Brian W. Carver -- Share Alike

Ashcroft Covers Up The Real Terrorists

The story in Paul Krugman's latest column should be headlining every news outlet you could possibly read, watch, or listen to today. Strangely, I'm not hearing much about it. So, I feel compelled to talk about it.

As a white guy, I'm allowed to say this: White guys are the problem. Who was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing? A white guy. Who went on a shooting spree in a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles and killed a U.S. Postal worker? A white guy. Who bombed the 1996 Olympics, a nightclub in Atlanta, and a Women's Clinic in Birmingham? A white guy. Who was the unabomber? A white guy. Who killed 16 children and their teacher at a school in Scotland? A white guy. Or in Columbine Colorado? Two white guys. It's not often someone is crazy enough to take a shot at a U.S. President, but who shot Lincoln, Kennedy, and Reagan? Three white guys. Quick! Think of four notorious serial killers! First to come to mind for me were these four white guys (Berkowitz, Bundy, Dahmer, De Salvo, Gacy, Manson all good answers).

And now we learn that yet another white guy in Noonday, Texas had "a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon -- a cyanide bomb -- big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building." But you didn't hear about this terrorist because he doesn't fit the profile that General Ashcroft wants you to fear.

While actually dangerous individuals like this white guy are ignored, the Ashcroft Justice Department spends all its efforts questioning and detaining anyone with an Arab name or brown skin.

9/11 was an anomaly as far as terrorism in the United States goes. When we realize that, we might also realize that we should not allow 9/11 to change anything about our fundamental values. America has long been committed to individual freedom and privacy, to due process rights, to that nutty innocent-until-proven-guilty thing, ostensibly to the notion that we don't start wars, but most certainly to the idea that it is wrong to torture people. We shouldn't give these things up. 9/11 changed nothing about the importance of these principles. But neither the Ashcroft Justice Department nor the Bush administration in general, understands this. We need people in these positions of power that are committed to true American values.

Boalt Controversy over Yoo Memo

Some background first, then some analysis:

On Friday, May 21, 2004 many Boalt students received a message like this:

Dear fellow Boalt students and alums:

By now, many of you have heard about the role Boalt Professor John Yoo played as part of the Bush Administration to pave the way for the egregious violations of international law we are seeing committed by US troops today in Iraq (see MSNBC or The NY Times).

A group of us graduating 3Ls decided that we could not stand by without speaking our outrage about Professor Yoo's actions as Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Bush. We've articulated that outrage in the attached petition and invite you now, as fellow students of any year and alumni, to join us.

If you are so inclined, please sign the petition at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/bh2004/petition.html before graduation on Saturday. Shortly thereafter we aim to present our perspective to Professor Yoo and the Boalt Administration.

Thanks for considering joining us. If you have comments or ideas, please send them to yoorepudiate at yahoo.com

The email was signed by eight current or graduating Boalt students who organized the effort. In case the news articles disappear, they mention a memo written by Boalt Professor John Yoo while he worked for the Office of Legal Counsel. The Newsweek article revealed that:

...on Jan. 9, 2002, John Yoo of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel coauthored a sweeping 42-page memo concluding that neither the Geneva Conventions nor any of the laws of war applied to the conflict in Afghanistan.

Cut out of the process, as usual, was Colin Powell's State Department. So were military lawyers for the uniformed services. When State Department lawyers first saw the Yoo memo, "we were horrified," said one. As State saw it, the Justice position would place the United States outside the orbit of international treaties it had championed for years. Two days after the Yoo memo circulated, the State Department's chief legal adviser, William Howard Taft IV, fired a memo to Yoo calling his analysis "seriously flawed." State's most immediate concern was the unilateral conclusion that all captured Taliban were not covered by the Geneva Conventions. "In previous conflicts, the United States has dealt with tens of thousands of detainees without repudiating its obligations under the Conventions," Taft wrote. "I have no doubt we can do so here, where a relative handful of persons is involved."

I have tried in vain to find a copy of the memo itself. If anyone can find the memo, please post a link here.

The petition read:

To: Boalt Administration and Prof. John Yoo

We, the undersigned students, graduates and alumni of the Boalt Hall School of Law, put forth this petition to express our outrage at certain actions taken by Boalt Prof. John Yoo during his tenure as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.

According to a recent report in Newsweek Magazine entitled “The Roots of Torture”, Prof. Yoo authored a memorandum in January, 2002 advising the Bush Administration that the protections of the Geneva Conventions would not apply to prisoners held by the United States in its execution of the war in Afghanistan. While Secretary of State Colin Powell and lawyers for the State Department vigorously sought to repudiate Prof. Yoo’s flawed legal analysis, subsequent actions taken by the Bush Administration and the military demonstrate that our government has taken Prof. Yoo’s advice to heart.

We believe that the actions taken by Prof. Yoo contributed directly to the reprehensible violations of human rights recently witnessed in Iraq and elsewhere. By seeking to exploit and magnify any technical ambiguities in the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war, Prof. Yoo and the Bush Administration have created a climate of disdain and hostility towards international law, effectively opening the door to the acts of outright torture, rape and murder that we now know were committed by United States soldiers and civilian interrogators. Such abuses, if not explicitly ordered by the Administration or military commanders, were at the very least a foreseeable consequence of crippling the protections of the Geneva Conventions in the context of the “war on terror”.

The terrible consequences of these policies have now demonstrated their folly. The standing of the United States has suffered serious, lasting damage in the eyes of the world, while groups such as Al Qaeda have been strengthened and encouraged. As a result, the Bush Administration’s contempt for international law in numerous contexts has severely hindered our efforts to fight terror.

We therefore call on Prof. Yoo:

1) To follow the example of Boalt Hall's finest alumnus, Chief Justice Earl Warren, by his expression of deep regret for supporting the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II;

2) To publicly and unequivocally repudiate his official governmental position with regards to the application of the Geneva Conventions as applied to prisoners captured by the United States anywhere in the world;

3) To use his influence with the Bush Administration to encourage United States compliance with the Geneva Conventions in all its military endeavors; and

4) To reject as immoral the use of interrogation techniques involving serious physical and psychological coercion, regardless of whether he believes they may or may not be technically defined as “torture” under existing laws.

Should Prof. Yoo refuse to take these actions, we would then call on him to resign as a faculty member of the Boalt School of Law.

We emphasize that this petition does not constitute an attack on academic freedom, as we fervently believe in a free and open discussion of ideas; rather, our position is a response to those governmental actions taken by Prof. Yoo in his official capacity as Deputy Assistant Attorney General that have caused severe damage to this nation, and the world.

Sincerely,

It was signed by many current students and alumni. As of May 29, the total was 295 signatures.

