Same as it Never Was

Woolgathering, again. Start with Bob Herbert's column from yesterday:

What’s needed is a paradigm shift. Society (and thus law enforcement) needs to view any adult who sexually exploits a child as a villain, and the exploited child as a victim of that villainy. If a 35-year-old pimp puts a 16-year-old girl on the street and a 30-year-old john pays to have sex with her, how is it reasonable that the girl is most often the point in that triangle that is targeted by law enforcement?

A measure of how far we still have to go is the fact that some enlightened officials in the state of New York tried to shift that paradigm last year and failed. The proposed Safe Harbor Act would have ended the practice of criminalizing kids too young to legally consent to sex. Under the law, authorities would have no longer been able to charge children with prostitution, but would have had to offer such youngsters emotional counseling, medical care and shelter, if necessary.

Legislative passage was thwarted in large part because prosecutors made the case that it was necessary to hold the threat of jail over the heads of these children as a way of coercing them to testify against pimps. In other words: If you don’t tell us who hurt you, little girl, we’re going to put you in jail.

It was an utterly specious case, filled to the bursting point with tragic implications and unworthy of a civilized society.

Then go here, as the Iraqi government proves it is becoming more and more like the U.S. Government, i.e., only react to a social problem when it becomes a security problem:

The Iraqi Interior Ministry has ordered police to round up beggars, vagabonds and mentally disabled people from the streets of Baghdad to prevent them from being used by insurgents as suicide bombers, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The decision came after a series of suicide attacks, including two female bombers who struck pet markets in Baghdad on Feb. 1, killing nearly 100 people. Iraqi and U.S. officials have said the women were mentally disabled and apparently unwitting bombers.

The people detained in the Baghdad sweep will be handed over to governmental institutions that can provide shelter and care for them, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Still, laudable, I suppose, whatever the underlying reason. Except the underlying reason may not be all that laudable. Toward the end of the article is this information, which I had not seen before:

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the pet market bombings was met initially with skepticism. Iraqi authorities said they based the assertion on photos of the bombers' heads that purportedly showed the women had Down syndrome, and did not offer any other proof.

The U.S. military later backed the Iraqi account of the bombings, which led U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to call al-Qaida in Iraq "the most brutal and bankrupt of movements."

American and Iraqi troops later detained the acting director of a psychiatric hospital on suspicion of helping supply patient information to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Smith, the military spokesman, said at the time that the suspect was being questioned "in connection with the possible exploitation of mentally impaired women to al-Qaida."

The allegations fit into a wider campaign of confronting insurgents' changing tactics _ such as using women or children as suicide bombers _ as they seek to bypass stepped-up security measures and bounce back from losses in recent U.S.-led offensives.

There is nothing in those claims to prove the women used in the suicide bombings were, themselves, victims because of their mental capacities. Google "Baghdad suicide bombings down syndrome", and you'll get a lot of news reports repeating the same claims. This blog entry indicates the identification was made from the severed head of one of the bombers. This Baltimore Sun article indicates the US military showed some members of the press photographs of the bodies of the bombers:

The photographs showed the lifeless faces of two dark-haired women with oblique eye fissures, a wide gap between the eyes and a flat nose bridge - characteristics consistent with Down syndrome.

And there is this evidence, from an eyewitness to the bombing:

Ali Nassir, a 30-year-old day laborer whose hobby is raising birds, said people with disabilities often beg for food and money at the weekly al-Ghazl pet bazaar on Fridays.

"I saw the suicide bomber, and she was begging," Nassir said, adding the woman was known to the vendors. "The security guards did not search her, because she is a woman and because it is not unusual to have beggars, mainly women and children, moving around in the market."

Hardly conclusive, however, and all the military could offer was:

"There are some indications that these two women were mentally handicapped," said Army Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad. "From what I see, it appears that the suicide bombers were not willing martyrs - they were used by al-Qaida [in Iraq] for these horrific attacks."

"Mentally handicapped," however, has now become "received psychiatric treatment for depression and/or schizophrenia" (as of February 20, 2008). There is no indication either woman had Down's Syndrome.

So the concern for the homeless, the poor, the beggars and vagabonds, is not based on reality, but a story meant to shape our perceptions of reality. Now one has to wonder: what are they really going to do to, or for, those people? After all:

It is not clear, however, that such people would be safe in psychiatric hospitals. American and Iraqi troops recently detained the acting director of the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital in eastern Baghdad on suspicion of helping supply patient information to al-Qaida in Iraq.

But the military admits it can't make a connection between the women and al-Qaeda, even though it still insists al-Qaeda was behind the bombings. And, of course: why did it take an imagined threat to national security to make the government of Iraq care at all?

Now make the connection through Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."

In the Kubrick film Alex, the protagonist, is a sociopath, a monster. In the first third of the film he commits numerous assaults and one rape. He treats other people as either objects of his violence, and women as simply recipients of his sex drive. He control his small gang of "droogs" with violence and petty flattery and when he is finally arrested and imprisoned for murder, he shows his complete understanding of social order by obseqiously obeying, without question or contradiction, every order given to him by the prison guards and the prison governor. His only act of defiance is to speak up when the Home Secretary comes to inspect the prison, as he hopes to be selected for a new treatment program which promises his release in 14 days. He is unfailingly polite to those he thinks can abuse or control him, unfailingly sneering and authoritarian to his droogs, and dismissive of other people who serve only as objects of his violence.

And by the end of the film, it is clear the state, which is to say society, thinks of him in precisely the same way.

After his "treatment," he is put on stage for the Home Secretary to prove the efficacy of this penal reform the Government has championed. First a man comes out and verbally, then physically abuses, Alex. While Alex would like to respond physically, the thought of it makes him ill and renders him helpless. When he's recovered from that, a naked woman comes onstage and stands calmly before him. Though he reaches out to touch her, even the attempt, the thought of what he considers sex, again makes him violently ill. Notably, when each of these person leaves the stage, they ignore Alex's pathetic state, and bow to the applauding audience like a Shakespearean actor accepting plaudits for a particularly fine pass at a soliloquy. At the end of the film Alex, having suffered retribution from the victims he tormented in the first third of the film, is in a hospital bed being hand-fed by the Home Secretary as the Secretary explains that the Government was misled about the treatment, and an investigation will affix blame on those responsible (who will not be the Home Secretary nor anyone else in Parliament). Alex, having become the poster child for this treatment, has tried to commit suicide, and the attempt is linked to his treatment, so what was first trumpeted as humane reform is now seen as inhumane. All is well, though, because the Home Secretary is going to give Alex a job, a house, all that he needs to reintegrate into society, and thus prove the compassion of the Government. All Alex has to do is go along with it, something he is, of course, quite happy to do.

Power is once again supreme, and everyone is gratified at its ability to bring about a happy ending. In the end, that is all governance is about: the effective use of power. Alex is a pawn in the game, a token on a board. He is not deserving of sympathy, because he is a monster. But the government is a monster, too, and which is more monstrous: the sociopath, or the society that defends itself by using the same reasoning as the sociopath? The story ends up raising a very interesting question, at least an interesting one for Christians. (There is a chaplain in the prison, and while he is introduced berating the prisoners for their crimes and assuring them of a warm place in hell if they don't repent, he is the only person to point out how inhumane the treatment has been, to reduce Alex to a creature who has no free will, no choice in how he behaves. Choice, of course, is the last thing the Government is interested in encouraging.) That interesting question:

How do you love your enemies?

