Current Affairs

An artist I know has been predicting doom for civilization because we depend too heavily on electrical energy and it cannot last forever at the levels we consume it here in the US. He religiously turns off lights and other machines in other people’s spaces and rants about how offensive he finds, for example, video art, because after we have no more electricity, it will be totally useless. I used to think he was a bit obsessive. Then I watched Power Trip, the PBS special on the energy situation in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, and I got a glimpse of the future my artist friend has seen coming for years.

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I heard a short entertainment brief just the other day about how David Letterman was being sent the occassional joke by late-night legend Johnny Carson. It was one of those odd non-news vignettes that reminds you how long the subject has been out of the public eye, and it struck me that his folks most likely sent out this press release to soften the coming blow. And so it is. Johnny Carson has died at the age of 79.

Anyone too young to remember the elegantly simple charm of Jay Leno’s predecessor missed a true master of the art.

The boyish-looking Nebraska native with the disarming grin, who survived every attempt to topple him from his late-night talk show throne, was a star who managed never to distance himself from his audience.

His wealth, the adoration of his guests — particularly the many young comics whose careers he launched — the wry tales of multiple divorces: Carson’s air of modesty made it all serve to enhance his bedtime intimacy with viewers.

"Heeeeere’s Johnny!" was the booming announcement from sidekick Ed McMahon that ushered Carson out to the stage. Then the formula: the topical monologue, the guests, the broadly played skits such as "Carnac the Magnificent."

But America never tired of him; Carson went out on top when he retired in May 1992.

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When people ask why impoverished countries haven’t improved their condition recently, opinions sometimes break down along the following lines: some people point out that the terms of trade are stacked in favor of rich countries, which impedes their efforts to trade their way to increased prosperity, and others point out that many of those countries are very badly governed, which produces the same result. (Myself, I think that both claims are obviously true.) One of the reasons people insist on one or the other point is, I think, that the first implies that rich countries are at least partially responsible for the continued immiseration of poor countries, while the second seems to imply that it’s those countries’ own fault. (Not the fault of their entire population, obviously, since often those bad governments seize control in coups, but at any rate not something we can do anything about.)

I want to call this last assumption into question, and argue that the fact that poor countries often have disastrous governments is in part the result of an international legal framework that we have put in place, and that we are in a much better position than poor countries to change. But, to be clear at the outset: I am not trying to argue that this is wholly our fault, or anything. Obviously, it’s not. The nature of international legal arrangements is, I think, much more the doing of rich countries than of poor ones, but I have no idea how large these arrangements’ contribution to bad governance in poor countries is. I am just trying to argue that since it’s unlikely that these arrangements don’t contribute at all to bad governance in the developing world, changes in international legal principles could lessen the number of thugs who take over poor countries; and thus that when a poor country is taken over by a thug, that’s not something we have no responsibility whatsoever for, as if it were a random natural catastrophe.

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On January 7, 2005, I issued a challenge for a blogger to step forward to defend the following position:

Resolved: in fighting the war on terror, there are circumstances in which a U.S. government agent should be able to torture a prisoner without risking criminal or civil liability.

(Or one like it.)  I offered the take the other side — the anti-torture side — in the debate.

I’ve yet had no takers.  James Donald sent the following hypothetical by e-mail, however, which I publish with his permission:

You intercept a car bomber who was about to blow up a mosque full of innocents. His handlers are trying to provoke civil war by committing enormous atrocities.

You know the average suicide bomber is none too bright and none too sane – that his handler is somewhere nearby attempting, not very successfully, to guide him to the desired target. So you ask him. "Who is your handler? Who supplied you with all these explosives, who installed the detonator? Where did the explosives come from? He does not answer. What you gonna do?

I know what I would do, whether or not I am employed by the US government. What would you do?

The question misses the point.  The issue is not what one should do in a given case.  The issue is what rules should generally apply.   

There are situations in which I would torture a captured, powerless foe.  There are situations in which I’d want my government to torture a seeming innocent in my name.  And, as I mentioned in my original post, I can even dream up exceptional situations in which I would happily agree to torture a seven year old child to a slow death.  (So can you, I bet.)

But if we’re going to discuss legitimizing torture, we need to start with the rules that will generally apply.  We can’t start with the exceptions. 

