Joint Special Operations Command sued

Marc Ambinder reported that ACLU Challenges the Joint Special Operations Command.

JSOC kills people, mostly in war zones. Since 9/11, JSOC's assets, called "special missions units," have been unleashed into the world, and, on the basis of a series of still-secret executive orders, given the authority to pursue members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network wherever they go, and kill or capture them as determined by a specific set of criteria.
...
the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union have challenged JSOC's right to engage in targeted killings outside the battlefield. They're basing their challenge on the public acknowledgment of JSOC's existence by two presidents, on the acknowledgment by a presidential adviser that lists of human targets, some including U.S. citizens, exist, and on an acknowledgment by the director of national intelligence that Yemen is a place where these targets could be "gone after."

---

[commenter VrDrew:]

On the one hand, I have a problem (morally as well as Constitutionally) with an Executive, answerable to no-one, killing anyone (American citizen or otherwise) anywhere in the world outside of a declared battlezone. On the other, I can also see the threat posed by terrorist organizers operating in essentially lawless states such as Yemen, the FATA areas of Pakistan, and Somalia.

To be honest, I don't see this "other hand" at all.

Terrorist or not, lawless state or not, what *possible* threat makes it even vaguely appropriate for the US government to secretly sentence US citizens to be assassinated? This isn't just a little bit outside the Constitution, this makes the whole idea of a Constitution a mockery.

It seems to me that you're saying, "on the one hand, it's evil *and* illegal. On the other hand, we're cowards."

The most terrifying image George Orwell could think of was "a boot stamping on a human face - forever." But even he didn't imagine that the person being stomped would be holding the boot in place and licking it.

---

[commenter airish:]

Tokyo Rose was a US citizen. What's your point? If you are actively supporting an armed adversary of the US during a time of war, you can't hide behind your (joint) US citizenship that was acquired as an accident of birth

To insist on being legally accused before you're killed by your government is not "hiding behind" US citizenship. *That's* the point.

You may want to pick a different analogy to make *your* point. Tokyo Rose (a) was accused in a court of law, (b) had a US trial, (c) was convicted based on perjured testimony, (d) went to prison, and (e) later got a Presidential pardon. Apparently you believe that the whole bit with the law and the trial and the prison should have just been skipped over, and she should just have been quietly assassinated by US agents. Your approach would also skip over the bit about the perjury and the pardon, too, but I'm guessing that's a feature as far as you're concerned, not a bug.

---

whether our friend al Awlaki gains any special consideration by virtue of his dual US citizenship over, say, Osama bin Laden

Dude, he's covered by *US law*. The US government's treatment of US citizens is *not* a matter of international law or treaty.

In the case of Osama bin Laden, we've had a public price on his head for quite a while. He is not in any way a covert enemy of the US, nor vise versa. A targeted assassination policy may be a bad idea across the board, but it's IMHO *certainly* a bad idea if the list of targets needs to be counted on a second hand.

Now obviously you feel that al Awlaki isn't a "real" US citizen, so the US Constitution and US law shouldn't necessarily apply to him. But that is clearly, obviously, a matter for Johnny Roberts and the Supremes -- you shouldn't be assuming it as a given.

More generally, surely you can see that it is *extremely* dangerous for the US government (or any authority) to have the ability to kill Americans whenever and wherever it feels like, without any public knowledge or review. This is what tyranny looks like; this is what tyranny *is*.

Iran and Israel at the Atlantic, Day 3

My commenting continues at The Atlantic's discussion about Iran, Israel, and the Bomb.

---

---

Gary Milhollin wrote about The Futility of an Israeli Air Strike Against Iran's Nuclear Sites.

If Iran truly values its nuclear program, it would play the victim. The attack would give Iran a claim on the sympathy of countries that might otherwise be inclined to shun it, thereby invigorating its campaign to thwart U.S. and Western isolation efforts. But to remain the victim, it would have not to victimize others. Successful victimhood would therefore mean few or no Iranian-sponsored terror attacks against U.S. targets. It would also mean only limited terror attacks against Israel. If victimhood works, and Iran escapes isolation, its current rulers will have fended off one of the main threats to the regime anywhere on the horizon. That benefit would seem to outweigh whatever harm Israeli bombs could do to the nuclear program.

I commented:

---

If Iran truly values its nuclear program, it would play the victim.

Countries that have been bombed do not have to "play" the victim -- the civilian casualties which you rightly call "inevitable" do that for them.

Furthermore, your "If" calls out for an "If Not". If Iran *doesn't* truly value its nuclear program, then what? Are you suggesting that then it *won't* "play the victim", exhibit those (still inevitable) civilian casualties, ask for and receive sympathy from other nations?

And speaking of inevitable civilian casualties: you ask What would such bombing destroy? without ever mentioning that Iranians (civilian and military) would be killed. How many? Are you estimating casualties in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or more? The American (and Israeli) people have proven tolerant of very high casualties on the part of other people, but the rest of the world won't necessarily see things the same way.

---

[to a commenter talking about Netanyahu's equation of Iran with Amalek]

I don't understand this Biblical reference.

"Amalek" is an existentially threatening foe that toward whom one is *commanded by G-d* to use genocide.

His job is to see that Iran does not destroy Israel, not try to destroy Iran.

If Netanyahu's circle is indeed using "Amalek" as a metaphor for Iran, then they think that Iran can only be prevented from destroying Israel by total war, targetting the civilian population.

Or they're indulging in hyperbole, like when a 12-year-old calls mandatory bedtime "fascism". But it's *really* self-indulgent, politically stupid hyperbole.

---

[to another commenter]

To me, it’s pretty clear that Israel cannot initiate a strike against Iran, and Israeli policy planners surely know this. They’re just keeping as quiet as possible about it in the hopes that the US decides to conduct the strike on its own.

Thank you very much for your input.

Goldberg reported (p1):

I have interviewed roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike, as well as many American and Arab officials. In most of these interviews, I have asked a simple question: what is the percentage chance that Israel will attack the Iranian nuclear program in the near future? Not everyone would answer this question, but a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.

but he also said (p6):

In my conversations with former Israeli air-force generals and strategists, the prevalent tone was cautious. Many people I interviewed were ready, on condition of anonymity, to say why an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would be difficult for Israel. And some Israeli generals, like their American colleagues, questioned the very idea of an attack.

This supports your contention that the IDF knows an attack would fail; if they thought it was likely to succeed, they would have told Goldberg "it is the proud tradition of the IDF to follow orders and defend our nation successfully and unflinchingly", or words to that effect. Quietly ominous predictions that they could do what needs to be done would be the least enthusiastic way for the military to signal agreement.

