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, April 18, 2009

World's Biggest Jerk: New Title Holder?

Since the retirement of George W. Bush the "honor" of being the biggest jerk among the World's leaders has been available for anyone to claim. Apparently, a strong challenge for the position has been made by France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy (who flunked the 6th grade and washed out of graduate school in political science). Over lunch on Wednesday, he said that US President Obama (former chief editor of Harvard Law Review and professor of Law at the U. of Chicago) was "not always up to the standard on decision-making or efficiency" Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero (a law graduate) was "perhaps not very intelligent" and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (a former Physics professor) "Had no choice but to come around to my position."

Gee, this sounds a lot like the kind of dismissive BS Bush and Cheney would say about people who they felt intellectually threatened by. Obviously, France would never elect a jerk exactly like Bush but Sarkozy is like the French version. An aristocrat who does well at politics but has never really proven himself in academic pursuits. A man who seems to "know what he knows" and have little interest in learning more from others.

It's so nice to not have Bush. Poor France though. Hopefully, the Socialists there will get their act together and defeat Sarkozy.

Friday, April 17, 2009

More about Torture

Former CIA director Hayden and Former Atty General Mukasey -both Bush era toadies- published an article today lambasting the decision to release the torture memos. Their really ignorant article is premised on the idea that (1) torturing a few people is okay and (2) torture is necessary to get important information. Both are totally false propositions.

Finally, in a great harrumph, they write, "Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself."

And of course, that was the point of releasing the memos. No public servant, no military man, no CIA agent, should ever look to a wink, nod, or handshake that phony legal cover for their actions will protect them. If these two are right that federal interrogators will not undertake torture because they are afraid that they will be held liable someday, no matter what slimy legal opinion the president's lackeys gin up for them, Amen to that!

I pray that Mukasey and Hayden are right. For the good of our country, and for the protection of all of us.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Torture Memos

Here is a link to the Bybee torture memo. It outlines ten forms of coercive interrogation, including waterboarding. It is thoroughly disgusting. I am sick that the author, Jay Bybee, is currently a sitting federal judge. Read it for yourself. It reads the prohibition on torture out of existence. Here is the subsequent one, authorizing even more horrific techniques, including dousing a person repeatedly with 41 degree(F) water for 20 minutes without drying or rewarming or sleep deprivation of up to 180 hours (7.5 days).

Thank you, President Obama and Attorney General Holder, for releasing this to the public. Never again.

Vatican Vetoes US Ambassador?

This had better be a false report. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Vatican claims it has squashed President Obama's desire to appoint Caroline Kennedy as ambassador to the Vatican on the grounds that she is pro-choice. This is very wrong and offensive. It must be bottled up in the Senate somewhere.

The US constitution explicitly forbids any religious tests for office, which means that a pro-life religious stand cannot be required for any office, including ambassador to the Vatican. We also do not have any tradition of bending or weakening our values to suit others in such appointments. It is unacceptable to preclude Jews or women from being ambassadors to Arab countries. During Apartheid, the US sent a black amabassador to South Africa - Ronald Reagan did this in 1986. It is particularly important, when dealing with the Vatican, to have someone who is able to represent the interests of the United States, not merely a pious church member. Among the other things the USA supports - against the wishes of the Vatican - are the following: the right of men and women here and abroad to have access to contraceptive devices and engage in family planning, no-fault divorce, no gender discrimination, the death penalty, the right to die (in some places), and toleration for gays and lesbians unions and anti-discrimination laws for gays and lesbians (in some places). We must not allow any foreign government or a single religious leader to demand that any ambassador to them disavow some or all of these values. Shame on the Obama administration if it gives into such pressure.

We really need an ambassador in the Vatican who will deliver sharp words when the Pope opposes condom distribution in Africa despite the horrific AIDS epidemic there, not someone who will kneel, kiss his ring, or even applaud. We need someone who will tell the Pope that it is not "okay" to promote holocaust deniers. Angela Merkel cannot be the only one with balls here.

Copper Pennies for China

I found this article from the Telegraph interesting. China is buying metals, a lot of them, copper in particular. The thought is that they are looking to protect themselves from dollar dilution as we print more dollars to cover the current economic crisis. From China's point of view, it is a smart move to make.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Letters of Marque?

