Top Stories Tuesday 31 Dec

Body and Soul talks about a little health crisis underway in Africa:

In less than twenty years, 70 million Africans will die of AIDS.

That number -- 70 million people -- ought to trigger the same kind of response a looming genocide invokes: the knowledge that we won't be able to live with ourselves in the future if we don't do something to stop it now, that in a few years we'll be asking ourselves the same question we ask now about Rwanda -- how in God's name did we manage to sit by and watch that happen?

Fifty-eight percent of AIDS victims in Africa are women. That isn't significant because women's lives are in any way more valuable than men's lives, but because it extends the reach of the disease far beyond the victim. Seventy to eighty percent of food in Africa is produced by women. In times of famine, women have traditionally been the ones to set up networks to distribute food. But sick and weakened women inevitably devote less time to planting and harvesting crops, and to helping with food distribution. When the people who produce the food die, the entire community suffers. And of course it's a vicious cycle: malnutrition takes a toll on the immune system and speeds up the development of AIDS in people who are HIV-positive.

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Posted 7:51 PM by Martin Wisse

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New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we'll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

Slacktivist
Hopeful outrage, politics, culture and religion from a progressive Christian perspective.

Left in the West
Written by a Montanan who writes on local issues and national issues and how they correspond to Montana and the west.

Mark . R. Kleiman
Political, policy, and other thoughts from a policy analysis professor at UCLA.

Selfmade Pundit
Just the guy that can't stand cant.

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Posted 8:30 PM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Friday 20 Dec

Atrios on the INS roundups in California:

Look folks - imagine you're dealing with your DMV. Imagine Flunky #1 messes up your driver's license application and tells you to come down to the office. Then, when you do go down to the office as requested Flunky #2 notices you drove there AND you don't have your driver's license (because, well, they screwed up your application). Flunky #2's boss recently decided they now had a no- tolerance policy on such things and he has you arrested and thrown in jail.

Then, of course it doesn't stop there. The special DMV judge operates his own special DMV court which has its own rules. Speedy trial? Nah. You could be there awhile. Who will support your family? Who knows. Chances for appeal? Not really.

The DMV judge deports you back to a country you haven't lived in for 10-15 years. Your American children wave goodbye, as does your wife.

But, enough of that, I've got to go work on my next Tech Central Station column about the inconveniences of airline security for business travelers and my Fox News column about startling new evidence that Michael Bellesiles is a pedophile.

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Posted 4:01 PM by Martin Wisse

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Who is the "best of the left"?

P.L.A. is runnign a contest to determine the best bloggers of 2002 in various categories. There's best blogger, best new blog, best series of posts, best single posts, etc. Why not take a look and vote for your favourites in the Kouflax awards? (Apparantely Kouflax was some lefthanded sportsman in one of those obscure American sports derived from Britsh girl games, hence the name of the award.)

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Posted 4:00 PM by Martin Wisse

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New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we'll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

WampusBlog
Progressive Politics, Indian Issues, and Autism Advocacy. By "MB"

Micah Holmquist
A blog focusing on the "war on terror" but with comments on just about anything that interests Micah.

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Posted 10:05 PM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Monday 16 Dec

The Sideshow says what I think about Gore dropping out:

It's not that I'm not willing to give Kerry or Dean a chance. It's just that I can already see that they have more minuses than Gore and fewer pluses. You can say what you want about needing a nominee who hasn't been tarnished by years of RNC spin, but you're in dreamland if you think the GOP can't make them up about your favorite candidate the same way they did with Gore. Remember, the things they said about Gore were lies. They said a guy who'd been captain of the football team was unable to make friends. They tried to pretend the Internet in no way benefited from Gore's input. They claimed that a man with a 20-year reputation as a straight- arrow was "a serial liar" with dirty hands. And these were things everyone in Washington knew were not true. They had to make it all up, because they had no head-start with Gore, he didn't give them anything to attack. So they had to take every good thing about him and turn it into a minus. He was known for his integrity, so they called him a liar. He inspired the lead character in Love Story, so they pretended that he just made it up and he'd been unpopular since grade school. He spent years working to see the piddly little arpanet turned into something we all had access to, so they made fun of his daring to say so and pretended it wasn't true.

