The Joy of Logic

Found this trying to teach a rhetoric class how to write an argument while avoiding fallacious reasoning. One student has already identified "ad hominem tu quoque" as "being a hypocrite."

He has a fine career ahead of him as a blogger/commenter on blogs.

Some of these I knew; some of them were new to me. Any of these sound familiar?

Genetic Fallacy

A Genetic Fallacy is a line of "reasoning" in which a perceived defect in the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence that discredits the claim or thing itself. It is also a line of reasoning in which the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence for the claim or thing. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. The origin of a claim or thing is presented.
2. The claim is true(or false) or the thing is supported (or discredited).

This one, of course, is a favorite across the intertubes, and beloced of "gotcha!" journalists everywhere:

Ad Hominem Tu Quoque

This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
3. Therefore X is false.

The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim he makes false (although of any pair of inconsistent claims only one can be true - but both can be false). Also, the fact that a person's claims are not consistent with his actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite but this does not prove his claims are false.

There is even a fallcy for "High Broderism." Indeed there is nothing new under the sun:

The Middle Ground Fallacy:

This fallacy is committed when it is assumed that the middle position between two extremes must be correct simply because it is the middle position. this sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Position A and B are two extreme positions.
2. C is a position that rests in the middle between A and B.
3. Therefore C is the correct position.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because it does not follow that a position is correct just because it lies in the middle of two extremes

Then, of course, there is the much abused "Begging the Question:

Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.

1. Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).
2. Claim C (the conclusion) is true.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."

Some cases of question begging are fairly blatant, while others can be extremely subtle.

The Gambler's Fallacy was new to me, but somehow it sounds strangely familiar, especially in political circles:

The Gambler's Fallacy is committed when a person assumes that a departure from what occurs on average or in the long term will be corrected in the short term. The form of the fallacy is as follows:

1. X has happened.
2. X departs from what is expected to occur on average or over the long term.
3. Therefore, X will come to an end soon.

There are two common ways this fallacy is committed. In both cases a person is assuming that some result must be "due" simply because what has previously happened departs from what would be expected on average or over the long term.

Of course, the favorite of this Administration is the false dilemma:

A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
2. Claim Y is false.
3. Therefore claim X is true.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because if both claims could be false, then it cannot be inferred that one is true because the other is false.

False dilemma is meant to lead you to only one conclusion, because the alternative is so clearly unacceptable. So we must fight them over there, or we will fight the "terrorists" over here.

And so on.

Phila is right (no surprise)! This is a popular one:

A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person's circumstances (such as the person's religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.). The fallacy has the following forms:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A makes claim X because it is in A's interest to claim X.
3. Therefore claim X is false.

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on A's circumstances.
3. Therefore X is false.

A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy because a person's interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person's interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own. It is also the case that a person's circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of the claim. This is made quite clear by the following example: "Bill claims that 1+1=2. But he is a Republican, so his claim is false."

Well, obviously, the only conclusion can be that Bill is wrong....

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature

I'm reading this, from TPM Muckraker:

"Our body of experience shows a friendly approach is most successful" in interrogation, Nance says. SERE's historical memory goes back to the French and Indian Wars in understanding torture methods that captured U.S. troops might face and devising strategies to resist them. He relates the story of Hans Joachim Scharff, a master Luftwaffe interrogator who spurned abusive techniques used by the Gestapo (also, interestingly, termed "enhanced interrogation") in favor of rapport-building. Scharff's legendary success is still studied by U.S. interrogators. Unfortunately, he says, "after Guantanamo, I thought, how can anyone at SERE ever teach the Geneva Conventions again?"

The "new paradigm" of the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

A trove of accumulated institutional familiarity with torture led to a slide that Nance shares, from an old (and unclassified) SERE PowerPoint presentation to trainees. It asks outright, "Why Is Torture The Worst Interrogation Method?" The first answer: "Produces Unreliable Information."

Nance remarks, "Two centuries of knowledge were thrown out the window" when the administration decided after 9/11 that, to use Cofer Black's famous phrase, "the gloves come off." What administration officials mistakenly thought, Nance says, is that "these were actually gloves, not empirical data. Dude, it's not a glove. It's a fact. But they thought it was one more tool in the tool box."

The result, Nance says, is that al-Qaeda now has, essentially, its own SERE school in U.S. detention facilities, as released detainees have given numerous accounts of their interrogations. What's more, he warns that the world is about to see an uptick in the use of torture as "cops in Bogota, everyone" now believes that the U.S. has lent torture its imprimatur -- or, at least, isn't in a credible position to criticize foreign countries' human rights abuses.

And then Ahmed Raza Kasuri, senior legal adviser to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, without a trace of irony, tells NPR that Musharaff, like America after 9/11, has had to destroy democratic institutions in order to save them. He cites detentions without charge, torture, and all the illegal actions of the Bush Administration as an excuse for what Musharaff has done. So I'm thinking of this:

Amos 5:18-24

5:18 Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It is darkness, not light;

5:19 as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake.

5:20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

5:21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

5:22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.

5:23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

5:24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

Justice, indeed. It tends to come whether we like it or not; and it tends not to be what we like, or what we imagined it would be.

Can I get a Witness?

The Babylonian Exile is the decisive event of the Biblical record. The Hebrew Scriptures divide between the pre-Exilic, and post-Exilic, documents. All of the prophecies of the Messiah found in the Gospels date from the period of the Exile itself. The very concept of the Messiah, is a concept that comes out of the experience of Exile. Keep that in mind when you read this from Deuteronomy:

[God]secures justice for the fatherless and the widow, and he shows love towards the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must show love towards the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt. (10:19)

The reminder that the Israelites were "aliens in Egypt recurs in chapter 16, chapter 24 and chapter 26. It is a solemn reminder that they were strangers once, and could be again. The echoes of the experience of the Exile are unmistakable. And the fate of the individual and the nation are undeniably bound to how the aliens among them are treated:

You must not keep back the wages of a man who is poor and needy, whether a countryman or an alien living in your country in one of your settlements. Pay him his wages on the same day before sunset, for he is poor and relies on them; otherwise he may appel to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 24:14-15.

Not exactly an exclusionary text, either, when an alien, one who is not a son or daughter of Abraham, can appeal to the God of Abraham against one of the "chosen."

The ritual blessing in Chapter 26 drives the point home:

Then you must solemnly recite before the Lord your God: 'My father was a homeless Aramean who went down to Egypt and lived there with a small band of people, but there it became a great, powerful, and large nation. The Egyptians treates us harshly and humiliated us; the imposed cruel slavery on us. We cried to the Lord the God of our fathers for help, and he listened to us, and, when he saw our misery and hardship and oppression, the Lord led us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying deeds,a nd with signs and portents." 26:5b-8

Imagine that language being recited by people who had returned to Jerusalem after life in Babylon. "Deuteronomy" is Greek, not Hebrew. The title comes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, and literally translated yields "Twin" or "Second" law. The concept is known to American lawyers, where the English and later American common law principles are gathered together in a "Restatement" of the law of Torts, for example. That text, then, is the restatement of the law of Moses after the Exile; after the return to Jerusalem, to the process of rebuilding a country on the foundations of the word of God. The Exile was a shattering experience. It was the very reality of God seemingly abandoning the people and their covenant and the promise to Abraham. It was quite literally the loss of everything, a loss only restored by Cyrus of Persia. Keep all of that in mind, and consider this:

"I don't know much about [waterboarding], but I know we're dealing with terrorists who do some very awful things to people," [Army General Russell Honore] said after Friday morning's speech to about 900 students at Flat Rock Middle School in Tyrone. "I know enough about [waterboarding] that the intent is not to kill anybody. We know that terrorists that we deal with, they have no law that they abide by. They have no code, they kill indiscriminately, like they did on 9/11."

