Category: Politics

Gun Culture, Liberty, and the Appeal to Agency

Mass Shootings: The Price to Pay for Liberty?

What has once again been largely left out of the public debate on gun control prompted by the Las Vegas massacre, is how tightly gun rights are bound to right-wing ideology, at the core of which is the fear of a tyrannical government.  The shadows of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War fall over the darkest corners of the gun culture: Should tyranny come, our freedoms can only be defended by taking up arms—so goes the narrative. That these guns will inevitably be misused by sociopaths to slaughter innocents is the price we have to pay for the capability to defend ourselves against a totalitarian government.

They have a point. The revelations by Edward Snowden of the scope of national security agencies spying on U.S. citizens were chilling.  Whatever nominal limitations were put on mass surveillance in the Obama administration may well be mere window dressing, as far as the NSA and CIA are concerned. Those operators are secretive by nature, and the only way we can feel safe from surveillance is by trusting the people whose mission is to monitor, capture and kill enemies of the state—trusting them to be motivated by true democratic principles.  For now, their focus is on terrorism and hostile foreign governments, but if the government were to be taken over by a strongman (such as Donald Trump would like to be but is too scatterbrained and undisciplined to emulate),* the tools of these agencies could readily be turned on American civilians—in particular on what we like to think of as the free press (the irony of right-wingers’ beliefs that “the media” are dominated by socialists is particularly rich; do they really believe that these news organizations are arms of the “Deep State?”).

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Just Say NO to Bridenstine – and Slow the “Lunar Gold Rush”

Bridenstine Edges toward Confirmation as NASA Head

Recently I circulated an email warning of the potential for non-scientist, non-engineer Congressman Jim Bridenstine to be confirmed as NASA chief administrator. This is yet another Trumpian poke in the eye of the science community, and more seriously it would put a tool of the mining industry in a position to prioritize NASA’s missions.

Now, the Washington Post (September 12) reports that Bridenstine’s route to confirmation is being eagerly groomed by industry groups and key members of Congress. See: Bridenstine Advancing, Science in Retreat  I recommend you let your Senators know it matters to you that this man not only is lacking in scientific and engineering credentials, but also has an agenda to shift NASA’s priorities away from space exploration and toward space exploitation. To wit:

What Bridenstine Wants: New Kinds of Craters on the Moon

The Post reports Bridenstine as saying, “From the discovery of water ice until this day, the American objective should have been a permanent outpost of rovers and machines. . . .” To what end, pray tell, Congressman? We can get some clues from a report under the aegis of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on “The Lunar Gold Rush: How Moon Mining Could Work.” See: JPL on Mining the Moon

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Poll Found Americans Undecided on What?!?

Via NPR I heard a few weeks ago that 52% of Americans felt that Trump’s response to the Charlottesvile domestic terrorism did not go far enough in denouncing White Supremacists and Nazis in our midst. That’s according to an NPR/PBS poll in mid-August.

27% feel that his response was appropriate. No surprises there. We know who they are.

Here’s the baffling part: 21% were  undecided!  A number which is astonishing, disturbing, and . . . evidence that at least a fifth of Americans are either (1) deaf dumb and blind; (2) so addicted to sports or Game of Thrones that they don’t know anything besides; (3) appallingly apathetic; (4)  ignorant of the most basic facts of American (not to mention world) history; (5) so influenced by right-wing propaganda that THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.   The cultivated doubt that has infected attitudes to climate change, health care, medical science, ecological science, has even spread to what you’d think would be clear moral understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

Afghanistan “Win”: Surely You Jest, Mr. President

Is the Joke on Us, or on Our Glorious Leader?

Some days ago, the brat who poses as our nation’s president declared we would commence a winning strategy in Afghanistan.  I believe he said “win” at least five times, eliciting a lighthearted “ha ha ha” among the more jaded listeners.

That this flies in the face of logic—given the seventeen-year history of our military adventure in Afghanistan—is no impediment to Mr. Trump, whose logical faculties (such as they are) are overwhelmed by his egotism, vainglory, and desperate cravings for winning at any cost.

Containment of the Taliban, not defeating them, is the name of the game in Afghanistan, which the generals whom Trump maintains he consulted at length know very well.  (He also said he had looked at the Afghanistan situation “from every angle.” That was not the only time that I laughed out loud at this speech, but it was probably the loudest.) My guess is that the only way they could sell their strategy to him was to tell him it was a “winning” strategy, because the language of zero-sum games is the only language he understands. I’d wager they had a good laugh among themselves once the ruse succeeded.

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What’s in a Name? from Romeo and Juliet to the NIH

The Power of Names, Like It or Not

In the August 24 Washington Post, we hear that ESPN yanked an unfortunate Asian-American from broadcasting a University of Virginia football game, the sportscaster’s trespass being that he bore the name: Robert Lee.  Elsewhere in the same issue, Dana Milbank skewered ESPN (and ludicrously overdone Political Correctness in general), with a satire that suggested we should ban from the public eye Bruce Lee, Tommy Lee, Harper Lee, Spike Lee, Bobby Lee, Lee Majors, Lee Jeans, etc.