The Bitter Shack of Resentment lets you know that they executed a man because he was gay:

Amnesty International says he received the death penalty specifically because the prosecutor used anti-gay bias to sway the jury. Here's what the prosecutor, Robert Schulte (who is still working in the same capcity today) told them as they considered his sentence for a robbery- homicide:

"I want you to think briefly about the man you're sitting in judgment on and determining what the appropriate punishment should be ... I'd like to go through some things that to me depict the true person, what kind of person he is. He is a homosexual. The person you're sitting in judgment on -- disregard Jay Neill. You're deciding life or death on a person that's a vowed (sic) homosexual ... But these are areas you consider whenever you determine the type of person you're sitting in judgment on. ... The individual's homosexual."

Just so you know.

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Posted 3:34 PM by Martin Wisse

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A quick burst of self promotion

Do you want to know what I think about Ian McEwan's Amsterdam, Ken MacLeod's Dark Light or Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi? Then read my Booklog

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Posted 12:36 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Saturday 14 Dec

Eschaton on "states rights":

What I hope comes out of this is the recognition and understanding that when a politician in the south goes on about "states' rights" they are speaking in code that is well understood by a portion of the electorate - black and white. I don't mean that all supporters of federalism are objectively pro-segregation (Very big of me, no?), just that in certain contexts and from certain people the use of that phrase and related ones is nothing more than a big "FUCK YOU" to the black population. They get it. And, enough of the whites get it too.

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Posted 10:12 PM by Martin Wisse

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Nathan Newman on conservatives' union bashing:

I guess the problem is that the big money folks have so much power that people feel powerless to attack them. So conservatives like Galt take advantage of that to funnel that frustration at an easier, weaker target like the transit unions, who are just trying, as New Yorkers, to take care of their families. As I said, it's class warfare of the meanest kind, pitting the powerless against those fighting for just a scrap for themselves, while leaving those with real power untouched and undenounced.

Union-bashing and race-baiting by conservatives are linked by this strategy, seeking to distract white workers by finding scapegoats, so working class voters are divided and don't work together to go where the real money is-- the wealthy who pigged out at the economic casino in the last decades. Attack the unions, bash the minorities, pit people against each other, ignore the rich folks behind the curtain-- it's standard conservative rhetoric.

Shadow of the Hegemon writes about what Osama wants, in the process of demolishing Instapundit's "objectively pro-Saddam" silliness:

So what does Osama really want? He wants LGF. Specifically, he wants xenophobic, anti-Islamic rhetoric designed to give westerners the impression that all Muslims are bloodthirsty sub-human zealots, so that those who are not become afraid. He wants people to say that the religion is anti-modernity, anti-science, and anti- reason, so that all those Muslims who are all three will become afraid. He wants people to say that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to christianity" so that those who live in those countries and are devout enough to consider forcible conversion forcible damnation to become afraid. He wants the United States to invade Iraq on the flimsiest of excuses, so that they'll know that the rule of international law is meaningless and therefore everything is fair game. He wants all of them to become afraid, and decide that before the west gets them, they'll get the west.

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Posted 5:17 PM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Friday 13 Dec

Digby, in Atrios' comments writes on who exactly broke the Trent Lott story and why it took so long for the "liberal media" to notice:

Jim Lehrer was clearly puzzled tonight as to why this story took so long to find it's way into the media. Nobody seemed to know. But, I do. It's because this is a political story about "character" that didn't originate from the Mighty Wurlitzer with tidy talking points for a platoon of paid talkers to spew en masse on radio and TV. The press no longer even looks for this stuff on its own. It simply waits for it to come to them.

Tom Tomorrow got e-mail from a reader:

The occasion is the signing of the Spence / Warner Defense Spending Bill in October of 2000, and the remark--which is made by Lott to a woman standing behind Senator Thurmond, who is himself in the process of signing the bill--is NOT directed to the senator himself, but is offered as an aside (furthermore, this event was in no way intended as a tribute to Thurmond, as the birthday celebration was, and thus seems not to have been inspired directly by any attempt to please Mr. Thurmond w/o any actual endorsement of Thurmond's Dixiecrat platform, as Lott has claimed the birthday tribute was). The remark is exactly as follows, and though spoken off-camera, is quite audible: "Yes...he should have been elected in 1947...or 1948, it was".)

