The Joy of Being a Democrat

 

One of the things I'm enjoying most about the Harris/Walz campaign, and the current Democratic mood more broadly, is how joyful it is. A common critique of progressives has always been that we're joyless, and while that attack has never been entirely fair, it doesn't come wholly from nowhere either. There's a generalized version of the old Futurama joke ("I'm sorry, but if it's fun in any way, it's not environmentalism!") -- if you're not trudging along in grimdark misery, then you don't understand the stakes/don't care about the oppressed/aren't a true believer in the revolution. It's exhausting to live out, and it isn't a lifestyle anyone really wants to join.

But that isn't us right now! It's the right that is wallowing in its own self-induced machine of rage and fear and misery. The Olympics were a great example -- conservatives spent their time searching for their calipers and reliving their frustration that Simone Biles didn't snap her neck in 2021; meanwhile liberals just enjoyed watching some of the greatest athletes on Earth do incredible things under the American banner. Who would you rather be? 

And this divide is present all over the 2024 race. The complete inability of conservatives to make anything stick on Tim Walz stems from their complete bafflement that a basic cishet white guy can just be happy in 2024. Doesn't he know that trans-CRT-illegal-abortionists are coming for his daughter?!? The RNC was a miserable slog of one apparatchik after another warning us that we're all going to die unless the God-king Trump is restored; the DNC was a dance party featuring your favorite tunes from middle school. Hell, one of the primary attack lines Republicans have been trying against Kamala Harris is her laugh! Democrats now are literally the party of laughing (and football, and Bud Light)!

It's really nice. And for what it's worth, I do understand the stakes, and I do understand that many people are hurting, and I do understand there's a lot of work to be done. But joy counts for something. And it feels really good to be part of a joyful Democratic coalition.

Joy Counts for Something

"That kiss wasn't for pleasure, it was strategic and joyless."

Both Kevin Drum and Amanda Marcotte, in slightly different ways, think progressives need to learn to have more fun. Nobody likes a coalition of sourpusses. 

Now, at one level, the charge that progressives only speak in terms of the dark and dire is unfair. For example, Drum gives as one example of "grim and joyless" progressive politics the assertion that "Nobody is 'illegal.' We should welcome hardworking folks from south of the border. Unless you're a racist, that is." But this is a politics that can and often is expressed in positive terms (it has "welcome" right in the tag!). Celebrating immigrants and embracing them as full members of the community is the stuff of many a heart-warming viral video. Certainly, progressive immigration talk has its share of downer narratives ("children in cages"), but on the whole the framing is far more upbeat on the progressive side, where it is mostly celebratory and about inclusion and growth -- certainly as compared against dark GOP mutterings/bullhornings about stolen jobs and foreign invasions and great replacements.

At another level, anyone who spends time in a largely Christian society quickly learns just how many people do love a bit of self-abnegation. A little masochism goes a long way, and clearly there is pleasure to be taken (and people take great pleasure) in forms of performative self-flagellation that are the hallmark of at least some forms of progressive political behavior. The line between pleasure and grimness isn't quite as sharp as we think it is.

That said, I think there is something to the notion that progressives are maybe not giving joy the credit that it should get -- perhaps on the theory that anyone who has the temerity to express joy is disrespecting all the terrible oppressions and mistreatments that afflict various marginalized groups in contemporary society. But this approach just doesn't resonate with people who even or perhaps especially in dark times want to see and feel opportunities for happiness.

Take the Olympics. I'm on the record as a strong Olympics booster, even as I'm fully cognizant of all of the very compelling critiques of the Games: they're corrupt, they displace people, they're a fig leaf for authoritarian oppression, and so on. All of which is, indeed, true, and I don't deny the weight of those critiques. But sometimes it seems as if the persons making those critiques act as if there is nothing of weight on the other side of the ledger -- it's this parade of terribles on one side against meaningless frivolity on the other, such that only the truly self-indulgent or bubble-headed could possibly find value in it. No. No, no, no.  The Olympics represent a rare -- perhaps singular -- example of the entire global community coming together in one place for the primary and fundamental purpose of doing something fun and joyous. That is a great thing, and there is virtually nothing else comparable to it.

