Nebraskan Liberation Front

Finding solutions to genocide.

2006-05-31T13:31:00.000-05:00

Some posts of mine on various solutions to genocide. LiberalForum requires registration, but it's free.

Marcos is.... an anarcho-syndicalist in Walmart?

2006-05-25T14:11:00.000-05:00

So because of an unfortunate side effect of being job-free the last 5 months, I'm completely broke. I had to get a job. Two jobs in fact.

On the 31st I will begin training for Hudson Bay Company of Illinois, which is a progressive political fundraising group. Most people I've talked to seem to think it's an excellent job, which gives me a lot of hope. However one person, a person I don't know that well but nevertheless consider to be very honest, perhaps too honest, seems to have mixed feelings about HBC. She mentioned it could either steal my soul or enrich my self worth. Perhaps the "steal your soul" part is a referrence to the normal dreads of long work days, but other than that I have no idea what she could mean by it. A couple of other friends of mine will be starting work there too, so I imagine it may not be too bad.

This week I began training at Walmart. Does that sound odd? Oh.... count on it.... I'll be a part-time cashier at the front end. I have VERY mixed feelings of this job. Here are the primary reasons:

--I saw the anti-Walmart movie back when Nebraskans for Peace/Green {Party showed it at the Ross theatre, I think it made a very convincing case. I also followed the media's reaction to it, which included such pro-Walmart arguments as "the people keep shopping here, they vote with their feet." Well last night's training session, our trainer used that exact same phrase, "vote with their feet." It made me reflect on corporate influence in the media, where it takes hundreds of thousands of grassroots movie showings to get our message out, Walmart apparently can just put out a press release with a catchy phrase ("vote with their feet") and get mainstream media coverage. The disparity is depressing, really.
--Again, at training last night we got the opportunity to watch some films. Some of them rather benign, e.g. a film about proper lifting techniques not to harm yourself. One, however, was not benign. It was titled something to the effect of "Why Walmart was a good choice for work." It ran about 25-30 minutes. Much of this time was taken up with explaining why "Walmart employees do not need unions." Ah, so the real motive comes out. The reasons were as follows, with my thoughts on them below.
1. Walmart "already" provides amazing benefits.

I put "already" in quotes because it's disingenuous. In fact, the only benefits immediately available to us in training were the Starbridge medical insurance program (a very basic, cheap, insurance) and the 10% employee discount. Other than that, yes Walmart seems to have decent benefits after a period of time, including scholarships which I might even apply for.

2. A union would endanger these benefits because they're the only things available to put on the negotiation table.

Just an outright lie, a union can demand any legal benefit it wants, from the benefits Walmart offers to higher pay to other benefits such as longer breaks, better recourse to legal representation, anti-discrimination policies, etc. A union, assuming it acts as a rational economic and political organization, would only demand something more in return for a loss of benefits.

3. Walmart's "special relationship" with it's "Associates" (employees) means individuals can propose ideas and negotiate themselves with their superiors.

This is just nonsense, as well as a misrepresentation of what unions do. First, every business claims it has an "open door" policy or "special relationship"
of accepting creative ideas from it's employees. Obviously not every business follows through on its words. Walmart provided us with no important examples of how they do otherwise. Second, a union forms a unique economic pressure on a company that an individual cannot ever perform. When a union threatens to strike it often has enough people to cause some sort of profit loss to the company. When an individual does so, s/he is replaceable, as Walmart history has shown.

This is an excellent article on the subject.

So, I dunno. I doubt I'll enjoy working there, but I can make it through the summer. I'll enjoy HBC much more.

V For Vendetta

2006-04-02T07:30:00.000-05:00

This is an absolutely spectacular film. I don't want to reveal any plot lines, but here's a bit from the comics that wasn't in the film (indeed, contradicts the film). This is V's monologue to the statue of Lady Justice on top of the Old Bailey, starting on page 5 of V For Vendetta #2. Absolutely crazy, but truly hilarious.

Hello dear lady, lovely evening is it not? Forgive me for intruding. Perhaps your were intending to take a stroll. Perhaps you were merely enjoying the view. No Matter. I thought it was time we had a little chat, you and I. Ahh… I was forgetting that we were not properly introduced. I do not have a name. You can call me V. Madam Justice… this is V. V… this is Madam Justice. Hello, Madam Justice.

“Good Evening, V.”

There, now we know each other. Actually, I’ve been a fan of your for quite some time. Oh, I know what you’re thinking…

“The poor boy has a crush on me… an adolescent infatuation.”

I beg your pardon, Madam. It isn’t like that at all. I’ve long admired you… albeit only from a distance. I used to stare at you from the streets below when I was a child. Please don’t think it was merely physical. I know you’re not that sort of girl. No, I loved you as a person. As an ideal. That was a long time ago. I’m afraid there’s someone else now…

“What? V! For shame! You have betrayed me for some harlot, some vain and pouting hussy with painted lips and a knowing smile!”

I, Madam? I beg to differ! It was your infidelity that drove me to her arms! Ah-ha! That surprised you, didn’t it? You thought I didn’t know about your little fling. But I do. I know everything! Frankly, I wasn’t surprised when I found out. You always did have an eye for a man in uniform.

“Uniform? Why I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was always you, V. You were the only one…”

Liar! Slut! Whore! Deny that you let him have his way with you, him and his armbands and jackboots! Well? Cat got your tongue? I thought as much. Very well. So you stand revealed at last. You are no longer my justice, you are his justice. Now you have bedded another. Well two can play at that game.

“Sob! Choke! Wh-who is she, V? What is her name?”
H
er name is Anarchy, and she has taught me more as a mistress than you ever did! She has taught me that justice is meaningless without freedom. She is honest. She makes no promises and breaks none. Unlike you, Jezebel. I used to wonder why you could never look me in the eye. Now I know. So goodbye, dear lady. I would be saddened by our parting even now, save that you are no longer the woman that I once loved.

[V places a heart-shaped box near the statue, and walk away.]

The flames of freedom, how lovely. Ahh, my precious Anarchy. O beauty ‘til now I never knew thee.

2006-03-25T23:52:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm sitting here at my computer reading about the Kronstadt rebellion (1921). someone knocks on my door. I open it, he points at the Young Democrats sticker on my door, gives a thumbs up, takes a sip of his soda, and walks off.

Odd, but inspiring.

2006-03-20T00:27:00.000-06:00

Milosevic died. A good day for humanity, it's unfortunate there aren't more days like it.

Spring Break was boring. It began with debate judging in Omaha. Fred said it would be $20 per policy debate round. I judged 4 rounds and got $40, what a rip. I'm still missing a check from Chris too. I spent the next few days waking up at 7:30 to drive mon frere a la lycee, then sleeping till noon, followed by an afternoon at the library. I did get a lot of reading done, perhaps 800 or 900 pages in three books, "Denying History," "Lying About Hitler," and "SS-Totenkopf." It's....wierd, how fast I read during spring breaks. Normally I read pretty slowly, perhaps 300 or 400 pages a week. I've always been embarassed by this because I heard somewhere that Bush reads at about the same rate. Meh, rumours you know, but it's little maybe-facts like that which get stuck in my head sometimes.

Oh and V for Vendetta is an amazing movie. I was a little disappointed that the Wachowski brothers removed any and all reference to anarchism as being V's philosophy, but I'm too amazed at the rest of the film to care.

2006-03-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

Academic Freedom Since 9/11, an excellent interview. Perhaps the book will take away some of the current attention focused towards Horowitz's latest book.

As a philosophy major I do, truly, feel the frustration some have with studies that seem ultimately irrelevant. The best way to read my Philosophy of Mind textbook is, I've found, to throw it against the wall and yell. The unnecessary jargon angers me to that extent! However I recognize that some students do find the class interesting, and when they add to the class discussion I think I take more from it than the book itself. The way to solve the concern of irrelevant studies is to reform them, more class discussion in the case of my class, instead of the incessant and vitriolic attacks that many have made.

Artifacts of humanity

2006-03-07T00:00:00.000-06:00

I applied to be a kennel attendant at a veterinary clinic today. It was a decent time. They seemed incredibly busy, so while I waited for them to acknowledge me or my application long enough to take it from me I played with a little dog. That dog was no bigger than my two hands put together, it's unfortunate no camera was handy. The clinic was an atrociously long drive from the university though. Old Cheney Road is like Lincoln's very own "deep south." I don't think I've ever been down there before.

I drove back to the university and while trying to find a parking space (must capitalism capitalize ALL commodities???), and saw Sarah walking by on 16th street. She was wearing what appeared to be a yellow rain parka, which is... odd... to say the least. Although it was a cool temperature today, and became even colder when night fell, it came nowhere near raining. Oh well. I wanted to say Hi but the window handle was missing in my car. That's what I get for loaning it to my dad for work... How does one say "C'est la vie" to give an impression of my depressed mood?

I parked, and had to go eat immediately. I had an astronomy test to get to at 6. I hoped perhaps Sarah went to Selleck but it seems not. The test was easy despite my not having studied for it. I still think I may fail. "C'est la vie deja!" The test made me miss the film Amnesty International was showing tonight, "Invisible Children," about the homeless refugee children in Uganda who may be abducted and drafted for the so-called "Lord's Rebel Army." I saw it two or three weeks ago at Collin's, but the following discussion group tonight may have been worth going to.

That's all today. Well, also, it seems half of my friends updated their facebook today. That's kind of a creepy synchronization.

Phelps protest in Lincoln

2006-02-26T01:57:00.000-06:00

This past week an old friend of mine informed me that Fred Phelps was going to be coming to Lincoln to protest a soldier's funeral. Apparently Phelps thinks that the military is defending a "fag nation" or somesuch nonsense. So we got a group of people together to help with the counter-protest. Also, a group of patriotic motorcyclists have been forming counterprotests to Phelps all across the nation wherever Phelps goes. The following is a couple of answers I gave to questions (paraphrased below) from some friends who unfortunately could not make it to Lincoln this morning.

"Phelp's main goal is media coverage, aren't you helping him?"

I see where the argument comes from. Frankly it's been a major debate itself within genocide studies on whether we answer Holocaust deniers and risk them being taken as serious historians (an "other side to a legitimate debate," which is what they want to be perceived as) or ignore them and risk their message spreading among a historically illiterate public. I think Phelps is going to get media coverage whether we're there or not. Spitting on our troops during their funeral is not something I expect the media can, or even should, ignore, so we should be there simply to show our support to the family.

"What happened at the protest?"

The people who went were Brent and 4 of his friends, including a girl I knew from class, and myself. There were maybe 20-25 other people on our side, plus maybe 30-35 bikers. Phelp's had 6-8 people, each with one sign, some with two. One sign that stood out to me was red, white, and blue, and said "God Hates America." Another said "US Army" with an anal sex scene depicted with stick characters. And one really obnoxious woman who kept singing something we couldn't understand. Sounded like "Waaah, Waaah." If you've got a message to spread get a loudspeaker, idiot. Even the Nazi protest a couple years ago knew that.

The protests were divided by 84th street, our side near the church, Phelp's church/family across the street from the church. I don't know if they voluntarily kept to that side or if it was a legal issue and the police were keeping them on that side. By the time we got there our side had chosen to simply stand with our backs turned to Phelp's group, so we did that for a bit.

When the Avery family invited our side into the Church to see the funeral procession most of us went in. Phelp's group started packing up their signs and leaving around that time. We stayed for a bit, watching the funeral on the TVs set up in the lobby. I was surprised it was an open-casket funeral because I was under the impression Avery had been killed by an IED, not exactly a clean way to go. After a bit we all decided to leave, as there really wasn't much else we could do.

"Did Phelps get the media coverage he wanted?"

There were two cameras there, I think from different networks but they didn't have any distinguishing symbols on them. The films crews stayed on our side the whole time I was there and interviewed our people. So I think we may have stolen media time that Phelp's would otherwise have had.

Letter to the Editor

2006-02-23T16:47:00.000-06:00

A letter I sent to the campus paper, Daily Nebraskan, that should be published tomorrow I think.

A Revisionist Historian?

The four paragraph blurb that appeared in Tuesday’s Daily Nebraskan about David Irving’s conviction in Austria for the crime of Holocaust Denial was simply atrocious. The title of the piece was “Revisionist historian sentenced to two years.” A revisionist is someone who uses new evidence or reinterprets past evidence to draw a new, more factual, conclusion about a historical event. Irving does nothing of the sort, instead he misinterprets evidence to clear Hitler’s name and blame the whole war on the Jews.

The first edition of Irving’s book Hitler’s War did not deny that Jews and others were killed by death squads or gas chambers. This changed when he met Fred Leuchter, who was hired to write a report calling the Auschwitz gas chambers a fraud. Irving was so convinced he published “The Leuchter Report” himself. Irving has since republished his book, omitting any reference to extermination. In interviews he has referred to the Holocaust as “propaganda.” Irving claims in his recent appeal that he’s changed his mind again due to Eichmann’s papers, but he’s had access to those papers since the 1990s, with volumes of others proving the Holocaust. Irving’s anti-Semitism also influences his position and in his book Irving actually blamed the war on the Jews, citing a letter from Chaim Weizmann to Neville Chamberlain in which Weizmann says Jews will stand by the democracies. Irving says Hitler “no doubt considered it a Jewish declaration of war.”

It is imperative we do not accept Irving as a revisionist. The National Socialist White People’s Party has itself admitted the motive of deniers is to “make National Socialism an acceptable political alternative again.” The danger is clear, we cannot give them the foothold as serious historians they crave.