Do you think that the Israeli political policymakers are fully aware that the IDF really doesn't think they could strike at Iran effectively? That is, do you think they were deceiving Goldberg, or are they deceiving themselves? The US invasion of Iraq illustrated to me that there is no real limit to the ability of politicians to believe that wishing will make it so in military affairs -- and no significant limit to the military willingness to go along, as long as the political leaders are ones the officer corps voted for.

---

I'm pretty confident that all of the Israeli policy makers that would be the ones making the decision on whether or not to attack Iran are fully aware of the IDF's limitations and know that a successful attack is not likely. Keep in mind that Netanyahu himself is a military man (coming both from a prominent military family and having served in the special forces) and has a deep respect for the military establishment. If they advise him that an attack is a very bad idea, he'll listen. ... I believe all the saber rattling is an attempt to get the world community more involved in isolating Iran (with the hope of getting them to compromise on their program) or to try and force other players, namely the US, to destroy Iran's nuclear program by force.

The Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle predicts that the most important audience for the saber-rattling is other Israelis -- which indeed is sort of what Goldberg suggests page 4 of his article, when he writes about the Israel people's desire for a sense of safety through nuclear pre-eminence.

Israelis will seriously weigh whether or not an attack is worth it knowing that its enemies on its immediate borders will be poised to strike.

And yet, most Israeli commenters (here and elsewhere) seem to figure that the enemies are poised to strike *anyway*, and need an excuse more than a reason. So Israelis (or a significant segment within the Israeli population) may feel more positive toward their government even after a failed strike, even one with large civilian casualties, even one that alienates the US.

Basically, I'm with Clausewitz: politics *always* drives policy.

---

---

Reuel Marc Gerecht replied to Milhollin with Israel's Compelling Reasons to Attack, Despite the Uncertainties.

What the Israelis need to do is change this dynamic. A preventive strike offers them the only conceivable alternative for doing so. Any bombing run will, at least temporarily, shock the international system and rock Iran internally. The Israelis will have shown that they are deadly serious about confronting the Iranian nuclear threat, that they are willing to go on a permanent war-footing with the Islamic Republic and its deadliest ally, the Hizbollah, which will probably unleash rocket hell on Israel in turn. Although President Obama may become (privately) furious with the Israelis, any Israeli strike will make the United States, and probably even the reluctant Europeans, more determined to shut down Iran's program.

James Fallows strongly disagreed. My comment on Gerecht:

---

Readers should be aware that Mr. Gerecht's deep insight into Iran let him predict, in 2002, that:

If the United States stays in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime, and ushers in some type of a federal, democratic system, the repercussions throughout the region could be transformative. Popular discontent in Iran tends to heat up when U.S. soldiers get close to the Islamic Republic. An American invasion could possibly provoke riots in Iran-simultaneous uprisings in major cities that would simply be beyond the scope of regime-loyal specialized riot-control units.

The fact that he is now predicting benefits to Israel from a *failed* mission against Iran indicates that he is still using the same sparkles-and-ponies-enabled crystal ball he used to promote the US invasion of Iraq.

---

---

Marc Ambinder wrote What the White House Really Thinks About Bombing Iran.

Importantly, to some in the Obama administration, the "fact" of Iran's eventual nuclear declaration is already priced-in to their Middle East calculus. For them, once such a nuclear declaration becomes a reality, the U.S. won't be forced to change its posture, basing, arms deals, or strategy -- all of which are designed to prevent Iranian (Shiite) hegemony in the region. (An implicit assumption: Iran would never actually use the bomb.) I've also spoken with Obama advisers who believe that breakout Iranian nuclear capacity would instantly create a new existential threat to American national security. But to a person, no one in power now believes that the consequences of an Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran would be productive, let alone acceptable.

To another commenter, I replied:

---

I find the notion that MAD won't work against Iran because its government is "crazier" than the Communists governments of the Cold War to be unsupported.... The Iranian regime may well be repressive, but no one has ever suggested that it has engaged in the systematic mass murder of its own people on a scale in anyway comparable to Stalin or Mao. ... Nuclear weapons have been quite effective in focusing people's attention on the desirability of survival.

Exactly. Crazy evil dictators have had nukes *already*, and yet managed not to be crazy enough to use them. And that was when the countries in question were a considerable distance from each other -- in the Middle East, a single nuke could have long-term consequences for quite a few countries who thought they were on the sidelines. Don't they teach kids these days about fallout?

---

---

At the Wednesday summary, I commented:

---

It is either deeply shocking or very characteristic of these experts that they weigh the positive/negative consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran without including civilian casualties in their calculations. Gerecht mentions them as "inevitable" just as he talks about Iran "playing the victim" -- as though hundreds, thousands, or more human beings would be "playing dead".

Israel and Iran, Part 1

The Atlantic is having discussions all week about Jeffrey Goldberg's article on whether Israel will attack Iran for nuclear effrontery. I will update this post with my comments as I make them.

---

Robin Wright wrote A Long Way From the Point of No Return With Iran. I commented:

---

Any polity's decision to go to war (or drastic military action) follows what I call the "Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle".

Clausewitz said, "War is the continuation of politics."

Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local."

Clausewitz-O'Neill states: "Wars are a continuation of domestic politics: they are begun for domestic reasons, because they are perceived as the solution to a domestic political issue."

I'll go further and bring in Freud (I hate that): war is often[1] a projection onto an external enemy of internal domestic conflicts, which are thereby repressed. Just as with Freudian repression-projection, though, fighting an outside enemy is more of a distraction than a solution to your inside problems.

Goldberg's article is extremely useful because it implicitly acknowledges Clausewitz-O'Neill. Whether Israel attacks Iran or not will be driven most strongly by Israeli domestic politics, not by some objective measure of the threat.

Goldberg is so far inside Israel psychologically that he doesn't appear to see how limited his analysis of Iran is. Again, Clausewitz-O'Neill predicts that Iranian leaders will do things for their own domestic political reasons. In order for those of us who are neither Iranian nor Israeli to predict what will happen, we need detailed info on what things seem like to the powers in Iran. Goldberg didn't include those kind of sources, but Ms. Wright's sweeping generalizations here don't help. Her CV suggests that she may know what she's talking about, but she isn't *showing* it.


[1] Not always -- sometimes the domestic problem is "we want more stuff", and war is just how you get it. Looting is usually considered an ignoble reason for war, but at least it's honest.

---

[from an Israeli commenter]

I think I can sum up the Israeli side of domestic politics. It is this: the Israeli voters tell the government, do whatever is needed to keep us safe.

But what counts as "safe"? As someone around here was saying (comments on Ambinder, maybe?), it is much more unsafe to be a Jew in Israel than a Jew in the US ... or in Germany. You might well be safer (=less likely to be blown up on a bus) living next to a Palestinian state, or in a secular, non-Zionist state large enough that Jews, Muslims, Christians, and atheists *had* to work together, because no one group was dominant.

War is not safety. Peace is not insecurity.

