Senator Sanders?

The House of Representatives can be a frustrating place. Most people there have no power and receive zero press coverage, at least until they screw up somehow. On the upside, it's also a safe, comfortable haven of incumbency wherefourth-tier party hacks can live out their lives in peace, obscurity, and interns.

Due to the anonymous nature of the place, it's hard for someone to make a name fo themselves. One way to do it is to one of two Independents serving in American national office. In the Senate, it's Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords. In the House, it's... Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders.

Those who follow Sanders' career will know him as the upstart Independent who won the mayorship of Burlington back 1981 and quickly gained popularity through his dynamic program of urban renewal. He lost races for Governor in 1986 and Representative in 1988, but won a House seat in 1990, where he's been ever since. In the House, he founded the Progressive Caucus, which now counts 54 members.

With the recent announcement that Jeffords would retire in 2006, Sanders emerged as the leading left-wing candidate to replace him. If he wins, it will make him the only unabashed socialist in the Senate, instead of the only unabashed socialist in the House.

While his sense of style may be lacking, his prospects for election are looking pretty good. According to polls, he leads all likely opponents by at leadt 2 to 1, and consistently ranks as the most popular politician in the state. Since he already caucuses with the Democrats, they see no reason to challenge him. Howard Dean has indicated that he will not put a candidate up against Sanders, paving the way for an easier victory against any Republican opposition. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer have also announced their support for him. When asked if allowing a self-proclaimed socialist to be part of their caucus might hurt the Democrats, Saners replied:

Afraid of being red-baited? I’m being red-baited already. Everybody in Vermont knows that I’m a democratic socialist. It’s so well known that nobody talks about it anymore. But suddenly, now all over the national media, it’s socialist, socialist, socialist. Believe me, they’ll be talking about the Socialist-Democratic Caucus if I’m elected. Of course the Republicans and the corporate media are going to red-bait me. The Republican Party is so bankrupt in terms of ideas that they have nothing to say on health care, the economy, education, the environment or the real issues that affect the American people. All they can do is wage smear campaigns and wars of personal destruction. Do we expect that? Of course we do.

Full disclosure: my dad once helped organize a conference about health care reform with then-Congressman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sanders. The great Ron Wyden, however, refused to stand at the same stage as that collectivist Jew, while Mr. Sanders behaved with great dignity and respect.

Here's the best to you, Bernie, with the hopes that you will continue to be the eloquent voice for social justice and democratic principles that you've always been.

Dinar for the Guy?

In early November, 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for plotting to explode several tons of gunpowder beneath the British Parliament building. When asked his motives - which me made no secret of - Fawkes claimed that he wanted to kill King James I and destroy Parliament for (among other things) their persecution of Catholics, as well as to be revenged on the Scottish nobles for their betrayal of the Scottish people they had left behind. He also said that, on the day the gunpowerd was to be ignited, he fully intended to stay behind and make sure everything worked out, assuring his own death.

In modern parlance, Fawkes would undoubtably be a terrorist, and a suicide bomber at that. Yet no one says he was inspired by hatred of the Protestant way of life; it was the Protestant hatred of the Catholics that did it for him. Simply because his means were terroristic doesn't make his grievances invalid. Even today, some Catholics continue to celebrate Guy Fawkes for his efforts to strike back against their persecution.

In a video released on Augist 4th, al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri stated that "Your salvation will only come in your withdrawal from our land, in stopping the theft of our oil and resources, and in stopping your support for the corrupt and corrupting leaders."

Well, few Middle East scholars would disagree that the West in general and the U.S. in particular exert a negative influence on Middle Eastern society. The lapdog regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc. are among the most corrupt and repressive in the world, and exist solely on U.S. support.

Of course, they are not bin Laden's lands, or al-Qaeda's, or any one group of people's; bin Laden cannot possibly speak for all Muslims or all residents of the Middle East. He and his cohorts offer no positive alternative, but only (to borrow Tariq Ali's phrase) "a nightmare Pax Talibana".

It is not 'appeasement' to do something simply because bin Laden says he supports some aspects of it in theory. Besides, allowing Arabic self-rule without foreign coercion is the last thing he wants; his fundamentalist message would be powerless against a genuinely free and democratic system. For example: before the American invasion of Afghanistan, the radical Islamist parties never received more than 5% or 6% of the vote in Pakistan. After the invasion, their support shot up. Why? Because the US-backed Pakistani government supressed all other criticism of their government or ours, cutting off any chance of a secular, democratic movement taking hold. But they couldn't totally silence the far-right clerics because Musharaff (along with many Arabic leaders) had an understanding that the clerics would use religion to keep the commoners in line while the dictators used the army to keep the elites in line. Now, of course, the fundamentalists have gotten out of control. Who could've seen that coming?

