Politics: Bang and a Whimper

I don’t think the year should slide out like this. I feel like things should be moving at a fever pitch by right now, focusing on the juicy meat of the year ahead. Instead, 2002 is slow-running its way into the end zone, showing off that we survived at all. It’s breathless to be here, but looking back, nobody can say what it did in particular, and most of the time, it achieved by not having something very, very bad happen. For instance, we experienced no super-terrorism in this country this year. We had no sweeping, dastardly voting rights violations this year (we had minor, sneaky voting rights violations, though). We managed to not start any new wars (we’re close, though, and Gulf War II may qualify as a 2002 war on a technicality).

But there are things that should be slowing our final descent into 2003, things we should be pausing to think on before we toss back a few swigs of champagne and call it a night.

First and foremost, we’re in the most dangerous time we’ve ever lived in. As a nation, nothing is more threatening than the twin menaces of our own policy failures and the crises they are attempting to deal with. As Josh Marshall points out in last night’s post on North Korea, we’re playing politics with our foreign policy, and it could have disastrous results. We’re setting standards we claim are unmovable, and then we’re moving them without blinking an eye. Nothing makes the Bush administration's assertion that there is an Iraqi threat more transparent than our behavior towards North Korea in the past few months. North Korea has publicly announced a nuclear weapons program (Iraq has done no such thing). And the North has booted out UN weapons inspectors (Iraq has been more than hospitable to weapons inspectors there). But Colin Powell and the gang in the State Department are making no speeches about the threat from NK. The North has tested a missile which is capable of reaching Europe, Hawaii and possibly further. Does anyone even care about this?

No, because this administration has done more to advance the cause of political slight of hand than any in recent memory. Perhaps because they themselves knew they ruled with no mandate, they daringly pursued a course where they never seemed to question their own actions even for a second. Whenever they were forced to change directions, they acted as if they were running in that direction all along. (Bush didn’t support a Department of Homeland Security until Colleen Rowley blew the whistle on the FBI, and he stonewalled the Democrats on expanding unemployment benefits for six months, finally calling for it like it was his idea earlier this week; in both cases, the media has reported dutifully that these were the president’s ideas.)

So, when we called North Korea a member of the Axis of Evil, we didn’t apparently mean they were evil enough to threaten with war if they, say, announced they were going ahead with a nuclear weapon plan. Just because you’re in the Axis of Evil and you've brewing up some weapons of mass destruction doesn't mean you'll get the war treatment. We didn't erase decades of military policy and adopt a preventive war stance for North Korea. That policy change has 'Iraq' written all over it.

And now, we stare a potentially armed nuclear enemy in the face, and blink. But we stare down a sanctions-weakened, once-beaten former ally who we know has some chemical weapons because they came from us. And we say, “This is the one I want to pick on.”

This is our greatest threat. In 2003, we may go to war against Iraq (though the smart money is on launching the war in time to help the president in 2004), and we’ll have an actual war with bloody death of American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and U.S. aid workers and Iraqi civilians as a result of a power play over an oil-rich former chum of Don Rumsfeld’s and Karl Rove’s unbeatable Senators in 2002 plan. And all this fiddling will take place while North Korea burns spent fuel rods into weapons-grade uranium.

Yeah. Happy New Year.

Politics: Seriously.

Cass Ballenger, the North Carolina Republican Congressman who earlier this month called outgoing Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney "a bitch," has apologized for the comment. Unfortunately, Ballenger also just had an aide paint his lawn jockey white. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, Ballenger has had a black jockey lawn ornament in front of his house for years, and he decided last week, after issuing an apology for his comments (building up to calling her a bitch, Ballenger said that working with McKinney triggered "segregationalist feelings"), that he would paint the jockey white.

So, there's probably a lesson here. Something about how racism in America is now underground, perpetuated by a million small acts that degrade, insult and demoralize minorities all while flying below the radar screen of actual outrage. Subtle touches that carefully hint that America is a white, christian place. Things like lawn jockeys, nostalgia for segregation, confederate flags (which weren't prevalent until integration), English-as-official-language resolutions, ten commandment sculptures, members of Congress calling for anyone "with a diaper on their head" to be checked out, and more all figure into this subtle, sweeping ethnocentricity.

