June 11 - 17: an interesting week

I was looking at one of those sites that has significant historical events for each day of the year and I noticed that there were several falling in the week of June 11 - 17. So I thought I’d note some of them.

June 11, 1962 was the day the Port Huron Statement was issued. Authored largely by Tom Hayden, it was the founding document of the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS.

June 12, 1963 was the day Medgar Evers was murdered.

June 12, 1964 was the day when a racist court in apartheid South Africa sentenced Nelson Mandela to life in prison.

June 12, 1967 was the occasion for the release of the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia. After being married in Washington, DC, Richard Loving and Mildred (Jeter) Loving returned home to Virginia. They were arrested for the crime of being married: Richard was white and Mildred was black and interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia. Richard was sentenced to a year in prison, suspended on the condition that they leave the state and not return for twenty-five years. In Loving, SCOTUS threw out the law, finally putting an end to state bans on interracial marriage. It still feels strange to know that in my adult lifetime, there were still laws against interracial marriage and that indeed public opinion was more against such marriages than are against same-sex marriages today. Still, while it does seem strange, for that very same reason it gives me hope that in no more than another generation the idea of a ban on same-sex marriage will seem as odd as a ban on interracial marriage does now.

June 12, 1982 saw the biggest peace demonstration in US history and the biggest peace demonstration anywhere prior to the worldwide demonstrations against the first Gulf War on February 15, 2003. Somewhere between 800,000 and one million people gathered in Central Park in New York City to mark SSSD II, the UN’s Second Special Session on Disarmament, and to protest nuclear weapons and call for a nuclear freeze. Two days later, there were simultaneous sit-ins at the UN missions of the five admitted nuclear powers, resulting in over 1600 arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience.

June 13, 1971 was the day the New York Times published the first installment of the Pentagon Papers, a “secret history” of the Vietnam War to 1968 authored by the RAND Corporation on behalf of the Pentagon. At the request of the Nixon administration, a federal court blocked further publication in the first case of prior restraint in US history. However, the Washington Post took up the cudgel and by the end of the month the Supreme Court had lifted the ban in what is still considered a significant decision for freedom of the press.

June 16, 1961 was when President John Kennedy agreed to increase the presence of American military advisors in Vietnam to 805 and to provide direct training and combat supervision to South Vietnamese troops. To the degree any particular date can be so regarded, this is the day the Vietnam War started.

Finally, June 17, 1972 was the day of the Watergate break-in. The break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC, was part of the wide effort of Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign to manipulate he political process to ensure him a second term. The burglars were caught and thanks to the refusal of Judge John Sirica to believe the nonsense that this was just five rogue guys with no higher connections, it ultimately lead to criminal and Congressional investigations climaxing in Nixon, in the face of certain impeachment and likely conviction, resigning on August 9, 1974.

Sources:
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Port_Huron.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/clarion/kc_evers.html
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandelahome.html
http://speakout.com/activism/opinions/3208-1.html
http://www.icanw.org/1982
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/timeline.html

Clarabell Award: The Vagina Monologues reach Michigan

Recently, I introduced the Clown Award, now re-dubbed the Clarabell Award, to be given to people or organization in cases where I thought they we just being phenomenally stupid. I thought it would be an occasional thing but I keep finding deserving recipients.

This time, it goes to the leadership of the Michigan state House of Representatives.

On Wednesday, that august body was debating a massive anti-abortion omnibus bill the leaders were trying to ram through. Rep. Lisa Brown spoke in opposition, noting that she is an observant Jew and that Jewish law requires that if a choice has to be made between the life of the fetus and the life of the mother, the life of the mother must be given precedence - and the proposed law allows for no such exception. She said "I'm not trying to force my religious beliefs on you, why are you trying to force yours on me?"

She then ended her statement by saying “Finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.’”

In response, Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas gaveled her out of order and the deeply, deeply shocked Rep. Mike Callton called her statement “so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.”

The next day, House leaders refused to allow her to speak on the House floor as punishment for having "disrupted the decorum of the House."

Brown said later that "I'd love to know what I said that was offensive. It was an anti-choice bill regarding abortion, which obviously involves a vagina, so, you know, I don't know what word I'm supposed to use otherwise."

Maybe she should have stuck with "unmentionable feminine nether regions." As for Reps. Stamas and Callton, I'd say they were stuck in the '50s except I'm not sure if that should refer to the decade or their IQs.

In either event, both they and the majority leadership of the Michigan House are clearly clowns.

Sources:
http://www.care2.com/causes/mi-gop-vagina-offensive-to-say-necessary-to-regulate.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/michigan-woman-lawmakers-silenced-_n_1598168.html

Voter ID laws are meant to block progressive voters

I’ve talked before about proposed voter ID laws, laws demanding that certain approved forms of ID, often a photo ID, be shown at a polling place in order to be able to vote. I’ve noted that the main effect of such bills - and I maintain it is the intended effect of such bills - is to disenfranchise poor, elderly, minority, and student voters, all of who are disproportionately affected by these laws and who also, by what surely is no coincidence, are constituencies more likely to be liberal rather than conservative in their voting patterns.

These laws are, that is, intended to permanently tilt the electoral playing field in favor of the right wing.

I raise this now because Massachusetts is not immune to this crap. Republicans in the state legislature are pushing voter ID bills. One such bill was killed right around the end of May by being "referred for study" - in effect, tabling it. Even though that one was killed, you can be damn sure there will be more about it.

There are a couple of things that get me about this. First is why I called it an attempt to disenfranchise liberal-leaning voters. The GOPpers in the state legislature pushing this idiocy argued that

people cannot cash a check, rent a car, rent a DVD or even enter some government buildings without showing an ID.

That is exactly what gets argued every time and everywhere this comes up. You get exactly the same arguments, often in exactly the same words. Do not even try to tell me this is not a coordinated campaign. What’s more, these are claims carefully designed to avoid engaging in logical argument. After all, the real response should be what the hell? Since when is cashing a check or renting a DVD a basic component of a healthy democracy? Since when are they a basic function of citizenship? And weren’t we just a few years ago talking about how we could encourage more people to come out and vote? Why now are we supposed to focus instead on how many roadblocks we can put in their path?

Another thing that gets me is that right after arguing, in effect, that everyone already has ID, they’ll respond to being faced with the fact that something like 11% of potentially-eligible voters, disproportionately the elderly and minorities, don’t have such ID by ignoring their previous claims and declaring it doesn’t matter because some agency (usually the given state’s version of Massachusetts’ Registry of Motor Vehicles) will issue free IDs. Which is all well and good - except you need to be able to produce the documents to prove you are who you say you are in order to get the ID. That is, you in effect have to have ID in order to get the ID - and in some cases, such as having to prove citizenship, the paperwork can cost $200. By contrast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, which studies topics like voter access, when the poll tax was declared unconstitutional in 1966, it was $1.50.

And here’s the real thing, the real thing that gets me and proves this has nothing to do with “protecting the integrity” of the voting process: The only kind of “voter fraud” that these laws could possibly address is voter impersonation, that is, going to the polls and pretending to be someone other than who you are. That is the only kind of fraud these laws could address and that kind of fraud is vanishingly rare. It is a solution in search of a problem.

One example: When Shrub’s DOJ launched a crackdown on fraud in 2002, five years later it had obtained only 86 convictions. That's 7/100,000 of one percent of the 122 million people who voted for president in just the 2004 elections. Even if the DOJ only caught one percent of the actual fraud, even if the actual rate of fraud was 100 times higher, that would make it 7/1000 of one percent.

