"What does it take to be a good President?" Koch asks, "Do I have what it takes to be a good leader? I do wonder. But I know, when I look around at the stable of talent in the two major parties, I am not seeing a whole lot of leadership there. I keep saying to myself, I could do this better, or I have a better way to do that."
Koch launched his candidacy in July 2006. He chose Ken Goldstein, a high school buddy and best man at his wedding, as his running mate. He believes he can replace "the traditional choice of a running mate from a different geographical area" (Koch lives in Utah, Goldstein in California) with an emphasis on Goldstein's "alternate viewpoints." They haven't updated the news on their campaign site since October 2006.
In September 2006 Koch posted a position paper on Iraq. Before the "awakening" and the "surge," he called on Iraqis to "to take charge of their country, and be responsible for their own security and well-being, and to actively map their own future." He lists American priorities in Iraq this way: "We want to limit or eliminate loss to life on all sides; we would like a free, self-governing Iraq; we would like a friend in the mid-East; we would like to demonstrate by example how Democracy can help build a quality of life hitherto unknown in the region; we want to demonstrate by example that we are not necessarily an evil demon but can be a benevolent friend."
Here's his approach to budget issues: "Under our administration, the Federal government will institute a zero-base budget policy. This means that every cent of every department budget will have to be justified on an annual basis. No agency will be able to assume their budget level is safe, and no agency will be able to go after any increases in funds until they can prove that they are spending all existing funds efficiently and for the public good. In such a budget system there is no room for pork barrel projects." He emphasizes that government, and hence the American people, must live within their means. If this means painful choices, so be it. He would rather cut spending than raise taxes.
The odds may be against him, but Koch says, "The real secret to winning an Independent campaign is not attracting already semi-committed voters; it is to interest the disenfranchised. Those that are so dissatisfied with what is happen in politics today, and within their old parties, they have dropped out of the political system. We hope to give these citizens - who are now ignored by the two major parties, and who make up a majority of the potential electorate - a new and better option. If we can attract these voters back into politics, we have a real shot at winning." Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Koch is doing much toward this goal.
Beyond the present campaign, running mate Goldstein calls for wider adoption of Instant Runoff Voting, the system that lets you name several candidates in order of preference, so that your vote will still count even if your first choice finishes last. The idea seems to be that the reform will encourage more people to make independent candidates their first choices as long as they think they'll still be able to pick the winner eventually, but it seems designed more to ease voters' consciences than to improve independents' chances.
"Maybe my ideas are good, maybe not so good- that is for the voters to decide," Koch writes, "I just know that in the last few elections, I spent my time deciding who was the lesser of two evils, not who I felt good about voting for. That, to me, is sad; we are the greatest nation on Earth, but we end up with only two choices to head the country, neither of who excite me at all." Koch should have known that there have never been just two choices in a presidential campaign. But maybe the fact that he didn't realize this is the reason he's running. When you yourself believe that no alternative exists, your only option is to become the alternative. That makes for yet another candidate with a largely unexceptionable but also unexceptional platform. Many independent candidates have to broaden their own horizons while exhorting voters to do so. Some might then find no need to become candidates themselves, and maybe Koch has already discovered this. But presuming that his campaign continues, here's his site.
13 August 2008
Lincoln Vindicated? Part 3: Was the South Right?
While Thomas L. Krannawitter considers Abraham Lincoln to be a model statesman, Thomas DiLorenzo rates the 16th President as one of the worst statesmen in history. DiLorenzo explains his judgment by noting that, while every other civilized nation abolished slavery peacefully, Lincoln could only do it by waging a murderous war. The critic believes that Southern slaveholders would have freed all their slaves voluntarily if offered the right economic incentive or, if left to their own devices after secession, would have freed them out of economic necessity, having learned that free labor is more efficient and productive.
It's fair to ask whether any other civilized nation had a slaveholding class that was as geographically concentrated, culturally self-conscious, intellectually committed to slavery and aggressive as the American South. Had there been similar slaveocracies elsewhere, emancipation might not have been so peaceful. But it's DiLorenzo's practice throughout Lincoln Unmasked to place all blame for sectional conflict on the North and all blame for the Civil War on Lincoln's head. Ultimately, he argues, all the deaths are Lincoln's fault because he wouldn't let the Southern states secede in peace.
DiLorenzo asserts that the states retained an innate right to secede from the Union. This right follows logically from America's foundation in a secession from the British Empire. "The Declaration [of Independence] was, first and foremost, a Declaration of Secession from the British Empire," he writes, "American was founded by a War of Secession....The founders could hardly have thought that secession was an illegitimate act when it was what defined them politically" (88). The right is located, so to speak, in the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Since several states had asserted what DiLorenzo describes as a right to secession during the Constitutional ratification process, he concludes that the Ninth Amendment confirms the same right.
Krannawitter argues that what DiLorenzo describes as a right to secession was actually a right to revolution. What's the difference? It seems to be that a right of secession would seem to oblige the federal government to stand down and acquiesce peacefully whenever a state secedes, while a right to revolution self-evidently can't compel the standing government from defending itself. Krannawitter suggests that there's no difference between secession and revolution. This is an important point, since DiLorenzo's implication is that the Union is legally constrained from fighting secessionists, while Krannawitter's position is that the legitimacy of revolutions can be judged according to reason and "natural right" standards, and that the Union can act on that judgment.
DiLorenzo's position seems hard to prove if he actually intends to prove not only a reserved right to secede but a constitutional constraint on the Union. He can infer secession from the Ninth Amendment if he wants, but there's no explicit language in the Constitution forbidding the government from using force against secessionists. There's no "Congress shall pass no law" or "shall not be infringed" in the context of secession. DiLorenzo can claim that the Ninth Amendment makes such language unnecessary, but its absence gives Lincoln room to take action and for objective observers to judge the validity of secession.
According to Krannawitter, the secession movement of 1860-1 asserted the same right of revolution that the Founders did in 1776. The Founders justified their claim in the Declaration of Independence. Krannawitter believes that the secessionists were obliged to justify their revolution in the same fashion. Held to the same test, the author argues, the secessionists fail. The Founders based their revolution on the proposition that "all men are created equal." As far as Krannawitter is concerned, that justifies the Revolution and confers legitimacy upon it. Since leading Confederates explicitly affirmed that their new society was founded on African slavery, thus denying that all men are created equal, Krannawitter concludes that secession was an illegitimate revolution, and that Lincoln was in no way constrained from stopping it. He argues that Confederates preferred to speak of secession rather than revolution precisely because they couldn't justify their actions by Revolutionary standards: "Southern disunionists openly avowed secession rather than revolution precisely because they rejected the ideal of a natural right to revolution" (198).
With no offense intended to Krannawitter or the Declaration of Independence, I think he takes the document too seriously. I'm not saying that "all men are create equal" isn't to be taken seriously, but it goes too far to suggest, as Krannawitter seems to do, that the American Revolution's legitimacy depends on the validity of the Declaration. The document was both declaratory and propagandistic in nature, aimed both at Americans and the "candid world" from which the Founders hoped to gain moral and material support. But what would have happened if the candid world reported back its consensus that, "no, we're not convinced by this rhetoric of equality and inalienable rights?" Does anyone expect that the Revolutionaries would lower their flags and beg for London's mercy? It should be obvious that they would fight even if no one agreed with their principles, and that they'd take aid from anyone regardless of whether they agreed with those principles or not, since the King of France certainly could not agree.
Since I must pause shortly, let's review where we stand. DiLorenzo's assertion of a constitutional right does not prove that Lincoln was constrained from preventing secession. Krannawitter's appeal to natural-rights principles does not automatically invalidate Confederate secession. If one wants to argue that Lincoln was wrong, and the other than Lincoln was right, each must ultimately refer to costs and benefits, and that's where I'll follow them in Part 3A. The next installment will also consider how accurately each author portrays the secession crisis and the stakes involved, and it's fair to warn readers that DiLorenzo is going to get clobbered here. Stay tuned.
It's fair to ask whether any other civilized nation had a slaveholding class that was as geographically concentrated, culturally self-conscious, intellectually committed to slavery and aggressive as the American South. Had there been similar slaveocracies elsewhere, emancipation might not have been so peaceful. But it's DiLorenzo's practice throughout Lincoln Unmasked to place all blame for sectional conflict on the North and all blame for the Civil War on Lincoln's head. Ultimately, he argues, all the deaths are Lincoln's fault because he wouldn't let the Southern states secede in peace.
DiLorenzo asserts that the states retained an innate right to secede from the Union. This right follows logically from America's foundation in a secession from the British Empire. "The Declaration [of Independence] was, first and foremost, a Declaration of Secession from the British Empire," he writes, "American was founded by a War of Secession....The founders could hardly have thought that secession was an illegitimate act when it was what defined them politically" (88). The right is located, so to speak, in the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Since several states had asserted what DiLorenzo describes as a right to secession during the Constitutional ratification process, he concludes that the Ninth Amendment confirms the same right.
Krannawitter argues that what DiLorenzo describes as a right to secession was actually a right to revolution. What's the difference? It seems to be that a right of secession would seem to oblige the federal government to stand down and acquiesce peacefully whenever a state secedes, while a right to revolution self-evidently can't compel the standing government from defending itself. Krannawitter suggests that there's no difference between secession and revolution. This is an important point, since DiLorenzo's implication is that the Union is legally constrained from fighting secessionists, while Krannawitter's position is that the legitimacy of revolutions can be judged according to reason and "natural right" standards, and that the Union can act on that judgment.
DiLorenzo's position seems hard to prove if he actually intends to prove not only a reserved right to secede but a constitutional constraint on the Union. He can infer secession from the Ninth Amendment if he wants, but there's no explicit language in the Constitution forbidding the government from using force against secessionists. There's no "Congress shall pass no law" or "shall not be infringed" in the context of secession. DiLorenzo can claim that the Ninth Amendment makes such language unnecessary, but its absence gives Lincoln room to take action and for objective observers to judge the validity of secession.
According to Krannawitter, the secession movement of 1860-1 asserted the same right of revolution that the Founders did in 1776. The Founders justified their claim in the Declaration of Independence. Krannawitter believes that the secessionists were obliged to justify their revolution in the same fashion. Held to the same test, the author argues, the secessionists fail. The Founders based their revolution on the proposition that "all men are created equal." As far as Krannawitter is concerned, that justifies the Revolution and confers legitimacy upon it. Since leading Confederates explicitly affirmed that their new society was founded on African slavery, thus denying that all men are created equal, Krannawitter concludes that secession was an illegitimate revolution, and that Lincoln was in no way constrained from stopping it. He argues that Confederates preferred to speak of secession rather than revolution precisely because they couldn't justify their actions by Revolutionary standards: "Southern disunionists openly avowed secession rather than revolution precisely because they rejected the ideal of a natural right to revolution" (198).
With no offense intended to Krannawitter or the Declaration of Independence, I think he takes the document too seriously. I'm not saying that "all men are create equal" isn't to be taken seriously, but it goes too far to suggest, as Krannawitter seems to do, that the American Revolution's legitimacy depends on the validity of the Declaration. The document was both declaratory and propagandistic in nature, aimed both at Americans and the "candid world" from which the Founders hoped to gain moral and material support. But what would have happened if the candid world reported back its consensus that, "no, we're not convinced by this rhetoric of equality and inalienable rights?" Does anyone expect that the Revolutionaries would lower their flags and beg for London's mercy? It should be obvious that they would fight even if no one agreed with their principles, and that they'd take aid from anyone regardless of whether they agreed with those principles or not, since the King of France certainly could not agree.
Since I must pause shortly, let's review where we stand. DiLorenzo's assertion of a constitutional right does not prove that Lincoln was constrained from preventing secession. Krannawitter's appeal to natural-rights principles does not automatically invalidate Confederate secession. If one wants to argue that Lincoln was wrong, and the other than Lincoln was right, each must ultimately refer to costs and benefits, and that's where I'll follow them in Part 3A. The next installment will also consider how accurately each author portrays the secession crisis and the stakes involved, and it's fair to warn readers that DiLorenzo is going to get clobbered here. Stay tuned.
What To Do About Russia?
A rally in the Georgian capital yesterday saw the makings of an anti-Russian coalition. The leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine showed their solidarity with President Saakashvili and denounced what they all saw as Russian aggression. None of these nations want to be dominated by Russia, but what can they do, even together, if Russia wants to dominate them?
It's doubtful whether all of them combined have sufficient military power to deter Russia from attacking any one of them. If so, the six nations must seek the protection of a superpower (which means the United States, since China wouldn't be so stupid) or consider other deterrents. Given existing disparities, each or all of the anti-Russian countries must consider asymmetrical warfare. Cyberwarfare is apparently already under way, though it's unclear whether this has extended beyond patriotic hackers messing with each other's websites.
What about terrorism? Could these countries find ways to make life miserable for Russians until the Russian government learns not to bully other countries? Whatever their capabilities might be, their effectiveness as terrorists is open to question. Studies suggest that terrorism aimed at a foreign power, as opposed to domestic terrorism, works only when the foreign power has a democratic, responsive form of government. Most observers wouldn't describe the Putin-Medvedev regime that way. Also, years of Chechen terrorism haven't exactly softened Russians' opinions on the occupation of that territory. Putin arguably gained his present popularity through his determination to punish the Chechens, which only shows that Russians are no more likely than Americans to think rationally under a terrorist threat. Probably nothing short of nuclear terrorism could deter Russia, as some would say it did during the Cold War.
My friend Crhymethinc would probably suggest targeted assassination as a more promising deterrent. If the six nations were able to get people to kill Putin and Medvedev, the idea is that their successors would think twice about pursuing the same policies. The question, apart from whether our proposed coalition could pull off such a feat, is how public opinion would respond. Since Putin and Medvedev are popular leaders, regardless of how "undemocratic" their policies might be, their assassinations could very well embitter the Russian masses against the six nations, whether the crime could be traced to them (or the Chechens) or not. Depending on how responsive and democratic the Russian political system actually is, public opinion might push the next leaders into war even if they've been properly scared by the example of Putin and Medvedev. In the Russians, their neighbors may face a people whose will to power is undeterrable.
As I've written in the past, in an ideal world none of these countries would be automatically relegated into a Russian sphere of influence. They'd be able to trade and make alliances with whomever they pleased, just as the nations of the Western Hemisphere would be if the Monroe Doctrine became a dead letter. On the other hand, countries that neighbor one another are natural trading partners, so all of the six nations must inevitably have relatively close relations with Russia for their own peoples' convenience. In the long term, the only way to stop large nations like Russia, China or the United States from abusing their size and power is to reach a state in which no one thinks in competitive terms of getting an advantage for his or her nation, but in cooperative terms of improving everybody's quality of life. That time may be a long way away, but it'll stay just as far away if we don't begin to talk about moving in that direction.
It's doubtful whether all of them combined have sufficient military power to deter Russia from attacking any one of them. If so, the six nations must seek the protection of a superpower (which means the United States, since China wouldn't be so stupid) or consider other deterrents. Given existing disparities, each or all of the anti-Russian countries must consider asymmetrical warfare. Cyberwarfare is apparently already under way, though it's unclear whether this has extended beyond patriotic hackers messing with each other's websites.