Yeah, I'm sure there is a lesson there somewhere. I mean, shouldn't we just not have members of Congress with lawn jockeys? Isn't that a good place to start?

Politics: Of Idiocy

I don’t think I have a beef with Barbie. Many people complain that the plastic princess demeans women or sends young people the message that they should strive to have porn-star measurements and wear heels everywhere. I don’t know if any of this is true. I do know that an American girl between 3 and 11 owns an average of 10 Barbies.

Now we have something utterly bizarre. Mattel has released a pregnant version of Barbie’s friend Midge, who was somehow saddled with that name and has never been updated. Pregnant Midge has an easy-open tummy which delivers a curled-up little baby. Wal-Mart, being the nation’s foremost arbiter of taste, has decided that the pregnant-and-delivering Midge is too gross for the shelves, and the nation’s largest retailer pulled her off the shelves before Christmas.

They do, however, still sell “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” for the Sony Playstation 2, which features authentic whore-procurement technology and the ability to kill nuns and blow up a whole school bus. And they still feature the Hasbro's “GI Joe: Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent,” who comes complete with an urban assault vest, an MP5 rifle and a 9 mm pistol in a thigh-holster. He is intended to execute high-risk search warrants and respond to terrorist attacks overseas.

Needless to say, none of these should be pulled from the shelves. The point is only that in our efforts to protect what we perceive as the delicate sensibilities of our children, we have zero credibility. We bring them here (I'm helping to bring one myself soon) and we immediately assume that it's everyone else's responsibility to raise them well. We accept no responsibility for raising our kids to have the judgement necessary to, for instance, learn lessons from Pregnant Midge (about understanding pregnancy, or biology, or something) and not instead (as hysterical anti-Pregnant Midge forces have stated) learn that they should immediately go out and get prenant. Nearly everything in our society will test this judgement before our kids are adults. You can't take everything off the shelves.

If you don’t want your kid to get their hands on pregnant Midge (though somebody else already did, ha ha), don’t buy it for them. Don’t buy Vice City or GI Joe’s terrible Special Agent. But this whipping Midge and her fetus off the shelf, like efforts to ban music or censor television shows, smacks of making lame excuses for kids turning out badly when they probably needed more attention and maybe fewer toys.

Wal-Mart was responding to moralistic outrage. The nation’s largest retailer (and in many areas, its largest single employer) goes the way the wind blows. But sometimes the wind can steer you wrong.

Politics: Weighing In

The contributors to the Liquid List are in the employ of a civil rights organization, though not the one being discussed in this (here, here, and here) blog semi-debate between Atrios and Tapped. That being said, I feel that there are some more items to be teased out of this discussion, for the edification of everyone.

First, it’s important to point out that at least once (and possibly several times) Tapped indicates that people citing low grades on the NAACP scorecard are accusing that particular legislator of racism. However, there needs to be a distinction. Opposition to civil rights legislation is just that. The motivation may be racial hatred, fiscal conservatism, personal libertarianism, crankiness, who knows. One of the best aspects of the scorecards that riddle the .org community is that they are built on facts; agree with us, you get a plus, don’t and your grade goes down. Disagree enough, and we’ll give you a low grade. Individually, there may be excuses for this or that vote, but in aggregate, they show a pattern of support for or opposition to initiatives that, in this case, are the civil rights agenda today.

Another assumption made in Tapped’s response to Atrios’ comments needs to be rebuked. The civil rights agenda isn’t trapped in amber; it evolves and grows over time to reflect the challenges facing minority groups now. Make no mistake, though, disturbingly, America is still confronting some of the old challenges today (ask the countless thousands of largely minority voters disenfranchised in Florida’s 2000 election). But civil rights groups are also assessing the threat to freedom posed by an anti-civil rights agenda forced underground by a growing awareness and opposition to its cause.

In addition to what Tapped calls ‘“traditional” civil rights issues (i.e. voting rights),’ organizations today need to fight an anti-civil rights agenda which is affected by a media-exhausted American public, powerful advertising campaigns and public relations spin factories, and the belief by many that the civil rights case is closed and that there are no longer threats to civil rights.

