Forever To The Left

Alright, so trolling around the blogosphere I see a few more resources that might have been useful in my last post, "The Left I Fell In Love With".

Let's start with the commenter to my original post. I want to reiterate that the "blame America" syndrome is not something that affects most or even many Democrats. It remains tightly contained to a small segment of the fringe. At the same time, I will stand by my claim that too many Democrats seem to take small stock in our historical commitment to human rights and liberation. I don't take this from Republican cherry-picking--I read Democratic sites and while it doesn't rise to the level that it's caricatured as, some of it really seems to be shocking when one thinks about it. Consider the comment itself. (S)he says that "[c]riticizing Mr. Bush's unwarranted Iraq adventure does NOT imply endorsing Saddam Hussein - it is more often a "plague on both their houses" situation." Well, that's okay and not okay. I do wish for a plague on both their houses. But while I want Mr. Bush to have a sort of mild flu, I want Saddam Hussein to come down with a particularly virulent and painful form of Ebola. Bush has done some terrible things in office, but clearly he does not even approach the horror of a Saddam Hussein. And the next line--that the US government (including current administration officials) supported Hussein at the height of his genocidal rage. I've never understood why that is trotted out as an argument against an intervention--I'd argue that it imposes a greater obligation on the US to make up for its complacency with past evils. Maybe it shows that Donald Rumsfeld shouldn't lead the charge, but that's an argument that can be made easily just on present performance.

Finally, what is still missing from even the charitable interpretation of the "plague on both your houses" argument is the point I made in the original post: there isn't any coherent alternative plan besides an aggressive American foreign policy to solving these moral catastrophes. The closest thing I've heard from the anti-war left is "the sanctions were working--they could have kept Saddam contained." Well, perhaps. But all that means is that Saddam would be contained to his own borders, where he could continue to murder, rape, torture, and maim with impunity. Paired with the empirical fact that sanctions fell hardest on women and the poor, and what you get isn't a human rights argument--it's a security-based argument that gives us the moral cover to allow thousands to perish. Sure, sanctions would insure that Saddam wouldn't threaten us, but we're not the only people at risk here. I don't consider this to be an adequate liberal response.

I'd also like to point readers to two stellar articles that went up on The New Republic's website over Thanksgiving (TNR, incidentally, has been a major exception to the crypto-isolationist movement creeping through the left). The first, by Lawrence Kaplan, takes issue with the Democrat's newfound love for foreign policy Realism.

The complaint here isn't with the Bush team's execution of its project to export democracy. It is with the idea itself....What we have in [its] place is a crude and cheap version of realism, which, although ostensibly a method of analysis that eschews ideology, is rapidly becoming an ideology of its own. Unfortunately, its key tenets as laid out by the Gary Harts and Paul Krugmans of this world--non-interference, narrowly defined vital interests, a foreign policy scrubbed of idealism--provide no adequate response to the war of ideas in which we're presently engaged and will be long after the war in Iraq draws to a close. Nor do its proponents factor in the steep moral price bound to be exacted by trading in Woodrow Wilson for Brent Scowcroft. Is it really necessary to point out how deeply amoral U.S. foreign policy was during the Kissinger and Scowcroft years? If idealism has failed in Iraq, the solution lies in the realm of means, not in abandoning idealism...

The second article, by John Judis, warns that a rising tide of isolationism may be overtaking the country. Isolationism did not augur the US' finest moral moments (acquiescing to the Nazi's rise to power, ignoring the Rwandan genocide in 1994, etc.).

I want to also state that I think nobody is fulfilling this obligation--by criticizing the Left, I do not mean to exonerate the Right. The flip-side of this argument is that nobody is taking this obligation we have seriously. I really liked this Kevin Drum post (linking to Dahlia Lithwick) because it shows how the right is also betraying this fight under the guise of fighting it, using an example I hadn't thought of before.

[Lithwick] Had Padilla been charged and tried back in the summer of 2002, rather than touted as some Bond villain - the Prince of Radiological Dispersion - his case would have stood for a simple legal proposition: that if you are a terrorist, a supporter of terrorism, or a would-be terrorist, the government will hunt you down and punish you. Had the government waited, tested its facts, kept expectations low, then delivered a series of convictions of even small-time al-Qaida foot soldiers, we in this country would feel safer and we would doubtless be safer.

Instead Padilla, like Hamdi, was used as fodder for big speeches. They became the justification for Bush's position that some people are so evil that the law does not deter them, that new legal systems must be invented - new systems that bear a striking resemblance to those discredited around the time of Torquemada.

[Drum] Exactly. The corrosion of civil liberties highlighted by these cases is bad enough, but it's not the only problem they've caused. Every time a dramatic set of charges turns out to be baseless, it sends a very public message that the war against terrorism is just a sham, a campaign of partisan fearmongering being used as little more than a political club. This is the same message sent by the Bush administration's misuse of intelligence, the lack of WMD in Iraq, the politically motivated orange alerts, the strategically timed marketing campaigns, and the transparent political stunts played by congressional Republicans last week in response to John Murtha's speech.

The American public can hardly be expected to take terrorism seriously if it's obvious that the Bush administration itself views al-Qaeda as primarily a political opportunity rather than a real problem. Sooner or later, we're going to pay the price for this feckless and irresponsible approach.

