October 18, 2003

The hidden danger of 'Black Box' voting machines

There's been a lot of discussion on blogs recently about the new touchscreen voting machines (sometimes called "black boxes") that are being purchased by states eager to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. An article in the Independent (UK) earlier this week offered an overview of some of the allegations and concerns raised by these new voting systems, and Wired is running a story alleging that patches were applied to the system before last year's Georgia elections, but that the machines were never recertified after the changes were made, something that should have been done, according to election laws.

I'm not really in a position to get into a serious discussion how much of a threat there may or may not be from the reported security problems with the machines or the concerns that there may be something of a conspiracy afoot to use them to help ensure Republican victories. Most of what I've read has been from the BlackBoxVoting site - a site who's sole purpose is to raise awareness of the potential threat to democracy that the operators believe these machines present, but I've not found much offering any other side to the story.

Still, there are solid reasons to be concerned about these machines. They leave no paper trail and there's no way to verify that the votes recorded are actually the votes that were cast. There are extensive security concerns about the machines - many of them listed in a report done by testers at John Hopkins (file is in .pdf format) - that, if left uncorrected, could leave the machines vulnerable to tampering both locally and from a remote location. On top of that many of the executives working for or otherwise associated with the firms designing and marketing these machines are staunch supporters of the Republican party. Walden O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold has - in a fund-raising letter recently sent to Republicans in Ohio - made a promise to "deliver" that state's electoral votes to Bush. Additionally, US Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) holds an ownership interest in ES&S, another firm that makes these machines.

There's another danger, though, posed by these machines, that I've not yet seen widely discussed - and in my opinion, it's the most dangerous one of all. In comments on several threads I've read about the black box voting machines, I've noticed a number of people saying that with these new machines being so vulnerable to tampering and with the companies that make them so firmly in the Republicans' pockets, they feel like there's no point at all to voting next year. The Republicans are going to win, these people figure, so their vote won't matter - especially since there's a good chance that their vote won't even be counted correctly by the machines.

What I find really ironic is that, the way things are going right now, the Republicans and their supporters in the election-machine industry may not have to do a thing if they want to win. The more alarmist stories that are published, with bold headlines shouting that the next election is already rigged, the more dispair I see in the comments being posted in response. By offering little or no defence to the charges, giving few answers to the questions being asked and paying minimal attention to the concerns being raised, all that's being heard are the voices of doom, telling us that the fix is in. But if we buy into that mentality - if we let the frustration, cynicism and anger we feel silence our voices - then the Republicans will win. They won't have to use any dirty tricks or try to manipulate the data. They'll win by default.

Like I said, there's plenty of reason to be concerned, and any problems that are found must be fixed - but we can't let the concerns get us down. If we do, then it won't matter if every single vote in every single district in every single state across the country is registered accurately and counted correctly. We will have defeated ourselves.

~=<*>=~   ~=<*>=~   ~=<*>=~

Are you registered to vote? Are your friends? If not, be sure to give them the link!
Make sure you know when your state's registration deadline is!

Posted by thorswitch at 06:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 16, 2003

The Boykin controversy

Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a new deputy undersecretary of defense who's promotion and appointment were confirmed by the Senate this past June, has been going to churches - in full military dress uniform - delivering speeches saying that the war on terror is a war between a "Judeo-Christian" America and America's enemy, Satan. On at least one occasion, he even said that his God is the "real" God, while the God of a Muslim "was an idol."

Here is a sample of some of what he's had to say:

First Baptist Church, Broken Arrow, OK, June 30, 2002:

[Slide show, Picture of Osama bin Laden] “And then we began to see this face…the face of Osama bin Laden. And finally we said, ‘There’s the enemy. That’s our enemy. That’s the man that hates us. And all of those that follow him.”

[Picture of President Bush] “And then this man stepped forward. A man that has acknowledged that he prays in the Oval Office. A man that’s in the White House today because of a miracle. You think about how he got in the White House. You think about why he’s there today. As Mordecai said to Esther, ‘You have been put there for such a time and place.’ And this man has been put in the White house to lead our nation in such a time as this.

“But who is that enemy? It’s not Osama bin Laden. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. You go back and look at our history, and you will find that we were founded on faith. Look at what the writers of our Constitution said. We are a nation of believers. We were founded on faith.”

[Picture of Satan] “And the enemy that has come against our nation is a spiritual enemy. His name is Satan. And if you do not believe that Satan is real, you are ignoring the same Bible that tells you about God. Now I’m a warrior. One day I’m going to take off this uniform and I’m still going to be a warrior. And what I’m here to do today is to recruit you to be warriors of God’s kingdom.”

[There are two additional excerpts available at the same page.]

He also tells his audience that President Bush is God's chosen leader:

“Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

These comments are more than just offensive. They're statements that are likely stir up more resentment against America among Islamists. There's already been considerable concern from the Islamic community that our war on terror is really a religious crusade. Remember the flap that occurred when, 5 days after the September 11 attacks, Bush said "This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while"? He ended up having to back away from that term because some in the Islamic world were taking it as confirmation that the War or Terror is, in fact, a religious war and that the "Christian" America was going to try and kill or convert all Muslims.

That was just one word. Boykin has given entire speeches filled with messages that Islamic nations are after us because we're a "Judeo-Christian" land, with an obligation to protect Israel, and that since our land follows the "real" God while our enemies worship idols, we will be granted the victory under our God-appointed leader. By claiming that the "real enemy" is Satan, Boykin conflates Islam with Satanism, and paints the terrorists who are attacking us as Satan's minions - his weapon - though which he is striking at the heart of righteousness. Boykin gives these speeches while wearing his uniform, something that may be perceived by other nations as an indication that he is speaking on behalf of the military - if not the government itself.

What is worse is that, so far, Rumsfeld is giving this man his support.

Asked about this Thursday, Rumsfeld told reporters he had not seen the videos and did not know the "full context" of Boykin's remarks. But the secretary did say, "We do know that he is an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces."

[...] "There are a lot of things that are said by people that are their views," he said, "and that's the way we live. We are free people and that's the wonderful thing about our country, and I think for anyone to run around and think that can be managed or controlled is probably wrong."

Of course, when it was soldiers speaking out against the Pentagon leadership, there was no problem with "managing" or "controlling" what was being said.

"None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense, or the president of the United States," said Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command.

These rules, and others that serve to limit the freedom of speech a soldier may have, exist to help ensure unit cohesion and prevent a breakdown of discipline and morale, so that our troops will be able to do their jobs as well as they possibly can. Logically, I would think that these rules would also apply to making other kinds of public statements that could potentially lead to problems with unit cohesion, disciplinary issues or lowered morale.

Comments like those made by Boykin can be misconstrued by our enemies or provoke them in such a way that it makes it easier for them recruit more soldiers to fight against us. They can also strengthens the enemy's resolve to defeat us. In addition, they can be taken by soldiers as indicating disapproval of who they are or what they believe, leaving them unsure as to how it might affect their careers in the military. And, of course, they can contribute to an atmosphere where there is hostility between soldiers of different religions. These are all definitely factors that can affect cohesion, discipline and morale.

Fortunately, Boykin now seems to understand that such comments are likely to be counterproductive.

Boykin tells NBC News that, given his new assignment, he is curtailing such speeches in the future. He says, “I don’t want … to be misconstrued. I don’t want to come across as a right-wing radical.”

Unfortunately, his understanding has come too late. His comments are already out there - and he's already shown himself to be a right-wing radical, and while he's said that "he respects Muslims and believes the radicals who attack America are “not true followers of Islam," his comments make it clear that he views America's "Judeo-Christian values" as being key to our success in this war and that he considers this to be, first and foremost, a religious war. Given the repercussions as discussed above, I feel that he should resign or face disciplinary action from the military. While some may think that recommending he leave the military is to harsh, I'm sure if he made similar comments about Israel or Judaism, conservatives would have him drummed out of the corps in a heartbeat.

UPDATE 11:02pm: As I was hitting the "Publish" button on this piece, my little MSNBC pop-up news thingy started flashing, and it turns out there's a new story out about this subject. You can find it at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/981411.asp?0na=x2301582-.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, and after working on this thing for the last 2 hours, I need a break, so I'm going to go play my guitar and stuff for a bit before I go through it - but if anything else I've said here needs to be updated based on any new information, I'll do another entry later this evening.

BTW: I just had my 40,000th visitor today - I never thought I'd create a site that would have that many people want to see it - even over a period of years, so I'm extremely flattered and pleased that so many of you have made this a stop on your trip through the web. Thank you very much!!

Posted by thorswitch at 08:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 15, 2003

Protesting 'Marriage Protection Week'

[NOTE:This protest was originally started for LiveJournal users (and will be posted and linked on my LiveJournal as well as here), but it's important enough, I wanted to run it here as well!]

This whole "Marriage Protection Week" thing is a farce. Marriage needs far less protection from gays than it does from people who get married and then are abusive to their spouses, have affairs, neglect their marriage in favour of their careers, abuse drugs or alcohol, gamble themselves into financial ruin or engage in other such actions that not only are the leading causes of divorce, but also do immeasurable damage to the families that we're always being told are the true foundation of American society.

It seems to me that if conservatives and other who oppose gay marriage are so worried about the damage allowing gays to marry would do to the concept of the American family, why aren't they out fighting just as hard to make adultry illegal again, or create constitutional amendments that would prevent anyone with a history of substance abuse, bankruptcy, negligence or domestic violence from being able to marry? Why don't they pass laws to prevent such people from being able to ever adopt or gain custody of their own children?

It seems to me that it would be far more important to seriously work on these problems, which we know cause marriages to fail and cause harm to children than to try and pass a Constitutional amendment to prevent something that's already illegal (though it really shouldn't be) and which hasn't been shown to have nearly as much of an impact on families as these other issues have. We've all heard about criminals who blame their crimes on having been raised by abusive or neglegent parents (of any gender or sexual persuasion), but how many have said it was because they were raised by a non-abusive gay parent?

Of course, we all know the reason that the anti-gay forces don't put nearly as much energy into preventing the known problems that end marriages and damage children as they do into preventing gay marriage is that the point really isn't about what damage letting gays marry might do to "families". The issue is simple bigotry - and this is just the excuse they've latched on to in order to try and get their laws passed.

Posted by thorswitch at 08:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 10, 2003

Pain, drugs, and choices

I really haven't said much yet about Rush Limbaugh's drug situation. It's kind of a difficult subject for me, because I have more than a bit of experience of my own with hydrocodone and other prescription painkillers.

Part of me wants to have compassion for him - drug addiction is a hard thing to deal with and can be very difficult to kick. Where I get hung up, though, is in my own experience, which has been that if you use the medications according to the doctor's instructions addiction can also be avoided.

In his Statement on Prescription Pain Medication Stories, Limbaugh points out that he was prescribed the painkillers following back surgery, and that he still has severe pain in his back. While he says he's not making excuses, the feeling I got from his statement is that he hopes we will understand that because he still has pain he "had" to take more drugs than he should have or that we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's in pain.

I know what it's like to live with chronic, severe pain. Along with the depression and Tourette's Syndrome I've mentioned before, I also have severe arthritis. It's mostly in my knees, but it's starting to develop in other joints as well, and it's severe enough that it's the main factor in my being homebound for the last 5 years. To deal with the pain, I take prescription painkillers every day. I've always taken care, however, to make sure that I use them in accordance with my doctor's instructions. He prescribes a certain number of pills to last me for a certain amount of time. I make it a challenge to myself to make the pills last longer than I have to (and usually succeed). I take one dose when I first get up, because the pain then is at its worst. For the rest of the day, I only take more if I truly need it. There are some days I take the full allotment for the day and some days when, admittedly, I may take an extra dose, but there are also days where I take fewer than allowed and some where I only take the morning dose. Often I make a conscious choice to put up with more pain than I maybe have to, in order to ensure that I don't start abusing them.

Every time I pick up the bottle of pills, I make a conscious choice to take them or not. If I'm having an extremely bad day, and I choose to take more pills than would be allotted for that day, then I know I'm going to have to also choose to put up with extra pain another day to make sure I don't go through the bottle too fast (which would be a sign of a problem, as far as I'm concerned).

Yes, it takes some work to make sure that I don't take too many pills or go through them so fast that I run the risk of addiction, but I know the dangers and I deliberately choose to exert caution. By the same token, if I started taking more than I'm supposed to on a regular basis, it would be by my own choice - I'm the one that's in control, here. I decide how many I take and how often I take them. If I ran through my "stash" too soon and wanted more, I would have to make a deliberate choice to obtain more - whether it meant trying to find another doctor to prescribe them through a different pharmacy or finding someone to go make deals in the parking lot of the local Denny's. These aren't things that just "happen" on their own.

So, while part of me has sympathy for a fellow pain sufferer, part of me is angry that he's trying to explain away the choices that he made to abuse what could have been a useful tool - if used properly - to help alleviate the pain.

Believe me, I understand the temptation. The pain killers I take never make the pain go away entirely, but they do reduce it to a point where I can at least function somewhat normally - even if I still can't get out of the house. But they can also give me a nice, warm buzzy feeling that just makes it easier not to care so much about the pain I feel. I won't deny there are days I want to be able to crawl into that little bottle of white pills and just not give a damn about anything, but I choose not to.

Instead, I rely on my faith and the Gods to help me find the strength to keep going and I find ways to keep myself distracted from how I'm feeling - this blog is one of the biggest sources of pain management therapy I have. Playing the guitar and video games are a couple others. Each of them give me different ways to keep my mind distracted, and different ways to deal with the anger I feel as the injustice of having to live with all this pain. Yelling about Bush, researching a story that I find interesting or important, trying to sort out what's true, what's rumour and what's spin, soothing myself with music, numbing my mind with the repetition of practicing a certain lick or riff until I get it right, working out aggression playing a loud, rocking tune, blasting little pixelated men and beasts with my little pixelated warrior, solving puzzles, letting myself slip - temporarily - into some ancient magical world, all of these are ways I cope. And when they don't work, I seek solace in my faith.

So I really don't know how to approach this story. I don't want to condemn Rush Limbaugh - each of us have our weaknesses, and, apparently, this is one of his. I certainly wish him the best and hope that this time, his efforts at getting off and staying off the drugs succeed. But I don't want to see people lose sight of the fact that he has this problem because of the choices he made - and that there are other options to drug abuse for dealing with severe pain.

Posted by thorswitch at 06:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 07, 2003

Former UK MP: 'This War on Terrorism is Bogus' - reference companion

Michael Meacher, a Member of the British Parliament until recently, has written a very provocative article providing his analysis of the events leading up to 9/11, the War or Terror™, the failure of US forces to capture Osama bin Laden and the true goals of the Iraq war. It's a doozy.

Meacher works primarily from documents already in the public media, and the article lists the publications and dates he's gotten his information from, though it does not provide clickable links. As with anything that tends to get into conspiracy theory territory, I like to try and at least verify the information being provided and a sense of the context it was initially presented in, so I figured I should start checking what I could of the references he gave - and since I was going to do all that for myself, I figured I might as well provide some of what I find to you as well.

Understand - I have not yet made up my mind as to whether I find Meacher's theories credible or not, but given his recent position and how widespread this article is going to be (there are already about 5 pages at Google that are just links to reposts of this article at various sites around the world), it's at least worth looking at. The quotes below are from what I've judged to be the most likely part of each article he's referencing, and occasionally a bit addition to help provide context (especially where the additional material - in my opinion - either strongly supports or potentially weakens his arguments). As with anything, I strongly recommend that you read the entire article for yourself. You might also want to review the companion article "Meacher sparks fury over claims", also published in the Guardian, which provides a small amount of information on Meacher and comments by a few who disagree with his views.