(To cite one example: Tapped mentions that vouchers are now supported by a majority of African Americans. One reason for that growing support is the rise in 2000 of an organization (BAEO) representing black Americans in support of tax-funded vouchers. However, a closer look reveals that BAEO is bankrolled by a few right-wing foundations better known for supporting education privatization and affirmative action rollbacks than empowering African Americans or low-income families.)

Finally, Tapped indicates that many items on the civil rights agenda, or at least the NAACP’s agenda, are in place because “the Democrats need” certain issues to be there. It can’t be denied that there is some synergy between the nation’s largest civil rights organization and the political party that has been the strongest supporter of civil rights since the Republican’s Southern Strategy changed the drivers for each party. And there are times when the cooperation between interest groups (not solely the NAACP but all groups on all sides of the issue) is frustrating. But here is where we reach the meat of this issue.

Much of the ultra-conservative agenda does impact civil rights, especially when issues affecting minority communities are viewed through the lens of other social factors. For example: the decision by the Centers for Disease Control, under President Bush, to remove information about condom usage because it clashes with conservative dogma about abstinence as the only effective form of birth control appears to just be a bone thrown to the Religious Right. But look at the population likely to receive this information. These fact sheets are distributed in clinics and health centers serving poor communities around the country. Those communities don’t benefit from this information, perhaps don’t take the abstinence-only advice, and end up perpetuating circumstances (growing populations and growing diseases) that reinforce their poverty.

Look, too, at one of the civil rights items of concern which Tapped calls a “basic Democratic” issue: Class size. Ample research on class-size initiatives demonstrates that students in smaller classes improve their grades. Is it a civil rights issue? Researchers at a long-standing Tennessee program called STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) found that the black-white gap in taking college preparatory exams was cut in half for those minorities who had been in smaller classes. In Wisconsin class-size reduction program called SAGE, which focused on students from kindergarten to third grade, the achievement gap between African American and white first graders was reduced in language arts and math while it increased in comparable schools that weren’t restraining class size. Black second and third graders scored higher on every test than their black peers in comparable schools that weren’t restraining class size.

The purpose of this isn’t to malign Tapped, whose respectability is second-to-none. However, one of our greatest dangers is to think that we can rest in our struggle. Trent Lott isn’t a lone, isolated, backwards lawmaker who somehow wandered off the reservation. He is part of a larger problem and if civil rights organizations don’t use this opportunity to point out that larger problem, then they aren’t working for their constituents, and they aren’t working at all.

Music: Yer Blues

Blame the last-day-of-school mania that has largely taken over my legitimate place of work, but I came across a priceless item by David Samuels in Slate today on the Beatles. There’s a passage that is particularly telling:

Is McCartney insecure? Is he jealous of Lennon? Is there money involved? All of these questions are more interesting than Back in the U.S., an album that provides listeners with a rough idea of what it would be like to have Paul McCartney play your wedding. On "All My Loving," the ex-Beatle is audibly short of breath. On "Blackbird," the schmaltziest Beatle follows lines like "take these sunken eyes and learn to see" with a creamy lounge-singer "mmmmmm." "Carry That Weight" features Paul forgetting the words and repeating the phrase "Oh, that magic feeling," like the Sunday afternoon entertainment at the Daughters of Israel nursing home lounge.

Officemates and I mentioned earlier how some people are Beatle-bipartisan (though they generally like one Beatle more, they accept all Beatles songs as their own), and others are Beatle separatist (fans of only songs by favorite Beatles). While I’m a bipartisan, I can see the point of being a separatist. Being a bipartisan who leans John, it was out of desperation that I went to see Paul McCartney a few years back. Samuels hits the nail on the head. McCartney’s live show was more like a three-dollar oldies concert (though infinitely more expensive) than a show by one-fourth of the greatest pop band of all time. As on the unfortunate live album in discussion here, when McCartney shifted painfully from hollow Wings superhits to Beatles tunes that combine pain, love and power with incredible songcraft, Paul just sounds empty.

Politics: Certainly Not the Gentleman from North Carolina

Now, I am certainly not a defender of Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney. She’s divisive, and often offensive. That said, the campaign that took her down was offensive, focusing as it did on the Israel/Palestine issue.

