The troubadour Mike Gravel:
28 December 2007
Pakistan for dummies
Like everyone else, I've been following the ongoing political crisis of the past several months in Pakistan, but never really felt like I had my head around it and, after yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto, it's likely to get even more complicated. So let's see if you and I can figure it out like the couple of 'Murican yahoos we are.
In 1999, chief of the army Pervez Musharaf takes power in a military coup after rising tensions between the army and civilian leader Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf is relatively secular and moderate, so after 9/11 we bribe him into becoming a key ally in the War on Terra. (Remember, kids, we like democracy, but it works so much better if we can cut out the middle man!)
But after five years or so of happy vassalage, the strain on the relationship starts to show. Musharraf's complicity in the GWOT is making him increasingly unpopular with his own public which starts to realize that, hey, it's been awhile since we've had one of them "elections." He realizes he now has to play both sides to stay in power, but neither bites. The US in particular is unhappy with his reluctance to crack down on the various Islamist factions who control the remote tribal regions of Pakistan, and begins to question his commitment to Sparkle Motion.
We also conveniently realize it's been awhile since Pakistan's had some elections. Time for some democracy action! Meaning--as it always does--getting someone more compliant to our wishes in power.
Enter Bhutto, a Western-educated former prime minister and scion to a famous political family (the Pakistani version of the Kennedys) who still has a significant base of support inside the country. Both of Bhutto's terms as prime minister ended prematurely on corruption charges, which Bhutto claims were manufactured by political opponents. But other accusation of shady dealings have continued to dog Bhutto and--particularly--her husband Asif Ali Zardari during their Western exile. During Bhutto's time in power, Zardari earned the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" for his various business dealings. Bhutto, who may once have had radical tendencies many years ago, has since remade herself as a safe, pro-Western secular liberal. (We like secular liberals when they run Muslim countries).
This is where things begin to get (even more) murky. Many sources believe Bhutto had cut a deal with Washington and London to continue their War on Terra' and economic neoliberalism policies in exchange for a Western-negotiated power-sharing deal with Musharraf. We hoped this would simultaneously pacify the pro-democracy uprising among the middle classes and keep the right-wing Islamic forces at bay while still maintaining a Western puppet on the throne. The question here, of course, is why Bhutto would accept such a deal when the recent outcome was always uncomfortably high.
The other natural question is: Who did the deed, then? The best guess seems to be Islamist sympathizers within the lower ranks of the Pakistani security apparatus, which Musharraf doesn't really control, and perhaps doesn't want to. It doesn't seem likely he would jeopardize his already tenuous position by ordering outright the assassination of his main rival. Why not let other elements take their course instead? (He's learned much from Bush and Blair in that regard).
So, what did I miss?
Other readings:
Juan Cole here and at Salon
Tariq Ali on Bhutto from the London Review of Books and The Guardian.
More background from the Socialist Worker (UK)
In 1999, chief of the army Pervez Musharaf takes power in a military coup after rising tensions between the army and civilian leader Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf is relatively secular and moderate, so after 9/11 we bribe him into becoming a key ally in the War on Terra. (Remember, kids, we like democracy, but it works so much better if we can cut out the middle man!)
But after five years or so of happy vassalage, the strain on the relationship starts to show. Musharraf's complicity in the GWOT is making him increasingly unpopular with his own public which starts to realize that, hey, it's been awhile since we've had one of them "elections." He realizes he now has to play both sides to stay in power, but neither bites. The US in particular is unhappy with his reluctance to crack down on the various Islamist factions who control the remote tribal regions of Pakistan, and begins to question his commitment to Sparkle Motion.
We also conveniently realize it's been awhile since Pakistan's had some elections. Time for some democracy action! Meaning--as it always does--getting someone more compliant to our wishes in power.
Enter Bhutto, a Western-educated former prime minister and scion to a famous political family (the Pakistani version of the Kennedys) who still has a significant base of support inside the country. Both of Bhutto's terms as prime minister ended prematurely on corruption charges, which Bhutto claims were manufactured by political opponents. But other accusation of shady dealings have continued to dog Bhutto and--particularly--her husband Asif Ali Zardari during their Western exile. During Bhutto's time in power, Zardari earned the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" for his various business dealings. Bhutto, who may once have had radical tendencies many years ago, has since remade herself as a safe, pro-Western secular liberal. (We like secular liberals when they run Muslim countries).
This is where things begin to get (even more) murky. Many sources believe Bhutto had cut a deal with Washington and London to continue their War on Terra' and economic neoliberalism policies in exchange for a Western-negotiated power-sharing deal with Musharraf. We hoped this would simultaneously pacify the pro-democracy uprising among the middle classes and keep the right-wing Islamic forces at bay while still maintaining a Western puppet on the throne. The question here, of course, is why Bhutto would accept such a deal when the recent outcome was always uncomfortably high.
The other natural question is: Who did the deed, then? The best guess seems to be Islamist sympathizers within the lower ranks of the Pakistani security apparatus, which Musharraf doesn't really control, and perhaps doesn't want to. It doesn't seem likely he would jeopardize his already tenuous position by ordering outright the assassination of his main rival. Why not let other elements take their course instead? (He's learned much from Bush and Blair in that regard).
So, what did I miss?
Other readings:
Juan Cole here and at Salon
Tariq Ali on Bhutto from the London Review of Books and The Guardian.
More background from the Socialist Worker (UK)
20 December 2007
Song of the year
I have a "country mouse" relationship to this entire record, which is indelibly about city life (thought it opens with a pastoral image, curiously). It conjures up the glimmering glass palace images of the urban world for me, which I don't think is its intention. I was quite taken with it, though, in spite of this, or perhaps because of it.
I especially like this rendering of the song with the extended coda.
I especially like this rendering of the song with the extended coda.
