Another Two-Fer

At the risk of repeating myself, I am applauding Tom Vilsack's decision to get out of the presidential race good and early. Similar to the Biden post of yore, I think Vilsack didn't offer much and his leaving the contest is ultimately a good thing. Richardson is clearly the democratic candidate with executive experience who is more desirable. I had a chance to hear Gov. Vilsack speak at one point last year and cannot say he was too dynamic. I do, however, understand that he bothered to write a bunch of detailed position papers on a variety of subjects in an effort to win the so-called "ideas primary". Well, good for Gov. Vilsack, I guess, but how naive would you have to be to really think that having good ideas has anything to do with winning an election in America? That said, Gov. Vilsack is from Iowa, and it would be nice if somebody could get in and monkeywrench the Iowa caucuses a bit to give later primaries more weight. Nobody would have taken a Vilsack win in Iowa all that seriously, and it would have decreased the overall influence of Iowans on the presidential race, which I think everyone can agree is a noble goal.

With that out of the way, I wanted to use this space to flesh out a couple of bare bones thoughts that have been bouncing around after reading Sara's posts at Orcinus about the power (or lack thereof) of protesting and the concept of Liberal Pride parades. I agree with much of her sentiment and recommendations when it comes to protesting, but I'm a little taken aback by the idea of a liberal pride parade. You should go to the site and read it yourself, but let me give a short description: essentially she says that having annual liberal pride parades or picnics or get togethers of some kind is a good way to build community and have a nice time and remind everyone in the community that liberals are present and active. I understand these goals and they seem reasonable, but to call these events liberal pride parades brings some interesting conotations. Maybe I'm just being semantic, but to think of liberals (and I often think of myself as a liberal for the sake of political shorthand) in these terms says something about the mindset of the liberal community.

The gay pride parades which these events would be modeled on had the effect of forcing communities to acknowledge the presence of homosexuals in addition to having an organizational effect on the gay community. But are there really communities that do not know that liberals exist in their midst? Maybe in some small towns across the country that is the case, including many places in South Dakota, my home state. But more interestingly, does being a liberal mean that we are, and always will be, part of a minority that must fight to even be acknowledged? After all, liberals are not starting from zero. There are many members of the US House of Representatives and a even a couple in the Senate who are able to be elected even though they are obviously liberal, and may even say so publically.

Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that liberals are already an established part of the American community. Though they have not been in power for some time, the fact that a liberal could be in power is not completely unimaginable. Being a liberal is a far cry from being an atheist, or a Marxist, or a homosexual in this country. It's not the same as being publically shunned and completely cut off from the centers of power. And there have been times when liberals have largely run things for long periods of time, just as the conservatives have up to the last election. What is lacking in Sara's post is the admission that liberals have not been all that different from conservatives when they have wielded power. Acting like we're an oppressed minority may make us feel good in the sense that we think we didn't help cause all the chaos and misery of the world, but the truth is that we did. Genuinely oppressed minorities can use a pride parade to change the paradigm, but this is a paradigm we helped make.

So getting better organized is fine for liberals and certainly for the left in general. Heaven knows we are not always an organized bunch. But I want to see organization for serious change. Picnics to help elect another democratic congressman are not going to change things--let's quit trying to feel good about ourselves, and start trying to do good around the world.

Speaking Frankly

As those who follow politics may know, the US House of Representatives is currently debating a non-binding resolution opposing the president's "surge" plan for Iraq. Each representative is allowed five minutes to say their piece, resulting in droning speeches long into the night. They've been at it all week, and I believe they are scheduled to finish up tonight. The speeches, Democratic and Republican alike, are, naturally, completely unbearable. Just excrement. What an incredible, masturbatory excerise this is. It's classic Washingtonian hot air--an effort that will have zero effect on what actually happens in Iraq, solely done for political postuering. I can only imagine what kind of Kafkaesque nightmare it must be for the House staff who are required to actually be present for the entire spectacle. But as dishonest and worthless as the Democrats are, the Republicans are absolutely breathtaking.

To wit, last night, as I showered, I flipped on C-SPAN radio for something to occupy my mind. Trent Franks, republican from the 2nd distict of Arizona, was giving his speech. All the usual nonsense was there--if we don't fight them there, we'll fight them here; democrats are Neville Chamberlain-like appeasers; etc. But then he, uh, dropped the bomb, so to speak: do the democrats not remember, he asked, the horrors of world war II? Have they forgotten the Nazi atrocities, the dropping of atomic bombs?

Excuse me? Maybe I'm getting my history mixed up here, but I think there's only one country in the history of the world that's ever used a nuclear weapon against an enemy. And this nefarious country used that weapon on civilian populations in circumstances which historians have come to view as very probably unnecessary. Representative Franks may be closer to the mark with his comments that he knows, though. The nature of US policy may once again see us using unconscionable weaponry for purposes that are less than altruistic, though somehow I don't think that's the point Franks was trying to drive home.

Two Topics for the Price of One!

