The Outrage Machines: Libya and the US Congress

Salman Rushdie recently described the violent protests and assassination of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi as a product of the "outrage machine" that has grown more sophisticated since targeting him in 1989. A couple of related questions are in order: Why has the outrage industry multiplied and whose purpose does it serve?

Surely one of the efficiencies is the advent of a better internet, with more people connected than ever before via greater infrastructure penetration and social networking applications. Ironically the same forces that unleashed the Arab Spring have been adapted to the purposes of marginal extremists. Moreover practice makes perfect as the saying goes.

And whose purpose does it serve? The clash of civilizations between Islam and the West has been sporadically reignited by incidents such as this one. The West for its part advertises its contempt for the barbarity of the Muslim world by publishing stupid cartoons and videos and burning Korans. The Muslim world responds with senseless and random violence. Why?

First we should note that there is no parity. Violence is violence and incitement is incitement. They are not the equally bad or the same.

That said the answer to the question is one word: power. Extremists exploit the sensitivities of either side to expand the ranks of their followers, magnify their voices and marginalize moderates. Eventually the media in the US caught on to this trick with Pastor Terry Jones in Gainesville, Florida. Thanks to their refusal to give him attention, when he actually did burn the Koran the consequences were less serious than when he had backed down on his threat earlier.

The Middle East is going through a turbulent transition and there are many factions looking for an opening. Extremists are afraid they have lost the initiative to the democratic upswell. Ultimately it will stabilize.

Now what does all this have to do with the US Congress, you ask? Or perhaps it is already obvious. Mann and Ornstein wrote an excellent book about the polarization of the Congress over that last 40 years. In their analysis, it all began when certain Republican members of the House stumbled upon a brilliant, if ruthless, strategy. Demonize your opponents and they shall come. Conflict rather than compromise gains attention. It can make an unimportant person seem important and crowd out the serious-minded people who should be leading the party.

I hate to join the chorus of lunatics who routinely deride the media. But both stories do highlight a constructive media critique. The media is as predictable as piranhas.

Finally, one topic that is missing from the debate is the boundaries of the freedom of speech. Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17.5 years for inciting Muslims to engage in terrorism by translating extremist literature and publishing it online. Similarly in Europe it is illegal to deny the Holocaust or sell Mein Kampf in many places. But somehow there is nothing illegal about intentionally provoking violence and the clash of civilizations via denigration of the prophet of Islam or its holy book. Is it not unlike shouting fire in a crowded theater? It is a more worthwhile discussion to have than the one about whether the Ambassador's death helps or hurts Romney.

The spring in Bashar's step

A new Syrian refugee camp inside Syria has sprung up along the Turkish border. These refugees have fled multiple times from aerial bombardment and were turned away by the Turkish authorities who are struggling to deal with their existing refugees.

The latest Syrian tactic is bombing bread lines in Aleppo. "Ten bakery attacks is not random – they show no care for civilians and strongly indicate an attempt to target them.” said Human Rights Watch. The video shows a chaotic scene of panicked civilians covered in blood and dust. I am beginning to have my doubts in the media's choice not to show graphic images. It makes us complacent and drives the current passivity in the face of an escalation of violence.

Bashar al-Assad has slain, in the 18 months since this conflict began with peaceful protests, some 20 to 25 thousand of his own people. Compared to Bosnia or Rwanda, this is more of a slow-motion massacre, calibrated to avoid intervention. Assad projected confidence in his pre-recorded appearance on Syrian TV, describing the effort as a "cleansing of the nation". The interview, with a dramatic musical score, seems more like a movie trailer.

Clearly what is needed in Syria is a political transition that honors human rights and avoids the type of chaos seen in Iraq that has the potential to draw Lebanon into its vortex. But a number of obstacles continue to frustrate this process.

One problem is the Syrian opposition. It is splintered into about 30 factions, the most well known being the Free Syrian Army. Many of these fighters are far from 'pure as the driven snow'. This lack of credibility as a force for democracy and human rights limits the flow of humanitarian and military aid, the bulk of which currently comes from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. The civilian body composed mainly of Syrian expatriates, The Syrian National Council, also lacks legitimacy due to its lack of cohesion and support.

