Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love?

Nicholas Kristoff writes about the liberal leanings of some Evangelicals today, and urges secular liberals to be less scornful of these potential allies in the causes of social justice and saving the planet.

While I agree that open expressions of scorn are probably not polite or politically effective, it is also true that such scorn is entirely deserved, not only for the appalling superstition of these believers but also for the arrogance and belligerence demonstrated by their more numerous right-wing cousins. Even should we agree to set aside the pleasures of ridiculing these people, in the interest of good and worthy causes, let us not forget that even the most "liberal" Evangelicals believe that the rest of us are damned. And most if not all would gladly adopt a government that replaced the Constitution with the Bible - a kind of Western Sharia.

The Evangelical movement is associated with an intrusive and theocratic impulse that is essentially hostile to our traditions, which have emphasized tolerance and a fairly libertarian reluctance to impose too much on the private morals of Americans.

These people feel entitled to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us - as Mike Chucklebee recently demonstrated with his comments about amending the Constitution to align it more perfectly with an Evangelical take on Scripture. There is such a thing as absolute truth, and they are its keepers.

Evangelical proselytizing in the military has overcome the traditional church-state boundaries, transforming the Air Force Academy into an institution dominated by Evangelical belief and practice where Jews and other non-Evangelicals were harassed and intimidated. In the classrooms of America, these folks want to make sure that kids are taught that the world might only be 6,000 years old, that we were created pretty much as we are today, and that men and dinosaurs lived side-by-side.

I would suggest that it is nonsense to celebrate the Evangelical movement as a political phenomena now that its policy preferences seem to be aligning with those of Democrats. The problem is not only in their policy preferences, but in their anti-American theocratic radicalism. Whether Jim Wallis is for doing something for the poor or not, he is still one of those who thinks it is quite all right to argue public policy questions on the basis of Scripture.

Fundamentally, these people hold beliefs about government that are no different than the beliefs of the mullahs of Iran, or the Taliban. They want to claim America for Jesus, or some such nonsense (substitute Allah for Jesus and you could be in Pakistan). They have misgivings about the equality of women, and are so single-minded about abortion that they willingly gave their political support to a man who launched an unjust war and authorized the torture of prisoners.
They reject the modern sciences of geology and biology, and they would refuse gay couples the dignity of married life. Many of them voted for Bush, believing as we often heard them say, that Bush would bring the Lord into the White House. When Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Bush empasized her church affiliation in making the case. Many Evangelicals tell pollsters they are unwilling to vote for Romney because he is a Mormon (and therefore a heretic).

In the past 8 years, we have seen how completely the Evangelicals took over the Republican party, driving even John Danforth to speak out in opposition (and not only to the policies of the religious right - he criticized the role of religion in the party, calling the GOP the "political extension of a religious movement"). If you like Hezbollah, Mr Kristoff, I guess it's no problem for you.

Sure, some Evangelicals are compassionate towards the poor, protective of the environment, and opposed to the torture of prisoners - I'm sure Jesus would be impressed by this virtuous minority, and we should work with them to do good. But the problem of Evangelical political ambition doesn't go away when they take our side of the debate on climate change or poverty.

Progress for America requires that we reject the theocratic tendencies of Evangelicalism and revert to traditional values of church-state separation, of a polite self-restraint and broad tolerance, and of privacy of our religious practices. While we are off saving the planet, let's make sure we also protect our most prized liberties from those who think they alone have the truth.

One America

John Edwards:

One America, one America that works for everybody.

One America where struggling towns and factories come back to life because we finally transformed our economy by ending our dependence on oil.

One America where the men who work the late shift and the women who get up at dawn to drive a two-hour commute and the young person who closes the store to save for college. They will be honored for that work.

One America where no child will go to bed hungry because we will finally end the moral shame of 37 million people living in poverty.

One America where every single man, woman and child in this country has health care.

One America with one public school system that works for all of our children.

One America that finally brings this war in Iraq to an end. And brings our service members home with the hero's welcome that they have earned and that they deserve....

John Edwards, who spoke with passion about the challenge of a nation split into haves and have-nots, into "two Americas", has dropped out of the 2008 Presidential race. In doing so, he reaffirmed his commitment to the cause of those whose voices are often not heard, the voices of those who have fallen by the wayside in a globalized economy, of workers without health benefits and veterans without shelter, of parents and families that struggle in a country that has allowed the greed of a few outweigh the needs and purposes of the broader population.

He has been called a phony, a class-warmonger, a populist, and worse, but he is an American hero. He drove the agenda of Clinton and Obama. His positions and policy proposals were deeply defined, well-considered, and extensively communicated; in a campaign that often dissolved into silly and even embarrassingly petty personal attacks, ridiculous protests, and phony claims of racism and sexism, Edwards was focused on specific proposals to achieve worthy goals. He may have been beaten, but he was never outclassed.

Now, I wish him and Elizabeth well. I hope they will take some time for themselves and for their family. He should take some time and think about the role he might want in the next administration. Personally, I would like to see him take on the repairs needed at Justice. Attorney General Edwards in 2009.

Tomorrow, I hope Edwards will endorse Obama. It has to happen. Listening to Obama on Saturday, after he won South Carolina, I couldn't help but notice that he had picked up the Edwards line -- it sounded as if he had adopted the Edwards stump speech. The music was Obama's but the lyrics were clearly crafted to reach the ears and touch the hearts of every Edwards man and woman in America.

Now, today, I hear in the words of Edwards an important theme of Barack Obama's. Edwards, who frequently addressed the problem of "two America's", was talking about "One America" - the frame usually expressed by Obama. Words matter to these men, and I think before we go to the polls on Tuesday, Obama will have Edwards's endorsement.

Let us go forward now and do what is right and just. It is about time.

.

Changing My Mind

After giving further thought to what I heard Obama say last night, I have come to the conclusion that Edwards should drop out of the campaign before Super Tuesday, and give his personal endorsement to Barack Obama. Obama's South Carolina victory speech may be the best political speech I have ever heard - not only for what he had to say, but also, in the context of an ugly campaign in that state, for how he said it.

As always, he was classy - he didn't even mention Hillary or Bill in his remarks. Though he took apart their arguments and turned them around to build a positive case for his own candidacy, his purpose was clearly not about bashing them as it was selling us on his view of how we should go forward as a nation.

John Edwards, Joe Biden - even Hillary Clinton - would have made a good President. But I am now convinced: Barack Obama is the best candidate for President in 2008.

Neil

Dum Spiro Spero

While I breathe, I hope.

This must be a thought on John Edwards's mind tonight - this son of South Carolina must know this motto of the Palmetto State. Finishing third in this primary must really smart. He pulled out all the stops - I heard one reporter today say that he spent more on tv ads than his two opponents, combined.

I am not terribly disappointed. I listened to the Obama victory speech. Aside from the rhetorical elegance, the music of his high-minded and visionary words, there was something about his speech that was very apparent to me, and very reassuring: he was pitching the Edwards agenda.

So I congratulate Barack Obama and his multitude of supporters, but I also thank John Edwards for setting the Democratic agenda in this campaign. No matter how this campaign comes out, Edwards has had a tremendous impact and his ideas and convictions have defined the platform for the party and for the government that will be formed in January 2009.

We are heading in the right direction, under inspired and talented leadership. Yes, even up here in New Jersey, while I breathe, I am filled with hope.

Neil

John Edwards Rising?

I have long been a supporter of John Edwards for President. I supported his campaign for President in 2004, and have supported him throughout this campaign as well. As voters go to the polls in South Carolina, I am hopeful that Edwards will continue to surge as he has done in recent polls - should he win, he could open up great possibilities on February 5, and it would be a great day for working class Americans.


Edwards is a rich former trial lawyer with a 28,000 square foot home and an unfortunate You Tube grooming incident who has dedicated the balance of his life to the eradication of poverty in America; a devoted husband and family man who is campaigning even while his wife, Elizabeth, is facing a truly grave illness; a man whose two-America theme and call for universal health coverage was eclipsed by the more positive one-America anthem of a man who would settle for nearly universal health coverage; a man who trails in the polls and is dismissed by a media and electorate used to horserace-thinking and unwilling to weigh the issues and positions of the candidates when the alternatives are polls and mud.

