Repeat After Me: It's Not About Us

I don't really understand the motives of the conservatives on my PC and my TV screaming ad nauseum for the US to insert itself into Iran's latest drama. Have they all gone batshit mad? Do they know nothing of history?

Have they forgotten how the US and Britain subverted Iran's first democratic government with "Project Ajax" in order to protect western oil interests? How the US installed, funded, and propped up the Shah to maintain their very own puppet government, leading directly to the the revolution of 1979 and a tidal wave of anti-American sentiment? How the US supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and gave Saddam the chemical weapons he eventually used against the Iranian people? How the US vigorously encouraged the Shia to rise up against Saddam at the end of the first Gulf War, only to watch Saddam slaughter them en masse without our lifting a finger to help them? And wasn't it just a few years ago that we named Iran as part of the dreaded "Axis of Evil"? Bush's cowboyisms may have made Americans feel good but they also helped make Ahmadinejad a very popular man in Iran.

For all of those people now opining for the US to insert itself into the Iranian discussion, I can only guess the following motivations:

1. They oppose Obama's current position because they reflexively oppose all of Obama's positions.
2. Shouting out some pro-democracy rhetoric against our enemies feels really, really good.
3. Egocentric fantasy that in order to come to end of job, the Iranian protesters need American support.
4. Neocon sabotage (if we interfere we're likely to drive support for Ahmadenijad, which could set the stage for those who want to bomb bomb bomb Iran).
5. Good intentions but a general ignorance of our history in the region.

The fact of the matter is that this pivotal moment in Iran's destiny belongs solely to Iran. Whether these are death throes or birth pains, it's up to the Iranians to determine. For once let's avoid the temptation to make it all about us.

UPDATE: This is way easier than I thought.

Lindsay Graham falls into category #3 as he over-imagines the importance of America's rhetorical support for the Iranians:

Obama is “certainly moving in the right direction,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on the ABC’s “This Week” program. “I hope that we’ll hear more of this, because the young men and women taking the streets in Tehran need our support. They are basically asking for us to speak up on their behalf.”

John Boehner, well, he clearly falls into category #4 with this little nugget:

Obama needs “to take real, strong action, make it clear he’s not going to sit down with the Iranians until they begin to treat their people respectfully and that they’re willing to stop their nuclear programs,” Boehner said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt.”

Boehner knows perfectly well that both candidates AND their supporters are universally in favor of a peaceful nuclear program. This statement is apropos of nothing related to the election and is, in fact, merely subterfuge for a continued desire to bomb the living shit out of Iran.

And maybe that's the biggest mind fuck of all, that the brave men and women marching in the streets of Tehran that Boehner thinks should be treated "respectfully" are the very people who wish their country to have a nuclear program, and are therefore very people Boehner would like to punish (or kill or whatever, depending on which neocon you listen to).

Power To The People

I love this photo of an Iranian protester now making its way around the internets. I wonder if I'd have the guts? I like to think I would.


Recent news and info here. Lots more here.

Get Out The Vote, Iranian Style

I love this picture of rallying Mousavi supporters in Iran. It reminds me of the enthusiastic supporters of a certain unlikely candidate in my own country.

Interestingly, the mullahs are intimidated. I don't know much about Mousavi but if the mullahs fear him, I'm definitely intrigued.

The Great Healthcare Debate

Somewhere in the discussion on healthcare, I wish someone would reference the affect of rising healthcare costs on employers and their ability to continue employing people. Does one not have the feeling that the wage stagnation of the past decade has something to do (at least in part) with employers absorbing the increasing cost of health insurance?

The REAL frame for the healthcare debate isn't whether or not basic healthcare is a universal human right, nor is it about whether healthcare reform is the equivalent of socialism. The debate should be about what will work best for the general economy in a globally competitive (and decidedly unlevel) labor market. This is uncharted territory... and we will either adapt or die.

It's no secret that US employers are suffering under the weight of health insurance. Large global employers like mine are shunning US workers for cheaper, no-frills (i.e. no benefits) resources in emerging countries, while smaller businesses are simply getting crushed by the cost of employment.

What I want to see is a conversation that discusses what shifting the cost of healthcare coverage from private to public administration does for (or against) the national economy.

