The Citizens

Bell Curve

The Law Talking Guy

Raised by Republicans

U.S. West

Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Good For CNN! CNN Blocks Bush Censorship Try

Hi Guys,

The Bush administration - which already has a ban on news coverage of casualties returning from Iraq - attempted to place a blanket ban on all media coverage of the recovery of victims in New Orleans. In a shocking display of backbone, CNN filed suit against the Bush administration and rather than fight a legal battle they most assuredly would lose (most especially in the court of public opinion), the Bushies backed down.

There are those who would say that the Bush administration is no different from any other administration. There are those who say that any president would have done similar things. Such people should be ashamed.

This is far beyond whether one thinks the margin tax rate should go up a quarter percent or down a quarter percent. The failings of this Presidency transcend partisan politics. They get people killed - in large numbers. The Bush administration's constant effort to concentrate police power while imposing heavy handed censorship threatens democratic liberty itself. Finally, CNN has decided to say "enough!" Let us join them! Let the word go forth that a vote for a Republican - any Republican - in 2006 is simply indefensible. Until the Republican Party returns to its rational and secular roots it should be considered an unacceptable alternative for voters. If you don't like the Democrat's economic policies, fine. I can respect that. Vote Libertarian (as I did for Congress in 2004). But don't vote Republican.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Katrina Time Line

Hi Folks,

I found this time line on another political website. It's a liberal website but they they have references and citations for each event on the time line. Here is another time line. Here is a blog with a time line that goes into some recent historical background. Each emphasizes different aspects but together they give a pretty good picture who was warning who and who offered what help when etc. My favorite is that the City of Chicago offered help to FEMA before land fall but the feds refused it (reported on the third time line I linked).

If you look at these time lines (times line?), things don't look that damning for Bush personally until two days after landfall (sure he appointed a brain dead dilettante to head FEMA but that's politics). I'm willing to give the President the first 12-24 hours after landfall to be informed (FEMA and DHS on the other hand have no excuse for not be better prepared prior to landfall). However, take a look at Bush's reaction to the hurricane. For the first day he did normal political stuff (photo ops, flogging his favorite bills etc). But by the second day he had been informed that New Orleans' levees were not only "over topped" but breached as well and that the city was flooded leaving tens of thousands stranded with food and water running out. His reaction? A "casual" speech followed by a round of defensive excuse-making and spin doctoring that still hasn't ended. Meanwhile FEMA, state and local officials are muddling along and finally (two weeks later) getting a handle on things.

I'll give you a topic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency saw no emergency to manage. Discuss.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

How They Fire People These Days

To fire someone is to admit that their appointment was a failure... and this just won't do. So instead of relieving someone of their job, the new approach is to appoint a "deputy" underneath them to do their job for them. The head of FEMA has just been quasi-replaced in this manner. As the Washington Post reports,

With Michael D. Brown, the embattled public face of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, taking harsh criticism for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the secretary of homeland security this week assigned a top Coast Guard official to help bail him out.

Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard's chief of staff, was assigned on Monday to be Brown's deputy and to take over operational control of the search-and-rescue and recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast. The unprecedented task of coordinating the massive effort was handed off to a leader and expert who was described by colleagues as unflappable, engaging and intensely organized...

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff handpicked Allen to essentially lead the federal recovery efforts in New Orleans... to oversee, manage and lead all military and civilian recovery efforts.

But of course, Bush assures us that Brown is doing a fine job. My question is: with Allen doing all the work, what exactly is Brown's job now?

What The Other Side is Saying

Here are some excerpts of an email a relative of mine sent around to his family. This person is a Republican albeit not one of the ones that raised me (thankfully). Actually, it's Republicans like this that drove me out of the party and made me decide they needed to be opposed and kept from power until they reestablish the old "stalwart" and "rock ribbed" variety of the party.

"The whiney, and bitchy! demands for the prompt and complete relief, to which we are all "ENTITLED" , in the aftermath of Katrina, has me feeling more pessimistic about this spoiled country of ours than I have felt for a long long time. And our nightly news ... feeds the monster. Perhaps its time for our Rome, to fall. The news talked about our "National Disgrace". Who's disgraced? our government for letting the storm come ashore or the upright citizens of Louisiana who have accepted looting as their right, apparently blessed by the Governor. didn't that Democrat, Richard Dailey, shoot the first 2 or 3 looters in a Chicago riot? and didn't that pretty much solve the looting problem?"