He is the first of the three remaining Democratic candidates to have proposed a universal health coverage plan, one that has been the model for each of the later proposals from Hillary and Barack. Now that Dennis "UFO" Kucinich has returned to his home planet, Edwards is the Democrat most clearly committed to a prompt and complete withdrawal from Iraq. He is the candidate who - unlike Hillary - has foregone corporate funding and therefore will be able to take on corporate power and corporate interests in order to advance the interests and needs of the American people. He is the candidate who - unlike Obama - understands that the dead hand of the American Hezbollah (party of God) must be pried forcefully from the levers of power if we are to significantly raise the minimum wage and provide health care to all Americans.

Just a few years ago, Edwards was a centrist in the Democratic party - a guy not unlike Bill Clinton in 1990 - and was not known as a champion of the poor working-class Americans that he claims to be today. Some of his votes as Senator go against the principles and values he espouses today. He explains this as a maturation in leadership - saying that he had compromised much in the political arena in order to have a chance to be elected. When he lost in 2004, he resolved to be more authentic, to give full voice to his values, and to work passionately for the causes he believes in.

Some people don't believe him.

They say his haircut was too expensive and his house is too big and he has too much money to be a tribune for poor folks. They don't much like lawyers and litigation, even if he was suing large companies to protect the interests of individuals who could not fight on equal terms without the help of a lawyer. You can't help sensing that some of these folks resent his money as much as they clearly envy his youthful good looks - they take so much pleasure in calling him "pretty" and some go so far as to question his manhood (Ann Coulter has nothing on some of these Democrats). Some offer only one criticism of Edwards - the poll-driven assessment that "he can't win, he's toast" Taken as a whole, the case against Edwards offered by these people is an indictment of the maturity of the American voter. How pathetic, how superficial.

The many people who claim he is a phony, that his concern for the poor is inauthentic, that his whole campaign is a sham, never deal with the obvious counter-argument to all that negativity. The man loves his wife and his family. His wife is dying of cancer and together they have decided that he should continue this campaign - that this work is the most important work of their lives. Somehow, people ignore this compelling evidence of personal commitment. Once again I am reminded that shallow minds abound in America.

For myself, three things are clear:

1. We need a President who understands the tragic, immoral and ruinously expensive war in Iraq must come to an immediate end, and that we the American people want to reverse the course set by the idiot from Crawford. And we must have a President who will attend to the needs of our veterans and end the disgraceful Republican era of neglect.
   
2. We must enact programs to provide all Americans with decent health care coverage and a minimum wage. The Bush tax cuts which mainly benefited the most wealthy must be reversed to pay for economic equity and security for those Americans who work and struggle to get by.
   
3. We need a President who recognizes from Day One that the GOP who ran roughshod over the Democrats while they had power are not going to cooperate in some blissful bi-partisan agenda. Their idea of bi-partisan was established clearly over the past eight years. We need someone who can fight them and beat them. Someone who can make the case to the people and overcome resistance by getting the people behind him. Nobody makes the case for what he believes in as clearly and compellingly as Edwards. Obama has lofty rhetoric, to be sure, but Edwards is more skillful at persuading the common folks of the American jury.

We need John Edwards in the White House.

I like Obama well enough, and he will be the perfect guy to come in after the knife fight is over and we have what we want - that is when you want a conciliator to take charge. Why would you want to call a truce while the other guy is holding all the prizes? Let's fix what's broken, roll back the Bush crimes, and then when the patient is stabilized, Dr Obama will be perfect. For now, though, we need a fighter, not a conciliator.

I like Hillary well enough. Next to Edwards, she is the best choice for the next four years. But she will lose the fight - at least some parts of it. She is smart, well-prepared, seasoned, and committed. But a lot of Americans find her off-putting. The Republicans will use that to undermine her and she will end up as her husband did, compromising and triangulating, and falling short of all our expectations and hopes.

Good luck today, John Edwards!

King

I was 12 years old when Dr. King was killed in Memphis. Growing up in northern New Jersey, I remember the riots in Newark and other cities in the summer of 1967. I remember a neighbor inviting my father to join him and other vigilante-bigots in going to Newark to beat up any black person who might be unlucky enough to be targeted for such senseless brutality (Dad stayed home -- my parents were appalled by the violence but sympathetic with the plight of the Negroes. They didn't teach their children to hate, but they thought the civil rights protesters were pushing too hard, and hurting their own cause).

That fall, I started eigth grade and my homeroom teacher was Sister Eileen Marie, a sincere but baffling woman known by the derisive nickname "Fish" among the smart-mouths at St Phillip's School. Sr. Eileen Marie was very deeply involved in issues of social justice and racial harmony - but my hometown was lily-white and I really didn't get it. I thought she was more than a little bit nuts. Still, I was picking up the vibe of the times: it was tense, unhappy, and pessimistic -- would there be more violence? Were the prayers of Sr. Eileen Marie ever to be answered, or was God laughing her off like the kids in my eighth-grade class? Was it too much to ask - just too much change for America?

In the years that followed - as I completed my education and entered a more diverse world of work and of living in a much more integrated community than the one I had grown-up in - I came to understand a great deal about our long-troubled and profoundly and pathologically unjust experience with race in America. I read the history of the civil rights movement, and especially valued the three-volume work of Taylor Branch for its close rendering of the the details of that struggle, and of the role of Dr King.

When I think of great Americans, Washington and Lincoln come to mind, of course: Washington, for resisting the monarchical suggestions of his admirers and maintaining the republican ideal; Lincoln for his commitment to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the pragmatic genius necessary to protect those ideals; and King for changing the hearts of a nation and moving us forward, dramatically, towards the day when his dream of racial justice and harmony would become fact.

It may be hard for people much younger than myself to see it, but for me the change in American racial attitudes have changed dramatically since 1968. There's no doubt in my mind that we still have race issues in America, or that we still have a large problem with race-related social injustice. There's also no doubt in my mind that the advances in civil rights for blacks, women, gays, Jews and other Americans, are the legacy of a man whose conscience, courage, vision, oratory, and ultimate blood sacrifice won over the hearts and minds of the nation.

In 2008, now almost 40 years since Dr King was assassinated, I am grateful to a man I know mostly from books and film. King showed us the gap between our reality and our ideals, and inspired us to close that gap. Were he alive today, I think he would still be hard at work - but I think he would also agree with my view that we have come a remarkably long way.

Barack Obama is running for President, and his race is not an issue. Whether he will be "ready on day one", whether his health insurance plan should include a "Mandatory" provision, whether his Iraq exit plan is fast enough, and whether he is too moderate to fight the GOP -- these are the decision factors being weighed, and not the color of his skin.

Sister Eileen Marie's prayers have not all been answered, and the challenges of social justice are still before us, but in 2008 we have come so far that we can be optimistic about the tasks still ahead of us. I hope my own children will say when they are 52 that this noble cause advanced dramatically in their lifetimes.

Unshaken Tempest Viewer, Betrothed

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-- William Shakespeare (Sonnet 116)


The date has been set. September 27, 2009. I am to be wed.

I am a happy man, and settled in my heart and mind.

Quoting the Bard once more:

"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married."

Is life not an endless source of amazement, of unexpected pleasures, and undeserved joy?

Hallelujah!

What's in it for us?

Just watching BET on cable -- they're promoting a program soon to be aired on that channel focusing on Barack Obama and the Black vote. Should be an interesting program, but I'm guessing it will make the candidate a little uncomfortable. Funny thing, race in America. A few weeks ago the majority of Black voters were supporting Hillary, and now those voters may be giving their allegiance a second thought. Who would have thought white Iowa could have made such a difference among African-American voters?

What's in it for us - the title of the BET program - is a fair question, I guess. I'm okay with it, though I see Obama's candidacy as having importance that transcends specific deliverables. A President Obama would take this nation much further than Frederick Douglas or Jackie Robinson could have imagined (though Dr. King surely had this very thing in mind when he spoke to the country of his dream).

I support John Edwards. I think he'll fight for things that matter to me, and I think he has forced Obama and Clinton to take positions closer to the lefty end of the Democratic party. Clinton will sell that agenda down the river, as did her husband. And Obama is a complete unknown -- I love his rhetoric and high-mindedness, but I don't know what he would be committed to achieving as President.

I guess I am asking the BET question, Mr Obama. Beyond the dream we share with Dr. King, what's in it for America?

A favorite verse

Ecclesiasticus 6:14:

A faithful friend is a safe harbor;

he that has found one has found a treasure.

Okay. I am not a believer, but I do love some of what I have read in the Bible, during my believer period. What is there for an atheist to like?

There is compassion and wisdom. There are moral lessons. There is poetry. These are not foreign to the godless.

