Category Archives: politics

an innocent man

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This is going to be an unpopular thing to say, but it has to be said at some point. George Zimmerman–the man who unquestionably shot and killed Trayvon Martin–is innocent.

This is a fundamental aspect of the U.S. Constitution. Every citizen who stands accused of a crime must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. This isn’t some legal nicety we can overlook simply because it’s unpopular. If the presumption of innocence has any value at all, it has to apply to everybody–even George Zimmerman. It’s true that standard only applies to juries, but when you hear somebody say Zimmerman ought to be tried and punished, they’re basically saying the Constitution shouldn’t apply to people they don’t like. And that’s fucked up.

So there it is, George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin and wherever he is right now, he’s an innocent man. I hate to say it, but he’s probably innocent in two ways. He’s presumptively innocent and may, in fact, be not guilty under the law. According to Florida’s statute 776.013 (3) – Justifiable Use of Force, Zimmerman may never have his innocence challenged. It’s very possible he’ll never be charged with a crime. The law clearly states “A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself.” The way the law is written, it’s very nearly a license to kill–and indeed, ‘justifiable’ homicides in Florida have increased threefold since the law was enacted.

We can’t know with any certainty what took place in the final few moments before George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. But we can make some educated guesses based on what we do know. We know what Zimmerman told the police during his 911 call. We know, for example, he was unreasonably suspicious of Martin. We know he was following the young man, and continued to do so even after the police told him he shouldn’t. We also know Trayvon Martin knew he was being followed and was nervous about it. We know Zimmerman prejudged Martin (“These assholes, they always get off”), and we know he felt antagonistic toward Martin (he called Martin either a “fucking coon” or a “fucking goon”).

That’s what we know. We can surmise Martin felt threatened by the man following him and decided to confront Zimmerman. We can surmise Zimmerman felt threatened by the confrontation and so pulled his weapon. We can surmise Martin felt threatened by the weapon and may have struck Zimmerman in self-defense. And we can surmise Zimmerman felt threatened by the assault and shot Martin in self-defense.

The way the Florida law is written, the last person to survive feeling threatened is innocent.

Trayvon Martin was innocent in reality. George Zimmerman is innocent under the law. The people who aren’t innocent are the members of the Florida legislature who enacted this stupid fucking law.

There won’t be any real justice for Trayvon Martin. There won’t be any justice for George Zimmerman. The only possible justice that could come out of this tragedy is if the good people of Florida rise up and force their legislature to repeal the law, and maybe vote out the idiots who thought the law was a good idea to begin with.

But this is Florida, where guns don’t kill people–people kill people. And in Florida, you can get away with it.

a pathetic, fearful little man

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Rush Limbaugh is a coward. He hides behind the title ‘entertainer,’ which he believes gives him cover for making the most reprehensible and offensive remarks. That title also gives timid Republican politicians cover; they can dismiss the things Limbaugh says as outrageous while claiming it’s just entertainment.

It’s a convenient lie that nobody believes—including the people who speak it.

Rush Limbaugh is a coward, and like so many cowards he’s a bully when given the opportunity. He sits in a small sound studio, protected from the outside world, insulated from reality, and from that safe vantage point he mocks and jeers at people who disagree with him. He surrounds himself with sycophants and toadies, people who adore him because he’s found a safe way to say the ugly things they think.

Rush Limbaugh is a coward and a bully, a contemptible and despicable person. But behind all the bluster and bloviating, Limbaugh is also a pathetic and fearful little man, deeply inadequate—and he must be painfully aware of that. He must be terrified that others may recognize his fear and inadequacy. It would be horrible, I think, to be so afraid of so many things.

This isn’t to suggest Limbaugh is deserving of our empathy or compassion. He’s not. But one difference between us and Rush Limbaugh (one of the many differences) is we don’t reserve our compassion and consideration just for those we think are deserving. That would be a cheap sort of compassion.

Rush Limbaugh is a coward and a bully, and as much as I despise the man and the many horrible things he says, I can’t help feeling a grudging sort of sadness for him. In the words of the poet Mr. T., I pity the fool*. But I can’t pity him very much.

 

* To be more accurate, the phrase “I pity the fool” originally came from James Merle, an Autobiograph, which is a novel written in 1864 by William Black. He wrote: I pity the fool who marries and yet imagines he may be a great man. That seems to apply to Rush Limbaugh, who has married four times and so must want to believe he’s four times a great man. In fact, he’s merely four times a fool.

only a matter of time

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Rick Santorum deserves to win the Republican primary and represent his party in the contest for the presidency of the United States. He is the quintessence of the modern Republican party — a candidate who is the purest, most concentrated extract of a philosophy grounded in fear, scapegoating, finger-pointing and resentment.