This man has actually held elected office (school board) as a Republican in a major city.

Comments?

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Summer of Love Rolls On

With the minimum required votes, the California State Assembly today joined the California State Senate in passing AB 849, the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act" defining marriage in gender-neutral terms. California's legislature is now the first in the nation to endorse gay marriage. It was good to see the President of the California chapter of the NAACP and the co-founder of the United Farm Workers lend their support to the bill--without them, it probably would have failed to gain the requisite 41 votes as it did back in June.

Now the bill goes before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not made his intentions clear. Would it be a master stroke of political centrism if he were to sign it? Would it guarantee Arnold re-election in this liberal state? Or would it instead make it impossible for him to survive recriminations from conservatives in the Republican Primary election? We don't know.

But we do know that the entire history of this country has been one of liberals fighting for freedom against the dogged resistance of the conservative elite. Conservatives fought hard to deny basic rights to blacks, latinos, women, children, the disabled, and the elderly--but in the end, they lost every fight. Yes, it takes years of heartache and the conservatives trot out the same tired arguments every time. But as Jefferson wrote more than two centuries ago, it is a self-evident truth that we are all created equal and we all have the right to be free and seek our own happiness...and this truth has a way of winning out.

When it comes to fighting against gay marriage, conservatives are not only fighting against this basic truth of equality, but against freedom and love as well. Truth, love and freedom... ah, even in the Bush years, liberals should take heart! For no force on Earth can stand against all three for long.

A Consistent Choice

Whatever else you may say about Bush's decision to elevate John Robert's nomination from Associate Justice to Chief Justice, say this: it is a consistent choice. For Bush to have selected someone for Chief Justice whom he had already passed over for Associate Justice would have raised a lot of warning flags for me.

Yes, Roberts has a "stunted conception of liberty" and unfortunately his collegial nature will probably help him steer the Court in a conservative direction better than Scalia or Thomas could have done--and his relative youth means he probably will be entrenched there for a long time. But at least everyone agrees he's a brilliant lawyer and not an evangelical nutcase. And it's better for the institution to have a collegial, effective Chief Justice than an ineffective, divisive firebrand. When it comes to Bush's judicial appointments, I think mainstream Americans are going to have to accept this as the best we're going to get out of him.

I urge the Democratic Senators not to turn Judge Roberts' hearings into political game where they just try to trip him up with questions and get him to embarrass himself. This will only embarrass the Senate. Democrats should save their ammo for when Bush nominates more activist judges to the bench, like the ones he shoved through earlier this summer. Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting news of Bush's new pick to replace O'Connor. And it's a sign of the deep sense of desperation I feel that I am crossing my fingers and hoping for Alberto Gonzales.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Yet another thing to investigate in 2007!

OK Folks,

I've been traveling for the last several days and while I've seen a lot of the news I haven't been listening/watching as closely as I normally do until today. As I catch up on the news, I'm increasingly disgusted by the Republican/Bush/Federal response to this disaster in New Orleans. First there is mounting evidence that FEMA was briefed BEFORE the hurricane hit, that the destruction of New Orleans would be a likely event (which is why the Mayor of that city ordered the mandatory evacuation). See this article from the Times-Picayun. See especially: "Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, said Sunday that officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi and were advised of the storm�s potential deadly effects. Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings. He said the briefings included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall and the potential for tornados to accompany the storm as it came ashore.... In the days before Katrina hit, Mayfield said, his staff also briefed FEMA, which under the Department of Homeland Security, at FEMA�s headquarters in Washington, D.C., its Region 6 office in Dallas and the Region 4 office in Atlanta about the potential effects of the storm. He said all of those briefings were logged in the hurricane center�s records."

Third, my Republican relatives are emailing furiously about how awful it is that the victims of this disaster are angry. Railing about "entitlement" (on the part of New Orleans' displaced population who are demanding more immediate aid) and "lawlessness" (i.e. the looting), my republican relatives hold up FOX News as the only place that isn't playing what they see as political games with the disaster.