It’s therefore telling whenever a person wants to argue that torture should be legitimized, they rarely argue a rule.  They nearly always argue an exception.  Or they resort to a generalized, "I wouldn’t take anything off the table."  (See, e.g., this old den Beste post.)

They do this because they don’t have a rule to argue.  They don’t have standards to apply.  They don’t want to make an affirmative case.  They want to rely on an ad hoc assembly of examples.  A generalized fear.  A broad concern.  It is because their position is fundamentally weak.  They need to conceal its weakness. 

Well, my position isn’t weak.  So here’s my rule.  Torture is prohibited.  If you torture, you assume the risk of your act — of being prosecuted and of being convicted. 

There is no immunity because you are working for the government or because you believe it’s for he greater good.  A thousand roads have been laid with some variation of such words, and they each lead to a Godwin’s law violation.  There is good reason not to lay another.

Will this mean that every torturer will be punished?  Probably not.  Indeed, in a truly exceptional case no prosecutor would indict and no jury would convict.  But, as I mentioned, the rules are not designed for exceptional cases. 

___________________________

Still, to answer Mr. Donald’s question:  I frankly don’t know what I would do — I mean, other than interrogating the guy to the nines and (ultimately) tossing him in jail.  Would I enhance my interrogation by pulling out his fingernails?  Breaking his fingers with a wrench?  Punching him a couple times in the balls?  Slowly bleeding him to death?  Sodomizing him with a toilet plunger?  Loosing (or threatening to loose) an attack dog on him?  Plunging his face into water?  Threatening to kill his wife, his son, and his month old baby girl?  Actually killing them?

Would any of these things would improve the intelligence that I received from a "none too bright and none too sane" suicide bomber?

And what are the stakes?  If I don’t torture the bomber, I may not be able to locate the leadership of the insurgent group?  Wouldn’t that same standard potentially apply to every insurgent fighter — legitimizing torture against the entire enemy force? 

Is that the rule that I should apply?

UPDATE:  Contrapositive notes some less-than encouraging comments from (now) Secretary Rice at hearing regarding this very subject.  Maybe, if Sens. Boxer and Kerry hadn’t made asses of themselves yesterday, these comments would have gotten more play.  (For the record, I support elavating Rice to State, and thus am having difficulty getting too worked up about this.)

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Massachusetts Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe wins the first in my sporadic new series of Scary Idiot of the Day (SIOD) awards. Why?

Well, in an attempt to jump start a murder investigation, police in Truro, Massachusetts, have been asking male residents to voluntarily submit a DNA sample:

Police in Truro, Massachusetts, are seeking genetic thumbprints from nearly 800 men who live in the quiet seaside hamlet hopes of solving the murder of Christa Worthington, a fashion writer.

Worthington’s body was discovered Jan. 6, 2002, at her Truro home with her 2-year-old toddler, Ava, at her side. A $25,000 reward has so far failed to yield her killer.

In a bid to jump-start the investigation, police have begun asking Truro’s male residents to voluntarily produce DNA samples — collected by swabbing inside the mouth — to help find a match for the semen that was found on Worthington’s body.

The New York Times reported Monday that police are approaching men in public with the request, and have announced that they will closely watch those who refuse. Authorities also say they may expand the drive to neighboring communities, the Times said. [emphasis mine]

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From Democracy For Virginia, via Atrios, comes news of the dumbest bill I’ve heard of in quite some time. It would require that “A fetal death report for each fetal death which occurs in the Commonwealth shall be filed, on a form furnished by the State Registrar, with the registrar of the district in which the delivery occurred or the abortion was performed within three days after such delivery or abortion and shall be registered with such registrar if it has been completed and filed in accordance with this section”. Moreover, “When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman’s responsibility to report the death to the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of which the delivery occurs within 12 hours after the delivery. A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.” And what, you might ask, is the penalty for a Class 1 misdemeanor? “Confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2500, either or both.”

The most obviously bad implication of this bill is that when a woman has a miscarriage, she must stop crying for long enough to call the police and inform them of what the bill refers to as “the death” within twelve hours or face jail time. But it’s actually considerably worse than that.