By our own making
Nothing gets the liberal sphere quite as worked up as arguing the merits of the so-called "new atheists"*. See these two threads at LGM, for example, which clocked in at over 200 posts where a typical thread might run around 15 replies. I have an idea why that may be, but it'll have to wait for a moment. First, I wanted to make a remark about something I noticed in there before they went off beyond my education level (alas, there might have been a time when my comprehension could've hung in longer, but not anymore).
It's mentioned at some point that the more prosperous and egalitarian societies in the world tend to be post-religious as well. This makes sense, but, to use biblical verbiage, which begat what? Among the most persistent reasons people turn to supernatural faith is that the existence they are offered in this life is dreary, miserable, and absent of any hope or understanding for prosperity. Religion and its promises of posthumous redemption is the best they can do in the absence of any more material route out of their decrepit existence. This fact is the genesis of Marx's oft-quoted but seldom understood line that "religion is the opiate of the masses." It's odd, in this sense, that liberals who wouldn't favor the law enforcement approach to drugs--attacking the symptoms rather than the disease--believe an effectively similar approach would work with religion.
In a way, the contemporary anti-religious aren't radical enough (quite intentionally, of course, of the trinity only Hitchens could have been considered of the left at any point). We know God doesn't exist, or at least not on the field in which theism arguments are usually contested. So those people following the more culturally repressive strains of religious thought cannot, as they claim, be merely following the dictates of a non-existent being. Presumably, it's human compulsion, but the anti-religious seem to feel eliminating the non-existent God from the equation clears up the problem. We are to believe, apparently, that any positive historical legacy attributed to religious believers--the work of Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, or Dr. King, to cite three 20th century examples--could have been just as easily accomplished without anything we would recognize as spiritual belief at all. However, the more pernicious legacy of religion--oppression, brutality, intolerance--are unique, and dismembering the institutions of religion will magically do away with great chunks of it.
This won't do. It's too narrow. A far greater threat to humanity in recent history has been, and remains, rampant nationalism, for which religion has only served as a subservient booster. Out here in the heartland, American exceptionalism has ascended to a kind of quasi-religious belief itself, and people routinely jump between Americanism and fundamentalist Christianity to justify whatever prejudice they happen to be on about today. To plagiarize Stephen Colbert; I believe in America. I believe that it exists. I don't ascribe it any inherent superior qualities compared to other nations, but the anti-religious can't get me that far. They tend to be focused on the familiar, recognizable symbols of religious influence, but ignore, purposefully or not, this authoritarian impulse to create new mechanisms to justify themselves.
When I was reading 1984, it struck me that Orwell's totalitarian state could well have been modeled on some future projection of a theocratic state. But, as far as I know, Orwell never considered this explicitly. He was concerned only with the totalitarianism itself. A few weeks ago I pointed out some anti-theist consternation that the Hollywood production of The Golden Compass scrubbed the explicit religious nature of the primary antagonist, a secretive, authoritarian body called the Magisterium. Granted I have only read some press and seen the trailer for the film, but this seems like an unnecessary lament. If you'd like to see parallels to authoritarian religion, that option remains open to you. For the anti-religous, though, that won't be good enough. Religion is necessarily authoritarian, and vice versa.
This narrow prescription I mentioned earlier from the Big Guns and their liberal boosters in the USA is drawn from the small field of interest each of them is trying to stake out. Dawkins, for example, is chiefly concerned about what he sees as faith jutting into the world of science. A certain variety of American liberal is primarily fighting social and cultural issues, for which he sees fundamentalist Christianity as his primary opposition. Neither is concerned with much beyond eliminating an immediate threat to their own interests. Many flavors of it smell like personal score-settling, a temptation we all succumb to at some point.**
*Still don't like this term.
**Indeed, much of my own resentment for the anti-religious comes from their ridiculous insistence that the moderate/liberal religious are merely revisionists of the "true" fundamentalist faith, and are themselves liable to bust out the billy clubs at any moment! (Oh noes, authoritarian Quakers! Run for you lives!)
It's mentioned at some point that the more prosperous and egalitarian societies in the world tend to be post-religious as well. This makes sense, but, to use biblical verbiage, which begat what? Among the most persistent reasons people turn to supernatural faith is that the existence they are offered in this life is dreary, miserable, and absent of any hope or understanding for prosperity. Religion and its promises of posthumous redemption is the best they can do in the absence of any more material route out of their decrepit existence. This fact is the genesis of Marx's oft-quoted but seldom understood line that "religion is the opiate of the masses." It's odd, in this sense, that liberals who wouldn't favor the law enforcement approach to drugs--attacking the symptoms rather than the disease--believe an effectively similar approach would work with religion.
In a way, the contemporary anti-religious aren't radical enough (quite intentionally, of course, of the trinity only Hitchens could have been considered of the left at any point). We know God doesn't exist, or at least not on the field in which theism arguments are usually contested. So those people following the more culturally repressive strains of religious thought cannot, as they claim, be merely following the dictates of a non-existent being. Presumably, it's human compulsion, but the anti-religious seem to feel eliminating the non-existent God from the equation clears up the problem. We are to believe, apparently, that any positive historical legacy attributed to religious believers--the work of Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, or Dr. King, to cite three 20th century examples--could have been just as easily accomplished without anything we would recognize as spiritual belief at all. However, the more pernicious legacy of religion--oppression, brutality, intolerance--are unique, and dismembering the institutions of religion will magically do away with great chunks of it.
This won't do. It's too narrow. A far greater threat to humanity in recent history has been, and remains, rampant nationalism, for which religion has only served as a subservient booster. Out here in the heartland, American exceptionalism has ascended to a kind of quasi-religious belief itself, and people routinely jump between Americanism and fundamentalist Christianity to justify whatever prejudice they happen to be on about today. To plagiarize Stephen Colbert; I believe in America. I believe that it exists. I don't ascribe it any inherent superior qualities compared to other nations, but the anti-religious can't get me that far. They tend to be focused on the familiar, recognizable symbols of religious influence, but ignore, purposefully or not, this authoritarian impulse to create new mechanisms to justify themselves.