Another example: Texas passed a voter ID law last year, making a picture ID necessary to vote. This came despite the fact that the 2008 and 2010 general elections, in which more than 13 million voters participated, together produced fewer than five “illegal voting” complaints of a kind affected by the new law.

Meanwhile, the Brennan Center estimates that in 2004 up to 3 million registered and fully-qualified voters were prevented from voting because of problems with our voter registration systems and up to five million people could be adversely affected by voting law changes enacted in 2011.

To top it off, we have this story: Pennsylvania recently passed one of these “prevent the ‘wrong sorts’ from voting” laws. In April, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele was touring the state to “explain” the new law. In a meeting with the editorial board of the Erie (PA) Times-News, she showed her state employee ID as an illustration - only to be told that it was not a valid form of voter ID under the law because it did not have an expiration date.

When advocates rely on fear-mongering, false comparisons, and slogans while not even understanding the laws they demand be passed - you know there is something really wrong.

Sources:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/168400/pennsylvania-voter-id-law-places-expiration-date-democracy
http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/11/why-the-voter-fraud-myth-wont-die.html
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/voting_law_changes_in_2012
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Cheating-rarely-seen-at-polls-3432801.php
http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/06/21/usa-today-misses-the-point-on-voter-id-laws/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801969.html
http://www.wickedlocal.com/marlborough/news/x2067829442/Beacon-Hill-Roll-Call-Voter-ID-sparklers#axzz1xuv3c5Ic

A few posts for June 16

On Saturday, I did a live version of Left Side of the Aisle, listed as #61a, as part of an open house at the local community access cable station. Because it was done live instead of recorded in advance, I won't have video of it until they prepare the video of the whole six hours of live programming done that day.

So no video - but I did decide to post things based on what I said on Saturday. So that's what the following five posts are.

I do have to note that because this was prepared for broadcast, like other posts drawn from Left Side of the Aisle, sources are listed at the end because, frankly, I was not going to go back and locate the places for and insert links where they would have appeared had these originated as posts.

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 5

And Another Thing: Remains found of theater where Shakespeare's company performed; incredible precision of Large Hadron Collider experiments

And Another Thing is our occasional foray into things not really political, just interesting. This week, we have a two-fer: something old and something new.

First, the old. In the prologue to William Shakespeare's play Henry V, the chorus asks

can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?

"This cockpit" and "this wooden O" refer to the theater in which the play was to be performed - a theater, that is, where some of Shakespeare's plays were first performed.

A theater whose remains archaeologists have now been discovered behind a pub in London on a site marked for redevelopment.

The theater was called The Curtain. It opened in 1577 and was used until about 1620. It was home to Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, from 1597 until 1599, when they moved to the Globe.

Experts from the Museum of London have uncovered part of the gravel yard and gallery walls of the 435-year-old theater in an area called Shoreditch, just east of London's modern business district and about two miles north of where the old city walls would have stood in 1599. The site will be further excavated and the developer says he intends to preserve the site, which is good news.

Now, the new. The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator is the Large Hadron Collider, a underground ring some 17 miles in circumference near Geneva, Switzerland. It has been nicknamed the “Big Bang machine,” because it is designed to simulate the conditions existing at the very beginning of our universe.

Recently, one of the scientists working there, Dr. Pauline Gagnon of the University of Indiana Bloomington, posted a blog entry describing a surprise she encountered during her work there. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the end of her shift, when another scientist called in to report unexpected fluctuations, dips, in the data coming in.

She called the control room and was casually by the operator “That’s because the moon is nearly full and I periodically have to adjust the proton beam orbits.” In fact, they routinely had to be adjusted every couple of hours.

Here’s what was going on: One side of the accelerator was a little closer to the Moon - and so the Moon’s gravity was pulling more strongly on that side of the accelerator, every-so slightly deforming the tunnel through which the particle beams pass. And that shift would be enough to affect the results of experiments if it wasn't adjusted for.

This caused a fair bit of comment, some snarky, some amused, about how his powerful instrument was "no match for the Moon."

But this is what I wanted to point out: The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is a something under 239,000 miles, or about 385,000 kilometers. Even at that distance, the difference in gravitational force between two points no more than roughly 5.5 miles apart (opposite points on a circle about 17 miles around) - that's a bit over 2/1000th of one percent of the distance - that even at that distance, the difference in force over just 5.5 miles is enough to screw up the results of experiments.

I just want you to contemplate for a moment what that tells you about just how delicate, just how mind-bendingly precise, are the sorts of experiments being done by physicists today.

Sources:
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/full.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/curtain-theatre-shakespeare_n_1573445.html
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/big-bang-machine-suffers-interference-from-moon-gravity.php?ref=fpblg
http://www.universetoday.com/19426/distance-to-the-moon/

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 4

Outrage of the Week: US commits acts of war against Iran; media shrugs

This is a rather curious edition of outrage of the week because I'm not certain against who the outrage should be directed. Let's say for the moment that there's more than enough to go around.

recently, the New York Times published two revealing reports on secret, legally questionable programs by the Obama administration. One had to do with the use of drones, and I talked about that last week.

The other had to do with the fact that after coming into office, the O crowd accelerated a program of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks on Iran.

On June 1, the Times noted that this "significantly expanded America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons" and that the attacks "appear to be the first time the United States has repeatedly used cyberweapons to cripple another country’s infrastructure, achieving, with computer code, what until then could be accomplished only by bombing a country or sending in agents to plant explosives."

What that bland description slips by without comment - perhaps even without noticing - is that this is an act of war. The United States is seeking to quoting again - "cripple another country’s infrastructure" in a way that previously involved bombing. It is trying to cripple part of the industrial capacity of a sovereign nation. If you doubt this is an act of war, consider what the reaction - what your reaction - would be if it emerged that Iran was doing this to us.

If you still doubt it, consider that last year the White House commissioned a major study of cyberspace, which found that "States have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by certain aggressive acts in cyberspace" and "When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would any other threat to our country."

And if you still doubt it, consider that more than a year ago, the Pentagon concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war.

And don't bother saying "oh, this is about Iran's nuclear weapons program, so it's actually self-defense." According to the consensus view of the 16 US intelligence services, there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. There is a nuclear enrichment program, but that can just as easily be used for, and is just as necessary for, nuclear power rather than weapons. In 2007, an intelligence finding concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier. That finding was reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and it remains the consensus view. There is no Iranian nuclear weapons program.

We're left with the end: The Barack Obama administration, President Hope-Changey, our Nobel Peace Prize winner, has in effect declared war on Iran - and our oh-so-important watchdog media can't even be bothered to notice.

I'm still not sure which one of those is the outrage of the week - but damn straight one of them is.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/06/01/cyberwar-is-war-white-house-said-but-nyt-didnt-notice/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/computer_malware/stuxnet/index.html

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 3

Clarabell Award: School punishes student for actions of others

Last week, I introduced the Clown Award, now officially dubbed the Clarabell Award, describing it as an occasional feature for things that weren't necessarily either evil or good, but were just stupid. That is, I thought it would be just occasional - but I keep finding stupid things, so who knows.

For this occasion of the award, we go to Mt. Healthy, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Recently, they held their high school graduation. Anthony Cornist was among those to receive his diploma. He was on the football team and was apparently very popular at school with both teachers and other students. Too popular, it seems: When his name was called at the graduation ceremonies, his friends and family cheered enough that Cornist was denied his diploma.

If that sounds odd to you, it does to me, too. Here's what happened: When he got on stage, instead of his diploma he was handed by the principal a letter saying that because of the "disruption" caused by the cheering, his diploma would be held in the principal's office until he completed 20 hours of community service.