---

---

[same Israeli]

The non-Zionist Palestine was tried already, the Jews of Hebron were slaughtered on one day in 1929.

That counts as "tried"?!? In recent years, the Jewish population of Germany has been booming, synagogues are being established and rabbis are being ordained again. People change, and cultures change even more as generations pass away. Letting something that happened in 1929 determine your relationship to your neighbors is refusing to learn.

lacking peace, the other sensible way is not to try to save on defense spending.

My experience living in a country that also refuses to save on defense spending is that the bigger your hammer, the more everything looks like a nail. The more money you spend on defense, the less willing you'll be to put up with the slow, fitful, unmanly process of getting along with people.

Not being a target of nuclear Jihad would be a good start

It's an open secret that the way Israel discourages nuclear Jihad is by already having a bunch of nukes.

---

I brought in Jewish immigration to Germany not to imply that you could move there, but to point out that events in 1929 don't have to determine what is feasible in 2010. The fact that a non-Zionist Palestine was "tried" in the 20s means little or nothing about whether a secular, non-Zionist state could succeed today.

The last time an Israeli civilian was lynched by Palestinians was just a few years ago.

I am an American. My country could not hold together at all if people couldn't co-exist with potential lynchers. It isn't easy or comfortable or always safe for groups that really hate each other to live under the same political roof, but it *can* be done. It's the difference between a large family where people yell and scream and maybe even hit each other (not good!), and one where they actually kill each other (much worse!).

---

Patrick Clawson wrote How Much Brinksmanship Will Israel Tolerate?. I commented:

---

I introduced the "Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle" over at Wright's post, and I'll say it again here:

"War is the continuation of politics" + "All politics is local" = "Wars are a continuation of domestic politics: they are begun for domestic reasons, because they are perceived as the solution to a domestic political issue."

Here is a perfect example:

Israel will act when it perceives a turning point has been reached, even though there is no air of international crisis. In other words, the "forcing event" which precipitates Israeli action is their perception of risk.

Risk to what? The physical security of other Israelis, or the security in power of current leaders?

Saying that "Iran has to be careful not to cross Israel's red line" is making Iran responsible for Israeli domestic politics. Yet to my mind Goldberg makes clear that Israel's internal dynamics are what is driving the confrontation, that's where the energy is coming from. Whether (or when) Israel strikes will depend on whether it seems useful to whoever's in change at the time -- and there are significant elements within Israel pushing in either direction.

The lack of cogent analysis of Iranian politics in his article and elsewhere on this site so far demonstrates IMHO that the problem is not with what Iran is or isn't doing. Whether Iran develops nuclear energy and/or weapons is also going to be driven by domestic politics -- but we haven't seen anything on this site about that.

---

Elliot Abrams wrote Obama Bombing Iran? Don't Be Surprised. My comment:

---

I've been pushing the Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle all over this discussion, and here comes Elliot Abrams, Distinguished Warmonger, to illustrate it exactly.

Clausewitz said, "War is the continuation of politics."

Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local."

Clausewitz-O'Neill states: "Wars are a continuation of domestic politics: they are begun for domestic reasons, because they are perceived as the solution to a domestic political issue."

Abrams, as an experienced and successful warmonger, has a thorough grasp of Clausewitz-O'Neill. He knows that the way to promote a war is to present it as the solution to a domestic political problem, and that's what he's doing right here.

The problem, as he frames it, is: the Democrats are facing election problems because they are perceived as weak and submissive. The time-honored way to look strong and dominant? Viagra! War! That's why George H.W.Bush won re-election so easily, of course, after Persian Gulf I.

The value of Abrams' advice is worse than nil, and I won't engage with it further. But his post can be saved as a textbook example of the Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle. I may be the first person to explicitly formulate Clausewitz-O'Neill, but clearly the principle has been grasped -- and used -- by politicians and warmongers for millennia.

---

Karim Sadjadpour, whose piece is slated to go up later in the week, got pretty ticked at Abrams and posted Attacking Iran: The Last Thing the U.S. Administration Wants to Do. I commented:

---

Whoops, my original comment disappeared -- probably due to the Urban Dictionary link.

In other words, Sadjadpour is saying that Abrams is what kids these days call a concern troll:

In an argument (usually a political debate), a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with "concerns".

After all, why should we doubt the advice offered Obama by such a staunch Republican? This is what bipartisanship looks like!

---

On the Monday Round-Up, I commented:

---

I call the last step that Ezra didn't take the Clausewitz-O'Neill Principle, and I've been pushing it all over this discussion.

Clausewitz said, "War is the continuation of politics."

Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local."

Clausewitz-O'Neill states: "Wars are a continuation of domestic politics: they are begun for domestic reasons, because they are perceived as the solution to a domestic political issue."

This is *precisely* what Ezra is talking about with regard to Israel, as you show here. I actually think Goldberg's article did a pretty good job of showing how Clausewitz-O'Neill is driving Israel's policy toward Iran, though he was not self-reflective enough to say it straight out.

Similarly, though, I do not see the US policy toward either Israel or Iran to be really driven by the realities there, or even

because the US recognizes that is in its strategic interest to ensure that Israel maintains overwhelming military superiority.

Many Americans do not feel as though Israel is a truly foreign, external country -- Goldberg himself is an excellent example, but so is Sarah Palin. The American idea of Israel (largely formed by religion, of course) is a domestic issue, almost without regard to the Israel in the real world.

---

"Domestic politics" might not be the best way to put it -- "interests that are local to the warmongers" might be better.

I'm talking about things like: the military elite wishing to increase its influence and prestige within the body politic. The desire to offer Lebensraum, a "free" frontier, or just plain loot to elements of the population you want to keep on your side. In feudal societies, the aristocrats may feel as though they are local to aristocrats in other countries, and may use war as tool for personal revenge.

most wars generally start out unpopular or become unpopular if they go on too long

Wars invariably are popular at first with *some* domestic group, or they wouldn't ever get started. They might not be popular with the general population, but they have to have the backing and appear to serve the interests of some powerful constituency. If you throw a war and nobody comes, it's not a war.

Clausewitz-O'Neill explains why wars start, but not why they continue -- I suspect we are excessively patient with force as a solution because of the terrible sunk costs. As the bodies pile up, the ability to recognize that you're doing the wrong thing seems to shrivel in the people who are most responsible.

---

the decision-making process in the US national security establishment, which I believe is based on an assessment of the US strategic interest in preventing Israel from using or threatening to use its nuclear weapons. It is noteworthy the massive US military support for Israel really began after the '73 war. Eisenhower was not particularly supportive of Israel, castigating Israel for its actions during the Suez War. Johnson started to shift US policy in a more pro-Israel direction, but even as of the time of the '67 war, Israel's primary military supplier was France, not the US.

That is a very interesting take which I have not heard argued in public. I would like to believe it, because I would like to believe that the US national security establishment is that objective (even Machiavellian) about US strategic interests.

