The Distant Ocean

Pigs glide

I occasionally poke my head in at Digby's to see what's occupying the minds of liberals, and what should I see today but this:

There is, of course, an actual left libertarianism and it is best articulated by Noam Chomsky, not some wealthy twit like Mackey. Chomsky (and, in some respects, Ralph Nader) have made the case very well for a long time [...].

If you haven't read any books by Chomsky, now is a good time to do it since there seems to be a developing discussion of liberal libertarian philosophy in the commentariat. He's been writing about this stuff for decades and has a fully developed critique right there at the ready.

Digby approvingly mentioning Chomsky and Nader in a single posting?  Isn't this a sign of the end times?  Should I be watching out for the Midgard Serpent?  Really, you could have knocked me over with a twig.  Notice that she even included a link to Chomsky's Wikipedia page, apparently fearing—probably with good reason—that some non-trivial number of her regulars would have no idea who the dude with the zany Russian-sounding name was.

Is the great mass of Obama-backing Democrats on the verge of becoming deeply radicalized by exposure to reality?  Not bloody likely.  Still, I'd much rather see Digby quoting Chomsky than, say, Keith Olbermann.

(See here for some of Chomsky's fully-developed critique of right libertarianism, by the way.)

And a Happy New Year to you all...though personally I won't really be happy about a new year until 2013, when we can start using a sane decadal moniker again.

Be more like Reagan

Barack Obama hasn't been shy about his admiration for Ronald Reagan.  So how well is he emulating his role model?  Michael "I am not Gary Busey" Oren (the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.) explains:

While Oren said there were fundamental differences between Israel and the US on building in Jerusalem and the settlement issue, and while he said the US does make its positions known, he can't find any "physical evidence of pressure."

And this, he said, stood in contrast to previous US administrations.

For instance, he pointed out that the Reagan administration, which he characterized as a "very pro-Israel administration, an ultimate pro-Israel administration," cut off the supply of jet aircraft to Israel following the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

"That is pressure," he said.

I never thought I'd find myself wishing for a U.S. president to be more like Ronald Reagan, but this is the place Obama has brought us to.  But maybe it's not fair to hold him to that standard, because he's a Democrat and Democrats don't like to be so blunt.  Right?

Likewise, he said that during the Camp David negotiations with Egypt in the 1970s, then-president Jimmy Carter "threatened to cut off aid if we didn't agree to certain positions. That is pressure."

Whereas Obama's posturing over settlements is not pressure, but empty rhetoric—kabuki theater for the bewildered herd.  And while it's worked on liberal Democrats here and frothing right-wing lunatics in Israel, diplomats like Oren understand perfectly well that there's nothing to it.

So what are some of the meaningful actions the Obama administration has taken, in Oren's estimation?

"They have been good on the whole issue of QME [qualitative military edge]. The have been excellent on QME. When they ascertained that our qualitative military edge had been eroded they worked very quickly to redress that."

Anything else?

There have recently been reports that the US was making changes in some of the arms deals the Bush administration had brokered with Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states, to ease Israeli concerns that this would damage the qualitative edge.

So not only is Obama more servile than Reagan, he's also more pliant than Bush!  Isn't it wonderful to have a Democratic president again?

In addition, Oren said, the administration was "very good" on the Goldstone Commission report, "unequivocally condemning" it and "working to mitigate the impact of the report."

Likewise, he said, the US was "very active, at many levels" in lobbying the EU against adopting a Swedish EU resolution that would have called for east Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state. US efforts there, he said, "brought about a real change."

Now that is a change I believe in.

"It is shameful to be Israeli today..."

A year after the rape of Gaza, one Palestinian family remembers:

Until a year ago, Kamal Awaja would often spend the hour before dusk in his garden, teaching his six children the names of the trees and flowers, and encouraging each one to pick a shrub as their own. Ibrahim, his nine-year-old son, chose the red rosebush.

