The Republican Party & Race

Michael Steele’s election to be chairman of the Republican National Committee is an amazing step in the right direction for the GOP. The man speaks publicly about race, for christssake! But, just as electing Obama president does not mean we live in Postracial Wonderland, Steele’s election does not mean the GOP has solved its racial problems.

Not like you’d get that impression from reading Republican/conservative blogs. Not only are *some* repubs patting themselves on the back and declaring (again) the end of racism, many are crowing about how eager they are for liberals to lob racial attacks at Steele, and, I guess, thereby making all liberals hypocrites, and making the Democratic Party the true bastion of racism.

I suppose that the GOP has spent less time on racial considerations than the Dems. (NOT as though liberals and Dems don’t have plenty of racial problems as well.) Perhaps they are still getting their sea legs on this matter… perhaps nuance will soon enter their discussions on race.

Or perhaps they just think that with Steele and Obama, discussions of race are moot, unnecessary, so over. Like matter and anti-matter colliding. Which is convenient, since the “race issue” seemed to hurt the GOP at the polls moreso than Dems. Of course they want it to be over.

Conservative pundits don’t want anyone to speculate that their sudden willingness to see more blacks in power may have been influenced by Obama’s amazing campaign and decisive victory, and with the changing demographics of America that indicate old-school bigotry is losing ground. Well, those pundits do want liberal pundits to say those things, so that they can turn around and accuse them of racism.

If Obama was an abysmal failure, if Obama lost to McCain, who would have been elected as Chairman of the RNC? We’ll never know. But I still wonder… are Palin and Steele reactions to HRC and BHO, or would Palin and Steele have appeared so prominently on the political landscape without them? Did Clinton and Obama’s popularity and viability shock them awake to a new reality, or were they already grasping that reality, already looking to support more women and POC in their ambitions to advance through the GOP ranks?

I feel like Steele’s leadership is already causing Republicans to address race through their dialogues with one another and personal reflection. If they no longer need a “Southern Strategy” of dog whistles and coded language to pull in votes, if racist whites are a diminishing bloc of little future import, will it be revealed that the racist white bloc was an excuse for subtler racism up top, or an obstacle to anti-racist GOP leaders who simply had to do what was necessary to win?

Here’s some Republican/conservative chatter regarding race:

Doctor “Doesn’t Know How” to Examine Lesbians

The lesbian uterus is so complicated and icky! Image found on Shakesville.

From the article Lesbians a mystery to city MD in the Winnipeg Free Press:

A same-sex couple has filed a human rights complaint against a south Winnipeg doctor, claiming she refused to take them as patients and told them she doesn’t know how to treat lesbians.

Andrea and Ginette Markowski, who recently moved to Winnipeg from Yellowknife, were stunned last week when a family doctor at Lakewood Medical Centre suggested the couple look for another physician since homosexuality violates her religious beliefs.

…[Dr. Kamelia] Elias told the Free Press she has no experience treating lesbians and gays who sometimes have “sexual problems” and other diseases. Elias…said she’s never treated gays or lesbians in her two decades as a physician.

“They get a lot of diseases and infections,” Elias said during a phone interview. “I didn’t refuse to treat them, I said it’s better to find someone who has experience and will take this type of patients. There (are) some doctors who can treat them.”

Shelly Smith, executive director of Rainbow Resource Centre, said lesbians actually have lower rates of sexually transmitted infections, which are more commonly transmitted by men.

But we’re not in America…

Manitoba doctors…can’t discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation or anything else enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So the women can actually sue! Where the hell did Elias get her “information” about lesbians? Surely not in medical school.

Via SistersTalk.

The Latest on Hate Groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s winter Intelligence Report is out! It’s got all the latest on hate groups and extremists in America. Oh boy!

The cover story is about “[t]he personal papers of John Tanton, architect of the modern anti-immigration movement, [which] contain explosive proof of his many ties to white nationalism.”

This John Tanton, an important, active and prominent anti-immigration leader, has a long and documented history of collaboration with white-nationalists, neo-nazis, powerful antisemites and eugenicists. He has also shown concern about sub-replacement fertility among whites. See my series on Demographic Winter to learn more about this topic.

I have encountered some hard-line anti-immigrant people online, and they repeatedly claim that race has nothing to do with their views on immigration. They then go on to worry about what will happen when whites are no longer the majority in the US. I feel like the SPLC article above will set the record straight.