Bush praises his FEMA director while journalists repeatedly show him to have lied about what he's done and shown him to be far slower to actually get to the city than either journalists, private rescue operations or local authorities (again, this despite several days warning that a hurricane large enough to breach New Orleans' sea walls was coming).

The situation got this bad because of the near sighted and narrow minded policies of modern conservatives. The suffering is being born by the poor (overwhelmingly African Americans) of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The bill will be paid by tax payers in "Blue States" and "Swing States." But Bush will try to claim the credit! I think I have good idea WHY this sort of thing happens but that doesn't mean I should sit back and condone it or ignore it.

Shame on our government. Shame on those who make excuses for them. Shame on us all for our part in this!

Friday, September 02, 2005

Where is the National Guard?

So the President told us yesterday not to buy gas unless we need to. I often buy gas I don't need, just for kicks. I can't hoard it when it's cheap, and can't NOT buy it when it's expensive. Idiot.

Why the HELL wasn't every national guard helicopter in the country in New Orleans by Wednesday morning? Are they ALL in Iraq? During the LA riots, they got to town within 48 hours. What is Governor Schwarzenegger doing right now? Every other chickenshit governor has sat back and done nothing, waiting for Bush to tell them what to do. He thinks it's time for a grandiose fundraising effort - thousand-dollar plate chicken dinners or some such. Anybody else realize that fundraising is all GWB ever knew how to do?

The military could have, and should have, descended within hours when the news got out Monday afternoon that the levees were broken. But that's Texan generosity for you. Sorry for any Texans reading this, but I just heard that they're turning away people from the Astrodome now, and sending them to San Antonio, 200 miles away and more, and I'm furious. There are no high schools between New Orleans and the Astrodome? No room in City Hall? No room in the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge or Little Rock?

Got money - there's a hotel room for you. The only refugees are people too poor to have car and drive to a motel in Baton Rouge or Lafayette. The one who use public transportation, and nobody thought to commandeer the whole bus system to get them out of town on Sunday. So they walked to the Superdome. Why not just pay for a few holiday inns or Motel 6s?
The problem is that the Republicans who run Washington are too damned cheap, and the attitude of local and national business seems to be to charge $6 for gas and say there's no room at the inn. Harrah's casino in Mississippi is apparently going to pay all employees for 90 days, although there's no work possible. That's corporate citizenship. So the gamblers reach out generously, while Wal-Mart says only that its employees can apply for up to $1000 in assistance. It then donates $1 million, which is .0000001% of Sam Walton's caviar bill. And I don't mean crappy paddlefish eggs. The Senate just voted $10.5 billion, which it will no doubt take out of Medicaid later (the $200 billion war in Iraq, on the other hand, just goes on the national credit card - our credit card).

The problem is that these people are poor and mostly black. Nobody wants them and nobody gives a damn.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Summer of Love Continues

The California Senate today voted 21-15-3 in favor of the deliciously titled, Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state of California. This is the first time that any legislative body in the U.S. has voted to approve gay marriage! Three cheers for Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the chief sponsor of the bill!!!

Now the measure goes before the Assembly, where a similar bill narrowly failed in June. It actually received a majority of the votes cast (37-36) but apparently the bill needed 41 votes for approval (half of the total number of members). The bill's supporters have picked up 1 vote (an absent member will vote YES) so the good guys just need 3 more. It's a desperate scramble up in Sacramento, according to the LA Times.

But you can always count on the Republicans to throw the wet blanket over the party. Even if the bill passes, Schwarzenneger's office has indicated that the governor would not sign the bill. "It's an issue for the people and the courts," said his spokesman, Margita Thompson.

An issue for the courts?? Is she for real? Apparently, when the judiciary supports gay marriage, Republicans say it's a legislative issue and decry the activist courts... and now when the legislature supports it, Republicans say it's a judicial issue and decry the activist legislature. The truth is, if Arnold refuses to sign it, then it's an executive issue... and the voters will have their say in 2006.

The Onion

(sigh) All I ever do anymore is post articles from the Onion. But what do you want? It's funny. And I have two. First, this one:

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

This is interesting because to scientists* like Dr. Strangelove and myself, this is what Intelligent Design sounds like. You should read the Onion's article and then read an introduction to Intelligent Design somewhere (I don't have a good link yet).

