Theocracy Round-Up

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


America is not a theocracy — thank god.

And Happy Easter, if you celebrate it!

Those statements aren't in the least bit contradictory, and that's part of the point of the Blog Against Theocracy weekend, which will be (officially) concluding today. Most of all, Blog Against Theocracy celebrates our wonderful First Amendment. The website lists a bevy of participating bloggers.

As it turns out, I wrote several pieces about the authoritarian religious right and theocracy activists in the month prior to Blog Against Theocracy.

"The Social Tolerance Charts" examines the claims of intolerant people that opposing their intolerant political agenda is somehow umm, intolerant:

As the Declaration of Independence states, all men (and women) are created equal. Religious theocrats and other authoritarian conservatives wish to upend the core principles of our country’s founding to impose the rule of Animal Farm: Some are more equal than others. Let’s be honest — intolerant people can be extremely obnoxious. But tolerant people uphold the principle that ‘I may hate what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.’ (In contrast, intolerant people will fight for you to burn in hell.) Ironically, intolerant groups use their freedom to try to strip it from others, and seek to destroy the foundations of the very system that grants them freedom. Part of the price of a free society is that intolerant people must get their say — if they did not, their cause would win even if their individual group did not. However, the best way to oppose dangerous speech is to speak out one’s self.

"The Religion-in-Society Charts" is a long piece examining the rhetoric of religious authoritarians in greater detail:

The essential point to remember is that the religious right and other theocrats are not seeking justice, fairness, or equality. They are seeking privilege and power. Furthermore, religious right leaders already possess privilege and power over their followers. They are seeking to expand that power over those not in their group, and over the government and society itself.

[...]

On this note, the authoritarians of the Christian religious right are not merely trying to share their faith. Their approach seeks to strip others of choice, even though this contradicts their own faith’s tenets about the primacy of human choice (choosing the good, choosing God, choosing to do good works, repentance, etc.). As noted in our social tolerance discussion, they feel people cannot be trusted to choose anything for themselves, because then they might choose something the authoritarians don’t want. Part of the social contract in America is that other people are allowed to do things you may not like, just as the reverse is true. Many of the religious right believe in American exceptionalism and would consider themselves patriots. The central lie of the religious right is that anyone who opposes them is anti-religious. In truth, on a systemic level, the religious right are anti-American.

"The Case for Writing More Accurately About Religion" dissects David van Biema's cover story for Time, "The Case for Teaching the Bible." While van Biema's heart seems to be in the right place, he fails to acknowledge that America is not a theocracy and also propagates false stereotypes of liberals being ignorant of the Bible while conservatives are devout.

"The Conservative Brain Trust Takes On: Freedom of Religion!" examines how three members of The Corner at the National Review Online demonstrate staggering ignorance of (or possibly disdain for) the First Amendment and the rule of law.

Highlighting positive discussions about faith and religion are "On Faith and PostGlobal," "Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason" and "A Way to Talk About Religion."

Finally, here's the VS categories for Blog Against Theocracy, the religious right, authoritarians, religion, and faith.

Meanwhile, here's the Blue Herald categories for the
separation of church and state, the religious right and religion.

(For the next post in this series, "Religion and Poetry," click here.)

How Many Deities Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


(Graphic designed by Liz Ditz at I Speak of Dreams. This is the second in a series of posts for the Blog Against Theocracy weekend. Thanks again to Blue Gal and the others who spearheaded this, and are posting the links. Check out the Blog Against Theocracy site for a variety of posts!)

Trading Dialogue for Lodging

Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wandering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.

In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The older one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.

A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teaching. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.

So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.

Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."

"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.

"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.

"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.

"I understand you won the debate."

"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."

"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.

"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"

— A Zen story, as told by Paul Reps in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

When I first read this story as a teenager, I laughed. It may be a Zen story, but it follows a classic joke structure. There are forms of humor that rely on laughing at someone else's suffering, but I've always felt the truth is funny. Our own foibles are funny. Recognizing our own flaws in another can be a epiphany, and funny. Few things connect people stronger than a shared sense of humor, that sideways knowing glance and smile. Religious authoritarians typically have little to no sense of humor, and it's one of many reasons I question their spiritual wisdom, for all their ostentatious, competitive displays of piety. If someone can't laugh, I can't believe he or she speaks for God.

In this Zen story, two monks view the same events in radically different ways. Similarly, I find the story funny, but others may not. What I find wonderful about Freedom of Religion, the First Amendment and the separation of church and state is the multiplicity of viewpoints it allows. Socially, America has its cultural pressures, but legally, it can be viewed as both pro-religion and pro-atheist (or at least, neutral). One person might see providence in the fall of a sparrow, but another may see a dead bird (and a cat may see lunch). I know devoutly religious people who are among the most original, independent thinkers I've ever met, and I know atheists who are among the most moral. As a religion teacher I heard once put it, "There are many paths up the mountain." Many of those paths involve some sort of spirituality, some involve religion, and some involve atheism or agnosticism.

I believe in a path that appreciates comedy. I believe in reverent irreverence. In a free society, anyone is free to laugh at someone else. However, a sign of maturity and security is the ability to laugh at one's self, one's own beliefs — and one's religion. Christianity is the dominant religion in America. It's not necessary to believe in the divinity of Jesus to think he was wise — Thomas Jefferson actually rewrote the Gospels to remove all supernatural elements but preserve Jesus' teachings. Revering Jesus also doesn't preclude valuing the wisdom of Buddha, or Mohammed... or Socrates and Hannah Arendt, for that matter. There's a world of difference between laughing at a god, or religion, and laughing at religious people. (Personally, I'm down with Jesus, it's the tartuffes I can't stand.)