I love my family. My lover is sacred to me. But a true friend is a treasure. In this world, we have need of more than family and lovers. Our true friends are indeed a treasure.

And let us be clear - friendship is the purest of human relations. No blood, no sex. Only the willing commitment of time, and caring. Of loyalty and commitment. Of patience and understanding.

For me, like Whitman, every stranger is a potential friend. I want to seduce them all. men and women, to love me and to be my friend. Do not pass me by without a smile and an intimate word, some gesture of affection and recognition of who I am.

I am here but a moment and so are you. Let us be friends and share this moment. It is all we have; let it not be wasted.

Why is true friendship so rare? Because we are fully human only for a few moments in the day. We should all be poets, artists, musicians, and lovers -- all the day long -- mindful to those around us and open to the possibilities of friendship.

I love the city. But the message one receives a thousand times in an hour is - mind your own business.

What is the point of a city if it is not human engagement? How can so much potential beauty be ignored in the hurry from A to B that typifies the streets of New York?

For me, it is almost enough to swim among these sleeping fish and feel my slim connection to it all. I am the jellyfish whose energy is sensed only by those foolish enough to get too close. It is enough for me, but still, such a waste of life's joy.

For whom are you a safe harbor, a treasure, a true friend?

Make me one with everything

I've been checking out music on You Tube. The sound isn't as good as playing a CD, but it is interesting to see the musicians. Here's a long clip of some of my favorite music. I first heard Mahler's music at Tanglewood - the NY Philharmonic played this symphony, and at the end of the 4th movement I jumped out of my seat and punched the air, exhaling suddenly all the breath that had been held in my chest through this fantastic finale.

Mahler was famous in his time as a conductor, and restricted his composing to summer vacations. His own music met with some criticism for its expressive emotional power (I am sure that the very thing the critics despised is what draws me to this music - I suspect that my appreciation of the emotional energy of jazz, blues and rock music may have paved the way for an appreciation of Mahler).

Supposedly, Mahler once said that "the symphony should be like the world: it must embrace everything" -- this seems to me to be the perfect definition of what art and music do for us, and what I want from music. Pull me from my seat and make me feel as if the infinite is moving within my heart and soul. Or as the Buddhist monk said to a New York City hot-dog vendor, "Make me one with everything!"

This recording captures the excitement of Mahler's music -- watching Leonard Bernstein at the end of the piece, I see in his movement the exhilaration that I remember feeling myself that summer night at Tanglewood.

I hope you enjoy this:

Mahler Symphony #1 "Titan" 4th Movement
Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker.

Click here.

Still enjoying Halloween

Where's the Outrage?

A friend posted about the anti-war protests last week - and included a question from one protester who noted that so few people bothered to march against the war and wondered where the outrage is...so I responded:

The outrage has gone out of me like so much cold water from a bathtub.

The 2004 election ensured that we would continue this war to the end of the Bush presidency and into the next administration. Reid and Pelosi have accepted the argument that the Democrats win by losing votes on Iraq. They continue to fund the war, convinced that they will be accused of not supporting the troops if they cut off funds. Even Carl Levin was afraid to go that far.

John Edwards called on Congress to send Bush the same bill every time, but they caved and gave him a bill without a timetable for withdrawal. Even after the 2006 election, there is insufficient wisdom or courage (or both) to take control of the situation.

There is no longer any outrage here -- just exasperation, sorrow, and resignation.

We are reduced to empty hopes that incompetents without a plan or sufficient resources can nonetheless succeed. We are left with the selfish comfort that comes from knowing it is not my son or daughter whose life has been spent with so little care, with so little purpose, and then used to justify further bloodshed in their honor.

We are called by our hearts to grieve, and by our heads to move on - to lower our expectations.

We are past outrage and saving our strength for some future day when this dark cloud has passed over, and America regains her consciousness.

So much has been lost. Is this what 9/11 has meant for us? A departure from reason and decency? A descent into hopelessness and belligerence?

We live in an America that elected a buffoon and empowered him to wreck our national security, to bankrupt our treasury, and to trash our national image in the eyes of decent men and women of the world.

We live in an America that has surrendered its hard-won rights and liberties to protect against a terrorist attack, and that has ignored or embraced the use of torture and the abuse of persons held in our custody.

We live in an America that has taken its military from the ranks of the poor, and then borrowed from China to give tax breaks to the rich.

We live in an America that has denied 50 million Americans the most basic security of health care coverage, and worries more about the cost of "socialized medicine" than about the cost of lives ruined by bankruptcy and untreated illnesses.

We can lecture Turkey on the Armenian genocide of 1915, but will do nothing to save Darfur in 2007.

We condemn Islam for the acts of suicide bombers, and then appoint men to Attorney General who think waterboarding may be an acceptable way to interrogate a prisoner.

For the past seven years, we have slipped into a shameful and degraded condition. Of course it is outrageous, but what will we do?

I am sending John Edwards all my money and doing what I can to get the man elected. And in January 2009, we will move to fix what has been broken in these terrible years under this most terrible president.

.

What if Iraq Stabilizes?

At TNR's election blog, The Stump, Mike Crowley asks whether Democrats running for President are prepared for the possibility that the surge is working and that Iraq may be stabilizing. Recent news reports have shown that electricity service is up to pre-war levels and that Iraqi civilian casualties and American casualties are both down significantly.

In an exchange of comments with a friend there, he argued that:

Ethnic (sectarian, actually) cleansing or not, fewer Iraqis are turning up dead, and some are starting trickle back home. Why isn't this good news to be celebrated. Oh, right, because W is still President, and that genius Reid has assured us that the war is "lost."

My response is attached below. I include it here because I think I captured pretty well my own reasoning in support of getting out now, and my own reason - aside from blind W hatred - for seeing the surge as a meaningless stall tactic. It seems to me that we are asking soldiers and marines to die for nothing and that is simply disloyal, immoral, and self-destructive.

What exactly is your plan? Hope for the best? Wait and see?

Let's put the best face on the situation in Iraq and see where that leads.

Petraeus has already told Congress he is pulling down his troop strength by 30,000 over the next two months, right? And Mahdi Army leader Al-Sadr has declared a cease fire that will end by January 29, as I recall. I also recall that numerous statements from within the Army's senior officers have suggested that more significant troop reductions will have to occur after April 2008 due to troop rotation considerations.

Let's assume that all of these factors, which could bode ill for the security you wish to celebrate, instead have no negative effect. Let's even assume that conditions improve slightly - more electricity, fewer Iraqi casualties,fewer American casualties.

It all sounds unbelievable, but let's go there anyway.

To make things even less credible, but rosier still, let's assume that Turkey does not invade Iraqi Kurdistan.

Even given all of that bullshit, what have you got to show for our efforts? An Iranian Shiite outpost in Mesopotamia, a disempowered and pissed-off Sunni minority with allies in Saudi Arabia and across the Islamic world, and the legacy of 6 years of criminality, sectarian cleansing and armed conflict - and a disreputable government that does not command the loyalty of its security forces and cannot rule without the US military to support it.

Harry Reid is no genius, but what part of this looks like victory to you?

If we dare to call it victory, and pull ourselves out of this fragile mess, the house of cards will collapse. Sunnis will have to rejoin their former Al Qaeda allies to fight the Shia militia. Tribal warlords will replace the present government, Iran will move even more boldly into the South and East, and the Turks will soon move in, in force, to protect their interests in the North. Even if the surge is brilliant, you and the other diehards will find a reason we can't leave -- and you'll be right because the surge will not have changed anything.

The only thing worth celebrating is the day when no more Americans will be fighting and dying in that hell-hole -- the difference is I would like to bring that celebration home tomorrow, whereas you are willing to wait till 2009. In my view all that delay does is save face for W, which is just not worth the life of one American soldier or marine, in my book -- and is certainly not something I would celebrate.

I am resigned to wait till 2009, but let's be clear. Celebrating the surge is like celebrating that one inning in Game 3 where the Rockies almost tied the score. Go ahead and celebrate butchie, but all I see is five years of an immoral and tragic waste of American and Iraqi lives. If your surge brings that to an end sooner, I'm all for it. But it sure looks like bullshit to me.

Sunday will never be the same

I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes and make it go away

Okay - it is pretty old, but it still makes me laugh to see this.

