My own position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been one of distaste for either side. I find I am sympathetic to motivations and unsympathetic to rationalizations for violence. I don’t think the Palestinians or the Israelis have a sound basis for the acts of violence they commit.
Posted under Politics
This post was written by Dan on January 8, 2009
Barack Obama is a very intelligent man. Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move. Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis). It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents. Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas. As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:
Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.
That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…
Posted under News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality
This post was written by Dan on December 27, 2008
The controversial Reverand Wright was uninvited on account of his inflammatory sermons. Pam Spaulding wonders why Rick Warren won’t be:
So apparently Wright can be given the hook when Obama’s doing political risk assessment, but not Rick Warren. You can draw your own conclusions as to why it’s now possible, even in light of the incredible mother lode of evidence of the extreme anti-gay views of Rick Warren, that Barack Obama doesn’t feel politically inconvenienced enough to dump the Saddleback bigot.
Two reasons jump out at me. One, that team Obama expects Warren to behave during the inauguration. The idea is for a voice of the religious right to champion causes he shares with the incoming administration. Obama is consensus building. Which leads us into the second reason. Obama isn’t a liberal, no matter how fiercely he was championed by liberals (myself included) and vilified by conservatives. He is a centrist (albeit an unusually pragmatic one with definite liberal leanings). As such he has a much wider and more optimistic view of “his base”. Barack Obama wants to bring evangelicals to the table. By bringing one of their own to the stage and emphasizing where they are natural allies, perhaps he believes he’ll be able to bridge the many gaps between religious conservatives and the political mainstream.
Since there isn’t likely to be an uninvite with all that at stake, time will tell how well this move plays out. From the painful experience of being a Democratic, Obama is supremely unlikely to mollify the religious conservative leadership no matter how much he reaches out. But perhaps this one symbolic act in January will speak the rank and file faithful louder than their conservative religious leadership’s weekly sermons and daily rants. Perhaps it will be worth the alienating the people who worked so hard to get him into office.
Posted under Politics, Religion
This post was written by Dan on December 20, 2008
President Bush’s actions since November 4th represent a desperate attempt to defend the status quo at all costs. With voters so overwhelmingly going for change, his actions go directly against the clear will of the American people. This begs the question: “Why do we have a lame duck President?”.
Prior to 1933 we had a lame duck Presidency for an even longer period of time. The passage of the 20th ammendment shortened that period considerably to reflect the then modern changes in our electoral process. There is no reason we cannot make such a change again.
The last minute laws and appointments President Bush is making no longer have the legitimacy of the vote behind them. The simplest solution isn’t reforming the appointment process (although one would expect that contrary to Musgrave’s opinion, increasing the executive’s power to fire rather than hire would be the common sense move), it is removing or drastically reducing the period in which lame ducks have the opportunity to oppose the will of the people.
Posted under Politics
This post was written by Dan on December 10, 2008
Crossposted at Fitness for the Occasion
Now that we’ve successfully elected Barack Obama, we need to make sure he stays honest and true to his campaign. This article from the Wall Street Journal uses an interview with his transition team to suggest he might not be. When running for office:
On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama criticized many of President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism policies. He condemned Mr. Bush for promoting “excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency.”
As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA’s interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.
However the word on the street suggests otherwise:
Mr. Obama is being advised largely by a group of intelligence professionals, including some who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration. They say he is likely to fill key intelligence posts with pragmatists.
“He’s going to take a very centrist approach to these issues,” said Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. “Whenever an administration swings too far on the spectrum left or right, we end up getting ourselves in big trouble.”
Given that this is coming from a single advisor I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be simply wishful thinking on his part, or even playing to the media’s obsessive need to claim that Obama must run a centrist administration when a largely left-wing coalition won him his office.
This is too important an issue to let alone, we need to keep the pressure on. So I’ve started a petition (which is only a small start). Any other ideas?
Please sign the petition asking President Elect Obama to Uphold Human Rights.