When I was reading 1984, it struck me that Orwell's totalitarian state could well have been modeled on some future projection of a theocratic state. But, as far as I know, Orwell never considered this explicitly. He was concerned only with the totalitarianism itself. A few weeks ago I pointed out some anti-theist consternation that the Hollywood production of The Golden Compass scrubbed the explicit religious nature of the primary antagonist, a secretive, authoritarian body called the Magisterium. Granted I have only read some press and seen the trailer for the film, but this seems like an unnecessary lament. If you'd like to see parallels to authoritarian religion, that option remains open to you. For the anti-religous, though, that won't be good enough. Religion is necessarily authoritarian, and vice versa.
This narrow prescription I mentioned earlier from the Big Guns and their liberal boosters in the USA is drawn from the small field of interest each of them is trying to stake out. Dawkins, for example, is chiefly concerned about what he sees as faith jutting into the world of science. A certain variety of American liberal is primarily fighting social and cultural issues, for which he sees fundamentalist Christianity as his primary opposition. Neither is concerned with much beyond eliminating an immediate threat to their own interests. Many flavors of it smell like personal score-settling, a temptation we all succumb to at some point.**
*Still don't like this term.
**Indeed, much of my own resentment for the anti-religious comes from their ridiculous insistence that the moderate/liberal religious are merely revisionists of the "true" fundamentalist faith, and are themselves liable to bust out the billy clubs at any moment! (Oh noes, authoritarian Quakers! Run for you lives!)
18 December 2007
Swallow it whole
One more obstacle to complete hegemonic control over the nation's media will likely go under the knife later today, when the FCC votes to remove the restriction against publishing companies owning broadcast outlets in the same market.
See Bill Moyers for more.
Stop Big Media.
16 December 2007
Jurassic park
The cat is out of the bag, the chickens are coming home to roost, Frankenstein's monster has awakened to terrorize his master, et cetera cliché ad nauseam.*
The sphere is alight with the heads of Bidness Wingers popping like bottles of sparkling wine over the emergence of Mike Huckabee. The rank-and-file foot soldiers of the Big Jeebus empire have suddenly discovered they don't need the puppet strings of the Bidness elite, and their former puppeteers are in a huff something awful. Brad R. of Sadly, No! has been following the coalition crackup this week. He writes:
Having a functioning aristocracy in a democracy means, by necessity, convincing people outside of the aristocracy to support it by promising them some scraps from the table while you continue to take their money. It works, so long as the proles don't realize they can get what they want without the aristocracy's approval. Then along comes Huckabee, fouling up the pool. You can buy off some of the media figureheads of Big Jeebus with their own places in the aristocracy, but the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth inhabitants of Jesusland were promised their thirty shekels, and they're coming to collect the bill.
What's curious, though, is that Huckabee isn't much of the sort of economic populist that really puts the fear in the hearts of the Bidness Wingers. Hell, he even supports the national sales tax pipedream that's long been the golden cow of the hardcore anti-tax crusaders. As I see it, they have two main problems with Mike "Chuckles" Huckabee:
1) He seems to think the first three words of the U.S. Constitution aren't "Fuck the Poor."
2) He's not fully on board the neocon Bombs'n'Torture gravy train.
Their problem, then, rests not so much in Huckabee himself. It's that Huckabee could represent a transitional fossil**, the kind of figure who could separate the loyal rubes of Jesusland from their aristocratic masters. Huckabee himself has only the faintest flickering of real populism***, but he may make the world dangerously safe for Jimmy Carter, and from Carter it's a short road to the ambulatory corpse of William Jennings Bryan terrorizing the heartland, and that's the real Hell they fear.****
*Mixin' languages...
**Yes, a Huckabee-evolution joke. Sadly, I was beaten to the punch, but I couldn't resist anyway.
***Which is why I think Huckabee isn't much of a threat to win the general election. I think he will poll better than he is now (he doesn't have much name recognition yet), but he won't be able to expand much of his populist base outside of conservative Christians, and that won't be enough to carry him. The current Big Bidness Media fascination with him is a curious anomaly, but it will dissipate quickly.
****Bryan wouldn't approve of my blasphemy, of course.
The sphere is alight with the heads of Bidness Wingers popping like bottles of sparkling wine over the emergence of Mike Huckabee. The rank-and-file foot soldiers of the Big Jeebus empire have suddenly discovered they don't need the puppet strings of the Bidness elite, and their former puppeteers are in a huff something awful. Brad R. of Sadly, No! has been following the coalition crackup this week. He writes:
The GOP has, generally speaking, done close to nothing for its Values Voters, much like the Democrats have done little for union voters in recent years. The reason that unions and the Christian Right keep voting for Democrats and Republicans, respectively, isn’t because those parties support their political interests. Rather, it has to do with voting against the other party, which they see as actively hostile to their interests. Despite being more liberal socially, the cash-rules-everything-around-me, C.R.E.A.M., get-tha’-money dolla-dolla-bill-y’all wing of the GOP has been willing to tolerate the social cons’ views on abortion, gay marriage and Hollywood as long as they don’t interfere with the tax cuts, which are more important than anything else. And besides, it’s not as if the GOP leadership ever planned to enact any of the social cons’ agenda in the first place.John Cole, an ex-moderate Republican, also has some fine excerpts from The Meltdown.
Having a functioning aristocracy in a democracy means, by necessity, convincing people outside of the aristocracy to support it by promising them some scraps from the table while you continue to take their money. It works, so long as the proles don't realize they can get what they want without the aristocracy's approval. Then along comes Huckabee, fouling up the pool. You can buy off some of the media figureheads of Big Jeebus with their own places in the aristocracy, but the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth inhabitants of Jesusland were promised their thirty shekels, and they're coming to collect the bill.