What would help is for Syrians to recognize more clearly who their friends are and who their enemies are. Their international outcries should be directed more forcefully and with more cohesion against Russia. They should call for protests at Russian embassies around the world and in the Arab League.

Russia and China have vetoed three resolutions in the UN Security Council. The UN General Assembly denounced Syria with 133 votes in favor. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe voted against it and India abstained. The resolution was watered down at the end, with calls for sanctions and Assad to step down removed. The Arab League has called on Assad to step down.

Once again France seems to be playing the most forceful role, although Hollande is less hyper than Sarkozy. Sanctions imposed by Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Japan have not been joined by the bulk of Latin America, Africa and Asia.

One proposal, now backed by Turkey, is the establishment of a buffer zone inside Syria which would be defended by international troops and air power. This would allow refugees a safe place to live and enable organizations like the UNHCR greater humanitarian scope. Further it could serve to engage and empower the best elements of the Syrian opposition.

Another proposal is a no-fly zone or several no-fly zones. The Syrian regime is now regularly attacking rebel-held districts with aerial bombardment and shelling, depriving residents of their lives and homes for allowing the rebels to take over.

Diplomacy has failed, deprived as it was by the lack of a credible threat to the regime. Ultimately it would be best for the Syrian regime to accept a UN-brokered transition, but that will not happen without greater leverage.

These Olympics suck

My general irritation and cynicism regarding the Olympics this year has not abated, despite some notable cool moments like the dramatic womens' soccer games in the semifinals and finals. My complaints are:

1. Stupid NBC coverage.
March Madness figured out how to show all the games, or just about anyway. Why can't NBC do better?  Is the US really so saturated with self-interest that NBC essentially edits out 90-95% of everything not involving American athletes?  And why can't I watch a replay of the soccer final?  Everything else is replayed. I guess the length of the match just doesn't fit TV?

2. Stupid commentators
Its just so sappy, trite, cliche and grating. It makes you want to puke sometimes, or at least I really do have to hit mute or change the channel. These commentators have two speeds. One is the prepared statement read off a card that is so artificial and packaged and sappy. Two is when they they freelance and end up pulling nonsensical comments from their butt."  How many times in 2 minutes are you going to tell me that Usain Bolt likes to joke around before a race to stay relaxed?  And the dumb statements must have producers groaning in the control room. "He wants to make sure he has nothing to think about, he is just going to go out and run. No thinking - its all instinct...and so much practice and training."  Well which is it, natural instinct or singleminded training?  Actually there are so many things said that are so dumb its hard to believe them and remember them.

3. Stupid athletes. USA was #1 and #2 in the Decathlon. How does the 2nd place guy feel?  Rather than say anything meaningful about his personal experience, he ranted about how the US is the greatest nation and they own the decathlon and it feels great to know no one can touch them.  Huh?

4. Did I mention stupid commentators?  The thing about the Olympics is it is supposed to be intrinsically a lot of drama. It doesn't need any extra hype by fixated commentators talking only about what is historic and the best ever and legendary and gold, gold, gold. 

5. Mitt Romney
The Olympics reminds me of the Idiot King because of the link to the Salt Lake City games. As if there aren't enough dumbass Romney soundbytes everyday, I need another reminder? Somebody tweet me when he does his next gaffe. Actually, don't.

6. The medal count
Tired to death of this.  Its like we are tracking GDP or something.  Well just like GDP, if you are going to measure something, at least normalize it.  Thus I bring to your attention - medals per capita tracking.
http://www.medalspercapita.com/
By this standard, the USA is really not very impressive at all.  And China is far worse! Instead kudos to Jamaica, Denmark and Mongolia.  And it really can't be ignored how athletically pathetic India is. Or...maybe they care even less than I do.

The Swing Vote

I celebrate the victory of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court today! It delivers a solid thwacking to the president's bitter foes who choose party over country. It shall be delightful to see them squirm and spin over the next week. Right now it matters little what the fight was about, but merely that the battle was joined and won. The bullying shall be dealt a second and perhaps fatal blow in November, I hope.