Torture vs. The Rule of Law

I don’t frequently link to Daily Kos, but they did have an exceptional post yesterday about torture. And how it is not only illegal, not only doesn’t work, but actually puts American lives in danger.

That doesn’t stop John Yoo from arguing for torture like his life depended on it. Which it doesn’t.

h/t Scorn

Prostitutes and the Superbowl

It happens every time, doesn’t it? Demand for the services of prostitutes rises in the town hosting the Superbowl, women come out of the woodwork to meet the demand, police anticipate this and create sting operations, and women go to jail.

Why does it feel like the women aren’t the element of this equation that needs changing?

It’s all going down in Tampa. Police have netted 19 women so far.

Thanks for protecting the citizens of Tampa from sinful sinful sexxx, police.

“I did a lot of things that were mostly right.”

Yep, today’s top quote from corrupt, failed politician Rod Blagojevich, right before his conviction by the Illinois State Senate.

This guy, in addition to having issues with driving a state while drunk on power, has plenty of personal issues. During the last two months his grip on reality has loosened more and more.

He claimed that he wanted to appoint Oprah to Obama’s Senate seat,

…compared himself to Gandhi, Mandela and King,

…boycotted his own trial in order to appear on TV,

…managed to make his own lawyer quit on him,

…has quoted King, Tennyson, and Kipling while defending himself,

…paraded sick people supposedly helped by his programs at a press conference…

…and brought the governance of Illinois to a screeching halt while acting out his self-created drama.

The man clearly lacks all capability of self-reflection. He appears to have sincerely convinced himself that his actions, though well documented, do not amount to wrong-doing. Good riddance!

Private Schools Can Expel Students Who Seem Gay-ish

Lutheran High School in California expelled two teen girls for “a bond of intimacy” they deemed “characteristic of a lesbian relationship” and “conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians.”

When the 16-year-olds sued, the 4th District Court of Appeal in California unanimously sided with the school.

From the LA Times:

In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating.

…John McKay, who represented the Riverside County-based California Lutheran High School, said the ruling correctly acknowledged that the school’s purpose was to “teach Christian values in a Christian setting pursuant to a Christian code of conduct.”

The girls never actually revealed whether they are lesbians or not. All that is now necessary is a suspicion of gayness for a private school to legally kick a student out. Myspace pictures of the girls hugging and the report of one student who had heard that one girl “loved” the other were the pieces of evidence that inspired suspicions in their principal’s mind.

So now will students have to scramble to prove their straightness in order to prevent expulsion? What about schools ran by religious groups who discriminate based on race, like fundamentalist Mormonism? Could they expel or deny admittance to black students under this ruling? Or is sexual orientation the only class for which the government will sanction a special right to religious discrimination?

Lawyer McKay’s “Christian code of conduct” quote makes me want to barf.

ABC: CIA Station Chief in Algeria Accused of Rapes

Disturbing…

The CIA’s station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

…The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.

…Officials say one of the alleged victims is seen on tape, in a “semi-conscious state.”

…”It has the potential to be quite explosive if it’s not handled well by the United States government,” said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in women’s issues in the Middle East.

Immigrant Dies of Medical Neglect in Detention

Guido Newbrough died of an untreated staph infection in his heart. He was being held at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, VA.

[G]uards should have noticed that Mr. Newbrough was in critical condition as the bacteria colonizing his heart broke loose, creating abscesses in his brain, liver and kidneys.

…Several detainees interviewed by telephone last week said that in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, Mr. Newbrough’s back pain grew so bad that he began sobbing through the night, and some in the 90-man unit took turns making him hot compresses. By the Sunday before Thanksgiving, he was desperate, two detainees said, and banged at the door of the unit’s lunchroom, yelling for help. They said by the time guards responded, he was seated at a table.

“They told him to get up, and he said he couldn’t get up because he was in a lot of pain,” said Salvador Alberto Rivas, who identified himself as Mr. Newbrough’s bunk mate, awaiting deportation to El Salvador. “Because of the pain, he started crying, and he was trying to tell them he had put in requests for medical and didn’t get any. And then one of the guards threw him to the floor.”

“They drag him by his leg, in front of about 30 people,” said another detainee, who gave his name only as Jose for fear of retaliation, adding that many witnesses had since been transferred to other jails or deported.