But a year ago today, everything changed as Israel launched its military offensive [...]. After a week of fierce fighting, the gun-barrel of a tank smashed through the family's living room window, forcing them to flee to nearby fields as their house was demolished.

Then, as they crept back at dawn to salvage warm clothes, Israeli soldiers opened fire. Both Awaja parents were wounded, and Ibrahim was hit fatally, dying in his father's arms as he tried to rescue him.

It gets worse, if you can believe it:

But reliving her son's death a year later, there is another, more harrowing detail that preys on Mrs Awaja's mind. She says that as she hid behind a wall while her husband limped away to find help, Israeli soldiers used Ibrahim's corpse, which was lying in a road, as target practice.

"Each time the bullets would hit, his body leapt up off the road a little bit," she said. "It was as though he could still feel the pain even though he was already dead."

But on the bright side, the family—which remains homeless (like so many other Palestinian families) because Israel won't allow building supplies into Gaza—has only been attacked by packs of wild dogs twice.

And as Israel scales new heights of cruelty through its continuing siege of Gaza, it falls once again to people like Gideon Levy to demonstrate that not all Israelis have become hopeless moral cripples—much like the White Rose demonstrated that not all Germans were, either:

One way or another, the year since December 27 was a year of shame for Israel, greater shame than any other time.  It is shameful to be Israeli today, much more than it was a year ago. In the final tally of the war, which was not a war but a brutal assault, Israel's international status was dealt a severe blow, in addition to Israeli indifference and public blindness to what happened in Gaza. [...]

Today it is more shameful to be an Israeli because the world, as opposed to Israelis, saw the scenes. It saw thousands of dead and injured taken in the trunks of cars to something between a clinic and a primitive hospital in an imprisoned and weakened region one hour from flourishing Tel Aviv, a region where the helpless had nowhere to run from Israel's arsenal. The world saw schools, hospitals, flour mills and small factories mercilessly bombed and blown up. It saw clouds of white-sulphur bombs billowing over population centers, and it saw burned children.

Thank goodness my tax dollars were used for this and not something frivolous, like, say, building public transportation or making sure everyone in the country can get medical treatment when they need it.

Merry yule, y'all

Am I the only one who's always been confused about the second line here?

The First Noel, the Angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay

Is the word "certain" meant to be an adjective delineating the impecunious shepherds in question—i.e., does the line effectively mean "Was [sung] to [particular] poor shepherds"?  Or is this some zany long-lost verb form of "certain" which means something like "reassure"—i.e. "Was [sung in order] to [reassure] poor shepherds"?

Help me out, people.  I could really use some certaining on this.

And just so you won't feel it's all take, take, take around here, I have a present for you: a lecture by Noam Chomsky.  Worth a listen as always, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that despite extensive evidence to the contrary, not everyone on the face of the earth is certifiably insane.  Don't thank me, though, since I'm actually regifting it.

Enjoy your solstice-proxy-day festivities!

Where'd everyone go?

I know I've said some harsh words about the ethical consistency of the vast majority of people who protested Bush's wars, labeling them the anti-Republican-war movement and uncharitably suggesting that their commitment to opposing US military assaults would disappear once a Democrat was pulling the trigger.  But maybe I spoke too soon:

The day after Obama's speech, Code Pink, the ANSWER Coalition, and four other antiwar groups sponsored a San Francisco rally opposing the Afghanistan decision — the first indication of whether Bay Area residents were motivated to march against Obama.

ANSWER's regional director Richard Becker told us the day before, "I think we're going to get a big turnout. The tension has really been building. We may see a revival."

But on the streets, there wasn't much sign of an antiwar revival, at least not yet. Only about 100 people were gathered at the intersection of Market and Powell streets when the rally begun, and that built up to maybe a few hundred by the time they marched.

Or maybe not.

