The attacks on recently-nominated Elena Kagan (for the Supreme Court) – and many more – are to be expected from the right.  In fact, it’s safe and predictable to say that even if Obama had nominated a second iteration of Scalia, there’d be scorn and calls for someone “less liberal”.  Which is why Obama should have nominated a replacement for Stevens who was at or to the left of him on the ideological spectrum.  But that Obama did not indicates yet again, among other things, that Obama himself is not a terribly liberal liberal.

Kagan not being a trial lawyer isn’t much of a concern.  And certainly her arguments as Solicitor General should not reflect upon her own personal views (but, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, her arguments for good things should be taken with the same salt as her arguments for bad things).  However, Kagan should be held accountable while in her role as a White House advisor – her (freely given) advice urging a ban on late-term abortions should be attributed to her.

However, the tendency for progressives to compromise on the Obama administration’s conservative actions is exactly the wrong thing to do.  The right is much more disciplined (and consequently much more successful, albeit for other reasons as well) in this regard – take Harriet Miers, for instance.  Bush came out with a less-than-stellar conservative pick, and he was embarrassed into withdrawing her nomination by the right – correctly so.

If Obama was widely panned and embarrassed for choosing a moderate, unknown nominee to replace the most liberal member of the Supreme Court, then he would be less (not more) inclined to be moderate.  While progressives/liberals/people allow their values to be compromised by the guy elected (largely by left or left-leaning activists) without protest, Obama will just continue making the same, conservative moves.

Posted under News, Politics

… is that he might be the best this country can do.

If the standard-bearer of the Democrat party, the “most liberal” president, is someone who would pass healthcare reform without actually regulating insurance companies while at the same time mandating all U.S. citizens buy into a broken system of for-profit healthcare, run by the largest corporations in the world, then that demonstrates a pretty sorry state of liberalism (never mind real progressive change).  For some myth-debunking (for those who think it’s truly transformative) about the healthcare bill, see Jane Hamsher’s Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill.

An even greater indication of Obama’s failure to live up to the promise of his presidency is that he came out immediately in support of the Schumer-Graham immigration  bill, which is a draconian framework for immigration reform that entails all citizens to get an identification card with biometric information on it as well as further militarizing the U.S./Mexico border (among other things).

Tack on top of that an escalation of the Afghanistan war (whose surge of 30,000 troops alone costs $30 billion), the bailout of Wall Street, and so on … is this the best candidate that “progressives” can get?

The scary thing is that supposedly “liberal/progressive” organizations, like Planned Parenthood and the Reform Immigration for America have come out SUPPORTING passage of both of these extremely problematic pieces of legislation.  Despite Obama creating a signing statement to deny federal funds for abortion, Planned Parenthood has declared the passage of the healthcare bill in the House to be a “Victory!”, describing it as a “huge victory for women’s health”.

It appears (perhaps unsurprisingly) that organizations that are so desperate for any sort of victory that they’ll accept anything that even addresses their agenda.  That, or these institutions have such a craving to be associated with those with real power that they’ll carry all sorts of water.  In any case, real reform has gotten that much harder to reach.

Victory at what cost?

Posted under News, Politics, Uncategorized

Sotomayor

The buzz around Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s recent nomination, as well as the ongoing hearings, has brought to the forefront the issue of gender and race in the currently U.S. Supreme Court, which does not appear terribly representative of the country it deigns to serve.  But critics and journalists are missing the boat with respect to a determinant factor of identity, going beyond race and gender.  There’s a glaring omission from this debate.

While the racial milestone that will be made with her appointment to the court will certainly be significant, an important trend (perhaps the most important trend) in the court itself will be broken by her ascendancy. That is, she will be the first Catholic on the Court who is not a conservative.