Recognizing that doesn't mean that there aren't important proposals for how to reform the Olympics to mitigate or eliminate its darker sides, it doesn't even compel one to weigh that good as superseding the aforementioned evils. But there needs to be recognition that the good, is a good; that the joy the Olympics creates can and should count for something, and one is not showing oneself to be a self-absorbed dilettante if one enjoys something meant to spark joy. The inability to recognize the joyousness of the Olympics -- to solely see it through the lens of the dark and the grim and the dire -- is not healthy, and for most people it's not relatable.

Assorted Olympic Thoughts

Today is the last day of my beach vacation. It's been a blast, though at some level this was a terrible weekend for me to be at the beach, since it's the Olympics. I love the Olympics, and so for much of the past few days I was all too happy to stay inside and watch obscure sporting events rather than do, you know, beach things (don't worry: I got my share of wonderful-horrible boardwalk cuisine).

The coldest hot take around the Olympics is that they should be abolished -- every "hard-bitten" lefty curmudgeon has their version of this essay somewhere on their hard drive. Interestingly, I agree with several of the underlying criticisms of the Olympics, specifically that they're (a) corrupt as all hell and (b) not even close to the economic boon to their host cities they're promised to be (if anything, they're often an economic albatross). I'll spot both of those, but nonetheless I am pro-Olympics on the simple basis that it is a very rare example of a truly global event that brings representatives of all nations together for something fundamentally happy. I think it is essential to have something of that ilk, and there isn't anything else I can think of that fills or could plausibly full the niche. It is a product of our (dare I say it?) neoliberal era that both the pitch for and against the Olympics is fundamentally economic in character -- the promise of economic revitalization in favor, the reality of resource maldistribution against. The Olympics is not and, just as importantly, should not, be anyone's urban renewal program. The sooner we recalibrate expectations -- that hosting the Olympics is, essentially, a favor to the rest of the world (or, more charitably, a pure prestige/pride project) -- the better we'll be.

Oddly, I am pro-Olympics in the same way I'm pro-United Nations. I think the UN also is a fundamentally corrupt and dysfunctional organization that, to say the least, doesn't follow through on the overwhelming majority of its promises. Nonetheless, I think it is important to have something like the UN just because we need some forum where the nations of the world can come together and express -- in however muddled, inchoate, diplomatically garbled form -- their opinions. Even when it turns out those opinions are kind of hypocritical garbage -- well, that's useful information too. So I happily cop to many of the "abolish the UN" criticisms, without having any interest in actually abolishing the UN.

With respect to these Olympics specifically, my favorite storyline so far definitely is the Austrian cyclist who won gold primarily because the rest of the field forgot she existed. Other highlights have included Katie Ledecky smashing the field in the 1500m, Ariarne Titmus gutting out wins against Ledecky in shorter events (and of course, her coach's viral celebration), the random Tunisian swimmer winning gold out of lane eight as his country is embroiled in political chaos, and the Mongolian judoka, who defected from Iran because his country was forcing him to throw matches against Israelis, dedicating his silver medal to Israel.

The biggest story, of course, is Simone Biles withdrawing from the team gymnastics competition. Biles, predictably, is getting heaps of racist abuse from MAGA sorts who get an obvious erotic thrill out of tearing down talented Black people. To some extent, the only thing that needs to be said to this is "how many medals have you won?" When it comes to the GOAT's decision to compete or not, I'd be entirely fine with an exchange rate here: one medal entitles you to one minute of criticizing Biles.

My favorite sport is boxing (albeit not, oddly, Olympic boxing), and there's an interesting parallel to the Biles discourse in the form of boxing fans criticizing boxers for "quitting". Take a ten count, retire on the stool, or don't emphatically declare to the referee that you want to continue, and you've "quit". At one level, of course part of boxing is that you get punched hard in the face and yet you still keep going. Indeed, much of the appeal of boxing, for me, is the superhuman feats of will that are demonstrated in the ring -- you've been punched in the face so hard you actually topple over, and yet you still continue!  So there's a level in which it comes with the sport that we ask people to keep competing even when they're hurt and wobbled. On a deeper level, it is frankly absurd for fans to be judgmental of fighters who decide they're not in a position to keep getting punched in the face. We're not in their shoes, we don't know what they're going through. A bunch of sideline warriors talking about how tough someone else should be -- in terms of literally asking them to spend more time being violently assaulted -- always rubbed me the wrong way.