Apparently Ron Paul thinks we should handle piracy by issuing Letters of Marque. The Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to issue these letters, which are essentially writs empowering a private person to act as a naval vessel and attach enemy ships. This is yet another reason why Ron Paulistas are unsuited for government in the 21st century. Can you just imagine the uproar it would cause if private vessels flying US flags were chasing all over the African coast attacking any other private boat that they claimed was engaged in piracy? And, of course, some of these freebooters would screw up and need to be rescued by the US navy anyway, or be taken captive themselves. Other than being cheap, this is a terrible, terrible idea.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Why I love Tax Day

April 15th is the date that income tax returns are due. It is wisely scheduled as far from election day as possible. Tax Day is awesome because it brings out the idiocy of the loony right. They are having Tea Parties right now in various places, which Paul Krugman (I think) has termed "Astroturf" - fake grassroots efforts. (FYI, the tax protests of the American revolution were not protests against high taxation, but about a very small tax on tea imposed by a distant Parliament in which they had no vote. The issue was political, not economic, but conservatives generally misunderstand history, for the same reason they disdain "ivory tower" education).

So far, of course, Barack Obama's administration has managed to lower taxes on most Americans and raised them on none. I, for example, am looking forward to the new tax credit for buying a new car. And most wage earners will see a dip in the withholding starting this week. Odd time to protest the level of taxation, huh?

But it's not about that. It's about nutso time on the Far Right. Tax Day is for conservative/libertarians the equivalent of shouting creationism in a crowded university. Today, for example, Texas Governor Perry is endorsing a "Sovereignty Resolution" with another wack-o theory about the 10th amendment and states rights. The amusing Texas state resolution orders the Federal Government to "cease and desist" from taking actions beyond the 10th amendment. It is not at at all clear what this is aimed at, since the 10th amendment is just a rule of interpretation, not a substantive provision. But what could the Federal government be doing that is so ultra vires? Torture? Secret spying on Americans without warrants? Um, no - conservatives like that stuff. They are upset, it seems, about unfunded mandates for unemployment insurance contained in the economic stimulus package. I barely typed that without yawning. The resolution demands that "all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply" be repealed. (FYI I refer these fine gents to the Supremacy Clause and the 14th amendment, plus some 200+ years of supreme court precedent). And these people claim Obama needs focus?

I love this stuff. Tax Day is the conservative equivalent of a G8 summit: when all the crazies come out. These are the people who argue that the 16th amendment (allowing the income tax) was never really ratified (so they don't have to pay?), that flags with or without fringes in courthouses mean something, that West Virginia isn't really a state, that the Fed is illegal because it doesn't use gold specie, that private clubs can be "militias" under the second amendment, that Texas uniquely has the right to divide into 5 pieces and/or secede, and a whole host of other half-baked legal theories ginned up by autodidacts. This is what irrelevance looks like when your party is devoid of centrists.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Finally! Change in US Cuban Relations!

I am very happy to see on CNN's website that President Obama has lifted travel restrictions on people with relatives in Cuba to Cuba! This is not normalization. And restrictions on the rest of us are still in place. But it may be the first step. To say that this is long over due would a monumental understatement.

I think this has only been made possible by Obama's sizable victory in the election. Had he taken the strategy taken by Gore and Kerry (i.e. a "big state" strategy) he would have been dependent on Florida. But because he built such a broad coalition both geographically and ideologically, he can afford to risk defeat in Florida by taking this step.

This is great! I hope to hear more along these lines over the next few years!

Yo Ho Ho and another Kind of Bailout

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the horn of Africa is finally hitting the spotlight in the US, for the predictable reason that one of our own was nabbed. Apparently, paying millions in ransom money had become a common practice for many shipping companies. It begs the question: why pay millions in ransom instead of hiring security forces? What is the cost of a hiring six or seven men to take shifts on watch with guns compared to the ransom? Why not delay shipments for a day or two to go in convoys and share the security costs among ships? Leaving aside the free rider problem, why is the cost of paying ransom ever considered a cheaper option?

The craziness is that shipping companies routinely send hundreds of millions of dollars of merchandise around the world at sea with just a dozen or so unarmed men as the only protection. Nobody does that on land. Why? Basically, it seems they expect the taxpayers of the world to pay for naval protection for them. Or they just don't mind the risk they are putting their employees through. There are currently a dozen ships under pirate capture in this area right now, according to almost every major news source. A dozen. And they are still sending unarmed and unprotected ships through there one at a time. If there were a dozen buses on I-95 currently being held hostage by gangs of bandits, I suspect that bus traffic would die down a bit.