As much as I appreciate America's Freedom of Religion, I also love another part of the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech. Here's some of the best comedy clips I could find dealing with religion. To kick it off, here's Lewis Black:



Here's George Carlin:



Here's Eddie Izzard, on the founding of the Church of England:



Here's the great stoning scene for The Life of Brian:



And here's that unforgettable final song:



In my book, false prophets, authoritarians and idiots deserve mockery, however gentle, just as kindness and wisdom deserve celebration. When met with intolerance, one can get angry, and there are times that may be necessary. However, in other cases, it's best just to laugh. Consider this poll given last March by Gene Weingarten during one of his weekly chats. After the furor over the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed, an Iranian newspaper announced it would run a Holocaust-denial cartoon contest. An Israeli cartoonists' society responded — but running an "anti-Semitic cartoon contest." I find that brilliant, wise and sublime. Then there's the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, young Arab (and Persian!) comics. Laughter knows no denomination or ethnicity, and can be crude, or mean, but it can also embody self-knowledge, connection, redemption and forgiveness. After all, to err is human — but to laugh, divine.

(To read the next entry in this series, "Theocracy Round-Up," click here.)

The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Blessed are the comedians. On 4/2/07, Fresh Air featured an interview by Terry Gross with members of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (here's them in 2006 on All Things Considered). The Fresh Air interview is well worth a listen. Here's their website and here's their DVD.

Here's a short CNN segment on them:



Here's a brief segment by one of the comics, Maz Jobrani:



Here's Ahmed Ahmed:



Here's one of the guest stars, Dean Obeidallah:



Here's my favorite segment, from Aron Kader:



Honestly, some of the jokes fall flat for me, but many are pretty damn funny, and I'm very glad to see young Arab comedians out there.

Finally, here's another group, The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour. Enjoy!

False Equivalencies

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Several recent posts have touched on false equivalency, perhaps the most persistent, pernicious mistake perpetrated by the press. Although the post Color Commentary was undertook partially in jest, on political issues, the typical media formula is to present a Republican and a Democrat, let them both have their say, and leave it at that. The problem is this is socially or politically equitable, but has absolutely nothing to do with veracity and accuracy. As The Bullshit Matrix explored, anyone who lies with some cleverness has an advantage in most political arenas, because the press typically won't call them on it. It would be impolite, the correction can be attacked as partisan, and it might cost the reporter a source or two. In such an environment, the truth can easily be muddied or obscured. The public may also labor under the assumption that "surely the Vice President wouldn't lie about such an important matter!" Alternatively, a cynical viewer might say, "all politicians are liars!" which is another pernicious form of false equivalency. Not all participants are equally honorable, honest or accurate. If the press does not fact-check, it does a grave service to their viewers/readers, and abets liars and bullshitters.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." As I've seen others note, if speaker one comes on and says 2+2=4, and speaker two, a hack, says 2+2=8, the press' default approach is to suggest 2+2=6. Issues exist where there are simply legitimate differences of opinion or where judgment is ultimately subjective. However, on factual matters, that's not the case. On matters of science in particular, there's no reason not to say 2+2=4, or at the very least explain that the overwhelming number of scientist hold that 2+2=4 (and if necessary, why that's the case).

The national discourse on global warming and man-made climate change may have improved in the past couple years, but it remains badly skewed. The debate has not centered on Democrats and Republicans arguing about what to do about global warming, a legitimate policy issue. Instead, the conflict has been between reality and fantasy, with many Republicans simply denying empirical facts, much as tobacco executives used to say that no scientific proof existed to show that cigarettes were harmful to one's health.

In the New York Review of Books piece "The Threat to the Planet," (7/13/06) James Hansen reviewed three books on climate change as well as the film An Inconvenient Truth (one of the books was by Al Gore, written to accompany the film). Hansen is described as "Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute." Highly informative, Hansen's piece also offers this insight into media coverage (emphasis mine):

Why are the same scientists and political forces that succeeded in controlling the threat to the ozone layer now failing miserably to deal with the global warming crisis? Though we depend on fossil fuels far more than we ever did on CFCs, there is plenty of blame to go around. Scientists present the facts about climate change clinically, failing to stress that business-as-usual will transform the planet. The press and television, despite an overwhelming scientific consensus concerning global warming, give equal time to fringe "contrarians" supported by the fossil fuel industry. Special interest groups mount effective disinformation campaigns to sow doubt about the reality of global warming. The government appears to be strongly influenced by special interests, or otherwise confused and distracted, and it has failed to provide leadership. The public is understandably confused or uninterested.

I used to spread the blame uniformly until, when I was about to appear on public television, the producer informed me that the program "must" also include a "contrarian" who would take issue with claims of global warming. Presenting such a view, he told me, was a common practice in commercial television as well as radio and newspapers. Supporters of public TV or advertisers, with their own special interests, require "balance" as a price for their continued financial support. Gore's book reveals that while more than half of the recent newspaper articles on climate change have given equal weight to such contrarian views, virtually none of the scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals have questioned the consensus that emissions from human activities cause global warming. As a result, even when the scientific evidence is clear, technical nit-picking by contrarians leaves the public with the false impression that there is still great scientific uncertainty about the reality and causes of climate change.