“We didn’t know that he was dying,” added Jose, who wrote about the case in a letter published online by a Spanish weekly. “They took him to the hole. He was yelling for help in the hole, too.”

The New York Times has reported on other deaths in immigration detention due to medical neglect, including the Piedmont facility:

Hiu Lui Ng, died 8/08

Francisco Castaneda, died 2/26/08

Boubacar Bah, died 6/07

Abdoulai Sall, died 12/06

Young Sook Kim, died 9/11/06

Sandra M. Kenley, died 2005

There are many others. The Washington Post wrote recently that “Some 83 detainees have died in, or soon after, custody during the past five years…Actions taken — or not taken — by medical staff members may have contributed to 30 of those deaths…”

People United, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch have been active in calling for accountability and change.

These are human lives we’re talking about. But somehow, when a person ends up in immigration detention, the value of their life declines. Jailers and immigration officials have been consistently cavalier about the deaths. From the NYT article: “Ernest L. Toney, the jail superintendent, denied accounts that Mr. Newbrough had been mistreated…” From CBS: Gary Mead, a senior immigration official, told the Congress that ICE provides “state-of-the-art medical care,” and “the best possible healthcare.”

I think my definition of “best possible healthcare” and Gary’s diverge.

Reality No Match for Australian Department of Immigration

Identical twins not related for purposes of Australian immigration

Australia’s Department of Immigration is really taking a page right out of USCIS’s book. One of the women pictured above is a citizen of Australia. The other, allegedly her “twin sister”, is a threat to the security of every good Australian.

From Perth Now:

A WA woman has been told by Australian authorities that she’s not related to her identical twin sister.

…Adopted by different families shortly after their birth in Malaysia, Mrs Glasby and Dorothy Loader were separated for almost 50 years before finally meeting last September.

…In a letter to Mrs Glasby last month, DIAC state director Paul Farrell explained that despite the circumstances, the present laws meant Ms Loader would not be eligible for family migration.

Clearly, Paul Farrell can see right through these women’s nefarious plot. As my roommate pointed out, and as the above photo makes clear, the Malaysian “sister” is none other than Osama bin Laden with radical facial reconstruction and fake papers!

Heckuva job, Farrell. You have masterfully detected a fake “family” that shouldn’t, no- mustn’t, be reunited. Australians can take a deep sigh of relief that their way of life has been successfully protected from terrorist, Australia-hating immigrants.

“Jesus Told Me to Do It”

This is a follow-up on a previous post.

The man accused of driving into the entrance of the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul on Thursday told police that Jesus instructed him to do it, according to charges filed Friday.

“Stop the murderers,” Matthew L. Derosia quoted Jesus as telling him, a criminal complaint said.

Oh, but it gets better.

According to the complaint filed Friday in Ramsey County District Court, Derosia, of Cottage Grove, took his mother’s boyfriend’s vehicle and drove to the Highland Park clinic after he watched abortion coverage on a “Catholic channel” and decided that “he wasn’t doing enough protesting.”

Thank you, Matthew, for making the connection for me. You named a cause. Police documented the effect.

Makes me think of that Nick Cave album, “Your Funeral, My Trial.”

Kansas Women Seeking Abortion May Be Required to Listen to Fetal Heartbeat

Women iz dum bitches

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

When will pro-lifers figure out that their fake “informed consent” attacks on abortion are ineffective? And that their real agenda is totally transparent?

Get a load of this.

A group of both Republicans and Democrats today introduced a bill related to abortion.

They call it the “Woman’s Right to Know and See” bill.

It would require doctors who use a sonogram to provide a copy of that sonogram to a woman considering an abortion.

It would also require that the woman be allowed to hear the fetal heartbeat.

Reminds me of what went down last year in Oklahoma.

My inside sources tell me that the slimy culprit behind this travesty is one Lance Kinzer, a conservative Kansas State Representative from Olathe. He apparently was also behind a failed attempt to repeal domestic partnerships in Lawrence, KS. Great pedigree.

My anonymous source commented: “So today he introduced the “Woman’s Right to Know and See” bill in the statehouse here in Kansas, which is just appalling. It pretty much forces, by law, doctors who are going to perform abortions in Kansas to take a sonogram, and show it to the woman. But oh no! It doesn’t stop there! This bill would ALSO FORCE (by law!!) the woman to listen to the fetus’ heartbeat. Just in case she wants to change her mind.”