Then at graduation, some 3Ls participated in a silent protest by wearing red arm bands over their gowns. This action received news coverage before graduation at The Oakland Tribune and afterwards in an AP story.

Then, a week after the first message, on Friday May 28, a number of students received the following email:

Fellow Boalties,

We are a group of students that are becoming concerned with the growing anti-free speech climate at Boalt Hall. In response to calls for faculty resignation and looming speech codes, we have drafted a petition to send an unequivocal message to the Boalt Administration that the student body demands that free speech and academic liberty be protected.

We understand that most of you strongly disagree with the opinions expressed by these faculty members, but we urge you to sign the petition, not as an affirmation of the challenged beliefs, but as a display of your commitment to free speech rights. Any feelings you have as to the content of the speech may be addressed in the "comments" section of the petition. This space is provided so that you do not feel bound by the language of the petition, please express yourself.

http://www.petitiononline.com/boaltfs/petition.html

Most importantly, forward this on to people you think would be interested.

Many Thanks
The Concerned Boalt Students Coalition
concernedboaltstudents at yahoo.com

The counter-petition read:

To: Interim Dean Robert Berring, Assistant Dean Victoria Ortiz, and Dean Christopher Edley

Petition in Defense of Academic Liberty, Free Speech, and Open Discourse at Boalt Hall School of Law

We, the undersigned students and alumni of the Boalt Hall School of Law, put forth this petition to express our concern about the growing threat to academic liberty and free speech at our institution.

In April of this year, interim Dean Robert C. Berring responded to a student complaint that alleged racially insensitive comments had been made by a guest lecturer during a role-play exercise. Dean Berring's solution to this incident was the proposed drafting of a speech code for Boalt faculty, which would outline what language or subjects were permissible, in effect issuing a prior restraint on professors' speech. Still more troubling was Berring's stated plan to resolve the "personnel issues involved;" this comment seems to suggest reprisal against the non-tenured faculty member that had invited the guest lecturer.

More recently, a group of Boalt students has called for Professor John C. Yoo to repudiate a January 2002 memorandum, written while he was a Deputy Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. In this memorandum, Professor Yoo analyzed the legal status of non-state enemy combatants, namely Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives, and proposed that said combatants were not protected by the Geneva Convention. This group of students has called for Professor Yoo's resignation as a professor of law if he does not repudiate his past findings.

Regardless of the merit or veracity of the above viewpoints, the undersigned are unanimous in the belief that unfettered dialogue should be the paramount concern of any academic institution. The proposed retaliatory measures, if realized, would undo decades of free speech tradition at U.C. Berkeley, which has been a haven for both mass movements and the exposition of unpopular opinions. As such, we fully support the right of those students to engage in protest and to petition, but we reject the imposition of speech codes and retaliatory hiring and retention practices.

The enterprise of law school is a laboratory in which opinions and beliefs are ushered into our great marketplace of ideas. History and public consensus are free to reject any of these espoused views, but such a determination can only come about through free and open discourse.

We therefore make the following resolution:

1) We, the undersigned, reject the May 21st petition which called for Professor Yoo's resignation, and condemn any attempt to implement a new speech code or the enforcement of any preexisting speech code.

2) We, the undersigned, reaffirm our abiding belief in the right of free speech and academic freedom.

3) We, the undersigned, demand that the Boalt Administration reaffirm its commitment to academic liberty and free speech, and formally recognize these rights as inviolable.

We, the undersigned, make this resolution, and do so without expressing approval for any of the viewpoints at issue.

Sincerely,

A day later it had 116 signatures.

I have not signed either petition. This is primarily because I think both make excellent points and both fail to appreciate all the relevant points the other side makes. I also think the entire debate would proceed better if all involved had read the memo. As I said, I have not read it because I cannot find a copy. On the other hand, the key concerns I have with the petitions might not be resolved by the memo's content itself. Here's why.

The memo could, from a legal standpoint, be well-argued or not. If it is a total sham piece intended only to support a convenient course of action for the Bush administration, then it should be condemned and might be so irresponsible as to represent something that we would not want from any Boalt faculty member. I doubt that its arguments are that bad.

However, even if it is well-argued from a legal standpoint, one only needs to hear the conclusion to rightly say that it is certainly short-sighted. A large purpose of the Geneva convention is self-protection. We agree to treat prisoners humanely, in part, because we want our own soldiers to be treated humanely when they become prisoners. So, good legal distinctions or not, the obvious consequence of deciding not to treat some prisoners according to the guidelines of the Geneva Convention is that others, be they nations or rogue groups, will be more likely to find their own legal distinctions to justify treating our soldiers and citizens inhumanely as well. This is an ill-advised path to follow. I am not sure it rises to the level of calling on a faculty member to resign.

But another motivation for the Geneva convention is a simple appreciation of human dignity. Again, one need only hear the conclusion of the memo to rightly say that it seems to fail to adequately appreciate the importance of treating all people with respect. This is a core value of American society and Common Law legal systems. Suppose you had an accused criminal that was guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt. Why do we provide this person with all the same legal protections of the innocent? (Think on that.) I believe one big reason is a simple appreciation of human dignity. We say to the guilty person, "We so respect human dignity, that we will provide you with all the protections of our legal system. We value human dignity too much to do otherwise." There are other reasons for this practice as well.

The issue here also goes beyond legal due process concerns to the justification of torture. Ethicists debate whether the information a terrorist might reveal could ever justify torture. I do not know of any who believe it can be justified except in the narrowest of dire circumstances. Human dignity again demands such practices be abhorred. But the question here becomes, does a law professor's failure to agree with or appreciate the value our legal system places on due process rights and the values of human dignity in these contexts rise to the level of requiring his resignation? I think that's a tough question about which reasonable people could disagree. Here, in particular, the actual text of the memo might be crucial.

Those who called for resignation make a distinction between Yoo's public policy work for Government with his academic endeavors. They call for his resignation, not because of anything he said in a classroom or as part of his academic work, but because of his actions while in Government. This distinction is supposed to support the notion that one can call for his resignation while supporting his academic freedom. I believe this distinction fails. You inevitably implicate academic freedom when you suggest resignation as the solution for extra-academic speech. Call on him to repudiate his views, call on him to rethink them, call on him to better justify them, but resignation from an academic post seems an inappropriate solution.

I doubt one could find a more staunch defender of academic freedom than I. I agree that "unfettered dialogue should be the paramount concern of any academic institution." But I also am willing to be persuaded that some actions in some contexts can be so irresponsible as to not represent the good judgment we expect of our faculty. A friend recently reminded me that those in the Nazi government likely wrote many memos supporting their actions, and might protest they were just doing their jobs or that they had good legal distinctions on which to base their positions. But there comes a point when the fascists have taken power that you have to stand up for what is right and doing otherwise is immoral and irresponsible. Does the present situation go this far? I'm not sure.