Because of the nature of the claims made in this article, I feel it should be approached with caution. Meacher's standing as a recent member of the Blair Parliament gives his comments an extra veneer of crediblity such that many people will likely latch onto this article as proof of their worst fears. While it is possible that what he's saying is true (and if it is, we have been witness to one of the most heinous crimes in the history of mankind, paleing only - in my opinion - to crimes of genocide such as the Holocaust), it is also possible that he is seeing connections and links where there are none. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote:

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing.” ... “It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.”

That said, here are the quotes and links referenced in the article that I've been able to locate.

1. Daily Telegraph (UK), September 16, 2001 - Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks
   
   "The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.
   
   "They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement," said a senior Israeli security official."
   
   
2. BBC Newsnight, November 6, 2001 - Has someone been sitting on the FBI?
   
   "PALAST: Newsnight has uncovered a long history of shadowy connections between the State Department, the CIA and the Saudis. The former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah is Michael Springman.
   
   MICHAEL SPRINGMAN: In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General's office. I was met with silence.
   
   PALAST: By now, Bush Sr, once CIA director, was in the White House. Springman was shocked to find this wasn't visa fraud. Rather, State and CIA were playing "the Great Game".
   
   SPRINGMAN: What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama Bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets.
   
   The attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 did not shake the State Department's faith in the Saudis, nor did the attack on American barracks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia three years later, in which 19 Americans died. FBI agents began to feel their investigation was being obstructed. Would you be surprised to find out that FBI agents are a bit frustrated that they can't be looking into some Saudi connections?"



3. Newsweek, September 15, 2001 - Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases
   
   "U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesday’s terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.
   
   Three of the alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.—known as the “Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation,” according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy source.
   
   Another of the alleged hijackers may have been trained in strategy and tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., said another high-ranking Pentagon official. The fifth man may have received language instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Both were former Saudi Air Force pilots who had come to the United States, according to the Pentagon source.
   
   But there are slight discrepancies between the military training records and the official FBI list of suspected hijackers—either in the spellings of their names or with their birthdates. One military source said it is possible that the hijackers may have stolen the identities of the foreign nationals who studied at the U.S. installations. "



4. Times, November 3, 2001 - I was unable to find the article referred to here. Initially, the problem was that I didn't know for sure which "Times" he was referring to. A later reference, also attributed to "Times", however, was located in the Times Online (UK). I attempted to search their archives for this article, also, but was unable to find anything. It may be behind the archive wall. If anyone has a copy of this article or knows where one is posted, please let me know so I can add it to this list.



5. Newsweek, May 20, 2002 - Unheeded Warnings - [Note: The original source article is now behind a pay-per-view archive wall. The text of the article, however, can be found at "America's Intelligence Failures"]
   
   "The FBI has insisted it had no advance warning about the 9-11 attacks. But internal documents suggest there were more concerns inside the bureau's field offices than Washington has acknowledged.
   
   One FBI memo, written by a Phoenix agent in July 2001, warned about suspicious activities by Middle Eastern men at an Arizona flight school. Last week, in little-noticed testimony before a Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that may prove more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to "fly something into the World Trade Center."
   
   The notes are especially eerie because Moussaoui faces charges that he was part of the 9-11 plot. Sources say the notes Mueller referred to were written in early September 2001-days before the attack. The author was part of a counterterrorism team desperately trying to figure out what Moussaoui was up to. He had been arrested in August on immigration charges after a Minnesota flight instructor reported that he showed a suspicious interest in learning how to steer large airliners."



6. AP - August 13, 2002 - Use of Military Jets Jumps since 9/11
   
   "The military sent fighter jets to chase suspicious aircraft 462 times between Sept. 11 and June, nearly seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from the same period a year earlier. More frequent scrambles are also faster in the tense new environment because the North American Aerospace Defense Command communicates better with the Federal Aviation Administration."



7. AP - April 5, 2002 [Note: I was unable to locate the actual AP article, however I did find the transcript of the CNN interview at the Department of Defense news site from which the quote "the goal has never been to get bin Laden" was taken. Here is the segment of the interveiw containing that quote.]
   
   "Hunt: The Big Question for General Myers: One embarrassment for the U.S. has been that, in almost seven months after 9/11, we still haven't captured Osama bin Laden. With the apprehension this week of one of his top lieutenants, have we gotten enough information to be any closer to maybe finally getting bin Laden?
   
   Myers: Well, if you remember, if we go back to the beginning of this segment, the goal has never been to get bin Laden. Obviously, that's desirable.
   
   Interesting, I just read a piece by some analysts that said you may not want to go after the top people in these organizations. You may have more effect by going after the middlemen, because they're harder to replace. I don't know if that's true, or not, and clearly we would like to eventually get bin Laden.
   
   But I think the fact that we've been able to disrupt operations, get a lot of the people just under him and maybe just a little bit further down, has had some impact on their operations. We know have disrupted, you know, four, five, six, seven active operations that they had planned and probably more that we don't know about.
   
   So we're going to keep the hunt on. Finding one person, as we've talked about before, is a very difficult prospect, but we will keep trying."



8. ABC News - December 19, 2002 - Primetime Investigation FBI Terrorist Cover-up [Note: The original piece containing the quote is a video story I located a transcript of the story, as broadcast, at Cooperative Research. Brian Ross is the reporter.]
   
   "BRIAN ROSS(Voice Over) Their story begins in the mid-1990s. With growing terrorism in the Middle East, the two agents were assigned to track a connection to Chicago, a suspected terrorist cell that would later lead them to an Osama Bin Laden connection.
   
   ROBERT WRIGHT:We had a cell in Chicago, right. And that was, that was the premise of how we got the investigation going.
   
   BRIAN ROSS:(Voice Over) But Wright says he soon discovered that all the FBI Intelligence Division wanted him to do was to follow suspected terrorists around town and file reports, but make no arrests.
   
   ROBERT WRIGHT:The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me, "you will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects."
   
   BRIAN ROSS:(Off Camera) You're on the Terrorism Task Force and you were told you will not open criminal cases?
   
   ROBERT WRIGHT:Yes.
   
   BRIAN ROSS: (Voice Over) In 1998, Al-Qaeda terrorists bombed two American Embassies in Africa, killing more than 200 people. The agents say some of the money for the attack led back to the people they had been tracking in Chicago, and to a powerful Saudi Arabian businessman, this man, Yassin Kadi, (PH) who had extensive business and financial ties in Chicago. Yet, even after the bombings, the agents say headquarters ordered no arrests.
   
   ROBERT WRIGHT:Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they want to shut down the criminal investigation. They wanted to kill it.
   
   BRIAN ROSS:(Voice Over) The move outraged the Federal Prosecutor in Chicago, who says Agents Wright and Vincent were helping him build a strong criminal case against Kadi and others.
   
   MARK FLESSNER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR : There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and within the FBI that simply were not going to let it happen. And it didn't happen.
   
   BRIAN ROSS: (Voice Over) Mark Flessner,(PH) now in private practice, says he still can't figure out why Washington stopped the case, whether it was Saudi influence or bureaucratic ineptness."



9. Time Magazine - May 13, 2002 - This issue is now premium (paid) content at Time's archives, and I was unable to find any direct quotes from the article elsewhere. I haven't even been able to figure out the actual name of the article, so I'm not sure which article to buy at the Time site. The index page for that issue is here, and if you find a copy of the article or relevent quotes from it, please let me know.



10. Times - July 17, 2002 - Britian Backs US Plan for Attack on Iraq
    
    "There was a lesson from September 11. “We knew about al-Qaeda for a long time. They were committing terrorist acts, they were planning, they were organising. Everybody knew, we all knew, that Afghanistan was a failed state living on drugs and terror. We did not act.
    
    “To be truthful about it,there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11.
    
    “There is a threat, the threat has changed in the way that I have described post-September 11. The options are open, but we do have to deal with it. How we deal with it, however, is, as I say, an open question.”
    
    He added: “And that is why I constantly say to people there are no decisions that have been made in relation to Iraq at all, but there is no doubt that Iraq poses a threat in respect of weapons of mass destruction.
    
    “And there is no doubt that this issue is an issue that must be dealt with.”'



11. Time Magazine - May 13 2002 - See note on #9



12. Sunday Herald - October 6 2002 - "Official: US Oil at the Heart of Iraq Crisis" (This link is to the Common Dreams mirror of the article. The full "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century" report is available online at The Baker Institute site.)
    
    "President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that 'Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East' and because this is an unacceptable risk to the US 'military intervention' is necessary.
    
    Vice-president Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report on 'energy security' from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state under George Bush Sr.
    
    The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, concludes: 'The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de- stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments.
    
    'The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies.'
    
    Baker who delivered the recommendations to Cheney, the former chief executive of Texas oil firm Halliburton, was advised by Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former chief executive of Enron, the US energy giant which went bankrupt after carrying out massive accountancy fraud.
    
    The other advisers to Baker were: Luis Giusti, a Shell non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of BP and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco. Another name linked to the document is Sheikh Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah, the former Kuwaiti oil minister and a fellow of the Baker Institute."



13. BBC - September 18, 2001 - "US 'Planned Attack to Taleban'"
    
    "A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
    
    Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
    
    Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.
    
    Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
    
    The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah."



14. Inter Press Service - November 15, 2001 - POLITICS: U.S. Policy towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - authors [This also is located at Common Dreams. The original article is available at Inter Press Service, but is available by subscription only.]
    
    "In the book ''Bin Laden, la verite interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the forbidden truth''), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction.
    
    Brisard claim O'Neill told them that ''the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. Oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it''.
    
    The two claim the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.
    
    They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime ''as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia'', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.
    
    Until now, says the book, ''the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that''.
    
    But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, ''this rationale of energy security changed into a military one'', the authors claim.
    
    ''At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs','' Brisard said in an interview in Paris."



15. Guardian - October 30, 2002 - BP chief fears US will carve up Iraqi oil riches
    
    "Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of any future war.
    
    The comments from the most senior European oil executive, who has impeccable political connections in the UK, will be seen by anti-war protesters as further proof that US president George Bush has already made his mind up about an early attack.
    
    They will also serve to underline concern that the US is primarily concerned with seizing control of Saddam Hussein's oil and handing it over to companies such as ExxonMobil rather than destroying his weapons of mass destruction.
    
    Britain's biggest company is reviewing what impact a regime change in Baghdad would have on its own business and global crude supplies.
    
    Both London and Washington have been lobbied by the UK oil giant, which is concerned that European companies could be left out in the cold.
    
    "We have let it be known that the thing we would like to make sure, if Iraq changes regime, is that there should be a level playing field for the selection of oil companies to go in there if they're needed to do the work there," said Lord Browne yesterday at a briefing on the company's results."



16. BBC Online - August 10, 2002 [Note: The article I was able to locate with the relevant quote is actually dated August 8, 2002.] - Libya Hints at Lockerbie Payout
    
    "Regarding the fight against terrorism, Mr O'Brien said the UK authorities were already cooperating with the Libyans.
    
    "They know they are as much at risk from the extremists of al-Qaeda as any western country is," he said.
    
    "They have made promises and we will look at whether they deliver on this," Mr O'Brien added.
    
    Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam, for his part, stressed his government's willingness to cooperate in the fight against al-Qaeda.
    
    "The fundamentalists are against our project," he said. "They are against the freedom of women, they are against technology."
    
    Libya had shown its desire to move from "pariah" to a state complying with international law by handing over the Lockerbie bomb suspects, said Mr O'Brien.
    
    The UK was keen to boost ties that have been cautiously improving since diplomatic relations were restored three years ago.
    
    Libya is keen to re-enter the world economy and the UK does not want to lose out to other European nations already jostling for advantage when it comes to potentially lucrative oil contracts.
    
    Sanctions against Libya have been suspended but Colonel Gaddafi wants them lifted permanently."

Posted by thorswitch at 03:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 22, 2003

Outrageous

Frank Gaffney has a lot of gall.

In an article in Canada's National Post, he claims that by criticizing President Bush's decision-making process and handling of the war in Iraq, we're only serving to - get this - make Saddam happy, and thus stronger. I know I usually try to avoid foul language in the blog - not so much because I have any personal objection to it, but because I consider it to be somewhat inappropriate to the kinds of things I'm writing about, but fuck it. This is complete and total bullshit. Absolute crap, and infuriating as well.

Here's the infamous opening to his article (which I'd seen parts of, but after having read a longer exceprt, I finally became angry enough to go read the whole damn thing. My blood is rushing through my ears right now, and I can feel the veins pulsing on my forehead. It's that bad):

Somewhere, probably in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is gloating. He can only be gratified by the feeding frenzy of recriminations, second-guessing and political power-plays that are currently assailing his nemeses: U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The hysteria surrounding charges that faulty British intelligence about one aspect of Saddam's nuclear weapons program -- and a Bush 2003 State of the Union allusion thereto -- may even be emboldening Saddam to believe the unimaginable: He might yet survive (physically and perhaps politically) the current pair of U.S. and British leaders, just as he did their predecessors in the wake of Operation Desert Storm.

If anything is giving Saddam encouragement, it's not that people are pointing out how badly Bush screwed the pooch on this whole mess - it's the fucking mess itself! Saddam doesn't need to hear a word from anyone on this side of the world to know that the Iraqi people are pissed as all getout at the Americans occupying their country and want us the hell gone. If he is still in Iraq, all he has to do is have those who are still loyal to him look around and find those who are beginning to think life was better when he was in charge, or at least no worse.

It was pointed out a few weeks back - and I'm sorry, but I forget exactly where - that some areas where our troops are being attacked are Shi'ite controlled area. Now remember that Saddam and his Ba'athists are Sunni, and the Sunni's and the Shi'ites don't like each other at all. If, as the government alleges, the attacks on our forces are mainly by Ba'athists, it means that the Shi'ites are either letting them make attacks in Shi'ite territory or are just refusing to do anything to stop them (subtle difference, but I suppose some would find it important). If that's the case - and it appears to be - it says something about how little the Shi'ites like us.

Gaffney then goes on to say:

Unfortunately, such is the extent of the animus towards this President (especially among Democrats running to succeed him and their party's left-wing base for which they are competing) that a concerted effort is being mounted to savage his reputation. The focus of this partisan attack, not surprisingly, is Mr. Bush's stewardship of the one portfolio that has thus far seriously impeded efforts to unseat him -- namely, his outstanding performance as wartime Commander-in-Chief.

Outstanding performance? WHAT OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE????? I haven't see any outfuckingstanding performance here, have you? Who the hell does he think he's fooling?

Ok, so Gaffney thinks criticism of Bush's "outstanding" performance is unwarrented and just a partisan attempt to score points? How, exactly, can criticism over the decision-making and handling of the war make our problems in Iraq any worse? Hell if I know, except maybe waking more people up to how badly this has been done, and create more pressure on the government to start doing a better job.

Maybe, just maybe, if the Bush administration starts to worry that it's days are numbered as the tide of public opinion turns against the job they're doing, they'll realize they need to do things differently. Maybe they'll realize they need to acknowledge that we actually do need help from the rest of the world, and that if it means we need to hand over control of the situation to the UN, so be it.

I don't give a flying fuck what the jackasses at the PNAC wanted to get out of the Iraq war. Obviously, their plan isn't going too well, is it? What we need now is just to GET OUT of Iraq - once we've managed to help get things to a point where they can have a functional nation. We aren't going to manage to do that by ourselves. I think we've demonstrated that pretty well. We need to welcome the assistance of the rest of the world, even if it means Bush and his cronies need to swallow their pride, give up their imperial dreams and admit that maybe, just maybe, they underestimated the reaction and resolve of the Iraqi people.