The executive and legislative branches of the US government seek excuses to justify their inaction. The President, despite conclusive reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Sciences, welcomes contrary advice from Michael Crichton, a science fiction writer. Senator James Inhofe, chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, describes global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and has used aggressive tactics, including a lawsuit to suppress a federally funded report on climate change, to threaten and intimidate scientists.

Policies favoring the short-term profits of energy companies and other special interests are cast by many politicians as being in the best economic interests of the country. They take no account of the mounting costs of environmental damage and of the future costs of maintaining the supply of fossil fuels. Leaders with a long-term vision would place greater value on developing more efficient energy technology and sources of clean energy. Rather than subsidizing fossil fuels, the government should provide incentives for fossil-fuel companies to develop other kinds of energy.

Hansen describes a classic case of powerful interests opposing policies that would benefit the country as a whole. Part of the problem relates to Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's enduring concern about news programs' strong preference for using think tank pundits with a political agenda as opposed to academicians and scientists, who are typically more honest and focused on facts. It's a classic hack-wonk divide. On important, complex issues such as global warming, it's especially crucial that media outlets present the public true experts versus hacks. However, Hansen further describes news programs essentially being bullied into misleading the public in the name of "balance." This is a failure of courage and integrity. News programs don't need to play the game this way. Even if they are forced by those on high to present a contrarian, they can choose the framing, for instance pointing out that James Dobson is not a scientist and has no training in environmental matters, or that Bjorn Lomberg is an outlier, a scientist who disagrees with 10,000 other scientists on this issue or what not. An essential part of reporting is not only reporting facts, or soliciting opinions, but giving viewers the necessary context to properly judge facts and opinions for themselves.

CNN has used an approach that deals with some of these problems. The Situation Room on 8/24/06 presented an extended segment on Emergency Plan B. First to speak was Dr. Sanjay Gupta, their Senior Medical Correspondent, who explained that the drug prevents 90% of pregnancies if taken within 72 hours, and also explained how this actually works:

Now, the drug works one of two ways. First, it can stop ovulation or, second, if the egg has been fertilized, it increases the chance it won't attach to the uterus. Now, if the egg is already attached to the uterus, the pregnancy will not be affected. Now, critics have claimed it's tantamount to abortion. Proponents reject that and blame the three years it took to get it approved on political, not medical concerns.

Wolf Blitzer then kicked things to Congressional Correspondent Andrea Koppel, followed by White House Correspondent Elaine Quijano, who between them broke down the political landscape surrounding the drug. The program then moved to many other issues, but later returned to Emergency Plan B and stem cell research with a discussion segment featuring two men Blitzer had previously referred to as "experts":

BLITZER: Joining us now in our "Strategy Session," radio talk show host Bill Press and CNN political analyst, former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts.

In this Plan B decision, the morning-after contraception pill, in effect, Hillary Clinton came out with a strong statement: "While we urge the FDA to revisit placing age restrictions on the sale of Plan B, it is real progress that millions of American women will now have increased access to emergency contraception."

Women 18 and older can just go in and buy the pill. Seventeen- year-olds and under have to get a doctor's note.

J.C. WATTS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well...

(LAUGHTER)

WATTS: ... Wolf, I don't know what is the difference in, you know, harming the child the night or the day after. I still don't think that changes the debate. Those...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You think this is abortion?

WATTS: I do. I think -- I still don't think it changes the debate one bit.

I think those who are opposed to abortion are going to be opposed to this. Those who support abortion, they will like this decision, as -- as Senator Clinton said. It's abortion the day after.

So, it doesn't change the debate any. And I do. I agree that the FDA has made a huge mistake in this ruling.

BLITZER: The other side, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of -- For America, says, "The FDA's irresponsible action today takes those rights out of a parent's hands and gives them to ill-intentioned perpetrators."

Clearly, they're very unhappy with this FDA decision.

BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, you know, that's too bad, Wolf. I think this is a major breakthrough for American women.

And, J.C., it's hypocritical to be against abortion and to be against Plan B. We heard Sanjay Gupta, who knows more about this than you and I do, at the top of the show, say, if a woman is already pregnant, this does nothing. This is not an abortion pill. It's a contraceptive pill. It has been used safely by European women for years. It has been held up in this year only for -- in this country only for political reasons.

And what this pill is going to result in is fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions, which I thought -- is certainly my goal -- I thought was your goal, too.

WATTS: Well, it's ironic, Wolf, that we say it's a contraceptive, but you take it the morning after.

PRESS: So what?

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: You take one pill the day before. You can take one the morning after.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: It's a medical breakthrough.

WATTS: The morning after.

PRESS: It's a contraceptive.

WATTS: It's...

PRESS: And it's not funny.

WATTS: It...

PRESS: Three-and-a-half -- no.

WATTS: Bill, the bottom line is...

PRESS: It's...

WATTS: ... your mind is not going to be changed by this decision. Nor -- and nor is mine.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTS: I believe it's abortion. I believe it takes the life of a -- you don't. So...

PRESS: No, but I...

WATTS: ... that's the issue.

PRESS: ... would hope...

WATTS: That's the issue.

PRESS: But I would hope people who have strong beliefs would listen to the experts and listen to the facts.

As Sanjay said, three -- and he's the medical expert here, not you, not me -- three-and-a-half million unwanted pregnancies in this country. One-half of them could be eliminated because of this pill. I would think you would say...

BLITZER: All right.

PRESS: ... it's about time.

WATTS: But you want to listen...