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Posted 9:30 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Thursday 12 Dec

The Sideshow reflects on why conservatives think there's a liberal media:

It's always so weird reading the comments on these things, with all the "conservatives" leaping out of the woodwork to insist that the media is liberally-biased. What do they mean? Where are they finding all this liberalism in the media? Do they turn on their radios and hear three hours a day of commentators who advocate lifting the cap off of the maximum salary that is subject to Social Security taxes? Does the TV news seem to be advocating a state-paid national health care plan available for free to all? Do they insist on using the proper term for late-term abortion (that was it), rather than "partial-birth abortion", even?

Shou? talks about memories:

Living in an apartment in Beirut in 1999 and 2000, when Israeli jets bombed the Lebanese power stations to rubble (in Beirut, a 24-hour power supply was restored in 1996, a few years after the civil war), I considered myself lucky when I had power at home for more than eight hours during the day. Living in refugee camps (in 2001 and a few times in previous years), I had to adapt myself to long power cuts a few times a day, and always forgot to fill the water tank on the roof. When I would have had a full water tank on my roof here in Rotterdam, life would have been easier right now. Here in Holland we think it's normal that everything always works. We don't even consider the possibility that something could go wrong. We don't prepare for the worst. In parts of Lebanon you still have to.

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Posted 10:46 PM by Martin Wisse

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The Shadow of the Hegemon on how blogs helped to break the Trent Lott story:

I actually think that blogosphere politics had a hand in this one, although not in the way you'd think. The right side of the blogosphere has been making a lot of noise about how fairminded and forward-thinking they are, especially compared to the humorless and racist and sexist and P.C. left. (Nonsense, but bear with me.) Thing is, in this case, if they had let this go or tried to explain it away when people like Atrios were all over it like the proverbial cheap suit, there is absolutely no way that they could ever claim the moral high ground. So they jumped on it. (To be fair, most aren't that fond of racism anyway; neo-cons are more libertarian than that.)

I'm not sure about Demosthenes's last statement; in my experience there is certainly a bigoted streak in libertarian and neocon thinking; at the very least both groups tend to be extremely myopic about race relations, as well as gender and sexuality issues. Partially this may be because both groups are overwhelming made out of white boys --it's easy to downplay the existence of racism when you're not part of the group it is targeted at.

(The paranoia about government programs and fetishising of personal "liberty" and "responsibility" --sometimes ending up as hostility against people who cannot make it "on their own" -- don't help here as it often means libertarians/neocons oppose just those laws/programs intended to help minority or disadvantaged groups. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice this looks a lot like bigotry from the outside.)

Musings and Meanderings tells us about those scarey socialists organising for peace:

Damn those Commies! First, their sneaky pinko brain trust takes over organizations like ANSWER, then brainwash its members into fighting for peace. Next thing you know, the United States has a wussy peacenik government that can be easily infiltrated by the Trotskyites and Maoists who still roam the earth looking for fresh meat to devour. It's Red Dawn all over again!

Nathan Newman on Affirmitive Action:

Let's be clear-- affirmative action is not payback or reparations or anything of the kind. It is not a punishment to whites, but a system of correcting for the fact that, just by being white, you get an advantage in looking for a job. You get more interviews and more consideration. You can be Brad White from the ghetto and you still have privilege compared to Tyrone Black from next door and all affirmative action does is recognize that fact and try to correct for it, imperfectly no doubt but the status quo is imperfect as well.

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Posted 5:44 PM by Martin Wisse

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MyDD does a 2002 election wrapup:

What Louisiana shows is that the Democrats know how to beat Republicans-- by going after them on specific (mostly farm-related) economic policies that the GOP consistently pushes, which run against the rural voters interests. This is the Bush economy that is heading into recession, and the Democrats should be under no pretense of thinking that Bush enjoys a mandate on economic policy (especially one that delivers for the multinationals against the US farmers interests). It also means that Landrieu is a new Democratic star for the Party-- a southern, moderate, tested woman is probably just what they need on the 2004 ticket, and she just showed how to beat Bush.

Lean Left: where is George?