Boxing is, in many ways, just a more extreme iteration of all athletics. Some of the most iconic moments in sports history have been when the greats overcome tremendous adversity to nonetheless get the job done -- Michael Jordan with the flu, Kerri Strug on the vault, Kirk Gibson's hobbling home run. We're allowed to be in love with those moments. But ultimately, the athletes are the professionals, and they know what their bodies can and can't do. While not as viscerally violent as boxing, gymnastics is an exceptionally dangerous sport -- all the more so when your head isn't in the right spot. Simone Biles knows the difference between the ordinary pressures and pains of competition, and something that threatens her ability to safely and effectively compete at the level she expects of herself.

The thing is, objectively speaking the "problem" solves itself because it regulates itself. Simone Biles is, it should be needless to say, plenty tough, mentally and physically -- if she wasn't, she'd never have won all those medals. She won a world championship with a kidney stone, for crying out loud! So when someone with her talent and track record tells the world "I'm not in a position to compete at the level I need to", it is the height of arrogance for the rest of us to even indulge in the flicker of thinking "eh, I bet she's exaggerating." Again, obviously high level athletics requires participants to make the choice to dig down against adversity and pain and pressure to nonetheless perform. But by definition, someone at Biles' level does not lack the ability to do that; if she actually did lack that ability it wouldn't be an issue because we'd have never heard of Simone Biles in the first place.

All of this is to say, we were right in our initial instinct: the only person who has any right to criticize Simone Biles is Simone Biles. The very history that makes people feel entitled to demand she keep going is the same history that should compel us to defer to Biles' own assessment of her own situation. She knows competition. She knows pain. She knows her body. She became the GOAT because she knows all these things; nobody wins all those medals while being deterred from competing by a pinprick. So if someone with all that history and all those victories and all those medals says "not today", we should have the humility to trust her.

Susan Collins as Marie-Reine Le Gougne

If you're my age or older, the name "Marie-Reine Le Gougne" may ring a faint bell of recognition. Better known as "the French judge", Le Gougne was at the center of 2002 Olympic figure skating scandal which saw a Russian pair win gold over the seemingly far more deserving Canadian duo of Jamie Salé and David Pelletie. Le Gougne voted for the Russians and immediately attracted suspicion for it -- she soon confessed that she had been pressured into her vote by the head of the French federation as part of a trade where a French couple would receive a scoring advantage in the ice dance competition later in the games. Le Gougne was suspended and disgraced; eventually the decision was made to give both pairs a shared gold medal.

Here's the thing though: there were nine judges in the 2002 Olympic figure skating competition. Five voted for the Russian pair. Four went for the Canadian. So why was Le Gougne, "the French judge", singled out?

The answer is simple: everyone knew that the four eastern bloc judges (from Russia, Ukraine, China and Poland) would vote for the Russian pair. And everyone "knew" that the western judges (from the USA, Canada, Germany, and France) would vote for the Canadian. The only real decider was the Japanese judge -- who passed for neutral. He picked the Canadians. But it didn't matter once Le Gougne didn't vote for her "side". A 5-4 vote gave the Russians the victory.

It is a testament to just how deeply this sort of corruption was ingrained in the Olympics that nobody even thought to be aggrieved by the fact that the regional blocs were guaranteed to vote for "their" skater regardless of performance. Indeed, the entire fix was premised on the assumption that they would do just that. And yet, despite the fact that their votes if anything represent a deeper rot inside the body of Olympic figure skating, unlike Le Gougne, these judges received no punishment and no public attention whatsoever. Everything fell on the head of Le Gougne, because her corruption wasn't assumed from the get-go.

And that brings us to Susan Collins. Collins has had a rough year, politically-speaking: she's seen her approvals tank over the course of the Trump administration; and she's now in a statistical dead heat with her 2020 Democratic challenger Sara Gideon. This brings me almost indescribable joy. Time after time, Susan Collins has been a loyal water-carrier for the worst excesses of the Trump administration. She may grumble or pout or furrow her brow in grave concern, but when push comes to shove she has almost unerringly toed the party line. If a "moderate Republican" is someone who "talks about voting differently from other Republicans before voting exactly the same as other Republicans," Susan Collins is indeed Washington's quintessential moderate Republican. And this identity has made her one of the true, great villains of the Trump era.