That's the meta-point here. Democrats are rightfully upset that Bush was misleading in his pre-war run-up. That was a grave sin, and he should take his fair sure of flogging for it. But that cuts both ways, Bush deserves to be bashed for jeopardizing the credibility of a really important mission, but Democrats had the obligation to sign on to the program even if they disagreed with the methodology. If the Democrats even were opposing the Iraq war on the grounds that we should be instead intervening in Darfur or North Korea (seriously advocating it, not just as a talking point), then I'd consider that to be a legitimate point of disagreement. But attacking the project of democratization itself is simply not consonant with liberal ideals. The issues that face us today, whether it's terrorism or human rights (I think the two are inextricably tied), are too important to be tied up in political considerations. They need to be addressed full-frontal and in good faith. And if I seem to come down harder on liberals, that's because I have more faith in them to bring about real, lasting, compassionate, and effective solutions to the problems we're faced with.

The Left I Fell In Love With

Well, I'm back from Rhode Island--hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I saw some family members I hadn't seen in awhile, which was nice. But alas, back to the old grind.

Fernando Teson has a post on PrawfsBlawg that I think is really important. It urges liberals to stop focusing on slamming President Bush, and instead "reconstitute itself and recover the great imagination about equality and freedom." Teson attacks those protestors who took to the streets not to call for the elimination of a genocidal monster, but instead to protest his elimination. There is simply no excuse for that.

I took Feminist Theory this last term, and it was very instructive on this count. I should hasten to say that the vast majority of the works I read were intelligent, thought-provoking, and in many cases spot-on. People who deride modern feminism need to read more of it, because it has a devastating critique of our modern world and brings up challenges that need to be addressed.

However, there were a few people who, in class discussions, I argued read less like serious liberal scholars and more like conservative plants meant to discredit the whole movement. These people reflexively attacked America on every front, defended despotic regimes, and offered no plan or suggestion for improving women's rights in other countries (regarding the US, of course, they were verbose in their criticisms). John Kerry and the Democratic Party do not "blame America first." These people blame us first, last, and always.

In some frustration, I wrote my final paper calling for a more active feminism (which, for this post, I'd extend to liberalism in general). One that wouldn't just talk about "injustice" and "oppression," but would actually take active steps to change them. This implies some level of political realism. Calling for the capitalist power structure to wither away and die from your Southwest Missouri State University ivory tower won't actually help anyone. Joining a coalition pushing for a multilateral intervention in Darfur just might. Seize opportunities when they present themselves--the purpose is to help people, not to win tenure or even elections. I should add once again that the type of person I mentioned above--the total America-hater who slams anything our country does and overtly props up dictatorial regimes is a tiny minority in America today. The vast majority of liberals are committed to a just global order and a better world--they're just blinded by (justifiable) rage at the current administration. But even still, I think that a principled left, dedicated to true reform and possessing a commitment to action, would be far more effective both in the world and at the ballot box, than what we have today.

UPDATE: I've got a longer addendum up addressing some further issues that have been raised since I posted (including those by Mister Commenter Guy).

Down on Warner and Feingold

I read two articles on Presidential candidates today, both of which left me softer on the candidates than I was going in.

Starting with Virginia Governor Mark Warner. It's always impressive for a Democrat to win statewide in Virginia, all the more so when he can use his coattails to bring another Democrat in his place. And certainly, Warner does seem to be generating a fair bit of enthusiasm amongst the young campaign worker set. However, in reading this article, I couldn't help thinking he sounded very standard politician--just saying what audiences wanted to hear. No risks, no willingness to take a stand. Consider this passage:

Warner often prefaces remarks by warning that he's "about to say something a lot of people might not agree with." He does this in his speech to the Harvard Democrats. As listeners brace for something controversial, Warner comes forth with the familiar refrain that Democrats can't compete in only 16 states in presidential elections. When a student follows up by asking what individual states Democrats should compete in, Warner pauses, stares at a spot on the ceiling for a few pregnant seconds before answering, finally:

"The South," he says, then mentions some "opportunities in the Midwest."

Wow...I can see the savage netroots crowd ripping him apart over that one. Warner has proven voter appeal, and that counts for something. But I just don't know if he has enough independent thought behind those buck-teeth of his to be worthy of our support. At least one blogger read the article and still is putting him as his top 2008 choice, so maybe I'm an anomaly.

Meanwhile, I finally read TNR's "Hillary-slayer" article about Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold is in some ways the exact opposite of Warner. Quirky, independent, willing to buck the party line when his principles call for it. And I respect that. A lot. Feingold is in many ways a breath of fresh air, and he has a lot of good accomplishments to his name that warrant a close look at his candidacy. Many politicians claim to be independent thinkers. With Feingold, there's no way to deny it. Like Dean, Feingold draws most of his support from the left wing anti-war crowd, and, also like Dean, Feingold is no where near as liberal as his supporters might be led to believe. Of course (again, like Dean), given the state of the political media, nobody will know that no matter how deep Feingold goes in the primaries. But I know it, and that appealing blend of progressive and principled is a sight for sore eyes here.

The problem is that in the area where we most need someone who's willing to buckle down and do the right thing, political finger-waving be damned, Feingold's on the wrong side. He has a long and consistent record of opposition to American humanitarian interventions--even in the midst of ongoing or imminent genocide.

