Goodbye, Madeline L'Engle

Madeline L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle In Time and numerous other stories (my favorite of the series actually being A Swiftly Tilting Planet) died on September 6. She was 88 years old.

Quote of the day

"One is more sure of subjugating people's minds by frightening them, than by speaking to them of reason; for fear is an imperious passion." - Marquis de Condorcet

Change of plans

I didn't realize how much space my post on The Assault on Reason was going to take up, so I'm going to stagger the publishing of the other posts I have planned seeing as the others are longish, though not as long. (Plus, in the meantime I might go back and fix the numerous typos that are in the Gore post.)

That means tomorrow will be the review of Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter.

Update: I'm not going to have time to put up the review today, but it will 100% - barring some sort of unforseen occurrence - go up tommorow.

If you're wondering what happened, I'm tweaking the remaining two reviews (the othe being Tragic Legacy) slightly so as to develop a general theme through the three.

Oh, and the review of Our Endangered Values is going to be about the same length as my post on The Assault on Reason, afterall.

In defense of reason

"The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defense of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to 'Defender of the Faith' than George the Third." - Thomas Paine, American Crisis II

"The Republic of Letters" Paine referenced was the Enlightenment belief that self-government is made possible by reasoned communication; the "republic" thus consists of citizens taking part in a rational public discourse. It was from this idea that American democracy was born, and it is that idea that is now in danger.

So argues Al Gore in The Assault on Reason. (The introduction is available here.)

We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.

American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I am not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong.

The rest of the book is Gore's attempt to answer the following question:"Why do reason, logic, and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?"

Gore's central premise is that The Republic of Letters - the marketplace of ideas - has been replaced by a one way street: television.

Our Founders' faith in the viability of representative democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry, their ingenious design for checks and balances, and their belief that the rule of reason is the natural sovereign of a free people. The Founders took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas so that knowledge could flow freely. Thus they not only protected freedom of assembly, they made a special point—in the First Amendment—of protecting the freedom of the printing press. And yet today, almost 45 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers. Reading itself is in decline. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by the empire of television.

The use of tv commericials and polling data has led to voters consent being a commodity that can be manipulated and purchased according to Gore, with a subsequent disappearance of legitimate public discourse. He believes that the internet can possibly spark an intellectual revolution similar to what the printing press was able to accomplish, but that it must be protected so that it remains an open access commodity where knowledge is democratized.

As I read The Assault on Reason I typed up an outline of the general arguments, so my "review" of it is going to mostly just be me regurgitating the outline. Here we go.

Gore offers multiple factors for the decline of reason in public discourse, but the most looming cause that he sees in the central role that television has in our lives and the way that the marketplace of ideas has shrunk as a result of the concentration of the media in fewer and fewer hands. Under such circumstances, the marketplace of ideas is dissappearing and being replaced with a marketplace of products to be sold ... a commericialization of knowledge

The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas describes what has happened as “the refeudalization of the public sphere”. That may sound overly complex of obscure, but the phrase packs a lot of meaning. Feudalism, which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played almost no mediating role. The great masses of the people were denied acces to knowledge and, as a result, felt powerless.

Also, Gore delves into cognitive research into the way our brains process information, and believes that tv as a medium lends itself to demagogery

I believe that the vividness experienced in the reading of words is automatically modulated by the constant activation of the reasoning centers of the brain that are used in the process of cocreating the representation of reality the author has intended. By contrast, the visceral vividness of portrayed on television has the capacity to trigger instinctual responses similar to those triggered by reality itself – and without being modulated by logic reason, and reflective thought.

It should be no surprise that the current administration comes in for much criticism in contributing to the assault on reason. He explains that the Bush administration has used fear to short-circuit rational debate about the issues facing us as a nation. This is contrary to our national heritage, seeing as the founders understood fear perfectly well, yet established a Bill of Rights even after having fought a war in which their lives were at stake.

It was because fear was dominating our national discourse that almost 3/4 of America were led to believe that Saddam was behind 9/11 and it is why 40 percent of the country still thinks that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The press is supposed to have prevented that, but its failure to do so if further evidence that something is not right.

From here Gore goes into a description of neuroscience research on fear and then explains how tv can be used to generate vicarious fear experience that shortcuts reason by activating the emotional centers of the brain (see this excerpt - scroll past the interview - for more). He proposes to connect tv to the net to make it an interactive medium that involves the brain more.

He points out that the White House used fear-mongering to pursue a truly partisan agenda, listing as an egregious example of this Tom Delay using the Department of Homeland Security to track down Texas Democratic legislators who had fled the state to prevent a quorum in order to force redistricting. In part due to using a department supposed to catch terrorists to catch Democrats, Delay and Bush got 7 new Republican seats.

Gore views the absence of reason from the public sphere as opening the door to the mobilizing passions that are poisonous to democracy and the rule of law (I'm sure the reader will have an historical example come to mind)

If dogma and blind faith rush in to fill the vacuum left by reason’s departure, they allow for the exercise of new forms of power more arbitrary and less derived from the consent of the governed. In simple terms, when fear and anxiety play a larger role in our society, logic and reason play a diminished role in our collective decision making.

Unfortunately, the new expressions of power that surface in such circumstances often spring from the deep, posined wells of racism, ultranationalism, religious strife, anti-Semitisim, sexism, and homophobia, among others. And the passions thus mobilized are exploited most of all by those who claim divine authority to restore security and order.

But the absence of reason was not just exploited by the administration alone, no. There was also the noise machine

The progressive abandonment of concern for reason or evidence has required the administration to develop a highly effective propaganda machine with which it attempts to embed in the public mind mythologies that grow out of one central doctrine upon which all the special interests agree: government is very bad and should be done away with as much as possible - except the parts of it that redirect money through big congrtracts to industries that havewon their way in the inner circle.

This coalition gains access to the public through a cable of pundits, commentators, and "reporters" - call it the Limbaugh-Hannity-Drudge axis. This fifth cloumn in the fourth estate is made up of propagandists pretending to be journalists. Through multiple overlapping outlets covering radio, television, and the Internet, they relentlessly force-feed the American people right-wing talking points and ultra-conservative dogma disguised as news and infotainment - 24 hours a day, 7 days a wekk, 365 days a year. It is quite a spectacle.

What's more, Gore seems to have an understanding of the eliminationist current that runs through the conservative movement.

What is most troubling to me is the promotion of hatred as entertainment. Moreover, they [the conservative movement propagandists] have actively conspired to fan the flames of viscious hatred aimed at one group in particular: Americans with progressive political views. They speak of "liberals" with the kind of dripping contempt and virulent hostility that used to be associated with racism and sectarian strife. One of the best known right-wing commentators, Ann Coulter, advised her audience that she was in favor of executing an American citizen who had joined the taliban "in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed , too."

Gore then goes on to cite lawyer Edwin Viera's reference to the Stalin quote "death solves all problems: no man, no problem" in regards to "Satanic" Supreme Court Justices and Tom Delay's ambiguous threat of violence against judges (as backlash to the Schiavo affair.)

The emergence of an ultraconservative, antigovernment dogma that increasingly relies on the encouragement of mass hostility toward nonbelievers is an extremely troubling new development in America's public forum. As we've seen, it turns James Madison's prophesy on its head: A political faction has degenerated into a quasi-religious sect. It is a sect that sounds as if it believes America is in the early stages of an ideological civil war. It promotes its core beliefs as if they are impervious to reason. And it is is unleashing and encouraging ugly and violent impulses.

For readers that have been following along and/or reading Orcinus, that should sound quite familiar. It's nice to see this finally being said by someone with the prominence of Gore. But I digress ...

