Katrina

Katrina is a natural disaster beyond the likes of which we have seen in this country for along, long time. It has reduced a great city to a lake and thrown several states into third-world condiitions.

Relief efforts have been stymied by a lack of rescue personnel (caused in part by the number of them serving in Iraq), equipment (the same), general chaos at the disaster site, and widespread apathy at the top.

This didn't have to happen. People in new orleans and Louisiana new that the levees were vulnerable and needed reinforcing. But Bush slahed their budget to free up money for Iraq and Homeland Security. I think preventing your cities from being submerged in water counts as homeland security, but what do I know?

To fill the void, many groups have sprung into action. but are still in desperate need of assistance. Visit Smiling Neocon's blog for a list of major organizations helping with the cause.

By far the boldest response to the disaster came from Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, still fresh in the public eye after Pat robertson's now-infamous call for his assassination. Since that incident, Chavez had been increasing his efforts to get good PR in America, first by offering discounted heating oil and eye operations to America's economically disadvantaged. Now, he has pledged $1 million as well as food, fuel, and aid workers to help the hurricane victims. "It's a terrible tragedy that our North American brothers are living through," Chavez said. "We have a battalion from our Simon Bolivar humanitarian team ready in case they authorize it for us to go there, if they give us the green light." Thus far, the U.S. has not accepted any Venezuelan aid, dismissing such unsolicited offers as 'counterproductive.'

Whatever you think about the man, he has chutzpah to spare.

In my opinion, this hurricane is worse than 9/11. There is more devestation, more chaos, and more harm to our economy. The price of gas has been surging, and there's no telling when it will abate, or what the U.S. might do to bring the price down.

It lays bare how this government views its citizens, leaving thousands trapped in the sweltering heat without food or clean water while Bush stays on vacation, only returning to the White House after the negative publicity became untenable. If anyone thinks the government's indifference and the fact that New Orleans has a 28% poverty rate are unconnected, I don't buy it. The middle and upper classes were evacuated at the start; the poor were left behind. The people of Louisiana and Mississippi won't forget this, and I hope we won't fogret them.

UPDATE: The U.S. has agreed to accept Venezuela's offer of aid. I guess sanity wins out over pride eventually.

The Scoop that Wasn't

Here I was, all set to give this blog its first-ever journalistic coup: the announcement that Charles Baker, CEO of the Harvard Pilgrim HMO in Massachusetts, was going to run for governor on the Republican ticket. I had gotten this information from what I thought was a reliable source, so I called up Harvard Pilgrim and managed to arrange an interview with Mr. Baker, but, an hour before the interview was to take place, his secretary called and informed me he wasn't running after all. No candidate, no story.

So, as long as I'm posting, I might as well put in a good word for one of my favorite online entertainments: vivalavoce.com

Almost all classical music radio stations in the U.S. are too gutless to play vocal music of any kind, much less a complete song cycle or opera. Finally, with vivalavoce, you can get 24 hours of classical song a day. It's free, the musical selections are diverse, and the quality is excellent.

I'll have a real post sometime soon.

Ask the Ayatollah

His Hounarable Eminence Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani is the spiritual leader of many Iraqi Shia, an Islamic scholar, one of the major forces behind the US eventually allowing elections (as opposed to the caucuses originally planned), and, according to his official web site sistani.org "He is known for his intelligence and plentiful researching activities in biographies."

Also available on his web site is an invaluable Q&A section, in which Sistani answers questions sent in by muslims who are unsure of the proper way to act.

Some of these questions are straightforward:

Q: Can she take medicines, which would help her in conceiving?

A: It is permissible if the doctor [makes the proper] diagnoses.

Some are bizzare:

Q: What is your ruling about cat's hair on a person's dress during salat?

A: Cat's hair does not invalidate prayer.

And some suffer from a bad translation:

Q: Is it allowed to eat at a restaurant its staff are of different religions?

A: It is permissible as long as you do not know a non-Kitabi Kafar touches it with an epidemic wet.

Shockingly enough, the Ayatollah allows birth control:

Q: Some women wish to avoid pregnancy, but their husbands want (them to get pregnant). How do they prevent the onset of pregnancy? By using pills, injections or the cleansing of the vagina after intercourse?

A: All of these are permissible if they do not entail substantial harm to her.

Abortion in certain cases:

Q: My wife seems to be one or two weeks pregnant and we already have four children. We don't want any more children. Under what circumstances is an abortion allowed?

