Work's been incredibly busy lately, so I haven't had much time to write. I do have some ideas though, so some posts are forthcoming! I just wanted share this recent video from the Courage Campaign, produced in response to Ken Starr (yeah, that guy) and his attempt to divorce married couples across California. Watch it, and visit the Courage Campaign petition at http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce.
"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
A Symbol, a Problem, and a Hope
Like most Americans on this day every year, I find myself reflecting on the life and legacy of Dr. King. But of course, this is no ordinary year and I feel lucky to be in no ordinary position. As I’m writing this, I am on a bus to Washington, D.C. so that, tomorrow, I may watch the inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States. Watching him visit the Lincoln Memorial the other night, the site of King’s now-canonical “I Have a Dream Speech” forty-five years ago, I couldn’t help but have the feeling many do today: King’s dream has finally been realized.
The coming together in that moment of the image of Lincoln, whom Obama has consciously and publicly invoking for months now, the memory of King’s rousing oratory, and the sight of the Obamas taking it all in, was truly symbolic. Lincoln and King are, at least today, two of the most towering figures in the American Pantheon and so will, I hope, Barack Obama be. The upward motion, the realization of the hotly contested American dream that moment seems to me to represent is tangible on this bus today and in the hearts of millions of Americans making their way to Washington along with me to share in the moment. I fully expect tomorrow to be, you might say, one of the most “hopeful” days in American history.
But, somewhere lurking underneath all this high-minded and aspirational symbolism, a more complicated truth seems to lie. Frank Rich pointed to it yesterday is his brilliant piece for the times, “White Like Me.” Even in the midst of all this hope and change, the truth is that little has really and truly changed for a great number of Americans, regardless of race or creed. Barack Obama’s inauguration is a symbolic moment in American history, and an important one, but we would do well not to let symbolism stand for substance. It’s one of the greatest dangers of being inducted into that American pantheon.
I mean, look at Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m willing to bet that most Americans today, if they are particularly interested in King’s story and message, will take some time, perhaps listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech, think about its beautiful message, and perhaps tune in to follow more inauguration festivities. All of which is fine, except the King that we see in 1963, the one I learned about in grade school and even entered college thinking I knew, has become in his symbolic way a veneer over the more complicated story of the struggle to achieve the dream of all men not only created equal, but also treated that way.
The truth is, the King who delivered that momentous speech in 1963 was pretty much absent by the time King was assassinated in 1968 while fighting for fair treatment for waste workers in Memphis, TN. The King that died that day was concerned with a broader and more intense critique of American society and Capitalism.
He found recent legislative advances, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, to be small solace for the deeper problems facing, not only the black community, but people everywhere of every color oppressed by the wheels of power. He was furious with his government for its continued involvement in the Vietnam War, was reaching out to other oppressed peoples on a regular basis and, as the decline in his national popularity belied, fast losing the attention of a White America that was fine with making blacks equal on paper so long as they didn’t have to do it in real life or confront other basic issues of inequality rooted in their system of government and commerce.
Americans today still don’t like to think about this later King. He makes people uncomfortable, talking not just about the brutal rule of racism in the South, but also about other issues of basic social justice that might really get people of a lot of colors in a lot of places pretty riled up. And so he begins to disappear behind the King of 1963, and the calls to justice he was making later in his life fade away. We’re brought up listening to that speech and being told, “Look, the government listened, African-Americans aren’t discriminated against anymore,” and moved on to a brief and glancing look at the Vietnam War. The power of the symbol impoverishes our understanding of the complicated and, sometimes troubling, King.
The result, today, is that we still live in an unequal society. In fact, the inequality between different classes of Americans has only gotten drastically wider in the last eight years. What’s more, the instruments of oppression are subtler and more tenacious because more people have an investment in keeping them in place. Issues like the freedom to unionize, basic healthcare, and a functioning education system are the issues the later King was concerned about. These were the fundamental kinds of changes that were going to do what the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, incredibly important and symbolic pieces of legislation could never do: provide the on the ground support people needed to achieve the dream. Without it, you can call people equal all you want, but without the kind of society that allows them to really exercise their talents you will never see the kind of change your average single mother in inner city Baltimore can partake in, no matter much she might believe in it.