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: ... to the experts on abortion, but you don't want to listen to the experts on the war that says that evil people are trying to kill us.

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: But you don't want to do anything about that.

Can "I'm rubber, you're glue" be far behind? Digby made a post of this painful exchange. (Digby also highlighted a great comment in the post thread: "Yesterday, they said life begins with conception. Today, they say life begins with intercourse. Tomorrow, they will tell us life begins with dinner and a movie.")

CNN did a good job by letting their doctor speak first, and also by laying out the political context of the drug before going to the political debate. This allowed for a hack-free zone for a good stretch, and is a wise approach — establish the facts first, then let the political folks argue about their significance.

However, CNN could have done several things better. Perhaps they could have asked Dr. Gupta to speak at greater length about the difference between an abortifacient such as RU-486 and forms of contraception such as Emergency Plan B. The "debate" segment probably shouldn't have come so far after the science segment. Blitzer definitely should not have introduced Watts and Press as "experts." While Press seems to have some common sense, Watts comes off as an idiot, and is certainly no "expert" on this subject. Most importantly, CNN could have hired a smarter conservative pundit. Is Watts really the best they could do? Did conservative cheer him on when they saw him, or did only a small minority of them do so? Having a conservative on cushions CNN from complaints of bias, but is the general public well served by a discussion of this caliber?

Molly Ivins summed up this dynamic perfectly back in 1987 (emphasis mine):

The American press has always had a tendency to assume the truth must lie exactly halfway between any two opposing points of view. Thus, if the press present the man who says Hitler is an ogre and the man who says Hitler is a prince, it believes it has done the full measure of its duty.

This tendency has been aggravated in recent years by a noticeable trend to substitute people who speak from a right-wing ideological perspective for those who know something about a given subject. Thus we see, night after night, on MacNeil/Lehrer or Nightline, people who don't know jack-shit about Iran or Nicarauga or arms control, but who are ready to tear up the peapatrch in defense of the proposition that Ronald Reagan is a Great Leader beset by com-symps. They have nothing to off in the way of facts or insight; they are presented as a way of keeping the networks from being charged with bias by people who are themselves replete with bias and resistant to fact. The justification for putting them on the air is that "they represent a point of view."

The odd thing about these television discussions designed to "get all sides of the issue" is that they do not feature a spectrum of people with different views on reality:

Rather, they frequently give us a face-off between those who see reality and those who have missed it entirely. In the name of objectivity, we are getting fantasyland.

Ivins was always great at calling bullshit. Perhaps in The Situation Room incident, it was obvious to viewers from the framing provided on the issue that Watts was an idiot. A pundit inadvertently invalidating his own bogus position certainly has some value — but most hacks seek to muddy the waters, and they often succeed. Not all ideas are created equal, and while different points of view should be presented — on issues where that's applicable — there is really no value in presenting a false equivalency between an informed opinion and a completely uninformed one. J.C. Watts was not on The Situation Room because he was an "expert" on Emergency Plan B, he was on because he was a Republican. Ideally, the viewer should be allowed to decide issues for him or herself, but the news program does need to provide the context to aid the viewer in forming an informed opinion. When it comes to empirical fact, there shouldn't be equal time for stupid people.

The sad reality is that, for many people, "the truth" is socially rather than empirically determined. For instance, an ugly peer pressure on global warming pervades the Republican side of the congressional aisle, so deeply entrenched it resembles Omertà. A recent Yale poll finds that 83% of Americans say global warming is a serious problem. In contrast (via Digby's good post Faith Based Straight Jacket), Jonathan Chait reports:

Only 13% of [congressional] Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved. As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are actually getting more skeptical. Al Gore's recent congressional testimony on the subject, and the chilly reception he received from GOP members, suggest the discouraging conclusion that skepticism on global warming is hardening into party dogma. Like the notion that tax cuts are always good or that President Bush is a brave war leader, it's something you almost have to believe if you're an elected Republican.

(Think Progress has a nice chart on the breakdown.)

Denying global warming has become a kind of shibboleth for Republicans. Perhaps most frightening is this article (via Howard Kurtz) from Gannett News Service that reports (emphasis mine):

WASHINGTON -- House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming -- but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.

"I said, 'John, I can't do that,' " Gilchrest, R-1st-Md., said in an interview. "He said, 'Come on. Do me a favor. I want to help you here.' "

Gilchrest didn't make the committee. Neither did other Republican moderates or science-minded members, whose guidance centrist GOP members usually seek on the issue. Republican moderates, called the Tuesday Group, invited Boehner to this week's meeting to push for different representation.

[...]

"Roy Blunt said he didn't think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming," Gilchrest said. "Right there, holy cow, there's like 9,000 scientists to three on that one."

What a bizarre, frightening situation, where membership in the club, or at least leadership, is contingent on the denial of objective reality. For some Republicans, it's doubtless an act. Take Philip Cooney, the energy industry lobbyist turned chief of staff for Bush's Council on Environmental Quality turned Exxon-Mobil employee. Speaking before Congress, Cooney admitted to changing climate reports to better fit Bush's corporate-pleasing policies. Furthermore, he did so with direction from Cheney's office. In sharp contrast to this calculated manipulation, consider the scene created by some other Republicans on Capitol Hill when Al Gore visited, as captured by Dana Milbank:

Al Gore, star of an Academy Award-winning film, was in town for a double feature on Capitol Hill yesterday. But instead of giving another screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," the former vice president found himself playing the Clarence Darrow character in "Inherit the Wind."