I think that NATO or the other leading naval powers need to call in the heads of major shipping companies and tell them to take reasonable steps to pay for their own protection on the high seas as part of fighting piracy. Convoys and armed personnel are a good start, so are longer routes out to sea. Then the naval forces can concentrate on protecting the convoys and shutting down pirate operations. Asking taxpayers to do this over and over again is just another kind of bailout.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Exceptions to America's Urban vs Rural Politics

The little debate that LTG and I had about the political culture of the upper midwest got me thinking about something. For the most part American politics is increasingly dominated by an urban vs rural dynamic. Most of the states with large urban populations vote for Democrats most of the time. Most of the states that are mostly rural or small towns vote for Republicans. Even within states you can see this pattern. In most maps of recent presidential election results you can see high percentages of the Democrat in countries in which major cities are located and high percentages for the Republican in counties with no cities. Some good examples of this patter would be California and Kansas. Check out the county by county maps from the New York Times election results page here. You can zoom in on the state you are interested in and change the election year with a handy sliding scale device. In the California map you can see the the densely populated coastal areas are largely voting Democratic (the major exception being wealthy, suburban Orange County). You can also see the large Republican vote shares in the more sparsely populated interior counties. Kansas is even more striking. You can see that most of the Democratic votes are concentrated in and around Kansas City. The little blue county just SW of Kansas City is the county where the University of Kansas is located. The blue county due south is a swing county that goes for either party (barely) depending on the year. You can see a similar pattern in Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, and even Utah and Texas. In Texas (famous as a Republican stronghold), Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin stick out like sore thumbs. The clump of Democratic counties along the border are due to large Tejano/Latino populations.

There are some notable exceptions however. One is the upper midwest. Check out Iowa or Minnesota. In those states there are some rural counties that vote consistently for Democrats. Another exception is Oklahoma where even Oklahoma City and Tulsa (both fairly large cities both with large Universities nearby) vote for Republicans. Mississippi and Alabama have some rural counties voting for Democrats and these counties mostly are those with large African American populations (this part of the South is one of the few places in the USA where African Americans are still living in numbers in rural areas).

The NY Times map is really fun too. You can look at the "county bubbles." You'll notice that there are very few large, red bubbles and few small blue ones. You can look at the county shift and see that Obama did better than Kerry did in most of the country except for a swath of the hill/mountain South and Louisiana/East Texas (where large numbers of poor blacks were displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita).

I'm not sure what explains all these exceptions - there are probably different reasons for the exceptions in each case/region. But they are noteworthy. These patterns may be interesting for the ongoing struggle for marriage equality and other social issues. They may point to urban areas that - despite being relatively cosmopolitan - won't be tolerant of marriage equality (like Oklahoma City or . On the flip side they MAY point to rural areas that won't be quite so intolerant.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Literalism at its Finest

I read a number of articles today about Birkat HaChamah, the "Blessing of the Sun" - a ritual that happens once every 28 years on the vernal equinox, celebrating the Sun returning to the spot on the very day when God created the earth some 5600 years ago. The first thing you might notice is that the vernal equinox was more than 2 weeks ago. That's because this calculation of dates was apparently by a 3rd century Jewish scholar who was no better at his job than the Romans at theirs. The Julian Calendar is gradually falling behind with too many leap years. We have been on the Gregorian Calendar in the English-speaking world since 1752, which required skipping 10 days in the Calendar. There was no such revision of the Jewish calendar, however. So you have to add 10 days. For the same reason, Orthodox Christmas is on January 7th. (Orthodox Easter is another whole kettle of fish).

The next thing you might notice is the supposed Jewish belief that God created earth on the vernal equinox. Bishop Ussher, Anglican bishop of Armagh in the 16th century famously calculated that earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC. Yet the Washington Post blithely repeats that the "Old Testament" says the world was created on the vernal equinox. Obviously the Old Testament (or Torah) doesn't say that in so many words, or the good Bishop would have noticed.

Why October? Apparently the bishop put the date of creation on the first Sunday after the autumnal equinox. Hmmm. The autumnal equinox is September 21, more or less, but again you have to add those 10 days. That still doesn't get you to October 23. But Bishop Ussher cleverly (?) realized that to calculate the date in the Gregorian calendar, you had to add those pesky extra days also for the 4008 years before the regular addition of leap years began. Hence October 23, 4004.