Axis of Necessary Evil

Pervez Musharraf has suspended Pakistan's constitution and is rounding up and detaining suspected terrorists, human rights activists, and other people he considers to be his political enemies. The Bush administration, through the Secretary of State and other spokespersons, evidently tried to persuade Musharraf to respect the rule of law and not to rely on expanded executive authority to address Pakistan's security problems.

Musharraf must have had a good laugh at that.

Even Dick Cheney must have snickered. After all, the dramatic expansion of executive authority, as a means of providing security to Americans in the face of the jihadist threat, has been the hallmark of this very troubled and unfortunate presidency. I can imagine Condi on the phone with Pervez - "Look, Pervez, you don't need the troubles we have here. Maybe you should stick with the constitution, old friend."

It also calls to mind this little episode:

During a joint news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg, Bush said he raised concerns about democracy in Russia during a frank discussion with the Russian leader.

"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of
the world, like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same," Bush said.

To that, Putin replied, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

I understand from the papers that Bush has not yet called Musharraf. There is some concern about our massive funding of Pakistan's military - what should we do? Can we keep on funding the Pakistani army while its leader has suspended the rule of law?

I think it is pretty clear what we should do. I think Bush should call his partner in crime today and tell him he can do whatever he wants as long as we get bin Laden. We should redeploy 30,000 troops from Iraq and move them into Pakistan's tribal territory and work alongside Musharraf's troops to eliminate Al Qaeda and find bin Laden.

Of course, someone will have to remind Bush about bin Laden. He's actually the guy who attacked us on 9/11, but Bush has never been all that interested in getting the guy. After all, there was Iraq, and Saddam, and the opportunity to remake the Middle East as an extension of the great American empire (and they think Dennis Kucinich is crazy!) .

As long as Al Qaeda is using Pakistan as its home base, we will need a strongman in power in Islamabad. Why not Musharraf? Does anyone think Bhutto can do better than Musharraf in getting the military to expunge the jihadists?

When Bush failed to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora, it seemed we might never have another opportunity. Now we do. Before this moment passes, we should shake hands with Musharraf and go after our enemy.

Tora Bora was a terrible mistake, compounded ten thousand times by the invasion of Iraq, which diverted us from the pursuit of our enemy. Let us not miss this opportunity to correct the first mistake. We have already wasted enough time, blood, and treasure in Iraq. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda must be crushed.

If Pervez Musharraf can help us do that, what are we waiting for?

.

Rudy, the Values Slayer

"Rudy, the Values Slayer" is the title of a piece in the NY Times this past Sunday, by Frank Rich, a columnist whose criticism of the current administration and its extremist political base has been generally insightful, often devastating and always well-written and entertaining.

On Sunday, Rich pointed to the inexplicable success of Rudy Giuliani in the race for the Republican nomination. A New Yorker with a long track record of tolerance for gays and illegal immigrants, support for reproductive rights, an antipathy to guns, and a messy marital and family track record, Rudy is not exactly the "moral values" poster child, as envisioned by the likes of Robertson and Dobson -- that is to say, the very people who claimed kingmaker status after each of the last two presidential elections.

Read the article, if you have time -- here is my favorite part:

The Values Voter Summit’s survey of the attendees’ presidential preferences showed just as large a disconnect. Rudy Giuliani came in next to last (behind Tom Tancredo, ahead of John McCain) in the field of nine candidates, earning only 1.85 percent of the vote.

By contrast, among white evangelicals nationwide in the CBS News poll, he was in a statistical dead heat for first place with Fred Thompson; indeed, Mr. Giuliani’s 26 percent among evangelicals nearly matches his showing among all Republican voters. The discrepancy between the CBS poll and the summit survey leaves you wondering who exactly follows Dr. Dobson and Mr. Perkins beyond the ticket buyers who showed up for their media circus last weekend at the Washington Hilton.

I remember the day after Kerry conceded, listening to the radio and hearing some preacher insisting that Bush would have to give the religious right everything it wanted - everything. I was also reminded of the blog Baghdad Burning, in which the author described the imposition of Sharia law in her neighborhood and recognized that the "liberation" of Iraq was not at all what the word suggested. Could American fundamentalism be as real a threat to me as Muslim fundamentalists are to any third world Arab?

John C. Danforth, a distinguished Republican stateman and an ordained minister, wrote this (NY Times Op-Ed March 30, 2005) :

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.

Standing alone, each of these initiatives has its advocates, within the Republican Party and beyond. But the distinct elements do not stand alone. Rather they are parts of a larger package, an agenda of positions common to conservative Christians and the dominant wing of the Republican Party.

Christian activists, eager to take credit for recent electoral successes, would not be likely to concede that Republican adoption of their political agenda is merely the natural convergence of conservative religious and political values. Correctly, they would see a causal relationship between the activism of the churches and the responsiveness of Republican politicians...

Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey and former EPA Administrator under the current President, made a similar argument in her book: ''It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the G.O.P. and the Future of America'' -- in which she warned that the Republican embrace of far right social policies would marginalize the party. The GOP were in no mood to listen to her at the time (published January 31, 2005 - safely after the 2004 election).

I do hope with all my heart that Giuliani's recent success is an indicator that my worst fears, and those of men like John Danforth, may now be set to rest on the back burner - if not quite discarded altogether. Something else Danforth wrote in an Op Ed in the NY Times, in June 2005, comes to mind as well.

He wrote:

In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality.

I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two.

As an atheist, I have noted that believers are taken aback at the anger and ridicule that has been heaped on faith in recent years by authors such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins. As if we did not live in an era in which political Islam has not set the world afire with terrorism and jihad. As if a cartoon in a Danish newspaper had not resulted in rioting and death. As if the Christian Right had not seriously eroded the tradition of church-state separation in the United States and threatened to usurp the last best hope of liberty in a troubled world.

Of course we are fighting back. We have been pushed to the wall by people whose ignorance of our great cultural and political traditions is only eclipsed by their aggressive and moronic superstition.

So I have noted the embedded insanity of the GOP presidential campaign, with deep satisfaction and outward glee. Giuliani, the creep who had to be told by a Judge that he could not bring his girlfriend home to sleep over at Gracie Mansion while his wife and kids still lived there, is the first act of this comedy.

Then there is Romney, whose Mormonism will be a real challenge for the good Christian folks who have no idea what Mormons believe (and will be shocked when they find out) - as an atheist, I really will enjoy hearing one set of true-believers mocking the faith of other true-believers (it is bound to happen).

Finally, there is Huckabee - who should be the darling of the religious crowd, but has been rejected as too compassionate! Even as these religious conservatives mull over the bitter choice between Giuliani the lapsed Catholic and Romney the Mormon, these nutjobs have indicated they might bolt if Huckabee is named as the Republican nominee's running mate (h/t Noam Scheiber in TNR). That's right - he isn't fit to even be VP!

The craziness continues. But there is reason to hope that we are close to the end of this funhouse ride, and that rational, competent people may come to replace the ideologues and extremist hacks that have dominated government for the past 7 years.

All of this looniness will wrap up in November 2008 in a landslide Democratic victory, and some new thinking among leading Republicans will arise from the ashes. I hope they will take the opportunity to consider the advice of John Danforth and Christine Todd Whitman.

Fado

Some time ago - at least a year or so ago - I heard a song on the radio. The singer was a young woman named Ana Moura, and the song was Sou Do Fado, Sou Fadista (I Belong to Fado, I'm a Fadista). The song appears on her CD Guarda-Me a Vida Na Mão.

The songs she sings are from a Portuguese song tradition called Fado (Fate or Destiny), which appeared in Lisbon in the 1820's following the return of Portugal's king from exile in Brazil (at the end of the Napoleonic era).

I had never heard of Fado before, but I was very impressed with some of the songs on that CD. I find the music to be poetic and joyful, though it is generally described as mournful, and the Portuguese language is very beautiful. Fado music is thought to reflect African and Moorish influences and reminds me somewhat of American Blues.

A few weeks ago, I saw that a Fado singer named Mariza would soon be appearing at Carnegie Hall. I thought this was something my daughter and I would enjoy -- we share an appreciation of a wide range of female vocalists, and she had recently completed her BA in Comparitive Literature, establishing her bona fides as a lover of world literature -- world music seemed a good bet.

The concert was amazing!

Mariza is perhaps the greatest living singer of Fado - and she is the most gifted and entertaining vocal performer I have ever seen and heard in concert. She performed with an accompaniement of three guitars - the Portuguese guitarra, a Spanish or classical guitar, and an acoustic bass guitar, and occasionally a percussionist whose instruments resenbled a wooden box and a ceramic vase. These musicians were a delight on their own, and performed one instrumental number without Mariza on stage. They provided the perfect complement to Mariza's dramatic style of singing and her equally dramatic stage presence.

