I Can't Improve on the Professor

From Howard Zinn, on Alternet (thanks to Rick on OlyBlog):

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

The County Prosecutor Should Get It Together

This item in today's Olympian...

A former Thurston County paralegal secretary has filed an $86,000 sexual- and disability- discrimination and retaliation claim against the county and the office of Prosecuting Attorney Ed Holm.

Holm, who could not be reached for comment late Friday, was not specifically named in the claim, which was filed Jan. 9 with the county's human resources department by Susanne Davis of Lacey. Davis, who worked for about 14 years in the county's non-support office, left her job in fall 2004 on disability and was fired in 2005, said her attorney, William Michael Hanbey of Olympia.

Following this item from a few months back...

SHELTON - The Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office discriminated against three of its former attorneys because they are women, and the county now owes them $1.52 million in damages, a Mason County jury decided Tuesday.

The jury also found that the Prosecuting Attorney's Office retaliated against each of the three plaintiffs after they came forward with their discrimination complaints.

...brings to mind questions about the competence of the Prosecutor. I don't care how good an attorney he is, if the shop he runs can't avoid these kinds of problems, then he's not the manager that the job calls for.

“President Bush is Insane”

So said Dwight Pelz, Washington State Democrats Chair, in a short speech this afternoon at the Heritage Park fountain, which followed a pretty successful (as far as success can be measured for these symbolic events) rally against the war along 4th Avenue today. Of course, his use of the word insane was based on the folk definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. Not a real diagnosis, nor even much of a rhetorical step above cliché, but it does make a good lead.

I went to the rally not because I it might bring about a change in policy (I’m not insane, by any definition), but because I thought it was time, once again, to stand out in public with others who think the same as I do as witnesses to our belief that the war is wrong, has always been wrong, and should be ended. Now.

There were more people out than a year ago and the responses from those driving over the bridge, going about their daily business, were more weighted to the positive side. Whether this was because of a change in thinking, which subsequently led to the recent election results, or because of those results themselves, I’m not sure. It’s probably both. I wouldn’t be surprised to start to hear whining about how hard it has become to support the war.

Cross-posted at Oly Blog.

Temporary Expatriation

So, the executive will now be able to declare anyone in the country an enemy of the people, seize him, and lock him away for as long as it suits, without charges, and without any opportunity for any judicial review or appeal. Add to this the ability to define criminal torture now rests with that same executive and the removal of any accountability for those who might still engage in criminal torture. These are the powers of a tyranny.

I don’t have the power of rhetoric necessary to express the level of indignation required by this latest humiliation – merely one in a long string of humiliations – of the proud heritage of democracy and idealism that used to be known as America, the America I grew up believing in.

I feel beaten and empty. Yet, it is really expected. Expected that the executive would attempt to seize whatever power it could, using whatever rationale that would sell, as long as it could get away with it. Expected that Congress would, once again, cynically ignore its responsibility to defend the Constitution, the country’s position in the world, and even its constituents. Expected that the media would, once again, explain these measures in the terms that the executive uses to explain them, hiding the real scope and implications of this dramatic change in this country’s laws. And, expected that Americans would accept this as good and useful and necessary.

And so, I leave for a long-planned vacation to Italy tomorrow. I don’t know if I will feel any heat as an American in what should be a friendly country, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I do. And, I’ll deserve it – because I’m an American, I am ashamed to say.

Five Years On, Still Missing It

As the anniversary of what we all know this is about was approaching, I was finishing up James Green’s Death in the Haymarket, about the Haymarket “Riot”. Not to tie these two events together too closely, but there was a common element in the reaction of “better” Chicago to the agitation for workplace rights and the eight hour day in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the reaction of the larger country to the terrible events on Sept. 11, 2001.

In a word: Panic.

Talk About Re-arranging the Deck Chairs!

So, investigators for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have drafted a report in which they recommend that FEMA be dismantled and replaced with another agency with a different name and the same responsibilities. That such a ridiculous and wasteful idea could be seriously proposed to a Senate committee is a measure of how low our expectations for government have fallen after years of assaults on the very idea of government and public service from conservative ideologues.