In a sense, this is unfair. Susan Collins isn't voting any differently from Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz. Indeed, that's the very indictment against her: she votes just like they do. But like the eastern bloc judges, the corruption of Cotton and Hawley and Cruz is assumed. Everyone knows they're in the bag for whatever Trump would have them do. Collins has cultivated a public identity predicated on the idea that we should not "know" this about her. So it is more of a shock (even if by this point it should have ceased to be one) when she inevitably caves.

But still -- if Susan Collins feels that this is all unfair, I do think she has a point. She is not, objectively speaking, any worse than Cotton or Hawley or Cruz.

She has a point, and that point should be reflected in how we see her. And so when Collins loses her seat in 2020 (and I expect she will), and all the columnists race to write their eulogies for her Washington career, this is the only point about her truly worth making: Susan Collins was, at root, no different -- no better, no worse -- than Ted Cruz.

That is her legacy. And it is completely, entirely, deserved

One Good Essay on "Immigrants Get the Job Done"

American Olympian Mirai Nagasu landed a triple axel at the Olympics. That's a big deal (apparently -- I don't really know a lot about figure skating).

New York Times columnist Bari Weiss reacted to the occasion by tweeting out: "Immigrants: They get the job done."

Problem: Nagasu isn't an immigrant. She was born in the United States.

Weiss suggested that "poetic license" was in order, as Nagasu's parents were immigrants. She also questioned what the big deal was.

The answer was that Weiss -- perhaps inadvertently -- stepped on the trope of Asian-Americans as "perpetual foreigners": never really American, always forced to answer the question "no, where are you really from."

From this conversation, internet hell predictably came down (Nagasu's own eventual statement was quite diplomatic. But between the fact that a huge chunk of the internet had already decided that even slightest showing of offense proved one was a deranged threat to American freedom as we know, and the fact that Nagasu almost certainly had no interest in wading into any sort of political controversy while she's, you know, focused on being an Olympian, I think it's easy to overread it).

The vast majority of the comments on l'affaire Weiss were stupid. This essay by Mari Uyehara is a welcome exception. I encourage you to read it.

As for me, my one contribution to the conversation was simple: Had Weiss simply acknowledged that the initial tweet was sloppy and let things lie, there would have been no storm. What made it a big deal was Weiss (and later, her defenders) continually doubling-down on the notion that no sane person could have possibly took exception to the tweet, that it was wholly innocuous, and that anyone who raised any questions about it whatsoever embodies trigger-happy internet "call out culture" that's toxic to free expression and the open discussion of ideas.

In a sense, it was a vindication of an oft-misunderstood maxim of "SJW" culture, which is that if an outgroup says you've done something that wounded them, take a moment to listen. Breathe, keep a level head, and assume that they're saying it not because of some gratuitous desire to take offense, but because there's at least some there there. Had that simple advice been taken, had Weiss simply said "I meant to honor Nagasu's immigrant parents, but I see how the tweet could be construed differently. I'll take it down," a lot of pain and a lot of frankly idiotic commentary could have been avoided.

Ranking Winter Olympic Sports

I love the Olympics -- Summer and Winter. A few of my favorite activities include rooting for Winter Olympians from countries which have no snow, rooting for formerly colonized nations to defeat their colonial overlords, and being a sucker for any good personal drama story.

Also, the some of the events are interesting. Here's the full ranking:

Short Track Speed Skating

Demolition derby on ice. This is a sport I'd totally watch off-season. I haven't gotten the chance to watch the mass start version yet, but it seems particularly ludicrously dangerous and therefore extra delightful. It makes me wish that Olympic sprinting didn't have lanes. A+

Snowboard/Skiing Cross

If you're the sort of person who thinks "NASCAR would be better if they had speed bumps and jumps" (also: hurtling downhill) -- this is for you. Another event with great demolition derby character. But what I really want is for downhill ice cross skating to make it to the Olympics. That's a sport where at the bottom everyone just looks grateful that they've survived the evening. A