Feingold has long harbored wariness about U.S. military action. When Republicans forced a 1995 Senate vote to cut off funding for U.S. military forces in Bosnia, for instance, he was the sole Democrat to join 21 conservatives in support of the resolution. As other Democrats waxed idealistic about human rights, Feingold fretted about Vietnam parallels and worried that "our attempting to police the world threatens our own national security." By 1997, he was fighting to cut off funding for military operations in Bosnia and to begin an early withdrawal of U.S. forces. "What they haven't done is define a concrete exit strategy for our American troops," he said at the time. "This administration needs to sit down and work with Congress to map out a specific schedule for bringing our troops home, or they will be there for a very, very long time." Likewise, Feingold cast just one of three Democratic 'no' votes against the 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign. "It's a compelling notion that the American government has an obligation to stop brutality and genocide. I can't dispute that," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in March of 1999. "But how can we be acting in Bosnia and Kosovo and not Rwanda, or Sudan, or East Timor, or even Tibet?"

So people of Darfur (or their inevitable heirs elsewhere in the globe) will be free to die no matter how brutal the atrocities get. I'm probably one of the few pro-war liberals for whom Feingold's anti-war stance is not too bothersome. But this crosses the line. I don't think I can bring myself to vote for someone who would have abandoned Kosovar Albanians to Slobodan Milosivic's murderous hordes.

I'm heading to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. The computer, alas, is not. So this blog will be off from Tuesday afternoon until my return on Friday afternoon. See you then!

Big Noise In Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has resigned from Likud, the party he helped found, and is starting his own centrist party to run in new parliamentary elections.

The Head Heeb has a spectacular analysis of the political implications of the move. One major impact is that Israeli voters now have clear choices in the forthcoming elections. For the past several years, the two major parties, Labor and Likud, have drifted closer to the center, including significant time spent as coalition partners. But Sharon's split will push Likud firmly back into the ranks of the nationalist right. Meanwhile, Labor just took a hard turn to the left with the upset victory of union activist Amir Peretz in their leadership primary. Many people are expecting moderates from both parties to defect to Sharon's new National Responsibility Party, setting up a contest with a definitive left, right, and center.

The timing of this move couldn't be more dramatic. As Fruits and Votes reminds us, the Israeli election will take place soon after the Palestinian legislative elections, which undoubtedly will play a crucial role in spinning the results. And with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shimon Peres now a persona non grata in Labor, he too might jump to Sharon's boat ("Kiss of Death"? I'm not sure I'd go that far. Meryl Yourish is calling Sharon to win the PM slot again, and if I had to put my money down, I'd place my bet there as well).

Armand wonders about the impact on Shinui, a pre-existing centrist party and the one I currently identify with. Assuming that the new party doesn't suck all the life out of Shinui (either by voter or political defections), I'd assume they'd join a coalition with Sharon. However, the reaction of Shinui chairman Tommy Lapid was far from welcoming. Shinui currently has 14 members in the Knesset, a substantial bloc in the 120 member body (by comparison, Likud had 40 members pre-defection). I would not be surprised, though, if some of those seats were lost to Sharoniks. At least one commentator thinks Shinui is "done".

Predictions remain fractured (as they should at this early stage). Cosmic-X thinks that Sharon is going to be spending time with grandkids soon enough. But then, he thinks that his new party's support will draw mostly from far-left Meretz and Labor dissidents, which strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. "ingenious" is the term used by Clarity and Resolve, and as I said above that's the camp I tend to fall into. One assessment I have no qualms signing onto though: It's going to be messy.

By far the best overall round-up is at IsraellyCool.

You Go (B)Oy!

This is what I like to hear! Jews standing up for themselves and taking on the "religious right's" false claims to represent all religions (H/T: Balloon Juice).

The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."

"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday.

The audience of 5,000 responded to the speech with enthusiastic applause.

Yoffie did not mention evangelical Christians directly, using the term "religious right" instead. In a separate interview, he said the phrase encompassed conservative activists of all faiths, including within the Jewish community.

He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.

"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."

I should say that I think his "Hitler" analogy is being misinterpreted. I don't think he's saying that the policies of the religious right are "akin" to Hitler. Rather, he's reminding us that hatred is a slippery slope--each time society labels one of its members sub-human, it becomes that much easier to demonize another and another and justify all manner of atrocities. Jonathan Glover, Professor of Ethics at Kings College, put it best:

Respect for dignity is one of the great barriers against atrocity and cruelty. To acknowledge our shared moral status makes it harder for us to torture or kill each other. The erosion of the protective barrier creates danger. When one group tramples on the dignity of another, it tramples on its own inhibitions, and [a] massacre may not be far off.

AmericaBlog may be slightly hyperbolic, but it's also right: America's human rights history does not come near to inspiring the confidence that "it could never happen here."

In any event, I agree with Cafe Politico:

This was long overdue but better late than never. More people of faith need to speak out against attempts by some evangelical Christians to paint every political/moral issue within their narrow, often bigoted framework. I am tired of the public falling for the talking point that the GOP is the God's Own Party.

If Christianity wants to represent itself as the sole province of hyper-conservatives, I suppose that's its business. But I'll damned if I let them drag my religion down with them.