It is, of course, a personal question. You cannot expect the government to love your enemies on your behalf. That is tyranny of a truly monstrous kind. But the film is an object lesson in power, and in having enemies (as I think about it, all of Kubrick's films can be seen as meditations on the use and abuse of power. Hmmm.....). At one point during his treatment, Alex screams in protest because the soundtrack to the film he's forced to watch is his beloved "Ludwig Van". It's the 9th Symphony, the same music he is tortured into a suicide attempt with. Indeed, in both cases his tormentors are gleeful at his anguish. In the latter case, it is the man Alex has beaten into a wheelchair; in the former, the doctors who are subjecting him to their correctional regimen. They are obviously delighted by Alex's screams, and remind him the treatment is for his own good, and he'll just have to accept it, like it or not. Everyone in the film, in other words, is a monster, when they are given the chance. Except for the chaplain, who only breates the prisoners, and the guards, who only enforce discipline with shouts, every character in the film is happy to use what power they have to make someone else suffer. Much easier to have enemies; it allows you to justify the violence you want to do.

I'm not unmindful that there is a violence inherent in Christianity. Indeed, Christians place the crucifix and the crucificion at the dead center of the faith narrative. But even then, we clean it up as much as we can, and try to scrub away suffering and replace it with love and compassion and softness. Still, the violence in the scriptures persists. I've read a quote from an unnamed Benedictine monk: "If you can't deal with the violence in the Psalms, you can't deal with the violence in your heart." Searching Google for the source, I found this wonderful passage:

First, these texts force us to be honest with ourselves. Once when I was teaching a class to our older sisters one of them said, "I cannot pray those violent psalms." I was edified, thinking that years of monastic life had rooted the violence out of her heart. But another older sister said, "I don't know why you can't say those things in church. You say them in the hall!" I have been pondering that ever since.

The writer goes on to use St. Benedict's comparison of the babies to be bashed against the rocks in Psalm 137 with our own cherished thoughts, the wicked thoughts we must smash against the rock of Christ, in order to destroy them. It's a bit metaphorical for me (although on another day it might not be), but the point is the same: we cannot banish violence from our hearts and our lives any more than we can banish our breathing or our hunger. The question of violence, like the question of suffering (I promise to come back to that one!), is not how do we do away with it, but what do we do with it? Bob Herbert and the government of Iraq and the vision of Stanley Kubrick's film show us how power can be abused to bend others to our desires. How can we use our tendencies, our nature, the way we are, to love our enemies? How can we turn our violence, in actions or in words, to peace?

Call it another Lenten meditation.

Second Sunday of Lent, 2008

Genesis 12:1-4a
12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

12:2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

12:4a So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.

Psalm 121
121:1 I lift up my eyes to the hills-- from where will my help come?

121:2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

121:3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

121:4 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

121:5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

121:6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

121:7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

121:8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
4:1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?

4:2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

4:3 For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."

4:4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.

4:5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

4:13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

4:14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

4:15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

4:16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,

4:17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Matthew 17:1-9
17:1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.

17:2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

17:3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

17:4 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

17:5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"

17:6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.

17:7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid."

17:8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

17:9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

So many nights the angel of my house
has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,
whispered "your lord is coming, he is close"

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time
bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse:
"tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him."

--"Lachrimae Amantis," by Geoffrey Hill

Why didn't Jesus tell Peter and James and John to worship him? Why didn't he use the occassion of the transfiguration to insist they do the right thing and fall down in the presence of their God and offer worship? Aside from the fact the doctrine of the Trinity woulnd't be worked out until the 4th century, nowhere in the 4 gospels, even in the Gospel of John, does Jesus tell anyone to worship him. Why is that? Surely worship is the most important part of religion, isn't it?

It is today, anyway. Today that's the reason churches exist: to be "houses of worship" where people come on Sunday morning, the day of the week we set aside for it, and to worship in a special place, in special service led by people specially trained and paid for the purpose. Isn't that what God demands, first and foremost? Worship?

Except you won't find that anywhere in the gospels, or anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. When God approaches Abram for the first time, God doesn't say: "Fall down on your knees and worship me and kill me a fatted calf or two, and then we can talk." God simply says:

"Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

12:2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

And the really amazing thing is: Abram goes. It's only later, in another encounter with God, at another time that God offers the promise of descendants, the Abram offers a sacrifice. The last time the promise is made, the one that comes before the birth of Isaac, Abraham offers no sacrifice at all. Instead, he offers hospitality to strangers, and he entertains angels unaware. In that offering, which might be considered a sacrifice, except the food and drink are not burned up into smoke or poured out on the ground, in that offering the promise is finally fulfilled. Maybe it's because Sarah laughs; but it isn't because Abraham builds a tabernacle or a temple, or otherwise marks the place where God visited him. He doesn't chant psalms or sing hosannas or do anything even vaguely liturgical, although the idea of a meal as worship would come up much later. Abraham doesn't worship, and yet God counts Abraham as righteous, and fulfills the promise made to Abraham. Where is the demand for worship?

It's the core, the center, the whole purpose of the church today; or at least, it seems so. Worship is the way "seekers" are brought into the church for salvation and discipleship; except that doesn't work out so well. Worship is what the church advertises, except to do that it advertises smiling pastors and slogans like "We Believe In You!" But where is that demand in scripture? Why didn't Jesus ever tell anyone to fall down and worship him? In fact, in this story, when they do, he tells them: "Get up and do not be afraid." Why is that? Isn't worship the first thing we should do? Isn't that the first thing God demands?

Worship is good, of course; worship is right and proper. But worship is not for God, anymore than prayer is. Worship is for us. God does not need our worship so much as we do, any more than God needs our prayers; but we do. Kierkegaard is supposed to have said that most people in worship think of the priest as the Actor, God as the Director, and the congregation is the Audience. In truth, he said, the Priest is the Director, the Congregation is the Actor, and God is the Audience. Our worship should be our offering to God; but it has never been something God demanded.

Fasting, for example; surely fasting has a liturgical purpose:

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

58:10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

58:11 The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

58:12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

A condemnation that turns into a doxology, and how? By instructing us in proper worship? No! And how much more complicated is it than the words of Micah: "What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?" I've yet to hear anyone argue that the editors cut off: "Oh, and join a church, go every Sunday morning for at least an hour, tithe, and stay awake for the sermon! Remember! I'm watching!" There is precious little instruction about Christian worship in all the scriptures; even Paul spends very little time on it. And yet to look about today, you'd think worship was the only thing that distinguished Christians from everyone else, that worship was the sine qua non of both the Church and Christian discipleship. But what does the Lord require of you? To sing psalms? To pray responsively? To listen to sermons? To sacrifice at least an hour every Sunday, and whatever pocket change you might have on hand?

Why do we think so much about the importance of worship, and the importance of who is in our pews, when even Jesus doesn't wait around for Paul to build them shelters, and tells his stunned disciples: "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead." Beyond the vision itself, beyond the evidence it provides that Jesus was indeed the living God incarnate, what does this story teach us? Maybe it is the one other thing Jesus says there on the mountain: "Get up and do not be afraid."

But that's after they've heard the voice of God, which is enough to terrify anyone. When Isaiah finds himself in the throne room of God, he trembles in God's presence. Because God is frightful and terrifying? No, because, as Isaiah says: "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, but my eyes have beheld the Lord, the living God!" The presence of God is "awful," in the older sense of the word: it fills one with awe. What other response could you have to the one: "who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist"? But it does not necessarily lead directly to worship.

Why, then, do we worship? It is for us, not for God. And it is for us because it is corporate. Prayer can be corporate, too, but it can also be private. Worship is corporate. Worship is leiturgia, the work of the people. Worship is done by the faithful in the presence of the faithful, so we can share our faith with each other and share our sense of the presence of God with each other. Worship is not about who is in, and who is out; but compare the transfiguration in Matthew, with the statement made in John. God speaks essentially the same words here and in John's gospel, but the result is quite different. Jesus is not transfigured in John's gospel, because Jesus is already the figure of the Christ. But still God speaks to those assembled, an assembly that is a crowd, not three disciples alone on the mountain with their rabbi. And when God speaks, some hear the voice and believe; and some hear only thunder. It is a metaphor for worship: some hear the voice of God in the service, and some hear only....noise.