None of this is to say that we haven’t made progress since 1963. That Barack Obama will be President tomorrow is a real, tangible, and incredibly important event. But we have more work left to do. We have to pass an aggressive agenda that gives people the tools to make their lives better, not that tells them they’re equal to everyone else and leaves to languish with low pay, no healthcare, and no way to realize the dreams we all have a right to.
We have to think about King’s message after 1963. We have to be uncomfortable, to look outside our own comfort to the despair of those trapped behind the symbols and effusive good feelings. If we continue to pretend that, just by electing Obama, we’ve finally achieved the dream King set forth, we will fail to deliver on the promise of today and tomorrow. King and Obama have given us inspiring visions to fight for. Let’s not let those visions become a panacea that keeps us from making the real changes this nation so desperately needs.
The coming together in that moment of the image of Lincoln, whom Obama has consciously and publicly invoking for months now, the memory of King’s rousing oratory, and the sight of the Obamas taking it all in, was truly symbolic. Lincoln and King are, at least today, two of the most towering figures in the American Pantheon and so will, I hope, Barack Obama be. The upward motion, the realization of the hotly contested American dream that moment seems to me to represent is tangible on this bus today and in the hearts of millions of Americans making their way to Washington along with me to share in the moment. I fully expect tomorrow to be, you might say, one of the most “hopeful” days in American history.
But, somewhere lurking underneath all this high-minded and aspirational symbolism, a more complicated truth seems to lie. Frank Rich pointed to it yesterday is his brilliant piece for the times, “White Like Me.” Even in the midst of all this hope and change, the truth is that little has really and truly changed for a great number of Americans, regardless of race or creed. Barack Obama’s inauguration is a symbolic moment in American history, and an important one, but we would do well not to let symbolism stand for substance. It’s one of the greatest dangers of being inducted into that American pantheon.
I mean, look at Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m willing to bet that most Americans today, if they are particularly interested in King’s story and message, will take some time, perhaps listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech, think about its beautiful message, and perhaps tune in to follow more inauguration festivities. All of which is fine, except the King that we see in 1963, the one I learned about in grade school and even entered college thinking I knew, has become in his symbolic way a veneer over the more complicated story of the struggle to achieve the dream of all men not only created equal, but also treated that way.
The truth is, the King who delivered that momentous speech in 1963 was pretty much absent by the time King was assassinated in 1968 while fighting for fair treatment for waste workers in Memphis, TN. The King that died that day was concerned with a broader and more intense critique of American society and Capitalism.
He found recent legislative advances, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, to be small solace for the deeper problems facing, not only the black community, but people everywhere of every color oppressed by the wheels of power. He was furious with his government for its continued involvement in the Vietnam War, was reaching out to other oppressed peoples on a regular basis and, as the decline in his national popularity belied, fast losing the attention of a White America that was fine with making blacks equal on paper so long as they didn’t have to do it in real life or confront other basic issues of inequality rooted in their system of government and commerce.
Americans today still don’t like to think about this later King. He makes people uncomfortable, talking not just about the brutal rule of racism in the South, but also about other issues of basic social justice that might really get people of a lot of colors in a lot of places pretty riled up. And so he begins to disappear behind the King of 1963, and the calls to justice he was making later in his life fade away. We’re brought up listening to that speech and being told, “Look, the government listened, African-Americans aren’t discriminated against anymore,” and moved on to a brief and glancing look at the Vietnam War. The power of the symbol impoverishes our understanding of the complicated and, sometimes troubling, King.
The result, today, is that we still live in an unequal society. In fact, the inequality between different classes of Americans has only gotten drastically wider in the last eight years. What’s more, the instruments of oppression are subtler and more tenacious because more people have an investment in keeping them in place. Issues like the freedom to unionize, basic healthcare, and a functioning education system are the issues the later King was concerned about. These were the fundamental kinds of changes that were going to do what the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, incredibly important and symbolic pieces of legislation could never do: provide the on the ground support people needed to achieve the dream. Without it, you can call people equal all you want, but without the kind of society that allows them to really exercise their talents you will never see the kind of change your average single mother in inner city Baltimore can partake in, no matter much she might believe in it.