I do believe that there is probably nothing the Bush administration has done that is more misguided or more dangerous than its treatment of those it detains. From the Arab "material witnesses" detained after 9/11 for months on end to Guantanamo to Padilla and Hamdi to Abu Ghraib, the administration's view that it can presume guilt, fail to provide counsel, not bring charges, etc. is frightening and contrary to true American values. An argument could be made that supporting such a sweeping reversal of important civil liberties is so irresponsible that it has no place among Boalt's faculty. I have yet to see that argument made convincingly though. I think it is difficult for anyone truly committed to academic freedom. (I would also revise the above to say that the administration's policy of pre-emptive war is probably more dangerous and frightening.)

So, without further information, I think those who call for resignation may be unjustified in thinking there is a relevant distinction that justifies calling on a faculty member to resign for their work in government policy-making. Any call for resignation implicates academic freedom. But I also think the staunch defenders of academic freedom have to ask themselves tough questions about its limits. Let's have a look at the memo. Let's think about the consequences of the policies of this administration. Let's think about the values that support our commitment to due process rights and the rights of prisoners to humane treatment, free from coercion. A careful articulation of those values and their place in the present context might lead us to believe that those who fail to appreciate these values are miserable failures as faculty members at a law school.

Yoo is quoted in the AP article above as saying, "I'm happy to listen to their viewpoints. Beyond that I'm not going to change what I think." I hope this represents an offer to be persuaded by reasoned argumentation. If so, more effort should be expended on carefully explaining why Yoo's current view is unsound. He says he'll listen and he might even be persuaded. If on the other hand, his declaration that he's not going to change what he thinks represents an unwillingness to even entertain the possibility that an alternative viewpoint could persuade him to change his mind, then that attitude would truly be one worthy of requiring his resignation.

I also posted this in an online forum for Boalt students.

Mastermind of Sept. 11 Attack?

This bizarre statement appears at whitehouse.gov:

We have captured almost two-thirds of the known Al-Qaida leaders, including the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Who is this mastermind of the September 11 attacks that has already been captured? I thought the mastermind was Osama bin Laden, and that only conspiracy theorists believed he had already been captured and that Bush was just waiting to reveal this once the election draws nearer. Is this another pre-emptive blunder?

Or are they seriously claiming that Saddam Hussein, who has been captured, was the mastermind behind 9/11? No wonder so many Americans are misinformed about the total lack of connection between Iraq and 9/11.

Perhaps they mean Zacarias Moussaoui, who also is in custody, and is believed to be the "20th hijacker" that never made it on board. But this makes no sense either, as I have never heard it reported that he was a "mastermind." If anyone within the nineteen hijackers has been touted as a "mastermind" it was Mohammed Atta, but he hasn't been captured, since he died with the other hijackers on 9/11.

Only Google can solve this riddle. I typed in: mastermind behind 9/11 and guess what I found? The very first link is entitled: Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11.

But then the next two links mention Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as a possible mastermind. (Remember him? He's the one whose photo defines "sleeper cell".) Then in the next link Ayman al-Zawahri is listed as a possible mastermind. The next link agrees with my first impression, listing Osama bin Laden as the mastermind. But best of all is link number seven, Barbara Bush was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Anyway, perhaps Sleepy Khalid was the mastermind, but it seems to me that this remains to be shown. Let's put him on trial and establish such a fact before we vaguely tout it on a government website in a misleading way. Where is Khalid anyway? Nobody knows. He was a high-profile capture that made lots of news (over a year ago) and I'd bet not even reporters that follow this could tell you where we are holding him today. If that's the case for the high-profile captures, how many more nobodys have we got stored away somewhere, being tortured, or just holding them indefinitely without charges? This is not America. (Be sure to read that next-to-last link on the torture of Iraqi prisoners by the U.S. Military. Seymour Hersh has once again produced an amazing piece of journalism for the New Yorker.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the alleged actions of these guys. I just happen to actually believe in all that "rule of law" mumbo-jumbo that we toss around so casually. I believe that citizen or not, the simple dignity of human beings requires us not to torture prisoners, to charge prisoners with crimes for which we have sufficient evidence, to provide such individuals with adequate legal counsel, and to afford such individuals a fair trial. Instead, the Bush administration has us torturing prisoners, holding people indefinitely without charges, refusing to provide captives with adequate legal counsel, and offering no trials or sham justice they call "military tribunals." This is not likely to be a topic that would win hearts and minds in an election race, but I believe one of the best reasons to get rid of Bush in November is because we might be able to make some headway on these fundamental principles that are supposed to make our country great.

Update: It looks like the BBC and some international aid agencies have gotten worried about the locations of some of these people too. (New strategy for home readers: read Share Alike, and 19 days later, it'll be covered by the BBC too!) ;-)

Ralph Nader, Best Friend of Republicans

From the New York Times:

If the election were held today, 46 percent of registered voters would vote for Mr. Kerry and 44 percent for Mr. Bush, the poll found. With Mr. Nader in the race, Mr. Bush would get 43 percent, Mr. Kerry 41 percent and Mr. Nader 5 percent, suggesting that nearly all of Mr. Nader's support comes from voters who would otherwise back the Democrat.

Arianna Huffington, at Boalt yesterday, told us what she says to her Green Party and Independent friends, "You don't discuss remodelling, when your house is on fire."

The folks who tried to petition Ralph not to run have updated their flash movie to try to swing Ralph's supporters back to sanity, since Ralph himself wouldn't listen. Check out the flash. It's very well done.

The only other hope that I can see is Huffington's idea to stop focusing narrowly and solely on "the swing vote" and to instead go after the fifty million eligible voters that don't typically vote. After the 2000 debacle, it should be easier to convince them that their vote can matter. Four more years of Bush would leave this country and this world unrecognizable to someone from November 1, 2000. Something has to be done.

Kerry on Civil Unions

Just posted this comment to Kerry's blog.
--
I just read an article about the Oregon court ruling that the state had to recognize the 3000+ same-sex marriages already performed there. In the article, Kerry was again described as opposing gay marriage and favoring civil unions. I wanted to say to Kerry, his staff, and his supporters: This is just wrong.

Sure, I'm going to vote for John in the fall, but it is problems with his views like this that are preventing me from contributing $$ to the campaign. The line to draw is not between civil unions and marriages. Because settling for civil unions is settling for indefensible discrimination. Kerry should instead draw the line between religious marriage and civil marriage. Churches and their members can believe what they want and perform only the marriages they approve. No one wants to change that. But THE STATE cannot discriminate in its performance of civil marriages.