Why, then, do we worship? At one time the answer would have been: "Because we must!" And worship would have been tied to salvation: worship as an assurance we had been forgiven our latest sins; or worship as a social duty; or worship as a proof to others that we were still in God's good graces. None of that really applies today, however, and the reasons for worship seem to get more attenuated as time goes by. There was a time when worship was a part of daily life, as ordinary as going out to lunch. In Acts, Luke casually remarks that Peter and (?) stopped to perform a miracle "at the hour of prayer." For Luke, it's no more than a marker for the time of day, but for us...well, Muslims pray five times a day, but not Christians. Outside of monastic communities we have no such rule about prayer and worship. We keep the morning on Sundays open, or try to, but that's about as firm as we get. Perhaps we pray before going to bed at night. And all of that is custom, not requirement. We worship because we need worship. And why do we need it? Because "tommorrow we shall wake to welcome him."

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

We need worship because we need the sense of the awful in our world. We need worship because we need the sense of wonder, of transcendence, and of memory. One of the earliest liturgies in the Hebrew Scriptures is the blessing of the first fruits. The people are instructed to bring the first of the harvest to the priest, and to say: "A wandering Aramean was my father...." Imagine how far back that would stretch the generations today. I just saw a catalog entry for a book by the scientist who testified for evolution in the Dover school board case. He wrote the book, it seems, both to protest creationism, and to protest the "assaults" on science from the "left," from people presumably like ? and his paradigm shifts. Science, you see, is truth; it is not relative. One of the functions of worship is to remind us we are relative; we are not absolute, and what we know is not absolute. Thanks be to God.

We need worship because it is epiphanous; it allows us an epiphany that the daily rounds of our life do their best to quell, and we do our best to quell them. "Tomorrow we shall wake to welcome him," our Lord; but not today. We will wake up in our own good time, on our own schedule. We are in charge now, shouldn't we be able to set the terms of our encounter with the revelatory? Worship tries to make us wake up on a more regular schedule, with a more punctuated puncturing of our comfort, our security, our assurance that it really is, after all, all about us. Worship makes us confront people, and if we don't mind doing that, it makes us confront God. Worship draws us out of ourselves and puts us on the mountaintop in the presence of the revealed Christ, and then....? After all, of the three disciples there that day, only Peter seems to have had a reaction; and he didn't quite get it right.

One way or the other, it gets us. It gets us, and we need to be "gotten." We need to be stirred, we need to be amazed, we need to have our eyes opened and our ears challenged. Worship is our best chance to step out of the bath of the pure tones of promise and remorse, and stand revealed to ourselve in the light. That is why we need it, and why we have reduced it to only one hour a week. When God says "Listen to him" in John's gospel, some hear the voice; some hear only thunder. It doesn't mean they can never hear; it only means they need to hear it again. It only means God is still speaking. And worship is when we go to particularly listen. Because we spend so much of our daily round drowning out the voice of God. In worship, in the directed noise and reflected silence, in the brief glimpse of the desert of time when eternity means all the clocks have stopped and will never re-start again, we try to get the healing fountain to start. We try once again to go where God has sent us. We try to remember that: "The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." We try, once again, to carry that with us.

Amen.

Meditation for Lent

So, I caught the end of Bill Moyer's Journal last night. It was his discussion with Lori Grinker about the ravages of war. I simply recommend it to you, especially the photographs. As you look at them, remind yourself that "violence is down in Iraq," and how that's supposed to be a good thing.

Then think about the whole calculus of "good" and "bad" that we use so freely, how easily we elide the individuals from such discussions by focussing on the "overall," the "big picture." It's a good Lenten meditation.

Rogue States

I've mentioned before Derrida's analysis of democracy, how it bears the seeds of its own destruction, how it is most threatened, not from outside, but from inside. Which is not to say the threat is nefarious "sleeper cells," but simply the idea that democracy is not strong enough to withstand, well, "democracy."

Perhaps this is the moment to recall an example that would appear particularly symptomatic of the current situation we have been discussing regarding Islam and democracy, namely, what happened in postcololnial Algeria in 1992 when the state and the leading party interrupted a democratic electoral process. Try to imagine what the interruption of an election between the so-called rounds of balloting might mean for a democracy. Imagine that, in France, with the National Front threatening to pull off an electoral victory, the election was suspended after the first round, that is, between the two rounds. A question always of the turn or the round, of the two turns or two rounds, of the by turns, democracy hesitates always in the alternative between two sorts of alernation: the so-called normal and democratic alternation (where of one party, said to be republican, replaces that of another be equally republican) and the alternation that risks giving power, modo democratico, to the force of a party elected by the people (and so is democratic) and yet is assumed to be nondemocratic.... The great question of modern parliamentary and representative democracy, perhaps of all democracy, in this logic of the turn or round, of the other turn or round, of the other time and thus of the other, of the alter in general, is that the alternative to democracy can always be represented as a democratic alternation. The electoral process under way in Algeria in effect risked giving power, in accordance with perfectly legal means, to a likely majority that presented itself as essentially Islamic and Islamist and to which one attributed the intention, doubt with good reason, of wanting to change the constitution and abolish the normal functioning of democracy or the very democratization assumed to be in progress.

The Algerian government and a large part, though not a majority, of the Algerian people (as well as people outside Algeria) thought that the electoral process under way would lead democratically to the end of democracy. Thus they preferred to put an end to it themselves. They decided in a sovereign fashion to suspend, at least provisionally, democracy for its own good, so as to take care of it, so as to immunize it against a much worse and very likely assault....[T]he hypothesis here is that of a taking of power or, rather, a transferring of power to a people who, in its electoral majority and following democratic procedures, could not have been able to avoid the destruction of democracy itself."

This "sending off" Derrida labels the "renvoi," the "sending as emission, as a mission that puts one on the path, the sending as legacy....Renvoi as reprieve or deferral as well as exclusion, at the same time murder and suicide....To immunize itself, to protect itself against the aggressor (whether from within or without), democracy thus secretes its enemies on both sides of the front so that it's only apparent options remained murder and suicide; but the murder was already turning into suicide, and the suicide, as always, let itself be translated into murder."

So democracy may sovereignly suspend itself in order to preserve itself; a paradox that may, under certain circumstances, be a necessity. But consider the example of "A Clockwork Orange." In Kubrick's film (and not necessarily Burgess's novel, which I read a few decades ago), Alex the thug is a cultured, violent, amoral monster who is finally imprisoned and subjected to the tender mercies of the state. Thanks to the "Ludovico Technique" he is "reformed," largely through aversion therapy which teaches his body, if not his mind, to react to sex and violence (and the 9th Symphony of Ludwig Van) with feelings that amount to the sickness unto death. Of course, prison is a fairly useless enterprise, where Alex hones his skills of sycophancy (something the prison guards and governor understand about him all too well). The Ludovico technique, it turns out, works all too well, and Alex becomes what he made his victims into: a helpless pawn in the hands of those more powerful. It is the manipulations of Alex which finally win him some freedom in the end, some measure of equity with the powerful who exploit his symbolism. And therein lies the real lesson of the film: government is all about symbolism, because through symbolism, governments manipulate power.

Now regard the words of Mike McConnell this morning on NPR:

Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, told Renee Montagne the main issue is liability protection for the private sector.

"We can't do this mission without their help," he said. "Currently there is no retroactive liability protection for them. They're being sued for billions of dollars."

He said the lawsuits are causing them to be less cooperative and that their actions are not illegal.

"The Senate committee that passed the bill examined the activities of the telecom companies and concluded they were not violating the law," he said.

If the current law were extended while the House and Senate work out their differences, there would be no retroactive protection for the companies, McConnell said, "and we'd lose the capability to protect the country."