Why 4004 BC? Well, Ussher agreed that Jesus had to have been born during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. So he believed that the earth was created 4000 years before Jesus' birth, more or less.

Why the autumn? Ussher assumed that the year had to begin in autumn because that is when the Jewish New Year takes place. For some reason, this reasoning escaped Jewish scholars. One gets the impression Ussher never asked any of them.

Ussher also believed that earth was created "in the evening" of that date - he means October 23, 4004BC as if it were in the Jewish calendar, starting at sundown. OK, sundown... where? And was that with or without Daylight Saving Time?

There's only one reasonable reading of the biblical injunction by God for us to count to seven, then take a break:As a species, we're terrible at math.

Hurrah for Secretary Gates

Secretary Gates has proposed huge slashes to military weapons programs. For a full cataloguing of what he will slash and what he will add see Gates Starts Huge Acquisition Shift at Military.com

Suffice to say: it's about time! I think Gate's program is pragmatic. I know many on this blog were skeptical of Gates when he was allowed to stay on as Secretary of Defense. But he has proven himself capable and he has the respect of the military. He is frustrated with weapons programs that take on lives of their own (Anyone ever seen Kelsey Grammer, Cary Elwes, and Richard Schiff in the Pentagon Wars? I often feel like Richard Shiff's character), that are kept alive so that some general can get an extra star, and so that contractors can compete for the largest pool of the DoD budget.

The wars of the future will not be conventional. The last conventional war we fought was Gulf War I and before that, it was the Korean War. And even conventional militaries are using non-conventional fighting methods. It is time that we got real about what is necessary.

Now many of Gates' proposals may not be adopted. No congressman wants to loose jobs in his district, especially during a downturn. But many of those jobs, I suspect, will just shift to new programs rather than disappear completely. And some his proposals are limits rather than cuts. He is limiting controversial F-22 buy at 187 planes ($141 mil a piece), which is 4 more planes than the Air Force said it would need. This is the most expensive weapons program going at the moment.

There are some very good things in his proposal. He is increasing spending on medical research for wounded soldiers, increasing special forces, and he is taking 11,000 contractors currently supporting DoD acquisition and making them regular government employees. It's about time! Now if we can spread that across the rest of the DoD.

If Congress approves these changes, then at best, the proposal will be budget neutral. However, it is necessary. I am not a military hardware expert, but from what I read and what I do know, I think it's a good plan.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Some Thoughts on the ELCA and Social Issues

With Iowa's Supreme Court unanimously ruling that a 12 year old anti-marriage equality law violated the state's constitution followed quickly by the Democratic leadership in the Iowa Assembly quickly and firmly shooting down a knee jerk attempt by some Republicans to amend the Constitution, there may be questions about the important cultural features of the upper midwest and how they may relate to this.

First, what is the upper midwest. Really, I'm talking about Minnesota and the states that border it (Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota). Nebraska is a kind of border area. The Missouri River valley upstream from Omaha Midwestern but the further west you go in Nebraska the more western you get. Really, the same can be said of the Dakotas too. These states have large populations of Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and Finns mixed in with a population dominated by Germans. It is interesting to note that people in this part of the country not only come from non-English speaking cultures but they are still aware that they aren't Anglo-Saxons in the strict sense of the word. You won't find many people in this region self-identifying as "American" when asked about their ethnic heritage. Scandinavian languages can still be heard in the smaller towns' nursing homes. Churches in this part of the world still gave sermons in languages other than English well into the 1970s and 80s. These characteristics differentiate this region from other parts of the country and even other parts of the midwest such as Illinois, Michigan, Kansas or Missouri.

I'm not going to talk about some vague historical or cultural connection between Scandinavian Americans and their famously progressive cousins back in the old country. Rather I am going to talk about one of the most important social institutions in the upper midwest, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America or ELCA. The ELCA was formed in the 1980s when a handful of organizations based on the old immigrant churches combined. ELCA predecessor churches had their roots mainly in Scandinavian churches in America but also included many German churches. The ECLA is currently in "full communion" with the Episcopal Church. So right off the bat you get the impression that it is part of the progressive branch of Christianity.

Churches that are now in the ELCA have been ordaining women since the 1970s - about the same time as Episcopal Churches started doing it. The ELCA has Bishops who lead "synods" and about 10% of the Bishops are now women.