The first response, of course, should be: if you don't know anything about waterboarding, you should keep your mouth shut. Four retired high ranking military officers do know something about waterboarding, and they've declared it reprehensible:

Two retired generals and two retired admirals have written a letter (pdf) to Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that “waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise — or even to give credence to such a suggestion — represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation.”

But set that aside, and consider the "ticking bomb" scenario Gen. Honore refers to. Some in the military blame the popularity of that scenario on "24," but it's an old theme in American movies. Anybody remember that scene from the first "Dirty Harry" movie, where Eastwood drives a knife into the killer's leg and tortures him until he reveals where the victim has been buried alive? Harry finds the victim, already dead; and the murderer is released, because Harry tortured him. Which brings us to the fundamental question: what's the difference between a "terrorist" and a "criminal"?

"If we picked up a prisoner that could tell us where the next 9/11 plot was, we could sit there and treat him nice, and that may not work," he said. "We could sit there and give him water and we could be politically correct.

"But if we have to use sources and methods that get information that not only save American lives, but save other people's lives or could prevent a major catastrophe from happening, I think the American people can decide [whether to allow waterboarding]."

"As long as we're responsible for hunting those SOBs down, finding them and preventing them from killing our sons and daughters," Honore said, "I think we've got an obligation to do what the hell we've got to do to make sure we get the mission done."

So far, the answer has been: criminals are "white," terrorists are foreigners. If anyone can name an individual arrested or detained since 9/11/01 as a "terrorist" who was not of non-European (i.e., "Caucasian") appearance without resorting to Google, I'd be surprised. I can only think of the Australian who was detained in Gitmo and finally released. Other than that, every alleged terrorist or detainee I know of in no way resembles Timothy McVeigh, at least in appearance. Serial killers and gang members and plain, ordinary mean and sociopathic and drunk people continue to kill other Americans at an alarming rate, and yet no one advocates going "Dirty Harry" on them for any reason. They are, even more than the "terrorists" we are told constantly to fear, killing our sons and daughters. The only difference is, we don't send our sons and daughters into their countries and knowingly put them in harm's way. But here is an Army general, one with political ambitions based on his performance in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, advocating a completely lawless approach to a criminal problem. And the only distinction between criminals in the US and terrorists, is that the latter are always and uniformly assumed to be not only foreigners, but non-whites.

If that isn't racism, what is it?

When the Hebrews included the "alien" in their law, they meant something actually beyond the 19th century European concept of "race." They meant people not of their tribe, people outside the reach of family, people who could in no way be considered trustworthy or even loyal without some distinct evidence. Consider the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Wife's Lament." She laments because her husband has died and no one in the tribe will accept her; she ends her days living in a hollow tree in the forest, foraging for food, trying to survive the Northern European winters. In this context, care for the alien is not only radical, it's fundamental to the Middle Eastern notions of hospitality. But considering the fights between tribes recorded just in the Anglo-Saxon poetry, or the Greek epics, or the history of the "Middle East," exclusion of the alien would make a great deal of sense.

So where is America? Proclaiming itself a bastion of liberty, a beacon of freedom, a stronghold of Christian faith? And yet fearing the alien, the "existential threat" which only exists among a few thousand people out of the world's billions, stateless groups with nothing more than determination and suicide bombers to attack us with? Israel during the Exile faced a true "existential threat," and they understood that the only way to survive it was to not abandon their fundamental laws. Our leadership, on the other hand, seems ready to abandon it and excuse it on any percieved expediency it can come up with. Well, some of our leaders. But in this crisis, "some" continue to equate to "just enough."

On the other hand, "just enough" is never quite everybody, either. The Deuteronomists spoke to the people; which is not to say all the people of Israel always listened and agreed and obeyed. Their restatement of the law, however, still stands as witness. And that is saying something. A very strong "something," indeed.

Oh, Please...

Sen. Charles Schumer tries to square the circle:

I AM voting today to support Michael B. Mukasey for attorney general for one critical reason: the Department of Justice — once the crown jewel among our government institutions — is a shambles and is in desperate need of a strong leader, committed to depoliticizing the agency’s operations.

Translation: Michael Mukasey rides a white horse, wears a black mask, and shoots silver bullets. All that's missing is a sidekick named "Tonto."

The department has been devastated under the Bush administration. Outstanding United States attorneys have been dismissed without cause; career civil-rights lawyers have been driven out in droves; people appear to have been prosecuted for political reasons; young lawyers have been rejected because they were not conservative ideologues; and politics has been allowed to infect decision-making.

So now, we shouldn't let politics decide for us; instead, we should decide this issue on the basis of...politics! Irony! Here, however, is the linchpin of the argument: Mukasey is a stand-up guy:

Most important, Judge Mukasey has demonstrated his fidelity to the rule of law, saying that if he believed the president were violating the law he would resign.

Now pay careful attention here, because this is where the game turns into three card monte, and Schumer assures you that you can win:

Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.

Okay, there's the rock, there's the hard place. The Senate really has no choice, see. But it's okay, Mukasey is a stand-up guy!

Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering — and I hope we will soon pass — a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law.

On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it — not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.

From a Bush nominee, this is no small commitment.

Leave aside the fact that last sentence can only charitably be described as damning with faint praise. First, let's examine the question of which is more important: the Justice Department, or the integrity of the justice system. Four retired military officers say it's the latter:

Two retired generals and two retired admirals have written a letter (pdf) to Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stating that “waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise — or even to give credence to such a suggestion — represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation.”

But it's okay, because Mukasey is a stand-up guy! He's promised to enforce a law Congress hasn't passed. Of course, elided in that analysis is the small fact that the President would undoubtedly veto any such law, and since the Congress has yet to override any Presidential veto, it's not very likely Judge Mukasey is going to find himself in the position of having to enforce such a law. But hey, he's a stand-up guy!

And after all, what is finally more important: our Constitutional system, represented through our justice system? Or our Justice Department? The answer is clear: it's the government, of course! That's what really matters! If we don't stand for the smooth functioning of our governmental agencies, we don't stand for anything!

Good grief.

UPDATE: Or, you could read what Keith Olbermann had to say on the subject. Righteous indignation has a certain power behind it.

Once more into the breach

NOW WITH EVEN MORE RECENT UPDATES! (VERY POSH!)

Well, you can start with this, from yesterday:

For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.

On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward.

General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.

But then when you juxtapose it with this:

Pakistan is on the brink of disaster, and the Bush administration is continuing to back the man who dragged it there. As President Pervez Musharraf fights off the most serious challenge to his eight-year dictatorship, the United States is supporting him to the hilt. The message to the Pakistani public is clear: To the Bush White House, the war on terrorism tops everything, and that includes democracy.
....
Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions. Boucher, for one, has largely limited his remarks on the crisis to expressions of support for Musharraf. Current and retired U.S. diplomats tell me that throughout the previous year, Boucher refused to let the State Department even consider alternative policies if Musharraf were threatened with being ousted, even though 2007 is an election year in Pakistan. Last winter, Boucher reportedly limited the scope of a U.S. government seminar on Pakistan for fear that it might send a signal that U.S. support for Musharraf was declining. Likewise, I'm told, he has refused to meet with leading opposition figures such as former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf has exiled. (Boucher says he has met with "people across the full political spectrum of Pakistan" during his nine visits there, from government parties to Islamic radicals to Chaudhry's lawyer.) Meanwhile, Boucher's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, demands democracy and media freedom in Venezuela but apparently deems such niceties irrelevant to Pakistan.