This post was written by Dan on November 11, 2008
As I write this I can hear beeps from cars passing Obama volunteers with signs. The response has been enormously positive, with only a stray middle finger or scowl from an old McCain/Palin supporter to suggest they even exist. When I went to vote, I saw about 8 Obama volunteers next to one McCain/Palin volunteer. Since I went at lunch, there was no line (although we did have a bit of confusion about where in the library to vote, at one point I joked perhaps either the nonfiction or the large print aisles were the spot to be).
While there was no line at my polling location, there was a line at Obama hq. People were standing in line to volunteer! Inside, they had us waiting in a room that was burning up from all the body heat. Not because they didn’t have enough signs. Because so many people were coming into help they were having trouble keeping up placing them where they were needed most.
Helping out with visibility was like yesterday. People gave thumbs up, grinned, shouted “Go Obama!”, beeped (sometimes repeatedly), and pumped their fists. One driver in an suv pulled up and handed me a water bottle! Another woman crossing the street stopped by to offer to buy me a drink from Cosi. We regularly got compliments and instructions to “keep up the good work” from passersby. Two old ladies walking back from voting strolled past headed to starbucks for their free coffee. One gave my shoulder a playful punch saying “We done voted, don’t get wet now!” with a big grin. It was raining, and not a McCain/Palin volunteer in sight. Just grins and Obama/Biden signs.
I didn’t see anywhere near this kind of enthusiasm or turnout in 2006. Today Virginia feels blue.
This post was written by Dan on November 4, 2008
If John McCain lives through the first 4 years of office, he will not seek a second term. His advanced age will become even more of an issue in 2012 than it is currently. Imagine Sarah Palin running for office, with more unified Republican support, and 4 years of experience in the White House. Part of the VP’s job is to meet with foreign leaders. This would decimate the experience issue, which has been chief among the complaints of the more conservative Republicans who have reluctantly embraced Obama’s candidacy.
There are many reasons to vote:
And I’m not saying there’s a possibility we might not end up regretting Obama. But that’s a lot better than the 100% certainty I think we’d have of regretting Vice President Palin.
Palin shouldn’t be in office. No matter who was running, I’d vote to keep her further than a heartbeat from the highest office in the country.
[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]
Posted under Politics
This post was written by Dan on October 30, 2008
Write to Marry Day!
Arguments in favor of California’s Proposition 8 are a fascinating study in hate apologetics. Just as with the “life begins at conception” anti-choice movement or the pro-creationism lobby, from the start there is an intense pressure to hide the religious foundations beneath the nearest available logic-like substitute. It comes down to an often hilarious yet very sobering look into the kind of people who think discrimination belongs in the California state constitution.
The favored defenses of institutionalized bigotry are:
Posted under Culture, News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality
This post was written by Dan on October 29, 2008
A plot to assassinate Obama was broken up by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. According to George Stephanopoulos’ Blog, the plot is not being treated as a serious threat:
An Obama aide tells ABC News that Secret Service headquarters “would be notified of anything that mentioned” Obama. But adds that “it never rose to any sort of serious level,” which explains why Obama’s personal detail was not notified.
Rather than explaining why the candidate’s detail was not notified, it raises questions about how seriously the government is pursuing these plots. Despite the FBI’s push to charge the Colorado Three, Troy Eid (a Rove Apppointee) dismissed the charges. This makes me wonder:
Is this administration — and particularly this Justice Department, as deeply compromised as it has become by the Bush White House’s crass politicization — capable of ensuring that true threats against Democratic figures like Obama are taken seriously and dealt with appropriately?
These men were found with firearms, and further investigation may lead to more charges. The Attorney General for Tennessee is Democrat Robert E. Cooper Jr, appointed in 2006. His office can be contacted here by phone. It can’t hurt to encourage his office to take this threat with appropriate gravitas.
This post was written by Dan on October 28, 2008
The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.
In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.
No more details are available currently. Lot’s of questions remain:
Are there any links between the neo-nazi’s and existing hate groups? How many assasination plots are currently under investigation? Would Sarah Palin consider these skinheads terrorists?
This post was written by Dan on October 27, 2008
