the answers, because it isn't about being right and having answers. Life is about living, really. To be a Christian is to live in the knowledge that life in all its ins and outs, ups and downs, good times and horrific times, is something precious to God. The act of living is something that God finds very good. To me, that is the Christian life.

The Ignorant Things Right-Wingers Say

I was all set to like Cal Thomas, you know, give him the benefit of the doubt. A couple weeks ago he wrote a very thoughtful column about how the religious right needs to assess its place in American politics, and its approach to issues, and its methods, and its assumptions concerning the redemptive possibilities of legislation. I was looking forward to reading more thoughtful commentary on this issue, but then, last week he made some really heinous remarks over the whole kerfuffle in Minnesota over some Muslims who were praying, and now, he writes what is perhaps one of the most historically ignorant partial paragraphs I have have ever read. I will not comment because there isn't enough space in Blogger's memory banks to hold what I wish to say. Just read it, and weep, as I did (the whole column, if you are brave enough, is here):

It is not the United States that has caused regional instability in the Middle East. as suggested by the ISG. If that were the case, who was to blame for instability before the Iraq war or the previous one; indeed who was to blame for instability before Israel became an independent state in 1948. The region has always been turbulent. Turbulence is their problem, not ours.

Do Elections Matter, Part II (UPDATED)

Due to various time constraints and responsibilities, I have time for only this one post today. I shall try to make it a good one.

Both Arthur Silber and Glenn Greenwald have thoughtful posts, not so much on the Baker-Hamilton ISG report, but on the assumptions and underlying ideology behind the report, and of course its members who are a who's-who of status quo types who, as Glenn points out with his wonderful ferocity, did not deign to consult a single opponent of the war, but managed to ask questions of Christopher Hitchens (one hopes he was less besotted than usual). Both Greenwald and Silber are highly dubious of the report and its authors, as am I. Both Greenwald and Silber insist that the report is less a revelation from the Wise Ones of Washington (as it has been endlessly hyped by the media) but cover from the same narrow set of assumptions that has brought us this disaster in the first place (I was surprised to hear, on NPR this morning, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Troglostan) say that diplomacy with Iraq, Syria, and North Korea should be done as we "talked" with the Soviet Union; of course, the neo-cons were never persuaded that was a good idea, either). As far as the ISG is concerned, I agree with Arthur's quoting from Andrew Bacevich that it is, not only in its make-up, but in its operative assumptions and manner of dispensing its "wisdom", fundamentally anti-democratic. Rather than have a serious debate on the issue, or hearings before a Congress with subpoena power, the first impulse is to create a commission to do the hard job of figuring out policy.

Of course, since the ISG was formed, much has changed. Bush's approval ratings have tanked, staying below forty percent pretty consistently since late-spring/early-summer. Despite a relentless propaganda effort by conservatives and Republicans, and the mainstream media's insistence that Bush is a strong leader to be taken seriously, most Americans view him as a cypher. Finally, the election in November pretty much proved that, even in a Congress gerrymandered to ensure a perpetual Republican Congress, they Republicans couldn't hold on to power. It is this last item that is most important. I believe, contrary to something Arthur writes towards the end of his piece, that elections matter. Here, as counter-point, is Arthur:

[F]ive years from now . . . there will still be approximately 50,000 [American] troops in Iraq. . . . The foreign policy consensus to which our governing elites subscribe knows no party line.

There is a certain truth, at least to the second sentence quoted above, that elite consensus is and has been since the end of the Second World War, by and large, a bi-partisan affair, with disagreement occuring only over particulars. The neo-conservatives are an exception, but their views are, in a way, only an extreme end of what is a conservative "realist" spectrum of opinion (a good book to read on this point, and it is an old one, is America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon-What Happened and Why by Godfrey Hodgson).