Balloon Juice also reminds us that Rabbi Yoffie is not the first major Jewish figure to sound this theme recently. Foxman took some flack from, well, Jewish conservative flacks who haven't quite managed to distinguish our religion from Christianity. One can perhaps cherry-pick a few cases where Jewish organizations have gone over the top (although I'd assert that in the current environment, it's best to err on the side of caution). But the world the Christian Right seeks to create is not one that includes our religious message. It is not a Jewish world. And with all due respect to my dear friend Dennis Prager, the more I read about Jewish theology and ethics, the more I turn to the left, not right. When it comes down to it, Judaism is a force for progressivism and change, not maintaining status quo injustices, and I've yet to see anyone persuade me otherwise. And for the record, Jews have other interests beyond just Israel (although to be clear, Foxman is a vocal advocate for Israeli interests as well).

Leave Me Out of This!

The latest anti-ACLU attack is out. Some folks, like Eugene Volokh, are getting all upset-like because the press release compares the ACLU to terrorists and the KKK. And yes, that is a rather nasty thing to do, so even sympathetic organizations should disassociate themselves from the message.

However, because this is me, I'm going to lodge my own separate protest. Here's an excerpt from the start of the release:

The Reverends Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) and Patrick J. Mahoney will visit ACLU headquarters today to hand-deliver more than 20,000 petitions demanding that the left-leaning liberal attack group back off of terrorizing communities and individuals who seek to affirm America's Judeo-Christian values.

Regular readers know where I'm going with this...

YOU DON'T REPRESENT "JUDEO-CHRISTIAN" VALUES!!!

Maybe, maybe, you can plausibly claim to represent Christian values. I don't know, that's your religion, not mine. But don't drag my religion into your political advocacy. I'll bet money that these activists don't have the foggiest clue about traditional Jewish ethical teachings on the issues they care about. And I'll bet twice that amount that the "10 commandments" that the ACLU sued over was the Protestant version of them, not the Jewish (or Catholic, for that matter) translation.

The obnoxious thing is that the press release itself is titled "Christian Activists to Hand-Deliver Letters Demanding ACLU Back Off." Well gee, where did all the Jews go? It's dishonest and disingenuous to claim to represent people that you don't, and by and large Jews aren't and never have been part of this coalition. Really, I can accept that Christianity has been hijacked by its extreme right elements--tragic, maybe, but there you go. But the vast majority of Jews, as represented by our religious and political organizations, are steadfastly opposed to the imposition of Christianity into our public school curriculum. And remembering the long history of Christians murdering, oppressing, and harassing Jews throughout the past millennia or so, the separation of Christianity and government has been a great victory for the "Judeo" part of the tradition at least. Which may explain why Jews overwhelmingly support the ACLU and it's project. For us, it's quite literally life or death.

When Do Black People Vote?

Well, according to the sponsor of Georgia's new "anti-voter fraud" bill, only when they're paid to do it.

The chief sponsor of Georgia's voter identification law told the Justice Department that if black people in her district "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls," and that if fewer blacks vote as a result of the new law, it is only because it would end such voting fraud.

It's pretty tough to find more blatant racism from an elected politician.

All laws that might affect minority voting strength in the south require Justice Department approval. And indeed, career DOJ employees reviewed the bill and recommended it be rejected as falling disproportionately on minorities. But (surprise, surprise), political appointees from the Bush administration overruled them and approved the law.

According to Legal Fiction, the burden put on Georgia by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act makes it nearly impossible for an honest attorney to say this law meets it:

Under Section 5, Georgia therefore has to get changes to its voting laws "pre-cleared" by the DOJ. The state has the burden of showing that any new measure will not have a negative effect on minority voting. The new measure doesn't have to be intentionally discriminatory - it's an "effects" test. A negative impact on minorities is enough to make it illegal.

LF quotes the Post as saying the following:

The program requires voters to obtain one of six forms of photo identification before going to the polls, as opposed to 17 types of identification currently allowed. Those without a driver's license or other photo identification are required to obtain a special digital identification card, which would cost $20 for five years and could be obtained from motor vehicle offices in only 59 of the state's 159 counties.

Given the way race and poverty are tied together, there is no way to argue this won't have a negative impact on minorities.

LF says that the attorneys in the DOJ who approved the law aren't racist so much as they don't really care about racism. I'll grant there is a distinction, but it's small consolation to those who are forced to live with the effects of their apathy. The only good news is that I cannot imagine this surviving a court challenge.

Iraq Crack

For better or for worse, our Iraq tenure looks to be drawing to a close. Chuck Hagel has slammed Bush's policy. Democratic hawk and military affairs guru John Murtha has called for an immediate withdrawal (even the hard right is taking this guy seriously). TNR says that Sadr--of all people--is likely to become the primary power player in Iraq--and it's the occupation that fuels his power. Apparently only the lunatic fringe of the GOP is willing to defend the stay the course policy, but even Powerline admits that its view is the "minority view." And the famously tight Republican House, legendary for its party discipline, is finally starting to fall apart.

Good or bad, I don't know. I've been a steadfast war supporter from the start, and I'll admit even I'm starting crack. But the political trend is definitively moving in favor of withdrawal. Not even John McCain, I think, can stop this train.

Black-Black Racism: Why White Liberals Should Care

Sparked by Protein Wisdom, Ampersand writes a post on why, as white liberals, we should not devote much (if any) attention to so called "black-on-black" racism. I've written on this issue at least once before, but I want to further explicate on why, even from a Critical Leftist stance, we should be vociferous in condemning racism by blacks against blacks.

Essentially, there are two distinct arguments against whites condemning black-on-black racism. The first is ideological--either such actions aren't really a problem, or alternatively, they should be dealt with within the community itself. This claim I addressed in the prior post--look there for my critique.