What this brings up, of course, is the question of freedom in society. And that, of course, is the problem:

Freedom is essentially the faculty or power to do as one pleases, to decide, to choose, to determine oneself, to have self-determination, to be master, and first of all matter of oneself (autos, ipse). A simple analysis of the "I can," of the "it is possible for me," of the "I have the force to", reveals the predicate of freedom, that "I am free to," "I can decide." There is no freedom without ipseity and, vice versa, no ipseity without freedom--and, thus, without a certain sovereignty. (Derrida, Rogues, p. 22)

What Mr. McConnell is telling us is that we can longer afford such freedom, that the right to seek damages in a court of civil jurisdiction, a right that goes back into the dim reaches of English history and descends to us through English common law, must now we abandoned in the name of "national security."

We must never forget that this portrait of the democrat associates freedom or liberty (eleutheria) with license (exousia), which is also whim, free will, freedom of choice, leisure to follow one's desires, ease, facility, the faculty or power to do as one pleases. Plato says this explicitly....

But what allows me for the moment to formlate things in this way by making reference to Plato is what the Republic itself draws our attention to just after the passage on the democratic man and his freedoms, eleutheria and exousia. Insofar as each person in this democracy can lead the life he chooses, we find this this regime, this polteia...all sorts of people, a greater variety than anywhere else. (Rogues, pp. 23-24)

Freedom and license, of course, are the issues in "A Clockwork Orange." The government finally curtails Alex's freedom and license to engage in "the old ultra-violence," but the only way they can do that is to engage in violence themselves. The government's solution is power: the use of power to destroy Alex's will. The complaint of the prison chaplain is the closest the film comes to having a moral voice:

Prison Chaplain: Choice! The boy has not a real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. The insincerity was clear to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.

Minister: Padre, there are subtleties! We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime and with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons. He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the heart at the thought of killing a fly. Reclamation! Joy before the angels of God! The point is that it works.

The preferred justification of governments throughout time: "The point is that it works!" And when it doesn't, as the Minister assures Alex at the end of the film, an investigation will be conducted, and blame assessed.

License, then, is the problem, and the point is: government must use power in order to curtail license, to control freedom. So, for the Bush Administration, the license of individuals to sue must be abrogated in order to preserve...what? Our way of life? But isn't that license the keystone of our "way of life"? To preserve us from attack, then. But where is the evidence this destruction of what is fundamental to our way of life is necssary to protect that way of life? In the name of national security, in a case where every piece of information that travels electronically is subject to review by the government only with the compliance of corporations, we must ride roughshod over our basic legal rights in order to protect ourselves from prospective terrors. NPR ran a story just after the McConnell interview, in which the government asserts its right to examine any traveller's computer for possible terrorist information based solely on suspicions of the citizen's heritage, or where they have journeyed; and not only to scour your electronic data, but to have a complete itinerary of where you went, where you stayed, and who you talked to. Why? Well, because your 4th amendment right ends at the border, that's why. And it doesn't even exist within these borders, because, McConnell explained, modern technology has erased borders. Electronic communications outside the US can be intercepted inside the US, so the government argues it must be free to examine all electronic communications, because you never know when a terrorist might be on the phone. Or when a US citizen might be travelling back from meeting with terrorists, so all privacy and individual rights must be abandoned in order to be sure we are safe.

Even our right to sue for damages, to hold private actors liable for their deeds, must fall to the need to be safe from a hypothetical, theoretical, possible or even impossible, "act of terrorism." We cannot be too careful. Now our own government is making that argument. What madness is this?

In order to save our freedom, the government tells us, we have to destroy it. Our government is trying to send us on a mission, to put us on a path we should never walk down without knowing precisely what the cost will be. The government wants suicide to be translated into murder, and is even telling us this is what must happen if we are to live. It is being presented in the name of security, but it is actually the only thing government ever wants when it wants to be free to pursue its own interests: power. Those in power are simply hungry for more. Which, now, are we to be more afraid of? The terrorists, who want to use their power to make us leave them alone? Or the government, who wants to take power, and asks us to leave them alone to get on with it?

Valentine's Day 2008

No particular or peculiar knowledge to impart, aside from a note about a peculiar coincidence.

Valentine's Day, of course, is the feast day of St. Valentine. Except there were three "Valentines" in the early martyrologies, and the date probably has more to do with medieval bestiary lore than anything else. Seems the middle of the second month was the time of year associated with birds pairing off for the year, which of course meant everyone else should follow suit. Besides, February is cold, and what better excuse for seeking a bit of warmth? All three martyrs, by the way, were martyred on February 14th.

But the interesting coincidence is that Candlemas was originally celebrated on February 14th. The date was chosen as being 40 days after the birth of Jesus, in accordance with Mosaic law. Which means Christmas was first set on January 5th. It moved back to December 25th sometime in the last 25 years of the 4th century, which drew Candlemas back to February 2nd. Which not only fairly eviscerates the notion that Christmas Day was dropped like a 16 ton weight on some pagan holiday, but raises an even more interesting question:

What was it about February 14th that got so much attention from so many people? I can understand the attachment of three Saints Valentine to the same martyred day, but birds pairing off in the middle of the second month? Or Mary presenting herself and receiving Simeon's blessing? Pity that connection was lost so easily. But what is it about the middle of the second month?

Sometimes history is just so fascinating. Now if we could just rescue the old customs of Valentine's Day which have "of late years fallen into comparative desuetude." Maybe we could even start talking like that again....

And music for the day should be:



Of course.

Snap Judgments

Two books came into the store the other day; which should I add to my reading list?



The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby. This one, I'm told, combines historical analysis with contemporary observation. Unfortunately, all too true. When I flip the book open (honest! Serendipity! Synchronicity! Moving of the Holy Spirit! I report, you decide!) this is what I read:

In the United States, Dawkins [yes, Richard D.!] has been attacked not only for his general criticism of religion but for his uncompromising defense of Darwin's theory of evolution. One conservative American writer describes Dawkins as a "poor public intellectual" because, in articulating his views on the randomness of nature, he "appears to be utterly indifferent to the spiritual and emotional difficulties that his writings cause for many readers." It is hard to imagine exactly how anyone might function as a public intellectual while taking care to avoid all issues that might trigger a spiritual, emotional, or intellectual crisis among his or her readers. It is not necessary, however, to be concerned about the emotional difficulties of Dawkins's audience to conclude that he is somewhat off the mark in his assesment of the compromise between faith and reason by what is generally called "moderate" religion.

Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason (New York: Pantheon Books 2008), p. 206.

Which sounds semi-reasonable enough, despite all the appeals to vague and glittering generalities. The "American religious right," we are told, rejects what "moderate religion" tries to accomodate: "secular education and secular government." Well, maybe, but that's rather a broad brush, even for H. Richard Niebuhr. Still, it's the conclusion of this chapter that really brought me up short:

A general attention to the supernatural, extending beyond narrowly defined fundamentalism, lies at the heart of the profound divide not only between religious America and secular Europe but also between devout religious believers and secularists wtihin the United States. "People are reaching out in all directions in the attempt to escape from the seen world to the unseen world," George Gallup, Jr. told a correspondent for U.S. News and World Report in 2002. "There is a deep desire for spiritual moorings--a hunger for God." (p. 208-09)

Now, frankly, even attributing that statement to St. Augustine of Hippo would not be enough for me. The statement of George Gallup, Jr., in a newsmagazine, is a valid statement of the state of American thought, or even spirituality? Really? Well, it is for Ms. Jacoby:

The desire to escape from the seen to the unseen world is not confined to Americans who profess an ultra-conservative form of faith or, for that matter, any form of orthodox faith. "Escape" is the key word: the resurgence of fundamentalism in the United States has occurred within the context of a pervasive nonreligious antirationalism taht reinforces extreme forms of religion and also affects the broader public's views about science, education, and reality itself.