We are all familiar with the epigram, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” spoken by Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Really?  What if the flower were named Kerblunkanoo? Ratstikittel? Skrutabucket? Wine critic: “This chardonnay has a complex aroma, a fusion of pears and peaches with a delicate hint of skrutabucket.”  OK—it could become catchy. But that doesn’t change the fact that names shade perceptions. People named Hitler can attest to that. Racial, ethnic, gender, and religious slurs attest to the demeaning power of names. Actors and actresses acquire stage names to spin their personae, perhaps the most famous being the name Marilyn Monroe to replace the decidedly unglamorous Norma Jeanne Mortenson.

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Robert E. Lee Cooling the Fires – All for Naught

Robert E. Lee Echoing Lincoln

In the August 25 Washington Post op-ed page, Eugene Robinson revealed a side of Robert E. Lee that runs against the grain of many who wish to celebrate his memory with public statues: after the Civil War, the general warned against erecting Civil War monuments in Gettysburg (one may infer that he referred to both Union and Confederate monuments): “I think it wiser,” said Lee, “not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

Echoes of Lincoln, right down to the metaphor of wounds to the body politic, ring uncannily.  In his second inaugural address—made less than a month before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox—Lincoln urged, “let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds. . . .”

This softens the picture of Lee, who was, by any definition of treason, a traitor to his country. A traitor, moreover, who chose to defend a government founded on the monstrosity of slavery.

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Ungovernable? The Curse of a Ruling Faction

Factional Fury

In the July 29 Guardian, Michael Goldfarb laments the debacle of the Trump presidency to date: Goldfarb on Ungovernability

However, the recitation of one Trumpian travesty after another is not the core of Goldfarb’s message.  It’s just to get your attention and whip up a little outrage.  What he’s really getting at is deeper and more troubling. It’s the danger of factionalism, in particular that “the Republicans are no longer a political party but a faction, a much more dangerous thing.”

He goes on to quote James Madison’s definition of “faction” and summarizes Madison’s concerns as expressed in the Federalist Number 10

Madison’s paper itself makes for fascinating if laborious reading—the man had a knack for prolixity in the service of exhausting every possible angle of a subject (research topic: how did the other Constitutional Conventioneers restrain Madison from making the Constitution as long as the Sunday edition of The New York Times?). Nonetheless, if you read the whole thing you get the sense Madison was more concerned about a ruling majority faction rather than the minority faction (in terms of numbers of voters) that the current Republican Party has turned out to be. Nevertheless, Goldfarb’s argument applies, since the Continue reading “Ungovernable? The Curse of a Ruling Faction”

How Cheating Starts, and the Path to Oligarchy

Breathing an Atmosphere of Lies

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last two years, you can probably guess why lying and other forms of spreading untruths fester with new virulence in the minds of the public (that is, that portion of the public who is paying attention to public life).

Communicating untruths, whether deliberate lies or “alternative facts” mistaken for truths through ignorance, is a very broad topic.  There are polite lies, “white lies,” or lying to protect a loved one, all of which are in a different moral universe from evil lies. The latter are the kind that constitute Fake News as well as other kinds of dishonest villainy.

If a lie inflicts harm on somebody’s Bad Guys, then justifying it may depend on whose side you’re on.

Subverting the system with lies is OK if you win.  That’s where we stand in the days of rank partisanship.

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War on Women Grinds On

Trump Gang Pulls Plug on Women’s Empowerment

In addition to slashing the U.S. contribution to the United Nations, the Trump administration plans to take the axe to a State Department program promoting women’s rights around the world: The Latest Blow to Women Worldwide

It’s another measure to find funds to increase the Defense Department’s budget by $54 billion.

It’s also another slab dumped on the mounting pile of wrongs meant to overwhelm the opposition.  The Trump administration is waging war on many fronts: Women, the Poor, the Sick, Immigrants fleeing war and rule by street gangs, Science, Climate Change Resistance, Habitat Protection, Oceans, Lakes, and Waterways Protections, Renewable Energy, Voting Rights, the National Parks and Monuments, Native American Rights, Black Lives Matter. . . the list goes on.

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Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse. . .

Science Takes Another Hit from Trump Administration

In case you didn’t catch this, Trump has appointed, for assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS  a woman who believes that abortion can cause breast cancer.  When challenged by the New York Times, instead of citing studies, Charmaine Yoest argued that scientists are “under the control of the abortion lobby.”

There may be more than one reason for opposing abortion, but making claims about a connection unknown to scientists at the CDC is a long leap into the Alternative Facts Universe (AFU).  Forgive me for playing another of my hunches as to the AFU mindset, but I imagine that Yoest’s claim is based on the fact that some women who have had abortions later get breast cancer.  Undoubtedly. I’m sure Charmaine Yoest has heard of more than one. The question then to ask is, how many women who never had an abortion also get breast cancer? That is, does the rate of women getting breast cancer after an abortion exceed the background breast cancer rate?

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