What's curious, though, is that Huckabee isn't much of the sort of economic populist that really puts the fear in the hearts of the Bidness Wingers. Hell, he even supports the national sales tax pipedream that's long been the golden cow of the hardcore anti-tax crusaders. As I see it, they have two main problems with Mike "Chuckles" Huckabee:
1) He seems to think the first three words of the U.S. Constitution aren't "Fuck the Poor."
2) He's not fully on board the neocon Bombs'n'Torture gravy train.
Their problem, then, rests not so much in Huckabee himself. It's that Huckabee could represent a transitional fossil**, the kind of figure who could separate the loyal rubes of Jesusland from their aristocratic masters. Huckabee himself has only the faintest flickering of real populism***, but he may make the world dangerously safe for Jimmy Carter, and from Carter it's a short road to the ambulatory corpse of William Jennings Bryan terrorizing the heartland, and that's the real Hell they fear.****
*Mixin' languages...
**Yes, a Huckabee-evolution joke. Sadly, I was beaten to the punch, but I couldn't resist anyway.
***Which is why I think Huckabee isn't much of a threat to win the general election. I think he will poll better than he is now (he doesn't have much name recognition yet), but he won't be able to expand much of his populist base outside of conservative Christians, and that won't be enough to carry him. The current Big Bidness Media fascination with him is a curious anomaly, but it will dissipate quickly.
****Bryan wouldn't approve of my blasphemy, of course.
Sunday Debs
On Susan B. Anthony, 1909:
I can still see the aversion so unfeelingly expressed for this magnificent woman. Even my friends were disgusted with me for piloting such an “undesirable citizen” into the community. It is hard to understand, after all these years, how bitter and implacable the people were, especially the women, toward the leaders of this movement.
As we walked along the street I was painfully aware that Miss Anthony was an object of derision and contempt, and in my heart I resented it and later I had often to defend my position, which, of course, I was ever ready to do.
The meetings of Miss Anthony and her co-workers were but poorly attended and all but barren of results. Such was the loathing of the community for a woman who dared to talk in public about “woman’s rights” that people would not go to see her even to satisfy their curiosity. She was simply not to be tolerated and it would not have required any great amount of egging-on to have excited the people to drive her from the community.
To all of this Miss Anthony, to all appearance, was entirely oblivious. She could not have helped noticing it for there were those who thrust their insults upon her but she gave no sign and bore no resentment.
I can see her still as she walked along, neatly but carelessly attired, her bonnet somewhat awry, mere trifles which were scarcely noticed, if at all, in the presence of her splendid womanhood. She seemed absorbed completely in her mission. She could scarcely speak of anything else. The rights and wrongs of her sex seemed to completely possess her and to dominate all her thoughts and acts.
On the platform she spoke with characteristic earnestness and at times with such intensity as to awe her audience, if not compel conviction. She had an inexhaustible fund of information in regard to current affairs, and dates and data for all things. She spoke with great rapidity and forcefullness; her command of language was remarkable and her periods were all well-rounded and eloquently delivered. No thoughtful person could hear her without being convinced of her honesty and the purity of her motive. Her face fairly glowed with the spirit of her message and her soul was in her speech.
But the superb quality, the crowning virtue she possessed, was her moral heroism.
Susan B. Anthony had this quality in an eminent degree. She fearlessly faced the ignorant multitude or walked unafraid among those who scorned her. She had the dignity of perfect selfreliance without a shadow of conceit to mar it. She was a stern character, an uncompromising personality, but she had the heart of a woman and none more tender ever throbbed for the weak and the oppressed of earth.
No leader of any crusade was ever more fearless, loyal or uncompromising than Susan B. Anthony and not one ever wrought more unselfishly or under greater difficulties for the good of her kind and for the progress of the race.
13 December 2007
Vulcanization
Currently reading Jesus Christ: The Gospels, part of Verso's ongoing repackaging of important revolutionary texts (other titles include the Declaration of Independence and "Terrorism and Communism"). While the bulk of the book is just the text of the four gospels themselves--which is, of course, readily available--it's a different experience to read them all at once uninterrupted, which is rarely done. The English Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton wrote the introduction, which you can read an excerpt from at the Guardian's website.
I hope to have more to say about the book itself later, but first a thought came up while reading the comments at the link above:
It's a favorite parlor trick of the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens crowd to play--as a grand finale after they've been working you up and down--the final trump card in their deck by claiming that no historical person named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. Ta-da! I bet you hate religion now. Seriously, though; I've actually studied under mainstream scholars at a secular university (hardly rightwing Christian partisans all) and this isn't taken terribly seriously among them, primarily because it's based on a desperate, 2nd century dating of the gospels that is generally rejected. Certainly the historical personage of Jesus didn't say or do a great many of the things attributed to him, but claiming total nonexistence, while possible, requires an enormous amount of skepticism (of which our friends have no lack).
It's that last point which makes me question the wisdom of such an assertion in the first place. If you're trying to discredit the literal miraculous and supernatural elements of the gospel accounts as actual events, there's ample ammunition to be found from the same mainstream scholarship. So why the need to jump the extra hurdle? Is it shock value, scoring cheap points, or is there something else going on?
I'm also (slowly and intermittently) working my way through Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God, a history of modern fundamentalism. Armstrong argues that our contemporary fundamentalism didn't come about in opposition to the Enlightenment so much as a adaptation to it. The Enlightenment debate between rationalism and empiricism as the only avenues to truth, and the re-defining of truth as the tangible or reasonable, shutting out religious and mystic notions of mythos. Thus, religion had to adapt to to the new, logos-dominated world, and thus was born the fundamentalist obsession of searching for historical proof of all events in the Bible, and a denial of scriptural metaphor or allegory. If Jonah wasn't really in the belly of the whale for three days, the entire satire of haughty, self-righteous prophets loses all meaning.
If Marx or Kant (pick a philosopher, any philosopher!) hadn't existed, but instead their works were cobbled together by anonymous scribes and given a supernatural bent (the adventures of SuperLeibniz!), would that change the worth of the message? If you were to claim, as some do, that Jesus was merely repeating a collection of Hellenic myths, would you also dismiss the works of, say, Eugene Debs for being recycled from Marx and other socialists? Or Martin Luther King for reinterpreting Christian myths about justice? (I love how those start to pile up).