(from: Southern Appeal)

While every is scrutinizing the race, gender, and whiteness of the Court, and how it affects the decisions that it makes, the religious denominational breakdown of the Court has been the leading (and perhaps sole) indicator based on identity as to how the Court has voted.  That is to say: All the Roman Catholic Justices are conservative (from moderately-tempered Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, to the barking mad Scalia), whereas all the other non-Catholic Justices (Ginsburg, Stephens, Breyer, and the now-departed Souter) are more liberal in their decisions.

Since the end of the Rehnquist Court in 2005, the the sides in decisions of the Court could be nearly always determined by Catholic affiliation (or non-affiliation).  For instance, Justice Kennedy is occasionally a “swing vote” between the liberal and conservatives of the court, but almost always sides with his Catholic buddies.  A few exceptions have occurred, such as Kelo v. City of New London, but such exceptions largely prove the rule.

With Sotomayor on the Court, all that will change!  LIberal Catholics around the country can rejoice that finally a non-conservative Catholic will represent and advocate their ideological perspective in the future.  A wall will be broken, a stereotyping of Catholics as socially backwards, intolerant curmudgeons will end, and “progress” will be upon the U.S. Supreme Court.

Question: Should liberals now fear that Sotomayor will abandon her hitherto liberal instincts, and start taking orders from the Vatican? (See B.E. Howard’s question to Kennedy)

Posted under Politics, Religion, Sexuality, Spirituality

From Z Magazine’s Roger Burbach:

The upshot is that a reform-minded president supported by labor unions and social organizations is now pitted against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite that is accustomed to controlling the Supreme Court, as well as congress and the presidency. It is a story often repeated elsewhere in Latin America, with the United States almost always weighing in on the side of the established, entrenched interests.

The Honduran elites were outraged that a member of their class would carry out even modest reforms. They began to portray Zelaya as a demagogue, and demonized Hugo Chavez as trying to take over the country. When Zelaya announced that he would hold a plebiscite on June 28 to see if the country wanted to have the option in the upcoming November presidential elections to vote for the convening of a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution, the political establishment would have none of it. They incorrectly claimed that Zelaya was trying to stand for re-election. In fact the possibility that a president might serve a second term could only emerge in a new constitution that would not be drafted until well after Zelaya left office in January, 2010. The elites did however have reason to fear a new magna carta, since this is the path that Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have used to draft new constitutions to begin transforming their countries political, social and economic structures.

Posted under Culture, Politics

In a New York Times story posted Tuesday, it appears that Hamid Karzai, the “Mayor of Kabul” and former (current?) CIA operative, is on the outs with the new Obama administration.  Apparently Karzai’s complaining about the U.S. at-will blowing up of Afghan civilians, compounded with his failure to rein in the warlords and unseemly elements of the government has left him much less useful than embarassing to the new administration.

No doubt, Karzai has been little more than a pawn to make the Bush administration look like it was doing something, but as Obama plans on escalating the war in the country, he seems to be looking for a more competent ringleader.  In any case, Karzai’s days are numbered as Afghan head of state.

Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from about 34,000 now… He [Gates] outlined plans for an increase of about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for barracks and other infrastructure.

So one campaign promise that Obama is living up to is upping the ass-whooping on Afghanistan.  I hate to bring up inconvenient lessons in history, but didn’t yet another superpower put all its eggs in the Afghan basket (while experiencing severe economic strains) and end up becoming a moot point?

Mr. Gates added that the United States should focus on limited goals. “My own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies, and whatever else we need to do flows from that objective,” he said.

Here’s a good thought experiment – did Gates make the above statement 6 years ago, or yesterday?  (Hint: We’ve seen this foreign policy already, and it hasn’t turned out so good).

Posted under Economy, News, Politics

It’s difficult to say anything particularly constructive or helpful about the ongoing massacre in Gaza, so this will be limited to simply a few observations that appear abundantly clear.