Long Track Speed Skating

Like middle-distance running, but more interesting because it's on blades. Something about watching the skaters criss-cross lanes is deeply hypnotic. A-

Slopestyle

The best of the "trick" events, mostly because it most closely approximates a Tony Hawk game (or, to be technical, a Cool Boarders game). I hate to say it, as a die-hard skier, but the snowboard version is more interesting. B+

Skeleton

"Who's ready for death sledding!" We can't call it that. Okay, we'll call it "skeleton." Seriously, if the Summer Olympics is about pitting the world's greatest athletes against each other in head-to-head competition, the Winter Olympics seems to be about finding ever-more creative ways to get Europeans to kill themselves. B+

Biathlon

Nothing will ever top Robin Williams referring to this sport as "Norwegian Drive-by". But of all the long-distance sports -- Winter or Summer -- this one's the best. Not just because it involves gunfire, but because the shooting segments actually allow the race to get shaken up on a dime, adding interest and variety to what otherwise would (literally) be a marathon. B

Luge

I love the camera shots on Luge, which last for approximately a quarter of a second on each turn as an insane German hurtles ball-first down an ice chute (another steal from Robin Williams). B

Figure Skating (individual and pairs)

The marquee event of the Winter Games. It's not that I dislike it, but it's virtually impossible for me to tell the difference between the tricks, so I'm left rooting for falls just to create some visual distance between the competitors. I do appreciate that the area the skaters sit in to wait for scores is officially called the "kiss and cry" area (seriously: I saw it on an official's nametag). B

Ice Hockey

The only sport I can watch regularly outside of the Olympics, which diminishes its Olympic appeal somewhat. Its ranking would shoot way up if the women's game was full-check (it looks like they're using every fiber of self-restraint to avoid laying each other out for sixty consecutive minutes). B

Aerials/Big Air

"Ski jumping? That's for pussies. Make them do a few tricks while they're in the air and get back to me." This is the only trick event where I think skiing does better than snowboarding. B

Bobsled

The ranking of Skeleton, Luge, and Bobsled depends heavily on what you prioritize. In terms of raw speed, Bobsled is fastest, then Luge, then Skeleton. But in terms of reckless disregard for one's personal safety, it goes Skeleton, then Luge, then Bobsled. You can obviously see what my preferences are. B-

Curling

The breakout hit of Sochi now feels a little overcooked in Pyeongchang. It's perfectly entertaining, and it's the only Olympic sport I could even vaguely conceive of competing in, but it takes a long time to complete and there are apparently 142 games scheduled over the course of the Olympic Games, which take up valuable TV time that could be used for speed skating. B-

Alpine Skiing

As a skier, I should like this, but once again I can't really tell what makes someone fast or slow so there's not a lot to watch here. Now mass start alpine skiing -- that I could get behind. C+

Halfpipe

The marquee snowboard event (and generally-forgotten skiing event) is also the worst of the lot. To the naked eye, at least, it has less speed, less air, and less interesting tricks. C+

Moguls

All Olympic sports are physically punishing, but moguls is the only one I can't actually watch without feeling my knees twitch in sympathetic pain. As my brother observed: "you'll never see a 30-year old Moguls skier." C+

Ski Jump

It says a lot about the reckless disregard for human safety that characterizes the Winter Olympics that you can take a sport where competitors jump the length of a football field from 35 stories in the air and I can be like "but it's kinda boring?"  C

Nordic (Cross-Country) Skiing

The same problem as distance running, or cycling. Not enough happens for too long. More than any other sport in the games though, competitors earn their "collapse in exhaustion at the finish line" moment. C-

Ice Dancing

"Let's start with figure skating, and then remove all of the most interesting parts of it and ensure that at least one competitor always stays firmly planted on the ground, where it's safe." Why? D

Palate-Cleansing Roundup

My Tablet article on Brooklyn Commons, and the follow up posted here, really pulled me away from a lot of my other reading -- including some planned posts. So here's a palate-cleansing roundup for your pleasure -- fewer entries than normal, but with more meat per bite.