I know Kerry's camp is worried about him appearing to waffle on any issue, as the Bushies have already trotted out that attack method. But the American people can understand something like the following announcement: "I've listened to my supporters. I've thought deeply about the issue. I've searched my heart. What I come away with is a deep conviction that anything less than civil marriage for same-sex couples is discriminatory and unfair. So, yes. I've changed my position on this issue, but that is something that distinguishes me from President Bush. He can't even think of a mistake that he's made and so he cannot learn from his mistakes. We need a President capable of careful reflection on hard issues. I will be that President."

Make us proud Kerry. Do the right thing and release a decision like that.

Arguments Against Software Patents

Brad Templeton writes on his blog, Brad Ideas, that software and hardware are the same thing and so it bothers him that some would allow patents on hardware but disallow them for software. What follows is the comment I posted on his blog.
--
I like your idea for filtering out some of the bad patents.

You're also right that some people simply say, "we should not allow patenting of software." I would like to put forward a couple arguments for that conclusion, rather than simply state it. Then I also have a question for you.

A few arguments against software patents off the top of my head:

0. Since software is already afforded copyright protection, which lasts the life of the author plus seventy years, software production is already adequately incentivized. To additionally provide patent protection to software drastically skews the bargain with the public that all "exclusive rights" bargains seek to achieve and instead provides the software developer with an unnecessary windfall.

1. Software patents have a disparate negative impact on the development of Free software, which for other public policy reasons we would prefer to promote. Free software developers, unlike proprietary software developers, are typically fiscally unable or philosophically unwilling to license patented software techniques. The benefits that Free software provides to both businesses and individuals are worth more to the public than providing a monopoly right to a software patent holder.

2. Software, by its very nature, is susceptible to fewer techniques for achieving its ends than are many other industries. Consequently, where in other industries one can "design around" a patented technique in order to achieve the same end and to thereby compete in the market with the patent holder, "designing around" in the software world is often much more difficult or impossible. There is often simply one or only a few reasonable or efficient ways to accomplish a given software task and if patented, unreasonably enormous amounts of software would be infringing or require licensing.

3. Software cannot be distinguished from mathematical algorithms, and we have traditionally not allowed the patenting of mathematical algorithms because we recognize how stifling to innovation such a practice would be.

4. The software and computer industries advance at a pace totally unlike other industries where we offer patents. Consequently, providing a 20-year patent term for software has a totally different impact in its industry than such a term does in other industries. This is not an argument for the abolition of software patents, but instead suggests that if we are to have such patents, they should perhaps only last two to five years. (How much software do you have from 1984 that really needed to be protected by patents these last twenty years to serve as an adequate incentive for its authors to produce it? None.)

Question: This isn't the first time I've heard a knowledgeable person disclaim any distinction between hardware and software. But, just as you're dissatisfied with those who provide no arguments for not allowing software patents, I can't accept this lack of distinction without a persuasive argument. Do you have one? It seems to me that there are several principled distinctions between the two.
--
(I should have also noted that another way to avoid the inconsistency that troubles him is to abolish patents altogether. This would probably be a better course than allowing software patents, so far as I can tell.) For rhetorical effect it would probably also have been a good idea to include Bill Gates' famous quotation:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."

We're headed that way now.

PBS and the Point of Life

What follows is an e-mail I just sent to the members of my law school module (the small group of about 32 that you take all your classes with first semester).

Hello all,

Now that we're past that paper, I wanted to encourage people to try to catch what may be the best thing I've ever seen on TV. This week PBS aired The New Americans, an Independent Lens documentary, over two nights, for about six hours total. You can learn more at:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans

although I don't presently know of any additional airtimes.

For me, I thought it was a good program to help people get the whole point of life. It seems to me that most of the world (or maybe just most of the first world) has an unfortunate view on this. They apparently think that what they should primarily do with their lives is acquire wealth and things. I think this is unfortunate not only because of the selfish worldview it represents, but also because if these people continue in this misguided pursuit, they are ultimately going to be unhappy and disappointed. That may be just what I took away. Don't get me wrong, I think Porsche Boxsters are as cool as the next person, I just don't also expect that my having one or not will determine whether I feel at peace on my deathbed.

More clearly, the documentary illustrated how rich each of us already is merely by the fact of having U.S. citizenship. The show has you think about a girl from Mexico who wants to finish high school, but whose parents cannot afford the necessary school uniforms to send her. A girl who, when her family is finally allowed to enter the U.S., learns that California won't allow someone 18 years old to attend public high school. A girl who, without reliable transportation to attend night school, ends up just picking pesticide-covered strawberries for you and I to buy at Safeway.

The myth of the American self-made man is strong. Our culture inculcates it in us from birth. But it seems fairly clear to me that it is just that, a myth. Take most of us at Boalt, for example. We have each worked our butts off to get here and have achieved countless impressive things thus far through lots of hard work. But when I think of my own case, I have to recognize that I didn't even want to attend high school, but I was in a culture, a country, a community, a family, and a peer group that made doing otherwise unthinkable. Sure, I worked hard in college and did well, but I also had parents who worked hard their whole lives to pay for me to do so, and to create in me the mindset that I obviously would attend college, do well, and graduate. (And they were only in a position to do that because of the hard work of their own parents, etc. If one starts honestly tracing one's support network, you'll stop being so impressed with oneself pretty quickly. Not to suggest that any of us has this fault.)

The documentary also tracks a family in Nigeria whose brother is murdered by the government because of his outspoken political views. Their own houses, businesses, etc. are bulldozed as added punishment. One of the brothers, who has a chemical engineering degree from a Nigerian university, struggles in the U.S. as a department-store security guard. The examples continue.

One upshot for me was that there are a lot of good people in this world, doing the best that they can, and having a mighty hard time achieving a decent quality of life. Not that I haven't had this realization before, but it reinforced it. If one has the slightest bit of compassion for other human beings, then one has to question the worth of devoting one's life primarily to self-enrichment. The truths exposed in the show are admittedly frustrating, because I don't know exactly what our society could or should do to solve the myriad of problems it presents. It's vastly complicated, but one can definitely see that trickle-down economists need not apply.

But since I can't (yet) do anything to solve every global problem in one fell swoop, I deal with the resulting frustration by doing the things that I believe will help and that are within my control. A large part of that involves trying to make choices with my life that are directed at helping others, not merely directed at enriching me. It also involves encouraging others to make similar decisions. Our module may need to hear this sort of thing less than any other, but I care about each of you. This is a time when each of us will make big decisions about the directions our lives will take. I believe that gaining a global perspective of where we already are can help those decisions come out better. Better for you, and better for the world.

(You may now crack jokes at my expense. But you likely know that I'm just crazy enough to be sincere here and to not be dissuaded by cynicism. I don't intend to offend, but the medium of e-mail and my own ineptitude limits my ability to convey my intentions perfectly.)