"You're not just off a little -- you're totally wrong," Joe Barton (Tex.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told the former vice president at a hearing on global warming yesterday morning.

"One scientist is quoted as saying, 'This is shrill alarmism,' " said Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.). The reviews only grew more savage when Gore crossed over to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the afternoon for a second hearing. "You've been so extreme in some of your expressions that you're losing some of your own people," announced Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the committee's ranking Republican and the man who has called man-made global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Inhofe informed Gore that scientists are "radically at odds with your claims." Displaying a photograph of icicles in Buffalo, Inhofe demanded: "How come you guys never seem to notice it when it gets cold? . . . Where is global warming when you really need it?"

Invoking the Scopes Monkey Trial (fictionalized as Inherit the Wind) actually fails to capture the full extremity of Inhofe's views, since at least Williams Jennings Bryan was relying on the Bible, whereas Inhofe merely plums the depths of his own lunacy. But how should the press handle such a situation? How should they handle idiots such as Inhofe, or people who believe that a jar of peanut butter disproves those uppity "evolutionists"? Milbank succeeds in crafting a good, informative piece by accurately describing Inhofe's own statements with a wry tone. However, outside The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, this sort of on-target critique tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Yet don't the people of Oklahoma deserve to know that their senator is a raving loon? Shouldn't every statement by Inhofe on global warming in the press be accompanied by something akin to a Surgeon's General's warning? "Warning: Ingesting Senator Inhofe's Beliefs is Hazardous to Your Intelligence"...? Inhofe's beliefs go beyond the eccentricities of Strom Thurmond referring to a microphone as "the machine," or the embarrassing cluelessness of Ted Stevens regulating the internet when he thinks it's a series of pneumatic tubes. Obviously, Inhofe's opinions matter not due to their merit or his knowledge, but because of his power. He's dangerous because of his position, and because in the political arena he's aggressively promoting his batshit crazy Weltanschauung.

It's a problem for the country that one of its senators is crazy (well, more than one), but it's a far bigger problem that many people don't know he's crazy, and the media bears a large part of the blame for this. As Bob Somerby reports at the Daily Howler, the public will be subjected to outlier scientists who claim that Mars is warming and that this disproves man-made climate change on Earth. The public will also have to deal with obfuscation from the likes of Fox News' conservative Brit Hume (emphasis in original):

KONDRACKE (3/21/07): Now, I have read the New York Times piece and I reread the New York Times piece, and basically what is says was that there disputes about certain facts in the Gore case. And one or them—one significant one—is this question of how high the sea level rise and it's not, it isn't insignificant. However, as to the question of a consensus, I mean the—Gore appeared before the American Geophysical Union and got a standing ovation.

HUME (exasperated, as always): Mort—

KONDRACKE: Just a second! The head of the National Academy of Science—today, I talked to him—pointed me in the direction of testimony that he's delivered before Congress, which says that there is an overwhelming consensus among his colleagues, and he is an earth scientist, that global warming is a fact, that man is responsible for it and that the sun is not responsible. There's been a lot of study—

HUME: But Mort, is—doesn't—isn't what, isn't scientific consensus what you turn to when you don't have scientific fact?

KONDRACKE: No.

HUME: In other words, you haven't established it?

KONDRACKE: No. No, the—

HUME: Well, is this scientific fact?

KONDRACKE: Look, how are we supposed to determine what scientific fact is—

HUME: Mort, that's what the scientific method is for. Let me move on to Nina, just to get her—

KONDRACKE: You get thousands of scientists and if they all agree—if 90 percent—

HUME: That's not science, Mort, that's a vote. That's an election.

After invoking the scientific method, Hume tries to dismiss the overwhelming findings of scientists as a matter of a "vote" based solely on opinion. As Somerby observes, this sort of blather is "less important when [it] happens on Fox. It’s more important when the New York Times does it" (and as Somerby shows in this series of posts, The New York Times sadly does similar things as well, most of all in the error-laden article Kondracke cites).

Global warming is a complex issue, and even an intelligent journalist may have difficulty explaining it (or an intelligent viewer may struggle to understand it all). The same will be true for many medical and scientific issues. That's one thing. However, the key problem on journalists' part is not a failure of knowledge, but a failure of nerve. Why else would the National Journal's James Barnes duck several questions from C-Span callers, and respond to one who doubted global warming even existed by saying: "As we see, global warming—there’s two views of this subject. It’s a hotly debated issue." As Somerby remarks:

Yes, we found it depressing to watch such perfect nonsense ignored by a major mainstream “journalist”—by a “journalist” who kept insisting that these callers’ howling ignorance shows that there are two sides to this story. It was depressing to see these citizens make the good-faith effort of calling C-SPAN, only to be blown off in this manner. (How are they supposed to know that what they’re being told elsewhere is wrong?) It was depressing to think of all the other C-SPAN viewers, who weren’t being told that these callers’ statements were delusions, built on well-crafted lies.

But later, we found our spirits restored as we realized what a gem this session had been. This session showed us the shape of the age. We saw the soul of a millionaire “mainstream press corps”—a millionaire group in in-action.

What is the ongoing shape of the age? Here’s what happened in Monday’s session—in that small, perfect gem:

Three voters’ heads had been filled with nonsense by the work of the talk-show right. And when they called a major mainstream “journalist,” he refused to challenge or correct their misstatements. He refused to tell these voters that their heads had been filled full of mush. He refused to perform the basic function viewers thought he was there to perform.

