Stepping back for the big picture

I have to say that I very much admire the efforts of General David Petraeus in his capacity as Commander of the Multinational Forces in Iraq. He is one of the more thoughtful people to have at that command and one of the best prepared, intellectually, to handle that job.



There is a part of me that envies his willingness and capacity to focus on the smaller picture of achieving success, in the form of sustainable Iraqi-led security amidst the violence that plagues that situation, before stepping back for the big picture.

I am a consonant big picture thinker. It is my biggest strength, I think. It is also a tendency that has got me in much trouble, often.

I am not someone who easily walks away from a situation and says, "It's not my problem," or "It's not my job." It's just not in me. In no job or responsibility I have had in a very long time have I ever been able to shirk an ultimate sense of responsibility. I have watched many friends and colleagues do it. I have had many bosses who do it. The vast majority, by far, in both categories. I have watched many politicians, journalists, academics, activists and various public servants and observers do it. Probably the vast majority in that category, as well, in the bigger picture.

But I've just never been able or willing to think that way. I take responsibility for all of the most serious responsibilities that we and I face very, very seriously. I just don't think I'm seriously capable of anything else in my life, at this point.

Maybe that's a mistake. It's definitely unconventional, I know. But I do think we'd be better off if more people reasoned and thought like this rather than less.

In the last 3-6 years of my life, for the first time in my life, I've started to pull back, some, in my heart. At least, I've been more unsure of this commitment than at any point in my life.

The world has just gotten meaner in that time. We've rationalized our worst instincts. And, worst of all, some have had the audacity to call it "progressive."

But progress can't happen when we rationalize our worst instincts.

Progress is only what happens when we embrace our best instincts, and take responsibility for our worst instincts.

Everything else is bullshit and a lie. And it doesn't matter how many times we tell a lie. It never becomes true with repetition.

Hitler had to learn that lesson the hard way. Stalin did as well. Every most power-obsessed leader and follower in the world has had to learn that difficult and destructive lesson the hard way.

Castro believes he has escaped that lie. As does Kim Jong Il. As does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As does Hu Jintao. As does Robert Mugabe. As does Myanmar's military leader Senior General Than Shwe. As does Sudanese President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir. As does Ismail Haniyeh. As does Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. As does every dictator, terrorist, and thug who has ever walked the earth.

None of them have. None of them will.

Progress is not something we can thugishly impose on one another. Progress, as David Petraeus' career illustrates, is something that can only occur patiently, honestly, and with more decency and good will, over time.

Many have tried to define progress as the retreat of those who they engage in political warfare with and their ability to win ground for their causes, by hard or soft means, as Joseph Nye might put what he says now of soft power, in my correspondence with him, as not a more liberal commitment to the use of power - a commitment more consistent with our liberal and democratic values - but merely a social scientific term for less aggressive forms of manipulation and power.

But this is not only a dishonest view of progress and policy, a view that could fit the objectives of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Nazis, and the Communists, as much as genuinely liberal and democratic progressive forces. It is a foolish notion of power and politics, which assumes that retreats signal final losses that they do not, in fact, signify.

Progress happens despite such setbacks, always, to anyone doing an honest reading of liberal democratic history. And no effort to rationalize such setbacks as actual progress have either made them so or convinced the vast majorities of liberal democratic peoples that they are, in fact, so, over the long term.

If you doubt that, I suggest you spend a small portion of your time studying Nazi or Soviet history, both of which were premised upon ideologies of progress, both of which convinced many people that such a premise was true, and both of which failed to stand the test of time that a more honest accounting would provide, over time.

Sometimes I wish I could just focus on the small picture, so that I could avoid the trouble that challenging sacrosanct notions of the big picture often creates for me. It would make my life easier, perhaps.

But it wouldn't be honest. And what I have to offer is too important to pull back from it, now, I think.

But it would nice. To just be a normal person who takes what life gives me, more, rather than someone wanting so much more from life.

This must have been how Hobbes felt. He was just trying to develop an idea of governance that would transcend the chaos created by power-hungry partisans that plagued his time. That is my same concern.

Though, knowing how few people actually know who Thomas Hobbes or Baron de Montesquieu or John Locke or even John Stuart Mill is, it is tempting to want to abandon it all and pursue something a little more lucrative and popular and less challenging and controversial.

But without challenge and controversy, and all of the serious disincentives to this work, there never can be real progress.

Everything else is a lie, at worst, and a half-truth, at best.

I want something better. For my kids and future generations. And for me.

And that is worth stepping back for.

Joseph Merrick, and what strength and courage looks like

If you have not seen The Elephant Man, before, I highly recommend it. It's David Lynch's and John Hurt's strongest film, I think.

I'm watching it, right now. It's the first movie I remember really making me sob as a kid. It's a very beautiful film.

"I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!"

I cry harder, today, than I did then. It's a good sign for my humanity, I think.

Jospeh Merrick, referred to as John, in the movie and by others, because of a mistake in the book by Sir Frederick Treves, is what true strength, courage and dignity look like. I can't imagine living through the numerous cruelties and indignities he experienced and maintaining his gentleness of spirit.

It's more strength than I have ever known, that is for sure.

Too often humanity confuses cruelty, aggression, and power with strength. At times aggression and power are needed. But their abuse and use when they cause unnecessary hurt and tragedy is cruelty. Their rationalization, as Lord Acton wisely observed, has been the bane of human civilization. And the cruelty that is the fact of their abuse is one quality of the human condition that needs no excuse. As someone who has known and been responsible for cruelty, as much as aggression and power, I can say that with confidence.

Joseph Merrick reminds us what genuine strength and dignity really look like.



As John Hurt says in the special features, "Well, I would say that if you can manage to get to the end of The Elephant Man without being moved, I don't think that you'd be someone I'd want to know."

I'd want to know you. But I'm not sure I could respect anyone who took that attitude.

John Merrick took his life. It is an unfortunate tragedy for me. I wish I could say that I would have more strength in the face of the challenges he faced. I hope I would. But the strength it took him to face a life of such unparalleled cruelty and infringements on his dignity is ultimately unknowable to me.

Joseph Merrick's autobiography ends with this poem by Isaac Watts.

Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul,
The mind's the standard of the man.

I am blessed for having known something of him.

Our inadequacies and mine

I just had an email exchange, in the last few days, with one of my oldest and best friends, about Jesse Helms.

My friend and I were college roommates, student and coach on our college debate team (Carson was the strongest debate coach I ever had, by far), fellowtraveling liberals, and good friends.

We both came from a ideological background of young liberals who had, generally, grown up hating Jesse Helms for his unfailing bigotry, intolerance, and mean-spiritedness. Amongst liberals, Jesse Helms was everything that fueled liberal self-righteousness. He was everything that liberals hated amongst what they thought was common to conservatives, without them acknowledging it. He was stupid, base, narrow-minded, and nasty. And his polarizing attitudes and politics earned him the derision of liberals. And I was writing a friend who could share in my revulsion for this man and his legacy.

I still believe those things are true. Jesse got better by the end. He embraced more compassion with his advocacy of tripling the American foreign aid budget for addressing the crisis of AIDS in Africa. He never apologized publicly, that I heard, or took any real responsibility for his racism and homophobia. But he did move away from his racism, at least, hiring none other than James Meredith, the first black student accepted to the University of Mississippi, and I hope his repulsion for homosexuality and homosexuals. And he showed real compassion for the millions suffering with AIDS, disease, and poverty in Africa and much of the world.

More importantly, Jesse had many good qualities, all along, that liberals, like me, overlooked in their own revulsion for his hateful and small-minded attitudes.

Jesse Helms took American freedom, sovereignty and his opposition to the totalitarian Soviet dictatorship seriously. His advocacy of the cause of Soviet dissident, Miroslav Medvid, who was disgracefully returned to Soviet hands by President Ronald Reagan days before a American-Soviet summit, helped make far less likely that Medvid would face KGB retribution. Helms was a public and needed critic of the United Nations, both of its flaws and of real and potential incursions on American sovereignty and self-determination.