A: Having abortion after the embryo gains life is not permissible under any circumstances. Abortion before the embryo gains life is not permissible except for when mother’s health is at risk or when it leads to an insufferable sickness for her; if so, there would be no objection in having abortion. However, he who is directly involved in the abortion surgery (i.e. a surgeon) must pay diyah (blood money) to the parents and they can forgive.

Apparently Muslims can eat shrimp(!):

Question: I want to know which sea animals are halal and which ones are not?

Answer: Of all sea animals only those are halal that have scales, the rest are haram except for the shrimp which is halal too.

And even get tattooes and engage in sodomy. But not, (God forbid) the wickedness of chess or 'black gammon':

Q: Is playing chess and black gammon, without betting, permissible?

A: It is not permissible to play both... because [they are] a means for debauchery.

I know it's not quite right to mock other people's religious beliefs, especially when Sistani is not as medieval in his attitudes as certain well-known religious leaders in America. And while the Ayatollah can be evasive sometimes, let's, uh, pray that he continues to be a positive force for Iraqi democracy.

Why Do They Hate Us? (Hint: It's Not the Freedom)

Not long ago a certain Gordon from Cranky Neocon wrote me an e-mail:

I have a sincere question for you. I'm listening to a Talk Radio program (I know, big surprise). Our morning guy is Micheal Smerconish and he is surprizingly moderate for a.m. radio. ANYWAY, he has this book author on whose name eludes me. But the point it that this author says he winces whenever he hears that the only motivation of the Islamists is that they detest freedom. Then he goes on to say something I've heard frequently from the Left and that is that U.S. foreign policy is partially to blame. Problem is, he never went any further than that.

Now, you are actually involved in politics and well read in these matters. So, what is it that America does that makes the Arab world hate us? Does the average Arab in the street get roughed up by CIA operatives? Do we build KFCs at gunpoint? I'm being serious. What, in your view, is the "root cause"?

I responded thusly:

Gordon,

Pardon if what follows is jumbled and incomplete. You given me a huge and complicated question.

But, to begin with, I might direct you to my recent post 'Dinar for the Guy?' in which I tried to explain the level of antipathy America currently receives from the Middle East. But, to recap, our troubles with the Middle East stem from four main interconnecting, overlapping causes:

1. Democracy (or lack thereof)

The Arab world (by which I assume you include Iran) does not 'hate America' in quite the way you think. Certainly we have a very different culture, but cultures across the Middle East tend to be as different as you'd expect to find among 300 million people. Rather, while many people admire the economic and political success of the United States and wish to emulate it, they believe that the US is standing in the way of their own progress. For decades past (and to a certain degree, even to this day) much of the democratic sentiment in the Middle East was tied up with Marxism. Bernard Lewis, author of What Went Wrong? even wrote a series of articles detailing how Arab cultures were all basically collectivist and thus our natural enemies. As a way to safeguard its own interests in the region, America supports a series of ultra-corrupt, undemocratic regimes from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan. The common justification for this is that, if democracy were allowed, a gang of theocrats would be swept in. I don't believe it; despite their portrayal in the Western media, most people in the Middle East are extremely skeptical of religion. The appeal of ultra-Islamist groups and parties stems from the fact that they can say and do things other people can't, such as criticize the government and America. They're not supposed to, of course; they were supported by mostly secular dictators to fill the ignorant masses with religious fervor so that they can't pay attention to the injustices of their daily lives. At this point, of course, it's fair to say that such groups have gotten out of control. Yet they fill a void that calls for protest and change, even if ultra-Islamic law doesn't have much popular support. When people don't have good choices, they make bad ones.

2. Imperialism

Many Middle Easterners get outraged by what they see as the incredibly cynical and self-serving way America manipulates Middle Eastern politics with no regard for the well-being of the local populations. This includes the previously mentioned royal families and dictators, but a few of the more recent and vivid examples:

With Iraq, once the CIA helped overthrow the leftist government of Abdul Qassim and pave the way for the Baathists to come to power, and the emergence of Saddam Hussein didn't phase our support for the Baathist regime one bit. We gave him money, weapons, poison gas, just because he was fighting against the Iranians - though we were giving them weapons too, apparently in the hopes that the two countries would devastate each other. When Saddam was going to invade Kuwait, he made sure he had George H. W. Bush's approval before doing so. Unfortunately for him, there was a massive and unexpected international outcry and Bush was forced to reverse himself and help drive Iraq out. In the 12 years that followed at least a half-millions Iraqis have died as a direct result of the sanctions and bombings, while ensuring that Saddam would stay in control despite considerable domestic unrest. Now, after we've gone in and deposed him, we still refuse to let the Iraqis run their own country, and our free-market approach to rebuilding their economy has proved to be a dismal failure.