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An interesting piece at Deadspin exploring why hijab-wearing fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, rather than uncovered hurdler Dalilah Muhammad, became the "face" of Muslim women among American Olympians. At one level, I think it is absolutely fair to suggest that minority groups -- of all sorts -- tend to face greater barriers to inclusion the more they are differentiated from majoritarian norms (e.g., by wearing a hijab). On other, though, I think it is not improbable that there is a degree of exoticization going on here, where we recognize as "authentic" cultural enactments which play to our pre-existing stereotypes.

In +972 Magazine, Assaf David argues that Israel is simply another Middle Eastern nation struggling to find its way in the wake of the colonial withdrawal from the region. None of Israel's problems -- from its identification with a particular religious and social group to the chafing of minority members of the state, to its ongoing struggles with sub- and super-national identities like religion, ethnicity, and community, to border disputes brought upon by indifferent colonial line-drawers and chaotic independence -- is particularly novel in the Middle East. And indeed, with a largely Mizrahi Jewish identity, Israel's own cultural heartbeat is at this point more Middle Eastern than Ashkenazi-European (via).

DOJ and Army Corps of Engineers announce a moratorium on pipeline building protested by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. More importantly, they look to be launching a more formal consultation process with tribal governments regarding how (either through current or new legislation) to better involve tribes in the planning and review process of infrastructural projects that touch or affect tribal lands or treaty rights.

Midweek Roundup

Going to Chicago next weekend, Minnesota next week. Lot's of good stuff on my browser, which I don't have as much to say on as I should.

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Bill Donohue of the Catholic League issues a warning: "Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends, since there are so few of them." He attributed the comment to former NYC mayor Ed Koch, but Koch denies saying it.

Arizona SoS, already under fire for being birther-curious, gives the conspiracy a new spin -- Obama was born in Hawaii but lied about being born in Kenya to get into college.

Kieran Healy gives a satirical statement from UVA's Board of Visitors.

The National Review bringing aboard unrepentant racist David Yerushalmi prompts Ta-Nehisi Coates to write two great posts on "politically correct conservatism", where the most offensive thing you can say is that anyone, anywhere is a bigot -- even someone who wants to criminalize being a Muslim with a 20 year prison sentence.

Interesting study on how the triumphs and failures of male and female Olympic athletes are described by commentators.

Afghanistan's Women's Boxing

Cool little story on Saudi TV about women's boxing in Afghanistan, including the threats they face from the Taliban and their commitment to keep going.



One young woman is looking for gold at the 2012 Olympics in London. Best of luck!

Stand Out

I'm not sure what it is about women's boxing that inspires paroxysms of ridiculous sexism. The 2-minute round rule in women's boxing seems inexplicable to me but as an expression of sexism. We have Cuba, home of the best amateur boxing program in the world, announcing that it would not allow women to participate because "Cuban women should be showing off their beautiful faces, not getting punched in the face." Now, the AIBA is floating a plan to force female boxers to wear mini-skirts in the ring.

The claim is that the, er, distinctive uniform will help women "stand out" from their male counterparts. I have to admit, I didn't realize it was that difficult to tell women apart from men without the help of a skirt. Oddly enough, some male boxers do wear skirt-style trunks in the ring, which only makes the "stand out" point more absurd (my point being that boxers should -- within rules of safety and fairness -- be able to wear whatever style of trunks they like. But a mandatory va-va-voom rule for female boxers is absurd and prejudiced).

Carrying On

I pretty much had the same thoughts regarding the "scandal" of the Canadian woman's ice hockey team's celebration of the Olympic Gold. Having attended college, it is pretty difficult for me to get incensed about underaged drinking (not that I'd be inclined to). And beyond that, it seems like a large part of the outrage stems from a real, if sub silentio, sense that these women aren't behaving like proper ladies. One sees champagne flying at all sorts of other championship proceedings without comment. It baffles me that this is being seen as somehow exceptional.

Man's Last Stand

With the announced addition of women's boxing to the summer Olympics (which Cuba will not partake in), ski jumping stands alone as the final sport in the Olympics without gender parity. The reason? Well, there really isn't one: just a parade of sexist non-sense which should embarrass any remotely egalitarian individual.

Quiet Riot Roundup

Yesterday was the birthday, tonight is the celebration. Not sure about the lack of blogging though -- it's not like I was busy.