But then, this has been the shape of the age at least since the early 90s. The right-wing bullsh*t machine churns out silly, wild tales—and mainstream scribes pretend not to notice. Or they recite the nonsense themselves, in the manner described by Paul Waldman in that brilliant statement last Wednesday (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/23/07). Yes, this has been the shape of our age—and now, the press corps’ refusal to function even extends to basic matters of science. This practice has rarely been put on more brilliant display than Barnes did on C-SPAN this week.

Somerby's frustration is all too understandable. Why the hell was Barnes responding the way he did? His was an overly polite social response, not an honest journalistic one. There may be two political reactions to the factual story, but the factual story itself does not have two sides, even if scientists are debating details or the best responses to the situation. This isn't polite cocktail hour, where it's only good manners not to offend someone needlessly. But the public has an important need here, and it is going unfulfilled. Why couldn't Barnes have demonstrated the matter-of-fact attitude of an archeologist quoted by The New York Times about the lack of scientific proof that Moses parted the Red Sea, who said:

"If they get upset, I don’t care," Dr. Hawass said. "This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem."

Dr. Hawass would never make it on Fox News. But then, the honest, scholar-wonk approach doesn't seem that popular elsewhere, either.

False equivalencies spring up in a great deal of political coverage, and they're generally much more subtle than whether or not global warming exists. Ideally, scientific and medical issues would only be covered as scientific and medical issues, but for global warming, Emergency Plan B and many other subjects, there's a political component to the story that can demand attention. However, "he said-she said" should not be allowed to infect the reporting on the science itself. If most media outlets still aren't willing to stand up for objective reality on clear-cut issues such as whether humankind is causing significant climate change, what's the chance they'll fight for nuanced but important distinctions elsewhere?

The scientists are doing their part. Hansen suggests that they become more media-savvy, which is a point well-taken, but on their primary task, investigating and reporting on science, they seem to be performing admirably. Some politicians are global warming deniers, but other public figures such as Al Gore are certainly doing more than their fair share of work on this issue. The hacks will not be struck down by conscience as if by lightning on this or any other issue. This means the real issue is the media. Will they have the courage to be accurate? Will they report the facts? If they feature a global warming denier, will they at least put him or her in some context for the viewer, or will they yet again present a false equivalency? It's sad we even need to ask this of them, but as George Orwell said, "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

Update: Welcome, C&L readers, and thanks again to Mike's Blog Roundup! I've also corrected "Somersby" to "Somerby." Thanks to jcasey!

Not Just a Political Philosophy — A Way of Life!

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


Denial.

For Republicans of all sorts, it's more than a rhetorical strategy to deflect empirical facts. It's more than a political philosophy that ignores the reality of others' experiences. It's a way of life, dammit.

Not that Republican pundits have ever clamored to recognize the suffering of the poor, or are in the habit of arguing honestly — but it's hard to ignore that a sizable portion of the Republican party is just not part of the reality-based community. And just like the kid who brags about not reading any books, they're awfully proud of it.

Consider, for example, Robert Novak still insisting that Valerie Plame Wilson was not a covert CIA agent, even though she testified under oath that she was, she was a NOC, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told Novak not to reveal her identity, and the current, Bush-appointed head of the CIA Michael Hayden definitively stated she was covert (Novak even tries, laughably, to assert that Hayden is a Democratic stooge). Of course, Novak is a vile, partisan hack — but he's also been horribly reluctant to admit that the Republican's growing unpopularity might have something to do with a little thing called Iraq.

As Glenn Greenwald demonstrates, the National Review's Cliff May repeatedly denies objective reality — and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds decides to ignore the evidence as well. As Greenwald remarks:

Just think about that: the lesson which right-wing, Bush-following war supporters drew from the mountain of empirical evidence in this post, as well as from this entire day-long exchange with Cliff May (to say nothing of the November, 2006 election), is that Americans support the War in Iraq and do not want to withdraw the troops. That is beyond jarring.

I suppose it's academic as to whether they're hacks or delusional, but it's likely some special blend of the two.


Meanwhile, Oliver Willis weighs in with "The Deniers." And he doesn't even hit the frightening statistics on evolution deniers (48% of Americans, according to Newsweek), or the creationist Christians who have built a museum teaching kids that dinosaurs and humans coexisted — that would be roughly 6000 years ago, when God created the world.

Please, Republicans — for the sake of the children, the poor, innocent children — stop the insanity. You cannot show us fear in a jar of peanut butter, only your own painful stupidity. Please. Put down the Kool-Aid. Take the Red Pill. Cast off your shackles and emerge from Plato's cave. There's a whole, wonderful world out there waiting for you.

Bogus Letter Became a Case for War

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

The Washington Post's Peter Eisner reports on the front page today (4/3/07):

It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?

Burba felt uneasy because more than three months earlier, she had turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome documents about an alleged uranium sale by the central African nation of Niger. And she knew now that the documents were fraudulent and the 16 words wrong.

Nonetheless, the uranium claim would become a crucial justification for the invasion of Iraq that began less than two months later. When occupying troops found no nuclear program, the 16 words and how they came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war.

Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable.