Then, just for a quick laugh:

Genie Grants Scalia Strict Constructionist Interpretation Of Wish

----------------
*Are mathematicians scientists? Discuss.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

"This is our Tsunami"

So spoke Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway upon witnessing the devastation Hurricane Katrina visited on Mississippi and Louisiana. As Americans open their checkbooks and pour millions of dollars in private donations--and surely billions soon in public funds--to aid the victims of what may turn out to be the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history, we must do more than answer the cries of grief.

We must also listen to the warning. Because this catastrophe has more in commmon with the 2004 Christmas tsunami than just the scenes of coastal devastation; like the tsunami, it was also preventable.

No, the earthquake which caused the tsuanmi could not have been stopped by modern technology, nor can we control the weather. But just as the Indian Ocean could have been equipped with tsunami warning systems, so we could have built better dams and levees in Louisiana. Are such things expensive? Yes.

But it's not like we don't have the money. We have now spent $192 billion on a certain Middle Eastern military venture. And we regularly spend half a trillion a year on "national defense." What could we do with money on that scale--even just a fraction of it--to defend our nation from what really threatens us?

We could have built dams and levees that withstood Hurricane Katrina--a few billion a year buys a lot of sandbags. We could have built a lot of tsunami warning systems. It's time we look at "Homeland Security" in this broader sense. It's time to make investments in national defense that we know will pay off. It's time to invest in the protection and preservation of our climate and our planet. It's time to aggressively protect our citizens.

Mount Ranier in Washington State is a ticking bomb. It is widely expected to erupt before this century ends. Heck, it could be tomorrow. California will experience "The Big One" before 2100 (many predict much sooner.) There will be regular hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and tornadoes in the Midwest. And then there's the best-predicted, most-watched, oncoming world-wide flood in history: global climate change. Coming to a coastline near you sometime this century.

When the ocean levels rise and coastal cities everywhere--Miami, Washington D.C., New York, Boston--join the ranks of the drowned; when the Mississippi delta looks like the Ganges and every year brings hurricanes worse than Katrina... what will they say? Will they wring their hands and say, "how could we know?" Will they say, "there was nothing we could have done?" Oh yes. They will try. The conservative elite will wave their hands and try to make us forget that it was all preventable.

But the truth is we all can see it coming and it just costs more than they are willing to spend. So instead of taking reasonable precautions to prevent a global cataclysm, we sit like a stubborn old Victorian lady having her tea in the middle of the highway, dismissing all those who try to warn her of an oncoming convoy, saying, "I've already got everything set up just the way I like it! You can't be certain one of them will hit me. I just can't be bothered to move."

So when you send your money to the Red Cross, send a note to your Senators to remind them an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And when you send your thoughts and prayers to the families devastated by this hurricane, spare a thought also to the global tsunami to come.

Monday, August 29, 2005

A Note on the Iraqi Constitution

Hi Everyone,

With all this talk and demonstrating about, for and against the new Iraqi constitution I thought I'd give you my impression of it.

There are some very odd features: Most unusual is the odd way the executive is structured. The unicameral assembly elects, by 2/3 vote, the Presidency Council (the executive). That makes it look like a Prime Minister. But most Prime Ministers have control over the legislative agenda. The Iraqi President will not have such control. Furthermore, the Presidency Council can only be removed with a 3/4 vote. Prime Ministers can be removed by a majority vote. This odd combination of Prime Ministerial and Presidential features resembles the government of Israel which is, in my opinion, one of the worst run governments around.

This odd Presidency Council may veto legislation and appoints the "Council of Ministers" which consists of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. This dual executive resembles another often dysfunctional democracy: France (and Weimar Germany by the way). Ambiguous executive authority is workable in an established democracy like France but in democracy that is just starting out, it can be fatal - just ask the Germans.

A second odd feature is the unicameral assembly. In most federal systems, there is a bi-cameral legislature. Usually, the second chamber has the role of representing the constituent provinces or states. But no such second chamber exists in this constitution.

Finally, this is not even intended to be the final constitution. That constitution is to be written by the National Assembly. So what we have is a badly written constitution based on bizarre understandings of institutional design, that has built into it, a call for its own replacement.

That the Bush administration can claim that this is anything other than a long line of over hyped anti-climaxes in Iraq is absurd. Of course the Bushies only do two things in Iraqi: over play non-events; and sugar coat disasters.