Alex Stamm
Sophomore Political Science and Philosophy major

Some events, and also why I hate Bruce Willis now

2006-01-29T22:26:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night Nebraskans for Peace will be having a party to watch the State of the Union. It should be good times. The state chapter of NFP should also be having a roast of Dick cheney party for his birthday soon. I'm sure the info is on their website. Darfur video isn't here yet, so we're still in planning stages for that.

I finally saw the film The Jackall, where Bruce Willis is an assassin. He kills Jack Black, who for no real reason is in the film. I hate you Bruce Willis, I hate you!

2006-01-23T22:10:00.000-06:00

Finallt caught up with my philosophy and German history readings tonight. I'm immensely proud of myself, even if I don't quite understand what the hell the essay from Place was talking about due to his convaluted wording and overly long sentences like this one that add little to nothing to the readers' understanding.

You ever just browse through wikipedia? I was reading through presidential succession, and apparently the secret service tries to keep one random cabinet member away from all the others most of the time, called the "designated survivor." This is in case some major catastrophe befalls a huge meeting of a significant chunk of the government (and with the way terrorists are being recruited these days, it's an increasingly likely possibility I suspect). Apparently in 2003 the designated survivor was John Ashcroft. As I read that my back shivered.

Had a fairly uneventful weekend, aside from watching one of the worst novice finals rounds ever. Got to talk shit with old friends, never quite got to watch those RATM DVDs with them. Meh... at least I get a bit of cash.

2006-01-20T00:34:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking this for a while and I need to say it at least once. The Stephen Colbert Show isn't all that funny. I'm sorry, but he tries to play a "serious" satire of "serious" conservative pundits. Now if he went all Michael "Get AIDs and DIE!" Savage on his quests it might be an entertaining show. (But maybe only Michael Savage can do a good satire of Michael Savage, y'know?)

Philosophy of Mind class is already wearing me out. For example:
Gibbons: "Are you thinking about the pink elephant in the corner of the room?"
Class: "We are now....?"
Gibbons: "No you're not, because there is no pink elephant in the corner of the room. You're thinking about your IDEA of a pink elephant in the corner of the room."

A stunning revelation, I'm sure? It makes some sense if you're into the Dualist/Logical Behaviorist debate, but I'm majoring in philosophy because of an interest in morality and ethics, even a little logic, not because of an interest in how minds communicate to the body. There should really be more morality classes in the philosophy department.

History of 19th Century Germany has some good reading. It's unfortunate that the teacher says "um..." every other word....... Having criticized my university so much however, I must say I'm eternally thankful for it. At the very least we don't have the witch-hunting alumni UCLA has all of a sudden. I'm honestly afraid of what the university teaching world may be around the time I might want to be a professor. What happens when the conservatives on the current attack finally succeed in dissolving African American, Chicano, and Womens Studies? Do they go after similarly small departments like Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and will these be dissolved or amalgamated into the History departments?

I'm finally travelling again this weekend for my debate judge duties. First to Fremont, on to Norfolk, then back to Fremont and Lincoln once more! It should be splendidly mediocre, but at least I get some money and some time with some old friends.

Focus

2006-01-18T21:03:00.000-06:00

Another eventful Nebraskans for Peace meeting tonight, with discussion ranging from the Rocky Horror Picture Show to, well just about anything. The few times we actually discussed doing anything were derailed rather often. Sometimes the digression is enjoyable, other times I just blank out and stare at the environmentalism books on the other side of the room. Every once in a while I'm just completely disgusted with it all and wish the right-wingers would do something just to piss us all off so we'd focus on action.

I'd love to organize a group to crash a neo-Nazi protest. Really get into the thick of a street protest. I was playing Medal of Honor with a friend of mine yesterday when he mentioned that I was born in the wrong times, I should have been born in the 1920s so I could have REALLY fought fascism by the time I was in my 20s. In the meantime I organize genocide awareness actions, we should be showing a film about Darfur sometime soon.

I considered joining the Young Democrats Hall Activism program for the '06 midterm election cycle. They "engage" students in discussions about politics on the various floors of the dorms. Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, we're running a fucking Republican with a D behind his name," meaning of course Ben Nelson. Incidentally after seeing the flyer for that program I turned on my television to CNN and saw......wait for it......BEN MOTHAFUCKING NELSON, being touted by CNN as the first Democrat to declare he was voting for Samuel Alito. Nelsons idea of opposition politics seems to be play dead for 8 years. I wish he'd actually roll over and die, or at least change that D to an R like he's always wanted.

I have to go study, though....

I know what you're thinking

2006-01-18T02:42:00.000-06:00

"Why isn't this on livejournal?" I can't answer that.

Remember, Holocaust Memorial Day is January 27th - that's nine days. It doesn't matter if you feel it's exclusionary. If you think the Holocaust should be included in a more general "Genocide Memorial Day" then you can still honor the victims of the Holocaust.

So I'm back in school. Cabellas laid me off, so I can focus on my grades once more when I feel like it. I have more time to spend with friends (missing Grace's going away party because of how little time I had last semester still kind of irks me). I'm going to enjoy 19th Century German History, which indeed I have had to explain to some that this was before the Nazis. I don't know what to do this summer (probably be an RA and take summer classes), but I'm glad that next semester will see three of my high school friends come to the university.

I discovered the other day that there is a major Holocaust denial publisher right here in Lincoln, run by a guy named Gary Lauck (who 'germanized' his name to Gerhard Lauck). Well we're going to have to shut that down somehow. On that note, I was thinking of maybe doing something for a class where I'd study how many students in Nebraska are influenced by Holocaust denial literature. The ADL could sure use that information, Nebraska seems to get lost in their activism and seeing the impact people like Gary "Farmbelt Fuhrer" Lauck have on our state may allow us some more resources to fight neo-Nazis. I remember there were at least 3 neo-Nazis in my high school when I graduated, probably more who weren't very outspoken about it.

Someone is giving a speech here at the university next Tuesday, I wish I could remember who it was or what it was about.

And finally, everyone should read a pamphlet called Dropping Out (For Students) available on the CrimethInc website. It's written by a high school anarcho-leftist dropout who couldn't stand the authoritarian nature of education in America, and it serves as a manual and a justification for what she did. One of the most liberatory and eye-opening pieces of writing I've ever seen. It was so convincing in fact that it unsettled me into thinking I should drop out. Ultimately however, college is a bit more free than high school (a bit...). Also with a degree I can easier educate others inside the institutions or get some other job that otherwise would not be available. You can always just recede from the world and enter her world. If the option is always there for the taking, freedom can wait a little while (but only another year or two).

Until next time comrade.

RIP William Proxmire

2005-12-16T04:32:00.000-06:00

Former Congressman William Proxmire of Wisconsin passed away today. Probably best known as the Congressman who replaced Joe McCarthy in a special election and embarass most of Congress with the famous "Golden Fleece Awards" for outrageous spending. He's less well known for his campaign to pass the Genocide Convention. Proxmire gave unique speeches every single day Congress was in session for 17 years about genocide in an attempt to pass the law. It finally passed in 1988 with the help of another Congressman outraged at Saddam's genocide of Kurds. Truly a great man, and even greater because it's hard to be so great in politics.

I'd promise to update more but I know I'd get bogged down with my readings, my classwork, and my job again. Sorry. I'll post when I can.

Shake Hands With the Devil

2005-11-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

An excellent film about the General of the UN Peacekeeping operation in Rwanda during the genocide, Romeo Dallaire. I saw it with some friends last night, felt so horrible I could barely contain my rage that we let Rwanda and Dallaire down so much.

I know that at least myself and one other person who went to see it could not help but draw the obvious parallel to the situation in Darfur. For example, in a part of the film they showed Bill Clinton visit Rwanda on the 10th anniversary, an obvious publicity stunt amounting to nothing more than moral embarassment. Then, in the Washington Post today they praised a Bush aid for making his 7th or so trip to the Darfur area. That'll show the janjaweed, I'm sure. "Kill one more person and we'll buy a first-class plane ticket!"

I feel so sick. Does everyone in genocide studies become a misanthrope?????

Things.....

2005-11-01T10:53:00.000-06:00

I think I've decided to start updating this blog once again. Recently switched to FireFox so my browser doesn't take the rest of Bush's presidency to update.

Bad news yesterday, the UN approved sanctions against Syria. This is exactly the mold which led to war against Iraq. I can only imagine the new flimsy justifications they make. "At least fewer people will be killed in Syria than were killed in Iraq!"

Good news today, the UN approved Israel request for an international Holocaust Commemoration day, January 27th. Muslim and Arab countries approved it as well, but with some reservations. Egypt wants other genocides included, Malaysia says other genocides were no less severe (which depends on what you're measuring -- body count, the impact of technology, existential angst and suffering...). China wants to include the Sino-Japanese war of 1931/1937-1945, and Venezuala wants to include the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's some pretty extensive literature on those and I don't want to get into that debate, however I do think it would lessen the impact of the commemoration day if we expanded it. I think fewer people are going to care about a vague Genocide Day than a specific Holocaust Day, simply because popular culture can relate better because of movies like Schindler's List. Similarly, if we were discussing a day for the remembrance of the Rwandan genocide, I would think that because of movies like Hotel Rwanda, Sometimes in April, and Shake Hands With The Devil, the public would be more receptive to a specific genocide commemoration than an all-encompassing one.

2005-09-03T21:40:00.000-05:00

Natural disaster turns New Orleans into a third world country, Dick cheney goes to invitation-only private fundraiser next week, set up by a right-wing think tank.

Where is this administration's PRIORITIES???????

In other news, I launched a new blog with a friend of mine so I'll probly not update this so often as I did before. See the new blog here.

Job Hunt, part 2

2005-08-27T20:59:00.000-05:00

I did finally obtain a job, and at my (cough) "desired location."

When Cabella's called me, they said I had the job. This was misleading. Neigh, this was an utter falsity. They had me come in for an interview, then listened to a couple of customer calls, then sent me away with the comment that "training won't even begin until first week of September." Bloody wonderful.

In the meantime, the UNL Bookstore did decide to hire me. They said at my interview that they would call me. This did not happen. Instead, they waited until a week before school to email me wondering (pretentiously) why I had not shown up. So, I did get that job.

Ironically, for a bookstore that sells "Great Expectations," mine fell flat. The entire first week was 10-hour work days. When I was payed this previous Thursday, I learned I was payed for only 40 hours of work and 2.5 hours overtime -- meaning I did almost 25 hours they did not pay me for. Know why? Because Nebraska law is that overtime is limited to 2.5 hours. I <3 "da' Man."

Since school has started, however, business is of course down. I worked probably a total of 10 hours this week, they laid the head student employee off because he could not get enough hours. Prospects might be bleak for this working man. Now I really am hoping for that Cabella's job.

The Job Hunt

2005-08-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

So, in employee-saturated Lincoln, I finally managed to land a job with Cabella's doing customer service calls. The University Bookstore was supposed to call me back last week, but I haven't heard from them. I would have much rather had that job because if I'm going to work for The Man, I at least want to work in something I'm interesting in (books). I'm going to hate this job, I know, and I'll leave as soon as I line up a more enjoyable job.

Postwar revisionism in Japan

2005-07-31T20:24:00.000-05:00

Herbet Bix published a good piece on Hirohito's place in history on Znet today. Bix makes some good points, namely that the Emporer was an opportunistic leader and was not a pacifist in any respect. However, Bix I think takes it somewhat too far in saying that Hirohito is the man ultimately responsible for Japan's wars of agression in Manchuria and later against the Chinese nationalists (Chian Kai-shek's Guomindang and Mao's Communist Chinese).

I've not read Bix's book on Hirohito -- it won a Pulitzer prize and is obviously important enough to warrent a small note on Wikipedia's page on Hirohito, and a stub of his own on Wikipedia. I'll make sure to check it out sometime.

However, from what I have read (namely Edwin Hoyt's excellent book), Hirohito excercised little power over the government at the time. The Manchuria war in particular was begun as a result of junior officers of the Kwangtung army provoking violence in order to justify a war (similar to the "radio station attack" Hitler used to justify his invasion of Poland). The Second Sino-Japanese War started as a result of the Marco Polo bridge incident, when a company of the Kwangtung Army on a training mission exchanged fire with Guomindang forces. This incident was quickly localized, and a truce established. Although higher-ups in the Kwangtung Army did lobby successfully with the militarist cabinet for expanding the bridge incident into an all-out war, Hirohito was not a part of that decision process.

Hirohito certainly exacerbated and aggrandized tension in world politics by naming General Hideki Tojo to be prime minister, Hirohito certainly jumped on the militarist bandwagon when it was proving successful and jumped off the bandwagon when he saw what four-engined bombers blanketing Japanese cities with napalm just as quickly. Let's make no mistake here: Hirohito was a bandwagoner and thus was slower to act imperialistically than the militarists like Tojo wanted, but it was the fault of the junior officers in starting the wars. Had Hirohito been the clever imperialist Bix makes him out to be, I suspect the wars would have begun much sooner.

UNL Professor: Politics may be genetic

2005-07-31T03:56:00.000-05:00

John Hibbings, a political science professor from my university, with some colleagues from other universities, recently published a piece in the American Political Science Review arguing that political beliefs may be influenced, to some extent, by genetics. Here's a pdf of the article.

In short: Some genes produce enzymes that affect the amount of certain chemicals in the body. These chemicals do not determine a person's belief in a political idea necessarily, but rather the flexibility to believe ideas -- e.g. "Is abortion always wrong, or does it depend?" "The issue is not nature versus nurture, but the manner in which nature interacts with nurture."

As the paper ends, the genetic types are divided into "absolutists" and "contextualists," who roughly correlate into susceptibility to conservative and liberal ideologies respectively. Hibbings thinks that admitting genetics plays a role in ultimately determining political attitudes could help heal the harsh divide in modern politics and the frustration between sides. He hopes that both sides can possibly come to an understanding about the motivations of "the other side" rather than attributing it to "willful bullheadedness."