Now note, Cornist did nothing wrong. All he did was walk across the stage. He had nothing whatsoever to do with the cheering. The school even admitted as much: Schools superintendent Lori Handler said all the students - including, necessarily, Cornist - were "angelic." So the school, without question, is trying to punish Anthony Cornist for something others did, over which he had no control. When the absurdity of that was pointed out to Handler, she doubled down on the nonsense by saying that, get this, his family could serve the time for him - so they are now trying to impose punishment on people over who they have absolutely no legal authority.

And I'll triple down: The video - there is a link to it at wcpo.com below - clearly shows the principal giving Cornist the letter when he first arrived on stage to get his diploma. But Handler says the problem wasn't the volume of the cheering, it was the duration - which the principal clearly could not have known at the time he gave Cornist the letter with the demand for community service. This may be a good part of the reason that Handler now refuses to be interviewed, insisting she will only comment through a written statement prepared in conjunction with the attorney for the school district.

On top of everything else, despite being denied his diploma, service or no service, Cornist is still a legal graduate and his transcripts are available for any potential college or employer - and the school may have broken several laws by withholding the diploma for causes beyond its authority.

There can be no doubt: The administration of the high school of Mt. Healthy, Ohio is composed of clowns.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/anthony-cornist-popular-h_n_1573901.html
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/mt-healthy-schools-students-family-should-do-the-right-thing
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/withholding-students-diploma-illegal

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 2

Attacks on the Commons: Government is not your enemy, the 1% is

The past couple of weeks I have talked about what I call the Commons, that range of our social and political culture where the common interests of our society lie, that area where all can obtain benefit, all can take part, and all have some responsibility, each to the other and to the whole. I have also talked about attacks on that idea, attacks on the idea that we as a society, as a people, have common, that is, community, interests and responsibilities. It seems now that every week brings a new example, a new illustration of that attack.

This week, it comes from Witless Romney. He was, it was reported, "skeptical" of PHC*'s take on the economy. "Obama" - this is quoting Romney - "Obama says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message from Wisconsin? It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

There are a number of things about this statement that anyone with a brain and a conscience should find repulsive. One is the obvious one that he's saying that even as our population grows, we don't need more fire fighters, more cops, more teachers. Which is absurd on its face.

The second is that he is in essence saying not only that fire fighters, cops, and teachers aren't "helping the American people" but that they aren't part of "the American people." That they are separate, apart, that they are "not us," they are "them," they are "other."

Which brings me to the underlying point here. He referred to fire fighters, cops, and teachers, but I'm sure he would be willing to add public health nurses, sanitation workers, even bus drivers, and more - because they all have one thing in common: They are public employees. They work for the government.

Attacking government is a linchpin of the attack on the Commons because government is the most obvious symbol of the Commons; more than than, it's a central player in maintaining the Commons, in maintaining the possibility of being a society instead of an atomized collection of individuals, each isolated from and in competition with all others. Sometime ago I said that the ideal of government is that it is a vehicle through which a people act on their ideals. Obviously, I expect that all governments across history have fallen short of that, which is why I call it the "ideal." It's what you're shooting for. It is the idea of government. Which is why the attacks have slid so smoothly from ones on "big government" to ones on the ordinary people who work for the government, who do the public jobs. Because it never was about "big" government, it was never about making government "more efficient," it was about the very idea of government, about the very idea of the people of a society being able to work together for their own mutual and joint benefit.

Now, this is not new: Literally 30 years ago I was denouncing that I called

political programs that appeal to the worst in our cultural heritage, that speak to selfishness, competitiveness, suspicion, and a "what's-in-it-for-me" attitude.

I accused the right wing of seeking

to arouse a meanness of manner and selfishness of soul among the American people, to divide us against ourselves, empty us of compassion, and make what the British call "I'm all right Jack" our national motto.

That is,

they want you to think of just yourselves in isolation: You're working, you're not hungry, your mortgage hasn't been foreclosed, so the hell with everybody else.

A little later, I added that

that's why they speak of the personal but never of the public; of self but never others; of us and them but never we; of family but never of community. In fact, they're afraid to talk of community, because that means to talk of social obligations, of moral commitments to what you could call a type of extended family that goes far beyond their circumscribed view.

Let me pause for just a moment here to answer the question that you may be - legitimately, should be - asking: Who are "they?" I'll be blunt: I'm talking about the right wing and even more than that the rich, the economic elite - the 1%, if you will.

Now, don't anyone dare to write me claiming I said that every single person at that level of wealth is evil and citing some single seeming exception as a supposed ultimate disproof of everything I said. You'll only make yourself look lame, so don't bother.

I am not saying that every single rich individual is a money-grubbing, greed-driven, sociopath whose only concern for the rest of us is how we might be of benefit to their personal bottom line. I just saying that as a group, as a whole, those people are money-grubbing, greed-driven, sociopaths whose only concern for the rest of us is how we might be of benefit to their personal bottom line.

And the thing is, that economic elite, both individual and corporate, that elite is now essentially in charge of our government and the higher up you go in the level of government, the greater the control becomes. We saw that just the other day with the release of a batch of emails detailing how the Obama gang negotiated a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to get that so-called health reform law - better called the Health Insurance Industry Enrichment Act - passed and how as part of that deal the O crowd gave away the one thing that could have significantly and immediately reduced the cost of medicine to US consumers: the reimportation of drugs, now, still, specifically banned by law despite the absence of any safety, medical, or health-related reason - except, that is, the healthy profits of the drug companies.

Those sorts of I hesitate to call them concerns usually get a friendly reception in Congress, which is not surprising, considering that according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 249 current members of Congress, about 47% of the total, are millionaires and the estimated median net worth of a current US senator is $2.56 million.

Those are the sort of people who have the power now. They are. We have to face that. But they have a problem, a perpetual, on-going worry: There are a lot more of us than there are of them.

That's why they want you to feel isolated. They why they want you to feel alone. That's why they want you to feel that government is "them," that government, that everything to do with government, is "other," is separate from you, is somehow alien and even threatening, that government, as they will openly claim, is the problem. Because they know, they know, they know, that the one thing that can affect their power, the one thing that can provide a counterweight to their power, is an aroused citizenry acting through their - our - government.

Why do you think they promoted, moved in on, and then took over the Tea Party movement? Because those people had been successfully conditioned, if you will, to be predisposed to seeing government as an enemy. So the movement could be and was rather easily redirected away from its initial anger, which was directed pretty equally between government and the banks, to becoming strictly a "government bad, not government good" movement that could offer a facade of populist anger while actually serving the interests of the elites.

At the same time, why do you think they were to terrified of the Occupy movement? Why were they so eager first to dismiss it, then to mock it, then to undermine it, then to crush it, and now to insist it is dead and buried? Because Occupy identified - identifies, I should say - the issue, the enemy if you will, as concentrated wealth. As concentrated economic power, a concentration that has grown dramatically and continues to grow as all of our increases in our total national wealth continue to line the pockets of the rich even as the rest of us suffered a record decline in wealth between 2007 and 2010. Don't forget, it was the Occupy movement that introduced the idea of the 99%. So why are the elites so scared of Occupy? Because it aims at the right target.

Fire fighters, cops, teachers, public health nurses, sanitation workers, bus drivers, the scientists at the EPA, the clerks in the bowels of some state's bureaucracy - these people are not your enemies. And while our present overseers, our present governors, may well be our enemies, government is not.

