Now, maybe there's some selection of Obama's interactions where his use of the first person singular pronoun is higher than expected for someone in his circumstances. Alternatively, maybe George F. Will is a bullshitter, who doesn't bother even to ask one of his interns to check whether the alleged "facts" in his columns are true or false. We report, you decide.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
George Will: Wrong on Language
George Will, it seems, is taken to inaccurate hyperbole about personal pronoun usage by our sitting President. This is really no surprise, since he has frequently overstated cases against our president before, but it is nice that a linguist complaint now joins those raised earlier. The best line?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Men and Their Wars
A cousin of mine, when asked what kind of museum she wanted to go to, said "Not one about men and their wars". We're in DC right now - museums are what one does, and so this was rather nontrivial. I am, as you may have guessed, rather interested in War. That said, it's perfectly reasonable to defer to something we all like, like the Natural History Museum, for our DC time. That can be done if one dislikes war, is upset by it, is made uncomfortable or angered or has a hostile reaction. Valid reasons all for not going to a war museum. They are not, in my mind, reasons to skip a history museum. This wasn't about not liking history; this was about 1) treating the whole of history as a series of wars, and 2) treating war as an exclusively male phenomenon.
1. The vast majority of history is the developments, changes, and evolutions in human society, as well as interactions between separate human societies, during peace time. Or times of relative stability - in ages of small-scale and irregular war, it is challenging to classify everything as peace; neighborhoods post-Katrina New Orleans, for example, could be labeled war zones, but that doesn't remove the story of New Orleans from the complicated period of domestic US policy we classify not as an actual war but as the War on Drugs. In order to address the social problems/challenges of such a city, we can't write the violent nature of it's present state off as a discontinuity from the whole prior history of the city; yes, Katrina is a delineating point, but one chaotic force of natural violence isn't the be-all end-all of violence in the area. It is far, far more complicated then that. We don't write the history of New Orleans as a series of unfortunate events beyond human control with no interlude - we write it as catastrophe-survival-adaptation-relaxation-catastrophe. Hurricanes, plagues, and, yes, wars, all serve to mark and identify the end-periods of eras, but the history isn't "this crisis made all this happen". It is "this historic tension, altered by this violence, led to this future, thanks to the actions of these folk". Writing it as a series of crises cheapens the history of the crises and of the city. More than that, though, it is inaccurate - they are both parts of the coherent whole of human experience. To treat history as nothing but war would be to do chemistry with exactly one element - not just dull and useless, but rather impossible. Treating history as a full range of experiences means that yes, it gets more challenging and complicated, but it also means that you are actually treating the subject as though it has worth.
2. War is not an exclusively male phenomenon. It is a predominately male phenomenon, but exceptions at all levels abound: espionage at all times in history, at the command of warring nations in the form of Hatshepsut, Zenobia and Boudica in antiquity, as well as Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, and Margret Thatcher in the past century, as well as countless others throughout history. On the field of battle itself, women fought in defense of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, and in many specific instances wonderfully compiled here. History is not devoid of women in military roles. What is interesting, then, is how exceptional all these cases are - war is an incredibly gendered phenomenon. Perpetrating and fighting in war has for so long been an overwhelmingly male phenomenon (and, as corollary, women have been especially victimized by war). But that shouldn't make war an irrelevant area of concern for feminists - the gendered nature of conflict should be especially interesting for that reason, not less so.
My point is this: if one objects to studying history because war is unpleasant and history means covering wars, then one should say so. But don't object to the study of history because war is a gendered phenomenon, because that is exactly why it is relevant to gender studies. And more broadly why it is relevant to people as a collective whole.
1. The vast majority of history is the developments, changes, and evolutions in human society, as well as interactions between separate human societies, during peace time. Or times of relative stability - in ages of small-scale and irregular war, it is challenging to classify everything as peace; neighborhoods post-Katrina New Orleans, for example, could be labeled war zones, but that doesn't remove the story of New Orleans from the complicated period of domestic US policy we classify not as an actual war but as the War on Drugs. In order to address the social problems/challenges of such a city, we can't write the violent nature of it's present state off as a discontinuity from the whole prior history of the city; yes, Katrina is a delineating point, but one chaotic force of natural violence isn't the be-all end-all of violence in the area. It is far, far more complicated then that. We don't write the history of New Orleans as a series of unfortunate events beyond human control with no interlude - we write it as catastrophe-survival-adaptation-relaxation-catastrophe. Hurricanes, plagues, and, yes, wars, all serve to mark and identify the end-periods of eras, but the history isn't "this crisis made all this happen". It is "this historic tension, altered by this violence, led to this future, thanks to the actions of these folk". Writing it as a series of crises cheapens the history of the crises and of the city. More than that, though, it is inaccurate - they are both parts of the coherent whole of human experience. To treat history as nothing but war would be to do chemistry with exactly one element - not just dull and useless, but rather impossible. Treating history as a full range of experiences means that yes, it gets more challenging and complicated, but it also means that you are actually treating the subject as though it has worth.