This puts me in mind of Niebuhr's comments on monasticism, sprinkled throughout Christ and Culture. Niebuhr has no truck with the monastic life, and it finally becomes clear his knowledge of it is Luther's late-in-life rejection of its validity, where he labelled it a "retreat" from the world. Of course, one need only read Kathleen Norris' work to know the monastic life is still lived among people, strangers mostly, whom one is forced to live on intimate terms with for the rest of one's days. Rather like family, you don't get to pick 'em, not entirely; and anything involving living with other people can't really be called a withdrawal from the world. Still, we are all experts on what we have the least experience with, so Ms. Jacoby sinks to some very risible stuff indeed, and maybe even correct; but I submit, no more grounded in reality than the natterings of David Brooks on American sociology or the pronouncements of any TV pundit on why people are voting for John McCain, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton. When in doubt or without data: pontificate! And by the way, how does this desire for "escape" coincide with the resurgent interest of fundamentalists in American politics, an interest which, based on the tallies for Mike Huckabee recently, has yet to abate? And Joel Osteen is still packing them in preaching about what will be seen if you just have as much faith and as kind a smile as he does. God wants you to be rich, is Mr. Osteen's pitch, and there ain't nothin' "unseen" about that appeal.

So I don't really get it.



The other book is: Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq, by Michael Scheuer, someone presented as a 20 year veteran CIA analyst and former head of the "Osama Bin Laden" unit. Mr. Scheuer's thesis is encapsulated on the back dust jacket (he lacks the words of tribute from Douglas Brinkley, Marcia Angell, Helen Thomas, Frederick Crews, and Jack Miles that grace Ms. Jacoby's volume; I'm thinking that's probably a good thing.):

As I researched this book, I became fixed on a single question: "Is there protection of U.S. interests and American citizens, and the maintenance of American sovereignty, independence, and freedom of action, any longer the primary, overriding concern of the U.S. federal government?" The answer should obviously be an emphatic yes, at all times and on every issue.

And yet the more I read and researched, the more I encountered the discrepancy betweeen the words and deeds of U.S. leaders, as well as the vast gulf between their description of the world adn the world as I perceived it in my twenty-plus years as a counterterrorism analyst. And, as I looked closely, I became increasingly doubtful if the answer to the pivotal question above could be even a timid yes.

Since 9/11 there has been a war between two opponents. One one side are the Islamists, fighting in deadly earnest for fully explained reasons and limited objectives; on the other, the United States, grandly assuming inevitable victory ove a foe that exists only in its mind.

My aim in writing this book was to point a finger at the unnecessary and self-defeating mistakes the United States has made since 9/11--political, diplomatic, military, and intellectual--mistakes that could have been avoided had our government paid attention to history and put America first.

Michael Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq (New York: Free Press, 2008)

The preface to the book makes clear the thesis: that "the much ballyhooed and nearly beatified 'bipartisan approach' to post-Cold War foreign policy played out its string and collapsed" in the sands of Iraq; and, of course, nothing has been learned from that. This book may be as wrong as Ms. Jacoby's may be right. But Mr. Scheuer's book is packed densely with data and details, and proceeds carefully from one well considered proposition to the next, never launching filament purely out of itself (or others) into the air, assuming it has become anchored somewhere across the void. Ms. Jacoby's book just puts me in mind of a lot of what I read already; and Mr. Scheuer's book reminds me of what's missing in the public discourse. I think that's a pretty strong recommendation.

And to bring this back (abruptly) to the other discussion, this gem from Nicholas Kristoff, who surely means well, but who just as surely should know better. His column today is about Gitmo and torture, but on the way he drops this burning insight:

Most Americans, including myself, originally gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the inmates truly were “the worst of the worst.” But evidence has grown that many are simply the unluckiest of the unluckiest.

Which is why, of course, we have a legal system. Because we never assume any one government official is wise enough to know who the "bad guys" are, nor do we give that government official unlimited power to do what he thinks best. Everytime we've done that in American history, we've regretted it. It's always the fact that the evidence shows those declared "evil" (Native Americans; slaves; Japanese Americans during World War II; German-Americans during World War I) are "simply the unluckiest of the unluckiest").

When will we ever turn from vague and glittering generalities to carefully considered facts? Not any time soon, apparently.

Good Grief

Well, the good news is:

The Senate has joined the House in voting to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

The Senate approved an intelligence bill Wednesday that restricts the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a technique that makes a suspect feel he is drowning.

CIA Director Michael Hayden has said waterboarding may not be legal under current law. President Bush has threatened to veto any bill that limits CIA interrogation techniques.

The defense of this practice, however, just continues to go deeper down the rabbit hole.

Dan Froomkin notes that he has "written repeatedly" that Bush "has yet to offer any evidence that intelligence produced by torture thwarted a single plot or saved a single life." His links include this one, with an excellent list of questions, and this one, which notes in December 2007 what is still true in February 2008:

But it all boils down to the fact that, so far, no one from Bush on down has come up with a single documented example of American lives saved thanks to torture.

Jay Rockefeller said he had seen no evidence, even in private briefings, to indicate torture had saved lives or thwarted violent plots. In light of the Senate action, AG Mukasey offers a defense of waterboarding based on the idea that the people it is used on "self-select" for their ability to resist the technique (since, he claims, water-boarding was used on only 3 detainees out of 100. You know, if you don't tell us what we want to hear, it's your fault we have to torture you.). Further, General Mukasey argues that, if waterboarding was outlawed, then only outlaws would waterboard, and that would hamstring the President's ability to...well, to torture people. No, I'm not kidding. Listen to that Mukasey interview. If Congress outlaws waterboarding, then the CIA won't do it, and the President won't be able to order it, which means the President would have to do it himself if he wanted it done. That's Mukasey's argument.

Of course, 2 years ago investigators with the Pentagon:

... argued that abusive interrogations were not likely to produce truthful information, either for preventing more al-Qaida attacks or prosecuting terrorists.

Two years later, we are assured through luminaries like President Bush and Sen. Kit Bond and, of course, Dick Cheney, that attacks have, indeed, been prevented thanks to torture of detainees. Justice Antonin Scalia chimes in that, when it's the "ticking bomb" scenario, who wouldn't allow Dirty Harry to torture the criminal to find the buried girl?* Except, of course, as any first year law student can tell you, that's ex post facto reasoning, and: change the facts, change the outcome. We don't know what the suspect knows until we torture them to get it, and we don't know the information is reliable even then. So can we torture in good faith? Or must we be able to show good evidence derived from the torture?

Which brings us back to Dan Froomkin's question: What attacks?

Well, they can't tell us that.


*Personally, I think Scalia just makes these pronouncements for the publicity value; but opinions, quite reasonably, vary.

Still digging....

Or, riding my newest hobby horse for just one more day:

Qahtani's case drew condemnation in June 2005 when Time magazine published leaked portions of his interrogation log showing that U.S. forces had him bark like a dog and left him to urinate on himself in isolation.

In the log, U.S. interrogators describe how they ratcheted up techniques on Qahtani during 50 days starting in November 2002 to extract a confession -- by using sleep deprivation, leaving him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and having him strip naked.

Monday, he was one of six men named by the Pentagon to face a complex six-defendant war crimes trial for the suicide attacks that slammed aircraft into the Pentagon, World Trade Center and a Pennsylvania field -- killing 2,973 people.

The six men could be executed if they are convicted, and if a Bush administration official approves their trial as a death-penalty case.

The Pentagon has since said that Qahtani's interrogation tactics were personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Qahtani's civilian attorney said the captive has since recanted any confessions he made during those interrogations.

Let me say, first, I knew nothing about the IV drip when I first used this picture. Now it seems unfortunately appropriate...