None of this is to say that we haven’t made progress since 1963. That Barack Obama will be President tomorrow is a real, tangible, and incredibly important event. But we have more work left to do. We have to pass an aggressive agenda that gives people the tools to make their lives better, not that tells them they’re equal to everyone else and leaves to languish with low pay, no healthcare, and no way to realize the dreams we all have a right to.
We have to think about King’s message after 1963. We have to be uncomfortable, to look outside our own comfort to the despair of those trapped behind the symbols and effusive good feelings. If we continue to pretend that, just by electing Obama, we’ve finally achieved the dream King set forth, we will fail to deliver on the promise of today and tomorrow. King and Obama have given us inspiring visions to fight for. Let’s not let those visions become a panacea that keeps us from making the real changes this nation so desperately needs.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Getting a broader viewpoint
As we confront a serious economic crisis here in the US, it becomes even easier for us as Americans to forget the problems beyond our borders. I know that I frequently find myself with a sort of tunnel vision that can keep me from thinking about the world "outside."
It's at times like these that I'm thankful for my good friends, Haley Thun, and Kuelli George, and their commitment to international development. Over the past few years, they have spent much of their time working to help the people of the Haitian borderlands. Since Haley's first trip several years ago, I have continually been impressed and inspired by the work they do and the creative ideas they have for bringing people-driven solutions to this region.
Recently, Haley sent me an email about a project he and Kuelli have been working on for the last year, Children of the Border. I've included an excerpt below.
It's at times like these that I'm thankful for my good friends, Haley Thun, and Kuelli George, and their commitment to international development. Over the past few years, they have spent much of their time working to help the people of the Haitian borderlands. Since Haley's first trip several years ago, I have continually been impressed and inspired by the work they do and the creative ideas they have for bringing people-driven solutions to this region.
Recently, Haley sent me an email about a project he and Kuelli have been working on for the last year, Children of the Border. I've included an excerpt below.
In keeping with our interests, [Kuelli] and I have been volunteering for the past year with Children of the Border (CotB), a nascent NGO that serves a community of several hundred Haitian sharecroppers living in the southwestern Dominican Republic. Although our jobs normally keep us in the San Francisco Bay Area, we hope to travel to the Dominican Republic for two weeks this spring to oversee the establishment of CotB's first maternal health center. We need funding to accomplish this project, and are seeking the support of family and friends who might be able to help us.Currently, Children of the Border is halfway to the $10,000 goal that would allow them to get the center established and operate it for the first calendar year. I just gave $20. If you're so inclined and have the resources in this difficult time, I hope you'll join me in donating to their project today. All donations are tax deductible. Help Haley and Kuelli bring maternal healthcare to a community in dire need. Thanks.
The sharecropping families that the clinic will serve immigrated to the Dominican Republic from Haiti in search of a better life, yet now live in destitute poverty and without the security of any institutional safety nets. Although our resources are limited, CotB is working to offer effective solutions to the most extreme problems facing the community, including lack of access to medical care. In this impoverished and isolated setting, pregnant women give birth miles away from any medical center, and too often they and their babies face life-threatening emergencies that arise from routine complications. For this reason, CotB has made it a priority to provide a clean, comfortable site in which to host pregnant women who are close to their due dates, and to transport the women to a hospital when they go into labor. We hope that the establishment of this maternal health center will serve as a lasting support structure in the community that will help local women and children to enjoy happier and healthier lives.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Moral Obligations and Political Expediency: The Obama Torture Investigation Dilemma
Today, Bob Fertik is enjoying a few minutes in the liberal spotlight. Why? He had the audacity to use Barack Obama's own Change.gov website to ask if the Obama-Biden administration will be appointing a special prosecutor to "independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping." (More on this as an example of the challenges of campaigning and governing in Web 2.0 in a later post) The transition team, predictably, offered this wet noodle response:
This all being said, there are certainly reasons for Obama's position. With the country in shambles, there would be plenty on the President's plate come January 20th without the nasty business of dealing with Bushies and their failed torture policies. Passing a meaningful economic stimulus package (though it is debatable if we can call the current plan "meaningful"), repairing or wholly replacing a badly broken healthcare system, ending the war in Iraq and finally successfully executing the war in Afghanistan are all going to take time, resources, and ever-precious political capital, even for a President with a massive mandate. And this is far from an exhaustive list of priorities. Already the Pubbies and their neo-con friends are gearing up to try and fight this tooth and nail, promising to make this the issue should the Dems pursue it, all at the expense of these otherwise important and, understandably, more popular policy objectives.