Sincerely,
Brian

Rep. Henry Waxman Exposes the Lies

Check this out:

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/

Who lied. What they said exactly. When. Where. Why it's misleading.

I love the internet.

Sheikh Terra - Dirty Kuffar Video

This is troubling. See the rap video that people are talking about. It reminds me of one of the things that makes me so angry about the Bush rhetoric. He repeatedly says he is fighting against people "who hate freedom" and who "hate our liberty" and so on. That's just idiotic on its face. No one prefers to be enslaved rather than free. What they hate is what everyone hates. They hate seeing people they know and love killed. They hate soldiers that glory in killing. That cheer. That think killing another human being is "awesome" and want to "do that again." But let's be clear. Just because I don't think Bush is their savior, doesn't mean I think Osama is. Bush is their enemy. Sure. But Osama is too. So is anyone that tells them to commit suicide. Their enemy is anyone that tells them to waste their lives in the taking of other innocent life. Their enemy is anyone that tells them that more killing is the answer to their problems. Their enemy is poverty. Their enemy is ignorance. Their enemy is the political structures of almost every country in the Middle East. Their enemy is the greed of politicians. Those things are our enemies too. We have to get new leadership in this country that sees this. That is willing to adopt a progressive foreign policy that tries to heal wounds rather than create new ones. And since such leadership could change their plight for the better as well as ours, regime change here is more important than regime change there.

Update: It seems the original link is no longer working. Here's the video in Real Audio format.

Update 6/23/04: MSNBC apparently played the video yesterday. Here is a larger and higher quality version where you can read more of the text. (.wmv format.)

Hey, It Worked For Reagan

Donald Rumsfeld claims not to recall Tony Blair's claim that Iraq could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes. Stunning. If, like Donald, you missed it, the claim that Iraq could deploy its deadly WMDs within 45 minutes appears FOUR times in the UK Dossier on Iraq, including Tony Blair's FOREWORD. I mean really. Give us a break.

Rumsfeld expects us to believe either that 1) he didn't even read the foreword to a intelligence dossier produced by our closest ally regarding the specific nature of the purported threat posed by a nation we were considering going to war with!? or 2) that despite the careful study of the dossier he made, as befits his job as Secretary of Defense, he now, only a year later, has no recollection of a key claim made in that dossier about the specific nature of the purported threat posed by Iraq!? That's absurd!

In either case, he deserves to lose his job. If the first option above is true and Rumsfeld likes to play ostrich, then he should be impeached, fired, and charged criminally for gross dereliction of duty. If instead, his memory is that bad, then he must also be fired for not having the requisite competence that the job requires during a time of war. I mean really. If this is true then Rumsfeld may have also forgotten that we have troops in Afghanistan! We sent them there well OVER a year ago, which we've learned is beyond his memory's capacity. No wonder troops are complaining about their longer than usual tours of duty! The Secretary of Defense has forgotten what he did with them!

Now, I wrote the last few sentences as a joke, but I'm sad to report that it's actually true! This article reports about a Florida unit that kept having its return delayed. When concerned family members called to inquire about their return, they were told that the troops were already back in Florida! Of course it turns out, as the family members already knew, the troops were still in Baghdad! The article actually says, "It seems the mix-up came from the upper levels of the Department of Defense." Upper levels, huh? They asked Rummy!!!

A Simple Question

Brilliant.

"Mister President, can you give us the names of three National Guard Service colleagues who served with you between May 1972 and October 1973?"

Now a journalist needs to ask that question before Karl Rove starts thinking up the President's answer for him. Also, read from another Guardsman at the time what is currently the most e-mailed piece at the Washington Post.

Aaron on Campaign Finance Reform

Aaron Swartz is pointing out the solution to the biggest problem facing the United States today. Or at least, that's what I called it about eleven months ago on this blog. The impending war and our helplessness to do anything about it led me to say,

the most important issue facing this country today is, of all things, campaign finance reform. (emphasis in original!)

I still believe this and am amazed at the brilliance of the solution Aaron advocates. Of course, that may be because I suggested something similar last October. I said,

I believe this may be the most pressing issue facing our country. Yes, worse than terrorism. The terrorists of 9/11 struck once over two years ago, but the corporate terrorists that control our government are terrorizing our country every day. I want radical reform. The government should give the candidates from each party that had at least x% of the vote in the last election the exact same amount of money (and let me tell you it ain't 100 million) and should mandate the major networks give each of these candidates the exact same amount of air time (free). Remember, they are the people's airwaves and we just lease them to NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. For an important civic cause like this, we can take the airwaves back.

The key difference in the plan Aaron advocates and mine is that his plan provides greater access. My party-based prior-election percentage idea tends to lock out third parties, whereas the solution Aaron advocates opens the process up to anyone who can complete the $5 fund-raising scheme. I am pretty much sold on this version, although I do need to learn more about it. It has to be structured so as to avoid the problem California faced in its ridiculous recall election where there where over 100 candidates because getting on the ballot had such a low barrier to entry. That was absurdly costly as it was, so we certainly cannot have in place a system that also gives all these crackpots several million dollars for a big campaign. But the fact that such a scheme is working in two states already is great news on this front. I love it. Now, let's force our Congress (and our states) to adopt such reforms! You can write your reps now.

Bush or Palpatine?

Who said it? President G. W. Bush or Emperor Palpatine? (Star Wars Trilogy) Read over these fourteen quotations and try to guess. I don't want to spoil it for you, but the really funny part is when you change your mind three or four times..."That one's Bush. No, wait. Palpatine. No. No. I'm gonna say Bush." link courtesy Eyeteeth.

Bush and the WMDs

A lot of fuss is being made lately as the Bush White House has realized that its best strategy on the non-existent WMDs in Iraq is to bite the (missing) bullet and admit that they aren't going to find them. The next step in their strategy is to distract everyone with investigations into how they could have been so misled by "intelligence failures." The point of these so-called investigations will be to guarantee that something like this never happens again.

Hooey.

The best explanation for these "intelligence failures" yet published was already available back in October 2003. Seymour Hersh's article, The Stovepipe, in the New Yorker. Hersh explains how the Bush administration sought out unfiltered and unvetted intelligence in an almost psychotic attempt to be misled. It's a stunning piece of journalism. Read it.

But even if the story Hersh tells becomes well known, I think it still paints the Bush White House in too positive a light. The truth that is even more accurate than Hersh's is already out as well. Paul O'Neill has already told us that this Bush Administration came into office dead set on war with Iraq. After September 11, they had what they wanted, an excuse. Or more accurately, a motivator for the public. They could dangle this threat of WMDs in front of a frightened public more effectively after 9/11. Wolfowitz has already told Vanity Fair that, "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

So, while investigations into so-called intelligence failures are cute, they don't get to the real problem: Bush lied. They all lied. They knew they were making it up all along. How could anyone have watched them in the days leading up to the war, going around stumping for the war like it was a political campaign, (ahh, but it was a political campaign, that's the point), and not realize they were lying?