Paul Krugman has a good outline of the history of FEMA over the last decade and a half:

The Crony Fairy - New York Times: "In the early 1990's, FEMA's reputation was as bad as it is today. It was a dumping ground for political cronies, headed by a man whose only apparent qualification for the job was that he was a close friend of the first President Bush's chief of staff. FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 perfectly foreshadowed Katrina: the agency took three days to arrive on the scene, and when it did, it proved utterly incompetent.

Many people thought that FEMA was a lost cause. But Bill Clinton proved them wrong. He appointed qualified people to lead the agency and gave them leeway to hire other qualified people, and within a year FEMA's morale and performance had soared. For the rest of the Clinton years, FEMA was among the most highly regarded agencies in the federal government.

What happened to that reputation? The answer, of course, is that the second President Bush returned to his father's practices. Once again, FEMA became a dumping ground for cronies, and many of the good people who had come in during the Clinton years left. It took only a few years to transform one of the best agencies in the U.S. government into what Senator Susan Collins calls 'a shambles and beyond repair.'"

He's right. The current administration is interested in power, but not in the hard work of governing. Why not? Because they don't value government and don't believe that it delivers public benefit. While many people were disposed to believe the same thing before the Decider was elected, there are a lot more now who've become discouraged by the administration's consistent delivery of ineffective government. Katrina is only one obvious example.

The critical factor is support, from the administration, for effective government by appointing and supporting competent managers and staff. In the absence of that -- and we can be sure there will be an absence of that with the Decider in office -- there is no reason at all to spent the resources to dismantle one agency, only to replace it with another to do the same thing. We have had an effective FEMA in the past and could have one again, but there's no reason to believe that this administration will do it, so let's stop pretending.

Off the Table

Our president has made a point of boasting about keeping the nuclear option on the table in the trumped up dispute with Iran over their nuclear program. This is nothing but a signal of weakness and most of the world knows it. Unfortunately, the administration doesn't know it.

The use of nuclear weapons in this instance would be a disaster to make the other disasters created or worsened by this administration look like a picnic. Even the threat is counter-productive. Captain Future has a good explanation of this:

Daily Kos: Not Even As A Bluff: Asked by a reporter on Tuesday if he would take the nuclear option off the table in what action he might take against Iran, President Bush said he would not. Within hours, the price of oil shot up to more than $72 a barrel, as a direct result of such threats.

Bush's refusal to take nuclear attack 'off the table' is received in different ways. But absolutely none of them has a positive outcome.

This brief diary suggest why the so-called nuclear option is a very bad idea, even as a tactic. And why we must insist it be taken off the table now." [There's more...]

So, if this bothers you, too, I urge you to contact our representatives and urge them to urge our benighted leaders to come to their senses. Not that this will happen, but it's time for the responsible citizenry to speak up and demand that this reckless and pointless posturing be stopped. Take the nuclear option off the table!

Stop the War

The Olympian started it out, with a front page story headed by "Dad in Iraq for revenge ready to head home". The story is about an older soldier who joined the Guard, wanting to serve again, this time with his son, who was in Iraq. Before he was able to go to Iraq, his son was killed. Now, he's in Iraq himself and "there's some revenge involved." I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a child to a war and I'm sure he is in serious pain, but I can imagine several alternative ways to deal with the pain, all of them an improvement over hoping to kill a "terrorist." Even more perplexing to me was that he had served as a Christian missionary. Was he more than a salesman for Christ? Is there something he might have taken from his religious teachings, beyond that he is on the other side from the heathens and that killing them is the answer? To his credit, he seemed to be losing his enthusiasm for the enterprise, though it wasn't clear what he'd learned from it.

This was followed by the spiritual perspective, this week from Imam Mohamad Joban, the leader of the local Muslim congregation. His article was called "Understanding the Islam view of violence", which was a refreshing improvement from the poor guy who thinks he can cure the pain of the loss of his son by taking someone else's son or daughter. It was also good to see the Imam's writing in the Olympian and his clear statement that "there is no room for violence in the Quran."