I'll be the first to admit I feel this frustration often. Hibbings doesn't prove his thesis completely, further scientific studies that focus exclusively on this question will have to be done I'm sure. Nevertheless, it has given me some things to think about.

I was quite surprised when I first read about it in the local paper, the Lincoln Journal-Star, this week. The study was published in May and it takes two months to get a single mention in local press? Not even the university paper published anything about it.

A professor friend of mine from Texas mentioned, curtly, that postmodernists must be driven crazy by an article such as Hibbing's being published in the ASPR.

Why jihadists target the West

2005-07-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

The Christian Science Moniter has an excellent piece on various scholarly opinions on the motivations of terrorists. I've been reading Juan Cole's blog an a regular basis for the past few months, and I've read some of Michael Schueur's work. Needless to say, I agree wholeheartedly with them.

When I get back to college, I'll have a go at trying to understand the idea that "they hate our freedoms." I'll purchase Samual Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, maybe some Bernard Lewis, and some more recent writings on the subject. I'll post some thorough reviews around September or October.

Ode to a university

2005-07-25T01:04:00.000-05:00

So, here's an update. I realized the other day I hadn't blogged in over a month. I don't really have anything to blog about specifically, so here's a scattering.

I'm missing the university. That is the biggest personal problem at the moment. It's odd, though, because it feels exactly the same as when I was at the dorms and missing a particular friend of mine from high school that I had a crush on. In the course of bumming around in my house all day, I participated in some sophistry: Is it possible to "love" a collection of buildings and a psychological institution? If possible, is this somewhat similar to the "love" shown by the German, Italian, and Japanese people to the Nazi ideal, efficiency, and the diety-Emporer-militarist-institution, respectively? I often worry that in opposing fascism on a personal level, as I do, it actually recreates a fascism, or at the very least a thirst for paternal autocracy.

I've been watching this stuff about Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. He said recently on a radio interview that if terrorists attack America with nukes, we should respond by erasing Mecca and other Muslim holy cities. Tancredo is considering running for president in 2008, so this bears some major concern. To my surprise, some people have actually agreed with the sentiment! How can I take such people seriously? You would have to have an outrageously distorted sense of Western humanist morality to believe that the elimination of millions of innocents unrelated to the hypothetical attack is somehow a just response.

Like Chomsky says, if the tables were turned the outrageousness would be sparkling clear to those currently advocating apocalyptic revenge. It well describes who is a "worthy victim" and who is "unworthy victims" in American political discourse.

Speaking of Chomsky, a former debater at Gonzaga university, Kirk, secured a 20 minute phone interview with Chomsky to include in his upcoming book. Kirk posted a thread on a debate message board asking for ideas about what to ask. Most of the responses were utter crap (e.g. "ask him how high he was," "ask him how he felt about 9/11," "ask him about blah blah blah."), and were utterly unrelated to Kirk's book, which is about people living through history in a very narrow sense (things like a fireman's experience in New York during 9/11, an Israeli soldier in the Lebanon war of the 80s, etc.). The thought occured to me to ask Chomsky about an experience he had as a child, when he saw people taunting German POWs in a detention camp near his high school. Kirk was extremely happy at this suggestion, so it may just end up a part of the interview. I felt a pretty good ego boost from this, no modesty. Normally, I'd be jealous of Kirk for not only getting to talk to Chomsky face-to-face when he spoke at Gonzaga in April, but for getting a later interview. I suppose I still am jealous, but hey, it's almost as though I get to ask Chomsky about something by proxy.

Let's finish this post with a summary of what I've been reading recently:
Hitler's Field Marshals, by Samuel Mitcham
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
America Invulnerable, by James Chace and Caleb Carr

Hopefully, I'll continue blogging the next couple of weeks until college starts again. At college, I usually feel like blogging more.

2005-06-27T21:06:00.000-05:00

Michael Berube's blog is more entertaining every day I read it. Check it out:
http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php

Might be more later...

There's a genocide going on, but I don't care....

2005-06-19T12:20:00.000-05:00

I would rather talk about missing (white American) girls in Venezuala. I'd rather talk about Michael Jackson's acquittal party. I'd rather give updates every few weeks about the runaway bride.

My, oh my, where would my life be without the runaway bride?

And of course I'd rather bring up months-old news than talk about mass murder! Who can believe it? Terri Schiavo is BLIND!!!!!

I'd rather talk about some celebrity's engagement, because Entertainment Tonight just didn't fucking cover it long enough for today.

Every time the media reports on one of these other stories, they not only contribute to the moral degredation of North America, they not only propagate the ignorant American, I not only die a little inside, but we all take the biggest shit of our lives right on the people of the third world. It mixes with the blood of their rape and machete and AK-47 wounds, worse than salt. But despite all that, this genocide will not be televised.

"Where the fuck are you? Where the fuck are you?"
--System of a Down

Ethiopian "democracy"

2005-06-10T18:04:00.000-05:00

Justin Raimando has an excellent column this week. Here's a sample:

Asked why the Ethiopian government arrested 14 opposition leaders in the wake of postelection unrest – in which government troops, firing into unarmed crowds, killed 26 and wounded dozens – Ethiopia's Information Minister Bereket Simon would not confirm the arrests, but told Reuters:

"Anyone who incites violence, other than those elected, will have to face the law."

This ought to be carved in stone above the entrance to every legislative chamber, every courthouse, every government building on the face of the earth, because it pretty much summarizes, with admirable succinctness and brazen verve, the central operating principle of all governments everywhere, including democracies. The elites – whether elected or self-selected – are above the law, and act accordingly. Crimes for which ordinary citizens would be incarcerated, and perhaps even executed, are legalized and even considered admirable when carried out under the color of state authority. Sociopathic behavior, such as murder and robbery, are simply repackaged as "war" and "taxation" and touted as our collective moral duty, or, at worst, unfortunate necessities.

The real Nuclear Option in history

2005-05-31T09:51:00.000-05:00

I recently read an excellent book about Japan's side of World War 2; Japan's War: The Great Pacific Conflict, by Edwin Hoyt. It gave me some things to think about regarding the very end months of the war.

In the fall of 1944, a new American bomber was coming into full use, the B-29 (called 'B-san' by the Japanese). In the first 5 or 6 months it was hardly effective at all. Much of this had to do with how high the bombers had to fly (27 to 35 thousand feet) to stay above the Japanese interceptor fighter screen, and also to stay above the weather. This caused problems, as it was the first time American pilots had encountered the jet stream, which caused bombs to go astray, etc. At winds of 180 miles per hour, the bombs would fall almost anywhere, leadign to what the Japanese (and international law, really) called "indiscriminate bombing."

The Japanese realized they had no way of combatting an aircraft that their fighters could never reach. However, the commandor of the Tokyo area air defense (well, really the whole Kanto plans region), Major General Kiyaro Yoshita came up with a solution fitting the idea of Japanese bushido in the later versions in the later time of the war. Yoshita stripped the fighters of most of their guns, ammunition, bombing equipment and all of their armor. Without this weight, they would be able reach the B-27 bombers and ram into them (kamikaze in the air).

(Hold on, as I'm writing this I'm listening to a White House press conference with Bush on various subjects, and Bush says: "Disassemble.... that means not tell the truth." Hahahahaha!)

With a number of B-29s being taken out (roughly 5% hit on an average bombing run, as compared to about 25% on the European front) the American air generals called for a change in strategy. General Curtis LeMay became chief of the American 20th Air Force, basically the B-29 command. LeMay was a "burner" or an advocate of bombing civilians to destroy a nation's will to carry on war:

General LeMay was an outright advocate of the firebombing of civilian populations. The war excuse was that so many Japanese lived in the industrial districts, around the factories in which they worked, that it would be impossible to avoid civilian casualties. But some of the things the air force did seemed a little far afield from that argument. They built a "typical Japanese village" in Utah and practiced bombing it with a new incendiary made with jellied napalm. It was the perfect instrument for the destruction of Japanese-style houses. Small bombs, about six pounds, could be dropped in great numbers. They would fall on roofs and explode and burn. The napalm would stick to the surface of the roof, and it was almost impossible to extinguish. These were the bombs that were to be used to burn out the major cities of Japan. [page 380-381, Hoyt]

In February 1945, LeMay launched a new offensive in order to vindicate his beloved bombers. A number of Navy officials started saying the B-29, which had been getting dismal results, was not worth the bother transporting fuel for them. On the 25th of the month 231 bombers set out for Tokyo. They dropped 450 tons of those 6-pound firebombs on Tokyo, burning a square mile of the city.

At about this time, Japanese diplomats attempted to secure peace with the Allies through both the Soviet Union and Switzerland. Another excellent book I read 3 or 4 years ago, Russia at War: 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth, detailed that the only condition for peace they wanted was the retention of the Emporer. However, the Allies (at Teheran, and later again at Potsdam) had agreed on "Unconditional Surrendur": capitulation or destruction of the Axis. After the two above attempts failed, all talk of surrendur in Japan was cut short by one argument: if we surrendur, we lose the Emporer. That was unacceptable.

In effect, the Unconditional Surrendur demand prolonged the war this way. And for what point? None -- Japan was allowed to retain the emporer after the war.

After the firebombings started (specifically, what the Japanese called the "March 10 Terror Bombing"), Emporer Hirohito travelled to those areas and met with the now-homeless people. It saddened him greatly, and he now realized the war was lost. In January, 200,000 people had died in one night of firebombing, about three times the number of dead at Hiroshima. Radio Tokyo compared the bombing to Nero's destruction of Rome:

The sea of flame which enclosed the residential and commercial section of Tokyo was reminiscient of the holocaust of Rome...

...and it would soon be called "slaughter bombing" by the Japanese, whereupon Hoyt says: "and, of course, it was." The Air Force called it "strategic bombing" but there were no strategic targets hit except by chance and accident.

In August, the atomic bombs were dropped. The slaughter was indeed great, but it nowhere near matched the firebombings. They were also completely unneeded, as Japan had been seeking peace for months by this point. Hoyt ends his book this way:

Out of the war also came one great myth, perpetuated by well-meaning people throughout the world who fear an atomic holocaust. That myth is that the atomic bomb caused the surrendur of Japan.

The fact is that as far as the Japanese militarists were concerned, the atomic bomb was just another weapon. The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were icing on the cake, and did not do as much damage as the firebombings of Japanese cities. The B-29 firebombing campaign had brought the destruction of 3,100,000 homes, leaving fifteen million people homeless, and killing about a million of them. It was the ruthless firebombing, and Emporer Hirohito's realization that if necessary the Allies would completely destroy Japan and kill every Japanese to achieve "unconditional surrendur" that persuaded him to the decision to end the war. The atomic bomb is indeed a fearsome weapons, but it was not the cause of Japan's surrendur, even though the myth persists even to this day.

Might post more later.

Weekend round-up

2005-05-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Arthur Silbur gives a black-eye to National Review Online's Jonah Goldburg, rehashing the minor fued between Goldburg and Juan Cole, and adding a new twist.

Juan Cole guesstimates that the claims of substantial foreign fighters in Iraq are actually being made by Iraqi Baath military intelligence, and used by the Bush team in order to further their agenda.

Chris Hitchens falls to the level of the Moonbat Central bloggers and makes a Nazi cheap shot at Leftists in his latest Slate column. I really doubt his understanding of what is going on there under the American occupation. A few points:

Efforts were being made to repaint and disinfect the joint, and many of the new inmates were being held in encampments in the yard while this was being done, but I distinctly remember thinking that there was really no salvaging such a place and that it should either be torn down and ploughed over or turned into a museum.

They weren't simply being held in camps in the yard until the "improvements" were done, that's part of the prison itself. There are so many inmates at Abu Ghraib, some have to live outside in the elements, and insurgents regularly drop mortars into those camps.

Instead, it became an improvised center for anyone caught in the dragnet of the "insurgency" and was filled up with suspects as well as armed supporters of Baathism and Bin Ladenism.

It also simply had innocents rounded up at random. The man now famous as the guy standing on a box with electrical wires attached to him was never charged with any crime, and released shortly thereafter.

And seven of Saddam's amputees—those whose mutilations were filmed and distributed as a warning—have been flown to Houston, Texas—Texas, capital of redneck barbarism!—to be fitted with new prosthetic hands. A film about this latter episode, titled A Show of Hands, has been made by Don North and was, I believe, shown on the Al Hurra network. But I don't think that 1-in-100,000,000 people has seen it; certainly nobody in comparison with the universal dissemination of photographs of recreational sadism.

It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. And oh yeah, people have been tortured to death there as well, Chris. Another inmate at Abu Ghraib is now famous in a photo where Lynddie England is holding a 'thumbs-up' over his body in a bodybag, after he died from what is known as a "Palestinian Hanging." There are a number of other examples.

The superficially clever thing to say today is that Lynddie England represents all of us, or at any rate all her superiors, and that the liberation of Iraq is thereby discredited. One odd effect of this smug view is to find her and her scummy friends—the actual inflicters of pain and humiliation—somehow innocent, while those senior officers who arrested them and put them on trial are somehow guilty. There is something faintly masochistic and indecent about that conclusion.

This entire paragraph is "superficially clever." Nobody (at least to my knowledge) is saying Lynddie represents us, or even "the West." Finding guilt on upper levels is not an "odd effect" of that non-existent view. There is a very distinct connection here. Alberto Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld both virtually approved the use of torture. Gonzales' memo is now famous, but the Rumsfeld connection is drawn very clearly by Symour Hersh's article here.