At "hundreds" I could practically name most of the people who were there—collectively, the committed core of activists who can be counted on to show up for anti-war actions no matter which political party is dropping the bombs (and Frank Chu, of course).  And to be fair, there wasn't much opportunity to publicize this action, and given a bit more time I don't doubt we'd see, oh, a few thousand people in the streets.  But I can also predict that finding a mainstream Democratic voter at any of the upcoming protests will be like finding a girl in a comic book store: not a once in a lifetime event, maybe, but still enough to make you do a double take.

So the Peace Prize Bomber will be able to continue his reign of irony for the next few years with a minimum of fuss on the home front.  And while that may not seem like much of a gift, don't think he doesn't appreciate it; after all, beyond their votes, supine acquiescence to mass murder and mayhem is one of the most useful things his supporters can give him.

Go see Fantastic Mr. Fox

It's like this: if you're a Wes Anderson fan, you should go see Fantastic Mr. Fox. If you're on the fence about Wes Anderson, you should go see Fantastic Mr. Fox.  And if you're not sure who the hell Wes Anderson is, you should go see Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Now, if you can't stand Wes Anderson, you should definitely not go see Fantastic Mr. Fox.  But I weep for your soul.

I was curious to see how his style would come across in a stop-motion version of a children's story, and it works perfectly.  I don't think I've ever in my life described anything as a delight, but it's the right word for this movie; when I wasn't laughing outright I was grinning like a dope for the sheer joy and playfulness of it.  It's as good as Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, and is quite possibly the best stop-motion film Anderson has made.

I think you get the point now, but one more thing: There are only a few films of the past few years that I felt I needed to pay to see twice in a theater.  First, The Best of Youth, which feels more like a life experience than a movie and was so good I was literally accosting strangers in cafes and on the street to encourage them to see it.  Second, Hukkle, which I loved the first time around when I didn't think it had a plot and appreciated on an entirely different level the second time around when I understood (thanks to a friend's patient explanation) that it was one of the most tightly-plotted films I'd ever seen.  And third...well, you know what's going to be third, right?

Guess who's getting a lump of coal this year

The ACLU of Northern California wrote me to share this great news:

Dear Mr. Caruso,

The decade is ending with more hope than it began.

The Obama administration has begun to restore some of the fundamental rights this country was founded upon — rights that have been dismantled for too long.  Rights that you care so much about.

Yay!  I care so much about these rights, and the Obama administration is restoring them!  Thank you the Obama administration, for giving us more hope than when it began!  And Anthony D. Romero of the national ACLU wrote me another letter with even more good news:

Dear Mr. Caruso,

As 2009 comes to a close, two things have become clear to those of us who work to protect and advance freedom's cause.

The first is that our hopes for progress on civil liberties are brighter than they have been in nearly a decade.  The second is that powerful forces are aligning to block the forward momentum that America so urgently needs.

Oh no!  Powerful forces aligning to block the forward momentum that America so urgently needs?  Who can they be?  Spin me a scenario that illustrates their blackhearted no-goodness, Anthony D. Romero!

Attorney General Holder moves forward with a decision to restore the rule of law and use our time-proven U.S. courts to try those accused of the 9/11 attacks — and, like clockwork, a wave of fear-mongering and angry rhetoric about "coddling terrorists" erupts.

Ah, so on one side we have the powerful forces aligning to block the forward momentum that America so urgently needs—and on the other we have Attorney General Holder, dedicated civil liberties protector in the administration of Nobel Prize-Haver Barack Obama, who reveres the rule of law and is therefore restoring some of the fundamental rights this country was founded upon that have been dismantled for too long.  Yay!  Yay, Obama administration!

But sadly the mail didn't stop there, and what should I receive next but this dreary, whining missive from the malcontents at the Center for Constitutional Rights:

A year ago, there was great hope for change with the coming of a new presidency; and yet today we find ourselves fighting many of the same battles we fought during the Bush administration. [...] CCR is committed to ultimately prevailing on our work to put an end to the problems created by Bush (and continued under Obama), including: ending rendition (outsourcing torture); safely shutting down Guantánamo; ending warrantless spying by the NSA; repealing portions of the Patriot Act in the Supreme Court; and continuing our efforts to hold torturers accountable. Rest assured that the Center will be there for all these struggles.