It wasn’t that long ago, really, when the Republican party was what it still claims to be — a political party dedicated to the idea of a small government that interfered as little as possible in regulating the workings of the nation and its citizens. It was a philosophy grounded in an idealized and romanticized past, in the belief that life was better before. Before there was so much immigration, before laws and regulations were reformed, before workers became so dissatisfied, before.

There’s something almost innocent about that notion. They didn’t blame individual immigrants; they blamed the phenomenon of immigration. They didn’t vilify specific workers; they vilified the movements that encouraged workers to be discontented with their situation. They accepted there was some need to reform laws and regulation, but they resented the reform process. And they accepted the fact that somebody could disagree with their approach and still have the best interests of the nation at heart. The concept of ‘the loyal opposition’ wasn’t foreign to them. The Republican party espoused a positive conservative approach. It’s one I disagree with, but they had actual ideas they believed would improve things.

Then came Newt Gingrich, who discovered you could win elections not just by suggesting that your opponent’s policies were ineffective and possibly harmful, but by claiming your opponent was actively and intentionally trying to destroy everything that is and was good about this nation. I’m not convinced Gingrich actually believed that; I suspect it was just a cynical strategy to win elections. But in the span of just a couple of election cycles, the Republican party turned away from the notion that Democrats were just wrong-headed and toward the notion that Democrats were an actual threat that needed to be stopped in order to save the nation. There was no more ‘loyal opposition.’ There were only enemies to be defeated.

Elections became less about how to improve the nation and more about who to blame for the current shitty state of affairs. And the Gingrich approach worked; the Republicans started winning elections.

Rick Santorum is Newt Gingrich without the beard of cynicism. He’s not just saying stuff to win an election; he appears to actually believe what he’s saying. Sadly, he’s steeped in the same toxic brew of blame. The United States would be a better place if only the wicked elements could be expunged and we could return to the way things were before. Before there was contraception, before gay folks were visible, before there was all this fuss about the climate, before that evolution nonsense.

But the natural result of turning people who hold different beliefs and opinions into enemies is that you can’t contain it. You can’t restrict it just to the opposing political party. It necessarily morphs into an increasingly more paranoid purity test. If you fail to meet the narrowing standards of your own party, you join the ranks of the enemy. The organic result is a Republican party whose base actually believes Mitt Romney is a liberal — a party whose base believes Rick Perry, who casually talks about secession from the Union, has liberal tendencies because he doesn’t blame immigrants quite enough.

Right now Rick Santorum is the perfect distillate of what has become the modern Republican party — self-righteous, judgmental, angry, fearful, moralistic, scolding. It won’t be long, though, before he’ll be seen as another liberal. It’s only a matter of time.

not quite as clever as mickey

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Finally…some real voter fraud.

For a long time Republican lawmakers have been making it more difficult for people to vote, citing the possibility of voter fraud. They often cite the case of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), an affiliation of community organizing groups, as a prime example of ‘massive voter fraud.’ This is based on voter registration forms ACORN volunteers and paid staffers turned in as a result of a voter registration drive.

A small percentage of those forms included clearly false information. For instance, some individuals might have filled out the form claiming to be Mickey Mouse or Thor, God of Thunder. By turning those forms over to local election officials, Republicans accused ACORN of attempting to commit voter fraud. That, of course, ignores a couple of inconvenient facts.

First, the people who engage in voter registration drives don’t get to pick and choose which forms they turn in. Otherwise partisans for one political party could simply throw away the registration forms filled out by citizens who identified as belonging to a different party, leaving those prospective voters with the impression they were registered to vote. So it’s legally required for groups to turn in ALL voter registration forms—even if they’re signed by Thor.

Second, there are NO records of anybody who filled out a voter registration form as Thor, God of Thunder actually attempting to cast a vote. Nobody claiming to be Mickey Mouse has shown up at a polling place, expecting to pull the lever or check the box for anybody running for office. That shit just don’t happen.

The fact is, voter suppression—a strategy at which Republicans excel—is far more likely to shape an election result than voter fraud. Individual voters attempting to cast more than one ballot or a fraudulent ballot is a wildly ineffective and inefficient strategy for stealing an election.

BUT…there are very, very rare instances of individual people who actually do cast an illegal vote. And we just had somebody convicted for actual, honest-to-Jeebus, no-shit voter fraud. Charlie White of Hamilton County, Indiana. A Republican.

And not just any Republican, but the Indiana Secretary of State—the top elections official in the state. Mr. White campaigned for the office by promising to “protect and defend Indiana’s Voter ID law to ensure our elections are fair and protect the most basic and precious right and responsibility of our democracy—voting.”

He might have gotten away with it if he’d registered as Mickey Mouse.