The second argument, and the one Ampersand makes in this post, is political--black-on-black racism is comparatively less damaging and less prominent than the massive amount of structural racism still present in society, thus, anti-racism advocates should focus their attention where the greatest harms are. Or as Amp puts it, "deal with Judy's collapsed lung before dealing with Bob's scraped knee."

Such an argument admits that both white racism and black racism, like Bob and Judy's ailments, are indeed problems. In an "ideal" world, where there are no time trade-offs or issues of resource allocation, presumably Ampersand would support loud and consistent denunciations of all racist acts. However, in a world where resources (time, effort, and money) are limited, we have to make trade-offs, and the end-result should be affecting the most change possible to eliminate racism in its most damaging forms.

Insofar as this is a political argument, it should be addressed on political terms. The question is whether or not white condemnations of black-on-black racism (or black-on-white racism, for that matter) have positive and non-replicable consequences in the political sphere, and whether those consequences outweigh whatever negatives exist (in terms of resource allocation, time spent, etc..).

We should start by noting that in general, condemning individual acts of black-on-black racism is not particularly time intensive. I probably spent a few hours, tops, on my post about the black-facing of Michael Steele--and that was a post that actually got attention (which of course, makes it more likely that I'll post updates and the like). Meanwhile, as I'm sure Amp knows, I also blog relatively frequently on the "big" issues of structural racism and white privilege that Amp says I should be focusing on. So, to a partial extent, the "ideal world" and the "real world" merge--we can do both. I think the problem is that we conflate the amount of effort needed to oppose structural racism (which is pretty high, since it is persistent and omnipresent) and black racism (which is relatively low, because it is scattered and not supported by some overarching societal superstructure). To sum up: opposing black racism is not likely to be a time-intensive endeavor compared to opposing white racism.

More importantly, though, is that I think my condemnation of such acts as Steve Gilliard blackfacing Steele gives me credibility amongst moderates and conservatives when talking about race issues that I wouldn't otherwise possess. After posting on Lt. Gov. Steele, I've inoculated myself against charges of bias and partisanship, such that it's more likely that the people we need to reach will take me seriously. If some conservative reads one of my posts about structural racism and makes the stock attack, that I'm anti-white or just some wild-eyed multicultural radical, I can point to these posts and prove that I'm not. They might still ignore me, but it's more likely that they'll tune in and in any event any undecided observers will look on me more favorably. That's a positive benefit and one that's seriously lacking when we only attack white power and privileges. We can't expect to make any gains on race when we're alienating the majority of our audience. If whites hold the levers of racial power in our society, than it is whites who we need to persuade to affect racial change, and we must adapt our arguments accordingly.

I'm not saying we should go out of our way to find incidents of black racism for counter-balancing purposes. But when they're thrust in front of our faces, we should be clear where we stand. Perhaps in an ideal world I shouldn't have to prove my even-handedness by attacking black racism too. But recall that Amp is making an argument that is expressly divorced from the ideal world. She can't just jump from idealism to realism and back again whenever it suits her. If we're trying to affect positive racial change in real-world America, part of that project means taking deliberate steps so that the audience will listen to our words. I think that goal requires some showing of non-partisanship.

Incidentally, I disagree with John Cole's response post--I do think that "identity politics" has been incorrectly caricatured, that the tactic is neither new nor radical, and that the vast majority of the message is positive and needs to be heard. But we should still be cognizant of the "politics" in "identity politics," and that means building bridges to both the friends we have and the foes we seek to convert.

Cry Baby Cry

John Leo gives his nominees for the "top victims of 2005." Leo laments that "[n]obody is responsible for anything anymore," this giving us our victimized society. Andrew Sullivan has the link.

Perusing the list, I couldn't help but notice a trend in the "victims." Children of Witches, Muslims, College Students, a Liberal, Atheists, and...George W. Bush? Alas, this last one appears to be the only person Leo thinks has a legitimate complaint. As for the rest, they all are a) politically disempowered and b) favorite targets of conservatives everywhere.

Why is it that only minority groups (not just racial here) can be cry-babies? Atheists cry when athletes point their fingers to God after a touchdown: Wah! But Christians hollering because Macy's says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"? Our national traditions are under siege! Leo, if I recall his columns on the subject, hardly considers this to be "whining" to be condemned, despite the fact that, realistically, how a department store decides to deliver its winter salutations is shockingly trivial (and yet, still blogworthy). If anything, we should not be surprised if the majority whines more often than anyone. We do, after all, live in a democracy. And like the spoiled child who gets (almost) whatever she wants, American dominant groups will throw a bona fide temper tantrum whenever someone else gets attention for awhile. And like a doting but misguided parent, Leo rushes in, not to discipline the wayward child, but to defend her and chide the others for demanding a piece of the pie.

There's really nothing more to it beyond blatant majoritarianism. If a given majority value is even marginally knocked from it's pedestal, then the conservative punditcracy will come out armed for battle. But if it's a minority value being slighted (or more often, though perhaps not in Leo's examples, stomped on), they're just oversensitive PCers.

Standards, anyone?

Political Recusals

Reflecting again on judge who was removed from Tom DeLay's corruption trial, I found some interesting precedents that should shed some light on the matter.