• The state of Israel has lost its moral standing for its existence.  The original Zionist concept of a collaborative, diverse haven for an oppressed class of people has mutated into an ultra-militaristic state which has violently oppressed the people whose land was taken for that purpose.  No state has an inherent right to exist (did the Soviet Union?  Do countries whose borders have been drawn by occupying forces?), and for many well outside of the Middle East, Israel is losing any legitimacy it may have possessed.
• The perpetrators of this 40 year-long genocide – Israel and the United States – have increasingly backed themselves into a very small corner in the public opinion of the world.  Given the U.S.’ unparalleled economic and military power in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, it could afford to overlook the destruction of a small population with little possibility of a threat to its own power.  But economic spheres have and are arising in South America, East Asia, and even Western Europe, and its military force is not as singularly persuasive as it once was.  Empires can crumble, and while the U.S. is currently the only superpower, that can change.  Especially with the whole world against it, minus its client state.

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• We should fear for our lives.  Violence begets violence, and between Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, the U.S. is responsible for more violence now than before the attacks of 9/11.  A future in the United States without some form of violent retaliation is not likely.  However critical one might be of those in the anti-war movement, an implicit aim in every protest and petition is to make the people of this country (and others) safer.  The legacy of our government, on the other hand, is to make us less safe, regardless of the number of times we might have to take off our shoes at the airport or how many Muslims we imprison at Guantanamo.

Why shouldn’t we think that we might be next?  What makes our lives – our children’s lives – less important than that of those children who hear the whirring of planes overhead, followed by the silence of death?  If they can be exterminated, what moral claim to life do we have?

• Apologists for the violence cannot be taken seriously.  At current count, the death toll of Israelis to Palestinians is 5 to 530.  One country is the occupier of the other.  One country has an arsenal greater than any member of NATO (save the U.S.).  One country has a blockade of food and medical supplies of the other.  There is no such thing as parity in this situation.  Any sentence that begins, “Israel has the right to defend itself …” does not merit being finished.  Occupying countries have no rights; they simply have responsibilities.

Apologists include not only those who defend Israeli violence, but those who defend whatever diminutive forces are still launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.  This has nothing to with the right of an occupied people to resist – such rocket attacks are not resistance.  The rocket attacks from Gaza have no logical basis.  Engaging in war, engaging in violence, should at the least have a rational basis in the expectation that it will improve one’s situation.  However, it is abundantly clear (and has been for some time) that not only are such attacks not improving the plight of Gazans, but with a grand total of 5 fatalities, while providing a pretext for Israel to respond, are almost completely ineffective while increasingly contributing to the decimation of the civilian population of Gaza.  One might even suggest that those behind the rocket attacks are in collusion with Israeli military planners, so ineffective are such tactics.

For those of us who live in the countries of Israel and the U.S., both alleged democracies, the responsibilities of our governments are that much more heavy.  We are supposed to have a degree of control over the actions of our leaders.  Our “freedom” and “democracy” are touted as admirable and prominent aspects of our countries.  If we do not use our freedom and democracy to bring an end to the homicidal inclinations of our governments, who can fault the acts of revenge on us by the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the innocent who have perished?  After all this bloodshed in a world where violence has become the new universal language, who doubts it is coming?

UPDATE (Thursday, January 8): Apparently Avi Shlaim, who wrote in the Guardian on January 7, also came to the same conclusion regarding Israel’s “right to exist”:

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

Posted under Politics

Banner: Stop Watching, Get Out Into the Streets

The riots and protests that started almost two weeks ago in Greece are not only persisting, but intensifying.  In addition, there doesn’t seem to be any particular organization or political figure leading the protests – it appears that the resistance is non-hierarchal (thus causing news organizations to term what’s happening as “anarchy”).  Information (at least in the English press) is not very prolific, but of note are the following:

• After breaking into the state TV studio (NET), protestors blocked the broadcast of a speech by the prime minister, unfurled a banner (seen above).  They released a statement:
  

  “Our action is the result of an accumulated pressure which is robbing us of our lives, and not only an emotional explosion based on the murder of Alexis Grigoropulos by the police. We are one more collective, a piece of the revolt which is taking place.