The new anti-religious, again resembling and complementing the fundamentalists, are rank modernists. They lend no weight to the worth of mythos, and agree that the fundamentalist view is the only way religious texts can be read. Both, therefore, equally scorning the mainstream-to-liberal religious as revisionists. I don't dispute that their call for reasonable pluralism and common ground in the civic and political realm is a laudable one, but their rhetoric often goes much further. They see an idealized version of humanity in the Vulcans of Star Trek; coldly rational, calculating, emotionless. This ascension of "Enlightenment values" to such a personal level as a replacement for religious mysticism not only threatens to emulate the worst religious proselytizing in its arrogance, but likewise deny us of basic components of humanity which have existed for as long as we can gauge. Empirically, of course.
I hope to have more to say about the book itself later, but first a thought came up while reading the comments at the link above:
It's a favorite parlor trick of the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens crowd to play--as a grand finale after they've been working you up and down--the final trump card in their deck by claiming that no historical person named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. Ta-da! I bet you hate religion now. Seriously, though; I've actually studied under mainstream scholars at a secular university (hardly rightwing Christian partisans all) and this isn't taken terribly seriously among them, primarily because it's based on a desperate, 2nd century dating of the gospels that is generally rejected. Certainly the historical personage of Jesus didn't say or do a great many of the things attributed to him, but claiming total nonexistence, while possible, requires an enormous amount of skepticism (of which our friends have no lack).
It's that last point which makes me question the wisdom of such an assertion in the first place. If you're trying to discredit the literal miraculous and supernatural elements of the gospel accounts as actual events, there's ample ammunition to be found from the same mainstream scholarship. So why the need to jump the extra hurdle? Is it shock value, scoring cheap points, or is there something else going on?
I'm also (slowly and intermittently) working my way through Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God, a history of modern fundamentalism. Armstrong argues that our contemporary fundamentalism didn't come about in opposition to the Enlightenment so much as a adaptation to it. The Enlightenment debate between rationalism and empiricism as the only avenues to truth, and the re-defining of truth as the tangible or reasonable, shutting out religious and mystic notions of mythos. Thus, religion had to adapt to to the new, logos-dominated world, and thus was born the fundamentalist obsession of searching for historical proof of all events in the Bible, and a denial of scriptural metaphor or allegory. If Jonah wasn't really in the belly of the whale for three days, the entire satire of haughty, self-righteous prophets loses all meaning.
If Marx or Kant (pick a philosopher, any philosopher!) hadn't existed, but instead their works were cobbled together by anonymous scribes and given a supernatural bent (the adventures of SuperLeibniz!), would that change the worth of the message? If you were to claim, as some do, that Jesus was merely repeating a collection of Hellenic myths, would you also dismiss the works of, say, Eugene Debs for being recycled from Marx and other socialists? Or Martin Luther King for reinterpreting Christian myths about justice? (I love how those start to pile up).
The new anti-religious, again resembling and complementing the fundamentalists, are rank modernists. They lend no weight to the worth of mythos, and agree that the fundamentalist view is the only way religious texts can be read. Both, therefore, equally scorning the mainstream-to-liberal religious as revisionists. I don't dispute that their call for reasonable pluralism and common ground in the civic and political realm is a laudable one, but their rhetoric often goes much further. They see an idealized version of humanity in the Vulcans of Star Trek; coldly rational, calculating, emotionless. This ascension of "Enlightenment values" to such a personal level as a replacement for religious mysticism not only threatens to emulate the worst religious proselytizing in its arrogance, but likewise deny us of basic components of humanity which have existed for as long as we can gauge. Empirically, of course.
11 December 2007
Reitman
By now every hipster in America has seen "Juno" at least twice, except for me, of course. But I heard David Edelstein's review on NPR in which he mentions Jason Reitman's earlier film "Thank You for Smoking," so I thought I'd take a moment to revisit that film myself.
Essentially I agree with much of Edelstein's own print review. "Thank You for Smoking" purports to be a satire of spin-based Washington lobbyists, but Reitman and Buckley, libertarians both, admire their apparent targets too much to really savage them. The result, though it does contain some witty banter between the lobbyists of vice, is mostly saggy and half-hearted. It's as if the film aimed a vicious roundhouse punch at your face then, a foot from connecting with the bridge of your nose, it pulled up and patted you on the head instead.
The climactic scene, the film's big political payoff at a Congressional hearing, is a particular head-scratcher. While there's nothing inherently objectionable about the Aaron Eckhart tobacco lobbyist's "freedom to choose" speech, his assertion that "everyone knows the dangers of smoking" smells of question-begging bullshit. As he would surely know, the industry he serves has hardly been forthcoming about the addiction and health risks in cigarette smoking, having long abetted the former and obfuscated the latter. Only through whistle-blowers and government intervention did this become the widely known truth it is today.
William H. Macy's character is a humorless, broadly-drawn caricature of meddling Big Gummit, and it's hard to see where Reitman and Buckley disagree with his or the actual U.S. government's position on tobacco. Cigarettes remain legal, with a government-mandated warning label giving the public all the information they need to make the "personal choice" libertarians so value. Perhaps they feel such disclosures should be voluntary submissions by the industry which, in light of its own history, can't be taken a serious argument of any stature.
"Personal choice," while sounding great in platitudes, is ultimately limited. Much as I might like to pilot an automobile, my personal choice is quite rightly limited by the public-through-government's rightful objection that my choice would be a danger to society. But who would enforce such matters in a Libertarian Utopia? Bring it on, I say.