What about terrorism? Could these countries find ways to make life miserable for Russians until the Russian government learns not to bully other countries? Whatever their capabilities might be, their effectiveness as terrorists is open to question. Studies suggest that terrorism aimed at a foreign power, as opposed to domestic terrorism, works only when the foreign power has a democratic, responsive form of government. Most observers wouldn't describe the Putin-Medvedev regime that way. Also, years of Chechen terrorism haven't exactly softened Russians' opinions on the occupation of that territory. Putin arguably gained his present popularity through his determination to punish the Chechens, which only shows that Russians are no more likely than Americans to think rationally under a terrorist threat. Probably nothing short of nuclear terrorism could deter Russia, as some would say it did during the Cold War.
My friend Crhymethinc would probably suggest targeted assassination as a more promising deterrent. If the six nations were able to get people to kill Putin and Medvedev, the idea is that their successors would think twice about pursuing the same policies. The question, apart from whether our proposed coalition could pull off such a feat, is how public opinion would respond. Since Putin and Medvedev are popular leaders, regardless of how "undemocratic" their policies might be, their assassinations could very well embitter the Russian masses against the six nations, whether the crime could be traced to them (or the Chechens) or not. Depending on how responsive and democratic the Russian political system actually is, public opinion might push the next leaders into war even if they've been properly scared by the example of Putin and Medvedev. In the Russians, their neighbors may face a people whose will to power is undeterrable.
As I've written in the past, in an ideal world none of these countries would be automatically relegated into a Russian sphere of influence. They'd be able to trade and make alliances with whomever they pleased, just as the nations of the Western Hemisphere would be if the Monroe Doctrine became a dead letter. On the other hand, countries that neighbor one another are natural trading partners, so all of the six nations must inevitably have relatively close relations with Russia for their own peoples' convenience. In the long term, the only way to stop large nations like Russia, China or the United States from abusing their size and power is to reach a state in which no one thinks in competitive terms of getting an advantage for his or her nation, but in cooperative terms of improving everybody's quality of life. That time may be a long way away, but it'll stay just as far away if we don't begin to talk about moving in that direction.
12 August 2008
Lincoln Vindicated? Part Two: Was Lincoln Racist?
On 18 October 1858, three days after wrapping up his series of debates with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln wrote the following to James N. Brown:
To the modern eye, the statements don't look consistent. If you think all men are created equal, how could you not act to "bring about social and political equality" among the races? For many modern writers, statements like these prove Lincoln a racist. For critics on the left, they prove that he was never dedicated to racial equality and should not be revered as if he did everything necessary to achieve it. For critics on the right, the libertarians and paleoconservatives, they prove Lincoln insincere in his moral arguments against slavery. Authors like Thomas DiLorenzo take Lincoln's "racist" utterances as license to speculate that the "Great Emancipator" had ulterior motives for waging the Civil War, namely to impose "big government" and biased economic policies on the entire country.
In Vindicating Lincoln, Thomas Krannawitter attempts to prove Lincoln's unwavering commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Followers of Leo Strauss, like Krannawitter, use the Declaration as a key to interpret the true meaning of the Constitution. They appear to prefer the Declaration because it appears to assert a principle of natural right, i.e. "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Krannawitter himself asserts that the Constitution actually does incorporate the Declaration's natural-right principles. Here's how he strains to prove it: "In its very first sentence, the Constitution points to the Declaration: the Constitution is established in order to 'secure the blessings of liberty,' and what is a blessing other than a gift from God?" (p.157)
Lest you assume that Krannawitter's is a faith-based reading of history, he goes out of his way to condemn preachers who attempted to prove that the Bible permitted slavery. No matter that the evidence was on the preachers' side; Krannawitter's view is that "reason is no less the voice of God than sacred scripture" (251). Straussians as a group attempt to strike a balance between reason and revelation, believing that one without the other "leads to tyrannical fanaticism."
This is all very nice, and no one is questioning Leo Strauss or Thomas Krannawitter's commitment to racial equality, but none of them said anything like Lincoln did at his first debate with Douglas: "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality." As in the letter to Brown, Lincoln followed immediately with this: "there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence."
The problem Krannawitter sets up for himself is to show that, because Lincoln affirmed the "natural rights enumerated in the Declaration," he should not be considered a racist by modern standards. Never mind that Lincoln himself distinguished between natural rights and "political and social equality;" Krannawitter infers from Lincoln's affirmation of natural rights that he would not object today were he to discover the races in a state of social and political equality. Better yet, Krannawitter hints that social and political equality was probably what Lincoln really wanted back then.
One of the ideas most closely identified with Leo Strauss is the notion that philosophers and statesmen through history have practised a form of esoteric writing dictated by prudence. These men are supposed to be dedicated to the uncompromising pursuit of transcendent truths, which Krannawitter identifies time and again as true for all times and all places, but they're wise enough to know that stating those truths baldly might not be prudent at certain points in history. They learned to write carefully, to make their works unobjectionable to the mob or the powers that be, but also in a way that fellow philosophers would recognize, and in which they'd recognize the unchanging truth affirmed after all. Because "natural rights" are a timeless truth, the Declaration of Independence signifies that Thomas Jefferson and his co-writers would ultimately endorse racial equality, even if they compromised on "social and political equality" in their lifetimes. While prudence dictates compromise in practice, statements like the Declaration allows authors like Krannawitter to credit Thomas Jefferson and his co-authors, as well as successors like Lincoln, with endorsing true equality both in advance and, in a sense, retroactively. Believe it or not. Ask yourself whether the Founders' or Lincoln's commitment to equal natural rights extended to sexual equality and Krannawitter's position may become an even tougher sell.
In any event, Krannawitter claims that Lincoln was obliged by prudence to phrase his speeches carefully in order not to lose votes. The author offers very careful readings of Lincoln's most controversial utterances in an attempt to demonstrate that Lincoln never explicitly endorsed the idea that blacks were inferior to whites. Instead, when prudence required it, Lincoln would say that he did not support measures toward controversial ends, while signalling through his repeated invocations of the Declaration to right-minded people, and to posterity, that he didn't really oppose the ends.
I'm not exactly convinced by Krannawitter's argument, but then again, I don't have a lot vested in the question of whether Lincoln was a racist. At the heart of the current debate over Lincoln's legacy is the fact that several conflicting ideological groups want to use him as a symbol. Critics on the right complain that Lincoln is used to justify everything from income taxes to the invasion of Iraq, while Krannawitter himself complains that 20th century liberals invoke Lincoln to justify economic and social policies that the author opposes. The Lincoln debate involves people who want to debunk him, perhaps in order to replace him with new heroes, as some leftists would do in favor of the Abolitionists, as well as people who want to enlist him in support of policies he never contemplated, as Krannawitter accuses Mario Cuomo and Barack Obama of doing, and people who want to take Lincoln away from some people and keep him for others, like Krannawitter himself.
The more interesting issue that emerges from this aspect of the Lincoln question is one I'll discuss further in the next installment. Krannawitter repeatedly upholds Lincoln as a role model for prudential statesmanship. He suggests that Lincoln was engaged in such statesmanship when he disclaimed intentions to promote racial equality during the debates with Douglas. He compares Lincoln favorably with the Abolitionists, who demanded immediate, unconditional and uncompensated emancipation of slaves, and suggests that the Abolitionists' goal could only be reached by Lincoln's prudent means. Going about it in the radical fashion that the Abolitionists might have preferred, Krannawitter suggests, might have reduced the Union to a state or anarchy or rule by arbitrary force, since the radicals would have to toss the Constitution aside to get their way. The point you should notice is that Krannawitter believes that there were higher priorities than freeing the slaves immediately. You'll notice later, however, that he uses the suffering of slaves as an argument against Lincoln letting the Southern states secede. So why doesn't the suffering of slaves justify the most immediate, even the most ruthless action to end slavery? Once Krannawitter concedes that relieving the suffering of slaves is not the most immediate moral priority, he throws one of his own arguments against secession into question. I'll test his arguments, and those of DiLorenzo and others in favor of secession, in the next installment.
"In four [of the debates] I have expressly disclaimed all intention to bring about social and political equality between the white and black races, and, in all the rest, I have done the same thing by clear implication.
"I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is included in the word 'men' used in the Declaration of Independence."
To the modern eye, the statements don't look consistent. If you think all men are created equal, how could you not act to "bring about social and political equality" among the races? For many modern writers, statements like these prove Lincoln a racist. For critics on the left, they prove that he was never dedicated to racial equality and should not be revered as if he did everything necessary to achieve it. For critics on the right, the libertarians and paleoconservatives, they prove Lincoln insincere in his moral arguments against slavery. Authors like Thomas DiLorenzo take Lincoln's "racist" utterances as license to speculate that the "Great Emancipator" had ulterior motives for waging the Civil War, namely to impose "big government" and biased economic policies on the entire country.
In Vindicating Lincoln, Thomas Krannawitter attempts to prove Lincoln's unwavering commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Followers of Leo Strauss, like Krannawitter, use the Declaration as a key to interpret the true meaning of the Constitution. They appear to prefer the Declaration because it appears to assert a principle of natural right, i.e. "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Krannawitter himself asserts that the Constitution actually does incorporate the Declaration's natural-right principles. Here's how he strains to prove it: "In its very first sentence, the Constitution points to the Declaration: the Constitution is established in order to 'secure the blessings of liberty,' and what is a blessing other than a gift from God?" (p.157)
Lest you assume that Krannawitter's is a faith-based reading of history, he goes out of his way to condemn preachers who attempted to prove that the Bible permitted slavery. No matter that the evidence was on the preachers' side; Krannawitter's view is that "reason is no less the voice of God than sacred scripture" (251). Straussians as a group attempt to strike a balance between reason and revelation, believing that one without the other "leads to tyrannical fanaticism."
This is all very nice, and no one is questioning Leo Strauss or Thomas Krannawitter's commitment to racial equality, but none of them said anything like Lincoln did at his first debate with Douglas: "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality." As in the letter to Brown, Lincoln followed immediately with this: "there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence."
The problem Krannawitter sets up for himself is to show that, because Lincoln affirmed the "natural rights enumerated in the Declaration," he should not be considered a racist by modern standards. Never mind that Lincoln himself distinguished between natural rights and "political and social equality;" Krannawitter infers from Lincoln's affirmation of natural rights that he would not object today were he to discover the races in a state of social and political equality. Better yet, Krannawitter hints that social and political equality was probably what Lincoln really wanted back then.
One of the ideas most closely identified with Leo Strauss is the notion that philosophers and statesmen through history have practised a form of esoteric writing dictated by prudence. These men are supposed to be dedicated to the uncompromising pursuit of transcendent truths, which Krannawitter identifies time and again as true for all times and all places, but they're wise enough to know that stating those truths baldly might not be prudent at certain points in history. They learned to write carefully, to make their works unobjectionable to the mob or the powers that be, but also in a way that fellow philosophers would recognize, and in which they'd recognize the unchanging truth affirmed after all. Because "natural rights" are a timeless truth, the Declaration of Independence signifies that Thomas Jefferson and his co-writers would ultimately endorse racial equality, even if they compromised on "social and political equality" in their lifetimes. While prudence dictates compromise in practice, statements like the Declaration allows authors like Krannawitter to credit Thomas Jefferson and his co-authors, as well as successors like Lincoln, with endorsing true equality both in advance and, in a sense, retroactively. Believe it or not. Ask yourself whether the Founders' or Lincoln's commitment to equal natural rights extended to sexual equality and Krannawitter's position may become an even tougher sell.
In any event, Krannawitter claims that Lincoln was obliged by prudence to phrase his speeches carefully in order not to lose votes. The author offers very careful readings of Lincoln's most controversial utterances in an attempt to demonstrate that Lincoln never explicitly endorsed the idea that blacks were inferior to whites. Instead, when prudence required it, Lincoln would say that he did not support measures toward controversial ends, while signalling through his repeated invocations of the Declaration to right-minded people, and to posterity, that he didn't really oppose the ends.
I'm not exactly convinced by Krannawitter's argument, but then again, I don't have a lot vested in the question of whether Lincoln was a racist. At the heart of the current debate over Lincoln's legacy is the fact that several conflicting ideological groups want to use him as a symbol. Critics on the right complain that Lincoln is used to justify everything from income taxes to the invasion of Iraq, while Krannawitter himself complains that 20th century liberals invoke Lincoln to justify economic and social policies that the author opposes. The Lincoln debate involves people who want to debunk him, perhaps in order to replace him with new heroes, as some leftists would do in favor of the Abolitionists, as well as people who want to enlist him in support of policies he never contemplated, as Krannawitter accuses Mario Cuomo and Barack Obama of doing, and people who want to take Lincoln away from some people and keep him for others, like Krannawitter himself.
The more interesting issue that emerges from this aspect of the Lincoln question is one I'll discuss further in the next installment. Krannawitter repeatedly upholds Lincoln as a role model for prudential statesmanship. He suggests that Lincoln was engaged in such statesmanship when he disclaimed intentions to promote racial equality during the debates with Douglas. He compares Lincoln favorably with the Abolitionists, who demanded immediate, unconditional and uncompensated emancipation of slaves, and suggests that the Abolitionists' goal could only be reached by Lincoln's prudent means. Going about it in the radical fashion that the Abolitionists might have preferred, Krannawitter suggests, might have reduced the Union to a state or anarchy or rule by arbitrary force, since the radicals would have to toss the Constitution aside to get their way. The point you should notice is that Krannawitter believes that there were higher priorities than freeing the slaves immediately. You'll notice later, however, that he uses the suffering of slaves as an argument against Lincoln letting the Southern states secede. So why doesn't the suffering of slaves justify the most immediate, even the most ruthless action to end slavery? Once Krannawitter concedes that relieving the suffering of slaves is not the most immediate moral priority, he throws one of his own arguments against secession into question. I'll test his arguments, and those of DiLorenzo and others in favor of secession, in the next installment.
Advice for Fascists
Here's a link to my ongoing discussion with United Fascist Union candidate Jackson Grimes and his friends. Grimes is the first of the independent candidates to engage this blog directly, though the wife of Orion Karl Daley sent along some fine words recently. I've also revised the Grimes link on my candidate list to link to my article, which itself contains a link to his campaign website, because I think his attempts to explain himself, whether they're to be taken seriously or not, are as indicative of his plight as his own official propaganda. As for whether we should take him seriously, my hunch is that, whatever Grimes actually hopes, anyone who cites Saddam Hussein as an inspiration shouldn't hold his breath waiting to be taken seriously by American voters.
Georgia: The Lesson of Iraq
"Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages. And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran over elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilians alive in their sheds -- these leaders must be taken under protection."
That's Prime Minister Putin of Russia mocking what he perceives as American hypocrisy regarding the crisis in South Ossetia, as quoted by the McClatchy news service. Some Americans inevitably will respond by suggesting that Putin is a liar, because authoritarian types like him inevitably lie. He may indeed by lying, but it will be recalled that people still accuse the Bush administration of lying, not about Saddam's atrocities against Shiites, but about the imminent threat of WMD that supposedly necessitated the American-led invasion of Iraq. The truth, which Ron Suskind suggests was known by the government, no more deterred President Bush than it has deterred Putin and his stooge, President Medvedev, from their plainly punitive attack on the republic of Georgia.