And excuse me, Mr. Gaffney, if I happen to think it's rather important to know if the government based its decision to go to war on something other than the evidence they presented to us and to the rest of the world, and which they maniuplated, exaggerated and "fudged" to try and convince others to go along with it. It's pretty clear that the reasons they've given us aren't all there is to it - and, considering that the PNAC have been wanting to overthrow Saddam since even before Bush took office, you'll excuse me if I don't think that the information they presented to us has little, if anything, to do with why they actually wanted this war. Since its my tax dollars paying for this fiasco, and since my fellow citizens are now risking, and far too often losing, their lives fighting it, I think I'm entitled to some answers.

So, as far as I'm concerned, all those who think we should just close our eyes, shut our mouths and pretend eveything is hunky dory can go fuck themselves - and each other for all I care. They can't go fucking any dogs, though, because I like dogs too much for that. You're "Bush said it, I believe it, that does it" approach to their faith-based intelligence and faith-based foreign policy hasn't done a damn thing. IF Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and we don't know where they are, odds are good someone we don't want to have them has got them. Instead of making the world safer, this war may well have made it more dangerous. You can't deny that there are enough angry Iraqis to give al Qaeda a whole new generation of recruits with a particular beef to pick with us. You can't deny that, aside from it not taking long to topple Saddam himself, none of the war-lover's predictions have worked out the way they said. You can't deny that, in spite of Fighter Jock GI President's simplistic "Mission Accomplished" photo-op that the mission is anything but accomplished. And you can't deny that more and more of our citizens are dying every day because of the complete mishandling of this entire situation.

When it comes down to it, when a President takes our country into war - regardless of any other factors, he is the only one who can decide if we should go, and it is incumbent upon him to make sure he truly knows what the situation is, what is likely to happen and why the war is being waged. Ignorance of the truth is no excuse for making a bad decision. Lying to justify you want a war that has little to no justificaion is no excuse for killing anyone. General incompetence is simply inexcusable.

When all is said and done, the President got us into this war. He needs to get us out, and do so quickly and efficiently, but without abandoning the Iraqis to the mercy of whomever is willing to try and fill the void left by our actions. If it goes well, the President gets the praise. If it doesn't, he gets the blame.

Whether he or anyone else wants to hear it.

Posted by thorswitch at 01:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 05, 2003

Means and Ends

I keep reading and hearing people say that it doesn't matter if we don't find any WMD in Iraq - or even why we can't - because Saddam was such a bad, bad man and getting rid of him was good. In other words, the ends justify the means.

The problem is, of course, if we decide that the ends justify our means, then we have to be willing to accept that others will likewise claim their own deeds are justified by the outcome. I don't think it's in our best interest to do that.

Just as an example, we know that our stationing troops in Saudi Arabia during and after the first Gulf War is part of what made Osama bin Laden and his al-Qeada members so angry at us to begin with. They wanted our Western butts out of their country and off of their Holy Lands. To achieve this goal, they used terrorism, killing thousands around the world, in hopes that they would push us to withdraw our troops. The longer we refused to budge, the angerier they became so that now, the issues are much larger than just that. But, it has still been a long term goal of theirs to get us out of Saudi Arabia, and every terrorist act they've committed has had, at it's core, that goal as part of it's justification.

Every terrorist act. Including the big one - September 11, 2001.

Following the 9/11 attacks, our government decided that they wanted to get Saddam out of office. In his interview with Vanity Fair, and in the DOD transcript of that interview, Paul Wolfowitz acknowledges that, at least in part, the stratigic considerations regarding Saudi Arabia and our troops being there were part of why we decided we needed to take Saddam out.

Once the war in Iraq was "concluded" (such as it is), we announced that we would be removing our troops from Saudi Arabia - helping Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda meet one of their primary goals.

Now, to them, getting us out of Saudi Arabia is a very, very good thing - just as to us, getting Saddam Hussein out of power is a very, very good thing. I am sure there are many Muslims around the world who are overjoyed that we are removing our troops, but I also have no doubt that a great number of them disagree with the tactics al-Qaeda used to achieve that goal. These people don't condone terrorism, they don't condone the 9/11 attacks, or the fomenting of hatred against the US that bin Laden has engaged in. Do we want to give them the message that the end result of finally getting us out of Saudi Arabia - remember, they think it's a very good thing - actually justifies all the lives that were taken in getting us to this point?

I know that I, personally, do not want to send that message. I don't believe that the ends do justify the means. Now I'm sure some of you will say that al-Qaeda's killing of innocent civilians in their terrorist attacks in no where near comperable to Bush or the PNAC crowd lying about WMD or any of the other deceptions they used to get us into the war. But it is also the war, itself, that so many supported based on the claims made by the government, that is part of those "means" that we used to topple Saddam Hussein.

When people say that it doesn't matter if we find WMD in Iraq because the war was justified for other reasons - in particular getting Saddam out of office - they're not trying to justify the end goal (the removal of Saddam), they're trying to justify the war - and are saying that regardless of why we fought the war, the end result of it makes all of the rest - including all the innocent Iraqi citizens we killed or wounded, all the soldiers that have died - and continue to die, even though the war is "over", all of the destruction, all of the looting, all of it - the whole big, ugly, ball of wax, is just hunky-dory because Saddam's gone.

The American people would not have supported the war had we not been told by our leaders that they knew, for a fact, beyond any shadow of doubt, that Saddam had lethal weapons of mass destruction that he could give to terrorists or use against us himself. If we had been told that we needed to depose him because he was an evil dictator who treated his people cruelly (the main reason we are being given now), there would not have been as much support for the war as there was, simply because that description fits too many other dictators, and we're not, as a nation, about to start taking all of them out. Even if we wanted to, we simply can't - we haven't the money or the manpower.

So, the government told us how dangerous the WMD Saddam had were, and we went to war. If that turns out to have been a lie, we can't sit back and just say "oh well, it's ok", because it's simply not. The ends don't justify the means. If we are to do good in this world, we have to do it the right way, or we lose all moral authority to take a stand against anyone else trying to achieve what many might consider a positive goal through negative means. It's bad enough that we've now legitimized pre-emptive wars. We don't need to open this Pandora's Box as well.

Posted by thorswitch at 05:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2003

America's Einherjar

Today is a day to honour America's Einherjar - the brave men and women who chose the lives of warriors and were called to their ultimate destiny as a result. They are rightly considered heroes.

This should also be a time for reflection - and for making sure that the Einherjar have not had their lives taken by wars that are fought for ill purpose, or are predicated on lies, half-truths, "bad" information or are otherwise decitful. In choosing the life of a warrior, these people are saying they consider the good of the nation to be of higher value than that of their own lives, and they then put their lives into the hands of our government leaders. Those leaders have an obligation to use those lives carefully - not just to "send a message" or prove how tough America is.

Yes, getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing. He was an evil man and he treated his own people horribly. There is no question about this. Yet that isn't why we fought this latest war. As has been noted by many others as well, if getting rid of evil dictators were sufficient justification for war, there are many other who deserve the same treatment, in many countries around the world, yet we aren't going after them. And while we may have succeeded in getting rid of Saddam, as Senator Robert Byrd noted, we have hardly brought the Iraqi's anything resembling "liberation":

What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow-up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of liberation, we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years. Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while US troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply. Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the United States steadfastly resists offers of UN assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the US government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust?

No, the war in Iraq was fought because we were told Saddam was more than just an evil dictator who treated his own people horribly. We were told he was an immediate threat to the US - that he had thousands of gallons of biological and chemical weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons as well. It was because of these weapons - and the liklihood Saddam would give them to al-Qeada - that was the justification for killing not only hundreds, if not thousands of Iraqi citizens, but which also took the lives of our soldiers - adding them to the ranks of America's Einherjar.

Many in America seem to think that it's no big deal if we never find these weapons or any evidence of their existance. They accuse those who opposed the war - and who still feel the war was wrong - of not being "patriotic" or of not supporting our soldiers. Yet it is their own attitude that dishonours the memory of our Einherjar, by trying to cover up the fact that they died in a war that - when judged by the reasons offered to us prior to the start of the war - has not been shown to have been justified. The weapons that made Saddam such an immediate threat have not yet been found, and unless they are, the lives of those soldiers were sacrified in vain.

What's worse, the Pentagon is now talking about possible "regime change" in Iran, and the same people who told us that there was no question that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction are now telling us "[T]here's no question but that there have been and are today senior al-Qaida leaders in Iran, and they are busy."

The Pentagon has proposed a policy of regime change in Iran, after reports that al-Qaida leaders are coordinating terrorist attacks from Iran.

But the plan is opposed by the US state department and the British government, officials in Washington said yesterday.

The Pentagon plan would involve overt means, such as anti-government broadcasts transmitted to Iran, and covert means, possibly including support for the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), even though it is designated a terrorist group by the state department.

The state department and Britain have objected to the plan, saying that it would backfire, undermining the moderates around President Mohamed Khatami.

We cannot allow this administration to make more Einherjar without first demanding unquestionable proof that, if al-Qeada are active in Iran, it is with the knowledge and the support of the Iranian government. If our leaders start to make claims about Iran having Saddam's WMD's (which they earlier suggested about Syria), we need to demand evidence that those weapons do exist and that they are, indeed, in Iran - again with the government's knowledge and support. After the debacle in Iraq, we cannot simply take their word for it.

On this Memorial Day, let us honour the men and women who are willing to make that great sacrifice for this country by holding our leaders to a higher standard of justification before supporting futher wars (or other military action - regardless of how they choose to term it), and make sure that the war is truly needed, sufficiently warranted, and will not result in a worse life for the people who live in whatever country we target next. We owe them at least that much.

Posted by thorswitch at 04:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 10, 2003

The measure of success

Since the reported fall of Baghdad yesterday, I've seen many people go into a "gloat" mode, bragging about how the war is over, all the anti-war "naysayers" have been proven wrong, and the whole thing has been a great success.  I disagree.  The first phase of the war may be done, but the war - in full - has a ways to go. 

As for saying that those who opposed the war having been "proven wrong", it has to be understood that nothing has truly changed in terms of why we opposed the war in the first place.  Few, if any, of us were against the war because they thought Saddam would win.  There has never been any serious doubt that we would succeed in pushing him from power.  And while freedom for the Iraqi people - if it truly works out to be that - is an incredibly good outcome, this isn't a case of the ends justifying the means. 

The Bush administration promoted the war under false pretenses, claiming they were willing to give diplomacy a chance, when it is clear that they never intended for any diplomatic outcome to succeed.  The rationale for the war kept changing.  We still don't know the real reason Bush wanted this war so badly.  There were options other than armed aggression that would have helped deal with the issues of whether or not Saddam had biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and with achieving the freedom for the Iraqi people.  To date, there has been no solid - or even credible - evidence of any ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, in spite of the many claims to the contrary from Colin Powell and others in the Bush administration.  

The war was sold to us with lies, false 'evidence', insinuations, shifting goals and phoney 'diplomatic' efforts.  These things will not change - they cannot change - and as such, those who opposed the war cannot be "proven" to be wrong.  Whether the war is right or wrong is not a matter of absolute truth - it is a matter of opinion, and opinions can't truly be proven one way or the other.

So, has the war "worked"?  Is it a "success"?  Those are questions that can't be answered right away.  There are still pockets of Fedayeen and Republican guards, who are loyal to Saddam and to his Baath party, who will likely continue fighting, though they will eventually be crushed. Currently, Saddam's regime no longer has control of several areas, including Bahgdad, but it's unclear if his regime has now lost power throughout the entire country (last I heard there was still some fighting going on in various areas).  Even once he has lost total control of the nation, there will still be need for soldiers to help with law enforcement and general peace-keeping for quite a while to come.

Of course, the true measure of whether or not the "liberation" of the Iraqi people has been successful will come when they are able to have their first truly democratic elections, with no interference from us, and are able to establish, run, and maintain their own system of government under a constitution of their choosing, so that it truly reflects their own beliefs, desires, and values.

What happened this week is a step. An important step, but it is certainly not the end of the journey, and it is not a guarantee of success. The Iraqi people must be given the necessary assistance to develop a government and a nation that is appropriate to them, and learn how to run and defend it for themselves. Otherwise, this will never truly be a liberation, rather little more than an occupation.

The other measure of whether or not this war has been a success is something we may not know, in full, for another generation or more. What we have done brings with it the possibility - some would say probability - of having created so much anger and resentment, that it may bring a new generation of soldiers to the al-Qaedas, Hizballas, and Hamases of the world, with their anger focused directly at us.  We may not see that anger right now, but it could be festering beneath the surface, both among Iraqis who have seen their country torn, now, by war, with untold numbers of their friends and families killed - including many who were conscripted - unwillingly - to be soldiers for Saddam and to attack our forces, and among the other Arab nation, who may now be concerned that they will be the next subjects of our bombs.

If things do not go well for the Iraqi people - if we provide them with the same kind of support we've provided to the Afghanis (which is so poor that the Taliban is actually beginning to make a comeback) - the cost will be paid in American blood, and in quantities beyond belief. It was noted, yesterday, that, when the communist governments fell a decade ago, there was great jubulation when the people first realized that they had gained their freedom. But a few months down the road, as the transition to the new governments, the new economies, and the new way of life proved more difficult than many had anticipated, and led to lawlessness and a lack of a sense of security, many wondered if this was truly what freedom was about, and some became a bit nostalgic for the old ways when they at least knew what to expect and felt safer.

Even if we do our best, it is likely that some in Iraq will experience some of these same feelings. They won't necessarily want Saddam's regime back, but they may long for the days when at least they knew what to expect under his control. Those who feel that way are another potential source of soldiers for the terrorists, as they may feel that their old lives were taken from them without their consent.

There are many other costs that we may not be able to see, and, yes, it is possible that things will actually go smoothly, but we don't know that right now. We can't. We're dealing with a situation that is somewhat rare - a people who have lived under great oppression, but who did not throw the shackles of oppression off for themselves; an outside force came in to remove the oppressor - and now these people are faced with an uncertain future being guided by a country that, at many points, had been considered an enemy.

Has the war been a success? Only time will truly tell, and we may not know the answer for many years.

Posted by thorswitch at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 26, 2003

Fascism and the Patriot Act

Last week I posted about the creeping fascism that seems to be growing in our nation.  It's a topic I plan to stay on top of, and which other bloggers and activists have been writing about as well.  I found this passage in an interesting article at The Email Activist.  While there are points in the article where the author seems to be slipping a bit into hyperbolic paranoia (such as asking when slave labour may be making a comeback), the majority of the article reflects what I've seen and heard from a variety of other sources, and it makes an excellent point about how far we've come from the roots of this country and why it was initially established in the first place.

When the shooting started at Lexington Green in 1775, those calling themselves patriots were the men and women who refused to yield their rights to an increasingly oppressive government.Today, according to John Ashcroft and his Patriot Act of 2001, a patriot is someone who kneels down in fear and hands over his or her rights to the government in the name of fighting terrorism.

Isn’t the hypocrisy of this all too obvious? The Bush administration wants us to fight in Afghanistan, to fight in Iraq, and to fight wherever terrorists may be hiding. And what, pray tell, are we fighting for? Well, according to the White House, we’re fighting for freedom. Yet freedom is exactly what the White House is demanding that we now surrender in the name of fighting terrorism.

The article also includes a short list of the rights and freedoms that we have lost since 9/11 - most of them through the USA PATRIOT act.  Some of those listed are ones that have been talked about fair frequently: The ability of the government to search homes or businesses without notifying you; libraries and bookstores can now be required to turn over your reading lists - and are forbidden to tell you if they've been asked for your records; the ability of the government to arrest and detain people suspected of possible terrorist involvement indefinately, without charges and without the ability to contact an attorney, and then - if they choose to take the case to trial - they can do so in a secret military tribunal, with no jury, no public oversight, no right to confront the evidence and no appeals; and the ability of law enforcement to listen in to conversations between attorneys and their clients.