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I know, I know, this will strike some as "let’s just agree Bush is a bad man and move on" sort of post, but really, could they get out ahead of this Asia disaster relief press, please?

UPDATE: I haven’t clarified very well the main point here, so I’ll insert this:

I’m certainly not trying to build the argument that the US government is not working hard on this, just that they can’t seem to get out ahead of the story PRwise.

Consider the lastest headline regarding our relatively much smaller ally:

Meanwhile, in the land where $2 billion is spent on lobbying our government is still struggling to get this right:

The United States, faulted by critics for a slow and miserly response to the Asian tsunami, is preparing an aid package to be introduced in Congress early next year, lawmakers said on Thursday. 

An amount of money has not yet been agreed upon but it would be in addition to the $35 million pledged by President Bush on Wednesday, congressional aides said.

In a statement, Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican said he is drafting legislation to assist victims that he plans to introduce after the new Congress starts work on Jan. 4.

"The challenges of coping with suffering on this magnitude are almost unfathomable, and we will act" said Hyde, who chairs the House International Relations Committee.

He said a congressional delegation will visit Thailand and Sri Lanka next week.

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, speaking on CNN said he had prepared a resolution for the return of the new Congress that will set the stage for "very generous appropriations."

We will act? Can we change the tense of that statement to the present continuous please? The New York Times Editioral page rang in today with:

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Yes, it’s that time of year again, when everyone gets to pretend they write for David Letterman and offer their Top Ten lists on their favorite topics. Rather than limit it to movies or events, however, I’m opening up the concept to anything that strikes your fancy. What were your favorite "things" about the past year? Here’s mine (things that made me happy this year):

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I’m growing increasingly agitated about the US response to the catastrophe in Southern Asia. Maybe this is more a reflection of my own feelings of helplessness from here or maybe I’m parsing it a bit too finely, but as I began to read the accounts, I had this weird feeling that the US response was lackluster. Now I think there’s actual foot-dragging, and I can’t comprehend why. Compare these responses:

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My local newspaper guy (late 60’s immigrant from ME or one of the ‘stans, not quite sure, withered weary look about him, always shivering) gave me a Christmas card yesterday quite unexpectedly. It reads "Peace on Earth…Peace is the healing and elevating influence in the world."

I could hear him laughing with joy and imagined him dancing  with delight as I headed into the subway this morning, having tipped him handsomely and wished him "Happy Holidays." There was something pure about his happiness in seeing his plan had worked. That by handing out cards to his customers yesterday, he’d reminded them to tip him today. It was as if he hadn’t believed this simply ploy would produce results, and yet here it was working. This wonderfully gullible nation of people who would actually give you handfuls of cash because you gave them a 50-cent greeting card. How miraculous.

The New York Times Editorial today highlighted the fact that America is way behind in its promise to help fight global poverty:

It was with great fanfare that the United States and 188 other countries signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration, a manifesto to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and disease among the one billion people in the world who subsist on barely anything. The project set a deadline of 2015 to achieve its goals. Chief among them was the goal for developed countries, like America, Britain and France, to work toward giving 0.7 percent of their national incomes for development aid for poor countries.

Almost a third of the way into the program, the latest available figures show that the percentage of United States income going to poor countries remains near rock bottom: 0.14 percent. Britain is at 0.34 percent, and France at 0.41 percent. (Norway and Sweden, to no one’s surprise, are already exceeding the goal, at 0.92 percent and 0.79 percent.)

[…] Jeffrey Sachs, the economist appointed by Kofi Annan to direct the Millennium Project, puts the gap between what America is capable of doing and what it actually does into stark relief.

The government spends $450 billion annually on the military, and $15 billion on development help for poor countries, a 30-to-1 ratio that, as Mr. Sachs puts it, shows how the nation has become "all war and no peace in our foreign policy." Next month, he will present his report on how America and the world can actually cut global poverty in half by 2015. He says that if the Millennium Project has any chance of success, America must lead the donors.