However, I don't believe it. I had no inside, specialized, or expert knowledge, yet it was blindingly obvious to me from the get-go that the Iraq War was morally wrong, illegal (as in "war crime"), and would undermine US interests. If the national security establishment could not see that -- or could not act on it -- then why should I assume that they are capable of anything Machiavellian? Why has Israel's nuclear arsenal *never* been a front-burner public issue in the US, if it's a lynchpin of our Middle-Eastern grand strategy? I'd *love* it if you could tell me why I'm wrong.

Blogcomment records: politics division

I am reposting this because it took me so many tries to get the link to the Balloon Juice post right, and because the article is so good. arrgh! *stabs*

At Obsidian Wings, where publius wrote A heartbreaking work of staggering dishonesty, about Michael Steele on health care reform, I commented:

---

cleek asked:
why are they talking about [obesity]?

Anne Laurie summed it up quite nicely over at Ballon Juice the other day:

Suddenly, out of every media outlet, from the morning talk shows to the political blogs to the Wall Street Journal, comes a new slogan: Americans get less health for more dollars than any other industrialized nation because we don’t deserve good health. We haven’t earned it, and if we insist on using it anyway, we’ll be depriving other, more needy fellow citizens of their fair share. And the mark of our selfish unworthiness is that we’re *fat*.

And of course, this goes double for women, who (a) are more subject to relentless criticism about our weight, and (b) refuse to get in line with the "We're Number One! U!S!A!" crowd, but keep dragging the nation down in international health comparisons with our selfish infant and maternal mortality.

---

Fascinating discussion at Edge of the American West about the Medal of Honor, and the increasing tendency for it to be awarded posthumously. I commented:

---

There are also some very real, but unwritten, issues, including commissioned vs enlisted, branch of service, combat arms vs service/support, etc.

I would love to hear you elaborate on these “unwritten issues”. Are they also undiscussed issues, the sort of thing that is “mentioned” with nods and hand gestures, so that they never have to be spelled out?

For instance, you say there are issues of “commissioned vs enlisted”. Do you mean that a given action is more likely to garner the medal for a commission officer? — because the people making the decision are commissioned, too — or for an enlisted? — because bravery is more of an expectation for C.O.s, more beyond the call of duty for enlisted personnel.

I would be astonished if there were not also issues of race and gender, but I dare not guess how they play out.

---

Thanks for the info, TF.

I’ve been actually thinking about the converse of ScottyMac’s anecdote. The advantage to mostly posthumous MOHs might be that there are no pesky live winners around, to either (a) develop a cult of personality around them, or (b) say inconvenient things. If the object of the award is to develop a narrative of military virtue, it really helps if there’s no living narrator to muddy the message. Or to exploit it for their own purposes, either.

---

Josh:

I was thinking more of Julius Caesar, or Sgt. York. We haven’t had a sufficiently charismatic MOH winner collide with reality TV … yet … but it’s a scary thought.

Health care reform; Trutherism

publius at Obsidian Wings posted on Keeping Perspective about health care, and Barney Frank. I commented, variously:

---

von:
Why should I accept the devil I don't know instead of the devil I know?

For the reason publius gives: because the current system is reprehensibly bad for many people other than yourself. The devil you know kills people for profit.

If you're afraid of a new massive government bureaucracy, remember that we've *already* got massive bureaucracy -- we'd be shifting it, not expanding the total supply. Your choice is *not* between government bureaucracy and no bureaucracy -- your choice is between Big Government or Big Corporation. If you say you're "opposed to big government", then you are *automatically* in favor of big corporations getting their way. "No large bureaucracies" is not one of the available options.

---

I might qualify as one of those batSH!& insane Truthers, by Sebastian's standards.

"People in the federal government took no action to stop the attacks"

-- The "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo makes this IMHO a matter of historical record.

"they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East."

-- the Project for the New American Century (signatories to whose Statement include Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Libby) makes this, also, a matter of historical record.

Does that mean they did it "because"? Not in a planned, strictly-speaking way, *necessarily*, they might just have ignored the Al Quaeda threat because they wanted to go to war in the Middle East -- and Iraq, specifically -- and preventing an Al Quaeda attack did not serve that goal.

So: they failed to protect the country; they wanted war in Iraq. The country was attacked; we went to war in Iraq (though Iraq had not attacked us). Conscious conspiracy? I doubt it. Letting things just sort of happen to get the result they wanted? Not unlikely.

Socialism, capitalism, Cuba

hilzoy quite reasonably asked Who Is This "Hard Left" Of Whom You Speak? -- because it is ludicrous to say Obama is part of any hard left, and yet they keep doing it. I wrote:

---

It seem to me that what McCarthy, Brett, et al. call the "hard left" are the left-wing authoritarians, corresponding to the right-wing authoritarians of the "hard right". Bob Altemeyer has looked for left-wing authoritarians in his studies, but he hasn't found statistically significant numbers of them over the past 20 years or so. Which is pretty much what people are saying in this thread.

There are *plenty* of people to the left of Obama, but they aren't the "hard left" because their style is anti-authoriarian and thus "soft", even when they're *way* left.

I don't know of any good history or study of why the LWAs withered away, but wither they did.

---

Public health in Cuba:

Best hurricane response system. In the past decade, a total of 22 hurricane-related deaths -- and Cuba gets a *lot* of hurricanes.

Cuban health markers are essentially the same as those in the United States and other parts of the industrialized world.

IMHO these are two of the reasons Castro is still in power: the government actually takes care of the people on the most basic level.

---

Brett:

Proper morality will protect the weaker from the stronger only because it's protecting everybody from everybody.

Only one truly socialist country is being invoked in this discussion: Cuba. As the public health cites I found show, Cuba has a remarkable and even admirable success at protecting its people from the most pervasive dangers humans face: disease and forces of nature. In what way is this not "doing better" than capitalist countries? I'm not saying life and health are the *only* good things, but without them the other stuff becomes secondary.

No-one in Cuba is wealthy; no-one in Cuba is starving. The Cubans are quite aware that this makes their median lifestyle much better than that in other Caribbean countries, and in many ways better than in the US.

To forestall an objection I suspect Brett will make: but Cubans are in prison! they can't leave!

IMHO to most Cubans, they aren't in prison, they're in this together. It's not that some people can't leave, it's that no-one gets to run away from their mutual responsibilities.

---

No, Brett, as I was saying: it forbids people to leave, because those who do would be running away from their responsibilities.

*Most* Cubans are better off in really basic ways than if Cuba were a strictly capitalist country. *Some* Cubans think that they personally would be better off under capitalism, even if everybody else would be worse off.

It's like a traditional extended family: it works because everyone's in it together, and that means some people have to stay in the family even when they want to be the prodigal son. And from the perspective of that tradition, the son who wants to run away to find his fortune in the big city (and not share it with the family) is a self-centered, irresponsible jerk.