Helms took many stands that I agree with, today, generally for reasons very different than the Senator. I share his concerns about forced busing and forms of integration that attempted to force racist whites in the South, and racist blacks, for that matter, to overcome their racism, a task that force could not possibly accomplish. I also share his skepticism of government taking on unsustainable commitments to the welfare of Americans and people around the world that I think are better and would be more generously funded by private and voluntary donors, long term.

Whereas Jesse Helms often seemed to oppose such measures out of sympathy with the racism and small-heartedness of too many of his fellow North Carolinans and Americans, sentiments that, his apologists' protestations to the contrary, I believe he often shared, I oppose such measures based on what I think is a more realistic assessment of what people are and will be willing to do in changing attitudes in more compassionate and generous directions, to genuinely look out for the interests of their fellow Americans and human beings, in the most sustainable way possible, voluntarily and of their own free will, and to do so in the most honest, proactive, diverse, caring, generous, successful, and responsible ways possible.

So Jesse and I differ in some pretty substantial ways. Where much of Jesse's worldview was animated by his bitterness, pettiness, and opposition to those many things in the world he hated, I am primarily driven by my love for humanity and others and my genuine concern for their welfare and policies most likely to care for their welfare. I do think that is the most real difference between Jesse Helms and, I hope, many of his fellow Americans and citizens of the world, and much of the reason why I was offended by the authority he wielded in one of the most powerful representative bodies in the world.

Having said all that, I saw something else, these past few days.

I saw one of the clearest examples of the aphorism that I have worked to live by in my life probably more than any other.

It was an aphorism by a common hero of Jesse Helms' and mine. It was a great man who lived thousands of years ago who was persecuted and murdered for his commitment to his fellow men and women. And he had one of the most astute and powerful observations of the human condition of any I have known.

Jesus of Nazareth, in the years previous to 26-36 A.D./C.E., made what I regard as one of the most notable comments on the human condition of any I have ever heard. There are many variations on it. But the essence, as found in the King James biblical version, is this:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

I've always said that Jesus' question was better aphorism than approbation. It's a better straightfoward observation of human nature than something to chastise our fellow human beings with. And I very much doubt that Jesus meant it as a chastisement, given that a genuine commitment to not passing judgment was a fundamental commitment of his life and teachings.

I am a soft atheist (I attend the Christian church I attended as a child, Unity Church, and find more in common with Christian believers than I find difference) and was a Christian youth leader as a young man. I am a spiritual ecumenical and a political indepenent, today. I am atheist as a technical matter; I don't believe there is enough evidence to warrant the existence of a supernatural being that runs the affairs of humanity. I have no particular stake in the legacy of Jesus of Nazareth as messiah, as the son of God, as a great leader, as a great man, or anything of the kind.

I just believe that he was a great man. And that this teaching he had to offer, along with his commitment to love, compassion, forgiveness and other central virtues of the human condition, are some of the most important and too often denigrated virtues that humanity has to offer.

It is a central commitment of my life to treat others as I would want to be treated. To love others as I would want to be loved.

And I realized over the course of the last few days that this has been a serious failing of mine, a beam that has sat in my eye for most of my life, while I concentrated on the splinters in the eye of Senator Helms.

Jesse Helms had ugliness to be repulsed by, that is for sure.

But that is the whole point of Jesus' teaching.

The bitterness, pettiness, and ugliness of others does not justify our own.

And I have been justifying my own bitterness, pettiness, and ugliness toward Jesse Helms my whole life in the name of pointing to the same in Jesse.

I am embarrassed by this blindspot. Not because I haven't experienced it before. I have experienced it a million times, before, of course. I am embarrassed because it was the very same blindspot that I so abhorred in Jesse as a young man.



And the truth was that I was being harsh with Jesse in the very same way that I felt he was harsh with the world.

And I am embarrassed that it took Jesse's death for me to see that.



It's one of the wisest observations about human nature that I have ever known:

We are more likely to see see the splinter in our neighbor's eye than the beam in our own. We are more likely to see the faults in others than the faults in ourselves. And we are likely to use others' shortcomings to rationalize our own. It is one of the wisest observations about politics, nevertheless people. And it is true of me as much as anyone else.

I'm sorry, Jesse. I'm sorry all I could see was your faults and not my own frailties. And, worse, that I used your weakneses to excuse my own.

Godspeed, Senator Helms. Rest in peace, Jesse.

What it means to be an American

Red Skelton reminds us what it means to be an American.



And Michelle Malkin, with whom I generally find more diagreement than agreement, posts this really beautiful video of Ray Charles' God Bless America.



Red gets to the heart of it, I think. To be an American means to be pledged to one anothers' freedom. Not to power over one another or even power over other nations.

It means to be pledged to freedom. Mine and yours. For all of us.

It'll be nice to live in an America, some day, where that is more true than not.

The Final Say

As Gawker put it, the final word in any argument.



You gotta admit. It's pretty goddamn cute. And disgusting.

Leveraging free speech

Geert Wilders has opened up a shitstorm. And good for him.



This is one of the more serious places where the glorification of pressure and leverage is going to break down. As Muslim and Arab "moderates" try to leverage the most cherished freedoms in liberal democracies, namely, in this case, the freedom of speech. The inside/outside game of so many radicals and collaborating moderates, here and abroad, is a fascinating, dishonest, and ugly spectacle, let me tell you. I'd admire it's cleverness more if so many people didn't get manipulated, hurt, and killed in its name. It is the rationale for radical Islam and its associated terrorism, after all. It's the rationale of every bully with too weak of arguments to persuade others of their better reasoning.

Jordan's Legal Jihad

As Stephen Brown from my favorite far right publication (I think sarcasm just literally dripped from my keyboard), Frontpage Magazine, writes:

"In a brazen attempt to stifle free speech in the West, a Jordanian court recently summoned twelve European citizens to answer criminal charges of blasphemy and inciting hatred.

Among those sought by the court is Geert Wilders, the Dutch liberal politician who made the anti-Islamist film, Fitna. Released last March, the Dutch MP’s production caused an uproar in Islamic countries, since it equated Islam with violence. Now a Middle Eastern court would like to prosecute Wilders for the 'crime.' (Ironically, a Dutch court dropped charges against him for inciting hatred against Muslims with his film the day before the Jordanian court issued its subpoena.)

The Jordanian court’s move is only the most ambitious attempt to silence debate about Islam. Until now, the preferred strategy has been to file civil lawsuits in western courts to intimidate critics. The latest version of what may be called the legal jihad is even more disturbing.

In one subpoena, issued in early June, the Jordanian court ordered ten Danish newspaper editors to travel to Jordan for the 'crime' of having republished the “Mohammad cartoons” last February. The cartoons, first published in 2005, were also greeted with disturbances in Muslim lands. Seventeen Danish newspapers republished the controversial cartoons as a response to the discovery of an Islamist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard. Westergaard, a caricaturist, drew the most famous of those cartoons in the form of Mohammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, for which he is also included in the summons.

This new campaign of intimidation against the West is being mounted by a Jordanian organization calling itself 'Messenger of Allah Unite Us', which is made up of '...media outlets, professional associations, parliamentarians and thousands of volunteers.' This organization, according to one account, arose as a 'civilized response' to the Mohammad cartoons’ republication in 17 Danish papers last winter, after which it took the matter to a Jordanian court and successfully had charges pressed against the Danes, and later against Wilders...

Citizens of western countries who criticize Islam, and are even willing to face lawsuits in civil courts their own countries for doing so, may now exercise restraint if they risk facing criminal charges in a Muslim country. Especially if the charge is blasphemy and it is being tried by a sharia court, which can impose a death sentence (The Danes and Wilders, a Jordanian lawyer said, are facing a maximum of three years in jail).