According to anti-abortion websites, 16 states already have some of this breed of “Women’s Right to Know” legislation, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas, Florida and Missouri. (Haven’t found a full list yet.) These laws are sold as “informed consent” for women seeking abortion.

“Folks who are pro-life and even folks who are pro-choice can agree on something, and that is that no one should have an abortion without having full and accurate information about the status of their pregnancy,” said Representative Lance Kinzer, who introduced the bill.

I believe that women should be fully informed about their options and the health and economic effects of all their choices. But in that I differ from Kinzer, who just doesn’t want women to have abortions at all. Who really thinks that women are so stupid that they don’t know what an abortion is? Who could possibly have escaped the incredibly shrill pro-life propaganda that saturates America? No woman chooses abortion without reflection. To claim that women are literally too dumb to understand that abortion is the removal of a fetus is insulting. He shows no interest in making sure women are “fully informed” about the effects of pregnancy and childbirth, which are proven to have significantly more serious health effects than abortion. I wonder why?

Women’s Right to Know laws are simply vehicles to legally coerce women to delay or decide against abortion- they are never supported by anyone who believes in a woman’s right to choose. There is no other medical procedure treated in this special manner, yet there is no stink about people getting their tonsils out without ‘informed consent’ or having breast augmentation without ‘informed consent’.

But Kinzer has struck upon a new fake Women’s Right to Know tactic: previously, such tactics have involved forcing doctors to read anti-abortion statements they disagree with to their patients, giving women anti-abortion written material, forcing women to review images of fetuses at different stages in development, and showing women ultrasound or sonogram images of their pregnancy. Kinzer has struck upon something new here with this fetal heartbeat business. The ONLY reason he would push this coercive and condescending measure into law would be as another attempt to interfere with and shame women who choose abortion.

Sick bastards over there in the Kansas State congress.

h/t Fally

UPDATE: More news coverage in Kansas today.

Lawrence-Journal World

Kansas City Star

Media Coverage of Repeal of Global Gag Rule Is Messed Up

Some major media sources pretty much either 1) flubbed their coverage of Obama’s repeal of the Global Gag Rule or 2) buy conservative misrepresentations of what the Global Gag Rule even is.

Check it out:

BBC: Obama Lifts Ban on Abortion Funds
Fox: Obama Lifts Ban on Overseas Abortion Funding
MSNBC: Obama Reverses Abortion-Funds Policy
Yahoo News: Obama Reverses Bush Abortion-Funds Policy
CNN: Obama Reverses Abortion-Funds Policy
ABC: Obama Reverses Bush Abortion-Funds Policy
New York Times: Obama Reverses Rules on US Abortion Aid

You think that’s bad? Check out the religious right news headlines:

Life News: Obama Officials Confirm He Will Fund Foreign Abortions
Right Side News: Taxpayer Funds for International Abortion, Obama Priority One?
WorldNetDaily: Fed Coffers to Be Opened for Worldwide Abortions
Black-Listed News: Obama to Fund Forced Abortions

What’s wrong here? US FUNDING FOR OVERSEAS ABORTION IS STILL PROHIBITED. The Mexico City Policy, a.k.a. Global Gag Rule, just extended funding prohibitions to all agencies and health clinics that performed, made referrals, or even talked about abortion in any context, even when that work was funded by their own money. Strange how so many prominent news sources got this wrong and wrote headlines that strongly implied or outright stated that America will now fund abortions overseas.

Because that is false. But deliberately so, or mistakenly, I’m not sure.

Pope Allows Anti-Semitism a Bigger Place in Catholicism

Fo’ real, Benedict? I mean, really?

Pope Benedict XVI has been pursuing a splinter group of ultra-conservative Catholics called the Society of Saint Pius X, to bring them back into the fold. He has made several concessions to them, some of which are quite insensitive to Judaism.

He has allowed the Latin Mass back, which on Good Friday includes a prayer for the conversion of Jews. Pretty obnoxious.

But more gravely, he has de-excommunicated (“rehabilitated” in Catholic parlance) a Holocaust-semi-denier, Bishop Richard Williamson.

From the New York Times:

[T]he British-born Richard Williamson has made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.

In comments to Swedish television broadcast Wednesday, he said “I believe there were no gas chambers” and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of 6 million.