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Right-wing mob urges the lynching of Attorney General Eric Holder -- ironically, because Holder wants to uphold rule of law.

The Winter Olympics start tonight, and Ghana will be representing for the first time.

In sadder news, a Georgian luger died hours before the opening ceremonies in a crash during a practice run.

Voters like gays and lesbians; homosexuals, less so.

Liberal Democrat (UK) MP Baroness Jenny Tonge was sacked from a high profile party position after demanding Israel undertake investigations of completely unsubstantiated allegations of organ theft in Haiti.

Meanwhile, this is a good post on the longevity and impressive staying power of organ theft rumors (not just about Jews or Israelis).

Jews face the highest rate of hate crimes of any religious group in the United States (Blacks are the most targeted overall).

A Tennessee Muslim community is the subject of a sensationalist CBS report questioning whether it is a secret terrorist training facility. It isn't, but gets hit with vandalism anyway in its wake.

It's nice that Glenn Beck disavowed 9/11 troofer-flirting candidate Gloria Medina, but to call it impressive would be to lower our expectations bar underground.

Hedging Hollywood -- a brilliant scheme to induce bad filmmakers to actively try and make their movies worse.

Dusty

Oh, Visa. Emotionally manipulate me -- you know I love it.



Great ad.

The Other Jackboot Drops

I'm enjoying watching The Olympics, but the way that the television coverage has been such a pro-China love-fest is really sickening to me. There has been virtually no talk about the way in which China has utterly squashed dissent and protests during the games after promising to open up (and the networks have cooperated with China's heavy-handed efforts to put only its best face forward, most notably with the computer-enhanced opening ceremonies). Fortunately, the print media has been considerably better, and today the New York Times has the story of two elderly Chinese women who have been sentenced to "re-education" after their unsuccessful efforts to get a protest permit.

This is after China (a) designated protest locations at isolated, out-of-the-way locations, and (b) refused to approve any of the 77 applications it got for protests. So now we can add (c) arresting people for attempting to file the application and sentencing them to potential hard labor. The Times also documents various other charming anti-protest strategies, such as "disappearing" folks trying to apply, or simply refusing to distribute the permit forms at all.

When I watch sporting competitions, nothing raises my blood pressure than unfair play. From the underage gymnasts to the replacement of China's singer with someone "cuter" to the media-assist on the opening ceremonies to the broken promises of liberalization, there has been a cloud of dishonesty to these entire games. So next time you see the picture of the gorgeous Bird's Nest or the spectacular Beijing skyline, remember that there is an undercurrent to the whole proceedings, and it's called authoritarianism.

Civil Rights Roundup: 08/14/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

The census estimates that the US will become majority-minority by 2042. My projection is that many currently non-White ethnic groups will become or will be absorbed into Whiteness to keep the numbers up.

ICE has detained 42 suspected illegal immigrants working at Dulles Airport, stressing that their is no indication of terrorist activity.

An Egyptian Muslim women writes in the Washington Post: If Saudi Arabia doesn't allow women on its Olympics teams by 2012, tell them to not bother showing up in London.

A dispute over whether a school can prohibit its students from wearing the confederate flag has moved to an (all-White) jury.

A former convict turned inmate's rights advocate is proving remarkably adept at slowing down one of President Bush's District Court nominees (the chief lawyer with Corrections Corporation of America).

A Federal Judge said he was "shocked and disturbed" upon reading reports about mistreatment in the case of an immigrant detainee who recently died in ICE custody.

Unions are asking the FEC to investigate whether Wal-Mart violated the law when it allegedly attempted to persuade its workers to vote Republican.

Up to 600,000 Ohio voters are at serious risk of being purged from the voting rolls.

Can electronic voting be trusted?

Several Thai workers who were held as slave laborers in California have now become US citizens.

When Fox wants to talk free speech, it knows exactly who to turn to: anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers!

Marcia McCormick of the Workplace Prof blog has some good thoughts up about Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson's (R-TX) alternative to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

The brewing conflict in the North Forest Independent School District took another turn.

A Mexican man was shot by a US officer on the US/Mexico border during a confrontation.

Nevada judges mete out harsher sentences to Black defendants than Whites. The study, however, does not take into account prior criminal activity.