I'm not actually saying Cuba's socialism is perfect. But I'm saying that it is not an obviously unreasonable system: it *really* works in crucial ways, and for the vast majority of Cubans it probably seems like a pretty good deal.

Look at it this way: Hurricane Ivan came roaring straight off the ocean, bounced all the way along the spine of Cuba -- and only 4 people died. And the Cubans were *shocked* that the death toll was so high. Why would they want to move to the land of Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina?

---

@nothingforducks: yes, you understand me correctly. I was trying to explain how things might appear to people in Cuba, and that a belief that Leaving the country you were born in is "running away from your responsibilities" and the state is like a "traditional extended family" are quite conservative and traditional approaches, in the broad scheme of things.

I am not talking about my own political philosophy, but about how it is reasonable for most people in Cuba to feel.

I disagree, Gary, that I am "romanticizing" -- I'm pointing out that there is hard actuarial evidence that Cuba isn't "a failure" compared to capitalist countries in its region. To assume that Cubans should care more about their principles than about their health and well-being, *that* it romanticizing.

Slarti:
I got my I-hurricanes mixed up -- I was thinking of Ike, not Ivan.

Sebastian:
US hubris certainly had a lot to do with the disaster of Katrina, but not everything -- and you're disregarding Andrew, Ike, and the rest. As the wiki link says, Cuba evacuated about 10% of its population for Ike (more than a million out of 11 million) -- Cuban disaster planning is widely acknowledged as the best in the world.

My point is that what GoodOleBoy calls "the prison of mediocrity" is measurably -- rationally -- a better place to live for most of the population.

---

novakant:

Oh, so you're a mindreader. This is one of the most condescending things I've ever read.

Good heavens, do you even believe what you're saying? It's not "mind-reading" to talk about what reasonable and prudent (or frightened, or angry, or happy) people are likely to do in particular circumstances -- except in the way that all human interactions involve trying to read other people's minds, and thus give philosophers a job.*g*

And I hardly see it as "condescending" to assume that Cubans are just as interested in health and life as my ancestors, who left Germany, Sweden, and Ireland for the US not out of some generalized ambition, but because staying at home involved things like "desperate poverty" and "being shot at".

The Iranian Election

Glenn Greenwald had a round-up post, including a bit on the Iranian election. My comment:

---

If you look at the reporting linked from DailyKos, Andrew Sullivan, Talking Points Memo, to try to evaluate what's going on in Iran, and then go to the major US MSM sites, what you'll notice is:

1. much less coverage of Iran

2. most front-page photos show only Ahmadinejad, not any street-level shots

3. fewer headline references to "disputed election"

I keep being reminded of how little time Fox News devoted to the Holocaust Museum shooting this past week. When the event doesn't fit the narrative, the MSM just doesn't cover it.

I think any kind of close vote or disputed vote in Iran doesn't fit the MSM narrative in which Iran is *collectively* a force for evil that Must Be Stopped. The people in the US and Israel that want to portray Iran as a huge threat that we couldn't blame Israel for attacking are actively resisting any signs that Iran isn't monolithically behind Ahmadinejad.

Hm. Checking back to nytimes.com, I see that they've changed their slant in the course of the morning. There's now more Iran coverage, more street-level photos, and more doubt expressed in articles linked from the front page.

In which my last nerve is dissolving

Comments made at Obsidian Wings re the Tiller assassination.

At hilzoy's post on Terror Should Not Pay:

---

Why were the OB/Gyns who performed late-term procedures in Wichita, Boulder, and I think Florida, and not say in NYC or LA?

I'm guessing, here, but I'll bet there are in fact such doctors in the NY, DC, LA, SF, Seattle, and Chicago areas. The difference is, the doctors in those areas do not need to advertise their services -- they get as many patients as they can cope with in their respective metropolitan areas by local referrals.

---

myq: Thanks for the link, it's nice to see my guess was correct.

I made it in part based on a friend of mine who had a late-term, emergency ID&E in one of those major metropolitan areas about 5 years ago. I'm quite sure it saved the life of the other twin -- and indeed, ID&E aka "partial birth abortion" is frequently the best choice when one fraternal twin is dead or dying. But AFAIK the procedure is now banned *regardless*.

In my friend's case, I don't know if the one twin was absolutely certainly 100% dead when they began the procedure. But I am sure that if they'd have to flail around finding someone who knew what they were doing, both twins would have died.

I find it noteworthy that no restrictions on late abortion have a "life of the other twin" exception. Why, it's almost as though they're not really concerned about children's lives.

---

At hilzoy's post In which I disagree with Megan McArdle:

---

I'll say this for McArdle, at least she has some skin in the game. Over the course of the day I'm getting to the "Flames! on the side of my face!" point, having to hear/read/talk to *so many* people who have opinions about abortion but no skin. As echidne said after the final presidential debate:

"It is always extremely distasteful to watch two men discuss what should be done about abortion. Always, never mind what they say."

*Always*, guys.

---

stonetools:

I expect that for many here, Dr. Tiller was just a nice guy removing unwanted tissue from some women by performing perfectly legal operations.

I dare say you expect *wrong*. As cleek suggested, read some of the personal accounts Sully has posted today. Think about the friend I wrote about in the previous thread, who had a so-called "partial birth abortion" to save the life of one twin when the other was doomed.

Both medicine and motherhood sometimes involve hard choices, and they always have. The only question is whether women and doctors will make those choices *themselves* or not.

---

What WT said, not to mention that I have personally read discussions on pro-life fora about whether it's moral to abort an ectopic pregnancy. Their conclusion, BTW, was "no, but it's OK to take out the fallopian tube with the implanted embryo in it -- you may be destroying the woman's fertility, but you aren't *directly* killing anyone so that's OK".

---

At Sebastian's post, What conclusions should we draw?

---

In general, folks, I'm finding the use of sarcasm, irony, and rhetorical exaggeration in this discussion is a layer too far. I am having a lot of trouble deciphering what people are *actually* intending to convey. It seems that the widespread use of the phrase "the abortion Holocaust" has caused my sarcasm/irony detector to go offline, at least for the purpose of this discussion.

Specifically, Sebastian, I have no sense of whether you're rhetorically exaggerating or not when you parallel Tiller's murder and the recruiter's. I'd like it if you (or von, or whomever) addressed the points made by Jeff Eaton's not-at-all-rhetorical points.

Do you, Sebastian, truly think that Tiller's death was "a single murder"? Do you truly think that it was not incited? Do you truly believe that women and our doctors have not been made afraid -- terrorized, even -- by harrassment and violence directed at abortion clinics and birth control providers?

---

dana:

I don't think OR's rhetoric rises to the level of incitement

Why not? Is there something about the legal definition of "incitement" that you're relying on?