Luckily there is no statute of limitations on how long I can wait before posting on a subject and this blog is not exactly CNN when it comes to breaking news. So, though it is old news, I am going to go ahead and have my say on Joe Biden's ridiculous comments vis a vis Barack Obama. First off, it's not hard to call his words dumb; they certainly are. Lots of things Joe Biden says over the next few months will be dumb, though most will not get the attention that these brought. Second, I think he was fairly clearly trying to pay Obama a compliment, and I don't want to overanalyze his syntax in an effort to parse down to his true meaning. Third, and lastly, I hope this incident spurs Biden to drop out of the race. Perhaps you are thinking now, "Wait a moment, didn't he just claim that Biden's remarks really weren't that big of a deal? Why is he saying Biden should drop out?" Well reader, here is the answer: Biden should never have run in the first place, and I'll hop on any transgression in order to push him out of the field. He neither has a realistic chance of winning, nor does he bring any sort new ideas into the debate. All he does is hog up time. Some no-chance candidates, Kucinich being the best example, bring certain ideas into the debate that would not be present without that candidate. It's good that Kucinich is there to say we should have a Department of Peace and single-payer universal health insurance (though I am holding out hope that maybe a mainstream candidate will also endorse that position). Other candidates, like Biden or Chris Dodd, are not substantially different from Hillary Clinton or John Edwards and are not valuable additions to the dialogue. They just have a lot of vanity and will be making meaningful debate more difficult for the people who will actually get the nomination. Joe Biden: Drop Out.

For a brief encore, I wanted to touch on Jimmy Carter's recent book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. I freely admit that I am no Middle East scholar and not fit to debate every point of the book, but I do want to say that I believe it is a positive step forward that this book has been getting attention, and I hope that it can help to focus on the substance of the struggle in the Holy Land. Many Americans know there is some kind of intractable feud between Israel and the Palestinians, but they don't know anything about the actual points of disagreement. The book makes clear that both sides have acted without good faith, but also drives home the point that Israel is ultimately the one with the power to change the situation--a power they have instead chosen to use in order to keep the Palestinians occupied and oppressed. A short perusal of criticism of the book seems to indicate to me that there are objections over possibly copyrighted maps that were reproduced in the book, improper footnoting, and the like. Obviously these should be corrected in future editions, but these sorts of complaints are tangential at best when it comes to breaking down the book's thesis. I believe that the history and argumentation are essentially correct, and in some cases do not go far enough.

A personal anecdote about the book: having dinner with an extremely intelligent Jewish couple with whom I am friends, and this book came up. I had not yet read it, and didn't feel I could defend something I did not know about, so I didn't really reply, but one of my friends came right out and called Carter an anti-Semite and claimed the book was full of untruths. She had not read the book at that point either. Let me say for the record that I do not believe Carter is an anti-Semite and that this sort of criticism is largely propaganda from reflexively pro-Israel sources. Chances are that the person saying this has no idea what they are talking about.

Desecration

It comes as a surprise to my friends when they learn that I have been reading the Tim LaHaye/Jerry Jenkins series of End Times novels known as the Left Behind series. This is surprising, mainly, because I don't have any religious fealty, and because I fancy myself a sort of artsy-fartsy literature loving intellectual. Typical fans are deeply religious and not usually very sophisticated in their choice of reading material. The series has grabbed my attention though, because it is somehow astonishingly popular and it reveals quite a bit about the mindset of the far-right religious automoton. In 2001, the volume that came out was the best-selling book of the year. And I believe that most of them have reached the #1 spot on the bestseller lists, though they have tappered off in popularity in recent years.

You can get some basic criticism of the books just by visiting the amazon.com webpage, and I agree with much of the negative commentary that is leveled at the series there. While Left Behind has its rote defenders, even many fundamentalist Christians take issue with the quality of the writing and the shallow character development. But as you might imagine, the politics of the books are where the real rancid quality emerges. Early on in the series (and I should mention, I have not yet finished them all--I'm on number 9 currently), I found more or less the kind of politics that I thought I would--anti-abortion, extreme antipathy toward any kind of global governing effort and arms control deals, distrust of the media, and suspicion of the overly educated. There are some truly hilarious sequences, as when Rayford Steele, one of our heroes, begs Hattie Durham (those names!) not to have an abortion, even as God kills millions around the globe, Old Testament style.

But as the series has trudged toward its pre-ordained conclusion, the authors have begun to insert their characters into violent situations whereby they must confront and kill non-believers. They do this with extreme prejudice, and with nary a thought as to what Jesus would have them do. This has really come to the fore in book 9, Desecration. The believers arm themselves and face off with the forces of the Antichrist with bullets flying and with God giving his flock his protection, even as they pull the trigger on hapless Global Community peacekeepers. I'm not foolish enough to expect a warm and fuzzy resolution, where everyone solves their problems peaceably and forms a functional society, but I am caught off-guard by complete lack of reflection by the authors/characters on the meaning and consequences of their violent turn. I suppose that since God behaves like a child in the book, it would be too much to ask for the characters to do otherwise.

Still, I am troubled that there are those who get a sense of joy or satisfaction by seeing unbelievers killed. There is a segment of the population that literally believes this is what is going to happen, and finally they will be able to take their revenge. In fact, there are those who might want to use this type of literature to encourage believers to start taking revenge, regardless of the status of the second coming. Though I haven't played the video game based on the series, the reviews seem to indicate that more of the same is in store in that department, perhaps even to a greater degree. It may seem paranoid, but those of us who do not desire the creation of a theocratic state need to keep close tabs on propaganda like the Left Behind series, and be sure to air our objections vocally, espcially since these books appear to have substantial crossover appeal.