America, blinded by fear and left ignorant by a news media that did not inform them, did not even seem to notice the grave transformations that was changing the face of the nation.

The disclosure that our government had been cruelly and routinely torturing captured prisoners – and was continuing to do so as official policy – provoked surprisingly little public outcry, even though it threatened America’s values and moral authority in the world. Similarly, the disclosure that the executive branch had been conducting mass eavesdropping on American citizens without respecting the constitutional requirement that it obtain judicial warrants – and was continuing to do so – caused so little controversy that the Congress actually adopted legislation approving and affirming the practice. Yet this action threatened the integrity of the Bill of Rights, which is at the heart of America’s gift to humanity.

And a majority of Americans had endorsed attacking an illusory threat, seeing as Iraq did not attack us on 9/11. Gore finds it deeply troubling that so many Americans actually find President Bush's certainty even in the face of such adverse reality to be an admirable character trait

There are many people in both political parties who worry that there is something deeply troubling about President Bush’s relationship to reason, his disdain for facts, and his lack of curiousity about any new information that might produce a deeper understanding of the problems and policies that he is supposed to wrestle with on behalf of the country.

Yet Bush’s incuriousity and seeming immunity to doubt is sometimes interpreted by people who see and hear him on television as evidence of his conviction, even though it is this very inflexibility – this willful refusal even to entertain alternative opinions or conflicting evidence – that poses the most serious danger to our country.

Gore can not recall anyone questioning Bush's pronounced utopian goal to "rid the world of evil," nor did hardly anyone challenge the conflation of Bin Laden with Hussein. Using the language of religion and national security, Bush was able to bypass reason.

Anyone who questioned the President's assumption were accused of lacking patriotism or of supporting terrorism. Dissent was silenced within the Executive; General Shinseki and Major General John Batiste testified that anyone in the Pentagon who asked about postwar planning was threatened with being fired, and Gore finds it astonishing that the Iraq Survey Group actually had to recommend that the White house allow the military to speak with candor while giving honest recommendations without fear of retribution.

The CIA was under pressure to link Saddam and Al Qaeda under the threat of losing their jobs or promotion. Meanwhile, Bush had called the war on terror a "crusade" and General Boykins had stated that we are waging war with Satan, yet he was not fired for his remarks.

The entire enterprise was colored with deceit and deception, including the excuse that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the fault of "a few bad apples" when in fact it was the result of a top down "enhanced interrogation" program authorized at the highest levels of government. Bush has tried to fabricate reality in regards to Iraq as if reality is a "commodity that can be created and sold with clever propaganda and public relation skills."

Wondering if Bush believes his own bullshit, Gore states that is it difficult to know but quotes Orwell saying:

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Too true. But that hasn't stopped Bush yet.

Time and time again Gore sees reality giving away to illusion in the Bush administration: Iraq, climate change, budget surplus going from plus 5 trillion to minus 4 trillion all resulting from rejection of best available evidence in favor of accepting ideological premises.

Another factor that he identifies as being dangerous to democracy is the dogmatic and quasi-religious nature of the conservative movement.

I’ve alluded to James Madison’s warning .. that "a religious sect may degenerate into a political faction.” Now, with the radical Right, we have a political faction disguised as a religious sect, and the president of the United States is heading it. The obvious irony is that Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice that is anything but pious by the standards of any respected faith tradition I know.

It is from Bush's "rigid right-wing ideology" that his absolute certainty is derived, and Bush chooses policy in advance of the facts in order to benefit friends and supporters, and to enrich the wealthy.

Gore sees the conservative movement as a coalition of:
1. Economic royalists who want to eliminate their own taxation and remove regulatory obstacles. For them there is no such thing as public interest, laws and regulations are bad unless they serve the group which is why positions should be assigned to people who share their ideology. They want to eliminate the economic blueprint that established the middle class in 20th century. This group funds the think-tanks and foundantions that make up the noise machine.
2. Foreign policy hawks who believe they are waging an ideological war against dovish liberals in order to be able to put the United States military might to good use.
3. Fundamentalists who want to roll back the 20th century progressive and civil rights era

These three factions are united by the desire to turn the United States into an authoritarian banana republic.

What makes their zeal so dangerous to our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for a one-party domination of all three branches of government and the enactment of dogma as policy.

They seek nothing less than absolute power. Their grand design is an all-powerful executive using a weakened legislature to fashion a compliant judiciary in its own image. They endeavor to break down the separation of pwers. And in place of the current system, they seek to establish a system in which power is unified in the service of a narrow set of interests.

Gore quotes Hannah Arendt as an answer to the above, “The only remedy against the misuse of public power by private individuals lie in the public realm itself, in the very light which exhibits each deed enacted within its boundaries, in the very visibility to which it exposes all those who enter it.”

The Bush administration seeks to eliminate this "only remedy" by cloaking the actions of the Executive in secret. Increasingly, these actions are designed to benefit a select few - the ultra wealthy who have the money necessary to win influence with our elected officials. Plutocracy is replacing democracy.

Members of Congress feel pressured to campaign year round to raise money, as the person with the most money and the best ads usually wins. As a result, we get wealth substituting reason with propaganda.

That leads to the following occurring:

The elimination of the estate tax (which effects the super rich) was viewed as a higher priority than health care for millions of poor Americans. The insult to intelligence which is Bush's "clear skies" iniative and the appointing of lobbyists to regulatory positions over their own industries and letting Ken Lay (of Enron) write national energy policy. Bush lets corporations write his policy. Halliburton's no bid contract even though Cheney was receiving payments from them until 05. Billions disappeared from Iraq with no record of where they went. Terrorism recommendations were rejected because special interests didn’t want to do them (chemical, port security, etc.)The Medicare bill was written by pharmaceutical companies. Et cetera.

This is also antithetical to the founding principles of the nation. The Founders worried about "monopolies of commerce" that Jefferson wanted to ban in the Bill of Rights, states Gore.

Moving on, Gore contrasts how the United States regulated radio with the fairness doctrine and public service requirements meant to ensure that radio remained a democratic medium versus totalitarian regimes who used radio to consolidate power, which then lead into Gore relating the history of p.r. starting with Edward Bernays and the art of mass persuasion, then points out Walter Lippman saying elites should use propaganda to “manufacture consent" and concludes that a shrinking number of media voices yielding increased power for those remaining is indeed contributing to the manufacture of consent in this country.

President Bush himself chooses policy in advance of reasoned discussion and then uses Lippman-eque strategies to market those decisions to the public with propaganda while ignoring and supressing facts. Gore points out here that the White House doesn't seem to care at all about forged documents being responsible for a falsehood - that led to the US going to war -stated before a billion people in the 2003 State of the Union address or the aluminum tubes claim used to sell the invasion also being complete bunk.

After the attack of 9/11 Rumsfield tried to link al Qaeda to Iraq and the day after Bush tried to get Richard Clarke to do the same even after being told that there was no link. The White House while marketing a war with Iraq propagated the myth of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda which 70 percent of the country ended up believing despite there being no such link.

According to Gore, either Bush and Cheney et all believed their lies or they flat out lied – in either case they aren’t fit to lead the nation.

Gore sees the same distortion of facts in other areas of policy; the suppression of info, phony news and paid pundits, and the fake journalist Jeff Gannon used to sell policy decided irrespective of reality. In order to accomplish this the administration must actively seek to curb democratic discourse.

Thankfully, though, blogs are starting to act as a check on an inaccurate and servile media, but they aren't the answer, at least not yet, given that the administration has succesively rolled back individual liberties without backlash.