Even without Jeff Eaton's evidence, it seems perfectly obvious to me that OR (and O'Reilly, and probably others) have been trying to get someone to kill Dr. Tiller for *years*. Sarah Robinson has a good, simple round-up of the evidence at Orcinus.

Is anyone here truly surprised that Tiller was killed? Does anyone honestly believe that it was not assassination -- murder of a public figure for a political reason?

---

what a coincidence. no common thread at all.

clee-eek, that's what I'm talking about. Please try to restrain the sarcasm, it means that every sentence has to be re-parsed, which is more neuro-cycles than my current brain installation can afford.

---

Jeff:

As you say, a lot of the sarcasm is both a sign of very strong feelings and of a lack of respect for others. I have no problem with the former except when it leads to the latter.

Meanwhile:

Because of the high sarcasm concentrations in the air, I cannot tell if stonetools has changed hir mind about whether Roeder is a terrorist.

I also cannot tell if OCSteve is serious about equating rare protests at recruiting stations with the very common protests at abortion clinics. I also cannot tell if he seriously thinks recruiting-station protests actually frighten potential military recruits. The very fact that most abortion clinics need client escorts should tell him that yes, anti-choice protests are often frightening -- one might even say, terrorizing.

Now playing

Mixed bag of recent comments, to keep track of what discussions I'm in where.

More at Dreher's Culture and the knowability of truth:

---

the stupid Chris:

Shucks, my blushes. But really, you *have* to laugh -- when Copernicus did it, it was a watershed in human thought. At this point, it's a long-running gag.

the essence of the contemplative life is to banish C/certainty and A/authority as we muddle our way toward T/truth.

I think it's significant that various schemes for contemplative lives (in many traditions) all involve great discipline and stability in what you actually *do* with your time. Contemplatives may banish ontological certainty, but they generally live to very strict schedules. They still meet the basic human emotional need for stability, just not in philosophical matters.

---

at Ta-Nehesi Coates' It's the Racism, Stupid:

---

What was the gain from white supremacy? If not material, then what spiritual gain could people think they were getting? Something big enough to kill over, something important enough to forgo material gain in order to preserve. What?

Their place in the hierarchy.

As long as blacks were "in their place", not being "uppity", a white man -- no matter how poor and ignorant -- could not be the bottom rung. Upper-class or educated white men can afford not to be racist, because they won't fall to the very bottom just because blacks are in the hierarchy. But the further down the ladder a white man is, the more threatened he is by black equality.

I think the exact same process drives homophobia in the black community. As long as homosexuals are despised, no straight black man can be the very bottom of the social scale.

---

At Plumb Lines' Are "We" Guilty of Torture?:

---

our shared cultural belief that the body is different from the person

Wow, do I disagree. One would then assume that a less dualistic culture would be less prone to war crimes — the Japanese, for instance.

No, I think the reasons for both the high-level and low-level torture policiess were perfectly outlined by John Dean several years ago, in Conservatives Without Conscience: this is authoritarianism.

---

At Daniel Larison's Of “Centrists” And Moderates:

---

what pundits and journalists usually describe as “centrism” is capitulation to the other side on high-profile pieces of legislation by going against the grain of one’s own party in a melodramatic way and usually by backing the position that had won the approval of political establishment figures.

This is why a *lot* of us wanted you to get a Times/Post slot. Still want — surely they can swap out Krauthammer, now that he has re-defined “bottom of the moral barrel”?

---

At hilzoy's Disbar them:

---

I also really, *really* want to see professional sanctions against the doctors and psychiatrists. Are there any moves being made in that direction?

Today at ObiWi

Keeping track of my comments at Obsidian Wings today:

In hilzoy's post on demographic trends:

---

lebecka:

But just wanted to point out that people have kids for many reasons, and in some countries, it's because no one else will take care of you when you're old.

Speaking as a biologist, I actually think that this is more often the case than not, and it's one of the most distinctive features of human demographics: most people (across societies and over the long course of history and pre-history) do not have offspring to reproduce, but for social security.

I *do* basically agree with Slart and Jes, that falling birthrates are *not* a global problem. The falling Russian birthrate discussed in that World Affairs Article would not IMHO be a "problem" if they were not due to factors like "mortality levels for women in their twenties ... have been rising, not falling, in recent decades."

Eberstadt drops this absolutely crucial demographic factor into his discussion, but then resolutely doesn't talk about it for the rest of the article. He talks about increased deaths from cardiovascular disease -- but surely that's not hitting women in their 20s. He talks about alcohol poisoning (traditionally a problem for older males) and has a vague discussion about "injuries". Could that lump under the carpet be women killed by drunken and/or stressed men?

---

At hilzoy's post on Cheney's character:

---

John Dean in Conservatives Without Conscience used Robert Altemeyer's The Authoritarians to classify Cheney as a "double-high authoritarian": someone who scores high on measures of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), and also high on measures of Social Domination. Such people are extremely dangerous. RWAs tend to have a stronger-than-normal fear response: an intrinsically frightening event like 9/11 will feel *even more* frightening to a RWA.

What has struck me recently, as more and more of Cheney's actions come to light, is how *incompetant* he is compared to Nixon. He may have been Nixon's apprentice, but he doesn't seem to have learned anything at all about how to actually achieve things, neither in terms of politics (getting people on your side) nor of administration (e.g. the Iraq war planning). But Nixon wasn't a true Double-High Authoritarian -- he never felt comfortable as the Number One Guy in Charge, Shut Up and Listen to Me, and that discomfort meant that he could do un-Cheneylike things like change his mind and go to China, or push through the Clean Air and Water Acts.

Cheney has, as far as I can tell, accomplished absolutely nothing but misery.

---

At publius' post on the Oklahoma Republican Party platform (comments include LOLarious accounts of various state parties' wacky hijinks):

---

On the internet I tend to use lgbt, but since I mentally pronounce it "legib′it", it's not really appropriate (or comprehensible) in airspace. What I want to say out loud is "queer", but that's *also* proved a source of confusion, so I just fall back on "homosexuals" when I want to be moderately clear and moderately inclusive without spending too many syllables on it.

---

later ..

---

In the UK, it's pronounced ell-gee-bee-tee, FWIW.

That tends to be standard in the US, too, but I find it tongue-tangling. Do you say "ell-gee-bee-tee" in your mind, or "legibit", or something else?