2005-05-13T08:34:00.000-05:00

Brandon Snider, over at antiwar.com, writes this post about Pat Buchanan's latest isolationist column on WW2. Snider writes:

Alas, Pat's arguments are filled with such things as 'historical facts'; the other side has abandoned them in an Orwellian attempt to rewrite history so that, for instance, WW2 was now fought to stop the Holocaust. Allied nations apparently knew in 1939 that there would be mass killing of Jews several years into the future, and acted to stop it.

The caricature is not entirely false, actually. People like Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who eventually coined the term genocide and succeeded in passing the genocide convention in the UN, predicted in the mid-30s that the Nazis were setting out to systemically destroy European Jewry. The problem was that Western governments ignored Lemkin, not that they did not know about the coming genocide.

Here's a neat quote

2005-05-12T11:35:00.000-05:00

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

Fools and flamebaiting

2005-05-11T11:18:00.000-05:00

Arkansas Nazis staged a rally in Boston, and Horowitz's blog, Moonbat Central, says this:

It is not yet clear whether the Arkansas nazis will be offered jobs at DePaul University or Baylor University.

Besides, we are pretty sure the Arkansas gang has nothing against Jews as such; it is only Zionism they dislike.

Ah yes, because there's no difference really between saying "Jews are rats! Kill them all!" (as Nazis did) and "policies carried out by Zionists in the name of 'Eretz Yisrael' are inhuman, brutal, and cause terrorism" (as anti-Zionists say), is there?

Honestly, what a cheap shot, even for those right-wing wackos. Tell me, did Noam Chomsky make it out to the rally? Yeah, didn't think so. (Maybe it's because he truly doesn't hate Jews, but opposes Zionism! GASP!)

I'm now licensed

2005-05-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

The Nebraskan Liberation Front is now protected under a Creative Commons license. It is a "copyright" in a way, but amended.

You are free:

--to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
--to make derivative works

Under the following conditions:

--Attribution. You must give the original author credit.
--Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.

Breaking news: Pot calls kettle "black"

2005-05-04T22:58:00.000-05:00

Horowitz put up a new column on his website today, attacking Robert Scheer and claiming that the Vietnamese NLF was "phony." I don't really know much about the Vietnamese war, so while I suspect he's lying there, I'll let it slide for the moment.

The one claim I do want to dispute is this:

The antiwar movement that Scheer and his comrades launched successfully forced America to abandon the people of South Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia, which the Communist had used as an invasion route. This abandonment resulted in the postwar slaughter of 2.5 million Indo-Chinese. (The Khmer Rouge who cleaned up Cambodia were protégés of Hanoi and were also advancing the “world revolution” and not, obviously, Cambodian nationalism and pragmatism.) The Communists also liquidated 1.5 million Laotians while they were at it. [bold mine]

Er.... not really, Dave. The KR and the Vietnamese Communists had pretty significant differences in ideology (primitivist/nativist versus the more Stalinist industrialism, respectively). Also, there was that WAR THEY FOUGHT AGAINST EACH OTHER -- when Vietnam invaded Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1978 -- and ended the KR genocide. Typically, "proteges" do not depose one another.

Horowitz surely knows of this war, it played a huge part in the pseudo-alliance between Cambodia, China and the U.S. versus Vietnam and the Soviet Union. But David would rather do what he accuses Scheer of, namely that of ideologies clinging to the same notions they had 30 years ago. The right-wing back then believed that the KR and the North Vietnamese were one and the same as well. (Yes, I know Horowitz was a New Leftist back then. He however, adopted the same arguments his new-found ideology had made back then.)

See Samantha Power's excellent book A Problem From Hell for the facts I've pointed out.

Remember kids, the internet doesn't forget

2005-05-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

More rantings over at the Jesse Factor, this time about the clearing of the Marine who shot an insurgent faking death in a Mosque. For some reason (mental masturbation I suppose?) Jesse includes a link to a previous article stating:

Basically, they rounded up the dead and wounded into a room, the dead were put in one pile, the wounded were put elsewhere. One insurgent decided to play dead in order to escape the US forces. After one of our troops saw that he was moving, he shot him.

Hmm, moved? So, when the dead were moved into the room, we let them keep weapons or something? If not, then the murdered insurgent posed no threat, and therefore his killing was illegal.

Of course, in his latest post, the truth has to be hidden. Jesse says that there was still a perceived threat:

One of those killed was an unarmed, and injured insurgent, whom (after the video was cleaned up) was forensically proved to have had his left hand concealed behind his head. Insurgents commonly fake death (sort of like possums) to avoid danger. Except instead of scurrying away like the rodents they are, they blow themselves up and kill marines.

In the shrill pre-election battle-cry of the Republicans, Flip-flopper!

Future millionaire? Not likely....

2005-05-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

I found a website for college republicans today, called Young Nationalists. (Does the fascist undertone not make your skin crawl?) They, like most conservative websites, sell bumper stickers, like this one.

Ah yes, become a future millionaire by .... uh... er, wasting your money on a ridiculous bumper sticker. I'm sure Warren Buffet would be proud to have such people as comrades in capitalism.

And at three bucks a sticker, I'm sure the designer of the sticker is living it up in some upscale apartment near a beach. Except for one thing: one of the most important parts of developing a product in capitalism is originality. And, well, the rest of the bumper stickers are surely lacking that.

Summer things

2005-05-02T22:42:00.000-05:00

Here's the deal, I have to move out the dorms on Friday. Where I'm moving, I probably will not have access to internet. I could go to the library and get on their computers, but I probably won't... (hehe, I am lazy over the summer).

I'll be co-hosting a debate camp with some old friends in Norfolk for three weeks this summer, it should be fun, and I can make some cash too. Other than that, I'll probably be doing some summer reading courses for some extra college credit hours, and maybe try and get a job at Barnes & Nobles. (Hey, if I'm going to work for the Man, I'm going to work for the Man with the products I like.)

Unlike some close comrades, I can't wait for school to start again...... Honestly, I hope these next three months are the fastest months of my life.

Wait a minute....

2005-04-30T16:18:00.000-05:00

We have satellites that can film the shooting of the Italian journalist's car, but we can't figure out whether Iraq moved it's supposed WMDs to Syria?

Read it, read it again, read it a third time

2005-04-30T11:55:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall points out how utterly ridiculous the Republican push for the "nuclear option" has gotten.

Hahaha!

2005-04-29T19:01:00.000-05:00

John Miller, a conservative blogger for National Review Online's Corner, asks: "Is this what the Pentagon means by force restructuring?"

More wandering sophistry

2005-04-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

Not really wandering this time, but sitting at my computer desk...

I put my laundry in the washer about a half hour ago, and decided to force myself to work on my poli sci paper due on Friday. Like a bullet to the head, however, an old high school friend signs on to MSN Messenger. I clicked to open a conversation and....

nothing. I can't think of anything to say. She's a rude interruption, like a person stumbling upon the calm dances of a mass grave. I can't say a thing to her, I haven't said a thing to her in over a year. One year! (Why couldn't she have gone to college like a normal high school graduate?!)

I closed the (non-)conversation, I've got work to do.

Addendum:

In one of those rare moments in life, she began the conversation the moment I hit the publish button to this post. It was a good conversation, and made me somewhat happy. I didn't get any work done on the paper that night, but I did get ideas to write about the next day. Maybe it's a sign of a good summer coming.

C'mon now...

2005-04-26T11:03:00.000-05:00

Serious.... what the hell???

I've read a little Ayn Rand, and while I always thought Objectivism was kooky, I gave it a little bit of respect as a philosophy. Now I see it's no better than Ann Coulter.

Tracing political etymology

2005-04-25T08:39:00.000-05:00

The debate over the Senate's "nuclear option" now seems to be moving to "who said 'nuclear option' first?!"

Armando puts the pieces together over at the Daily Kos.

The 'G' Word

2005-04-24T18:26:00.000-05:00

I decided to go check out what garbage was recently posted on Front Page Magazine, and well today's garbage was unique. Someone posted a link to an article from the Jerusalem Post, and titled it "Academic Solidarity With Genocide." Having become very interested in the question of genocide since reading Gourevitch's book and seeing Samantha Power speak recently, I of course clicked on the link.

I assumed at first it probably had something to do with Chomsky and his "defense" of the Pol Pot regime (something Horowitz, et. al., have some sort of fetish with, I suspect). Well I was completely wrong. The article had absolutely not one thing to do with genocide. Nothing.

Instead, the article talks about a British group of academics who are boycotting two Israeli universities (the famous Haifa university and another on the West Bank) because of a supposed complicity in the Israeli occupation. (I say supposed complicity because I have little knowledge of the role of universities in the Israeli occupation, and the Jerusalem Post of course takes little care in examining the position.)

Do the FPM editors have problems in reading comprehension or a particular political agenda that they're pushing by any means necessary? It truly is hard to distinguish which is the case regarding the label of the article.

Same ole, same ole, at the Jesse Factor

2005-04-23T20:06:00.000-05:00

John wrote a stunningly (well, I guess then it is typical) poorly written article about France's support for China's anti-secession law. The irrationality begins in the first paragraph.

Remember the "global test" that John Kerry and the French want us to pass if we are to use military force? Well apparently one of the criteria for passing the global test is "to crush democracy", which explains why the French were hesitant to go into Iraq. Either that, or castration.

Woops, not only has France never endorsed Kerry's global test, but John has difficulty understanding exactly what was entailed.

What better way to advance the democracy and Rights of Man which French philosophers and lawmakers so passionately advocated for by supporting a regime that kills people with dissenting views?

Wait, wait, I know this one! The better way is to.... uh, act like Rupert Murdoch!

I mean not only are the French supporting Communist military pressure on a democratic nation (yes I consider Taiwan an independent nation, if this bothers you, eat shit you commie), but they're willing to sell arms to the Reds so the they can kill more efficiently.

GASP! A democratic nation selling weapons to the commies? Sounds like someone we know. Yet, John only kvetches about France because they, well, they don't like us.

I have no problem with being against French support for the anti-secession law, or against arms sales to China (I myself am opposed to both), but let's try to be consistent here.

Finally:

Hippies will bitch about the "unilateral" Iraq war, but you'll never see them bitch about France's support for the decimation of democracy in Taiwan. Why? Because hippies have their heads so far up their asses that they need it dynamite-blasted to set it free.

Yeah, well you're dead wrong, because this post was made by some "hippie" who "bitches" about unilateral wars and also France's support for the anti-secession law. Thanks for playing.

Reactions to Moussaoui's guilty plea

2005-04-23T17:41:00.000-05:00

I've been traveling the blogosphere for the past hour reading up on the reactions to Moussaoui's guilty plea regarding 9/11.

Juan Cole thinks Moussaoui is off his rocker. I really don't know what to make of that theory.

Over at NRO's Corner, Cliff May has a couple things I'm going to comment on. First:

Moussaoui said, too, that his goal was to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheik,” who is serving a life sentence for conspiracy to blow up New York bridges and tunnels and other landmarks in 1993. (Rahman was prosecuted by NRO contributor and FDD Senior Fellow Andrew McCarthy.)

While it's understandeable for an NRO contributor to plug for another NRO contributor, I think that short blurb is rather... uh, factually selective to make it seem like the right-wing was the cause of Rahman's arrest and conviction. It's sort of interesting that Rahman was one of the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan where he was aided by the CIA, and around 1990 received a visa to America by CIA agents despite being on the terror watch list (hey, for Reaganites, that list means little -- remember Saddam?). It was after Clinton's crackdown on terrorist cells after the first WTC attack (1993) that Rahman was charged and convicted. While a right-winger may have prosecuted Rahman, let's not make it seem like only the right-wing was involved in preventing Rahman's attacks.

Second:

Pace Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak (whom Michael Ledeen and I are debating today -- and you’re invited -- ) such people [as Moussaoui] can not be appeased.

Maybe I need some help on this one. I can't see why this needed to be mentioned unless some person or people were looking to appease terrorists, or unless May, Buchanan, and Novak (right-wingers) want to make it look like some people (left-wingers) want appeasement. Hmmm....

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah...

2005-04-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

Goldberg says:

[...] But I will just say that the notion of "all morality" being "relative to context" is thoroughly and entirely consistent with Nazi philosophy.

Really? Because I actually can't think of a single instance of a Nazi ethical relativist. In fact, the Nazis were quite loud in condemning Stalin's brutality, Britians atrocities in India, the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles and, of course, the Jews. Propaganda of course, but hardly in line with ethical relativism.

Why journalism majors should take statistics in college

2005-04-22T01:17:00.000-05:00

I found this article today, talking about a recent claim by a Brookings Institute foreign policy expert. I take issue with a particular sentence, bolded:

Between 500 and 1000 Iraqis would be killed each month in the war-torn country, the Washington-based The Brookings Institution foreign policy expert Michael O'Hanlon said.
"Unfortunately, things have not yet gotten much better for the Iraqi population either in terms of car bombings or general casualties from crime or from the ongoing civil conflict," Dr O'Hanlon told ABC radio.

Despite a weakening of insurgent forces since the US-led invasion in 2003 and a declining casualty rate for US forces, the situation had not improved for the Iraqi people.

"In the security arena, we've seen a great improvement in the rate of casualties taken by American forces - a much lower rate of fatalities and wounded; probably a 50 to 70 per cent reduction relative to the late fall," he said.

Remember what happened in the fall? That's right, the attack on Fallujah, and of course a major offensive is going to result in a higher casualty rate than normal security routines (which is the majority of what we've done since Fallujah Revisited). In other words, a falling casualty rate isn't a symptom of fewer insurgents, but rather that we're not seeking them out for battle.

What an utterly false comparison to make.... seriously.