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

Sources:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77209_Page3.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/47-of-congress-members-millionaires-a-status-shared-by-only-1-of-americans/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/americans-suffered-record_n_1587387.html

Left Side of the Aisle #61 - Part 1

Good news on same-sex marriage: Another court finds DOMA unconstitutional

On June 6, Judge Barbara Jones of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is unconstitutional in that it denies federal benefits to same-sex spouses legally married in their home states. This came just a week after the First Circuit Court of Appeals came to the same conclusion in a case I mentioned last week.

In addition, two cases out of the Northern District of California have also held DOMA to be unconstitutional on the grounds that it discriminates against same-sex couples in a way for which there is no demonstrated "rational basis." One of those cases will be before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the fall.

After the Obama administration said it would no longer defend DOMA in court, House Speaker John Boner put together what he called his Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives - which has the rather appropriate acronym BLAG - to defend the law. They hired private attorney Paul Clement to do the deed. He has defended DOMA in four separate cases now, and has lost all four times.

As a footnote to this, I mentioned last week that the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court had declined to rehear a decision by a three-judge panel that Proposition 8, which undid rights gained by same-sex couples, could not stand. Three judges dissented from that ruling, saying in part that "we have now declared that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia."

Well, the legal basis was, again, you can't just take a group and strip away rights previously obtained. But yes, they're right: animus is the only conceivable motivation for denying same-sex couples the right to marry. Yes, it is.

Sources:
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/domas-federal-definition-of-ma.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/on-thursday-evening-a-federal.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/06/another-federal-judge-finds-doma-marriage-definiti.html
http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2012/06/07/doma-takes-another-hit-in-court-fed-definition-of-marriage-deemed-unconstitutional/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scottie-thomaston/9th-circuit-prop-8_b_1571220.html

Left Side of the Aisle #61

Left Side of the Aisle for June 14 - 20, 2012

This week:

Good news on same-sex marriage: Another court finds DOMA unconstitutional
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/domas-federal-definition-of-ma.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/05/on-thursday-evening-a-federal.html
http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/06/another-federal-judge-finds-doma-marriage-definiti.html
http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2012/06/07/doma-takes-another-hit-in-court-fed-definition-of-marriage-deemed-unconstitutional/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scottie-thomaston/9th-circuit-prop-8_b_1571220.html

Attacks on the Commons: Government is not your enemy; the 1% is
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77209_Page3.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-reveal-extent-of-obamas-deal-with-industry-on-health-care.html
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/47-of-congress-members-millionaires-a-status-shared-by-only-1-of-americans/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/americans-suffered-record_n_1587387.html

Clarabell Award: School punishes student for actions of others
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/anthony-cornist-popular-h_n_1573901.html
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/mt-healthy-schools-students-family-should-do-the-right-thing
http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/withholding-students-diploma-illegal

Outrage of the Week: US commits acts of war against Iran; media shrugs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/06/01/cyberwar-is-war-white-house-said-but-nyt-didnt-notice/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/computer_malware/stuxnet/index.html

And Another Thing: Remains found of theater where Shakespeare's company performed; incredible precision of Large Hadron Collider experiments
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/full.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/curtain-theatre-shakespeare_n_1573445.html
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/big-bang-machine-suffers-interference-from-moon-gravity.php?ref=fpblg
http://www.universetoday.com/19426/distance-to-the-moon/

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 6

And Another Thing: More evidence on what happened to Amelia Earhart

In 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were flying over the Pacific Ocean, attempting fly around the world at the equator. The plane disappeared and for 73 years what happened to it remained a mystery, with most thinking the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.

But in June 2010, a group of investigators trying to find out what happened to Earhart and Noonan claimed to have found evidence that the pair might have been able to land on a remote, uninhabited island now called Nikumaroro, also known as Gardner's Island. Clearly, based on the evidence, someone was marooned of that island, the question was and is who.

Now, according to a new study by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, released just in time for the 75th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance on July 2, some radio signals recorded in the hours after Earhart's last inflight message, which previously were dismissed as bogus, were in fact genuine. If they are, it would mean that the plane was on the ground somewhere, on its wheels, for several days after the supposed crash into the Pacific, with Nikumaroro the obvious and likely choice.

It would also mean, more somberly, that Earhart and Noonan might have lived for weeks, even months, on the island before dying there as castaways.

Sources:
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-castaway-clues-island.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/a-small-broken-cosmetic-glass-jar-fragments-of-rouge-from-a-womans-compact-buttons-parts-of-a-pocket-knife-that-was-beat.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-distress-calls-120601.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 5

Some good news: One small, one major court victory for same-sex marriage

One small but important victory in the struggle for the rights of same-sex couples: On June 5, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a three-judge panel's earlier decision that California's infamous Proposition 8 - or PropHate as it came to be known - violated the US constitution's guarantee of equal treatment under the law because the measure took away a right that had previously been obtained through a decision of the California state Supreme Court. The case will now go to the Supreme Court, which likely will hear arguments in the fall and rule next year.

One not small and important victory in that same struggle: On May 31, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that part of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is unconstitutional - specifically, that part that denies federal benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married in their home state. This was the section of the law that the Obama administration previously said it would not defend in court, and - credit where it's due - it didn't. While some district courts have found DOMA or some parts of it unconstitutional, the First Circuit is the first appellate-level court to do so.

What SCOTUS will do is anyone's guess: Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote in decisions, has argued favorably on gay rights in the past. On the other hand, historically the Court has been reluctant to get too far ahead of public opinion.

But on the other other hand, in this case it wouldn't be: Support for same sex marriage is growing steadily, achieving majority status in some polls and a plurality in others. Indeed, it's getting hard to find a poll showing even a plurality against same-sex marriage. And just remember, when the high court struck down a ban on interracial marriage in 1967, just 45 years ago, polls showed a majority of Americans still opposed to mixed-race marriages.

What's more, the times, they are a-changin', as the cartoon to the side here shows. It portrays a same-sex, mixed-race couple getting married. What is the particular cultural significance of this? It's an Archie cartoon.

I've said it before: On this, justice will come.

Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop-8-20120606,0,2755661.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-doma-20120601,0,232338.story

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 4

Outrage of the Week: White House lies about "militants" to hide civilian casualties from drone attacks

So, we're told, the US recently killed another #2 in al-Qaeda. How many does that make now? A couple of dozen #2s or something? US officials called the killing of Abu Yahya al Libi "a major blow to the battered core leadership" of the group. How many such "major blows" is that now?

This whole thing increasingly reminds me of reading 1984, which described a population kept in thrall partly by the constant presence of war. The nation is always at war, always under threat, always at risk. But that could get people discouraged, even - oh, the horror - defeatist. So there are victories, lots and lots of victories, yes, we are winning, forever winning! But never have won. No matter how many victories, there is never victory. The war, the threat, the need for submission to the government for the sake of safety and national unity in the face of danger always remain.

Al Libi was killed in a CIA drone strike. The spooks had targeted him in three separate missile attacks over three days, finally succeeding in strikes that destroyed a house and a vehicle. There was nothing reported about the destruction or death from the previous two attacks.

The killing of al Libi was part of a recent surge in Predator drone attacks, a surge which is causing more problems for US-Pakistan relations. Pakistan's government has condemned the CIA's use of drones, which has killed civilians and which Pakistan says has provided a recruiting tool for insurgents. In the wake of this latest wave, Pakistan's foreign ministry said they "represented a clear red line for Pakistan." The US ambassador "was informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. Parliament had emphatically stated that they were unacceptable."

We don't care. We don't have to care. We're like Lili Tomlin's phone operator talking about the phone company. We're the US: We don't have to care about what Pakistan thinks.