Torture, various

So I've been spending *way* more time than is comfortable reading about the unfolding torture memos saga. At Obsidian Wings, hilzoy posted about the "Perfect Storm" of policy-making ignorance. In the ensuing discussion, I wrote:

---

I agree with Nell that Shane & Mazzetti's "ignorance" explanation makes no sense.

they make it a technical, bureaucratic, institutional kind of failure rather than what it clearly is: a complete failure of moral judgement and courage on the part of powerful people

-- but I don't think the institutional/bureaucratic failure and the moral failure should be contrasting explanations. When Gary says:

most personnel working constantly with classified material tend to disregard material in the public domain

-- that's IMHO an extremely believable and important point. The allure of having the Special Classified (hermetic, esoteric) Knowledge makes people lose track of the fact that it isn't as good -- it's not been gone over by as many minds, it hasn't been looked at from as many sides. It will tend to be tactical and technical rather than strategic, or strategic rather than meta-strategic -- which is usually the level where moral thinking comes in.

---

Meanwhile, over at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, E.D.Klein was writing about how long it might take the tide to turn for current torture apologists. My comment (re: discussion):

---

I’d also like to know where this “recruiting tool” meme comes from.

From logic. … Do you not think the countrymen of the men we’ve wrongly tortured (and sometimes killed) would not have similar anger against the country that did that to them?

I would take it even further than that. Torture is *evil*, it is what the Bad Guys do. When we do it — when we excuse it, when we *endorse* it — we become Darth Vader, the obvious embodiment of Evil. We make people opposed to us look like the Good Guys. Of course it’s a wonderful recruiting tool — lots of people (especially the young kind who make good soldiers) *want* to fight Darth Vader, they *want* to be a Good Guy and fight the Bad Guys.

How could you expect it to be otherwise? Unless, of course, you yourself would rather be on the winning side than on the side of undoubted moral Good.

Political Branding: Family and/or Party

Glenn Greenwald posted about Nepotistic succession in the political class. GG said that this kind of near-hereditary political problem is a new and growing trend in the US; several of us wondered if that is true, in historical perspective. I wrote:

---

I agree that there's definitely room for a book and/or PhD thesis about political nepotism in American history. I went to Wikipedia's lists of Governors for New Jersey and Connecticut, two states (a) I've lived in (b) that go back to the beginning. Just eyeballing the lists of names (and not doing the statistics that someone really ought to do), it seems to me that there was more nepotism before the Civil War and then again after WWII.

My preliminary hypothesis would be that the intervening period was a time when political parties were extremely strong, stronger than they are now. When party is a strong identifying brand, family or name doesn't have to be -- and may even work against one. [just spent time trying to track down the pretty good book about turn-of-the-19th-century party politics I read in the spring, failed. bah.]

Preliminary prediction: nepotistic succession will be rarer in Parliamentary systems than in the US. Prelimary test: List of recent Prime Ministers of the UK, where you have to go back to Harold Wilson to find a P.M. from a political family. By comparison with the comparable period of US Presidents, the UK PM list also comes from a wider range of class backgrounds and a *much* wider range of educational backgrounds.

Very preliminary conclusion: we need either stronger parties (fewer independents, for instance), better nepotism, or some other way for rising politicians to acquire an identifiable brand.

War crimes and reconciliation

Glenn Greenwald interviewed Scott Horton about his Harper's article on how to prosecute Bush Admin war crimes. My comments:

---

"Get over it", they tell me.

Recently I've posted about my hope for war crimes trials in several different fora, and every time someone pops up to tell me to "get over it".

I have a question, for those whose memory is clearer than mine.

Back in the 90s, did Democrats use the retort "Get over it!" a lot, to Republicans who were talking about Clinton's sex life, etc.? Or did this start within the 8 years, and if so, when and why? I have the vague sense that I first encountered it as a catchphrase used to dismiss misgivings about Bush v. Gore, but I may be wrong.

---

First the national trauma, *then* the reconciliation

South Africa could have a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" because they had already had decades of national conflict and trauma. Post-WWII Germany could have de-Nazification because their country had been bombed to flinders.

The United States has not collectively *earned* Truth and Reconciliation, because most people in this country simply don't feel bad enough about what's gone on under Bush/Cheney. Obama showed no hints of righteous wrath during the campaign, which was undoubtably politically prudent -- there's no way an *angry* black man could have won this election.

Americans are very resistant to feeling bad about ourselves, but what about when we *should*? How do we get to the point of truth and (maybe) an eventual reconciliation, unless a large proportion (even a majority) of Americans are willing to say, "this was evil and it was done in our name." I gave up hope on that account in November 2004.

Cheney and the Rule of Law: Scary

At the new conservative blog Culture 11, Conor Friedersdorf worries:

if Dick Cheney is found guilty of a prison worthy offense, the process of investigating, trying and convicting him is going to be an exceedingly ugly one for the country.

I commented:

---

Count me in with those who don’t see how the “domestic nightmare” of trying Cheney for breaking the law is worse than letting him get away with breaking the law.

You’re going to have to be much more eloquent about what is in this domestic nightmare. What *specifically* are you afraid of? Rush Limbaugh (et al.), or Timothy McVeigh 2.0?

That is, are you afraid of:

1. Frankly authoritarian rhetoric from the right? From my lefty POV, we’ve had that for years anyway.

2. Frankly anti-authoritarian rhetoric from the left? Strikes me as implausible but happy-making.

3. Conservatives having to make a public stand either for or against might-makes-right authoritarianism? And the downside of this would be ….?

4. More right-wing terrorists (on the McVeigh model) foaming out of the woodwork? That’s a worry, all right, but doesn’t seem worth giving up the rule of law for — and reigning in the right-wing demagogues would do a lot to keep the lid on these people. But the right-wing demagogues can only be reigned in by other (rich powerful) people on the right — we lefties aren’t going to get Rush to ratchet back.

5. Full-fledged insurrection? On behalf of *Cheney?!?*

Conor (and Charles, in this discussion), you seem to be deeply fearful about *something*, but I really don’t understand what is so frightening that the idea of undermining the rule of law isn’t clearly worse.

My Favorite Martian Economist

So my favorite economist won the Nobel-ish Economics Prize. Why is Paul Krugman my favorite economist?

1. As Patrick Nielsen Hayden said, for "his distinguished work in the field of Being Right".

2. He became an economist because he wanted to be Hari Selden.

3. He knows Doctor Who.

4. He quotes Monty Python.

5. He posted a LOLcat at the New York Times.

6. He wrote a paper on The Economic Theory of Interstellar Trade.

7. He writes as though his readers aren't dumb.

Meltdown in Progress: Useful links

I am spending too much time reading about the financial crisis/bailout/meltdown. I hate money.

Good links that may help explain things:

Paul Krugman's blog, always.

Stirling Newberry on "The Crooked Deals that Made This Financial Meltdown Inevitable", Part 1. He promises Part 2 will be RSN.

The underlying problem then, is not the housing bust, since that could be dealt with by a relatively modest FDIC bail out of banks and changes to Freddie and Fannie, nor even the wall of paper that was created, since that could be dealt with by cleaning up a few toxic funds. It is that the very basic bet of the economy was wrong.