There were two items on the list that I was not aware of, and which I find at least as troubling as the ones I was aware of - if not moreso.  The first is that the government can now take steps, including using bugs, to track phone calls and emails of people who are not even suspected of having commited a crime.  In addition, the FBI can make use of their Magic Lantern technology to track everywhere you visit on the Internet, and to capture every keystroke you make.  The second is that the Feds can now investigate someone even if their only reason for being suspicious of them is that they have participated in activities that are legal and protected by the First Amendment - such as if someone has taken part in an anti-war protest or something of that nature.

Of course, John Ashcroft and his Justice department don't think the Patriot Act goes quite far enough, so they are working on a bill to "enhance" the new powers it grants. 

Dr. David Cole, a Law professor at Georgetown University and author of Terrorism and the Constitution assessed the document, saying, “I think this is a quite radical proposal.  It authorizes secret arrests. It would give the Attorney General essentially unchecked authority to deport anyone who he thought was a danger to our economic interests.  It would strip citizenship from people for lawful political associations.”

Today's Washington Post reports on how the government is stepping up the use of secret surveilance and records searches which do not require authorization through the courts and - unless a case comes to trial - are not subject to any judicial oversight.  In many of these cases, the government has no obligation to notify you that you're being investigated, or that they've requested your personal records from various businesses.  These records may include e-mails, phone records, banking records and credit reports.  These, too, are courtesy of the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act also significantly increased the amount of intelligence information that can be shared with criminal prosecutors and federal grand juries, giving authorities new powers in the war on terrorism. National security letters can be used as part of criminal investigations and preliminary inquiries involving terrorism and espionage, according to officials and internal FBI guidelines on the letters.

There is, however, one small bit of hopeful news in all of this.  As it currently stands, Congress will be reviewing provisions of the Patriot Act in 2005.  True, that sounds like it's a long ways off - and as fast as things are changing in this country, to a certain extent it is, but as more citizens become aware of the extent to which this country is sliding into fascism, more pressure can be brought to bear on Congress to ensure that they retain the necessary control in order to do those reviews, and that they will rescind, repeal or otherwise refuse to renew as many provisions of the act as possible.

Posted by thorswitch at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 22, 2003

The Third Wave

There's a MeFi thread today about the "Third Wave" experiment - an attempt by a teacher to help his students understand how ordinary Germans during the Second World War were able to, essentially, ignore all that was going on around them, and fall into conformity with Hitler and the Nazi's fascist dictates.

According to his own accounting of the experiement, by instructing his students in the values of "Strength through Discipline", "Strength trough Community", "Strength through Action" and "Strength through Pride", he was able - in less than a week - to create a mini, fascist group who believed that it was their duty to spy on other members of the group and report any infractions of the "rules", who obeyed his instructions without question,  recruited others into the "movement", and showed little ability to think or act for themselves. 

Admittedly, there is room for some questions about the veracity of the account posted at the above link - as one MeFi poster pointed out, there seem to be some conflicts of the timeline and a whiff of implausibility to how some things were described.  I do, however, feel that the experiment happened and the events were at least reasonably close to what is described by the teacher.  Part of this comes from my own memory of an experiment done by my 6th grade class in discrimination.  When I look back on it now, I'm astonished how quickly the students chosen to be the "dominant" group took to their role as bigots, and the "subordinate" group took to their roles as victims.  I also recall that initially the teacher provided us with some specific examples of how the discrimination should be shown (separate water fountains, showing deference to the dominant group by letting them go through doors first, and so on), and it didn't take long for the students to expand the list of ways to oppress their fellow classmates.  The changes in behaviour were quick and nearly complete - and I recall being uncomfortable with how quickly what was intended as "role play" went from feeling like acting to being much more natural.

The Third Wave experiment - if it played out reasonably close to how it was described - showed how easy it can be for a group of people to accept fascism - to buckle to authority and conform to what is expected, and how quickly the mindset can spread.  Sadly, it is something that we can see happening to a certain extent here in America since the 9/11 attacks. 

At least, so far, it's been "to a certain extent".  The question, of course, is when it will stop.

In the last couple of weeks, the quote (below) from Hermann G?g has been posted on just about every blog I've visited, but it's a very important one for us to hear and remember...

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

...especially when we recall this quote, from our freedom-loving Attorney General, John Ashcroft:

"To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against noncitizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil."

One of the truly frightening lessons from the Third Wave experiment is that the students knew, when the teacher started his experiment, that they had been talking about Nazi Germany and how Hitler gained control over the populace.  One might think that such knowledge would serve almost as a vaccine - helping them be able to resist techniques designed to turn them into good little fascists themselves, but it didn't.  No one in the class opposed what was happening, and nothing was able to stop the transformation from occurring, until the teacher ended the experiment by providing a sharp lesson in what had happened.

Likewise, we might think that our civilization's knowledge of Nazi Germany, and our own horror at the things that happened during Hitler's rule, would make it that much harder for any leader to turn us into good little fascists.  Yet, all around us, there are signs that the transformation is well-underway. A story (brief excerpt below) published in Salon, and widely quoted by the blogging community tells of the reaction a couple received when mentioning that they were against the war, and that Iraq had not been a part of the 9/11 attacks.

When Dawn and I said we were against the war, the men's expressions tightened and they looked down at their steaks. They were huge supporters of the war. They argued that if America didn't disarm Saddam Hussein, no one would, and that America usually acts alone anyway, so who cares what those European bastards think. I'd encountered opinions like theirs many times before. Their attitudes reminded me of many of the men I grew up with -- fiercely patriotic, desperate to protect their families from terrorism, bursting with faith in the president.

But when we suggested that Sept. 11 had nothing to do with Iraq, the conversation immediately shifted. Their faces reddened, and they began to talk quickly at the same time, the businessman slapping his hand against the bar to punctuate his outbursts:

"At some point, you have to trust your president! You have to believe that he knows something we don't!"

"They attacked our country. Now we have to get them!"

"At some point, you have to trust your president! You have to believe that he knows something we don't".  Not exactly the most comforting words I've read.  No, I don't have to trust the president - especially when he has developed such a track record of lying, evasion, misinformation and otherwise misleading us in so many ways.

One way the new facism is reinforces is how, when confronted by people who do not agree with the war, rather than keeping their arguments to the actual assertions being made by the anti-war side, those who are in favour of the war frequently attack the speaker, or the anti-war movement, instead.  When someone points out that none of the evidence Bush has presented as justifying this war stands up well to scrutiny, rather than countering that claim with information showing how the evidence does hold us, the pro-war advocate is more likely to tell you that, if you love Saddam so much, you should just move to Iraq.

Today I was listening to the news on MSNBC, and Chris Matthews began talking about how, now that the war has started, there's much more support for the war.  He implied that Democrats who aren't supporting the war are somehow 'missing the point', and from his arrogant tone of voice, you could tell he considers those who support the war to be superior to those who oppose it.  He's not the only one.

With the media making snide comments and implications about anti-war advocates, and pro-war forces doing everything they can to both discredit the personal character of those who oppose the war and to question their patriotism, an atmosphere develops in which continuing to express opposition becomes a scary thing.

A few days ago, I posted a notice about MoveOn.org's Windowlight campaign.  At the time I posted it, I fully intended to participate, thinking that my husband had agreed.  Since the, however, he's become concerned that if we did have such a visible symbol of our opposition to the war on our home, we might be at risk for someone throwing a rock through the window or some other kind of vandalism.  He says that it's not so much the fear that's stopping him, but the simple fact that we can't afford to replace the glass if they did.  While I don't agree with him, its not the kind of thing I can do without his agreement.  Even though he denies that he's responding to intimidation, in a very real sense, he is.  Were it not for the fact that the pro-war forces have shown themselves willing to stoop to such measures, there's be no reason to worry about whether we could afford replacing a window or not.*

All of these tactics are the kinds of things that help create the repressive atmosphere in which fascism can flourish.  As with the "Third Wave" experiment, even though we know the signs to watch out for and the horror that can result when a fascist dictator gains control of a free people, we are not immune to tactics, and the country is in very real danger of losing it's vision and purpose as a land of liberty.

It took the teacher revealing to the student how far they had falling into fascism to shake them out of it.  It took much the same kind of revelation to bring the German people back out of it as well.  There has to be some way, however, to stop the slide in the first place.  The more of us that can speak out about the danger we are in, and the more people we can help see how far we've already come, the better chance we have of combating it as a whole.  It won't be easy to reach those who are committed to the path they're on, but we have to try.

*As it currently stands, he's agreed for us to pay attention to what happens over the next couple of weeks, and see if there is much reaction to the Windowlight campaign, and rediscuss the issue then.  Of course, the war proper may be over by that time, but I'm glad he's at least willing to consider it.  :)  Meanwhile, I have my "Virtual Windowlight" on this page, and a friend of mine has said she will add a light to her window for me -- thanks again so much!!

Posted by thorswitch at 03:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 20, 2003

A view from Cairo

One of my online friends is an American living in Cairo.  She has been keeping a journal for a while now, and comments today on what it's been like living there while many Egyptians have begun demonstrations and are trying to get into the US Embassy.  She also points to an article in the Guardian about the reactions there.  It notes that many of the protesters are students from the American University in Cairo, which is where her husband is a professor.

Essam el-Eryan, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member among the protesters, said: ``American interests shouldn't feel safe in the Arab region. Iraq should be supported to transform the swift war that the U.S. wants to gang and city fights, to make Iraq a graveyard to the Americans.''

Posted by thorswitch at 02:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 11, 2003

The Rapture, Ragnarok and the American government

Much has been said about the role of the Christian Right in Bush's government, and there is a significant amount of speculation that Bush's desire for the Iraq war is somehow related to the idea that the end of the world is a good thing and should be brought to reality as soon as possible.  The logic appears to be that if Christians can trigger the apocalypse, then Christ has to return and will set up his thousand-year reign of glory. 

Most religions have some kind of prophecy or belief in an end-of-the-world scenario.  As a Norse Pagan, I don't necessarily follow all of what forms the fundamentalist Christian form of this belief, but I find it interesting how differently they approach their prohecied Rapture and Apocolypse from how Norse Pagans view the coming of Ragnarok.  In both cases, the ultimate outcome of the final battle is the this world is destroyed,  evil is defeated and a new world begins.  Many fundamentalist Christians believe that this is something that they want to see happen as soon as possible, and they want to do what they can to help bring it about.  Modern Norse Pagans, however, see Ragnarok as something that is inevitable, but that we are called upon to help forestall as long as possible. 

As we've seen over the last few years, the fundamentalist Christins are becoming more and more powerful, and those who hold such beliefs are becoming bolder in stating what they believe, what they think needs to be done, and why they feel that America is heading for a trip to the Christian hell. The goal of the fundamentalist Christians is to turn America into a theocracy - not unlike Afghanistan under the Taliban.

It's not entirely clear how deeply involved in this kind of thinking President Bush himself is, but several of his close associates are known to be very committed.  In particular, Anton Scalia, one of the Supreme Court justices, is a strong advocate of including much more religion in government.  He has published articles arguing that, despite our Constitutional principle that the government rules by the consent of the people, it is really God who ordains the government and that democracy obscures "the divine authority behind government".  Think about that for a moment, because it's a very scary concept.  Seeing the Forest recently published an excellent article on Scalia's comments, and I strongly encourage everyone to take the time to read it. 

One thing the StF article notes is that Scalia believes that we can tell who God has chosen to be the leader-by-divine-right is that the God-chosen leader will seize power in a battle, proving he is the one who should lead.  He goes on to question whether the election of 2000 would be considered such a "battle".  We know that Bush believes he has been chosen by God for this mission, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that isn't exactly how many of these theocrats view the 2000 elections.

There are any number of questions that can be asked about how the fundamentalist view of Christanity and the "End Times" is influencing our leaders, and what their beliefs will lead them to do to this country.  I find it more than a bit disturbing that many of these people who so badly want to see the Rapture happen as soon as possible, are also the same people who have a fair amount of control over our military, and, more importantly, America's nuclear arsenal. 

I suppose for me, one of the ironies of this whole subject is that there has been so much talk lately of who has or doesn't have nuclear weapons, who should and shouldn't have them, and whether or not they'll be used in the upcoming war on Iraq - and when you read the stories where the prophesy of Ragnarok is laid out, there are some stunning similarities between how the warning signs and coming of Ragnarok are described (a three-year winter in which no other seasons intervene, a world covered in fire and ash...) and the effects of a nuclear attack. An intriguing article by Catlin O'Brien describes it this way:

This account of the apocalypse is, in many ways, what a primitive rationalization of nuclear annihilation might be like. Most of the destructive affects of the nuclear bomb are presented in some manifestation or another. While the Norse people certainly did not have the technology for conceiving or understanding, much less creating, a nuclear bomb, they managed to quite lyrically depict its effect.

At the end of the world, normal rules cease to apply. This is a common theme in modern apocalyptic literature, with the example of incest being the most obvious. From there, the physical events of Ragnarok parallel those of nuclear holocaust as well. What the Elder Edda attributes to fire giants would be neatly achieved by the firestorm resulting from an atomic explosion. Similarly, the earth suffers a prolonged winter and the moon and sun disappear, much as they would during "nuclear winter," when the debris from nuclear explosions would surround the earth. The Midgard Serpent provides a pretty accurate description of nuclear fallout, making the very air and land so poisonous that even a god cannot survive.

Even the image of a final battle and the societal perspective of such are reminiscent of nuclear war. A nation involved in such a war, or faced with its possibility, must dehumanize its enemies, demoting them to beasts and demons while elevating itself to the status of a wise and moral caretaker of the world. This occurred in both America and Russia during the Cold War; it is human nature. The citizens of that nation, moreover, will come to accept and rationalize the idea of war and even the idea of total destruction.

Even if we refrain from using our own nuclear weapons, we know that many other nations now have them, and that some, like North Korea, have made it clear the will not hesitate to use them.   The possiblity of nuclear war is once again something we have to consider. 

If our President and his associates truly believe that his has been chosen by God to lead during these times, and if they also believe that the end-of-the-world is something they need to help bring about, is it any wonder that his actions have seemed to be so out of touch with the world in which the rest of us must live?

Posted by thorswitch at 06:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 05, 2003

My government is making me sick

I'm an American.  I'm not sure I'm always comfortable admitting that these days, but it's a simple fact.  I was born in America and have lived here my entire life.  In fact, I've only ever been to one other country, and that was to spend a bit of time in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  A very nice place, I might add.

I've not always been happy with what my government has done, but it's never gone beyond a philosophical difference of opinions before, or just a basic sense of concern - but with a feeling of certainty that things would be set aright.

The first time I recall having any comprehension of the world of politics was during Watergate.  I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time, and I knew my parents were upset about what was happening, but I didn't really understand it very well.  My Dad tried to explain it to me in ways an 8 or 9 year old could grasp, and I think that he tried, as best he could, to avoid painting me a picture that would turn me against the government in general. 

During the Ford and Carter years, I was enamoured with the Presidency.  I remember going downtown one time when President Ford was in town and the thrill of seeing his limo go by.  I sent a letter to him telling him how much I liked him - in that inimitable "little girl" way - and got a very nice booklet on the White House in return.  In Junior High, I even went to Washington DC on a field trip with one of my school classes.  We got to see the Capitol, the White House, several of the monuments.  At that point I wanted to be able to be the President one day.

Somehow, though, during the Reagan-Bush years, I fell out of love with the government.  I don't know what it was that did it - though Iran-Contra, Abscam, and the first Gulf War didn't help any. I started to question what the government was doing, and why, and didn't really like the answers I was coming up with.  Of course, the Clinton administration just turned me into a cynic.  Between his own actions and the actions of those trying to bring him down, I got to a point where I could no longer believe that politicians even knew what it meant to try and serve the public as opposed to their own interests.  I started speaking out a lot more about what I believe in, and trying to educate myself on various issues (though I could still use more of that in a lot of areas - it's an ongoing process).

