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  • George Allen’s Painful, Public Bar Mitzvah

    Senator George Allen, R – VA, may harbor more unsavory prejudices than his now famous "macaca" remark would suggest. Hurling a racial epithet at a dark skinned young American of Indian origin shows Allen’s contempt for the heritage of others. But the latest revelations about the Allen family’s efforts at denying its Jewish roots illustrates Allen’s shame and discomfort with his own ancestry. Allen has always paraded himself as a red, white and blue child of the American South although he grew up in southern California. The son of a tough football coach, a Confederate flag on his pick up truck and a noose hanging from a tree outside his law office – all added to his persona of a tobacco chewing, cowboy boot wearing, horse riding  good ol’ boy.  How much more red blooded southern Christian can one be?  But Allen’s mother is French-Italian-Spanish- Jewish and  grew up in Tunisia. He has acknowledged all of the above hyphenated components of his mother’s heritage except the Jewish one.

    Last Monday, during a televised debate with his Democratic challenger Jim Webb, Allen had the following exchange with reporter Peggy Fox, who also asked him if he had learnt the word "macaca" from his French speaking mother. I watched the debate. Allen was seething when asked about "macaca" and his mother’s religious roots.  Here is more from Washington Post’s Dana Milbank about Allen’s reaction to Fox’s question.

    "You’ve been quoted as saying your mother’s not Jewish, but it had been reported her father, your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish," Fox asked Allen. "Could you please tell us whether your forebearers include Jews, and if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?"

    Allen recoiled as if he had been struck. His supporters in the audience booed and hissed. "To be getting into what religion my mother is, I don’t think is relevant," Allen said, furiously. "Why is that relevant — my religion, Jim’s religion or the religious beliefs of anyone out there?"

    "Honesty, that’s all," questioner Fox answered, looking a bit frightened.

    "Oh, that’s just all? That’s just all," the senator mocked, pressing his attack. He directed Fox to "ask questions about issues that really matter to people here in Virginia" and refrain from "making aspersions."

    Allen repeated what he has said in the past: "My mother’s French-Italian with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as I know, raised as a Christian."

    Aspersions?  Being Jewish is a crime?  I agree with George Allen that a candidate’s religion is not relevant. (How I wish ALL Americans agreed so that we’d be mercifully spared the hypocrisy of our "devout" politicians.) If so, why is Allen so angry and why did he feel the need to lie?  Also please note that  Allen’s supporters in the audience booed at Fox’s question.  As if raising the possibility of a Jewish heritage is an insult to the senator! Now Allen claims that he did not know about his mother’s Jewish family until recently – in late August of this year.  But the above debate was last Monday, on the 18th of September at which time he was aware of the truth. So why did he not acknowledge it then?  (The full Washington Post story here)

    "Henrietta "Etty" Allen said Wednesday that she concealed her upbringing as a Jew in North Africa from her children, including Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), until a conversation across the dining room table in late August.

    She said Allen asked her directly about his Jewish heritage when he was in Los Angeles for a fundraiser. "We sat across the table and he said, ‘Mom, there’s a rumor that Pop-pop and Mom-mom were Jewish and so were you,’ " she recalled, a day after Allen issued a statement acknowledging and embracing his Jewish roots as he campaigns for a second term in the U.S. Senate.

    At the table in Palos Verdes, Calif., Allen’s mother, who is 83, said she told her son the truth: That she had been raised as a Jew in Tunisia before moving to the United States. She said that she and the senator’s father, famed former Redskins coach George Allen, had wanted to protect their children from living with the fear that she had experienced during World War II. Her father, Felix Lumbroso, was imprisoned by the Nazis during the German occupation of Tunis.

    "What they put my father through. I always was fearful," Etty Allen said in a telephone interview. "I didn’t want my children to have to go through that fear all the time. When I told Georgie, I said, ‘Now you don’t love me anymore.’ He said, ‘Mom, I respect you more than ever.’ "

    Allen’s heritage became an issue in the Virginia Senate campaign Monday, when television reporter Peggy Fox raised it at a televised debate in front of 600 business executives in Fairfax County. Allen repeated what he has said in the past: "My mother’s French-Italian with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as I know, raised as a Christian."