The MSNBC article I'd started with doesn't specify which of the defendants were interrogated by the FBI; it only gives a blanket statement that all of the defendants have given information under FBI questioning similar to that given under torture. There is this interesting link, though, which shows clearly that over 2 years ago, the Pentagon knew a fair trial for Qahtani had been rendered impossible:

Although they believed the abusive techniques were probably illegal, the Pentagon cops said their objection was practical. They argued that abusive interrogations were not likely to produce truthful information, either for preventing more al-Qaida attacks or prosecuting terrorists.

And they described their disappointment when military prosecutors told them not to worry about making a criminal case against al-Qahtani, the suspected "20th hijacker" of Sept. 11, because what had been done to him would prevent him from ever being put on trial.

In other words, even the Pentagon knows this "military tribunal" is a kangaroo court. That article goes on to note something curious: the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force sent Mark Fallon to Guantanamo along with "General Geoffrey D. Miller, the U.S. Army general in charge of detainees at Guantanamo Bay," in 2003. Why? Because:

Fallon said he feared that the Guantanamo techniques would spread.

"I wanted to tackle the general, anything to stop him from getting on that plane," Fallon said. "The best I could do was to send along a chaperone."

Miller denies this story, in the same article. But why would the Pentagon need to block a General going to Guantanamo? Why is the left hand fighting with the right hand? Because, as The Miami Herald story says, "...Qahtani's interrogation tactics were personally approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Still, as the MSNBC article now notes:

"There's something in American jurisprudence called 'fruit of the poisonous tree': You can clean up the tree a little but it's hard to do," said John D. Hutson, a retired Navy rear admiral and former judge advocate general. "Once you torture someone, it is hard to un-torture them. The general public is going to be concerned about the validity of the testimony."

But of course, that's the standard for a criminal trial.

It is unclear whether that will matter in the military commissions system, which gives prosecutors more leeway than they have in regular criminal courts.

We'll have to wait to see just how clear this process is going to be. But I'm already envisioning something curiously akin to Alice's adventures with the trial of the Knave of Hearts.

While we're waiting for that, we have this prayer, and these thoughts, from r@d@r, to guide us:

god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to buy exclusively from local small-batch roasters.

hey, the kid WANTED me to take those pictures - i offered him a happy meal!

deliver us from evil.

Amen.

And we have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying

First the accusations, then the denials, now the "cover":

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it intends to bring capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.

The admissions made by the men -- who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the Defense Department's Guantanamo Bay prison -- played a key role in the government's decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.

FBI and military interrogators who began work with the suspects in late 2006 called themselves the "Clean Team," and set as their goal collecting of virtually the same information the CIA had obtained from five of the six through duress at secret prisons.

And, of course, it was all voluntarily offered information:

"They went in and said that they'd love to talk to them, that they knew what the men had been through, and that none of that stuff was going to be done to them," said one official familiar with the program who spoke anonymously because of its secrecy. "It was made very clear to them that they were in a very different environment, that they were not with the CIA anymore. There was an extensive period of making sure they understood it had to be voluntary on their part."

Would they have talked without torture? We'll never know, as the article notes. Were they sure to give up the same stories because they didn't trust their interrogators not to turn them over to the torturers again if there was a question which story was true? Funny, the article doesn't ask that question.

After all, they were given Starbucks coffee when they asked for it. Who would lie when you've gone from being waterboarded to being given lattes? Clearly, now, the torture doesn't taint the confessions, right?

No such niceties observed in getting information for the 9/11 Commission, by the way:

The NBC News analysis shows that more than one quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaida operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations is central to the Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks. The analysis also shows - and agency and commission staffers concur - there was a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, done specifically to answer new questions from the Commission.

Yeah, our hands are clean. Washed 'em in premium coffee, we did!

The First Rule of Holes

continues to be violated:

Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.

The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as Monday and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

A Defense Department official said prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because “if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.” The officials spoke anonymously because no one in the government was authorized to speak about the case.

A decision to seek the death penalty would increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial.

“The system hasn’t been able to handle the less-complicated cases it has been presented with to date,” said David Glazier, a former Navy officer who is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

But why let that stop us?

“My opinion is,” said [Debra Burlingame, "whose brother Charles F. Burlingame III was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon"], “if the death of 3,000 people isn’t sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?”

The better question is: why do we even have a justice system, if we can't use it? Because the sad irony is: will the death penalty, in any of these cases, ever even be applied? And if it is, will it be justice?

Professor Glazier of Loyola said the military commission system was devised to avoid many of the hurdles that have slowed civilian capital cases. Still, he said, he expected intense scrutiny and criticism of such cases that could slow proceedings.

Well, there's one answer. Why bog down the system with concepts like "due process" and "equal protection of the laws"? Not that jettisoning those things will be easy or, hopefully, even possible.

In any event, vigorous trial battles and appeals would probably mean that no execution would be imminent. “It certainly seems impossible to get this done by the end of the Bush administration,” Professor Glazier said.

People with no experience whatsoever in warfare (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) created the torture that is now the hallmark of the "War on Terror." Now those same people, with equally no experience in the criminal justice system (none of them are lawyers, and the lawyers they hire, from Gonzales to Woo to Mukasey, are as corrupt and unethical as any to ever shame the profession), are doing to that system what they have done to national security: treating it like a means to greater power.

This is not going to end well for the country.

Economics really is the "Dismal Science"

or at least leads to dismal reasoning:

Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.

I spent the weekend thinking this was some kind of "Modest Proposal," largely on the basis of these paragragphs:

The top fifth of American households earned an average of $149,963 a year in 2006. As shown in the first accompanying chart, they spent $69,863 on food, clothing, shelter, utilities, transportation, health care and other categories of consumption. The rest of their income went largely to taxes and savings. The bottom fifth earned just $9,974, but spent nearly twice that — an average of $18,153 a year. How is that possible? A look at the far right-hand column of the consumption chart, labeled “financial flows,” shows why: those lower-income families have access to various sources of spending money that doesn’t fall under taxable income. These sources include portions of sales of property like homes and cars and securities that are not subject to capital gains taxes, insurance policies redeemed, or the drawing down of bank accounts. While some of these families are mired in poverty, many (the exact proportion is unclear) are headed by retirees and those temporarily between jobs, and thus their low income total doesn’t accurately reflect their long-term financial status.

I really thought this was a joke. The real comparison between people who spend roughly 1/2 of their income on consumer goods, and those who spend twice their income on such goods, is the fact that both buy lots of consumer goods? So "poor people" sell off assets, which allow them to spend well beyond their means, on consumer goods (apparently). Or they just flip houses and cars in order to buy more houses and cars? Or more DVD's, videogames, and computer software? Am I getting this right? And retirees' "long-term financial status" is subject to dramatic improvement? Really?

Because the Dow Jones is gonna hit 30,000 someday soon, I suppose.

Of course, none of the income of the poor, apparently, goes to either taxes or savings. How can it, if they are spending twice what they earn on consumer goods. And this model, we are drily told, is sustainable because...well, we aren't told. But apparently the "poor" have an endless supply of houses and cars to sell, insurance policies which, when redeemed, stand ready to be redeemed again, bank accounts which magically re-fill themselves to supply this doubling of income just so it can be spent on consumer goods, and, of course, secuirities. People with incomes less than $10,000.00 a year obviously own lots of securities.

Surely this is a joke.

But the authors of this article work for the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, not an institution known for it's dry wit and satirical outlook. And they end their argument with this modest proposal:

Thus there is a certain perversity to suggestions that the proper reaction to a potential recession is to enact protectionist measures. While foreign competition may have eroded some American workers’ incomes, looking at consumption broadens our perspective. Simply put, the poor are less poor. Globalization extends and deepens a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards — for high-income households, of course, but for low-income ones as well.

I keep looking for the hint of a smile there, a wink, a nod, something to indicate the joke. But I can't find it. Can we go back to talking about morality in economics, now? Please?

Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'

2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near-

2:2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

2:12 Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

2:13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.

2:14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God?

2:15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly;

2:16 gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.

2:17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

So I open the New York Times this morning, and immediately I find this:

Military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing the first sweeping case against suspected conspirators in the plot that led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, and drew the United States into war, people who have been briefed on the case said.

The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would involve as many as six detainees held at the detention camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former senior aide to Osama bin Laden, who has said he was the principal planner of the plot.

There's a reason the Bush Administration wants these trials held in "military tribunals," and it's not because these 6 men are too dangerous for a US courtroom. It's because they have been tortured, and evidence obtained under torture is inadmissable in a US court of law. Or, as Philip Carter put it almost four years ago:

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid using torture in interrogations. It's an immoral and barbaric practice condemned by most Western nations and theological traditions, for starters. International human rights law and U.S. criminal law both outlaw it. And as if that's not enough, there is serious doubt as to whether torture even produces reliable intelligence, as Mark Bowden explains in the October 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Add this additional reason to the list: Any information gained through torture will almost certainly be excluded from court in any criminal prosecution of the tortured defendant. And, to make matters worse for federal prosecutors, the use of torture to obtain statements may make those statements (and any evidence gathered as a result of those statements) inadmissible in the trials of other defendants as well. Thus, the net effect of torture is to undermine the entire federal law enforcement effort to put terrorists behind bars. With each alleged terrorist we torture, we most likely preclude the possibility of a criminal trial for him, and for any of the confederates he may incriminate.

Let me use his words once again, to make absolutely clear why the Administration must use a "military tribunal." Thanks to what they've done, it's all the "legitimacy" they have left:

Evidence (such as a confession) gathered as a result of torturing a person like Mohammed will be excluded at his trial, if he ever sees one. This is true both in federal courts, which operate under the Federal Rules of Evidence, and military courts, which operate under the Military Rules of Evidence. Both the Fifth Amendment's right against compulsory self-incrimination and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process preclude the use of a defendant's coerced statement against him in criminal court. In addition, any evidence gathered because of information learned through torture (sometimes called "derivative evidence") will likely also be excluded. Furthermore, the Supreme Court suggested in its landmark Fifth Amendment case, Oregon v. Elstad, that it might exclude evidence gathered after the use of any coercion, regardless of attempts by police and prosecutors to offset the coercion with measures like a Miranda warning. If Mohammed were prosecuted, and a court followed the line of reasoning set forth in Elstad, he might well see the charges against him evaporate entirely for lack of evidence.

And what have we gained by this torture? According to the times, Khalid Mohammed has said: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." A prosecution of such a man for such a crime in a US court of law would carry tremendous political and moral weight. But 9/11 changed everything, and now the question of culpability may well be lost in the questions of the reliability of the tribunal, and of the evidence presented there:

Gitanjali Gutierrez, one of Mr. al-Qahtani’s [the "20th hijacker"] lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she had no information about whether he would be charged. “But if he is,” Ms. Gutierrez said, “I can assure you that his well-documented torture and the controversy over secret trials will be the focus.”

What justice, then, do we even have for the families of the victims of 9/11? And who is to blame for this? The GOP? Bush? Cheney? Remember that line about one finger pointing at you, four pointing back at me?

Neither, I have to say, does Digby:

Considering that all this was done by people who had previously brought us secret wars in Cambodia and sold arms to our alleged enemies to fund illegal wars from a shadow government run out of the white house, it really shouldn't be surprising that they did what they did. And unless there is a reckoning, it would be criminally stupid if we are surprised the next time they get their hands on the white house and do it all again. It's what they do.

There is another branch of government with all the power needed to stop this, and see that it stays stopped, and for the last two years that branch has been under the control of people who say they are opposed to torture, that torture is illegal, immoral, and unacceptable. And yet those same people gave us the current AG, the one who won't call waterboarding "torture," and who won't even tell the Congress, in secret session, what he knows about the facts of waterboarding by US agents or their employees (Digby seems to have discovered the "outsourcing" of torture just recently). But even the reviled (well, in left blogistan it is) Washington Post understood the breadth of the problem almost a year ago:

Two senators who attended Mr. Mohammed's Guantanamo hearing, Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), issued a statement calling for an investigation of the torture charges. Yet any administration investigation -- especially one conducted in secret -- will almost certainly conclude that the waterboarding was approved by senior administration officials. What's needed is a genuinely independent investigation, one that airs Mr. Mohammed's charges and tests the administration's claim that the CIA's actions were legal. Mr. Levin -- as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee -- could conduct such a probe in cooperation with the Intelligence or Judiciary committees. What's stopping him?

What, I ask, have they done to stop this? And the answer is: nothing. Nothing, because while it makes good sound bites for Patrick Leahy to yell at Alberto Gonzales or for Russ Feingold to denounce torture, or for Dick Durbin to demand an answer to a question in a hearing, the political calculus still seems to be our country is ruled by a "24-Kiefer Sutherland-is-our-savior" mentality, and that means no one can afford to appear "soft" on terrorism. Which means torture and secret prisons and Gitmo must continue, and neither party will stop it, because "that's what they do."

And yes, I realize Dahlia Lithwick is right:

Let me say that again, for the benefit of folks who believe this matter might be resolved by the passage of pending legislation to force the CIA to use only those techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual. It doesn't matter to this president what the laws say. FISA was a law once, too.

But then, Nixon wasn't impeached for that "secret war" in Cambodia, either. This is no longer a question merely of laws. Laws will not save us. Politics will not save us. Process will not save us. Only the enforcement, the requirement, of something akin to morality, will do now. And it isn't a question of "them"=evil, and "us"=true, blue Americans.

Extraordinary rendition began under Clinton. Bush just made refined it. This is not what "they" do, some vague "other" who is not like "us." This is what people in power do. This is what power does. It tends to corrupt. And absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Ironically, that phrase was first addressed by a Roman Catholic lay person in response to the promulgation of the doctrine of "papal infallibility." Funny how religion keeps teaching us lessons we don't want to learn. Funny, too, how we overlook the fundamental problem of governance that has now been raised. As Ms. Lithwick puts it:

This is not simply the theory of a unitary executive at work; this isn't the notion that the president makes the law, and acts of Congress are legal elevator music. This vision of executive power is that the law not only emanates from the president but also ebbs and flows with his hunches, hopes, and speculations, on a moment-to-moment basis. What we are hearing now from senior Bush administration officials is that if the president thinks someone looks kinda like a terrorist and the information sought from him seems kinda worth getting, it will be legal to torture him. And it's legal no matter who justified it, regardless of the supporting legal doctrine, because, well, the president just had a feeling that the information would prove valuable.

That's not an imperial presidency. That's the kind of presidency Yahweh might establish. I'm sure there's some law professor out there who can make the legal argument that executive power in wartime encompasses even the reckless guesses and impressionistic whims of a single man, as they arise. At which point, that too will become an "open question" on which "reasonable people will differ." And the dance will begin again.

It's not longer a question of what is "Reasonable," but of what is "right," and by "right" we have to mean "moral." Digby ends her post pessimistically, saying: "Sadly, very few people seem to think it's a problem." Very few people leaves a lot of people, in both parties, covered in this disgrace. But that's what they do; and, apparently, what they will keep doing. And very few people can be enough to see the truth:

Well, it's official: We are no better than the terrorists who blow themselves up to kill us.
This week's admission that the CIA has used waterboarding will have some easily foreseeable consequences, but none of them will make America safer.

Most obviously, it will help inspire thousands more terrorists who can't wait to kill us.

And don't count on any sympathy from the world for the next 9/11-style attacks on the United States. Instead, what we're going to hear will be more like, "Serves them right." As the Bible suggests, he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.