With Cheney in charge and Rice in eclipse, rumblings of alarm can be heard at the Defense Department and the CIA. While neither agency is usually directly concerned with decision-making on Pakistan, both boast officers with far greater expertise than the White House and State Department crew. These officers, many of whom have served in Islamabad or Kabul, understand the double game that Musharraf has played -- helping the United States go after al-Qaeda while letting his intelligence services help the Taliban claw their way back in Afghanistan. The Pentagon and the CIA have been privately expressing concern about the lack of an alternative to blind support for Musharraf. Ironically, both departments have historically supported military rulers in Pakistan. They seem to have learned their lesson. It's a pity that those calling the shots have not.

And then, of course, today:

Elections are planned for mid-January, but there were fears they might be abandoned amid the crisis.

Police have broken up street protests and hundreds of lawyers and opposition activists have been arrested.

The US said it was "deeply disturbed" by events and urged Gen Musharraf to return to civilian rule.

Gen Musharraf said he had declared the emergency to stop Pakistan "committing suicide", because the country was in a crisis caused by militant violence and an unruly judiciary.

Once again, in order to save democracy, the rulers had to destroy it. In fact, it's almost exactly like that; and only 15 years later, too:

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 emphasized text there is always the question presented to democracies; and it's being presented again to the US, although not quite in the dramatic fashion it's on display in Pakistan.

On Saturday, Musharraf claimed he took extraordinary actions in response to terrorism, a claim clearly aimed at keeping the support of the United States, and one in line with the thesis that Cheney could be backing Musharaff. However, that isn't swaying world opinion, or apparently, even US actions:

The US has suspended defence co-operation talks with Pakistan set for this week and says it will review its multi-billion dollar aid programme.

The UK, another major donor, says it is examining whether the emergency will affect its aid to Pakistan.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the announcement that elections would go ahead was welcome, but it must be accompanied by civilian rule and political freedoms.

The Netherlands became the first country to suspend aid, and the EU said its members were considering "possible further steps".

It remains to be seen just how successful Musharaff's "emergency measures" will be, or whether the claim of elections in January will materialize. But one can only be left wondering: who's on first? And how does this affect any attack on Iran, which Cheney is supposedly also backing? Frank Rich offered this analysis, obviously written before last Saturday:

Then there’s the really bad news. Much as Iraq distracted America from the war against Al Qaeda, so a strike on Iran could ignite Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s thriving base and the actual central front of the war on terror. As Joe Biden said Tuesday night, if we attack Iran to stop it from obtaining a few kilograms of highly enriched uranium, we risk facilitating the fall of the teetering Musharraf government and the unleashing of Pakistan’s already good-to-go nuclear arsenal on Israel and India.

Well, if an attack on Iran happens, will it have any backing in the US? Probably not:

One year out from the 2008 election, Americans are deeply pessimistic and eager for a change in direction from the agenda and priorities of President Bush, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Concern about the economy, the war in Iraq and growing dissatisfaction with the political environment in Washington all contribute to the lowest public assessment of the direction of the country in more than a decade. Just 24 percent think the nation is on the right track, and three-quarters said they want the next president to chart a course that is different than that pursued by Bush.

Overwhelmingly, Democrats want a new direction, but so do three-quarters of independents and even half of Republicans. Sixty percent of all Americans said they feel strongly that such a change is needed after two terms of the Bush presidency.

I'd say after Saturday, that need for a change in direction is even clearer. Which leaves one wondering, as Frank Rich did, why Hillary Clinton is talking like this:

“I am not in favor of this rush for war,” she said, “but I’m also not in favor of doing nothing.”

Why are those still seen as the only options? And who is trying to make that either/or claim, except people like Dick Cheney?

UPDATE: The BBC says "the US...will review its multi-billion dollar aid programme." The devil, of course, is in the details:

President Bush's top national security aides say U.S. financial backing for Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts likely will go uninterrupted despite the administration's unhappiness with President Pervev Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency.

The White House said Bush would comment Monday on the crisis.

"The best option is for Pakistan to get back on its path to democracy," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters, echoing statements that administration officials had made throughout the weekend.

...

[Dana Perino] said that Bush has not spoken to Musharraf since the Pakistani president imposed emergency rule on Saturday.

At the State Department, deputy spokesman Tom Casey said a review of "the broad spectrum of assistance that we give to Pakistan" was under way, but declined to comment on whether Musharraf's actions had triggered statutory aid suspensions. He also reiterated that the administration had to consider Pakistan's status as a strong anti-terrorism ally in the review.

So Bush can't be bothered to contact Musharaff directly, and the review depends greatly on Pakistan's status as "a strong anti-terrorism ally."

Nope; no reason to think Dick Cheney is guiding our foreign policy; no reason at all.

UPDATE 2 (a la the Very Serious Glenn Greenwald):

The White House Speaks:

Even a senior administration official, at a White House briefing, merely called Musharraf "a friend who we think has done something ill-advised." The official spoke on condition of anonymity so he could talk more freely about the behind-the-scenes thoughts of the White House.

Despite billions in U.S. aid to Pakistan since Musharraf declared himself a war-on-terror partner after the 2001 attacks, Bush appeared resigned that the United States has little leverage to influence Musharraf's behavior.

"Our hope now is that he hurry back to elections," Bush said. "All we can do is continue to work with the president as well as others in the Pak government to make it abundantly clear the position of the United States."

Even as Bush spoke, police in Pakistan oversaw a sometimes-violent crackdown on lawyers and others opposing Musharraf's decisions, with hundreds, if not thousands, of arrests. And Musharraf said he would return the country to "the same track as we were moving" but gave no indication when parliamentary elections would take place. They had been scheduled for January.

The Pakistani leader has ignored U.S. requests before, including not following through on repeated promises to relinquish his post as head of Pakistan's army and, most recently, for most of last week when officials up to Rice's level unsuccessfully lobbied Musharraf not to declare a state of emergency.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warned against being too soft.

Irony was unavailable for comment. It was presumed he was so confused by recent events he couldn't get out of bed because he couldn't find the floor. Unconfirmed reports have it that Irony has been removed to an undisclosed location.

All Soul's Day--2007

Almighty and everlasting God, before whom stand the spirits of the living and the dead; Light of lights, Fountain of wisdom and goodness, who livest in all pure and humble and gracious souls.

For all who have witnessed a good confession for thy glory adn the welfare of the world; for patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; for the wise of every land and nation, and all teachers of mankind,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the martyrs of our holy faith, the faithful witnesses to Christ of whom the world was not worthy, and for all who have resisted falsehood and wrong unto suffering or death,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have labored and suffered for freedom, good government, just laws, and the sanctity of the home; and for all who have given their lives for their country,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have sought to bless men by their service and life, and to lighten the dark places of the earth,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For those who have been tender and true and brave in all times and places, and for all who have been one with thee in the communion of Christ's spirit and in the strength of his love,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the dear friends and kindred, ministering in the spiritual world, whose faces we see no more, but whose love is with us for ever,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the teachers and companions of our childhood and youth, and for the members of our household of faith, who worship thee in heaven,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the grace which was given to all these, and for the trust and hope in which they lived and died,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

And that we may hold them in continual remembrance, that they sanctity of their wisdom and goodness may rest upon our earthly days, and that we may prepare ourselves to follow them in their upward way,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

That we may have a hope beyond this world for all thy children, even for wanderers who must be sought and brought home; that we may be comforted and sustained by the promise of a time when none shall be a stranger and an exile from thy kingdom and household,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

In the communion of the Holy Spirit, with the faithful and the saintly in heaven, with the redeemed in all ages, with our beloved who dwell in thy presences and peace, we, who still serve and suffer on earth, unite in ascribing:

THANKSGIVING, GLORY, HONOR, AND POWER UNTO THEE, O LORD, OUR GOD.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.

All Saints Day 2007

Revelation 7:9-17
7:9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no
one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

7:10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

7:11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,

7:12 singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."