    In fact, Allen had just recently learned about their Jewish roots when he made those comments. Allen declined to comment, but his mother said she had sworn him to secrecy.

    "Allen’s Jewish heritage has been a subject of low-level political speculation for years, in part because the former governor and first-term senator often refers to his grandfather’s incarceration by the Nazis in political speeches. But Allen has always said Lumbroso was a member of the Free French resistance movement and insisted that he and his mother were raised as Christians…"

  • The Devil Is In The Details

    The annual UN General Assembly Session is under way in New York. World leaders, possessing varying degrees of power and reputation gather once a year, presumably to discuss solutions to world problems.  Instead, big egos and small minds jockey on the world stage armed with grandiose postures and hot air. It is a bit like an Open House for an unruly clan. You never know who will turn up and what they will do — and you can’t turn anyone away for just being obnoxious. The petulance, unpredictability and gamesmanship of grown up men (yes, they are always men) sometimes resemble the antics of ornery five year olds in a sandbox.

    The history of the UN is replete with dramatic performances by world class windbags.  1960 was a banner year for histrionics.  At the height of the cold war and nuclear arms race, the world was clearly divided into camps. The US and the erstwhile USSR were in bitter competition with each other in arenas as diverse as the Olympics and space exploration. That year in September, the UN general assembly session saw two dramatic performances by communist leaders.  Nikita Krushchev, the Soviet prime minister gave a fiery speech and is said to have banged his right shoe on the table to make a point. Whether he really did that is in dispute. No photographic evidence exists. But it is such a widely held belief that it has become the diplomatic equivalent of a tenacious urban myth.  The new revolutionary leader of Cuba, a young and charismatic Fidel Castro, gave a speech containing blistering criticism of the US. That speech to this day holds the record of being the longest speech ever delivered on the floor of the UN.

    This year’s UN session too is full of drama. With the world in turmoil and a belligerent and divisive leader like George W. Bush in the White House, other hostile thespians have ample opportunities to orate, pontificate and wag accusatory fingers. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whose name for Bush until today, was Mr. Danger, promoted him to the rank of the Devil. For added effect, Chavez also brandished a book by Noam Chomsky and crossed himself several times when mentioning the presence of the devil.

    "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tore into his U.S. counterpart and his U.N. hosts Wednesday, likening President Bush to the devil and telling the General Assembly that its system is "worthless."

    "The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. "And it smells of sulfur still today."

    Chavez accused Bush of having spoken "as if he owned the world" and said a psychiatrist could be called to analyze the statement.

    "As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘The Devil’s Recipe.’ "

    Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky on imperialism and said it encapsulated his arguments: "The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow him to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated."

    Managing so many oversized egos and clashing ideologies under the same roof is akin to directing a bunch of narcissistic operatic divas in a musical production. Protocol officers and diplomats must have nightmares and bleeding ulcers. Yet some much anticipated and feared melodramatic moments never materialize and other unexpected ones do because of events unfolding thousands of miles away.

    There was the much-discussed handshake that never happened and the presentation of the coca leaf.

    When leaders from dozens of U.N. member states suddenly find themselves crammed in the same building, strange things happen. On the first day of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, it was difficult not to feel that one was witnessing the intricate, poorly understood social rituals of a rare and exotic animal species.

    The practiced U.N. protocol officers prevented any major gaffes, even when Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had to scrap his appearance because of a coup back home. And the much-anticipated run-in between U.S. President Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never materialized.

    As was customary, Bush delivered the second speech of the day and co-hosted a lunch with Secretary-General Kofi Annan just before 1 p.m. Ahmadinejad didn’t deliver his speech until the evening, and was not even in New York when Bush was at the U.N…..

    As usual, things were running late all day, forcing some leaders to sit around and wait for everyone else. Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe had an empty chair next to him at lunch (it was supposed to have been filled by Thaksin), and was clearly not pleased to have arrived on time for Annan’s lunch. Cameras caught him looking annoyed, once raising his hands in exasperation…

    Diplomats waged battles of a different sort during their speeches. The most theatrical was President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who brandished a tiny coca leaf before the hall to hammer home his longtime argument that coca has many uses besides cocaine.