The Battle for Whiteclay

2005-04-20T21:44:00.000-05:00

We (Nebraskans for Peace) are going to show a documentary at the Ross tomorrow night at 7, about one-half hour for the documentary (a "work in progress") and an hour panel discussion. The documentary is called The Battle for Whiteclay and it details how a tiny Nebraskan city is being inundated with alcoholism -- I've heard it has as many liqour liscences as actual citizens. Most of the sales come from a nearby native American reservation, sadly.

After that, I'm going to buy Hotel Rwanda at midnight with some friends.

All about Israel

2005-04-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

Seriously, check out Rahul Mahajan's commentary about the Israeli occupation, reprisal strikes, and the apartheid wall. Stunning, to say the least.

This made me chuckle

2005-04-16T19:54:00.000-05:00

"Little Tommy learns tantrums get him nowhere, Caution:gratuitous ear-twisting"

(Registration required for the LiberalForum, but it's free and also an excellent forum.)

Part of the problem in academia...

2005-04-16T03:20:00.000-05:00

A hat-tip to the conservative blog The Corner on National Review Online for making me aware of this Reuters story:

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- In a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference.
Jeremy Stribling said Thursday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with "context-free grammar," charts and diagrams.

The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida.

To their surprise, one of the papers -- "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" -- was accepted for presentation.

The prank recalled a 1996 hoax in which New York University physicist Alan Sokal succeeded in getting an entire paper with a mix of truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs and otherwise meaningless mumbo-jumbo published in the quarterly journal Social Text, published by Duke University Press.

Stribling said he and his colleagues only learned about the Social Text affair after submitting their paper.

"Rooter" features such mind-bending gems as: "the model for our heuristic consists of four independent components: simulated annealing, active networks, flexible modalities, and the study of reinforcement learning" and "We implemented our scatter/gather I/O server in Simula-67, augmented with opportunistically pipelined extensions."

Indeed, I've noticed this problem before. I'm all for the creation and regeneration of languages, but the MIT students' paper satires a major problem in most, if not all, spheres of academia.

There's a trend to sort of make concepts as difficult as possible to understand. Deleuze and Guattari, for example, are supposed to be significant philosophers engaged in social commentary. Yet, can the average person pick up one of their books (Anti-Oedipus or A Thousand Plateaus) and make it through the introduction even? What is territorialization? De-territorialization? Re-territorialization? What is a "body without organs"? The only important concept that I've seen them "create," and coherently describe, is microfascism, which is also simply a way of putting a big word on a concept one could learn from reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (dare I say, "Duh?").

The best way to read some of their books, I've found, is to throw them at a wall and yell...

There are very serious philosophers who can ultimately succeed in explaining new concepts (Edward Said and Orientalism, for example) or who actively avoid linguistic complications to an argument (Noam Chomsky) but they are caught in a flood of utter crap. The depressing part is, I really can't think of a way to change this problem...

Bob Dole is on the Daily Show

2005-04-14T00:55:00.000-05:00

Right now... I've never realized before just how much he resembles my grandfather, who also fought in World War 2.

Uh....Bill? A moment in sanity, please.

2005-04-13T12:20:00.000-05:00

William Kristol wrote this article for the April 18th edition of the Weekly Standard. It amazes me how shoddy even "intellectual" punditry has gotten:

He [Bolton] also, as it happens, supports President Bush's policies, and as undersecretary of state worked hard to advance them in the first term. So the Democratic party, led by George Soros and the New York Times, thinks he shouldn't be permitted to continue to serve President Bush.

The Democratic party led by Soros and the NYT? That's certainly news to me. I thought it was Howard Dean leading the party. I kinda got that idea from... you know... the DNC chair elections...

This sort of crap is something I'd expect from Ann Coulter and other political-pornographers, not from the chair of one of the major think-tanks in the nation.

....and Zizek got married???

2005-04-12T17:04:00.000-05:00

Pictures of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek at his marriage.

What a miss-matched couple. More comments on the marriage here.

Horowitz got "pwned!!11!"

2005-04-12T12:51:00.000-05:00

That is, I think, the most appropriate way to describe Michael Berube's smackdown of FrontPageMag's overzealous editing.

Finally signed up for classes

2005-04-11T13:51:00.000-05:00

And aside from Philosophy of Religion being the only open philosophy course, this schedule kicks ass:

History 202: America after 1877
Philosophy 265: Philosophy of Religion
Political Science 230: Elections and Political Parties
Russian 101: Beginning Russian Language 1
Sociology 101: Introduction to Sociology (with recitation)

17 total credit hours, or almost twice the workload I've had this semester. Unfortunately, by framing my schedule so I didn't have to go to an 8 or 8:30 class meant I lost the wonderfully free afternoons I've had this semester. I'll miss ya' 1 - 3pm!

More anti-historical-ness

2005-04-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

Following a maze of links from Juan Cole to Daniel Drezner to The New Editor, I found this post. I don't have any particular beef with the commentary today. I have a problem with the "On This Day...this historical event occured" section. For April 7, they have this:

In 1994 civil war erupted in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsi and Hutu intellectuals were slaughtered.

I can barely keep from screaming!

This was not "civil war" in the way they say it is -- it was GENOCIDE, very well-planned and organized by the Hutu Power movement. The Hutu Power paper published by Ngeze actually predicted (cough) the death of President Habyarimana. Though it is still rather "mysterious" all evidence does point at Hutu Power extremists assassinating the president because of the moderation of the Arusha Accords.

Eight hundred thousand died by bullet, machete, etc. The overwhelming maajority was Tutsi. Hutu intellectuals were not specifically targeted as such. Rather, Hutu political moderates were targeted for their "complicity" with the Tutsi "enemy."

To call it a civil war is misleading, and brings the idea that both sides were relatively equal in guilt for atrocities committed in 1994 (and in the years following). They simply weren't.

(Check out Philip Gourevitch's excellent book about the 1994 genocide, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families.)

Wouldn't want to be Tom right now

2005-04-10T14:54:00.000-05:00

Ouch, ouch, ouch! Juan Cole puts a complete smackdown on Thomas Friedman!

The only thing I would add is what I consider the best article on the subject: The Arab Right-Wing, by Edward Said (republished in The Politics of Dispossession (1994)). The Other Arab Muslims is also an article that I think applies here (published in the same book).

Tom wants to cry that he's being abused by the label of "Orientalism." Well perhaps, Tom, you should stop ignoring evidence, stop painting with broad strokes, and maybe even learn a little about the Middle East.

The pressure is building

2005-04-09T21:57:00.000-05:00

My post from a few weeks ago, about the US pressuring Nicaragua to destroy some SA-7 anti-air missiles, got a few recommendations over at Newsfare. I had no idea that post would get any mention, it obviously isn't a well-thought out post. Oh well.

I decided to do a little more digging on the topic, and turned up this article from HispanicBusiness.com. It seems the diplomatic debacle over the anti-air missiles is really more in context when we consider Ortega's fourth run for Nicaraguan president and the "impact" that may have on the war on terror:

Ortega, one of the United States' fiercest opponents during the cold war and the entrenched leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front, has opened his fourth campaign for the Nicaraguan presidency.

Washington is worried once again that its old nemesis might win, this time with consequences for a new global war, the one on terrorism.

Even though the Nicaragua elections are more than a year and a half away, and even though Ortega's chances seem slim, the Bush administration is taking no risks and has begun concerted efforts to stop him.

The clearest signal came two weeks ago when the United States suspended about $2.3 million in military aid to Nicaragua to put pressure on the government, and an army with roots in the Sandinista movement, to destroy its arsenal of Soviet-made SA-7 missiles.

This certainly does clear up the missile controversy when we consider Ortega, who was a thorn in the thumbs of many now working in the Bush Administration, is running again. But Washington needs to obfuscate it, in order to set the terms of what will become the Congressional debate:

The missile issue consumed public attention during Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's recent tour through the region. Rumsfeld told reporters that Nicaragua's SA-7s could "be operated by terrorists, by revolutionaries and others," who "are anxious and willing to kill people."

By revolutionary, I can only imagine Rumsfeld is talking about the Sandinista party, which will be participating in free and fair elections much like they have for years ever since the "revolutionaries" deposed the brutal Somoza.

And of course, when we use terms like terrorists and revolutionaries, we're bringing a certain mindset into the private Congressional debate -- a mindset now called the "post-9/11 world". Everything that can be linked to al-Queda (whether by name or vague refferences to "terrorism") can justify military and diplomatic intervention, and a larger military budget. The "dove" (and I use that term on a relative line) part of Congress will either say the action is good initially, but later a mistake with good intentions. The hawks will incessantly complain about how treasonous the doves are for not supporting this battle against the global nemesis of terrorism. We saw this all before, and I'm willing to bet money it will happen again if we take some real action in the time before Nicaragua's election.

The rest of the article is so antihistorical it boggles the mind, it becomes almost impossible to continue reading.

The armies fought each other to a standstill, until both sides agreed to elections in 1990, which Ortega lost. The Sandinistas demobilized as an army, and it seemed that Ortega would fade into the political wilderness.

That "both sides agreed to elections" is an utter falsity. Nicaragua's first elections occured in 1984 -- with Ortega a stunning victor. There were quite public pronouncements by the Sandinistas that the Contra leadership (on an individual basis) could be granted amnesty and full rights if they would but lay down their arms. For example, Fernando Chamorro, a high-ranking contra leader, returned peacefully from Costa Rica and was promptly named the president of the regional conservative party.

The only difference between the 1984 and 1990 elections was that the US finally figured out the way to end the war with a by-then demoralized public. They used the radio stations circling Nicaragua to tell the people basically "vote conservative, and we end the contra attacks." That must be the agreement, because I really can't think of any other "agreement" pertaining to the elections.

Though I have my disagreements with the idea that the past repeats itself, perhaps it is correct. For a better understanding of the current situation, learn about what we did in the 80s (and who did it, as well). Try Noam Chomsky's excellent 1988 book Necessary Illusions. It should be available online at a few places.

A lesson from Juan Cole

2005-04-09T04:39:00.000-05:00

Although hardly without interests in this debacle, I think Juan Cole provides what should be the definitive defense against the assault on universities:

Academic teaching is not about balance or "fairness" or presenting "both sides" of an issue. It is about teaching people to reason analytically and synthetically about problems. The NYT approach would ruin our ability to do this and would impose a particular version of history on us all by fiat. It even implies that some committee should sanction anyone critical of Israel.

Universities are about skewering sacred cows. Anyone who doesn't want their views challenged or their feelings hurt should stay away from them. If you can't handle an intellectual challenge, you shouldn't be on campus. And you certainly shouldn't be editing a major newspaper.

Indeed. Where would we be had Galileo ultimately been kept from writing that the Earth revolved around the sun? The Church, during the time of the Inquisition, thought the geocentric theory was indeed sacred -- they defended it with the use of the Bible. There are more examples, too many to name.

The main alternative, or the alternative to current academia that is most likely to come about as a result of reform, is probably David Horowitz's notion of academic freedom. "Fair and balanced" one might say, but Horowitz has been quilty of academic dishonesty in his very push for academic "freedom." Search the archives on Horowitz at Media Matters for America, and you'll see what I mean.

Might post more about this later.

Oh yeah, and I'm blogging at 5 in the morning, what's up with that???

Buy this movie

2005-04-08T15:55:00.000-05:00

Hotel Rwanda is going to be released April 12th on DVD. One of the best movies I've seen in years.

Check out the official website here.

Ruggie again

2005-04-08T15:43:00.000-05:00

So, Ruggie of course spoke to my university. The Daily Nebraskan (the campus paper) did a front-page piece on him that I've not yet read.

His lecture on American exemptionalism and exceptionalism did succeed in making a clear distinction. Exceptionalism seems to be something that occurs in a multilateralist international relations framework. So when the US tends to work with other countries on programs like the Kyoto protocols, provisions are built in to keep the US an exception for some time -- in Kyoto, the pollution credits program. Exemptionalism on the other hand occurs mainly in unilateralism (of the doctrinal kind, not the minor kind, Ruggie would say). Therefore, when the Bush Administration came to power, things like the American Serviceman's Protection Act were passed -- that is, we are exempt from things like the Hague Courts on war crimes.

Aside from that point it seemed Ruggie would drift into the unilateralism/multilateralism debate and away from the lecture's topic. Near the end I was beginning to nod off into sleep as Ruggie continued getting further and further away. (A good thing it was so short or I may have been there all evening.)

All in all, a good lecture, but a lecture that will make it difficult to write about for my International Relations class.

John Ruggie

2005-04-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

John Gerard Ruggie (from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and also an expert in international relations) is speaking at the Lied Center in 4 and a half hours. His topic is "American exemptionalism and exceptionalism". The difference is, I suppose, lost on me but that is how they're phrasing the topic.

The University's bookstore had a spexcial table set up today. It had two shelves. The first selling a bunch of copies of a UNL professor about reconstructing urban identity in Mexico in the early half of the 20th century. In other words, I'm not interested, and neither is anyone else. That's why they're pushing the book so much. On the bottom of the two-shelf table contraption they had three different books by Ruggie, ranging from $23 to $41. I didn't buy one because I don't have the money. I also skimmed a couple chapters in the $41 book, it looks like a paperback textbook almost. It also reads like one, rather boring.

Might post more on this later.

Aventures in voting

2005-04-06T09:47:00.000-05:00

Lincoln had the open primaries for the City Council and Board of Education yesterday. The "actual" elections are next month I believe.

I woke up yesterday, barely remembering I had to vote. I talked to a couple people about the election in the hours up to the time I voted. I heard things like "Oh...don't vote for that Terry Werner guy, I heard bad things about him in the paper". A similar conversation went like this:

"Don't vote Barbera Baier for Board of Education, she's crazy."
"Why?"
"She has a perfect record for GLBT rights!"