What has really happened recently is that the Bush Administration is looking ahead to the election. They know that anyone who voted for the war (Kerry/Edwards) will be able to legitimately say that they were duped by the White House into voting for the war, and that it's not their fault that they were misled. (It's unclear that we should accept this, given how many people saw through the Bush lies, and the high standard we should hold our elected officials to, but most seem willing to accept this line of reasoning.) The Bush Administration is scared that they won't have a retort to that stance on the war, so they are jumping on the bandwagon: "We were duped too!" they'll say. "It was those darn intelligence failures! Which, we have investigated, and corrected, and now that will never happen again." Bull.

We shouldn't let them get away with once again revising history. The facts are: The Bush Administration was never duped about the WMDs in Iraq. Rather, they lied about the WMDs in Iraq and duped the country. The "intelligence failure" that really matters is that so many people keep on believing this White House.

[UPDATE 2/2/2004: It turns out I'm not the only conspiracy nut that believes this. Someone just sent me this Mother Jones article. Wow.]

Fan Letter

An e-mail I just sent...
--
Hello Professor McWilliams,

I read your recent Chronicle article. Then, after much google-searching, I found your Bush editorial. I thought I'd write to say that I think you are on to something in that editorial and that you've put it in a way that more clearly nails it than anything else I've read. So, start a new folder. Next to Angry Letters, name one Fan Letters, and drop this one in it.

I wonder if the point you make helps Democrats choose between Dean and Clark. My first impulse was to say, yes, because Clark, as a general, might be the only yeoman who could wield the sledgehammer that would get enough people's attention. But, then, Dean has somehow developed this reputation for being "angry" and so perhaps that fiesty nature will be just the thing Americans will respond to best.

You seem persuaded that none of the above are up to the task. Why is that? It seems to me that one of the reasons is that another truth about Americans is that they tire quickly of (yet are often swayed by) attack-politics, and so the Democrat that yields a hammer against Bush plays a dangerous game.

You're right that Americans will not suffer detailed argumentation. But, to the extent your editorial pinpoints a truth about Americans, it is one that deeply saddens me. It seems the further questions that must be asked are WHY is it that Americans have no patience for principled arguments and HOW can that be changed, if it can.

Tell ABC to let the Voters Decide

I just sent this e-mail to ABC's Peter Jennings and NightLine in response to ABC's decision to cut off coverage of the Kucinich, Sharpton, and Mosley-Braun campaigns.
---
Hi,

I'm writing to say I'm disturbed by ABC's decision to cut off its coverage of the Kucinich, Sharpton, and Mosley-Braun campaigns. Without a single vote being cast, ABC is deciding whose message should get to voters. This is wrong.

The choice of these three is especially problematic, as in my view, they have put forth some of the best positions on the issues of any of the candidates. Their contributions to the debates keep the other candidates honest and force them to deal seriously with the issues.

You would be better off cutting Lieberman, Gephart, and Kerry. They've had their chance in politics and blown it. Whether ABC is aware of it or not, the Democrats in this country are fed up with these Republicrats that are indistinguishable from their opposition. How many Americans bought Al Franken's or Michael Moore's recent books? Millions. Do you think those people are voting for these idiots that voted for this disastrous war? Hell no.

It is my current intention to vote for Kucinich if he is still running at the time of the California primary. I know many others who intend to do the same. And my favorite comment by any candidate in a debate thus far comes from Ms. Mosley-Braun. While detailing the wage disparity facing women vs. men, especially black and latina women, she pointed out that latinas are paid 56 cents on the dollar compared to men. Then she said, "And you can't buy a dollar loaf of bread for 56 cents." Damn right.

Let the people decide, not ABC. Once several state primaries pass, some candidates will drop out on their own. But before populous states like New York and California have their primaries, it is simply wrong for ABC to decide who voters will be enabled to learn about.

I look forward to your announcement changing this unfair policy.

Brian W. Carver
[contact info snipped]

Kucinich Ad

Kucinich has a new ad up that a conservative blogger I won't link to thought distasteful. Judge for yourself. One can argue that the deaths of U.S. soldiers ought not be used for political gain in a campaign. But that's not the story here. People are in fact dying. These deaths are caused in large part by the policies and actions of our current administration. If a candidate for President can't say, "Hey! I have a better plan that will cost fewer American lives!" then something is wrong.

Especially when the reasons we were given for this conflict (Iraqi weapons of mass destruction posing a threat to the world's safety and Iraqi links to Al Qaeda) have proven to be a sham, and instead we see corporate administration backers seemingly rewarded with reconstruction contracts, it might just be unethical NOT to say something about this. Otherwise, we sit idly by while more Americans die.

And for what? We're still waiting to find out. It's not Al Qaeda. We've apparently given up on finding Osama. It's not Saddam. We can't find him either. It's not weapons of mass destruction. They never existed. The new reason is apparently to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. But it's fairly clear the administration really doesn't care about that either, because they've just decided the new governmental structure has to be set up by election time '04, like it or not. Otherwise Bush won't get to fly in on another aircraft carrier and declare victory again. That could look bad for him and might hurt him in the polls! Whether the Iraqi's get a workable long-term solution matters far less to Bush than whether he gets to keep his job another four years.

Oh. And let's place a bet. If he does win, I bet he takes another month-long vacation. Don't remember that? Yeah that was the 32 days he spent in Crawford playing golf and watching his dogs chase armadillos right before 9/11. Time when he could have been acting on the explicit warnings the outgoing members of the Clinton administration gave him, that Osama should be a top priority. But, if you'll recall, a missile defense system seemed like a better priority to this administration. That's another topic though...

On the ad: American soldiers are dying. That can happen under any President, and even when a Democrat is elected in '04, it will continue to happen. But, if it is going to happen, we owe it to them, their families, and ourselves to know for sure just why they are dying and we had better be confident it is a worthy cause. I can't say for sure that I know that right now. That's a problem that requires attention.

Congressional District Gerrymandering

You may have heard in the news over the last year about the big battle over re-drawing the Congressional districts in Texas. The Democrats fled the state to prevent a quorum, so that the Republicans couldn't force them to accept this bizarre re-districting map that guarantees more Republican seats next election. The Democrats in Texas eventually lost that battle.