    "It is not possible for the coca leaf to be legal for Coca-Cola but illegal for other consumers in our country and throughout the world," said Morales, who presumably did not declare the leaf to customs when he arrived in the U.S.

    The Associated Press article here.

  • The Unapologetic “Apology” (Sujatha)

    Is it an apology if the apologizer says in effect "I’m sorry at your reaction to my remarks"? Seems like that’s what the Pope is saying in his almost too carefully constructed statement, which has already had the distinction of being pored over and parsed by more people on the planet than any line in the Bible. I just wish that more would pore over this one, truly vastly more worthy of being hammered into the minds of the faithful (of any religion or not) than regurgitated insults from long-dead emperors.

    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

  • Voting Machines and Viruses (Sujatha)

    How safe is our e-voting system now? This report makes me want to go back to pen and paper days again. More details on the actual paper here .

    From the MSNBC report:

    Felten and graduate students Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman found that malicious programs could be placed on the Diebold by accessing the memory card slot and power button, both behind a locked door on the side of the machine. One member of the group was able to pick the lock in 10 seconds, and software could be installed in less than a minute, according to the report.

    The researchers say they designed software capable of modifying all records, audit logs and counters kept by the voting machine, ensuring that a careful forensic examination would find nothing wrong.

    The programs were able to modify vote totals or cause machines to break down, something that could alter the course of an election if machines were located in crucial polling stations.

    It was also possible to design a computer virus to spread malicious programs to multiple machines by piggybacking on a new software download or an election information file being transferred from machine to machine, Felten said.

  • Harvard Cancels Early Action Program (Joe)

    This is great news for the promotion of social equality with respect to higher education in the U.S.  The New York Times has the story:

    Harvard University,
    breaking with a major trend in college admissions, says it will
    eliminate its early admissions program next year, with university
    officials arguing that such programs put low-income and minority
    applicants at a distinct disadvantage in the competition to get into
    selective universities.

    Harvard will be the first of
    the nation’s prestigious universities to do away completely with early
    admissions, in which high school seniors try to bolster their chances
    at competitive schools by applying in the fall and learning whether
    they have been admitted in December, months before other students.

    The basic idea is to stop giving this admissions advantage to affluent applicants.  This is far from a panacea, mind you.  Harvard, while perhaps this nation’s top university, is still just one school, and there are other major issues afflicting the college admissions process (e.g. legacy admits, wealth/fame admits, expensive SAT prep courses, etc.).  And the law school admissions process, even with its more supposedly meritocratic criteria, is probably at least as flawed as the one high school seniors suffer through annually — due primarily to overreliance on the LSAT, a test which is (1) easily gamed and (2) intentionally biased.

  • Blessed Are the Rich (Joe)

    Prosperity Theology.

    Disturbing, no?

    TIME Magazine has a story (CNN summary for non-subscribers such as myself) on this aberrant Christian philosophy.

    Known (or vilified) under a variety of names — Word of Faith,
    Health and Wealth, Name It and Claim It, Prosperity Theology — its
    emphasis is on God’s promised generosity in this life. In a nutshell,
    it suggests that a God who loves you does not want you to be broke.

    […]

    "Prosperity" first blazed to public attention
    as the driveshaft in the moneymaking machine that was 1980s
    televangelism and faded from mainstream view with the Jim Bakker and
    Jimmy Swaggart scandals.

    But now, after some key modifications
    (which have inspired some to redub it Prosperity Lite), it has not only
    recovered but is booming.

    Of the four biggest megachurches in the
    country, three — Joel Osteen’s Lakewood in Houston; T.D. Jakes’
    Potter’s House in south Dallas; and Creflo Dollar’s World Changers in
    Atlanta — are Prosperity or Prosperity Lite pulpits (although Jakes’
    ministry has many more facets).

    While they don’t exclusively teach that God’s riches want to be in believers’ wallets, it is a key part of their doctrine.