In re Mason, 916 F.2d 384, 386 (7th Cir. 1990) (denying a writ of mandamus to disqualify a judge because he made pre-appointment contributions of $100 to each of the defendants). A judge's former political affiliation does not create an appearance of impartiality. See United States v. Alabama, 828 F.2d 1532, 1543 (11th Cir. 1987) (refusing to disqualify a judge, who had acted as plaintiffs' counsel in a civil rights suit in the past, from presiding over an action to desegregate Alabama universities). "The fact that a trial judge harbors political views, religious persuasion or values that are in direct opposition to those of the defendant does not, standing alone, constitute a basis for recusal." Welsh v. Commonwealth, 416 S.E.2d 451, 461 (Va. Ct. App. 1992)[Paul Butler, Should Radicals Be Judges?, 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1203, 1205 n.7 (2004)]

The full article, by the way, is really interesting--I highly recommend it.

These precedents show two things to me. First, that the recusal of the Democratic judge from DeLay's trial probably was inconsistent with precedent. If contributing money to the defendants themselves doesn't violate judicial ethics, then clearly contributing to a political advocacy group prior to it having any dealings with the defendant can't be grounds for recusal. Second, that this issue is really, really, tough. That first case, Mason, seems almost ridiculously counter-intuitive to me. We're caught in a quandary here. On the one hand, nearly every judge is political--especially in the type of super-charged cases where the public at large actually cares. So to penalize the "overtly" political judges seems to be delusional, it just (as Butler argues in his article) encourages radical judges to go underground. On the other hand, if we are to preserve public notions of judicial integrity and honesty, then there has to be some level of entanglement that qualifies as a conflict of interest. The question is whether mere abstract political advocacy qualifies. And I'm just not sure.

Judicial Activism Card

For debaters working on the current LD topic about Judicial Activism, six reasons why activist judges won't go completely wild but will still be constrained.

Duncan Kennedy, Imagining a Judge's Reasoning Process, in ANALYTIC JURISPRUDENCE ANTHOLOGY 208-209 (Anthony D'Amato ed., 1996)

First, I see myself as having promised some diffuse public that I will "decide according to law," and it is clear to me that a minimum meaning of this pledge is that I won't do things for which I don't have a good legal argument....

Second, various people in my community will sanction me severely if I do not offer a good legal argument for my action....

Third, I want my position to stick....

Fourth, by engaging in legal argument I can shape the outcomes of future cases and influence popular consciousness about what kinds of action are legitimate....

Fifth, every case is part of my life-project of being a liberal activist judge. What I do in this case will affect my ability to do things in other cases, enhancing or diminishing my legal and political credibility as well as my technical reputation with the various constituencies that will notice....

Sixth, since I see legal argument as a branch of ethical argument, I would like to know for my own purposes how my position looks translated into this particular ethical medium.

Some of these I think blend together, but they still represent a pretty good aff block or spike.

The Mediocre Compromise

The Washington Post reports that there has been a "compromise" on Lindsay Graham's abhorrent effort to strip detainees of their legal rights (H/T: Orin Kerr).

Obsidian Wings (whose coverage of this whole issue has been nothing short of spectacular) thinks that the compromises are an improvement, but still fall short of what our moral and constitutional principles require. Kevin Drum, by contrast, is "cautiously optimistic." I'm inclined to agree with Tim F. on this--meeting in the middle is not acceptable when the stakes are this high. Moderation be damned, we're talking about basic legal rights here. If there are any principles I won't sacrifice, it's that people have the right to prove they're innocent of wrongdoing. Just chucking random folks in jail on slim (if any) evidence is not just unamerican, it's outright evil. I should also note that the bill only applies to Guantanamo Bay detainees. Given the recent revelations about our "black site" prisons, this seems to be rather twisted, as those places probably, if anything, have a more urgent need for judicial oversight than even Guantanamo.

See also: The Poor Man.

We're All French Here

This post over at Armchair Capitalists is must-read-material for anyone looking for background on the French riots. I'll excerpt briefly:

This was January to July 2003 when the great debate over the veil was raging. One of my teachers, Monsieur Moysan, would take rather long digressions to rail against the evils of the veil, and how this was destroying notions of community and etc. If one wanted to retain any sort of Muslim identity, one could not be French (though getting days off for Catholic holidays was perfectly acceptable: I was much chagrined to discover that "Ascension" had nothing to do with joining the EU and everything to do with Christ's body rising to heaven). Moysan enjoyed picking on one of the three Arab students in the class, Idriss, who was not only the most intelligent member of the class, but also the most intellectually curious (and it was for this curiosity that he was mocked, but the curiosity was that of an outsider trying to figure out how the world fit together). When n=1, it is hard to draw inferences (and Moysan was from Corsica...), but...

Count this as a data point in my what's the French race situation really like model. But also, count it as a rather naked proof of how "universalism" acts as a mere cover for majoritarian norms.

Meanwhile, both D-squared Digest and Daniel Drezner point out what we're all thinking--smashing things apart and setting fire to vehicles isn't proof that the rioters are outsiders in France; if anything, it's proof they've assimilated.

The Glorious World of Publishing

The first edition of The Lens: Carleton College's Magazine of Politics and Culture has been released! In theory, we'll have an online copy, but it appears not to be up yet--I'll link to it when it comes out. In any event, this was my first experience on the editing side of one of these things, and it was a lot of work! But very worth it.