Of course, none of that makes this next item acceptable. According to Congressional Quarterly, The Charlotte Observer is reporting that North Carolina Republican Cass Ballenger made some interesting comments about Ms. McKinney, who is still a member of Congress (until mid-January). Ballenger (and can you believe this guy is named ‘Cass?’) said he didn’t enjoy working with Ms. McKinney and clashed with her often. He went on to say that she so provoked him that "If I had to listen to her, I probably would have developed a little bit of a segregationist feeling." He then added, incredibly, "But I think everybody can look at my life and what I've done and say that's not true. I mean, she was such a bitch."

Anyone want to explain how that’s something you can say to a newspaper? Anybody? McKinney’s out of the House in a couple weeks, and she certainly wasn’t a pleasant lawmaker, but this Ballenger guy gets to call her names and head on back up to Washington and help make our laws? Tremendous.

Politics: Mixed Blessing

The departure of Senator Trent Lott as Senate Majority leader is both opportunity and loss for progressive legislators in the Senate. There can be no question that a powerful campaign to oust a sitting leader is an impressive notch on the belt of Democrats. But the White House machine has fingerprints all over this one, and following the predicted coronation of Bush buddy (and the Senator who orchestrated November’s sweep to power) Bill Frist means that Karl Rove is solidifying power in a stunning single stroke.

Remember, Democrats thought they had it made when Newt Gingrich was ousted, followed by the embarrassing departure of Bob Livingston. However, the triumphant entry of a no-nonsense House administrator like Denny Hastert has made the House of Representatives a place where no progressive initiatives ever take root. Behind Bill Frist stands a wave of Republican confidence and a huge bounce from purging their own ranks of the spoiled product that was Trent Lott.

Lott was a bad man, but he knew how to compromise and he was resented on his side of the aisle for that very fact. Frist threatens to run the Senate with Rove’s Iron Hand, and it could get worse before it gets better.

Politics: Looking Ahead

Mark these dates on your calendar.

From the AP: “Under the program all male visitors at least 16 years old from five countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, were ordered to register with the INS by Monday. Temporary visitors from 13 other countries are required to register by Jan. 10, while men from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan must register by Feb. 21.”

The enormous Arab American populations in Michigan, Florida, New York and New Jersey would easily outnumber the Iraqi, Irani, Libyan, Sudanese and Syrian men in Southern California. That is, if they decide to show up at all. More on that later.

Politics: What We Should All Be Thinking

Nobody can believe this is happening and the blogosphere is in flames, but strategically, this nightmare points out something staggering: the immigration system in America is broken irreparably. It’s shot to pieces, overwhelmed by regulations and red tape, choked of funding and devoid of mission.

The Department of Justice (calling all the shots, of course) institutes these INS registration deadlines. Unfortunately, this scratched the surface of the INS’s massive ineptitude. When the people appeared to register, up to a fourth of them were detained for immigration violations. Many of those detained are in the middle of the glacial process of renewing, updating or contesting their status. But the system is so terribly flawed that this process was meaningless on ‘roundup day.’

The most distressing fact of all is that this system was designed to allow people to come to America, the land of the free, and make a new life here. Many of these people did just that, escaping from the Iran after the Shah fell or leaving since, in flight from religious persecution under the Ayatollahs. They made families, started businesses, paid their taxes, and all the while they continued to participate in the rapidly deteriorating INS system, standing on endless lines, exchanging multiple forms and letters with distant immigration offices, dutifully waiting for the opportunity to realize the promise of their long-sought dreams: becoming an American.

Instead of helping these people realize this dream, our immigration system is a conflicted, penal, puzzling labyrinth of regulations and a dozen different kinds of visas and statuses. Lawmakers interested in reducing or eliminating immigration (perhaps forgetting that we’re almost all descended from immigrants), have saddled the INS with quotas and budget caps and everything but the kitchen sink to try and break the system. Well, congratulations. It’s broken. Now try fixing the damn thing.

Admin: Thanks For Having Me

First off, I want to thank The Liquid List’s Benevolent Leader for bringing me on board. I’m excited to participate in Oliver’s razor-sharp weblog of ideas on music and politics, and I’m honored to have my words scanned by discerning readers such as yourselves.