Short Term Memory

David Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's daughter on The Tonight Show were stupid and distasteful. Some things about Palin as a public persona have been unintentionally funny and easy to mock but mocking her children is simply inappropriate.

That said, all of the fauxtrage about how "nobody would dare make fun of a Democrat's child" just proves that folks have a serious case of short term memory... am I the only one who remembers the non-stop jokes about Chelsea Clinton's physical appearance? "Ugly Chelsea" jokes flowed freely during the Clinton years, not only from comedians but also from people like John McCain. Even The Boston Globe had a humorous article on whether her hair could be fixed.

I like to think she got the last laugh, however, as she certainly seems to have grown into a striking and intelligent young woman.

Just Curious

I wonder if Shepard Smith will write a tell-all book someday on the evil inside Fox News. I strongly suspect that not only is he the only sane one there, but quite possibly the only one with a conscience.

Another Crazy On The Right

Sounds like a Fox News viewer on outrage overload.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An 88-year-old Maryland man with a long history of ties to white supremacist groups is the suspect in Wednesday's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, two law enforcement officials told CNN.

James von Brunn served six years in prison for trying to make what he called a "legal, non-violent citizens arrest" of Federal Reserve board members in 1981 -- a sentence he blamed on "a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys" and "a Jew judge," he said on his Web site, "Holy Western Empire."

Oh, and he's a Birther. Of course!

Repulsive

Surely I can't be the only one repulsed by the right wing freaks calling for a boycott of GM. Who does that serve, exactly? Last time I checked, GM was still an American company employing American workers that creates work for lots of other American companies (non-socialist ones, even!) like my husband's.

What the hell?

Question

Why do Democrats allow Republicans to characterize health care reform / single payer as "allowing the government to come between you and your doctor"? The talking heads repeat this over and over and over like a mantra but it's so absurd that I can't read it without rolling my eyes.

1) Republicans are hardly afeared of government coming between you and your doctor. See: RU46, the "morning after" pill, and almost anything having to do with abortion, even when a woman's health is in jeopardy. See: Assisted suicide and end of life matters. See: Terry Schiavo.

2) You know who else comes between you and your doctor? INSURANCE COMPANIES. My pediatrician, who I love and adore, has -- over the past 20 years -- constantly tried to help me navigate around my insurance company to get the care he thinks is important for my kids. All this fearmongering about "healthcare rationing" by the government just makes me want to claw my ears out... what do people think insurance companies do to ensure their profit?

Are people really this stupid? Apparently the GOP is banking on it.

Ed Whelan Is A Douchebag

For committing an act of extreme douchebaggery.

Obama's Cairo Speech And Iran's Big Moment

Just a quick note on this because I have a ton of work to do but basically I was flabbergasted by Liz Cheney's response (among others) to Obama's Cairo speech, which -- owing to the joy of puppy duty -- I was awake at 5:00 am to watch.

Obama's speech was mostly excellent except for a gaping hole where the depth of his Iranian nuclear discussion should have been. The fact that the hole was there was, I thought, pretty obvious... there is an intensifying and historic election battle underway between Iran's Ahmedinejad and his Reformist opposition, Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi is fast moving into "holy shit, did he really say that?" territory with his criticisms of Ahmedinejad, and we in the US should immediately recognize the potential of an Iranian reformist winning the presidential election with popular support. This is exactly what we've been hoping for.

But gee, what could possibly go wrong at such a pivotal moment? Hmmm... how about some angry rhetoric coming from a US president about Iran's nuclear energy program?

Anyone who watches anything other than Fox News probably knows that the Iranian people consider Iran to be an autonomous state and that nuclear energy has very broad popular support. And if I were Iranian, I would probably not only share in that sentiment but also insist that Iran has as much right to a nuclear energy program as anyone else, including India, Pakistan, and Israel, not to mention the US, and would not take kindly to anyone telling me otherwise. Ahmedinejad -- whose hands nobody wants to see anywhere near a little red button -- would surely find such US rhetoric a gift and would happily exploit it during the election. Why give him the opportunity? Why not just lay low for a while and see if the Iranian people are ready to join the rest of the world?