Some of the information in the article is not new, but the piece does fill in many details. Seymour Hersh reported some of the core information in his 10/27/03 article "The Stovepipe," one of the first major post-invasion pieces on the Bush's administration's cherry-picking of intelligence. Blogger Josh Marshall also covered several aspects of this story over at Talking Points Memo (here's parts one, two and three). In a previous post we mentioned some of Slate's coverage on then DCI George Tenet being asked to fall on his sword for false tales the CIA had debunked (here's Jack Shafer, here's William Saletan, and here's John Dickerson). Then there's this section from Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctine, occurring after the CIA had debunked several pieces of "evidence":

Relentless pressure is a strategy. Usually quite successful. It was employed both in the "war on terror" against al Qaeda, and by the White House against the CIA.

[...]

Libby and Hadley, meanwhile, continued to push, and push hard, on the analysts, asking the same question Tenet was often asked in high-level meetings. Aren't these potential threats precisely why an invasion is necessary? Is there even the slimmest possibility—a one percent chance—that uranium was bought in Niger, that the aluminum tubes were usable in uranium centrifuges, or that Mohammed Atta managed to meet with an Iraqi, any Iraqi, in Prague?

The thing to watch out for with a program of relentless pressure is the blowback.

On Friday afternoon, January 10, Jami Miscik, the head of the DI walked down the hall on the seventh floor shaking with rage.

Josh Moseman, Tenet's chief of staff, saw her as she passed his office.

"You okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. I'm definitely not okay!"

A moment later, she'd made it to Tenet's suite.

She barely could get out the words. Stephen Hadley, Condi's second, has called from the office of "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

They wanted her down at Libby's office in the White House by 5 p.m. At issue was the last in an endless series of draft reports about the connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. How many drafts? Miscik couldn't remember. The pressure for the White House—and from the various intelligence divisions under the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense—had started a week after 9/11.

Cheney's office claimed to have sources. And Rumsfeld's, too. They kept throwing them at Miscik and CIA. The same information, five different ways. They'd omit that a key piece had been discounted, that the source had recanted. Sorry, our mistake. Then it would reappear, again, in a memo the next week. The CIA held firm; the meeting in Prague between Atta and the Iraqi agent didn't occur.

Miscek was no fool. She understood what was going on. It wasn't about what was true, or verifiable. It was about a defensible position, or at least one that would hold up until the troops were marching through Baghdad, welcomed as liberators.

A few days before, when she had sent the final draft over to Libby and Hadley, she told them, emphatically, This is it. There would be no more drafts, no more meetings where her analysts sat across from Hadley, or Feith, or the guys in Feith's office, while the opposing team tried to slip something by them. The report was not what they wanted. She knew that. No evidence meant no evidence.

"I'm not going back there, again, George," Miscek said. "If I have to go back to hear their crap and rewrite this goddamn report... I'm resigning, right now."

She fought back tears of rage.

Tenet picked up the phone to call Hadley.

"She is not coming over," he shouted into the phone. "We are not rewriting this fucking report one more time. It is fucking over. Do you hear me! And don't you ever fucking treat my people this way again. Ever!"

They did not rewrite the report.

And that's why, three weeks later, in making the case for war in his State of the Union address, George W. Bush was not able to say what he'd long hoped to say at such a moment: that there was a pre-9/11 connection between al Qaeda and Saddam.

One down. But two salient points—wobbly, but still standing—on the heart-stopping issue of nuclear weapons remained in the text: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

Both statements were crafted to carry the clarion ring of proof, and both were known, by people inside the CIA and the White House, to fall short of that standard.
(pp.189-191, hardcover edition)

Then there's all of Plamegate. This was not some innocent, bureaucratic snafu, and that's the one aspect of this article I don't trust — not that bureaucratic gaffes might not have complicated matters. There are dozens of stories and incidents like the one Suskind relates, but the key element never changes: the Bush administration acted in bad faith. They never sought an objective threat analysis on Iraq. They wanted to go to war, and dug and scrounged for justification, not proof. They didn't care if Iraq was an imminent threat or not (or, for some, they were so certain it didn't matter). They were interested in what would sell. Iraq was never a challenge of national security for the Bush administration. It was a challenge of PR.

There are folks out there that know this material backwards and forwards, and I'll be interested to see what they make of this new article. Yet to my mind, its main value is that this is The Washington Post, front page, confirming earlier reports and filling in some details. Even more importantly, more people seem willing to speak out now. This is nothing for the Bush administration to celebrate. These sort of issues tend to build up a critical mass (witness all the peripheral scandals the Attorney scandal has started to flush out). As the saying goes, sunshine is the best disinfectant, and with this administration, there can't be enough of it.

Update: It's no surprise that TPM weighed in on the Eisner article, and they offer a valuable perspective.

Also today, Eisner discussed the article online with readers, and clarified several points. Apparently, he's got a book coming out on this whole deal.

April is National Poetry Month!

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


The Vagabond Scholar poetry category isn't as large as I'd like, but I wrote a fairly extensive post for National Poetry Month last year. I've also added a few poetry sites to the VS blogroll since. They can be found on the bottom left. Get yer verse on!

If political poetry is your thing, it's hard to keep up with the creative output over at Poetic Justice.

I will be adding a few more poetry posts this month, and please feel free to link or add any favorite poems. But to kick things off properly, here's one of my favorites:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

— William Carlos Williams

Blog Against Theocracy

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


(Graphic by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors.)

This weekend, Friday April 6th through Sunday April 8th, there's a Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm in support of the separation of church and state and the First Amendment. I can't speak for all the participants, but I view this as both pro-religion and pro-atheism. There's at least one minister already slotted to participate.

If you'd like to participate, write a post, then e-mail Blue Gal the url when the post is done (and a big thanks to her for spearheading this!). She's going to try to link all the pieces on the website linked above. The address to use is bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com.