Many Republicans in Congress sought to, as Senator DeMint put it, make health reform Obama's "Waterloo". We should invest in the pillars of our economy: education, health and infrastructure. But all efforts to govern were opposed by any means necessary and all means available. Liberals should not be allowed to govern; they are altogether illegitimate however reasonable and decent they may seem. Compromise is a four letter word.

Liberals would have preferred a single payer system, like those that work so well in Japan, Taiwan and Europe. But that was a non-starter and even the 'public option' was stricken from the bill. So the issue of cost was side-lined. But at least the lack of health insurance for over 15% of the population will be addressed starting in 2014. The double irony is that not only was the mandate a Republican idea, it was Mitt Romney's baby. The party that opposes its own ideas is surely the party of nope and hopefully voters will see this.

Schrödinger's Pharaoh

The Arab Spring is flailing in Egypt this month. Just like the fabled quantum cat, Mubarak is dead, but also alive. So too are the other trappings of the ancien regime.

After over 30 years, Egypt finally allowed, if allowed is the word, its State of Emergency to expire. This was one of the most hated institutions of the old order and it allowed the military to make arbitrary arrests and detentions. But shortly before the election a decree was issued to restore those same powers to the military.

Speaking of the election for president, it now appears that both sides have won. But it is equally true that neither has won. After all, the term "presidency" has been redefined. The courts dissolved parliament's lower house, and guess who will now take the responsibility for defining the presidency?

Was it all a mirage? Does the Arab Spring wither in the sweltering Cairo summer? After all Egypt sets the trend for the Arab world. Or is it a sign of a desperate military establishment scrambling to protect its interests, but fated to succumb to gravity?

Please Excommunicate Me!

Seriously, what does it take to get excommunicated from the Catholic Church these days? Is it enough, as an organization officially aligned with the Church, to be "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States..."? How about if such an organization were "using materials that 'do not promote church teaching' on family life and sexuality, for sometimes taking positions in opposition to the nation's bishops"? I am quoting here from Eyder Peralta's summary on NPR, which in turn refers to reporting by the Associated Press. They are telling the story of the Vatican's reprimand of an American group called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents most of the women under Catholic vows in the United States. The Vatican wrote eight pages in a review of the practices of the organization, and has set an archbishop to oversee a five-year reform. How about just re-assigning them to convents, and keeping a watch over the particularly radical feminists among them? A little bread and water couldn't hurt, as well. Is that too old-school, or doesn't the Vatican wield absolute power over the Catholic Church anymore?
And then, after the Vatican published its eight-page report, Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of a Catholic social justice lobbying group, stated publicly, "When you don't work everyday with people who live at the margins of our society, it's so much easier to make easy statements about who's right and who's wrong. Life is way more complicated in our society and it's probably way easier to be 8,000 miles away in Rome." She believes that "leadership doesn't know how to deal with strong women and so their way is to try and shape us into whatever they think we should be (sic)."
Is this the new, twenty-first-century, politically-correct Church? Why aren't these women excommunicated already!? Or at the very least, why aren't they released from their vows, and set free to make their own ways in the world, espousing gay rights, health-plan-provided birth control, and radical feminism to their hearts' contents? Frankly, I'm disappointed in the Church. Isn't the point of a hierarchical structure the clarity of policy it provides? How could these women have been confused about the Church's stand on social issues?
Campbell's further statement that the Vatican is used to a monarchy and that American nuns are living in a democracy brought to mind a wonderful irony. Henry VIII of England broke with Rome five hundred years ago, and ever since then, England has looked askance at Catholics, and feared that they were ruled not by their lawful monarchs, but by the pope in Rome. They believed that people would place their loyalty to religion above patriotism. Now these women religious are placing their nationalistic feelings before their sworn vows to Rome. It seems the Anglicans were wrong, and people are more faithful to their national spirit.
In my opinion, the Vatican, 8,000 miles away, can't hold the Catholics in America anymore. Benedict's Church and the church of many Catholic Americans who espouse a far more liberal and less doctrinal approach are miles apart, and this schism, as schism it has become, should be officially acknowledged in a peaceful separation of the two groups. How does 'American Catholic Church' sound?