Having said all that, I believe that Arthur is fundamentally wrong to say that things will not become markedly better as a result of a change of party control of Congress or, should it ahppen in 2008, the Presidency. While I recognize the roots of the elite consensus run deep and wide, and while I also recognize the limited nature of the vision of American foreign policy (and I have some sympathy for the views expressed by Arthur Silber, although I believe his case is weaker than he supposes), as shown by a panel that is willing to interview Tom Friedman but not Jack Murtha, I believe that this past election was fundamentally different from any we have had since 1980, when conservative Republicans and Democrats amanged an electoral coalition that has, by and large, held for the quarter-century that has followed. The fundamental differeces are two - the way information is dispersed; economic and social precariousness of a previously sated middle-class. Social dynamics and the underlying structure - the skeleton, as it were, of the electorate - are an important factor in figuring out how and why people vote. Too much attention is being paid to official Washington, even by those who claim to disdain it and all it stands for, and not enough on the electorate who put those officials in place to begin with.

While I agree with Glenn Greenwald when he states that the among the many reasons not to take the ISG seriously is its refusal to challenge an ideological hammerlock by those who, as time and history have shown again and again, were correct all along, not just in general but in most particulars as well, I disagree that ISG will provide good cover for a Bush Administration willing to change course. I see no willingness on the part of Bush or anyone else in the Administration to either admit error or change the fundamental nature of their policy in Iraq. The ISG itself offers no real change, except perhaps for an insistence on more diplomacy, but rather a rhetorical shift, a new way of presenting the situation to the American people and of shaping our reception of it and our responses to it.

The American people, however, united by a disdain for Bush and the Republicans in general, as expressed on November 7, have demanded change, including an end to our occupation in Iraq. Should they fail to address this issue - among a host of other, laudable goals to which they have pledged themselves - the American people will demand action. We have our voice now, and it is called the Internet. Our voices are heard, our power has become substantial. While eiltes poo-poo as irresponsible the idea of troop redeployment (we are told again and again that things will not get better in Iraq if we do so; the American people wisely show they don't really care, and that is hardly the issue anyway) our elected officials must make clear that we will act responsibly, including responsibly towards our military.

I believe this past election was not only a seismic shift in the ideological make-up of the country, but marked a fundamental shift in power, away from traditional centers towards a more diffuse, decentralized, and dispersed - small "d" democratic, in other words - base of power. The elite consensus, as persuasive as it might have been for 60 years, has collapsed, and a new consensus is emerging because the American people are demanding it. I see it all over the Internet. I read it in blogs and various web-sites. I even see it and hear it when I talk with people in church, at work, or wherever. The reason it isn't discussed more is because it is such a threat to the power of the media and those elites who still cling to the old ways. Change has occurred. Elections matter. I do not say this out of some naive conviction, but rather because I have seen it - we all have seen it - in our lifetimes. This time, however, the change has moved in a direction progressives of all shapes and sizes can be happy with. We need to stop acting like losers and start thinking like people who actually have power, influence, and are now, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be, winners.

UPDATE: For a persepective similar to my own, go see this (h/t atrios).

On Mary Cheney's Baby and the law in the Commonwealth of Virginia

This is going to include a boring autobiographical note, so bear with me. In the early summer of 1994, my wife and I were preparing to move to southern Virginia where she would take her first charge as pastor of small United Methodist congregation. Before we moved, we were at the Annual Conference, meeting in Norfolk (we stayed in Virginia Beach, in a suite on the beach; sigh, those were the days) and in lieu of our daily dose of the Washington Post, which did not come to Va Beach, we read the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I was totally unprepared for the shock I received at my first exposure to a seriously right-wing paper, and I never resigned myself to the fact that wingers simply do not think about things the same way I do.

At the time, a case was making its way through the Virginia courts that concerned the parental rights of a lesbian single mom, fighting to regain custody of her child from her mother, who objected to her "lifestyle". The editorial position of the T-D was, and I wish I were making this up but I am not, that since the woman in question had admitted in open court to violating state law by performing "sodomy" (oral sex is actually illegal in VA, no matter who does it to whom, or the status of the relationship), she had disqualified herself from custodial parenthood. When I first read the editorial putting forth the paper's position I was, to say the least, aghast. My first thought was that it was a joke, satire to make a point about how ridiculous the Commonwealth's position was. It was only after re-reading it that I realized they were totally serious.