If you'd like a few ideas on the myriad of angles possible, check out the website, or some of these:

First Freedom First, an organization "safeguarding separation of church and state, protecting religious liberty."

First Freedom First is a collaboration between America United for Separation of Church and State and The Interfaith Alliance.

I recently linked the On Faith site.

There's also Talk to Action, which follows religious activism, particularly the religious right.

Theocracy Watch has some valuable material.

I also found this discussion between atheist Sam Harris and Christian pastor Rick Warren over at Newsweek pretty interesting.

Finally, courtesy of a post by Blue Gal, here's a short video from First Freedom First that really captures what this is all about:

Rightwing Cartoon Watch #17 (3/26/07—3/31/07)

This installment of Rightwing Cartoon Watch covers - gasp - a single week, from 3/26/07 to 3/31/07. (I know, I know, I'm shocked too.)

This week, Iran capturing British troops was easily the hottest issue - but poisoned pet food and dastardly Dems made appearances as well! Head on over to the Blue Herald to check it out!

Big Brother and You

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Sir Percy Browne (Head of Security): One day, Mr. Fiennes, you will have the entire British population under permanent 24 hour surveillance — will you be happy?

Mr. Fiennes: Happy? No — Satisfied.

— A Very British Coup (TV adaptation)

The British Evening Standard reports:

The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.

It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

[...]

One fear is a nationwide standard for CCTV cameras which would make it possible for all information gathered by individual cameras to be shared - and accessed by anyone with the means to do so.

(Hat tip to Drew for the article.)

The short article doesn't fully discuss the major difference between CCTV systems installed by shop owners, which are much more defensible, and CCTV installed by the government, which are much less so. Security and discouraging shoplifting is one thing. Acquiring information mostly just for the sake of it is another. There is a potentially chilling effect, and there have always been authoritarian government officials in every government eager to pursue precisely that. Britain may exceed the U.S. in its use of CCTV and other surveillance cameras, but the U.S. Government's budget for surveillance is second to none, and the impulse is all too familiar.

Here in the United States, we've recently had confirmed that the FBI abused the use of National Security Letters, and that abuse was widespread. The only surprise is that anyone was surprised. It's hardly been the only instance of such behavior. In the past two years alone, both the Pentagon and the FBI were found to be holding onto records they were legally obligated to destroy. Once agencies have information, they are loathe to give it up, and rarely do so voluntarily.

Sadly, regardless of the country involved, there's always been a significant portion of law enforcement personnel that don't care about the law regarding civil rights (in countries that have civil rights). The reasons vary, none of them mutually exclusive. Some of these people might mean well but simply don't value civil liberties and privacy rights as much as national security and law enforcement. They think they're going after bad guys, and any means necessary are valid. Thus, we have former NSA head and current CIA head Michael Hayden arguing that the 4th Amendment doesn't require warrants for searches and surveillance, when of course he knows better. Some want all the data they can get, and lying about "expediency" and "urgent need" with a national security letter is a means to that end. Some like the rush of power. J. Edgar Hoover abused his power to blackmail politicians. Then there's the Bush administration's secret black ops prisons and NSA programs. Ostensibly these tools are used to "fight terrorists," who knows the full extent of what they've been up to, and how they've abused their power? The central lie is that if we just give up this one more freedom or level of privacy, then we'll be safe. Certainly the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated they cannot be taken at their word and cannot be trusted to do the right thing by conscience or even the law alone.

Entire books and blogs are devoted to this sort of thing, but the Blue Herald FBI category features a number of relevant stories, as does the Vagabond Scholar surveillance category, especially the posts "The Iceberg Cometh" and "Reporters' Phones Tapped?" because they link several related stories. Then there's stories in the vein of FBI agent James Wedick, who tried to halt what he viewed as serious misconduct and misjudgment by his colleagues in pursuit of a suspected terrorist.

For that matter, consider the story of the FBI trying to get the papers of reporter Jack Anderson shortly after he died, worthy of a feature article on its own. As covered by NPR, CBS, and The Washington Post, the FBI had no qualms about deceiving Anderson's 79-old widow in pursuit of information it wanted. The FBI wanted to track down leakers from a decades-old incident, and swooped in after Anderson died, because where he had denied them they thought they could snow his family and friends. There was no pressing "national security" issue. The crime at that point was that some FBI bigwigs had been embarrassed long ago. That's holding grudges for a long time. The Bush administration has sought unprecedented levels of secrecy over even trivial matters. The Office of the Vice President has engaged in fierce battles not to share information even within the Bush administration. Secrecy can be its own aim, to cover up wrongdoing and in a shocking number of cases, to prevent embarrassment. But as Sissela Bok has shown in Secrets and Lying, "lies for the public good" are almost always rationalizations by those in power to protect themselves, and not in the public interest.

It's hard out there for an honest cop, and it can be an extremely tough gig. However, those who "protect and serve" would do well to remember that they "serve" the public, not the other way around, and every abuse against civil rights and privacy laws is an assault on the public. If those in positions of power want our trust, they must act in a trustworthy fashion. No one forced the FBI agents to act as they did with national security letters, and they violated the law and their own consciences. What is the point of fighting for "freedom" abroad or domestically if we're willing to strip it away ourselves?

The saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is true. Oversight is an necessity. Unchecked power will always be abused eventually, as Orwell knew all too well. The phrase from Juvenal goes: Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?