I encourage you all to read this constitution for yourselves. The press is talking themselves silly about it but without any reference to any details. Don't let Chicken Noodle News tell you what's worth knowing.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Krugman

From Paul Krugman in today's NY Times:
"Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation."

I fear just how far "any means necessary" may entail. A Washington Times reporter on NPR reiterated the Republicans' now favorite refrain that criticism of the war gives aid and comfort to the enemy. The same logic is extended quickly to criticism of the government at all...

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Land for Peace in Gaza

In the Gaza Strip, some 8,500 Israeli settlers are being evacuated this week as part of Israel's first real commitment to a two-state solution. Until today, Israel has spoken of a two-state solution and tolerated a Palestinian Authority, but has pursued a policy of relentlessly increasing the size of its settlements, to change "facts on the ground" as they put it. Since the Oslo accord 10 years ago, the number of settlers has increased from about 100,000 to 250,000. The hope of many right-wing Israelis, fosteredin part by governments unwilling to defeat their dreams, was that if the peace process dragged on long enough, all of pre-1947 Palestine would be de facto Jewish. Ehud Barak said in 2000 that to make peace, you have to give up your dreams. He meant not only the dream of more than 2 million Palestinians to return to homes in Israel proper, but the Zionist dream of a Jewish state on all land west of the Jordan river.

Today marked the first real rollback of Israeli settlement, and the first time Israel has made a public commitment through actions, not just words, to leaving significant territories permanently under Palestian control. Over the next weeks and months, this should have a very salubrious effect on the region. Suicide bombings should decrease when there is a realistic hope that the future will improve. Free traffic flow without Israeli military checkpoints (and hours of delays) will be possible throughout Gaza.

While many Palestinians are skeptical that Israel will give up more land in the West Bank (does "Gaza First" mean "Gaza last?") , the whole dynamic has changed. The question is not whether Israel will withdraw, but how far. And not whether Palestine will be a state, but how big. Those changes will have a significant impact on the mindset of the negotiators and the public over time. Ariel Sharon has now made it clear that Israel is not trying to get ALL the territory, but only as much as it can. That is a big step forward. It is also a major defeat for right-wing ideology in Israel. The majority of the Israeli public supports this policy of disengagement and withdrawal. They are, perhaps, even in the process of giving up the dream of a Greater Israel, religiously defined, in favor of a modern state.

For the Israelis, there is now real hope relative peace and lack of terrorism these past few months will be connected, in the minds of Palestinians, with progress - rather than the opposite. Palestinian public demands for the past decade have been limited to the West Bank, Gaza, (parts of) Jerusalem, and the right of return to Israel. Privately, many wished to see a one-state solution, i.e., an end to a "Jewish State" altogether. Some wanted to drive Israelis "into the sea." Many have considered that the intifada in the 1980s marked the real renunciation by Palestinians of any goal greater than their own state (a two-state solution), and I agree, but bigger dreams die hard. I expect violence to further decrease (except among the true extremists) as Gazans enjoy new freedom, and the expectation of the end to occupation spreads to other regions.

The bottom line here is that peacemaking requires public commitments, private (real) commitments, and concrete actions that are difficult to revoke which lock the parties into the negotiation process. Sharon is not the man to make a final deal, I suspect, but he may have, for the first time, locked Israel into making a deal. The Palestinians have really been there for a long time, ever since peace with Egypt and Jordan, and the end of Soviet support for Arab clients, ended any realistic hope of military intervention on their side.

Monday, August 15, 2005

VJ Day

Hi Everyone,

This is the anniversary of V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day). One of the world's four most savage, brutal and murderous regimes finally surrendered on this date in 1945. They surrendered only after years of futile resistence on island after island in the Pacific and in South East Asia.

Japanese armies committed genocide in China - using weapons of mass destruction repeatedly against Chinese civilians. When American forces approached Manilla, the Phillipines, Japanese troops went on a rampage of murder and destruction that rival anything the NAZIs did. This list of horrors committed by Japanese forces is long. With the Japanese surrender a war which had claimed 62 million lives ended. That's an average of about 18, 800 deaths per day (judging the war to have started in 1936 with the invasion of China).