Essentially I agree with much of Edelstein's own print review. "Thank You for Smoking" purports to be a satire of spin-based Washington lobbyists, but Reitman and Buckley, libertarians both, admire their apparent targets too much to really savage them. The result, though it does contain some witty banter between the lobbyists of vice, is mostly saggy and half-hearted. It's as if the film aimed a vicious roundhouse punch at your face then, a foot from connecting with the bridge of your nose, it pulled up and patted you on the head instead.
The climactic scene, the film's big political payoff at a Congressional hearing, is a particular head-scratcher. While there's nothing inherently objectionable about the Aaron Eckhart tobacco lobbyist's "freedom to choose" speech, his assertion that "everyone knows the dangers of smoking" smells of question-begging bullshit. As he would surely know, the industry he serves has hardly been forthcoming about the addiction and health risks in cigarette smoking, having long abetted the former and obfuscated the latter. Only through whistle-blowers and government intervention did this become the widely known truth it is today.
William H. Macy's character is a humorless, broadly-drawn caricature of meddling Big Gummit, and it's hard to see where Reitman and Buckley disagree with his or the actual U.S. government's position on tobacco. Cigarettes remain legal, with a government-mandated warning label giving the public all the information they need to make the "personal choice" libertarians so value. Perhaps they feel such disclosures should be voluntary submissions by the industry which, in light of its own history, can't be taken a serious argument of any stature.
"Personal choice," while sounding great in platitudes, is ultimately limited. Much as I might like to pilot an automobile, my personal choice is quite rightly limited by the public-through-government's rightful objection that my choice would be a danger to society. But who would enforce such matters in a Libertarian Utopia? Bring it on, I say.
10 December 2007
On the trail
Matt Taibbi has a new article from the campaign trail in Iowa. It's all worth a look, but I think I few graphs warrant their own attention.
And I love Taibbi's metaphor for them.
This is an important message for progressives who may be swayed by Clinton's periodic overtures to the left: Follow the money. Every 12-year old knows politicians "forget" what they say on the campaign trail, but they never forget who their real owners are.Downstairs, John Edwards is being even more explicit. After whipping the crowd into a frenzy with an impassioned speech blasting the influence of lobbyists and corporate campaign contributors, he turns the gun on his own party. "The presidential candidate who has raised the most money from Washington lobbyists is not a Republican," he says. "The candidate who has raised the most money from insurance companies isn't a Republican. The presidential candidate who has raised the most money from defense contractors isn't a Republican."
He pauses, then smiles. "The answer to all those questions, you probably already know, is Hillary Clinton," he says.
Obama is a tough guy to figure. He's a tremendous, magnetic speaker when he is facing a big crowd and has a prepared address in his pocket, but his extemporaneous stumpery in smaller settings is sometimes weirdly nervous and maladroit (in Grundy Center, he recently barked at an elderly town-hall questioner, insisting that he takes terrorism "deadly serious"). His much-hyped decision to take a "forceful stand" against Hillary in recent weeks smacked of the worst kind of hot-air horse-racing bullshit, with the candidate suddenly jumping through hoops to prove to the media that he could exhibit the requisite "aggressiveness" before he'd even decided what issues to "take a stand" about. The overall impression is of a soft-spoken intellectual who's suddenly desperate to show that he's ready to be as full of shit as it takes to win the White House -- a psychological state that put Mike Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry in a duck-hunting costume and killed off many a highbrow candidate who blinked in the punishing glare of The Process.This is a great peg of Obama, whose progressivism is often taken for granted and similarly overrated--by me, among others, when I carelessly lumped him together with Edwards in the earlier post. Obama has been caught in a number of bizarre maneuvers since the start of the campaign, most recently clashing with Paul Krugman over his healthcare proposal. Obama has pitched himself as a Washington outsider, and he may have started the game with that reputation, but his messages of transcending Washington partisanship is beginning to show its recycled Broderist root.
The trouble for Hillary actually started in early October, at a campaign stop in New Hampton, Iowa. Clinton teed off on an audience member named Randall Rolph, who asked her a pointed question about her vote to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. "The premise of the question is wrong," Clinton snapped. "Somebody obviously sent it to you." Rolph angrily objected to the implication that he was a plant, leading to a poisonous exchange.Well, if anyone knows a planted question, it would be the Clinton campaign.
And I love Taibbi's metaphor for them.
And when Hillary errs, as she has done many times in recent weeks, she tends to err on the side of burning the ordinary schmuck and sticking to the inside play. You don't see too many Fortune 500 CEOs complaining that Hillary stiffed them on a tip; no, that only happens to some Iowa diner waitress, at the same time the lavishly funded Hillary is out on the trail trying to explain her support of the Wall Street crowd's sweetheart Peru Free Trade Agreement (to Midwest audiences that already know all they need to know about the NAFTA her husband passed). This is the significance of all the stumbling and audience-rigging and Rove-ing of debate opponents and carping at the Randall Rolphs of the world that we saw in recent weeks; they have exposed Hillary as a New York Yankees-style villain who buys all the best players but seems to resent having to actually win it between the lines.There's a lot more I like in there, but that's enough lengthy quoting for one day.
I can has parity?
Facing the prospect of having both a winless and undefeated team in the same season, the NFL's "any given Sunday!" hokum may finally die an overdue death, though I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. Perhaps there is the matter of the latest dynasty being in a media-friendly East Coast city. Or perhaps America's sportswriters are just wandering hobos without the NFL's public relations department.
Speaking of Boston, which has replaced Chicago as the city bearing my wrath toward all its athletic manifestations, I suppose the self-satisfied righteousness with which much of the liberal blogosphere embraces the Red Sox and Patriots shouldn't come as a surprise. Rooting for the rich against the superrich as well as the socially-improper poor could serve as a broader metaphor for a good chunk of American liberalism itself. But justifying your rooting interest with politics is never more than superficial (the Rockies are all Jesus freaks!, Colts fans are all rednecks! Tony Dungy hates gay people! Blargh, Gregg Easterbrook!); you can dig deep enough into virtually every team, city or player to find something politically incorrect* to satisfy you. My God, man, it's the farking players' wives charity.