With regard to Gay rights and marriage equality, ELCA official doctrine is that gay Christians are welcome to join the community but that Gay Pastors are expected to be celibate. However, the ELCA has officially stopped disciplining any pastors that violate this rule and the rule is due to be revisited this year. Their cousins back in Sweden and Denmark already recognize gay marriages (although Swedish and Danish laws do not go beyond civil unions). I'm not a practicing Lutheran so I don't know how much contact there is between the American and Scandinavian churches but I know from talking to my Grandmother's generation that if I were to say "they say it's OK in the Danish Church", they would give that some serious thought.

Most Scandinavian Americans in the upper midwest were raised in ELCA churches if they aren't currently members. This is important because although Scandinavian Americans make up a declining share of the populations of these states, they still make up a disproportionate share of the local elites. Mayors, city council reps, Assembly reps, local business leaders are more likely to have Scandinavian names than those ethnicities share of the population would justify. And these people have been going to churches that have been among the most progressive churches in the country. What's more, ELCA churches in this region have expanded their membership beyond the Scandinavian communities.

So we are talking about a region of the midwest where going to church every week doesn't mean the same thing that it means down in Kansas. In most cases, I'm of the opinion that churches are forces for backwardness and intolerance. But there are some notable exceptions. The American Episcopal churches are one. Unitarians are another, as are Quakers and Lutherans.

Sure there are Lutherans down south. But they don't run the place. Up here Lutherans are like the Episcopalian elites are in New England.

Even closer to Senator Franken (D-MN)

Today the last absentee ballots were counted by the Minnesota three-judge panel assigned to hear the Coleman election challenge. Franken gained about 90 votes. His lead was 225 votes; now it is 312. With this conclusion, the Minnesota court is expected to issue a final ruling in Franken's favor within a day or two. Coleman will have ten days to find some ground to appeal. The appeal will likely be filed immediately. In other words, the appellate process should start this week or early next week. I suspect that process will conclude swiftly this month with an order from the MN Supreme Court essentially directing that the governor sign the election certificate.

Vermont Recognizes Gay Marriage

The Vermont legislature voted to override their Republican Governor's veto this morning to legalize gay marriage! I admit I got a little "verklempt" when I heard the news--I was stunned. Vermont is the first US state to grant marriage equality by legislation rather than by judicial fiat. And the lawmakers did so in style, mustering the 2/3 majority necessary to overcome a veto.

Also today, the Washington D.C. City Council voted unanimously to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. (Note that Washington D.C. is not part of any US State, so it decides these things separately.) And all this of course follows Iowa's historic Supreme Court decision four days ago. As LTG says, all eyes now turn to look across the river from Vermont to New Hampshire, where their House has already approved gay marriage and their Senate will take a vote in the next couple of weeks.

This is another good day.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

New NATO Chief

Hi Everyone,

NATO just picked a new General Secretary, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Rasmussen was the candidate supported by the US and opposed by Turkey and several Eastern European members of NATO. I guess the US still has some influence after all.

Turkish opposition was linked to Rasmussen's opposition to Turkish entry to the EU and the Danish cartoon issue which many politicians in Muslim countries have used a political cause celeb. But they eventually went along with Rasmussen's appointment.

Rasmussen is a member of the Venstre party. Venstre means "Left" in Danish but the party is actually Liberal. That is, they support smaller government and secular, progressive social policies. Rasmussen's foreign policy while governing Denmark has been characterized by close ties with the US. Danish troops are serving in Afghanistan and had been serving in Iraq as well. Rasmussen's appointment probably means Obama will have an ally at NATO HQ in rallying the other NATO countries to deploy more troops to Afghanistan.

Leading members of the Danish Venstre party are jockeying to replace Rasmussen now. One of the leading candidates is also named Rasmussen (no relation). If it's him, it would mean that Denmark will have three prime ministers in a row named Rasmussen none of them related to each other.

Friday, April 03, 2009

Iowa Recognizes Gay Marriage

The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of gay marriage today. RbR indicated over a year ago that this was the likely outcome of the case, but I did not believe a state in the US "heartland" would do so anywhere near this soon. I have rarely been so pleased to be wrong! Hooray for Iowa! The tide is moving slowly but surely our way.

With Iowa starting on April 29, three US states will recognize marriage equality as fully as they can: MA, CT, and IA. (Without federal recognition, however, the marriages are not actually fully equal.) There are also some partial successes current and on the horizon: CA has stopped performing same-sex marriages, though currently recognizes those performed last summer, and the legislature has twice approved it (governor vetoed); NY will not perform same-sex marriages, but will recognize those performed elsewhere; and the VT and NH legislatures are expected to approve marriage equality in a matter of weeks, although both governors are expected to veto the bills.