Mariza has a beautiful voice that can slide from one end of her great range to the other, with flamboyant virtuosity, and always fitted perfectly to the emotional tone of the song - she uses her versatility to build a dramatic dynamism into her delivery, and embellishes it all with her dancing and sweeping gestures. She is very tall (I thought she had to be on stilts under her swaying floor-length hooped black dress) and quite thin, and has an exotic appearance that she uses to maximize her stage presence.

She closed her concert by singing Gershwin's Summertime and Chaplin's Smile -- I think I have never heard anyone handle Summertime with as much style and grace. It was proof of her great talent as a singer that Mariza could step out of her culture and apply so much feeling and musical taste to this great standard of American song, and I was very happy that I had stepped out of mine for that magical evening.

Check out this YouTube clip for a taste of what I am talking about.

What's New

On Saturday, my sweetie and I played tourist and rode the Grayline double-decker bus tour of downtown New York City.

For $40 (each - plus tip) you get a narrated tour that runs from Times Square through the old Garment District; past Macy's and the Empire State Building; by the Flatiron Building, New York Life Building and Met Life Building; across 14th Street and into Greenwich Village; through SoHo and the cast iron buildings, Chinatown; past City Hall, the Woolworth Building and St Paul's; Wall Street, Trinity Church, and the Battery; South Street Seaport, (former) Fulton Fish Market and Brooklyn Bridge; through the East Village and Lower Eastside; up to the UN Building, the Waldorf Astoria and over to Central Park; past Carnegie Hall and back to Times Square -- a little over 2 hours in the sun (and the breeze - wear a jacket!).

I love New York. As an amateur historian, something deep inside just resonates with the hum of all that has come before, all that is happening right now, and the fantastic future that shines in my mind's eye like sunlight bouncing off the East River as I gaze out of my office window.

The picture above is from our trip atop that double-decker bus --most of my pictures were crap, but this one struck my fancy tonight: Times Square - a few blocks off. Really tacky but I like the hum.

Boston just closed out game 2; time for bed.

Blogging again

I am making this my blogging home.

After having kept several separate journals on AOL since 2004, and after my time sharing blogging duties with my friends at The Blue Voice, I have decided that I am probably going to leave AOL behind. So here I am.

Over the next few weeks I will portage some of my older material to this spot, and then I will no longer post anything anywhere else.

If you have arrived here from one of my old AOL Journals, please leave a comment so I know you were by -- so many old friends I made there and have lost track of since that community went bust. New friends are always welcome to comment, for that matter.

I buried my first AOL Journal a long time ago (after a controversial post drew enormous criticism from my family), and now this blog bears the name of that first vehicle. The second wave of AOL Journals, now retired, includes Never Give Up and Don't Ask, the second of which was always meant to be just for laughs (I laughed even if nobody else did). So this is farewell to them, and bon voyage.

Neil

Jockey Hollow - October 2007

Another 9/11

I didn't go to work today.

Watched the Petraeus hearings. Caught some 9/11 programs - watched the planes hit the towers again. Heard the names of the dead again.

I guess I have moved on - but the memory of that day, and the days after, is still one of the sharpest amd most emotional memories in my life. I don't think I will ever work another 9/11. It is a good day for remembering and reflecting.

It is also a good day to shift paradigms.

So today I am writing about baseball. The best ball player I ever saw was...

Paul Molitor of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Though I have always been a Yankees fan, and though I loved Mantle and really am greatly impressed by Alex Rodriguez, Molitor was the best ballplayer I ever saw.

Molitor is in the Hall of Fame - elected as soon as he was eligible in January 2004. He played for 21 years and retired with a lifetime .306 batting average. He had 3,319 hits - one of only four players to exceed 3,000 hits, with a .300 average and 500 stolen bases.. He was an All-Star seven times in his career. He holds a couple of records in post-season play -- including most hits in one game (5 in the 1982 World Series)

I saw Molitor steal second in a game at Yankee Stadium - when the throw went into the outfield, he kept running and easily reached third base, and then headed home beating the throw to the plate. He had two hits that day - one of them a home run. He killed the Yankees that day. It was an amazing display of a glorious athletic talent.

Life is good - even on 9/11. It helps to remember that.

Starting Over

The best part of making mistakes is seizing the opportunity to start over, fresh and anew.

Resolved: I will make new mistakes here, but not the same mistakes as before.

Whether anyone will read this matters less to me -- a whole lot less -- than that I can continue to write. But, in the hope that someone will find my words and thoughts of interest, I have chosen to make this a public journal.

We will see how this goes...

Neil

Gen's Graduation

Yeah, We're all very happy, and quite proud.

Recent Reading

In the days between my recent injury and subsequent surgical intervention, I read "White Blaze Fever", William Schuette's account of his through-hike of the Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, covering 2,167 miles between late March and late August of 2000. Schuette took on the trail name of "Mountain Slayer" and by the time he had completed his trek, I think he earned the appellation.

An odd choice of reading for a man whose backpacking track record may have accumulated at most 60 miles over the past 15 years - and especially for one destined to spend the next six weeks on crutches, but I really loved the book.

The book was not as much fun as Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" but this wonderful book made me itch to pick up my pack and head for the AT. I am thinking about how long it will take to do the trail in sections, and whether I will be in shape this summer to spend a week or two on the trail. If I start this year, and do 120 miles a year, I can complete my hike in 2025 (at 70 years old).

We'll see.

Meanwhile, if you like to hike, you might give Bryson and Schuette a read.

I read 167 pages of Barack Obama's "Audacity of Hope". I like Obama, and I feel like I ought to read more of his reasonable, moderate, good-hearted liberal writing. Maybe later. For now I have read enough to solidify my sense of the man as someone this country really needs right now. Maybe as President. Maybe as AL Gore's VP.

In anticipation of an April trip to Gettysburg, I have read James McPherson's "Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg". McPherson is the author of "Battle Cry of Freedom", my favorite Civil War history, and a former professor of history at Princeton who was well known for leading his students, friends and family on annual tours of the Gettysburg battlefield. "Hallowed Ground" is a good guide for anyone thinking of a trip to that battlefield.

I am currently 251 pages into Edwin Coddington's masterful "The Gettysburg Campaign, A Study in Command". So far, one of the best books I have read on this part of the war, with insightful and well-written accounts of the command decisions, leadership styles, and performance of the generals who led the armies, corps, divisions, and brigades in thatcampaign. After 251 pages the first shots of July 1 have not yet been fired, but the book has been fascinating nonetheless.

Somewhere in between, I squeezed in the latest (perhaps the last) of the Tony Hillerman Navajo country crime novels. "The Shape Shifter" was a quick read, and completely enjoyable for anyone addicted to Hillerman's characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. I almost swallowed this one whole, on a sleepless night.

Time to return to bed, with Mr Coddington's book in hand. I will fall off in a while I hope, and if not, then I may finish this good book sooner than expected.

What are you reading? Any recommendations?

Neil

Bring it on!

I'm feeling the urge to surge!

Let's not hold anything back - send 'em all. Let's borrow another $200 billion from the Chinese, and send every available soldier and marine to Iraq.

Let's face it, we are stuck in Iraq - the Democrats lack the balls to pull out. So why not go all in and put the McCain theory to the test? If we are staying, why not force the big lie into the light - where everyone can see. Why not completely discredit the GOP right wing forever?

In six months it will be obvious to everyone that this strategy of pouring more troops and dollars into Iraq is pointless. It will probably cost us 1,000 lives, another 10,000 seriously wounded, and $200 billion that our children will have to pay back. But it will put an end to the neocon fantasies and the McCainiac militarism. The failure of Bush / GOP policies will be seen clearly (again - remember Katrina?) by all Americans.

So far, we have let 3,000 Americans die in Iraq in the hopes of liberating the Iraqi people. The next thousand sacrificed there will achieve the liberation of the American people.

Bring it on.

Neil

Veteran's Day 2006

I spent a good part of Saturday attending an Eagle Scout Court of Honor. Craig Cox, a Scout from my Troop, received the medal and badge of his rank in a ceremony held at the church that sponsors our Troop. I was one of the invited speakers - other speakers included his pastor, a teacher from his high school, and three members of the New Jersey Marines League - retired members of the US Marines who are happy to come to Eagle Scout ceremonies and to make formal presentations of certificates on behalf of their organization.