As well, critics of Islam who have outstanding warrants against them from courts in Muslim countries will have their freedom of movement restricted, since travel abroad will now be problematic. Wilders expressed this sentiment, saying he will be careful when he travels now. Such targeted individuals, like Wilders, will obviously have reservations travelling to a third country where Jordan could file an extradition application or may already have an extradition treaty in place.

But what is most disturbing is that an Islamic country would dare subpoena citizens of another state for an action not committed within its borders but in a land where no laws were broken. Besides being meant as a weapon of intimidation, this tactic also represents a frightening extension of Islamic law into the heart of western countries.

But perhaps most ominously, this incredibly brazen measure shows that even a small Islamic country like Jordan has no fear of Europe. And, indeed, no retaliatory response met the Jordanian court’s action against European citizens.

Europe’s appeasement is also evident in the second part of Messenger For Allah group’s anti-blasphemy campaign. This part calls for a commercial boycott of all Danish and Dutch products in Jordan and of anything associated with the two countries, such as airlines and shipping companies. The boycott campaign actually began late last February but was suspended due to the losses Jordanian importers were incurring that had large stocks of unsold Danish and Dutch products.

The boycott, however, was resumed June 10. One million posters containing the logos of banned Dutch and Danish products will eventually hang in Jordanian businesses under the title 'Living Without It.' The boycott will also be spread by television and radio ads, t-shirts, and bumper stickers.

Dutch and Danish companies were instructed they could get their products off the boycott list if they, essentially, betrayed their nations’ values and their countrymen. The affected companies, according to The Jordan Times, were told to denounce the Dutch film and the Danish cartoons in the media both in Jordan and in at least one publication in their own country, support the Jordanian legal action taken against Wilders and the Danish newspaper people as well as the creation of an international anti-blasphemy law.

Several companies have already complied. When informed of the stipulation that requires a denunciation be published in a Dutch newspaper, a spokesman for a Dutch food company that exports to Jordan said his company '…would print it if needed.'

But such groveling will only buy these companies a little time, as another Dutch company discovered. It had immediately distanced itself from Wilders and Fitna after the film’s release last March but still had products placed on the boycott posters.

The Dutch government did not fare much better in its appeasement efforts. One Dutch embassy official in Jordan said he was surprised his country was included in the boycott in the first place since his government had already printed statements in the Jordanian press distancing itself from Wilders’ film.

And, naturally, the Jordanian blackmailers’ demands have not stopped. Only last week, Dutch and Danish companies were told to put the boycott posters up in their own countries if they did not want their products blacklisted.

Perhaps to further intimidate Holland’s and Denmark’s populations, the Jordanians are also claiming their boycott campaign is causing these countries huge financial losses of over four billion Euros in four months. A Danish official, however, says that is ridiculous since his country only exported about $50 million worth of goods to Jordan in 2007.

The overall goal of the Messenger of Allah group’s legal and commercial campaign against the two European states, it says, is the enactment of 'a universal law that prohibits the defamation of any prophet or religion', especially of the Prophet Mohammad. Islamic countries are already pushing for such a law at the United Nations.

'The boycott is a means but not an end,' said Zakaria Sheikh, a spokesperson for Messenger of Allah Unite Us. 'We are not aiming at collective punishment, but when the Danish and Dutch people put pressure on their governments to support the creation of an international law, we are achieving our goal.'"

This is what is at stake, for those who romanticize pressure and repression as a governing philosophy.

The beauty is that it undermines itself, long term. Hence the passionate defense of principles like free speech in liberal democratic countries (those who advocate pressure and repression have to wonder, how, exactly, did repression of free speech for thousands of years fall apart if pressure and repression work so well? The answer is that brave people like Voltaire, the Baron de Montequieu, and the like happened, made stronger arguments, and inspired generations to embrace a liberty that had, till that point, been regularly abrogated).

Embracing and defending freedom and liberal values, as the British on-line video website, Liveleak, does in its airing of videos that openly debate this matter, is exactly what best embodies those liberal values.

Those values and the free speech that people like Voltaire and Montesquieu, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, and all of our liberal forefunners risked their lives and their liberty to guarantee for us, today, mean that films like Fitna, the Geert Wilders' movie that has attracted so much attention and derision, Wilders' critics, and all of those who enter the marketplace of ideas should have the freedom to air their views.



What is at stake is, "Are we going to look more like the radical Islamists, the Zimbabwe government, the North Korea's Communist leadership, and other repressive forces we are rightly opposed to? Or are we going to look more like Americans and embrace the freedoms we say we love."



During this political period, liberal democracies have chosen a direction closer to radical Islam and repression as a governing philosophy. This article makes clear what a dangerous trend that could be.

I hope, for our sake, we choose freedom. Because freedom is why I love America and the Western world, not something to fear.



Fearing freedom should be left to radical Islam.

The rest of us have an honest democracy to tend to.

"A proper debate"

The Economist gets at exactly the most pressing problem in the current race.

America at its best

"For what America's voters, and the world's fascinated spectators, have not had so far is much of a policy debate. Yes, there were bone-aching arguments between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton as to whose plan for health care would work best. And yes, Mr Obama refused to endorse Mrs Clinton's bad plan for a gas-tax holiday. But on the whole, it has been a policy-light contest for the simple reason that there was very little to choose between the two Democrats either on domestic or on foreign policy. Small wonder, then, that the Democratic race focused on character more than content.

All that has now changed. With his victory speech in Minneapolis on June 3rd, Mr Obama took the fight to Mr McCain. Though there are a fair number of things on which Mr Obama and Mr McCain, admirably, agree (a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, the immediate closure of Guantánamo and a more multilateral approach to diplomacy, to name just three), there is a lot more that they disagree over.

The choice will be starkest over Iraq. Mr McCain backed the war in the first place, and he proposes to stay the course there no matter how long it takes. Mr Obama opposed the “dumb” war from the start and has pledged to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months, though he has lately wriggled a little on this commitment. Although most Americans now think the war was a mistake, polls suggest that Mr McCain's determination to see it through may stand him in better stead with voters than Mr Obama's determination to pull out whatever the consequences, especially since the tide of war seems at last to have shifted firmly in America's favour. In general, Mr McCain will offer a much more robust approach to security issues than Mr Obama—and that may help him.

That said, the war is clearly receding as a political issue, just as concerns about recession are growing. America no longer has a Hummer economy (General Motors is considering selling off the gas guzzler). And there are clear choices about how to fix it. Mr McCain offers orthodox supply-side solutions, stressing deregulation, free trade, competitiveness and the use of market mechanisms to cure the problems in everything from health care to education to pensions. The trouble for him is that America is already a pretty deregulated place, and many voters feel that globalisation has brought them much less than was promised (and bankers a lot more). Mr Obama offers a very different vision: more spending on education and training, an expensive expansion of health care to (almost) all Americans and better benefits for the unemployed. His problem will be convincing sceptics that his sums add up, though it may well be that voters, battered by falling house prices and rising oil prices prefer not to worry too much about that.

Both candidates have their flaws and their admirable points; the doughty but sometimes cranky old warrior makes a fine contrast with the inspirational but sometimes vaporous young visionary. Voters now have those five months to study them before making up their minds (and The Economist will be doing the same). But, on the face of it, this is the most impressive choice America has had for a very long time."

I'm not, at all, convinced that these two candidates are the most impressive choices America has had for a very long time. Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, among others, are tough competition for strong Presidential leadership. Plenty of candidates who didn't win their parties' nominations or general elections, like Bobby Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, to name just two, who were fairly impressive choices in the rear view of history.