…”I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”

Oh, so it was an accident then? COME ON. What’s the purpose of denying part or all of the Holocaust, if not to paint Jews as liars who don’t “deserve” sympathy for what happened to their community.

Benedict really f’ed this one. And his spokesmen didn’t have anything helpful to say. Their statements amounted to “We just don’t really care how this effects our relationship with Jews.”

The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions), American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consulation, Anti-Defamation League, and American Jewish Council have all voiced their concern.

This is the same Pope that pissed off Muslims worldwide by quoting an Islamophobic ancient text, saying:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Makes me long for the good old days of Pope John Paul, I tell you.

UPDATE: “Bishop” Williamson: The Sound of Music Is too Pro-Liberty and too Anti-Nazi

h/t Chris

Women in Developing Countries Get Reprieve from Reagan’s Mexico City Policy

That’s how I feel right now!

The Global Gag Rule, a.k.a. the Mexico City Policy, has been repealed (again). Thanks President Obama!

Reagan first instituted this rule at a conference in Mexico City in 1984. Clinton repealed it in 1993. G.W. Bush reinstated it in 2001. And now, in 2009, it has been re-repealed.

Why so much political monkeying? That’s not hard to guess: it has to do with women. Women of color. Poor women of color. You can see there’s trouble brewing…

Here’s what this rule did: “In order to be eligible for family planning funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), NGOs may not use their own funds to provide any services related to abortion, including counseling or referrals, even if abortion is legal in their country. They also may not lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own country.”

To let you know how much money is at stake, USAID’s 2009 budget allocates almost $7 billion to health and AIDS initiatives.

And, Did You Know, there’s already an earlier law (1973) called the Helms Amendment in place forbidding the use of US funds to pay for abortion in other countries.

So what the Mexico City Policy means is…

1. Even if a clinic or agency uses its own funds (i.e. from other sources) for counseling, referrals, or performing abortion or providing post-abortion care, they will get all their USAID funding cut.

2. Since the USAID funding already wasn’t going to abortion, when USAID funding gets cut, all the health programs at the affected clinics are hurt: pre- & post-natal care, birth control availability, HIV/AIDS work, etc.

3. If a clinic accepts USAID funds under the Mexico City Policy, they cannot be honest with their patients about all the reproductive options available to them. They can’t even refer their patients to another clinic that does, because that would be an abortion referral. Their patients no longer have a choice.

4. Staff at clinics and agencies who accept USAID funds under the MCP cannot speak publicly about the need for legal and safe abortion. They cannot lobby against laws that criminalize all abortion or imprison women who have abortions. This is why women’s advocates call it the Global Gag Rule.

Of course, all of this was taking place in developing countries until today, when Obama repealed this nonsense. What a bunch of political hooey- a crappy policy that doesn’t actually lower the rate of abortion, but does harm reproductive-age women, their children, HIV/AIDS sufferers, and their communities, all for the sake of self-righteous political posturing.

Here’s what women in developing countries have said about the effects of the MCP:

“I think they are killing these women, just as if they are pointing a gun and shooting. There is no difference,” said Hilary Fyfe, chair of the Family Life Movement of Zambia. Her organization opposes abortion, but still lost approximately $30,000 in U.S. funds for telling adolescents and young adults that unsafe and potentially fatal abortions are one possible consequence of unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancies.

“In one breath the U.S. is telling my government to promote human rights, good governance. In the other breath it says take away the rights of women to know about all the issues that surround their reproductive health and one of [these issues] will be abortion.”
— Nkandu Luo, Former Minister of Health of Zambia, Society for Women and AIDS in Zambia

“My country has the third highest maternal mortality rate in the region. I cannot even discuss this with legislators in my country due to the global gag rule. And of course I am unable even to stand here in your country — where you so value free speech — and discuss openly the reasons that high maternal mortality and unsafe abortion rates continue to impact so many Peruvian women. I do not want to endanger funding for the thousands of women our project is serving”
— Susana Galdos Silva, co-founder of Movimiento Manuela Ramos and executive director of ReproSalud

“In the case of family planning services, prenatal and postnatal care, these services used to be available for a low cost. After the gag rule, people paid more. It is definitely some of the very poor and economically weak who are affected.”
— Staff, Nepalese NGO