The very bet was that war and debt were all that was needed to grow for ever. Because every cent was being poured either into the war, or houses, or into gambling double and triple that these would expand forever, there was no money for anything else.

Nouriel Roubini on "The shadow banking system is unravelling".

Last week saw the demise of the shadow banking system that has been created over the past 20 years. Because of a greater regulation of banks, most financial intermediation in the past two decades has grown within this shadow system whose members are broker-dealers, hedge funds, private equity groups, structured investment vehicles and conduits, money market funds and non-bank mortgage lenders.

Like banks, most members of this system borrow very short-term and in liquid ways, are more highly leveraged than banks (the exception being money market funds) and lend and invest into more illiquid and long-term instruments. Like banks, they carry the risk that an otherwise solvent but liquid institution may be subject to a self-­fulfilling and destructive run on its ­liquid liabilities.

But unlike banks, which are sheltered from the risk of a run – via deposit insurance and central banks’ lender-of-last-resort liquidity – most members of the shadow system did not have access to these firewalls that ­prevent runs.

Roubini emphasizes that the crisis will necessarily involve European financial institutions, as well.

Jerome a Paris is one of the people best placed to say "I told you so." Over the past couple of years, he has been talking about The Anglo Disease:

The Anglo Disease is the label I have been using to describe the current situation, whereby too much debt has made the financial sector dominant, and starved the rest of the economy of oxygen - and not-so-coincidentally transfering massive wealth from the working classes to the very rich: debt, managed by the financial sector, and working under assumptions of ever increasing returns, is both the core tool of very obvious policies and the very instrument to hide these from view; feeding the ideology of selfishness, and hiding (temporarily, but for much longer than even its creators dared hope, I think) the empoverishment of the many, it is both self-sustaining and popular for the masses, is it has become a full scale addiction.

White-collar deterrance

I've left versions of this comment hither & yon. This one is from Bailout at Obsidian Wings:

---

You say "petulance" and "high moral dudgeon", I say "deterrance."

Stanley Hauerwas is a great theologian, scholar, ethicist, and proponent of non-violence. In Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence he argues against the "capital punishment has a deterrant effect" position, by saying (paraphrased), "if we really wanted to see effective deterrance, we'd have public executions on Wall Street for insider trading, and it would probably work."

I'm sure Hauerwas is being ironic and doesn't *really* believe in capital punishment for white-collar crime, but I think there's a lot to be said for direct, shaming punishment of wealthy malefactors. It's the Stan Lee principle for avoiding moral hazard: "With great power comes great responsibility, and also serious personal consequences when you f*ck up."

Vengence and schadenfreude are all very well, but what I want to see is some *deterrance*.

---

Meanwhile, at echidne's post about executive compensation, commenter Dr. Wu writes:

I am concerned that among your various proposals for achieving a long-term solution, you have not given sufficient consideration to the idea of identifying the best of the "smart and clever financial managers" and eating them.

It's a proposal, he said modestly.

Where are the McCain canvassers?

I've decided to take this relationship to the next level, as they say, and start canvassing this weekend. I'm in safe-blue NJ, but just across the river from PA, so the local Obama office is sending us to Bristol/Lower Bucks County to go door-to-door on Saturday.

I've never canvassed before, so I've been surfing around looking for "helpful hints" and "what to expect". And I stumbled across something weird.

If you plug canvass for obama into Google, you get 282,000 hits. If you use canvass for mccain, you get only 141,000 hits -- but scanning the first few pages, most of those are about canvassing *against* McCain, not for him.

If you put everything in quotes, "canvass for obama" gets 8180 hits -- and "canvass for mccain" gets only 7 (seven) hits. That's a boggling and almost literally unbelievable thousand-fold difference.

Where are the McCain canvassers? The GOP has got to have a ground game, but where is it? How are they organizing their people? Are they not going door-to-door at all, but just reaching people on the phone?

I can't figure out if the McCain campaign is totally clueless, or if they have some sort of ninja canvassing force that's invisible until it strikes. Does anyone know?

What flags are for

From hilzoy's post about Sen. Inhofe's questioning Obama's patriotism. The comments went on to include discussion of who took the flags from Invesco Field. I wrote:

---

My question for OCSteve (or whomever) is, why is this Democrats-threw-out-flags! story important to you? *Even if it were true* (which IMHO it is not), what would it signify?

What the Republican reaction looks like to me is idol-worship, fetishization. Flags are not particularly *good* symbols for a country: in the case of the US flag, for instance, they're objectively ugly and poorly-designed. They have no nuance, no complexity, no thought, no expression. A flag is not just simple, it's simplistic.

And what flags are for is war. Flags were developed to give soldiers something easily identifiable to follow or rally around -- they *have* to be simple and visually blunt to do that job. The Constitution would be a very poor battlefield token. And soldiers, in turn, need to be trained to react strongly to the flag, to follow it without taking vital time for thinking.

But what Republicans seem to be demanding is for civilians to have that kind of reaction, that kind of unthinking, reflexive response to a simple visual stimulus. This is not just idolatry, this is militarism -- which IMHO is a perversion of human society, whether it leads to Sparta or the Nuremburg Rallies.

Put Down the Sexism

Cross-posted from DailyKos.

---

Just, drop it. Turn around and walk away.

Try going 24 hours while making comments about Sarah Palin that do not reference:

1. her anatomy or physiology

2. her attractiveness

3. her clothing

4. her hair or cosmetics

5. anything that can be abbreviated "I.L.F."

6. any of those qualities with regard to her husband or children

The biggest single danger of Palin's candidacy is that it will bring enough foaming misogyny out of the Democratic side to repel some female voters over to McCain.

The day after the NH primary, kos wrote of Hillary Clinton:

the more assholish her detractors behave, the more you help her. The way she was treated the past few days in New Hampshire was a disgrace, and likely a large reason for her surprise victory. So keep attacking her for bullshit reasons, and you'll be generating more and more sympathy votes for her.

...

The more she's attacked on personal grounds, the more sympathy that real person will generate, the more votes she'll win from people sending a message to the media and her critics that they've gone way over the line of common decency. You underestimate that sympathy at your own peril. If I found myself half-rooting for her given the crap that was being flung at her, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves to send a message that sexist double-standards were unacceptable?

Over at Shakespeare's Sister, the Sarah Palin Sexism Watch is already at Post #3. (#1, #2) They're doing it not because the Shakesvillagers agree with any of Palin's policies, but because that's how feminism works. They're getting too much material from this site. Dry up that well, people.

Thursday night, Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet for us, too:

one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character

Although Barack referred specifically to accusing your opponents of lack patriotism, I think he's also talking about other "fighting words", as well.

Here's one guideline: if you put your insult about Palin through a couple rounds of babelfish, would the translation be "She is female"? If so, you're doing it wrong. Worse yet, you're *hurting your own side*.