But that's not why this is the Outrage of the Week. This is:

US news accounts keep referring to "militants" killed. It seems no civilians are hurt or killed in these attacks. Indeed, the White House insists that civilian casualties are in "the single digits."

The thing is, these media outlets have no idea whatsoever about who was killed in these strikes. None. All they know is that officials, American or Pakistani, told them that they were "militants" and they blandly repeat that as fact. They report this not only without having the slightest idea whether it’s true or not but in the face of reports of civilian deaths by major international news agencies (Reuters, AP, BBC, and others). But worse, they do it with the full knowledge - but without ever mentioning - that the meaning of the word "militant" is being aggressively and deliberately distorted by US government propaganda.

Barack Obama - PHC* - has embraced what is politely called a "disputed method" for counting civilian casualties. This method regards all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, as "militants," as "terrorists," unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. I'm very sure first that US intelligence goes to great lengths to see if the people they killed were actually "militants" or not, and I'm equally sure that their families, their parents, wives, children, that the families of the dead - and the dead themselves - are very grateful for the posthumous finding that they were innocent victims.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: People in an area of known terrorist activity, or anywhere near a top Qaeda operative, they say, are probably up to no good. And "probably," of course, is a good enough reason to kill people.

But sure, this makes perfect sense. So let's go to Mattapan, let's go to the South Bronx in New York, and take everyone living there and throw them into prison. Because, after all, we would tell them, you're not just in, you're living in an area of known criminal activity so "simple logic" we can assume you are all criminals.

Guilt by association, murder by proxy, lies, and meanings of words changed to fit government policy in another echo of 1984. What more could you need for the Outrage of the Week?

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-20120606,0,6858392.story
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/

*PHC = President Hopey-Changey

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 3

Attacks on the Commons: Louisiana privatizes education; Florida scrubs voters

It's becoming an every week thing now, noting further attacks on the Commons, on the idea that we are a society and that everyone of us has obligations to all others. You know, that "we the people" crap. This week, two more examples.

First is Louisiana, which is embarking on a plan to privatize public education. As I said a couple of weeks ago, describing the general intent, the idea is not to support private schools, but to eliminate public schools in favor of private ones. Louisiana is prepared to go further with this than any other state so far, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners, and church pastors to educate children.

Starting this fall, thousands of students will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools. These schools have supposedly been vetted by the state to ensure the adequacy of the curriculum offered, but it's hard to credit that claim: Some approved schools use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; some use Bible-based math books that don't cover concepts such as set theory (and which, I can only assume, insist you express your answers in cubits); some use biology texts built around refuting evolution - not that merely ignore it or deny it, but seek to actively refute it.

Next year, in 2013, students of any income will be eligible for "mini-vouchers" that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships. Industry trade groups, businesses, online schools, tutors, and others can be paid with these vouchers.

The thing is, every time a student receives a voucher of either type, their local public school will lose an equal amount of state funding. This program is a conscious plan to undermine public education and turn education into just another profit center whose quality depends solely on how rich you and how well-connected your family is in order to get you into the handful of slots available in the schools that actually do offer a quality program. And if you're neither rich nor well-connected? Them's the breaks and don't expect any of these creeps to want to do anything about it. Because they do not believe in "we the people."

Second item on the topic this week is an update to last week's discussion of the state government of Florida, which is looking to purge as many as 239,000 voters from its rolls. Local officials across the state, both Democrats and Republicans, resisted the purge because they said the data provided by the state sucks. But the state kept pushing. Interestingly, just as happened in the purge of 2000, many of the supposedly ineligible voters are more likely to vote for Democrats. In 2000 it was blacks; this time its Latinos.

Recently, the DOJ sent a letter to Florida state officials saying this purge violates both the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. In response, all 67 county elections supervisors suspended the voter purge.

Even more recently, however, state officials say they will defy the federal warning and they plan to continue scrubbing the election rolls, using inadequate and often erroneous data, the inevitable result of which would be to tilt the voting population in favor of the right wing, that is, the very people who deny any obligation to others, the very people who deny the Commons.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/louisiana-makes-bold-bid-_n_1563900.html
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/02/florida-elections-supervisors-shut-down-rick-scotts-voter-purge/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/florida-voter-purge-federal-warning_n_1564131.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-voter-purge-gets-pushback-from-elections-supervisors-2387004.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 2

Clarabell the Clown Award: North Carolina considers ordering ocean level not to rise

A new occasional bit here: The Clown Award, given as reason arises to those people or institutions who are being mind-bogglingly stupid. This first one goes to the state of North Carolina.

Recently, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission predicted a one-meter - about a 39 inch - rise in sea levels by 2100. That could threaten 2000 square miles of North Carolina's low-lying coast.

Faced with this news and prompted by developers worried about sea front properties, state lawmakers swung into action. They forced the commission to remove the reference to a one meter rise from its report and Republican legislators are now circulating a bill which states that sea level rise "rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly."

In other words, these dodos want planners to be required to assume a straight-line rise in sea level, even though every prediction, every model, describes an accelerating rate of rise. Using a straight-line prediction limits the rise in sea level by 2100 to just 8 inches.

This almost literally is like they want the state of North Carolina to order the Atlantic Ocean to not rise more than 8 inches over the next 90 years. As Stephen Colbert said of this, "If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved."

Unfortunately for them, the real numbers keep getting worse. CO2 levels in the Arctic have now passed 400ppm (parts per million), with 350ppm regarded by many scientists as the "highest safe level," that is, the highest level that could be maintained without serious climatological consequences. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have not been this high for at least 800,000 years.

Of course, more CO2 means more warmth, and more warmth means higher sea levels. A number of states have realized the implications and are starting to plan for it. Maine is preparing for a rise of up to two meters by 2100. Delaware is looking at 1.5 meters, Louisiana one meter. Southeast Florida is projecting a rise of up to two feet by 2060. On the west coast, California is preparing for a 1.4 meter rise in sea levels.

But not North Carolina. There, Tom Thompson, director of a group of local legislators opposed to planning for higher sea levels, said of the Coastal Resources Commission, “I’m not saying these people are liars. I’m saying they have a passion for sea-level rise and they can’t give it up.” In other words, they're not liars, they're just wild-eyed fanatics!

No, Mr. Thompson, what they are, are researchers looking at the science. And what you are is a clown.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/colbert-north-carolina-sea-level_n_1571329.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/28/2096124/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/01/sea-level-bill-would-allow-north-carolina-to-stick-its-head-in-the-sand

Left Side of the Aisle #60 - Part 1

How free is your speech? Supreme Court okays retaliatory arrests

You think you have free speech? Think again: In modern America, you have as much right to criticize your betters as they choose to allow you.

In 2006, "The Big" Dick Cheney was visiting a mall in Colorado. A guy named Steven Howards got in the line to meet Cheney and when he reached the vice president, told him his "policies in Iraq are disgusting." As Cheney moved away, Howards touched him on the shoulder and then turned and walked away.

A Secret Service agent named Gus Reichle followed Howards, accosted him, got into an argument with him, and then - only then - arrested him for assault. The charges were quickly dropped and Howards sued Reichle and another agent for violating his free speech on the grounds of having made a retaliatory arrest - that is, Reichle arrested Howards because Howards gave Cheney grief. The US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in Howards' favor.

On Monday, June 4, the Supreme Court unanimously - yes, which means "including the so-called liberals it was so vitally important to have there" - overturned that decision, letting the agents walk without consequence for their behavior. Justice Clarabell Thomas, writing for the Court, rejected Howards' argument that the "general right to be free from retaliation for one's speech" made what officers did clearly unconstitutional, thereby opening them up to being sued. The justices instead held that the agents were entitled to immunity from such a suit because no federal court had clearly established the "specific right to be free from a retaliatory arrest that is otherwise supported by probable cause."