And what was the cause of this war? As I said in my posting on V-E day, it was nationalism! Nationalist dictatorships caused that war in their quest to establish "autarky."

Bush's Neighbor Threatens Peace Protestor

Hi Folks,

You may all remember the recent posting about the woman who's son was killed in Iraq. She and a group of protestors have camped outside Bush's ranch while he takes his extended paid vacation on his hobby ranch in Texas.

Well, one of Bush's neighbors is so annoyed that there might be Americans who don't agree with him that he's taken to threatening the protestors by firing his shotgun into the air near the protestors. When asked what message he was sending, he replied "I'm getting ready for dove season" and "Figure it out for yourself." Does anyone else hear the echoes of KKK sympathizers being interviewed in the 1960s? These half-brained attempts at subtle innuendo are typical of the fascist right in the South.

There are millions of voters in this country who will support his actions and statements and even laugh at them. That is who/what we are up against. This is not simply a disagreement about policy. It is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of democracy and liberty. Those who pretend that people like this gun toting hobby farmer are just like their Democratic opponents but with different policy preferences are whistling past the grave yard.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Key Republican Fundraiser Indicted

Hi Folks,

CNN.com is reporting that Texas based GOP fundraiser, Jack Abramoff has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida. He is also being investigated by a federal grand jury in Washington. Abramoff is charged with fraud related to some illegal wire transfers. He's also known to have acted as a lobbyist for two Indian tribes taking opposing views on the same casino gambling bill (that's a conflict of interest folks). He's being sued for that.

Abramoff is also suspected to have paid for some overseas junkets by Tom De Lay (R-Texas). De Lay is currently under investigation in Texas for his fund raising activities.

Meanwhile up north in Ohio, an associate of Abramoff, Tom Noe has been at the center of a fraud scandal involving bilking a state pension fund of millions of dollars in a crooked scheme to "invest" in rare coins. Noe raised over $100,000 for Ohio Governor Bob Taft (R) and President Bush (R). When it looked like Noe might have been caught red handed Taft, Bush and other ranking Republicans (including all the GOP candidates for the governorship in Ohio) belatedly returned contributions to Noe. Taft has also drawn fire because a key aide, Brian Hicks, took improperly disclosed vacation trips to Noe's home in Florida. Hicks has since been convicted but still sits on the Ohio State University System Board of Trustees and the state water board.

Now Governor Bob Taft (R-Ohio) may be about to be indicted for not reporting a number of expensive golf trips. Taft violated the same laws that Hicks has been convicted of. Hicks avoided a jail sentence but had to pay a $1000 fine. Taft is not expected to face jail time.

This is what I'm on about. The problem is not George Bush or the religious right alone. The problem is the entire Republican party.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

He Still Doesn't Get It

NY Times Op Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd writes in her recent opinion piece,

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside [George W. Bush's] Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed... Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.

The president met with her family two months after Casey's death... Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.

The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him...

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation...

Bush is so caught up in what the Economist called an "addiction to playing hardball with the Democrats" that he can't distinguish between a mother's personal anguish and a political attack. Bill Clinton would have invited her in for lunch, hugged her, shed a few tears, and had her standing with him for a photo-op in half an hour. Because Clinton understood what the Republicans never will: what people desire more is a feeling of shared understanding and warmth--not shared anger and hatred. If Hillary has the emotional savvy of her husband, they will be choosing new drapes for the Oval Office in three and a half years.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

August 9 Part I: was dropping the atomic bomb the right thing to do

On August 6, 1945 a single B-29 dropped a single bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. That bomb destroyed the city and killed 66,000 and wounded 69,000 Japanese people, mostly civilians. When the Japanese government failed to respond at all to allied demands for surrender, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 destroying that city and killing 25,000 and wounding 35,000. On August 15, 1945 World War II ended. This is the first part of a two part posting on two questions relating to these events.