2. War is not an exclusively male phenomenon. It is a predominately male phenomenon, but exceptions at all levels abound: espionage at all times in history, at the command of warring nations in the form of Hatshepsut, Zenobia and Boudica in antiquity, as well as Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, and Margret Thatcher in the past century, as well as countless others throughout history. On the field of battle itself, women fought in defense of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, and in many specific instances wonderfully compiled here. History is not devoid of women in military roles. What is interesting, then, is how exceptional all these cases are - war is an incredibly gendered phenomenon. Perpetrating and fighting in war has for so long been an overwhelmingly male phenomenon (and, as corollary, women have been especially victimized by war). But that shouldn't make war an irrelevant area of concern for feminists - the gendered nature of conflict should be especially interesting for that reason, not less so.
My point is this: if one objects to studying history because war is unpleasant and history means covering wars, then one should say so. But don't object to the study of history because war is a gendered phenomenon, because that is exactly why it is relevant to gender studies. And more broadly why it is relevant to people as a collective whole.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I really dislike George Will
In my own field, George Will gets the very concept of State Capitalism wrong to hate on Obama.
In the field of climate change, George Will gets the very facts wrong, claiming a past global cooling consensus from a paper whose very point is that there was never a global cooling consensus.
And just today, George Will is upset over the very idea of changing transportation within this country, singling out my birth city of Portland, Oregon as this dreaded, unattainable dystopia where people bike to work. Most notably, he hyperbolizes that we will never reach a point where 0.01% of Americans bike to work. However, 0.4% already do, a number "forty times larger than a percentage that Will deems unrealistically utopian." (Edit: wonkette has a nice angry take on the transportation issue as well)
So, dear readers: can you find another example of George Will deliberately getting facts wrong in a field that isn't Keynesian economic policy, global warming, or transportation? Comment with any and every example you can find, hopefully in a "new field, new error" format. It'd be nice to have a comprehensive list of this online.
In the field of climate change, George Will gets the very facts wrong, claiming a past global cooling consensus from a paper whose very point is that there was never a global cooling consensus.
And just today, George Will is upset over the very idea of changing transportation within this country, singling out my birth city of Portland, Oregon as this dreaded, unattainable dystopia where people bike to work. Most notably, he hyperbolizes that we will never reach a point where 0.01% of Americans bike to work. However, 0.4% already do, a number "forty times larger than a percentage that Will deems unrealistically utopian." (Edit: wonkette has a nice angry take on the transportation issue as well)
So, dear readers: can you find another example of George Will deliberately getting facts wrong in a field that isn't Keynesian economic policy, global warming, or transportation? Comment with any and every example you can find, hopefully in a "new field, new error" format. It'd be nice to have a comprehensive list of this online.
George Will: Wrong Again
Editor's Note: This was originally sent in to the Albuquerque Journal as a letter to the editor. They didn't print it, and it is still almost-timely, so I'm posting it here. Relevant links: George Will's article ad-gated at the Journal or free-membership-gated at the Washington Post or in its entirety and with handy visual aids online here . Ian Bremmer's article in Foreign Affairs is paid-subscription-gated, but you can listen to the whole of it as a podcast.
Edit #2: Thanks to commentor ThingsBreak, here's a .pdf of Bremmer's piece. It is really, really good.
On Monday, the Journal published an article by George Will entitled "Too Many 'Free Markets' Belong to the State - Really". Will spends his time misinterpreting Ian Bremmer's article "State Capitalism Comes of Age." Substituting bias for an understanding of the material, Will disputes Bremmer's premise that "the state must eventually retreat" from long-term state control of capital. Will says, instead, that Bremmer is "probably wrong, because he underestimates the pleasure politicians derive from using their nation's wealth as a slush fund for purchasing political advantage." Nowhere in Bremmer's article does Bremmer exhibit an underestimation of political greed - instead, he refers often to the close ties between economic and political leadership in both Russia and China. Will also implies that the new states that have taken ownership of their free markets (Brazil, India, Turkey, and Mexico) have done so out of greed; Bremmer instead explains that they did so because these countries had "a much weaker rule of law than was the case in established free-market democracies".