These Marines in their dress blue uniforms looked great -- I think the youngest man was at least ten years older than me, maybe more, but even so they looked splendid. They were obviously very proud to be Marines, and I thought to myself that they were very lucky to have that - that pride in themselves, in their service, and in their membership in that elite organization.

Earlier in the day, as I put on my suit and tie, I was listening to WNYC. They were playing recorded stories of veterans -- from the StoryCorps booths in Grand Central Terminal and a few other spots. These stories are captured through interviews -- ordinary people interviewing a loved one, a father or mother, brother or spouse. One story was told by a young couple who married just before the husband shipped out to Afghanistan.

It was a story we don't often hear -- in large part, it was the story of the family at home, the stress and challenge to a marriage, the changes, the heartache and doubt, the pride and loyalty and love.

There was another story - told by an Army nurse who served during the Vietnam debacle. She told of taking part in anti-war protests, and she remembered that some of the anti-war feeling extended to an anti-soldier feeling as well.

It occurred to me that we have badly used the people who serve in the armed forces. They and their loved ones have sacrificed so much, and we hardly notice. We let them spill their blood in misguided and unjust wars, without the equipment or leadership they need. They bravely face whatever challenges we put to them, and we have not the decency to pay any attention.

As I sat in the church on Saturday, I saw those three Marines come in and sit in the back. I had already noted in the program that they would be making a presentation. Nobody paid them any attention -- they were not from our Troop, not from that church, not family members. I got up from my seat and crossed the church to welcome them, to shake their hands, and to thank them for taking part in the ceremony.

It was a small gesture, but I think I may have been the only person to do so.

How did you remember Veteran's Day?

I like this sort of place

Join the National Guard, Stupid!

Went to the movies and put up with all the commercials and trailers. I really don't mind them - except sometimes when a trailer for World Trade Center is jammed between the trailer for Tallagega Nights and a goofy promotional message complete with dancing snack food items. Sorry, but when I go to see "Snakes on a Plane" I am not interested in being jerked back to the reality of 9/11.

The other night, they ran an advert for the National Guard. They want us to join up, and they figure people who go to see a movie about a plane loaded with manaical homicidal snakes on crack are likely to be the kind of people who would still be willing to join up. Yes, they figured we were that stupid.

They showed lots of pictures and told lots of personal anecdotes about how the Guard are here at home helping out when disaster strikes. Presumably, we are expected not to have noticed that the Guard are mostly in Iraq, and were nowhere to be seen when Katrina struck. Yes, they figured we were that stupid.

I used to think we had a volunteer military. People who wanted to serve, could. But you didn't have to. Now I see things more clearly. People who need the money were signing up, and then they got themselves shipped to Iraq. If they are lucky, they will someday come back, maybe even in good health.

Folks who signed up for the Guard really didn't expect to be in Iraq, but that's where Bush sent them. Because of WMD's. Because of 9/11. Hmmmm...startin' to feel stupid yet?

I have decided to express my aggravation at these insulting messages from our idiot-boy war president and his half-assed Secretary of Defense. So when these ads run across the screen, I intend to run my mouth. Loud. Why should we sit silently and let that kind of propaganda stand? Lies like these get innocent people killed.

In the next six months, I hope nobody joins the National Guard. I hope nobody joins the Reserves. I hope nobody even talks to a recruiter for the Armed Forces. Let them run their ads one after another -- 24/7. Maybe then they will fire Rumsfeld. Maybe then they will stop exploiting the poor of this country to fill the ranks of Bush's army. Maybe, just maybe, he will have to think once before he sends them into unwise wars of choice; dishonest wars of false pretenses; illegal wars of shameful acts.

If it doesn't happen, maybe they're right.

How stupid are we?
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9/11

I ran an event for my son and daughter, and a few close friends, a week ago in New York. I had set up a scavenger hunt of sorts, that forced the participants to travel all over Manhattan in the course of about ten hours. One of the places they had to visit was St Paul's Chapel, across the street from the site of the former World Trade Center.

You should go to St Paul's.

In the past five years, I have several times resisted the urge to go to the World Trade Center site. It felt too much like a macabre tourism. The memory of the gut-wrenching emotions of that terrible day - those terrible days - is still just below the surface. I am not a religious man, but the place inspires me to reverence and makes me wish that I could pray. When I finally had to go into the area, for a job interview when I was unemployed, I came up from the PATH and saw what looked like a construction site. But I knew better. I crossed myself and tried to recall the words. Eternal rest grant them, O Lord. May perpetual light shine upon them. When there are no words of my own to hold in my head at such a moment, why do the words of a prayer seem right?

I saw World Trade Center a couple of days ago. Aside from Bruce Springsteen's The Rising, I have resisted the 9/11-related movies and entertainments that have been offered in the past few years. And when the trailer for Oliver Stone's new movie started to run in local theaters, I nearly vomited. Why do they run such a trailer in between the preview of some Will Ferrell comedy and the dancing popcorn concession advert?

But I put aside my objections and went to see this movie. I knew it was based on the actual experience of two Port Authority cops who were pulled from the pile and have survived. I wanted to hear their story, and to see its reenactment (even if that meant putting up with Nicolas Cage).

It isn't a great movie. But it feels real and right, and I hope people will go see it. So many Americans are confused today. We went to war in a state of confusion in March 2003, and are still confused. Iraq was not our enemy, but that doesn't mean that we are safe. We should pull out of Iraq, but that doesn't mean we can give up the fight against the jihadists. The President lied to us, but that doesn't mean that we should buy into crackpot conspiracy theories.

Five years after 9/11, we are in worse shape than ever - despite the formation of a Department of Homeland Security, we are less secure than we were on that Tuesday morning in September. Bush may not have rolled back the clock to 1950, as some say he has tried to do (those who disagree generally believe 1929 is the year he punches into the time machine), but we are surely back to 9/10 in this forgetful and complacent country.

I sometimes think that there are three groups in America: those few who carry the burden of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, those few who bear the scars of 9/11, and the shit-for-brains majority. Guess which group Bush fits into.

As 9/11 approaches, I suspect that a lot of discussion will focus on the past. That has its place, but it is time we started to get serious about the present and the future. Before there is another 9/11, we need to reexamine the President's strategy and actions in the war on terror. It is time to replace Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and Chertoff.

Give them the same medal Tenet, Bremer and Franks got -- that will be a suitable punishment.

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Connecticut is a lot like Lebanon

More news coverage than it is worth.

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Any news from the nutmeg state?

Waiting to hear whether Lieberman has been excommunicated from the party. On the one hand, a party that has room for Al Sharpton should be able to house a Lieberman or two. A party that was happy to claim the loyalty of segregationists as long as they voted to sustain the New Deal ought to be able to accept a dissident view from Joe Lieberman without going into a panic.

On the other hand...

We have watched for five years as the New Deal was watered down, repealed, ignored, and replaced by the old deal - the one we last saw at the start of the last century - a deal that favored the filthy rich; that bent the machinery of government to meet the needs and desires of industrialists; that permitted abuses of labor, adulteration of food, privatization of public assets; degradation of the environment; and the imposition of white, nativist, Protestant Christian prejudices on the people of this nation.

Where was Joe Lieberman? Didn't he stand with Bush?

We have watched the nation ignore its war with Al Qaeda in order to launch a war against the people of Iraq -- justified to a gullible nation with a shell game of Chalabis, curveballs, 9/11 connections, and WMD smoking guns. We have seen that war take the lives of tens of thousands, and ruin the lives of millions. We have seen the nation's honor and treasury trashed in this war by a President whose negligence, ignorance, arrogance and blasphemous sense of mission led him to attack a nation that was no threat to us -- in the process alienating our friends, destroying our military, antagonizing 1.3 billion Muslims, and creating an Iraq that along with an emboldened Iran is indeed a security threat to keep us up at night.

Where was Joe Lieberman? Yes. With Bush all the way.

Compared to this record, Al Sharpton's looks statesmanlike.

I am waiting to hear from Connecticut.

I hope they throw the bum out. Count this Jersey boy for Ned Lamont.
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Rumsfeld still has a job

You would think Bush would find someone else, if he gave a crap.

UPDATE (NOV 200): He found someone else. But he still doesn't give a crap.

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Lebanon still in the news

Calls for an Israeli cease-fire are all over the news. Mostly from people whose neighbors don't fire missiles at them. Do you think the Russians would sit impassively as Chechen terrorists attacked Moscow? We know the answer to that one. Would the French or Italians tolerate similar threats? Why should they?