And you wonder where the Midwest got the stereotype of being more grounded in sense.
*I use this term in its original Stalinist sense, not the bastardized, all-purpose epithet of right-wing frat boys everywhere.
Speaking of Boston, which has replaced Chicago as the city bearing my wrath toward all its athletic manifestations, I suppose the self-satisfied righteousness with which much of the liberal blogosphere embraces the Red Sox and Patriots shouldn't come as a surprise. Rooting for the rich against the superrich as well as the socially-improper poor could serve as a broader metaphor for a good chunk of American liberalism itself. But justifying your rooting interest with politics is never more than superficial (the Rockies are all Jesus freaks!, Colts fans are all rednecks! Tony Dungy hates gay people! Blargh, Gregg Easterbrook!); you can dig deep enough into virtually every team, city or player to find something politically incorrect* to satisfy you. My God, man, it's the farking players' wives charity.
And you wonder where the Midwest got the stereotype of being more grounded in sense.
*I use this term in its original Stalinist sense, not the bastardized, all-purpose epithet of right-wing frat boys everywhere.
07 December 2007
Mitt's fit
Everybody's chatting about Romney's try at a Kennedyesque speecher yesterday in which he attempted to stem the exodus of evangelicals to the Huckabee camp by assuring them that he too, loves authoritarian religion because all authoritarian religion is basically the same thing.
Wait, what? Let's see:
What Romney is attempting to do, of course, is convince the conservative Christians that his Mormon beliefs are irrelevant because, while they have theological differences, they share the same values of practical application. You'll notice how similar this sounds to a point this blog frequently makes about the relationship between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. Indeed, in another surprise, Romney even invokes the other "M" word himself.
That's oddly syncretic, and doesn't seem like it would appeal to people who despise syncretism as an evil above all others. But the old guard of the Christian Right ultimately values political power more, and they realize that splitting votes between Huckabee and Romney ultimately benefits the distrusted Giuliani. Some of our elders can even remember a time when fundamentalist Protestants thought Catholics were the great insidious enemy infecting America, necessitating the aforementioned speech by Kennedy which Romney imagines himself emulating here. I suspect they could even make nice with Muslims, if there were an election at stake.
Wait, what? Let's see:
It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it’s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.
What Romney is attempting to do, of course, is convince the conservative Christians that his Mormon beliefs are irrelevant because, while they have theological differences, they share the same values of practical application. You'll notice how similar this sounds to a point this blog frequently makes about the relationship between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. Indeed, in another surprise, Romney even invokes the other "M" word himself.
I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims.
That's oddly syncretic, and doesn't seem like it would appeal to people who despise syncretism as an evil above all others. But the old guard of the Christian Right ultimately values political power more, and they realize that splitting votes between Huckabee and Romney ultimately benefits the distrusted Giuliani. Some of our elders can even remember a time when fundamentalist Protestants thought Catholics were the great insidious enemy infecting America, necessitating the aforementioned speech by Kennedy which Romney imagines himself emulating here. I suspect they could even make nice with Muslims, if there were an election at stake.
05 December 2007
Uncle Strom's cabin
From Lawyers, Guns and Money, a historical image to remind you what the euphemism "states' rights" actually represents.
Resistance is futile
The current issue of The American Prospect flopped in my mailbox last week with the question on everyone's lips, "Has Hillary Locked it Up?" The question itself is partially self-fulfilling, since projecting an aura of inevitability has been part of the plan from the start (and one which the Republicans have been happy to indulge, but I'll get to that.)
There is some hope, and from an unlikely source.
Two polls released from Iowa last week show Obama in the lead for the first time. In a moment of possible reflexive panic, the Washington Post ran a ridiculous front page story about Obama's non-existent secret life as a Muslim cobbled almost entirely from harebrained right-wing innuendo. I'm no fan of our primary system and it's structural arrangement to deliver the most conservative Democrat possible, but I may need a Faustian exception in this case. Clinton, of course, continues to have a large lead in national polls, but there is a possible explanation, if you buy it, which says Iowa voters have had much more exposure to the candidates and spent much deeper meditation on making their selection, a process that will ramp up around the nation as the primary season proceeds. Here's a case where I hope something to be true that I don't actually believe myself.
But, around the web I sense a growing acceptance of the inevitability narrative, and, as another long war between the DLC Sensible Liberals and the progressives begin, the rationalizations are starting to spring forth. One of the most persistent, not to mention ludicrous, has the GOP being all a-feared of a Clinton candidacy, which is why her name is reflexively invoked by Republican candidates during debates as the default nominee. As some of us have been saying for over a year now, nothing could be further from the truth. This is borne out in another recent poll showing Edwards and Obama prevailing in hypothetical matchups over all five major Republican candidates, and Clinton losing to all five. These polls shouldn't be taken too seriously at this point, naturally, but they do suggest the public sees a distinction between the Democrats that they don't among the GOP.
And that they don't like Clinton, which the Republicans well know, and thus their inability to recognize any other Democrat running. As I hinted earlier, this also has the byproduct of reinforcing the inevitability doctrine the Clinton campaign has soaked itself in. If even the Republicans believe she has it locked up, then what use is there to resist?*
There's also undoubtedly a lot of anti-Clinton sentiment inside the Democratic Party and the loosely-associated left but. in accordance with the long lamented tale of left-liberal politics, that sentiment can't find a candidate to settle with. I suspect if you polled Edwards and Obama supporters, very few of them would list Clinton as a second choice. But all that means is that Clinton would lose in an idealized instant-runoff ballot. In the system we have, though, she's likely to walk away with 35 percent and the nomination. Say this for the centrists: Bayh, Vilsack and Warner all bailed early. They know how to take care of their own.
There is the possibility that one of the two challengers--most likely Edwards now--will post an unexpectedly dismal showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire and withdraw. The chances of this are slim for two reasons. First, with the newly compressed primary schedule neither is likely to fall behind far enough and fast enough to be compelled into quitting. Secondly, because such a move would be interpreted as being exactly what I outlined above; throwing the election away from Clinton to the other of the two. And that won't be tolerated by the press or the keepers of intra-Party harmony.