The country that Bremmer does not feel is at risk for permanent state control is the one that Will writes the most about - the United States. Nowhere in Bremmer's article is there a basis for government in the US becoming "the only agent and the sole arbiter" of American happiness. Instead, Bremmer states correctly that "in the United States and in Europe, the power of the invisible hand remains an article of faith. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic know that to maintain popular support, they must keep their promises to return the banking sector and large enterprises to private hands once they have been restored to health." This is a far cry from the authoritarian USA Will reads into Bremmer's article. Once again, Will cherry-picks the his quotes, and misses the truth.
Edit #2: Thanks to commentor ThingsBreak, here's a .pdf of Bremmer's piece. It is really, really good.
On Monday, the Journal published an article by George Will entitled "Too Many 'Free Markets' Belong to the State - Really". Will spends his time misinterpreting Ian Bremmer's article "State Capitalism Comes of Age." Substituting bias for an understanding of the material, Will disputes Bremmer's premise that "the state must eventually retreat" from long-term state control of capital. Will says, instead, that Bremmer is "probably wrong, because he underestimates the pleasure politicians derive from using their nation's wealth as a slush fund for purchasing political advantage." Nowhere in Bremmer's article does Bremmer exhibit an underestimation of political greed - instead, he refers often to the close ties between economic and political leadership in both Russia and China. Will also implies that the new states that have taken ownership of their free markets (Brazil, India, Turkey, and Mexico) have done so out of greed; Bremmer instead explains that they did so because these countries had "a much weaker rule of law than was the case in established free-market democracies".
The country that Bremmer does not feel is at risk for permanent state control is the one that Will writes the most about - the United States. Nowhere in Bremmer's article is there a basis for government in the US becoming "the only agent and the sole arbiter" of American happiness. Instead, Bremmer states correctly that "in the United States and in Europe, the power of the invisible hand remains an article of faith. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic know that to maintain popular support, they must keep their promises to return the banking sector and large enterprises to private hands once they have been restored to health." This is a far cry from the authoritarian USA Will reads into Bremmer's article. Once again, Will cherry-picks the his quotes, and misses the truth.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Fine Line Between Black Helicopters and Ambulances
Earlier today (minutes ago, in fact) I wrote a post discussing the challenge posed to the Left by the civil-liberties-affirming Right. In short: when out of power, it was very, very easy for the Democrats to get the votes of those against the police state. When in power, they have to not only stop expanding but actively dismantle police state apparatus (Patriot Act, I'm looking at you) in order to not be the police state party.
There are inherent political challenges in this at any given time: alienating security conservatives, tarnishing the records of prominent Democrats complicit during the Bush years, potentially finding ones hands tied in acting on new information. There are new and exciting challenges that one can add on to this: trying to end it while aiming for National Reconciliation, the very identity of the President making him more prone to crazy domestic violence, and trying to extinguish state power in one arena while expanding it, in, say, the area of healthcare.
The key to expanding the state in one area while retracting it in another is, as I see it, about the framing of rights. The police state violates very clearly defined freedoms: it takes away privacy, autonomy, and presumed innocence. Ending the police state means guaranteeing those freedoms.
Healthcare has to be framed the same. Currently, healthcare means uncertainty, high costs, employment-dependence, and inefficiency. It does not mean, as the most adamant free marketeers will tell you, than procuring health services is a matter of choice and desire. When you need healthcare, you absolutely need it. No amount of bargaining or negotiating or price-comparison will help. Healthcare is a terrible good to have rationed exclusively by the market - it creates a surplus of cosmetic surgeries in the same nation that has 1 in 6 uninsured. So framing the current system as the free market is an impossibility.
Instead, Obama's healthcare plan, and all other universalistic healthcare programs, need to frame the very program as a freedom: freedom from risk, freedom from uncertainty, freedom from impossible costs, freedom to transition between jobs while still being insured. This isn't the state stepping in and forcing a program on people; this is the state removing unfair burdens and affirming the inherent freedom to life.
If people see healthcare as a freedom and not as a government program, and if police state programs are repealed, I think the Obama coalition can last for at least another decade. More importantly, it will both fulfil campaign promises, and give the Left an opportunity to stop being the "big government" party and instead become a political party about freedoms.