Where is George W. Bush in the firestorm around Trent Lott? Nowhere, as near as I can tell. He had Fleischer offer some weasly words of support, but has remained silent. He has yet to call for Lott's resignation. He has yet to do anything but hide. The Democrats should not let him. By not calling for Lott's resignation, Bush seems to be trying to have it both ways. He doesn't want to appear to court the racists, but he certainly seems to want their votes.

Eschaton on principles:

I can't throw my hat in with the crowd that thinks we should keep Lott around to use him for a punching bag. There are times when principle should come first, and this is one of them. It's been outrageous from the beginning that he had his leadership position - his segregationist links are NOT new or newly discovered, no matter what some bloggers like to think. Hoping to keep him around to exploit the situation politically is a bit too cynical even for this cynic. A message should be sent that Such a Person Should Not Be Majority Leader. It's up to the Republicans to do that, of course, but to hope for anything else is to hope for the continued legitimization of his views. It's time for him to go. If that somehow helps Republicans, fine, because it will be the right thing to do and they should get credit for doing it (even if their motives aren't pure - no one's ever are in this business.)

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Posted 2:26 PM by Martin Wisse

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The Daily Kos on the Republicans' loss of momentum:

Now Lott has come and destroyed the last vestiges of "momentum" the GOP had left from November. Whether Lott stays or resigns his leadership post, this whole episode will stain the GOP, and color their efforts over the next two years.

You can forget about racially tainted judicial nominees ever seeing the light of day -- like Judge Pickering (whose nomination Bush wanted to revive). And the concept of "compassionate conservatism" will be sorely tested, as Bush will have to answer to his strong support for Lott. And so will just about every elected Republican official.

Counterspin urges the Republican Party to rids itself from the racists in it:

At some point, the Republican party has to decide if it wants to be the party of racists. Sure...the large majority of its members are not racists. But...a significant voting block, particularly in the deep Spouth, IS. There's no other way to slice it. The Republicans can't have it both ways. Either they repudiate neo- Confederate ideology, including such things as flying the Confederate battle flag, or other flags, on government buildings...or they actually start living up to the principles they claim to hold dear. Namely, freedom and opportunity

Calpundit is angry with Glenn Reynolds:

FOOT IN MOUTH DISEASE SEEMS TO BE SPREADING....You know, Glenn, my mother is opposed to war with Iraq. If you want to call her misguided, or perhaps misinformed, or even naive, well, I guess I can suck it up and take it. Sometimes pundits have to play rough.

But "Saddam's ally"? Back in the 50s Mom had to sign one of those McCarthy-inspired loyalty oaths before she was trusted to teach our impressionable youths, and I spent my entire childhood growing up in Orange County, ground zero for the John Birch Society. My elementary school principal regularly warned us all about the evils of communists, atheists, socialists and their ilk, and he included in his warnings anyone who was merely insufficiently vigilant against their depradations.

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Posted 12:20 PM by Martin Wisse

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Thursday is Cartoon Day!

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Posted 9:18 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Wednesday 11 Dec

Antidotal on the weird American attitude towards sex and violence:

I've always had a hard time figuring out why Americans find sex so taboo. Conservative cultural critics argue that we need to restrict and restrain sexual imagery and references so as to protect our children. But I think that this is just silly. Children don't need to be shielded from sex; they need to learn to treat sex with respect and a degree of caution. You can't inculcate a mature attitude toward sex in our youth by dishonestly preaching that sex is indecent, or evil, or intrinsically harmful, or that it doesn't exist for people until they're over 21. By the time children reach the age at which they curious and interested enough to ask questions in sex, they're probably mature enough to begin learning what it's really all about.

The American attitude toward sex seems particularly weird when one considers that U.S. TV isn't nearly as restrained when it comes to violence. Aside from the news, between CSI, Law and Order, 24, and the gobs of action flicks that are always on, you can always catch depictions of people being maimed, murdered, or gloriously killed by the Good Guy at almost any hour of the day, and these depictions are treated as relatively unproblematic.

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Posted 5:27 PM by Martin Wisse

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Perspective on Aragorn's opposition to war with Iraq:

Actor Viggo Mortensen, who plays Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings series of films, has come out strongly against the war in Iraq on a US talk show. The reaction of some US fans (see the link above) is pretty funny..."how can he turn on the country that gives him the right to spew his bullshit". Well, he is Dane, in a New Zealand production of an English book, and I believe that's what they call free speech.