This administration, though, has taken things to a whole new level.  The California energy crisis. Enron. Trying to keep everything secret. "Faith-Based Charities". Lies. All of that before 9/11 - it was irritating and infuriating, but it was something that could be lived with and could be changed once this administration was voted out of office (Bush's re-election is not something I can really allow myself to contemplate, even as I do whatever I can to try and help prevent it).

And then the attacks came. And in the time since then, this country has become a place I barely even recognize any more. USA PATRIOT Act, the looming shadow of Patriot II.  TIPS. TIA. Increased scanning at the airport - using our credit histories and bank records to see if we're safe to fly.  People who protest the government's policies being visited by the FBI.  "You're either with us or against us." Insinuations that those who disagree with the administration are borderline traitors.  People being held without charges, unable to speak to their lawyers, indefinately. Refusing to allow the courts to have jurisdiction over certain cases.  Claiming Congress has no right to see who is helping shape our energy policy - and then threatening the budget of the office that tried to force the issue in the courts. Filing amicus briefs to encourage judges to deny a parade permit for anti-war protesters. Increased surveillance of citizens. On and on and on.

And the fear.  They want us to be afraid all the time.  They know that they can't win us over with logic, so they try to scare us into submission.  Yellow. Orange. Yellow. Orange. Oops - sorry - bad intel! Be on the lookout for these scary looking men.  Heh - uh, sorry folks, just a false alarm.  They're going to attack us with scuba divers! They're going to attack apartments! They're going to attack banks!  Don't go to the shopping mall - they might get you there!  By the way - if you don't continue living your life exactly like you always have, you've let them win.  Of course, we're going to have to make a lot of changes in how our country is run to keep you all safe - even if making some of those changes really just ends up giving them what they want.

It's Osama!  He's the devil incarnate and we're going to bring him in dead or alive.  No, wait!  It's Saddam! Yeah, that's who we need to get!  See, he's got these planes.... oh, he doesn't? Ok, well, we've got this report that says he's only six months from having nuclear weapons.  Um, wait, he was six months away in 1998. Or was it 1991?  It doesn't matter, see, he's close!  We have to go get him now!! (North Korea?  Nah, nothing to see there, move along!) The British gave us this fantastic report on just how bad he is -- what do you mean they didn't write it?  Plagiarism? Well.  Hmmm. Ok, look, he's got weapons.  See, he's destroying them, just like we asked him to!  That proves he has more, and that we have to go get him!!  (Osama?  Yeah, I think he's still around, why do you ask?).   Yes, we have to get Saddam.  Its the only way to keep us safe from terrorists.  Now, going after Saddam may make some people mad, so he may become more likely to launch terror attacks against us (and so might others who think what we're doing is wrong), but even though we'll be more vulnerable, we'll be safer.  Just be sure to get your duct tape!

And every day, there's more.  There's the shame of watching our President act like the schoolyard bully as he tries to coerce other nations into joining us in this insane quest for war.  They owe us, you know, and if that doesn't work we can always try bribes.  Spying on UN officials?  Sure, why not.  We can use that information to try and get them to join us.  It doesn't matter how low we stoop in trying to get other countries to go along with us - since the ends apparently justify the means in this case.

And so I've now come to a point where all the twisting and spinning, lying and hiding, fear tactics, bullying, and everything else, are starting to wear me down.  Not in terms of my opposition to what the current administration is doing - that never waivers.  But in other ways.  I've been clinically depressed for as long as I can remember, and have to take medication to keep it under control.  But lately, that doesn't seem to be working so well, and I can't remember the last time I felt as emotionally ragged as I have these last few months.  Tears come far to easy these days, as does rage. I'm getting headaches regularly, and haven't been able to sleep decently in weeks. And I can't find anything in my life to account for it except everything that's been going on around me. 

Being homebound, and cut off from so much of the world, I sometimes think that what happens outside my doors probably shouldn't affect me much - but it does.  This isn't a cozy, safe cave for me to hibernate in and let the world pass me by.  I just never imagined, though, that there'd be a day when what my government is doing would actually make me ill - and somehow, I don't think this is one of those things that two aspirin and a call in the morning will fix.

Posted by thorswitch at 03:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 22, 2003

Tilting at Windmills

I'm feeling pretty angry today.

Yesterday, my mom was crying.  That's a hard thing for a daughter to hear, especially when there's really nothing I can do to help her. 

See, my parents worked hard all their lives, setting aside money for retirement and investing in the stock market like you're supposed to (and like Bush has said wants to do with Social Secrurity by "privatizing" it), and basically being good, responsible citizens.  I'm sure you all know where this is going.  Yep, the bottom fell out of the stock market and now they're not sure how they're going to make what's left last. 

What makes it worse is that - as many older Americans do - they need a variety of medications to help their bodies keep up with their minds, and since they're retired, they have to rely on Medicare for their health insurance.  Yeah, it's not much help with prescription drugs, is it?

Of course, the government could choose to come up with some kind of real economic stimulus - something that would help the stock market recover and let people earn money rather than lose it, but the administration would rather give tax breaks to people who don't have to worry about how they're going to survive during their retirement years.  Oh, and they want to elimiate income taxes on capital gains - which is going to help, exactly, how?  If people are losing money in the stock market, exactly what gains are they not going to be paying taxes on?

Part of what has me so angry is Bush's plan to pay Turkey $15 billion (with a "b") dollars (in grants and "loans" - which often don't seem to ever get paid back) to let us station our troops in their country so we can attack Iraq from the north.  Fifteen billion dollars! True, $15 billion is better than the $26 billion amount I'd been hearing about yesterday (and less than half of the $32 billion Turkey reportedly wanted), but it's still $15 billion dollars.

That kind of money would buy my folks - and people like them - quite a few months-worth of their medications.  Hell, it could help refill their depleted bank and stock accounts!  That much money could stimulate the economy a lot more than telling us to buy duct tape will.  It could help younger people be able to get better educations so they have a better chance at getting one of the few jobs that are left.  It could do a lot of things other than rent us a bit of space in a foreign country so that we can go prove what a big bully America can be.

When it comes to spending money on the war, though, this is what Bush had to say about it recently:

"As we insist that Congress be wise with your money, we're going to make sure we spend enough to win this war," Bush said.

After the applause died down, he added, "And by spending enough to win a war, we may not have a war at all."

Right.  Like he's not going to find any excuse he can to have his little war, regardless of what it costs.

Of course, he also says:

If the United States were to "liberate" the Iraqis, "they can rest assured that we will help them build a country that is disarmed and peaceful and united and free," he said.

Except that no money has been budgeted for rebuilding Iraq.  None was initially allocated in this year's budget for helping to rebuild Afghanistan, either, which (in case everyone has forgotten) we recently helped push through it's own regime change - after promising to help rebuild - and then promptly left in the dust.

After all, look at our behavior in Afghanistan. In the beginning, money was no object; victory over the Taliban was as much a matter of bribes to warlords as it was of Special Forces and smart bombs. But President Bush promised that our interest wouldn't end once the war was won; this time we wouldn't forget about Afghanistan, we would stay to help rebuild the country and secure the peace. So how much money for Afghan reconstruction did the administration put in its 2004 budget?

None. The Bush team forgot about it. Embarrassed Congressional staff members had to write in $300 million to cover the lapse. You can see why the Turks, in addition to demanding even more money, want guarantees in writing. Administration officials are insulted when the Turks say that a personal assurance from Mr. Bush isn't enough. But the Turks know what happened in Afghanistan, and they also know that fine words about support for New York City, the firefighters and so on didn't translate into actual money once the cameras stopped rolling.   [Paul Krugman, The New York Times]

I don't think it would be so infuriating if anything about this war made sense, but it doesn't.  Our leaders can't give us a coherent reason - that holds up to scruitny - as to why we need to depose Saddam Hussein.  North Korea is a lot closer to being able to attack us with nuclear weapons, but we're not threatening to invade them yet.  Osama bin Laden is still running about able to organize and finance terrorists, and yet he still hasn't been brought to justice.  Near as I can tell, we're barely even trying to find him any longer.  We're constantly being told that we need to bring Saddam down to reduce the threat of terrorism, but now the Homeland Security Department is telling us that if we do attack Iraq, it may make us even more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, not less.  And, while we're ostenibly fighting this war to help ensure the Iraqi people can have a free and democratic country, we're having our rights chipped away at every turn. 

So, yeah, I'm pretty angry right now, and aside from doing whatever I can to make my voice heard and my opinion known, there's not much I can do - and there's no guarantee that even making myself heard will do much of anything.  I feel a bit like Don Quixote tilting at his windmills - but tilt I must.  Like sealing up my house with duct tape and plastic sheeting, it may not do much good, but at the very least, it has to be better than sitting around and doing nothing at all.

Posted by thorswitch at 10:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2003

Satan, sex and mind games

Satanic sex abuse

CBC takes a criticial look at a recent child sex abuse scandal in Canada. These media panics, which has happened all over the world, generally follow the same pattern. Rumours and accusations start spreading, the initial investigation by the police and health care authorites is mocked up completely, and from the wrong start the case just explodes and grows into bizarre proportions. Media and police lose all sense of direction, creating a total panic, and nobody actually looks at the basic evidence, or lack thereof.  (Read more at Secular Blasphemy).

Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and the hysteria surrounding it in the 1980s and early 90's is a topic that has fascinated me for a while.  Part of my interest, of course, stems from the fact that many people equate Wicca - and thus all Paganism - with Satanism - or at least Satanism as they have come to misunderstand it based, more often than not, on cases like the Canadian child sex abuse scandal cited above or any of the other so called SRA cases, including the McMartin Day Care trial.  But it's also fascinating because this widespread belief that so many seem to have that there are Satanic cults at work, enslaving, abusing and/or sacrificing children was started by a book that was held out as a true story, but has since been shown to be false. 

The book is called "Michelle Remembers" by Dr. Lawrence Pazder and his wife, Michelle, a former patient of his, and prior to the book's publication, there were few, if any, reports of "Satanic cults" or "Satanic Ritual Abuse".  After it came out in 1980, reports skyrocketed, and it began to seem as if there were wild roming packs of dangerous Satanists at every corner.  Helping dysfunctional adults uncover their own "hidden" memories of Satanic abuse became a part of therapy for many counselors, and theapists who worked with children had to find ways to get them to acknowledge what had "happened" to them.

Seven years later, Mike Warnke, a Christian evangelist and comedian, published a booked called "The Satan Seller", in which he recouted his supposedly true adventures as a Satanist and all of the horrible things he had done during is years in the service of evil.  That book, also, has been shown to be false.

A four-year study in the early 1990s found the allegations of satanic ritual abuse to be without merit. The study was conducted by University of California at Davis psychology professors Gail S. Goodman and Phillip R. Shaver, in conjunction with Jianjian Qin of UC Davis and Bette I. Bottoms of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their study was supported by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. The researchers investigated more than 12,000 accusations and surveyed more than 11,000 psychiatric, social service and law enforcement personnel. The researchers could find no unequivocal evidence for a single case of satanic cult ritual abuse.  - The Skeptic's Dictionary

At about the same time that claims of SRA were almost becoming fad-like, there also began to appear cases of people claiming they had been sexually abused or molested as children (but not as a part of any Satanic activity), and an increase in people being diagnosed with multiple personality disorder.  Many accusations of abuse or other horrors were made based on the "recovered" memories of "victims" who simply had been unable to deal with the trauma of the alleged incident and had buried the memory deep in their brains. 

Belief in "repressed memories" was widespread, and many therapists worked from the standpoint that if someone wondered if they'd ever been abused, then they almost certainly had, but had repressed the conscious memory of it.  The first time I came across that belief was in one of the classes I was taking as part of the Master's in Counseling I'd been trying to earn.  I have to admit, I was simply stunned.  With as much coverage as the phenomenon was getting in the news at that time, quoting people who had only just begun to remember these supposed horrors they'd suffered as a child, it's kind of hard NOT to wonder, even if it's just for a moment, if something like that could have happened to you.  When you  hear people talk about something that's outside your own experience, it's pretty much human nature to at least momentarily try on the image and see if it fits - whether it's having repressed memories of a horrible childhood or bungee jumping.  Wondering, in an of itself, doesn't mean anything other than indicating that - heaven forbid! - you have a functioning imagination and curiosity.  When I expressed my own belief that it should take a lot more than just idle "wondering", several of my classmates informed me that I was probably far too insensitive to ever make it as a counselor.  (Regrettably, I've yet to find out if that's true or not, as my disability has so far prevented me from finishing my degree.)

Of course, it wasn't discussed much at the time that some of the techniques being used to bring forth these memories - including hypnosis - put the client into a very receptive state of mind, and often times the questions the therapists asked were very leading. 

In just the last few days, Elizabeth Loftus has released the preliminary results of a study she's been doing that shows how easy it can be to plant false memories in an adult mind.  As part of her study, she planted suggestions that subjects had met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland when they were children, including having hugged him or shaken his hand.  In later interviews, many of the subjects cited that as an actual memory that they had from their childhood, in spite of the fact that Bugs Bunney is a Warner Brothers character, not a Disney one, and would never have been at Disneyland.  And it's not just childhood memories that were induced.  In one part of the study, researchers were able to manipulate the subjects into "remembering" that they'd kissed a frog just two weeks beforehand, when they actually hadn't.

The predisposition for some people to allow false details to become imbedded in their recollection of events is raising troubling questions for the legal system, where repressed memories are sometimes unleashed and introduced as evidence before juries, researchers said Sunday in Denver.

Sadly, in spite of evidence showing that the incidents in "Michelle Remembers" and "The Satan Seller" never happened, and in spite of the spectacular collapsing of virtually all of the SRA cases that were investigated, many people still believe that things like that really happen - and even now, therapists are still using techniques that are widely considered unacceptable and unreliable.  It's almost frightening how quickly therapists, counselors, law enforcement officials and others were to accept the notion of SRA, MPD and repressed memories, and how slow they are to give them up again.

Posted by thorswitch at 09:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 22, 2003

Fueling false hopes

Q-Ray stands for quack, says suit over bracelet

January 22, 2003

By Jim Ritter Health Reporter

Hoping to relieve arthritic pain in his knees, elbows and back, Donald Casey bought a Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet that supposedly relieves pain by restoring the body "to its normal electrical balance."

Then Casey saw a Mayo Clinic study that found Q-Rays worked no better than inactive placebo bracelets

I live in pain.  Every day.  I have severe osteoarthritis in both knees from a condition I was born with, and am developing osteoarthritis in my hips.  I had tendonitis in one of my wrists, and had to have bone graft surgery done to repair the damage a cyst, caused by the tendonitis, had done to the bones.  I'm also prone to both tension and migraine headaches.

You'd think that'd be enough, but because of the severity of my arthritis, I've been homebound for the last 4 years, and cannot walk even a few feet without the aid of a walker.  As a result of my confinement, I've begun to develop pressure sores, which really don't feel very good.

To control my pain, I have to take narcotic pain-killers on a fairly regular basis, but even that is insufficient to eliminate it, though it does help some.  From the time I get up in the morning until I finally go to sleep, the subject of pain and pain management is never terribly far from my mind.

So,why am I telling you all this?  Because I want you to know that I truly understand how desperate for relief people who suffer from severe, chronic pain can be to find anything that might help make it even just a little bit better.  While I usually stay away from things like magnet therapy or "ionized" bracelets, which, to me anyway, don't even make much sense as a form of treatment, I have been known to try some of the different "remedies" that tend to get tossed around within the chronic-pain community.  I've tried MSM, Glucosamine, Chondritin, all three mixed together, Vioxx, heat therapy, cold therapy, and have even thought about trying accupuncture. And while I've not found anything that can truly relieve my pain, it is vital for me to hang on to any hope I can find - even if it's not entirely rational - in order for me to survive. 