There are inherent political challenges in this at any given time: alienating security conservatives, tarnishing the records of prominent Democrats complicit during the Bush years, potentially finding ones hands tied in acting on new information. There are new and exciting challenges that one can add on to this: trying to end it while aiming for National Reconciliation, the very identity of the President making him more prone to crazy domestic violence, and trying to extinguish state power in one arena while expanding it, in, say, the area of healthcare.
The key to expanding the state in one area while retracting it in another is, as I see it, about the framing of rights. The police state violates very clearly defined freedoms: it takes away privacy, autonomy, and presumed innocence. Ending the police state means guaranteeing those freedoms.
Healthcare has to be framed the same. Currently, healthcare means uncertainty, high costs, employment-dependence, and inefficiency. It does not mean, as the most adamant free marketeers will tell you, than procuring health services is a matter of choice and desire. When you need healthcare, you absolutely need it. No amount of bargaining or negotiating or price-comparison will help. Healthcare is a terrible good to have rationed exclusively by the market - it creates a surplus of cosmetic surgeries in the same nation that has 1 in 6 uninsured. So framing the current system as the free market is an impossibility.
Instead, Obama's healthcare plan, and all other universalistic healthcare programs, need to frame the very program as a freedom: freedom from risk, freedom from uncertainty, freedom from impossible costs, freedom to transition between jobs while still being insured. This isn't the state stepping in and forcing a program on people; this is the state removing unfair burdens and affirming the inherent freedom to life.
If people see healthcare as a freedom and not as a government program, and if police state programs are repealed, I think the Obama coalition can last for at least another decade. More importantly, it will both fulfil campaign promises, and give the Left an opportunity to stop being the "big government" party and instead become a political party about freedoms.
How to Dissassemble an Obamic Bomb
I've mentioned several times on this blog that I think Ron Paul is the new face of the Republican party, and I've also said that I favor a libertarian-minded opposition. I think that an emphasis on checking power and maintaining civil liberties is vital in this nation; it's why I prefer libertarian opposition to, say, religious right opposition. That doesn't mean I actually want libertarian rule; it is my intended least-bad alternative.
I think the libertarians will be competitive in the Mountain West. Former New Mexico Gary Johnson has considered a 2012 presidential run, as a "antiwar, anti-Fed, pro-personal liberties, slash-government-spending candidate"; this is a far cry from the big-government, freedom-restrictionist era of Bush, and it will still satisfy fiscal conservatives the nation over. The challenge for candidates like this nationally is incorporating the religious right/social conservatives, and the general category of security conservatives. Nationally, it may not work in 2012.
The Mountain West plays differently, and New Mexico piles on peculiarities. With it's large catholic and Hispanic voting blocks, NM democrats skew statist center-left. Progressive economically much more so than socially. And the right in New Mexico, while having the standard components of the religious right, economic conservatives, and the very security-minded, has a very, very, very strong libertarian component. (Or at least it can - Jim Scarantino played the paranoid libertarian to Bush, but now plays the generic Rightist to Obama).
It is this climate that produced Gary Johnson. And it is this climate that may allow a bit of national spotlight for Adam Kokesh. Running in NM's 1st congressional (bluest of the blue) districts, Kokesh is anti-statist in the most profound way. He cites the founders, the Bill of Rights, and moral obligations in his call against the current "march towards fascism". His goal is an end to both American imperialism and the police state; 12 months ago, on this alone, he'd be casually grouped with the Democratic left. But now, parties in power have changed, and his tune is consistent.
Much will be made of him in the local media soon. My collegue FBIHOP is already casually dismissing him. I'm hesitant to be so straightforward with that dimissal - support from Ron Paul and viable anti-war cred makes him, this far from the actual campaign, seem competitive. He could well be the local face of the new Libertarian right that I'm anticipating. That's less important than the lesson his very existence has for the Democratic Party:
If the Democrats become the police state party, we have lost the coalition that swept Obama into power. And we've probably lost the Mountain West
I think the libertarians will be competitive in the Mountain West. Former New Mexico Gary Johnson has considered a 2012 presidential run, as a "antiwar, anti-Fed, pro-personal liberties, slash-government-spending candidate"; this is a far cry from the big-government, freedom-restrictionist era of Bush, and it will still satisfy fiscal conservatives the nation over. The challenge for candidates like this nationally is incorporating the religious right/social conservatives, and the general category of security conservatives. Nationally, it may not work in 2012.
The Mountain West plays differently, and New Mexico piles on peculiarities. With it's large catholic and Hispanic voting blocks, NM democrats skew statist center-left. Progressive economically much more so than socially. And the right in New Mexico, while having the standard components of the religious right, economic conservatives, and the very security-minded, has a very, very, very strong libertarian component. (Or at least it can - Jim Scarantino played the paranoid libertarian to Bush, but now plays the generic Rightist to Obama).
It is this climate that produced Gary Johnson. And it is this climate that may allow a bit of national spotlight for Adam Kokesh. Running in NM's 1st congressional (bluest of the blue) districts, Kokesh is anti-statist in the most profound way. He cites the founders, the Bill of Rights, and moral obligations in his call against the current "march towards fascism". His goal is an end to both American imperialism and the police state; 12 months ago, on this alone, he'd be casually grouped with the Democratic left. But now, parties in power have changed, and his tune is consistent.
Much will be made of him in the local media soon. My collegue FBIHOP is already casually dismissing him. I'm hesitant to be so straightforward with that dimissal - support from Ron Paul and viable anti-war cred makes him, this far from the actual campaign, seem competitive. He could well be the local face of the new Libertarian right that I'm anticipating. That's less important than the lesson his very existence has for the Democratic Party:
If the Democrats become the police state party, we have lost the coalition that swept Obama into power. And we've probably lost the Mountain West
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Violence is Silence
“From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though, despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any US soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice." -- David FahertyThere are few things to me more disturbing then that above sentence. It's a sentiment wholly alien to my being. I like social order. Alienated though my views can be from the general electorate, I think that social order is at least a worthy aim, an understood and accepting thing. For all the fears people built around "Change", change is an incredibly modest, statist word. It isn't arguing for an overthrow. It isn't calling for a sweeping realignment of social organs. It isn't challenging the very notions of statehood. It is, really, a slight adjusting of the rudder. It's not transforming the boat into a helicopter. "Change" likes the general contours f the system, and just hates a lot of the specifics. It's really surprising that people could must up such fervor for as modest a concept, and perhaps the fervor is what was reacted to. And hopefully, once the presidency is well under way, we'll see people calm down and accept it as the modest, statist thing it is.
And hopefully comments like this will stop happening. I mean, fine, private conversation, or choir-preachy websites. Free speech is well and good; I'm not opposed to that, and don't seek to stop it.
But what I would like to see wane, if not disappear, is this notion that the response to something moderately disagreeable is implied murder, or justified violent agrny outbursts. As harmless as that may be intended, it's terrifying. The implication - that members of the US armed forces are universally assumed to prefer the death of a domestic politician they dislike than the death of a man responsible for killing 3,000+ innocents boggles.
And I get that this is an attention-grabbing statement. And that, by acknowledging it, I'm only feeding the problem, giving the guy a larger audience for his soapbox. And this post is probably unnecessary - there will be better and more numerous deconstructions online, and in most media outlets. The statement deserves to be deconstructed, if there is any real sentiment behind it. Because that sentiment is profoundly opposed to social order, and seeks a world of platonic absolutes instead of this messy land of disagreement and compromise. It's the same motivation that fuels international jihadist violence - if the center is undesireable, the center is untenable. And if the center (broadly speaking, functioning democracy) is untenable (say, Pelosi dead), then extremists (the hypothetical US soldier, or bin Laden) get to just go at it, in a violent world of conflicting absolutes. And to get to that point you have to stifle dissent, alienate all those on your side who disagree. You have to not only call for the death of elected leaders, who are inherently moderate beings, having accepted the social order and the system in which they exist, but you have to make it impossible for such moderate leaders to speak against the excessed of their friends and allies. Once that happens, civilization becomes an angry little suicide pact.
The statement itself is only half the reason I'm upset. What bothers me more is that a friend of mine from college, a moderate Republican from Colorado, who was the most diehard supporter of McCain I've ever met, loves this quote. He gives reasons - the detachment of Pelosi's ideals from that of the rest of the US, say, but reasons don't matter. We can't, as a nation, have our ongoing experiment (one of a democracy that doesn't kill itself) if we think calling for the death of elected leaders we disagree with is acceptable. It just doesn't work that way.
There are few things, ever, that chip away at my faith in humanity. My friend's endorsement of this statement was one.
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