It was inevitable that someone Americans don't like would draw an analogy with "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to justify an intervention against another country. Americans who thought it wouldn't happen are fools, and so are those who think it'll make a difference if they can prove that their country acted in good faith, and that Russia has not. There is nothing in the doctrine of "regime change" that says that only good guys can do it, no matter what the neocons may claim. So now Russian officials hint that nothing short of Mr. Saakashvili stepping down from the Georgian presidency will resolve the present crisis.
From the Russian perspective, Saakashvili is an oppressor of minorities just as much as Milosevic was in Yugoslavia and Saddam was in Iraq. We certainly can hold on to our suspicion that Russia is less interested in protecting the Ossetians and Abkhazians than in punishing Georgia for aspiring to NATO membership, but when the facts are stated plainly it's natural to ask why Americans are less likely to support the aspirations of minorities within Georgia than they are elsewhere. For that matter, Americans should ask what transpired between Saakashvili and Condoleeza Rice at their meeting on July 10, when tensions were already high and Georgians reportedly were already building forces near South Ossetia. Everyone should ask why Saakashvili launched so foolhardy an attack on the Ossetians last week. Did he perhaps think that Russia would do nothing because of the Olympics? Or did he have other reasons to believe, falsely if so, that he could act with impunity? Whatever the answers, we can safely assert that Saakashvili is no Saddam Hussein, even if he's not such a democrat as he and his American friends proclaim. Nevertheless, he may be destined to share Saddam's fate in a new world order made in the U.S.A.
11 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Daniel Kingery
In July 2008, Kingery was arrested in Washington D.C. for wearing a sign advertising his candidacy around his neck when entering the National Archives. The authorities considered this form of self-promotion to be illicit soliciting. The incident appears to have intensified Kingery's existing feelings about government in general. He outlines his views below.
Kingery is a high school graduate and former Marine who has owned a variety of businesses over the years. He bills himself as "President of the United States -- Apprentice." He tells Project VoteSmart, "After writing manuscript about how to recognize candidate who would get me to register to vote for them, I listened to several democratic and republican debates when I knew that candidate did not yet exist. I had to become that candidate."
He also pitches himself as "Your Handy-Man President" and has some ideas for "patches" on loopholes in the Constitution that have allowed politicians to abuse their positions. For example: "Loophole #1: Article 4, Section 4 guarantees a "Republican Form of Government." The loophole occurs by not specifying a Representative Republic. In a republic, those elected rule the People; In a representative republic, those elected serve the People.Loophole-Patch: Amend Constitution to state, "Representative Republic form of Government."
Beyond this, Kingery has a six-step plan including a rewriting of the Constitution to re-establish the principle of representative government in keeping with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and a detailed reformation of elections, including popular election (as I understand it) of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Speaker of the House. The plan also includes a revision of the criminal justice system, interpreting the Thirteenth Amendment to mandate forced labor as a nearly universal punishment while eliminating plea-bargaining and professional immunity, but also abolishing capital punishment and any penalty for victimless crimes. Health care reform, education reforms and a detailed social security reform plan are also included.
Kingery will remove U.S. troops from Iraq within 30 days of his inauguration unless the Iraqi people formally request our continued presence. While he's determined to keep fighting against terrorists, he appears convinced that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, whether it was an attempt to capture bin Laden, seize WMD, control oil or force democracy on people. He reduces his foreign policy, with apologies to anyone who thinks he oversimplifies things, to the principles of the schoolyard playground, e.g., "Pre-school Play-ground 101. If you get caught starting the fight or if you get caught as the first person who throws the punch while defending yourself, you look like a trouble-maker."
As a handyman-politician, Kingery applies what he calls a "Domino Effect Problem Solving Technique." "I've identified the corrupted causes common to the most problems; which when corrected, simultaneously solves many of problematic side-effects," he explains, "Domino Effect Problem Solving benefits you with a drastic reduction in the costs associated with providing the services you desire. "
Kingery claims to have campaigned in 28 states, and has used up $15,000, almost all his own money, in the process. His campaign updates, current into this month, are poignant in a way, because he considers himself a success in that he has done what he wanted to do: travel the country, participate in independent campaign roundtable events, and get his message out. He's set up shop on YouTube and MySpace and has more videos than the one I've shown you. While working odd jobs through the remainder of the campaign season, he intends to contact 200 people a day online, hoping he can get some to spread the word. Without exactly endorsing him, I guess I've done my part. Daniel Kingery is another of the self-selected candidates, and with his homepage leading with the story of his July arrest, I feared the worst about him. But apart from the usual inexcusable errors or typos, I was relieved to see someone who at least aspires to thinking seriously about the political situation. As I've said regarding some of his peers, if there were more voters like some of these candidates, we might well have better candidates across the board.
Kingery is a high school graduate and former Marine who has owned a variety of businesses over the years. He bills himself as "President of the United States -- Apprentice." He tells Project VoteSmart, "After writing manuscript about how to recognize candidate who would get me to register to vote for them, I listened to several democratic and republican debates when I knew that candidate did not yet exist. I had to become that candidate."
He also pitches himself as "Your Handy-Man President" and has some ideas for "patches" on loopholes in the Constitution that have allowed politicians to abuse their positions. For example: "Loophole #1: Article 4, Section 4 guarantees a "Republican Form of Government." The loophole occurs by not specifying a Representative Republic. In a republic, those elected rule the People; In a representative republic, those elected serve the People.Loophole-Patch: Amend Constitution to state, "Representative Republic form of Government."
Beyond this, Kingery has a six-step plan including a rewriting of the Constitution to re-establish the principle of representative government in keeping with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and a detailed reformation of elections, including popular election (as I understand it) of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Speaker of the House. The plan also includes a revision of the criminal justice system, interpreting the Thirteenth Amendment to mandate forced labor as a nearly universal punishment while eliminating plea-bargaining and professional immunity, but also abolishing capital punishment and any penalty for victimless crimes. Health care reform, education reforms and a detailed social security reform plan are also included.
Kingery will remove U.S. troops from Iraq within 30 days of his inauguration unless the Iraqi people formally request our continued presence. While he's determined to keep fighting against terrorists, he appears convinced that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, whether it was an attempt to capture bin Laden, seize WMD, control oil or force democracy on people. He reduces his foreign policy, with apologies to anyone who thinks he oversimplifies things, to the principles of the schoolyard playground, e.g., "Pre-school Play-ground 101. If you get caught starting the fight or if you get caught as the first person who throws the punch while defending yourself, you look like a trouble-maker."
As a handyman-politician, Kingery applies what he calls a "Domino Effect Problem Solving Technique." "I've identified the corrupted causes common to the most problems; which when corrected, simultaneously solves many of problematic side-effects," he explains, "Domino Effect Problem Solving benefits you with a drastic reduction in the costs associated with providing the services you desire. "
Kingery claims to have campaigned in 28 states, and has used up $15,000, almost all his own money, in the process. His campaign updates, current into this month, are poignant in a way, because he considers himself a success in that he has done what he wanted to do: travel the country, participate in independent campaign roundtable events, and get his message out. He's set up shop on YouTube and MySpace and has more videos than the one I've shown you. While working odd jobs through the remainder of the campaign season, he intends to contact 200 people a day online, hoping he can get some to spread the word. Without exactly endorsing him, I guess I've done my part. Daniel Kingery is another of the self-selected candidates, and with his homepage leading with the story of his July arrest, I feared the worst about him. But apart from the usual inexcusable errors or typos, I was relieved to see someone who at least aspires to thinking seriously about the political situation. As I've said regarding some of his peers, if there were more voters like some of these candidates, we might well have better candidates across the board.
Lincoln Vindicated? Part One
"I didn't know that Lincoln needed vindicating," a colleague told me on first sight of the book I was reading. Thomas L. Krannawitter thinks he does. His book, Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President, defends the 16th President against attacks on several ideological fronts, but most of them come from the political right.
Krannawitter is a man of the right himself. To be specific, he's a follower of Leo Strauss, the German-American author who is widely regarded as a strong influence on the neocon movement. Strauss himself was a philosopher and apparently believed that life's highest occupation was contemplating the ideal forms. In politics, he was concerned with affirming the existence of "natural right." He believed that by reasoning from our understanding of human nature, we could determine what our "rights" are and how the "right" form of government should work. Convinced that human nature was immutable, Strauss insisted that "natural right" is right for all times and places, and that past political philosophers remain relevant and worthy of our attention today. Krannawitter contends that Lincoln espoused a natural rights doctrine inherited from the Founders and rooted in the Declaration of Independence as much as, if not more than, in the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln is to Straussians as Winston Churchill is to neocons in general; he is the exemplary statesman. While these people admire Churchill for his reputedly relentless hostility to evil, they admire Lincoln for his unswerving commitment to natural rights, especially the Declaration's statement that "all men are created equal." Krannawitter wants to defend Lincoln against charges that he was a self-interested, power-made hypocritical racist, and a poor statesman.
Those charges come from three groups. One group, on the left, is dissatisfied with the prevailing image of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator, perhaps because they infer from Lincoln idolatry that people think that enough has been done for black rights. They emphasize statements in which Lincoln appears to endorse racial inequality or a peaceful ethnic cleansing of blacks (i.e. the American Colonization Society) while criticizing him for failing to be an Abolitionist (i.e. someone who would end slavery immediately and unconditionally). The other two groups are libertarians, who see Lincoln as a harbinger of "big government" and an abuser of executive power, and "paleoconservatives" of the Pat Buchanan stripe, who also abhor big government but seem vaguely nostalgic for an older order of society that was wrongly tossed out with the bath water of slavery.
I'll be mostly concerned, as Krannawitter is, with critics from the right, the best known of which is Thomas DiLorenzo, the author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked. I read Unmasked before preparing this article in order to read a Lincoln critic in his own words. The more recent book of the two, it appears to be a dumbed down, sound-bitey version of The Real Lincoln for talk-radio listeners. It's also noteworthy for the way the war on terror has exacerbated the conflict over Lincoln. The anti-Lincoln conservatives tend also to be anti-war, and now see Lincoln's alleged actions against civil liberties as precursors of the Patriot Act, his assertions of natural rights as akin to neocon propaganda about "freedom," and his accumulation of executive power as a precedent for Bush's excesses. Krannawitter responds in kind, as you'll see, with a defense of presidential prerogatives that applies to both Bush and Lincoln. But we should be careful about applying our opinions on Bush's war to Lincoln's.
Krannawitter attempts to vindicate Lincoln against three main charges: 1) he was a racist; 2)he was wrong to resist Confederate secessionism; and 3)he was the inventor of "big government" and really waged the Civil War to foist in on an unwilling nation. The author will contend that just about all of Lincoln's statements and actions are comprehensible and justifiable within the context of natural rights philosophy. At the same time, he presents Lincoln as a role model for statesmanlike prudence as opposed to the irresponsible radicalism of Abolitionists. His explicit intent is to restore Lincoln's status as an unambiguous American hero. He explains the stakes here (p.8):
I have a problem with this statement. My reading of the Founders tells me that it is precisely because they thought any politician capable of being a scoundrel that they considered it necessary for people to take an active part in political life. Politics required vigilance against the advent of scoundrels, but that didn't make the Founders cynical or apathetic. You could just as easily argue that teaching children to revere people like Lincoln as irreproachable heroes might inspire some to become politicians themselves, but could leave the rest inclined to abandon vigilance and trust their leaders, especially if the leaders parrot Lincoln's rhetoric. Krannawitter would have us contemplate Abraham Lincoln as something like an ideal form of a statesman. Before we can accept his invitation, his own account must stand up to critical scrutiny.
Rather than inflict one gigantic text on you, and to give myself time to do more candidate profiles, I'm going to deal with Krannawitter in parts. In three separate articles, I'll address the three major charges against Lincoln and how Krannawitter defends his hero. In a final article I'll address remaining issues and attempt a conclusion on the relevance of all this to contemporary politics. This project is an indulgence of my part and gives me a chance to flex some long lax historiographic muscles, but I hope to keep it interesting for more casual readers. And if we're "lucky," merely raising the topic will attract some interesting, albeit possibly nameless commentary. Stay tuned.
Krannawitter is a man of the right himself. To be specific, he's a follower of Leo Strauss, the German-American author who is widely regarded as a strong influence on the neocon movement. Strauss himself was a philosopher and apparently believed that life's highest occupation was contemplating the ideal forms. In politics, he was concerned with affirming the existence of "natural right." He believed that by reasoning from our understanding of human nature, we could determine what our "rights" are and how the "right" form of government should work. Convinced that human nature was immutable, Strauss insisted that "natural right" is right for all times and places, and that past political philosophers remain relevant and worthy of our attention today. Krannawitter contends that Lincoln espoused a natural rights doctrine inherited from the Founders and rooted in the Declaration of Independence as much as, if not more than, in the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln is to Straussians as Winston Churchill is to neocons in general; he is the exemplary statesman. While these people admire Churchill for his reputedly relentless hostility to evil, they admire Lincoln for his unswerving commitment to natural rights, especially the Declaration's statement that "all men are created equal." Krannawitter wants to defend Lincoln against charges that he was a self-interested, power-made hypocritical racist, and a poor statesman.
Those charges come from three groups. One group, on the left, is dissatisfied with the prevailing image of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator, perhaps because they infer from Lincoln idolatry that people think that enough has been done for black rights. They emphasize statements in which Lincoln appears to endorse racial inequality or a peaceful ethnic cleansing of blacks (i.e. the American Colonization Society) while criticizing him for failing to be an Abolitionist (i.e. someone who would end slavery immediately and unconditionally). The other two groups are libertarians, who see Lincoln as a harbinger of "big government" and an abuser of executive power, and "paleoconservatives" of the Pat Buchanan stripe, who also abhor big government but seem vaguely nostalgic for an older order of society that was wrongly tossed out with the bath water of slavery.
I'll be mostly concerned, as Krannawitter is, with critics from the right, the best known of which is Thomas DiLorenzo, the author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked. I read Unmasked before preparing this article in order to read a Lincoln critic in his own words. The more recent book of the two, it appears to be a dumbed down, sound-bitey version of The Real Lincoln for talk-radio listeners. It's also noteworthy for the way the war on terror has exacerbated the conflict over Lincoln. The anti-Lincoln conservatives tend also to be anti-war, and now see Lincoln's alleged actions against civil liberties as precursors of the Patriot Act, his assertions of natural rights as akin to neocon propaganda about "freedom," and his accumulation of executive power as a precedent for Bush's excesses. Krannawitter responds in kind, as you'll see, with a defense of presidential prerogatives that applies to both Bush and Lincoln. But we should be careful about applying our opinions on Bush's war to Lincoln's.
Krannawitter attempts to vindicate Lincoln against three main charges: 1) he was a racist; 2)he was wrong to resist Confederate secessionism; and 3)he was the inventor of "big government" and really waged the Civil War to foist in on an unwilling nation. The author will contend that just about all of Lincoln's statements and actions are comprehensible and justifiable within the context of natural rights philosophy. At the same time, he presents Lincoln as a role model for statesmanlike prudence as opposed to the irresponsible radicalism of Abolitionists. His explicit intent is to restore Lincoln's status as an unambiguous American hero. He explains the stakes here (p.8):
When critics attempt to knock Lincoln out of the pantheon of American heroes, they add to the growing cynicism of American politics. After all, if Americans come to believe that the president reputed to be the greatest was in truth a scoundrel unworthy of respect, then surely they will view all lesser politicians as such, adding to the mistaken idea that there is nothing noble or beautiful about politics, that politics entails nothing more than base and greedy grabs for power. Such political cyncism, at best, breeds political apathy. The lower our view of politics becomes, the more we tune out of politics and tune in to our private pursuits and private interests. But if we do not pay attention to politics, then who will hold our government accountable to constitutional and moral standards?