Absolutely amazing. Heaven forbid we elect a person to the Board of Education who wants to make Nebraska's severely homophobic school system safe for homosexuals.

I decided to leave the discussion at that point, or risk exploding like Mt. Vesuvius. I decided to go to the grocers and pick up some cans of food to donate to the needy (and they were also giving away free tickets to the Nebraska-Texas baseball game this Friday).

After that I went to the polling booth. It was at a church, which I thought kind of ironic since I would be voting for the pro-GLBT rights candidate. There were two rather old ladies monitering the place, taking names and addresses, etc. One had a romance novel sitting nearby, the other sounded like she hadn't missed a day of smoking since her 18 birthday. There were two people in front of me, a woman who looked older than the two sitting at the election desk and had some sort of hearing problem, and a middle-aged man with a ponytail and 80s-style headphones on his ears.

I voted for the most progressive candidates I knew of on the ballot. Floyd, Werner, and Marvin for city council -- Werner and Marvin made it to the next round. Voted for Baier for board of education, and she won by a good 500 votes, so she also advances. All in all, a good day.

When obstructionism was a proud word

2005-04-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

I recently read this in the preface of Samantha Power's book "A Problem From Hell: American and the Age of Genocide":

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew and international lawyer, warned about Hitler's designs in the 1930s but was scoffed at. After finding refuge in the United States in 1941, he failed to win support for any measure to protect imperiled Jews. The Allies resisted denouncing Hitler's atrocities, granting refuge to Europe's Jewry, and bombing the railroad tracks to the Nazi concentration camps. Undaunted, Lemkin invented the word "genocide" and secured the first-ever United Nations human rights treaty which was devoted to banning the new crime. Sadly, he lived to see the genocide convention rebuffed by the U.S. Senate. William Proxmire, the quoxotic U.S. senator from Wisconsin, picked up where Lemkin left off and delivered 3,211 speeches on the Senate floor urging ratification of the UN treaty. After 19 years of daily soliloquies, Proxmire did manage to get the Senate to accept the genocide conventions, but the U.S. ratification was so laden with caveats that it carried next to no force.

Why can't we have politicians like Proxmire anymore? Instead we have ever-lukewarm antiwar politicians like Ted Kennedy, Kerry, and Dean who won't put the real work into taking the moral stance.

2005-04-03T00:26:00.000-06:00

Nebraska Public Television ran a re-run tape of Samantha Power's lecture on human rights and the Bush Administration. I ran into it flipping through channels at around 6 or 7 pm today, and unfortunately missed the first half.

For some reason the speech seemed better than last time.

A couple books I'll be looking out for

2005-04-02T02:09:00.000-06:00

Seriously, by the names and stature of the authors alone, these two books will be completely badass.

Art-blogging

2005-03-29T22:51:00.000-06:00

I thought this was particularly moving. I saw it in an op-ed, about the Colorado jury deciding a case base on a passage in Leviticus, at nebraska.statepaper.com.

"[S]he symbolizes the fair and equal administration of the law, without corruption, avarice, prejudice, or favor." And she was stabbed in the back.

Reading, blogging

2005-03-29T16:40:00.000-06:00

I'm just about done with Philip Gourevitch's excellent book "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families." Only 11 pages left, I'll finish it tonight.

Philip Gourevitch travelled to Rwanda five times in the years after the 1994 genocide, where 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were killed by extremist Hutus on the typical pretext of "national security" against the "terrorists" of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (an army of Tutsis and moderate Hutus). Gourevitch interviewed a number of people, including the General of the RPF, and later vice president of Rwanda, Kagame, and even interviewed a mid-level officer of the genocide. If you ever come across this book, buy it. It is well-worth the $12.

Because I realized I was nearly done with this book, I decided to purchase another. I ended up buying "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power. I was recently able to see her speak here at my university about human rights, last Friday. I didn't find her speech as inspiring as Gourevitch's book, and I do believe I even fell asleep for a few moments during the speech. However, it was a fairly good speech, and a few jokes made it somewhat lively.

The thing I first thought of when I first heard Samantha Power was coming to my university was the book review she did of Noam Chomsky's recent "Hegemony or Survival." At first , I was not too enthused that a person so unfairly critical of Chomsky was giving a speech here. However, Power now seems to me to be a pretty good person, despite the flaw.

Attacking universities

2005-03-29T13:24:00.000-06:00

A Horowitz-esque Republican Congressman in the Florida legislature has introduced a bill that would allow students to sue their professors for "bias."

Jacqueline Marcus has the story over at Common Dreams. Juan Cole did a thoughtful, and humorous, analysis of the guy pushing the bill.

Nooo, not an apartheid wall at all! Honest!

2005-03-28T19:35:00.000-06:00

So, the Israeli paper Haaretz says today that new ID cards will be given to Palestinians so some may cross the Wall, when it's completed.

I don't really know so much about Apartheid South Africa, but didn't they have an identity card system designed to limit freedom of movement as well?

And I know for sure that Rwanda (where 800,000 died in a genocide in 1994) had an identity card system that made it easier for Hutus to indentify and kill Tutsis.

Horowitz & Co. never get tired of this, apparently.

2005-03-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

So, FrontPageMag.com has decided to throw an essay contest so David Horowitz can have more "ammo" for his "Academic Bill of Rights". Writers get to describe the criminal speech acts committed by their lefty professors, the winner getting $500.

The problem is, won't the monetary incentive lead to, perhaps, some academic dishonesty? The article itself calls this, jokingly, "the capitalist way" - but there's a grain of truth to it. Financial incentives are big inducements, particularly for college students like myself, and as in capitalism, some may skirt certain ethical boundaries in order to succeed.

Oh, and by "some academic dishonesty," I meant "more academic dishonesty."

--------------------------------------------

I dug a litle deeper into the muck that is FPM, and found an article showing a debate about Noam Chomsky. Part of it really struck me.

Scialabba: [...] Tom Nichols's more considered comments above are, like his chapter in "The Anti-Chomsky Reader," simply rubbish. Let me, to begin with, offer an example from that chapter of an error so egregious that it calls into question Nichols's credibility in flinging around the kind of insults he does there and here. Only five-and-a-half paragraphs into "Chomsky and the Cold War," Nichols writes that Chomsky "saw the USSR as the near-twin of the United States in its repressiveness and aggression -- an assertion of moral equivalence common to his denunciations of America." In the introduction to his first book, "American Power and the New Mandarins," Chomsky wrote: "It would be criminal to overlook the serious flaws and inadequacies in our institutions, or to fail to utilize the substantial degree of freedom that most of us enjoy, to modify them ... " [My italics.] In "Towards a New Cold War," he wrote: "It should be noted that the United States is in certain important respects an 'open society,' not only in that dissident opinion is not crushed by state violence ... but also in the freedom of inquiry and expression, which is in many respects unusual even in comparison with other industrial democracies such as Great Britain." I could cite dozens of other examples; and in fact, in virtually every talk by Chomsky I have ever attended, he has referred to the US as "the freest country in the world." Nichols cites no examples, nor could he, that Chomsky has ever called the US the "near-twin" of the USSR in repressiveness.

So here we have: 1) a grave accusation, 2) with not a particle of evidence supporting it, and 3) abundant and readily available evidence contradicting it. That seems to me virtually a definition of intellectual irresponsibility. In the thousands of pages I have read by Chomsky, I have never encountered anything so flagrant. The rest of "Chomsky and the Cold War" is almost as bad, and much of "The Anti-Chomsky Reader" is worse.

FP: Yes, Chomsky often quips, always in passing, something about the U.S. being the “freest country in the world.” Unfortunately, this is never a significant part of any of his main arguments (i.e. His arguments don’t go like this: America is the freest country in the world, therefore we must cherish it and protect it and fight the enemies of freedom etc). No, to the contrary. And it remains a mystery why, if the U.S. is the freest nation in the world, by Chomsky’s own admission, that this leftist guru spends his entire life demonizing the U.S. above all other nations. [bold and italicized mine]

It is, however, not a mystery at all - at least to those who have cursory knowledge of Chomsky's ideas. I'm not going to dig through my Chomsky books to find specific quotes (notably in Understanding Power, but other books as well, I imagine) because I have to get ready for class, so I'll just juxtapose FPM's comment with the relevant Wikipedia description of Noam Chomsky (which confirms my own knowledge of Chomsky's ideas, though in a disparagingly short way):

Chomsky has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the United States government, and criticism of the foreign policy of the United States has formed the basis of much of Chomsky's political writing. Chomsky focuses on the United States for two reasons. First, he believes that his work can have more impact when directed at his own government, and second, the United States is the world's sole remaining superpower and so, Chomsky believes, it acts in the same offensive ways as all superpowers. (However, Chomsky will criticize official enemies like the former Soviet Union in passing.) [bold mine]

There's a lot of lying in that "symposium about Chomsky." It would take some time to refute, and the effort would likely be fruitless. I may, however, still find it within me to do such a piece.

Race and the Bush and Clinton Administrations

2005-03-27T04:30:00.000-06:00

We're having a discussion of basically "who represents/ed minorities best -- Clinton or Bush?" on the LiberalForum. I decided to sort of end the discussion once and for all with an imaginative weapon: research.

In order to shorten the amount of time we'd be required to wait (i.e. eternity) for a responsive Lester post to Michael's question, I did the research (I was bored, too).

Out of the 1993 Cabinet, Clinton had five African Americans: Ronald Brown as Secretary of Commerce, Michael Espy as Secretary of Agriculture, Hazel O'Leary as Secretary of Energy, Jesse Brown as Secretary of Veteran Affairs, and Joycelyn Elders as Surgeon General.

In 1997, Clinton appointed Rodney Slater (African American) as Secretary of Transportation.

In 1998, Clinton appointed Togo West (African American) as Secretary of Veteran's Affairs.

Other minorities include Norman Mineta (Japanese American), appointed to Secretary of Commerce by Clinton, and later by Bush to be Secretary of Transportation. Henry Cisneros (Hispanic American) was appointed to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Federico Peña (Hispanic American) was appointed to Secretary of Transportation (where he served from 1993-1997, and later served as Secretary of Energy from 1997 to 1998).

That's seven African Americans, one Japanese American, and two Hispanic Americans appointed, for a total of 10 minority persons.

The Bush Administration:

Bush appointed in his first term two African Americans: Colin Powell as Secretary of State, and Rob Paige as Secretary of Education.

Other African Americans include Alphonso Jackson, appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Bush's second term. Condoleeza Rice was appointed Secretary of State this year.

Other minorities include Elain Chao (Asian American), appointed Secretary of Labor. Melquiades Martinez (Cuban American) was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Norman Mineta (Japanese American) was mentioned earlier as having been retained by the Bush Administration after initially working for Clinton. Spencer Abraham (Arab American) was appointed Secretary of Energy. Carlos Gutierrez (Cuban American) was appointed Secretary of Commerce this year. Alberto Gonzales (Hispanic American) was appointed Attorney General this year.

Which means Bush has appointed four African Americans, one Asian American, two Cuban Americans, one Japanese American, one Arab American, and one Hispanic American, for a total of 10 minority persons.

So, if we expand the question of "which administration represents minorities best?" to include all minorities, it's a tie.

However, if we leave the question Michael posed restricted only to Blacks, Clinton holds a commanding lead of three -- in other words, clearly disproving Lester's contention that "Bill Clinton [...] had NO deserving blacks to put in high cabinet positions".

The Shiavo video: not so much of a much

2005-03-27T02:09:00.000-06:00

This is a little late, but oh well.

So, Shok, on the LiberalForum, posts an article detailing why (by way of negative reasoning)the Washington Post article, claiming Republican Congressmen received a memo calling the Schiavo case politically advantageous, is like a new Dan Rather "Memogate".

I decided to go googling (by the way - I'll rue the day that word makes it into the dictionary) to see if any bloggers or political websites had already commented on the article Shok posted. From what I found, noone has. I did turn up something a bit more interesting (to me, at least). But let me backtrack a bit.

About two (maybe three) weeks ago, after a debate tournament where I supposedly had been hired to judge (though no rounds were assigned to me), I was driving home. I rarely drive, and even rarer, I was listening to conservative radio. On tonight's show: The Savage Nation, a conservative radio commentary by Michael Savage.

Well the night I listened, they had some no-name replacement -- perhaps Savage was busy at a gay bar telling them to "get AIDs and die"? -- commenting on the Schiavo case. He kept pointing and pointing at this supposed tape produced by the family of Schiavo where she would follow a balloon around with her eyes and do other responsive things.

During my google search, I turned up this St. Petersburg Times article completely refuting the guest radio host's arguments. That's not the worst of it though -- the St. Petersburg Times article was published a full year and a half earlier.

She seems to smile at her mother's voice. Her eyes follow a shiny balloon. Asked to open her eyes, she arches her eyebrows as far as they will go.

These and other fleeting images posted on the Internet have turned the heart-wrenching case of Terri Schiavo into a constitutional showdown.

But such moments that suggest awareness - culled from four hours of medical examinations that were videotaped in the summer of 2002 - are rare compared to the times when Schiavo lies in bed, slack-jawed and seemingly unresponsive, her limbs stiff, her eyes vacant, her hands curled in tight contractions.

[...]

Here and there, their daughter's glances and moans seem to coincide with what's being asked of her and might lead one to conclude that she responds. But more often than not, the parents' entreaties fall flat.

A judge who viewed all four hours concluded that Terri Schiavo exists in a hopeless vegetative state and ordered that her feeding tube be removed, as her husband requested. Appellate judges, who also saw all four hours, agreed.

Torture not limited to Abu Ghraib

2005-03-26T13:35:00.000-06:00

Of course, because it doesn't have the sensationalistic value attached to the story this time, the "liberal mainstream media" will not be covering it.