President Bush declared for himself the right to throw Americans in prison by calling them “unlawful enemy combatants." Gore compares the situtation of those detained by the US as suspects of terrorism to Kafka's The Trial in which the accused's condition is almost comically arranged to assure his/her guilt.

In the name of pursuing terrorism, the administration has attacked civil liberties by spying on peaceful citizens, checking mail, violating FISA, etc.

However, none of this is necessary to combat terrorism, as Gore builds a case that 9/11 could have been prevented without breaking any laws, given that the information necessary to stop the plot was available but ignored. He cites the Markle Foundation analysis which found that better analysis of existed data -rather than increased data - would have led to the hijackers having been tracked and identified.

Gore points out the warnings of upcoming terrorism that were ignored. Ashcroft told the FBI that he didn’t want to hear any more about it, Director Pickard alleges. The CIA also worried and tried to warn, yet Codoleeza Rice blew them off.

Bush was shown the CIA report “Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.” Gore recounts how when Clinton received similar type warnings about the Olympics and other possible attacks they convened immediately meetings with agencies to discuss preparation measures. Gore states that this is what any “reasonable person” would do. In contrast, what did Bush do? He told the CIA officer who briefed him dismissively, “All right. You’ve covered your ass now.”

Not only does the Bush administration's approach to terrorism violate the human rights standards that the nation stands for, it's plain counter-productive.

Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United Staets and recruits for al-Qaeda, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to the defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of “dominance”, we should be seeking preeminence in a world where nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values.

Problems that need addressing through the sort of world effort that the current administration is undermining include:Global warming, world water crisis, global terrorism, global challenge of drugs and corruption, Hiv/AIDS and other pandemics.

America ignoring the rule of law and turning its back on international agreements gets in the way of dealing with the above issues and it is now imperative that the United States repair its standing in the world and improve global opinion of the U.S.

“The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.” - Thomas Jefferson

As I've already mentioned, the book is full of such quotes. Back to the text ...

Our moral authority is our greatest source of strength, and that is precisely what Bush has eroded:

In almost every policy area, the administration’s consistent goal has been to eliminate any constraints – whether by law, regulation, alliance or treaty – on their exercise of raw power. And in the process it has caused America to be seen by the other nations of the world as holding contempt and disdain for the international community.

The disdain that this administration demonstrates in its approach to all international agreements and treaties is similar to its contempt for rational debate based on reason and evidence in our national politics and public discourse. Rather than trusting that the international public forum can produce agreements that benefit all participants, the Bush-Cheney administration has an avowed foreign policy goal of unilateralism: Power is more important than compromise, and dominance is more important than international law.

The U.S. have weakened Article 51 of the U.N. charter making the world a more dangerous place.

We encouraged Afghans to fight the USSR in 80s, but abandoned them after and then the Taliban take root. We have now made the same mistake, diverting our attention from helping to build a democracy in Afghanistan to invading Iraq for ideological reasons.

The administration renounced the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty about which Hans Blix stated, “No single measure would today give greater encouragement to global arms control than an acceptance by all states of the Comprehensive Test Ban Tready.” Instead the administration wants more nuclear weapons – Gore calls this “utter madness” - which will potentialy spark a global arms race.

America announced first strike nuclear considerations – itself an incentive to other nations to procure nuclear weapons.

The U.S. weakened the Non Proliferation Treaty and failed to fund the Nunn-Lugar amendment which would have provided resources to secure loose nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.

The U.S. violation of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty and nearing readiness to violate the Outer Space Treaty looks like an effort to military dominate space which in Gore's view should instead be something that allows the planet to set aside differences and work in unison towards new goals (think Star Trek ... that kind of vibe.)

Gore points out how the U.S. didn’t approve of China’s recent shooting down of a satellite, but our fiat is not a substitute for international law. 'Do as we say not as we do' is not law.

Furthermore, terrorists are not going to attack from outer space.

Bush was unwilling to endorse any new verification measures to support the Biological Weapons Convention. The U.S. worked towards sabotage the International Criminal Court instead of particpating in the global debate and leading the world to a beneficial agreement.

Gore says perhaps it is no surprise Bush is opposed to the ICC when he doesn't even want to comply with US laws, much less the Geneva conventions. Bush urged Congress for America to become the first country to repudiate the Geneva Conventions.

All of these unilateral acts have served to erode the good standing of the nation - Gore makes the analogy that this is as grave an error as turning the surplus into a deficit:

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, we had an enormous resvoir of goodwill and sympathy from all over the world. That has been squandered and replaced with great anxiety all around the world, not primarily about what the terrorists might do, but about what we might do. My point is not that other nations are right to feel that way, but that they do feel that way. Squandering all that goodwill and replacing it with anxiety is similar to what was done in turning a projected $5trillion surplus into a projected cumulative deficit of $4 trillion.

Worldwide terrorist attack increased fourfold in 2005. Iraq has been turned into central recruiting office for terrorists. The "war on terror" is not working.

Meanwhile, at Walter Reed medical facility nothing was done about the poor conditions injured soldiers were being subjected to until the Washington Post uncovered it – even though administration members had known. That alone should have lost the administration any ability whatsoever to dare to challenge anyone to "support the troops."

General Joseph Hoar, former head of the U.S. Marine Corps, told Congress, "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.” And General Zinni said we are “headed over Niagra Falls." The point is that Iraq is a disaster but the administration will not listen, much less, acknowledge reason and reality.

Instead of invading Iraq, we should have stayed in Afhganistan and worked towards building a democracy where the enemies who attacked us on 9/11 actually were. Gore recounts how he felt betrayed when we abandoned Kurds and Marsh Arabs after Gulf War, and feels we have done something similar to the people of Afghanistan.

Gore spoke against Saddam Hussein in 1988 after he used poison gas became the first to break the taboo that had stood since World War I (Bush/Reagan supported him then.) He contrasts the differences between then and now, including that the Gulf War coalition paid for most of the war, instead now America paid for it. Actually, the middle class paid for it, since Bush cut taxes for the super rich.

Bush campaigned basically on the premiese of “give me an AUMF or we’ll die” in 2002 so he could invade Iraq. Needless to say, Gore considers this to be a blatant attempt to use fear to circumvent democratic debate.

Rumsfield shut down a program at the U.S. Army War College that was focused on post-invasion stabilization and blackballed State Department officials planning nation building for the occupation. The administration believed that if it stuck its head in the sand the reality of having to deal with such matters would magically disappear.

The Founders understood human nature and wanted to use reason to rule rather than authoritarian fiat. They implemented checks and balances to prevent too much power concentrating in too few hands, for concentration of power reduces the space for deliberative reason. They understood that war presidents can gather more power which is part of why they gave Congress the sole authority to authorize war. Congress should not have vested its war powers with Bush.

I am convinced that our Founders would counsel us today that one of the greatest challenges facing our Republic, in addition to terrorism, as serious as that threat is – is how we react to terrorism and how we manage our fears and achieve security without losing our freedom. I am also convinced that they would warn us that democracy itself is in grave danger if we allow any president to use his role as commander in chief to rupture the careful balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

The Founders knew that democracy ended in Rome when Caesar marched back across the Rubicon still in command of the army. Bush has symbolically done the same, declaring that we are at war for the rest of our lives, with Bush even militarizing domestic law enforcement, turning the NSA against the USA and saying his powers to pursue terrorists apply to US citizens, essentially declaring the Constitution null and void.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our gov’t. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a gov’t of laws and not men. Indeed,they recognized that the structure of gov’t they had enshrined in our constitution – our system of checks and balances – was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: “The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a governmentt of laws and not of men.”

The rule of law has been overturned by Bush's use of signing statements. Bush negotiated passage of laws by allowing certain amendments to be passed, while then issuing signing statements asserting his right to ignore those very amendments rather than have to veto the law and face Congressional challenge.