Part I of my August 9th posting is devoted to the question of whether dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was the right decision to make at the time. I think the answer to that question is YES for a number of reasons:

First, Japan needed to be defeated totally. A negotiated cessation of hostilities with the Japanese regime was not an option. Japan was far more dangerous and far more aggressive than Sadam Hussein could ever imagine being in his most devilish dreams. By 1945, Japanese forces had killed millions of civilians in China in a genocidal war that rivaled that waged by Hitler in every measure of beastliness. The average estimate is that Japanese forces killed 7.75 million innocent Chinese civilians. Japanese actions in China included massacres, mass rape, slave labor, forced medical experiments on civilian prisoners, chemical warfare, and biological warfare and more. Allowing Japan to continue under its existing regime/political culture was unacceptable. The defeat of Japan required either a full scale invasion of Japan itself (and possibly also China- In 1945, Japan had hundreds of thousands of troops living off the land in China that had yet to be defeated decisively) or some way to convince the Japanese government to surrender before such an invasion became necessary. Dropping atomic bombs was a successful attempt at the second option.

Second, the invasion of Japan was the only other alternative to dropping the bombs. Operation Downfall was to be a two phase invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Phase 1: Operation Olympic was to involve a dozen or so divisions (the 2003 invasion of Iraq involved 3) invading the island of Kyushu (on which Nagasaki is located). Estimates for American casualties in this first phase exceeded a 250,000 (By comparison, Total US military deaths in WWII were arpox. 300,000 up until August 15, 1945). Japan was showing no signs of weakened defense. On the contrary, Japanese military forces on Okinawa fought to the death. At the same time, Japanese authorities encouraged Okinawan civilians to fight the Americans and/or commit suicide. Civilian deaths on Okinawa were on the order of 150,000 with a third to a half of the survivors being wounded (the war was being fought right in their homes, villages and towns after all). American military losses in the Okinawa invasion were about 65,000 killed and wounded out of about 183,000 engaged. American intelligence reported that they expected similar tactics and results should the US invade the Japanese main islands but on a far larger scale. American intelligence also reported that the Japanese military had heavily reinforced their defense of Kyushu in July and early August of 1945. Phase 2: Operation Coronet was to involve nearly two dozen divisions invading the largest island, Honshu. The expected casualty rates reported above are for Phase 1 ONLY.

Third, the bombing of civilians did not begin with the atomic bombs. In fact, bombing of cities in Germany had already exceeded the casualty rates reported in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by using conventional bombs. So at the time the decision was made, the moral decision to bomb civilians had already been made years before. The only thing being considered was whether or not to use a new type of bomb. The type of target was no longer a matter for discussion.

Too often the debate about whether the decision to drop the bomb ignores Japan's war record and seems to assume that the alternative was peace. Neither is appropriate. Also, the debate about atomic bombing of Japan often masks the greater moral dilemma of civilian bombing in general (a tactic the Japanese used extensively in China).

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August 9 Part II is it good that the Atomic bomb was used?

Part II of my two part August 9th posting is devoted to starting a conversation about whether the world is better or worse off for the Atomic bombs having been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

In my opinion the answer is YES for two reasons.

First, by using atomic bombs when the technology was new and relatively less deadly humanity was given enough of a preview of what horrors they inflict to warn us off using the hydrogen bomb or the neutron bomb. I am convinced that if we had not dropped relatively small atomic bombs on two cities in Japan in 1945, we would have dropped much larger bombs on many cities in China in 1950 when China entered the Korean War in force. That would probably have provoked a Soviet Response as the Communist Chinese and Soviets had yet to fully break with each other at that time. Indeed, it was President Truman who made the decisions both to use the bomb against Japan and to not use the bomb against China in 1950! What if Truman had been more willing to listen to Douglas MacArthur who was pressing to use the H-bomb against China!? Did Truman's soul searching after Nagasaki inform his decision in 1950? I suspect that it did. In short, I think MAD worked throughout the cold war because of the horrible deaths and injuries inflicted at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Second, Japan has never fully come to terms with what it did in the 1930s and 1940s. While Germans were forced to confront their crimes when allied occupation forces marched them en masse past the mounds of dead in concentration camps (which were located near major German population centers), Japanese civilians resided far away from the scenes of their crimes and to this day Japanese denial of their responsibility for millions of deaths (especially in China) is far more accepted and wide spread in Japan than in Germany. I suggest that the only thing that has limited Japanese nationalism is traumatic experience of having been nuked - twice. Take that horrible experience away and Japan today would have had a much different view of World War II and its consequences. This is leaving aside the issue of reduced Japanese casualties by avoiding the full scale invasion of Japan.

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