*Another popular rationalization is the Revenge Factor, which suggests sticking the Republicans with the "dreadful" Clintons is the perfect way to get even for years of abuse and misrule. It's important to keep in mind here that what the Right fears and what it thinks you should fear so it can benefit politically are often quite different things, and that Ole Bill isn't derisively called a great Republican president for nothing.
There is some hope, and from an unlikely source.
Two polls released from Iowa last week show Obama in the lead for the first time. In a moment of possible reflexive panic, the Washington Post ran a ridiculous front page story about Obama's non-existent secret life as a Muslim cobbled almost entirely from harebrained right-wing innuendo. I'm no fan of our primary system and it's structural arrangement to deliver the most conservative Democrat possible, but I may need a Faustian exception in this case. Clinton, of course, continues to have a large lead in national polls, but there is a possible explanation, if you buy it, which says Iowa voters have had much more exposure to the candidates and spent much deeper meditation on making their selection, a process that will ramp up around the nation as the primary season proceeds. Here's a case where I hope something to be true that I don't actually believe myself.
But, around the web I sense a growing acceptance of the inevitability narrative, and, as another long war between the DLC Sensible Liberals and the progressives begin, the rationalizations are starting to spring forth. One of the most persistent, not to mention ludicrous, has the GOP being all a-feared of a Clinton candidacy, which is why her name is reflexively invoked by Republican candidates during debates as the default nominee. As some of us have been saying for over a year now, nothing could be further from the truth. This is borne out in another recent poll showing Edwards and Obama prevailing in hypothetical matchups over all five major Republican candidates, and Clinton losing to all five. These polls shouldn't be taken too seriously at this point, naturally, but they do suggest the public sees a distinction between the Democrats that they don't among the GOP.
And that they don't like Clinton, which the Republicans well know, and thus their inability to recognize any other Democrat running. As I hinted earlier, this also has the byproduct of reinforcing the inevitability doctrine the Clinton campaign has soaked itself in. If even the Republicans believe she has it locked up, then what use is there to resist?*
There's also undoubtedly a lot of anti-Clinton sentiment inside the Democratic Party and the loosely-associated left but. in accordance with the long lamented tale of left-liberal politics, that sentiment can't find a candidate to settle with. I suspect if you polled Edwards and Obama supporters, very few of them would list Clinton as a second choice. But all that means is that Clinton would lose in an idealized instant-runoff ballot. In the system we have, though, she's likely to walk away with 35 percent and the nomination. Say this for the centrists: Bayh, Vilsack and Warner all bailed early. They know how to take care of their own.
There is the possibility that one of the two challengers--most likely Edwards now--will post an unexpectedly dismal showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire and withdraw. The chances of this are slim for two reasons. First, with the newly compressed primary schedule neither is likely to fall behind far enough and fast enough to be compelled into quitting. Secondly, because such a move would be interpreted as being exactly what I outlined above; throwing the election away from Clinton to the other of the two. And that won't be tolerated by the press or the keepers of intra-Party harmony.
*Another popular rationalization is the Revenge Factor, which suggests sticking the Republicans with the "dreadful" Clintons is the perfect way to get even for years of abuse and misrule. It's important to keep in mind here that what the Right fears and what it thinks you should fear so it can benefit politically are often quite different things, and that Ole Bill isn't derisively called a great Republican president for nothing.
So what does Rupert Murdoch not own?
What could Uncle Rupert want with the religious website Beliefnet? Waitaminute, don't answer...
Oh, and the last answer to the above question is, evidently, this website. C'mon Rupe, what kind of an offer will it take to make me switch sides? (again.)
Oh, and the last answer to the above question is, evidently, this website. C'mon Rupe, what kind of an offer will it take to make me switch sides? (again.)
03 December 2007
The democracy frontier
One wonders if this will temper some of the "OMG Teh Commie Dictator!" hysteria regarding Chavez in the American press. I somehow doubt it. Although the right "won" the referendum by a very slim margin, they needed a lot of help from Chavez supporters abstaining or voting no due to the more controversial aspects of the reforms that would have centralized power to the executive. I expect, however, that it will be spun as a more sweeping rebuke of the Chavez program than what it actually represents.
Around the Web: Ken Silverstein at Harper's
The Sideshow:
Around the Web: Ken Silverstein at Harper's
I’m glad Chavez lost the referendum, but Venezuela during his tenure has never resembled the totalitarian dungeon that is portrayed in American op-ed pages. And it’s a world apart from the real dictatorships run by America’s closest allies around the globe, and of which pundits like Cohen and Diehl are far more indulgent
The Sideshow:
I think Chavez' suggested changes were a bad idea, and I'm unsurprised that the people were not enthusiastic about them. But you can hardly argue that Chavez is a dictator because he asked the people if they'd let him make those changes, while at the same time pretending that Bush is not a dictator when he simply ignores the laws that the people don't want him to change. And the people have spoken.Venezuela is looking a lot more like a democracy than some other countries I could name....
Lenin's Tomb:
Independent polls suggested beforehand that among likely voters, Chavez would probably win it, and furthermore that Chavez's call for socialism to be made part of the constitution was broadly supported. Leaving aside the probably limited effect of 'Operation Pliers', the reality is probably that Chavez's supporters were simply unwilling to turn out to vote for a constitution among whose main priorities was to enhance executive power. This was always the most problematic aspect of Chavez's reforms. Unfortunately, this result will probably strengthen the rightist opposition, despite the continuing popularity of Chavez and his other reforms.I think this is a win-win situation all-around. Chavez's more autocratic tendencies were defeated, and he wins a propaganda victory by coyly subverting his image in the Western media as a power-hungry dictator at the same time. From his own reaction, you'd almost believe Chavez planned it that way...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