My father and I were talking on the phone the other night and he noted that he’s been more than usually generous lately and he wasn’t sure why. I said I had noticed the same thing about myself. I actually feel compelled to be generous again and again. Neither of us has any extra money compared with recent years, quite the contrary, and neither of us has had any life-changing event occur that shook us to our core.  It’s odd, we agreed, like subliminal messages were behind it. Perhaps it’s as simple as how much more obvious than ever it is how little those around us have, how the money won’t make as significant a difference in our life as it will for those we give it to. Or maybe (donning tin foil hat) the government has implanted computer chips in our brains and….

There was an elderly Polish gentleman at the Bedford stop of the L train the other night playing a sad rendition of "Silent Night" on the accordian in a style reminiscent of nothing so much as the intermission music played in a Parisian cabaret just slightly past its prime. I threw a dollar in his green plastic bucket and noticed only a handful of change already in there. I hoped he was the sort of busker who frequently pockets his takings to avoid tempting some teenager from grabbing them. His accordian looked ancient and sounded older. It was eerily appropriate background music for my mood and our times.

I’ll be offline for the next few days, but before I go want to wish each and everyone of you—at least moments of—peace, goodwill toward others, quiet warm moments with your loved ones, and joy. Most of all I wish you joy!

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Yesterday the Washington Post published an op ed by Rick Atkinson on the difficulty of separating support for the troops from support for the war. A key passage:

“While some voice private doubts, others insist — often with increasing stridency — that the war is justified, that the insurgency can be crushed and that naysaying undermines both national will and troop morale. I admire their steadfast faith, even as I recognize the dilemma. To disbelieve seems too much like betrayal. Skepticism and dissent appear inimical to service and sacrifice.

Keeping the warriors and the war untangled is extraordinarily difficult, intellectually and emotionally. All that most of us can do is to mean precisely what we say: We back you.”
Phil Carter adds a thoughtful comment:

“This is a dilemma I’ve wrestled with since March 2003, if not earlier. I’m still not sure there’s a way to coherently reconcile one’s support for the troops with opposition to the war. This seems like cognitive dissonance in the extreme; to support the people who are laboring on one hand, but to oppose the purpose towards which they pour their blood, sweat and tears. On the receiving end of this speech, it’s hard to see the line between supporting our soldiers while opposing the purpose for which they labor. It’s not like we’re talking about some corporate bottom line here. This purpose is used to justify great sacrifice by our soldiers, much more so than any employee in any other context. They face mortal danger every day; they miss their families; some will be wounded, a few killed — all in the name of this purpose. And you’re going to come in and say that the war’s being fought wrong — or worse yet, that this purpose isn’t good enough? If that’s true, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down — there’s no more purpose to justify their enormous sacrifices.

Viktor Frankl wrote so many years ago that man will bear almost any hardship in the name of a purpose. If we oppose the purpose of this administration in Iraq, do we make it tougher for our soldiers to bear the hardship? On the other hand, if we remain mute, do we risk prolonging the hardship unnecessarily?”

Both the original op ed and Carter’s commentary are extremely thoughtful, and very much worth reading. But on one central point I disagree with them: I have always found it both straightforward and necessary to separate support for the troops from support for the war they are fighting.

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I’ve been hearing conservative pundits and reading conservative writers taking aim at Hollywood more and more lately, and their efforts strike me as so disingenuous and transparent, I believe it’s time to shed some serious light on them. This is the first in a series of posts devoted to exploring the methods and goals behind these efforts. To get it started, I’ll jump right into the film that symbolizes better than any other the "passion" of this campaign.

On Tacitus, there’s a blog-ad that illustrates the tone and temperment, not to mention the lack of rationality, behind some of these efforts. With a picture of Michael Moore flashing a "peace sign" it reads:

This Man Wants Another Oscar

But you can help us stop him.

Impose your values on Hollywood.

Visit Passion for Fairness today and support Mel Gibson and The Passion of The Christ.

That’s right. There’s an entire blog, with a petition you can sign, devoted to lobbying the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences into nominating Gibson’s film for Oscars in several categories. The petition begins:

To the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:

It has come to my attention that you and your Board of Governors are considering ignoring the important film The Passion of The Christ, its director and its actors when you hand out nominations on January 25th. This would be an unspeakable insult to the millions of us mainstream Americans who believe this is the most important film in years, decades even.

I urge you to give fair consideration to the film and its principals when you determine and announce the nominees for this year’s Oscars.