RC3.org on "liberal media" coverage of Trent Lott's remarks:

Is it just me, or are Trent Lott's boneheaded and probably heartfelt comments about Mississippi supporting Strom Thurmond's 1948 pro-segregation candidacy not getting the outraged response that they deserve? It's times like this that I get a really good laugh out of the idea that we're somehow burdened with a liberal media establishment. Shouldn't we be seeing editorials calling for his resignation, or at least some criticism. You can see the quote itself at Slate, and the Washington Post has a reaction piece.

[...]

By the way, to get a feel for the lack of coverage of Lott's statements, check out this Google News search. One thing the Republican punditry excels at is viciously punishing Democrats for anything they say that's percieved as out of line. Where are the liberals here?

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Posted 4:33 PM by Martin Wisse

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Atrios on Trent Lott:

While Trent Lott's remarks were clearly over the line, it isn't as if - to many liberals - it was the first time he's crossed it. While I don't think all Right Wing/Republican voting types are racist's, its rare I find one who doesn't have a tin ear when it comes to racial issues, even when feigning concern. In all fairness this isn't limited to self-described conservatives - even the relatively liberal members of our not so liberal media see no problem with making a statement like "Jesse Helms isn't a racist, he just exploited the racism of his constituents to get himself elected." Still, while the condemnations of Lott by some were clearly genuine, forgive me for thinking that the condemnation from some circles isn't motivated more by a desire to see a Senate Majority Leader Nickles than any true concern. Hey, nothing wrong with a little crass opportunism I suppose - whatever real outrage I feel is also admittedly accompanied by some schaudenfreude.

Through the Looking Glass on why George Glider is still an idiot:

But the test of falsifiability only works if you apply it. The hypothesis that particularly Winnick, Skilling, Ebbers, and Waksal are trustworthy individuals has been utterly refuted by events. (That's why Gilder's "disgraced former executives" are, in fact, disgraced). The proper Popperian would discard the hypothesis and move on. And the application of this "Popperian" criterion is doubly ironic when applied to Waksal, who went into business after getting bounced out of hard science for lying to his colleagues and fraudulent work.

Alas a Blog on apologies:

And more importantly: why the hell is the leader of the Democrats defending Trent Lott on CNN? Is Daschle thinking, "gee, us Dems haven't been trounced enough by the Republicans lately. I'd better get on the national news immediately and defend Trent Lott! Otherwise there's a chance that there might be some infinitesimal part of the Republican agenda that doesn't get passed right away!"

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Posted 11:16 AM by Martin Wisse

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New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we'll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

CoherenceTheoryOfTruth
Political Disgruntlement and Technology from Utah. By Johann.

wimminandminoritiesdotcom
Subversity with a smile. A groupblog.

Uppity Negro
A pretty hate machine. Aaron is very skilled at getting under the skin of the special needs children.

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Posted 11:16 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Tuesday 10 Dec

Mikhaela's News Blog on how much a transgender person's life is worth:

... we can only conclude that Nebraska courts doesn't seem to think transgender lives are worth much. Worse, that first judge awarded a low figure because he declared that because he was trans (that's presumably what is meant by "lifestyle"), Brandon was responsible for his own death. If a sheriff ignoring a rape victim's testimony doesn't go beyond negligence into malignance, I don't know the meaning of the word...

Pandagon on the Republican's "outreach" to black people:

The amazing thing about the entire site is that it basically doesn't offer anything to black people - it's open about the fact that it's just out to make just enough black people vote Republican when they're needed. Way to be the "big tent" party, guys.

Pandagon on Spinsanity:

This shows what I don't like about Spinsanity and what I don't like about the West/Hanks crowd. Spinsanity (who are Swat grads, by the way) tends to be so overzealous in their pursuit of not appearing too liberal that they grasp at straws, like saying that a metaphorical use of "fifth column" solely in regards to the press is accusing conservatives of treason, which can be charitably be described as a terrible reading of the original quote. Hanks and West are pit bulls on the pant leg of intellectual tolerance, bending facts and logic so often that trying to figure out what the truth is becomes nearly impossible. I honestly don't care about their politics, it's their minds that I can't stand. I mean, if I turned in a paper making an argument with their rhetorical and logical styles, it would get rejected outright, regardless of what I was arguing.