“It is one thing what the law says—it is another thing altogether how it is interpreted and applied…I’m afraid to even mention the term ‘sexual health,’ forget even ‘sexual rights,’ because no one knows how this will be interpreted.”
— Asociación Dominicana Pro-Bienestar de la Familia spokeswoman, Dominican Republic

“The Global Gag Rule does not make sense. It is not applied to the United States. Instead, it is applied to countries that are the poorest … that have the highest rates of maternal mortality.”
— Staff, Kenyan government agency

Health and family planning clinics have shut down or reduced services in Latin America, Asia and Africa because of this rule. It might seem neat to pander to a certain set of single-issue voters by misrepresenting this issue (since 1973 US law has forbade US funds being used for abortion overseas). However, those who feel the effects are the poorest of the world’s poor who desperately need the services available at these clinics, including children. Would supporters of the MCP still support it if they truly understood its real-world effects?

Obama has done the right thing. But will it only stand until the next Republican president has a “base” to pander to?

Information and quotes obtained at:
Population Action International

Women’s Enews

Planned Parenthood

It’s Roe Day!

Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

We all have our own ways of celebrating. For example, one man in Minnesota celebrated by smashing his SUV into a Planned Parenthood this morning.

h/t Alas.

The 32-year-old man was arrested and is expected to be charged Friday on suspicion of aggravated assault, said police spokesman Peter Panos.

“We think it’s intentional because of Roe vs. Wade,” Panos said. “He’s not saying much. He was praying or chanting when the officers arrived.”

…[T]he SUV hit the front door of the clinic two or three times, damaging the clinic’s front door and surrounding stonework.

When Di Nicola arrived at the clinic, she said the man had gotten out of the SUV and was pacing around it, holding a crucifix and chanting. “He was agitated and he was saying, ‘shut down this Auschwitz,’ ” she said.

I appreciate this man’s sincere concern for the preservation and sanctity of life, as evidenced by his actions.

Other people celebrate differently. For example, our President wrote a statement:

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.

I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

Why thank you President Obama! I appreciate your respect for my rights.

Wow, is this how America’s going to be now? Incredible.

NSA Spied on American Journalists

NSA whistle-blower Russell Tice made a (startling?) revelation on Keith Obermann’s show last night.  While working for the NSA, Tice was told that the agency would gather information about groups temporarily in order to make sure they were not a threat, and then move on.  He was led to believe that was the case with news agencies as well, but discovered upon making inquires that journalists, reporters and news agencies were under 24/7 surveillance.

Isn’t a free press one of the integral elements of a democracy? For what reason would the NSA harm an important element of free democracy?

Who does the NSA answer to? Tice also describes how the NSA would dodge reporting to the DoD, the CIA, and Congress. So… who do they answer to?

Jesus am I glad that the Bush administration is gone. I would like to hope that I don’t have to worry about these creepy tentacles of totalitarianism anymore.

Partial transcript available here</

Inauguration Dance Party

In Williamsburg, NYC.

Can Fairness Be Forced?

Television coverage of the inauguration gave me some food for thought. I was on CNN and MSNBC, and I noticed that during the inauguration coverage, both stations chose to display many images of specifically black faces when they showed individuals from the audience listening to the proceedings- something they haven’t done so prominently before.

Obama himself chose a diverse cast of characters to surround the proceedings. Straight white anti-gay mega-church pastor Rick Warren, openly gay white bishop Gene Robinson, black civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery, black poet Elizabeth Alexander, Aretha Franklin, and others.

Apparently, Obama’s identity as an African-American is having major ripple effects in the status of blacks on the national political stage and in less public circles of influence. The Washington Post reported that suddenly, the DC elite are trying to prove their inclusiveness by adding blacks to their party invite lists.

With a black first family in the White House and a diverse group of appointees and Cabinet nominees, the all-white dinner party feels all wrong. Certain hosts are suddenly grappling with a new reality: They need some black friends. Overnight, black politicians, lawyers and journalists are hot properties, receiving engraved invitations from people they never got invitations from before.

It took an extraordinary black man to set in motion this turn of events.

Though she didn’t make the cut, a similar effect can be seen from Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency. She was the only primary candidate party of either party to actually have (slightly) more female campaign staffers than male- the first time this has ever happened, I believe. Several candidates who ran in the primaries had very few women involved in their campaigns at all (Giuliani, Thompson), which has been the norm, historically speaking. It took an extraordinary woman to overcome this imbalance.