7:13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?"

7:14 I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

7:15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

7:16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;

7:17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Psalm 34:1-10, 22
34:1 I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

34:2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad.

34:3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.

34:4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.

34:5 Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.

34:6 This poor soul cried, and was heard by the LORD, and was saved from every trouble.

34:7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

34:9 O fear the LORD, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want.

34:10 The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

34:22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

1 John 3:1-3
3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

3:2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

3:3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Matthew 5:1-12
5:1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

5:2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

5:7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

5:10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

5:11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

5:12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

God, he told me, is spiritual, not material; not bread and wine, not flesh and blood. And when I mentioned that was largely the picture of Jesus we got from the gospel of John, he mentioned the letters of John, too, to support his point.

The gospel of John doesn't include what we call the Beatitudes. In John's gospel, for John's community, those blessings have no place. They are too open-handed, too generous, too inclusive. Which is not to say John is not inclusive, that John doesn't know the other gospels. He clearly knew the gospel of Luke. John, like all four gospels, includes the anointing of Jesus before his death; unlike the other three gospels, in John's version the woman who anoints Jesus has a name. She is Mary, and she anoints Jesus in gratitude for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. Perhaps there is a joke there, for John, because Lazarus is the poor beggar in Jesus' parable in Luke, of the poor man who goes to Abraham, and the rich man who dies and goes to Gehenna. But John had read Luke, because Luke moves the anointing of Jesus from his head to his feet; and Mary, in John's version, bathes Jesus feet with the perfume, the scent of which fills the house. John knew enough about Luke's gospel to know the anointing recorded in Mark and Matthew, had changed in the transmission to Luke.

But John's is not an inclusive gospel; it is almost a gnostic gospel. Those who know, know; those who do not, are Nicodemus; imagining that they know, but understanding nothing. Never mind; they are saved in the end. In the end, Nicodemus is one of those who recovers the body after the crucifixion. Or maybe that is John's joke again, since the body was never Jesus in the first place; since it only appeared to be Jesus.

But in Matthew's gospel, the body is clearly Jesus, and the blessings are clearly concrete; meant to be real, not just platitudes. They are meant to comfort people who mourn now; people who are merciful now; people whose spirit is poor now, and needs encouraging; people who are pure in heart now, merciful now, trying to make peace now. For they will be called "saints." And saints are always people; never ideals; and never plaster. Ideals are not real; and plaster is not human. Saints are human. Saints are real.

The blessings are announced for now; not for some time in the sweet bye and bye. We miss that, too often, because the merciful hardly seem blessed, and the peacemakers hardly seem successful, and the merciful receive no mercy, the pure in heart seem to see nothing except what can't possibly be; and the only promise given is that our reward will be great in heaven; and heaven, despite the peacemakers and the merciful and those who are hungry right now for justice and righteousness, heaven is certainly not here, not now. So the blessings seem to be set aside, promises of a time to come.

No, say the saints. No. No. The blessings are here. The blessings are real. The blessings are pronounced, right now. They take affect here; for you. Now.

The language of this day all sounds like language of what will come, will happen, will be seen one day; but not now:

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?"

I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

We hear those words and we think: "Yes. Yes!" And we want them to be true now; but we know they are not true. We know they cannot yet be true. But the saints admonish us. The saints tell us, remind us, wave their hands before our blind eyes, shout into our deaf ears: "The time is now! The blessing is now! The great ordeal is over and the throne of the Lamb is in front of you right now! The shepherd guides you now! The springs of water wash your feet right now! God is wiping your tears away now, now, even now! Oh, won't you open your eyes and see?! Won't you open your ears and listen?!" And then they weep for us, the saints; the clouds of witness who surround us and know what we know and know what we refuse to know. They surround us and weep and try once again to get our attention, to make us listen, to make us see, to get us just to notice.

O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

O fear the LORD, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want.

The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

If you could but taste, then you would see! If you would but taste, then you would hear! Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. The lives of the servants of the Lord are redeemed! And they are redeemed right now! That is what the saints tell us, and they know! They know, because they are human. They know because they are just like us. They know, because they are saints. And they surround us; and they are here, now.

Samhain is what the Irish once called this time. It was their new year, and the ancestors came back to see them for a celebration. It was when time itself was a "thin place," and the spirits could communicate with the living, and the veil between the two worlds was thin enough to allow communication. For them, the spirits were as real as flesh and blood family members. For us, perhaps even the saints don't seem quite real. The saints seem like the blessed ones, and their blessings seem to have come long after they could enjoy them in this life. But they know what we forget: that the blessings are for life, not for death. Blessings that only come as rewards in the end, are no blessings at all. Blessings that are not for this life, are only cruel promises. The saints know that God is the God of the living, not the dead; and that in God’s sight, all are alive. Which is why this time of year is still a time of celebration, not of mourning. Which is why the great ordeal has passed, and the lamb is with us now. And why the ones who seem so little, and have so little, and struggle to be merciful and make peace and keep pure hearts, are blessed right now, and not later, not as a reward for being stubborn or persistent or for simply hanging on. The struggle has passed. Blessed are we; right now. That is what the saints know.

The saints are flesh and blood and bone, as Jesus was; and they know what our struggles are, as Jesus did, and they know what our hope is; and that is what sets them apart from us. But not for long; never for long; and they don’t want to be set apart, they want to be with us, they want us to be with them. They are here, now, in this “thin time” they are as near as our next breath, and they know: the blessings on the merciful, and the mourning, and the pure in heart; on the peacemakers and the meek and the ones who are so hungry and thirsty for righteousness they are sure they can just taste, and if only they could be satisfied! They know, the saints, the wise and humble and loving saints, that we are with them, right now; and that we are blessed. Right now. And they want us to know it, too. For all the saints. God willing, we’ll see that we’re ones, too.

Because that’s what it means, to be children of God. The saints, look just like you. Have hands, and hearts, and eyes, and ears, and mouths, shaped just like yours. And that is your blessing, now, and evermore. Because you are merciful. Because you are meek. Because, whether you know it or not, your heart is pure. Because you will never stop being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Because you know it is there, that it will come, that it will be done. Because you know, the great ordeal is no ordeal at all. Because you know, that you want everyone else to know this; and to know they are blessed.

For all the saints. And you are one, too.

Amen.

Hallowe'en

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night.

The lasses feat, and cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when they're fine;
Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, and warm, and kin';
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs,
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'
Whiles fast at night.

Then, first and foremost, through the kail,
Their stocks maun a' be sought ance;
They steek their een, and graip and wale,
For muckle anes and straught anes.
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift,
And wander'd through the bow-kail,
And pou't, for want o' better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow't that night.

Then, staught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar and cry a' throu'ther;
The very wee things, todlin', rin,
Wi' stocks out owre their shouther;
And gif the custoc's sweet or sour.
Wi' joctelegs they taste them;
Syne cozily, aboon the door,
Wi cannie care, they've placed them
To lie that night.

The lasses staw frae 'mang them a'
To pou their stalks of corn:
But Rab slips out, and jinks about,
Behint the muckle thorn:
He grippet Nelly hard and fast;
Loud skirl'd a' the lasses;
But her tap-pickle maist was lost,
When kitlin' in the fause-house
Wi' him that night.

The auld guidwife's well-hoordit nits,
Are round and round divided,
And monie lads' and lasses' fates
Are there that night decided:
Some kindle coothie, side by side,
And burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa, wi' saucy pride,
And jump out-owre the chimlie
Fu' high that night.

Jean slips in twa wi' tentie ee;
Wha 'twas she wadna tell;
But this is Jock, and this is me,
She says in to hersel:
He bleezed owre her, and she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
Till, fuff! he started up the lum,
And Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night.

Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt,
Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie;
And Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt,
To be compared to Willie;
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling,
And her ain fit it brunt it;
While Willie lap, and swore by jing,
'Twas just the way he wanted
To be that night.

Nell had the fause-house in her min',
She pits hersel and Rob in;
In loving bleeze they sweetly join,
Till white in ase they're sobbin';
Nell's heart was dancin' at the view,
She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't:
Rob, stowlins, prie'd her bonny mou',
Fu' cozie in the neuk for't,
Unseen that night.

But Merran sat behint their backs,
Her thoughts on Andrew Bell;
She lea'es them gashin' at their cracks,
And slips out by hersel:
She through the yard the nearest taks,
And to the kiln goes then,
And darklins graipit for the bauks,
And in the blue-clue throws then,
Right fear't that night.

And aye she win't, and aye she swat,
I wat she made nae jaukin',
Till something held within the pat,
Guid Lord! but she was quakin'!
But whether 'was the deil himsel,
Or whether 'twas a bauk-en',
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She didna wait on talkin'
To spier that night.

Wee Jennie to her grannie says,
"Will ye go wi' me, grannie?
I'll eat the apple at the glass
I gat frae Uncle Johnnie:"
She fuff't her pipe wi' sic a lunt,
In wrath she was sae vap'rin',
She notice't na, an aizle brunt
Her braw new worset apron
Out through that night.

"Ye little skelpie-limmer's face!
I daur you try sic sportin',
As seek the foul thief ony place,
For him to spae your fortune.
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight!
Great cause ye hae to fear it;
For mony a ane has gotten a fright,
And lived and died deleeret
On sic a night.

"Ae hairst afore the Sherramoor, --
I mind't as weel's yestreen,
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure
I wasna past fifteen;
The simmer had been cauld and wat,
And stuff was unco green;
And aye a rantin' kirn we gat,
And just on Halloween
It fell that night.

"Our stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen,
A clever sturdy fallow:
His son gat Eppie Sim wi' wean,
That lived in Achmacalla:
He gat hemp-seed, I mind it weel,
And he made unco light o't;
But mony a day was by himsel,
He was sae sairly frighted
That very night."

Then up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck,
And he swore by his conscience,
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck;
For it was a' but nonsense.
The auld guidman raught down the pock,
And out a hanfu' gied him;
Syne bade him slip frae 'mang the folk,
Some time when nae ane see'd him,
And try't that night.

He marches through amang the stacks,
Though he was something sturtin;
The graip he for a harrow taks.
And haurls it at his curpin;
And every now and then he says,
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
And her that is to be my lass,
Come after me, and draw thee
As fast this night."

He whistled up Lord Lennox' march
To keep his courage cheery;
Although his hair began to arch,
He was say fley'd and eerie:
Till presently he hears a squeak,
And then a grane and gruntle;
He by his shouther gae a keek,
And tumbled wi' a wintle
Out-owre that night.

He roar'd a horrid murder-shout,
In dreadfu' desperation!
And young and auld came runnin' out
To hear the sad narration;
He swore 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw,
Or crouchie Merran Humphie,
Till, stop! she trotted through them
And wha was it but grumphie
Asteer that night!

Meg fain wad to the barn hae gaen,
To win three wechts o' naething;
But for to meet the deil her lane,
She pat but little faith in:
She gies the herd a pickle nits,
And two red-cheekit apples,
To watch, while for the barn she sets,
In hopes to see Tam Kipples
That very nicht.

She turns the key wi cannie thraw,
And owre the threshold ventures;
But first on Sawnie gies a ca'
Syne bauldly in she enters:
A ratton rattled up the wa',
And she cried, Lord, preserve her!
And ran through midden-hole and a',
And pray'd wi' zeal and fervour,
Fu' fast that night;

They hoy't out Will wi' sair advice;
They hecht him some fine braw ane;
It chanced the stack he faddom'd thrice
Was timmer-propt for thrawin';
He taks a swirlie, auld moss-oak,
For some black grousome carlin;
And loot a winze, and drew a stroke,
Till skin in blypes cam haurlin'
Aff's nieves that night.

A wanton widow Leezie was,
As canty as a kittlin;
But, och! that night amang the shaws,
She got a fearfu' settlin'!
She through the whins, and by the cairn,
And owre the hill gaed scrievin,
Whare three lairds' lands met at a burn
To dip her left sark-sleeve in,
Was bent that night.

Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As through the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.

Among the brackens, on the brae,
Between her and the moon,
The deil, or else an outler quey,
Gat up and gae a croon:
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool!
Near lav'rock-height she jumpit;
but mist a fit, and in the pool
Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,
Wi' a plunge that night.

In order, on the clean hearth-stane,
The luggies three are ranged,
And every time great care is ta'en',
To see them duly changed:
Auld Uncle John, wha wedlock joys
Sin' Mar's year did desire,
Because he gat the toom dish thrice,
He heaved them on the fire
In wrath that night.

Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks,
I wat they didna weary;
And unco tales, and funny jokes,
Their sports were cheap and cheery;
Till butter'd so'ns, wi' fragrant lunt,
Set a' their gabs a-steerin';
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt,
They parted aff careerin'
Fu' blythe that night.


--Robert Burns

Or you can just go back and read what I said last year.

The Long Emergency and the Short Imagination

Atrios got me thinking about this when he linked to Matthew Yglesias, who also is puzzled by the concerns of people like Kunstler. But frankly, it takes little imagination to realize Yglesias talks like someone who thinks food comes from a grocery store, not a farm fertilized and harvested and basically maintained, by petro chemicals. I have never read Kunstler's book, nor have I read the article Yglesias links to, but the whole thing made me dig this up:

The oil age began in 1859 and peaked in 1970. The oil endowment allowed us to use the stored energy of millions of years of sunlight. Unfortunately the fossil-fuel honeymoon is almost over.

It has been estimated that without coal, oil, or natural gas, it would take several planets just like Earth to support the current number of humans living.

World oil discovery peaked in the 1960's. Since 1999, the discovery of large oil and gas fields has collapsed: sixteen in 200, eight in 2001, three in 2002, and none in 2003.

There are half a billion cars and trucks currently in use around the world.

We will not be rescued by the wished-for hydrogen economy. Our daily enjoyment of oil and gas has given us the energy equivalent of three hundred slaves per person in the industrialized nations. No combination of alternative energies will permit us to continue living the way we do, or even close to it.

All the major systems that depend on oil, including manufacturing, trade, transportation, agriculture, and the financial markets that serve them, will begin to destabilize. The boundaries between politics, economics, and collective paranoia will dissolve.

As I said then: is even half of this right? Yglesias points to "hybrid cars" as our salvation. Except, as Kunstler points out, we have no energy source that will replace the energy we get, pound for pound or ounce for ounce, from petroleum. We may be able to run cars on electricity, but backhoes? Cement mixers? The huge dump trucks that haul the dirt and concrete away? You got a battery big enough to power the construction equipment it takes to build and maintain the US freeway system? An electric motor and battery powerful enough to drive a loaded 18 wheeler across the country, or drive a ship from China to Los Angeles?

Or really, really long extension cords? And you're going to replace the petroleum products in asphalt with...what, exactly? Or for the plastics in your computer? Most of products in our world, as the chemical industry is telling us in ads lately, is due to chemistry. Well, there's a reason they call it the "petro-chemical" industry, and it's not because Exxon owns large shares in DuPont.

Will this occassion a revolution? Atrios doubts it. But not all revolutions involve destruction of the social order and reigns of terror. I think Michael Klare is more right than wrong: the age of petroleum is over. What replaces it, is anyone's guess; and everyone's concern.

Are Kunstler or Klare right about everything? No; but then, Al Gore didn't have to be right about everything, either. Once you start examining how much of our modern life is based on petroleum, you can easily start asking: how much of our modern life can we maintain without petroleum?