But these two candidates were the strongest two choices, I thought at the beginning of this race, if only for the most important fact of politics: they were the two most likely to have an honest and open-ended policy debate and discussion. Every other candidate Democrats and Republicans had to offer were either too power-obsessed, one of the most serious problems for political leaders and observers to bring to the table in a liberal democracy, or too full of sanctimony and self-righteousness to be genuinely capable of an honest, open-ended, pragmatic policy discussion. When your whole modus operandi in politics and in life is to prove how right you are all the time and never be open to your mistakes or failures, you are no use to anyone, not even to your own ego. Because you have become incapable of learning from your own mistakes and not just the mistakes of others. And far too many in both packs, in 2008, suffered this folly.

The strength that these two candidates bring, amidst this power-obsessed and all-too-mindless electoral season, is a more honest and open-minded and open-hearted commitment to the welfare of their fellow citizens than any of their competitors.

Now the question is: will they put those open minds and hearts to good use and have an honest debate?

And it is the candidates, and not the various advocates, who will have to bring leadership on this question. And the candidate who can both bring better policy ideas - John McCain, on balance, at least in regards to the war in Iraq, the economy, and health care, to my mind, at this point; Barack Obama's better proposals around diplomacy are an important strength that weigh heavily in my mind to his advantage - and greater leadership to the matter of engaging an honest and sober debate and discussion and bucking the pressure from all quarters to engage more dishonestly, with strong-arming rather than debate, will win my vote.

If both candidates cave to the pressure from both their own wings and various circles that they must work with on critical issues, especially the war and matters of international security and diplomacy, we will all be the poorer for it. And not least because Presidential candidates caving to pressure is hardly leadership. Leadership is having a strong and largely accurate vision and being willing to tell activists to go to hell as you make the really important calls. Candidates who do what they are told are not leaders. They are puppets.

And America is worthy of more than puppets to run her government. She deserves leadership.

A proper debate is a good first step.

On forgiveness

As someone looking to do good in the world and be a decent human being, for real, I take forgiveness seriously.

Honestly, I've always been pretty clear that all the talk about the "unforgiveable" was one long excuse for why people do not take the virtue of forgiveness seriously enough. Clearly, there are very painful and difficult traumas that people face all over the world. And forgiveness is most certainly not easy work.

But it is a central virtue in Judeo-Christian and amongst more universal moral values for a reason.

And I never understood why people who did not take such a virtue seriously thought that they should be seriously listened to on important moral matters at all.

Because the truth is that they shouldn't.

This is such a great story, in that vein, on so many different levels.

Acts of Reconciliation

"A couple of weeks ago, the 29-year-old won the top documentary prize at the Student Academy Awards in Los Angeles for "As We Forgive," her film about reconciliation in Rwanda between survivors of the 1994 genocide and its perpetrators. Previous Student Oscar winners include Trey Parker, Bob Saget and Spike Lee.

Hinson's film, begun as an MFA thesis at American University, captures victims' meetings with their freed attackers. A decade after the extermination of one in eight Rwandans, after the Hutus turned on the Tutsis and even some of their own, the two tribes had to learn to live together. (The government has released more than 60,000 convicts connected to the genocide to ease prison overcrowding, according to the BBC.)

In the film we meet Rosaria, who pulls up the hem of her dress to reveal mounds of raised scar tissue running down her legs. Hacked and beaten during the genocide, she now lives in a house built for her by Saveri, the man who killed her sister. Another survivor, Chantale, who lost 30 family members, meets John, the stooped gangly man who killed her father. He can't face her; her eyes are embers. 'Remember all your old neighbors,' she says. Yet the next day, Chantale begins working to build a house for another ex-con who confessed his crimes.

For Hinson, it was proof that the 'transcendent filters through every aspect of life' and also that the world is really messed up...

The story ultimately appealed to Hinson for its reversal of the genre's cliches. Instead of being a tale of African ruin and our reluctance to help, it was a 'tremendously hopeful' picture of people learning to forgive in circumstances, she says, in which we never could. Hinson liked to believe she herself had learned something.

Two weeks after leaving Rwanda, in August 2006, the belief was tested. Her ex-fiance called, 4 1/2 years after their breakup. 'I feel kinda crazy,' she recalls him saying. 'And I still love you.'

Tom is the guy's name. Today he says of the breakup: 'I was just terrified of that level of commitment. I had come from a family that had kind of a bad marriage.'

He reconsiders.

'Ninety percent of it was me just being a very lame guy. A child in a man's body. Just a guy with a lot to learn.'

He visited her a month later. He had gone to a nondenominational seminary in those silent intervening years, studied to become a priest and all the while 'worked with a lot of trauma victims, a lot of people who were recovering from some pretty hard stuff, rape victims.'

'I dealt a lot in the language of forgiveness,' he adds.

Tom had kept the first ring all that time. 'I couldn't get rid of it. It was that weird kind of remote possibility sense that maybe if I ever get my act together...'

He gave it to her, and a second one. He bent down on one knee in the old-fashioned way and asked the question. Not of nuptials, not at first. There was a more pressing matter.

'I said, 'Laura, do you forgive me?' And she said, 'Yes.' And getting married was almost the denouement, the anticlimax.'

Today Tom Hinson and Laura Waters Hinson live in the District, where several documentary companies are based and where he pastors at two Anglican churches. Laura graduated from American last year, and the Student Oscar got her thinking about moving to Los Angeles. 'It depends on what Laura wants to do in her career,' says the man who gave and took away and gave again.

'Our marriage,' she says, 'is built on forgiveness.'"

Desmond Tutu is actually the person who helped me see this more clearly. His work on truth and reconciliation has been so critical in his home country of South Africa, but also all over the world in places as diverse as East Timor and Iraq, to recover, as peoples and as individuals, from the most traumatic circumstances that life has to offer. In fact, such reconciliation efforts are critical to a political resolution of the most serious conflict that America faces today, our war in Iraq.

Recognizing this very important part of the political landscape is one of the many things that persuaded me of the importance of the arguments, coverage, and understanding of the situation by the military historian I regard as the most significant during this Iraq War, Frederick Kagan. Kagan, better than other military historians and those covering the war, understands the politics of the situation in Iraq and the United States and the role that our military efforts play in creating a more sustainable political situation and the way that the politics, in Iraq, America, and around the world, shapes the success or failure of our military efforts in that war.

To not understand the role of reconciliation after major hostilities, especially genocide and ethnic, religious, and other warfare, is to misunderstand the whole enterprise in a very serious way. Kagan's understanding of the role of this process in the situation in Iraq, in substantial ways, not just giving it lip service, was an important reason, among many, convincing me that he was one of the wisest of those offering coverage and advice of the war.

If you have not read Frederick Kagan's exceptional analysis of the situation in Iraq, I highly recommend any of his work on the Weekly Standard website.

Including his most recent piece, which affirms for me my continued commitment to John McCain in the next Presidential election, despite the doubts that have been raised in my mind by some conservatives pressing for an attack on or invasion of Iran.

Voting for Commander in Chief

Much of the problem over the course of this war that President Bush, despite many of his and his apologists' defenses to the contrary, that he misled - which I believe he did - the American people about the reasons for going to war, genuine confidence that he had and that was warranted in those reasons being evidenced and valid, and the degree of seriousness that he gave to legitimate concerns about engaging this war. The President and his apologists can play games with this matter all they might wish. It will not make these matters go away.

And the truth is that what is different about my own thinking on this matter and a substantial number of the Presidents' many detractors- 70% of the American people, by the most recent poll I saw; I really don't give two shits how you try to spin that vis a vis Congress or any or any other evidence of the lack of trust that Americans have in their President, right now, people have got to face up - is that I have forgiven the President his and his Administrations' many, many transgressions. I have not forgotten them. I have no intentions of holding them over his head or trying to nail him for them in any way, at all. In fact, I very much admire the President's commitment to seeing us through to a decent resolution of the situation in Iraq, despite his many mistakes. And I very much care substantially more about what is happening on the ground than I do in grinding any axes whatsoever.