  Against pacification by the mass media, we are carrying out an intervention-interjection in the flow of the program of ERT [state television]. It’s our view that the mass media systematically cultivates fear. Rather than informing, they misinform. They are presenting a multifaceted revolt as a blind release.

  They are explaining the social explosion in penal rather than political terms. They are selectively concealing the actual facts. They are representing a revolt as another spectacle which we should simply follow until the next soap opera begins. The mass media is daily turned into a means of suppressing free and public thought.

  Let’s organize ourselves. No authority can offer solutions to our problems. We need to meet with other human beings. To turn our public places, the streets, the squares, the parks, the schools, into places of unmediated expression. To find ourselves face to face so that we can transform together our thought and actions.

  
  Let’s not be afraid. Let’s turn off our televisions, go out of our houses, continue to lay claim to our life, to take it into our hands.

  We condemn the police violence, immediate release of the arrested demonstrators. For human emancipation and freedom.” (translation by Amee Chew from Dollars and Sense)

• This is not confined to one area – clashes with police are taking place in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other parts of the country.  Banks are being targeted with gas bombs, as well as government property and offices.
• Political figures seem eager to attribute this to a small segment of society:

(Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis): I expected something like this would happen sooner or later. We have a group of people with ultra-leftist ideologies, the active Black Bloc anarchists. There have recently been repeated clashes with them. As of late, their organization has been improving and becoming more flexible, they are using the Internet and text messages. At the same time, we have to weather difficult reforms. That is the deeper reason for the protests, this is why the anarchists have suddenly been joined by disgruntled young people. (Speigel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,596439,00.html)

• Major sectors of society have been brought to a standstill by the people working in them.  Not only are many universities and high schools occupied and closed, but radio stations are being taken over, air traffic controllers are on strike, and so on.
  

One shared misconception by many media sources is the “spontaneous” nature of the protests.  But after the conviction of 8 police officers for abusing a youth a few years ago, combined with rising discontent about the ordering of Greek society in general, previous roadblocks by farmers, protests by dockworkers, it appears this is a long time coming.  The key question is – what will be shaped from all of this foment?

Posted under Uncategorized

I am proud to live in Obama’s America too. Long time coming. Let’s work together now to bring us back into the international fold.

- Steve, November 4, 2008

There are many lessons to be learned from the recent U.S. Presidential election – but many more lessons commentators claim we have learned.  It’s been a month since the election, and it’s time to look back with some perspective.

• It was a historic election – this should not be understated.  A Black man was elected to the highest office in a country where 2nd-class citizenship and economic inequality was written into our laws just 55 years ago.  A woman was a serious competitor for the candidacy of one of two major parties in a country where gender inequality is still rampant and largely unaddressed.  This represents progress along racial and gender lines.
• It was a historic election – but this should not be overstated.  Despite the competitive candidacies of a person of color and a woman, racial and gender disparities are real and ongoing.  They are not merely anecdotal, but devastatingly economic.  The average white household made $48k last year; the average Black household made $30k.  The fact of Obama as president is not going to close that gap. Read More…

Posted under Culture, Economy, Politics

UMass Amherst Green Energy Conference

I’m at the Mass Mutual Center in Springfield, MA, attending the “Clean Energy Connections” Conference, put together by the University of Massachusetts Amherst (my school). The topic is the new “green economy” – what it is, why we need it, and examples of what it will look like in the future.

The introductory talk was given by Bracken Hendricks, from the Center for American Progress (a Washington Think Tank) and also an advisor to Prez-Elect Obama.  He made some good (and by now, obvious) points, but as he went through the list of economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy, rewiring the grid, building insulation, the crux of what he was saying (that he outright came to in his conclusion) is that the primary reason that our species (and many others) face extinction is the failure of political leadership.  No doubt he’s correct – the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere has been understood by chemists since the early twentieth century, creation of cars with much higher fuel efficiency has been around for at least 40 years, and basic technology to insulate housing has been around since, well, since people used mud to keep the heat in their huts.