    And
    propelled by Osteen’s 4 million-selling book, Your Best Life Now, the
    belief has swept beyond its Pentecostal base into more buttoned-down
    evangelical churches, and even into congregations in the more liberal
    Mainline. It is taught in hundreds of non-Pentecostal Bible studies.
    One Pennsylvania Lutheran pastor even made it the basis for a sermon
    series for Lent, when Christians usually meditate on why Jesus was
    having His Worst Life Then.

    The movement’s renaissance has
    infuriated a number of prominent pastors, theologians and commentators.
    Fellow megapastor Rick Warren, whose book The Purpose Driven Life has
    outsold Osteen’s by a ratio of 7 to 1, finds the very basis of
    Prosperity laughable. "This idea that God wants everybody to be
    wealthy?" he snorts. "There is a word for that: baloney. It’s creating
    a false idol. You don’t measure your self-worth by your net worth. I
    can show you millions of faithful followers of Christ who live in
    poverty. Why isn’t everyone in the church a millionaire?"

    The
    brickbats — both theological and practical (who really gets rich from
    this?) –come especially thick from Evangelicals like Warren.
    Evangelicalism is more prominent and influential than ever before. Yet
    the movement, which has never had a robust theology of money, finds an
    aggressive philosophy advancing within its ranks that many of its
    leaders regard as simplistic, possibly heretical and certainly
    embarrassing.

    […]

    "Who would want to get in on
    something where you’re miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just
    have to muddle through until you get to heaven?" asks Joyce Meyer, a
    popular television preacher and author often lumped in the Prosperity
    Lite camp. "I believe God wants to give us nice things."

    If
    nothing else, Meyer and other new-breed preachers broach a neglected
    topic that should really be a staple of Sunday messages: Does God want
    you to be rich?

    A religious theory which not only accepts but encourages morally bereft behavior?  How appalling!  If not, sadly, novel or surprising.

  • Changes afoot in China? (Joe)

    Ross Terrill in the New York Times today gives an overwiew of the changing nature of China, both politically and economically:

    China’s new economy will surely experience setbacks. But eventually,
    with its emerging middle-class society, it will refashion the old
    politics. In that sense China’s economic boom will both fail and
    succeed. As Leninism-plus-consumerism it will reach its limit. But as a
    base for a post-communist political system, it seems destined to run
    well into the future.

    Unfortunately, the reason for this level of optimism is unclear to me.  Before this (hopeful?) conclusion, Terrill tells us that we are going to see "a tussle between politics and economics," and the story he tells seems to point towards another possible outcome: political authoritarianism crippling the economy.  Certainly we’d like to see economic liberalization instead lead to greater social and political freedom.

    Ruchira has previously discussed the process of democratization here at A.B.; indeed, I think that democracy will eventually win out in China (I just don’t think the substance of Terrill’s op-ed supports that), and am firmly of the opinion that promoting economic growth and liberalization in the Middle East would have been a much safer and more effective solution than invading Iraq.  Given the failed state that we’ve created, it’s safe to say we couldn’t have done any worse!

    Ethan Leib, meanwhile, finds reason for optimism in the political process — essentially, the rise of small-scale Chinese democracy at the local level (hopefully I’ve characterized that argument correctly).  I should add, if we consider that these two distinct processes are occuring concurrently, that has to be even more encouraging, right?

  • Anti-torture QOTD (Joe)

    Ron Suskind:

    Once you threaten someone’s children there’s pretty much nowhere else
    to go in terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some
    point tell you things that you really need to hear.

    I’m not sure, actually, if the quotation is more powerful in context:

    One of the dark moments in the so-called war on terror, as I disclosed
    in the book, along with all the other stuff, is that we threatened
    Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s children to get him to talk. According to those
    involved in that incident, he pretty much looked them straight in the
    eye and said, "Fine, they’ll be in a better place with Allah." Once you
    threaten someone’s children there’s pretty much nowhere else to go in
    terms of building the kind of relationship where they at some point
    tell you things that you really need to hear.

    Hat tip goes to Marty Lederman (aka "my anti-torture hero"; you’ll notice from the link that JB’s been none too shabby in that department, either).