But pretending like this has not seriously undermined our efforts to keep Americans alive, to secure Iraqis, and to promote democracy in this country, makes it more difficult to make the case to the American people that sticking with this war is the right thing to do rather than making it easier.

The President is forgiveable for his mistakes. The 70% of the American people who supported this war, up front, without debating or engaging one another, enough, about how to do it in a way that accounted for the challenges that we have faced in ways that could very well have avoided the thousands of unnecessary deaths of Americans, Iraqis, and others killed in this conflict, each one of them a tragedy, are forgiveable. And, tragically, even these butchers in Rwanda and all over the world are forgiveable for their crimes, (though justice and safety of the Rwandan people, must clearly be served, as well).

They, we, are all forgiveable, because it is the only way to see more clearly our way to a more honest understanding of this conflict and its eventual resolution and of the world and ourselves amidst the emotional clutter that bitterness and petty and even not-so-petty grudges bring. Unresolved feelings, in this vein, do not just plague us with misery until they are resolved. They also blind our vision, as we try to see past the pain in our own hearts that we refuse to acknowledge and make peace with.

The failure to forgive and let go of such pain has been, along with the repressive and brutal activities and policies of those who hang onto such bitterness, the bane of humanity's long history. All of the most remarkable ugliness and evil in the world has been rationalized on this premise. And our way forward, in this war, in policy matters, generally, and in the world at large is and always has been premised on the emotional and intellectual freedom that genuine and honest forgiveness and observations of the world, at large, offers.

The denial of that fact does not make the failures of understanding or choices we make out of that failure of understanding go way. It does not make the tragedies we are responsible for go away. It does not make any of the pain we experience or inflict go way. It only makes us blind to them.

And for that fact - our own blindness to the realities of an often painful and scary world; seeing shadows instead of sunlight, as Plato once wrote - we can and must, as a matter of necessity, be forgiven.

Because it is the only honest way forward.

And the honest way forward is the only direction that we, humanity, will or can ever accept.

What it looks like when everything goes right

Something to celebrate this Independence Day.



This is the way it should work. We do our best. It doesn't always work out this way.

But this is what we shoot for, when we're honest in our work.

In a world of dishonest politics, warfare, counterterrorism, and just life, here's to playing honestly and keeping people alive.

Happy Independence Day.

Jesse Helms (1921-2008)

The Wall Street Journal has the most poignant and magnanimous of the obituaries I have read for the late Jesse Helms.

Jesse Helms

"Since he had to go sometime, Jesse Helms would have liked the idea of dying on July 4. The main cause of his life was defending liberty, especially against Soviet Communism, and so we wouldn't be surprised if he held out to make it to the early hours of our national holiday before dying yesterday at age 86.

Helms was best known as the five-term North Carolina Senator who drove liberals crazy before his retirement in 2002. But his most important role in history arguably took place in 1976, when he and political ally Tom Ellis helped to resurrect Ronald Reagan's fading run for President...

As a Senator, Helms was a forceful anti-Communist, resisting Nixon's detente of the 1970s and promoting U.S. support for dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and freedom fighters in Central America. In one episode in 1985, a 22-year-old Ukrainian sailor in the Soviet merchant marine jumped ship near New Orleans and tried to defect. In a shameful moment, the Reagan Administration returned him to Soviet control days before a U.S.-Soviet summit. Helms took up Miroslav Medvid's cause, and the Ukrainian became a priest after the fall of the Soviet empire. On a visit to the Senator's office 16 years later, Father Medvid credited Helms's public agitation with saving him from KGB retribution...

Helms was a conservative populist, and his campaigns were not above demagoguery. He was a protectionist, reflecting the textile interests in his state. He sometimes abused the Senate's advice and consent power against Presidential nominees – a habit the left has now adopted. His critics have a point that he sometimes exploited racial tensions in the post-1960s South, but Helms himself was no racist and his famous TV spot opposing racial preferences in employment in 1990 barely ran in North Carolina.

Like the political shift across the South and West in the last decades of the 20th century, Helms's political rise was a reaction to the collapse of liberal governance. He sought to reassert traditional American values, and above all to defend U.S. freedom against Soviet tyranny. Like Reagan, he saw more clearly than liberals the moral dimension of the Cold War. Like Reagan, he was a hero of that war."

Wonkette remembers Jesse Helms less generously than I might.

Jesse Helms Finally Dead

"We interrupt your Fourth of July with some Breaking News: Jesse Helms was apparently still alive, and now he’s dead, hooray! He was a sour troll and a bigot, and it’s a testament to every rotten thing about this country that for a quarter century, he was one of the most powerful people in American politics."

Here's the full obituary by Wonkette editor, Ken Layne.

Jesse Helms: American Garbage

And this from the Economist:

Jesse Helms

"JESSE HELMS, the former senator from North Carolina, died today, aged 86. Many will not miss the cantankerous, obstructionist and generally racist Mr Helms. He supported segregationist policies throughout his career, worked against civil rights legislation, filibustered a bill to mark Martin Luther King day as a holiday, was a leading supporter of South Africa's apartheid regime, and ran one of the more racially divisive campaign ads in political history. Yet he claimed not to be racist.

When Bill Clinton nominated an openly homosexual woman as assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1993, Mr Helms recoiled. 'I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that,' he said. 'If you want to call me a bigot, fine.' He was a bigot...

It's a shame Fox News wasn't around in his prime. His opposition to communism was also of the "with us or against us variety" that has defined policy in the war on terror. In 2005, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University opened the Jesse Helms School of Government. There, at least, he will be remembered fondly."

But this?

'It's just incredible that he would die on July 4th, the same day of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and he certainly is a patriot in the mold of those great men,' said former North Carolina GOP Rep. Bill Cobey."

Whatever.

What I remember most about Jesse Helms, growing up as a young liberal, was that he was a bigot, on matters of race, homosexuality, AIDS, and all things that challenged his generally narrow worldview. He talked a big talk about freedom, but delivered much bitter, petty rhetoric and policy. Hardly the stuff of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Jesse Helms was also a committed anti-Communist, a public U.N. skeptic, and sought some level of absolution from his vile past, I think, with his laudable, later-life efforts to raise money to alleviate the plague of AIDS in Africa.

Jesse and I shared a commitment to freedom, anti-Communism, and American sovereignty.

He also was the public figure in American political life that I most despised for much of my youth. Robert Byrd is a somewhat comparable figure on the left (with more notable ties to the Ku Klux Klan). But I' not sure anyone really matches the dubious stature of Jesse Helms. The idea that a man of Richard Lugar's integrity and thoughtfulness would have to play second-fiddle to someone like Jesse Helms on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has always seemed one of life's crueler ironies to me.

Jesse Helms was also a human being. A deeply flawed, mean-spirited, bigoted, bitter, petty human being. But a human being nonetheless. And someone who made some endeavors to make some amends in the final years of his life. He never said he was sorry. But he did try to make amends.

And, in the meantime, he is a man with friends and family and a man, like every man, who will be missed by those who loved him.

I have to say that the columns I have read that laud Helms' many accomplishments have seriously endeared me to him and his worthy causes, especially his stands for freedom and against Soviet Communism. I remember, as a young liberal, being very heartened and emailing many friends and family when I read that Jesse Helms had written a Washington Post editorial advocating a tripling of the budget to combat AIDS in Africa (a skepticism of which policy I understand better, today, sharing his ultimate compassion for such folks and believing in pragmatic government efforts to deal with a serious health crisis, but also wanting more of that money to come from private sources rather than forever from necessarily limited government coffers).

I was always someone who wanted to like and respect, Jesse Helms, even as I despised him, in my youth. The bigger-hearted reflections on the life and legacy of Jesse Helms have humbled me and my one-time contempt for this bigger-than-life American politician.

Rest in peace, Jesse Helms. You will be missed, all and all. May God and all of us have mercy on your soul.

And now for something completely different

And an oldie but a goodie.