Let me disentangle that: The Supreme Court found that no federal court has specifically said that managing to come up with some way to arrest someone, some justification for it, doesn't automatically exempt you from a claim you violated that person's constitutional rights. And because no court had said that, the top legal minds of our nation ruled that Secret Service agents could not possibly be expected to understand that arresting Howards just because he criticized "The Big" Dick Cheney was a violation of Howards' rights.

If you're on good terms with a cop, ask them: If they wanted to, could they come up with some superficially reasonable basis to arrest someone, maybe one of those vague catch-alls like disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, failing to obey a lawful order, or some such? They'll tell you yes. Which means that the practical, real-world, effect of this ruling is that federal agents can punish you for free speech, can arrest you for giving grief to some nearby official, without consequences to themselves.

Three more things about this same case should be noted:

Reichle's lawyer, Sean Gallagher, raised the issue a "free speech zone" in connection with the agents' duties. This is about the idea that the Secret Service can establish a zone, a bubble, around any official they are guarding, inside which free speech ceases to exist. Some of these "zones" have been like a city block in size and people have been arrested simply for carrying a sign inside such a bubble. There was no indication in any news account of this case that this reference raised any eyebrows anywhere in that courtroom. It is now apparently to be taken for granted, to just be assumed, that the Secret Service can, on its own authority, simply wipe away the First Amendment within any perimeter it cares to establish.

A second thing is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer issued a concurring opinion in which they said Secret Service agents are required to "make singularly swift, on the spot, decisions whether the safety of the person they are protecting is in jeopardy." What swift decision? What the hell are they talking about here? Reichle followed Howards, accosted him, got into an argument with him, and only then did he arrest him. What "swift decision" are they talking about? Plus there's the fact that these are Secret Service agents. These are the folks whose job it is to be ready to take the bullet meant for the person they are protecting. These are the people ready to throw their bodies on that person to protect them from the bomb blast. But now we're supposed to think that the possibility of being sued will paralyze them with fear? What the hell?

But here's the worst, saved for last: Some of the Justices had expressed concern that a decision in favor of the agents could block all suits for retaliation filed against law enforcement. Gallagher said he was looking for a narrow decision, applying only to the "special circumstances" of Secret Service agents. But Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan, arguing before the Court on behalf of the Obama administration in support of the agents (no surprise there), told the Justices that "it also makes sense to apply [officer immunity] in other situations." In other words, it is the declared position of the Obama administration that there should be an across-the-board ban on First Amendment retaliation claims. Not just Secret Service agents, but any cop at any level from federal to local, should be able to retaliate against you by arresting you for exercising your First Amendment rights without fear of consequences to themselves, so long as they can come up with some plausible-sounding reason for the arrest.

Welcome to more of the change you were tricked into believing in.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/dick-cheney-supreme-court_n_1370670.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/supreme-court-dick-cheney-secret-service-free-speech-first-amendment_n_1567793.html

Left Side of the Aisle #60

How free is your speech? Supreme Court okays retaliatory arrests
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/dick-cheney-supreme-court_n_1370670.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/supreme-court-dick-cheney-secret-service-free-speech-first-amendment_n_1567793.html

Clarabell the Clown Award: North Carolina considers ordering ocean level not to rise
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/colbert-north-carolina-sea-level_n_1571329.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/28/2096124/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/01/sea-level-bill-would-allow-north-carolina-to-stick-its-head-in-the-sand

Attacks on the Commons: Louisiana privatizes education; Florida scrubs voters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/louisiana-makes-bold-bid-_n_1563900.html
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/02/florida-elections-supervisors-shut-down-rick-scotts-voter-purge/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/02/florida-voter-purge-federal-warning_n_1564131.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-voter-purge-gets-pushback-from-elections-supervisors-2387004.html

Outrage of the Week: White House lies about "militants" to hide civilian casualties from drone attacks
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-20120606,0,6858392.story
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/02/deliberate_media_propaganda/singleton/

Some good news: One small, one major court victory for same-sex marriage
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop-8-20120606,0,2755661.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-doma-20120601,0,232338.story

And Another Thing: More evidence on what happened to Amelia Earhart
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-castaway-clues-island.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/a-small-broken-cosmetic-glass-jar-fragments-of-rouge-from-a-womans-compact-buttons-parts-of-a-pocket-knife-that-was-beat.html
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-distress-calls-120601.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 4

Thoughts on heroism

Finally for today, a few thoughts on heroism. I recorded this week's show on May 30, the traditional Memorial Day before having a three-day weekend and holiday sales became more important, so I want to quote something I post on my blog every year right about now [which is also posted here below].

In May 2002, someone on a mailing list I was on posted a message asking people to take a moment of silence on Memorial Day, saying "Let us ensure that those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom are not forgotten."

In response, I wrote: And in that silent moment remember, too, the many nonviolent warriors who struggled, searched, sacrificed, for justice and freedom, who remain without songs or memorials to celebrate their lives or their passing, but who at some moment stood weaponless against the machinery of oppression and showed in their simple “No more” a force that can move history.

With that in mind, it seems that Chris Hayes, who does a news and commentary program on MSNBC on weekend mornings, sparked some controversy on Sunday with an observation on the general topic of sacrifice and heroism. In the video, you can see that he's struggling to find the right words to say what he means.

After noting that "it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the word 'heroes,'" he said he was "uncomfortable" with the word "hero" "because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war." He went on to say that of course there can be heroism in combat, "But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic" - problematic, that is, because the image of all soldiers killed in war as "heroes" makes it too easy to promote more wars.

And of course there was a blaze of outraged protest and of course he later issued an apology. It was, however, a sort of non-apology apology because he expressed regret for coming across as a "removed pundit" disconnected from the actual emotions of a decade of war but not for the actual sentiment. Which is good because he should not apologize for anything he said (with the possible exception of the phrase "rhetorically proximate"). Because the sentiment is true.

In fact, I said much the same thing in even stronger language four years ago. My focus there was somewhat different; I was addressing what I called the disturbing and increasing tendency among "progressives" to adulate all things military, which was happening, I argued, because the left was thinking it was a path to legitimacy on national security issues. That is, we had to prove we were as tough, as pro-military, as ready to go to war, as anybody. But knowing in advance where this would lead, and similar to Hayes' struggling with his words, the piece opened by saying

I've tried various ways to start this, wanting to make sure that I say what I mean and only what I mean. But I've come to realize that there is no way that will not be misunderstood, either accidentally or deliberately, by some. So I gave up trying to do anything other than say it outright.

A bit further in, I got to what is relevant here:

Let me be clear here: Soldiers are not "heroes." A "hero" is by definition someone who is in some way extraordinary, remarkable, worthy of emulation. It is at best a risky business to define someone as "extraordinary" simply by virtue of wearing a uniform and in fact it is potentially dangerous as it makes it too easy to slip into the militaristic attitude that what soldiers do goes beyond "necessary evil" or just necessary, beyond even honorable, to admirable, to something to celebrate, an attitude that makes it all to easy to promote additional enlistments, additional weapons, and even additional wars.

This way of thinking, I said elsewhere, "distorts our way of thinking, drops a magnet on our moral compass." War and its symbiotic partner militarism do not recognize "good" and "bad" but only life and death and, ultimately, only winner and loser and they will feed off one person's blood as readily as another.

Or, as I put it some years ago, "Every war is just when modified by the adjective 'my.'" Militarism destroys souls right along with flesh, war blows away conscience as readily as concrete.