I have a problem with this statement. My reading of the Founders tells me that it is precisely because they thought any politician capable of being a scoundrel that they considered it necessary for people to take an active part in political life. Politics required vigilance against the advent of scoundrels, but that didn't make the Founders cynical or apathetic. You could just as easily argue that teaching children to revere people like Lincoln as irreproachable heroes might inspire some to become politicians themselves, but could leave the rest inclined to abandon vigilance and trust their leaders, especially if the leaders parrot Lincoln's rhetoric. Krannawitter would have us contemplate Abraham Lincoln as something like an ideal form of a statesman. Before we can accept his invitation, his own account must stand up to critical scrutiny.
Rather than inflict one gigantic text on you, and to give myself time to do more candidate profiles, I'm going to deal with Krannawitter in parts. In three separate articles, I'll address the three major charges against Lincoln and how Krannawitter defends his hero. In a final article I'll address remaining issues and attempt a conclusion on the relevance of all this to contemporary politics. This project is an indulgence of my part and gives me a chance to flex some long lax historiographic muscles, but I hope to keep it interesting for more casual readers. And if we're "lucky," merely raising the topic will attract some interesting, albeit possibly nameless commentary. Stay tuned.
The American Bipolarchy: "Equal coverage doesn't make sense"
"Challengers to powerful incumbents, candidates and their supporters from smaller parties -- like the Greens and the Libertarians -- often complain they're hurt by too little coverage," columnist Charlotte Grimes notes in today's Albany Times Union, "Critics of both the press and of politics say the comparative silence on alternative candidates and policies reinforces the two-party dominance of Republicans and Democrats, narrows the range of political thought and denies voters more choices."
Grimes isn't going to deny it, but she's definitely going to rationalize it. She quotes her national editor, Paul Gibbons, who justifies the exclusion of independents from coverage of the presidential campaign as "a matter of space. Every inch of copy we would give a minor candidate subtracts from the space available for covering the candidates our readers are most likely to vote for."
In other words, precisely because readers are already well aware of the candidacies of Senators McCain and Obama, the Times Union should give them even more coverage. That's Grimes's own view. "Journalists cannot -- and should not -- give equal coverage to all candidates," she writes, "Equal coverage for, say, Ralph Nader as to Republicans John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama would quite simply distort the reality of the presidential race."
What is the "reality of the presidential race?" For brevity's sake, let's boil it down to two options. One reality is that there are far more than two candidates running, some of whom may have useful ideas to contribute to our ongoing national debates. The other reality is that only two candidates have a "realistic" chance to win, and thus are the only ones worth covering. The first option involves nothing more than telling the truth. The second, chosen by Grimes and the Times Union, is to treat the presidential election like a sports event.
"It would be inaccurate to suggest by the amount of coverage that all the candidates were competing at the same level," Grimes adds. In other words, it'd be inaccurate to inform your readers that there are candidates who are just as much entitled to their votes as McCain and Obama. It'd be inaccurate to have one story in your paper every day detailing the positions of a non-frivolous independent candidate rather than report on the latest speech in which McCain or Obama repeats the same points he's been making for a month or more. It's somehow inaccurate to put aside the latest exegesis of the newest campaign ad, which people can see for themselves anyway, in favor of informing people that there are always more than two choices in a presidential campaign. It's inaccurate, as far as Grimes is concerned, and perhaps a disservice to the public to tell them about a candidate who doesn't have a chance to win. A real journalist might want to inform the public of all the choices available to them, but Grimes is as much a journalist as a racetrack handicapper.
Here's how Grimes dares to justify the exclusion of independent candidates -- it's their fault: "It's the candidate's responsibility, after all, to knock on doors, shake hands at factory gates, kiss babies at the state fair, inspire volunteers to help them campaign and raise their profiles high enough to warrant more coverage." Notice what's missing in her little laundry list. It's only the most important thing under current circumstances, which is raising money. Does Charlotte Grimes really believe that door-knocking and baby-kissing can make up for the typical independent candidate's inability to afford TV advertising, the handicap that makes them all appear inferior to Democrats and Republicans, whatever the quality of their ideas? Maybe if we banned political advertising from television -- not subsidized, but banned it, because otherwise candidates still have to pay the big bucks to all the creative people to produce a professional looking ad, -- we could rate candidates by how well they press the flesh. To suggest that Democrats and Republicans have reached their positions in the American Bipolarchy by shaking hands with more people than anyone else takes ignorance to the brink of willful ignorance. Maybe Grimes doesn't want to know about independents. Maybe they're all just wackos to her. She's entitled to her opinion, but it's unworthy of being printed in a newspaper.
For those who are as bugged about this as I am, but don't have blogs of their own to blow steam in, Grimes has conveniently provided an e-mail address. It is cgrimes08@gmail.com.
Grimes isn't going to deny it, but she's definitely going to rationalize it. She quotes her national editor, Paul Gibbons, who justifies the exclusion of independents from coverage of the presidential campaign as "a matter of space. Every inch of copy we would give a minor candidate subtracts from the space available for covering the candidates our readers are most likely to vote for."
In other words, precisely because readers are already well aware of the candidacies of Senators McCain and Obama, the Times Union should give them even more coverage. That's Grimes's own view. "Journalists cannot -- and should not -- give equal coverage to all candidates," she writes, "Equal coverage for, say, Ralph Nader as to Republicans John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama would quite simply distort the reality of the presidential race."
What is the "reality of the presidential race?" For brevity's sake, let's boil it down to two options. One reality is that there are far more than two candidates running, some of whom may have useful ideas to contribute to our ongoing national debates. The other reality is that only two candidates have a "realistic" chance to win, and thus are the only ones worth covering. The first option involves nothing more than telling the truth. The second, chosen by Grimes and the Times Union, is to treat the presidential election like a sports event.
"It would be inaccurate to suggest by the amount of coverage that all the candidates were competing at the same level," Grimes adds. In other words, it'd be inaccurate to inform your readers that there are candidates who are just as much entitled to their votes as McCain and Obama. It'd be inaccurate to have one story in your paper every day detailing the positions of a non-frivolous independent candidate rather than report on the latest speech in which McCain or Obama repeats the same points he's been making for a month or more. It's somehow inaccurate to put aside the latest exegesis of the newest campaign ad, which people can see for themselves anyway, in favor of informing people that there are always more than two choices in a presidential campaign. It's inaccurate, as far as Grimes is concerned, and perhaps a disservice to the public to tell them about a candidate who doesn't have a chance to win. A real journalist might want to inform the public of all the choices available to them, but Grimes is as much a journalist as a racetrack handicapper.
Here's how Grimes dares to justify the exclusion of independent candidates -- it's their fault: "It's the candidate's responsibility, after all, to knock on doors, shake hands at factory gates, kiss babies at the state fair, inspire volunteers to help them campaign and raise their profiles high enough to warrant more coverage." Notice what's missing in her little laundry list. It's only the most important thing under current circumstances, which is raising money. Does Charlotte Grimes really believe that door-knocking and baby-kissing can make up for the typical independent candidate's inability to afford TV advertising, the handicap that makes them all appear inferior to Democrats and Republicans, whatever the quality of their ideas? Maybe if we banned political advertising from television -- not subsidized, but banned it, because otherwise candidates still have to pay the big bucks to all the creative people to produce a professional looking ad, -- we could rate candidates by how well they press the flesh. To suggest that Democrats and Republicans have reached their positions in the American Bipolarchy by shaking hands with more people than anyone else takes ignorance to the brink of willful ignorance. Maybe Grimes doesn't want to know about independents. Maybe they're all just wackos to her. She's entitled to her opinion, but it's unworthy of being printed in a newspaper.
For those who are as bugged about this as I am, but don't have blogs of their own to blow steam in, Grimes has conveniently provided an e-mail address. It is cgrimes08@gmail.com.
10 August 2008
South Ossetia On My MInd
Descended from the Alan people, and onetime inhabitants of the land of the Golden Fleece, the Ossetians were scattered by the Mongol invasions of the late Middle Ages. One of three major population concentrations of refugees was in the kingdom that the western world calls "Georgia." Georgia itself fell under the influence of the Persian Empire until it was annexed by Russia early in the 19th century. While "South Ossetia" is part of Georgia, "North Ossetia" is part of Russia. Further lands conquered in the region conquered by Russia, including Abkhazia, were attached to Georgia. Upon the fall of the Romanov dynasty in 1917, Georgia declared its independence, which lasted until 1921. During that time, the South Ossetians rose against the Georgians. When the Bolsheviks consolidated their rule in the region, they made South Ossetia an "autonomous oblast" within Georgia. After Georgia claimed its independence from the moribund USSR, the South Ossetians were among several groups, including the Abkhazians, that demanded independence from or regional autonomy within Georgia. As relations between Ossetians and Russians have reportedly been friendly through history, Russia elects to act as a protector of Ossetians rights. It has peacekeepers within the region and has this weekend intervened in Georgia in defense of South Ossetian interests.
A superficial glance at on-line references can't really tell me how well Ossetians and Georgians have gotten along in the centuries since the former moved in. Relying on the Internet for objective information is risky, especially if one goes to Wikipedia, where partisans of both groups, not to mention Russians and Americans, have no doubt attempted biased editing. In addition, we should take care to appraise the claims of Ossetians independent of our opinions of their Georgian antagonists or their Russian sponsors. It shouldn't matter whether or not Georgia is an aspiring ally of the United States or if Russia benefits in some way from South Ossetian autonomy. Russia looks like the bad guy now, but how do their actions differ from those taken by the U.S. against Yugoslavia (aka "Serbia") in the interests of Bosnia or Kosovo? Making that equation, however, shouldn't force us into a simplistic equation of Ossetian aspirations with those of Bosniaks and Kosovars. To be honest, I'm just beginning to learn about this region, so I'm not going to offer a neat answer to the present crisis. The most I can do right now is try to set the parameters for an objective discussion, for all the good that will do. Its relevance to American readers really doesn't extend beyond our concern that the Bush administration, not to mention Senators McCain and Obama, don't do or say anything irresponsible for geopolitical, ideological or self-interested reasons.
The Ossetian question has already become a campaign issue thanks to Governor Richardson's accusation that McCain is biased toward Georgia because one of the Republican's advisers was once a lobbyist for that country. Richardson had perhaps missed the fact that his candidate, Obama, has been denouncing the Russian incursion through the weekend in language very similar to McCain's. Richardson would be right to say that American foreign policy generally tends to be biased against Russia, but he should speak for himself on that point before implying that McCain is biased in a way that Obama is not. That having been said, McCain has usually used harsher language for the Putin regime than I can recall hearing from Obama, and his "League of Democracies" notion is almost inherently anti-Russian in character. Obama would win a debate on how to handle Russia almost by default unless he proves himself a Russophobe during the campaign. That remains a possibility, since the Ossetian crisis makes a Russian question more likely part of the coming foreign-policy debate.
Personally, I sympathize with Americans who choose to have no opinion on the matter, but I urge them to look out for politicians who want to make it our business, who'll talk about the Georgian democracy of the "rose revolution" and the debt we owe them for helping us in the war on terror. Skepticism toward American propaganda isn't the same as skepticism toward Georgia's interests in the conflict, but as Americans, we have an obligation to the first before the second.
The timing of it all was odd for me in an entirely personal way. I've just finished reading a book called Vindicating Lincoln, which exposes an ongoing historical debate, mostly taking place right of center in American life, over the legality and justice of President Lincoln's actions against the secession movement of 1860-1. The debate pits neocons, followers of Leo Strauss, and most likely the "establishment" on one side, in favor of Lincoln, and libertarians, "paleocons" and anti-war conservatives on the other side -- leaving the plain racists out of the equation. For the sake of balance, I also read one of the anti-Lincoln books while perusing other recent works and primary sources in my own library. During the coming week I'm going to write a review article that deals with the historical debate and the issues it raises about secession, federalism, the right of revolution, the notion of natural rights, and presidential leadership. My preliminary conclusion is that both sides are wrong about different aspects of history, and that neither is helpful toward drawing an objective conclusion about the Civil War. Beyond that, you'll have to read on.
A superficial glance at on-line references can't really tell me how well Ossetians and Georgians have gotten along in the centuries since the former moved in. Relying on the Internet for objective information is risky, especially if one goes to Wikipedia, where partisans of both groups, not to mention Russians and Americans, have no doubt attempted biased editing. In addition, we should take care to appraise the claims of Ossetians independent of our opinions of their Georgian antagonists or their Russian sponsors. It shouldn't matter whether or not Georgia is an aspiring ally of the United States or if Russia benefits in some way from South Ossetian autonomy. Russia looks like the bad guy now, but how do their actions differ from those taken by the U.S. against Yugoslavia (aka "Serbia") in the interests of Bosnia or Kosovo? Making that equation, however, shouldn't force us into a simplistic equation of Ossetian aspirations with those of Bosniaks and Kosovars. To be honest, I'm just beginning to learn about this region, so I'm not going to offer a neat answer to the present crisis. The most I can do right now is try to set the parameters for an objective discussion, for all the good that will do. Its relevance to American readers really doesn't extend beyond our concern that the Bush administration, not to mention Senators McCain and Obama, don't do or say anything irresponsible for geopolitical, ideological or self-interested reasons.
The Ossetian question has already become a campaign issue thanks to Governor Richardson's accusation that McCain is biased toward Georgia because one of the Republican's advisers was once a lobbyist for that country. Richardson had perhaps missed the fact that his candidate, Obama, has been denouncing the Russian incursion through the weekend in language very similar to McCain's. Richardson would be right to say that American foreign policy generally tends to be biased against Russia, but he should speak for himself on that point before implying that McCain is biased in a way that Obama is not. That having been said, McCain has usually used harsher language for the Putin regime than I can recall hearing from Obama, and his "League of Democracies" notion is almost inherently anti-Russian in character. Obama would win a debate on how to handle Russia almost by default unless he proves himself a Russophobe during the campaign. That remains a possibility, since the Ossetian crisis makes a Russian question more likely part of the coming foreign-policy debate.
Personally, I sympathize with Americans who choose to have no opinion on the matter, but I urge them to look out for politicians who want to make it our business, who'll talk about the Georgian democracy of the "rose revolution" and the debt we owe them for helping us in the war on terror. Skepticism toward American propaganda isn't the same as skepticism toward Georgia's interests in the conflict, but as Americans, we have an obligation to the first before the second.
* * *
08 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Rob Jorgensen
Jorgensen might seem too indecisive to be President if you judge by his answer to Project VoteSmart's request that he name his favorite color. He named red and green. On the other hand, he participated in the Committee For Justice's general indictment of President Bush, which was served on the White House in 2004, and was briefly jailed for his trouble.