The Rittenhouse Review reveals why he never will be president of the USA:

I thought I would save anyone so inclined the trouble of a little investigative reporting -- “A little what?”, the leading lights of our nation’s media cry out in unison -- and inform you of my own volition that I normally pay $40, plus tips, for a haircut, and I do so every three weeks.

And also, for the record, I have a furrowed brow, a deeply and perpetually furrowed brow, and a brow that has been furrowed -- and thoroughly unfurrowable -- for nearly twenty years.

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Posted 5:20 PM by Martin Wisse

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New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we'll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

Musings and Meanderings of an unabashed liberal
Observations and commentary on the state of the nation by that most rare species of American: the unabashed liberal. By Michael LaMartina.

(Personally I don't believe liberals are all that rare, even in the US, just underrepresentated in the media. -Ed.)

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Posted 4:08 PM by Martin Wisse

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Silliness

Damn! It's probably not a good idea to write when I'm this angry, but I have to get this off my chest. I just got an e-mail responding to the post I put up this morning about trying to draw attention to women bloggers. The gentlemen informed me in no uncertain terms that the only reason I get any attention from other bloggers is because I'm a woman. All the people who have linked to things I've written have done so only because of some dumb affirmative action ethic.

Silly me. I didn't even know it was be kind to dumb broads month.

I was sort of vaguely under the impression that I get quite a few links because I work hard to find stories, and facts behind stories, that a lot of other people miss. I thought it might have had something to do with the fact that I'm a fairly decent writer. Apparently not.

Of course not. It's a well known fact we only link to women to fill our quota, or because they flash some skin. It's not like you girls would have anything worthwhile to say as politics are far too complicated to worrry your pretty little heads about. Just blog about knitting or fluffy kittens.

WOMEN: KNOW YOUR LIMITS!

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Posted 10:47 AM by Martin Wisse

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New to the Left

Each day I list the blogs new to the linklist. Want to be added? Use the form, Luke. Entry does not guarantee winning. No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. You must either be a fiery liberal spirit or be in the vanguard of the workers revolution to participate. At a pinch we'll take dedicated left anarchists and the like as well. No wishy washy centrists need apply. The decision of the judges is final.

The Watch
regime change begins at home, escalate nonviolence. By Natasha.

Mikhaela's News Blog
By Mikhaela Reid.

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Posted 8:57 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Thursday 05 Dec

William Burton on skybox politics:

You get the point. The Democrats can make a list of every industry that favors Republicans over Democrats, then go down that list getting rid of every policy they ever instituted to favor those bastards. They once opposed price controls fro prescription drugs; they should now favor them. Not only is it good politics in that millions of voters would benefit from Democratic policies, but sticking it to your enemies is also good politics. It gives the big donors a reason to fear you, and may convince some of them to stay the hell out of politics completely. The same is true for sticking to the oil companies, the insurance companies, the big polluters, etc.

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Posted 10:21 AM by Martin Wisse

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Body and Soul on the tension between women's rights, respect for (minority) cultures and conservative commentators with time for neither:

And should I read anything into the fact that both Rushdie and Sullivan aim a good measure of their anger about the Miss World riots at feminists, who seem to be culpable because they failed to appreciate how important a part of Western liberal values beauty pageants are? (And will the gentlemen be disappointed to learn that Isioma Daniel apparently doesn't share their anti-feminism, since her next writing will appear in the feminist publication conservatives most love to mock -- writing not about Miss World, but about a topic neither one of them has considered worthy of notice: the radical women of the Niger Delta. I've been combing the press for months digging up stories on those women, and I wouldn't miss that article. Somehow I don't think Andrew Sullivan will be reading it. Isioma Daniel served her purpose for him as a means of attacking Muslims; what she has to say about women fighting the oil companies will probably be less compelling.

And in Sullivan's bizarre attempt to blame "puritanical, anti-capitalist feminists" who "hate free societies," do I hear a message to Western women: You'd better be grateful for the oppression we have here, because obviously our form of patriarchy is better than their form of patriarchy?

Thank you, I guess.