And the answer is: not much at all. If that's not a revolution, I don't know what is.

"Religion is responsibility or it is nothing at all."

This NYT Magazine article ("The Evangelical Crackup") is allowing me to trot out all my hobbyhorses. Begin with what I regard as a truly shameful quote:

“Even in evangelical circles, we are tired of the war, tired of the body bags,” the Rev. David Welsh, who took over late last year as senior pastor of Wichita’s large Central Christian Church, told me. “I think it is to the point where they are saying: ‘O.K., we have done as much good as we can. Now let’s just get out of there.’ ”

Good? Good? 4 million people turned into refugees; 600,000+ dead, per the Lancet study, as of 2006? 'a country completely eliminated and the region plunged into chaos from which there seems to be no good recovery? This is as much "good" as evangelicals can do? Now they'll just wash their hands of it and walk away?

Truly, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

But that is just one person's opinion; it cannot be fairly attributed to others. In other news in the article, some opinions do seem to be more widely shared:

[Frank Page of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C.] told convention delegates that Southern Baptists had become known too much for what they were against (abortion, evolution, homosexuality) instead of what they stand for (the Gospel). “I believe in the word of God,” he said after his election, “I am just not mad about it.” (It’s a formulation that comes up a lot in evangelical circles these days.)

In my early days commenting on blogs I was forced, repeatedly, to point out I was religious not because I was against something, but because I was for the Gospels. And I pointed out that politics, being about power, was all about defending a position against other positions, which meant you were always more against something, or someone, than for someone or something. Interesting to see that coming from a person who would consider me quite liberal, both politically and theologically.

And if this is right, evangelical churches are becoming more mainstream by the day. Indeed, this could almost be said to parallel the experience of the ancestor churches of the United Church of Christ, which both started out as very conservative, and have by now become quite liberal and socially active:

For the conservative Christian leadership, what is most worrisome about the evangelical disappointment with President Bush is that it coincides with a widening philosophical rift. Ever since they broke with the mainline Protestant churches nearly 100 years ago, the hallmark of evangelicals theology has been a vision of modern society as a sinking ship, sliding toward depravity and sin. For evangelicals, the altar call was the only life raft — a chance to accept Jesus Christ, rebirth and salvation. Falwell, Dobson and their generation saw their political activism as essentially defensive, fighting to keep traditional moral codes in place so their children could have a chance at the raft.

But many younger evangelicals — and some old-timers — take a less fatalistic view. For them, the born-again experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning. What follows is a long-term process of “spiritual formation” that involves applying his teachings in the here and now. They do not see society as a moribund vessel. They talk more about a biblical imperative to fix up the ship by contributing to the betterment of their communities and the world. They support traditional charities but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.

Of course, that shift to looking like the present-day UCC may take another 100 years or so, but stranger things have happened. And yeah, it happens as people become more a part of the social mainstream:

Secular sociologists say evangelicals’ changing view of society reflects their changing place in it. Once trailing in education and income, evangelicals have caught up over the last 40 years. “The social-issues arguments are the first manifestation of a rural outlook transposed into a more urban or suburban setting,” John Green, of the Pew Research Center, told me. “Now having been there for a while, that kind of hard-edged politics no longer appeals to them. They still care about abortion and gay marriage, but they are also interested in other, more middle-class arguments.”

Still, in case you were wondering, Jimmy Carter can no longer be considered "serious:"

“I think that a superpower ought to be the exemplification of a commitment to peace,” Carter told Hybels, who nodded along. “I would like for anyone in the world that’s threatened with conflict to say to themselves immediately: ‘Why don’t we go to Washington? They believe in peace and they will help us get peace.’ ” Carter added: “This is just a simple but important extrapolation from what a human being ought to do, and what a human being ought to do is what Jesus Christ did, who was a champion of peace.”

I mean, how could we do that an keep GE and Lockheed and all the other defense contractors in business?

I do have to say that Hybels is quoted in this article advocating for community change, but I've studied his model of ministry in seminary, and it's effectiveness as a change agent is dubious at best. His heart is in the right place, but as I've mentioned before, his results don't bear out his design. Changing hearts and minds is a much more difficult process than anyone appreciates until you try it, and I honestly believe the model of Jesus: an itinerant preacher who was executed for being a political troublemaker, is not an accidental model. Nor is it possible to reconcile it with being the leader of a mega-church; it's difficult even to reconcile it with being the pastor of a small church. It's back to that church of meaning and belonging v. church of sacrifice for meaning and belonging. Things are changing in the evangelical community, no doubt; but the more things change, the more they remain the same.

So what comes of this? I've seen it all before. The evangelical rise mirrored the power of very conservative Baptist churches in East Texas, where I grew up. For awhile the empahsis was on social issues, like desegregation or drug use or teenage sex and "free love." Then that ebbed, and even Southern Baptists I knew started to wonder about the importance of such issues in their daily, and their spiritual, lives. The pendulum just swings, back and forth. Which is not, in itself, a good thing either. To imagine you are on a swinging pendulum is to abandon all responsibility for your life and turn it over to a clockwork mechanism you can neither speed up nor slow down. There is a movement here, but it is nothing more than the natural movement of exhaustion, the flow of power out of the hands of those who thought they wielded it into other hands, who in turn will think they are in control.

And so it will always be, for those who think power is the ultimate, or even the penultimate, answer.

And now for a completely typical blog post...

I guess it depends on what you mean by "political":

The Internal Revenue Service has told a prominent Pasadena church that it has ended its lengthy investigation into a 2004 antiwar sermon, church leaders said Sunday.

But the agency wrote in its letter to All Saints Episcopal Church that officials still considered the sermon to have been illegal, prompting the church to seek clarification, a corrected record and an apology from the IRS, the church's rector told standing-room-only crowds of parishioners at Sunday's services.

The church also has asked the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, to investigate allegations that officials from the Justice Department had become involved in the matter, raising concerns that the investigation was politically motivated.

You may recall the problem for All Saints was a sermon. But everyone agrees no political endorsement was made in the sermon:

At All Saints, Rector J. Edwin Bacon on Sunday told the congregants that the guest sermon by Regas, a former rector, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted the warning from the IRS. In the sermon, Regas did not instruct parishioners whom to support in the presidential election but said that Jesus would have told the president that his Iraq policies had failed.

The IRS' letter cited a Times article describing Regas' sermon as having triggered the agency's concerns.

Which didn't stop the IRS from saying All Saints had done something wrong, even though they wouldn't be prosecuted for it. So how is this not a violation of IRS regulation?

For years, [Terry] Fox [pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichtia, Kansas] flaunted his allegiance to the Republican Party, urging fellow pastors to make the same “confession” and calling them “sissies” if they didn’t. “We are the religious right,” he liked to say. “One, we are religious. Two, we are right.”

Wonder if this newspaper article will trigger an IRS investigation? Since Pastor Fox is no longer the pastor of that church, and since this happened over a span of nearly 30 years, I rather doubt it.

But it does put the investigation of All Saints Episcopal Church into context, doesn't it?

Give the King your justice, O Lord!

Open your blog-doors to people, you get all kinds of good stuff*:

The small church parking lot on the busy corner of Young and Harwood streets downtown has been drawing plenty of stares lately as motorists pass the growing crowd of people sleeping on cardboard scraps just a few feet away.

More than 150 homeless people turn to First Presbyterian Church's guarded parking lot each night, raising concerns about the impact on downtown businesses and the safety of the homeless as the temperature drops. More than 150 homeless people consider the cramped spot at First Presbyterian Church to be their last refuge after police and city officials recently moved them from nearby streets.

"I think it's a blessing from God that they're doing this," said Kenneth Cole, 55, who says he has been homeless for a year. "This is our last stop."