  • Autism and Older Fathers

    More and more men and women, especially those in the educated middle class, are having children later in life – by choice and by necessity. Modern women now face similar educational and career pressures as their male counterparts. They marry and start families later than their mothers and grandmothers did. Older women are more likely to marry men in their same age group or older.  So the average age of parents of both genders is going up. 

    Biological evolution may not be in step with our cultural preferences. Pregnancies after the age of thirty  are known to be associated with certain risks. Although some birth defects and chromosomal conditions like Down syndrome are known to occur at a higher frequency with increased age of the mother, on the whole, a late pregnancy poses more problems for the mother’s health than to the baby’s. An older woman faces increased risks of complications during pregancy, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Chances of a pregnancy in late age ending in a miscarriage are also considerably higher.  But after live birth, there is not a significant difference in the health of the baby of an older woman and that of a younger one. However as far as women are concerned, mother nature firmly shuts the door on their ability to give birth (naturally or with physicians’ involvement) after a certain age.  There is no such upper limit for men.

    Through all of history men have fathered children at an advanced age. Older celebrity fathers like Anthony Quinn, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, David Letterman and Tony Randall  (who had his first child at 77), make news because of exceptionally belated parenthood. Much more common are men who become fathers in their thirties and forties.  That does not appear "old" in the present social context but biologically these fathers may not be in the prime of their reproductive age. Late fatherhood has been associated with increased occurance of some genetic disorders. The September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry (Part of JAMA – Journal of American Medical Association) reports that there may be a link between autism and the age of fathers. (No correlation was found between the age of the mother and autism).

    "Children of men age 40 and older have a significantly increased risk of having autism spectrum disorders compared with those whose fathers are younger than 30 years, according to an article in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

    Autism is characterized by social and language abnormalities and repetitive patterns of behavior, according to background information in the article. Autism and related conditions, known collectively as autism spectrum disorders, have become increasingly common, affecting 50 in every 10,000 children as compared with five in 10,000 two decades ago. This increase is partially due to higher levels of awareness and changes in diagnosis processes, but could also reflect an increase in incidence of autism, according to the authors. Older parental age has previously been linked to abnormalities in the brain development of children; however, few studies have effectively examined the effect of mothers’ and especially fathers’ ages on autism.

    The authors discuss several possible genetic mechanisms for the paternal age effect, including spontaneous mutations in sperm-producing cells or alterations in genetic "imprinting," which affects gene expression. "It is important to keep in mind, however, that age at paternity is influenced by the sociocultural environment and varies across societies and over time," they continue. "In a given population, a change in the sociocultural environment could produce a change in paternal age at birth. In theory, it could thereby lead to a change in the incidence of genetic causes of autism."

    "Although further work is necessary to confirm this interpretation, we believe that our study provides the first convincing evidence that advanced paternal age is a risk factor for autism spectrum disorder," they conclude."

        More on the same topic from The Washington Post.

  • The Name Game In Texas Elections

    Names – official monikers as well as nicknames, are likely to play a key role in the November elections in Texas.  Two of the four major candidates running for the office of Texas governor asked that their nicknames be on the official ballot.  One was partially granted his wish and other was denied. Singer and entertainer Kinky Friedman, an independent candidate who has used the name Kinky publicly since 1962 ,wanted to appear simply as "Kinky Friedman" on the ballot.  He has been allowed to use "Kinky", but it must appear along with his real name. So, Kinky will show up as Richard "Kinky" Friedman.  Another independent (a Republican in disguise) candidate is Texas State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who happens to be Bush’s ex- White House spokesperson Scott McClellan’s mom. Strayhorn’s campaign slogan describes her as "One Tough Grandma."  She wanted her name on the ballot to read Carole Keeton "Grandma" Strayhorn. Her request was turned down because it was decided that "Grandma" is a slogan, not a name.  Strayhorn is now "One Mad Grandma." (I must add here that thankfully, Texas’ current governor has not chosen his flattering nickname of Rick "Good Hair" Perry as his preferred handle on the ballot).

    "Strayhorn has said people know her as "Grandma" and that she has run as "One Tough Grandma" since 1998. " She has said "we jump 10 points" in polls when she is identified as "Grandma."