Inmates were hit with water bottles, forced to do exhausting physical exercises until they collapsed, deprived of sleep and subjected to deafening noise, the investigation report found.

One prisoner died in December 2003 after four days of repeatedly having to do physical exercises as a punishment, according to the documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Mosul investigation began after 20-year-old Salah Salih Jassim had his jaw broken in detention. He was not suspected of any crime but had been arrested along with his father, an officer in Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia.

Noone has been convicted.

Justin Raimando (antiwar.com) calls for boycott of David Horowitz

2005-03-26T13:11:00.000-06:00

I thought we already ignored the guy?

Iraq's March 19th protests

2005-03-25T01:41:00.000-06:00

Check out Third-world photographer Andrew Stern's photos of the protests in Iraq that coincided with other protests around the world.

More poo-flinging at the Jesse Factor

2005-03-23T09:27:00.000-06:00

So, I was again reading that garbage on the Jesse Factor. I can't really explain why except perhaps shear boredom before History class (which is now only an hour away). In one of the more recent rants, John takes aim at a website called I Forgive Osama.

The site is run by some idiot named Daniel Holcomb [...] Daniel says "I believe that forgiveness is the first step toward genuine dialogue and progress".

No, forgiveness is the first step to surrender. And there is no way that any red-blooded American can forgive bin Laden, that son of a bitch. Holcomb thinks that by forgiving Osama, Osama might "see the light". Don't you idiots get it? To forgive Osama is to say "I'll let it slide this time." NO. No one should let 9/11 "slide". Holcomb is under the assumption that Osama's aggression is a result of our choices that hurt Osama, and that if we stop, he'll stop. WRONG. Osama is fighting because we are not IslamoFascist suicide bombers who decimate Jewish children on schoolbuses. Osama is fighting us because he hates democracy. These are things that are inherently American, and we will never give them up. The day America gives up democracy is the day Osama will stop.

A little disclaimer first: I do not forgive Osama, just as I do not forgive any terrorist their actions.

Now to the quote. John is simply wrong here when he says Osama is fighting us because we're "not Muslim" or "he hates democracy." That's self-righteous ideological nonsense that would probably have made the writers of Pravda proud.

I've recently started reading a book called Imperial Hubris, written by Mike Scheuer (under the name Anonymous), the former head of the hunt for bin Laden. In that book, despite drawing a bit much from the Orientalist Bernard Lewis, he writes that:

[...] These attacks are meant to advance bin Laden's clear, focused, limited, and widely popular foreign policy goals: the end of U.S. aid to Israel and the ultimate elimination of that state; the removal of U.S. and Western forces from the Arabian peninsula; the removal of U.S. and Western military forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim lands; the end of U.S. support for the oppression of Muslims by Russia, China, and India; the end of U.S. protection for repressive, apostate Muslim regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, et cetera; and the conservation of the Muslim world's energy resources and their sale at higher prices. To secure these goals, bin Laden will make stronger attacks in the United States -- complemented elsewhere by attacks by al Queda and other Islamist groups allied with or unconnected to it -- to try to destroy America's resolve to maintain the policies that maintain Israel, apostate Muslim rulers, infidel garrisons in the Prophet's birthplace, and low oil prices for U.S. consumers. Bin Laden is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies toward the Islamic world, not necessarily to destroy America, much less its freedoms and liberties. He is a practical warrior, not an apocalyptic terrorist in search of Armageddon. Should U.S. policies not change, the war between America and the Islamists will go on for the forseeable future. No one can predict how much damage will be caused by America's blind adherence to failed and counterproductive policies, or by the lack of moral courage now visible in the thirty-plus-year failure of U.S. politicians to review Middle East policy and move America to energy self-sufficiency and alternative fuels.

That's the former head of the CIA hunt for bin Laden, not some right-wing pundit looking to score points with the Confederate-flag-waving crowd.

And Scheuer's analysis generally fits with predictions made by others. In 1997 or 98, the libertarian Ivan Eland wrote an article predicting a terrorist attack which would kill many thousands of people. His prediction came true on 9/11. His basis for the prediction that Osama was coming after us? United States military hegemony. What does Osama base his justification for the 9/11 attacks on? It isn't democracy, nor Christianity. In a "Letter to the American People" released by Osama in November of 2002, Osama clearly detailed why he acted. The letter was ignored by the American media, I suppose because it didn't make good "news". You can find it on the BBC website, I think.

Probably irrelevant, but the ironic thing is that the phrase Islamofascism, flung around like so much monkey poo by conservative pundits, was coined by none other than the far Left Trotskyist Christopher Hitchens.

Wandering sophistry

2005-03-23T09:06:00.000-06:00

I don't own a bicycle here on the college campus, so I walk maybe 5 or 10 minutes to class everyday. I've found it lets me concentrate more on thinking than avoiding crashing into pedestrians. Well, I headed off to geology class this morning, one of those classes philosophy and political science majors take to fill their science credit requirements so they can take the better classes later. A thought occured to me that it was absolutely dead silent, and rather cold. There were plenty of peopleout walking, probably more than usual considering it was 8:15 am.

This thought, fleeting at first though it returned moments later, was that it was like we were walking to our deaths. As I entered Bessey Hall I looked up above the door half-expecting to see the phrase on the gates of Auschwitz extermination camp "Work is Liberating" there in place of the stone engraving of the Hall's actual name.

I commented on this to a friend of mine in geology moments before our test. He thought the walk to class at 8 in the morning was more like the Trail of Tears, so very long ago.

Here we go again!

2005-03-23T01:26:00.000-06:00

In more stunning WashingtonLogik (the neoconservative brother of realpolitik) the Bush White House is demanding Nicaragua destroy a thousand anti-air missiles to make up for having "lost" some of them "somehow":

The official declined to go into the details of how the U.S. government was sure that the missiles were missing. Asked if Washington might be leaning on Nicaragua based on erroneous intelligence, he said, "Life is not fair."

We can trust the Bush Administration, right??? It isn't like they're mostly the same people who helped devestate Nicaragua on erroneous justifications before!

I think I'm gonna be sick, and then I'm going to read some 1980s Chomsky.

Alternatives to war? Not in this nation.

2005-03-23T00:27:00.000-06:00

Milad posted a comment over at the Liberal News Service which I've been meaning to comment on for a while, essentially asking one of us to comment on a post a the DC Activism Effort.

I'm sorry about the critical approach this is going to take, but I think the analysis of Spain's approach to terrorism has more to do with the lack of "hegemonic power" (i.e. influence, both cultural and military, around the world) and their history than an intentionally different approach. That is, their policy is a historical fluke based on their unique circumstances.

Spain's approach shows how hypocritical their policies really are by contrast. In fact, our approach is making terrorists faster than we can kill them, according to the CIA and Pentagon's own think tanks.

[...]

why did our leaders choose the path they did, when less extreme measures would have gotten the job done? To find the answer, we have to look at their ultimate goals. The Neo-con agenda is antithetical to the ideals of freedom of dissent, the multi-party system and multilateralism. They want America to remain the sole super-power, and for Neo-cons to remain at the helm of that super-power, through whatever means necessary. That is why we have a war on terror, not because we had no other choice.

Indeed. However, that isn't hypocritical at all. Despite all the blustering about "they hate freedom!", US policy planners have known for a long time that current US foreign policy in the Mid-East has been at the root of what the CIA calls "blowback." That is to say, when we're not choosy about our allies and start arming extremists (as in Afghanistan, or in a different sense making Saddam the regional hegemon for some time) those we arm obviously will have different interests and attempt to achieve them. There's also the case of the dictatorships, such as Iran and more recently Saudi Arabia, where our support of repressive regimes has brought militant responses (Khomeini in Iran and al Queda in Saudi Arabia).

This is all widely known in policy circles and people in the Bush Administration cannot have failed to at least have been exposed to such knowledge. Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle are all very intelligent men, and in their years at the Project for a New American Century must have at least come across the idea of blowback if not accepted it's inevitable truth.

Their ideology may blind them, perhaps. I suspect something deeper, more intentional though. The PNAC, the neoconservative think tank they all started when they had nothing to do during Clinton's terms, has at it's very heart the idea of a world system utterly and forever dominated by the United States. One of the effects of a drawn-out war on terrorism which some Administration officials have said is a generational war - that is, it won't be "won" in our lifetimes perhaps - is that we will be continually extending our reach into new "fronts" or areas where al Queda or it's "allies" (such as, cough, Iraq "was") are. Blowback will certainly help extend the fronts or extend the time we're at a front.

Whether that's intentionally creating a problem to justify the PNAC's vision is hard to guess, because it's obviously something they aren't going to publish in a think tank paper where it could end in the "liberal media" like CNN. And yes perhaps I'm being conspiratorial here. But I do think that simply disregarding the idea of blowback, as the neoconservative foreign policy does, may have a motive and therefore is not "hypocrisy" but a very clear position.

AP writers: only a year late on this story

2005-03-22T01:23:00.000-06:00

This is something I'm admittedly simply nit-picking over.

Yahoo carriess this Associated Press article declaring that "Insurgents Recycle Iran-Iraq War Weapons." Well.....yeah. The rest of us have known about this since last year's stunning find of a Iran-Iraq war leftover that insurgents had improvised into a sarin roadside bomb.

Back in NLF black...

2005-03-22T00:12:00.000-06:00

I haven't much time to type tonight, as I have an assignment which still needs finishing (actually, I'm barely started). Just thought I'd pop in for a bit.

Here's my promise: if I can tear myself away from my gametime tomorrow afternoon, I will update. However, I've found what could possibly be the most engrossing strategy game ever: Hearts of Iron 2. Seriously, you can play as any nation during World War 2. You get troops (granted, graphics aren't great but it's a strategy game!), war theories, territories, technologies, government ministers, right down to the nitty-gritty logistical crap that everyone wishes would solve itself. This game is great. There's a demo floating around the internet, so check it out sometime.

Anyways, the post will be about the second anniversery of the slaughter of Iraq. Coming soon.

Hiatus

2005-03-11T11:02:00.000-06:00

So, I didn't update much this week either, as I've ben busy with mid-terms and such. Spring break starts tomorrow and I will be staying in Norfolk for the week, far away from my personal computer. There's a public library not too far from where I'll be staying, so I may use the computers there to update.

Jesse Factor? Yeah, I did it again....

2005-03-08T13:43:00.000-06:00

I was bored this morning, about an hour before class, so I figured I'd kill some time and read the latest rags posted on the Jesse Factor. Well the article on veganism caught my attention. I went to class knowing I'd be back to pick it apart in a matter of hours.

The argument begins with this point:

Man I cannot stand vegans. I cannot stand their self-imposed moral superiority, their pompous attitude, and their plain idiocy.

Regardless of the phrase "self-imposed moral superiority" being rather redundant (has anyone ever "imposed moral superiority" on others???), this is simply anecdotal evidence at best. I doubt John hangs around vegans, has vegan friends, and I'd go so far as to say he may not have ever knowingly met a vegan.

On the contrary, I know a number of vegans - at least four personal friends and an English student professor last semester. I can say without a doubt they don't have a "self-imposed moral superiority" or a "pompous attitude." I sometimes ate products containing something from an animal around these friends, yet the most they ever did was calmly discuss the topic with me occasionally, and sometimes I received the random PETA pamphlet.

The main idiocy I'm concerned with here is the notion that eating meat is murder, and that animals should be treated humanely. Think of that word for a second: humanely. I'm going out on a limb here, but isn't HUMANe treatment supposed to be for HUMANS? Animals are not equal to humans. We are a superior species of organism, therefore we can do whatever the hell we feel like doing.

Notice how John here points out a legitimate point of debate, "meat is murder", but then completely avoids it in order to make a semantic argument, i.e. "humane treatment".

Regardless, many vegans, particularly those who follow the radical environmental philosophy of Deep Ecology, completely avoid the word "humane" precisely because of the point John makes. It's an utterly ridiculous stance to deny protection to an animal merely because the word "humane" contains the letters "h-u-m-a-n." The moral implications in the phrase "humane treatment" are the actual point being made by vegans. At that point, John avoids the debate, trying to justify abuse of animals because of what words we use to describe moral treatment.

Speaking of "self-imposed morality," the argument that humans are a superior species kind of makes that point moot, if not blatent hypocrisy.

These stuck up vegans are usually liberal eco-radicals who are fervently trying to ban creationism while preaching and praising the theories of Darwin. But when Darwin's theories are seen in action, they oppose it because they have a conscience to feel good about? Bullshit.

The first sentence is so loaded with untruth we're going to have to pick it apart carefully. First, John would hardly know a true environmental radical if he ever saw one. I suggest looking up the actual radical environmentalist philosophies of "eco-feminism," "Deep Ecology," and "Social Ecology." Those are radical. Your average vegan is a liberal, but by no means heavily involved in radical environmentalism.

Second, John puts up a straw-man. I've personally never heard of a vegan trying to ban creationism. While most vegans do not believe in creationism, I'm sure they would like some sort of proof, or a coherent scientific hypothesis, before it's taught in public schools.

Finally, we get to the main point and it is, again, a straw-man. Vegans do not oppose "Darwin's theories [sic] in action," but rather believe that humans were not meant to eat meat. We have canine teeth, sure, but (and any dental school and dentist will tell you this) they are technically called false canines.

The same point is generally continued in the next couple paragraphs. Vegans don't form rings around animals to protect them from carniverous animals because they don't think that's unnatural. Vegans believe it is unnatural for humans to eat meat.

Another paragraph follows, telling vegans that if they believe meat is murder then they should also indict poor third world people who eat meat. That is simply a red herring, avoiding (again) the question of whether meat is murder so John can imply vegans are inconsistent.