The new makeshift shelter at a major entryway to downtown also has become a growing nuisance, some neighbors say, with homeless loitering around downtown businesses. Others are concerned that, as the weather gets colder, the site will become more dangerous for those on the street.

You can curse the darkness of this story, wondering why government at every level fails entirely to consider these people citizens who need shelter, rather than "the homeless" who need to get off the streets. The mayor's reaction, for example:

Mayor Tom Leppert plans to meet Monday with the Rev. Joseph Clifford of First Presbyterian to look for solutions. He said the city is trying to balance the needs of the homeless with the need to attract investment downtown.

He could be criticized for assessing the problem that way. Then again, he's the mayor, not a pastor, not a prophet, and the business of most American cities is business, like it or not. So you could curse the darkness, and wonder about the pastor of the church, who admits:

"I'm not comfortable with the parking lot. There's not a night that goes by that I don't wake up and get out of my king-size bed ... and think about the fact that there are 150 people sleeping in our parking lot – and they're thankful for that. Something about that is really twisted," he said. "The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is we can do better. I know we can, and we will."

Or you can see an effort as better than doing nothing at all. Or you can excuse the church, noting that they are doing what they can, and what else can they do? Homeless shelters cost money and require staff and, frankly, churches aren't in that business: charities are. Even church-related charities are not churches per se. So you have to cut First Presbyterian a lot of slack, and admire what they are willing to do, which is apparently more than anyone else in Dallas will do; or at least as much. And you could note that, sadly, this is not a new problem, but it remains an invisible one, or one clearly some would like to keep invisible:

First Presbyterian has been committed to helping the homeless since they started populating the area in the 1970s.

And it is a problem of human beings, who resolutely insist on being human beings, no matter how they are relegated, treated, discarded, or resolutely ignored:

"It intimidates people," he said. Mr. Watts added that he has called police about homeless people urinating in public and, in one instance, people having sex on the church steps. The parking lot sits against a backdrop of the glowing downtown skyline.

When I pastored a church we occassionally had someone sleeping on the grounds. We'd know because we'd find a flattened cardboard box in the bushes, or some other indication. One time we found a pile of sh*t on the sidewalk. There's no nicer way to say it. It upset me at first; then I realized there were no facilities, and not too many places on the grounds that weren't wide open, and while the sidewalk faced the street it was barricaded by a hedge. I also realized our overnight visitors were human beings. And sometimes that's the biggest problem of all. Human beings against a glowing downtown skyline. And we tend to prefer the skyline.

There is a window here, too, on how we care for our poor, and who we consider 'poor':

Some in the crowd defy stereotypes about homeless people in that they work, mostly for temp agencies providing day labor. Martin Cabrera, 32, gets up at 4 a.m. to get work from a temp agency that pays $5.85 per hour, which he said isn't enough to get his own place.

For the prophets, the code words were "widow" and "orphan." It didn't matter how much you made, or whether you could work. Those excluded from economic society were women without husbands, and children without parents, or just without fathers. The law of Moses, the prophets reminded the people of Israel over and over again, required the people of Israel to take care of these least and last. And not just because the law said so, either. Even the liturgy would remind them:

The maker of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, Who keeps faith forever,
7
secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free;
8
the LORD gives sight to the blind. The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.
9
The LORD protects the stranger, sustains the orphan and the widow, but thwarts the way of the wicked.
10
The LORD shall reign forever, your God, Zion, through all generations! Hallelujah!

--Psalm 146:6-8

He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.

--Deuteronomy 10:18

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

--Psalm 10

Give the king thy judgments, 0 God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son.

2. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.

3. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness.

4. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

--Psalm 72

PSALM 12

Help us, Lord,
for no one stays loyal,
the faithful have vanished.
People lie to each other,
no one speaks from the heart.
May the Lord silence
the smooth tongue
and boasting lips that say:
"Our words will triumph!
With weapons like these
who can master us?"

Then the Lord speaks out:
"I will act now,
for the poor are broken
and the needy groan.
When they call out,
I will protect them."

The Lord's word is pure,
like silver from the furnace,
seven times refined.

Lord, keep your promise,
always protect your own.
Guard them from this age
when wickedness abounds
and evil is prized above all.

Obviously, I could go on. In the end, we have the Psalms to turn to:

Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

And we remember that justice itself is weak; which is why it is eternal. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

*This one was thanks to Tena, who always returns at just the right time.

Riding my hobbyhorse

I'm always looking for something good to post about, and Grandmere Mimi has given it to me. Even if there still doesn't seem to be a lot of point to highlighting the flaws in a comic book version of Christian theology, via Tobias Haller I have this link to a lecture by Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) about atheism and Richard Dawkins. Right off the bat he starts with an observation that's already a century old or so, which makes you realize just how "current" much of this debate is:

I want to begin with an episode in Dostoyevsky’s novel ‘The Idiot’, where the central character Prince Mishkin says to a friend ‘Atheists always seem to be talking about something else’. And he goes on to illustrate what he means by telling a short series of anecdotes about different kinds of religious behaviour. Some of these episodes are about bad religion and some of them are about what you might call good religion. But the point that he’s making throughout this little series of stories is that there is something here which is not easily recognizable as the kind of thing that the argumentative atheist is talking about. Now I think that Prince Mishkin’s response is one that a great many of religious believers are likely to feel when they pick up the works of Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens or any of those prominent critics of religious faith in our own day. We may feel as we turn the pages that ‘this is not it’ whatever the religion is being attacked here it’s not actually what I believe in. And along with that instinctive response of not recognizing, there may also be a touch of, let’s say, resentment at somebody trying to tell us what we really mean. (Because as we all know there are few things more annoying than somebody else saying ‘I know what you mean’!) More seriously, that is one of those features of a certain kind of exercise of power which is itself open to moral challenge. When we go to another person or another community and say with confidence ‘I will tell you what your real agenda is’ the other person or community may very well say ‘This is simply a bid for control. You are telling me that my world is smaller than yours, that yours can contain and reduce mine’. And that’s not just an intellectual but a political question, in the widest sense.

And it just gets better from there. I've mentioned this before: that Dawkins sets up a straw man, knocks it over, and declares himself the victor, and this is evident in the mere fact that he cannot reference in his own book one legitimate modern theologian, or quote extensively from one Christian theologian of any era. Sam Harris defends this practice by arguing that no Christian believes in the God of the theologians, but that's just a more elaborate way of adding stuffing to your scarecrow. What's significant in the Archbishop's discussion is the inclusion of politics into this mix. But I especially appreciate the way he gets to the nut of the issue. Put quite simply, to the man with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail:

...[I]n Richard Dawkins’ writings there is one very interesting factor affecting the whole discussion and that is the assumption that, loosely speaking, Darwinian Theory is a theory of everything. It’s not just a theory about biology; it’s a theory about history and culture. It’s a theory which explains the history of ideas. Every feature of culture like every feature of biology requires an explanation in Darwinian terms: that is in terms of survival strategies.

Which means, of course, all human efforts are all about power. And what is the human expression of power in society, except politics? As the Archbishop puts it:

The Dawkins view assumes that all culture is about survival, that if something like religion appears to survive when in many ways it apparently shouldn’t, there must be an under-the-surface explanation revealing those aspects of religion which initially in some unknown pre-history made for survival even if they don’t do so any longer. But I don’t think that it’s much use reducing religion to a survival strategy unless you can be a bit clearer about how it’s supposed to attain its aims.

