Politics

Apparently there’s some controversy about University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill speaking at a college in New York because he wrote an essay back in 2001 calling the September 11 victims in the World Trade Center “little Eichmanns,” among other insults. Good. The only reason it didn’t happen earlier is because folks were a bit too shocked at the time to notice one more in a series of ignorant essays, but it looks like, paraphrasing what Mr. Churchill says, that the chickens do come home to roost. ...

Despite Alberto Gonzales’ role in the attempted justification of torture by this Administration, Republicans still voted for him in a straight party-line vote after his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. You know, I used to be Republican. I’ve found I can’t call myself that anymore without being ashamed when loyalty to the party means condoning torture. How are the Republicans — the party of “patriotism” — becoming so unpatriotic as to tacitly accept an un-American value as torture in the name of retaining power in Washington? ...

Another writer makes the mistake of assuming faith is only present in religious belief and gets called on it in a review by Reason. If faith is “belief in things unseen” — the definition I grew up with — it’s not hard to see that we run a substantial portion of our lives on faith. And if that is the case, it’s pretty obvious that just because some people do bad things because of their religious faith doesn’t somehow mean it is qualitatively different when others do bad things because of their faith in a utopian system, a strong leader, or Jodie Foster finally noticing them if they just assassinate that president. ...

According to Newsweek, one proposal before the Pentagon now is to use Special Forces soldiers and local paramilitaries to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, both in Iraq and if they crossed the border into Syria. Here’s a quote from Maj. Gen.Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service: “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.” ...

The legal fights continue, but the Washington state Democratic Party says their candidate, Christine Gregoire, has defeated Republican Dino Rossi by eight votes in the gubernatorial race. Link courtesy of Talking Points Memo

This article has the overblown title of " The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing," and it’s the Hoover Institution on Marxism, but it’s still interesting. “The Baran-Wallerstein revision of Marxism does provide a new global reformulation of the immiserization thesis. But the locus of this misery, the Third World, does not and cannot provide an adequate objective foundation for a revolutionary struggle against the capitalist system.” I would think an even larger problem is that there would be the need for an organized opposition representing and supported by the exploited, which is far more likely within a country than across the world. Is the identity of a global underclass really more powerful right now than so many religious, political, ethnic, and other identifications? ...

I find this essay interesting because it states one of my most fundamental political beliefs: Not every right is a Constitutional right. I doubt the author and I would agree on what issues and rights we thought important, but the ability to debate about that is an essential part of the democratic process. Link via Obsidian Wings

Over at Fafblog, the always insightful Medium Lobster comments on Donald Rumsfeld’s quest for a lighter, cheaper, faster military. “Few outside the White House have truly appreciated the hard work Secretary Rumsfeld has put into transforming America’s military, turning it from a large, cumbersome force slowly bogging itself down in one war after another, to a lighter, faster, smaller, more flammable army capable of losing numerous conflicts simultaneously.”

Brilliant. The state of Pennsylvania has just passed a law pretty much requiring that local governments make sure they aren’t going to compete with private companies when they offer broadband as a public service. Interesting precedent. I’d hate the be the municipality trying to put up the town’s first streetlight. Suppose one of the citizens decides to start his own system of flags and hand signals for the main intersection? Courtesy of Techdirt. ...

Fascinating interview by New Scientist with Michael Koubi, former chief interrogator with the Israeli security service Shin Bet, about his career and what he thought of Abu Ghraib. A very self-confident man, but somehow I believe him, except for the parts about there being little “physical pressure.” Somehow I don’t see that holding true in a lot of cases, although I would imagine folks are more susceptible to mental/emotional pressure than we often think. ...