Bush has packed the judiciary with loyalists and avoids letting it rule whenever he is not confident he’ll get the decision he wants.

Republicans in Congress are now threatening to end the judiciary’s independence. The extremist fundamentalist Tony Perkins met with politicians and discussed defundng courts they don’t like. Gore quotes a former Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, “There does seem to be this misunderstanding out there that our system was created with a completely independent judiciary.”

Gore answers that with a quote from Alexander Hamilton:

The independence of judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious opporessions of the minor party in the community.

In addition, the Federalist Society has attacked the judiciary and sought to expand the power of the executive. This is being done with funding from the right-wing Olin, Bradley, Scafe, and Koch foundations.

Congress has addicated its role and elections are now almost formality. Money is more important than the voters. Democracy is in danger.

"If democracy doesn’t work, people become cynical and lose confidence in the ability of the system to meet their needs and desires. What happens when a generation is raised that lacks the confidence in our democratic system?" [I put quotes around that, but I'm not sure if that is what Gore wrote or that was me summarizing his argument, my notes are unclear on that and its been too long since I read the book.]

At any rate, Gore explains

Our political system today does not engage the best minds in our country to help us get the answers and deploy the resources we need to move into the future. Bringing these people in – with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources – is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve the problems we face, before it’s too late. Our goal must be to find a new way of unleashing our collective intelligence in the same way that markets have unleashed our collective productivity. “We the people” must reclaim and revitalize the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our constitution.”

Better education is necessary but not sufficient. Well educated people can fall into ideology - the 20th century taught us that. We must have democratic discouse, citizens must be able to input into conversation. Towards that goal Gore offers the following suggestions:
- We should have real debates in Congress, and they should be scheduled in prime time
- Limit campaign contributions, increase public financing of campaigns and the transparency in funding.
- Protect net neutrality from an encroaching cable duopoly.

Gore concludes that, “The rule of reason is the true sovereign in the American system," and continues:

The question before us could be of no greater moment: Will we continue to live as a people under the rule of law as embodied in our Constitution? Or will we fail future generations by leaving them a Constitution far diminished from the charter of liberty we have inherited from our forebears? Our choice is clear.

Indeed.

On schedule so far ...

I will be putting up today's itinerary item - the review of Al Gore's Assault on Reason - up tonight when I get a chance.

In the meantime, you can play the name Glenn Greenwald's new book game.

I didn't put more than 5 seconds of thought into it, but the title I suggested was:

"Real Men": How fat, lazy, cowardly, stupid, corrupt, craven liars in the GOP pretend to be something they're not.

The best title I've seen in the comments so far is:

Codpiece Conservatives: Exploring the Myth of the Republican Macho Man

Oh yeah, by the way, the new book is about how the conservative movement demonizes "liberals" as effiminate while potrarying itself as manly.

Towards a monarchical President

Glenn Greenwald has a post up today about Cheney aide David Addington salivating at the prospect of another terrorist attack on US soil because it will allow he and ideological compatriots to get rid of that pesky FISA law which prevents the federal government from spying on US citizens without a warrant.

I thought it might be proper to point out that Addington was part of the staff that developed the Congressional minority report in 1987 which stated that sometimes the President can utilize his "monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the laws."

These folks are that bad, and yet, as Greenwald points out, Congress gives them pretty much everything they want.

Perhaps most infuriating is the fact that, as it turns out, violating these laws in secret was not even necessary -- because Congress was, and still is, more than happy to legalize whatever they wanted to do. Almost immediately after the Supreme Court finally imposed some mild limitations on the President's detention and interrogation powers -- first in Hamdi, then in Hamdan -- Congress, as Goldsmith says, "promptly passed a law that gave him everything he asked for, authorizing many aspects of the military commissions that the Supreme Court had struck down."

And the terrorist bomb about which David Addington was fantasizing in order to get rid of FISA was equally unnecessary, since the Democratic Congress, in the face of the types of threats Goldsmith recounts Addington routinely made -- "the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands" -- just eviscerated the crux of FISA's protections by law. Hence, what began as the administration's illegal and secret abuses have become the legally sanctioned policies of the United States.

Like Chalmers Johnson said, we're a boat on the Niagra River and we're headed for a fall unless something changes.

Blog itinerary

Ok, hopefully the rest of the week will go something like this:
Wed. - Review of The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
Thurs. - Review of Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter
Fri. - Review of Tragic Legacy by Glenn Greenwald
Sat. - Part ... I forget, I think we're on 4 ... of "Neal Boortz is a moron"

An idiot and delusional

Testing the 30 Second Rule today, I flipped to Limbaugh and he was saying that there is more acreage of forest today than there was when the country was founded. Why? Because they didn't know how to manage forest fires.

Ok, that's plainly idiotic (and false.) But here's the delusional part ... Limbaugh was citing this as an example of the "liberals" not being able to face reality if it conflicts with their political ideology since he made this claim in the mid 90s and was refuted*

LIMBAUGH: "Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the constitution was written." (Radio show, 2/18/94)

REALITY: In what are now the 50 U.S. states, there were 850 million acres of forest land in the late 1700s vs. only 730 million today (The Bum's Rush, p. 136). Limbaugh's claim also ignores the fact that much of today's forests are single-species tree farms, as opposed to natural old-growth forests which support diverse ecosystems.

There is some kind of psycho-pathology involved here. Rush is a nihilistic relativist capable of believing anything if it suits his political purposes. It's both amazing and disturbing, you can actually hear him on the radio making up reality as he goes along (e.g. they didn't know how to put out forrest fires is why there was less acreage then). And there are millions of people who take what he has to say as gospel and a political movement that attempts to curry favor with this buffoon.

*Plenty of other absurdities at the link. My personal favorite is Rush saying that there are more native Americans alive today than when Columbus landed or at any time in history.

Idiot-in-Chief

James Fallows caught a truly amazing statement from President Bush. Bush does not know or recall why the Iraqi military was disbanded at the start of the occupation.

This is the Commander-in-Chief of our nation's armed forces?

How in the hell can Congress not be doing everything possible to stop this walking disaster of a president from doing any more damage?

On a tangential note, I see from the link that Fallows's truly excellent piece of reporting "Blind into Baghdad" about why the occupation has gone so poorly is available on-line. If you haven't yet read it I'd recommend taking a look.

Innocent until proven guilty, then innocent anyway (if you're conservative).

Via Glenn Greenwald

Thomas Sowell, from his Townhall column today:

We all believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. Some on the left believe that they are innocent even after being proven guilty.

Thomas Sowell, March 2007, on Lewis Libby's conviction on four felony counts:

In the course of this pointless investigation, it turned out that some of Scooter Libby's statements conflicted with the statements of some reporters. So Libby was prosecuted for perjury and obstruction of justice -- and a Washington jury convicted him.

Not only did Libby's recollections differ from that of some reporters, some of those reporters differed among themselves as to what had been said and some differed in their later testimony from what they had said in their earlier testimony.

The information about Joe Wilson's wife was so incidental and trivial at the time that it is hardly surprising that it was not fixed in people's minds as something memorable. Only later hype in the media made it look big.

With Libby handling heavy duties in the White House, there is no reason for his memory to be expected to be better than that of others about something like this -- much less to convict him of perjury. . . .

A man's life has been ruined because his memories differed from that of others -- whose memories also differed among themselves -- and media liberals are exulting as if their conspiracy theories had been vindicated.

Or, put another way, Sowell -- like most of the Bush-following movement -- believes Libby to be innocent even after he was proven guilty.