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I intend (someday) to do a detailed critique of the current fight over Social Security.  As many of you may suspect, I’m not aligned with the Drummian* "Three Little Birds" view (for those who don’t know their Marley, that’s the song with the refrain "don’t worry about a thing / ’cause every little thing gonna be all right!"), for my deep-seated suspicion of the government’s ability to adapt, revise, and actually pay for itself is too great for such lightheartedness.  Moreover, as Sebastian has pointed out in these pages, Drum’s numbers are a little goofy.  This does not mean, however, that I’m much the fan of George Bush’s approach, which seems loosely based upon Pink Floyd’s "Wish You Were Here."    

But all that’s for another day.  Today, I’ve just got an anecdote.  I received a letter from the government the other day,** which stated that my Social Security benefits had vested and put a pretty surprising number on the monthly payment that I can expect to receive during my golden years.  The amount wasn’t as sneeze-worthy as I had expected.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still in favor of some form of privitization.  But I admit to feeling a little, well, good about having that benefit guaranteed.  A little, secure, you know?

And then I had the offending bit of humanity removed and replaced with version 2.1 of MicroSoft’s(r) Windows Human Replicator, Center-Right. 

von

*It’s to Drum’s great credit, incidentally, that he’s been writing about this subject for quite some time with such urgency and clarity — establishing the meme, as they say.  Y’all know that he’s one of the smartest liberal voices out there, doncha?

**Keeping to the musical theme, I admit recalling the opening lines — though, clearly, not the intent — of Public Enemy’s "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" as I wrote this passage. 

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If you missed it earlier, be sure and see von’s defense of Lincoln over at vox popli.

Today, however, another debate over the 16th President is brewing.

A while ago I attended a seminar where four giants of the contemporary theater were discussing their craft and how it relates to social issues, in particular AIDS. Among them was the irrepressible Larry Kramer, who wrote "A Normal Heart," and who rants like a banshee when fired up. In one particular monologue he raised an audible guffaw from the audience when he noted that Abraham Lincoln was a gay American. Kramer doesn’t take audible guffaws at his announcements lightly. He was immediately fired up, challenging the audience to defend their skepticism of this claim. It seems Larry knew more than he revealed to us that night.

In a new book titled The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, C.A. Tripp (a psychologist, influential gay writer and former sex researcher for Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey) concludes that Lincoln was indeed homosexual (others, including Carl Sandburg have hinted at this, only to have such passages in their books later edited out, it appears). From the review of Tripp’s book in The New York Times:

The subject of the 16th president’s sexuality has been debated among scholars for years. They cite his troubled marriage to Mary Todd and his youthful friendship with Joshua Speed, who shared his bed for four years. Now, in a new book, C. A. Tripp also asserts that Lincoln had a homosexual relationship with the captain of his bodyguards, David V. Derickson, who shared his bed whenever Mary Todd was away.

In "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," …Mr. Tripp…tries to resolve the issue of Lincoln’s sexuality once and for all. The author, who died in 2003, two weeks after finishing the book, subjected almost every word ever written by and about Lincoln to minute analysis. His conclusion is that America’s greatest president, the beacon of the Republican Party, was a gay man.

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There’s no denying it: In my lifetime the quality of life for openly gay people has dramatically improved. As a gay American, I consider that a testament to the good hearts and sense of fairness in straight Americans. And in those quieter moments, when I’m not focussed on the scapegoating and wedge politics, I’m deeply grateful for this. I remember what it was like before, and I don’t imagine for even a moment that all the credit for the improvements belongs to the radical activists. Much of it belongs to the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who demonstrate braver love and truer loyalty to their gay family members than I thought possible when growing up in a small town in Ohio.

There’s some introspection going on among gay leaders in America, however, following the devastating defeat for gay marriage at the ballot boxes across the country. According to today’s New York Times:

Leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses in November when 11 states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages.

In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.

The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals. One official said the group would consider supporting President Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security partly in exchange for the right of gay partners to receive benefits under the program.

"The feeling this weekend in Las Vegas was that we had to get beyond the political and return to the personal," said Michael Berman, a Democratic lobbyist and consultant who was elected the first non-gay co-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign’s board last week. "We need to reintroduce ourselves to America with the stories of our lives."

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