Some fine reminders that Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence were about freedom, not power.

One day, I hope, I can share with my kids that America has, largely, lived up to her reason for being.

Freedom on the Fourth of July

If you have not read the Declaration of Independence, I recommend it.

The Declaration of Independence

We've read it in class several times, now. We talk about what it means. And despite my kids' limited interest and, more often than not, limited developed reading and academic abilities, I hope they recognize, at least someday, the courage that it took for a rag-tag bunch of colonials to take on the most powerful government and military in the world, to assert their right to govern themselves and their own lives.

Freedom is a precious thing. Even as we all take it for granted and romanticize power and countries and cultures that don't have the kind of freedom we enjoy in America. It is fundamental to everything we have and are, today. Even as we behave like it is responsible for all of our bad behavior and our misery. What freedom offers us, better, is the honest opportunity for us to be responsible for ourselves and our own behavior, good and bad. Even as we, like all peoples since the beginning of time, would often prefer to shirk such responsibility.

Independence. Of thought and conscience. Of expression and action. The freedom to govern ourselves and the direction of our lives.

That is what I celebrate today. And the first nation on earth to be conceived on the principles of freedom and democracy.

Ours' is a nation nor a people conceived in perfection, or on claims to that mantle. Ours' is a nation conceived on the premise of independence and self-governance, and the ability to improve with that commitment over time.

This is a day to reflect on those principles and to reflect on the liberal democratic values that make possible everything that we cherish, even as we persistently take them and their fruits for granted.

Today should be a day to remember that freedom is not something to be afraid of or treated as an afterthought. Freedom is fundamental to virtually everything good that free peoples lay claim to.

Today is a day to embrace that.

Hypocrisy and the rationalization of power

I write something nasty about Dana Milbank, and then he goes and proves his shit.

Not So Quiet on the Third Front

"The administration, for its part, seems eager to convince Iran that President Bush is crazy enough to sanction an attack. In the Rose Garden yesterday, Brett Baier of Fox News asked Bush how confident he is that Israel won't launch a military attack on Iran before the end of the year. 'I have always said that all options are on the table, but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically,' came Bush's mild reply.

ABC's Martha Raddatz invited Bush to 'strongly discourage Israel' from such an activity. The president declined. 'I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically,' he said.

Neither did the State Department offer discouragement. Spokesman Sean McCormack, at his daily briefing, said the matter of an Israeli strike isn't 'under our control.' When it was pointed out that the U.S. controls Iraqi airspace, through which Israeli warplanes would travel to hit Iran, McCormack declined to answer a 'hypothetical question involving military planning.'

As in most things involving the Bush administration, clarity can be found in the name Cheney -- in this case the vice president's daughter Liz, speaking last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'I think the Iranians have to believe that we will use force if necessary, and I'm concerned because you had statements for a period of time there from people like the commander in Centcom, who has since been relieved, suggesting that force was off the table,' she said.

Liz Cheney further recommended doing 'everything we can to dispel this idea that, somehow, we don't have the capacity militarily to take action,' and she said it is crucial to make Iran realize, 'despite what you may be hearing from Congress, despite what you may be hearing from others in the administration who might be saying force isn't on the table, that we're serious." As for an Israeli strike on Iran, she said: 'I certainly don't think that we should do anything but support them.'

Cheney may soon get her chance. Last month, Israel held a major military drill that was widely seen as preparation for an attack on Iran's nuclear program. Around the same time, three prominent Israeli officials made public comments about the likelihood of an attack. Then came Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker reporting an increase in U.S. covert activities in Iran, along with Iran's threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large chunk of the world's oil passes. This week, ABC News featured an unnamed senior defense official talking about 'an increasing likelihood' of an Israeli attack by the end of the year.

In front of the cameras yesterday, Mullen tried to warn about the military problems such an attack would set off. 'This is a very unstable part of the world,' the chairman said, 'and I don't need it to be more unstable.' With troops already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, he acknowledged that 'opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful" on the U.S. military. The chief warrior therefore appealed for "other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.'

But Mullen, informed by his discussions with Israeli military officials, did not offer much reassurance that an Israeli strike could be avoided. Iran, he said, is 'still on a path to get to nuclear weapons, and I think that's something that needs to be deterred.'

Might Iran have enough nuclear fuel to build a bomb by the year's end?

'I don't want to address that,' the chairman said.

Is Israel operating on a shorter time frame than the United States?

Mullen said past discussions 'indicated that they were.'

Is there a danger that all the bluffing could cause an actual war?

'It is high stakes, there's no question, in this part of the world, and I guess I'd just leave it at that.'"

The remarkable thing about all of this bluff and bullshit is that it has clearly, by an objective measure, made it harder, not easier, to get this situation resolved. Iran wasn't pursuing nukes as ambitiously 5 years ago, when this standoff first began. We started pressuring. They got more committed.

And no matter where pressure fails, its self-righteous advocates will always claim victory anytime we see any breakthrough anywhere, because of course if you spread your bullshit broad and wide, there's got to be somewhere you can claim victory, right? Even when everything else is going to shit.

Why do they do this?

Partly because Washington runs under a pack mentality. Everyone is always right, all the time. And when they are wrong, they would rather be wrong together then step out of line. Especially when they believe their career is at stake. Even if everyone is wrong. That's the beauty of that kind of pressure.

And much of that last fact is a matter of cowardice on the part of political leaders and observers to acknowledge failure when blame-shifting to someone not you is so much easier than taking responsibility (these are the same group of folks who lecture the rest of the country and world on responsibility for their actions, remember).

When groupthink operates, as Pat Roberts warned the country in his assessment of the rush to war in Iraq, independent and thoughtful judgment is sacraficed.

And is exactly the kind of environment that this constant drumbeat of pressure, no matter how often and long it fails, creates in Washington and around the world.

Much of this, at the bottom, is about a sad and general failure of most folks to face the failure of repression and force as a governing philosophy, especially among countries and cultures proporting to be liberal and democratic, meaning free and equal, and the matters of conscience and independent judgment that are fundamental to liberal values, the value we place on freedom and democratic engagement, and fundamental to the failures of repressive governments and cultures and repressive policies in liberal and democratic countries and cultures.

We will have to face up, just as we would have to face up to a Israeli-Palestinian peace process, no matter how many strikes on Arab and Palestinian targets take place, because facing up to those realities is the only way out.

I guess the silver lining in this period is that it will be a definitive defeat for repression. There will be no real opportunity for those to advocate repression to claim victory, anymore. Because the failures will pile up so high that, eventually, if we want to get past them we will have to embrace more genuinely liberal and democratic policies, meaning policies that honestly respect freedom and self-governance.

Until we live up to those values, we will fail. Guaranteed. Because you can't guarantee freedom and democracy, when you are disrespecting them in reality while praising them rhetorically. It just doesn't work that way. No matter how many rationalizations of power we engage in.

We have engagement to do on this question of Iran and nuclear weapons. There are important issues to get resolved that nuking their facilities will just never resolve, anymore than assassinating terrorist leaders actually ends terrorist threats when the underlying issues, like Palestinian occupation, go unresolved.

And until we live up, we will never be able to honestly claim to be the guarantors of freedom and democracy. There is no way to bullshit our way around this one. Though we are a creative bunch while we desperately try, aren't we?

It is our hypocrisy, our rationalizations of power, and, most importantly, our failure to take liberal democratic values, the values of freedom and self-government, seriously enough that are responsible for our failures.

It is a tailspin that we are stuck in, right now. But it is not a tailspin we can stay stuck in forever.

Because forever is an awfully long goddamn time to fail.

Surveying the damage

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Karl Rove is a genius. You can't pay for this kind publicity.

This is why I love Wonkette

Because they go there.