    Brad McClellan, Strayhorn’s son and campaign manager, said a call from the Express-News was the first he had heard of the decision. "This is America, this is Texas, and she is Grandma," McClellan said. "We are confident she will be ‘Grandma’ on the ballot." Strayhorn told reporters her campaign will file a lawsuit in state district court to try to overturn the decision."

    The Republicans are feeling some trepidation about a candidate’s name in another crucial election – the US congressional seat in District 22 in Texas’ Fort Bend County.  The seat was vacated by the formidable Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.  I reported a while ago on the mess created by DeLay’s devious departure which has raised some doubts about the Republicans’ chances of holding on to the seat which during DeLay’s tenure, was reliably in their pocket. After much legal wrangling, back room machinations and arm twisting of ambitious pols, the Fort Bend County Republicans now have a write-in candidate for November. DeLay’s name will still appear on the official ballot as the Republican congressional candidate – but he is no longer running.  Much to the delight of the Fort Bend Democrats, the name of the write-in candidate is Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, which is not exactly Jane Doe.  Here are the possible scenarios which may favor the Dems in the DeLay – Sekula-Gibbs interchange. Remember that any vote cast for DeLay is wasted and Sekula-Gibbs’ name has to be spelt as something reasonably close to her real name.

    • A straight party Republican vote will mark the ballot for DeLay.
    • Some voters who may not know that DeLay has withdrawn, might vote for him from years of conservative habit.
    • Republicans mad at their party for underhanded tactics, will either not mark any candidate or write in the candidate they had voted for in the primary against DeLay.
    • Some may be aware of DeLay’s abdication but may not know the name of his replacement.
    • Voters who are only slightly familiar with the write-in candidate, might misspell her name.
    • And finally, even those dedicated Republican faithfuls who follow the party line, might be in for a slightly nasty surprise.  Since District 22 has installed E-Slate voting in all its polling precincts, "Shelley Sekula-Gibbs" must be entered on the ballot not with a # 2 pencil but with this fancy gadget which makes you choose each letter, one by one, by turning a wheel.  :-)

    Sekulagibbs_1

    Stay tuned for the expected post election drama.  The Republicans are likely to accept any name entered on the ballot as the correct spelling, including Tom, Dick and Harry.  And the Dems will want to throw out everything short of the immaculately spelt "Shelley Sekula-Gibbs." Texas 2006 might come to resemble Florida 2000.  (photo of E-Slate ballot from TPM Muckraker )

    Update: By pleasant coincidence, today’s Houston Chronicle has an editorial on more tangled web of Republican politics in TX District 22 in the wake of DeLay’s "cut and run" tactic.

  • Rove vs Goebbels

    Cognizant of the tragedy and atrocities of WWII, I am generally reluctant to draw comparisons with Hitler era tactics to make a point about Bush and the neo-cons. Right wing politicians and their media lackeys on the other hand, have little compunction in going back in history to search out false analogies to discredit their critics. The irony is that their own conduct lends itself to far more accurate comparisons with obnoxious and dangerous past regimes. Twice before I have written on the uncanny resemblance in the words and ideas of the present day neo-cons and authoritarians of the past ( here and here). Today through a trackback left at this blog, I came across an article in which the author finds similarities in the rhetorical styles of Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and that of Bush’s P.R. man (and Brain), Karl Rove.

    It is not so much the actual words that the author finds similar – but the central ideas contained in their messages.  Both drum up support for an immoral war by invoking dangerous enemies and feckless appeasers . Both call for sacrifices for the sake of "Total War" or "complete and total victory." And both bolster their arguments using an adoring tone of hero worship for a deeply flawed and dangerous leader.

    "Karl Rove has been going around the country calling for "Complete victory over terrorism."

    These remarks were plagiarized from Joseph Goebbels 1943 "Total War" speech in which Goebbels calls for "total victory over our enemies."