One of the complications of living life with chronic pain is that it can make a normal person depressed, and it can make a depressed person significantly worse.  Since I've always been depressive by nature, there are times when the struggle to keep going, no matter how much it hurts, has been far harder than I like to admit - even to myself - and sometimes, the only thing that really keeps me going is the idea that maybe someday - maybe soon - they'll find something that can really help.

It is the importance of that hope - not just to me, but to many, if not most, pain sufferers - that makes me so outraged when I see stories like the one above that talk about companies selling expensive -- and bogus -- "remedies" for arthritis or other conditions. I'm sure that most of the people who are now putting together a class action suit against Q-Ray knew, at least in the back of their minds, that an "ionized" bracelet would be unlikely to work.  The company, however, plays on the hope of something -- anything -- that will make it easier to get through the day - and they know that huge numbers of people will set aside their rational thought and take a chance that maybe, just maybe, this time, this gizmo will work.

Sadly, with the boomer generation starting to age, senior citizens are going to become a large, and very important, demographic - and since most people develop arthritis as they grow older, such modern snake-oil is only going to become more popular. While I think that in this kind of a situation, where there is now a scientific study showing that the bracelet provides no real benefit, it would be better for the company to be prosecuted on fraud and false advertising charges than through a class action suit, I also hope that the suit being filed will result in a strong enough judgement against Q-Ray that other companies may think twice before trying to prey upon desperate people who are already suffering at the hands of a cruel disease.

Posted by thorswitch at 07:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 18, 2003

Title XI

Title IX Has Made a Mockery of Gender Equality in College Sports

BY ROBYN BLUMNER
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES 

Thanks to the way it's been enforced, Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education -- including college athletics programs -- has turned college athletic directors into bean counters. Rather than worry about the quality of their programs, they are busy making sure they have enough players with the right chromosomes.

[...]  It wasn't supposed to be this way. According to Department of Education guidelines, there are three ways to demonstrate compliance with Title IX: Show that the number of female athletes is substantially proportional to the number of female undergraduates; that athletic opportunities for women are being steadily increased over time; or that the school is meeting the athletic interests of female students.

But schools have learned through hard experience that meeting the proportionality test is the only "safe harbor" and, according to Jessica Gavora, a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Justice and author of the book Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex and Title IX, the courts have supported this view.

The overall goal of Title IX is admirable - making sure that male and female athletes have an equal opportunity to participate in collegite sports.  While it's true that, in many ways, women have a much greater ability to engage in athletics, it's also true that, in many ways, men now have less of an opportunity than they did before Title IX's implementation.

I worked for about six months at the NCAA national headquarters a few years back, and while my job did not deal directly with Title IX issues, I did have the opportunity to see some of the repercussions of the way the law was being implemented.  For many schools, athletics budgets can be fairly tight once you get away from the marquee sports like football and basketball.  There's not always enough money for them to add several new teams specifically for womens' sports while still maintaining all of their male teams, and depending on the ratio or male to female students, it is frequently more cost-effective -- and practical -- to eliminate sports for men rather than adding sports for women.

The problem is that, when cases of potential Title IX violations are taken to court, the courts often look only at the whether or not the ratio of male to female students is the same as that of male to female athletes.  In other words, if a school as a general population made of 60% women and 40% men, then the breakdown of male and female athletes must also be 60% women and 40% men.  And, as noted in the article cited above, it's not that 60% (in this particular example) of the available athletic opportunities must be reserved for women, but that 60% of the actual participants must be female.

The problem with this is that many times, a school may have room for X number of athletes on a given team, but only Y athletes turn out for it.  When calculating the ratios to determine if the school is in compliance or not, they will only count the Y athletes that are actually participating.  The result is that if a school can't attract as many female students as they have created opportunities for, the only way for the school to meet the requirements of Title IX is to cut male athletes from their programs or drop entire sports to get the ratios right.

A more fair way of judging the compliance of a school, while taking into consideration the reality that not every student is interested in playing sports, would be for schools to be able to demonstrate that they have created proportional opportunities for male and female athletes, and that they have made a real and genuine effort to fill all of the available slots, but not penalize them if they can't find enough women interested in sports to take advantage of all of them. The tricky part, of course, would be for them to demonstrate that they have made a real and genuine effort to fill those slots, but I'm sure some kind of method or protocol could be found.

It is important that female athletes have the opportunity to participate in sports during college if they want to, and while it's sad that it takes a law to ensure that they do, if we're going to have such a law, we need to make sure it's one that will work fairly.  Under the current system, male athletes - especially those in smaller, non-revenue producing sports - are frequently penalized because a school either cannot afford to add more teams for women, or because they can't attract enough women to the teams they do offer. 

Equality obtained by cutting one group down to make the other "feel" more equal does no one any good. Or, as the wonderfully quotable Neal Peart (lyricist for Rush) put it:

"There is unrest in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
For the maples scream "OPPRESSION"
And the oaks just shake their head

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatched, axe and saw"

Posted by thorswitch at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 08, 2003

Encouraged

Lawyer Blames Baltimore for Arson Deaths

The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 8, 2003; 2:01 PM

BALTIMORE –– A lawyer for relatives of a seven-member family killed in an arson fire says the city is responsible for their deaths because an anti-drug campaign encouraged them to speak out against neighborhood drug dealers.

[...] Byrd-Chichester [a member of Johnnie Cochran's Washington law firm] said the city is responsible for the deaths because the anti-drug "Baltimore Believe" campaign encouraged them to speak out against dealers.

"It's reckless to invite people to step up to a dangerous situation, and then be on notice that these particular people have stepped up and are in danger, and then fail to provide protection," Byrd-Chichester said. "The outcome should not have been surprising."

America isn't an easy country to live in sometimes.  As a culture, we don't like responsiblity.  Well, we don't like having to accept responsiblity for things we do.  We like responsibility when it's someone else's burden to deal with.  And we really like it when it's not only someone else's burden to deal with, but we can convince someone that they owe us money for it.  As a result, we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to find someone - anyone - else to blame for everything bad that happens, and then sue them for everything we can get.

Another reason America isn't an easy country to live in is because, as citizens, we have certain duties and obligations.  One of those duties is the duty to assist law enforcement in keeping us safe.  If we witness or are aware of a crime being committed, we are supposed to let the police know so that the crime can be investigated and the criminals prosecuted.  Of course, doing so puts our own safety at risk. People who commit crimes generally aren't afraid of trying to intimidate witnesses from testifying against them.  Its not unheard of for a criminal to kill a witness in the hope that it will destroy the case against them.

Because of these risks, many people are hesitant to go to the cops.  In Baltimore, the city began a program to encourage citizens to come forward if they had information about drug dealers.  Carnell and Angela Dawson did, and subsequently, their house burned down - killing them and their children.  Now their relatives are thinking of suing the city of Baltimore, claiming that their program is to blame for the Dawson's deaths.

It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea that a city cannot encourage its citizens to do their civic duties without running the risk of getting sued if things go badly.  Yes, I do think the city has an obligation to keep witnesses against dangerous criminals safe, and I would expect that if someone contacted the police in response to this program, that they would be given information on what kind of protection is available before they tell the police what they know.  This way, the witness can make a decision knowing the risks and what they can expect. 

In the case of the Dawson's, however, they were offered protection through the city's witness protection program - including relocation after an earlier fire had been set in their home - but they refused to move.  According to the Baltimore Sun, the following steps were taken to try and help protect the family:

• The day of the Oct. 3 fire, arson detectives and officers stepped up patrols and canvassed the area for witnesses. Arson detectives returned the next day.
  
  


• Four days after the attack, Detective Timothy Holt spoke with Angela Dawson about the fire and asked whether she had received any additional threats. She had not.
  
  


• Holt spoke with her again Oct. 9 and she reported no further problems. That day, a sergeant and two officers in the department's community affairs division met with Angela Dawson and discussed what assistance was available to her.
  
  


• On Oct. 14, Lt. Richard A. Hite Jr. met with Carnell Dawson to discuss his family's options. He told Hite that he would not be forced to leave his neighborhood by drug dealers.
  
  


• At 1:05 a.m. Oct. 16, the day of the fatal arson, Maj. Gregory Eads, commander of the Eastern District, was on a routine patrol in the area and stopped by to check on the Dawsons. He saw nothing unusual. At 2:18 a.m., the house was set ablaze.

When a witness is promised protection, accepts it, and the police fail to adequately provide it, in all liklihood there would be grounds for a civil suit in that situation.  When a witness refuses to accept the protection offered, however, the full burden of resonsiblity for their safety can no longer be assumed to rest solely with the police.  Some measure of it now rests in their own hands.

When the Dawson's decided to go to the police, they knowingly put themselves at risk.  When they refused to relocate, despite having already had their house set on fire, they had a better understanding of the level of risk they were at, and knowingly chose not to take steps to reduce it.  While they may have been encouraged by the "Baltimore Believes" program to initially contact the police, it was not that encouragement that lead to their deaths.  It was the heinous actions of the drug dealers - first and foremost - and their own decision to stay put, in spite of the risk. 

Posted by thorswitch at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 04, 2003

Legislating Parental Responsibility

I've never been a fan of ultra-violent video games.  I don't really think they're good for people to play, and - with kids in particular - I think they really can help desensitize them to not only the violence depicted in the game, but to the concept of violence being bloody, victims truly being in pain and other things that, for most of us, help remind us that being violent is a bad thing. I also believe that games which cast the player as the villian can help create a mindset that being "evil" is fun.  Granted, not ever person (or even kid) who plays an ultra-violent game is going to become violent themselves - and I don't think the games alone can cause violence in an otherwise non-violent person.  But I do think that they can - and do - have an undesirable effect on some of the people who play them.  

So, games like "Postal", "Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City" and others aren't ones I really want to see be successful, nor do I want to see a lot of kids playing them.  What do I do about it?  Well, for starters, I don't buy them and I don't rent them.  I don't let anyone get money from me or on my behalf for making, selling or renting such games.  I post messages like this one to make my views known.  I participate in public discussions on the issue.  I encourage parents I know to carefully monitor what their kids are playing and to talk to their kids' friends' parents to find out what they might be playing or getting into over at the friends' house.  If I think a game is bad enough,  I may even write letters to game companies and retailers, letting them know of my dissatisfaction and asking them to give greater consideration to what they choose to create, manufacture, release and stock in their stores.   

What don't I do?  I don't ask or expect the government to step in and decide what kinds of game can be made or sold.  I don't ask or expect them to determine who can or can't buy or rent a game.  This isn't an issue that the government should be involved in at all.  Capitalism in and of itself has all the power needed for society to govern itself on a matter such as this. 

If enough people buy a product, even if there are some protests, a product will still get made and sold in plenty of stores.  If, on the other hand, enough companies think that the backlash against a product is strong enough and might hurt their overall corporate health or corporate image, they can choose not to make, publish or sell a product.  If there's still a market for it, more specialized companies may decide to go ahead and create, publish or sell stuff like it for a niche market.  Regardless, the marketplace decides what it will or won't tolerate based on whether they think they can make a profit off of it or not, and whether it will hurt their overall reputation.

There is also another mechanism that is very effective in specifically keeping these games out of the hands of children.  It's called a parent.  And a parent is what prompted this whole diatribe, because she doesn't seem to understand what being a parent means.

"Basically, I guess I never even realized it was a problem until my (then 15-year-old) son came back from the video store with a game," she said. "I really wasn't paying that much attention at first but then I walked into his room and saw he was playing some game with blood everywhere. It was not something I thought was appropriate."

[Terri] Tinsey said she asked her son where he got the game. He had rented it.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "First of all, you have to have a sick mind to come up with that stuff -- but to just let anyone get their hands on it is ludicrous."

Now, see, I don't think that it's any more ludicrous than a parent letting their 15-year-old go to a video store to rent whatever he or she wants.  Most video stores will allow a parent to restrict what kind of materials can be rented to a minor child.  Typically they can specify what ratings should be off limits to their kids, and then the store won't let them check it out.  Both the movie and the video game industry have voluntary ratings systems to help alert parents to what the movie or game might contain.  The rental industry and parents can then make use of this system to help restrict access to inapporpriate material - no government intervention needed.

State Rep. Patricia Lockwood, a Fenton democrat, spearheaded the legislation, which focuses on games with the "M" or "AO" rating.

"Games like 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City' are extremely violent and shouldn't be in the hands of our kids," Lockwood said. "This bill will restore parental authority into the equation, and that is a good thing for parents and children alike in Michigan."

What I want to know is, when was parental authority taken OUT of the equation - except through the parent's own negligence and ignorance of what their child was doing?

Terri TInsey has been lobbying for several years for a bill that would make it a crime for a video shop or other store to sell or rent games with certain ratings to children under certain ages.  Yet this law would be totally unnecessary if parents would simply do their jobs.  Go to the store with your kids.  Look at what they want to rent.  Watch them playing the game - see what the game involves and how the child reacts to it.  If you think the game and the way your child is reacting is fine, then go on and do your other business, otherwise, take it away from the kid.  Yes, your kid will probably throw a temper tantrum, but they need to learn that making a scene won't get them whatever they want, so letting them get as pissy as they want and not giving in to their demands helps teach them an additional, valuable lesson.

I suppose, in a sense, this kind of a law does put the parents "back" into the equation, but the only reason they were ever removed from it is becuase they chose to remove themselves.  Laws of this nature, while certainly allowing a parent more involvement (by requiring that the parent or an of-age guardian be the one to actually rent the material), shouldn't be needed.  Parents should be doing this sort of thing on their own initiative - and if they're not willing to or capable of it, then they need to think carefully before having any kids.

Posted by thorswitch at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 30, 2002

World AIDS Day - December 1st, 2002

Tomorrow - December 1st - is World AIDS Day.  Link and Think is a campaign to encourage bloggers, journalers and others such forums to post about AIDS, our thoughts or experiences with it, links to news, research, resources or other tools dealing with AIDS and to help remind people that the fight against AIDS is still going.

I have been very fortunate in that AIDS has never touched upon my life in a tangible way.  I don't know anyone who has AIDS, and, to the best of my knowledge, none of my good friends know anyone who has AIDS, either.  I suspect that is something of a rarity.

That doesn't mean, however, that I have been completely untouched by AIDS.  It may not be part of my personal experience, but I have seen what AIDS has done to this country and how we have treated it's victims. I have seen the way the victim profile led our government to delay recognizing in the early years - when we might still have had time to contain it - how serious the epidemic is, and how the sexual nature of transmission is, even today, leading to suppression of information on how to prevent contracting it.  I've learned about the ego games that may have delayed our ability to have a truly accurate test, which could have possibly helped prevent some of the contamination of the blood supply, and how the fight over credit for discovering the virus that causes AIDS made research more difficult for everyone.

Earlier this year I read "And the Band Played On", by Randy Shilts, and "Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, A Massive Cover-Up, and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo" by John Crewdson. These books tend to be a bit dry at times, and - "Science Fictions" in particular - sometimes gets a bit lost in the arcana of science and politics, yet I couldn't put either of them down once I started reading.  I was in my late high-school/early-college years when most of what was written about took place, and while I was aware of AIDS and had some idea of what it was, by and large, it wasn't something people talked about much. 

When I look back on it now, I realize just how dangerous that was.  Here were kids from all walks of life and of all sexual orientations who were getting their first taste of freedom and, for the most part, starting to explore their sexual natures - and we didn't really comprehend that there was a dangerous disease that couldn't easily be detected, was transmitted from one person to another through sexual contact, could stay dormant in your bloodstream for years before you began showing symptoms - even though you could infect others that entire time - and brought with it a horrifying death that nothing could stop.