Running under the banner of the Justice Party, Jorgensen thinks it's a good omen that he turned 44 in the year the country will elect its 44th president. He believes that Bush has bungled the war on terror, being too concerned with benefiting Haliburton to defend the country from real terrorist threats. He has a curious theory that the September 2001 hijackers, if I understand him correctly, were being guided by nanotech implants in their heads. While he asserts that the technology likely employed to control the hijackers has been developed at the University of Hamburg, where Mohammed Atta studied, it's unclear from Jorgensen's account whether he attributes the implanting to al Qaeda or some other entity.
Jorgensen believes we have to clean up our mess in Iraq and bring Bush to justice. "Bush & Congress made a mistake, so we need to fix it, by fixing Iraq," he writes, "Their Oil is vital to the Global Economy, vital to everyone in the World. Until we can switch to Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars and many other clean energy sources, we are dependent on Oil. We need to fix Iraq, the Country we invaded and destroyed. We need to do what we can to grow Peace and Freedom in that important area of the World. At this point, we are to heavily invested and can not cut our losses and withdraw. " An additional suggestion for Iraq, offered to Project VoteSmart, is "Prayer works miracles."
For homeland security, Jorgensen recommends the Swiss model he experienced during a visit to Bern, included in what he calls the Vidal Onion plan. While he opposes the idea of pre-emptive or preventive war, he thinks law enforcement should have more leeway in monitoring domestic communications. Thinking in the long term, he regards education as one of our best defenses: "The more we educate our Populace, the better we will be able to combat these new technological threats. Biotechnology, Nanatechnology, and many other new emerging technologies hold incredible keys to human advancement. The common man will find it hard to realize their granduer, impact, significance and promise. Unless we invest more in Education, these technologies will continue to be developed in foreign countries and most likely, will again be used against us in the future. "
While Jorgensen is concerned about national security threats, he thinks people shouldn't go overboard with the politics of fear. "Fear is not productive and no way to live life," he writes, "Not even one sparrow will fall dead apart from the will of GOD! "
To turn the economy around, Jorgensen would "claim Bankruptcy on the massive debts and millions were paying just on the interest, Bush and Congress has brought upon our Nation. We need to ask the Europe Union and Germany, in particular to help us recover financially, as their economy was poor in 2002, it's now thriving. " In effect, he proposes a Marshall Plan in reverse, as payback for what we did for Europe after World War II.
One of Jorgensen's more eccentric goals is to eliminate the "New World Order" from our paper currency. That means getting rid of the slogan "Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the dollar and replacing it with "Diversity Is Our Strength."
Rob Jorgensen distinguishes himself from most candidates, major or minor, by declining to solicit campaign contributions. He intends to run an entirely self-financed campaign, and asks anyone who might have donated to him to give the money to the Disabled American Veterans instead. He asks only for volunteer help in spreading the word and write-in votes, which he'd like to read, "In Rob We Trust." While self-financing amounts to unilateral disarmament for a "small business owner" like Jorgensen, his attitude is to be applauded. We can feel certain that this campaign, whatever its other limitations, isn't just a con job. Here's his website.
Running under the banner of the Justice Party, Jorgensen thinks it's a good omen that he turned 44 in the year the country will elect its 44th president. He believes that Bush has bungled the war on terror, being too concerned with benefiting Haliburton to defend the country from real terrorist threats. He has a curious theory that the September 2001 hijackers, if I understand him correctly, were being guided by nanotech implants in their heads. While he asserts that the technology likely employed to control the hijackers has been developed at the University of Hamburg, where Mohammed Atta studied, it's unclear from Jorgensen's account whether he attributes the implanting to al Qaeda or some other entity.
Jorgensen believes we have to clean up our mess in Iraq and bring Bush to justice. "Bush & Congress made a mistake, so we need to fix it, by fixing Iraq," he writes, "Their Oil is vital to the Global Economy, vital to everyone in the World. Until we can switch to Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars and many other clean energy sources, we are dependent on Oil. We need to fix Iraq, the Country we invaded and destroyed. We need to do what we can to grow Peace and Freedom in that important area of the World. At this point, we are to heavily invested and can not cut our losses and withdraw. " An additional suggestion for Iraq, offered to Project VoteSmart, is "Prayer works miracles."
For homeland security, Jorgensen recommends the Swiss model he experienced during a visit to Bern, included in what he calls the Vidal Onion plan. While he opposes the idea of pre-emptive or preventive war, he thinks law enforcement should have more leeway in monitoring domestic communications. Thinking in the long term, he regards education as one of our best defenses: "The more we educate our Populace, the better we will be able to combat these new technological threats. Biotechnology, Nanatechnology, and many other new emerging technologies hold incredible keys to human advancement. The common man will find it hard to realize their granduer, impact, significance and promise. Unless we invest more in Education, these technologies will continue to be developed in foreign countries and most likely, will again be used against us in the future. "
While Jorgensen is concerned about national security threats, he thinks people shouldn't go overboard with the politics of fear. "Fear is not productive and no way to live life," he writes, "Not even one sparrow will fall dead apart from the will of GOD! "
To turn the economy around, Jorgensen would "claim Bankruptcy on the massive debts and millions were paying just on the interest, Bush and Congress has brought upon our Nation. We need to ask the Europe Union and Germany, in particular to help us recover financially, as their economy was poor in 2002, it's now thriving. " In effect, he proposes a Marshall Plan in reverse, as payback for what we did for Europe after World War II.
One of Jorgensen's more eccentric goals is to eliminate the "New World Order" from our paper currency. That means getting rid of the slogan "Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the dollar and replacing it with "Diversity Is Our Strength."
Rob Jorgensen distinguishes himself from most candidates, major or minor, by declining to solicit campaign contributions. He intends to run an entirely self-financed campaign, and asks anyone who might have donated to him to give the money to the Disabled American Veterans instead. He asks only for volunteer help in spreading the word and write-in votes, which he'd like to read, "In Rob We Trust." While self-financing amounts to unilateral disarmament for a "small business owner" like Jorgensen, his attitude is to be applauded. We can feel certain that this campaign, whatever its other limitations, isn't just a con job. Here's his website.
John Edwards's Self-Criticism
Watching the former senator and erstwhile presidential candidate today, I was reminded of the "self-criticisms" that Communist regimes, particularly Maoist China, required officials to perform when they deviated from the party line, i.e., Mao's will. In the United States, politicians labor under a similar tyranny that requires them to admit themselves to be wicked for doing what countless millions of ordinary citizens also do. What "line" is being enforced? That's hard to say. Your first guess might be conventional morality, the sanctity of marriage, the virtue of fidelity, etc. But on occasions like these you might be as likely to see feminists, often opposed on principle to the self-styled "moral majority," joining in the denunciations. For them, the crime isn't mere infidelity, but the betrayal of women by men. The Edwards story appears to repeat the Clinton archetype, the husband straying from a wife who has become, or always has been, more of a political colleague than a lover, with the added sleaze factor of Edwards cheating on a sick if not moribund mate. A decade ago, Larry Flynt demonstrated that this wasn't a particular failing of Democrats, but many Republicans still pretend that it is.
It's probably as simple as this: if you deceive your wife, won't you deceive the American people? Never mind that there are two different categories of conduct involved; lying is lying, infidelity is infidelity. But do the people who still idolize FDR and JFK today feel that their heroes lied to them by making it appear that they were faithful to their wives? Have they come to believe that either man lied about other things? Even today, Bill Clinton's infidelities haven't broken the strange bond of empathy he shares with many Americans. If people feel that Clinton sold them out, it has little if anything to do with his treatment of the current Senator.
Is Edwards's political career ruined? He's probably disqualified from consideration as Senator Obama's running mate, but should he be considered incompetent for any future political role? He will be to the extent that Americans believe that "character" matters in candidates -- but how much does it matter? The present President's last-ditch supporters still insist that his "decency" and "morality" place him above his predecessor even before we compare policies. But let's grant for argument's sake that all that twelve-stepping has firmed up Bush's moral fiber, and that as a husband his conduct is unimpeachable. For all that, he carried on the selling out of the American economy and sent thousands of Americans to their deaths for no good reason. Morality in the domestic (i.e. marital) sense of the word is no indicator of ethics or political wisdom. Experience should teach us not to write off Edwards. He wasn't running for the office of anybody's spouse, after all, so let him be judged in the future by the qualities appropriate to the job he seeks. If we can get over his unctuous accent, we can forgive other details.
It's probably as simple as this: if you deceive your wife, won't you deceive the American people? Never mind that there are two different categories of conduct involved; lying is lying, infidelity is infidelity. But do the people who still idolize FDR and JFK today feel that their heroes lied to them by making it appear that they were faithful to their wives? Have they come to believe that either man lied about other things? Even today, Bill Clinton's infidelities haven't broken the strange bond of empathy he shares with many Americans. If people feel that Clinton sold them out, it has little if anything to do with his treatment of the current Senator.
Is Edwards's political career ruined? He's probably disqualified from consideration as Senator Obama's running mate, but should he be considered incompetent for any future political role? He will be to the extent that Americans believe that "character" matters in candidates -- but how much does it matter? The present President's last-ditch supporters still insist that his "decency" and "morality" place him above his predecessor even before we compare policies. But let's grant for argument's sake that all that twelve-stepping has firmed up Bush's moral fiber, and that as a husband his conduct is unimpeachable. For all that, he carried on the selling out of the American economy and sent thousands of Americans to their deaths for no good reason. Morality in the domestic (i.e. marital) sense of the word is no indicator of ethics or political wisdom. Experience should teach us not to write off Edwards. He wasn't running for the office of anybody's spouse, after all, so let him be judged in the future by the qualities appropriate to the job he seeks. If we can get over his unctuous accent, we can forgive other details.
07 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Daniel Imperato
Imperato separates himself from most of his independent peers by doing something they would find abhorrent, He has a bilingual campaign website. The English-language version details his career to date. He is "a global businessman in the areas of telecommunications, commercial office building development, sports arenas, entertainment facilities, shopping malls and consulting for Fortune 500 corporations." To scare some people, let me add that he's a Knight of Malta and a Knight of the Orden Bonaria, which he represents at the United Nations.
In addition, "As a responsible citizen, Daniel Imperato has done many things to help better our country and the world. He has selflessly dedicated his time to the African Center Foundation, a United Nations NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), where he know serves as a trustee, and head of the Palm Beach branch. Through the African Center Foundation, Daniel has become a leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS which greatly plagues Africa. "
Imperato appeals to Hispanic voters, and "believes that he can bridge the gap between Americans, start the dialogue that our country needs, and bring people together." As a second-generation American, he appears to be particularly concerned with immigration issues. He calls on Americans to "treat immigrants as people" without qualifying which immigrants he means. He may believe that his hemispheric policy agenda, including "joint manufacturing programs, expansion of labor unions and organized labor into Latin America," may alleviate immigration pressures, but his main priority seems to be to "help the people, teach the people, and organize the people, to compete around the world for a Better Americas. "
On other voters' top priorities, "My strategy for Iraq is to implement an immediate cease fire, strengthen our troop base, and join with the Arab states for a long-term peace solution. We must get support within the Iraqi leadership to collaborate with, and bring peace to Iraq. In addition, America must setup a payback system for the US taxpayers and the money that they have spent in Iraq using revenues from oil sales. Iraq and its people must have compassion for the US troops that we've put in harm's way to protect their future democracy. "
On energy, he's as much concerned for the rest of the hemisphere as for the U.S. "My policy will begin with the diversity of energy solutions, such as an improved and stronger relationships with countries in South America like Brazil, Venezuela, and Bolivia. We then must develop, and equally distribute, throughout the Americas ethanol, biodiesel, wind, and solar, electric powered processes. "
Imperato has an unusual plan for bolstering the Social Security system. He wants to reform the tax structure in order to steer more charitable donations into Social Security rather than into "charities that do little for the American people." He would place limits on charitable contributions to anything other than Social Security. "That way, wealthy Americans, who wish to have the largest tax deductions through charitable donations, will donate back to the American people and the Social Security Charitable Fund that will be run by we the people. "
After having vied unsuccessfully for the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Reform nominations, Imperato apparently is still campaigning as an "independent libertarian." Like Senator Obama, he has been touring foreign countries, albeit more stealthily, including an encounter with a Ugandan reporter last month. The following campaign video was posted to YouTube in May. With no reflections intended on Imperato's personality or platform, I have to say it is probably the worst campaign commercial I have ever seen. Take a look for yourself, then visit Imperato's website.
In addition, "As a responsible citizen, Daniel Imperato has done many things to help better our country and the world. He has selflessly dedicated his time to the African Center Foundation, a United Nations NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), where he know serves as a trustee, and head of the Palm Beach branch. Through the African Center Foundation, Daniel has become a leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS which greatly plagues Africa. "
Imperato appeals to Hispanic voters, and "believes that he can bridge the gap between Americans, start the dialogue that our country needs, and bring people together." As a second-generation American, he appears to be particularly concerned with immigration issues. He calls on Americans to "treat immigrants as people" without qualifying which immigrants he means. He may believe that his hemispheric policy agenda, including "joint manufacturing programs, expansion of labor unions and organized labor into Latin America," may alleviate immigration pressures, but his main priority seems to be to "help the people, teach the people, and organize the people, to compete around the world for a Better Americas. "
On other voters' top priorities, "My strategy for Iraq is to implement an immediate cease fire, strengthen our troop base, and join with the Arab states for a long-term peace solution. We must get support within the Iraqi leadership to collaborate with, and bring peace to Iraq. In addition, America must setup a payback system for the US taxpayers and the money that they have spent in Iraq using revenues from oil sales. Iraq and its people must have compassion for the US troops that we've put in harm's way to protect their future democracy. "
On energy, he's as much concerned for the rest of the hemisphere as for the U.S. "My policy will begin with the diversity of energy solutions, such as an improved and stronger relationships with countries in South America like Brazil, Venezuela, and Bolivia. We then must develop, and equally distribute, throughout the Americas ethanol, biodiesel, wind, and solar, electric powered processes. "
Imperato has an unusual plan for bolstering the Social Security system. He wants to reform the tax structure in order to steer more charitable donations into Social Security rather than into "charities that do little for the American people." He would place limits on charitable contributions to anything other than Social Security. "That way, wealthy Americans, who wish to have the largest tax deductions through charitable donations, will donate back to the American people and the Social Security Charitable Fund that will be run by we the people. "
After having vied unsuccessfully for the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Reform nominations, Imperato apparently is still campaigning as an "independent libertarian." Like Senator Obama, he has been touring foreign countries, albeit more stealthily, including an encounter with a Ugandan reporter last month. The following campaign video was posted to YouTube in May. With no reflections intended on Imperato's personality or platform, I have to say it is probably the worst campaign commercial I have ever seen. Take a look for yourself, then visit Imperato's website.
Presumption of Innocence
Raymond Hunter Geisel is being prosecuted for allegedly saying that he would like to kill Senator Obama and/or President Bush. We ought to view his case the same way we've learned to think about alleged terrorist cells that get broken up. In these cases, the plots that the government boasts of thwarting prove to be little more than pipe dreams or wishful thinking. Geisel happened to own guns, and might be considered a gun nut, but words and gun ownership do not prove that the man planned to kill a politician. Given what we know about Geisel, some people might say "better safe than sorry," but the logical extension of that thought is the pre-emptive imprisonment of anyone who thinks that revolutionary change might someday be necessary for this country. That would be inconsistent with a nation founded on an affirmation of the right to revolution. The nation need not acquiesce or capitulate to any new revolution without a fight, but until someone is actually fighting, there should be some room for theoretical talk, even if it sounds violent or dangerous. In some cases, revolutionary talk might well serve as a warning that the country is going wrong, or as a cue for peaceful reform. In others, it can all be dismissed as crackpot talk. But if we arrest people for talk alone, without proof of concrete plans for action, then we've established "thoughtcrime" as a legal category, and it might well be time for people to consider all their options.