By the way, if you want to know the truth about voter fraud, you can read a report issued by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

still pissing on the dead

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Last week I made a brief comment about the incident in which the members of a U.S. Marine sniper unit pissed on the bodies of Afghans they’d (presumably) killed. There were a couple of responses I found troubling, and I sort of feel the need to address some of the issues raised in them.

Joe said:

Wish ALL our troops were here home with their familys

I think we can all agree with that. However….

but our dumbass politicians/president whom have NEVER SERVED OR HAVE BEEN IN THIS SITUATION BEFORE

I’m not sure how this behavior can be attributed to President Obama or Congress. Certainly the behavior of troop units is a reflection of their leadership, but there are over 200,000 active duty Marines. It’s a bit silly to hold the civilian leadership of the military responsible for the behavior of individual units. That said, as I mentioned in the original comment, if you don’t want troops to piss on the bodies of their dead enemies, don’t send them to war.

The solution……DO NOT SHOOT AT OUR SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN AND WE WON’T HAVE TO CELEBRATE KICKIN YOUR STUPID ANTI-AMERICAN ASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First, you can’t blame Afghans for shooting at invading troops. It’s their country. Afghan tribes have been fighting against invaders ever since it became a semi-unified nation-state some three hundred years ago. Before they were shooting at U.S. troops, they shot at the Soviets. Before that, they shot at the British. Before that…well, just read the long history of Afghan tribal groups successfully repelling invading world superpowers.

Second, the Afghans who are shooting at the U.S. troops may, in fact, be anti-American, but I suspect they’re mostly anti-invader. I mean, they’ve also been shooting at the French and the British and the Dutch and the Italians and the Canadians (seriously, who’d shoot at a Canadian?) and a host of other nationalities. They’ll shoot at anybody who was attempting to occupy their country. So would you, Joe, if you were an Afghan. That’s what you do to invading armies—you shoot them. We’d do the same if (in some right wing Red Dawn fantasy) foreign troops invaded the U.S.

Finally, pissing on the dead is more an expression of contempt than a celebration. But even if there was some twisted psycho-sexual celebratory component to it, we don’t have to celebrate killing the enemy. This isn’t football. A victory dance in the end zone isn’t necessary. To suggest the ‘solution’ to this is for Afghans to refrain from shooting at U.S. troops is to massively fail to understand the situation.

WAKE UP AMERICA WE AE THE BEST,,,,,START SHOWING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The more exclamation points we use, the better we are. But really, this isn’t a nationalist issue. It’s not about America. It’s about war. The Marines didn’t piss on the bodies of the dead because they were Americans; they did it because that sort of shit happens in war. They didn’t piss on the bodies of the Afghans because they were Afghans; they did it because war always dehumanizes everybody involved.

Daniel repeats (without attribution, by the way) the text of a statement issued by Republican Congressmane Allen West, but I’ve no doubt he agrees with Representative West.

I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu.

Neither you nor Rep. West may recall the outrage, but I do. The incident was widely reported and sparked a massive public outcry. Of course, the treatment of Shugart and Gordon was at the hands of a disorganized mob, not committed by a highly-trained and disciplined military unit, but they both reflect the same reality. War brutalizes the people who fight.

Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

The teleprompter comment, of course, is a childish reference to President Obama; conservatives seem to think the president is inarticulate without access to a teleprompter and find that wildly amusing.

I should mention that Rep. West is a former Army Lt. Colonel who served in Iraq. He’s familiar with the military justice process. After an incident in which he terrorized an Iraqi police officer, West was fined US$5000, removed from command of his unit, and reassigned to a rearward detachment while his resignation from military service was processed.

Let me also say that although I vehemently disagree with West and his politics, I completely understand what he did in Iraq and why he did it. By normal moral standards, his behavior was egregiously wrong; by battlefield standards, it was illegal. But it may have actually saved the lives of his men.

Again, if you don’t want U.S. troops to do horrible things, don’t send them to war. If you send them to war, you MUST hold them to high behavioral standards—but it’s critical to remember that war can brutalize even the most decent of people.

Anybody who is really interested in this topic would do well to read With the Old Breed: At Pelelieu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge. Sledge was a nice, bookish, religious Alabama boy who served with the U.S. Marines in the South Pacific during World War II. His account of the brutalizing effects of war is shocking and appalling, and quite possibly the best memoir ever written about war.

iowa nice

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Here’s the thing—I like Iowa. I really do. I was born here. It’s true that I’ve spent most of my life living elsewhere, but I’ve always had affection for the state and its people. Iowa is an odd place—not at all the way it’s portrayed in the news and entertainment media. But then, how many places are?

However, Iowa is afflicted by the Iowa Caucus—which has traditionally been the first contest of the U.S. presidential race. That means every four years presidential candidates swarm Iowa like spawning salmon. It also means every four years we have to endure the news media talking about Iowa like the entire state is comprised of ultra-religious corn-fed, cretinous hicks.