Who can ask the Israelis to turn the other cheek and permit Hezbollah to continue to amass weapons and fortify positions in southern Lebanon, waiting like snakes to strike whenever it pleases?

Lebanese children and other non-combatants are dying. This is terrible, but how would you propose to clear out Hezbollah from Israel's border? Could you fight this war and guarantee the safety of civilians?

Of course not. Israeli children are expendable; Lebanese are not. I get it.

Here's a bulletin for you -- as long as Israel's neighbors support terrorism and deny Israel's right to exist, there will be war and lots of people, including old folks and children, will die.

As long as Muslims celebrate bin laden, Zarqawi, Ahmedinajad, Nasrullah, and similar thugs, bloodshed will be their reward.

Stop crying for Lebanon. I hope Israel crushes Hezbollah, no matter what the cost.

Israel's Sideshow in Lebanon

Today all the talk is about Lebanon. Should Israel cease fire. Is Iran behind Hezbollah. What about Syria. What can America do - when we are already over our heads in Iraq.

Reminds me of our war dead in Iraq. When we had lost 500, then 700, then 1,000. We already knew the war was a mistake, but we stayed the course. Nobody cared. It wasn't enough to matter. Now it's over 2,500.

Ho hum.

Lebanon. Who gives a shit?

Israel should not cease fire. Not till Hezbollah is eradicated. That will take years. So -- don't get too excited. They will either back off as they did when last they withdrew from Lebanon, or they will do the right thing. In which case, they will be in Lebanon a long long time. So, like I say, Ho hum.

Iran is behind Hezbollah. Look at the weaponry of Hezbollah. Oil money bought the long range missiles, anti-tank weapons, sea-skimming missiles. Syria cannot pay for the weapons Hezbollah has deployed these past three weeks. Ho hum.

Syria is involved too. The leader of Hamas gives interviews from his Damascus hotel. Do you think he speaks without permission from Assad? Ho hum.

We have no way left to win in Iraq, and no will to win. We are down by two touchdowns, and our quarterback has been taking a knee on every play for the past 58 minutes. So let the Israelis defend themselves. Maybe they will commit sufficient troops. Maybe they have the will to win. At least they are attacking the people who have first attacked them, unlike our war against Iraq. And Olmert, who may not be a genius, is at least not the idiot boy from Midland. Iraq is already lost - nothing Israel does now or refrains from doing will change thet. Ho Hum.

I heard all the buzz today about 50 dead civilians in Lebanon. Meanwhile 100 died in Iraq. I really don't care. There'll be a couple hundred more tomorrow.

And so it goes.

God is good. Jesus saves. Allah be praised.

Ho Hum.

As far as I am concerned, as long as Iran is threatening to build nukes, the last thing we want is a cease-fire. Even that stupid fucking war in Iraq has to continue for now. Bush has really set the table here -- and we cannot afford to walk away.

To give up now means Iran and Hezbollah get the bomb.

Israel will not let that happen. Even George W. (for "whatever") Bush will not let that happen.

So Lebanon is a sideshow, children. The real excitement is yet to come. If Israel fails in Lebanon as we have failed in Iraq, the excitement just might come in the form of a mushroom cloud - to paraphrase the idiot boy.

Till then, don't bother me with news about a few dozen dead civilians. It isn't enough.

Ho Hum.

An Inconvenient Truth

Melissa Etheridge wrote and performed this song - it runs during the closing credits of An InconvenientTruth and is worth waiting 90 minutes to hear.

I Need to Wake Up

Have I been sleeping?
I've been so still Afraid of crumbling
Have I been careless?
Dismissing all the distant rumblings
Take me where I am supposed to be
To comprehend the things that I can't see

'Cause I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something's got to break up
I've been asleep
And I need to wake up now

And as a child
I danced like it was 1999
My dreams were wild
The promise of this new world
Would be mine
Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth
To listen to an inconvenient truth

That I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something's got to break up
I've been asleep
And I need to wake up now

I am not an island
I am not alone
I am my intentions
Trapped here in this flesh and bone

And I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something's got to break up
I've been asleep
And I need to wake up now

I want to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Or, something's got to break up
I've been asleep
And I need to wake up now

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore has mastered the subject of global warming, and his presentation of this issue to the people of the world in this film, and in countless live appearances, is a tour de force. The former Vice President has been all over this issue -- man-made climate change -- for thirty years, and his preparation for this campaign is evident in his polished script, supporting graphics, and delivery. This is a "must-see" movie. Informative. Powerful. Inspiring.

The contrast between this articulate and well-informed man and the boob in the White House is so stark that it is more depressing than the threat posed by global warming.

Even as I wonder how we could possibly have done so much to destroy the fragile ecosphere, I am even more befuddled by the leadership we have chosen and the complacency with which we accept their policies - from torture to war to rich-man tax breaks to global environmental neglect.

Is it possible that our stupidity will kill us off before the greenhouse gases have done their dirty work?

Gore - Edwards in 2008

I know we need to take back the Congress in 2006, but my thought tonight are on the White House. And I am thinking about my dream ticket.

Al Gore for President; John Edwards for Vice President.

The Democrats have nobody with the qualifications of Al Gore. And John Edwards is already my candidate for 2016.

Hillary is worse than Kerry -- neither one could beat Osama bin Laden at the polls.

Gore may still be a twit -- but I am guessing he will be a much better candidate than he was when he defeated Bush at the polls in 2000.

Peace

Democrats divided over exit strategy

Some of us want out today (yesterday would have been better - but three years ago would have been better still -- and best of all would have been not to invade Iraq at all).

Some of us want to set a date -- a time soon and certain -- to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

Some of us - no matter how pointless and immoral the war may be - want to stay the course, or prefer for political reasons to oppose an announced date for the withdrawal of troops.

These are ideas worthy of debate -- it is no shame that Democrats have been wrestling with these ideas.

In contrast, Republicans have rallied to the President - staunchly standing by his side in his commitment to leave this mess to the next President to sort out. One idea - stay the course - is the full extent of the GOP policy discussion.

To the average American, this clearness of purpose is very attractive. If the Democrats cannot agree on a clear alternative, Joe Sixpack will be happy to stay the course - at least that is the reasoning behind the GOP maneuvering in Congress today. They may be right -- even though 70% of Americans agree that the war is a mistake, the GOP may be able to sway some voters to stand with them as they continue this war ad infinitum, ad absurdum, ad nauseum...

Personally, I am happy to be a Democrat -- a party frequently accused of having no ideas (when it is in fact quite clear they have too many) by people who cling to one badly discredited idea (and its badly discredited father).

The GOP have allotted 10 hours for the Iraq War "debate" to be followed by a quick vote -- if they had any intention of considering other ideas 10 hours would not be one tenth the time needed to do the subject justice.

Just 10 hours -- it really is an insult to 2,500 dead, thousands of injured, and many more who have or will serve in Iraq.

If a stunt like this one earns the GOP any political benefit, it will be a disgrace. It is time to throw these bums out.

Compared to the mindless obstinacy, incompetence and corruption of the GOP, any Democrat and any war policy will be better than more of the same.

It is time for a change.

America Adrift

We are we heading now? With the President at 29%, and with nearly 3 years before another President will get his administration into its offices, are we adrift?

We have an economic policy that ignores huge deficits and adds to them by extending tax breaks for the richest Americans.

We have a foreign policy that has succeeded in alienating our allies, driving potential enemies to build nuclear weapons, enabling jihadists to recruit and train terrorists in Iraq and across the Middle East (indeed, across the planet). Our constitutional system of checks and balances has never been so threatened -- and the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Attorney General are all engaged in stretching the laws to the breaking point, and in the abrogation of treaty obligations and international conventions.

How will we turn this around?

While we dither, millions of Darfuri refugees wait in jeopardy of their very lives. While we float aimlessly, the people of Iraq, and our soldiers and marines there, sink into chaos and endless violence.

A phone call tonight -- someone asking for money to help elect Democrats to Congress -- and I wonder if I should send them anything. I am sick of the current bunch in Congress and in the Executive branch -- but what will the Democrats do if they win in November?

Will they end the war in Iraq? Will they stop Iran from building nukes? Will they raise taxes and balance the budget? Will they save Darfur from genocide? What will they do to defeat the jihadists?

What will they do?

Nobody knows.