06 August 2008
An Honorary Presidential Candidate
Paris Hilton is as yet too young to actually become the President of the United States, but in keeping with her airhead persona, she has issued a "commercial" in which she assumes a candidacy from the fact that Senator McCain referred to her in one of his commercials. She proceeds to summarize a "hot" energy plan, showing unexpected skill in reading cue cards before resuming her tanning session by the pool.
The Hilton family is aggrieved by McCain's use of Paris's image as a symbol of vapid celebrity with which he seeks to equate Senator Obama. Their grievance is a little elusive to me, since they themselves trade on Paris's vapidity and the paradox of her being famous for being famous. They've done such a good job that I often wonder whether Paris isn't putting us on, affecting a pose in order to slum among more stupid celebrities whom she manipulates into making spectacles of themselves for her own amusement. That might be why she resents McCain even briefly making a political issue of her persona.
In any event, I would have shown you the "commercial," except that it's been pulled from YouTube due to the proprietary claim of the site where it first appeared. Out of spite, I will not link you to the footage, but you'll probably have seen it already by the time you've read this. I expect momentarily to see sales of "Paris for President" paraphernalia, with the woman herself no doubt aiming to profit from it all -- and why shouldn't she? It would only further my suspicions of her true nature to see her profiting off other people's stupidity, especially if people realize it's all a joke and then pay her anyway.
The Hilton family is aggrieved by McCain's use of Paris's image as a symbol of vapid celebrity with which he seeks to equate Senator Obama. Their grievance is a little elusive to me, since they themselves trade on Paris's vapidity and the paradox of her being famous for being famous. They've done such a good job that I often wonder whether Paris isn't putting us on, affecting a pose in order to slum among more stupid celebrities whom she manipulates into making spectacles of themselves for her own amusement. That might be why she resents McCain even briefly making a political issue of her persona.
In any event, I would have shown you the "commercial," except that it's been pulled from YouTube due to the proprietary claim of the site where it first appeared. Out of spite, I will not link you to the footage, but you'll probably have seen it already by the time you've read this. I expect momentarily to see sales of "Paris for President" paraphernalia, with the woman herself no doubt aiming to profit from it all -- and why shouldn't she? It would only further my suspicions of her true nature to see her profiting off other people's stupidity, especially if people realize it's all a joke and then pay her anyway.
The Presidential Candidates: Brian Holland
Asked by Project VoteSmart to name his personal hero, Holland named Huey Long, the Louisiana political strongman of the 1920s and 30s and the inspiration for the Willie Stark character in All the King's Men. Holland cited Long because "he simultaneously embodied everything both right and wrong with America." That makes the choosing look as interesting as the choice.
At his campaign website, Holland describes himself as "an American patriot and majority rights advocate." While one could argue that "majority rights advocate" might just be another way of saying you're a small-d democrat, you may have already guessed that Holland identifies the majority with a specific group of people. To clarify, he explains that he is "the first real pro White candidate in the nation to appear on a general election ballot! "
Holland "has a plan to return America to greatness." This involves no longer "acting as the world's caretaker." Beside pulling out of foreign entanglements, his "top priority is closing the borders and protecting the culture. Our programs would see the borders secured immediately, and anyone not wishing to become a part of our great nation's culture would be removed. America is a melting pot, not a "multi cultural" hodge podge. "
On Iraq, Holland presents himself as a moderate: "I did not support our invasion of Iraq to begin with, and I wish it had not happened. However, I have the sense to know that an immediate and complete withdrawal of forces would be disastrous. I would implement a timely and efficient plan to bring our brave men and women home from Iraq as soon as possible, and remove them from harm's way."
On economics, Holland largely restricts himself to feeling people's pain: "There are people who are having trouble making ends meet. There are people losing their homes. There are people so far in debt, they may think that they will never get back on their feet. These are the people who we should reach out to. Assistance should only be given to those who earn it. Those who make a living checking their mail boxes for a monthly check will need to look elsewhere, because America can no longer carry them." At Project VoteSmart, he supports across-the-board tax cuts, and would eliminate taxes for the lowest income levels.
Holland has been endorsed by the National Socialist Movement, of which he is a member, after a contentious process during which he has been accused of "splitting the White movement." I present the NSM program without comment. Holland's affiliation with a movement that espouses Adolf Hitler's fuehrerprinzip raises the question of the extent to which he'll be influenced by NSM Commander Jeff Schoep, but he's yet to make the equivalent of Mitt Romney's speech during the Republican primary season. Holland's main rival for leadership in the movement, John Taylor Bowles, reportedly suffered a heart attack last month, effectively leaving the field to Holland. One can only hope that his interest in Huey Long reflects some critical self-awareness on Holland's part.
Holland's campaign site promises some YouTube content. I found none, but it's possible that some was taken down recently. His site is otherwise somewhat up to date, the most recent press releases and blog entries dating from June. One of the recent press releases boasts that Holland is being listed by Project VoteSmart, but as any reader of this blog will affirm, getting listed there is no great mark of distinction. Still, it's a struggle for any independent to get a message out, so I won't begrudge Holland his milestone.
At his campaign website, Holland describes himself as "an American patriot and majority rights advocate." While one could argue that "majority rights advocate" might just be another way of saying you're a small-d democrat, you may have already guessed that Holland identifies the majority with a specific group of people. To clarify, he explains that he is "the first real pro White candidate in the nation to appear on a general election ballot! "
Holland "has a plan to return America to greatness." This involves no longer "acting as the world's caretaker." Beside pulling out of foreign entanglements, his "top priority is closing the borders and protecting the culture. Our programs would see the borders secured immediately, and anyone not wishing to become a part of our great nation's culture would be removed. America is a melting pot, not a "multi cultural" hodge podge. "
On Iraq, Holland presents himself as a moderate: "I did not support our invasion of Iraq to begin with, and I wish it had not happened. However, I have the sense to know that an immediate and complete withdrawal of forces would be disastrous. I would implement a timely and efficient plan to bring our brave men and women home from Iraq as soon as possible, and remove them from harm's way."
On economics, Holland largely restricts himself to feeling people's pain: "There are people who are having trouble making ends meet. There are people losing their homes. There are people so far in debt, they may think that they will never get back on their feet. These are the people who we should reach out to. Assistance should only be given to those who earn it. Those who make a living checking their mail boxes for a monthly check will need to look elsewhere, because America can no longer carry them." At Project VoteSmart, he supports across-the-board tax cuts, and would eliminate taxes for the lowest income levels.
Holland has been endorsed by the National Socialist Movement, of which he is a member, after a contentious process during which he has been accused of "splitting the White movement." I present the NSM program without comment. Holland's affiliation with a movement that espouses Adolf Hitler's fuehrerprinzip raises the question of the extent to which he'll be influenced by NSM Commander Jeff Schoep, but he's yet to make the equivalent of Mitt Romney's speech during the Republican primary season. Holland's main rival for leadership in the movement, John Taylor Bowles, reportedly suffered a heart attack last month, effectively leaving the field to Holland. One can only hope that his interest in Huey Long reflects some critical self-awareness on Holland's part.
Holland's campaign site promises some YouTube content. I found none, but it's possible that some was taken down recently. His site is otherwise somewhat up to date, the most recent press releases and blog entries dating from June. One of the recent press releases boasts that Holland is being listed by Project VoteSmart, but as any reader of this blog will affirm, getting listed there is no great mark of distinction. Still, it's a struggle for any independent to get a message out, so I won't begrudge Holland his milestone.
05 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Don J. Grundmann
Not every presidential candidate will promise you "the Truth About the Matrix," and for my part I thought it was a pretentious movie that foundered on the premise that Keanu Reeves was the one anything. Little did I know. The "truth," it turns out, was that Sirhan Sirhan did not kill Robert F. Kennedy. The senator's death was in fact orchestrated by "the matrix," the power behind "the two greatest financial crimes in history," which are the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the imposition of personal income tax. These came into being, Grundmann explains, when the Federal Reserve usurped the government's prerogative to issue money and inflicted income taxes on Americans as a fee for its service.
Grundmann is convinced that Americans have no legal obligation to pay income tax, the Constitution notwithstanding. He believes that the nation has always been capable, and would today still be capable, of funding itself entirely through "indirect" taxes. "Direct" taxes are required to repay the "loan" of money from the Federal Reserve to the government, said money having been made, Grundmann asserts, "from nothing." While the candidate declares his confidence that the government could function without income tax, he also presents an article from one Larken Rose, who basically doesn't give a damn whether it functions or not. If it has functioned on "stolen" money, Rose contends, why should we care whether it continues to do so?
Apart from all the financial chicanery, "the matrix" is also responsible for the legalization and popularization of abortion. As Grundmann explains, "The abortion movement is a long range attack upon humanity which is funded and driven by elite (ultra-rich; Rockefeller, Harriman, etc. ) believers in V2 ( known as " Social Darwinists " ) who have decided that their enemies ( mostly the non-white people of the earth ) must be minimally corralled ( contained ) and ideally destroyed - as in killed and exterminated. Abortion is one ( but not the only ) of their methods for achieving this goal."
The "matrix" apparently also encourages homosexuality. Grundmann cites no less an authority than his rival, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, for the assertion that "the willingness of our political and judicial leaders to embrace homosexuality reveals their rejection of God's moral law and authority." While picketing a 2007 Gay Pride event in Sacramento, Grundmann submits his own theory on the origins of homosexual tendencies.
You have to look under "Other Truth Pills" (keeping up with the Matrix motif) before you find any discussion of Iraq. Even then, Grundmann depends on other writers, headed by "a guy named Joel" who at least has the wisdom to question Saddam Hussein's overthrow, on the suspicion that Islamic fundamentalists will ultimately benefit. The other articles linked to this page also denounce the war and the neocons, again demonstrating the breadth of the potential anti-war coalition in this country. Like many dissidents, Grundmann appears to be somewhat of a "truther" regarding the 2001 attacks on the U.S., though whether he attributes them to the "Matrix" or other malign forces is unclear.
Also unclear is Grundmann's current status. He was supposed to be the candidate of the American Independent Party, an offshoot of the group that nominated George Wallace for President in 1968, after a failed attempt to run as Chuck Baldwin's running mate on the Constitution Party line. However, the party website reports that Grundmann endorsed Baldwin last June and now serves as AIP vice chairman. You won't know this from his own website, however. While this coalescing of candidates and parties is mostly a healthy process as long as it doesn't result in another Bipolarchy, I wish I had known about it before writing this article. Grundmann will go on the list marked as "WITHDRAWN," and he gets no link to his website.
Grundmann is convinced that Americans have no legal obligation to pay income tax, the Constitution notwithstanding. He believes that the nation has always been capable, and would today still be capable, of funding itself entirely through "indirect" taxes. "Direct" taxes are required to repay the "loan" of money from the Federal Reserve to the government, said money having been made, Grundmann asserts, "from nothing." While the candidate declares his confidence that the government could function without income tax, he also presents an article from one Larken Rose, who basically doesn't give a damn whether it functions or not. If it has functioned on "stolen" money, Rose contends, why should we care whether it continues to do so?
Apart from all the financial chicanery, "the matrix" is also responsible for the legalization and popularization of abortion. As Grundmann explains, "The abortion movement is a long range attack upon humanity which is funded and driven by elite (ultra-rich; Rockefeller, Harriman, etc. ) believers in V2 ( known as " Social Darwinists " ) who have decided that their enemies ( mostly the non-white people of the earth ) must be minimally corralled ( contained ) and ideally destroyed - as in killed and exterminated. Abortion is one ( but not the only ) of their methods for achieving this goal."
The "matrix" apparently also encourages homosexuality. Grundmann cites no less an authority than his rival, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, for the assertion that "the willingness of our political and judicial leaders to embrace homosexuality reveals their rejection of God's moral law and authority." While picketing a 2007 Gay Pride event in Sacramento, Grundmann submits his own theory on the origins of homosexual tendencies.
You have to look under "Other Truth Pills" (keeping up with the Matrix motif) before you find any discussion of Iraq. Even then, Grundmann depends on other writers, headed by "a guy named Joel" who at least has the wisdom to question Saddam Hussein's overthrow, on the suspicion that Islamic fundamentalists will ultimately benefit. The other articles linked to this page also denounce the war and the neocons, again demonstrating the breadth of the potential anti-war coalition in this country. Like many dissidents, Grundmann appears to be somewhat of a "truther" regarding the 2001 attacks on the U.S., though whether he attributes them to the "Matrix" or other malign forces is unclear.
Also unclear is Grundmann's current status. He was supposed to be the candidate of the American Independent Party, an offshoot of the group that nominated George Wallace for President in 1968, after a failed attempt to run as Chuck Baldwin's running mate on the Constitution Party line. However, the party website reports that Grundmann endorsed Baldwin last June and now serves as AIP vice chairman. You won't know this from his own website, however. While this coalescing of candidates and parties is mostly a healthy process as long as it doesn't result in another Bipolarchy, I wish I had known about it before writing this article. Grundmann will go on the list marked as "WITHDRAWN," and he gets no link to his website.
Charisma
"They say he's got charisma," Mr. Peepers said abruptly, "But I've got more charisma in my right foot." Trust me on this, but this was a very small estimate of someone's charisma.
"Who are you talking about?" I asked, "Who has so little charisma?"
"O-bamm-a," he answered, pronouncing it to rhyme with "Alabama."
I was certain that Mr. Peepers didn't mean to compare Obama unfavorably with Senator McCain, so I had to ask, "Do you think Clinton has more charisma?" My own disbelief was probably obvious in my question.
"No," he conceded, "But she was our best chance to ever have a lady president."
"Why, do we need to have a lady president?"
"No, but she would have been best for us in New York State," he insisted, "I just don't see that charisma the media is always talking about."
So some people still haven't gotten over it, and not all of them are women. On the other hand, some people will never get it. Remind me to tell you sometime how Mr. Right thinks that Obama is the worst public speaker in American politics ...
"Who are you talking about?" I asked, "Who has so little charisma?"
"O-bamm-a," he answered, pronouncing it to rhyme with "Alabama."
I was certain that Mr. Peepers didn't mean to compare Obama unfavorably with Senator McCain, so I had to ask, "Do you think Clinton has more charisma?" My own disbelief was probably obvious in my question.
"No," he conceded, "But she was our best chance to ever have a lady president."
"Why, do we need to have a lady president?"
"No, but she would have been best for us in New York State," he insisted, "I just don't see that charisma the media is always talking about."
So some people still haven't gotten over it, and not all of them are women. On the other hand, some people will never get it. Remind me to tell you sometime how Mr. Right thinks that Obama is the worst public speaker in American politics ...
Bush and Iraq: A Smoking Gun At Last?