I have a nice article published as well, entitled "Jews in Space." I'm quite proud of it--and the layout folks did a great job making it look all pretty and such. On the flip side, the copy editors appeared to "improve" the article by inserting mistakes at random intervals, which is frustrating (yes, I checked the final copy against the original I sent in--it was right when I wrote it). And they misspelled my name. Ouch.

But try to look past that. The whole magazine looks wonderful, and I encourage all y'all to read it.

Social Support for College Mothers

Bitch Ph.D. throws her support to what sounds like an excellent bill: The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Students Act of 2005. It would start pilot programs in colleges and universities to provide support services for students who decide to take their pregnancies to term instead of abort.

I think that colleges and universities should offer their support to all life choices, and Bitch agrees:

Although I don't know the details of the bill, as presented in this article it sounds to me like a long-overdue--and feminist--solution. It's incredibly difficult for student parents at college: often there's no campus daycare, and if there is it has long waiting lines; often daycares don't offer drop-in services or aren't open for evening classes; often even women's centers on campus don't have resources or support aimed specifically at student parents.

A really good friend of mine is a single mom who is struggling hard to get through college, and continually running into problems with daycare, school schedules, inadequate financial aid, housing, etc. She's called me in frustrated tears talking about dropping out, and I encourage her to hang in, but it's ridiculous: colleges and universities do a terrible job of supporting student parents.

I also agree with Bitch that this is an issue that progressives should seize upon--a great bridge we can build over to pro-lifers:

This is one of the issues on which I often find myself arguing with my peers: the educated, liberal, ambitious social classes. We have a tendency to argue that teen pregnancy is bad, that it hampers girl's economic, educational, and social development. We focus on birth control and delaying pregnancy. But the thing is, it isn't having a child that screws girls over: it's the stigma against having kids, the total lack of social support, the "you made your bed, now lie in it" attitude that we have as a society.

Just proof again that while their are bitter disagreements, there are issues where pro-life and pro-choice can and should come together.

Bush's Darfur Agenda

Troubling accusations over at Tapped regarding Bush's Darfur policy. They quote a piece at Save Darfur:

The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (H.R. 3127/S. 1462) continues to slowly move forward as Congress enters the home stretch of the legislative year prior to an as yet undetermined adjournment date in late November or early December. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar has favorably reported the bill out of committee, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has indicated his support for bringing the bill to the floor as soon as an anonymous hold is lifted. [Emphasis added]

The emphasized part is the key. Tapped continues:

Last April the White House sent a letter to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis asking him to quash the Darfur Accountability Act (which was then attached to the Iraq supplemental) by the time it came out of the conference committee. I got ahold of that letter, as did Nicholas Kristof, and we held it up as yet another example of the administration's lily-livered response to genocide. It seems that the White House wanted to avoid repeating that embarrassment this time around so they gave their favorite hack a call and told that senator not to let the legislation even make it to conference committee. Disgusting.

If this is true--that the anonymous hold on this critical legislation was put up at the behest of the Bush administration, then they've lost any credibility they once enjoyed on opposition to genocide. It's one thing to decide that Darfur is a dead issue and not expend political capital to push a skeptical congress to act. It's quite another to deliberately hold up progress and put the administration expressly on the side of the murderers. Unfortunately, it seems like the Bush administration has come to a decision: pro-murder, anti-intervention.

Reclaiming Islam

In the wake of the horrific Amman terrorist bombings, John Hinderaker of Powerline had the following observation:

The fathers of both bride and groom, at the far left and right, were murdered. The bride and groom were both wounded, but, thankfully, survived. The groom, Ashraf Mohamed al-Akhras, said from his hospital bed:

I lost my father and my father-in-law and I saw many other dead. This is a horrible crime. The world has to know this has nothing to do with Islam.

I understand his sentiment, but the fact is that this mass murder, like all the others committed by al Qaeda and like-minded groups, has everything to do with Islam. It is up to sane Muslims everywhere to reclaim their religion from the sadists and fanatics.

Reading this sort of thing, I'm always curious about what would constitute "reclaim[ing] their religion". What would persuade the rightie boys at Powerline that "sane Muslims" do not condone this sort of behavior?

Cue Daniel Drezner. He collects a series of articles regarding the aftermath of the bombings--and it looks like the "mainstream" Muslims are coming out pretty hard against terror. He links to this Washington Post editorial characterizing what he calls "a long string of reversals" for al-Qaeda:

Even as it has bloodied Iraq -- where two more suicide bombings were recorded yesterday -- support for violence and Islamic extremism has been declining elsewhere in the region. Two movements that pioneered suicide bombings, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, have at least temporarily set aside violence and are focused on participating in democratic politics. An al Qaeda branch in Saudi Arabia has found little support, and most of its leaders have been captured or killed. In Lebanon this year, a popular revolution embraced a democratic agenda, and a grass-roots democratic movement has appeared in Egypt. The government most under siege in the region is not the Jordanian monarchy but the Baathist dictatorship of Syria, which has been a tactical ally of the Zarqawi network and the Iraqi insurgency.

Meanwhile, according to the Chicago Tribune:

The offshoot of Al Qaeda spearheading the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq sought to defend its actions Thursday in the face of furious Arab protests in the streets of Jordan's capital over the hotel attacks that killed three suicide bombers and their 56 victims.