What's more, the Pubbies could do it if Dems bungle a prosecution. Obama didn't win a huge mandate by promising to begin prosecution of senior Bush officials. He did it by speaking to the real, every day challenges most Americans face and offering an end to the divisive politics of the Bush era. For PEBO and the new Democratic powerhouse in Congress, mishandling these more meat and potatoes issues in the political dogfight that would follow appointment of a special prosecutor may be the fastest possible road to a Democratic bloodbath in the 2010 midterms. History tells us the Presidential party loses ground, almost no matter what. Imagine the losses if all that comes out of the 111th Congress is a bruising, partisan fight over deposed Bushies while the country languishes in economic turmoil. Just try passing a meaningful healthcare package with a reinvigorated Republican Party.
And yet, despite this, they still have to do it and we, the people, should keep pushing them to do it. As citizens in a democratic republic, it's our responsibility to hold our leaders accountable because, ultimately, they answer to us. If there is one scathing critique of the Bush era to offer that isn't aimed at the Bushies themselves, it is that the citizens of the United States enabled the administration to do their worst. Scarecrow's post at Oxdown makes the point well that the Bush era isn't just the Bush era, no matter how much we wish it were. For eight years, we the people and our elected officials consistently abdicated our responsibility to use our votes to protect our system of government and laws. If Bush and his cronies shredded the Constitution, they did it with scissors we gave them. And not only did we fail to take the scissors away in 2004, we decided they deserved an industrial strength shredder.
(Yes, as a liberal watching America the last 8 years, I felt a little like that car)
Prosecuting Bush administration officials isn't about paying blood money to a now-vindictive Democratic majority. It isn't about closing Gitmo. It isn't even about establishing that, going forward, the United States will not engage in torture. It's about acknowledging, as a nation, a tremendous lapse in judgment, the abdication of our constitutional responsibility as citizens and making an unequivocal statement in favor of universal application of the law. The only way to begin mending the rent American fabric Scarecrow laments is to put our faith back in the laws of this nation and to use them accordingly, no matter who it involves dragging into court for judgment. And now, finally, prosecution of some senior Bush officials looks like a real possibility, or so said international law and torture expert, Philippe Sands, on "Fresh Air" this week and in his book Torture Team.
As for our other policy priorities, we need to stand by them. Fervently. Call any Pubbie attempt to use this prosecution to distract from an ambitious legislative program exactly what it is: a tawdry attempt to defend no less than Constitutional destruction at the expense of legislation that Americans can't afford to delay. No matter how much we wish we could put the Bush years behind us and look forward to brighter days ahead, any legislative win coming at the expense of dealing with the more fundamental damage to our national identity would be a Pyrrhic victory.
Unless Americans can stand up and acknowledge their complicity in the failures of the last eight years, they won't truly be able to move past the Bush era. And if we can't do that, any reforms introduced today won't have the durability needed to weather the foolishness of Bush-era lookalikes in the future.
UPDATE: More on the feasability of prosecution for senior Bush Administration officials from looseheadprop at Firedoglake.
UPDATE: Kossack mcjoan has a great post along these lines as well.
Vice President-elect Biden, 12/21/08: “[T]he questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is—is something the Justice Department decides. Barack Obama and I are—President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We’re focusing on the future… I’m not ruling [prosecution] in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards.”Then, when George Stephanopoulos asked President-elect Obama the same question in his interview for the Jan. 11th edition of ABC's "This week," Obama had this to say:
OBAMA: We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering [up].The response from the left has been swift. Olbermann and Maddow both took it up on their shows Friday evening, bringing up the points that this won't simply go away and, perhaps more importantly for a President who has promised to restore America's prestige around the world, that the U.S. is obligated by international law to investigate transgressions against the UN Convention Against Torture. Furthermore, if we don't investigate, foreign prosecutors might.