Here's one account of Ron Suskind's finding, to be published in a new book, that the Bush administration knew before the invasion of Iraq that the country had no weapons of mass destruction, and that after the invasion the government ordered the creation of a forged document to implicate Iraq in the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and retroactively justify the invasion. As I also heard on National Public Radio, George Tenet heatedly denies Suskind's version of events, but on one crucial point, the statement by the Iraqi official that his country had no WMD to threaten anyone with, it doesn't matter whether Tenet or anyone else failed to find him credible -- he was correct. As for the other bombshell charge, I withhold comment until I have a chance to read the book and whatever evidence the government chooses to present to refute it. If Susskind is right ... figure it out for yourself.
McCain and Fighting Fair
The latest New Republic has an interesting article on an aspect of Senator McCain that I've been long aware of but hadn't generated much comment over time. McCain is the man who coined the phrase "human cockfighting" to describe the sport of mixed martial arts, particularly the Ultimate Fighting Championships, which started in the early 1990s. Contrary to the article's author, the UFC was not inspired by but predated the movie Fight Club. In any event, McCain appeared often on talk shows in those days to denounce the sport with such vehemence that I had to wonder whether the senator was getting donations from boxing promoters. The article suggests that this was not the case, that McCain was in fact an enemy of Don King, the most notorious promoter, and has demanded stricter regulation of boxing in the fighters' interests.
McCain insists that there is a moral distinction to be drawn between boxing and mixed martial arts, despite claims from the UFC and other promotions that their sport is safer and less corrupt than boxing. While the Arizonan reportedly has downplayed the distinction in light of reforms in UFC rules, he remains a major boxing fan and seems to buy into the whole concept of boxing as the "manly art of self-defense." From the perspective of a boxing fan, mixed martial arts, especially in its early days, "appeared ... lawless and wild and utterly without the supposedly dignified 'honor' of an old-school heavyweight fight," Michael Crowley explains.
When I first saw a UFC tournament in the mid-90s, it resembled the sort of tournament you might see in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie from the 80s. It was as much a competition among styles of fighting as it was a contest of individuals. Fighters of all disciplines and weight classes faced one another, boxers fighting sumo wrestlers, grapplers against self-styled "pit fighters," and so on. This was bound to look chaotic to some observers, and has since been altered to separate weight classes, but why should it appear less honorable than two men punching each other in the face? Crowley suggests that boxing "represents McCain's belief in the honorable war, one in which both sides follow a mutually agreed-upon code of organized violence." Notwithstanding that UFC, even in its earliest days, banned such tactics as biting and gouging, a fight pitting two distinct styles against each other might well look like "asymmetrical warfare" to men like McCain. He might also believe that the less options one allows oneself in a fight makes it more honorable. The ultimate expression of such an ideal would be the pistol duel in which, having fired and missed your man, you were obliged to stand your ground and let him have his shot at you.
Speculation aside, I suspect that McCain's dislike for mixed marital arts reveals his basic conservatism rather than any principle of honor. Boxing only took its modern gloved form fairly late in the 19th century, but in this country that's enough to make it an unassailable tradition for many people. We might ask what exactly makes modern boxing the most "fair" form of fighting, but for people like McCain the fairness and hence the civilized aspect of boxing is beyond dispute. I detect in his reaction to mixed martial arts a hostility to new concepts that in any way challenge his traditional perceptions of honor or fairness. That attitude, if I perceive it correctly, throws his ability to think outside the box and consider solutions to national problems that might offend conservative ideological sensibilities into question. You may consider boxing and Ultimate Fighting equally barbaric, and you might abhor combat sports altogether, but you might still be able to draw a political conclusion from this story.
McCain insists that there is a moral distinction to be drawn between boxing and mixed martial arts, despite claims from the UFC and other promotions that their sport is safer and less corrupt than boxing. While the Arizonan reportedly has downplayed the distinction in light of reforms in UFC rules, he remains a major boxing fan and seems to buy into the whole concept of boxing as the "manly art of self-defense." From the perspective of a boxing fan, mixed martial arts, especially in its early days, "appeared ... lawless and wild and utterly without the supposedly dignified 'honor' of an old-school heavyweight fight," Michael Crowley explains.
When I first saw a UFC tournament in the mid-90s, it resembled the sort of tournament you might see in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie from the 80s. It was as much a competition among styles of fighting as it was a contest of individuals. Fighters of all disciplines and weight classes faced one another, boxers fighting sumo wrestlers, grapplers against self-styled "pit fighters," and so on. This was bound to look chaotic to some observers, and has since been altered to separate weight classes, but why should it appear less honorable than two men punching each other in the face? Crowley suggests that boxing "represents McCain's belief in the honorable war, one in which both sides follow a mutually agreed-upon code of organized violence." Notwithstanding that UFC, even in its earliest days, banned such tactics as biting and gouging, a fight pitting two distinct styles against each other might well look like "asymmetrical warfare" to men like McCain. He might also believe that the less options one allows oneself in a fight makes it more honorable. The ultimate expression of such an ideal would be the pistol duel in which, having fired and missed your man, you were obliged to stand your ground and let him have his shot at you.
Speculation aside, I suspect that McCain's dislike for mixed marital arts reveals his basic conservatism rather than any principle of honor. Boxing only took its modern gloved form fairly late in the 19th century, but in this country that's enough to make it an unassailable tradition for many people. We might ask what exactly makes modern boxing the most "fair" form of fighting, but for people like McCain the fairness and hence the civilized aspect of boxing is beyond dispute. I detect in his reaction to mixed martial arts a hostility to new concepts that in any way challenge his traditional perceptions of honor or fairness. That attitude, if I perceive it correctly, throws his ability to think outside the box and consider solutions to national problems that might offend conservative ideological sensibilities into question. You may consider boxing and Ultimate Fighting equally barbaric, and you might abhor combat sports altogether, but you might still be able to draw a political conclusion from this story.
04 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Jack Grimes
Jackson Kirk Grimes is the candidate of the United Fascist Union. This is his third run for the presidency. "We believe fascism can upgrade humanity and improve the quality of life for all Americans," he tells Project VoteSmart.
Please note: he said "fascism," not Nazism. Grimes actually wants to ban the American Nazi Party and other racist organizations, including the KKK. Fascism, for him, is the ideology of Benito Mussolini, which Grimes describes as "an entirely new form of socialism that could bring about economic equality and create social justice for all men."
Unlike what you'd expect from a fascist, Grimes takes something like a libertarian position on lifestyle issues like smoking bans as well as Bush-era infringements on civil liberty. Also, lest you identify fascism with the socio-political "right" he has this to say about the economy: "the present capitalist system [is] holding down the common American people to a loathsome level economically, while at the same time, these powerful, ruthless capitalists advance their financial status greatly off of their efforts, for which the people receive only a pittance, if anything at all."
Some readers may know that Mussolini started out as a socialist, and ended his career as the leader of the "Italian Social Republic." His experiences in World War I turned him toward a more militaristic view of the state based on his feelings of solidarity with fellow soldiers. Despite everything Grimes declares in the previous paragraph, his fascism, no more than Mussolini's, is not a "liberal" doctrine. The United Fascist Union intends to turn the nation into a military dictatorship, allegedly on the model of "the Republican Commonwealth of Imperial Rome," in which "The people will be regimented, disciplined and controlled and they will stop thinking of themselves as individuals and act as components of the corporate collective."
Why would Americans vote for this? Grimes depends on the appeal of Mussolini's concept of the "Corporate State," which he defines as "an economic system under which government and corporate interests cooperate with each other for the betterment and general welfare of the nation, whereby government makes a profit for the people instead of exploiting them is the perfect antidote to capitalism. "
As President, Grimes intends to meet three goals: replacing paper money with a Transferable Work Point Card; establish a Universal Price Index to put a ceiling on the cost of essentials; and least realistically, "Create a league of nine or ten nations that would form a Confederacy of States to create a global government."
Grimes's campaign portrait with a shabby looking Roman helmet does not inspire confidence in his movement. If anything, it makes the United Fascist Union look like more of a joke than Grimes intends. In the final analysis, there's a major disconnect between Grimes's avowed concern for civil liberties and against discrimination and his vision of global dictatorship. On his website, at least, he fails completely to convince me why submission to his regimentation and control would be a liberating experience. If he wants to overcome popular perceptions of Fascism, much less become President of the United States, Grimes still has a lot of work to do.
On the other hand, there's this video from YouTube. I'm not sure if this comes directly from Grimes or has been enhanced by other hands, but it's definitely a statement of some kind.
Please note: he said "fascism," not Nazism. Grimes actually wants to ban the American Nazi Party and other racist organizations, including the KKK. Fascism, for him, is the ideology of Benito Mussolini, which Grimes describes as "an entirely new form of socialism that could bring about economic equality and create social justice for all men."
Unlike what you'd expect from a fascist, Grimes takes something like a libertarian position on lifestyle issues like smoking bans as well as Bush-era infringements on civil liberty. Also, lest you identify fascism with the socio-political "right" he has this to say about the economy: "the present capitalist system [is] holding down the common American people to a loathsome level economically, while at the same time, these powerful, ruthless capitalists advance their financial status greatly off of their efforts, for which the people receive only a pittance, if anything at all."
Some readers may know that Mussolini started out as a socialist, and ended his career as the leader of the "Italian Social Republic." His experiences in World War I turned him toward a more militaristic view of the state based on his feelings of solidarity with fellow soldiers. Despite everything Grimes declares in the previous paragraph, his fascism, no more than Mussolini's, is not a "liberal" doctrine. The United Fascist Union intends to turn the nation into a military dictatorship, allegedly on the model of "the Republican Commonwealth of Imperial Rome," in which "The people will be regimented, disciplined and controlled and they will stop thinking of themselves as individuals and act as components of the corporate collective."
Why would Americans vote for this? Grimes depends on the appeal of Mussolini's concept of the "Corporate State," which he defines as "an economic system under which government and corporate interests cooperate with each other for the betterment and general welfare of the nation, whereby government makes a profit for the people instead of exploiting them is the perfect antidote to capitalism. "
As President, Grimes intends to meet three goals: replacing paper money with a Transferable Work Point Card; establish a Universal Price Index to put a ceiling on the cost of essentials; and least realistically, "Create a league of nine or ten nations that would form a Confederacy of States to create a global government."
Grimes's campaign portrait with a shabby looking Roman helmet does not inspire confidence in his movement. If anything, it makes the United Fascist Union look like more of a joke than Grimes intends. In the final analysis, there's a major disconnect between Grimes's avowed concern for civil liberties and against discrimination and his vision of global dictatorship. On his website, at least, he fails completely to convince me why submission to his regimentation and control would be a liberating experience. If he wants to overcome popular perceptions of Fascism, much less become President of the United States, Grimes still has a lot of work to do.
On the other hand, there's this video from YouTube. I'm not sure if this comes directly from Grimes or has been enhanced by other hands, but it's definitely a statement of some kind.
New Rules for the "Veepstakes?"
In the newest number of The Nation, John Nichols recommends a democratization of the process of selecting vice-presidential candidates of the major parties. He seems to think this necessary given the "evolution of the office" during the tenures of Al Gore and Dick Cheney, asking, "Is it wise to cede the authority to pick perhaps the next party nominee, and perhaps the next President, to a candidate who seeks merely -- or even primarily -- to get more votes [?]"
In other words, selecting vice-presidential candidates should be democratized because the office has become more powerful. This strikes me as a capitulation to a reality that ought to be contested. Nichols may not want to challenge the ascendancy of an "imperial vice-presidency" because he wishes such power in the hands of a Gore as much as he fears it in the hands of a Cheney. If he doesn't care for the traditional powerless veep whose purpose, according to Harry Truman, was to "go to weddings and funerals," the answer shouldn't be to give the veep more power, nor to legitimize that increased power by making the veep's selection more democratic. That's the same route to the "imperial presidency," which is usually justified on the ground that the President is the representative of the entire people.
Nichols notes that there's been talk of reforming the veep-selection process for over thirty years, including a proposal to elect the president and vice-president on separate lines. Rather than reform the process, why don't we go back to the roots and really shake up the system by re-establishing the rule that the runner-up in the presidential election automatically becomes the Vice President. We only abandoned that rule when party politics began to intrude upon elections, and when the Jeffersonian "Republican" party screwed up its plan to sweep the top two offices in 1800 and found Jefferson tied with his running-mate, Aaron Burr. After that fiasco, a constitutional amendment effectively enshrined party politics into presidential elections by requiring members of the Electoral College to split their two votes between a presidential and a vice-presidential candidate, leading to the formation of party tickets designed to exclude the rival presidential candidate from his once-rightful place in government.
Imagine the spectacle if the runner-up in this year's presidential election became president of the senate, with the power to break tie votes in a body still very closely divided between the major parties. To the extent that it would give an opposition party an additional check upon the majority party, I imagine the Founders would approve. At the same time, the new veep probably wouldn't be stuck attending all those weddings and funerals, either.
In any event, Nichols's suggestion is probably the last thing either Senator McCain or Senator Obama wants to see now. Each is being pressured to choose a running mate he most likely doesn't like. McCain's case may prove the worse one, since in light of reports of pressure on him to choose Mitt Romney, evangelicals have made it known that Romney is unacceptable to them. By comparison, Obama's dilemma is simply to say yes or no to Senator Clinton, and risk the consequences. Of course, either man could happily accept whomever pressure groups ask for if he could get away with relegating the running mate to the oblivion that used to be customary for Vice Presidents. The power is still the President's to give. But to the extent that the genie is out of the bottle, the likes of Romney and Clinton can make their acceptance of second-place conditional on promises of power, especially if their presence on either ticket is considered essential for victory. The best case for some kind of democratization, or for the more radical option of eliminating the office entirely, is to prevent this sort of bargaining for power from taking place away from public scrutiny. But if we could do away with the American Bipolarchy and return to the Founders' design, none of this would really be necessary.
In other words, selecting vice-presidential candidates should be democratized because the office has become more powerful. This strikes me as a capitulation to a reality that ought to be contested. Nichols may not want to challenge the ascendancy of an "imperial vice-presidency" because he wishes such power in the hands of a Gore as much as he fears it in the hands of a Cheney. If he doesn't care for the traditional powerless veep whose purpose, according to Harry Truman, was to "go to weddings and funerals," the answer shouldn't be to give the veep more power, nor to legitimize that increased power by making the veep's selection more democratic. That's the same route to the "imperial presidency," which is usually justified on the ground that the President is the representative of the entire people.
Nichols notes that there's been talk of reforming the veep-selection process for over thirty years, including a proposal to elect the president and vice-president on separate lines. Rather than reform the process, why don't we go back to the roots and really shake up the system by re-establishing the rule that the runner-up in the presidential election automatically becomes the Vice President. We only abandoned that rule when party politics began to intrude upon elections, and when the Jeffersonian "Republican" party screwed up its plan to sweep the top two offices in 1800 and found Jefferson tied with his running-mate, Aaron Burr. After that fiasco, a constitutional amendment effectively enshrined party politics into presidential elections by requiring members of the Electoral College to split their two votes between a presidential and a vice-presidential candidate, leading to the formation of party tickets designed to exclude the rival presidential candidate from his once-rightful place in government.
Imagine the spectacle if the runner-up in this year's presidential election became president of the senate, with the power to break tie votes in a body still very closely divided between the major parties. To the extent that it would give an opposition party an additional check upon the majority party, I imagine the Founders would approve. At the same time, the new veep probably wouldn't be stuck attending all those weddings and funerals, either.