Corrections Regarding Big Beavers and the Mexican Language

And then this nugget of cheeky goodness:

Same Sex Marriage Ban Subverted by Clever Gays

"Virginia won’t let The Gays get married, so this couple just walked into a courthouse and said “We would like to get married plz” and they got a marriage license and even got married, even though they were two dudes. (One of them had really nice skin, though!) And just like that, billions of straight marriages around America went kerplunk in an explosion of existential despair."

Reason #1,234,670,837 why Dana Milbank is a fuckin' idiot.

Where the Hell is Matt's Girlfriend?

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor. yeah collegehumor!!! check out Cute College Girls!!

Note to self: take girlfriend while on international junket to dance with foreigners who also dance poorly.

The brilliance that extremism reaps

Ah, fringe politics. You gotta love the morons who treat politics as an extension of religion, warfare, or the stankest-possible gossip mill. Nothing like some weak-minded power-mongering and bullying to brighten up your day.

From Andrew Sullivan. You gotta read this shit to believe it (my italics).

O-bonics, and other lessons

"My own on-air contribution to Obonics was "Obamistan" — the new name for a United States that is forced to accept Islamic Shari'a law. If you think that is a far-fetched idea, then consider another Islamic term: taq'qiyah. That word describes the fact that, under Islam, it is entirely acceptable — even encouraged — to use any level of deception against 'unbelievers' (in Allah, who is not the same as the God of the Bible) to advance the cause of Islam. In the video linked above, note that an Islamic 'scholar' (Abu Hamza al-Masri) advocates that Muslims may commit any act — beat, kidnap, sell, or kill — upon any non-Muslim that they might encounter. Al-Masri says that all non-Muslims are 'like a cow.'

Barack Obama claims to be a Christian. But, is he? His 'church' seems to hold Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan in higher esteem than they do Jesus Christ. Obama used his political clout to support a regime in Kenya that oppressed Christians and attempted to impose shari'a law on all Kenyans. Obama's grandfather renounced Christianity. (For the results of that, read Hebrews 6, especially Verse 6.) Barack Obama's childhood friends recall him as a devout Muslim, and so do his relatives. A news item from India reports that Obama also carries a miniature Hindu idol in his pocket for 'luck.' (The word 'luck' stems from the name 'Lucifer.' The word in Russian for "evil" is lukavaho. Christians should bristle whenever someone wishes them 'good luck.')...

Recently, I floated the idea that Barack Obama could become The Antichrist by three ministers. One laughed at me, and two have not returned my messages. But, if the idea is so far-fetched, then how is it that:

He was raised a Muslim, claims to be a Christian, but has never publicly renounced Islam? (In the Orthodox Church, when a convert is baptized, part of the ritual is to renounce any other god. Most other Christian denominations accept that concept, even if they do not have a written liturgical procedure for renouncing Allah.)

He claims to be a Christian, but carries a Hindu idol in his pocket?

He supported an African politician that hunted down Christians?

His followers believe whatever he says, even if it is proven to be a lie?

It has been 'revealed' that he is likely not even a United States citizen, yet he has not been disqualified from office? (Is that not an ultimate example of 'lawlessness,' to become a lawmaker illegally?)

The Holy Bible describes certain attributes of The Antichrist. He will be a man that ultimately 'sets himself above all that is called god.' (If one claims to adhere to several different gods, even though each one claims exclusive dominion, then what does that say about the man?) The Antichrist will be a persecutor of Christians. He will be a consummately skilled liar. And, his identity will be revealed only after The Tribulation has already begun.

Now, before readers make too many assumptions, consider that The Antichrist will be preceded by a False Prophet, who will give The Antichrist his political power. Recently, former president Bill Clinton endorsed candidate Barack Obama, even though Hillary Clinton has only suspended (not withdrawn) her candidacy for president. Bill Clinton cannot become president again. But, he could be appointed — by a President Barack Obama, or even by a President Hillary Clinton — to become US Ambassador to the United Nations. And, in that position, he would be eligible to become UN Secretary General. That, in effect, would make Bill Clinton 'king of the world,' if the UN seizes power. All of that handed to him by a man that rises up, 'speaking boastfully' to the world about "change we can believe in.' Hmmmmm."

And this bullshit is even better. Thanks to Politico for tipping me off to these left-wing assholes (again, my italics).

"Hero" John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?

“War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character. . .or lack thereof. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War II, collaboration to that extent spells an automatic death sentence.. . .The question is: What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?

Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up? Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking there in his subconscious, waiting to explode.

McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, 'I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital...'

His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite...The Vietnamese realized, this poor stooge has propaganda value. The admiral’s boy was used to special treatment, and his captors knew that. They were working him.

...two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not ‘name rank and serial number, or kill me’. as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships.

...McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks’ behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator…..McCain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn’t as innocuous as that of the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune...'"

What is really bizarre about fringe politics is their ability to play upon the really pretty foolish insecurity and pretension by folks of every ideological leaning that, since their ideology clearly has all the answers to important political, cultural, and life questions - I mean, really now, which ideology doesn't have all the right answers? Silly moderates, humility is for the weak - that only identifying with the most mindless elements of their fringe can they truly prove credentials that will never be satisfied, anyway, since the whole point is manipulation not genuine understanding.

It's like trying to prove to Hamas how much you care about the Palestinian cause. In fact, it is the exact same thing as trying to prove to Hamas how much you care about the Palestinian cause. That's what Hamas is. They are the Palestinian flank. That's what terrorism is, to anyone who is not busy rationalizing their own fucked-up political activities. It's the most extreme fringe, willing to rationalize any brutal thing to justify its cause and the power they seek.

Hamas doesn't care. They're just using you to kill Israelis and expel the Zionist enemy. They could care less how much you care about the Palestian cause. They have no doubts about the righteousness of the Palestinian cause any more than ultra-conservative nutballs in Israel have doubts about the righteousness of Israeli occupation of Palestine. At best, they care about how much you can help them advance their cause.

That's the beauty of fringe politics. It means never having to be wrong. Ever. That's the point, you see. If you hang out with a bunch of people who all agree with you and all agree that they are right all the time, then it actually makes you right all the time, for real. Strong-minded stuff, let me tell you. That's what the strong do. They get a bunch of losers like themselves huddled together in a room and tell each other how they're right, all the time, and how the people who disagree with them are the Anti-Christ or Communist collaborators.

Fuckin' brilliant, that line of reasoning. It almost makes you wish they'd start up a university and let the rest of the world in on their infinite wisdom. Which is the whole point, of course, of radical activism and it's ideological presence on college campuses: to bully peoples' consciences in the one place where reason is most valued.

One of the central commitments of my life and my policy thought is to end this brainless bullshit, in every quarter, and to center policy discussions and thought squarely in the realm of the reason. And to undercut the efforts of every shitbag who has ever tried to substitute repression and manipulation for reason and thoughtful, compassionate policy.

Fuck the revolution, as Bono might say in a younger day. Fuck the warmongers and activists who don't know the difference between muscle and liberal democratic values. Fuck the dumbasses of the world who let various groups think for them. And fuck everyone who tries to substitute power for my independent conscience.

Mindless bullying is not a virtue. But everyone seems to find a cause that rationalizes it as so. Everyone. Since the beginning of humanity.

And the only thing that gives me hope that it might be different is that we always seem to give it up the tendency just a little bit more each generation.

It'd be nice to live in a world where my kids don't have to worry about being bullied because they think for themselves. A world where they can and will fight if they need to fight. But a world where they genuinely avoid doing so as much as is reasonably possible. It'd be nice if all kids could grow up in that world.

And fuck every single last asshole who tries to force that question otherwise.

It's time, as much as possible, that we ended this bullshit.

Understanding mental health

An important part of my teaching job - I work in a special day school with kids with serious academic, behavioral, and mental health issues - is an understanding of mental health and how it impacts peoples' relationships and functioning.

In that vein, I've done and continue to do a lot of broad study of mental health issues. One isssue that came up, recently, in a conversation with my roommate, was schizophrenia.