What has quickly become a cliche, Hendricks slapped the iconic red, white and blue image of Obama with the subtitle “HOPE” and “PROGRESS” on the screen, and proceeded to talk about how the country is “turning a new corner”, how the new president allows a “window to the future”, and generally how hopeful he was about the future.  But although he is likely unrealistic about Obama’s capacity to bring sufficient change, he did repeat what I’ve heard (thankfully) from many folks on the left side of the spectrum: We must “hold him [Obama] accountable” to the change that’s contained in the promise of his campaign.  I’m not sure who “we” is, and I’m not sure by what mechanism we have the ability to hold him accountable, but I’m grateful for this small bit of healthy cynicism when referring to the next president.

Other notes of interest from the conference:

• There’s no such thing as “green job” – building and installing wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, solar hot water heaters, installing insulation, and the many other direct and indirect forms of energy conservation and renewability needs accountants, secretaries, IT professionals, managers, and everything else we currently have.  The folks involved in installing and manufacturing might need some training or retraining, but moving to a greener economy does not mean a revolution in how we “do” stuff.  It’s just about changing the impact of what we do.
• The coming greening of the economy – that is, making energy consumption cleaner, more efficient, and utilizing renewable energy – is inevitable.  As one of the speakers mentioned, there’s too much money to be made in the private sector, particularly given the rising price of petroleum and the risks associated with it, to stop investment and innovation in better energy.  The more important question is: Are we going to green our lifestyles just enough to improve the traditional economy, or are we going to green our world enough to prevent the longer term devastation of global warming?
• Growth DOES NOT EQUAL prosperity.  As one of the speakers on a financial panel pointed out, “growing” does not mean we’re going to be better off, it just means that someone, somewhere, is reaping higher profits.  The type of growth that we do, as a country, is important – and the type of growth that has been aspired to has brought us to a dead-end, time and time again.  We need a shift in how we gain wealth, work, and spend money.
• The question of the daunting costs of installing solar panels and other technology came up in the financial panel, and the prospect of taking on debt to facilitate such an investment.  While solar panels are likely still beyond the capacity of many folks, it was pointed out that there are two types of debt: (1) consumer debt that’s used to buy stuff, and (2) self-liquidating debt, that is used to invest in something that will eventually give you a return on an investment.  The debt of type (1) is “bad” debt, which has unfortunately been keeping our economy afloat more and more, whereas debt of type (2) is “good” debt – debt that in the long run produces wealth, returns the cost of the investment, and largely benefits society overall.  Debt of type (2) are things like college loans, home equity loans, and so forth.  Moving from type (1) to type (2) is going to be essential for any sustainable economy.

That’s it for now!

Posted under Economy, Politics

Claudia Lorena Castillo Sánchez, a successful trachea transplant patient

A transplant operation has been conducted (and successfully) in Spain that solely uses a person’s own stem cells. That means never having to worry about a match for tissue or organs, and never having to go on immunosuppressive drugs (which is often not part of the discussion about transplants, but are a permanent and precarious part of life currently after transplants). This has overwhelming implications for the future of medicine and the quality of life.

The folks at the University of Italy took a donor trachea, took off all the cells, and then used the patient’s own stem cells (taken from her own bone marrow, where our stem cells reside) to “coat” the trachea with the stem cells. And those stem cells, being the “Jack’s magical beans” of the biological universe, grew onto the trachea in exactly the way necessary to recreate a living, viable trachea.

Such technology means … we can live forever. Or at least for a mighty long time – whenever a part of us goes bad (i.e. cancer, from burns, even old age) – we just scoop out some of our bone marrow and grow us a new part. Welcome to the future! [Credit: Time/AP]

Posted under News