I also believe that Obama’s and Clinton’s prominent candidacies in the Democratic primaries had a lot to do with McCain’s choice of a woman for his running mate. He must have been well aware of the nature of criticisms he would receive if he picked yet another elderly white man after the Democrats managed to produce an unusually diverse pool of candidates. I do not believe Palin was picked *only* because she was a woman- she clearly appeals to part of Bush’s “base” that McCain didn’t appeal to. However, I think he and his advisers knew that they had little chance if they couldn’t show the tiniest bit of diversity on their ticket.

From the above, we can see that prominent, powerful, and visible members of traditionally-oppressed groups in society have an enormous ripple effect upon American society. It makes me wonder if an extraordinary individual from a traditionally-oppressed group who manages to achieve prominence against all odds doesn’t have a greater effect on societal inequality from above than careful work at the grass roots level to slowly build equality (gender, racial or otherwise) and to slowly encourage candidates to run at local, then state, then federal level. It seems like a lot of problems that “bottom-up” organizations face are instantly improved, if not ameliorated, when an extraordinary individual reaches prominence.

But is it fair or strategic to wait for an extraordinary individual, someone who is not only intelligent, charming, and ambitious, but who can overcome the extra disadvantages of membership in an oppressed group and who is ready to bear the burden of equality not just for hirself, but for hir entire demographic? Even if the ‘extraordinary individual’ scenario moves the fight for equality along faster than the bottom-up approach, it requires submitting ourselves to pure chance.

You know what this makes me consider? Quotas. 99 countries already have quota systems in place for positions of political power, including countries from Sweden, South Korea and Poland to Palestine, Tanzania, and Kazakhstan. I am aware that India has quotas not only for women, but for disadvantaged castes. Could quotas work here?

Could it be a way to move faster than the bottom-up approach, but yet without depending on the occasional appearance of extraordinary individuals to carry much much more than one person’s burden? I.e. can we simply force fairness?

Your opinions are welcome.

Blackwell Against Stimulus Plan That Creates Jobs

Partisan hack Ken Blackwell has come out on Townhall against a stimulus plan that would create 600,000 jobs for Americans. Why? Because in a Democratic administration, people would feel thankful to Democrats for creating jobs, and therefore be more likely to vote for them later. And that’s not fair to Republicans. Really.

Of course, Mr. Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, so you can safely bet that anything coming out of his mouth is nothing but ideological parroting. I don’t know what it takes to become a senior fellow at the FRC, but I’m sure you’ve gotta show some serious disrespect for personal liberty and the value of equality to even be let in the door.

Mr. Blackwell’s article isn’t all nonsense, however. He makes legitimate, though predictably ideological, warnings about spending too much tax money, needlessly extending the bureaucracy to create more government jobs, etc. But it is rather unseemly, in a time of high unemployment and economic downturn, to whine that it’s not fair Democrats are creating all the jobs. Hey, your buddy Bush had eight years to create jobs, but didn’t get around to it. So if people are pissed and want change… well, they just might get it.

It’s good to know that certain conservatives will stick to their ideology so blindly that they will do so even to the detriment of the needs of the people. Oops, by good I mean mind-blowingly elitist.

I’m reminded of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s definition of ideology: “Meaning in the service of power.”

But back to Blackwell:

Government doesn’t create value; it takes it from us as taxes. While a government job involves work and earns a paycheck, every government job is a burden on the private sector because it takes money away from the people.

Interesting opinion coming from a former employee of the government (Ohio Secretary of State… oh yeah, he was that guy). I guess while he is good enough for a government paycheck, us little people are not. But he does get prole points for pretending to care about “the people.”

BTW, who knew the government doesn’t create value? I guess it would be easier on businesses if we didn’t have paved roads, street lights, trash service, utilities, police protection, property rights, a legal system and public education to prepare youth for the job market. Personally, to protest unfair government intrusion into my private life, I refuse to follow traffic lights and signs, because those were created as a big government liberal conspiracy to control my thoughts and how I conduct my economic activities. I also pledge to drive without a license or insurance, as those too are intrusions on my right to do whatever the fuck I want and yet somehow never pay taxes. And to burn down my neighborhood library, which is a pinko testament to the excesses of wasteful government. Why do the masses need to be literate, anyway?