In any event, Nichols's suggestion is probably the last thing either Senator McCain or Senator Obama wants to see now. Each is being pressured to choose a running mate he most likely doesn't like. McCain's case may prove the worse one, since in light of reports of pressure on him to choose Mitt Romney, evangelicals have made it known that Romney is unacceptable to them. By comparison, Obama's dilemma is simply to say yes or no to Senator Clinton, and risk the consequences. Of course, either man could happily accept whomever pressure groups ask for if he could get away with relegating the running mate to the oblivion that used to be customary for Vice Presidents. The power is still the President's to give. But to the extent that the genie is out of the bottle, the likes of Romney and Clinton can make their acceptance of second-place conditional on promises of power, especially if their presence on either ticket is considered essential for victory. The best case for some kind of democratization, or for the more radical option of eliminating the office entirely, is to prevent this sort of bargaining for power from taking place away from public scrutiny. But if we could do away with the American Bipolarchy and return to the Founders' design, none of this would really be necessary.
Curse of the Dark Knight?
If you haven't heard of such a thing, you probably will now, regardless of whether Morgan Freeman recovers from his car wreck. It's just a matter of time before some supermarket tabloid declares it. They've probably been itching to do so since Heath Ledger died, and some may have been ready to go when Christian Bale was arrested. People need to impose patterns on events, which must have "meaning" if we're not all to succumb to nihilistic despair (so some apologists for religion will tell you) and just as some have already speculated that Ledger's performance affected him and hastened his end, so they may also believe that the actor may well have unleashed something larger than himself that is now exerting a malign influence on his co-stars. If people decide to believe this, then anything unfortunate that happens to Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal or Gary Oldman, for starters, for the next few years could likely get attributed to the "curse." I offer this as a prediction, so don't forget that I warned you -- and here's another: the more that people suspect that a curse is at work, the more likely that The Dark Knight will be the number-one movie at the box-office again this weekend.
Probably the most famous "cursed" movie in the public mind is Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955), whose three lead juveniles -- James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo -- all eventually met death by misadventure, Dean having already died before the film was even released. The nearest thing to a really cursed movie, however, is Dick Powell's The Conqueror (1956), the infamous Genghis Khan biopic with John Wayne in the title role. Powell filmed the movie near a nuclear test site, with the apparent consequence that many of the actors, including Wayne and his leading lady, Susan Hayward, died of cancer. There are so many carcinogens in our world, however, that it would be hard to attribute all the casualties to the Conqueror shoot. It might all be just as coincidental as the mishaps that have befallen some Dark Knight performers, but the tragic image of a photoplay filmed in the shadow of the Bomb lends "meaning" to the Conqueror curse story that few films can match.
* * *
03 August 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Jon A. Greenspon
"I'd like to do something completely un-politician in style," Greenspon introduces himself, "I am going to tell you up front what I'm not going to do during this campaign. I'm not going to promise to cut taxes, or anything that CANNOT be accomplished by the President himself. I'll be happy to work with Congress, but ultimately it's their show. Campaign promises should be made that can actually have a chance of being kept. "
So why become President, apart from restoring modesty to the office? Greenspon, a former Marine and truck driver, and presently CEO of StarGate Research, he tells Project VoteSmart, "My primary focus and priority would be on returning the control of the United States to its citizens - not special interests, political action committees, the ACLU, or foreign agents. This is our country, yours and mine, not big business and the offshoring brigades." Again with the ACLU! People who oppose the organization ought to clarify their position on "civil liberties" in general.
Greenspon seems to be particularly concerned with making sure that the ordinary soldier or national guardsman gets better compensation for the work they do. As for work prospects, Greenspon concedes that the U.S. presence in Iraq probably has to continue for a while until the Iraqi government stabilizes itself, but he does want to start reducing that presence. On the other side of foreign policy -- trade -- he writes: "I will not support any agreements or organizations that supplant America's control of its economic surety and viability with that of a foreign entity or multilateral commission."
Despite his comment on the ACLU, Greenspon doesn't fit your image of the typical opponent of that organization. On same-sex marriage, for instance, he says, "Presently, 25 states have enacted legislation regarding same-sex unions/marriage. The Federal Constitution doesn't have any need to enter into the fray. Similarly, I would veto any legislation regarding this matter - regardless of it's direction."
On economic issues, Greenspon advocates a flat-tax for incomes over $48,000. He'll restrain spending by encouraging a "one-issue-per-bill" rule for appropriations apart from the annual budget, to end earmarks being attached to other legislation.
As any independent candidate should, Greenspon addresses the campaign-finance question. His main proposal is to allow individuals only to make campaign contributions. In addition, in part to eliminate the advantage of incumbency and in part to ensure that politicians do their jobs, he advises the states to pass legislation along these lines:
Greenspon doesn't seem to be doing much to promote himself. His one active webpage lists his sole activity as an April 2007 internet radio interview. He secured a domain-name for another campaign site, but that one remains "under construction." Nevertheless, he invites people to contribute to his campaign via PayPal. I would give him a pass, due to lack of effort, but I will say that, though he may not make an ideal president, he makes an exemplary citizen.
So why become President, apart from restoring modesty to the office? Greenspon, a former Marine and truck driver, and presently CEO of StarGate Research, he tells Project VoteSmart, "My primary focus and priority would be on returning the control of the United States to its citizens - not special interests, political action committees, the ACLU, or foreign agents. This is our country, yours and mine, not big business and the offshoring brigades." Again with the ACLU! People who oppose the organization ought to clarify their position on "civil liberties" in general.
Greenspon seems to be particularly concerned with making sure that the ordinary soldier or national guardsman gets better compensation for the work they do. As for work prospects, Greenspon concedes that the U.S. presence in Iraq probably has to continue for a while until the Iraqi government stabilizes itself, but he does want to start reducing that presence. On the other side of foreign policy -- trade -- he writes: "I will not support any agreements or organizations that supplant America's control of its economic surety and viability with that of a foreign entity or multilateral commission."
Despite his comment on the ACLU, Greenspon doesn't fit your image of the typical opponent of that organization. On same-sex marriage, for instance, he says, "Presently, 25 states have enacted legislation regarding same-sex unions/marriage. The Federal Constitution doesn't have any need to enter into the fray. Similarly, I would veto any legislation regarding this matter - regardless of it's direction."
On economic issues, Greenspon advocates a flat-tax for incomes over $48,000. He'll restrain spending by encouraging a "one-issue-per-bill" rule for appropriations apart from the annual budget, to end earmarks being attached to other legislation.
As any independent candidate should, Greenspon addresses the campaign-finance question. His main proposal is to allow individuals only to make campaign contributions. In addition, in part to eliminate the advantage of incumbency and in part to ensure that politicians do their jobs, he advises the states to pass legislation along these lines:
Any person actively serving in public office, whether a citizen of __(your state)__ or of any other state or territory of the United States, may not have his or her name placed upon a ballot for election to any position within the government, state or federal, without prior resignation of the office they are currently occupying.
Greenspon doesn't seem to be doing much to promote himself. His one active webpage lists his sole activity as an April 2007 internet radio interview. He secured a domain-name for another campaign site, but that one remains "under construction." Nevertheless, he invites people to contribute to his campaign via PayPal. I would give him a pass, due to lack of effort, but I will say that, though he may not make an ideal president, he makes an exemplary citizen.
Intelligent Design?
Seen on a T-shirt:
So if you ever suspected that they were a separate species after all, you may be right, but you'll have to take it on faith.
In the beginning, God made man. Then he said, "I can do better than that" and created WOMAN. Then he said, "I can do much better than that" and created CHEERLEADERS.
So if you ever suspected that they were a separate species after all, you may be right, but you'll have to take it on faith.
Tom Brokaw and Media Bias?
After watching Meet the Press this morning, I'm more inclined to believe liberal accounts of a media bias in favor of Senator McCain. Temp host Tom Brokaw had Sen. Lieberman on as a surrogate for McCain, and Sen. Kerry as a surrogate for Sen. Obama. For almost the entire length of the segment, the pressure was on Kerry to account for purported flip-flops by his candidate and for Obama's alleged employment of the "race card." I recall no really tough questions for Lieberman, when anyone who has the man in front of him must ask why he's throwing away the rest of his reportedly liberal political agenda in order to endorse the war in the form of McCain. In addition, anyone interviewing Lieberman should ask, just as they should ask McCain, why anyone should celebrate the surge when it only amounted to cleaning up a mess that we shouldn't have made in the first place. Instead, when Kerry reminded the audience that the "Sunni Awakening" was well under way before the surge was, Lieberman accused him of disrespecting the troops. Brokaw showed little sense of balance, though why he should feel toward Obama the way his colleagues on the campaign trail feel is a mystery to me.
There is cause for concern in Obama's apparent enjoyment of the adulation of large crowds, and for the whole idea of giving a campaign speech in a foreign country. I think doing so will backfire on him, and I'll address the issue of Obama and crowds at a later date. But with the campaign reporters there's supposedly a feeling that Obama is aloof, perhaps stuck-up, as unfavorably contrasted with the glad-handing bantering McCain. Perhaps to the extent that Obama is a sort of idealist and takes idealism seriously, the more cynical media might be inclined to look down on him while, being cynical, they prefer McCain's more irreverent manner. McCain can be a funny guy -- if elected, he'll be the first President ever to have hosted Saturday Night Line (and he did a good job, too, especially when busting on John Ashcroft circa 2002). But John Stewart put things in perspective when addressing the issue of Obama's alleged arrogance: anyone who thinks he ought to be "the leader of the free world" has got to be at least a little arrogant, and that has to go for McCain as well as Obama. Or does adopting the "limited-government" Reaganite ideology make a would-be President less arrogant? Or does the sort of arrogance that sacrifices other people's lives to make an ideological argument for "freedom" in the Muslim world count for less than whatever arrogance reporters detect in Obama?
The real question is what reporters' opinions on the personalities of the candidates have to do with anything. Unfortunately, blogging has turned just about every reporter into a talking head, so subjective opinion seeps into everyone's reporting. This tendency favors Republicans, since it allows them to exploit people's irrational mistrust of politicians who "think they're better than us" or "want to tell us how to live." It's too early to tell whether Americans have learned their lesson after twice rejecting "arrogant" or "elitist" candidates in favor of George W. Bush, but the media don't give us much cause for optimism.
There is cause for concern in Obama's apparent enjoyment of the adulation of large crowds, and for the whole idea of giving a campaign speech in a foreign country. I think doing so will backfire on him, and I'll address the issue of Obama and crowds at a later date. But with the campaign reporters there's supposedly a feeling that Obama is aloof, perhaps stuck-up, as unfavorably contrasted with the glad-handing bantering McCain. Perhaps to the extent that Obama is a sort of idealist and takes idealism seriously, the more cynical media might be inclined to look down on him while, being cynical, they prefer McCain's more irreverent manner. McCain can be a funny guy -- if elected, he'll be the first President ever to have hosted Saturday Night Line (and he did a good job, too, especially when busting on John Ashcroft circa 2002). But John Stewart put things in perspective when addressing the issue of Obama's alleged arrogance: anyone who thinks he ought to be "the leader of the free world" has got to be at least a little arrogant, and that has to go for McCain as well as Obama. Or does adopting the "limited-government" Reaganite ideology make a would-be President less arrogant? Or does the sort of arrogance that sacrifices other people's lives to make an ideological argument for "freedom" in the Muslim world count for less than whatever arrogance reporters detect in Obama?
The real question is what reporters' opinions on the personalities of the candidates have to do with anything. Unfortunately, blogging has turned just about every reporter into a talking head, so subjective opinion seeps into everyone's reporting. This tendency favors Republicans, since it allows them to exploit people's irrational mistrust of politicians who "think they're better than us" or "want to tell us how to live." It's too early to tell whether Americans have learned their lesson after twice rejecting "arrogant" or "elitist" candidates in favor of George W. Bush, but the media don't give us much cause for optimism.
01 August 2008
The Ivins Case: A Personality Test
Dr. Bruce Ivins is the research scientist who reportedly committed suicide because he was about to be accused of the 2001 anthrax mail murders. I propose that the way a person responds to reading or hearing this news can tell us something about the person's mode of thinking.
There are at least three ways of reading this news. You can assume, as some of Ivins's friends have, that he was an innocent man hounded into suicide by a misguided persecution. We have heard of people hounded into suicide, most notably the young person who was reportedly a victim of internet harassment, so the concept seems possible. From there, you can branch off into different interpretations of the government's motive. You can presume investigative incompetence, or you could claim that Ivins was being framed or set up as a patsy to cover up a true culprit.
You could also take a conspiratorial view of the suicide itself. Indeed, you might want to put "suicide" in scare quotes to suggest that Ivins didn't necessarily take his own life. If this is your first response to the news, you probably assume that, if Ivins was not being framed, then he was being silenced lest he implicate others higher up in his supposed lethal experiments. For instance, you might suppose that Ivins did not act as alleged on his own initiative, but was ordered to mail the anthrax by someone who may now never be named.
The third approach to the news is the most literal-minded or, one might say, the most trusting of authority. It's to assume that a guilty man took the easy or, to inflect it differently, the honorable way out. My guess is that, at an earlier point in our history, this would be overwhelmingly the majority view of the story. It may still be the majority view today, but I worry that it's a smaller majority than before. This reading might be easier for people to believe if Ivins had been involved in a more personal scandal, or if his alleged acts had not occurred at the onset of the "war on terror," or if the federal government had not been involved in the case. These details make the case a public affair, and encourage observers to wonder whether reasons of state have influenced the outcome.
Your first response to the Ivins news probably says something about how you view governments, power relationships, and personal agency. If you have a different interpretation altogether, then you most likely have a greater than average capacity for creative thinking.
There are at least three ways of reading this news. You can assume, as some of Ivins's friends have, that he was an innocent man hounded into suicide by a misguided persecution. We have heard of people hounded into suicide, most notably the young person who was reportedly a victim of internet harassment, so the concept seems possible. From there, you can branch off into different interpretations of the government's motive. You can presume investigative incompetence, or you could claim that Ivins was being framed or set up as a patsy to cover up a true culprit.
You could also take a conspiratorial view of the suicide itself. Indeed, you might want to put "suicide" in scare quotes to suggest that Ivins didn't necessarily take his own life. If this is your first response to the news, you probably assume that, if Ivins was not being framed, then he was being silenced lest he implicate others higher up in his supposed lethal experiments. For instance, you might suppose that Ivins did not act as alleged on his own initiative, but was ordered to mail the anthrax by someone who may now never be named.
The third approach to the news is the most literal-minded or, one might say, the most trusting of authority. It's to assume that a guilty man took the easy or, to inflect it differently, the honorable way out. My guess is that, at an earlier point in our history, this would be overwhelmingly the majority view of the story. It may still be the majority view today, but I worry that it's a smaller majority than before. This reading might be easier for people to believe if Ivins had been involved in a more personal scandal, or if his alleged acts had not occurred at the onset of the "war on terror," or if the federal government had not been involved in the case. These details make the case a public affair, and encourage observers to wonder whether reasons of state have influenced the outcome.
Your first response to the Ivins news probably says something about how you view governments, power relationships, and personal agency. If you have a different interpretation altogether, then you most likely have a greater than average capacity for creative thinking.
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