You might not recall that the same thing happened in Pennsylvania, and now the crazy map there is being challenged in the Supreme Court. This New Yorker article details partisan gerrymandering like none I've ever read. Here's a particularly shocking excerpt:

A Democrat first elected to Congress in 1994, [Frank] Mascara represented a district in the rugged industrial country south of Pittsburgh. “My district had been more or less the same for about a hundred years,” Mascara told me on the porch of his house in Charleroi, which overlooks a glass-making plant on the banks of the Monongahela River. The son of a steelworker and the first member of his family to go to college, Mascara worked his way through county politics until he won his seat in the House. “A lot of people couldn’t believe that a congressman lived in a house like mine,” he said, noting its aluminum siding and probable resale value of about thirty-five thousand dollars. “But that’s the kind of guy I am,” he said. “I go to church down the street. I represent the average person.”

With the Republicans in charge in Harrisburg, Mascara knew he would be little more than a spectator to the redistricting process. “I still thought my district would for the most part remain intact,” he said. “That didn’t occur.” Mascara had met me at a McDonald’s in Charleroi’s ragged downtown, and then led me to his home on a quiet street called Lincoln Avenue, where we parked because he has no garage. From his porch, he pointed to our cars. “The cars are in the twelfth congressional district, and my house is in the eighteenth,” he explained. “When they drew the new lines, they started in Allegheny County, which is north of here, and made, like, a finger out of that district, and the finger went down the middle of the street where I live. The line came down to my house and stopped.” The Republicans’ meticulous line-drawing through Charleroi was designed to force Mascara into a primary battle with his fellow-Democrat John Murtha, which it did. Murtha defeated Mascara, ending his congressional career and reducing the Democratic presence in the House by one.

The story suggests how unpredictable the Supreme Court is on this issue. I really hope they mandate a non-partisan solution like Iowa now has, because this gerrymandering nonsense is a frightening attack on our Republic.

FBI Let Innocents Get Death Sentences

Umm, why do I have to read an Australian Newspaper to learn that the FBI stood idly by while innocent people were sentenced to death? Aha. Here's the same story in the New York Times.

So, when people say to you, "I'm not concerned about the FBI having greater powers, because I've got nothing to hide." Be sure to respond, "I would agree with you were it not for history. If they had not abused their powers in the past, then perhaps we could trust them not to abuse them now. But they did abuse their powers then and so there's no reason to allow that to happen again."

Take a Lesson

New Hampshire (Motto: Live Free or Die) has the following in their state Constitution:

[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

Adopted June 2, 1784

Take a lesson from the proud people of New Hampshire, my friends. Regime change begins at home.

Patriot II Provision Passes Congress --Surprise!

So, you don't like the vast expansions of power that Patriot II would have granted Ashcroft & Co without any judicial oversight? Fine, we won't pass Patriot II, we'll just sneak its provisions into Intelligence Spending Bills when you're not looking!

The lack of accountability for the bills our Congress passes is astonishing. I would not be surprised if it never comes out who covertly added this provision to this bill. This is the same scenario as when a provision excusing pharmaceutical companies from liability (despite litigation already in progress!) for autism potentially caused by vaccines was slipped into a Homeland Security Bill on the sly. Republican Dick Armey eventually fessed up and there was such an outcry the provision was later removed.

It's time for a similar outcry regarding this drastic change in the scope of the unsupervised, unchecked, and unconstitutional surveillance powers that the Ashcroft regime seems committed to enact despite public opposition.

Write your congresscritters and let them know that you'd at least like them to debate taking away your privacy and civil liberties before they do it.

Update: If you'd like to read exactly how the definition of "financial institution" was updated. See, the text of the bill. Which merely refers you to 31 USC Section 5312(a)(2) which says,

(2) "financial institution" means--
(A) an insured bank (as defined in section 3(h) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813(h)));
(B) a commercial bank or trust company;
(C) a private banker;
(D) an agency or branch of a foreign bank in the United States;
(E) any credit union;
(F) a thrift institution;
(G) a broker or dealer registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.);
(H) a broker or dealer in securities or commodities;
(I) an investment banker or investment company;
(J) a currency exchange;
(K) an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of travelers' checks, checks, money orders, or similar instruments;
(L) an operator of a credit card system;
(M) an insurance company;
(N) a dealer in precious metals, stones, or jewels;
(O) a pawnbroker;
(P) a loan or finance company;
(Q) a travel agency;
(R) a licensed sender of money or any other person who engages as a business in the transmission of funds, including any person who engages as a business in an informal money transfer system or any network of people who engage as a business in facilitating the transfer of money domestically or internationally outside of the conventional financial institutions system;
(S) a telegraph company;
(T) a business engaged in vehicle sales, including automobile, airplane, and boat sales;
(U) persons involved in real estate closings and settlements;
(V) the United States Postal Service;
(W) an agency of the United States Government or of a State or local government carrying out a duty or power of a business described in this paragraph;
(X) a casino, gambling casino, or gaming establishment with an annual gaming revenue of more than $1,000,000 which--
(i) is licensed as a casino, gambling casino, or gaming establishment under the laws of any State or any political subdivision of any State; or
(ii) is an Indian gaming operation conducted under or pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act other than an operation which is limited to class I gaming (as defined in section 4(6) of such Act);
(Y) any business or agency which engages in any activity which the Secretary of the Treasury determines, by regulation, to be an activity which is similar to, related to, or a substitute for any activity in which any business described in this paragraph is authorized to engage; or
(Z) any other business designated by the Secretary whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters.

Publishing the Diebold Memos Forever

I just sent the following e-mail to the fine folks at Why War? where you can find links to the damning Diebold memos.
--
Hello,

I've thought of a way you could forever make the memos public and there would be nothing Diebold could do about it. (Although your current campaign probably has accomplished this.)

The idea: Convince a U.S. Senator to read the memos during a fillibuster. Sen. John Edwards, who is running for president, has promised to fillibuster the Bogus Prescription Drug bill any time now. Senators often read all manner of irrelevant things while fillibustering, and they are immune from prosecution for anything they say, including supposed copyright violations, by the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause (U.S. Const., art. I, § 6, cl. 1). Anything they say is also published in the Congressional Record, and so the contents of the memos would be forever available there, and Diebold would have no recourse.

Senator Edwards contact info can be found here: http://edwards.senate.gov/contact.html

Good luck!
Brian
-------
It's actually simpler than that, as a Senator can simply ask that any set of documents be "entered into the record" and so the memos could be entered into the record in this way. This happened with the Pentagon Papers years ago. But, I think it's more fun and would garner more press attention if a Senator read a significant portion of the memos. Someone in the legislature needs to take notice of this serious issue regarding the integrity of our voting process.

My Comment on Dean's Blog

[I just posted this comment below on Dean's blog.]

Hello Dean supporters and Staff!