Contrasted with the "West Nile" scare of the last few years, the difference is astounding.  While West Nile is a serious disease and can be fairly easily contracted, after three summers of frequent news reports and updates, the number of people who have been sickend by or died from West Nile is only a fraction of the number of people who contracted or died from AIDS in its first three years.  Yet you'd almost have to be a hermit to be unaware of the West Nile virus and measures you can take to help prevent getting it.

Accoding to a Reuters report published this week, women now make up half of all AIDS victims worldwide.  The article also notes that by the end of the year, 3.1 million people worldwide will have died of AIDS, another 5 million with contract the disease and 42 million will be living with the virus. Even as progress is being made, news of that progress sometimes leads people - especially young people - to believe that there's not as much to worry about as there might have been previously, so not as much caution (including the use of condoms) needs to be used. 

Over the next 24 hours, I will be posting links to various articles on AIDS, living with AIDS, fighting against AIDS and fighting against apathy.  I hope that you will find them useful.  If you have any comments or thoughts you would like to share, please do so.  Every voice needs to be heard.

Posted by thorswitch at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 29, 2002

Learned helplessness

Current Editorials: Thanksgiving wishes...
Posted by worried Aurelia Westlake on Nov. 29, 2002

[...]  Now, the people are almost resigned. Apathetic. There is a pervasive greyness in the nation that has not been caused only by the tryptophan in the turkey we're collectively partaking of tonight. A lackluster election full of races with two equally distasteful candidates, a year of having our privacy taken away - mostly because we have given it away, steady economic contraction and months of being told of an imminent war has created a state of helplessness. [...]

In psychology classes, they teach about a condition called "learned helplessness", which occurs when a person has been repeatedly subjected to situations that induce pain or fear and there is no way to get away from it.  Eventually, even if a means of escape becomes available, the person has become so used to being afraid or hurt that it's as if the means of escape doesn't exist.  They won't even try to get away.

The experience of the last 15 months here in America seems to be producing a nation suffering from learned helplessness.  Fear is induced through the constant, but oh-so-vague, warnings eminating from the government.  Another attack is imminent, we are told, they may be coming to blow up our banks, our hotels, our apartments, our holiday celebrations.  They may be coming in hidden on boats, or scuba-diving to our shores.  They may already be here, hidden among us, and we don't even know it. They may use suicide bombers or shoulder-mounted surface-to-air misses can knock planes from the sky.  Crop dusters may be used to spread biological agents, or they may load a conventional bomb with nuclear waste to spread radiation throughout a large city.  May... may... may... may. The list of horrors is nearly endless, as is the imagination of those whose job it is to come up with new warnings, it seems. We see no escape from this fear, and are told our only hope is to sacrifice our freedoms, our cherished liberties, our very way of life, on the altar of security, so we do - willlingly, it seems - and never realizing that maybe, we should be afraid of our government, too.

The thing is, all of those threats existed before 9/11 - we just didn't let those concerns be the primary focus of our government or our lives. We knew the threat was out there, but because nothing serious had happened yet (and for some reason, we never seemed to consider the first bombing of the World Trade Center to be terribly "serious"), it didn't seem so real.  Once the plans crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon, however, we suddenly saw just how real it was. And the fear began.

If you look at all the measures the government is trying to put into place, how many of them would have helped catch the 9/11 terrorists before the attack?  From what I've read, they were spread out throughout the country, so it is unlikely that any religious or political groups they were a part of would have had planning for the attacks as a major topic of discussion.  They seem to have had little contact with each other prior to the attacks themselves, so monitoring their phone calls probably would have revealed little. They didn't have any need to purchase much in the way of "how to" books or materials for executing their plans - they had boxcutters, but built no bombs - so examining their reading lists or purchases would have revealed little to be concerned about. Would wiretaps have helped?  Maybe, if we'd had any way to know that it might be worthwhile to listen in.  I've not heard about any e-mail trails they might have left, so reading e-mail probably wouldn't have done any good.  In fact, I have yet to hear of any of the new powers the government is granting itself that would have done anything to help prevent the 9/11 attacks.  Yet we sit by and watch the government take away more of our rights and give itself more and more power, and we do nothing. 

So, what can we do?  As Ms. Westlake suggests:

[...] Instead of writing to your Congressman this holiday season, remember that he doesn't read his mail anyway, and his secretary has seen your letter in some form a thousand times before. Instead of trying to work up a legal furor, work up a local furor. Talk to PEOPLE. Hold demonstrations, if you can find enough people that'll hold up signs in the cold of winter. Talk to your friends, your family, about the things that will affect us all in the coming years.  [...]

Other ideas?  Write letters to the editor of your local papers.  Try to call into to talk shows - especially those run by people who hold a different view than your own. Write about it in your blog or journal and then publicize your site as part of your sig line on any e-mails you write or message board postings you make. If you are a part of a religious community that gives members a chance to make open prayer requests, stand and ask that the community pray for citizens of this country to snap out of their collective stupor and have the courage to stand up for themselves and their rights. If you've got some money, take out even a small ad in your local paper.  Don't be afraid that your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers or complete stranges may think you're a bit nutty or that you're going to drive them nutty in the process.  As is too often said about the death penalty - if this case doesn't call for it, then what does?

Fighting against the government may not sound like a logical way to increase our security - but what we're being sold right now is nothing more than some pretty smell hot air wrapped up in a bow.  What the government wants to do won't make us safer.  In fact, it puts each of us at greater risk - not from being the victims of a terrorist attack - but from the government deciding that we're worth a closer examination or that we may even be a dreaded "enemy combatant".  [ Remember, Jose Padilla has been being held for months now as an "enemy combatant" and all we know that he did was talk to some people about possibly arranging an attack and fly into Chicago.  The government claims he was coming here to scout for a possible attack location, but because they arrested him as he stepped off the plane, we don't even know if that's really why he was here.  So, there was no actual "combat" involved, but he's still an "enemy combatant."  ]

The best way to make this country safer is not to cut back on our freedoms and make it easier for the government to arrest and hold someone indefinately with out charging them with a crime.  The best way is to make the government hold itself accountable for the failures and lapses that let the 9/11 terrorists fall through the cracks.  As we've learned during these last several months, there were many mistakes, many missed opportunities, and many times when better communication between the FBI, CIA and local law enforcement could have helped put pieces of the puzzle together.  That is our escape from the fear, and that is where the government's focus needs to be placed. 

We may have learned to think we are helpless.  We may have learned that it's better to just lie still and let them hurt us than to try and find an escape where none exists.  But what we may have learned is wrong.  We are not helpess and there are ways to escape - to make this country what it once was and can be again. Any behaviour that has been learned can be unlearned.  We need to re-educate ourselves, and then we need to re-educate the government, and remind them that is it We, the People who really run this country through our voices and our votes. 

Posted by thorswitch at 12:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 26, 2002

PTSlaveryD?

Theory links slavery, stress disorder

Proponents make for a new diagnosis

By Marcella Bombardieri
Globe Staff
11/12/2002

[...]  In their working paper, Reid, Mims, and Higginbottom lay out a case for links between slavery and behavior in the black community today. They point out that slaves were punished if they knew how to read, and draw a comparison to the stigma attached to education today. ''If you go to any elementary or middle school today and talk to black kids, they say, `I failed all my classes, it's cool,''' Reid said.

They write about how male slaves were not allowed to stay with their families, and then cite the number of poor black men today who father numerous children with different women.  [...]

The idea that the way slaves were treated several generations ago controls how individual blacks cope with life today seems a bit specious. True, blacks were punished for being educated and families were torn apart, but that shouldn't be considered an excuse for poor scholarship from some blacks today, or the inability of some black men to make a commitment to a family.

Women have also been treated poorly.  For many generations women were expected to be uneducated and subservient to men, yet we don't see large numbers of women today who adopt an attitude that "its cool" to not be able to read.  We also do not see large numbers of women who have a dysfunctional inability to stand up for themselves or survive without a man to tell them what to do. At least we don't see these things in the same proportions that it is sometimes claimed to be seen in the black population.  Given the theory behind the "Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder" (PTSlaveryD), however, such parallels should be easy to find in the descendents of any formerly-oppressed group.

Oppression is not uncommon, and many groups have been oppressed through history.  In Europe, we even had one group of white people (the royalty) oppressing another (the pesants).  Would this mean that we should expect to find PTFeudalismD amongst the descendents of the pesants?  If not, why not?  In addition, the article mentions that "PTSlaveryD" is seen in both blacks and Latinos, yet I don't recall anything from my history classes that talked about widespread Latino slavery, so how is it that they can suffer from the same disorder?

Danieli said politicians are resistant to the idea of multigenerational trauma, because it brings up the specter of reparations, and because addressing long-term trauma rarely fits in with short-term political considerations.

I have to wonder if part of the reason such a theory might bring up the specter of reparations isn't because that's part of the goal of the theory.  Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but if it can be shown that today's blacks are suffering from a disorder brought about by slavery in generations past, some may believe that it will make the case for reparations stronger. 

Personally, I think that many of the problems of today exist in the attitudes of today.  There seems to be a sense among some black leaders that there is a value to be had in having blacks today be viewed as victims of what was done over a hundered years ago. And its not just blacks who are doing this.  Women's groups, members of minority religions, cultural groups and other minorities are all looking at past treatment of their ancestors and claiming that the mistreatment from that time should now be answered with benefits now.  This can take the form of quotas and Affirmative Action programs that provide additional consideration to individuals based on what minority group they can claim membership in; political clout through polliticians who want to appear sympathetic to the groups claims and plight; or, in some rare cases, even as a defense for having commited a crime.

Rather than focusing on how victimized any group is, however, it would seem to me that there is more to gain by trying to move out of living in the past an focusing on what can be done today.  Yes, great wrongs were done, and we can't go back in time and change them.  Would it not be more productive, however, to try and work towards improving the situation for today's minorities rather than maintaining the status quo and then trying to come up with way to justify a handout as a result?

I don't have the answers, but the more I hear about theories such as this "PTSlaveryD", the more I think we're going in entirely the wrong direction....

Posted by thorswitch at 02:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2002

The Courts of Man

Judge's Biblical Monument Is Ruled Unconstitutional. A federal judge on Monday ordered the chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court to remove a 5,280-pound monument to the Ten Commandments from his courthouse. By Jeffrey Gettleman. [New York Times: National]

How many different ways can the courts say that posting the Ten Commandments in public places is unconstitutional?  Roy Moore, chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme court has been trying to maintain a display of the Ten Commandments, first in his courtroom and now in the lobby of the Supreme Court, for the last 10 years.  He has repeatedly lost.  This latest controversy arose when he snuck in a 2+ ton granite monument with the Ten Commandments and other religious inscriptions, and installed it in the court lobby.  He does, of course, plan to appeal this ruling.

"This court holds that the evidence is overwhelming and the law is clear that the chief justice violated the Establishment Clause," wrote Judge Myron H. Thompson of Federal District Court in Montgomery in a crackling opinion, referring to a clause in the First Amendment. The monument is "nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display intended to proselytize on behalf of a particular religion, the chief justice's religion."

Regardless of whether or not a religious document was part of the inspiration for our modern laws, there is no reason for a religiously-oriented display to be placed in any court room.  Our courts are quite secular in nature, a demonstration of humankind's ability to be self-ruling.  Through our courts, we investigate events, use logic and reason to determine guilt or innocence and set forth the proscribed penalty for breaking the laws.  We do not rely upon anything religious in nature to make these judgements or issue these punishments.  There is no "spectral evidence" that is admissable, no High Priest or Priestess to divine the will or judgement of the Gods, and there is room for the all-too-human failings that can lead to false convictions or letting the guilty go free.

While the Ten Commandments may have played a role in the initial structuring of our laws, our laws have grown far beyond the precepts they set out.  We, as a society, have determined what is considered appropriate behaviour, and, more importantly, what isn't.  We have determined what penalties are appropriate and what the best ways to get at the truth are. These courts are not courts of God, but courts of Man.  To try and elevate them to somehow having been convened on God's authority is to make both more and less of them than they actually are.   We need no emblems of external authority, because we have given ourselves the authority to stand in judgement of each other.  For good or ill, we should recognize them for what they are.

Posted by thorswitch at 02:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 06, 2002

Drinking the Sand

Analysis: Voters Gives Bush Mandate as Iraq Looms

Wed Nov 6, 2:22 AM ET

By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) won a mandate in Tuesday's midterm elections from voters still digesting the effects of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and looking ahead anxiously to a possible war with Iraq.  [...]

[...]  Temple University political scientist James Hilty said Bush energized Republican voters by campaigning aggressively around the country, putting his personal prestige on the line. Democrats by contrast were hesitant and disunited. Many reluctantly supported the president on Iraq and were unable to mount an effective campaign on domestic issues.  [...]

[...]  "When you look at the national picture, you have to conclude that many people wanted to support Bush because of the national security situation, especially since the Democrats were not putting forward a convincing message," he said.

Those voters who oppose the war against Iraq were left with no party to vote for and little reason to turn out.  [...]

In the weeks leading up to the election, I've read several articles chiding people for claiming that the "war" on Iraq was being pushed in order to divert attention from the weak economy and the scandals in the corporate scandal that could have been used to damage the Republicans if the Democrats had been willing to push the issue.

Whether that's been the reason behind the push for war or not is open to question, but - intentionally or not - it's been very successful in doing just that.  The news media are devoting considerable amounts of time to discuss the "countdown" to war, pushing aside news like the President having withheld - for 12 days - the fact that North Korea had admitted to a nuclear weapons program,  acknowledging it only after Congress voted to give him the war powers he wanted, and then, apparently, only because a former Clinton staffer was planning to leak the information to the media.  What reports there were on that little tidbit indicated that Democrats were outraged by the deception, but if they were, it was a very quiet outrage. 

Had the Democrats been willing to take a stand, they could have used Bush's deception on the North Korea issue to not only tap into the doubt that polls have indicated many feel about the war, but also to discredit the Bush administration, and it's Republican supporters.  They could also have publicized that the International Atomic Energy Agency report Bush and Tony Blair cited as saying Iraq could have nuclear weapons in six months didn't actually say that.  They could have brought up questions about Bush's claims that Iraq has ties to Al Qaeda - something that even magistrates in France and Spain, who have been working on investigating and fighting terrorish for two decades, haven't been able to substantiate.  They could even have publicized the CIA's conclusion that Saddam Hussein is unlikely to attack the US, unless he feels that its inevitable that the US will strike first.

One big question is what the Democrats are so afraid of.  Just in the last few weeks, 100,000 people gathered in Washington for the largest anti-war protest since the Vietnam era.  You would think that might clue someone in to the idea that there are a lot of people who don't support the war - and that there might be a fair number of votes to be gained by taking a stand against a war for which there is no coherent justification.  Yet the Democrats chose not to take to advantage of any momentum that the protests might provide, and, as seems to be their wont, stayed silent yet again. 

The end result of their unwillingness to educate their constitutants - of their cowardice and inability to stand up to Bush?  They gave people no reason to vote against Repubicans, and now Bush not only has the House and the Senate under Republican control, but he now can claim to have a mandate for his policies - including his desire to go to war against Iraq. 

While Holywood may not be known as a fount of wisdom, occasionally even movies can make a relevant point - as Arron Sorkin did in 1995's "The American President":

Louis Rothschild (Aide to the President): People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

Personally, I think we do know the difference - when we are aware that there's a difference to be known. But for that to happen, someone has point out that the difference exists, and right now, no one seems to be willing to do that. 

Posted by thorswitch at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 20, 2002

Home of the Myopic

US sniper widens range with first weekend shooting. World latest: Man on life support after being shot in the stomach in the 12th suspected attack by the sniper of the suburbs. [Guardian Unlimited]

[...]  The attack comes at a time when the public is in near despair at the failure of police to hunt down the killer. By local crime standards the nine deaths attributed to the sniper do not constitute an epidemic. Since he set off on his deadly rampage there have been 18 other murders in Washington DC and surrounding areas - or "traditional homicides" as the police now call them.