A failure in reasoning that always brings me back to this cartoon:

Forgive me for quoting the Archbishop even more extensively, but the pastor in me responds that this is precisely the pastoral issue involved in any religious practice:

If, en route you should discover that it makes you happy, well and good, but woe betide you if you approach as part of a programme for attaining happiness. An undergraduate friend of mine who’s now I’m happy to say a distinguished fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Political Science once said to me in exasperation when we were both undergraduates ‘the trouble with you is that you believe religion is true but not useful and I believe it’s useful but not true’. And while I suspect we might both protest a little at that characterization of our intellectual opposition there is something in that which carries at least some central aspects of what religious people think their faith is about. Whether it’s the Buddhist saying that the purpose of religious exercise is dissolving the illusions that imprison the ego; or indeed the illusion of the ego itself; whether it’s the Hindu saying you must learn to act in detachment from where that action will lead simply because your action must coincide with eternal law; whether it’s the Christian speaking about bearing the Cross with Christ or enduring the dark night of the spirit. Whatever this is it’s not language which can be in one stroke reduced to strategies of survival. If you want to talk about evolutionary advantage in such language of behaviour or attitude, you can only do it in the most paradoxical sense. What if the entire environment in which we live is one to which the appropriate response is letting go of yourself and your safety? What if that is the appropriate response because the universe is like that? Well, you can call that an evolutionary advantage if you wish, but I think it’s in a somewhat strained and extended sense. For the Christian, such language is grounded in the idea that the ultimate reality with which we have to do, is a God who can be described as emptying himself in the work of incarnation and indeed in creation itself.

The primary warning given to seminary students is: don't enter the ministry if you think it is a route to happiness instead of service. Those who don't learn that before they graduate, tend to learn it shortly thereafter. And if, as I have said, the teachings of Christ point to the paradox of the power of powerlessness as the central tenet of existence, isn't that precisly the point that so outraged the great atheist of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche? So who is right about Christianity? Nietzsche, or Dawkins? Or are they both wrong?

And there are those, particularly in 17th century French Catholicism for example, who underline to an almost exaggerated extent the idea that the pure love of God required you quite simply to stop thinking about any consequences whatsoever. You could only be said to love God when you were perfectly aware that you might get nothing out of it.

My God I love thee not because I hope for Heaven thereby/nor yet because who love thee not are lost eternally (as the hymn says). Whatever Darwinian explanation you can produce of this language is going to be – to put it modestly – a little strained.

I've made that point (here, here, and here) until I'm tired of my own tediousness about it. The Archbishop makes it quite well. No, it is not the all-encompassing and sole message of the gospels; but yes, it is certainly one very valid interpretation, with all manner of disturbing implications (mostly for those of us who would profess Christianity). And this is an evolved survival strategy how, exactly? But the whole issue of the applicability of evolution to other subjects, and precisely which theory of evolution should be applied, is another question.

Leaving aside the Kantian idealism behind the Arcbishop's second point (about scientific v. religious language), I like this because it moves us much closer to the language of phenomenology (which is at desperate odds with the language of Anglo-Saxon empiricism; and therein lies a tale about "tolerance" and the oft-heard projection of atheists like Sam Harris that religion must be an intolerant practice in order to be "religious"):

Religious practice (you might say) is learning how to occupy a certain role, a position in the universe, a position of recognized dependence. People who speak religiously have at least these in common, that they recognize the dependence of their own existence and that of the entire universe. They recognize in a rather more loaded theological language that they are recipients of what might be called a gift. And in recognizing their dependence they relativise their own reality in some ways. I’m not the centre of things, I’m not everything , I exist not because I wanted to or because I was able to manage it, I exist because I have received. And that place in the world is also a place where, because of that relativising of the self there is also a directness of mind and heart towards the other. A recognition that the other, whether it’s another person, whether it’s the physical universe itself, is not there first for me, but in itself. I recognize that the person I confront, the physical reality I confront, the world in which I live, exists in relation to God before it relates to me. So that some of the reverence with which I approach God is also involved in my relations with other persons, and with the material of the world. There is something prior to my ego, my interests, and my agenda. To occupy the place of religious belief is then to develop that contemplative skill which turns me silently and expectantly to a reality greater than myself. It also involves a sense of trust in communication and relationship.

Back, in other words, to the importance of humility and the power of powerlessness. Which is where we began, once upon a time; isn't it?

Watching Constantine, Reading Golem

Complaining about these things is like trying to keep the tide from coming in; you might convince a few people to stand on the beach with you, but the tide won't take any notice of your numbers.

I was watching Constantine the other day; well, parts of it; I had to wander in and out, I couldn't attend to it like I wanted to. And yes, I know, there are better ways to waste my time, or my mind, but it satisfied some atavistic desire I had at the time; even though it did later decay into complete foolishness and excuses for not-so-special effects. But I digress.

The bit I did watch involved Keanu "Neo" Reeves in the fabulously baronial setting (well, the Bishops are the "Princes of the Church," no?) of a Bishop's residence, talking to a very female Gabriel (nothing like John Travolta at all) in a business suit (you knew she was an angel because "Neo" saw her wings!), advising him as to why, despite his faith (?), he was doomed to die and go to hell. And why was that? The rules, of course, the rules! As Gabriel put it: "You're going to die young because you smoked 30 cigarettes a day since you were 15. And you're going to hell because of the life you took." Apparently he committed suicide, and now is back as an exorcist, only so he can die again by his own hand (Irony!). This "explanation" is a typical take on the Catholic teaching of "natural law" (thank you, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas!): you see, just as it's a "law" of nature that cigarettes will give you lung cancer, it's also an immutable law of salvation that murder will condemn you to hell.

Got it? And all that talk about grace and salvation? Well, sorry, but you broke the rules. Even human justice systems are neither this cruel nor this inflexible. But theological systems are often presented this way. It's the whole purpose of religion, isn't it? To oppress and control and scarify the populace into submission?

No, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but then it's taken from a comic book and, as I mentioned, there doesn't seem to be a lot of point to highlighting the flaws in a comic book version of Christian theology.

Before that, I'd read a picture book I'd never seen before, about the medieval Jewish legend of the "golem." According to this version of the tale, a truly holy rabbi, a tziddik, muttered the proper incantations from Kabbalah and uttered the holy name of the Creator, and because of his holiness he was able to raise the golem (the word is used in the Psalms to mean "incomplete substance") from the clay. The rabbi inscribes on the golem's forehead the Hebrew letters "emet", which means "truth." The golem serves the rabbi and defends the Jews of Praque from persecution by the Gentile populace. The golem does this by taking those who tries to arouse violence against the Jews to the authorities, as he is instructed. Finally a riot threatens the Jewish ghetto, and the golem becomes a giant who attacks the rioters with great violence. Too much violence; but the point is made. The ruler of Prague promises to protect the Jews, and the rabbi promises to destroy the golem. The golem, however, loves life and doesn't want to die. Still, the rabbi erases the first aleph from the golem's forehead, and emet becomes "met," or death.

The lovely part of this (aside from the amazing illustrations) was the sense that the golem was not a monster, a creation of evil, but a servant, a creation made possible because the rabbi was holy enough to make the golem possible. Echoes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are obvious here, but the reading of Genesis couldn't be more different. I don't know what the Jewish readings of Genesis 2 are, but the standard Christian reading is about the "original sin" of seeking the power of God, and almost getting it. That, of course, is the "sin" of Shelley's story. But if you don't posit a universe divided into good v. evil, with both sides equally armed and earth their chosen battlefield (can't they go play somewhere else?), you relinquish a number of concerns with "rules" which must be immutable and inflexible.

Or at least you get a much more interesting take on the relationship between God and humanity. Which would seem to be an argument for abandoning Christianity, until you ask yourself: is Christianity really about keeping all the rules? And where in the gospels did Jesus say: "Whosoever doth not believeth in me or follow all the rules I myself have broken, will perish and will have everlasting life in everlasting torment! Bwahahahahaha!"

Just wondering. I gotta go.