Furthermore, I'm sure most vegans would advocate less meat-eating here so that we're using less land for growing grain to feed the meat-producing animals. Therefore, there would be more grain to sell, at cheaper prices, to feed the third world. Also, one of my vegan friends has told me that she finds growing your own livestock and eating it to be moral, that is to say, her moral opposition to meat in the status quo is the industrial ranching methods.

By callling meat eaters murderers, you're shitting in the faces of all the poor people who can't afford to choose what food they eat.

Nevermind, John, that meat is far costlier to buy because it's far costlier to produce, than most other foods.

Not only that, you're ruining the food chain. If humans suddenly stopped killing animals, animals would eventually overpopulate the world and we'd have to kill some of them off. Way to go you condescending assholes.

This is about as ridiculous as it gets. Assuming the same precepts to the "vegan world" John is hypothesizing here, it would naturally follow that if less people were eating meat, far fewer ranches would be breeding these animals at such a high number. That is to say, it's the meat-eating population keeping the animal population so high. Ironic, isn't it?

Revisiting Ann Coulter

2005-03-07T13:26:00.000-06:00

YuricaReport republished this book review of Ann Coulter's Treason, originally from Salon.com.

It's a great book review, check it out.

March 19/20 Protests

2005-03-06T02:27:00.000-06:00

This is not-quite just in....it's actually a few days old. Oh well.

There are going to be antiwar protests on the 19th here in Lincoln, Nebraska. They will be on the West side of the Capitol building, in front of the huge Abraham Lincoln/Gettysburg Adress statue (the place we had the anti-death penalty protests last Tuesday).

They aren't being sponsored by any particular organization (Nebraskan progressive groups are having "leadership problems" I've heard), so bring any sign you want.

Why I haven't updated recently

2005-03-05T18:44:00.000-06:00

I was sick for most of the week, and it took all my energy to get to class and back every day. That's the bad thing about having roommates; you catch all of the illnesses they catch.

I got those antiwar buttons in the mail about 3 hours ago, having ordered them 16 days earlier. I must say, however, my backpack looks much the better for it. There's also a touch of irony, because I placed the black and white peace symbol button next to my Che Guevara keyring. Hehehe.

I've started using a program called Limewire quite a bit lately. It's an excellent program for finding music and music videos, among other various files. I was finally able to find the music video for Rage Agianst the Machine's "Sleep Now In The Fire." It's as great as my friends told me it was. "Testify" is also a great music video.

Antiwar.com's blog noted a few days ago (I'm too lazy to find the link) that Russia was building a "defense-proof" nuclear weapon to circumvent Bush's planned National Missile Defense. I told a friend at Nebraskans for Peace about this and he told me that, essentially, the way it was defense-proof was that the nuclear missile was manually guided to it's target. Therefore, it would theoretically be able to avoid an NMD. At this point, you almost want to slap Dubya and ask him "why aren't you following the Non-Proliferation Treaty again????" It is, I think, the only guarantee short of a war to disarm countries of their WMDs that nuclear armageddon will not happen.

Scott Ritter, the former US weapons inspector who correctly predicted before the 2003 war that Iraq had no WMDs, says that a US attack on Iran is already being prepared for. Meanwhile, the US said the burden of proof is on Iran to prove it DOES NOT have nuclear weapons, a statement I'm sure blew the minds of professors who teach logic around the world.

On that note, I faintly remember the US saying something similar to Iraq before the war. And, when Iraq published it's report, the Bush Administration actually edited out parts it didn't like before presenting it to the world. Iraq, however, knew that trick, and had secretly given unedited copies to European nations.

I might post more later, I'm still sort of queasy at the moment.

The Bush Private Accounts/Social Security reform plan

2005-02-28T15:58:00.000-06:00

Dave Zweifel pointed out something I've long forgot about: Nebraska's attempt at private accounts were such a disaster the state legislature threw them out.

Pro-Syrian Lebanese government resigns, calls for Syrian withdrawal

2005-02-28T12:56:00.000-06:00

I posted this over at the Liberal News Service.

I'll bet money that Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly take this as proof that Bush's "democracy in Iraq" is spreading tonight.

Basic training in the US Army

2005-02-28T12:48:00.000-06:00

"I don't have any respect for the people who call the shots and who are in charge. I lost respect for the government. I know they don't care about us. Now, when I hear about those guys in Iraq who wouldn't go on those missions, I totally feel for those guys. I used to think they were just wimps. Once you're in the Army, they don't care about you. You're a piece of meat. They don't care about your family, if there are medical problems, or anything."

Good articles

2005-02-27T21:33:00.000-06:00

Check out Noam Chomsky's latest commentary on Common Dreams.

Also, Ralph Nader has a good article which takes aim at the supposed "security" Bush has brought us.

Moral Values and the Republicans

2005-02-27T16:20:00.000-06:00

Check out this Liberal Forum post showing in rich detail exactly who-did-what in the Republican party's noise machine.

Uh....wow

2005-02-26T13:52:00.000-06:00

Apparently, I'm in the running for Liberal Forum president, in the Liberal Party primaries. (I'm Alex S.)

For some reason I just assumed I would be the vice presidential nominee?

I was up until about 3 am last night, slept until 1:30 pm. I just woke up, on a crappy dorm bed, I'm not feeling that well.

Might post my platform on the thread today, might not.

I saw Hotel Rwanda

2005-02-26T00:39:00.000-06:00

And...it's sick. Just......my God, it's sick. I have never seen a movie that so disturbed me. I wanted to cry, I wanted to vomit.

The sickest part of it all, there were times I wanted to laugh. The director threw in some comedic moments after some particularly dramatic scenes. And when I tried to laugh, tears came.

How do the European countries not feel guilt for what they caused? Why are they not shamed into intervening before nearly a million are dead?

I think that, maybe, I might someday write my dissertation on things like this, genocide, how it happens. I don't feel like being a "professor" or a think-tank worker anymore. I want to something that can help put an end to these things.

Haven't we been on this roller-coaster before???

2005-02-25T16:08:00.000-06:00

Reuter (citing IRIN) is reporting that the US military has begun new operations against insurgents, focusing mostly on Ramadi, where many people are fleeing.

Worried that the offensive could proceed as it did in nearby Fallujah, where he majority of the city's population was forced to flee during a near hree-month long campaign, many Ramadi families are taking personal effects and food supplies and heading to relatives' houses in the capital, or to the same camps where residents from Fallujah fled.

I think it's fairly obvious what happens if it proceeds "as it did in Fallujah." The consequences would be utterly amazing (in the "shocking" sense of the word, not joyful). Increased recruitment of the isurgents, another city levelled, a renewed refugee and humanitarian aid crisis.

Juan Cole said about the article, "It is not clear how much liberation Iraqi cities (or ex-cities) can stand."

The Nebraskans for Peace Vigil

2005-02-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

Yes, we had a peace vigil today. About 6 kids from UNL Nebraskans for Peace and about 2 or 3 people I didn't recognize held a lengthy message on the north steps of the Capitol building.

We got three middle fingers, four thumbs-up, a "Bush sucks," a "you suck," and some various other responses. All in all, I think we came out on top. ;)

Edit: In other news, it seems I've been getting a lot of incoming links to my blog. And, because I have a strong sense of recriprocacy, I felt a need to put a link to those blogs which link to me. So, I updated the "Other Cool Blogs" section, as well as creating a new "Cool Links" section for webpages I really like.

Many of the blogs are in the "Indie 500" group that formed out of the Bloggers Against Gonzales campaign. I've kinda been debating in my head over the last few weeks whether I should put all 550 blogs on my blogroll. I still haven't reached a conclusion.

The real Ward Churchill, the real Jesse Factor

2005-02-23T22:06:00.000-06:00

Sorry for continually bringing this up, again, but oh well. I was reading the Young Liberals blog when they mentioned the Jesse Factor in one of their satire pieces. I hadn't been to the Jesse Factor in some time, so I figured I'd go over and see what the "fallacy of the day" was.

Big mistake.

Normally I don't comment on what the Jesse Factor writes. Maybe I'm one of those "elitist liberal college students" but it seems to me that nearly every post I read on the Jesse Factor contains at least one logical fallacy. Not just one type of fallacy, no. They range practically the entire spectrum. However, because I'm fairly interested in some of what Churchill writes, and even more interested in the Horowitz-esque attack on universities that has become the critique of Ward Churchill, I feel I need to respond to their latest post concerning Ward Churchill's supposed "Americans are Nazis" belief.

The first fallacy, if anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of Ward Churchill's life knows, is the "Ward Churchill = Traitor" remark. American Heritage Dictionary defines traitor as "One who betrays one's country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason." In what way did Churchill betray his country? The Jesse Factor never explains. At the point where no supporting evidence is provided we can discount such notions.

But there's another thing relevant to the "traitor" remark. Ward Churchill was a soldier in Vietnam. Yes, on the American side, though the Jesse Factor would have you believe otherwise.

In fact, the purpose of both Ward Churchill's essay and the book which extended upon that essay, were specifically made so that future terrorist attacks may not happen on America. After the controversy erupted recently, he said in a response to critics:

I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world.

[...]

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

Or, if, as some have said to me, only Churchill's comments before the controversy are valid, then we can point to this part of his book, On The Justice of Roosting Chickens published in 2003:

[...] Americans must demonstrate, conclusively and concretely, that they have at last attained a sufficient degree of self-awareness to subordinate themselves both individually and as a country to the rule of law.[n156] Such an initiative...is likely to reassure those who came on 9-1-1 that the seeds of Jaspers' wisdom have at last taken root in the U.S. to an extent making future attack unnecessary.

Moving on, and this is a relatively minor point I'll admit, we find a blatent contradiction. Jesse states:

I thought about moving to Boulder, Colorado for the sole purpose of car jacking Ward Churchill and spitting in his aging hippy hair. I wanted to see the look on his face when I beat him with his own tire iron. The idea crossed my mind of actually flying a plane straight into his house.

Now, it seems to me, that attacking an American could be considered treasonous in the conservative interpretation of "giving aid and comfort to the nation's enemies." I mean, if Americans are flying airplanes into other Americans homes, I can only imagine Osama bin-Laden dancing with joy upon hearing of the incident. More importantly, there's another contradiction. The only reason I can see for Jesse wanting to fly "a plane straight into his house" is that Churchill actively used his free speech in a way Jesse dislikes. Now, didn't "the terrorists" attack America for our freedoms that they supposedly dislike? Perhaps I'm attacking a straw-man here, though. If that's the case, I'll be happy to retract this point.

Continuing on in the Jesse Factor, we arrive at the second paragraph (finally!):

Any man who looks a crowd straight in the eye, tells them that the 9/11 victims were "Nazis" should be thrown into a DeLorean and put on Flight 11. FUCK Ward Churchill.

Again we find no evidence of such an act in the Jesse Factor post. I myself cannot recall such an incident and I'm fairly sure I follow the controversy closer than Jesse.

Perhaps Jesse was reffering to the now-controversial part of Churchill's post-9/11 essay where he calls the "technocrats" "little Eichmann's":

They [the 9/11 terrorists] did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it. [bold mine]

Of course, this is not Churchill saying all Americans are Nazis. He's specifically saying that those who were targeted in the WTC attacks were not "innocent civilians" (they were the terrorist's equivalent of "collateral damage," I believe he says) but the technocrats engaged in American global politics, including the foreign policies which contributed to hate in the Mid-East. As Ward Churchill has explained:

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

Let's move on, though. Later, Jesse states a sort of side-argument, lodged in a paragraph though s/he moves on to a different point:

The fucking greatest thing about this "acadademic freedom poster child" (which isn't really acadademic freedom as much as it is "Brainwashing a college campus," so Ward, feel free to fuck off)...

As I've said in a previous post, I agree with the conservative economist Thomas Sowell that this isn't about academic freedom. Academic freedom only defends comments made on a campus. Churchill's comments were in an essay on the internet and, later, a book, and therefore not eligible for defense on the grounds of academic freedom. However, by the same token, it also is not "brainwashing a college campus" for the same reason - his statements weren't made on a campus.

The only valid point the Jesse Factor makes is that Churchill isn't actually Native American. Indeed, I remember reading elsewhere (an article I believe that was posted on the Liberal Forum) that "his tribe" actually simply handed membership out to anyone who wanted it, including former President Clinton I believe.

That one valid point, however, is irrelevant to the discussion of Churchill's actual comments. This is known as a red herring, as noted in the above link about logical fallacies. I think this is a correct place to apply a statement by Churchill, which though he actually used itin a different meaning, I think applies here. This red herring can only be viewed as "an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country."

Protest planning

2005-02-23T17:22:00.000-06:00

Looks like the left-wing religious organization Sojourners is getting in on this March 19th protest. They recently sent me this email:

Dear Alex,

Saturday, March 19, 2005, marks the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The human and financial costs of war on all sides continue to mount at an alarming pace. In these dire times people of faith are called to raise their voices for peace.

Sojourners invites you to mark this anniversary by organizing a vigil or a memorial service in your hometown on the weekend of March 18-20, 2005.

»Click here to host a vigil

Once you sign up, your event will be listed on Sojourners' Web site and members of your community will be able to locate it by using our easy event-finder. These event invitations will be extended to 500,000 people across the country. For event organizers, we will put you in touch with those who sign up to attend.

Need ideas on how to organize your event? Sojourners has put together a comprehensive toolkit containing ecumenical worship resources, vigil litanies, and ideas for further community action. Download your toolkit by clicking here. Already dozens of individuals and congregations across the country have signed up! We hope to have hundreds - if not thousands - of events across the country. At the beginning of Holy Week (Palm Sunday is March 20, 2005), the entire country, including the media, will be focused on this anniversary. Act now to give it special meaning to it. We hope you will join us.