After first claiming responsibility for the Wednesday bombings of three hotels popular with Israelis and Westerners, Al Qaeda in Iraq later issued a second Internet statement that appeared to acknowledge that its tactics may have backfired and undermined any support the group enjoyed among the Jordanian population.
[...]
But most of those killed were Jordanians or other Arabs, and many of the thousands of residents who marched in protest Thursday spoke of an assault on their sense of security in this tightly run city, which had been spared the carnage of suicide bombings elsewhere in the Middle East and was considered an oasis of stability.

I'm not sure what Powerline wants besides personal statements of outrage, massive anti-terrorist protests, and a widespread fall in general support for Islamic extremism in the Muslim world.

The problem right now isn't convincing the Muslim rank-and-file that terrorism is immoral and wrong. That's a battle we've won. Our problem at the moment is two-fold. First, that Islamic extremist groups may have reached a critical mass already where they don't need mainstream support. After some period of time, Northern Ireland Catholics didn't need mainstream Catholic support to continue its reign of terror (nor did NI Protestants need mainline Protestant support for same). To indict the religion as a whole at that point would be asinine and unfair--though it is still a conflict fueled by religion, the moderates really can't be held responsible to "take back the faith" at some point.

Second, while Muslims are repudiating terrorism, that doesn't mean they're ready to trust the West. Right now, the Islamic view is that they are between the frying pan and the fire. They don't like the extremists, and they don't like us. That's an image gap problem--we have the burden to show to the Islamic world that our society is a model they should follow (or at least fuse with their own). Right now, we're just saying "reject terror, reject terror", and that's not enough. It's like the Republicans always say about Democrats: they can't just say that Republicans are awful; they must also offer concrete plans and proposals of their own. Well, we need to do the same for the Muslim world--not just say "boo terror," but also provide clear-cut benefits for choosing to join the global community and adopt liberal and progressive ideals. That's a project we're failing miserably at currently, and things like torture scandals and stripping accused terrorists of due process rights is not helping our case.

Comparative Race Theory

There is, I think, a severe perception/reality gap between how much people around the world "consider" race and how much we think they do. For example, I just wrote an article urging Americans to take a more critical view of race, and abandon color-blindness. Basically, your classic leftist multi-culturalism argument.

Lots of conservatives blast this theory as being "European," and gleefully point to the Paris riots as proof of its failure. Yet this seems to be an inaccurate description of how the Europeans view their paradigm:

France's Constitution guarantees equality to all, but that has long been interpreted to mean that ethnic or religious differences are not the purview of the state. The result is that no one looks at such differences to track growing inequalities and so discrimination is easy to hide.

"People have it in their head that surveying by race or religion is bad, it's dirty, it's something reserved for Americans and that we shouldn't do it here," said Yazid Sabeg, the only prominent Frenchman of Arab descent at the head of a publicly listed French company. "But without statistics to look at, how can we measure the problem?"

So wait...the French are more color-blind than we are? This leads Ann Althouse to ask the following:

Should France's policy of not taking account of race, ethnicity, and religion, in light of the recent rioting, make us look more favorably on our own attention to such things?

So Prof. Althouse thinks that we are indeed color-conscious, and that France proves that this is superior to the color-blind system. But here's Imani Perry arguing that it took American news networks two weeks to even mention that the rioting was done by mostly minority protestors. So maybe we aren't so color-conscious after all? What is going on?

So basically, here's what we have:

The Republicans think we are and need to be absolutely color-blind, and point to French riots as proof that our color-blindness is a superior system.

The French think they are and need to be absolutely color-blind, and point to American race-consciousness as immoral and "dirty."

The center-right Althousians think that we are color-conscious, and that the French riots show that our color-conscious method is superior.

The leftist folks like me think that both the French and Americans are not color-conscious enough, and think both state's systems are indicted.

Who's right? And more importantly, why is there such a perceptual gap in terms of how our and their systems actually "are"? Are we color-blind or not? Are the French multi-culturalists or not?

There is something interesting afoot here...

Well I am a Twitch Concerned

Andrew Sullivan points out this lovely example of the Senate Majority Leader's values:

Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.

Well I am a bit concerned. Because I think that abandoning core American values is not something we should turn away from. As Sullivan puts it elsewhere:

We can win this war without destroying the very civilization we are fighting for. We can win without losing our soul. Any other kind of victory is a euphemism for defeat.

That's why I care. Because we aren't winning the war on terror, a war against global extremism, if we ourselves are terrorizing, if we become the extremists. Torture is an extreme position. It should and must be beyond the pale.

I think that Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone nails it:

Perhaps it's just me... but do you get the sense that the United States is in the process of destroying all the good will and moral leadership its has earned in the international community over the past sixty-five years? At the outset of the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor, made an eloquent and remarkable statement: "That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hands of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." Think how far we have shrunk from that aspiration. With secret detention camps, blatant violations of international human rights, administration demands for the authority to use torture, efforts to deny detainees even the most elementary rights of due process and fair proceedings, our government has sunk to a level of immorality we never even contemplated in the Civil War, World War I, or World War II. Don't we, as lawyers, have a professional and ethical obligation to say something? Don't we have a responsibility to demand that our government respect our most fundamental values of procedural fairness, rule of law, and human decency. Is it acceptable for us to live silently through a period in which our government disregards Reason in order to pay tribute to Power? Perhaps it's just me....

We should be clear--even Republicans are starting to come around on this issue. Opposing torture is not something partisan. It is not a political question, but an American value that must be upheld at all costs.

Traffic-Jammed.