None was given even a fraction of the attention paid to the sniper. None of the killers was hunted by thousands-strong taskforces. None of the victims received anything near the outpourings of sympathy for those killed and wounded by the serial killer. None of the killings provoked wider panic.  [...]

You know, it's not just other countries' pain we in America are sometimes oblivious to, its also the pain felt by some of our own.  It's just sad that the first time I read about it this time, its in a British newspaper.

The media has a very difficult job, there's no doubt about that, because they not only have a certain perceived obligation to help ensure that citizens are informed of the issues and happenings in this country and around the world, but they also have an obligation to make money - and usually servicing the public good and making a profit seem to be in conflict.

Unfortunately, making a profit often seems to lead to a very myopic view of the world or the country.  One story, or a certain kind of story, takes precedence over all other, until something hotter or more sensational comes along. Eighteen months ago or so it was shark attacks.  The fact that there were actually fewer shark attacks for that time of the year was irrelevent.  Each network seemed to be under the presumption that every other network was covering it, so they needed to cover it, too.

Then, of course, was September 11.  And yes, that was a huge story - a legitimately huge story - but one that was nearly the only story on American newscasts for several months.  During that time, several other stories went under-reported - the beginnings of the Enron collapse and other buisiness scandals, the debate over whether or not the members of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force should be named or not, and the passage of the USA Patriot Act.

The beginning of this summer was the Season of the Missing Children. That one, at least, provoked a bit of discussion about the fairness of coverage, as some missing children seemed to receive much greater coverage than others, and many of the ones who got the most coverage were from wealthy, white neighborhoods.  The pain of having their child go missing couldn't have been any less for the poorer, non-white families, but the coverage certainly was.

Now, of course, its the sniper's turn.  There are serious debates to be had about whether or not we should go to war against Iraq, what, if anything, we should do regarding the nukes in North Korea, the further erosion of our rights in the name of safety, and, I'm sure, many other things, but all the media can focus on is a mysterious sniper who is randomly killing people in and around Washington DC.

As the Guardian pointed out (in the quote above), these 9 murders/12 shootings, have gotten wall-to-wall coverage on every news network and all of the news magazines and shows.  The fact that 18 other people have lost their lives in a less sensational manner has, until now, gone unreported.  Are their deaths any less tragic?  Were their lives any less worthy?  No, but because of the way the news industry works, some deaths are deemed more important than others.

The only solution, of course, is for the consumer to begin demanding more - and to do that, we have to vote with our remotes.  As a news junkie and unabashed MSNBC addict (though I do gather information from more sources than just them), I know how difficult that can be.  When something "big" happens, my TV seems to automatically set itself to 56 (where MSNBC is located on my cable service) and I can be glued for hours. 

This, of course, means that I am part of the problem.  But as this whole sniper story has been going forward, and I've been seeing more of how the killer responds to the news broadcasts, I'm also finding myself much less interested in watching news about it, simply becuase I don't want to be one who is encouraging them to keep filling their hours with as much speculation as possible.  The fact that I'm not one of the people who's viewing habits aren't being monitered tends to make my own small protest less effective, but maybe if I can let others know about it, some of those who ARE being measured will have made a similar decision for themselves.

In the meantime, I think America needs to get its cultural eyes tested.  We do seem to be more than a bit nearsighted.

Posted by thorswitch at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2002

"A Very Evil and Wicked Religion"

Time to Take On America’s Haters
Will anyone stand up to America’s fundamentalists?

NEWSWEEK

One of the most troubling realities of the Muslim world today is the cowardice of moderates. Mainstream Muslim leaders—political and religious—do not condemn religious extremism often enough and vigorously enough. As a result, fundamentalists gain courage and their poisonous views go unchallenged.

Unfortunately, the same phenomenon appears to be at work now with America’s own homegrown fundamentalists. Last week Jerry Falwell announced on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that Muhammad was “a terrorist.” His comments are part of a trend. At various points Pat Roberston has called Muhammad “a robber and a brigand” and described Islam as “a monumental scam.” Billy Graham’s son Franklin has chimed in as well, frequently calling Islam “a very evil and wicked religion.”

It's been all over the news for the last few days that the protests in India sparked by Falwell's comments have lead to at least 9 deaths so far.  Muslims, outraged over Falwell's comments, which have been taken by many Muslims as being representative of how the US as a whole feels, staged a strike in protest.  Hindus in the area confronted the protesters, and the protest became violent. Of the nine who have died thus far, some have been killed by police gunfire as they try to bring the riots to an end, and others were stabbed or beaten with stones.  The latest reports I am aware of indicate that the rioting is still underway, and officials have reimposed a curfew in hopes of bringing the unrest to an end.

And what is Falwell's response to this? In a statement released through the PR Newswire, he said:

LYNCHBURG, Va., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- I sincerely apologize that certain statements of mine made during an interview for the September 30 edition of CBS's "60 Minutes" were hurtful to the feelings of many Muslims. I intended no disrespect to any sincere, law abiding Muslim.

In my more than 50 years of Christian ministry, I have never preached a sermon on Islam. I have never written a book or booklet on the subject. I have always shown respect for other religions, faiths and denominations. Unfortunately, I answered one controversial and loaded question at the conclusion of an hour-long CBS interview which I should not have answered. That was a mistake and I apologize.

He's sorry that his statements were "hurtful to the feelings" of Muslims.  Note that he does not say that his statement was wrong, only that he's sorry if it was hurtful. Apparently, he still considers Mohammad to be a terrorist, but regrets this his having said so is upsetting to some. 

As for the rest of his his "statement of reconciliation" (the headline it was published under), he notes that he was asked a "controversial and loaded" question at the end of an "hour-long" interview, and that he shouldn't have answered it. If the problem is that he shouldn't have answered it, but lacked the judgement to do so, why is it necessary to point out that the question was controversial and loaded or that it came at the end of a long interview?  If he was truly accepting responsilbity for his comments, he could simply have said it was a question he shouldn't have answered.  By making a point of describing it in such negative terms and pointing out that it was asked at a time when he might be expected to be tired, he appears to be trying to shift the focus for the fall out away from himself.

Here's the problem I have with that. How many time has Jerry Falwell said something, and then later had to retract, apologize, restate, explain or otherwise backpedal from what he was saying?  Its probably one of the things he's most famous for, because it's usually how he gets his name in the papers. Given how long his career has been and how many time he's been in hot water for statements that have been upsetting, hurtful or, in this case, lethal, there is absolutely no excuse for him to keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Either Falwell is too much of an idiot to learn from his mistakes, or he knows exactly what he's doing, and most likely does it intentionally.  Obviously, I tend to think its the second of the two.  He says things that he know will be offensive, that he knows will be hurtful, and that he knows will be controversial with the expectation that there will be a flap over the comments and that he'll not only get another shot of publicity, but his views will be more widely circulated that they otherwise might have been. Then, after a day or two, he comes up with a non-apology apology - a statement intended to sound like he's being contrite without saying he's wrong or accepting any blame.

The thing that sickens me the most, however, is that he can release a statement like this, well after reports of the nine who died in the protests have been published, and not so much as even mention that his words did more than hurt anyone's feelings.  I'm sorry, but being stabbed, shot or bludgeoned to death is more than "hurt feelings", yet he won't even acknowledge that, were it not for his statement, the riots that killed those people would not have occured.

Another area of concern was also addressed by the Newsweek article:

While there have been scattered condemnations from editorials here and there, there has been silence from the White House and most mainstream political and religious leaders. Commentators who froth at the mouth when they read of one crackpot mullah in Egypt saying noxious things about Christians or Jews are now silent. Forget about Islamic moderates for a moment; where are America’s moderates?

It's a good question.

Reports have indicated that Muslims in the Arab world are pointing to Falwell's statement, saying it shows that America really does hate Islam and the Islamic world. Right now, especially with the war in Iraq looming on the horizon, we need to maintain the best relations we can with the Islamic countries in the Middle East. The more that the US is perceived as hostile to Islam as a faith, the more likely Islamic countries are to band together against us. And with President Bush so far silent on these comments - as he has been silent on most other occasions when one of our vaunted religious leaders has spoken against Islam or characterised it as a religion of violence - or outright evil - he appears to be tacitly agreeing with them.  This is not a good diplomatic strategy to be persuing.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bush went out of his way to reach out to Muslims in America and offer them reassurance that we know what the terrorists did is not a true reflection of the Islamic faith.  Since then, however, as the rhetoric from the Religious Right has become hotter and more anti-Islamic, Bush has become quieter.  One might even think that he was afraid of offending religoius conservatives with an election just over the horizon. I suppose eventually he'll have to decide which would be the worst result: The Islamic world unified against us, believing that we hate them, or running the risk of losing Republican control of Congress and/or possibly losing his re-election bid in 2004?  That may well tell us whether he's more committed to his own career or the well-being of the United States. 

Posted by thorswitch at 08:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 03, 2002

Family Values?

Rusty Yates Moves On

Exclusive: As Andrea Yates begins her appeal with help from an anonymous $50,000 donation, her husband says, ‘I’ve given all that I want to give’

By Anne Belli Gesalman
NEWSWEEK

When a family has been destroyed and a couple split up because one is imprisoned, it's generally not that shocking when the marriage itself disintegrates.  In some situations, though, its a bit more surprising than others, especially if an issue has previously been made of the family adhering to a strict or fundamentalist faith.

In the case of the Yates family, there was a fair amount of speculation that Rusty's fundamentalist-like beliefs may have contributed to the worseining of the post-partum psychosis that his wife Andrea suffered from and which, ultimately, resulted in her murdering all 5 of their children by drowning them in a bathtub.

It's been noted that he believed they were obligated to have 'as many children as God gave them', an even impregnated her while she may still have been dealing with the effects of severe post-partum depression after the birth of her fourth child.  The fact that she had suffered such severe depression, and had even tried to kill herself, should have been a signal that having more children might not be a good idea, but reports have indicated that Rusty was not concerned about that, and simply wanted to keep having children, regardless.  During Andrea's trial, Rusty testified that their house had the "traditional division of labor" - the man earned the money and the woman did all of the work around the home; they also lived by the traditional division of power - the man makes all of the decisions and the wife obeys.

One of the more controversial stances Rusty had taken was that, for spiritual reasons, the family needed to live simply, which he interpreted as living in a bus and home-schooling the children.  In explaining why he felt this way, he once stated: "The social integration that the world claims is so essential is exactly what we need to protect our children from." 

Now, it seems, simple living isn't so important to Rusty Yates, nor, from the sound of it, is loyalty or the idea that marriage is forever - both views usually associated with fundamentalist beliefs.  According to Newsweek, Rusty is now contemplating divorcing Andrea, and has moved into a new home, which is described as:

[...] a nearby luxury-apartment complex that boasts a stocked fishing pond, white-sand beach, resort-style pool with cabana and gym. One-bedroom units in the pink Mediterranean-style complex rent for nearly $1,000 a month.

Currently, Andrea is attempting to get an appeal of her conviction started, and an anonymous doner has donated $50,000 to help her in her endevour.  Rusty, however, says that he's now "given all that I want to give" and does not plan on contributing any more to Andrea's legal costs.  He also notes that he has "lost money on this, not made it".  He is, however, still considering suing Andrea's doctor as well as the hospital that had released her from their mental health facility shortly before she killed her children.

I have to admit, I never had much respect for Randy Yates.  In the interviews I saw with him and the statements he made that I read, there was very much a feeling of him being quite self-involved and more concerned with having things go as he felt they should, rather than acknowledging anyone else's needs.  This latest development does nothing to improve my opinion of him.  If anything, it makes it worse.

I am constantly astounded at the number of people who will make a big deal about how important living by their faith is, until it become more convenient to live otherwise.  And this isn't a fault that is unique to fundamentalist Christianity.  I've seen it in people of most all religions.  One might think that if a man's commitment to his faith is so strong that he will force his five children and his wife to live with him in a bus that it would also be strong enough for him to stand by his wife even in the face of a tragedy - especially a tragedy he himself may well have contributed to by ignoring her need for help and the rigid strictures he put about their lives.

I can only hope that if he does divorce Andrea, any woman who is tempted to consider being the mother of his next children will give serious consideration to his history and how he's handled this situation. 

Posted by thorswitch at 05:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 17, 2002

What do You Think when You Turn Out the Lights

Forbidden thoughts about 9/11. From gloating about getting off work to enjoying the "country road" ambience of lower Manhattan to hating on-the-make firemen: A spectrum of improper responses to the terror attacks. [Salon Headlines]

In all the hubbub surrounding the 9/11 anniversary, it's sometimes hard to deal with not having all the required patriotic thoughts that we're expected to have.  Being human, we sometimes have thoughts that seem out of place, inappropriate or just downright wrong. But being members of a society that, in spite of all its protestations of freedom, expect conformity, we don't always know what we're supposed to DO with those thoughts.

For me, one of the most forbidden thoughts I've had has been, isn't in convenient how all this worked out - George manages to get an election that he arguably should have lost, and then gets a tragedy that allows him to start changing all our rules to mesh in with his "jokingly"-stated belief that things would just be a lot easier if this were a dictatorship and he were the dictator.

Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything.  I don't even necssarily think (or, at least I don't necessarily WANT to think) that the government had any hand in planning this or foreknowledge of it - but at the same time the coincidence factor is pretty high, you know?

As for the near-mandetory patriotism that's grown out of the tragedy, I've found myself being quite cynical.  Waving a flag while we watch our leaders chip away at our rights and freedoms does nothing to support this country...  and all those flags seem to be keeping some people from seeing what's going on.  With it being so verbotten to question what our government wants to do (patriots always support the government, after all), its much harder to find ways of communicating appropriate concern for the treatment of potential terror suspects, plans such as the TIPS program, the holding of suspects without charges and with no judicial review of their cases and the other ways the government has stepped out of bounds.

At least once a day I see that "public service announcement" about how the terrorists thought they would change America forever - cut to a picture of a neighborhood with more flags than houses with a voice over telling us how they did.  But what have those flags really done for us?  Are we a more united country than we were before?  Well, we have waitresses accusing obviously Muslim men of being potential terrorists because she thought they were "joking" around about 9/11 (heaven forbid anyone do that!) and might have made a couple statements that could be interepreted as possibly being terroristic in nature - claims they flatly deny.  We have more hostility towards Muslims, Arabs, and those who look as if they could be Muslim or Arabic.  We have extreme anger because a man wants to return the Pledge of Allegiance to the way it was before Congress changed it in the 50's.  How dare someone think that it might be appropriate to rectify a violation of the separation of church and state?  We have people watching and listening to their neighbors with more suspicion than they used to, especially if that neighbor is a bit "odd" or "different" somehow.  The gaps between hawks and doves, liberals and conservatives, Christian and non, Republican and Democrat, and white and minorities seem to be growing daily.  Rhetoric is more contentious, and there's a sense of "either you're with us or your're against us".  So no, I don't think our sense of "patriotism" has helped unite us more than we were before 9/11.

Has it helped with supporting the economy?  The gulf between rich and poor keeps widening, and there's no sign to the end of the current recession.  Corporations are falling left and right to various accounting schemes and other forms of dishonesty.  Investors are worried, weakening the stock market, and consumers seem to be more interested in getting the most for their dollar than in buying American. 

In all honesty, I've seen very little benefit from the new patriotism. Sure, TV networks (including my beloved MSNBC) have begun their own flag waving to gain bigger audiences, and many products are being pitched with patriotic themes, but I can't say I feel any safer, any freer, any better off or any more secure than I did before 9/11, in spite of the near-constant reminders that I live in the greatest country in the world.

But I'm not supposed to say any of this, am I?

Posted by thorswitch at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack