Stuff ‘n stuff ‘n more stuff

OK, maybe that’s a little harsh, but. . . .

So, I read Brooks today, I figured that I might be safe since he isn’t talking about politics and I thought that maybe he might have something to offer on other topics. Instead I find out that he is just as obtuse on science and religion. I know, I know what should I expect?

Anyway, in case you don’t want to read the column, he is talking about atheism and science and how science is showing the chemical reasons for all of the human behaviors and that evolutionary behavioralists are even beginning to figure out why we developed certain behaviors that, at first blush, might appear counterproductive to personal survival (gee, evolutionary forces can encourage the development of complex behaviors, imagine that! (sarcasm, right)).

Since biology is blowing “traditional” religion out of the water, and Brooks is unwilling or unable to believe what the science is showing (it’s amazing how people won’t learn what they don’t want to learn - I wonder why we developed that way?), he is raising some weird definitions of spirituality that he seems to claim that science doesn’t deal with. He then labels this spirituality “Buddhism”.

Does he know the first thing about Buddhism? If he did he would know that while many Buddhists might have sort of what a westerner might call a religion with supernaturalism, etc, but at its base, Buddhism is not inconsistent with atheism. Buddhism is a way of life and Buddhists seek understanding. Neither of those is inconsistent with no god. Living socially and understanding that, as social animals, we seek connection, and that by emptying your mind, new ways of looking at things can arise is perfectly aligned with what Brooks calls “militant atheism”.

What is with the “militant” label and citing Dawkins and Hitchins (a brilliant biologist and a drunken , yet witty bloviator) as the boogy men? Is it to create conflict? Make a sexier column? I would have hoped that even a conservative could handle the truth, but if any can, it isn’t Brooks, though I guess that I should give him points for trying. On the other hand can his tone get any more condescending?

Read Herbert, today, he continues to shine.

as well he should be. See here.

TerranceDC gets is exactly right!!

C’mon, take a short trip with me. Let me talk a bit about why I am supporting Barak Obama for president.

I expect that it will come as no surprise to most of you (if anyone ever reads this!) that my first candidate was John Edwards. Not only did he speak about economic populism, but he demonstrated a concern for the “other” that is sadly lacking in today’s society. At the other extreme (at least among those still standing — thank dog that Rudy and young Mr Mittens are gone) is John McCain. Now, I can certainly understand how his life experiences have had an impact on his world-view and personality (that goes without saying), but the presidency isn’t about who has suffered the most, it is about who can lead us. John McCain has been through hell and he deserves our gratitude and respect. He does not, however, deserve our votes. At the end of the day, McCain combines Bush’s policies with even a slimmer understanding of economics with a pretty big dash of corruption. And, he is a very angry and bitter man.

So, that leaves us with two candidates: Hillary and Barak (it really pisses me off when they use her first name and his last, seems a touch demeaning to her and misogynistic, though “Clinton” clearly won’t do, so I’ll go with first names). Well, how should we judge them? I suggest policies, leadership and attitude. You may have different matrices, but these are what I’ll work with now.

Let’s go through them. First, policies. They are pretty close. Krugman likes her economics and I tend to bow to experts in areas in which I know little. But, she was slow to discard the war. That could mean that she actually likes it or is very slow to acknowledge mistakes (a problem that we have had in our leadership over the past eight years). Her health care plan is better. But, can I buy it? She has very close ties to Wall St and big business. She is the doyen of the DLC , remember. At the end of the day, I give them even grades on policy. Not great but pretty good and probably the best that we can expect out of a national politician today.

Leadership. In this area I want to focus on operating an organization, staying on message etc. Here, I give the nod to Barak. First, he surrounds himself with top notch intellectuals: Samantha Power versus Mark Penn, anyone? Second, he has stayed on message for the most part, at least no what I would term major gaffes by he himself (San Francisco is the truth). Third, he has built a grassroots campaign. Hillary came in with the existing apparatus and, in many cases she has misused it (turned off Super Delegates, concentrating on big donors who have now given their maximum for the primary. Before the campaign, she was a law partner, ran the health care task force, was a Senator. No big organization experience in the law firm, one thing that I think everyone agrees on about the health care task force is that it made a lot of mistakes and was not especially well run. Then campaigns for and serving as a Senator. Well, running a campaign takes some skill and her senate campaigns can’t have been a disaster (she won), as a Senator, not much chance for organizational leadership. Unless you are the majority leader you are one of 99. Is her office especially well know for good operations? I don’t know.

What are Barak’s demonstrations of this type of leadership? His presidential campaign has been well run, he also ran a race for the senate in a big state. Also, he ran community organizations (I don’t know a lot about what he did here). So, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of experience and her main experience was bad. He is currently running a better organized campaign and her best argument for winning this round is that she learned from the health care task force. But, did she? And, what did she learn? Her delay in opposing Iraq gives me little hope for a major improvement. So,Barak does not have a lot of experience here (other than Washington, Grant, Wilson, and Eisenhower not many have had a lot of big organization experience and I would rate two of those presidents as moderately successful or better, and two a disaster, so not something to really base your vote on. Oh, the successes? Washington (of course) and, surprise Eisenhower — avoided the worst of the Republicans (McCarthyism), stopped Korea, kept us out of Vietnam and recognized the danger of the military-industrial complex. I don’t think that Grant requires explanation, but Wilson was terrible. Authoritarian and incompetent.) Hillary has bad experience. Barak is doing better at building an organization, so I give him the nod.

OK, attitude. Here I am looking at the tone that they will set as president. Bush has been the president of fear. McCain appears to be running on that too. What do I want to see and who is offering it?

I’m going to go about this backwards. Rather than tell you what I want first, I’ll give my impression of what Hillary and Barak are offering and then see how they line up with what I want to see. Hillary offers a number of narratives: she is selling fear (3 am), and exclusion (belittling Barak’s supporters as out of touch elites). He is selling hope. OK, a lot of people dis Barak by saying that hope is naive. I disagree. There is idiot (blind) hope and aware realistic hope. His is the latter, I want someone who expects us to do better and who says that we can do better. I am not one for buying into fear. When you are afraid you make rash and often bad choices (see, Bush,GW ). What about Hillary’s divisiveness? I don’t like it. Maybe it is good politics, maybe that’s what you need to do to get old white people to vote for you, but it is not part of the politics that I want to see practiced.

Finally, Hillary’s final argument is that she can win. That is a nod to racism. She is saying that an older white woman might beat a crazy really old white man, but an African-American, no way. I strongly reject this on both moral and practical grounds. I hope that I don’t have to explain my moral qualms with racism, so I’ll be practical. I think that Barak can win. Obviously there are some people who will never vote for an African-American, but I don’t think that its enough alone to tip the election. Barak does well with white voters, look at Minnesota and Iowa! Also, there are a lot of people who will never vote for a woman. Also, Hillary has a lot of baggage. I don’t see the viability argument as a slam dunk for her.

So here I am, two candidates pretty equal on policy, but one who seems to me to have a better message and a better team. I’ll go with the person with the smart people who is looking forward rather than the person with the political hacks living in the past.

Boy will Expelled be pathetic. See this post as well.

is a question that has long troubled me. I just don’t understand why seemingly nice and intelligent people follow today’s republican party? I mean I get the racists and the selfish plutocrats, but others?

So I went to a right wing site in search of an answer or manefesto. And I found one at the appropriately named Right Wing News. I took a look at what they thought they should stand for and I found . . . . a mess.

Some of it is pablum that everyone believes in. Some I heartily agree with and no republican has worked for in decades. Some sounds great, but republicans view it through a childish lens. And, finally, some is just wrong.

Here is what one says:

“The Republican Party should stand for a strong defense, small government, low taxes, fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, defense of American sovereignty, law and order, colorblindness, and traditional American values including, but not limited to respect for human life, personal responsibility, and love of country.”
– from “Right Wing News” http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2007/10/what_does_the_republican_party.php

Ok, let’s look at it point by point:

Strong Defense - really? Bush has destroyed the army, they have not provided adequate health care, “stop loss” anyone? The only part of “strong defense” that republicans consistently support is whatever weapons systems the suppliers want whether or not the service wants it. Military Industrial Complex?? They were against nation-building before they were for it (Kosovo v. Iraq). There seems to be no belief beyond fatten the corporate paymaster.

Small government - in what way? No spying on your citizens? No we need that. What do they mean? Oh yes, don’t stop businesses from doing what they want and don’t give anyone else anything else. Well, that’s done well hasn’t it? Pollution, mine and infrastructure collapse, etc. And republicans claiming fiscal responsibility is a joke!

Adherence to the Constitution - from what I can see, only the second amendment counts

Defense of sovereignty - well, duh I think that that is not a province of any party.

Law and order - by this do you really mean it or is this your racist code? If you really mean a fair and impartial application of the law, then . .. duh I think that that is not a province of any party.

Colorblindness - LOL!!!

“traditional American values”

1. Respect for human life - LOL

2. Personal responsibility - LOL

3. Love of country — ?? Like no one else does, unless they mean “my country has never done wrong,” in which case, that is not a mature love that cares and wants to do better. No, that is just scared pathetic childishness.

There is nothing there!!!!!!

OK, Youngstown Steel is the SCOTUS case on the power of the executive in wartime. Right, got that? John Yoo wrote a memo justifying the executive’s approval of torture as an executive wartime power. OK, now in writing that memo, Mr. Yoo had to discuss, indeed he had to rely on Youngstown, in his analysis. Didn’t he? I would think that failure to mention the most important case in an analysis would result in a failing grade at any law school that I’ve ever heard of. Take a look at this takedown of Yoo and his failure to deal with Youngstown.

Funny, I was kind of curious about how he was going to deal with it. I figured some bullshit analogy that isn’t true but that gives at least the first impression of being something on which you can hang a hat. Well, I was wrong, he was so corrupt, that he just ignored it. Talk about sticking your fingers in your ears (”I don’t hear you”).

is here.

“The basic intellectual foundations of neoconservatism, including its
Straussian influences. Personally, I think the whole “Straussian noble
lie” is a conspiracy theory too far. The real influence of Strauss upon
modern politics was his Manichean worldview of absolute good and
absolute evil. Evil (or tyranny) existed, Strauss believed, and strong
action was necessary to confront it.

The Straussian legacy that matters, then, is his absolute certainty
in “our” own goodness and in the “Other’s” evilness. That’s the true
theoretical underpinning of neoconservatism — everything they espouse
follows if you are certain that you are good and certain that you are
fighting evil. If arms control treaties or the UN or torture statutes
prohibit fighting evil, then they must be put aside. It’s as un-Burkean
as you can get.”

Its all a lie in their little heads. They are fooling themselves. The magician is supposed to be in on it; not taken in by it. If they are in on it, how can they think that they are “good” are they that fucked up?

post about national memory. Read it. Here’s the money section:

“And here’s why: David Blight argues
that, in the the wake of the Civil War, whites in the North and the
South reunited without grappling with the war’s causes. Getting back to
the business of doing business was easier and more appealing than
sorting out why 620,000 people had died in the nation’s most brutal
conflict. Notherners and southerners arrived at a convenient series of
shared myths about the war: both sides had fought hard, both sides had
fought well, and both sides had fought for just causes. A few skeptics,
notably Frederick Douglass, challenged this emerging conventional
wisdom about the war. But most Americans ignored the naysayers. As a
result, the root rather than proximate causes of the fighting — slavery
and racial inequities — dropped out of contemporary discussions in
service of easy reunion.

Americans, in sum, postponed a national conversation about race.
Reconstruction then failed. The South revived its antebellum social and
economic castes: tying African-Americans to the land, disfranchising
freed people, segregating public facilities. Notherners looked on,
profited, and often participated in similar processes. Only the Civil
Rights movement eventually overturned those entrenched hierarchies.”

Really interesting post about magic and rhetoric and why they piss off some people. Here’s the money section (though the whole post should really be read:

“All of that brings me to the Obama problem. He’s one of the only
public figures in my memory who has obviously actually studied
rhetoric. He can craft a helluva speech on anything you please (I’m
partial to the economic one
he gave at Cooper Union). He can show extraordinary rhetorical
restraint, as he does on the Senate floor, or he can do a real
high-wire act like he does at rallies, keeping the passion of the
restless crowd crashing in waves for nearly an hour. The average
American does not like listening to anybody talk for forty-five
minutes, but the average American does, it seems, like listening to
Obama. It takes a lot to keep people’s attentions if they haven’t
practiced by attending academic lectures for ten years. But he manages
to do it.

To this rhetorician, watching an Obama speech is like taking a class
in the epideictic craft. He deploys historical commonplaces in
brilliant ways, concedes points without conceding ground, and makes
agreement an almost viscerally pleasurable option for the listener. I
feel while watching him talk much like the lesser magicians Gopnik
describes as they watch one of the masters—full of awe not that “magic”
is taking place, but that someone is doing something they know enough
to know is wildly difficult.

The “just words” movement in the Clinton campaign reminds me very
much of the response Gopnik describes in those who know nothing of
magic-as-craft who watch a magic trick without belief in magic. “It’s
just a trick!” they say, not realizing how very difficult tricks are,
and how useful they can be for inspiring wonder and happiness in
people. They spoil the show for no purpose other than jealousy. What do
they win if the audience loses its sense of wonder? Anyone who knows
anything of the art of rhetoric, a real insider, would watch Obama to
learn.”

Aside from the political aspects mentioned above, my main question is why? Why do people want to destroy the magic? Magic is a fragile thing whether is a performer sawing someone in half or a politician mezmorizing a crowd (of course now-a-days whenever you mention rhetorical skill some numnut will Hitler you — “you don’t want to be swayed by that, Hitler was a good speaker”, never mind that it makes no sense; just ’cause someone speaks well doesn’t mean that they are a fascist nor does someone’s oratorical skills stop your responsibility for thinking!). It seems that the desire to take away the magic is a selfish and nasty thing. By doing it, they are saying, I don’t buy it, I am unable to see the skill at any level, and so you don’t get to either. Perhaps Ms Clinton’s criticisms are sour grapes arising from fear.

But, really, think about it. Think about times that you burst the magic bubble. Why did you do it? I think that if you are honest with yourself you will see spite and jealousy play significant parts. I am reminded of one of my worst actions as a child. I told my little sister about Santa Claus. She is less than two years younger than me and this was probably her last chance to believe — indeed her doubts were real, but she wanted one last X-mas. I took it from her. Why? Well, part was my pride and excitement to be helping Santa (on that level, I think that my guilt deserves a little break — I’m bad at a secret if I’m too excited), but much of it was jealousy. I wanted to believe and if I couldn’t then she couldn’t either. I think that motivation is behind a lot of this.

I think that we should all remember that we are still that eight year old kid and we are all still capable of the cruelty of childhood.