Old and New

That Jonah Goldberg is a moron and a hack is nothing new. And perhaps this piece attacking the new found respect for the 1968 "Black Power" Olympic salute is not actually particularly dumb so much as it is dumb in an area of particular interest to me.

But my God, is he ever an idiot.

Put aside the ridiculous demagoguery that these two athletes inspired the Munich massacre, and the patronizing tripe that Black people had nothing to protest because "this was 1968, not 1938." No, what really gets me wound up is that Goldberg has absolutely no idea about what Black Power is, mixing and matching two entirely separate ideological orientations:

In today's culture, is it even worth trying to remind people that the black power salute was, for those who brandished it most seriously, a symbol of violence -- rhetorical, political and literal -- against the United States? It was the high-sign for a racist militia, the Black Panthers, which orchestrated the murder of innocents and allied itself with America's enemies. (The Cuban 400-meter men's relay team gave its 1968 silver medal to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael in the name of "Black America.") In today's lingo, you might even say black power was "divisive."

Stokely Carmichael was the founder of "Black Power", but he never formed a militia. The Black Panther militia Goldberg is referring to was Huey P. Newton's outfit. Carmichael did form the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), popularly known as the Black Panther Party (due to its mascot), but it was totally separate and unrelated to Newton's group (except that Newton took it as an inspiration), a point Carmichael was quite clear about it.

And this makes sense, given that Newton was communist and Carmichael wasn't, and given that Carmichael wanted to work from within the system while Newton wanted to overthrow it. Carmichael cast his entire project as increasing Black participation in democracy -- albeit with the caveat that insofar as Whites continued to engage in terrorist violence against Blacks, he saw no need to respond with non-violence. So in that sense, I guess Carmichael is a symbol of violence "against the United States", assuming that the Goldberg thinks "the United States" is fairly represented by the Ku Klux Klan.

I wouldn't expect Goldberg to grasp such subtleties, but only because I wouldn't credit Goldberg with having the intelligence of a pet rock. But certainly the LA Times can do better than to publish this tripe, and I'd hope that the conservative movement can find someone more erudite and attuned to the facts to represent itself on the public stage.

Geography Bee

From a CNN.com article on the potential boycott of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies:

Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda also said he would attend the opening ceremony despite concerns about human rights in China that prompted some other European leaders to boycott the event.

Some other European leaders? I know Japan is industrialized and rich and prosperous, but it remains quite comfortably in Asia as far as I'm aware of.

(The previous paragraphs were talking about the United States -- also not in Europe).

The Politics of The Olympics

Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber has an interesting post up about the growing political saliency of the Olympic Games, as demonstrated by the increased murmurings that Western leaders ought to boycott -- at the least -- the opening ceremonies of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Of course, it's not as if the Olympics were previously insulated from political machinations, as the dueling boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games demonstrated. But, Farrell argues, the dynamic of where the pressure is coming from has changed significantly:

The dynamic driving the Beijing Olympics seems to me to be rather different; what we are seeing is that the politics of boycott is being driven by mass-publics, and most recently by protestors, rather than by political leaders. In the absence of the public unrest that has culminated in the recent protests in Paris, I doubt very much that Western political leaders would be muttering about not showing at the opening ceremonies – the geopolitical stakes of market access etc are likely more important to them than the fate of Tibetans. But given the widespread public reaction in the West, even leaders like Gordon Brown, who obviously want very much to attend, are having to insulate themselves from public pressures by taking other actions liable to annoy China (such as meeting with the Dalai Lama). In short, I think we are seeing how public opinion and organized cross-national opposition can create significant constraints on the ability of leaders to respond to what they see as the geostrategic necessity of keeping China happy. This is, as best as I am aware, a new phase in the development of the Olympics.

In other words, the Olympics offer a new avenue for grass-roots public anger to manifest itself in actual pressure on global leaders. This is because the Olympics are a high profile example of international recognition and engagement, and one that (between the presence of hordes of news media, athletes with personal agendas that don't map on to diplomatic niceties, and even the easily protested torch-run) offers a nearly unparalleled opportunity for media-friendly protests.

On the actual merits of boycotting the opening ceremonies itself, see Steve Clemons versus Daniel Drezner.