Like I said before:

Double standard and hypocrisy in and of themselves don't upset me all that much. What really gets me is that the double standard and hypocrisy are part of what Neiwert has termed a projection strategy of folks like Coulter, Hannity, Malkin, O'Reilly, et all who demonize their political opponents as extremist thugs while providing cognitive cover for their own extremist ranks which they manage not to ever realize exists by accusing their enemies of what they themselves are guilty of.

Which is pretty similar to what Greenwald had to say about this, too.

Neither Thomas Sowell nor this specific episode, standing alone, is particularly significant, but I cannot help being endlessly amazed by the capacity of right-wing authoritarians so blatantly to hold and espouse completely contradictory thoughts at once without realizing they are doing it.

Indeed, it's remarkable. But I suppose it isn't that surprising considering we're dealing with a movement whose biggest media star thinks that carrots are deadlier than cigarettes.

Video of the Day

"Upside Down" by Jack Johnson

Thomas Hobbes, prophet?

I was looking over the writings of Thomas Hobbes, and I came across this eerily startling passage from 1628

In those days it was impossible for any man to give good and profitable counsel for the commonwealth, and not incur the displeasure of the people.

For their opinion was such of their own power, and the facility of achieving whatsoever action they undertook, that such men only swayed the assemblies, and were esteemed wise and good commonwealths men, as did put them upon the most dangerous and desperate enterprises.

Whereas he that gave them temperate and discreet advice, was thought a coward, or not to understand, or else to malign their power. And no marvel: for much prosperity (to which they had now for many years been accustomed) maketh men in love with themselves; and it is hard for any man to love that counsel which maketh him love himself the less.

And it holdeth much more in a multitude, than in one man. For a man that reasoneth with himself, will not be ashamed to admit of timorous suggestions in his business, that he may the stronglier provide; but in public deliberations before a multitude, fear (which for the most part adviseth well, though it execute not so) seldom or never sheweth itself or is admitted.

By this means it came to pass amongst the Americans, who thought they were able to do anything, that wicked men and flatterers drave them headlong into those actions that were to ruin them; and the good men either durst not oppose, or if they did, undid themselves.

Could it be that Hobbes was gifted with a vision of America circa 2001 - today? Well, no actually. The above excerpt is actually Hobbes summarizing the account in Thucydides of the decay of Athenian democracy. I just substituted "Americans" for "Athenians" in the original text.

But the parallels are striking, as noticed by Simon Blackburn in Plato's Republic: A Biography.

Surely it is impossible to read this without reflecting on the parallels in our own time, whether in Washington or London, when the war drums beat and the governments falsify the information, conspire with the proprietors of the press, bully the judiciary, employ known criminals, lie about the results, destroy civil liberties, and of course are deaf to any source of counsel that ‘maketh them love themselves the less.'

If you're wondering what this has to do with Republic, it is that Blackburn had made the point in his essay that the character Thrasymachus in the text can be seen as the literary representative of the ethic of the infamous Athenian envoys from the Melian dialogue in The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Melians. To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.
Athenians. If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you, we will give over; otherwise we will go on.
Melians. It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose.
Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences - either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us - and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Blackburn also feels that the Athenian envoys and Thrasymachus are the intellectual ancestors of today's neoconservatives.

It's still a socialist plot

At Crooks and Liars, Steve Bennen linked to Paul Krugman's "A Socialist Plot" op-ed and quoted the following passage

Suppose, for a moment, that the Heritage Foundation were to put out a press release attacking the liberal view that even children whose parents could afford to send them to private school should be entitled to free government-run education.

They’d have a point: many American families with middle-class incomes do send their kids to school at public expense, so taxpayers without school-age children subsidize families that do. And the effect is to displace the private sector: if public schools weren’t available, many families would pay for private schools instead.

So let’s end this un-American system and make education what it should be — a matter of individual responsibility and private enterprise. Oh, and we shouldn’t have any government mandates that force children to get educated, either. As a Republican presidential candidate might say, the future of America’s education system lies in free-market solutions, not socialist models.

O.K., in case you’re wondering, I haven’t lost my mind, I’m drawing an analogy. The real Heritage press release, titled “The Middle-Class Welfare Kid Next Door,” is an attack on proposals to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Such an expansion, says Heritage, will “displace private insurance with government-sponsored health care coverage.” […]

But thinking about how we’d react if they said the same things about education helps dispel the fog of obfuscation right-wingers use to obscure the true nature of their position on children’s health. The truth is that there’s no difference in principle between saying that every American child is entitled to an education and saying that every American child is entitled to adequate health care.

While I agree with Bennen that this is an excellent analogy that should be used to point out to Americans the intellectual bankruptcy of acting as if labeling something "socialist" is automatically a refutation of it, it's also important to realize that "free market" ideologues will look at Krugman's column and believe it in actuality means that we should do away with public education, too.

Take, for instance, Neal Boortz. He's fond of saying that public education was listed by Marx and Engels as one of the essential planks of communism and considers this to be an argument against American public schools (which he calls "goverment schools".) Both communists and the American federal government want to use public education to brainwash children, according to Boortz, which is why he is favor of privatizing schooling and other measures of "choice" such as vouchers and homeschooling.

I find it terribly fascinating that Boortz - who speaks on such matters quite authoritatively - can manage to miss the simple point that the same sort of reasoning can be applied to his own position.

The "choice" movement is itself championed by Christian Reconstructionists who consider themselves Christian libertarians.

Mainstream outlets like the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post are finally starting to take note of the influence Rushdoony and his followers have exerted for years in American conservative circles. But a second part of the story, of particular interest to readers of this magazine, is the degree to which Reconstructionists have gained prominence in libertarian causes, ranging from hard-money economics to the defense of home schooling. "Christian economist" Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law and star polemicist of the Reconstructionist movement, is widely cited as a spokesman for free markets, if not exactly free minds; he even served for a brief time on the House staff of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 1988, when Paul was a member of Congress in the '70s. For his part, Rushdoony has blandly described himself to the press as a critic of "statism" and even as a "Christian libertarian." Say what?

So where as Boortz is worried that public education is a secret communist plot to brainwash our children (as opposed to a democratic measure meant to provide all citizens the tool they need to be free and functioning citizens), he's oblivious to the fact that his own point-of-view is shared by people whom he loathes (Boortz frequently criticizes fundamentalists) and who have already explicitly stated that their goal is to brainwash children into their cause.

"So let us be blunt about it. We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God." - Gary North

Boortz also seems to have overlooked that Enlightenment champions of capitalism - such as Thomas Paine - were advocates of public education well before Marx.

Excerpt of the day

From Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations by Craig Nelson

This pamphlet for the greater good would all but destroy Paine’s American reputation, and its drafting would offer a profound insight into the author’s very character. If there is any moment in his life that reveals Paine as the Enlightenment’s most adamantine evangelist, it is this. For exactly what kind of man, with dozens of friends either imprisoned or dead by guillotine or by their own hand, with his own life directly imperiled, and expecting at any moment the knock at the door and the presentation of the warrant – just what kind of human being would write a book under such conditions, and call it The Age of Reason?”

Quote of the day

"Each day he grew older and learned something new." - Solon, speaking of himself in the third person

That might sound like egotistical boasting, but it is apparently true that Solon was one of the wisest political figures in world history .

The legacy of the CIA

Jim Lippard has been reading Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA and has written a somewhat extensive outline of the agency's work from 1953 - 1961 that is quite informative.

For more on the book, here's an audio interview with the author and the New York Times review.

See no evil, hear no evil, call your political opponent evil

In the post of Dave Neiwert's that I mentioned on Tuesday Mr. Neiwert links to Tim Grieve at Salon who wonders what Sean Hannity would have to say if some left-leaning singer said the sort of comments that Ted Nugent made.