Losing with consequences

James Fallows in The Atlantic Monthly writes about the failed effort to "stand up" an Iraqi Security Force, the critical task Bush has repeatedly stated must be achieved before we can leave Iraq. Here are a few quotes from the article:

"The current situation will NEVER allow for an effective ISF [Iraqi Security Force] to be created," a young Marine officer who will not let me use his name wrote in an e-mail after he returned from Iraq this summer. "We simply do not have enough people to train forces. If we shift personnel from security duties to training, we release newly trained ISF into ever-worsening environs."

"A growing number of U.S. military officers in Iraq and those who have returned from the region are voicing concern that the nascent Iraqi army will fall apart if American forces are drawn down in the foreseeable future," Elaine Grossman, of the well-connected newsletter Inside the Pentagon, reported in September.

"U.S. trainers have made a heroic effort and have achieved some success with some units," Ahmed Hashim, of the Naval War College, told me in an e-mail. "But the Iraqi Security Forces are almost like a black hole. You put a lot in and little comes back out."

"I have to tell you that corruption is eating the guts of this counter-insurgency effort," a civilian wrote in an e-mail from Baghdad. Money meant to train new troops was leaking out to terrorists, he said. He empathized with "Iraqi officers here who see and yet are powerless to stop it because of the corrupt ministers and their aides."
"On the current course we will have two options," I was told by a Marine lieutenant colonel who had recently served in Iraq and who prefers to remain anonymous. "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our army, or we can just lose."

"In Vietnam we just lost," the officer said. "This would be losing with consequences."

The Big Lie

Frank Rich, in Sunday's New York Times, makes an important point about the cost of the Iraq war. Aside from its ruinous effect on our military, and on our prestige in the world, and on our democracy, the failed war in Iraq and its dishonest presentation by our president have worked to reduce American will to fight the real war -- the war against Islamic jihadism.

Although the Times has put its columnists behind a $50/year subscription, you can read the article here.

Here's an excerpt:

One hideous consequence of the White House's Big Lie - fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 - is that the public, having rejected one, automatically rejects the other. That's already happening. The percentage of Americans who now regard fighting terrorism as a top national priority is either in the single or low double digits in every poll. Thus the tragic bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration has at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America's will and resources to confront that expanded threat.

We have arrived at "the worst of all possible worlds," in the words of Daniel Benjamin, Richard Clarke's former counterterrorism colleague, with whom I talked last week. No one speaks more eloquently to this point than Mr. Benjamin and Steven Simon, his fellow National Security Council alum. They saw the Qaeda threat coming before most others did in the 1990's, and their riveting new book, "The Next Attack," is the best argued and most thoroughly reported account of why, in their opening words, "we are losing" the war against the bin Laden progeny now.

Running out of time in Darfur

Excerpt below comes from a piece by Eric Reeves, appearing in The New Republic (11/28/05) that describes the "now or never" predicament of 3.5 million people of Darfur in Sudan, for whom time is running out. It is estimated that 400,000 have already died in Darfur; one wonders whether the "culture of life" rhetoric of the present administration will be backed by the action needed to prevent hundreds of thousands more from dying in this tormented land. If there is any true Christmas spirit here, I hope it will be expressed in the rescue of our brothers and sisters in Sudan.

There is considerable evidence that many humanitarian organizations are on the brink of withdrawing from Darfur--or at least suspending operations. An upsurge in violence against humanitarian workers has pushed many groups to the very limit of tolerable risk. The consequences of such a withdrawal will be stark: hundreds of thousands dead. As a result, the reality facing America and its allies is simple: If we really believe that something should be done to save Darfur, then we have to do it now. Soon, it will be too late to do anything at all. [..]

Eighty-one NGOs and thirteen U.N. agencies currently operate in Darfur, according to the latest U.N. data. These groups have evacuation plans defined by varying contingencies and thresholds for implementation. A year ago, for example, Save the Children UK withdrew its non-Sudanese staff and suspended all operations in Darfur following the deaths of several workers.... But no matter what the threshold for evacuation, the precipitating scenarios are daily becoming more likely. [..]

The first to die will be malnourished children under five years of age, especially those who presently require the assistance of specialized feeding centers. But these casualties will only be harbingers of greater death, both in the overcrowded camps, which are again swelling because of new violence, and throughout the vulnerable rural areas where people are increasingly unable to feed themselves......

Two months ago Jan Egeland, head of U.N. humanitarian operations, warned that if
insecurity "continues to escalate, if it continues to be so dangerous on humanitarian work, we may not be able to sustain our operation[.] ... It could all end tomorrow--it's as serious as that." A year ago, when there were a million fewer conflict-affected people in Darfur, Egeland warned that in the event of humanitarian evacuation as many as 100,000 could die every month..... Hundreds of thousands of people are already beyond humanitarian relief, and the population is weakened by almost three years of intense conflict. The number without assistance may climb to over a million by year's end.

As humanitarian evacuation becomes more likely, the day draws near when the West will have to make its final decision on Darfur. African Union forces have failed to secure the region; and without security, there can be no humanitarian relief. Either America and its western allies put troops on the ground in Darfur soon, or the time to act will have passed. Perhaps 400,000 people have died in Darfur already, but after humanitarian workers leave, those numbers will swell quickly and considerably. After all, while humanitarian workers have an evacuation option, Darfur's residents do not.

Drawing Without an Eraser

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
-- John W. Gardner

The object of art is to give life a shape.
-- William Shakespeare

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.
-- Marc Chagall

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I think there is wisdom in each of these quotes. Gardner sees life as a risky sort of enterprise, in which our expression of ourselves is an art form not unlike free jazz -- purposeful but improvised, and at its essence a creation that cannot be amended or revised. If art imitates life, then I suspect many of us eraserless wanderers have produced a sorry form of art indeed. But sometimes, in the right light, we do have our sublime moments. The trick is to make more of them -- but how?

Shakespeare has an answer to that question.

He speaks to the purpose and power of art in our lives -- the way in which the experience of art in our lives inevitably forms who we are as human beings. He is of course one of our great artists of literature, and the self-expression and creation of beautiful and insightful art must have shaped his life in ways that were obvious and remarkable to him. Though it may be beyond the limits of our gifts to equal a Shakespeare, we can each of us explore the art of others, and seek the grace that is found in its contemplation.

We can invest ourselves in our own art and allow the spirit of that practice to influence our lives as well. Why shouldn't we seek to be shaped by beauty, and by the free creative expression of our spirit? What is the art that moves us? What music touches our hearts? We need to embrace the possibilities of art in our lives if we would make our lives into beautiful imitations of the finest art.

Finally, Chagall speaks to the implicit question -- what is the essence of the finest art? He talks to us of the power of love in art and in life. The presence of love in our art, and in our lives is the golden strand of meaning that holds together all the many aspects of our lives -- the noblest influence on the shape of our lives.

I think Chagall is right, and yet I feel he missed something out -- time. I think time is part of this equation. Mindfulness of this moment. Memories of moments past. Hope in a future moment. Love that is nurtured over time. Patience. Devotion to one's friends and family and art. Love is not a color splashed suddenly on life's canvas.

When I try to make sense of my life, and I do this more often than it is comfortable to acknowledge, I find that love is the only attachment to meaning, and the only portal onto whatever plane of artistic expression I may ever hope that my life would attain. And I do want to make a work of art of my life. I want it to mean something. I want it to be imbued with some small touch of beauty and harmony and coherence.

But I know myself. Coherence is elusive, and chaos seems too vital and alluring. The spontaneous and potentially dangerous impulses tug at me, and hold the promise of insight and brilliant clarity. I am afraid to plod along like some plow-horse with blinders. I have found the sharp edge of reality and do not wish to see it dulled or rusted. I wonder if I have what it takes to give birth to my own dancing star. I wonder if a man can hold onto the chaos and still find coherence. Is this the creative tension in my life, or a fatal flaw? Is it the key to unlock my own art, or a distraction?

I have no eraser, few gifts and very little time. But I can seek to bring more art into my life, and to make art of my own. I will not live forever, but in the time I have, I can choose my own palette, write my own words, and play my own theme.

For years now, the path has been unclear and I have been stalling for time, hoping for a revelation. At last, it is clear that no revelation is to be expected. We are on our own.

Our life-art is like a Tibetan butter sculpture. It is art to be enjoyed in the making, but not for the lasting appreciation of others. If it is a true and courageous expression of my love, then this art will satisfy, and I will have my own dancing star, if only for one sublime moment.

-- Neil