Let us leave aside the whole gay versus straight thing for a moment, and consider the whole situation in terms of Commonwealth law (I have read the statute books on this subject, and they are troglodytic). In Virginia, the only sexual act that is legal is missionary sex between a married man and married woman. Period. Everything else is a violation of the law. Leaving aside the question of enforcement, I goggle when I think about the fact that legislators in Richmond actually care so much about what people do in their private lives. Thousands of married couples in Virginia, according to the logic of the T-D editorial board, are unfit parents.

All this leads up to the whole Cheney-Poe issue because the discrimination against gay couples runs far deeper, and the hated and fear of gay couples is so entrenched (I hate to use these words, but there is really no other way to describe it) that even a high-profile couple like them will be subject to criticism, as is happening already (see here for the beginning of the intrusion of wingers into the private life of this couple). A federal law, not "protecting marriage", but making same-sex marriage (or some legal equivalent thereof, like civil unions) legal, granting full legal and parental rights to same-sex couples is necessary to overturn the horrendous discrimination Cheney and Poe will face in their life as parents. Nothing less will do.

In addition, could someone in Virginia please remove from the statute books those peeping-Tom laws that intrude upon the private acts of consenting adults? Of course, the Supreme Court ruling on the Texas sodomy law case probably has done much to remove the more egregious aspects of the law, but there is still far, far to go.

Dean Broder on the ISG: More Proof that Retirement Should Be Mandatory (UPDATED Below)

With the publication of the Iraq Study Group report (available here, with a tip o' the hat to Think Progress) the Inside the Beltway gushfest is just beginning. Of course, the overall assesment of the group (ISG hereafter) was leaked weeks ago and has been a topic of much discussion. I want to wait until I actually read the report - it's only 125 pages long, with 73 specific recommendations - before commenting on the report itself. For now, I want to confine myself to a column by David "Dean" Broder that appeared in my local paper this morning, the Rockford Register Star, and should be all over the net soon (Broder publishes on Yahoo, so you can go to the opinion page there to read the full text). The title of the column as it appears here in the northern prairie is "Iraq Study Group: Politics for Grown-ups". Now, I don't know if that was the original title, or one put there by editors locally, or suggested by Broder's editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, or whomever, but I find it interesting that, while it echoes a theme much discussed in the immediate run-up and in the immediate aftermath to the election, the article itself is of a piece with the entire "bi-partisanship is wonderful, let's all get along, let's not fight here folks" mentality that is the hallmark, not of adulthood, but of those frightened of confrontation, risk-averse as it were, in the face of the threat of those who might hold different views.

The gushing in Broder's piece is glaring; the members of the ISG he interviewed, including former Secretary of Treasury and State, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and former Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan and current Bush-family water-carrier James Baker; former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Stone Age, er, WY); former Clinton confidante and attorney Vernon Jordan; former Rep. and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta (D - Land of San Francisco values) practically engaged in a circle-jerk of mutual admiration.

"It was a very wonderful experience," former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming told me [Broder] last weekend. "We very quickly stopped considering ourselves as Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans trying to deal with a most urgent problem."
[A]s commission member Vernon Jordan, the Democratic lawyer, noted, they were . . . "professionals" - veterans of public service. . . . "This process has been a lesson in civility."
Leon Panetta . . . said the high averagea age of tghe 10 commissioners contributed to its success. "This is a different generation of policymakers," said Panetta, who at 68 was one of the youngest members [!!!]. "These are people who have very different views but are comfortable trying to understand each other and coming together to solve a terrible issue facing the country."
"No on wanted to see us embarrassed by being unable to come to consensus," Simpson said.
Panetta observed that while most of the commission members had some dealings with each other in their previous positions, they really bonded during their inspection trip to Baghdad earlier this year. "Fifteen hours on the plane together and three days in a tough place - that was a human experience where we shared a lot and really got to know each other," [Jordan] said.