William Smith
Baltimore

Isaiah 58:1-12
58:1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.

58:2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

58:3 "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.

58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

58:5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

58:10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

58:11 The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

58:12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Same Song, Second Verse

Digby:

Do you get the feeling that the conservatives are gaming this thing? I knew that you would.

They know they are going to lose. They will blame the loss on the fact that McCain wasn't a real conservative (just like Bush.) They know when to fall back and regroup. They're already playing for the next election.

Everybody sing: Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.

Not to pick on Digby, but this phenomenon is neither new nor noteworthy. It's the seductive lure of the Big Idea. Whether you are Dawkins or Dobson, the only significant question is: what do you worship? The Big Idea trumps all. To listen to conservatives at CPAC in this NPR report is to listen to liberals denounce the failure of a Democratic candidate who fails to meet their ideals. Replace "conservatism" in Digby's final sentence with "liberalism" or "progressivism," it would be just as true. Regular folks call it the "purity battle." But it's actually all about power; when you lose it, the failure is not due to the limitations of your idea, but the limitations of the earthly vessel you housed it in. Thus do people say things like this to the current occupant of the White House:

But a telling moment came when Bush was talking about people "swept up in a cycle of addiction, and crime, and hopelessness." Said Bush: "We know that people can change their behavior. Sometimes all it takes is the help of a loving soul -- somebody who puts their arm around a troubled person and says, I love you, can I help you."

Suddenly, as Gillman reported, a woman shouted out very loudly, "I love ya Dubya!"

Bush responded: "My soul is not that troubled, but thank you."

Even as they rally, per Digby's original post, to denounce McCain and so spare themselves from embarassment. As Kierkegaard noted: "The condition for man's immortality is that life is uno tenore." Just a question, then, of which tenore is uno for you. Thus does Ronald Reagan ascend toward political sainthood in some circles, even as we get further and further away from his death. After all: "In recollection, a person draws on the eternal." And nothing is so eternal as death, nothing so unchanging as the eternal. Thus do we all hope our one course will be the path to our immortality.

Christianity calls it "original sin." Same as it ever was.

Lapham's Quarterly

I picked up the first issue yesterday, in a fit of curiousity. I'm a Lewis Lapham fan. More than anyone else he taught me the value of history, so a journal about "finding the present in the past, the past in the present", is something I wanted to read.

This first issue is devoted to "States of War." It is largely a collection of writings about war, throughout time and from around the world. Included, among other things, are George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army before the invasion of Northern France, known to most of us as the opening speech (in parts; the movie actually cleaned it up quite a bit) from "Patton;" Twain's familiar "War Prayer;" and this, an excerpt from War and Peace. There's a new translation of this out. I think I'm going to get a copy:

War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern and serious. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous … there is no profession held in higher esteem than the military. And what is war? What makes for success in warfare? What are the morals of the military world? The aim and end of war is murder; the weapons employed in war are espionage, treachery and the encouragement of treachery, the ruining of a country, the plundering and robbing of its inhabitants for the maintenance of the army, and trickery and lying, which all appear under the heading of the art of war. The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom—in other words, a rigorous discipline—enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And yet this is the highest caste in society, respected by all. Every monarch in the world, except the Emperor of China, wears a military uniform, and bestows the greatest rewards on the man who kills the greatest number of his fellow creatures. Tens of thousands of men meet—as they will tomorrow—to massacre one another: to kill and maim, and then they will offer up thanksgiving services for having slain such vast numbers (they even exaggerate the number) and proclaim a victory, supposing that the more men they have slaughtered the more credit to them. Think of God looking down and listening to them!” cried Prince Andrei in a shrill, piercing voice.

The Battle of Carnival and Lent, or: Why Blogging Sucks!

In response to this:

Without taking away from the activities other left wing media and interest groups, I think the lefty blogosphere has managed to create something which previously did not exist, a sustained and consistent liberal perspective on and critique of American politics and media.

I worked up this really clever post, which for posterity's sake and my own sanity, I'm going to leave in a footnote* (veritable scholar that I am) and instead quote The Editors from their new book (which I will now have to download, as I'm too cheap to pay for the dead tree version. Hey, they made it big in blogging! Me, I'm still an envious "C"-lister. And if I'm not even on the "C" list, don't tell me; I don't wanna know.), because they are wiser and funnier than me, and besides, In satiro veritas (yes, I know it's basically pig Latin; it's a joke! It's the best in get around here, so shut up! Whaddya want from a "C"...okay, okay, "X" list blog?!):

Has this weblog changed the media in America? You bet it has. It used to be all about the news, and what the media thinks about the news, and what the media thinks about the media, and so on. Incestuous, cliquey, shallow, and fake. Now it's all about what I think about what you think about what the media thinks about the news. That's a major improvement. If we can just get rid of all that crap about the media, and the news, and you, it would be even better.

And, of course, it's all about the community!

Busey: What do you get out of reading weblogs?

The Editors: Reading them gives me a sense of community, and a sense of understanding that, yes, there are other people out there who are going through the same things that I'm going through, and thinking the same thoughts I'm thinking, and that everybody's kind of struggling with these things together. I think there's something about them--something timeless, yet timely, if you see what I mean--that separates them from other reading material out there. They center me, and they make me whole.

No, I'm sorry, that's what I got out of reading Sweet Vally High novels. I don't really read weblogs. Why would I care what a bunch of internet losers think?

It wouldn't be funny if it weren't true! Commence le guerre!


*viz:

The evidence for this assertion [in the quote] is about as strong as the evidence that John McCain is a "maverick." Saying it, in other words, doesn't make it so.

Considering that long before blogs there were magazines such as Ramparts, which championed the environmental movement which even Richard Nixon had to accept (the EPA dates to Nixon's Administration); that Pacifica has been around since after World War II; that most of the changes in society prompted by the civil rights and anti-war movements of the '60s got by fine without blogs; that most of the changes in America today still seem goaded more by Bush and Cheney (the irony of "Be careful what you ask for, you might get it." Bush, it turns out, is a uniter. He has united a country against him and what he stands for.), it's a bit presumptuous to think, on no more evidence than self-interest and self-awareness, that one is an essential pivot point of history, or a necessary cause of the "revolution."

Much of the radical change of the '60's can be directly related to the "button-down conservatism" of the '50's; and much of the '80's and '90's can be fairly attributed to a reaction to the '70's, where the excesses of the '60's overflowed. It's easier and probably more accurate to see American culture as reactive, but much harder to assign agency to any one institution as the necessary force on the lever of change. Did blogs instigate? Or did they merely facilitate?

Might as well ask if the printing press was the reason for the American Revolution. Personal essays spread the ideas of the Enlightenment (especially the importance of the individual, and individual experience) in the 18th century, but were they the cause of its acceptance, or merely the instrument of transmission? Instruments are important, but to confuse them with sources is to confuse cause and effect.

As Chou En-Lai reportedly said when asked his opinion of the French Revolution: "It's too early to tell." Who are we, then, to rush to a declaration that "Blogs did this!" Rallied the troops, yes. But caused the rally? I think not. And the only place the troops rallied? Hardly.

See? Risible stuff, huh? Truly worthy of inclusion in the canon of Great Thoughts of Western White Men. But lacking the ol' snap, the pizzazz, the je ne sais quoi, as we say 'round here, that raises it to the level of satire. Of course, that could be because it isn't satire, but merely dull, pedantic, and uninspiring whinging. Still, a high colonic for the mind; a rousing, sprawling, lusty chronicle of our times, sort of. Of just the caliber you've come to expect from a blog of this quality, huh? 'Course, it won't merit mention by the sainted Digby, like some people who will go unmentioned. But that's only because this blog does not lower itself to cater to popular tastes and passing whinging fads! We chart a new course, and dare others to follow! Straight on 'til morning! Or until we go over the edge, whichever comes first!