Well, Grieve doesn't have to speculate because, as one of the commenters at Dispatches from the Culture Wars pointed out, on the May 2, 2007 edition of Hannity & Colmes the show featured commentary on Rage Against the Machine lead singer Zach de la Rocha saying on stage that the current administration "should be hung (sic), tried, and shot" for being war criminals. And guess who was one of the guests that was appalled by the comments ... yep, Ted "suck on my machine gun" Nugent.

Now, before I go on let me take a moment and make something clear. I think that calling for the execution of the President (or anyone for that matter) is extremist behavior that deserves to be denounced. At the same time, however, I'm not going to throw away my Rage Against the Machine cds (I've got 'em all), just like I'm not going to throw away my Damn Yankees cds - that's right ... cds ... I own all two albums that were released by that wuss rock supergroup. What bothers me is the double standard and hypocrisy of Sean Hannity who uses incidents like de la Rocha's to demonize his political opponents while defending as harmless the comments of his good friend Nugent.

Again, let me clarify. Double standard and hypocrisy in and of themselves don't upset me all that much. What really gets me is that the double standard and hypocrisy are part of what Neiwert has termed a projection strategy of folks like Coulter, Hannity, Malkin, O'Reilly, et all who demonize their political opponents as extremist thugs while providing cognitive cover for their own extremist ranks which they manage not to ever realize exists by accusing their enemies of what they themselves are guilty of.

As I noted quite awhile back, projection from the right has become such a common
phenomenon that it's now a very useful gauge in guessing where the right is taking us next:

Indeed, one of the lessons I've gleaned from carefully observing the behavior of the American right over the years is that the best indicator of its agenda can be found in the very things of which it accuses the left.

Whether it's sexual improprieties, slander, treason, or unhinged behavior, it doesn't matter: if the right is jumping up and down accusing the left of it, you can bet they're busy engaging in it themselves by an exponential factor of a hundred.

For a long time, I really believed that this was simply the right acting out on its own psychological predisposition. But as it's gathered volume and momentum -- especially as the right has avidly accused the left of the very thuggishness, both rhetorical and real, in which it is increasingly indulging -- a disturbing trend began to emerge:

What is particularly interesting about this kind of projection by conservatives is that it then (as the comments indicate) becomes a pretext for even further eliminationist rhetoric against liberals -- and eventually, for exactly the kind of "acting out" of rhetoric that Van Der Leun foresees from liberals.

In other words, for a number of the right's leading rhetoricians, the projection appears to be perfectly conscious: it is a strategy, designed to marginalize their opposition and open the field to nearly any behavior it chooses.

While I imagine that there are some figures in the conservative movement who consciously make an effort to use such "projections strategy," it seems to me that most do so as a consequence of the arrested mental development that has resulted from their authoritarian mindset. If you remember in Chapter 3 of the The Authoritarians, Altemeyer points out that massive doses of double standard, hypocrisy, and self-blindness are norms of everyday life for authoritarians.

Before we go on to look at the transcript, it might be a good idea to pause to re-read Chapter 3 as it will help provide a framework in which to view the remarkable behavior that we are going to witness in said transcript. In addition, it also applies to the display (also see here) that Greenwald documented in regards to Senator Larry Craig (perhaps more so in regards to compartmentalized thinking). Go ahead, I'll wait ...

Allright, then. Ready to take a look at the transcript? I hate to introduce another digression, but let's take a quick moment and recall Hannity's reaction to Ted Nugent standing on stage with machine guns saying that "piece of shit" Barack Obamana, Hillary Clinton, and Barbara Boxer can suck on them or ride them into the sunset while also stating that Dianne Feinstein is a "worthless whore."

Ok, then. On to the transcript (bolded emphasis of double-standard mine)

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Jane, here's the bigger question. If you say ever that you want to shoot the president of the United States, I view that as a threat. And I think, for that reason alone, that the Secret Service should investigate. Is it right or wrong?

FLEMING: It will be interesting to see if the Secret Service actually does that. Somebody posed that question on a blog. And so we'll see what happens.

HANNITY: But wouldn't you want that? I mean, if it's Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton? No, no, that will never happen.

This is quite remarkable. Nugent threatened shooting Hillary Clinton and yet Hannity violated his own previous remark and didn't care. The self-blindness it takes to accomplish this on national television without being embarrased to the point of quitting one's job is staggering. Yet Hannity has no shame whatsoever. As Neiwert pointed out in his post on this subject, Hannity went so far as to defensively insult Bob Beckel by insinuating that he's somehow more of an outrageous figure that Nugent when Beckel told Hannity that he should never have Nugent on his show again.

But it gets worse.

HANNITY: All right, Ted Nugent, look, I'm with you, Ted, about free speech. And, by the way, welcome back, my friend.

NUGENT: Thank you. We have some lightning here.

HANNITY: But you can't say — you can't threaten the president of the United States. I would think you agree with that.

NUGENT: You think? Yes, you know, we disagreed with a lot of administrations in the past, but none of our rhetoric included, you know, threatening lives. These guys are over the top. But they're lunatic fringe that even your average Democrat liberal doesn't agree with. But, unfortunately, nobody is silencing these guys, or not necessarily silencing, but condemning this outrageous violence that they're recommending.

HANNITY: Look, that's the point. If you threaten the president of the United States, I think that's a pretty — that's over the line. And the bottom line is, this is the president. Ann Coulter, this is the president of our country. You threaten to shoot the president, you're going to get under investigation, and you are going to, perhaps, get arrested. That's a terroristic threat.

COULTER: Right, right. No, and for good reason...

First, you have Nugent for the second time self-righteously pontificating about not engaging in violent rhetoric (the other time - and it's in Neiwert's post - being his response that a blogger who made comments about shooting Rush Limbaugh and Nugent should be arrested). Secondly, you have the queen of mean Coulter aggreeing with Hannity that such people should be investigated and possibly arrested. That's pretty damn bold of Coulter to agree with Hannity about anyone threatening the life of the President needing to be investigated and possibly arrested given that she had previously said that the US needed to decide whether to impeach or assasinate President Bill Clinton.

But even when Colmes pointed this out to Coulter she still managed to be blind to her own hypocrisy.

COLMES: Should you have been investigated when you said about Bill Clinton, "The only issue is whether to impeach or assassinate"? Should you have been investigated for that?

COULTER: No, that was a serious legal point…

COLMES: ... where he should be impeached or assassinated? You should not have been investigated for that?

COULTER: If this were a civilized country, that would be the question.

The worst bit from the transcript, however, is Hannity saying the following:

I would argue this is coming from the Harry Reids and the Democrats in Washington, that it's building an atmosphere where it's acceptable to push this language to the point where now we have bands on stage talking about shooting the president?

A little background info: Rage Against the Machine is a band with left-wing politics that has been super critical of the United States for as long as the group has been together (since the early 90s) and they have a history of romantacizing extremist figures such as Che Guevara and Huey Newton. To suggest that Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats somehow influenced the politics of RATM is 100 percent absurd.

But that doesn't matter, as Hannity is working from the ideological Truth that liberals are Evil the United States must be delivered from, thus the extremist comments of the left-wing de la Rocha are a consequence of moderate centrist figures in Congress not being conservative movement loyalists to President Bush.

Here we have the projection strategy in full effect. Joining in on the fun, Coulter soon after in the transcript states that she's sick of the "both sides" do it response because "liberals" are clearly worse.