Center for Total Bringdown is more like it.  "Problems created by Bush and continued under Obama"?  Didn't they get the memo?  Don't they realize that Hero-President Obama and Attorney General "Robin" Holder are doing all they can to restore some of the time-proven U.S. courts that are aligned like clockwork with fear-mongering powerful forces who have been dismantled for far too long, and America urgently needs a wave of angry terrorist rhetoric to restore the rule of law, or something like that, yay Obama!!!?  It's like they're applying a single universal standard without fear or favor to both Republican and Democratic administrations—as though the same actions deserve the same response no matter who's carrying them out.  Absurd!

No, really: absurd.

And this, my friends, is why I'm not going to send so much as a penny to the ACLU this year.  This is not just the usual sordid but ultimately excusable pandering that you expect to see during the fundraising season; it's the willful propagation of dangerous falsehoods and fantasies by an organization that should be doing everything it can to dispel them.  The ACLU should be using my money to tell its supporters the truth: that in the area of civil liberties, Obama is practically indistinguishable from Bush.  But they know that the vast majority of their members are Democrats, and they'd much rather keep them writing those fat checks than upset them with the inconvenient reality.

So if you're a card-carrying member of the ACLU, please consider redirecting your annual donation money to CCR—an organization that understands that feeding people's Democratic fantasies (no matter how profitable that might be) only makes it that much easier for the Obama administration to continue its embrace and expansion of the assault on civil liberties.

Why they're worse

Me, October 2004:

So the result of a Kerry victory would be that policies that are nearly identical to those of the Bush administration would go forward, just as they did under Clinton--but with practically no domestic opposition, and no significant international opposition either. The harm would be all that much greater as a result.

Glenn Greenwald, last week:

Yesterday's speech and the odd, extremely bipartisan reaction to it underscored one of the real dangers of the Obama presidency:  taking what had been ideas previously discredited as Republican or right-wing dogma and transforming them into bipartisan consensus. [...] That's the real danger.  Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices.

Ah, sweet, sweet music.

This is the core (but not always stated) premise of everything I write about domestic US politics: that the Democrats are not only comparable to the Republicans but are actually worse, because they anesthetize opposition both within the country and around the world.  This happens in part automatically (because the major source of opposition to Neanderthal policies comes from liberals, and most US liberals automatically identify with and reflexively defend the Democrats) and in part as a conscious Democratic strategy.  And while it's true that the Democrats are better in some ways and on some issues, they're not enough better in enough ways to compensate for the extra damage they can do thanks to their ability to neutralize dissent.

This is the first thing I'll explain to a liberal who believes that a single counterexample (abortion! the Supreme Court! gay marriage!) is enough to prove that whatever their faults, Democrats are unquestionably preferable to Republicans.  And if there's one good thing about Barack Obama—and it burns my fingers just to type those words—it's that he's making it much, much easier to convince people to give this argument a fair hearing; honestly, it's like he's made it his personal political mission to illustrate just what "a dime's worth of difference" means, right down to the last penny.

Although Greenwald hasn't embraced the full argument yet he's at least on the right path, and I give him credit for continuing to follow his principles where they naturally lead.  And no matter what comes of it, it's good to have high-profile liberals explaining to the party's perennially abused base exactly why Democrats are potentially more dangerous than Republicans.

White House joke of the day

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street," Obama says.

He added: "I ran for office to satisfy my lust for power.  But then I thought, as long as I'm here...."

(Quote via.)

His behavior is like that of Tom, the sibling of my father

Robert Scheer writes:

[...] Obama speaks in the voice of the little people’s champion, but his actions cater fully to the demands of the most powerful economic interests.

Hmm, I can't help but feel I've heard this somewhere before:

His choice, basically, is whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations who are running America into the ground.