So Long Baby Boy

Rick 'Baby Boy' Santorum is unremarkable in many ways, but he is Mitt Romney's chief rival for the GOP nomination and he does give you that creepy feeling that maybe, just maybe, some evil Balrog is stirring deep in the bowels of the earth.

Main exhibit: His remarks on JFK's classic speech on the separation of church and state. In a speech five months ago he blasted Kennedy:

Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.

In the heat of the nomination battle, after is triple win in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri in February, he doubled down:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.

Should we be worried that Jefferson's wall of separation is crumbling? I think not. In spite of this regressive strain, Americans are publicly more comfortable in their religious or non-religious skins than they once were. So rather than parsing his arguments, I would rather note the ironies of the situation. It is after all, the same politician who led the attack on President Obama's HHS rule on contraception crying for "religious liberty". But JFK's speech broke new ground for the liberty of Catholics and people of other faiths to pursue political office. The ironies don't end there.

Santorum is Catholic. But the vast majority of Catholic voters do not like him (he lost the Catholic vote in Illinois to Mitt Romney by 23 points). He stands instead on the same ground as the Catholic clergy, but is seen as more "severe" than them. Speaking of which, he does in fact have close ties with Opus Dei, the Catholic sect that trains ascetic albino assassins.

Instead Santorum courts born-again Christian conservatives, many of whom share his view that religion should play a larger role in determining public policy. How many? Apparently not enough to win a nomination.

In the closer coordination of church and state, the presumption is that the church would prevail. Moreover the "right" church (or beliefs) would prevail. Certainly, Islam would not be included as part of this righteous church. Indeed, their view is that Islam is a thinly tolerated scourge. It is also assumed that non-religious and anti-religious people would not push religion to the margins as in parts of Europe (eg, laïcité).

So why do I call Rick Santorum my 'Baby Boy'? I am not really sure actually. But perhaps it is to indulge in a further irony with this term of endearment.

Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It

I heard an interesting thing this week in response to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in San Francisco striking down the California constitutional ban on gay marriage.

"The 9th Circuit decision yesterday said, if you believe in traditional marriage between a man and a woman and exclusively that, it's because you are a bigot. Your belief of marriage between a man and a woman is purely irrational based on hatred and bigotry. That's what they just wrote", said Rick Santorum to a crowd in Texas.

Wow! I thought. He hit that right on the nose. It's unheard-of for conservatives to admit to their own discriminatory sense of so-called morality so bluntly. Isn't that quite the wrong thing for a presidential candidate to do, though? I mean, these things do go out to the rest of the country.

Okay, it turns out that he was actually putting those words into the mouths of the Obama Administration. I'm not sure how anyone in the executive branch is supposed to come into an opinion written by the 9th Circuit, unless Santorum means to make an accusation of impropriety. It is a serious thing to question the impartiality of a sitting judge, and I certainly hope he does not mean that. He can't even mean the usual thing, since Judge Reinhardt, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge panel, was appointed by Jimmy Carter (Hawkins was appointed by Clinton, and N.R. Smith by Bush).

So, really, it looks like Santorum is accusing the Administration of being a bunch of haters in this particular case. They may be haters in general, and wont to celebrate victories of the progressive agenda over the conservative element, but I just don't get how bringing the Administration into a judicial opinion issued in California is anything but the whining of a partisan whose cause lost a fairly-fought battle.

As a sidenote, it turns out that the opinion merely points to the Fourteenth Amendment in this particular case, since marriage was a right that belonged to gays in California previous to 2008. The Amendment says that no state shall abridge the privileges of citizens. Using a simple Command-F search, I was able to determine that the word 'bigot' does not appear in the opinion as issued, so I'm not sure where Santorum gets that 'that's what they just wrote' crack. The only legal venue which remains for this appeal is the Supreme Court.

As a side-sidenote, there is a James R. Browning on the bench in the 9th Circuit who was appointed in 1961 by Kennedy. I make that fifty years he's been a judge. Adding twenty to twenty-five years for golden youth, and a bit of legal practice somehow before he donned the robe, that makes Judge Browning ...a vampire, surely! Someone from Santorum's campaign should really be looking into this...