Again, it is difficult to wrap one's head around just how detached from reality the comments of Coulter and Hannity are, as they indeed are doing precisely what they are accusing their political opponents of. I could literally do a post the length of my current entire blog front page with nothing of examples of those two demonizing "liberals," but I'm just going to throw out the first examples from the top of my head.

How about Hannity doing a segment on his Sunday show where he equates Hollywood celebs with dictators and ominously names them "Enemy of the State"* which has traditionally been a term used by dictators to target political opponents for elimination or Coulter writing in Godless

Liberals are not demanding that tax payer money be used for research on toenail clipping. That would not advance their governing principle, which is to always kill human life (unless the human life being killed is likely to fly a plane into American skyscrapers, in which case, it is wrong to kill it.)"

Or better yet, how about any of this stuff? How about this, then? Does any of that count against "conservatives"? Of course not, not in Fox News world. In that alternate dimension "conservatives" are Good and "liberals" are Evil and that's that.

Returning to Newiert's post, he mentions that one of the seminal texts of conservative movement projection is Michelle Malkin's Unhinged. I concur, and have written previously about Malkin's bizarro world reaction to Ann Coulter's hate-mongering.

One of the primary reasons that Malkin feels justified in demonizing "liberals" as unhinged is that she receives hate mail. It seems to have never occurred to Mrs. Malkin that figures whom she considers "liberals" might also receive hate mail and that it possibly is typical that public figures - especially polarizing public figures such as herself - get hate mail.

So Malkin gets hate mail and that means "the left" is unhinged. Contrast that with the response of this prominent self-described liberal.

The last time I appeared on C-SPAN I did a call-in show in which I talked about Saturday Night Live and political humor for about half an hour. A few days later, I received this letter:

To the Jew Franken:
I saw you on C-SPAN, and I always knew you were a fag Jew. You fucking faggot. I know you spend all your faggot time on your hands and knees getting fucked in the ass by fellow Jew faggot Barney Frank while you suck off that faggot Gerry Studds.

And I thought to myself, "He could tell all this from one little interview?"

See, the reality is that there are jerks out there across the political spectrum who will respond with hate to people they disagree with. But what the Fox News crowd does is legitimize the hate that is directed towards "liberals" by pretending that it does not exist or that is an abberation when it occurs. They maintain the belief that "liberals" are uniquely unhinged even when their fans send hate mail and death threats and fake anthrax letters to targets of their ire. They maintain these beliefs even when, as in the Greenwald posts that Neiwert links to, one of Malkin's blogroll members calls for the death of Supreme Court justices or provides satellite photos of the home address of an employee of the New York Times.

Yet, in the face of that happening you get someone like Bill O'Reilly telling his audience of millions that Media Matters is dangerous because it is hypothetically capable of doing what his go-to guest host's pet blogs are already doing in actuality.

The program Fox and Friends - which if you can remember the old Will Ferrel Chery Oteri skits about vapid and inane morning programs is like that but with the zombie hosts mindlessly shilling for a political agenda - itself went out of its way to attempt to white-wash Nugent's comments out of existence. If you watch the video clip provided at that link, you'll notice host Greg Kelly saying multiple times that he couldn't tell what Nugent was saying on stage but got the impression that he was angry with Obama and Clinton for some reason. This is difficult to believe given that the audio is plainly understandable; besides that, a transcript is readily available. Kelly is so emphatic about it that one is left with the sneaking suspicion that he was acting on orders from the producers.

To get an idea of how disengenuous all these Fox News folks are, imagine for a moment what would the network's reaction be if Rosie O'Donnell said that Rudy Guliani should suck on a machine gun and that Condoleeza Rice was a whore. Do you think they would buy the defense that she's a comedian? That is after all, the defense that Nugent is giving for his remarks.

No, hell no they wouldn't.

As I've said repeatedly, the self-blindness of these folks is unbelievable. And that's what troubles me. I find myself wondering where the threshold for them is - at what point would they not be able to rationalize anymore double-think. I'm sorry, but if I'm being honest I look at Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh and Malkin and imagine that they could easily become the sort of people that turn into apologists for tyrannical rule, kind of like the characters in It Can't Happen Here who were apologists for the fascist regime of Buzz Windrip who went around saying you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, except instead of saying that they'd be saying the Constitution isn't a suicide pact.

Christopher Hitchens, while appearing with Coulter on Hardball was left with the same impression: "I’m appalled to see what kind of model citizen you’d make in a banana republic, Ms. Coulter. I mean, you’re just saying in advance that your credulity with respect to the president is infinite."

I'm not interested in testing whether or not that is so. Which means that it's vitally important to start building a coalition of people across the political spectrum who are not going to allow democracy to be voted away. I'll give Professor Altemeyer the last word

The biggest problem we have now, in my view, is authoritarianism. It has placed America at one of those historic cross-roads that will profoundly affect the rest of its history, and the future of our planet. The world deserves a much better America than the one it has seen lately. And so do Americans.

So what’s to be done right now? The social dominators and high RWAs presently marshaling their forces for the next election in your county, state and country, are perfectly entitled to do what they’re doing. They have the right to organize, they have the right to proselytize, they have the right to select and work for candidates they like, they have the right to vote, they have the right to make sure folks who agree with them also vote. The late Jerry Falwell declared in 2006, “We absolutely are going to deliver this nation back to God in 2008!”

If the people who are not social dominators and right-wing authoritarians want to have those same rights in the future, they, you, had better do those same things too, now. You do have the right to remain silent, but you’ll do so at everyone’s peril. You can’t sit these elections out and say “Politics is dirty; I’ll not be part of it,” or “Nothing can change the way things are done now.”The social dominators want you to be disgusted with politics, they want you to feel hopeless, they want you out of their way. They want democracy to fail, they want your freedoms stricken, they want equality destroyed as a value, they want to control everything and everybody, they want it all. And they have an army of authoritarian followers marching with the militancy of “that old-time religion” on a crusade that will make it happen, if you let them.

Research shows most people are not in this army. However Americans have, for the most part, been standing on the sidewalk quietly staring at this authoritarian parade as it marches on, becoming more and more dismayed. Polls confirm that the great majority of Americans feel the country has been going in the wrong direction. People know “the room is filling up with smoke,” but most are just watching it happen.

You can watch the authoritarians tear democracy apart, bit by bit, bite by bite. Or you can exercise your rights too, while you still have them, and get just as concerned, active, and giving to protect yourself and your country. If you, and other liberals, other moderates, other conservatives with conscience do, then everything can turn out all right.

*The segment has since been renamed "Enemy of the Week."

Time for an adversarial Congress

As Glenn Greenwald noted, with the resignation of Bush loyalist Alberto Gonzales from the position of Attorney General, Congressional Democrats have an opportunity and an obligation to help put an end to the lawlessness of the current administration and change our Department of Justice back into an agency that enforces the laws of this nation as opposed to being a political arm of the White House.

Mr. Greenwald seemed to take it for granted that Republican members of Congress would rubber stamp whatever replacement nominee Bush names, and rightly so, since they most likely will unless Bush nominates a candidate as transparent as Harriet Miers.

But I still have to wonder, is there not some since of civic responsibility left in the Republican Senate? Is there not some small corner of their mind that still cares about American democracy more than partisan political advantage? (and one can even wonder what advantage there is in sticking with such an unpopular president.)

Upon leaving, Gonzales said that, "Public service is honorable and noble. I am profoundly grateful to President Bush for his friendship and for the many opportunities he has given me to serve the American people."

For this torture white-washing political lackey who would be J.P. Morgan's dream come true to say such a thing is an insult and a mockery to public service ... Gonzales never served the American people ... he served as a private vassal to President Bush. That is where his fealty lied, and that is the reason why Bush stood behind him no matter how many times it has been demonstrated that Gonzales lied to Congress about some scandal or another.