You've got to give Ralph Nader credit: if he'd used coma-inducing boilerplate like Scheer's nobody would have remembered a word of it, but by couching his criticism in language that tweaked the latent racism fetish of liberals he made sure the words stuck in their brains—even as they were engaging in yet another two minutes of vicious attacks on the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.  And having internalized the words months ago, some of them are finally starting to realize—whether they'll admit it publicly or not—that he was spot on.

(Was this an intentional strategy on Nader's part?  I'm agnostic on that point, mainly because I doubt he believed that one of hundreds of interviews he'd given, in this case on some radio station in Texas, was going to gain national attention.  But it wouldn't surprise me, since the dude is nothing if not canny.)

To Scheer's credit, he actually started admitting that Nader had seen things a little more clearly than himself just weeks after the election:

Maybe Ralph Nader was right in predicting that the same Wall Street hustlers would have a lock on our government no matter which major party won the election. I hate to admit it, since it wasn’t that long ago that I heatedly challenged Nader in a debate on this very point.

But how else is one to respond to Barack Obama’s picking the very folks who helped get us into this financial mess to now lead us out of it?

I'd understand if you're tempted to knock Mr. Scheer for this 12th-hour buyer's remorse—but at least he started figuring it out before the charlatan's coronation, and isn't still spouting "the optimistic version" that Obama "hired the people who robbed all the money to help him get it back" nearly a year on from that dark day.  The debate he mentions is transcribed here, by the way; well worth reading not for Scheer's rote volleys, but to see how Nader counters them with his signature combination of knowledge, eloquence, and wit.

Of course it'd be nice if Scheer had managed to figure this out before the election, since the information was readily available and the precedents were unmistakable.  And it would be even better if millions like him had done the same.  But then, it would also be nice if it started raining vaginas.

Ebb

Yes, I'm still alive.  I returned from my trip a few weeks ago, but my desire to spend hours each day crafting lengthy essays fell off the plane (or was it pushed?) somewhere over the Midwest.  So I decided to take a few more weeks off from the jabber maelstrom and see if it showed up again.

It hasn't yet, and I'm not sure when or if it will.  This isn't anything new; my enthusiasm for maintaining the site ebbs and flows regularly.  Part of that is that I find myself wondering more and more often what it is I'm trying to do here.  As much as I know from direct personal experience that it's possible to change minds, I've also never had any illusions about the influence of my tiny corner of the Internet—but at the same time I know that some of what I've written has reached people who otherwise wouldn't have heard these points of view and has occasionally led them to rethink some of what they thought or believed.  But as rewarding as that can be, I'm not sure the handful of times I know it's happened balances out against the amount of effort I put into the site and the level of heartburn it often generates.

There's much more to it than that, of course.  Part of it is tied up in the state of the world generally and the state of politics in the United States specifically, the latter of which—most definitely for worse and not better—is right now the single largest determining factor in the former.  A lot of it has to do with my own life, in ways that are invisible to anyone reading along even though they're foremost in my mind.  And part of it is just that maintaining a site like this can be a relentless grind; one of the main things I've been doing while I've taken time off is nothing at all, which had started to feel like a luxury.

If you'd like to see the site continue, there are a few things you can do.  First, keep in mind that we're all actual people with actual feelings, and as much as the impersonal remove of online interaction encourages some of the worst in human behavior, be aware that what you write can and sometimes will cause real, genuine pain to the person on the other side of the screen (whether you intend it to or not).  Basically, the one guideline for discussion on this site is and always has been the Golden Rule.  And second, if you read something you like here, please say so once in a while.  I don't get paid for this writing, and practically the only thing that makes it worthwhile for me is occasionally having someone say, hey, thanks, I liked that (or finding it out indirectly when I see hits from another site).  Those of you who've made a point of doing so now and again have my eternal gratitude, and you'll never know how far those small measures of support have gone in convincing me to keep at this when I've thought of hanging it up.

So thanks for checking in through the recent drought, and I'm sorry for leaving you hanging.  And there will be actual posting again soon—I've got a few in mind.  Beyond that, time will tell.