    In addition to the similarity of Rove’s and Goebbels’ views is the fact that Bush, Rove, Hitler, and Goebbels only spoke before carefully selected groups of supporters. The biggest difference between Rove and Goebbels is that Goebbels thinks "the burdens should be shared equally between high and low and rich and poor," whereas Rove and Bush think that the poor should fight and die while the wealthy stay home and make money." (emphasis mine)

  • Politics! (Joe)

    With a discussion of partisanship going on at BL’s LS Reports, and with classes at the U of M starting on Tuesday and me avoiding my Contracts and Torts casebooks, now strikes me as a good time to post about politics — especially the two-party "us or them" system that qualifies as a political system in the States these days.

    I should perhaps disclose my bias: I fashion myself as distinctly nonpartisan.  I am perhaps even anti-partisan, which made, for example, Jessica Wilson one of my favorite guest (co-?) bloggers at Leiter Reports shortly after the switch to a multiblogger format due to her "it’s time for progressives to kill the Democratic Party" rhetoric.

    If you read the same blogs I do you may have already guessed that the motivation behind this post is one by Sandy Levinson at Balkinization:

    Needless to say, I couldn’t agree with him more that we need more members of Congress willing to put the brakes on an ever more authoritarian and removed-from-reality Executive Branch led by a stunningly incompetent ignoramus. But that is just to say that we need more Democrats in Congress, for all of the obvious criticisms that can be directed at the Democratic Pary. Lincoln Chafee might be a fine, upstanding person, but so long as he would vote to leave the Senate in Republican hands, he is a menace to the Republic who should be thrown out of office. It really is as simple as that. Could Broder possibly believe that it would be better to have a Senate that included the virtuous and in some ways admirable Chafee if it came at the price of the Senate’s remaining in Republican hands (and therefore completely unwilling to engage in any significant oversight of their Republican masters in the Executive)? This election is not about the individual virtue of the candidates; it is about which party will be authorized to organize the House and the Senate, with all of the prerogatives attached to that organization, including all-important subpoena powers for investigations. I wish one could believe otherwise, but, as Walter Cronkhite used to say, "that’s the way it is…."

    My knee-jerk reaction is to scream, No! He is one of the good ones and I like him!  Which is why, I think, this is a good post for readers to argue out the merits of various responses in the comments.

    Prof. Levinson’s argument is that a "blue" Republican like Lincoln Chafee is a liability for progressive causes, that liberal politics would be better served by having a Democrat who is no more liberal than Chafee instead take his place in Congress because of special privileges granted to the majority party.  Okay, that’s not terribly controversial, although it is interesting insofar as he says Rhode Islanders ought to vote Chafee out of office.  Where it becomes even more interesting — and Levinson does not speak directly to this point — is if we extend this reasoning to a "red" Democrat (not even someone like crazy Zell Miller, although that stretches Levinson’s argument to a point where maybe we need to take it, but say just a random Dem from Indiana).

    Those "obvious criticisms that can be directed at the Democratic Party" speak past this issue.  On the one hand: Democrats are useless, get rid of them.  On the other: If Republicans control Congress you would need Republican leadership to consist of Chafee-like individuals who would be willing to issue subpoenas and do whatever else it is that the majority party of the House or the Senate (not the majority of members of the House or the Senate!) can do that the minority party cannot.  (Or at least the Senate — I’ve never studied any political science, I don’t know the details.)

    So is it just a question of how you weigh it out?  I like the weather, culture, and energy of San Francisco.  I do not like earthquakes.  Should I live in San Francisco?  Or are the two arguments, pro- and anti-Chafee (as a symbol, I think) not speaking past each other after all?  Recall that Levinson writes: "Lincoln Chafee might be a fine, upstanding person, but so long as he would vote to leave the Senate in Republican hands, he is a menace to the Republic who should be thrown out of office" (emphasis mine).  Maybe my limited knowledge of government is the problem here, but is he making the argument that Lincoln Chafee is a menace because that "R" next to his name makes his party the majority party, or that Lincoln Chafee is a menace because Professor Levinson believes he would vote Republican on important issues?  It actually looks like he’s making both arguments — but in any case the latter irritates me, and moreover seems rather absurd if we’re going to extend the logic to any meaningful position (viz., replacing Chafee with a Democrat who is at least somewhat more conservative than he is on important issues).