We certainly have some of those—but they’re not the majority. They’re not even a significant segment of the population. They’re just noisy and annoying, like those locusts that crawl out of the soil every thirteen years and make life miserable for a bit.

But overall, that’s just not Iowa. So I was delighted to see the following video become something of a hit on YouTube and elsewhere.

I like it. But he had to leave a lot out. Like the fact that the very first case heard by the Iowa Supreme Court was In Re the Matter of Ralph. Ralph was a slave owned by a man in Missouri. The Iowa court ruled that the moment Ralph set foot on Iowa territory, he became a free man. This was 1839—that’s 22 years before the U.S. Civil War.

And he didn’t mention that one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most important free speech rulings was a result of Iowa high school students protesting the war in Viet Nam. In 1965 a group of students wore black armbands to school. They were abused by pro-war students (who were in the majority in 1965), insulted by their teachers, and expelled for refusing to remove their armbands. After their expulsion ended, they returned…without the armbands, but dressed entirely in black clothing.The Supreme Court ruled that students (and teachers too) do not “shed their constitutional rights at the school house gate.”

Which reminds me—Iowa is almost always at the top of the list when states are ranked by literacy. Nearly 70% of all Iowans own a library card. Iowans read a lot—and they’re not just reading the Bible.

I could go on. I could mention, for example, that when same-sex marriage came before the Iowa Supreme court, the judges ruled unanimously that it was unconstitutional to deny members of the same sex the right to marry. That’s right…unanimously. The fact is, Iowa is a pretty liberal state. Most Iowans are pretty open-minded. And they really are, for the most part, nice. Seriously. If you drive down the road and wave to the stranger in the oncoming car, they’ll wave back. And smile. It’s a little weird until you get used to it.

I’m in Iowa again, and it seems I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. But this is the first time in my life I haven’t felt a compelling need to be someplace else. I think I’ve grown into Iowa.

Addendum: Let’s not get carried away by the fact that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney received the most support from Iowa Republican Caucus voters. There are more than 2,100,000 registered voters in Iowa, about evenly split among Democrats, Republicans and Independents (with a slight edge to Democrats). Santorum and Romney each received around thirty thousand votes out of a voter population of more than two million. It doesn’t mean Iowans are generally supportive of either of them.

i got your sign of weakness right here

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I declare, living in Iowa during primary season is a trial. It seems I can’t go half an hour without hearing Rick Perry’s smug voice proclaiming “Some liberals say faith is a sign of weakness.”

You know what’s a sign of weakness? Making shit up, then suggesting you’re bold for standing up against a claim nobody made—that’s a sign of weakness. It’s also a sign of staggering douche-baggery.

Rick Perry concludes that particular advert by saying “I’m not ashamed to talk about my faith.” Dude, maybe you should be. On account of I think you must have skipped that chunk of the Bible that goes: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

It doesn’t read I was in prison, and ye came unto me and gave me a lethal injection.

I’m not a Christian, and I’m a tad uncomfortable judging another person’s Christianity. But I’m completely comfortable judging somebody’s hypocrisy and douche-baggery. And no amount of smirking proclamations of faith can cover up Rick Perry’s hypocrisy and douche-baggery.

passion

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Passion makes up for a lot. Passion is beautiful and dangerous; sometimes it’s scary as hell. Passion doesn’t discriminate between good ideas and bad ideas, between the sublime and the profoundly stupid. The same thing that makes Patti Smith an amazing artist who can transcend her own pretensions makes Michele Bachmann frightening and creepy. Yeats, I think, was only half right:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

You can switch those around, and it’s still true.

The best are full of passionate intensity, while the worst
Lack all conviction

As crazy as it sounds, I respect Michele Bachmann’s passion. As far as I can tell (or as far as I care to look into it) I disagree with very nearly every political, economic, and social position she advocates—but I don’t doubt her sincerity and I respect her willingness to voice every crazy bat-shit idea she has.

But here’s the thing: you have to accept the existence of Michele Bachmann in order to truly embrace Patti Smith. Or Billy B. Yeats, for that matter. Because let’s face it, Yeats and Patti Smith share that willingness to voice crazy bat-shit ideas. If you want a world with Yeats in it, if you want a world with Patti Smith, then you have to accept a world with Michele Bachmann. That’s how passion works.

I’m willing to tolerate the Bachmanns so long as I can live in a world where Patti Smith can do this:

Passion is over the top. Always over the top. That’s why it’s dangerous, why it’s beautiful. That’s why people listen to Michele Bachmann talk stupid shit about The Lion King as gay propaganda, and why people listen to Patti Smith sing her fucking heart out about stupid shit like a man on the run, heading down to Mexico to shoot his unfaithful wife. Passion, dude, don’t try to make sense of it.