Eschaton on hating America:

Being, roughly speaking, on "the left," I have of course been accused many times, one way or another, of "hating America." You know, me and my good buddy Chomsky who I apparently worship though I've never really read. I've never quite known what this meant, actually. It's easy to dismiss it simply as rhetorical bludgeoning by one's political opponents, I suppose - a pee-wee league version of a Hitchens polemic. It is more than that, of course. I've posted before about the underlying source of this belief - roughly, conservatives believe they have a unique claim on the "true America" which has been tainted economically by that liberal FDR, politically by activist judges and states' rights violating Civil Rights and Voting Acts, and socially by homosexuality. Or something. If only one could remove the stain of the liberal legacy, we could truly return to the glory days of our untainted past.

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Posted 9:20 AM by Martin Wisse

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Thursday is Cartoon Day!

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Posted 9:13 AM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Tuesday 03 Dec

Aron's Israel Peace weblog on the logic of occupation, Yom Kippur and the religious meaning of Israel:

One of the things we are always taught on Yom Kippur is that we are only pardoned for sins against God. To be forgiven for sins one commits against a fellow human being, one has to seek out the wronged person and ask their forgiveness personally. As I sat in synagogue this Yom Kippur, I thought about all my sins of commission and omission. The families whose houses we entered without permission. The parents whose hearts were filled with panic as we took their sons away blindfolded and bound. The children who cried as we banged on the doors of their houses in the middle of the night, shouting "Jaish, Jaish(army, army)." And most of all, I thought of that teenage boy, suspended in terror from a pole on a minaret. Where could I find them all? How can I ask their forgiveness. In fact, for me, there is no atonement.

That evening, as the service closed, the whole congregation stood up and began to sing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem. It got me angry. Why were they singing this political song in a religious sanctuary? Now I left the service totally depressed. Not only did I no longer believe in the old god. I no longer believed in the new god, either. For me, there is no redemption.

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Posted 10:30 PM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Monday 02 Dec

Nathan Newman on who the "new Right" really are:

Unlike the stone racists of the American Renaissance, the "new Right" has learned a hypocritical cadence to dress their racism in the language of tolerance. But nothing symbolizes the bogus nature of the rhetoric than newly elected governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia, having campaigned on reviving the confederate flag, declaring "Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty We are Free at Last" as his victory speech.

The Right today can quote Martin Luther King, but it's all in the cause of Wallace and Bull Connor.

The Pontificator on the two questions that should be central to US foreign policy:

1) In ten years, will it be easier, or harder, to obtain weapons of mass destruction?

2) In ten years, will people outside the U.S.A. hate the U.S.A. more, or less, than they do today?

Bertram Online on responsibilities:

So, commentators of the “Right”, you who — in your own, warped self-understanding — have been fighting a fight against Communism and so smoothly converted that fight into a fight against Muslims: do you feel the slightest little tingling of responsibility for what goes on? In the suburbs of Copenhagen and in Sweden?

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Posted 5:31 PM by Martin Wisse

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Top Stories Sunday 01 Dec

Pandagon on conservative pundit's treating of blacks as a monolithic group:

And, by the way, let me explain something about being black - it's one thing to assume a black monolith, it's frequent political shorthand. The problem is when persons so far removed from said experience (such as the conservative white man David Horowitz) presume to lecture us as a class that we must do something in order to redeem ourselves or some such nonsense. What if I just sat down and told all the Jews how they could stop making people mad at them, or told the Irish how they could solve all their problems? Give me a large enough podium, and Horowitz's security force might even make a show of throwing me out, or better yet, the man himself might write some coffee-stained missive about how much of a threat I am to my country.

Max Speak on Islam, stereotyping and multiculturism:

When you see the word "multi-culturalism" uttered in a negative context, it usually means the speaker is referring simply to democratic tolerance. It's hard to criticize anti-racism or tolerance, so you recast them as an uncritical acceptance of barbaric practices by others (typically equated with 'culture,' and thus constructed as a group stereotype, as above). Racists defend themselves by accusing their critics of racism. Once again, I'd like to emphasize that I believe this kind of argument takes place in a confined space in the brains of many warbloggers. I do not think it spills over into personal relatioins, business affairs, or other minorities. I think it stems from the manner in which the emotional reaction to 9-11 is made into a political imperative, an imperative which creates a political need for a bull story about "Islamic culture."

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Posted 6:37 PM by Martin Wisse

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