Which brings me back to Liz Cheney, an inexplicably regular guest on Morning Joe who almost certainly knows what's at stake with the Iranian election but who can't seem to bring herself to demonstrate just a modicum of restraint in her criticism of Obama's lack of fiery rhetoric. Liz Cheney would rather misrepresent the situation to score some cheap points with the "oh noes, Obama is a secret Muslim who's selling out America!" crowd than speak what she knows to be the truth:

The frontrunners in Iran's presidential race clashed during a fiery debate broadcast to a national television audience on Wednesday evening.

The verbal jousting between Ahmadinejad and opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi -- a former prime minister and reformist candidate who poses a threat to the firebrand Iranian president -- lasted an hour and half.

Mousavi said Ahmadinejad's dictatorial ways have hurt Iran's image across the globe and could be a prelude to a dictatorship.

"There are two ways of confronting the country's problems," Mousavi said. "One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism."

He said Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust had repulsed Iran's allies.

"This has greatly damaged us," Mousavi said.

The Iranian president called the Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis, "a big deception." Ahmadinejad also has lashed out at the United States and Israel, calling at various times for the end of Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

In addition to Mousavi, two other challengers -- former parliament speaker Mahdi Karoudi, another reformist, and hard-liner Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Expediency Council -- hope to unseat Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election. Neither took part in Wednesday's debate.

The outcome of the election will set the tone for Iran's policies on crucial issues, including its nuclear ambitions and the possibility of bilateral talks with Washington.

Think about it.

Suffering Idiots

I have heard the infamous Sotomayor quote at least a million times now:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

It's been "objectively" reported on the news, raked over by pundits, written about on blogs. Pat Buchanan and the entire Morning Joe gang obsessed over its "racist" implication for days. For my part, I took both her quote and their rants at face value, less suspicious of our right-wing driven media than I should have been. Silly me.

Finally tonight I found myself wondering if there wasn't more to the Sotomayor quote... so I Googled it. Guess what I found?

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I find nothing even remotely controversial about the quote in context, which is probably why I had to go look for it myself. Seriously... I can't believe I have to live in the same plane as the idiots who control our national dialogue.

There's something very broken in the Republican party if they think their best winning strategy is to appeal to (and stoke, whenever possible) racial fear and hatred. It's been 40 years since the Nixon campaign gave us the "Southern Strategy", 30 years since Reagan's first presidential campaign gave us the mythical "Cadillac driving welfare queens", and 20 years since Papa Bush's campaign scored a victory with Willie Horton. Although Mexicans have spent the past decade wracking up points on GOP's fear-o-meter, the emergence of Obama has certainly sent the crowd into a big-scary-black-man tizzy. Where can a generation of folks who suckled on the teat of racist fear go for comfort?

ACORN ACORN affirmative action ACORN reverse racism ACORN ACORN La Raza ACORN!!!

If We're Going To Play "How Much Does It Cost"...

Apparently the fauxtrage of the day is supposed to be the cost of Obama's trip to New York, which got me to wondering... how much did it cost us when Bush decided he was going to move the entire WH operations to Crawford, Texas, several times a year for eight years?

Funny how that never gets mentioned. But that's right... we're all fiscal hawks now!

UPDATE 6/3/2009:

Bush made 149 trips to Camp David (where he spent 487 days of his 8 year term) and 77 visits to Crawford (where he spent 490 days of his 8 year term). Musta cost a pretty penny... where's the outrage??

Who Coulda Seen This Coming?

When you incite the crazies, the crazies feel compelled to act.



And yes, Republicans, it IS TOO your clan who always goes nuts. From Eric Rudolph to Timothy McVeigh to any number of active militias waiting for a reason to pull the trigger, you own domestic terrorism. Code Pink and PETA don't hold a candle to the crazies on your side of the fence. These are your people, responding to your hyperventilating, incendiary, factually challenged, intentionally sensational bullshit. So from now on, please spare me the fauxtrage over legitimate reports on right-wing extremism.

ACORN ACORN ACORN!!!

Do you hear me Glenn Beck? Do you hear me Pat Buchanan?

P.S. Regarding Tiller, there are sad and tragic reasons to perform late term abortions... and thankfully they're rare enough to have made Tiller one of the few in the country needed to provide them. As if it's not heart wrenching enough to find yourself in that situation, to have a bloviating idiot like Bill "loofa" O'Reilly misrepresent the facts to play for ratings (e.g. money) is just disgusting. It reminds me why I've completely detached from those people and their twisted beliefs.