I have the unpleasant task here of disagreeing with a few of my co-authors. For me they’ve got their priorities out of order. I conclude this from what I view as, in this overall context, splitting hairs over what constitutes a gulag in comparison to what occurs in Guantanamo. The goal of the AI report is not to bring down Bush or any of the other paranoid fantasies I’m reading across the blogosphere. It is simply to stop the acts we know are happening, regardless of whether we disagree about why they’re happening. It is perhaps telling (and shameful) that seemingly all our Vice-President or President can do in response to criticism is join in the bashing of one of the world’s most altruistic organizations, but, my friends, these are the facts:
Month: May 2005
TPM Cafe, And Blogs More Generally
by hilzoy
Today, Josh Marshall opened his new site, TPM Cafe. It is really, really interesting. Thus far, I particularly like America Abroad, the foreign policy section, and John Edwards’ guest blog, as well as the main “Coffee House” section. (Note: in this section, a lot of the posters are commenting on one another’s posts, so it helps to start at the beginning. To do this, go down to the bottom of the page and click what it confusingly called “Next n”, where n is the number of posts you choose to display when you sign up. Likewise, ‘previous n’ gets you back to the later posts.) Good stuff which should finally lay to rest the right-wing claim that Democrats have no ideas.
I think TPM cafe is interesting in a way that goes beyond the interest of its various posts, though; and to explain why, I’m going to have to back up and say a few things about what I think of blogs in general. I am normally skeptical of claims that blogs are revolutionizing this or that. I love them, of course; and I particularly love the fact that they let anyone at all write commentary on whatever they like, and acquire an audience through the simple fact of having something interesting to say. Blogs let me know about all sorts of interesting things I would otherwise have missed, and they provide interesting commentary and insight that otherwise wouldn’t exist at all. But this, while wonderful, is not (to my mind) enough to warrant all the breathless rhetoric about blogs that I periodically read.
But there is one thing that blogs can do that I think is as important as allowing everyone who has a computer to join a huge ongoing conversation, but that is not generally remarked on, and it has to do with rectifying what I see as huge informational gaps in the world of most citizens.
The Day After Memorial Day Post
By popular demand, here’s a post on Memorial Day: 1. Throughout human history, some people have been fortunate enough to live their entire lives in relative peace, dealing with the ups and downs of everyday life until, hopefully at a ripe old age, they pass away, with a legacy behind them and only God knows … Read more
Don’t Cry For Us, Argentina…
by hilzoy After spending a delightful weekend birding, gardening, and reading about debt crises in various countries, I decided to check back in with blogs; and what should I find on Ezra’ Klein’s site but this truly terrifying graph from the GAO: That expanding blue portion is debt service, and this graph shows it taking … Read more
The Amnesty Travesty
by Charles
Rather than respond in comments, I thought I’d write some of my thoughts here as a counterpoint to Edward’s earlier post as it pertains to Amnesty International. The sentence most meriting a response is this:
It seems to me that Amnesty’s point was that as the world’s remaining superpower, the US bears a bigger responsibility than North Korea or Iran to set an example.
Unless it has changed its vision, Amnesty International has no business making such a point:
AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.
Emphases mine. There’s no cherry-picking here, and there’s no singling out a particular nation because that nation happens to be really, really powerful. The vision of Amnesty International is one standard applied to every person. To the extent that the leadership of Amnesty International has focused its ire on a country that has done more than any other on earth to advance freedom and human rights, it is an organization that has lost its bearings. To put it more forthrightly, the perspective of the leadership of Amnesty International is so whacked and so skewed that it’s credibility as a human rights organization is in mortal peril. Consider the statement made by the Secretary General, Irene Khan:
The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law.
The Washington Post put it best:
Open Thread: Rilkefan Gets Married!
by hilzoy This evening’s open thread is in honor of rilkefan and, well, maybe we should say the rilkebride: we wish them all the happiness the world has to offer. Rilkefan will, I think, never be at a loss for words, so he will not need the Victorian Sex Cry Generator (via Amygdala), but someone … Read more
On The Rules
by hilzoy As I noted in comments last night, our posting rules prohibit incivility, and we have interpreted this as a ban on all personal attacks on posters and commenters alike, by posters and commenters alike. You can, of course, point out the factual errors and/or argumentative flaws in someone’s reasoning, but you cannot call … Read more
A Break From Your Regularly Scheduled Blogging
In part to remind myself that most of the blather over the judicial nomination wars is just that — blather — I’ve been re-reading Roger K. Newman‘s remarkable biography of Justice Hugo Black. Justice Black, as some may know, nearly had his 1937 nomination to the Supreme Court derailed by rumors that he had been a member of the KKK (rumors that were, in fact, true).
But the story of how a former Klansman became one of the great Supreme Court Justices of all time is old hat. What strikes my fancy today is a gem hidden in the book’s footnotes regarding the Roosevelt administration’s apparent obliviousness to (then, Senator) Black’s past in the Klan. (The more things change ….) As the dirt on Black came out, a reporter expressed shock to Joe Kennedy that Black had not informed FDR tha the had been a Klansman (p. 251):
Kennedy’s reply (cleaned up for publication) was "If Marlene Dietrich asked you to make love to her, would you tell her you weren’t much good at making love?"
(Another gem: Right after Justice Black was confirmed, a reporter remarked to Mrs. Black about a large family gathering that the Black’s had held over the holidays. "Yes. Quite a gathering of the clan," she said before realizing.)
Bolton: Remixed, Revised, Reassessed
Readers of this blog know that, after some wavering, I came out against John Bolton as UN Ambassador. Specifically: An effective UN Ambassador must be believed. He or she must not only be an honest broker, but must also be perceived as an honest broker. An ambassador must enjoy the cut-and-thurst of reasoned debate and … Read more
Chutzpah
by hilzoy Via Angry Bear: CNN reports the following: “Thousands of former Enron Corp. employees will share $85 million in insurance proceeds to compensate for pensions lost when the energy giant collapsed into bankruptcy, a federal judge ruled this week. (…) Lynn Sarko, a lawyer for the former Enron workers, said the settlement money would … Read more