In Afghanistan, the Marxist government was making great strides in education, secularizing public institutions, and expanding the rights of women. Once this government was overthrown by the Soviet Union, Reagan decided that he'd rather see a gang of crazy religious fundamentalists - including a certain Mr. bin Laden - take control than those godless Commies who happened to be struggling against those other Godless Commies. The invasion of 2001 was easily accomplished, and with good reason - the military arm of the Taliban was mostly the creation of the Pakistani military, and once they allied with us the jig was up. Hamid Karzai was installed from outside by us and was later 'elected' via a process tightly controlled by the warlords who still hold sway over almost all of the country outside Kabul. In fact, in an effort to grant Mr. Karzai some legitimacy, the U.S. has recently made some diplomatic gestures towards - who? - the Taliban, who have emerged from the mountains, shaved their beards, and are now seeking to become part of a pro-US coalition government.

3. Oil

The people of oil-rich countries believe (correctly, I think) that the revenue from such a valuable resource is rightfully theirs. Instead, it goes into the pockets of bloated strongmen who continue feeding the West's voracious appetite for petroleum. Countries like Brunei and Saudi Arabia keep the population more or less under control by not collecting taxes and handing out generous welfare payments to everybody. But this is not constructive welfare as a good social democracy would have; this is just bribery to keep people quiet. When any attempt - socialist or capitalist - is made to put more economic power in the hands of the general population, it is instantly suppressed as a threat to state power, and the U.S. gives its full assent.

4. Israel and anti-Semitism

Before the end of WWII, there very little anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, especially when compared to Europe and America. After 1948, when the great nationalist and pan-Arabic movements began, there was an effort to free the Islamic world of 'imperialist influence' from Europe and the US. Once the secular nationalist movements died down and the current system of oil-dictators and their attendant clerics began to take power, they needed an enemy to focus people away from their current miseries and onto something conveniently foreign.

Israel was the natural choice. It was non-Muslim, backed by American power, most of its citizens were interlopers from other parts of the world, and it had made hundreds of thousands (later millions) of Palestinians into stateless refugees. The fact that it explicitly billed itself as 'the Jewish state' put it apart from the rest of the Islamic world, and The situation wasn't helped by a long Israeli PR campaign to equate Israel with the Jewish people, and thus any criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitism. It worked a bit too well; 'Israel is the Jews' was repeated so many times a lot of people started to believe it.

Concern for the Palestinians is, on the official level, mostly for show, but quite genuine among the lower masses of society. Whether you think the occupation is justified or not on the grounds of Israeli security, it still deprives millions of Palestinians of their civil, economic, and political rights. Yasir Arafat was an absurdly corrupt, awful leader, but he didn't create the situation.

Israel may be 'the only democracy in the Middle East' (as is often repeated), but this is simply because the US hasn't seen fit to overthrow it like every other would-be popularly elected government in the region. If we ever feel our interests are threatened by Israel, their democracy will be gone before you can say "Moshe Dayan".

That being said, at this point, no sane person is going to suggest that Israel either simply melt away or accept the millions of refugees back into Israel proper. Once the Palestinian issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the Palestinians (and, of course, the Israelis) the one trump card in the deck of the quislings will be played, and there will be no one left to blame but themselves.

Now, let me be clear on a number of things. There is no excuse for anti-Semitism, for abuse of women, for killing civilians, or for committing terrorism. I am not trying to absolve the culprits of such crimes of their responsibility, I am merely trying to illustrate how American actions have exacerbated and encouraged them. I have sufficient faith in Arabic (and Persian and Kurdish) humanity and desire for freedom to let them choose their own path. As a neo-conservative, you claim to be trying to spread democracy around the world. If this is the case, then you must believe that the Arabs have the capacity to be free also. I think it's time they had the chance.



This far, Mr. Gordon has thanked me for my efforts but not yet posted my response on his own blog. Even so, here it is.

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.