Once home, I picked up February's Sun Magazine and found myself immersed in an interview with Kathy Kelly, which described some of her experiences in Iraq. She was in Baghdad when the U.S troops arrived and Saddam's regime fell. I was impressed by her commitment and clear vision for a real compassionate foreign policy. And that love and compassion were the center of her spiritual path.

So it was with these thoughts in my head that I went downtown to join the rally against the war. Several hundred of us lined both sides of Fourth Avenue, from the Heritage Park fountain to halfway up the Fourth Avenue bridge. The vast majority of the responses from those driving on the road were positive. (Note to those already talking on your cell phones: please don't bother to wave. We understand and would prefer at least one hand on the wheel.) I'm sure it won't stop the war, but it felt like time to do something and it was good to see my neighbors out there, too.

The Neville Chamberlain of Global Warming?

From GOAT - A High Country News Blog:

According to a poll by the Civil Society Institute and 40mpg.org, a plurality of Americans want the federal government to do more about climate change, and given the absence of federal leadership, they support local initiatives to do the same. (Link to survey results .pdf)

More and more, I'm thinking the Bush administration will be seen as the Neville Chamberlain of global warming -- the folks who turned their eyes away from a real and increasing danger and who dithered in the face of an implacable foe. That the Bush administration seems to do it for the profit of campaign donors makes it even more squalid. Chamberlain was a dope, but even if history looks unkindly on him at least he wasn't on the Nazi payroll.

This is a good metaphor for this administration, but it's actually worse than it suggests. The Bush administration, rather than an ineffective dope, is more like a warming-sympathizer. They are not failing in an ineffectual struggle against global warming, they've actively pushed against efforts to control warming.

Does Salvage Logging Kill Seedlings?

The very useful High Country News has been following the saga of Dan Donato, a graduate student at Oregon State University who has been leading a study of the effects of salvage logging in Oregon. And I've followed this story with more than ecological interest, because I have met the young man, as he's married to my daughter's first cousin.

The linked story describes the drama well:

• The publication of initial results in the journal Science and the uproar attending it from timber industry-supported interests.
• The withdrawal of funding for the study by the Bureau of Land Management, with timing suggesting that it is motivated by concern that the results don't support agency policy.
  
• The demand by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (WA) that the BLM's decision be investigated as politically motivated and the almost immediate reversal of the funding decision.
• The visit by two other U.S. Reps. Brian Baird (WA) and Greg Walden (OR) to southern Oregon and conduct a "hearing," in which it's clear that Rep. Baird is displeased with the study's report.

I'm pissed about this because Brian Baird is my congressmember and I find him generally useful. But this last episode looks like political intimidation of the process of gathering scientific knowledge. It disturbs me that Rep. Baird has chosen to support the practice of the Bush administration of punishing scientists who report data that calls into question their preferred policies. Rep. Baird has stated that salvage logging "lessens impact" on the environment. He should back this assertion up with data, not intimidation of those out in the field gathering that data.

Gabriel Kolko sums it up

The dilemma the U.S. has had for a half-century is that the priorities it must impose on its budget and its plans have never guided its actual behavior and action. It has always believed, as well it should, that Europe and its control would determine the future of world power. But it has fought in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq – the so-called "Third World" in general – where the stakes of power were much smaller. Its priorities were specific, focused on specific nations, but they also set the United States the task of guiding or controlling the entire world – which is a very big place and has proven time and again to be far beyond American resources and power. In most of those places in the Third World where it massively employed its power directly, it has lost, and its military might has been ineffective. Local proxies have been corrupt and venal in most nations where the U.S. has relied upon them. The cost, both in financial terms and the eventual alienation of the American public, has been monumental.

Impeach Bush

Ok, as far as I'm concerned, this is it. President Bush has admitted to authorizing spying on Americans without judicial authorization. He has also admitted to doing so dozens of times. And he vows to do it again. This is illegal, his excuses notwithstanding. Mr. Bush should be impeached.

This is a critical test. During the run-up to the war, there was a lot of noise about how the United Nations was irrelevant in this new era. As I watched the U S Congress struggle to figure out how to do its constitutional duty, I came to the sad conclusion that it was the Congress that had become irrelevant in this new era. Time to show us all that this conclusion is premature.

This is a critical test for our democracy and republican form of government.