If the US wished, it could make its puppet governments do practically anything in the way of electoral reform or allowing personal freedom. This, however, is viewed as a bad idea. Give people a little freedom, and all they want is more. That's the last thing we want to happen in the Middle East.

If the Middle East is going to be prosperous and democratic, it will not be under the control of America. Partly because so much of the secular, democratic sentiment in the region is tied up with Marxism, and partly because nobody likes being ordered around by gas-guzzlers across the sea. That is a fact we will simply have to deal with if we ever want peace and stability to reign in that region.

Four hundred years hence, I doubt that Osama bin Laden will have become a Muslim folk hero (or, at least, I hope not). Let's not make him into one.

The Ballroom or the Streets

Not long ago I was dragged by a certain female member of my family to see 'Mad Hot Ballroom', a charming documentary about a mandatory afternoon ballroom dance program in certain New York public schools, all provided and staffed by the American Ballroom Theater's Dancing Classrooms. This leads up to a citywide dance competition in which the underdogs come out on top. At least, for this movie.

It's a wonder these dance lessons ever got taught. The sense in America is that extracirricular programs, especially those in the arts, are just that - extras, and unnecessary. Why bother teaching these poverty-stricken immigrant kids to dance the foxtrot, even if it will improve their lives? The only solution social conservatives ever offer is 'two-parent families'. The fact remains is that you can't mandate two parents when there is only one, or replace the parents if both are gone. Besides, you can have a dozen parents and it won't cure all ills in a school district with a 97% poverty rate like Washington Heights.

Politically, this opposition to creative expression is not hard to understand. Few if any noteworthy artists have been uncritical admirers of the status quo, and the ascendant right-wing philosophy views 'art' as pleasant, soothing sounds and images without meaning behind them. Anything, be it music, writing, theater, painting, sculpture, or dance which causes people to be upset with the current order of things is to be discouraged.

This phillistine mindset continues even after the kids are all grown up, and supposedly have more sophisticated tastes. The ugly little fact is that culture is not profitable. The public arts budget for the city of Berlin is greater than that for the entire U.S. Anyone in England can go and see the opera for ten pounds. The entire NEA is equivalent to one fighter jet.

This isn't simply a matter of pedants whining that no one appreciates Mozart anymore. There's a wealth of evidence suggesting that involvement with after-school programs, especially those of an artistic nature, can help enormously in achieving academic success and reduce rates of truancy, drug use, teen pregnancy, and most other ills that people pretend are new. But too many people had already given up on these children as soon as they were born, and the opportunity is usually not given.

Arts are the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. If they die, our society dies with them, and our consumerist culture has precious little to replace it with.

Cartesian Political Diagrams

Are you a self-described 'moderate'? Of course you are. Who isn't? Put that idea to the test with the Political Compass, and see where you stand.

I scored a -8.00 on Economics and a -7.08 on Authoritarianism, making me part of the Libertarian Left.

Your turn.

VooDoo Geopolitics

Hey, anyone remember Jean-Bertrand Aristide? Former president of Haiti who was forced out, then restored by Clinton, then forced out again?

It seems he's still a political force on the island; so much so that his supporters are often killed for demanding his return, and then their family members put his picture on the bodies of their loved ones.

Back in 1994, President Clinton hailed Aristide's return as "the triumph of freedom over fear". Certainly the mean wasn't ideal; corruption and violence were common aspects of his regime, just as they have been for every Haitian government since the 19th century. But he was democratically elected, his alleged crimes are nothing next to the proven crimes of the gangsters running the country now, and the military junta that had held sway over Haiti for so long was finally broken. So why aren't we rushing to help him again?

Aristide currently lives in exile in South Sfrica. When asked why he lost American support, he offers three basic reasons: "Privatization, privatization, and privatization."

Back in 1994, when Aristide had already been overthrown by a US-backed coup in 1991, Clinton agreed to lend the exiled leader military support so long as he promised to embark on a policy of 'free trade' and sell off Haiti's publicly-owned utilities. Aristide swallowed most of the deal, but refused to simply privatize everything without the approval of parliament. When parliament declined to grant that permission entirely, mandating anti-trust legislation and providing each worker with a certain amount of stock, Washington went berserk. $500 million in promised loans were cut off, and money was poured into opposition groups, ultimately culminating in the February 2004 coup that drove Aristide from power again.

What has replaced him is chaos and brutality that Papa Doc would've been proud of. Despite the constant attacks, murders, extortions, and myriad other threats, the protests remain strong. Even today, crowds of Haitians fill the slums of Port-au-Prince calling for Aristide's return, protesting the privatization scheme and attackiong the proposed sham elections. Robert Noriega, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, has said that these pro-Aristide groups are receiving their orders directly from the man himself. Aristide disagrees, saying:

The people are bright, the people are intelligent, the people are courageous. They know that two plus two does not equal five.

Maybe; but have you seen our test scores, Jean-Bertrand? Math has never been America's strong suit.