Really, what we have seen is the accelerated transformation of government under the "compassionate conservative" rule of President Bush from a democratic system back into a kind of quasi neo-feudal system with federal employees expected to behave as if they are partisans of a Royal court, as evidenced by Gonzales orchestrating the firing of DOJ officials for not being sufficiently loyal to the White House rather than any performace related problems.

Yet as bad as the parting comments of Gonzales were, they are nothing compared to those offered by President Bush

After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.

How can anyone in Congress - Democrat or Republican - take this hubris from the President? It is clear from these comments that he holds our entire system of government in contempt, that he holds Congress in contempt, and that he holds the American people in contempt.

These are the words not of the highest ranking public servant in the nation, but of a spoiled tyrant, angered that his will is not being carried out to his satisfaction. There was bipartisan frustration in Congress with the lies and politicization of the Justice Department by Gonzales, yet Bush has the audacity to suggest that those who quesiton the corruption of our Executive branch are creating a "harmful distraction" and preventing Gonzales from doing "good work."

What is so insulting about the President's words is that he has absolutely no shame. No matter how corrupt or wrong he is demonstrated to be he still accuses anyone who questions him of being partisan. This President cares not at all what anyone, be it the public, or Congress, or the Judiciary think ... whatever he personally wants is right and anyone who stands in the way of that is just being political. Laws don't matter, the Constitution doesn't matter - nothing matters except that people do what our infallible demi-god-in-Chief George W. Bush wants.

And why shouldn't he think like that? He has lived his whole life getting by on his father's name and wealth and the wealth of family friends. He has had the benefit of a servile Congress for almost the entirety of his presidency no matter how many lies he tells or how many scandals occur (the fraudulent case for war with Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, Katrina, failure to prevent 9/11, NSA spying, DOJ firings, leaking of Plame's identity, billions of dollars gone unaccounted for in Iraq, global warming reports being rewritten by shill for the oil industy, etc.) the President still more of less gets his way and continues to act as if this nation owes him blind allegiance.

This nation's founding fathers held an Enlightenment belief that government could be shaped so as to draw out from man's vices (e.g. ambition, jealousy, pride, lust for power, and such) democratic virtues. But for that to happen those in government must be held accountable for their actions and the system of checks and balances must be maintained.

Perhaps this Congress could benefit from reading what was one of the greatest influences on the founders - Cato's Letters, particularly, #33 "Cautions Against the Natural Encroachment of Power"

Power, without control, appertains to God alone; and no man ought to be trusted with what no man is equal to. In truth there are so many passions, and inconsistencies, and so much selfishness, belonging to human nature, that we can scarce be too much upon our guard against each other. The only security which we can have that men will be honest, is to make it their interest to be honest; and the best defence which we can have against their being knaves, is to make it terrible to them to be knaves. As there are many men wicked in some stations, who would be innocent in others; the best way is to make wickedness unsafe in any station.

Congress needs to make it terrible for President Bush to continue acting like a knave. It's time for an adversarial Congress.

To preserve the union, we must wage war against the liberals (and everyone who doesn't support Bush)

When we last checked in with Mark Noonan, he was musing about how "liberals" don't breed enough to sustain themselves and thus must import other people's kids (Mexicans?) to be brainwashed into liberalism; and was also trying to make up his mind who should be battled and defeated first: Islamofascists or liberals. He believes that these two enemies are "two fires" working towards the destruction of the Judeo-Christian West.

Now Noonan has written that he expects that fighting the Islamofascists (World War IV) will constitute Civil War II here at home.

Over at Orcinus, Dave Neiwert has written a post about this and Ted Nugen't recent machine gun rant. If you click the comments you'll notice that I added some backgroud info.

The post that I mentioned earlier today that is related to authoritarian hypocrisy is actually about Nugent's comments and Hannity's reaction to them, but Neiwert's post works so well as a complimentary piece that I think I'm going to hold mine back 'till tomorrow. Another reason I'm going to hold off on it is that I've got several other posts I think I'm going to put up today. Nevermind, I'm done for today.

The authoritarian mind at work

Read Glenn Greenwald's take on the conservative movement reaction to Senator Larry Craig - who supported the Defense of Marriage Act and favored impeaching Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual relation with his intern - being arrested for soliciting homosexual sex in a bathroom stall to see the authoritarian mind in action.

Glenn's post compliments nicely a post that I'll have up later today on a related subject.

I will say this, though. Setting aside the indignance I have over the rank hypocrisy of this man setting himself up a champion of "family values" while attacking individuals like Bill Clinton for private sexual affairs, I do find this episode somewhat sad.

Its sad that someone would be so determined to deny who they are that they turn their life into a mockery ... into a fraud. Perhaps Craig wouldn't be driven to cheat on his wife by seeking secret sex with men in bathrooms if he just acknowledged that he has an affinity for men. But the conservative Christian worldview he espouses doesn't allow for that, so he has to pretend to be something he's not.

That's just sad.

Update: Commenter El Cid at Greenwald's sums the mental gymnastics of the conservative movement perfectly

Then [when a reporter wrote a story about Craig's homosexual adultery], with an election to win, the Republican idiot machine geared up to denounce such truthful reports of the hypocritically homosexually adulterous Craig because that was what they felt would best help The Right.

Now, with Craig in office, the Republican idiot machine has received the hive-mind command that it is in their best interest to feign disapproval at Craig's bathroom forays.Two months from now they can spin on a dime, change their hive-mind, and come out against any criticism of Craig and no we have never ever said what he did was really that wrong, as long as it seems to advantage The Right.

For The Right, there simply is NO SUCH THING as hypocrisy or irony. None.

What they harshly condemn today they will proudly embody tomorrow. They don't care.

Trivia of the Day

Question: Where did the saying hope springs eternal come from?

Answer: Alexander Pope's Essay on Man (1733)

"Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.
What future bliss He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come. "

Secularists are illegal aliens in America

I'm working on some longer posts that I'll be posting this week, but in the meantime I'd like to make sure everyone took a second to read this post by Sara Robinson at Orcinus about a preacher featured in Christiane Amanpour's Gods Warriors who stated that non-fundamentalists aren't real Americans.

She writes

Asserting that non-fundamentalists are "illegal aliens" in their own country -- the one that our own ancestors fought, paid taxes, and worked all their lives to build; or risked everything to get to and start over in -- is a potent statement of that exact kind of purity crusade thinking. It's the same libel Nazis told the Germans about their native Jews: We are something other, something less than, something not-American (and thus potentially treasonous), and perhaps not even quite human. We are not like the good volk of the heartland; we are decadent urban intellectuals who seek to corrupt all that is good. Our very presence desecrates the pure soul of the nation. We have been ejected, in their minds, from the protection of American law and the community of American citizens.

For that reason, we don't belong here; and this country does not belong to us. And, underlying it all, there's the hint of a threat that as soon as the theocrats consolidate their grip on power and finish dismantling those pesky rights (they're oh, so close now), they will be fully justified in putting us behind barbed wire, removing us from "their" country by force, or simply dispatching us on sight like the vermin we are.

Putting aside whatever quibbles one might have about what level of alarmism is appropriate to how close or not Christian nationalists are to achieving their goal (I don't think they're close but I think they're far closer than they should be and also think that its not overt violence that we need to worry about but rather the slow and subtle erorison of democracy), the analysis that such out-group thinking is part of a foundation for totalitarian logic is dead on.

And to further add to that, I'd again reiterate than in pre-Nazi Germany the idea of being a "real" German was inseparable from the notion of being a Christian German; which is part of why it was so easy for so many Germans to see Jews as "aliens" in their midst.