This all being said, there are certainly reasons for Obama's position. With the country in shambles, there would be plenty on the President's plate come January 20th without the nasty business of dealing with Bushies and their failed torture policies. Passing a meaningful economic stimulus package (though it is debatable if we can call the current plan "meaningful"), repairing or wholly replacing a badly broken healthcare system, ending the war in Iraq and finally successfully executing the war in Afghanistan are all going to take time, resources, and ever-precious political capital, even for a President with a massive mandate. And this is far from an exhaustive list of priorities. Already the Pubbies and their neo-con friends are gearing up to try and fight this tooth and nail, promising to make this the issue should the Dems pursue it, all at the expense of these otherwise important and, understandably, more popular policy objectives.
What's more, the Pubbies could do it if Dems bungle a prosecution. Obama didn't win a huge mandate by promising to begin prosecution of senior Bush officials. He did it by speaking to the real, every day challenges most Americans face and offering an end to the divisive politics of the Bush era. For PEBO and the new Democratic powerhouse in Congress, mishandling these more meat and potatoes issues in the political dogfight that would follow appointment of a special prosecutor may be the fastest possible road to a Democratic bloodbath in the 2010 midterms. History tells us the Presidential party loses ground, almost no matter what. Imagine the losses if all that comes out of the 111th Congress is a bruising, partisan fight over deposed Bushies while the country languishes in economic turmoil. Just try passing a meaningful healthcare package with a reinvigorated Republican Party.
And yet, despite this, they still have to do it and we, the people, should keep pushing them to do it. As citizens in a democratic republic, it's our responsibility to hold our leaders accountable because, ultimately, they answer to us. If there is one scathing critique of the Bush era to offer that isn't aimed at the Bushies themselves, it is that the citizens of the United States enabled the administration to do their worst. Scarecrow's post at Oxdown makes the point well that the Bush era isn't just the Bush era, no matter how much we wish it were. For eight years, we the people and our elected officials consistently abdicated our responsibility to use our votes to protect our system of government and laws. If Bush and his cronies shredded the Constitution, they did it with scissors we gave them. And not only did we fail to take the scissors away in 2004, we decided they deserved an industrial strength shredder.
(Yes, as a liberal watching America the last 8 years, I felt a little like that car)
Prosecuting Bush administration officials isn't about paying blood money to a now-vindictive Democratic majority. It isn't about closing Gitmo. It isn't even about establishing that, going forward, the United States will not engage in torture. It's about acknowledging, as a nation, a tremendous lapse in judgment, the abdication of our constitutional responsibility as citizens and making an unequivocal statement in favor of universal application of the law. The only way to begin mending the rent American fabric Scarecrow laments is to put our faith back in the laws of this nation and to use them accordingly, no matter who it involves dragging into court for judgment. And now, finally, prosecution of some senior Bush officials looks like a real possibility, or so said international law and torture expert, Philippe Sands, on "Fresh Air" this week and in his book Torture Team.
As for our other policy priorities, we need to stand by them. Fervently. Call any Pubbie attempt to use this prosecution to distract from an ambitious legislative program exactly what it is: a tawdry attempt to defend no less than Constitutional destruction at the expense of legislation that Americans can't afford to delay. No matter how much we wish we could put the Bush years behind us and look forward to brighter days ahead, any legislative win coming at the expense of dealing with the more fundamental damage to our national identity would be a Pyrrhic victory.
Unless Americans can stand up and acknowledge their complicity in the failures of the last eight years, they won't truly be able to move past the Bush era. And if we can't do that, any reforms introduced today won't have the durability needed to weather the foolishness of Bush-era lookalikes in the future.
UPDATE: More on the feasability of prosecution for senior Bush Administration officials from looseheadprop at Firedoglake.
UPDATE: Kossack mcjoan has a great post along these lines as well.
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