So I will conclude here as I have concluded before with something that often is far clearer to the soldiers themselves than it is to their fawning fans, particularly those among the chickenhawks of the right, so eager for wars so long as they do not have to fight in them: Soldiers are not heroes. They can be heroes, they can act heroically, they can do heroic things. But heroes are defined by their actions in life, not the fact of their death, and the act of putting on a uniform and agreeing to put your conscience in a lockbox for the next so many years does not make your life more important than others and it does not make your death more important than others and it does not exempt you from moral judgment. It does not make you a hero.

And we should not fall prey to hero-worship.


Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/05/annual-memorial-day-post.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/chris-hayes-uncomfortable-soldiers-heroes_n_1550643.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2008/06/heroics.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/10/parting-shot-2.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 3

Outrage of the Week: SCOTUS sides with the corporations - again

On May 24, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Freeman v. Quicken Loans. I don't expect you heard about this case, but you should. It arose from a group of lawsuits out of Louisiana, combined into one, in which borrowers claimed that Quicken Loans violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA, by charging them loan-discount fees on their mortgages without providing reduced interest rates in return - that is, the company charged them fees for services that were never rendered.

According to a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, that's just fine. The law in question, they said, requires that these "unearned fees" be split with a third party, and since there was no third party, there was only Quicken Loans pocketing the cash for doing nothing, they were free to do so and jolly good for them. As a result of this decision, technically mortgage lenders can legally cheat homebuyers out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars by charging them fees and doing nothing in return. Put another way, SCOTUS has now found that by not specifically allowing for, not specifically banning, in the law a single-party rip-off, congress intended to allow your mortgage company to rip you off as long as they kept it all for themselves.

Circuit courts had been split on this question, which means at the very least that the requirement for a clear third party was debatable. But SCOTUS had no trouble, no difference of opinion, in coming down on the side of the corporations and against the individuals. Based on its record of the past couple of decades, including that being established by the "liberal" wing, that is no surprise - but it is still an outrage. The Supreme Court is again the Outrage of the Week.

Sources:
http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2012/05/corporate-court-gives-thumbs-up-to.html

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 2

More attacks on participation in the political life of the nation

Updated Two weeks ago, I talked about loss of the Commons, about the attack on the idea of a social community involving shared resources and a shared community responsibility for the welfare of all.

I talked last week about some means being used to limit participation in the political life of the nation as part of that attack. This week I'm going to mention some more.

I've talked several times about attempts to limit the franchise, that is, to limit the ability of people to vote, usually in reference to these insane voter ID laws. But that's not the only way. Another way, which I have also mentioned before, is registration restrictions: Just make it harder for people to register to vote in the first place. Another way is simply kicking you off the rolls.

Florida became notorious in 2000 when a purge of supposedly ineligible voters wound up wrongfully stripping thousands of mostly black - and therefore mostly Democratic - voters of their right to vote. Florida is at it again. The state wants to kick literally tens of thousands of people off the lists of registered voters, using various excuses including "we think you're a felon," "we think you're dead," and - the big one this time - "we think you're not a citizen." Taken together, Florida claims this totals as many as 239,000 voters.

The state, under the baleful eye of Governor Voldemort, is pressing this even as local election officials openly doubt both the accuracy and the quality of the data the state is providing. So why is the state pushing this despite the objections of its own local election officials? Interestingly, in an initial list of nearly 3,000 voters to be purged from the list, nearly 60% are Latino - who are largely Democratic voters. Doubly interestingly, the state is doing this so close to a federal election - close enough, in fact, to have already potentially violated federal law on the matter - that legitimate voters wrongfully affected by this may well not have enough time to get it resolved and get back on the rolls before the election. That is exactly the pattern we saw in 2000.

In early may, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner - this year's Katherine Harris - released a statement in which he said the presence of just one ineligible voter on the state's voting rolls represents a real threat to the integrity of the voting process. Apparently, the possibility of thousands of eligible voters being wrongfully kept off the rolls is not a concern for him - provided it's the "wrong sorts" of voters who are affected.

Last week I also mentioned the weaponization of police. This is seen not only in the almost common use of pepper spray against protesters, such as in the now-notorious case at UCal Davis, but in something which I haven't mentioned for a while: tasers, one of the hi-tech ways being increasingly used by cops to control individuals and crowds. And they want to be able to use them pretty much in any way and to any degree they find convenient.

In 2004, cops in Seattle used a taser three times in less than a minute on a pregnant woman who refused to sign a traffic ticket because she incorrectly thought doing so was an admission of guilt. She sued, but last fall the cops won, with a majority of the 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruling that while the cops had used excessive force, the relevant law was not clear in 2004 so they had qualified immunity and couldn't be sued. However, by its very nature that decision also put cops on notice that future such incidents could well be actionable - that is, the cops could possibly be sued.

So even though they won, the cops are appealing to the Supreme Court because they want the Court to rule that tasers are, in their words, a "useful pain technique" and therefore their use can't be considered excessive force. It is not excessive force, they are claiming, to repeatedly taser a nonviolent, nonthreatening person because the cops - there were three of them at the scene - were so damned lazy or such wusses that they couldn't be bothered physically pulling this woman out of her car. In a supporting brief, the Los Angeles police argued that - get this - if the determination of excessive force is not overturned, it "won't be long before the word spreads throughout society's criminal underground that the Ninth Circuit hasn't simply given them a 'get out of jail free' card, but a 'never have to go to jail in the first place' card.” that is how far this madness goes; that is how determined cops are to be able to used tasers any time, to any degree, on anyone they choose.

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide on May 31 whether or not to hear the case. I'll tell you what they court did next week.

Oppressive violence from police is only one threat we face to our ability to participate in the political life of the nation. Increasing surveillance is another. Last week I mentioned the federal government's moves to enable increasing surveillance of internet communications, that is, increasing surveillance of your online life. There is, as you surely know, a companion effort ways to increase surveillance of your physical life.

This summer, the Army is to present a demonstration of so-called "ground-based sense-and-avoid" technologies with the goal of winning FAA approval of far larger numbers of military drone flights in US civilian airspace - a success which in turn will be, in fact already has been, used to advance the ability of local police forces to do the same.

Lobbying both by the military and by private contractors has become intense, particularly by the latter, who see a booming future of local police buying drones. As a result, this year's FAA reauthorization bill requires the agency to safely allow unmanned aircraft to fly in US.commercial airspace by 2015. What's more, the FAA recently issued streamlined licensing rules for using drones for police and other so-called "public safety agencies" and the Department for the Protection of the Fatherland is working to speed the introduction of the rules and so the drone flights.

Drone manufactuers call them "force multipliers" for local cops, who then soft-pedal the implications by going on about "finding the lost child" and "finding the wandering alzheimer's patient" - while in the next breath exulting about how with drones they can read a license plate from 400 feet up. So in a couple of years you can go out your front door wondering if some police force eye in the sky is watching your every move.

Talking about surveillance, how about this:

The Illinois chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relation says that across the 19 states where CAIR has offices, there have been "dozens" of complaints by American Muslims, American citizens, discovering they are on the "no fly" list for who knows what reason and then being told by FBI agents that they could get off the list if they agreed to go undercover, spy on other Muslims, and report information back. Remember, the only people who would complain would be those who said no. There is no way to know how many said yes.

And there are even more direct threats. I've talked before about the National Defense Authorization Act, which included a particular provision - Section 1022, to be precise - that would allow the White House to have the military imprison people indefinitely, without trial or even charge, based solely on the president's decision that the person is a suspected terrorist.