Broder's opening paragraph is an excellent summary of insider disdain, and fear, of partisanship:

Whatever the final effect of the Iraq Study Group report being issued today, for the 10 commission members this was an exhilirating experience, a demonstration of genuine bipartisanship that they hope will serve as an example to the broader political world.

--

I have a better idea, Dean. Let's actually have a debate over this "terrible issue" that is not controlled by the phony philosopher kings of a "different generation of policymakers", one of whose youngest members is six years past eligibility for Social Security! How about we get our elected representatives and the President to actually hammer out something - with all views, including strong, partisan, rancorous views being acceptable. The time for "senior statesmen" (former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor excepted) is long past. Neither Baker nor anyone else should try to snatch the President's chestnuts from this fire. Rather than sit in awe of bipartisanship, I would rather hear a real debate where people got nasty, and all twisted and contorted by anger and frustration. You know why? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE DYING, AND WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO FROM THE START, AND THEY KEEP LYING EVEN AFTER THEY ARE CAUGHT! WE ARE SICK UNTO DEATH OF THE BULLSHIT, INCLUDING BULLSHIT MASQUERADING AS BIPARTISANSHIP! Even if everything the ISG report recommends is good and correct; even if its particulars are enacted by Congress, the fact that the people were excluded from the decision-making process; that the ISG itself had no member who spoke Arabic, let alone had any serious expertise in anything other than governance should force any and all to srutinize every syllable. There was just too much male bonding going on here for this this to be as serious as it purports to be.

As for Broder, one would expect nothing less, or more, than his shallow, whiny, insistence, that if we only acted like the wise ones from Washington, and allowed them to rule in our stead and name, things would be so much better. All this democracy and arguing and nastiness and partisanship (its only partisan, by the way, when Democrats do it) is so distracting from the wisdom of senior statesmen gathered to solve a problem facing our entire country.

It make you want to throw up.

UPDATE: I would like to direct your attention here and here for more succinct, and better written, ways of saying the above, along with a history lesson as to why the ISG included all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. As Duncan says in a comment (not linked, but it's easy to find) on something Tony Snow said today - there is National Unity on Iraq, even if it isn't the kind of national unity government-types and Broder would like.

Musical Interlude and Promo

There is no doubt that Btiches Brew is one of the most influential albums ever recorded. Love it or hate it, understand it, or shake your head unknowingly at it, it is difficult to deny there is power there. Three of the musicians on the album went on very different paths, although it is obvious they took lessons from Miles' insistent experimentation. John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra and Joe Zawinul's Weather Report both followed the lead Miles set forth, yet one can hardly imagine more different results.

McLaughlin'a band sounds much more like prog rockers than jazz musicians, but all but the violinist were veterans of a variety of sound outfits, including Cannonbal Adderley, before creating some of the most amazing jazz/rock sounds ever. Their Birds of Fire should be listened to at high volume.

Weather Report, founded by Zawinul, and included another veteran of Miles Davis mid-60's quintet, Wayne Shorter on saxophone, produced slick, accessible, song-based jazz, highly rhythmic and infectious, with one song, "Birdland" off Heavy Weather becoming something of a radio hit. While never giving away credibility and musical integrity, Weather Report provided a good example of how electric jazz could be both melodic and soulful, producing songs that are easily on a par with anything more acoustic bands could offer.

After settling down with Davis' landmark album - I submit, in my own opinion it fails as often as it succeeds, but its failures are spectacular (a bass clarinetist and and electric guitarist!), and its successes are indeed sublime - give a listen to the two above mentioned albums. Better yet, buy them as gifts for a loved one who prizes good music. They'll be glad you did.