I want to ask something of Governor Dean. First, let me say that I've donated to the Dean campaign, have a Dean bumper sticker on my car, and a Dean poster in my Apartment window. He is, in my opinion, Democrats' (and America's) best hope. But I also like Clark and Kucinich as they oppose(d) the war and have a number of other policies I agree with. Despite my outward appearance of whole-hearted Dean support, I have a couple concerns that might change my vote in my primary.

They are:
1) Dean supports the death penalty. I don't support it under any circumstance. Intelligent people can disagree about this, so I'd ask Gov. Dean to pledge something like this: "I am a supporter of the death penalty, but since recent evidence has shown a troubling number of death-row inmates able to conclusively prove their innocence, if elected, I promise to immediately enact a moratorium on the Federal Death Penalty so that a full review can be done. Once the results of that are known, I may or may not re-establish a Federal Death penalty, based on what we find." He could point out he is just following the good example of the Governor from Illinois, here.

2) The NRA loves Dean. I'm not comfortable with the NRA loving the candidate I vote for. I'd like Gov. Dean to take a long hard look at his positions here and see if he can be moved to favor more gun control legislation than he currently does. I'm not opposed to people owning hunting rifles, but semi-automatic weapons, and the glut of handguns in this country are seriously problematic. What the solution is, I don't know, but I want a President who will commit to changing the status quo on this issue in a meaningful way.

3) Campaign Finance Reform. Perhaps I just haven't heard what Dean has to say about this, but I believe this may be the most pressing issue facing our country. Yes, worse than terrorism. The terrorists of 9/11 struck once over two years ago, but the corporate terrorists that control our government are terrorizing our country every day. I want radical reform. The government should give the candidates from each party that had at least x% of the vote in the last election the exact same amount of money (and let me tell you it ain't 100 million) and should mandate the major networks give each of these candidates the exact same amount of air time (free). Remember, they are the people's airwaves and we just lease them to NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. For an important civic cause like this, we can take the airwaves back. Other than that, absolutely no outside funding should be allowed. (Notice, I didn't say anything about funding during the primaries. What a candidate wants to spend to beat her fellow party members is her business, I think, but none of that money would carry over to the national race.)

That's a good start. So, what I ask of Governor Dean is this: Commit to doing the right thing on these three issues. I want you to truly represent the Democratic Wing of the Democratic party. I think you can best do that by taking up the three commitments above.

Brian

Alabama Votes No on Its Future

Alabama, my birth-place, voted no yesterday to a tax-plan pushed by their Republican governor. Now, if this were a G.W. Bush-styled tax plan that increases the tax burden on the poor while decreasing it on wealthy corporations, I'd cheer this defeat.

But this plan was different.

I probably disagree with Gov. Riley on almost everything except the wisdom of his defeated tax plan. He made a moral argument to Alabamians. He pointed out what most Republicans refuse to acknowledge. He said Alabama's past tax policies have favored big lumber companies at the expense of the poorest Alabamians. He made arguments based on the Biblical view that we have a duty to the poor. Now, that's a Republican who makes some sense for a change.

The money was to be used primarily for education, and would have improved Alabama's dismal placement in those nation-wide rankings. But Alabamians succumbed to the lies of traditional Republicans and believed that any tax increase was a bad tax increase. They failed to see that re-organizing the tax burden was the right thing to do, and in that failure they voted no to their future. It's very sad.

Know about Sherman Austin?

If you don't know what your government is doing in your name, then read this interview with Sherman Austin who is going to spend a year in Federal Prison because he hosted a web site the FBI (and his judge) didn't like. Somehow they read his mind and discovered evil intentions. Judge for yourself whether this is the guy you want in prison. Keep in mind that those Enron Execs that helped trash the economy remain unindicted...

Photographs from Iraq You Haven't Seen

While Americans celebrate our victory in Iraq with flags, bumper stickers, and dramatic aircraft carrier landings by our President, perhaps it would be useful to stop for a second and look at the results of this war. I mean actually look. With our eyes. The American Media has decided that your eyes are too sensitive to see these disturbing photos. But there they are: 20 pages of the images of war you haven't seen. I do not apologize for sending you to view such graphic and disturbing images. They serve an important purpose. They answer a question many people have asked lately: "Why do they hate us?" The answer is obvious. We're the people who did that. And now we're the people who are celebrating the fact that we did that. I cannot imagine anything more monstrous.

Before you object: Shouldn't we be glad the Iraqi people have a chance at freedom now? Of course. But it could never properly be the sort of jubilant happiness on display currently. Instead it's the sort of happiness a mother has whose only child was killed saving someone else's life. They ask her, "Aren't you happy about the great thing your child did?" She may well respond, "Yes. Yes I am. But also, I may never get over my deep sadness about the manner in which it was accomplished."

Oops! Now what?

Glenn Kessler and Dana Priest, of the Washington Post, are reporting that the US is growing worried as Iraqi Shiites gain clout. State department officials are admitting that they were just focused on removing Saddam Hussein, and had not given careful enough thought to what would replace him. Now, as the Shiite majority is demonstrating that it is highly organized (without telephones, TV, radio, or power they were able to stage an enormous pilgrimage to Karbala) US officials fear that the Shiite majority will seek to install an Islamic fundamentalist government. Well, the administration has been saying that the Iraqi people will get a government of their choosing. Now what will the US do when it turns out that Iraqis want a government worse (so far as US interests are concerned) than the one they had? Oops! Can we back up to March and listen to those who suggested this war could increase the likelihood of terrorism, not decrease it? Doh!

USA Holding Children at Guantanamo Bay

The story is just breaking today, but US officials have admitted that they are holding around 6 children (under age 16) as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Given that most of these detainees were taken prisoner two years ago, this would mean that, when captured, the juveniles were even younger than they are now! Let us say again, in unison: The Federal Government Has Gone Stark Raving Mad. You can read the story all these additional places: Annova story, Guardian story, Winnipeg Sun story, Kansas City Star story, CNN Europe story, ABC Online Australia story, San Francisco Chronicle story, Edmonton Sun story, Edinburgh Evening News story, and a Tuscaloosa News story. Keep track of more stories as they develop with this Google News search.

Siva Vaidhyanathan on Cultural Democracy

Readers may recall a Slashdot interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor at NYU, and author of Copyrights and Copywrongs. Vaidhyanathan is working on a new book, The Anarchist in the Library, and was interviewed on the blog, Eyeteeth. This is a brilliant and amazing interview where Vaidhyanathan discusses how creative communities share, the DMCA, the American industrial production of culture, the USA Patriot Act, the importance of libraries and librarians, and the policies of the FCC. It is a must-read for those who care about the future of creative and democratic culture. (Thanks to BoingBoing for the pointer.)

Update 4/24: This was a Slashdot submission of mine and was accepted as part of Slashback. (Third bolded item from the top.)