These are some very nice videos demonstrating what schizophrenia looks like, offering a fuller, truer-to-life illustration of this condition and its serious consquences for peoples' lives.



Mental health and psychology is subject to debate, of course, like any other idea or body of knowledge. It is subject to democratic discussion and debate as much as scholarly discussion and debate.

But the reality of the impact of psychology on our functioning and perceptions of reality is much more undeniable the more you see such situations and the consequences of mental health and our understandings of psychology, our own and others', on our lives.



My job lies between the world of serious mental illness, as demonstrated in these cases, and the more mentally healthy and yet always less than ideal mental health of those of us who do not suffer from a serious mental illness.

But understanding psychology and mental illness is critical to any understanding of people and how they relate with one another, including policy thought and discussions.

These videos give just a taste of what that understanding has to offer us.

One Day in September

If you have not seen the Oscar-award winning documentary, One Day in September, an excellent account of the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics and one of the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life, it has uploaded, in toto, apparently, on Youtube.



I highly recommend this really brilliant and remarkable film. I do not agree with all of its conclusions, especially its conspiracy-minded thinking about the German government and its motivations in its handling of this tragedy and its aftermath.

But, especially given an extended interview with Jamal Al Gashey, the last remaining member of the Black September terrorist cell responsible for this crime, I highly recommend giving this a watch.

You also might check out another excellent documentary on radical Islam, Obsession, when you get a chance.



Enjoy.

The people I want ruling the world

If there is any group of folks whose votes I want ruling the world, it is definitely this group of geniuses.



The idea that we would have our major policy debates about who can emulate or pander best to this bullshit rather than an engaged and honest debate and discussion about who has the best ideas about how to tackle our problems most effectively - and how to best let people tackle problems on their own and with one another without the oversight of the equally impressive geniuses who run for office - is, well, really fuckin' brilliant, you must admit.

And the idea that force, rather than liberal and democratic engagement, would operate as some kind of substitute for more genuine liberal democratic values, is as foolish in its consequences as it is the most persistent and stubborn abuse of power.

If our history was not so replete with a long track record of steering ourselves in the right direction despite such foolishness and abuses, I would be more gloomy about the world.

But, for awhile, as Lincoln wisely opined, these dumbasses can be convinced to do just about anything. And that is the problem. Power inherently involves manipulation. And these folks are just too subject to it.

If only that could be the end of it. Except that it can't. There is only one way out. We just all have to get smarter. And more responsible for our own lives.

And that is the way, and the only way, forward.

I now understand the allure of pop culture

My roommate just rented Control, recently, the surprisingly moving biopic of Ian Curtis and his band, Joy Division, the band soon to become 80's pop icons, New Order.



I must say that, other than the elementary school fascination that I had with bands like New Order - New Order was one of the major bands of my youth - as an adult, I both enjoy pop music and have never really completely understood my friends' obsession with pop music, popular movies, popular television dramas and sitcoms, and other things that seem so completely mindless and mindnumbingly boring to me as a thinking grown-up.

But, I must say, that after spending an evening with Joy Division and New Order videos, myspace pages, audio clips, Wikipedia entries, and other lore, I think I'm finally understanding the obsessive appeal of pop culture for my friends.



There's always been the mindless escape. The wanting to be part of the crowd, to belong and do what all the kids are doing, these days. The secret wish for an opportunity to sell out, make big cash, and not care about anything else other than having a good time.

But, mostly, there's the music.



Just getting lost in it, as Ian Curtis clearly does in this video for "She's Lost Control."

There's the ambiguous melancholy and introspection of Ian's lyrics in this early Joy Division work.

For me, with New Order, there's memories of childhood in the 80's, a period that seems innocent as the morning dew compared to the blunt, crass, sexual, drug-glorifying, and commercial messages on contemporary radio and video play.

I remember watching videos for songs like True Faith



...and Bizarre Love Triangle



...songs that I was completely clueless to their meaning but loved, nonetheless, inasfar as anyone can love a pop song, and never understanding what the hell these videos or songs meant, and not really caring, particularly. As a kid, I would try to decipher lyrics of even mindless pop songs, like these, and get to the bottom of what that big, mysterious grown-up life was like.



And, tonight, I realize that their appeal, for me and I assume for others, is not just the musicality for its own sake and chance to take a break from the complexity of real life. It's not just the memories as a kid of trying to decipher what often seemed a dark and enigmatic life of grown people.

It is the ability to pull back from a world that is overwhelming, sometimes, in its mindless and endlessly complicated pressures, struggles, and conflicts with apparently no end and often for reasons that seem kind of foolish and not good for much and just enjoy some uncomplicated and minimally taxing entertainment, hoping for it all to blow over.

It's more complicated than all that, of course. Everything is, of course.

But, sometimes, it's fun to take a little time off. And, more often, it's fun just to not think about it at all and just enjoy the music.

As I kid, I did more enjoying without thinking. As a grown-up, I don't know how to enjoy anything without thinking. Even mindless entertainment.

Enjoy. Don't think about it too much. Or do.

God knows I do. I know. It's pathetic. I just can't help myself. I never have.

Time to shut my brain off, watch some mindless 80's pop videos, and fall asleep to the tunes of True Faith, New Moon of Monday, Lovergirl, and other meaningless pop songs of my childhood that I read all kinds of meaning into trying to understand a strange, uncertain world.

Maybe everything will all blow over tomorrow. Or maybe I just need some sleep and do my best to understand this still all too odd and mysterious world tomorrow as today.

Goodnight everyone.

"Fuck the revolution"

This is how you talk to Americans.



Goddamn, Bono can make a speech, can't he? I miss the days when these boys sang like this. I appreciate being a rock star and not wanting to seem so pious.

But I think it's a little late for that, don't you, boys?

And for God's sakes, fuckers, risk a little sanctimony.

In the meantime, I remember when U2 had fewer friends with power and made more of a difference.

No offense, fellas, but pressuring the President and G8 leaders to make donations they were already committed to making is hardly the stuff of political courage.

In that spirit, a clip from an excellent movie about the war this song was written to end.



After that self-righteous screed, you'll need a little dose of the indominatable Richard Cheese (the contrast between Cheese's cheese and Bono's ire could not be more brilliant or more hilarious).



Here's their more recent, shitty, garbled, acoustic version for the Clinton Presidential library dedication.



And my favorite cover by you know who.



But nothing really holds a stick to Bono's performance, back in the day, huh?



Get some testicular fortitude, boys. Risk some sanctimony.

Make music like this again.

"Caring educator"

A story, today, in my hometown paper, the Lawrence Journal World, is a nice reminder of what really matters in life.

Officer remembered as caring educator

Real men and women don't have to go around swaggering about, proving how tough they are all the time. It's the fuckin' poseurs who sit behind desks, and those too callous to the harm they inflict, who romanticize tough when better and less destructive options are available.

Meaning, it's the weak who romanticize tough when other less destructive options are available or when its really not their place, at all, to impose themselves. People like Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal, Osama Bin Laden, and Mohammed Omar. Plenty of people in the United States and all over the world too close to those examples to be proud of themselves.

And David Dillon is a nice reminder of that fact that compassion does not mean soft, except to the weak.

Compassion is strength. In fact, it is this strength that more solidly than any other distinguishes the efforts of the West and liberal democracies from the efforts of the more repressive forces of the world.

In a world where the weak and the insecure are always turning to tough and denigrating compassion to avoid facing themselves, it's nice to know that people like David Dillon spent some time here, if only for awhile.

That's what I want people saying at my funeral. I don't want some asshole talking about what a "tough sum bitch," I was. That will be apparent from my life, well enough.

I want people to remember what a big heart I had. And that I was someone who gave having a big heart a good name. And that I'd gladly kick the ass and anyone who said different, if need be.

Thank you, Officer Dillon. You'll be missed.