With Sweden starting on May 1, seven nations will recognize full marriage equality: Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa, Norway, Sweden. There are also some partial successes current and on the horizon: France and Israel recognize foreign same-sex marriages for many purposes, but will not perform them; Portugal's government has promised to legalize same-sex marriage if re-elected later this year; and in Iceland the government under caretaker Prime Minister Sigurðardóttir (the first-ever lesbian Head of State) is also seeking to legalize same-sex marriage, although they are very unlikely to do so before the May elections.

There will be setbacks in this fight too. But today--today is a good day.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Mrs. Windsor and Mrs. Obama

So it looks like there's a bit of royal brouhaha about the Queen (of England etc.) putting her arm around Michelle Obama, and she reciprocating by putting her arm around the Queen. It's about a two-second interlude, but it is the Youtube moment of the G20 summit. Can any of our English or Australian subjects of the Queen tell me what the big deal is? As a citizen of a republic, I am culturally baffled. It's not as if anyone goosed her.

They Concern, Thank God, Only Material Things...

In his First Inaugural Address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the following:

"In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return."

That second sentence is wonderfully inserted there. As bad as it all is, FDR is saying: it's only money. Of course, he knew that poverty could cripple the spirit as well, and become more than a material problem, just as joblessness and foreclosure in the middle classes can lead to despair, suicide, violence, spousal and child abuse. But FDR meant to argue that the economic depression was primarily one of institutional economics, not the result of a personal, spiritual, or cultural failure by the American people. In a country with a puritan heritage, we often ask secular or religious variants of "why is God punishing us?" when these things happen. The tendency is often to look inward (or at one's neighbor) rather than at institutional or external causes. When I studied abroad in Russia in 1992, many people expressed to me there the feeling that "communism failed because we are failures." This was not a helpful attitude. It made the political space for ultranationalists and racists who promised to make people feel good about themselves again.

Around the world and on this blog, people have wondered whether this is an economic crisis or really the result of moral and cultural failings in the United States. Many in Europe seem to be urging the latter reading. They seem to say that it is America itself that is failing, including the ideals of individualism, home ownership, the "American Dream" and all that. I think that is both self-righteous and inaccurate. The most striking thing about traveling around Europe today is how much more it looks like the USA than it did 20 years ago. Starbucks, McDonalds, and tract housing developments did not force their way into Europe.

As in FDR's time, we should be focusing on economics. However, I have argued, and I think FDR would have argued too, that there are also personal attitudes to this depression that need to be overcome. The same attitudes of the 1920s were repeated in Reaganism in the last 30 years: from alpha-male bankers (a phrase that still amazes me) to investment bubbles, we abandoned sober, grownup capitalism for adolescent behavior. I think it is useful to separate broad-brush cultural critiques (e.g, blaming all this on American individualism) from more specific attitudinal critiques (e.g., that the anti-regulatory school of conservatism was at best naive, at worst complicit).

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Senator Stevens Vindicated?

In a shocking move, the Justice Department has asked that the convictions against former Senator Stevens (R-AK) be vacated. I am disturbed because it is readily apparent that if the case had not been brought, or had been dropped before the election, he would almost certainly have been re-elected. Given the embarassment this causes to everyone involved, it is hard to imagine any attorney general doing this unless he were certain that the prosecutorial misconduct was manifest. It is harder yet to imagine a Democrat vindicating a Republican ex-officeholder under these circumstances, unless it were a foregone conclusion.

So what happened in the Stevens case? The real question left is whether the prosecutors were motivated by the "game" of the trial (to win, win, win at all costs), by the lure of publicity, or by political motivations. Political motivations of a partisan type seem unlikely, as it was the Bush-appointed justice department that prosecuted Stevens. Was there some internecine Republican problem with Stevens? There is no evidence of this.

I think at this stage, the most reasonable conclusion is that the Stevens case was exemplary of the Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzalez/Mukasey justice department: shoddy work by poorly qualified attorneys, the convictionthat the ends justify any means, and the belief that accused persons are all guilty criminals who don't deserve rights.

What's worse is that Stevens probably is guilty of concealing these "gifts" (read: bribes) anyway. What a shame.

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