Well, on May 16, Federal Judge Katherine Forrest found that the law is unconstitutional and violates the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights to free speech, against unreasonable seizures, and to due process.

She did so after a Kafka-esque hearing in which lawyers for the government repeatedly refused to explain what the law's impossibly vague terms like "associated forces" and "substantial support" mean and instead tried to argue that the seven plaintiffs - who included journalists, researchers, activists, and a member of the Icelandic parliament - did not have "standing" to sue. That is, they couldn't sue because the law hadn't affected them - they hadn't been indefinitely detained. Which means that the government argument is that the only folks with standing are those already beyond the reach of judicial system.

However, the day after that decision, welcome as it was, the House of Representatives voted to keep Section 1022 intact by rejecting an amendment to guarantee civilian trials for any terrorism suspect arrested in the US. Suppo0rters of the amendment said letting president decide to detain anyone - including Americans - deemed to be a terrorist was granting the executive too much power. And with over 400 accused terrorists having been tried and convicted in civilian courts while dozens of plots were prevented, the law was unnecessary.

But oh no, we can't do that, cried the opponents. Why, it would tie the president's hands! It would interfere with the ability of the president to act like a military dictator! Don't you know we're at war? You want to give terrorists special rights!

I bet it does come as a surprise to you to hear that a trial is a "special right."

When the NDAA first passed, supporters of the provision in question responded to civil liberties concerns by calling them silly: This would never apply to americans! Don't be daft! But now, like right wingers so often do, they are airily acknowledging what they previously vociferously denied. Everyone agrees now that except for the injunctive relief offered by Judge Forrest, federal law now allows the president - this or any future president - to imprison anyone, including American citizens taken on American soil, indefinitely and without charge based solely on the the president's unreviewable, uncheckable assertion "I think you're giving substantial support - whatever that means - to a terrorist-associated force - whatever that means."

And I do mean everyone. Back in February, the White House released rules waiving Obama's authority under Scetion 1022. But by waiving the authority, they are acknowledging it exists and therefore acknowledging it can be asserted by any future administration. What makes that statement doubly bizarre is that is said the provision "does not apply to US citizens" - but in the hearing before Judge Forrest, government lawyers refused to say that the provision would not be used against the US citizens who were among the plaintiffs.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

Update: The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of the case involving the Seattle cops. The net effect is that while the cops got away with it this time, they might not in a similar situation in the future.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/27/voter-purge-florida-showdown-minority-voting_n_1547541.html
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/05/17/53k-dead-people-on-florida-voter-rolls/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812435/state-purges-7000-felons-from.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-non-citizen-voter-list-will-be-vetted-2362075.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/12/2796905/noncitizen-voter-hunt-targets.html
http://www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.aspx?id=577
http://www.care2.com/causes/police-argue-tasers-are-useful-pain-technique.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/police-taser-use-on-pregnant-woman-goes-before-supreme-court.html?hp
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/national-news/30700-taser-pain-may-be-considered-by-supreme-court-as-excessive-force
http://defense.aol.com/2012/02/08/army-leads-pentagon-in-push-to-get-faa-to-ok-uavs-in-u-s/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/drone-lobbying-companies_n_1546263.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/14/privacy-concerns-as-us-government-rolls-out-domestic-drone-rules/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/muslim-no-fly-list-fbi-informant_n_1524419.html
http://naomiwolf.org/2012/03/ndaa-hearing-notes/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/indefinite-detention-bill-fails_n_1525659.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/homeland-battlefield-act-unconstitutional_n_1522587.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/federal_court_enjoins_ndaa/singleton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/indefinite-military-deten_n_1308129.html?1330475319
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/38/3806.asp

Left Side of the Aisle #59 - Part 1

Good news: Dolores Huerta receives Medal of Freedom

On Tuesday, May 29, Dolores Huerta received one of the nation's highest civilian honors - the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Any liberal of my age range knows the name Dolores Huerta. Alongside Cesar Chavez, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers Union. She was its first veep. The grape boycotts and lettuce boycotts which the UFW organized and pushed were a steady presence in the activist years of the '60s. The dedication and nonviolent activism of the farmworkers, backed by the economic power of those boycotts, won not only recognition of the union and establishment of union contracts with actual guarantees regarding pay, pensions, and safe working conditions, but perhaps more importantly won recognition of the rights of migrant farmworkers, the rights to decent treatment and respect.

Consider what Huerta considers her proudest accomplishments: Spanish-language ballots for voters, public assistance for immigrants, toilets in the fields, drinking water protection from pesticides, and an immigration act which gave legal status to more than one million farmworkers.

Just think of that for a second: Think that things like having toilets at your place of work - because the fields are the workplace for these workers - and having drinking water at your workplace that you don't have to worry is contaminated with pesticides being sprayed on the fields, after which you have to go work in them, that simply having legal status, were things that in my adult life still had to be achieved in this country for literally millions of workers.

In 1960, Edward R. Murrow produced a documentary titled "Harvest of Shame." You can still find it on YouTube. It described migrant workers as "the forgotten ones." There is still much more to do: Migrant workers are still not covered by mandates for health insurance or protections for overtime and or sick pay, for example, and too many still wind up living in what are no more than shanty towns. But things have improved and thanks to people like Dolores Huerta and the nonviolent activism of the United Farm Workers, whose members withstood arrests, threats, and brutality from both ranchers and police, migrant workers can no longer be thought of simply as "the forgotten ones."

Congratulations to Dolores Huerta.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/dolores-huerta-presidential-medal-of-freedom_n_1553163.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkV3oVn209s&feature=relmfu
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/us/california-farmworkers-community-hurt-by-budget-crisis.html
http://www.ufw.org/

Left Side of the Aisle #59

Left Side of the Aisle #59 for May 31 - June 6

Good news: Dolores Huerta receives Medal of Freedom
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/dolores-huerta-presidential-medal-of-freedom_n_1553163.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkV3oVn209s&feature=relmfu
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/us/california-farmworkers-community-hurt-by-budget-crisis.html
http://www.ufw.org/

More attacks on participation in the political life of the nation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/27/voter-purge-florida-showdown-minority-voting_n_1547541.html
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/05/17/53k-dead-people-on-florida-voter-rolls/
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/22/2812435/state-purges-7000-felons-from.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-non-citizen-voter-list-will-be-vetted-2362075.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/12/2796905/noncitizen-voter-hunt-targets.html
http://www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.aspx?id=577
http://www.care2.com/causes/police-argue-tasers-are-useful-pain-technique.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/police-taser-use-on-pregnant-woman-goes-before-supreme-court.html?hp
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/national-news/30700-taser-pain-may-be-considered-by-supreme-court-as-excessive-force
http://defense.aol.com/2012/02/08/army-leads-pentagon-in-push-to-get-faa-to-ok-uavs-in-u-s/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/drone-lobbying-companies_n_1546263.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/14/privacy-concerns-as-us-government-rolls-out-domestic-drone-rules/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/muslim-no-fly-list-fbi-informant_n_1524419.html
http://naomiwolf.org/2012/03/ndaa-hearing-notes/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/indefinite-detention-bill-fails_n_1525659.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/homeland-battlefield-act-unconstitutional_n_1522587.html
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/federal_court_enjoins_ndaa/singleton/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/indefinite-military-deten_n_1308129.html?1330475319

Outrage of the Week: SCOTUS sides with the corporations - again
http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2012/05/corporate-court-gives-thumbs-up-to.html

Thoughts on heroism
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/05/annual-memorial-day-post.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/28/chris-hayes-uncomfortable-soldiers-heroes_n_1550643.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2008/06/heroics.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/10/parting-shot-2.html